Part I
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She crashes in on an easterly wave.
One that threatens the bare spindles of a long dead port. The wind bites at stilts gnarled by sea salt and the negligence of time, threads of frayed twine whipping in retaliating lashes against the onslaught versus sturdy grecian wood.
Lexa watches from on high, eyes on mastheads and white sails in the distance when she takes a moment to admire her only non-hissing companion, the sea. She stands an eagle in her nest of serpentine thorns, as the speck of a sailor draws near from the horizon, boat marching on the back of winds that carry it onward. The ocean howls of intruders long before they arrive, the swishing churn of embattled rip tides announcing the threat among rustled gusts and spits of algae foam.
It's all become so painfully predictable.
Lexa sighs at the sight of them marching on toward her fortress.
A sinking weight floods her stomach, weary resignation presses heavy against her throat.
The grip of her spade reminds hers they mean nothing to her morning, to her unforgiving schedule that must be kept. What with the chill slipping through the cracks of a waning afternoon sun setting on the intruder's horizon.
She doesn't bother to watch their approach further, instead keeping her thoughts to steady hands that churn earth and crumble stone, driving her blade against charcoal and turning it to soot. She checks her moorings to the west and fells a few fresh saplings for kindling. Nuisances in that particular corner of her nest of thorns, ones she's been waging a losing battle with for ages.
Her thoughts scatter like the seed and silt that pour through the calloused cracks of her fingers, wondering—
A sharp whine fills the air below, followed by a screech and crash of splintering wood. A thunderous boom echoes along the rockside loud enough to shake the very gravel under her feet followed by a full chested bellow.
"Gods damn it all!"
Lexa straightens from her work at the cry of anger, loud enough to have her dropping her tools where she stands. Loud enough to send a shiver across her scalp that hisses and spits its welcome in return.
She slips past brambles and thickets of overgrowth. Moves between boulders and shrugging aside the hang of vine, winding her way to the edge of her oasis. The sweet scent of honeysuckle mixes with sea water as she moves close to the rocky ledge of the cliff shore.
Careful to stay hidden, tucked neatly in the shadows, she lifts a few leaves on the tips of her finger to see her would be… captors…
Or. Captor.
The waters are littered with floating bits of dock and warped wood, now useless and broken into a thousand tiny shards that bob their way back out into the wild.
In its place is a boat.
A rather pathetic boat, Lexa notes at the feel of a nose nudging her cheek. A vessel of one lonely single seat, barely a rod for a mast, with two matching oars on each side. The sight of its paltry build makes her frown, her lips slackening in shock as she looks past the debris of the wreckage to the fleeing white sails receding into the burgeoning twilight distance.
Another screeched caw from a circling bird above makes Lexa jump, ignoring the snap and hiss in her ear at the same time the air fills with a strained, "Oh shut up!"
Well.
This is certainly not what she had expected.
Because…
She's blonde.
Her apparent assassin is blonde.
And a woman.
Altogether a decidedly less muscular figure than Lexa had become accustomed to seeing her would-be heroes in the making that washed up on her shores. Not the type bearing rippling muscles, or the thuggish brawn born of beating one's own chest.
In fact, this assassin is downright dainty.
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