A heavy darkness cloaked the Captain’s quarters, only the occasional flicker of lightning illuminated his features as he stared pensively out the rear windows. Angry storm clouds closed in, a massive waxing gibbous moon peeked through the clouds. Lord Tekla glared at it, before it vanished behind the cloud cover.  

Vigo entered without knocking. He began lighting candles around the room, shielding the tiny flames against the drafts in the hull. “My Lord, the ship is prepared for the storm.” 

Lord Tekla glanced over his shoulder with a ghost of a smile. “Much appreciated, Vigo. I will take your watch tonight. You’ve earned a good night’s rest.” The Captain turned back to the window.

Vigo faced him and stared, confusion written over his strong features. For a large man, he was agile and well muscled, his face like chiseled marble.  Handsome beneath his harsh expression. If you squinted. “My Lord?” Vigo stepped up beside the Captain. “You seem troubled.”

“When was the last time you saw the full moon, Vigo?” The Captain’s voice stayed steady. Vigo remained silent, staring at the shape of Lord Tekla in the dimness. Lightning illuminated him, casting a stark glow over his scarred face. 

“Not since winter began…” Vigo cut himself off with a quiet intake of breath. His brow tensed as he continued to stare at Lord Tekla. “Do you think she will emerge again?”

Lord Tekla’s face gave nothing away. He turned his gold eye to Vigo, his sharp features softened as he studied the warrior beside him. He placed a pale hand on Vigo’s arm. “Get some sleep. You will need it.”

Vigo nodded curtly, pressing his lips together. He drew sluggishly away, apprehensive to leave, “As you wish.” He melted silently into the shadows, Lord Tekla peered back at the sound of the door clicking shut. Rain began to tap against the windowpanes. The men wouldn't get much rest. 

His candles hardly began to melt when the storm geared up. Lord Tekla could pick out Sega’s voice over the gales. He sat at his desk, lazily sprawled in his chair despite the contents of his desk sliding back and forth with the pitching of the ship.

His hand reached out and slid the Marauder’s log towards him, flipping it open. The pages spread to a folded piece of parchment shoved into the binding. He laid the parchment flat and narrowed his eyes at the lines and shapes on the page. In the faint candlelight, he could make out the lines and shapes that resembled an unfinished map.

He leaned forward, drawing a candle near. The ship dropped in a nasty buck, his stomach nearly falling through his body. All the contents of the desk dumped onto the floor in a flurry of pages. 

“Damnit.” The Captain slammed his fist onto the desk and stood, extinguishing the candle with his fingers before marching out.

Outside, on the main deck of the ship, the storm whipped into a fury. Sega squinted through the downpour from the hood of her cloak. They'd passed through plenty of these storms, but she couldn't shake the strange tension building along her spine. The ship rocked and men called out to each other, hauling on ropes to help right the vessel. Sega frowned up at the main mast. 

“Secure the main stays! The wind will snap that if she catches hold!” She pointed up to the fan shaped sails of the mast, fluttering uselessly.

The men scurried to follow her command. Despite her interactions with the Captain, these men trusted Sega with their lives. To them she was the Captain’s henchman, but she was also their First Mate, and lead them to success and survival more times than they could count. As far as Sega was concerned, she was the only thing standing between her men and the Captain. 

For hours, the storm battered them. Rain came down in thick, unrelenting sheets. The ship tossed around like a bird in the wind. It reared in an updraft, the wood hull groaning. Vigo strained against the wheel of the ship, one hand throttling the engine. Sega pressed onto the rail of the main deck, riding the swell while leaning all her weight against a rope. They dropped on the downdraft, and several men staggered for balance as the ship leveled abruptly. 

The air calmed, the rain lessened. Sega squinted up at the swirling wall of clouds around them. They had finally reached the eye of the storm. She took account of the men. They stood panting at their posts, drenched like wet rats and utterly exhausted. Sega smoothed her wet hair back, feeling the bone deep dread mixed with the momentary relief. They would get a brief respite, riding in the eye. But eventually they’d need to dive back in. These storms sometimes lasted the whole winter, hundreds of miles across, roaming endlessly around the atmosphere. You could outrun them and waste fuel, or you could bear the brunt of it and ride into them. 

A gentle rain pattered in the puddles on deck, the ripples overlapping. Sega glanced up at Vigo, who conversed with the Captain, their heads nodded together. Despite being soaked through like the rest of them, the Captain didn't appear bogged down by his drenched clothes. All around, the men began to settle while they still could, plopping down in groups around the deck, splayed out miserably. Thunder clapped in the storm surrounding them, the wind still moaned past the masts. 

Sega continued to scan the slowly spinning mass of clouds. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, an odd sound ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure if it was just the effects of prolonged wind blasting her eardrums, or if she was really hearing it. It was sharp, and roared like a serpent cloud or water spout…it seemed far off and close at the same time, a haunting echo. 

It caught her attention at the last second, on its collision course with the deck. A flaming heap slammed down onto the wood planks, narrowly missing her as she shied away. The men yelped and scattered in surprise, but Sega gazed down at it incredulously and stepped closer. 

The heap was a ravaged body of a man, and it was on fire with a flame so dark it was almost hard to see in the winter’s night. Every hair on Sega’s body stood. Her eyes shot up to the Captain, who leaned over the upper deck railing. His grip strangled the wood as he stared back at her, his chilled features shifting into something purely feral. They knew that fire. They knew it came from no man, no ship. She's back, was the only thing that went through Sega's mind. 

Sega spun, frantically searching the clouds. She could still hear that haunting cry, it seemed to be moving around them, everywhere at once. She turned just in time to see the stern of another ship explode through the wall of clouds just above them. 

“STARBOARD!” Sega screamed, her men turned to see a ship engulfed in black fire hurtling towards them. Too late, however, as the ship sheered the front mast in half. Debris rained down all across the deck. Sega shielded herself with her arms as she slid back across the planks. 

The Captain dove for the wheel and spun it hard. 

“Take hold!” Sega shouted to her men as their ship pitched hard, narrowly avoiding a full collision with the downed ship. Mostly. The mast of the other ship swung down and gouged a massive chasm through the hull of the Valravn. Sega slid to the rail and looked over as the Valravn recovered its bearing, the burning ship careened past them into the darkness. Part of the brig had been struck through. She glanced around, the men all immersed in their tasks. They could handle this without her for a moment, and she bolted for the hatch. She didn’t notice that the helm was unattended…

The rolling of the ship did nothing to ease the cold pit in Lux’s stomach. He pressed himself against the back wall of the cell, eyes clamped shut and head spinning. He wasn’t sure if it was from the storm or the fact that he had landed himself in the exact situation he had fought to free himself from. 

He sighed with relief as the ship stilled. Yes, most of his nausea was from the storm. But not all of it. He still fought back the urge to scream at the thought of walking right into the damned apocalypse. Again. 

The ship suddenly tilted hard, throwing him against the wall. “For the love of —“ He was interrupted by the hull of the ship suddenly tearing open like a grinning mouth. He yelled in surprise as a massive beam of wood narrowly missed him, snatching the cell bars and launching them into the clouds beyond. Wind filled the room, sucking the air from his lungs. Lux scrambled to his feet and gazed up through the hole in the ship.

As he leaned to see the remains of the burning ship careen past, his sharp eyes locked onto something else. The shadowy figure of a man, flailing uselessly as he plummeted toward’s Lux. Without thinking, Lux hooked one arm around a still bolted down cell bar and swung out of the hole to grab hold of the falling man’s arm. 

The man swung and slammed into the battered hull, nearly yanking Lux’s arm free. Lux gritted his teeth, feeling the metal bar give slightly with a crack. When he looked down at the man dangling from his arm, his grip slipped in surprise. 

The Captain watched the burning ship fall into the storm below, before turning his gold eye back up to Lux. A chill raced up Lux’s spine as he gaped at the strange glint in the Captain’s eye. 

Like a starved man staring at a roasted pig. 

The cell bar holding him gave again, this time Lux caught himself with his bandaged hand. He cried out in agony, the pain searing through his arm into his chest.

The Captain laughed, dangling in the wind. 

“Let me fall! No one would know.” Lord Tekla’s face twisted into a maniacal grin, taunting Lux. Lux stared, aghast. He was right, he could let the Captain fall to his death, and perhaps he would make it out of this wrecked hellhole alive. Lux's face hardened in concentration, his grip tightened on the Captain’s wrist. 

The ship groaned and began to list. The bar holding the two men lurched, the bolt holding it down slipped free. Lux fell foward, catching himself against the broken wall. Splintered wood dug into his bandaged hand, blood began to seep through the bandages. He glanced around, looking for a way to lift the Captain into the hold. Behind him, an axe smashed through the wood door, blocked by shards of wood from the inside. 

“Hang on to me!” He shouted over the gale, Lord Tekla cackled response. 

“Why? Take your revenge while you can!” Lord Tekla’s white hair whipped around him.

“Shut up! Hold on,” Lux shouted back, ground his teeth and swung. The brig door finally gave, falling to the floor in a splintered crash and Sega stepped back at the sight before her. In a surge of whatever strength Lux could muster, he hauled the Captain into the hole, shouting with the effort. The Captain tumbled in, and collapsed against the back wall in a pile of debris. Sega climbed over the debris, shielding her eyes from the wind. 

She stared first at Lux, pressed against what was left of the outer wall, trembling as blood seeped through the bandages on his hands. For a moment, it seemed like the air around him vibrated but when she blinked, it was gone. She drug her attention to the sound of scrambling across the hold, as the Captain staggered to his feet. Without a word, he shoved past Sega and bolted down the hall.  

Sega opened her mouth to speak, as another sound ripped through the darkness. The blood drained from her face her eyes widening, while Lux's dropped to the floor, unreadable. She scrambled over the broken wood planks to the hole and leaned carefully out. Lux followed, poking his head out as they both gazed up into the dark storm clouds.

Lord Tekla erupted from the hatch, his eye wildly searching the storm. He sprinted up the steps to the upper deck, where Vigo struggled to right the ship. Tekla grabbed onto the wheel and together they hefted the vessel back onto its bearings. 

Vigo gazed at the Captain, panting. His eyes focused on something over the Captain's shoulder, his face fell limp. 

“My lord…” 

Lord Tekla whipped around. A shriek cut through the air, both chilling the bones and boiling the blood at the same time. The entire crew froze, staring at the massive form lurking in the clouds just beside them. Just longer than their ship, its body slender, a pair of wings tucked along its side as it glided, silhouetted by the pulsing lightning. It moved like a snake, twisting and sliding effortlessly. The clouds fell into darkness at the lightning subsided, and when it flashed again, the figure was gone. 

Lord Tekla’s face surged between a bloodthirsty grin, terror and unbridled excitement. He gazed off into the clouds. Vigo watched the Captain like one would watch a prowling lion, he shifted slightly away while one hand reached slowly towards the unhinged man before him. All of the men on deck held the same expression of uncertainty and awe, but towards the thing that lurked in the storm. 

Lord Tekla turned to Vigo and closed the distance between them in a single stride. He grabbed the large man's arms. He was almost a head shorter than Vigo, and gazed up at him. 

"She's back, Vigo. Finally, she's back." the Captain shook him slightly. Vigo paled, then blinked with a single nod. He couldn't find the words, but gripped the Captain's arms like he might disolve into smoke at any moment.