The Crow stared skywards, watching Queen Efer's rope sway in the breeze. Far above him was the Flying Rotsman, distant enough that there was no immediate threat of an attack, but capable of moving into such a dangerous position easily. He had watched his captain make the climb several minutes ago, but lacked the means to do so himself. Without his knives, he was remarkably light on his feet - more than enough to reach the Rotsman even with the manacles still on his wrists - but therein lied the problem: he was without his knives. If he wished to defect back to his old crew for some unthinkable reason, they were still nowhere near as important to him as his property aboard the Pervy Freedom, and if he wished to kill Rotter, which he very much did, he needed weapons to do so. Ordinary ones wouldn't do, either; he had something special in mind, but it was presently out of reach.<br/><br/>A slight shift in the tides caused the ship to drift backwards, pulling the rope taut. From where Ganelon was sitting, it looked weak. If anyone noticed it hanging from the underside of the Rotsman, one good cut would be enough to strand the Queen on a hostile ship, and if anyone noticed the<span style="font-style: italic">Queen</span>...<br/><br/>"Ahoy." he said to a passing crewmate.<br/><br/>Breaking his stride, the pirate paused to take one very long swig of rum from one of the two bottles he was carrying before turning to face the Crow. His face was obscured three ways by an orange beard soaked with alcohol, a bright red bandana, and a worn eyepatch on the left side. The one remaining eye was focused, at least temporarily, on who was speaking to him.<br/><br/>"What're we doing?"<br/><br/>The man raised one bottle into the air like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Drinking," he said.<br/><br/>"About<span style="font-style: italic">her</span>," the Crow replied, nodding towards the Rotsman. "She say anythin'?"<br/><br/>"'Stand by'," the man replied, taking another swig from the same bottle and walking off to attend to other matters of no-doubt critical importance. True to his word, most of the crew seemed to be doing exactly that - watching the two other ships while alternating between drinking and playing with wenches. All other activities had come to a halt.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Stand by?</span>Ganelon thought.<span style="font-style: italic">Does she expect to end this all by herself?</span><br/><br/>That didn't sit well with him. Merely watching from a safe distance as she killed Captain Rotter, too far away to see the bastard fall... even if the crew trusted that she could do it, he couldn't live with being only a bystander. At the same time, he couldn't stop thinking about the rope either. The Pirate Queen knew that killing Rotter would sink his ship, and a line in free-fall wouldn't save anyone. Whether she had some unspoken plan or was simply being reckless beyond words, he couldn't begin to guess.<br/><br/>With some difficulty, the Crow rose to his feet. He wasn't about to stake his new captain's life on the former.<br/><br/>"Hey!<span style="font-style: italic">HEY!</span>" he shouted. "Where's the first mate? Who's in command here?"<br/><br/>The crew looked confused, unsure of the location - or perhaps the identity - of their first mate. One after the other, their heads all turned to look at a single woman standing alone on the deck. She wore tribal clothing, the likes of which Ganelon had never seen before, and it wasn't hard to tell that most of the pirates were deliberately trying to keep their distance from her. He had seen the woman earlier himself, screaming insults and kicking at some unfortunate soul as though he were the source of all her problems, and her present glare suggested that he was one wrong move away from becoming the next target of her abuse. If the crew's fear was justified, she certainly had the authority to at least harm them without the captain's permission.<br/><br/>The Crow gritted his teeth and approached her anyways, his shackles loudly clinking throughout the dreadful silence that followed.<br/><br/>"The Queen needs our help. She ain't comin' back alive if she kills Rotter, much less if they catch 'er first."