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demons-and-demigods · 5 months

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Demons and Demigods Part Twelve: Written Scene #7: The Storm

Sorry for the long wait, my darlings, but it is finally here! This part got a little away from me, I will admit. But! I had a lot of fun writing it (even though it took me so long) and I hope that y'all have fun reading it <3 Thank you for being patient with me, and I hope this part makes up for the wait (at least a little)! Now, enjoy 8.7k words of everyone getting a little fucked up 😈

A storm raged around them, violently rocking the boat as the wind and the waves savegely tore at them. Somehow, Jason managed to drag himself above deck to join the rest of his friends (save Hazel, who was busy trying not to hurl her guts out). He swept his gaze across the ship, trying to account for everyone. Leo had lashed himself to the control console with a bungee harness of some kind, Annabeth and Piper were trying to save the rigging, and the gorilla that Jason assumed to be Frank was trying to untangle some broken oars. Even Festus the dragon head was trying to help, spouting flames at the rain, though it did nothing to discourage the storm.

The only person who seemed to be having any luck at all was Percy. Which, yeah, made sense and all, but it was still mind-boggling and more than a little disconcerting to see Percy standing there in the middle of the deck, completely dry and unbothered by the raging squall while everyone else was barely hanging on.

It was mesmerizing, almost, to watch Percy. He stood with his eyes closed and arms outstretched to either side, palms up. When a wave crashed into the hull, Percy would tilt his head and another wave would rise up on the opposite side of the boat to level them out. He’d curl his fingers as a large wave bore down on them and an even larger wave would grow to swallow it up and stop it from reaching the deck. He jerked his chin, and the rigging Piper and Annabeth were working on righted itself. He flicked his wrist, and the broken oars gorilla-Frank had been trying to detangle went flying.

Jason had the sudden realization that if not for Percy, the Argo II would have been capsized or smashed to bits almost immediately. It was not looking good for them.

Jason staggered his way toward the center mast, praying that he wouldn’t get knocked off his feet before he got there. Leo saw him and shouted, probably telling him to get back in bed or something, but it was impossible to hear over the storm. He just waved.

Thankfully, he managed to reach the mast without being sent overboard by the violent rocking of the ship. Percy opened his eyes and grinned at him as soon as he got close, almost like he had somehow known that Jason was there. It was a little creepy, but Jason couldn’t care less.

Percy was the only one who didn’t start treating him like fragile glass after his injury. Percy treated him just as he always had, seemingly trusting him to know his own limits, and Jason was beyond thankful for it. It made him feel less like he was on death row.

Jason smiled back at the son of Poseidon and then made a frantic grab for the mast when the ship gave a sudden, particularly violent lurch. Though, to his surprise, Jason found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move. The ship lurched again but Jason remained right where he was. He tried to take a step only to find it impossible to move his leg.

His limbs felt leaden, and he realized he couldn’t move at all. It wasn’t just his legs that had locked up, but his arms and head too. Jason panicked. What the fuck was happening to him?

But then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it was over; the ship rocked again and Jason stumbled forward, no longer frozen in place. He latched onto the center mast, panting as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.

He glanced at Percy and found the other demigod watching him with concern, though there was something else in his expression that Jason couldn’t quite figure out. (He shrugged that off, though. Ever since he and Annabeth had come back from the Pit, it wasn’t unusual to find Percy with an unreadable expression on his face and some strange emotion swirling behind his far away gaze. It was always disconcerting to see his usually grinning face wear such a tumultuous expression when he thought no one was looking. Jason didn’t know if anyone else had noticed, but he’d been allowed little else to do besides watching his friends. Shit, if Jason hadn’t been injured and practically put on bedrest by his girlfriend and best friend, he doubted that he would have noticed anything going on with Percy either.)

Jason waved off Percy’s concern with a thumbs up and a shaky grin. Percy seemed to take that to mean that he was fine and started gesturing.

“—THING . . . UNDER . . . STOP IT!” he shouted, though half his words were lost to the wind as he pointed over the side of the boat.

Jason cocked an eyebrow at him and gestured vaguely at his ears. I can’t hear you, he mouthed.

Percy huffed and rolled his eyes. He pointed first to himself then to Jason, and then over the side of the ship again. He mimed diving into the water and pointed at the two of them again.

Jason tried to convey ‘You want me to go with you? Are you sure?’ and ‘I can’t breathe underwater, dude’ with his expression.

Percy rolled his eyes again and pointed at the storm clouds roiling above them, then took a running leap and dived overboard.

Jason looked up to see Piper and Annabeth giving him matching ‘Are you crazy?’ looks, to which he just smiled and shrugged. He turned his attention to the storm and his eyes widened as he sensed angry venti swirling around up there. How the fuck had Percy known they were up there before he did?

Whatever, that would be a question for another time. Right now, he needed to find a way to follow Percy.

Jason stretched out his arm and imagined his will as a rope of wind, flinging it into the swirling mob of venti. He sought out the nastiest ventus he could find and snared it with his wind rope, tugging it down to form a cocoon around him as he jumped into the water.

Immediately, he was surrounded by an eerie silence, his own breathing nearly deafening in comparison. It sent a shiver down his spine, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

He scanned the water around him through the filter of his personal cyclone. (Which, thankfully, allowed him to breathe. The air smelled strongly of ozone and the ventus was definitely not happy with the arrangement, but at least it was breathable air and Jason was strong enough to force the wind spirit to remain in place.) There was something about the ocean that had always set Jason on edge, more than the Roman’s hatred of it and his father’s rivalry with Neptune.

It was similar enough to the sky, Jason supposed, in that they both stretched as far as the eye could see. But the sky had nothing to hide. Even full of clouds, nothing could remain obscured in the sky for long. The ocean, however, Jason shuddered. There was so much they didn’t know about it, more than just mythological beings and creatures evaded the notice of everyone who sought to know the oceans. So much was still unknown and unexplored, and the light only reached so little.

Anything could be lurking in the depths of the oceans. Anything could be waiting just out of sight, hidden by the cloying darkness of deeper waters.

In the sky, Jason felt secure, always aware of everything around him, cocooned in a blanket of wind and air. But underwater, Jason felt horribly exposed. His senses couldn’t expand into the area around him like they could in the sky, and he couldn’t sense let alone see all of his blind spots at all times. He was just out in the open, unprotected and unprepared; he would have no clue if something snuck up behind him, no time to react if something came hurtling out of the dark to attack him.

Thalassophobia, Jason thought he’d heard it called before: the fear of large bodies of open water; although ‘fear’ didn’t feel like the right word, didn’t quite cover the absolute terror that gnawed on his bones.

And here, floating in the middle of nowhere in the open ocean in his little personal tornado of lassoed air, a violent storm raging on the surface above him and who knows what waiting who knows how far below him.

With nothing but dark, gloomy water surrounding him, Jason was terrified.

But then, he spotted Percy.

The son of Poseidon hung suspended in the dark water, illuminated only by the soft bronze glow of his sword. His long, inky black hair seemed to leach the light out of the water surrounding him as it floated around his head like a dark halo, dancing in some imperceptible current. His outline flickered, his form broken in places and replaced by dark, writhing masses of tentacles and stark, bony protrusions. He looked both unimaginably large, as ancient as the oceans themselves and just as monstrous, and like his skin was stretched too thin over bones that were too long with edges too sharp to be wholly human. He was dark and all-encompassing, filling the water with an inescapable presence, yet he was also pale and haunting, skin near translucent as it gave off an eerie glow.

His body was threatening to rip apart at the seams, unable to contain the esoteric power lurking just beneath the surface. An arcane aura leaked from his ruptured mortal form, permeating the ocean around him and filling Jason’s mind with static.

The eldritch creature playing at mortality turned its head to look at him and Jason realized that he had never felt true terror until that moment. Its face was that of nightmares; it had no lips, just thin, bloody ribbons of flesh stretched too far across a dark, gaping maw filled with rows and rows of razor-sharp serrated teeth. Its eyes were unsettlingly vivid, as though the saturation of the creature’s eyes had been dialed up to eleven, swirling blue-green voids that lacked sclera and pupils. Within those effervescent eyes, Jason swore he could see all the world’s oceans at once; raging storms and roaring waves, plunging trenches and abyssal depths dark enough to drive one mad.

Its very presence emanated a dissonant, distorted screeching that Jason could feel vibrating through his bones, filling the surrounding water with static. Jason thought his eardrums might burst with the intensity of the high-pitched ringing and feared his insides might liquify from the infra- and ultrasonic frequencies he could feel quivering through his flesh and bones.

Jason felt his mind begin to fracture as he stared at the being before him, pressure built behind his eyes and limbs seemed to have turned to jelly. He knew he needed to look away before his mortal body exploded or something, but he was powerless to make himself move, trapped in the vortex of its aura. He felt drawn to the creature, unable to bring himself to avert his gaze. He had no control over his body, locked in place by the deity’s whirlpool eyes.

A scream built in his throat, but he had no breath with which to voice it. He teetered on the brink of madness, but he had nothing to grasp at to pull himself away from the edge. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him, but he couldn’t hear it over the static filling his head. He wanted to claw at his ears until it stopped and left him in blissful silence, he wanted to scratch out his eyes to relieve the pressure that had made a home behind them, he wanted to tear himself open to assure himself that the pounding in his chest was that of his still-beating heart and not some vestigial part of the monster looming before him. He needed to fill the yawning, cavernous void that had taken up residence in the place where his lungs should have been.

His blood moved sluggishly through his veins where they burned beneath his skin. He was coming apart, his atoms threatening to fly apart, on the verge of disintegrating. He was nothing more than a tiny pest to this primordial of the seas, barely worth the effort it took this eldritch horror to kill him. His being was infinitesimal in comparison to this primeval monster, little more than a speck of dust floating through its waters. This was all the waters of the earth given form, and it was enraged at their treatment. And in that moment, he knew.

He was going to die.

Then, everything snapped back into place and Jason gasped.

Air, sweet, ozone-scented air, filled his lungs and Jason could have cried. He clutched his chest and heaved frantic breaths into his aching lungs. He looked up and saw Percy hovering in front of him with a worried expression on his now normal-looking face. Jason’s heart pounded in his chest as he searched Percy’s face for any trace of the Lovecraftian nightmare that had been clawing its way out of his skin just moments before.

“Jason, hey, are you alright, dude? You with me?” Percy said, though Jason had no idea how he could hear him so clearly under the water. He nodded slowly and ignored Percy’s puzzled look.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, man. Sorry, just not a fan of the open ocean I guess,” Jason said and tried to laugh it off.

Percy’s eyes narrowed, his gaze intense and searching, boring into Jason’s soul as though he could pluck the truth from Jason’s psyche if he stared long enough. Thankfully, though, before Jason could buckle under the strength of Percy’s gaze, a beam of bright green light split the darkness in front of them like a spotlight before it disappeared, coming from the depths of the chasm Percy had been hovering over the edge of.

Percy snapped his head around to stare over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. “I was waiting for you before going to check it out, but I’d bet that whatever is causing this storm, is also the source of that light,” he said, glancing back at Jason. “Come on, let’s go.”

As they sank deeper and deeper into the chasm and fell further and further away from the sun, Jason couldn’t shake the horrifying vision from his mind or the sense of unease in his stomach. It grew darker and darker until the only light came from Percy’s sword.

Though, if Jason looked too long at his friend, he could swear that Percy began to glow too; an eerie, pale blue light seemed to emanate from strange markings on his skin, as though he was bioluminescent or something. A handful of his scars shed golden light into the water as his eyes illuminated the way ahead of them like headlights. It was fucking creepy, Jason thought, if kinda fascinating. (He wondered if Percy knew that he glowed, if Annabeth knew. He wondered if Percy only became bioluminescent underwater, or if he would light up in a dark room, too. Despite his curiosity, though, Jason couldn’t bring himself to say anything to the other demigod, the image of the savage creature tenuously caged beneath his skin still too fresh on Jason’s mind.)

Eventually, the water began to lighten around them, and Jason saw the glowing ruins of a palace or something appear out of the dark haze before them. As they drifted toward the remains of a partially collapsed dome, Jason stared around the ruins with wide-eyed amazement.

“What do you think this place was?” Jason asked reverently, yearning to reach out and run his fingers along the crumbling structures but unwilling to risk breaching his ventus cocoon just yet to do so. “Atlantis?”

Percy snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Nah, Atlantis is just a myth.”

Jason squinted at his friend. “Uh, don’t we literally deal with myths like, everyday? Aren’t we technically a myth ourselves?”

Percy rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “You know what I mean, dude. Atlantis is a made-up myth, not, like, an actually true myth. Plus, Plato never intended anyone to believe in Atlantis, it was only ever meant to be a parable, to serve as an allegory to the hubris of nations and a cautionary tale warning against its dangers.” He shrugged. “All that flew over a lot of people’s heads though, and the original purpose of the Lost City of Atlantis was overshadowed by a bunch of idiots and their desire to find a place that was never real.”

Jason gave Percy an incredulous, wide-eyed stare.

“What?” Percy asked, defensive. “My mom is a published author, my stepdad is an English Lit teacher, and I’m dating Annabeth who loves ancient Greek philosophers and playwrights. I pick up a thing a two.”

Jason often forgot that Percy was a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for, and he was pretty sure that was something Percy did on purpose. It was something he’d noticed about the son of Poseidon before, but he played the part of ‘dorky fool’ so well that it was nearly impossible not to fall for the act. Though he was never sure if it was an act that Percy himself actually believed or not.

But rather than bring that up right then, Jason just shrugged and held his hands up in surrender. “Fair enough, Jackson,” he laughed. “But if not Atlantis, then what was it?”

“I don’t know,” Percy said, face scrunched up in concentration. “But it feels familiar, like I’ve been here before or something . . .” he trailed off, leaning in to study some markings carved into the domed roof in front of them.

“Maybe you have,” Jason said playfully. “Maybe you saw it in one of your weird-ass dreams; I’ve been told that they’re a lot more intense and prophetic than the average demigod’s.”

“Oh, shut up, Grace,” Percy snarked back. “My dreams suck ass, but they’re not anything special. Besides, I always remember my dreams. This is something else.” He reached up to ghost his fingers over one of the markings.

Then, that brilliant green spotlight flashed directly beneath them, blinding Jason for a moment.

He dropped like a stone until his feet hit what felt like solid marble. When he finally managed to blink the spots from his eyes, he realized that they’d found the source of the storm.

An ethereal woman in a flowing green dress cinched at her waist with a belt of abalone shells hovered before them. She had to have been close to twenty feet tall, though she shrank to something closer to ten at their startled entrance. Her skin was a soft, luminous white, mirroring the fields of algae covering the underwater ruins. Her hair fell across her shoulders in gossamer strands reminiscent of jellyfish tentacles, some swaying as though caught in a gentle current. Her face was as haunting as it was beautiful; her eyes too bright, her features too delicate, and her smile too cold, as though she’d studied human behavior but hadn’t quite managed to master replicating it.

Before her stood a tall, marble pedestal, atop which rested a large, mirrored disk. Her long, slender fingers danced along its edge before she sent it spinning, and the green light cut through the water again. The water churned, shaking the palace ruins. Shards of stone from the domed ceiling broke off and slowly sank down to settle on the marble floor.

“You’re causing the storm,” Jason said, careful to keep the accusation from his voice.

The woman laughed, a sharp, violent sound like the crashing of waves. “That I am,” she said. Her voice was melodious, though it had a strange resonance, one that reminded him of the horrible ringing sound the creature clawing its way free of Percy’s form had emanated, like it extended beyond the range humans had the ability to process. That same, static pressure built up behind Jason’s eyes and his sinuses threatened to explode.

Percy, both thankfully and annoyingly, appeared unaffected. He just tilted his head and squinted at her. “I’ll bite,” he said, and Jason saw a flash of that dark, gaping maw full of razor-sharp fangs. “Who are you and what the fuck do you want?”

A manic glee sparked in the woman’s eyes and her smile sharpened, sending an involuntary shiver down Jason’s spine. “Why, I am your sister, Percy Jackson. And I wanted the chance to meet you before you die.”

Percy tilted his head and squinted at the goddess. Jason tried to resist the urge to reach up and massage his sinuses which still felt like they were about to explode.

Percy hummed and crossed his arms. “Y’know, I’m not super well-versed in mythology involving Dad, so I’m not sure who all my godly siblings are, but . . .” he gave the goddess a long, considering look before he nodded. “I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you’re Kymopoleia, goddess of violent sea storms if I remember correctly?”

The goddess’s eyes widened slightly in shock. “Most have never heard of me, little brother. I am surprised, yet none-the-less pleased that you do know me.”

Percy shrugged. “At some point after I accidentally blew up Mount St. Helens—”

Jason choked on air and started coughing. “After you what?” he asked incredulously, but Percy and Kymopoleia ignored him and continued on as though he hadn’t said anything.

“—I’m pretty sure I heard Dad mutter something under his breath like, ‘I pray you never meet Kymopoleia,’ and I got curious, so I looked into the name.” He shrugged again. “Oh, and I’m just gonna call you Kym. Kymopoleia is a bit of a struggle and also it takes too long.”

Jason watched the interaction carefully. Percy spoke so casually to the goddess it kind of freaked Jason out. But he’d heard enough stories to know that it was common practice for the son of Poseidon to be so irreverent.

For her part, Kym appeared amused rather than angry at least.

“I’ll consider it an honor to get a Perseus Jackson nickname before you die,” she said with another spin of her disk.

“I don’t suppose catching our ship in your massive storm was an accident, was it?” Percy asked with a resigned sigh.

“No, no it was not,” she said.

“And there’s no chance that you’ll cut it out if we ask nicely?”

“Not a one. Though I am rather impressed that your ship has held together this long; excellent workmanship.”

Sparks flew along Jason’s arms and into his ventus tornado. He thought about Piper and Leo, Annabeth and Frank and Hazel up there frantically fighting to survive the storm. He and Percy had left them defenseless up there. They had to end this and they had to end it soon.

“My Lady,” Jason broke in before Percy could say anything to potentially aggravate the goddess, “Is there anything we can do to get you to change your mind and let us get on our way?”

Kym turned her faintly glowing eyes to him and tilted her head. “Son of Jupiter,” she said dryly. “Do you know where we are? What this place once was?”

“Uh,” he said, glancing at the crumbling structure around them. “These ruins? Uh, maybe it was a palace at some point?”

Percy snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “Dad’s new place in the Atlantic looks pretty similar to this. Last I was over there, it was almost done.”

Jason gave Percy an incredulous look. He’d actually been to his father’s domain? To his palace? What the fuck was with this guy and the gods?

Kym made a frustrated noise and crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t know,” she huffed. “I’m not allowed in our father’s court. He finds my presence disruptive,” she hissed, and gave her storm-disk a harsh spin.

“I can’t imagine why.” Jason gave her a skeptical look as the ruins shook and more pieces fell slowly through the water around them.

“I know!” she threw her hands up in exasperation. “I am an absolute delight to be around! I’m certainly better company than my total bore of a brother Triton,” she pouted and crossed her arms again.

“Ugh, definitely!” Percy agreed. “I’ve met Triton and honestly, he’s such a pain in the ass!”

Kym smiled. “Finally!” she said. “Someone who sees sense! He is such a πομπώδης μαλάκας!”

Whatever that last thing meant, Jason had no idea as the Ancient Greek didn’t come to him, but he could only assume it was some kind of insult because Percy laughed.

“Exactly! He never shuts up! He’s all ‘I am Father’s heir’ and ‘Father only likes you because you’re useful’ and it’s just like, ‘look, you absolute douche-nozzle, you’re both immortal! You’re not gonna inherit shit, ass-wipe,’ I mean, honestly!” Percy said, presumably mimicking Triton with comically furrowed brows and a fierce scowl, his chest puffed up and chin raised to look down his nose at an imaginary person.

Kym burst into giggles (which reminded Jason of the clicks and whistles of dolphins). “Oh my—He sounds just like that!” she said, doubling over and clutching her stomach as she laughed. “Oh, that is just perfect,” she snickered. “I can see why Father hoped we might never meet, Perseus. You and I would have gotten along splendidly.”

“Just Percy, please,” Percy said with a playful bow. “Only my enemies call me Perseus and I’d really prefer if I didn’t have to fight you.”

Kym let out a dramatic sigh. “I don’t want to fight you either, little brother,” she said. “Unfortunately, Gaea really wants your blood, and she’s made me a wonderful offer that I just couldn’t refuse.” she shrugged and flashed a shark-like smile. “Gaea will allow me to wreak whatever havoc I please once she has risen so long as I help her and her children destroy the gods.”

Jason tensed as the water around them seemed to shudder, he saw Percy do the same. He pulled his gold coin from his pocket and flipped it to summon his sword.

“Now, I believe there’s someone here who is just dying to see you again, Percy. I do hope you can forgive me.” Kym gave them a faux-apologetic look.

“PERSEUS JACKSON!” a thunderous voice boomed, sending ripples through the water and making the ruins tremble.

Percy’s face twisted into a dark, angry scowl.

“Do you know who that is?” Jason asked, tightening his grip on his sword.

“Polybotes,” Percy snarled. “The anti-Poseidon. I’ve already killed him once; I guess he really wants a rematch.”

Just then, the Giant rounded a corner ahead of them and Jason barely stopped a disgusted noise from escaping him. He’d thought the other Giants he’d met had been ugly, but Polybotes might just take the cake.

Even underwater, the guy managed to look greasy and oily, like he had never heard of a shower before. He was absolutely massive, towering close to thirty feet or more in height if Jason had to guess. Like all Giants, he had scaled reptilian legs. His hair hung like shriveled up seaweed around his face. His skin was a murky blue, like the color of poluted water. His eyes were sharp and cruel as a hungry smirk spread across his harsh, mottled face. When he shook his head, basilisks fell from his hair and began circling in the water, hissing and letting out little bursts of flame.

“I hunted you through Tartarus, son of Poseidon, and you managed to escape me then, but there will be no escape for you now!” Polybotes laughed cruelly.

Percy snorted and raised his sword. “I killed you before with only a river to lend me strength; what makes you think you stand a chance against me here in mY dOmAIn?” Percy snarled, lips curled up in an equally cruel grin. His voice reverberated through the water the same way that eerie ringing that emanated from that creature hiding beneath his skin had. It shuddered through Jason’s bones and the pressure that had finally begun to fade from his sinuses returned with a vengeance.

Polybotes barked out a laugh. “HA! Whether you are stronger here or not, little demigod, you cannot kill me without the aid of a god. And there are no gods here willing to aid you, sea scum.”

Percy’s grin turned sharp and deadly as his form seemed to ripple, the monstrous horror lurking within his flesh straining at the seams to get free. “WHaT maKeS YOu tHiNk I NEeD a gOd?”

He lunged.

A few of the basilisks hurled themselves at him, but Percy turned them to dust with one sweep of his sword. Polybotes swung his trident through the water and left an arc of some thick, oily looking substance in its wake.

Percy barreled right through it without slowing down and the smug look on the Giant’s face turned to shock then indignance before settling on rage.

“I will torture you under the sea! Each day the water will heal you, and each day you will suffer worse than the last! I will bring you to the brink of death and beyond the edge of mortal agony until you beg for me to kill you, until I have reduced you to nothing more than a quivering mass of flesh desperate to die.” Polybotes snarled. “But you will only know the relief of death when your blood is drained from your wretched body to awaken the Earth Mother. You will die with the knowledge that your last act has brought about the violent end of everyone you love.”

By then, Percy was on top of the Giant, fighting like a man possessed. He growled low in his throat and swung his sword in a vicious arc, leaving a deep gash on the Giant’s leg when he was too slow to block the attack.

Polybotes howled and swung his trident. It slammed into Percy’s chest and sent him hurtling through the water to crash through a wall. He recovered quickly enough and shot towards the Giant, spearing through the water faster than Jason could track. Sword met trident and when their weapons clashed it sent a shockwave through the water.

Jason gripped his own sword tightly and prepared to jump into the fight to help his friend, but before he could do so, the remaining basilisks zeroed in on him. The poisonous, fire-breathing snakes circled around him, hissing and snapping at him. Anytime one of them got too close, Jason managed to cut off its head. But the serpents grew bolder, swimming closer and closer to him. They stopped attacking one at a time and tried to rush him.

Jason closed his eyes, sent up a prayer that he wouldn’t fry Percy, himself, or Kym, and lifted his sword toward the sky. He called down brilliant arcs of lightning and let out a breath of relief as they struck the dozen basilisks swarming around him. The snakes went belly up in the water before crumbling to dust.

Percy and Polybotes continued their death match. Percy seemed to be doing just fine, ruthlessly attacking the Giant, slicing and stabbing relentlessly; but Jason could see the smoke curling off his skin as it blistered and sizzled. Whatever substance had spread from the Giant’s trident, some sort of poison or acid if Jason had to guess, was affecting his friend. And despite Percy’s, frankly unnerving, claim, Jason knew he’d need a god to kill Polybotes and there was only one available to them at the moment.

Jason turned to Kymopoleia. She was watching Percy and Polybotes fight with a fascinated look on her face, totally enraptured by the carnage her half-brother gleefully unleashed on Poseidon’s Bane.

“Kym,” he said, “What if I make you a better offer than Gaea did?”

The goddess hardly acknowledged him, merely letting out a noncommittal hum.

“She promised that you could cause raging storms to your heart’s content, but Gaea and the Giants are going to kill every mortal and demigod, wipe them off the face of the earth. What good is it to finally be able to ravage coastlines and annihilate shorelines when there’s no one left to cower and tremble in fear of you?” he cajoled her.

“I do like cowering,” she said absently, not tearing her eyes from where Percy had dropped his sword and begun to cave the Giant’s face in with his fists. Jason winced at the sharp, resounding crack of Percy breaking Polybotes’ nose.

“Yes! If Gaea and the Giants win, no one will be left for you to terrorize! If you help us, I-I'll make sure you are worshiped! I’ll build you a temple at each camp and-and I’ll do the same for all the gods and goddesses pushed aside by the Olympians,” he said frantically, watching Polybotes slam Percy to the ground with one massive hand wrapped around his torso, no doubt crushing his ribs. He winced when Percy let out a strangled cry of pain and turned desperately back to Kymopoleia to try and gauge her emotions on his offer.

“Polybotes, does Gaea have a counteroffer?” she called to the Giant, face impassive.

Polybotes turned his head to give her an incredulous look. “Counteroffer?” he sputtered indignantly. “Mother Earth does not need to make a counteroffer to the inane ramblings of a puny half-blood! She is offering you unfettered control of the seas! You will be allowed to let your storms rage to your heart’s content!” he said, affronted.

“Yes, but will there be demigods or mortals or really anyone left to cower in the face of my storms or worship me in hopes of appeasing my wrath? Will I get my own action figure?” Kym said evenly, raising an eyebrow and looking down to inspect her nails which Jason only just noticed were colored a pale, florescent pink.

“Well, no, bu—” Polybotes started, only to cut himself off with a cry of pain when Percy managed to free himself from the Giant’s grip by maneuvering his pen out of his pocket and uncapping it so that the blade of his sword sprung out and impaled itself right through Polybotes’ palm. The Giant snatched his hand back to cradle against his chest and Percy lunged after him with a feral snarl.

Percy moved so quickly, Jason was barely able to piece together what happened. The son of Poseidon reached out and it was like the water solidified into an extension of his will, yanking his sword from Polybotes’ hand and meeting it halfway. He wrapped his hand around the hilt and shot straight for the Giant’s face. He plunged the bronze blade down and buried it to the hilt in one of Polybotes’ acid green eyes.

The Giant howled in pain and Percy yanked his sword free, quickly backing away as Polybotes reached up to clap his hands over his bleeding eye.

“You will pay for that, half-blood sum!” he roared.

Golden ichor wept from his numerous wounds, seeping steadily between his fingers from his damaged eye and the hole in his palm. It saturated the water, hovering in shimmering globules. The Giant stared Percy down with his one good eye, pure hatred simmering behind his gaze.

“Please,” Jason pleaded with Kym. “Only a god and a demigod working together can kill a Giant. Please, help Percy finish him off before it’s too late!”

Kymopoleia merely shook her head, lips spreading in a feral grin as that spark of manic glee glinted in her eyes again. She cackled, a sound like cracking stone being split apart by an enormous earthquake, and it sent a shiver down Jason’s spine.

“I do believe my little brother would beg to differ, Jason Grace,” she said, tone carrying a hint of that unhinged, feral excitement he could see spread across her features.

Jason whipped his head around to stare in horrified fascination as all the ichor in the water began to flow in one direction, condensing into one quivering golden orb. Ichor seemed to flow from Polybotes’ wounds faster than it should have, like it was being pulled from his veins in thick rivers of divine blood, drawn towards the glittering ball. Polybotes sank through the water, hitting the sandy floor with a dull thud as his knees gave out on him. His hands fell from his face, as though he no longer had the strength to hold them there. Jason could see as the color leeched from him, seeping away with the ichor as it fled his body. Polybotes seemed unable to move, frozen in place where he knelt.

The temperature of the water dropped several degrees and Jason shivered.

“Wh-what is this?” Polybotes bellowed, feigning outrage, but the undercurrent of fear in his voice gave away how scared he truly was. He stared at Percy, one good eye wide and afraid.

Jason turned to his friend. At first, he thought it was just a reflection of all the ichor in the water. But then, Jason came to the terrifying realization; it wasn’t a mere reflection. Percy’s eyes glowed a vivid gold, the same color as the ichor he was draining from the Giant’s veins.

His face was dark, his features standing out sharp and cruel as he appeared to loom over Polybotes. That monstrous, ancient nightmare slipped through the seams of Percy’s flesh, leeching away all light until all that was left was the eerie glow of Percy’s golden eyes.

His teeth flashed in the dark, long and curved, reminding Jason of the Cheshire cat’s grin. Jason swore that he could see things moving in the dark; massive, undulating limbs and sharp, ghoulish protrusions. Bones that snapped and cracked as they moved, gnashing teeth and glowing eyes where they didn’t belong.

“YOu sAy tHat yOu FOLlowEd mE THrouGh tARtArUs, aNd yEt YoU HAvE nO iDeA WHaT i lEaRNeD tO DO dOwN THerE, whAT I wAS fORcED tO PIcK uP IN oRdER tO sUrvIVe?” Percy barked out a cruel laugh as his voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, sending tremors through the ocean floor. It was so deep, Jason could feel it vibrating through his bones and hollowing out his chest. Yet it was also so high, it sent his ears ringing and made his head feel like it was about to explode.

Jason recalled the time he had been too slow to close his eyes and had, for just a moment, witnessed Juno’s true form. That had felt like he was on fire, like his skin was about to slough off his bones as his eyes melted out of his skull. It had felt like his cells were imploding and withering away into ash.

But this—

This felt like drowning on dry land; it was like he was being ripped apart from the inside out, his lungs had disappeared and the hollowness that had forced itself into the space where his heart should have beat was slowly filling with water. His mind was being pulled into a black hole, fraying at the edges and threatening to tear apart at the center. His eyes were being pushed from their sockets to make room for steadily mounting pressure building in his skull. He could feel water bubbling up his throat, choking him, forcing its way out between his lips and flooding into every empty space it could find. Water began to leak from his nose where it had filled his sinuses, began to stream from his empty eye sockets and gush from his busted eardrums. His mouth fell open in a silent scream, his voice lost to the torrent of water that eroded blood and bone until all that remained was a flimsy shell of decayed and rotting flesh.

He swore he could hear a roaring, but that made no sense as he had to have gone deaf with the water pouring from his ears. Pressure built and built and built past the point of unbearable.

There was a primal, agonized roar followed by an ear-splitting pop. And then: blissful silence.

Calm swept over him like a warm breeze, and he felt like he was being wrapped in a silky blanket. He sighed and let himself sag into the gentle hands wrapping the blanket around him. He soaked in the quiet, peaceful moment languidly. After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes and immediately flailed around.

Jason let out a rather undignified squawk and scrambled to pull away from Kymopoleia, who was looking down at him with an amused expression. The silky blanket he thought he’d been wrapped in was actually a gauzy, membranous shawl the goddess had pulled from her own shoulders and the gentle hands had been hers as well. He noticed with a start that his ventus shield had disappeared and slapped a hand over his mouth and nose as he instinctively gasped.

Only when he heard Kym chuckle did he finally realize that he was, in fact, breathing and not drowning due to a bubble of air surrounding his head and neck like a diving helmet.

He glanced to the side and saw Percy watching him with a worried frown, wringing his hands together. Jason returned his wide-eyed stare to the goddess and continued to gape for a moment.

Eventually, Jason shook his head in an attempt to clear it and gulped, biting his lip as his gaze flit between Percy and Kym, both watching him quietly, one with concern and the other with bemusement.

“Uh,” he said eloquently. “What, um, what happened?”

Percy ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but before he could say anything, Kym spoke up.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Pontifex. Polybotes is dead. And I have decided to accept your offer.” Kym looked down at him smugly and for a moment, Jason was confused.

Offer? What offer? And—had she called him Pontifex? What was that abou—

Oh. Right. He had offered to build shrines to all the minor deities and make sure they were all worshiped. (And—was he remembering right?—I also promised Kym an action figure, I think? What the fuck, Jason thought.)

“Oh, uh, awesome. Thank you,” he said somewhat falteringly.

“I expect a truly magnificent action figure, Jason Grace,” she said. “One of those articulated ones and it had better reflect my stunning beauty. I’d be happy to visit and model for reference.” Kym’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and Jason fought the urge to fidget.

“O-of course,” he stuttered, and honestly, what the hell are you supposed to say to that? Cut him some slack, it’s a weird ass situation he has found himself in.

“Wonderful,” Kym said, and turned to Percy, making Jason look at his friend too.

Percy was wringing his hands nervously and biting his lip, gaze flitting around like he couldn’t bring himself to look at them. Jason frowned. He was about to ask Percy what was wrong when Kym spoke up again.

“It was wonderful to meet you, little brother. I look forward to getting to know you better if you survive this war. I believe we could have much fun together.” She reached out and ruffled Percy’s hair with a laugh when he swatted her hand away.

Percy gave Kym a small smile in return but still didn’t quite meet her eyes. He turned to Jason, expression tensing a little.

“We should probably get back,” he said, gesturing vaguely upward. “Now that the storm’s stopped, before everyone starts worrying about us too much. If we’re not back soon, Annabeth will probably jump overboard to come looking for me.” he shrugged. He was still avoiding Jason’s gaze, and it looked like his skin was still smoking in places.

Before Jason could say anything about that, Percy said, “Come on,” and shot toward the surface.

He turned his startled gaze to Kymopoleia, wanting to ask her for more answers. She must have seen it in his eyes because she gave him a melancholic smile.

“Percy is far more powerful than he likes to let on, Pontifex,” she said, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. “He has more power than a demigod should, and I believe that he is finding it harder and harder to control. Both he and Polybotes mentioned him having walked through Tartarus. I imagine something happened down there to push him over the edge.” She glanced upward, tracking Percy’s receding form through the water for a moment before continuing. “My brother is an impossibly good person, Jason Grace.” she fixed him with an eerie, unwavering stare, her overly bright eyes flashing. “But there is something damaged in him, something that broke down in that Pit. He has crossed a line that he cannot come back from even if he wanted to. I’ve heard that his fatal flaw is loyalty, so you have no need to fear him, nor do any of your friends. But remain wary, son of Jupiter, else you get caught in the crossfire of his rage.”

With that final, ominous warning, Kymopoleia disappeared in a whirl of bubbles and froth, leaving Jason to slowly begin the long swim back to the surface. When he finally reached the opening of the trench, he found Percy waiting for him, floating peacefully in the water.

Jason swam up beside him and waited quietly for what Percy would say.

After a moment, Percy twisted his head to face him. “Sorry for leaving you behind like that,” he said. “I forgot you didn’t have your personal tornado to help you keep up,” he joked half-heartedly and gave Jason a weak smile.

“It’s alright,” Jason said, smiling back. “I wanted to say goodbye to Kym first, and you seemed like you really needed to get out of there.”

Percy sighed. “Yeah, I did.” he crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders, drawing in on himself slightly. “Speaking of Kym, what’s the deal with the action figure she mentioned? And why did she call you a car?”

Jason snorted. “Not Pontiac, Pontifex. The Romans used to have someone called the Pontifex Maximus, a high priest who took care of the gods’ temples, made sure they were all recognized and worshiped, given proper offerings and things like that. While you were fighting Polybotes I made Kym an offer, to try and convince her to stop the storm and help you kill him. I promised to make sure temples were built for all the gods deemed ‘less important’ than the Olympians. The action figure idea just kinda happened? I don’t really know where it came from. I was kinda frantic, just saying whatever came to mind that I thought might sway her.” he shrugged. “You were holding your own just fine, but you looked to be in rough shape, too. Whatever that stuff Polybotes created that you swam through was, your skin was sizzling. You’re still smoking a little, too, by the way.”

Percy glanced down at his arms, tilting his head at the new, quickly forming burn-like scars there. “Yeah, it was some kind of acid, I think. It hurt like a bitch, and definitely didn’t help my lungs any.” he shrugged and uncrossed his arms. “But I’ll be fine. The water’s already taken care of the worst of it; a little nectar or ambrosia and I’ll be all healed with a few more scars to add to the collection.”

Percy rolled his shoulders and straightened, glancing up where Jason could see the shadow of the Argo II floating in the water above them. “Now come on,” Percy said. “I think Piper and Annabeth are getting ready to jump overboard.”

Jason laughed, letting the topic change slide. If Percy didn’t want to talk about what had really happened with Polybotes, Jason wouldn’t force it. He just hoped Percy knew that he could come to him. Their fathers may have a rivalry to end all rivalries, but he didn’t want that for him and Percy.

This time, as they rose through the water, Percy propelled Jason up alongside him. As soon as their heads broke the surface, Jason saw Annabeth getting ready to swing herself over the railing and drop into the water with Piper barely half a step behind her.

“Percy!” Annabeth called when she spotted them, proceeding to dive off the ship. Jason raised his arms to shield his face as she hit the water with a truly impressive splash. Percy just laughed and swept her into his arms, lifting her half out of the water and spinning around. Annabeth laughed in delight as Percy threw himself backwards and they sank just under the surface.

Jason wasn’t worried, though, having learned about Percy’s little air bubble trick, and instead began to paddle his way towards the rope ladder Piper had tossed over the side of the ship.

When he finally swung up and over the railing, planting his feet on the blessedly solid deck of the Argo II, Piper threw herself at him, muttering angrily in Tsalagi, no doubt cursing at him for acting like an idiot. Jason just smiled and hugged her close, pressing his lips to her dark hair when she buried her face in his chest.

After a moment, she pulled away and wiped angrily at the tears in her eyes, glaring at him.

“What is wrong with you?” she cried, smacking his shoulder. “You can’t do that to me! You can’t just-just jump overboard in the middle of a massive storm like that! Especially not when you’re severely injured—!” she gestured at his stomach, frustration and fear coloring her tone.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Pipes,” he said, interrupting her gently. “But Percy needed my help, and I’m fine, I promise. No further harm done. See?” He lifted his shirt, stepped back, and spun around, letting her look him over for any sign of hurt. Honestly, he felt fine; great even! Hell, he felt better than he had since Michael Varus had run him through.

When he finished his little one-eighty, he noticed Piper staring at his stomach with wide eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing down to try and figure out what she was seeing.

His bandages had come loose in the water, sagging a little to reveal the upper edge of his wound, only . . . only there was nothing but smooth, tan skin where there should have been torn and reddened flesh. His mouth dropped open and he carefully tugged the bandages away, letting them fall to the deck of the ship after the soggy material tore.

Both he and Piper stared in wide-eyed shock at his unblemished abdomen for a moment. Piper reached out to ghost her fingers along the spot where the wound had been, her feather-light touch sending a shiver down Jason’s spine.

“You’re healed,” she whispered, voice filled with awe. “How are you—what happened down there?” she asked, laying her hand flat against his stomach for a moment before looking up at him with those dark, earnest eyes he loved to get lost in.

“A lot,” he said. “Though I don’t remember much of what happened towards the end.”

Piper nodded slowly and grabbed his hand, starting to pull him across the deck towards the stairs.

“Fill me in once we’re downstairs,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m getting you to eat something.”

Jason laughed brightly and allowed his girlfriend to tug him towards the galley, more than happy to let her fuss over him.

He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut that hadn’t left him since he came to wrapped in Kymopoleia’s shawl, and the dread weighing heavy at his heart that it had something to do with Percy and what had really happened to Polybotes.

#dndv #demons and demigods verse #dndv scenes #pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #annabeth chase #jason grace #piper mclean #kymopoleia #polybotes #sadly frank hazel and leo are only briefly in there so I'm not gonna tag them #dark percy jackson #dark percy #eldritch horror percy jackson #uhhhh I should probably tag these w/#tw body horror #shouldn't I?#I'll try and remember to go back and tag the other ones where Percy gets eldritch-y with that too #i think that's everything for this part but please let me know if you want me to tag anything else #ugh i miss my spn boys i'll probably check in with them in the next part #maybe hit on/rewrite ghostfacers to include the boys worrying about percy+co #maybe the next part will be long too and i'll do a rewrite of jus in bello and then hand-wavey transition to ghostfacers rewrite too #yknow what i doubt i'll get many or any votes but i'll make a poll and let yall have the chance to vote on what i do next

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mybelovedwoo · 19 days

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Long Journey - Chapter 12: The Tempest

Life hurts a lot, that's just how it is. At least that is what Destiny thought, living a life where living hurts more than dying. But one day everything changes when an unexpected guest appears. What does this long journey hide behind? Will it be worth it to be alive again?

"Sailors tell stories, Pirates make legends!"

ateez pirate au, fluff, angst, smut

??? x named reader

word count: 2.0k

warnings: violence, fighting, guns and weaponry, blood injuries, trauma, smut, sa, pa, abuse specific to this chapter: storm, allusion to drowning

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Dark clouds swirled ominously overhead, blotting out the sun as the sea roiled and heaved beneath the ship. Destiny clung to the railing, her knuckles white as she peered into the abyss of crashing waves and howling winds. The storm had descended upon them with little warning, transforming the tranquil ocean into a tempestuous battleground.

Around her, the crew scurried like ants, securing ropes, battening down hatches, and bracing themselves against the fury of nature. Rain lashed against their faces, driven sideways by gale-force winds that threatened to tear the sails from their rigging.

"Hold fast!" Hongjoong's voice boomed above the roar of the storm, his hands steady on the wheel as he navigated the ship through towering waves. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the chaos in brief, stark flashes.

Destiny gripped the dagger Seonghwa had given her, the blade gleaming faintly in the storm's fury. Her thoughts raced with the gravity of their situation. They were at the mercy of the elements, fighting not just for their voyage but for their lives.

San appeared beside her, rain-soaked and determined. "We need to secure the cargo!" he shouted over the tumult, his expression a mix of concern and resolve.

She nodded, wordlessly acknowledging his command. Together, they dashed across the slick deck, avoiding debris as it skittered wildly. With practiced efficiency, they began to secure barrels and crates, working in tandem with the rest of the crew.

Amidst the chaos, a sharp crack resounded through the storm-the ominous sound of wood splintering under tremendous pressure. Destiny's eyes darted towards the source and saw one of the masts beginning to snap, strained by the ferocious wind and battering waves.

"Look out!" San shouted, pointing to the mast.

Without hesitation, Destiny rushed towards the mast, her heart pounding in her chest. She knew they had to act quickly to prevent further damage. Climbing up the rigging, she battled against the fierce wind that threatened to hurl her into the churning sea below.

As she ascended, the mast groaned and swayed precariously. The higher she climbed, the more intense the storm seemed to become. Rain lashed at her face, and the wind howled in her ears, but she pressed on, determined to secure the mast before it could cause more havoc.

Just as she reached the top, the mast gave a final, shuddering snap. The rigging jolted violently, and Destiny lost her grip, plummeting into the turbulent waters below.

"Destiny!" San's voice was barely audible over the storm as he rushed to the side of the ship, searching the dark, roiling sea for any sign of her.

The cold water engulfed Destiny, stealing her breath and disorienting her. She struggled to find the surface, her limbs flailing against the powerful currents. Desperation fueled her movements as she fought to stay afloat.

Back on the ship, chaos reigned as the crew scrambled to keep the vessel from capsizing. San's eyes scanned the water frantically, and just as hope began to wane, he spotted her-a flash of movement in the waves.

"Over there!" he shouted, pointing to where Destiny struggled against the relentless sea.

Hongjoong, still at the wheel, made a daring maneuver, steering the ship closer to her. Yeosang and Jongho prepared a rope, ready to throw it as soon as they were within range.

Before they could even toss the rope, a figure darted past them and leaped into the raging sea. It was San. Without a moment's hesitation, he had dived into the water, driven by an instinct to save Destiny.

"San, no!" Jongho shouted, but it was too late. San was already cutting through the waves, fighting against the current to reach Destiny.

Destiny, struggling to stay afloat, felt her strength waning. Her limbs were heavy, and the cold was sapping her energy. Just as darkness began to close in around her vision, she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist.

"Hold on, Destiny!" San's voice was a beacon of hope amidst the chaos. He pulled her close, using his other arm to swim back towards the ship.

The crew watched with bated breath as San and Destiny battled the waves together. The ship pitched and rolled, but Hongjoong kept it steady, inching ever closer to them.

"Get ready with the rope!" Yeosang called out, his voice barely audible over the storm. Jongho nodded, positioning himself at the edge of the deck, rope in hand.

San and Destiny were nearly within reach when a massive wave crashed over them, momentarily pulling them under. The crew gasped, but San surfaced again, his grip on Destiny unyielding.

"Throw it now!" Hongjoong commanded.

Jongho hurled the rope with all his might, and it landed just a few feet from San. With a final, desperate surge of energy, San grabbed the rope and secured it around himself and Destiny.

"Pull us in!" he shouted, his voice strained but determined.

The crew heaved on the rope, muscles straining as they fought to bring their crewmates back aboard. Inch by agonizing inch, San and Destiny were hauled closer to the ship.

Finally, they reached the side of the vessel. Strong hands reached down, pulling them up and over the railing to safety. San collapsed onto the deck, breathing heavily, but he refused to let go of Destiny until he was sure she was secure.

As he looked down at her, he realized with a jolt of fear that Destiny was unconscious. Her face was pale, and she wasn't responding to his frantic calls.

"Destiny! Wake up!" San shook her gently, his voice trembling with desperation. "Come on, open your eyes!"

Yeosang pushed through the crowd, his face set in a grim expression. "Move aside, let me see her."

San reluctantly stepped back, watching anxiously as Yeosang checked for a pulse. After a tense moment, Yeosang nodded. "She's alive, but she's taken in a lot of water. We need to get her below deck and warm her up."

Jongho and Wooyoung quickly lifted Destiny and carried her to the infirmary, where Yeosang and Yunho were already preparing blankets and hot water. San followed closely, his heart pounding with fear and guilt.

In the infirmary, Yeosang and Yunho worked swiftly to remove Destiny's wet clothes and wrap her in blankets. They placed hot water bottles around her to help raise her body temperature.

San paced the room, his anxiety palpable. "Is she going to be okay?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Yeosang glanced up, his expression serious. "She should be, but we need to watch her closely. She went through a lot out there."

San nodded, feeling a lump form in his throat. He couldn't shake the image of Destiny's lifeless form being pulled from the sea. He had to keep reminding himself that she was alive, that they had saved her in time.

Hours passed in a blur of worry and whispered conversations. The storm outside raged on, but inside the infirmary, a tense calm settled over the crew. San stayed by Destiny's side, refusing to leave her even for a moment.

Finally, just as dawn began to break, Destiny stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked around the room in confusion.

"Destiny," San said softly, leaning closer. "You're okay. You're safe."

Her eyes focused on him, and she managed a weak smile. "San," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Thank you."

San felt a wave of relief wash over him, and he took her hand in his. "You scared us all, you know that?"

She nodded slightly, her smile growing a little stronger. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

Seonghwa stepped into the room, his expression softening as he looked at Destiny. "It's good to see you awake, Destiny. You had us all worried."

Destiny managed a weak smile. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

Seonghwa nodded. "We know. You're strong, and you proved that today, again." He turned to San, his demeanor becoming more serious. "San, the Captain is calling for you."

San hesitated, looking back at Destiny. "Will you stay with her?" he asked Seonghwa.

Seonghwa nodded. "Of course. She'll be in good hands."

San gave Destiny's hand a reassuring squeeze before standing up. "I'll be back soon," he promised her.

Destiny watched as San left the infirmary, feeling a mix of gratitude and concern. She turned to Seonghwa, who was now sitting beside her. "What does the Captain want to talk about?"

Seonghwa shrugged slightly. "Probably about the storm and our next course. There's always something that needs to be done." He paused, looking at her with a gentle smile. "But don't worry about that now. You need to rest and recover."

Destiny nodded, feeling exhaustion tugging at her eyelids. "Thank you, Seonghwa. For everything."

Seonghwa patted her hand gently. "Just focus on getting better. We'll handle the rest."

As Destiny closed her eyes, she couldn't help but feel a sense of comfort. Despite the danger and uncertainty, she knew she wasn't alone.

Meanwhile, San made his way to the Captain's quarters, his mind racing with thoughts of Destiny and the storm they had just survived. He knocked on the door, and Hongjoong's voice called for him to enter.

San stepped inside, finding Hongjoong studying a map spread out on the table. The Captain looked up, his expression unreadable. "San, how is she?"

"She's awake," San replied. "Seonghwa is with her now."

Hongjoong's expression hardened as he stared at San. "You risked your life for her, San. Do you realize how dangerous that was?"

San frowned, taken aback by the Captain's tone. "I couldn't just let her drown. She needed help."

"I understand that," Hongjoong said, his voice stern. "But you made a dangerous decision that could have cost both of you your lives. As a crew member, you have a responsibility to think about the crew and the mission, not just your own feelings."

San's jaw tightened. "So, you think I should have let her drown?"

Hongjoong shook his head. "Of course not. But you can't let your feelings for Destiny influence you to make poor decisions. We need you to be clear-headed and focused, especially with the dangers we face."

San's eyes flashed with anger. "I made a call to save her. I don't regret it."

Hongjoong's gaze softened slightly, but his tone remained firm. "San, I know you care about her. We all do. But as Captain, I need to trust that you can make decisions that won't jeopardize the entire crew. Do you understand?"

San took a deep breath, his anger slowly dissipating. "I understand, Captain. It won't happen again."

Hongjoong nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now, we need to focus on our next steps. We're heading to the nearest port to make repairs. After that, we'll continue our search for El Dorado. I need you to make sure the crew is ready."

San nodded, determination returning to his eyes. "I'll take care of it."

As he left the Captain's quarters, San couldn't shake the feeling of frustration and guilt. He knew Hongjoong was right, but the thought of losing Destiny had been unbearable. He resolved to be more careful in the future, balancing his responsibilities with his feelings.

Back in the infirmary, Destiny was beginning to drift off to sleep. Seonghwa sat by her side, keeping a watchful eye on her. Despite the storm and the chaos, he felt a sense of relief that she was safe.

San stood outside the infirmary, his hand resting on the doorframe. He had promised Destiny he would return, but Hongjoong's words echoed in his mind. He knew the Captain was right; he needed to be more careful, to keep his emotions in check.

With a heavy heart, San decided to heed Hongjoong's advice. He turned away from the infirmary and made his way to his own quarters. Each step felt like a betrayal, but he knew he had to show the Captain that he could be trusted to make the right decisions.

As he entered his quarters, San felt a pang of guilt. He sat on his bunk, staring at the wall. The weight of the day's events pressed down on him, and he let out a deep sigh. He couldn't shake the image of Destiny's lifeless form in the water, or the relief he felt when she had opened her eyes.

San knew he needed to clear his mind and focus on his duties. The crew needed him, and he couldn't afford to let his feelings cloud his judgment. He resolved to visit Destiny later, when things had settled down.

The ship creaked and groaned as it sailed through the night, the remnants of the storm still evident in the rolling waves. The crew worked tirelessly to make the necessary repairs, their spirits buoyed by the knowledge that they had survived another trial together.

The journey to El Dorado was far from over, and San was determined to see it through, both for the crew and for the woman who had become so important to him.

taglist: @dinossaurz @tiredlittlevirgo @everythingboutkpop @abibliolife @k-zuzu @ateezswonderland

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pixies-and-poets · 1 year

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Pirate AU where Woodrow is a sailor burdened by a curse where he brings bad luck every time he writes or sings sea shanties, and when he's alone one night, he accidentally summons Phantom, a giant monstrous siren enamored by his talent.

From his perch in the crow's nest, Woodrow peered out towards the darkening horizon, surveying the crashing waves until they became an indistinguishable blur in every direction. No islands, and no masts or sails to be seen - no other ships. It had been weeks since their crew had taken a prize, and they were starting to get antsy. The Rabbid signed and pulled down on his cap. He could only hope it wasn't because... no. No, he couldn't blame himself. He had been trying so hard to quit, after all.

Two sharp voices made their way up to him, though the wind carried away their words. He looked down at the deck far below him, despite having little need. The gruff tones of one and the high pitch of the other told him all he needed to know. The ship's carpenter, Sweetlopek, and its bosun, Darya, were arguing again. Their similar roles, each caring for the ship in their own way, often led to clashes.

Woodrow was glad he was high above them this time. Whenever he got pulled into these arguments, his gut berated him for not instantly agreeing with Sweetlopek. He was his dear childhood friend, after all, and the one who had gotten him a spot on this crew. "If they'll let me take me beaver aboard, Woody, they'll take ye in too."

And yet Darya was a force to reckon with. A remarkably petite Rabbid, he had been told that some of the crew were initially doubtful she could be of much help. And yet she became known as an unstoppable force both on deck and in personality. A mysterious being indeed; she always kept her hair tied back and invisible under a scarf, only letting her ears poke out through its folds, and as she passed through the rigging, she seemed to literally float. To Woodrow, she was compelling, fascinating, and somehow reminded him incessantly of the forests of his homeland. Perhaps it was her accent? At any rate, he found it hard to argue against her.

This evening's heated discussion was cut short as it began to lightly rain, and the two went their separate ways. Woodrow was left alone on watch as most of the crew went belowdecks to indulge in the waning rum supply. The rain pelted him sideways; he didn't mind, and there wasn't much he could do if he did. An umbrella was of little use on a moving ship.

He hoped no one had noticed the preponderance of rain since bringing him on board. Certainly not... Why would they blame him? How could they?

And yet sailors were a superstitious lot. Eventually they would put things together. He thought of Darya again; there was a time when seagoing superstition was so strong that a woman onboard was considered a curse. He was glad that he lived in a more enlightened age. Only... Bad Luck was alive and well. It's just that gender had nothing to do with it.

Well! He may not be able to help the literal cloud of misfortune that followed him, no matter how he tried to run from it at sea. But he could certainly avoid making things worse. All he had to do was keep himself from writing. Yes... That was all. He didn't even have to do anything. He just had to NOT do something. It should be easy.... easy, old boy...

And yet, as the night wore on... the world around him seemed like music. Music that needed lyrics. The gentle pounding of the rain was a steady rhythm, the roar of the waves a chord progression, the cracking of the canvas sails syncopated percussion. The rocking tilt of the ship added to the hypnotic effect. It was hard to resist... so hard...

And yet resist he did. He was strong! No poetry, no shanties. Those days were behind him... well, it was only a few days since his last one, after which the ship had mysteriously sprung a leak... and the one before that, which caused them to discover all their fruit had somehow spoiled instantly overnight... No, he couldn't write again. He couldn't do that to his crew.

And then he heard it.

Another layer, on top of- or rather, beneath- the music of the sea. This new instrument in the symphony sounded distinctly like a voice- a low voice, richer and deeper than all the treasures sunken to the bottom of the ocean. It started as a hum, then rose up to the level of singing. A distinct melody, so wonderful and rapturous that Woodrow felt it had always been there; that from this point onwards he would never be able to imagine the crash of the waves or the creak of the ship without it. It rang throughout him like the vibration of a bell, setting his fur on end.

No one came on deck to indulge in the song, and the ever-patient helmsman currently at the wheel seemed not to react. Did anyone else hear this? Was Woodrow imagining it? Well... It mattered little to him. Nothing else mattered.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the mast, touching it with his paw as one would caress the skin of one's beloved; he was in too deep to even remember his former restraint. He sighed, dreamily, love-drunk, half-hypnotized. The very ocean was singing to him, and he answered, giving words to the melody.

When I was a lad it seemed to me sad

To live upon the lonely sea,

And yet here I am, grown to a man

Who finds the waves a-calling me.

When I am awake my body shall take

Its place among a hearty crew,

And yet when I sleep my heart will sink deep

Beneath the waves, a-calling you.

My lover dressed in his seaweed best

And nestled in shells among the sand,

With gills and scales, shark teeth and tail

He leads me deeper by the hand.

My darling...

Woodrow trailed off, as he suddenly realized his sweet accompaniment had ceased. Although the waves still rushed and the rain still pattered, it seemed to the lyricist that a deafening silence rang through his ears, hollowing him out from head to hindpaw. He felt empty, cold- the spell was suddenly broken, and he realized what he had done.

He had spoken a poem into existence.

"No," he said weakly- and then, with a crack in his voice, "Come back...."

Then suddenly, a roar. A splitting of the seas. A great shape rose from the ocean near the ship, causing her to list violently to the side. The helmsman panicked as the ship just barely managed to right herself, and a number of the crew rushed up on deck.

Silhouetted against the moon was an enormous figure. Some kind of long-eared sea beast, half Rabbid and half... well, perhaps a sixth squid, a sixth shark, a sixth jellyfish, and maybe a smattering of other things as well. Now that the creature was above the water, he seemed to give off his own bioluminescence from his copious belly, visible both above and below the sea.

Tears emerged from Woodrow's eyes and were immediately obscured by the rain on his face. He had done it this time, in his moment of weakness. He had done them all in. A sea monster! It would crack their ship in half like an egg, and drag her to its lair in the caves of the ocean floor. They were all dead...

But the creature made no moves to destroy the ship. Instead, one of its tentacles emerged from the water, raised high, and shot straight for the crow's nest. Its tip wrapped around Woodrow, encircling his body securely and then lifting him up and out. He couldn't find the strength to scream. Before he knew it, the beast had brought him before his glowing form. The tentacle released him, and he found himself in the palm of the hand on one of the beast's two normal - albeit giant - Rabbid arms.

Shivering, the poet looked up at his captor. Now that he was closer, and with the blurred vision brought on by terror slowly subsiding, he could see the beast had wild hair of seaweed, and tentacles on his face that gave the appearance of a moustache, and even a little barnacle dotting his face like a beauty mark. It was... he was... almost... Handsome.

No, not almost....

Then the creature smiled, his glowing eyes delighted. And when he spoke, the voice as deep as the sea rang through Woodrow and washed away the rest of his fear.

"Finally, my little poet. I have caught you."

"You have," said the sailor breathlessly. "I am yours."

#SORRY THIS TOOK ME A WHILE TO WRITE BUT I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT FOR LIKE A WEEK #including some stuff that didn't even make it into this but i might talk about later lol #you had me the instant I read Pirate AU #phandrow #mario rpgs #mario plus rabbids #mario + rabbids #alter answers #woodrow #ts woodrow #the phantom of the bwahpera #soh high seas au

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strafethesesinners · 1 year

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What Would your OC’s role on a pirate ship be?

Pirate AU let’s gooooooo

tagged by @trench-rot and @direwombat to take this quiz

The Boatswain A captain leads their crew. The first mate advises. But you're the one who actually makes things happen on this ship. When the captain gives an order to sail to some place, it's you who gives the crew their duties, to hoist or change or unfurl the sails, to man the guns, to swab the deck, to do whatever needs to be done. And you're right there alongside them, heaving and hauling and fighting just the same. The sailors put their trust in you, and you won't let them down. When they have a problem, you're the first port of call. The captain listens to you, even if you can tell she's not always paying attention. You spend your days before the mast, and your nights in a hammock slung up in the cargo hold. It's often a thankless job - the captain berates you if the crew are unruly, and the crew hate whenever you have to dole out discipline. But if you left, this ship would fall to pieces in an instant. And you love her. You love the sea. You love the job, despite it all. So you work, and you work, and you work, and you don't stop. Not until the job is done. And it's never going to be done.

The Topman Of all the sailors on this ship, your job is the most dangerous. Oh, everyone climbs the rigging into the topsails from now and then, but you practically live up there, among the rope and swaying canvas. You know the sails better than any person, have clung to the mast through storm and swell in the pitch-black of night, when your limbs are freezing from the chill and your body is soaked to the bone. When there's work to be done in the tops, you're the first to climb to their dizzying heights and the last to lower yourself back to the deck. Some nights you have slept up there, balancing on a yardarm or in the crow's nest, lashed to the rigging ten feet above the deck. But never once have you fallen. Though your hands and feet and calloused and burned from clasping the ropes, never have you pitched into the water or slammed against the deck. Few sailors can claim such a badge of honour as that. When you're up there, the wind blowing a chill against your face, hair streaming behind you and clothes billowing, you feel more alive than you ever have. So when your captain calls, you are glad to place your hands and feet in the rigging and ascend once more. It's where you belong.

The Captain This is your ship. Oh, but you worked for it. You joined your first pirate crew when you were little older than a child, learning the language of rope and rigging and the roll and sway of the sea. From there, you worked your way up, signing onto ship after ship, tailing sailors twice your age just to learn from example how a ship is run. And learn you did. By the time you turned twenty, there wasn't a shipboard task you couldn't perform. Then, one day, you had signed onto a ship under a notoriously bad captain - quick with the lash and slow with the shares. With the rest of the crew, you plotted and planned, and when the time came, you forced the captain and his officers onto an abandoned rock in the ocean, and took command yourself. Drunk on victory and rum, you promised your crew that you would be a fair captain, a shrewd captain, and make them all rich. Every day your head buzzes with plans and schemes, prizes more ambitious than the last. Yes, every pirate's luck runs dry eventually, but they haven't caught you yet, and you're proud of that fact. So you'll raid, and you'll fight, and you'll keep shipping out. These are your seas. And you'll hold them until your body rots in the deep.

tagging @deputyash @unleashed111 @nightwingshero @shallow-gravy @derelictheretic @blissfulalchemist @gxmergurl @nuclearstorms @a-far-cry-from-my-main @adelaidedrubman @henbased @florbelles @roofgeese @fourlittleseedlings @g0dspeeed and whoever else wants to! sorry for multiple tags

#SHOUTOUT TO WARD FOR MAKING CAPTAIN YOU'RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE #oc: cooper mccoy #oc: Valor Coleman #oc: Ward Drachen #oc quizes #uquiz #Idk if I'd let Coop be the boatswain that seems like too much responsibility for him

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bluenpinkcastle · 6 months

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20240405: the History of LEGO Castle day 096. 6037 Witch's Windship (1997, 60 pieces, 28 different parts) DRAGONS!!!! Witch's Windship is a black 10x10 octagonal cockpit with red, light gray, and yellow highlights attached to a green LEGO dragon via two brown 16x5 boat masts. The dragon flies above the cockpit with black wings attached to a dark gray 2x2 brick with connectors on both sides, carrying the witch as a passenger with a 2x2x2 crystal ball in front and two large dark gray halberds on red hinges on the front, which can move together to chop up things in front of the Windship. The one minifigure for this set is the witch, with a black witch / wizard hat, a yellow minifigure head with black bangs, long black hair on both sides, an open red smile with one tooth, black arms on a printed black torso with a red necklace with a black spider on a yellow circle background in the center, three yellow buttons, a thin yellow corset line on the waist, a printed black 2x2x2 hollow slope with a red center, and a new cloth red cape with a printed black spider on the back. The printed pieces give the appearance of a black dress with black top. For being a little bizarre with not many pieces, it has some very unique parts. -The black 10x10 octagonal cockpit was only found in one other set, 8970 Robo Attack from 2009. -This is the first use of the black dragon wing. -This dragon mold is only found in six sets in green (6037 Witch's Windship, 6056 Dragon Wagon, 6076 Dark Dragon's Den, 6082 Fire Breathing Fortress, 6087 Witch's Magic Manor, and 9376 Castle Set from Education and Dacta). -The brown 16x5 mast rigging was only found in nine other sets, none of which are within the LEGO Castle theme. Parts inventory for this set can be found on BrickLink or Rebrickable with a free download of the instructions available on ToysPeriod. This set was designed by Steen Sig Andersen and if you want to see more LEGO sets he designed, you can find them on BrickSet. This is the only set in the Fright Knights LEGO Castle subtheme with any designer listed.

#lego 6037 #lego witch's windship #lego fright knights #lego castles #lego #lego castle #lego history #lego castle history #history of lego castle #lego system castle #lego castle system

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simonxriley · 1 year

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what would your ocs role on a pirate ship be?

I was tagged by the wonderful @shegetsburned and @voidika to do this uquiz for some of the ocs. Thank you! 💜

Tagging @playstationmademe @nightwingshero @detectivelokis @jinfromyarikawa @chuckhansen @nightbloodraelle @baldurrs @cameoninja @phillipsgraves @corvosattano @leviiackrman and anyone else that wants to do it!!!

The Navigator

Honestly, the daily monotony of rigging and deck and rope has never appealed to you. When you went to sea, it was for one reason and one reason alone - to fill in the blank spaces on the maps you spent hours poring over. Here there be dragons, but dragons are a myth; your quest is to find out what's really there. Down in the map room is where you spend your days, among parchment and ink, charting every inlet and bay you dock at, naming the nameless uninhabited islands you find. When the captain needs a bearing, you jump to it, and guide the ship through rocks and storms and narrow straits. By night, you are out on deck watching the stars, taking in the constellations and charting their courses. Nobody knows these waters better than you - if someone blindfolded you and abandoned you on a rock in the open sea, you would find your way home in a heartbeat. Every captain clamours for your expertise. But you will only sign on with the boldest, the hardiest, those who dare adventure to the places the map does not name. This world is a vast and life-filled thing. You will not rest until you have seen every inch of it.

The Topman

Of all the sailors on this ship, your job is the most dangerous. Oh, everyone climbs the rigging into the topsails from now and then, but you practically live up there, among the rope and swaying canvas. You know the sails better than any person, have clung to the mast through storm and swell in the pitch-black of night, when your limbs are freezing from the chill and your body is soaked to the bone. When there's work to be done in the tops, you're the first to climb to their dizzying heights and the last to lower yourself back to the deck. Some nights you have slept up there, balancing on a yardarm or in the crow's nest, lashed to the rigging ten feet above the deck. But never once have you fallen. Though your hands and feet and calloused and burned from clasping the ropes, never have you pitched into the water or slammed against the deck. Few sailors can claim such a badge of honour as that. When you're up there, the wind blowing a chill against your face, hair streaming behind you and clothes billowing, you feel more alive than you ever have. So when your captain calls, you are glad to place your hands and feet in the rigging and ascend once more. It's where you belong.

The Cabin Kid

Maybe you've always wanted to go to sea. Maybe it's just a job. Maybe you didn't have any other options on land. But whatever the case, you're out here, the youngest member of the crew. Learning the ropes is hard - your hands have not built up the calluses to climb the rigging, your feet scrape and stumble for a foothold. But you are small, and you are nimble, and the old salts say that you will learn. The sailors treat you like a sort of mascot, send you scurrying about for this and that. But you want to prove you're one of them. You're the first to climb to the topsails, grab barrels of gunpowder bigger than you, haul around cannonballs. Every day, you practice with a sword and knife, knowing that when it comes to a raid, you will need to rely on your instincts. So far you've been kept out of battle; the captain promised, last time you asked, that the next one would be yours. You're aching for it. You get half-shares at the minute, but the second you board a prize with sword in hand, amidst the gunsmoke and powder, you'll be a full crew member, worthy as any to claim what is yours. You cannot wait.

#shegetsburned #voidika #oc skylar jackson #oc liz walker #oc lottie wilson #the only one that's pretty accurate is Skylar #Lottie and Liz not that much

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rosellacwrites · 1 year

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Part 5: Flying Fish

Two years later

“Can’t catch me!”

Claire darts across the deck, Milo in hot pursuit, both of them shrieking with laughter. They’re heading straight for Rosa, who’s mending nets in the sunshine, and a collision seems inevitable, but Rosa’s used to their antics. She sits calmly as they dodge around her in opposite directions, and returns to her work, smiling, once they’ve passed. “Don’t fall down the hatch,” she calls, but she knows they won’t. They scamper over every inch of the ship, never getting worse than a skinned knee or two.

Claire’s twin braids bounce against her narrow back as she runs, reaching nearly to her waist. Carmen insists on plaiting her hair, unwilling to spend hours undoing the knots caused by the sea winds until Claire’s old enough not to howl and fight her the whole time, but she’s flatly refused to dip them in tar, the way some sailors do. Claire had sulked for days about that, but Carmen stands firm.

“Got you now!” Milo peeks around the main mast to find Claire flattened against it on the other side, and she squeals, looking frantically from one side to another for an escape route. Whichever way she goes, Milo’s sure to catch her, unless… Claire looks up, and Milo follows her gaze, watching as her face changes from calculation to delight. “Claire, no!” he shouts. “Má will throw you overboard!”

But it’s too late, and she’s already taken a flying leap into the rigging, gone up above his head before he can make a grab for her. “She’ll have to come and get me!” Claire climbs as well as any of the crew, as surefooted in the ropes as she is on deck. Milo watches, wide-eyed, as she ascends higher and higher, until she blows him a raspberry. “Come up, Milo! You can see forever!”

“What’s there to see?” he scoffs. “More water?”

“There’s a whole school of flying fish! And I think I see a dolphin! Come up, won’t you? Or are you a scaredy-cat?”

That’s a step too far; Milo’s little face darkens and he stamps his foot. “Take that back!” he orders. “I am not a scaredy-cat!”

But he stays on deck, and Claire hooks her knees over a rope and flips herself over, grinning down at him. “Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat!” she sings. “Milo is a scaredy-cat!”

“I. Am. NOT,” he insists. Heaving a sigh, he grabs at the rope Claire had used to pull herself up, and begins his climb. He’d have had to do it sooner or later, anyway; he knows his Má won’t hesitate to send him up there after Claire, if she refuses to come down on her own.

Claire’s mouth closes and she watches warily as Milo advances. She flips herself back upright, reaching deliberately up to curl her small fingers around the next rope. Milo climbs doggedly, less quick but just as sure, his eyebrows raised in challenge. Suddenly, her flushed face pales, and she stares down past his shoulder.

“Nice try,” Milo jeers. “You won’t catch me with that trick.” He reaches for one more rope, but Claire shakes her head frantically, still looking down. Gil’s voice carries over the creaking of the canvas, and their eyes meet in instant understanding.

“Where are the little ones?” they hear Gil ask, and Rosa laughs.

“Carmen will show you,” she says, and Claire and Milo know they’re done for. In perfect unison, they turn their heads reluctantly; Carmen stands at the base of the mast, one hand on her broad hip, the other pointing up. Her face is unreadable, but Gil’s hovers between amusement and terror.

“Come back down now, please.” His voice is calm as always, but there’s a note in it that they both know means business. Carefully they descend, even Claire knowing better than to show off her acrobatic tricks in front of her parents. When they reach the safety of the deck, Gil looks down at them for a long moment, and they become intensely interested in their toes.

“Look at me,” Gil says. They slowly meet his eyes, stern and loving and disappointed, and Claire’s lip begins to quiver. “Are you supposed to be up in the rigging?” Claire and Milo shake their heads. “And where did I find you, just now?”

“Up in the rigging,” Milo mutters.

“And which one of you went up there first? As if I don’t know.”

Claire’s cheeks flush again, and she looks away. “Me, Papá.”

“What are we going to do with you?” Gil groans. Carmen taps him on the shoulder, her hands flying in intricate patterns, and he laughs. “Good plan,” he nods. “I approve.” He pounces without warning, scooping a child under each arm, and strides to the bow with his shrieking cargo.

“What happens to naughty children?” he asks, rhetorically, as he begins to wind up. “Naughty children get — “

“Thrown overboard!” they howl with joy, pretending to kick and struggle as Gil pretends to toss them over the rail. He never has the heart to punish them for real, but they never have the heart to misbehave for real, either, so they figure it evens out. “After all,” Claire likes to say, “if we’re ever really bad then they won’t tell us a story at bedtime,” and that’s just about the worst thing Milo can imagine.

Carmen gives each of them a loving swat on the behind as she passes by. Time to eat soon, she signs, and Gil salutes, before blowing her a kiss.

“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” he says for the children’s benefit. “Let’s go below before your mother decides the sharks deserve our supper more than we do.” Their outraged squeals follow him as he descends the ladder, and he smiles to himself as they begin to bicker about what’s for supper.

“Flying fish,” Claire insists, “I saw so many of them!” and Milo argues that Rosa was mending her net and couldn’t have caught anything today, and Gil, not for the first time, momentarily envies his wife’s deafness.

Children are a blessing, he thinks. A noisy, troublesome, nerve-racking blessing. As he slides his arm around Carmen’s waist, her smile tells him she feels the same.

Milo, Carmen, and Gil belong to @seanettlles . Dividers by @firefly-graphics .

#pirate au #nauti by nature #fiction writing #original characters #sign language #deaf character #claire oc #Milo oc #Carmen oc #gil oc

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the-silent-windchime · 2 years

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This is a fragment of a fic I'm working on right now. It's a stranger things pirate au, and I'm intending to have steddie be the main ship. BUT unlike any of the other pirate aus I've found on ao3, this one will also be a historical au, set in the Mediterranean in the 1500s (which is a time period I honestly think is just as exciting or more so than the so-called golden age of piracy!) and instead of it being some variation of "pirate Eddie and nobility Steve", both of them are pirates. I'm using the following fragment as kind of a proof-of-concept, so if this sounds like your type of thing maybe drop a comment or something (I am also tentatively looking for a co-writer, so message me for more information on that)

The Hellfire was a vessel of many virtues; she was small, she was light, she was the fastest damn ship on this side of the Atlantic, and she flew the jolly roger like she had never known another flag. But above all else and in every imaginable way, she lived up to her name.

“Douse sails and turn to starboard fifteen degrees!” Eddie shouted, grappling with the rigging on the headsail. The thick rope burned his hands as the wind fought to rip it away from him, and only his years of experience and the sticky, rum-coated deck kept him from flying overboard as the ship’s bow cleaved through a towering wall of sea foam.

“Aye, Captain!” came the scattered cry of response, barely rising above the hiss of sleet on wood. Somewhere behind him, Gareth barked an order to lash down the cannons, but Eddie knew that if he spared even a glance to check on his crew, he could very well end up dead. His world narrowed to the sail in front of him, which snapped and beat the air like the wing of a captured bird. Only once it was securely reefed did Eddie stumble away to cling to the forward mast.

The ocean roared, thunder cracked overhead, and the Hellfire turned somersaults across the waves as she did her level best to kill them all.

Another clap of thunder, this time accompanied by a strobe of lightning, and the entire ship was alight with cold white light. Through the curls flying wildly around his face, Eddie caught sight of Wheeler at the helm. The lad had his feet braced wide, every muscle in his skinny frame straining against the rudder, but Eddie could already tell that it wasn’t going to be enough.

“Someone get up there and help him!” he called desperately - just a moment too late.

There was a splintering crunch, and Eddie’s blood froze in his veins. The rudder twisted free and Wheeler was thrown into the ship’s railing. Eddie had a split second to be terrified that the boy was about to tumble over the railing before he slumped down onto the deck, clutching at the carven wood as swells of salt water bombarded the hull. Then the ship groaned, and suddenly Wheeler’s condition was the least of Eddie’s concerns.

“We’ve lost the rudder,” he yelled, voice carrying over the storm, “Everybody take cover!”

The ship bucked and kicked like a wild animal. His crew hit the deck, grabbing at the rigging and the lashed down cannons and each other and holding on for dear life. The wind plucked their shouted prayers from their throats, whisking them away to who knows where, and as the masts trembled overhead and a wall of inky blackness reared up in front of the bow, Eddie clung to the damp wood and thought bleakly that at least in hell, it wouldn’t be this damn cold.

#fanfiction #fanfic fragment #current work in progress #stranger things #pirate au #historical au #steddie

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sailsonthehorizon · 1 year

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#Throwback Thursday: Skittles and the North Sea

A #ThrowbackThursday blog, back to the 2019 Tall Ships Races. An annual celebration of Tall Ships and their history - exhilarating sailing, stunning cruises and celebrations across Northwest Europe. It is insanely expensive to sail on the official race legs, but that year one of the ships was making a ‘delivery voyage’ from Aberdeen in Scotland to meet the Tall Ship Races in Fredrikstad, at a fraction of the usual cost.

The Tall Ship Maybe at Liverpool. Pentax MV / Lomography Lady Grey 400

The ship in question was the 38m gaff-rig schooner Blue Clipper - sister vessel to the Tall Ship Maybe who I stumbled across in Liverpool just a couple of weeks ago.

My friend - a fellow Tall Ship appreciator - and I boarded our vessel at Aberdeen docks. Dwarfed amongst the metallic monoliths of commercial shipping, she was a welcome juxtaposition of wooden blocks and warm ropes against the unforgiving rust stained riveted walls of the freighters. An introduction to the crew, a tour of the boat and a safety drill later, sails were hoisted and we were heading out into the North Sea.

I’ll never forget the moment exciting serenity turned into stomach churning adrenalin, as we left the shelter of the harbour walls. The brutal Northerly wind slammed into the boat beam on. Our cabin was on the leeward side, that is the side away from the wind. Our bunks were at such a crazy angle, we were sleeping on the cabin walls more than the mattress.

That was the state of play for the next two nights, three days. The ship shuddering as wave after wave hit her sides, waves crashing and foaming over her bow. There was no longer any natural light in our cabin, just a dark, gurgling, watery vortex where the sky should have been. It was a new and exhilarating emotion, to feel so safe aboard a pitching and rolling sailing ship as we forged our way eastwards. The dark depths of the North Sea below us, the sails huge and full above our heads.

I was incredibly seasick. I lived on a couple of Skittles a day and spent most of the time being thrown onto the side of the ship, as I lay in my tumultuous excuse for a bed. It was surreal. Time stood still whilst the seas thrashed beneath me.

By the fourth day Norway was well within reach, the seas had calmed, and our cabin was filled with daylight. I crawled out of my bunk and up onto deck to discover a glorious summers day, the sea a sparkling, unbroken blue circle of peace. As if it had always been that way.

That porthole, sun on the canvas, the Tall Ships at Fredrikstad (iPhone photos)

I peeled spuds on the deck, took the helm during a moonlit night watch, and relaxed on the warm wooden deck as we glided past the Summer Isles towards Fredrikstad.

The simplistic horizon became fragmented by the indistinct masts of distant ships, growing into beautiful brigs and schooners of all sizes and nationalities as we started to gather outside the port, waiting our turn to enter the historic harbour.

There is so much more to tell that there isn’t really the time and space for here; entering the breathtakingly beautiful port of Fredrikstad, the Tall Ships celebrations, the train journey to Oslo, terrible £25 take-away pizzas and the The Kon-Tiki Museum. The Kon-Tiki Museum is hopefully another blog for another day, as that destination had been on my bucket list ever since I first read Thor Heyerdahl’s book aged 11.

My childhood hero - yes, my childhood hero is a raft! (iPhone photos)

The Tall Ships are visiting Helsinki in 2024. I LOVE Finland! By hook or crook I’m going to get there, ideally by Tall Ship but I’ll have to find out how much health I can recover once I start the neuro-physio…

…peace out ✌️

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berenices-commas · 6 months

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HMS Wasp - 1850-1869

Warship – 970 tons burden – 8 knots – 170 crew

Superficially similar to the other sloops discussed so far, the sixth HMS Wasp in fact boasted significant technological improvements that made her a far more capable ship. Her construction was part of a flurry of British shipbuilding spurred by a naval arms race with France during the 1840s, one which continued even after the February Revolution of 1848 effectively put a halt to French naval expansion. Originally intended as gun-vessels, Wasp (named after the sloop retired in 1846) and her sister ship Archer were ultimately designed as sloops, far-ranging weapons with which Britain might project force across its vast maritime empire.

The Wasp was a large ship for her rating, capable of acting at need as a fast supply ship or even a troop transport (she could carry 400 men over and above her crew). Capacious and ship-rigged with three masts, she was a far cry from the brig-sloops of the early 19th century and well suited to extended deployments – with one caveat. That relates to her alternative propulsion system, a screw propeller powered by a coal-fuelled steam engine. This was still novel technology at the time. Capable of providing 100 horsepower of thrust, the propeller allowed the Wasp to sail directly into the wind – providing exceptional agility – and to outrun just about any ship reliant solely on sail power. Early “screw” ships were made somewhat ungainly by this addition, but the Wasp saw little or no reduction in her performance. The only real drawback of the propeller system was that coal was at this point hard to come by outside Britain itself, limiting the use of the screw to critical moments. Unlike steam-powered paddles, a propeller also allowed the ship to employ traditional broadside firepower. The sting of this Wasp reflected a British move away from carronades and towards a smaller number of heavier guns: she carried ten (soon increased to twelve) 32-pounder cannon and two 64-pounders – guns with considerable range. With the screw, the Wasp could outrun anything she could not outfight, allowing her to operate independently in relative security.

The Wasp had a varied career, being stationed in the Mediterranean upon the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853 and thus becoming part of the fleet which landed British forces in the Crimea and blockaded Sevastopol. It is unclear whether she directly took part in the bombardment of that city, but evidently it was decided that she was too light a ship to withstand the fire of Russian shore batteries. Her captain and some of her men disembarked to join the British army, while the Wasp herself returned to base at Malta. Most of her postings, however, were to join the naval campaign against the slave trade. Initially this meant service in the Atlantic, but in the 1860s she mostly patrolled the east coast of Africa. Here her screw was of great value in allowing her to run down nimble dhows in coastal waters, and the Wasp was able to liberate large numbers of people through capturing slavers. More generally she was used as a coercive tool of imperial rule, intimidating populations in the Nicobar Islands and Penang in 1867. She was finally retired in 1869.

#wasp

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afarcryfrommymain · 1 year

Text

What you your OCs role on a pirate ship be?

Tagged by @strafethesesinners thank you for tagging me because I am so normal about pirates I swear (<-lying)

Aphid Hernandez

The First Mate

On a ship, the captain calls the shots. That's fine by you. You're not the sort of person who wants to be out at the front, dealing with the changeable moods of the sailors, being the one they blame if things go wrong. No, you're more than happy on the sidelines. The captain trusts you - they give you their ear, when you have advice on how the ship should run. The crew trusts you - sitting with them in the mess, you can understand how they're feeling. Other than the ship's cat, there's nobody who dislikes you. And that's the way it should be. While the captain's head is filled with adventure and raids and treasure galore, you're the one who makes things actually happen. You talk to the navigator to get a bearing for the ship, convince the crew to go on your captain's madcap schemes, listen to their concerns, relay orders to the boatswain. You're the one who pipes up when the captain's route would take you past a government patrol, who remembers the crew's birthdays, who argues for a bit of shore leave after a hard raid. It's not easy work, but it's yours. And you wouldn't change it for the world.

Captain Olive Laurier

The Topman

I'll tag uhh @adelaidedrubman @wrathfulrook @gxmergurl (@salad-says-hi hi sal) and anyone else who wants to join should do it!

#aphid hernandez #captain olive #im talking now #tag game #i swear im normal about pirates i swear i definitely wouldnt go be one given the opportunity #<-guy who watched one piece growing up and fucking loves pirates now evn tho he knows its not realistic #no but seriously while ik its unrealistic to go do god would i love to be a pirate #the open sea #a group of people youve befriended/will befriend over time #no rules no limits just do you part and earn your keep #aphid as first mate is perfect because he fucking hates being a leader but knows how to get shit done #right hand man/dragon to others #and of course olive is swinging high above #being crazy #shed love it on the sea genuinely #u think during new dawn theres a resurgence of pirate type people out on the sea because the land is scorched #a thought for another post

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skepwith · 2 years

Text

Parts of the Revenge

For Fic Writers and Fans of Our Flag Means Death

The historical Stede Bonnet’s Revenge was a sloop-of-war, one of the smaller types of men-of-war, or fighting ships. Unlike merchant ships, they carried multiple guns (i.e., cannons); merchant vessels were usually also armed, but not as heavily.

Basic Nautical Terms

fore: The front part of the ship.

aft: Towards the back.

bow: The frontmost part of the ship’s hull.

stern: The backmost part of the ship.

starboard: If you’re facing forward, this is the side of the ship on your right. If you’re facing aft, it will be on your left.

port: If you’re facing forward, the side on your left. If you’re facing aft, it’s on your right.

hull: The outer body of the ship. What you scrape barnacles off (assuming you’re not flirty enough to get out of the job).

Decks

The Revenge has four full decks. Plus there are several partial upper decks with weird names.

Main Deck

Also called the upper deck or upper gun deck. This is the deck where everything happens: flag-sewing, sleepovers, duels, fuckery, etc.

Forecastle (Fo’c’sle)

Pronounced, and sometimes spelled, fo’c’sle. The partial deck in the ship’s fore, from which Blackbeard swings off a rope to impress the crew. A few steps above the main deck.

Quarterdeck

You know the sweeping staircases Stede descends like he’s Ginger Rogers in an MGM musical? Those lead between the main deck and the quarterdeck. The quarterdeck was traditionally where the captain, and sometimes his officers, hung out and kept an eye on things; regular sailors weren’t allowed up there, except in the course of their duties. It’s also the location of the wheel, or helm, which steers the ship by turning its rudder.

Poop Deck

Named after the French word for stern; nothing to do with poop. Even higher than the quarterdeck, the poop deck is perched over the stern. Its height makes it a good place to make observations from. The handrail around the poop deck is called the taffrail.

Gun Deck

Also called the lower deck. This deck is under the main deck. You know how from the outside of the ship you can see cannons poking out from their little hidey-holes? Those are gun ports, and the guns (cannons) live along both sides of the gun deck. (The Revenge also has cannons on the main deck, which is why the main deck is sometimes called the upper gun deck.) In some ships, the crew would sleep on this deck, between the guns. In OFMD, this is the deck with the kitchen and the crew’s table, as well as the jam room and the rec room; you can see the gun ports in the hull.

Orlop

The deck under the gun deck. Where coils of rope and other equipment is stored. It’s below the ship’s waterline, so the stuff you store here has to be able to withstand some damp. Has a low ceiling. Historically, was often used as the ship’s surgery during battle. [ETA: Season 2 revealed that the Revenge has no orlop.]

Hold

The lowermost deck. Where supplies are stored and cargo, if there is any, is carried.

Masts

The masts are the big poles that hold up the sails. Different types of ships have different numbers of masts. The Revenge has three.

Foremast: Frontmost mast. Emerges through the fo’c’sle.

Mainmast: The one in the middle, coming through the main deck.

Mizzenmast, or mizzen: Aft mast. Comes through the quarterdeck.

There are about a million sails, each with its own name, and about a million ropes, ditto. I’m not covering any of that here, because life’s too short. Suffice it to say that the ropes, cables, and chains in general are called the rigging.

Other Parts of the Ship

Head

Generally speaking, the front of the ship. More specifically, the area in front of the fo’c’sle; also called the beakhead. Home of the figurehead (in this case a unicorn) and the bowsprit (the pole that sticks out in front of the ship). This is where Blackbeard throws Lucius overboard, which means Lucius has the whole length of the ship to be thrown a line by Fang and pulled back on board, which is totally what happened. The head is also where the crew’s toilet was located (head has since become synonymous with toilet.) The captain had his own toilet—sorry, en suite—in the stern, near his cabin.

Tops

Sometimes called fighting-tops. The little platforms about a third of the way up each mast. Ed and Stede pull their lighthouse trick in the top on the mainmast, i.e., the maintop. This is also where they bond over quality marmalade.

Capstan

The big cylinder that sits on the main deck. The crew turns this to move ropes and cables for heavy work, like weighing (raising) the anchor or hoisting a foresail. Its wooden bars are removable when not in use. Fun historical fact: sailors often sang sea shanties while turning the capstan, to keep them all in rhythm, and if one of the crew had a musical instrument, like a fiddle, pipe, or drum, he might play it while sitting on top of the capstan.

Great cabin

The biggest cabin on the ship, usually the captain’s quarters. Often had a row of windows facing aft and a library.

Everything I know about ships I learned from Patrick O’Brian and Wikipedia. If you see any errors, please let me know.

More Parts of the Revenge

#our flag means death #nautical terms #parts of a ship #ofmd meta #18th-century sailing #mapping the Revenge

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fransfiction · 3 years

Text

A Short-lived Pirate Career

“Would you please get down from there at once?” Less than a week had passed since Temeraire and Genereux had tumbled out of their shared egg on the Reliant and into Laurence’s life, and he had hardly had a moment of calm since.

Today, Temeraire and Genereux had heard of the concept of pirates, much to Laurence’s dismay, as the both of them had decided that now was the best time to begin their acting careers- as pirates commandeering the Reliant. Genereux had wound herself generously around Laurence’s shoulders and around his head, trying with no small measure of success to impede his vision while her twin scaled the rigging to shout at the bewildered ship’s crew below.

“Avast, all ye crewmen and yield yourselves to us! We are hereby taking control of this ship and demand that you halt all activities so that you may begin fishing for our dinner! You shall not stop until you bring us a whole whale!” Temeraire twined around the rigging closest to the Reliant’s main mast, crowing in plain delight. “And I want more of those little shrimps, too! It was great fun, picking their little legs out of my teeth. And they were so delightfully crunchy!” Genereux called up to her brother, slightly slackening her hold on Laurence’s head. He took the opportunity to gently pry Genereux away from his face, her little, still soft, claws reaching for his coat.

He looked at her sternly, “I will place you back on my shoulders, but only if you cease this business of crawling about my head. It is vastly improper, and I don’t quite see why either of you want to go about this pirating business when you seemed perfectly content this morning with your justly acquired breakfast of chicken and tunny.”

Genereux, looking only slightly abashed, looked away and allowed her legs to dangle in the air, while her brother still hollered away above. “It only sounds so much more fun to be a pirate. After all, hadn’t you won Temeraire and myself in a great battle with another ship? And then you got to keep us? What if we were able to find ourselves a ship to battle, and then we might find another egg, and hatch a human just for ourselves?”

Laurence adopted a feigned look of dismay, “Why on earth would you want another human? My dear, surely you cannot mean that you want to replace me with another?”

Genereux’s head reared back, stunned for a moment and she hastily replied “No, not at all! That isn’t to say that we want another human but an adventure, any adventure at all does sound appealing when we have spent these last many days at sea with not much to do except eat and sleep.”

Temeraire craned his head, noticing that Laurence and his sister were paying less attention to him, and had crept some ten feet down the rigging to better hear their conversation. “Yes, we are getting bored of just eating and sleeping. We want something better to do!”

Laurence turned his look of hurt up to Temeraire, who he was shocked to see was a shorter distance above his head than he’d expected. “Does this mean you don’t enjoy when I read to you? I thought you both found that activity pleasant enough.” Laurence had discovered early that, while the two dragonlings were not quite equipped to hold a quill and write out figures, they were more than content to rest on his shoulders and tuck themselves into the crook of his neck while he read to them.

Laurence saw Temeraire and Genereux exchange nervous glances at one another- neither wanted to relinquish their precious reading time with Laurence, but the idea of leading a pirate’s life was still plainly too exciting to give up so easily.

Riley silently appeared at Laurence’s side, sporting his newly acquired Captain’s garb and quirked an eyebrow at his friend and erstwhile superior officer. “Should I take this to mean that our new dragon friends are staging a coup on my ship?”

Temeraire bristled in the rigging and shot down another several feet, “We are not pigeons to be cooing, Captain Riley! We are dragons and we will have command of this ship! And shrimp!”

Riley barely concealed his mirth at the plain look of exasperation on Laurence’s face and schooled his own features into a stoic mask. “Of course,” he demurred, and held out an arm for Temeraire, “It is only you are both a bit small to man the helm at present, and I’m sure neither of you would be interested in so boring a job as steering the ship day in and day out. Or managing the logistics of the lot of the ship’s crew. Why not just leave that to us, and we can act on your direction?” Riley turned and arched a brow at Laurence, silently urging him to play along.

Laurence, for all that he wanted to discourage his dragonlings from future bouts of misbehavior, was quite ready to have done with the present situation and acquiesced. “Yes, doesn’t that sound splendid? The duties of running a ship can be quite pedantic, and I do believe you both might find it a great deal more boring than you’d think.”

Genereux paused, calm enough that Laurence felt comfortable placing her gently on his shoulder. She hummed her assent at first, before she continued “When you lay the responsibilities out like that, it does sound to be pretty tedious. I would much rather be in charge without having to do all that. But I would still like extra shrimp with my dinner, if you please.”

Temeraire, a little more skeptical, reached a forefoot out gingerly before climbing onto Riley’s still outstretched arm. “But only if it is as you say, and Genereux and I have say in the ongoings of the ship. We will only agree if the crew’s actions make sense for us!”

“Of course,” Riley agreed easily. He had no argument to give, as the Reliant’s mission had changed drastically once they had acquired a dragon egg that hatched not one but two dragonlings. The crew’s every action now was to get these two menaces, as he thought of them fondly, back to England so that they might be trained and perhaps even put into a formation.

Satisfied, Temeraire gave a short nod, unfurled his wings and gave a short hop, gliding ungainly until he landed ungracefully on Laurence’s head, mussing his hair and nearly unseating Genereux.

Laurence, to his credit, was shocked but unmoved. Riley stood staring at them, eyes widened nearly comically. “They’ve never done that before, have they Laurence?”

“No, sir, they have not,” Laurence croaked, Temeraire still balancing atop his head.

“It felt so very nice to try, though!” Temeraire crowed, and launched himself off Laurence’s head to glide to the helm. Genereux, not one to be left in her brother’s wake, tried her own luck, hopping off Laurence’s shoulder and landing, not quite smoothly, on the deck next to the helm. “That was quite fun” she called over to Laurence. Temeraire looked narrowly at the crewman standing at the helm. “Chart a course, if you please, straight on to England. I have heard that there are great big libraries there, and I would like to go,” he said primly, waiting for the crewman to disagree.

Upon seeing a sharp nod from Riley, the crewman gave a sharp nod of assent, “Just as you say, er- sir?” And Temeraire’s chest puffed out with delight.

He hopped down off the helm and glided to where his sister sat, and together they marched up and down the deck with much pomp and circumstance, convinced of their success.

Riley looked at Laurence, who looked back at the Captain with chagrin. “I do thank you for humoring them, but I do wonder what sort of trouble we’ve now gotten ourselves into, especially now that they’ve started trying to fly around,” Laurence murmured, not wanting his sharp-eared charges to overhear.

Riley merely shrugged, “I figure that it’s our prerogative to keep them entertained and satisfied anyhow, so it doesn’t much change our duties. Besides, I daresay this might get the crew to be more accustomed to your tiny terrors, and that can hardly be a bad thing.”

Riley clapped Laurence on the shoulder and, after noting that all was well on deck, headed back down below. Laurence looked on after him, and then turned to gather his charges. He strode after Temeraire and Genereux, calling for them to be careful at their gliding practice.

Perhaps he might distract them with the Principia Mathematica for a time, they might get so enmeshed they may even forget about the extra shrimp they requested with their dinner, and the sky might fall down around his ears. One could certainly dream.

A/N: Characters not my own! Temeraire and all his kin to Natalie Novik, and Genereux to @nighttimepatrons

#temeraire #genereux #dragons #dragon #nighttimepatrons

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gobblewanker · 3 years

Text

The Mystery and The Isosceles

Ch 5: We're not alone

Also on AO3

In the little over five days that had passed since Mabel and Dipper had first sat foot onboard The Mystery, Mabel had already begun feeling… Strangely at home.

The boards creaked under her feet as she dashed across the deck with a bundle of fabric in her arms. There were nothing but blue seas on all sides, and above them—an equally blue sky overlaid with masts and ropes and sails larger than any one continuous piece of fabric she’d ever seen before. A single sail looked big enough that it would’ve been able to completely envelop the little house Dipper and her had grown up in. She looked the flag over one last time, running her thumb over the nearly invisible seam. Maybe if she did a good enough job, they’d let her repair the sails too some day.

“Wendy!” She yelled over the clamor. High up on the rigging, she spotted a flame of red hair. “I fixed the tear! Now what?”

She wasn't sure if she could hear much that high up, but Wendy nonetheless waved at her before beginning to clamber back down with impressive speed. Right. Lumberjack.

“Lemme see.” She dropped down in front of Mabel and reached a hand out. Mabel proudly presented her work.

“I used to sew back home.” Mabel filled in, looking the black flag over. There was no skull, not like in the stories. Instead it had a fish on it, swimming towards a coin with an open mouth. A small giggle slipped from her lips. A fish on the flag and a wooden goat as a figurehead. Whatever Dipper said, none of it seemed intimidating. The people onboard treated them more like family than anyone back home had since grandpa died.

“Not half bad kid.” Was the verdict Wendy eventually delivered. “Hey, maybe I should get you to patch up my old trousers too?”

Reaching out to tussle Mabel’s hair, she then turned and walked over to a chest in the shadow of the crow’s nest. There were more flags inside, all in different colors and with a wide array or designs. Neatly folded in a corner lay a dusty red one.

“Can I see?”

“Not right now kid.” Wendy returned the black flag and closed the box. “These are for signaling. Best not to get em all jumbled.”

“Then what do I do now?”

“I’d say find somewhere to slack off.” Wendy shrugged. “But if you want to be a good girl instead, I guess go talk to Soos or Stan.”

Mabel nodded, watching the other put a steady foot back in the net and start scaling the mast again.

Maybe if Mabel asked nicely, she’d teach her how to do that? But, the captain had been pretty insistent on neither her nor Dipper climbing earlier. Something about ‘the kind of mess they’d make’ if they fell. She had a feeling that wasn’t really it.

That was another thing. Nobody—excluding Soos, for whatever reason—ever seemed to call the captain by title, at least not unless they were saying it to his face. He was just… ‘Stan’. Just some person.

He looked like grandpa.

Dipper was up swabbing close to the open air wheelhouse where the two senior most men stood deliberating over a map. Well, Stan was deliberating. Soos seemed to mostly just nod along and sheepishly smile here and there. It seemed a mystery how on earth he'd became second mate. He looked less like an authority, and more like a kid imitating a parent.

Mabel waved to Dipper as she passed, but he seemed too busy grumbling over a tough stain to respond.

“I’m done! Flags all fixed!” She reported with a mock salute.

“Don’t butt in. Some folks’ll shoot ya for that.” The captain answered without taking his eyes off the map.

“Not you.” She chirped in reply.

Stan narrowed his eyes over the table at her, but didn’t dispute it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dipper noticeably move closer under the guise of continuing swabbing.

“What are you guys doing?” Mabel leaned her head to the side. The captain sighed.

“We were working on determining the route to the-” He groaned slightly as he leaned further over the map to check the coordinates. “-nearest port.”

“There are no ports in this direction.” Dipper piqued up, his expression defiant. “I checked the maps, you’re sailing the wrong way.”

At that, Soos blinked a few times before turning back to the map worriedly. Stan didn’t. He met Dipper challenging tone head on and fired back:

“Ya know how to read maps?” His voice was sceptical as he crossed his arms and raised a brow.

“Yes.” Dipper responded, his voice only cracking briefly. “Better than you, apparently.”

“Don’t be a wiseguy.”

“I have no idea how to read maps!” Mabel interjected cheerily, the smile slightly forced. Both faces turned to her. “Looks tough though.”

Dipper didn’t take the out she offered, and Mabel’s stomach twisted as he refused to back down.

“You’re heading North. The closest port is West. There’s not even any islands in this direction.”

“Stop fussin’ Soos.” Stan threw back over his shoulder where Soos was in the process of rotating the map around. Without breaking eye contact with the child, Stan leaned back against the table and continued. “We are going the right way. While you seem to know your stuff decently, kid, don’t sound so sure of yourself unless you really are. Closest port is Gravity Falls, though Wendy told ya already. ‘S not on any maps. Pirate port.”

“Shouldn’t… Shouldn’t pirates still have a map there though?” Mabel intercepted cautiously.

“Beats me.” Stan shrugged. “Tried to add it once, spilled ink all over the map. Tired again, that one blew overboard. ‘S bad luck.”

“Sounds more like clumsiness.”

“Hah! Got me there.” Mabel jumped at the sudden harsh noise. This time, the jab prompted something other than irritation. A lazy grin melted away the earlier frustration from Stan’s weathered face. “Suppose sailors are a superstitious sort. But it doesn't matter, if you’ve got the coordinates it’s easy enough to find it. That’s how we all do it nowadays.”

Eventually, Dipper accepted the explanation and it seemed like that was the end of that conversation. They didn’t talk to the captain again until two days later, when they cornered Soos on his way in from the deck.

It had been Dipper’s idea, Mabel had been content to let Stan keep his secrets. But ever since their conversation with Wendy Dipper had insisted that they couldn’t even begin to trust someone unless they knew their motivations. Dipper hadn’t seemed much like he intended to warm up to Stan no matter what, but at the possibility of maybe brokering some peace between the two Mabel had agreed. And, despite everything, she couldn’t deny that she was curious as well. So at the end of the day when most of the crew were getting off their shifts, they stopped Soos in an empty corridor on his way back below.

In the end, despite what Wendy had said, getting Soos to spill was almost laughably easy.

They’d stood in the dim hallway, arms crossed trying to look imposing. And Dipper had simply said:

“Tell me what Stan's deal with Bill is.”

Soos sweated almost immediately. “Never! I’ll never tell you Stan’s secrets: Bill killed his bro.” His face fell into a shocked expression in the blink of an eye, gaze falling off into the middleground. “Wait, why did I say that?”

“What!” Mabel’s voice rose in horror, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. Dipper staggered back as if Soos had punched him.

“Oh crumbs- that’s not! I, uh-” Soos groaned defeatedly, and buried his face in his hands. “I Soosed that up.”

“I-I… Wait, hold on- what?” Dipper sputtered.

“There’s no way I can… Like, convince you dudes you didn’t hear that?”

“Soos!” Mabel shrieked.

“Okay, okay!” He raised his hands defensively. “I.. I don’t know all of it exactly, but… Okay, so, he doesn’t like to talk about it, right? But when I became first mate, he said I deserve to know. Like, we all have our own reasons for being here, but…”

Mabel and Dipper looked at each other, the earlier eagerness to know turning bitter and sour, tinged with hesitation. But they couldn’t just leave it there. Dipper’s eyes were fixed on Mabel, before he suddenly shuddered, his eyes falling to the floor. When he spoke again, his voice was hesitant rather than confused or demanding.

“Soos… When I first got here, Stan didn’t want to help until I mentioned that…” He swallowed hard. “That Mabel was my twin.”

“... Yeah. Look, I… Yeah. Captain Pines had a twin, and… Bill took him away. I don’t know all the details but-”

Soos froze, looking behind the kids. Mabel felt the looming presence before she even saw the shadow dwarfing her own.

“Suppose I should fill in the blanks then?”

Stan’s voice was completely devoid of the earlier snark and wit. It sounded almost entirely toneless. Still gravelly, but flat and dead. Mabel spun around, not sure what kind of reaction she expected. Anger seemed definite, she expected stormy eyes staring at them with reproach. She expected shouts and swears, at best; furious reprimands and a dark promise to kick them off of the ship at first opportunity. There was none of that. Stan just looked…

Sad. And old.

Not old like the ‘harmless old man facade’ from earlier, but genuinely old. Older than what should be possible. Not weak, but rather wethered and chipped like stone. Like the wrinkles were etched into him.

“I- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Soos began, but Stan just waved him off.

“Damage ‘s done.” He stated flatly, moving over to their corner and seating himself on a barrel. This time when he looked Dipper in the eyes, the boy couldn’t hold the contact.

“I’m sorry.” Dipper whispered, face downcast as if his own shoes had suddenly become the most interesting thing onboard the ship. He sounded like he meant it too, despite all the earlier animosity. His voice was thick with shame. Mabel felt her throat close as if she was about to cry.

“Alright.” Stan sighed as deep as if all the air went out of him, his shoulders slumping as he collapsed in on himself. He kept his voice steady though, the pain glaringly obvious—but far from an unfamiliar foe. “How far along were you?”

Nobody could bring themselves to answer his dejected question at first, everyone just standing uncertainty in a half circle. Every bit his audience, but unable to bring themselves to ask what they had originally set out to know. Finally, Dipper made himself speak; his voice a low rasp. He inched closer to Mabel as he did so.

“You had a twin. Bill Cipher killed him.”

“Yeah. Ford. His name was Ford.”

All things considered, Stan should have known the kid wouldn’t stop digging until he got his answers. He was way too much like Ford. The thought hurt. Made him ache all the way to his soul. Or, maybe it started in his soul, and spread outwards like some awful thornbush. He wasn’t sure.

He wanted to feel angry, anger hurt less. But he couldn’t blame them. Not when he saw so much of Ford’s curiosity and tenacity in them. Not when they almost automatically seemed to press closer together at his arrival, like protecting the other was just second nature. The anger wouldn’t come, so instead, he just shuffled over to where they stood and sat down—bracing for interrogation.

It caught him off guard when instead of questions, the first utterances were apologies from all ends. He did what he did best, and dismissed. Said he was fine. Said he understood. Said it was a long time ago, after all. At least two out of three were true.

He felt small and frail as he sat there listening to them talk in muted voices. He hated having to relive the memory all over again, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t already doing that on a daily basis. Every time he looked in the mirror, it was just a reminder that he was there, growing old while Ford wasn’t.

Living on without Ford felt like breathing with only one lung.

Growing old while Ford didn’t get to was agonizing. Possibly the only thing that hurt worse was that the guy responsible was still out there. The thought that he might die before he could make Bill pay terrified him far more than he wanted to admit.

He had faced Bill so many times now, but the bastard had to have the devil's own luck. Stan lost count of the times he was sure he’d injured the man bad enough that there was no way he’d survive. But no, every time he pulled through none the worse for wear. Bill should be dead. He was old too. Stan shouldn’t be the only one worn down by the years.

But he was.

That was why he’d told Soos and Wendy, so even if he didn’t get to do it, they’d know why he needed it done.

“I wasn’t there when it happened.” Stan finally spoke up. “If I had been, either I’d been dead or that one eyed freak would’ve. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t protect him.”

Stan looked up again, watching the younger twins stand close, hands locked together. The way it should be. He hoped they’d stay that way.

“I couldn’t protect him. So. I’ll have to settle for avenging him.” He got out between clenched teeth. The earlier heavy feeling in his chest was now steadily rising to his throat, forcing him to breathe hard around it. But it was familiar. He knew how to hold it back. Knew it like an old friend. “I want Bill burning in hell even if I have to personally escort him.”

“I get it.” Dipper whispered. All hostility melted away as he slumped. He still looked hesitant, but his face was tinged with sympathy. His hand around his sister’s looked noticeably tight. She stood silent, looking quietly sad and thoughtful. ”I get it now. Bill hurt someone you loved, and you want justice.”

What Stan did then was probably the last thing they expected him to.

Stan laughed.

He wasn’t sure why, none of it was funny. Absolutely nothing about the situation was funny. There was nothing even shallowly resembling amusement in his voice. It was just dark and bitter and cold.

“No, you don’t.” He shook his head, smiling without joy. They didn’t understand, and he hoped they’d never have to. The lump in his throat climbed higher. Past his mouth, pushing wetness out his eyes. ”I don’t want justice. At this point, I don’t give a shit about justice. I want revenge.”

For a moment, everything was quiet. Nobody looked at each other. Soos had stepped closer to Stan, but wasn’t touching him. That was probably for the best. He already felt swamped enough. Then, suddenly, a small voice broke the silence.

“When did he die?” Mabel asked, her eyes huge and almost aglow with dampness reflecting the low lantern light.

Stan paused, raised a still balled fist and wiped his eyes roughly.

“Thirty years ago.” His voice came out even more gravelly than normal. “1682.”

“No, that’s not…” She muttered to herself, before looking at Dipper with a mix of horror and shock. She turned back to Stan. Her next words nearly stopped his heart. “Dipper, when did grandpa say great uncle Ford died?”

The look of epiphany transferred to the boy’s face as well, before turning to swiftly look at Stan.

“1682. He was killed by pirates in 1682. By the captain of The Isosceles.”

That wasn’t possible. There was no way in hell-

“Grandpa?” Stan choked out. His shoulders were trembling worse now, his throat trying to close up again. Either a very large wave had just hit the ship, or it was his head spinning. It had to be a storm though, because the ocean was roaring in his ears. “What’s yer grandpa's name?”

“Sherman.” Mabel whispered. “Sherman Pines.”

Stan’s eyes stayed open, but he no longer saw through them. Everything turned fussy and indistinct, the real world fading out around the edges as memories of a childhood long since passed superimposed themselves on top. “Sherm… Shermie’s gone too?”

He couldn't deal with this right now. It was all too much. Yes, he hadn’t spoken to Sherman for—what forty years?— but to know that now he’d never get the chance to again? For thirty years he’d been single mindedly focused on pursuing Bill. Everything else seemed insignificant. Thoughts of home and family had no place in his mind when everything was flooded with regret and resentment.

Sherman was gone. He had assumed Ma and Pa had probably passed away somewhere along the way. But Sherman… Yes, he was old too, older than Stan. It wasn’t strange. But last they’d still seen each other, Sherman had still been a young man. Somehow, it never quite struck him that he’d age even if Stan wasn’t there to see it. Sherman wasn’t supposed to be gone. Stan wasn’t supposed to be the last man standing.

Except…

If Sherman was their grandfather, then these kids were his family too.

“That… That’s okay.” Stan’s emotions were a confused jumble of grief and confusion and joy all clumped together and bouncing off the walls in his head. But he could wait until he was alone again to begin untangling all of that. For now, he clung on to the spark of happiness like a lifeline and straightened as he looked at the kids. “I’m not alone. We’re not alone.”

A laugh bubbled up from the girl, this one genuine and wavering. The dampness in her eyes had begun spilling over, but she was smiling despite it. Before Stan could figure out how to respond, she was on him—nearly crushing his torso in a backbreaking hug.

How was one little girl that strong?

Apparently, that broke the tense atmosphere enough for Soos to dare put a supportive hand on his shoulder. Something told him he should be grumbling and pushing them both away, like he had done for ages. But he couldn’t bring himself to. He allowed himself a moment of weakness, and returned the hug; lifting the girl up and spinning her as she laughed.

“I don’t get it.” Dipper muttered. His face was laden with confusion, but Stan was privately pleased to notice he didn’t seem as defensive anymore. Just the fact that he’d let him pick Mabel up without any death threats seemed like incredible process. “Grandpa said both his brothers died at sea.”

At that the girl—his niece, he had a niece and nephew, he had family!— frowned thoughtfully.

“I don’t think he’d lie. He sounded too sad.” She looked at Stan, still sitting contently in his arms. “He said you’d gone after Ford, and died too.”

At that, Stan’s heart sank again. He staggered, and had to return Mabel to the floor so he could sit down.

“But I… I sent Pa letters.”

The room felt cold around him. Even with four people crowded into the small space, he felt alone. Sure, he’d never gotten any replies back, but he’d assumed that was just a matter of very rudimentary postal service not being able to find him. But what if they’d never even tried to answer? Did they never get his letters? He assumed they had, because he never heard back from messengers about any problems. So…

Did Pa hate me that much?

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.” He made himself continue speaking, smiling at the kids despite it all. Focus on the bright sides, worry about the other stuff later. “We’re all here now, and… And I’ll look after you for as long as ya need me to.”

Mabel smiled brightly. Even Dipper's expression erred on cautiously optimistic.

He’d figure it out. He had to.

He couldn’t lose what small remainder of his family he still had.

#gravity falls #pirate au #my fics #Yesss finally got back to writing this!

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