Childhood
Elisenda was born in the rice village of Kororia Iti (Small Glory) away only 20 miles from Porto Turra, rather than being born in a hospital due to complications from her father's,
Foc Serrano Porara, profession being the original pirate captain of the Ataata Rosada, a Charstani Half-Elf with a muscular build from years of fishing at sea. Her mother,
Valentina Serrano Porara who is an orange Tabaxi with thin white stripes and an excellent chef had to deliver Elisenda in the villages nicest clinic, owing a favor to the villages mayor in order to avoid the prying eyes of the "Patriots", also known as the CDP, who control the region by projecting a false sense of security to the people who live there and would relish at the opportunity to try and imprison a crime family such as them. These were the type of parameters Elisenda's family had to navigate when living in the metropolis of
Porto Turra which was simultaneously heavily policed, and full of strife. Life for most people in the city was not necessarily spent being watched and monitored like in the CSC, as the Patriots took an arguably more pragmatic approach with the people they controlled. People's private lives were kept just that, as long as it never showed in public. People were expected to show up when called for rounds of conscription to be put into Cadres, but the training was light and mostly unintrusive.
For Elie however, she was exempt from that from not having any records of her existence within Porto Turra. She would watch for most of her life from the background on how things were done in the city, the air of tension, and the occasional flare up in violence that most had to be a part of in some way. Naturally, this also meant moving around often in poor areas of the city. Foc's lack of presence at home, sailing up and down the coast and trying to find the next big score, lended to Elie getting along with her mother a lot more and also meant an experience navigating as a child in some undesirable conditions. Due to her appearance and cat like features, and not being around in one particular neighborhood for very long, making friends was an uphill battle, sometimes in the literal sense. There is an attitude stemmed from a romanticized view of the practice of dueling between warriors and the Charstani Nobility they served to settle usually small disputes, and that one must defend themselves from insults and offensives towards them. For Elie this led to a decent amount of brawls and chases on the narrow streets of the districts neighborhoods and Pango Street Markets. Although she ran from many fights she couldn't win, when she was living in the infamous
Raima Ngahere mega-apartment she was cornered in one of the skywalkways one night by a few bullies led by a physically large asshole named Hiriwa "Awakeri (Ditch)" who didn't appreciate her presence and "flaunting of money" from getting a radio. She escaped, though with a permanent scar she now has on her cheek from a knife. It was a formative experience for the 8 year old, and just in time for the trauma of going to school as her father finally made a big haul raiding
San Volada and could set up new identities and find a better place to live.
Entering what should have been a joyous period for their lives, through Basic Grade School Elie naturally struggled to catch up to her peers who have been in school since they were five and it was emotionally draining. She couldn't speak about why she was behind for obvious reasons, and was labeled as a slacker worsening her efforts to adjust to her new surroundings and situation. On her first days in Mati Middle and High School as a 12 year old, she stole some black hair dye to change her hair color to fit in better, though it didn't look the best after doing it herself, and she also started to wear a hat to cover the ears. Now in a new, nicer, but in a way more alien apartment to Elie in the middle class Mānu district, her mother finally had some free time and was worried about Elie's behavior after coming home from managing the restaurant Foc bought her with the bounties of piracy.
At this point, Valentina began to pay a lot more attention to her daughter and after a year and a half of middle school Elie was even more depressed and her grades were low enough that it risked her expulsion. Which worsened her social isolation, as test scores for semester finals are posted for the entire class to see, class being all of her peers of her grade. Foc, with the type of semi-impulsive and boisterous personality he had, proposed to his partner that they simply bribe someone to change the grades and/or move to another school, which Valentina responded to the idea with a slap to the face. So they decided, for the first time in a long time, to both act as parents together and try to guide her through the tumultuous times of being a teenager and adjusting to their new life. Taking her to playgrounds and plazas to not just spend more time with her but to also see how she interacted with other children. Stepping in when a child decided to be cruel.
It was in a time span of about a month, but the biggest turn around she had was when she took a trip to the underwater coral
Gardens of Iker where they were having the flashiest portion of that year's
Comdía festivities, celebrating one of Terota's most important and widely observed holidays. Experiencing the magical effects of being able to be breathing underwater for the first time, and exploring the beautiful plaza was uplifting. This was also the first year the flagship of the Patriot fleet, the
Heavy Cruiser KWI Ahi Turra, wasn't present for the festival as it was in for repairs in the
Mana Shipyards after taking serious damage while docked embarrassingly enough, due to covert strikes from the
Arediāni Armed Forces earlier that year.
While she was watching the Charstani tradition of choreographed dances, which were a spectacle underwater, followed up with a line of people in the costume of the great sea serpent of the Arediana breaking through the dancers as if a hostile force and surrounding the coral garden, Elie had probably her first positive interaction with another kid in a long time and one from her school no less. This bolstered her confidence, enough to the point when another student had a problem with her she requested a duel immediately in the middle of a lecture. Dueling was conducted with the practice of Aratoa, where it's origins came from duels to settle disputes that sometimes could get bloody, the modern practice is done in most contexts with wooden swords and protective gear. Despite being able to dodge most of her opponents attacks she lost because she didn't know the rules for the first round, but came close to defeating her opponent which impressed the class considering that most people who choose this duel actually have some experience in it, which also puzzled many of her peers. Finally making the break into having some sort of a social life, her natural talent in Aratoa, which is accredited to her time spent on the streets of No Oportunitats, was recognized by the third year Captain of the middle schools Aratoa club,
Kourahine Vera Teira, a triton from a prominent military family, and was invited to join. The club functioned as a sort of intermediary class for students to train and get the basics down, preparing themselves for the club in the High School.
Things began to look up for her as she progressed through the basic ranks of the martial art, improving her grades, gathering positive attention from her peers and finally having some sort of semblance of a healthy social life. Her first year of High School was rocky, as she was adjusting to the new school but still had the acquaintances she made the year previous. Continuing to climb the rank ladder in the Aratoa Club, and hanging out with Kourahine more often. The club traveled and competed throughout CDP territory, and with other school clubs in the city which were of course sponsored and encouraged by the military. The referee for official matches was in fact an officer pretty much 90% of the time, scouting students for the potential to bolster their ranks with motivated and talented fighters. By her second year, she was nearing the highest rank possible for Aratoa and Mati High Schools club was starting to be unbeatable, and her relationship with Kourahine grew to be much closer. Kourahine was very reserved, but loved to tease Elie because she found her reactions cute but didn't pull the trigger until after winning the Provincial Championship in a romantic and public display of affection in the ring.
She also went on multiple field trips to CDP bases and ships, as it was a part of the program from the Patriots military to produce enthusiastic recruits and officers. Where she unknowingly met her future Marine Chief, Adelio Toa, who guided her class through life on a ship that would soon be deployed. On her third and final year, she was selected as the Captain of the Aratoa club for her impeccable performance, leading them to a second consecutive year as the Provincial Champion, and to the glee of her parents ranked 42nd in her class in the Crenza midterms which was perfect timing for her birthday. They celebrated in the family's restaurant, the
Moli Mīmī, with friends from the Aratoa club, Kourahine who has already graduated, regular patrons, and even some of the crew of the Ataata Rosada who were capable of behaving themselves. At times in the restaurant, her father would switch from his very amicable and boisterous demeanor to his persona as the Captain of a pirate ship which were hilarious to those who knew him, but terrifying to the people who didn't know the context.
For a time, the peaceful and happy life Foc wished for his family was a reality and was overjoyed that potentially with these grades Elie could live life without experiencing the lifetime of strife he has. But as he was thinking that, Elie was still uncomfortable with Porto Turra at a fundamental level. A part of her still loathed the culture around education and how people were treated and left in an impoverished state because "that's what they deserve as useless members of society. They should be happy." The military was completely unpalatable to her, and thought of as a mechanism to enforce the status quo if not also as a way reap its rewards for themselves. So as graduation day loomed, Eliesenda asked her father "What do you
actually do?"
Young Adulthood & Adulthood to Present
Elie began attending the University of Anewa after graduation, but really wasn't interested in her studies as much as her partner Kourahine who, unbeknownst to Elie, was also spending extra time training to receive her commission when she finished her degree. Elie simply continued Aratoa and making the occasional clandestine trip to No Opportunities to listen to banned music. To much of her fathers dismay, she also kept pressing for more stories about his past and the stories only grew increasingly unbelievable with each lie he would tell. Elie knew he was up to something, because fish don't come out of the ocean made of solid gold, that's a story from an ancient myth. Which was hard for Foc to avoid because of his own efforts to keep Elie out of serving in a Cadre unit by bribing the officers in charge of organizing them, which was not an uncommon practice for many people.
After about two years of university Elie's curiosity got the better of herself, and wanting to do something different rather than just help at the restaurant, she followed her father to the ship one day. This wasn't an easy venture, as it was always docked in San Volta, so she had to sneak onto the small boat she knows he takes at night, laylow until they got to the ruins of San Volta, and then finally, without being detected hide in the small maze of a ship full of pirates. She had an
idea of what she was involving herself in so she brought the knife she usually takes with her to No Opportunities, but still almost panicked when she realized that she is now going the farthest she has ever been from home. After overhearing an officers meeting at the Bridge where they discussed holding up a small Admiralty cargo ship, she accidently slipped on her way out of the bridge, alerting the pirates to her presence. Hearing the sounds of weapons being pulled out of their holsters was not encouraging at the least, and needless to say while in the middle of being panicked she didn't hide herself well and was discovered by her father who donned his pirate persona, not because of image but because of a combination of shock and anger. Confined to his quarters, she was scolded, lectured, and told that none of this ever happened, and that she will be sent home.
Unfortunately for his sanity that last part wasn't an option, the timing for avoiding patrols and radar detection from Patriot ships was tight and the pirates would also miss their window to rob the
KW Verapua. There wasn't much other choice than to carry on with work, and get this done as soon as possible. Leading to Eliesenda committing her first act of piracy, despite being kept in the Captain quarters with a guard watching the door. The KW Verapua was an unremarkable and relatively small cargo ship meant to sail up to Illagran to sell valuable strategic resources like iron to the Imperial Regent. However, not all went to plan, as the ship had armed guards from the Guardia Marina meant to protect the shipment and a fire fight ensued, pinning the boarding party in a dangerous spot. As some of the crew considered just using the "Big Gun" and potentially lose the cargo but save the boarding party, Eliesenda already jumped over the Admiralty ship to fight alongside her father to subdue the Marines and continue the job as planned. It was the first taste of adrenaline rushing combat she had that wasn't just with some thug, which proved to be addictive, and cemented her anti-authority disposition. To see these soldiers in their crisp and clean uniforms and factory new equipment get overrun by a seemingly motley group of pirates, shattered the perception that the Patriots and regimes like them were invincible.
After two years of University now planning to drop out, with such a personal high point in her life, it was only appropriate that Kourahine wanted to pose an "important question" only a week after she helped rob the Verapua coincidentally enough. They went on a date to a plaza near the city's prominent University of Anewa on a calm summer night on the 25th of Comana, where some of the best local musicians decided to play that day. The night sky was clear and the light reflecting off of the planets that are visible to the naked eye shone brilliantly, complimenting the song dance that night. But of course, unlike in the poorer parts of the city, no music was played that would capture the attention of the authorities. After the sounds of psychedelic cumbia and rock subsided, the two found a quietish corner to eat that had a view of the Pākaha Mati castle on the low peak of Kia Mataara mountain by the bay.
"I'm going to be receiving my commission soon." Kourahine said. "You'll be with me, right?" It was a sudden and selfish request that caught Elie off guard. She tried to say that she would take too long to receive it but Koura insisted. Elie said she would be bad at taking orders, but Koura said it wouldn't matter they would be officers on the get go. The conversation went back and forth and was only around two minutes, but to the both of them it felt like it lasted for ages. Elie ended the conversation unintentionally, with flashes of memories from fighting the Guardia Marina, and blurted out with venom something she doesn't really fully remember saying, but remembers the painful smile Koura held. A sign that she was hurt, and didn't know what to feel. Elie could not tell her the full truth of why she thought this way, as it could potentially ruin both of their lives and put both of them in danger, or at least that's what Elie thought. They left each other that night, full of feelings to communicate that they both couldn't afford to, in pain as the stars looked down from the sky.
Despite Foc being furious at her for the stunt on the Verapua, Eliesenda heartbroken and frustrated eventually pushed him to apprentice her in commanding the ship. On and off, for a number of years, Elie continued to work with her mother at the Moli Mīmī as a drop out while sailing with her father whenever the time was right to do so. Foc would take long breaks in-between jobs to be home, carefully calculating when the bank accounts of him and his crew would run dry to then plan the next heist. Elie would also continue to compete and train in Aratoa in the cities most prominent Whare Hoari after dropping out to maintain her rank in the martial art, but also out of unresolved feelings for Kourahine. To distract herself further, and also to get the adrenaline fix, she made trips more often to No Opportunities to plan with like minded individual to commit to productive civil service activities like throwing fire bombs at police stations and spreading illegal anti-establishment pamphlets.
Over the years, she grew more deeply ingrained with some of the groups that would participate in the overthrow of the Patriot regime in 2415 but she would disappear from it after narrowly avoiding arrest and getting more involved with the ship. After about a year and a half of silence with Kourahine, Elie finally heard from her in the form of a letter that had a photo of her in uniform with the ocean in the background. The letter among other things contained in it said, "We should talk when I'm on leave." Of course, it could never be that simple. Not in Turra. During one trip in 2412 which was more of a training mission to keep the crew in shape, the ship was stopped by a patrol vessel whose inspector was none other than Lieutenant Kourahine herself serving as the inspector aboard this ship. Initially unaware of the Ataata Rosada's true nature, she went over every deck of the ship, seeing every piece of equipment, she knew intuitively there were weapons and contraband hidden. Never saying anything other than pleasantries out loud, this was the last time Elie would see her as she would show up at the usual spot they use to meet at, but found only a police officer walking back to their patrol from taking a quick piss in the adjacent alley. Elie didn't know if Koura was just trying to be safe, but even then it was still painful.
Two years later, her father would finally get arrested for something completely unrelated to piracy as the usual port customs officer he would bribe was replaced with someone far more clean without his knowledge. When trying to bribe the new guy, he got really angry and started a fight in which he was winning, but was dragged away. 2414 being the most tense that the Patriots have been since the bombs dropped, they decided to give him 5 years of hard labor in Proci, which at this point for his age was a slow death sentence. Thankfully for Foc, the Patriots collapsed soon the next year and the regime flipped to a, still corrupt, but Republic friendly government.
Elie didn't care for the regime change however, they may have rejected some of the toxic aspects of Imperial culture, but they seemingly did nothing to address the rampant inequality of Porto Turra and stories from acquaintances did not improve her perspective of the people on top. Despite protests from her parents, she took up running the ship to find the next job and the Cartels were in her crosshairs. As she was gathering some crew members, she saw first hand the chaos of the revolution in southern Charstania which lead to her meeting and rescuing a group of people who were going to be shipped off to Aya as "Indentured Servants" with bogus contracts in the city of
Guria. This is where she met her XO Ilisapesei, who was targeted because she was once a conscript in the CDP.
Earlier that year, she met Chief Adelio Toa again though he was figuratively drowning in his tears this time after being abandoned in the outskirts of San Volta. Despite gaining loyal officers, making extensive planning and an experienced crew, no one could have accounted for this to eventually lead to probably the single worst mercantile naval disaster of the post-war era with the sinking of the V Wairua Rere. At the very least, she and her crew can boast that they were threatened with violent reprisal delivered by Jabade by dealing over 1 million Pesos in damages, as they carry on dealing more damage to trade companies who have grown fat and complacent in the southern hemisphere, with Kaedians she picked up who have nowhere to go.
Operation Cage Breaker
After taking some time to train her new Kaedian crew members--a disparate and eclectic bunch of individuals, exactly the kind she enjoyed--Elisenda set her enterprising eyes on the unprotected and plentiful coin purses of the Blue Path operating south of Eslaiqeza. Forming new connections with fixers, fences, and criminal contacts in Kaedo gave her and her crew access to profit off the instability in the region. Striking quickly and unexpectedly at the merchants who had grown complacent in piracy free waters, between lost goods and damages to ship they inflicted over 200,000 gold in damage to the Blue Path alone.
Now with substantial financial backing behind them and new gear for the marines, a rare opportunity presented itself: the ability to take an important hostage of Aki Corp. Planning and working with their fixer, the crew stopped the ship full of Eslaiqi sailors and the Kaedian corpo and apprehended the deck crew. While awaiting a ship with their payment, agents of Aki Corp's secret police force Mithras stormed the ship guns blazing. Elisenda lead the crew in battle against the agents and they managed to kill enough to drive them into retreat with minimal collateral damage. Unfortunately a few Eslaiqi sailors had been caught in the crossfire due to Mithras' disregard for innocent aethrin life. While this enraged Elisenda, she knew they had to lay low for the time being to let the inquiries calm down.
Returning to their safe foreign port of Ryuichi, the crew of the Ataata Rosada took some well deserved shore leave before engaging in more subtle piracy. For the next few months they alternated between small jobs and leave, biding their time until the next big opportunity came their way.
After a small gig and only a day into shore leave, Elisenda received a letter from somebody she had never expected to hear from again: Kourahine. It spoke of desperate times and the need for somebody she could trust and having nobody else to turn to. Despite the uncertain nature of their relationship after Elie fled, she called the crew to her ship and departed the next morning home for Porto Turra. Rumours of the coming raid began to spread amongst the crew and their enthusiasm outweighed their surprise at having shore leave cut short. The captain however was not jovial, and the bridge crew was running a tight ship.
Upon returning to her home, Elisenda set about immediately going to where the letter had said to meet to test the validity of it. While her AI officer Vakta was unable to detect any inconsistencies with the penmanship, she was not entirely convinced due to the personal nature of the letter and the contents within. Her suspicions turned out to be confirmed when two individuals she had never met approached and arranged a meeting in a bank. They could not elaborate further, but they admitted to the forgery of the letter, but also vouched for the credibility of the contents. Having no choice but to hear them out, Elie agreed to the meeting. However, she did have the foresight to dispatch one of the Kaedians she had hired named Kamaitachi to follow the two, and in doing so learned that Vaea, the Triton of the two, had a lover in the city. While treating her crew to some of her mother's phenomenal cooking at the family restaurant, she formulated a plan. Vaea specifically had been quite disrespectful in their interaction, looking down on her as a "lowly" pirate without conviction. After dinner, she had her chief engineer and uncle Tapu create a device hidden in a cigarette case: a detonator designed to arm a bomb and detonate it should pressure be released.
During the meeting Elisenda learned the truth of the riots currently plaguing the city of Porto Turra: General Caldez had refused to return control to the people after the conclusion of hostilities. After doing some deliberating and consulting her father Foc with his experience doing a land raid, the crew retired for the evening to prepare for meeting Manaea and Vaea. Spending time at home did well for the captain, and when everyone gathered outside of the bank they went in with a hidden ace up their sleeve. The meeting was fairly bog standard, however Elisenda began to have doubts about the validity when Vaea revealed they had forged the letter from Koura. She was presented with her dossier, the contents of which were shocking to Elie, but not enough to dissuade her from saving Koura. The mission was fairly plain: get in, save both Kourahine and an upstart politician by the name of Namiro, kill the Warden Rakavi, and escape before a navy cruiser could reach the prison. There was one big complication however, in that Elisenda would have no cover, no alias, and no backing to maintain her innocence. The entire crew would have to leave Terota for a long time.
Unconvinced and suspicious of her fixers, Elisenda decided to play her trump card. Pretending to take a cigarette out, she pressed the button inside the cigarette case and relaxed in her seat. Claiming that a bomb had been placed inside Vaea's apartment with their lover inside, she demanded full transparency; if she was going to do this, she wanted to know exactly what was at stake. Cracking under the threat to their loved one, Vaea admitted that the fixers were in fact the Arediani Naval Intelligence, the OVN. More comfortable in her sources now the young captain took the job, afterwords revealing that the detonator was in fact fake.
Elisenda had a golden opportunity presented as well in that a man named Paku Hauvata was a potential snag in Namiro taking power and actually improving things for Charsta. He was an ally of Rakavi's, and if her name would eventually be cleared by exposing the Warden then she could also settle a many years old grudge. Paku was the leader of the People's Mana Movement, a radical left wing terrorist group that Elie had once herself been a member of. They were not always so radical however, the shift having come about after Paku betrayed and murdered the previous leader and one of Elisenda's best friends Tane Hinatea and took his position. Elie was witness to the betrayal, but was powerless to stop neither it nor Paku taking the organization over.
Over the course of the week leading up to the prison break, the crew set about various jobs in Porto Turra. Ace took jobs from an entity known as the Soldier of Fortune, Theodore Savage took the initial steps in learning Aratoa, and Elie planned a hit with both Clyde and Rau. While the captain despised Paku, she had managed to keep relations amicable if distant. This allowed her to exploit his arrogance and after inviting him to a dinner she used a knife poisoned with a very deadly tree frog's venom to finally avenge her friend. The rest of the crew had sailed to Porto Ahau to acquire supplies from their operating budget, and the night before the operation Elisenda did two very hard things: she spoke to Kourahine's parents for the first time in years to inform them of the plans, and she had to say goodbye to her parents. Foc and Valentina both sent her with their blessing and well wishes for her and Koura, and though the farewell would be for a number of years, they knew it was not forever.
On the day of the prison break, Clyde as the ship's doctor was given a syringe meant to purge the Crei'ca from Kourahine's system. Warden Rakavi had been using it in an attempt to break her mind, and while it had not been successful yet the effects would need to be reversed and purged from her system. The beginning of the mission began quite smoothly, and Elie's second team of marines lead by Tears and fielding their new equipment were able to achieve their sabotage goals easily while Elie and her team made their way onto the second platform.
Finding Namiro was easy as he was playing along with the demands of the guards. Kourahine on the other hand was in a much more tightly guarded position, due to her strength and extensive combat training, not to mention their inability to break her will. With the help of the guards however, for the first time in six years Elie was able to look over her love's face. Seeing her in such a state was not easy, as all the emotions and uncertainty around how Koura might view their reunion were undercut by her sunken eyes and ragged appearance. Quickly though, she steeled herself and continued to play along as if she were buying prisoners. Once the marines hit the generator however and the lights went out, the crew flipped on the guards and made fast work of the majority of them on this side of the prison. Getting back to the other side proved a challenge as a heavily armed squad of soldiers assaulted the wire car meant to take them over. The fighting was brutal, but the pirate's proved successful with each and every member pulling their weight to the point of even eliminating the helicopter that was taken over. With things quiet, Elie knelt by Koura as she struggled to wake from the guards' sedative and the Crei'ca leaving her system. It was an odd sight for the crew to see their captain so distraught, as her usual confidence and self-assuredness had fallen to the wayside while she tended to Koura.
Finally she woke after much too long. Still under the effect of the Crei'ca however, Kourahine could not make sense of the situation at first, hallucinating Elie as a person sized cat and Kamaitachi as a walking tuna fish. The reunion was cut short as they arrived back on the main platform. The crew made their way to the armoury where their gear had been smuggled previously by the OVN's inside man. Gearing up, Elie and Koura finally had a moment to talk. Despite Koura's self-perceived sins, Elie had come to save her anyways, reassuring her with the phrase the two had spoken to each other many times over, "Always and forever."
Properly geared up, the crew with Kourahine included made their way up to the thopter pad at a distress call from Azem, their escape pilot. In the growing storm they saw Warden Rakavi standing and holding the thopter in place with the power of his Crei'ca implants. Mild banter between the two forces of Elie's crew and Rakavi's security was exchanged before combat ensued. The Warden's psionic powers proved a difficult adversary as he simultaneously augmented his guards and launched barrage after barrage on the crew. Seeing the battle of attrition not in their favour, Elie grabbed her radio and called to Ilisa and Tears down on the Ataata Rosada and ordered them to fire on the Warden. A one in a million shot on the part of Tears with the ship's new 130mm cannon obliterated the Warden's lower half. As the crew began to rejoice however, the extent to which Rakavi had augmented himself became evident as he remained alive and began to exert even more control over the arena. Weapons blinked in and out of existence, firing on the crew. Kourahine called out that the only way to stop him was to destroy the brain. As everyone took shots at the Warden, Elisenda made use of her claws and climbed up the hanging entrails from Rakavi's torso with a boost from Rau. One hand hanging on to his shoulder and the other wielding her flaming falchion Requiém, Elisenda dealt the final blow on the Warden by shoving the blade down through the top of his skull.
As things began to calm and the rain and gore fell to the ground in slow motion, Elie let go of Rakavi and was caught by Rau. The extremist now slain, she threw his body over the edge for the sharks to feast on. Escaping via the thopter, the crew made their way to an Arediani hospital ship. Their injuries tended to, Kourahine and Elisends took a long moment to talk, with Koura collapsing to cry in Elie's arms.
After disembarking the hospital ship, Elisenda gave the crew orders and set them on the course to Puerto Esperanza to pick up their 200,000 Peso bounty, and quickly absconded to her cabin where Kourahine waited. At first the conversation was a bit stunted and awkward as Elie fumbled her words, trying to think of how to apologize for her collassal fuck up in running away. Eventually she settled on the truth: that every day since she ran she had wished she could got back in time and slap herself, to send herself back to Koura. That the reason she never reached out was to protect her, knowing that if she was ever captured and she could be tied to Koura, it would mean both of their end.
Stunned by the revelation that Elie had put the burden for their falling out on herself, Kourahine wasted no time in comforting her. In truth she said, the fault lied with her. She is the one who chose to hound Elie about the navy. She was the one who was too stubborn, and she should bear the blame. While the pair finally cleared up the fog that had filled them both with doubts as to what their other half would think of them, it became clear at long last that despite the long absence there was no love lost between them.
Calming down and taking the time to open a present that Valentina and Foc had put together for the two women--a camera with two rolls of film with an accompanying photo album--Elie remembered one last thing, a trinket given to her from Whaira, Kourahine's father. It was but a small and unassuming black velvet box that she returned to Koura, who laughed to herself, declaring it to be for Elie, but that she was unsure if the half-tabaxi would even want it. Perplexed, she opened it her heart skipper a bear when she saw what was within: a ring, made of beautiful silver with a topaz flanked by two sapphires on either side, ingraved on the inside of the band with their mutual vow of "Always and Forever".
It quickly became obvious to Elie why Koura bore the blame in her mind, as she had meant to propose that night, but her anxieties kept her from it. In an act of assertiveness rare to the pirate, she handed the ring back to Kourahine and demanded that if she was to propose she better do it the right way. Seeing no sense in waiting any longer after their absence from one another, Koura immediately dropped to a knee and did so.
Their families now joined as one, Elisenda and Kourahine Serrano-Teira made Port a few weeks later in Ryuichi once more, and set off to make up for lost time with one another.
