In the (Black Eagle) Navy - Verge

One year earlier. 14th February 1051 Valerias Night.

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Stepped back from the revelry, looking down from the upper terraces to the bubbling hot spring. Obviously filled with drunken and sober revelers, the bards outside catching each other's beat and running from one ballad into another's high tempo beat. The red candles on tables, chairs, ledges, rocks and windowsills create a soft romantic glow in every corner of Verge. 

The two figures silhouetted, both tall and broad shouldered with strong stances. From afar, just another Black Eagle Navy Captain and his scantily dressed conquest. Matching gold capped black boots, wide pauldrons and seafaring gear. Red, Gold and Black. White, Gold and Black. Their fingers interlocked in a complex and desperate knot of fingers. 

Any sober person would notice that they are not smiling, there is no meeting of eyes temptingly with the sultry urges of Valerias upon them. A different kind of building stormy energy strikes between them, thick and heavy with meaning. Electrified with the need to stay at one another's side. They stare out across the whole space, a silent sort of tribute before one of them speaks low and slow. 

"You've got a chance. You can just come with us. No one will notice, just another missing adventurer, happens every day." He says to her, a brisk breeze tucking his elaborate feathered and marked hat up, exposing a youthful wide jawed face with strong hazel eyes and an aquiline nose. His lips are almost feminine, as is his long silken strawberry blonde hair. His stubble is a darker red and shows signs of having been worn down from rubbing it on one side. 

"You know that won't work. I respect you, your crew and the work we did. I will not kneel to Von-" 

He cups a hand over her mouth. "Don't. We don't say that here and you know how we feel about that." 

"Well you know I won't stand on the side of a genocidal maniac, you could all just go freelance?" She says, in a hopeful unusual and sultry accent. 

"You know we'll lose the Saint of Mermaids to the King if we try to run, and be sunk in the process somewhere. If not now, then later." He takes off his hat and unclasps his hand from hers, raking it through his hair and kicking at the grass ineffectively and angrily. "I thought you'd say yes to me."

"And I thought you'd say yes to me." She retorts, but all the heat is out of it. The sparks are dying in their eyes as his crew assemble on the terrace below - They look between them sharply and then murmur amongst themselves. 

"And this is how it ends.. not with a bang, but with a whimper." He says theatrically, putting his heavily ranked and decorated hat on her head and goes to leave, swinging as he is almost yanked off his feet by her strength. 

She grasps him by the uniformed shirtfront and drags him in for a kiss that lasts long enough to draw wolf whistles and applause. When they come up for air, he leans down and gently kisses the gold constellation tattooed on her collarbone and then puts two fingers over it. 
"I'll miss you every day of my life.. I lo.. You know I do.." He says roughly, and pushes past her. 

His crew below clink their bottles and pour them out as their Captain approaches via one of the grassy ramps. So many eyes on her, the Captain now. 

Tatienne remembers saluting them for the last time, through blurred eyes - her crew, her friends, her favourite people. With deep finality ringing in the air, they return it and then walk away. Then she is standing in the sudden cold, the hot, the freezing, waiting until her legs give out from standing. Thumping onto her damaged knees she crawls and crawls until she reaches the back of a store and it's garden. Curling into a ball underneath the underbrush, putting her sleeve between her teeth as she sobs brokenly, like a child, lost. Alone.