"The men are a little... upset over recent developments," Dyson Thornwood said as he watched his captain get ready for shore. She looked over to him, gauging if he was one of the men that were unhappy, and looked around for coin.

"And why is that, Dyson?"

"They don't seem to understand why only a pair of them get to go ashore. And you didn't make my job any easier to pick them."

Ysabeau, who found what she was looking for, looked back towards the man and said, "It is the quartermaster's job to handle such things among the crew. Besides, if the men had a problem, they know they could come to me."

"They know if they did that, you would cut off certain... essential body parts, and who would want that? Eight folk could fit in the long boat, including you and the girl, that is more than enough for the rest of them."

"Listen Dyson, they know the rules. Would they be so foolish to bring the Dal into harbor in a populated city? What would that accomplish but the queen's guards sending us to the gallows. And if there is any more talk of me and the girl, you will send them my way, aye?" Ysabeau wrapped the string taught around her waist and the coin purse hung loosely around her upper thigh. "We've lost people on the attack the other day. It takes at least eight to properly man the ship- get it out of any danger say they come across it- and only two if we weren't lookin' for the trouble. I'm not going to lose my ship to Fairchild if she decides to come back knowing I'm on shore."

"Ciara wouldn't do that, captain. I know her."

"Aye, you do. And I'll not be having your nether regions tell me how to run my ship. Savvy?"

"Yes, ma'am. Aye."

"Good lad," Ysabeau said, patting Dyson on the shoulder, as she walked by him out of the room. When he followed her up onto the deck, still speaking, she couldn't help but groan.

"Only taking two of the men, they're not going to be happy."

"If I had a flying care of mutiny aboard my ship, I'd invoke the thought now, Dyson. This talk is still happening so tell me. Is there?"

The quartermaster was struck by this and shook his head quickly. "No! No way in hell, ma'am."

"I thought not. The men's coital needs do not outweigh the endgame. Could you imagine, the place the young lass will take us to is filled with jewels and trinkets the men wish they had to buy the women they couldn't now. This will turn out good for us, aye?"

Dyson's eyes shifted downward and he nodded, "Aye."

"Aye. Now, I need you to keep a close eye on the waters while I'm gone."

"If you don't mind me asking... why are you going?"

Ysabeau smiled sweetly at her quartermaster, her friend, and said with a smile on her face as she pulled her glove taught around her hand, "Have'ta keep the miss' happy."


"Why must we be here, I wonder," Lauren was speaking hurriedly and with conviction as she looked around the very low-key bar they sat in.

Coming into Glasgow was a bother by itself, they had to leave the Dal Riata in a long boat, and row farther than Lauren ever thought possible to harbor. She understood it was a pirate ship, and any ship carrying pirates were shot on site, but she wasn't used to having such difficulty coming into a main city. Never mind the way the two pirates that had been chosen by the quartermaster kept looking at her all the way into port.

Beau leaned in closely and said, "Because the Dal needs more than ten to sail. We need more able bodies for the crew."

"And we couldn't go to, heavens I don't know, somewhere that's frequented by these noble men that wouldn't be bothered by working with pirates!" Lauren's whispered breath nipped at Beau's neck nicely but her words cut deep.

"I will not be explaining me actions to you, missy. You are on board my ship because you say you'll bring me wealth. Nothing more. Have I given any inkling to you as to not trust me?"

Lauren was beat there. In truth, the captain had been overly hospitable towards her. She had not handed her over to the crew when she could, nor did she treat Lauren as any more than a equal. Lauren knew how precious even that was, as when she was cooped up in the house all day- that was if her father was not pushing her into marriage proposals- she was treated as far more than an equal and more like a slave.

She looked into brown eyes, shook her head, and rested her eyes in her lap. Lauren didn't know why she felt like this around the brunette woman beside her. She was a pirate for goodness sake! Lauren knew she shouldn't or wouldn't get infatuated with her. She was only there for Nadia and nothing more. Lauren was quickly surprised as a pair of beautiful hands- strangely wonderful for ones belonging to a pirate- wrapped around hers.

"Don't worry, dearie. We'll get your precious Nadia back." Beau looked into her eyes and hastily added as she let go of the blonde's hands, "And the treasure," before clearing her throat and ordering another drink.

The same barmaid, a young little thing, came over and looked down at them as she handed Beau her drink. Smirking up at the wench Beau said, "Cheers." The barmaid nodded and looked over at Lauren with something like contempt in her eyes. As the girl looked back to Beau, her gaze turned back to one of admiration.

Looking Beau up and down she said, "You're a pirate, aye?"

Lauren, who was looking around idly, snapped her head back and stared in horror at the girl. She was going to turn her away immediately- how dare she say such things!- but when Beau spoke, all thoughts of deniability ran from her mind.

"Aye, lass. I'm a pirate."

"She ain't," The barmaid jutted her chin out to Lauren.

Beau smiled and said, "No. She isn't. But you want to be."

"Yeah, I want."

"And yet you're here. Stealing purse bags from drunk costumers that stammer out of 'ere with half their wits. You handle a blade nicely. But you see... I don't see much else use for you."

The girl eyed Beau over again, most likely offended at the statement, turned and moved to the counter to drop her pitcher of beer on it, and came back to sit at the table. Her eyes shifted and focused barely on something behind the pair and then back on Beau. Leaning in, she spoke hurriedly and to the point.

"I got a copper chasin' me tail. If ya allow me on board, safe passage, I won't scream ya to be the Deathly, savvy?"

Lauren looked over to the captain, she was unsure if she should be frightened of the threat or if she should be scared for the girl's well being. She didn't trust the girl either way as the incident just a few moments before still rang in her mind- the conviction of the girl stealing purses- and she wasn't sure what to believe. She wanted to turn around to see if the copper she was talking about was what the girl focused on before, but Beau put a hand on her thigh and she forgot whatever she was thinking.

"Give us some room, dearie." Beau looked over to her and winked. Lauren blushed but got up and stood by a pillar that held the roof steady above them. She still did not dare look around, for fear of the police figure in the bar, and as she watched Beau lean in closely to the barmaid, she wondered if she could...

Looking back after a little while talking to the wench, Ysabeau had learned her name to be Kenzi with little use of a last name, she eyed the room quickly and came back to the same result.

Lauren Lewis, her leverage and her prize to the biggest treasure hunt of her life, was gone.


Constable Thomisina Corvus sat in the very run down bar watching her target. Kenzi McAdams had been evading her on and off throughout the town, and as the small girl finally had a stable job, Thomisina saw it was still an dishonest one. The girl was still pilfering the coin purses off of drunken customers and the constable had put her head in her hands to not take the girl into the hold immediately.

She was trying to be nice, trying to give the kid one more chance, but she was testing her patience. And, as Thomisina looked on, she saw Kenzi seemed to have gotten two new friends. A rather delectable blonde, who shown unfamiliarity in her eyes, and a brunette, that showed danger, who Kenzi had been clocking ever since they entered the bar.

Wondering if they were a pair- a group of assassins or thieves as Kenzi was, maybe- something the constable had been watching Kenzi for to promote herself from constable to real time copper, she sat more at attention as the brunette ordered herself another drink. When Kenzi had sat down at the table, making herself very cozy with the pair, and the brunette had spoken softly to the blonde, Thomisina watched as the blonde woman made it to a pillar and watched the table. The constable could see the woman wasn't in her element there and wondered if she was really part of the assassin's group.

Thomisina bore a hole into the blonde, she could tell the woman was making it clear she wouldn't look around, she watched as the shorter woman- to her anyways- looked towards the door and back at the pair sitting at the table. Finally deciding what she would do, the blonde turned slowly and walked out of the bar with only one look back as she closed the door tightly behind her.

This was her chance. If she caught one of the members of Kenzi's thief guild, she could be glorified as a hero, promoted even, for getting the rats off the street! Her wicked smile split over her features and she got up slowly as to not attract the kid's attention. Putting on her coat, she walked to the door without a sound, and closed it quickly. This was her chance. And she was not going to give it up.


Lauren walked hastily through the streets of Glasgow after leaving the bar. She wondered if Beau would be upset, wondered if the captain would come in the night like the boogieman and steal her away again, once she figured Lauren wasn't in the vicinity. Wondered if the captain would show her mercy after she came back to her and her ship. A fleeting thought of wondering if Beau would actually leave her there, or if she would start an all out confrontation with the town to secure the good blonde passed through her mind. Lauren shivered at the very thought.

Coming up to the house she had been eager to find, she quickly knocked on the door and waited patiently for an answer. The door opened swiftly and Lauren's curls wafted in front of her at the sudden force of the door whooshing inward.

"I'm sorry, miss! I didn't mean to give ya a fright," An old ginger maid said. Her voice was one of olden day Scotland and it rang a great memory in Lauren's mind from her childhood and her studies.

"Miss' Evert! Is that you?"

"Aye, love. That's me name." Fixing the crooked circular glasses on the bridge of her nose, she peered through them and cried with joy. "Oh lovely Lauren! Come back to visit 'ave we? The master's out back. Would you like me to take you there, love?"

"No, no Miss' Evert. You stay here. It was very nice meeting you again. I- I remember our lessons well."

"Oh dearie. So do I. You must come back when ya done meetin' the master."

"I will, I'd like that." Lauren smiled at the older woman, her mentor, and turned from the door and it's warmth and began the walk around the mansion. Her college and friend had a small workshop built outside of his living area, independent of the mansion itself, and he loved to shut himself in when he had a grand idea. The man was the most dangerous of men: a thinker. He'd shut himself in his workshop with ideas of contraptions that could fly as birds, of new types of swords and heavy armory equipment, of hidden daggers that unsheathed with a flick of a wrist. A good man that she had grown up with, that she knew well, and she hoped he still held her in the same esteem.

Coming into the workshop, the old wooden door creaked loudly, but was drowned out by the donkey's circular movements and the spinning of wheels and cogs the animal turned with it. Looking around the workshop, she saw her friend had been very busy since the time she had seen him, as there was many weapons hanging around the turning tables the donkey motored. Coming around the sharp corner she found the familiar sight of her hunched over friend and smiled.

"Isaac?"

The hunched over man bolted up immediately, disturbing the donkey's rhythmic motions, and turned around sharply. When he noticed who it was, his body deflated and he sighed with a laugh peeking through.

"Little Lauren Lewis."

"Well, I'm not so little anymore," Lauren laughed as she went to hug her friend. "How have you been? You've been, uh, busy!"

Isaac Taft looked around his own workshop, a glint in his eyes that Lauren couldn't identify- pride, maybe- and back towards her. "Yes, I have. I wasn't expecting you back here. That's... surprising." His voice had changed suddenly when speaking and Lauren didn't understand how someone she had known for five years sound so... menacing to her.

Very suddenly, something she must have picked up being on a ship full of pirates, maybe after being looked down upon by the barmaid, something made her wish she was somewhere very, very far away. Something that nicked at the back of her neck, that crawled into the pit of her stomach and nested there, something so primal Lauren didn't know she had it in her.

"I-I just wanted to visit and say hello. Miss' Evert asked for me to come back in to speak, I rather think I'll be going now." Lauren turned to go but her wrist was caught by Isaac's rough hand.

"So soon? But you only just got here."

"Isaac, please let me go."

"Did you know how long I've been waiting for this moment? How long the Morrigan had recruited me for this task?" The man stood up suddenly and pulled Lauren along behind him roughly. He pulled her to the spinning wheel that Lauren had past by when walking into the shop.

"Isaac, please, who's the Morrigan? What are you doing? We're friends, Isaac! Don't you remember?"

"I remember a disgusting wench like you coming into my shop, telling me that you're better than me, showing me my calculations and formulas were off."

"Isaac, I never said that. Please, let go of my hand!"

"No, you're going to pay. The Morrigan's orders..." Isaac took a sharp looking blade from the wheel and eyed it longingly. Looking back into Lauren's eyes, his eyes portrayed nothing but hatred for her- she couldn't understand, couldn't fathom why- and he raised the weapon above his head as he pulled out her arm farther for a good clean cut.

Lauren screamed bloody murder as the blade came slicing through the air.

Lauren screamed.


Thomisina had heard the yelling before she had gotten close enough to the outdoor shop to do much good. She had tailed the doctor, without her noticing, a very good distance from the bar and she wondered if the brunette knew where the pretty blonde went. Forgetting this, she quickly pulled out her knife from her belt, and quickened her steps as the yelling escalated into a wild scream.

Entering the door, she took in the situation briefly, aimed for the scrawny man holding onto the blonde's wrist- presumably to cut it off- and let go the dagger from her hand. Thomisina never stopped moving as, after she threw the knife, she quickly ran to the blonde's side, holding her as she dropped after the knife pierced the man's left chest, just where his heart would be. Thomisina would have commended herself for the good shot, but she was quickly dismayed as the blonde began to cry against her.

"I didn't- I don't- what's going on!" She cried and cried into Thomisina and, when the body of the man hit the floor, the blonde screamed bloody murder.

Thomisina put her hand on her back and pushed her closer to her body. "Shh, shh, it's okay. It's over now." The constable hated crying, hated it with a passion, but she had to be civil to get into the woman's brain. She had to know about the two... acquaintances she kept in the bar. The blonde was obviously not part of the thieving, or assassinating, guild and the constable tried to calm her further as she began to scream and cry. The woman must have been traumatized, insanely so, and on top of her crying the pure state of her was alarming.

Trying to think of something, anything, to ease the woman decidedly did not come to Thomisina's mind and she tried to stammer out words to calm her. The words she did get out were quickly cut short by a sharp, cold blade on lithe of her skin that connected her neck and jaw.

"Let the girl go, and stand up."

Thomisina slowly unclasped her hands from the crying blonde, putting her hands up and rising to her feet slowly. She turned and was met with the sight of a very annoyed, or angry she couldn't tell, brunette and Kenzi behind her. The girl didn't look very amused by the situation either, but she stood back, unwilling to give the information of the constable's position of authority to the brunette.

"No!" The blonde screamed, one of the things she screamed anyways, and got up. Blocking Thomisina's body from the brunette's- the constable noted the brunette immediately withdrew her sword- and the blonde looked at her deathly. "She saved me. I...Isaac would have killed me. You don't really intend to kill the woman who saved my life, do you?"

The brunette came close and whispered furiously to the blonde, all the while looking at Thomisina, "If you do a stunt like this again, I'll be inclined to leave you to it." Moving the blonde out of the way she eyed the constable fully. "And you are?"

"Th... Tamsin. Me name is Tamsin."

"Tamsin. Are you looking to sail into the open waters, and obtain the wealth of the sea on your first voyage out?"

Thomisina looked back towards Kenzi, saw the girl's hesitation- the conflict in her eyes if she should tell the brunette or not- but stayed quite. The girl must not have hated her all along. That didn't help her case, Thomisina fully intended to bring her into the brig for her crimes. But, she thought suddenly, if she agreed with the brunette's offer, she could bring in the whole lot and strengthen her case even further to being promoted. (Of course, she did not think of the repercussions of aligning herself with a couple of pirates- savvy she didn't know they were, but who is the majesties armies really going to listen to?)

The constable looked towards the brunette again and lowered her hands slowly, bringing her right into an open palm. "Sounds like a deal to me, boss."

"Savvy," The brunette said, shaking Thomisina's outstretched hand. "Welcome aboard the Dal Riata." The woman turned and walked out of the room immediately, followed by the blonde and Kenzi.

Thomisina was left there, looking down with a shocked expression on her face, towards her palm. The Dal Riata was Ysabeau's the Deathly's ship. Did she just survive an encounter with a woman the stories claimed no one came out alive? She was going to on board her ship! Trying to contain herself, she sighed fully in the empty shop, made her hand into a fist and let it fall onto her thigh.

So she was going to sail with Ysabeau the Deathly. The woman that left one kiss, one kiss to kill you dead. Bringing in someone that powerful with no doubt snag her the job she pined for. All she had to do was fool a ship full of pirates, stay away from the blonde, and get them all placed in irons and her life would be fortune all the way until she died.

Thomisina Corvus could do this. If only for a short while.


After Ysabeau had given safe passage to both the little thief and the marksmen, she continued to find another five more scallywags that would take on the responsibilities as crewmen on a pirate ship. It wasn't hard, it never was when she was asking, and to get the slots filled with able bodies wasn't a bad payout for the day.

The only thing that bugged her, however, was when little Lauren had gotten into danger. It bugged her not that the woman was put into that position- that Ysabeau had displaced her on her own watch- but because she cared so much. She had barely known Lauren for more than a few days, a week at best, and yet she was concerning herself with the woman's well being. She would have liked to have told herself it was just for the treasure, by the circles of Hell did she want to tell herself that, but it wasn't. The little lass had a way of getting inside your head, even your cold, shriveled heart, and making you believe you were whole.

For Ysabeau, that was bringing her back before she became a pirate. Before when she had a loving mother, even a father, before they were both murdered right in front of her by the majesty's guard. For some reason or another, the way Lauren would look at ya would make you think everything would be okay. Would make ya leap at the chance to make her smile, to make her notice you.

Ysabeau the Deathly, for whatever reason, was sure as Hell feeling the effect of the blonde. And she downright hated it.

So when Lauren had thanked her over and over when they went to the docks to secure their long boat, when the pretty lass had nodded as Ysabeau helped her along into the boat, had smiled when the captain sat down- she wanted to say she didn't do anything. She wanted to say she ignored the sugary gaze of the blonde. She wanted to say it didn't matter one bit.

But she couldn't.

She could never say that.

I would never say that...