[b][i]~Excerpt from Jonathan’s Notebook - Week 319, Day 2~[/i][/b]

[color=LightSteelBlue][i]...by the skin of our teeth. What a dreadful nightmare. It’s not as if I proposed to her right then and there. I only meant to sweep her off her feet with my irresistible charm and let the moment pass. By the heavens, I swear that husbands are really just petty children with grubby fingers in disguise. Surely, I must be the only reasonable and sensitive man in all of Endalia.

In more recent events, I have found my stay aboard the Stormsong to be quite pleasant. I suppose a week must have passed since we embarked along with the crew, and every day since has been marked by a sort of youthful exuberance that I’ve not felt since my days at the Hartford estate. 

Alas, I cannot say that I’ve won the favor of our dear captain. Though she has come of age and is strikingly beautiful, she has dismissed all of my advances without a single hint of consideration. I do wonder why she treats me so. I am honorable and kind - a peerless gentleman among a sea of neanderthalic male drones. Yet all I receive in kind is disdain. 

Oh what tragedy! How I long to be the subject of her gentle voice’s angelic strains. In fact - I can hear her singing now, as seems to be her morning habit at the wheel. How can the tune she spins ring so sweetly, when the unrequited affections of my heart cry out in bitter anguish?

In contrast, the cannoneer and I have gotten along quite well, and I’ve found myself quite taken with the girl. Ms. Milly Nobel is her name, though she seems to be called Minnie by the other crew members, much to her chagrin. Quite the excitable lass, and fond of incendiaries, much like myself. I wouldn’t dare touch her now, but I believe that in several years time she will grow to become an exquisite rose that causes all other--
[/i][/color]

THUNK.

Red stars blurred his vision as Jonathan clutched his head in recoil at the blow, sending both his quill and journal tumbling to the deck below. He moaned in agony, but immediately began to panic. He needed to warn the others. They were under attack. Eyes still shut at the impact blindness, Jonathan reached clumsily at his back, his fingers searching frantically for his blunderbuss. But it was no where to be found. He froze. Opening his eyes slowly, Jonathan’s vision returned just in time for him to find the barrel of his own gun pointed right at his face.

[color=a187be]“bang.”[/color] Song stated flatly. [color=a187be]“now you’re dead, and everyone else is too.”[/color] She dropped the gun derisively onto the bottom of the crows nest. It landed with a dull thunk.

[color=LightSteelBlue]“Now Song, I--,”[/color] Jonathan stammered, attempting to regain his composure. He stood up, and straightened himself out before continuing. [color=LightSteelBlue]“I was merely performing a mental exercise, training my peripheral vision to perform my look out duty as my direct vision was preoccupied with… other things.”[/color]

[color=a187be]“that turned out quite well, i think.”[/color] Song mused dryly. 

Jonathan cringed. [color=LightSteelBlue]“Indeed… Well I suppose you’re here to relieve me and take over my look out shift. Yes? Good. Very Good. I’ll leave you to it. Wouldn’t want to distract you, heavens no. I--”[/color]

[color=a187be]“just go.”[/color] Song rolled her eyes, and gracefully seated herself in the crow’s nest, picking up the spyglass that Jonathan had clearly not been using. 

Jonathan sighed in mild dejection, and began the slow climb down to the main deck. As his feet hit the wood, he scanned the surface for his journal and quill. How rude could Song possibly be? Sure, he may have endangered the entire crew by neglecting his lookout duties to write in his log, but was that any reason at all to treat him poorly? He didn’t think so. 

Now where was that damned notebook?