...attack now! It’s your best chance yet.

You can’t afford to wait forever. It’s time to play the odds and attack them while they’re distracted. You pull out your stiletto and the small vial of poison, moving from the peephole and into the moonlight streaming through the window. The peephole is too small for adequate light to get through and would risk the dark blades sliver edges glinting through and catching eyes. A few drops are all it takes, sliding down the blade to its tip, leaving you with a good half a vial left. You duck back to take one final look through the hole in the wall. Your targets hadn’t moved outside of the small grinding motion of her hips against his, applying the poison had taken only seconds. You pull back and cross the room to the door before opening it quietly and looking out into the empty corridor. Seeing no one, you follow your gaze on to the hallways faded red carpet.

You look around the balcony corner and check the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. It still contains the merchants. No, wait. You look again; one of them is missing. A quick scan of the surroundings shows that he isn’t in the foyer or the landing, making him irrelevant. The rest are still engaged in deep conversation, heads down, eyes on each other, and the way to the Captains quarters looks completely clear as a result. You keep low anyway as you move towards the double doors in the middle of the landing, trying to remember if you ever heard a squeak from them last time they were opened. Regardless, they don’t now, and you open them just enough to slip through.

The room beyond is small and windowless, dominated by a wide and squat table that fills much of its space. Various maps and charts are spread across its surface, marking this as a planning room of sorts, and wardrobes and chests line the outer edge of the room, swallowing much of the area not taken up by the table. Each of them are either an open mess spewing its contents into the room, or sealed tight under lock and key. A single door sits in the wall opposite, leading to the bedroom. You move towards it, still cautious of any noises the old wood underfoot may provide.

With one hand on the door and the other on your blade, you ready for the moment. Breathe in. Breathe out. You pull the latch and push through, swinging the door open as you walk briskly forward with the dagger held behind your hip.

You see your target sitting on the edge of the bed, or rather sitting on Captain Roland who lies on the bed. Her arms are spread wide, holding each of the bed posts as leverage to better move her hips. Her head snaps up as you walk in, looking at you with an indignant expression on her face, to angry and outraged for embarrassment, and you try to give her a reassuring smile as you walk but can’t tell if you succeed. You don’t feel it on your face. You’re too nervous.

The distance from the door to the bed seems vast but you cross it in moments, and she lowers her arms from the posts to her lap, sitting still on her self-appointed throne.

“What is-”

The dagger comes into view, cutting her words and the air alike as you thrust it towards her. You look into her eyes, blue pools that widen with shock and glint with the caught light running down the poisoned blade. Your own are wide with exhilaration.

Her hand swings up. A wild, **** counter strike, unthinking and inelegant. Her forearm catches your hand and the hilt of the dagger, clubbing both of them away to the side. The tip of the stiletto blade bites the wood of the bedpost, notching it for all time, and the dagger goes one way while your wrist goes another, parting you from the weapon. It spins as it falls, poison blade mercifully missing you as it clatters on the floor between your feet.

Her shoulder catches you as she launches herself off the bed, spinning you slightly as you fall. Your hands sting as they hit the unsympathetic wood of the floor and you feel each of her booted steps vibrate through the timber as she runs to your left, jumping with the jerk of righting her trousers. Two more feet hit the floor, landing directly on your fallen stiletto and stopping you from grabbing it. You look up to see a large, erect penis, wet, and coming out of a forest of black hairs. Beyond that is the very angry face of Captain Roland looking down at you.

With one quick and powerful motion, he grabs your top at the neck and your trousers at the waist and lifts you up off the floor, to your feet and off them, lifting you further up and up until you’re held above his head, flipped so you’re looking at the ceiling. With a roar, he throws you down against the hard wood of the floor.

You back takes most of the blow, knocking the wind out of you while your bun protects the back of your head, but the room still briefly doubles in your vision and your focus slips through your fingers. You see a flash as a length of flickering light points at your neck. It forms into sword as your eyes focus once more. Captain Washkin stands at its other end.

“You picked a bad time sweetheart.” Her other hand still pulls up her tight brown trousers, first one side, then the other, then the first again, slowly hiding the rest of her shaven favour. You stay very still as the metal presses against your skin, separated from your blood by the smallest pressure. Captain Roland walk to the right of the room, and as he returns you see him buckling on a belt that contains multiple knives. For some reason, the knives scare you more than the sword; while its sharp point is pressing against your neck, it looks too elegant, as though only a savage would ever dirty it with blood. The knives on the other hand look plain, worn...and well used.

They both look down at you.

“One of yours?” Captain Washkin asks nonchalantly, noticing your red and yellow colouring. Captain Roland, who had been tucking himself into his trousers, leans in close to look at you, and Captain Washkin backs away, sword at the ready and wary of his response.

“No” Roland says, looking you in the eye. Some measure of disgust crosses his face before he steps back, as though you were a particularly foul insect.

You gulp audibly.