Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Why can't we kill them again?" Kai asked darkly from where he leaned against the rail of the quarterdeck. "Because when we find them, I don't think I'll be able to stop myself."
"Your gang member is showing, Kai," Willie hummed from where he was fiddling with a block of wood and a knife.
"I don't care," the boy grumbled.
It was well after midnight, and only those on the crew that didn't sleep well were awake (of which there were far too many for Kai's liking, as hypocritical as it was with the nightmares that chased him awake each night).
"We can't kill them," Lucio said tiredly from his place at the helm, having replaced Jasper hours ago. "I know we all hate to admit it, but the Stormrider causes almost as much destruction to the Empire as we do, and if we kill them all, then there's not much stopping the Navy from coming after us full force." He grimaced, eyes glowing in the moonlight. "With Zander and her crew, at least the Navy has to focus on two ships at once."
"Not to mention what it'll look like to the other crews in the Reef if we turn on one of our fellow ships. Pirates are a flighty bunch, so they'll be quick to distrust us if we turn on the Stormrider," Terpsichore added, eyes closed from where she sat on the deck against the mast. "Zander might be a bitch to deal with, but she has connections with the others that we don't."
Kai grunted in acknowledgement, because he could understand that from his years on the streets. Gangs and pirate crews were unsurprisingly similar, almost equal in levels of wariness of others. Dryly, he said, "I suppose we don't want all of Hurricane Reef after us in the name of vengeance?"
"No," Lucio agreed with a laugh. "No, we don't."
"Which means we're stuck."
"Yep."
"I hate this," Kai grumbled.
"Well, we don't have much of a choice," Lyndon said. "They took whatever it was we were after, and they have Kian. Our hands are pretty much tied."
"Speaking of-" Lynn said, swinging down from the rigging, eliciting a shriek from Willie.
"Have you been there the whole time?!" he demanded. "I thought you were asleep!"
"Uh, no," Lynn said, "The entire irony of my existence is that I can make other people sleep but not myself, remember?"
Willie just grumbled, curling in on himself and going back to work on his carving, which Kai thought looked like a pregnant whale but was fairly sure was definitely not supposed to be that.
"Anyways," she said, bounding up to the quarterdeck to poke at Lucio. "Are we allowed to know what it was we were after, before Zander and her ilk snatched it away from us? I'm sure the Council told you and told you not to tell us."
"How could you have possibly guessed that?" Lucio asked amusedly.
"Because the Council is made up of a bunch of paranoid bastards," Terpsichore cut in dryly.
