To Madam Midnight. My most humble greeting to you, my lady.
In response to your request I, Captain Adair Ravensdale, take upon myself the task of the abduction of Princess Elizabeth Grey of Valdmire, as well as her delivery to the specified location of your preference. In doing so, I expect a total compensation of twenty five thousand in gold as per your offer.
Naturally, I hereby abide to the conditions imposed by the consequent contract and shall personally take responsibility for the guardianship of the Princess in regards to her health and chastity. Furthermore, I submit command over my ship, crew and myself to you until the conditions to the specified contract are met and acknowledge the consequences that may befall should I fail to meet your expectations.
Let me express a personal gratitude for seeking us, and to a prosperous agreement for the both of us.
Yours cordially,
Captain Adair Ravensdale.
P.S.: Should the transportation of Princess Elizabeth suppose significant additional expenses, I trust you will be willing to engage in further negotiation.
With poor hand-writing worthy of a small child with broken hands, but proper words unbecoming of a pirate, so went the response Madam Midnight received days after contacting the crew of Sky pirates.
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Adair Ravensdale - Captain of the ship.
No sound but the calm gust of the wind crashing against the sails of a lone ship polluted the silence of the night sky. Surrounded by the darkness of the night, the boat cut through the air at great speed, majestically floating through the clouds, defying the laws of nature. Nothing other than further blackness extended in the horizon, yet the flying vehicle sailed surely in a straight line, certain of its destination. At the front of the fine vessel, sitting next to the bowsprit with one leg hanging like a pendulum outside the safety of the ship's deck, Captain Ravensdale was looking straight at the never-ending, dark mantle of the sky with a smile printed on his face and eyes struggling to remain open against the cold wind. Nothing but the poor illusion of a calm pirate. Though composed at first sight, a second glance could confirm that the captain was beyond any possibility of soothing. The corners of his smile twitched in fixed intervals and his left hand gripped firmly the hat that symbolized his status as a captain while the right one tapped continuously on the wooden floor of the ship. Adair was filled with the uncomfortable excess of energy of anticipation; the only reason why he had decided to remain on the front of the deck was because he wanted to witness the moment when the lights of Valdmire's central city appeared before them. After all, it had been a long time since his face beamed with such excitement as in that instant. Yes, that night promised to be full of thrills.
It had only been a few days since a young woman had somehow managed to make contact with the ship through many struggles, all for the sake of delivering a letter to him. Never in any amount of centuries would Adair have been able to predict that an offer as daring and compensating as the one in the letter the girl carried would be given to him. The sender was none other than Madam Midnight, a woman of great reputation he had only heard about in rumors. Though in appearance merely a madam, she obviously had more contacts and resources than would be expected from someone of her kind, reason why she had gained quite a reputation in the underworld; this, however, he had only realized when he received the letter. While his poorly written response would suggest a different thing, the captain had to admit he had only been able to partially read the letter, as the moment his eyes gazed on the very generous amount of gold he would receive should he succeed in capturing the Princess, the rest of the words seemed to become small and blurry. Whether it had been intentional or not, it still remained true that starting the message by writing down a huge number accompanied by the word
gold at the very beginning had had a great effect on the greedy captain of the ship. Otherwise, it wasn't likely that Adair would have accepted the demanding terms of the contract Madam Midnight had set on him... or not. Money was money regardless of the order it was mentioned in, and the ultimate truth was that he wanted it, needed or not.
It was surprising the complete negligence with which he had tackled the issue. He didn't question even for a second how their contractor had been able to find them, nor how she had such a ridiculous amount of money from dealing with young girls, not even why she could possibly want to kidnap the Princess (any other noble would probably offer just as much money for their daughter anyway and the risk wouldn't be as high). Even now, when in only a few minutes he would be attempting to capture none other than the Princess of Valdmire, he was far more nervous and excited than scared; after all, consequences were something he had resigned to think about since a long time ago. In his mind, he already had his plan set in stone, so why should he be worried? He had only briefly considered a silent infiltration in the King's residence at first, which would allow them to fly away peacefully and switch places between the Princess and the girl who had carried Madam Midnight's letter (who bared an uncanny resemblance to Princess Elizabeth) without raising suspicion. However, in order to achieve that, he would require many men able to both climb on the walls of the mansion and defend themselves from guards if necessary, and the only member of his crew he could picture doing that was Django, who he would rather not send by himself. Hence, and much to his own satisfaction, he decided to resort to a different tactic that would appeal more to his own style: a frontal assault!
Even though the inside of the King's massive residence was an unknown labyrinth to outsiders, one could guess which areas contained rooms and which didn't based on the structure of the buildings as seen from the outside. Now then, aside from the main anchor, the ship counted with other three supplementary ones that could be used at the same time if necessary. With those two pieces of information, the course of action seemed very obvious to Adair: they would fly above the clouds before reaching the mansion's grounds to avoid being spotted before arriving; once they were at their destination, they would descend and drop the four anchors on the spots they had already determined were most likely closest to the Princess' chambers, after which some of the crew members would be able to descend and infiltrate. Once one of them found Princess Elizabeth, they would give a signal and the lookalike girl would descend and switch places with her; after that, they would retreat, pretending they failed at whatever purpose the attack had. Was the plan perfect? Of course not! The moment an anchor touched the ceiling, they had to keep track of a countdown before guards began to appear and the Princess was evacuated in a matter of minutes. Did the plan guarantee their safety? Most certainly not! The captain hadn't even thought of a retreat signal in case they couldn't find the Princess in time! Did the plan allow for a safe escape route? Again, no! If they didn't act fast enough, they could have a ship following them as they tried to fly away. Why on earth would it work then? Because if getting to a member of the royal family was as easy as infiltrating through regular means, something like this would've happened years ago. Besides, the strong point of utterly preposterous ideas such as this was that no one thought anyone would actually dare to try them.
Adair was mentally going through the plans when suddenly something caught his attention in the distance: city lights! As adrenaline began to run through his system, he jumped to his feet while his grin and eyes widened.
"Come out, ye lot! 'Tis time!", he exclaimed as he made his way towards the quarter deck on the opposite end of the ship with an energetic yet strangely dignified pace. On his way there, he stomped strongly on the spot he knew also served as the ceiling of Fingall's cabin, where he would most likely be doing... whatever he did in there other than sharpening his many edged possessions. He repeated the procedure for Juliet's room and the kitchen, as he wasn't sure which of the two the woman would be in; she rarely ever came out of the kitchen, but then again, that wasn't the moment to be doing anything there.
"Frey, Django! Out!", unsure of where the remaining two would be, he simply called for them in a loud voice. Having been aboard the ship for longer, they weren't as reclusive as Juliet and Fingall, so they didn't necessarily have to be in their rooms.
As he waited for the crew to assemble on the dock, he glanced back at the city lights, which shined as brightly as the gold their dear Princess Elizabeth would help them obtain.