Capsize has a minion!

Gilligan the Unlucky Boat

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The waves lapped eagerly at the hull of the great oaken ship, seeming to laugh along with the little boy leaning over the railings and smiling at the sea. He was very excited. His entire family was going on a grand adventure: his mother and father, his older sister, even his baby brother who always cried. Mother had even agreed to take along his pet, his best friend and ever-present companion, a little scruffy brown fox.

The fox was with him now, sitting with his dark little paws all in a row and playfully curling his tail around the boy’s legs. They played together along the decks, getting underfoot of the crewmen and catching curses aimed at them as they tried to climb the masts or swing through the rigging. Everything was perfect, and it was going to be even better as the days went on out on the open waters.

But gradually, the dragging wind that had persistently dogged them all the way from shore grew feeble, and the air fell still. The boy was excited, and picked up his fox to go tell his mother how much faster they should get to their destination now, not noticing or understanding the grim looks on the faces of the much more seasoned crew.

Far out on the horizon, a dark smudge loomed. Just as the boy pulled his mother along by the arm from the dark hold, a far-eyes called out from above where he clung to the mast in a sudden gust of air. He pointed to the clouds quickly filling up on the horizon and spilling over towards them - fast.

The captain began calling out to his men. They darted back and forth, running up and down ladders and pulling ropes and tying knots, whirling around the frightened mother clutching her son, clutching his fox.

The storm rose up, sending high waves and wind from afar to batter the the ship that had once seemed so big to the boy but now appeared just a plaything for nature’s strength. Rain lashed down on crew and passengers alike as the thunder began with a deep rumble that shook them to all to their core.

Frightened, the little family huddled belowdecks in the parent's cabin. Waves and rain were as one force against the tiny portholes, obscuring the view of dark skies flashed by lightning. The boy cried. The storm marched on around them.

***
Night fell, and the waves grew still and dark. A thin moon glanced down from behind misty clouds on an empty sea.

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Days later, the wreckage of the ship began to drift ashore on a nearby island. The native women walked about, collecting the trinkets as they saw fit and cleaning up the storm’s refuse with practiced ease. After a while, a group of them came upon a dark shape just coming ashore. Its limp body shifted upright as it hit the sand. Dark paws scrabbled for purchase, great ears hung down low, and seawater streamed from ragged brown fur. A younger girl reached out for the creature, saying soothing sounds he could not understand, and he hissed and drew himself up.

Fangs flashed.

The women screamed.

The poor beast was no longer the cuddly fox who had curled up in the boy’s arms at night. His fur was littered here and there with clinging barnacles and urchins. A lonely starfish had settled on a hip beside a row of long, webbed spines extending from between his ears to the base of his tail. Horns, curved and rippled like ocean waves, grew above deep blue eyes that had seen the water’s hell.

He stumbled through the group of terrified women before finding his strength and sprinting over the dunes and into the undergrowth beyond.

***
After his descent, the creature was never the same again. He is seen only occasionally on dark nights when the stormy seas raged. Some claim he is the cause of other wrecks, and it is true that whenever he is sighted the calm waters become howling tempests at frequencies thought to be impossible. They say he seeks the ship that holds his lost boy, or that the rage the sea has left him leads him only to destruction. Either way, he is a force to be feared.

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coding by Chen
quad art by septemderon
background by clipartkid
overlay, ship art, code edits, & story by me