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shatteredearth-if · 1 year ago

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SHATTERED EARTH INTRO POST

DEMO | DISCORD

Shattered Earth is an Interactive Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction about retreading old ground and working for your good ending. less formally, this is meant to go on my portfolio

Five years ago, you watched the world split open, bore witness to what you could only refer to as "dragons" made manifest in scale, flesh and skin. You saw cities razed to the ground, asphalt streets shattered like ice. Fleets of dragons and foreign—almost alien—aircrafts alike seared across the skies, while towers of dirt and metal tore free from the landscape. The world has inexplicably, incomprehensibly changed, but you know this to be true: Earth never really stood a chance.

With your world now overrun by dragons and dangers alike, you've lived alone, hiding from the world you once called home, scrounging for scraps and surviving by the skin of your teeth. But when a chance encounter with a mercenary ship leaves you reeling with the realization that you're not the average-joe of a human that you thought you once were, you're forced into an ultimatum: enlist with the Seekers, or live out the rest of your life in a Human compound on Therius. But your horrors extend far beyond the threat of the dragons; your monsters are at home in your head, but they might just be the key to stopping all of this madness… if they don't take you out first.

The gears turn, the worlds spin inwards like ever-onwards like painted tops. You will undergo a journey of self-discovery, of potential romances and of incredible loss. And somehow, you can't shake the sensation that this has all happened before…

A customizable protagonist: Customize your gender, your body type, your pronouns, and personality.

Five ROs to romantically pursue—some in the most conventional sense, others in… a not so conventional sense.

Engage in brief flings, one of which is... an RO's estranged divorced mother. (Your crewmates will disapprove.)

Train your body or your mind to perfection. Are you a frontline fighter, or do you prefer the aethereal arts?

Cute cat dog wolfboy…?

The female version of a himbo

There's no good way to put this: you remember things you shouldn't. The end of your story is not the end; something awaits you at the place where your endings converge. What is it? What are you?

There's an egotistical mind entity in your head, and the flags aren't just red; they're blood-crimson. Romanceable, but at a steep cost to your sanity. Or maybe…

Skippable, customizable NSFW content. My friends have advised me not to continue.

Avett Ironsturm

Role: RO

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Kattish

Age: 20

Specialization: Arms specialist

Appearance: Avett is a Kattish man of average height. His complexion is fair. Perched upon his head are two swivelling cat-like ears, and at the base of his spine is a prehensile tail that is about the length of his arm—both are adorned with soft, black fur. His hair is black, hangs just below the shoulders, and he keeps most of it in a messy ponytail. Most of his frontal hair frames his boyish, youthful face. His irises are copper colored, his pupils slitted.

Personality: Avett is bristly, prickly, and very easy to anger if he's not trying to get into your pants. He's a flirt through and through, and knows how and when to be charming, just… not with his coworkers. Or you. Though if you can get him to let his guard around you, you might just find him a lot more bearable.

Your impression: Once upon a time, you saw his old ID, stuffed in a cabinet along with his boxers and body spray, and you realized he was smiling in his photo. Not outwardly—they don't want you smiling on those cards, but behind those eyes was a laugh ready to bust out at any moment. That was four years ago. Now? All he does now is sulk and yell at people. Something happened in those four, long years, and those years have only been getting longer since.

Sexuality: Bisexual (woman-leaning)

Yuda Hellsbridge

Role: RO

Gender: Female (she/her)

Race: Half Gallian, Half Kattish

Age: Secret?

Specialization: Restrainer

Appearance: Yuda is a half-Gallian, half-Kattish woman of above average height. Her complexion is a pale, seafoam green—common for most Gallians. Her hair is white with blue undertones in the right lighting, and is short and choppy. If you look too closely into her metallic gray eyes, you will notice a swirling, foggy substance within her irises, as is common for all Gallians who are at least a bit adept in magic… which is to say, almost all of them. Yuda is extremely fit and exercises often, and as a result her build is stocky and muscular—very uncommon for a Gallian, though she claims that she's half Kattish.

Personality: Yuda is outwardly cheerful, loud, and brash—tact is not her forte. But behind every sunny smile is a shadow, and Yuda keeps her shadows well away from the spotlight.

Your impression: It's not trauma. It's not a blip in her personality. There is something genuinely terrifying hiding behind Yuda's eyes, and that's not including the fact that you don't know how old she is. Oh, she's nice, and she's got no ulterior motives, you'll give her that. But it's like she's wearing her own body like a shadow.

Sexuality: doesn't care for labels, but for clarity's sake she is pansexual.

Ysh'vanna O'Raal

Role: RO

Gender: Female (she/her)

Race: Draconian

Age: 26

Specialization: Captain/Pilot

Appearance: Ysh'vanna is a short girl with wispy, white hair that topples down to her waist—if she doesn't brush it out of her face, it has a tendency to smother her slight frame like an oversized scarf. Her irises are orange, with a ring of emerald green around her pupils. Trailing from her ears are two, small, green webs that resemble translucent dragon wings.

Personality: Everyone onboard the Seeker is a wreck, yes, but Ysh'vanna is always at least two crises away from a mental breakdown everyday. Sorting through admin, funds, Avett's shenanigans and the odd dragon attack has left her riddled with anxieties. She has difficulty forming bonds outside of work because of this, so her relationship with Avett isn't great. After any particularly grueling mission, she will often be found comatose in front of the navigation panels, staring off into the skyline. Otherwise, Ysh'vanna tries to be cheerful. Most of the time. Some of the time.

Your impression: She's probably by far the most average person on this ship. Every morning she takes her coffee with three sugars and a cupful of milk; every night she takes a nail-sized tablet along with a full glass of water. "For the anxiety," she says. She's incredibly open about most things... until it comes to her family. What's the deal?

Sexuality: bisexual (woman-leaning)

Auren Draksparrow

Role: Platonic Option

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Gallian

Age: According to Avett, "Like, a hundred or something." He looks about forty in Human years to you.

Specialization: Warder

Appearance: Auren is a Gallian man of above average height. His frame is gaunt, almost frail; his hair is platinum blond, and is secured in a low ponytail that reaches down to his waist. His complexion is seafoam green, and his eyes are a faint violet. Swimming in his irises is a fog, a trait most Gallians share. His facial features are long and soft, but his cheekbones sit high upon his face.

Personality: Auren is cold, aloof, and it can be difficult to discern what he's thinking from speech and body language alone. He is clear in mind, even during high-pressure situations, until his abilities as a caster fail him.

Your impression: Here's the deal about living past one hundred and one; you're going to mess up. You're going to mess up a lot more than the average person, and your book of guilt's going to be pushing a trilogy if you don't start forgiving yourself for some of those mess-ups. You know for a fact that Auren has never forgiven himself, not even once, because he's yet to save the Seekers. Because he's yet to, in his eyes, make himself useful. But you're his lucky break: he's the only one on the ship who can see that thing in your head for what it is, and he knows it's a threat.

Sexuality: he's not looking for a relationship right now, if ever. He's married to his tomes and the study of aether.

Liam Salazar

Role: RO

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Human

Age: 24

Specialization: Researcher

Appearance: Liam is tall with an athletic frame and broad shoulders. He usually keeps his dark brown hair in a nest of curls atop his head. His skin is a deep umber, and his eyes are an even deeper shade of brown. He often wears a white lab coat over a simple sweater and dress shirt.

Personality: Quiet, but goofy; aloof, but sensitive. You sense that this boy would rather bury his head in a good book or some other complicated research than look you in the eye. That's not to say he's meek, though—come any threat, and he'll lash out swinging. You had to be a special kind of tough to have survived the Migration as a Human, and Liam is no exception.

Your impression: You didn't expect to make friends at the IRC training facility—most Humans there wanted your head on a stick for the cardinal sin of having a deal with a merc ship already. The Migration wore everyone's patience thin, but not Liam's. For a hot moment at that facility, you were two renegades against the hateful world. Until your training period finished up.

Sexuality: Panromantic demisexual, though initially he believes that he's straight.

The Entity

Role: RO

Gender: Customizable/it

Race: Something intangible. A voice in your head.

Age: It laughs when you ask this. "How old is a concept? The fear of death, the love of life? How old? Are you counting? Think about that."

Appearance: A dark wisp of smoke that occasionally shifts to form parts of a person.

Personality: Loves you, like an overbearing parent. Punishes you, like a torturer gleaning for answers. It maims you and calls it affection.

Your impression: When you're not talking to it, it's rummaging through your memories. Why? For fun. It knows about that time you did this and that in the locker room and almost got caught for it. It knows about that time you stopped someone from leaving after class just so you could hit on them, unsuccessfully, for ten minutes before they had to beg you to leave. It knows everything about you, all the bad, all the good—and it loves you anyway. That's the purest kind of love, isn't it?

Sexuality: Wouldn't you like to know.

With that all said, thank you for checking out this post, and DOUBLE thank you if you decide to try out Shattered Earth. 🙇🙇

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magicrainbowkitties · 3 months ago

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Hyperfixations are insane bro.

Anyways here's my "MK1 Roster By How Good Of A Hugger They Are" tier list

Not Pictured:

Shang Tsung: A

Reiko: B

Explanations under the cut if you want them.

S tier:

Smoke/Tomas: Great arm strength, super sweet and cute in his intro dialogues, definitely goes for head pats. Also big ups for the smokey smell.

Scorpion/Kuai Liang: Arm strength, sensitive and protective in his dialogues, and very warmb. Perfection.

Johnny Cage: You cannot tell me this version of the guy is not absolutely INSANE at hugs. Arms, emotional sensitivity, words of affirmation if you need them, and LOVES giving them. CageCon attendees attest he hugs like a giant teddy bear.

Sindel: She doesn't give them often, but when she does it's the absolute Best. Mom hugs are best hugs, you can fight me on that. But her big up is the prehensile hair. Mom hug + more hug from hair? FUCK YES.

Reptile/Syzoth: I mean this for both reptilian and human form btw. Because in one case, gigantic croco-man being extra careful to not to nick you on claws and scales, and on the other, nuzzles and contact. BOTH have the ups of strength, dad hugs (his son may be dead but I will attest that no matter the status of the child, the ability to give dad hugs remains with the father in question) are also best hugs, and a tail. Also being cold-blooded he'll probably try to seek warmth from the person he's hugging. So more physical contact. Which is Amazing.

A Tier:

Raiden: Very sweet and kind, just BARELY didn't make S tier. Only because the lightning probably means he's got static everywhere and even if his amulet is turned off, he's still gonna accidentally shock you. Which for some people is negligible, but this is my list. Still great at hugs, but with a fatal flaw.

Liu Kang: Also a very near-miss for S tier. He's got a lot of the same ups as Kuai Liang, except he's a good deal less sensitive than the latter dialogue wise, and he strikes me as the kinda guy who feels a little awkward hugging people. Not bad in the slightest, but he prefers other methods of affection.

Kenshi: He's not a very physically affectionate person, before or after blindness, and probably has a few issues recognizing when it's necessary. However, when he does give hugs, (more likely that he's the one being given the hug), he's very sweet about it. Probably goes on for a while longer than originally intended, very good for touch starvation. Just don't expect it very often.

Kung Lao: Would be an S if he TOOK OFF THE FUCKING HAT. Look man, I'm tryna get physical affection, and you're real nice and sweet when you wanna be, but I am NOT tryna get decapitated by that fuckin table saw super-glued to your head! Good arms, tho.

Shao: Yeah this one surprised me too. But, big guy, leans down, and DEFINITELY a fan of head pats. But he's a near miss for B because of the fact that 1, definitely not a hugger, and 2, he's an asshole. He probably gives side hugs if absolutely necessary. Definitely hugged Reiko when he was a kid, tho.

Shang Tsung: OK HEAR ME OUT. Absolute BOTTOM of A tier, but DAMMIT that fucker is a convincing guy. He's spent years and years hawking fake cures and things, you think he doesn't know how to use physical means to make his sales pitch more convincing? He's actually very, very good at hugs and making people feel better about themselves, and that's part of what makes him so damn dangerous.

B Tier:

Kitana: People are gonna hate me for not putting her higher, huh? Well I speak naught but the truth. Bc my girl is NOT a hugger for anybody except her family. Just not really her thing. She prefers a handshake and good conversation from her friends and allies. She gives decent hugs when called for, and is a good person to hug in crisis, but she'd rather be there either in a group hug or on the side talking someone through it while one of the S or As handle the Actual Hugging Part.

Tanya: Same kinda deal as Kitana, but mostly for maintaining professionalism as an Umgadi. She's very sweet and understanding, but prefers to pat shoulders and give affection through presence unless you're very, VERY close to her (cough Mileena)

Ermac: Total wild card. Countless souls within the body mean countless possibilities for hug affinity or quality. So direct middle of B tier, just to be safe. Based on story mode, however, Jerrod is a solid S.

Ashrah: Again, not much of a hugger, but gives decent ones when necessary. Isn't used to physical affection in the slightest, but overtime may graduate to an A as she comes to understand touch as something that doesn't have to hurt.

Takeda: I... Really don't have an explanation for this one. I just. Very mid vibes.

Reiko: Affection is for weak losers, man up and get over it, why don't you? What do you mean touch doesn't have to be hostile, that's crazy talk, leave him alone. Nevermind the fact that he will probably break down sobbing if he gets a real hug he can't push away, and will probably come just this side of crushing the hugger's ribs in return, what? Didn't happen, if you speak of this, you lose your jaw. Why are you bringing the General into this?

C Tier:

Rain: Not a hugger, not good at it, doesn't want to be. Also VERY sweaty. Or maybe that's just his water magic. Either way not good. The only thing keeping him out of D tier is he's got a decent amount of strength to it.

Havik: Will absolutely detach his entire torso in the middle of a hug so the other person freaks the fuck out. He thinks this is funny. It's not.

Peacemaker: Cop mentality and insensitive. The ONLY reason he's not in D is because I am told John Cena is amazing at hugs, so he has some trickle-down skill from there.

Mileena: Was a solid A before getting Tarkat. Very sweet and physically affectionate, and one of the things she mourns the most from before the infection. She especially wishes she could hug Tanya and Kitana more often, but they're also the last people in the world she wants to get sick.

D Tier:

Sub-Zero/Bi-Han: Ew cold hands. Also believes that physical affection is a weakness and refuses to do it. How in the hell is he related to Kuai Liang???

Li Mei: Is a fucking cop. As a rule, cops are bad at hugs.

Quan Chi: Why would you ever want a hug from this fucker? Unless you're Shang Tsung. And even then it's probably not great just because he doesn't get the point.

Baraka: NOPE. Even if you don't care about Tarkat, he does, and will refuse hugs of any kind ever. Even if it wasn't contagious, he's very spiky and awkward with it. Ask Syzoth.

Omni-Man: Just as likely to crush your ribcage as to awkwardly pat the back, more either way depending. Best avoid this fashy fuck all together.

Geras: He is very sweet and a good emotional rock. But a hugger he is not. He refuses hugs with a similar fervency to Baraka, but without the urgency ofc. He hates hugs, and asks that you please respect his boundaries. Also he'd get sand all over your clothes.

Homelander: Do I even need to explain.

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klaunee · 11 months ago

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Edit 2/12/2024: I wanted to add a disclaimer to my redesigns! I really appreciate all of the likes and comments that these have garnered, but I just want to add that these aren't intended to be "improvements" or "fixes" of the original designs in any way and were done as a character design exercise for my own entertainment. Looking back on them there's a lot I'd like to change about them and I'd never claim to be anything more than an amateur/hobbyist character designer messing around with these character concepts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tentative Beelzebub redesign for fun. Not 100% on it, but wanted to give my attempt at it! Explanation below.

(warning for images of real insects!)

Instead of the party girl angle of the canon design I wanted my interpretation of Beelzebub to be a sophisticated captain of industry for her Beelzejuice operation who also happens to be an impeccable hostess, hence her parties. She was based on several different insects:

Honeypot Ant - I'm not the first to take inspiration from a honeypot ant for a Beelzebub redesign, but it just fits so perfectly as a compromise for the canon design's lava lamp abdomen. It's obscured by her wings, but she has a transparent abdomen full of syrup.

Flea - Since she reigns over the Hellhounds, I thought this would be an appropriate inspiration given her semi-parasitic relationship with her subjects.

Fly - Because Beelzebub is known as "Lord of the Flies", this was a given, and the primary inspiration for the design.

Bee Fly - However, I based her on a bee fly as well as a sort of compromise between the canon version's bee theme.

The one thing that confuses me most about Beelzebub's canon design is her honey... syrup? I'm calling it syrup. Her syrup "hair". It really threw me off at first and it just doesn't make much sense to me. I wanted to reinterpret it as a boa to give her a glamorous look and emulate the fluffy necks of bee flies. The inspiration for this fabulous look was also the character Queen Camilla from that one Rudolph movie.

My Beelzebub has a similar personality as Queen Camilla, being a very warm, motherly woman who wants nothing more than to sate the gluttonous desires of her subjects. She inevitably takes this too far, however, and I would depict her as more of an antagonistic figure than the show did. Ideally Loona would be crashing her party, ingratiating herself to the Hellhounds and provoking Beelzebub's anger.

Speaking of anger, Beelzebub's syrup boa is prehensile, seeing as she's able to manipulate her syrup in the show. This factors into her full demon form, which would see her morphing her syrup into a more intimidating shape, such as four massive arms:

This is just one (very rough and not ideal) concept for what her full demon form could look like to illustrate the idea. Outside of this form, she's actually very small, the smallest of the Seven Deadly Sins and significantly smaller than her Hellhound subjects.

Her hair is a pair of double beehives for the pun, and because the shape looks like both a giant heart and a fly's head + eyes. Her design contains several heart shapes because I think it's cute and to go along with the canon design's focus on being - literally - sweet. Her eyes are meant to look like both inverted crosses and a fly's segmented eyes, and her eyelashes are her antennae.

The fact that she has four pairs of wings (which are arranged to look like a royal cape) and the heart symbol on her main pair is a reference to the Dictionnaire Infernal's depiction of Beelzebub.

Her prominent lips are based on a fly's proboscis, and a running gag in the show could involve her mouth actually drooping like a fly's does in moments of shock.

I tried to give her a more matronly look than the canon version for some diversity in ages depicted on the show, even though she's an immortal being. She would not be dating Tex in this version.

#helluva boss #helluva boss redesign #helluva boss beelzebub #beelzebub helluva boss #insect #insect tw #insect cw #beelzebub #character design #no hate i just wanted to give it a try #hellaverse

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furiouskettle · 2 years ago

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my gaggle of villain(?) ocs that i got too attached to

Cowboyninjapirateman: His backstory is that he had a Really Weird Day where he got bitten by a radioactive cowboy. and a radioactive ninja. and a radioactive pirate. Luckily, he survived and gained the powers of all three.

Scylla: Using a forbidden knitting pattern, she created two sockpuppets that gave her the ability to control yarn. But who is puppet and who is puppeteer? At the very least, Scylla herself doesn’t seem to mind too much.

Stachemeister: This man has facial hair so glorious he can control all moustaches in the area to do his bidding. His own moustache is prehensile, and he can use it to fly.

Some Nerd: they aren’t associated with these people, why are they even here

#kiwidoodles #my ocs #villain oc #supervillain #supervillain oc #cowboypirateninjaman #scylla #stachemeister #rogue taxidermist

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monstersandmaw · 2 years ago

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Male drider pirate captain x gn human (mild nsfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

___

Surprise! A story out of the blue! Hope you like it.

Content: a human who faces daily discrimination for being one of the only humans in a relatively isolated society of non-humans, non-explicit/detailed mention of unwanted sexual/physical contact (it’s brief, but it’s in there - paragraph beginning ‘Still, they couldn’t be any worse than the naga...’), a reader who was orphaned at a young age, a dread pirate captain who’s actually a total softie, a motley crew of pirates who are also all secret sweethearts, and a tiefling friend who wants the best for you. And a briefly spicy ending. Enjoy? Wordcount: 8710

___

For all its pretty beaches and steady flow of gold and goods, Cutthroat Cove was hardly the kind of place that people aspired to reach, and it wasn’t the kind of place people lingered once they washed up there, humans least of all.

To get off the island, you had to find a pirate ship willing to take you, and the price of passage was usually dearer than it first appeared. Most of the crews didn’t like humans aboard either, which was another odd stacked against you.

“To the Empress!” A shout went up from the furthest corner of the dingy tavern, and tankards were raised in a jeering chorus of howls and inhuman noises. You glanced up from where you’d been drying off the wooden mugs that Harrow had just finished washing, and you watched as the crew of the Blackbird, flush with fresh plunder, began a familiar toast. “May she continue shitting out shiny gold coins for us to keep plucking out of her fat little merchants’ hands!”

Their laughter filled the small, low-ceilinged common room and made your ears buzz. There must have been a siren among them, you thought distantly as you shook your head to clear it. No one else seemed affected, but a nearby patron — a triton leaning heavily on the wooden bar — leered toothily at you and flared the fins on the side of their head in a mocking sneer.

As you turned away to diffuse the situation, your elbow caught a bottle of rum on the edge of the counter. It teetered and would have smashed had Harrow not grabbed it with his prehensile tail and shunted it back to safety. He shot you a warning look and rolled his dark eyes affectionately. A creased dimple appeared in his cheek and the tiefling smirked a fanged smile at you before throwing a wet dishcloth in your face. “Watch it, clumsy,” he snorted playfully. “Honestly. What are you like?”

“Thanks,” you mumbled and tried not to watch too closely as his purple tail uncoiled slowly from the bottle. Perhaps it came from being raised on a mostly non-human pirate ship, or perhaps you’d just been made differently, but your fellow humans had never done much for you, and in fact, the less human someone looked, the more likely you were to find yourself tripping over your feet around them.

With another sigh, you turned to see to a goblin with blood red hair who had just leaned over the bar to yell an order at you above the clamour in the room, a gold ring glinting in her nose, when the door flew open and a small harpy boy flapped inside, with his feathers all ruffled and his chest heaving from a wild flight up the hill to the tavern.

“The Widow’s Web docked down on Rum Quay fifteen minutes ago!” the boy panted, wide eyed and sweaty faced. “And they’re coming ashore!”

For a moment, the entire, packed tavern went completely still. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Someone set down their tankard with a loud clunk but for a good ten seconds, that was the only sound in the whole room.

“The Widow’s Web?” someone finally hissed. “She never docks anywhere. What the fuck is she doing here?”

“Maybe they need to resupply?”

“They don’t resupply ashore,” someone else scoffed. “They just take what they need off the Imperial Navy and keep on sailing!”

“Maybe one of them is sick?”

“Or they’re looking for new crew?”

“I heard the captain wraps people up in his webs to eat later…” came a nearby, dark muttering.

“Or maybe —”

“— Maybe they just want a good drink for once, and find Her Imperial Majesty’s rations perennially disappointing,” came a deep, smooth voice from the open doorway behind the harpy boy.

The poor lad squeaked and puffed up in surprise, floundering out of the doorway in a twittering spray of mousy feathers and gangly, avian legs, and everyone stared at the figure who had melted from the darkness beyond to fill the doorway completely.

It was impossible not to stare. You’d seen driders before, but you’d never seen one like him.

He moved on seven dark legs that were armoured with a natural carapace like a crab, with pointed spikes at the joints that glinted in the low light, and the eighth was a prosthetic, replaced below the articulated ‘knee’ joint of his right front leg with a shining, steel limb that had been sharpened to a point to match his other limbs, and which clinked softly when he walked. He had to duck almost double to squeeze through the tavern door that had been built wide and tall enough for even a draft centaur to get through.

As he leaned down, his straight, white hair fell forwards around his face like a shroud, momentarily concealing his slate-grey skin that was tinged with purple. He had four eyes, all completely black, and dark mandibles at the corners of his mouth, and as he entered the tavern, he took off his cocked hat and hooked it casually over the upward turning spikes on his left foreleg.

His spider’s body was huge and pendulous and black, covered in a downy fur that shifted like moonlight and spread up his human back, vanishing out of sight beneath a heavy, black coat with silver buttons and emblazoned on the back with the silver web of his ship’s emblem, the Widow’s Web.

Someone dropped a glass in the silence of his arrival, and you startled a little at the sound. Beside you, you heard Harrow inhale slowly. “Holy shit,” he hissed, and his dark, cloven hooves made a soft clopping against the flagstones as he sidled up to you. He was shorter than you, and you glanced down to find him looking up at you with wide, worried eyes. “That’s… That’s him…”

“Capitan Steelsling…” you whispered. “I thought he and the Widow’s Web were just… a myth? You know?” you added, glancing between Harrow and the pirate captain.

Behind Steelsling, a truly colossal, silk-white bison minotaur dipped her horns beneath the lintel and surveyed the room. She had red eyes and a pink nose, and was almost as legendary as her captain, and together, they made their way towards an empty table near the bar.

“Good luck, mate!” Harrow elbowed you in the ribs and ducked away with a mumbled lie about checking the stock.

You could hardly hear anything through the fear that had started a pounding at the back of your skull. You were going to have to go over there.

Still, they couldn’t be any worse than the naga who’d grabbed you with their tail and coiled around you tightly enough to make your ribs creak last week, only releasing you when the laughter of their companions had faded and you’d nearly passed out. Or the gnoll who’d tripped you into her lap and laughed about you being a soft little human while her claws had picked through your shirt. Or the siren who’d made you take your top off and dance a jig on the table with their hypnotic voice, to the rabid amusement of a packed bar. You’d endured a thousand humiliations in your life at Cutthroat Cove, and you were certain that you could weather whatever this dread pirate could dream up for you too.

Squaring your shoulders, you set the damp cloth down on the bar, wiped your hands on your trousers, and strode across the room towards the newcomers, with the eyes of the entire tavern on you.

The captain watched you approach with an unnerving intensity in his four, jet black eyes, but his minotaur first mate seemed entirely bored and unimpressed by the entire establishment. You included. Clearly you posed no threat to her or her captain, so she ignored you for the time being.

You drew to a halt in front of their table and looked up into the captain’s inhuman face. He was sharply handsome, with the hard, cut-glass plains of his cheeks and jawline thrown into start relief in the low light of the bar, and the thick, black, curved talons at the ends of his mandibles glinted in the lamplight like pieces of obsidian.

He tilted his head in a manner that might have been either patronising or curious, you couldn’t quite tell, and blinked his black, almond-shaped eyes slowly. The two pairs moved slightly out of time with each other, the smaller, lower outer pair starting first, followed by the larger inner pair. Holding his gaze for long though was like trying to hold an oil slick in your hands.

“What can I get for you?” you asked, cursing the way your voice cracked a little.

Conversation began to pick up hesitantly around you, and in the far corner, someone got out a tin whistle and began to play a well-known and popular song. The captain smiled when he heard it, his mandibles chittering briefly, and he leaned over to his first mate and grinned, “Remember when Keel played this and Harrik fell overboard trying to impress him?”

She snorted suddenly, her wild, white mane of curls bouncing and her large, fluffy ears flicking back and forth. “How could I forget that?” she chortled. “He looked like a wet rat when we hauled him back on deck. Couldn’t look Keel in the eye for a week!”

You stood stock-still while they reminisced, wary and patient and silent.

The captain turned sharply back to you and twitched his head a little. “My apologies,” he purred. “We are still waiting for a few more of our crew, but I know what they’ll have to drink at any rate. Perhaps you could bring a couple of pitchers of your finest ale over, and six tankards?”

You nodded and paused just long enough to see if they were going to add anything else to their order.

The first mate leaned forwards towards you, resting an elbow on the thick tabletop. It groaned under her muscular weight. “What’s in the kitchen tonight?” she asked. Her voice was rough and deep, but her tone was gentle enough.

“Roast pork,” you said quickly. “And boiled vegetables.”

The captain nodded. “We’ll wait for the others to order food, I think. If that’s alright with you?”

You blinked. “What?” you said before you’d thought about it. “I mean, of course. I’ll be right back with the ale. Excuse me.”

And with that, you bolted back to the bar, sweaty and a little shaky. They hadn’t been at all what you’d been expecting, and they weren’t like the usual patrons of the Salted Kipper.

Harrow had emerged by the time you returned, and he shot you a look. “Well?” he asked.

“Well what?” you snapped, distracted.

“Well what’s he like? I heard from Maggie that Steelsling ripped a human’s head clean off their shoulders just for looking at him too long, and one time, he used that legendary ‘steel’ web of his to garrote the commander of Port Liberty, but the thread was so fine the man didn’t know it had happened til he was bleeding out on the marble floor. And his first mate is hardly any better. I heard —”

“You shouldn’t listen to what people say,” you said with a frown as you fished the enormous pitchers out of the cupboard under the bar and turned to fill one from the barrel on the wall behind you. “You know how much bullshit gets peddled through here in a single night — how much sailors love to exaggerate.” In truth, you didn’t want Steelsling to overhear Harrow’s words and think you were gossiping about him.

“Yeah, but… no smoke without a fire, right?”

You just shook your head and concentrated on filling the pitcher without creating too much of a foaming head on the ale.

With the two pitchers set on a wide, wooden tray, along with the six empty tankards, you set off for their table again. En route, someone with sharp claws grabbed a fistful of your arse and you had to step over the swaying, serrated tail of a lizardfolk at the table next to the drider captain’s. She cackled a laugh at you when you nearly spilled the pitchers because of it. One slid a terrifying couple of inches along the tray as it tipped, and you wobbled in a desperate attempt to stop it sliding all the way off.

You cursed as you staggered, completely off balance, but something solid caught you at the hip and buttressed you up. Cold relief sloshed through you as you saved the pitchers from toppling off to make an ungodly mess all over the floor, only to look up and find that the drider captain himself had jutted out one of his huge, armoured legs to steady you. It was the steel prosthetic of his right foreleg, you realised, and you could feel its coldness seeping through your clothes the longer you stayed pressed against it.

All the blood drained from your face and you felt your jaw go slack. “I’m so sorry,” you blurted, and you almost leapt away from the contact to set the tray down, hoping to disappear as quickly as possible.

“It’s no trouble,” he said in his oddly polite, lyrical voice. You’d expected something coarse and harsh from the legendary sea captain, but he was refined and softly-spoken. “Does that happen often?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Uh…” you swallowed, stepping back with the tray held in front of you a bit like a shield. “I mean… I’m pretty much the only human on the island now, so where else are they going to get their fun, you know?”

You’d said it with a false lightness to your voice, hoping to make him smile and say ‘fair enough’, but his expression darkened and his eyes glittered dangerously.

“It’s fine,” you babbled. “Really. It’s harmless. They’re just blowing off steam, you know?”

That also didn’t help.

He glared around the room and you got the vague impression that the people who had been staring, hoping for an impressed reaction from him, suddenly looked away in shame.

“Excuse me,” you said again, and fled.

The rest of his crew arrived not long after that, and they were an equally odd mix of people: another drider, though she was stocky and built like a tarantula, and her arms and torso were thickly muscled where Steelsling’s body was lean and wiry; a delicate cervitaur who looked about as unlikely to find a home on the sea as the Empress herself, with a white coat and white antlers and a dancing, graceful way of walking that wouldn’t have been out of place in a palace; a rugged, crab-like merfolk who was armoured to the nines in his own orange chitin and had pincers for hands and a sour look on his face as he squeezed his bulky carapace between the tables; a forest naga with a rainbow shimmer to her tail and dreads that fell to her waist; a tiny, waifish, hummingbird harpy whose iridescence matched the naga’s in vibrancy if not in hue; and finally… a human?

Yet again that evening, you tried not to stare, but it was so unusual to find a human among a crew of pirates in these parts that you weren’t the only one taken aback. People hissed and whispered behind their mugs, but no one tried anything with the other human in the room. They saved that for the one they knew was alone and largely unprotected.

As you worked the other tables that night, dodging wayward hands and sneaking trip hazards in a familiar dance, you caught glimpses of the way the crew of the Widow’s Web laughed and joked among themselves. They were clearly close as family, the realisation of which struck you to the core with something akin to genuine, physical pain. The other pirates who frequented the Salted Kipper were business partners and tight-knit groups, but there was always something festering away beneath the surface — some jealousy or scheming distrust — but the Widow’s Web crew touched each other frequently with a friendly nudge or a playful shove, and they laughed. They laughed until they cried and fell about on each other’s shoulders over something and nothing, and even Steelsling himself seemed amused. He kept a little back from the others though, as though he wasn’t quite a part of it, and he kept his four eyes roaming the room every so often too, as though keeping watch for trouble. Wherever he looked, people looked away, uncertain.

Frequently, his glinting gaze landed on you. When that happened, you ducked your head and busied yourself with another task, but you felt the weight of his four eyes on you as you crossed the room all the same.

If the scattered crumbs of gossip were to be believed, which they rarely were, that night was the first time in six years that the Widow’s Web had formally put to shore, and no one expected to see them again for another six at least.

And yet, a month later, the door opened and in strode the hulking form of the first mate, accompanied by her eight-legged captain and a few of their crew.

You served them ale, and he asked you how you were as you set the pitchers down. “Fine, thanks,” you mumbled, head down.

It seemed to irritate him that you were so deferential, and he sighed sharply.

“You?” you added, glancing up as you tacked the question on as an afterthought.

His mandibles twitched in what might have been an arachnid smile and his shoulders dropped a visible inch. “I’m well, thank you. We had a successful couple of encounters on the Whale Road Shore lately.”

“You went all the way to the Whale Road Shore?” you gasped, staring openly at him. “But that’s… that’s at least a two week sail from here, even with the winds in your favour? How did you make it there and back in so little time?” Distances, maps, and charts had always fascinated you, the way a caged bird dreams of open windows.

Across the table, the first mate chuckled, and with a jolt you remembered yourself, and your place, immediately.

“Forgive me,” you said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. Enjoy your evening.”

“Wait?” came Steelsling’s soft, rich baritone. He didn’t speak loudly or harshly, but the simple, politely uttered question stopped you in your tracks. “You weren’t prying, and I don't mind. We have a wind witch aboard. Makes things much easier and faster.”

“Oh,” you breathed. A wind witch? Was there no end to this crew’s mystery?

“They’ll be here any minute,” Steelsling said carefully, deliberately, pointedly. “If you want to meet them.”

“Oh, no… thank you,” you said, despite the way your heart ached to meet a real wind witch. It was a particular talent that only humans had, though other species had similar gifts with the weather. It might have been nice to talk to another human after so long. “No, that’s alright. I don’t want to intrude, and I… I should get back to work.”

The captain just nodded, but he didn’t speak to you directly again that night. The human on his crew — the wind witch — did show up a little while later, accompanied by the pretty cervitaur and the fiery-looking orange merfolk, and the crew lost themselves again in their food and drink and conversation. All but one of the crew, you realised after they’d been there an hour. The captain himself was sitting back, resting his humanoid upper body against the wall of the inn, his spider legs tucked up tightly around him, almost like a cage of spiked, black steel with one silver bar, and he had his arms crossed over his chest and a dark glower on his face. You tried not to look at him when you discovered him already watching you, and you traded a week’s worth of floor scrubbing with Harrow to avoid serving their table again.

Month after month, the crew of the Widow’s Web returned to the Salted Kipper, and month after month, the captain watched you.

He watched you dodge the other patrons, sloughing off their insults and jibes and clumsy, pawing attempts to get you into their lap, and each time, his expression grew darker and more severe. He stopped taking part in his table’s merriment, glowering in the corner like a monster from a fairytale while his crew carried on around him. Only his first mate would frown at him and try and get him to engage, but he never did for long. You started to think you’d insulted him by refusing the honour of a conversation with the wind witch, and he was concocting a truly venomous revenge for your rudeness.

Then, after six straight months of visits, they vanished.

No one saw the black and silver sails of the Widow’s Web for months, and gossip about them erupted.

Rumours circulated like gulls on the wind: they’d been sunk by the Empire; they’d been swallowed up by a kraken who’d been hunting Steelsling for years after taking his right leg off; there’d been a mutiny and they’d all killed each other in the process; they’d strayed off the edge of the world; they’d strayed off the edge of the world and then returned with some mysterious illness; the captain had eaten his crew one at a time while stranded in the doldrums… Each theory was more ridiculous than the next, but you came to miss the crew’s polite presence in the corner of the inn. The lowering eyes of the deadliest pirate in the known kingdoms had gone some way to lessening the way you were treated as a human among so many of what the Empire called the ‘monstrous species’ and the ‘beast folk’. Monstrosity was a relative thing, you’d found.

One morning, after preparing the inn for the day, you headed down alone to the harbour to stock up on supplies for the kitchen. The folk who ran the market were used to you, given that you’d been on the island since you’d washed up there at the age of eight, and they’d stopped trying to fleece you on each purchase you made for Silas, who ran the inn.

You’d just added a box of smoked salt into the groaning basket on your arm when a gasp went up from the nearby shoppers and you turned to see what had snagged their attention. The elegant and eerie prow of the Widow’s Web — a series of carved, black spiders crawling up a cylindrical spar — and the furled black sails of the legendary ship as it was towed into port drew the attention of everyone in the harbour-side market.

You’d never seen them outside of the inn, and you watched as the small, efficient crew scuttled around making last-minute preparations to the lines and the sails before docking, and there, leaning his weight casually against the taffrail with his white hair streaming out behind him like a banner, was Captain Steelsling himself. Your mouth went dry at the sight of him and you stared openly, drinking in the contrast between the curve of his dark spider’s body and the angular lines of his slim, armoured legs. They looked like they could puncture the hull of a warship like a harpoon, and his prosthetic caught the sun and flashed blindingly for an instant.

You watched in awe as he left the deck and scuttled up the rigging with enviable ease to talk briefly to the figure tucked away in the crows nest. That done, he fearlessly descended the rigging and joined the others on the main deck. Just as he turned to give an order to someone on his left though, he froze and you looked on with an odd mix of trepidation and delight as he noticed you.

For a long time, he stared at you. Then, finally, he inclined his head and went about the business of making port.

You had intended to be gone from the market by the time the lengthy process of bartering for better docking fees was over, but fate it seemed had other ideas. You were halfway through haggling with the knife-sharpener for a more reasonable price for her services when she looked up and she dropped the small paring knife she’d been using as a prop to try and frighten you into giving in and accepting her price.

“Captain Steelsling…” the skinny naga exclaimed, and then she hissed at you. “Get out of the way, you little bilge-rat. Don’t you know who this is? My apologies, Captain, my apologies. How can I help you?”

“I know who he is,” you said carefully, turning and smiling shyly at him. His dark mandibles hitched up on one side and he crossed his arms. His long, white hair was plaited back off his face in a series of intricate, interlaced designs, cascading down over his trademark black coat with its silver buttons, and he looked so dashing that your heart skipped a beat. His captain’s hat was nowhere to be seen and he carried no visible weapon, but the authority washing off him was enough to make people skirt around him with their eyes averted.

“Good to see you again, and in daylight this time,” he said, and the knife-sharpener sputtered something unintelligible behind you while he ignored her completely. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you,” you replied. “You’ve been gone a long time…”

A sad expression flickered across his face. “Yes,” he sighed, and his posture sagged. “A sad business, but it’s over now. I’m glad to be back. I’ve grown rather fond of a certain inn here in Cutthroat Cove after all.”

“You have?” you asked, astonished. “I thought you only came to the Kipper because your crew like it. You always look so miserable.”

The knife-sharpener gasped audibly at your bluntness and started to titter something about offering him whatever he wanted, free of charge.

“I didn’t come to talk to you, and I sharpen my own blades, thank you,” he snapped at her, and turned to look over his shoulder, away from the market square. “Will you walk with me? I have a hankering to stretch my legs after so long at sea.”

“Uh…” You would expected back at the inn soon, but there was little you could do if the king of pirates himself wanted a moment of your time. “Sure.”

He smiled again, and held out a hand. “Let me take that for you.”

Still a little stunned, you mutely handed the creaking basket to him. He took it like it weighed nothing at all and hooked it over his other arm so that it was in no danger of swinging and accidentally clocking you around the head. He was massive on his stilt-like legs, after all.

You walked in silence for a little way, along the waterfront towards the old Imperial fortress that had been taken over by the Raven Queen - the local pirate power in these waters. She, ultimately, deferred to Steelsling though, as most pirates did. And there you were, trotting along at his needle-like heels while everyone stared.

“Why would you think I’m miserable when I’m at the tavern?” he asked after a while.

“What? Oh… I didn't mean to offend you,” you said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

He sighed at that, and you got the feeling you’d said the wrong thing. Instead of pressing the issue though, he paused at a bend in the fortification walkway and looked directly at you. “Why do you stay here?” he asked.

You frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“If you’re so unhappy here — treated so poorly — why do you stay?”

You scoffed a little laugh and turned to look out at the bright blue sea.

A strong wind was whipping the peaks of the waves to foam and the gulls dipped and soared on the currents, buffeted this way and that and seeming to love every minute of it. Further out, near the cliffs off Needle Point, gannets speared straight down from the clear sky with barely a splash as they disappeared into the waves, chasing the fish that glittered and flashed beneath the surface.

Salt air filled your nose as you inhaled and you shook your head. “Don’t have much choice, I guess. I can’t afford passage on a ship — not at the prices they charge a human — and… I have nowhere else to go anyway.”

“No family?” he asked carefully.

You shook your head. “No. My parents were killed when the Albatross was captured.”

You caught the soft inhale of shock from the drider captain and turned to look up at him. His solid, black eyes were wide and his mandibles had parted to reveal soft, almost human-like lips behind, and a row of sharp, white teeth. The soft, ombré shading of grey that spread up his jaw, fading from almost coal black around his mandibles to a heather grey around his eyes, was almost mesmerising enough to ignore the look of open horror on his face. “Your parents were on the Albatross?” he whispered at last.

You nodded. “My da was the cook. Ma was a gunner.”

His black eyebrows rose at that. “But you survived?”

“Got washed overboard,” you shrugged. “I was eight.” You fought down a tide of sickening memories and rested your forearms on the stone wall of the old fort.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “My first mate, Ellary, led the mutiny against the captain of the Bloodcrest after what he did to the Albatross. She killed him herself.”

“Good.” Somehow, that did bring a bitter kind of consolation, and you managed a smile. “Anyway,” you said. “When I washed up here, Silas took me in as a pot-washer and floor-scrubber at the Salted Kipper. It’s not so bad…” you said, but you didn’t sound convincing, even to your own ears.

Steelsling shot you a flat look. “I’ve seen the way they treat you there,” he growled. “I’d have cut off their hands if they tried to touch me like that.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all shoot barbed wire out of our bodies, can we?” you said, speaking yet again without thinking first.

Instead of being insulted though, the captain laughed loudly and freely. “I suppose not,” he said when the sound faded naturally, like a retreating wave on the shore. “Listen, there’s an opening on my crew. It’s nothing exciting, but we’re a soul down now, since Tammas had to go back to his family on land, and I’d like to ask you to join us.”

You blinked at him. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“But… Why? I haven’t been at sea since I was eight. I’d be no use to you.”

“I know for a fact you can cook, and I bet you’re just as capable at mending and fixing things. Besides, I think you’d make a good fit in our family.”

Sure, you’d grown pretty handy in a number of areas over the years, but you were hardly a sailor. “You’d do better to ask around the market,” you said, fighting down a wave of anxious pressure in your chest. “I — Thank you, for the offer, but I should get going. They’ll be wondering where I am.”

You turned without another word and walked away before you’d even realised he still had your basket over his arm. Seconds later, he scuttled up behind you, his needle-like legs making scarcely a sound on the stone, save for the single steel pin of his prosthetic, and he darted in front of you, blocking the way with his body. Your breath caught as a moment of panic flared and dissolved almost immediately. He held the basket out to you but didn’t relinquish it once your fingers gripped the handle. “Think about it,” he said. “The Widow stays here for a week, but I shan’t push you.”

And with that, he let go and stepped to one side, and you fled back to the tavern with your heart pounding.

You dropped three tankards that night, tripped over two tails that weren’t even in your way, and nearly landed in a slime’s lap before Harrow pulled you to one side and asked if you were coming down with something.

You shook your head. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just… distracted.”

“What’s going on?”

With a sigh, you told him, and he gawped at you like you’d grown another head when you got to the part about being offered a spot on Steelsling’s crew.

True to his word, Captain Steelsling and his crew stayed away from the tavern until the very last night that the Widow was due to stay in port. When Ellary opened the door and stepped in, the usual hush descended on the common room, and Harrow shot you a look. ‘Do it’ he mouthed at you along the length of the bar, and you sucked in a huge breath for courage and held it til your lungs burned.

When you made no move and looked like you might possibly throw up instead, Harrow marched over to you and poked you right in the centre of your chest, none too gently. “Fucking do it,” he said. “I’m going to miss the hell out of you, but if you don’t take this chance, you’ll never get off this gods-forsaken lump of rock. Plus, he fucking likes you.” When you frowned, Harrow rolled his eyes. “The dread pirate Steelsling, who famously never comes ashore, takes one look at you and comes back here to this shitty tavern once a fucking month for six fucking months, apologises for being away for so long without telling you, threatens to personally skin anyone who lays a hand to you, and —”

“— wait, what?”

“Oh.” Harrow’s dark eyes widened guiltily. “You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know! What the fuck?”

Harrow shifted his weight. “I only learned about it when I overheard Lannicka grousing about how she wanted to teach you a lesson but didn’t want to wake up in a fucking web, dangling off a spar on her own ship…” He cleared his throat and glanced at the floor between his dark goat’s hooves. Behind him, his tail swished back and forth. “Turns out your captain overheard someone a few nights ago down at the docks laughing about getting you to spill ale all down your shirt, and he let it be known that the way people treated you was… ‘unacceptable’…”

“I wondered why people had backed off a bit this week,” you muttered. “I just thought they’d finally had enough fun and got bored with picking on the human.” You wanted to be angry with him for doing it behind your back, but it had made your work noticeably easier.

Harrow looked across the common room and his tapered ears pulled back suddenly, his multiple earrings flashing in the lamplight. “His first mate’s looking at you. She just pointed at you and beckoned you over.”

With a sigh, you turned your back on Harrow and looked at Ellary. She cocked her head to one side in a silent, expectant question.

“Go,” Harrow said. “I’ll miss the fuck out of you, but —”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” you laughed, already taking your apron off. You hugged him and he hugged you back. “Thank you for taking care of me,” you said. “You could have been like everyone else, but you weren’t, and I’ll always love you for that.”

He squeezed you more tightly. “Don’t forget about me, alright?”

“Never,” you promised, and set your apron on the counter top. “And thank Silas for me too,” you said. “He could have turned me away.”

“Still could have treated you better,” Harrow growled, canines showing.

You shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now though, does it?” you said, and grabbed the small bag you'd packed earlier and stowed beneath the bar. “Take care, alright?”

He nodded. “You too.”

When Ellary saw the bag in your hand, she grinned and stood up. Beside her, the delicate cervitaur rose from the soft cushion they’d been seated on — or, more appropriately, draped across like a slightly wilted lily — and flicked an ear at you.

“You’re coming along, then,” Ellary said, clapping you on the shoulder hard enough to send you staggering. You reeled backwards and found yourself righted by the crab-folk merman, who laughed like an open drain.

“I hope your sea-legs are better than that, friend,” he guffawed, snapping his pincers like percussion instruments.

“Last time I used my sea legs, I was eight,” you said, embarrassed. “I’ll be lucky if I’m not throwing up over the sides before we leave port.”

“Ah, Anneke has a potion or concoction for everything, seasickness included. You’ll be fine. Come on,” he said, and he chivvied you out of the tavern amid a forest of astonished gazes from the patrons.

When you reached the harbour, with the small fishing boats gently bobbing and the larger ships creaking and swaying at their stone quays, you had begun to wonder what you’d got yourself into. Ellary had strode along on huge, near-silent hooves, her scarlet coat flapping open to reveal only the thick fur of her pelt and the vaguest impression of her physique underneath, and Macs, the crab-folk — who apparently never shut up unless Ellary threatened to put him in a cook pot — had talked himself hoarse about their plans for the coming weeks’ sailing, while Phlox, the cervitaur, had tittered at almost every joke Macs made. You snorted softly through your nose when you realised that the most fearsome and mythical pirate crew of the era were actually a bunch of kind-hearted dorks.

“Something funny, human?” Macs asked, glancing sidelong at you while you all headed along the stone dock towards the sleeping figure of the Widow’s Web where she rocked quietly in the darkness.

“You know what?” you said, “I was actually afraid of you lot when you first walked into the tavern.”

“Ha!” he barked, and elbowed you in the ribs so hard you actually tripped over your feet at last and went sprawling sideways onto the stones. Or at least, you would have done, had Ellary not anticipated it and grabbed you at the last minute and hauled you up again with her huge hands.

“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered. “Can’t even take you to collect a new crew member without you causing physical harm to someone, Macs,” she said, and then looked at you. “He’s our master gunner, believe it or not.”

You raised your eyebrows and he clacked his pincers together. “Ain’t no one able to make a shot like me, human,” he grinned. “You can bet your unarmoured hide on it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“I’ll show you, soon as we clear the reef tomorrow,” he said, puffing his chest up enough that Phlox giggled again and he looked mightily pleased with himself.

“I live with a bunch of buffoons,” Ellary said dryly and ushered you up the gangplank ahead of her, probably so that if you tripped, she could catch you before you toppled head-first into the salty, sloshing muck of the harbour at high tide.

A flap of dark wings from the rigging above made you look up once you were aboard, and a black-feathered kenku dropped to the deck. In Ellary’s own voice, using what was clearly a carefully-curated selection of her own words, parroted back at her, they said, “About time you got here. Captain’s gonna start spitting webs in a minute.”

Ellary snorted a laugh and turned to introduce you to the kenku. “This is Specs,” she said, gesturing at the avian creature. “Lookout and navigation.”

“Pleasure,” you said, muttering your own name.

In Macs’ voice this time, Specs cackled, “Nice to have new blood aboard.”

“C’mon. I’ll show you where to put your stuff, and we’ll find our illustrious, brooding captain, shall we?” Ellary sighed.

Knocking on the carved, ebony door of the captain’s quarters a short while later, Ellary didn’t wait to be called in, barging her shoulder against the salt-warped wood and stepping in with the familiar ease of a lifelong friend.

Part of you had expected to find webs slung in the corners and the carcasses of dessicated animals dangling from the ceiling, but of course, it was just a simply but comfortably furnished cabin, with a large desk smothered in charts and navigational instruments. The captain himself was standing behind it, his body little more than a dark silhouette against the large window at the rear of the ship, and his silver hair dangling like a drifting ghost in the light breeze that wafted in with Ellary.

The minotaur shoved you into the room and saluted the captain without a word before leaving, closing the door behind her.

“You… You decided to come?” he faltered, sounding unsure of himself for the first time.

You nodded. “I do have a bone to pick with you though, Captain,” you added and he cocked his head.

“Oh?”

“What’s this I hear about you threatening to flay people on my behalf?”

He did have the good grace to look embarrassed about that, and dropped his onyx gaze to the floor. “I apologise,” he said. “I lost my temper with someone in the docks, and did nothing to stop the spread of the rumour once it started.”

You shrugged. “Figured that was how it had gone.”

“Did Ellary show you your quarters?” he asked, as much to change the subject as to find out the answer.

With a nod, you looked around his cabin. “Nicer than a mouldy mattress in the Kipper’s storeroom,” you said. “When do we sail?”

“With the tide,” he said. “I’d almost abandoned hope you were coming with us.”

“Why did you want me, really?” you asked with narrowed eyes.

He sighed and came around the desk to stand in front of you, his prosthetic making a soft ‘pinging’ noise on the wood as the wickedly sharp tip pulled free with each step. You wondered, not for the first time, how he’d lost the limb, but didn’t ask.

“I warmed to you the moment you spoke to me,” he said simply. “You were afraid, but you still came over, and you were… yourself. The others… they all know my — our— reputation, and that changes how they speak to me, how they act around my crew, but you remained yourself, and I admired that.”

Swallowing, you tried not to choke. Other than Harrow, no one had ever made you feel like you were worth more than a passing moment their time, but here was the most successful pirate captain in the known kingdoms, telling you he thought that who you were was valuable to his crew. To his family.

“Look, you must be tired,” he said, clearly reading your emotions and not wanting to overwhelm you. “Why don’t you settle in for the night? We’ll sail within the hour, but you don’t have to do anything. Of course, you’re welcome wherever you like on the ship, but no one will ask anything of you just yet.”

Blinking through your tears you nodded and choked out a vague ‘thank you’ before vanishing below.

It was three days before you felt like you could contribute anything useful, and, just as he’d promised, no one asked anything of you until then.

After three months as part of the crew, you knew you were never going to set foot on land again willingly, and you understood why they just kept sailing from prize to prize. It was bliss. Even in the worst of the weather, you felt safe. Anneke, the weather witch, kept the most violent of storms from touching the ship, and the crew knew their business, tightening and trimming the rigging and the sails til the ship fairly thrummed with the joy of being at sea.

Ellary, you came to learn over the course of many an evening, had a dry sense of humour that left you breathless before guffawing a great laugh that would have made you self-conscious before, and Macs was just as bad. He was a practical joker, but never in a way that made you feel small or embarrassed. You met the other elusive members of the crew as well — those who had not felt confident or comfortable in coming ashore — and you fell slowly in love with all of them in their own way. Minal, an aqrabuamelu with a scorpion’s body and a human’s torso, was the cheery chef of the ship, and Gráinne, a selkie with a voice like singing glass and a burn scar across her face, was the ship’s quartermaster. Others on the crew included another minotaur named Wilf, a huge but incredibly sweet gnoll with a habit of giggling at the most inappropriate of moments, and a twitchy werefox named Keel who still treated you with suspicion, even after three months.

But above all, you found yourself drawn back to the captain. He stood on the deck with the wind in his hair and a smile on his handsome, inhuman face, and he looked truly relaxed. His strange body absorbed the motion of the sea and the rocking of the ship, and he would just as happily spend the morning dangling from his webs amid the rigging, scouting the horizon with Specs, as on the solid deck below, but oddly enough, when he seemed most happy, he was with you.

He taught you to read the charts properly and to map the course of the sun, to plot the stars and read the ocean currents and the patterns of the birds. He introduced you to the colony of orca merfolk who hunted just off the shore and provided information on the movements of the Imperial navy. He ate with the crew on the deck on warm nights, laughing shyly and encouraging them to play their instruments and dance and sing. Keel was a talented violinist, and Harrik, the gnoll, would always watch him with wide, dark, bashful eyes. It was unbearably sweet.

One night, as you leaned back on your hands and tilted your face to the stars while the others continued their revels, you caught a huge sigh from the captain, and glanced up just as he looked away from you and rose to stalk away towards the stern of the ship.

With a little frown, you noticed the way Ellary shook her head too, and when you met her gaze she rolled her red eyes and said under her breath so that no one else would hear above Keel’s lively gig, “Go after him, for pity’s sake.”

You nodded, and slipped away from the others. Climbing the stairs to the deck above the captain’s quarters, where you weren’t really supposed to be, you found him staring out over the ship’s wake, leaning his forearms on the taffrail and resting his great spider body on the boards of the ship’s deck. He looked small and sad and deflated in a way you’d never known, and it sent a frisson of worry through you.

“Captain?” you asked.

He startled a little despite the noise your boots had made on the stairs, and he twitched around to look at you. His breath caught audibly in the moonlight and you watched him swallow. “Yes?”

“Are you alright, Captain?”

His large eyes turned especially glassy for a second and he looked away. “Yes,” he lied.

“Captain, you —”

“It’s Ruven.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s Ruven.”

“Oh,” you breathed, wondering how you’d gone so long without learning it. Then again, everyone called him ‘captain’ with the same affection they called you ‘human’. “Can I join you, Ruven?”

Slowly, and with an unbearable sadness in his eyes, he looked back over his shoulder at you. He was wearing only an undyed linen shirt, and it flapped loosely around his lean torso in the breeze. It made you want to touch, to draw it up to expose the musculature and chitinous plating underneath, to explore his body with your hands. “Yes,” he said quietly.

You approached on his right side and watched as he drew his long legs in a little closer to his body, as if to welcome you further into his space. You leaned your weight carefully against his steel prosthetic, knowing it could take it, and he let out a shaky breath.

He towered over you but you’d never felt more at ease with someone, and he nestled a little further down to accommodate your height. You smiled at him. “Thank you, Ruven,” you said, trying out his name again and enjoying the sound of it on your tongue.

“For what?”

You shrugged and stared out at the dark sea, a little overwhelmed. Little flashes of phosphorescence danced on the ship’s wake, like a heartbeat in the depths. “For giving me a family again,” you said with a glance back at the crew who were capering about on the deck below. “For making me feel loved.”

“You are loved,” he said without hesitation. He exhaled your name and leaned down to take your fingers in his dark grey hands. “You are loved,” he said again with sincerity burning in his black eyes. “Never doubt that.”

You smiled up at him, and gently tugged one hand free of his, then reached up to cup his sharp face in your palm. “I don’t. Not now.” You ran the pad of your thumb along his right mandible and he shuddered bodily, eyes rolling shut with a rasping breath. ��You’re so beautiful,” you whispered.

A second or two later, a large, slow tear rolled from one eye, down his cheek to splash onto the deck between you.

“Ruven?”

“No one has ever said that to me,” he croaked, nudging his cheek further into your palm without opening his eyes again. “Terrible, monstrous, ruthless… but never beautiful.”

“Always beautiful,” you said, and he picked you up.

He held you to his chest, supported by the knees of his forelegs, and hugged you. His hands began to wander and you gasped, arching into his touch.

“Take me below,” you whispered and he smiled. “I’m yours.”

He didn’t linger, scuttling silently down the gangway to his cabin and closing the door behind him.

He laid you down on his large, soft bed and took you apart with slow kisses and lingering touches until you were moaning his name and shaking with a pleasure you never dared dream would be yours.

“Come over me,” you gasped as he kissed you where you were most sensitive, enjoying the taste and feel of you. “Please, I need —”

“Don’t encourage me,” he laughed. “I’m so close, and I’m making such a mess…”

You looked up at that and saw that he was dripping clear fluid from his abdomen onto the floor beside the bed.

“I’ve never made such a mess,” he laughed again.

“Please…”

He shifted his legs, looming over you again, and he rubbed his sensitive core over your legs, enjoying the slide of your bodies together at last. In three strokes, he came undone and cried out, arching his human spine to bring his spider’s body close to you, and he came with a yell in a wave over your lower body, his legs twitching and his body convulsing.

When he was utterly spent, he lay down beside you on his back and you curled up next to his cool, human torso, tracing the lines of chitin plating where his abdomen blended into the soft, moonlight fur of his spider’s body. He twitched occasionally but otherwise lay still and stared at you with his black eyes.

“I love you,” he said, apropos nothing.

You kissed him and let his mandibles rake tenderly over your cheeks while he kissed you back. “I love you too, Captain,” you smiled and he groaned into the kiss. “I love you too.”

Thanks for reading this story, and I hope you’ll consider reblogging it (as well as leaving a like) if you enjoyed it, as that will help others find it.

Take care, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

#drider #spider monster #drider boyfriend #monster boyfriend #spider monster boyfriend #exophilia #monster pirate #pirate monster #pirate #pirate romance

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goosedoes-fics · 1 year ago

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Madness Headcanons

Madcom x Reader

Content Warnings: I talk about tits a lot sorry. Also mentions of organ failure and transfem Tricky

Notes: Trying to get back into the writing groove. Sorry if this is shit

HANK J WIMBLETON

If you didn't know ASL before meeting them, they would communicate primarily with hand and head movements. He's too cool to use a notepad

Not a big fan of PDA, but in private he's quite affectionate and cuddly. theyre just a big ass guard dog cmon

Hank Motherfucker Wimbleton what are you doing here????? waiting for them to play gangnam styl.

DEIMOS

Transgenda

I like to imagine Dedmos's rock face works similarly to Hank's metal jaw. It's just a rock jaw. Rock lobster.

He is an ASSHOLE (affectionate)

The kind of person to like. Punch your shoulder when they laugh

Their ideal first date is stealing the declaration of independence

If you don't make him, he will go days without showering he is SO smelly anfd SO stinky. He has GREASY ASS HAIR i just know it

SANFORD

If Hank is a guard dog he's one of those goofy dogs that look like bear cubs

VERY big fan of PDA he will smooch you anywhere. everywhere. any time any place any day

He takes missions more seriously than Deimos but outside of missions he is just a big fat goofball

I'm going to place my hands directly on his man tits. anyways where was I

He lost his nipples in The War

I'm kidding. He lost them during top surgery.

At this point i'm aiming the transgenderification beam at all of them. nobody is safe. BE TRANSGENDER

DOC

Sometimes he wears his hair down and it's like a mullet w/ shaved sides

Out of all of them he's the most adverse to PDA but! In private he is very sweet. very silly

Hey are you okay with being tested on? Yeah? Cool will you drink this organ failure potion I brewed

Plays the piano sometimes! He might serenade you if you ask nicely

TRICKY

BE TRANSGENDER. (shoots her with my transfem beam)

Yeah so he/she bigender Tricky is real. Krinkels told me himself

He is like a big weird dog as well. He might lick your face (don't let him zed spit is slightly acidic)

Probably likes PDA the most. She will make out with you very grossly and sloppily in the middle of McDonalds

Very soft very fluffy. Which is surprising considering how many times he's died

His tail is somewhat prehensile, he could dangle from a tree branch if he tried hard enough

CHURCH AND JORGE

They are very good at sharing!

Sorry not sorry yandere enjoyers but they would NOT kill someone for looking at you they would be like haha yeah everyone should look at our awesome fucking partner theyre so cool and hot

Sometimes they forget how big they are compared to you so they might try to like flop over on you. Pigpile on the small one

Very prone to roughhousing and play fighting but they'll be gentle if you ask

BEEFY BOYS 😍

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gay-disabled-characters-showdown · 6 months ago

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LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 2, Wave 1, Poll 8

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Entrapta- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Qualifications:

She's canonically bi and autistic.

She is word of god confirmed autistic, as well as word of god saying essentially everyone in the show is queer. Most ppl hc her as bi or pan. Her mannerisms, character, and arc were developed by an autistic crew member.

Propaganda:

Bi autism creature with giant purple hair. Very powerful.

She has giant purple prehensile hair. Tech and biotech. She only eats tiny food. She perfectly encapsulates the autistic experience of having fake friends, being excluded everywhere, and only valued for your usefulness. Amazing character development of her own arc as well as realizing how others treat her badly. Beautiful disabled4disabled relationship.

Runaan-The Dragon Prince

Qualifications:

They are canon gay and we have good reason to believe he is autistic. His left horn was broken, and there's a good chance he will lose his left arm in upcoming seasons.

Propaganda:

Runaan is the leader of the Moonshadow assassins. He is also a father and very happily gay married to his husband. Although it is not explicitly stated in the show, Runaan is heavily autistic coded, with hints being left by the show creators on twitter. During a very important assassination, Runaan's left horn was broken in half, and now his arm is very likely to fall off if it is not properly amputated. Runaan puts up a tough front, but on the inside, he is very soft. He loves his family very much, and is willing to sacrifice himself for his people. Also. He's hot. So uhh, jot that down.

#polls #poll #disability #disabled characters #lgbtq #lgbtq characters #lgbtq dcs round 2 #lgbtq dcs r2 wave 1 #entrapta #she ra and the princesses of power #she ra spop #runaan #the dragon prince

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snakebonewitch · 9 months ago

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Research Log 1: Location: East (Barcelos, BR), South (Parque Nacional Serra da Mocidade)

Subject Discovery: Subject 'Ann' discovered via miscommunication during incentive transfer. Live specimen of 'Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris' lost in transfer. Attempt to recapture failed; Researcher made for adequate substitute. Escape from 'Ann's attempt to eat Researcher successful. Process included calling out, biting, begging and feigning despair. 'Ann' did eventually release.

Observations: Subject does not understand English or Español. Has minimal communication with local tribes, but understands small vocabulary. Vocal chords likely not completely developed through lack of necessity. Communication conducted via gestures and rudimentary word associations. Skin shares thin and elastic attributes of Eunectes genus on superior and inferior planes. Subject resorts to armor plating along trunk and head for protection from sun exposure and attacks. Hair is nonexistent on the subject, as are most traits indicative of Homo sapien. Heat pits sit under the eyes, with possibility that they are connected via the same nerve or very similar ones via separate foreman channel. General eyesight is less than 20/20; the heat pits likely make up for this especially while hunting underwater. Lower extremity has prehensile capabilities. Distribution percentage between superior and inferior halves proposes predisposition towards ectothermia, possibility to exhibit endothermic qualities up into mesothermic. Facial creases make expansion of jaw and consumption of large prey possible. Hunting seems to have no particular timeframe. Ambush via the water explains both the additional, transparent lens below the eyelid as well as vertical pupil shape. Adipose tissue centered around upper rib cage. Extensive research finds the deposits create insulation around section no longer anchored by a sternum. As well it potentially guards against lower temperatures, an attempt to breach exothermic tendencies and further supporting mesothermic regulation.

Research Log 2: Location: International Coastal Rd 10, West of Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt.

Subject Discovery: Subject 'Wedjet' encountered among group of traveling vendors. Wares sold by subject include: -Sections of shed removed from Subject's lower region -small vials of yellow liquid, later discovered to be self-extracted venom chemically identical to venom produced by Naja haje.

Observations: Subject 'Wedjet' seemed to hold reservation against analysis. Incentive offered to provide testimony includes: - All (4) remaining specimens of shed from subject (3000EGP) - 3 vials (1.5mL each) subject-extracted venom (4500EGP) - Massage Therapy administered by Researcher during analysis. (RESEARCHER NOTE: I think I just got taken for a ride. I'll need to check what the exchange rate typically is for such things. Pretty sure the massage was just to see what she could get away with asking for; at least she let me keep enough cash on me to travel back.) In contrast to previous Subject, 'Wedjet' is well adapted to life among Homo sapiens. The caravan 'Wedjet' travels with are of no relation. Their discovery of each other is recounted as, quote:

"I was just a snakelet when they found me. They couldn't stop the men that took...them from me. But they found me, left alone in the house, and no one to care for me. That's all in the past now. What happened: happened."

Speech observed to be inhibited while hood is flared. As with Naja haje counterpart, extension of the hood is a conscious effort, only able to sustain position for up to 3 minutes. (Per Subject testimony) Further observation reveals rib structure continuing from trunk section, from vertebrae C7 to C3. Heat pits follow similar position as Subject 'Ann', with differences in size and count. 'Wedjet' expresses aggressive-style humor; on more than one occasion during testimony alluded to sensations of arousal when none were present. Hypothesis of exploitation expressed on part of the Researcher.

Research Log 3: Location: West of Bluewater, NM, USA

Subject Discovery: Researcher was provided local information regarding location. As well provision requirements were noted, namely hiking equipment, personal firearm protection, and guide (RESEARCHER NOTE: 'Guide' being a local from town who can vet that I wasn't there to either steal her cows, invoke Eminent Domain, or capture her for exploitation)

Observations: Subject 'Cera' is an interesting mix between Subject 'Ann' and 'Wedjet'. She lives close to settlements of homo sapiens, but chooses little to no contact with the wider populous. the only forms of contact seem to be from members of the local Indigenous American tribe. They are explained by 'Cera' as, quote:

"...My Middlemen. I, by most accounts, don't exist. But I ain't [sic] survived this long on coyote meat and bunkin' in barns. I raise the cows they don't have means to raise, I get left alone, and we split whatever we get from market; meat and cash."

Subject has been observed practicing eating habits indicative of homo sapiens, with three consistent-sized meals over the course of the day. This is noted in contrast to other observed subjects who otherwise practice eating habits indicative of ancestry. 'Cera' denotes the reason being that an otherwise conventional Lamia eating-style leaves room for predation of stock. Venom naturally produced by Subject's venom glands are noted to not be used in day-to-day life. Similar to 'Wedjet', 'Cera' provides venom samples both for medical antivenin production, as well as private sale. Growths above orbital section speculatively classified as 'horns'. 'Cera' notes they have never shed, but the left one has sustained injury in the past. Quote:

"Sumbitch [sic] had me holed up at least a month. Busted the end off and everything. You can't see it now; this was when I was first startin'. Don't stand behind a steer if you don't want to get kicked. That one made a damn-fine steak."

Research Log 4: Location: Tokyo, JP

Subject Discovery: Initial lead discovered via r/Cryptids (Reddit). Post contains 5 second video of Subject, rolling away in similar fashion to above illustration. Contact with poster helped track subject to near Nakano, Tokyo, Japan. Four (4) nights were expended in search of Subject, finally found exiting a local 7-Eleven.

Observation: Subject 'Chise' describes herself as a "hikikomori" (ひきこもり) a colloquial used to describe individuals experiencing severe social withdrawal (self-imposed and otherwise). Despite this barrier, she does sustain herself using an animated virtual avatar to interact via social media ('VTubing').

'Chise' exhibits higher 'tolerance' for alcohol in comparison to home sapiens. Specific variable that enables this is not yet known, and may require further research.

'Chise' maintains dexterity exhibited in other subjects, despite tail and body lacking similar length. Example provided includes tucking and curling tail into ring formation to assist in locomotion. Speed clocked at 6KPH.

Researcher requested by Subject to maintain communication. Request pending approval. If request denied or slow in turnaround, independent approval will be authorized.

#Trinket's Rattlin' Bones #monster girl #naga oc #lamia oc #northern green anaconda #fantasy research #fake scientific illustration #fantasy anatomy #muscle girl #tsuchinoko #my art #lamia #naga #snake girl #snake oc #snake woman

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vodika-vibes · 5 months ago

Note

Congrats on another follower event!!! Could I please request and Crosshair x GN! Reader Beauty and the Beast AU?

Not A Monster

Summary: Your father was a monster, his death was the best thing that ever happened to the stretch of land your family ruled. As it happened, though, the people your family was responsible for decided that they were done with your family as a whole. You’re not sure that you deserved to be cursed for your family’s crimes, though.

Pairing: Pre-Crosshair x GN!Reader

Word Count: 2018

Prompt: Beauty and the Beast AU

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: So I kind of really love this idea, but I didn't want it to be too long, so I stopped after they meet. I hope you like it!

You were about five years old when the curse took hold of your family and the people who worked for your family. Too young for you to understand why your father was a bad man.

Too young to understand what was happening to you.

Honestly, you don’t remember your father at all. Outside of some vague memories of a deep voice and a massive red beard. And you barely remember your mother. You have some vague recollection of a soft voice singing a lullaby but that’s it.

You haven’t seen your mother since the curse took hold.

According to the employees, your mother has confined herself to her tower and refuses to come out until the curse is broken. You wonder how she expects the curse to break if she’s hiding away, but when you voice that to your nanny, you get swatted and shushed.

You have caught a glimpse of your mother’s new form, though no one knows that except you. Easily the size of a bear, with some kind of black ooze that drips from her body, claws the length of a small child, and acid dripping from a mouthful of fangs.

Her appearance triggered some kind of instinctual terror inside you, and you haven’t tried to even speak to her in a couple of years.

You’re lucky that your new appearance isn’t half as monstrous.

Oh, you’re clearly something other than human. Your skin, hair, and horns are the color of ash, you have a long prehensile tail that you use to hang from the rafters when you want to play. Your hands and feet have sharp, strong, claws that allow you to climb effortlessly. Your eyes are a luminous yellow, allowing you to see very well at night, but you’re practically blind during the daylight hours.

You’re also a bit small, standing at your full height you’re almost 5 feet tall. According to the manor doctor (who was turned into a bull), tells you that you should be at least 7 inches taller, based on your mother and father, so your height has to be a side effect of the curse.

Your nanny, who was changed to look like a sheepdog due to the curse, tells you that you look like a little imp.

The chef, who somehow turned into over two dozen mice, likes to say that you’re lucky that you’re still mostly bipedal.

The gardener has turned into a large polar bear, so you spend much time helping him in the garden. Your claws appear to have been designed for climbing rather than digging, but you’re good enough at it that you haven’t been shooed away.

But, in full honesty, you look almost human. Human enough that, with long enough robes and head coverings, and with the able guidance of your nanny, you’re able to go down to the market and buy food for the people who live in the manor.

So far as the people in town are aware, you’re nearly blind and have a skin condition that is made worse by exposure to sunlight. And, for the most part, people are accepting of it. They avert their eyes, and chide their children if they stare too long, and leave you and nanny alone to do your shopping.

In the, almost, 100 years since your family was cursed, you’ve watched the small town grow into an active, and bustling city. Your full body covering is no longer seen as something strange, as several religious women in town dress very similarly to you.

Of course, this leads people to believe that you’re also a religious woman. Luckily, you don’t care enough to correct them of their confusion. If people want to think that you’re religious, and if that belief causes them to not question you too much, you’re happy to let them have their beliefs.

On this particular shopping day, it’s bright and hot. You’re barely able to see when it’s sunny outside as it is, but today it’s just miserable. And not only because it’s bright enough that it hurts.

But also because it’s hot enough that your robe is sticking to your skin.

“This is the worst day ever, Nan.” You announce to the panting sheepdog lying in the fountain next to you.

I did tell you we should have come yesterday. Nan replies as she rolls around in the cool water, It’s only going to get hotter as the day goes on. We should hurry.

“You smell like a wet dog.”

I am a wet dog. What’s your excuse?

You huff out a laugh and open your notebook that carries the list of everything that you need to buy for the next week. You’re unable to read what is written on the page, stupid sun, but the librarian made sure that the list was also written in braille.

You slide your finger across the raised letters, swiftly reading the list.

It’s a standard list, there’s nothing there that isn’t normal.

Good, it means that you don’t have to deal with anyone new. “Come on, Nan. Let’s get this done and go home.” You stand from where you were sitting on the edge of the fountain and walk several feet away.

You hear Nan jump out of the water, and then there are squeals of laughter from a handful of children as she shakes the water out of her fur. She hurries to your side and you lightly grab the harness as she presses her wet body against your leg.

“Awful,”

Suck it up. Grocery store?

“Grocery store.” You agree, allowing the large dog to guide you through the busy streets to the store.

It takes you and Nan several hours to finish your shopping, and the shopkeepers are nice enough to load up your cart for you while you run through the list to make sure that you’re not missing anything.

Once you’re sure that you didn’t miss anything, you clamber up on the cart and are about to give the order to the horse (who is actually the steward of the manor) to bring you and Nan home, when someone stops next to the cart.

“Excuse me,”

You turn and squint at the man speaking to you, you’re pretty sure he has silver hair, but that’s about the only detail you can make out, “Yes?”

“I’m looking for an inn or someplace like that.” He says, “Can you point me in the right way?”

“The only Inn was the Starlight Inn…but it burned down two months ago. Got struck by lightning.”

He’s quiet for a moment, “Please tell me you’re joking,”

“Fraid not. It’s still being rebuilt. But we had a wet spring, and it’s slowed work.”

“So there’s nowhere to stay?”

“You can reach out to the church?” You offer, “Or…” You hesitate, “Never mind. The church is probably your best bet.”

“You sounded like you were going to give a second option,” The man says.

“Well, my place has plenty of free space, but,” You shrug, “You’re not going to want to stay there.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’ll take ‘it’s complicated’ over a church any day of the week.” The man replies dryly.

You tilt your head and stare at him for a long moment, and then you nod, “Alright. Hop up.” You motion for Nan to hop into the back of the cart, which she does with a huff, and the man settles on the bench next to you. Then, with a smile he can’t see, you introduce yourself.

“Crosshair,” He replies, “Are you able to actually steer this thing?”

“No need. Jace, we’re going home.” You call to the stallion, who releases a noise and starts on the path home. You don’t even bother to pick up the reins, and instead lean back against the cart.

It takes about 30 minutes for the cart to turn down the gravel, and heavily shaded, path that leads back to the manor, and it’s about that time that Nan pops up from the back. You should warn him.

You hum your agreement, and sit up, “So, about the it’s complicated.” You say as you get your first proper look at him. Dark skin, dark eyes, silver hair, and a crosshair tattooed around one of his eyes. He’s handsome, you think absently.

“Yeah?”

“About 100 years ago, my father was cursed.” You explain, “Unfortunately, he had the poor manners to die before the curse set in fully, so all of the people who lived in his home were cursed instead, including myself, my mother, and our employees.”

“Cursed?”

“Yeah,” You tug your hood off, and blink at him, “See.”

Crosshair stares at you, his gaze lingering on your grey skin, and then sliding up to your horns (they’re not very long, kind of stubby, actually). “Huh.”

That…was not the reaction you were expecting.

“I even have a tail,” You offer helpfully.

Crosshair’s gaze focuses back on your eyes, “I bet you don’t see during the day very well.”

At his comment, you cross your arms and pout, “No. But my night vision is unmatched. And I can climb better than anyone, and can hang from my tail.”

“You almost look like a gargoyle.”

Your jaw drops, and you puff up to your full height, which isn’t a lot, “I am not a gargoyle!”

“I didn’t say that you were, just that you looked like one.” He has a small smirk on his lips, “Anyway, does everyone else look like you, imp?”

You glare at him, “No. The employees were turned into animals,” At that you point to Nan, “She was my nanny, and he,” You point at the stallion, “Is the manor’s steward. Our chef turned into 24 mice.”

“Ah, and your mother?”

“Ah, well,” You shiver, even under the heat of the day, “Mother looks like a monster. But you won’t have to worry about that. Mother never leaves her tower.”

The cart comes to a stop in front of the manor, and you hop off the bench. You squirm and shimmy out of the robes, leaving you clad in the tank top and biking shorts that you much prefer (because you can cut a tail hole in them without ruining the stability of the shorts) and you swiftly unhook Jace from the cart.

Crosshair stares at you for a moment, “You don’t look like a monster, imp.” He says as he climbs down, grabs a handful of bags, and then, bemusedly, gives them to Jace. “In fact, you’re kind of cute.”

You blink at him, stunned, and then clamp your hands over your burning face, “You can’t just say things like that!”

“Why not? It’s true.” His smirk widens when he sees just how flustered you are, “Don’t tell me no one’s told you that you’re cute before?”

“Of course not! No one’s seen me since I was human!”

“Well then, lucky me. I get you all to myself.”

You stare at him, genuinely at a loss for words, and Crosshair winks at you, and grabs another bag, “Where am I bringing this?”

Nan, having decided that Crosshair needs to stay, bounds over to him. Follow me, young man. I’ll show you to the kitchen and then your room.

Crosshair blinks at her, and then nods, “Alright. Thank you, Nan.”

Jace chortles from where you’re loading him up with bags, Well now, He says, If that’s not a chance to break the curse, then I don’t know what is.

Your face heats, “Hush, you. You’re putting the cart before the horse. For all you know, he’ll only stay for a couple of nights, and then he’ll move on.”

Is there any harm in hoping, boss? Jace asks as he nudges you with his nose, I know we told you that hoping was foolish…but that was wrong of us.

You sigh and shake your head, “Come on, Jace. Let’s get everything inside.”

As you follow Jace into the kitchen you see Crosshair talking to Chef, and you can’t help the small smile that crosses your face.

Maybe, just maybe, a little hope wouldn’t be too bad.

#star wars #tbb #star wars au #vodika-vibes 650 event #tbb crosshair x reader #crosshair x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #gn!reader fic #answered asks #beauty and the beast au

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