Strings of pink, blue, and white swirled both fast and slow around me. I felt like I was both flying at speed through the air and laying still, submerged in a pool of water. I couldn't feel anything on my skin. There was no temperature, no texture, no movement, just sensations and sights all around me, overwhelming my senses. There was no smell or taste to this place either, and I couldn't move or even feel my own body. I had the sensation as if I was in this place for an eternity, yet when my feet landed on solid ground, I decided I had only been in there for a moment, a second or less. It was like waking up from a lengthy dream and realising you only remembered a few seconds' worth of it.

My senses were suddenly overwhelmed with the taste and smell of salt, the feeling of cold moist air on my skin, a loud buzzing in my ears as sounds all hit me at once, and a dizziness that smothered all those sensations. Instantly, the wooden floor below me zoomed in closer until it almost touched my face. The sound of my own dry heaving was the first thing that began pulling me back to reality. The next was the blurry sight of someone nearby. A few heaves later , I regained my composure, and groaned while rubbing my temples. What on earth was that? I stood up slowly, taking in my surroundings. But that was something I struggled to do.

It appeared I was on a ship. An old-fashioned ship made almost entirely of wood, with large masts holding closed black sails. What was outside the ship, however, was somehow more shocking than finding myself teleported from an apartment onto an old ship. The endless expanse of blue around the ship, with dense cloud-like mist hovering around it, was somehow... off. As a particularly large cloud of mist passed, I realised why. Beneath the ship, far beneath, was the surface of the ocean. Waves moved gently below as the ship I stood on flew high above.

"No way..." A heard a voice say, and I looked away from the waves below and back onto the ship and the people who stood on it. The three thieves stood before me; with expressions I couldn't quite make out through their masquerade masks. The bags they had thrown into the colourful portal before jumping in themselves were scattered on the floor around their feet. Their clothes were screamed money, almost regal. "I'm not sure if that was more brave or foolish of him." the black-haired man said, his mouth concealed behind his mask.

"Where am I?" I asked the group, "How did you do that?". The group exchanged glances before the woman sighed and stepped forward.

"We will send you back, come on." She waved me forward, lifting her right hand as if she were going to conjure the colourful portal from her ring again.

"No, no, no!" I exclaimed, frowning and stepping back. "I didn't come here to be sent back empty-handed. I need my locket."

The woman scoffed, saying, "You should count yourself lucky. we're not just throwing you overboard. Do you really think you're in any position to make demands." She then turned and called out, "Lysandos, Lysandra, we've got the bounty!" A moment later, a man and a woman, both with long blonde hair and muscular arms, walk toward the bags of treasures and begin hauling them away. They were not dressed like the three thieves at all; in fact, they were quite the opposite. They both were dressed in mostly green clothes that were rugged and had small tears all over them. Their hair looked both dry and oily at the same time. They looked somewhat like sailors from another world.

"Well, if you're not going to give me that locket, we're going to have to continue from where we left off." I stated, my hand clutching my knife tighter. Talaos leaned into the woman's ear and whispered something, but all I was able to catch was, "He knows something?".

The woman shook her head, then said, "What do you know about this locket? Be honest, or you will end up in the sea."

Frowning, I responded, "it's my grandmothers. She wanted me to have it. I only saw it for the first time today. I think it tells the time."

"Is that everything?" the woman pressed, "that can't be why you want it so desperately."

"Well, it is." I stated, trying my best to hide my frustration and suspicion. Did they mistake it for something more valuable? Either way, their cooperation would make it infinitely easier to get the locket unharmed and return home... wherever home was from here.

"How did your grandmother get this?" she asked as she inspected the locket. It was gold and intricately designed with a large green gem in the centre. She pressed the top of the locket, and it popped open, revealing a clock on the bottom side and a mirror on the lid side.

"I don't know," I sighed, struggling to hide my impatience. "She loved collecting antiques and telling stories about them to me as a kid. She was obsessed with stories of pirates and treasure. She probably found it at some antique store, and it gave her inspiration for another pirate story."

"Is that so..." she said as she tapped the clock and mirror, shook it, held it against her ear, and then sighed. The two men looked at her, and she shook her head, looking somewhat disappointed. "Well, it seems you're right. This piece of junk really is just an antique." In a moment of hope, I realised the value of this locket was far lower than whatever it was they thought they had stolen. "How disappointing. I had high hopes for this one."

"I'm sure I can find more value in it than you." I said, keeping my tone even but hoping she would just save us both the trouble and hand it over.

"Just take it and leave. And this is your last chance to do so." The woman said, looking between the locket and me with an unpleasant expression. I finally allowed my hopes to rise up, my eyes widening slightly in relief and excitement. Was it finally over? After all this, I had the locket? Just as I had this thought, however, the woman tossed the locket to me. Caught off guard and not expecting her to throw it, my body reacted too slow. I stepped forward to try to catch it, but I was too slow. The shiny ball of green and gold streaked through the air before landing inches away from my outstretched and crashing with loud bang on the wooden floorboards.

"No!" I exclaimed as I knelt down over it, too afraid to lift it. It was surrounded by tiny pieces of shattered glass. I looked up at the woman whose eyebrows were raised in a look of mild surprise. But then she shrugged and turned around to speak with the two men and the two blondes who had just returned from stashing away the last bags of treasure.

My hands were shaking as they hovered over the broken locket, unable to bring myself to see the extent of the damage. Did I deserve this? Why did I let myself have hope too soon? This... was all that I had left in the world, laying smashed against the floor because of those careless thieves and my own foolishness. I took a deep breath and grabbed the locket, momentarily surprised by its weight as I lifted it. I turned it around and looked at the inside of the locket, filled with shattered glass. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and began dusting off the glass.

The corner of my lip twitched up slightly. It wasn't too bad. The clock had a large crack down the centre but was still intact, and the mirror was covered in cracks, but half of the mirror was still attached. The important thing was it was finally in my possession. It looked just how Gran Shelly explained in the stories. After I had dusted of the tiny bits of shattered glass, I used my finger to try and dislodge the pieces of glass hanging half attached to the mirror. Just then, something caught my eye. I saw something pink behind the glass. Frowning, I began pulling the pieces away until all that remained was half of the cracked mirror that was still attached. Behind it, however, was what I was focusing on. A tiny clear crystal with a slight pink hue lay behind the mirror, along with a folded piece of paper. I stuck my finger behind the glass, trying to fish out its contents. As I did this, however, I caught the attention of the five thieves who now turned to watch me curiously.

"What are you doing?" The brown-haired woman asked.

"You don't think..." The blonde-haired man, who I remembered was called Lysandros, trailed off, his voice croaky.

"Should we stop him?" Talaos whispered to the brown-haired woman.

"No... Just wait." She said, putting her hand in front of him to stop him from walking forward. Puzzled by their behaviour, I tried to ignore their stares and concentrate on my task. I was glad they were, for whatever reason, giving me my space to investigate this strange situation.

"Ouch," I hissed sharply as the side of the broken mirror cut into my gloved finger. Only a moment later, I was finally able to pull out the contents of the mirror, using my index finger as a hook. As soon as they were in my hand, the others began to approach.

"No way this twerp actually found the Crystal Key." Lysandros said.

"Come on, Captain, take it from him!" the blonde-haired woman, Lysandra, said, her voice equally as croaky the blonde-haired man.

"No one's taking anything!" I said, shooting to my feet and backing away. "I don't care for this 'Crystal Key', but I can see you all do. So, take a step closer to me..." I started, backing away until I was near the edge of the ship. "And I throw it overboard." Although it wasn't an empty threat - I didn't know what this crystal was, and the locket was the thing I valued - I was glad to see their expressions of panic. 'No's' and yells were heard, with some of them making placating gestures as if trying to calm a crazy person, and others taking a few steps back to show that they understood my threat.

"This is ridiculous," Lysandra said to the brown-haired woman, who she previously called captain. "Just shoot the twerp and be done with it."

"It's 'Kota', not twerp." I stated.

"A dead man's name doesn't concern me." Lysandra spat.

"No. We can't risk losing it in the water. We'll never find it." The 'captain' responded. "What do you want then? You can't possibly expect us to send you home with that. Do you understand the value of what you're holding?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure I care. But if you want it so bad, let's bargain." The captain and I locked eyes for a few moments before she spoke.

"If you don't care for the Crystal Key, then what do you from us?" She asked.

"The locket, and to be sent home." I stated.

"Fine. You keep your precious grandmother's locket, and in exchange, give us the Crystal Key. Then we send you home, and in exchange, you never speak of the Crytal Key to anyone." The captain suggested. I nodded.

She slowly began walking forward, and I outstretched my hand with the Crytal Key inside before placing it into her hand. She gazed at it in awe before tucking it into her pocket and clearing her throat. "Well, let's get on with it." She waved me away from the edge of the ship and lifted her right hand, the ring sitting on her middle finger, before pausing. "What's that?" she asked, looking at the paper I held folded in my hand.

"It's a paper." I stated.

"I can see that," she scoffed. "Where did you get it."

"It came from inside the locket." I said, realising she must not have noticed it before. "This wasn't part of your bargain, however." She frowned before turning to whisper to the others. "Do you think it could be another piece of the riddle?" I heard her whisper. After a moment of whispering, they turned to me, and then the captain said, "Let us see it, then we can decide if any more bargaining is needed." My eyes narrowed.

"There's nothing else I want from you, so what's the point in bargaining?"

The captains jaw clenched before she said, "Our previous bargain never stated we would send you home in one piece." Sighing, I looked down at the folded paper in my hand. It was a small piece of stained paper that appeared and felt old and flaky. Yet somehow, the paper was oddly smooth, as if it wasn't actually paper at all. I unfolded the paper, unsure what to expect. A note from the locket's maker or as the captain suggested, as a riddle of some kind. However, what I was not expecting to see after unfolding the paper was a drawn portrait of Gran Shelly as a young lady. Her hair was long, and her skin was smooth, appearing as if she were in her 20s or 30s. Despite only knowing her as an elderly lady, there was no mistaking Gran Shelly's lively eyes and kind smile. The way the corners of her eyes wrinkled when she smiled even slightly, the way her eyes looked at you with such wisdom and kindness. No, there was no question about it. This was her. A portrait of Gran Shelly as a young girl, dressed like a pirate. Her large hat, adorned with a picture of a skull, sat on her head; serpent-like dragons wrapping around the skull. She wore a cool sailor's blouse, belts wrapped around her waist like a corset, large earrings hung from her ear to her shoulder, her long hair blowing in lightly in the breeze

"My...my Grand Shelly." I mumbled as I stared at the picture. A lump began rising in my throat as I looked at the strange yet familiar figure.

"No way," Lysandros said. "It's the Sea Dragon." He stated in awe. The name brought back a flood of memories. Sea Dragon? That was the name of the pirate from Gran Shelly's favourite story she used to tell me, 'A Journey's End' she used to call it.

"What did you call her?" The captain asked me, a frown creasing her brows.

"Gran Shelly. This is a picture of her as a child, no doubt about it. This isn't 'The Sea Dragon'. How do you know about that story anyway? I thought my Gran Shelly made it up." There was a long silence after I spoke as everyone seemed to be considering the meaning of the situation. It appeared; they might have been just as confused as I was.

"The Sea Dragon isn't from a story..." the captain began. "She is real. A legend to us pirates. " I stared blankly at her for a moment. Ah yes, thieves on a ship, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to hear her call herself a pirate. "She is known as being a fearless pirate captain who disappeared one day after failing to find... a large treasure... which she had dedicated her life to finding. No one had ever gotten as close to finding as she had. Until now, decades after her disappearance, it is still every pirates dream to find that legendary treasure."

"I didn't know..." I started, trying to piece together the implications of what I was finding out. "So, the stories Gran Shelly used to tell me as a child were not fictions she made up, but real legends from the pirate world... because she was, in her youth... one." I said slowly, trying to process the information I was discovering. "But this picture..." I looked down at the picture, not willing to suggest what we were obviously all thinking.

"After the legendary Sea Dragon disappeared, she went into hiding and... became your grandmother."

-Interdimensional Pirates
-April Bluebird/@BlueWhiskers1
-28/Sep/2025
-Chapter 8: Secrets
-2713 words
-486 👁‍🗨, 43 🌟, 48 💭.