Fire lit up the sky and the smell of burning wood blew up my nostrils. I flapped the old, stained and ripped peice of paper in my hand, most of the art that had landed on it flew back into the air to land somewhere on my deck. Suddenly everything shook beneath me and a loud crash echoed below. Almost falling, I grabbed the paper in my mouth so I could hold the ship wheel with both hands.

The paper fluttering wildly in my mouth, I noticed a large rock in the water beneath, if something went wrong, that was the last thing we wanted to land on. Quickly, I spun the wheel to the left, but the ship barely turned. "Captain! They're shooting the wing!" called my quartermaster as he leaned over the railing to see the wing on the bottom of our pirate ship.

Clenching my teeth I tried spinning the wheel in all directions but the ship didn't move. The steering wing was busted, we are lucky to still be in the air. But that didn't last long as I saw the canons on the ship below us re-aim and shoot towards our engine. "BRACE FOR IMPACT!" I yelled, alerting the whole crew as they jumped to the ground or held onto something. I took the map from the corner of my lip and held it tight in my hand, both hands on the wheel.

The sound was sickening, it was the last thing a pirate ever wanted to hear. The sound of the engine exploding and the crew screaming as the ship fell rapidly, spinning in circles all the way. The clouds we had once been in were way above now, and the water was coming in fast. Leaning my head against the wheel, I closed my eyes and waited to land.
As we did, the water splashed and roared as it moved aside for the large ship to land, crew members fell and went flying across the deck, but the people on the attacking ship were much merrier than we.

They cheered and yelled, finally gaining the upper hand on their long time enemies. "We've got the Sea Dragon! We've got you!" they all cheered, extending their corvi to board The Mother Dragon, my ship.
It was frustrating seeing my enemies going from cowering in fear to attacking me so arrogantly.
The crew all knew it was time for close combat and didn't need me to tell them each to pull out their cutlass. They were trained warriors who fought on this very ship for decades under my command. But in this moment, you wouldn't guess it. Every person on the ship was exhausted and injured to the brink of collapsing. We had gone through so much to reach our goal, but it looked like our journey would have to come to an end here. We were all finished and we couldn't even escape because our ship was too.

Tucking the map into my pocket, I turned to my companion. He was my closest friend, a lion with a mane made of red hot fire. He purred and nuzzled my hand, the flames of his main cool to the skin. I smiled at him, hoping I would continue to enjoy his company after this day.
Turning towards the enemies who ran across their corvi towards my ship, I drew my own cutlass and both crews collided in a clash of swords. Already exhausted from our long and ruthless journey, my body ached with every swing of my sabre. Taking a step back and wiping the sweat off my face, I assessed out situation. My crew were dying. Even my lion companion was struggling, his energy low, the flames on his main flickering smaller every minute. The enemy had a new found energy, knowing this was the closest they'd ever gotten to killing the Sea Dragon and her crew.

We couldn't carry on like this, it had to end here, but we couldn't end it through combat. I slashed and stabbed my cutlass into the enemies until I reached my quartermaster. He was breathing deeply, his hand gripping his bleeding waste, every breath looking more and more painful. "Captain, we can't do this." he stated, his face a look of defeat.

"I know, we need to go" I said, turning to my crew who were busy in combat.
"Dragons! Fall back!" I called, as I held out my right hand, a gold ring with a mystical purple gem on my index finger, the lion running to stand by my side. Feeling the magic escape the ring, seeing the swirl of black, blue and purple come out and engulf me, I closed my eyes and accepted our defeat. The cold darkness of the portal around me subsided, and I opened my eyes. We stood in an abandoned house, the walls falling apart and the windows shattered.

My crew huffed and groaned as they put away their weapons and held their bleedinhg wounds. "Come on." I panted, my adrenaline subsiding and my exhaustion and pain increasing. "We can't stay here, we're wearing our flag, everyone will recognise us, we need to stay under the radar." I looked among the faces of my crew, my family, as they nodded and stood up, searching the falling apart draws for the clothes we had stashed in there before I out journey.

I turned to the firey lion beside me, "you'll have to be a bit less obvious too." I said and he grunted in response. Not showing my disappointment at the whole situation, I knew we wouldn't be able to finish what we started. Tapping the map in my pocket, I decided, someone else would have the honour of finishing it for us. I turned to my crew as they slowly pulled off their outerwear and put on less bold clothing.
"Come on guys, shake a leg." I said as I grabbed the golden pocket watch, adorned with a green gem on its lid, that hung around a chain on my neck. I flicked it open, "time is ticking."

-Interdimensional Pirates
-April Bluebird/@BlueWhiskers1
-17/Mar/2022
-Prologue; A Journeys End
-1030 words
-67 👁‍🗨, 12 🌟, 14 💭.