The entire crew decided that it would be best if they slept onboard the Nomad that night, since all the rooms at the tavern and inn were full.
Maeve was feeling more than a little giddy from her wine, and she noticed that the men seemed to be feeling the same way.
Maeve wanted to have a clear enough head the next day to be able to practice her magic, so she decided that she'd go back to the ship and get some sleep. After all, the crew did have a bit of a vacation and were planning on taking about a week of rest.
The men all wanted to stay at the tavern for a while longer, so Maeve told them that she'd just go back to the ship alone. They didn't even seem to notice when she was gone.
Maeve was walking leisurely down the street toward the ship when she heard a high pitched cry for "Help!"
She ran down an alleyway to the source of the sound and found a girl struggling to get free from four pirates.
"Leave her alone!" Maeve shouted and the pirates turned to face her.
"The Captain will like her much better than this one," the lead pirate said to the others.
They let the girl go and formed a circle around Maeve.
"You're quite a beauty," one pirate said to Maeve.
"If your Captain just wants to appreciate beauty, maybe he should look into buying some art....." Maeve drawled.
"The Captain will do more than just appreciate you, you little wench!"
"That's what you think," Maeve replied.
The four pirates drew their swords and Maeve did the same. First the lead pirate attacked. His action gave him such momentum that he drove himself onto Maeve's sword, which she had extended in defense. As he fell to the ground, dead, the three others attacked all at once. Maeve was able to defeat one of them. While in the process of fighting another, the last one came up behind Maeve and, before she had a chance even to turn around, she was knocked unconscious and dragged off by the two remaining pirates. The third, who was just waking up, carefully watched his back as he stalked after them.
Sinbad awakened to a sound that was evidently something heavy dropping onto the floor. It took him a moment to realize that he had made the sound when the owner of the tavern he and his friends had fallen asleep in pushed over his chair after repeated attempts at rousing the Captain had failed. Sinbad looked around and realized that he was the only one who was awake, other than the owner, and decided that they had better get to the ship.
*Maeve is going to kill us when she finds out we never came back last night.....* he thought.
"Wake up, men!" he said a bit too loudly and regretted it a moment later. Doubar, Rongar, and Firouz slowly began to stir and in a few moments they were all standing on their feet, though they were also clutching the sides of the tables to keep themselves standing.
Sinbad gave a few extra coins to the angry-looking tavern owner and quickly made his exit with the rest of the crew following him. Sinbad and the guys were only a little way down the street when Dermott flew down from the sky and landed on Sinbad's rainbow bracelet.
"Whoa! Dermott, what is it? Where's Maeve?" Sinbad asked, stunned. Suddenly his mind filled with images of Maeve walking down the same street Sinbad was on, running to help a girl in need, fighting, accidentally killing a man, and eventually being carried off. The last thing he saw before the images stopped was the ship that Maeve was carried to. He was barely able to read the name on the side of the ship. It was the Night Raven.
When the images stopped and Dermott was relatively sure he'd gotten his point across, he flew off. Sinbad began to run in the direction he'd seen Maeve go in the visions, and sure enough, he found a dead man in an alleyway, run through.
"Sinbad! Where do you think you're running off to?" Doubar called and stopped as he rounded the corner and saw what Sinbad had found.
"What happened here?" Firouz asked.
"Maeve....." Sinbad whispered, the images running through his mind once again. "The Night Raven!" he yelled, and took off running yet again, this time in the direction of the docks. When he got there he discovered that the ship was gone.
"Sinbad, what's gotten into you?" Doubar asked between gasps for breath.
"That ship, the Night Raven, we have to find it."
"Why?" Firouz asked.
"Maeve's been kidnapped. She's on the ship. We have to leave and follow it, NOW!" With those last words, Sinbad ran to the Nomad, with the others close behind him. In no time they were on their way out to sea.
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A Fact Of Life - Part 2