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gingerbreadmonsters · 5 months ago

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sea change

or: no thanks, i'll use my oyster card.

gn!reader, warnings for violence, gore, and canonical character death, cute fluff that gets a bit confused along the way. it’s the return to the mer au! i tried to keep it at bay, but i guess i was just coasting. it’s never plain sailing when it comes to these two, so much love as always to the gang on discord and especially first mate @zozo-01, without whom i would be utterly adrift. warden digging a watery grave in 7100 words or less.

Everybody knows that your captain is looking for something.

It’s been his quest for as long as you’ve known him, and since long before that as well. Something he’s been chasing, something he’s been hunting. Day after day, night after night, he searches and searches – and yet he finds nothing, as if he had never looked at all.

Who knows what it could be? An elusive, unknowable something, anchored down deep in his soul and crying out to be found, yet never to be named. It might be treasure, but what sort of treasure does he not possess? What manner of riches, what silks or jewels or spices has he yet to find?

The question is a maddening one. Is it something else that he seeks? What port has he yet to visit, what person could elude him for so long? His name spans the seven seas, revered or reviled by every man in every port of every nation. Nothing hides from him, nothing escapes him. There is none, alive or dead, who has ever been a match for him.

And yet, nobody knows. He won’t say, and there’s no sane man who’d dare to ask.

He doesn’t ever say, but you see how it consumes him. It’s hellfire, roaring in his eyes with every contemptuous glance – it’s poison, ravaging his mind and choking his heart in its bitter, strangling grip. His great curse, clinging defiantly to his skin like thick tar. A jagged, gaping wound that bleeds and bleeds and never stops.

Call it a mission, a quest, a calling. Whatever it is, he is utterly tireless, ruthless in his unfailing search. A ceaseless, single-minded devotion to the neverending chase.

Aim level!

He’s something unexpected, he’s one of a kind. You can’t say you’ve ever met anyone else like him, and you probably never will again.

Ready…

Captain Vega is a singular sort of man, indeed.

Fire!

He’d told you about it only once before, awash in the crimson sunset of a port many months’ voyage from here, and even then he hadn’t told you everything. Only half-truths, warm and full of promise where they pressed to your skin, the rich brocade of his captain’s coat weighing down your shoulders as the chill of the night began to set in.

Whispers on the breeze, tales of a mythical treasure long thought lost. A prize with the power to commune with gods, to turn men into beasts and beasts into men, to command the sea itself as if it were nothing more than a child’s plaything. Something too good to be true, a legend that couldn’t possibly be real – and yet he swore, he swore he knew it was out there somewhere, waiting to be found…

You’d not been new to the crew of the Carpe Deus, but you weren’t exactly an old hand, perhaps a little less than a year since he’d captured you from the royal navy. At the time, his previous quartermaster had made no secret of his disdain for you – you had, after all, killed more than a few of his crew as they tried to raid your ship.

To tell the truth, you’d been quite proud of yourself. The scene lingers in your mind, even now. Blood, staining your uniform and dripping from your stolen cutlass, a trail of pirate corpses in your wake as you fought your way out from the carnage of the gun deck and the bodies of your slaughtered crewmates. You’d been heading up onto the main deck in search of your commanding officer, but to no avail – the night sky was dark and clouded, and the moonlit shadow of a man had finally stepped in and surprised you with a hard, cold pressure against the back of your head and the unmistakable click of a flintlock pistol being cocked.

You fought well, little sailor.

The HMS Delta had never made it back to port. As far as the navy were concerned, there had been no survivors.

But your fight, I’m afraid, is over.

Your many weeks below deck, rotting away in that dark, tiny cell, and yet he’d never got tired of you. There’s almost no such thing as a ransom on the Deus – a reputation for ruthlessness like the captain prefers has to be maintained somehow, after all – but he’d ordered you to be kept down in the brig anyway.

Perhaps he’d been intrigued by your viciousness during the assault, or perhaps he’d just wanted someone new to scare. You had nothing to lose, and nothing to offer but conversation, and as you talked and talked over the long voyage to McKinley, you’d slowly found yourself coming to like this towering, terrifying pirate captain that was holding you hostage.

He and his crew have always been legendary across the seas, the ghoulish villains of many a harbour’s horror story. But to actually speak to him? To hear the low cadence of his voice, to see those dark eyes glittering in the dim light, to know that this man – this cruel, violent man who’d killed more crews of more ships that you could even count – was deigning to spend his hours talking to you? An unimportant little nobody that the navy wouldn’t miss?

Well. Despite your best efforts, you couldn’t help but feel flattered.

When he’d told you, it had been something of a surprise. Not knowing the captain as well as you do now, you’d considered this story, this tale of the mystical treasure he sought, as a sort of repayment. A belated acknowledgement of his subordinate’s cruelty to you, and the misery of your situation. But he’d disavowed you of that idea rather quickly – your repayment had actually come a few days later, when he called you up to the quarterdeck to find the old quartermaster mysteriously disappeared, leaving no trace at all.

The captain had smiled as he looked down at you, that heady, heart-stopping smirk that men say is the stuff of nightmares, and held out a dark wooden case. Inside, nestled among the felt was a beautiful pair of duelling pistols, white pearl inlaid in the stock and polished to a soft and lovely shine.

Captain?

Shocked, you’d only been able to blink stupidly up at him as he closed the case and pressed it into your arms, before laying a suspiciously-familiar cutlass across the top of it.

I’d take care of those if I were you, little sailor, he’d murmured, the song of his low voice curling about your shoulders with the sea breeze. Something tells me you might be needing them.

Strangely, there had been no complaints when, out of the blue, you’d been chosen to take up the empty position. Isn’t it wonderful, how these things turn out?

That captivity is long behind you now, and once they got used to you, the crew entirely accepted you as one of their own. Those pistols have saved your life more times than you can count, and in your hands that cutlass has killed twice as many unlucky sailors who found themselves the targets of the captain’s wrath. At his command, you’ve always been happy to put your particular talents to good use.

In all the time since then, you’ve never forgotten the story he told you. You’d sworn yourself to his service and his mission, and you’ve always followed him wherever he asked you to go, all in pursuit of his ambitions. His desires are your desires too, and your faith in him is so ingrained as to be absolute.

That’s why, as soon as he’d heard of this new story, you’d already been making plans to chase it before he could even say a word.

It had been almost nothing, a rumour of a murmur of a dream, overheard in a forgotten tavern in a dark, crowded port. The tale of a strange silence, spreading across the sea – a place where the waves are flat and lifeless, the eye of a great and swirling storm where the very ocean holds its breath, afraid of what it might disturb. A place where the water is ever silent, no creature daring to swim too close or fly too near.

“Captain!”

And a mysterious ship at its centre, with no sails and no crew, floating quietly atop the glassy sea with a magical treasure locked away within its hold.

“Captain, it’s him!”

It’s been three weeks or so since you left Port Duke, in pursuit of this uncanny storm, and the entire crew has been on edge ever since you first caught sight of it. The cry had gone up that the storm had been spotted, the glint of a spyglass from up in the crow’s nest, and you’d all held your breath at the ethereal, unnatural mist rolling across the surface of the sea.

This storm… it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

It’s not really a storm in the traditional sense, for a start. Its clouds are thick and dark, heavy like it could pour with rain at any moment, but that seems to be it. There’s no thunder, no lightning, no howling gales or stinging hail. Instead, the air is terrifyingly still and silent, and when you look up there are no birds in the sky.

From a distance, nothing had seemed amiss – but the deeper into its heart you go, the thicker this grim, oppressive mist seems to get. An odd, cold breeze had whistled past early this morning, as if you’d crossed some sort of unseen boundary, and the difference is astonishing after only a half day’s sailing. Up in the rigging, it’s barely possible to make out the horizon, but down on the deck you can barely see a hand in front of your face.

Even the sea isn’t right, no waves to be seen save for the disturbance of the Deus as she cuts through the water. The water itself is smooth and clear like crystal, eerily unmoving, and you feel as though you could see straight down for miles if the day were only a little brighter.

Captain Vega has been restless all morning, patience even shorter than usual, snapping bitterly at the crew at the slightest provocation. He almost took Ivan’s head off with his dagger when he bumped into the bosun coming up the stairs from the orlop deck, and you’re fairly sure it took one of the gunners the better part of an hour to get it free from where the blade had embedded itself in the wooden wall.

Uneasy mutterings among the crew, the subtle chill of paranoia creeping down your spine. The storm has everybody on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The cruel sound of a blade being sharpened echoes through every corner of the ship, and you can’t help but sneak anxious glances over at Vega every few seconds as you sit at the table in his cabin and silently pour gunpowder down the barrel of his pistol. Something’s wrong, but you don’t know what you could say to help. Is there even anything you could say?

Despite the frightening atmosphere below decks, you’ve rallied the crew as best you can and sailed onwards, chasing the blurry smudge in the distance that the navigator assures you is really there. If there’s even the slightest chance that this might be the treasure you’re seeking, that you might finally be able to give the captain what he’s been searching for, you’re utterly resolved not to give in. You can’t let him down.

“Captain!”

Both of your heads snap towards the door as it bangs loudly against the wall. The blade of Vega’s dagger glints threateningly in the light, and your cutlass is already half-unsheathed before you even know what’s happening. The chair you were sitting in clatters to the floor, but you barely even notice.

“Up on the forecastle – he just appeared, out of – out of nowhere, sir, he—”

Vega glares at the trembling ship’s boy in the doorway of his cabin, before holding his hand out towards you. Hurriedly, you snap the frizzen back into place to finish reloading his gun, and quickly turn it around to give it back to him stock-first.

“You’re sure.” It’s not a question.

“I swear!” the boy stammers, backing away and nearly tripping over his own boots as Vega stalks towards him, narrowly jerking out of the way in time to avoid accidentally blocking his path. “You said to get you if something strange happened, sir, and he’s – Captain, he’s right there!”

You throw the poor boy a sympathetic look before hurrying out onto the main deck after Vega, a cautious hand on the hilt of your cutlass. You’re not sure what he might mean, but for Vega to be as on edge as this, it must be something serious.

It’s eerily silent on the deck. There’s none of the usual shouts or chatter that you’re used to, no crash of waves against the side of the ship, no cry of seagulls in the great sky above. The faint breeze that weakly fills the sails makes no sound, and even the sound of your boots on the boards seems muffled, somehow.

All around, the crew are frozen as they stare towards the forecastle. The air is thick and heavy with terror as the mist swirls around you, and the clouds seem oddly lower than before. Standing here in the middle of the main deck, it feels as though the storm itself has turned its eyes to watch you.

Captain Vega inclines his head slightly to the side.

And the creature that stands before him, peering curiously across the deck at the two of you, copies him exactly.

You’re here.

It’s a strange, slender figure that regards you both, perplexing in form. Its silhouette is like that of a man, and it speaks like one too, but its voice is something entirely alien – and it moves like water, like thick, viscous oil poured into a man’s shape.

It doesn’t even really speak, per se. No mouth seems to move, and yet its words seem to appear in your head as if you yourself are thinking them, a voice that your mind hears but your ears hear not. What sort of terrible creature is this?

But how? the creature asks, face melting and morphing in what might be confusion. This ship is not the Ecumene. This ship is not the Obscura.

“No, she is not.”

Vega’s voice is remarkably even, despite the way his hand comes to rest on the hilt of his sabre. “Speak not of matters which do not concern me.”

I recognise this ship, the creature intones, buzzing words filling your mind. I recognise you.

“Perhaps.”

You are Vega.

The captain doesn’t flinch. “I am.”

You overstep your bounds.

“There are no bounds that hold me.”

Are you sure?

The creature’s eyes are wide and frightening, something almost childlike dancing in its gaze as it slowly moves closer. Each step makes no sound, and each liquid tremor of its terrible body makes your teeth ache.

Sweet, fine features seem to ripple with the movement of the air, shiny and soft-looking, an unearthly beauty that can’t quite stay still. If you were to touch its face, you think it might be cold.

It seems almost like a kind of spirit, some sprite, a form of life you can’t recognise. For some odd reason, you’re reminded of the stories of the fey folk from your childhood, of fairies and shape-changers and powers so ancient that their names have been forgotten, leaving behind only the memories of the terror they wrought in the early days of the world.

Idly, you realise that the mist seems to part for the strange creature as it walks. Does it control this mist? Does it move at its command? Or does even the mist know not to touch it, for fear of what it might do?

“There is a ship at the centre of this storm.”

There was.

Vega’s glare is sharp and steely, so cold that the very air seems to freeze around him. “I am not such a fool. The ship remains.”

The soft mass of the creature seems to shrug, so casually that it makes you nervous. The ship remains, but what you seek does not. And that is the matter that truly concerns you.

Anyone else wouldn't be able to spot it, but you know your captain well enough to be able to feel the way he tenses slightly, to notice the way he leans forward almost imperceptibly. This… this thing that’s come aboard – it's putting him on edge in a way you've never seen before

“It concerns me, now?”

Moreso than it should.

Vega's eyes narrow. “So you would stand in my way.”

Your way is behind you, replies the creature, voice dripping and snapping with slick venom. It is not time. The prize you seek is not here.

“You misunderstand me.”

He smiles, but his tone is dark and ominous. “Whatever it is you believe I seek, it is of no consequence.”

Do not lie to me.

The creature’s tone hardens in an instant, words cracking like a whip inside your skull. If you want to live, you should leave this place.

“I will leave with what I came for.”

It is not time. It cannot be done.

“Then I will not leave.”

Then you will die.

It happens faster than you can blink. The ringing sound of a blade slicing through air, and in an instant, Vega’s sabre is drawn as he levels it at the creature’s neck. The rattle of guns being cocked sounds across the deck, that familiar flintlock click, and your eyes dart down to find that your cutlass is already drawn and ready in your hand.

The creature doesn't move, quizzically regarding the countless guns being pointed at it from all over the deck, before blinking once more at Vega.

You cannot be here. You will leave, or you will die.

“Words I have heard a thousand times,” Vega hisses, coiled like a spring. “And yet, I find that those who stand against me seem to change their minds rather quickly, when it matters.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see something moving – with horror, you realise that the once-still sea is starting to froth and churn around the ship, the deck beginning to rock back and forth. The clouds overhead seem to darken before your eyes, the mist that surrounds you seems to thicken, and the first drops of rain begin to fall.

The creature turns its head slowly, to examine the blade that rests but a fraction of an inch from its neck. Vega doesn’t move, fingers flexing on the hilt of his sabre.

I have given you warning.

“You will give me what I want,” snaps Vega, and your body floods cold with adrenaline. “The wreck of the Weaver lies at the heart of this wretched storm, and its secret is mine.”

The Weaver…

It sounds familiar, somehow, but you can’t quite place it. What does he mean? Is that the name of the ship that's supposed to be here? Is this what he’s been hunting all this time?

There's no time to think about it, though, as the clouds above turn black, letting only a little of the dim, weak sunlight through. The deck sways nauseatingly as sudden waves roll angrily beneath the ship, and a deafening howl splits the air as the wind picks up out of nowhere.

The creature’s body moves sickeningly, like molten wax. You know nothing of that which you seek.

“I know what I am owed.”

It is not time.

The storm clouds seem to breathe. “You dare deny me?”

Leave this place.

“You think your pitiful atte—”

Leave this place, or—

“Enough!”

Vega laughs sharply, a short, manic sound that echoes out across the roiling sea. “I have come for the Weaver, and no man nor beast in all creation shall keep it from me!”

He lifts his chin as the creature bares its teeth at him, and you steel yourself for a fight. Vega’s weight shifts ever so slightly to his front foot, the razor sharpness of his blade catching the light in the fraction of a second before the blow, and—

Then you shall die.

—and you’re reminded of your promise.

How long ago that day seems now.

It happens on every ship, for every crewmember to every captain. A pirate knows one home, and it is the sea. One family, and it is their crew. One oath, and it is their captain’s.

Some of the contract is purely practical, of course. It dictates how many shares of treasure you receive, lays out the chain of command, sets out the rules for the life you'll have at sea – all those ordinary sorts of things. It’s an agreement, plain and simple, to make sure the peace aboard the ship is kept.

It’s not all dry legalese, though. The oath is far, far more than that. And the oath that’s sworn aboard the Carpe Deus, the oath that’s sworn to Captain Vega, is very special indeed.

Swear yourself to me.

The night had been clear and balmy, bright stars in the summer sky above as you stood before him on the quarterdeck. The rest of the crew had stood around to watch as you pulled the dagger from your belt, and slashed a thin, crimson line across your palm, blood pouring down your wrist and painting the deck.

Silhouetted against the brilliant purple of the sky, Vega had done the same, deftly pushing up the sleeve of his captain's coat to grasp your wrist firmly in his cool grip.

You are of my command and my command only, from this day, until your last day.

You’d nodded, the words Ivan had taught you coming easily to hand. I am.

You shall heed my word as your law, at every time and in every matter.

I shall.

His voice had been calm yet stern, oddly soothing in its cadence as he held you fast. You shall hold no secrets from me, of any severity and persuasion.

I shall not.

Your will, your strength, your blood – all are as mine, from this day, until your last day.

It had felt like a prayer. All I am is as yours.

Know me, and be afeared, he’d said, and you’d shivered under the raw intensity of his gaze. To steal from me is death.

You'd shaken your head, defiant iron in your spine. I know no fear.

To disobey me is death.

I know no fear.

To betray me is death.

I know no fear.

Your shared blood, dripping from your clasped hands, soaking into the deck of the Deus and staining the dark wood. It was as if the entire ocean were silent, every eye of every creature turned to watch you devote yourself to Vega.

There can be no power over you, he’d said over the song of the waves, no guiding force or sovereign will that is greater than mine.

I am yours, and yours alone.

Then join me, he’d declared, and you’d felt as though your head was filled with incense, strong and sweet and sacred. From this day until the end of days, be it in armageddon or infinitude.

The crew had cheered at your swearing in, but you'd hardly heard it – all you’d known was the warmth of Vega’s hand in yours, and the dark brilliance of his smile against the stars. He hadn't let go of you, either, his free hand coming up to gently cradle your jaw as he tilted your face to look at him.

I hope you know what you’re doing, little sailor, he’d murmured only for the two of you to hear, something wicked in the gleam of his eye. You ought to know that when I say death, I mean death.

You’d simply smiled, and met his gaze with your own. Anything for you, Captain.

The warmth of the night air had been nothing compared to the white-hot thrill that shot through you when he laughed, devious and entirely too charming. As he dismissed the crew with a shout, sending everyone scurrying back to their normal jobs, you think he'd heard the words you didn't say.

No need of fear to keep me by you, your heart had sighed, as light and sweet as air. To be apart from you would be death enough.

What a dream this all has been – what an incredible feeling! To hear your own name added to the myth of the mysterious Deus and its wicked captain, to know that your unwavering loyalty to him is immortalised in every port across the seven seas. To see men shiver at the mere mention of your name, to have your very face strike terror into the hearts of sailors without a single word.

You won’t ever leave him, you couldn’t possibly. How could you, with all you’ve seen – with all you’ve done together? The ocean is rife with stories of your legendary misdeeds, and yet more still are secrets known only to your crew. Countless ships have met their end, countless treasures stolen and sold, countless bodies thrown overboard to watery graves – all at the fair hand of Captain Vega and his faithful quartermaster.

Tales abound of the most terrifying pirate crew to ever set sail, the most feared ship to ever put to sea, the thin veil of horror that masks a vicious, bloodsoaked fairy tale. The sinking of the HMS Warden, the burning ports of the Peony Massacre, the escape from the brig of the Solitaire. It’s dread and death and love, and something more than love, too.

Everything changed, on the day you made that oath. You’ve sworn yourself to Vega a thousand times over, and you would do it a thousand more.

When you think about it now, the memory feels a little odd. Remembering how it felt to look out over the rolling sea, gaze drifting across the horizon as your blood mixed with his, you can’t quite shake the feeling that someone else was watching you, too.

That same feeling crashes down on you now, déjà vu blossoming in the pit of your stomach as the very sky seems to turn its eyes upon the deck of the Carpe Deus. Sick, sicker than you’ve ever felt before, the cruellest poison seems to hold your body fast as Vega makes to slice the creature’s head from its awful body, and—

—crash!

An almighty wave rocks the ship, sending everyone out on the deck flying. Tossed carelessly against the mast, you barely manage to cling on as several of the crew are thrown clear into the ocean below. The waves swallow them entirely, white froth on the black water, and they’re entirely gone in no more than a second.

Above you, the storm clouds finally split, and the few drops of rain turn into a deluge, driving down all around you and rendering you almost entirely blind as the ship keeps swaying back and forth – it feels as though the deck is almost vertical at times, so strongly do the waves hurl the ship from side to side. It’s all you can do to keep yourself anchored to the mast as the wood gets more and more soaked, eyes screwed shut against the furious storm.

Shouts and screams go up across the deck, and you can hear the sounds of carnage below your feet as cargo and cannons alike come loose. The raging wind shrieks past you, trying to rip you away from the mast, but you cling on as hard as you can.

Vega, Vega, you have to hold on. He needs you. You can’t see him, blinded by the terrible storm, but you know he must be there. To your right, one of the topmen latches onto the bannister that leads up to the quarterdeck, holding on for dear life, and you can barely hear his terrified ramblings over the overwhelming crash of waves.

“No, no, no…!”

He’s staring at something behind you on the other side of the deck, but you can’t turn your head to look, pressed against the mast as you are. There’s a brilliant flash of light, then the deafening roar of thunder far too close for comfort, and you realise what he’s – oh, God, you see it, coming over the starboard side – it can’t be, it can’t be—

“Forgive me, forgive me!”

Your captain, your captain. Anything, for him. Anything at all.

“God save us all…”

Even this.

“It’s the Hush!”

The air splits with an otherworldly shriek as something lurches from the water, too fast to really see, and snatches a struggling figure up in its grasp. Salt spray stings your eyes as you stare in horror, and the terrible, towering tentacles of a gigantic sea beast emerge from the black water to descend upon the Deus.

Your mind is numb with panic as you throw yourself backwards across the creaking boards, narrowly twisting out of the way of a huge, dripping tentacle as it smacks against the mast, tearing through the mainsail and sweeping across the deck. Rows of enormous suckers drag along the soaked wood, soft and rubbery, and you’re perversely awestruck by the sheer size of the hideous beast they must belong to.

It can’t be the Hush, can it? It’s a myth, a story to frighten children – a cruel and twisted monster that lives deep beneath the sea, so enormously vast that it swallows ships whole in its horrible maw, so absolutely hellbent on destruction that no man has ever seen it and lived to tell the tale.

Some say it’s like a great kraken, while others claim it’s more like a whale, but for every sailor there’s one thing that’s certain. To lay eyes on the Hush is to know death, plain and swift and simple.

Everything is utter chaos on the deck – you’re deafened by the shouting, the furious waves beating against the side of the ship, the driving rain and the shrieking wind. You can just about make out the vague shapes of the crew, axes and blades and guns being hurriedly passed around, but they’re obscured almost entirely by the awful flailing of tentacles as they rear out of the freezing water to tear the ship asunder.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realise that the strange creature, whatever it was, has vanished. Did it call the beast? Or are they one and the same?

Pistols are as good as worthless in this dreadful storm, powder thoroughly soaked by the torrential rain beating down on you, and your cutlass is next to useless against the thick, slimy skin that protects each tentacle. You’re nothing, you can do nothing against this unknown devil that’s turned its wrath upon you.

“Captain!”

It’s too much, it’s too much! Staggering across the rolling deck, throwing yourself out of the path of the huge, grasping tentacles that threaten to seize you, you’re dizzy with fear as you watch your entire world be strangled by the beast.

The sound of shattering wood, groaning and splintering as it’s crushed by an unyielding grip. Blood splattered all over the deck, the shrieks of your crewmates as limbs are mangled or ripped away entirely by the horrible suckers that line each hideous tentacle, the horrible splash of bodies hitting the water. Cracking, crunching, screeching. The deck lists nauseatingly to one side, and freezing rain turns your fingers numb.

“Vega… Vega, where…”

Lightning strikes the sea with a mighty roar, the world instantly turning white and forcing your eyes closed. Are you saying anything? You can’t tell. All you can hear is death, all around you the ravenous storm.

It’s impossible to walk, so you’re forced to crawl. Soaked to the skin, your sodden clothes weigh you down – half-hysterical, you can’t help but think that you must look like you’ve already drowned. Is it still drowning if it’s rain that chokes you? Never mind, never mind, you’ve got to keep moving.

“Captain…”

There! There, that’s him, isn’t it? Peering through the storm, you can just about see the figure standing by the foremast, almost the only one managing to stay upright against the wind. Surely it’s him – isn’t that the confident silhouette of his coat, and the wicked curve of his sabre? Isn’t that the way he moves, elegantly ducking around the stays as he evades the grasp of the wicked beast?

He’s something else entirely. Your captain – with every step, you can almost hear the heels of his boots on the deck through the endless drumming of the rain, as though even this ungodly storm can’t lay a hand upon him.

You can’t see his face, turned away from you as he is, but you’re not far now. As you scramble clumsily across the deck, all your focus is on reaching him, helping him, fighting with him. If you and what’s left of the crew going to get out of here alive – and you will, you will, you always do – then he’s the only one who can do it.

Whatever he says, you do. Time and time again you’ve killed for him, and you’d die for him too. He’s nothing short of a miracle, the only one you can follow, the only one you can trust. The most important man in the whole wide world, and you couldn’t ever imagine a life without him.

Wickedly intelligent, and brilliantly wicked – Captain Vega has always seemed like more than just a mortal man. Smirking at you over his ale as the late night turns to an early morning, the tavern packed with the Deus’ crew celebrating another successful ransoming. Caked with blood as he pulls his dagger from a poor midshipman’s eye and pivots on his heel to hurl it cleanly into the lieutenant’s heart behind him. Throwing his head back and laughing as the afternoon sun beats down on the quarterdeck and one of the topmen, distracted by a pretty girl on the dock, walks face-first into one of the stays and accidentally drops his lunch overboard.

Your devotion isn’t blind – far from it, in fact. Everywhere you look, he’s there, and you know that it’s only because he lets you see. He’s the dark heart of a dazzling star, and you’ve never blinked, not once.

The crash of a body tumbling past you shakes you from your daze, smashing into the stack of crates that’s tied down in front of you. Reflexively, you throw yourself backwards just in time, cursing through a mouthful of rain. Covered in blood and unmoving, it’s impossible to tell who it is, or even if they’re still alive – so you stumble onwards, and cross your fingers in the vain hope that the unnatural angle of the neck isn’t as bad as it looks.

You don’t get far, though, as the ship tilts sickeningly to your right and forces you off-balance. Something hits the side of your head, or maybe it stays still and it’s you that runs into it, and you’re almost knocked into a jagged hole in the lattice hatch, the top half of you suddenly hanging down over the ruined cargo deck.

Head suddenly full of bubbles, your eyes are too blurry to really see anything down there, but you force your heavy body to try and drag itself away from the ominous drop below. It’s hard, wet fingers slipping on soaked wood, and you wince at the sweet, sharp smell of spilt rum that leaks from the carnage in the hold.

God, what a waste. It’ll have destroyed the stolen shipment of cocoa you were planning on selling in Mont Blanc, along with all the tobacco. Not to mention there’s half a hold’s worth of cotton down there, four crates of silks and twice that of furs…

Your whole body aches, feeling as though every inch is bruised and sore. Perhaps that’s why it takes you a moment to realise, as you heave yourself out of the splintered lattice, that that’s not exactly what spilt rum should smell like.

You can smell the alcohol, to be sure, but there’s something else as well. It shouldn’t be so metallic, so sickly sweet and cloying, should it? There’s something familiar about it, something that reminds you of other voyages, of other storms and other near-misses out at sea. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say it almost smells like—

—oh, good God in heaven, its just like—

“Get down!”

Horrified, you shriek the words as loudly as you can as the realisation sinks in. You can’t tell if anyone heeds your call, or if the storm rips it away before anyone even hears it, your heart rattling in your chest as you throw yourself backwards. The foremast in front of you stands tall against the screeching sky as flickers of blue fire seem to appear around it, a hazy lilac glow that bathes the ship in its dim and gloomy light.

It feels like an age, terror holding you fast to the deck like thick, black pitch, staring uselessly at the unearthly flames that crackle around the masthead. For a single moment, you can see everything in all its wicked detail. The darkness of the storm gives way to the torn sails and slashed rigging that sway uselessly from the masts, to the mauled, gore-soaked bodies of your crewmates littering the deck as they lie dead or dying. The tentacles that ensnare the Deus beat ever more furiously at the groaning wood, stretching clear across the deck and beginning to crush the middle of the ship in earnest.

Your teeth ache as the air begins to sing, and through the pouring rain you see the shape of a single figure running towards the prow of the ship, sabre drawn and ready to strike. His hat tumbles from his head as he steps up to the forecastle, long hair falling from its usual ribbon – the creeping shadow of a man-that-is-no-man seems to laugh at that, standing impossibly still atop the bowsprit even as the ship sways and the sea spray crashes into him.

“Captain—!”

It’s not enough. You were never going to be enough. Blue firelight fizzes in the air and sparkles on your frozen tongue, and the dripping, awful tentacle of the beast lurches from the waves to wrap once, twice, three times around Captain Vega’s thrashing form, and rips him messily in half with a slick, wet crunch.

It looks as easy as breathing.

Blood pours down upon the deck, turning the sloshing seawater pink. Skin stretches and frays, muscle untwists and spirals away from itself as insides become outsides, falling wetly on dark wood. The pointed tip of the creature’s tentacle winds about his slack jaw and the back of his skull before wrenching nauseatingly to the side, and your captain’s head hits the floor several seconds before the rest of him follows suit.

A beautifully sharp, pearl-handled sabre clatters to the deck.

You must scream. You must, but you can’t hear it – you can’t hear anything, can’t see anything, as a jagged bolt of lightning slices through the sky and strikes the foremast right in front of you.

The world turns white, and you’re falling.

And falling, and falling…

Perhaps it’s the beast, finally cracking the ship in half, dropping you through the remains of the cargo hold and into the churning froth below. Perhaps it’s the raging gale that sweeps you up, knocking you overboard like nothing more than the soft white seed of a dandelion, floating along on the summer’s breeze. The rain might turn to hail and pelt against your skin with such force that it buries you deep within the core of the sinking ship, or the waves themselves might rise up to steal you away, tugging you down and down into the very stomach of the sea.

Or perhaps it’s none of those at all, this sickening weightlessness in your stomach and the howling torrent of agony in your head. Smashed and splintered wood, sinking down and down through the blue-green water, all that’s left of the beautiful life that you used to have. It falls apart in an instant – there’s just the pain, and the emptiness, and the smoking crater where you used to be.

A distant splash. Salt fills your skull and your mouth and your lungs, filling up all the soft space inside you. Down, down, down. Your ruined eyes burn, but are they open or closed?

He’s gone, he’s gone.

You’re utterly alone.

It’s getting harder to think, but you don’t really want to. Black water gushes into the yawning chasm that seems to split your chest in two, yet it can’t smother the searing pain that wails inside, white-hot and desperate. You don’t struggle or kick, but let yourself be pulled further and further away from the wreckage that surrounds you, tumbling slowly and inevitably to the seabed.

So this is how it ends, then. A fairytale unfinished, a tragedy unknown. An entire ocean’s worth of claret spilt in his name, and this is all you’ve got to show for it. The blasted carnage on the water gets smaller and smaller as your body starts to give in to the unrelenting pressure, and it’s so very, very cold.

You won’t be found. You won’t be missed. The wreck of the Carpe Deus will disappear, and nobody will ever know what happened.

Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

They’ll never know how you failed, they’ll never know how you couldn’t protect the one person who matters – mattered – the most. They won’t know about your broken oath, the shattered promise of a starry summer’s night. Your lovely cutlass will turn to rust, your cherished pistols will warp and fall apart, and you’ll be nothing more than foam on the surface of the sea.

Armageddon or infinitude. Your mind drifts away on the cold current, turning into stone, then into sand, then into nothing at all.

As you fall, you dream.

Soft lilac and bright white, stars peeking through the midday clouds.

Sweet syrup drips from a delicate flower, melting in your warm mouth.

And the call of a distant voice, from far across the waves, that feels like home.

Not so fast, little one.

I’m not finished with you just yet.

this is an original fanwork by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

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#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted vega #redacted warden #redacted hush #redacted ivan #redacted fluff #redacted angst #it's the mer au babey!!#ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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