Border Crossing

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"You're late." Baralai Fairchild despised the rain, almost as much as he despised mages. He was waiting at one of the bridges that crossed the river that in turn divided the two largest kingdoms in their land. It was the same bridge where he had waited countless times. Templar or no, gold was gold, and this gold also got rid of troublesome mages.
"You want the gold or not?" A black clad man snarled as he jumped down gracefully from his equally black steed.
Baralai muttered something rather unbecoming of a Templar, then held a gloved hand out. "Gold first, then the cargo. Try anything..." He words were cut off as the mage he was transporting broke free of his restraints. It all happened so quickly that he didn't see the flash of lightning and the proud Templar was crashing into the raging river below.
Six months. It had been six months and the fallen Templar still woke in a cold sweat after dreaming of that night. The mage had rendered him immobile, though wide awake when he had plunged into the river, his heavy armour weighing him down until a pig farmer had dragged him from the river several miles away. It had taken months to get back to health and pay back the farmer for his kindness. In that time word had gotten out that Fairchild the Templar was a deserter.

Alice Gormanghast was scowling into the mirror. She hated this world she had been born into, even now as her maid pulled tightly on the laces of her dress she thought of nothing but a way to escape. Her brother's were all war heroes, famous to everyone in the kingdom for their brave deeds and triumph in defeating several of the dragons. But Alice... All she was known for was to be the prize her father handed over to the man he deemed brave enough to end the war altogether. She was the proverbial Princess in the tower, useful only for luring in prospective suitors. The young brunette didn't even realise her rose coloured lips were quirked into a slight smile 'if only they knew'. Indeed, her father would have a literal heart attack if he knew his prized daughter had secretly been learning how to shoot a bow and handle a sword. She lost herself for hours at an end in books that told of the thieves guild, and their mysterious leader who was sometimes known to have a higher moral code than the knights of their kingdom.

Alice was taking a look around herself before she gently laid a hand against Garrik's back. "It's okay... We don't know what happened yet. Maybe it's not even him?" She suggested weakly. 

"Can you hear them?" Bear asked, glancing around uncertainly. When he was here last there was no one around, just black nothingness.

Garrik couldn't believe he was being so irrational about this. He didn't know what he'd expected to find bur this was not it. He was so upset he missed the slight movement of the skeleton that was covering her ears outside the door where he was now standing. 
"Dress me up and give me to my mother." He hissed finally. "I won't shave. By the time we get back..."

Yena nodded. "They are saying we can't go home. Things aren't right and he's not ready yet. I hate it when they whisper." She confessed,  burying her face in his side.

Alice was frowning and shaking her head as she looked up at Garrik. "In what world do you think I would let you do that?" She hissed. "For one thing, I am not just giving up on you, and another, your mother would know her own son with no more than a glance!" She too missed the sound of the skeleton moving.

"Of course things aren't right..." Bear breathed as he held Yena tightly. "Who isn't ready?"

"Lies!" Garrik growled, "you were going to leave me behind and face Blackbeard alone. You were..." he stopped speaking and looked back at the door surprised to find the tiny skeleton gone. "There is one missing. Where is she?" He turned his head finding it strange that that the larger of the skeletons stirred. 

"I don't know. I think they they mean you." Yena whispered.

Alice didn't follow Garrik's gaze, instead to placed her hands on either side of his face and forced him to look down at her. "I was leaving you were it was safe, and despite what you seem to think of me, I was not coming here to die." She told him firmly. "I was coming back."

"Me?" Bear asked, rather astonished. "Piglet, I don't think spirits are all too concerned with anything to do with me. I'm a nobody, a disgraced Templar, remember?"

"I never know what you're thinking,  Alice." Garrik whispered forgetting about the skeletons as her skin touched his. 

"Yout are important to me." Yena whispered, pressing her lips to his before he could argue.

"Dying is never top of the list, trust me on that one." She breathed. "My every breath has been about making that bastard pay for what he did to me, but since I met you..." Her smile softened and she laughed quietly. "It was only every other breath."

Bear's strong fingers sank into Yena's hips, the taste of her lips filling him with at least a little hope. "I love you, silly knife ear." He breathed before kissing her again.

"I will make him pay for what he did to you, Alice. Then we will return to the seas and rule them like we did before." Garrik leaned forward his head resting against hers. "I love you, my queen. We will fix this. No matter what we have to do." He would have said more if not for the giggle coming from the captain's bed. But when he glanced over there was nothing but the three skeletons still lying there.

Yena blushed deeply. "I love you too." She breathed. She didn't realize she had given them enough time for Kane to catch up.
The monster snatched her by the hair, snarling loudly. "Just where did you two think you were you were going?" He snarled.

There was something nagging at the back of Alice's mind when Garrik told her he loved her, but she didn't have time to question him when she too hear the apparently disembodied giggle. "Take whatever you can find of value, we need something to take back to your mother." She breathed, beginning to agree that this may in fact have been a wasted trip.

Bear didn't stop to think Yena would mind as he drew his sword and sliced through the long hair that Kane had grabbed a handful of.

Garrik shook his head. "I can't take anything from him, Alice. Please...understand. For whatever reason my mother made him believe he was my father. He gave me expensive gifts that I could never repay and she had no intention of. Dead or no...I can't steal from him again." Garrik was indeed the oddest pirate. He rarely stole from anyone. Even the rich. Again a giggle would cut off any response to this. 

Kane took the hair he still had in his hands and sniffed it loudly. "Oh the things I can do with this. Thank you, fool. Now come. No more games." 
Yena was on her knees, touching her hair not sure what to make of it.

Alice had her sword drawn now as she spun around. She couldn't question Garrik on his strange morals, considering the things she had her crew do over the past year.

That was clearly not the response Bear had been expecting as he watched Kane with a renewed disgust. "She opened your portal, you have your crown, what else do you need the elf for?"

"What the hell?" Garrik was looking around them now, his own fingers resting on the hilt of his sword. "That didn't sound like a ghost. It sounded..." another giggle, a twin of the first filled the cabin. 

Kane put the bundle of hair up to his twisted face. "I don't have to tell the undead anything now do i? You work for me. Not the other way around."

Alice had spun around again, the sound seeming to come from the opposite side to the first. "Is this normal for Blackbeard?"

"I work for no one, creature." Bear spat hatefully. "I'll be leaving this place with Yena soon, and you can command any disembodied spirit you like!"

"The women?" Garrik asked, glancing toward the bed again. "Yeah. I'm willing to bet those two were nothing special. Just some twin bar maids he picked up on the last port stop. He'd have had them dumped before he woke up."
"Seriously?!" One of the skeletons sat up, beginning to gain flesh. "Jack! You said you adored me! You said you were never going to dump me!" 
"Her? What about me?" The other sat up as well, not bothering to cover herself. "She's the whore!" She wailed. 
Garrik glanced toward Alice, giving her a wink. "The death curse. It makes sense." He said softly.

"Even the despair demon?" Kane asked with a wicked grin. "I think I can make that happen. How are you at bate handed fighting?"

"You had to wake them up, didn't yer?" A deep make voice drawled as Blackbeard himself finally sat up. "I was enjoying the rest!" He added, his neck cracking as he rolled his head side to side.

"I've taken everything so far, creature." Bear sneered. "One little despair demon wont stop me."

Garrik stepped back as the two women went rolling on the floor. They were squealing and pulling hair. He sneered at them, keeping his eyes on Alice. "Serves you right to be stuck with those two." He muttered. 

"It's, your majesty. Thank you." Kane said regally, looking at his twisted talons. "Now, we are going back to my throne and you, little elf, are going to cook for me."
Yena sighed deeply. It was better than her lover fighting a giant demon. The fool didn't have to know she couldn't cook.

Blackbeard was on his feet now, stepping over the women when his eyes rested on Alice. "I don't believe we've met, I would remember you." He remarked, taking one of Alice's slender hands in his own.
The young woman was quick to pull her hand back and level the point of her sword at the bearded pirate in warning.

Bear, on the other hand, knew only too well that Yena couldn't cook to save anyone's life. He was grinning as he relaxed and allowed Kane to lead the way.

"We are here to take you back to Aranthi." Garrik said, seeing no reason to beat around the bush about it. He too had a hand on his sword though he had yet to draw it. The two women on the other side of the bed now sat up, both of them silent. The younger man got an odd feeling that these were not the only eyes on them, however. 

"I also want my servants brought here. After dinner I will send you to fetch them. Not both of you, of course. I want you to have a reason to come back, my dear." Kane purred. "There is one in particular I want. Don't get her and your lover here will certainly face..."
"I get it." Yena snapped. "You talk too much. Your majesty."

"Is that right?" Blackbeard breathed, his grey gaze now on Garrik. "And just how do you and one little girl plan to do that, boy?"

Bear couldn't help the sudden snort of laughter. That was his Piglet, one of onyl many things he loved about her.

Green and grey eyes were locked on his own. Garrik's fingers tapped the hilt of his gilded sword. "You don't seem to know my bonny Captain Alice, do you?" He asked, his tone soft and almost dark. 

The heel of Kane's hand slammed into Bear's nose, spraying them both with dark blood. But it was Yena who cried out in pain. "You forget something. You live because you have her heart. You carry her with you. Your actions effect...her. foolish Templar. You are the very reason I have your kind murdered." The king hissed.

"This is Alice? Captain of the Bloody Rose? Flase Queen of the pirate court?" Blackbeard scoffed as he again looked over the small woman before him.
"There is nothing false about me, old man!" Alice hissed, her feathers instantly rather ruffled.
"Course there is. Yer just a little girl playing pretend with a bunch of failed pirates." Blackbeard sneered in reply.

Bear wanted to fight back, to throw everything he had at Kane, but it killed him that he couldn't. Any false move now, and it was Yena who paid the price. "Who is it you want her to bring back?" He finally asked rather thinly.

Garrik's cheek twitched almost as if Blackbeard's words had hurt him. "You're stalling." He said thinly. "Are you hoping your men will come and save you? Or maybe the female skeleton that was covering her ears outside your door?"

"My person attendant. She's the only one that knows how to care for me." Kane muttered. 
"That woman has no magic. She'll never cross the veil and live." Yena argued. 
"Then fix that. You've become quite the little murderer. I'm sure you'll figure something out." Kane chukled, his eyes on Bear instead of the elf.

Blackbeard threw back his head and laughed, his cutlass and belt appearing around his waist as though out of thin air as he again looked at Garrik. "Save me from what, boy?" He asked thinly.

"Do it, Yena. If only to prove yourself right and him wrong." Bear remarked without dropping his gaze from Kane.

It didn't help that the now clothed barmaids were laughing too. "You're so stupid. Isn't he stupid, Jack?" They chorused. 

Yena shook her head. "I'm not going to hurt anyone else. Even to prove him wrong." She said softly.

"Shut it, whore." The elder pirate snarled at the laughing woman. "The boy is going to tell why he came here with the sad little princess."

"Yena... find a way." Bear breathed as he finally looked away from Kane. "Please..." If she was out there, he thought maybe he could find a way to keep her from getting back, keep her away from Kane.

"We are taking you to Aranthi in exchange for her spells. She promised to call back the dragon's mate and get us into the Fade. The new king of the southern lands is...insane. He is attempting to take over the Fade. You are our insurance so to speak." Garrik answered without hesitation.

"I'm not leaving you alone with him." Yena said uncertainly. "I don't want him to hurt you."
Kane laughed loudly. "He is already dead, my dear. How much worse can it get?"

Blackbeard stared at Garrik for a moment, then laughed again. "What have you been feeding the boy, mermaid tears?" He remarked as he looked at Alice again.
Alice was most certainly not smiling. "Don't think I wont feed you  to the mermaids if you call me little girl again." She warned.

"He has a point." Bear breath, touching Yena's cheek lightly. "The sooner you leave, the sooner you will be back and we can leave the creature with his maid, or whatever she is."

"This is not a game, Blackbeard. We are not going to play with you or anyone else. You will come one way or another." Garrik said firmly.
"Mermaids don't eat people." The blonde barmaid said, getting to her feet. "I've never once seen Sharyn do anything like that."
"Sharyn?" The younger man echoed, probably making a mistake by looking away from Blackbeard.

Yena nodded, her eyes watering. "Keep your foot out of your mouth while I'm gone Templar." She said softly.

Alice was watching Garrik now as he looked away, hating that her stomach twisted when she ehard the familiarity in Garrik's voice when he said that name.

"You know I can't make that promise, Piglet." He breathed, tilting Yena's chin up to touch his lips lightly to her own.

One of the barmaids had slipped away from the group and was now leaping on Alice from behind, a dagger in her hand. "You're not taking us to that psycho elf bitch!" She screamed, like an angry cat who'd gotten wet. 

The next thing Yena know she was standing in the middle of an opulent palace. She was alone and lost. This was not the world in which she knew Kane. She only knew the man who'd come to her cave and commanded her to breathe fire for him.

Kane looked back toward Bear, showing him Yena's journey. "You know how this will end. You will never have her again. When my sister decides to try and rise up she will bring you from the fade...and when she does they will remove the shard and you will cease to exist. However, you are not the girl's mate. You never were. You may speak her tongue but you are not a creature like her. I will show you her mate..." the monster was smiling wickedly. His fingers moved across the image of the little elf and turned it into one of an enormous soldier with golden hair. He was standing inside Kane's palace wearing armor that indicated he was the inner guard. "He is called the Golden Giant. The most cruel and irresistible of my men." The king was laughing coldly now. "He doesn't even know he's a beast. But that won't stop him from eating your girl alive."