Chapter Text
Warm air drifted steadily across her face, tugging loose strands of hair with it each time the wind brushed softly against her skin, the familiar tang of salt lingered stubbornly on her lips with every gust. Somewhere behind her, the low groan of straining canvas echoed through the air as one of the great sails caught another breeze.
Below, sunlight spilled across the sea in fractured ribbons of gold, dancing over the restless water before surrendering to the darkness beneath the surface as the ship’s bow parted the waves. Above, towering white clouds drifted lazily through the endless blue, their edges constantly dissolving and reforming over and over again. She had spent enough years beneath them to know that they never stayed anything for very long, stretching and folding into strange caricatures that disappeared as quickly as they were born. Dragons became whales, Whales became castles and those Castles quickly dissolved into nothing more than white streaks before the wind carried them away again.
There was a strange comfort to be found in that, though she supposed that sentiment only held true for those who spent their lives beneath them, like her.
“Captain”
She turns toward the man standing behind her, her first officer. A short man with close-cropped white hair, skin worn rough by a lifetime of salt and sun and a crooked nose that told the story of a man who had never quite learned when to walk away from a fight.
As always, he stood waiting for her exactly where she had grown accustomed to finding him over the years. To her left and a step behind, his posture so impeccably straight that she half expected him to click his heels together and salute.
The hands clasped behind her back tightened briefly before she gave him a single nod. She turned away from the horizon, and crossed the quarterdeck toward the inner railing overlooking the bustling main deck below. Leaving behind the quiet temptation of the endless blue and the promise of freedom and discovery that came with it. The metal decorating her greatcoat rattled like shackles with every movement , the sound accompanied only by the creak of worn wooden floorboards dutifully answering every strike of her heavy leather boots.
A hush had already settled over the main deck below, falling silent long before she had even reached the railing. Dozens of eyes turning upward as she finally stepped into view, all of them faithfully awaiting the voice that had guided them through countless storms and battles alike.
She let her gaze travel slowly over the crew beneath her, taking in faces that she had known for years. Faces that followed her into uncertainty eagerly and trusted her judgment even when the odds were stacked against them. Every scar she saw on those faces had a story, every name attached to them a history.
No name would be forgotten by her, no voice would go unheard and not a single one of them would ever be left behind.
They were hers and she was theirs.
“Very well, let us remember our oath and offer our aid to those unfortunate souls who have found themselves in need of rescue”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Grace had now spent nearly two years aboard the Armando as the ships head waiter, a title that was absurdly ordinary and painfully distant from the one he had once carried. And as impressive as she was, being one of the largest passenger vessels sailing the North Sea, she still paled in comparison to the floating fortresses that patrolled the four Seas, the Navy’s flag flying proudly from their sterns.
Every inch of the the ship had been meticulously designed to indulge its wealthy passengers. Powder magazines had given way to luxurious suites, polished dining halls occupied valuable deck space and the hold groaned beneath crates of exotic delicacies and enough fine wine and spirits to last a decade.
The Armando carried every imaginable luxury, except for the means to defend itself. It seemed whoever had commissioned her, had been foolish enough to believe that providing extravagant luxury mattered far more than the ability to defend it.
Morons.
The sea had never once cared how rich you were, a truth that had been carved into mankind’s history with every ship lost beneath the unrelenting waves of the Four Seas.
But nowadays, under the pirates’ current reign of terror, the price for believing yourself to be the sole exception to that had become even steeper.
Grace knew that better than anyone.
So, in a way, it really should have come as no surprise to him that eventually the foolish luck the Armando sailed under would find its limit. He had been serving the aristocrats partying in one of the ships many polished banquet rooms, a wine bottle tilted gracefully in his hand as the deep red liquid poured into the waiting crystal glass below.
“PIRATES!”
The bottle slipped from his hands and shattered against pristine white tiles with a deafening crash, the crimson wine spreading across the floor like blood.
Every conversation died at once, plunging the usually lively banquet room into absolute silence as everyone in it anxiously awaited the confirmation that what they had heard was nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding.
“PIRA-” the warning was swallowed by the a sudden thunder of heavy boots striking the ship’s decks from all sides, a relentless drumbeat of footsteps announcing the arrival of those who had indeed come to seize the vessel.
All at once, the carefully maintained illusion of elegance shattered as the banquet room erupted into absolute chaos. The usually composed aristocrats became nothing more than a blur of colorful skirts and expensive linen, scrambling for safety behind the very working class that had been serving them moments earlier and that they had scarcely acknowledged until their lives suddenly depended on them.
Grace’s first instinct was to flee, to put as much distance as possible between himself and those disgusting parasites that had infested the seas. But aboard the Armando, or any ship really, escape was nothing more than an illusion. Pirates would search every corridor, every cabin, every last corner of a ship until they had gathered everything valuable to them.
He knew how they operated, knew their methods, had spent the better part of his life being prepared for exactly this.
And yet, as he watched the grand ornate double doors finally splinter open, surrendering to the relentless force of boots hammering against them, everything in him begged him to run.
A blur of broad shoulders and dark coats flooded through the shattered doorway, burly men spilling into the banquet room like a tide, carrying the smell of the sea with them. Their voices rose in crude cheers and vicious laughter as the golden glow of the chandeliers above reflected off the cold steel of their blades and pistols. As the weapons were leveled at the flock of aristocrats, Grace felt clammy hands from behind him tighten around his upper arms. Moments later he somehow involuntarily found himself standing in front them.
Just then, the sea of men parted, and a imposing figure stepped through the opening without haste. Long red hair framed her face and fell smoothly around her shoulders as the woman walked through the gap, the sharp click of her boots echoing loudly across the polished tiles while each of the men she passed fell silent in her wake.
She came to a halt a few steps away from Grace and the terrified crowd behind him, her gaze slowly moving over them as though she was taking inventory. Evidently, whatever she found appeared to please her, as a grotesquely gentle smile slowly spread its way across her face.
“Good day Passengers. Please, do not look so frightened. I assure you there is no need for it, we have come to help.”
She dipped into the barest imitation of a curtsy Grace had ever witnessed, her hands remaining locked behind her back. And when her gaze lifted again and she was still met with nothing but terrified, disbelieving faces, bodies scrambling backwards even further and hands clutching desperately onto those beside them, Grace watched as her smile only seemed to broaden at the sight.
“Help you relieve yourselves of the terrible burden of your gold and jewels, that is.” with that, she drew an admittedly beautifully maintained saber from her side, the well-kept blade sliding free with practiced ease, fractured golden light of the chandeliers above glinting along the polished blade.
She levelled the saber at the man in front of the group with calm precision, never bothering to acknowledge him with so much as a full glance. Unfortunately for Grace, he was that man. Behind her, her crew erupted into rowdy cheers, while those standing behind him gasped in fear as the sharp point of the blade came to rest mere inches from his chest.
“Ryland!” one of his fellow waiters shouted, panic breaking through his voice as he tried to reach him. Two of her men reacted instantly, surging forward and intercepting him before he could take more than a single step, each locking one of his arms with one of their own as they dragged him back with ease.
The crowd parted almost instantly, leaving the man struggling against the grip of the burly men restraining him as he still tried to reach his friend, entirely to his own fate. His desperation was that of a man staring death in the face and Grace bitterly realized that, the comparison was not far from the truth.
Because at the same time, a high-pitched screech cut through the ballroom. “Mr. Grace!” one of their more frequent guests, an elderly widow who had taken a rather unsettling liking to him, had watched in horror as Grace himself was sent crashing onto the polished tiles, knocked down by the desperate scramble of bodies around him.
The fact that the blade waiting there had not pierced him the instant he stumbled forward was perhaps the clearest testament to the identity of the woman standing before him. Only someone with inhuman speed and precision could have withdrawn the blade in time. No one else could have done it that quickly, no one but her.
Captain Eva Stratt.
Or rather, Fürstin Stratt, the woman who commanded the largest and most feared pirate fleet to ever sail the waters of the North Sea.
Her name echoed through all four Seas as a warning and struck fear into the hearts of the ones who sailed them. Her reputation alone reason enough that the world had come to refer to her by a title usually reserved for royalty: Fürstin.
The same face that had stared back at Grace from countless wanted posters across the world, a fortune promised to whoever managed to bring her head back, now slowly tilted down to actually meet his gaze. She had paid him no real attention at first and he quickly came to realise that he’d been somewhat grateful for that, because even with her saber pointed directly at him, her eyes had remained fixed on the terrified aristocrats behind him. However, now that his name had been mentioned and he was kneeling right before her, he had become the sole object of her attention.
Surprised amusement flashed across her face for only an instant before the ballroom windows painted the silver of her blade with fractured sunlight once again. A heartbeat later, before he even had time to blink, the tip of her Saber rested lightly against his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbed against the cold steel as he swallowed hard.
Forced to his knees before her, Grace found himself looking up at the woman towering above him, sunlight poured through the splintered doorway behind her and casted an almost saintly golden halo around her head. Despite himself, he found his gaze lingering on her as she tipped her head forward, the shifting sunlight abandoning her fiery strands as shadows settled around her eyes.
She was a sight to behold, and under different circumstances, some embarrassingly irrational part of him thought he might have been content to study her for hours, perhaps even an eternity. But there were no different circumstances.
No matter how undeniably beautiful she was, two facts remained unchanged: a razor-sharp saber still teased the skin of his throat with almost playful delight, and she was still disgusting, ruthless, despicable scum.
In short, she was a pirate.
“Ryland Grace? The Navy’s golden boy and once-beloved cartographic prodigy, Ryland Grace?”
The moment her eyes met his, the ballroom ceased to exist.
The piercing blue of her gaze and the mocking lilt in her voice stripped away everything else until only the two of them remained, suspended entirely in a world of their own.
He shot her a withering glare, simply couldn’t help himself not to, it had been years since anyone had spoken his name with recognition. Some small part of him had hoped that the vastness of the open sea would eventually swallow him whole, help him disappear until the world someday forgot he had ever existed.
The tip of her saber nudged more firmly against the underside of his chin, silently demanding he lift it higher, forcing his head back another fraction unless he wanted the blade to break skin.
His hands curled into fists against the floor on either side of his knees as he obeyed.
Evidently, it had been a foolish hope.
She mercilessly continued the upward motion, the razor-sharp tip of her blade tracing the line of his jaw with deliberate, cruel patience. Grace squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth until they ached under the strain.
“Well, would you look at that” obvious amusement colored her tone as she looked down at him kneeling before her, completely powerless. The sharp blade left his skin for the briefest moment before she swiftly repositioned it against the other side of his jaw, slowly guiding his head to turn with it once more, she was playing with him.
Grace opened his eyes again, staring at her from the corner of his gaze, hatred burning within them openly now. The deep-rooted contempt that had been simmering inside him, building with every second since the footman had first cried out about her approaching fleet, finally broke through the restraints he had placed on it.
She merely raised an eyebrow at the open hatred now burning in his gaze and the genuine, unashamed predatory delight that flashed in her own eyes in return, only made the revulsion inside him burn hotter.
Fucking Pirates.
He forced down the bile burning in his throat, bile he would have gladly spat at her feet, or those of any pirate standing before him for that matter.
The Navy might have cast him out for dishonouring their thick-headed and outdated hierarchy, but even their ultimate rejection had never managed to erase the one thing that still connected him to them: a visceral disgust for her kind and everything the woman standing before him embodied.
“And here I was thinking the Navy would have learned not to let their failures wander back onto my waters”
The loathing burning in him seemed to only amuse the Fürstin of the North Sea. The sharp tip of her saber continuing its deliberate journey along his jaw before the pressure suddenly increased against it, guiding his face back toward her with unequivocal control. Grace met her eyes the entire time, his vision blurred at the edges, burning from the effort, but he simply refused to give her the satisfaction of looking away.
“I’m the best damn cartographer and navigator who has ever sailed these waters!” the declaration tore from him before he could restrain it, surprising even himself. Years of discipline had taught him control, but he had never truly tamed his pride the way he was expected to.
He heard laughter somewhere beyond them, loud and cruel, but his attention remained trapped under her gaze.
So it was his best guess whether the sound belonged to the present or the past.
He’d forgotten how easily the raging beast in his chest broke free whenever something threatened it, had spent years learning to negotiate with his pride, trying to convince it to stay quiet enough for him to keep living.
But he couldn’t forget.
Couldn’t forget the condescending smug smiles of men he had once considered friends, their mocking words engraved into his mind.
He could never forget the day the Navy had cast him aside so easily, branding his defiance as dishonour and leaving him with nothing but the anger they had helped create.
A salty droplet of sweat slid from his hairline and into his eyes, the sting making his vision blur at the edges. Still, he refused to blink, the sneer on his face remaining firmly fixed on the woman looming over him. She leaned back slightly, her blade not moving an inch from where it rested beneath his chin, a thoughtful expression crossing her features.
“Oh, are you? Tell me, how many lives did your arrogance cost that day? What was it again that people remember even more than your supposed uncanny accuracy with maps and navigation?” her voice held an almost innocent sweetness, a carefully crafted gentleness that would have been charming if it wasn’t accompanied by the amused mockery in her eyes.
She knew exactly what she was doing, knew exactly where to press. Grace gritted his teeth again, his throat twitching against the blade as he fought down the response burning on his tongue.
“The best damn cartographer and navigator these seas have ever seen? Strange. I would have thought a man deserving of such a title would be remembered for something other than the graves left in his wake.”
At that, Grace finally let the bile he had been choking back escape, spitting it at her feet with open contempt. He did so without hesitation, without caring whether the blade beneath his chin would punish him for it, whether it would cut him open before the act was even complete.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. My dear disgraced Golden Boy…”
Her saber withdrew without warning, causing his head to dip forward at the sudden absence of cold steel against his skin. While the sudden freedom from the blade beneath his chin was almost disorienting, it did manage to momentarily fill him with the belief that this whole ordeal might have shifted in his favor, it lasted exactly a second.
A loud crack rang sharply through the banquet hall, his head flew to the side as the back of her free hand connected with his cheek. The force of her slap enough to steal the breath from his lungs, leaving him blinking through the sting and fighting to draw air again.
Before he could even begin to recover, she already had a firm grip on his chin, her gloved fingers tightening against his skin as she forced his face back toward hers.
He was met by her face suddenly inches from his own, beautiful, undeniably so, but its elegance was entirely ruined by the mischievous wolfish grin twisting across it. The rough leather of her glove scraped against his stubbled jaw as she forced him closer until the tips of their noses nearly brushed, the scent of worn leather unashamedly invading every breath he struggled to take.
“What was it that you called the Grand Admiral?” her grin widened, exposing perfectly straight teeth interrupted only by a single golden canine that caught the light.
“A staggering waste of food rations?”
Grace briefly wished she had simply let the saber end it.
The cold finality that would have followed, would have at least been a mercy, that the beast inside him could have accepted. Instead, her words only became fodder for its rage, feeding the anger clawing through his chest. He had to fight the horrifyingly primal urge to snap his teeth at her like a rabid animal.
Their breaths mingled between them, neither of them willing to admit the defeat that came with looking away first. So they found themselves once more trapped in that strange, distorted version of reality where nothing seemed to exist beyond the two of them, a silent challenge passing between their gazes before the voice of one of her lackeys finally broke through.
“Captain Stratt”