If it always came to this, who’d have ever thought that she’d be so famous?

The soft sound of metal clinking off each other, the leather of a boot stamping on hard, wet wood that creaks softly beneath the one that walks through swirling smoke. The smell of ash, smoke, and fire fills the air, burning out the scent of blood that lingers so subtly and clings so desperately to the fabric of all it encounters.

Cracking of bones and flints, the scourge of life and bringer of death walking so casually through the chaos as if it were merely a dance one doesn’t ascribe to in such circumstances. Like a great plague brought upon the land, at the hands and behest of a soft lipped, smooth skinned, fair face beauty who pierced all she approached with such cold and calculating eyes of a killer.

“P-Please! We agreed next month! We swore we’d pay!” The only survivor, a lone captain amid the chaos, arm missing, face bleeding, soul crushed beneath the boot of the woman who pressed against his chest with a heel.

“Oh?” It all she said, leaning closer and pressing down on the captain’s cracked ribs, her eyes staring deep into his soul, what little the pirate had left. He could feel the impending doom, and he knew there was blood to be paid.

“No, no, please, no!” His cries echoed out into the halls and corridors of his ship, an ethereal and eerie silence calling back, before the sound of a single gunshot echoed across the wooden halls.

“Clean this mess up, Quatermaster.” The woman stepped from the airlock of the luxury liner that had been turned renegade pirate ship. The Quartermaster bowed his head, before calling orders, the crew headed in to clean up the mess and add yet another ship to their fleet.

The Captain marched to her quarters, the smell of smoke wafting off of her body, as the barrel at her back dripped with oil and blood, filled to the brim with enough explosives to make any and all keep check of their positions near her. She looked no man in the eye, and none dared look back, because those who locked eyes with the Scourge of the Solar Seas, Dread Pirate Laura the Bombardier, knew that their time had come.

Soon, the sound of marching boots left her ears, as the only thing that welcomed her was the sound of a peaceful ship, her ship, and the few things that shifted about aboard it. Each crew decorated their ships as they felt necessary, and while many uphold the virtue of a more archaic time, often lining their walls with wood and their baths with sea water, Laura chose to keep to the times.

Starships rarely needed to look pretty, but when it came to hiding in plain sight, no one ever bothered a rusted bucket of bolts that only seemed to drift through space. And she liked it that way.

Laura made her way to her quarters, pulling the door open with a soft touch, the dark room slowly filling with light as the sensors detected her. A casual quarter, filled with plunder of her favorite kind, glistening silver and emerald decorating the tables, walls, and even her bed being made of an emerald wood.

“Mom!” From beneath her bed, a small girl darted out, scrambling to hug her mother, even as Laura looked at her. “Ah-” Laura took a step back, braced as the child impacted her thigh with enough force to nearly topple a normal adult, but Laura was far from normal. The Captain spun in a circle on her heel, the girl laughing as the two spun in a circle, Laura bouncing along on a foot as she twirled towards the bed, plucking her daughter from her leg and tossing her in the air. Laura flowed onto the bed, hands reached up and plucking the young girl from the air, pulling her into her embrace as the girl did little more than laughed at their usual spectacle.

“Were you good, Bonnie?” Laura asked, petting her daughter’s hair softly as they laid on the bed, the door closing after a few seconds, like it always does.

“Mhm! I hid just like you told me to!” Bonnie pops her head up, smiling with a toothy grin, practically bouncing out of her mother's arms.

“That’s my little angel.” Laura ruffles her daughters hair as she kisses her on the cheek, the two laughing happily, whilst they enjoy their time together.