My stomach dropped as we rose up like a roller coaster, away from the frothing sea and jagged rocks below us. "Oh man, this is so cool," I squealed, squeezing my husband's arm tightly. "I've always wanted to do this!"

He grinned. "Told you I wouldn't let you down."

The other two mechs were visible as vague shadows in the mist, but as I turned on the targeting overlay, they lit up as green silhouettes on the screen. "There's the navigation readout," I said, pointing to the rulings on the margins of the display.

"Thanks, sweetheart." Qrrog swerved us around so we were heading a little shy of northeast. "Fall in behind me! Goug's this way!"

"Roger!" Vasily replied.

"Kupo!" Winn said.

I watched on the radar as they took their positions in a delta formation in back of us. "This is like in the movies," I gasped, feeling like a kid on Christmas. "Except so much cooler."

"Yeah," Qrrog said with a proud grin, "'cause I'm not in any movies."

I laughed. "Cinema could not contain your awesomeness, sweetie." My eyes wandered back to the view outside and my smile dropped. "Hey… Bloodblade said Worgen Island was a jagd, right? Doesn't magicite not work right in jagds? How are we flying right now?"

"It's not a real jagd, kupo," Winn said over the communications channel. "Well—I mean, it is, but not—"

"Natural jagds are found sscattered around the continents up north," Vasily said. "They got sso much Misst in 'em, it messsses up sskysstones. No government wanted 'em, sso they became lawlessss places."

Qrrog nodded. "That's right. 'Cause of those natural jagds, any lawless place the judges can't reach came to be called a jagd. Which must be the case fer good ol' Worgen Island."

"Exactly, kupo."

"Oh." I rested my chin in my hand. "Huh. That makes sense, in a round-about sort of way."

Qrrog corrected our flight path minutely. "How long 'til Goug at this speed, d'you think?"

"About another half hour, kupo. I sure hope this kupo works…"

"It will," I said. "You built these mechs so you could stop Bloodblade, even though you didn't know it yet. Just keep telling yourself that."

Vasily snorted. "Aye, let'ss show him why you don't messss with engineers!"

Winn laughed. "You got it, Gramps!"

I gave them a chuckle, but my mind was on other things as we rose above the fog layer, into the boundless expanse of the blue sky overhead. It took me a few moments to work up the gumption to say something. "Qrrog… are you really going to be the Pirate King?"

He puffed out his chest proudly. "Yup!" Deflating a little, he looked over at me. "Er… unless you don't want me to."

"Well—couldn't Jihl do it?" I asked. "He seems like a pretty good guy, I'm sure he'd listen to you if you told him how to run the pirates."

My husband sighed. "That's the thing, love. I trust Jihl and all, he's one o' me best mates, but he wouldn't take the throne even if I gave it to him. He doesn't like bein' in the limelight, he'd rather see that orders are carried out and make sure things are runnin' smoothly for the ones in charge."

I paused for a moment, and then reached over and flicked off the communications channel. This needed to be a private conversation. "Do you want to be the Pirate King?"

"I do," Qrrog said, his eyes set on the vague horizon. "I feel I'm at me best when I'm commandin' a crew, and I've already won 'em over from Bloodblade. Years ago, you took a chance on me and turned me into a force fer good. I want to give that same chance to all me mateys. I feel like they need me to direct 'em." His dark eyes turned back to me. "But… more than that, I want to see you happy. If you aren't comfortable with this, I won't do it."

I watched him for a second. "… I'm still kind of in shock," I admitted. "All of this has happened so fast, and I had no idea it was coming… but I think that's a wonderful goal. I've supported you this far. I'm not going to abandon you now, Qrrog. I promise. I think you'd make the best Pirate King there ever was."

The Viking grinned bittersweetly. "Thanks, love. But somethin' else is troublin' you, I can tell."

"You weren't supposed to know that," I laughed.

"Husband's intuition." He let go of the yoke to pat my head. "Spill it, Brighteyes."

I wrung my hands, a nervous habit. "Will we still be in the clan? They're like family—they are family to me. I've really enjoyed adventuring with them, and what if they still need us for missions…"

Qrrog grinned. "O' course we'll still be in the clan! They're my family too, after all! We'll just see a little less action, is all. Worgen Island will be our clan base, if Saskia okays it. That woman needs to learn to ease up, anyway."

"Oh, good." I gave him a smile as I curled up and rested my head on his shoulder. "I think that would work out fantastic. I am kind of tired of working nonstop. Vasily can moor the Juggernaut at the fortress, right?"

"Yep!" Qrrog made another course correction and then reached up to run his claws through my hair. "I'll be honest with you, love, livin' on an airship is fun and all, but I missed the sea. Feels like home, it does."

"I like the sea, too," I murmured. "I like how it looks different every day."

He smiled. "Aye, it's beautiful. And now you won't even have to worry about seasickness!"

"I do like not-seasickness. And that fireplace."

With a chuckle, my husband hugged me tight. "Terra… do you want to do this?"

It took me a moment to figure out my answer. I'd grown comfortable doing clan work over the past several years. It was really all I'd known since coming to Ivalice. Now, here was an opportunity for a change, but one that seemed as though it would benefit everyone for the better. As I began to weigh the pros and cons, I realized that my heart already knew what it wanted.

"Yes," I said firmly. "I want to see you do what you love and rise to your potential. I want to support you in it. If this is our next great adventure, I want to be completely open to what it has to offer me." I squeezed his arm and grinned. "And I know it sounds super corny, but I've always wanted to live in a castle, and these past few days have not disappointed my expectations."

Qrrog laughed and nuzzled his snout against my head. "Sweetheart, you be as corny as you like. Yer the Pirate Queen now, after all."

"That's true." I smirked. "If I'm going to have a title out of a cheesy fantasy novel, I might as well act the part." I shook my fist. "Arr, mateys! Hang 'em from the mizzenmast!"

My husband patted my cheek. "You don't even know what a mizzenmast is," he teased.

"I do too, you told me once what all the parts of a ship are," I said with a wry smile as I snuggled up against him.

He laid his head on top of mine. "Okay then, which side is starboard and which side is port?"

"Um… starboard's the—uhh…" I laughed, amused and flustered at my own nautical ineptitude. "Augh, that's the one thing I can never remember!"

Qrrog joined in my laughter. "Yer too cute. I love you."

"I love you too, you big jerk." I put my arms around him. "Are we cuddling in a giant robot on our way to defeat a mad pirate king?"

"Mm-hm."

I closed my eyes. "We're strange people."

"That's what makes us so great, love."

After a moment, I smiled. "You didn't really forget about these mechs, did you."

"Nope." Qrrog chuckled. "Had to give the kiddo her fair share of good ideas."

"Yes, well, be careful that her ego doesn't get as big as yours."

"I doubt that'll ever happ—ah, there's our bilge rat."

I opened my eyes and sat up. Dark, bulbous clouds loomed before us, and every few seconds I could see the glow of lightning striking somewhere within them. Turbulence buffeted the magitek armor as Qrrog held the controls steady.

"We're not going to fly through that, are we?" I asked as I flicked the communications back on.

"There you are!" Vasily's voice snapped, making my husband and I flinch. "Bloomin' idiotss, why'd you turn off yer comm?!"

"We've been trying to get a hold of you for five kupo minutes!" Winn shouted. "Don't scare us like that, kupo!"

Qrrog laughed. "Well, we're still flyin', ain't we?"

"We're not goin' through that sstorm," Vasily said. "It'd be ssuicide."

"Goug's on the other side." Qrrog glanced at the navigation readouts. "If we skirt the outside o' the storm, we can make it there before Bloodblade does."

I leaned forward. "… He's in that storm, controlling it, right? Will he know we're in there?"

"I don't want to take that risk, kupo," Winn said.

"We have to," Qrrog said, "if we want to beat him to Goug."

There was silence on the comm channel for a few moments. "Then let's show him what we're made of, kupo!"

Qrrog snorted. "Follow me and stay close—do, uh, whatever it is you do with these things to keep 'em from keelin' over!" He pushed down on the accelerator and we veered toward the torn clouds on the outskirts of the hurricane.

"They're fitted with gyroscopic stabilizers, kupo," Winn said. "What we should really be worried about is them exploding. A direct lighting strike could fry their systems."

"That's so comforting," I muttered.

"There are a million ways thiss could go wrong," Vasily hissed, "and I'm blamin' you fer all of 'em, Captain."

My husband grinned. "It's 'Yer Majesty' now, thanks."

The magitek armor unit rattled and bumped as we raced neck-and-neck with the storm. A few more minutes and the unnatural sea of swirling clouds towered above us. I took a deep breath as I scanned the dashboard, making sure all systems were still working nominally. "Okay. You're good to go."

Qrrog nodded and eased the mech toward the cloud bank. A thick fog swallowed us up, plunging us into darkness.