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Rose had spent a fair bit of time sulking herself; between the blisters and the aching mass of knots her back had become from hours spent scrubbing the decks, to say nothing of the blisters, she was still a little cross at Finn... but she'd at least come to the conclusion that while he probably should have actually said something about his line of work, he hadn't actually tricked her on purpose. It was a stupid oversight, not a malicious trick. And that was something, she supposed. His avoidance had stung at first, but she'd grown used to that, among other things. It was good to see his smile again, though. Perhaps he'd finally begun to forgive her for the blow... she'd have apologized already, if only to smooth things over, but there just hadn't been a chance. And now it seemed silly to bring up something that had happened so long ago.

Dante had grown like a weed in the last couple of months, seeming to thrive on the hectic environs of the ship and the gusting wind and salt air that were their ever-present companions. His antlers hadn't started to come in yet, but he was a good foot taller than he'd been when they first came aboard. At present, he was curled in a neat black-and-white ball in a disused corner by the railing, watching the sparring lesson with keen interest in his pale gold eyes.

"Who says I wasn't?" she quipped in return to Finn with a smirk as she went to retrieve her blade that had been sent skittering across the deck. The low tone she'd adopted shipboard to hide her sex had become second nature, though it had given her a sore throat for the first week or two. It had been so long since she'd spoken in her normal voice she wasn't entirely sure she could anymore, but for now it served.

And her voice wasn't the only thing that had changed: her curly, strawberry-blond hair had been roughly cut with a knife some weeks ago. It hung in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck in a semblance of control, but a stray curl or two was always hanging in her stormy blue eyes. Her skin had burned at first, a painful ordeal made doubly agonizing since there was no mercy for such a minor calamity aboard the Hades' Strumpet. She'd had to keep working, and salt spray on a sunburn didn't bear speaking about. But now it had actually begun to tan somewhat, something she hadn't previously thought possible.

She'd won a hat in a game of cards which she'd been all but forced into playing lest the crew grow suspicious of her. Fortunately they'd all been drunk on contraband grog as she hadn't had the coin to back her bets, but at least she had something to keep the sun out of her eyes now. It would have been to big for her if not for the unruly fluff of her hair.

She obeyed his instructions despite her jest, focusing on the footwork lessons he'd taught her. Doing anything that required agility on the pitching deck of a ship was not for the faint of heart, but she'd had to learn to at least function, and now she was learning to dance. At least she was used to being overwhelmed at this point.

"How's this?" she asked, returning into his reach with a series of quick strikes aimed at his torso, the first couple of which she expected him to block, the third of which was her actual attempt to smack him. She'd been resistant to these lessons initially; at first because she'd still been sore at him for his perceived duplicity, then mostly because she'd felt queasy at the idea of actually hurting anyone with her own hand. But she'd nearly been caught in the middle of a knife fight between two of the other crew a couple of weeks ago, which had illustrated both the necessity and the hazards of wearing one's hair long.

She opened her mouth to deliver a jibe when a warning cry went up from the rigging. "Ship coming up fast astern! Looks like the Raven, Captain!"

Rose gave Finn a quizzical look, not understanding why everyone else on the ship had suddenly gone quiet.

"Don't get... what? N-no..." Rose was pale, and was struggling to process the sudden reality of the sword lessons. Seeing Finn blanch didn't help, but as the Hades' Strumpet was rammed, she gripped his arm for balance and managed to keep her feet. The ex-noblewoman looked up sharply as one of the crew tumbled from the rigging and landed with a sickening crunch of bone not ten feet away and winced, but as grappling lines were thrown from the Raven, she looked up at Finn with a crisp nod.

Dante sprang to his hooves with a sound that would be a bellow when he was fully grown, but for now sounded like a dented bugle being played by an amateur. However, one of the first enemy pirates across the boarding lines discovered to his chagrin why the hooves of even a small deer are a thing to avoid. The half-grown fawn belled again and reared up on his hind legs to slash at the fellow, opening up a nasty cut across his chest and sending him flailing back over the railing and into the drink.

"I'm right behind you, Finn," Rose said tightly as she released his arm and gripped her sword, a spare that had been loaned to her for training, tightly. "Who are these people? Did you woo her captain's daughter or something?" The humor was a little shaky, but she managed a chuckle even as battle was joined around them.

Rose's eyes were wide as the corpse of the slain man flopped to the deck between them like a landed fish. She couldn't quite believe that Finn was laughing... but then, these men seemed to be the aggressors and were actively trying to kill them.

Still...

With that chilling image at the forefront of her mind, she almost missed a weaselly little fellow who circled in from behind. But Dante saw him, and alerted his chosen with a spark of wrath and concern through their bond that made her spin around and raise her sword before she quite realized she was moving. Her sword clanged off of her new foe's dirk and she yelped in surprise, giving ground as she fended off a series of fast, frantic blows. This took the pair of them past Dante, who gave another of his less-than-terrifying bugles and reared back, tucking his forelegs close to his chest and slamming his head squarely into the back of the greasy little pirate's.

With a wail of pain, he fell forward... right onto Rose's blade. To her credit she kept her grip, but as the fellow slid off the end of the blade to the deck she could no more have moved than flown to the moon. It felt like her entire body had been plunged into ice water, and every awful moment was burned into her mind. The blood, the weight of him, the light leaving his eyes as his heart stopped. "I-i'm so sorry..." she breathed to the dead man, unaware she'd actually spoken aloud. The strength of her horror hit little Dante like a brick to the skull, the poor fawn standing with feet splayed, swaying with the pitch of the deck as he struggled to function around his chosen's building panic.

Neither Rose nor Dante saw the hulking shape that emerged out of the cloud of black powder smoke that had enveloped the deck from the pistol shots being exchanged all around them. He was one of the Raven's crew, intent on avenging his comrade.

The next seconds unfolded very slowly indeed for Rose. The sound of her name being called was the first thing that penetrated the strange buzzing in her ears. A familiar sound, spoken by a familiar voice, that called her from her stupor.

No, not spoken. Yelled. Bit by bit the world started to fall back into place. The ship. Dante, shaking his narrow black head as if to clear it, golden eyes still swimming a bit. Her hand, which hurt from clutching something so very tightly. A sword, with which she'd just...

Oh, dear.

The fact that it had been an accident and no choice of hers, conscious or otherwise, mattered little to the young noblewoman who had never before killed so much as a fly. She felt the burning rise of sick in her throat even as she turned dully to look in the direction of the shout only to see Finn barelling towards her, leaving havoc in his wake like one of the cannons had got loose on deck.

Oddly, it was seeing the stranger (One of the Raven's crew) that he shoved bodily out of the way that completed the process. She forgot to be nauseous as she remembered where she was and what was happening, fear belting her in the heart as she turned to see what had Finn's eyes so very wide.

Rose's heart fairly stopped in her breast as she finally beheld her danger. The man stood head and shoulders above her, his face a twisted mask of wrath and blood as he raised his sword. She brought her own blade up in a clumsy semblance of defense, but she knew. Even if her form had been perfect, she couldn't have stopped the coming blow.

She managed a gasp as her vision was filled with the back of Finn's jacket, the world going sideways as she was knocked roughly aside, out of harm's way. She ignored the pain in her bruised ribs, hip, and elbow to roll to her feet. "Finn!"

She was choking on her terror, afraid beyond thought for her friend. She prayed she'd underestimated Finn. That he'd be quick enough to construct a guard. That she wasn't about to watch him die.

"No sir!" came the tiny roar- like her guardian's cry of battle, Rose's battlecry wasn't the sort of sound to cow the stout of heart. "Don't you dare!" Indeed, it sounded more like the cry of the exasperated trainer of a rambunctious young animal (which it was- Dante had heard that phrase uttered with slightly less venom on a number of occasions).

If it hadn't been for her hateful blue eyes boring holes in their assailant's face, it wouldn't even have been entirely clear who she was shouting at. The brute threatening Finn was the most likely culprit as he was raising his blade for a weakened but still deadly strike, but Finn looked as though he was about to faint, and just to hear her it might have been possible she was informing him that this course of action was not permitted.

The words were poorly chosen and uttered in an ineffective tone, then drowned in the clamor of battle. But they were deeply meant as Rose, in that moment, realized that she could and gladly would spill this man's blood all over the deck if he had the temerity to touch her Finn again. Even if she would likely be sick afterward.

It wasn't altogether surprising that the hardened pirate ignored the thoroughly uninspiring charge of a lone cabin boy in the face of the much more credible threat of Finn standing before him. He could even have been forgiven for leaving the strange fawn at his back, having missed the carnage the tiny deer had wrought earlier. However, he discovered to his chagrin that ignoring the both of them was a grave mistake.

Rose's incandescent wrath burned away the last of the fog that plagued Dante, and he unleashed another angry bleat and headbutted the wounded Raven's crewman directly in the kidneys, causing the man to grunt and almost drop his blade as the impact compounded the pain of the new hole in his side, courtesy of Finn's shot. This bought Rose just enough time to finish her charge before the man could hurt Finn. Slipping a little in the blood that had been spilled (both from her own kill and what now flowed from Finn's wound), Rose managed to get her feet under her as the brute staggered and executed a flawless strike, just as Finn had taught her.

For a single, terrible moment she thought it hadn't worked. Her blade was inches deep in the man's chest, nearly to the hilt (although it wasn't a very big sword and this was a very big man). He simply stared at her, and she at him, her righteous fury fading in the face of doubt. Then he coughed once, blood bubbling at his lips, and slumped to the deck with a very final thump.

Rose wheeled in place, dropping her blade low and out of the way though she kept her grip, turning around to check on Finn.
"Finn? You're bleeding..." Not the most clever of observations, perhaps, but nevertheless true. She paled as she realized just how much blood there was, and most of it his own. "Oh, Spirits, Finn, tell me what to do," she pleaded quietly, reaching to grasp his good elbow with the hand unoccupied holding her blade.

Dante, at least, had the wit to keep an eye on their surroundings, standing straight and tall like a tiny sentinel and glaring at anyone, friend or foe, who wandered too close.

Shady Maru
"No sir" xD Rose cracks me up.


A pirate knew death could come at any moment, from anyone and anywhere. It didn't help to fear the inevitable, but to fight it when it threatened, even cheat it, but when the time came, to accept it.

Finn wasn't the sort of man who prayed for miracles. Hell, he didn't even believe in them. He knew what was coming...At least, he thought he had. Because he certainly hadn't been expecting for Rose to surge forward, and sink her blade into their attackers chest. There was a brief moment of uncertainty, and then the man fell, and Finn was saved. Well, for now.

Finn released a short bark of laughter, and sound strangled and surprised. He was in disbelief - Rose, his Rose, the girl who'd wept in the rain, had killed again, and this time, it was by no accident. But he wasn't given much time to process - his body had other things in mind. His shoulder wound became painfully obvious, and with a groan, he stumbled back, falling to his knee. Rose hovered over him like a small bird, anxious to land wherever she might be most helpful.

The battle was dying around them, Finn's men beating back the 'Raven' stragglers. Bodies littered the deck, blood seeping into the wood and staining it crimson. Finn stared down at the stains, attempting to clear his head enough to respond. "Yer coat...shirt...anythin'..." He finally croaked, blood seeping through his fingers. His hand was nearly the same color as his coat, vanishing under all of the blood. "Te slow the bleedin'...til we git te port..."

Shady Maru


Finn groaned a complaint, but complied, shifting to lean heavily against Rose. He wasn't sure if it was the blood loss or something else, but he felt oddly numb, the pain in his shoulder vaguely absent. There nothing left to do now but wait and hope they reached land quickly enough, so he closed his eyes, relishing Rose's warmth. At least, if he were to die, he would die in the arms of a woman.

Unfortunately, Rose didn't seem keen on allowing him to pass in peace. She was talking again, urging him conscious and demanding he speak. He frowned, brow pinching together, and moaned, more in annoyance than anything else. With a sigh, he opened his eyes to watch what she had described - all living members of the Raven had fled back, and their ship was turning away, leaving Hades Strumpet to regroup. The captain strode out into the middle of the deck, blood oozing from a fresh cut on his cheek, and barked orders - toss the dead overboard, gather the wounded, and steer the ship toward port.

"S'good." he said finally, and then, because he knew it might make her feel better, he chuckled weakly. "Aye lass, I'll be ok."

It didn't take long for the ship to dock, and then there was a flurry of activity. The captain was shouting orders again, and the men who were able scurried about, lifting the wounded and carrying them to land. Two said men approached the trio, and crouched beside Finn. "Is he...?" Finn, who had his eyes closed once more, opened them slowly to glare at the duo. "I ain't gonna die that easily, ye dog." The men grinned, and then turned their attention to Rose. "Robin, 'elp us carry 'im ashore." They said, reaching forward to grab hold of him.