#sand smuggling

[moongothic]

Not really into IRL AUs but if Crocodile existed in our world he would be running a sand mafia and you can't convince me otherwise

[alolapokemon]

It's a shame my Alolan vacation got cut short because your region is so beautiful, I would've loved to explore more of it

@that-one-poison-trainer

My home is beautiful but please don't visit. We have major overtourism problems and it is wrecking our local ecosystems and areas.

If you do come back, please make an effort to practice leave no trace principles, if you catch pokemon go after invasive species over our rare native species, and please support local alolan businesses instead of the cheap knockoffs you find in Thrifty Megamart

[rotzaprachim]

Last of us should have lost a few Emmy noms just for the sandwhich detail

[townpostin]

District Task Force Intensifies Crackdown on Illegal Mining in Jamshedpur

Officials ordered to conduct joint operations against unauthorized mineral extraction and transport Deputy Commissioner calls for immediate action to curb unlawful activities across East Singhbhum. JAMSHEDPUR – District Magistrate and Deputy Commissioner Ananya Mittal chaired a crucial meeting of the District Mining Task Force at the Collectorate, issuing directives for a comprehensive crackdown…

[motorsportbarbie13]

The Yapping Hour Is Upon Us - Part 4

In which you escape to paradise with the love of your life.

Warnings: nothing unless you hate happiness. Pairing: Max Verstappen x Podcaster!Reader Word Count: 2.4k

- The Yapping Hour is Upon Us - The Yapping Hour is Upon Us - Part 2 - The Yapping Hour is Upon Us - Part 3 - Master List

Phulay Bay, Thailand July, 2025

yourpersonalinsta posted

456,938 likes liked by taylorswift, redbullracing, alexandrasaintmleux, and others. yourpersonalinsta out of office tagged: maxverstappen1 kikagomes omg where are yoooou? >>>yourpersonalinsta thailand! he planned literally everything. all i had to do was show up. user928 max is never beating best boyfie on the grid allegations now redbullracing bring us back a coconut! >>>yourpersonalinsta hahahaha think max can smuggle one out in his backpack??? >>>redbullracing if he tries hard enough, he can do anything!

"Max, where'd you go?" You call, voice echoing out over the empty terrace of the beach villa Max had booked for you two during F1's summer break.

Last year, the two of you had spent a few weeks on a boat off of the Amalfi coast with some of your friends but this year, it was just the two of you. This entire trip had been a complete surprise, Max having planned the entire thing. You had gotten a text one afternoon just a few days into the month long F1 break from Max telling you to pack a bag (heavy on the bikinis and lingerie, as personally requested by your boyfriend) and to be ready to leave the apartment in Monaco in an hour.

You had bustled about, a mix of excitement and anxiety twisting in your chest. To be quite honest, you had been looking forward to having some down time at home, just the two of you. It had only been a few months since you had permanently moved from New York to Monaco and you were far from settled, having spent most of the first half of the year traveling with Max.

The moment Max burst into your shared apartment though, all of your anxieties evaporated into thin air. He had never looked more relaxed than he had that morning, telling you he was taking you on a trip and to not ask any questions. You, of course, dutifully obeyed.

Which was how you found yourself at one of the most private and romantic beach resorts in Thailand, currently looking for your seemingly missing boyfriend. You'd been here for a few days now, soaking in the sand and sun and quiet peacefulness the resort had to offer. Mornings were spent slowly in bed, breakfast often skipped in favor of time spent underneath (or on top of) Max. Afternoons scuttled by slowly, spent under the sun on the beach in your bikini being oogled by Max. And nights were spent together, either in the media room of the villa watching movies or under the stars talking about anything and everything with the man that had completely stolen your heart.

It was in those quiet moments, while you sat snuggled up between Max's legs, back pressed firmly into his chest, on the beach where you were in awe of how much your life had changed in a little over a year. How quickly Max had swooped into you life, into your heart, and never left.

The villa is quiet and empty, you assume that Max has wandered down onto the beach or out near the private pool while you had taken a quick shower before your dinner reservations. Something on the bed catches your eye though and you cross the wooden planked floor to read the note that sits on top of a white linen dress.

My love, I know we had reservations at the resort's resturant tonight but I took the liberty of moving that to some place a little quieter. Put on the dress and meet me out on that little bluff where we always watch the sunset, dinner is waiting. all of the love my soul possesses, Max

Tears prick at your eyes when you finish the note. Laying on the bed is a white linen dress that you had no idea was even in the villa. It's brand new, you'd never even seen it before. The moment you pull it on over your head, you can't help but be impressed. It fits like a dream and when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you can't help but smile. The dress is cut perfectly to your figure, the neckline scooping down low to show off an extra bit of clevege and the hem hitting just below your knee. You're not quite sure how Max did it, but the dress fits you like a glove.

Your hair is still a bit damp, but you're eager to find where Max is and what he's up to tonight so you opt for a long braid down your back.

When you step out on the back veranda of the villa, the sun is hanging low in the sky, just above the sparkling blue water that stretches out in front of you. The resort sits on a little bluff overlooking the ocean, romantically tucked into the side of rolling green hills and a lush forest behind you.

Just beyond the edge of the villa's back yard is a little outcropping of land that juts over the beach below. Every night since you had arrived, Max had insisted on making a point to sit on this little private bluff and watch the sun go down. No matter what you were doing or what you had planned that evening, watching the sunset tucked deeply in Max's arms, became a tradition you wanted to continue forever.

The cool grass tickles your bare feet as you cross the lush green lawn. For a moment, you don't even look towards where you know Max is standing because you're so distracted by the crash of the ocean waves and glimmer of the sunset on the water. When you do look over though, you stop in your tracks, pupils blowing wide at the scene before you.

There, right on your little plot of paradise, stands your boyfriend. He's surrounded by what looks like hundreds and hundreds of white hydrangeas arranged in a large circle. Clusters of candles dot the edge of the circle casting a soft glow over the entire scene.

Max stands in the middle of all of this, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his khaki shorts. He's wearing the navy linen shirt you bought him for his birthday last year, top few buttons undone at his throat. The breeze off the water tugs a bit at his hair, long from a busy season with little time to stop and get a haircut. The fact that you liked his hair longer also had a lot to do with him refusing to cut it lately, but he'd never admit that to anyone but you.

When Max sees you walk out of the villa for the firs time, he thinks he might just pass out right there. The dress Kika and Alexandra had helped him pick out was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen you wear, besides that navy and red lacy lingerie set you had worn for his birthday last year, of course. He had been planning this for months now, much to Daniel and Lando's surprise. His two friends were the only other people who knew what this entire trip was really about. They had expressed their surprise at the plans since you hadn't even celebrated your one year anniversary when he had set all of this in motion. Max had simply replied with 'when you know you know' and no one had questioned it again.

The red and gold ring box sits heavy in his pocket, his fingers tracing anxious patterns over it's smooth surface. He wasn't nervous about what he was going to do. No, what he was about to do was the most confident and self assured decisions he had ever made. What he was nervous about was you saying no. He wasn't sure if his heart would be able to take a rejection.

Your heart hammers in your chest as you approach Max. Unsure but confident about what's about to happen all at the same time. The conflicting emotions whirl around in your stomach in a hurricane of anxiety and shock.

"Hi baby." Max murmurs as soon as you step into the circle with him. His arms reach for you and to his great relief, you melt into him eagerly.

"Hi." Your voice nothing but breathy whisper. A smile that could power most of Europe shimmers across your face. "What's all this?"

"I know I said we were going to eat dinner out here, but I wanted to talk to you first." Max buries his head in your hair, inhaling the sweet and spicy scent of your shampoo, still lingering in your hair after your shower.

He takes a few moments and you are simply content to enjoy the feeling that settles over you. Outside of this little bluff, nothing else exists and you could stay here for the rest of your life and be completely content.

When Max pulls himself together, he pulls back a little so he can see you without craning his neck. "The moment you smiled at me the first time, my entire world shifted beneath my feet." His voice is rough, Dutch accent becoming more prominent the more emotional he gets. "The first time I kissed you in my drivers room in Miami, I knew I was done. I have never met a kinder, more ambitious, or more confident woman than you. Just being able to exist in your orbit has been the blessing I never knew I needed. I know it hasn't been long but I can't figure out how I ever managed to exist before you and I never want to find out what it feels like to exist after you."

Max pauses then, drawing in a shaky breath. Blood rushes past your ears as your knees threaten to buckle. You had hoped this day would come for you and Max but you had never expected it to be so quickly. Like Max, you had known pretty fast that he was it for you. You had tried to fight the growing feeling that your relationship could work its way into marriage but as you continued to settle further into life with him, you fought the feeling less and less.

He sinks to his knee then and looks up at you, those ice blue eyes that you dream about shining up at you. "I want to see you walk down the aisle towards me in a white dress. I want to see your belly grow when you carry our babies. I want to hear my children call you their mama and I want your babies to call me daddy. I want all of this and an entire lifetime of love with you and only you. Will you give me that, baby? Will you marry me?"

For a moment you're completely unable to breathe. The words Max said to you etched themselves onto your bones, words you'd never forget until your dying day. They were words that were to be written down. Words that your grandchildren would cry over one day when they stumbled upon your old journals in the attic.

Those kinds of things, those words, deserved to live in the universe alone for a bit, they're so powerful. You gave them space and respect, allowing what Max had said to you wash over your body.

"Oh my God. Of course. Yes. Please." You babble, really unable to make your mouth move in the way you want it. All you know is that you had never been so certain about anything in your entire existence.

Max slips the massive rock onto your finger before standing up to his full height. The diamond that winks up at you in dim candlelight is something that could be compared to the iceberg that sunk the titanic. Once the ring is secured on your hand, tonight's second perfect fit, Max catches your chin in his fingers to tip your head up towards him. When he kisses you, lips meeting yours so achingly tender, the entire world goes quiet. Everyone who could have possibly existed simply vanishes.

You stay like that for several moments, caught up in your boyfri- no, not boyfriend, fiance's arms and simply kiss him with every ounce of love you can wring out of your soul. His tongue licks into your mouth, eliciting a kitten like mewl of pleasure from the back of your throat. It's a sweet and tender kiss, soft and celebratory after what's just occurred.

"I love you." You say against his lips when you need a moment to breathe.

"I love you too. More than life, lifeje." Max's hand comes up to frame the side of your face, rubbing his thumb across your swollen bottom lip.

All you can do is stare up at him, pupils blown wide open. "How long have you been planning this? I can't believe you did all this...for me? Just for me?" For someone who has often gone unseen in their own family, being doted on like Max does is sometimes confusing.

"Months. I've had help. Danny and Lando helped decide where and how to do this." You can't help but chuckle at the thought of Daniel and Lando, two of Max's most unserious and unmarried friends, helping him plan a proposal.

"Alexandra and Kika too. They helped with the dress."

Your eyes widen in surprise. "Those two bitches knew and didn't tell me!"

Max tilts his head back and laughs heartily. The sound sends a zing down your spine. "No, although I suspect they might have figured it out. I just told them I was taking you on a surprise date and needed help with an outfit."

"And of course I did all of this for you." Max continues, face turning serious. "I did this all for you because I wanted you to know how important you are to me. How much I need you in my life. You're my everything, baby."

Emotion clogs your throat as you fight to keep the tears from falling. "I can't wait to be your wife, Maxie."

yourpersonalinsta posted

1,293,938 likes liked by kikagomes, yourdad, danielricciardo, and others. yourpersonalinsta girlfriend < fiancé 💍 kikagomes ahhhhhhh congratulations pretty girl!!! you are going to make the most beautiful bride. WAIT OMG, is this why Max had Alex and I help buy that dress????? >>>yourpersonalinsta yes 🤭 love you kiks >>>user928 i'm sorry but am i reading this right? max had alex and kika help buy the dress that he had her wear to her own engagement. idk if i'll ever recover from this. user02938 MOM AND DAD ARE GETTING MARRIED landonorris glad he finally did it so i can stop hearing about how excited he is. >>>yourpersonalinsta love you too, lando >>>landonorris ❤️ maxverstappen1 can't wait to start calling you mrs. verstappen >>>user0283 i cannot be normal about this >>>user0029 i have no one to send this too redbullracing our favorite couple together forever!!! congrats you two (liked by author and maxverstappen1)

tags: @shelbyteller @formulaal @martygraciesversion381 @longhairkoo @samantha-chicago @stelena-klayley

[followthebluebell]

what the actual FUCK, Underground Reptiles is now breeding SAND CATS for purchase

There's no way that the parents weren't smuggled illegally.

[lafleshlumpeater]

Hi babe!! I loved your Luke x Aphrodite reader and was wondering if you could do another?? If you alr have an idea go ahead with whatever you want but maybe something with protective Luke 🤭🤭

I’m on a new Luke obsession from the show

Thanks!!!

thanks for requesting<3 i hope you like this!!

warnings: fem!reader, unwanted flirting, protective/possessive behaviour (not in a toxic way though), mentions of drinks (unspecified whether it's alcohol or not), one word that i think can be classified as a swear word?? lmk if i missed any

requests are always open <3

luke castellan masterlist part one

“Hi.”

You jump slightly. “Hey. You scared me,” you breathe a nervous laugh through your nose. What was taking Luke so long?

You and your boyfriend had gone to the fourth of July bonfire- together, obviously- and he had disappeared, mentioning something vague about drinks and the Stoll twins (probably seeking their most recent stock of soda stash, smuggled, of course) when a slightly older camper approached you. You recognised him as an Apollo camper- you had seen him train with a bow and arrow; he was good.

He sits down next to you on the sand, slightly too close for you to be fully comfortable. Your eyes dart around frantically, looking for one of your siblings to save you- but Silena was cosied up with Beckendorf, foreheads pressed together and giggling whilst Lacy was chatting up a newer camper. You curse internally, the rest of your siblings either splashing around in the ocean or helping set up for the firework display. You offer the unfamiliar camper another strained smile in a futile attempt at breaking the awkward silence.

What was his name? Something starting with 'M', maybe?

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing alone?” the mystery boy asks- a bit too directly, in your opinion, for someone you hardly know.

You give a little giggle, hoping it sounds appreciative of the basic compliment. Even after being in this agonising situation on multiple occasions, you had gotten no better at handling them. You sigh wistfully. If only your mother had given you powers to deter unwanted attention as well as attracting it.

“Uh… I’m waiting. For my boyfriend.” You ensure to place extra emphasis on the title. He smirks, unfazed.

“Some shitty boyfriend, huh?” He says in satisfaction, completely misreading the situation to fancy his own whims, accompanied with the fakest sympathetic sigh. It makes you want to scream.

“No, actually-”

“Actually, the ‘shitty’ boyfriend’s right here.”

You can’t help but exhale in relief, muscles loosening at the mere sound of Luke’s voice. You stand up, turning around to face him. “Luke.”

“Hey, doll.” The glare etched in his sculpted features (directed at the obnoxious flirt) contrasts greatly with the gooey sweetness of his greeting. “Who’s your friend?”

You try not to snort. “Uh…”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, wrapping a fierce arm around your shoulders. You melt into him. “There a problem, buddy?”

An amused smirk creeps onto your face, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. Luke never calls anyone ‘buddy’.

“N- no, course not, I was just…” the Apollo camper stutters.

Luke raises a blond eyebrow. “Just?”

“Keeping her company!” he blurts out, already beginning to edge away from the conversation. 

Luke looks at the ground, lips curving upwards in a cold smirk. “Well, for next time, don’t worry. I’ll take you with me next time, sweet thing, if you feel lonely, ‘kay?” he simpers, half- joking for your entertainment, half in seriousness in wanting to ward off the unsuspected boy. By this time, he’s already gone and Luke leans down to whisper, hand tightening around your waist slightly as his lips brush the shell of your ear. “My girl,” he mutters.

taglist: @quickslvxrr @bibliophile-dendrophile

READ: this account stands with palestine, and so— i require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.

[anystalker707]

a sweet reminder

Pairing: Luke Skywalker x [gender-neutral] Reader Summary: Spending a nice time with Luke after he's done working at the farm, and of course he's awfully sweet. Tags: clingy luke / he really wants to take care of you / lots of kisses

MASTER LIST

          Despite the usual high temperatures, the day felt exceptionally hot—the suns seemed to be taking out personal anger on Luke, making each step towards his home feel like torture, and he already knew he’d need some cream later tonight to deal with burning in the areas where the sunlight chastened his tanned skin. He furrowed his eyebrows, patting his clothes to get rid of the sand accumulated between the folds.

The droids wouldn’t do everything, so Luke still needed to carry those heavy buckets of water back home to refill the sprinklers. He tried to balance between no water spilled and the intense pain in his fingers to let buckets down on the ground as slowly as he could, and the pain lingered uncomfortably around his knuckles.

“Fuck,” Luke breathed as he opened and closed his hand a few times until the stiffness went away, or at least most of it. He sighed as he placed his hands on his hips, looking down, letting the breeze refresh the back of his neck before he moved to finish his task. He would be free for the last of the day, hopefully.

Luke’s thoughts were fuzzy already after so many hours under the suns, but he had done that enough times to trust himself on autopilot. He could name a handful of things—more, actually—he would rather be doing right now.

A long breath escaped his lips once he was done, and he tried his best to ignore the tingling in the back of his mind that told him it was only a matter of time before his uncle told him to do something else. He took a deep breath as he walked over to the kitchen, his body instinctively freezing when he heard his name being called, but hey, it wasn’t Uncle Owen.

“Luke,” the voice called again, and he stepped out to see you coming down the edge. A smile tugged on your lips when you finally saw him, sighing. “Wow, you look like you’ve been… smuggled by Jawas.”

“Oh,” Luke chuckled, shaking his head. “Just slaving away as usual,” he breathed, glancing behind him, but no one from his family was around. He wiped the sweat away from his brow with his forearm, and he shook his head again so that his strands would fall back into place.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just feeling a little too hot and cranky.” Luke scrunched his nose a little. Today’s weather seemed harsher than usual, and opposite to his wishes to stay home upgrading his ship, he had to work at the farm for longer than normal today.

You raised your eyebrows, nodding faintly. “I was gonna ask you to come grab a drink with me, but we don’t need to go anywhere if you don’t want to.”

Luke’s eyes followed your hand reaching out to brush his hair back into place, and he made sure to stand still while you did so. “Doesn’t sound bad at all,” he said. “Maybe we can have a couple of glasses of blue milk while we hang out in the garage. I was gonna tinker around with my stuff anyway.” He grabbed your hand, walking by the kitchen with you to grab the promised drink before you two could go sit on the couch in the garage. He always sat close, pressed to your side. “Ugh, what a day, I swear. Anything interesting happened while I was slaving away?”

“Stop being so dramatic,” you scoffed with an endearing smile. You enjoyed the refreshing sensation of the blue milk going down your throat, and the garage felt a lot nicer than being cooked under the suns outside. On the other hand, maybe it’d be colder than usual tonight. “And no, nothing interesting. I did hit my head on the edge of a ship while fixing it, though. I’m not sure if that’s interesting,” you chuckled, bringing a hand up to the sore spot on top of your head out of instinct.

Blue eyes observed you over the rim of the glass before Luke lowered it, licking his lips as his eyes roamed over you with clear concern, a crease forming between his eyebrows. A small sound came from him as he put his glass away. “Oh no, are you alright? Let me take a look.” He adjusted his position and placed your glass on the table as well, reaching out to touch your head. His fingertips gently traced the area where you’d hit with a delicate and soft touch. “Does this hurt?” He applied a little pressure.

“Ow,” you hissed at the unexpected pain, though it wasn’t too bad. You’d forget it hurt if nothing touched the area you’d hit. “Only a little sore.” 

“I don’t feel any bumps or swelling, but I think we should keep an eye on it, anyway,” Luke exhaled. “But that’s a relief. We don’t want you losing any more brain cells.” He chuckled and kissed the top of your head carefully, his hand descending to cup your cheek for a brief moment. Concern was evident in his eyes as they met yours, making your heart flutter in your chest. “I have a bacta spray. It should help. Do you want me to get it?”

You placed your hand on top of his to squeeze it reassuringly, letting it fall to your lap. “I’m fine, I swear. Maybe we should be more worried about your brain cells cooking in this heat, yeah?” You chuckled, running your thumb over Luke’s knuckles when his eyes widened, and you were sure his blushing would be apparent if it weren’t for his sun-kissed skin.

“H-Hey, my brain is just fine, thank you very much!” Luke’s attempt to sound indignant failed miserably with his embarrassment, and he bit his lip, glancing away. “It’s not like I’m hallucinating or anything.” His eyes softened when they met yours again, and he lifted his free hand, his fingertips grazing your cheek gently—he raised his eyebrows a little when you leaned into his touch. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He leaned in closer. “Maybe I should take another look, just to be safe.”

Part of you regretted telling Luke about the bump when concern laced his gaze once more—you thought he’d be more used to it, since you and him were always with a bruise or another from working on those ships or machines the whole time.

“It’s okay,” you insisted, catching his hand between yours before he could reach for your head again. “Trust me, Luke.” You squeezed his hand gently.

Luke exhaled. “Okay. If you’re sure.” He looked down at your joined hands before he leaned in, his nose brushing against yours. “But if it gets worse, you’ll tell me, right?” His wide, earnest eyes looked into yours, pleading, before he pressed his forehead to yours, both out of habit and out of worry. Clingy, as always. “I could kiss it better.” His breath fanned over your face. “If you want me to, I mean.” As if he hadn’t already.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” you mumbled, your eyelids instinctively hiding half of your irises when the distance between you diminished. “Why are you always doing this? Pressing your forehead to mine. Trying to read my thoughts?” You chuckled, and he couldn’t help but do the same.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Luke furrowed his eyebrows lightly. “It feels… nice. Comforting, I guess.” He bit his lip, his hand coming up to rest on your shoulder, near the base of your neck. “Don’t act like I’m being clingy.”

“Yeah, feels nice, I enjoy it too… But you’re very clingy all the time, in fact,” you whispered with a small smile, placing a hand on his waist instead, adjusting your position so that you could be closer to each other.

A soft scoff escaped his lips. “You’re the one who wouldn’t stop kissing me the last time,” he pointed out with a shy smile, and he quickly pulled one of your legs to hook over his. “Not that I’m complaining,” he mumbled in a quieter, embarrassed voice, but he didn’t move away. The closeness was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. “I really like it when you do that.”

You raised your eyebrows, feigning cluelessness, despite how your heart fluttered in your chest. “Me? I never even kissed you. Let alone kiss you nonstop.” You clicked your tongue.

Luke pulled away suddenly, making your head fall forward a little, and looked at you with a wide grin and disbelief. “What? But you did! Here in the garage, when we were working on the speeder.” He paused. “Trying to.”

“Did I?” You raised your eyebrows. “I don’t remember it, baby.”

His heart pounded in his chest, and his cheeks burned, not just because of being under the sunlight for hours before. With a dramatically heavy sigh, he leaned in again. “Maybe you should kiss me again, love.” He glanced at your lips. “Just to remind you.”

“Oh, so that’s your suggestion?” You asked, and Luke nodded, biting his lip. “‘M not sure about it,” you mumbled against his cheek, nuzzling it softly.

“Well, we should try, maybe it’ll remind you,” Luke chuckled softly, turning his head. His lips brushed against yours in a barely-there touch. It was more of a tease, but still managed to send a tingling down his spine. He cupped the side of your neck, his thumb under your jaw, leaning in, and finally kissed you properly. His lips finally met yours, his breath hitching. Luke loved the warmth of your mouth, the softness of your lips, and it made his head spin when you kissed him back just as lovingly. “Like this?”

“I don’t think I’ve remembered enough,” you said as soon as his lips broke away from yours.

Luke chuckled. “We’ll have to keep trying, then.” He pecked your lips. “Until you remember.” Despite the calloused skin, his hands gently cupped your face as he kissed you once more, needy lips pressing to yours in a longer, deeper kiss. His kisses were messy in the best way possible, oscillating between the need and shyness, refraining into more contained movements right after deepening it and getting lost on your lips, trying to get a grip of himself again. “Do you like this?” Luke’s lips grazed yours as he spoke.

“Mhm. So good.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, mirroring his smile. He couldn’t be close enough.

Something shifted in Luke’s gaze as he tilted his head; it was like you were the most precious thing in the whole universe. He kissed you again, letting it last longer, as his thumbs ran along your cheekbones. “You’re so good at this,” he groaned, wrapping his arms around your waist to hug you tightly while nuzzling your nose. “I love being close to you like this.”

⋆｡°✩ ⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆ ✩°｡⋆

[ducksido]

Twst but mafia au headcannon?

Heartslabyul Mafia – The Red Court

Theme: Order, rules, loyalty, and execution Territory: Casinos, underground courts, and high-society clubs Leader: Riddle Rosehearts – The Red Judge

Known for strict enforcement of "The Queen’s Laws" (a literal written code).

Break the rules, lose a finger—or worse.

Ace and Deuce are his enforcers, often sent to “clean up messes.”

Cater handles info networks and social media manipulation. Trey manages cover businesses like bakeries and tearooms.

Savanaclaw Mafia – The Wildfangs

Theme: Strength, dominance, and territory Territory: Fight clubs, illegal betting rings, and scrapyards Leader: Leona Kingscholar – The Desert King

Ruthless and cunning. He doesn’t speak often—but when he does, people obey.

Has an entire underground fighting ring to test loyalty and skill.

Ruggie is the street rat who handles dirty work and extortion.

Jack is the "new pup" with a moral compass but deadly fists.

Octavinelle Mafia – The Abyss Syndicate

Theme: Deals, manipulation, debt, and secrets Territory: Luxury lounges, speakeasies, blackmail markets Leader: Azul Ashengrotto – The Merchant of Sins

Makes contracts with high interest. If you default, you belong to him.

Jade and Floyd are the twins who "collect debts" in their own twisted ways.

Their nightclub, “The Mostro Lounge,” is a neutral ground—but don’t get too drunk, or you’ll wake up in debt.

Scarabia Mafia – The Sun Serpents

Theme: Wealth, charm, and desert cunning Territory: Smuggling routes, artifact black markets, private villas Leader: Kalim Al-Asim – The Golden Smile

Kalim’s family is old money; he’s the face, but Jamil runs the operation.

Jamil handles poisonings, discreet assassinations, and laundering.

Their operation is flashy, but don’t let that sunshine fool you—one wrong move and you’ll vanish in the sands.

Pomefiore Mafia – The Glass Thorns

Theme: Beauty, perfection, and deadly pride Territory: High fashion, cosmetics, and assassination-for-hire Leader: Vil Schoenheit – The Poison Prince

Dresses his crimes in silk and scent. A clean kill is an art.

Rook is the eerie hitman who tracks targets like prey.

Epel is the underestimated “babyface” who snaps necks with a smile.

Ignihyde Mafia – The Ghostline

Theme: Technology, surveillance, and cybercrime Territory: The darknet, encrypted bunkers, digital weaponry Leader: Idia Shroud – The Phantom Executor

Doesn’t leave his bunker; he controls everything from screens.

Ortho is the AI/droid who enforces missions and wipes traces.

If your tech fails or your secrets leak, it’s probably Ignihyde’s doing.

Diasomnia Mafia – The Obsidian Court

Theme: Legacy, terror, and immortal rule Territory: Ancient castles, arcane weapon trafficking, elite rituals Leader: Malleus Draconia – The King of Thorns

Feared across all territories. Few dare speak his name aloud.

Lilia was once a deadly assassin—now he mentors the young bloods.

Silver protects Malleus like a shadow. Sebek is a loud, loyal enforcer.

Their power is mythical, and their reach is endless.

👻 Ramshackle Mafia – The Outlaw Union

AKA: The Hollow House, The Stray Pact, or The Neutral Syndicate Theme: Found family, chaos, cleverness, and impossible alliances Territory: The forgotten zones between dorm borders—neutral land, black market roads, the shadows of the walls

Leader: Yuu – The Phantom Boss

The backbone of this misfit empire.

They didn’t just survive NRC’s chaos—they recruited the forgotten, abandoned, and rogue players.

They lead with sharp instincts, mad charisma, and a knack for turning enemies into allies.

Every major dorm sees them as a threat now—not just because of power, but because they’re unpredictable and loyal only to their people.

Grim – Their "guard dog" with a short temper and big fire. Basically the mafia mascot and bodyguard.

Crowley (ugh) – Might be funding them under the table to keep balance between dorms, but is ultimately useless. Claims to be “advisor.”

Ramshackle’s territory is small, but everyone passes through it eventually. It’s a neutral ground for forbidden negotiations and secret alliances.

The house itself is a trap-laden fortress disguised as a falling-apart mansion. No one invades twice.

Chenya – The Cheshire Blade

A wildcard spy and info broker who left RSA and the Heartslabyul underworld.

Appears and disappears at will—no one ever knows whose side he’s on (except Yuu’s).

Master of illusions, sabotage, and surveillance. He’s everywhere and nowhere.

Keeps the others laughing—right before he slits someone’s throat mid-sentence.

Neige LeBlanche – The White Lie

Publicly still a "darling" singer and model—secretly Ramshackle’s social smokescreen.

Handles PR, public image, and propaganda for the family. Butter-wouldn’t-melt aura hides a manipulative mastermind.

When he's not smiling, he's pulling favors, blackmailing media execs, or sweet-talking other mafia heirs for intel.

Rollo Flamme – The Viper Bishop

Formerly an anti-magic radical. Now? He realized the system itself was the problem.

Handles information control and religious contacts—he runs the cult underworld, no biggie.

Cold, calculating, and eerily calm. Uses fear and righteous speeches to demoralize opponents.

Some say he joined Yuu to balance them; others say he's waiting for a perfect betrayal. Either way, he's useful.

Fellow Honest – The Trickster Boss

Old-school mafia type with showman flair. Originally neutral, now Yuu’s inside man for old money trade routes.

Handles weapon deals, smoke-and-mirror diplomacy, and nostalgic criminal connections.

Thinks of Yuu as a “young boss with real moxie.”

Keeps Gidel on a tight leash (most of the time).

Gidel – The Cannery Butcher

Extremely unhinged—used to work with the mafia as an executioner-for-hire.

Now works as Ramshackle’s interrogator and "cleanup guy."

Think chainsaw, bloodstains, and a sense of humor that makes Floyd look tame.

Yuu is the only person who can tell him “stop” and live.

Skully – The Phantom Enforcer

Quiet, hulking presence. Doesn’t speak much, but when they do? It's with fists or a cold death glare.

Bodyguard, smuggler, demolitions expert.

Comes from a cursed bloodline—people say they’re immortal. No one’s tested it twice.

Their loyalty to Yuu is absolute. When Skully stands behind you, you’re safe.

Dynamic as a Mafia:

Not bound by dorm politics.

Deals in everything: black market goods, intel trades, bodyguard contracts, “favor-for-favor” diplomacy.

Known for sudden, chaotic moves that disrupt the careful balance between dorm mafias.

The other dorms see them as an unstable alliance, but that’s what makes them terrifying. No rules. No limits. Just loyalty and survival.

(I accidently made ramshackle's bigger)

[1800titz]

The vacay piece I teased ages ago. One night stand :D

CONTENT/WARNINGS: p-in-v, oral, brief size kink (if you squint), praise kink, this one’s p vanilla.

WC: 2.5K

It starts like this:

A bohemian beach with a high riding tide, where ripples surge and flood the shore. Sand tears from its home, coasting the verge in the breeze like a fog under the overcast, and when the clouds split open, the rays hug her skin. 

She’s sprawled over a chaise lounge in a little red thing that’s all skimp and no cover besides the intimates. When she rolls onto her side and tips to her tummy, he eyes the flash of skin behind dark tint. His arms brace over the porcelain border of the pool that overlooks the beach up ahead — he’s watchful from a distance. Someone swims up to the bar behind him. Chlorine laps at his back, teeming over the grout between the tiles as he wraps his lips over a straw and nurses something cobalt and strong.

By the time he culls a second one, she’s up, all glistening skin in the sunshine, hips swaying as her toes make doughy prints in the sand. She trails to the sea, and the ocean eats her until she’s just a little silhouette in front of his sunglasses with water-slicked hair and lines that cinch and swell in all the right places. 

He sees her like that, outlying his bubble, in brief pieces like the flashes of skin. Fragments in the horizon, like the border of a stranger’s leg in the background of a photograph. He sees her in slivers where eyes interlock from across the room and linger. This bohemian summer is painted in teal, and it’s waves swathing the coast, warm skin coated in cocoa butter. 

It ends on a night where the teal metamorphose indigo, and then nearly denim, with orange on cords, glinting like miniaturized, splintered orbs of the sun have been caught to glare forever on strings in the night. Harry sees her through that indigo, this stranger’s bare leg waltzing in the depths of his touristy snapshot, mingling in the dancing horde. He trails closer, shouldering through the throng and squeezing through in polite gaps, and she twists like it’s fate — just enough to smuggle a glimpse in her peripherals. 

Eventually, Harry leans in to murmur, “What are you drinking?”

The plush of his mouth ghosts over the cartilage there, and his cadence smooths over like honey, low and deep over the pounding bass of the music. Waned tobacco and spice; a warm, pleasant musk in the flurry of scents. 

She doesn’t immediately respond, observant like she’s weighing whether the invitation is worth entertaining. It only takes a second. Then, there’s a hand over his pec, like she’s already made friends with the filth of his intentions. His red-lycra-skimp mystique rolls up on her toes. 

Harry twists his head just enough for her to respond, “It’s a Blue Lagoon.” 

Saccharine — rich and lux and smooth, something that has her skin glowy and sweeps up her throat, tucks behind her ear, enough so that the scent billows off with the motion of her hair as she flips it over her shoulder. 

Harry casts his gaze to the drink. A red straw is tucked into the ice, and the only remnants of the beverage mingle at the bottom. The ice shimmers in faded teal, much like water sloshing over the flat tides. Her fingers cradle over the cup, and that’s where soft, thin lines of gold coil. Despite the broad array, there’s no wedding band. 

“Can I grab you another?” 

That’s when she does the thing; this patently flirtatious, brazenly get-under-my-crocheted-midi-skirt sort of thing, lashes coy in their sweep and eyes innocuous as the tips of her manicured fingers pinch at the straw and siphon it to her mouth. There’s an elegant presentation to the polish — neat, short lines with a nude base and a white tip. 

The remnants of the beverage vanish until all that’s left is crushed ice painted with blue curaçao. Harry watches the straw. He watches her lips, the way they unlatch and the way the pink tip of her tongue offers a glimpse before it hides away behind her front teeth. 

When she pulls the drink away, she tips her head — an inclination for his ear again — and when he ducks his chin for her answer, she tells him, “Can you make it worth my time?” 

A tongue swipes — his — like it’s already hungry and yearning. Dimples form beside the curling edges of a mouth after the pink muscle retreats. Home in its hungry cavern; limitlessly craving. He doesn’t bother going for her ear again, instead opting to fix eyes that have wandered, all week, onto her face. Definitive, close. Mesh of saccharine and spice. 

“I’ll make it worth your time,” Harry assures. 

His eyes are virid, even in the indigo, under all the miniature suns as the lanterns throw them back into a roll of blue — it climbs over the crowd and seeps with the music. They’re virid and intent. They’re virid, and there’s something lewd that dances in the mottled talc. 

She watches him. A set of eyes flits to his mouth and stays, brief like a fragment. She nudges the cup — the fragment splinters and fades — extending it against his chest until he raises his hand and his ring clad digits curl over it slowly, wet with condensation. 

“Blue Lagoon,” sweet mystique reminds him, a little curl to her mouth. 

Harry heads to the bar. He orders a Blue Lagoon and refreshes his tequila. Double. He winds through the half-clad crowd, prodding and slipping through sweat-slicked bodies until he finds her again. 

He makes it worth her while when they’re dancing, when her arms are slung over his shoulders and the tips of her fingers graze at the little curls at his nape, like an intimacy beyond a summer fling, or maybe like a restless hunger — its touches only test the waters with dips of toes under lapping ripples. He makes it worth her while when his hand cups the meat of her hip, and she tips her head up for their mouths to meet, when their dancing slows and the kiss turns feverish, cushiony mouths teasing at the seams until they split. 

He makes it worth her time when they make the stroll back to his room, heels clicking over tile and bouncing off from lofty wall to lofty wall, a good bit of distance between them strictly for the sake of avoiding shagging in the middle of a hallway. He makes it worth her while when he braces his wrist band to the lock over the door, when she’s leant against the wall with her irises lingering on him and her lashes batting coyly. She’s well-behaved, hands tucked behind her back like a combat to handsy temptation. 

It’s a different story behind the door. 

He makes it worth her while when her fingers toy at her crocheted halter, index perusing at the fabric below cleavage and brushing over chalky yarn. He makes it worth her time when he steps into her space all slow-like, face tipped down and the pink below his cupid’s bow worked into a soft curve, lengthy, deft digits working over the buttons of his shirt. An untamed tendril teases over one of his brows. Her hands meander from fondling at her own tits, at rogue pieces of yarn in the stitches, to straying up his ink-etched forearms. That’s when he lets her take over the work, when his arms snake over the vale of her waist. When his colossal hands cup lower, when he nudges forward and their mouths brush again. He licks into her mouth and rolls into the gap between her teeth.

Filthy kisses are shrouded behind closed doors, even in the easy ambience of a resort. Furlough on the greedy pursuit of pleasure, on some secluded island with crystalline waters, plus tequila — that’s practically a petri dish for hook up culture. But filthy kisses are saved for the bedroom, and there it’s taste buds doused in citrus limon and gray goose, a tip of a tongue swiping along a row of teeth, basking in the ridges. 

“What do you like, little minx?” Harry murmurs. He climbs the column of her throat with the ruddy border of a hungry cavern, and her pulse murmurs back under his mouth. “Hm?” 

The blunt tip of his forefinger traces her collarbone, follows a line of cleavage, toys at the cinch in her top; unravels her. It splits down the center, and the straps follow limply down her shoulders. Harry pinches a nipple and scrapes his teeth over her neck, humming again. 

Behind closed doors, his red-lycra-mystique (bare, her tits are bare now, in the backdrop of his picture) gets denuded to flesh when she shimmies the dress down her hips. He helps her and then tears his own shirt over his head. It’s hasty, like disrobing takes too much time from a place where time moves slower, riding the water in leisure. Harry still doesn’t know her name, and she slips to her knees, batting her lashes, and takes his buckle apart like unslotting puts the last of the puzzle pieces together. 

When her tongue rides under the ridge of his tip, delving and dragging over the prominent vein jutting on the underside of his shaft, he cranes his neck back and makes a sound like she’s torn into his chest with the tips of her french-polished manicure. He punctuates every pornographic, wet sound with dialogue.

“Christ, you’re a dream.” 

“Fuck, you’re pretty with cock in your mouth.” 

“Yeah, that’s it, just like that, sweetheart.” 

“—Y/N,” red-lycra-mystique supplies, gaze bouncing from the twist of her wrists at his base to his face, and then sweeps his bubbling head over her bottom lip and swallows him down halfway. 

“Y/N,” Harry mirrors, tone bathed in the same sweetness she radiates at his feet. 

And then she trails the very tips of her blunt nails up his sac, and the shiver that rolls up his spine short-circuits every feasible attempt of formulating something in english. Just… gone. Something splinters. 

Harry doesn’t cum all over her tongue, despite the pretty mental image he’d cherish of Y/N on her knees with ribbons of silky white coating the insides of her mouth. He thinks about the way he’d dip the pad of his thumb against her tongue, the way he’d stir and scrub it in. He thinks about her lips latching and her cheeks hollowing. 

He’s got immense willpower, particularly when she takes him all the way down until her nose nearly brushes the neatly-trimmed tuft of hair the tributary of his happy trail pools into. Because then, she pulls off, chin sloppy with saliva, mouth wide, and stares up at him with this wickedly indelicate curl to the corners of her mouth as she gasps in breaths. Like she wants him to. 

Instead, they make it to the bed. He splits her thighs with his palms and spits where she’s puffy and warm, leaky with longing, toying at the seam of her hole with his digits. Smooths the wetness with his thumb when he tucks two fingers in and laves his tongue at the crease between her inner thigh and her cunt. He bumps her clit with the tip and rolls, and her spine arches like the highest point of her torso peaks at the clouds of nirvana. 

“You’re a good girl,” Harry tells her, and his voice is so soft, like he’s reassuring an animal that’s backed itself into a corner, “Want you to drench my face.” 

And she does, because when he holds a placid, unwavering hand out and talks her so sweetly, lips suckling in a vacuumed ‘o’ between her thighs, what can she do besides roll her hips against his mouth in little, desperate juts, face creased before bliss spumes through every major artery.

When Harry sits back, his chin is sticky, glinting in the buttery cast of the lanterns drilled into the ceiling. He kisses her again until her jaw is stained with her own slick, and despite the entire basis of a one night stand, his tongue meddles into her mouth with the same passion of a man carving a piece of her open. A cozy lacuna just for him in the depths of her chest, something that’ll linger and yearn. A hungry chasm that’ll grumble when her cunt pulses — when he’s not there to fill it. She’ll think of him; a stranger’s leg flitting like a passing speck in the background of her photograph. 

Y/N’s cunt hugs him like it can’t get enough. 

Eventually. 

Because at first, it’s: too big, won’t fit, pleated brows when he’d split her spongy walls apart on the latex-coated tip, stretching to tuck in and hovering to imbibe in miniature ticks of her expression. A twitch in her lashes, a shift in the line of her mouth, a little swallow bobbing down the column of her throat. 

“You’re a good girl,” he’d crooned, smoothing a thumb over a rib and then her clit, just to see her squirm more over his cock. 

Eventually, she clambers over his lap, planting her palms back over inky, firm muscle. It’s leverage as she bounces to fill that starving cavity — the one he’d drilled with his tongue, like the shape of him can fill every square inch of space before they never see each other again. Hungry, hungry, hungry. 

“Come on, baby, come on,” Harry coaxes, a low groan mottled with breathy pants, “—Shit.” 

Momentarily, he pauses the guiding grasp he’s got over her hips to drag the pad of his thumb over his tongue lewdly, smearing spit over the digit and swiping circles over her clit, instead. In response, the rolling pace Y/N has set stutters, knees jolting, and her mussed hair spills off her shoulder as she cranes her neck back. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“Yes, yes, yes—“

His eyes flit from her cunt to the ethereal line of her neck, the borders of her shoulders, the shape of her tits bouncing. 

Ultimately, of course, his gaze winds back down to ogle where they connect, because that’s the view — that’s where she swallows his cock, thighs splayed and trembling, gliding from the tip until about midway before rising and repeating the cycle. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. He draws his thumb lower, lets it meddle where they merge, where her hole flutters and rolls over him, gleaning the sticky arousal that coats his shaft and bringing the pad of it back to her clit. His eyes linger. Flicker up. Return to watch her ride and nearly roll back into his head. 

He’s carved the void, and later, when she tips forward and her nails scrape over his pecs, feral, she whittles her own. Later, the space between his thighs aches and heats. Something pulses on the underside of his balls. It yearns for blue curaçao, pellucid, crashing waters, and a skimpy red bikini. 

[vintagelasvegas]

List: The Oldest Bars in Las Vegas

Atomic Liquors at dawn in 1993. Photo by Valentin Wuebben.

Tracking the oldest standalone bars in Las Vegas is a complicated by the matter of a few of them changing names, locations, or having fuzzy math in their own history. This list is not carved in stone but as far as I can tell the standalone bars opened prior to the '70s are ....

ATOMIC LIQUORS (917 Fremont) – opened 4/17/54. We have a longer piece covering Atomic’s history and sources for this date.

DINO’S LOUNGE (1516 S Las Vegas Blvd) – They’ve had this name since ’69, but the bar dates back to this location as Ringside Liquors since ’53, and at a previous location since the late 40s. Their motto “Getting Vegas Drunk Since '62” refers specifically to the business’s incorporation date. '53, '62, '69 are all correct dates depending on the details.

HUNTRIDGE TAVERN (1116 E Charleston Blvd) – circa '62, after starting at a nearby location, 1320 E Charleston, in '54. Founder W.L. “Buzz” Holst and family opened several drug stores and bars including the next one on this list.

DECATUR LIQUORS (546 S Decatur Blvd) – '63

4 MILE BAR (3650 Boulder Hwy) – '63

TAP HOUSE (5589 W Charleston Blvd) – opened as Wild Bill’s Bar in '65. It went through a few names in the 70s and has been known as Tap House since '85.

CHAMPAGNE’S CAFE (3557 S Maryland Pkwy) – opened under a different name in ’66; Champagne’s Cafe since ‘95. It was originally Sundown Liquors and Cocktail Lounge opened in '66, a liquor store up front and a lounge in the back. It was combined into one room that exists today and was previously known as Jerry’s Inner Circle ('68), Huey’s Saloon ('77), Jerry’s Saloon ('87), Ole Inner Circle ('93), and Champagne Charlie’s.

FRANKIE’S (1712 W Charleston Blvd) – Frank August opened Frankie’s Cocktails in '68. It’s been known as Frankie’s Tiki Lounge since 2009.

A couple in '70 ...

Hard Hat Lounge (1675 S Industrial Rd) – '70. Their “Est. '62” motto works as a reference both to their '62 building and to the beloved ’62 mural in the bar which came from its previous location under the name Bourbon Street Lounge. The building was home to The Coffee Pot and Squaw's Corner, until the owners of Bourbon Street Lounge moved here and opened Hard Hat Lounge.

Starboard Tack (2601 Atlantic St) – also opened in '70 according to some records, or '71 at the latest. Their website says “since '72.”

Elsewhere ...

Pioneer Saloon (Goodsprings NV) - Built by George Fayle circa '13, without a doubt the oldest bar in Clark County, Nevada.

Gold Mine (Henderson NV) - "Hendertucky's Oldest Tavern," was licensed to Henderson councilman Giles L. Franklin in Sep. '65.

Not quite on the Oldest Bar list ...

70s: Skinny Dugan's (4127 W Charleston Blvd). Opened in '72 or '73 as Misty Inn. Became Skinny Dugan's in '74.

70s: Red Dwarf (1350 Vegas Valley Dr). Opened in '73 as The Rib Cage, and also known as Penthouse '77, Keyboard Lounge '79 owned by Harry Wham, and the Smuggle Inn from the '80s-2010s when the bar also sold cocaine. Red Dwarf took over in the 2020s.

70s: Double Down Saloon (4640 Paradise Rd). There was a bar here called John John’s Cocktail Lounge here in '74, then it was called Dreamworld which might have been a disco. For many years in between it was a restaurant rather than a bar. Double Down opened in ’92.

80s: Sand Dollar Lounge (3355 Spring Mountain Rd). Similar to Hard Hat, Sand Dollar's motto “Est. ‘76” may refer to the building itself. Sand Dollar Lounge opened in ‘83 and there was no bar, lounge, or music venue at this location prior to Sand Dollar.

90s: The Hideaway Tavern (3369 Thom Blvd). Their motto is “Friendliest bar in town since '62,” however Hideaway opened in a new building in the 90s. The '62 date refers to the property history. In '63 (not '62) a building was relocated here from downtown’s “old ranch” aka the Old Mormon Fort State Park. The building that was moved from the old ranch was a 50s-era structure for a restaurant connected to the ranch house. At 3369 Thom Blvd the building was repurposed by Larry LaPenta as into Lorenzo’s dinner club, later know as Old Ranch House Supper Club, and Larry’s Old Ranch House. It was demolished in the 90s, and replaced by a new building which opened as Larry’s Hideaway. After a change of ownership it became The Hideaway Tavern. The changes to the structures can be seen in USGS aerial photos, and Clark County Assessor dates The Hideaway Tavern to '93.

2000s: Bar Code (1590 E Flamingo). Opened as The Elbow Room in '68, closed in the 90s, this building was expanded and completely redesigned at different times in the '70s-90s.

Missing any?

This started as a post on Vintage Las Vegas Instagram. Thanks to CityCast Las Vegas: An Inside Look at the Oldest Dive Bars in Vegas.

4 Mile Bar, '86. Photo by Chelsea Miller. Neon in Nevada Photograph Collection (PH-00225), UNLV Special Collections.

[trinethramnews]

ఇసుక అక్రమ రవాణాపై CM రేవంత్ ఆగ్రహం

అన్ని జిల్లాల్లో విజిలెన్స్, ACB అధికారులతో తనిఖీలకు ఆదేశం ప్రస్తుత ఇసుక ��ాలసీ అవినీతి దందాగా మారిందని, కొత్త పాలసీ తయారీకి నిర్ణయం 48 గంటల్లోగా అధికారులు పద్ధతి మార్చుకోవాలని, బాధ్యులైన ఏ ఒక్కరిని వదిలొద్దని ఉన్నతాధికారులకు ఆదేశాలు

Read the full article

[thetidesthatturn]

Tides of Fire and Gold

Pairing: Pirate OT8, Captain Kim Hongjoong x freader

Warnings: violence, graphic descriptions, eventual sexual content/references, abuse, alcohol use - list is not exhaustive, read at own risk

18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI

This is a work of fiction and all characters are not based on reality

Masterlist

<< CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER THREE >>

CHAPTER TWO - THE UNDOING

The following day, the sea is unnaturally still.

It stretches out in every direction like glass, reflecting a sky bruised in shades of violet and deepening blue. No gull's cry. No wind stirs the sails. The Halcyon drifts quietly, as if the ocean itself is holding its breath.

Below deck, the air feels tighter, the wood groaning under the weight of something unspoken. Lanterns flicker against the walls like restless spirits. Somewhere, ropes creak in time with the pulse of the ship’s heart – slow, steady, waiting.

The crew had been scattered across the ship with one shared order: Find out who she is.

But it’s Wooyoung who works in the places no blade can reach – through shadowed ports and coded messages, through rumours traded in the dead of night for coin, or favours, or silence. He doesn’t interrogate. He listens. And listening, for Wooyoung, is an art-form.

By the time the moon is a sliver above The Halcyon, the first whispers begin to arrive.

Wooyoung sits in the dim light of his cabin, a dozen parchments spread before him—none with full names, all with fragments.

“Child of the Coil.”

“Not born Fang… bred to them.”

“She was taken, not chosen.”

One scrap, barely legible, is smuggled from a spy within the Red Channel Cartel, who deals in trafficked knowledge:

She doesn’t remember her real name, they erased it, along with any trace of her real life. But the old ones called her Pyra. The girl born in fire. The one The Viper couldn’t kill.

When Wooyoung brings the information to the War Cabin, it’s with a rare seriousness. He drops the parchment on the table, allowing the crew to observe his findings.

“The Serpent Fang didn’t raise her. They stole her. From a burned village. A northern coast no one speaks of anymore – black sand, vanished people.”

Seonghwa’s brow furrows. “Pyra. That is not a name from the Fang.”

“No,” Wooyoung agrees. “It’s older. Isle lore. She might be a key, or worse – proof.”

Yunho leans in. “Proof of what?”

Wooyoung looks at Hongjoong then, voice quiet.

“That the Isle of Gold doesn’t want to be found… because someone already came from it.”

Below deck, in the grim and unwelcoming atmosphere of the brig, you sit on your cot, still chained. No awareness of the piece of your past being discussed elsewhere on the ship. Not even an inkling that the crew is starting to whisper the name you’d been given by monsters, like a prophecy.

But in your dreams, you see fire. Rippling, unforgiving flames.

Most of all, you hear a woman’s voice calling you by a name you’ve never spoken aloud. Not the name the men upstairs are calling you, not the name the whispers are chanting on the ocean breeze.

Your real name. The name no one knows. The name that everyone believes you’ve forgotten. But the truth is, it’s the only thing that tethers you to reality, to a sense of life beyond the one you’ve been forced into. The name that hasn’t been uttered since you were ripped from your mother’s cold, dead arms.

The storm, it seems, is only just beginning.

~

The cold in the brig is different now. It doesn’t bite – it seeps. Into your bones, under your skin, into the hollows behind your ribs. You haven’t seen anyone of importance since yesterday, just the odd crew member shuffling in to provide you with scraps of food, not served as a kindness – no, this was merely to keep you alive. To keep you useful.

You sit against the wall, knees to your chest, when the lock clicks.

Your heart skips, not needing to see who is walking towards you.

His presence is felt before he enters, looming over your head like a death sentence.

The captain steps through the door like the night itself let him go. Candlelight follows him in faint flickers, casting long shadows that crawl across the walls. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks at you.

Then-

“Nice to finally put a name to a face, Pyra.”

Your breath catches.

It’s quiet, that name. A single word. But when he says it, it feels like something being dug up. Like someone reached into your chest and pulled it out with bloodied fingers.

You flinch visibly. And for the first time since this all began, something cracks in your expression. Not rage. Not defiance.

Fear.

Because that name wasn’t supposed to be uttered outside the elders of the Serpent Fang. That name, given to you by the people who made it their life’s mission to break you, to mould you into a weapon, to sear your past and present from reality

You press your back harder to the wall, eyes narrowing. “You don’t get to say that.”

The captain tilts his head, watching you like a puzzle he’s already half-solved. “It is your name, isn’t it?”

You glare. “It’s none of your business what I am.”

He steps closer, slow, measured. There’s no cruelty in his face – but that makes it worse. He’s calm. Too calm. Like he doesn’t care whether you scream or confess. Like he’s already made his choice about you.

“The Fang called you a key. What do you open, Pyra?”

You stand, chains clinking, eyes sharp. “I don’t owe you anything.”

He watches you for a long time, gaze unreadable.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But they’re coming for you. And if you don’t start talking, you’re not the only one who’ll burn.”

You swallow hard, the resolve you usually kept slowly simmering away, along with your fire.

The room feels smaller now. Too small for the memories clawing at the back of your mind – flashes of stone halls, the stink of blood and incense, that mark that burned itself into your skin while you slept.

You don’t answer.

You won’t.

Not yet.

The captain takes a slow breath, then nods.

“Suit yourself.”

He turns, his coat sweeping behind him like a storm cloud. At the door, he pauses. Doesn’t look back.

“When you’re ready to stop being afraid of who you are,” he says quietly, “you know where to find me.”

Just before he reaches the door, for reasons unknown, you speak.

“Wait.”

The captain turns, raising an eyebrow.

“Your name. A name for a name. Fair, is it not?”

His mouth curves upwards slightly, into a faint smirk. “Of course, where are my manners? My name. Hongjoong. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Pyra.”

Before you have a chance to press further, he’s gone.

And you’re alone.

But that name – Pyra – still hangs in the air like smoke.

And no matter how long you sit in the dark, you can’t breathe it away.

No one else comes, your presence remains uninterrupted until sleep finds you once again. Another day, another night, in this damp, stench-filled hell.

You sleep fitfully, curled against the wall, brow furrowed in a silent war with dreams you do not understand. The ship’s rocking isn’t enough to soothe you anymore. Not since the whispers started. Not since the name was spoken aloud.

~

The sky outside is streaked in bruised amber, the sea catching the first light in broken shards. On The Halcyon, dawn doesn’t come with silence – it comes with steel.

Boots hit the deck hard. Voices rise and fall like tide and wind. And down in the war cabin, the core of the ship’s mind and muscle, the crew gathers – early, sharp, hungry for answers.

The long table is cluttered; half-eaten bread, tin mugs of black coffee, old maps curling at the edges, and the residue of tension no one bothers to wipe away. The scent of salt and oil mixes with roasted meat and the raw bite of expectation.

Hongjoong stands at the head of the table, his gloved hands resting on the edges like they anchor him there. His eyes are darker this morning. Quieter. He hasn’t said a word yet. His mind silently retreats back to his conversation in the brig the evening before, one that he’s gone over countless times since the moment it transpired.

Seonghwa is already seated, arms crossed, expression unreadable but cold. He’s watching the captain – not the door.

Yunho leans back in his chair, rolling a coin over his knuckles absentmindedly. He’s trying to stay relaxed, but his knee keeps bouncing. Uncertainty, his kryptonite.

San is pacing. He hasn’t touched his food. Every time someone shifts, he looks up like he’s expecting trouble to break through the floorboards.

Wooyoung lounges in a chair at the far end, eyes half-lidded, but listening very closely. His network gave the name. He wants the rest of the story.

Jongho slices into a thick wedge of nectarine with unsettling precision. Observing, waiting.

Mingi is the first to break the silence. He slams his mug down onto the thick oak. “So? What did she say?”

Hongjoong doesn’t flinch. He lifts his gaze, sweeps it across the table, lets the silence press down one more breath before answering.

“Her name is Pyra.”

The room stills.

Seonghwa is the first to react. Not visibly. Just a shift of his eyes, a tightening of the jaw.

Yunho murmurs, “So the rumours were true.”

San stops pacing.

Wooyoung straightens in his seat. “The Fang couldn’t have named her that. The name’s older. It’s in the old Isle records – they wiped it from the trade routes over fifteen years ago. She’s connected to something ancient, maybe something buried.”

Mingi scoffs. “Ancient or not, she’s hiding something. If she’s got answers, she should’ve given them by now.”

Hongjoong speaks calmly. “She’s not hiding. She’s surviving. There’s a difference.”

The crew quiets again.

“Whether or not she’s revealed anything thus far past the confirmation of a name, I know one thing with utmost certainty. She’s a map.”

Jongho finally looks up. “To what?”

A long pause.

“The Isle of Gold,” Hongjoong says.

That name doesn’t fall like a stone. It detonates.

Even Seonghwa exhales sharply. San mutters a curse. Wooyoung’s smile sharpens at the edges.

“If what you are saying bears any truth, then we are not just harbouring a ghost,” Seonghwa says grimly. “We are harbouring a storm.”

Hongjoong nods once.

“Then we better learn how to steer it.”

The room shifts. It’s no longer a question of if Pyra is dangerous. Only how much longer they have before everyone else finds out she’s aboard.

“Her name is Pyra,” Hongjoong says again, quieter this time, as if anchoring it to something deeper. “That’s all she’s given me, or more so confirmed it. But curiously, she asked for mine.”

That catches the crew off guard.

Yunho tilts his head. “She asked?”

Seonghwa’s brow furrows. “Not for information. For your name?”

Wooyoung mutters, half to himself, “That’s not interrogation. That’s… connection.”

Mingi grumbles, “Or manipulation. Asking questions doesn’t make her harmless.”

“No,” Hongjoong agrees. “But it means she’s not broken. Not yet. And that matters more than you think.”

A quiet settles again. The crew isn’t just parsing a threat anymore – they’re gauging a person. A girl who gave them only a name, but in doing so, gave them a piece of something real. Something unguarded.

San leans forward, knuckles against the table. “So, what do we do now? We can’t wait around for her to spill everything. The Fang won’t.”

“We plan for both outcomes,” Seonghwa says. “One path where she helps us. One where she does not.”

Jongho nods. “We relinquish control a fraction, barely. Keep her watched, but give her air. She’s not going to open up with a blade at her back.”

Wooyoung adds, “I’ll tighten the network. See if anyone’s heard of a girl called Pyra before she landed in Fang hands. Someone’s always seen something they weren’t supposed to.”

Hongjoong stands a little straighter.

“We earn her trust in pieces. No demands. No threats. Just consistency. If she’s been treated like a weapon all her life, then the most dangerous thing we can do…”

He glances around the table, voice steady.

“…is treat her like a person.”

The crew doesn’t respond right away, but no one argues.

“If the Fang comes, we’ll be ready,” Hongjoong finishes. “But for now, we let her breathe. Let her choose.”

He turns to leave, and just before the door closes behind him:

���And no one else speaks her name unless she gives it to you herself. Dismissed.”

And for the first time since this began, the crew understands, this isn’t about a girl with secrets. It’s about who she might become if someone finally stops demanding them.

The door shuts behind the captain with a quiet, decisive click. But the air in the war cabin doesn’t settle. If anything, the silence that follows his departure is heavier than before.

Mingi is the first to speak, voice low and edged with unease.

“You all heard it, right? The way he said her name. Like she’s not just a prisoner anymore.”

San exhales slowly, arms crossed. “He’s always had a soft spot for strays, you know why. But this isn’t the same. She’s not some deck rat who lost her crew in a storm. She’s Fang-raised.”

Yunho frowns. “And asking for his name? That’s not something most would risk unless they were playing the long game… or starting to trust him.”

“Or trying to get close,” Mingi cuts in sharply. He leans forward, both hands braced on the table. “You think the Fang didn’t train her for this? For manipulation, infiltration, deception? She’s not shackled because she’s helpless, she’s shackled because she’s dangerous.”

Seonghwa has been quiet, but his voice now carries weight when he speaks.

“It’s not her I am worried about.”

The others glance at him.

“It is the captain,” Seonghwa’s gaze lingers on the closed door. “We’ve seen Hongjoong bend before – for strategy, for survival. But this? This could become personal.”

Wooyoung raises an eyebrow. “You think he’s getting attached?”

Seonghwa doesn’t answer right away.

“I think she is the first person in a long time who has looked at him and asked something real. Not about his ship. Not about his crew. About him.”

Jongho shifts in his seat. “So, what do we do? Watch him?”

“No,” Seonghwa says. “We watch her. If she is genuine, we will know soon enough. If she is not…” He folds his hands. “We step in before it costs him more than his judgment.”

Mingi mutters, “Or his ship. And crew.”

Yunho sighs. “Let’s just hope she’s not the kind of fire that spreads.”

A heavy beat of silence.

Then Wooyoung, quiet now, adds one final thought, “Or worse. The kind that burns slow, until you don’t feel the damage until it’s too late.”

They don’t speak again after that.

The crew disperses one by one, each carrying the same quiet question: Is their captain seeing Pyra as a threat to navigate – or something else entirely?

And if it’s the latter…

How long before it gets them all killed?

~

Word spreads fast aboard The Halcyon. Faster than cannon-fire, faster than the winds that carry the sails. Within hours of the war cabin meeting, the ship’s rhythm begins to change.

Orders are given. Quietly, precisely, and without room for hesitation.

On the upper deck, Yunho drills the crew with renewed intensity. Every blade is sharpened, every gun cleaned twice. Lookouts are doubled at night. The Quartermaster scrutinises watch rotations to keep the crew alert and rested. They may not know when the retaliation will come, but they know it will.

“The Fang doesn’t lose quietly,” Jongho says grimly, fitting new bolts to the ballistae mounted along the aft rail. “We’re a symbol now. We hurt their pride.”

Seonghwa oversees the ship’s escape routes – map reroutes, dummy trails, hidden drop points where they can lie low or leave false evidence. His mind is a blade in motion, cutting through uncertainty with preemptive grace.

“If they strike, they’ll come fast and heavy,” he warns. “We don’t fight unless we choose the ground first.”

Meanwhile, below deck, a subtle shift begins. The brig is still guarded, but the energy has changed. Fewer taunts. Less suspicion in the guards’ eyes. Still watchful, but not cruel. They don’t look at you like a weapon anymore. It’s disconcerting, surely a measure to throw you off balance. To tip the scales in their favour. And it wont work.

Then one morning, the door opens. And it’s not a jailor who enters.

It’s Hongjoong.

He doesn’t bring chains. He doesn’t bring questions.

He simply states, “You’ve spent enough time in the dark. Come.”

You hesitate. Of course you do. But his tone isn’t one of command.

It’s an offer.

So, you rise, with the knowledge that this is all part of a bigger plan tucked safely away in the confines of your mind. You have the upper hand, you always will. Or so you think.

He leads you not up to the deck, but inward. Past the war cabin, through a narrow corridor lined with carved beams and weathered symbols etched into the wood. Until you reach a small room.

Modest. Clean. A cot against the wall. A small desk. A window. Light floods in – sunlight, real and warm. There’s a pitcher of water. A simple linen tunic folded neatly on the chair.

“You’re still under watch,” he says, turning to face you. “But this isn’t a cell. It’s your choice what you do with it.”

You study him. That strange intensity in his eyes. Not pity. Not weakness.

Something sharper.

But still, you don’t speak. You nod once.

Before he leaves, he pauses. “You asked for my name,” he says quietly, “why?”

This time, you speak, compelled by forces you don’t understand. “I don’t know.”

Hongjoong doesn’t reply, just observes. He tilts his head slightly, as if this small motion could subconsciously tip the answer from your own.

“Familiarity. I don’t know anything about you, or this ship, or your crew. Beyond the chatter outside of this vessel, the fear that spreads simply from the mention of the Halcyon, I know nothing real. Real is all I have.”

Stupid, stupid girl. Allowing yourself to open up, even just by a crack, was dangerous beyond comprehension. Your whole life as you knew it was built on the foundation of never showing weakness, never letting anyone in. The crew of the Fang had made sure that any sense of empathy or personality was beaten out of you by the time you were five years old. You knew better than this. But something in Hongjoong’s eyes, his demeanour, had punctured a hole in the impenetrable armour you had enrobed yourself in for the past thirteen years.

Whilst you were silently battling the storm that raged within yourself, Hongjoong was your twin. He had not expected such a response, and the one you had given had rattled him to his core. Underneath it all, you were just as he had theorised; a vulnerable, scared girl who had experienced a life of horrific pain. He didn’t know the full extent of your story yet, but piece by piece, he was determined to break down your walls.

“Thank you for the explanation. I’ll leave you to get comfortable. If you need anything, please just ring the bell outside your room.”

And just like that, he departed once more.

Elsewhere on the ship, the final preparations were underway. Wooyoung’s informants began to vanish. One by one. The Fang were mobilising, and fast.

The crew sat around the oak table in the war cabin, another night of strategising until the early hours underfoot.

Wooyoung leans forward, pushing his mug aside. “They’re coming, and they’re not bringing sails. They’ll be hunting through shadows.”

“San has loaded the gun deck with enough powder to sink a fleet. Let’s give them something to choke on.” Mingi growls from his seat.

Yunho, watching the sea through a spyglass, mutters, “They won’t stop until they get her back. Or burn trying.”

Seonghwa glances at the closed door to Pyra’s new quarters.

“Then let them come. We’re not the ones who should be afraid anymore.”

~

The door shuts with a soft thud. No lock clicks behind it. Just wood on wood.

For a moment, you don’t move.

The room is still. No dripping water. No rusted bars. No damp stone. Just the faint creak of the ship as it breathes on the tide.

You step in slowly, as if testing the floor beneath your boots might collapse. It doesn’t. The wood is worn, but solid. Clean. Someone took time to scrub the corners, smooth the splinters.

Your eyes land on the cot.

It’s nothing. Rough wool, thin blankets – but to you, it looks obscene in its softness. A place meant for rest. Not for punishment. You cross to it on instinct, then stop. Hovering.

You sit on the edge, but don’t lean back. You keep your spine straight.

The room smells like salt, linen, and something almost sweet. It’s disorienting. You’re used to metal. Blood. Stone. Even the silence feels wrong. You glance at the small desk. The pitcher of water. You approach it slowly, pour a glass. Your hands are steadier than you expect.

The window – gods, the window. You stare out. Not at sea, but sky. And for the first time in years, there’s nothing between you and the clouds. Just light. Just air.

It unnerves you more than darkness ever did.

You place your hand against the frame, fingers tracing the curve of the wood. You imagine a younger version of yourself, smaller, wilder, pressing her face to that same glass, wide-eyed and full of questions.

She feels so far away now. Almost fictional.

You close your eyes, and for a moment, the only sound is your breath.

And then—

A whisper of a thought. He told you his name.

Hongjoong.

It’s the first time you’ve let your guard down enough to consider the weight that a name bears. The silent reasons why you needed to know his name that day. And how he now knows those reasons.

You let the name settle in your chest. You don’t know why it matters. Maybe it doesn’t. But still, it lingers. Softly. Like a spark refusing to die.

You open your eyes again.

And for the first time since the raid, you are truly, terrifyingly alone.

No chains. No commands. No eyes. Just a room, and a door you haven’t yet tested. And the question burning quietly in your ribs: what now?

The answer to that question reveals itself immediately, just as the thought had appeared. A soft knock – not rushed. Not demanding. Just a single, almost polite tap against the doorframe.

You don’t respond at first. You don’t need to. Whoever’s out there already knows you’re awake.

“You’ve been quiet,” comes the voice. Smooth. Amused. Unbothered.

You turn your head slightly. No footsteps. He’s leaning.

“Most people snoop,” he continues. “Test the walls. See how far the leash goes.” A pause. “You? You’re playing the long game. That’s smart.”

You rise slowly and move toward the door, stopping just short of touching it.

There’s a beat of silence. Then—

“Permission to enter, fire girl?”

You blink.

He’s testing you. Toying with you. But the name… it hits something just under your ribs.

You open the door just enough to see him leaning against the frame, arms crossed, one brow arched with devil-may-care charm. But his eyes? Not smiling. Watching. Calculating.

“Wooyoung,” he offers, like it’s a secret you’ve earned. “I’m the ship’s problem-solver.”

You say nothing.

“Just wanted to see what kind of problem you are.”

Still, silence.

“Not much of a talker,” he notes, glancing around the small room. “Can’t say I blame you. Brig was a dump. This is… cosier.”

He steps back, giving you room.

“I’m not here to threaten you. Not here to beg, either. Just one question.”

You tilt your head slightly.

“Are you going to be the storm that sinks this ship?”

There’s no menace in his voice. No heat. Just the question, laid bare between you like a blade on a table. You hold his gaze for a moment. Long enough that he sees the flicker behind your eyes.

He smiles, slow and sharp.

“Didn’t think so.”

He pushes off the frame and begins to walk away, hands tucked into his coat pockets. But just before he turns the corner, he calls back without looking.

“Don’t wait too long to speak, fire girl. Secrets rot faster than corpses at sea.”

And then he’s gone, leaving behind only his name, his warning, and the unsettling realisation that someone on this ship might already see through you.

~

The sky burns with the last light of day, amber and crimson bleeding into the sea. Most of the crew is gathered near the mainmast, sharpening blades, coiling ropes, tending to tasks with half an eye cast toward the quarterdeck.

Like the crack of lightning across the moonlit sky, Hongjoong’s steps slap across the deck, his coat whipping in the wind, boots heavy against the boards. He doesn’t shout to summon Wooyoung – he doesn’t have to. His presence demands attention.

Wooyoung looks up from where he’s leaning against the rail, a sly grin already ghosting across his face like he expected this.

The crew quiets. One by one, heads turn. San straightens from where he’s been coiling rigging. Yunho steps closer, alert. Even Seonghwa pauses mid-conversation.

Hongjoong’s fist slams down into the railing, the wood cracking and splintering beneath his knuckles. The sound ricochets like a gunshot.

“You said what to her?!”

Wooyoung doesn’t flinch. But his smile fades, just enough to show the seriousness he hides behind smirks.

“I asked if she was the storm that’ll sink us,” he replies coolly, “Not exactly treason, Captain.”

“Don’t play clever with me,” Hongjoong growls, voice low but deadly. “You don’t get to prod at her like some game. Not after I told you to treat her like a person.”

The crew looks between them, eyes wide. The words aren’t just heat, they’re personal.

“You didn’t say to coddle her, either,” Wooyoung counters, stepping forward, tone harder now. “You’re not thinking straight, and everyone here knows it. She’s not a crew member, Joong. She’s a Fang. Or did that slip your mind when she gave you a name and made you forget the blood on her hands?”

The deck holds its breath.

Hongjoong doesn’t move for a moment, but his eyes – they seethe. Not just with anger, but with fear.

Because Wooyoung isn’t wrong, and that, perhaps, is what enrages him most.

“You don’t get to question my judgment,” he says, quieter now, but with a finality that cracks like thunder. “You’re not the one carrying what happens if we’re wrong.”

Wooyoung’s jaw sets. He doesn’t look away. But he nods once.

“No, I’m just the one who cleans up the mess if you are.”

Hongjoong turns on his heel and storms off the quarterdeck, leaving behind silence.

The wind picks up where words left off. Tension clings to the rigging, thick as storm-air.

The crew disperses slowly, like a flock unsettled by a hawk’s shadow. Eyes still flick toward the quarterdeck, where Hongjoong disappeared. Whispers stir. Doubts, sharper than blades.

That’s when the Quartermaster steps forward. Not rushed. Not loud. But deliberate.

He walks to where Hongjoong’s fist cracked the railing, glancing once at the splintered wood. Then he turns to the crew. No raised voice. No demand for silence. He just speaks, and the deck listens.

“You all bore witness to that conversation. You all felt it’s impact.”

Some nod. Others stay stone-still.

“That was not just mere anger. That was fear.”

The word lands hard amongst the crew. Seonghwa lets it sit for a beat.

“You forget sometimes – he carries more than we do. He is allowed to fear. But do not mistake his fire for weakness.”

He looks around the deck. Eyes locking with Mingi’s, then San’s. Then Wooyoung’s, who now stands, arms crossed, silent but unrepentant.

“Captain Hongjoong makes the calls because no one else has the strength to carry the weight when they go wrong. And if you think he is blind to the risks of her-”

He doesn’t say your name. But everyone knows.

“-then you have not been paying attention. He sees more than any of us. And if he is still watching her, it is because there is something worth seeing.”

A murmur, somewhere near the mast. The Quartermaster raises a hand. Calm. Firm.

“You do not have to trust her. But you will trust him. Or you do not belong on this ship.”

That lands harder than the captain’s fist ever could.

He takes a step forward. “We are heading into fire, one way or another. We need to be solid. Unbreakable. United. You want to question him? Do it in private. You want to mutiny?”

His tone sharpens, just for a moment.

“Then jump. Now. Before we reach open waters.”

Silence.

Then slowly, the crew returns to their tasks. Not relaxed. But grounded.

Because Seonghwa didn’t offer comfort.

He reminded them of who they are, and exactly who it is they follow.

~

Noticing it seems quieter in your quarters than usual, you decide to take a walk, one that was hopefully without prying eyes. Perhaps you’d venture up to the deck, feel the sea air on your face for the first time in what felt like eternity.

Just as you were reaching for the doorknob, commotion began outside in the corridor. Hushed tones turned to blazing words, and the unmistakable sounds of boots hitting the planks with haste.

“Y’know, Wooyoung will throw you overboard for telling the captain about his little chat with the girl.”

“I’d rather that than be accused of mutiny, my allegiance lies with the captain, not with his trickster.”

The two voices scuttled off down the corridor, and once you were sure they had left, you made your way up to the deck.

The atmosphere was thick with animosity from the moment you surfaced above deck. Ensuring you remained uncompromised, you ducked behind a few crates stacked just below the quarterdeck, just close enough to observe from a safe distance, and listened as the situation unfolded.

As far as you knew already, one of the lower-level crew members had let slip about Wooyoung’s conversation with you earlier in the day, to no other than the captain himself.

Pulling you out of your musings immediately, was a sound similar to a gunshot. The way it rang out across the deck put unease in the pit of your stomach. Slowly, you lifted yourself up just enough to peak over the crate, enough to witness the aftermath of Hongjoong slamming his fist into the railing on the port side.

You flinch when it happens – his voice, raw and electric, rolls through the planks like thunder in your bones. You clutch the edge of the crate, breath shallow.

You wait for the mockery. The doubt. The betrayal. But it never comes.

Instead, you hear him defend you. Demand respect for you.

You duck back down, forcing your mind to quiet enough for you to listen. And listen you did.

“You don’t get to prod at her like some game. Not after I told you to treat her like a person.”

The statement almost sent you stumbling backwards. Did you truly have it wrong? Was this not all part of an elaborate plan to get you to crack under false pretence?

The sheer fury in his voice couldn’t be faked, this was not a calculated ruse in an attempt to win your trust.

“Treat her like a person.”

As if he believes you are one. Still.

Despite everything.

Despite who he thinks you were.

Despite who you actually are.

You swallow hard. The air tastes wrong. Too sharp. Too close.

Then Wooyoung speaks – and his words cut clean. “She gave you a name and made you forget the blood on her hands.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. That should sting. That should make you angry. But all you feel is fear. Because part of you is afraid he’s right.

But then comes Hongjoong’s reply. Quieter, but heavier.

“You don’t get to question my judgment… You’re not the one carrying what happens if we’re wrong.”

And just like that, something cracks inside you. Not like a snapped chain. More like… the slow thaw of frost.

You pull your knees up to your chest, pressing into the shadow of the crate. The wood is cool against your back, but your skin feels feverish. The silence that follows gnaws at you.

You’re still crouched in the shadows when the sound jolts you – boots. Heavy. Purposeful. Slamming across the deck with no effort to hide the rage behind them.

You freeze.

The thud of each step seems to echo inside your chest, matching the sudden, erratic rhythm of your pulse. You press yourself tighter against the crate, shadows cloaking you like a second skin. You couldn’t be seen, not now. Not like this. If anyone caught you out of your quarters, especially after that, it would unravel everything.

Your breath hitches.

And then, he storms past.

Hongjoong.

His coat billows behind him like a black sail in high wind, fury radiating from every inch of him. His jaw is clenched, lips drawn into a hard, unreadable line. But his eyes – gods, those eyes. Still burning from what just unfolded. Still carrying too many truths.

He doesn’t see you. But you see him.

He disappears into the corridor, toward the captain’s quarters.

And you, against all reason, against all instinct

You follow.

Step by step. Silently.

You keep to the shadows, heart hammering. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know why. But your feet keep moving, like the gravity around him has shifted, and you are no longer immune to it.

The door closes behind him, and you hesitate at the threshold, staring at the thick wood as if it might catch fire from your indecision.

You shouldn’t be here.

You should turn around.

Return to your quarters. Pretend you never heard anything. Pretend you didn’t feel anything.

But your hand lifts.

You hover for a breath, then you knock once. It’s a quiet, almost uncertain tap. The kind of knock that betrays how much it took to lift your hand at all.

Silence.

You don’t know what you expect – an order to leave, perhaps. Or for the door to remain shut, forever dividing the strange pull between you.

But then you hear the latch turn, and for the first time since your capture, you choose to step across a threshold. Not as a prisoner, but as Pyra.

The door creaks open.

Light spills out, warm, and gold-tinged, casting long shadows across the corridor. He’s standing just beyond it. Hongjoong, backlit by lantern-light, coat half-unbuttoned, hair slightly disheveled, jaw tight from everything he’s holding back.

His eyes find yours instantly.

They search you – quick, sharp. Like he’s not sure if you’re real. Or worse, like he’s afraid you are.

“You shouldn’t be out of your quarters,” he says. Not cruel. Not commanding. Just…tired.

You meet his gaze, but say nothing. You’re not even sure what you could say. But you don’t look away.

He opens the door farther, a silent invitation, so you step inside.

It’s the first time you’ve seen the heart of the ship’s mind. The Captain’s Quarters are nothing like the brig. No iron bars, no leaking ceilings. Instead, there’s maps unfurled across the table, books lining the shelves, a sword resting within arm’s reach. There’s chaos in the order. A reflection of him.

He closes the door behind you, and silence falls again, thick as the sea fog.

You turn slowly, eyes scanning the room, hands hanging uncertain at your sides. You don’t sit. You don’t know if you’re allowed to.

“You heard all of it, didn’t you?”

His voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. There’s no accusation in it. Just weary resignation.

You nod. Once.

His jaw flexes.

He moves past you, fingers brushing the edge of the chart table. Not looking at you now.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

“I know,” you say softly.

It’s the first thing you’ve said to him since your confession, the reason behind why you asked for his name, and when his eyes meet yours again, something flickers there.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says again. But it sounds different this time.

Like he’s not talking about his quarters anymore. You shift your weight.

Then, without fully knowing why, you ask, “Why are you fighting for me?”

The question hangs between you like lightning yet to strike.

He exhales slowly, like he’s been waiting for it – dreading it. He walks to the table, sets both hands down on the edges of a map that’s seen too many battles, too much blood.

“Because I know what it’s like to have your name used against you.”

You blink steadily.

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. You understand in a way that frightens you.

You take a slow step forward.

“You don’t know who I am.”

His eyes cut to you. Not with denial. But with something dangerously close to trust.

“No,” he says. “But I think you want me to.”

That stops your breath in your chest. Because he’s not wrong. Not anymore.

You don’t answer right away. Because your first instinct is to lie. Or evade. Or lash out with something sharp enough to wound and hide behind the blood.

But this time, you don’t. You just breathe.

Slow. Shaky.

“No one’s ever asked who I am,” you murmur, your voice low, almost too soft for the room. “Not really.”

Hongjoong doesn’t speak. He just watches. The air feels different now – thinner. Like the ship itself is holding its breath.

You don’t look at him when you continue.

“They called me Pyra because I came from the fire. Because I survived it.”

Your fingers curl slightly, nails digging into your palms.

“But that name wasn’t mine. It was theirs.” You lift your chin slightly. “The Fang gave it to me. Because they didn’t know the real one. No one does.”

The confession tastes strange in your mouth. Like ash, or honey, or something in between.

“I held onto it,” you whisper, more to yourself now. “Because if I let it go, I’d stop being me. And I didn’t know who that was anymore.”

The silence that follows is not cold. It’s reverent.

He takes a step closer, and you feel the shift in the floorboards, the warmth of him. But still – he keeps a careful distance.

“What would happen if you told someone?” he asks quietly.

You blink, startled.

��Told them your real name.”

Your throat tightens. “I’d lose control of it.”

“Or you’d take it back.”

His words settle like an anchor in your chest. You look at him finally – and this time, he doesn’t look away.

“You carry it like a blade,” he says. “But it’s a part of you. Not your cage.”

And then, even more gently “I’m not asking you to give it to me, I’m asking if you’ll let me earn it.”

There’s a beat of stillness. No wind. No ship creak. Just the steady drum of your heart in your ears.

And maybe, just maybe, for the first time, you believe that might be possible.

You lower your head, almost in disbelief at the moment you’re standing in. Your voice, when it comes, is barely a breath.

“Why do you care?”

Hongjoong’s gaze softens. But it doesn’t falter.

“Because you’re not a prisoner anymore, Pyra.You’re a storm on the horizon, and I want to know which way the wind’s going to blow.”

You step towards him unconsciously, a step too close. The distance between you is now palpable. A mistake you couldn’t recover from. But instead of recoiling, he too takes a step closer.

“Hongjoong…”

Slowly, tentatively, his hand reaches up to your face, brushing along your jawbone, and his fingers linger there, just for a second too long.

The touch is feather-light, deliberate in its softness, in its restraint. You feel the warmth of his hand against your cheek, the calloused pads of his fingertips betraying the quiet violence of his life… and yet, in this moment, he’s gentler than anyone has been with you in years.

You don’t breathe.

Can’t.

Because you know this is dangerous. Not just because of what he is. But because of what it makes you feel.

You, who has lived in armour and ashes.

You, who forgot what it meant to be seen.

He draws back slightly, but he doesn’t move away. His eyes are still on you, dark and searching.

“Pyra…”

There’s something in his voice now. Something rough. Something unraveling. As if your name tastes different on his tongue than it did hours ago. Like it means more now that you’ve stood your ground… and let him near it.

“I didn’t bring you here to break you,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to tame the storm.”

His hand falls back to his side, but his presence doesn’t.

“I just want to survive it.”

You swallow hard, your heart a riot in your chest, warring with itself.

You should walk away. Say something sharp, clever, distant. You should remind him what you’ve done. What you are. But instead, your voice slips through the silence.

“You’ll drown.”

His lips twitch. Almost a smile. But there’s no amusement in it.

“Maybe.”

A beat.

“But I’ve already jumped.”

With that, his hand finds your face again, and he closes the gap between you. Your heart hammers in your chest as you too, lean in. Closer and closer, until you can feel his breath on your face.

And in that fragile space between one breath and the next, the door bursts open.

Seonghwa.

You jolt backwards, heat rising to your cheeks like a flame exposed, shame and adrenaline colliding in your chest. Your breath catches in your throat, pulse thundering as if your heart might betray you aloud. The air is thick with the ghost of what almost happened, what nearly slipped past your guard – and now Seonghwa stands in the doorway, eyes sharp, taking in everything without a word.

His eyes scan the room, landing on you first, then Hongjoong. He hesitates. Takes in the charged silence. Something sharp flickers behind his calm expression.

“We have a problem,” he says tightly.

“The Fang’s ship was spotted near the outer reef. They’re not running.”

He meets your eyes as he says it.

“They’re waiting.”

And just like that, the fragile moment between you and Hongjoong collapses under the weight of war.

But something has changed now. Not broken.

Shifted.

And the storm, at last, begins to move.

~

The map table is littered with ink-stained charts and rough-sketch battle plans, the wood still warm from the heat of too many hands. Seonghwa wastes no time as he strides into the war room, flanked by Yunho and San, tension simmering beneath every movement.

Hongjoong stands at the head of the table once more – Captain, commander, storm contained, only just. Whatever softness existed moments ago is gone now, tucked away like a secret. His gaze flicks briefly to you as you linger near the door, but he says nothing.

He can’t afford to now.

“Confirmed sighting of the Fang’s crest off the western reef,” Seonghwa says, planting a marked stone onto the chart. “They are not pursuing. They are anchoring.”

Yunho leans in, brow furrowed. “They’re not hiding either. That’s a challenge.”

“It’s bait,” Wooyoung mutters, arms crossed, eyes cold. “They want us to come to them. Probably think we’re dragging our feet because of her.”

No one looks at you. But the tension tightens all the same.

“Doesn’t matter what they think,” Hongjoong says sharply. “We meet them. On our terms.”

He moves to the side of the table, dragging a finger along a different route on the chart.

“We won’t charge head-on. We use the shoals here—” he taps a jagged patch of reef, “—to mask our approach. San, you’ll lead the infiltration team from below deck if we board.”

San nods, already calculating.

“And Pyra?” Wooyoung asks, tone edged in something unreadable. “What happens to her while we play hero?”

This time, Hongjoong does look at you.

The room quiets.

His voice is even.

“She stays here. Watched. But unharmed.”

A few eyes flick toward Seonghwa, who says nothing. Just studies you carefully.

You say nothing either. Not yet.

“We sail at dawn,” Hongjoong finishes. “Tell the crew to ready the ship. And the guns.”

The others nod, filing out one by one, already falling into the rhythm of preparation. Orders shouted, boots clanging against the deck above, sails being checked and weapons drawn from storage.

You’re left with the echo of it all. The shift from intimacy to inevitability.

And with the truth you can no longer ignore, they are preparing to risk everything for a war you were born from.

You’ve barely made it past the roar of preparation – the clanging of weapons, the barked orders echoing up the walls—when a voice stops you.

“Pyra.”

You turn.

Seonghwa.

He stands with his arms crossed, posture rigid but eyes calm. He doesn’t look like a man preparing for war, not in this moment. He looks like a man with questions.

“A word?”

It isn’t a request.

You follow him into a side corridor, lit only by the glow of oil lamps and the occasional gleam of polished steel from the weapon racks. The noise of the deck fades behind you.

He stops, turns, and studies you in the silence.

“You’ve unsettled him.”

You blink.

“Hongjoong?”

He nods once.

“He would not speak it aloud, but it is there. In the way he hesitates. In the way he is… different around you.” Seonghwa’s gaze sharpens, a subtle edge creeping into his voice. “You have pulled something loose in him.”

You stay silent.

Because what can you say? That you feel it too? That it scares you?

He steps forward.

“You need to understand something,” he says, his voice low. “He carries more than this crew knows. The choices, the ghosts… he cannot show weakness. Not even once.”

You stiffen.

“And you think I’m a weakness.”

“I think you could be,” Seonghwa says plainly. “Or you could be something else entirely.”

There’s no threat in his words. Just careful honesty.

“So, I need to know, Pyra—”

His voice drops, barely above a whisper.

“What are you really doing here?”

Silence.

Your pulse thrums like a warning drum, but this time… you don’t recoil.

You meet his gaze and answer, honestly:

“I don’t know yet.”

It’s the truth, but it’s not the answer he wants, and it’s the only one you have.

After a pause, Seonghwa exhales slowly. Then nods once.

“Understandable.”

He steps back. “But if that answer changes…”

A flicker of something – not quite menace, not quite mercy, passes over his face.

“Let me be the first to know.”

Then, without waiting for a reply, he turns and walks back toward the sounds of war.

~

Yeosang moves among the cannons with measured precision, sleeves rolled up, hands blackened with powder and grease. Where the others are loud and burning, he is eerily still water, a quiet force of clarity in the chaos.

Hongjoong approaches him, flanked by Yunho.

“You’ll handle the ranged strategy,” the captain says. “San leads boarding. I want our first and last shot coming from you.”

Yeosang doesn’t even look up from the mechanism he’s calibrating.

“They won’t see us coming.”

Hongjoong nods, satisfied.

“Make sure of it.”

Yeosang’s hands pause only briefly – his gaze flicking across the deck toward you, where you’ve just emerged from below.

There’s no judgment in his eyes.

But like Seonghwa’s… there are questions.

And for now, you have no answers.

The sea beyond the gunports gleams gold, restless beneath a bruised sky. Yeosang wipes his hands clean on a worn cloth, double-checking the alignment of the starboard cannons. Around him, the crew moves with purpose, voices low, tension thick. Everyone can feel it: the storm before the strike.

Everything must be exact.

Yeosang doesn’t allow for guesswork – not with lives at stake.

“You’re quiet,” comes a voice behind him.

Jongho.

The youngest crew member leans against a crate, arms crossed, eyes tracking Yeosang’s movements. His brows are knit, not from frustration, but something closer to… worry.

Yeosang doesn’t look up. “I’m always quiet.”

“You’re quieter.”

That earns a glance. Jongho’s gaze isn’t on him, though.

It’s fixed on a small figure across the deck. You, standing alone near the rigging, head lowered, shoulders braced like you’re expecting a wave to hit you at any moment.

Yeosang studies Jongho, then returns to his task. “You’re not the only one who’s been watching her.”

Jongho shifts uncomfortably. “She looks like she doesn’t know whether to run or jump.”

Yeosang’s movements slow. His voice is careful. “Would you blame her?”

Silence. Then Jongho pushes off the crate, restless.

“I just… I don’t get why everyone’s so sure she’s dangerous.”

He swallows. “She looks more lost than anything.”

Yeosang doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he walks over to the cannon closest to the gunport and lifts a small, hinged panel in the deck. Below, a hidden cache of smaller explosive rounds, his invention, nestle in canvas.

“Lost things can still burn,” he says finally.

Jongho frowns. “So can we.”

That draws Yeosang’s eyes up sharply. Jongho meets his gaze, unwavering for once.

“But someone gave us a chance, didn’t they?”

Yeosang holds his stare for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lowers the hatch.

“Keep your eyes open,” he murmurs, a little softer. “But keep your heart guarded.”

Jongho only nods once and steps away, heading toward you. He doesn’t approach, not yet. But he’s closer than he was before. Watching. Guarding.

Yeosang returns to the final cannon, gaze fixed out on the horizon, the gears within his mind clicking and whirring with an emotion he can’t quite place.

The wind has softened, leaving the sails whispering secrets to the sea. Most of the crew is below deck, sleeping or preparing for tomorrow’s strike in silence. Up here, the stars burn sharp and bright. Distant, unreachable.

Jongho leans on the railing, jaw tight, eyes cast toward the dark waters below. The creak of wood behind him doesn’t startle him. He knows the sound of San’s boots.

“Can’t sleep?” San’s voice is quiet, like it belongs to the night.

Jongho shakes his head. Doesn’t answer.

San joins him without asking, forearms braced on the same rail. For a while, there’s only the ocean and the rhythm of sails breathing overhead.

“You’ve been watching her.”

Jongho tenses slightly. But doesn’t deny it.

San continues, his tone unreadable. “I have too.”

Jongho glances at him then. San’s eyes aren’t accusing – they’re reflective. Tired, maybe.

“She’s not what they think,” Jongho says, voice rougher than usual.

San nods. “No. But she’s not harmless either.”

They stand in silence again, the kind that doesn’t press, just fills the space between unspoken truths.

“I don’t think she knows who she is yet,” Jongho murmurs eventually. “But she’s trying. And no one else seems willing to see that.”

San exhales through his nose, something like agreement crossing his features.

“Hongjoong’s walking a line no captain should have to.”

He straightens, looks directly at Jongho.

“So maybe we help keep it steady. Quietly. From the shadows.”

Jongho studies him.

Not a command. Not even a suggestion. Just truth.

He nods. Once.

“Watch her back.”

“And if she turns on us?” San asks softly.

Jongho looks out at the sea, the darkness stretching forever.

“Then we’ll still be the first to see it coming.”

They don’t shake on it. They don’t need to.

In a world of pirates, shadows, and shifting tides, the quiet pact between them is solid enough.

As San walks away, Jongho lingers—just for a moment longer—eyes flicking toward the faint silhouette of the captain’s quarters.

Because even storms deserve someone willing to weather them.

~

The sea is oil-black and still. No gulls. No breeze. Just the creak of the Halcyon’s rigging, and the soft rustle of her sails barely breathing.

She cuts through the water like a knife.

The crew is silent. No laughter. No murmured wagers. Just eyes, focused. Weapons, checked. Blades glinting cold beneath layered coats. Muskets loaded. Pistols primed. The kind of stillness that only comes before war.

San spots the ripple first. A cut in the fog. The unmistakable shape of a mast. Then another. And another.

The Serpent’s Fang.

Without a word, Hongjoong raises his arm.

The trap springs.

Sails lurch. The Halcyon pivots sharply, flanking the convoy’s edge with brutal precision. At the same moment, fire bursts across the line – Yeosang’s explosives detonating on contact, setting one of the Fang’s smaller ships ablaze. Chaos erupts before a single command is shouted.

Cannon fire rips across the water. Chain-shot splinters masts. Hooks bite into hulls. Then come the screams, the clash of steel—chaos.

San launches himself from the rigging like a shadow with teeth, crashing onto enemy decks. His twin blades flash in the morning light, every movement brutal and precise. One down. Another. He doesn’t pause.

Wooyoung’s firebombs spark to life from within the enemy’s cargo—he’d hidden aboard one of the merchant-styled supply ships during the night. When his fires detonate, a chain reaction ignites the lower hulls. He leaps overboard just before the flames reach the gunpowder hold.

Back on the Halcyon, Seonghwa moves like a commander possessed, directing reinforcements across the rails and through the tangled melee with mechanical precision. His sword is sheathed in red already, but he barely flinches—until a flaming arrow pierces the main sail above.

Jongho is on the port side, hauling wounded back and forth under cover. A younger crew-mate screams, pinned beneath fallen rigging—Jongho throws it off with raw strength, shielding them with his body as an enemy blade barely misses his spine.

Yeosang, perched in the crow’s nest, releases a barrage of miniature incendiaries down onto clustered attackers. His bombs explode on contact, ripping through enemy formations.

Amid the smoke and fury of the fray, Mingi is a force of nature – less a man, more a storm with a broadsword. He crashes into the enemy’s front line like a wave, swinging wide and wild, unrelenting. Two Serpent Fang pirates charge him at once; he doesn’t falter. His blade arcs, and one drops. The other he grabs by the collar and hurls into the sea. Blood streaks his cheek, his coat torn, breath heaving with each strike. But he’s laughing, fierce and reckless, driving the enemy back step by step. He doesn’t see the skiff. Doesn’t see the quiet shadows slipping aboard behind him. His focus is locked forward, unaware that the most dangerous battle is no longer ahead.

The Halcyon is cutting through the Serpent’s ranks like a blade through silk—but it comes at a cost. Shouts ring out. Smoke blurs the lines between ally and enemy. The main deck becomes a battlefield of fire, blood, and steel.

And in the chaos, they come.

A low skiff, black as night, coasts silently along the shadow of the Halcyon’s hull. Too fast. Too quiet. Grapples bite into the lower stern. Figures slither aboard like smoke.

The Viper’s men.

Three of them, hooded and masked, moving in formation with practiced silence. They slip through the lower levels, bypassing the main hold.

They know exactly where to go.

One pauses by a door, your door.

Meanwhile, across the smoke-choked battlefield, Hongjoong lifts his head. His eyes lock onto the movement. That feeling. Cold, electric, wrong.

His heart slams against his ribs.

No.

He breaks rank. Barrels past startled crew, ignoring the shouts for retreat. Vaults over fallen beams, slashes down an enemy who lunges in his path. Breath coming hard. Fast.

This isn’t happening, this couldn’t happen.

~

Pyra, knowing wars like these all too well, already knows how this will end.

Not in glory. Not in victory songs. But in blood, smoke, and knee jerk choices that no one walks away from clean.

While the ship shudders with distant cannon fire and the crew shouts orders above deck, you slip from the room they’d told you to stay in. Not a cell, not anymore, but still a cage. You move like a whisper, barefoot and sure, the floorboards cold beneath you. The Halcyon’s belly trembles with every broadside blast.

You find a belt in the crew’s quarters. A small dagger on the desk. You take both. Your hands are steady.

They will come for you. Of course they will.

You are the loose thread, the secret untied. And the Fang always cuts loose ends.

You descend two decks, keeping to the shadows, breath shallow. The smoke is heavier here, filtering in through the cracks in the hull. The scent of blood lingers, familiar. Almost comforting. You’ve lived through sieges before. You know how they move. Where they’ll breach. How they’ll hunt.

You station yourself behind a column near the cargo hold, eyes locked on the hallway ahead. Silent. Waiting.

Then—

A sound.

Not boots.

Gliding steps. Too quiet for a man who belongs to this ship.

A flicker of movement. A flash of a black hood. Another. Then a third.

They’re here.

The Viper’s men. Just as you knew they would be.

And they’re heading straight for you.

You tighten your grip on the dagger. You told yourself you wouldn’t fight. Not for them, not against them.

But something has changed.

You’ve seen the way Hongjoong looked at you. The way he ran for you.

And maybe it’s foolish, but you are tired of being a pawn.

This time, you’ll choose who you bleed for.

~

Hongjoong is running blind.

The battle above still howls behind him. Shouts, steel, the crack of cannon fire, but it’s muffled now, drowned beneath the thrum of blood in his ears. He barrels through corridors like a storm barely holding itself together. His boots slide on the smoke-slick wood, shoulder crashing into walls as he takes each turn too fast.

His only thought: Get to her.

The sight of those hooded men slithering aboard, their path too direct, their purpose too focused. It burned into him like a brand.

They’re not here to sack the Halcyon. They’re here for Pyra.

He shoves open a bulkhead door. Darkness swallows him. The belly of the ship is quieter, colder, thick with smoke and the iron tang of blood.

“Pyra!” he calls, low and sharp.

No response.

Panic curls up his spine. He rounds a corner, seeing a flicker of movement ahead. A glint of steel. A shadow passing. Too fast.

“Pyra!”

He doesn’t see the figure step out behind him until it’s too late.

A blow crashes into the back of his shoulder, hard and deliberate. He stumbles forward, off-balance, and a second attacker slams him sideways into the wall. Steel glints near his throat.

They were waiting.

He fights to breathe, twisting against their hold, drawing a dagger from his belt – but a third figure is already there, wrenching it free and slamming him to the floor with brutal precision.

A knee pins his chest.

One of the masked men crouches beside him, blade at his throat, breath hot through the fabric of his hood.

“You should have stayed above deck, Captain.”

Another hand closes around Hongjoong’s throat. Tightens. His vision begins to blur.

But then – a whistle of air. A dull crunch.

The attacker above him jerks, then topples, collapsing in a heap beside him. The second doesn’t even get a chance to turn.

She’s there. A blur of movement and violence.

Pyra.

The third man lunges for her, but she ducks under his blade, pivots, and drives her dagger upward into his ribs with horrifying precision. A twist. He crumples without a sound.

Silence crashes down.

Hongjoong coughs, dazed, staring up at her.

She’s panting, blood on her hands—not hers. Her chest rises and falls with lethal stillness, eyes wild, glowing faintly in the dark. A shadow of something long buried, now unearthed.

He realises, in that heartbeat, that she didn’t need to be saved.

She chose this. She chose him.

And now nothing will ever be the same.

Your breath rakes through your lungs, harsh and unsteady. Blood drips from the tip of your blade. You don’t feel it, feel anything but the thrum of adrenaline still pounding through your limbs.

Three of them.

Dead at your feet.

The oath you swore long ago – the one they branded into your skin and soul, now lying in pieces beside their cooling bodies.

You don’t look at them. You look at him.

He’s still on the floor, half-propped against the wall, blood on his lip, eyes wide and dark with disbelief. But not fear.

Not of you.

That’s what undoes you.

“Pyra…” His voice is low, hoarse. “What… what did you do?”

Your fingers are trembling. You hadn’t realised until now. You curl them into a fist, force the tremor away.

“I made a choice.”

The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. And gods, they feel heavier than steel.

“They were your people,” he says, not quite a question.

You don’t answer.

He presses anyway, more gently this time. “Weren’t they?”

A beat of silence.

“They were,” you say, finally. “Once.”

It’s all you give him. And yet it’s everything.

His eyes search yours, uncertain, still trying to piece together what it means. A girl once captive aboard his ship… now a killer in its defence.

“You didn’t hesitate,” he murmurs. “Why?”

You could lie. You could say it was instinct. Survival. But something inside you rebels at the thought.

So instead, you give him the only truth you’re ready to admit.

“Because I didn’t want to lose you.”

Silence falls again, heavier now. The fire of battle replaced with something raw, something unfinished.

“I ran down here to save you, I broke rank,” he says, voice low, like he’s only just realising the irony. “And you were the one who ended up saving me.”

You sheath your blade, hands-stained red.

“They taught me how to fight,” you murmur. “They just never expected me to choose someone else.”

His lips twitch—a half smile, pained and reverent. “You’re not what I thought.”

You reach for him, hesitating only a breath before helping him to his feet. He stumbles slightly, and your hands stay at his arms longer than they need to.

And he doesn’t let go.

His grip is steady. Warm. Trusting.

Too trusting.

You hold his gaze, your voice low and sharp, the edges honed not from anger, but warning.

“You couldn’t even begin to fathom what I am, Hongjoong.”

The words cut through the stillness like a blade.

“If you knew what was best – for you, your ship, your crew… you’d stay away.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

But his expression shifts. That reverence dims, not into fear, but something heavier. More dangerous. More determined.

“I’ve never done what’s best for me,” he says quietly. “And I’ve never once regretted it.”

His hand loosens, but only slightly.

“You still think you’re the storm,” he adds. “But Pyra… I’ve weathered worse seas than you.”

Your breath catches.

Because part of you wants to believe him.

Part of you wants to fall into the safety of his certainty. Wants to believe he could carry the weight of you without sinking beneath it.

But you know better.

You shake your head and step out of his release, severing the fragile line that had stretched between you.

“No,” you say, voice low but clear. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”

He opens his mouth, but you cut him off before he can try.

“Why do you think the Fang removed all traces of me from existence?” Your words come steady now, each one a nail hammered into truth. “Why would they go to such depths to keep a girl concealed from the world?”

You keep your gaze on him – not cold, but unwavering. A challenge. A confession. A warning.

“I’m not some secret weapon they misplaced. I’m the mistake they were afraid to name.”

The silence that falls isn’t empty. It’s thick. Charged.

Hongjoong looks at you like he wants to ask a hundred questions, but understands that now isn’t the time for any of them.

Instead, he decides to ask only one. Quiet. Careful.

“What did they do to you?”

And for the first time, something cracks.

But not enough to break.

You blink once, slowly, forcing the flood back behind your eyes.

“That’s not the question you should be asking.”

His brow furrows. “Then what is?”

You take a slow breath. Let it burn on the way out.

“What I’ll do to you… if you don’t stop looking at me like that.”

Like you’re worth saving.

Like you belong here.

Like you haven’t already made the choice that will damn you both.

The silence between you stretches, heavy with words unsaid, when the sound of boot-steps suddenly pierces it – rushed, echoing off the corridor walls. Not measured like before. Urgent.

Seonghwa.

You both register it at once. Hongjoong tenses, jaw tight, but doesn’t step away.

The door swings open, unannounced. Seonghwa storms in, breath sharp, gaze immediately locking onto the two of you. His captain, and their captor, far too close.

His eyes narrow.

“There you are,” he snaps, storm barely restrained in his voice. “What in god’s name are you doing down here?”

Hongjoong straightens slowly but doesn’t flinch. “I had to make sure she was safe.”

“Safe?” Seonghwa strides fully into the room, eyes flicking between you both. “We were attacked. You vanished mid-battle, Hongjoong. Do you have any idea what that did to the crew? To morale?”

“I knew she was the target,” Hongjoong says, flatly. “I couldn’t risk—”

“You’re the captain.” Seonghwa’s voice rises, then levels again with cold, deliberate clarity. “You don’t get to vanish when your crew need you.”

He pauses, chest rising and falling with the restraint of a man who has fought too many battles for someone else’s recklessness.

Then, quieter, his gaze shifts to you.

“They came looking for her, didn’t they?”

You don’t answer. Neither does Hongjoong.

But Seonghwa is no fool. He sees the way your hands are still shaking slightly. The way blood stains your cuffs, Hongjoong. His eyes narrow further.

“You fought them.” he says slowly.

Still, silence.

Hongjoong finally exhales, brushing a hand over his face. “She saved my life.”

Seonghwa stares at him. Then at you. Something shifts in his expression – still sharp, still distrusting, but more cautious now. Measured.

“You,” he points a long, slender finger towards you “Should not need to be saving anyone.”

The Quartermaster turns to you now. “I am not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but saving him does not erase the fact that you were them not long ago.”

He turns back to Hongjoong. “You will need to decide soon, Captain. What you are willing to risk. I cannot keep making justifications for your reckless behaviour.”

His words hang thick in the air. A warning.

Then he’s gone – leaving the door half-ajar, and the echo of the war still rattling the bones of the ship.

You and Hongjoong remain, a breath between storms.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 211 (Mermaids Most Likely)

With Ash and Lavender at the beach (or so they thought!), Heather and Conrad spent the day with Rafa, Melissa, and baby Iris. The young parents-to-be were prepared to let Iris go home with the Gordons, who had all but decided to proceed with the adoption.

Babies grew so quickly, Iris had outgrown her bassinet already! The cherubic infant looked at the world with Ximena's amber eyes, but there was a sweetness to her - innocence untouched by either of the biological parents' whose blood ran through her veins.

But bonding with Iris wasn't the only thing on their minds. "I found the bartender," announced young cop Rafa. "His name's Ukupanipo Hekekia and he lives a bit south of here. He's a bit of a shady character, comes and goes, but he's not involved with kava smuggling and mostly stays off radar."

Heather wanted to join them, but Conrad preferred her to stay behind, just in case. With Ash and Lavender at the beach by themselves, she was content to stay close to Roan and Iris while Conrad investigated the bartender.

Conrad and Rafa made their way to Ukupanipo's waterside home on stilts, but they were surprised to be greeted by a woman in a grass skirt with long curly hair. She looked at both with an impish smile.

"Officers? What can I help you with?"

"My name is Officer Rafael Bonilla, and this is Captain Conrad Gordon; he's visiting from Brindleton Bay with his family, and we're looking for the man whose name's on the lease here," said Rafa, looking official in his officer's cap and jacket. "Have you seen Ukupanipo Hekekia around here the last few days?"

"I don't know him by that name, but he's a friend of mine," she said. "He's not home. I haven't seen him."

"Since when?"

"Since last night. He left to see some friends and he's still gone."

"What friends?"

"I don't know these friends. He's just giving me a place to stay while I get back on my feet."

"And how do you know Mr. Hekekia? What's your name?"

"My name is Hanalei Millen," she said, flashing a piece of ID to prove it to them. "We met years ago on the beach and stayed friends. He helps me out whenever I need an escape from my home. It's not a happy place," she admitted heavily. "But he doesn't judge."

"That's very sweet, Miss Millen, but we need to talk to him about some things he said to my wife at the bar the other night."

"What did he say?"

"We ask the questions, Miss Millen. That's how this works," said Rafa, and Conrad looked around the small shack for a clue to his whereabouts.

"He does tend to put his fin- his foot in his mouth a fair bit. Says plenty he thinks is funny without reading the room first. It's endearing sometimes, but I've told him before that one of these days his mouth will get him in trouble. Now, two handsome cops are standing in his kitchen."

The woman tossed both men a flirtatious smile, drenched in a certain sensuality that seemed almost supernatural - the sort of flirtation that would drown lesser men in a tempest at sea in search of a siren. But Conrad and Rafa were devoted to their partners and walked into the home aware they might be dealing with mermaids.

This Hanalei Millen - if even her real name - was trying to distract them, and they knew she was hiding something. But they stopped short of accusing her. They had to be careful with accusations - especially with a probable mermaid - but a running figure outside pulled their attention toward the sea.

Mohawked Uku sped across the sand, letting his legs carry him into the lagoon as he swam away. Conrad raced out to the end of the dock at the back of the house, but Rafa stopped him before he could jump in.

"Conrad, stop! If he's a mermaid, he's in his element in the water. He'll drag you under and you'll never be strong enough to pull yourself up."

Conrad watched him swim away, cursing to himself, before he turned back inside. Hanalei tried to mask her sneering smile. "Where did he come from?" she asked with feigned innocence.

But without Ukupanipo, they had little to hold her for. They also suspected any further questions would be answered with lies, and Conrad and Rafa cut their visit short. "Your friend can't hide from questions forever," Rafa warned her. "Next time we'll bring a warrant."

The woman smiled. "Maybe you should have brought one today."

Getting nowhere, they turned to leave, but Conrad wasn't ready to write off this lead. "Tell Ukupanipo we just want to know what he meant when he said 'the Landgraabs aren't cursed.'"

The woman wore a boastful grin. "Seems obvious considering how wealthy they are. They control everything, want for nothing, and look down on all of us."

"Not all of them do," Conrad insisted.

"Sounds like this is personal, Captain Gordon."

"What would you do for a son, Miss Millen? Would you try to break a curse to save your kids, too?"

"Your son is a Landgraab?" She frowned. "Poor kid. How old is he?"

"He's almost fourteen and there's almost nothing Landgraab about him except his bloodline."

"I'm sorry...but I can't help you right now. If my friend swims home before you leave Sulani, I'll tell him you're looking for him."

The men thanked her but left in disappointment, no closer to learning anything about breaking a mermaid's curse. Rafa tried to look on the bright side. "At least we know he's still in town for now."

They returned to the small shack off the beach and Heather raced outside when she saw them. Her face crumpled with worry.

"Conrad, they're gone! Ash won't answer his phone. He hasn't checked in for over an hour and he and Lavender aren't on the beach!" she cried.

Conrad's head spun, but he straightened his shoulders. "They can't have gotten far in an hour."

Brave Rafa jumped to action, pulling out his phone to organize a search. "We'll find them," he promised. "I won't sleep until they're back with you at the villa." ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 2.1 Summary | Gen 2.2 Summary

Gen 1 Start | Gen 1 Summary

"Hanalei Millen" was created by @hashimasims and may or may not have told a bunch of lies! If you're following her legacy you may recognize her from this post - if you're new to her story and want to know a little more about her, check out that post! then you'll officially know more than Conrad and Rafa, despite their suspicions!

And yes, she did heart fart Rafa instantly.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prison-tech is a scam - and a harbinger of your future

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Here's how the shitty technology adoption curve works: when you want to roll out a new, abusive technology, look for a group of vulnerable people whose complaints are roundly ignored and subject them to your bad idea. Sand the rough edges off on their bodies and lives. Normalize the technological abuse you seek to inflict.

Next: work your way up the privilege gradient. Maybe you start with prisoners, then work your way up to asylum seekers, parolees and mental patients. Then try it on kids and gig workers. Now, college students and blue collar workers. Climb that curve, bit by bit, until you've reached its apex and everyone is living with your shitty technology:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

Prisoners, asylum seekers, drug addicts and other marginalized people are the involuntary early adopters of every form of disciplinary technology. They are the leading indicators of the ways that technology will be ruining your life in the future. They are the harbingers of all our technological doom.

Which brings me to Minnesota.

Minnesota is one of the first states make prison phone-calls free. This is a big deal, because prison phone-calls are a big business. Prisoners are literally a captive audience, and the telecommunications sector is populated by sociopaths, bred and trained to spot and exploit abusive monopoly opportunities. As states across America locked up more and more people for longer and longer terms, the cost of operating prisons skyrocketed, even as states slashed taxes on the rich and turned a blind eye to tax evasion.

This presented telco predators with an unbeatable opportunity: they approached state prison operators and offered them a bargain: "Let us take over the telephone service to your carceral facility and we will levy eye-watering per-minute charges on the most desperate people in the world. Their families – struggling with one breadwinner behind bars – will find the money to pay this ransom, and we'll split the profits with you, the cash-strapped, incarceration-happy state government."

This was the opening salvo, and it turned into a fantastic little money-spinner. Prison telco companies and state prison operators were the public-private partnership from hell. Prison-tech companies openly funneled money to state coffers in the form of kickbacks, even as they secretly bribed prison officials to let them gouge their inmates and inmates' families:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/mississippi-corrections-corruption-bribery-private-prison-hustle/

As digital technology got cheaper and prison-tech companies got greedier, the low end of the shitty tech adoption curve got a lot more crowded. Prison-tech companies started handing out "free" cheap Android tablets to prisoners, laying the groundwork for the next phase of the scam. Once prisoners had tablets, prisons could get rid of phones altogether and charge prisoners – and their families – even higher rates to place calls right to the prisoner's cell.

Then, prisons could end in-person visits and replace them with sub-skype, postage-stamp-sized videoconferencing, at rates even higher than the voice-call rates. Combine that with a ban on mailing letters to and from prisoners – replaced with a service that charged even higher rates to scan mail sent to prisoners, and then charged prisoners to download the scans – and prison-tech companies could claim to be at the vanguard of prison safety, ending the smuggling of dope-impregnated letters and other contraband into the prison system.

Prison-tech invented some wild shit, like the "digital stamp," a mainstay of industry giant Jpay, which requires prisoners to pay for "stamps" to send or receive a "page" of email. If you're keeping score, you've realized that this is a system where prisoners and their families have to pay for calls, "in-person" visits, handwritten letters, and email.

It goes on: prisons shuttered their libraries and replaced them with ebook stores that charged 2-4 times the prices you'd pay for books on the outside. Prisoners were sold digital music at 200-300% markups relative to, say, iTunes.

Remember, these are prisoners: locked up for years or decades, decades during which their families scraped by with a breadwinner behind bars. Prisoners can earn money, sure – as much as $0.89/hour, doing forced labor for companies that contract with prisons for their workforce:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/

Of course, there's the odd chance for prisoners to make really big bucks – $2-5/day. All they have to do is "volunteer" to fight raging wildfires:

https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-wildfire-california-incarcerated-firefighters-face-dangerous-work-low-pay-and-covid19/

So those $3 digital music tracks are being bought by people earning as little as $0.10/hour. Which makes it especially galling when prisons change prison-tech suppliers, whereupon all that digital music is deleted, wiping prisoners' media collection out – forever (literally, for prisoners serving life terms):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/captive-audience-how-floridas-prisons-and-drm-made-113m-worth-prisoners-music

Let's recap: America goes on a prison rampage, locking up ever-larger numbers of people for ever-longer sentences. Once inside, prisoners had their access to friends and family rationed, along with access to books, music, education and communities outside. This is very bad for prisoners – strong ties to people outside is closely tied to successful reentry – but it's great for state budgets, and for wardens, thanks to kickbacks:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/12/21/family_contact/

Back to Minnesota: when Minnesota became the fourth state in the USA where the state, not prisoners, would pay for prison calls, it seemed like they were finally breaking the vicious cycle in which every dollar ripped off of prisoners' family paid 40 cents to the state treasury:

https://www.kaaltv.com/news/no-cost-phone-calls-for-those-incarcerated-in-minnesota/

But – as Katya Schwenk writes for The Lever – what happened next is "a case study in how prison communication companies and their private equity owners have managed to preserve their symbiotic relationship with state corrections agencies despite reforms — at the major expense of incarcerated people and their families":

https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/

Immediately after the state ended the ransoming of prisoners' phone calls, the private-equity backed prison-tech companies that had dug their mouth-parts into the state's prison jacked up the price of all their other digital services. For example, the price of a digital song in a Minnesota prison just jumped from $1.99 to $2.36 (for prisoners earning as little as $0.25/hour).

As Paul Wright from the Human Rights Defense Center told Schwenk, "The ideal world for the private equity owners of these companies is every prisoner has one of their tablets, and every one of those tablets is hooked up to the bank account of someone outside of prison that they can just drain."

The state's new prison-tech supplier promises to double the amount of kickbacks it pays the state each year, thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, money transfers, and other "services." The perverse incentive isn't hard to spot: the more these prison-tech companies charge, the more kickbacks they pay to the prisons.

The primary prison-tech company for Minnesota's prisons is Viapath (nee Global Tel Link), which pioneered price-gouging on in-prison phone calls. Viapath has spent the past two decades being bought and sold by different private equity firms: Goldman Sachs, Veritas Capital, and now the $46b/year American Securities.

Viapath competes with another private equity-backed prison-tech giant: Aventiv (Securus, Jpay), owned by Platinum Equity. Together, Viapath and Aventiv control 90% of the prison-tech market. These companies have a rap-sheet as long as your arm: bribing wardens, stealing from prisoners and their families, and recording prisoner-attorney calls. But these are the kinds of crimes the state punishes with fines and settlements – not by terminating its contracts with these predators.

These companies continue to flout the law. Minnesota's new free-calls system bans prison-tech companies from paying kickbacks to prisons and prison-officials for telcoms services, so the prison-tech companies have rebranded ebooks, music, and money-transfers as non-communications products, and the kickbacks are bigger than ever.

This is the bottom end of the shitty technology adoption curve. Long before Ubisoft started deleting games that you'd bought a "perpetual license" for, prisoners were having their media ganked by an uncaring corporation that knew it was untouchable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

Revoking your media, charging by the byte for messaging, confiscating things in the name of security and then selling them back to you – these are all tactics that were developed in the prison system, refined, normalized, and then worked up the privilege gradient. Prisoners are living in your technology future. It's just not evenly distributed – yet.

As it happens, prison-tech is at the heart of my next novel, The Bezzle, which comes out on Feb 20. This is a followup to last year's bestselling Red Team Blues, which introduced the world to Marty Hench, a two-fisted, hard-bitten, high-tech forensic accountant who's spent 40 years busting Silicon Valley finance scams:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

In The Bezzle, we travel with Marty back to the mid 2000s (Hench is a kind of tech-scam Zelig and every book is a standalone tale of high-tech ripoffs from a different time and place). Marty's trying to help his old pal Scott Warms, a once-high-flying founder who's fallen prey to California's three-strikes law and is now facing decades in a state pen. As bad as things are, they get worse when the prison starts handing out "free" tablet and closing down the visitation room, the library, and the payphones.

This is an entry to the thing I love most about the Hench novels: the opportunity to turn all this dry, financial skullduggery into high-intensity, high-stakes technothriller plot. For me, Marty Hench is a tool for flensing the scam economy of all its layers of respectability bullshit and exposing the rot at the core.

It's not a coincidence that I've got a book coming out in a week that's about something that's in the news right now. I didn't "predict" this current turn – I observed it. The world comes at you fast and technology news flutters past before you can register it. Luckily, I have a method for capturing this stuff as it happens:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Writing about tech issues that are long-simmering but still in the periphery is a technique I call "predicting the present." It's the technique I used when I wrote Little Brother, about out-of-control state surveillance of the internet. When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA spying in 2013, people acted as though I'd "predicted" the Snowden revelations:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/

But Little Brother and Snowden's own heroic decision have a common origin: the brave whistleblower Mark Klein, who walked into EFF's offices in 2006 and revealed that he'd been ordered by his boss at AT&T to install a beam-splitter into the main fiber trunk so that the NSA could illegally wiretap the entire internet:

https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declaration

Mark Klein inspired me to write Little Brother – but despite national press attention, the Klein revelations didn't put a stop to NSA spying. The NSA was still conducting its lawless surveillance campaign in 2013, when Snowden, disgusted with NSA leadership for lying to Congress under oath, decided to blow the whistle again:

https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73e3d854ad

The assumption that let the NSA get away with mass surveillance was that it would only be weaponized against the people at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve: brown people, mostly in other countries. The Snowden revelations made it clear that these were just the beginning, and sure enough, more than a decade later, we have data-brokers sucking up billions in cop kickbacks to enable warrantless surveillance, while virtually following people to abortion clinics, churches, and protests. Mass surveillance is chugging its way up the shitty tech adoption curve with no sign of stopping.

Like Little Brother, The Bezzle is intended as a kind of virtual flythrough of what life is like further down on that curve – a way for readers who have too much agency to be in the crosshairs of a company like Viapath or Avently right now to wake up before that kind of technology comes for them, and to inspire them to take up the cause of the people further down the curve who are mired in it.

The Bezzle is an intense book, but it's also a very fun story – just like Little Brother. It's a book that lays bare the internal technical workings of so many scams, from multi-level marketing to real-estate investment trusts, from music royalty theft to prison-tech, in the course of an ice-cold revenge plot that keeps twisting to the very last page.

It'll drop in six days. I hope you'll check it out:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hi!! Hope everything is going well!

Could I Please ask for some bottom buggy (mayhaps with some watersports since I saw you had a interest) or some ftm crocodile being fucked into submission!

Have a nice day.

Ftm Sir Crocodile x male reader

Ficlet

I love Sir Crocodile so much 🗣️ 🗣️

Reader is part of Buggy’s crew, cuz I thought that would be hilarious. Reader doesn’t have a devil fruit, but is still super kickass. Hes kind of the information gatherer, smuggler, etc, for the Buggy crew. Reader is also normal human height.

Mixed terminology for Crocs bits. Also, breeding/pregnancy? kink warning ig. but its just mentioned for the fantasy.

The Cross Guild appeared great for any outsider or lesser in the know members, which was most of them. They all saw your captain as someone great and almost godly, thinking he was so much more than he was, but you had been with him for many years, even before the Buggy pirates had even been created. Shortly after the execution of Rogers, Buggy had stumbled into your path and had accidentally saved your life, and from then on you had been by his side.

Most people thought of you as something akin to an accountant or treasurer, wearing an outfit that looked very much like that of a ringmaster, long red tailcoat and top hat and all. You were always one of the first to run away, giving you a reputation of a coward who couldn’t fight.

The only one who truly knew how much of a threat you could be, would be your captain and his inner circle, which you were also part of. You might not have been the strongest physically compared to someone like Mihawk, but no one could gather information like you could, smuggle like you could, or have someone “disappear” like you could. Your network was so extensive that even the one they called Joker, who you knew was none other than Donquixote Doflamingo, was jealous.

That was why you knew everything about Sir Crocodile and Mihawk before the day was over when the Cross Guild was formed. You cowered off to the side, keeping up your weak act as you flinched at their raised voices or the light reflecting off Crocodiles golden claw.

They believed you a weak fool who’s only worth was your quick mind and ability to calculate numbers quicker than most computers, which resulted in them mostly dismissing you. It was a role you basked in and felt comfortable, using it to keep your true identity under wraps. That was until they pushed your captain too far, as Crocodile especially seemed to take great pleasure in antagonizing and hurting your captain.

You were protective, most pirates were, if they felt any sense of loyalty to their captain. It was because of that, that you dug up a trusted contact, a celestial dragon with greater access to seastone than anyone else you knew. Using measurements from the moment’s clothes had to be made, a pair of cuffs in just the perfect size soon arrived to you with the post.

It was easy to press Crocodiles buttons, to get him worked up by acting stupid and pathetic, just the way you knew made his blood boil. It was even easier to enrage him so far that he chased after you, so blinded by his anger that he didn’t even notice how you kept avoiding his sand, or how you were leading him further and further away from the rest of the guild.

When he finally caught up, Crocodile caged you against the wall, hook digging into the drywall as he almost snarled down at you, cigar crunched between his teeth as his purple eyes blazed. But mild confusion crossed his face as your fearful expression dropped, his body straightening as your eyes met his head on. Before Crocodile could order an explanation, a feeling of weakness crashed through his body, making his knees buckle enough that you had to catch him, supporting his towering weight and bulk.

His vision swam as you started dragging him along, his feet dragging along the floor because of his height compared to your own. Crocodile felt dizzy and mildly nauseous, his eyes finally catching the heavy bands around his wrist, the one he still had left. “ssseastone?” he slurred out, voice lighter than the growl you were used too, cigar long forgotten somewhere along the journey.

In the beginning, you had planned on torturing him, the blades strapped to your person burning at the thought, but as you threw him down almost carelessly on a barely clad bed, a different through passed through your mind.

A slight thrill ran down your spine as his purple eyes burnt into you, his usual anger still present, but mixed with something else, something deeper and hungrier. Soft pants left Crocodiles lips, sounding faintly struggled as the seastone drained the power from his body, leaving him limp and pliant.

You could see the heat rising to Crocodiles cheekbones as you started stripping off your usual getup, tailcoat slid off your shoulders and neatly folded, top hat placed down with care. “What the hell are you doing…” Crocodile rasped from the bed, his pupils blown as an unfamiliar need unfolded inside him, the familiar thrum of pleasure running through body.

Maybe it was his weakened state, but he swore his cunt was pulsing with need, especially as you unbuttoned the stark white shirt you always wore, revealing a tightly muscled and heavily scarred body underneath, leather straps adorned with vials and weapons stretched across your torso.

Crocodile tried to shuffle his legs, maybe to squeeze his thighs together, or to spread them further apart, he wasn’t sure, but all he could do was a minimal twitch and jolt. “I planned on cutting you up, making you beg for mercy. But from the looks of it… you wouldn’t mind some other kind of discipline” you murmur, almost stalking towards him where Crocodile was splayed out on top of the white sheets.

You could see all his muscles tense as you let your hands climb up his legs, up his thighs and stomach, traveling all the way up his arms towards his hook. A choked off noise leaves Crocodile as you remove his hook with ease, like you had done it a thousand times before, placing it off to the side with care.

“Behave yourself” you tell him, squeezing the sides of his jaw to make his lips part. Crocodile tried to growl or snap a threat, to snap his teeth at you or somehow fight back, but his body was mostly unresponsive, his tongue feeling thick and useless in his mouth.

A shiver of anticipation ran through Crocodile as you moved again, settling between his thick spread thighs. Your eyes met as you reach for his belt, your brow lifting as if asking if he wanted you to stop. You may be a pirate, but you had class and manners, at least when it came to stuff like this.

But when all Crocodile responded with was a sour expression and glare, you make easy work of his belt and slacks, tugging them down his hips and legs, throwing them off to the side with little care. Your disregard for his clothes made Crocodile grumble, but the noise was quickly silenced as you pressed your entire hand against his slick underwear, fingers teasing his hard t-cock and soaked folds.

“Tsk tsk, look at you, bet you just need someone to put you in your place, is that it?” you mumble in an almost mocking tone, looking up at him with an almost feral hunger in your eyes. Crocodile chokes on the words that want to form in his throat, some kind of rebuttal perhaps, that he would never want someone as low as you to do anything to him, but as you pinch his cock between your fingers, it morphs into a shaky moan.

Crocodile’s boxers as easily pulled off, thrown to the floor with a damp plap, making his face redden further as you only find amusement in the obvious sign of his arousal. Kicking off your pants and boxers, you crawl up the bed and sit between his thick thighs, pushing them further apart to expose where he only grows slicker, hole clenching around nothing as if begging you to fill it.

“What would they say, seeing the great Sir Crocodile, spread out like this, ready to take the cock of a feeble weak treasurer” you taunt, pressing your hips closer to his, so that you could drag the tip of your cock up and down through his folds. The act has Crocodile arching as good as he can with the cuff on, his eyes squeezing shut as he clenches his jaw, a breathy noise leaving him, folds only growing slicker around you.

Maybe it was your size difference, with you being average human size, compared to Crocodiles almost 9 feet, or maybe it was his gut deep arousal, but his hole didn’t need much prep for you to be able to fit inside.

That didn’t mean you were just gonna give it to him, since this was supposed to be a lesson. A stuttery moan spills almost silently from Crocodiles lips as your fingers rub through his folds, barely pressing against where he wants you the most. He had never imagined himself in a situation like this, splayed out and dripping for you, someone he had always just seen as a nuisance, but here he was.

“Come on Crocodile… ask nicely” your tone is almost cruel as you push only two fingers inside him, barely felt because of his size, but just enough to rub against his wet gummy insides and leave him aching for more. Crocodiles jaw clenches, barring his teeth as his head weakly rolls to the side, as if to hide his face into the sheets.

“Or… I could just leave you here, thighs spread open, cunt glistening with want. Im sure someone will pass by, and who wouldn’t want a chance to fill this” as if to exaggerate your point, you push two more fingers into his slick hole, burying them as deep as possible into Crocodiles wet insides, punching a gasp out of him.

Crocodile seems to debate it, if he wants to put his pride aside for someone like you, but his thoughtprocess is knocked off course as you pinch his cock with your free hand, twisting it cruelly. Had he not been wearing the seastone cuff, his thighs would have clamped shut and a shout would have left him, but now all his body could do was tense up as a wet keen tumbled out of him.

“P…please” Crocodile finally mumbles, voice small and almost shy, but it can barely be heard over the wet slick sounds of your fingers thrusting in and out of him, his wetness running down your palm and wrist in the process.

“Hm?” you hum, the questioning tone in it clear, as if you didn’t hear him at all, giving his cock another twist just because you could. “fuck me… please…” is gasped out, Crocodiles insides clenching around your slick fingers as they rub and prod around inside him.

Your fingers movements slow to a stop, silence filling the room long enough for Crocodile to peek an eye open and look down at you. Your eyes are intense as they bore into his, the predatory flare in them making Crocodiles insides quiver. “Normally id demand better than that, but I’m starting to pity you” you scoff out, withdrawing your fingers from his hold with a slick noise.

Instead of wiping them off on the sheets, you use the large amount of slick that had gathered in your palm to slick up your shaft, releasing a huffed exhale as Crocodiles eyes widen at the sight. “I’ve thought about making you ride me, so you’ll have to make yourself take it, but we can’t do that right now, can we” you eye the cuff around his one wrist, making Crocodile growl and spit out a weak warbled “fuck you”

His insult carries no heat, clearly only for show, his glare quickly wiped off his face as you finally push inside him. Crocodile needs little time to adjust, resulting in you almost immediately setting a bruising rough pace, drawing in and out of him with loud wet slick noises, his hole gripping onto you as he gasps and moans.

Reaching down, you push his shirt up just enough to splay a hand across his lower stomach, a foxlike grin spreading across your lips as you watch his hips weakly roll into your own. “If you weren’t such an asshole, I could fuck you whenever. Imagine that Crocodile, walking around, cunt leaking my cum, as you try to play tough.” You chuckle darkly, tone thick and hungry in the way only a predatory animal could possess.

As your cock rams into that sensitive spot inside him, Crocodile is finally starting to realize you are truly more than you seem, his cunt drooling a wet puddle under him on the sheets as you take him with a new hunger, a glint appearing in your eyes as your hand presses down harder on his stomach.

“I could knock you up you know, right here.” Is hissed out as you bottom out inside Crocodile, the words making him tighten up and shiver in want. “No one would find you so scary then, would they Crocodile. Waddling around, fat with my kid” you purr, letting both your hands splay across his stomach. It was all fantasy, but by God did it make Crocodile wet and wanting. Something about the fantasy of you, some lesser subordinate knocking him, Sir Crocodile, up, had him seeing double.

The seastone didn’t help with his woozy state, all attempts at forming words only becoming half formed and slurred, Crocodiles eyes going wet and glassy as that familiar feeling spread through his body. “in… inside me…” Crocodile slurs as you curse to yourself, clearly close to the finish line as well. Had it not been for the cuffs, he would have thrown his legs around you, squeezing you against his body to keep you inside him, but all he could do now was beg.

Crocodiles pride crumbled as your fingers squeezed his cock one last time, a pure orgasmic expression crossing his face as he gasped and moaned, his entire body twitching weakly as he came, wetting your cock and the sheets even further as the feeling thrummed through his entire body.

With a deep groan you bottom out inside Crocodile for a last time, letting your eyes squeeze shut as you spill inside him, coating his insides in a thick coat of white. Crocodile whimpers weakly at the feeling, trying to squeeze around you as if to milk your length for more.

He slumps against the sheets further than he already is, eyes falling shut in a relaxed exhausted expression. Crocodile barely notices as you pull out, white leaking out from between his folds to join his own mess on the sheets. He barely even notices you cleaning him up, only twitching and gasping softly when you clean up between his legs.

Its only when the seastone cuff leaves his wrist that Crocodile returns to himself somewhat, as the familiar feeling of his devilfruit washes through his body again. Squinting his eyes open, he catches sight of you getting dressed again, tucking on your shirt, then your coat, and lastly placing your hat on top of your head.

Even with his devilfruit returned to him, Crocodile still feels weak and exhausted, but the good type of exhausted one only gets after a good fuck. Part of him wants to ask you to stay, to hold him and pet his hair, to maybe mumble more dirty fantasies about knocking him up, and how you’d make him live as your pretty little housewife. But instead, Crocodile just grunts to get your attention, his attempt to demand to know where you are going.

“I have to get back to the others, since ill be taking over your duties for the rest of the day and tomorrow” you say, voice resolute and not allowing any denial or struggle. And normally Crocodile would have growled and rejected anyone taking over his duties, but for some reason, the idea of you taking care of him made him relax deeper into the bed, muscles lax and thoughts empty and calm for once.

Approaching him, you press a soft kiss to his forehead before telling him “this room is hidden away from everyone else, so take all the time you need. Ill check up on you later” as you pat his cheek. After telling him where the bathroom is, where he could find towels and replacement sheets and blankets, you were on your way, leaving Crocodile on his lonesome.

It took a while, but he finally pushed himself into a seated position before getting to his feet. The feeling of your cum trickling down the insides of his thighs as the familiar heat of arousal burning inside him once more, making Crocodile shuffle towards the bathroom you had pointed him towards. Even though you had just left, he could still get himself off a few more times from just the memory alone.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be disciplined by you, he wondered how you’d react if he caused issues with your smuggling routes. The idea sent a line of heat up his spine as he stepped into the shower, hand quickly traveling between his thighs, fingers burying themselves into his still sensitive hole, fantasies of hungry glare and cruel fingers filling his mind.