The Captain’s booming voice was not a welcome one, not then at least. She’d seen a light in the Helmsman’s eyes that she didn’t like, or maybe didn’t like. Regardless it was one she couldn’t stand for, not and maintain her position with any ease. But when the Captain bellowed she could only obey, to be an example of obedience was to teach and have the right to command it for herself. So with a sharp, correct nod and none of this grinning and mooning he was so quick to engage in she slipped past Jax and walked towards the captain with what passed for stiffness in her spine which really translated into a sedate sway that couldn’t help but catch the eye. 
She was halfway across the room when she smelled it. Above the stink of sea-ripened, sun-baked bodies, spilled rum, stale vomit and greed she scented trouble. She had only to look at the captain with his too broad smile and his too bright eyes as he stood over the too large pile of loot to see that he was at the heart of it. She sighed, she’d not yet been in a fight before the captain and felt a strange flutter of nerves in her belly at the prospect of it. She’d demonstrated moves like what she’d done with Jax, demonstrated she could keep her men in line, but a fight was different. On the ship she executed careful shows of force, demonstrations in pain, speed and where needed, ruthlessness. A fight was chaos and she didn’t like chaos. There was no control in chaos. 

On one ship she’d been in the positions were not given out, they were fought for. She hadn’t been long on that ship since it hadn’t been worth the constant battles that she’d had to endure or the way her clothing always got torn in the process of the fights. But she had put all that brawling to practical use, honing some of the skills gained in lessons and not put into practical usage. One could pay for the best of tutors but not even the golden skinned men of the orient who had cost her a pretty penny to engage could make the lessons stick like honest to god combat. So as she readied for the fight in the seconds before it broke out she told herself to think of it as a demonstration of her suitability for her position. A yardstick for her skills. It was all the time she had.

“Care for a fight.” She heard the captain say to them. It wasn’t a question. 

The retort of the second pistol shot rang in her hears long enough to drown out the roar from the crew whose man was just murdered. She did not know the crew but the look in the eyes of the captain as he’d gunned that man down and then fired his second shot into a crowd of men, spoke of long standing rivalries and bad blood. She turned to face the crowd and with quick eyes assessed the danger. Holding herself back long enough to make a plan. She did not dive in gleefully like Jax whose body held all the power he needed. Her power lay somewhat northing and she needed everything she had to help control the chaos that had just broken out.

She saw movement, a dull gleam of metal and in response, before the motion was half done she’d moved. She had seen that motion but a moment before in the hands of her captain, a pistol brought to bear. It just wouldn’t do. She dove and grabbed the arm, twisting and letting her momentum give her movement strength, leverage could offset lots if one knew how to apply it, Nicki did and when the shot rang out, it did so to the detriment of the floor inches from Nicki’s foot. She’d aimed him down, mindful of the second floor, of the balcony with tables that overlooked the first floor. She didn’t stop moving, but kept the momentum going and with a bend to lower her seat of gravity tossed the man hard to the floor, his head bounced but she didn’t stick around to see the light go out of his eyes from the impact, no she was gone, moving onward, order into chaos, wanting the fight over as quickly as possible so she could lose her money and be done with this. 

She delivered careful blows meant to hurt her opponents badly but not do much actual damage unless she saw a weapon in hand, then she went for debilitating blows that would drop the greater threat. Most of the men were drunk and that made them easier if harder to predict targets and she found a sort of rhythm to the work. She kept the Captain in her awareness at all times, wanting to keep him safe, especially in his judgment impaired state of inebriation. She would have words with him later about bringing a pistol to bear in what should have been just a brawl. Until then, she circled him, bringing men down with a strange, violent grace, no expression at all on her lovely, marred face.