MOD OVERBOARD

The voyage started off calmly enough - fair weather, friendly sea, a crisp wind at their backs. An age glittering with prosperity - a line of clear blue days, shining like pearls on a string.

It made the bloody carnage before her even more unfathomable.

Billy the cabin boy recalled those first hearty years of adventure, when she and Scallawag Jane had cleaned and stored the more exceptionally illegal of their weaponry, settled their debts with the worst of the underground crime lords, and ventured - not without a backwards glance, but at least earnestly - into the sphere of lawful modship.

Here, they became surrounded by the more well-scrubbed members of the citizenry: genial Colonel Larry, warden of the keys, with his usually-clean waistcoat and constantly puffing tobacco pipe. Mistress Mel, the smart, wealthy widow with a string of respectable, gentlemanly admirers, who quietly steered their international relations. Colm the accountant, both quick-witted and levelheaded, who inherited a small fortune from a less scrupulous relative, and used his new-found wealth to secure housing for street urchins. Lady Sher - once the director of munitions - now convalescing ashore.

Together, from the tidy chambers in their neat galley, this crew patrolled the waters of the Peeankyew Sea. They dutifully sniffed out smugglers and thieves, settled arguments, and cast overboard those mysterious chattering SpamBots that some say visited from the future.

Billy the Cabin Boy, never the most rambunctious of her pirate host of old, spent her first term carefully, with growing confidence. She drew from her personal experience as one of a crowd of rabblerousers. She knew the tricks, knew the plots - but also knew the motivations. Being a mod gave her more understanding of the need for order and flexibility, and being an ex-pirate gave her more sympathy for those across the waves, igniting rebellions of their own.

The waves diminished into glassy flatness. The wind quieted. The ship waded through doldrums, inactive, but plump with provisions. Billy the Cabin Boy was settled. She was steady. But underneath it all, the desire for freedom beat against her heart, like one of those seagulls that was always crashing into the windows of the poopdeck.

The days grew longer. Billy, already studious, took to spending more time in her little broom closet, only emerging for snacks, votes, and a couple dips into the ocean. When Scallawag Jungle Jane spoke to her one night, she raised her head, only to see her own absentminded reflection mirrored in Jane's lovely dark eyes.

"Jane..." Billy whispered. "Do you remember when we tied the crimson rags of rebellion to our necks, and scaled the walls of the evil fortress?"

"Of course," replied Jane. "Are you...?"

"Do you remember when you rode a snarling wolf across the moonlit plains, wielding sabres in both hands, howling like a sexy demon ghost?"

"Maybe? I mean, which time? It kind of happened a few..."

"DO YOU REMEMBER," interrupted Billy rudely, "WHEN WE WERE A BAND OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS, CLOSER THAN BLOOD? WHEN WE LAUGHED AT THE LAW AND ANSWERED TO NO ONE AND FARTED WHERE WE WILLED?"

Suddenly she caught herself.

"I'm sorry, Scalla-... I mean, Commodore Jane," she said, using Jane's new title. Bill looked across the flat, empty ocean.

"Oh, Jane," she said. "I've been having those old dreams again. The haunting ones. Dreams about a single, glowing breast...."

Following Billy's gaze across the empty water, Jane whispered, "I, too, have been having those dreams."

The Scallawag and the Cabin Boy did not speak again. They went their separate ways, leaving only the moon and its twin, reflected in the unmoving water.

The next morning, nothing more was said. But disquiet was nestled in Billy's soul.

And so, several months later, when the sea boiled again, when invaders from nearby ships tried to scale the walls, with knives between their teeth and hatred gleaming in their eyes, Billy felt an answering call in her own spirit.

As their bodies fell beneath the swirling silver blade of her cutlass, she thanked each one (quietly, between streams of blood) for reminding her who she really was.

The others were occupied. This was the moment. A fire was singing in her heart. A non-metaphorical fire from a broken lantern was also singeing her eyebrows. Billy didn't notice. She launched into the ropes, using her old, lithe, Cabin Boy skills to quickly leap to the stern. She paused, poised on the very edge, smoke rising from her hair and blood still dripping from her sword.

Across the deck, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jane, who had an invader's jugular pulsing beneath her bared teeth. This was no Commodore... this was Jungle Jane, Scallawag to the very core. Jane, perhaps sensing eyes on her, looked up to meet Billy's.

Neither said a word. Still locked in Jane's gaze, Billy smiled slightly.

She winked.

And she took a single step backwards, into the empty air above the roiling water.

---
Epilogue:

That night, the water was still again. A trail of blood, stolen by Billy's blade, dried dark on the wood. The blood laced its way down the length of the ship, only to end at the stern and disappear into the milk-white path of the moon in the water.

The moon itself shone in the sky like a single, orb-like boob - a Captain, beckoning her children home.

_________________________________________

Translation: I'm not going to be a mod anymore. Merry Christmas!

Lmao. I love your story. Sad to see you go! :(

Great story. Sometimes we all do need to move on though.

"ARRRRRRRRRR!!!!" Cried Commodore Jane in despair to the glowing Moon-boob hanging heavy in the sky only hours after Bill's final, saucy wink. Desperation and a deep longing pulled at the heartstrings and brought her to her knees, weeping and grasping at the air like a newborn babe. Commodore Jane wanted more than anything, or almost, to follow her blood-sister, Bill, into the dark waters, but she could not rid herself of the desire to both uphold the law and smash it in her hands.

Colm, the ship's Accountant, coughed into an empty cup, embarrassed by Jane's feeble reaction to the loss of sweet Billy, though he could not deny the sense of loss in his own heart.
Mistress Mel stood stoic at the quarterdeck, a mist veiling the sorrow in her beautiful, catlike eyes.
Colonel Larry stared at Commodore Jane from his cabin, arms crossed behind his back and posture erect in disapproval. He considered having Commodore Jane put down like a sick dog on account of her ridiculous display, but thought better of it. He knew she would walk the plank on her own before long, following Billy, and all he need do was step aside when the time came, and perhaps salute like the gentleman that he was.

-
Sad to see you go, Sib. Don't know what I'll do without you on the squad. Poop.

What a story and I was very confused at first lol but it was so creative how you wrote this! Sad to see you go too, thank you for all you did as a mod... didn't know you that well, only saw your poetry and you pop in but I know all the work behind what we members see. Hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Wow Sibs, that was lovely.

You should write, like, poetry or something.

<3 <3

(PS: come back to the pirate ship, thar be treasure!)

I had to come back aboard the ship I had abandoned and make an exception, when I saw this post. :)

For Sibs:
Overboard! Now that does not sound like a shipwrecked helms(wo)man of PnQ. More like being swept overboard by a mightier tide than the PnQ ship could hold in it seems.
Let me guess....was it the mighty Tsunami that swept aboard the PnQ, X'mas eve when the lights went out in the Midwest last night in the storm?
Or was it that someone took the set of throwing knives away (psst.....for those who din't know Sib's owns a killer set and is a master at throwing knives), and replaced them by a bouquet of flowers and a diamond? and swept her off her feet! (correct me if I am wrong)

In any case, sighhhhhh....a big loss for the mighty sailing ship called PnQ.
Now who am I going to chat with on the wisdom of K** S*** (or as Sir Larry would correct my English K*** S****).
But, glad for whoever swept Lady Grace of her feet.
But, if you need someone to celebrate the occasion, invite us (or shall I say me, me, me as the Poetess would sometimes say).
Merry X'mas and Happy Holidays to the lucky (mod) lady!

And here is Justin Beiber (or perhaps T***) on OVERBOARD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ExWsVFJlFo&list=RDLjZJWFjFrUM

Ahoy, Mate.
Ye needs to send yer scurvy crew back to clean this blood off the deck, lass.

Be sure to write.

You will always be one of my five PnQ daughters.

And...although I was only around in a vague sense back then I could tell that Billy the cabin boy was astute even then and would know there would come a time when this sinking ship just couldn't be rescued :(

Sibs,

You gave us a great run and I hate to see you step down, but I understand.

Know that you take a piece of each one of us with you on your new journey and we will all keep you in our hearts.

I have a tear.

Aye, come home to your captain's breasty, me lovey. You done good, Billy. You done good.

Thanks for all the hard work Sib, your modly attributes and charm will be missed. Keep writing!

Ha, thanks folks!

Just to clarify:

-Don't get too sad! I will still be around, just not modding. Maybe I will even be around more, now that the guilt from avoiding my mod chores won't keep me away!

-I'm not getting married! Though I do like flowers.

I liked modding just fine; I'm proud of some of the changes I helped bring about. I heartily vouch for all the remaining mods as well. It's just that, since I've gone back to school, I really haven't been putting in my time, and I don't see that changing in the near future. Better to leave my spot open for someone more consistently active! For now, I will retire to a life of benevolent piracy, buoyed up by my daring Ship.

Being a mod seems very tough indeed and I respect what ypu all do

You already know this Mistress is going to miss you, after all who will help me keep all of my gentlemanly admirers at bay? I'm glad to hear that you're sticking around on PnQ, the site would not be the same without you. All of your efforts over the last few years are greatly appreciated! Thanks Sibs.

I'm not getting married!
^
Shucks! and I thought I could guess minds by their writing. haha. Flowers or books then, I will trade for knives...which one's?

Sibs...

Rain trickling down
absorbed in the ground.
Roots did grow old
Adapted from seed.
Left but not gone,
Just transplanted.

Yup just transplanted in translucency

Pellucidity is a figment of one's imagination for we are the ones who ultimately decipher what we see . . . Or for that matter choose not to see.

I wish you were right and we were not forced to see the things we do not wish to see.

^^^^
Rain trickling down
absorbed in the ground.
Roots did grow old
Adapted from seed.
Left but not gone,
Just transplanted.

^ To this nice epilogue
I would like to add a prologue
for the next Sibyl-to-be
for the cycle of renewal (poetic spring) must continue, so say the laws of nature...

Persephone foretells
it is Zeus' command
A poetic seed, once sown
Lovingly nourished
by the earth's* muses**
Unfailingly buds
Its deep roots will sprout
once again in the spring
And another Sibyl***
will be reborn

Persephone here is the goddess of Spring
*earth = PnQ
**(noun) represent the nine daughters of Zeus, each of whom played the role of protectress of different arts or sciences.

***Sibyl= derived from the 10 original soothsayers who lived in the pre-BC ancient Greece, Italy, Asia Minor and nearby areas, and were believed to possess prophetic powers and to whom the Sibyllene oracles are believed to be attributed.

You are the best of us Sibs...take a bow!

Adieu!

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the Times they are a changin'

Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin'

Billy, Billy, you hard headed goat, has risen thru ranks without wearing a coat! From cabin boy to
Helmsman she wrote, now a Captain! Over
her own Soul she sails! Oh!
The Times Are A Changin'.

Remarkable Seabilly,
Peace and Blessings

Sibs <3