#lmnevent

There weren't many occasions where Celine would admit to biting off more than she could chew. She had conquered ships, slaughtered men indiscriminately, and she was one of the most notorious female pirates to sail the seas around Ronsanella. When she decided on something, dozens would follow in her wake. When someone wanted her dead, she would crush them mercilessly and leave their corpse as a grim reminder of the consequences of crossing her. However, no matter how good with a sword she was, or how stubborn she could be, she wasn't invincible. She still had her limits, and from the way that things were starting to turn out for her, she was well on her way to being reacquainted with them.

She dashed down the nearest alleyway, knocking over crates and barrels in an effort to slow down the mob that was on her heels. Their angry voices and the sound of wood being smashed to smithereens kept her sprinting away, doing everything that she could think of to lose her pursuers. The Pirate Lord let out a string of curses, lungs burning with exertion as she kept running. Every door she came across was boarded up, and even if they hadn't been, she wouldn't have tried her luck with them. There were too many people after her as it was, and getting cornered by them was the last thing that she wanted.

Celine gritted her teeth, angry at the townspeople who wouldn't leave well enough alone, and even more furious with herself for being so careless. Of course they thought she had been the cause of the attack, regardless of the fact that it had been years since she and her crew had attacked a village. A pirate was a pirate in their eyes, even if she had been discovered dispatching some of the real rogues on her own. All it had taken was one person to recognize her as one of the Pirate Lords and suddenly the whole attack was her fault.

How fucking typical. 

The blonde glanced behind her again, cutting across another main street into another set of winding alleys. Her pursuers had thinned, but there were still a sizable number of them- too many for her to take care of on her own without risking serious injury. As she turned another corner, the Pirate Lord had to repress a shriek of frustration. She had run into a dead end. Her eyes darted up, judging the distance between her and the nearest ledge. It was too high up for her to reach, and this time she swore loudly. As the angry voices grew closer, her options whittled back down to the cutlass at her hip. It looked like she was going to have to fight her way out of this debacle after all. 

She unsheathed her sword as the townspeople caught up with her. A quick headcount told her that there were at least a dozen people closing in on her, with one of them wearing the crest of the king himself and covered head to toe in chainmail. “Of course there’s a knight. There’s always a fucking knight.” Celine muttered under her breath, charging at them with only a moment’s hesitation. The alley was cramped, and not ideal for moving around in. However, it didn’t stop her from downing the first three in her way. She was careful too, running her blade through the unguarded muscles of their thighs enough to cripple them. Celine made quick work out of most of them, and by the time she reached the one she had thought would pose the most problems, she was in far better shape than she had expected. As soon as she downed the glorified tin can, she could get back to her mission. It took too much energy to make sure that they were down for good, so Celine moved on without so much as checking on whether or not they had fallen. 

That was another crucial mistake.

She didn’t notice when one of the fallen townsfolk got up. Her focus was trained onto the knight that stood between her and her escape path. She didn’t notice as the man quietly raised his spade up behind her, or the look that he exchanged with the knight in silent agreement. It was only when she felt something hard and blunt hit the back of her head, and her vision started to fade, that she realized that any of them had gotten up in the first place. But by then it was too late, and she was already going down.

Standing outside of the orphanage that was as much of a "safe zone" as anyone could hope for, Serena held fast to the cutlass she had liberated (read: stolen from a pirate), and did her best to delegate who was going where in terms of fighters and civilians. The very moment she had been informed of the raid that was taking place on land, she had come out from the sea as fast as she could just so that she could try her hand at offering some form of assistance. Ronsanella had come to be just as much of a home to her as the Mer-Kingdom was, and she absolutely refused to let it be defeated at the filthy hands of the pirate lords and their slimy comrades. It didn't matter that she had next to no fighting experience whatsoever, that she was more of a dancer and a performer than anything remotely even close to a knight or a royal guard, because she still had every intent of putting her life on the line and laying it down for the people of Ronsanella that simply didn't deserve such an awful act of terrorism. So she would learn to wield a sword, and she would learn to use her body for something more than singing and dancing--that was all there was to it. 

Finally, the horde of people that had once been standing before her had separated into two groups: one had been taken into the relative safety of the orphanage, and the other was armed with their makeshift weapons and all of the grim acceptance of the fact that everything that took place today would be life or death. A few of the men were even looking at her skeptically, and she supposed that she couldn't exactly blame them...most people on shore knew her as simply, "the burlesque girl", and so perhaps the fact that she was attempting to rule an army was laughable at best. Still, they seemed to trust that she had a plan, and Serena slid her cutlass back into its holster (also stolen) before clasping her hands together and speaking once more. 

"Okay! Good. Now that everyone's been taken to safety, it's time for us to head back out there. We need to find their ships--that's where all their supplies will be, and all of their cargo, and if we're able to bring them down, then they'll have no choice but to turn themselves in when they realize there's nowhere else for them to go. But we need to be safe! Protect as many people as you can, but try really, really hard not to get yourself killed in the process. I--alright? Your lives are just as important as anyone else's out there...it'll do you well not to forget that." Letting out a soft sigh, she waited expectantly for them to nod in response, and she inclined her head as well before reaching for her sword and pulling it out of its sheath once more. 

"Alright then, ladies and gentlemen! We've got an island to defend!" 

And with that, she was off. She darted away from the orphanage, only after ensuring that the doors were locked and barred from the inside, and she made a beeline towards where she knew the ships had pulled into the dock. She would have taken off at a run if not for the sudden sensation of someone nearly tripping over her own dainty feet, and with a breathy and furious little gasp, Serena was whirling around to face them fully, cutlass at the ready and brilliant brown eyes narrowed dangerously. Even if it were someone she knew, or perhaps just a civilian, she still couldn't be too careful.

"You'd better hope that you aren't a pirate, because I will not hesitate to skewer you on the end of my sword!"

Tatiana hadn't been at all prepared for the incoming raid on the village, and with her father out of town on business and no one but her to protect their beloved bakery, she had taken it upon herself to snatch up the first weapon she could find--a heavy, cast-iron frying pan--before leaving the relative safety of her home to stand guard outside of the last true memory of her mama that her and her papa had to hold onto. Everything about their little bakery had been dedicated to her late mother--Sweetums was the affectionate little pet name that had been used when her parents thought that Tatiana was within hearing range, and each and every single one of the recipes had been taken from her handwritten notes. The young Russian girl would sooner give up her own life than abandon the bakery that she loved so dearly, and now, she was standing outside of it with her frying pan and her heart on her sleeve, surrounded by a half-circle of looters who seemed to want nothing more than to ransack everything of value from their little shop before burning it to the ground.

Brandishing her weapon of choice defensively, Tatiana let out a shaky breath as she glared heatedly at the numerous men who encroached upon her with their dirty hands, guns and swords strapped to their sides and broken bottles made out of jagged glass in their hands, wondering how on earth she was supposed to manage to take them on all at once. Wide-eyed and scared, she did her best not to let it show, stubbornly staring down each and every one of the men who so much as dared to take another step towards her and her bakery.

"I am meaning it--if you do not leave right this instant, I will beat you bloody until you are not breathing!"

The moment Clara had heard about the village being swarmed and attacked by pirates, her first instinct had been not to defend her own safety, but rather, the safety of her family. In the castle, she was tucked away from any and all harm that might ensue, and she had little to worry about so long as King Bennet's knights ensured that the home of the royal family remained guarded and under patrol. Her family, however, lived worryingly close to the village in a cottage that was near the shore as well, and therefore, they were in a great deal of danger...even more so given the fact that they weren't given the advanced warning that the castle was. With that in mind, she had managed to sneak away from the rest of the handmaidens that had sought refuge in the attic, and now, despite the fact that she had nothing but the small knife she had taken from the kitchens to defend herself, Clara was rushing away from the castle in favor of making her way into the heart of the village under siege. She needed to find her family and make sure that they were safe...she needed to find them and bring them back to the castle, or at the very least find them sort of shelter where the pirates wouldn't be able to so much as come near them. Just thinking about her mama, her papa, and all of her siblings being attacked by the men and women that longed to tear Ronsanella to shreds terrified young Clara more than she could even begin to put into words, and her heart was positively racing with each desperate and clumsy step that she took.

"Mama, papa...please be safe, please..." she murmured fretfully to herself beneath her breath, wide eyes taking in the chaos surrounding her. Everywhere she turned, there was something dangerous to contend with...pirates with ragged clothing and dirty hands looted the nearby shops and stalls without hesitation, and Clara's heart broke at the sight of broken glass and charred wood littering the grounds and marring what had once been her favorite place to do her shopping. She was small and swift and hopefully unimportant-seeming, but even still, she clung to her knife as if it were all she knew, and she was just about to weave through a throng of people crying for help, when...there, in the midst of all the fire and terror and debauchery, was a small boy with dark skin and bright eyes, maybe two or three years old at the most, standing all by himself in the middle of the torn-apart streets. The poor thing was in absolute tatters, and he was sobbing brokenly as he rubbed at his eyes and trembled where he stood. He was all alone, and Clara didn't even stop to think about what had happened to his parents or if he even had them in the first place before she was rushing towards him, ignoring things like self-preservation and self-defense in favor of following her ever-compassionate heart.

"Shh, shh, honey, it's okay. I--I've got you. I'm here, hi," she said breathlessly as she fell to her knees before him, quickly assessing the teary-eyed toddler and letting out an audible sigh of relief when she realized that, while he might have been covered in dirt, soot, and ashes, he was relatively unharmed and had hopefully been left untouched by the evil nature of the pirates that had raided the village. Tucking her knife away into the waistband of her skirt, she gingerly reached for the small boy and lifted him up into her arms, cradling him tightly to her chest and holding him close. "My name is Clara, okay? I--I'm going to bring you somewhere safe, and then we'll try and find your parents too. Shh, shhh, you'll be alright. I promise, honey," she reassured him in hushed murmurs, tucking his head into the crook of his neck and brushing her fingers through his dark curls soothingly so that he wouldn't have to see the all-out war taking place all around him. He was so young, so small and so innocent and so pure, and it broke her heart to see him all alone and in such danger. Looking around frantically, she struggled to seek out a place for her to gather her bearings before making a run for it once more, but no sooner had she taken a single step away from the crowded marketplace was a sudden boom of a sound going off behind her. The child wailed, and Clara gasped, and it was only the panicked shouts of the other civilians that alerted her to what was happening.

Someone was firing a cannon. 

Kael knew his luck was bad sometimes, but this really took the cake. It was one thing to lose his favourite set of cufflinks in the safety of the castle during a ball, but an entirely different matter to find himself running for his life in the middle of the town, like he was doing now. However, like both incidents, it was all the fault of his overactive libido and the tempting wiles of women that had set him on a track to complete and utter misery. This, coupled with the recent and near violent encounter with a pirate woman had him wallowing in self-pity. 

Really, with his current streak with the opposite sex, the nobleman was almost convinced that he was cursed.

He dashed between the houses, trying not to get in the way as commoners clashed with pirates in the main streets. Kael swore under his breath, looking to see if any of them had dropped something of value, like a sword. What he wouldn't give to have his rapier on hand, or any sort of weapon right now. Like all nobles, he was well-versed in the art of fencing, but that knowledge was completely useless without so much as a stick to use as a foil. Not that he really intended on fighting the pirates (whose mermaid-exterminating mission wasn’t something he opposed), but it would have given him some peace of mind to have at least something to defend himself with. Cowardliness wasn't attractive on him.

However, self-preservation made sure that he kept moving as stealthily as possible. It might have been distasteful, but it was far better than getting a sharpened piece of metal through the gut.