A Part of the Main [Closed]

[Melkire]

[align=center]~Some Moons Ago~[/align]

 

 

 

The deck creaked as wet footfalls slapped against the planks. Skippers swore and bruisers cursed and the Storm gathered. He could barely make her out up ahead, her own paws scrambling for purchase on the waterlogged wood as she kept low and darted this way and that. She was taking advantage of her size and poise. She was beneath notice. He wasn’t. She’d get clear. He wouldn’t.

 

There were worse places to be held up by the Maelstrom, but he’d come to Wolf’s Den for one reason and one reason only, and he didn’t have the time to spare for not-so-pleasant pleasantries with officials, let alone these officials.

 

Greasing palms, coin after coin, had finally paid off. He’d been holed up in Naldiq & Vymelli’s at Moraby Drydocks when the word came. Surprise had been the order of the sun. She wasn’t in Limsa. He remembered wondering why she wasn’t in Limsa. Did she know? How could she? He’d brushed those thoughts aside. Matters were arranged to proceed without him should he prove absent at a vital moment. Not a bell later, he was boarding the ferry.

 

Wolf’s Den wasn’t a particularly large platform, situated out in the open water and tethered to the rocks as it was. A retired Maelstrom vessel served as a den for games of all sorts; cards, dice, darts, drinks, and brawls were all welcomed here. Much of the space had been set aside, though, as a staging area for combatants to enter the Floating Colosseum in pursuit of fame and riches. What little deck was left, inside or out, went to the ferries.

 

He hadn’t expected to spot her so soon, or so easily. He’d seen her coloration, and he’d seen the kink in her tail. He’d seen her ears swivel, and her nose sniff, and her eyes widen. Then she turned and ran.

 

She was making for the Braveheart now.

 

So he followed, shouldering aside men and women alike, leaving a trail of the disgruntled in his wake as he poured on the speed and broke for the old lass himself.

[Zhavi]

Fortune's Dagger had anchored off the Wolf's Den a small fortune of suns ago. It floated, mostly barren; one among many of the same style, though there were differences. Each ship that berthed there had a different story, and most of them went belly up to the Maelstrom, sucking teat when they were able and keeping to the shadows when they weren't. There was money to be made -- deals to be made. And if you couldn't find your foothold in the crowd, well, you'd get trampled. That was how it was, for their kind.

 

The conditions that had precipated their arrival had not improved. Every day started the same, and every night ended the same, and in between everyone did their best to forget every night. Every morning they all started pretending the failures of the day before were only minor things easily overriden by a few slick words and greased palms. There'd been an official on deck, and that had been bad.

 

They wormed their way over and through Wolf's Den, approaching the same scrags, making the same overtures, presenting better and better offers.

 

There was progress and regression, a natural ebbing, and it wasn't bad except for the fact that the longer they took, the worse the final effect would be further down the line. She'd already taken her fair of hits, and had briefly considered running away -- except for the gun that had been pointed at her head with a sly, crazed grin behind it, taunting her.

 

She was set loose again, that morning, left to her own devices with only a goal to guide her and a threat at her back to keep her moving.

 

"Nim," the lad'd said.

 

Didn't take a genius to spot the man in the crowd, to recognize him.

 

She moved. There wasn't much to the Wolf's Den, and she'd tread all of it, time and time again. She'd gotten to know its strengths, and its weaknesses. It wasn't a place to lose someone in. Instinct pushed her, and she obeyed.

 

There was an art to slipping through a crowd, and half of it was being small enough to dive through opportune spaces. She left nary a stir as she ran, bouncing off posts when she could and landing lightly on planking. Her legs were strong. She knew her body, and knew what she was capable of; fair fights weren't part of her capabilities. What options remained involved losing sight of him, and without the full vertical space she was so used to being part of her world there just wasn't much she could do.

 

There wasn't really anywhere to go.

 

She lunged off of the boardwalk, caught a mooring chain and almost slipped from it to the water. Her fingers screamed as she got one leg wrapped on it. She was upside down as she started climbing up it, a mental map of the ship's nooks and crannies spreading out before her as she reached the ship's side. Once she'd wrestled her way atop the chain, she balanced for one dangerous moment with her heart in her throat, and jumped upwards; she barely caught the edge of a window slit and pulled herself up.

 

She might not be a fighter, but she'd been hauling herself around for most of her life. She knew every pain, every limit, and every exception to those limits.

 

She paused on the threshhold to the interior of the ship just long enough to see what was inside, and then she threw herself in.

 

Hide and seek.

[Melkire]

Surprise was not on the menu this sun.

 

She had nowhere else to go, after all, but up and in. His eyes swept back and forth over the hull as he moved, never focusing on any one particular point of egress bar the main entrance but rather taking in the ship as a whole, keen and alert and intent on picking out that dull bluish gray fur against the aged wood. Mooring lines were of note. Too many moons spent at sea to not know his way around a seafaring vessel. Anchor or no anchor, you put in at port? You tie yourself down, anchor be damned. That’s just how things are.

 

There.

 

No point in following after her. Keeper. Too fast, too agile, too gods-damned good at the vertical. Main entrance.

 

He barged inside, spun about, and broke for the stairs leading up to the next deck of the Braveheart. They were yelling now, the officers of the Storm, sounding the alarm, organizing as swiftly as they could to restore order. He didn’t have much time. What little he had to spare, he used to barrel into a Triad table and rebound off the scandalized seamen, slipping one’s Maelstrom jacket one off the man’s shoulder and concealing it behind his own back as he staggered away, apologizing profusely before turning around again, his footfalls thundering. He turned a corner and his free hand swept up and back through his hair, mussing it as best he could as he slipped his other arm through a sleeve and drew the uniform over one shoulder.

 

She’s going to hide. No other choice.

 

He’d just have to blend in, then.

[Zhavi]

The man's face had just enough time to start to contort from surprise to alarm before Zhi bowled between him and the woman he'd been -- well, no harm if she helped herself to the pile of clothing, offering naught but a cheeky grin and a slammed door in her wake. A shriek rose up behind her, high and feminine and indignant, and Zhi stored away the memory of their bodies for another time. Meanwhile, she had a hat to jam over her head, a man's shirt and a skirt that didn't quite go together but would do in a pinch.

 

She stripped and dressed as she walked down the hall, leaving one very confused (and sore, given her elbow to his nose) cabinboy in her wake. Seven doors down, she tried a room and found it locked. Out came the pins, sweat starting to bead on her brow, and she attacked the lock with the vigor of the damned. The mechanisms were heavy, causing her to waste precious seconds. And even after that, there was a bolt to wrestle with and -- Nald'thal, tip it damn you -- she wrenched the door open, slipped inside, and slammed it behind her.

 

Three people had seen her. Two would recognize the clothing she wore presently, and as for the rest, she balled it up and shoved it into a barrel. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness -- she was in some sort of storage room -- and she went straight to the shuttered window. She drew back the shutters, and found the window sealed. Outside the thick, warped glass, she could see the heavy mooring chain she'd intended to crawl down.

 

"Fuck, fuck," she hissed, banging her fist once, twice against the glass. She wasn't going to break it.

 

She cast around, and started in on one of the closed barrels. Something in here would help her escape.

 

She just had to find it first.

[Melkire]

He'd barely had time to shrug his way into the overcoat and dip a hand into one of his pockets for the eyepatch that went over his head and fit snugly over his face before he heard their footsteps pounding up the stairs behind him. He turned a corner through a nearby doorframe and nearly barreled into someone who was... much, much larger than he was, wearing much the same cloth and colors he was. His sole exposed eye rose up and up until he was staring at the most ravaged-looking Sea Wolf he'd seen in years. An officer, by her insignia, the woman's most telling features were the scars that spoke to the flesh that had been gouged out of her face over the cycles. She took but a single step back, rocked by the impact, then both her hands descended and clamped onto his shoulders.

 

Bluff.

 

"Cap'n," he all but squeaked in as high and girly a pitch as he could manage, "didja see 'er? Lil Keeper scrag must o' just been through heres, 'n' I reckon the bitch is causin' all sorts o'--"

 

A feminine voice shrieked from further down the length of the Braveheart, and the Roegadyn released his right shoulder to pivot in that direction. She snarled, then scoffed.

 

"Adventurers. Go, go!"

 

Her grip vanished and she patted him on the back just as the men from earlier came running up behind. He didn't need any further prompting; he took the cue for what it was and dashed down the hall, and the others followed him at a distance as the officer barked orders. The midlander grinned, satisfied, then ducked out of sight to the side as he passed through another doorframe, gaze intent on the stairs he'd spotted. He didn't bother with the steps, opting instead to vault from one set to another until, at last, he found himself on the orlop deck.

 

Time t'double back up 'n' out t'watch the moorin' lines.

 

He'd somehow inadvertently gotten the Maelstrom involved in the chase. All he had to do now was wait outside for them to flush Kink out, and he knew the perfect perch for it. He tore his way back out of the overcoat, ditched the eyepatch, and wrapped a long scrap of red felt around the lower half of his face as a makeshift scarf. That done, he spun in place and considered his options.

 

He'd need new clothes.