Disclaimer: Unnecessary prequel is unnecessary. Captain's Order's AU.

The storm raged, waves taller than a mast rolling and crashing together, lightning streaking the clouds. She caught flashes of it amid being drug under, every muscle in her body screaming as she poured all her energy and strength into just keeping her head above water- a battle she seemed to be losing.

Captain Winter Schnee, the Seawolf, one of Her Majesty's finest sailors, found herself tossed overboard after an errant order from her consistently foolish First Mate steered them directly into a storm. She'd awoken with the violent rocking of her ship and hurried to the top deck, tying lines and securing ropes, shouting orders above the din. Her lie line, she'd left to last, and paid for it dearly when they crested a wave and plunged deep into the trough, robbing her of her balance even as the sea pushed her over the rails.

She hadn't even a chance to get her bearings- were they still en route to Onyx Cove or elsewhere altogether?- but nothing mattered in the moment nearly as much as surviving the rolling waves and keeping the salty sea water from flooding her lungs.

Then, with the force of a a cannonball, she fetched up against a jutting rock, a pained cry spilling from her lips as the ragged point dug into her back. Just barely keeping her bearings enough to latch on with her remaining strength, the sea tried to drag her back in as she spat water out, coughing and shuddering and clinging for dear life. Reaching blindly, she found a handhold, and then another, pulling herself from the relentless waves until she could heave her battered body atop the rock. The wind and rain still beat at her, thunder loud enough to render all else mute cracking above, and she shut her eyes tight against the flash of lightning.

Maidens… I might not survive this…

The thought made her blood run cold, teeth gritting against the stab of agony running through her back. Of all the ways to die, this seemed at once the most likely and most impossible. Tossed overboard during a storm- a disgraceful end for a sailor of her caliber, even it if constituted a death at sea like she always expected. But the Navy would sail on, as ever, a lighthouse among the waves.

Stop thinking like that. She chastised herself, pushing herself up and cracking her eyes open, trying to shield them from the rain to gather her bearings. Your crew will come for you. You can't give up so easily; you're a Schnee, damnit.

Shaking off her injury as best she could, she tried to gather her bearings. Rocks meant land and land meant life, so it stood to reason that if she could make her way to land, she could signal her crew when the ship inevitably returned for her.

She'd have to wait out the storm, though, or else risk falling mercy to the waves once more.

Winter pressed against the rock, holding on for dear life while the storm continued to rage. For hours, for days, she couldn't tell how much time had passed until that first break in the constant pounding of wind and rain, when the eye of the storm reached her and she had the chance to look around.

First, she took note of the line of rocks at the bottom of a steep cliff side, then followed it to a slope that led down to a beach. Although it ached to merely think it, she pushed herself to her feet and started scrabbling across, jumping from rock to rock. If she could make it to land, she might stand a chance.

However, the blow to her back twinged after landing on the second to last one, causing her legs to give out beneath her, and she fell into the water again, fighting to reach the surface. Swimming to the shore proved a chore, the ache of every stroke robbing her of more strength, but she crawled onto the sandy beach, just barely past the break where high tide would roll in, Winter collapsed, confident she'd at least improved her odds of surviving if nothing else.

Face down, she had to summon the strength from deep within to roll over, wincing as the pain lanced up and down her spine. If she was lucky, it would be a bruise and nothing more, but the stinging hinted that perhaps skin had broken- a wound she would need to tend at some point. Hopefully after she'd returned to her ship.

Now safe from the waves and inhaling sand with every breath, the agony sapped the last of her strength until her eyes slipped closed. She awoke when the eye of the storm passed, the rain becoming unrelenting once again, and somehow found the energy to roll back over and crawl into the vegetation. As luck would have it, they weren't near any inhabited islands as far as she could recall, which meant she'd likely need to build a signal of some sort once the storm passed.

The moment she got her hands on her first mate, there'd be hell to pay.

A few days after the storm passed, she'd managed to collect up enough brush and dry it out suitably to build a fire- at first, just one big enough to begin chasing the cold that lingered in her bones away. With her uniform tattered and soaked, she'd likely fall ill soon if she didn't keep the fire going. It remained one of the many things she found herself focusing on to ignore the lack of a ship on the horizon and the ache in her back.

She'd used the flint from her pistol to help build the fire, seeing as the gunpowder would do her no good. A thorough search of the beach and part of the forest that seemed to make up the majority of the small island indicated a lack of wildlife, leaving her only recourse for food the strange fruits she found growing on the trees. On top of everything else, she'd need to develop some manner of catching fish, which would be her only way of gaining sustenance until she was rescued.

Her crew truly could not get there quick enough.

… but in the back of her mind, she worried that, perhaps, she'd been forgotten altogether.

She did her best to banish the thought.

"You're kinda cute when you sleep, ya know."

Winter opened her eyes to glare at her bedmate. Strange that she would see the woman now, in the light of day, when their agreement remained that one or the other would be gone before sunrise. "What are you doing here?"

"What? You really want me to go?" Yang smiled, blonde strands framing her face while her hat sat low on her brow, head propped up by a fist against her cheek as they lay beside one another. Odd, because usually the pirate had the good sense to not wear her hat once they entered the room- wait.

"I'm dreaming," she said, casting a gaze around and recognizing half a hundred details, but none of them from the same location. Tavern rooms all along the coast, in more than a dozen port cities- places where they'd indulged in one another while agreeing to keep their professional rivalry out of it. "This isn't real."

"Maybe not," the woman replied, flashing a smile that reached all the way to her lilac eyes. "At least now I can say I'm the woman of your dreams."

"Hardly." She rolled her eyes and then turned over, offering her back to her occasional lover. "I'd never consider idolizing a pirate."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much." When an arm wrapped around her waist, she could almost feel it- she could remember the sense of calm it sparked the last time Yang pulled her in like this, how it set her frazzled nerves at ease. Even if she didn't experience the weight of it, the firmness of hard earned muscle setting just beneath her rib cage, it still calmed her. "You like me."

"I like what you have to offer." That seemed as much a concession as she would allow herself.

"If you say so." Yang leaned over and pressed a kiss to her base shoulder before getting out of the bed.

Winter snapped awake, the cool evening breeze rolling over her. She'd fashioned a sort of lean-to from the branches she managed to tear down but it was arduous work for a person with no tools, her saber lost to the waves. Her back hadn't healed yet and she'd needed a nap just to recover her strength…

… which seemed to be more and more difficult to do with each passing day.

Running a hand over her face, she forced herself to her feet and checked to see if she had enough rain water to drink or if she'd need to strain more seawater- the latter of which proving true. Considering the vegetation, it had to rain fairly often, but the storm had left only scattered showers in its wake.

And she'd yet to catch a fish, as the gnawing hunger in her gut reminded her.

"I'm Captain Winter Schnee," she said, speaking aloud more often now just to hear something other than the breaking waves. "I won't be defeated by something as simple as hunger."

Her stomach pointedly growled, as if to call her bluff, but she ignored it.

Winter sat, propped up against a tree and listlessly watching the setting sun catch in the waves. Two weeks passed without any sign her ship would return for her. Perhaps they'd been blown off course… perhaps they'd sunk…

It seemed harder to hold onto hope with each passing day.

"You're looking a little glum."

She winced, ignoring the way the corners of her vision turned blurry. Days without food and what little water she'd managed to separate from salt hadn't done her psyche much good. "You're not real."

"Yeah, that's true." It was just a hallucination, one that would disappear if she turned her head to look properly, but it still registered in her mind that Yang had sat down beside her. Bedecked in her usual garb, it seemed much easier to deal with her now rather than the dreams she'd started getting. "But, I'm probably here for a reason."

"You're here because I'm dehydrated and malnourished," she said, closing her eyes and sighing. "You wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Would you want me here then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean." Yang laughed, and she could hear it, clear as crystal, even though she knew it to be merely a memory. "Are you only okay with my company when you're horny?"

"Even in my head, you're crass." Winter groaned, shifting slightly, trying to stay in the shade as much as possible. However, every motion just sent jolts of pain through her back. "We have an agreement. It's as simple as that."

"If it was that simple, I wouldn't be here right now."

Opening her eyes, she turned her head and effectively dismissed the hallucination.

Among everything else, she simply didn't want to deal with that as well.

Three weeks since she'd fallen overboard. Three weeks and her ship hadn't returned. She kept the signal fire going but, as the smoke rose into the sky, she felt a sort of helplessness and hopelessness nipping at her heart.

It didn't help that she hadn't had another hallucination. Even if all the apparition did was vex her, it gave her reason to think and speak, rather than moving between motions. Purify the water, try to catch a fish, succeed at the first and fail at the second- perhaps she should've refined her fishing skills when she'd had the chance.

"When did you have the chance?" Her lips curled into a small smile as she sat before the fire, seeing a figure move at the corner of her vision and sit down silently beside her. "You seem like the workaholic type. When was the last time you even took a vacation?"

"I'm not answering that," she replied, lifting a bowl she'd carved out of wood with the sharp edge of a stone and drinking from it a mixture of water and smashed fruits. It tasted awful but she needed to try something to keep what little strength remained to her up. "You already know the answer anyway."

"Yeah… it's kinda funny, huh? I know more about you than the real Yang does."

A frown tugged at her lips. "She wouldn't be interested in finding out."

"Uh, I'm pretty sure the record shows otherwise." Yang laughed, and in her mind's eye, she could see it- that big smile that spread over her lips whenever she'd hustled some poor fool in a tavern, the way her shoulders shook with her mirth. "She asks an awful lot of questions when she thinks she can get away with it."

That… was true, now that she really thought about it. She'd often dismissed the pirate's habit of asking personal questions after coitus as nothing more than a means to fill the silence. Perhaps… that wasn't the case.

"Why are you here?"

"Only you can answer that." A sigh, and she felt tempted to look over but refrained by the barest margins. "Maybe it's because you know this is where I'd want to be."

"I'm afraid I'm in no condition for our typical activities, even if you were real."

"Is that all you think there is to me? Or yourself, for that matter?"

This time, she couldn't help but look over, immediately cursing herself as the hallucination vanished. It just… felt nice to talk to someone, even if that person happened to be digging too deep into topics best left resting.

Because she knew, for certain, that there could be nothing more. Captain Yang Xiao Long was an unapologetic pirate queen who sailed the seas for years; she would not change. A tempest given mortal form, she would always find ways of thumbing her nose at the crown and laugh at whatever reaction it might garner.

And Winter was a soldier- a sailor, yes, but a soldier first- and she'd given the exact sort of loyalty she'd expected to be returned.

Unfortunately, as the sun set on another day, she had to confront the reality that maybe her loyalty was a one way street.

A week passed. Yang didn't return. She'd even called out for her and dozed lightly, hoping it might help.

But it seemed like she'd finally been left alone.

"Maidens… let her come back…" Why she would beseech an empty heavens remained a mystery but she'd grown too weak to climb the taller trees. Now, she had to resort to knocking fruit from the lower ones, and she still hadn't managed to catch a fish. The lack of meat had taken its toll as effectively as the constant hunger, because while the fruit filled her, it didn't fill her enough. "Just… bring her back to me… please…"

"You've never been the religious sort."

A smile broke across her lips as she lay in the sand of the beach, the night sky twinkling overhead. "A desperate woman does many unexpected things."

"Oh, desperate, now that's something you don't call yourself often, huh?" Still, Yang lurked as a spectre at the edge of her vision, the cloak she'd worn in Beigen shifting with the wind. "You need to keep your spirits up. Hold onto hope."

"It's been a month," she replied. "No one's coming."

"Well, maybe no one Navy. But if I find out, I'll come."

"I'll be dead by then." Winter paused. "Would Yang really come though?"

"Why wouldn't she?" The hallucination moved closer, kneeling down beside her head. She could almost make out some features but everything seemed draped in shadow- she may very well be dreaming, now that she thought about it, stuck in some manner of half asleep haze. "She cares about you."

"Not to that degree."

"I think we both know that's a lie." Yang reached up, removing her hat- just a blur in her vision but a meaningful gesture all the same. "You've noticed it. The way she lingers, the questions she asks- she's interested in you as more than a bedmate."

"What you're reciting is…" She stopped just short, knowing that by voicing the words she'd be lending them power. So she shifted blame as always- so much easier to do it came as second nature. "Convenience. It would be convenient if Yang had feelings for me, when it seems I've been abandoned by all others."

"If that's what you want to tell yourself." The hallucination began to dissipate. "But if these are your last days, are you truly going to spend them in denial?"

Winter remained silent, staring at the night sky.

Good news seemed impossible to come by but the injury to her back had mostly healed. Still sore, still tender, but no longer an open wound. With her strength waning, however, it didn't do her much good. Not to mention she'd already harvested all the nearby fruit, meaning she'd have to venture further into the forest or finally catch a fish. Neither seemed appealing.

"You're a terrible optimist."

"That's why I have you around," she said, throwing more leaves onto the fire and hoping for the best. The rain from the night before made it nearly impossible to keep it going and harder still to find fresh food to feed it but she somehow managed, albeit not without tearing her own uniform even more and using some of it as well, which seemed to dry much faster than the leaves and wood. "Tell me about my chances of surviving this."

"Do you believe in Yang?"

Winter growled, rounding on the apparition. "She's not coming, no one is; I'll die here, I know that! Stop trying to persuade me into thinking I've left behind someone who cared about me- there's none! The only person who cared about me was Weiss and she was lost years ago! Just like this! Not Mother, not Father, not my crew, not even Yang! No! One! Cares!"

The hallucination disappeared the moment she turned, of course, but she shouted for her own sake. To release the fury that had coiled in her chest and allow the tears that sprang to her eyes to fall- a moment of weakness when she confronted her own fate. She could be allowed that.

"Yang does care about you, though."

She hung her head, clenching her hands into weak fists. "Just because I want that to be true doesn't mean it is."

Her vision blurry from weakness and tears, she could still make out the vague shape of Yang's boots at the corner of her vision. Worn and scuffed and in need of new soles- she'd had time to inspect them one morning when she happened to be the first to wake. Winter hadn't meant to do so; she'd simply gotten lost staring at them while waging a battle in her mind.

"You've been thinking about this for a while, you know."

"I know," she replied, weakly. Because the thought occurred to her more than once- wouldn't it be nice if Yang cared about her, wouldn't it be nice if the feeling that seemed to dwell in her chest when they were together wasn't entirely one sided, wouldn't it be nice if they could be something other than rivals locked in constant battle?

"Will you ever say it?"

"She won't hear it."

"No, but I will. That's something, right?" The boots shifted as Yang knelt down. "I mean, if you can't even admit it to yourself… did you really stand a chance?"

Winter sniffled and wiped at her face, composing herself. For a moment, it seemed like she wouldn't be able to do it. But after staring into the fire- the tongues lapping at the air somehow reminding her of Yang's hair caught in the wind- she found her courage. "I love her." It did feel liberating, in a way. "I love her… and I never told her."

Well, right up until that part.

"She might still come. You might be able to change that."

"She'd be better off not." Her shoulders fell as her gaze once again dropped. "I don't have much to offer her. Dead sailors don't earn much and I doubt I'd be able to claim any sort of birthright now. If I go back to the Navy…"

"For the record? I don't think you exactly need to give Yang anything. You wouldn't ask anything of her, would you?"

She thought about it. Hard. Because, before, she'd always put the thought from her mind before allowing it to fester this far. But now?

"No." Winter felt her heart break for a number of reasons. One being that she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that what she spoke was nothing short of the truth. "I would just ask for her. However she saw fit to be with me, I would accept."

"You wouldn't ask her to stop being a pirate?"

"No."

"Or to join the Navy?"

"No."

"Become a privateer?"

"No," she said, and curled in on herself, just a little. "She's Yang. That's who she is and I wouldn't change that…"

Again, the boots shifted. "That's gonna be hard, with you being loyal to the crown and all."

"I'm not loyal to the crown." How many summons had she ignored? How many bounties had she passed over? How many times had she deliberately reported false information? All to keep up the ruse that she wanted to capture the infamous pirate but she'd never intended on doing that, now had she? No. For longer than she'd cared to admit, she hadn't been in service to the crown. "I'm loyal to her."

"Well, then, you better get your ass off this rock so you can tell her."

She looked up, surprised when she could almost look at the hallucination without it disappearing. "That's impossible."

"No, it's not." Yang smiled. "The first step is to have hope. To keep fighting. As long as you're here, there's a chance she'll find you."

Although she truly didn't have the strength for it, she pushed herself to her feet. "I suppose I should figure out how to fish, then."

"That's the spirit."

Winter cast her gaze around for the stick she'd sharpened, hoping to make a harpoon of some sort. Then, she waded out into the water and hoped for the best.

It took three days of trying before she speared a fish, which presented a new problem: preparing it. Ultimately, she ended up wasting more meat than she ate but, for the little bit she ate, it tasted good. Delicious.

Yang sat beside her, now seemingly called into existence every time she spoke or just wanted to see her. In the back of her mind, she realized it was just a hallucination, the same as always.

But it comforted her all the same.

"So, how's it taste?"

"Like char and trees- but delicious nonetheless," she replied in between bites. She didn't quite know how to remove the scales, so she'd taken to just splitting it in half with her crude stone knife and cooking it that way, then eating from the inside out. "Yang would know how to cook this properly."

"She probably does." Yang leaned back on her hands. "Have you thought about how you're going to tell her?"

"Every time I think about it, my stomach hurts."

"That's just hunger."

"I'm quite certain it's anxiety." A mirthless chuckle. "Comparatively, you're easier to talk to; I know you won't say anything I don't want to hear."

Yang tilted her head. "Have you considered you know Yang better than you think you do? I don't think I'd be here trying to get through that thick skull of yours if you thought for a second she'd turn you down."

"That's circular logic that would make Father proud," she said, looking up at the apparition. "I want to believe I know the real Yang Xiao Long, that she's the woman who likes to cuddle in the early morning hours and prefers mead to ale, that she rarely drinks rum but usually only does when it's to keep up appearances, that when she's softest is when she's being truest to herself and not playing at a role." A sigh left her lips as she leaned back, laying on the little thatch mat she'd fashioned for herself. "But, at the end of the day, that could just be wishful thinking. I love her. I'd like to think that she loves me in return. I just don't have any proof."

"What sort of proof do you need?"

"I'd… need to hear it from her lips." Now with a mostly full belly, she found sleep calling to her. Even if it tasted relatively awful, it constituted the most nourishment she'd had in over a month. "That my feelings are returned."

"In order for her to return your feelings, she'd have to know about them first."

Winter groaned. "You're just as vexing as the real Yang."

A laugh, though it didn't ring as clear as the first time she'd imagined hearing it. "Hey, that's why you love her."

Her hallucination wasn't wrong.

Winter lay on the beach as the morning sun began to set, one leg heavily wrapped in leaves- just about the cleanest manner of bandaging available to her at present. Her plan to subsist on fish hadn't worked out in her favor; some manner of shark had caught the scent of blood and grazed her calf while stealing her meal. Not a deep cut and it had stopped bleeding fairly quickly, considering her worsening state, but it had taken not only her food but a considerable amount of her willpower with it.

Thin wisps of smoke rose up over the forest- she'd neglected the fire in the past day or so, resigning herself to her fate. Almost two months now; the chances of her being rescued had shrunk beyond what she found to be even remotely possible. And she'd known that, since the moment she realized the Navy wouldn't come for her, that her own crew had left her to die. Still, she'd allowed her hallucination to talk her into believing a fairy tale- that her lover would sail in, all smiles and bright cheer, and save her.

She'd always hated those stories growing up, the ones where someone just waited around for someone else to save them. Now that she'd had a taste of despair, though, she supposed she could understand the mentality a bit.

"Are you giving up?"

"Go away," she replied, cracking her eyes open to see Yang standing over her, this time bedecked in the bare minimum. No belt for her gun or sword, no coat, no gloves, hat, or even boots. Just a thin, loose white shirt and brown breeches. "You're not real."

"Would you want me to stay if I was real?"

"Of course."

"Then you can't give up yet."

"It's a losing fight." She let her eyes fall closed. "She's not coming."

"You don't know that." The voice sounded closer, so she opened her eyes again to find Yang laying beside her. More than once, she thought she'd caught a similar sight- Yang, leaning over her, softness in her eyes and a small smile on her lips. Regarding her as a lover would. "You're in a bad spot and it's hard to fight that but you can't give up. You're Captain Winter Schnee."

"I'm no Captain," she said, and she meant every word. "Even if the Navy showed up right now, I'll never wear the uniform again."

"Because they left you?"

"Because it's mutually exclusive." She rolled onto her side, facing her personal poltergeist- the reminder of all the things she'd fail to say to one of the most important people in her life. "I can't be in the Navy and be with Yang. I must give up one or the other, and I choose the Navy." A bit of heat came to her voice. "And I'm no Schnee, either. What good has that name ever brought me? Nothing. Simply high expectations and a curse I've born every day of my life."

"So you're just Winter."

"I'm just a dead woman." Her eyes started to close. "With a broken heart of my own design."

"Would you give anything to see her again?"

"See her… touch her… kiss her…" Although she truly didn't have the energy or the fluids to spare, tears sprang to her eyes anyway. Just two, all she could really muster given her state, as she reached a hand out, stopping just shy of touching Yang. Because it wasn't really Yang, now was it? "Just one more time."

"You'll have that chance. But you have to take it." She looked up, into Yang's face, and saw nothing but a dopey grin- an expression of absolute love and awe. "Yang believes in you. She wouldn't have come all this way if she didn't. Now it's your turn. Don't miss your chance."

And with that, in the blink of an eye, Yang disappeared… and beyond her, Winter could make out something vague, bobbing along the waves. It… looked like a ship… with very distinctive sails.

"Yang…" She pushed herself up and started walking, along the beach until she'd reached the furthest point. With the wind in her sails, the Longwang crested each wave triumphantly, and looked like it was heading straight for the island.

The sensible thing would be the wait until they'd weighed anchor and lowered a boat.

But after two months of being stranded on a remote island, talking to nothing but a hallucination and starving… she didn't have much in the way of sense at present.

So she began to walk, wading out through the shallows until she had to swim, and she poured what energy she had into fighting through the waves herself. She could feel the leaves she'd wrapped around her leg coming loose but didn't bother turning back- she couldn't even be sure she wasn't hallucinating the ship but it didn't matter.

Perhaps she was a fool, choosing to believe… but she would take it, even if it meant she did, in fact, drown at sea after surviving the storm.

It was worth the risk.

"MAN OVERBOARD!"

She didn't know how long she'd been swimming but, at the sound of the shout, she stopped and tread water, listening to the commotion on deck as the pirates scrambled to weigh anchor and throw something down to her. A rope was the first thing to land in her hand, and she clung to it, even though she didn't have the strength to pull herself up.

Luckily, that didn't seem to be a problem as several of the pirates either jumped over board with their lifelines or climbed down the ladder, hauling her up onto the ship's deck with very little effort on her part. Which was good, because she truly didn't have much left in her.

But then she saw Yang, striding through her crew, lightly pushing a few aside as she came to stand before Winter. Relief swelled in her chest and she quite nearly found the words- the very ones she'd said to her hallucination over and over.

Yet, they didn't leave her lips in time.

"Looks like we've found quite the castaway, haven't we?" The crew jeered and laughed, and suddenly Winter remembered something very important: she wasn't talking to Yang, the real Yang all those weeks. It was just a version of the woman in her head. Standing before her? A pirate captain, and one who seemed to be thriving off her crew's response. "And what should we do with her, hmmm? This naval officer without the Crown to protect her?"

Winter held the words in her heart… but she had no illusions about the truths she'd uncovered. She wouldn't be able to return to her former life. For whatever reason Yang had come to find her, it didn't matter; she'd be whatever the woman asked of her.

If all Yang wanted of her was her body, she'd offer it up freely, and never hint at the sadness in her heart at her love not being returned.