Angela stared out into the vast ocean before her, bracing herself with her arms as she leaned over the bow, reaching up to grab the collar of her father's coat to pull it further over her shoulders. The chill of the ocean breeze had overtaken her exposed skin, the bite of cold doing its best to distract her. Even now, a week having elapsed since that tumultuous night, her mind was almost constantly on her father, something that the rest of the crew had understood plainly enough not to question as they worked to familiarize themselves with this strange vessel.

In those days, the dark shroud of mist had left its immediately atmosphere, taking with it the ghastly look of the wooden ship. As if the sickly state of the boat were merely a paint job, the stripped wood soon enough rotted away in a gradual fashion, leaving the ship looking not exactly pristine, but nothing so evil-looking, a sight that had left Hana the most relieved.

In addition to the crew needing to familiarize themselves with the unfamiliar ship, exploring its every nook and cranny and finding so much of it to be quite unorthodox, not the least of it being the giant hole in the hold that allowed them a view of the ocean below, but they also were under the direction of an unfamiliar captain in Fareeha, who also had little in the way of familiarity with the crew, save for Angela, who for her part was too lost in grief to help.

Fareeha did her best to get to know her crew, and save for the two holdouts on her being kept aboard and not killed, she managed some sense of acquaintancy, leaving only Junkrat and Hana remaining skeptical of her. Hana was cordial enough, placing enough respect on the decision of her late captain, though Junkrat was quite belligerent about the whole thing, though that easily was exacerbated by the loss of his prized cannons to the deeps below. Not wanting to force the issue, fully expecting most of the crew to walk upon reaching port, Fareeha merely did her best to accommodate the lot of them, doing what she could to only suggest orders rather than give them.

Lost to the ocean breeze, Angela's eyes remained still upon the horizon, recalling that night her father had caught her so obstinately trying to learn the sextant, his coat now only doing a poor job at replicating his powerful arms that so secured her as a child, feeling as though nothing could do her harm at his protection. Still, the coat kept his familiar scent, and was heavy enough to give her some idea of the embrace of her father, offering som slight comfort.

Without moving, she noticed Fareeha approaching her from the side, the tanned captain turning around to lean her back against the bow's edge, crossing her arms with a sigh, "Well, a week in and we finally found the storeroom. I don't know if this was a smuggler ship or what, but there's more nooks and crannies than a trap room."

She lowered her head as she fiddled with the skin around her thumbnail, "We caught some fish, too. You should've seen the look of Jesse's face; he looked like a child during the holidays."

Fareeha chuckled under her breath, guiltily coming to a pause as she noticed Angela's seeming disinterest, her voice speaking up tenderly, "Look, uh- I don't know what it's like to lose somebody like that. I mean, I do, but- somebody you've known your whole life. My parents were kind of asses, so I didn't exactly have much to-"

She paused to better compose her thoughts, turning toward Angela with a soft glance, "What I'm trying to say is, you know, I'm here for you is all."

Angela didn't reply as she simply remained staring out to sea, hear head finally turning to give Fareeha something of a sidelong glance, her voice emerging with a contemplative softness to it, "Did you feel the need to clarify that?"

"Well, I mean," Fareeha paused, shrugging before shoving her fists into her pockets, staring down at her feet nervously kicking at the deck beneath her as she buried her head between raised shoulders, "Whatever we had back there- I just didn't feel comfortable being… I guess being that close, you know?"

She frowned, "Its just sort of a new world now; I didn't know if we were still anything or- Look, I'm just offering any help I can give; is that such a big deal?"

Fareeha turned her head slightly as though to hide something crimson across her face, leaving Angela with the smallest of unseen grins, her eyes trailing down from the horizon to watch her hands atop the ship's edge, absently scraping a crease within the wood with a nail. Her silence worried Fareeha, even if she did her best to hide such things, though Angela soon enough spoke to quell those fears.

"You know, it took me all of three hours to realize that my father wouldn't have wanted me to grieve for him. He would've chastised me and told me to get back to work or something; 'don't waste time on me when you've got yourself to worry about' or something like that, probably knowing I was prone to… Well, I'll just say it- prone to bouts of rambunctious behavior," Angela surmised without much emotion in her voice, biting her lip in thought.

"I knew that, but… I couldn't help grieving, even knowing he would have disapproved of it," she muttered quietly, "I don't know. Maybe that's just what we do."

Fareeha turned to watch her, "Even if he would have disapproved, I'm sure he wouldn't have loved you any less were you to do so. I mean, he seemed like a stand-up guy from all I ascertained from him. That kind of unconditional love- you know, not a lot of people know it, even if it gets bandied around so often."

"You kind of disobeyed him when you made it a point to know me more," Fareeha shrugged, her brow raising quizzically, "And you kind of super disobeyed him when you decided to- Well, you know. He didn't love you any less then; I doubt the same wouldn't be true if he knew you needed time to grieve."

Angela eyed her, "Didn't you need time to-"

"Nah, I've already gotten past all that," Fareeha admitted, "Look, Thalia was a wonderful person, and at one point my one true love. but I wasn't doing myself, or the memory of her, any favors by clinging onto the past. I needed to move on just as much as she did."

Fareeha leaned forward, sighing deeply before bringing her hands up to her face, running up and down her skin with tire, complaining to herself, "Ugh, this ship is gonna be a pain to run. Thank goodness it's only until we hit port. We've all already decided to just sell this hunk of junk and divvy up the earnings; I don't know, I figure they'll all get together and return home, but- My stop is 'far away', so. Indonesia or China sorta fits that bill."

With a solemn air, turning around and leaning her back against the side as well, Angela crossed her arms as she asked, "You're not gonna try and keep 'em all together?"

"Pfft, fuck no," Fareeha replied incredulously, shaking her head, "I'm their stowaway, nothing more. Sure, I'm going through the motions, but any and all respect I've been given belongs to their former captain, not me. No, I'm a lone wolf anyway; I'll make do on my own once we hit port. You have the coat, I dunno; maybe you can pick up where your father left off, but not me."

Angela's eyes turned up with a telling curiosity and she asked simply, "Well, what about us?"

"Fuck, Angela," Fareeha groaned, rubbing her face again, "I was hoping you wouldn't ask."

Her cohort grinned, tilting her head knowingly, "You were just concerned whether or not anything had changed between us."

"I knooow, but that was more about any awkwardness that might arise," Fareeha complained, lowering her head defeatedly.

Angela watched her with near-amusement, smiling lightly. Her arms slithered out from its crossed pairing, allowing her elbow to reach over and lovingly tap at Fareeha's arm, earning a curious glance from the tanned woman, staring confused as Angela released a telling grin.

"I still think you're rather beautiful," Angela noted lightly, leaving Fareeha to groan painfully.

"Look, Angie," Fareeha explained, "I get that I was the freaky little caged animal you were able to tangle yourself up with. Happens to everybody at sea; you get men out here starting to look at other dudes after swing nobody else for months at a time- I only look good because I was the only one you could look at."

She turned toward Angela, "Out there, you could find- What?"

Angela grinned, "You called me Angie."

"Goddamn," Fareeha sighed defeatedly.

Angela smirked, nearly giggling as she reached out a hand, pinching at Fareeha's side, forcing her to try and shoo her away, "I would follow you out to sea."

"Quit it!" Fareeha shouted between ticklish giggles of her own.

"Why would I also not follow you to bed?"

Finally escaping her pinches, Fareeha replied with incredulous zeal, "That's totally not the kind of loyalty I would expect from an entire crew."

"Nor would I want you to," Angela explained wryly before turning toward the rest of the ship, "You made a promise to my father."

Fareeha's face fell, expecting a guilt trip to follow, though Angela merely smiled toward her before concluding, "But I don't expect you to honor it if you choose not to. I'm slowly moving past my father, and I can move past you if need be."

"Like you said, this isn't the Splitstream anymore," Angela nodded, "A different ship might as well be a different world. If you want to leave us, that's fine; nothing will be awkward, I won't be vengeful. You know, what we shared will just be a fond memory that I'll cherish forever."

Angela finished quietly, "Just, you know- Don't lead us on if that's what you'll do. They don't need a captain that disappears. I don't need a lover that disappears. That's all I ask."

She smiled lightlessly at Fareeha, "You can still call me Angie though; I quite like it."

Fareeha lowered her head in thought, her face darkening into almost a brooding state as her mind worked gradually. It was wine thing to be asked to be a friend or a lover, but to be a captain? A leader of people? Her time on the Raptora, it was merely she and Thalia, the crew were wholly, and often, expendable. Here? If she took on this woman whom she found to be so beautiful, such responsibility would weigh upon her, she knew. Had she even the ability?

"Ahem," came a lowly feminine voice, jolting Fareeha from her reverie, staring wide-eyed at Hana Somg staring a few paces away, her eyes curled in impatience, "I'm not…interrupting anything, am I?"

Fareeha blushes, unable to figure at what point Hana had entered the two's range of volume, though Angela easily assisted with a quick, "No, you're fine, Officer. We were just talking about my father."

"Ah," Hana replied with a lowered head, a hand reaching across her torso to grab hold of her opposing arm, "Well after the storeroom, we managed to find some some vittles within its pantries, namely some cured meats and salt-preserved stuff, but it looks ghastly. Junk- Jamie and Jesse are all for gouging into it all, they're sick of the stores from the Splitstream, but Lena and I am opposed and Lucio started tearing up at the thought of working with any of it."

"Basically, we're at a vote," Hana explained, crossing her arms as she stared off nervously, avoiding Fareeha's eyes, "Three to two against touching the stuff. Jesse insisted I get you two's-"

Angela grinned, "I'm for."

"You're what?!" Hana exclaimed in shock.

"Guess you'll have to break the tie," Angela muttered with a smirk, goading Fareeha into some kind of leadership role.

Such a thing brought a roiling to Fareeha's stomach, giving her a worried frown as she quietly mumbled to herself nervously. She knew what Angela was doing, trying to stop the democracy aboard and get Fareeha to assume a captaincy role, forcing her to make her decision now, rather than later. Such a thing frustrated her, though given her own mind games meant to trip Angela up, this sort of thing wasn't exactly unheard of between the two of them.

"Eh, uh…" Fareeha muttered, suddenly with a scowl on her face, "Of course were not going to touch it! God knows where that shit's been!"

Hana eyed Angela with a bemused look, "Try telling hat to her…"

Though meant rhetorically, Fareeha still turned to Angela with an authoritative stare, "We ain't touchin' it! We'll go hungry before we go with some devil's ulcer!"

Angela grinned, throwing an open hand up to her forehead in salute, "Yes, Captain!"

Hana watched the entire pantomime with unenthused eyes, groaning fretfully as she turned to leave, "I'll let them know, captain's orders."

"Thank you," Fareeha nodded, "And, uh, Hana?"

The officer flinched at being referred to by her name by Fareeha, a starlight-like state reaching over her shoulder as a sweat built up at Fareeha's neck, forcing Angela to swoop in once more, "Officer Song?"

"…yes?"

Fareeha cleared her throat, "Uh, yes, Officer Song. Have you a chart handy?"

"I do," she answered lowly, pulling out a slip of folded up paper from her back pocket, unfurling it for Fareeha to examine.

The lone captain nodded, examining the map before pointing out, "The Philippines , here; we can stop there to restock before hitting port in Nam Hà, correct?"

"…I suppose," Hana confirmed with a suspicious tone, "Why..?"

Fareeha shrugged, "Well, everybody's hungry enough to consider consuming food that's been flayed by the undead. I'll get with Lucio and we'll count our stores; let's make something of a nice dinner for this evening."

A single brow arose upon Hana's face, indicative of her interest, and she slowly muttered under her breath, "…seriously?"

"Look, I know I'm a stowaway, or was- we're all stowaways now, if you consider the ship we're on. I know you all don't really know me, or care to. What I don't know is whether or not I have any interest in remaining as I am," Fareeha admitted cooly, "But we've got another month or so on this ship, we might as well get to know one another a bit more. Maybe things change by the time we get to port, maybe not; but regardless, we might as well not just mull around conversation in the meantime."

Still skeptical, Hana nonetheless pursed her lips as she nodded, turning away, "That's…something I could see doing, myself."

Fareeha smiled, "Awesome."

"I'll go, uh, let them know," Hana finished, almost in surprise at the behavior of the woman who'd just tied down for the better part of the last few months, her small boots pattering along the deck until she disappeared into the ship.

Angela grinned, "So..?"

"So, what?"

"I've got you, hook, line, and sinker, huh?" Angela teased, sticking her tongue out.

Fareeha shook her head, "I haven't agreed to a thing. I do know that I still find you rather beautiful as well. Maybe I just don't want to be on your bad side for the next month."

She shot Angela a sidelong glance, just hiding her teasing smirk, "Maybe I just want to kiss and run still. Just maybe, I'm still a scoundrel, prepared to tie you all up and leave you all for dead for doing the same to me."

"You're in too deep, now," Angela replied with a wry sort of smile, "You were in too deep when I slapped that crate you were hiding in back in San Francisco."

She leaned in closer, until her shoulder managed to close the gap between the two of them, "And you were far too deep that night we made love."

"Ah, that's right," Fareeha recalled with a swashbuckler's grin, as though she were prepared to swing the two of them clear across the ocean if need be, "Beautiful, and a cunning linguist at that."

"And a little stubborn," Angela noted, helpfully.

"And a bit stubborn," Fareeha advised.

"Only a little bit."

Fareeha's lips crept upward, "Not helping your case."

Their eyes met with anticipatory gazes, knowing their games were far from over. Angela hadn't to move any closer, for it was Fareeha that allowed her shoulders to dip downward, bringing her face down to meet Angela's in a gentle kiss before wrapping a powerful arm around her to pull her in closer, their bodies matching not only by their lips but in warmth as well.

"Where would we go?" Angela asked, staring into those eyes as powerful as the arm holding her.

"Wherever you want," Fareeha answered, "However far this ship will take us, as long as those people down there arguing over eating ghoul-jerky will accompany us."

Angela grinned, "They mean well."

"I know; that's what frightens me," Fareeha admitted with a chuckle.

Angela lowered her head to stare into that woman's wide chest, gently pushing herself into that neverending space of warmth and safety, "Wherever I want?"

"Wherever," Fareeha repeated, "…Princess."

So that's a story! Thanks to everybody who made it this far- I know it's been a doozy, but I hope it entertained throughout :) Aside from some of the disjointed action scenes, I can't wait to come back and re-read this myself in the future; unlike most of my stories where there are bits and pieces I probably wish were vastly improved, or removed, I can't think of any scenes in 'Primage' that I'd do over, or hate to return to.

It was a very complete story, I thought, with stuff laced throughout: the symbolism of knots binding people together, themes of belief making the impossible seem far more real; I probably could have played Jesse's perceived bad luck into Fareeha's actual bad luck- to clarify, it was Fareeha's connection to the Reaper that made them unable to catch fish, though that was supposed to tease Jesse, and the reader, into thinking Jesse was legitimately snake-bit instead of Fareeha. Hopefully tricking the reader into thinking Fareeha's necklace was the titular 'Primage', when it really turned out to be Angela ;) I even got a Coheed and Cambria lyric in there somewhere- see if you can find it ;p And look, unto the final line, Angela and Fareeha are continuing their games. How cute :)

Oh, and "We're all stowaways now" -Not Jack Morrison

I WOULD change Jack's wife's name. For whatever reason, I forgot that 'Emmy' is NOT the same as Emily, Tracer's girlfriend, but early on in the story, Lena DOES refer to Emily as 'Emmy', which she wouldn't at all do if she already was a crewman under an Emmy, who died. Yeah, I screwed that one up xD

And a shout out to Jpbake, whose reviews have been great to read! Thanks for taking so much time to follow along and leave those; they brightened my day whenever I received them :)

After this, I do have an epilogue upcoming, though it's totally unrelated to the main cast. It's meant to be more humorous, and it does resolve oooone little, teeny plot point left in this story- can you guess what it is? :p Beyond that, I would truly love to get back to Warcraft and do my 'Eldris/Cayssarin' backstory- I have visions of it melding together Asimov's and Lovecraft's styles (one of my favorite things about Warcraft is that it's definitely medieval-based, but it also has a cosmic, sci-fi background to it, which I've always found wholly interesting- plus, the idea of the Illidari being legitimately 'alien' and 'eldritch' to the night elves; there's a lot of ideas there)

That being said, I'm near-constantly thinking of, and imagining, the final two parts of my big Overwatch series, so I might just continue that and get everything out of my head xD If you've read what I've written so far, you have ZERO idea what's coming, let me tell you :p Though I also want to finish my backstory-story, so I dunno; I may finish the epilogue here and take a week break and see what I'm feeling then :p

In any case, thank you so much for any and all support you all have given me :) I still cannot describe how it feels knowing there are people out there who are actually interested in something of mine; it's just an amazing thing to see people actually giving me the time of day, so thank you for all of your kind words in the review and comments, both on FF and AO3; it means so much more to me than you all may ever know :)

Until next time...