Wild Roses fic prompt 035 "Sixth Sense"
Title: beware of naval senses of humour
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; un-named Navy personnel, misc. Manannans
Prompt: 035 “Sixth Sense”
Word Count: 240
Rating: G
Notes: The Manannans are the Navy branch of the Sabaey family, all descendants of Ulysse the first Bastard and the un-named King of the Sabaey Navy.
It used to strike him as disturbing that the Manannans did not, actually, seem to need to pace off interior walls or even call up their inherited pattern-sight to find the hidden smuggling holds, the unacknowledged packages.
It used to strike him as disturbing that they carried warmed tar, hand-held drills and gold coins onto ships in pocket-sized containers. That several would distract the ship’s crew while one slipped away, through a wall without using a hidden door, and into a smuggler’s hold, drill a hole through the side of the ship well below the waterline, tar it mostly closed and seal it with a coin before returning to the ‘inspection detachment’.
Often the boats would come limping back to the navy outpost harbor nearly sunk because some crewmember had pried the coin off, or the boat had delayed going directly to the Family Harbour and the tar had sprung slow leaks. The Manannans would wade in, rescue the floating smuggled goods and patch the hole. Then they’d claim the smuggled goods for their own, because the goods were mysteriously never listed on the cargo manifests and were thus unowned.
He used to ask why they did that-why they didn’t knock down the walls or be more stringent in their searches. They usually just laughed.
One had explained, finally, that if they did the destructive searches, it wasn’t a game anymore-they became the Enemy, instead of the opposition.
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; un-named Navy personnel, misc. Manannans
Prompt: 035 “Sixth Sense”
Word Count: 240
Rating: G
Notes: The Manannans are the Navy branch of the Sabaey family, all descendants of Ulysse the first Bastard and the un-named King of the Sabaey Navy.
It used to strike him as disturbing that the Manannans did not, actually, seem to need to pace off interior walls or even call up their inherited pattern-sight to find the hidden smuggling holds, the unacknowledged packages.
It used to strike him as disturbing that they carried warmed tar, hand-held drills and gold coins onto ships in pocket-sized containers. That several would distract the ship’s crew while one slipped away, through a wall without using a hidden door, and into a smuggler’s hold, drill a hole through the side of the ship well below the waterline, tar it mostly closed and seal it with a coin before returning to the ‘inspection detachment’.
Often the boats would come limping back to the navy outpost harbor nearly sunk because some crewmember had pried the coin off, or the boat had delayed going directly to the Family Harbour and the tar had sprung slow leaks. The Manannans would wade in, rescue the floating smuggled goods and patch the hole. Then they’d claim the smuggled goods for their own, because the goods were mysteriously never listed on the cargo manifests and were thus unowned.
He used to ask why they did that-why they didn’t knock down the walls or be more stringent in their searches. They usually just laughed.
One had explained, finally, that if they did the destructive searches, it wasn’t a game anymore-they became the Enemy, instead of the opposition.