The Dawns slipped out into the hall from there prison. The light in the hallway was half-blinding after the complete darkness of their room, but Kalli's eyes quickly adjusted. Her fingers were clamped over Maellyn's, sweat and strain mingling between their hands. The muddled thunder of voices and boots crashing against the ceiling above their heads was deafening. Kalli winced as the vessel shuddered, a crash of wood grinding against wood, then the sound of something heavy tumbling down the stairs.

A body lay in a crumpled pile in the hallway. His blood shimmered faintly across the tired wood of the walls. A dark, almost black puddle of blood seeped across the floor like some kind of gruesome shadow, filling the hall with the coppery scent of blood and death. The body still had a long knife protruding from his chest; the knife had caught him right through the heart. "Phoenix…" Kalli whispered. "Just what in the Phoenix's name is going on up there?"

"War." Mae whispered back, pulling her wife closer to the stairwell. The Dragon pressed her fingers to the fallen man's neck and shook her head. "He's dead." She said simply, darkly.

Kalli wondered which side he'd been fighting for.

Mae carefully stepped over the body, her booted feet settling on the floor with determined clinks. Kalli gathered her skirts in her free hand, pulling the fabric up around her knees to avoid the blood. 'That's silly of me. This dress is already ruined, already covered in blood.' The Phoenix stretched her legs, making it over the body without slipping, or further ruining her skirts.

The sunlight pooled at the base of the stairs, the open sky right above them. The two Dawns stood blinded and motionless as their eyes adjusted to the morning light. Shadows danced across their eyes, people running across the space at the top of the stairs. There was a distinct sound of something large and heavy hitting the water.

The Dawns climbed the stairs, looking out across an ocean of madness. Men and woman cried out both in pain and in victory, and blood was spilling like the tide across the wooden deck. Another, far lager ship had tied itself to the railing and people poured over the connection.

Maellyn and Kalli stood apart from the majority of the chaos, Kalli still clinging to the handrail on the stair. They stood in amazement, shocked at the wild war going on around them. They didn't remain apart for long.

A large man, covered in dirt and tattoos pulled a dagger from the back of the man he'd just stabbed, turning his sights to the newly arrived Dawns. He grinned wickedly, advancing toward Mae with a deadly kind of determination. The Dragon quickly fell back into a guard position, her knees bent and her body crouched.

The Dragon made quite a small target.

The pirate advanced on her, his wicked, toothless smile sending shivers up Kalli's spine. 'He sees us as an easy kill, I suppose, being little and female like we are. Well, he's about to learn different I think…'

Mae drove the blade into the man's chest, pushing with her whole body. The man gagged, blood dribbling down his chin. Mae caught the heavy man as he slid to the floor, unable to get out from him. A second man, this one thinner, advanced on the Dawns with twin long blades in each hand. He held them like he knew how to handle them. 'Mae will never get out from under the other man in time…' The Phoenix started toward them, the bloody knife glimmering in her right hand. 'I have to…' He was faster than Kalli thought possible, sliding forward to catch Mae before she could recover.

Quick as lightning, Kalli slid forward, grabbing for his right hand as she blocked the left with her own blade; she disarmed his left hand by knocking her hilt into his fingers, but his right escaped her grasp. He shouted in pain, his second knife going wild and catching Kalli's right wrist and thigh as she helped the man to the deck. Her blade hit home, driving up through his chin and spearing jaws together. Blood ran, hot and thick down the Phoenix's hand as she cried out, falling and caught under the weight of her attacker.

Mae moved to stand above her fallen Phoenix, armed with two daggers and a fatal kind of determination. Kalli stared at her wife's booted feet, her mind blank with pain. "Dragon, Kalli! Say something!" The Dragon hissed violently, guarding her wife but dying to go to her. She tried to answer, but a moan of pain killed her words.

"Dragon! Where is the Phoenix?" Kalli barely the shouting over the roar of the chaos around them, but she recognized the voice immediately.

"Shuryntus?" Kalli whispered, her voice lost to the thunderous sound of his boots on the deck. Ry's hands closed around the wound, pressing against the flow of blood.

"Mae, you need to help her; Raenel and I are here to guard now."

Look relieved, Mae dropped to her knees next to her fallen Dawn, tearing one of her sleeve off as she fell.

Ry stood like a shadow above them, his face long and stoic. He was furious, but was trying hard to remain calm. Mae, certain of both Ry and Raenel's guard, sat on her knees beside her fallen Phoenix, pressing the ripped sleeve of her shirt onto the leg wound. "You alright, Kalli?"

Kalli mumbled something, the world fuzzy and light-headed. How much blood had she lost? It was hard to think; the wounds on her body throbbing and bloody. The world shook with her as her lungs took in a long shuddering breath.

"Kalli? Stay with me."

"I'm fine."

"How in the Dragon's name did you learn to fight like that, Kalli? And to pick locks, for Dragon's sake?" Mae's face was hovering over hers, staring worriedly into the azure of her eyes. Her long, curly black hair tumbled over them both.

Kalli watched Raenel, her arms to the elbow soaked in blood, tear into the traitorous men that clogged the ship. She looked like she was having a great time. Kalli gagged as she watched the guard plunge a knife into one man's eye, then turned back to her wife, trying not to watch Raenel. "I was a thief, a runaway, before the Phoenix descended into my dreams."

Maellyn looked surprised, then smiled. "I guess…" she said slowly, "that it was a good thing you were. Else we never would have gotten out of this today." The smile spread to her eyes, shimmering like an emerald under her lashes.

Kalli loved to see her smile.

Umm... wait, two more...