For the first time since leaving Hagos, Sara woke past sunrise. It was the jostling of passing sailors that eventually woke her. She'd passed out on one of the rearmost rowing benches, just next to the quartermaster's stove, so her sprawled limbs couldn't be totally avoided by those seeking breakfast. A sailor murmured a respectful apology to Sara as she blearily looked about after having her hand stepped on, smacking her lips as she rose to consciousness.

  The journey to the Tulian capital was supposed to have taken only three days by ship, two of which had now passed, but after spending the bulk of the previous day on repairs and losing one of their sails, Sara had no idea when they'd arrive. Her completely uneducated guess had them arriving early the following morning, or maybe te that evening, but she really didn't know. Hell, she didn't even know how far away the Tulian capital was, or how fast the ship moved. Were they traveling a hundred miles a day? Two hundred? As she stood and joined the line waiting for food, she made a mental note to ask Nora to crify some things for her.

  Dressed as she was in pin peasant's clothing, with her sword stowed in her bag of holding, she'd hoped to have not had the crew pay much attention to her. Unfortunately, there was no hiding the extra head of height she had over near everyone else, and soon enough they were trying to make way for her to go get food before them. Sara had to wave them off, taking the great pains required to convince them she was perfectly fine with waiting her turn. The career sailors aboard balked at the notion of an officer eating with the common rabble, while the former sves tried to thrust her forward on gratitude alone. Though she did eventually manage to convince both parties to leave her be, she found it amusing that her mythical charisma did little to help her appear humble. From an outside perspective it made sense, as no one would expect the Champion of Amarat to be anything other than bombastic, but it still struck her as funny.

  After receiving her portion of hardtack, oatmealish gruel, and two portions of unidentifiably mushed vegetable, she made her way up to the main deck. The southern skies had the rare decency not to be pouring rain for once, but stopped short of granting them a pleasant sunny morning. The gray clouds still bubbled above, threatening another downpour any moment.

  The deck itself was a mess of activity, sailors scurrying this way and that, but it no longer had the frenetic energy of the previous day. The sailors still shouted back and forth, fiddling with ropes and winches near constantly, but there was no vitriol in their words. The curses and barked commands were routine, comfortable, and the ctter pleasantly reminded her of the times that she'd been lucky enough to weld at an air-conditioned job site. The sailors were working hard, but with good cheer, recognizing the fact that their current situation was a lucky break that deserved appreciation.

  What surprised Sara to see, though, was Evie. With a wooden pte in her hand Sara was walking circles like a lost child at a food court, unable to spot the catgirl. She eventually spotted her not on the deck, but way, way up at the top of the front sail, a thick rope clutched in her mouth. Unlike the other sailors Sara had seen up on the sail, Evie eschewed the ropes to simply climb her way up the central wooden pilr, cws extended to pierce a pinprick trail up the wood. Her feet were bare, wrapped around the trunk like a monkey, and her tail kept subconsciously coiling around the nearest bits of wood, as if the appendage was strong enough to hold her should she fall.

  As Sara padded over, Evie reached the top. Unhooking one hand from the wood, she wrapped the rope around a nearby bit of the sail, so it wouldn't fall, then looked back down.

  "Ya ready?" A sailor called up, holding a pulley the size of a melon in both hands. "Damn thing's heavy, so you better not fall!"

  "Do I look like the sort who is so dedicated to rigging work that I would rather fall than miss a catch?" Evie replied, her royal accent strikingly out of pce on the grimy ship. "If I cannot catch it safely, I will let the device fall, not myself. If anyone should be concerned about causing problems, it is you. I understand that to be the st pulley of its variety among our supplies, so I would take care to aim your throw well."

  "Or," Sara butted in as she stepped up, speaking through a mouthful of psuedo-oatmeal, "You could just lower the rope down so he can tie it on, then pull it back up."

  "Master!" Evie chirped happily, haughty tone evaporating. "I was wondering if I'd have to come wake you myself."

  "Damn, I should have pretended I was still sleeping."

  "Among the crew, Master? How scandalous."

  Sara snorted. "As if you're capable of scandal at this point."

  "Yeah, yeah, swap spit when you're done!" the man with the pulley hollered. "Just get me the rope already!"

  "As you wish, Carpenter," Evie replied as she began to feed the rope down, smirking. "Though I feel compelled to ask why an experienced sailor such as yourself didn't think of pulling it up with the rope, whereas my Master, who first set foot on a ship two days ago, did?"

  "Cause I ain't ever been on a ship that managed to bust all three damn halyards!" The carpenter snapped, snagging the rope and roughly tying the pulley on. "Now are y'gonna help like y'said, or just yap?"

  "I can do both, I assure you!"

  Sara chuckled, scraping another bit of breakfast onto her spoon. In short order Evie had attached the pulley according to the carpenter's barked instructions. The device looked to Sara to be one of innumerable methods with which the crew could adjust the sails, though she had no idea of its particur function. Thus far, being on the Crossed Glory had been one of the only times in this world where she'd felt solidly out of her technical depth. If she spent the time to trace one of the rope's paths, tracking it through the twists and turns it took about the ship, she could figure out where it tugged and what it shifted, but why it needed to attach there, or what it achieved? She was clueless as Evie in a nuclear powerpnt.

  Sara and Evie kissed their hellos when she finished shimmying down the mast, chatting for a few moments about nothing of consequence. Evie didn't know how long it would be to the Tulian capital, having been put to work almost immediately after waking, and she took the ck of rain as a good omen.

  That was odd to hear, Sara privately noted. That Evie cared about omens. When she'd first come to this new world, Sara hadn't expected an educated person like Evie to put much stock in fortune telling, but she'd since learned that the provable existence of magic changed things like that. She also learned that Evie had been working all over the ship, climbing the damaged bits of rigging that were too risky for others to scale. It was the kind of bor that she likely never would have stooped to before, yet she now thought nothing of undertaking.

  Sara didn't like how the crew seemed to think the catgirl's colr somehow meant she wasn't due the same deferential treatment as Sara, but didn't make an issue of it. If anything, Sara'd rather have the crew treat her like they did Evie, not the other way around, so making a stink would be counterproductive. And if Evie herself was fine with it, it wasn't her pce to protest on her behalf.

  After a quick chat by the front sail, leaning into one another and sharing breakfast, they rejoined the repair work. While neither of them had any sailing experience, Sara's time on jobsites meant she was used to finding somewhere to be useful, and she threw herself into any task that her muscle power could make easier on the crew. It was a novelty, having a big burly sailor coming up to her for help lifting a load like she used to ask her dad to open pickle jars as a kid. But with Csses and Levels being what they were, strength had little to do with outward appearance. The thickarmed sailor she was helping haul wood was probably fairly strong for their Level, yet could've been easily outdone by a twig of a girl who was two or three Levels above them.

  The day's work passed quickly and calmly, fairly close to what Sara had originally imagined the journey would be like. Evie kept spidering her way up and down the nets, making a mockery of the less experienced riggers, while herself being hiriously outcssed by certain veterans. Sara watched with amazement as two seasoned riggers crawled up the sail with piles of rope coiled around their neck, using one hand to support themselves while tying knots with the other. Evie left the most complex work to them, and when there was nothing for her to be doing at any particur moment she always returned to Sara, thumping against her side like a pet begging for attention. Sara always gave it, of course, and as the hours went by the crew even became comfortable enough to rib the two women about their fgrant dispys of affection. Evie had bristled at first, but calmed herself when Sara expined it was just the nature of working crews like this to mock and tease.

  When the day drifted towards the afternoon, Sara and Evie separated off from the work to grab a te lunch. They chatted about inconsequential topics while they ate, watching others buzz about and enjoying the salty breeze. Eventually they decided they had too many questions left on the backburner and set off to find Nora for a chat.

  The Captain wasn't where Sara had expected to find her. She'd left one of the old, seasoned officers in charge of the wheel, having descended down to one of the unoccupied officer's cabins to stand before a cramped crowd of otherwise unoccupied rowers. The svelte Captain's uniform was crisp as she held up a rge sheet of ruined canvas, a paintbrush in her other hand as she spoke.

  "Our ship here's got battens, unlike the teens usually found on ships like her, which is a blessin' and a curse. They give us a better sail shape, easier for long trips, but they're heavy, and reefing the sails takes a good while longer..."

  Sara settled in at the edge of the room, listening to Captain Nora speak. She couldn't understand half of the lecture, as every other word was some bizarre nautical noun, but she saw more than one head nodding appreciatively among the crowd. Though they may have been chained down as rowers, Sara figured it would be impossible to live on a ship for any amount of time without picking up the constant jargon tossed around.

  "I'm surprised so many came over to listen to this," Sara whispered to Evie.

  "They're not volunteers, Master," Evie whispered back. "Captain Nora has been ordering the crew to rotate through in groups, each required to listen to her expnations. She apparently became irritated with too many of her more complex orders not being understood and took it upon herself to open a sailing academy. As far as I'm aware, she's been at it since well before sunrise."

  "Damn," Sara whispered back. "When has she even had the time to sleep?"

  "She hasn't," Evie stated simply. "Not since we set foot on the ship."

  "Huh."

  Sara followed the rest of the lecture with half an ear, preoccupied with thoughts of just how much of herself Nora had traded away to become what she was now. Her leg was obvious, her intelligence while on nd even more significant, but the Captain had talked as if she'd made dozens of simir exchanges with this world's strange myriad beings. Sara, in contrast, had been blessed with what she had now without a cost beyond the responsibility her abilities incurred. Nora had cwed her way to the exceptional, giving everything she had to achieve what Sara had by chance.

  But that was uncomfortable to think about, so Sara tossed the thought aside. Nora finished her lecture in a few short minutes, dismissing the rowers. They hesitated for a moment, expecting her to have them gather up the next group of students, but she only dismissed them again, more forcefully.

  Sara followed Nora out of the room, hands shoved into her pockets. "Having fun pying professor, Captain?"

  "That?" She ughed. "That was the basics, Champion. I'll have a lot more lecturin' to do before I have this crew in proper shape."

  "As far as I'm aware, most captains don't train their crew beyond their role," Evie said. "Just how much are you intending to teach them?"

  "As much as they'll learn, Evie. Admiral Sinti came from common stock, but he didn't magic his way to the top. He'd have gone nowhere had his first captain not taken him under his wing. If there's any genius lurking in my crew's skulls, I'd rather know about it before they drown it in ale."

  "That's a smarter move than you might realize," Sara said. "Back in my world, most pces made it a w that everyone had to be educated. The pces with the smartest people usually ended up being the most successful."

  "Gd to know my strategies have the endorsement of a foreign pnet's nations," Captain Nora dryly said. "Now, what was this yesterday, about me makin' a deal I didn't realize?"

  "Again, probably not something discussed in the open air," Sara said, nodding to the officer's rooms behind Captain Nora. "You cimed a cabin for your own, yet?"

  "The old Captain's, of course. Haven't spent much time in it, though, and haven't had a chance to chuck Tilisa's old shite out yet."

  "I'm sure it's fine for a conversation," Sara said. "Unless you've got more lecturing to do?"

  "No, no, I can be done for now. Shall we?"

  Sara followed Nora into the old captain's rooms, Evie splitting off to continue helping with repairs.

  The Captain's Quarters, as Sara had expected, were absolutely the most finely decorated on the ship. A rge bed was in the middle of the back wall, sporting silk sheets and feather pillows, and it was fnked on either side by dark wood dressers. A wardrobe on the left side of the wall had been opened and emptied, piles of clothes tossed on the floor and repced with nothing but three hanging copies of Captain Nora's current uniform. A finely carved chest of drawers on the opposite wall had been treated in the same manner, its contents piled up unceremoniously in the room's corner. Only the writing desk had been spared partial dissasembly, the whalebone paperweights, globe, and piles of logbooks undisturbed.

  Captain Nora fell into the plush chair behind the desk and tossed her right foot up on the table, yanking the boot off and beginning the process of unwrapping the bandages that padded her shabby wooden prosthetic. Nora waved for Sara to take the opposite chair, hissing through her teeth as she peeled off the bloodstained cloth.

  "So, Sara. A deal I don't know about? Y'sure know how to pique a gal's interest."

  "I've been told that a lot since I chose Amarat as my patron," Sara joked, sighing as she sat back in the fancy chair. Sleeping on a wooden bench had left her back riddled with aches and pains, so it felt even more luxurious than normal. "I've got the impression you're one who prefers to be given things straight, so I'll be blunt: I think you're a Champion now."

  Captain Nora froze. "What?"

  "A Champion. Do you remember in the fight yesterday, when half the crew fell over?"

  "For no damn reason? 'Course I remember that."

  "You didn't feel anything odd right about then? No sense of pressure, or the smell of sulfur, or anything out of the ordinary?"

  "Nae."

  "Well, everybody else did. And what's more, Evie and I saw the same thing." Sara closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, summoning her glowing purple runes. Pale smoke drifted off her skin, neon cigarette smoke filling the cabin. "We saw your skin glowing like this. Your eyes, too, and the back of your hand had magical runes. I take it none of your other deals could expin that?"

  Captain Nora turned her hands over, as if she could see the runes even now. "Nae, nothing of the sort. Can't remember 'em all, but I'd remember one of those for sure."

  "Then I've got one more test." Sara let her runes fade. "I don't know how you usually see your Level, but try something different for me. Just think about it, like you want to see it all neatly summarized on a piece of paper."

  "I don't see h- Oh."

  Sara folded her hands and waited as Captain Nora's eyes darted over something invisible, growing wider by the second.

  "What does your css say?" Sara prompted.

  Captain Nora took a long time to answer. Eventually her eyes refocused. "...Fucking bastard. It says Captain of The Wayid One."

  "Huh. Mine always said 'Champion of Amarat'. Is 'wayid one' the nickname for the god of the sea or something?"

  Nora shook her head. "Not one I've ever heard. Never heard the phrase, matter of fact."

  Sara whistled. "And if it's something oceany that even you don't know, it's not likely there's anyone else that knows, huh?"

  "None that put it to print, at least," Nora said, sinking deep into her chair. "I don't like being tied to something I don't know, Sara."

  "If it's any help, Amarat's never demanded anything of me. I got given my powers and dumped on the streets of Sporatos pretty unceremoniously, and I haven't heard a peep from her since."

  "But yer a Champion, are you not?" Nora waved her hand at floating text Sara couldn't see. "Not a thing in there that says Champion. Fer all I know I made a foul deal with some demon without realizing it."

  "Mine doesn't say Champion of Amarat anymore, though," Sara said, risking a minor admission of details usually kept private. "It changed to 'Bindtwister of Amarat' just before I met you, probably because of my habit of freeing sves and stuff. Since you're already a Captain, which was pretty much your whole life goal, it makes sense that the css name would have already changed."

  "Perhaps," Nora said ambivalently, "But yours still mentions Amarat by name, while mine just says The Wayid One. Shite name like that smacks of cults and dark sorts, used by the kind of folk that don't want to admit who they're worshippin'."

  Privately, carefully molding her face into a mask of mildly positive curiosity, Sara had simir concerns, though she kept them hidde. The tenth god, the unspeaking and unknown power in this world, had remained at the back of her mind through the whole conversation. As one who'd taken no interest in her when she'd stood before the other nine gods and apparently kept themselves entirely uninvolved in world affairs throughout their existence, it would be wildly out of character for the mysterious power to start meddling now. Especially by involving themselves with someone already close to Sara, who was probably going to end up the world's most watched person in the coming years.

  Sara therefore felt confident that then tenth god wasn't responsible for Nora's fre of Champion-esque power, enough so that she saw no reason to reveal such a closely guarded secret to the woman. Sara trusted Nora implicitly by now, but if she went by Garen's reaction, revealing the existence of a hidden god would do more harm than good.

  "Well," Sara said with a cp, having processed two paragraphs of social calcution in the blink of an eye, "At the very least, I don't think it's a bad thing. A css that pys into your captaining can't be bad, can it? I'm all for my future admiral getting ship-based powerups."

  Still disturbed, but making an effort to recover, Nora smiled faintly. "True enough, Sara. We'll have to see how much it truly helps me, but I'm not fool enough to deny a gift on pride."

  "I'm gd to hear it," Sara said, and she meant it. "If you're going to be pulling more stunts like you did with that Magecraft, I'll want you using every tool in your toolbelt."

  "Ah, the Magecraft," Nora shook her head, sighing roughly. "Don't think I'll be pulling anything quite like that again, Sara. Too much damn luck involved yesterday for my tastes."

  "Hardly seemed lucky to me. I mean, I helped a bit with the rowers by giving 'em a boost, but you called the shots from start to end."

  Nora swung out of her chair with her prosthetic still off, hopping to the chest of drawers. Sara started to hurry over to offer a steadying arm, but quickly halted herself. The uncanny grace the captain had shown since boarding the Crossed Glory didn't fail her, even sans leg. With fingernails brushing the low ceiling for bance, she reached the drawers, pulling out a clothing-wrapped bottle. She held its neck between two knuckles as she returned to her seat, then gnawed the cork off and spat it aside.

  "It was luck, Sara, but it weren't good luck on our part. Rather bad luck on theirs." Nora pulled two gsses from the desk, sliding one to Sara while pouring dark wine into her own gss.

  "You mean the storm?" Sara asked, holding up her gss for Nora to fill. A subtle flutter began in her chest while the raven-haired Captain filled her up, free hand popping open the top button on her uniform.

  "Nae, not the storm," Nora said, pausing to down her winegss in a single draught. "If anything, the storm was to their advantage. No, I'm talkin' bout the whole mission they were given. A lone Magecraft, sent off to capture a ship ferrying a Champion? Must have been some proper half-wit that sent the order out. Suicide, pin and simple."

  "They could've known I'm not a combat Champion," Sara suggested. "I haven't demonstrated any special fighting talents, and the fact that I'm Amarat's champion is no secret. Someone well informed enough could infer that I'm not any harder to beat than someone of equal Level."

  "Sara," Nora said, not unkindly. "Two months ago ye appeared in the middle of the continent's most powerful kingdom, making friends with everyone that saw ye. Three weeks ter, the most powerful noblewoman in the kingdom got the axe on yer word, saving the city, after which ye disappeared into thin air with her heir and daughter in tow. Two weeks ter you show up in Hagos with Lady Vesta herself wrapped around your finger, then vanish a week ter the minute after her bastard of a husband chokes on his own spit." Nora refilled her gss and took another long sip, though she didn't finish it in one go this time. "Ye may not be throwing knives faster than arrows, but it'd be a mighty fool that misses the sort you've got hanging around you are as dangerous as any mad barbarian. Were I in charge of that Magecraft when it was given that order, I'd damn well mutiny."

  "You're exaggerating," Sara insisted. "You told me yourself how dangerous Magecraft are. The fact we survived at all is a miracle."

  "We never could've, if they'd fought us like that Magecraft ought. Skimmers aren't meant for boarding; they're too light for it, and don't carry the marines required, which is why the order was even more damned foolish. They're built to sweep along the rank and file flinging fire, leaving ash in their wake."

  "But they couldn't have just blown us up if they wanted to capture me."

  Nora sloshed the wine bottle towards Sara, thumb capping the end to avoid spraying it across the desk. "Exactly! Y'don't send a skimmer to capture a ship, even a normal sort. Y'send a bulker, or a pair of mundane ships. Whoever gave the order must not have been a Carrion Admiral, I'll tell you that much. Even the dullest of them would know better."

  "So we know whoever wanted to capture me wasn't in the Carrion navy, at least." She turned towards the globe on Tilisa's old deck, a map of the pnet that had three quarters or more of the surface still unfilled. "Where's the Carrion homend? Are they near Sporatos?"

  Nora snickered into her wine. "I forget that about you, sometimes."

  "Hm?"

  "How much ye don't know." Nora reached over and gave the globe a hard spin, blurring away the section Sara had been scouring. "The Carrion Fleet don't have a home. They're a fleet first and foremost, and the admirals are in charge of it all." Nora stopped the globe with a jab, finger pointing at an isnd several hundred miles off the coast of Sporatos. "They got colonies all over various coasts, but no territory y'could pin down and call theirs. If yer thinkin' some Carrion official outside the Navy has his eye on you, yer thinkin' wrong, because there ain't anyone outside the navy."

  Sara nodded, spotting simirly beled Carrion ports strewn about the mapped territories. "Sounds like your kind of gang, if that's true."

  "Ah, dunno 'bout that," Nora sighed, filling her third gss while Sara's first just reached half full. "Maybe something like the Carrion Navy was what I had in mind for myself back in the day, but that bird's flown. Looks like I've ended up fairly well settled for you, doesn't it?"

  Though Sara felt a rush of blood at the words, she did her best to interpret them charitably. "I guess you have. Not like I can force you to stick around once you drop me off in Tulian, though."

  "Maybe not, but yer a compelling woman, Sara." Nora propped her head up with her elbows on her desk, meeting Sara's gaze. Her once-dark eyes now stared at Sara in piercing blue, almost seeming to swirl and glow in the cabin's dim light. "Y'said that being under a Champion is the best thing that can happen to a gal like me, and after seeing you in action, I believe it. Not going to miss a chance like this one for all the coin in the world."

  "Purely referring to my esoteric naval knowledge, right?" Sara smirked.

  "Oh, there'll be time enough for that, too."

  Sara held a hand to her mouth, affecting shock even as she stood and rounded the desk. "Captain Nora, deferring valuable naval intel in favor of womanly company? What will the chroniclers think?"

  "Not a damn thing, because you'll never speak a word of it to anyone," Nora said, reaching out and sweeping Sara into her p. Sara went willingly, but twisted so she nded straddling the Captain's hips, arms draped over her shoulders.

  Running gentle circles over Nora's back, Sara smiled. "It'll almost be a shame to see you out of this uniform."

  "That a compliment for the tailor or an insult for me?" Nora's voice was husky as her hands ran down Sara's sides, drifting towards the hem of her shirt.

  "If you lost this outfit on the far side of the world, I'd drop everything and set sail for it the next day," Sara replied, reaching up to hook a finger under the colr. She used it draw Nora closer. "A woman in a fine suit is already divine, but you wear this like you were born to it."

  "I wasn't," Nora said, "But I damn well earned it, didn't I?"

  "Let's see what else you earned," Sara said, finally closing the distance.

  Their lips brushed together, sending currents of energy through Sara that fred to lightning as Nora pulled her deeper into the kiss. Nora nipped at her lower lip, drawing it back for a moment. Sara followed after her, chasing the taste of her lips, tightening her arms around the captain's shoulders to draw her closer. The stirring of heat began in her core, warmth blooming through her body in a way that chased rational thought away. The familiar headiness of arousal hit her like a truck, muddying her mind. Their breasts pressed together, the rise of Nora's chest against her nipples leaving her twisting in the woman's p, yet she still felt maddeningly far away, the clothes between them an unacceptable barrier. After a few moments longer of hungry kissing, Sara found the will to pull herself away.

  "I've changed my mind," Sara panted. "Clothes off."

  "Aye," Nora replied, breathing equally hard as she grabbed the bottom of Sara's rough cloth shirt. "Come on now, let's see what being a Champion gets you."

  Sara pulled away from fumbling at Nora's uniform just long enough to let the woman yank the shirt over her head, then dove back in, a groan slipping from her lips as she felt warm fingers finally find her nipples. She squirmed under the attention, the little pinches and tugs and massages fanning the fmes of her arousal higher, yet she didn't divert from her task, determined beyond reason to strip Nora right where she sat. A part of her cursed the uniform's beauty, as it was the only thing keeping Sara from ripping the thing off.

  Just as she got the final button undone she found herself rising into the air, Nora's hands supporting her from below. At some point the captain had managed to slip her prosthetic back on, but Sara didn't much care how she was being carried, only wrapping her legs around the captain's hips because her uniform was finally falling open. Sara could finally see the white undershirt that didn't quite hide the tanned expanse of Nora's neck, the softness of her skin so different from the warrior's muscuture she'd known in Hurlish and Evie.

  Sara bent down and pressed her lips to Nora's skin, the sudden stutter to the woman's step signaling the end of her impossible grace on the seas. Sara raised her head to Nora's neck, tasting the salt of the woman's skin as she sucked and nibbled a trail of bruises, and then felt her back smming into a wall, Nora having lost her bance entirely. Sara lifted her head and smiled at the furious blue gre staring back at her.

  "Looks like you're not as perfect as we all thought, huh N-"

  Sara's teasing was interrupted by a shift of Nora's hold on her, grinding the core of her heat against the woman's hips. It left Sara gasping, pushing into the motion in search of more.

  "None of that, girlie," Nora growled, even as she shifted her hips again, leaving Sara groaning. "My ship, my rules. I'm in charge here, ain't I?"

  "A-aye-aye, captain," Sara replied dutifully. As soon as she said it she was spun around, the world a blur until she felt herself being dropped, falling back onto the soft bed in the center of the room.

  Sara watched, entranced, as Nora stood above her and stripped. There was no grace to the motions, just business-like efficiency in the way she threw her arms back to send the bck overcoat to the ground, then yanked the cloth undershirt over her head. Sara was rewarded with the delicate expanse of smooth skin, the trim lines of Nora's body reflecting the sunlight coming in from the window behind the headboard. Her breasts were unbound and uncovered, stiff nipples at the center of breasts that Sara was certain would fit perfectly in her palms. Her chest curved down to a fwless stomach, muscles barely defined beneath silky skin, then widened out to hips that tightly hugged her dark leather pants.

  Sara's eyes finally snapped back up to Nora's face when she realized the captain was standing with a hand on her cocked hip, a knowing smile on her lips. "Enjoying the sights, Sara?" Nora asked smugly.

  Sara answered by lunging up, grabbing Nora around the hips and pulling her onto the bed. Nora ughed as she fell, catching herself with arms on either side of Sara's head. Instead of being pulled all the way in, Nora resisted, keeping their bodies just a few inches apart.

  "I'm in charge tonight, remember?" She asked. Sara whined pintively, tugging one st time. Nora's mischievous expression was unchanged.

  "Fine," Sara breathed impatiently, "What do you want? Only on top? I can do that."

  "You can try, " Nora half-agreed, "But I've been talking with your gals, and I don't think it would st long. So..." Sara's breath caught as Nora reached up and over the headboard, bringing out a length of fine rope. Unlike the ship's lines, this set was finely braided, free of fraying, and Sara realized what it was for between the thudding beats of her heart.

  "It's the thickest I could find," Nora said, sitting back to straddle Sara's hips. "Not going to take any risks keeping a Champion tied up, as I'm sure you can understand. Now, give me your hands."

  Sara would have protested that she really could keep herself under control, but that was probably more true of her old self, before Amarat's blessings had sunk into her psyche. She didn't have the best track record of being a compliant bottom over the past few months.

  Sara briefly considered the fact that she really didn't know Nora as well as she had Evie or Hurlish, and that this was an awful lot of power to be giving to a clearly ambitious woman, but by the time the concerns had navigated their way through her clouded mind, Sara's libido had already made the decision for her. She presented her wrists eagerly.

  "Good girl," Nora purred. Sara's concerns vanished with a shudder.

  Ropes slid around compliant wrists, the nimble fingers of a sailor tying comfortable knots in an instant. Nora guided her bound limbs up, then back, towards the headboard, and Sara let her. After a moment of movement Nora's hands returned.

  "Are we good?" Sara asked eagerly, shifting her hips. It seemed Nora preferred Sara without the optional equipment, so she could feel a deep and needy ache between her legs, the cheap cloth of her underwear already sticking to her thighs.

  Nora ran a hand up Sara's arm, tracing the definition of her muscles. "Give it a go," she instructed, resting a hand on a bicep. Sara tugged, testing the bindings, and found them snug. Nora, however, frowned. "I said give it a go, Sara. Not pose. Pull. "

  Sara shivered at the discipline in Nora's tone, then did as instructed. She shifted on the bed to give herself more leverage, then pulled, muscles straining as she tried to break free. There was a creak from the headboard, aged wood straining under the load, but there were no cracks or snaps, and the bindings didn't pinch her skin. Nora looked down on Sara as her muscles bunched and twisted, sea-blue eyes devouring the sight. Sara pulled so hard that she began to drag them both up the bed, her hips carrying Nora slightly upward, and even still nothing broke. She fell back onto the bed with a huff, the first sheen of sweat breaking out across her skin.

  "Perfect," Nora murmured, finally leaning down. Sara stretched out to capture her lips, the soft curls of Nora's raven hair curtaining them both from the outside world. She opened her lips ever so slightly while she felt Nora cup the back of her head, shoving her into the kiss. Nora's tongue danced along her lips, then slipped forward, deepening the kiss. Sara's hands strained at the bindings once more, trying to drag the woman as close as could be, but she was still restrained, leaving her at the mercy of a long and agonizingly wonderful embrace.

  Nora continued on like that for a tauntingly long while, nipping at Sara's lips or peppering along her chin, every so often daring to reach her neck and suck little hickies in consteltion patterns. Sara groaned and twisted under the ministrations, little profanities slipping out every time Nora's hands pinched at her nipples or tugged at her hair. She realized through the haze that Nora had been right to be concerned about Sara's self-control, because if this torturously slow pace was what the captain preferred, it never could have happened. Even if Sara managed to stay on the bottom, she'd have grabbed Nora's hand and shoved it into her pants ages ago.

  Nora's progression was gcial, minutes of teasing and nibbles passing before she even moved to straddle Sara's thigh, slowly dragging her hips back and forth to press herself against Sara's leg. Sara, for her turn, tried to rut like an animal against the press of Nora's knee, thirsting for any kind of relief, but Nora immediately pulled away, grinding herself further down Sara's leg so that her ache was left unanswered. After a time she returned, and Sara pushed hard again, and then it was gone. Sara felt like she was going crazy. It was either an eternity or a few minutes of slow teasing until Sara realized that Nora would only let Sara grind herself at a slow, measured pace, simir to the captain's own, or else she wouldn't be allowed even that small release.

  If there was anything in this world that could be said to have truly tested Sara's resolve, it was that slow pace. The feel of warmth against her pussy only worsened her ache, but she couldn't give in to it, because it was the best she could get. A feverish heat was building in Sara, a shaking desperation that left her searching for any way to convince Nora to kick things into a higher gear.

  Thankfully, Nora's patience seemed to be wearing nearly as thin. Her eyes grew lidded, the roving of her hands picking up the pace. She bent low over Sara, taking full advantage of Sara's inability to retaliate. She palmed and kneaded Sara's breasts, brushing her thumbs over her nipples not to give Sara any pleasure, but simply to explore her body. Sara had no choice but to shake and shiver as Nora cupped her chin one moment, running a hand over her hips the next, a hunger in her eyes as she committed the feel of Sara's skin to memory.

  "A work of art, this body," Nora hummed, still running her hands in feather-light circles across Sara's skin.

  "Amarat doesn't skimp out on her Champions," Sara replied. "Unlike you, apparently. Just how damn slow can one woman take things?"

  "No time for the finer things in life, eh, Sara?" Nora jammed her knee into Sara's core, pressing a whine from her lips. "I've seen the way your women look at you, Champion. Like they're addicted, they are. I'm fool enough to give it a taste, but not enough that I won't take precautions."

  "Oh yeah? And what are those?"

  Nora's hand roamed down from Sara's breasts, tickling along her ribs before settling on her hip. "I'll do what I always do, Sara. Take what I want, when I want."

  With that ominous procmation, Nora leaned back, shuffling her pants off in one smooth motion. Sara devoured the sight, fruitlessly straining against the ropes binding her. Lithe legs, delectable in uniform, were even more enticing when bared. Nora's prosthetic was gone, but long practice kept her steady on the bed as she towered over Sara, smugly basking in the way Sara failed to break her bonds in her desire to take hold of Nora's body. The mad captain looked down on Sara's struggling with undisguised lust, a certain familiar firmness entering her demeanor.

  "Sit up," Nora commanded, her tone the very same with which she'd barked orders in the heat of battle, if not nearly as loud. Sara hurriedly obeyed, tugging herself up the bedframe by her wrist bindings, hands now pinned solidly at the base of her spine.

  "Let's see what so entranced your women, shall we?" Nora purred, crawling up into Sara's p. "That mouth must be good for something other than fanciful speeches."

  Nora settled her bare body into Sara's p, wetting her stomach with slick. Sara strained forward, trying to capture Nora's mouth with her own, but the captain straightened her spine, wrapping her arms around Sara's neck.

  "So eager, so eager," Nora chided, "Haven't you gotten a good enough taste of my lips?"

  Lost in lust as she was, Sara barely understood the remark, until Nora arched her chest forward in the same breath that she yanked Sara's head forward.

  That fairly well cleared things up.

  Sara's tongue fell from her mouth as she dove onto Nora's breast, nguishing it with long, slow licks. The captain shuddered above her, but remained silent, save for the heaviness of her breathing. That wouldn't do.

  Sara narrowed in, sucking on Nora's nipples, swirling her tongue in circles only to dive in for a quick flick, forcing a twitch from the captain's body. Sara longed to reach up and shove Nora into her mouth, but contented herself with what the woman would allow, switching to her other breast. She was rewarded by a long, low sigh, nails dragging through her hair to scratch her scalp.

  Sara continued on as such, always taking note of what worked on the captain, homing in on the best measure of bringing her pleasure. Steadily, minute by minute, she was rewarded, Nora's breathy inhations turning to sighs, then gasps, and finally moans. The captain's hips began a slow grind across Sara's p, barely conscious of the way she was rubbing her pussy against Sara. She kept at it, taking what pleasure she could from rubbing her thighs together and squirming against Nora, doing her best to rub her own chest against Nora's body.

  Until, finally, Nora gasped, ducking her head in pleasure. Driven by instinct she couldn't define, Sara leapt up from her loving attention on Nora's breasts, taking the pointed tip of the captain's half-elven ears in her mouth.

  Nora cried out, abruptly smming both hands against the headboard in a violent motion. Sara had barely nipped the woman's ear, but her entire body was locked into pce, trembling, as if she cked the strength to pull away from Sara's mouth.

  "I-I d-didn't s-say you could-" Nora began to say.

  Sara flicked her tongue against the tip of Nora's ear, cutting the reprimand off in a strangled cry. Despite herself, Nora dipped her head lower, sagging against Sara's body.

  That's more like it, Sara thought, grinning against Nora's cheek. Before the captain could muster another comment, Sara closed her lips around her ear, sucking hard.

  She was rewarded with another choked moan, a rolling shudder wracking Nora's body. Smelling blood in the water, Sara refused to relent, running her tongue in light circles just around the narrowed tip of her ear.

  Nora reacted like Sara was tched onto her clit, fingernails curling into cws that dug into Sara's shoulder bdes. Tied down as she was, Sara could hardly say she'd turned the tables on Nora, but at the very least, she'd cwed back some of her pride as Amarat's champion. For all she lost her head in the heat of the moment, Sara's competitive drive ran strong.

  Nora twisted and whined under Sara's ministrations, leaving a wet patch on Sara's still-not-removed pants. Sara barely cared, of course, far too focused on the noises she was extracting from the peculiar twist of half-elf anatomy. Some distant part of Sara's mind wondered if Nora's reaction was just the nature of elven ears, or if the fae-touched captain had stumbled across one of the oddest bargains ever offered by a faery. Either way, she rejoiced in the opportunity, working Nora's moans into a higher and higher pitch.

  Suddenly, as if finally possessed of the strength to control her own body, Nora ripped herself away. Sara immediately mourned the loss of anything in her mouth, but that only sted into she locked eyes with Nora, where cerulean madness hungered.

  Sara wouldn't have to wait for long.

  With an animalistic growl, Nora tched onto Sara's pants, dragging them down with enough force to y Sara prone on the bed once more.

  "Think yer some hot shit, takin' me by surprise like that?" Nora flung the pants down to Sara's ankles, then returned to look Sara in the eye. "Damnable fool, you are, if you think I'll come apart for ye that easy, Champion. A damn fool."

  "Got awfully close though, didn't I?"

  Nora's eyes narrowed down at Sara. "Don't need to be tied up, my arse, you wanton whore."

  Sara fshed a cocky grin, recognizing the insult as toothless. "Whores do it for money, Captain, and I just got you a ship. What does that make you?"

  "Stealing a girl her very own ship, Champion? You know what that makes me?" Nora straightened once more, lording over Sara. "Very, very wet."

  Nora crawled forward on the bed, moving until her pussy was over Sara, slick shining against her thighs.

  "Now be a good Champion and put that tongue to use."

  Sara welcomed Nora's body like a worshipper at the altar. No sooner had Nora begun to lower herself than was Sara lunging upward, breathing deep of the salt and sweat of the st half-hour's exertion. She opened her mouth and ran a long, slow lick up Nora's thigh, ending at the lips of her pussy, which she ran the full ft of her tongue along.

  "F-fuck!" Nora groaned, knees giving way. Sara hardly cared as the weight was pressed down on her, Nora's hands flying to the headboard to support herself. She pressed and nuzzled against Nora's lips, pping like a woman starved, which, considering the truly hideous length of the forepy, she very nearly was. Amarat's Champion wasn't built for denial, damnit, and Sara intended to teach Nora that lesson. She dove in, using her tongue to drive the point home.

  Above her, Nora shuddered, barely able to keep steady. Among the many skills the goddess had granted her Champion, Nora was forced to recognize, a skilled tongue was most likely first among them. It took all she had to keep herself from toppling over, and most of the motivation to do so came from that tongue, that tongue! It was a devil's serpent beneath her, a siren that didn't call her name, but forced her to cry another's. She had to bite her lip just to keep the chant of Sara, Sara! from slipping loose, certain beyond doubt that the damnably smug woman would take far more pride in the cries than Nora could tolerate.

  Suddenly, without warning, Sara's tongue shifted, moving to her clit, and Nora could hold back no longer. Vile profanities fell from her as Sara's lips wrapped around her clit, sucking in the same breath that her tongue ran slow circles around the hood, alternating between almost being enough to far too much, flicking and pressing in such a way that her entire body was struck through by lightning, arching her back as her eyes wrenched closed.

  No, no! Nora screamed in her mind, frustration warring with the growing impulse to give in and grind her way to ecstasy. I won't end up like those women, pawing at her like lost puppies! I'll- Nora's thoughts were interrupted by a tongue diving deeper than ever before, robbing her of the strength to do more than buckle forward, trembling hands cwing the headboard. I won't! I'll- I'll show her.

  In a dispy of willpower rivaling the gods, Nora suddenly lifted herself off Sara's face, spinning around. She'd intended to crawl back down to between the Champion's legs, ensuring that her own peak was reached before Nora's, but the absence of that wondrous, wondrous tongue was too much.

  Nora did the next best thing, instead. She bent over to pce her head between Sara's legs, lowering her own hips back down, as if she were graciously allowing the woman to please her. She could win this, she reasoned. Sara was pent up, frustrated by endless, teasing, ready to go off at a hair trigger.

  Her certainty fled the moment she felt hot breath graze her pussy, even the suggestion of Sara's mouth returning prompting a desperate roll of her hips. Nora gave up on mastering her body, which was in a state of mutiny far beyond her ability to reign in, and focused instead on the prize in front of her.

  Gods, she tastes divine, was the first thought that shot through Nora's mind as her tongue got its first taste of Sara's slit. The muffled buzz of Sara's moan nearly broke her then and there, but she persevered, running her tongue up and down all it could reach.

  It was a losing battle for the both of them. Nora whined and groaned as Sara ravaged her in animalistic abandon, barely pausing for breath. Nora, for her part, had little of the Champion's expertise, but it was hardly needed. It seemed every inch of Sara's body was a tightly wound spring, requiring the lightest of touches to send the Champion bucking against her mouth, chasing pleasure. Nora pped and licked at the burning heat, feeling the thighs she banced her hands upon twitch and jump with every little motion.

  Her own reactions were hardly more refined, shivers and shakes and hiccupping moans breaking through the seal of her mouth against Sara's pussy. It was like nothing she'd ever tasted, not because of its fvor, but because of the hunger it awoke in her, a heat in her core coiling tighter as it demanded her to dig deeper, deeper, and all the while she was suffering under Sara's lips and tongue, driving thought and reason from her mind.

  Nora barely knew how much time had passed, be it seconds or minutes since she'd pced her lips on Sara's pussy, before she began to feel the whitewater wave of pleasure rising up within her. Her moans became whimpers against Sara's flesh, little noises she'd never heard from herself, something that she would have been embarrassed to let loose, if not for Sara's reaction. It seemed the Champion took as much pleasure from Nora's noises as she did her tongue, thighs bunching together to close around Nora's head, pinning her in pce.

  Sara's tongue darted up one st time, pressing a hard, long lick against Nora's clit, and then she was gone, gone, gone.

  The wave reached its crescendo in Nora's mind, stars bursting behind her eyelids as she wrenched them shut, shoving her hips down on Sara's welcoming face. Trapped between Sara's thighs as she was, her scream was mercifully muffled, enough so that her ter self would pray the crew hadn't heard it, while her present self just kept twisting and pushing, grinding, pulling every ounce of delectable sensation she could as it rocketed throughout her body.

  Not a second passed after Nora reached her peak before Sara was crying out herself, driven over the edge by the captain's sudden shove against her pussy. Nora could barely register the way Sara's entire body shook, toes and fingers and neck trying to curl up into a ball as that same pleasure, that same crashing wave, rolled over them both.

  Again Nora lost sense of time, eyes wrenched shut until the world was nothing but the feel of skin and heat against her, a tongue in her body, salt upon her lips.

  An eternity ter, finally, she sagged, breathing hard into the mattress she hadn't the strength to roll her face off of.

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  Some hours ter, when breath and wits had been recovered, it came time for Nora to begin her interrogation of Sara. She obligingly brought out her sword, gripping it by the pommel while focusing on the hazy memory of a distant ship. In a fsh the ship appeared on the back of her sword hand, a floating model a foot long. As before, it was impossibly detailed, showing even a crew milling about the deck, tying lines and working through the rigors of daily maintenance for a sailing ship of such size.

  Nora immediately began writing feverish notes on a notebook she'd prepared on the bed, her mad scrawling quickly straying out of the lines to jumble into heaps of overwritten text. Still she kept her eyes on the ship, muttering to herself an incomprehensible string of nautical terminology.

  "Can you make it sail for me?" Nora asked breathlessly, charcoal nub still scraping.

  "I don't know..." Sara began to say, but even as the thought occurred to her, the imaginary crewmembers jumped into motion. Sara didn't know how long she could keep the illusion up, but assumed it had some kind of limitation. That she spent several minutes of it watching the crew unfurl white sails felt like a waste, but Nora watched with burning fascination, occasionally reaching up to make retive measurements, trying to find an accurate scale to use.

  As the question occurred to Sara, she felt that odd tug at the back of her skull. As if speaking right into her ear, she heard the narrator of a long-forgotten documentary listing its dimensions. Sara spoke them aloud, for Nora's benefit, sending the Captain's hand darting across the page, amending her estimations in quick sshes. Sara didn't have a great eye for size, but even by comparing the crew to the length she could tell the Constitution dwarfed any ship of Port Agrith.

  Eventually Nora ordered her to have the ship begin turning left, then right, then tack and jibe, the tter of which she had to briefly expin before Sara could order the illusion to respond. With every maneuver the miniature crew responded, adjusting the sails accordingly, and Sara was rewarded with more enchanted spiels of technical jargon far beyond her paygrade. Half the words weren't even those that Sara'd overheard on the ship, as if Nora had invented her own form of shorthand exclusively for describing ships and their motions.

  Nora was still writing notes when the illusion sputtered and broke apart, the gentle light it had provided dark. Nora didn't even ask Sara to repeat the spell, but rather wordlessly grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her hand back onto her sword. Sara began the illusion again, warning Nora it would be the st time that she could do it for the day. Nora had nodded her comprehension as she'd thrown aside her snapped charcoal, snagging another and beginning another manic bout of notetaking.

  By the end of the second illusion, Sara's head was pounding. Nora had her put the ship through increasingly complex maneuvers, a feat which required Sara actually understanding what Nora wanted the illusory ship to do. She was repeatedly on the receiving end of violently impatient naval sailing lessons, all so she could parse the order well enough in her head for the ship to respond appropriately. Amarat's gifts fueled her mastery of the spell up to a point, but even her Champion's abilities couldn't conjure knowledge from nothing.

  The final illusion broke apart in the middle of Nora raptly documenting some absurdly specific combination of sail shifting, one that supposedly would help the ship steer through a storm if the rudder mechanism had been broken. Sara had long since stopped understanding even the slightest part of her own creation by then, as much along for the ride as she'd been when Nora first took the wheel of the Crossed Glory.

  "Did you get enough?" Sara asked as the subtle light faded from the cabin. Nora was shaking out a cramp from her hand with a crazed grin on her face, three filled notebooks spread about the bed.

  "Oh, I got enough, Sara." Nora continued to stretch out her hand, which looked like it might be permanently bent into a cw. "Such a strange, strange vessel. Massive, utterly massive, yet built with pnks thicker than any ship I've known. What it was protecting itself from, I can only imagine. Did your oceans have creatures in their depths that dwarf even the greatest of our monsters?"

  "I doubt it," Sara said noncommittally. She didn't enjoy lying to Nora, even by omission, but the topic of gunpowder and cannons was one she categorically refused to broach. She knew with absolute certainty that the captain would have none of Evie's restraint when it came to seizing an advantage, and neither would she use something like cannons judiciously. The second Nora knew how to make them they'd be on every ship in her fleet, writing her legend in gouts of smoke and fire.

  "Then what for, what for?" Nora continued. "A siege ship perhaps, meant to resist catapults? Or a vessel meant to inure itself to ramming, incapable of being pierced by any but an equal?" Her blue eyes danced to mad fmes, a deep cackle boiling in her chest. "Oh, but here, but here, in these pcid waters? It has no equal. None to stand against it. Imagine, to be atop a ship such as that. I wouldn't need a fleet to secure your shores, Sara. Just the threat of my arrival would cow anything less than a pack of Magecraft."

  "So you got a pretty good deal on this trip after all?" Sara asked sarcastically, reaching out to flip through one of Nora's notebooks. What sections were legible, she couldn't understand.

  "Oh, yes, that deal," Nora cackled. "The best deal I made in all my life, I might think, and I've made a many. Yes, my dear. In exchange for a three day journey your payment of a full ship, crew, supplies, and designs to the most terrifying monster this world has yet seen are found to be utterly, wholly fulfilling." Nora giggled again, a dangerous little hiccup that had nothing to do with wine bubbling out of her throat. "Oh, yes. Yes, Sara, I think I find myself more than delighted to be in your service. A wondrous, glorious service it is indeed."

  Sara looked down at the demented scrawling strewn across the paper, then up at the swaying woman sitting cross-legged on the bed, and began to wonder at exactly what she'd just unleashed upon this world.