Vincent felt her coming closer and then her teeth against his ear, which made him look towards her direction. Of course she would play with him in such a matter- he hadn’t forgotten what had happened when she broke into his vessel. He didn’t mind it of course, and even cracked a smile at her. But all in all, he knew not of what was going happen now that he was going to let her go. “Baltil…right.” He couldn’t blame her for distrusting his crew- those men’s allegiance were to him, but even more so to the city and the Academy. Hell, he didn’t know what he was going to tell them aside from seeking her out around the Old Forge Tavern or so. But he did want to get to the bottom of this and her way seemed to be the only way he would.

“We’ll see one another then”, he replied and watched as she started to sing and got the whole tavern into the melody. Meanwhile he smiled and shook his head and took the bottom of rum with him, making his exit as well.  That night, he told his men to sleep well because he had heard word that Furtuna had already made it back to Parpova and they would follow suit in the morning.

The five days went by pretty quick as he kept the knowledge of her to himself and dismissed the entire crew over to the Old Forge as suggested. Vincent, on the other hand, made it to the secret location and hunted around for any trace of her. Humming was heard and as he drew closer, he recognized it as the shanty she had sung days ago. It didn’t take much longer before he found her by her lonesome. “Well, I suppose that you are going to fill me in on the secret now”, he asked as he circled around to her front. “It’s just me- the others are having a jolly good time back in the tavern for the evening, as promised.”

Furtuna had a bottle of rum with her as she hummed. She offered it out to him. “You and I need to quit running into each other like this Vincent Gloreaver.” She was teasing him as she lowered her hood. “Not here, you are coming with me.” She jumped off her perch and kissed his cheek before pulling him along. There was a steep hill after that and she pulled him down it. She was flawless as she helped balance him and her on what looked to be a plate of metal.

Down in the crevasse was one of her airships like she said. “Welcome aboard. This is Florence. Named after Maliel’s mother. He is a half elf from Endapano.” She waved her hand and Maliel took the airship off. “My fort isn’t that far from here… Or as I like to call it my cove. All pirates have a little cove they call home. Mine is the most dangerous to get into unless you know how to drive an airship with expertize.”

“Admittedly Captain… I’ll have to have you take over from here.” Maliel smirked at her. “I can’t maneuver this thing into that hole.”

“Sure, sure.” She took over steering once they got close enough and she began to lower the airship slow and steady. It was almost like the airship wasn’t that big at all as she managed not to hit cavern walls on the one in. “Sacab is one of a kind… It can go through the walls but these can’t. Slow and steady Florence.” There was a dock with several airships already there. She ported it and smirked at Vincent. “That’s how a pirate captains a ship.”

“She’s the only one who can pilot a damn airship into the mountains and make it look easy. Though I heard she once crashed them straight into it the first time she tried.”

“THAT WAS THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO!” She stomped her foot lightly. “I’m much better now.” She beckoned Vincent to follow her. “This way,” she said as they went through a large complex. It had many rooms for her people and at the center was a war room. There was a map with many x’s on it.

“This is what I wanted to show you.”

While normally he wouldn’t take a drink from someone he was supposedly up against, Vincent took the offer and took a good swig of it. Fortunately he wasn’t hunting Furtuna down anymore so he didn’t have to worry about that. “Fate is funny about these sort of things, I guess”, he offered, taking another swig before handing the bottle back to her. He received her kiss and was pulled into following her. “I’m starting to think that you weren’t just messing with my head these days.” He joked around as he followed her down through the steep hill and through some obstacles right up until they reached one of her airships.

“Do each of the airships mirror important names of your captains?”, he asked as he looked around a bit as they took off. “I have to admit that I never been in a pirate’s cove, all things considered.” It seemed strange that she would allow an outsider like him to visit something so precious and secretive to her, but he wouldn’t speak against it. It was sort of an honor, he figured. But she wanted to talk and where better for privacy than her home?

“Hole? What hol…”, he was about to ask before they reached it. For a moment, he was sure that the ship didn’t even look like it could fit through it but Furtuna got it in somehow. It was no wonder that she had never been caught in her cove- it was a pain just to try and find it, let alone reach it. He was amazed with the airships that belonged to them at the dock. He would have never found them without her help.

“It must have been luck that you found such a secure place for your cove…” He would have looked around some more, but he was then lead by her through the place and onto their destination. He assumed it to be a war room or meeting room by the way things were organized and when he saw the map, he looked very carefully at the details before turning to her. “What is this map about? Is this of targets already hit or ones that will be soon enough?” Another question popped up in his head and it took some time for him to voice it. “Do they have to do with Egjora as well?”

“Each ship was theirs before it was mine. I dueled each of them and at the end of it when they offered me their rapier to kill them… I made them be my captains instead. I’ve had many captains over the years but I have to say these five are among the best I’ve ever had. You’ve met Xeria. She’s been my friend since the old days. Her parents used to worship my mother back in the day. We decided to run away and be pirates together. Her ship is called Burr Berry. Not very menacing… but it’s the most poisonous plant in all of Revaliir. Coincidentally, my friend, it was the first ship we ever stole together.”

After she docked the ship she thought about what he said. “My father used to use this as his home back in the day. See my father is a Djinn. Strong and powerful, thousands of years old. He met my mother and they had their fling. I was the first of her children born after her ascension. He gave me this place to stash Sacab. Since then I’ve made it my base.”

As they were walking into her base Maliel ran and caught a little girl. “Maliel, you are going to be in trouble with your wife if you don’t kiss her first,” Furtuna waved her hand and Maliel panicked as he ran off to find his wife. The captain laughed. “This is a safe place for us to raise our children as well. No one can penetrate this mountain without pissing that damn dragon off. I had to wait a week after I crashed the first airship in here for the damn thing to go back to sleep.”

She circled around the map and gently fingered some places on the map. “These are all the pirate coves owned by the lesser noble houses of Egjora. Pillaging other lands and taking their trade through fencing. Reselling it for profit. If the higher nobles are doing it too I have not a clue but the captain in the madhouse was able to send me all the locations secretly through love letters. He got found out… However, they didn’t realize the locations were getting sent to me. Just that he was writing love letters. Cryptic little bastard that he is.”

She put her hands on the table and looked at Vincent. “This is the truth of Egjora. Whether or not the Academy is involved doesn’t make a difference right now. They still cover it up because if the lesser nobles fall and get the blame the higher nobles might have to take it as well and resign. That’s the way politics work. I’ve been talking with my Aunt about the trade routes that Egjora takes. You might see my aunt in Egjora every once in a while for trade meetings. She is the leader of the trading industry that Sularia has built. She drops me a line on any juicy information.”

He could see why she was confident in her skills if she’s been doing this for such a long time, collecting worthy individuals to associate with and starting her pirate empire. “That is a hell of a way to start a…career like that”, he offered. But all things considered, he suppose that it had been a right call for her, even if he wasn’t entirely sold on the idea.

“I see. Still, this is the perfect place to hide all of this”, he gestured to her base. She had also said before that her father had been the one to help her construct the massive airship as well. “Powerful indeed.” Heaven only knew that he was only lucky to have to just met her and not her father. If that was the case, he couldn’t be sure that he would be alive today…

Thank the stars.

“Dragon? What dragon? I didn’t see…” He looked around, but didn’t see such a thing. Was she still messing with him? Rubbing his temples, he continued to follow her all the way to the war room. From there, his fears and worries came to surface as he listened to her confirm his suspicions that Egjora did have something to do with the other pirates. It was the lower houses, and immediately he thought that they were partaking in these things to boost their own reputations and ranking. “And what happened to the poor fellow afterwards?”, he asked softly, his mind still tormented by the thoughts of people, citizens of his home having a hand in these crimes. A hard swallow was taken as he listened and acknowledged the information. “If the lesser nobles fall, then the other may too. If they do, then the Academy’s reputation will fall and may close too…” He didn’t like it, not one bit of it, but it was necessary for its survival. Still, it stood against everything he believed. Vincent was a creature that saw the world in black and white, but he was starting to feel sick by this betrayal. What other things did they allow to happen behind closed doors? Enslavement of the innocent?  Stealing land and other worldly possessions for themselves? Things similar to what happened to Arri?

He took a seat, he had to sit down and come to terms with what was happening. Resting his head into his hands, he silently pondered his next move from here. Surely he couldn’t go back out on good conscious. “Got any more rum?”, he muttered. Hopefully she did so that he could down some more of it to get the nasty taste out of his mouth. Not of the alcohol, but that of what was going on underneath his nose. “Honestly, I never did like politics. There’s too many regulations and whatnot that they’d rather focus on than doing what needs to be done.”  He tried to not let it bother him greatly. He glanced over to Furtuna and got back up to his seat. Slowly he moved towards the map and took a hard look at the locations. “You…gave up everything for this life, to take on the title of pirate lord and forsaken yourself from your home in order to save it…you have a lot more bravery than any soldier I know…” Closing his eyes, he reached for his pipe and took several puffs as he thought hard and long. He knew that she wasn’t lying somehow, she was rather honest with him from the start, unlike his commanders and the nobles.

“You don’t have to worry about me anymore. As of right now, I will resign as Captain of the Academy. I can no longer work for them with this knowledge that swims in my head now. I simply can’t. If I have to leave Egjora in order to save it from itself, then so be it.” He didn’t care if he had to do it alone, but he was damn sure was gonna try to stop this madness.

“Baltil isn’t that far from here. In the deepest reaches of the mountains lies the Dragon’s Hoard. A powerful and ferocious dragon lives there and if you disturb the mountains you wake him up. You only go through the mountains with an airship if you know what you are doing. Landing inside this cavern leaves a 0.01 percent error margin. Anything more than that and you risk blowing the airship up. Someone with a natural affinity to air such as myself or my father can do it without a problem because we can listen to the air. The only reason I crashed it before was because… REASONS!” Obviously, she was doing something she shouldn’t have been doing or someone.

When she thought of her friend in Egjora she crossed her arms. “He proclaimed his love for me while they hung him from the gallows. I was in the crowd and I was the last face he saw. I thought it was the least I could do for him. I have to admit a part of me loved that fool too. He was as reckless as I was but that was a long time ago… Fifty years now, every once in a while I leave gifts for his children. I did mention he was married.” She chuckled a bit. “They know it’s me but they’ve never really had a grudge, I think they knew.”

The rum thought made her smirk. “In my private quarters Captain Gloreaver.” She chuckled a bit more. “You’ll have to come with me there if you want it.”

There was contemplation in her eyes before hopped up and over to him. “Then quit being a soldier. Quit being a government dog.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Become a pirate like me. Become one of my captains and we’ll liberate Egjora together. I can’t promise you if it will be in your life time but we can do it. We can purge the evil out… We can get revenge not only for me but for you too. The atrocities of Egjora must be answered. Adeluna has already paid for what they did… and now Egjora must too.”

She bit his ear lightly. “Stay here tonight.”

At least the blasted dragon wasn’t too close to here, but it didn’t settle in well for him that he could have possible been crushed or set a flame by the beast had he still be pursuing Furtuna. That was if he didn’t crash The Fellshield first into the mountain. “Reasons…I can think of a few, though I’ll refrain from speaking anything about what I’m thinking it might have been” He was sure that he didn’t wish to know the full story of her first crash.

The tragic story of the captain was simply that- tragic. He pondered if he was hung for giving her that information and to silence him once and for all. Or was it just petty revenge for him ruining their rackets? Either way, it wasn’t justice at all. It was simply evil at its finest. It made him furious to think that this whole time, he was following the commands of the wicked. “Yes, you did mention that. At least there’s no bad blood with you and them then…” He was still bothered by this news and merely held a smile smirk at her jest. “The need for some might be too great for me to ignore this offer.” Vincent sighed and thought more about what he was to do now that he wanted to leave the Academy. He wasn’t too surprised to feel her hands against him- it seemed to be her shtick with him and he thought nothing more of it. But her proposal threw him for a bit of a loop. “Me, a pirate? Riiiiight…” He didn’t believe her at first about this; he was hardly the pirate type. “I care little about revenge- I prefer to right the wrongs done to those that didn’t deserve it, like your people. I was made a fool, but I can live with it, but what I can’t stand is my own follies for obeying them.”

Vincent, for one reason or another, was slowly starting to think of what it would mean to join her crusade- it would mean more strength in numbers to succeed and also that she was already righting the wrongs made so far. A part of him still thought it was a ploy by her for whatever reason but he pushed such a worry aside as he felt her against his ear. He had to think carefully about all this and he softly pushed away from her and paced about before reaching for his insignia patch of the city on the arm of his coat and ripped off. “Fine. I will accept these terms if it means that I can help more people now than before.” He tossed it away and sighed. He would have to dismiss his crew and retake his ship. There was no point in driving them into this; they were honest men like him without families but were in the debt of Egjora. He didn’t want them to be hunted down along with him. Hopefully that conversation would go well. “I’ll remain here until the morning, then I have to fetch my ship. Now about that rum…”       

“From what I gathered their mother was a pompous bitch anyways. I’m much more fun!” She chuckled a bit more and shrugged. “They told me that their dad had sent them letters to explaining everything in a way they could understand without getting prosecuted. Their father was a smart man and they are smart children who have lived very full lives. Proud of them like they were my own.” She chuckled a bit. “Should have children your age now…”

Furtuna smiled a bit and nodded. “Revenge doesn’t bring back the dead… It only makes a hole deeper in your soul. That’s what my mother says and she is right. For the most part I spew we are going for revenge but I’m not. I’m making sure the mistakes of the past never happen again… While systematically destroying those who have wronged us. God forbid I ever get a husband.” It was a choking laugh.

She made a face he pulled away from her and watched with interest as he tore the mark off of him. “Sounds good to me. I could always use another good captain and you are a good captain Vincent.”

She grabbed him by the hands and pulled him away from the table with excitement. “I’m glad you saw things my way!” She busted open the door to her room and showed him. It was a grand room, one of the largest he probably ever saw. There was a work area with maps and a desk, a large chandelier overhead, a pile of gold and silver, weapons, outfits, a large four-poster bed with noble looking drapes and piles like pillows like people from Abed or the desert had for comfort. There was almost a bar in the room as well.

The room was carpeted with finely made rugs. “This is my room, the captain gets only the best!” She took him over to the bar before she took off her undershirt with skill and threw it. It was only her corset left now. “It’s too damn got to be modest.” She grumbled as she pulled out a bottle of her finest rum. “This was a gift from my mother centuries ago. I only take a drink from it when we have victories.” She poured them each a shot.

"You will stay in my room tonight right? You gave me the run around twice… three times? If you count our last encounter." She smirked a bit at him and slid him his glass. "I'll make a pirate out of you tonight."

“Children…Not sure how I’d handle them to be honest” Vincent never did give it a serious thought; aside from joking around with the men at the taverns and bars about settling down, it hardly crossed his mind. Perhaps one day when he retired and retreated to an estate of his own, then maybe he would have settled down with the right girl. But his duty came first for him, or at least it had before he learned the truth. Even so, he was about to enter another life that would make that difficult to achieve, not that his focus was on that. There were more pressing issues for him first to deal with.

“Agreed. I rather move forward and make sure the crimes never occur again.” He was glad that Furtuna was understanding about the concept. Even after everything that happened to her, she didn’t want for such a thing and it made him respect her more. “God forbid he’d be able to keep up with you”,he jested to lighten her mood.

It was a hasty decision, but one that needed to be done. He couldn’t just stand by and follow orders that may or may not have harm others. And he wouldn’t play dog for his town any longer. He would be an outcast in order to save it, which didn’t seem to bother his new boss who whisked him away from the room and into another- her own chambers. It was much more exaggerated than he had thought she would have. Considering her years though, he should have expected all the things around here.

She led him over to the bar, and he thanked the gods when he saw the amounts of drinks she had. Furtuna in her corset didn’t seem to bother him as much as it she had back on his ship, but technically she was still wearing more clothing now too. Vincent’s eyes though narrowed when she told him that he would stay here for the remainder of the night. “I suppose that can work out.” His mood lightened further as she got him a shot of rum. “Well then, I suppose this is a celebration then” He rose up his glass for her to clink with before he downed the shot. “Some mighty fine stuff your mother gave you.” He felt the warm go down nice and smooth. He looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. Perhaps the first time she would have saw this from him. “If that was the case, that’s because I thought you were playing mind games with me. You’re quite good at that, really.” He took off his coat and shirt and let them hit the ground as he enjoyed the coolness. “You're right, it's too hot around here." Vincent leaned against the bar and threw his head up to look at the ceiling. “I’ll admit something if you give me another shot…” He wanted until she did and downed it. Looking at the rim of the glass for a bit, he settle it back down and looked right back up. 

“I did nearly give in the night you decided to break into my vessel. Didn’t want to, but I withstood the temptation…until the kiss happened”  

“Nah, I just like sex.” She chuckled a bit. “With dangerous men.” She added as she poured him another shot after he started to strip and she watched with interest. “I could get used to that sight.”

She brought her hand up and ran her fingers down his chest with a chuckle. “That is an interesting admittance.” She climbed over the bar and pulled him to her. “Then let me pick up where I left off when I was so rudely interrupted.” She kissed him softly for a long time before they both began to deadly dance they had begun a week prior.

They ended up in her bed and she showed him all the fun types of things she loved to do with. He was experienced and it showed with the way he loved on her body. It was exhilarating and fun for hours. Afterwards, she curled up with him and told him to get some sleep. She kissed his lips, cheek, and finally his neck before settling her head into his chest pulling the blankets up on them.

However, the peace only lasted for a few hours before she shot up screaming and covered in a cold sweat. Her heart beating so hard and fast even the hardest of hearing humans could hear.