Relief Force

I knew I might at last be relieved, now that the relief forces had arrived... well, arriving at the makeshift wharf.

Those were three moons of mine labor. I had helped build this place, guarded it, and kept it standing. Now, at last, others were coming to take our place.

Yet, rather than relief, an anxious feeling welled up within my chest.

“Cap’n...”

“Aye, Captain-General?” he perked up, interlacing his fingers.

“Ready thy men... let me handle the welcome committee. Forthwith, Æran. Forthwith.”

“Why, then? Is’t yer menarche, Miss O’Darragh?”

Was he referencing how I had been slaving over those men these past moons? Did he recall that? O, the Messenger from above. That was embarrassing.

I rolled my eyes. “Alas, thou hast not tasted this, eh?” I sneered, my eyes darting toward him as I slapped my own bum. “My inner thighs would never allow thee to.”

Æran merely tilted his head, gave a small shrug, and turned toward his nearby crew.

Aye, that was it. He had been a prick in my bum.

“Aye, that’s right! Rin like the craven son of a wench thou art...”

“And ye be that wench, inn'it? Hello then, mother,” he said, winking as he glanced behind me.

Eww... What in the muck was that?

My faith permitted us not to believe in reincarnation. Thank the Messenger. Otherwise, I must have been his mother in another life. The thought alone made my stomach turn. Never in the Seventh Heavens!

“What?”

“Of course, ye art not,” he chuckled. “Else I’d be a hideous half-elf, or mayhap a quarter-elf, inheriting that face of yers.” He stroked his beard, as though pondering the matter in earnest.

“Thou art naught but a conniving pirate elf,” I shot back, sticking out my tongue.

He only laughed and carried on with his deed.

But Messenger in the Seventh Heavens... I could not seem to tickle his patience. Well, that was infuriating.

I returned my gaze to the arriving squadron. The Inspector-General, still standing upon the bow of the first ship, kept waving his hand.

He had been at it for a couple of minutes by then.

I waved back.

He jumped from the bow. Into the sea.

I blinked.

... by the by, as far I could tell he rather had good diving form.

I lagged a bit.

I had quite literally forgotten how a Captain-General ought to conduct herself before the envoy of the Count Palatine. “Shite! Æran, faster!” I exclaimed, jabbing a finger toward the crew.

“What now, Cap’n-General?”

“Cease their dawdling! Either have them accompany me to welcome the Palatinate guards and their guests, or make them behave as such!”

“The Inspector-General? Well... shite and muck he hath,” Æran replied, rushing toward his men.

Chaos erupted.

Drunkards scrambled upright. Poker tables were abandoned mid-hand. Hand cannons were hastily secured. One fellow nearly toppled over his own stool before another caught him by the collar.

Æran went from one man to the next, rapping each upon the nape.

“Up! Move! Ye heard the Cap’n-General!”

Within moments, the crew had transformed from a rabble of loafers into something vaguely resembling a welcoming grappe.

The Inspector-General had seen the pirates in their earlier misdemeanor from across the water, whilst aboard the very ship he had boarded.

Yet he did not seem bothered by their conduct in the slightest, as far as I could tell. Alas.
But was he truly that exhilarated? Peculiar.

His body resurfaced. I knew the lad could swim. Yet his form was unlike that of Men, orcs, or elves.
But wait... wait. He was one among Men! Was this not a human überleben before me, swimming with such ease? His strokes and splashes were too quiet, unlike those of any man I had seen. How, then, did he swim so differently from the rest of us?

What? My überleben could swim as well. Half elves were never the last to reach the drift.
What humans devised such madness? Thou couldst count the half elves among them too.

Each transition was clean, almost graceful. The waves seemed to carry him rather than hinder him.

Æran had claimed he once met mermaids. Had he witnessed the Inspector-General swimming thus, he might have mistaken the envoy for one.

Albeit such überleben were all female.