5:24 The single-carriage road.

Captain Aaron Kennsey "the Shark" Raibeart, recipient of three medals of service, famous for his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Blue Dragons, and infamous for his abject refusal to do anything that would put himself and Lieutenant Taricia Mairiel duGrasse on different ships, was passing his evening calmly in his comparatively spacious quarters.  By the light of a nearby hanging lantern, which sweyed slowly with the rocking of the gentle dock waters, he was hard at work repairing one sock.  The sock's companion, already mended, rested over his knee.  The rest of men in his crew, mariners and sailors alike, were dancing, singing, drinking, and playing cards or domino in some port-side tavern- those of them that weren't tucked into some courtesan's bed.  They all knew that their captain had little concern about their activities ashore so long as they didn't result in arrests, indecency charges, death, or poor performace of assigned duties on the next morning.

The only exception to the dock-side revelers was Taricia herself, just as unwilling to move from Aaron's side as he was to have her move.  However, the seasoned mariner often praised for her focused calm was anything but focused or calm on this first night of the month of Flamerule.  Instead, she moved slowly, but repeatedly, in a diagonal path between the porthole that looked out upon the open sea beyond the port and the door of the captain's quarters.

"There's more rum in the corner cabinet," Aaron stated flatly, without looking up from the sock.

"I know, Ronny, and you've said that three times now," Taricia replied with a sigh.

"I wouldn't have repeated myself if you'd had some the first time I told you," Aaron volleyed, completely undeterred.

"Why would I have rum right now?" Taricia argued.  "I don't nee-"

"You'd have to sit or stand still to drink it," Aaron noted.  "And we both need you to be still."

"Get another chair in here if you expect me to sit," Taricia sighed gustily.  "Is there anything I do that doesn't irritate your peace?"

"No, but there are some things that grate worse than others, and pacing is one," Aaron answered as he set about taking apart a knot in the thread.  "It's good rum; have some."

"You mean, 'Have some more,' and no."  Taricia scoffed and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand.  "If I'm drunk and nervous, I'll cry, and that'll be even worse."

Aaron abruptly stopped picking at the knot in the thread and looked up at Taricia with an intensity that would have passed for absolute fury, had it been coming from anyone else.  "Do you need to cry?  Do you want to?"

"It wouldn't solve anything," Taricia shrugged.

"That doesn't answer either question," Aaron replied. 

Taricia chuckled at his genuine attempt to be considerate of her emotional needs, but broke off into another sigh.  "I'm... not sure, Ronny.  I don't know.  You have enough to-"

"Not anymore I don't," Aaron shot back immediately.  He picked up his mending work and laid it on the tiny dining table beside him.  "You have my full attention, in every capacity I occupy.  Bring me the rum bottle, and sit on my lap; those are now orders, Lieutenant duGrasse."

Taricia moved slowly to the far corner of the room and retrieved the oddly shaped bottle that Aaron had brought back to the ship after a night market stroll on Hawk's Isle.  Despite the many years that had passed since the hardly-notable strife between the eponymous pirate and a much more famous one, the small island still branded itself as the lesser pirate's haunt.  Taricia handed the bottle of "Hawk's Genuine Cane Rhum" to Aaron, then sat sideways on his lap so that she could reach the table herself if the need arose.  Aaron reached his arms around her to pull the stopper out of the bottle, took an ungracious swig, and turned Taricia's face to his own with a firmly-placed finger on the side of her chin.  Before she could protest, Taricia found herself the recipient of a vicious kiss, along with half the rum in Aaron's mouth.  What started as nearly an attack, however, quickly warmed into an accepted embrace; once the kiss had been broken and both parties had swallowed their liquor, Taricia folded her head into the right side of Aaron's neck.  Aaron hummed and cleared his throat of the scorch that the rum put into it, then put the bottle and the stopper on the table one at a time.

"Now, talk, or the next time I do that, I'll bite your tongue first," he threatened as he wrapped both arms around her as though the cabin were cold.

Taricia gave a few small coughs, and wiped at the corners of her mouth, as if any of the rum had managed to escape her.  "You... if anyone ever hears you pulling rank while... fraternizing-"

"I said every capacity," Aaron said, unperturbed.  "Further, the crew already knows about our 'fraternization'.  Not only is it blindingly obvious to everyone why I won't sign off on your being transferred to anyone else's command, there aren't any secrets on this ship- you might not remember that domino game, but my sailors certainly do, and thanks to their hearty reports, quite a few of your mariners congratulated me.  No one's sent a nasty letter to Dauntinghorn as yet."

"That you know of," Taricia frowned.  "And I wish you'd tell me what I did that was so... noteworthy.  Anyhow, this only needs you to be... who you are when you kiss me like that."

Aaron blinked, momentarily lost for a response.  "That was challenging, Reecy," he said after a moment.

"Okay, well, you've just done a very good job of admitting that," Taricia said with a dim smirk.  "How can I help?"

 "You're being playful and serious at the same time, but you're upset, so I don't want to confuse when to say what.  Can you please choose one and stick to it for now?"

Taricia nodded firmly.  "I'll be completely serious; no sass or sarcasm.  But that doesn't mean that I need Captain Raibeart.  I'm going to be serious, but I need the Ronny who's in love with me.  Every other part of Aaron Raibeart can take a quick powder."

The man breathed a quiet, but genuine sigh of relief.  "Got it; talk."

"I'm worried about the risk we're about to take in going to Marsember," Taricia began.  "Just being in the same city as Papa Raibeart is... risky.  Either he's far enough gone that he won't even allow me in the house, or there's just enough of him left for him to start asking questions that we don't have good answers to.  You know the ones.  Besides, you have a Purple Dragon family, and Blue life has always been no end of confusion for them.  Your mother hasn't gotten your rank right even once in all of her letters, and your father likes being confused by how we receive and carry out orders- nevermind who either of us take them from- as much as you do."

"Which is not at all," Aaron noted, despite knowing that he didn't have to say that part aloud.  "My mother has no excuse for not handling my father as she should, and I'm eager to tell her that to her face.  If I could have taken her to the Pillars for not putting him away when he denied Dassy parental leave to join up with honest mariners, as you suggested, I'd have done it.  Thanks to our father's denial, she ran away, sold herself to pirates, and even became a pirate herself.  The true Papa Raibeart lives in Suzail.  We're only landing in Marsember as a courtesy."

"Your father still has enough prestige among his own to take Iordi to the Pillars for murder and treason; the only thing that saved him was his decision to- at last!- enlist with the Purple Dragons."  Taricia sat up and huffed, crossing her arms with a frown.  "I still suspect that's what the old man wanted- to get the last laugh at his 'womanish' youngest son before he hadn't enough of himself left to do so."

"He doesn't have as much pull with the Blues," Aaron counseled, swaying his legs slowly in order to gently rock Taricia.  "He'd have to convince our entire chain of command that we're enough of a problem to be pulled out of service, and I'd love to hear him try.  We're spearheading the freemariner initiative; a few of those brigands have claimed aloud that they won't trust any Cormyrean ship that isn't ours.  We won't be spared our work on the word of a greysword suspected to have half-damp wits."

Taricia tightened her arms around herself.  "I just don't know- and it's the not-knowing that's killing me.  It's the not being sure.  If I were as sure as you are about how little he'd be listened to, it'd be easier, but... I just can't be, not while I have the proof of how powerful his opinion still is in the clear writing of Iordi's judgement papers.  Who knows what would happen if he ever remembered or recognized Dassy?"

"He won't be able to do a damned thing; I swear it.  Stephen can't do her much help from land, but I hunted her captain down to get him on the freemariner deal.  Even if he doesn't stick to it, I've ordered that any woman found aboard a ship is to be arrested and brought to me instead of killed straight away."  Aaron noticed that he'd stopped moving when he fell silent, and began rocking Taricia again.  "When we do go ashore, Stephen and I are going to have a good fight about letting our father even bring those charges against Iordi in the first place.  They couldn't have gone to the Pillars without his allowing it, and I want to know why the hell he allowed it."

Taricia sighed, considering another swig of rum.  "To be fair, your father didn't bring the charges; he reported the murder as a retired lionar, and then Iordi then turned around and admitted to committing said murder, which strengthened credibility that your father shouldn't still have at all.  He could have just let the surviving officer do his job, but because he was so eager to have Iordi punished, he reported the murder himself, put his status as a greysword behind it, and-"

"There wasn't a murder; Iordi might have killed the man, but it wasn't murder," Aaron interrupted, stilling his legs again.

"It's the same thing," Taricia noted.

"It's not," Aaron argued.  "I know Iordi better than any of my siblings; I know what I'm talking about.  The man was killed, sure, but not murdered.  If anything, it can be posited that the man was supposed to die, and the boy isn't any more at fault than a hangman's noose or an executioner's axe would be for the deaths they cause."

"Ronny, Iordyn is a grown man, and he's got to answer for his own tavern wench crusades or poorly-planned forest hunts," Taricia argued, crossing her arms over her chest.  "Further, no one in that court was going to ask a god whether or not a married man who- leaving hungry children and an impaired brother-in-law in his wake- was killed while doing his duty to his country, was supposed to be shot clean through the center of his head by an acolyte who- for some incredible reason- was half the country away from his mentor.  I have the notes of the trial; I sent for them, and I have them.  You should actually read them yourself."

Aaron scoffed and took another pull of rum.  "That nonsense is a waste of time; Iordi is Lathander's archer, and that's that.  No stranger can tell me more about my own little brother than I know."

Taricia pursed her lips, but relaxed them again almost immediately.  "Alright; we'll see for ourselves how Iordi's grown when we talk to him.  Even so, your father is the reason strangers had a hold of him in the first place, Ronny.  The way he weaponizes his displeasure with the choices your siblings make is a real threat to us, because our situation here is a target.  And it will be until either we're married or he's dead."

"That's the important bit; say it again," Aaron said, closing his eyes.  "Be specific."

Taricia unfolded her arms and shifted a bit so that she could look Aaron in the face, even though she knew he couldn't see her at the moment.  "You're safe, but I'm not; if your father gets upset about anything about us, and he decides to tell tales like he did about Iordi, that's it for me.  My father is gone, so his permission no longer legally applies, and I can't stay in service without some man's say-so.  If I'm not your woman- if I'm not married to you and serving the Blues by your leave- then the judges will hunt up some one of my male relatives to dump me on, and I'll be 'Reecy the Briny Aldermaiden' until they hitch me up as fast as possible, like a mare two steps from the glue factory.  Stuck with some idiot farmer or greedy tradesman who's never seen more water than he could drink in his life, I'd die of landsick boredom inside of a single season."

Aaron nodded slowly and opened his eyes.  "We'll visit your father's grave when we're ashore.  Aldermaiden laws and regulations against female mariners are idiot shit; everyone aboard this ship knows that.  And, you're my woman, of course.  I don't mean to make you desperate about it.  I apologize."

Taricia bit her lips and chuckled in spite of herself.  "I'm yours everywhere but on land and on paper, and if I trusted your father farther than I could pick him up and throw him, I'd go on being satisfied with that.  But with things as they are with him, the way he's gone on with Iordi... we need that paper.  Just in case."

Aaron huffed, but nodded.  "When we land, the very first proper priest of any god, I don't care which, will do us the service."

"Let's find a priest of Lathander, so that your mother doesn't lose her voice screaming at you again," Taricia managed through giggles.  "We'll find a priest of Lathander, specifically, first; we'll visit both of my parents' graves afterward.  Then, we can safely visit with your parents, then head to Suzail to either celebrate the baby or console Suze's loss.  And the crew could use more provisions than we're being rationed, while we're in Suzail; some of your sailors are secretly aching and scratching while your back is turned.  I'll remind you, so you can go back to your sock, if you want.  I promise, I feel a lot less like pacing and crying now."

"It can wait," Aaron reasoned.  He laid a kiss in the center of Taricia's chest, then put his head there.  "I'd like to make sure the patch job here is done properly before I go back to that one."

"Tell me you love me, Aaron Raibeart," Taricia smiled wistfully.

"I love you, Taricia Raibeart," Aaron replied without missing a beat.  "With or without coin, with or without land, with or without family, with or without permission or pardon.  That's all the wedding vows that ought to need being said, but we'll say whatever the priest of whoever tells us to as well, so that both my useless progenitors can leave us alone."