Hoist the Colors Ch. 28 (Mobuseka AU) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Angelica feels a certain sort of way. This will have repercussions~

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In the end, Leon doesn’t have any advice for Earl Roseblade. But someone else does.

“You can’t let them get away with it!”

Angelica’s voice rings out through the dining room as she smacks a hand down on the table in front of her. Her impassioned cry draws everyone’s attention.

“So what if it draws scrutiny? You’ve done nothing wrong, Earl Roseblade! And neither have we! House Offrey brazenly supported the Winged Sharks Sky Pirates in their premeditated attacks on your family and your holdings. Your daughters are proof of that and the prisoners you take will likely sing like canaries for a chance at avoiding the hangman’s noose.”

Sitting up straight and puffing out her ample chest, Angelica sniffs haughtily.

“Meanwhile, all that we have done is come to your aid. The Isle of Tortuga, under the direct stewardship of House Redgrave, learned of House Offrey’s treachery and the Winged Sharks’ machinations and moved to stop them from coming to pass. Let the Kingdom scrutinize our actions. I welcome it! Especially since Captain Leon here has received a Letter of Marque from me, making him a privateer in the employ of House Redgrave!”

Leon raises a silent brow at that last part. Technically Angelica hadn’t actually gotten around to drafting said letter yet. They’d talked about it but everything had been moving so fast that there simply hadn’t been time. It would seem she fully intended to make one now though… and potentially forge an earlier date on it, in order to legitimize Leon’s actions both in saving Deirdre and in defending House Roseblade today.

Earl Roseblade sits quietly for a long moment as Angelica’s impassioned speech comes to an end. He stares at the young noblewoman in silence… before finally cracking a grin.

“Quite right, Lady Redgrave. Quite right indeed. Let the Kingdom of Holfort scrutinize us to their heart’s content. House Roseblade and House Redgrave stand together against House Offrey’s ignoble excesses, no?”

Angelica nods sharply.

“Yes. We do. And I am confident my father will agree with me on that front.”

Leon can’t help but be a little amused by the thought of how Duke Redgrave is going to react to all of this. Still, Angelica has made her decision. She’s effectively made her bed and is now going to have to lie in it. It’ll be up to Leon to make sure she can survive her choices… and not just survive, but live happily with them.

He would be more annoyed, but all he can really do is look at Angelica with fond exasperation. She did seem to love rocking the boat, didn’t she?

“Well then… with that all decided, shall we finish eating? Your generous sharing of your food stores has produced an excellent spread… it would be a shame for any of it to go to waste.”

Angelica smiles and nods at Earl Roseblade’s words and they all start to dig in again. Meanwhile, beneath the table Leon feels one of Angelica’s hands drift over to his side. Letting his own hand fall beneath the table’s edge, he slides it into Angelica’s, intertwining their fingers together and giving her a smile that she returns for a moment before looking back to her food.

They were in this together at this point. Him and his Pirate Queen.

-x-X-x-

“Father, you called for me?”

Vince Rapha Redgrave sighs as his son and heir, Gilbert Rapha Redgrave, enters his study. He lifts up a letter and holds it out to the younger man. Gilbert quickly eats up the distance between himself and his father, the Duke of House Redgrave, with long powerful strides.

Taking the letter from Duke Redgrave’s hands, he looks at it for a moment before his eyes light up.

“Ah! Correspondence from Angelica! How… love…ly?”

His initial excitement quickly diminishes, however, as he reads more than just a few lines. And then his brow furrows and his eyes begin to furiously rake back and forth across the page, reading all the more swiftly as his lips purse and curl downwards into a deep frown.

In response, Vince sits back in his chair, watching his son carefully and lacing his fingers across his chest. Gilbert finishes the letter in it’s entirety in short order… but doesn’t put it down or engage with his father in any way. Instead, he goes back and rereads it a second time, something that Vince doesn’t begrudge him.

Finally, after a long, tense silence, Gilbert slowly lowers the parchment and stares at his father with wide eyes.

“Father… is this all true?”

The Duke of House Redgrave can only shrug in response.

“Your sister claims all of it… and I do not believe she would lie to me. So as far as she understands things, it must be true.”

Gilbert sits down heavily in the chair across from Vince, looking almost as old as Vince actually is for a moment.

“But this… did you have any idea, father? Please say that you did not. Please don’t tell me that you knew you were sending Angelica to her death…”

Vince frowns at that, unable to help but be offended. At the same time, he can’t get too angry… he’s failed Angelica too many times, both as a father and as the head of their family.

“Of course not! Judge me for my incompetence Gilbert, but please do not think me a monster!”

Gilbert flinches, clearly having trouble wrapping his head around the idea of his father being incompetent. And yet… what else did you call this? To hear Angelica explain it in her letter, the Isle of Tortuga had become a haven for Sky Pirates… and Vince Rapha Redgrave hadn’t known.

Sure, Port Paix had long been ill-managed and a poorly maintained border island for House Redgrave. Sending Angelica there had undeniably been a punishment that Vince hadn’t wanted to level upon his daughter.

Unfortunately, his hands were tied… the Kingdom was braying for blood and exiling his daughter to the outer edges of House Redgrave territory had been the absolute best he could do. His other options were either disowning her or marrying her off to some middle-aged baron on the other side of the Kingdom.

The Duke had thought he was helping Angelica, in a way. By sending her as far away from the Capital and the Academy and the Prince’s hateful rumor-mongering as possible, he’d thought he was giving her a second chance. She might have even made something of a name for herself out there on the frontier, turning Tortuga into a shining jewel for House Redgrave as time went on. But mostly, Vince just wanted her to be safe and away from everything that could hurt her.

Obviously, he’d failed utterly in every way. Angelica had been quite candid in her letter to him. She hadn’t held anything back, trusting him completely with the absolute truth. Not only had she needed to be saved by the Devil’s Smile of all people, but she’d also wound up taking over Tortuga by becoming it’s Pirate Queen.

Vince had never heard of such a thing, but it was obvious in Angelica’s letter that she’d had no choice but to go along with the ridiculous game in order to properly bring Port Paix back under the banner of House Redgrave.

And even then, she wouldn’t have been able to do so without Leon Bartfort’s incredible material assistance. That the man had an entire fleet of advanced airships just lying around was frightening as all hell and the fact that he’d only used them to aid Vince’s daughter so far was only so mollifying.

Of course, the news regarding House Roseblade and House Offrey was just as concerning as everything else. That Angelica now expected House Redgrave to stand with House Roseblade and prop up the lies along with the truths that they would be telling… well, it showed that his daughter still had full faith in him… somehow.

“Father… what are we going to do?”

Looking back to his son, Vince frowns gravely.

“We’ll do what we have to do, my son. Your sister and House Roseblade will have our full support in this. And if the Crown wants to raise a fuss about any of this… let them try.”

Gilbert straightens up, a smile alighting across his face.

“… That’s what I’d hoped you would say father.”

Yes, Vince knew as much. After all, they had both been most distraught when their hands were tied regarding Angelica before. The dissolution of her betrothal to Prince Julius, the way in which their arrangement with the Crown had ended, and the fact that they’d had their House’s name dragged through the mud when it was the Prince who was dallying with a Viscount’s daughter… it was all too much.

Unfortunately, Vince hadn’t stood his ground then. He hadn’t wanted to risk his daughter any further and so he’d sent her away, both to soothe ruffled feathers and to try and protect her. He’d hoped she could be happy on Tortuga. Obviously, he’d been dead wrong… even if she had found her own happiness in her own way.

“I am sending you and as many men and ships as you believe we can spare to Earl Roseblade, Gilbert. You will bring House Roseblade our aid and assist them in rebuilding and recovering from these egregious attacks perpetrated by these Winged Sharks and their benefactors, House Offrey. You will also liaise with Earl Roseblade on what our next steps will be and let him use you to see them through as he sees fit.”

Rising to his feet, his son is quick to salute.

“It would be my pleasure to help our fellow nobles in their time of need, father! Angelica has extended a hand of friendship to House Roseblade… I will make sure that becomes a bond that cannot be broken!”

Vince smiles.

“I’m sure you will, my son. I’m sure you will. Dismissed.”

Gilbert leaves and Vince is left alone again. His smile drops from his face the moment he has privacy. Truth be told, no part of him feels like smiling right now. It doesn’t matter if all ended well enough… not when he’d screwed up so royally. Angelica doesn’t seem to blame him, but that also doesn’t matter… because he will blame himself for quite a long time to come.

-x-X-x-

Mylene Rapha Holfort, Queen of the Kingdom of Holfort, purses her lips together as she reads the latest reports from her embattled Kingdom. Not for the first time she wished she could abdicate the throne and just… run away from her responsibilities. Unfortunately, her husband, despite crafting an outward facing image as a charismatic and competent ruler, was a lazy, irresponsible scumbag.

And so, it fell to her to actually try and administer the Kingdom they were supposed to be ruling together. Only when Roland felt like it did he ever intervene… and usually to the Kingdom’s detriment, in Mylene’s experience.

Like for instance, when their son Julius, the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Holfort, had decided to set aside Angelica Rapha Redgrave to take a Viscount’s daughter as his betrothed instead. And not just that but had developed an altogether contemptible relationship with her and his four male friends that Mylene found despicable even to this day.

She would have put a stop to that nonsense herself if not for two unfortunate facts. Fact Number One… Marie Fou Lafan had been declared the newest Saint by the Temple, resulting in her having the backing of every religious zealot in the Kingdom.

And Fact Number Two… in a rare show of ‘doing something, literally anything at all’, Roland had gone ahead and backed Julius at the Temple’s urging, her husband essentially spitting in House Redgrave’s face in the process.

The fallout could have been much, much worse, Mylene could admit. Duke Redgrave had folded like a house of cards and all but exiled his daughter to the edge of their territory, a move clearly done to placate her husband and son more than anything. And yet, Mylene still recognized that the damage had been done there. The relationship between the Crown and House Redgrave was unlikely to recover any time soon.

And that was just the one House that her son had alienated. There were also the other noble houses that his friends had upset when they’d broken their own betrothals in order to orbit around Julius and Marie all this time.

It was such a fucking mess and Mylene continued to fight the temptation to just run away from it all. But this latest news… this was something else entirely.

House Offrey had been caught supplying Sky Pirates of all things. Sky Pirates who had gotten strong enough to threaten an Earldom at that! House Roseblade was pointing the finger at House Offrey and said they had ample evidence to prove House Offrey’s crimes were real in the form of dozens of Winged Sharks prisoners as well as testimony from the Earl’s own daughters.

Meanwhile, House Offrey was similarly pointing the finger right back at House Roseblade, claiming their own seat was attacked by an assassin sent by House Roseblade of all things and that Stephanie Fou Offrey had been killed as a result.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, at the heart of everything… Lady Angelica Rapha Redgrave sat prettily, having apparently come to House Roseblade’s aid with some hidden Redgrave Fleet her father had given her to properly take control of and bolster the Isle of Tortuga’s defenses.

All of this was to say… things had become a headache and a half for Mylene. And she was confident they would get even worse in the days to come, because she knew her son, spoiled and so full of himself as he was at this point, would probably push for House Offrey to get ‘justice’ just because Lady Angelica was on House Roseblade’s side. And with the backing of that little tart of a saint, he might just have the political power to push it through.

At this point-

Mylene blinks as a knock at the door announces the arrival of one of her servants. The man looks harried and wide eyed as he swiftly approaches with fresh correspondence.

“Your Grace, there’s been news from the Principality of Fanoss!”

What? Mylene furrows her brow as she takes the parchment from the servant’s hands. He speaks before she can even begin reading it, however.

“Your Grace… they’ve declared war on the Kingdom of Holfort!”

What?!

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bshOlbC4v2QGxz6-IIrbtAkdTeNB3xw6-kuPFgWuDIY/edit?tab=t.0