Between Three Rogues

by Erico

There were Valuans, Black Pirates, and Blue Rogues, and that was enough for Vyse and Aika to wrap their heads around. Then a girl crashed into their lives, and the world became a whole lot bigger. And somewhere during a globe-spanning epic adventure that changed everything, a man, his best friend, and the girl that went sailing off the map with them figured themselves out.

29. Blue Rogue Rising

BETWEEN THREE ROGUES

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson

Twenty-Nine: Blue Rogue Rising

---

When Clara was a little girl, she had a very good life. Her father was a freckled, ginger-haired traveling merchant who crossed the skies of Mid-Ocean, and her mother was a fair-haired dressmaker who liked to make women's underthings as a side business, and they all sailed together on her father's ship. He would ferry food and supplies and his mother would work on commission, making tailored dresses to the ladies at the various towns and ports they stopped in. She learned her numbers and her writing from her father, she learned the basics of sewing and clothes-making from her mother, and from the both of them she learned about love.

The war between the kingdoms of Valua and Nasr ruined many lives. King Mathias was killed, and Valua became an empire. Independent merchants like Clara's father suddenly found it harder to do business in Mid-Ocean when the neighboring superpowers were at war with one another and loyalty oaths became a requirement. It eventually became deadly.

When Clara was eight, her father's ship was attacked. She didn't know why. It would be years before she was able to ask around, find someone with access to the records, and discover that he had taken up smuggling in order to make ends meet for his family when the war made reputable free trade dry up. Their ship boarded by the Valuans, she was forced to watch as he was dragged away in chains. He'd had a look of such panic and fear, not for himself, but for the wife and the daughter he was leaving behind. Their ship and almost everything that had been theirs, been their home, was impounded, and she and her mother were dropped off at Sailor's Isle with what they could carry. A week later, they heard the news that her father had been executed in the newly repurposed 'Imperial Coliseum', one of dozens of Black Pirates, smugglers, and war profiteers whose lives were snuffed out in an instant to make a point. Her mother cried all night. Clara somehow found the strength not to.

They made do, and while there was little need for a dressmaker in the trade hub, there was plenty of call for tailors and seamstresses who could put together cheap clothes and patch up torn ones. For Clara, the loss of her father and her home almost broke her. Her mother kept it together, put on a brave face, and told her daughter that 'things could be worse.' It wasn't until she turned 10, on a walk back to their shack with groceries from the market that Clara finally realized why her mother kept saying that over and over with a fragile smile. The sight of a humiliated, sobbing woman lying in the alley in torn clothes with a sailor pulling his pants back up and throwing a handful of gold coins at her drove the point home in a way that no words ever could. For all that they had lost, for all they didn't have, it hadn't come to that.

But it almost did. Clara was 11 when her mother suddenly got sick; sicker than the medicine and the doctors they could afford could deal with. Her mother didn't even try to use the money for herself; she told her daughter to save it, reminded her how to hide it.

'Be brave. Be kind. Always try to smile. You're going to grow up to be someone wonderful, and don't let anyone tell you that you aren't. Find someone you can love with your whole heart, my dove...I never regretted loving your father. He gave me you.'

She died a week later. A month after that, Clara was struggling to keep the business going, because so many people thought that a 'little girl' couldn't manage the work. The customers drifted off, and though her mother had left her everything, it wasn't enough. It was never enough, not for a girl that wasn't even 12 yet.

Her life could have gone in a very different direction if one particular client hadn't stumbled into her shack the day before she was going to be kicked out of it. That was when Clara met Carol, a tired-looking woman who came in with a pile of kid's clothes in need of patching and stitching, saying that she needed help to get it all done. Clara did her best, better than Carol had thought she might be able to, and the woman and the girl found that they got along well. Well enough, up until Carol asked where Clara's mother was, the rumored 'seamstress of Sailor's Island' that she'd come in search of to begin with.

Had anyone else asked, Clara would have managed to keep her mouth shut, smile, and keep it to the simple answer of 'she passed on.' But Carol looked at her with those soft, empathetic eyes, and Clara fell apart crying. It was all too much too fast for her. The death of her father. The loss of their home. Her mother's illness and passing. And now on the edge of poverty, of - of something worse than sewing up torn shirts and pants, of being forced to live on the street and ending up like the woman she'd seen who got coins thrown at her for being used by men, Carol arrived. It was too much, and Carol pulled her in tightly for a hug.

'If you have nowhere else to go, you are welcome to come with me and my husband. You can meet all the children he keeps adopting that you've been mending shirts for. If there is somewhere we can take you away from here, to family, I will yell at him and make him do it. Anywhere except Valua, and if you really wanted to go there...I'll buy your passage. But only if you have family waiting. Only if there are people who can take care of you. You're just a girl still, and you should stay a girl for a little while longer.'

Clara had no other family that she knew of. There was nowhere else she could go. There was nobody else who cared about her. But Carol did, and that was the day she left Sailor's Island behind and joined up as a member of the crew aboard the Iron Clad, a ship captained by Centime of the Blue Rogues. He taught her how to sail, how to fight, and in time, she became a Blue Rogue herself. But he never adopted her. He offered many times in the first year she was with them, and she refused him every time.

But when Carol asked to adopt her on her 13th birthday, Clara fell into the woman's arms with happy tears and said yes. She never forgot her real father and mother. But she was more than happy to let Carol and Centime be her step-parents.

---

109 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

The Primrose, Captain's Cabin

Mid-Ocean

She was known on the bounty boards as 'Calamity Clara' due to her ability to take any situation and make it three times worse. And usually more explosive. She commanded an all-female crew of brigandly Blue Rogues, and that was the kind of combination that started rumors. In her case, the story went that Clara was a dark mistress bristling with swords and pistols who could arm-wrestle a man into the table and then drink him under it. The story went on that her crew were a bunch of die-hard man-haters who had all but declared war not only on Valua, but men everywhere.

The stories were based on the preconceived notions of merchants and sailors and other pirates who weren't privy to the life stories and the gossip of the crew of the Primrose, and as such were imagined from a wrong perspective. As Clara woke up in her colorful cabin, reclining in her own colorful bed with an ache between her legs that made her smile wider, she wondered what the gossip-mongers of Mid-Ocean would say if they could see how she preferred to live, what she was really like when she wasn't attacking Valuan outposts and light cruisers, or making runs for the black market. Hell, she couldn't even use magic, and she wondered when the rumors about her being a skilled red moon mage had gotten started. Maybe one of the times she set off an impressive explosion, but really, gunpowder explosions and Pyres spells were two different things.

Clara yawned as she stretched out, blinking to find her bed empty. She wondered where Gilder had gotten off to, but she wasn't worried like she had been before. As she got up, saw to her constitutional and slipped on her terrycloth dressing gown, it was at a relaxed pace.

Before, for Clara, meant the time before she had taken the Primrose and flown with the crew of the Claudia to lead a raid on the Grand Fortress's exterior so her Gilder could escape. Before meant before the two girls that she had rescued found their man and her Gilder and then hijacked the Armada's newest and most powerful warship and stole the crown prince and blew a hole clean through the unbreakable fortress. Before was the time before Vyse managed to convince Gilder to stop running. To give her a chance. To want what Vyse had, he'd told her as he held her close and she almost cried in relief as she realized that he was done running.

Before meant the time when the Primrose stalked the skies half of the time in pursuit of Gilder as Clara went after the man she wanted, and the Claudia kept on running from her.

Clara and Gilder were done with before. Now, their ships flew side by side, their crews were slowly catching on that the game of cat and mouse had been turned into the start of a cooperative truce. The start of it was a journey to the northeast, to the Frontier Lands north of the ruins of Nasrad where Crescent Island waited for them. Gilder had been insistent that their first stop had to be in delivering two members of his crew, Brabham and Izmael, off at Crescent Island with enough supplies to last them until Vyse and Aika and Fina and the Prince and whoever else they convinced to come with them would arrive on the Delphinus to take stock of what would become their headquarters and home. They were making good time, especially since the bulk of the Valuan presence had retreated to reinforce the Grand Fortress.

There was a knock at her door, two sharp and heavy ones, and then it swung open to reveal Gilder, already dressed for the day, carrying a wicker basket with plates, covered food, mugs, and a sealed thermos. He paused for a bit and smiled before closing the door with his foot and walking over to the small table with its two chairs along the wall. "Good morning, milady." Gilder smugged, pulling Clara closer to him by her waist. She let him, and let her arms flop over his shoulders before coming up off of her heels to kiss him.

"You weren't in bed when I woke up."

"Went to get us breakfast." Her lover said, tipping his head to the side as he backed away from her and then held a chair out for her to sit down. Her heart thrilled a little as she did so, and he pushed her in before leaning down to leave a lingering kiss on the side of her neck that she knew would leave a mark. Which was probably why he'd done it, the rest of her girls would go wild with giggling once they saw it. When he sat down across from her, there was a flicker of worry in his eyes behind his pince-nez glasses. "You didn't think I would run, did you?"

She looked at him and her heart melted a little more. All the times he had run, and now, after his daring escape from the Grand Fortress in the company of Vyse and Aika and Fina, he was so different. Still the same caring, very doting lover that he'd always been, but now with a sense of loyalty. A need to remain in her company. To convince her that he had changed.

Clara reached a hand across the table and took his, squeezing it gently. "Not for a second." She smiled, and knew that she had so much to thank Vyse and the girls for. Hopefully she would have the chance to meet them again and do so in person.

Breakfast was quiet and companionable and relaxed. Theirs was a romance renewed, but neither of them were taken to blazing displays of passion. Not anymore. Something quieter, longer-lasting, had settled into place over the past 36 hours. She found she was fine with it. She still had to get cleaned up, and they were both captains with crews that were relying on them.

"So." Gilder said, sipping the last of his second cup of tea and setting the mug aside. "I've been considering our next moves from here."

"Have you? Good. I've given it some thought as well. The Valuans will be reeling for a while after your daring escape." Clara pointed out. "This might be the best chance we'll get for some raiding further out from Valua; they'll be pulling in their reinforcements to watch the Grand Fortress while they're making repairs."

"It's an opportunity, but we need a goal." Gilder added. "The Valuans cracked how to make ships powerful enough to pass through sky rifts. That's a level of engineering I'd like to get on our side as well."

Clara laughed once and tilted her head to the side, feeling her red hair flow against her neck and settle back on the tops of her shoulders. "I would say that they'd be keeping that under lock and key inside of the Grand Fortress, but...what have you heard?"

"What makes you think I know something you don't, Clara?" Gilder inquired not quite so innocently.

She rolled her eyes and pushed her plate forward so she could set her elbows on the small table and rest her head in her hands. "Because you aren't a Blue Rogue like me. Your list of contacts may be more disreputable than mine, but you hear things I don't because of it."

Gilder shrugged, caught out. "True enough. Very well, you happen to be right."

"What was that?" She hummed.

"You were...oh, I see what you're trying to do." Gilder sighed, and she giggled. "Very funny, love. Yes, the Grand Fortress is where they had been doing a lot of ship refits to make them sky rift-worthy, but I've been thinking that they'll have to move some of their refits to other bases further out. Bases that might be more vulnerable to a coordinated attack from two ships."

Clara found herself agreeing with the logic, and with the plan. Rough as it was.

She leaned in over the table a little more. "I don't suppose you know which base or bases will be carrying the parts to upgrade their engines?"

"Not yet." Gilder said. "But. I think we could manage a little research to figure it out."

Clara smiled at that. "Nice. Keep this up, and we'll make a Blue Rogue out of you yet, my handsome one."

Gilder leaned back in his chair, rocking it up off of its front legs a little. "You're still on that, eh?"

"You're already halfway there. Your crew's one of the most savory Air Pirate bands out there, and you've refused to fly the banner of the Black Pirates or use their tactics."

Gilder watched her carefully. He looked like he wanted to bite his lip, which was something he never did. He was never indecisive. Or he hadn't been Before. "If I...If I didn't take the Oath...Would I still get to keep you?"

Clara froze at that, then blinked rapidly to keep her eyes clear. "Gilder. I've been yours for years."

He crumbled a little more at her confession, reached for one of her arms, and tugged her hand to him after she'd freed it from under her chin. Gilder turned it over and pressed a kiss to her palm.

"I'm sorry I took so long to realize it." He whispered.

"What's bothering you?" Clara asked, worried. "Why are you talking like this?"

"It's something Vyse said." Gilder explained hesitantly. "That one day, you would get tired of chasing after me. And he asked me if I could live with myself if you ever gave up and left me alone. If I...if I lost you." He looked down at his lap and shook his head. "I couldn't. I should have stopped running sooner. How many years have you wasted, waiting for me to get over myself? How can I ever make it up to you, give you those years back?"

Clara got up from her chair and moved around the table, then settled herself onto his lap and wrapped her arms around him. She leaned in close with watery eyes and kissed his nose. "You can't. But all that was Before. Just tell me that it's different now. That you're done running from this."

"I am. I'm yours, if you still want me." Gilder hoarsely confessed.

Moons, did she ever owe Vyse and his loves a thank you and so much more for what they'd done. They had opened Gilder's eyes and made him change his mind. Clara leaned in and kissed him deeply.

"I want you." She told him brokenly, sinking her face against his shoulder. "I want you." He held her tight after that as she kept repeating those three words, a prayer to the Moons.

---

South Danel Strait, Enroute to the Frontier Lands

Valuan Courier Frigate Redoubt

Amidships, Boarding Action

110 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Clara had been 16 when she finally 'officially' joined the Blue Rogues as a member of Centime's crew, and she had been 21 when she first struck out on her own as captain of the newly christened Primrose. Only a month after she set out, she lost track of her step-parents and the Iron Side, and at their next scheduled meet-up, she and her crew and her ship were alone. She tried to not let that worry her too much, especially since the Valuans would have crowed victory if they'd caught or killed 'Centime The Tinker' in combat. Still, not worrying and not missing her family were two different things entirely. The Primrose was a ship that sailed with a different goal entirely from most, because Clara had never forgotten the love her parents had for each other, the love and final words her mother had left her with. About finding someone to love with her whole heart and never letting them go. Her crew were all women that she'd scoured Mid-Ocean to find, women who were willing to fight against Valua for one reason or another, but who often also wanted to find love themselves. She had some women and girls on her ship who found it in each other, and while some might have found that disgusting, Clara was more open-minded than most in Mid-Ocean would be. She allowed it and let her girls be who they were, and just made sure that they were careful when they made port.

She was 22, with a year on the job as a Blue Rogue captain, when the Primrose made port in Nasrad again for some much needed R and R and resupply. She was 22 when she met Gilder, and she spent the next five days being wooed by him, courted, and finally, loved.

For Clara, it was a thunderbolt through her. This man, this hard-fighting air pirate who refused to fly the Black Flag or the Blue was the man she loved with her whole heart. This was the man she wanted to spend her life with.

It was unfortunate he couldn't, or didn't want to see what was so painfully obvious to her. He spent the next five years running from her, when he wasn't teaming up with her for the bigger jobs he couldn't manage himself. And it had hurt some days, Clara remembered. But she could be persistent when she wanted to be, and for something that was worth it.

She was 27 now, and her Gilder was 32, and he was no less majestic and handsome than he'd been at 27 as he and their crews swung aboard the Redoubt in a boarding action so flawless that it seemed rehearsed. With the Claudia on one side of the beleaguered ship with its ruined propellors and the Primrose on the other, it had nowhere to run after the mooring ropes and claws were thrown over it.

"Come on girls, we can't let the men have all the fun now, can we?!" Clara shouted, hiking up her skirts with one hand while she fired a pistol with the other, dispatching a Valuan trooper who had been running to the edge of the ship with a yellow-edged sword drawn and ready. A roar of high-pitched feminine screams answered her, and Clara grinned and jumped down from the rail onto the deck. Her eyes searched across the ship as she caught sight of Gilder, brandishing his dual moonstone-inlaid pistols with a fierce gleam in his eyes. He fired a warning shot that exploded with the detonation of a Pyri spell on impact to get the attention of the troopers nearby, and then bellowed out.

"All right, Valuans! Listen up! We're taking your surrenders now, if you care to live! This ship is now commandeered by Calamity Clara of the Blue Rogues, and Gilder!"

"Gilder?!" One Valuan sputtered as he seemed to finally recognize the dashing figure and blood-red and black duster that was Gilder's trademark as much as his pince-nez glasses and his pistols. The green parrot Willy flew down and perched on the man's shoulder and let out a squawk before parroting away.

"Awk! Gilder! Gilder!"

"Thanks for the moral support, Willy." Gilder told his parrot with a lazy eye roll.

"Gilder the Unfettered?" Another trooper said, even as the relatively sparse crew of the courier ship saw the odds stacked against them and finally started dropping their weapons in surrender.

Clara had forgotten that name of his, hadn't thought about it in forever. No. She hadn't wanted to think about it, she corrected herself. Her Gilder had been a philanderer, a playboy that sailed the skies of Arcadia and loved women in every port, refusing to commit to any of them for reasons that were logical only to him.

It made her heart swell when Gilder's eyes searched for her, saw her, and how he flinched in guilt. "Just Gilder, if you please." He told the Valuan trooper.

Funny how a thing as simple as him casting off a nickname because of what it meant could make her heart swell so much.

Clara stepped forward, reloading her pistol as she went. "Now, then. As soon as we have your commanding officer's surrender, we can finish our business here in a civilized manner." She said brightly, brandishing a wide smile that made the Valuans she passed by shiver. It wasn't her fault if they considered it predatory. Still, between her reputation and the fact that she had led a boarding action in a frilly pink gown as though she were a parasol short of a leisurely afternoon stroll through a garden instead of high seas warfare, the ship's crew quickly fell in line. Even the captain, who tried to surrender his sword to Clara. She clucked her tongue once disapprovingly and then gestured towards Gilder.

"You can give it to him, dearie. You think I've got a place to put it?"

"What's this now?" Gilder said teasingly, as the captain grit his teeth and moved over to give Gilder his sword. The brash pirate drew out the steel and examined it in theatrical fashion before sliding it back into the scabbard. He set it on his swordbelt and smirked. "Already giving me presents, love?"

The men on his side of the captured ship chuckled under their breath, and the girls on her side giggled and tittered behind their hands. Clara set a hand at her waist and cocked her head at him.

"I gave you a sword, honey. The ship's mine."

"What, can't we share it?" Gilder pouted, and the Valuans who weren't wearing helmets were now bouncing their stares between the two captains in confusion.

"I didn't think you were a fan of sharing, Gilder."

"I'm warming up to the idea." He teased her.

"Hmph!" Clara went for a put-out look and turned her head away from him. "Well, if that's how you're going to be, then perhaps you could tell me what I get out of this."

Gilder sauntered over and pulled her in close to him, and she looked up into his eyes as they glimmered.

"Let me show you." He growled out, and dipped her back into a kiss that made her toes curl. Her girls all lost their minds screaming in joy, and even Gilder's men started hooting and catcalling. He pulled her back up and set her on her feet, and Clara wasn't ashamed to admit that she swooned and tilted back and forth a little before she regained her senses.

"Well." She said, flushed and happy and not really that embarrassed. "When you put it like that." And then their crews got to work getting the ship ready for capture.

As for the Valuans, they were loaded up onto their lifeboats, given enough provisions for a week, and directed to the nearest inhabited island where they could wait to be picked up and rescued. Without any of their weapons or armor, naturally.

The Redoubt was dragged off by the Primrose and the Claudia with towlines, a prize of some value. But the real prize was all the courier messages and undelivered military postings down in the forward hold. They needed information, and now they had a ship full of it.

---

The Claudia

South of the Frontier Lands, Enroute to Mid-Ocean

115 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

They'd made Crescent Island in good time flying in tandem, stopping off in Nasrad long enough to purchase extra supplies for Brabham and Izmael and to collect gossip before heading north. The island Gilder had found Vyse on was large and Clara had been able to see the promise of something special there. Brabham and Izmael, twice as old as most people's lifetimes, were even more ecstatic about the opportunities, and had taken their supplies and made camp with a wave as the ships sailed back off to the south. With Gilder's promise to Vyse seen to, the Claudia and the Primrose had business of their own to see to in Mid-Ocean, and they had a Valuan courier frigate to pick back up where they'd docked it in Nasrad.

"I think I've got something." Gilder said, lifting up one of the letters dumped out of their current mailbag. "They're probably coding the ship parts that get used, and the Valuans are smart enough to not keep a manifest codebook on hand for the courier ships. At least, the Redoubt didn't have one. But, the base commanders still like to write in and complain."

Clara was sitting in front of the mirror in Gilder's cabin, calmly brushing her hair out as she got ready for bed. She made a soft hum of acknowledgement. "Let me guess. Someone slipped up and mentioned a codeword."

"Just so, milady." Gilder said. "You know Jormee Island?"

"Yes. Was an independent trading hub, smaller than Sailor's Island. It was annexed by Valua when we were children. Still does a lot of fishing, and there's a cannery there that Valua buys from at discount." Clara paused in her brushing. "They have a small resupply base there."

"Right." Gilder said. "Enough of a base so there's a token presence on the island to protect their 'investment', but not so large that it scares off other tourists and merchants. It seems that the base commander's been complaining about his shipment of 'Greenfruits' going missing, and that he has captains waiting on them." Gilder smiled and held up another letter. "And here's the receipt of the shipping order form sent out from Jormee Base, enroute to them from the Grand Fortress. Seems basic enough, but there are six 'Greenfruits' that are due to arrive at Jormee in about four days from now."

Clara had to laugh. "And somehow, we ended up attacking a courier ship carrying the base's delivery confirmation, and the base commander's letter complaining about how slow the delivery was going."

Gilder set the letters aside and came over to her, standing behind Clara and kneading her shoulders gently. "I suppose we're paying them a visit then."

"In four days." Clara sighed, leaning back into his hands. "Gives you plenty of time to show me what new tricks your fingers have picked up."

"You don't want a shoulder rubdown?" Gilder hummed.

"I do. For starters." Clara set her hairbrush down and closed her eyes.

---

*G*

Jormee Naval Base

Jormee Island, Mid-Ocean

119 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

The Redoubt pulled into harbor, flying all the right signal flags for a ship in distress reporting damage and casualties. The base commander and his adjutant stepped out onto the docks to meet with the Empire's courier ship as it docked, and a pair of officers bedecked in rumpled uniforms and smudged armor were standing at the top of the ramp as the crew lowered it.

"Permission to disembark." The captain of the courier frigate said formally.

"Permission granted." The base commander said, and the two ranking officers of the Redoubt started down the gangway. "Encountered trouble out there?"

"Yes, sir." The captain said wearily. "Met with pirates near a week ago. Got away from them, but we took some damage to our propellers that slowed us down. I know we're overdue."

"Damned pirates." The base commander scowled, spitting on the ground after. "Now that Nasr has fallen and their fleet's fled for the Frontier Lands, the Armada might actually be able to do something about them for a change. I take it you have messages we need to make receipt for?"

"Yes, sir." The captain's first officer cut in, surprising the base commander that it was a woman addressing him. The crew of the Redoubt knew why, of course. There were other women in the Armada, but they were fewer in number, composing ten or perhaps fifteen percent of the total enlisted. And unlike the conscriptions that the men of Valua were given, every woman who served volunteered for it. Or at least, that had been the way of things early in the days of the Empire, and there was a woman Admiral, for crying out loud. "We have messages for other base personnel as well. If your adjutant would care to escort me, we can get our delivery signed off on."

"Would it be permissible for us to rotate our crew through shore leave while your mechanics make repairs on our vessel?" The Redoubt's captain asked innocently.

"I don't see why not." The base commander shrugged. "Moons know you and your men deserve a little downtime after your close encounter. Oh, and long as you're here; the Armada is moving to refit all of its ships with new upgraded engines, ones powerful enough to cut through the sky rifts around Mid-Ocean. We just got our shipment of replacement engine components in today. Active patrol ships and ones like your courier frigate have priority, so we may as well spare you the trouble of reporting in to another base later on and just do the work now. Since the Air Pirates you bumped into were considerate enough to require repairs anyhow. How did you fight them off, if I might ask? Your vessel isn't equipped for prolonged engagements."

"Lucky shot." The captain explained, a faint smile hidden behind his visored helmet coming through the tone of his voice. "They didn't have much for armor, and we landed a shell close to their magazine. They had bigger things to worry about than us after that."

There was a low chuckle that they all shared in on after that, and then everyone was moving; the Redoubt's vice captain for the mail room of the vessel with the base adjutant in tow, the base commander back to his office with a promise that the captain would join him for a drink in under fifteen minutes, and the captain for the Redoubt to pass the word of shore leave in shifts to his men and share the plans for their repairs and the engine refit.

The Redoubt was a known quantity, even if it had arrived late, and gossip of the reason for its absence would be passed around the base soon enough. For the moment, the base personnel paid the ship no mind and kept to their other concerns after the base commander and his adjutant met with the courier vessel's commanding officers without incident.

It was on such dismissals of notice that critical details were missed, like the sight of a brightly colored parrot flying in from far away and landing in the window of the captain's windowsill, where the captain removed his helmet with a sigh and smiled at the bird.

"Took your sweet time getting here, Willy. Little too much birdseed this morning?"

"Awk!" Willy squawked in protest, flapping his wings once to settle his feathers. "No sleeping with the women around. Awk!"

"Well, there's sleeping and then there's sleeping as you well know…" Gilder chuckled, quickly scribbling a note and curling it up tightly before slipping it into the message case strapped to the leg of his pet. "There you go, Willy. Take that back to the Claudia. It's got specific instructions, but you be sure to tell them; we're hitting this place tonight."

"Awk! Hit it tonight! Hit it tonight!" Willy parroted back at him, and Gilder grinned, offering the bird a cracker for its efforts before it flapped back out the way it had come.

Gilder sighed, feeling a pang of worry for Clara as she went about the tougher job of playing the part of an officer of the Valuan Armada delivering messages. She hadn't been worried about the job, though, he recalled.

No, her primary concern was how Moons-awful ugly the Valuan uniform looked, and how she planned on burning it the moment she didn't have to wear it any longer.

---

*C*

Jormee Naval Base

Evening

Clara wondered what the soldiers on the base first thought when the first explosions tore through the compound, taking the searchlights and the base armory out in suitably explosive fashion. The ones who were awake, that was. The ones who had been sleeping, she could make a rational guess at, based on the noises drifting out of the barracks. Blind panic, mostly.

For the ones who were awake, it must have seemed like the world was ending. No sooner had their chief means of scouting for enemies in the darkness, and the weapons stores for dealing with close quarters combatants been destroyed than two ships of distinctive shape and coloring flew in from behind a passing cloudbank. They burst out of it and flew gleaming in the starlight as the cannons opened up with a full broadside, knocking at the outer defenses and meager cannonworks. Everyone who had been on duty had been running towards the explosions inside of the base when the Claudia and the Primrose opened fire, and before they could run back to engage the outer threat, all of their batteries were smoking ruins.

The base commander of Jormee had little choice but to hoist the white flag of surrender after that, especially since the two ships kept circling as they sent down landing boats full of armed pirates. That, to the defenders caught completely off-guard and with their proverbial pants down was expected.

What wasn't expected was how the captain and vice captain of the Redoubt came strolling off the deck of their parked ship still in the process of being converted bedecked not in their Valuan uniforms, but in a black and red duster longcoat and a frilly dark pink and white dress bearing pistols. Well. Gilder was carrying his pistols. Clara was content to walk without any visible weapons, though she had two holdout revolvers hidden up the sleeves of her gown and a third tucked inside of the parasol she used as a cane as she walked. She couldn't help the smile of triumph as they strolled past the stunned Valuans who were quickly being disarmed and trussed up by the attacking pirates and the crew of the Redoubt who were now revealed to be pirates as well. For Clara, there was great enjoyment to be had in the moment of realization when the base commander realized just how greatly he'd been had...and who exactly had played him and everyone in his command for a sucker.

"Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming out tonight." Clara started in her most cheerful voice. "I'm Calamity Clara of the Blue Rogues, this tall drink of water beside me is Just Plain Gilder, and this?" She spun her parasol up and gestured around them in a wide circle. "This, dear Valuans, is a raid." Her girls and his men all chuckled at her words, while the Valuans either seethed in silence behind their helmets or glared openly at them. "Now, I don't know about the rest of you but I absolutely hate inflicting more injury and death than I absolutely have to, so if you'll all just cooperate with us, we'll be taking a few things from you and then we'll be on our way."

One Valuan who hadn't yet had his weapon taken from him snarled and tried to rush her, and Gilder's twin pistols were up and cocked and pointed at the man in an instant. They gleamed as he fed his spiritual energy into his pistol's moonstone inlay, and then he was firing in an unending volley of shots that used up the bullets in the gun, and then condensed spiritual energy when the ammunition ran out.

"Dance for me!" Gilder hissed, putting his shots at the man's feet and forcing him back in a skittering stumble that had the headstrong trooper yelping aloud. The pirates of the Claudia laughed at the stunt, and the ferocity and skill on display seemed to cow the rest. Clara just sighed and set a hand to her hip as the Valuan finally dropped his weapon and fell back in line, where Gilder's men quickly trussed the fellow up.

"Thank you, Gilder. Very thoughtful of you." Clara said. "But I could have handled him."

"And get that perfect dress of yours dirty?" Gilder shot back innocently, which got a round of fresh giggles from the girls of the Claudia as they swooned a little under the effect of his roguish charm. "Never."

"You won't get away with this." The base commander snapped at her. "The Empire will grind you all into the grave for this insult."

"Oh, I don't doubt that there will be some hell to pay when this blows over." Clara said airily, walking over to the man. The Valuan officer held himself rigid, wanting to do something but hesitating with Gilder standing nearby, pistols smoking and still held up in a ready position. "But that's for another day. And I doubt very much that we'll be the ones paying it." Clara patted him gently on the cheek with her gloved hand, and her smile took on a predatory gleam that made the man shiver. "Valua has been bullying its way around Mid-Ocean for 20 years. It's about time they learned that the people of Arcadia aren't going to stand for it." She stepped back and raised her voice so all the gathered could hear her. "There's a new storm coming, and it's going to be more than Valua can handle. The Blue Rogues are here, and this is just the beginning!"

A roar rose up around them from the gathered Blue Rogues and air pirates of their two ships, and Clara found herself flushed with the energy of the moment. She found herself slipping back into Gilder's embrace as her lover and her dearest companion wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her snugly against his side.

"I didn't think that you Blue Rogues knew how to have this much fun." He said, a laugh just under his grin.

"Baby?" Clara hummed, cradling her head under his chin and smirking at the furious surrendered Valuans. "You haven't seen anything yet."

---

Mid-Ocean

Sailor's Isle

122 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

"I get the feeling that we're following in Vyse's footsteps." Gilder mused, looking around inside the tavern across the road from the Sailor's Guild with a gimlet eye. "Seems a little quieter in here."

"They're talking about him." Clara hummed, sewing a monogrammed handkerchief while they waited for their meals to arrive. The Claudia and the Primrose had docked at Sailor's Island only an hour before, and the rumors hadn't stopped buzzing about Vyse, who now carried a 2 star rank on the bounty board to the one held by herself, Gilder, and Dyne. "Apparently, he picked up some crewmates while they stopped here for supplies a few days ago."

"Including the best cook on the island." Gilder said, looking up to the front counter where the absent Polly's daughter, Anna, was cheerfully pouring mugs of ale. "How did the kid manage to get her to come with him?"

"Supposedly, they're going to go searching for her husband while they're gallivanting about." Clara told him. "At least, that's what Anne told me when I asked where her mother was."

"Did she know who else Vyse ended up taking with him from here?"

"A young boy who liked to spend his time in the weapons shop dreaming about exploring for treasures, and Lone Wolf Lawrence."

Gilder sat up a little straighter. "Lawrence? That mercenary? How did...No. If I ask that about every person who joins up with him, we're never going to get anything done here." He sank his head into a hand and sighed. "That kid is unbelievable."

"He is the son of Dyne of the Blue Storm." Clara giggled. "Centime never had a bad thing to say about his father, and from what I've seen and heard of him, especially from his ladies, he burns with the same purpose and charisma."

"He's going to be something else, that kid." Gilder chuckled, finally smiling again.

"More, love." Clara said tenderly. "Vyse is going to be the best of us." She finished slipping her needle through the cloth kept under tension from the wooden hoop and turned it around for Gilder to look at. "What do you think?"

Gilder blinked at it. "You're putting my name on it."

"Yes."

"...There's a heart around it."

"Yes."

"Why?" Gilder stared at her, and Clara smiled, getting back to work.

"Because you are always in my heart, Gilly."

Gilder quickly swiveled his head around with wide eyes, then made a face. "Please don't say that name in mixed company, I don't want it catching on."

"Afraid that people won't be as terrified of you if they find out that you're my kept man?" Clara asked, and Gilder paused right as he opened his mouth. She raised an eyebrow, and Gilder slumped back into his seat.

"Unfair. Trick question, Clara."

"They sometimes are." She chuckled. "But you're smart enough to recognize the trap now, at least."

"It is good work, though." Gilder admitted, glad to be past the awkwardness. "You know, sometimes I forget how good of a seamstress you are. That you're a dressmaker on top of everything else you are."

"We wear many hats." Clara shrugged. "Whatever the day requires. My stepfather was a ship's engineer before he became a captain in his own right, and remains a mechanic in his heart as well as being a father and a leader and a guardian. Besides, you have a talent of your own besides piracy. A wonderful talent." She smiled. "One I hope that you don't give up on just because we're together."

"I have given the matter some thought." Gilder rumbled, sizing her up. "But I'm not sure if you'd be willing."

The suggestion in his voice sent fresh butterflies in her stomach, and Clara set down her embroidering to reach for her wineglass. When her mouth and throat weren't as dry as they had suddenly become and the fluttering in her belly eased off a little, she looked across the table into his dark eyes.

"I'm listening."

"I want to paint you." Gilder said, setting his free hand on the table and stretching it halfway across. "A painting just for you and me."

Clara swallowed again, made dizzy by the low heat he spoke with. "And what would I be doing in this painting?" She asked him, reaching her own hand over towards his until just the hint of open space separated their hands.

He crossed the gap and interlaced their fingers, his palm down and hers palm up, and kept gazing into her eyes. "Lying in repose." Gilder said huskily. "Beckoning with your eyes, one arm over your head and the other sliding down your body."

Neither one of them spoke of what she might conceivably be wearing in this hypothetical portrait. There was no need to, she knew his intent clearly.

He wanted her wearing nothing.

"Perhaps." Clara whispered, not daring to blink, barely daring to breathe. "For your eyes only." He nodded once, and a sudden presence beside them made them both jerk apart as platters of fresh bread, cut fruit, and seasoned meat were placed down before them.

Anne smirked as she looked at the two pirate captains, tilting her body slightly to look at Clara in profile. "Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but the meal's up. Anything else I can get you two? Or should I assume that what you two really want isn't on the menu?"

Gilder blushed, and Clara giggled into her hand. "Anne, really. What would your mother say if she heard you talking so freely?"

"Mum's heard plenty more ribald things in her time." The young woman sniffed. "Besides, she trusts me to run this place while she's gone looking for my father in the Dark Rift."

The mention of that grim landmark, considered the end of the world, did much to quash the stirrings Gilder evoked in her.

"You didn't say your father was lost in the Dark Rift." Clara began slowly.

"And you didn't ask." Anne countered. "But yes. That's why mom went with them. Because my dad was lost someplace nobody's tried to go back to since then, and now Vyse is."

Clara looked over to Gilder, and in a silent look, the fear they both had for Vyse and Aika and Fina passed between them. But then, Gilder relaxed and smiled. Clara didn't understand why, but she had learned to trust his reactions. He'd been worried for all of three seconds, and then…

And then, suddenly, he wasn't. Vyse was sailing for the Dark Rift. Gilder wasn't concerned.

So Clara wouldn't be either.

"You never met him, did you?" Clara asked her carefully. Anne shook her head.

"No. Never did. I was born while he was deployed, and then he never came home. But mom never stopped loving him." The woman paused at that. "You know Vyse."

"Yes." Gilder and Clara both spoke at the same time. Anne fidgeted a little.

"Do...do you think he'll take care of her?" She asked hesitantly.

"Yes." Gilder nodded, firm and solid. "That man cares more than most captains do. He looks out for his own."

The new owner of the tavern bit her lip and looked away. "Do you think that my mom is going to find my father if she sails with him?"

Clara watched as Gilder closed his eyes and thought about it, considering his words.

"I have watched him do the impossible." Gilder finally said. "He convinced the Prince of the Empire to turn his back on his own people to help us escape. He's fought monsters and admirals and sailed where nobody ever dared before." He cracked his eyes open, adjusted his glasses, and nodded once at Anne. "If there's anyone who would stand a chance of helping your mother find your father, dead or alive after 20 years, it's Vyse."

"He is a Blue Rogue, dear." Clara added helpfully. "Blue Rogues never back down from a greater challenge. And we never leave anybody behind. Have hope. And be strong until then."

"Until when?" Anne asked hoarsely.

"Until he returns." Clara reassured her.

---

The Primrose

South Danel Strait, Mid-Ocean Entrance

124 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Clara knew her girls very well; they wore their hearts on their sleeves just like she did, and they all looked out for each other. None of them ever took shore leave alone, a safety precaution that only aided the legends about Calamity Clara and her crew of man-eating women. They looked out for each other, they shared their problems, they talked things over, and Clara never let a problem between two members of the crew fester. The gossip aboard the Primrose only lasted until it reached someone who decided to do something about it. The result was a bond of sisterhood that had proven to be unbreakable, a group of women of Clara's age and younger who had each other's backs. Always.

The downside of that unity was that when something was up that her girls didn't want her knowing about, Clara's usual method of ferreting the truth out of them was woefully inadequate. Like today, when she was conferring with her first officer about the course that the Primrose and the Claudia and the Redoubt flown between them were setting towards the Frontier Lands. The ships were bursting with stolen supplies and Crescent Island was waiting for them, and they were flying slower than usual.

"Captain, please. I know how to handle this." Hortensia reassured her again. "We're flying slower, but we have crews stationed and on alert for pirate activity, and we did hear that report that a large Valuan battleship flying alone had a skirmish with Baltor the Black-Bearded days ago. Any other Black Pirates will likely be laying low, and even if they aren't, none of them will be stupid enough to go up against a small fleet of our three ships." She tapped her hand against the navigation table and smirked. "Now shoo already. You have to take command of the Redoubt for today, which means that you need to leave here."

And then the girls on the bridge all giggled and looked anywhere but in her general direction. Clara tried to give them a look that they all ignored, and had to settle for an exasperated sigh.

"You're all up to something and I don't know what it is, and I don't like it. Can you at least promise me it's nothing that will lead to a mess that I have to clean up later?"

They all started giggling even harder, with one or two of them outright snorting into their hands to keep from collapsing into rolling laughter.

"Um." Hortensia was biting the inside of her cheek, hard, and failing to hide her grin. "It'll be a good mess?" She promised carefully.

Clara rolled her eyes. "I swear, you girls…" She threw her hands up in the air and huffed. "Fine! I can see that I'm not wanted." With one last wave to her girls, Clara flounced off to make the crossing to the Redoubt, which was stuffed with even more supplies than either of their primary ships. Tied to the Claudia and the Primrose, it didn't need much of a crew, so they had been rotating sailors over it primarily to help keep the ship on course and the guidelines between the three vessels intact.

When Clara stepped onto the bridge of the Redoubt, she wasn't surprised in the least to see a skeleton crew of men from the Claudia already on station and keeping an eye on things. They turned and gave her a respectful nod, and Clara smiled back. For all that his crew had been willing to support Gilder in his philandering ways Before, they were slowly beginning to adapt to the new state of being that was her and their captain staying together as a couple.

"Ma'am." The officer of the deck said. "Your presence is requested down in the captain's cabin."

Clara frowned. "Unusual. Why? Is something wrong?"

"There's an issue that requires a command decision. Captain Gilder elected to defer the choice to you."

"Hm." Clara breathed out slowly. "Very well. How are things here?"

The boatswain shrugged. "We'll manage the ship in your absence, ma'am. How do you feel about skyfish casserole for dinner?"

"Canned?" Clara asked, managing not to sigh when the man nodded. "It's not ideal, but it'll do. Thank you. I'll see you in a bit."

The boatswain's mouth twitched in the start of a smile that he suppressed, and Clara immediately wondered why. "As you say, ma'am."

Great. Now even Gilder's crew were keeping secrets. She would have to have a talk with him later about it.

"Carry on then, boatswain." Clara said, and made for the captain's cabin. She found the door unlocked as she stepped inside, and frowned for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Someone had hung thick curtains over the windows of the largest cabin on the ship, and only the light of about a dozen candles strewn about gave the room any glow at all.

She came to a stop when she saw that the captain's bunk had been removed and replaced with a larger one, resplendent in soft blue bedsheets with a thick white and red comforter and more pillows than a bed had a right to. And sitting directly opposite from it, with an easel already erected with a canvas on it was Gilder, dressed in a red and black satin robe and preparing a palette of paints.

As the door swung shut behind Clara, Gilder looked over to her with those dark eyes of his and smirked at her. Smirked.

"Welcome aboard, my love." Gilder greeted her softly. "You're right on time."

Her heart picked up speed and thumped hard in her chest, and Clara stared between the bed and him and his blank canvas. "You...You set this up?"

"Your girls helped." Gilder's smirk eased into a warmer smile. "I had to bribe them a little first, though. It may be a while before they completely forgive me for how much of an ass I was to you over the years." He inclined his head at her. "Do you remember a conversation we had recently?"

"...Yes." Clara swallowed. "You want to paint me."

He blinked a few times rapidly, and the suave charisma of his faded. "If you still wish it. We don't have to. I won't force you into doing this."

"This will just be for the two of us." She said, seeking clarification. "Nobody will see this picture but us."

"It will be a gift to you." Gilder replied. "Something I never did for any other woman I ever knew. Because I never let any other woman get this close to me. You can burn it after I'm done if you want, or you can hang it aboard your ship. Or you can hide it away where only you can find it. Or maybe some day you'll want to share it with someone else." He lifted his shoulders and then dropped them slowly. "I'm good at two things, Clara. Being an air pirate and making art. I'm trying to be good at a third."

"What's the third thing?" She wondered aloud, her head dizzy as she saw him lean forward and caught a glimpse of bare skin underneath his robe.

"Loving you the way you deserve to be loved." Gilder told her.

All of Clara's worries disappeared in an instant after that. She smiled and locked the door behind her, then sauntered over to the bed, slowly tugging her gloves off.

"Then perhaps you can help me get out of this dress." She suggested to him. "Because I want you to paint me like one of your Nasrian girls."

He set the palette of paint off to the side and stood up, moving to stand in front of her. His strong hands went for the buttons along the front of her dress, but his eyes looked only to hers as the heat built up between them in the darkness of a cabin that their crews had prepared without her knowledge.

"As you wish." He growled out, undoing the lace ribbon tied in a bow just below her throat.

---

Crescent Island

129 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

"Wow." Brabham wheezed as Clara disembarked from the Primrose, walking hand in hand with Gilder as they descended down the ramp onto solid land. The old engineer who'd volunteered to stay behind on the island with Izmael stroked his beard as he sized up his former captain and Clara. "You two are looking cozy these days."

"Good to see you too, you old coot." Gilder grinned. "Vyse been by yet?"

"Oh, yeah." Brabham chuckled, gesturing out behind him to where his shorter, stouter compatriot Izmael was hard at work pounding nails into wooden boards for house frames. "You just missed him, they sailed out yesterday and headed north. That ship of his is a dream to work on. If I didn't have Aika and that Lapen kid helping me out though, it would've taken me forev…"

"Wait, wait wait." Gilder let go of Clara's arm and held up a hand. "Lapen? As in Loose Cannon Lapen? He's on the crew?" Clara was just as stunned as her lover was, but for a different reason. Lapen had been another adopted orphan that Centime had picked up a year or two after she'd been brought into the fold, and while the kid was a genius with machines, he'd always been a hothead, dismissive of Centime's care and comfort. The last that Clara had heard of him before Centime went missing was that he'd run off to make a name for himself, and she'd felt no need to seek him out and try to get him to straighten up. He'd never sought her out either.

Brabham nodded to Gilder's question. "Yup. They've got him working down in engineering. He was still patching up holes in the deck armor when they pulled in. Good with a wrench, but a hothead. It'll work against him if he's not careful."

Gilder looked over to Clara, and she ended up shrugging in return. "His temper was always his biggest flaw." Gilder gave her a look, and she resolved herself to explaining her complicated surrogate family to him in excruciating detail later. "Anyhow. We were hoping you'd be able to help us out."

"Ah, what have you done to the poor girl now, Gilder?" Brabham groaned, turning his sharp eyes up towards the Claudia with a visible wince. "You have to treat your women better."

Clara found herself giggling in spite of herself. "Yes, Gilder, you really do need to treat your women better."

"Now I'm catching it from all sides." Gilder muttered softly before raising his voice. "Brabham. Our ships are fine, we haven't taken any damage. But we do have our hands on some new engine components taken straight from a Valuan fortress. They're planning on upgrading all their ships to make them capable of blazing through sky rifts now that the technology's been proven. I'm keen on getting our own ships up to snuff before they can roll out the upgrades Armada-wide. Can you handle it?"

"Gah, ask for a moon, why don't you?" Brabham groaned. "You'd better be helping me out with it, I'm old, damnit! I can't do it all myself anymore!"

"Relax, old man." Gilder cheered him up. "That's why we're here. You take whoever you need from the crew, and I'm sure Clara has a few sailors on hers who know their way around an engine as well. Whoever you don't need to get our ships refitted, we'll send to Izmael to help get this island up and running. And the best part?" He turned and gestured to the Redoubt, floating to the side of their flagships. "We even brought you a ship of your own for when you need to sail out for more supplies or you just get bored. That engine's already been replaced with a sky rift engine, courtesy of the Valuans."

"There's a story there and I'm too old and too grouchy to care." Brabham said laconically, waving a hand over his head of thinning blond hair. "Fine, fine. We'll get your engines put in. But it'll take a while, even with help. Figg'rin out new machines takes me a while, even if I did get to give the ones on the Delphinus a long once-over before it took off."

"It's fine, Brabham." Clara reassured the old man. "I think we could use a rest anyways. And now that we're here on Crescent Island and can lend you a hand for a while, you and Izmael might actually get this island looking decent by the time Vyse gets back from wherever he was headed."

"If only people knew." Gilder hummed cheerfully as Brabham sauntered away to start yelling at his crew and issuing orders.

"Knew what?" Clara blinked, wondering what had him so amused as he looked at her.

"Calamity Clara." Gilder explained, never breaking his stride. "A warrior woman who leaves disasters in her wake and haunts men's nightmares. And for all your daring, there's this side of you that few other people get to see. That there's a warm and caring woman behind the Blue Rogue who makes her own dresses, dreamed of romance, and won the heart of a miserable pirate like me."

"Are you trying to butter me up or make me feel bad for falling in love with you?" Clara asked him, amused and feigning insult.

"Neither." Gilder said, taking her hand and squeezing it. "I just find it amusing that for someone with your reputation, there's always another side to you. Like right now. You shake the skies with the cry of the Blue Rogues, and yet you look forward to peace and quiet."

She leaned into his side. "The fighting can't last forever. If Valua fell apart tomorrow, and there was peace, what would you do?"

"Same thing I do now, I suppose." Gilder hummed. "Go after the jackasses who think they run the world."

"If you weren't a pirate, Gilder."

"Oh." He thought about it. "You know? I don't think I've ever thought about that before." He shifted his stance and squeezed her hand. "What about you?"

Clara had thought about it. A lot. And more times than not, she ended up dreaming about how happy her parents had been, sailing around Arcadia, her mother making dresses and her father the captain of his own merchant vessel.

So she leaned into him and let him brace the weight of her as she looked over an island that was slowly being converted into something more than a landmark with a mountain jutting up above it; an island that was being turned into a home.

"I think about it all the time." She whispered to him. "I could learn to love peace and quiet."

Gilder kissed the side of her forehead. "I suppose we could stay here a few days, give you some then."

It was a good plan, and Clara loved the time that they spent on building something, instead of tearing things down. She loved the relaxation of it.

Relaxation that lasted up until what was left of the Nasrian Home Fleet showed up on their doorstep, at Vyse's invitation.

---

*G*

The North Danel Strait

137 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Finding out that Vyse had ended up saving Admiral Bast Komullah and the remainder of the Nasrian Home Fleet from complete destruction at the hands of a Valuan task force hadn't been all that surprising to Gilder. He'd traveled with the kid, heard the stories of his adventures from his own mouth. He'd been there with him when they broke out of the Grand Fortress in what had been Vyse's Second breakout from that walled compound.

Finding out that Vyse had then turned around and offered the Nasrians temporary safe harbor for them to effect ship repairs in exchange for help in building Crescent Island into a base to be proud of, however, that had left him stunned for a good hour. The kid really did have a power to make people change. Mercenaries and those on the bounty board were turned into crewmembers. Proud defenders in search of vengeance and blood, like Khazim, instead found purpose not in an endless grudge, but in a mission to cripple their enemy's ambitions from afar. The Nasrians had never really approved of the Blue Rogues before, Clara had gently informed him after Komullah had swept the two captains up in a bear hug and congratulated the Blue Rogues on 'raising such a fine young warrior.' It had always been a matter of tolerating the Blue Rogues when the Nasultan had been in power, because they didn't go after Nasrian merchant ships, only Valuan ones.

Now with the Nasultan dead and Nasrad's military on the run, Komullah had all but thrown the doors wide open for the Blue Rogues to sail openly in Nasrian skies. Gilder found himself almost asking Clara to administer the Oath to him after that, but he held back. It would keep. In time, they would be going after Valua hard, but for the moment, there was a different matter to focus on.

Namely, testing out the new and improved engines installed on the Claudia and the Primrose by passing through the closest sky rift, and then making their way to the recently reported land of Ixa'taka to find Centime and offer him the same sky rift engine gear.

Funny how both of those objectives had led them to the North Danel Strait, a shifting vortex of winds that had wrecked more ships than could be counted. Or perhaps it was poetic justice. Valua had invaded Nasr through the North Danel Strait in a surprise attack that Vyse had tried to warn the Valuan authorities about, but been handily ignored and dismissed.

Gilder liked the thought of 'invading' Valuan airspace in the same way.

He and Clara had been inseparable, taking turns staying on each other's ships on alternating nights, but for this crossing neither of them had been willing to leave the fate of their ship or their crew up to chance.

Gilder stood on the bridge of his ship, and he knew that if he were to break out his telescope and look over to the Primrose he would see his dear Clara on hers. He almost did, until his first officer cleared his throat.

"Sir," Clyde said. "All stations report ready. The full engineering team is on standby in the engine room and are reporting nominal readings. We're as ready as we're going to be."

"Are we?" Gilder asked, unfolding his arms as he stared at the thick curtain of winds. Powerful updrafts and downdrafts were the trademark of skyrifts, the walls between the domains that crushed the hopes and ambitions of kingdoms and empires. Or they had, anyways.

They were living in a new world now, with Vyse and his merry band of Rogues, mercenaries and misfits apparently on a whirlwind tour of Mid-Ocean before turning for the Dark Rift and the edge of the world. The North Danel Strait was equally deadly, if less mysterious.

"Any signal from the Primrose?" Gilder asked his first mate. Clyde nodded.

"They'll follow your lead, captain." Clyde told him. "She will follow your lead."

"That'll be a change of pace." Gilder smiled, and his crew chuckled a bit. He let the small taste of humor roll over him for a little longer, then rolled his shoulders and nodded. "All right, let's get flying. We're wasting daylight, and there's no way I want to do this when we can't see."

They started ahead and slipped into the raging current, and instantly the ship was shuddering around them. Gilder braced himself on a rail and barked out orders, and the helmsman quickly shifted the controls to follow them.

Any sailor knew about updrafts and downdrafts; storms and changes in temperature would often bring them about. The shift from the hotter climes of Nasr to the more temperate bands of the rest of Mid-Ocean often caught the unwary by surprise in how their ships would suddenly plummet a lunaleague or shoot up just as high. The sky rifts of the North Danel Strait didn't play by the same rules. They were tossed about with almost no discernible pattern on the interior, and there were only two constants as moisture collected on the glass of the viewports; going in they'd dipped down, and coming out on the other side they'd been shoved skyward.

They hung in the center of the strait, with one wall of wind behind them and the other side blazing ahead of them in the distance. And they were low enough that Gilder decided to crack open a porthole window and peer below, to see how close they'd come to the verge of the Lower Sky where moonstone engines and altitude compressors gave out.

It wasn't the Lower Sky that commanded his attention, however. It was a craggy outcropping of land at the ragged edge of the border between the Central and Lower Skies at the center of the strait, and an untold number of shipwrecks that were littered over its surface. From the iron construction of modern Valuan warships to the wooden-hulled vessels flown by most others, the graveyard spoke of untold suffering and loss.

And those were merely the wrecks that had been fortunate enough to crash in open view. Gilder shivered to think of how many more had crashed into the abyss, lost forever.

"Right." Gilder said, closing the window back up tight and clearing his throat. "Get us to a proper altitude, and then prepare the signal lamp. We need to get a message to Clara about making it through the other side. How did the new engine hold up?"

"Engine held up fine, sir." The helmsman answered him with a grimace. "The fault's mine; I didn't know what to expect. We should have an easier time on the outbound journey, now that I know what a sky rift feels like."

Gilder nodded, finding himself thirsting for a stiff drink. Clyde looked at him knowingly.

"How do you suppose Vyse handled these sky rifts?"

"In his ship?" Gilder thought about it. "I don't think he would have even noticed the turbulence."

True to the helmsman's prediction, the second leg of their trip through the North Danel Strait proved to be much easier than the first part had been. Their ships adjusted their altitude to take advantage of the shifting updrafts and downbursts, and they fought their way through the storm on engines powerful enough to blaze through the currents. It made for an exhausting, terrifying, exhilarating day that had Gilder smiling.

His smile only lasted until Clara spent the night in his bed. After some very soft cuddling while he swaddled her in magic-warmed blankets to help with her monthly cramps, she told him that she wanted to do some more traveling to reconnect with some other Blue Rogues that she knew. It seemed a good idea, as it was a perfect time to rally the forces, and Gilder had thought she meant Dyne. Then she told him flat out that they were going to sail to Ixa'taka via the North Ocean after crossing the sky rift that separated it from Mid-Ocean to go spend some time with Centime and his wife Carol.

His good mood crashed hard at the realization that she wanted to take him to meet her step-parents.

---

*C*

The Continent of Ixa'taka

150 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Of course, the problem with going looking for Centime and his wife Carol and the myriad children that Gilder recalled Vyse speaking about was that neither of them really had a good idea about where to go looking. The point was rendered moot when they caught sight of unnatural gunsmoke rising in the distance from the forest canopy of the continent close to a large river, and the sight of a convoy of lightly armed Valuan ships and scouting destroyers jutting up from the terrain.

Clara's hand tightened on his arm as they stood on the deck of the Primrose, and she hissed. "I thought that Vyse had cleared them all out."

"The main presence, sure. But how long's it been since then?" Gilder asked her. "No, those are scout ships testing the waters. And from the looks of it, they're raising hell down there."

"In my stepfather's own backyard?" Clara said darkly. "Not while I can help it." She let go of his arm and smiled. "Gather five of your best men in close combat, I'll get five of my girls. We head down to deal with their troops on the ground while our ships are pounding theirs to burning wrecks."

The climate of Ixa'taka was unlike any that Clara had dealt with before. She'd faced skies full of rain and the hot, dry air of Nasr, the more temperate band of the Frontier Lands and the staticky feel that came from the stormclouds which drifted away from Valua. None of it compared to the feeling of warm, wet, stifling atmosphere that she got in Ixa'taka. Flying through its skies after passing through the remains of a massive iron net that had been torn clean through she'd felt it, but at least there she had the flowing currents of being on a ship on the move to rely on.

She knew how to fight in a dress; her love of high-ankled boots helped a lot in that regard, and the extra fabric she used to hide not only pistols but throwing knives and daggers as well. It was a ruse as much as it was a fashion choice for her to make her enemies see her as a helpless woman and then immediately regret it. But all of that fighting had been done in environments where her sweat was instantly wicked away in a hot dry wind or developed much slower in cooler air. She had respite from none of it now, and her petticoat felt plastered to her body. The air had a hazy feel to it from moisture that never quite settled on the ground, and it was all slowing her down. At least her clothes breathed; she wasn't sure how Gilder managed in that thick leather duster of his as they led the charge against a squad of Valuans caught red-handed in the act of trying to shove the native people into cages. At least they had been trying; a downed ship of obviously native construction had been lying in a crumpled heap nearby, and when Clara and Gilder and company had come charging in, they'd found a trio of three young women, younger even than Aika and Fina, fighting bravely to hold back the invaders and keep them from taking off again.

The Claudia and the Primrose opening up on the landed Valuan ships from above had quickly settled that problem, and turned it into a ground engagement.

For better or worse, Clara thought forlornly. Then she drove the thought from her mind and let out a shout, firing her next pistol at the Valuan spellmage standing guard by the cages she and her girls were running towards. The shot clipped him, but didn't take him down, and the soldier raised up a focusing stave and took aim at them, glowing with yellow light.

An Electri spell. Or worse.

"Scatter!" Clara shouted, and her squad split apart, denying the mage the chance to strike multiple targets in a line. Her girls reacted much quicker than she could in a matted down dress, and though she dodged the bulk of the terrifying blast (Electrum, it was an Electrum spell) it still had a powerful enough charge to catch her in the side, and send her collapsing to the ground spasming in pain. It was terrifying in a way that only yellow magic could be. Even the power of the red moon only burned. Yellow magic made your body rebel against itself, and it was doing so again. As her head spun from the aftershocks, she groaned and unclenched her jaw, glad that she hadn't bitten her tongue off.

The mage advanced on her, still crackling with power. "You picked the wrong time to show up, pirate." He growled, and leveled his staff down at her for a perfect point blank shot.

A different shot ended up blowing a hole through the armored chestplate he wore and knocking the spellmage backwards, dead before he hit the ground. Clara finally shook off the lingering effects of the debilitating electrocution and pushed herself over onto her back, squinting up through the sunlight filtering down through the tree canopy. She looked up and saw Gilder and smiled weakly as her beloved lowered a smoking pistol and then extended a hand down to her.

"Much as I love seeing you on your back, my sweet, we're not undressed for the occasion."

"True." Clara said, grunting as Gilder took her hand and pulled her back up to her feet. "And there's the more important matter about my undress being for your eyes only." Injured but not out, she managed a sultry look in her eyes as Gilder pulled her to him, smirking that stupid smirk of his. Then her eyes shifted as she saw movement in the corner of her eye, and his did as well.

In one fluid movement she drew her next single shot pistol and aimed under his arm to a soldier coming up behind him, and he did the same for one at her back. Their gunshots went off simultaneously, and two more bodies dropped to the forest floor.

"Moons, I love you." Gilder sighed, and she swooned a little at the feel of his muscular body pressed against hers. Clara mustered a smile back more innocent than how she felt and pecked a kiss on the corner of his mouth, then turned back towards the cages full of Ixa'takans that the Valuans had been guarding.

Using the sword taken from the captain of the Redoubt two continents ago, Gilder smashed the lock off of the three cages, and Clara pulled the pins from the hinges so that when the natives pushed against it, the doors didn't open so much as they collapsed and allowed them to spill out of them like a flood of humanity.

An older man with graying hair stopped while the rest picked up weapons from the fallen soldiers and raced into battle against the remaining Valuans with wild cries. The old fellow stared at Gilder and Clara, curious and cautious and mistrusting.

"Who you, easterners?" He demanded, his voice thick with a native accent as he spoke in the trade language used across Mid-Ocean. "Why you help?"

Clara didn't wait for Gilder to try and suave his way into the fellow's good graces. She reached for honesty. "I'm Clara of the Blue Rogues, and this is Gilder. We came to Ixa'taka to find Centime. We came to help."

The man blinked. "Blue Rogue." He repeated, and his face softened. "We know Blue Rogues. King say...king say Vyse good."

Clara beamed in relief. "Yes. Vyse, and Centime. We were looking for Centime. Do you know where Centime is?"

Amidst the sound of cannonfire pounding down on the Valuan defensive positions that the rushing Ixa'takans hadn't yet reached, the old man blinked and looked up towards their ships still in the sky. And he pointed.

Clara paused and looked back over her shoulder, and instantly felt her heart jump into her throat as a third ship, old and faded from the years, but still somehow flying, settled into place alongside the Primrose.

The moss-green Iron Clad.

They'd been looking for Centime, and Centime had found them instead.

---

Horteka, Ixa'taka

151 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Docked adjacent to the Iron Clad at its familiar berth at the rear of the village, Clara marveled at the reality of having her adopted mother standing in her parlor while she fitted herself in a new garment that she'd tailored after receiving it from the natives in thanks for the rescue of their people. She heard the clink of a teacup as Carol set it back in its saucer, likely to set it down on the endtable beside her plush pink couch.

"So, tell me about this beau of yours." Carol said, and something in her voice spoke of a tremor that Clara had been expecting. Of concern. Carol wasn't telling her that Gilder was a terrible choice in a man, like Centime's eyes had as soon as he'd gotten over the joy of seeing her again for the first time in years enough to recognize who else had come with her. For all that Centime was warm and loving, he could be remarkably stilted and authoritarian when it came to his children doing something that he considered foolish or reproachful. Like falling for a blackguard who openly declared himself and his crew of knaves an 'air pirate with his own moral compass' as Gilder had earlier. Centime's wary face had darkened when he discovered that Gilder wasn't even a proper Blue Rogue, and Clara had never cared about that. Her adopted father did.

Carol might not be openly disapproving yet, but she was clearly sounding the waters and holding back her judgment.

"I met Gilder the year after you and papa went missing." Clara started off. She finished making the last of her adjustments to the hem of her skirt and slid it up her toned legs, admiring the lines of her calves before the lighter, brightly colored Ixa'takan fabric covered them. "We were both in port at Nasrad, and he...He was funny and warm and charming. He was everything I'd ever wanted to find in a man."

"Clara, that was years ago." Carol protested. "You've been together with him all this time? Are you two married? Have you had children?"

Clara sighed and reached for the chest wrap that she had made out of silk in the Ixa'takan style, binding it around her breasts. "We weren't...we weren't together all of this time. Gilder never felt right about getting into a long-term relationship, he was always up front about it. I wasn't the first woman he had a fling with. And after that night, he took off and left, and there were others after me."

Clara wasn't stupid; she knew that, in enough time, Carol would figure out the truth of the man that her daughter had fallen for. Gilder still carried the nickname of 'The Unfettered' on the bounty boards, for crying out loud. It was like ripping off a bandage, and she was inclined to get it over with quickly. To let her step-mother learn the truth of who Gilder had been on her terms, and not later on when she could tell Centime about it and they would try to blindside Gilder with their fury.

"And yet he's here with you now." Carol finally said, delicately trying to work her way around the feel of it.

"Yes." Clara finished securing her chest wrap and reached for the last garment in the pile. She was already feeling much improved with the heavy layers of her usual outfit replaced. "I'm not saying that there were days, or weeks, or months where I wasn't hurting. I fell in love with him in five days, mama. Five days of shore leave was all it took for me to realize he was the man I had been looking for. That he was the man that my mother had hoped I would meet someday. It...just took him longer to feel the same way."

"What changed, baby?" Carol asked her oldest adopted daughter. "You wouldn't let any man stomp all over your heart, so if he's here with you, if he's yours then something changed."

Clara slipped the midriff-hugging vest over her shoulders and worked the buttons as she finally walked out from behind the privacy curtain, smiling when she saw her stepmother's careworn face leaking concern for her.

"Vyse happened." Clara explained, walking over and sitting down beside her stepmother. "He'd been reunited with his lady loves after I took Aika and Fina to Nasrad, and…"

"Wait." Carol held up a hand, her eyes wide and going wider by the second. "Loves? As in…" The older, mouse-brown haired woman blinked rapidly. Clara giggled.

"You didn't know?" Clara asked her. "You couldn't see it?"

"But how would that even work?" Carol whispered, staring off into empty air, holding up her empty hands as if trying to make a third manifest between them. "They both love him?"

Clara pulled her mother into a gentle side hug. "And each other." She said, kissing Carol's cheek. "I was on board the Primrose while Gilder was on the Delphinus and I fully expected him to run again. He always ran, but especially then after they'd broken out of the Grand Fortress, I knew he'd run." She paused for a beat. "But he didn't."

Carol shook off the shock of the news that Vyse and Aika and Fina were in an unheard of agreed on love triangle and tried to catch up to the conversation. The poor woman. Clara loved Carol, but her stepmother could be so old fashioned sometimes. She wondered what she'd say when she found out that there were women on her crew who were couples as tightly bound as any man and woman could be.

"Why didn't he?" Carol finally asked.

"Because of Vyse. Because Vyse told him something that terrified Gilder so badly that he got back on his ship, and instead of flying off, he stayed put. That was where I found him, in his quarters on the Claudia pulling down all the portraits of the women he'd been with over the years and stuffing them in a sack. He was taking down every picture. Every picture but mine."

"He doesn't deserve you." Carol finally got out, her voice tight and only a little angered. "You're my precious girl, someone to be cherished, not used and thrown away."

"He knows that, mama." Clara reassured her stepmother. "He's still scared of it some days. That he's going to wake up and I won't be here. That he isn't good enough for me."

"He isn't good enough for you!" Carol pressed.

Clara pursed her lips. Well. So much for a rational discussion about who she could and could not love. She loved Carol, loved her stepmother, but the woman just couldn't see.

So she stood up from the sofa, walked over to her desk, and took out a waterproofed leather carrying tube as long as her arm. Clara walked back over and set it in her mother's lap.

"You told me once that you fell in love with papa because he always treated you as the most important person in his life. That no matter what else was going on, or how many other people he had to take care of, he always took the time to look out for you, to make sure that you knew that he loved you. That you were always in his heart and in his thoughts." Clara said. "And my mother told me to find someone that I could love with my whole heart." Then she gestured to the scroll case.

Hesitantly curious, Carol opened up the end of it and looked inside, seeing the edge of a rolled up length of canvas. She glanced up to Clara, and the red-haired Blue Rogue gave her a short nod of affirmation.

So Clara watched and held her breath as her stepmother carefully pulled out the canvas and unrolled it. The older woman had it about halfway undone before she froze and there was a hitch in her breathing. Clara just smiled and waited, trying to hold back the irregular thumping in her heart.

Carol looked from the start of the painted portrait up to Clara with wide eyes. Clara looked down and saw the start of it. In a dimmed room under candlelight, she lay in repose with a hand resting against her throat as she looked towards the artist with trusting, alluring eyes. It was the portrait that Gilder had wanted to make of her, a portrait that he had done for no other woman who ever sat for him or that he had ever bedded.

Carol couldn't bring herself to unroll the rest of it. Clara reached down and did it for her, forcing her stepmother to take in the sight of all of her, resplendently, gloriously nude. It stirred up a familiar longing in her as Clara remembered how erotic those two hours had been, all of her laid bare to his burning gaze and the strokes of his brush.

Clara had always known that she was a beautiful woman. Until Gilder had finished his work and shown it to her after the paint had dried and they recovered from the sweaty mess of the lovemaking that had followed it, she hadn't known what he thought of her appearance. Under the mastery of his art, he had shown it to her in a way that his words, that his caresses and kisses could not. He had given it to her as token and promise.

There would be no other woman but her who he would love. That his heart was hers and hers alone, if she wanted it.

Carol brought a hand to cover her mouth, and Clara startled when she saw tears gathering in the woman's eyes. Not tears of dismay, she had seen those too often growing up. Tears of awe.

"He painted this?" Carol asked, and Clara nodded. It was surreal to watch her mother lower her hand away from her face and trace shaking fingertips over the surface of the dried oil paint of the canvas, following the curve of her body. "This is how he sees you?"

A lump built up in her throat as Clara looked under the surface of her form and saw the nuance and artistry of it. Beyond the physical, Gilder had taken such care in her pose, in her eyes and her smile and revealed the hidden depths of her.

Beyond the smile, the sadness. Behind the confidence, the doubts. And how all of that somehow faded for an instant in that room when she had bared all of herself to him and glowed to be seen for who she really was, to be seen by him.

To be seen by someone who loved all of her, the woman and the warrior and the worrier wrapped up in one. How she felt freer under his gaze than she'd ever been in her life.

"You're so beautiful." Carol uttered, looking at the portrait of her for a few seconds more before rolling it back up, stowing it away. Hiding what was meant for Clara's eyes, for Gilder's eyes alone. And she looked up at Clara after, unshed tears making her eyes shimmer. "Why did you show me this?"

"So you would understand." Clara told her stepmother. "He's not the same man he was 5 years ago. He's so much better."

Carol sniffed once. "And you love him?"

"With my whole heart, mama." Clara beamed back, realizing she was getting misty-eyed as well. She took the scroll case back from her stepmother and sank back onto the couch, holding the other woman gently in a hug that they both needed. "He sees me. He's a good man. He is good enough for me. You just don't see it yet."

"You see it." Carol said, kissing her cheek. "And I'll make your stepfather see it. Vyse changed him that much?"

"Vyse is going to change everything, mama." Clara promised the woman, feeling it burn in her heart as unbreakable truth. "He's going to change the world."

"So long as those girls are with him, you mean."

"You won't tell daddy about them, will you?" Clara asked her. "What they have is so beautiful, but I don't know what other people would think if they knew."

"It's none of their business. And it's none of your stepfather's concern either." Carol shrugged. She wiped at her eyes and laughed. "Come on. I've had my tea and you look rather lovely in your new outfit. I'm keen to see what dear Gilder will do when he sees you in it." Then the older woman smirked. "Remind him that you can't spend all day locked in his bedroom, though, there are still things to be done."

"Mama!" Clara blushed, jerking up to her feet as her stepmother laughed.

A few minutes later, Carol laughed all the more when Gilder, who had been roped into helping Centime with the install of the new sky rift engine modifications onto the Iron Clad, took one look at Clara in her sarong and her sleeveless vest, and promptly dropped a large wrench onto the toe of his boot. He managed to refrain from absconding with Clara to his bedroom until after dinner that night, but he made up for it afterwards. Vigorously.

---

Horteka, Outer Shore

154 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

The children around Centime's expanded campground and recently modified harbor had been curious to their new visitors, but relaxed as soon as word got round that Clara was another Blue Rogue like their dad, and even better, was a big sister to all of them. They were all darling things, orphans rescued from everywhere. From the struggling and conquered islands of Mid-Ocean, from the lands under the red moon of Nasr, and even a girl of Ixa'takan blood. Full of energy and life, they had danced around Clara and Gilder and the men and women under their command at the party held in celebration the day after their arrival. They had danced and peppered the adults with their innocent (Or at least, innocent sounding) questions about Clara and Gilder, and she'd taken a great amount of pleasure in watching them wind Gilder up to a blushing, sputtering mess while her stepmother smiled behind a hand so the children wouldn't get ideas.

There was still friction between Centime and Gilder at times, but her beloved air pirate had the tacit approval of 'Mama Carol' after the night they had talked in private. That, more than anything, confused Centime, leaving him unable to growl in dismissal or welcome him completely. Clara found her stepfather's need to 'defend his little girl's honor' incredibly amusing, given how thoroughly she and Gilder 'Knew' each other, in every sense of the word.

It was made all the more heartening by how Gilder had turned his natural charm up as high as Clara had ever seen it. He'd won her heart with his vamping,and it was what he went back to now. His offer to paint a family portrait had been a masterstroke, in her eyes. While the children played and ran around them all wildly, Clara sat between her stepmother and her stepfather with an easy smile, her eyes never leaving Gilder's face as he looked between his canvas and the subjects of his work.

Every time he caught her eyes, the sober look of concentration he had faded just a touch for a smile of acknowledgement and belonging.

"I can't believe that you volunteered to help train the Ixa'takans to fly and fight. It seems so out of character for you, papa."

"After all the children I've adopted over the years, Clara, it surprises you that I'd adopt an entire people?" Centime countered. Clara giggled as Gilder cleared his throat and gave the elder Blue Rogue another look.

"Centime, I know it's difficult, but please, try not to move around while I'm painting you. Ixa'taka only gets so much unobscured sunlight what with all the rain."

"How are you planning on getting all our children into the portrait?"

"Getting children to sit still for any length of time is impossible, old man, you ought to know that." Gilder countered with an innocent voice. "I'll be sketching character studies after this with some graphite sticks and I'll add them in after."

"Will you be putting yourself in the picture as well, love?" Clara asked him, which earned a fresh sputter of incredulity from Centime and another chastisement from Gilder for her old man to hold still.

"Hm, maybe."

Centime wasn't quite so receptive to her idea. "This is supposed to be a family portrait, Gilder, and…"

"And I am family." Gilder snapped back, with a fire that he usually reserved for fighting Valuans and Black Pirates. He leaned out from the portrait, holding his brush like a dagger. "If that's too much for you, then just say so. Because I'm more than happy to pack up my bags and go looking for Dyne now that you've got the engine modifications well in hand. I don't need you and I don't need your Code. I have the love of a wonderful woman and skies that I'm fighting to keep free from oppression, and a dream that I thought was impossible until Vyse showed up out of thin air and put the fear of the Moons into Valua." Gilder's face eased off as he looked at Clara again. "We came here because she asked if we could. But she'll leave if I ask her to."

And she would, Clara knew. She was already a heartbeat away from standing up, hugging her stepmother, and storming out.

Centime didn't react the way she expected him to, and definitely not the way Gilder had. The Blue Rogue who could father no children of his own and instead became a father to children who had no others to claim blinked three times, then sank in on himself and finally smiled for the first time in days.

"Good. My daughter deserves a man willing to stand up for her. Clara, you have my blessing to marry him if you wish."

Gilder went pale. "Wait, what? Marriage? That's not - we haven't…"

Clara laughed and leaned over to kiss her stepfather on the cheek. "Thank you, papa. When I get around to asking him, I'll let you know."

Gilder kept sputtering as Centime, the devious man that he was, smirked and looked up at the man who had claimed Clara's heart. "Gilder, my boy. Go ahead and paint yourself behind Clara. Feel free to have your hand resting on my shoulder if you like. You've earned it."

When Clara was 8, her father was arrested and executed. When she was 11, her mother had died of illness. When she was 13, she'd let Centime and Carol formally adopt her. When she was 21 as a new captain, she lost them. When she was 22, she fell in love with Gilder.

Now at 27, Clara looked on her family, a bizarre mixture of adoptees and crew and pure Gilder with distant Blue Rogues like Vyse and Dyne over the horizon, and knew how right her long-dead mother had been. She had grown up to be someone wonderful, and nobody in her life that she loved ever told her she wasn't.

---

Author's Note: Hey. Heyy. Did you know that this story is also being cross-posted on Archive Of Our Own? I'd give you the link but FFNet doesn't believe in allowing hyperlinks. AO3 does. You know what else is on AO3? More author commentary on chapters and moments from the game I liked. You know what else is on AO3? A companion story to BTR that you have to be a registered user to view meant for mature audiences. It's called "Between Three Rogues: The Bedroom Diaries" and has all the stuff I felt wasn't appropriate for the main story. You know. In case you needed another reason to broaden your fanfiction website horizons...