Hair as black as a moonless night absorbs every ounce of the crisp early evening sun. Voluminous curls bounce under a wide brim hat decorated by a single silver feather. The woman, made of the stark combination of smooth curves and particularly sharp features, parts her cherry red lips in a wide toothy smile. My stomach drops.
Small grains of white sand strain through my fingertips as I tense. My tongue is tied up with confusion. I look between Lincoln and the girl whose sword rests under his chin. The blade sparkles. A reminder of how close the potential of death is.
Women in various arrays of flowing linen tops, corseted vests, leathers, and buckles stand behind her, their hands all settled on their weapons. I pass my gaze from one to the next. Daggers. Short swords. Long swords. Axes. And is that a flail? I don't examine any one of them too closely. No, not with the way they glare.
I don't need to study them to recognize how human they are. Rounded ears, weaker heartbeats, and very clear aging. If I had to take an educated guess, we are being held hostage by a group of women in their... sixties? An agile sixty.
Wrinkles form in her sun kissed skin, dotted with freckles, as she speaks in a deep voice rich with what I would call an almost western accent. "Who are you? And why are you on my beach?"
Lincoln opens his mouth to respond but the woman snatches him up by his hair and he begrudgingly follows. The woman who stands closest to Lincoln's captor points her axe toward me and motions for me to stand. Her hair is blonde but grey streaks through her short blunt cut. Sea-green eyes watch me with such ferocity I'm sure they’re meant to cut right through me.
"Actually, don't say anything," the first woman says. She fans her attention up and down Lincoln's frame, frowning drastically at the large scabs slicing across his back.
"Filthy thieving Fae." The blonde spits at my feet.
"I think we are getting off on the wrong foot here," I start, the axe rising to tilt my chin. "My name is Briar. That is Lincoln." I lift my hands slowly in surrender. The group both flinches and takes a half step forward at the small motion. "We mean no harm."
"Ya think we can believe that so easily?" She tips her head, setting everyone into motion.
The blonde lowers the axe. With one long boney finger she points the direction Lincoln and her leader are headed. My heels teeter much more aggressively in the sand than they had even when I was running through the snares of the forest beyond the mansion of the Shadow Court.
It may be best if we stay quiet for now. Learn what we can about them, first. I realize Ziko has also taken an inventory of their weapons and now, injuries. Some of the women walk with limps. A few are totally without the entirety of a limb. It appears the lucky ones are only missing minor things like a finger... or two.
"Why would you wear such contraptions as those." The blonde points to my feet.
"Well," I wobble with each step, mumbling under my breath. "I wasn't intending to come to the beach today."
Beyond the white sand of the beach is a tangle of brush, thorns, and tall intertwining trees. The beach remains empty, with the exception of our small caravan trudging through the high sands. I watch every step the woman takes as she walks behind Lincoln, guiding him. She moves with a fluid grace that most humans only have from incessant muscle memory.
Walking this beach, her beach, holding someone at sword point, and leading this gaggle of women isn't new or even so much as occasional. How many times has she done this? How many people walk away from her?
Lincoln catches it before I do. My attention focused more on the people rather than most of our surroundings. As the beach curves we're able to see around the large boulders of a looming cliff that hides a weathered ship with its bow buried in the shore. A long mast with a small crow’s nest sports a black flag with a bleeding heart.
That can't be good.
Pirates. Lincoln speaks to me with certainty. Human pirates.
Do you think we've landed ourselves in some foreign part of the human realm?
No. Not at all. They wouldn't know us as Fae if we had.
Relentless sun beats down on our backs as we walk in