"Show me." She instructed with a smile.
Chapter Twelve of?
The first noise he heard was a soft dripping of water falling onto a hard stone ground; the first thing he felt was cold, deep, real and empty cold that burnt through his skin and seeped deep into his bones. Then he opened his eyes and Prince Purplerain realised that his limbs were shackled by heavy iron chains clamped to a damp wall. The prince tried to take in where he was. In the dim light he could just make out the shape of Princess Caldora chained up like him on the opposite wall. Then he heard snoring, and saw that it was coming from the drooling mouths of Capden Den and Bosun Bill. They seemed to be underground and the room stank with dampness and death. His feet stood on soft ground that slithered like a serpent as his toes curled with the cold wetness. His back arched as it tried not to touch the cold, slimy wall he was chained to. He could feel dirt and grime all around him and it made him feel sick to the stomach, only pirates could sleep in this kind of disgusting prison cell.
For a moment he cleared his mind and listened to the calming noise of the gentle drip of water, until it was broken suddenly, like a bolt of electricity, by Capden Den screaming out.
"Oh my worth?what are we doing?" Den shrieked, still with his eyes closed.
Again it fell silent for a few seconds until another piercing scream from Capden Den roused the other captives.
Princess Caldora was the first to stir; her eyes flittered and a small beam of gold light filtered out from her mouth as she sighed deeply. Prince Purplerain saw this and his chains slipped off his wrists as if they were pieces of ribbon, freed by fairy magic and love; he rushed to the aid of his princess.
"Are you ok?" he sung.
"Yes." The princess tinkled in reply.
Then, to break their perfect harmony, Capden Den cried out again.
"No! No sausages!"
The prince and his princess glanced at each other in surprise before Purplerain flicked his wrist and released her chains.
With a snort, a snore and a cough, Capden Den woke himself up; his eyes darted about with a look of panic. He then looked up at the shackles around his wrist and wiggled his bottom to move it from the damp patch he found himself sitting.
He sniffed the air. You cooking sausages?" He said.
"No." Prince Purplerain replied.
"Good." Capden Den sniffed drowsily. "I can't stand 'em."
As he spoke, Bosun Bill roused himself with a small burp from within his trousers; the prince put his finger to his nose in anticipation of the smell, the princess started to laugh.
"Pardon." Bill snorted, similarly to how his captain had woken.
Bill tried to scratch his head as if he had woken from a long and lovely sleep, then realised that he too was chained to a dank wall in a dismal dungeon with his bottom sitting in a puddle.
"Oh for goodness sake!" Bill moaned. "That was a bloomin' good dream."
"Yep." Capden Den agreed while he tried to scratch his bum without success. "I was really getting into that one."
"Where are we?" Bill enquired with little interest as he still tried to hold onto his dream.
"Dunno." The captain replied. "Must be bad though 'cos I can smell sausages."
"No one's cooking sausages." The prince replied, as he held on tight to his princess.
"Well what's that awful smell then?" Capden Den chided.
"Sausages." Bill moaned.
"Dankness." The princess corrected.
"Really?" Capden Den piped up. "Dankness and sausages. Never put the two together until now."
Bill then shook his arms, as if doing that would release him from the iron grip that held him tightly to the slimy wall towering over him.
"No good." The prince explained. " You're fastened tight."
"How come you're free then?" Bill remarked.
"Because I'm a fairy and you are a pirate." Came the cold reply.
"Aye aye captain, there's something funny going on here." Bill reported.
Capden Den tried to get up, but the chains were so tight around his wrists and ankles that he fell immediately on his face and into a cold puddle.
"Sausages!" he cried. "I hate sausages and sometimes?I hate fairies!"
Prince Purplerain stood up straight and a golden light issued from his chest, brightening the dark and allowing Den and Bill to see the hopelessness of their situation.
"Well sometimes," he chimed. "I hate pirates."
"Good." Capden Den fought back.
There was a pause; each of them took in the room that they found themselves in, lit by the beacon issuing from Prince Purplerain's chest. The floor was littered with bones, aged and glistening in the wet. Around them walls dripped with slimy green moss and above them a high ceiling of wood, about twenty feet up, with a small grill the only source of natural light.
Bill wriggled his arms to try to free them from the wall. Capden Den attempted to casually remove his wrists from the clasp of the iron bracelet, but they would not budge; he then smiled warmly with yellowed teeth to his prince.
"But I don't hate fairies today." The captain grinned.
Prince Purplerain stared at Capden Den with his pleading look; then at Bill, crossing his legs as best he could with his sudden desperate need to go to the toilet; with a flick of his fingers and a spark, the chains around the limbs of the two pirates fell loose.
Capden Den and Bosun Bill instantly rubbed at their wrists as if they were checking that they were still working.
"So," Princess Caldora said, after watching the two pirates eagerly rubbing their wrists. "What's the plan?"
"I need the toilet." Bill added quickly before hurrying off to a dark corner of the room.
Capden Den puffed his chest up, as if he had just seen the whole picture for himself.
"Well," he started. "First we work out where we are, then we get out, steal a boat as mine's probably been dry-docked for the foreseeable future, get to the fairy retreat, dump you two off so you can find your step-ladder?erm?brother, go back, find Sally, marry her, go away for a bit, start having kids then leave the pirate life and become a person who manages banks, what do they call them?"
"Bank managers." Bill cut in while he stood in the corner.
"That's them." Den winked as he spoke. "A bank manager, boring and boring and snoring and boring, but no more sausages, I hate sausages."
"There will be sausages." Princess Caldora spoke up.
"Oh!" Capden Den snapped. "And suddenly you little pinky pixie fairies are experts on pirate life!"
Silence again followed, save for the soft and continuous drip of the water from above and from Bill.
"If there is water," Princess Caldora suddenly realised. "Then there is a way out."
Princess Caldora looked up at the small circular grate, through which the moon's soft glow could still be seen as the morning sky shone a faint purple light. She flew up and touched the iron grill.
"It's wet." She said from up on high.
"It should still be able to move." Prince Purplerain beamed.
The princess, still floating at the very top of the prison cell, closed her eyes and imagined a ball of flame growing from the palm of her hand; suddenly, her finger tips caught fire and she concentrated all her attention on making that small orange dancing glow into a dense and intense rod of white heat. The other three watched from below, craning their necks up, not wanting to blink.
Princess Caldora, carrying the natural blowtorch that she had created in her hand, started to direct the heat deep into the iron; it began to melt and then bits of it fell in small sparks into the puddles around the feet of the watching three below.
"Careful." Capden Den warned as he craned his neck upwards. "You could set one of us on fire." He then turned to the other two on-lookers. "Does anyone else's neck hurt?"
Bill and Purplerain did not pay him any attention; they continued to watch, Bill stood with his mouth open in awe at the princess slowly softening the metal grill and letting it fall. Then with a
heavy clunk and clang, the whole grill fell away and landed heavily on Capden Den's foot.
"Sausages!" he cried as he tried to stamp the pain away from his toe, sending water splashing all over Bill and Prince Purplerain.
"Stop it!" Bill moaned as a parent might to a child.
Princess Caldora, without looking down once, then folded her wings gracefully and eased her small body through the tiny hole; in seconds she was through and gone into the crisp morning air.
Again there was silence, as all three men just stood there waiting for some call from outside in the real world. After what felt like longer than ten seconds, Capden Den called up.
"So what now?"
There was no reply.
"Great. There you go your highness," Capden Den turned angrily to the prince. "Women for you, you get them so far then they go and leave you in the lurch; or in a dungeon, or in a church?or wherever they like."
"She will be back." The prince re-assured the captain.
"I was left once in a clothes shop holding ladies knickers, stood there for hours before I realised she'd run off with the salesman; bad day that one, my hair was all over the place; but I kept the knickers, quite comfortable."
As the captain finished, there was another dull clunking sound coming from behind them. They turned instantly and prepared themselves for a fight as the large cell door, cut deep into the saturated stone, opened slowly with a creak and a warming glow fell into the dismal dungeon. From the glow and from the door Princess Caldora emerged.
"There we are, you're free." She smiled with delight.
Prince Purplerain ran to his love and wrapped her up excitedly in his arms, the princess held on to him so tightly that you could hear the prince strain for breath.
"Good." Capden Den spoke to the floor more than to the others. "Thank you." He whispered. "You've done very well, for a girl and a fairy. I just want you to know that had you not done that I did have a plan. While you two slept and Bill and I waited to be captured I had this whole scenario playing out just as it did. So, in case you think you're cleverer than me?"
Bill slapped his captain on the back. "Come on then, we need to get these two fairies to the fairy retreat and get back to what we do best."
"Getting out of scrapes?" Capden Den asked.
"Stealing." Bill corrected.
Chapter Thirteen of?
Dodgy Dave's boat was a large and very jagged vessel made up of bits of old galleons that he had stolen in the past. It was his trophy of triumphs; at its bough, a large wooden face with wide eyes and a snarling mouth leered outwards as the figurehead, staring with a watchful menace. The stern was jagged and splintered, as if it had been smashed and pieced back together by a very bad surgeon. Heavy black sails billowed in the wind like raven's wings fluttering dangerously as they prepared to swoop to their prey. The ship was so evil looking and so chaotic, that it struck fear into the heart of any pirate that saw it, even when it stood empty at the dock. Quite why it had been named The Positivity was something Capden Den asked himself every time he saw it.
Bill, Capden Den, the prince and princess all crouched behind a small stack of barrels just a small distance from the wooden pier that led to the ship. With no sign of the Anna Stesia anywhere, Capden Den had to come up with another plan and he stroked his straggly beard as an idea began to emerge in his mind.
"Now," he whispered croakily. "Here is what we do my men?and woman, we run to the boat, untie the ropes, hoist the anchor and set sail. Bill, you still got your compass?"
"No." Bill replied.
"Blimey! Then we will have to use you two as our directions." Capden Den looked pointedly at the two fairies as they nodded back in quiet agreement.
"So we're just gonna run?" Bill sighed.
"Yep. Run, leap, hoist and sail." Capden Den smiled at another brilliant plan neatly condensed into four words.
"Not much of a plan. Have you forgotten that we not only have the Port Authority on our backs, we also have Dodgy Dave and nicking his boat is not going any way to clearing up the mess you've created; I mean, come on, first of all we're stealing a boat on dry land which is against all official regulations, secondly it's the boat of the one pirate who hates us the most, thirdly we're hiding two fairies, fourthly we're taking them to territory forbidden for pirates to enter and sixthly?"
"Fifthly." Prince Purplerain cut in.
"Thank you; fifthly we're nicking the galleon of the most feared pirate in these waters and look at it, it's not as if no-one will know it's his boat!"
"You've already said that."
"Well it's important!" Bill yelled under his breath so as not to attract attention.
"You're always so negative Bill, I'm getting fed up with it." Capden Den snorted. "If you want to stay here and sign all the paperwork and ask for Dodgy Dave's permission, then be my guest; but I reckon he'll say no and the authorities will stick us back in that dungeon before we're brought before a tribute?trombone?tribune?a judge. So I'm off, if you want to come you are very welcome."
As soon as he had finished ranting, Capden Den leapt up and ran as fast as he could towards the pier. But once the figure of Capden Den emerged from behind the barrels whistles pierced the air from the waiting Port Authority Officers. It was a trap and Den had walked straight into it. The prince and princess looked nervously at Bill, feeling their powers draining already by the whistles.
"Can you make it?" Bill asked anxiously.
"We will have to." The princess said with determination as she gripped at her love's hand.
"Then let's do it." Bill smiled.
Without hesitation, Bill, the prince and the princess dashed out from behind their hiding place and bounded toward the pier with all the strength they could find. Far ahead of them, Capden Den was already untying the ropes that held the Positivity to the wooden jetty. Port Authority Officers emerged from their huts and ran noisily towards the fence that was between their out-station and the galleon. They whistled loudly as one of them hastily searched in his pocket for the key that opened the gate in the fence. While he tried to find it, all the officers could do was stand there helplessly behind a tall fence, blowing their whistles as hard as they could and shouting for the escapees to stop.
As the whistles pitch reached a crescendo, Prince Purplerain stumbled and fell; the princess stopped to try to gather up her prince but she could not move him.
"Go!" Bill cried to the princess. "Get on the galleon!"
Capden Den heard this as he untied the last rope; seeing the situation he instinctively threw the rope onto the deck and ran towards the stricken prince in Bill's arms.
"Hoist the anchor, we'll be right behind you!" Den yelled as the princess ran past him.
As the captain got to the prince he ordered Bill to make a run to the ship as they heard the large gate within the fence unlock. Den looked up to see angry port officers running towards him.
"Sausages!" Capden Den swore under his breath. "Whistles, I also hate whistles."
The captain gathered the heavy bulk of the prince awkwardly into his arms and started to slowly drag the fairy along the wooden walkway.
"I thought fairies were supposed to be light." He moaned as he struggled to lift the prince.
"I'm sorry, those whistles?"
The prince could not finish his sentence as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
"Stay with me Purplerain, this is not your day to leave us."
But as the captain slowly dragged the heavy body along the pier, the officers were closing in on them and more and more of them were appearing out from their huts whistling and yelling.
"Oh no!" Capden Den exclaimed as the officers started to close in on him and the prince, surrounding him with whistles and sneers.
As it appeared to the captain that there was no way out, a spark of light came from Dodgy Dave's pirate ship followed by a sizzling glow from within its hull; without warning, this was met with a loud bang and a huge explosion divided the space between Capd
en Den and the Port Authority Officers.
Bill called out from the ship's hull once the noise from the explosion had faded.
"Run!"
"That's it. Now, come on your highness!" Den yelled.
The prince breathed in as much strength as he could and together with Capden Den they ran awkwardly in each other's arms, their legs moving as if tied together for a three-legged race. They marched on to the platform that led up to the ship; Capden Den pulled the prince up and as he reached the deck the captain kicked away the boarding plank.
"Go!" he roared to Bill, then saw Princess Caldora standing at the helm and steering the huge bulk of ship slowly away from the pier.
"Aye aye Capden!" she saluted back with a huge grin on her face.
The officers from the Port Authority bumbled about like winter wasps. All they could do was stand and watch as the galleon floated out of their reach, picking up speed in the wind and quickly becoming a dark silhouette against the warming blue skies. The head of the Port Authority, Security Chief Goodall, came down from his viewpoint in the watchtower and looked disgustedly at his dozy collection of crack soldiers.
"You're all fired!" he barked; then tutted to himself as he walked away, not once taking his gaze from the Positivity as it slowly shrank into the horizon.
Chapter Fourteen of?
Dodgy Dave sat at his favourite table on the roof terrace of The Screaming Sirens, slowly eating his breakfast of cold ham, pterodactyl eggs and baked cabbage while watching his ship, The Positivity, sail off into the distance. He had watched Capden Den easily outwit those hapless guards of the Port Authority and now he knew he had to take matters into his own hands. Capden Den had caused too much trouble, his time as a pirate was coming to an end.
Security Chief Goodall wobbled his large frame between the tables of the roof terrace and sat down opposite Dodgy Dave. Dave did not look up, he was too furious with this bumbling excuse of a security chief; instead he carried on eating his breakfast.
"Did you see what happened?" Goodall asked with some fear in his voice.
"Yep."
"There will be a full investigation. I can guarantee it."
"Mmm."
"I've sent a boat out to keep track of them."
Dodgy Dave slammed his fists down on the table with rage. He looked up into the small face of the security chief and glared with his enormous, vile eyes, blackened by hatred.