The glory of fame [Selene]

[Gaius Balmung]

The Western Isles, a place that Gaius was familiar with but not one he particularly liked. It wasn't for the fact that there was nothing but sea for miles before another island, who cares he could fly on Phantom so it didn't matter, but he couldn’t count how many times he had to deal with pirates. They either thought that Phantom was a lone wyvern that they could make for a meal or figured Gaius would make an easy target. Each time something like that happened Gaius reluctantly had to deal with them due to how stubborn and bull headed pirates could be.

Gaius figured that Etruria would get their act together and deal with all these damned pirates already. It seemed like they were more focused on worshiping some prophet or whatever than dealing an actual problem. Though it wasn't really Gaius' issue so they could get overrun by pirates all day for all Gaius cared. As long as they didn't interfere with his work than it was alright with him, do whatever they want. Speaking of which, Gaius was supposed to be meeting up with a client to get the details on a job but he couldn't find the person.

He had come to Fibernia to meet up with a client in a town near Armagh so it wasn't surprising when he saw some Etrurian navy around, though not as much as one would expect, but things didn't seem right to him. A lot of people were on edge whenever he walked by, as if he was a pirate or something. Normally he got these sort of looks when Phantom was beside him but the wyvern was resting somewhere a bit outside of the town as there wasn't much of a need for the large lizard like creature to be here.

It was then when Gaius noticed a particularly sketchy men walking about the town that he realized the reason as to why this place was on edge. Gaius let out a loud and annoyed sigh, he didn't want to deal with pirates today but it didn't look like he had much of a choice if they decided to bother him. Hopefully he could just walk on by and go where he needed to go. "Oi! You there!" Gaius cursed under his breath as one of the men walked over to him, bringing two of his friends with him.

"You look awfully familiar. We meet before?" The rather large brutish man asked Gaius. Now Gaius wasn't really paying attention to his question and or did he care, he was focused more on the weapons they had. "I'm talking to you!" The man would growl as he and his friends moved a bit closer. "Wait I do know you. A while back a ship and its crew was attacked by a blue haired man riding a large black wyvern. People sayin it was the 'Black Rider of Bern'. A crew that I was a part of," Oh boy, it was pretty clear to Gaius where this was going.

Now Gaius wasn't exactly familiar with who this guy was or what attack he was talking about, there were a few too many for Gaius to remember. "You wouldn't happen to be talking about a crew of gutless pirates that were raiding a small village for some loot and women were you? Cause if I remember correctly I stomped them all out," Gaius replied halfheartedly, not really remembering or caring about whatever this guy's issue was. But what he had said obviously struck a nerve as the men began to draw their weapons. Wasn't exactly the smartest idea on their part Gaius was armed with his blade and lance but he really didn't want to waste his time fighting these punks. Besides there was Etruiran navy here they'd do something right? Unless they were spineless too.

[Deleted]

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh."

Selene yawned like she was trying to barf up her internal organs, stretching out what had started as the mere seed of a bit of a yawn into a world-ending yawntastrophe that widened her mouth and threw back her head as she tried to get it all out. The curse of an honest life of hard work! Which was, to be fair, literally the exact opposite of what she was doing right now... the eccentric Etrurian ignored the irony of that with practiced ease, focusing more on anything else in sight as she surveyed the town, trying to remember what her plan had been. Something about... reconnaissance of dangerous elements in unknown waters... that was one way to describe sightseeing, she supposed.

Well, /technically/ it a reasonable excuse. Nothing wrong with figuring out exactly what the story on the ground was herself. The honest answer was that she had just felt like a morning walk, actually being able to do that without running into sailors in the cramped confines of their horrible little midget ship was a blessing she had almost forgotten the taste of, but Selene had learned long ago that when people expect eternal perfection from you, your every movement to have some deep-seated meaning and world-changing intent, it wasn't a bad idea to have a long list of running excuses to make it look like you knew what you were doing.

Motion in the road ahead grabbed her attention, or more accurately served as a proper distraction from her thoughts. Some blue-haired devil accosting, or being accosted by, some bigger guy? Maybe they were all pirates, and she could have a bit of a morning stretch. Or maybe she'd be lucky and they'd all attack her and she could still have her morning stretch. Not that she was fight crazy, or anything silly like tha-ok yeah she sorta completely was and any excuse for a bit of violence was A-OK by her. Nothing wrong with being self-aware like that. Helped keep her from getting caught in her own legend, so to speak.

"Well, what's all this then?" Sauntering up to the group of best buddies with tones as lazy as her stride, Selene tilted her head for a moment in query before realizing it was still a bit sore, cracking it on one side and then the other. She didn't really look threatening, at least by her standards, but the scars and wild style of dress were certainly strange enough to be attention-drawing to some degree or another.

[Gaius Balmung]

Gaius stared lazily at the men in front of him feeling that he could take a nap and nothing they would do would actually harm him. They weren't like leased dogs all barking and growling at something. The kind that once you take them off the leash shut up and don't do anything. Gaius didn't like those kinds of people and disliked it ever worse when it was the attitude that some of these scumbags had. If they were going to talk big then they should deliver or face their ends by the steel of someone's blade, didn't seem like these guys were the type to dirty your blade on.

"Why you little bastard! You killed some of my friends! Bout time I got some payback for that," Just like Gaius had pretty much said, all bark and no bite. Well at least bark and getting ready to bite. His other two comrades had their weapons ready by now though Gaius wasn't paying them much attention besides that detail. The big in front of him on the other hand Gaius was calculating how many ways he could take the guy down. Probably the big dumb slow type which was always fun to deal with.

Before the fighting would begin a woman had approached the group, sort of surprising all of them. "This ain't none of your business lady. Get out of here before you end up messing a head," The man growled, his eyes still locked on Gaius so not looking at the woman. The other two on the other hand seemed to be a bit surprised as to who they were looking at. "Think that woman is some big fancy Etrurian navy officer. Probably cause us a lot of problems in the past" One of the other men would whisper to the bigger man.

This made the man looked over at the woman, a devilish grin growing on his face. "Well boys, I'm pretty sure we'd catch some nice coin if he took her for hostage. But ya know the Etrurian navy has been causing us a lot of trouble so why don't we off the both of them and be on our way?" The big guy sure was ambitious Gaius could give him that. Also didn't want to forget suicidal on that list cause that was a pretty big one too. Gaius wasn't sure which one he was more of but that didn't really matter much did it?

Gaius looked to the woman who had approached them and it was pretty obvious to him that she was so stranger to fighting. Though as of now she sort look like she just rolled out of bed or something. "Sheesh, do you guys pick a fight with everyone that you meet? Surprised you're all not dead by now," Gaius was a bit curious as to what the woman would do and it seemed like he'd get to see it as one of the men began to approach the woman while the others began to move closer to Gaius. This was going to be fun.

[Deleted]

Well, violence was certainly imminent. Selene stayed relaxed, but her mind was as active as her eyes as she took in the situation - three men, armed, two of them already ready for violence, the big one was the leader, the blue-haired guy didn't seem eager for violence but didn't seem terrified of it - was it so natural to him that it had ceased to be a concern, or did he not understand the situation? Her tools... no lance, unfortunately, she knew she should have brought the damn thing along for once, but she did have a sword and one axe, one on each side, though only the sword was actually displayed in its sheath.

Well... at least no one had recognized her. Selene honestly would have been a LOT more disapponted if they had recognized her and made a run for it. She could prrrrrrrrrrobably have maybe nailed one with a thrown axe, it wasn't a THROWING axe by any means but maybe she could hit someone with it, but then she'd have to deal with them later, or chase them, or raise an alarm, and that all sounded more like work than she felt like doing right now.

Her as a hostage, though? The good admiral cracked a smile, one that twisted her face into something other than innocent joy and only served to accentuate the web of scars across it. "Well, you certainly aren't very gentlemanly..." Casual speech, nothing threatening, but there was absolutely no evidence of even the least hint of fear - something that should have been a warning sign for someone still slowly walking towards the man who was approaching her with a weapon drawn. An unspoken warning that went unheeded.

Hey, she'd been sporting and given them a chance to run, two chances in fact if they'd caught on to the second. But they hadn't, and that meant no one could REALLY blame her if someone got hurt, right?

Hm. No stress. Nothing too obvious. But to a warrior it would have been obvious that despite her casual actions there was coiled steel in her every movement, ready to be unleashed. The man approaching her - a few scars of his own, decent sized sword, probably longsword, fairly muscular, not a gigantic hulk of a man or a legendary warrior but someone handy enough with a weapon to be a dangerous in a fight. A danger to someone else, that was. Her grin widened as he closed in on her; from her perspective, quite the obvious was true.

The actual event was very fast. One moment she was casually standing there, and the instant the man got within a meter of her, just inside of easy reaction range for his weapon, there was a flash of silver and brown and crimson as she closed the distance instantly, moving inside his guard and bringing the tomahawk into his face with a piercing blow far stronger than the limited windup time would suggest, shattering the front of his skill and embedding the blade into his face deeply enough that it would take some effort to withdraw. A moment of silence, and then she stepped back, bringing her foot forwards to kick the corpse off her axe in one brutal motion, a spray of blood and detritus following his backwards descent to the ground closer to his friends as she spun the blood-stained tomahawk around in her hand once, twice, clearing off a little of the more obvious remains.

"-But I aint no lady."

[Gaius Balmung]

None of the pirates would have expected that kind of response from the woman though in hindsight they probably shouldn't have underestimated who they were going after. High ranking officers in any military normally get their positions from proving their skill and strength in some way. At least that's how Gaius had rose through the ranks in Bern but Etrurians might have done things different, they were a bunch of weirdoes after all. One thing Gaius didn't know about Etrurians was the way some of them dealt with their enemies. This was the first Etrurian Gaius came upon that was so merciless.

The sight of their comrades dead body rotting on the ground was a sight that horrified one of the men coming towards Gaius. The guy was a pirate sure but he wasn't dumb! There was no way he was going to stick around because his friend over here wanted to pick a fight with the 'Black Rider of Bern' and an ax wielding psycho Etrurian. "I don't want to end up with an ax in my face! This is your suicide not mine!" The spineless pirate would cry before running off with his tail between his legs. Running away was probably the smartest thing that guy could do.

"Oi! Where you going?!" The pirate that instigated all of this would shout to his comrade that was running away, turning his attention away from Gaius. That was a mistake, and one that the man would never make again. The blue haired man had already drawn his lance and readied himself to put an end to this bumbling idiot. "Fine! I don't need you! I'll take care of these ba-" The large man growled as he turned back to Gaius. The man was not able to finish his words as the sound of steel piercing flesh was the only thing that would be heard as Gaius' lance had meet its mark.

Gaius moved much too fast for the man to have reacted in any way and seeing how the man was oh so familiar with his choice of weapon his skill with it was impeccable. Admittedly Gaius could be better and his sword work probably needed a bit more training but he wasn't terrible with the weapon. A quick and powerful blow to the chest, piercing the man in the black heart held there, would be enough to end the man's life.

The 'Black Rider of Bern' would then quickly pull his lance from the man's chest, spinning it a few times afterward to get the blood off of it, and watched as the big pirate fool fall face down on the ground. "Should have killed this bastard when I faced him the last time. Big target, wonder how I ended up missing him before," Gaius would say as he made sure his weapon was clean of any blood. He would then turn to the Etrurian woman, a bit curious as to who she was exactly. "So do most Etrurians ax people in the face or is that just how you say hi?" He said this jokingly, a small smirk on his face.

[Deleted]

"Oh yes," she responded absentmindedly without missing a beat, "we really like to axe people questions they can't refuse." DAMMIT she had been banking on the other two being angry enough by their dead comrade to attack her, and she had nothing resembling a proper throwing weapon. At least the blue guy wasn't totally useless with a weapon, so apparently she hadn't needed to worry about him. Not that she really had, but still. "Weddings, official functions, children's birthday parties, just an unending ocean of gore. You haven't lived until you've given half a dozen children axes, then told each of them that the others stole their presents."

Quite frankly, Selene was more curious about what the eventual repercussions of this little adventure might be than concerned in the least about having killed someone; the man had threatened her life, and he had not held the strength to back up his bravado. It was more like putting down a rabid animal than anything to actually be concerned about. SIGH. She was probably going to have to deal with whatever this rinky-dink town had for leadership and explain why there were a pair of cooling corpses lying in his streets... or maybe she could just ask Karen nicely to go deal with the politics for her and continue her walk?

Well, worrying about all that wouldn't really help anything. It was possible Captain Ahab over there would return for his holy grail, she'd have to keep slightly more of an eye out than usual, but unless they happened to have a lot of friends it wouldn't be much of a problem. For the time being, might as well enjoy the companionship of tall, dark, and blue over there. "Do you just make friends wherever you go, or was this a special case?"

[Gaius Balmung]

So it didn't look like Gaius was in any immediate trouble which was good. Though it was self-defense Gaius still came across a few times where he was still locked up and tossed into a cell. Not one of his proudest moments that was for sure. This woman wasn't exactly normal by Etrurian standards so many she actually understood law. A lot of government officials could take a lesson or two from her book. Also wouldn't mind seeing more ax friendly ones either, that would make things a lot more interesting. As long as he wasn't on the other end of the ax of course.

"More often than not sadly," Gaius sighed, answering the woman's question. He was positive that this wouldn’t be the end of it. The one that got away would surely tell his buddies about what just happened and they'll surely want revenge. Or the man was so terrified after watching his friend's face get carved in that he would be too terrified to say anything. Either way as long as they didn't bother Gaius he didn't care. If they were stupid enough to come back maybe he'd get Phantom involved. Gaius always loved scaring the life out of people with the wyvern, and he figured Phantom enjoyed it too.

"You definitely know how to handle yourself in a fight. Didn't think Etrurians were more than just a bunch of stuck up religious freaks. Really proved me wrong," It was true that this was his first encounter with an Etrurian with a back bone, a nice change of pace. "Name's Gaius Balmung and if I know anything about those pirates they'll probably be back with more men. Soo uuuh good luck with that when that happens," Gaius did not plan at all to be around for that. He wasn't getting paid to protect this place nor fight them so what did he care?

[Deleted]

"Must be your girlish charms." There was just enough of a quirk to her lips that Gaius could probably - hopefully - catch on that she wasn't entirely serious, but her voice was so thoroughly normal and casual that there was no hint of it in her words, as if she had just made a comment about the weather. Part of that was because seeing how people responded to different situations helped her gauge them faster, and part of it was because she was still thinking about the... pirates? Were they really pirates? They certainly seemed pretty harmless by pirate standards.

...Well, to be fair, they HAD tried to kill her and Gaius. So maybe it was just that they had picked a fight well above their pay grade, and normal people would have had a problem on their hands? Selene was momentarily confronted with the fact of how disassociated she was with a normal human being, but mentally shrugged it off without any further concern. That was half the point of the military, right? Take care of the nasty hard stuff so civvies could live their cushy boring lives arguing about politics.

Mmh. Didn't really matter. She bent over to rifle through the severely dead man's pockets in search of anything resembling identification... or valuables. It was a treasure hunt that ended only in disappointment. Sure, it was exactly NORMAL for pirates to carry around their own wanted poster in their back pocket, but this guy was as broke as the day he was born. Much like his face. Heh. Her face warped into a bit of a grim smile as she inspected his fallen sword, trying to decide if it was worth keeping for posterity, before dropping it back to the ground carelessly. He hadn't been memorable, his sword was nothing special, the hell with the both of them.

Selene rose back to her full height, securing her blood-stained tomahawk before extending a hand to Gaius. "Can't speak for the army, but no navy has much room for those who hesitate to dirty their hands. Name's Selene." He sure talked like he knew something about those pirates... and sorta made it sound like there was trouble brewing. "Well, this morning walk just got a lot more interesting. What can you tell me about these ne'r'do'wells, Mr. Balmung? As it so happens, I have somewhat of a hobby of meeting pirates and axing them questions. I'd sure love to make their acquaintance."

[Gaius Balmung]

Gaius couldn’t help but smirk at what he figured was a joke coming from the Etrurian. Though his mind was more so on getting out of there so it was more of an afterthought. He would watch as she meddled with the dead body of one of the pirates, curious as to what she doing exactly. It was more of a thief's motif to go shuffling through dead bodies but she probably had a reason for it than just trying to see if the man had any valuables on him. Who knows, Etrurians were quite weird after all so Gaius really wouldn't know.

So maybe it was the navy that actually had a backbone rather than the army. Gaius hadn't come into contact that much with either but from what he could tell he's assumption was probably right. On the sea there wasn't much time for stuck up regulations and rules when at any moment you could either have pirates or the sea trying to kill you. Again, this reminded Gaius why he enjoyed flying so much though storms at sea made flying quite difficult. It was more difficult for the wyvern of course and Phantom would remind Gaius that quite often.

"Pleasure to meet you," Gaius would say as he took Selene's hand. It didn't sound like Gaius was going to be able to leave anytime soon as Selene began to ask him questions. In hindsight he probably should have just kept his mouth shut and he'd be on his marry way but oh well. The blue haired rider took a moment to collect his thoughts and remember just exactly who those guys were. "To be honest with you I don't exactly know all about them. All I remember is the group the big guy over there was a part of. Real nasty bunch, did your typical pirate things like ransack villages and steal loot. Had a bad habit of leaving a mess. I was hired by a client to take care of them and that's what I did," Gaius explained as he looked over to the dead body of the man who had started all of this.

"If that guy was running with a new crew they're probably just as big if not bigger than the last one and probably even wilder. They'll be back, trust me," If Gaius were to stick around it would be only to see how this all went down. Etrurian navy against pirates. That sounded like something that Gaius would like to see. Selene could handle herself but what about the rest of them. It would be a shame if they had only one ace up their sleeve. He didn’t want it to be completely boring.

[Deleted]

"Typical pirate things." Her tone was drolly dry, but not disbelieving. While it was... uniquely worded, Selene supposed it was really quite accurate of an assessment of the majority of pirates. Oh, there were variations, from smugglers to straight-up raiders to the occasional Etrurian forays into privateers that never ended well, but there were certain common behaviors among most pirates that made her not exactly feel reluctant to exterminate every last one of them. "Heh. Strange how accurate that statement is for the majority. Not nearly as much fun to hunt as the more interesting varieties, but work can't all be fun and games."

Not like she was complaining about having an excuse to fight, admittedly, but some of the more unique pirate crews made for more memorable battles, and sometimes rivals of a sort, than generic work. She'd even let a few escape if they had impressed or amused her enough, which was always a pain to explain to High Command, but they could go fellate a choir boy for all she cared.

It was really a bit odd that no one seemed to care what had happened here. There weren't many people in the streets, but those that were mostly just shuffled on past, ignoring the scene. Selene wondered idly if they recognized her, or at least her uniform, if it had something to do with Gaius, or people here were just so used to violence that it had long since ceased to be a novelty. She wasn't sure if it was supposed to bother her or not, but it was certainly intriguing. Certainly in Etruria this sort of scene would have half the inquisitorial army showing up in about thirty seconds, and the other half within the next minute. Maybe that was why she liked the Isles so much; no one really cared who you were as long as you could back up your words.

"Well, hopefully they'll show themselves sooner rather than later. Morning workouts are good for both mind and body, after all."

[Gaius Balmung]

It was true that these guys weren't exactly the most original when it came to being pirates but they were pirates none the less. Gaius just hoped that they at least got better at what they were doing. The last time they faced it was rather easy to take them out and even now it wasn't that hard but they might have just been the runts. Maybe they have stronger members that are hiding out somewhere. Regardless they'd all probably meet the same fate, with a blade pierced through them or rotting in some jail somewhere for the rest of their lives.

Truth be told he was more interested in Selene. It wasn't everyday you met someone like her so it was probably best you took advantage of it before it was too late. "I'm sure they'll be more shortly," He would reply figuring that a group of pissed off pirates were about to turn the corner any second now. Even if they didn't that was fine, Gaius was in no hurry to take on a bunch of pirates that may or may not prove to be any sort of challenge. It would be a waste of time if they weren't.

"So you good with anything other than an ax? Look like the type that might fancy more than one weapon. So what do Etrurian navy officers take to battle?" Gaius was trying to scale this woman's strength. He had a good impression of it but he wanted more. If she was powerful than maybe he could take her on. It had been a bit since his last good opponent and he hoped she would fit that position perfectly. Gaius hadn't fought many Etrurians so he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to fight with a skilled one.