It's ya girl, literally ready to legit fight every dragon with her fists.
There was no order of verses she could string together to describe how much she hated participating in this game. Once in a while was a fair suggestion, but after years of facing an unbeatable opponent, Aqua was starting to hope that a meteor crashed onto the ship cabin she was sitting in. She inhaled, the familiar scent of musty worn wood and salty seawater calming her senses. Mounted heads watched her every move judgmentally, much like her challenger.
"What the matter, Aquaria, you look piqued." The situation was always dire whenever Viggo decided to address her by her full name. "It's your move." He reminded her. Two pieces were defenseless to capture, and any eager player would have jumped to claim their prize by now. Yet, after losing to the same person as frequently as she did, any move he made was disheartening. It wasn't that she was unbearably dreadful at Maces and Talons—in fact, she was a formidable match for any avid contestant, but facing Viggo was a whole other story. Quietly, she shifted her chosen piece, retreating on the board.
"Very nice, although not entirely unexpected." Perhaps he just enjoyed watching her unravel by saying things like this. Already accounting for every scenario at least two to three moves ahead, Viggo advanced a ship piece without hesitation. "If I may ask," His dark, imposing eyes inspected her consequent strategy from the piece she'd shifted, "Why do you always choose the honorable Viking chief?" Undeniably, that was something he did when playing against his grandfather long ago, but he hardly reasoned that their motivations were the same.
"What can I say? Habit? I'm fond of the Viking king." She never knew why he had to refer to it in such a grandiose way, and was almost positive his grandfather employed some method of cheating with the leader of the marauders.
"Fond, you say?" Placing down his Imposter piece to immediately strike out one of her hunters, the man scanned the pieces currently in play. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to lure away the last hunter away from her Viking chief piece.
"Do you really think Maces and Talons is the best indication of someone's ability as a strategist?" Viciously flicking away a one of his wooden pieces that ventured too close to her chief, Aqua picked up one of the tiny maces and inspected it.
"You don't?" He answered her question with a question.
"For a guy who hates metaphors, you really do like using them. What of the chiefs that didn't get to where they are by putting all of their pieces on the board in plain sight?" Aqua opened her hand, indicating to the playing board. "When your opponent's pieces are on entirely different unseen region." Another piece fell stiffly sideways.
"And gambits risked would be across miles of ocean, yes." That was indeed how complicated the reality of it was. "Just to capture a singular pawn." He understood where she was coming from in the discussion. Leaning forward, he habitually stroked his neatly kept facial hair.
"If luck is on your side, a handful of—…" Mouth agape, Aqua hovered her hand over one of her hunters, doubt seizing her wrist. Her brain didn't even register as her fingers claimed the piece. Suddenly, the huntress stood so quickly, her wooden chair screeched in protest, ultimately tipping over to the planks. "I won." A tincture of emotions boiled behind the declaration. The most prominent being confusion.
"Well-played." Politely tapping his fingers against his opposite palm in applause, Viggo studied her countenance. She snapped her head up, hands flat on the table between them.
"You let me win." She lobbed.
"Or perhaps you're finally developing a semblance of skill in strategizing." He parried, accent more prominent in deeper tones. The man wasn't one to simply let her relish victory of any kind, even if it was earned. Aqua's next pitch was drowned out by a curt knock. "Ah, we've arrived." Calmly rising from his seat, "Come now, we've important matters to attend to." He stepped past her and the sideways chair.
The salt of the sea breeze attacked his senses directly. Viggo's soundless footfalls were steady against the undulating of the ship to the command of the ocean swells. Taking in the coordinates, he decided that they would suffice for what needed to be done on this mission. His young companion finally opted to join him, brows knit in evident contemplation. "Nostalgic?" Within her few moments on board, the girl had taken inventory of every detail available to her. Any nostalgia to be had was due to the fact that the two had first crossed paths on a ship similar to this one. Except this time, she wasn't an eight-year-old stowaway. "You have questions." Interpreting the situation correctly, he slid his eyes to her.
"I know you said we were keeping this discreet." Everything from the fact that Ryker wasn't invited along on this expedition to the sparse crewmembers aboard supported that theory. The three other hunters were also not defined as the sharpest blades in the armory. As well, they were almost in sight of what she remembered to be the mountainous side of the Edge—Dragon Rider's outpost. "What are we doing here?" For the work of piecing things together, she decided to keep it general.
"Call it a contingency plan." He motioned for the crewmembers to begin their assigned undertakings. "A relocation of sorts." Aqua narrowed her eyes at seeing the hunters lifting a large spherical container. It required all three men to carry the burden. Upon closer inspection, it was packed with unidentifiable sea creatures.
"You're trying to lure something?" The girl ventured a guess, "How do you know it's around here?" She felt moronic for asking such a question, "The dragon eye—sorry." Partially understanding the reason, Aqua still wanted to taper it to a complete understanding. "And this is the most optimal location." This mission was too underequipped and undermanned to trap a deep-sea dragon, so a luring made sense.
"Precisely."
Arms shaking from the exertion, the crew collectively grunted whilst trying to heave the enormous, sealed sphere over the side. "You see, the contents in that container are not only a favored food source, but when released, create a prime temperature environment that mimics the deep ocean." Did it have to be in this exact spot? Or a radius? She kept her curiosity to a minimum. "It will only last a week, but if I'm right, a week is all I need." He would have liked to narrow down the creature's location to shallower seas, especially if the predicted outcome forced his hand. As well, closing the distance between the future potential problem's arrival direction and this deep-sea dragon was wise. This was being overly detail-oriented, to be honest, but one of his rank could never be too careful.
"Wait! That thing won't deploy if you jam it like that!" The amount of scraping in the maneuver to roll it overboard had managed to slightly mangle the hard latch that was meant to release the bait. Everything would have been moot on this little field trip if the bait were stuck. Boots stomping on the deck, her dismay only increased as she saw the trap splash into the water like a dead weight.
Fear gripped the men upon seeing that the huntress did not falter in her progressing steps. However, instead of knocking them overboard with one sweep of her weapon, Aqua gracefully bounded onto the side.
"No! Aqua, stop!" Concentration aimed at the water, Aqua didn't perceive any type of panic in the voice that called for her.
"I'll be quick." Not passing up the chance to gift a glower to the present crew, the girl swung her legs over. "It's just a latch." Viggo ran forward, his usual deceptive lack of elaborate movements giving way to reveal lightning reflexes.
"You dare disobey a direct order from your chief, A—Blast it!" The fabric of her tunic evaded his grasp as her form dove over and into the sea, inaudible as a slender sword.
Open eyes stinging until the back of her head throbbed, she endured the sensation long enough to infer where the large vessel sank. Employing the power in her legs to close the distance, Aqua drew her weapon and extended the rod to its full length. Each movement depleted the supply of oxygen sensibly stored in her lungs. Both hands on the rod, she wedged it underneath the flat bolt of the sinking sphere. About four attempts wore it down enough to give way. A wave of fish guts mushroomed out of the opened vessel. Aqua let out a high-pitched noise of disgust.
Rib cage aching from the crushing pressure of holding her breath, the huntress began kicking away from the gruesome debris warming the water around her. If her sense of smell were intact, she imagined her consciousness would've melted into a rancid pile of goo.
"Um. Sir?" Hands pressed atop the side of the old fishing boat, the dragon hunter kept watch on the water surface. It was then that a foul stench permeated the air, rousing the men to protect their noses with collective groans. Viggo's lip curled in vile repulsion. Not too soon after this stench would the bubbles be visible, and the man would give the order to set sail.
Aqua rolled underwater from an unseen force, her near colorless hair flying around her head like an ethereal halo. That was the signal to exit stage… up. A greenish dot in the distance that only a squint of her eyes could reveal became apparent. She balled up her hands, as if ready to send her fist directly into the center of the mysterious dragon's snout. Scauldrons could be wrangled with an elevated chance of being doused in scorching hot water. Wringing its neck was a fathomable strategy, but with her oxygen supply, her excessive hubris needed to be curbed. She growled, bubbles rising from her mouth.
Logic and reasoning reached her at the last second and the girl pointed her staff down towards the sea floor, firing two blasts. Underwater, the attack translated to popping bursts of force that propelled her upwards.
There was a fine line between confidence and arrogance. His subordinate might as well have been straddling that line without a single care in the world. When she finally surfaced, one final blast from her weapon shot her out of the water, past the hull and into the wood with a crash, just close enough for her arm to hook over the ship's side. Her hand clutched the The ship was already moving, which revealed just how close they were to leaving her to fend for herself. What she had seen swimming about in the depths was a colossal beast of a dragon. If she had to speculate, it must have been a Submaripper. The woman flopped onto the deck with a thud.
Hardly permitting any time for her to cough and choke the burning water from her lungs, Viggo grabbed her tunic by the collar and hauled her roughly to her feet. The soaked soles of her boots squished when lifted completely off the wooden planks, clothing suffused with the stink of fish. As if that wasn't enough, the dragon hunter chief shook her like a ripe fruit tree, hoping to jostle any surviving brain cells. "You impudent girl! Have you any idea how foolish that was?" Dark eyes narrowed in rage, fists curling against her neck at the blatant disobedience he had witnessed.
"You're welcome!" Aqua scoffed in return, kicking her legs to wrench herself free, and stumbling back from the misjudgment of his hold, "Because I think you're supposed to say Thank you. Thank you for risking your life to make sure my plan didn't fall to pieces. The plan that I'm not going to divulge all of, because it's hypothetical?" Her voice rose, under the impression that he should have been quite pleased to learn that she'd averted an inconvenience. "Isn't that why I'm here? The back-up-back-up plan?" Or rather, happier than this.
Ominously, Viggo clapped her shoulder with one hand, a muscle working in his jaw, "Thank you." He spoke concisely, a false calm pervading. Suddenly, he squeezed until his nails dug into her shoulder. Pain, and the possibility of a forming bruise, caused her to inhale sharply. "Do not ever do that again." The hunter menacingly spaced out each word to place the desired amount of emphasis. "Are we clear?" He still had further use for her, and frankly it would have been a shame to waste her rashly on such a menial task.
"But I thought that you'd—"
"I said, are we clear?"
"Yes." Aqua pushed out through gritted teeth.
Now all that remained was to dispose of the ship and the surplus crew.
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