#lordofcrowns

The third figure is a full 30 yalms ahead of them. A heavy white coat trails behind him, billowing as he takes leaping, bounding strides. Strands of his turquoise hair hang in the air as he runs, whipped by both the wind and his own dead spring ahead. 

His boots scuff and slide on the slick, smooth stone beneath his feet, the sky suddenly opening up in front of him as he finds himself not at the edge of the island. The two templars come barreling to a halt, their pursuit stopping ten yalms away from their quarry.

“Nowhere left…” One of the templars devolves into a heavy cough, and gasps for his breath in a distinctly over-exerted wheeze. His fellow looks at him with distinct concern in her eyes behind that metal mask.

“I must say, you both have kept up admirably.” The Miqo’te man turns to face his pursuants, gilded eye smoldering as he looks the two over. “Mostly.” He adds. Both tense, and the wheezing knight’s comrade steps forward, clears her throat, and speaks.

“You’ve nowhere left to run. By orders of the Holy See of Ishgard and other bodies of the Eorzean Alliance, you are under arrest under suspicion of crimes against Eorzea and her people, including treason, aiding and abetting heretics, and murder of the highest order.” She takes a bold step forward, shield held to face him with it’s rook-like insignia, and sword leveled at his throat. 

“Halone’s Inquisitors will extract the truth of your actions from you.” The out-of-breath templar says, squaring his shoulders. He moves forward slowly, one cautious step and then another, speartip leveled at the Captain’s chest.

Beneath his cap, Cyril’s ears twitch. The clouds far below howl with an odd, almost-beast-like sound. The wind snaps, changing directions and whistling just a little faster around the trio.

“This is certainly a mistake. You should consider what you’re suggesting here.” The Captain’s voice is a halfway-point between a snarl and a purr, low and rumbling in his ribs. He holds one hand up, in something almost akin to a surrender. His other hand thumbs his belt, or rather the handle of the whip wrapped around it.

“You see, I’m just a trader. I have my permits and licenses here, with me. If you’d like-” He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, the heels of his boots slowly, subtly shifting to steady his center of balance. The distant, rumbling, angry roar slowly grows louder and louder. 

“Save it.” The shield-bearer says, voice muffled by her metal mask and the rising wind. 

“We have evidence under sworn testimony that an individual with ties to certain black-market elements would be in this sector of the Sea of Clouds. If this really is a ‘misunderstanding’, you should hold your testimony for Halone’s Inquisitors. You’ll need it.” She spits her words and steps forward, closer to both her companion and the Captain. Her chin raises upwards, coming to rest at an accusatory slant as she waits.

“Ah, someone implicated me, then?” He says, words slow and flowing like honey. His eyes remain steady on the two templars, but his ears are trained on the approaching, angry wind.

“That’s right.” The wheezing knight says, inching closer with. His hands shake and jostle his own spear nervously. “So you’d better come peacefully. We have authorization to kill the target if we have to, and you’re standing real close to that ledge.”

“How brave of you.” The Captain says slowly, his lips turning into a subtle sneer, “Why, such forthright persistence is so rare these days. I’m pleased to know the Temple Knights are yet the bravest, most chivalrous warriors in Eorzea.”

“Of course we- Oh you little.” The realization hits the out-of-breath knight in the middle of his sentence. “Playing cheeky are you, I’ll be sure to teach you some real manners.”

“Don’t take the bait. He’s just trying to get you to attack. He’s better use to us alive.” The swordwoman pauses in the middle of her thought, stopping to listen.

“What’s… What’s that sound?” She says, not loud enough for her companion to hear. Her sword drops ever so slightly.

Cyril snaps into motion as soon as she finishes, hand drawing out his whip and swinging it back in a single motion. The long, sinuous leather snakes around him, curling like a dragon’s tail. The spear-bearer lurches forward, pushing against the now-feverous wind. He plants his feet, and thrusts forward with the point of his spear.

Captain Stacy twitches his wrist. 

The length spins out and away from him, like the arms of a cyclone. Whistling, it smashes into the center of the lancer’s chest. The mail rings like a cymbal, and the templar’s ribs snap loudly. His feet lift a few inches up off the ground. A resounding crack silences the wind for a brief second. The lancer lands a few paces back from where he’d stood, groaning on his side. His spear clatters to the ground where he was struck. The whip lurches back, Cyril’s arm winding and tensing back behind his head in a circular, casting motion. His coat billows out over the ledge, filling with air.

“Shit!” The shield-bearer pushes off of her back foot, covering close to half the distance between her and the captain in a single bound. Cyril’s arm circles round once more, and then reaches up towards the churning skies.

“Fast.” He notes, his voice growling in tandem with the fibers of his whip. It would almost sound complementary, if not for the predatory glint in his eye.

“But it’s pointless!” The whip snakes around him, curling inwards and coursing across the surface of his coat. The leather hisses, and his arm streaks downward, painting a thick, vertical black line in the sky as the whip follows his motion.

It falls like lightning, the whip bending outward as it hisses downwards towards her. She raises her shield, but true to his word she’s not fast enough to match the sinuous, ebony whip. It moves in a blur, first striking her shield and shoulder, then twisting around her and catching her in the side of her ribs. Her feet skid, but she holds her balance from the twin strikes.

Then it wraps around her left arm from below. As it snaps into place with an iron-hot shot of pain, she feels more than sees as the captain pulls her elbow and shoulder inward with a terrible jerk. She feels her arm pop free of her shoulder as the whip holds fast and jerks her to the side. She screams in rage and pain as her elbow breaks backwards, her shield clattering to the ground.

Through biting tears, she pushes through the pain and pushes forward yet, blade still in steady hand. She plants her feet as she nears him, his eyes burning into her with all the apathy of a storm at sea. Her good arm pushes forward, tearing the air, cleaving towards him in a single upwards, goring slash. He darts to the side, coat trailing behind him like a phantom.

There one moment. Gone the next.

Something hard and fast buries itself in her gut. His fist, she realizes dully. Her sword soars upwards and then over the ledge as she’s thrown backwards and lands with a metal thud.

She gasps for breath, lungs finding none. Nevertheless, she struggles to her knee, and then to her feet. Her eyes blearily stare upwards. She locks her eyes on him, blurred from pain and tears. Her head is wracked with the building panic born of being so thoroughly dismantled so rapidly. Her ears ring, but her sweat-stung eyes sweep off the Captain to her companion on the ground. He claws at the dirt, trying desperately to flee, but unable to get his footing.

The wind suddenly bellows, the droning that’d haunted the brief encounter opening up into a deathly roar. A monster of wood, metal and steam breaks through the mist and clouds around them, screeching all the while. A magitek-powered airship, leaden with naval cannons and watchful, dark shadows atop the deck darkens the sky behind the captain. He reaches up to hold his cap steady in the gale. The humm and roar of it’s engines rumbes in her aching, airless lungs. 

Her eyes, though, remain locked on him. He looks down towards her, and without a word just raises one arm. He points to her fallen comrade, then holds an open hand towards the vessel behind him. He closes his fist.

She makes another breakneck dash for him, legs still wobbly after having the air knocked from her. His eye shines in the umbral glow of the Sea of clouds, and he opens his arms wide as she charges him.

The moment hangs for a second, as she stares with murderous intent. The wind whipping around them loses its sound. Something guttural and crass has torn free of her chest, curses just out of reach of her panicked, enraged instincts. All the while, he stands with his arms wide and head low. The wind races out from behind him, blowing the tails of his coat up and kicking up dust around his feet.

As she rears back with one fist, he steps into her space and snags her wrist with his gloved hand. He spins around her, pulling her back by the arm. As his other hand ensnares her other wrist, she feels the coils of his whip bind her by the wrists. She tries to pivot, to face him, but her legs trip on his knee. Gravity grips her, her body once again thrown to the jade earth of the islet. He places a foot on her hips and a knee on her broken shoulder.

The pain is there, she can feel it, numb and aching as she tries to unpin herself from the Captain atop her. He waves over to the hovering ship, and like vultures, crewmen descend on ropes. As they take her and bring her to her feet, binding her properly, they throw the lancer off the island’s ledge, down towards the clouds.

“You can’t escape.” He says, all the charm gone from his voice as his sneer creeps into more of his face. “And you’re more useful to me alive.” He turns his attention, but not his eye, away from her and to his crew.

“Take her. I’ll see to her when I’ve the time. I have questions for her regarding who they received their information from.” Cyril says.

The men and women gripping her pull her over to one of the dangling ropes, but she keeps her head and eyes pinned on the Captain as he slowly walks over to her still-crawling compatriot. He drops into a squat beside the prone man, hand reaching into his coat, to somewhere near the small of his back.

“You would tell me whatever you want, wouldn’t you.” It’s not a question, but the templar nods in jerky, quick motions. The knight’s movements get more and more frantic, all the while the Captain’s gaze unfalteringly falls on him.

“Yes, of course! Yes!” The dark glint in Captain Stacy’s eye sparks a moment.

“Thought so.” She can barely hear the crack of gunfire over the winds, but the stark red of her friend’s blood staining the jadestone dirt around the Captain’s boots is impossible for her to miss.