PreCursive

  What the hell was she doing here?

  The st I had heard from Bel, she was sailing away from the docks at Sancthaven all those months ago. She had told me she was making for the blockade oher side of the ti in order to link up with the Uprising fleet. There, she would be joining as what was essentially a privateer uhe employ of Grey specifically.

  I had never heard anything else about her in that time, not even from Grey. I didn’t have any experien particur with the Naval portion of the Uprising, and my impression was that they mostly funed autonomously due to the blockade.

  How had she ended up in Elderwyck? Was she here under orders or something?

  Hmm.

  Well, only one way to find out.

  “,” I murmured to Sylvia. “Let’s see if we find anyone we know.”

  Sylvia nodded faintly at my words, eyes still narrowed in the dire of the ued ship. Her arm clutched in mine, we casually strolled our way down towards the docks.

  Nothing suspicious to see here, just a young couple out on a date.

  We made our way onto ay doot far from the ship, doing our best to scope it out while pretending as if we were simply gazing at the o. Now that we had a closer look at the ship, I was sure it was the Reef. It had been disguised to a degree to more closely resemble a mert’s vessel, but I would reize those sails anywhere.

  And…

  The crew that was unloading crates from its hold. I didn’t see Bel yet, but I did see some familiar faces.

  Wait, shit.

  Yeah, that was Laryn alright. The jolly pirate looked a little different, wearing er clothes and with longer hair. But for some reason, he was still missing an eye. Last he’d told me, he was intending to get it grown back. He still had the same eyepat.

  My gaze met Sylvia’s in mutual reition.

  Now, what to do with this?

  “tact?” I whispered to Sylvia as quietly as I could, my lips barely moving.

  The disguised Sculpted woman sidered the question for a moment, before nodding ever so slightly. “Risk minimal,” She breathed in answer.

  Alright then. It to me, as I wasn’t pretending to be airely different species like Sylvia was. Laryn might be able tnize me.

  The ime he tromped down the ramp carrying a crate rger than himself, I sauntered up to him, leaving Sylvia behind on the pier. I approached him just as he was setting down the box.

  “Well, I’ll be!” I said in a fake surprised tone. “I haven’t seen you in ages! What brings you to these waters?”

  Laryn straightened up in surprise at being directly addressed, turning to look at me. He stared at me bnkly for a moment before his one good eye visibly widened in shocked reition. “Na-!” He started to excim, before catg himself at the st moment. “a see ya, uh, man!” He corrected himself awkwardly. heless, he reached out and grabbed my hand, shaking it with very real enthusiasm. I gripped it iurn, my smile taking on a genuine edge.

  Despite everything, it was o see him.

  “I hadn’t heard anything about you or your Captain sailing in these waters,” I said, carefully trying to vey a message. “Is she here with you?”

  Laryn my question, one eye darting about suspiciously. I nearly wi how overt he was being. “Aye, she is,” He said carefully. “Ah, she’s in the harbormaster’s office right now, settlin’ up wit’ him. She should be along soon. We… wait fer her, if ye’d like?” He asked, before his gaze drifted over to the form of the disguised Sylvia waiting faux demurely at the other pier. “Uh…she with you?”

  I met his eyes, smiling evenly. “Oh, she is. I’m not surprised you don’t reize her, sidering how young she was st you met,” I said, making shit up on the spot. “That’s thia, the daughter of our former employer.”

  Laryn’s face lit up in reition before he started nodding vigorously. “Oh, that’s little thia!” He fake ughed. “Don’t even reize the gel! C’mere, you!” He said, waving Sylvia closer.

  When she had joined us, he pulled both Sylvia and I into a group hug that brought his mouth close to my ear. “Name?” He muttered urgently.

  “Hans,” I murmured back quickly.

  “Gruber,” He returned. I resisted the urge to make a face at the fake hat was the best he could e up with?

  “Captain?” Sylvia whispered on his other side.

  “Nicollette,” ‘Gruber’ said, before separating from us with a fake smile on his sea-weathered features.

  The entire exge had taken only moments, so I don’t think it had looked suspicious.

  Laryn spotted something over my shoulder, causing his eye to light up again. “And there she is!” He said in a relieved tone. “Captain must be do’ the iations. I’m sure she’ll be happy ta see ya.”

  I turned around, expeg to see the same blue-coated rough and tumble pirate Captain I was so familiar with. But I paused when I did see her.

  Bel looked…different.

  Clearly in disguise herself, Captain ‘Nicollette’ looked far more…respectable than I remember her being. Instead of her coat and pirate leathers, she wore what looked like a sharp white and red naval outfit with a long coat waving in the sea breeze. She even had a trie hat on her head, plete with a bright white feather poking from the brim. The brass buttons on her outfit gleamed in the sunlight, while the cutss at her side looked more presentable than I ever remembered it being.

  She was striding in the dire of her ship, deep in apparent versation with a portly-looking official. However, when her deep blue eyes looked up briefly, they settled first on Sylvia, and then stopped on me.

  She stopped iracks, blinking in open shock.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the sight, no matter where we were.

  Hello, Bel.

  Oh, excuse me.

  ‘Nicollette.’

  ……………………………..

  Thirty minutes of careful and nont manuevering ter, Bel, Sylvia, and I mao make our way to a familiar meeting room at the heart of the ship. Meanwhile, a woeful Laryn had been shooed away back to work by the disguised pirate Captain, while the three of us settled in ohorny Reef.

  Or rather, the ‘Coral Squall’.

  “I think I like the old ter,” I said to Bel, accepting a gss of amber liquor from her. Taking a sip of it, I found it to be of remarkably better quality than the ‘grog’ they’d tried to ply me with the st time I’d been aboard.

  This actually tasted like something a living mortal should be drinking, for one.

  The four of us were sitting around a small side table in the room, catg up as best as we could in the limited time we had. Sylvia and I had somewhere to be, after all.

  “Old name me skinny arse,” Bel said lightly, not taking any offense. “It’s just the name I’m running the old girl under. Something the Bluebacks came up with. I’m putting up with it fer now, but I ain’t fotten this ship's roots.”

  “Bluebacks…” I muttered, trying to remember if I’d ever heard the name before. I think so? If I had, it had only been in passing.

  Sylvia made an amused er thanking Bel for her own cup of booze. “A Naval Intelligence office that broke away from the Kingdom at the beginning of the war. They’re…entirely separate from the Order, but allied with the Uprising.”

  Oh, I see. So, they weren’t with us lowly Noes then.

  “An’ there ain’t many of them left,” Bel piped in. “They’ve pretty much hung up the ol’ cloak and dagger in favor of the Admiral's stripes, after sufferin’ too many losses. They’re runnin’ the show down south when it es ta Naval affairs these days, as most of the Royal Navy leadership stuck’ wit’ the Loyalists.” She ughed, throwing back her own gss of liquor and p another. “I gotta say, it’s damn straa be linkin’ up with them. Time was, the Bluebacks were the ones huntin’ pirates all up and down the coasts. Now, they’ve been puttin’ out a call of amy fer ahat es in and raises the fg of the Uprising, with promises of real positions after the war. And it’s workin’. I’ve seen more than one familiar crew decide that they want ta ght. Even some ships from Marrowmist.”

  “Huh,” I said thoughtfully before something else occurred to me. “Ah…what about McGill? Is he keeping to his promise and hitting the Loyalists too?”

  At that, Bel’s mirth faded and her face affected a sour note. “Aye,” She still affirmed. “That dog kept ta his word. He eve up his own pirate port and stuck ta his damn fool name of ‘Freefief’. But he and his boys are raidin’, I’ll say that. I’d almost say they’re pissin’ off the Loyalists more than the rest of us are, wit’ the way he pretty much stole a major isnd from ‘em. Bluebacks are happy about it, though. He’s takin’ plenty of pressure off of them, wit’ his antics.”

  Sylvia set down her gss, drawing the attention of Bel. “This is iing news, Isabel,” Sylvia said, causio roll her eyes and mutter something about Grey. “But…what are you doing here? I had no idea the ‘Bluebacks’ were operating in this area.”

  “Well, I ’t say the same, girlie,” Bel surprisingly said, face painted with a smirk. My eyebrows rose at that, causio ameatement. “Well, not you specifically. I mean the Order. The Bluebacks heard from someone up north that yer doin’ somethin’ here in Orc try, and wao show their support. What with how pleased they are that Whitegull set up a ve pawn ta take attention away from them.”

  Is that how the Uprising Navy saw our as at Caer Drarrow? As some kind of calcuted pn to create a puppet force of pirates to assault the Loyalists?

  That was only, like, half true at best.

  “So, they fed some false mert's papers, prettied up our ships, a a number of us out west ta see if we support ya,” Bel said with a smile. “I was meant ta see if I could scout this port out, and make tact wit’ the Order forces on the ground. And…well, looky here,” She toasted the two of us. “I seem ta have found two genu-wine members o’ the Order.”

  Sylvia and I exged a look at that, before simultaneous smiles stole across our faces. “You or me?” I asked my partner in more ways than one.

  “You do it,” Sylvia said cheekily, rexing into her chair. “Let Isabel and I catch up, hm?” As Bel eyed the two of us curiously, I stood up from my chair and walked over to a nearby ging s iher er of the room.

  I o try and maintain some of the Noe Division’s secrets.

  O of sight I took out my unication and started flipping in sequences. With Headquarters finding out about the ued boon we’d gotten from a far-flung branch of the Uprsing, they would let Hook knht away.

  And then he could scheme up a way for this to be our operations iy.

  Speaking of…

  I stepped out from around the ging s to find Bel and Sylvia almost huddled together on one side of the table. As I drew closer, for some reasoook one look at me and burst out ughing. Meanwhile, Sylvia had an almost embarrassed look oill illusioned features.

  I blinked slowly at the odd iion.

  I’m…not sure I wao know.

  I cleared my throat. “Ah…we should get going,” I said apologetically, to the both of them. “The relevant parties have been informed of your offer, and you’ll be tacted soon. In the meanwhile, the two of us have a priagement.”

  Sylvia nodded, standing up from her chair and posing herself. “Isabel, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you soon,” She told the Captain with a smile.

  Bel just raised her gss at us in a salute. “t on it. I ain’t gonna miss any o’ this fer the world.”

  ………………………..

  Fifteen mier, Sylvia and I were somewhere entirely different.

  That being on a rooftop of a warehouse some distao the harbor district of Elderwyck. We had ged out of our civilian cover clothes and, quite spicuously and deliberately, into Noe Division Order armor. Our respective masks were donning our faces, while cealing hoods had been drawn up over our heads. Sylvia’s familiar bd white one was cealing her once again Mithril features, while my previously bnk mask had finally been painted for this operation.

  I had settled on a mostly por white surface with a crimson impression of a noose on the front. The long end of it started at my forehead, with the open portion of the stylized rope falliically through the eye holes of the mask. The bottom portion of it curled around in front of where my mouth should be, almost giving the impression of a bloody grin.

  Without a word, a simirly garbed Dusk melted out of the shadows to our left, ing to stand with us.

  We stood there silently for a moment, letting the now night air blow across our cloaked forms as we gazed out at dockyards. Below us, we could see the graveyard shift of the dockworkers hustling and bustling about their business, illuminated by mplight.

  Dusk broke the silence. “Ready?” She said shortly, to our apanying nods. The Gnoll Agent stepped past us, dropping out of sight to the darkened alleyway below in an instant. Sylvia followed her, but I paused for a moment.

  A shift in the wind had caught my attention.

  Holding out an open hand, I stared at my palm as a single white snowfke settled into the leather of my gloves. Looking up, I beheld tless others drifting downwards to settle onto any ft surface they could find.

  Ah.

  I see.

  Winter really had e to Vereden.

  I shook off the odd feeling and stepped forward off the rooftop, falling to joihers.

  Time to get to work.