RP:Tension on the Water
Summary: Larz figures he’d be nice and deliver an order of rum from The Whaler’s Bar to Airon’s ship, but he ends up signing up for much more than he anticipated.
Stone Wharf
Much the same as what you have observed recently in the nearby scenery, the large rocks and passing waves, most of which are pounding the southern surface of the rock's faces, eroding them into clean, smooth stones, age envisioned within their textures. The only notable difference from the western area is the crowded lot of clinging sea creatures actually adhered to the facades of the granite boulders. Mussels, few breeds of crab, urchins just above the water level, their tentacles writhing with the splash of moisture now and then. Of course, sea stars of six, seven, even up to eleven appendages at times, and of colors from pink to brown. Every so often, a gull will be daring enough to approach and attempt to steal away one of the appetizers before the waves come unto the rocks, but is usually not successful. To your west and east is near exact continuance of this.
Airon scans over the maps laid out before her a few more times. Hell’s fire, where is this newest ship going to cross at before heading to Rynvale! Frustrated, the high elf growls as she reaches for the nearby bottle of rum and downs a good wash it before slamming it against the table with an audible thump. She curses again, but this time more loudly as she gets up and begins to pace across the length of her room. When nothing comes to mind, she makes her way out onto the open deck where her crew has been drinking and singing; enjoying down time where it comes. As the crew spots the frustrated look on their captain’s face, they pause in the middle of singing and wait for her word. Somewhere, under all her vengeance and pettiness, she really appreciates her crew for sticking with her through the last five years; loyalty goes a long way with her. So, she cleans up the scowl she knows is on her face and instead turns it into a sharp grin as she turns to one of her runners and makes a request. “I want one more check in with the buyer before we give ourselves completely over to the night, aye? I want to be sure the pony isn’t coming into the stable tonight.” Her runner dips his head in acknowledgment before taking off down the gangplank and out into the night. As for the high elf, she sighs as a headache forms between her brows. Where are her cigarillos? She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out the empty silver canister and curses. “Be back in a minute,” she says, as she skirts around the crew and heads to her room to refill the case.
Largakh had yet another unpleasant day with his past being so carelessly slapped across his face and had drank a little at the Whaler’s Bar until they kept calling out for someone to pick up the order for ‘Lady’s Blissing’. By the third obnoxious call, the half orc gives in and stands up, “I’ll take it.” The barkeep looks the man up and down with a raised eyebrow before sliding the crate filled with rum bottles off the bar counter until it falls into the orc hands. “Might as well get my jacket back as well,” he had been so disoriented leaving at such an early hour the next morning that he’d overlooked where the high elf had pirate had placed it. When Larz steps up the gangplank, he expects some elatement due to the rum bottles being delivered, but the whistling catcalls catch him off guard and he glances around as to where to set the crate down. “Where will you have this, your highness?” He meets Airon at the path to where the captains quarters is and lowers his voice to ask, “I think I forgot my jacket, have you seen it?” Then his focus is taken by the tenseness over crew and how it seemed the calm before chaos, “big day?”
Airon had thought the only kind of stress relief she was going to happen upon that night was going to be a handful of cigarillos and a bottle of rum. Who she hadn’t expected to drop into her lap on the eve of a raid. Was this a sign of good luck or bad? She glances over her shoulders at the catcalling crew and offers them a wink before answering Larz. “Just leave it there, they can get into it as they like.” As for the aforementioned jacket, well, she makes her way towards the cabin, gesturing for him to follow. “I think I have it draped over the back of my desk chair. And here I thought I was going to get to keep it; a trophy of sorts,” she says, her tone full of suggestive teasingly as she pulls the door open and waves him on in. There those maps are, mocking her with their unfinished lines of attack. Hell’s fire to them all, she was itching to get out on the sea and wreck something. Then a thought occurs to her. She turns towards the half-orc, strides over and takes a hold of the front of his shirt. “You got anything better to do tonight? It has been a big day and I need something better than liquor to wind down with, understand?” If he agrees in any sort of way, the high elf keeps a hold of his shirt and pushes him into the nearest wall and presses her lips against his hungrily. If the raid isn’t going to be until tomorrow, she might as well make it a good night.
Largakh doesn’t think much about the lack of information he was getting after he set the crate down just before her door and follows her within. With a grin and a start to a chuckle, he shrugs, “as long as you came in first place, you deserve a trophy.” His suggestive tone is accompanied by a mischievous grin as she prowls over to him. Coming aboard the ship for this wasn’t his intention, but he’d be a fool to turn down such a gorgeous woman. “It seems I’ve got something better to do now,” his rough and gravely orcish tone lowers as he allows her to take the lead on this one, if only for a few minutes, while matching her hunger. After a little bit of heated kissing, he pulls her up over his shoulder like a sack of flour and makes his way to her bed so they may have their own kind of fun in order to wind down or forget about their troubles.
Airon ::It is the early hours of the morning when the high elf hears the sounds of a soft knock on her door. She groans inwardly as she quietly slips from her bed, pulls on her pants and shirts and prepares a really sharp talking to for whomever just woke her. When she opens the door, the sight of her first mate fills the door frame. She presses a finger to her lips as she snatches her boots off the floor, glances over her shoulder at the sleeping orc before stepping outside. Once out in the cool air she asks, “What is it? Have you heard news?” The first mate nods, quick to divulge that the ship that was supposedly coming in during the later part of the morning is making a move for Rynvale now. The high elf curses under her breath as she pulls on her boots and delivers orders to set sale. He nods before taking off to wake the rest of the crew. As for Airon, she turns to the captain’s quarters, curses under her breath and locks the door--best he not come out during this. Once the crew is up, she is quick to give orders and man the helm as the ship pulls out into the quiet waters of the morning sea. There is a bit of fog lining this section of the channel between Cenril and Rynvale, making it a bit difficult to see. It is a bit before they spot the merchant vessel with the flags of the house of trade. A sly grin touches her lips as she positions her ship to slide up next to the larger vessel, giving the crew a better position with which to grapple up onto the ship. She almost has it just right when she hears a voice yelling from atop the larger vessel--spotted! Hell’s fire! She maneuvers into position and shouts for the crew to prepare to board before they can ready any sort of counterattack. Some of the crew makes it up on to the top deck, while others are fending off the paltry security that the merchant had paid for. As for her, she snatches up her sword and begins to join her crew in pushing back the security and making a move towards the top deck. A crackling noise rings through the air as a cannon goes off and misses her ship by a hair’s breath. Cursing she climbs down into the lower belly of the merchant rig, heading for a nearby canon and sticking her sword through the shooter’s chest.
Largakh wakes with a start at the crackling noise given by the canon and yells out a loud curse at the same time before the heavy breathing sets in as his yellow gaze begins taking in his surroundings. Grasping the sheets and gathering them around his waist as he makes his way to the window to pull back the curtain. They’ve left the Cenril port! Where are they? What’s all this commotion which isn’t helping his headache!? With a rough grunt, he slips his pants back on, but where is his shirt? Things got so wild last night, he can’t recognize anything in this dim light, but when he finally finds the door he discovers it’s locked! He gives it a hard rattle, “hey! HEY!” He can hear a battle going on and dread comes over him because he knows that they must be doing some lawless pirating out there. “Guys! Don’t do this!” When he starts pulling and pounding, he continues to try to shout and yell for someone to find him and let him out, but what is he going to do? Help the merchants because it will be the right thing to do? Or help the pirates he’s beginning to know?
Airon ::The battle rages on, with Airon calling over the shouts and clangs of swords for them to nab the cargo and go. A few of the crew head for the belly of the ship while she fights off a few more of the security as she heads back to her own ship. She slips down the plank with a thump as a few boxes follow after her. A few crew mates are at the bottom, ready to retrieve the crates and put them below decks. Airon on the other hand is fighting off and tossing those who had stepped onto her ship over the side. She circles back past the captain’s quarter, knocking another guard back just as she catches the sound of banging on the door. She gives the guard a swift kick before she lands with a thump against her door and shouts through the door at the orc. “Just stay in there boyo. You don’t need to get involved with things out here.” A resounding boom shatters the air as a spark of flame begins to consume the deck of the merchant ship. “Hell’s fire!” She snarls as she makes for the bridge between the ships, trying to help with the cargo. Another boom goes off as the fire reaches more gunpowder and Airon is knocked back.
Largakh starts to panic as he hears explosions. Holy hells! The adrenaline takes over and he backs up as far as he can before busting out of the captain’s door in nothing more than his black slacks. The half orc must look quite a sight with his back and grey hair all bed tousled, barefoot, eyes wide with what most would perceive as rage and most strikingly, those blue splotches standing out in the dwindling moonlight. Appearing animalistic, but mostly it’s the spreading fire - it just HAS to be fire. The element has never been his friend and with his dumb bravery, his footsteps are already heading toward the other ship and clears the gap with one impressive leap. His presence is announced on the merchant ship with a loud thud when he lands and he’s already sprinting off to find Airon and her crew, whoever he runs into first. One by one, he rescues her crew before going on the hunt for the captain and he doesn’t even notice whatever the merchant ship sailors are doing, but they’ve surely shared tales of ‘the blue orc’. Or maybe they meet him with raging racism?
Airon slams into the mast and slides down to the floor. Her sight becomes fuzzy as she sees members of her crew run and leap back to their skiff. She groans as she leans over and and tries to push herself back up into a standing position. Her head is still swimming as she tries to shout a command for the crew to stop trying to take any more of the cargo and get off the ship, but her voice scrapes from her vocal cords like a shrill cry. While she is trying to gain her footing back, the high elves on the ship are shouting about an oncoming orc. There are calls for him to be taken down and how did an orc end up on the ship! Also a lot of really not nice slurs are slung at Largakh as he makes his way across the deck. Some of them are yelling about the blue orc, and how this pirate raid cannot get any worse. Airon on the other hand is thoroughly confused. How has Larz gotten out of the room and up here? The smuggler hisses as she finally struggles to her feet and tries to make her way over to the gangplank that is still leading the last of the crew off the merchant ship. She takes one step and finds her vision blurring again. Maybe she had also hit her head during that explosion. “Larz…” She croaks out, turning her attention towards the gathered merchant crew trying to fight him back with sword and spells.
Largakh trying to shout for the merchants to get off the boat before it takes them all down, but he’s met with violence, what’s ‘new’. As soon as a man leapt from the riggings above to land on his back and drive a dagger into his shoulder, Darkness flashes across his yellow eyes and the orcish side of Larz spills out like a broken dam, “ENOUGH!” Bloodied spittle sprays from his mouth when his booming voice erupts over the commotion as he takes the sailor who landed on him by the neck and tosses him overboard like a rag doll. His hands clench as his footsteps stalk closer and closer to the cowering sea men on the deck, a few jump overboard in fear, but that’s when he heard his name. Instantly, his gaze snaps over his shoulder and he blinks a couple times before sprinting off the ship just as another explosion assisted in throwing him onto the deck of Lady’s Blissing. With a sickening thud, he landed awkwardly on the soggy wood and rolls to his side, but the unmoving half orc might send concern to those of Airon’s crew that he just rescued.
Airon gains her footing and takes off for the gangplank and slides down the plank. Once she is back on her ship, she is quick to move the gangplank off of her ship and nudges it into the water. With the connection broken, she shouts for the crew to take off and get them as far away from this fire as possible. The captain presses a hand to her temples as she grunts, trying to take count of those who made it back. It during this that she notices a small group of her crew gathered around someone. She takes a few slow steps towards them before she notices a bit of blue and green between the feet of her pirates. Sighing, she makes her way over and presses it upon her crew to get back to work. As for her, she deals down next to the orc and nudges him in the shoulder. “Come on boyo, can’t have you out here in the open while there is fire,” she says, as she moves to pull his arm over her shoulder and help him sit up a bit. It hasn’t been lost on her that he helped some of her crew, especially given that a few keep looking in her direction. “Ya did good. Wouldn’t expect a good boyo to help out a bunch of pirates.”
Largakh gradually gets back up to his feet and moves in front of Airon, gently pushing her head up by her chin to look up into his eyes. It might seem like some romantic gesture, but he says, “you might have a concussion.” Never mind the orc’s gash bleeding down his shoulder and his lip split open. He starts to limp back to the captain’s cabin, which now has a broken door hanging off the hinges, but he starts searching for his shirt and jacket. Once he finds his shirt, he rips it up and wraps his shoulder to apply pressure which will slow the bleeding. When he slips his soft leather jacket back on, he starts pacing and maybe he’s also looking for some rum. What the hell was that? It wasn’t like him at all, but what concerns him the most is that he liked it. He gave in and allowed the rage to wash over him like the waves of the sea and it.felt.good. If she followed him, he plops down in one of the armchairs and says, “when we get back to the Cenril docks, get to a healer and make sure you’re not concussed.” With a defeated sigh, he lets his head rest back on the chair as he stares up at the beams in the captain's quarters.
Airon shakes off the orc with a gruff, ‘I know’ before turning towards the crew and shouting for the ship healer to make an appearance in her cabin here soon. If being an admiral taught her anything, it is best to keep a healer and a few other magic users on the crew at all times. So, she follows the orc back to her quarters and huffs as she sees the state of her door. “Well, guess I will need to find a good carpenter when we get back to shore,” she says, as she finds a place along the door frame to lean against as her head begins to spin again. “Captain?” A soft voice interrupts her thoughts. Airon gestures towards the bleeding orc as she answers, “Tend to him first before he bleeds all over the room please.” Her other hand is pressing against her forehead as she turns to watch the healer as she explains to Larz that he must remove the jacket in order for her to better examine his wounds. While she waits for him to do that, the healer digs up bandages and salves to apply to the wounds as well as a needle in case any of the wounds are deep enough to need it. As for the smuggler, she makes her way back out onto the deck and up to the wheel where her first mate is. “Let us make sure we put up the illusions before we get to shore. Best we be in hiding for a few days until we know no one from that ship made it out,” she says, touching the illusion runes etched all along the border of the ship’s hull. “Aye captain. Shall we be expecting Will to come and go from the ship for a few days too?” The high elf shoots him a look, before nodding. Only a few crew members knew about that secret. “Once we hit shore, Will will take the reigns for a few days. Let the rest of the crew know,” she answers before making her way back down to the cabin.
Largakh doesn’t really say much of anything as the healer is ordered to work on him and he bares his shoulder for them, but asks, “you’ve got gloves?” The healer does and probably understands why, the half orc’s blood could cause harm to some races. Using rum to kill the physical pain and once his shoulder is stitched up with the proper bandages, he makes sure to instruct the healer to burn the bled on shirt. Of course, he hadn’t heard any of the conversation going on out on the deck and he was making his way out as she’s coming back in the cabin, “uh… sorry about your door. Did everyone make it off that ship?” He can’t bring himself to look at her because she must look at him as some type of monster now. Figuring he’d let Airon get checked out by the healer on her own, he attempts to make his way around her to find a spot on the deck where he can drink his rum and be out of everyone’s way until they get back to shore. Would he be allowed off the boat since they are trying to stay on hiding?
Airon sighs as she feels her body really beginning to ache. She strolls up to her door once more and as Larz asks about the rest of the crew, she growls out an irritated yes. Somehow, no thanks to whatever those bombs were, everyone had made it. She looks up at him as he circles around her, giving her that look like she might dislike him. Rather than let him get too far, she grabs the orc by the wrist and drags him back towards her quarters. She easily picks the door up and leans it enough to hide their next conversation from prying eyes and ears. As soon as they are far enough into the room she turns to him, her honey-colored eyes narrowing at him. "What are you going to do when we get back to shore? Should I be worried about you handing me over to the guards when we get back?" She places her hands on her hips, one of which is playing with the top of sword. "And before you get worried that I dislike this whole orc thing, you've got me all wrong. I might be high elf, but I hate those arrogant bastards more than anyone else. You ripped through them, and that puts you on my good side." She furrows her brows before she adds, "Could use your strength again, if you don't try to turn me in."
Largakh is a little surprised that he’s pulled back in, but easily bends to her will while downing some more rum. “I’m probably going to head to my grandparents so I can get my shoulder and lip fully healed.” He scoffs, “I don’t think so. No authorities will believe me and I’ve got some bigger things on my mind right now than some stolen goods.” A scowl comes over his lips when she mentioned that he ripped through those guys and he downs the rum some more, “yeah… you might not hate it, but I do.” His jaw tenses as he looks to the floorboards below them. “No, you don’t have anything to worry about, okay?” Not knowing what to do or say at this point, he just stands there in an awkward silence while waiting for her to kick him out of her cabin.
Airon listens to him, making note of which things concern him the most. After he finishes, she turns towards her desk and grabs two more rum bottles, one of which she offers to him. "Sit down boyo before you worry yourself silly, aye?" She takes a seat in a nearby table, rubbing her temples before she takes a deep swig. She leans the bottle on her knee as she eyes the orc for a moment before saying, "Whenever you get stuff figured out, either come find me or Will. I got work for you if you need to keep being distracted." She downs some more of her rum as leans into the chair, trying to let the ocean sway her into her a more relaxed state, at least until they get to shore. Once they make land, she doesn't hold him back from leaving.
Largakh does as she’s says and takes some more rum, but does see her rubbing her temples, “is your head okay, your highness?” The alcohol allows him to feel just a little playful again as he figures that he’d just worry about all this when he gets to shore and then he can talk to his grandparents, maybe get their opinion. “Which one of those guys is Will?” He doesn’t know any of their names, I mean, how could he? He’s only been on her bout a couple of times. Having a strong suspicion that he needs to take her to his grandfather to look at her wound and make sure she isn’t concussed, but that might be conceived as something more than what it is. After all, he’s just a nice guy - at least… he thought so until that rage took over.
Airon sighs, huffs a bit and then answers with a short no. Her head definitely aches and he back is very sore from hitting that mast beam. "My back hurts too. You gonna come over here and rub it?" She teases back, taking another drink as mulls over exactly how to explain Will. Another stiff drink as she finally says, "He is tall, blond, elvish, you'll know him when you see him. No worries, he won't give you issues for being you." Especially given that Will is her and she is Will. It is a secret that she has been using for her seedy business dealings for the last five years. It won't be something she is going to share with him anytime soon. She pauses as she hears calls for shore. Airon struggles back up onto her feet and nods to the door, "I won't keep you." She heads back on to the deck making calls for the ship being tied down and the illusionist to activate the cover for the ship.
Largakh shrugs before making his way behind her to work out the tension of her neck, shoulders and back. “Oh, alright. I’ll keep a look out for him,” Larz honestly wouldn’t care either way if she told him or not. “You should really get your head checked out though,” he softly whispers to her ear before hearing the call to shore. “Farewell, your highness,” he gives a playful tap to her behind before making his way off her boat and to the docks with the rum she gave him in hand.