Spirits of the Earth

OOC: Tags to @TreeFolk !

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Reajh today, the sea tomorrow and enough money to fill his pockets had the notorious Mordecai for hire, Krah Mordeth, more than content. Lord Bachloach was known to be a stingy man, except where his life was concerned, and when he found out he was dating a 'witch', he had her disposed of but she violently fought back and he nearly lost his eye from a powerful bolt of lighting from her wicked fingers. Before any guards could get to her, she vanished and Lord Bachloach feared for his life.

Seeking a body guard, and someone to accompany him to Serendipity until he was sure the lover was found, killed or cooled off, he didn't want to take any chances and hired someone who'd hire another man who would find and hire the famous mordecai for hire, a certain Krah Mordeth, and would bring him to the city. And they met, a negotiation was made, and soon a caravan was set off to the sea. And though Lord Bachloach was ever looking over his shoulder, fearful his former lover might find him and castrate him with her magic, he was more than relieved when they made it all the way to the cost of Folkvar.

The ship was already set to sail, a man having been hired to ride ahead and make arrangements, and the Serendipity vessel titled The Sea Cricket would bring him to his destination, the Sea side City of Cerenis. It didn't take incredibly long for his things to be loaded onto The Sea Cricket, for he packed relatively light (considering he was a lord of some substantial wealth, even if he was too far removed to be in any sort of line for a seat of power). But the fact things were going as planned, and the winds were in his favor,Lord Bachloach took to a tavern with his men on the evening of their voyage. They'd start sailing once the sun would set, and move southward, using the stars as their guide. And after most of the crew was thoroughly happy and drunk, a call to board the vessel was made.

But there was only one problem-
The hired help went missing. Panicked, Lord Bachloach searched all over, inquiring as to the where abouts of Mister Krah Mordeth. A snickering barmaid pointed tot he stair well, and soon the lord was ascending, and when he reached the room in question and opened the door, he could only stare in horror for a few moments before closing the door. And his face went white as a bed sheet, heart thumping in his chest as his back pressed against the door.

A grunt between a woman's wails of pleasure could be heard as Krah called through the now closed door,
"You need somethin' boss?"

And now the lord's face was red. He grit his teeth, and stammered, "The-the ship leaves this hour."

Another grunt, more moans asnt eh pounding of the bed against the wall could be heard, it's legs whining in protest as Lord Bachloach swallowed the tightening knot in his throat and felt his palms and pits grow sweaty.

"I only need half of that!" Krah said with a laugh through the door. "See you on the ship!"

Feeling that was more than adequate of a reply (and wanting any excuse to get away from that scene), the lord rushed back down stairs and motioned for his men to make haste. While they all boarded the vessel, he got the rest of hte men settled, but after another hour rolled by....

Lord Bachloach began to get worry. Was the mordecai not coming? He said only half hte hour was needed..
Had he forgotten?
Did he change his mind?

And nervously the man's eyes searched the dock, the pier and the gang plank for any signs of him-

But to no avail.

Cassia woke to the sun on her face, pulled from a dream of her mother... She often had dreams of her Undine mother, which were often not simply dreams. Her mother had a way of contacting her in her dreams, which often incited a negative reaction from Cassia. How was she supposed to remember all of her dreams? How was she distinguish between dream and real contact? Her mother in the dream was talking about orcas and waves, which could mean multiple things. Was she talking about actual orcas, or about the symbolism of orcas? She certainly couldn't hear the trilling song of the orcas here in the port of Reajh, the water much too shallow.

Rolling from her nest of ropes at the bow of the ship, she wished she could relish another night of fresh air. More than likely the captain of the ship would have her down in the crew quarters once the Lord came aboard, sleeping amongst the snoring, flatulent men. Not that it mattered, as she was at the moment on a boat operating under the assumption that she was a man. She did not present herself as thus, but neither did she deem it imperative to point out her real gender. Being called the "pretty boy" of the ship worked fine for her, and helped her avoid any untoward expectations of her behavior. Plus, not having to constantly prove her worth as a deckhand of equal or greater capability to the men was welcome.

Stretching, Cassia looked over The Sea Cricket, admiring the boats gleaming deck and solid sides. It was certainly much cushier than the fishing boats she normally worked for, but she wasn't entirely certain that the boat was more sea-worthy. Often times pretty transpotation boats like this did not have to undergo the same tests of integrity that working boats needed to address.

A grunt alerted her to one of her fellow deckhands climbing over the rail that allowed access to the bow, and she turned to see the younger deckhand, Jackson. He nodded solemnly at her, and she returned the gesture in kind. "Cap' got a hire. We're transporting some Lord and his retainers to Cerenis." She gave a curt nod, which was apparently enough acknowledgment for him to continue talking. Greenhands like him had that tendency. "What do you think he'll be like?"

She crossed her arms and looked out to the docks, which were currently only populated by the crews of the boats. The civilians had yet to find their way to the docks in the early morning, to buy fish or purchase passage to other port cities. She took a few moments before responding, "Like all other lordlings, I suppose. We're getting paid, that's all that matters." She narrowed her dark blue eyes, watching as the new crewman aboard Shameless got caught up in the ropes while docking and was pulled into the water. This fleet was a rough group, and nobody rushed to help the boy, and she didn't particularly feel inclined to either. He'd either learn or not... Survival of the fittest was certainly the mantra of their line of work. She did, however, manipulate the current of the water to loosen the rope on the lad, twirling her fingers subtly. She wasn't heartless, after all.

Without commenting further, she turned from Jackson and went off to begin her work preparing the ship to set sail. Other members of the crew were beginning their work as well, most groggy eyed. Their last job had seen them experience several sleepless nights in a turbulent sea, and most of them had held onto the delusion that they might actually be in port long enough to get solid sleep. Some idiots had taken this delusion a step further and had gone out to the the taverns... Unfortunately for them, The Sea Cricket was a popular vessel, and now a good scattering of the crew were working with bloodshot eyes and hangovers. She even watched as the cook lean over the side to heave up the evidence of his nice. Her eyes caught movement down the docks, and a party of what she assumed was their Lord and retainers was making their way towards their vessel. Kicking the cook in the ankle, she grunted "Get that out of you before the Lord makes it aboard, or the Cap' will have you sacked."

Once aboard, the Lord and his retainers were seen to by the mates of the ship, with the Quartermaster overseeing them. Her own duties as the Sailing Master, charting their route, done prior to this, she waited for the command from her Captain to give the a.b.s. crew (able bodied sailors) the coordinates to set sail. As they closed in on the time, she felt a growing irritation. Going up to the wheelhouse to the Captain, she knocked on the door. "Cap', the tide won't hold up if we set out too much later. You need to tell this Lord o' his to give up on whoever he's waiting for, or we'll likely have to take the next tide out and be stuck in the ebb. If he wants to set sail today, I'd recommend setting out within the next half an hour."

Her Captain gave a slight nod, respecting her navigational skills, and she assumed went to go speak with the Lord, as she bent over her maps again to try and map alternate routes that would work if they should set out later.

When Krah finally made his entrance on the boat, it was something that could probably be heard for miles. His laughter was loud, bellowing and echoing off the waters as they lapped in hisses beneath the gang plank he walked. And at the sight of him, Lord Bachloach was relieved. And the second he was on the boat, the Lord was questioning him.

"I thought you said you'd only need half the time."

Krah only looked at him, raising his brows as if to say 'Yeah? What of it?'

The lord gave a hot sigh. "You returned in triple that."

"Triple?" Krah grinned and gave a thoughtful rub to his beard. "Damn, I thought I'dve been longer!" And with a laugh, he slapped the man on the shoulder. "Don't worry about things so much. You need to learn certain things in life are worth more than a deadline." And he gave Lord Bachloach a knowing look that made even the man's ears turn red. "When you get married, you'll understand." And he patted the man on the shoulder before stepping on past him and giving him a hard slap to his ass. Lord Bachloach nearly jumped out of his skin on that, and to see the man react so made Krah laugh and laugh, a sounded that was able to drown out even the roar of the ocean and wind.

Cassia glared as the man they had been waiting on made it aboard the ship... But she could not wait long stewing in her anger at the tardiness of nobles and their hired guards. If they were to make it out of the port on this tide, they would have to get moving quickly. Just as she was thinking it, she heard her captain begin to bark out orders, one directed at her: "Cass, lad, get on the command!"

Cassia jogged down onto deck, approaching the Lord, "M'lord, you and your men will want to clear the deck as we head out." It was a quick note, before she was striding confidently past him and barking out orders herself. "Alright, boys, we're gonna want to haul ass if we want to make this tide! Chart left of the channel, as the sandbar'll be popping up any time now. Steer her closer to the cliffs, and we may might yet make it! It'll be tighter than squeezing a goose's egg through a chicken's ass, but we should be able to make it." The crew stood a moment, awaiting further instructions, before she gestured rudely with her fist. "Well get on with it, then!"
As she was making her way down the deck, checking up on the different operations underway, she saw Jackson move towards the masts and stopped him, "And don't you dare touch those masts, Jackson! What do you want, us to crash into the cliffs? Gods be damned, you're an idiot."

She liked taking command of a boat. Their current captain, truth be told, was a bit of a lazy drunkard, and she was certain he was having her bark out orders because he was too hungover himself. She could see the first-mate steering the wheel, and the captain talking with the Lord, who had moved to the deck apart from the working deck. She rolled her eyes... The damned fool was power hungry, and was most likely kissing ass. She was currently watching the waters, reading the depths with her eyes, checking to make sure the ship did not begin to wander off-course... This was going to be a tight maneuver until they were out of the bay. Once out in the open sea, that was another matter. There she'd have plenty of water, and wouldn't risk running dry.

As the ship headed out, the man for hire hung around his patron for only as long as he could take. Eventually, he was picking at his ear with his pinky and eventually gave a rude reasoning for an excuse. It was all boring bullshit anyway. And the ship's voyage, he had been told, was already paid for. So really, there was no need for him to hang around. And what dangers lay on the water ahead would be there if he were beneath the deck or not. But he had a feeling it'd be smooth sailing- and boring.


So above deck he went, where the salt waters whipped at his hair and clung to his skin in a clammy layer of his sweat mixed with that of the air. And the sun was setting, casting deep shadows and making the ocean appear black. And only where the sun was dipping did the ocean burn with color.

But to Krah Mordeth, it appeared as just any other sunset to him.

Cassia stalked up and down the deck, barking orders and checking the riggings, the sweat from her work starting to make her shirt stick to her body. Gods she wished she could take off the stupid chest bindings! They were hot and confining, and restricted her breathing, making the task of yelling even harder. They were near to clearing the channel and hitting open ocean, after hours of letting the end of the tide push them out.

She leaned out the edge of the ship, her fingers curled around the lip of the starboard and watching the cliffs slowly get left behind. They were finally clearing the risk of hitting the reefs, and she felt the ocean deepening beneath them. Once she was sure they were out of the risk of hitting anything, she yelled out "Set the sails!"

No sooner had she yelled this out when she watched the boom begin to careen across the deck. "HIT THE FUCKING DECK!" She screamed, but she could already see that the late arrival to their ship was not quite as on his toes as the rest of the crew. She acted quickly, angling her shoulder into the back of the man's thighs to knock him off his center of gravity, going down with him as she felt the whoosh of the boom whistle by.

He could blame the alcohol for making him slow, or how insatiable the bar wench was. Her husband, she had confessed, knew nothing on the art of fucking and never had so many orgasms (let alone one!) During sex. So she was sad to see him go and gave a sad, sheepish wave before he closed the door.

But now he was back on the job, and enjoying the winds drying is sweat, dampened hair. But soon he was eating the deck, his nose bashing into it as he saw stars. But the whoosh overhead wasn't lost and once the eminent danger was over, he glared down at the little boy on his legs.

"You've got five seconds to let go before I kick in your teeth."

Cassia down the body of the man threatening her, her upper lip curling as she gave him her scathing reply. "You'd have had your own fuckin' teeth caved in for you, had I been five seconds later. I've seen entire faces caved in by the boom, but that's if you didn't go overboard and get sucked down into the sea before I could see." She pushed herself up, not minding were her feet went.

Once straightened up, she took a quick survey of the deck. "All on board?!" She yelled out, the other men looking around. She finished the head count, before intaking a quick breath and bellowing. "Now who the FUCK had the bright idea to let loose the boom?" Her eyes swung around to the side of the ship the boom had swung from, spotting one of the hungover crewman and Jackson, both looking pointedly at their current tasks. "You'd best believe the both o' you'll be off crew soon as we hit Cerenis. You'll be lucky if I don't make you swim!"

As the crew began to pick up their tasks again, she turned towards the man she had knocked down. She didn't let the distance between her height of 5'7 and his own height threaten her, scowling. "If I say hit the deck, you hit the deck. I've got no time to clean sloth blood off my decks." She pointed at the boom as the men began readjusting it, a free-swinging large piece of lumber which hung parallel to the decks. "That'd take you out quick."

Krah looked from the boy to the boom, and back again with a dark smirk.
"Probably, but I'm made of things tougher than most men." A reply that naturally came from his inflated ego. "And last time I checked, you weren't the captain..." And his weight shifted as he folded his arms across his chest, looking at the boy expectantly for them to answer. After all, he was never any good at taking orders, employer or not. When he was hired, he did things HIS way.

"And I've heard a lot of idiots say that right before their melon splits open. All men die." She countered, feeling her chest heat and redden with anger, creeping its way up and towards her face.

Pulling herself up to her full height, she straightened her strong shoulders and kept her hands in fists at her sides, squaring her feet. Not most could get under her skin, but his complete disregard of the time of departure, coupled with his pompous attitude, made her want to smash her fist into his smug face. "And last time I checked, you weren't the Lord paying for passage." She should have let the boom take him. And then she'd have used her magic to hold him under. And then maybe she'd be nice enough to bring his body back up. Maybe.

And at that, Krah's lips cracked into a grin, and he laughed, oh how he laughed.
"Think you're tough shit, boy? You've got another thing comin'." And he eyed the little thing over with another smirk. "Keep up the good work, pretty boy." And he moved to check out the rest of the ship, as if nothing had happened at all.

She could feel the most feminine growl of outrage bubbling in her throat, but she quelled it and glared down his back. She should pitch the ship, give him a good tumble. Perhaps she'd drown him in his sleep, lying alone in his bunk. Thus began her numerous and persistent day dreams of the multiple ways that she could imagine making him suffer or die... Preferably both.

Cassia returned about her work, helping the crew the right the sails and set course for the night. After the mishap she didn't feel particularly inclined to sleep, and so spent a good portion of the night sleeping in short shifts. Dreams of the sea and her mother peppered her dreams, warnings of foul tides to come...

She supposed that she slept longer than she had intended, because between the 4 a.m. shift and her waking up, the sun had begun to rise in the sky. Groaning, she lifted herself up to begin the work of the new day... It would be a long couple of weeks until they made it to their destination.

Lord Bachlaoch and his entourage were afforded the choiciest rooms below deck. Naturally, the Lord took the largest for himself, offering the second largest to his hired muscle, and the last room to be shared with his remaining accomplices. And though the night had been long and many, tired from drink, more ale was shared at the round tables in a common room below, and a midnight stew brought up and cards played.

These were the situations Krah enjoyed, but when he realized the entire boat was more or less only men, it soured his mood considerably, and he actually called it an early night before the others. There was no sense in staying awake any longer if he wasn't getting laid. He supposed he'd have to just deal with it for the time being, and as he slipped into bed, he  made a mental note to ensure any trips of length would have at least one female companion with him, whore or other wise. He had a sexual appetite to feed, and his would be starved.

At the thought, he smirked, thinking how lucky the woman would be to get him after such a repression, and eventually the rocking of the ship lulled him to sleep. When he awoke, it was afternoon, and the ship was already so far out in the ocean he could no longer see the land. Assured this method of travel was faster over deeper waters, Krah went on a leisurely stroll upon deck, heading to starboard as his eyes scanned the sea. And it didn't take him long to find the girly man again as he watched him work in silence while chewing on a large biscuit made fresh before they took to sea.

She had heard their guests throughout the night, and knew that their own crew was likely as groggy as they were because of it. The younger men had a way of sleeping through the loudest of moments, but the older members of the crew had trained themselves to wake at the slightest noise... This ability was valuable when something was going wrong with the ship, and could make the difference between capsizing and staying dry. This ability was not, however, valuable when it came to getting enough rest with rowdy guests aboard. It was going to be a long day, as she could already see and hear the older crew members growing aggravated with the well-rested younger crew.

There was, she consented, benefits to youth. Though respect was not as easy to garner, at least they were able to sleep with the rest of the blissfully ignorant. Most of the younger hands didn't have good reason to worry about what might happen while they slept... Most had not woken up to the ship on its side or water in their cabin. Cassia had been on ships that had, and had felt fortunate for her powers. Usually she resented her own magic, as it had ripped her family apart. And it was the reason why she could never stay on land... She loved the sea, and did not think she would have chosen a different life, but having the choice would have been nice. Freedom would have been nice.

She was rechecking the navigation for the day when she got the feeling somebody was watching her. Looking up from the map, she looked around, before her eyes met with the cocky bastard. Cassia scowled, watching the crumbs from the biscuit he was eating drop to the deck, deciding that she even disliked the way he ate. Looking back down at the map, she pointedly ignored him, deciding that it was the best way to cope with the way he got under her skin.

Unfortunately for her, Krah loved trouble. And to see the way the boy scowled gave all the more reason for Krah to approach, leaving a trail of biscuit crumbs as he went. By the time he was next to him, he was licking the remains from his fingers.
"Any more incidents you need to report? You know.. after such a mishap as last night, I'm surprised my employer hasn't gave you a proper tongue lashing. Oh... Or did you and your men keep that a secret? Hoping it won't affect the return of coin?"

Cassia tried her best to ignore his approach, and tried to keep herself from responding to his jab at her. She literally felt her skin prickling with irritation, the waves responding to her momentary lack of control by rocking the boat unnaturally.

Taking a calming breath, she turned to face him, crossing her arms and training her features. "First, I do not report to you. Second, perhaps this is your first time aboard a ship, but those types of things do tend to happen. I told you and your party to stay off the main deck, so it is your own fault that you were in that situation." She narrowed her dark blue eyes, jaw tightening in irritation, seething, "And finally, the boom wouldn't have swung nearly so violently if we hadn't been stuck in that particular outgoing tide. And we just so happened to hit said outgoing tide because you chose to take your fucking time getting on board, completely disregarding our departure time. If you hadn't caught on yet, departure times actually matter for ocean vessels."

Taking another deep breath, she turned her back on him and leaned over the map again, trying to give him as little attention as possible. In a calmer tone, she added without looking to him, "If anyone on this boat deserves a proper tongue lashing, it would be you." Why was he even speaking to her in the first place? What god had she angered (other than the obvious one who had cursed her), to make him pay attention to her?

If Krah noticed the awkward rocking of the boat, he did not say, but his eyes were positively glittering. The glee was hard to contain, and his sinister like grin was amused as the devil possessing a fox. The young boy had a lot of hot air to breath, and Krah felt his ego, a bit inflated. Not that one could ever blame him for the same, it amused him none the less.

"Trust me, I was late for a good reason." And the grin on his face basically gave it away- for it was perverse.

Cassia's jaw tightened as she leaned forward onto the table with her arms, before shoving back and turning back around to look at him. The grin on his face was enough to let her know what kind of person he was, as far as his relations with women.  She was thankful at that moment that he was effectively falling for her disguise.

"Oh, I see. If you really need it that badly, you must be trying to make up for some shortcomings." She looked pointedly at the front of his pants.

"Much to the contrary," Krah went on, that smug grin growing smugger as he hefted up his pants and slicked back his hair. "Being so... gifted has its advantages... and disadvantages. After all, not all men have the sexual appetite like mine. Shame there ain't no women on board. Then I could show you a trick or two." For he had no shame in that regard. Sex was sex, and he had no desire for intimacy.

Cassia rolled her eyes, an eyebrow quirking at his suggestion. What, he thought he'd bring her in to watch him or something? "You know, if I wanted to watch a gorilla fuck, I'd go to a menagerie. I'm sure you have all the finesse of an ape. Women must go wild."

Well, perhaps women did go wild for him. She supposed some would find him handsome, in a rugged sort of way. Not that she thought much further on the matter. She was so far removed from romantic pursuits from being constantly surrounded by men, that their attractiveness to her was based on a completely unrelated set of evaluations.

There was a sudden lurching of the ship, Cass bending her knees to maintain her balance before she looked about. None of the other crew members appeared to be aware of the cause, until her ears caught the sound... Singing. The enchanting, mesmerizing, ethereal music of sirens drifted up to the decks, causing her heart to plummet down into the pit of her stomach.

The first man to succumb she watched begin to slowly drift towards the edge of the boat as she rushed towards him, gripping his wrist and yanking him back from the railing. She peered overboard to assess the severity of the situation... There was a good school of sirens, easily enough to tempt the entire ship into going overboard. Her mind raced, knowing that he magic could only do so much and save so many, and unfortunately being the only woman on board meant that it would all be left up to her. Well, it was fortunate that she was a woman, and that she herself wouldn't be enchanted by the siren's song (though she might not have been even if she'd been a man, due to her Undine blood).

When she had tied the man up as quickly as possible and turned to try and catch the next enchanted man, that was when she noticed that Krah did not seem inflicted by the sirens song. "What... How?" She sputtered, before shaking her head, knowing they had no time to spare. "Gods help us... You, Gorilla, you've got to help the men from going overboard! Go lock the hatch to below deck!"

Cassia lurched across the deck, angling herself to go along with the rocking of the ship by the sirens. The second man, a big burly deckhand, was much harder for her to restrain, and she grunted and yanked on him to a spot where she could properly tie him up. She heard the splash of a body hitting the water, all she could do was offer a silent prayer that she'd somehow be able to keep the man from drowning with her magic, despite being overly preoccupied by trying to keep the rest of the men aboard dry.

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((OC- I took a little liberty in assuming since Krah's mordecai, that he wouldn't be susceptible to the siren's song. I thought this might be a good moment for him to either figure out that Cass is a woman, or that he begins to suspect something is not so straight-forward about her... Also, drama. ))

Krah wasn't sure he much liked this pet name coined by the boy, but only grinned sourly after he left to attend to his duties. Krah simply remained on the deck, picking at his teeth with a toothpick when the singing caught his ears. He didn't think much of it, but when the men began to react, he found himself simply laughing. And at the young man's demands for help, he found himself asking,"Why?" as his cheeks wrinkled into a series of dimples as his smile consumed his face.

"Let the men drown, it's no skin off my nose."
Though perhaps he should have been a bit more considerate of his employer, and of those running the ship. It wasn't like he knew how to handle a ship. A woman- yes, but a ship- he was completely ignorant.

It was only when he saw Lord Bachlaoch coming up, moving as if sleep walking towards the edge of the boat. With a curse, Krah stormed over to the Lord, scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But just as he was going to discard him below deck, another man under the Lord's employ began to do the same, and with a scowl, Krah tossed the Lord below deck and didn't care that he just left him to tumble down the stairs. When he collected the other man, he could NOT believe that Lord Bachloach was already back up the stairs! This time he shoved the other man into the lord and both fell down the stairs and before Krah could shut the doors, another man was brushing past him, and with a furious war he shouted, "OH NO YOU DON'T!" And slammed his fist into the man's face, sending him reeling down the stairs and bowling over the barely recovering, siren-drunk fools below.

And before another damned idiot came up those steps, he slammed the doors closed and was quick to bar it. ANd it was only after that was handled that he glared over at wherever the boy dictator was and barked, "How the fuck did we run into Sirens!? Don't you have someone on look out for that?"

A bark of derisive laughter bubbled in her throat as Cassia took a line of rope and corralled three men together, tying them together onto one of the beams on the boat. "Why?!?! Do you think we can run this boat, just you and I? I'm not a fucking miracle worker!"

She fought to keep as many men on deck as possible, but despite this, she could hear the splashes coming from around the boat. They might have had forty men on the crew, and there were only so many men they could lose before the boat would cease to be operational. Even her magic couldn't run the ship if their numbers dropped too low.

She loosed the masts and let them crash down, effectively trapping men beneath it. "Oh, you think Siren watch is a thing?! If there was a way to spot the bitches before they hit a boat, then they'd be no tragic tales to tell of them!" Even she wasn't able to effectively predict when magical beasts from the deep would hit their boat, and sirens were especially tricky. They would come up from the depths of the ocean directly beneath the hull of a ship, giving no hint of their arrival until they had an entire ship of men under their thrall.

Scoping out the boat, she saw the door of the captain's quarters open on the upper deck... The distance was too far, and there were too many tied and downed bodies between her and the captain. She watched as he dragged himself to the railing, and then tipped into the sea.

"SHIT!" She grabbed her dagger from her boot and a free rope, quickly tying it into the railing before stepping over it. Hanging onto it and leaning over the edge, she turned towards Krah. Swallowing heavily, she called out to him, "This ship won't sail without the captain and I, and if you don't want to get stranded out here, you'll pull us back up." She didn't feel like she could trust him, but she had no choice.

Taking the rope, she dove into the water. Using her magic, she sucked in a deep breath of water and looked around in the water. Sirens were swarming around in the water, preoccupied by the bodies of crew already dropped in the water. She caught site of the captain's bright red coat, and manipulated the water around herself to propel towards him, dodging the tails and claws of sirens as she passed. Reaching the captain, she grabbed onto him, wrapping the rope around his waist and manipulating the water around his mouth to pull the water out of his lungs and place an air bubble for him to breathe. She hooked her arms under his armpits and kicked their way up to the surface. "Pull us up!"

If he began to pull them up, she was not given that help, because she felt the claws of an enraged siren dig deeply into her calf and begin to drag her down again. Letting go of the captain, who was still tied up in the rope, she turned to the siren to fight it off.

Krah wasn't as closed minded as he lead some to believe, but crassness didn't necessarily mean he was entirely brash. And he didn't confirm her request with a nod or anything of the likes, but as men began to crawl their way towards the ship's edge, Krah worked on punching their lights out.

Through the grunt of faces connecting to his fist and other noises of his plight, he almost missed the man's shout. But once he realized the boy had called out to him, he turned around sharply and began to pull the pair on board. Only problem was... when he pulled the rope up, it was just the captain on the other end.

"What the hell.." And he threw the captain onto the deck like a sack of potatoes and peered over the side. "Where did that boy go?"

Undines and Sirens were as close to being mortal enemies as possible, because while Undines were generally kind to seafarers, Sirens preferred to lure them to their deaths. The inherent "goodness" of undines often caused them to come to the defense of sailors attacked by sirens, which enraged the sirens. The blood of an undine was easily enough to spark a frenzy in the sirens, and although her blood was muted, it still effectively drew attention to her.

Using the dagger, Cassia slashed and stabbed her way back towards the surface, grateful to have the ability to breath underwater. Grabbing onto the vial of ocean water around her neck that her mother had given to her, she used it to enhance her voice long enough to sing with the strength of a full-blooded undine.

Enraged screeches filled the ocean around her, echoing up above water, disrupting the enchanting songs. Using her opportunity, Cassia swam to the surface, peering up the side of the boat to where she could see some of the men coming out from under the sirens' song due to the screeching. Dipping her head beneath the surface, she saw the sirens begin to swarm towards her. Desperate, she spotted the cut off end of a rope hanging halfway up the side of the ship. Using her magic and hoping it would only be seen as a perfectly timed and sized wave, she pushed herself up towards it and barely caught it in her hand. Dangling from one hand, she grunted and pulled herself up so her other hand caught the rope. Using the side of the boat, she pushed her legs against it and climbed/walked her way up.

Rolling over the railing, Cassia collapsed onto the deck, panting, trying to settle her head because the sirens were producing ear-splitting screeches as they battered the sides of the boat.

The second Cassia hit the deck, Krah was over him.
"What the hell did you just do?" he went on, plugging his ears up, just how a bunch of the other men had done. "Fuckin' can't hear now. That screeching... it's brutal."

Cassia looked at him, rolled to her side and coughed, before weakly pushing herself up to stand. Looking around the deck, she noticed the men beginning to recognize what was happening, and with that recognition were beginning to rush around the ship. She spotted the captain weakly giving orders to the second mate, who was trying his best to convey them to the rest of the crew, despite a bright bruise beginning to purple and swell shut his eye.

"Doesn't matter." She grabbed her hair and cut off the excess growth, throwing it over the deck. The action caused a crescendo in the screeching. "Do you see men throwing themselves overboard anymore?"

She peered over the side and out across the ocean, face grave. "What the fuck brought them here is the better question. Sirens don't normally travel this far from their islands, and we aren't near any..." Her eyes drifted down to the deck, where she could see her own blood pooling beneath her right foot from her calf. Her vision swam, but she clenched her fists to try and fight it. "You got any special abilities? Because we're up shit creek if we don't get these sirens off our boat. I'd normally say head for deeper waters, but they're already out here..."

As if she had predicted it, there was the sound of wood cracking on the side of the boat as one of the sirens tore into it.

This show off boy looked worse for wear, and was only getting stranger the more he hung around him. But at the question about just how the damn sirens were attracted here was something he couldn't answer.

"Maybe they were attracted by your pretty face," he teased darkly. "But me? Besides my muscle and way with the ladies, I'm surprised you haven't heard of me- I'm an escort by trade." he cracked his knuckles. "And I don't mind getting my hands dirty. And where I'm from in Connlaoth, the power I possess..." and he paused a moment, for dramatic effect, "Is something any mage fearing man wants."

Yep, if she couldn't have guessed it by now, it was shame on her. He wasn't about to spell it out any further, but noticed the blood, he was about to comment on that when he heard a crack in the side of the boat,a nd he nearly lost his balance.

"What the fuck- Damn, those bitches are determined." He peered over at Cass. "Maybe the like the smell of our meat?" And his eyes cackled even when his lips did not. He loved being an ass, evne if he'd die being an ass.

Cassia was unimpressed by his self-boasted accolades. "You're a mordecai... So pretty much useless in this situation, other than your being conscious?" Which would explain why he hadn't been taken under the siren's enchantment. She wasn't sure how mordecai worked against other magic users, such as sirens, or undines like herself, but she assumed that resisting falling under their spells was about it. Surely he would have used his magic-stripping powers if it'd been possible.

Wincing, she tore the sleeves off of her shirt, exposing well-toned arms as she used the material to wrap the wound on her calf. The water dripping down her body from the ocean made the wound look as if it were bleeding much more than it actually was, but it still didn't keep her from feeling light-headed. They were in too dire of a situation for her to worry about the way her shirt clung to her body, clung to the binding on her breasts.  At least she had cut the hair which had magically grown when she entered the water- a rather irritating and confusing facet of her magic.

Upon the second blow to the ship, the boat groaned. She looked up-deck to where the captain stood, his face pale and drawn. "Steer her towards the nearest land, lads. She won't take much more water on..."

Cassia nodded gravely, hoisting herself up so she was standing again on the weight of her leg. Looking around the boat at what remained of the crew, and then taking note of the crew which would still be able to work, she turned to Krah, "Grab that rope over there, and when I tell you to, heave as hard as you can. You can tie it off on that support over there," she pointed to one of the supports, "We're going to try and take out a few of the bitches before we take on water."

She limped a few steps before stopping and turning to him again, feeling as if she owed him a bit for remaining conscious and helping to keep the crew and guests on board. "You should know, she's likely to go down. You'll want to get your lord ready... We've got about three skiffs," she paused as she watched another man get pulled overboard, "They should hold most of us... Or all of us what's left after this." She knew there was a good chance that they'd be stuck in it together, that she'd have time to debrief him on the next part of the plan when it came time, but she still felt it necessary to give him a bit more information. "Tie them down, whoever you have, if there's still sirens around. Head east, it'll take you towards the mainland and several different islands are scattered about it. Some habitable. Good luck."

Cassia nodded curtly before biting into her cheek and headed to prepare the deck. Once set up, she awaited the orders of the captain, who gave a grim nod to them before all the men began to heave on their ropes. The action, combined with the captain's manhandling of the wheel, sent the ship listing to the side and then jetting off eastbound, taking out sirens in its wake.

Krah begrudgingly obliged, but not before giving a few smart remarks, like,
"Man, you bleed like a woman." As if women bleed more than men! Then as his eyes roamed up the crossdresser's form, he couldn't help but make his next comment. "Maybe you've got breasts under there, Captain. What are you? Part elf?"

He knew the fae to be feminine in all regards, even the men. It would explain a lot about this one, and why his magic wouldn't work on naturally muting the boy's powers, as well as that of the sirens. Sure, he himself was immune to it, but this sort of magic was not the type mordecai could 'turn off'. If they were simply magicians...

But one could hardly call sirens magicians, let alone, simple.

He didn't like the idea of baby sitting his 'Lord'. It made him feel like a damn servant. He wasn't a servant by any means, and the only serving he would do is when he made heads roll to those who dare cross him. He had a thing for blood, for violence- an unnatural lust for the power over another by taking away their life. Perhaps it was because of how he grew up, or perhaps that was simply how he was-
But he was always on a quest, or drinking, or fucking barmaids that more or less, that was the cycle of his life. And he liked it just fine. Though even a man like him craved more.

Soon Krah returned to the deck, stumbling to catch himself as the boat moved quickly. He looked around, before moving towards the side, and peered over and down to the waters, where he couldn't help but grin as he witnesses a few siren's getting bludgeoned by the boat, and causing small pools of red waters where they ly.

Sweat beaded on Cassia's brow as she rushed about the boat, holding her ground as best as she could as the boat tilted and careened. At his comment about her being an elf, she spared enough time for a barking laugh. "Not hardly." She didn't have a distaste for elves, but she did know that she should be proud of being part undine, and that allowing somebody to think she was an elf was doing a disservice to her real heritage.

She was also well-aware that she was bleeding quite a bit, but tried to ignore it as best she could. Water tended to make the bleeding of a wound look much worse than it actually was, but she had a feeling that she'd need to stitch it up, assuming they made it out of here alive. The sound like the bellowing of an ancient creature alerted her to the imminent demise of the ship...

A Beisht Kione, a great serpent like beast with a black, terrifying head, burst from the idea. It made sense that it had come, with the taste of siren and human blood dirtying the waters. But it did not make it any less terrifying, and Cassia was not easily frightened.

"Shit." She felt like she could have pissed her breeches at this point. "Cap?!" She swung her head to look at the Captain expectantly, looking for orders.

The captain looked towards her briefly, "Get the lord off the boat. Won't be remembered as not holding up my end of the bargain."

"May the sea take you home." Some captains upheld the old tradition of going down with the ship, but it didn't make it any easier to witness. Swallowing heavily, she ran down the deck, pushing her way through the men who were already scrambling for the rescue boats. Cassia knew which one she wanted, a small wisp of a thing... The other men were headed for the larger vessels, but she knew that she'd prefer to have a small, quick vessel. It would not matter if the larger skiffs would be more reliable once out on the open waters if they did not make it away from the ensuing battle of sirens and the beisht kione.

Searching the deck, she spotted the lord and the mordecai. Rushing towards them with the jolts and movements of the ship, she met with them. "Not that boat. The small one at the back." She grabbed the other side of the lord, manhandling him with the mordecai so he wouldn't fall overboard. For a man who wasn't as accustomed to boats as the crew, the mordecai was holding his footing rather well. He'd have made a good sailor, given half the chance.

When they got to the small skiff, the young lad of the ship was already in. Cassia nodded in acknowledgment, before loosing the cables and quickly, skillfully, lowering them down into the tumultuous waters. "Kill anything that comes at the boat. You, lad, row like you've never rowed before."

Cassia knelt with one knee on the back bench, her bum leg stretched out behind her and at the hull of the boat, extending her hand towards the water. She focused, waiting for them magic to come to her to jet them away...

Had the hired hand known the thoughts from the woman (and had he known she was a woman, no less!), he would have rubbed it in as satisfying as a salt in a wound (and definitely not a wound of his!) But years of traversing terrain of all kinds (even if his experience on boats were limited) by no means did it hamper his way to learn how to ground himself here. After all, a fight was a fight, weather it was the sea or man.

However, not a man to easily become frightened, at the sight of the large necked beast.. all he could do was stare. Though his expression was unreadable, probably due to the fact his mind went blank, he found himself soon cursing.

Rushing to his patron's side, he was doing his best to get things somewhat organized in a means to flee, so when the tiny man came back barking orders, Krah looked from her to the small ship and found himself asking, "You shitting me?"

Though he had an idea, as much as the other seemed to loath him, that they certainly wouldn't wish to kill themselves just to spite him. So he followed after and gestured for his lord to get onboard before he leaped inside, the boat rocking and groaning beneath his weight.

As they were lowered into the waters, at one point he was certain the sinking vessel was about to fall clean ontop of them, but when another crack was heard, the boat crashed back down into the waters, and the force of the wave it created pushed them swiftly away and out into the darker seas, and soon the calls of chaos and death and the ghastly wears of the marine beast were echoing behind them. And though it appeared as if they were making a safe get away, Krah's heart was still pounding mercilessly in his chest, as his dark eyes pierced out into the waters, towards the very sight where he witnessed one man, then a siren, being gobbled by the beast, whole.

Cassia watched the wreckage unfold, swearing grimly, "May the sea take them gently..." Her shaking fingers clasped the small vial at her neck, bringing it to her lips to kiss it, before letting it drop back to her neck. She watched as the great beast's tail smashed down onto one of the life boats, which had been unable to move quickly enough out of the way.

As the ensuing wave approached them, Cassia grabbed the young lad's hands in her own, her voice urgent but gentle as she tried to pry him out of his catatonic state of fear. "Lad, listen to me." His eyes refused to move away from the scene behind them. She grabbed his chin harshly in her hand, forcing him to look into her eyes, his own wide and panicked. "Boy, you listen to me now. You grab hold of the railing, and you don't let go no matter what. You've made it this far, you're going to make it out. Not saying this ain't the most gruesome catastrophe I've ever held witness to, but I'm saying we're gonna live."

She forced his hands to the railing on the inside of the skiff, before standing and moving back to the stern of the skiff. Turning to the mordecai and lord, she nodded. "You'd best do the same."

Knowing she'd have to summon a great deal of magic, Cassia unwrapped her leg wound and wiped up some of the blood onto her hand. This blood she let drip into the water, before shoving her hand deep into the waves and letting the force of the wave assist her own magic, propelling them off and away through the waves.

Once they were well clear of the chaos, Cassia slumped down into the hull at the stern, face pale and drawn. Groaning, she forced herself back up, prying open the side of a built-in wooden chest, from which she pulled out a bag of medical and emergency supplies, and a bottle of rum. Tossing the bag onto one of the benches, she uncorked the bottle and took a long hard drink of it, before offering it to the mordecai. He deserved it first, for helping. "Don't suppose you're any good with stitching up wounds?"

Krah had enough scars across his muscles to at least allude he was familiar with wounds, and some large ones from.the look of it. But he didn't answer at first, taking the rum and tossing it back. After taking a series of large gulps, he wiped his mouth off and gave her a toothy grin.

"Depends. I can stitch flesh well enough when I have to. Can't be a man in my line of work without being familiar with your own blood!" He laughed. "And it also depends on how drunk I am, as I am to get quite so on this." And he took another swig.

Cass  snatched the bottle back from his hands, replacing it with a needle and spool of thread. She rolled her pants up to mid thigh, and if he noticed how shapely and feminine it was, she could care less at this point. The only reason to pretend to be a man had been to get a job, and now that job was terminated.

Plopping her leg on the bench in front him, she took another hard swig from the jug. "I assumed. But assuming is different from knowing. My hands are too unsteady from getting us out of that mess, or else I'd do it myself."

She shoved the bottle to the lad's mouth "Drink."

Cass turned back to the mordecai. "Now, if you would sew me up. If not to thank me for getting your meat suit out of there alive, do it for the rum that I'll not share with you if you don't." She took the bottle back, swigged, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. "Also, I'm your best bet to not getting lost adrift at sea." She smirked and pointed to the still catatonic lad. "Unless you want to rely on this greenhorn here."

Krah laughed, and loudly.
"Being as we can't escape one another, I see your point," and his eyes took in her leg. It was quite delicious after all. But he was no pansy chaser, and just stuck to the task at hand. But even still, he thought he smelled the musk of a woman on him... Or perhaps he was just that horny after nearly dieing. Damn, if only this boy was a woman.... He didn't care who would watch!

Thoughts aside, he threaded the needle with ease and took the bottle of rum with only one quick warning, "this'll burn." And let some cascade over the wound. Then he set to work, pulling the needle in and out of her flesh.

There had been a reason Cass had set herself to the bottle before asking him to stitch the leg. The rum helped to numb some of the feeling, but it still felt like hell. When he poured the rum over her wound, her fingernails created half-crescents in the wood of the bench she sat on, and she let out a low hissing sound from between her clenched teeth. Looking at it, it looked quite a bit worse than she'd expected from it, but not as bad as she knew it could have been. The wound didn't extend much into the muscle of her calf, so that was something. Watching him skillfully stitch the wound, sweat beading on her forehead as she cursed between her teeth, "Fucking... Sirens."

She wished at that moment that she knew how to heal with her magic. Well, heal more than superficial wounds. This particular wound was going to take almost as long to heal as it would for a mortal. She just hoped she could stave off infection.

As he was finishing up, Cass' eyes landed on the lord, and then dropped to a small chest he was clutching with his hands. The way in which he clutched it was suspicious, made even more so by the guilty expression on his face that she had yet to notice until now. "What's that you've got clutched in your hands there, 'm'lord'?"

_____________________
((OC- I figured I'd bring up the whole magical item that led to the siren and sea monster attack idea we've discussed))

Krah had noticed it too, but figured it held the man's money, which was also his pay. But he was clutching it so tightly his knuckles went white.

"Oh, um this?" The lord stuttered, adjusting the weight of it on his lap. "Need it concern you?" But then he realized... "This.. this would not be too heavy for our vessel to carry, now would it?"

Krah studied the man, then the level of the water against the boat. They did seem to be almost level with it, water splashing them on occasion. He figured on such a small boat, that was normal.

Something, perhaps it was her own supernatural lineage, gave her the feeling that what was held in the box did not bode well for their company. That, and the fact that their boat was sitting rather lower in the water than it should have been given the apparent cargo. As he had finished with her leg, Cass stood up with a small measure of difficulty, the stitches pulling at her skin feeling uncomfortable.

Despite the amount of rum she had consumed, she felt surprisingly sober after having a needle meant to repair masts running punctured through her skin. "Depends on what it is. As I'm the most experienced able-bodied aboard, that makes me acting captain of this vessel." Gods she hated having to throw her status around, but knew it was the only language the lordling would listen to. "As such, I have the authority here. Now, open it."

He was clearly reluctant, like some man possessed by greed and suspicion. "Do you value your life, or this object more?" This, coupled with her glare, seemed to motivate him to open the chest just enough for her to feel the kickback of magic and see the object. Inside lay a small sphere, made of a material she had only seen a handful of times before. It was dark as the depths of the ocean, and glimmered and moved like water, all while holding form.

Her heart dropped into her stomach and she paled even more than she had from blood loss. She took a moment to process, before swearing darkly. As the lord snapped the chest shut, she loomed over him. "No wonder the fucking sirens attacked us! And a BEISHT KIONE. Gods... You've killed an entire ship of men for your greed." She pulled out her dagger, gritting her teeth in anger. "How the fuck did you get a hold of a sea god's sphere?" She shook her head, fist gripping the hilt of her dagger. "Doesn't matter. If we want to live, you'll toss that in the sea. Or I'll toss you overboard."

Though mordecai, enchanted items were not things he could snuff out, but despite this, and the lack to sense magic, even he could sense something more foreboden. Even still, the threat to his employer would not to unheeded, as be stepped between the pair of them, as a single, large looming figure.

"Captain or not, Lord Bachlaoch has this item for a reason. And its his gold that has you employed. But before we go any further on this matter... What the fuck are you going on about?"

She didn't look to the mordecai, instead glaring at the lord. "And how does he intend to pay all of the men who have died for him unknowingly today?" She spat at the lord's feet. "I don't want anything to do with your coin. And as I have no motivation to keep you alive, you're lucky your guard dog here is sticking up for you. I, surprisingly, have nothing against him at the moment."

Finally she looked back to the mordecai, and gestured towards the lord's box. "A sea god's sphere. There are a handful of sea gods in this particular ocean, and each has a magical sphere. What all these spheres do, only idiots like your lord here can know. They're supposed to be objects of great fortune and power." She looked back at the lord, disgusted. "And supposedly worth quite a bit. But only one was rumored to have made it out of the sea and onto land before, and that was well before any written word." She stared directly into the mordecai's eyes "Do you want to know why that is? Because men who try have all been killed. You are both land creatures, in water creatures' world. How do you suppose to get to land alive if we face another siren attack, in this little skiff here? Or, do you think we'd somehow avoid being swallowed whole by a sea beast like the one back there?"

She shoved the dagger back into its sheath, fists clenching. "Fact of the matter is, is that the lord has doomed a shipload of men to death, and we are well and truly on our way to that same fate while he still holds the sphere."

Krah cocked his head to one side, looking more cocky than perplexed. But the story wasn't something that necessarily surprised him, and he seemed both immune to the fear of his patron, the anger of his sea companion, and the fact so many people were dead for just one small object.

"Hey, money is money. It breeds power. And to have something so rare...." And here he turned to study Cass. "What are you implying we do? You should know I can't let us... simply toss it over board. And sirens.." he gave a dark chuckle. "I'm immune enough to their charms. But..."

And here, he sighed and turned to the lord. "One can not cash in a prize if one is dead." And he hated that clause above all else. "Perhaps as the only mordecai here, I should keep it in my possession."

Cassia pursed her lips, glaring. He was right... She could use some money. Perhaps she could hire a crew to help her track down a way to remove her curse. Begrudgingly she responded, after taking another swig from the bottle of rum. "Whatever the case, should we live, you'd best line the pockets of this lad and I here. You owe us that much."

She honestly didn't usually drink as much as she was currently imbibing, but she thought the occasion deemed it necessary. Slurring her words slightly, she added, gesturing a tad drunkenly with the bottle. "Not sure how you think being 'immyuuuune to their charms' is gonna keep you from being eaten alive." She lugged her bum leg over the benches as she made her way to the stern of the boat. "Sirens are NAAAAsty creatures. And there's muuch nastier out there."

She again drunkenly gestured to the ocean with the bottle, plopping down on the bench at the back. Dipping her hand into the water, she closed her eyes, swaying as the drink warmed her. "Mmm, seems there's a touch of land. I think I can get us there. Island hopping'll be our best bet to make it to port alive." This time she didn't give a warning before she rocketed the skiff off, keeping her eyes closed, her forehead wrinkled with the effort, a grim set about her mouth.

When they were within site of the small island, her magic spluttered out. She was good and drunk by this point, and so stood up, swaying with the waves as they moved the boat. Looking towards the mordecai, she gave him humorless grin. "Care for a swim? We gotta pull 'er to shore."

She was quite past caring at this point. She was far too drunk, and their situation was far too laughable as far as survivability was concerned. Standing up, she stripped her boots off, followed by her torn and bloodied breeches. Beneath she wore skin tight black shorts that reached mid-thigh, her thighs as well-muscled as her calves. Next she pulled the damp large blouse over her head, tossing it onto the floor of the boat. Stepping lithely onto the rim of the boat, she nimbly balanced as the boat tipped a bit in her direction, removing the chest binding. This left her in a functional, supportive brassiere type top. "Hard to breath in that thing."

That was all the explanation she gave before balancing along the lip of the boat to the bow, grabbing the rope attached and tying it around her trim waist. She tossed the other rope at the mordecai before coiling her own excess rope, seamlessly diving into the water. Coming back up at the full extension of the rope, she turned to face the boat, her black hair already an inch longer than it had been. "Come on, before we get any sea beasts munching on us."

The ship sinking was unexpected.
The lord having some magical, rare cursed item was also unexpected.
But the biggest surprise was what he was oogling now, as his dark brown eyes took in her body, now fully exposed in all of its glory. Were he a better man, he'd bite his fist to keep from saying something like a dog, but instead found himself saying, "Fucking damn.... where was all of that hiding?"

Cause he wanted it, and oh did he want it all

By the time they reached footing, her blue-black hair was already touching mid-back, covering the tattoo on the back of her right shoulder blade. Standing at 5'8, many would have called the frame of Cassia's body to be near perfect, if she allowed her muscles to soften a bit. That is, also if she let herself be noticed as a woman, instead of a man. Because of this, she was far unaccustomed to recognizing the gazes of men, and so Krah's look went unnoticed.

Touching the vial at her neck to ensure it was there, she allowed her bare feet to touch the sand and stones. The solidness of land always disrupted her equilibrium, so as the anti-gravity like water lessened she felt herself stumbling quite a bit. The drink, to be fair, was also not helping with the stumbling.

Hauling the rope over her shoulder, she and the mordecai dragged the boat onto beach, the lord and the lad jumping out of it. Having a job to do helped her focus enough on the task at hand to prevent her from stumbling more. As soon as she tied her rope securely onto a tree (to keep the possible tidal affect from dragging it back into the ocean), she stumbled a few feet and fell onto the ground. Spreading out in the sand, she breathed heavily from the exertion.

On land she experienced the feeling of a rocking boat that most people experienced while actually in a boat. Again, she partially blamed the liquour, blood loss, exhaustion, what have you, too. She didn't have her land legs. And so she remained where she was, wet black hair spread out around her, dark blue eyes staring up at the sky as it darkened.

In that moment, he was every ounce of man if he ever had been, muscles straining, pulling, dragging the skiff and its load from the sea. The sands were soft, offering poor footing beneath his now water logged boots, but any slip was easily fixed, and it hindered not their journey to land.

Now frothed over with sea foam and sweat, he tossed his shirt aside and gazed around the island for all of two seconds, its salty winds whipping through his hair, before he turned on heel to peer down at the long haired beauty sprawled out upon the sands.

If his lord spoke to him, Krah didn't respond, moving across the sands to where the woman lay. Standing nearly over her, his eyes took her in like a fine wine, admiring the way the waters made what was left of her clothing to suction to her like some sort of second skin. What he wouldn't give to be that clothing, so close to a woman's flesh yet claimed by his hands. But he knew it couldn't be long before he'd sample all she had to offer, as he moved to kneel beside her and pulled out what was left of the rum.

"Care for a drink, my lady?" he asked in a playful, but seductive sounding jest. After all, one couldn't be too drunk for a good fuck. In fact, from his knowledge, it normally brought out the most animalistic tendencies during a rut- and those were some of the most delicious boughts of sin he had ever had.

Cassia sat up as he knelt, eyebrow lifted, suspicious at his sudden change in tone. Where had his fuck-everyone-but-me attitude gone? "Who in the fuck are you calling my lady?" She gave out a bark of a laugh, grabbed the bottle, took a swig of it, before clumsily shoving it back at him and struggling to her feet.

Standing for a moment, she decided that she most definitely did not have her land-legs. Cass looked him over, noting the swell of muscles across his bare chest, the broadness of his shoulders, the way his wet hair clung to his strong jaw. And thumped him on the back heartily. "Y' make a good work horse. That boat ain't all that light."

It was at that time that Egil, the young lad, approached. While he, too, was shocked to find their capable sailing master was a woman, he wasn't so shocked as to not notice the leering way the big man was looking at her. Still a greenhorn, he wasn't certain how he should behave in such a situation, so he reverted to how he'd behave if she were just a captain. Any captain, man or woman. It just so happened that making her remember her responsibilities would also cleanly navigate her away from the big man. "Cap, what should we do now? Nights comin' in."

Cass finally took a good look around the beach, and into the small pocket of trees on the island. While she could not tell it on land, in the water she'd been able to get the measure of the island, and knew that they could have easily walked across it in half an hour to the other side. "Right." She reached out, pulling the string at the top of the lad's shirt out, and using it to tie her hair back. "Commandeering this." 

She patted the vial at her neck rather dumbly, before turning towards the center of the island. "Best to get as far inland," she covered her mouth with the end of her fist, cheeks filling as she let out a burp, swallowed heavily, swayed, "Things like to crawl from the sea." She nodded her head towards the lord, who was clutching the chest in place of the mordecai, since the mordecai had spent his time swimming. "Not certain it'll keep their slimy fingers from that, but 's the best we got."

He was about to explain to her the benefits of such a remark (of which he could show her right here on the beach if shelet him) but the lord stepped in."that sounds like a sound plan. Sea creatures wouldnt have the legs to follow us."

If the greenhorn was green, he'd hate to think what color the lord was, and simply stood there now on the sands while the man pointed back to him, "As the hired help, our contract still adheres. I suggest you keep watch first. And being the muscle, you can bring the rest of our cargo." Though there really wasn't much else aside from the.chest... But then Krah noticed a pile of wet clothing with a curl of his lips. Had the man brought spare clothes? Or was he just so fruity he wore layers?

Cass looked to the lad again, "Egil, was it?" When the young boy, probably no older than 16, nodded, she continued. "You 'n the lordling go and find a spot for us to hole up for the night, and get a fire going. I'll secure the boat n' try to catch us something to eat."

She watched a moment as Egil and the lord stepped into the treeline, quite assured that they couldn't get into too much trouble on such a small island. Turning, she followed after the mordecai to the small boat. It came to her that she still had yet to learn his name, but calling him names seemed to suffice. Climbing into the boat, she picked up her own wet clothes, wringing them out and setting them out on a rock on the beach to dry. Returning to the boat, she took stock of what was left in the small compartment at the back of the boat. There was yet another bottle or two of rum, a cask of water, and a meager scattering of supplies.

There was also a grappling hook, two pronged spears, and a series of other useful tools. Grabbing the two spears, she tossed one at the mordecai. "Heads up!"

As she waded into the water, she called out at him. "Any good at spear fishing? I'll make it easy on you, call in the slow, dumb, fish for you to catch."

Catching the spear, he gave her a smirk.
"Can't say I was a raised a fishermen, but weapons..." he tested the weight of the spear. "Give me a rock and I can be lethal." He winked to Cass. "Don't worry, I won't be needing any help."

Unless she were going to offer it later to help him extinguish his growing desires for her. And she was everything he savored the most- wild, beautiful, daring....
Something he wanted to tame. Something he wanted to claim.


Splashing into the waters, he peered down at the blue waters. There was just enough light he could see down to where small schools of fish were swimming. But they were hardly anything large enough to spear, let alone eat.

"So... where are all of the real fish anyway?"

She glanced over her shoulder at him, looked back out to sea, and then looked back at him, as if appraising the situation. Her water magic was pretty much spent, but enchanting sea creatures with her voice was still at her disposal. But singing... Singing was so... Emasculating. She didn't much like embracing her feminine side, but she was also hungry. And she felt a responsibility to their small group, as she was captain for all intents and purposes. "Perhaps I should have given you a rock? That'd be amusing."

Releasing a sharp breath, she gave him a reticent smirk. "Just you wait." Turning away, she closed her eyes and, as low and quiet as she could (perhaps he wouldn't hear her?), she began to hum. She hummed as short a verse as possible, but it was enough that by the time she opened her eyes, there was a school of decently sized cod bumping against her calves. The feeling was always thrilling, their slick, firm bodies jostling her feet, which were firmly planted in the sand and mud. Taking the spear in hand, she speared one, two, and three fish, gripping her hands into their gills and tossing them into the boat one after another.

Hoisting herself into the boat by her arms, she strung the fish together and sat on the lip of the boat, feet trailing in the cool water. The coldness of the water didn't bother her, but she wondered briefly if he was cold. If he was, he didn't show it. She waited patiently for him to bring the fish, ready to hold out the line for him to string his fish onto. Her own fish were about 14 pounds a piece each, an average size for the fish. Her eyes watched the glittering of their scales as the school turned around, beginning to head back out to ocean and into the sunset. She glanced down at the stitching on her leg, and while it was red and irritated from the sand, she found it closing up nicely with the help of the healing nature of the ocean waters (well, healing for her body, at least).

Despite not a man to genuinely smile (outside of a cocky grin), a bit of that slipped through at the sight of what her magic could produce. Naturally, after the magical moment of being impressed passed, he thought about how her magic might benefit him in other ways, as he continued to look down at the waters, spear in hand.

"You're really making this too easy!" he went on with a laugh. "I don't even need this!" And he carelessly threw it aside, and stood in a stance over the waters, eyes wild and waiting for just the perfect catch.

"I could catch these fish with my bare hands easily!"

Though he was eating those words pretty quickly as he lunged forward, but every single fish he was able to touch, slipped easily out of his grips. A wild set of splashing had the fish quickly scurrying as he growled and made chase.

"Well, we can't make it all lookas easy as you.." he went on, eyeing the prizes she caught and growing more determined to one up her. After all, out doing others to make them realize he position above them in well, everything, was something he seemed to aim for in everything he did.

So he continued, despite his luck waning, but the second he noticed some darker waters, and what appeared to be something even larger he let out a furious roar and dove clean at it-
and was successful in yanking a large fish, that had to be the size of a small labrador retriever, that was wriggling and biting angerily in his grip.

And as he gave a victorious roar at his great accomplishment- the fish, whihc was actually a shark, wriggled so wildly it was able to get it's head around and chomped clean into Krah's bicep. And the howl and anger that soon followed would rival the fires of hell.

Fist after fist continued to pummel the young shark's face until the waters were bubbling with blood. It was hard to tell just who might be winning, but when a sickening crunch was heard, Krah slammed the dead shark onto the boat- the skiff rocking at the weight of the gnarled, and now very dead, fish. And as Krah stood over the side, his body still in the ocean as he panted to catch his breath, he couldn't help but grin, despite all the blood tha twas gushing from his own arm.

"See... there. Told ya... piece of cake."
But the blood loss, or perhaps, just clumsy footing, had his next step (which he was hoping to get into the boat) be his last, as he wasn't even able to yelp as he was suddenly sucked under the ocean waves.

Cass laughed when he claimed he could catch them bare-handed. "Could you now?" She challenged, and her amusement grew as she watched him clumsily slosh around in the waves, hopelessly chasing the fish around in the waters. Had this man never touched a fish in his life? Did he not know how slick their bodies, how strong their muscles?

"That's because not everybody is as skilled as I am!" She yelled out, a devilish glint in her eyes at the hilarity of watching him lurch and dive for fish. There was nothing funnier than watching a normally confident, powerful, man struggling to keep his feet about him in the water. The way he moved in the  water was the same as the way he moved on land.  She never understood why people didn't understand that walking in water was much, much different from walking about on land. She certainly noticed.

But then she saw the gray dorsal fin of a shark pop out of the water, watched the violent thrashing out it as it, too, pursued fish. And then she watched Kraw turn towards the direction of the shark. Surely he wasn't going to... But he barreled forward, and she slid down off the skiff, standing waist deep in the water. "Oy! You don't want that! It's a..." Too late. He was lunging, and the shark was retaliating, sinking its many rows of teeth into the man's bicep.

And then she watched something she had never before seen in her life, nor never had even dreamed of seeing. The brute of a man was trying to beat the thing to death! Moving to grab her dagger from one of the benches in the skiff, she thought to go to his aid, but was halted by the sickening crunch of the shark's skull. An appreciative laugh escaped her throat as he moved towards the boat, shark in tow. "Dear gods man, that was the stupidest way to kill a shark than I've ever seen!"

As he tossed the shark into the hull of the boat, she turned to haul herself back in so that she could bleed the thing before the meat spoiled. But then the big man was sucked beneath the waters by a bit of undertow, and she quickly recalled the amount of blood that had been gushing from his arm. Cursing, she turned and dove beneath the waves, hooking her arm beneath his armpit and pushing him back up to the surface. Getting her legs about her again, she used a bit of water magic and her own strength to hoist him over the side of the skiff and in. Hauling herself in, she had a good look at him, but instead of maintaining mood for the gravity of the situation, she burst out laughing.

On his face was suctioned an octopus, who had promptly released its ink onto him. Tangled around his massive frame were strings of kelp. Howling with laughter, she sat down heavily onto the bench of the boat, slapping her knee heartily, pointing at him. Slowing her laughter to chuckles, she wiped tears from her eyes, "Who fuckin' kills a shark with his bare hands, then gets sucked under by a baby wave like that?!" She snorted, grabbing a bucket and dipping it into the water, before reaching forward and peeling the squid off his face. Dropping the creature into the bucket, she continued to laugh, pulling her dagger out to try and bleed the shark. Shouldering it, she held its neck over, slitting it efficiently. The blood poured into the sea as she continued to laugh. "A shark!"

Krah's head was swimming as he puked out water. He looked and felt like shit, and after having a squid attached to his face, that just added insult to injury. However, as much as he guarded his pride and kept himself well inflate, his head was swimming and he was in no mind to retaliate to the laugh as he ought to.

"Yeah, well.." he grunted as he took a seat, one hand gripping his wound to apply pressure, trying to help clot the wound the best he could. "I'm not exactly your average man."
And he drew in a snort of a breath, gurgling up some flem before spitting it out along with some unsavory ink that had seeped into his mouth.

"But you can add that to your text books... that Krah Mordeth killed a fucking shark with his bare hands." And as he sat there and swayed, his head titled quesitonably to one side.

"Funny... how the island looks like its spinning."
And before he could say anything else, his vision turned white and he fell forward, face first ontot he bottom of the skiff.

Cass knew the look of a man about to faint. Surprising, now that she thought about it, how incredible it was that he was still conscious after she'd pulled him from the ocean. Well, she couldn't be blamed for her reaction. She was, after all, still fairly drunk, and alcohol was not something that made her overly sensitive to the needs of others.

She watched him fall face first, face a pallid shade of gray. "Well, shit." She dropped the shark back into the boat. There was a lot of blood in the boat, and callous as she was feeling, all she could think about was the work it'd take to get the blood out of the boat. They certainly didn't want to travel back out to sea, with a boat reeking of blood! One, the flies would be horrid. Two, it'd attract less favorable things than flies. She grumbled. "Stupid fucking shark." The meat would spoil if not cooked soon, and seeing as she should probably give the unconscious man priority, it was going to spoil.

Maneuvering her way into the space between the benches where Krah had fallen, Cass lugged him into an upright position so his back was against a bench and his face was no longer in the water at the bottom of the skiff. Climbing quickly back to the bow of the boat, she grabbed onto the rope that was attached to the tree on the beach. Pulling on the rope, she hauled them into land, hand over hand, muscles straining but accustomed to the effort.

Once into land, she hopped off, put a temporary knot in the rope to keep the boat close, and then returned to the skiff. She stared at the unconscious man, debating her next move. As much as the wound needed tending, she needed to get him onshore and away from the ocean. The amount of blood at this time of night, and as isolated as the island was, they were likely to attract unwanted attention from sea-creatures that could traverse land. The lord was foolish to think he was safe. Hadn't he heard stories told about men stumbling upon islands, whereby beautiful sea maidens kept them enchanted until they were old and infirm?

He looked heavy. That was her first thought. A man of his height and size, with that amount of muscle, was not going to be light. "Damnit." She groaned to herself, before climbing back into the skiff. Looping his limp arms over her shoulders, she tried to imagine that she was moving cargo. She was strong. Grunting, she stood, but his legs were too long  making it all the more awkward. She wasn't a woman of small stature, either!

Breathing heavily, the stitching on her leg pulling uncomfortably tight, she carried him to the bow of the boat. Propping him up, she stepped out of the boat and onto the sands, before hauling him over the side. Hunching her back to try and keep his legs from tangling with hers, she carried him over to a rock, depositing him on the side facing away from the ocean. Leaving him, she returned to the skiff and grabbed one of the bottles of rum, the other grabbing the small bag of medical supplies.

Kneeling next to him, she looked at his face, still unconscious, before pouring rum over the wound. If that didn't wake him, her quick, and not-so-gentle work of stitching up the nasty shark bite, would wake him. As she stitched, she pulled a few shark teeth from his skin. Her technique in stitching was meant for the masts of ships, not the delicate skin of men, but it would do.

Rum and a stitch did more than itch and hurt like a bitch, so when Krah came around with a wolfish snap of pain, instincts kicked in and he threw a punched, socking Cass hard across the face with a yowled, "FUCK!!!!!!!!!!"

If she expected anything, it wasn't that when he came to that he was going to punch her. The hit knocked her back, the needle tearing from his skin mid-stitch. Cursing up a storm, she scrambled back up, her left eye already swelling shut. Instead of even acknowledging the hit to her face, she was in favor of moving to punch him back. Just as she pulled her fist back, winding up to swing at him, she cursed again. "Fucking damnit... Ungrateful piece of shit." No use punching an injured dog who had lashed out.

She shoved herself up to her feet, nose scrunched as she struggled to deny the urge to punch him. Instead, she leaned over him and grabbed her now-dryish clothes, Shoving the loose shirt over her head and yanking the pants on angrily. But one look at his still ink-splattered face, she couldn't help but smirk a bit. "Fucking pull yourself together, man. You faint like a woman." Yup, she couldn't see out of her right eye, alright. Kneeling back next to him, she grabbed the dangling needle. "Now, d'you need something to bite on while I finish this up, little lady? Or you think you can manage?"

Krah cocked his head, face twisting at her words. They were like mosquitoes flying about his head, annoying, and he moved a hand as if to swat the words away. But as his vision was becoming more focused on her, and he saw her eye swelling, he gave her a dark smirk.

"Careful what you say there, doll. I have no qualms giving you a second shiner."
And it was only then he realized the stinging pain on his arm as he looked down at where his flesh remained torn open, exposing muscle with a limp hanging needle and thread hanging off to the side.

He sneered at it and moved to rest the arm across his lap, careful not to wince too much, but it hurt like hell to move it. The shark had bit into him right good.

He examined the injured arm while cradling it lightly in the other before contemplating stitching it himself. Except the hand used to stitch was hardly his dominant hand, and the wound curved around his arm at an awkward angle that was better accessed by a second pair of eyes.

"No, I don't need something to fuckin' bite on. But some more of that rum might be nice." And he paused to consider just then-
"Hey.. where's my shark?"
Like hell he'd let that sort of prize go to waste.

She gave him a look when he called her 'doll'. If there was anything she was not, it was doll-like. Looking back to his wound, she corrected him, "My name's Cass. Well, Cassia. And I have no qualms tossing your sorry ass back into the sea for sharks, bigger than that baby you caught, to eat you." She didn't expect him to care about her name, but it gave her more of a right later-on to act out against him. At the moment, though she couldn't have reprimanded him. What else was he supposed to call her?

Grabbing the rum bottle she'd used to clean the wound, she shoved it at his chest for him to grab. Pinching the needle between her thumb and forefinger, she knew she'd have to be more delicate now that he was awake. Talking while she carefully stitched the wound together, she made sure to stitch the crooked bite well. "It's in the boat. I bled it for you, so the meat wouldn't spoil. But seeing as your fainting distracted me halfway through, I'm not too sure it'll still be good."

She tied and bit off one end of the string, before starting on the next section of the bite caused from the shark's second row of teeth. "Y'know, you're lucky. Most sharks'll bite off chunks of a man." A wry grin broke onto her face, laughter in her voice, "But I don't he was ever punched in his life."

She finished up the second set of stitching before tying and biting off the end of the string. She took his arm in her hands and turned it, inspecting the wound, but there were only a scattering of puncture marks left. Those she couldn't stitch up, they'd have to heal on her own. Letting go of his arm, she nodded to herself in satisfaction. She fished out the shark teeth she had pulled out of him, and placed them on his thigh. "Souvenirs..." A smirk, before pushing herself to her feet. Extending her hand to him, "Alright there, Shark Bait, as much as I'd love to carry your massive ass back to camp, I'd prefer it if you could handle that yourself. I'll manage with our catch, if you can carry the rum."

"You trust me with such a noble task," came his smart reply as his eyes danced over her body. He had enough time to rest off the lightheadedness from his loss of blood, but he still felt the funny after effects of it. Nothing sleep and rum couldn't fix.

He took a swig.
"Sure you won't need a hand?"

Cass walked to the side of the boat, hauling out the carcass of the shark, and making quick work of gutting it, tossing the innards into the ocean where she could just barely make out the fish and sharks fighting over the meat. Stringing a rope through the shark's gills, she slung it over her back. Looking into the bucket, she frowned... Her squid had up and crawled away! Shrugging, she looped her own string of fish around her shoulder, letting them dangle at her side. "I think I'll manage. I managed to carry you, didn't I?"

She walked passed him, though she felt a bit land-sick. The stability of the ground was making her feel a bit nauseous, but she wouldn't have him knowing that. As they walked further from the sea, the vial at her throat grew heavier and heavier against her chest. She knew she was testing the boundaries of its magic, more than she had in a good long time. Usually the furthest she got from the boat was the fish warf to sell their stock.

The smell of a campfire led them into a little hollow in the woods, where Egil rushed to help her with the catch. Egil's eyebrows quirked up as she dropped the shark onto the ground, and then looked to Krah. Cass didn't take the prime opportunity to humiliate Krah, instead sitting herself down on the soft ground, leaning her back against the trunk of a tree. "I suspect the shark meat to be soured, but you can try it anyways." She reached forward and skewered one of the fish he had gutted, letting it rest on the fire. Her mouth watered, turning the fish over so it would cook evenly.

Krah watched her work, and let her work. As much as he loved to do a man's job, it was a bit erotic to him to watch this woman haul her own weight around, and then some. What he wouldn't do to conquer that piece of meat....

Distracted by her delicious body, Krah followed close at her heels, taking a swig of rum every once in a while that by the time they got to the camp site, he was beginning to get a little drunk. He was a man that needed to drink his weight in alcohol before any affects would truly hit, but a hand to his chest elicited a belch as he grinned and passed along the rum.

"I know she didn't announce it, but the shark catch is mine. Though bloody shame if it goes to waste. Even if we can't eat the thing, I'm sure we could figure out something more creative to do with its skin and bones."
But he was no expert on sharks and the like. He'd leave that sort of thing up to her.

And as her eyes watched the fish sizzling along, his eyes watched how the fire's dance glistened off her body.

Oh yeah, he'd bed her tonight. If there was anything he'd do while onthis island, it was get laid.

Egil watched Krah watching Cass, who had stretched her long legs out in front of the fire, taking her own swigs from the rum. She seemed to have slowed from earlier, and by the slight glint of sweat on her features, he figured she was feeling land-sick. As green as he was, he, too, knew the struggle it was to go from any time at sea and onto land. But his new captain was tough... She'd had to have been tough, to make it on a ship full of men.

He placed the other two spears of gutted fish on the fire, watching the fat drip off of their carcasses, before slicing into the shark. The meat was soft, but it would still be edible enough. Skewering the meat, he placed them over the fire, before returning his position, glaring at Krah.

Cass was unaware of the other members of her party, a combination of exhaustion, hunger, and drunkenness erasing all around her but the fish. When it was done enough, she plucked the spear of fish from the fire, her lips pursing as she blew on it eagerly. Greedily she plucked at the flesh, peeling back the scaly skin and shoving the hot fish into her mouth, the juices running down her chin.

Egil's glare did not seem to phase the man, so he grabbed the skewers of shark from the fire and shoved them at the man, hoping to catch his eyes to let him know he was onto him.

Krah could not be so easily distracted. Once he set sight to something, it was his. So the shove, while it didn't go unnoticed, was caught deftly in one hand.

"Thanks, kid." And he pulled the partially cooked meat to his own lips, blowing on the steam that rose and crackled from it, all the while still leering Cass's form.

"How's the rum? We got much left?"

Cass swallowed the bit of fish she was chewing, folding her legs under her as she leaned over and handed the rum to him. "If you can finish it off, go for it. There's another bottle or two left in the boat." She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, sighing as she leaned back against the tree, content despite the gods awful situation they were in.

She heard a murmur of disgust, and opening one eye, she watched with some level of equal parts annoyance and amusement, the lord pick at the fish he'd been given. Crossing her arms, she set her dagger on her thigh, "You know, you ain't going to get fresher fish than that, m'lord. Don't you rich people pay a shit ton for fresh seafood?"

The lord cringed and looked up at her.

"Yes, but its hardly prepared in... such a crude fashion. I'm used to salts, spices... anything but just the simple.. simple greased cooked thing this is."

Krah's eyes danced with unspoken laughter as he made himself comfortable near to Cass and downed almost hte rest of the rum in one go.
"Maybe we ought to get a bottle of this for him. Might liven' you up a little, lord Bachloach."

The man made a face.
"I could use the drink, but don't mistake my disdain for unseasoned food as anything but what it is. You wouldn't understand. You've had to eat piss most of your life, I'm sure."

Krah raised his brow at hte man's response but simply laughed.
"Yes.. and it's a piss eating man you've hired to save your ass..."
And he went on to belch and found his eyes down to Cass's fine ass.

Cass eyed Krah suspiciously as he made himself comfortable near her, but her eyebrow shot up even further when Egil sat himself between them. Ignoring them as best she could, she let out an incredulous laugh at the lord's speech. "I'll note that the next time I catch you a meal."

She, quite drunkenly, held up her hand with her pinky out, mocking the tones of a lord. "'A dash of the tears of a lady most pure, a smidgen of piss, and a pinch of the blood of men whose lives matter less than my own greed, please!'" The last part came out rather harshly, and she leaned over Egil to snatch the bottle of rum from Krah and gulped it down as heartily as he had. "Yeah, and good riddance."

Her mood turned sour, she quite drunkenly shoved herself to her feet. Shoving her dagger rather clumsily into her belt, she swayed. "I hope you sleep nicely, m'lord." Mocking a bow and Swaying, she fisted her hand and let it steady her against the tree. "Be ready to set off when I say." Swearing darkly, she stumbled off down their beaten path in the direction of the ocean.

Krah sat there in silence, finishing his portion of the fish and shark, before rising from the ground as well. And one of his large hands clutched onto Egil's shoulder.

"Keep watch of the camp," he said, and moved away to follow after Cass, belching before he disappeared over a tall dune with tall grass jutting out from the top of it

Egil glared and stood, watching the tall man follow after his captain. But, the man was right... He was essentially responsible for watching camp. That, and he didn't trust the lord as far as he could throw him. Sitting back down, he glared into the fire, and if the lord tried to speak to him, he ignored it.

Cass had crested the same dune, finding her way to another one with a clump of beach grass at the top. She posted herself at the top of it, able to keep an eye on the beach and their boat. She'd forgotten to loosen the temporary knot to let it back out to sea. Oh well, now it really wasn't going anywhere. Wrapping her fingers around the hilt of her dagger, she lay back in the sand with her arms crossed over her chest. The night was a bit chill, but she'd suffered through worse. Staring up at the sky, she tried to calm her angry heart so she could get some sleep.

The woman was positively oozing with frustration. He couldn't blame her, but he could at least help her. Having brought the nearly empty bottle of rum, he moved to approach her.

"You know, the best night sleeps are after a good round of fucking under the stars." He moved closer to her and offered over the rum, a wolfish grin curled on his lips.

Cass growled under her breath, drawing a hand over her face before shoving herself up to sit. Grabbing the rum from him, "I'll take this, only." She took a swig. "If I fucked every man who chose me 'cuz I'm the only woman around, I'd never get the chance to close my legs."

Gods she was tired. Staring out at the sea, she took another swig. "Plus, you've probably got rum dick anyways." She fell back on the sand, not too concerned, though the dagger was still held in her hand. Closing her eyes, she crossed her arms again. "I'll sleep just fine, thank you." But it wasn't true. If anything, she was growing more irritated by the minute. Really? He was going to try and hit on her now? She imagined she looked as inviting as a sea full of sharks. Damnit! Her mouth twitched in agitation, her jaw tightening, as she tried to keep her eyes shut. Maybe he'd go away if she pretended long enough.

"I'm pretty sure my rum dick, and the one's your used to aren't exactly the same. And I can just feel the frustration rising from your body. You lost your crew, you've lost the boat, and now you're stuck on an island with just a group of men who you believe would make one lousy, fucking crew. But you know what?" And he moved to crouch down beside her.


"You're fucking right. But it doesn't mean you have to remain all.. repressed. And I can assure you, if you think its hard walking when drunk, it'll be ten times harder after I fuck you until dawn."

Cass moved quickly, sitting up and fisting her hand in the front of his shirt. Looking hard at him, she spoke low, slow, dangerously. "Now let's get one thing straight, Shark Bait. You are nothing special. You and every other man thinks that since I've got the parts, that I'll give 'em up to just anyone. But if you think for one gods damned minute that I want any part of you and that shit-eating grin of yours, you've got another thing coming."

She leaned forward at him, her voice tempting a challenge, "Because I'm not one of your weak willed little whores. I'm more of a woman than you've likely ever met, and thinking that this..." She motioned to his leering. "Is ever going to work on a woman like me, is idiotic."

At their closeness, that shit eating grin only grew bigger.
"Of course. Whores are easy, so are bar maids. But they serve their purpose for those with... an incredible appetite. But you...?"
He eyed hungrily over her figure again before looking her straight in the eyes.
"The challenge is accepted. And in the end... " his lips tugged into a leftward grin. "Trust me, you won't regret it."

The man must have been slower than she'd thought. She rolled her eyes and released his shirt. "Suit yourself, but I'm not in a mood to fuck anyone, let alone an over-compensating brick-head like you."

But she leaned close again, her breath sweet with the smell of rum, her voice lowering as if conspiring a great plan. "I've got an idea for you, though." She drew her finger slowly down his chest towards his pants. "You. Could..." A smirk broke across her face as she rocked back, "Go find your squid friend again and see if he'll suction you off." A laugh rolled from her chest to her mouth and she threw her head back. The laugh was drunk, derisive, and tinted with the exhaustion from the day. 

Oh, for that teasing, she was certainly going to pay. He was already up for the challenge, and at the idea of being sucked off.... squid or other wise, made him groan. As she moved to lay back down, as if believing this conversation was over, she had another thing coming, for the second her eyes were closed he grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her close into his other arm so that she was nearly planted up against his body.

"Let me taste the rum on your lips," he growled, so close he could just take it.

If he was anything, it was persistent. She'd dealt with persistent before. Biting her lower lip, she ran her tongue along it. Bemused, she smiled as she pressed the dagger against his crotch. "Only if you let me taste the blood that'll run from your cock when I slice it off."

"But wouldn't that defeat the purpose? And I'm pretty sure when we're done... you'd rather kept such a... firm weapon, in tact."

She tapped the dagger against the cloth of his pants. "This small thing?" She tugged, trying to pull her wrist away. "You're rather slow in the head, aren't you? Remember that part where I agreed to give it a go? Yeah, me neither."

His persistence was placing him in great danger of her really losing her temper. She felt her pulse throb in her temple. "If I want a go, I'll make sure to keep you in mind. But as of right now, I think I can take care of that for myself."

"But why masturbate when I can send you to heaven?"

Shoving her dagger into the sand behind her, she nodded. No, she didn't want to slice off his dick. Too much blood loss, and she still intended to use his strength.

Her hand now free, she slid it into his pants, gripping him over his loin cloth. "Is this something you like?" Cass tightened her grip around it and then began to stand, using the motion to add pressure as she twisted it painfully. Her hands were strong, capable, and hard as a man's from years of hard work on boats. Gritting her teeth, face tight with anger, she seethed at him, "It only takes two pounds of pressure to fracture your little friend. So I suggest you lay the fuck off. Now."

Oh, how he shivered at her touch. He reveled in the way she was just angrily going to stake her claim.

And then the pain came. WIth a grunt, he caught her wrists as he winced.
"F-fuck.... What, you.. you like it rough?" he panted, trying to smile even though it really, really, really, really hurt.

There. That was the sound she was waiting to hear. The tighter he gripped her wrist gripping his member, the tighter her own grip tightened on him.

His hands on her wrists hurt, but it wasn't enough to deter her. Bent over, she began to use her body to leverage her grip as she straightened, grunting a bit against his strength. Grinning, viciously, still speaking between her teeth, she began to feel it bending in her hand. "Still think... you can handle... this?" And it cracked.

While a man's penis couldn't really be broke permanently, it could be fractured. He'd have a hell of a time getting hard for a while. At least a week.

And the sound that erupted from him didn't sound human. The pain.. he couldn't begin to explain, and he was seeing red, and the only thing he could think to do-
was to swing a fist at her fucking head!

One black eye was enough for the day, and the wild punch he threw at her might have caved her face in. Ducking out of his way, she plucked her dagger up, smirking to herself as she began to saunter away. He'd be in too much pain to follow suit.

Once well out of any more wild swings of rage, she called out to him. "Still want to have a go, Shark Bait? Think you'll like it as rough as I can give it?" Gods the day had been rough for him, hadn't it? She guessed some men just didn't know when to take a hint and throw in the towel. Smirking to herself, still warm with the drink, she headed for the beach.

He'd likely be looking for retaliation, so she thought it best to spend the night in the skiff. Untying the temporary knot she'd worked out, she climbed in the boat and then let it go. The skiff drifted out until it hit the end of the rope tying it to a tree, jerking slightly in the waves. If he came for her, he'd either have to wade out to the skiff, or pull her in. Either method would give her ample opportunity to react.

Finding a non-blood covered corner of the boat, she sprawled out for the night, grinning to herself with her eyes closed. "Men! Hah!"

More than his pride was hurt, and if he could go after her- oh he most certainly would. But even as he lay there, in the utmost agony and pain, he began to laugh, and painfully so, as he peered up at the stars, seeing the constellation of Gemini twinkling above. Funny, it was the same constellation he was born under. He didn't have much time to think on it before the events of the day eventually took hold of him and he passed out.

He must not have slept for long, because when he was forced awake, it felt as if that damn woman broke his dick again. But whatever it was that woke him was now reeling in pain, as Krah growled and scrambled to his knees. And upon seeing what it was that had tried to leech onto him, he cocked his head to one side.

"A harpy?"
And the thing hissed and raised a clawed foot his way,a nd scratched the man clean across his face. He let out a howl and scrambled to his feet. He was still bent over in pain from what Cass had done to him, and it put him at a bigger disadvantage than he'd like-
and now he had a burning claw mark across his face as the creature shrieked and came after the large man again.

Thank god he slept with his sword (even if his other one was broken!) because as he scrambled across the beach as the creature continued to crow and peck and claw at him, he continued to evade her attacks until he completely tripped over the rope that kept the skiff bound to the island.

Still too drunk and dazed to know what the hell he just tripped over, the creature lunged at him and Krah swung the sword up, black blood spilling from the gash in its belly, and the rope that held the boat split at the knick his sword put on it, and soon it was fraying from that spot and threatening to break loose... which would send the little skiff out at sea, and trap those on the island for good.

Though ignorant this was going on, Krah continued to fight back, sword swinging as a silver glint in the night. And each swing fucking hurt! He was sure he'd kill that woman when he had the chance to, but for now...
He had a bird to gut.

The harpy took to the air, crying out as her talons came after his face again, but Krah was prepared for it, and he roared at the beast and gave a great heave- and off came its left talon, as it rolled towards the sea.

It was only at this time that he heard the rope snap! and he jerked in the direction to where a large wave swelled up and began to carry the boat- their only means to leave the island, off to sea.

"Shit!" Abandonning the fight with the harpy, he turned tail and rushed out into the water, chasing after the tail end of the frayed rope and futility stumbling to reach for it. When he finally got a hold of it, the entire boat jerked to a halt, and his boots sunk into the soft sands while another wave threatened to push him over.

He somehow managed, muscles tense and tight as he bared his teeth. Yeah... this hurt twice as much as it ought to, and if that damn woman hadn't...

But he had no more time to think about that as the harpy was upon him, using her last good talon to dig into his face, and cried out in rage as she began to peck at him- and peck hard.

Krah let out a cry and nearly lost his grip on the skiff's rope, but he managed to twist it around one hand, securing it before releasing his second hand as he began to punch the damn harpy in her god damn face so hard, it might just have caved in! And by the time he was done with the thing, he snapped her neck over his leg and tossed it's useless body into the water, just as he turned to observe a large wave pummeling him in the face, sending the skiff back towards land, and smacking him clean in the forehead.


This was not his night, for he now was in pain from head...
to boner.

It started with a gods-awful screeching, and the yells of a man being pursued. In her half-awake state, she tried to close her eyes again, before she was hearing a commotion on the beach.

Grouchily she yelled out, "Can you wait til' morning to pummel my face in, or...?" She felt a tug at the boat, and yelled out again.  "Do you REALLY want me to break your dick in three instead of two?"

As the sounds began registering, she rubbed the back of her eyes before rolling onto her stomach and clumsily pulling herself up, only to be tossed back and away on the boat when she felt the skiff jerk at the snap of the rope. She hit her head, and hit it hard, crying out. And just as she thought she would have to bring the boat back to the beach again, she felt it jerk to a halt.

Gripping the lip of the skiff, she pulled herself halfway up, and the scene before her eyes was quite... Magnificent. The man had found himself a harpy, who rather seemed like she wanted to bury her claws into him and never let go. The harpy was screeching, and Krah was trying to manage the waves, the harpy, and the boat all at once. She could have told him he needn't worry about the boat, but when he began pummeling the harpy to death, she decided it best to let him vent his pent up... frustrations... before saying anything.

He stood, panting, and she watched curiously as he remained standing, apparently not aware of the oncoming wave. She, the boat, and he were all brought back to the beach.

When the boat hit the sand of the beach she quickly leaped out, once again tying the boat up against a tree. She turned around to find the big man once again lying prone on the ground.

And she laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more, approaching the man. His handsome face, which had a few scars before, now had a rather large gash. Still laughing, she approached him, staying out of his reach in case he hadn't gotten enough of his anger out on the harpy. "Maybe I should amend your name from Shark Bait, to just plain 'bait'? How in the hell did you piss off a harpy so much?" She flexed her fingers, a tendril of water dancing along her fingertips... Healing magic. Well, she'd be damned, because she could only manage healing magic when she was feeling empathy for somebody. And, well, she didn't often feel sorry for others.

Right now, though, she felt sorry for Krah. "If you promise not to punch me, I can do something about those gashes on your mug. Aaand... Maybe I'll alleviate your little man, a bit, too. I can't help but feel a bit sorry. Though you must've done something mighty shitty to get this much bad luck."

Krah just laid there and groaned, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." Before he closed his eyes and let his head fall limp to one side. Her words did not help the pounding in his head, and he scrunched his face dramatically.

"Me bring the harpy? That's rich," he growled, only then opening his eyes as he peered up at her. "Fucking flying wench woke me up with a talon to my face." For all he knew it was HER doing that brought the harpy, and he simply stared at her with some venom. Thankfully, the fight zapped a lot out of him, but not enough to remove his pride.

"Feel sorry?" he pushed himself up as he leaned on one side, trying to catch his breath.
"You think I want any help from a cunt like you? Fuck.." he winced, not realizing he had more gashes on him then he'dve liked.

"You'd better not waste your breath. Any help you do will still owe you that punch to your ovaries."

He really did look quite pathetic, drenched, bleeding, and unconsciously continuing to guard his man-jewels. And yet, here he went spouting of curses and swearing at her up and down. "Ahh, there's it is! I much prefer this version of Bait, to the one who thought he'd win his chance at getting in my pants. "

She toed him in the side. "Sorry in the way one feels for a very clumsy, very stupid, simpleton." Despite his protestations, she splashed the water at his face. Though, truly, she could have gone about it in a more graceful manner, it still got the job done. The gashes that had opened on his face closed up like anemones closed up as the water left the tide pools. She moved well enough away to avoid him rushing her.

As for his broken pipe? He could keep it for the few days to a week that it would take to heal properly, for all she cared for his protestations. "The way I see it, we've broken even on this whole 'owing' business." She held up her hands. "Let's see. I saved you from being eaten by the sea beast and the sirens... Let's count that as one." She extended one finger. "I saved you from drowning and bleeding out after the shark bite. That's two." She extended a second finger. "And then you tried to repay me by ignoring my telling you to back the fuck off. So we'll say you owed me three." She extended a third finger. "So I broke that precious cock of yours, because you couldn't manage to get it through your thick skull that you can bed all the other women in the world before you'll be able to bed me. We'll count that as my spending all three of those favors owed to me."

How very undine of her! They had an exceptional memory for keeping track of debts.

Before he could even think of a retaliation, a shadow swooped over head and he heard a cry from in land. He swore between his teeth and dashed up the shore, just as it was revealed that it wasn't just one harpy they had to contend with, but a small flock of them who were dive bombing those who remained by the camp.

"Fucking hell, couldn't you have brought us to an island that isn't infested with crazy women, or is that just the only skill you're good at?"

Cass followed after him, dagger clutched in her fist as she followed after him. She decided that she just wasn't going to expect to get any sleep while the man still had the sea god's sphere. Again she considered leaving them stranded on the island, and swimming away herself.

She called after him. "You ever think this could be because your shit-for-brains lord still has the fucking sea god's sphere? It's kind of a beacon for crazy!" If the lord wasn't still holding the sphere, she would have expected the harpies to attack Krah for killing their sister.

As they crested the sand dune bordering the camp, she could make out the lad standing over the cowering lord, waving a flaming stick from the fire. She hurtled down the dune, throwing the dagger and skillfully lodging it between the eyes of one of the harpies. The creature came crashing down from the sky, bringing one of her sisters down with her, trapping her on top of the fire. The smell of burning wings and flesh soon consumed the air, along with the screeches of the harpy sister as she flung her sister off and tried to take off. Her burning wings would not allow her to make her way back into the sky.

These were creatures of the wind, and she was a creature of water... There wasn't a whole lot she could do here with her magic. If they'd been overhead while they were at sea, Cass could have likely drowned the lot of them. But here, she was essentially as human as the rest of her companions.

Leaning, she snatched up the sphere she had used to catch fish with earlier, plunging it deep into the belly of the flaming, grounded harpy. As she twisted to kill the harpy, though, she felt talons dig at her scalp, scraping the skin of her skull, but failing in scalping her. The talons tightened in her hair and she felt herself lifting off of the ground by her hair, and a stream of curses so foul it'd curdle milk flew from her mouth as her hands slipped down the shaft of the spear, which still had the body of the flaming harpy attached. As she began to lift in the air, she desperately tried to shake the body of the harpy from the spear.

Thankfully the body of her sister was keeping the harpy from taking off into the air and simply dropping her body to break on the ground, but for the moment Cass didn't have a lot of options.

It figured these bitches were air born. And though Cass was linked to the sea, mere mortals were generally locked to the land. That didn't stop him from swinging upwards with his sword, cutting uselessly at the feet of the shrieking harpies. And the second he realized he probably should be figuring out a new tactic, Cass was air born.

"Shit."

He moved forward but all he had was his sword, and since it was doing no good at the moment- he did the only thing he could think of...
And lanced the sword right up into the air, cutting off the entire pair of legs of the harpy as it released a shrill cry of pain.

And down Cass went, hair still entangled with the talon legs that had been severed, and just before she was about to crash into the ground...
She'd find herself landing in Krah's arms.

And it looked as if he was about to say something when suddenly he hit the dirt, as a harpy zoomed over head.

A yell tore from Cass's throat as she came crashing down with the legs of a harpy still attached to her hair from mid-calf down. Despite Krah catching her, the weight of the legs were jerking her head back. Throwing an arm around his neck to keep her head from snapping back with the weight of the legs, she prepared to try to tear the talons from her hair.

However, her attempt to disentangle her hair from the bitch's talons was delayed by Krah throwing himself to the ground at the onslaught of another harpy's attack, effectively pinning her under him. And so there she was, crushed beneath the weight of the man, with severed harpy legs still attached to her hair and live harpies still swooping overhead.

"Okay, Captain," Krah grunted. "How the hell do we get these harpies off our back?"

If he hadn't been on top of her, she doubted she'd have been able to hear him above the shrieks of the harpies. He didn't have much choice at the moment, because they were still swooping in for the kill. She was thankful that his body was essentially acting as a sort of shield for her, but it was getting hard to breath. "They're after the sphere... " She squeezed a breath in. "Best bet is to have the lord go to the ocean, lead 'em there. I can probably drown the lot of them."

Honestly, she'd never been attacked by harpies before. They didn't often fly out from their islands.

Krah looked from her, back to the harpies now clawing at his back. He winced, and managed to swing an arm to punch one off his back. Thankfully they were mostly going after Lord Bachlaoch so he only had one legless harpy, and what looked like her ugly, older sister.

"So I get the Lord and bring that damn sphere towards the sea, what will you be doing in the mean time?" he asked, finding himself needing to throw yet another punch when a harpy got too close and ended up scratching him again.

His battle tactics were not the cleanest or most tactful, but they were effective. Punching seemed to be an effective method.

She looked over to the cowering lord. "Shit." She'd have to rethink things. "Change of plans. You're babysitting."

The lord was going to be too slow. It wouldn't be effective. As Krah turned to lay into another harpy, she wormed her way out from under him and scrambled towards the lord, grabbing up her dagger and yanking the spear from the dead harpy she'd killed before. Egil was still fending off the harpies with the stick of fire, and didn't bother her as she squeezed passed him. Shoving the dagger into her belt, she punched the lord square across the jaw. The shock of the hit made his death-grasp on the chest with the sphere release, and she grabbed it up, tucking it beneath her arm like a football and booking it towards the beach.

Although it took the harpies a moment to realize that she now had the item of interest, they were soon on her tail. She felt their talons tearing at her back, flaying the skin, as she dodged them. As her feet hit the edge of the beach she felt another harpy grip her shoulders, pulling her up into the air.

But, the stupid thing made the mistake of flying over water. Stabbing up and into the belly of the beast, she, the harpy, and the chest with the god's sphere, crashed into the sea. Back in her element, Cass dove down as deep and as fast as she could.

From beneath the water she watched the harpies dive bomb and soar above, circling the spot that she'd gone down, but she refused to come up. Those of them that chose to dive into the water she quickly drowned by forcing water to move down into their lungs.

And then she heard it. The deep, cavernous roar, so loud it deafened the seas and the land and the air around them. Swimming quickly to surface, she watched as the harpies screamed a took off towards the middle of the island. She spun in the water, looking out to sea at the encroaching wall of dark clouds. "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!"

She turned, the tide of the water swallowing even her up, spitting her out onto land like a watermelon seed. She tucked her body around the chest and felt her body crash onto the sands. Scrambling, she rushed in the direction of Krah and the others. The sea god was coming, and she knew exactly which one it was. It was the god who had cursed her and murdered her father. The sheer magnitude of rotten luck she was encountering was absolutely ridiculous.

Skin pale, she whispered under her breath. "Say your prayers now, lads. This is it." Bleeding, beaten, and bruised, she remained kneeling on the sands, panting as she watched the ominous clouds begin to approach. He'd be there within the half hour.

Krah was just getting into the swing of things, as battling for his life (and oh, the life of his 'lord'), had made him temporarily forget the broken bit in his pants. But now that he had a chance to recover as the harpies flew away, he doubled over to catch his breath, and winced.

Damn that woman. He watched as the harpies made chase. Perhaps he ought to let them tear her apart.

Though he couldn't lie when he was impressed, seeing how she managed to start drawing near the whole lot of them, however...
The dark, ominous wall of clouds heading their way could not be missed. He bared his teeth.

"Shit."

He turned to Cass as she approached.

"So what the fuck is that thing? And how can we avoid it?"
He didn't exactly want to die today, and on an island, so far away- on a day he hadn't even gotten laid!

Cass slowly hauled herself to her feet, staring out to sea at their imminent demise. Shaking her head in disbelief, she replied, "That? That's a fucking sea god. The very same sea god who has had a death wish for me since my birth." A bark of incredulous laughter emerged from her throat. "The luck! Really, of all the sea gods you could have stolen from, you stole from the one who hates me the most. And then you get on my ship!"

She really didn't feel like dying. "Sorry, but even I can't outpace a sea god. The only chance I see of us surviving is if the god of this quadrant of the sea decides to get pissy about him coming into his territory. Or if my sea god decides he wants to play with his meal first. That might give us some time." But even then it was unlikely that they would survive a god playing with them.

Her mind ran over all the possibilities of survival, but was coming up blank. She turned to the lord. "Unless this halfwit had some escape plan plotted for such an inevitable meeting?"

Krah looked the woman over sharply. Though as she went on to inform them all how fucked they were, Krah began to laugh- and laugh, and laugh.
"Perhaps this is just fate, Ocean Sinner," he went on with a casual drawl while keeping himself ignorant of the pain still emanating from his groin. "And if fate is to throw a god at is.." And here, he gave a sniff, keeping his chin up high and his chest forward, "Then we just take up fucking swords and have ourselves a fight with a God."

"Well, Shark Bait, you're the only one with a proper sword at the moment."

The sea god came upon them all at once. One moment they were standing on the beach alone, and the next they knew there was a tall man-like creature standing on the beach. The rain hammered down upon them, though it did not seem to touch the man. He stood at nearly nine feet tall, his skin the colors of the oceans waters, his heart and organs visible through his translucent skin. He clutched a long whip in his hand, which was more seaweed than hand. A deep voice like the rumbling of thunder out at sea came out, and the place in his head where there should have been eyes sparked like lightning. "Humans, you have something belonging to me."

Cass felt her heart hammering in her chest as she watched the whip of the sea god lash out, grazing her cheek before it wrapped around the lord's neck and jerked his body unceremoniously across the sands. Cass made to grab at the man's ankles, missing by a few inches. When she looked up, the sea god was already gripping the sphere in his hand, the whip still around the lord's neck as he gasped and gurgled, clutching at his neck.

That was when her eyes met the sea god's eye holes. The sea god flicked his whip out to sea, still staring her straight in the eyes. She heard the body of the lord hit the waters far out in the sea. Hard. The sea god moved towards her. "You look... Familiar."

The sea god took in a deep breath, the sound like the swelling of a gentle wave. "Marella..."

Gods he thought she was her mother! Cass knew she was not the unnerving beauty that her mother was, and that she had the hardier bone structure of her father. Pushing herself to her feet, she stood with her tangled, matted hair, hand hovering above the hilt of her dagger. She watched as the sea god appraised her more closely.

As his "eyes" landed on the vial at her throat, an enraged bellow rose from his throat. Well, so much for passing as her mother! The sea god began to grow in height, body transforming into a sheer wall of water quickly approaching them. Cass was frozen in fear of what she had always suspected would come.

Well shit.
If they were going to die now, so be it. But he had hoped to achieve a bit more in his life than to die on some unknown island with a woman who'd rather break his cock than ride it. But some how, his feet lead him to do it, as he threw himself at the woman and secured his body all around her, becoming a wall to her against the wall of water that soon plowed into them. And the only thing he could do was hold his breath, and hold onto her.

It was fortunate that Krah had latched onto her, because she did her best to throw up her own small wall of water between herself and the violent swell heading towards them. It softened the blow, preventing their bodies from being broken upon the crash of the wave, but did not prevent them from being carried off with the swell.

The entire island was forced underwater, lifting them off and up into the water. Cass did her best to manipulate the water around them to give him a space to breath, but the water was so turbulent it failed to succeed. Although it was likely they would both die when the water receded and they were slammed back down to ground, she still tried her best to maneuver through the water. She could see Krah beginning to struggle to keep his air in, and when he finally broke and began to swallow water she grabbed hold of his hair. Steadying his head with her hand, she forced her mouth over his and sucked the water from his lungs, breathing it in herself. Even with water being sucked from his lungs, it still didn't give him much of a fresh supply of air.

Cass wrapped her other arm around him, kicking her legs as she tried to swim them towards the surface of the swell. She couldn't figure out which would be better- if they were at the bottom or the top of the swell when the water was sucked back out to sea. She was just about to give up, when she felt the water suddenly suction them down in a rush towards the ocean floor. Her eyes burned from keeping them open, the feeling similar to the way one would feel while keeping their eyes open in a torrent of wind.

Closing her eyes tightly, and holding onto Krah, they were sucked down into and beneath the ocean floor and spat back up again into calmer waters. Opening her eyes, she almost screamed when she realized they were in... dark water, water dark enough to be the night sky. Krah, at this point, was unconscious. She made sure to grab a hold of him tightly, and did her best to locate the direction she hoped was up. Hoped would bring him air.

They broke the surface and she caught herself looking at the ceiling of a cave. She could just barely make out ground, and swam towards it, Krah in tow. The water she was swimming in was the night sky. As she swam it rippled, black waters speckled with bright stars, galaxies, and constellations. She tried not to be overwhelmed and perturbed by it. They were certainly not in any kind of mortal realm anymore.

Dragging him onto the beach, she pressed her ear against his heart. It still beat! Pressing her mouth to his, she first sucked out the water, spitting it to the side, before pinching his nostrils closed and breathing into his mouth. She alternated between chest compressions and air, cursing at him. "You better not fuckin' die on me and leave me here alone, Shark Bait!" She pressed her mouth to his again.

She probably would feel like she'd tried to resuscitate him dozens of times by now, and perhaps she had, but it seemed Krah was responding to none of it. He still remained pale, like the waters that soaked them, and cold like them, too. But in mid breath, she'd feel the surge of salt water shoot out from his mouth and into hers as he sat up suddenly, choking out the water and gasping for air.

And despite being completely and utterly disoriented in the moment, he had not missed the fact they were close and...

"You know... couldn't you have waited to kiss me when I was awake?" And it appeared as if he might pass out again.

Cass spat out the water, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth as she watched him cough the rest of the up. It was evident that his lungs had sucked in a lot more water than she had known.

She took the opportunity to punch him in the chest, "It wasn't a kiss, idiot." She, too, was cold in this dark world. Shivering one, she stood on the pebbled beach, feet slipping in the slick rocks. For once she didn't feel the weight of the vial around her neck baring down on her while she was on land.

Her mood turned somber as she spotted a body a bit further down the beach. Shivering again, she clutched her arms around her shoulders and made her way towards the body, its back turned towards her. Rolling it over, she discovered it to be the young lad, Egil. Gripping the lad's shoulders, she pressed her ear against his chest and a finger under his nose. Not breathing. No heart beat. Sitting back on her heels, she let her hands fall into her lap. So much unnecessary death.

Another shiver convulsed through her body, and she quickly closed his eyes before standing back up again and moving back down the pebble beach towards Krah. The waves of the sky-ocean gently brushed the shoreline, washing up the broken remnants of their skiff. Looking around, she saw no clues as to their hosts, the air around them silent. Sitting back down next to Krah, she scooted closer for warmth. "Wonder when they'll come get us."

"What? It wasn't a bad kiss, if that's what you were worried about," he told her, his grin growing bigger. "Though I've had better. And to let you know on a little secret, I do like a little tongue with my lips."

However, as soon as he saw her inspect the dead body, he grew quiet as he watched her. And still said nothing at her return. He couldn't blame her, he was fucking cold as well, and when she got close, he got closer.

"Wonder when who would come looking for us? And where the hell is even here anyway? The sea looks like the night sky but the sky looks empty."
He didn't get it. Not at all.

Trying to lighten the mood a bit, she assumed a tone as close to normal as possible. "If I kissed you, you'd know it. Trust me."

Cass bit the inside of her cheek to try to distract from the cold, knees hugged into her chest, her body awkwardly twisted to press against his side. "Can't say with certainty myself, since I've never been here and all, but it looks to me like we've been sucked into the realm of the sea gods. Sort of like the fae world, but with mermaids and shit." Thank the gods there were no mermaids at the moment. "Fuckin' mermaids..." If she could count the number of times she'd had her hair pulled by mermaids as a young girl...

No, immortals and the fae of the sea were not dependent on time constraints. Making people wait in their "waiting room", which was what she decided the beach was, was not unheard of in the old tales. Her mother had spoken of the other side too, and how disconnected from humanity those creatures residing in this strange other world. "I suspect the sea god of the part of the ocean we were in brought us here, since the sea god trying to kill us was trespassing, so to speak. They're probably discussing us as we sit here. Who knows how long." The silence of the place was creeping her out a bit.

"Oh? So we're the talk of the Gods?" He quipped, raising a brow and using the moment to slip a strong arm around her. He didn't smell all to pleasant, his arm pits were pungent, his skin reeked of salt, and his breath of ale. But even through that he still held the musk of a man. "So we could be just biding our times before that inevitable sanction of death?"

He frowned before smiling darkly.
"You know... I think the sea god healed my dick. Maybe he's telling us something..."

She was surprised he smelled of anything other than ocean water, what after their wash through the ripping tides and the whirlpool which had suctioned them into this other world. To be honest, the smell of him wasn't all that bad to her. In fact, she hardly noticed it. Working on ships with men for most of her life had given her plenty of time to become used to the smells around her. She herself likely didn't smell all that great on a regular basis, either, but her smell didn't stick around after a good dip in the ocean. No matter, she didn't mind having the additional warmth of his arm around her shoulders. It was about survival, damn it!

That was until he was making another one of his quips about how they might better spend their time. Not wanting to retreat from the warmth just yet, she gave him the chance to right his words. She leveled a threat at him, "You don't learn too quick, do you?"

She noticed that she, too, felt better. Her back didn't hurt nearly as much as it should, and reaching an arm around she felt the skin. Instead of the chunks and hanging skin she'd expected from the harpy attack, her skin was just as smooth as it had been before. And she could see properly out of both eyes again, despite the shiner he'd given her.

Krah chuckled.
"Can you blame me?"
He did have a woman who he found incredibly attractive, incredibly close and well-
After any battle, he always needed to fuck. And she was the only woman around..
and he had yet to make his claim on her...

So he felt his question was suitable.

She leveled a humorless look at him, "Yes, I can. And I can right that fixed cock of yours, if you'd like. There are more ways than one to render a man's member useless."

The smell of freshly baked bread and meat wafted into her nostrils. Looking curiously over her shoulder, she saw a small set up where none had been only a few moments before. A small platform of dark glass had appeared just a bit up the beach, canopied beneath soft blue curtains. Grabbing his arm up, Cass removed it from her shoulders and let it drop, before moving towards the platform.

As she neared it, she noted a giant seashell constructed in the center with a large fire burning. Beside it was a long driftwood board covered in food, from shellfish to olives and fruit. A clear pitcher of water with sand-crafted cups sat in the center of the platter. Mouth watering, she stepped onto the platform. The ground around the center of the platform was solid, with the exception of water set into the structure. Trailing her fingers in the water, she noted how warm it was, and beside it were a stack of towels made out of an odd soft material, and beside these were sets of fresh clothes.

Stepping towards the center, she found the ground unstable, moving like water and soft as pillows, but as transparent as the glass of the rest of the structure. She could even see down to the pebbles on the beach. Looking to Krah if he had followed, she mused, "At least they are accommodating? But you should be wary about eating the food, since you are only human." A bit dubious, she looked around the beach again... The lad's body was gone. No, this was bizarre, but she'd heard enough stories from her mother to not be too concerned.

Despite not trusting the intentions of setting out such a nice space, she was cold. Stripping her cold, wet clothes off down to her undergarments, she ducked into the warmth of the water. Her cold body hitting the water forced steam to rise to up, and she ducked her head under to heat her face from the cold air.

Krah approached the table and eyed the food, though at Cass's warning, he thought twice about eating the  Apple. Instead, he watched her strip. And though she remained in her under clothes, he could see everything.

Quietly he continued to watch, before stating, "You know, you're the worst cock tease." He took a bite of the Apple.
"You get the damn thing up, then threaten me before Ive got the chance to even fucking hump you through your clothes. How many men do you give blue balls to?" He just presumed a woman like that took tally.

She found the waters to be quite pleasant, smelling not quite like anything, but smelling more like a feeling. To her, it almost smelled like the feeling she got when they were heading back out to sea. Exhilarating and free. She had her eyes closed dreamily, leaning her head back against the side of the odd pool of warm water. But then he was talking again, and she stiffled a small groan from rising to her lips as she was broken from the revelry. Well, at least she smelled nicer now.

Keeping her eyes closed, she responded lazily. "This alone has gotten you worked up? Have you not seen many women's bodies?" She knew that wasn't true, but it still amused her to tease him. It was rather impressive that, despite his purported widespread conquering of women, that he still got excited by the sight of a woman. She herself couldn't say that there were many men's forms which got her excited anymore. She'd seen enough man flesh in her lifetime to take the thrill of it out of her. The ones with nicer bodies, though, could still elicit a bit of a reaction in her. Krah, for all his deplorable behavior, had an interesting body. Though she had always been particular to muscular men. She liked to think of them being able to throw her around a bit... Well, really, she liked to think that she'd not be able to throw them around too easily. It was difficult for a hardworking woman to find a man more masculine in characteristics than she.

Cass swam to the edge closest to him, lifting herself halfway out of the warm pool of water. Folding her arms on the cool glass of the side, she watched him, a smirk across her lips. "Can't say I've kept count... If they know I'm a woman, I suppose the whole crew gets it in their mind to try and have at me. Then again, I could be a cow of a woman and they'd still try their luck." She turned her back again, washing her arms. "Men get desperate when you're the only woman they've seen in months." She flicked the water with her fingers, continuing nonchalantly, "But it only takes breaking one to get the message across. You're the first to be stupid enough to keep at it."

She moved across the small pool of water to sit on the small underwater ledge. "You ought to get in here yourself. They'll be plenty of beautiful fae women, I'm sure, but their noses aren't as forgiving as mine." She leveled a look of warning at him, "As you're obviously not the smartest man, I'll warn you to not act on any of your ideas while you're at it."

Krah gave her a crooked grin in response.
"Maybe I shouldn't join you, since I can't promise any of that. Besides, what's wrong with being determined? And what's wrong about a healthy sex drive? You know its an act of pleasure... For us both. And if you like it rough... Trust me, I'm all animal."

Cass released a long, laborious sigh, sinking further into the water. The deafening silence of the place was unnerving, but his persistence was certainly helping to disrupt the quiet. "Shark Bait, we've already proven that you can't handle me. I like my men with a sense of control, and you've got none."

She opened one eye to look at him. "So save it for the sea nymphs and the like. Less work for you, less of a pain for me, win win." She closed her eyes again, relishing the warmth of the waters. 

"Sea nymphs? Sure, I can fuck the nymphs, but right now... we're talking about you and I.." he went on with a leer.
"And who says I can't handle you? One low blow to my dick ain't going to deter me. And trust me... I can show you control."

Cass lifted an eyebrow, "Can you now? I'd like to see you try."

As if to demonstrate her point, Cass whipped up a small torrent of water. Stepping out of the water, she toweled off her hair and body, wrapping a dry towel around herself. "I really am more selective in who I let fuck me, and right now I'd sooner fuck a sea urchin than you." Lifting up the clothing that had been set out for them, she gave an irritated groan. "Fuckin' faes and their useless clothes."

They'd given her a flimsy dress, the color of sea foam. Of course they'd given her a dress! She had half a mind to take up the clothes they had procured for Krah, but thought against it. Despite her distaste for the fae, she knew her Undine features would best be served when on display. They would feel an affinity towards her if she resembled them.

Knowing he would not likely grant her any modesty, she stepped behind some of the gauzy curtains to change. Keeping the towel tucked around her, she shimmied out of her wet undergarments and pulled the dress on. The 3/4 sleeves added some measure of warmth, though the idiots had made the dress so it did not cover her shoulders. She felt... Ridiculous. She could not remember the last time she had worn anything close to resembling a dress.

Toweling the water from her hair, she tossed it down in her frustration and emerged from behind the curtain. She set her jaw in her irritation, glaring at him, "Not a fuckin' word."

And he said not a word.
Only whistled as his eyes took her in like a hungry wolf.

Striding across the platform, she found her way to the table, peering over the contents before grabbing up a loaf of bread and a pear. Sloppily pouring herself a glass of water, she gulped it down before tearing her teeth into the food. Sitting down on the soft ground, she reclined. Despite knowing that it was likely they'd be put to death soon, or worse, she was at least grateful for the accommodations.

The fire crackled, warming her skin. "Really though," she said with a mouth full of food, "Most o' these fae types are sensitive. You'd do yourself a favor in bathing. Even if ya don't get yourself between their legs, they're less likely t' kill you if the smell o' you doesn't make them want to hurl."

Krah gave a nonchalant sigh.
"Very well, though if you wanted to see me naked that badly," he went on as he began to peel off his clothing. "All you had to do was ask."
His grin was devilish as he tossed his last bit of clothing aside, and stood as a man in all of his glory.

And to most, Krah's form was perfection, with a sculpted body, and just the right amount of body hair and scruff on his face, (and it didn't hurt he wasn't bad looking, too), it was easy to see how most women would swoon. And what he was packing below, was so far above average that...
Who could blame a woman to want to sample it when they were being prodded by it through their skirts? And Krah's member was ready to go, swollen and eager that, as he walked to the pool, it bobbed along before Krah stepped into the water, and half of his body was drowned from sight.

He released a sigh. She was right,t his water felt heavenly. Though it smelled strange to him. Perhaps it was because it lacked the salty and fishy smell he was used to in water. But then again, this entire place was strange.

Leaning back, he closed his eyes and stretched out in the pool.
"A guy could get used to this," he said through a contented sigh.

Cass kept her face trained, feigning disinterest as he disrobed. In spite of herself, she did find the man mightily impressive... All of him. A shame he was such an incessant womanizer and brute, or she might have seriously considered caving in to him. She had her own desires to sate!

She felt a warmth pooling in her belly at the thought of him manhandling her, and a private grin crossed her lips as she took a bite of the pear to cover it, the juice dribbling down her chin. She'd seen plenty of man flesh in her day, but it wasn't often that she came across such a fine specimen. But of course it had to be wasted on such a personality.

Sighing and settling down into the soft embrace of the strange ground-bed, she turned her face away from him to stare up at the sky. "Told you, didn't I?"

"Yeah," he groaned contentedly, getting nice and comfortable. "But it would be even better if you were on my lap."
And he paused, his eyes closed and his lips open in just a slit of a grin.
"And even better still... if you were bouncing off my dick as we fuck raw to release all of these..."
And he paused to roll his shoulders, the joints cracking. "Tensions."
His penis quivered eagerly beneath the waters, still very erect and at attention and well...
Who could blame him?  He was a man, after all and Kieta?
She was something he craved just a little bit more than a simply bar wench for a one night stand.

That kinda girl?
He could have several week stands with and might even enjoy if she tried to toss him around. It was rather kinky to think a girl could just try to dominate him to get on top...


Yep, and now he was really horny as a hand disappeared beneath the waters.

The image was appealing, and it had been quite some time since she'd gotten laid. A very long time indeed, and he was handsome and strong... She shifted uncomfortably, squeezing her legs together to try and displace the discomfort he was inciting in her. What in the seven fucking seas was wrong with her?! There must have been some sort of aphrodisiac in the food or water, because she was enjoying his filthy talk. Why was this having any different effect on her than any other man trying to word-fuck his way into her pants?

Swallowing a quick drink of the water to clear her throat, she replied as nonchalantly as possible. "Quite an imagination you have. Seems like you don't need my help to get your rocks off."

Krah's grin grew subtly on his lips, but he kept his eyes closed.
"Oh no... trust me, you are helping."

Cass lifted her head to look at him at this, and found him with a grin on his lips and his eyes closed... And hands not visible above the water. She found herself wondering if he was actually touching himself, right there in front of her... Shaking her head, she silently chastised herself for having such a foul mind.

Closing her own eyes, a grin crossed her own features as she thought of something. "You know, just occurred to me, but I wonder if they've been watching us? It would seem odd if they weren't, actually." If he was touching himself, she hoped her observation might embarrass him just a little. Or at least make him think twice about it. And even if he wasn't touching himself, perhaps it would deter him from persisting in his attempts to get between her legs. To be honest, at the moment she didn't quite trust herself not to cave.

His face wrinkled into a million lines of dimples as a smile crept over his face.
"If they're watching... maybe they're waiting for us to give them a show?"
And still, he did not open his eyes, thoughts of her humming inside his head.
"Though if they don't hurry up, this might turn into a fucking rough ride. As a man... I can only take so much."
And he opened his eyes and let only them look back to her, his body still facing away from her.
"I need you," he breathed, grunted. "On my lap." Another grunt. "Now."

Now he was really pressing his luck.  As much as she'd like to give in to her own baser instincts, she didn't like to be ordered around. Especially if he wasn't even bothering to come to her himself! No, if she was going to end up fucking this man, it was going to be on her own terms.

Standing up, she walked across the platform towards the pool. Stopping a few feet in front of the pool, she bent at the waist and stared directly into his eyes. "Now you're just being lazy. I've had men cross entire oceans to try and win me over." Stepping back, she set her hands on her hips. "While I do admit I've got my own needs to be sated, you seem to think me easy by the way you're trying to order me about without lifting a finger. I'm not some whimpering whore, eager to please you, Shark Bait."

OOC: I hope this post is okay XD
If not I can edit the presumed actions against Cass <3

-------

And Krah seemed not to change his expression, or even move-
That was until she was done speaking. His hand struck out, grabbing onto her wrist as he pulled her forward at the same time he turned around- and continued to pull her until his lips crashed into hers and he held her hair rough to keep her close.

"I like a woman with fire," he growled through another kiss, shoving his tongue between her cheeks and seeking out hers, tasting her deeply while refusing to let go. And if he was hard before, now his dick was like stone.

"Get in this water with me and I'll have you whimpering to your Gods."

OoC: I kind of figured that his response would be something like that! So no worries :)

~--~--~--~--~--~--~
Cass slide quickly across the surface of the platform until she was teetering on the edge where he had pulled her to him. Shoving out her hands, she kept them pushed against his chest to keep herself from going into the water. Her skin prickled as water from his hands dripped onto her skin, the cold air quickly cooling it. It was taking all of her strength to keep from toppling into the pool with him.

Although she could have, no should have, fought him off using the water in the pool, she found she didn't want to. No, she found herself kissing him back just as hard, battling his mouth with her own. She liked the feel of his rough hand in her hair, liked the challenge of a man who saw what he wanted and tried to take it.

When he finally pulled back from her to once again brag about his sexual prowess, she ran her fingers through his hair gently, only to tighten them at the back of his head. Leaning forward, she grazed her teeth over his earlobe before speaking into his ear, her voice husky, "I don't think I'll be the one whimpering."

"Big words," he growled between his teeth, his eyes becoming half lidded as he leered her.
"If you can accomplish that, woman, I'd be impressed." He moved to kiss her neck, his scruff scratching her skin. "And may even find a reason to beg you for an encore.." he growled against her skin and began to kiss down towards her shoulder .

A shiver crept down her spine as the scruff of his facial hair scratched against the soft skin of her neck and to her shoulder. "I've made tougher men than you beg for it, Shark Bait." She sneered the last part in response to his derogatory tone in the use of the word woman. Using a bit of water magic, she held him still as she extricated herself from him.

With a smirk, she stood and turned her back to him, pulling the dress up over her head to reveal herself. Long legs and torso were toned from years of manual labor, the muscles of her shoulders tapering down to a trim waist and a firm buttocks. Her currently long hair tapered halfway down her back, but as she brushed it over her shoulder she revealed an intricate blue tattoo on the back of her right shoulder blade.

Turning to reveal pert, shapely breasts, she gave him a moment to take a good look. She might not be vain, but she had a point to prove with Krah, and teasing him was the best method she could think of. Finally, she slipped into the pool, floating in the water as she continued to use the magic to restrain his movements so he could not touch her, but could move his head. Cass let a hand dip beneath the water to stroke him, grinning wickedly as she recalled just how recently she had snapped it. Leaning in, she took his lips, sucking on his lower lip and letting her teeth lightly graze it.

Krah shivered, his body braced and tensed, but restrained by her powers. And he loved it, he loved it all. The thrill of being at this woman's mercy had him hornier than he'd ever known, and the second she touched him, he thought he might explode.

He growled out a moan before he bit and kissed her lips back.
"You're wicked."
But the smile on his lips proved he thought that was a good thing.
And his cock? It throbbed to emphasize it was a very good thing.

"I'm told it's one of my better qualities." Cass continued her attentions to his manhood. If she would bet anything, she was willing to bet that he found her use of water magic on his cock to be very pleasing.

Dipping her head to his neck she kissed, nipped, and sucked her way down his body, unaffected by having to go beneath the water. Once she reached his inner thighs, she stopped just short of pressing her mouth against him. Coming back up from underwater, she used the water to lift his body up and out of the water and onto the smooth surface of the platform. Straddling his waist, she used the water as shackles to keep him pinned.

Leaning down over him, she took his lips again, her breasts pressed against his chest. She wanted him to whimper, especially after that comment and how much he had talked himself up. "How much do you want it? Want me?" It really had a lot to do with control for her. She wanted to both be in control, and to lose control. She wanted to lift the restraints and let him have a fair shot at her, but she also wanted him to squirm. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
OoC: I almost think it'd be hilarious if the water-worldy people decided this was a good time to pop up

He couldn't say he had ever experienced that before. But then again, being a mordecai limited his ability to even interact with a magic user on any level. He, however, would consider himself fortunate, as her magics were natural to her, and a mordecai's powers meant nothing here. And if they did, he'd prey they would not, as he released a breathy moan through his clenched teeth.

His dark lashes hung low while equally dark eyes peered at her. They were glowing, as if on fire, and his body quickly heated while his cock continued to throb, almost painfully so as it leaked precum into the waters.

Angsar's name, it felt like she was giving him a blow job, but her lips were as far from him as they could. But damn, her lips were just as magical as he moaned when they trailed down his skin. Each kiss made his cock twitch and ache all the more, and as she kept him pinned back, he grimaced and held back that whimper she so desperately wanted to hear.

At her question, however, she'd be able to see that fire of desire flare inside his eyes.
"Why don't you remove this restraint and so will I."
And his eyes promised that she'd be more than thankful when she did, because he was hornier than hell and needed to fucking bang something and bang it hard.

"Cassia."

That voice. That voice drawled out, peeled back her skin and crawled underneath. The heat in her dropped out of the pit of her stomach, and the shock of hearing that voice froze her in place over Krah. The magical restraints dropped from Krah in the moment, and for the moment she continued pressing herself to him for cover, looking for something to cover herself up with.

Nope, no way she was going to let him see her squirm. Peeling herself off of Krah, she stood up and faced the voice, standing as confidently as she could in the buff. "Dax." Her jaw tightened and she crossed her arms, trying to prevent the move from being interpreted as an attempt to cover herself up.

The man standing at the top of the stairs of the platform had a wry grin on his blue-green tinted features. "I see the Otherworld is having its effects on your more undine talents..." He looked pointedly at Krah's stiff manhood. The smile widened, as he looked Krah up and down. "And while I'd enjoy watching more of this, I've unfortunately been sent on less fun business." A smart frown crossed his lips now, "It seems you've gotten yourselves in a good bit of trouble, and they're calling you to court now. Despite my appreciation of your bodies, I think if you didn't wear the provided clothing they might be offended."

He looked back to Krah, eyes glinting like those of a predator weighing up prey. "And the mortal man's name is..?" Cass took his moment of distraction to snatch up the dress and pull it on again, smoothing out the material, her hand itching for a weapon.

If Krah could yank her back into his clutches he would,a nd he seemed more irritated than embarrassed by being caught. And the man's voice really grated on him- he had interrupted his moment of near victory.

"You want a name?" he asked, eyes studying the man almost as equally as he was studying him.
"Start off by explaining who the fuck you are. And couldn't you have waited a few hours? Whoever you are.. you have terrible fucking timing," Krah added, finally sitting up, but still not moving to get his clothing. It wouldn't be any more comfortable anyway, his cock was so erect it hurt.

Dax grinned at the other man, nonplussed by his irritation. If anything, it amused him! Glancing over at Cass, his grin widened. "I'm something of a past lover to Cassia, and intended future lover, too. Thus, my timing is quite impeccable."

Cass rolled her eyes and snatched up her dagger. "Dax, that's hardly explaining anything. Can I take a stab at it?" She tossed Krah's clothing at him, whether he intended to put it on or not. "Let me guess, you're halfway up some God's ass and are here to fetch us like a good servant. You're hoping to somehow impress me by doing this, because of course this is somehow some perverse way of showing me that you give a shit, but will get you fuckin' nowhere with me."

Dax wore a mock-frown, "I see you're still quite upset with what happened between us..."

Cass glared, yanking on her boots despite wearing the dress. "Fuckin' right I am. You sold me out. Now stop wasting our time and do your fuckin' job, take us to wherever we've been 'summoned' to." She could have punched a crater in his face, she was so irritated by him!

Smirking, Dax mockingly bowed at her, and without a moment of waiting was off and away across the beach heading away from the strange ocean. Cursing, Cass scrambled and grabbed Krah's gear, dumping it in front of him in the hopes to rush him getting dressed. She almost stopped to wait for him... Why was she waiting for him? If she was helping him and waiting for him, that somehow made her think she was starting to feel something other than plain, primal lust. Scowling to herself, she dropped his boots in front of him. "Hurry up. I'm going to catch up to him so we don't lose the fucker and get stuck out here for who knows how much longer."

She jogged off down the steps and across the beach until she was close to Dax, who had slowed down. It was in that moment that she began to reflect upon what had almost transpired between herself and Krah... What in the seven seas had she been thinking?! As much as she hated seeing Dax again, he had saved her from herself. How long would Krah have held that over her head?

Though Cass was in a rush, Krah took his sweet time getting dressed. He had to calm down anyway, but that didn't seem to be happening anytime soon, so he pressed his cock against his lower belly, and used his pants to keep it up, rather than jutting out and tenting his pants. He didn't need to get it all rubbed raw before he got a chance to get between Cass's legs.

And if he were affected by any of Cass and Dax's history, he didn't show it. Though it figured that's why they were so rudely interrupted. He supposed he'd have to get a rein check on that sex.

Once his pants were on, he casually followed the pair at a some what quickened pace down the beach, still shirtless as he fussed over the laces on his boots.

"You know, we were brought here by magic. You think they'd send someone more capable of being our guide," Krah went on when he finally caught up to the pair, and slipped on his shirt.
"I'm guessing you ain't on the top tier, or we wouldn't be walking."

"Humans... So preoccupied with immediate gratification. Some things should not be rushed." Dax led them through a crack in the wall of a rock face, which appeared to go on forever into the sky. The crack in the wall was tight, forcing Cass to turn sideways in it while Dax appeared to simply shift his body fluidly like water.

Responding to Krah, she snorted. "No, he's more like a bottom feeder. Which means he eats a lot of shit." Though she knew the reasoning behind the slow transportation. Traveling with humans, or even half-humans like herself, was dangerous. The use of magic to whisk them away would basically be like painting giant targets on their backs for those creatures in the Otherworld that liked to feed on humans. It was this reason that she'd only visited the Otherworld a handful of times, preferring the company of humans much more than the selfish fae-like creatures. Well, she couldn't say much for land-based faes, as she didn't have a lot of interaction with them. "So, how long and where are we going?"

Dax paused abruptly, forcing her to bump into him. The proximity made her scowl at him, though he was unfazed. "To court. And it will probably feel like a few days to a week of time to you?"

"Why the hell would you give me a dress to travel in?!" She shoved him so he would start walking again. Seriously, if they were just going to travel, why had he outfitted she and Krah in fancy clothing? It was just going to get ruined.

She was about to continue berating him when he shoved a hand over her mouth. Glaring, he gestured to the dark forms pasted to the ground just a few yards ahead in the passage. Shoving his hand away, she pulled out her dagger. They were giant leech-like creatures, and while it wasn't as if they could sneak up on them, they were blocking their way forward. "Really, Dax? Have you completely lost your balls?"

Then she heard a low rumbling sound, and a lizard like beast the size of a horse slithered out of a hole higher in the wall above the leeches. Dax was already pulling his own trident-like daggers out, "No, but I'd have like to have avoided what follows them."

Krah stood, head titled in curiosity as he observed the creatures. Disgusting looking things, but they looked rather sluggish and something they could easily pass by. But when the slithering creature appeared, that's when Krah lifted his brows and shifted just a little to get a better look at the thing.

"So..." he went on, hands gripped into fists at his side. "What's the plan, bottom feeder? You aiming  to make us monster food?" He sneered. "And here I thought we were in some magical realm, like a manipulation of heaven." He snorted. "Guess we were actually dragged to Hell."

"Good, evil, that whole thing is overdone with you humans..." Dax smirked at him, "Though it had passed my mind to just happen to lose you on the way."

Cass watched the beast as it scrambled down the wall, hissing and growling, "Stop the pissing contest, for fuck's sake! I don't know what the fuck that thing is, Dax, but so help me if you don't tell us what the hell we're supposed to do, I'll kill you before it even gets here."

Dax reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Quieting down, for starters. And moving slowly." He looked towards Krah. "But you, you could continue caterwauling and moving as loudly as a blind troll, for all I care." Dax pulled her against the wall across from the beast as they began to slowly move forward, towards the leeches. "And don't kill those things. We're definitely dead if you do that." 

"Tch, how thoughtful of you. But I think I'm going to stick around. You ruined our moment. And I aim to get that back," Krah went on as he followed afterwards. He stayed as close to them as he dared, while studying the strange leeches with a sneer.
"These things smell foul."
How were they supposed to get around them? They looked like giant blind blobs and a particularly large one seemed to be inching their way.

Cass was finding that in the right situation, she could actually appreciate Krah. In fact, his responses were now frequently reflecting her own feelings about the situation. She might be half creature of this world, but she knew jack shit about it. Cass felt her stomach flop over as the stench finally wafted up into her nostrils. She grimaced, whispering sardonically, "Maybe the gods'll be so disgusted by how we smell when we finally make it there, that they'll turn us around and spit us topside again."

She felt her foot hit something slick, and then found her body hit the ground hard and begin to slide through a trail of slime right towards the leeches. The movement caught the attention of the lizard-beast up on the wall, and as she glimpsed back and forth between the lizard beast and the leeches, she noticed that the ground was dropping, and dropping fast. "Shit, shit, fuck, shit shit! FUCKING SHIT!"

Cass slammed through the bodies of the leeches, using her legs to punt them out of the way as best she good, pinging between rocks and the wall with the lizard-beast hot in pursuit along the wall above. Clear of the leeches, she had enough time to spot the steep drop of the ground, almost like an elongated slide. Crossing her arms over her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that the slime would not suddenly run out and send her body painfully down the decline. She could hear the growling and spitting and roaring of the lizard-beast receding behind her, and as she opened her eyes she found out why... The walls of the passage were narrowing drastically. "FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

She collided with one side of the wall, jettisoning her into the other and slowing her progress. Scrambling to her feet, she squeezed herself into the narrow passage to be sure the lizard-beast couldn't follow. Panting heavily, she looked back in the direction she had come from, the lizard-beast high up the wall staring at her in confusion, and the spot where she had first slipped so far away and high up that she could not quite make out Krah or Dax. The clicking sound of the beast caught her attention as it began to try and puzzle out how to get to her in the crack in the wall.

~*~*~*~
Dax was caught by surprise as he watched Cass shoot past him in the slime, and off and away. To be honest, he hadn't realized there was such a steep drop up ahead of them... He rarely traveled by foot, and had not been through this passage before. He gave a long, low whistle, and grinned. "Well, that's one way to bypass it all!" He took the moment to sidestep lithely behind Krah, "Care to bowl the sucker over on your way down? Hope you're nice n' greased up!" With that, he gave Krah a shove and watched as the man shot down after Cass, effectively knocking any remaining leeches out of the way. Wiping his hands on his breeches, he grinned widely to himself before following suit.

Krah blinked.
"What the fuck just happened?"
But before he could even truly comprehend all of it, Dax gave the man a rough push- and down he went into the slime, flat on his back.

Where as Cass's chaotic slide down the hill side (OOC: lol which kinda makes me think of that scene in The Princess Bride) looked somewhat graceful (though what most women did, always seemed more graceful, especially in comparison to Krah), Krah's slide was more like a rampaging bowling ball  that had eight sides instead of none, and was anything but smooth. His bulky frame and limbs were flailing, as he tried to keep himself steered in somewhat of a direction of his own doing, but it seemed the trail of slime had it's own plans, and soon leeches were knocked aside as if they were nothing but toy balls children played with in the streets.

Smacking into the wall was what made him stop, and Krah couldn't even groan as he was winded. But he didn't even have a chance to recover or figure out what just the hell happened, because though he did't land inside the crack with Cassia, he did happen to land very close to it. And it took only seconds before the lizard was upon him, and with a great big bite, the thing chomped down onto Krah.

The bite brought his breath back miraculously and the man howled in fury before turning right around and slamming his fist into the lizard's face, but the lizard seemed undaunted and appeared about ready to rip Krah's arm off, as he gave the large man a tug and was able to pull him up off the ground.

[OC: lol! AAAAS YOUUU WIIIISHHHH! I love that movie!]

Cass watched Krah plummet down the incline, his body pommeling against the rocks and walls as hers had. Rubbing a bruise on her arm, she had just enough sense left in her to work out that when Krah got to the bottom of the incline, that he would come face to face with the beast.

Just as she was trying to work out what to do, Krah slammed into the wall and the lizard-beast was upon him. Preparing to run out to his rescue, again, she stopped as one of Dax's daggers sunk into the beast's shoulder. The lizard released Krah, turning on Dax. Cass darted out of the crack and to Krah, thinking that Dax should have a handle on the situation.

But then it happened. The sound of a cry of pain reached her ears, and as she looked in the direction of the sound, she was met with the sight of the lizard-beast with its teeth sunk deeply into Dax's belly. Catching another movement out of the corner of her eye, she saw another lizard beast skittering down and the wall and quickly towards Krah. In that moment, she had but a split second to make a decision. One, run for the crack and save her own skin. And the other options involved deciding between which man to help first, knowing that saving one would likely mean condemning the other to death.

Running towards Krah, she grabbed a hold of his uninjured arm and hauled him as bodily as she could towards and into the crack. She tried to tell herself that she had chosen Krah because he was closer, because saving him meant less of a risk to her own life. But the sounds of Dax's screams, and then the sounds of the beasts ripping him apart, hinted that her motives ran deeper. Panting, she turned from the sound, closing her eyes, unable to watch.

If Krah had an opinion on the matter, he made no comment as he cringed at the noise. The screams of Dax's last breaths were terrible, and made worse with the crunch of his bones. For the briefest moment it reminded him of his mortality as he said, "Good thing he's a god or something."
He wasn't sure if he said it because he wanted to believe it, or actually did. But screams of the dead were always haunting, and though he had enough deaths under his own belt, something felt awful about a man being eaten instead of himself, even if it was a man he was not fond of. Perhaps the death would have been easier to swallow if it were intentional and by his own hand.

They didn't have long until the beasts would be finished devouring what remained of Dax, and would turn towards them to continue to feast. Although she didn't know how much further through the fault line they could get, with how narrow it already was, but she favored their chances forward rather than back with the lizard-beasts. Dax... For all he had been, he hadn't been a bad fighter. He could have bested Cassia, and that the beasts were able to nearly kill both Dax and Krah concerned her. She didn't like their chances if the beasts found a way to squeeze into the crack after them.

Turning her back to Krah, she began to make her way deeper into the fault line. "He wasn't a god, and certainly wasn't immortal." She felt a lump building in her throat. He'd sold her out, all those years ago, and nearly gotten her killed, but there had been a time when she had felt tenderly of him. He'd known her when she had still been young and vulnerable, and had been less sure of herself. Sure, he'd likely taken advantage of an easy opportunity, but that still didn't mean he didn't have an impact on her. Her heart felt morbid and sick with how many deaths she had witnessed on that day.

Tightening her lips and setting her jaws, she was determined to avoid letting even a single tear pass by. She wasn't weak. She was strong. People died, and that was that. You couldn't work the seas without being alright with death. Clearing her throat, she continued walking and sliding along the wall. "How's the arm?"

~_~_~_~_~_~__~_~_~
OC: Had a mishap at the airport, now I'll be on the grid for another day or so!

"I'll live," he grunted while following along. That was until a particular narrow part of the path was more than a tight squeeze. He scraped his wound and cursed through his teeth but pushed onward until it seemed their path opened up into a small cave. It had a low ceiling but was more than narrow enough for the two of them as Krah crouched a little before assessing the place. But his vision was very limited here and if it weren't for a few sparse cracks, there'd be no light at all.

"I hope our hungry lizard friend can't squeeze his way in here. But who knows if we should wait that' thing out here, or see where this cave goes. Although I'd be up for killing that fucking thing, ill leave this decision up to you."

Cass' eyebrow quirked at his concession. They were as good as equals as far as she was concerned, and she balked at the idea of making another decision that might go south. Obviously, she'd failed as a captain, losing all but Krah from the shipload of men, and then their small skiff of survivors. It was fair of him to ask her opinion. If she felt out of water here, he must feel even more off-keel as a human mordecai unable to use his gift on magical creatures. Heck, she was nearly certain that the lizard and leech beasts she could still hear scratching at the crack behind them weren't magical in the least. They were just uncanny, and terrible.

"There weren't many options out there, if I remember." She squinted her eyes in the darkness of the cave. "Fuck!" She released a frustrated growl, "They're useless, that's what they are. They send ONE scout out to retrieve us. One! Whoever's in charge is a completely useless empty skull."

She turned her head to look back at Krah, barely making out his form in the darkness. "Onwards, then? Keep headed in this direction until they fetch us or we get eaten."

The walls of the cave were becoming slimey underneath her hands, and the smell of seaweed became pungent. Soon she was up to her waist in water, tangles of seaweed around her legs. Gods only knew what was in the waters!

Krah wasn't a fan of these waters as well, but for now, it was all they could do.
"Ugh, this water smells worse than whore's piss," he grimaced, but kneed away a particularly large, slimy batch of sea weed. But the second he did, three bubble like eyes popped open, but what startled the large man the most were when the mouth opened- splitting the frothy form in half and hissing.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" He leaped back as the thing jerked in the waters, zagging forward and biting at his wrists. Were his arms not guarded by his thick gloves, those needle like teeth would have torn easily into his muscled flesh. That didn't stop him from swearing, then punching the thing square across it's face, which only seemed to irritate the sucker and spread out it's body like an ooze. Even it's eyes got stretched, but it's teeth- which appeared to be the most solid part of it, continued to naw at his gloves, beginning to shred the leather.

Cass was squinting as she tried to make out her surroundings in the darkness. Her thighs screamed with the effort of slogging through the water and seaweed, unable to move as gracefully through the water as she would in open water. No, marsh people would most likely do well in this, not an undine. Not to mention her magic seeming to be minuscule in comparison with the magic around her. The price of being a halfling.

At Krah's comment she laughed, shaking her head. At least the man could be depended upon to supply vulgar commentary. Despite herself, she found herself grateful to have him along. He'd had her back on multiple occasions now, though she wasn't sold on his motives. Most likely he'd done it because he'd need her to find his way back to the mainland. Now he couldn't possibly know whether or not he'd need to use her when and if they faced the court of the water fae.

Traveling in silence didn't bother her, but something made her want to get to know her travel companion a bit more. Well, he wasn't quite a companion as much as they were travel acquaintances by circumstance... Though what had transpired back at the beach was something a little more than what acquaintances might share between them. Mentally she kicked herself for that decision. Instead she favored a mutter, "At least you're not traveling in a damn dress..."

She was cut off as the piercing screech of some unseen creature, followed by the screaming of Krah and the shredding sound of teeth, bit into the darkness. Turning about face, Cass lunged towards the sounds only to have her legs absorbed into the gelatinous body of the beast as it expanded out. The chewing and yelling continued, and she hoped it wasn't tearing into his skin.

All she could think to do was hope the thing was like a jellyfish or some other beast that had a nervous system she could rip out. It obviously didn't have anything as solid as bone except for its teeth, which were currently preoccupied with tearing into Krah. Grunting with the effort, she freed her hand and took her dagger, plunging in into the creature until she was in up to her elbows in the goo. She wouldn't have known she had struck anything if the beast didn't suddenly start oozing a glowing substance, giving a bit of light to the darkness.

The goo, to her chagrin and great irritation, burnt like acid. Screaming out, she tore her arms from its body, doing as much damage with the dagger as she did. The creature, wounded but not dead, seemed to decide that the effort to eat them was not worth the fight and it took off away into the darkness, leaving a slowly disappearing glowing trail in its wake. Cass was moaning with the pain, her arms glowing and on fire with the pain. She stumbled until she hit the wall in the cave, bending over and scrubbing at her arms furiously in the nasty water, tears streaming down her face as she cried out. The skin beneath the goo was red and irritated, throbbing. As the last of the goo came off, she remained bent over, panting heavily. Her arms still burned, but it didn't feel like her flesh was being eaten away anymore.

Without looking up to see if she could find him, she called out, "Krah..." She used his name for the first time instead of one of her many colorful nicknames for him. "You alright?"

She wasn't the only one swearing over what had come to pass. The damned thing realized the leather gauntlet wasn't flesh, and had effectively moved to his arm, chewing into it real good as hot blood stained his arm and the waters around him. He was quickly tearing off his shirt, binding it around his arm furiously and gritting his own teeth and keeping back any tears that the pain elicited since the bite had been so deep- he had seen his own bone. Thankfully it was a wound, he hoped, that would heal with time- and nothing had been broken save for the creatures body as it squealed away.

He let the damn thing go, glad he didn't feel any surgance of poison burning his blood before looking out into the darkness towards the glowing trail, then towards Cass's voice.

"Fucking arms shredded, but never been better. Come on. Let's get the fuck out of here incase that damn gelatinous ball with teeth has a bigger, nastier brother."

Cass swallowed heavily before pushing herself off the wall and back in the direction they had been heading. "It burnt the skin of my arms real good... So a heads up next jelly ball we hit, don't let that glowing shit touch your skin." Despite her leg muscles screaming at the effort, Cass pushed herself into double time.

When her feet hit solid ground instead of mud she stumbled, falling forward onto her hands and cursing up a storm. Soon they were out of the water entirely, and up ahead she saw the opening of the cave. "Thank the seas, that was a bitch to get through!" Striding across towards the opening, she paused at it and looked out across a vast expanse of marshes in the fog.

The moment she breathed in the fog, though, her throat felt harsh. Coughing violently, she bent over, but a wave of drowsiness swept over her as she hit the ground of the cave, passed out.

~*~*~*~*~
((OC: I figure there might be some creature or something, or a witch. Feel free to make up the next challenge!))

Krah was moving behind her with no finesse, so when she fell, he more or less toppled over her form. He managed to catch himself on the side of the wall, but not before seeing the fog, then seeing Cass pass out. His face scrunched into surprise, and as he looked up into the fog- he saw the large face of a massive white dragon, before the mist rolled over his form- pillowing into the cave
and his world went to white.

Cass came to not being able to move or feel her body too well, but she found she had motivation when she realized just exactly where her face was laying. Her cheek was pressed flush against Krah's junk, staring at his inner thigh. All she could think was thank the gods he'd bathed, because the foulness of the caves was bad enough on its own on his clothes. Slowly untangling herself from him because she was somehow trapped beneath one of his thick, and fucking heavy, legs, she found herself staring into the hollow eyes of a skull.

Her dark blue eyes traveled a bit further to where fog was billowing out, finding herself looking at a snoozing white dragon. There were skeletons strewn about the rocky ground, and she couldn't tell if they were on a mountain or just some miserably rocky place. Not wanting to wake the dragon, Cass slowly stood. The dress she wore was now just a series of wet rags clinging to her skin, and she was thankful for her undergarments.

Trying to appraise the situation quickly, she proceeded to straddle Krah's chest. Pressing her hand flush against his mouth, she leaned down next to his ear to speak into it. "Hey, Sharkbait. We're in a bit of a bind. Need you to wake up pronto."

Krah simply groaned, shoving her aside roughly- which reminded him both of his hands had been tore up good.
"Fuck!" He opened one eye to look at her, then peered around. "What the fucking hell.."
Then he saw the dragon, and nearly swallowed his words. Choking, it was hard to suppress his cough as he looked at her.

"Couldn't you wait until I was awake to have a fucking orgy with me and a dragon?" he growled, half jesting but also laced with a lot of irritation.

"So what have you gotten us into this time?"
Clearly it was her fault.

Cass worked with his shove, catching herself on her hands and knees as he carried on. She saw him the moment his eyes caught on the dragon, and when he resumed his mini-tirade she shoved her palm hard against his mouth. His talking had stirred the dragon slightly, and the ground beneath them trembled as the dragon grumbled.

When it did not immediately move, she took her hand away, glaring at him as she hissed under breath, "Do you not know how to keep your blasted trap shut in any fucking situation?" If the situation wasn't so tense, she might have lit into him further. Gods, the man was infuriating. They were somehow back to him being a full-on asshole. Figures he'd revert back when he didn't have a chance to get between her legs.

Fine. She'd figure the situation out on her own. That loud-mouthed, good-for-nothing, cocky piss ant could work it out on his own. Maybe she'd even use him as a decoy if it came down to it. Shoving herself to stand up and muttering under her breath, "Sharkbait oughtta become Dragonbait for all I care", she took another look around, squinting through the billows of fog the beast was sending out.

Fog was the sailors nightmare. Out on the ocean entire ships had been known to go into a fog and become lost forever. She'd witnessed deckhands to captains lose their minds in a bad enough fog, and she wondered wryly if fog beasts like this dragon flew the skies. Sounded pretty folkloric, but it just might be true. If she moved off without Krah now, they would likely not be reunited. She'd get lost to him in the fog pretty quickly. And who knows if the fae court cared at all about gathering Krah up?

Taking a few tentative steps in one direction, she closed her eyes and tried to use the water particles in the fog as navigational pulls. She could at least sense a river looping close by.

While she could sense water, all Krah could do was test the grounds with his boots. He was being as cautious as a man like him could when he nearly misstepped out of the fog and... apparently, almost plummeted off some sort of a cliff. The fog had cleared just enough for him to realize that-
Well that, and the pebbles that broke free from the rock face clattered into oblivion.

"Well, seems this way is bust," he said, turning around and trying to see if there was any other evidence of sudden 'falls'.

"I think the thicker fog we may want to avoid," he went on, and noticing she was nearing a particular spot, he snagged her by the collar of her shirt, just as a few loose pebbles fell off this opposing cliff face.

"Seems the dragon took us to a nice, highly perched nest," he said through gritted teeth.

Unsteady as she normally was on her feet on land, Cass stumbled back a bit more than might be expected. Falling back against Krah, she let out a soft, surprised "Ummph." Feeling cautious, she gripped his bicep as she leaned forward to take a look at the drop. Her heart dropped into her stomach and she swallowed heavily, turning back away from the drop. Internally, though, she was screaming... This was definitely the highest up on land she had ever been in her entire life... Sure, she'd probably ridden swells the height of this cliff on the ocean, but that was on the ocean, on water, on her turf. There was no reason for her to be afraid of the water!

This was not the best moment to discover she had a slight fear of heights, though her fingers still gripping his bicep tightly probably betrayed her. She swallowed again, pulling herself together long enough to realize she still had a death grip on Krah. Jerking her hand back, she lightly coughed and turned away from him as if surveying her surroundings. Internally she was thinking, "Did he notice? Oh Krah, I swear on the seven seas that if you so much as breath a word about this..."

She spoke quickly, before he could perhaps comment on her brief moment of weakness. "Right. Right. Ok." She looked over the edge. There. Waaay down there was where the river was. "Options? I've got climb down or learn how to fly a bloody dragon."

He quirked a brow at her and then peered over at the dragon.
"Think he'd yield after a few punches to his head?" he ask, though it was hard to tell if he was being serious, or if the suggestion were in jest.

Cass rolled her eyes at him, peering over the edge nervously from a distance. It was a long way down. Perhaps she could have used the water of the river, tempted it to rise... But not to this height. Her powers were not that impressive.

Turning a harsh look back at him, she asked in irritation, "Is that really your solution to everything?" What else were they supposed to do? The best case scenario was that she could perhaps use her undine voice to sing it into some level of calmness, but that was not part of her gift that she harnessed frequently. And who knew how strong this creatures magic was?

It was then something rumbled, shaking the ground lightly as Krah's eyes shot over to the white dragon and as he stared at it, and the way it's body shook, he could have sworn the thing were smiling.

"A solution that would surely get you eaten," the dragon replied, turning to the pair as it raised it's sleepy head and gave a powerful yawn, one that created quite a strong wind, nothing short to compare to a gust, that rolled over the pair before it. He licked his lips. "And you both seem like you'd give my stomach some problems." And the dragon did a second yawn before shaking it's head, white ears flopping akin to that of a dog's. "You should considered yourselves lucky I didn't eat you, but your kind are not my preferred snack."

Cass turned quickly towards the dragon, her hand darting to her weapon. Her grip tightened as she struggled to keep her feet underneath her as the dragon breathed out at them. No, the dragon hadn't eaten them...

"Are we supposed to thank you?" Cass bit out, feeling the tension of her fear of heights cloying as it suffocated her nerves. Adjusting her attitude a bit, she continued, "And why have you caught us, if not for a snack later on in the day?"

At this the beast gave a rumbling, guttural sound like a laugh, the ground shaking beneath them. "You certainly do not have the charms of your mother's kind, Cassia the Halfling. Nor the power, in your young age." The beast picked at one of its sharp teeth with its claw lazily. "You would not have made it to court had I not been there to pluck you from the gnashing teeth of creatures who do find your kind delicious." The dragon turned its eyes to Krah. "And your business, Mordecai..."

"My business?" Krah snorted a laugh. "To fuck her, what else you think?"

The dragon seemed amused by this and chuckled a soft purr before nodding it's large head.
"An honest thug, I see?" he inquired, looking back to Cass.

"The hired muscle, if you would," Krah corrected, and feigned a little bow like all the sissy royals did.

And the dragon simply smiled, it's long, tufted tail swishing lightly behind him.

"So he's here for the same reason you are? An interesting mistake," the dragon mused.

Cass felt an angry blush redden her cheeks at Krah's response, fighting down a seething scowl and biting down a nasty response. Krah had sucked her into this mess as much as she had sucked him into it. Krah with his ignorance of his client's business, and she with her longstanding curse.

"Hired, yeah? Who the fuck is gonna pay you now? Your man is likely being shredded by harpies or eaten by sea beasts at the moment. Or starving 'cause he's too dumb to start a fire and the meat tastes 'funny.'" She blew air through her nose in an almost-laugh at the thought, turning to the dragon. "The same reason? I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean by that, dragon. But unlikely. Now you wanna tell me exactly what your 'business' is?"

The dragon was very amused by this, and it showed in his eyes.
"I'm just here to ensure you don't get eaten," the beast chuckled. "And to act as your escort, of course."

Cass joked rather morbidly, "At least you're less likely to be eaten than our last escort." She tried to comfort herself with the cold belief of karma... Dax had sold her out, had set her up to become little more than a slave set up for the slaughter. He'd deserved his untimely demise. At least, that was what she was telling herself to keep the guilt and sorrow at bay.

The dragon released a puff of smoky air in reply. "Yes. Rather unfortunate, but expected."

Cass glared at the dragon. Expected? It had been quite some time since she'd been amongst their kind, and the frivolous cruelty was yet again unfamiliar. Pursing her lips, Cass crossed her arms. "Escort away, then." She wondered what Krah thought of the whole ordeal, but as always, he'd been nothing short of an asshole. Surely there must be more to the man than cock and grunt work.

"Escorting requires a bit more class than walking around seeking trouble. I assume neither of you are against taking to the skies?" the dragon asked, cocking up one eye brow and ear.

Krah cracked his neck and stood closer.
"You aimin' to fly us there?" his grin and sneer grew more playful. "Can't say the skies would bother me." He turned to Cass, his grin more cocky. "Sounds fun, don't you think? Although.." he went on with a roll of his shoulders, "How long is the ride and do you care if we have a fuck on your back when you do fly?"

And at that, the dragon couldn't help but laugh enough to shake the ground.

"If you can achieve it, then so be it!" And he lowered his head down so it was flat on the ground, grinning broadly with his teeth as he looked to Cass.

Cass felt a cold sweat begin to prickle at her skin in fear... If she was terrified of being up on this mountain, how would she feel to be moving at such a great height? And the notion of fucking while up that high? She could genuinely not think of a time she would be less turned on.  Setting her jaw, she shoved past Krah to mount the dragon. Might as well get it over with. "Fun. Right."

At least his suggestion irked her enough to get her mind off of the looming flight they were about to take. There was no way she was looking forward to that. "Sure, we might as well roast a fuckin' pig and throw a fancy feast while we're at it, too. Perhaps do a bit of dancing beforehand. Drink a barrel of mead. Do some flips. Have a fight! I'm sure those are plausible things to do in flight!" Her hands were already white-knuckled as she gripped onto the dragon. Did Krah know how freaked out she was? Was that why he was suggesting they have a fuck? Or was he just being his normal dense and persistent self? As if he needed an excuse to try and get in her pants.

"What, are my lady bits some quest to be conquered? Do you expect to find gold down there?" She continued her rant, something she always did when she felt anxious... It wasn't terribly often, but fear made her somewhat ranty.

The dense part was definitely the right answer, however, as her rant continued, even he knew it was a bit strange. He took a moment to study her body beyond his sexual desires and smirked. Was she scared? Either she had something to hide, or their destination was something she wanted to delay. She had mentioned some of her history here, not that he took it all in and commited it to memory. Even still, seeing her so... riled up was, as any one could guess it, a turn on.

"All of that sounds good to me," he went on, patting her on the shoulder before strolling past her and towards the beast. He moved to climb up onto it's thick, furred neck before turning back to Cass. "But I at least want the sex, or a blow job." And with that, he flashed his teeth at her before climbing up the neck and onto the dragon's back with ease. Injuries aside, he made it appear as if there hadn't been any fights or rough pathces in their journey at all.

Cass, who normally moved on unsteady surfaces with confident ease, was decidedly cautious in her movements on top of the dragon. She could stumble and then roll off the lip of the mountain. Krah's blase attitude irked her, spurring on her efforts to prove she could overcome her fear of heights. Was she afraid of the scene they would find at court? No. Was she afraid of plummeting far, far down and being reduced to nothing less than a flapjack of guts, blood, and bones? Yes. Yes, she was.

She muttered to herself under her breath, unable to pay attention to what Krah was saying as the dragon straightened up and began to amble towards the edge of the mountain, "Fuck. Fuck... Fucking, fuck, shit..." Her voice grew louder as she realized what the dragon had in mind. "Oh, no. NO! Fuck. No! You piece of..."

The dragon took one step and pitched itself off the cliff, and they plummeted quickly before the wind caught in the beast's wings. Cass pressed herself close to the dragon's neck, legs and thighs screaming from the effort of clinging on, her hands clenching great patches of fur and the skin beneath. Even when the dragon's flight evened out and he was on a plane, Cass still did not find it in herself to untangle herself or open her eyes. Gods, this was terrible! She was positively furious with the whole situation. With the dragon, with Krah and his smug confidence, with herself for being so weak as to fear heights. It wasn't even that she minded the thought of death! But being smashed against the rocks below was the last way she wanted to die.

~*~*~*~
((Your description of the dragon reminds me of the flying dog-beast thing from the Neverending Story!))

If Krah had been ignorant to her fears, he was most certainly awake to them now. Though he himself felt his stomach rise near to his throat as the massive beast dropped and took off in a heavy glide; he was more amazed than scared pisslessly as he gave a whooping holler that echoed over the rush of air.

Collecting himself to see how Cass leaned into the dragon, making herself seem so small, he by no means ignored this opportunity and leaned forward himself, wrapping strong arms around her and pressing his strong, warm body into her back.

"Winds that bad, ain't they?" came his gruff voice in her ear. Though it was hard to talk, with fierce winds threatening to have him eat each word, he was certain the woman beneath him would be flustered, but hopefully, also thankful for some semblance of wit in her moment of despair. He did, after all, enjoy having her show any signs of weakness. He had been looking for any crack in her hard exterior, desiring beyond reason to conquer this strong woman beneath him. And he wanted it so much, he was able to utilize whatever fear into flirtatious strength. He was telling himself he'd walk through hell just to bang her, and there was nothing more to it than that. This was just another step on his road to conquering this sexy warrioress.

A small part of her was thankful for his body, hard and strong as it pressed against her back. A small part. He'd fly off of the beast first... Or if he lost his grip, his weight could drag them both off of the dragon.

She gritted her teeth, the strong muscles in her abdomen tensing even further against his arms. "I'm. Fine," she ground out, "I'm... FUCK!" This she hollered as the dragon pitched up, scaling a mountain beneath it as it sought to clear it. Cass felt her bottom sliding back, and this time she was actually grateful for Krah as his body stopped her. The asshole was probably getting hard because of this, but she was feeling lightheaded with fear. Her fingers twisted deeper into the dragon's fur as she pressed the side of her face against it's neck and closed her eyes tight.

"I'm going... Going to kill this bloody flying shit... Kill it..." Her stomach clenched again, and she pressed herself into Krah.

"Oh?" She'd feel his belly laugh. "And how to you aim to achieve that?" He looked over at the dragon's head. "Want me to punch his skull from the sky?"

She actually laughed herself, picturing again his "tactful" method of dealing with any sort of trouble. "No. No, wait until we're back on solid ground, and then maybe punch him in the head."

That elicited a large smile she'd surely feel.
"If that's what the lady wishes," came a lusty, guttural growl. His chin was as rough as his beard as he leaned into her shoulder. "I'd conquer the seven earths for you." And his hand began to find it's way up her thigh.

"Oh, how romantic of you." Cass laughed again, doubting how believable his offer was. "I'm sure you'd risk your own ass for some tail." Somehow she found herself not as fearful as before, relaxing enough to converse with him as they made their way across the skies.

She risked it enough to open her eyes, cussing as she turned her head... Back against Krah's shoulder. Fuck it. She could deal with the repercussions of her fear once they made it back to solid ground. She pressed her forehead against his muscular shoulder, laughing as she spoke. "If you tell anyone about this, I'll make sure you never have the chance to conquer anything for anyone again, ever." She really was relishing in the safety of his hold now, thankful for the security his body provided her... Though she wasn't prepared to admit any of that to Krah. Surely he had prepared that line he'd just fed her for many women before her.

He couldn't stop grinning. With this strong woman so close to him... she'd likely feel just why he was grinning. And if she didn't....

"You sure you ain't up for a fuck?"

"Sharkbait..." She growled out, feeling how eager he really was to fulfill his suggestion. "If you so much as try it while we're up here, I will break you again." She could not have been less turned on if she had tried. Something about fear seemed to dry her right up, though she knew he was trying to play on her vulnerability.

Still, she didn't shove him off, telling herself that he could potentially drag her off with him.

"I'd call your bluff if it were one. At least I know I'm safe up here," he whispered into her ear with a smile.

The action was unnervingly intimate, the feel of his hit breath against her ear. Cass took a risk and opened her eyes, exhaling forcefully as she looked down at the land quickly passing fathoms beneath them... Well, that would be how she would measure the depth of water, but this was air. The thin element that would not catch her if they were to fall.

Her eyes did not stay open long as the dragon began plummeting rapidly towards the earth beneath them. Why the hell did the beast have to go about flying so dramatically?! There was little remaining pretense that she was not terrified, her chest heaving as she screwed her eyes shut. One of her hands shot out to grab a hold of Krah's thigh, her grip powerful and bruising.

Cass still felt light headed when they finally landed in a sandy courtyard, so when she rushed to extricate herself from Krah and the dragon she found herself stumbling forward like an idiot. Black hair sticking out haphazardly from her braid, Cass just barely prevented herself from falling as her hand struck out to lean against a beautiful mosaic column made of thousands of pieces of blue glass. She was trembling like some fucking dainty girl about to faint! Pressing her forehead against the column, one palm open and one fisted to either side of her head, she struggled to regain her composure.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
((OOC: Feel free to have whatever happen that you want with the dragon or fae court or the like! It's sort of Cass' world, but I don't want to steal the entire show! ;P))

It was hard to tell when they were in the land of the fae, if there was music playing, or if the thousands of fountains that gushed from the walls and glass-like statues littering the grounds were making the noise. Perhaps it was both.

Charms hung from magically lit candles, and soft jasmine mixed with ocean salts wafted through the air. Shells curled and made up massive columns inside this building that held an open ceiling where the dragon had dove in for its landing. And along the ground, the floor seemed to ripple and move like frozen water- only it was anything but glass or ice.

The colorful scenery all around them distracted the brute momentarily before he himself felt his own wobbly legs nearly give out. But he caught himself beside Cass as he was panting himself and leaned in real close to her and said, "Flying's quite the rush."

Cass turned her face towards his as he joined her, and a relieved smile spread across her lips. An exhalation of breath, almost a laugh, escaped from her. "I'll stick to the seas."

The smallest noise from behind them had Cass wheeling around, grabbing for her dagger where it was no longer. She must have lost it somewhere along the way- it wasn't as if the remaining rags of her dress would have provided the best safe holding. Standing in an archway covered in living sea things, barnacles, clams, starfish, was a beautiful nymph woman gesturing with her sweeping arm that they should follow.

They were led down an open hallway, the stream beneath them visible through the transparent floor. They ducked through hanging curtains, gauzy and soft to the touch, until they arrived in a large banquet hall. The ceiling was easily several stories high, ornate figures and scenes shifting across its great domed expanse. And beneath their feet they walked on a floor of the stars, the night sky and the universe sparkling underneath them.

At the far end of the hall was a raised platform, where a group of the sea gods sat to either side of them was the royal couple, a couple so beautiful as would pain the mortal eye. Even as half-Undine, Cass had to avert her eyes slightly. Looking at the pair of them was like looking straight into the sun, or into the darkest depths of the universe.

All around them stood the sea fae, all manner of creatures and races together in the place. Those with tails or fins seemed capable of swimming through the air like they would through water, and settled behind the king and queen was the dragon that had fetched them. As they stepped over the threshold and into hall, both Cass and Krah would find themselves clean and freshly attired. Cass now wore the outfit of a battle maiden, the gray blues accented with gold to compliment her tan skin. Her black hair hung loose and long in tendrils down her strong back, tiny braids hung with shells strewn throughout. Her mouth quirked at the gesture- the fae really did have a distaste for the poorly groomed.

Out of all the things they had encountered, other worldly and ancient, it was the sudden fresh linens fit to his body, and the very clean feeling of his skin and hair. Even his wild scruff of a beard was tamed as he raked a hand over it and then glanced over to Cass.

Oh, her ass looked pretty good in her new attire, but something about this just itched at being wrong. As a mordecai, he encountered powers unlike that of the fae here, and he wouldn't fully admit it, but he was a bit miffed his ability to neutralize this sort of magic was useless.

He gave a roll of his shoulders and peered his dark eyes over at the dragon, and found himself raising a hand, like he were shielding the sun, while he studied the pretty pair on the aquatic themed throne. And as he continued to look around, he snorted.

"Where are the real men and the heavy breasted wenches?"
It seemed even the men here were so beautiful, but the women were too elongated and skinny for his liking. He wasn't sure what he'd do with sticks like them. So his eyes returned to their appreciating view of his voluptuous companion.

Cass unintentionally mimicked Krah, rolling her shoulders back so she stood a little straighter. Her human blood certainly made a difference in how she compared to the fae women all around. A smirk lit her lips at his comment as she replied to him. "Fae folk aren't made very sturdy..." Uncomfortably she added, "They don't need to be."

Even though the beautiful men and women- more like males and females and things in between or apart- looked as if they were easily breakable, that was hardly the case. These were creatures of great power, capable of great and terrible feats. Most of them immortal, though they had a weakness for silver. It was hard to kill them unless you were one of them, and even the weakest among them likely had more magic in their pinky fingers than she'd ever manage. Leaning close to Krah again, she spoke under her breath though she was certain their sharp ears would pick up her voice, "And this... This is the fae court. Only the strongest and most powerful among the fae are invited to attend. Well, unless you're like us, and are 'invited' to a trial of some kind. I imagine that's what we're here for."

As they approached the dias where the gods and king and queen sat, Cass' eyes scanned the crowd for familiar faces. There were a few, but one was absent that she had been banking on for some support... The face of her mother. While Cass did not have the strongest relationship with her fae mother, she had hoped she would be present to offer some type of aid. Even some advice would have been welcome at this point.

They reached the dias, and the servant woman gestured for them to bow. Cass snorted and looked down on the woman, shaking her head and crossing her arms. "I owe no fealty to the fae. I am un-af-fil-iat-ed."

"I guess they're all okay lookin' like girls," he went on, cracking his neck. "Not my cup of tea."
He went on to listen to Cass's explanation of things, and he couldn't say he was surprised those presented here would be considered the strongest fae. Every fairy tale ever depicted the damn fae as flowery girls-
They did not disappoint. However, he arched a brow at the suggestion of a trial.

"They going to give us lashings for having a back bone?" he could have laughed, and though he didn't his eyes did. And then when the servant went on to gesture for them to bow, Krah's grin grew smug as he folded his arms across his broad chest.
"And I'm just along for the ride and to make her look pretty."

The court announcer blew into a conch shell, the sound reverberating throughout the hall and silencing any side-chatter, "Half-breed Cassia Vann of the Apsara tribe, daughter of Marella of the Undine race, and Krah Mordeth, Mordecai of Connlaoth." All eyes turned to Krah and Cass, Cass rolling her eyes at the lengthy title they had chosen to bequeath her on this particular occasion. At least they had decided to leave any "filthies" or "abominations" out of their speech, or any human hate speech. Half-breeds were often thought to be abhorrent.

The Queen spoke first. They were, in fact, among a matriarchal and matrilineal society. It was to Cass' benefit that she was half-fae on her mother's side, and not her father's. It gave her a bit more credibility. The Queen's voice was bored as she motioned forward the minor sea god, "The minor god Kataigida, god of sea squalls." Her eyes were like the insides of a beautiful shell, mutlicolored and gleaming, as they turned towards Cass, "Is this not the cursed half-breed, who is paying for the transgressions of her mother, your concubine Marella?"

Kataigida moved forward, his rage evident through the tumultuous storms undulating beneath his skin. "She is indeed, though Marella gave her a vial to allow her to step onto land."

The Queen nodded towards one of her attendants who came forth, and without warning grabbed the necklace around Cass' neck and tore it harshly from her neck. The absence of the protective magic brought on the accumulative pain of her years of venturing mere steps onto land, and she dropped to her knees, gasping and coughing violently as she clutched her throat. Blood speckled out from her mouth, and Cass fought through it to shove herself back to her feet. Glaring, one hand at her throat, she spat the blood out at the feet of the sea god and the Queen. A collective gasp ran throughout the crowd of fae, "FUCK you, and all your fuckin' cruel laws. Wasn't my fault my mother fucked my father, now was it?" She reached forward and grabbed hold of the attendant who had taken the vial, ripping down on his hair so he was bent before her.

Before she could do any further damage the queen tutted, actually standing up. She held in her hand the vial. Cass cursed violently and shoved the frightened attendant away, who fell upon the ground and scrambled to go hide beside the other attendants. As Cass wiped the blood away from her mouth with the back of her hand, coughing intermittently, the Queen smiled down upon them. "Yes, perhaps you are correct. But have you not earned the curse now, by aiding the thieves who stole the god sphere of the God Kataigida?" The queen turned now towards Krah, "Though I am curious as to how humans were able to steal the sphere from a god. Can you enlighten me, Krah Mordeth?"

Seeing Cass being stripped down so easily didn't have him fearful, but certainly more angry. If anything irritated him it was the arrogance of others, or at least others who felt they deserved any such real powers of him. But he let Cass deal with this on her own. It was her fight, not his, and no eyes or accusations fell to him.

That was until he was the next one addressed.

"If you mean you're looking for a good wild, lay, yeah, I can fuck you. Just like how most of my kind has fucked yours over the past countless number of years." His grin grew, but it wasn't friendly.
"Perhaps you should pull your heads out of your asses and do some real work on the matter."
After all, he knew about as much as they did on this orb- and he still could care less about it.

The queen's facial expression did not change, void of expression as used Krah's outburst as a natural segue into their verdict. She addressed the crowd. "I find the mortal mordecai Krah Mordeth guilty of the thievery of the sea god Kataigida's god sphere. I find the half-breed Cassia Vann of the Apsara tribe guilty of betraying the fae kind by aiding in the stealing of the sea god Kataigida's god sphere, and of breaking the terms of her curse by carrying a magical vial which allowed her access to land."

"To atone for their transgressions, both will be given a trial. They shall be sent to the furthest outreach of our kingdom to fetch an item of interest. The silver ring of the infamous pirate Ajax," a collective gasp rang throughout the crowds, and a cool smile finally broke the queen's monotone expression, "One of the very rare rings which allow mortals to enter this realm, rings we fae cannot touch. The very same ring that allowed the mortal Ajax to enter our kingdom and slaughter our kind, which has been unattainable to us even after his death."

She returned her gaze to Cass and Krah, the queen addressed them, "Being born of mortal blood shall allow you to complete the trial. You shall have one moon cycle to complete the task, should you choose it. Your other options are to serve as slaves to the god Kataigida for 17 years time in our world." The corner of her mouth curled into a smirk, "As you know, time outside of our realm passes unpredictably."

"And on our delivery? What then?" Cass' breathing had returned to normal, having taken the time as the queen spoke to clean the blood from her face. A tactic she had used to try to mask her growing displeasure with the queen's speech.

"You, Cassia Vann, shall have your vial returned as a punishment for the sea god Kataigida for his pitiful failure in allowing mortals to steal his god's sphere. You shall also be free to leave or remain in our realm." The queen then turned towards Krah, "As for you, mortal man, you shall be given the gift of your life and returned to the mortal realm."

"So what is it you choose?"

Cass crossed her arms, lifting her chin obstinately. "I'll take your bloody quest."

Was it strange he actually was smiling at his sentence? It was perhaps just as well, he had held his tongue, but his eyes told a thousand fold what his lips did not. He was a cocky bastard if anything, and he couldn't say he was surprised to get tangled up in this sort of an affair. In fact, was it sadistic of him to have actually fantasized about such a thing?

Perhaps he should have felt honored to be given such a trial, and also lucky to be given a chance to survive it at all. But even being as ignorant as he was, he knew about Ajax the pirate, and his pissant legend and how he slaughtered tens- No... thousands of the magical kind.

Was it planned they chose such a mission? Ajax was a famous mordecai murderer in his own right, one sailors and wenches sang songs about, both in land and out. He was even hailed so far up as Hyoite, in the few villages he had traveled to in his youth.

But yes, his smile was dark as he grinned at the queen, and at Cass's acceptance, he simply bent forward to bow towards the queen.

"I'll take the quest, too." His grin grew darker. "So long as it is bloody."

After their sentence, Cass and Krah had been escorted through the crowds and their thinning gossip. Cass watched as the pixies and nymphs stared openly at Krah, giggling behind their hands and batting their eyelashes. Some went so far as to reach out to brush their fingertips against him in admiration... Now that he might become a hero of circumstance it was clear that the women of the fae were allowing themselves to express their intense curiosity in the mortal man. Many here had never left the fae realm, had never seen the strength of body mortal men had. And, begrudgingly, Cass could understand their fascination. Krah was a perfect specimen of manliness, especially in comparison with the men of the fae.

Her own father, it was rumored, had been as impressive in presence as Krah, though she did not think her father had been any kind of warrior. It was the reason her mother had fallen in love with him, so impressed was she by his powerful body as he conquered the oceans with no need of magic.

Cass rolled her eyes as a few girls followed in a flock behind them through the halls, giggling. One broke away from the others, dancing forward dressed in flowing silver silks. Her lavender hair rippled down to the small of her back, her blue eyes sparkling as she took a sensual drink from a small glass. The young woman was lithe and seamless in her actions, draping a scarf of silk around Krah's neck and pulling him forward to press her lips against his to force the liquid down his throat. The motion was swift, the girl dancing away, her voice like tiny bells, "Some help for the warrior..."

Cass prepared to ask the girl what exactly she had given Krah, but she was cut off when another one of the girls flitted forward, more shy than the first. Cass looked down on the smaller woman, her eyes opening wide in shock as the girl pulled her forward into a kiss as well. Her eyes closed as the liquid slipped, cool and soothing down her throat. Instinctively her hand reached out to intertwine in the fae woman's hair, pressing her mouth against the soft lips to take in more of the drink. The girl slipped from her arms, giggling and blushing as Cass stood still, feeling invigorated and strangely aroused. Cass brought her fingertips to her lips, her entire body healed and rested. The girl craned up on her tiptoes, whispering into her ear, "The goddess of love gives you this gift, and wishes you to know your mother is alive and well."

The girl slipped away from her, returning to her friends before they fled away. Cass watched them, still feeling the odd tingling in her chest. When she turned to look at Krah, the fluttering in her chest picked up in pace. Pounding gently on her chest, she tried to dispel the feeling as their guide led them to their rooms. Her head felt in a loving daze from the potion, and she sighed as she fell back on the large white bed in one of the rooms and gazed up at the glass ceiling. Beyond it was water, schools of glittering and fantastical sea creatures and fish swimming overhead.

Any glory behind their hunt of Ajax and his treasure were easily uplifted by the bubbling, succulent kiss of the fae. Though impressed by its potency, and the boldness of their kind, Krah gave the purple haired fae a rugged, 'hope I'm getting lucky' grin. But she was gone before he even had a chance to tell her she should finish what she started, but when he turned around and saw Cass. He couldn't stop looking at Cass.

And though he was lead to his own room, he couldn't sit still, and had a raging hard on-
For many and various reasons. Too anxious, too excited to sit still, Cass would soon find herself no longer alone as he opened the door and didn't bother to shut it as he told her,

"We need to fuck." And he crossed the room to do just that, grabbing the woman by her wrist into his strong arms and smashing his lips powerful against hers,a nd pressing his body as closely as he could as he told her through a heated breath, "We need to fuck now."

Cass sat up quickly when she heard her door open, eyes widening as Krah crossed the room and grabbed her up into his arms. Despite all of her previous protestations, Cass could not deny her intense attraction to the man. Could not deny how much she had been wanting, no needing, to feel him against her since she had first allowed him a taste when they had come to this world. That, and whatever liquid was coursing through her, combined to make it impossible for her to summon enough internal resistance to refuse his advances.

A hungry moan escaped her throat as she pressed her lips hard against his, smothering his words as he demanded that they fuck for the second time. She assumed it was enough of an answer for him. She pulled her wrist from his grasp and threaded the fingers of her strong hands into his hair aggressively, pulling his mouth harder against her own as she pressed herself into him. Without breaking contact, Cass grabbed his belt and pulled him to the bed by it until the backs of her knees hit the bed. Jerking his belt, she easily had it open before she was untucking his shirt with the skill of a woman used to man-handling men. She was animalistic and almost predatory in her need for him, the build up of sexual tension from the weeks they had spent together coming to a head as she tore at his clothes, her mouth demanding as it pressed against his.

She paused only briefly to run her hands up his powerful stomach and chest, her eyes burning up at him in a challenge as she stood panting before him. "Fuck me."

He let her do all the work, his erection growing painfully hard with each tear at his clothes. And when his pants crumpled at his feet, he simply stood there, looking down into her wicked glowing eyes before both his powerful hands took her by the face as he smashed his lips against her and the next actions were like water. Hands deftly worked at removing her clothing, tearing, pulling, until his coarse strong hands were smoothing against the warm soft flesh of her thighs, then belly then gripping tight and hungry to her breasts.

And his actions were frantic, barely giving either he or her the time to breath when he picked her up roughly and pulled her legs around his waist. He was standing, one hand secure around her, his back leaning back just enough so that when his hands went to fondle across the heat of her sex it was easy for him to dip his fingers inside. And once realizing she was as hot, slick and ready to go as she could, he yanked her as close to him as he could, hand now pressed to her ass while the other dug into her back as his rock hard dick slipped all the way deep inside.

And the sound he made rumbled from deep within his chest as he growled, gnawing, kissing and pulling at her lips.
"I'm going to fuck you clear to the seven moons."

Forget the bed, he moved to throw her across the top of a shallow desk where her back could remained propped against the wall, legs still snug aroun dhim while he bucked inside her with animalistic need.

This was a man worthy of her, an equal, a challenge. Cass returned his hard kisses in kind, frustrated by the absence of his hands, his lips, when he used them to remove her clothes. She needed to feel him, her own hands strong and confident as they moved hungrily over his body, unable to get any sort of hold on his taut muscles. A growl of pleasure escaped her throat as his rough hands found her breasts, eagerly wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing herself, hot and slick, against him.

She rocked against his fingers as they found her way inside of her, her voice husky with her need, "More." She wanted more, wanted all of him, needed him to pound into her, and was satisfied when he buried himself inside of her. The feel of him stretching her, hard and hot, elicited a moan of pleasure from her throat.

She gripped the side of his neck and stared aggressively into his eyes, not breaking eye contact until she felt her back slam against the wall. Cass tossed her head back and cried out in pleasure, heady moans loudening as her nails gripped into his back and pulled him even closer to her. Her own hips responded eagerly to his, dropping her mouth to nip and suck on his neck, only to need to throw her head back in a cry of ecstacy as his cock reached deeper.

She squeezed him inside of her, wanting more, her breath hot against his ear as he slammed into her, grinning wickedly as she whispered against his ear, "Harder."

The demands were met with a grunt, then a series of more grunts as he fucked her hard, and harder still. No doubt the deep, hard thrusts might hurt, but he knew it was the sort of pleasure this indomitable woman craved. ANd he moved to heft one of her legs up higher, knuckles white as they gripped onto her hips.

The wooden desk moaned and creaked beneath them, their heaving bodies twisting and beginning to crack it at it's seams. Even the wall was being bruised, pieces of it chipping off and being rubbed raw.

And he loved it, every second his body took claim of her he was internally drooling. She was so hot, so tight, and he only need suffer a broken cock just that once to get her. His grin was wicked as his lips moved up her belly, to lace wet hot kisses across her breasts which he feasted on with need. But then he moved north, sucking on her neck and shoulder, and then trailed kisses up to her ear where he growled the words, "You're mine." And before he could stop himself, he began to gush his hot seed deep within her.


She was his. The words, the moment, it was dizzying, he felt drunk; and just as he was nearly finished emptying his load inside of her, the desk broke. Reflexes had him catching her as the desk fell into shambles. But he didn't stop there. Hands felt up her body, smoothing across skin, hungrily tasting every curve of her as he kept his dick inside her and began to walk her over to the bed.

Most men might be done after a little seed would come out. But not Krah. Hell, he could perhaps blame whatever genes his father had possessed because when he threw Cass onto the bed, he was unyielding as he continued to fuck her and make a deeper, messier claim. Lips locked and their bodies twisted nad he gripped her hand fiercely as he shoved his tongue into her mouth to wrestle with her own.

The sounds of his grunts, of the desk protesting as it squeaked and groaned beneath her, only spurned her need on. The sweet, delicious pain she felt as he forced himself deeper and harder into her had her crying out in pleasure, her lips curving into a grin and then opening wide in pleasurable pain as she released a sharp gasp.

She couldn't get enough of him despite the pain his thick, hard cock gave her as he rammed into her. Her hands moved to his firm ass, digging into it with her fingers as she urged him on. Cass could feel his cock growing hotter, harder, swelling inside of her as he growled into her ear and came inside of her. Her own orgasm followed quickly as she felt his hot seed fill her up, and she cried out his name, her heels digging against him and toes curling as her hips instinctively thrust against his. She took him all, feeling herself convulse around him, taking all of his seed.

She felt dizzy and satisfied, but disappointed by the moment because most men would not continue after finishing the first time. And she was pleasantly surprised as he caught her as the desk collapsed, a pleased laugh escaping her throat as he moved her to the bed. The way he could take control of her turned her on immensely as he pinned her hand down above her head. She squirmed beneath him, muscles tightening as she pulled herself from his kiss.

She grinned wickedly and shoved a hard hand against his chest to shove him off, twisting around before getting on her knees. She gripped onto the headboard with one hand, the other one guiding his cock back into her before she rocked back into him, the headboard groaning as they picked back up again. Grinning to herself between moans, she thought with some humor that they might just break the bed, too. Fae furniture just didn't seem to handle their enthusiastic fucking.

He was thinking much the same thing as his eye lids hung down lowly and his dark eyes drank her in. To see this woman overtop of him, claiming him at her own pace had his dick quivering. Rough hands smoothed up from where they had anchored on her hips to her belly, then higher to where they hesitated not to grab firm and rough of her breasts. They were a feast for his fingers, swollen and ripe, and he used his thumbs to brush over and massage her erect nipples.

He wanted to feast on them, so plump they were that he didn't even bother to ask, just let the woman continue with her lead, his own hips responding in tune as he took all of her breast that he could clean into his mouth and sucked on it, and sucked on it hard.

Cass grabbed his wrists when he began sucking on her breasts, pinning them hard above his head as she rolled her hips back into him. She teased him at first, forcing him to slow to a deliciously sensual pace, building him up again so he was almost as hard as he had been to begin with. She wanted to make this time last, though she was determined to get more out of him now that she had finally allowed herself a taste.

With one hand pinning his wrists down, she took the other and grabbed his chin hard in her hand, laying claim to his lips. The slow pace was almost excruciating for her at this point, both a pleasure and a pain as she tried to control herself. She wanted to see him squirm, pulling his lower lip as she sat back and began to increase the rhythm of her hips, her fingers digging into his chest for leverage.

He was malleable, moving, breathing even bending to her desires. They were not unlike his own, but as he peered up at her from where she pinned his hands down, he felt a shiver course across his body as he moved his hips harder with need. But she was setting the pace, and though he kept trying to meet it with more might, he found he was being sated to lay there, groaning, growling as his tip leaked semen while eagerly waiting to fill her with another rush.

But this was pleasure, painful and divine. But it was also torture and as her sex continued to roll over him, dominate him and nurse out his need, his lips parted open through a low, guttural breath, as he shivered and dug fingernails into whatever he could, body tense, sweat slicked and begging for more.

But he found himself unable to move, completely at her mercy.
And he liked it. And he wanted more.

She moaned through a grin as he reacted to her, biting her lower lip as her hands smoothed over his abs and felt them tighten and jump beneath her fingers. Rolling her hips, she took her breasts in her hands and squeezed, maintaining eye contact with him. Grabbing hold of his hands, she brought them to her breasts to replace her own.

Now that her hands were free, she leaned back to balance her hands against his strong thighs, letting her head fall back as she brought her feet beneath her to grant her more control. At first she dropped herself down onto him slowly, but soon she was bouncing on top of him with fervor, moaning loudly as she placed her hand over his on her breast and squeezed.

Her breath left in short, labored bursts, panting as her ass slapped down against him when she took all of him into her.

Krah could not believe his luck. What had began as a conquest was turning into some sort of competition of pleasure. And he adored it, and he let her take the reigns. Sure there were whores who knew a thing or two and could please him like no other, but there was nothing like the wild fire potency this woman had as she arched her back and took him of her own will.

What had started off as he laying claim to her, was quickly turning into quite the opposite, for he was completely at her mercy- and moaning louder and with much begging need than he ever had before.

The harder she bounced upon him, the tighter his fists grew around her breasts. And the bed was wheezing beneath the force, and all of the muscles in his body tightened in anticipation of this.
"Gods... yes..." His eyes rolled back, he was seeing white. She was so tight. So hot. So wet. And she'd feel his cock growing sturdier, readying for it's release. But like the position dictated, she was in control. and he was completey at her mercy.

By the time she felt him stiffen, she almost couldn't control her own body. Her hips bounced on top of him, her sex tightening around his cock as she tried her best to hold off her own orgasm. But she didn't want to be finished with him, she wanted to feel the force of his hips against her when he came for her again.

She groaned in need as she slowed herself and then lifted off of him, feeling him slide out of her with an audible sound due to how tight she was and how hard he had become. She turned around on her hands and knees, presenting her firm ass to him so he could take her from behind, ready to grab hold of the headboard for support. She could feel how wet she was from his seed and her own eagerness as it dripped down her thighs, and she bit her lip to keep from rubbing her thighs together at how painfully bad she wanted to feel him inside her again.

She wouldn't have to wait for long, he was already on his knees behind her and slammed his dick inside her without so much as a word. Through the weight of his thrusts, the head board began to crack, already trembling and snapping with each hard thrust.

"You are mine," he told her, breath hot against her neck, as he took a fist full of hair and yanked it back as he claimed her lips. His other hand moved down and over her shoulder, and fisted one of her breasts as he was bucking so deep and so hard, his balls were slapping against her loudly.

Her hands gripped the wood of the headboard, feeling it snap and splintered, her knuckles white as she gripped it. "Ah!" His hand fisting in her hair forced a pleased cry from her throat as she arched into him as she began to meet him thrust for thrust.

She barely had the presence of mind to respond to his declaration, gripping the headboard hard enough so that she could maintain balance while she used her other hand to reach back and grip his throat. Twisting as best she could against the power of his thrusts and his fist in her hair, she bit her lip and scrunched her nose, her undine nature rising up within her as she clenched around his cock. "You're mine..." She was just able to purse her lips between her moans long enough to make him feel the breath escape from his lungs, holding it just long enough to let him know that she was still not so easily tamed.

She knew by this point he could not help himself, could not stop his cock from thrusting deep into her. If she wanted to, she could fight back... Could deny him. But she did not want him to stop, and so that small reminder was her own way of trying to make a point... Though she liked it. She liked being claimed by him, loved feeling the weight of his balls slap against her thighs as she drew her knees even closer together to become tighter for him. She bit her lip and allowed herself to give into his thrusts, crying out, ignoring the slight pain of the wooden splinters in her palms. "Yes... Fuck... Yes." She arched her back, leaning her head away from his fist in her hair so she could better feel the pressure.

The words were too much. She made her claim on him just as he had done to her. And though she tried to flex her powers, tried to make him see just where they stood, he was not about to back down from his own claim, and when she tried to pull away, he jerked her back roughly by her hair and began to bite and kiss at her neck then ear before he paused, grunted and began to cum into her. And hten he was rocking into her wildly, riding out the orgasm and slapping into her deep.

Then he paused, her hair still fisted into his before he claimed her list and turned her over and crawled over top of her from where she now lay on the bed.
"You're mine."
A command. A claim, and despite her being filled twice with his seed, his dick seemed to itch and swell for more.

She had never had a man back up any of his claims before, and the way his hand jerked her hair roughly excited her more than she had ever been. It thrilled her beyond reason, the way he dominated her, though she fought for control, too. Having a man fight back, a man who tried to push her closer to submission than she had ever been before, had her dripping with need.

As she felt his hot cum fill her even more, her hands reached back urgently, digging her fingernails into his wrists where they held her hips firm for his use. The wet sound of his cock thrusting wildly into her had her screaming as her sex clenched around him, milking him as he fucked her.

She put up enough resistance to his manhandling to add excitement as he threw her onto her back, the weight of him on top of her forcing her to squirm. She felt him hardening once more inside of her. Cass buried her hands roughly into his hair as she pulled him into a fierce kiss, stealing his words from him as she wiggled her hips beneath his weight. She bit his lip and grabbed a handful of his ass, panting as she looked up at him from beneath half-lidded eyes.

That look, where both their eyes were drunk and low-sitting with lust, would be a memory he'd never forget. To see her so sweat slicked, so red, so heavy breathed and hungry-
There was no words in the world he knew that could explain how his entire body tingled. His chest tightened, and his muscles followed, and it flowed all the way into his dick. His hands grabbed hers, rough and raw as he pinned them to the bed and smashed his lips to hers before hiking up one of her legs and starting another round of high tension, hard hitting sex.

She felt so good... Beyond amazing and he knew, despite the moment of pure ecstasy, there was almost a saddness to the claim. He knew enough women to know there was something different about this one. This one he needed to fight and bicker with, this one he needed to goad and shame and claim.

This one he needed to have as his own, and as he fucked her, he grabbed her by the hair again and actually picked her up from beneath him by it and looked her square in the eyes. HIs hand moved to grab her by the jaw, keeping their eyes locked as he growled.

"Say you're mine. That you yield," he growled. It was another command, and it was fevered.

Gods, she loved it all. Loved how rough he was with her, loved how he was fervent in his need to claim her, to make her submit. And though a part of her wanted to submit to him, she also knew that it wasn't truly what he wanted. She was willing to be that he'd had enough women submit to him, hell, he'd probably never had a woman who would refuse to submit. And the fire of their competition for dominance was just too enticing to let go of so easily.

She responded with equal enthusiasm and aggression to him as he pinned her arms down, squirming beneath him and growling in husky moans. The feel of their sweaty, strong bodies was like nothing she had ever felt before.

When his hand jerked her up harshly by her hair, his hand clenched around her jaw, she released a low, seductive moan. Biting her lower lip, she licked along it, her eyes bright and mischievous, "Is that what you really want?" She rolled her hips into his to drive home her point, her abs tightening against his. She wanted more from him, wanted him to be hers as much as he wanted her to submit. It was a war she could see no end to... She wanted badly to be claimed wholly by him, but she loved the ferocity of their equality.

"What I want?" he laughed through a few ruts and moved to bite savagely at her lips.
"I take what I want," he growled, biting and kissing her again as he continued to piston into her with sweet, maddening satisfaction.
"And it looks like," he went on with a cocky grin. "I'm taking you now." And he moved to push her over, forcing her on her knees and with a grunt, he was inside of her, taking her like a dog.
"And I'll keep taking you again and again for as long as I fucking want."

"Ah!" The sound of his savage, heavy voice had her edging on another orgasm. She tried to maintain eye contact with him as he spoke down to her, tried to refuse his claim, but gods he felt amazing.

When he shoved her onto her knees, she couldn't help herself as she cried out, "Oh... Gods, yes. Please..." She fell forward onto her elbows, head hanging low as her hands fisted in the sheets and she cried out as she came again. Still, he kept thrusting into her, forcing himself into her even as her own body tightened around him.

As her orgasm subsided she realized just what had come out of her mouth. She tried to fight him off at first, her breasts bouncing violently as he continued to rut into her, but her head felt too high on the pleasure. She gasped out again, "Please..."

He couldn't lie. It was damn sexy to have this strong woman beg. But he was a proud man who could never get enough. Perhaps it was because he started with nothing that he never understood the idea of something when he had it. He bent over her lower, so her back was plastered to his strong body as he fucked.

"That's right. Keep begging." His balls continued to slap against her. "I'll keep making you beg and scream until your voice becomes useless and hoarse and your eyes will roll back inside your head where your brains will have melted from just how many orgasms ive made you scream."

She was coming down from her orgasm just enough for his words to spur her into action again as she writhed beneath him. From where he pressed against her she moaned out wickedly, "Is that a promise?"

Cass dropped and rolled over beneath him so she was looking up at him again, forcing herself up to meet him again with enthusiasm. She captured his lips with her, forcing herself up so she was sitting with her legs wrapped around him.

Tightening her abs, her arms straining, she fought back for some measure of control.

He let her do as she pleased, strong hands gripping her all over as they fucked.
"I don't promise anything," came his husky growl. "I take, I claim, and I fuck."

Cass shoved him down onto his back, straddling him as she had before but forcing his hips to still as she used her full weight and strength on him. Not that he seemed to be struggling against her at the moment. With one hand she smoothed back his hair, tenderly, as she leaned down to place slow, cloying kisses against his skin.

She pulled off of him to continue kissing, nipping, and licking her way down his body until she reached his inner thighs. She took the tip of him into her mouth, licked him once, before traveling back up his body to press her lips against his.

Leaning into him so her firm breasts pressed against his chest and the wetness of her sex rubbed teasingly against his cock, she nipped and tugged at his ear. Her voice was low and confident against his ear, "Ah, ah, don't get so cocky. Just because I let you fuck me doesn't make me yours. You'll need to do more than give me a good fuck to earn that." She brushed her fingers over his sweaty face and wove them into his hair. "I belong to no man. You'd do well to remember that." There was no ire in her voice, no challenge. Only certainty.

Though she enjoyed Krah laying claim to her in the bedroom, she did not want him to think her just another one of his conquests. This, their fucking, or whatever it was they were still doing traveling together, was based on their standing on equal grounds. Staking claim over her was a much more serious demand. Even if she agreed that she was his, all that would inspire in her was loyalty- not fealty. If he wanted the right to claim her, he'd need to do more than provide her with a good fuck... Well, great fuck, in all honesty.

Still she couldn't deny how good having his cock inside of her made her feel. She slid along the length of him. "But," she pushed back and took him into her again, "I'd love for you to keep trying.."

Krah's eyes nearly rolled back so far to see his brains when she finally sunk ontop of him again. He shivered, dick pulsating within her before his strong hands moved to grip her hips as he moved inside her, slow and with purposeful need. ANd for once, he said nothing, and was simply letting his body do all of the talking, before grabbing her by the thigh and turning her over so he was pressing down over her and taking her in long, needful strides.

Sweat slicked hair would tickle at her chin and shoulders as he moved his warm lips down to lap and kiss and suck at her breasts. Their sweet salty taste sent ripples down his skin. Even still, he kept fucking her, good and slow as one hand moved down and he began to massage her clit.

Cass rolled her hips into his, meeting him so he sunk further into her. Her fingers dug into the tops of her thighs as she bit her lip and closed her eyes, moaning deeply as he hit even deeper into her. Although his rolling her over to take over control wasn't a good indicator that he had listened to even a word of what she had said, Cass could not bring herself to care. She knew it was foolish, and perhaps she would regret her decision later, but she wanted this. She wanted all of this, and she wanted it to last.

Her own body was coated with a gleam of sweat, his and hers both, which only made the feel of his body slick against her own all the more delicious. When his hand reached down to tease her clit her hips bucked wildly beneath his, a moan of surprise slipping past her lips as she tossed her head back and unexpectedly came. The sensation of him continue to slide deep into her as she clenched around him had her writhing beneath him.

Her screams only made him bolder as his fingers dipped into her slick sex as he continued to fuck. And one finger turned to two, then to nearly his entire fist was inside her as he stuffed her full of fingers and his dick as he desired to draw out those screams.

As he tested one, two, and then multiple fingers inside of her she squirmed in discomfort, tight around him. Sitting up and looping her arms around his back to hold on, she alternated nipping and kissing his neck, punctuated by her small, sharp moans.

She grinned against the bit of flesh she had between her teeth as she slipped her own hand down his back and across his firm ass, dipping her hand below to fondle his balls.

When she moved skilled hands to massage him, he tossed his head back and released a guttural moan. A rapid pooling of pleasurable heat flooded him and he wanted to flood her. So he worked his hands and dick good and hard, all the muscles in his arms and neck and shoulders and back tensing up like rocks as he fucked her, and fucked her wildly- aiming to get her scream along with him, in which he planned to silence with his own lips, his tongue when at long last he thrust into her with wildness, and filled her with an endless bliss of his hot seed as he shivered and trembled in ecstasy, sweat dripping down his form and over her's.

His intentions were certainly well received as Cass tossed her head back, low, sharp moans escaping her throat in time with his fucking. The fingers of one hand continued to massage him, while the others dug into his shoulder, her forehead buried against his other as she clung onto him. She knew he was nearing his release as he rutted into her even more frantically, burying his tongue in her mouth as her voice began to rise in a scream of ecstasy. He held her mouth to him, efficiently silencing her as he buried himself into her and began filling her up with his seed for the third time. She could feel it as it filled her up and overflowed, and she almost felt as if she was relishing it. Relishing the feel of him releasing inside of her, claiming her yet again.

Though she was not feeling weak like most women would after such a marathon of fucking, she was starting to feel the onset of fatigue one would only know after orgasming so many times. She collapsed back beneath him, panting and coated in a sheen of sweat, her long black hair spread out beneath her and sticking against her sweaty skin. She found herself staring up at his face, her own more open than normal as she came down from yet another pleasurable fuck.

It seemed they were both ready to collapse after that round, but somehow Krah kept himself propped up overtop of her shuddering form. Sweat slicked hair dangled down in strange curls about his eyes as they roamed over her body. He could see all the sweat glistening off of her body and feel it too, as his hand cupped her hip and smoothed down her thigh. And he reveled in the fact she breathed so hard because of him, her hair was a mess because of him, and his cock was (for the moment) satisfied because of him.  And the way she looked, all sweat soaked and flushed from head to toe got his blood burning again as he leaned forward to kiss her, long, sensual and slow.

Cass watched his eyes as they raked over her body, her own taking the opportunity to look him over again. His massive chest rose and fell from exertion, but it was clear he was only momentarily out of breath. He was definitely in top physical form, but so was she.

She smirked up at him and rose up onto her elbows to meet his lips, pleased and a bit surprised by his change of pace. This kiss was far more intimate than anything they had done before, the slow burning heat of it forcing an uncomfortable flutter to rise up in her stomach. She suppressed it, cutting it off as she had done countless times before- giving her heart any leeway when in the bed of men was always foolish. It had been a lesson she had learned when she was young and vulnerable, and though she had never been given the opportunity to be "innocent" or "naive" in most ways of the world, in matters of the heart she had been. The sea and boats could only teach her so much.

Still, Cass was receptive to his kiss, her lips soft, supple, and hot against his. One of her hands raised up, her strong fingers weaving softly into his sweaty hair.

Krah released a breathy laugh as her finger's combed through his hair.
"You still wish to touch my hair, even when it's a sweaty mess and no doubt I reek like a pig," he went on, lips moving from her's to her throat as his hips still moved good and slow.

Cass laughed at that, drawing her knees up on either side of him as she kissed him back. "You forget, I make my living on the seas," she drew her fingers down the back of his head to his neck as he kissed her neck, "not much else but sweaty, smelly men." She smoothed her hand down over his shoulders and arms, "And sweaty, smelly me."

She took hold of his chin and pulled him up into a kiss, grinning as she pulled back, her nose brushing his and her eyes amused, "Plus, can't say I mind the smell of me all over you."

His smile was crooked, his eyes alight. Firm, calloused hands remained locked to her hips as he continued to move inside of her as he grumbled his purred reply.
"I can't say I mind either."

Cass stirred again beneath him, murmuring a sigh of content pleasure beneath her breath. Her dark blue eyes were slightly hazy from their love-making, and a slow, lazy smile crossed her lips. Long fingers traced from his hair and down over his jaw to his chin, her thumb pressing into his lower lip as she pulled him into another kiss and rolled her hips to meet his.

She knew that they had a long, arduous trial ahead of them in the morning- if it was not morning already- but she wanted to continue enjoying the moment with him. Unconsciously she felt a deep stirring in her own chest akin to the feeling she felt with her undine magic, but this felt deeper, stronger, like she was connecting to it on another level. And then she was humming, a soft, enchanting melody into his lips, something that built upon the tendril of a bond that had begun to form between them. She could not place the melody herself, and it seemed to come unbidden. And while she was flushed with embarrassment at her lack of control, she still could not bring herself to stop it.

Hazey eyes watched her as words were fed into him. He hadn't a clue what she was saying, but he couldn't deny he felt a pull that cemented their bodies, feeding into something deeper than sex. But he continued, body rolling, gentle and strong and slow as they fucked. And in between her mutterings he cupped her face and would kiss her, shoving his tongue deep inside her mouth.

This was by far the most undine she had ever felt in her life... She could feel everything, see everything, hear everything. Tendrils of light danced around her vision like little tiny fishlines in the water, or like waves and currents. Her lips met his, her body wet and eager for him as she felt him move inside of her. His name peeled itself from her mouth against his lips, and for the moment she knew what it felt like to drown. It was both terrifying and exhilerating, and it vaguely felt like being high.

Her toes curled into the bed, which had long since been shed of sheets from their wild fucking. Her chest felt tight and the pleasure was almost too intense for her to handle as her voice strayed from the melody and moved back into deep moans. Her body squeezed him again, welcoming him, clinging to him for more contact.

His breath hitched as he held her, body painfully hard and ready to explode with need. Yet something forced him to sustain, sex gently rocking into hers to fuel a fire that was already sky high. It was incredible. She was incredible, and he reveled in moving over her as a dominant figure... A dominant figure who was as lost within her as she was with him.

Cass felt light headed with pleasure, responding instinctually to his movements and needs. While sex was normally a mixture of instinctive drives and awkward body movements, smells, and sounds, this was more. Having sex with him was as easy as swimming or breathing to her.

She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck as she kissed him, feeling the thrill of an almost predatory drive rise in her stomach. It was the undine magic, she knew, a magic prone to sexual drives to kill human men, but she had never felt it herself. It felt amazing... It at once drove her onwards, while at the same time spurring her deeper into what had now become more about love making than fucking.

Her hips rolled into his, taking him deeper as she closed her eyes, moaning against his lips. She felt as if she had been edging for hours, building ever closer to what would truly be an earth-shattering moment for them both. The weight of him against her, the hardness of him inside of her, his musky scent mingling with her own, all of it overwhelming her senses as he plunged deep inside of her again.

Krah Mordeth was no poetic man by any means. This was by far the closest thing he could admit to feeling great enough he could die. Heaven... Yes, he could easily call this situation heaven. With his rock hard dick plunging into her moist hot body. He could have screamed and he felt all of his veins and muscles bulging with each thrust.

It was hard to hold onto her, they were so slick with sweat but yet he found himself still holding her tight, breath muffled against her salty skin as he drove into her. He didn't know what possessed him to fuck her this way. The rhythm was intense, and also agonizing. It was as if he were tasting her all, feeling her to her very core.

The very idea tickled him, made him shiver. Yet still he did not peak. But he could feel his body becoming sore, his muscles growing tired- yet still he held out, wanting to draw out this 'almost heaven' feeling to the bitter end.

If he wasn't a mordecai, he might have believed she had just sung a song to own him. Not that he'd mind. In that moment, he was her's, and she was his. And soon a large, hot hand grabbed her face and he forced her lips to crash against his own.

He was a man to rival her, to stand on the same grounds as she, as she was a woman to face him on the same grounds... This connection they shared, their equally ferocious natures, could make them deeply connected lovers... Or very powerful enemies. And she found that thrilling.

She molded herself into him, bent to his movements and ensnared him with her body. And though the magic that flowed from her body could certainly not control him or enchant him in any way against his will, it was certainly heightening the moment for them both. Perhaps it was the fact that they were in another world entirely, or perhaps there was something more in the connection between the two fo them... Whatever it was, was delicious beyond comparison. A physical kiss was nothing without this, this humming, buzzing, electric tension building between them.

How her body continued to move, continued to take him in despite her weakening stamina, she could not know. Still her hips rose into him and her womanhood clenched around him, coaxing him ever closer to the edge.

Cass responded to his passionate kiss, her own hands weaving through his hair and pulling his face even closer to her own. It was as if their bodies were trying to literally meld together, their sweat slicked skin coated with the evidence of their fucking only serving to provide even more wickedly delicious lubricant. He was impossibly hot and hard within her, filling her completely yet still holding out longer. The pleasure was sweet agony.

He thought he'd never make it, never reach his peak.  A part of him wondered if she had cursed him in that strange and exotic tongue that had sent a shiver throughout his entire being. But soon he was rutting, grunting and moving with a blinding need. HIs kisses were smothering, it was hard to breath and it was hard to tell what was even going on as his eyes rolled back so far he was seeing his brains.

And he screamed, called out to the heavens, called out her name as he came, so hotly and completely, with his sex thrust into her deep as it could go. And it seemed that peak lasted for forever, filling her up and spilling out all over them both- a sticky, hot mess.

His throat was raw by the time he was done, his body red from exertion and his hair in a strange series of sweat pulled sections from how she handed him. And he? He was just a melted mess beside her, laying in a pile of exhaustion, and heat.

Cass was just as caught up in the moment as he, and for a time it was hard to tell up from down. She did not even know how he managed to maintain his aim, what with how wildly they were both going at it. She struggled for breath, while at the same time not caring if she stopped breathing entirely. It was a concentrated effort to focus on gasping breaths between his kisses, her hands grabbing and digging wildly at him as she reacted beneath him.

Her body was on fire, the sensitivity of every nerve seared, driving her nearly mad. He was already so hard and hot inside of her, that when he finally buried himself and released she was quick and eager to follow. Her body bucked beneath him, her legs wrapping around him to pull him deeper instinctually as her body convulsed around him, pulling as much of his seed into her as it overflowed between them.

Though her body seemed to want to cling to him when he rolled off of her, she could not quite gather the strength to follow him over. She lay flat on her back, panting as her body trembled from the aftermath, her dark hair wild and sticky against her skin and the bed.

He hadn't known when he had fallen asleep, or how it was that when he did awaken, that the woman was still beside him. Even still, he wasn't going to complain, eyes roaming over her body before a warm hand fondled her up and down.

"Why don't we say fuck your Gods and let's just stay in here all day and fuck until we're both raw and worn."

Cass hadn't realized she had fallen asleep until she felt a calloused hand smooth over her cool skin, and the deep rumbling voice to follow. Not opening her eyes at first, she relished in the moment, her mouth tipped in a smirk.

She taunted, "What are we then, lovesick youths after their first night of sex?"

That wasn't to say that she didn't almost feel that way, but she wasn't sure how to respond to him yet. Did she roll over and pretend it had just been a night used to finally quench the long-burning sexual tension that had built between them? Did she acknowledge that it could be more? After her romantic tryst as an adolescent, she had always responded to the moments after coitus flippantly. Aloof, jeering comments were  the norm. Sex was a means to an end, but their night didn't feel like that. And it made her irritable and anxious, frustrated and confused.

When she opened her eyes and caught a good look at all of him again, she felt the coil of heat tense in her belly, seemingly unsated even after their prolonged... activities. She wanted him, but didn't want to admit that she wanted him because what if that meant declaring defeat? Was this still a battle of the wills? Had she already lost? And was it still losing when she had really enjoyed it? Had she lost any semblance of control in their interactions? Not that she thought he'd respected her before, but at least his need to conquer her had been a chip to bargain with. Now she had likely lost it. Most men like Krah lost all interest after they got between a woman's legs.

Cass caught herself in a darkening mood, her features momentarily brooding before she willed herself to moderate her behavior. She was not some crazed, clingy woman who would chase after a man who likely was done with her.

Still... She couldn't help but bite on her lower lip as she looked at him, sprawled out as he was, just begging to be ridden again. Rolling over, she stradled his stomach, surprised to find herself already wet. She leaned forward, placing her elbows on his chest and resting her chin in her hands. "Hmm, we have a month's time. And if we do not complete this 'trial' we serve as slaves. We can't be sure how long it will take us to travel there and back..." It wasn't an answer or a decision, just the facts. She wasn't feeling particularly responsible after the decision she had made the night before to finally succumb to Krah's advances.

Krah snorted.
"Lovesick implies love, and we both know we're creatures of despicable habits." His hand moved to fondle her breast, thumb rolling over her hardening nipple. But he wasn't a big a fool as he let on. He could see the storm brewing behind her eyes and part of him felt tense for it. Or perhaps just he was reacting to her tension. Although, he never claimed to be any sort of an empath.

When she moved to straddle him, he couldn't help himself but grin at her form, drinking it in as his dick swelled and propped itself up, eager and ready. And though, as his hands smoothed down along her inner thigh and he felt her heat and ready body, he could tell something was off, just enough to warrant a clear warning not to indulge so soon.

Even still, his hand smoothed above the air over her heated sex, then up her sides to where his large hands rested on her hips.

"I'd be okay to fuck that month away," he told her, voice and grin cocky. A hand found it's way to the ends of her hair, where he idly curled it between pinched fingers. "But.." he went on, hand moving to smooth down and rest upon her rear. "I'm no fucking slave." His tone was confident, final. "And though I could waste the better years of my life here conquering you with my dick over and over again, even a barbarian like me wants a little challenge in his life."

Of course, it didn't mean he wasn't going to continue to feel her up, cock ready, at attention, it's blushed tip leaking eagerly for her body.

"I'm not big on talking," he went on, hand moving south, between her legs, seeking her heat. "And I can't think with you like this and all over me." She'd find his fingers wriggling and suddenly jamming right inside her and he couldn't help but grin at the lack of resistance.
"You're soaking wet," he went on, fingers pumping and fucking her as he regarded her expression, his own coy as a fox.

She smirked and smoothed her hands over his shoulders, nose wrinkling in her good humor, "I'm implying how they mistake sex for love, although it was just really good sex."

She ran her hands down his shoulders to his chest, massaging it with her palms almost like a cat. Cass allowed the moment of anxiety to pass her by, selling herself on her own explanation. It had been a while since she'd had a decent fuck, after all. Moving her palms lower, she ran them up his stomach and over his nipples, pleased that he still reacted to her touch.

"I don't intend to become a slave..." She rolled her hips back into him, letting his length slide along the crest of her ass as she thought on the matter. There were words begging to be said, but she became distracted by his fingers delving into her. She released a low, pleased moan, moving against his fingers.

Still... She found her mouth reforming the sentence. "I don't intend to become a slave," she paused and pulled in a heavy breath as his fingers picked up the pace, "I'm going to kill a God."

The words were out of her mouth, words she'd always dreamed of saying but had yet to find a way to bring into reality. But now that she had released them into the world, a predatory grin wove its way onto her features. Slapping a hand down on his chest, she pushed herself up and off of him and onto her feet off the bed, leaving him hot and hard where he was. Doubts and questions about Krah fled her mind as her mind began to properly form the intentions she had been unconsciously thinking on since their trial in front of the fae.

Striding across the room, her long legs strong and confident, she twisted her hand to pull water from the basin to wash herself off with, returning it before grabbing up a towel and scrubbing herself and her hair dry. "I'm going to kill a God, Shark Bait, and you're gonna help. Well," her voice was rushed with a vicious excitement, "first we do this 'trial'. Then perhaps a preemptive victory fuck..." The idiots were sending them off to uncover the death place of Ajax, a man who had killed fae and fae gods alike. Surely there was something there that could be used for her purposes... She'd send Krah back with the ring of Ajax, allow the court to believe he had abandoned her and then enslave her to Kataigida, and in his home she would commit the deed. If she could find a way to force Krah to return with the ring to help her escape, things would be perfect. Even if he didn't and she was killed, it still seemed worth it.

Whirling on Krah, she stood before him confidently, a smug grin on her face, "That is, if you're up to it."

He was left eagerly unpleased. And as she pranced around in her lust-drunken claims, he felt his dick hurting and so far, he had no outlet as he grit his teeth. But she was such a sight to see, his dark eyes dancing as he took her in.

When she finally came down from her high and approached him, he leaned back casually, dick still at attention, purple tipped and slick with her. It twitched invitingly, the tip glowing with a fresh few droplets of precum.

"I'll kill whoever you want, whenever you want," he growled, voice like an animals. And he stood up swiftly, capturing her in his powerful arms. "But you started this..." he went on, hands hungry and grabbing her all over and aiming to pull her close. "Let's fuck. Then kill," he growled against her lips as he moved to claim her.

Cass willingly let him pull her into his arms again, smirking against his lips at his words. Before she got swept up in the moment again she pulled her face back to take a good look at him. Admittedly, they were at each others' throats a good deal.. But at the end of the day, she knew that they made a pretty decent duo. Which was not saying that their pairing was necessarily a good thing. More likely they would come together for evil or something very damn near it.

And well... She didn't give a fuck.

She wove her fingers through his hair and pulled hard, exposing his neck to her hungry lips and teeth. If anybody took note of how they looked when they emerged from the room later on, they would surely have a hard time deciding whether or not the two of them had been fucking or fighting. And perhaps they were doing a bit of both- any tender moments they had shared throughout would probably be forgotten or repressed by both.

Krah growled, delighted int he roughness of her actions. He moved to pull their bodies close, hips aligning as he growled and raked fingers up her back. And he didn't ask for permission, he simply shoved his dick so far and deep inside her sex he nearly came,a nd was fast, like an animal to move up within her, pinning her hips against his body as he moved with need.

"Gods be damned," he growled and moved to bite and suck at her neck.

((OoC: I'm going to fast forward from this, because I feel like they'd just be stuck in bed indefinitely hahaha))

Despite her best attempts to stay awake after their final round of fucking, Cass had allowed herself to succumb to sleep. As expected of sleep in another realm, her dreams were filled with the strange and the bizarre. But strangest of all was that Krah made consistent appearances in her dreams, making a fairly reliable dream companion. She found them traveling on their way to retrieve that stupid silver ring of Ajax, crossing odd lands far and wide across the kingdom. A journey that could have lasted days, weeks, months, or years... It was difficult. At some points, it felt as if they were skipping through it in fast-forward, while others seemed to drag on with monotonous certainty.

It wasn't until they reached the end of the road... Well, more like the end of the world... That she began to feel a dark seed of doubt growing in her belly. They approached a long stretch of black sanded beach, scattered with the bones and the ashes of fallen creatures and people. From a distance she could spot a stranded ship of megolithic proportions, and as they neared it she could spot barnacles, kelp, and algae coating its hull... Evidence of its historic abandonment. Sea creatures, seemingly suspended in air, swam around its carcass as they would if it had drifted to the bottom of the ocean.

Sluggishly looking to her side for Krah, her heart clenched and the feeling of dread bottomed out as she looked in panic all around for him. Somehow she had made it across the sands without him, and he still stood on the edge of the sands while she had approached the ship. When she whipped her head back around to look at the ship she saw him. The terrible figure of a man, watching, waiting, anticipating her arrival, cracking his knuckles...

Cass woke up with a start, sitting up quickly in the bed and dislodging Krah as she did. Grabbing for her weapons, she untangled herself from the sheets and Krah to stand up. A cracking sound... Heart skipping, Cass swung towards the sound to find herself facing a young human woman, who she assumed was a slave collected in the exchange of a changeling child. The young woman looked between Cass and Krah curiously.

Before she could ask any questions, the woman spoke, "My mistress has sent me to retrieve you and the mordecai." Cass watched the girl's eyes raking over Krah's body in curiosity as if dissecting him from some scientific venture. Tearing her eyes away, the young woman stepped forward and placed two sets of clothes on one of the tables. "She said that you would need new clothes after last night... Oh! And some refreshments..." The girl gave out a whistle and two more human slaves entered carrying trays of food and drink. "She said to tell you that they will not tie you nor the man to this world, so not to fear. Once you have washed, dressed, and eaten, I shall bring you to her. I shall wait outside your door."

Once they had left, Cass toed through the piles of clothes they had scattered about the ground the night before... They were definitely not in the best shape. Looking through the new clothes brought to them, she begrudgingly felt some level of gratefulness for their simplicity.

Grabbing up the jug, she poured herself some of the golden liquid and began swigging from it as she took a damp washcloth and began to clean herself from the night's pleasures.