Snippet #2678645

Jacqueline wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Thompson’s brat was on the same ship as her? Fate had a strange way of showing her affections, but it seemed like this truly was a blessing, given the evening’s events. She gingerly took the old wanted poster from Ren and smiled wistfully. “You know, this was one of my favorite posters they put up?” Jacqueline said. “If I recall, these were put up not long after Tocaz and I “picked up’ the Screaming Serpent for a song- remind me to tell you about that one- and then we gathered enough crew to run it up and terrorize the Irish and English coasts. Almost ran aground a few times, but it certainly was a great way to get a feel for such a lovely ship. Saw these scattered about after a nasty brush with your father's ship, and I'm nearly positive he helped with the poster because it's actually accurate. One of the better to actually acknowledge me as a woman- not that I ever tried to hide it, mind,” Jacqueline added, then chuckled. “Honestly, some of the early ones made me look like my brother. I think they were just afraid to admit a girl carved them up and tossed them overboard.”

Jacqueline looked back up at Ren and gave her back the wanted paper. “Merci, mon ami. I'm glad my years at sea did something more than terrorize the English. I must say though, that I inspired one as remarkable as you is certainly something. We'll have to spar sometime, see if Issac actually taught you anything.” She could count on one hand the number of swordsmen she had ever felt evenly matched by, and Ren’s father was by far one of the better known.

Jacqueline had almost an angry fondness for Issac. Out of all the officers that had tried to best her, Captain Thompson was the only one she felt a rivalry with. Their first meeting had been quite explosive. She'd been sailing with the Medusa under an idiotic captain for about six years, and the only reason she had stayed was her dear friend Tocaz, the cabin boy several years her junior, who was essentially enslaved to the captain. As it was a smaller ship, she cooked and did a plethora of the cleaning belowdecks, but any time they overtook another ship, she shone like the gleam of her twin sabers. If Tocaz covered her with a musket and pistol, she was nigh unstoppable; by her twenty-third birthday, Jacqueline had gained the moniker of the Serpent's Teeth, and Tocaz the Serpent's Venom, for if the serpent bit, the venom was soon to follow and send you to Davy Jones. Though their area of piracy was small, they were well known in that area.

Fighting, cooking, and her dear friend Tocaz were all Jacqueline found to live for until two years later, when the Navy finally caught up with the Medusa. The ship was already wounded from a fight earlier that week, and it was only a matter of time before the Navy ship caught up with them. The captain was laid low in a matter of minutes after they were boarded (there was speculation that Tocaz had done it, and Jacqueline would neither confirm nor deny it to this day), and the mate decided that it would be best to get the hell out of there as soon as the mizzen mast was downed by grapeshot. That left the rest of the crew to scramble and salvage and bail their own asses out.

Jacqueline and Tocaz decided that was a poor way to go down, and planned on making their last stand on the Medusa as they took out man after man. Tocaz spotted a lone lifeboat still tied to the now burning ship, and Jacqueline covered him til he could hop in. As he tumbled in, she slashed the ropes and watched it splash down as he screamed at her. Jacqueline waved him off before whipping back around to block a blow from one of the remaining naval officers on deck: one Issac Thompson, who seemed hell bent on taking her out. Through the smoke they fought, blades clashing, each landing a few hits here and there. They would have danced until one or the other had been killed had it not been for the powder kegs igniting belowdecks. With a nod Thompson ran back to his ship and Jacqueline dove overboard, sabers tied securely into her belt.

Fortunately Tocaz hadn't taken her advice and was close enough to help her out.

“You were supposed to leave,” Jacqueline had laughed at her dumbfounded friend.

“You're not supposed to martyr yourself and then dive over the side of a burning ship, yet here we are!” He had tapped her on the head with one of the oars and continued rowing away from what had once been their prison.

Jacqueline remembered that fight happily. It had freed her, in a way, given her something to strive for: find and beat Issac Thompson in a duel. It helped her love the sea again. Though she gained a few more goals, that one was always in the back of her mind, urging her onwards to greatness.

They had had a few short clashes between then and the desecration of her beloved Serpent, thought none as memorable as their last. Jacqueline involuntarily brought a hand up to her sternum, just above her breastline, and winced. Worst scar she'd ever received; any higher or any further left and she would have died at Thompson’s hands. She'd paid him in kind; she heard tell that he permanently walked with a limp after what she'd done to his leg. The older woman still didn't know why he'd let her go that day; even though she’d won and spared him, he still should have at least taken her to trial and let her hang and sway in the breeze as the crowd cheered.

She blinked and smacked herself lightly on the cheek. Wasn't worth thinking about; so long as she and Angelique were safe, everything would be fine.

And, perhaps Ren, too, so long as the girl didn't take too much after her father.