And A Bottle of Rum

Even though his uniform included a helmet that completely concealed his face, Alisaie could tell somehow that he was giving the both of them a dubious look.

"A Confederate," he repeated, without much confidence behind it. His head shifted slightly, looking from Lyse to Alisaie, who stood slightly in front of her with her hands crossed behind her back, trying to look sullen and defeated.

Lyse gave the soldier her best attempt at a bored sneer. "Aye."

"Transporting an ijin prisoner caught..." he paused here, presumably for effect, "...stowing away on your vessel."

"Aye." She gave Alisaie's braid a solid tug, to demonstrate her control of the situation. Alisaie shrugged her shoulders in imitation of a struggle.

"Your vessel, which I presume you moored..." here the soldier trailed off again, looking around at the long stretch of beach uninhabited by anything but the occasional scuttling crab or swooping sea-bird. "Somewhere within walking distance, clearly."

"Um."

"And you are transporting her to the Confederate base on the other side of this island, I presume. Which, by the way, is the only remotely safe harbor for a craft of any size on the entire landmass, so I can only presume you also landed there and decided to take a casual stroll."

Lyse cleared her throat. "Well, uh. You see."

The soldier went for his truncheon. Alisiae went for her rapier. Lyse blinked.

In the end, nobody was seriously hurt in the fray, although Alisaie did set a number of not-strictly necessary fires.

"I have to say," Alisaie said. "Thinking quickly? Not your strong suit."

"Come on," Lyse replied, rubbing at her bruised cheek. "It was fine."

The inn room had no windows and looked like it hadn't been thoroughly cleaned since the reign of Mhach, but the straw mattress sported no vermin and the innkeepers did not ask questions, making it a cut above some of the inns Lyse had stayed in during her lifetime. The owner, a portly roegadyn woman, had simply accepted their coin and directed them to a room, hardly sparing a glance at the sight of an Ala Mhigan with a bloody nose and a young elezen with a limp, a sword slung at her side that could have purchased a small kingdom.

"I mean, the plan was fine. Theoretically," Alisaie said. She'd sat herself down on a rickety stool in the corner to inspect her leg -- a solid gash in her knee had left her a little uncharacteristically unsteady. Embarassingly, she'd gotten it in the scramble over the rocks and not from any kind of combat with Garlean soldiers.

"There are foreigners in the Confederacy! They press-gang them all the time, or take on deserters -- even some Ala Mhigan refugees, if they make it this far. Besides," Lyse said, cocking her head at Alisaie and wiping some of the blood off her upper lip, "I don't think you would have been any more convincing."

"Really." Alisaie pulled a knife from her boot -- a long-handled, elegant thing with a curved hilt -- and began to cut the shredded remains of her stocking off her injured leg. "What makes you say that. Because I think," she went on, gazing at Lyse sidelong from beneath her long, pale eyelashes, "I've spent enough time in Limsa Lominsa to observe the habits of pirates, and even the Confederates tend to favor the blade. My swords might be foreign but they're at least better suited to shipboard combat than--"

"Limsa Lominsa!" Lyse cried, laughter in her voice. Alisaie wound the bloodied strip of cloth, all that was left of her stockings that had failed to turn aside the jagged piece of rock, around her hand and raised an eyebrow. "That's exactly it. You've seen pirates, you've read about them, but I mean...I just don't think you'd make a convincing one in face to face."

Alisaie pulled the bloody stocking shred taut between her hands with a fierce snap. The knife she'd used to cut the strip of cloth she'd flung to the floor point-up when she was done with it, and it sank into the old salt-warped timber and quivered upright. "I believe you're simply a bit too jaded," she said, her eyes sweeping Lyse head to toe before settling on her blood-smeared lips. "Imagine you're a fresh Garlean recruit, new to the continent, or--"

"Or, what? A doe-eyed damsel who's pleasure yacht you've just boarded?" Alisaie laughed at this.

"I think I'd be doubly convincing in that case. I mean, I'd be engaging in real piracy, then, wouldn't I? Cutting down the door to the count's daughter's cabin, silhouetted in the crackling flames...blade wet with blood..."

As she spoke, Alisaie had retrieved her knife and crossed the short distance between her and Lyse; as Lyse was sitting and Alisaie standing, Lyse actually had to look up at her. It was so very infrequently that Alisaie got the chance to loom over anyone -- in fact, in her heart of hearts, she feared that even when the heavens finally saw fit to grant her due height, she and her brother would be left on the diminutive side -- so she took a brief moment to enjoy the feeling.

"I'll admit," Lyse said, reaching up to untie her hair so that it spilled over her shoulders (rather like a maiden just roused from her bed), "it would be intimidating, especially for whatever simpering ingenue you're no doubt imagining here. But that's different from being thought a pirate. Suppose I WAS some rich count's daughter...well, they don't have counts in Doma anyway -- they've got something else -- but...you know. Suppose. What would Captain Leveilleur do to the poor maiden?"

Alisaie took another step forward, pressing a leg between Lyse's knees so she was forced to part her thighs ever so slightly. Lyse was egging her on, of course -- fighting always got Alisaie worked up, something that Lyse had noticed almost immediately once they had been forced to share tight quarters on a mission, and something that Alisaie had long ago stopped trying to hide.

"Well, first," she said, "I'd make sure the pretty little wench couldn't run away." With one practiced motion she grabbed Lyse's wrists with one hand, putting the point of the knife up beneath her chin, close enough to almost prick into flesh; enough that it was, at least, evocative of a threat. Her voice slid into a broad, pantomime Limsan accent -- the kind featured on the stages of so many Ul'dahn playhouses and strung throughout the pages of chapbook romances. "So if ye know what's good for ye, I think ye'd best hold yer pretty little hands above yer head."

The knife really sold the illusion -- Alisaie armed with a blade seemed to exude a reckless, deadly energy all her own -- but Lyse was more than willing to play along anyway. "Oh," she said, opening her eyes as wide as they would go, batting her eyelashes. "Oh, the, um...Ishgardian navy will have your head for this!"

"Those cowardly dogs?" With a rough jerk, Alisaie forced Lyse's wrists together and tied them with the bloodied shreds of her stocking; a quick glance about the room revealed a bent nail hammered into the wall, possibly for hanging things off the floor, at about the right height. Grinning enough to show teeth, Alisaie pulled Lyse up from the bed by a painful handful of her hair and shoved her roughly towards the hook in the wall.

At a whole head shorter than her captive, Lyse had to do some covert assisting to end up with her arms bound over her head, but the end result was convincing enough in look and feel.

Alisaie leaned back to admire her handiwork, toying with the knife. "And now, methinks, I'll be wantin' a closer look at the plunder -- let me decide if it's to be divvied up betwixt the crew or saved for the captain's pleasure alone." Cold metal slid up beneath Lyse's shirt and the bindings on her chest to brace her ribs. She gasped, back arcing as Alisaie's knife pulled at the tight cloth before the razor edge split through it, slicing open the entire front of Lyse's clothes. With her back arched and hands bound above her head, her bare breasts were thrust forward as if for Alisaie's express appraisal.

"You beast...you fiend," Lyse hissed -- maybe a little too fiercely for her role, but she made up for it by struggling in her bonds, her hips conveniently bucking up against Alisaie's abdomen and her breasts shuddering with the movement.

With the hand not currently occupied with her knife, Alisaie palmed one of Lyse's heaving breasts, nails scratching across skin. Lyse was not exactly soft of figure for a hyur, her body powerfully muscled from years of obsessive training, but elezen always tended towards the slender and lean, and Alisaie could never seem to get enough of sinking her careless fingers into Lyse's flesh with almost bruising pressure. She rolled Lyse's hard nipple between her thumb and forefinger, leaning down to bite at the other until she drew a shockingly girlish yelp of pain from Lyse's still blood-smeared lips.

That was exactly what Alisaie had been waiting for. With a theatrical snarl she swatted Lyse across the cheek, then thrust one hand into the waist of her trousers and smallclothes, yanking carelessly downward. "One more sound of ye, wench, and I'll toss ye over the side for the sharks -- or onto the deck for me crew, if ye like yer chances with them better. Without yer petticoats and stays, o' course." Alisaie gave Lyse an astonishingly convincing leer; she could almost feel the girl's eyes boring into her.

"Oh, please, please stop," Lyse begged. "I--I am to be married to--" But her storyline-building was cut off abruptly by the press of cold metal against the opening of her cunt, between her parted thighs. For one wild moment Lyse was certain it was the point of Alisaie's knife, and her knees nearly buckled under her -- but no, it was nothing but the rounded pommel of it, rubbing up along her clit before Alisaie thrust the hilt up inside her with barely any preamble. Lyse was, by this point, so wet her thighs were slicked, and the metal hilt sank deep inside her with obscene ease. The unyielding metal raked and prodded against her insides, tormenting every sensitive spot, as Alisaie slid it in and out of her, the pommel catching on the lips of her cunt with each thrust, making her gasp. "Oh--Oh, I...you'll hang for--agh, no stop I'm--"

"Thought I told ye to shut that pretty mouth o' yers," Alisaie hissed, pressing her thumb against Lyse's clit for her to buck against. Alisaie herself pressed against Lyse's thigh -- not enough to climax, but that was always how she preferred it. A perfectionist to the last, she would brook no real distraction from her handiwork, especially when it came to bedding women. "Have to find a better use fer it once I'm satisified ye can ride me cutlass."

Lyse opened her mouth to make some of protest, to play the part of the hapless maid deflowered, but all that came out was a shuddering groan as Alisaie rammed the hilt into her up to the crossguard, the blade quivering perilously close to her trembling thighs. That was near enough to drive her over the edge, but Alisaie kept fucking her mercilessly as she climaxed, only finally sliding the weapon out of her dripping, slackened cunt when Lyse barely had the strength to hold herself upright and the weight of her boneless body threatened to pull the bent nail from the boards.

"So," Alisaie purred, still grinding against Lyse's thigh idly, "was that a satisfactory performance?"

"Amazingly so," Lyse panted. "If we ever need to convince a lovely young Garlean maiden that we are pirates, I shall watch the proceedings with interest. There's only...one problem."Alisaie, who had been fiddling with the clasp on her own tunic in anticipation, halted momentarily. "I can hardly wear your clothes, small as you are, and I think you've ruined my only shirt."

Alisaie paused for only a slight moment longer before deciding that was a problem that could be safely left to the future.