immamartillo | 5th Hat Flip [Voice/Action]

Entry tags:

ic,
luceti

5th Hat Flip [Voice/Action]

[Voice]

[It's early in the morning-after a night of much boredom and little sleep- when Firo opens his journal.]

I've been wonderin': what kinda weapons do people use back where you guys come from? Where I live, people'll fight with anything from fists to tommy guns, but I figure everywhere's gotta have somethin' different.

[Action]

[Later that morning, Firo sets off running for the Battle Dome. He hasn't been too pleased with himself lately: he failed to be effective against the droids that attacked a few weeks ago, and then he couldn't even protect his friend from being mallynapped. Actually, ever since Ennis was kidnapped before his arrival in Luceti he's felt nagging feelings of uselessness. They've only been intensified by recent events.

He has to get stronger. The capos of his Family would be disappointed if they saw him like this. In the back of his mind Firo can practically hear Yaguruma berating him.

He spends most of the day at the Battle Dome, focusing on training until he's ready to drop (though feel free to interrupt him). Maybe trying to go so long without a break isn't a good idea, but that doesn't matter to Firo at this point. When nightfall comes, he wanders outside and slumps by the door, exhausted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, I mean it literally.

Marines don't look kindly on desertion.

That sounds more like somethin' pirates would do.

[Sidelong glance.]

There's a famous example of that not working well for them.

Really? I thought they were famous for all that walkin' the plank and maroonin' people desert islands stuff.

What?

What plank? And marooning someone on a deserted island just means they'd be alive to plot revenge if they can find a way to escape. That doesn't make any sense. Why would someone bother with that?

Like a wooden plank, ya know, into the water.

And the idea is that they can't get off the island, so they starve or shoot themselves. They only get one bullet and all that.

To what end?

I've never heard of this, sorry.

[He sighs. It'd be slightly disappointing to find out that the elements of a proper pirate story are fiction.]

They show up in stories a lot, like ways to kill somebody who breaks the rules. Pirates you know really don't do that?

Pirates don't have rules. That's basically why they become pirates.

Well, I guess not to kill a nakama -- a crewmate. But even that has been broken.

If pirates want to kill someone, they're just going to do it, not give them creative chances to escape.

Don't see how you could keep a ship afloat without at least a few rules. Is that really the only one?

[Come on, man, he doesn't want all those grisly pirate stories from his childhood to be called fake. Though he can really get behind never killing crewmates, he's pretty sure Captain Hook had some other guidelines. He is a realistic pirate...isn't he? ]

They each hold themselves to different standards. You can't treat all pirates as exactly the same, because they aren't the same and they don't have the same rules for themselves. One crew might have some common sense rules about rations, another one might feel it's unnecessary and just trust each other not to be idiots. Most pirates make it up as they go along and think rules don't apply to them, they just do what they want.

So there's no "Pirate Code" or anything, either?

If there is one, it's different crew to crew.

Some crews might dictate that they all have to love music, some might prohibit purposely killing marines since it would draw unwanted attention; but other crews specifically target marines to drive their reputation up.

You just made that music one up, right?

I know a lotta crime Families back home have rules against killin' policemen, too. Don't know about any who target 'em.

I actually didn't.

The new wave of pirates are a lot more bloodthirsty and ruthless than how it used to be. Slavery makes money, there's a lot more child killings, and most of them will do anything to get famous.

[Actually the child killings were abductions by a mad scientist and government coverup but he's a couple of ~~months~~ days from uncovering that...]

They kill kids?

[Yeah, he expects pirates to be ruthless and all, but that's a line even most of the crime Families Firo knows won't cross.]

Yes. And people here wonder why I despise pirates so much.

Have ya told 'em about that? That's not somethin' that really comes up in the stories much.

It's not something I think most of the pirates here are party to, or I'd be a lot more intolerant of their presence in the village. It just gets stupid in that so many people figure the pirates here represent a good portion of the majority of pirates back home when it couldn't be further from the truth.

Can't be much more ridiculous than the people who figure all those in a certain business are the same kinda scum.

[That's not a jab at Smoker, really- Firo has somebody from home on his mind, and he said that without thinking.]

[Snorts. He's totally used to it in Luceti actually.] I do find it suspicious that someone would purposely go into a criminal line of work without intending to do criminal things.

But yes, there are always a few exceptions.

Not exactly what I meant.

[He'd find that pretty ridiculous too.,/small>]

Just that it seems to me that there's a difference between different crimes, ya know? Stealin' and murder ain't the same thing.

There are people who treat that as the same?

They treat the people who do 'em the same way.

[Sometimes. He's being a little too harsh in his judgement of the police back home; he's never had a favorable opinion of them.]

Tch. That's just lazy thinking. By the same token, why not treat everyone who likes pie the same, or everyone who plays baseball?