Even when you think there is nothing to be done, there is always something that can be done. And it is usually up to us dwarfs to do it.

Dwarven Proverb

Waves pitched the deck as Sheala lost her thoughts among the endless blue from horizon to horizon. The ship's rail was so scarred from the tip of her knife that Reane was sure to kill her when she found out what she had been doing to her ship. Unconcerned, the former thief kept marring the wood as a distraction.

Pondering the water, it was a means for her to try to make sense of her brief time spent in the Fairy Realm to avoid the Imperial blockades. Ever since she stepped foot inside that alternate reality to her own, everything just seemed so familiar. Like she'd been there before. But she hadn't. She would have remembered something so vivid and different to the natural world. Wouldn't she?

"Do you doubt your own feelings?" Sayra joined her in staring across the ocean.

"What?"

"You're so certain. Yet so uncertain."

The First Daughter's words were annoyingly cryptic. "About what?" Another sliver of wood was dug from its home.

"Must we play this game?" Sayra smiled, but Sheala didn't look at her. "Go around and around?"

"If I knew what on Geiha you were talking about..."

"You have been to the Fairy Realm before."

Sheala immediately stopped her previous thought, now leveling her eyes onto the silver-haired elf. Sayra's smile became more pronounced. "I have?"

The First Daughter nodded. "When you and your sister were six. The day your caravan was attacked and your parents were murdered."

"I-" Sheala stumbled with the response. She remembered very little. Though she recalled her father giving her and Cass the pendants. After that, they had run off, seeking to burn off some pent up energy the way children couped up in a coach all day and all night would have needed to. "There was... something odd."

Sayra nodded. "You saw a blue light and followed it."

Sheala tried to search her memory, but anything that came to her was vague. More like impressions than clear thoughts. "We did follow something in the woods." She remembered chasing something. It had been comparable to a phantom and flittered ahead of her, leading her away from the convoy of knights and the coach. She recalled how Cass had trouble keeping up, stumbling multiple times, telling her they needed to get back.

But Sheala didn't listen. She kept on chasing whatever it was she was running after with stubborn impulsiveness.

"The fairies protected you," the First Daughter explained, seeing that Sheala was at a loss to explain what she couldn't remember as her memories failed to congeal it into a coherent form. "They warned us of the pending attack, and my people tried to assist. But we were impeded by members of the House of Iilas who prevented us from arriving in time."

"The Dark Elves?"

"Yes. Knowing that we wouldn't arrive to assist, the fairies stepped in. They led you to a Vessary Blossom and opened a gateway for you to Undulhava."

"But-" Sheala's voice contained a level of non-understanding that was obvious. "Why just me and Cass? Why not my mother and father? Why not anyone else? Why were we so important?"

Sighing, Sayra tried her best to explain. "You and your sister had the medallions; the keys. No one else had a link to the Fairy Realm. It wasn't possible to save them."

"There's always a way," Sheala grumbled, not liking the excuse.

"I understand, it is not easy to accept. My people still grieve our failure to this day. On the Second of Alshu each year no elf partakes of a bite of food or a drop of water. We fast to show our sorrow, and all elven households light candles for each member of the delegation that died that day."

Sheala sneered. "That's doesn't make things any better."

"We're not gods," the silver-haired elf leaned heavily on the rail.

"Unfortunately, none of us are." Sheala mirrored her posture.

"Fins!" The ship's barrelman announced from his lookout position in the crow's nest. "On intercept course from the northwest!"

Upon that cry, both Sayra and Sheala stood up straight. The glance exchanged the two of them contained every bit of tense unease both held on to at the moment.

"Fins?" Sayra asked.

"It means other ships," the former thief explained.

"Ah."

"Count?" Reane's call sliced across the ship as she emerged from her cabin.

"Two, Captain!"

"Beat to quarters!"

The lookout took to immediately clanging the triangle bell in the masthead over and over. The commotion startled Sheetah from her perch on the ship's main yard and sent the dragon bolting through the air to Sayra's shoulder.

As her crew began assembling on the deck to await orders, Reane made her way to the ship's bow, produced her spyglass and peered out across the waters in the direction indicated.

"Imperial ships?" Sheala questioned, a lump caught in her throat, as both she and the First Daughters joined the captain. Ittan too, as well as Anthony, had also found their way to the forward part of the ship and were also having a look for themselves.

Reane took time to focus. "Confirmed!" she called back to the lookout. "Two vessels!" As she studied the distant forms, something seemed amiss. The mainmast of the one ship listed to port, suggesting that it had sustained damaged and probably taken on some water in parts of its lower hold. The other ship's silhouette didn't seem right either, as though it were missing at least one sail. "Can you verify condition?"

"Aye! Not good! Both appear to have suffered damage! Lead ship is flying distress colors!"

Then Reane posed the question Sheala had already asked, but she had ignored while attempting to garner more information. "Imperial?"

"Negative! Both are running a brown flag!" the lookout shouted back.

"Brown flag?" Reane mumbled, bringing her spyglass up once more. A second look confirmed her suspicions. "Corsair."

"Wait," Sheala chimed in. "You mean the same person General Nightwing hired to chase us out of Catersburg?"

"Looks that way."

Now Brentai had joined them with his own opinions. "Could be a trap? Lure us in thinking they're in trouble while his other two cutters are laying in wait just over the horizon?"

Reane shook her head. "I don't think so. But, because it's a possibility, let's proceed with caution. Have the crew mount armaments and set up for evasive maneuvers on my signal. Begin reducing sails and slow our approach and run up the yellow flag to signal that we will assist."

"Aye, Captain!"

As he was off, Reane then added, "We're going to play this straight. Assume what we see with our eyes is accurate."

"I don't like it," groaned Sheala. "Every instinct I honed as a thief tells me something's not right."

"Not disagreeing with you on that one."

As the two ships grew closer, all of them stood in silence and took stock of the situation as things slowly came into focus. The listing ship struggled to keep upright. Every wave it sliced through caused it to wobble and shudder. The other was missing a mast and another of its sails as in tatters. Each began cutting back on their own speed as the distance closed.

Soon it was clear just how much damage both of the oncoming ships had sustained. With the Oracle's sails stowed and only momentum carrying her forward, they were approaching the lead ship and presenting their starboard to its own. There was a tear out of the top of the hull. Eerily familiar to the way Reane's ship appeared after the archeon attack at the Telowan Islands. The entire fore of the vessel seemed to have been on fire and since extinguished.

The other was also blackened, a large portion of its bow missing.

"Ahoy, Captain Matir!" Captain Corsair called out as both vessels were nearly dead in the water and creeping up alongside each other. "Lend a hand?"

"Confirm your intentions! Are you friend or still foe?"

"No need to part brass rags, Captain! It was just a commission!"

Reane nodded her satisfaction. She called over her shoulder to Brentai, letting him know how to command the crew to respond. "Toss the grapples! Tie us up!"

The other ship with Captain Corsair began to ease up to the other side of the Oracle and Reane paced back to the main deck. Sheala and Sayra both followed. The deck shuddered for a moment as the three ships came together and their counter momentum brought them all to a stop together.

The crew leveled out a plank between the Oracle and wounded ship still fighting to remain upright. Reane motioned for Captain Corsair to cross, She would forego the general custom of meeting on the plank to negotiate terms before allowing another captain to board.

Corsair, looking even more disheveled than typical for him, quickly crossed the distance. His middle-aged face sported a sizable welt of purple above his left eye. "What happened?" Reane asked.

"We were sailing out of Fimmirra on a standard run. Just picked up a hold full of wine from Reginald to try to make some extra coin off of it. A day out, we ran smack into the Imperial fleet heading to where we had just come from."

"The Imperial fleet?" Sheala cut in.

Captain Corsair was a little taken aback at having his conversation with another captain being interrupted, but Reane smoothed it over. "It's OK. She's actually a Fimmirran Ambassador."

He stared at her from top of the head to her toes and back up again. "Ain't looking like no Ambassador I've ever seen. But, if you say so-"

"Why would the Imperial Fleet be sailing to Fimmirra," Sheala asked. "They can't get through the reef."

"My guess is through the reef wouldn't have been their intention. More like over it," the haggard captain made a motion with his hand to emphasize the words he spoke. "They had ships carrying dragons."

"Dragons?" Sheala, Sayra, Anthony, Ittan, and Reane all replied in near unison.

"Aye. If you're heading back there, I'd advise against it. I lost two of my ships, and you can see the condition the other were left in."

"Well, Captain," Reane folded her arms, "Fimmirra is our destination. And if you want our assistance, it's going to be yours too. Because we're not going to turn around and tow you back to Briskal or Illik. And, by the looks of things, you will not make it much further on your own."

"Sadly, no," Captain Corsair admitted. "The Northwind here took on a lot of water during the attack, and it's sitting down in the lower hold causing this blasted tilt. Our bilge pumps broke under the strain of that much water. The Siren's Dance," he pointed to the other ship sailing with him, "lost over half her crew and is down a mast and two whole sails. The remaining two of my fleet are at the bottom of the sea. Cargo, crew, and all."

"Ok then, here are my terms," Reane smiled. "First, a hundred gold Imperials. Second, as I said, we're heading back to Fimmirra, and you're coming with us. You'll sail under my command for one year from this day, and I get forty percent of your monthly hauls."

"That's all?" Corsair chuckled. "Steep, but what choice do we have?"

With a shrug, Reane stated the obvious. "Try to limp back to the mainland and pray you don't run into any more Imperial ships or worse? There are less scrupulous smugglers and pirates who would not be as certain to grant you quarter as I have."

"All right, Captain. We have an accord. On one condition?"

"I'll abide by the Smuggler's Code," Reane grinned, knowing he would be a fool not to take the opportunity she presented to him. "I gave you two, you can give me one."

"If we see any signs of those ships carrying those dragons, we turn and we run." He held out his hand to seal the deal.

Reane accepted. "Brentai!" She waited for her first mate to come over. "The extra sail from storage? Bring it up and over to the Siren's Dance. If we have any spare rigging, bring that too. Looks like they'll need it. And have the crew take our portable bilge pumps over to Corsair's flagship and start draining that water out of his hull. Check their supplies too. Anything we can part with, and they need, make sure they get it."

"Aye, Captain!" With that, he was off to carry out the orders.

"Thank you, Captain," Corsair bowed.

"Get your crews helping out," she scolded. "I'm not running a charity around here." Reane turned as Captain Corsair beat a hasty retreat back across the plank to his own ship to comply.

"Reane," Sheala tried to grab her friend's ear. "If they have dragons on board their ships-"

Reane held up a hand to keep Sheala's train of thought from where she knew it was headed. "We need to get back to Fimmirra and find out for ourselves. I'd suggest the rest of you head below. You'll just be in the way while we help out our 'friends'."

Much to Reane's surprise, Sheala didn't protest and did as requested, taking Sayra and the others with her. That allowed the captain some much-needed time alone with her thoughts. After a deep breath, Reane started to open up her mind, getting it past all the muddled congestion and chaos aboard the three ships now adrift in the middle of the ocean. Mile, by mile, she felt her reach expanding, straining and stretching out across the expanse of water.

She found her way to Fimmirra, and what she sensed there was an emptiness. There were no impressions from those who she was familiar with which she could pick up on. Not Reginald Gusara, the winemaker. Not Tere Evron, the seamstress. Not Durgan Shallos, the Port Captain or his second in command, Ola Vern either. And definitely not King Turon. It was just a blank slate for her. And that made her fear the worst.