(2024-06-02) A Collection of Talents

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	On orders from Fallon Harbor to scout the Forsaken fleet, Captain Skylarke and the crew of the Tidewitch -- plus two of the Vice Admiral's other specialists -- survey the isle of Tol Barad. They become better acquainted, which is nice. And then they make a discovery, which is not nice.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Season 14

It is an early June evening under a clear sky, the moons rising in the east — the Blue Child pursued by her mother over the horizon — when Annai Curran climbs the rope ladder up the Tidewitch's side from the sea to the ship's deck. Her hair streams, sleek and black with wet, and her clothes are plastered to her, but she seems indifferent to both as she crosses — silent in her soft boots, but leaving wet footprints in her wake — to the quarterdeck stairs.

At the helm, she greets Skylarke with a nod. "Captain. The way is still clear from here to the island. I don't think they've cut in west of us; they must have kept to their northerly course along the coast. It may be that they only mean to make their way around the Horn of Gilneas and up to Tirisfal after all." She glances westward. "Or they mean to circle the north of the island and come at her from the west." After a hesitation, she adds delicately, "And something is troubling the waters."

Skylarke sighs a little, disappointment exhaled into the open ocean air. "Well, we weren't meant to engage them yet so I suppose it's good they're heading home. Swinging north and coming in from the west is a bad approach; they'll just annoy everyone in Rustberg and risk being sunk in the Cape before they can make the Wellson Shipyards." She pauses, tapping a spyglass against her thigh. "We'll follow a bit behind just to make sure they don't go too wide and come about."

She looks Annai over. "As for what's troubling the waters, I suppose if you knew you'd tell me something other than 'something'."

"I would," Annai agrees. "But I don't. I'm not a sage, to talk to the tides. I only know what the creatures are feeling." Mildly, she adds, "And I suppose it's no great feat to know after the last few months that something is wrong with the sea."

Lena is standing not far away at the railing, staring fixedly at the distant lights of the island. There's something unfocused and yet intent in her gaze.

When Annai begins to speak to Skylarke, she turns towards them, making a vague gesture of dismissal with one hand.

"I hope it wasn't me, bothering the sea creatures nearby," Lena says, stepping closer. "I've been working on range, as you've said it's a problem."

"It's not likely to be you," Skylarke says, shaking her head. "At least, not likely to be just you. As Annai says, it's been going on for months." When did they get on a first-name basis? Approximately five minutes after Skylarke learned everyone's first names, probably. "Remind me to tell you about how I almost lost my last ship." She reconsiders. "Remind me when we're back on dry land to tell you about how I almost lost my last ship."

A flick of her hand extends the little spyglass out, and she puts it to her eye to stare at the island. "I don't want to get near Rustberg if I can help it," she murmurs. "Pirates don't like Fallons and I won't say they wouldn't sink us just for the fun of it. All right, let's see how close we can get to the coast and maybe Lena can get an eye over the Slagworks. See how things stand on the island. What's your range with that floating eyeball?"

Annai gives a little catlike purr of amusement at Pirates don't like Fallons. "They wouldn't sink the Witch," she observes. "She's a fine ship. And Lord Fallon wouldn't have made you her captain if he didn't trust you to handle her well." She looks expectantly to Lena.

"I'll hold you to that story, Skylarke," Lena says, with a faint smile. "Later, on land, maybe with a drink. As for the eye, as long as I can keep focus. Demons are harder, cause they resist. It only goes quick as a walk, but as long as nobody knocks my arm or nothing…"

Sky grins at Annai. "Think he'd take it amiss if I struck his colors and sailed under none?" Evidently, a rhetorical question because she follows up with Lena. "How often can you do it? We can take a nice night's sailing around the island entire and have you sneak a peek every here and there."

"As often as you like," Lena nods. "I'm bound to tire after a while, but it's not a terribly difficult trick. Just takes concentration. The fel doesn't naturally take to orderly things, but it's a small enough thing I can hold it."

Skylarke chews on the insides of her cheeks for a minute before nodding. "All right, let's see how far you can get before someone stops you," she says to Lena. "We'll tack about here; I don't want to drop anchor or sail, not while we might need to get underway in a trice." She calls orders to the lookout, gesturing out to starboard.

"Alright, and maybe you don't need to swim this one, Miss Curran," Lena nods at her politely. "Just tell me when to dump the thing overboard. It doesn't fly."

"Can it climb? There are cliffs." Skylarke seems a bit put out that it can't fly. Darn demon eyeballs.

"Limitations," Lena holds up her hands in apology. "I'll need to come at the shore where it can get aground like a person would. A person who can't climb cliffs."

"Damn," Skylarke mutters. "There used to be a fissure out to sea, northeast of the Slagworks. Maybe our Miss Curran can take a swim and see if it's still there. I wouldn't want to try a landing there, but maybe it'll be enough for your eye." She looks to Annai, a questioning lift to one brow.

Annai nods and turns away. She does not seem to feel the need for further instruction or request; she climbs casually up onto the portside rail, surveying the distant, rocky coastline, and then she lifts her arms and arches forward, kicking off the rail into a graceful dive.

When she hits the water, she is no longer a dark-haired woman. The thing that ripples away beneath the surface might be a pale sea lion. It might be the skeleton of a sea lion. It might be a bone-and-thorn effigy of a sea lion. Or maybe that's all tricks of the moving water and the moon's reflection, and it's just a sea lion. Either way, a moment later it's gone.

Lena watches her go for a moment, her face impassive. Then she turns to Skylarke. "Did anyone ever explain to you what she is?"

"Besides Kul Tiran?" Skylarke shakes her head. "No. You?"

Lena shakes her head. "Kul Tirans seem to like their secrets. I try not to pry into all that sort of thing, but I admit I'm curious."

Skylarke smiles a little. "They do at that. And if we're curious, we should just ask. Who knows, she might even answer." She leans on the rail and watches the water.

"Whatever it is, I imagine neither of us is like to judge her for it," Lena says, moving over to stand by Skylarke at the rail. "And whatever power she's got, I'm glad she's using it on our side."

"The same can be said of you, you know," Skylarke says. "You're a warlock. And I'm a pirate. Annai's… whatever she is. Fallon's got a way of finding odd sorts and turning them to his own needs. Must be why he's a vice admiral."

"That he does," Lena says with a nod. "That gnome with her buns and her nads as well. And I could tell you, I've been on duty for summoning folk to the ships, and you be surprised the sorts that come by sometimes. I reckon he sees the potential in people, and respects what they can do rather than fearing what they might do. That and maybe a lack of squeamishness on methods."

"Niksi," Skylarke identifies. "She was on my crew for about a year and a half. Developed the first DRUNK tank while with me, actually. I'm glad she found him or he found her. She was wasted with me, if I'm honest. She needs — needed — a patron with the funds to make her ideas real. Who knows how they got together."

She looks over at Lena. "How about you, how did you end up with Fallon?"

"Oh, I suppose I met him at a fancy party, if you can believe it," Lena says, her eyes still on the water. "They'd invited a bunch of mercenaries, including me, for political reasons, really. And he got the idea in his head after a conversation — or maybe he'd had it beforehand, and that was why the conversation — that a warlock could be a boon to a fleet."

Skylarke laughs, a quiet chuckle. "I'm sorry I missed that party; a bunch of mercenaries at a fancy do. Were you all civilized and proper? Tell me you weren't or you'll ruin the story."

"For most of the night," Lena says, amusement quirking the corner of her lips for a moment before it fades. "But a girl I knew, one of the other mercenaries, she was havin' a good time with the drinking and the dancing. And not self-conscious about it at all. It was easy to go along with her, just enjoy it for a while. Maybe they expected that? Nobody told us to get off the dance floor."

"Well they wouldn't, would they? Too proper." Skylarke sighs and looks out at the water again, then looks over her shoulder to be sure the lookout is looking out. "Is it too cliche to say I have a bad feeling about this?"

"If we didn't, we wouldn't need all the stealth and the spying," Lena says, and then bites her lip. "Or do you mean Miss Curran? I could send something after her, if you think she's run into trouble."

"She is 'Miss Curran', isn't she? I think I call her Annai just to combat her Miss Curran-ness," Skylarke says. She pulls out her eyeglass and scans the moonlit waters. "I think if that one gets in trouble, it won't be quiet."

"That's what the Vice Admiral calls her, but then he calls me Miss Coit," Lena says, glancing over at Skylarke. "Which, you can call me Lena, of course. So could he, if he wanted. Excepting recent days in the fleet, I don't reckon anybody's called me Miss Coit since I was a schoolgirl. And even then it would've been teasing."

Skylarke smiles, but continues to scan the sea. "Hard to imagine you as a little schoolgirl. Where did you grow up?"

Lena's shoulders tense, but when she answers her voice is just as calm and conversational as before. "Northwest of here, on the mainland. Silverpine. Where're you from, originally?"

"Westfall," she says. "But I was a small child when I …" She laughs. "When I went to sea. I don't really remember much of growing up there."

"With what I hear from friends, maybe the sea is a better place to grow up than Westfall," Lena smiles faintly. "Reckon that's where you met the Vice Admiral then? Somewhere on the sea?"

"Oh yes," Skylarke says, laughing again. "He had a ship I wanted so I stole it. Then he managed to take her back from me, and we finally met. We were lovers for a brief time, but then who hasn't been his lover? Anyway, we went years trading my ship back and forth until the storms this year."

"A tumultuous start," Lena says, with a brief laugh. She doesn't comment on whether or not she's been his lover. "What happened to the ship in question?"

"Ah, that's the story I'll tell you when we're on dry land. Strangest sea I ever saw, and I don't want to call up bad luck again." She collapses the spyglass. "Her name was… is The Skylark so you can see why I wanted her so badly."

There is a faint splash, tonally different from the general slop of the waves against the ship's hull, and a few moments later, Annai Curran is dripping casually across the deck toward them again. "Captain," she says to Skylarke. "The fissure is still there, and navigable." She pauses. "There's a disturbance in the waters beyond. Not — the general unease. A present disturbance above it."

"Above it?" Lena asks, turning to the mysterious Miss Curran. "Above the water?"

Annai nods to Lena. "At the surface. I think… something may be approaching. From the west, toward the channel there. Not close yet, but close enough to disturb."

Skylarke nods to Lena. "Take a look, the faster the better."

"Okay, I'll see what I can find." Lena turns back towards the water and closes her eyes.

A look of deep concentration comes over her face and she makes a careful gesture. A yellowish-green ball of energy appears in the air in front of her, and then falls with gravity into the water with a quiet plop. The greenish light fades as it descends, and Lena stands still, her eyes moving under her lids.

Skylarke fidgets. "You're all right, though?" she asks Annai. "Nothing untoward happened to you?"

Annai blinks at Skylarke. After a moment she smiles, a little uncertainly. "I'm fine, Captain. Nothing… untoward happened." She tilts her head.

"So…." Skylarke says after a moment's silence. "What are you, anyway? Lena and I were wondering, but she's much too polite to just ask."

Annai slow-blinks like a cat at Skylarke. "A Thornspeaker," she says.

"A Thornspeaker. Well, serves me right for asking," Skylarke says with a shrug. "I don't know what that means, but you're handy to have around and plainly Fallon likes you."

Annai smiles faintly. "A… nature witch. From Drustvar. A shapeshifter." She turns her head to look in the direction Lena's Eye went. "I am discreet about it, because you haven't got them here and people find it unsettling. And the Kul Tirans who are familiar with Thornspeakers are uneasy around them. Some of them find it too close a cousin to dark witchcraft. And Lord Fallon is discreet about it because… he is discreet."

"Hah!" Skylarke laughs. Then she thinks about it. "Well… no I suppose he is rather discreet about some things," she says. "Discreet but not secretive. It's a talent he has."

Annai's smile widens. "His true talent," she says, "is collecting talented people. They make him look good. It wouldn't serve him well to betray any of their secrets, or disrespect the very skills for which he collects them. He's not stupid, Lord Fallon isn't. Reckless, occasionally. But not stupid."

"You met him in Kul Tiras, I'm assuming?" Skylarke asks. She glances at Lena from time to time, to ensure that she's not falling over faint or anything.

"I did," agrees Annai, and glances at Lena herself curiously before focusing on Skylarke again. "I worked for his fiancée's family. His former fiancée. Miss Grier. In Drustvar."

"And left her to follow him?" Skylarke's eyebrows rise. She knows what that means.

Annai laughs a little. "She sent me. After Theramore, when Kul Tiras broke with the Alliance, and Lord Fallon didn't, she dropped him. She'd already been seeing another gentleman, discreetly, and so the pair of them came out betrothed. She didn't bother to tell Lord Fallon herself, nor even to read any of his letters to her. He sent a great many letters.

"She was very cruel about it among people at home, one of the most acid-tongued about his 'betrayal,' and personally spread some vicious rumors. Low rumors. I expect she only wanted to dissociate herself at a time when feelings were running high generally, but it was shoddy of her and I told her so. Lord Fallon had always been an honorable man and a gentleman, and it was plain he'd been besotted with her.

"She told me that if I felt so strongly on the matter, I was welcome to break the news to him personally. And then she made several insulting insinuations about my character." Annai shrugs mildly. "So I did. Come to Stormwind, to tell him. And then I stayed on. It was a messy time, with Admiral Fallon's death and the breaking with Kul Tiras, disentangling business and family affairs, inheriting the title and the fleet, shoring up display of his own loyalty to Stormwind at a time there was a great deal of doubt…. He clearly needed someone to help put matters in order for him, even if only temporarily. So I did."

"Huh!" Skylarke says after digesting that. "A truly loyal person. That's rare, in my experience. Good for you. And for him, of course. He obviously trusts your skills and values them."

Annai tilts her head modestly. "He does, yes," she says. "As I say, he values the people he collects. And he is loyal. As you yourself know well, I expect."

"Me? Tides bless, no." Skylarke looks over the seas. "He trusts my ability because I'm one of the few pirates to sail against him and not get blown out of the water. We're… more friendly enemies than anything. Sometimes more 'friendly' than we ought to've been. We like each other, despite our differences, but I wouldn't say he's loyal to me nor I to him." She pauses, but then flicks her hand to dismiss the thought and just ends there.

Annai tilts her head in the other direction, looking amused. "Well, then it must be another reason he's not seen fit to arrest you. Fed you information about Horde gold transports. Has your ship in drydock to rebuild her at his own expense. And then hired you on to the Fleet as well."

Skylarke's mouth twists in a cynical smile. "He sent me after Horde gold transports because he knew I wanted the gold, and I'm lazy enough to take the easy pickings. He wants me not to be a pirate because, as I said, he knows my ability and trusts that. He's trying to collect me, as he collects others, and my ship is the tool he's using to do it. One year, he thinks — he hopes — is enough to rehabilitate me. That's not loyalty, that's just…" Just what? "…wishful pragmatism."

That's not a thing, Skylarke.

"I didn't say he's not pragmatic. He does collect skilled people. But that doesn't mean he isn't loyal, either. They aren't mutually exclusive, you know. He values people, and he's loyal." Annai surveys Skylarke, still with faint amusement. "It may be you're not accustomed to it, and so you don't recognize it. But I am, and I do."

"The only way to tell would be to see what happens if you stopped being useful to him. Lost your skills somehow, let's say. But maybe, as you say, I wouldn't recognize loyalty if it bit me on the ass." That's what she said, right? "Pirates aren't known for their loyal streaks."

Lena draws in a breath and presses her hands to her eyes. "I think that's as far as I go this time. I can try again if we need. Got up on land though, and cross a bridge." She pauses, and then adds, "Warlocks. Not known for loyalty either. But, here we all are. Thornspeaker, pirate and warlock."

"I don't mean to suggest anything one way or the other about your loyalties or lack thereof," Annai says primly, more to Skylarke than to Lena. "Only that it's possible that from prior experience you might not recognize when it's being paid to you. Lord Fallon is a loyal man, regardless."

Now she focuses on Lena, her gaze a question.

Skylarke uses her mouth to question Lena, personally. "Did you see anything worrisome?"

"Nothing odd on land, just slipped a little is all," Lena blinks and turns to them, still looking a bit dazed. "On the horizon, though. Ships. Red sails, if I saw it right."

"Red sails?" Skylarke's spine straightens. "Horde ships, here? Did you get a count?"

Lena shakes her head. "Too distant for me. At least four, but could've been any number past where I could see. Maybe we keep doing that perimeter, I can get more information somewhere else?"

"No," Skylarke says. She reaches up to pull the kerchief off her hair, retying it in a ponytail. "Time for me to earn my supper, I think. Four is bad enough, but if there are more it's a full invasion force. We'll slip behind them at speed, get a count, and sprint for home. They'll not catch this lady, but they might chase us to shut us up." She looks at them both. "You can both handle yourselves if the cannon start firing, aye?"

"Ohhh, aye," says Annai grimly, with something like a growl under her voice.

"Don't worry, if the fighting starts," Lena says, still with that mild smile. "The fel is chaos, but I won't set the ship aflame. Not ours, anyway."

Oh, fire! Nice. Skylarke looks pleased. "If they start to chase and you can set their sails alight, I'll count it a favor. Now let's go see how many of the motherless bastards there are."

She turns and starts bellowing orders in a voice that can probably be heard from the island. Slack sails are drawn taut, and the Tidewitch gathers up the wind.