randomosity | [For Charles Vane] Capture the Queen

[For Charles Vane] Capture the Queen

True to her word, Anne had returned to Eleanor Guthrie's pub late the next morning after her..."discussion" with Charles. It had taken her some time upon waking that morning to recover the use of her legs. She didn't want to go wobbling into Eleanor's office, no. She would walk in tall and authoritative. Which was precisely what she did. Anne walked into the pub with two pirate guards from the Ranger in tow.

At first Eleanor had refused to see her, but Anne was not about to take "no" for an answer. She'd practically forced her way in, and made her case to Eleanor - making a political apology, which was hardy an apology at all. Anne pointed out precisely what she had stated to Charles the night before; essentially how Eleanor couldn't afford to lose the business brought in by the Ranger, and how the new lady of the crew had an eye for finer ships and treasures. Anne was an asset, and she was determined to prove it.

Reluctantly Eleanor had accepted Anne's not-apology, and things were smoothed over between the two women. Anne left the pub satisfied in her mission. The pirate guards followed after her, mildly impressed with her work. But then again, women were of course well-known for being cunning and manipulative; Boleyns even more so.

Anne was so pleased with herself that she didn't realize they were being stalked. Until it was too late. Someone sprang from the shadows and slit the throat of one of her guards, spraying deep red blood all over Anne. The other guard was grabbed, but he was larger and struggled against his attacker. But the distraction was all Ned Low needed to step up behind Anne and press his blade to her slender throat.

"There's a pretty bird. Don't try and fly away now, may have to clip those wings," his voice made Anne cringe, but she didn't struggle. One wrong move and her throat would be open faster than any sealed letter.

The pirate guard that had accompanied her broke free, but realizing there was no saving the lady without risking Ned slitting her throat - and being unwilling to deliver such news to his captain - he bolted. At the very least, he would get back to Vane and tell him what happened. Anne was Ned Low's prisoner, for now. Ned secured her wrists behind her back and dragged her back to the brothel in town, paying for a room before dragging Anne further, up the stairs and to the room he'd purchased. He was reluctant to take her back to the Fancy, lest her Captain take out his frustration on the ship in an effort to reclaim her.

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The angers of pirate captains were as varied as the captains themselves. Some clothed their fury in self-righteousness, like James Flint of the Walrus, and some were savages, like Ned Low himself. Charles Vane showed little of his emotions during the best of times, and during the worst of times he was even more silent, more stony. But those who knew him best knew what to look for-- his eyes narrowed into slits, a certain vein that might throb at his temple, and the way his knuckles might turn white as he gripped the hilt of the sword at his hip.

When Charles emerged from his cabin after speaking to the lone man who returned without his partner or Anne, the cold fury that wrapped around him made every man jack on the deck of the Ranger step back in caution. With barely audible grunts, Vane selected a half dozen men to accompany him in a longboat back to shore.

Arriving at the brothel, Max was waiting a dozen steps from the door, entreating him to take his battle elsewhere. An icy glance in the petite woman's direction silenced her voice and the heavy pouch of coin that Charles dropped into Max's hands silenced her opposition. "Just try not to break too much furniture," she told him, her French-accented voice resigned but no longer upset. "It takes ages to get decent replacements."

With almost no regard for the idea that there might be rifles and pistols aimed at the street from within, Vane strode for the front door, kicked it open, and bellowed a single word.

"LOW!"

It was hard telling what exactly Ned Low's plan was. Anne wasn't sure even Low himself knew what he intended to do with her. True enough she was his captive and was likely to remain so until Charles came for her. But that didn't mean she was about to back down from him. Ned had her tied down to the headboard and looked over her, tugging open her blouse and exposing more of that superb cleavage. He taunted and teased her, but Anne refused to take the bait.

Then came the yell from downstairs.

Ned smirked and made a careful cut along her chest with his knife. He excused himself with a dramatic bow and stepped out of the room. He looked down from the railing to the open room below. Some of his crew were on the main level, their pistols pointed at Charles.

"What's all the yelling about? This is a place of business, after all, Vane!" Ned grinned down at him, holding aloft his blood-covered knife and toying with it in his hands. "What brings you here? I've just brought up the prettiest little brunette bird you ever did see for myself."

Anne struggled to free herself, but it was no use. The ropes were tied too tight. She leaned up to try and chew them, but that was no use either. She heard the men talking outside and she yelled for Charles.

Ned glared over his shoulder to the room, but smirked again when he looked down at Charles.

"Quite the screamer, isn't she?" He grinned.

Charles hissed in fury at the sound of Anne's cry from upstairs, though the fact that she could sound it at least let the captain know that she lived. Although the crimson drops on Low's dagger made him want to charge forward and tear the man apart. But for all his own fury, Charles was still far more cold-blooded than the maniacal Ned Low.

"Play this smart, Low," Vane announced, his voice as rough and grating as the sound of a steel blade being sharpened, "and stand down. I'll kill you quick if you do. Otherwise, I'll be leaving Max with a terrible mess to clean up, and she'll make me pay extra for it."

"Bit hard to collect money from a dead man, isn't it?" Ned mused. "No, no. I'm not about to surrender my plunder to you so soon."

He leaned over the railing to add emphasis to his next remark. "Especially not when I haven't had my own chance to enjoy her properly."

He made a gesture and two of his men standing closest moved to enter the room where Anne was tied up.

"I think you're missing a major opportunity, Vane. The queen of fucking England? I'm surprised you haven't sold her back to his royal fucking highness." Ned laughed cruelly.

"And stick my head in Henry's noose? Not likely."

Vane watched as Low's men moved, striding towards the door from where he'd heard Anne's scream. Time was running short to get her out of this as unscathed as possible, and Charles was not about to make Anne pay for the fact that there were madmen on the account as well as businessmen.

Looking quite mad himself, Vane sheathed his sword, apparently ready to concede the skirmish. A moment later, the air was filled with gunfire, shot raining from above, where other members of Vane's crew had scurried to the roof of the building to find vantage points looking down into the open central parlor.

Once he saw the two men approaching Anne's room fall, Vane charged forward with a roar.

Ned chuckled. "You got a point there. But I imagine his highness will be very generous to the man who brings back his wayward wife...and the head of the man who kidnapped her."

But then down came the hail of gunfire. He had to leave it to Vane. He was one hell of a strategist. Ned managed to avoid the gunshots, and had his sword drawn as Vane charged forward. His men fired back at Vane's crew. Ned met Charles with a swing of his sword and reached for his pistol.

"The girl mean that much to you, Vane!? You surprise me!!" He taunted.

Their blades connected with a sharp ringing. Vane pivoted on one foot, and as quick as Low had been to raise his pistol, the shot went wide of its target, shattering a lamp on the other side of the room. With the sound of that shot still echoing in his ears, Charles engaged the other pirate captain once more, his face stony and silent.

"What, all out of clever parley already?" Low brayed in his face. "I'd heard you were as dumb as you were ugly, but I hadn't expected you to prove it!"

Even under the best of circumstances, Vane was not one of quipping as he fought, and if his silence enraged Low to the point of getting sloppy, so much the better. As it was, he was slowly forcing Ned up the stairs with his assault.

Anne yelped as the gunshots rang out. She couldn't see anything, and she struggled against her restraints to find some manner of weakness she could exploit. Had Charles been shot? Had Ned? It was impossible to tell and the suspense was killing her.

Ned was indeed a little annoyed that Charles didn't engage him in the verbal spar as well as the physical one. As their swords met again, he pushed back hard. One of his own crew members bolted up to catch Charles from behind with a long knife.

With that distraction in place, because Ned had no doubt Charles would dispatch the other man quickly, Ned bolted up the stairs to the bedroom where he'd kept Anne.

"Seems your pirate knight has come to rescue you, your majesty," Ned sneered as he pulled out a knife of his own and held it against her throat, trailing just the tip of it along her collarbone and over her chest. The blade didn't cut, not yet, it only left a long red line in its wake.

Ned's crewman made enough of a din clambering up the staircase that Charles was able to turn in time to keep the knife from getting buried in his back. Instead, Vane took a gash across the ribs which made him grunt in pain, but didn't slow him down enough to save the crewman from being run through with Charles' sword.

Pushing the corpse off his blade with his boot and sending the body tumbling back down the stair to land atop a pair of his fellow and equally dead comrades, Charles spun and sprinted for the door through which he'd heard Anne's screams and seen Ned Low disappear.

He crossed the threshold to find Low squatting above the bed and the female form lashed to it. Without word of warning or hesitation, Vane's pistol was in his hand, raised, and fired.

Anne tried to hold her breath to keep Ned's blade from piercing her skin. But then she heard someone charging for the door, and before she knew it, there was Charles. She hardly had time to register the pistol in his hand before he fired, making her scream out in shock. She was so distracted by the gunshot that she didn't feel Ned drag the sharp edge of the blade along her upper shoulder.

Ned tried to dodge, but took the shot to his shoulder and mid-chest. His blood spattered over Anne as he dropped to the floor.

But really, Anne was just so relieved to see Charles. Anne had to bite the side of her cheek to keep from crying in relief.

"You're really here..." She whimpered as she looked up to Charles again.

Anne breathed heavily for several long moments, only then did she feel the stinging pain in her shoulder. She looked over and yelled sharply when she saw her blood trickling from the cut Ned had delivered over her. It wasn't terribly deep, but it had been cut at an angle and looked worse than it truly was.

Charles rushed across the room, sliding his pistol back into its holder and giving the crumpled form on the floor a good kick. Ned gave a yelping groan at the contact, but didn't stir from his spot, so Charles let him be for the moment and knelt on the bed beside Anne.

"Of course I am," he replied gruffly. "You sail with me, you get taken care of." The look in his eyes betrayed the simple answer, though, brimming with concern as they were. But saying more than that really wasn't Charles Vane's way, and he expected by now that Anne would understand.

Those concerns were shifted aside when she cried out. Charles pulled her blouse aside and peered at the wound on Anne's shoulder. "Not as bad as it looks," he assured her, then drew his own dagger to cut her loose from the bed. The knife served to cut a wide strip from the bedsheet, which he crumpled and pressed to Anne's shoulder. "Hold this here, press tight."

Anne did indeed understand how he felt, how concerned he was. She could see the true concern he had. Anne wasn't about to speak aloud about it. She was the orator, he was more physical. She spoke volumes, he actually got up and into action.

When he produced his knife to cut her loose, Anne tensed a little. She trusted him, she was merely wary of the blade. Anne sighed in relief when he revealed that the injury wasn't as bad as she thought. She rubbed her wrists as he cut the bed sheet, then did as he said in holding the torn sheet fragment against the cut.

It stung, but she could deal with it. Anne looked guilty down at the floor. "I'm...sorry to have caused you so much trouble..."

She wasn't about to get wishy-washy. At least not until they were in a more private setting. But she felt guilty and felt that it was necessary to apologize.

Charles blinked as Anne apologized to him for what had just transpired, and it silenced him for the span of a heartbeat. After that, the pirate captain barked out a laugh, and shook his head, still chuckling for a few moments afterward. "What, all this?" he said, waving his blade at the prone but still moaning form of Ned Low on the floor, and at the door, before sheathing the blade. "Don't for a second think this wasn't a scrap that was coming eventually, or that it was your fault somehow."

His eyes fixed hers. "You haven't a thing to apologize for, hear me?" Charles smirked. "Although I'll be happy to accept thanks for the rescue later on."

Charles stood and helped Anne to her feet as well. He looked down at Ned, pushing the man onto his back with the toe of his boot. Hurt but still very much alive, Ned stared up at them with fury and hate, even though his voice was silent. "As for this piece of shit..." Charles drew his second pistol, cocked it, and leveled it at the other pirate.

A moment later, he tilted the handle of the weapon in Anne's direction. "Care to do the honors?"

Anne jumped, startled by the laugh as Charles reacted to her apology. She blushed and looked almost sheepish for a moment. The fact that Ned was still alive startled her a little. She yelped slightly in surprise when he grumbled from the floor. She looked up to Charles with wide doe eyes.

"I know it wasn't my fault...not my first time being kidnapped, you know," she managed a coy smile at that. Remembering how they met.

She kept the cloth pressed tight to her wound as Charles helped her up. Anne looked down at Ned with pure contempt. Still, she hesitated when Charles offered the pistol to her. Was she ready for that? She had arranged for people to be murdered; she had poisoned people before. But directly murdering someone? Not that it wasn't justified, Ned had kidnapped her, been rough with her, and hurt her.

Anne was not about to stand for that.

She took the pistol from Charles, leveled it at Ned, aiming directly for his face, and fired without hesitation. The spark and kickback from the shot was not what she expected, but Anne held tight to the pistol and handed it back to Charles as though the shot were nothing to her. She was an excellent actress if nothing else.

Charles nodded with a smirk. "True, but I doubt you'll ever get as lucky as you did that last time."

He stepped aside, keeping a hand on Anne's back to let her know that he was there, but letting the woman stand on her own. Charles watched as Anne considered the weapon he'd handed her, and read the thoughts her expression betrayed. But he knew the woman had steel in her spine, as much as anyone meant to live this life would have.

The report of the pistol echoed around the small room, but neither of them flinched as Ned Low's skull was cracked open like a rotten egg. Charles took the pistol back from Anne and secured it. "I'll owe Max a bit more for that, but... a fine job." He inched closer. "Home now?"

Anne had to take a moment and breathe as she registered what she had just done. Everything had gone so fast. Only this morning had they been in bed, only this morning had she gone to Eleanor to smooth over their argument...

Then she had found herself kidnapped by some miserable cur. And now he was dead and bleeding out at their feet.

When Charles stepped up she almost didn't hear him. Then his voice registered. Anne looked up and nodded rapidly. "Home, please."

Her shoulder began to ache as her bleeding ebbed. Still, Anne was feeling a little weak, a little faint. But she was bound and determined to walk on her own two feet back home.

Charles could see the paleness of Anne's face, the slight waver in her step as she moved away from Ned's body. But he also recognized the ice in her eyes and knew without a doubt that she was not to be helped out of the room and damn sure not carried.

He was just behind the woman as they exited the room, ready to help her but keeping his hands to himself. The sound of fighting had stopped, and all of Low's men-- along with two of Charles'-- lay dead on the floor. The walk down the stairs was slow, but steady, and by the time they'd descended, Max was crossing the room, livid. Charles tossed the brothel owner another heavy sack of coin and without another word, they departed the establishment, Vane's crew carrying the bodies of their fallen shipmates.

Back on the Ranger, Charles left Anne for a while to be seen to by their medic (who was also the cook), while he ensured the Quartermaster made proper arrangements for the dead men. Anne was alone in his cabin when he returned.

Anne walked past Max and out the door without a word. Really, she had been kidnapped, Max's brothel hadn't exactly been her choice of venue.

When they made it back to the Ranger, Anne let the medic/cook look over her injuries. There wasn't much to be done besides bandaging it. But he fixed her up as best he could. When he finished, Anne settled into the cabin to try and relax. As Charles entered the cabin she glanced up to him.

"How many men did we lose?" She felt so guilty. Men had lost their lives rescuing her. "...dammit, I should have been paying closer attention. He never should have gotten the drop on me!"

She hated being in powerless positions. And that's precisely where Low had put her.

Edited (Hit the button too quickly) 2017-09-29 03:06 (UTC)

"Two," he replied, then immediately regretted it. Charles grimaced as Anne began to speak, berating herself for what had happened. He cared for the woman-- that much was clear and obvious even to himself, but that did not make him any more capable of dealing with an emotional outburst like that.

"Enough of that, you hear me? Ned's been wanting to find some leverage on me for months now, and you just happened to be a convenient way to do it. The men I sent with you have been in enough scrapes, they're the ones who were on the watch."

He dropped into his chair, eyes on Anne, intending for that to be the end of the conversation.

Anne wasn't whining nor blubbering over the whole event. She could see though that Charles did not intend to discuss it further, but he knew these men far longer than she had, she still felt guilty. Anne nodded a little and approached him slowly, positioning herself between his legs and leaning down to press her further against his.

Silently she vowed to herself that she would not allow anyone else to get the drop on her like that again.

"I'm sorry to have put you to such trouble. But thank you for saving me," Anne smiled softly. "Not quite a knight in shining armor, but I found your take on it quite preferable."

As afraid as she had been, Anne had felt like a true damsel being rescued in such a manner. Her shoulder ached from the pain still, but she didn't intend to complain about it.

[OOC: I apologize for having disappeared. RL and work decided to completely blow up on me. It's taking a bit to get back into the swing of things, and I'm having to cut down as much as I can, but I'm here. And if it's been a bit too long, I totally understand.]

Charles could tell that the events had shaken Anne, not that he blamed her at all for that. But she was holding herself together admirably, and he expected that he knew Anne well enough by now to forgo dwelling on that, as well. No, the captain was sure he recognized that familiar resolve to strengthen herself, learn from it, and move on.

Just as he would have hoped.

Charles pulled her in close until Anne was sitting on his lap. "And when you're feeling healed up, we can discuss my reward, hmm? I'm certain we can come to a very agreeable arrangement."

((No worries! I absolutely get it, happens to me often enough. And don't worry I'll backtag into forever :) ))

Anne was only too happy to let him hold her, to let his arms wrap around her and hold her so protectively. She settled in his lap and leaned in against his chest. She chuckled at his mention of reward and drew her fingers up along his chest.

"Indeed. You deserve the greatest reward I can give, as you saved my life," Anne nuzzled against his jaw and looked into his eyes. "Perhaps in the morning I can begin."

It was starting to get dark, and Anne was not feeling up to providing such service now. But in time, and not long at that, Anne would show him just how grateful she was.

Her hand found his, lacing their fingers as she squeezed his hand. "Thank you..." She whispered softly before pressing her lips softly over his.

Charles let Anne settle in and mould herself against him, holding the woman tight and kissing her back. He hadn't anticipated her being up for anything more strenuous than this after her ordeal, and so was content to let Anne find some comfort this night.

After a few moments, he carried Anne to the bed and laid her down, then followed her soon after. There was no telling what the next day would bring, and whether there might be hell to pay for his actions, but so long as Anne was safe and sound, Charles knew he could weather whatever storm approached.

[OOC: Seems like a nice place to wrap up?]

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[For Charles Vane] Capture the Queen

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