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Chapter 9

Five Years Ago

The Mourning Angel cut through the waters with swift precision. It had been a great year for piracy. The merchants, as usual thinking themselves invincible, had not bothered to spend extra money on their trade ships, making taking and locating them exceptionally easy. Although they spent time complaining to the royalty of wherever they resided, as none of their personal shipments had been taken, all the Kings and Queens did were to put their navy ships on alert for the rough descriptions of the infamous Jolly Rogers.

Chatterbox left Gawain's Cabin, leaving a full report on various objects and supplies that they had taken from their recent haul, as well as what the ship still needed. Gawain smiled when he saw just how much that Weselton frigate they had just left to sink was carrying, when he noticed something that required immediate attention. We're out of gunpowder, and close to running out of both heavy shots, and mortars, Gawain realized, and grimaced. They were going to need to make a stop. Quickly tallying everything into his log book, Gawain left his Cabin and made for the wheel.

"Mr. Smarts, and Mr. Andrews," he called, and the Quartermaster quickly finished tying off the rope she was holding, before hurrying up to the wheel, the Navigator close behind.

"Where to this time, Captain?" Andrews asked, trademark grin on her face, and Gawain smiled back.

"Smarts, where's the nearest friendly port? It appears we're running a bit low on the essentials, if Chatterbox's numbers are correct."

Smarts quickly went over a small map on the railing next to the wheel. After a moment, he smiled and pointed to a point on the map, "Here, Captain Roberts, there's a secondary port located in Denmark; where King Eric and Queen Ariel rule. If we sail straight there we should get there after nightfall."

Roberts nodded and turned the wheel accordingly, "Andrews, you and I are going to go ashore. I'll deal with getting the supplies; you see what rumors you can dig up loot wise."

She nodded and turned to go below decks, and Gawain turned his attention to the ocean.

It was indeed well past nightfall when The Mourning Angel finally docked at the hidden port in Denmark. Light shined from the taverns, and a few underground brothels. Gawain stepped off the deck of his ship, leaving Kay in charge. Andrews quickly followed him, and they set off in different directions. Gawain found a Harbor Master that was still awake and spent quite a bit of time haggling with the man for decent prices on both selling the goods his ship had plundered, as well as buying the supplies his crew needed. When everything was bought and paid for Gawain decided to try to find wherever Andrews had disappeared off to.

He began to walk around to the various taverns, and peeked inside to see if he could find his Quartermaster, however it became clear after he checked a third establishment that she had long since finished her information digging. Gawain was now slightly concerned; the both of them had agreed that if one of them finished early, that they would find the other, so that she wouldn't be left behind by accident. A scream suddenly sounded from west, and Gawain ran toward the sound, knowing that it was possible Andrews had something to do with it. As he came to an alleyway that the sound seemed to originate from, he heard a splash, and the sound of swords being drawn. Gawain drew his own sword and quickly surveyed the scene.

There were three men in the alleyway, two of which wore city guard uniforms, the third man however looked to be a homeless man of sorts, from the looks of his tattered cloak, but when the man turned, Gawain knew instantly something was off. The man's boots were dirty, buy they were too fine a quality, not expensive, but too expensive, and the same went for his trousers and shirt. All of his clothes, save the cloak he wore, seemed to be utilitarian, as if was a man used to hiding, and fighting. He was armed with two short swords, showing he wasn't an assassin, but he fought with the precision of someone who had been well trained, and easily overpowered the two guards. Gawain quickly made sure he was out of sight, and watched as the man slit the two guards' throats, before looking in a large well of sorts. He seemed to get something out of the well, and check it over. Gawain heard the man curse angrily, and a thud as he threw whatever it was to the side. Gawain listened for the footsteps of the man to fade before coming out and surveying the scene.

Gawain quickly looked around, and saw where the man had thrown whatever it had been that had fallen in the well. He quickly went over to it… no not it, her. It was the body of a girl, fairly short, with dark strawberry blond hair.

"Shit," Gawain muttered to himself, feeling his stomach drop, and turned the girl over. She was clearly dead, drowned, and the water on her skin made it look paler than it already was. Except for the fact the girl's hair was down, she was the splitting image of…

"Wow, I know people say we all have a twin in the world, but this is a little creepy," Said Andrews, whose hooded head was suddenly peering over Gawain's shoulder.

"Loki's lies, Anna," Gawain growled, keeping his voice below a whisper, "don't scare me like that! I thought this was you for a minute there."

"Sorry," she apologized quickly, and then reached down and opened one of the girl's eyes. It was a muddy brown.

"Except for the eyes and the freckles, she might just be me," Anna muttered under her breath, a faraway expression on her face, "I know this is going to sound weird, but I think we should take her with us; I don't think this is a coincidence."

Gawain just shrugged and wrapped the body in a nearby tarp, lying in the alley. Gawain and Andrews quickly grabbed the two ends of the body, and went back to the ship.

The ship was much more lively than usual, especially for so late at night, much to Gawain's suspicion. He continued wondering what was going on, when Kay came out of nowhere.

"Someone thought it would be a good idea to try to take an uninvited look around our ship" the giant rumbled, and Gawain's eyes narrowed.

"I hate stowaways," he muttered and then turned to Kay again, "what happed and where is the bastard."

"He came aboard a few minutes before you did," Kay glowered, "luckily Hawkeye spotted him and pointed him out to our guys in the rigging; got the jump on the fool, before he could draw his blades. He's in the hold."

Gawain's head suddenly clicked, "Blades? They wouldn't have happened to 'ave been two shot swords, would they?"

Kay's eyes narrowed and he nodded, "friend of yours?"

Gawain chuckled darkly, "not in the slightest; murdered this poor fool and a couple of guards."

Dropping the body off in the medical bay, and signaling for Wiz to follow him, Gawain went down to the hold. Sure enough, the man in the hold was the same one that had killed the three in the alley. The man looked up, and his eyes narrowed with spite when he saw Gawain standing before him.

"Damned Pirate Roberts," He snarled angrily, and Gawain rolled his eyes.

"That's Dreaded Pirate Roberts," he corrected (while smirking internally at the nickname that had been unintentionally given to him by the Duke of Weselton), "though I suppose I can't expect you to know that, seeing as your stupid enough to try to sneak on board my ship."

The man just glared at him and said nothing, so Gawain tried a different approach, "of course, you apparently are stupid enough to drown some poor prostitute, and kill two city guards, and so I suppose I can't really hold your lack of intelligence against you, so what exactly were you doing trying to sneak aboard my ship?"

Other than the small twitch that appeared in the man's right fingers, he did not say anything. He wasn't going to say anything, and judging by his near lack of response he had been trained not to. Gawain grimaced; this man was obviously an official of some sort. Suddenly Wiz cleared his throat.

"Can I try Captain, pleaseplease pleeeeeeeeeease?" he begged, sounding like a child trying to open the first present on Christmas.

Gawain looked at the official and when the man smirked at him haughtily, Gawain made his decision.

"I don't care what you do, find out what the hell he was doing on my ship, and find out what he was trying to do murdering a woman in an alley." And with that he marched out of the hold. He wasn't halfway to the mid deck when the screaming started, followed by Wiz belting out opera at the top of his lungs.

"He was looking for the Princess of Arendelle," Wiz was telling Gawain, Andrews, and Kay forty five minutes later, with a huge grin plastered on his face.

Andrews choked slightly and Gawain stared at him incredulously, "the banished Arendelle Princess?"

"Yep," Wiz replied, popping the 'p', "he was apparently a member of the Arendelle intelligence force under King Adgar. His job is was to find lookalikes to the Princess and observe them. If they fit a certain description, he was supposed to kidnap them and take them to a safe house for interrogation, if not… well, you saw what happened in the alley right?"

"Did he say why he was looking for these Princess Wannabes?" Asked Kay, looking a little worried, and Wiz nodded.

"Apparently, the King and Queen thought the Princess was dead, but when no body turned up, they started having second thoughts, so they sent their intelligence force to find people who fit the Princess's description, thinking someone was holding her hostage or something. I dunno, he decided to kill himself before I could ask for anything more specific."

"Well," Andrews grimaced, "this is just fantastic, not only are they messing up other peoples' lives, their going to make our lives harder in the process."

Gawain had to admit she was right; from what Wiz had told them from his 'interrogation' the King and Queen weren't going to stop searching unless they found Anna's body, which was impossible, because Anna wasn't dead…

"Andrews," Gawain asked suddenly, as a crazy idea entered his mind, "do you think they would stop looking if they found a body?"

"Just what are you implying…" her voice trailed off, when a look of understanding crossed what he could see of her face, "you're not thinking what I think your thinking are you? Because if you are thinking what I think your thinking then what your thinking is genius, though I think it's going to be a little more complicated than that, you think? Wait what?"

Gawain just smiled and looked at Wiz, "if you were given an exact description of the Arendelle Princess, would you be able to make a decoy?"

Wiz nodded, his eyes sparking with the prospect of a challenge, "I would need someone who already looked like her, but yeah, I can do that!"

Gawain smiled and the four of them went to the medical bay, and Gawain took the tarp off the girl's body. Wiz looked at the girl for a long time, taking measurements and observing certain body parts, as Gawain and Andrews gave a description of Princess Anna.

"So," Wiz said after a few minutes of his investigation, "I can do everything except the hair and the eyes. You mentioned the Princess has as a streak of white gold hair?"

"It's called platinum blonde but yeah," Andrews nodded, and Wiz pouted.

"That color is impossible to dye, I could get close but it would never hold up under close inspection, and if this girl's the Princess, than there will be a close inspection." He said sounding disappointed.

"Fix what you can, and leave the hair and the eyes for now," Gawain instructed him, "We'll find out what to do about them when we reach Arendelle. Hopefully we'll have a plan by then."

Long story short… my muse has a nasty habit of taking vacations at the most terrible of times. Thank you all for being patient, and for those of you wondering; yes, Kristoff will be appearing in this fic, in fact (spoiler) he has a rather important part to play.

One last thing; Everything I write into this fic, whether POV and time period changes, I write for a reason. For those interested in looking, there are hints to the endgame in every chapter, even the ones that just seem like backstory or filler. Just know, that when the time comes, even if it seem convoluted, everything's purpose will be clear.

Peace out,

-BNI