-- Here we have Verity's sky pirate's troubled adolescence and recent disaster --

A great streak of purest white split the sky in two, lashing through the pelting rain like the tongue of some gigantic serpent. The deck of the airship beneath their feet trembled and groaned.

“Captain! We're losing her to the storm!” Lieutenant Commander Garonne screamed into the wind, his voice, though he was hardly a foot away from his target, was barely audible.

“I'm working on it, Garonne!”

This was no storm like any the captain had encountered before. Though the Mark of Storms burned furiously on his chest its power seemed useless. The clouds above The Sky Bard heaved and billowed in shades of mauve and charcoal and darkest purple, completely unaffected by the forces he could feel flowing out of him. It just wasn't strong enough. He just wasn't strong enough...

“Jirke Hanna-D'Lyrandar! Can you repeat what I just said?”

Jirke threw his head back. He pulled off the piece of parchment stuck to his cheek with dried saliva and smiled widely at his teacher.

“Absolutely not.”

He enjoyed the way Mistress Heleina's pale neck became mottled with splotches of red.

Her eyes blazed but her voice remained steady as she said, “Then I think you had better get out of my classroom.”

“There are only ten minutes left, mistress. Surely it would be better to reprimand me after the lesson so as not to take your precious time away from my classmates?” He cocked his head to one side and gazed at her imploringly. The figures seated at the desks around him tittered and muttered.

Mistress Heleina spoke through gritted teeth and did not meet his eye, “I do not intend to reprimand you, master Jirke. I will leave that to your parents when they receive my letter that you have been suspended from my lessons forthwith. Now collect your belongings and leave at once.”

Jirke's blood ran cold. He stood, scraping his chair back, slung his satchel over his shoulder and exited the classroom.

The academy was situated on one of the upper levels of the island. Open air was a necessity for students learning how to control weather after all. But there were other reasons a large group of teenagers of House Lyrandar should remain within easy access of the sky. Jirke could feel the repressed anger twitching inside him and he quickened his pace as it threatened to break through. He imagined his mother's anger. He could see his father's disappointment.

Two minutes were probably all he had.

Once outside he broke into a run and swung into the nearest loading tower, feeling his heart in his ears as his feet pounded the steps that would take him to a higher point in the sky.

One minute.

The door to the top of the tower slammed against the wall as he threw it outward and himself to his knees on the flagstones below, gasping for air. The sun beat down on his sweat-soaked back, a typical day for the holiday destination of Stormhome. Seagulls mewled all around. He could not remember a day he hadn't heard seagulls.

It was time up. The convulsions hit the pit of his stomach and spread out through his torso. He struggled to lie on his back and watched as the clouds above darkened almost imperceptibly. Electricity coursing from the Mark on his chest snapped his entire body rigid and he keened through his clenched jaw pathetically. Puberty sucked. It had never been as bad as this before. He had no clue what would happen if he released it as he was but the energy was starting to burn through his innards as if he were being cooked from the inside out. He had read about cases where marked individuals seemed to have spontaneously combusted and wondered if this was the cause. It was not the kind of information that was taught in the academy.

Jirke raised his rigid arms into the air above his face, spread his fingers apart and marvelled at the webs of blue-white light that danced between them. He tentatively focused his energy into his hands and watched the dancing sparks speed up and burn brighter. It was painful but exhilarating and as he pushed more compressed energy into his arms to ease the inner burning sensation and the sparks stretched up from his fingertips and scratched at the sky he began to feel light-headed from the power. He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself to make one last push and send it all out of his aching arms.

Before he could get that far he felt a warm pressure on his chest and his eyes flew open. The sun above was blocked by the silhouette of a man. The man held his palm flat against the Mark on Jirke's chest and the electricity crackling around his hand disappeared as he felt it streaming back down his arm, into his chest and out of the Mark. When the last dregs of the magical energy left his body the man stumbled back, pulled out a pistol and fired it into the sky. Rather than a gun shot going off a noise like tearing cloth amplified by a hundred rent the air as a lightning bolt shot out of the barrel and into the clouds. The seagulls squawked frantically. The man watched it disappear before putting his pistol back in the holster at his hip and turning to look down at Jirke still prone on the floor.

Now Jirke could see him clearly he felt he recognised this older Khoravar but he could not place him among any of his father's friends. For a start he was a good deal more scarred and weather-worn than any of the Lords that attended his parents parties. His hair was also considerably more wiry and unkempt. Nevertheless there was something regal about him that marked him as at least having once been an aristocratic member of House Lyrandar.

The stranger crouched beside him and intoned gruffly, “Are you hurt?”

“How did you do that?”

The stranger caught Jirke's left arm and inspected his hand. It seemed to pass some sort of test as he soon released it, “Good. You're unharmed. Now get up.”

Jirke pushed himself up on his elbows and grinned excitedly, “Teach me how to do that.”

“Get up, boy. I need to speak to your parents.”

Jirke groaned and the skies above, though startlingly sunny only moments before, opened up and threw heavy drops of rain down upon them both.

One raw and blistered hand slipped from the handles of the wheel, slick with rainwater. He cursed as it jerked violently to the right and twisted the arm still holding it into an agonising angle. The ship careened sending crates, cargo and crew alike hurtling toward starboard side. Garonne swooped in to take control, eyeing his captain with fear and concern as he put the ship back on course.

The captain saw nothing in his eyes but pity and disappointment. He tore the gaze apart with a scowl and pushed his clinging wet, dirty-blonde hair back from his face. Water ran in rivulets down his collar but he barely felt it as his clothes were soaked through entirely from hours in the torrential downpour. Shoving his bleeding hand into the folds of his coat he turned toward the bow, his back to Garonne, and withdrew his pistol. Perhaps this would work. It had to work. He was entirely out of options.

Captain Jirke raised his arm to take aim at the distant horizon where the clouds, though black, held no crackling energy. Held no life. If he could only draw the storm away from them... A thought suddenly occurred to him as he made to pull the trigger. A phrase his old master had once muttered at him during one of their unconventional lessons resounded in his head in his familiar gruff tones.

“Purple skies in magicians eyes.”

Purple. Mauve. The storm was magic. And as the obviousness of this realisation hit him like a punch to the head a very unwelcome vision appeared through the parting clouds. A monstrously large, glistening black airship loomed toward them, and from it a deafening bellow rent the thunder from the skies and resonated through all that was wood, metal and bone. Jirke looked back over his shoulder at Garonne whose horrified face mirrored his thoughts.

“He was supposed to be back by now.”

“I'm sorry, my lord, but we've had no word from The Marauder for three weeks now.”

“Why isn't anyone doing anything?”

“Standard procedure, my lord. We wait a full month of no communication before alerting the Admiral.”

Jirke slammed his fist down onto the clerks desk. His bangles jingled. “Bullshit! He promised me. He promised me he'd be back in time for my graduation.”

The clerk had the good graces to look apologetic as well as confused. Jirke took a step back and ran a hand over his attempt at a sandy-brown chin beard. In a matter of hours he was to have officially completed his formal training as an airship captain. However, he was without the support of the man from whom he had learnt his most valuable lessons. Captain Aeryn D'Lyrandar: his Master, Mentor and the man who had saved him from becoming a teenage charred corpse on top of a loading tower eight years previous was missing. Tradition dictated that a students title be formally given by the person who had most influenced their education. Aeryn had sworn he would be the one to present it to him. Even with words rather than his customary grunts. Though it seemed likely that it would soon be given by his father – a man who had little to no influence in any of his choices excepting those that inspired him to do the opposite of what he demonstrated. Such as wearing yellow. Jirke despised yellow.

He was not without concern for the well-being of Captain Aeryn but the man was a war veteran. He had battled Dragonborne and infiltrated the guilds of rival Houses. His name was known in smoky taverns throughout the land. Aeryn D'Lyrandar was a hero. He had every faith that he would turn up eventually.

When he did he was going to be severely guilt-tripped by his disappointed student. His only student as far as Jirke was aware. He hated to think he might not be.

The horns signalling a day of ceremony blared tunefully in the distance.

“ABANDON SHIP.” Went up the cry. It echoed along the lengths and through the depths of the vessel.

A blast went off somewhere on the enemy ship followed by a bizarre whooping noise. Then there stretched a moment of silence. The bow of The Sky Bard exploded into splinters as a huge forked grappling hook tore into it. Jirke let out a cry of anguish as he watched the chain connected to the hook retract and his ship be seized from his control. He took aim once again at the hull of the beast that stole his livelihood, his honor and his home away from him. The gun fired a blazing tendril of lightning that hit its mark, sparked along its surface and fizzled out uselessly. He felt arms around his shoulders pulling him back and he could do nothing but comply.

“Captain.” Garonne's voice barely touched his senses, “Captain, we need to leave now. The emergency boats are ready. The artificers are detaching the elemental ring. It should have enough power to bring us to land but we need to leave now.”

The captain looked from the wreckage of the bow, to the unidentified pirate ship and finally at his Lieutenant Commander's face.

You'll never find him if you stay here with your lost cause, he thought. After a heartbeat he nodded numbly. “Very well.”