Returning to my own senses was always a disorienting affair. Returning to my own senses to find that my dwarven gunner-cum-lover had been straddling my waist for long enough for my insensate body to notice and react to was doubly so.

“Welcome back, Captain. I hope there’s some time before the others join us, because your officers have some demands, and you’d better give in to them if you don’t want a mutiny,” Marjory said with a mischievous smile, and wriggled very purposefully on top of me.

“Is that so?” I asked with a smile of my own.

Marjory grabbed my hands and leaned forward, pressing her large, leather clad breasts to my chest and pinning my arms above me.

“Very much so,” she whispered in my ear. “Quite outrageous demands, in fact!”

Being significantly shorter than me, however, had forced her to raise her knees from the bed in order to reach above my head, leaving her unbalance enough that I could twist my body hard enough to roll over so she was on her back and I lay on top of her, with her hands pinned over her head.

“What if I’d rather make my gunner to her job and take care of my gun instead?” I mock growled at her.

Of course, even without any leverage, Marjory was more than strong enough to brute force her way back to the top. I could feel her tense under me, readying herself to buck me off, so I did the only thing I could do.

I cheated.

Before Marjory could make her move, the Swift reacted to my thought and Shaped a set of straps to restrain the dwarf’s arms. Without moving her arms, even her prodigious strength wasn’t enough to dislodge me, and I was free to move my own hand to grasp her braid.

“Looks like your little mutiny is over, wench!”

“Only because you cheated, Captain. And I’ll get you back for it!”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said and leaned forward to claim her mouth.

Spoiler: Explicit sexual descriptions

Marjory’s mouth was hotter than a human’s and had a spiciness to it that I’d grown very fond of since we’d become lovers. And her seeming defeat didn’t stop her from kissing me back enthusiastically.

We were both breathing hard when I pulled away, and I unbuttoned her leather overalls impatiently to expose her heaving breasts. I gripped one of the large, supple globes in my left hand and returned my right to her braid, pulling back on it to expose her neck. Encouraged by her gasps, I leaned forward again to nibble on the corner of her mouth.

I took my time, squeezing with my left hand while laying a trail of kisses and nibbles along her jaw and neck. I bit harder at the spot her shoulder turned into her neck, earning a sharper gasp for my efforts, then continued my way down the valley between her breasts. I nuzzled at the sensitive skin and sniffed her, smelling hard worn leather and traces of the oil used in her cannon, and beneath it a blend of sweetness and spiciness that I’d learned to recognize as her own unique scent.

By that point, Marjory was wriggling from side to side, trying to get me to pay attention to her hard, pebbled nipples. I wasn’t quite ready to give her what she wanted though, and instead, I worked my way to the underside of her breast, tasting the light sheen of sweat that always seemed to accumulate under the heavy globe.

“Jack!” she gasped, finally desperate enough to break her silence and forfeit our little game, and I rewarded her by raising my head to the tip of her breast and taking her nipple in my mouth. At the same time, I brought my right hand from her braid to her left breast, and pinched her other nipple. My own efforts were rewarded by the loudest gasp yet, and I spent the next few minutes giving her the attention she craved.

Before long, however, she was back to wriggling, begging me silently to move things forward. I kept my mouth at her left nipple, and sent my right hand down to open her overalls further and reveal the heat and wetness between her legs. She was more than ready for me, and I placed my palm on her mound and sent two of my fingers inside her.

“Don’t… Want… Your… Fingers!” Marjory managed between gasps, but her hips rising to meet my hand gave the lie to her words.

“Failed mutineers get whatever punishment the captain orders,” I let go of her nipple for long enough to growl, before biting down hard. I’d had enough time to learn at least some of what she liked since our first time outside the giant ant nest, and I knew just how hard to bite to give her the stimulation she wanted. At the same time, I curled the fingers of my right hand up to reach her most sensitive spot, and ground my palm down on her pearl.

The combination was enough to bring her over the edge, and she screamed my name as she bucked up as hard as the restraints let her. I kept the pressure with my mouth and fingers until she came down, releasing her only after I’d prolonged her orgasm as much as I could.

While Marjory was catching her breath, I quickly took off my own clothing and moved between her legs. I took my almost painfully hard member in my hand and placed the tip at her entrance, and sank inside her in one smooth push. The wet tightness of her felt incredible, and I barely registered her moan over my own harsh breath. Between abstaining for a couple of weeks and our foreplay, I knew that I wouldn’t last long once I started moving, but I still wanted to get her off again before I was done.

I grabbed both of her legs and brought them up, her ankles barely reaching my shoulders, and sent my left hand around one thigh and towards her breast, while my right went around the other thigh and to her clit. I started to slowly move inside her, while rubbing her clit and pinching her nipple, and using the effort needed to coordinate to hold myself back from exploding.

Marjory was still tighter than any human woman I’d ever been with, and being inside her felt absolutely incredible. Despite all of my efforts, I was moving quickly and inexorably towards the edge. The same was true, however, for Marjory.

The dwarf was moaning incoherently underneath me, and as I quickened my moves, she was pushed over the edge again. She screamed my name and clamped down on my hard enough that I couldn’t move, and it was almost a miracle that I didn’t follow her immediately. Instead, as soon as she loosened enough for me to move, I pulled out of her and moved to straddle her stomach, sliding my member, still slippery from Marjory’s own passion, between her large breasts. The feeling of her soft mounds pressed against me was completely different from being inside her, and yet fantastic, and it only took me a few more pumps before the pleasure overwhelmed me and I shouted her name and exploded.

***

By the time Doreen and Mable got back to the Swift, Marjory had gotten her revenge, and the two of us were back to being presentable. I took the Ship up to a safe altitude, and moved her to where we could observe Simon’s promised drop off point. I estimated it’d take him at least two or three days to round up everything we’d asked for and deliver it, but I figured that there was still a chance that he’d betray us, and wanted to prevent him from setting up an ambush if he did.

“So,” I turned towards Doreen as soon as I was satisfied with our location. “Doreen Swift?”

“I panicked!” The draconian woman yelped. “I didn’t expect to run into Simon, and I couldn’t tell him I was a Forrester, and it was the first thing I could think of!”

“Lay off her, Jacky,” Mable came to Doreen’s rescue. “You can’t possibly tell me that you expected Mr. White to be waiting for us at the tavern.”

“I don’t know,” Marjory interrupted, her eyes sparkling mischievously. “I think it’s a good name. Maybe we should all take the Ship’s name. I mean, you have to admit that ‘Captain Jack Swift’ sounds a lot better than just plain old Jack Baker.”

“You can’t do that!” Doreen protested, the blue scales on her cheeks gaining a distinctly purple hue. “People are going to get the wrong idea!”

“Are they? Or perhaps they’re going to get precisely the right idea?”

Doreen sputtered at the dwarf’s suggestion, and before I could say anything to defuse the situation, she’d thrown herself overboard, and was out of earshot within seconds.

“Cut her some slack, Marjory,” Mable admonished the dwarf. “She’s got a lot of adjusting to do right now.”

“Bah. It’s obvious the girl is smitten with Jack. She’ll adjust a lot faster if she gets that itch scratched.”

“It’s definitely not obvious to me,” I pointed out.

“We’ve already established the fact that you’re incredibly dense, Jack.”

“Even if it’s true, she still needs time to adjust to her new life, Marjory. And you seem to have a habit of pushing people into life changing decisions.”

“Fine,” the dwarf sighed. “I’ll let her plod along until she’s ready.”

“Why are you so insistent on getting other women into my bed anyway? Just a couple of hours ago you were complaining about not getting enough of my time.”

“You may not have noticed, Captain Dense, but you’ve got three women and one man on this Ship, and we’re likely to find ourselves alone for fairly extended periods. We’re going to end up sharing you anyway, and I’d rather things be out in the open than deal with the drama a month or two from now.”

“That’s a very… direct way of looking at things,” Mable pointed out.

“I’m a dwarf. ‘Direct’ is kind of our creed.”

“I can see that,” my newly minted purser shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to get into anyone’s bed right now though. Doreen isn’t the only one who needs to adjust to a new life.”

I started to answer her, but she raised her hand to stop me.

“I’ll be in the galley. Dinner isn’t going to make itself.”

She turned to go down the ladder to the forecastle, and I couldn’t help but notice that while she wasn’t quite back to the same level of sway that she’d had when she was a barmaid, she was still a lot more deliberate about swaying her walk than she’d been during the chase.

“Is this where you complain about not getting a say in the matter?” Marjory asked with a playful nudge at my shoulder.

“Shatter, no!” I answered. “I’d take Mable to bed as soon as she even hints about wanting it. Doreen… I don’t know. It’s going to take some adjusting on my part as well, and I’m still not sure you’re right about how she feels.”

She didn’t bother with a reply, other than a dismissive grunt, and we settled down to keep watch over the drop point.

***

It took three more days for Simon to buy our supplies and get them to the agreed upon point, and another one for us to store everything in the hold and return to the flying island.

“…and that’s about it. We’re probably wanted as pirates in the entire kingdom, but at least Simon White is willing to trade with us, so we can keep you and your people supplied.”

The four of us were sitting in the Swift’s mess with Richard, who’d found himself the leader and spokesperson for the warped survivors of Gerald’s Rest. While the five of us were talking, my Deckhands were busy unloading most of the supplies we’d gotten from Whitecliff, and delivering them to Richard’s people.

“That doesn’t bode well for us,” my brother said once I’d finished updating him on our reception in Whitecliff and our deal with Simon.

“You should have enough supplies to last for at least three months,” Mable answered. “And the seeds needed to raise at least some fresh food on the island’s surface. Wherever it is we’re going next, we should be back to resupply you long before you run out.”

“Speaking of which,” Mable interjected, “where are we going next? You’ve been rather right lipped since we’ve left Whitecliff, Jack.”

“Yes, Jacky, where are we headed? Our plan to fly around the kingdom asking questions isn’t going to work.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I answered, “and I think I have a destination in mind. The way I see it, we have two main issues right now. The first is that we still don’t know enough about whoever was behind the attack on Gerald’s Rest. We have some suspicions about their identity, but no idea if it’s even in the right direction, and even if it is, we don’t know what it is they’re after.”

“And even if we did know everything,” Doreen spoke for the first time since we’ve arrived at the island, “we’re not even close to being strong enough to stop her.”

“Precisely. We do know one thing though. They went to a lot of trouble to get their hands on warped people, and I doubt that they had more than the one Warping chamber. And since we’ve taken that one out of the picture, they’ll have to go elsewhere to get their Warped.”

“You think they’ll go to the wilds to round up the warped among the raiders?”

“I think that’s where they started, and that they’ve exhausted them before they attacked Gerald’s Rest. But there are some places with far larger amounts of warped than they can possibly find around here.”

Marjory’s eyes widened, and I could tell she’d reached the same conclusion I did.

“They’ll go after my people!”

“That’s what I think, at least. The elves are secretive enough that I’m willing to bet even our enemies don’t know where they live, and the beast tribes are smaller and scattered. The dwarven nation is the largest concentration of Warped that people know where to find.”

“And we’re deep enough in the wilds that you’ll be able to hunt warped beasts for vim on the way.”

“Yeah. I’ll need a lot more vim if we’re going to fight a Shaper from an old family. More diverse Shapes too, since the only true combat Shapes I have right now are the Archers, but I don’t see how I can swing that any time soon. I’m also hoping that if I’m right and somebody is out there kidnapping dwarves, that we’d be able to get some allies. A company of dwarven gunners will make me a lot less anxious about what our enemy might be packing.”

“You might actually be able to get some new Shapes while we’re there. There are very few dwarven Shapers, but we do have some Patterns. It’ll cost you though.”

“Same as everywhere,” I sighed at the thought of another drain on my extremely limited resources. “Does anyone have any objections to going to visit the dwarves?”

“You taking votes now on where to sail now, Captain?” Marjory grinned.

“No, but I’m willing to listen to advice from my officers before ordering you around.”

“In that case, I have no objection. I hate leaving my brothers behind like this, but we don’t have any other leads.”

“I can’t think of any other direction either,” Doreen added. “I’m certain that we do know who is behind this, but you’re right about us being too weak to go up against her right now.”

Mable just nodded, apparently having no advice to give, and Richard got up to leave, placing his large, granite colored hand on my shoulder.

“Watch over yourself, Jack. I’ve never liked it when you threw yourself into danger like this, and it seems like that danger is bigger today than when you were just crawling through ruins.”

“I’ll see you when I get back,” I answered, at a loss for words at my brother being friendlier towards me than he’d been in years.

“Just make sure you come back,” the large troll said on his way out of the room. I followed him to the deck, and saw him easily pick up a large barrel of salted meat that would normally have taken two men to lift.

It only took another half an hour to get all of the supplies off the Ship and down to the island, and I lifted the Swift off the island, pointing her bow in the general direction of the dwarven nation.