Oliver loved the rush of air that ruffled his hair, making it so light he could almost believe it was a quarter of its length.

The fall never scared him, it excited him if anything. It was only a short drop before he gripped a hand around one of the support poles below the balcony, swinging into the supports, landing on a beam. He wobbled back and forth for a moment, trying desperately to stay upright and not lose his expensive new heels that he’d never wear again.

He picked up his dress, layers and all, and began walking along the beam into a hidden little alcove in the cliff. He doubted anybody knew about it, well, maybe his parents did, he had a feeling his mother had been there before.

The moment he stepped off the stone support, onto the damp rocky surface, he felt as if he had taken one step closer to freedom, if even for one night. He pushed himself onto his butt with a long exhale, a hand reaching behind him to grab a large leather pack he left waiting for him there.

His preferred choice of clothing was quite an easy perspective to justify when the evidence was right there in the timing. It took Oliver more time to get out of his impractical dress and garments than it did to get away from the party, wrap his chest so tight his breath strained against it, change into his slacks, tunic and vest, do his hair up into his cap to feign a short-cut and to descend the rest of the cliff. He left his dress haphazardly stuffed into his bag along with all of his jewellery and his shoes.

Now, all he had with him was a pouch of gold and his disguise.

Before he had descended further down the cliff, he smudged his makeup as best as he could, using the damp water left on the rocks to wet his lips and hopefully remove some of his lipstick at the very least.

The bustling noise of the commoner town he now found himself in was always a joy to him. There was no need for false words or fake smiles, no need to dance around the truth and there were no annoyingly shrill posh accents that made his head want to explode.

There were honest people, loving life, following passions and living. As best as they can, anyhow.

The streets that sat below the Duke’s manor and the cliff formed a sort of boardwalk. The streets descended further down another tier of the cliff where the docks sat welcoming people to the bay (and the empire). It was beautifully designed, Oliver had to admit.

The structure itself was not what drew Oliver here, however. It was the night markets. Which were livelier thanks to the Lady’s debut.

He wandered the markets for almost half an hour, trying to free his mind of Ophelia Guerriero, of the party back on the cliff, of the way the tightness of his chest grew painful. But it was impossible to shake the anxiety, and the calmness the noise used to bring him was nowhere to be found, replaced only by annoyance and loudness.

With hands over his ears, he sped up, retreating from the markets to who knows where. His mind was not right, and he just barely recognised that he was moving at all.

It wasn’t until the salty smell hit him that he realised he had wandered so far that he passed the docks, now slowly walking along the sandy beach, underneath the starry sky and mere metres from the ocean he loved and hated so very much.

He existed between breaths, between beats of his heart.

He slowly lowered his hands from his ears, letting the waves wash over him, crashing into his ears with a comfortable sigh. He kneeled by the water, staring at his perfect reflection.

Disgust marred his face. And not just because of the ugly red smudge over his lips, but because of the dainty eyelashes, the big eyes, the full lips and round cheeks, the subtle jaw and thin neck. His hands dove into the salty water with a force that rippled the reflection till it did not exist, and he splashed it over his face, eyes clamping shut.

Another three splashes later and the painted face had gone, giving way to a spotty set of acne scars and swirling black markings that began at either of his cheeks and connected between his brows. Markings the Duke refused to allow to be seen. Markings his mother used to lovingly trace and stroke when he was younger. Markings he once saw in a book that he can no longer find.

Markings denoting the sea elves. It was how Oliver knew - how the Duke knew that he was not a legitimate… daughter. He tore his eyes away from the hideous reflection and instead to the glittering horizon.

He stared out at the horizon, wondering just how long it would be until that looming cloud made it to the coast.

The…

The storm.

The silhouette.

The ship.

The ship. Where had it gone? The ship he saw approaching the harbour, where had it gone? He jumped to his feet with a start, looking around for any sign of it, only to realise he had walked so far that he couldn’t even see the docks, or any ship at all.

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Oliver stood, dumbfounded and alone, an untouched fear crept up his spine and that empty pit slowly began to grow once more.

How long has it been since he left? Should he have stayed at the party longer to keep up appearances? The Duke didn’t usually mind if he left halfway through as long as he got back in time for the ending. But this was Ophelia’s debut? Wouldn’t it be different? Where was he? How would he get back? Where would he even begin?

His spiralling set of questions was interrupted by a distant orange glow emanating from around the corner of the cliff that stretched above him, accompanied by hushed voices. Ice struck his veins. He slipped off his books, holding them in one hand as he slowly, silently, made his way closer.

With his back pressed against the wall, he peeked around.

Waiting for him there was the grand ship anchored off the shore with three sets of purple sails, a delicate carving of a maiden at the head and a flag of skull and bones. On the shore was a small, beached rowboat and a series of about five people shrouded in dark cloaks and yet illuminated by fiery lantern light. They talked amongst themselves, approaching Oliver’s position, or at least that's what he thought until they stopped by a cave entrance that Oliver hadn’t even realised was there.

A quiet, monotone voice spoke, from one of the shorter figures. “Boss, we pickin’ up or droppin’ off?”

The “boss”, a tall, larger woman, the one holding the lantern, smiled. Oliver knew she was smiling, he saw her teeth flash from underneath the hood. “Picking up, my fishy friend. Just wait and see. I’ve got big plans for the next one but I need gold to kick it off.”

Oliver shuffled his foot an inch out of his hiding spot, just to get a better look and a better listen. It was his surprise when they all fell silent, and the lantern light was suddenly snuffed out. In the darkness, and the silence, he felt his heartbeat rise into his throat.

With a sudden and strong grip, he found a dagger to his back and a hand clasped over his mouth. Slowly, he raised his shaking hands in surrender.

The cloaked figure walked him out to the group, and he complied, willing his legs not to stumble or trip.

He was shoved to the sand, the cloaked figures surrounding him in an instant. Even when the candlelight returned, he could not see any faces. All he saw was the figures, and the fact that there were more, many more looming over from the ship, eyes glittering in his direction.

The empty pit grew more and more.

The boss stepped forward, passing the lantern off to the smaller one who had spoken to her before, and she removed her hood.

She was a gorgeous woman. Not by societal standards by any means, but she was gorgeous.

She had a large scar over the right side of her face, marring her lips. Her skin was tanned and almost tinted orange, which well complimented the auburn complexion of her thick round curls and her eyes shone a beautiful amber. She glared down at him for a moment before giving way to a grin, revealing the gap in her front teeth, another “flaw” that he found to suit her quite well.

She crouched suddenly reaching his level. The movement made him jump and scoot backwards slightly. He knew who she was.

He doubted there was a single noblewoman who didn’t know of the deviant, self-indulgent, promiscuous Lady of the Sea. She was an infamous captain, some called her the Pirate Queen, The Queen of the Seas, and Lady Turner. (Her last name is not Turner, as far as he was aware, but the nickname refers to the trail of heartbroken women she left in her wake that were previously unbothered by matters of the flesh.)

“Well, hello there, gorgeous…” The Captain cooed at him. It was only then had he realised his hair had come loose, revealing himself to be a woman.

“I- I’m a man!” He clasped his hands over his mouth suddenly, leaving both him and the crew in stunned silence for a moment.

Captain Pirra Téi Marino surprised Oliver on his first meeting with her once more as she bent over and proceeded to retch, feigning vomiting.

“I think I’m going to be sick, Laguna, Laguna help, I flirted with a man.” She retched again, hand on this… Laguna’s shoulder. Laguna was the shorter one from earlier, with the plain speech, who had now revealed their hood.

They were a siren, with scaled blue skin and ears that extended into fins. They had small, thin eyes that you could barely tell were open and curly black hair, or- at least it appeared to be black, but perhaps it was a shimmering dark seafoam.

Laguna stared at him with an unchanging expression, waiting for their captain to finish her antics. The other crew lowered their hoods and saw a mix of people from various countries and species, different genders and expressions and hairstyles and colours and things he had never seen before in his life, it made the emptiness shrink ever so slightly.

The woman who shoved him into the dirt, the one who had held a dagger to his back stood absently fiddling with another dagger in her fingers, spinning it while she held a gaze pinned to him. She was human, one of the only ones there, actually, with dark brown hair, shaven off completely on one side, with the other side reaching her shoulders. She had brown skin and dark eyes, and she wore about a million daggers. He imagined there was more hidden throughout her clothes.

Finally, there was a pair of paler elven twins with fiery hair, one a woman with a pair of long braids and one a man with short shaved hair that sat just above his brow. Both were short and stout, thicker than what high society would have accepted, with their skin dotted with freckles. They stood by each other, both dressed in shades of teal.

After her dramatisation was finished, Captain Pirra finally returned to him. “My apologies then sir.” She looked him up and down. “...which noble family are you from?”

“How did you know?”

“You smell like a rich kid.”

He fell quiet, and she looked over her shoulder up where the mansion would be. "You don't happen to be..." She paused, locking eyes with Laguna, communicating silently. "You didn't happen to have debuted tonight? As a woman?"

His heart grew warm, and yet it trembled with fear. Did she intentionally avoid saying his birth name? The name that gave him all his worth and power, the name that felt like his ears were being stabbed, like venom was injected into his veins, like he had been left in the snow and frozen from the inside out, like he had-

"Princeling?" She tapped on his forehead.

"Ah- I- Um..." He looked to the sand. "I am the eldest of the Guerriero family, i-if that's what you are asking."

The Captain looked around at her crew, her grin gone and replaced by a serious frown. She soon looked back down at him, with a new, warm smile.

"What's your name?"