"Cap'n, isn't it usually bad luck ta rename a ship?"
The question echoed lightly off the sheer rock walls of the small cove before being muffled into obscurity by the thick fog that so tightly embraced it. The one who had asked the question - a lanky Keeper female whose long, violet tresses spilled almost freely from the dew-rag that sought to confine them - seemed more interested in just initiating smalltalk over getting an actual answer. She idly juggled three knives with one hand, with both her attentions and the other hand focused on smoothing out the frazzled fur of her tail. It always acted up like this when the fog set in and never ceased to annoy her sensibilities.
"Now now, Jugs, don't be so negative!" Cap'n Distractin' responded, flashing his trademark smile back towards Juggling Rina - or "Jugs," as the rather flat-chested Miqo'te was ironically nicknamed - from his supervisory position. "The little vessel played its role fabulously durin' its opening performance. The least I could do is give it a proper reward for a job well done, eh?"
Floating lazily in the water was the boat in question: a small sailing ship that the flamboyant Lalafell pirate had won in a card game with a dishwasher and small-time smuggler from the Bismarck. The Cap'n hadn't expected the Miqo'te lad to respond so vehemently to his good-natured ribbing, let alone put up his own ship as a bet in response to it, but he wasn't one to let opportunity slip. He might've even bordered on possibly feeling a little bit bad about doing it if the dishwasher hadn't been trying to cheat in the first place. Of course, Distractin' had been cheating as well - such a thing was a given in the seedy Limsan dive he had decided to entertain himself in, after all - but at least he made a show of it. The Miqo'te's performance had been drunkenly sloppy and, overall, abysmally sub-par; as such, he was just asking to have the piss taken out of him for so shoddily trying to trick a trickster.
The surprise windfall had been put to just as surprisingly good use, though, Distractin' had to admit. The little ship was just the right size to be squirreled (or perhaps nutkin'd?) away and used as the method of egress from the Great Bridge Blowout - as the Cap'n had taken to calling that delightful performance with the caravan - and had spent the past couple suns resting here after they had exeunt from that glorious stage.
"Well, what if'n he ponies up th' gil?" Jugs continued, her brilliant golden orbs still fixated on the ministrations being done to her tail. Cap'n Distractin' had been magnanimous enough to offer to return the ship to its original owner for a sizable fee. He wasn't completely without compassion. It just cost a few thousand gil was all. "He's bound to be redder'n a boiled Megalocrab 'n twice as angry once he finds out."
"Well, it's under my possession until the money changes hands, so I don't see the problem." The Cap'n tugged thoughtfully at the Fu Manchu-style mustache his was sporting this day. "Besides, he can always change it back if he doesn't like it. Which would be quite the pity indeed. I feel it's a more fittin' name, don't you?"
The artisan - another one of Distractin's crew - shifted away upon completing his task in order to give his superior a better look at the finished product. What was once the "Garuda's Embrace" was now elegantly titled the "Eighth Ace" in a delightfully flourished script. The name had just come to the Lalafell upon seeing the extra ace the dishwasher had clumsily tried to slip into his hand during the match that had won him the ship in the first place. That, and the three others the Cap'n had easily identified as being literally up the Miqo'te's sleeve. Not only was it thematically apropos, it had the added bonus of rhyming with the original name!
The showman in Hohoyoho couldn't be happier.
~