<div align="center">(https://i.imgur.com/lmDjrEf.jpg)</div><br/>Lilan, the captain of the Dragon's Wake was starting to regret many choices she'd made. Some of them were distant--taking over the captainship of the vessel when the previous holder had been eaten by a siaka, moving into the abundant smuggling trade going in and out of the Azure Sea--but others were more recent. Chief among them was not asking more questions when the mysterious woman had approached them in Jiara and asked for passage, while not seeming too bothered about where the passage was to. None of that was unusual--Lilan had figured her for a deserter from the Imperial legions, out to vanish into the Threshold. And that wasn't anything she found objectionable, so long as the money was there. But now she was having second thoughts, because--<br/><br/>"See it? There on the horizon?" she asks her guest, pointing behind the ship, to the solid blot behind them. If you squinted, you could just make out the unfurled sails bearing the symbol of House Peleps. Though considerably heavier, the warship was keeping pace quite easily.<br/><br/>"They normally ignore small fry like us! Hey, stranger, any idea why we've got a Realm warship snapping at our heels? Either they're really cracking down, we're just having real shit luck or there's something you haven't told us!"