~~~ Gem's POV~~~

Two hours later...

I was going to murder everyone on board, starting with that arrogant Kestrel and ending with my brother.

Maybe I'd spare Xornoth. They hadn't done anything wrong beyond accidentally throwing themself overboard with several yards of rope tangled around them. If only they had taken Joey with them.

We had managed to pull them back onboard with the ropes they had wrapped around themself, and Xornoth had sat down by the mast to untangle the mess of rope covering them.

Meanwhile, Fwhip had stolen Scott's silver pistol, and they were chasing each other around the deck, Fwhip occasionally trying to shoot Scott when he got too close.

Sausage was trotting along at a distance, cheering Fwhip on and giving Scott advice, throwing flowers he had produced out of somewhere at the two.

Joey was bothering poor Xornoth, sitting by them and talking their ear off while they couldn't run off, or throw themself overboard like they had earlier. At least Joey wasn't bothering me.

I watched as Scott lunged for Fwhip, who dodged and whacked Scott with the gun, grinning like the absolute brainless maniac he was.

Sausage cheered him on, not that Fwhip could hear it, but they exchanged a high five as Fwhip ran by. Since when were they friends?

Fwhip kicked Sausage's ankle, and Sausage shrieked as he fell over, grabbing Fwhip to try to keep his balance. Fwhip got yanked down with Sausage, and they fell on top of each other. Fwhip punched Sausage and shot to his feet again, glaring at him a moment before going back to his torment of Scott. Not friends, then.

All in all, they were making a lot of noise and being idiots, and it was getting on my nerves. I didn't like being forced to do things I hadn't planned for, and this entire trip was the equivalent of getting ambushed by drunk parrots and having to go with them to keep them all from dying.

I pulled a knife out and began to sharpen it as Xornoth untangled the last of the ropes from around themself and stood up, hurrying away from Joey, who watched them go with a smirk on his face.

"Guys, can we stop and discuss what we're going to do?" Xornoth asked the three men currently running around trying to murder each other and my patience. They signed the words as well for Fwhip's benefit, waving a hand in front of Fwhip to get his attention.

Fwhip stopped moving, hands raising to answer Xornoth, but then Sausage crashed into him and they went down, Fwhip yelling wordlessly as he landed with the much bigger Kestrel on top of him.

For goodness sake. These people couldn't go five minutes without causing some sort of drama!

I stood up, striding over to where Scott had dragged Sausage off Fwhip, grabbing him before he could lunge for the Kestrel. Joey sauntered over as well, dripping smugness for whatever reason.

"No fighting, boys," I said sternly. "Like Xornoth said- planning. You better have a plan or I'm throwing you overboard and sailing back to the Isles." I told Sausage sharply, and he froze, a panicked look appearing on his face.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"No plan?" I demanded, furious. "Nothing? You just sailed out randomly, with no idea of what you're doing?"

Sausage winced. "We have a map," he said weakly, backing away a step.

My glare was heated enough to fry an egg, and Sausage looked like he was contemplating jumping overboard himself to increase his chances of surviving the next few minutes.

"I have no idea what's going on," Fwhip signed, clearly annoyed, "since I don't read lips, so could y'all actually say something I can understand?"

"This idiot dragged us all here without a plan." I signed, glaring at Sausage.

"Actually, we do have a plan," Joey signed smugly. "Like Sausage said, we have a map. There's treasure there. We're gonna grab it, and come back rich. Simple."

I raised an eyebrow at Joey. "That is not under any circumstances what someone would call a plan. That's a barely thought out idea."

"That sounds like a perfectly good plan to me," Fwhip signed, shrugging. "And a quick one, too, no detours to distract us."

"Whose side are you on?" I demanded, sending a withering look at Fwhip, which he completely ignored, the bastard.

"I wanna discover this hidden island, Gem," he signed. "We can name it after me! And you too, I guess-"

"Wow, thank you so much, Fwhip, for naming it after me too, I guess-" I signed back, my body language dripping with sarcasm.

Sausage snorted, quickly stifling his giggle when I looked at him. Joey had no such inhibitions and openly laughed, using it as an excuse to lean on Xornoth, who was blushing again.

I rolled my eyes. Men. What a bunch of horny idiots.

"So, what do you consider a good plan, then?" Scott asked, leaning against the railing nonchalantly.

"No one hides treasure without guarding it." I replied, backing up so everyone could see my signs better, saying the words aloud at the same time.

"We have to plan for what we'll find on that island. The map only leads us to it, not to where on land it is, so we'll have to organize a search for the treasure, and be prepared for the island to fight back. We need-"

"How about you let us handle it, sweetheart?" Joey said, smirking. I stopped, looking at him.

"Do you want to repeat that, Joey?" I asked, signing the words slowly so that Joey couldn't misunderstand.

Fwhip began to back away, and so did Scott and Xornoth, leaving only Joey and Sausage clueless to what was about to happen.

Joey opened his mouth, clearly about to talk again, and I strode towards him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt in one hand and his arm in the other, and heaved him over the railing into the water.

Scott went over to the anchor and dropped it, then closed the sails, stopping the ship so that Joey could swim back on.

I turned around to face everyone else, Xornoth grinning, Sausage gaping at where Joey had just been, and Fwhip with his hands halfway through signing something.

"Say again?" I signed, and Fwhip repeated himself.

"I mean, he did have a point, sort of. Why don't we just improvise?"

I threw him overboard too, Fwhip's shrieks joining Joey's indignant yells. Sausage looked at the two men overboard, then back at me, and at the water again, then backed away slowly with his hands up.

Scott came back, looking overboard and snickering as, instead of helping each other back up, Fwhip and Joey began to fight in the water, shoving each other off the rope ladder hanging over the side for getting onto the boat on beaches.

"We're going to be here for a while, aren't we." Scott said,voice full of amusement as he moved away from the edge.

I shrugged. "Not my fault they're a pair of hotheaded fools." I replied, waving a hand towards the water dismissively. "Hey, where'd the Kestrel go?"

Scott blinked at me. "You threw him overboard, Gem," He said. "You okay? It was just a minute ago."

"No, the other one-" I said, spinning around to look at the deck. Xornoth was cleaning up a small spill across the deck where something had fallen over, probably when Scott stopped the ship. Other than them and Scott, there was no one else visible above decks.

"Oh, he must have run belowdecks or something," Scott said, grinning. "You are pretty scary, you know."

"Good. Now he knows not to mess with me." I said, pulling out one of my knives and throwing it into the air, catching it.

Distantly, I heard another furious scream as someone got punched in the water. Those two were really going for it.

At least the exercise would tire them out so they couldn't cause trouble the rest of the trip. Maybe I'd even get to take a nap without being disturbed.

"Hey, what's below decks anyways?" I asked, leaving the question in the air for anyone to answer.

"Uhh- the only time I've been here before today was for a boat party, and I was pretty drunk then. I can't remember." Scott said, tilting his head curiously at the hatch that led to the area under the wood we were standing on.

"Let's get Sausage to give us a tour, then," I said, pushing off the railing where I was standing and walking towards the hatch, yelling to Xornoth, "Keep an eye out for the boys when they come up, Xor!"

Xornoth gave a cheerful thumbs up, going over to the railing to watch the drama overboard without complaint.

Now, to find Sausage and intimidate him into showing me around the Moondancer.

This would be fun.