Hi, guys. I'm pretty new here, and I've never posted any of my work before-- so here goes. fingers crossed!!!

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Chapter 1

The sky was dark.

The sun had just barely set, dipping down behind the sand dunes of Ladreinesse. With the last of the salmon pink receding down the horizon, the world had turned the deep color of a ripened plum. A few gallant stars braved the sky, though most slipped shyly behind the clouds like children to their mothers' skirts. Cherry blossoms twisted their way to the cobblestones below, shuffled off of their branches by the wind.

In other words, night had fallen, and this a was good thing; otherwise everyone would have roasted in the humidity, and it would have been much more difficult to accomplish the task at hand.

The Captain's plan was relatively straightforward.

Step one was, simply; the girl.

A Miss Dimitri, to be exact: she was dark-haired, with silver slippers, and hitching her skirts to her ankles as she tottered along the boat docks. She stood out like a flickering star in contrast to the purple evening in a white daygown that swished when she walked. It was laced in the back and adorned with ruffles on the skirts, gathering at the sleeves in bunches of loose fabric.

A deft brush of wind nearly blew her from her feet, plucking her from her thoughts and back into the present. Sweat was collecting on the insides of her palms and on her rouged cheeks. She pressed a gloved hand to her forehead, a frown marring her dimples.

"Time?" Miss Dimitri requested in a brusque tone, adjusting her wristsleeves. Her voice was soprano and delicate, but when she spoke, people listened.

Her escort hurriedly dug into his pocket. "A quarter after the hour, lady."

Fashionably late, then. Miss Dimitri brushed her escort aside with a simple flick of her hand as she approached a large saloon teetering on stilts just offshore. Maroon paint flicked up its wood, and unassuming brown slats criss-crossed the roof. Yellow light and drunken laughter seeped through the open windows. The noise grew as Miss Dimitri's escort opened the door for her.

She raised one eyebrow, the only movement in an otherwise impassive face. Her escort hurriedly left the way he'd came, and she faced the room alone.

It was neither quite crowded nor empty in the place; most of the inhabitants were dirty-faced and whispering confidentially to each other over spilt mugs. The candles were poorly lit; a few candelabras snuffed out in their individual centerpieces. In the corner a creaking staircase climbed in winding circles to a second floor.

Hardly anyone looked her way as the door opened, barely even sparing her a glance despite her delicately beautiful features. Nodding briefly at the bartender, Miss Dimitri allowed the brownish tips of her skirts to drag along the floor as she crossed the room to the stairs and began the ascent.

At the top of the stairs there was a beige door with a rusted bronze handle and a burly looking man standing in front. She stopped expectantly in front of the entrance, and he let her in.

"Ah, Miss Dimitri!" In the center of a gray-walled room, a mustached man in a maroon overcoat stood from his velvet armchair as the door opened, crossing the room to offer his arm. "We have been expecting you."

Her returning smile was radiant, almost artificial as she studied the room disinterestedly and straightened her glove. She stood on a Persian carpet in the middle of a dimmed room- the only source of light being the fireplace and the small company of well-dressed people who wore bright, gaudy colors and shiny buttons with rough fabrics. Each had flushed cheeks and held a nearly empty wineglass.

The window overlooked the ocean, and there was a pianoforte, a few chairs, and a pile of buckskin sacks in the corner.

Miss Dimitri permitted the host to lead her across the room and begin engaging her in conversation. If she had looked to the window only a brief second earlier, she might have glimpsed a silhouette tumbling silently across the fingerprint-stained glass before disappearing behind the wall, a familiar dark shape backlit by the colorless shade of the sky.

But she did not, and so Miss Dimitri was left with her own thoughts and the bland, tedious host to grasp her pale, small hand and lead her into utter boredom.

Step two: The boy.

He was a vital step in the plan. He had spent ample time informing everyone of this fact.

His dark overcoat was rather conspicuous, but he managed to blend in somewhat into the ebony evening. His buttons weren't entirely fastened, however, and a chunk of his hair was falling into his eyes. He impatiently blew it away, not averting his attention from the brass pocketwatch in his calloused hand.

Beside him, five figures equally dressed in black were comfortably situated behind an old docked fishing boat. One of them held a scratched telescope and was struggling through a mass of unkempt red hair to peer through it.

"Captain?" He retracted his shaggy head from the telescope and pointed a dirty finger at the docks in front of them, at the Le Cabrera saloon. "Sir, someone entered the premises."

"Hm." The Captain's right boot tapped an impatient rhythm on the dock. "Female or male, Humphrey?"

"Female," the figure mumbled, retracting his telescope. "White dress. And it's Henry."

The captain's stony gaze stayed forward. "Yes, that's what I said." He closed his pocket watch with a snap. "I suppose we have our cue."

He began walking, his boots padding softly along the salty wood. "We have six minutes and forty five- no, forty four seconds, and I'm hungry. I suggest you move quickly, Hubert."

"Henry," came the tired response. But the captain had stopped listening (if he ever was in the first place; listening was not in his nature), his eyes fixed firmly on a girlish figure as she scurried up the dock in a flicker of white skirts.

The Captain- his name was Ari Carondelet, sailor and skilled thief- didn't waste any time. He crossed the dock with all the confidence of one superior, with each of his men following faithfully.

They didn't actually use the front entrance; they crossed around to the back and scaled the ladder. Ari planned to swing in through the window with ropes. Because it was "inconspicuous, and of course not for dramatic reasons, Henrick, I cannot fathom why you would even suggest such a thing," he'd explained earlier on the ship while they were going over the plan.

"We're in and out. Five minutes," He said now in low tones. "Retrieve what we need. Leave the girl to me."

Four minutes and fifty seven seconds. They kicked the window open.

Miss Dimitri, in the building, was reclining on a velvet settee, a crystal glass of champagne cooling her small hands and a satisfied smile lingering on her red lips. The host sat beside her, and the couple's heads were bent closely together as if they were discussing intimate matters. An elderly Mrs. Priestley was singing and playing the pianoforte in the corner, and a small audience had gathered to watch her.

Miss Dimitri closed her lace fan with a snap as she scanned the length of the room. Heat from the fire had blithely spread to her cheeks. It was scalding, and her corset seemed to be tightening by the second. She glanced crossly at her host, almost as an afterthought.

Mr. Hale's eyes were fixed intensely on her face. Gah! She thought irritatedly, her heartbeat racing as she tried desperately to remember what it is he had asked her... or told her?

"Perhaps," Miss Dimitri said finally. 'Perhaps' was her reserve word. A placeholder that could be used as a response to almost anything.

He seemed satisfied and began to blather on about another subject entirely, of what she did not care. Something to the effect of how worried he was that she was not close enough to the fire, that the room was much too frigid for her delicate skin to handle. Miss Dimitri made a face; the perspiration on his hand was leaving faint sheens on her palms as he led her closer to the fireplace.

Miss Dimitri was just awkwardly pulling her hands from Mr. Hale's when six figures clad in black suddenly crashed in through the window, directly in the middle of Mrs. Priestley's admittedly terrible pianoforte performance.

For a moment Miss Dimitri thought she had imagined the noise. Her eyes had been trained securely on the ceiling as she tried to focus on something else. She had hoped that her smile didn't look forced. Idly through the shrieking she wondered if Mrs. Priestley's performance could have, perhaps, be having a permanent effect on her hearing-

A tall man in a mask landed nimbly in front of her, halting her musings of thought.

"Hello," He greeted, a smirk lighting his charcoal eyes. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Miss Dimitri gasped delicately, dropping her champagne in her shock. The glass shattered on the floor, gold liquid bubbling onto the rug. It expounded the briefest of moments where all was still.

Then suddenly everything seemed to happen at once. Her arm was snatched as someone roughly tugged her from the sofa. Around her, guests were in a panic as men with swords surrounded them, pointing their weapons at their exposed throats.

"Oh," Miss Dimitri exhaled tremulously. They were-

"Pirates," Mr. Hale declared indignantly, spitting insolently on the wine-stained floor— though it was impossible not to notice the heavy perspiration in beads on his forehead as his arms were wrenched behind him by a large bald man with a swirling tattoo on his boulder of a bicep. The man caught Miss Dimitri looking at him and grinned, displaying a set of yellow teeth.

"We can't stay, I'm afraid," her own captor continued regretfully.

"You weren't invited," She bit back, helplessly kicking in his firm grip.

"If you continue struggling, miss, you'll rip your dress," he said conversationally, as if they truly were friendly acquaintances, exchanging advice about moderately irritating fashion mishaps. "Wouldn't that be a shame?"

She ignored him, looking around the room in a panic. Around her, other masked pirates had found the mysterious sacks in the corner and were hoisting them over their shoulders. Miss Dimitri let out a growl of frustration.

"I have no riches, no treasure," Mr. Hale protested, struggling ceaselessly against an unflinching hold. "Let us go."

"Tut tut, Hale," The man holding Miss Dimitri chided. His voice was calm and honeyed, like an affectionate mother cautioning her child. "Now, that isn't quite true, is it?" He lowered his lips to Miss Dimitri's ear. "You're something of a treasure, aren't you, pretty lass?"

She said nothing, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.

He raised his head briefly to address the host. "Thank you for your hospitality. I believe we'll be on our way." In less than a second he had whipped out a pistol and fired it in the air. Miss Dimitri sucked in a breath at the sharp, popping sound.

In the chaos that followed, she was hoisted across the room and out a window. She couldn't distinguish her screaming from everyone else's; it was loud and chaotic and if her dress wasn't ripped before, it most definitely was now. She struck out her fist blindly and hit something hard; probably her captor's shoulder.

"Hold still, demon!" He complained, irritably dodging her blows. Miss Dimitri continued to shriek, throwing random punches until he roughly clamped her arms to her sides. She could do nothing but clutch him helplessly and scream as they jumped out the window of the saloon, right into the water.

A beat later, they landed on their feet.

The wind ripped harshly into her cheeks and she pushed her hair back to wildly evaluate her surroundings. She was standing on a wooden boat rocked by the unforgiving waves of the sea.

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Thanks so much for reading! :) I'll prob post the next chapter tomorrow. Lmk what you think, and please tell me the first chapter didn't suck. Bc if it did, that would just be really unfortunate.