Seulgi did look good in a suit, and Irene found herself lightly the blonde’s lapels as she finally opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed, however, was not Seulgi’s soft, warm gaze, nor her parted lips, curled in a faint smile, but a curious reflection in the wide copper drum behind her.

It was the dull image of two figures - one redhead, and one with long, silvery hair gathered back in a ponytail - poking their heads out from behind a tangle of brass levers and pipes. Irene squinted for a moment before her eyes widened, realizing what she was seeing.

Seulgi found herself being shoved away roughly, but before she could topple backwards into the ladder, Irene caught her dress shirt in one tight fist, holding her at arm’s length. Seulgi looked at Irene in surprise and confusion as she noticed Irene’s furious gaze directed back towards the room. Everything above Irene's stiff white collar was a bright red, up to the tips of her ears as she barked out a command.

“You two! Show yourselves!” And now Seulgi had a little more context for Irene’s ruthless demeanor, knowing that she had been a general at the head of thousands of troops. Irene's assertiveness wasn’t entirely off-putting… but Seulgi figured now wasn’t quite the time for such thoughts.

But instead of heeding Irene's order, Captain Moon Byuli, ace airship pilot and notorious philanderer, and Queen Sooyoung, the Joy of Figaro, both took off back down the length of the engine room at a dead sprint.

“I guess the tour ends here…!” Moonbyul shouted back at Joy as she hastily threaded her way back towards the door, dodging pipes and bulging tanks.

“I learned a lot…!” Joy assured her breathlessly as she struggled to keep up. “A lot more than I had ever intended to!”

Irene took a step after them, almost tugging Seulgi along until she realized she still had a grip on the poor girl. She paused, not quite able to meet Seulgi’s gaze, though she did turn and smooth the wrinkles she had created in the poor girl's shirt. With another lingering look at her lips, Irene finally, shyly peeked up at Seulgi’s bewildered face before racing off after the two voyeurs.

Seulgi was left all alone, unable to determine if the hissing she was hearing was coming from the steam in the pipes around her, or the blood rushing through her own ears. She unsteadily took a seat on a rung of the ladder behind herself with a lopsided smile, in too much of a daze to fully comprehend the situation.

+++

“What do you think?” a slightly bruised Moonbyul asked, seeing Seulgi agape at the sight of the approaching Jidoor cityscape as they descended through the clouds.

Seulgi gripped the rigging tightly as she all but leaned out over the railing in her eagerness to take in the sight. The thrill of flying had certainly cleared her head of the heat from the engine room - and all that had occurred therein - but the bright, clean neighborhoods of Jidoor interspersed with its lush green gardens and parks were hypnotizing her in a completely new way.

Even the few times she had gone hiking into the foothills of the mountains between Mobliz and Doma, she had never seen a view quite like this before, up so high. “I don’t know why you’d ever want to land,” she answered as she drank in the scene.

Moonbyul smirked. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to,” she admitted. “But, I’m at your dear leader’s mercy, unfortunately.” She gave Seulgi a little nudge, finally getting the rancher to look at her. "Which reminds me." The captain waggled her eyebrows. “So, I guess this means the wedding’s off, right?”

It took Seulgi a moment to realize what Moonbyul could be referring to, and both of the implications of her statement caused her to become rather embarrassed. “There was never-! I thought you were joking!” she sputtered in disbelief.

Moonbyul tossed her head. “I never joke when it comes to love!” she argued, with a gloved hand over her chest.

Seulgi was starting to understand Irene’s revulsion of the captain. “Are you saying you really would have married me if Irene had lost?”

Moonbyul gave her a big smile that crinkled her nose. “Why not? You’re cute, and life’s short. Why wait?” She turned away to lean heavily on the railing, looking out at the faint mountain range barely cresting over the inland horizon. “... Why wait?”

Seulgi was saved from responding to Moonbyul’s sudden change of mood by Sujeong's call from the helm: “Landfall!” The crew began preparing to ground the ship, and Moonbyul seemed to recover and gave Seulgi a wink before striding off to give orders to her crew.

Irene came up to the deck only after she had been completely sure that they had stopped moving, but by the time she opened the trapdoor and stepped out into the cool sea air of Jidoor’s harbor, the other Returners had already left to go retrieve their belongings from their cutter. With the only item in her possession strapped to her hip, she was left with little to do but wait, and waiting meant thinking. And thinking meant replaying that kiss over and over again in her mind until she was sure she was bright red from frustration and embarrassment.

They were mere days away from infiltrating the Gestahlian capital of Vector, and here she was recklessly falling for one of the strays, as Joy liked to call the new recruits they picked up. Technically Irene was a stray herself, however, and as she heard the faint, yet tell-tale “Kweh!” of the girls’ return to the ship, she realized she was only more confused now about the rancher than she had been before. But at least she and the large yellow chocobo had something of an understanding. The crew of the Blackjack helped strap Boko into a harness to hoist him up onto the deck with a cargo crane - all while he let out a series of rather undignified kwehs - and the Returners soon followed, climbing up the rope ladder one by one.

Irene immediately made her way over to Boko and hugged his great head to herself, almost in a spiteful manner as she glared over at Seulgi who, for her part, looked both very shy and a little confused as she met Irene’s eyes.

“Alright!” Moonbyul said loudly for her crew to hear. “We’ll ship off in about two hours. Sujeong, why don’t you take the girls to do a little shopping, hmm? I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff we could stock up on for our trip south.” The captain pressed a considerable sum of money into the helmsman’s hands and began herding the crew towards the rope ladder that the Returners had just finished scaling.

“Yooa? Eunae? You too. Keep an eye on Somi - hey, don’t look at me like that; remember what happened in Zozo?”

“What almost happened,” Somi pouted, though its effect was quite lost on the much shorter Moonbyul. The captain simply stared up at her for a moment, and then turned her gaze on the rest of her crew, one by one.

“Be careful and watch out for each other, okay?” was all she said as she waved them all off. There were confused looks exchanged amongst the crew as they filed down from the ship.

Joy made a move to follow after, muttering about why Moonbyul hadn’t said something sooner to save her the climb, but the silver-haired captain held out a hand to stop her. Joy stared at the outstretched hand and was about to make an indignant comment, but Moonbyul hushed her.

“Just wait,” she said with a faint smile. She counted in her head until she guessed enough time had passed, and then turned to the insulted queen and the rest of the Returners. “So, is everyone ready to go?”

Seulgi startled and looked back at the crew of the Blackjack disappearing into the crowds on Jidoor’s pier. “Wait, what do you mean? Aren’t we waiting for them to come back?”

Irene narrowed her eyes at the captain shrewdly.

Moonbyul wagged a gloved finger at the rancher. “Ah, well, I’m the one who made that bet to take you guys to Vector. Not them.”

“You don’t think we’re coming back,” Irene stated as she pensively Boko’s feathers.

Moonbyul gaver her an easy smile. “What right do I have to drag them on a mission like this? Me, however?” she continued grandiosely. “My life is a chip in your pile. Ante up!” And she gave Irene a rakish wink as she made her way towards the helm.

“I knew it!” Yooa shouted from over the side of the railing, out of sight.

“Ugh!” Somi groaned as she threw herself back up onto the deck.

“You owe me, squirt,” Sohee said triumphantly as she patted Somi on the back, climbing over her collapsed form to board the ship.

Moonbyul whirled around in shock. “What are you doing here still?!”

“Since when do you ask us to watch out for each other?” Yooa asked back with her hands on her hips and a brow raised.

“Yeah, that was kind of a dead giveaway that you were up to something,” Sohee agreed as she helped Somi up.

“And here I trusted you! Now I have to do Sohee’s chores for a week,” Somi grumbled at the captain.

Moonbyul couldn’t help a faint grin, but she still crossed her arms. “Do you guys even understand where we’re going?” she asked. She had been a little vague on the details from the night before; she was sure half the crew thought she and Seulgi had actually eloped.

“Vector, right?” Yooa asked nonchalantly, though Somi and Sohee looked a little apprehensive.

Moonbyul watched them closely, putting on her most captain-y expression. “That’s right, the military capital of the Gestahlian Empire. You know, full of soldiers and Magitek Armor? And the Court Wizard and that Witch?”

Irene took a step forward, her fists clenched, but paused and inhaled a deep breath. She knew better. This was how they looked to the outside world. They were a team to be feared: the Court Wizard, the General, and the Witch. They had wanted it to be that way.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yooa snidely remarked, waving the threats away with a hand. “A doomed mission, impending death, possible capture and torture, enslavement, blah blah blah.” Somi and Sohee looked at her with more than a little fear in their eyes. “Is that supposed to scare us? It’ll take a little more than that before we’ll abandon our captain, right girls?” she asked her two companions. They finally seemed to quell their anxieties and gave Yooa resolute nods, crossing their arms in unison and staring Moonbyul down challengingly.

Moonbyul smirked and she tossed her head. “You know, I could just order you guys to stay.”

Now it was Sohee’s turn to deride her captain. “It’s cute that you think we’d listen.”

The notorious airship captain was quickly losing face not only in front of her crew, but also her guests. She glanced at the Returners and gave an exasperated sigh before turning back to the three miscreants. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I wasn’t even going to ask if you wanted to come.”

“What, not go and miss the one time Captain Moon Byuli, knave of the skies, does the right thing for a change?” Sohee teased.

“Exactly!” Moonbyul responded emphatically. “I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, after all.”

Yooa rolled her eyes and strutted over to the helm, planting herself firmly between it and her captain. “Well too bad. Because now you’re going to wait until Sujeong and everyone gets back, and we’ll all be able to tease you about it the whole way there.”

Irene was stunned by the entire exchange, witnessing the loyalty of Moonbyul’s crew despite her… well, despite her. She hadn’t missed the way Yooa seemed to conveniently leave off any mention of their return from Vector, as if they were fully prepared to follow Moonbyul into the depths of Bahamut’s fire itself if that’s where the wind took her.

Not only was it beginning to put the captain in a new light for her, but Irene also couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone under her own command who had ever been inspired by her leadership during her tenure as general.

She somehow doubted it.

+++

An already long day was about to be made even longer as Imperial General Jung Eunji noticed Leeteuk walking in her direction. She had just come out of a mission debriefing with her commanders - a meeting that had reported mixed results with the various prongs of their campaign against the city-states of the Northern Continent - and the last person she wanted to see was the antagonistic Court Wizard. They seemed to be heading in opposite directions in massive, iron Great Hall of the emperor’s ziggurat, but Eunji just knew he was going to stop her and want to annoy her in some way. He never missed an opportunity if he could help it.

She briefly considered ducking into the wings to avoid having to talk to him, but she saw that he had already noticed her and changed the direction of his gleeful gait to greet her.

“Ah, General Jung~” he lilted over to her with a wave of his gloved fingers, his grating voice echoing about the otherwise empty Hall.

She briefly closed her eyes and prayed to Seraph for patience. “What do you want?” Well, so much for patience.

Leeteuk put a hand to his chest as he stopped in front of her. “My dear general, I am wounded. Surely now that you’ve been promoted we can take this as an opportunity to repair our friendship?”

He wasn’t fooling anyone. Eunji could see the insincere glint in his eyes, despite his mournful expression. “We’ve never been friends,” she countered, crossing her arms before her itching trigger fingers could give her rising irritation away. “I took the promotion to make sure you didn’t get into anymore trouble than necessary.”  

“Oh, I know why you took the promotion, General Jung,” Leeteuk drawled, dropping his hurt act. “You think you can protect her.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Eunji growled, and Leeteuk smiled widely, already getting exactly the kind of reaction that he had been looking for out of the gunslinging general.

Leeteuk let out a gravelly chuckle. “I think I understand completely. I saw it once before in your mentor, the previous general, and I can also see it in you,” he replied, lowering his voice to a dangerous whisper.

Eunji grit her teeth as she watched him, unwittingly the handle of one of her pistols. He had said so much in so few sentences that Eunji was using every last ounce of her self-control to not put another hole in that annoying face of his.

“You think you’ve got it all figured out,” she said levelly, though the strain in her voice was clear. “But you have no idea what those two had.” It was a painful admission, but coming to her old senior officer’s defense came naturally to her after so many years in the field together. “I know you tricked Irene into committing treason. And you’re an idiot if you think I don't know that you’re already planning on doing the same to me if I don’t play your games, but you’ll never break the bond that they have.” She raised her chin and allowed herself a small victorious grin. “Someone like you could never understand what love is.”

But Leeteuk was satisfied, and his expression didn’t falter. This girl would be just as easy to crack as Irene had been. Perhaps even easier. He spread his arms wide. “Bravo, General, you’ve certainly got me down to a ‘T’, don’t you? But~” he grinned at her darkly, holding her in suspense for a beat. “I’m not the one who will break their ‘bond’,” he continued using airquotes with his fingers. “You seem to be doing a splendid job of that already. All. By. Yourself~”

Eunji’s eyes widened at his insinuation. But before she could refute his claims, Leeteuk rushed up to her and leaned in very close to her face. She almost fell backwards in her haste to put some distance between them, but he continued to press into her personal space.

“And just know, General, that if you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.” With him leaning in so close, she could see how shrewd his gaze was. His eyes were cold and wide with mania, but they were clear and focused. He wasn’t the madman everyone claimed he was, and that chilled Eunji clear to the bone.

He finally straightened after making sure his threat had been clear, and he erupted into that shrill laugh that reverberated about the Great Hall in a mocking echo.

“Uwee hee hee! That’ll be all, General! I can’t wait to see you in the field~!” He reached out and straightened a pin on the lapel of her officer's coat, getting in one last little sting before leaving her alone to contemplate his words.