Using Porthos as a distraction had never been part of her plans. Roughly sketched though they might have been and ever-reliant on the competency of a crew that had been more or less cobbled together before she had ever stood shipboard and decided she would quite like to disrupt the triangle trade as a sort of hobby, she had set him in the center of things without thinking of how to use the...if not anger, then frustration he boiled over with.
That being said, she could not say he didn't make a wonderful distraction all the same.
There was nothing of skirmishes she was used to in the fight between the two crews, no back alleys or Turkish baths or even a jewel thief to lighten the mood. Neither was it war, exactly, as her crew fought doggedly (nearly literally in one case, which left her wincing in momentary sympathy after catching sight of the cook of her crew biting the hand of a member of the slave ship's) but in that scene of disorganized chaos she maneuvered around, ever ready to remove a prime target if they looked to be getting the upper hand.
She took care in following where Porthos (knowingly or unknowingly) led, shadowing him as much out of curiosity as for the direction he chose being exactly the target they needed to take if they wanted the battle over sooner rather than later. Cut the head off the snake and all that. Adrenaline sung too sharp in her veins for her not to enjoy the scene, as steady as her hands were in checking her gun and clicking its tumbler back into place when she'd assured herself she had shot enough for what might lie within the cabin ahead.
Phryne moved with quiet caution through its door, though she closed her eyes a second before entering to speed the adjustment of her vision. There she arrived in time to see the back of a man who had held command from what she'd seen in her borrowed telescope, his gun raised and held against Porthos' head. She did not pause then but ducked low enough to keep from alerting the men she had heard the Musketeer addressing and letting them give warning to their Captain. Rather than step in exactly behind him, she chose to move in from his right and raised her gun to point it directly at him.
"I would suggest," she began, her voice almost soft but for the steel that lay within it. "That you put the gun down, Captain."
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That being said, she could not say he didn't make a wonderful distraction all the same.
There was nothing of skirmishes she was used to in the fight between the two crews, no back alleys or Turkish baths or even a jewel thief to lighten the mood. Neither was it war, exactly, as her crew fought doggedly (nearly literally in one case, which left her wincing in momentary sympathy after catching sight of the cook of her crew biting the hand of a member of the slave ship's) but in that scene of disorganized chaos she maneuvered around, ever ready to remove a prime target if they looked to be getting the upper hand.
She took care in following where Porthos (knowingly or unknowingly) led, shadowing him as much out of curiosity as for the direction he chose being exactly the target they needed to take if they wanted the battle over sooner rather than later. Cut the head off the snake and all that. Adrenaline sung too sharp in her veins for her not to enjoy the scene, as steady as her hands were in checking her gun and clicking its tumbler back into place when she'd assured herself she had shot enough for what might lie within the cabin ahead.
Phryne moved with quiet caution through its door, though she closed her eyes a second before entering to speed the adjustment of her vision. There she arrived in time to see the back of a man who had held command from what she'd seen in her borrowed telescope, his gun raised and held against Porthos' head. She did not pause then but ducked low enough to keep from alerting the men she had heard the Musketeer addressing and letting them give warning to their Captain. Rather than step in exactly behind him, she chose to move in from his right and raised her gun to point it directly at him.
"I would suggest," she began, her voice almost soft but for the steel that lay within it. "That you put the gun down, Captain."