<div style="background-color:#353535; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Mallory cheered when Blake bit the man's hand, but was silenced mid-shout by what felt like a broom handle to her temple, and then the floor came rushing up at her.<br/><br/>She, too, awoke to the familiar smell of the ocean. For a moment, she thought she was back in Denyan. The mud that her nose was covered in was certainly a familiar thing, too. She blew the air out of her nostrils in an attempt to clear some of it away. To her surprise, the mud didn't go very far. It spattered on some kind of dark surface right in front of her. With a shock, she realized it wasn't night, after all, but that someone had put a sack over her head. Twisting, she found that both her hands and feet had been bound.<br/><br/>"Blake?" She whispered uncertainly.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">"Calm yourself, lad. You'll need to save that energy for what's to come,"</span> a much too deep voice replied. As worrying as it was, she couldn't help but smile (at no one). Blake was here. <span style="font-style: italic">She</span> certainly wasn't the 'lad' the voice was talking about.<br/><br/>The world lurched, and Mallory found herself picked up like a piece of luggage, her head hanging down and sometimes bumping unpleasantly against something. As uncomfortable as it was, it also meant that the sack that had obscured her vision fell off, and she soon realized she had been slung over someone's shoulder and was bumping her nose into their back. She tried shouting, but only managed a weak croak before she was violently shaken.<br/><br/>"Shut up, you," whoever was carrying her growled, and Mallory decided that maybe that was the best course of action after all. As awful as the first pirate crew they shacked up with had been, these seemed even less prone to take her bullshit. She was unceremoniously dumped near the main mast, hands and feet still tied. With a groan, she let her head backwards to rest. It hurt like Hell, she felt like she had vomited at some point, and she was almost certain that the side of her head was turning purple. Even so, she still felt more anxious for Blake than herself. He just had a way of getting out of the ashes, into the fire, and then into molten lava.</div></div>