Thread by @MntlyDevastated

#noangstnov Day 29: Leaves
Lucius’ notebook contains more than diary entries and dicks

1/8
Before the Revenge, Lucius had never left Barbados. He’d dreamed of a life of adventure on the ocean like so many boys, but he never thought he’d have the opportunity. Then a strange man with more money than sense whisked him away to the sea.

2/8
And that was that. A pirate’s life for me.

3/8
Really though, Lucius was a glorified scribe who happened to be on a pirate ship more than a pirate proper. Nonetheless there were many things to learn. How to sway with the motion of the ocean waves. How to haggle for the price of charcoal without a common language.

4/8
How to get along with rough crowds. How to leave land over and over again not knowing if he’d ever walk on it again. How to stay alive when it seemed the world wanted him dead.

5/8
In the early days, he missed home and solid ground more than he thought he would, so on their first landing back ashore he fell to the earth and thanked whatever was out there for the sand beneath him. And the earth dropped a leaf right there in front of him.

6/8
Message? Sign? Coincidence? Lucius picked it up, studied its green veins and found it beautiful. And so he thought ‘this I’ll keep.’
A piece of the world he left and found and left again.

7/8
It became a tradition. Every time Lucius came ashore, he found a leaf, brought it home to the ship and pressed it in his journal.

8/8
A piece of every island, every port. A reminder, a warning, a gift.
A brittle, fragile story about growth, about home and hope, about life and death.
And living your wildest dream.

- End

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