63 The Cabin boy's initiation

"…Ehh~? Big brother's a pirate?" Scipio called out in surprise as he sat on the deck of the ship. A happy Terrick sat before him nodding in approval.

"Aye, and with the captain's permission so are you!" Terrick grinned before messing up the hair on the malnourished Scipio's head.

"But…. There isn't anything I can do… Would I still be needed?" He said in a soft voice as he looked down at the mud brown deck of the ship.

"If you don't know, you learn brat. The crew will wait for you to arm yourself with knowledge. We aren't going to abandon you just because you don't have any experience with the pirate life, learn boy! Learn and use what you know to be truly free!!" Lorean called out, instantly falling into his role as the inspirational head of the crew.

At this point Lorean had pretty much resolved himself to having a crew dominated by small children and young adults. When looking at the age statistic of the crew, Terrick was infact the oldest at a stable seventeen. Fawkes stood at an average fourteen clocking on fifteen, and I stood third on the age line at a lowly ten. Sorren brought up the rear as a young nine year old. This of course discounted the ditzy and somehow elusive Angella and the newest addition to the crew the boy Scipio. Speaking off…

"Oi brat, how old are you?" Lorean asked, a thumb caressing the base of his chin.

"Umm uncle I'm ten why?" Scipio called back, his spindly arms on each other as he tried to ward off the cold winds that motioned the beginning of winter in the locale of the island.

"Nice, so we won't have to bother about you as much. Be glad you're that old, if you were any older most basic training would have been lost on you." Lorean replied before dusting his hands off and moving towards the captain's quarters.

Mid walk however, he slowly looked back at the child on the deck, "If you're going to be a part of this crew, you're going to need to know how to protect yourself. Until the end of shore leave, Terrick I am assigning to you his basic training.

I want him up to date on basic hand to hand combat and not be as weak as he is now. First thing tomorrow morning take him to Fawkes so he can fix a useful diet for the brat. He's going to be expected to clean up on deck and help Fawkes with the cooking. After that you can put him up with Sorren for a decent full body evaluation so I can set up a training schedule for him."

With that he turned to the boy with an air of seriousness completely different from his previous jovial form.

"Boy, henceforth you shall be the cabin-boy to this crew, as such on the order of hierarchy you are placed on the bottommost rung, the more you know the better your situation shall become, with that when you have gained some asset apart from extra labor you shall gain a new office.

From tomorrow, this is what is going to be expected of you. At the break of dawn you are to report to the first mate to help in preliminary preparation of the meal, following this you shall give the deck, quarters and pantry a thorough cleaning, you may alternate the places you clean on a three day basis and you are not to enter the captain's quarters aside from a daily briefing of events and what you have learnt at the end of every day.

Secondly, after food you are to report to Sorren who shall both coach you on the preliminary first aid and on basic body training. Followed by this you shall have a two hour break that you may spend on the ship at your leisure. Following this you shall report to crewmate Angella for your basic studies. Terrick I want you to inform her of her duty to make him as literate as possible before the shore leave shall end.

After this you are to report to Terrick for basic weapons practice where he shall give you practical and theoretical knowledge upon different forms of weapons. Both the theory and practice shall be set by Terrick on a day to day basis.

Finally at the end of every day you are to report to me. Then you shall provide an in depth report of all the goings on of the day, what you have learnt and what you like or dislike over the course of the day. Here you shall also have the responsibility of transcribing all I say into either a verbal or written document."

With the end of the tirade Lorean closely looked at the face of the young boy before nodding at Terrick and entering his cabins.

"Scary wasn't he?" Terrick asked, a playful tone in his usual baritone voice. "I know right.. Big brother how is it working for that scary uncle??" Scipio asked curiosity in his voice.

"Honestly the captain is usually an extremely chilled out person. I've never seen him show any form of particularly intense emotion. He spends most of the time just screwing around.

But don't let that fool you he is the most insane guy this side of Raftel! I mean you have to be if you want to jump over reverse mountain like we did!

Nonetheless, it doesn't matter how much you mess up in this learning period, the captain will be supportive. Just don't gamble with the crew's safety and you should be fine.

But still, it this was not how I envisioned my life would go, taking orders from a ten year old. Sigh~"

"Hmm hmm…" makes sense, Scipio nodded before doubling back to look at the smiling Terrick. "Say whattttttt?"