Ship to Wreck

Far away and long ago, you are a pirate captain of a fairly successful ship of a fairly impressive stature. Despite recent turbulence with the authorities, things seem to be going alright. (live: 3s)[The bearing is good...] (live: 4s)[Your crew is faithful...] (live: 5s)[There's technically still food on the ship...] (live: 6s)[No one has killed anyone else yet...] (live: 7s)[An eldritch creature from the depths has just been dredged up in your fishing nets...] (live:8s)[(t8n:"rumble")[(text-colour:#e6e8d9)[CAP'N! I DON'T THINK THAT'S A FISH!]]] (live:9s)[Right. Far away and long ago, you are a pirate captain of a fairly difficult crew running on fairly depleted finances, and everything might just be going to shit.] (live:10s)[(text-size:5)[SHIP]] (live:11s)[TO] (live:12s)[(text-size:5)[WRECK]] (live:13s)[by [[Jack Lyell|DAY 0]]] {(set: $eldritch to 0)(set: $astral to 0)(set: $feral to 0)(set: $competence to 5) (set: $joffeygift to (a:))}

Dutifully, you rush over to your crew. Sam is heaving something massive over his head in one of Siel's nets, and it is swearing in a way that fish normally don't. However, like a fish, it glistens and shimmers, and its massive, bulky tail slams Sam in the face, causing him--and it-- to fall to the floor. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm okay!] (link: ">")[== Siel takes over, pinning the unwitting creature with a boot. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Mermaid. Throw it back over.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh, you can't even buy a girl lunch before throwing her back to Davy Jones?] (link: ">")[== Siel unracks her light-carry harpoon gun from over her back. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[We don't do charity.] (link: ">")[== The mermaid sits up in her bindnigs, at least, well as she can around Siel's boot. Looking directly at you with a feverish grin, she says, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well, do you do commission work? Because I'll kiki with you girls real quick-- no mermaid comes this close to the surface unless they're trying to chat up with the 'lubbers. At this point, Bas has slid down from the poop deck to see what the commotion is, and Bryllig has bounced over and is leaning on her shoulder, which is high as the topmost point of her ginger hair can reach. (text-color:#90c6f9)[What've you got, mermaid?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[A mermaid's purse.] (link: ">")[== The crew murmurs amongst themselves. Mermaid's purses are notoriously rare, often composed of hundreds of years of pilfered treasure rolled into accessible, on-fleek bespoke little handbags. Said handbags derivce their value and texture from being made out of the very eggsac the mermaid crawled out of. Your navigator scowls. (text-color:#257925)[I'm not seeing it on you. How do we know we can trust you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I don't suppose you've all heard of Two-Peg Susan?] (link: ">")[== The murmuring only grows louder. Two-Peg Susan, known for her extensive artillery of mercenary prosthetics (and her equally extensive bevy of attachments for nights with the lasses), was possibly one of the most important pirates working in disability justice and grand largeny of the last century. Her contributions to accessibility, equity, queer pleasure, and the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, made her a legend. While she donated most of her money to piracy grants, Pirate Code dictated that she, like all great pirates, must hide 15% or more of her treasure in an obscure and likely unreachable location. Your first mate bursts past you onto the scene, looking disheveled. Not that Joffey doesn't always look disheveled, just a regular tawny mop of anxiety in an old and extensively overcleaned suit, but when they adjust their glasses and scoff, you know you're in trouble. (text-color:#d9480f)[The fish does not know where Two-Peg Susan's treasure is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You bet your ass I know where Two-Peg Susan's treasure is. And if you fucks want it, all you need to do is get me there and away from the continental shelf. ] (link: ">")[== The murmurs become explosive. You look at your giddy helmsman, your ropemaster shaking the shoulder of your lookout excitedly, your weaponmaster and chef both whispering in uneven tones... and of course, the heavy, furious gaze of your precious first-mate. (text-color:#d9480f)[Captain... we can't stay out several more unexpected days on hearsay from a total stranger!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[No, no, please go back. The sooner the rest of us can get off this ship and onto a real boat, the better.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You think someone else would go after the treasure?] (link: ">")[== As the noise crescendoes, and even dear, dependable Sam debates the ethics of leaving your crew, you see the mermaid smiling at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[So, what do you think?] (link: ">")[== And god help you, you say... [[Yes|NIGHT 0]] [[Definitely|NIGHT 0]] [[Absolutely|NIGHT 0]]

It's a beautiful(if:$time is 0)[morning](else-if:$time is 1)[mid-day](else:)[afternoon] and your crewmates desperately need you to bother them, post-haste. So you decide to go to the... (if:$spateheld)[ (if:not (visited:"InfirmSpate")[[[infirmitchen|InfirmSpate]]]. (if:not (visited:"PoopSpate")[[[poop deck|PoopSpate]]]. (if:not (visited:"WeaponSpate")[[[weapons hold|WeaponSpate]]]. (if:not (visited:"DeckSpate")[[[deck|DeckSpate]]]. (if:not (visited:"CapSpate")[[[captain's quarters|CapSpate]]].] (else:)[ [[infirmitchen|Infirmitchen Landing]]. [[poop deck|Poop Deck Landing]]. [[underhold|Underhold Landing]]. [[weapons hold|Weapons Hold Landing]]. [[deck|Deck Deck Landing]]. [[captain's quarters|Captain's Quarters Landing]].]

A whole day has passed, you have successfully changed course, and the entire ship hasn't fallen apart on its moorings. You consider this a rousing success, although you're guessing that there will be a good deal of rousing to do before everyone is on the same page. As you all settle in the galley for dinner, you look around at your crew, and Spate, who Sam has helpfully moved to the table, where they sit in their barrel, fins perked to attention. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hello, captain!] (link: ">")[== Spate adds a lazy wave to Sam's wildly overblown one. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hello there.] (link: ">")[== Sam's enthusiasm is probably the only thing that could possibly buoy you after a day like this, one so disruptive even a drink wouldn't nurse you back to help. You tip your tricorn to them both and go to sit at the top of the table. Since you don't have chairs, more of a long bench area which happens to be the same table Grog chops all the meat at, and the 'head' is more of a shared joint position with Joffey at your side. They're already there, of course, picking their fish off the plate and letting it flop back down with a wet slap. They remove their head from their hand and stare at you. Joffey snaps, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Late.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Beer?] (link: ">")[== Grog passes you an empty cup for the filling. (text-color:#748)[ Aye.] (link: ">")[== The shit you call alcohol is strong and more like a watered down tonic than beer at this point. This just means that you and your crew have an excuse to drink it like it'll disappear if it's not handled by the end of the night. Not to mention you can always brew more out of the remaining potatoes, fucking nasty as it's liable to be. You all scoop brew from the barrel, and as the watery foam crashes over your mouth you feel a little less on edge. A little, though. Bas gesticulates, (text-color:#257925)[ --and the whole thing was a coin flip.] (link: ">")[== Bryll puts her arm around her girlfriend. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ That's something you only tell people if you've won the coin flip.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Well, I've won coin flips. Hence my desire to bet on this one.] (link: ">")[== Bryll laughs. You try to pretend you're not listening in on your crewmates. Wonder what Grog is talking about? (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Have you ever gutted one before?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Hard hide.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Not an answer.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ If I've seen it move, I've killed it.] Siel's face twitches up in the sort of smile one would make if one saw someone else admit to something that they don't seem to think is blackmail. Right, they're still both freaks. That sounds about right to you. Of course, Joffey isn't talking to anyone, simply leering over the dinner table. When you notice them leering, they pretend to be extremely occupied with chum and beer. You frown. Then you stop frowning, because the only thing worse you can do right now then be visibly agitated at Joffey is to jump on top of the table and start giving a speech about how much you think this mission sucks and is doomed. (text-color:#257925)[ Does anyone else feel like this mission sucks and is doomed? ] (link: ">")[== Fucking damnit. Dully, Grog scrapes their nailbeds while asking, (text-color:#748)[ What will you do? Turn around?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Say, what would really happen if we turned around?] (link: ">")[== From the corner, Spate warns, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hey. Don't do that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I mean, dooooo we have the resources?] (link: ">")[== (if:$bas < 4)[(text-color:#257925)[ Eh, maybe. Wouldn't stop the captain.]](else-if:$joffey <4)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ We certainly don't have the winds at our side, let alone so much as a draft of common sense. The whole thing has the whiff of madness about it.]](else:)[(text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Our food supply is hardly going to last. Cutting our losses now means we don't have to eat each other later.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Hey. I resent that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Are you just going to let them talk to you like that?] The mermaid stares directly at you, her usual laconic sass replaced with something more like anger bordering on fear. Her voice is practically white-knuckled, pale as the lip she's worrying with her sharp teeth. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We're not going to--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Turn around?] (link: ">")[== Then the echo. (text-color:#257925)[ Turn around.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Turn around.] (She's joining in just to spite you, you figure. Bring it on, asshole.) (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Turn around. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No, no.] The mermaid laughs. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#0F0)[Turn around! Turn around!] (link: ">")[== Joffey, the only one not to join in on the madness, tilts their head back and fixes you with a long, "guess you should have known this was going to happen at some point", sort of look. Spate puts their head in their hands. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Seriously. Stop.] (link: ">")[== You clack your spoon against your cup. The whole group turns around on you, eyes the bright you've seen too many times on predators in their savage season. You feel your throat pulse. Round two. What's your call? [[Fuck it! Let's turn around!!!|Day 1 Failure]] (link:"Stand up and give a rousing speech.")[ You know what. You're going to stand on the table. Upending a dish with the edge of your shoe, you stride high, to the extended clamor of your companions and the descent of Joffey's poor, tightly ponytailed head directly into their hands. You announce to the crowd: (text-color:#F0F)[ This all wouldn't fly on land.] (link: ">")[== That at least stills them. What, are you going to enforce some real rules around here? Ha. Fuck no. (text-color:#F0F)[ When you make a mistake on land, you do turn around, don't you? If you put your foot in it, you can take it back out. Nearest town? Not too far away. There's always time to turn around. But you bastards... you bastards came out to sea.] (link: ">")[== You pace the table, skirting between drinks and plates. You catch Siel's extremely amused tight-lipped expression, Bryll's raw enthusiasm, Sam's wide-eyed admiration. You lift your head, taking no time to linger. (text-color:#F0F)[ On sea, when you've gone far enough, turning around is as much an action as setting out. On sea, you only have what you remembered to carry. On sea, man is finally an island. She wants you dead. She wants you unremembered. And most of all, she knows you're out here because you have no options, so she wants you alone.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Notice that I'm still alive. And I'm still with--] You tap Joffey on the shoulder with a toe-- (text-color:#F0F)[ This bastard, no matter how much I try to wriggle away from them. And God you'd better believe anyone I've cut with a sword remembers my name. So she's zero for three.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Pirates don't live that fuckin' long. You go into piracy because you have to and you die because you should. But in between a thousand ways to die, piracy promises a chance for us to live.] (link: ">")[== There's a murmur of appreciation from the table. Even Bas seems to be slightly moved-- as much as you can tell from where they've started inking in their little journal again. (text-color:#F0F)[ All of us with nowhere else to go. All of us pushed over the edge of the point of no return. This mission is ridiculous, and it asks us to go well out of our way, into the unknown. Likely into danger, and hunger.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And so what? That's being a pirate. And you're all pirates, aren't you?] (link: ">")[== That gets Bryll and Sam cheering. Joffey placidly pumps their fist in the air, but they're smiling. (text-color:#F0F)[ So then let's engage in some blighted piracy and escort this fish!] (link: ">")[== A cheer from the crew, like a long-belated orgasm. You raise your first high. You look back to Spate, who leans forwards, exhausted. Sam massages their shoulders, and they blow you a little kiss. Confidence mostly unshaken, you hope. Mission accomplished. Through the continued din, you can already feel tomorrow's hangover. You are old! You are tired! Things are only growing chaotic! You! Want! To! Go! To! [[Bed!!!|DAY 1 NIGHT]]]

But tonight, night of nights... you, you, you my friend, you have somewhere to go. You've dealt with a lot this evening, and god help you, of course you're bone-tired. The kind of tired you'll spend the rest of your life getting out. But the one thing you're not is one to pass up on a good opportunity, and you... have somewhere to {(if: $spate >= $bryll and $spate >= $bas and $spate > $joffey)[[[be.|Spate Night 1]]](else-if: $bryll >= $spate and $bryll >= $bas and $bryll > $joffey)[[[be.|Bryll Night 1]]](else-if: $bas >= $spate and $bas >= $bryll and $bas > $joffey)[[[be.|Bas Night 1]]](else:)[[[be.|Joffey Night 1]]]}

Dinner rolls around, like an animal onto its belly. Like an animal on its belly, it is less intimidating than before, but smells perhaps a little worse, and for the gift of its kindness has a sort of not altogether pleasant smarminess about it. See, you're a man-woman of routine, but if you have to give a blighted speech every night, you're going to go mad. All considered, the attitude on your second day has been far less snippy than your first, but the excitement of going somewhere has quickly been kicked in the ass by the malaise of not going there very fast. As you approach the dinner table, you find the table set up much the same. Sam's dragged Spate even closer to the table, and Spate is having Sam spoon-feed them little bits of soup from a spoon. The throuple are queerly and platonically arghuing about some finer points on what mythical birds could and could not lift an entire ship out of the water. Meanwhile, Joffey is talking to no one, as is their right, and Grog is cutting up fish in the corner, as is theirs, because god forbid they eat anything. When you sit down, you are roundly acknowledged. By that you mean, you hear from Joffey: Joffey: (if:$joffey<4)[Finally.](else:)[I see you've managed to keep yourself together.](if:$dayprep<2)[You certainly could have stood to handle more today, considering you stood around roughly as much as the wind did.](else:)[Exemplary job talking to two people and confirming that we will, in fact, not die. Blight forbid I get an easy ticket out of here.] You are, as always, charmed by Joffey's competence. Howl: What a fantastic day, you say, out loud, to no one in particular, and so by that you mean mainly Joffey. (text-color:#257925)[ It's been still...] There's a remarkably crestfallen air about your company. The frenzy you dredged up last night has all but fallen back to a long, pathetic sigh, like the family dog three months out from its deathbed. God knows the crew is like a sail-- if you're not actively blowing 'em, you'd hardly know you put in the effort. Howl: Better things are coming along, I'm certain. Beneath their breath, Joffey murmurs, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Better not be another rousing speech.] You helpfully murmur back, (text-color:#F0F)[ I hate rousing speeches. They lose all their cinematic luster if I have to keep whipping them out like a quick fuck.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Some of us don't mind your quick fucks so much, considering that's the only thing we get.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Lad. Raise your standards.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm trying, but you're practically lying on top of them.] As much as you'd love to continue this conversation, it's been a slow day. It's not that there are a lot of fast days at sea-- famously, the opposite. It's more that today is so exceptionally slow that even a pirate crew has noticed. Really, you'd think this wouldn't be such a big deal-- after all, this is a pirate crew, not the 24-hour news cycle. Still, you feel inclined to keep people in good spirits. (text-color:#F0F)[ Who! Wants! To! Play! Winner takes fuckall! We haven't gambled on this ship in too damn long.] (text-color:#257925)[ What's there to gamble over?] You fold your arms. You have exactly one idea. It is very stupid. There is no way everyone will go for it. You point to the ground. (text-color:#d9480f)[ THE FUCKING BOAT. (text-color:#F0F)[ I've never lost around of fuckall for keeps. Joffey stammers wildly as Bryll cooes, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ That can't be true, can it?] (text-color:#257925)[ I can tell when she's lying.] Bryll murmurs, Bryll: And? Bas: ... You in fact have never lost a game of fuckall for keeps. This is because you have never played fuckall for keeps. You're mainly bluffing about this but it kind of seems like the sort of impulse that has really shaken up your life lately. Most of those changes have allegedly, at present, been positive, soooo you might as well follow this rabbit all the way into the hole. Joffey: You really... want to do this. [[yeah|Day 2 Failure]] [No. Obviously I'm joking. But on an unrelated note someone else sexy in this room come up with a better idea right now.] Grog: Poker. Spate: Tame. (text-color:#F0F)[ We play it strip. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Sold. Sold. Sold. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You're not wearing any clothing... (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You and me can be a joint team. The mermaid pinches Sam's cheek, dragging it reaaaallly close to their big, sharp teeth. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This seems a little improper... (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, you have another idea? (text-color:#d9480f)[ Erm. Well, not as such-- (text-color:#90c6f9)[ We could play truth or dare! This rustles some feathers. If there's anything pirates prize more than gold, it's their secrets. A well-placed game of truth or dare has rent polycules in twain, gotten treasure moved halfway across seas, and of course, lanced the heart of a pirate crew. You're in dangerous territory now. However... you're also in SEXY territory. This is only heightened when Bryll adds, Bryll: There is a twist we used to use on my old ship that kept things interesting... Howl: I'm in. Joffey: Stop agreeing to things before you know what they are! Howl: You like it even less when I agree to things after I know what they are. Joffey: Because the only thing worse than someone else's idea! Is your judgement! Bryll: The Captain should decide if it's truth or dare! You clap your hands together. Now it's definitely got a really weird vibe to it. (text-color:#F0F)[ This seems like it centers my autonomy. And I'm not. Entirely sure I have any? So I don't know about that??? You cast a look around the room. Bas coughs into her fist. Bas: Pussy. [Fine.] [C'mon, guys, let's just play some strip poker...] Joffey: Because you have such a good eye for these things. Howl: What is that supposed to mean? [Truth or dare is chill.] [C'mooooooon strip poker--] Howl: I can just strip. That's an option. Sam: I'm on board! Bryll: So empowering! Bas: If we do truth or dare, we can just order you to strip, no? [Good point.] [CMONNNNNN STRIP POKER!!!] You are playing sexy weird voyeur truth or dare whether you want to or not. I'm sorry for presenting you with the illusion of free will, if you want me to write a strip poker scene, you better have at least five dollars on hand. [I have five dollars on hand.] Cool. Then expect this eventually. For now, proceed to truth or dare. [Okay. Also fuck you.] I wrote you a lot of porn you are not paying me for.

Nothing can be easy... you know it better than most, but here you are again! Like a fool, wishing for something easy. I didn't say their name, but they came to mind, didn't they? On a day with no wind, on a night with no spark, the doubt creeping in, you need something stronger than a drink, you need to talk to someone. And god help you, you have so many options. You think over who might want to see you-- you think of so many people who absolutely might not, and yet... you can't say you don't feel compelled. And finally, whether it will make your night easier, or a thousand times harder, you realize you have somewhere to {(if: $spate >= $grog and $spate >= $siel and $spate >= $sam and $spate > $joffey)[[[be.|Spate Night 2]]](else-if: $sam >= $grog and $sam >= $siel and $sam >= $spate and $sam > $joffey)[[[be.|Sam Night 2]]](else-if: $siel >= $bryll and $siel >= $bas and $siel >= $grog and $siel >= $sam and $siel >= $spate and $siel > $joffey)[[[be.|Siel Night 2]]]else-if: $grog >= $bryll and $grog >= $bas and $grog >= $siel and $grog >= $sam and $grog >= $spate and $grog > $joffey and (visited: "Grog Night 4"))[[[be.|Grog Night 5]]](else:)[[[be.|Joffey Night 5]]]}

Let's get dinner over with quickly. You walk into the infirmitchen only to find that spirits have raised considerably from yesterday, accompanied by spirits raised on every corner. Joffey is drinking your newest crop of rainwater, something you can ascertain by smell //everything smells so loud everything smells so tasty// as you sit next of them. Every time they breathe, you can hear the struggling in their lungs from years-old tar. Every time they exhale, you can tell everything they've eaten for the last week. Really underscores the dire situation of your food reserves. They're nothing but fish and tack and drink, a little boot leather, your own flavor coating their lips. {(set: $score to 0)} Your flavor. Someone please distract you. Now. |hook1>[(link:"Sam.")[(replace:$hook1)[ {(set: $score to 1)(set:$sam to $sam-1)} Good old Sam! Good! Old. Sam. Sam is over in the corner with a fuzzy little mug, swinging it like there's no tomorrow. So like Sam, isn't it, to have a spot of cheer at the hardest possible time. His eyes glimmer as he sees you, his mouth pressed into that smile with the hard teeth bare that //threatdisplaythreat// you've always loved Sam's smile. You take in a breath, sniff helplessly. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh! Captain! Fancy a drink?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Not feeling my best, Sam.] (link: ">")[== Sam grins, holds up his drink. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hair of the dog always helps me get over a hangover!] (link: ">")[== SAM. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam. ] (link: ">")[== Sam looks perfectly innocent. God forbid-- there you go again-- inflicting this all on some innocent bystander-- you feel so sick right now that you can't even give him a reassuring smile, or tell him that it was a silly joke between the pair of you. Instead, you hold your hand over your mouth. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Sorry, Captain... I really didn't mean to make you upset.] (link: ">")[== You close your eyes. Shake your head a few times, like trying to get bees out of your brain. Walk away. Fast.]] (link:"Bas.")[(replace:$hook1)[ Bas's infernal moods are at least good for keeping you grounded. Always have been, at least. You're all too happy to slink over to where they're playing a game with Grog and situate yourself at the table, hunched halfway over yourself. It's a bunch of rows and columns, dutifully aligned-- nothing like any table game you've seen played on the ship. (text-color:#257925)[ You want me to deal you in, or are you just going to watch?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Depends. What are you playing?] (link: ">")[== Bas shoots a glance at Grog, places a card down. (text-color:#257925)[ Solitaire.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ With... two people.] (link: ">")[== Bas looks to Grog again. Grog looks back. The drumming of their fingers on the table lets you confirm that they don't have a single card in their hands. (text-color:#F0F)[ Really.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Basically, you're free to watch me play Solitaire, if you want. You are, of course, also free to leave? In fact, that sounds nice--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No,] you snap, a little too suddenly. Quickly, you clarify, (text-color:#F0F)[ I've always loved Solitaire. I'd really like to watch a master play?] (link: ">")[== Bas snorts. (text-color:#257925)[ Flattery gets you nowhere, unless you're on a pirate ship. Sit down and watch, you big lug.] (link: ">")[== It's hardly distracting enough, but focusing on Bas's skillful movements, which are, honestly, entirely unnecessary for a single-player, time-free game where you can just reset if you mess something up, at least brings you the relief of having somewhere to put your eyes. Not to mention, the silence is nice, like a blanket. Sometimes you forget how easy it is to be around Bas, when she wants it to be easy-- she's the sort of companion who enjoys being in your presence without insisting on it, too strongly. She looks over at you every now and then before placing a card. You hope, desperately, she's not aware that you're so sick you can barely think right now. If she does know, you hope that she knows she's helping. When she finishes up the game and shuffles the cards, you feel yourself smart to attention again. (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, that's fun. I should... go.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Ok?]]]] Shit. Shit shit. That (if:$bastime)[went well](else:)[could not have gone worse]. You feel a bead of sweat above your brow... here it goes again. Your moustache hairs are beginning to all stand on end. That's the first sign. You could jump for your quarters now, but you need to at least force some food down. (if:not $bastime)[After all, you're already beginning to get looks... and poor Sam will never forgive you.] There has to be someone to talk to. Feign normal. Look attentive. What do you usually do, again? |hook2>[(link:"Joffey.")[(replace:$hook2)[ {(set: $score to $score+1)} You rush to Joffey in a moment of supreme weakness. Joffey murmurs, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Go upstairs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Give it-- at least a few--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Take a few more bites, pretend to have food poisoning?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Hckhghg. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You don't already have food poisoning, I mean. Because I'm getting the sense--] (link: ">")[== This isn't helping at all. Dry logic makes your brain whine, a white noist threating between your ears and shooting you right in the forehead. You feel yourself in the crosshairs of a god of pain that mortals have yet to meet. It wouldn't be the first time. And yes, for the record, your stomach also hurts. (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you, Joffey.] (link: ">")[== Joffey tips an invisible hat, voice teeming with sarcasm. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Doggedly devoted, Captain. ] (link: ">")[== MISTAKE. MISTAKE. MISTAKE. MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE. They notice the way you recoil back, undoubtedly, but with their mouth prim and shut and their eyes wild what passes between you is the realization there's no way to dip now. Not without speaking with someone else-- there are others at the edge of the room. Do they know or not. Is the world closing in. Is this when you give up. Is this it. Oh god you're going to puke.]] (link:"Spate.")[(replace:$hook2)[ {(set: $score to $score-1)} The mermaid, who is in the process of outdrinking Grog, gives you a little flourish of the hand as you approach. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Green around the gills, girlie.] (link: ">")[== You clasp your neck. (text-color:#F0F)[ Smth'in wrong with my?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh. Girl. No. Everything is wrong.] Spate's tail swirls her water, spilling a little over the edge. She laughs maniacally. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Man, I would be suuuuch a bad tripsitter, wouldn't I? Anyhow, girlie, if you want to get to the bathroom, or, you know, anywhere else you need to go, I think you're going to have to solve their riddles three.] She extends a finger to point at Siel and Bryll, who are... they're definitely standing //deliberately// near the exit. You feel your head spin a little. They wouldn't stop you, would they? They haven't done anything wrong. You mean you. You haven't done anything wrong. To them. Yet. Spate leans back over. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I assume you, like me, have had some experience with the popo. And I'm not calling your friends pigs, but if the tail curls that way, there are a lotta people closer to the law than to you. Especially with your-- your zhush. ] (link: ">")[== Weakly, you say. (text-color:#F0F)[ My what.] (link: ">")[== Spate emphasizes again, extending a hand to indicate your entire face. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ The zhush going on right now. The something-something. Point being, remember. Minimal girlformation. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You don't need to make anyone's job easy for them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Spate, what is it you think is currently going on here?] (link: ">")[== Spate grins. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Girlie, if I were right, it would be worse news for you than if I shut up. Let's just say we're having a friendly kiki over best procedure. You're a little drunk right now, right? You can get rowdy when you're drunk. So you should probably consider taking a nap.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You know a lot more about me than you should, huh. ] (link: ">")[== Spate sighs, splashing water out of her barrel with a thwip of her tail. She looks so restrained in there. You have the intrusive thought that you could pin her to the ground right now and take her and see just how long you can get her, coiled around you, pushing against your body. (text-color:#F0F)[ Thanks.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Don't mention it. I'm older than the sea. I've sea-en some things.] (link: ">")[== Now it's dad jokes? At this time of night? Localized entirely in your bratty submissive femme? You are going to be sick with a horrible disease. You stumble away with a little wave of gratitude.]]] You breathe deep. However you're feeling, one thing is certain. They're over there. Your bed is somewhere beyond it, soft, comfortable, capable of supporting far more weight than is necessarily needed for a woman of your stature, and you've thrown up on it before. You've wiggled your way out of conversations by the carriageload on land, blew a few loads on the water as well. You're powerful. You're not something to be fucked with. You are extremely capable of looking inconspicuous to beautiful women. And the best way to do that is to talk to one of them like they're not both standing together. You choose (if:$score > 1)[[[to|Day 3 Failure 2]]] |hook3>[(link:"Siel.")[(replace:$hook3)[ {(set: $score to $score+1)} Siel looks you up and down with a single, appraising lancing. Her mouth bends into something like a frown as she watches you heave-- no, you haven't thrown up yet, but those breaths are tight-- you can feel your anatomy reconfiguring, your soft parts trying to tie themselves into knots to weather the storm. You try to keep your stare casual, but she's looking directly through you. At last, she takes her little dagger and begins running it on her fingernails. Only a coarse blade would be any good for that, you figure. And it would still be (if:$score > 1)[[[bad|Day 3 Failure 2]]](else:)[bad]. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Cold night.] (link: ">")[== You try to ignore the way your hair bursts out of its sockets as it stands on end. It shouldn't be noticeable to the human eye, and still-- something in you feels seen by an inhuman eye. You're stanced up, looking at her looking at you. (text-color:#F0F)[ Hadn't noticed.] (link: ">")[== Siel gives you a sad little look. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Dog days are over, no?] (link: ">")[== How does she know get out of her just stop trying to (text-color:#F0F)[ What.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ 'tll be getting cold soon.] (link: ">")[== The expectation, the (if:$score > 1)[[[raw hunger|Day 3 Failure 2]]](else:)[raw hunger] in her eyes, is nothing short of staggering. Saying nothing, you feel like you might be pinned against the wall already. Yes, it usually makes you-- a little unhinged-- but you aren't used to the sheer quantity of saliva in your mouth, or the way some part of your brain is misfiring just looking at her. You have to keep your mouth closed to stop yourself from saying something stupid, or worse, pouncing on her and tearing out her juggular. You can imagine yourself grabbing skin-- skin too heavy to be skin, a callused something-- the pair of you fighting the way wild dogs fight. She would be perfect for it. She fidgets with the edge of her white coat. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure, sure. I've got to go. ] (link: ">")[== Her hand is loose around yours. You only realize she's holding it, perfectly around the wrist, when your connection strains. You look back at her, mouth open. What the-- (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Be careful.] (link: ">")[== You laugh. (text-color:#F0F)[ Going to bed?] (link: ">")[== Siel's eyes narrow. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ That's all you use it for?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Wh... ]She's being extremely forward about your sex life, isn't she? She needs to stop being forward about your sex life. Unless she wants to be part of your sex life. Why is she looking at you like that. Your lips rise around your mouth. (text-color:#F0F)[ What I use my-- bed for is personal. You should drop my hand, now.] (link: ">")[== Siel obliges. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I won't keep you.]]] (link:"Bryll.")[(replace:$hook3)[ {(set:$score to $score-1)} Bryll waves as if she's not standing in an incredibly inconspicuous position. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Hey, Cap! We were about to head to bed. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Bed or...] (link: ">")[== Bryll cheerfully ignores that. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You wouldn't need an escort, would you? Not to be weird, just figured, we can all head out, it'll get quiet faster. You seem a little,] and she raises a hand to her head and turns a finger a few times. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ We all get there! ] (link: ">")[== We do not we do not all get there nothing has been what you are in your whole life nothing has been so hard so hungry so you don't know what you're talking about you don't know what it feels like to need and need and need at the end of a rope someone's fingers just out of reach no one will let you have what you want nothing can keep you busy-- Bryll's voice trails through your mind, reassuringly. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Just let me know if you want someone to walk with you. I'm happy to help. And if not, I'll make sure to ask Joffey if you're okay later.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you... You're very kind, Bryll.] (link: ">")[== And what, you accused her of being a spy who was aware of what was happening to you and was going to take you away. For shame, honestly. The only thing she's guilty of is being too kind for you to ever deserve her. I hope you feel real bad about that one.]] You shamble out-- the door opens, the door shuts. Too hard, behind you. You're having a hard time evaluating your own movements, so you stick to the wall. You calculate how far you've gone by the way the turns in the distance loom closer or further away. Every lurch forward is another step that feet don't have to travel, the promise of a crossing somewhere, eventually, if you can just make it a (if:$score > 1)[[[little further|Day 3 Failure 2]]](else:)[little further]. As long as you can get out, and into your room, everything's going to be okay.  (if:$score>2)[[[Everything's going to be--|Day 3 Failure 2]]](else:)[Everything's going to be--] You can smell it in the dark-- ash and iron and sea wind. Someone's here with you. This night is full of too many stupid surprises. Trying not to tear a stranger apart, you turn to (if: $score > 0)[ White eyes. Visible in the dark as twin stars, they blink, and reemerge. Your vision adjusts, discerning a body, but you remain under the purview of white eyes, casting a curse of light upon you. It's them-- unmistakeably them. You open your mouth and shut it, and in the distance, you hear the cleaver. No-- everyone else is in that room. They can't be there, and the cleaver can't be there, if Grog is here-- everyone hovers out of your ability to put them together. You snarl at Grog, an audible rumble erupting from your throat. (text-color:#748)[ I missed you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Get away from me. I need to go upstairs.] (link: ">")[== (if: $grogroute or $grog > 5)[Grog says, (text-color:#748)[ Don't go toward my room tonight.]] (else:)[(text-color:#748)[ I'll come back for you. When I call, come.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Alright.] (You're humoring him. You don't know what she means. You would never dream of--) And you buckle again. You need to get upstairs. Now. ]] (else:)[ Justin plucking the strings. Ears swivel out of your head to hear him, and your head raises-- you feel your gait slumping already, sinews inside of you beginning to twist and revert. Already, you lean a little too far forward, your arms don't fit perfectly on your shoulders. As your body falls apart, in some half-space, you listen to the sound of plucking strings. Settled between sentimentalities, you remember music, trying to remember if you've liked it in the past, if it always sounds so much like nothing. Your nose twitches of its own accord, but you can't smell him. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Justin,] you say in a rough voice, your canines edging past your other teeth, sharpening to points. (link: ">")[== (text-colour:cyan)[ What a beautiful moon it is, Captain,] says Justin. (text-colour:cyan)[ I take it you don't have time for a song?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (link: ">")[== Justin begins singing anyways. //In and out and in again, shall we stop where we begin? Finding in this world a twin Round and round we watch it spin.// You can hear him far behind you. No matter how far you climb into the moonlight, towards your room, the noise will not stop. It covers up the sound of your heart-- of your own breathing. You want him to stop so badly, but if you ask too strongly your hands will clasp around his lute and break it. You've seen what you can do in confrontations before. You have let one or two sailors go with a few extra dubloons for their silence. There are worse things to be than a temperamental boss, in this business. Like dead. ] You're out. A line of sweat across your face, you stumble between stairs into the sky, your breath heavy as it sticks to the sides of your throat. You can feel hair prickling up your hands, your gait almost torn to pieces. You (if: $score <= 0)[can still hear Justin play](else:)[hear a distant thumping, which may be nothing but the hammering of your own heart]. Fortunately, you've done this enough times to be an old pro, even if every time feels like dragging your body over a new, miserable mountain that you didn't know existed. Someday, you feel, you're not going to be able to convince yourself to go to sleep. But this time, at least, you have it under control. You have to do what you and Joffey have discussed and (if:$score is not 0)[[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] (if: $score is 0 or $bottom < 2)[[[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]](else:)(link:"Go to bed.")[ No it wants you. [[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] (if: $2ndbottom < 3)[[[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]](else:)(link:"Go to bed.")[ [[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] (if: $3rdbottom < 4)[[[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]](else:)(link:"Go to bed.")[ [[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] (if: $4thbottom < 5)[[[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]](else:)(link:"Go to bed.")[ [[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] (if: $5thbottom < 6)[[[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]](else:)(link:"Go to bed.")[ [[Go downstairs.|Day 3 Failure]] [[go to bed.|DAY 3 NIGHT]]]]]]]

The last real thought you have is raw need, triumphing over duty. Over yourself, again, the way it does. And you know you have to {(else-if: $siel >= $bryll and $siel > $joffey)[[[be|Siel Night 3]]](else-if: $bryll >= $siel and $bryll > $joffey)[[[be|Bryll Night 3]]](else:)[[[be|Joffey Night 3]]]}

"The worst is over." You keep thinking that, don't you. Today, waking up. "The worst is over." Finding Spate. "The worst is over." Hiding your old papers. "The worst is over." Taking to the sea. "The worst is over." There's always worse-- but for once, watching everything fall apart has made you feel things could get better. After all, you've survived it with your crew... you feel closer to them by the night. And so, off you go again, to see if the worst brings in the future. Once more, you are tasked with the arduous task of convincing someone that you can be a harbor-- something to come home to on nights like this, somewhere to {(if: $sam >= $bryll and $sam >= $grog and $sam >= $spate)[[[be.|Sam Night 4]]]((else-if: $grog >= $bas and $grog >= $sam and $grog >= $spate)[[[be.|Grog Night 4]]](else-if: $bas >= $grog and $bas >= $sam and $bas >= $spate)[[[be.|Bas Night 5]]](else:)[[[be.|Spate Night 4]]]}

You can feel this journey, like so many before it, falling to its knees. Truthfully, the strength to see it through feels... well, not foreign to you. You will do it. But it will be demanding. However, you're not the captain you were at the beginning of the week. You've overcome things you didn't know you could conquer, you've become closer to your crewmates than you thought you could be. And... well, honestly, one of them in particular stands out. So even though you could collapse, you find somewhere to {(if: $spate >= $bryll and $spate >= $bas and $spate >= $grog and $spate >= $siel and $spate >= $sam and $spate > $joffey)[[[be.|Spate Night 5]]](else-if: $sam >= $bryll and $sam >= $bas and $sam >= $grog and $sam >= $siel and $sam >= $spate and $sam > $joffey)[[[be.|Sam Night 5]]](else-if: $siel >= $bryll and $siel >= $bas and $siel >= $grog and $siel >= $sam and $siel >= $spate and $siel > $joffey and (visited: "Siel Night 3"))[[[be.|Siel Night 5]]](else-if: $bryll >= $spate and $bryll >= $bas and $bryll >= $grog and $bryll >= $siel and $bryll >= $spate and $bryll > $joffey)[[[be.|Bryll Night 5]]](else-if: $grog >= $bryll and $grog >= $bas and $grog >= $siel and $grog >= $sam and $grog >= $spate and $grog > $joffey and (visited: "Grog Night 4"))[[[be.|Grog Night 5]]](else-if: $bas >= $bryll and $bas >= $grog and $bas >= $siel and $bas >= $sam and $bas >= $spate and $bas > $joffey)[[[be.|Bas Night 5]]](else:)[[[be.|Joffey Night 5]]]}

(if:$bryllcounter is 15)[(display: "All Bryllig, All The Time")] (else-if:$incrediblyconvolutedthing)[(display:"QPArghmaster")] (else-if:(visited:"Siel Night 5"))[(display:"Siel Ending")] (else-if:(visited:"Grog Night 5"))[(display: "Grog Ending")] (else-if:(visited:"Bas Night 5"))[(display: "Bas Ending")] (else-if:(visited:"Joffey Night 5"))[(display: "Joffey Ending")] (else-if:(visited: "Bryll Night 5"))[(display: "Bryll Ending")] (else-if:(visited:"Sam Night 5"))[(display:"Sam Ending: Two Handsome Blokes")] (else-if:(visited: "Spate Night 5"))[(display:"Spate Ending: Pursuasion")] (else:)[(display: "A Jolly Good Fellow")]

After all your fussing, it would be so like the universe to let everything go off without a hitch. So naturally, it does. As you and Sam cheer and Joffey and you count up the treasure Spate's brought from the depths, your thoughts can't help but return to-- well, the fact that this is your happy ending. It's not your crew's, and Bas, in particular, still has so far left to go. You can't stop thinking about your conversations on the cuppola together, when it felt like the pair of you were the only people in the world. Sam might not know what that hazy look in your eye is, but Joffey certainly does. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You should go see her, Elisa.] (link: ">")[== You flush. You can't possibly be that obvious. (text-color:#F0F)[ I suppose-- if everything's taken care of here--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ More than taken care of.] (if: $joffey > 8)[They kiss you on the forehead.](else-if: $joffey > 5)[They kiss you on the cheek.](else:)[They give you a sad, proud little smile.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You did it, after all.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I... I'm proud that we've made it. I couldn't have done it without you, keeping my head on straight. Stopping me from leaping too far.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain, if all of this has taught us anything, it's that some good can apparently come from even your stupidest leaps.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You think so?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I know so.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Good, because I'm about to make one more.] (link: ">")[== Joffey smiles. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Then go jump.] (link: ">")[== Jumping would not get you to the top of the cuppola. But climbing will. Everyone's returned to normal duty far too fast-- primarily because you all need to set a course, fast, to turn around quickly as possible. Which, thank god, means you'll be getting to the mainland, where a good steak, unwatered-down beer, and fresh company await you. Not to mention a well-deserved, long overdue shower. A shower! What if she tells you that you stink? What if-- You see her peer over the edge when you approach, then duck quickly away. Stupid, stupid. It doesn't matter. Just go see her. You climb the ladder, not altogether unimpressed with how easy the trip has become. You're feeling this week in your arms, that's for sure. Now, if only there were some companion of yours that necessitated leg day. When your head pokes over the edge, Bas pretends to busy herself with the telescope. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Hey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Hello.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ So...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah, yeah, I know. Long trip. Nearly over. Just need to make it back. Then you're... onto the next big thing, right?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Well, my girlfriends and I have been talking, and. You wouldn't happen to have another score in mind, would you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Give me a few days on the mainland, and I can--] (link: ">")[== Bas cuts you off. (text-color:#257925)[ Great! Guess we're on, then.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's my call.] (link: ">")[== Bas tilts their head to the side. (text-color:#257925)[ You're joking, right? You never would have made it this far without us.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Without you constantly threatening to throw me off the cupola, telling me to turn around, bothering Joffey, setting healthy boundaries, enjoying an evening together, smoking weed, talking about our childhoods, playing a game of chance or two, learning more about each other and realizing we have a lot in common due to our repressed rage towards the world and sarcastic veneer over the fact we love the people we love fiercely and would do anything for them, because we think our own dreams are impossible?] (link: ">")[== She smiles. (text-color:#257925)[ There we go. Could've done without the psychoanalysis, though.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, what do you want me to say?] (link: ">")[== Bas strides across the cupola, and says, (text-color:#257925)[ Nothing at all.] Before drawing you into a kiss. She's a confident kisser, and the pair of you seem to just melt into each other-- you never expected anything with her could feel easy. When you draw away, and she's looking at you, a gentle warmth across her features, you don't understand how it ever managed to be so hard. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Where to next, then?] (link: ">")[== Bas says, (text-color:#257925)[ Home.] (link: ">")[== And for once in your life, it feels like somewhere you could go.

You come up over the edge of the deck bearing the mermaid. Spate loves to wreathe herself around you, even now, and when your first mate is there she puts out her tongue to indicate your disapproval. Joffey approaches you both, socks you gently in the head, and you tilt sideways long enough to get Spate's tongue in your cheek, luckily, not enough to topple over. You can't imagine it would leave a great final impression. (text-color:#F0F)[Should've passed her off to Sam, shouldn't I.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh, I already said goodbye to your little strongman. As much as I love being in his arms, I think you owe me one final hoist. ] (link: ">")[== (if:$broughtspatearound)[(text-color:#d9480f)[What you got wasn't enough, mmm? Typical.] (link: ">")[== Spate's mouth cracks in a wicked smile. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, I do hate you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Girls, girls. My girls. That's enough.]] (text-color:#F0F)[So. You. The drink. Ready, yet?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[More than ever. ] (link: ">")[== You can see the rest of your crew beginning to emerge onto the main deck. They see Spate flying from your outstretched arms, into the water, hold their breath together as the mermaid fails-- thank god-- to hit the side of your ship on the way down. When she resurfaces, and Sam brings up the treasure with a sparkle in his eye, you can't contain yourself anymore (hasn't that always been the problem)? The two of you sweep each other into a hug, leaving room for the purse, then, as you pull out sparkling artifact after artifact, you adorn crew members in turn, it's a new holiday, it's your family, you get to be the boss you wanted to be, the leader who swings a win. Last, but not least, you turn to Joffey, purse clutched in hand. (text-color:#d9480f)[Really, Captain, I don't need anything.] (link: ">")[== You have the purse in the crook of your arm, and you rifle through the treasure until-- of course. Like any good stash of treasure, it contains accessories. You take Joffey's hand, and you slip a ring on. You close your eyes, and you kiss their hand. (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing at all?] (link: ">")[== Lord, the day is good. It's good as it is long, with the turning about and Bas's well-set plans to get you to the mainland. You and Bryll negotiate particulars for hours, although she seems well-pleased with the cut the crew are getting, and Joffey hardly has to intervene at all. You can't help but keep looking their way during the negotiations-- not because you need their approval, you think. This time, it's because you just like the way they look in the waning sunlight, the way their shoulders have slackened. The slight smell of wine about them indicates they've taken a load off midday, and you don't blame them. All negotiation, all you can think is, //I need to eat you whole.// But that wouldn't change anything. Aren't they already yours? At sunset, you stand by the mast for a while, waiting. When they do come out, the sky is the purple of mainland heather, and their attire is stripped down, stippled with spots of the heavy drink. They practically collapse into your arms, and you bring them to the masthead, where you've sat so many times before, looking ahead at the sea. (text-color:#F0F)[ Immoderate.] You kiss them on their chin, all the way down to their arm again. (text-color:#F0F)[ You fool. You idiot.] (link: ">")[== Joffey leans on you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ So everything is... alright, then.] (link: ">")[== You hum, low in your throat. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey, only for now.] (link: ">")[== Their eyes are heavy, bagged. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You can't say that. I'm going to die years before my time.] (link: ">")[== You cuff them around the shoulder, draw them tight to you. Though they're tense as ever, they let you rough them around without complaint, and when they're close to you they melt into your chest. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm glad you're comfortable. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I don't think I'm going to let you up. That way you can't do anything else like this.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Ah, Joffey... what would you possibly do if I didn't?] And you feel them shake their head, from the way their ponytail nudges your back, and then you feel their head against yours, their smell, their breath, the warmth of them, the slight purr of playful disapproval forming in their throat. And you love them, and you are on the same side, for once. The way you always should have been. And you would take any difficulty in the world to have them-- and you need suffer no difficulty at all, and yet you will, and it will be worthwhile. To a thousand more adventures, to a thousand perfect moments, a thousand bracing ones, to the way you will change and shapeshift in each other's eyes forever, to promises that will hold you all the same. To Joffey-- your matelot.

The next morning, everything looks a little different, in that strange way that everything looks a little different at the end of a trip. Really, the trip is at most on its way through the middle, but you can't imagine-- and maybe that's part of the problem-- anything being more difficult. Or wonderful. You also can't imagine anything being so wonderful. You carry Spate out of the darkness, and they dramatically fall across your arms. You feel like you're bringing a corpse into the light, for view by their grieving family. Spate's eyes roll against the sun. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Owie.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You wouldn't be staring directly into it if you just held your head up.] (link: ">")[== Spate's fins frill against your half-bare arm. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You can support it a little better, you know.] (link: ">")[== You mime your throw. (text-color:#F0F)[ Aaaand goodbye.] (link: ">")[== Spate cackles, a noise between the crow and the dolphin, both humble pranksters whom you suspect Spate would admire greatly. Slowly, the rest of your crew gathers aboveboard. Spate, who is making quite the show of being on your pretty shoulders, smiles and winks at them all in turn, with a kiss blown for Sam and a middle finger and tongue stuck out for Joffey. You all gather to say a quick goodbye, when Joffey ventures, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Perhaps we should wait until you return with our payment for regards, no? As fun as this has all been.] (link: ">")[== Spate snaps her fingers. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well! I wouldn't want to leave my darlings disappointed. Why don't I go do that, then? ] (link: ">")[== She falls into the water with a long and fruitful splash, when you heave her over the side. You feel, a little bit, that your heart might stop-- it doesn't stop. You feel, for a moment, that you might have once again lead everyone to the edge of hope and left them to drown-- you're not drowning. You watch Spate emerge, smirking playfully, and Sam throws over the rope ladder and rushes to meet them halfway. When he comes back up, holding a black dogfish egg case roughly the size of a large, plump cat, and opens it, gold sloshes out across the deck in a slurry of goo. Your crewmates gasp with alarm and delight, and Joffey gives you a long, heavy look, before it breaks to warmth. Spate calls, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ My work here is done. Ta ta, ladies, theys, and others. ] (link: ">")[== And it's over. Ah. It's going to be a long day. You've had plenty of long days already, so it doesn't... bother you so much anymore. Not the way it used to, especially over the last few days, when there was so much fidgety, frantic movement just because you knew that you had to do something to inspire confidence, even if there was essentially nothing to do. You feel the sun filter warm over your cheeks, holding you close. You settle somewhere on the deck, close to Sam, and are excited to see Bryll fall out of the ropes, hair dangling inches from the ground as they loom over you, suspended in the weave. A jolly smile shines across her round face, her cheeks red and freckled across. Her long braids swing in the air as she taps you on the nose. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Moping?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not moping. I'm just...] (You don't know what you're doing.) (text-color:#F0F)[I'm convening with myself.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Hmmm... the poor man's moping, no? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not moping. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You're very transparent, you know. It's not a bad thing, but I do think, a little bit, you're moping. Is it because I didn't come to see you? I did say that... eh, well. Earning my respect isn't something that pays fast dividends.] She shoots you an indignant gesture. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ It does pay! Or so I've heard. But as much as I'd love you to immediately cheer up at the end of this adventure because you've befriended the most interesting woman alive, I understand that it can't work that way. Your feelings are valid. You're allowed to not immediately relish just how good things are, given that I've got your back.] (link: ">")[== Your eyes roll, delicately. (text-color:#F0F)[ You know... I think I'm just processing. It's not that all of this was bad. It was good! But good can be difficult, too. After all, I've...] (Oh god. Her alone. Not just her, but her alone, is enough to... eaghhh.) (text-color:#F0F)[ I've learned a lot about who my crewmates are after the last week.] (link: ">")[== Bryllig: And we know who you are, now. (text-color:#F0F)[ Somehow it feels like it was a lot less secret than I wanted to be...] (link: ">")[== Bryllig: Yeah, well, you were against an ace investigator and her two girlfriends. Don't be so hard on yourself! I had the shipping chart on the Happy Accident figured out within two weeks, and that involved more affairs than they had skulls on their shelves. She waves you away. Oh blight. They actually sent Bryllig in to investigate the Happy Accident's insidious network of polyamorous pirates, all of whom plunder each other even as they're lovers? She's even more of an ace than you thought. You'd expect nothing less from the legendary Jabberwocky. (text-color:#F0F)[ I mean, what I've really learned... is that you're an even better leader than I thought you were. I have a lot to learn from you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ What, are you going to start following me everywhere from now on?] (link: ">")[== You extend an arm to her. (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, would it work?] (link: ">")[== She lets out a high laugh. In all honesty, she sounds like a seagull. As she laughs, she loses a little bit of purchase, and falls into your arms. In a stunning feat of strength, you catch her, and spin her around as she kicks herself into a more comfortable position. For a second the world is just the clouds and you, two ridiculous things which exist outside of-- and despite-- any boundaries. And for the first time in a while, you feel spectacularly seen. When you look back down, she's still in your arms, and your foreheads press together. (text-color:#90c6f9)[I think we've got a lot more to see, Captain. For now... want to head back up the ropes? View's way better.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I think I'll take you up on that.]

The fish goes. You watch them, shimmering-- you watch them return, place the treasure in your hands. You bid them wait until you open it, when you do, your eyebrows raise. They send you a flirtatious wink before descending back into the water. You have other things on your mind. You go back into the hull of the boat, where Grog is. Your fingers hesitate around the doorhandle again. Your mind paces with lightning-- the sort of lightning that says //coward coward coward// in increasing volumes, but there is no savage electric pang in your heart, no scent of blood in the back of your nostrils. Whatever lives there sleeps a little further under the surface than usual, not sated but no longer being baited out by the hunger. You push the door open. Right, you think, to yourself. That makes sense. Because Grog Scurvey is simply not there. The cleaver is hung where it was-- the food is all in place, and the cutting-table is no different. Bandages from yesterday, with a slightly rotten scent to them, they're all still strewn about. You open your mouth to ask a question, stand for a while in the corner of the room, where something had lead back into flesh, into darkness. It feels a little bit like you might have hallucinated large chunks of the last week of your life, if not more, which is a pretty common feeling to run into in your line of work, but damn if it isn't a little crummy, at least. (text-color:#F0F)[ I am going to have a horrific fucking time explaining this shit to anyone, aren't I?] Distantly, you hear something sloshing in the darkness, and excitedly run over, only to find that it's a fish, bobbing, preserved in seawater. Its dull eye looks up at you, unthinking. The food is running well, at least, you think. You do not think of getting absolutely fucked by the divine. You do not think of flesh against your flesh. You do not think about pain, or nothing. You already feel these things leaving your body the way skin cells do, determined to leave no notice. You sense your memory graying out like sand drying fast on a shoreline. When someone raps on the door, you almost fling yourself at it, and then have to pretend that you aren't a little disappointed to see that it's just Joffey. Joffey wrinkles their nose at the state of the room. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Did you do something in here last night?] That's not a good sign. (text-color:#F0F)[ Mate, you remember me leaving.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Sure. For a midnight snack.] (text-color:#F0F)[ No, for a midnight snack of the chef.] (Okay. To be clear, it's more like you insinuated very strongly that you were going to possibly fuck an eldritch deity, but the overall tone was something more like "wouldn't it be awesome if we negotiated this out so that no one died? And then maybe if there's time sex. More sex for sure." Sidebar over. Great pun though.) (text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh, is Bryll not sex-repulsed?] You suck in a breath. (text-color:#F0F)[ Bryll. Our chef and doctor.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Well, she can do everything, so it was more that we didn't have one than that it's her job per se. Honestly, wish we'd hired another person... Justin's really not good for much besides luting and ominously staring out into the distance, humming and plucking his strings. But you take what you can get, with our funds, don't you. ] You feel something settle around you, like a fresh layer of snow. The insistence on Joffey's face is half-baked, the look you used to use when the pair of you came up with all sorts of treacherous alibis that were clearly false. You-- can't contradict it, directly, you don't think. But you should see if you can add on. (text-color:#F0F)[That's... well. Don't you remember almost hiring someone, ashore? For cheap, before we had Bryll?] Joffey looks startled, but they add, (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose I remember almost hiring a lot of people.] (text-color:#F0F)[ No, no. Specifically for cooking. We decided it wasn't a good fit culture-wise, but they definitely seemed interesting. Maybe we'll even see them on land? If they'd like that?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ How many times have I told you not to explain to me what your plans are for bagging people before the anchor hits the ground. It's not mission critical.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But you remember them, right? The imposing one with the pale eyes?] Joffey kneads their head. (text-color:#d9480f)[ The one with... the salt and pepper stubble. Quiet one. I remember. You have some awful taste, really.] We still met, you think, your heart stirring for a moment. We still met, and they're still real. They could be out there. They just didn't come here, to my ship, but maybe they aren't even still trapped in the endless cycle of doomed ships. Maybe it's spit them out, or maybe it's made peace with them. Who knows. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You have the strangest look in your eyes... Captain. Is something the matter?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Merely hungry, Joffey. Give me a moment to... patch things up?] Joffey snorts. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This is a strange mood, even for you. As usual, I suppose I must oblige you, and your flights of fanatical fancy. Just know that if you go mad down here, I will have words. That, and, tell Bryll she needs to stop going so hard with the knife. I mean, there are rivets in the table so deep, you'd think someone was trying to cut through it on purpose. ] As Joffey closes the door behind you, you look back to the table. There the marks are-- bigger than anything anyone would make in The blade is still bleeding. You run your tongue along the edge of it, getting a tiny mouthful of blood. Deep under the water, for a moment, you are aware of something swimming. You do not know it. You cannot know it. But you did take a very, very small part of its virginity. (text-color:#F0F)[ See you soon.]

It's the last day. You'll have all the way into shore, you remind yourself. And then, whatever's next. Whatever the rest of your life is. Yet this entire episode feels like it is receding into the mist as fast as it's continuing, a speed which threatens to blow your neck out from the recoil. It's simply no fair, you think to yourself. To want anything. It makes the entire world feverish, and if you catch something, think of the crew! You're brought back to your senses by breath at your neck. Your hair stands on end, and clawed hands scoop you to their side, like you're a rock in the pouch of a sleeping otter. Otter is... well, it's off. You struggle, and the grip tightens. She must be having one hell of a dream-- no, you see the glint of a fiendish green eye and watch it curve upwards, followed by a soft huff of triumph. From far away, she's stoic, but up close, the breath tells the tale. Not that that's necessary-- even now, days after shifting, any inflection in her scent still sends a sleeping part of your brain scrambling awake, tail awave. It hasn't lingered for so long since you were turned, and it felt like it would never get off your neck. Now, amiably, it lies at your side. Why is being seen so much like being defanged, and why is being defanged so gentle? (text-color:#F0F)[ You have to let me up. It ends today.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Hmmm. Do you trust her?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ If I didn't, we wouldn't have done all this.] (link: ">")[== You feel her chuckle buzz in your throat. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Yes you would. You had no other options.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ As opposed to now?] (link: ">")[== You wait for her to begrudgingly throw her lot in behind you. Instead, she untangles her arms from around your stomach, draws herself into standing position. She looks away, runs her fingers on the closest blade and makes them rattle. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ If she doesn't deliver, I would kill her.] (link: ">")[== Her bluntness is certainly one of the traits of hers you think you'll grow to appreciate. (text-color:#F0F)[ That won't fix our finances. Worst case scenario, we...] You trail off. There's no material promise in what you are, and becoming a nation of two might double the size of a nation of one, but in absolute terms, you're still a drop in a bucket. You need allies. (text-color:#F0F)[...should still probably refrain from monster on monster violence.] (link: ">")[== She turns back to you, weariness pooled in her eyes. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Is that what you were told to call yourself?] (link: ">")[== You grin. (text-color:#F0F)[ I was never told anything.] (But you'd heard it screamed. That was when they sung for you.) (text-color:#F0F)[And, well... the wolf hasn't always behaved.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Ah. The thirty murders. Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ... I thought you might have.] (link: ">")[== Siel raises her hand. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Bryll's already called the investigation on you off. Truthfully, we're pirates. When it comes to bad working situations, we support the right of sailors to mutiny. When we came on this ship, it was as a tiebreaker, to determine if you would become the tyrant your master had.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Your conclusion?] (link: ">")[== Siel lifts your hand and kisses it, with teeth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ There aren't many things like us left in the world. It would be a crime to destroy one.] (link: ">")[== You cast her a lopsided smile. (text-color:#F0F)[ Well. Thanks.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ And you're a good lay.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Wow. Did you also score both your girlfriends through nearly-human sex and bureaucratic favors? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ They're both asexual.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Queer-platonic lechery.] (link: ">")[== Siel rolls her eyes. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Sure. Speaking of lechery, let's go see the mermaid.] (link: ">")[== You stand in the doorway. You already know, deep down, that Spate will deliver. Everything else will fall into place... your pasts, your hitherto unknown futures. There's a lightness in the air that you hadn't known to scent before. There's a warmth in the world that your bones hadn't known they could be warmed by. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do we tell them?] (link: ">")[== Siel tilts her head. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You were never going to tell them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I thought that if I told them, I would just die. And that it... didn't have any upsides.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Besides killing and eating your abusers.] (link: ">")[== You would hesitate to call what you did an upside. Looking at Siel, her half-buzzed white hair lingering about her gaunt cheekbones, you realize you know even less about her now than before. Most of all, how to live in the world-- as yourself-- is foreign to you, and how you've handled it is different than how she has. You don't know that anything about this will go well, of course. You don't even know what you are, even still. She steps toward you, sensing your hesitation, and kisses you on the forehead. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We have time, now.] (link: ">")[== You throw your arms around her. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ But not so much time that we can go back to sleep.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I know. ] (link: ">")[== She opens the door, and distant light hits your eyes. She muscles past you, wordlessly borne into the shadow... what other choice do you have? You've stood here too long, afraid of yourself. Now, all there is to do is follow.

As dawn peeks over the pearly horizon, you figure you're close enough to bring Spate up so they can determine if you're anywhere near where their treasure lies. You shuffle down under the deck, and notice that Sam is already there, holding Spate's massive tub between their massive arms, effortlessly. The mermaid themself is gently wrapped around Sam's upper body in a bridal carry, and when they see you they give you an effete little wave, pressing their face to the side of Sam's and ruffling his nascent sideburns. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I see you've found my boytoy.] (link: ">")[== Sam casts you a demure little smile that lets you know that Spate's moniker is about as serious as any rumors of you and Sam sleeping together instead of "sleeping together". (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Could use some help with the tub.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[It is both out to the left and right of your arms, yeah, and your arms are huge, so...] (link: ">")[== You fold your hands around the bottom of the tub, and as soon as Sam starts moving their own hands, it spills immediately. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[God, just put it down. You two can spritz me all day or something. This is just embarassing.] (link: ">")[== So you shuffle up into the deep pink of a new dawn, mermaid in hand, and with a look to Sam, the two of you hurl the mermaid far over the side of the ship. You watch as she flails into a more dignified position, hitting the water with minimal splash, and disappears into night-dark water. You hate to say it, but you really must. (text-color:#F0F)[Do we think she'll actually come back?] (link: ">")[== Sam sagely stares into the horizon. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I think that the things you care for care for you back, the only way you know how. (text-color:#F0F)[Would you say we care for her?] (link: ">")[== Sam puts a heavy hand around your shoulder, cupping you in tight. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I mean, I know I do.] (link: ">")[== You can't help but smile. You put your hand back around their shoulder, trying to pass off how far you have to reach, and lean heavily against their side. Sam leans their head against yours. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Now, that's handsome.] (link: ">")[== It's certainly a sunrise, and you've seen plenty. And you know the trick they're doing. But you don't say anything at all. Instead, you lean your head back, breathing in their scent, and close your eyes. (text-color:#F0F)[Sure is.]

You go to check on them first thing in the morning, as if you really spent that much time away. You're not sure exactly what you want-- more? Answers? But what you get is them fidgeting, deeply alert. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[It's here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You can tell?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[The ocean is in my head. Even if I were on land, I'd know where I was. It's here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Oh.] (link: ">")[== They catch the disappointment in your voice, you see them try to pass it off. As before, several times, they extend their body, fall into your arms with the tender dramatics of a bird locking its wings from flight. You feel the length of them, the way miniscule muscles along their backside tense as they ease into something like a resting position. You feel their doubled heartbeat, the way air moves differently through their body, finding different places to stall and hide within their massive, inhuman frame. It's a wonder you can lift them at all. Surely, there is no need in the world for a mermaid to be light enough for a human to hold. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Shall we?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Of course.] You take those awkward steps, the one Sam always makes look so effortless. They flail out of both sides, have to curve slightly to keep themselves from just hitting the disgustingly splinter-heavy ground over and over. Their sharp fingers lock around your neck, the digits moving to ensure you don't get the worst of their nails (as if you mind). They're being unusually considerate--and quiet. (As if you know their usual. As if you really know anything about them, even now.) (link: ">")[== The dawn washes them in new colors. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[God, I wish that hunk was here. I wanted to say goodbye to him.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I can get him.] (link: ">")[== Spate makes a funny face, one which makes your heart thrum in your chest. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Nah.] (link: ">")[== You approach the edge of the deck, water sloshing underneath. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Throw me over.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Sure.] (link: ">")[== Your arms tremble, but with a heave, you manage to launch them over the railing. They slap the side of the boat with their tail on the way down, in a way that looks at least sort of deliberate, and they disappear into the drink. For a second, you are tremendously upset, before you remember they owe you money, so that better not be the last you see of them, ever. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Come down here, you big buffoon!] You throw over the ladder and hustle down it. It doesn't get you all the way down to the water, but it gets you pretty darn close. There they are, in the ocean, preening themself in a way that just wasn't possible in that poor little tub. They effortlessly hold themself above the tide, fins cascading in wild patterns around them, some relaxed, others flared and churning water. Their eyes linger on you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'll go get the purse--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Wait. Did you... did you have fun?] (link: ">")[== Spate laughs harshly. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh, yes, darling. You were wonderful.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[But you'll still... go.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh, babygirl... was that sex meaningful for you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[(cycling-link:"Yes","No","I can't say","I don't know","Isn't it always?","Can it ever be?","It was something","You smell like fish all the time, honestly, so that's a non inconsequential factor","I'm going to miss you, and I guess that's a little bit about the sex, now isn't it","Don't go").] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Sheesh. I'm sorry, mermaids are... well... let's just say I'm the nicest mermaid I know, and the most social. We're creatures of the depths. It's not that we don't have investments in others, or that they're not meaningful, but they sort of play out over centuries, minimum. You know Persuasion by Jane Arrgsten?] (link: ">")[== Do you fucking ever. (text-color:#F0F)[Do I ever.] Joffey used to read it to me at night, before we went to sleep. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[God, what the fuck is going on with you two? Not important. Anyways. Imagine if all relationships were Persuasion, and then you have mermaids.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[We're going to be Persuasion?] (link: ">")[== Spate's eyes suddenly go soft in a way you haven't seen them for, their browline and lips curved into something ardently sincere. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Captain. Even if we never see each other again, this can be meaningful, as it is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'd better see you again.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Damningly sentimental.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No, because you need to get us that purse.] (link: ">")[== There's a moment between the two of you, and they sprawl out in the water, laughing. It occurs to you with a pang of fear that of course they could abandon you, of course there's only so much holding you together. They are a creature of the sea and you have given them back to the one place they are really, truly, alive, and so much more deadly than you are that controlling them would be like asking the winds to blow in your direction. With a swerve of their fins, now massive, gorgeous in the water, they swirl, spraying up a huge wake in your face, and plunge into the ocean. You wait. You wait longer than you should, sodden and dripping. You should go back to the boat, whether or not they are to return. This is a precarious position, and your crew will need to be handled. Joffey's got it, sure, but they will be pissed at you. Bas will have questions. Heaven knows that Siel and Grog are getting antsy. Sam deserves attention. Bryll'll be fine, but Bryll is always fine. You-- Stare blankly into the water. Wanting, in a way you are acquainted with, so well. Wanting in the way that pirates want. In the way anyone wants. (link: ">")[== A dark shape emerges from below, and triumphantly Spate crests the still water. The long, pale sheet of hair flips water skyward; the thin, striped body adorned with sleek barbs gleams with tension and strength. Two eyelids nicitate, sharp needle teeth smile a bristling grin, and two fins adorably twitch. Two hands offer you a purse, large enough to fit a dog in it, and sagging as if it is. It is black as the skate eggcases you once poked with sticks on distant shores, when you were a child. The mermaid leans towards you, offers you the bag, and plants a kiss on your arm, which is mercifully just free of the cuff of your shirt. You stare at them for a while, gratitude glowing in your eyes. (text-color:#F0F)[I hope we are Persuasion.] (link: ">")[== Spate flicks their fins. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'll make sure to get into more trouble, so I have an excuse to disappear again.] (link: ">")[== Your mouths lock, the purse held in both your hands, and then you draw apart. You are aware that this whole time your lock on both the purse and the rope have been precarious. Spate gives you a sly look, then moves it to your crew, shadows waiting far overhead. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Go on, Captain.] (link: ">")[== So you begin to climb. Hastily, you straddle the ladder, and when you reach the top, you cast a look back instantly at the water, aware you will see nothing. (You do. You do see nothing.) When Joffey gently takes the purse from your hands, and punctures the airtight seal with a knife, you smell rot. Then you smell metal. Then you see gold. But you already knew that despite it all, everything is going to be okay.

You wake up. Everything is.... well. The last five days feel like a bit of a fever dream, but perhaps, at this point, you can say the fever has broken. Which is great, because you would like your immune system up and ready. As you grab your fish, escorting her upstairs, you see your weary crew-- well, most of them-- slowly emerge from the innards of your ship. You lock hands with Sam and Joffey, and Spate gives you the nod. (text-color:#F0F)[Parting's such sweet sorrow...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You'll feel much less sorrowful when I've gotten you that gold. I've thrown you through the ringer, sure...] She pats your back, which somehow turns to her hand lingering for suspiciously long on your chin. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[But I now have hundreds of nautical miles between me and the popo, and only you to think. I'm ready to scratch your back.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Then scratch it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Sure, give me a three, two,] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[One!] (link: ">")[== With a hefty swing, the three of you send Spate flying into a dive, whereupon she descends into the drink. You turn to your crew, arms spread wide, and claps your hands together. (text-color:#F0F)[So, we've heard her review. What do the rest of your lot think?] (You don't need their validation you don't need their validation (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I would say, on the whole, you've perfectly balanced all our needs, just, absolutely perfect.] (YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!) (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Yes, yes. But as a result, I'm going to have to admit that not one single member of our crew has //really// gotten to know you. Instead, all of us have had isolated adventures, which have certainly given us, collectively, a turn in our opinion about you, but I wouldn't say any of us feel specifically or horribly romanced. Spate, for example, is certainly never coming back, something which might have happened if you had chowed down on more fishsticks.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Yeah, and Joffey never got to explain they just want you to come out and say you two have been married for years!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ HEY.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I don't know. I think I've had a perfectly fine amount of captain in my life.] It wasn't very much! (link: ">")[== Spate calls from over the side of the ship, where they should have allegedly dipped from already to get your treasure: (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Personally, I find a smooth, completely ambivalent flirtiness to be extremely attractive in a sex partner. Sure, you might have won me over, but what says 'sexy' like winning everyone over? ] (link: ">")[== You feel strong hands clap your shoulders. It can only be-- (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm so glad we all got to bond this week.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ A close crew is a strong one.] (You still really don't know what her deal is, but yeah whatever.) (link: ">")[== Bas struggles against the encroaching group hug, although Bryll has their hand and Siel is slowly dragging them in by the shoulder. (text-color:#257925)[ HOW close would you say we all have to be, exactly?!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Give us a tune, Justin!] (link: ">")[== Justin strums his little mandolin. Most days, you forget this guy is even here, but today you certainly couldn't. Get in here, Justin! Or as close as you can while still aloofly providing us with musical regalement! And as the first notes strum, and everyone except for Grog (and Spate, but they're, you know, in the water) gathers round to clap and hug and sing a silly little song, you are pretty sure everything is going to be alright. // For she's a jolly good captain, For they're a jolly good captain, For she's a jolly good captain... And so say all of ARGH! //

Siel begins, diplomatically, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ It is our honor to announce that we have voted--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ And trust me. I did vote against it. At first.] Bas snarks. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ C'mon Bas, we wouldn't do it if it wasn't unanimous, you know that.] Bryll bats her eyes. You've actually never seen her so adorably cloying. (link: ">")[== Oh no. They are finally going to commit a mutiny. Bas sighs. (text-color:#257925)[ Fine, fine. I'll concede that I was won over by your charm on our nightly repartee.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Awww. Bas has feelings. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Perhaps... some of my feelings... have been hard to parse, and thusly have been funneled into aggression.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Say it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I'm not going to.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Say it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ No! You say it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I'll say it!] (link: ">")[== Siel and (text-color:#257925)[ YOU ALWAYS GET TO SAY IT.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Okay. On the count of three!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ One.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Two.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We want to invite you to the QPArghhh, our queer-platonic pirate polycule.] Siel cuts in. (link: ">")[== You begin clapping and almost jump off your toes, which is the worst possible thing you could do in a space this small and enclosed. IRRELEVANT. It is time for celebration the likes of which this boat has never seen. (text-color:#F0F)[ YES! YES! YES!!!] (link: ">")[== Bas snaps, (text-color:#257925)[ SIEL.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well, I didn't say it. So this is a win for me! Hehehe!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ SIEL!!! ] Their face is now even MORE flushed, abnormally so for them. You crack a wry grin, knowing you could torment your now-partner even more, now that you have confirmed that the shape of the dynamic is reciprocal and heartily enjoyed. (Which you always figured, ehehehe.) (link: ">")[== They point at you, radish-red with embarassment. (text-color:#257925)[ You!!! You look too happy, too!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes!?! You are the coolest people I've ever met, and I--] You look down. (text-color:#F0F)[ Maaaaaybe I always wanted to get to know you guys better?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ W-- were you basing all of your decisions around getting into our polycule?] (link: ">")[== You would never admit that. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Because it totally worked!] (link: ">")[== Objectifying people is awesome! While you may not have gotten to know any particular one of your crewmates that well, you have gotten to know all of them. And you now might get to know all-- or most of them--biblically, and by biblically, you mean, platonically but there are a variety of ways in which these things operate, which are not necessarily exclusionary to sex, and each relationship should have its own sort of "relationship bible" for what does and doesn't work for them, what their boundaries are, etc. And now, as part of the legendary QPArghhh, perhaps you, too, will finally learn what those things are for your crewmates... and hopefully for yourself. //fuck yeah// Oh yeah and the rest of the mission goes great. Yeah. Obviously. Joffey and you are on awesome terms. Spate gives you insane treasure. Everyone else resolves huge amounts of their personal arc without you and become better people for it, which ends up making your crew even better at crewing. Who gives a fuck. Three weed smoking girlfriends, babyyyyy!!!

You are going to check on Spate before anyone is up when you run into Bryllig, already there and talking with Spate. Spate is doing that little thing with their hand and everything. Like, honestly, this is just an unprecedentedly Bryllig-filled week, and you... I mean, you guess that you really didn't see Bryllig that much beforehand, but now, you almost can't imagine making decisions without Bryllig. Like, what would you do? Would you rely on your own judgment? Would you continue being audited? Would you... (text-color:#F0F)[ I should just go talk to her.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Ooh. Talk to who?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You, stupid. The same way I always talk to you when something is up.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Girl, she has literally been glued to your hip.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Oh my goodness stop it! I'm going to throw you into the ocean!] She's already hosted Spate up around her shoulders, where the mermaid is sitting comfortably with a wry glance at you. Little does Spate know that not only could Bryllig comfortably hoist you both, but when she goes back to the ocean, you're going to be Bryll's favorite-- okay, save for her two girlfriends-- you'll be Bryll's third favorite, as you've so deviously planned! Ride away, Spate! (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[And honestly, Bryll and I have been talking, and I'll meet up with you later. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What do you mean, you'll meet up with us later?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ This girl has the best business mind I've ever seen, land or sea. I think the two of us, and so, I guess you, could go places. Maybe on the ocean. They high five.] (link: ">")[== Your jaw drops open. Spate chastely kisses Bryll on the cheek as you emerge into the sun. Bryll's two pipe-smoking girlfriends are both waiting at the ready, as if they were security detail on a celebrity. Joffey is there, too, but sort of further off in the middle distance, surveying the scene. Bryll casts Spate into the sea, where she descends into the water. It's barely heartbeats later she pops out of the water, and throws her purse up to Bryll, who catches the ship-length straight vertical throw like it's nothing. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Wow! Great arm!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Darling, I'm not the only one with a great arm.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ So did you two fuck or--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ If I did anything, you'd know, wouldn't you?] She sounds entirely innocent. You try to remember a moment when Bryll was out of your sight in the last five days... and... you can't think of a single one. When you said you didn't know how you'd operate without her... oh god... she's hostile taken over your ship entirely with soft power, and worse, //your ship has never run this well in your life//. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Uhhhhh. I mean. Uh.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You really followed me around all week, huh?] (link: ">")[== Oh no she knows. (text-color:#F0F)[ N-no, I just ran into you on accident. Fifteen times.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You just unintentionally ran into me fifteen times.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ And to you, that ranks as thoroughly less suspicious.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ As a matter of fact, it does.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Hm.] (link: ">")[== You lean in to whisper to her, until your faces are nearly touching. (text-color:#F0F)[ Okay I admit I was following you around the entire time. But I couldn't help it! Once I got in a grove, it just felt like the best thing to do. Plus I got to the point where I could smell where you were, and then I just wanted to go there instead. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well, I'll have to forgive those big puppy dog eyes. She scratches your head.] (link: ">")[== You whisper in her ear, (text-color:#F0F)[ (That's our little secret.)] (link: ">")[== She whispers back, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ (Hardly.)] (link: ">")[== Joffey moves in to part the two of you, like indignant queer butter. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Admitedly, Bryllig has taken a real executive role lately. And while we have managed to weather all the storms thus far, something tells me it might be best if we just cut out the middleman and adhere to her judgment from now on.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you saying you want to demote me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Woah, woah. As MY first order as Captain, I'd want to reinstate the Captain as Captain. Because it's not like Captain Howl can do ropes, right? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Maybe she--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I already tried to teach her. She's useless.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ This is ridiculous. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ She could do something else useful! Like... being my first mate!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Really?!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Yeah! You and Joffey! First mates! Together! You can take me and my girls' old bed, we'll take yours...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ So I did not say you could have our bed. I understand how that might've been folded in--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ First thing we do with our money is buy a new bed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Can I sleep in there, too?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ If we buy a big enough bed, we can all sleep in it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Absolutely not.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes!!!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ It would look like our other halves, better or worse, are scheming again...] (link: ">")[== And that's the story of how two of the least monogamous pirates on the seven seas went from investigator and investigatee to lover and lovee, and tormented their respective partners (consensually) by widening the polycule to even larger heights, until, like the wings of an albatross, or the legendary tapestries of Chicago, they came to encompass all piratekind. Raids became orgies, the last few world governments were plundered, and a glorious age of anarchy and mutualism was had on the high seas. Now, no one would dare say such a fate had one architect-- it was the collective will and desire of the people, as well as their careful maintenance, that eased this transition to the new world. But if one were to look for a paragon of virtue whose singular commitment to revolution and fearless lesbian prowess defined that era of utopian thinking and smooth sailing, one would look to Brillig and her crew. Also, you in the corner. Just not as much, or as notably. For your part in history, you were content to do good work, swab decks, drink beer, and kiss women. Also to have huge amounts of material wealth foisted upon you by aquatic sugar mommies. Truly, no one has done it better. Probably.

Larger than your quarters, even if the lower deck is the guts of your ship, the infirmitchen would be some large, obvious organ-- maybe a liver. Before you enter it, the smell of fish assails your nose, stronger by a factor of three than elsewhere. No mean feat, and neither is the insistent, rhythmic chopping of your chef butchering a halibut. When they look up at you, their patchy beard rusty as their tools, you feel your heart jump. (text-color:#748)[Aye.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Uh... um. Aye?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[What d'ye need?](link: ">")[== You actually have no idea why you came down here. Suggesting meals to Grog is like suggesting the wind should blow a specific way, and you don't exactly have infinite food here. Let alone coming here first thing in the morning... what were you thinking? Did you have something to say? (text-color:#F0F)[(cycling-link:"Just looking for a drink, hahah...", "Nothing. What do you need?", "I'm your captain. I'm naturally invested in my own ship.", "Fish. Obviously.")](link: ">")[== They seem unimpressed, merely twitch their lip and raise the knife. Stammering, you head back up. You don't usually go down there midday-- the last time you did, it was because it was serving as the infirmary, not the kitchen. There was the same constant smell of meat, a sickliness so sweet it was like a rose to your face, offered thorns and all. You will admit a certain craving that makes you more than suceptible to the charms of that place, which should be anathema to all who touch it. But the point is that you have your reasons. What those reasons are might be, at the moment, unclear to you. [[You're sent stumbling upwards into the light...|DECK HUB]] {(set: $grog to $grog + 1)}

You stride down from the glaring sun into the thrilling reprieve belowdeck. Your sailors tend to keep to their posts, and between Sam's hat and Bas's neat lil' parasol, the pair of them never seem that aggrieved by having to be abovedeck all day. Still, it's important to stay hydrated, and you happen to have a good amount of rainwater stored in your belows. The bad news is that all that water so happens to be stored in the infirmitchen, which means you have to go around Grog for it. Honestly, water's not the only thing you could go for right about now. Honestly, you put a little wine downstairs a while ago, and now you think you might deserve it. (if:$joffeywine is 1)[You have, as they say, 'uses for it'. Ahahah. Ehheheh.] (if:$gift is "fish")[And you have other things to go down there for right now. Fortunately. Unfortunately. Today is shaping up to be truly, unecessarily busy.] (text-color:#748)[What do you need?] (link: ">")[== Oh. You're already close enough to be in earshot. It doesn't stop the low murmur of your crewmate from being a small bit unnerving. You ease in. Assert yourself. (if:$gift is "fish")[(text-color:#F0F)[ What's the biggest fish we have? (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Is this trivia?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No, it's ... it's a practical application. Unrelatedly, how good are. Fishbones for combs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Depends on the bone of the fish. The length of the hair. Whether oil-smell is a problem.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Can we just. Potentially attempt to settle up with something half decent, and you can just not ask any more follow up questions?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Please.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Alright.] (link: ">")[==]] (text-color:#F0F)[I could certainly use some of the last of the wine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[That's for cooking.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[We're not exactly looking for restaurant quality meals, here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Keep your goods in your room next time.] (link: ">")[== Their fingers nudge the edge of the bottle. You get the distinct feeling you are being allowed to live. When you cross eyes with them, it's something half-electric. Their ice-white eyes are like two beams in the dim, which would serve as a coherent explanation as to why the lights are always off in a universe with close to, but not the same rules as yours. A world where a person could also be something that is not a person, looming heavy in the darkness. A world you feel you've ventured too close to, this time. (text-color:#748)[Are you going to take the wine, or not?] (link: ">")[== A hot breath escapes your lips. (text-color:#F0F)[I'm going.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Good.] (link: ">")[== You turn the corner quickly, and almost collapse as Bryllig runs into you like a wave into the side of a boat. Her eyes pop wide, like a hamster's. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ What's your deal?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[What's YOUR deal? Why could you possibly be here?!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Hot outside.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Mmm.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Wanted wine.] (link: ">")[== You hide the wine behind your back. (text-color:#F0F)[Mmmmmmmm.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Joffey's a lightweight, y'know.] (link: ">")[== (if:$joffeywine is 1)[(text-color:#F0F)[I know that.]](else:)[(text-color:#F0F)['m not. Do you want it, or something?] (The smirk you get back is telling. It turns out you might have to go see Bryll, later, something you rarely escapade on during your nightly adventures.)] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I'll see you around, captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'll see you...] (set: $joffeygift to $joffeygift + (a:"wine")) [[You scuttle away.|DECK HUB]]

From the bowels of the ship, you can smell dinner being cooked. Dinner is the one meal you put chutzpah into, and by you you mean Grog, and by chutzpah you mean you guys have like, rations for one meal a day and them some change, unless Siel catches a real big fish. Tonight, one of aforementioned older real big fish is being cooked and garnished with lemon, which is the only way any of you keep yourself from the scourge of the Seven Seas that is scurvy. Personally, you've never scurved before, which should be testament to Grog's skill. You don't know if you could take life throwing a scurveball at you, right now. You think you might kick the bucket if that happened. (text-color:#F0F)[Aye, chef. What's on the menu?] Grog looks down at the fish, then back up at you, as if you just asked them what direction the sun is in. (text-color:#F0F)[...](link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[...](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[...](link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[...](link: ">")[== (if:$joffeygift does not contain "wine" and $gift is "fish")[You grab your wine and fish and go [[upstairs.|DECK HUB]]](else-if: $joffeygift does not contain "wine")[You grab your wine and go back upstairs.](else-if:$gift is "fish")[You grab your fish and go back upstairs.](else:)[You turn around and go back [[upstairs.|DAY 1 EVENING]]]

(if:$gift is "fish")[(display:"Infirmitchen D1-2")] There's no reason for you to be down here, but you are. It just struck you as a prudent thing to do. You suppose you could steal something else for Joffey-- When you step on a board wrong, all your hair goes on end. You turn, as if you're one of the numerous mice on this ship instead of the ship's captain, and stare at Grog, who is holding you in their gaze. (text-color:#748)[ What.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Erm.... set any bones recently?] (link: ">")[== Grog stares. (text-color:#748)[ I've unset them.] (link: ">")[== Well that is certainly good to know. Grog's eyes narrow, and they were already hardly open. You are suddenly aware of why the phrase "different strokes for different blokes" was invented, because none of your usual techniques for getting through to your crewmates are going to work on this guy. Then again, why are you trying to get on the good side of the chef? Not that you want to be on his bad side, but you're sort of on a neutral side right now, a sort of workable edge-of-coin deal. You really need to check him mainly at night, when he's actually doing prep, at most, and yet here you are, just... (link:"Being a clown.")[No, you're not a clown. Only Joffey thinks you're a clown.] Now that's ridiculous. Are you fighting with her, or yourself? (text-color:#748)[ Is someone injured?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No. Maybe later. I'll check back in. ]You turn around, and when you hit the door, you shut it maybe just a bit too loudly? The resulting thunk is nearly as hard as your head hitting the wall on your way out. Why did you even come down here? Just to bother people? [[Don't you have plenty of people to bother who actually might not be doing their jobs?|DECK HUB]]

(if:$gift is "fish")[(display:"Infirmitchen D1-2")] (else:)[(if: not (visited: "Infirmitchen D2-1")[(display:"Infirmitchen D2-1")](else:)[ Midday. You were up on the topdeck when you heard it-- that same insistent noise. It's not the first time you've thought you can sense the ship's heartbeat, thundering in a way water doesn't. Somewhere deep in the wood, in the guts, the sound of blood being moved along in somethign which doesn't have blood. What, then, would travel through oak veins? Salt? Shadow? Raw water? Sometimes, you think you can tell where it's coming from. There was a time before this, you keep thinking. There was a time where you couldn't hear anything, when your ears were too keen for no reason. Being nervous, being really nervous, when you have a reason to, that's a different animal from being nervous for no reason. You've been every kind of animal, paranoid, justified, safe, unsafe, half-dead, gnawing its way out of a trap. There's nowhere to run on the sea, your old captain said. Which is why you should be really careful that you mean what you ask for, because if you aren't prepared to face the consequences of your wish, you will die. You die for wishing anyways, you said back to your captain. That may have been one of the only times the old captain laughed with you. Good point, they said. Ah, for once, you make a good point. Down in the depths of the ship, you sense that the left wall is too close to you-- you know how to navigate all these halls by heart, so for one of them to decide to encroach is brazen delirium. You push it back with a hand and it folds beneath your grip-- your hand goes straight through the wall, and the inside of a human body pulses around your arm. Screaming, you drag it back out, covered in gore. It splatters across the ground, and as you grab at your arm, you realize your other hand comes away--- clean. You peer down the hallway, from dimly lit room to dimly lit room. You are seized by seasickness you're much too old for, too distinguished of a sailor for. You should know the ship by heart-- there's not that much to know, after all. The ringing in your ears, the beating of your heart in each extant limb, it's already calming. You had these visions a lot more often back after-- You're too old to be scared of yourself, now. You have other things to do, you remember, a needling sensation in your eye. You keep shaking your head like you're trying to get something out of it. You have other things to do in the middle of the day. [[So you walk away...|DECK HUB]]]]

(if: $seeninfirmitchen1 is False)[(display:"Infirmitchen D1-3")] (else:)[(if:$gift is "fish")[(display:"Infirmitchen D1-2")](else:)[ You return to the ship's murky underbelly with but one simple quest-- to find out what's going on for dinner tonight. You happen to know there's a splendid amount of hardtack, and there's even a chance that could be paired with cheese, which would be, if you may be so bold, scrumptious. Your desire to scrumpt is subsumed, however, by your desire to bother. You situate yourself on a chair in the corner. It's really more of a stool-- no head, haha, much like the fish around this joint-- and lean forward. If Grog notices you, they are trying very hard not to indicate so. Or maybe they're not trying at all. You're not sure which possibility intrigues you more. Admittedly, you haven't been down here a lot, even in less trying times. A brisk nod, perhaps, but you always get the distinct sensation you're not exactly wanted. (text-color:#F0F)[ What's on the menu?] (link: ">")[== Grog's hand pauses over one of the shelves. Roughly, you hear a heavy voice say, (text-color:#748)[ Jerky.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We had jerky?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Slit a pig's throat on mainland.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[The animal?] (link: ">")[== Grog is quiet. You cough. (text-color:#748)[We have a few good meals left.] (link: ">")[== They're performing for you... their eyes dull. (text-color:#F0F)[Do you enjoy it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[What.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[...Cooking.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[Some of it.] There's the cleaver, in the corner of their vision. There, the bucket of chum, handmade, fish cut over and over into a fine paste. (text-color:#748)[Do you need something?] (link: ">")[== You tilt your head. (text-color:#F0F)[No, I guess not... carry on.] (link: ">")[== But as soon as you're gone, you hear it again... the thundering of that cleaver coming down on the table. It sounds like your teeth on the inside of your head, if you were to bite really, really hard. It sounds like something much larger, and much older than you, making that noise, chewing over and over again. You feel an electric thrill in your nostrils, like the first time you put a blade in someone and it came out spilling gore. You feel the kind of fear you feel on the edge of something you can't come back from. You are a sailor-- sailors know not to dismiss these instincts. Pirates are called, again and again, to step over those lines, living at the edge of the world, where human social contracts no longer bind. You know what you are-- what you have done-- what is left to do. But you have no idea what Grog has done, why they incite such a ridiculous thrill of feeling in you. You don't know what kind of adrenaline this is. You just keep coming back here, making useless small talk. Wondering what they think of you. What they get out of chopping that fish. [[You're overthinking it again...|DAY 2 EVENING]]] ]

Today is not a good day. You shouldn't have come down here. Sometimes you get the shakes before. You wanted something-- you had the taste of blood in your mouth again-- you forgot if you wanted water to get it out or more to coat your throat. You forgot if you wanted it or if you wanted not to want it anymore. Sometimes, longing for fresh water more than the swill that usually suffices, you think you taste iron mines forming in the back of your mouth. You hear the pounding in your heart match up to the beat of the cleaver. Grog's brows raise, and you go to your store of freshwater and press your face to it. You're generally supposed to take a cup-- this is egregiously out of line-- you are swallowing as much water as you can, fast as you can, until you feel sick. There's rust in the water from the barrel and it makes your mouth fill even as you swallow to choke it down. When you stare up, shivering, you hear a voice. (text-color:#748)[ You're lucky it rained last night.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== Grog offers you a handful of pink squares. You scarf them down before you realize you're eating raw meat-- extremely cured with salt, to the point where you might as well have just eaten a full cube of it. Your throat burns, but whatever came over you is already subsiding. (text-color:#748)[ Meat.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Meat fixes it. But if you use meat to fix it, you'll need more meat the next time. Keep that in mind.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Fixes what.] (link: ">")[== Grog casts you a long, unsteady look. (text-color:#748)[ Appetite. It gets some people, on the ocean.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] You stroke water from your face. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ The other night, Siel caught an albatross. I won't cook it until Friday.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's horrible luck. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Are you superstitious?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ You should be.] They lean against the counter, hands pink with blood. The entire room smells overwhelmingly of salt, in a way the rest of your ship doesn't. Grog cracks their neck, slowly, at first, then each vertebrae of their back cracks, one at a time. You think you hear the cracking continue after they've stopped moving. They scratch their stomach once, sniff and rub a finger harshly against their nose. Then, they lift the cleaver, and return to work. [[You've been threatened by crew so many times, it's practically pirate ribbing. But you do have stones and candles upstairs, and a few sprigs of dried herbs from the mainland. There are ways to make an arrangement that makes things at sea turn the other way. |DECK HUB]]

The fucking underdeck-- You wake up, sweating, with Bryll over you. Her hair is in looser rows than usual, the ends flung out in curls that catch the light like prisms, framing her in a loose ginger glow. Her full lips purse, and a copper hand extends to grab yours. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Drinking enough water?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That should be it. I'll--] You swing your arm out of the way. You stagger up with the gainliness of a small deer, and feel a presence firm as a mast at your shoulder, pinning you down. (What's that distant sound... someone hitting a cutting-board, with all the force they can muster?)You instinctively grit your teeth, before instinctively snapping back to a more sociable expression. (link: ">")[== In a way that implies there is definitely a right and a wrong answer, she asks, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Are you alright?] (link: ">")[== There are ways to be candid which close more doors than they open. (text-color:#F0F)[ No, sorry.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Bad meal?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] You successfully make it to your feet, with some contortion. This only makes you realize that every single fold in your clothing is so full of sweat that it practically breathes. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Can I help?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (link: ">")[== Her hand hovers above your jacket, her eyebrows pursed together. (if: $bryll < 5)[For a moment, something flickers across her vision, like a fish moving beneath the water. Then it passes.](else:)[(text-color:#90c6f9)[ Captain... if something is really, really wrong, please please please tell me.] ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Too much drink, I'd wager, mixed with a little something or two by sea. I'm going to go ask Grog about it, see if we have anything for seasickness and a head cold. If I have anything, I'd hate to give it to you all, but we can't exactly turn around now. I have full confidence in my first mate.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Well... you do have my confidence.] (if: $bryll > 5)[(But she sounds so sad.](else:)[(But she sounds so distant.)] (link: ">")[== [[You aren't going to be taken care of. All you can do now is bite your arm when you're out of view, pretending your flesh is someone else's. Sometimes the pain makes you remember which body you're in. Sometimes it doesn't. But a pirate's life is gamble, gamble, gamble... |DECK HUB]]

They're waiting for you-- when you walk in, they've already turned around. You wait-- aren't sure what you're waiting for, and then, after a minute, realize they haven't blinked or exhaled, once. (text-color:#748)[ Word of advice.] (link: ">")[== You feel your shoulders slide up at that. You very sincerely doubt there's any advice Grog can give that Joffey hasn't tried to impart, and nothing Joffey's tried to impart has ever pierced your lobotomy-resistant cranium. (text-color:#F0F)[ What.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Keep your focus. Don't lose your head.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I've lost my head like eight times. On this ship. This month.] (link: ">")[== Grog goes back to stirring a cauldron. It smells like rat farts, which means you're having pea gruel again. Sometimes Grog sticks bits of meat in it to make it feel like a meal, but there is a conspicuous lack of meat on today's menu. (text-color:#F0F)[ That one didn't land.] (link: ">")[== Grog grunts. (text-color:#F0F)[ There has to be something that you find funny.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== And then their face tilts into a longways smile. (text-color:#748)[ If it came down to it. If you were stuck in a trap. Would you eat your own leg to get out?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure.] (link: ">")[== The smile fades in the way the pink of the dusk does as night sets on. (text-color:#748)[ Would you enjoy it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Would you?] (link: ">")[== They look upwards toward stars they surely can't see through the floorboards, and you watch as a pink tongue extends from cracked lips, smoothing the skin as they run across. It's like watching a gecko clean its own eyeballs. When the chef's gaze returns to you, it is just as opaque as before, reminding you that they did not, in fact, clean their eyeballs. They just cleaned their lips. Those are actually, somehow, already recracked. You feel something that might be respect, and might be fear. You are aware you're trespassing in a space where things happen you might not entirely understand, alright? You get it. You're just some guy. Grog finally taps their chin, the bone making a noise like the knocking of the door. (text-color:#748)[Depends how many times I've had to do it already.] Oh my god. You have to leave. You have to leave or you're actually going to die. [[Fucking run|DAY 3 EVENING]]

You haul yourself downstairs. The morning after, you like to celebrate not committing atrocities that should have you walking the plank with the anchor shackled around your leg by eating raw fish and feeling its blood ooze out of the side of your mouth. However, even though you've all had your daily mostly-not-weevil-infested hardtack, someone is still hard at work in the infirmitchen. At this point, you're strongly considering giving Grog a spin at the wheel just to make sure they get sunlight. Their deathly pale eyes catch yours as you stand in the doorway, looking at the fish hung on the opposite side of the room and trying not to drool. (text-color:#748)[ Was going to chum that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No one likes the fish chummed that strongly...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[You don't like eating less. Heavily chummed fish goes longer.] (You're a fellow addict-- you easily clock this as an excuse.) (link: ">")[== You begin easing around the room as the pair of you banter. (text-color:#F0F)[ You couldn't... cook it raw? For the novelty?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ You mean, prepare it raw.] (link: ">")[== You manage not to hit any of the pans Grog never uses as you scoot towards the fish. (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes, yes. Any recipes?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Brave suggestion. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I just figure-- Your fingers hit the edge of the fish. It immediately dawns on you this idea is not only bad, but preposterously bad. How are you going to get it out of here? Past them without noticing? Will you just lower it by inches behind your back over the course of a conversation? Its skin is leaching all semblance of life, its eyes already sinking back into its skull. (text-color:#F0F)[ It would be so much faster if we just--] (link: ">")[== Grog slams their knife into the table. (text-color:#748)[ Just eat it!] (link: ">")[== Their voice rings metallic, like the edge of their knife-- of your blade-- your heart stops. You feel your hackles rise in defense and fear, your hair standing on end. They look at you like a bear scared of salmon, and they wipe something off of their face-- blood or bile or sweat, no option is good, but some are certainly worse. (text-color:#748)[ Excuse me, captain.] (link: ">")[== With unusual speed, they hustle out into the ship, leaving you alone. You hear something splatter against the floor, and then realize that you're drooling out the side of your mouth, uncontrollably. (link: ">")[== The next thing you know, you are tearing the fish apart with your mouth--like a child with a wrapped present, like an untrained hound with a bird, without any regards for cleanliness. Half-fevered, you only stop when there's no more to suck from the bones. Grog hasn't come back, and you have no sense of how long you've been here, only that your clothes are ruined with blood and your whole mouth tastes so strongly of the sea that it feels almost like you've been poisoned. Gasping for air, you haul yourself to your senses, your sea legs beginning to steady. (link: ">")[== Something about the sea makes sailors insane, you remind yourself. (link: ">")[== It could happen to anyone. (link: ">")[== You are usually very, very good at controlling your [[urges.|DECK HUB]]

{(set:$i to 0)}A roar erupts from your assembly, a roar which you can parse as evening out to something like ambivalence. Joffey dramatically sighs and shuts the door on the captain's corners, followed by the turning of the lock. Of course, most of your crew members could rip the door off its hinges, but twenty nine nights out of the month, you're not one of those members, so the door primarily serves as Joffey's way of reminding you when you're being a petulant bitch. Which is not true! Right now you're being extremely heroic, and you have, in fact, just secured everyone's future! It's not like you even need credit for this act of heroism, although you would definitely take it. However, in another act of unrivaled heroism, you must now attend to your crew, who lay about in a constellation of people not doing their job. You have time to attend to most, but not all of their desires. You should choose carefully, weighing what most matters to you... |topone>[] |toptwo>[(if:$fuckallbit is not True and $i < 2)[(link:"Play fuckall with Bryllig, Bas, Siel, and Grog.")[(if:$i is 0)[(replace:?topone)[(display:"fuckall_bit")]](else:)[(replace:?toptwo)[(display:"fuckall_bit")]]]] (if:$joffeybit is not True and $i < 2)[(link:"Run to Joffey.")[(if:$i is 0)[(replace:?topone)[(display:"joffey_bit")]](else:)[(replace:?toptwo)[(display:"joffey_bit")]]]] (if:$spatebit is not True and $i < 2)[(link:"Help get Spate into something a little more comfortable.")[(if:$i is 0)[(replace:?topone)[(display:"spate_bit")]](else:)[(replace:?toptwo)[(display:"spate_bit")]]]]] {(set: $thing to 1)}

You amble your way down into the undercarriage of the ship, and don't hear the usual rapping noise of the knife. You were thinking, maybe, you'd go talk to Spate... but something drags you into the kitchen, to Grog idly sharpening the knife against whetstone. The noise, up close, should really be louder than the noise of (text-color:#748)[ Are you bored yet?] (link: ">")[== Your throat is dry. Opening your mouth is just exposing it to more air. Under their gaze, everything seems to shift. (text-color:#748)[ I don't want to be gawked at.] (link: ">")[== (if: (visited: "Grog Night 2")) [(text-color:#F0F)[ But... that night... You...]](else:)[You fidget. Obviously you're talkative company. But you certainly don't gawk. You take in a scene, the way all the most masterful artists do.] You settle on a nearby chair, nonchalantly. (link: ">")[== Grog snarls from the edge of their mouth, a sound like an animal being pulled down into mud. (text-color:#F0F)[ You don't need help, cutting anything?] (link: ">")[== Grog points to the last of your potatoes. Oh, stars, if the potatoes are nearly gone, you're going to have an interesting few days getting back to shore. Then again, every single day of this trip has been interesting, and you're not dead yet. If there was a good time to test your luck, you've found one, and there's no going back now. You scour the kitchen for a knife, opening and closing drawers until Grog gets one from a rack over the fireplace you would have noticed if the blades didn't practically blend with the surrounding crags, the only fire-insulated part of the room. It dawns on you this is possibly the worst place to put knives, unless your top priority was having burning knives on command. It then dawns on you that you may have hired someone whose top priority is having burning knives on command. You take one, at mercifully low hilt temperature, though you have to stand on the edge of your toes to do it. After last night, any strain feels like it might pop something out. This might be the growing pains you've heard people complain of. You assume most people's growing pains would not be helped by monthly turning into a massive bloodthirsty wolf. Returning to the potatoes, you begin to cut through them at ample pace. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ You cut like shit. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't cut vegetables all day.] (link: ">")[== Grog walks over, behind you, and grabs your knife arm. With only a finger, he presses your hand up and down against the blade, failing, uncannily, to breathe once. You stare up in moderate alarm as he works through that potato, grabs another, wields you through a second, faster. You're pretty sure he hasn't breathed once. You are also sweating. (if: $grogroute)[There's that tendril of drool in your mouth, too... that can't be good.] His hand falls away and for a moment you stand there, locked in something that isn't an embrace. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you ever breathe?] (link: ">")[== He coughs. (text-color:#748)[ It's done now. You can go. ] (link: ">")[== The knife has left your hand, you notice, and is back in his. You sigh, ashamed of the foot of height you can't control not having as much as the comebacks you should be able to, and step out of his workplace. (text-color:#748)[ You can't do everything.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What, did I need a reminder?] (link: ">")[== He looks at you the way that owls and crows look at travellers, on the mainland. (text-color:#F0F)[ I appreciate your handiwork.] (link: ">")[== With little more than a shrug, he gets back to chopping. [[So do you.|DECK HUB]]

They seem to expect you coming, this time. Their head rises, and they sniff in greeting, their hands continuing to operate the machinery even as they make something like half-eye contact. Now you're not making eye contact-- you can barely tear your eyes away. In another life, they could have been a professional juggler. Really, you're witnessing a rare gift. (text-color:#F0F)[Could you just keep doing that in your sleep?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[If I had to.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Watch out, someone could put anything under your nose and you might not notice.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ I'd just slice it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Have you ever had to slice anything nasty, before?] (link: ">")[== Grog looks at you for a long time. (text-color:#748)[ Have you ever worked a non-union job?] (link: ">")[== You fold your arms. Shrug. (text-color:#748)[ The system is better than it used to be. Maybe it will keep getting better. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What's the worst thing you've ever put in there?] (link: ">")[== The chef looks up at you. (text-color:#748)[ On this ship or any other?] (link: ">")[== You get the feeling that he's now offering you either a story or information about a workplace violation you can not do anything about. You get to choose. |hook>[(link:"Always been partial to learn about the messes I can't fix, after I've made them..")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[Our ship, of course.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Nothing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What do you mean, nothing?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ I don't put anything off in your food. Behaved myself.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Never? Not even as a prank?] (link: ">")[== Their ice-eyes gaze through you, surveying you. (text-color:#748)[ You are my employer, yes?] (link: ">")[== Ah. Right. There is no world in which their story is a funny little nothing, at least, not in her mind. Perhaps you were too bold, with this one. (text-color:#F0F)[ I am.] They return to cutting the last of the potatoes into thin, thinner crisps. [[Wasted.|DAY 4 NIGHT]]]] (link:"One order of your best story, please.")[(replace:?hook)[ They twirl the knife around in one long arc. (text-color:#748)[ People.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oldest trick in the book. You don't have anything less obvious than that?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ I don't tell them to cook people. People tell me to cook people.] The knife falls like a heart, or like a man over the side of a plank. (text-color:#748)[ Saying something a hundred times doesn't make it less true. The worst thing you can cook is people. I've done it.] (link: ">")[== There's a solemnity to their face you didn't expect. It's not that you thought you were-- too good for it, or anything stupid like that. It's that gore, for pirates, is usually fun. For Siel, undoubtedly. For Bas and Bryllig, sure, they can hold their own, and they'll do it, and reminisce later. Joffey would do anything for you, and that includes kill people, and forget about it so completely you never have to talk to them about the ghosts that now haunt you both. But Grog doesn't have the look of any of your crewmates, no. They continue chopping the fish. The mouth hangs loosely, a face frozen in an unnamed, unknowable agony. Tonight, it will be your dinner. Tomorrow, it will be gone. (text-color:#F0F)[ And you're still sailing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Nothing else to do.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I know how that is.] (link: ">")[== He looks sideways at you. (text-color:#748)[ Aye.] [[He either thinks you're an asshole, or he's guessed what you are. Either way, it can't have been good.|DAY 4 NIGHT]]]]]

(if:$injured)[You don't rememember most of last night. 'That's how you know it was a good time', a ghost of you says, in your own head. Out loud, to yourself, you smile over lips caked in blood, remnant instinct tenderly cleaning whatever flesh they can touch. You think you hear something in the dead of night, making a noise from deep underwater-- the sound of a bubble bursting, so large that it dies in the range of infrasound. You feel something crawling over your face, and when your hand comes away, it's not even wet with your own blood. You think Grog is there, dressing your wounds. At least, you're now aware that there is dressing. But that stench in the air, the one you never stay long enough to notice, isn't even the smell of an ill-kept pirate's kitchen. It's the smell of being inside a rotting body. Your body is rotting, you think, more than once. You have been marooned and no one even knows you're on shore. The boat keeps going and you are, increasingly, outside it, your consciousness tethered to a location where safety is not, where nothing but water is not. Hands push you forwards in time, grab you back. The sea can't tell what to do with you. Grog does not come, or does not hear you cry out in pain. You remember you can't cry, or they'll kill you. You try to open your eyes, but the darkness is worse with your eyes open than it was with them closed. You try even to smell that rot from before, and find that air will not go into your nose. You can't believe things got this bad and no one noticed. (You can't believe you let things get this bad.) You can't believe things got this bad and no one noticed. (Were you even a person who did these things, or just part of the things that were done? Were you even there to do them, or were you lying outside yourself, watching them be done? Would it matter, when you live here, in this body? Would it matter, when nothing can make them undone?) When one eye touches sunlight and grabs it, the other doesn't. You still can't smell anything-- not just a nose clogged with blood, you can't smell anything. Your hair stands on end. (text-color:#F0F)[ My face.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Torn clean open. ] (link: ">")[== It burns like fire to smile, to try to exhale through your nose. (text-color:#F0F)[ They were that scared of my good looks?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Everyone visited in your sleep.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ How convenient it's just the pair of us now.] (link: ">")[== Grog shrugs, looks away. You have to ask. (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you leave, at any point last night?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Was I screaming?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Was I responsive?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ No.] (link: ">")[== The smell of rot, still. It's in your mouth, sparking vomit that won't come. (text-color:#F0F)[ This is some awful work, isn't it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ It is. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Will I see out of it, again?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Will I make it, at least?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Easy. It came out clean.] (link: ">")[== Ah. there's the indentation in your head, where there wasn't one. There's the flatness of everything. There's the ever so slightly closed door. A few things you won't enjoy in the same way. (text-color:#F0F)[ I always expected I would have died by now.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Me too.] (link: ">")[== You share a brief, knowing look. (text-color:#F0F)[ I think I've only stayed because I feel I'll be missed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ They won't let me die.] (link: ">")[== You laugh, good naturedly, but there's a look in their eyes that lets you know that this is not their preferred outcome. You tilt your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ Who's keeping you here?] (text-color:#748)[(if: $grogroute)[Come by tonight.](else:)[The dead.]] (link: ">")[== You suck in a breath. (text-color:#F0F)[ Alright.] And there's nothing else to it, so you lift yourself up, feeling lightheaded in a way like stars shooting from the top of your head, a crown of brightness leaving your injured body. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm going to go make appearances, I think.] (link: ">")[== [[what is there to be done.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[You keep telling yourself that you wouldn't have left unless they told you to leave. They did tell you to leave, repeatedly. But so many times, when they're told to leave, Joffey stays. When you're told to go, you go. Sometimes you assume you'll make less trouble for them, that way, but when have you ever not made trouble for Joffey? You think-- no, you know-- that even if they fought against it every step of the way, snarling like an animal out of hell, Joffey would have prefered you to be there in the morning, when you woke up. Joffey would have been able to tell themself they weren't doing all this for no reason. Joffey is.... below deck, right now. Somewhere you can see. You can't talk to them-- not the way you'd want to, in private-- but you can at least smell them. You can get as close to them as they'll let you. You can potentially even apologize, and they can shrug it off, scolding you for even bothering. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey.] (link: ">")[== They're sitting on the table you reserve for meat, half their face wrapped in bandages. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Howl.][ (if: $joffeyroute or $joffey > 5)[They say it with this note of extreme hopefulness.] (else:)[They sound disappointed, but you can also hear them swallowing it up. That ichorous part of them somewhere deep in their stomach, the way you keep the part of you that hates them deep in yours.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You don't look so bad for wear, do you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I... wish I could say the same.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Nothing to it, really... They look back to Grog. (text-color:#d9480f)[ It's cleaned, you know. Well-cleaned, and bandaged too.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Thank you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ When we get to the mainland, it'll, well, if not make a recovery, at least we can confirm then it's holding stable. I'll get fitted for an eyepatch, finally. As long as my other eye doesn't go, we'll be fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ If it did?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You'd have to dictate for me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Least you could do, really. Not to mention, I'd expect a huge sum of treasure to appear and make our lives tremendously easy for the rest of the time we have left.] They fold their arms, at this. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I've been running calculations while I waited for you to come visit, and we've got at least another voyage left in us, with this plunder. We've killed enough to keep the dream alive, at least.] (link: ">")[== Something twists in your stomach. It's insane, how many of your dreams seem to depend on someone else mysteriously dying. Usually this is a sign you need to stop dreaming, or find news dreams. (text-color:#F0F)[ Can I take you upstairs, to our room, or do you need more care?] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks to Grog, whose gaze doesn't break from the cleaver on the wall. (text-color:#748)[ Bed rest will do them well.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ There you have it.] They hoist themself off the table, grimace as they brush off scales and little braided pieces of meat and wet wood. They collapse into your shoulder, even though their legs are fine, and your mouth fills with the smell of their blood. As gently as you can, you hold their shoulder and take small, unsteady steps out of the room. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you have good company, at least?] You ask, gently, as you help them up the stairs. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ They didn't talk the whole time.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ They talk to me... sometimes. Begrudgingly, really.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You are hard not to snap back at.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Lord above forbid someone just needs a little help coming out of their shell!] You open the door for them. (link: ">")[== They collapse onto your bed, staring out of the ceiling with one eye. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Lord forbid you're the one to do it. I'd go right back in.] (link: ">")[== You settle next to them, sitting at the alert for when they tell you to leave. (text-color:#F0F)[ But you didn't.] (link: ">")[== Joffey takes both your hands in theirs, brings you in close. They kiss you the way you kissed when you were young, soft and afraid of what might be stored in it. They pull away. (text-color:#d9480f)[ My face really hurts.] (link: ">")[== You kiss their head, their neck, their hand. (text-color:#F0F)[ She's dead, Joff. The next one will die before they touch you.] You hold them everywhere there is to hold, breathing in their scent like a lifeline. Their usual wood-and-cologne is buried under the onslaught of iron from the blood, keeping you at bright-red arms length. (text-color:#F0F)[ Say the word, and there's no more of this.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I didn't say that. I've got the stomach for it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Say it now, then.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain... please. Wait until all this is over. And we have our mermaid's purse?] (link: ">")[== The hope in their voice is horrible. (text-color:#F0F)[ Alright. Then... we'll talk.] (link: ">")[== You catch a flash of fire as you leave-- them lighting up your shared pipe. You let the door swing gently shut, your eyes scanning through the crack for a lick of ginger and fire-gold until [[both disappear.|DECK HUB]]]

Now that (if: $injured)[you](else:)[Joffey] have been attended to, you have... ugh, at least three other crewmates who are injured. (if: $injured)[You once again feel guilty for the sin of wasting everyone's fucking time with your sickness when you should be putting them before you, as befits your statement. You got hurt in the first place because you can't jump in the way fast enough for your fucking matelot, man.](else:)[Your fault they're injured, especially in one acute case-- in your mind, you keep seeing their crumpled, bloody body, the red in your eyes directly after, their shoulders slumped as you snarled and ripped your way through anyone who had hurt them. Joffey has always been... you have always been... sometimes you think, fuck, we have to retire, because we're too lucky, and when one of us dies, we'll spend the rest of our lives wishing we could go back and retire the day before the other one kicked it. But you need... to go out on a high note. You need to have enough cash to carry them out of here.] Now all there is is to watch and wait. Luckily, besides the notable, the injuries have been fairly mild. Which is great, but anything can become infected fast aboard, and if that happens, you don't have the supplies to stop someone from needing an amputation. (link: ">")[== This is why you find Siel lying, half naked, breasts down in a shallow tub of salt water on the ground in Grog's kitchen. You look at Grog. You look to Siel, who turns in the murk. You look back to Grog. (if: not $injured and $not (visited: "Infirmitchen D5-1"))[You look to Joffey. Joffey rolls their good eye.] (link: ">")[== Uhhhhhh. (if: not $injured)[(text-color:#748)[ Find something better to do, captain. It's handled.]](else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ We're having a threesome. Scat. You're not invited.]] (link: ">")[== Siel watches you with a slight smile, as if you'd said something funny. She purrs, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You fought like a demon the other night. (if: $injured)[Right up until the moment you couldn't anymore.](else:)[And commanded loyalty well. Perhaps I was wrong about your leadership.]] (link: ">")[== You run your fingers through your hair. (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, you don't become a captain for nothing. I forgot you and your partners haven't fought much with us, but it's, well, usually like this.] (link: ">")[== Siel grins. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ A blowout?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ One could say that.] (if: not $injured and $not (visited: "Infirmitchen D5-1"))[You look desperately back to Joffey to check that they don't object to the characterization. After all it's your bad it's your bad it's your bad it's your bad they're bleeding they're bleeding they're bleeding.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You fight like an animal. ](if: $sielroute)[Yeah, that's a compliment.](else:)[You suppose you're a little brutal. But there's something in her proud eyes that makes you think she knows exactly what she's saying, and it hits you like a lance of ice through your heart, burning and freezing as it settles.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ ...] Whatever it is the pair of you are doing, Grog's clearly sick of it. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Just checking in. There aren't bandages that need to be re-set?] (link: ">")[== (if: $injured)[(text-color:#748)[ She'll just get the gauze wet.] (link: ">")[== Siel rises, her white coat peeling off rain like a duck's feathers, and places her hands over the eye you can't see out of. The salt runs through it like rain leaching into parched ground, and she murmurs something you can't make out, in a more guttural voice than she usually uses. You are trying very hard not to feel the damp skin of her breasts against you-- it feels rude. She takes one of your hands up to her mouth, and she bites the knuckle, her nostrils flaring as she sighs deeply. You stand there, occasionally turning one good eye to look at Grog, who is ignoring you to chop fish. (if: not $sielroute)[(text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I know what you are.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why didn't you fucking say something. Or do something.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I fight as well with the skin on as with it off. It doesn't matter. There was little to say. I am at your service, wolf.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We'll discuss it at a later time. Needless to say, I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of what comes next. ] (link: ">")[== [[You would rather not discuss this under Grog's eye, even though it's a peripheral, weary squint while they chop the fish. So you nod. It's all you can do.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I am sorry to see your keen eyes injured, love.] She says this quiet, in little more than a whisper. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I will care for you in any state. But any injury on the body of the last of us is an injury against all of us.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Then this is a horrible career for you. It practically guarantees I get injured.] (link: ">")[== She laughs, softly. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We're much too similar. I can't leave, either, to save myself. I'll save whatever of you I can, though. Or witness what I must.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you.] (You're still getting used to the shape of this-- trying to figure out how to reciprocate that reverance, how to make it not feel strange from someone you thought hated you until two nights ago. You're glad you'll get to learn.. but last night was an important reminder. You are spared from nothing by the grace of your violence.) [[You are trying to make a world for her-- and for Joffey. It would be a shame if you died, but you've done nothing to prevent or prepare for such an outcome.|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[(if: $not (visited: "Infirmitchen D5-1"))[Joffey huffs, and Grog casts you a look before throwing a roll of your remaining medical cloth over their head. You catch it, and begin untying Joffey's current bandages. Underneath... (text-color:#d9480f)[ Don't make a comment.] Their face, flushed and bloodied black-red, is as beautiful as it has ever been, in both your long lives. You kiss their cheek, tasting an atrocious amount of iron.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Come on. Blood's no good for you, Captain.] (link: ">")[== You hear the hammer of the blade on the cutting board, harsh as your heart when they kiss you back, then cringe under the effort as much as the sudden sound. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You were the scariest thing I've ever seen, out there. And I've seen you before.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I had you to fight for, before. Now I have this whole damned idiot crew.] You kiss them again, against their mild protest. They eventually push you away, nearly pushing fingers in your mouth, which could only result in fantastic things, right about now... you jest, you nearly jest. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm so sorry. If you never forgive me, I won't blame you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Idiot.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And I only wanted you to get some rest...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Leave me to more then, won't you? There's no malice in the words, you sense, just exhaustion. There isn't anything that will ever pay back what they are to you-- what they've done for you. All there is now is to honor their wishes.] [[For once.|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[(text-color:#748)[ There's nothing.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But--] (link: ">")[== Grog says harshly-- (text-color:#748)[ Captain. There's nothing. Do you understand?] (link: ">")[== You hang your head, sit against the table for a moment. The smell of blood is overstrong. You've too much of a taste for it now, too much to go back to revulsion. Perhaps it's why you've always had just a little bit too much of a taste for this space. It's somewhere that is, for better or worse, a lot like you. (text-color:#F0F)[ I need my hands kept busy.] (link: ">")[== Grog says, (text-color:#748)[ You won't find something to keep your hands busy here.] (link: ">")[== You lean over. (text-color:#748)[ I know how it feels.] (link: ">")[== You look up at them, trying to hold back any hint of surprise. (text-color:#748)[ The things you take to stop the bleeding will poison you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That can't be true, ]you say, aghast. (text-color:#F0F)[ Then you couldn't do anything.] The rank smell of blood in the room is infesting your nostrils. You hear one long, loud, throaty sigh emanate from Grog's massive frame. Then they go back to cutting that fish. [[What can not be saved, can not be saved, can not be saved, will be lost.|DECK HUB]]]]

Throughout the day, you've watched the gush of clients to Grog (impressive, especially considering there are only seven or so of you to bandage) swell to a trickle. Your own wounds are... (if:$injured)[attended to](else:)[thankfully so scarce that you've barely noticed]. But you wander down anyways, to see if they need any help with dinner. (if:(visited:"Infirmitchen D4-3"))[(Not that they've ever appreciated your help with dinner.)] (text-color:#F0F)[ Grog!] You don't hear anything-- you feel, in your gut, the lack of noise. You suppose you're used to the sound of pounding metal at this point in the night, from here. Your ears perk to the sound of curling tape, a long, scratchy noise that only ceases when it kisses skin. Ah. They look up from wounds that seem to deep, and too fresh, not to be bleeding. Red smiles cutting skin into a map, practically the same texture as their damp cutting-board. With an emotionless command, they bark: (text-color:#748)[ Get.] (link: ">")[== Ah, your last day on this quest, and it has to end like this. (text-color:#F0F)[ Thought you might want someone to chop the fish.] (link: ">")[== The cleaver hangs on the wall, red as rust with blood. Grog points to a barrel in the corner. (text-color:#748)[ Wash it off.] (link: ">")[== You tenderly hook it up, and around, to remove it from where it lies on the wall. You feel the weight and chill of it in front of you, like it burns with a radius of agony, Immediately, your face folds with regret, but you keep it level, holding it flat in front of you like a shield. Both sides still feel dangerously close to your hands. You walk it across the room, at a pace that makes you feel like Grog's silly little apprentice, and dunk it in the barrel. You notice a gristled brush by the barrel, and use one hand to run it up and down the side of the cleaver. When you remove it, it looks... sanitary. (text-color:#748)[ Now hang it back on the wall.] (link: ">")[== You stare at them. (text-color:#748)[ Already made dinner.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing's... cooking?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Chum.] (link: ">")[== Oh right. You live on a pirate ship. (text-color:#748)[ Pillaged ale.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Did the people we killed have anything aboard we could actually eat?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== Grog stands. You step in their way, hands still wet, and the hilt of the cleaver falls into the drink. Grog snarls and darts around you to pick it up, and you walk to the cabinet and throw it open. Inside, smelling newly coppery, is a good supply of crackers, half a loaf of stale bread, and dozens of strips of jerky. (text-color:#F0F)[ This can't be it.] (text-color:#748)[They weren't doing well either.] Howl: We'll have enough to get us home, though? Grog: You've seen how much the shedder catches. If not for scurvy, you'd never have to go home. Howl: Shedder? Grog: What do you call her? The seal. Howl: Siel. Grog: Yes. Howl: ... Grog: It's nice... not starving. Howl: Bad experiences, huh. Grog nods, slowly. You remain there in comfortable silence, for a while. (if: $grogroute)[You flush (text-color:#F0F)[ Aren't you injured, though? (text-color:#748)[ Seen worse. (text-color:#F0F)[ Let me help? They settle down in the defeated, once-leather chair in the corner, now little more than shreds of fabric thrown over a frame. With some great trepidation, they grumble, (text-color:#748)[ Sure. ]They point to the nearest bucket of water. (text-color:#748)[ Over the fire. ] You hoist it over, then place it onto the hook. You scoot it gently out of the (text-color:#748)[ Great. (text-color:#748)[ I told you there was nothing to it. (text-color:#748)[ Bad childhood. (text-color:#F0F)[ The rumors about mermaids eating sailors. Was that-- (text-color:#748)[ There are villages on some other coast where eating mermaid is a rite of passage. (text-color:#748)[ We all have demons. Some of us are ready to look ours in the eye. The swing of a knife. (text-color:#748)[ I'm not. You exhale. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're not alone on that, on this ship. (text-color:#748)[ I'm aware.] They work with you in silence. (if: $grogroute)[You open your mouth. What could you ask. "Is this the real you, or is that?" "Do you enjoy it?" "Did you enjoy me?" "Do you still feel like a person, when you aren't being called?" You close your mouth. Truthfully, sometimes,

The sun is up, and so is the very tip of the ship, the poop deck. Scrambling past unquiet seagulls, you slowly lurch your way up the "ladder", which is a euphemism for "death trap". You really try not to come up unless you have to, which gives Bas a lot of time to scornfully ignore you. Well, not today! Today she'll have to very deliberately ignore you! (text-color:#F0F)[Coming up!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Don't bother.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Too late.] (link: ">")[== You call this while all wrapped up in the rigging like some sort of fly in a spider's web, which is surely helping your case immensely. You manage to plant your hands on the clean wood of the poop deck, and use your upper body to wrench you up the rest of the way. Coming to your feet, you see Bas at the edge of the adorable cuppola that adorns the top of the good ship Misdemeanor. (text-color:#257925)[What do you want.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'm making my rounds. Thought I'd see the horizons.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Well. Let me know what we're up against, why don't you?] (link: ">")[== They hand you the telescope, with a dim glance in your general direction. (set: $check to $competent + (random:-1,1)) |hook>[(link:"You take the telescope.")[(replace:?hook)[ (if: $check > 5)[ You take the telescope. There's really not much to see during the day, since only the nighttime sky is worth much of a rat's ass for navigation. That's not to say there isn't something going on with the clouds, most of the time, but... really it's Joffey's expertise. Your personal area of interest is less the sky and more the people under it. You are, however, prone to finding yourself in horrid little dickwagging competitions, such as this one, and you've listened to Joffey enough times to know... (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[It's looking like there are some altocumulus clouds over there, if those thicken, there might be a front coming in from that way. Otherwise, we should really be worried about getting stuck, because this time of year the water tends to be so smooth you can hardly sail. We don't have galleys, so if that happens we may be delayed. Already accounted for, of course, but it'll stretch our rations thin. You have any suggestions?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Alright.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Alright, what?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[I'm impressed.] (link: ">")[== They lean mirthfully against the cuppola's wood railing. It cheerfully murmurs a wooden laugh beneath them, filling in what the words won't say. (text-color:#257925)[I actually do have a favor for you to do for me. Can you bring this whittling knife down to Siel? She keeps saying she'll sharpen my knife, but I keep leaving it up here, and she loathes coming up here herself. Makes her nauseous.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's a shame.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Isn't it? She's from the cliffs!] (link: ">")[== They hand you the knife. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Now you're free to leave.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You wouldn't want to--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Go on. I've let you dawdle enough here.] (link: ">")[== And you know they mean it. Unfortunately. So you give them a little salute and step backwards off the edge. You assume this is going to look cool and daring, but immediately think the better of it and cling on for dear life. (You think you hear something like a dry laugh from Bas, but it might just be the wind.) [[BACK TO THE DECK BELOW...|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[ You take the telescope. (text-color:#F0F)[Well, there are no clouds. So it's an excellent day.] (link: ">")[== You proudly deposit the telescope in their hand. They laugh, a short, harsh bark, accompanied by a similarly resounding sneer from the wood of the cuppola. (text-color:#257925)[Why don't we all stick to our own jobs in the future, captain?] (link: ">")[== They shake their head. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Now you're free to leave.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You wouldn't want to--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Go on. I've let you dawdle enough here.] (link: ">")[== And you know they mean it. Unfortunately. So you give them a little salute and step backwards off the edge. You assume this is going to look cool and daring, but immediately think the better of it and cling on for dear life. [[BACK TO THE DECK BELOW...|DECK HUB]]]]]]

(if: $seenbas is false)[(display:"Poop Deck D1-1")] (else:)[They shout down, (text-colour:#257925)[ I'm not humoring you any longer! I told you to get out, didn't I?] (link: ">")[== You pout your upper lip. (text-color:#F0F)[Are you disobeying a direct order?] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:#257925)[Are you stupid? Get out!] {(if: $knife is true)[(text-colour:#257925)[And get my damn knife sharpened!]]} (link: ">")[== You are so offended by this flagrant disregard for your authority that you turnaroundexactlyliketheytoldyouto. That'll show her. [[Great job.|DECK HUB]]]

You make your way to the poop deck when you are obstructed by one of your crew members. Obstructed is the wrong word, really. It's more like Bryllig pops out to the side with gusto and smiles at you in a way that truly gives you a very minimal sense of what she wants from you. (text-color:#F0F)[Hello, Bryll.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Captain! You seem a little preoccupied.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No such thing! I'm just... going up... to talk with one of my favorite crew members?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Top three or top seven?] (link: ">")[== Under your breath, you murmur, (text-color:#F0F)[Let's go with top seven for now.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Okay, but you only have seven crew members, so that might not be the compliment you think it is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Hey, they outrank Spate.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[That certainly is generous of you. I still wouldn't tell them that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Hey, you know them well.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[I know a lot of people well. Speaking of such, I should get along now, actually. Have fun!] And with that and a flying leap, they swing down on a rope across the rigging. That can't be loadbearing in any meaningful capacity, which really makes you wonder how many of these ropes are just for Bryll to show off with. Anyways, you do manage to hoist yourself up. (if:$seenbas is True)[(display:"Poop Deck D1-2")] (else:)[(display:"Poop Deck D1-1")] [[DAY 1 EVENING]]

The scramble (if:$seenbas is True)[only ever gets easier.](else:)[never gets easier.] You hoist yourself up, brush yourself off, and turn to face your crewmate, who is surely enthused by your presence, given how benevolent it is of you to lend your navigating adept to the problems of the day. (if: $seenbas is True) [(text-color:#257925)[ You again.]] (text-color:#F0F)[ Me again.] (text-color:#257925)[ Get on.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What's the matter now?] (text-color:#257925)[ It's very simple. I don't want you up here.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Not even a little bit?] (text-color:#257925)[ No.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But it's my ship. Surely, I can be up here, can't I? And no one can stop me from being up here? That would seem to imply that regardless of your opinion, I'm entitled to be on the ship, wouldn't it?] (text-color:#257925)[ This is some very juvenile logic to get to something that isn't even a point.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Listen, I am here on business.] (text-color:#257925)[ Well, get busy.] (text-color:#F0F)[ How's the weather.] (if: $seenbas is false) [(text-color:#257925)[ Well. All business today, aren't we? I can't say I'm not impressed.]] They hesitate for a while, draping their arms over the edge. It's quite unlike them, never one for the superfluous gesture, for the waste of time and space. And there's this profound sadness that holds in their eyes, as they peer out toward the horizon, and they slowly slack their shoulders. (text-color:#257925)[ It's a slow day. No wind, no real travel. Fortunately, no other ships... no one comes out this way.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Mhm.] (text-color:#257925)[ Ergh.] (text-color:#F0F)[ It would be a beautiful day if we were on land.] (text-color:#257925)[ Everything is most beautiful in its context. The context here is that we're on borrowed time.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, what can be done?] (text-color:#257925)[ ... ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I see.] (text-color:#257925)[ You better know what you're doing.] (text-color:#F0F)[ It looks like Siel and Grog better know what they're doing. This is going to test all of us. If the weather changes, tell me.] (if:$check is True)[(text-color:#257925)[ Speaking of Siel. Knife?] (if:$sharpknife is True)[You toss the knife, and immediately realize that you aren't supposed to toss knives. Your fingers flub the blade in midair, and Bas artfully steps to the side. (text-color:#257925)[ I think I'll take that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Of course.]] (else:) [You grimace. Bas casts you a look. You know they expected little better.]] (else:)[Bas waits on your answer. You wait on your answer, too, even though the unsharpened blade still lies on your pocket. You grimace. (text-color:#257925)[ Never mind. Just let me know when and if it does get done. You wouldn't believe how bored I get here without something to whittle with.]] The silence spans between you two, more amicable than before. Bas casts you that same, heavy gaze, and says, (text-color:#257925)[ This is the part where I tell you to get out.] You slowly bow, and then, [[you oblige.|DECK HUB]]

(if:$seenbas22 is false)[(display:"Poop Deck D2-2")] (else:)[Even you can't do a ritual that fast, and the sun is setting quick. Get on it, stupid. [[Fine. You will regret doubting me when the powers that be are within my grasp, though, just so you know that.|DAY 2 EVENING]]]

(if: $seenbas2 is false)[(display:"Poop Deck D2-1")] (else:)[Dully, they call up, (text-colour:#257925)[Really. There's nothing to do up here. Trust me, you're just as unenthused about that as I am.] (link: ">")[== You call up, helpfully, (text-color:#F0F)[I think it's supposed to be, "I'm just as unenthused about this as you are?"] (link: ">")[== They scoff. (text-colour:#257925)[Do you need to be entertained? Are you a child?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. Most of my business just pertains to how slow our ship is sailing.] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:#257925)[Well, fuck it! Sea ritual time! Tell me when you figure out how to control the weather!!!] (link: ">")[== (if:$eldritch>5)[Hm.](else:)[{(set:$eldritch to $eldritch+1)} You wish that was possible.] Who on this ship would know the dark arts...? You call back up, (text-colour:#257925)[I'll get right on it!] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:#257925)[Great! Awesome!] Bas stammers this. So you've sort of exhausted all the barking up that tree will get you. Congrats! [[Congrats!|DECK HUB]]]

(if: $joffeygift is "ring")[ You peep over the top of the cuppola and wave. (text-color:#257925)[ What.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Hah. I actually do have a very good reason to be here.] (link: ">")[== Bas raises an I-doubt-it eyebrow. You raise one back. (text-color:#F0F)[ You do metallurgy, right? Do you have supplies on hand?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (if: $bastrust is 2)[(text-color:#257925)[ Ah, the heck. You've proven yourself useful enough.]] (else:)[Bas narrows her eyes. (text-color:#257925)[ Rock paper scissors for it.]] (set: $a to (random:(range: 1, 3)))[(if: $a is 3)[(text-color:#257925)[ Tools it is. ][==](else:)[Bas cackles. (text-color:#257925)[ No shit for you today, rotten soldier.] [[Fuck my baka life|DECK HUB]]]] Bas scrounges around in her sizable bag before hoisting a set of little pliers aloft. She also provides you with a few pieces of metal. (text-color:#257925)[ I assume this is for you to propose to your little fool of a matelot. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why would I need to propose? I just wanted to make him something nice. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Hm...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, you never make gifts for your girlfriends?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ What! I make them the best gifts. In fact, next time you see them, you should check out their knuckles, so you can recognize how utterly crap your matelot's ring is going to be in comparison to my matelots.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I gave them this ship.] (link: ">")[== Bas folds their arms. (text-color:#257925)[ Exactly. And it's trash.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ The SS Misadventure is the finest ship I've ever sailed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ As opposed to what? A lifeboat?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Guys... can you stop yelling up there?] Sam peeps up from the ground. You both look over to see him pathetically staring up at you with a huge frown on his face, visible all the way from up here. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Now you've done it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Take my things and get out of the cuppola!] [[What would she do if she didn't get to hang out with you... You guys really are best friends.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[ You saunter up. Today is, what the kids call, not your favorite day, and you could really use something normal to help cheer you up. By normal, you mean having one of your crewmates rag on you for your leadership style, personality, sense of fashion, general je ne sais quoi, every noise you've ever made by accident, and of course, the fact that you're still impeccably fond of her. (text-color:#257925)[ You look like you just crawled out of a cave. Is something wrong with you?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you have anything for nausea?] (text-color:#257925)[ Are you fucking kidding me?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I get nauseous whenever I'm up here for too long. I just figured... you might... ]You try to look convincingly pathetic. You are pathetic, but you're frequently unconvincing about things you actually are. You know better than to hope this is an exception. (if: $bas > 8)[ Bas wrinkles their face up for a moment, and then they pull out a pipe. They strike a match against the edge of the cuppola, where a string of white wood lets you know they have routinely stricken matches, and set the pipe burning. You smell a strong, pungent odor that you suppose the wind must usually blow away... the smell of friendship. (text-color:#257925)[ I'm only giving you this because the last time someone vomited all over my cuppola, it took me a cuppola weeks to make up for it.] You take a long drag. In your head, Bas goes from one of the straightest laced people on the ship to at most, middle laced. You also feel a profound admiration for Bas which is usually coated in the sort of wry, sardonic ] (else:) [(text-color:#257925)[Nuh uh.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Bummer. She's clearly waiting for you to leave. You lean heavily on the bannister.] (if: $visits >= 2)[(text-color:#257925)[ Why do you keep trying to talk to me, anyways?]] (text-color:#F0F)[ I enjoy your company?] (text-color:#257925)[ I spend all the time you're here trying to make you go away.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Does that work on most people?] (text-color:#257925)[ Yes.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah. I'm not most people, I suppose. You'll have to try a little harder. ]You look pensively out, nausea clouding your vision. (text-color:#F0F)[ Would you prefer I never come up here?] (text-color:#257925)[ And any leader worth their salt would either go one way or the other, but here you are, asking me what to do... I don't trust your convictions, seeing as you have essentially none.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What if you just haven't pressed them?] (text-color:#257925)[ Captain, do you really want me to press your convictions? I can't tell what would be worse, if they crumpled like sand beneath my grip or if I found out you do have something saucy to fight for, and it's something completely ridiculous. Or worse, dangerous.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you implying?] Bas leans away. (text-color:#257925)[ We were cheap, weren't we, Captain? Cheap labor. ] You leer. (text-color:#F0F)[ How you organize your contracts is no problem of mine. I haven't had issues yet.]You pause. How you say this next bit is going to have to carry a lot of weight. |hook>[(cycling-link: bind $should to "Should I?", "*Should* I?", "Should I...", "Should I.") (link: ">")[(replace: ?hook)[(text-color:#F0F)[$should] [==]]] Bas purses her lip. (text-color:#257925)[ You said it yourself, I suppose. You haven't had issues yet.] (if: $bas > 8)[(text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think I'll have any. Thank you, by the way. This was nice.]] (else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[ I'll keep it in mind.]] You lope back down the ladder, unsteady as you are mildly poisoned. It's not so bad, you think, looking back skywards towards the cuppola. You haven't been pushed off yet, that's for certain. And you can never tell a threat from a warm rapport with Bas, but you've never felt safe with anyone whose told you you're safe, so someone telling you that you aren't hardly bothers you. What a blowhard. [[...and hopefully, a friend.|DECK HUB]]]]

(if: $seenbas2 is false)[(display:"Poop Deck D3-1")] (else:)[Bas looks over the side of the poop before you even climb up. (if: $basroute)[ (text-color:#257925)[ Look. We need to talk.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah? That's why I'm coming up?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I... Even with my girlfriends. Both of them. I don't usually have them up here that much. So I would truly appreciate if you... didn't... try to come up more than once. Even if I don't mind you coming up once a day to. Do whatever it is that you do. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's it? You're just introverted?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ See, you already know the terminology and everything! Now all you have to do is respect it.] (link: ">")[== Might be harder than knowing it. Still, you flash a thumbs up. They have already disappeared from this side of their poop deck, giving you no confirmation that they saw it. You know what they say. You can be a horse lead to water, but no one is going to thank you if you drink. Anyways, you've learned an important boundary of one of your crewmates' today! This is progress. You should probably not violate it again!] (else:)[ (text-color:#257925)[ Come up here and I kick you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ My face is feeling sturdy today.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ What about your spine?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Iron, baby.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Do I look like your baby?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do I look like I'm going to take shit from my lookout(if: (visited:"Underhold D1-3"))[who can't even hit me with the broad side of a knife from point blank range?](else:)[?]] (link: ">")[== This elicits what you recognize as, from even the mast's length off, as a horrific scowl. You feel something damp hit your cheek. You wipe the spit off. There's a bit of a grain to it. Guess Joffey isn't the only snuff enjoyer on deck. (text-color:#F0F)[ Next time it's personal.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Next time you're dead.] (link: ">")[== You two do play your silly games, don't you. [[This will have no future consequences at all|DECK HUB]]]]

(if: $bas > 8 and $bryll > 8 and $siel > 8 and $sielroute or $basroute or $bryllroute)[ When you summit the perch, something you (if: $basvisits < 2)[have extremely little experience doing] (if: $basvisits < 4)[are beginning to become accustomed to, for which you can blame your rugged outdoorsmanship](else:)[have somehow picked up overnight to a point where she doesn't even hear you coming], you see not just Bas but also Bryll. The two of them seem to be consorting in tones unnecessarily low for how audible they'd be from the ground. Your face crumples up and you edge back toward the cupola's entrance, prepared to swing down (yeah, you have ropeburn, but that's just part of being a good pirate, you think). (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Wait. We actually meant for you to come here. Won't you come up?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh? How did you know-- have you been standing around all day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I've gotten extremely good at tracking your movements around the ship.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ You tend to come up here and bother me. And when you don't, you at least stand around the bottom of the flagpole looking up at me with that little pathetic look on your face.] (link: ">")[== You frown. You haven't been that insistent, have you? (text-color:#257925)[ And there it is. Right on cue. ] (link: ">")[== You lean on the edge of the cuppola. (text-color:#F0F)[ But it's a good view up here? Surely you can't blame me for looking?] (link: ">")[== Bas leans towards Bryll. As if noting something to a fellow judge at a showdog competition, she states, (text-color:#257925)[ Objectifying.] (link: ">")[== Bryll shrugs. She pats Bas on the back. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You give the pitch.] (link: ">")[== Ohmygod. It's happening. It's actually happening. (text-color:#257925)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'll do it. [[Captain...|QPArghmaster]]]] (else:)[ You're standing on the deck, preparing to scale the cuppola, when Bryll comes flying down the ropes. She lands catlike beside you, seemingly unfazed by the extra seven feet she fell there, at the end. She casts you a funny look, then gestures towards the ropes. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ On your way to see my princess in the tower?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ (if: $basroute)[Joint custody?](else-if: $bas > 6)[I don't know if she'd approve of that characterization, but sure.](else:)[I would say this is less of a "princess I stuck in a tower" situation and more of a "stuck-up in a tower to avoid the rest of us" situation.]] (link: ">")[== Bryll shrugs your answer off her fantastic shoulders, freckled, amber-brown skin dyed a deeper shade by the last rays of the descending sun. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You do what you will. Personally, I just like to come up here and see the view.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Got a lot of free time?] (link: ">")[== Bryll muses to herself, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well, there are some things I'm working on.] Her lips pull taut into a playful smile. You can't help but shiver. Sensing your discomfort, she pats you on the back. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Oh, come on, Captain! Take a joke! ] (link: ">")[== You (if: $bryll > 8)[instantly ease-- it's Bryll](else:)[tense, trying to read intention out of dazzling amber eyes]. (text-color:#F0F)[ I just wouldn't want to come up there if the two of you are up to something.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Hehe. We're always up to something. And you can be, too~] Oh lord. What does that mean? (if:(visited:"Poop Deck D3-1")[(display:"Poop Deck D3-2")] (else:)[(display:"Poop Deck D3-1")]]

When you climb to the poop deck, you're thinking about your body, heavy on the wooden boards, the way they whine and creak beneath you. It's one thing to have a body--another to savor having one-- you've always felt bad for the things you almost want. Thank god you know enough to stop wanting on a dime. (text-color:#F0F)[ How's the weather?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ The worst of it should be over.] (link: ">")[== (if:(visited:"Joffey Night 3"))[It should.] (else-if:(visited:"Bryll Night 3"))[Hopefully, you wager.] (else:)[The best of it too, you think, and then cut yourself off, because-- ] You shake your head, and the rest of you follows, like flicking off water. It really does make you feel better, but then you realize you're standing in front of Bas, looking foolish. Par for the course. You stare down at her, perched precariously on the edge of her cuppola, with a leather tome in her hands. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What's that for?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I always sketch up here. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I've never noticed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ You never ask.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're always standoffish.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I happen not to be much under the impression I'm dealing with a real art conniseur, eh?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You don't think I know art.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Well... ] Her eyes roll over, and she gently lifts the paper she's working on in your face. The scent of ink has always been one of your underrated favorites-- well, as a child, it usually signified something bad was about to happen, but now it means Joffey is nearby, and easily startled. So you've become simpatico in that regard. (text-color:#257925)[ This isn't art, now, is it?] She smirks. (link: ">")[== God damnit of course Bas is going to force you to give some avant garde response to this bullshit. |hook>[(link:"But it's beautiful.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ But it's beautiful.] (link: ">")[== She laughs. (text-color:#257925)[Guess it's art, then, on contrived aesthetic value alone... but surely, my penmanship isn't that noteworthy.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not Joffey's.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Is that who I'm up against?] She shakes her head, sorrowfully. (text-color:#257925)[ They're so good, I'll just take the hit. Really, you don't deserve them.] (link: ">")[== You puff up at that. Her eyes gleam towards yours-- she knows she's gotten your goat, and she's smug about it. Ah, to fall into a beautiful woman's rhetorical trap. (text-color:#F0F)[ If I didn't deserve them, they wouldn't have followed me around like a lost puppy for the last ten years.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ That's not the compliment toward yourself you think it is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Fair enough... I suppose I'm not ashamed to be the lost puppy myself. Well, you know a thing or two about relationships, don't you? You think it's not working out?] (link: ">")[== Bas regards you for a long while. At last, she says, (if: $basroute) [Well, I know that you don't know a damn thing about relationships. But you two are good for each other. That much is obvious. If that's good by any conventional standard... remains to be seen.] (else-if: $bas > 7) [You really don't want my opinion.] (else:)[I think we've both known good people for a long time. It does something to your heart, loving, being loved.] (link: ">")[== You (if: $basroute) [watch her vision trail to the horizon, and extend a hand. She casts you a baleful look, and nods, and you rub your hand along her shoulder. The fabric is of a good make, and she leans into it. You find yourself in possession of something too rare, too nice to have-- her confidence. And after being such a bastard about her map, too.] (else-if: $bas <= 7) [nod-- the pair of you have more in common than you thought.] (else:)[grimace. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ (if:$basroute)[I apologize for my initial statement.] (else:) [I'll leave you be. Thanks for that.]] (link: ">")[== She (if: $basroute) [tilts her head, just slightly, looking the mildest bit disappointed you've ordained to stop bothering her. Or maybe that's just how you want to see it. Who's to say? All good art is up for interpretation, and your relationship has been nothing if not some elaborate powerplay.] [[Well, you should let her go.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"But that's not what it's for.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[Art's not what it's for.] (link: ">")[== There's a moment where her face tweaks a little bit, and then she insists, (text-color:#257925)[ That bad?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, it's a practical map. Isn't it? It is beautiful... but that's not the point of it.] (link: ">")[== Bas stills for a moment. (text-color:#257925)[ If you're not using it for anything, what's the distinction?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Are you using it for something?] (link: ">")[== Bas tilts their head back. For the first time ever, you feel you're being perfectly regarded by her. When she at last shrugs her shoulders, you feel cut out again-- just a touch-- unfortunate, isn't it. (text-color:#257925)[(if: $basroute)[If you really must know, it's personal.]] She looks your way, but goes no further. You hold her tongue-- lately, and you mean this in the least dirty possible way, she's seemed to like that. (link: ">")[== (if: $basroute)[You nod, quickly, getting the feeling she doesn't want to linger on it. You're still learning-- always have been-- where it's appropriate to push.](else:)[You feel unsatisfied, but the look she's giving you isn't her usual chill mask of disapproval-- it's something more nervous. She's holding it close to her chest.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You'll have to tell me how to read one.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Some... other time.] There's that quiet signalling-- wait, no, this is Bas. Where's the fire? Still, the way she holds about herself, and the unimstakeable edge of the curve to her shoulders, it all curls around to guard her map from view. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Some other time, you say with all the warmth you can give her.] [[You go gently. You hope the goodwill carries over-- hope that she knows, you won't push her on it, but that you would like to know, if she'd like you to.|DECK HUB]]]]]

(if: not (visited: "Poop Deck D4-1"))[(display: "Poop Deck D4-1")](else:)[ You tilt your head up the ladder. Bas peeks her head over the edge. (text-color:#257925)[ Saw you coming. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Just checking in!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Good god. Do you ever do any actual work around here?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not light work to make sure you're steering us the right way.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ It's extremely light work. I am. Stop checking.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Who am I supposed to have conversations about if a map is an art piece or not with, then?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[(if: $beautiful)[We didn't talk about that. We talked about your situationship.](else:)[A first-level academy course? A mirror?]] You scowl. She's got you. (text-color:#257925)[Come back again and I see if I can hit your hat with this bottle.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sounds fun.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Get!] [[If you were a real authority figure she probably wouldn't get away with threatening you like that, but you kinda like the vibe it gives your dynamic, so whatever.|DECK HUB]] ]

(if: not (visited: "Poop Deck D4-2"))[(display: "Poop Deck D4-2")](else:)[ She sees you coming from across the deck. At a pitch only seagulls can muster, she asks, (text-color:#257925)[ Why.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I had actual work to do, but I was so besieged by wondering if you could actually hit my hat with a bottle that I came back. It's going to be considered mutiny if you don't try.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ If I kill you, Joffey will kill me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ If you kill me, Joffey will thank you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ If I kill you, Joffey will give you a medal.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ If you kill me, Joffey will let //you// into a ten-year situationship.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Pass. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Come on! Bottle! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ You couldn't handle my potion.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not empty? Then you definitely can't throw it. The velocity is going to be a wreck.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ What do you know about velocity?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Pee off of things. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Right... a gentleman.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Once dislodged a barnacle from the side of the ship.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I don't think I've ever hated hearing anything more.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ocean's full of piss anyways.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Aye, just like our captain's head.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Throw!!! The!!! Bottle!!!] (link: ">")[== With a clatter, the bottle goes completely wide, and like Chthulu being summoned from impossible depths, a furious Joffey slams open the door to the Captain's Quarters. (text-color:#d9480f)[ What in the FIFTH NAME OF HEAVEN did I just hear--] (link: ">")[== Bas points a finger. (text-color:#257925)[ I was promised your situationship if I hit the good captain on the head!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You promised me away in a bet?!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, come off it, you know they'd decline.] (link: ">")[== Joffey spreads their arms out. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You don't know that!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ True, you don't!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ What?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ What?!] (link: ">")[== You just had the worst idea you've ever had in your whole life. [[Fuck it dinner time right now yeahhhh it's dinner time no one think about the implications it is DINNER TIME|DAY 4 NIGHT]]]

Bas is on duty early-- so early, you feel almost indignant they're there. Shouldn't they be resting? You see her from down below, pacing around the crow's nest like an eye rolling in its socket, and you find yourself-- as always, against your better judgment-- drawn, white-knuckled, up toward them. They don't notice when you come up, which is a real rarity, until you literally bump directly into them. They recoil, snarling like a cat, and at least drop their telescope, hands swinging around wildly as it resettles in their hands. They cast you a tired, weary leer, guarding it away from you like you were going to steal it. (if:$telescope)[You don't want them to ruin your repairs... they were shit as is.](else:)[That thing is definitely broken, and now seems like a bad time to suggest that, but... well, there are consequences to these things. Unfortunately.] (link: ">")[== As if in a dream, they mumble through, (text-color:#257925)[ No, I don't want you to help me today. (if: $basvisists > 2)[You've been-- distracting me-- the whole time.](else:)[If you-- if you just cared before-- then-- then you might've--]] (link: ">")[== You wait for her to fill it in for you. With a frustrated scream, she throws her hat on the ground, grinds it with her heel until it's flat, and then begins to stamp on it again, over, and over, until it's a dejected piece of fabric, attempting frailly to coax itself back into shape. She's torn one of the seams that keeps it up, already. (text-color:#257925)[ I should have fucking seen them!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You did see them. They just had long range artillery.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ So?! It was weak artillery. We have better telescoping--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Visibility was low.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ There are tricks around that--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You didn't see them.] (link: ">")[== Bas slaps you across your face, breathing heavily. She brings her hand back. (if: $bas > 7)[And then she begins to apologize profusely, at first in such a low voice you can't make out what she's saying, and then like the whine of boiling water, (text-color:#257925)[ Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry--]](else:)[She steps back, eyes wild, like she's been cornered. She's grabbing her hand like it's hurt her, and you see the knuckles flare pale as they rise to slam against dark, thinly-spread skin.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[(if: $bas> 5)[You're not in trouble. It... it happens. Blight knows if I didn't make mistakes, we wouldn't have been forced to take this mission in the first place.](else:)[Bas. It's happened. It's over. You're not going to change it by destroying yourself.]] (link: ">")[== (if:$bas> 5)[Bas finally uncreases those brows, and settles against the cuppola.](else:)[Bas hardens their brows. (text-color:#257925)[What would you know.]] (link: ">")[== (if: $bas>5)[You find your own shoulders slumping with relief. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry we got attacked. Everyone's alive. We made off with a huge amount of supplies. In all honesty, it was pretty solid. You really, really don't need to be upset. My old lookout used to drive us into battles on purpose, regardless of if we could take them, without telling me.]](else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[Could you do me a favor and switch with Bryll today? Does she have enough knowledge of the charts to do that?]] (link: ">")[== (if:$bas>5)[(text-color:#257925)[That sounds like hell.]](else:)[(text-color:#257925)[I-- I hurt her... ] Her eyes begin tearing up again.(text-color:#257925)[She's got a big gash across her arm, she might need to get it amputated if it gets infected...]] (link: ">")[== (if:$bas>5)[(text-color:#F0F)[Yeah? Well, I'm from hell. You already knew that.]](else:)[You awkwardly attempt to comfort her, but she recoils from your touch.(text-color:#F0F)[Uh...]] (link: ">")[== (if:$bas>5)[She turns back out to the sea. (text-color:#257925)[Thank you. Sorry.] Her shoulders tighten. There's nothing else to say-- you know her, after this journey, more than well enough to know she needs silence. (You'll keep an eye out, but last night was strange... strange in the way the rest of this trip has been strange. You doubt anyone could have seen that ship coming.](else:)[The two of you look at each other for a long time. In the way you don't feel about some of your crew members, now, you are suddenly aware you don't really know her. That you possibly can't. The two of you look at each other for a long time.] [[(...)|DECK HUB]]

(if: not (visited: "Poop Deck D5-1"))[(display: "Poop Deck D5-1")] (else:)[Bas looks over the cuppola, a halo of black hair raining down around you. (text-color:#257925)[ I don't want to talk to you right now.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm just checking in. We can all hear you from across the deck and--] Okay so that's a lie AND it's going to set her off, GOOD GOING. (link: ">")[== She snarls, (text-color:#257925)[ You have other things to do! Our crew-- our partners-- they're all injured because of us.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] Yeah. Of course that hasn't gotten better. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ ...] Nothing you do is ever going to change the fact that when backed up against the wall, the pair of you are knives in each other's backs. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry, Bas.] (link: ">")[== The long silence is broken by the cry of seagulls. At last, in a voice you only hear because of lupine gift, you hear in a murmur, (text-color:#257925)[ I don't want you to be sorry. I want us both to be good at our jobs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[We're only as good as we are, Bas.] (link: ">")[== She snarls, (text-color:#257925)[ I can't believe I threw my fucking lot in with you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Bas.] (link: ">")[== Bas crumples back into the cuppola. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Let her be, cap.] (link: ">")[== You turn around to Bryll, brows knotted with concern. Bryll grabs you by the shoulders, brings you in tight. There's the smell again, rusty, heavy. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Let's let her be.] [[Okay.|DECK HUB]]]

{(set: $x to 0) |1>[(enchant:?page,(bg:(gradient: 0, 0,#d327de, $x/6, #000000, 1,#000000)))]} She rolls your eyes when you come up, but she doesn't stop you. (text-color:#257925)[ Do you really need to spend the whole day up here?] (link: ">")[== You grin. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you want me gone? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[(if: $basroute)[... You're being very silly, right now. Cut that out.](else-if: $bas > 8)[No... I suppose not...](else-if: $bas > 4)[Usually, yes, but right now I suppose I can tolerate your presence. It's almost over, after all, isn't it? What's the point in endings if not silly gestures of peace?](else:)[What part of me wanting you gone will make you comply.]] (link: ">")[== You walk over, lean on the edge. The wood of this ship is good, but it hasn't been kept well as one would hope. Surely, she's noticed. Surely, she's about to pull you away from the edge. Instead, you sense her settling beside you, eyes cast far into the middle distance. She takes a long, heavy drag from her pipe, and then offers it to you. She snarls when you hesitate: (text-color:#257925)[Say no, or say yes. It's going to go out-- don't be difficult.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm nothing but.] You snatch it, drag deep. Whatever she's put in here is excellent-- and you're not exactly a conniseur, true, but you're no spring chicken. You tilt your head back, a long plume of smoke issuing from your mouth. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're a woman of unspeakable class, Bas.] (link: ">")[== Bas laughs to herself, beneath her breath. (text-color:#257925)[ I'm anything but.] (link: ">")[== The sun sinks lower, a pit of orange radiating over the water. {(set:$x to 1)(rerun:?1)} (link: ">")[== The air grows cold around your neck. {(set:$x to 2)(rerun:?1)} (link: ">")[== The first evening stars appear before the sun goes, impatiently pushing the daylight out of the way. {(set:$x to 3)(rerun:?1)} (link: ">")[== And night comes too early-- takes the moment away from you like a barber takes hair from your shoulders. {(set:$x to 4)(rerun:?1)} (link: ">")[== God, you can swear the moon is laughing at you. {(set:$x to 5)} (link: ">")[== {(set:$x to 6)(rerun:?1)}She moves past you without a word, only slightly visibly tilted from the pipe. (God, how much did you take? How much does she have on board? You know better than to hope she was saving some for you-- do you even like each other?) With a quick swing, Bas shimmies over the edge. You stare blankly, watching her descend from your level to a miniscule version of herself, peering up at you, it occurs to you that you've never seen her do this before. Usually, whether by height or by profession, she towers over you. It occurs to you that you could spit over the edge, right now, and get her eye. (text-color:#257925)[ You coming?] (link: ">")[== You do your best to swing down with some grace. [[But she sees the rigging catch your leg on the way down-- there's no helping it.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]

In between piles of hardtack, empty barrels, old treasure chests, and a whole lot of rope, a huge, water-filled barrel stands, barely holding a gray, slimey body just visible in the light from above. As the ship moans on its mooring, those two sharp eyes catch yours, and two thin, webbed fingers draw a sheet of silvery hair away from a thin face and a glittering row of teeth. (if:$thing is 1)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Well, well. Checking on your prisoner first thing in the morning. I can't say I'm not impressed with the service. {(set: $spate to $spate+2)}]] (else-if: $thing is 2)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Hrm. A bit late, but I suppose you have to wrangle that band of colorful characters I saw earlier. {(set: $spate to $spate+1)}]](else:)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Not your top priority, I see. Now, I would just ha-a-a-ate to be a bother, but don't you think you should be--ah--a little bit more grateful to someone who's about to save your ship? I'm sure a big, strong pirate can put aside a little more room in their schedule to help a poor little guppy like me, right? {(set: $spate to $spate-1)}]](link: ">")[== They bat their eyes alluringly, or perhaps in a way someone else has taught them to allure. Regardless of where they learned it, they also must've learned something like sarcasm, because you're pretty sure that's what's going on here. You set your mouth firmly and try to resist their wiles. (text-color:#F0F)[I thought it would be prudent to check on our prisoner-- er, guest-- mm... preferred term of address?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Aquatic angel of salvation.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Escort?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Let's not get //too// comfortable, doll.](link: ">")[== They show their teeth. (text-color:#F0F)[Er. Well.](link: ">")[== You could probably go back upstairs. But some part of you really wants to let your guest know they're welcome, or at least get further on their good graces than whatever that was. You really have no desire to go with 'aquatic angel of salvation' for the rest of the trip, so you decide... |hook>[ (link:"to offer the tub.")[(set:$gift to "tub")(replace:?hook)[ You offer the tub. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Does that mean the hunk will be around here, hauling junk? I think I'm interested in that, yes. Now, be a dear and fetch him, won't you?] [[Aye aye, fishface.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"to offer the nicest fishbone comb you can find, with the fish to boot.")[(set:$gift to "fish")(replace:?hook)[ You offer the nicest fishbone comb you can find, with the fish to boot. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[With lemon. That's very important.] With lemon. Got it. [[Aye aye, fishface.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"to offer yourself.")[(replace:?hook)[ You offer yourself. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Haha... hahaha! Hahahaha! Yourself. Well, aren't you clever. What, am I supposed to eat you? Live inside you? I don't think so. No, no, I'll think about seeing you later... but for now, I'd like something I can sink my teeth into. Ohohohoho! Not that I would be opposed to nibbling those shoulders. What do you think? Sound like something you'd be interested in?] You gulp. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Seriously, though. Your body isn't enough. Get me something else.] (link:"You offer the tub.")[(set:$gift to "tub")(replace:?hook)[ You offer the tub. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Does that mean the hunk will be around here, hauling junk? I think I'm interested in that, yes. Now, be a dear and fetch him, won't you?] [[Aye aye, fishface.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"You offer the nicest fishbone comb you can find, with the fish to boot.")[(set:$gift to "fish")(replace:?hook)[ You offer the nicest fishbone comb you can find, with the fish to boot. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[With lemon. That's very important.] With lemon. Got it. [[Aye aye, fishface.|DECK HUB]]]]]]]

(if: $gift is "fish" or "tub")[ You come back down empty-handed, and you're not entirely sure why you bothered. Spate scowls at you indignantly. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You aren't room service.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[And my room appears to be unserviced, even as the day wears on... So, is my hearing not adjusting to land correctly, or did you promise me $gift and I didn't receive it? I can hardly believe my marine peepers.] (link: ">")[== You cough. It sounds much weaker than you intended for your cough to be-- you were going for a sort of, clear the air type thing. And the air doesn't really feel very cleared. Your mermaid rolls their eyes at you, with all the meanness of a teenage girl. You'd do well to be utterly devastated. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I don't know. There are so so many stories about merms choosing to help, well, you know. Pirates of a certain pursuasion. Specifically, pirates who offer better service. Run along, won't you?] (link: ">")[== While you don't intend to 'run along', you definitely should at least try to make good on your promises. After all, you're not the least concerned they might decide to renegotiate on theirs. (set:$spate to $spate-1)] (else:)[(display:"Underhold D1-1")]

(if:$time is 4)[On the way down the stairs, you briefly catch Bryll flashing you a thumbs up. You have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean even a little bit. When you spread your hands to let her know that like, come on, what the fuck, she just shrugs. You carry on into the dark. God your life is in shambles right now.] (if: $gift is "fish" and $tubacquired)[(if:$fishacquired)[When you come back down with the fish, you're not sure what to expect. You feel your heart bob in your chest as her hands extend. You offer them the fish, and she takes it, running her fingers gently along its length. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Well, well, well. That's a nice, big one.] (link: ">")[== Their ears tilt. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I knew you wouldn't let me down. No, you're good, aren't you? So good.] (link: ">")[== Your lip tightens. You refuse to thump your foot the way you do when Joffey calls you good. It's an embarassing tic that you'd rather have as few people as possible know how to exploit. Her eyes caress you, and you can't help but notice the way their fingers seize upon the fish have changed. You bite your lip. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'm satisfied for now. You can see me tonight, if you'd like. Otherwise... why don't you run your little crew, captain?] [[You're gonna go run your little crew, captain. You mean. Uh. Fuck|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[Her eyes fall upon you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Fish.] (link: ">")[== God damnit, mermaid. (text-color:#F0F)[Working on it.] (link: ">")[== She rolls her eyes, twists in her tub. Which by the way, you got her, and it's huge. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Work faster.] [[Fuck my life|DECK HUB]]]] (else-if: $gift is "tub" and $fishacquired)[(if:$tubacquired)[She's busy running a sly finger across Sam's head while he engages in construction work. He doesn't seem to mind, or even notice. When you make eye contact, her tongue darts out. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ True to your word. Why, you're a veritable prince of industry, aren't you? Ruling over a little kingdom of handsome workers.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Captain!] Sam waves at you. You love Sam. If everyone in the entire world could be like Sam, maybe world peace would be achieved. Maybe your back wouldn't hurt all the time, even though you just entered your thirties. Maybe you would be more happy to be alive. You point a finger at them. (text-color:#F0F)[Ruin a hair on his head and I'll slit your throat.] (link: ">")[== You expect that this is bad diplomacy, but Spate's eyes are wide, essentially impressed. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'll keep it in mind.] She places her head sideways on her arms, looking at you with a deceptively docile expression. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You have pleased me. Why don't we just say that. ] (link: ">")[== Thank god. Thank fucking god. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You can go. She shooes you off.] (link: ">")[== You look to Sam instead. (text-color:#F0F)[Sam. How long.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Few hours. ](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Attaboy. I'll cover. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Thanks, Captain.] (link: ">")[== You see the fish smile at you in the dark, but you've already asserted all the dominance you need. He's your kid, and it's your ship. She's a guest, even if she's a very comfy one. And if she wants more than that, well, she'll need to have another talk with you, now won't she? [[I mean not that she would need to. Because. Uh. oh god|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[She bangs on the side of her barrel. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Damn you, I want my hunk!] (link: ">")[== You raise an eyebrow. (text-color:#F0F)[Your hunk? He's my helmsman, and he has a job. One he's currently engaging in, mind you. So keep your mouth shut.] (link: ">")[== Spate rests on one of her arms, cheeks blown out. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I meant tub. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Sure.] [[Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[(display:"Underhold D1-3")]

(if:$gift is "fish" and $fishacquired is True)[ You are packing heat when you come back to the underhold for your favorite bratty fish. By heat, you mean meat. And by packing, you mean carrying that thing over your shoulder like it's a beautiful woman, if a beautiful woman wanted to be respectfully carried over your back like a fish. You are sort of losing the thread here a bit. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[That's a big fish.] You drop it at the foot of their barrel. They look up at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ ...] (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[... lemon.] You brandish the lemon. (text-color:#F0F)[How's that for a treat?] With far less bravado than before, Spate looks down at the ground. They look back at you, ears flicking with something between irkedness and total confusion. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I can't reach that. You also look down at the fish. Sure enough, their long but slender arms do not entirely hit the ground, and they look in no great hurry to try and fix that up. They tilt their head to you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Go on.] You pick up the fish. They stuff the entire thing into their enclosure, like it's a pool floaty or something. They pat the fish on the head delicately. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You should probably go now. (text-color:#F0F)[Oh, okay.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'm just saying. I'm a messy eater.] (text-color:#F0F)[Me too.] The two of you stare each other down. Spate's lips purse. They fold their hands. (if: not $tubacquired)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Could you... get me the hunk to make my tub bigger? Is that in the cards?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure, sure. Yeah.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Okay, hm. Chop chop?] There's some of that sass. You give them a quick salute and turn and retreat up the stairs. As far as you're concerned, that was a rousing success. Although now you're at least the slightest bit interested in what mermaid eating habits are like. Though you also. Get the feeling that. Maybe you are not supposed to know.] [[DAY 1 EVENING]]] (else-if: $gift is "tub" and $tubacquired is True)[When you come down, Spate is peering over the edge of their tub with the wryest look on their face. A brat in their natural bratitat. A bad girl getting a good boy to do whatever she wants. Every now and then, they will flick a finger so well-groomed they must have manis under the sea, and say, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[There.] or (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I don't want it like that.] When they finally turn their languid gaze to you, there's a huge smirk on their face. You have the right to feel a little offended. After all, perhaps you were the one who gave them this man. This... this beautiful man. You know? This man was, in essence, your doing. So you like, come on. You deserve a little credit. What would credit even mean here? Do you want to be the person doing grunt work on the floor? Or is it something about the-- well, not affection, but //something// with which Spate bosses around your colleague? You step over, just to sort of, assess the situation. And you feel the mermaid's soft breath on your collarbone-- (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Jealous?] Oh so she does actually know what she's doing. You don't dignify it, your upper lip holding firm. She bats her eyelashes at you.(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Honey, your poker face is miserable.] She takes the collar of your shirt, drags you down to her level. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Look, now I'm having fun. And if you want to have fun with me, you'd better keep up. ] (if: not $fishacquired)[(text-color:#F0F)[What do you want?] Their smile opens like a flower coming into bloom.(text-color:#e3c8f9)[I want that fish.] They release you, the smell of the rank water between you like jellyfish caught on the beach. You feel something numb at the back of your throat, and press your tongue to the top of your mouth, sparks firing in there. With all the contempt you can afford not to muster, you whisper, (text-color:#F0F)[Fine. I'll get your fish.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Good boy.] You narrow your eyes. Something tells you the fish already knows too much. You didn't expect not to get blackmailed when you brought her aboard. But you aren't entirely sure if playing their game is the best way to get what you want, or just a way for her to jerk you around while you're at their mercy. You'll have to be on your guard.] [[DAY 1 EVENING]]] (else:)[(display:"Underhold D1-2")]

(if:$spatesolicitation)[[[Nope.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(display:"Underhold D2-2")]

(if: $clearedallspate)[You're not sure why you came back down. After all, you've been humoring this damn fish all day, and all yesterday, and what do you really have to show for it? A whole bunch of bruises, including on your ego, the knowledge your whole ship has seen you be room service, and best of all, you smell miserably of that rank ocean water, from spending all your time in the hold. It's not that pirates usually smell good. It's that the fish has marked you, and by the look on her coy, innocent face, she absolutely knows that. (text-color:#F0F)[I hope you're proud of yourself.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I have never been more proud of myself in my entire life.] (link: ">")[== Now that's just ridiculous. You snort inwardly, and you see her face crack a little bit. She leans forward, takes your face between her fingers. So those arms are long-- no, it's just that she's bending far, far out of the tub, the serpentine, inhuman half of her body trailing behind her as she supports herself with what must be truly inhuman core strength. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[What, came back for more? Another treat?](link: ">")[== You open your mouth and feel hers press to you, slightly barbed tongue running the wrong way against your mouth, testing you, attempting to draw blood. You feel her fingers seize in your hair. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Good girl. Good girl.] (link: ">")[== You draw back, wipe water from your face, undaunted. Something about her stare is less piercing now, far less predator and more... affiliate. Maybe she's giving you the most precious thing she has on tap-- her approval, however cloying. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'll see you tonight?] (link: ">")[== And there's your chance, too. She leans against the edge of her tub, fins horribly at attention. And her eyes wide, kind, too nice to be... honest. You tuck your hands in your pockets. Salute her. And walk back upstairs. [[What's a man to do? |DECK HUB]] ] (else:)[(display:"Underhold D2-1")]

(display:"Underhold D3-1")

(text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Came back. ] (if: $spateroute is true)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I figured our little souiree was all you wanted, and yet here you are again. What, did I not give you enough of my body to satisfy you? God, you're all such ruffians on land. Must you take my thirteenth virginity? Surely there's some sort of hymen a foot deep in my throat--]] (text-color:#F0F)[ You are such a brat.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh! Say more.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I came down here to check on you because you're our key to the treasure. Not to mention that I figured you must be bored.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I do suppose I am bored.] (if: $poolmade is true)[Although I really do have such a lovely little swimabout in here! You wouldn't consider keeping me on, would you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Look. Love. You've taken care of me. And as the little whore I am, that does make my heart sing. I have to admit I thought I was going to be shoved underneath the deck like a slab of meat and (gasp) used for my body. (if: $spateroute is true)[And while I'm so, sooo, soooo glad that's true...] I'll admit I'm surprised at just how pleasant it is in this little tub. But I could use... hm. Some engagement.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What do you want?] (link: ">")[== The mermaid draws you in with a long finger, tipped with a claw (if: $spateroute is true)[that you know too well by now]. Against your better judgement, you move in, and the mermaid whispers in your ear, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Take me out of here and around the ship, won't you, darling?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What, like?] (link: ">")[== The mermaid begins to slip out of their barrel, which (if:$spateroute is True)[is a long, strenuous process that feels a bit like a striptease, the more you think about it](else:)[really can't be all that comfortable for them to do]. You rush over and let them deposit themselves, dramatically, into your waiting arms. This would be a great time to pass off Spate onto Sam. Yet somehow, you find yourself with a mermaid in your hands. A mermaid in your hands, folks. In your hands. I guess you've??? Said yes to them again??? Somehow??? Spate leans against you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I expect this to be our best adventure yet.] (link: ">")[== [[Fuck|DECK HUB]]

(if: $notholdingspateday3)[(display:"Underhold D3-1")] (else:)[Spate's fins frill when you step downstairs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Didn't have enough of me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sure plenty of people have had enough of you.] (link: ">")[== Spate grins ruinously. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ But not you, though.] (link: ">")[== You might as well give her this one. (text-color:#F0F)[ Not you.] (link: ">")[== When you get close enough, her arms drag around you, her face close to yours. You think at first you are going to get a fish-kiss, and then she curls around you. She's as heavy as she was before-- heavy-- but she also fits so nicely around you, the smell of her is weirdly familiar, twines well with the heavy sailor-scent that is so evidently muggy and repulsive. A dead fish, a wet dog. One of her fins frills against the side of your face, hitting the furze you've cultivated on your jawline, and you feel alive in a way you shouldn't-- in a way you think you maybe haven't been allowed to feel. You tilt back against them, and you feel them squirm in your arms. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[That's sensitive, you horrific bastard.] (link: ">")[== You jostle them slightly. (text-color:#F0F)[ Shame I don't have so many exposed parts, do I, now.] (link: ">")[== (if: $spateroute)[Their hand darts under your shirt, and you feel yourself beginning to burn up. They cast you a knowing, piscine glare.](else:)[Their fingernail hovers around your eye. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[That so?]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're playing a dangerous game here.] (link: ">")[== Spate looks at you with a combination of snide victory and outright contempt. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[More dangerous than courting a ride from you, pirate? ] (link: ">")[== You still have their hand by the wrist. (text-color:#F0F)[I will play with you. But if you want to play with me, you should be aware-- very aware-- that both of us will need to set terms. Because there's a reason people are told to be very, very wary of me, and you don't get a ship like this by buying it.] (link: ">")[== Something delighted glimmers in their eyes-- an excitement you haven't seen yet from them. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I'd hate to be on the wrong side of that, now, wouldn't I?] They cup your ear. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[But I've got you on the edge of my leash, even if you've got me right in your mouth. And all you have to do to get anything you want from me is humor me a little, and what I'd find really, really, funny, is just getting to see your silly little friends, and their silly little dramas.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I have no problem with that. Let's go, Spate.] (link: ">")[== They clap their hands. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Yay!!!] [[Out you go.|DECK HUB]]]

(display:"Underhold D3-1")

(display:"Underhold D4-1")

(display: "Underhold D5-1")

(text-color:#F0F)[ Any last requests, you insuffrable bastard?] (link: ">")[== Spate flicks water at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, I think you know I could come up with some way to torment you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do your worst.] You lean forward. In your experience, Spate's 'worst' hasn't been so bad. If you do say so yourself. And at the risk of incriminating yourself. You do say so. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I just want to talk, actually. Do you have the time?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Mrmmm. A little bit wouldn't hurt. ] (link: ">")[== Spate claps her hands together. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Excellent! What would you like to chat about?] (link: ">")[== |hook>[(link:"Your name.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ What's your name mean? (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ What. You're kidding me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not. Siel seemed surprised by it, and well-- if it's one you picked for yourself, that's obviously not something you need to tell me, but--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's not my god-given name, that's for sure.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think a single person on this ship is using their god-given name. ] (link: ">")[== Spate laughs, a noise like Justin strumming his lute. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Admittedly, it's not the name I use at sea, either. It's more of a... stage name.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You perform?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ 'Spate' is one of the terms mermaids use for dick, honey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. You perform.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[(if: $spateroute)[You know I perform, dolphin shit.](else:)[You wish you'd seen me perform.] Anyways, if you want the name my friends call me, instead of patrons and one night stands, it's Chorin.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you want me to use it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Eh, it feels like it's throwing off the dynamic.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ So I'll keep calling you Dick.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hah! There are plenty of Dicks out there. It's short for Richard.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Richard? Richard Mermaid?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, you bitch, I'm a girl, I don't want to be Richard!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's my only suggestion. Take it or leave it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Leave it! Leave it!] (link: ">")[== They're laughing again... they click their teeth together when they laugh. You can't help but smile. You find it incredibly charming. [[Ah...|DECK HUB]]]]] (link:"Your home.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ Where do you live?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ The whole fucking ocean. I used to migrate yearly, but now that I'm pushing my hundreds--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're over a hundred?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to rob the cradle or anything, but you humans die so-o-o fast. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Is that old?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I don't know. Do I look old?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's a loaded question.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, lookie here, she's catching on. Good girl.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We're horribly off topic...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Where are you from again? How old are you? Do your parents love you? What would you say are your top three kinks, and how do they relate to your psychological trauma? Just as long as we're asking fun questions.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Big city, 34, probably, and, wouldn't you like to know.] (link: ">")[== Spate throws her hands up in the air. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You can't just answer everything but the only question I actually give a shit about, you psychopath!] (link: ">")[== [[Hahahaha. You have leverage!|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"My crew.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[ What do you think about the crew?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ What about them? Am I leaving performance reviews? If so, fire everyone but the hunk, and then hire all the hunks money can buy with the money I'm about to give you. It can't possibly get better than buying a whole chunk of hunks.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Really. You're not fond of anyone else in the slightest. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ But--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ If they're not dumb, I don't want 'em.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ But... you love talking to me...] (link: ">")[== Spate stares at you. (text-color:#F0F)[ Ouch.] [[You are just a silly little dog... you can not help it...|DECK HUB]]] (link:"Your relationship with Sam.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[ I see you two hanging around all the time-- so, what's up with you and Sam?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ He's a big man. Just a big, big man. And there's so much in this world that big men are good for. I mean, fucking come on, look at him. He's perfect! He's big! He's dumb. He's kind! The trifecta. There are prophecies written about men like him. I feel like I'm witnessing a historic event when I put my head against his chest. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ He is really nice...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ He gives hugs so good, he should be arrested. He's so gentle it should be a crime. He calls me ma'am. He does what I want! If he wouldn't drown, I'd be stealing him back into the sea, no questions asked. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Not unless you can salary him. And he consents. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Sugar. If I had the funds I'd be posting him up in a palace where he could look good and eat little exotic treats all fucking day. In fact, that might be my new life goal. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Better not come out of our pay.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ If I don't compensate you well, it'll make it waaaay harder for me to find my little freak again.] Spate swings her arms into a clasp that is so gesturally human you are sure she is mocking you. Then again, Spate is... so frequently making human gestures, that you figure it might spring from a genuine fondness for human camp. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You really like people, huh?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I like how fast-paced you are. Quite a lot. ]Spate sighs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I spend all this energy not trying to be so stinking obvious, and here you are, batting your eyes at me and making that absolutely stupid face. What a nuisance you are.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sure Sam figured it out before me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Of course,] Spate snaps. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Sam has always been kind to me. How horrible is that? Keeping your guard up with him... it's simply not feasible. ] (link: ">")[== (if: $sam > 6) [(text-color:#F0F)[ Don't I know it.]] (else:)[You smile. Sam and you haven't had a moment alone in a while... even though you care for them deeply, you sometimes find their presence a little strong, and you're sure the rest of the ship feels similarly. But knowing they have someone equally strong in flavor to balance them out...] [[You really with Spate could stay. But you're happy they've at least had fun.|DECK HUB]]] (link:"Your relationship with Sam.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[We should talk about MY relationship with Sam, actually.] (Narcissist.) [== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You two fucking?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, erm, I mean... he keeps flirting with me, as in, asking me to bed, talking about how handsome I am, saying he'd love to sleep with someone, but he doesn't understand signals...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, and he doesn't understand signals. Like really really. Have you tried asking? Worked for me.] (link: ">")[== Your mouth hangs open. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ He's like, honestly, probably not a virgin, but maybe some flavor of stone or ace, because damn if that boy didn't actually want me to do anything to him. You be careful with him, okay? He doesn't know how to set boundaries, like, at all.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I've worked that one out.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ha!] (link: ">")[== [[You are uh, well, at least a little better. But even then, you won't give yourself that much credit. |DECK HUB]]] (link:"Accomodations.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[Right, quick chat about accomodations... You have to be incredibly uncomfortable in there, don't you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[(if: $tubacquired)[Despite all your best efforts, I am a little miserable, yes. But it's] (else:)[It's] a small price to pay to be out of those waters. They won't have a scent or current on me-- I'll be out of the range of conventional infrasonics-- it should take YEARS before they even get me back in the system!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I thought you mermaids were fairly solitary.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Yes, but we live forever, so rule of law is done by gossips and a few smarmy vigilantes. I'm, hmm... what you'd call a bit of a pirate myself. In that I don't care for any laws they've set up around keeping what they find, and conventions we hold about what conduct is proper bores me. Most mermaids will kill you if they think you've been, well, screwing with people, unless that's followed by eating them alive. I, personally, only eat people when they're into it... I understand the concern from my sisters, after all, there's a lot more of you than there are of us, but we were here before you, and will be here after.] She flails her hand. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I want to have fun with you. All sorts of fun. I want to build things together. I want to make worlds with you. I want to argue with you. I want to hurt you and be hurt by you. I want to fuck you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ (if: $spateroute)[You owe me. Stop by later.](else:)[I've... had fun.]] [[Uh huh.|DECK HUB]]] (link:"Grog.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I don't know if you'll like anything I have to say. That, and I'm certain you already know. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I think it's that they've eaten mermaid? And probably human?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, the eating? No, no, that's not the problem at all. Everyone gets pressured into a little fratricide at some point in their lives. You and I know that, I'm sure.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think that's a common experience--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I meant the mark of Charybdis.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Charybdis. Like, the...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ That's what humans call her, right? The mermaids call her Mother. As in, Devourer. The Hole.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ The Hole.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Yeah. The Hole WIth Teeth.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. Kinky.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Girl I know. Anyways, she tends to, well, mark those in her stay. Those bound for tragedy. She tend tends to, well, kill everyone around them horribly. At least, that's our best guess. To be honest, no one knows much about her motives, seeing as she's older than time and vaster than space. The deal in the ocean is, if you see a shadow bigger than you, that means something is giving you time to run away. It's a rare luxury, and you only don't take it if you're dumb as shit.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I see.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ ... You'll take it, won't you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I've been marked for death for a long time. But I'll talk to them about it. And my crew. It isn't only my say.] [[But if it were yours... ...|DECK HUB]]] (link:"It's been nice to have you, Spate.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[Unfortunately, I think I have to admit it's been a pleasure to have you aboard, Spate.] (link: ">")[== That gets a smile out of them. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Likewise, you absolute bitch. I'm almost sorry this will all be done with tomorrow.] (link: ">")[== (You don't say, 'stay, then'. You'd like to, but now you know too much about that body, what you're forcing into a container so small that calling it a prison would be so kind. You can imagine them making headway alongside, but there is no world, not yet, where the two of you can travel together.) (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You're making an incredibly stupid face at me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Apologies. Was it impacting the quality of your trip?] (link: ">")[== They splash a precious bit of water at you. The stuff is gross, and absolutely needs changing. You'd tell Sam to get on it, just to let Spate think it's beneath you, but honestly, you might as well just change it yourself at this point. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You're getting a review so scathing, no mermaid will ever ferry with you again.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Maybe I want mermaids to ferry with me again. So be nice, will you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ If you don't see me, your children will. They sound sincere, but there's something else, there, too... the agony of someone who knows they're not making a hollow promise. With the face of someone who has seen the end, they give you a little smile. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ But I hope it's you. After all, you seem like ole Susan-- I'd bet anything you have a hundred imitators, and no fucking biological kids. And as much as I'll enjoy those strangers, I'll miss your eyes, your face.] They lean against the rim of their tiny pool of water, staring up over the wood at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Bastard.] [[I'll miss you too, but stars, what the actual fuck is wrong with you.|DECK HUB]]]]]

(display:"Underhold D4-1")

The weapons hold isn't too far from the quarters, or, at least, the whole underbelly of the ship is kind of just one big thing, with the exception of the galley. You can kind of see Spate from over here, even! Well, thankfully there's enough division due to large, conspicuous objects that these things count as separate rooms. This lets people sleep out of sight of the weapons, which you figure is a good idea, and keeps the weapons out of sight of well, formerly weevils, who probably can't use them, and Spate, who is stuck in a barrel, but whom you would reckon probably shouldn't be near the weapons either! And Bryllig is there, perched on a barrel in the corner, staring over Siel, who is polishing a knife. Given how many pirate fights, on average, are decided with knives instead of cannons, this seems like a bit of a silly task, but Bryllig certainly looks intrigued. (text-color:#90c6f9)[I really am sorry I keep wearing them out.] (link: ">")[== The white-haired woman places her round head softly on her companion's lap. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[You've worn out worse.] (link: ">")[== Bryll smiles. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Ha! But I like to think I keep most of my things in better working order.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[That you do.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[And helloooo captain!] (link: ">")[== Bryllig waves to you. Siel frowns dourly in your general direction. This is roughly the response you expect from both of them, but it does twist the knife in your heart a little bit that you don't simply inspire immediate joy. Well, you'll take what you can get. (text-color:#F0F)[Doing my rounds.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Consider them done.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You're offering to help?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Pscha. I'm not Joffey. I'm saying you're done here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[The weapons certainly look in working condition to me!] (link: ">")[== Siel doesn't turn her gaze from you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[You don't exactly give me a lot to work with.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Don't be silly. That's a wonderful harpoon. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[//I// bought the harpoon. From my last crew.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Ah. ] (link: ">")[== They continue to stare at you dryly. (text-color:#F0F)[Well, it's a very nice harpoon. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Good day, Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Wait, wait. You don't have anything you need help with? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[If I did, you would be the first to hear about it. Good day, Captain.] There aren't really doors to slam in your face, so what happens instead is that you all stand in the room while Bryllig swings her legs back and forth, a pleasant little smile on her face, and Siel casts a stare at you that makes men run for the hills. You aren't men, so you stand there for a bit, sort of hoping something more interesting might happen. When Siel runs a rock along the side of a knife with a little too much gusto, you decide suddenly that you get the hint. [[So you turn around, with a little curtsey, and leave the ladies to their work. Although you do catch something like a smirk out of a certain weaponmaster's face, sharp though it is.|DECK HUB]] {(set: $siel to $siel + 1)(set: $brylligsightings to $brylligsightings + 1)(set: $bryllig to $bryllig + 1)}

You wander down into the hold, erring toward the corner where your weapons are stocked. In the glint of red light from between rafters, there's the occasional flush of steel on fading sunlight. "Crepescular". Fucking stupid. And yet you can't deny the appeal of attacking when the sun is just fading out, the convenience of blood finishing the feng shui of a perfectly arranged space. She's there, moving around the deck, into position. Across the room is a wooden board, black marks burned into it in circular rings. It's so chopped up you hardly clock it as a target. Bas has it balanced above her head, like the halos you used to see on saints. Siel, with little hesitation, is flinging knives right into the board. When you come in, neither of them so much as flinch. (if:$seenday1weapon)[(text-color:#F0F)[ This is what I came down here for?]] (else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[ Sincerely, what the fuck am I looking at.]] (link: ">")[== Siel flips the blade around her fingers, looking concerned as she ever does. With a teasing tilt of her head in your general direction, she says, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We take turns. It's a trust exercise.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not just trust. It's about skill. You're lucky I'm not having you swab the decks for putting my crew in danger.] Siel's eyes rise toward the ceiling, lips pursed in gentle contemplation. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Tell you what. You do a round with us. If you--or anyone else gets hurt-- we abstain for the rest of the week.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Putting a lot of confidence in your aim.] (link: ">")[== She presses the knife into your hands, the sharp side of it so close to your fingers that you could stretch your digits and give yourself a nasty cut. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Putting faith in you. Are you not supposed to be our fearless leader?] (link: ">")[== Bas is giving you an equally imperious look. Siel sits down across the room from you, in the middle of a wall scoured by tiny marks. She lifts her chin, a pitiless, sterling steel mask across her face. Ah, you realize, the girls have set me up for a trap. Well, how do you shoot it? |hook>[(link:"Aim true.")[(replace:?hook) **Aim true.** You aim for her ear, and she doesn't flinch as a trickle of blood runs down the side of her face. She puts her hand to it, runs her finger back and forth across the wound. Bas is quivering with rage, but Siel puts out a hand to her, aloft in the air, then draws it back. Tilting to the right, so that the knife remains lodged in the wall, she rises to stand. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I see.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ You can't seriously--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ She told us to stop. Now, we stop.] A smile crests her face, unexpectedly. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ When you enter someone else's ship, you ask to be commanded. And,] (With this, she draws her finger to the wound, unflinching, and traces the blood across her face, to her lips.) (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ It was a very clean cut.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't trust everyone on this ship to throw a blade at that accuracy.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Bastard.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're better with a sword.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I have a steady hand. I was a marksmith.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's not transferrable.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ But I can practice--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What you do, between two consenting adults, is none of my business. But what you do, as two bodies I might have to bring to war, is more of one.] (link: ">")[== Bas's nostrils flare in defeat. Siel is watching you, her expression still unrepentantly cold, and you're watching that line of crusted red across her face, the places where the whorls of her print have made the mark patchy. You feel a surge of spit well in your mouth. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm going upstairs. Go to Grog. Clean up.] [[You know that they won't cross you, after this.|DAY 1 NIGHT]]] (link:"Are you fucking kidding. Do not aim true.")[(replace:?hook) You could, of course, end her right here. You would also definitely end your entire voyage... right there. With just Siel in the room, maybe it could be taken as-- look, Siel is a bit ornery, in ways you've never had the werewithal to examine. She can kill. That's what matters. But with Bas in the room, you need to set a good example. You twirl the knife in your fingers. It's unusually light-- well, it is a small blade. You abandon everything but your intuitions and swing it. It lands with a satisfied //thunk// to the side of Siel's head, a respectable berth between her and something nasty. You see something behind her, for a moment, looking through her at you-- she flares her nostrils with quiet indignation. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I see. She grabs the knife from the wall, twirls it in her hand. ] (link: ">")[== She gestures to the wall. (text-color:#d2f9c8) Go on. Your turn, Captain.] (link: ">")[== Right. Round two. You step to the wall, slide down to a sitting position, and face them, opposing, with your chin up. There's more than one way to set an example here--it's as much your choice as theirs. When Siel throws the blade, will you stay perfectly still? Or do you want to cause problems by moving? |hook2>[(link:"Wiggle.")[(replace:?hook2) You move your head, and it gets your ear. Grinning through the pain, you look at Siel. (text-color:#F0F)[Shame. You're not the shot you think you are?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ No, you have a deathwish.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I made my terms pretty clear, didn't I?] (link: ">")[== Bas scowls at you. She whispers something to Siel, who only shifts her eyes from Bas to you. She squeezes Bas's hand, a motion you only register from the subtle flex of musculature on her compact arm. With two fingers, she grips your ear, and when her hand comes away with a warm spray of blood on it, she touches it to her lips. (text-color:#F0F)[ You have a problem.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No one will believe you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey would.] (link: ">")[== Siel closes her eyes, gives you a quick, deferential little shrug. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'm not scared of Joffey. I want to know if I should be scared of you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you.] (link: ">")[== Siel smiles, exposing spade teeth at the back of a black mouth. You've never seen her smile like this before, and now, you suppose you know why. What surprises you most is not her smile-- it's your own lack of fear. Every ship has at least one person with glowing eyes, or visions, or teeth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Not yet.] And then she leaves you alone in the dark, with a trickle of blood running down your face to grab your chin. It's showier than it is concerning. Even with your interference, all she gave you is a gentle love bite. [[You need... to clean before you go to dinner. The crew is waiting, and you don't want them to see the blood.|DAY 1 EVENING]]] (link:"Stay perfectly still.")[(replace:?hook2) Your heart skips two beats when the impact comes. Out of the corner of your vision, you can see the bandaged hilt protruding from the wall. You move to stand, feeling it bump against your shoulder. (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, that's settled. See you next time?] (link: ">")[== Bas scoffs. (text-color:#257925)[ You surely don't need to showboat like that every time you want to make a point.] (link: ">")[== You extend your hand to the knife. (text-color:#F0F)[ Showboat? ] (link: ">")[== Bas looks sheepish-- it's not a normal expression for her. Siel stares over, looking, if not bored, than, as always, completely cold. She rises to stand. (text-color:#257925)[ We're done here.] (link: ">")[== Siel nods, leaving to follow her. As she does, you tug her hand. She whips around, like a wolf hearing the whine of a small animal on an open plain. Something glistens at the back of her mouth, jagged as stones-- no, you're imagining it. You inquire, (text-color:#F0F)[ I saw your face. You didn't //want// something to happen, did you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I wouldn't endanger my reputation or my girlfriend like that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What about your captain?] (link: ">")[== Siel's eyes warm. Wryly, she says, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You're a big girl. You can handle yourself.] [[DAY 1 EVENING]]]]]

(if: $seensiel)[Siel cracks an eye. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I told you. I'm practically crepescular.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You'll have to use much smaller words if you actually want to communicate your needs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Dawn. Evening. Not now.] They bare teeth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Leave me be.] (link: ">")[== Fussy. (text-color:#F0F)[What if someone were to attack the boat sometime that wasn't morning or evening?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Death is death, and if anyone desiring to pass the threshhold of blood will find themselves in a time of slaughter.] (link: ">")[== This is coincidentally what she put on her cover letter! You have Joffey read all the cover letters for you, out loud, and then the two of you discuss them together. Personally, you liked the imaginative, violent language in Siel's-- it really spoke to an alignment with company values. (text-color:#F0F)[I suppose you can't go wrong with times of slaughter.] (if:$basknife is True)[(text-color:#F0F)[But I do have something I need from you, this time.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Oh?] You throw the knife.  (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I see. Fascinating she would give this to you.] Siel puts your show to shame by doing a series of tricks around her fingers, all of which start and stop with the blade nearly kissing her fingers, and dashing back away like some kind of strange and beautiful deer. There is this profound mirth in her face when she does this--for a moment, it's redirected at you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I suppose you could be a lot more useful than you let on. Let me guess, she wants this sharpened.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[She does.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Anything for my girls. Anything in the world.] (link: ">")[== |hook>[ (text-color:#F0F)[oh god I wish that were me] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[What?] (link: ">")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#d2f9c8)[What?] (text-color:#F0F)[Nothing. I didn't say anything.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Go. Now.] Well, you have your answer, now don't you. Which you'll take. [[Evening it is, you crepescular little freak|DECK HUB]]]]]] (else:)[ (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Go. Now.] Well, you have your answer, now don't you. Which you'll take. [[Evening it is, you crepescular little freak|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[(display:"Weapons Hold D1-2")]

(if: $seenday1weapons)[Siel is still polishing the same knife when you come down. You realize with a slight bit of a start that her eyes have shot up to you. There is something entrancing about being caught in her gaze. You feel a little like a fish caught in someone's mouth.](if:$seengrog)[You are beginning to believe that there might be something mildly wrong with you, and you're not sure if this week has created that monster or brought it out of your skin.] Siel tilts her head down, her gaze solemn. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Am I not making myself clear enough? There's nothing you can help with.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You were the one who said you wanted more weapons. What do you want?] (link: ">")[== You see something flicker in her mouth. Her eyebrows raise, ever so slightly, and those beautiful nostrils curl. After nodding to herself for a moment, she responds, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We //need// artillery. Which will be on the mainland, and is essentially out of reach, for now. (text-color:#F0F)[I asked what you want.] (link: ">")[== Her face is a cold mask of something which is barely like interest. It is interest in the way a large, full animal is interested in a morsel. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I suppose I could use some help with target practice.] (link: ">")[== See, in the business this is what is refered to as 'a trap'. Pirates like you are notorious for avoiding traps, whether they be the wiles of a trigger-happy white-clad feral woman of dubious motive, long emotional conversations with your matelot about the status of your relationship, and taxes. (text-color:#F0F)[Try again.] (link: ">")[== Siel does at least sniff respectfully at your unwillingness to lay yourself on a platter. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I don't want for much. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's not nothing.] (link: ">")[== Siel rolls their eyes, helpfully. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I do run combat practice here in the evenings. You're free to come by if you need to revise your skills.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[And that's not nothing, either. I'll take it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Of course you will.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[And if you do ever need anything.] (link: ">")[== Siel looks to you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[As if I could ever need anything from you.] (link: ">")[== But the way she says it doesn't sound enough like a challenge, or a threat... it feels like she might, and she just thinks there's no way you'll ever figure out what that thing is. [[Damn. Okay, then.|DECK HUB]]

You (if: (visited: "Weapons Hold D2-1"))[come down, and expectedly, people are fighting with swords.] (else-if: (visited:"Weapons Hold D1-3"))[come down again, because you are, in spite of your better nature, still deadly curious] (else:)[come down, and unexpectedly, people are fighting with swords.] You all do-- or are supposed to do-- what you enthusiastically call monthly swordplay clinics, but you're supposed to do them up on the deck. I mean, you thought you were all doing them together up on deck. Apparently everyone has been doing them without you this whole time. Which, fair enough, it's not like you'd stop them, but also... :( Siel and Joffey step back and forth, shuffling in the restrained, cautious manner you've seen Joffey lose the second someone swings for his gut instead of his blade. When Siel takes such a maneuver, Joffey's repartee is lightning-fast, her thick blade clicking off their much thinner one. Still, there's some give. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You fight at a handicap, little carp.] She tucks her sword in the ragged scabbard by her pants. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I wouldn't be surprised if you're getting your worst habits from them, now, considering they use their blade like a machete.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, people die, now don't they.] (link: ">")[== Joffey grimaces. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not fighting for the beauty of the craft. Either you all make it through the day or you don't, it's not that complicated. ] (link: ">")[== Siel throws a sword, and you catch it in a stunning display of competence. Joffey casts you a pleased smile, and you hear a little clap in the corner which is--fantastic-- Bryll is here. Then again, one supposes that Bryll is always here. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You should fight her. ] |hook>[(link:"Fight her..")[(replace:?hook) You extend your hand. Joffey (if: $joffey> 6) [passes you the blade.] (else: )[eyes you warily, a coy snarl splattered across their paint like birdshit.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ My captain, you have a blade.] Teeth grit, you move to the corner of the room, where the heavy blade sits. Pirates usually kill with tricks, daggers, or cannonballs. You look, to say the least, distinctly out of genre. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We'll see about the beauty of the craft, hm? If it measures up to your blade.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It serves me well enough.] (if: $joffey>6)[You look over to Joffey, who is pretending, as Joffey does, to be exasperated by your every show of affection. You stick your tongue out.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Your mark.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, I insist.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You love to waste my time.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm a diplomat. I was born to waste people's time.] (link: ">")[== For the remark, you're given a cutting repartee, which you dodge handily. Siel smacks her teeth, swinging the blade around with enough momentum that you know a good kick should launch her off her feet. Really, you can appreciate someone who strikes like they're not going to get another hit in, but that might be why they aren't. You swing your foot instead of your blade, she trips and, to your chagrin, recovers well out of the way, swinging her blade out to the side as she comes back to stand. She tilts her head towards you, cracks her neck all the way around. She puts her hands at the hilt. You're fast, but you're not fast enough. You lunge, and when you feel your foot give, you manage to at least get a crack out. (text-color:#F0F)[ I fight best when I'm down. ] (link: ">")[== She whips her dagger towards your neck. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Ah... I try never to go down.] (link: ">")[== You cast a look to Bryll. (text-color:#F0F)[ Really.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Stars and wind! Siel, you're going to kill her, right?] (link: ">")[== Siel chuffs, and dusts off her pants, coming to stand. She cracks her neck all the way around, and extends a hand to you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Not tonight.] (link: ">")[== (if: $joffey>3)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ It's not wise to discuss mutiny in front of the captain.]] Joffey folds their arms, giving you their famous quirked-eyebrow smise. You grin back. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ How'd I do? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Mediocre.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah, so I did. But you should be careful. When you lunge, you leave your back open. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I won't always save you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, come off it. You will.] (link: ">")[== Joffey snorts. (text-color:#d9480f)[Enough of this. You lot, to dinner.] As they filter around you, Joffey grabs you by the collar. You quirk an eyebrow up back at them. (text-color:#d9480f)[You need to work on your movement. You know this crew is ravenous as a pack of unfed wolves, and your hesitation is their meat.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Noted.] Next time, you tell yourself, you'll try. Whether you were trying or not this time is nobody's business but yours--after all, [[it's merely practice, isn't it?|DECK HUB]]] (link:"Ready your second.")[(replace:?hook) (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey. She said you were fighting at a handicap.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Do I look like I'm fighting at a handicap?] (link: ">")[== You tighten your expression. You've seen Joffey at their most deadly. Really, a handicap is more like a courtesy to people who would otherwise be dead. (text-color:#F0F)[ Just one glove off, Joffey.] (link: ">")[== Joffey theatrically removes one gray glove, casting it to the ground. This is another flex, really-- your gloves give a little extra grip, and the calluses without it are something nasty, especially with Joffey's unadorned hilt. Joffey was trained on gloves, in a place where it mattered not to keep the skin of heirs from the teeth of the blade. But Joffey isn't a nobleman anymore. Now they're a pirate. Most pirates don't live past thirty. Your wrinkles scare people. Your crow's feet scare people. But most of all, your blade scares people. Siel swings forwards, Joffey blocks handily, poking the tip of the blade to their chest. (text-color:#d9480f)[ One. Be more cautious.] (link: ">")[== The black edges of Siel's mouth show at the corners of her teeth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Second point?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ On your mark.] (link: ">")[== Siel strikes again, this time, with discernment. A quick parry, then another as Joffey puts her through an easy flurry of paces, with the weary patience of a teacher. Siel's deepset eyes flick back and forth from their blade to Joffey's, swinging with enough strength that Joffey's narrower blade can hardly take it. But every time, with expert form, Joffey simply steps back, or around. Joffey presses the blade to their forehead, at the point. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Game.] (link: ">")[== Siel sniffs. She laughs, her head pressed precariously against the point of the blade, while you wait, threatened, for it to puncture skin. Finally, she swats the entire sword away, like a fly. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[You a dancer in a past life?] Offended, Joffey counters, (text-color:#d9480f)[Do I not seem like one now, too? ] (link: ">")[== Siel shakes her head. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ What a prize.] (link: ">")[== You clap your hands together. (text-color:#F0F)[ We have dinner to attend, don't we? ] (link: ">")[== Bryll offers a round of applause while you walk off, having assembled, for better or worse, your whole crew during this whole going-on. Joffey clasps a hand to your shoulder. (text-color:#d9480f)[You need to work on your own swordplay. I can't always be your weapon.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ The day you aren't is likely to be the last day that question is relevant.] (link: ">")[== Joffey scans the crowd.(text-color:#d9480f)[ They can't know that, is all I mean.] (link: ">")[== You shake your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry, Joffey. But they almost certainly do.] (link: ">")[== You see Siel sniff, your eyes-- as fish are drawn to a lure-- drawn to the crinkle of the edge of her dark mouth. (text-color:#F0F)[ But they need each other too. And, to their continued chagrin, us as well. We're not alone in that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Be careful whose faith you bet on. People will disappoint you.] (link: ">")[== Siel blinks. You blink back. (text-color:#F0F)[I know.] [[You know.|DECK HUB]]]]

(display:"Weapons Hold D2-1")

You come down to see Siel gently wrapped around Bryll, running long-clawed fingers through her hair. Bryll leans into her like she is sunlight given form. As usual, she's the one to point you out. Lazily, she says: (text-color:#90c6f9)[That's the captain.] (link: ">")[== Siel reaches around Bryll's back. You realize, paling, that she is in fact reaching for her harpoon. (text-color:#F0F)[Hey. I'm leaving.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[You sure?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[She's leaving.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Everybody wins!] (link: ">")[== (if:$bryllroute)[Bryll whispers something into Siel's ear, and Siel sneezes. The lithe weaponsmaster perks up to look at you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[We have a schedule, you know. So that we all have time to ourselves, pair by pair. If you //really// want to hang out, you have to respect the schedule.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'm amenable to that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Good. Bas organizes it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Oh.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Problem?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. I'll go talk to her.] (link: ">")[== Siel tosses her head back, leans into Bryll's large, comfortable arms and sequesters her legs tighter between the curve of her thights. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Good.] [[GOD. I WISH. THAT WERE ME.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[[[y....yay....|DECK HUB]]]

You meander down, not quite knowing what to expect. While her methods may be... ah... unorthodox, you have to admit that there's definitely a need being filled by Siel's training, and you suppose you can only be so upset about that. You do wish people told you what they were doing, ever, but you suppose there is an extent to which that makes you nosy. Being nosy isn't exactly a crime when there might be mutiny on the line, but... deep down it's very simple. You want hot women to invite you, willingly, to fight them. You expect to hear a little hubbub coming from inside-- something you can sneak up on. Hands spread wide open, razz them a little, diffuse the tension, gauge if you should leave or if you're walking, willingly, into another of Siel's psychosexual mind games. You obviously choose the psychosexual mindgames. Your middle name isn't 'Psychosexual' for nothing. It's also not. You had one at some point, but you don't really have legal ID and no one has called you by it since you were six, so this is embarassing, but you've kind of forgotten your middle name. Honestly that probably means that you could wrap around to using 'Psychosexual' as your middle name if you really wanted. It's not like someone is there to stop you. She is sharpening her knife in the corner. She's raking that thing over the whetstone, in a way which is surely suboptimal, and when you make your presence known with a little cough she puts it inside her long, white coat. (text-color:#F0F)[ So... uh... knife sharpening day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Wrestling. She places the knife down, bends low.] (link: ">")[== Okay so that's definitely either a threat or an invitation. Either way, you're down. (text-color:#F0F)[ Just the pair of us, or...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Are you waiting for someone?] She rises to her full height, the short, bristling white ponytail hanging taut behind her half-shaved head. She stares at you like you are feet below her, somewhere she can barely peer. She stares at you in a way no one has looked at you in a long time. Possibly never. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I was.] (link: ">")[== But why do you get the impression she only ever meant for you to find her, this evening? She practically leaps forwards, a blur of silver and beige, her tight-fitting tank billowing just enough for you to see the edge of her bound breasts before she socks you upside the jaw. Your tongue spilling blood from the edge of your canines, you retaliate by grabbing her and driving her straight to the ground. The positioning, though, could use some work, and she manages to use her weight to swing herself on top. As a sailor, you could live with this. As a captain, fat chance. Your knee greets her stomach, followed, upon her withdrawal, by the knock of a steel-toed boot to her shin. You hear her grimace, but she rushes you, slamming you to the wall with a power unbefitting her soft frame. In the dim light, you see the edge of the cloak about her shoulders rise, the stone she put in it earlier completely gone. Your mouth opens. She jams her elbow in it. Mistake. When she gets cocky enough to put herself in a position like that, you slam her back downwards, managing to get your foot atop her, pinning her like a butterfly. She snarls. You don't trip. You don't know what you do, because there was nothing to trip on. Your leg hurts-- something hit it with concussive force. She doesn't have any barrels nearly close enough, and no part of her was in the right position to-- you're on the ground. You think, for a second, you are going to die buried under her chest, when you realize it's a hand too large to be a hand. She is pressing you directly into the floorboards until they creak, and you gasp for breath and find none. Your legs kick out, and you try to signal a hand to call it, but you can't feel your hands. There is one thing you remember how to do. (link: "Bite.") [== You manage to move your head enough to find purchase in what's holding you, and you grip and tear, hearing fabric rip. She jolts back, immediately, and you see her clutching the extended arm of her worn out cloak out of the corner of your half-grayed vision. With rattling breath, you rise to your feet. (text-color:#F0F)[ This wasn't like the other two days.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Be careful what you bite!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You left me no choice.] (link: ">")[== What burns in her eyes isn't the calculated interest of earlier days, nor the cold fury of her in battle. She looks legitimately hurt. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I didn't want to wound you, I only-- why won't you turn?] (link: ">")[== You tilt your head up, looking down your chin at her as she clutches her sleeves. (text-color:#F0F)[ Whatever you were trying to do. Don't try it again.] (link: ">")[== She laughs, harshly. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ That's easy for you to say. It's like you don't even care if you're alone for the rest of your life.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I've got my whole crew. I have Joffey.] (link: ">")[== She looks at you darkly. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ If you're going to keep lying, just... stay out of my way.] (link: ">")[== She grabs her knife and storms past you, lithely avoiding the shoulder check. You watch her go with a sense of-- well, the adrenaline is gone, along with the ecstatic rush of locking blows with a beautiful woman. You feel-- and not just because of the mutiny-- a strong strain of annoyance. Because, in her stoniness, and at the edge of the blade, she's been something close to honest. You haven't been. And you can't be. And if anything, she should understand [[why.|DAY 3 EVENING]]

(if:$sielseen4)[Siel is lying on her side in the middle of her weapons, like a seal on a beach. Fitting, you guess. But undeniably a little weird. You assume this is another seduction attempt, until you move forward and her eyes shoot toward you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'm recharging. Leave me alone.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's funny. I'm not tired.] (link: ">")[== She snarls, and you recognize the jagged contour of those teeth. They do not make you any more tired, so to speak. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Whore.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Beta.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Those hormonal imbalance theories are disproven, you know.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I wouldn't know! I've never met another werewolf in my fucking life!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Who bit you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Don't know. A deadbeat.] (link: ">")[== She shifts across her weapons, the blade of a bayonet caressing her breast in a way which is as dangerous and impractical as it is unfortunately titillating. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[That's so sad.] She cooes this, eyes flicking upward. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[We're born in the other shape. No chance of abandonment there, unless you're somehow enough of a fuckup to get abandoned by seals.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'm going back upstairs.] (link: ">")[== Siel stretches out, the bayonet narrowly dodging a collision. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Happy to help.] [[damn she's so hot|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(display:"Weapons Hold D4-1")]

Bryll waves you in when you enter the weapons hold, smiling. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Looking for her?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, rather, looking for... training. I mean-- not that I need to train-- more that I find it's useful to brush up on my skills--] (link: ">")[== Bryll's eyes tighten, although that might just be the edges of her wide smile pushing them shut. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ She's upstairs!] (link: ">")[== Oh god. Are they pulling this shit on your deck? How did you not notice earlier? You scuttle upstairs, only to find Bas and Justin... sitting... around. Also Bryll. It somehow doesn't surprise you You pass by. (text-color:#F0F)[ Where's Siel?] (link: ">")[== They point to the edge of the boat, where Siel stands on the very masthead. This would. Well, for anyone else, you'd call it equivalent to a free plank-walk. Yet Siel's not there merely balancing on the thin wood (woah there), Siel has a giant harpoon and is looking at the water a league below, unconcerned. Siel's eyes flit momentarily up to you, then back to the water. Their bob-short ponytail flares gently in the wind. (text-color:#F0F)[ She's done this before?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Constantly... it's how she catches the bigger fish we eat. (if:$siel>5)[She doesn't usually do it in front of crews we don't know as well. I suppose this means she really likes you.]] (link: ">")[== Siel takes three precarious steps down the masthead, then her arm rises. With a deft throw, she launches it out into the water, where it sails, rope glimmering behind it, into the sea. She bends down and begins to pull, moving towards the deck as she does so. (text-color:#F0F)[ Caught something?] (link: ">")[== Bryll, Justin, and Bas all scuttle towards the edge of the boat, to where Siel meets them, dragging rope all the while. She passes the rope to her girlfriends. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Tense.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ That's probably tuna!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Five on it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You shouldn't bet against me, love.] (link: ">")[== Wordlessly, Siel smirks, and you see a silver body emerge from the waves. Out from the depths, glistening, a tuna the size of a person falls onto your deck, mouth gaping. Its gills no longer flare, and the harpoon has neatly sunk down the front of its body. Siel slides it onto the deck, removing her harpoon from it, and turns back to the masthead. She places one foot on the edge of the deck, leaps up, then strides atop the thin, ominous pole. A swift wind billows around her, and she raises her harpoon to the ready. (text-color:#F0F)[ Seems a little dangerous.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well, she can swim.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That she can... seems a little different from her other evening endeavors. Less collaborative.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ That's not the point of watching this.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Then what is, exactly? Waiting for her to fall, too?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Do you understand beauty? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ... Do I understand beauty.] You feel yourself enter a heightened state of reality. If there were trees around, their blooming petals would gently fall and kiss the ground. And there is a horrifying woman, who could give you fish. And she stands at the very edge of the world. (text-color:#F0F)[ Never ask me that question again. ] (link: ">")[== Bas (if: $bas < 3) [leers at you] (else:) [bumps unexpectedly against your shoulder wit her own].(text-color:#257925)[ Fuckwad.] (link: ">")[== [[She doesn't fall, of course. But you didn't expect her to.|DAY 4 NIGHT]]

(if:$sielroute)[When you come downstairs, head buzzing and gums bleeding, you think you are dead. After all, with all that, there's no way... and when you... you close your eyes, trying to fend off vertigo. It isn't working. And there she is, as she's always been. And there you are. As she must have figured out you were, long ago. (text-color:#F0F)[ You shouldn't put us in danger, like that. I've killed people before for much, much less. Just looking at it funny.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ If I couldn't kill you, in either of my bodies, I would deserve to be dead.]She sharpens the edge of the blade with the whetstone, the sound of ringing metal too loud, too abrasive. Deliberate. She looks to you with an emotion you can not place, her neck tilting. Your own neck has a horrible, black-purple bruise, which you run your fingers over. The electric pain of it is too thrilling to be allowed. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Not to mention the risk if anyone had heard us, and we weren't quiet.] (link: ">")[== Her eyes flick up to you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Bas and Bryll handled it. I've done this at night before; they know what my body sounds like when it hits the deck. ] (link: ">")[== Thank god. You can't say you're convinced, but you know better than to bet against Bas and Bryll-- well, at least Bryll-- handling things. Biting back all the 'now I know what your body sounds like hitting the deck, too' you can feel rising with juvenile machismo into your throat, you manage to just ask: (text-color:#F0F)[Why?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I needed to see you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You have. Are you happy?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I will never be unhappy again. ] (link: ">")[== She stares at you, bored, then twitches her lip. She returns to polishing the blade, which you can't help but think looks like her-- (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Lovely night we had.] Siel's eyes flick to you.(text-color:#d2f9c8)[And now you're known. How does it feel?] (link: ">")[== You stammer something incoherent. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[That won't do. Speak up.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I don't usually get to be myself. It's never a good thing when I am.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I'm not here to fix the mess you've made of your beast. I'm here to take advantage. In or out. It's very simple.] (link: ">")[== You flush further. (text-color:#F0F)[I can't offer that very often.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[You're always what you are. Whether you know it or not.] When their face lowers, expression fixed on you with the seal's direness, you feel something turn sideways in your guts. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[What does it want, right now?] (link: ">")[== Wordlessly, you step over to where Siel perches atop a barrel. You bend down, lick beads of sweat from along the back of her hand. You take a moment to breathe her in--you recognize your own smell mixed into hers, infalliable evidence the rest of the crew can hardly read. As your tongue trails up, you lean into a more respectable kiss, pausing there, the back of your neck weighed down by water. You still stink of the ocean. Even Joffey could tell that. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Dog.] (link: ">")[== It isn't an insult. What comes next is quick-- you against the nearest wall, her teeth around your neck, pressed like a dagger to your throat. The noise you make on exhale is atrocious. Your face brindles, a snarl forming. You like to be pinned, but any predator worth its salt hates an unwinnable position. You kick her in the stomach, and her teeth snap just an inch above your chest as she falls. Seizing her momentum, you slam both of her arms against the wall, kicking away her harpoon. Her knee hits you in the groin, and you pointedly ignore it. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Did you come on this ship because you knew?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Would that really surprise you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You smelled me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[You knew me, and ignored it.] She twists your arm, wrenches you off. A dagger swings from her pocket-- (if:$knifequest)[Bas'es--]and lunges for the side of your neck. You duck, attempt to swing her legs out. She bounces off the back of the ship, undeterred. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Don't make too much noise. You'll bring attention.] (link: ">")[== You grab her bottom lip with yours. You feel her voice rumble in your throat. (text-color:#F0F)[I'm not the one who needs to shut up.] (link: ">")[== When she draws back, licking her lips, the two of you stand on even ground. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Alright.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[... What then, selkie?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[We'll see.] Her look is coy, closer to the occasional smirk you get from Bas than anything else. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Animal people. We're our own, special brand of fun.] [[You would like to have more fun. As soon as possible, please.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(display:"Weapons Hold D2-1")]

(if:$sielroute is True)[(if:$thing is 13)[On the way down for erm. Well. You will find out when you get down there, you pass by Bryllig, who is on her way up. She gives you a friendly clap on the back. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Hey girl hey! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Hello, Bryllig, hello.] (link: ">")[== Bryllig flashes you a grin. (text-color:#90c6f9)[I'll leave the big dogs to it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[She's a-- wait, she told you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[No secrets, no lies, no gods, no masters. It's sort of a QPArgh thing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[And you're not...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Afraid of the big bad wolf? No, I'm not. If you want me to put on a little red coat, though, I definitely enjoy some roleplay now and again.] (link: ">")[== Your eyes slide off to the side, thinking of Joffey. It seems you can never not think of Joffey, and isn't that the worst? Even when actively pursuing someone else, there's your little ginger, always on the corner of your mind. Doubtlessly, complaining about you. (text-color:#F0F)[I don't think I'm ready to make that much light of it, yet.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Someone's got history.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[We... all have history. That's one of the things that brings us to the sea.] (link: ">")[== Bryllig's eyebrows slack into something more sympathetic. She gives you a big, tight hug, and you walk down past her, to the weapon hold.]The smell of fish assails your nose. Then something harsh, familiar, damp, like home to you now. You never thought a week could so quickly reverse your opinion on anything, especially yourself. (text-color:#F0F)[(if:$dayfourseen)[Round two?](else:)[What've you got in store for me?]] (link: ">")[== Her eyes rise from her cutlass. It's really a weapon that disappears when you sharpen it, like the pencil of swords, poor quality metal, made to be stolen and restolen until it disappears. There's no reason to take good care of it. But it doesn't hurt, sometimes, to offer a little extra care, even if it's for nothing. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Come here.] (link: ">")[== You walk over, bracing yourself, fingers flickering over your own concealed blade. Siel finds a spot with more than a mote of sun, where the patterns from your mediocre deck contract into a brilliance mottling itself across the floor. She lies down there, across your coat. Extends her stomach, folds her hands in like the animal she is. And like an animal, she blinks into quiet contentment, perfectly still. You settle down beside her. She makes no real motion to accomodate you, but you slowly begin to close your eyes. It's comfortable here. Safe. You take a deep breath of her skin, her pelt, her hair. Exhale. Time passes. You are safe, and you are yourself. [[And you are happy.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(display:"Weapons Hold D2-1")]

(if:$sielseenday5)[{(set: $thing to $thing-1)  {(set: $bas to $bas+1)(set:$bryll to $bryll+1)}} You turn around-- damnit. You have other things to do today, but you can't make yourself do them. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Go. Run your ship.] (link: ">")[== When you open your mouth, she offers: (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Please? I don't want to lose this. You're the only thing that can keep it together.] (link: ">")[== Your eyes flick to the side. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I'll talk to them. They know... how much you mean to me. But that also does mean they know what you are.] She kisses your nose, and your nostrils flare. As if in a dream, you ascend the stairs, adjust your hat, flush out splinters from your coat. Yes-- you have to protect heaven. You have to be good.] (else:)[(display:"Weapons Hold D5-1")]

(if:$sielroute)[You (if:(visited:"Weapons Hold D5-1") or (visited:"Weapons Hold D5-2"))[return back as fast as you can, because there's nothing but her, and the newness of the thing that you have together, that will satisfy you now.](else:)[finally find time to visit her again, after so much dreck with all of your other crewmates]. The second you're around her again, you realize how-- different it feels, to talk to someone else like you. It's like some giant weight has lifted, slunk clean from you, as long as you aren't forced to be holding that animal back. It comes to the front of your consciousness, easy as breathing, as you step over and place your head on your shoulder, feeling a phantom muzzle as you breathe in the damp, unmistakeable scent of another animal. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Affectionate... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I can be less.] (link: ">")[== She runs her fingers against your scalp, the slow pet turning into a grab at the back of your head, in the deepest parts of your forest of black hair. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I didn't say for you to be less.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, yes?] You bite her shoulder, a gesture not so much sexual as the aggravating play of a dog with a much larger dog. She insists on being the larger dog by throwing you to the ground, falling upon you only to land in a perfect push-up, straddled above. (link: ">")[== She looks down at you and bares a full set of white teeth and black gums. She licks her chops. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ What now? ] (link: ">")[== |hook1>[(link:"Engage.")[(replace:$hook1)[ You hook your knee under her belly and push up. She buckles, but it's not nearly enough to push her off-- should've used both legs. Her foot slams your leg back down-- she's a little rough. You'll need to set some norms, the pair of you. (text-color:#F0F)[ Fuck.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Mmmm. I'll need to show you how to do that one right.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Fuck you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Watch your words, or you'll fuck yourself tonight. ] You narrow your eyes. You |hook2>[(link:"engage.")[(replace:$hook2)[ That's not going to be how you settle this, damnit. Your other leg swings her sideways off of you. Your calves hit like a wave, in something you and Joffey have called the Buckler, sometimes in bed, sometimes in battle-- hey, you're flexible. She gives-- you've noticed she commits harder than Joffey or Bas, who have better stability. If you can get Siel off-guard, you can get her off you. She tumbles, rolling back into a defensible position, and you spring after her, getting a hand against her chest. She smacks it aside, kicking your legs, and takes the moment of shock to hold you down, this time by your back. This is crab levels of stuck. You've wrestled yourself into a shittier position. |hook3>[(link:"Engage!")[(replace:$hook3)[ You shuffle. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No, I don't think so.] She pins both hands together, against your own back. Her knee is doing distracting things with your ass. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ What are you to do now? Die?] (link:"GIVE HER A LITTLE KISS. I AM NO LONGER ASKING.")[ Finally, you give her a little kiss. There. Was that so fucking hard? It's sloppy. You kiss her on her one free arm, since you can't even reach anything else when she's on your back, and it's not even that much of a kiss, because you are so completely restrained. It's more of a white flag than a kiss, but it might be the only white flag you have. You failure of a captain and a warrior and a dog. She kisses you back, on the arm. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You're a fighter.] Then, not the least abashed, she adds, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You smell nice.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm in heat.] (link: ">")[== She kisses your arm again, working up to the neckline of your shirt. She pauses there, breathes deeply. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Ok. Then she stands up.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Okay? Do you have no shame?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No. Come back later. I don't want to rush before dinner.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ How am I supposed to enjoy dinner?] (link: ">")[== Siel gives you a quick peck on the head. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Just pretend you're ripping me apart instead of the fish.] (link: ">")[== Something is horrifically wrong with her. You want her so bad. [[To dinner, for normal reasons.|DAY 5 EVENING]]]]] (link:"Or you could give her a little kiss, mwah mwah mwah...")[(replace:$hook3)[ You lunge for her arm like you're going to bite it, and give her a little kiss. She yelps like she's been bitten, and you're able to roll her off. You kiss her again, and she squeaks. (text-color:#F0F)[ !] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No.] (link: ">")[== You kiss her again, this time on the neck. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No, no--] (link: ">")[== You dispatch her with a flurry of blows. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Stop, that tickles-- no!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're sensitive?] (link: ">")[== Something returns to her gaze, a nicitating membrane drawn across her eyes, which glow orange in the dim light. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Tell anyone and I kill you.] [[Okay~~~|DAY 5 NIGHT]]]]]] (link:"give her a little kiss.")[(replace:$hook2)[ You sigh, give her a little kiss. (text-color:#F0F)[ You've got me.] (link: ">")[== She whispers into your ear, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ That's what I thought.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ How often do you do this, exactly? You've got the prey drive of a new hunting dog.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Not often motivated.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're only interested in other monsters, hm?] (link: ">")[== She nods. (text-color:#F0F)[ No Spate?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Bad opinions on what we are.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You sure we're not going to have a disagreement on what we are?] (link: ">")[== She puts a finger to your head, flicks you with another. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ There isn't a thought in there.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Watch it.] (link: ">")[== She rises. Running the ball of her heel against your chestbone, she says, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Make me. ] Then she leaves. Probably to taunt you to her two beautiful platonic wives. She has too much game to keep throwing you on the ground. Next time you'll have to have her. Bad. [[Fucking fuck. Later.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]]]]] (link:"Give her a little kiss.")[(replace:$hook1)[ You tap out by tapping in-- her lips to yours, a gentle kiss. Really just a push-up where your mouths meet. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Fool, she says, and takes your face in hers. She gives you something to think about, and marks around your neck that you'll need to tighten your collar to cover. After all, blight forbid that anybody realizes how compromised you are.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You like tongue? You ask. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're feisty.] (link: ">")[== She looks away, trying to hide the peach flush. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I like teeth.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No shit.] (link: ">")[== She throws you back as she leaves, storming out. (text-color:#F0F)[ You like my little fangs? You think they're cute? Want a little munch?] (link: ">")[== You hear her footsteps accelerate into a fullon run as she turns the corner. Coward. Coward. COWARD. [[LOSER.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]]]]]]] (else:)[ For the first time in five days, Siel is not locked in the weapons hold. You have nothing else to do in here without her... not really. You've (if:$sielvisits < 3)[been here very rarely] (else:)[become accustomed to meeting her here, by now] and the place feels very empty without her. Remarkably neat, given that you suspect her and her girlfriends often sleep here for a little extra privacy (and the comfy tarp they've set up in the corner, surrounded by bedding). All the munitions are exactly where they'd need to be, the cannonballs below the cannons, fishing implements sharpened, polished, and mounted on the wall. You thought, when you hired her, that it was a little silly to have someone singularly dedicated to weapon maintenance, but you've since come to realize that you've essentially just hired someone to kill on command. Which in your line of work, is not a gift to be taken for granted. You search for her below, finding a shrug from Spate and no answer but the insistent pound of the cleaver from Grog's end. When you walk up below the heavy gray of the sky, though. Then you know. (text-color:#F0F)[ ... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ ...] (link: ">")[== She's fishing off the starboard side of the boat. You've never seen the reel before, but it's long enough to cast, so it's probably... enough. You could've sworn you've seen her harpoon fish over the side of the boat (which seems like a really confusing way to do it?). Sometimes it feels like half your crewmates' behavior might be tricks of the light. She's fishing now, though. Normally. That's a promise. You come to sit next to her, line your mouth with snuff. Her lip curls at your intrusion, but that's all. (text-color:#F0F)[ Anything biting?] (link: ">")[== She points to a fish on the ground besides her, of normal size, silver, unassuming. Its mouth hangs weakly open, its gills no longer flaring. A cut across its neck ensures it didn't suffer long. (text-color:#F0F)[ Not worth throwing some nets down?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ This is recreational fishing.] (link: ">")[== You cast her a look. She volleys back, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We'll be fed the whole way home, and then. You aren't aware what you owe me.] (link: ">")[== So once again, that sounds like a threat. You'd expect nothing less from her. You'd want something nicer, but she is, more than ever, recalcitrant. Drawing water from the edge of her blade would be easier, and it would be softer to place your hand around that and crush it. (text-color:#F0F)[ If you can extrapolate, I can reward you properly.] (link: ">")[== Siel's mouth curls again. You see something that should not be in a human mouth. You try to remember the last time you saw her mouth open and come up with a total blank. A harsh wind off the side of the boat sets your hair on end. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You can let me fish.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Got another rod?] She hands you her rod. (text-color:#F0F)[ Now I wait?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Now you wait.] (link: ">")[== The sun must be setting, somewhere behind those clouds. Night must be coming in, somewhere in the crimson and gold and purple. Siel's face is cast in a dilute frame of indeterminable color. Her gray eyes gaze through it, indifferent. (text-color:#F0F)[ I keep getting the feeling you're not happy with me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I am looking for something I will not find. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sounds like a desolate life to lead.] (link: ">")[== She closes her eyes. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ All lives are made desolate, by the sea. It reminds us that we aren't what it is. No longer bound by a contiguous stream of salt, to breathe and hold and travel, to eat and be eaten by without leaving the womb. We are abandoned, on land.] (link: ">")[== You get a tug on your rod, and you cast it up as fast as you can. You cackle with laughter, but as you pull it in with your hand, you realize that whatever tension was there has slacked completely. By the time the hook appears over the side, it does so empty. Siel takes the rod back. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I should get back to work.] She grabs the fish in her hand, holds the rod in the other, metal hook limply dangling from its end. She steps across the hold, into the darkness, and you do not follow. [[There is nothing to say.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]]

The open sea is known for its beauty, but also its consistency. As the sea is large, and self-similar, your boatswain is large, and self-similar, in that you see him now in the same completely open shirt, with a long, elaborate coat flaring out behind him and a single feather bouncing fitfully in his very lovely hat. When you wave to him, he nods with gusto. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[The good captain! What can I help you with?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Making my rounds.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I promise I'm doing my best, sir!](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Oh I didn't doubt it.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Oh. Good.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Excellent.](link: ">")[== You remain there for a while, doing what some might call 'dawdling'. You purse your lips. It would appear that there's very minimal work to be done at sea. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I can't exactly move, but if you need me to whittle some wood, or something, I could try to do it with my feet?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You can whittle with your feet?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Well, not exactly, sir, but if the ship demanded it! I don't know how much I could do, but I would certainly try not to fail her!](link: ">")[== You feel a tear rising to your eye. This man is the very picture of dilligence, and a consummate professional. (text-color:#F0F)[Never mind, Sam. I love you. Carry on.] [[Your heart swells with nothing short of pride.|DECK HUB]] {(set: $sam to $sam+1)}

Sam waves to you. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Lovely day, isn't it captain! (text-color:#F0F)[It is in fact a lovely day. How are you enjoying it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Same as I were earlier, Captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Fantastic. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[How are you, Captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Sweet lord, better now.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Ha! I assume that's why you keep coming back. Need me to whittle with my feet?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You... can do that?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I would be willing to do anything for the good ship Misadventure!] (link: ">")[== You are truly flummoxed by this guy and his commitment to the cause. You wish you could ask Bas to whittle with her feet. Actually you don't because that would be a really weird thing to ask. What you wish is that Bas showed a similar level of enthusiasm, which you know, it really, doesn't need to involve feet, and in fact should not do that. (text-color:#F0F)[Awesome.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Something on your mind, cap?] (link: ">")[== (if:$gift is "tub")[(text-color:#F0F)[My beautiful boy... I actually need you to leave your sunlit kingdom and descend into the depths. Our mutual escort, the mermaid, demands a tub, and you happen to be gifted, as you are in so many things, in the art of carpentry. Can you do this for me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You seem really choked up about this. Everything alright, cap?] (link: ">")[== Nothing is ever alright ever in your stupid life. Nothing except this guy. (text-color:#F0F)[No, I just might need Joffey to man the wheel or something.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Eh, I can set it. Plus, we're sort of just going straight all day, and there are no waves. I'm more of a decorative figurehead than a sailor on days this good, haha!] (link: ">")[== What a figurehead. Truly could you ask for a better display of pristine masculine beauty. You want to ask this guy to like, teach you his ways. You want to drape your body around his and watch as the sun shines on you both. What you actually need to do is get back to work because, for real, he is not going to do anything for you at this point. [[Fucking... just love this guy... he's so fantastic... god damn.Hell yeah.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[Nah.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Oh. Cool.] (link: ">")[== They stare headlong off into the distance. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Think I'm going to go now.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[At your leisure, Captain!] [[yep|DECK HUB]]]

The sun is beginning to set. This is a perfect canvas on which the sun can paint a gorgeous array of oranges and golds across Sam's bare chest. Well, it's not entirely bare-- he does have a generous wrap of bandages around the center, from god knows what terrible injury. How brave of him to just thrust that out into the world! What masculine elegance demanded by bravery in adversity! You also just, really like his chest, covered or not. So you're mainly just excited that he doesn't also have a mysterious injury across his abs. He has a pack numerous enough to feed a fraternity of thirsty landlubbers. His head tosses your way, his little cap-feather dancing in the wind. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[My good captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Sam!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Goodness gracious. How are you today?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'm here, aren't I?] (link: ">")[== Incredulous, you see Sam stare up at the purpling sky, then down at the floor of the deck. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[... Me too.] (link: ">")[== You stare at each other for a while, and you twiddle your thumbs on the deck. It's not something you'd object to, no. Accurate characterization of the situation. You pop your mouth a little, put your hands in your pockets. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[So... did you need anything?] (link: ">")[== (if:$gift is "tub")[(text-color:#F0F)[Can you go upgrade Spate's tub? They're feeling extremely cramped.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Oh.... that's horrible. I'll get right on it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Thanks.] [[Fantastic encounter. Good job guys.|DAY 1 EVENING]]] (else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[No...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Um, alright, me neither.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Cool, cool.] [[Return to the deck.|DAY 1 EVENING]]]

(if:$seensamday2 is True)[You return to Sam after your (if: $samblush is "If your boobs were a fish... they would be a flounder. They are like that flat.")[dreadful](else-if:$samblush is "I'd go so far as to call you the mam of the hour.")[intellectual](else-if:$samblush is "One could even say, you are the breast of us.")[incredible](else:)[confusing] attempt at flirting.] You look at him for a while. You put your hands on your pants, at first thinking it looks like a nonchalant gesture, but as he frowns you realize you kind of look like you're tired? Or summoning a dog, neither of which are exactly what you're going for here. Then you run in the opposite direction again. Like a winner. (else:)[(display:"Deck Deck D2-1")]

The sea today is perfectly flat, with not so much as a breath of wind to guide you. However, with all the breath the water lacks, lies your admirable boatswain, Sam Bellows! He looks headlong into the water with a sailor's smile, and turns one to you, with glittering teeth. (if: $seensam is true) [(text-color:#e6e8d9)[ My good captain. I swear we've been met just the other day. I know you make the rounds daily, but... well, I certainly can't command special attention, can I? If something is lacking in my performance, just let me know. I'll amend it posthaste.] To emphasize, he does a little salute, before clasping the wheel again. It literally has not moved, and likely wouldn't even if he were to move away for a little bit. Also he has a little stand for that. (if: $spatespecial is true) [You know that because you literally had the man ditch his post for several hours to tote lumber around. Good god.]] (else:)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ My captain, my captain! Haven't seen you for a moment... I haven't done anything wrong, have I? You'd let me know if I did, right?] (text-color:#F0F)[ You haven't done anything wrong, Sam.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Alright. ] (He looks extremely unconvinced.)] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So... what am I needed for now?] (link: ">")[== (if:$joffeygift is "tobacc")[(text-color:#F0F)[ I actually needed some snuff, I'm out. Don't worry, you'll be compensated handsomely later.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain! I'm always compensated handsomely.] You can't help but crack a smile at that one. (text-color:#F0F)[ Indeed... you really are fantastic. ] Sam passes you a small, beautifully inlaid container. Drat, Joffey's totally going to know this is Sam's. You're going to have to sneak out and rehome it after dinner. Still, you're sure they'll appreciate it.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Cap, you were staring off into space... something on your mind?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (You lie, unconvincingly.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Just doing my rounds again. What's the forecast?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Bas told me this morning!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ So... what was it? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hm. ] (link: ">")[== His brows furrow in intense concentration. You're not sure if this is him trying to figure out the forecast from the current conditions, trying to remember what Bas said, or mentally combing through how one would even deduce the forecast. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Flat as my chest, Captain! He flashes you a big smile.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam, you have admirable pectorals.] (link: ">")[== Bashfully, he looks away. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And I'm sure they are just, just flat as a board under there. If a board was rippling with muscle.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ ... My captain.] You think you see a solitary tear escape his eye. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You truly are the greatest captain any sailor could ask for.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, I'm only good as my crew, and you're singlehandedly holding up the average, there.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Stop. I'm going to blush! ]You see him shuffle his feet a little. You decide to go in for the finisher-- |hook>[(cycling-link: bind $samblush, "If your boobs were a fish... they would be a flounder. They are like that flat.", "I'd go so far as to call you the mam of the hour.", "One could even say, you are the breast of us.", "You're s-pec-tacular, Sam.") (link:">")(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ $samblush] (if:$samblush is "If your boobs were a fish... they would be a flounder. They are like that flat.")[ Sam stands still for a moment. With one, exaggeratedly long nod, he stops. Finally, at last, your beautiful boy says: (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ We can work on that, Captain. Really we can.] (link: ">")[== God fucking damnit. Utter failure. You might as well [[crawl away...|DECK HUB]]]] (else-if:$samblush is "I'd go so far as to call you the mam of the hour.")[Sam "hmmms" for a long time before at last clicking his fingers together. You take this as a sign that at long last, the ship has reached the harbor-- Sam has gotten the joke. With some enthusiasm, he says: (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh, awesome. Not mam as in ma'am, mam as in the mammary gland. From the... ]Sam puts their hand to their bound chest. They nod resolutely. You nod back. Information... has been transferred...! (link: ">")[== You have received a good score in flirt, something which is reasonable to want and possible to achieve. You consider high-fiving the air, but pushing the advantage is rude. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You're so collected, Captain. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yep.] [[End it on a high note. Run.|DECK HUB]]] (else-if:$samblush is "One could even say, you are the breast of us.")[Sam puts his hand up to his mouth, as if about to cry. Slowly, you see his eyes begin to water. Before you know what's going on, Sam picks you up and twirls you. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ HA! The breast of us. I'm going to use that one. Oh, Captain...] (link: ">")[== Sam. There is no need to be that touched. You recuse yourself from his arms, gently brush your collar. (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not just weapons I've learned to spar with.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ohoh, I'll get you back! You're... our... fantastin. Get it? Like fantastic? and Captain?] (link: ">")[== You stare at him blankly. He is smiling at you with the kind of enthusiasm that would be brutal to rupture. You smile, in a way that makes you feel a little insincere. And then you [[go.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[Sam stares at you blankly. At last, they give a long, slow, stiff nod, as if awakening from a dream. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ok. Cool.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Cool?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Cool.] (link: ">")[== You give your boy a thumbs up. He raises one too. You, uh, really don't know how to talk. To other butches. At all. Does Sam know what pectorals are? [[um. bye?|DECK HUB]]]]

(if:$sam2seentwice)[You find yourself circling the desk around to Sam again, like some sort of horrible primeval boomerang. These sorts of things truly are just a never-ending atrocious circle for you, aren't they? You figure it's not weird, because Sam parks all day in literally the singular most visible position on the ship, so it's not weird, but right now it feels kind of weird? (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You're coming by here a lot today, Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[What can I say? The weather's not the only thing without the wind in its sails today.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You always put the wind in my sails, Captain!] You instinctively look down. So does Sam. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Not that I-- I mean-- Sam buries his head in his hands. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I'm so sorry, Captain. I don't even have a penis.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Look man, me neither.] The aggrieved butch looks at you mournfully. Truthfully, both of you probably have a penis lying around here somewhere, right? At least one between the pair? Some sort of geoduck from a distant shore? A peg leg? (text-color:#F0F)[Can we just... call today even?] (link: ">")[== Sam nods vigilantly. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Of course, Captain. Sounds good to me.] You don't know if Sam knows what he agreed to, or if you entirely know what you're calling off, either, but you decide to just mentally erase the entire day from memory. [[Nothing of substance was gained or lost today. All in its proper place. Amen.|DAY 2 EVENING]]] (else-if:$sam2seenonce)[(display:"Deck Deck D2-2")] (else:)[(display:"Deck Deck D2-1")]

(if: (visited: "Deck Deck D3-1") is False)[(display: "Deck Deck D3-1")] (else:)[ You wander out onto the deck and see Sam sitting there, at the edge, with a lopsided smile on his face. Siel's not too far away, netting fish, and you can even see Justin plucking his lute near the masthead. Sam's head tilts toward yours. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Back for more? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F) [Sorry to disrupt if you were busy.] (link: ">")[== Justin casts you a smile, tips his feathered cap to you. (text-colour:cyan)[ Fate is never busy, but always occupied.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ha! I'd assume these would be exactly the times fate //would// be busy. Who else is supposed to chronicle our heroism?] (link: ">")[== Justin strikes a chord. (text-colour:cyan)[ Probably Joffey.] (link: ">")[== You sniff. (text-color:#F0F)[ We can't all be literate, Justin.] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:cyan)[ I'm certainly not.] (link: ">")[== Sam claps you playfully around your shoulders. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[We don't need to write. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's what I'm saying.] (link: ">")[== Sam extends a hand into the middle distance. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ With this boat as our pen, and the ocean as our logbook, we can write whatever we want into the waves themselves. Let me be your pen, captain.] (link: ">")[== You extend a hand to him, and his face breaks from a warm smile into a giddy grin, flecks of light riding off the water and glittering in his eyes. He grabs your hand, firmly, and brings you into stance. Justin's plucking advances in tempo, leading the pair of you into a bawdy instrumental of a sailor's song you know well enough to sing in your sleep. Without the lyrics, your feet tap the verse against the wood, and with the chorus, Sam spins you, once, twice, and again. You fall back into his arms, laughing, and he sweeps you off your feet for the next round. (link: ">")[== Usually, you get to lead, but every now and then, it's nice to change your mind. Sam spins you away, and then the two of you, flung back together by the hold of your remaining clasped hands, fall into each other, a pile of idiot sailors on the deck. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Don't either of you have something to do? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's good sailing! Thank the moon!] (link: ">")[== Bas extends an arm to the blue, moonless sky. (text-color:#257925)[ She's not conscious!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hey, usually I'm not either, and you're still polite enough, aren't you, Bas?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ That can be changed.] (link: ">")[== You stand up, eyeing them. (text-color:#F0F)[ Give him a break! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, give me a break, Bas!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I haven't seen YOU dance like that, after all--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ I'm classically trained!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Words mean nothing between sailors, lookout.] (link: ">")[== She groans, and you see her head disappear from over the side of the cuppola. For a while, you think she's gotten sick of you (well, that's one way to win an argument) and then you see her sliding down the ropes. You file away how easy she is to taunt when it comes to her training for future use, and gesture to Sam. (text-color:#F0F)[ Go on. Show him a good time?] (link: ">")[== Bas looks mildly flabbergasted (if:$bas > 6)[(did... she want to dance with you?)], but raises her hand like she's letting sand pour through it, or holding a skull. Sam sort of picks at it, and they end up in an awkward grab that looks more like a business handshake than the start for a dance. She uses her other hand to shift his limbs into position, then adjust his back until he stands straight. (text-color:#257925)[ Foxtrot. 4-4. On your mark.] She spares Justin a dour glance. (text-color:#257925)[ Can you do that?] Justin responds with a strum of the lute, and off they go into a dance that even you must admit is, if nothing else, better structured than what you provide. Your toe taps along to a steady beat and syncopated movements, always just a second away from catastrophe as Bas works him through whirling choreography. Sam, to his credit, is impressive at following, and even taking that role, his brawn and loose-fitting shirt means he has to do very minimal work for Bas to make him look imposing. You watch her swashbuckle him back into a corner, using only their interlocking hands, and bend him down as Justin gets the memo and carries the song into a rousing crescendo. Still holding him, Bas bows, and swings him back onto his feet. Sam breaks hand contact to clap. (text-color:#257925)[ That's how it's done.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Brava. Hard to deny.] Your applause is honest and whole-handed. You're never one to pass up a good show, and you know they swing hard in dance as they do in battle. (link: ">")[== With a smirk, Bas saunters back up her ladder. Meanwhile, with a tug on your shirt, Sam drags you to him. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Keep a secret, captain?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Easy,] you whisper back. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I enjoyed dancing with you better.] (link: ">")[== You are going to be smug about this until you die. [[And maybe also afterwards.| DECK HUB]]]

You stride atop the deck, pacing in your usual everyone-who-actually-needs-to-do-something-is-doing-it circles. There's this specific point on the deck that has been worn so smooth by the butt of your shoe, like an old man's head, that sometimes you come back and lovingly reunite with it just for kicks. You notice Sam staring at you and pretend to be stretching, something he takes as an invitation to wander over. (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah, at ease, helmsman.] (link: ">")[== He pulls out of a stretch into a salute, overcorrecting and almost falling over the wheel. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I'm always at ease. You can call this, uh, easy peasy, captain.] (link: ">")[== What is he saying. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What are you up to?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Gathering intelligence. Stretching. Enjoying the top of the hour. You convincingly dive into a stretch, leaning back and forth to crack those rancid muscles of yours like a glowstick, which are definitely time period accurate don't question it. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ooooh. Gathering intelligence from who?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[... Others.] (link: ">")[== Sam's face lights up. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Are we going to gossip?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, do you have tea on anyone?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ As much as I can scrape off the old block!] (HISTORICAL NOTE. AT THIS POINT IN TIME, TEA WAS OFTEN DISTRIBUTED OVERSEAS IN HUGE BLOCKS, AND SHAVINGS WERE USED TO MAKE "TEA" PROPER BY HEATING THE SHAVINGS IN HOT WATER.) (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ok. Ok. Who do you have tea on?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Everyone! Who do you want tea on?] (link: ">")[== |hook>[ (link:"Grog.")[(replace:?hook)[**Grog.** (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Uhhhh. What about them isn't tea, really.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you know anything about them? Where they're from? What they like? (if:$grogroute)[If there's anything that would incentivize them to push someone into a wall?]] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ They're from Venza, but they haven't been back in thirty years.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's the biggest port. Everyone's from Venza.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh? You were from Venza?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Maybe you knew each other, in a past life.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not that old.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ How old are they, anyways?] You both spend a moment in silent contemplation. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah I think that's all I've got.] ]] (link:"Bas.")[(replace:?hook)[ Sam grins. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Bas does fantastic card tricks! They're great with their hands.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sure you're not the first one to find that out.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Huh? I suppose they do demonstrate it to Justin, too...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Surely you're mistaken. They don't swing that way.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh... oh!!! No, no. No.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh? Eh.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No.]]] (link:"Spate.")[(replace:?hook)[ Sam beams. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What do you want to know? She's an open book?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Really.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, you just have to come in ready to ask questions and listen!] With a more thoughtful cadence, he adds, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh, of course I'm sure you already did that. So you probably already know their real name, their exes, their last encounter with a pirate crew...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Run it by me again?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Maybe you should run it by them. My memory's so bad, I bet I'd mix it all up, ha!] He looks at you with earnest puppy-dog eyes. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Forgive me?] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't have much of a choice...]]] (link:"Siel.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So, you know how her name is Siel?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And she's supernaturally good at fishing?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And she's got that cloak she sometimes wears around her waist which perfectly matches her hair, that she won't let anyone touch?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Not in so many words, but I guess I've seen her wear it once or twice.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So, I think... she can talk to seals.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You. Uh.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah! Think about it! Since the cloak smells like fish, she attracts them with that and then gets them to catch the fish for her! It all makes sense!] (text-color:#F0F)[ There... are no native seals this far offshore...] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh...]He looks crestfallen. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Back to the drawing board on that one, I guess.]]] (link:"Sam.")[(replace:?hook)[ Sam lights up. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Now this guy, I've got him busted wide open. Like a nut.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What's he into?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Sailing, beer, beautiful women...] (text-color:#F0F)[ No, I mean like... in bed.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Pillows?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Is he interested in taking women to bed?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, but he can't tell if they're interested. That's a secret between the two of us, alright? ] Ho boy.]] (link:"Joffey.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Aren't you the Joffey expert?] (text-color:#F0F)[ The wise man knows enough to know that he may not know nearly enough.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Wow... that's so sage. I guess I can start with the fact he, uh, really hates Spate?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I know.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ He gets super flustered when you check in on him multiple times a day, I can hear him yelling from here...] (text-color:#F0F)[ I know, I'm the one who's checking in on him!] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ He... came from the same ship you did?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Maybe this wise man has just learned he knows plenty.]]] (link:"Justin.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Woah, what a twist! What can I even say about our perennial man of mystery? Well, he did play harp on the mainland... we're talking the big, standing harps. His fingers were said to be the most sensitive in the whole land, but after it turned out those fingers were renowned in many, many places for being the most sensitive in the whole land, he was charged with obscenity. Rumor has it this was because everyone he slept with thought he was so good that they couldn't sleep with anyone else ever again without calling his name, and the rich and sleazy couldn't take the humiliation when they went to local brothels. So he ran away to where the sex and lawbreaking was wilder...] (text-color:#F0F)[ He said on his resume that he was a line chef.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I guess none of those things are contradictory.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah... rough world for harpists, huh?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You're telling me. Economy's in fucking shambles.]]] (link:"Howl.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You want gossip... on yourself?] (text-color:#F0F)[ That is literally the most useful person to hear gossip on. If you're all talking about me, and I don't know it? That's where things get roughest.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Erm... I heard... that some of the crew think you're hot.] You flick your hand. (text-color:#F0F)[ I knew that one.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And you, uh, do you think your crew is hot?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Naturally.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So, if someone thought you were hot. And wanted to take you on a date--] (text-color:#F0F)[ I would simply tell Joffey he needs to be forthright.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh! Yeah! Joffey... I'll tell him.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You really don't have anything besides the astounding news my matelot and I are still married?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No, cap'n... I don't think I do.]]]] You are getting the sense. That potentially. Sam wanted you to think they were cool. Which is very endearing... but it's also not terribly helpful in your ongoing quest. (Which is... what? To survive? To seduce your crewmates? To regain everyone's respect for you? Sometimes it feels like at least a little bit of all three of those things, and sometimes everything you could possibly do feels so small that you have to wonder why you feel so bound to do it right. Sometimes, you think, you're already doing it haphazardly, turning in an imperfect doggy-paddle while waiting for the tide to give you a good enough reason to give in.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Well. It was nice to speak with you. Good intel, soldier.] (link: ">")[== Sam nods, throwing you a salute. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Aye, aye, Captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ At ease.] [[He can't take it easy for the life of him.|DECK HUB]]

(if: (visited: "Deck Deck D3-2") is false)[(display: "Deck Deck D3-2")] (else:)[ ... He's just where you you left him, sitting alone as twilight rolls in. The revelry of earlier in the day recedes, slowly, and there's just you... there's just him. Your throat cracks. You could tell him, couldn't you? Would he hurt you? Could he, really? If anyone, anyone in the world might see you as yourself after seeing you as that-- where's this misplaced confidence coming from? Aren't you sick of putting your lot in with people who didn't ask for your lot? Something about Sam draws you forwards before pushing you back. Makes you feel like a bottle on the ocean. You're used to people naturally repelling you, like water from a duck's glossy feathers, so someone just letting you in, is... you don't realize you don't want to permeate someone's being until they look at you like you're everything. You don't realize you wanted to be a bad leader until someone asks you to be a good one. (link: ">")[== You're stolen from musing by a gentle voice: (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain?] (link: ">")[== You startle, unbecomingly. He turns around, and whatever was there vanishes like morning fog, replaced with a warm smile. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's time for dinner.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Right. Let's go.] (link: ">")[== [[Never mind, love. I wouldn't want to bother you with it.|DAY 3 EVENING]]]

The morning mist is heavy... Sam stares over the water. You're still unsteady from last night-- you're used to the feeling. A drunk night gone south, a poisoned meal, a bad hookup, turning into a giant wolf, killing someone, it's always the same pit in your stomach, that feeling you're not quite in your body anymore, and that you don't know how to fit yourself back in so that there aren't those nauseating pockets of air separating you from yourself. In the heavy mist, you can't shake the feeling that some of your crewmates, too, must occasionally register that something is horrifically wrong. |hook>[(link:"Suffer together.")[(replace:?hook)(if: $sam > 3 and $sam < 7 and not $samroute)[ (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ C-Captain, I'm so sorry, I should be--] (link: ">")[== Your voice is warm, steady. A bed of embers, unthreatening to step over. (text-color:#F0F)[ You need to come to dinner, anyways. At just a few meters away, one can hardly say you've abandoned your post. ] (link: ">")[== They still flinch at the edge of your touch. (if: $samroute) [(You thought-- perhaps mistakenly-- the two of you were closer than this?)] Their eyes bore up into yours, lip flared in an all-too-guilty pout. It's the look you once gave your own captain-- god, you hope you're not turning into your own captain. (text-color:#F0F)[ Was it that unexpected? I can be careful, in the future, if you--] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Nothing of the sort.] Only... Sam wavers. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ If there were something. That determined the future of the whole ship... that you hadn't said much about. You would say something, wouldn't you?] (link: ">")[== It kicks in pistol-whip quick. (text-color:#F0F)[ If there were something of the sort. There might have been a reason that wouldn't be disclosed to you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ah... ]They lower their hat a little bit, the feather bouncing in the sunset. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Forget I said anything.] You step back, gently. [[See, this is why... you do it your way.|DECK HUB]]] (else-if: $sam < 4 or $grog < 4)[Sam puts another line of black tar along the edge of his mouth. Without turning around, he holds out the tin. (text-color:#F0F)[ Always nice to share in your vices, Sam.] (link: ">")[== Sam nods, like a buoy jostled by water. It is a strikingly unconvincing performance by someone whom, for most of your time together, has had the boon of not worrying you every time you talk. (text-color:#F0F)[ Hopefully not too much vice. Would be a shame to drown this early.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ ... couldn't sleep. He turns, and you see that his eyes are a heavy orange that sclera should not be. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You ever see something in there?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ In what. The ocean?] (Keep it light. Keep it light.) (link: ">")[== Sam tilts his head out, again. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah. The ocean. Sometimes I think... I can see buildings in the water, but Bas never sees them, and when we sail through, they're gone...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm... going to appoint Joffey to your station, today, Sam.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Alright. With little protest, he limps past you, and down into the water.] (set: $ohfuck to true)(set: $sam to $sam-3) [[Distantly, you hear the sound of someone banging a knife against a cutting board. Your mouth fills with salt.|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[Sam puts another line of black tar along the edge of his mouth. Without turning around, he holds out the tin. You draw a line to match. (text-color:#F0F)[ Always nice to share in your vices, Sam.] (link: ">")[== Sam yawns, tongue curling in his mouth. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Always nice to share anything with you, Captain.] The warmth in his voice makes your heart want to rocket out of your chest and start furiously beating things to death. You quell the surge of cute aggression by planting a kiss on the side of his forehead. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're fantastic, Sam. Never change.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Well, I was thinking I might quit... Joffey's really inspired me... but if you need a partner to--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'd quit too, if you did.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Really?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's not beer, women, or killing. I can give it up.] (link: ">")[== Sam laughs. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You truly are the coolest person I know.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh god. Don't say that.] (link: ">")[== He knocks his head to your shoulder. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's no use not saying it, right?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Suppose not.] And you knock your head back to his. [[You stay like that for far too long, really. And it's nice, the way sunlight is nice. The way it seems things always should be.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"Suffer alone.")[(replace:?hook) You turn away, let your lantern out. There's no reason to bother him-- god knows, and you hate to say this, he could stand to be a little less good at his job. Watching him follow your every command sometimes makes you feel... well, you know a thing or two about how it feels to not be able to say 'no' to someone. But if you don't know how to say it... his inscrutable, five hundred yard stare wanders out into the fog. You wonder if he's looking for ghosts. You wonder what his ghosts are. [[You leave him to them.|DECK HUB]]]]

(if: (visited: "Deck Deck D3-1") is False)[(display: "Deck Deck D3-1")] (else:)[(if: $ohfuck is True)[You come back to check on him. He would do the same for you-- your faithful helmsman has always been there for nights when you're more storm or fur than person, standing against the edge of the world. In return, you have only misplaced confidence and a split of next to nothing to give him. If all this ends in fire, as it's been promising to since the beginning, you give whatever isn't burned-- well, you give it to Joffey. But you give the second apology, and anything Joffey won't notice gone, to Sam. He stands at the helm, stock still. Dedicated as ever, you think. Then for a moment, you think that he might be dead. You're almost afraid to touch him-- as if the nightmare will only be real at the moment you could confirm it isn't. But you still put your hand to his shoulder. He doesn't turn around. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam.] (link: ">")[== No movement. His skin is ice cold. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam!] (link: ">")[== You grab his arm, and it comes off in your hands, attached not by blood but by dust and ice. The sky overhead hues red, and you see them, at last-- the stones in the water. They've always been there, just out of sight. But when a mouth closes, there is no hiding from its teeth. You shudder, tears filling your eyes, and then you hear it-- The sound of the cleaver, falling. Rhythmically, like the pounding of a heartbeat, or the mashing of molars against each other. (text-color:#F0F)[ Grog? Joffey?] You ask the air, but as your hands fix around the handle of your first mate's room, you realize there is no way in hell you can open it. (link: ">")[== Because they can't... be. If they are, you don't want to know-- you can't know. And even then... the red moon hangs heavy in the sky, round and full, a moon you haven't seen as yourself in twenty years. Your mouth fills with saliva. You remember the last time you saw it-- and it's found you again, despite everything. You were never safe. You were never even out of its watchful eye. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Dear God.] [[No one can hear you, now.|Grog Failstate]]] (else:)[ You're pacing the deck when Sam waves you over. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain!] (link: ">")[== You walk over. (text-color:#F0F)[ Something the matter?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Nothing's the matter at all! Just hanging out with my chum! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What chum.] (link: ">")[== How did you not notice the giant fucking barrel. Of course you know what chum he's talking about, because she's right there, waving her fingers towards you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ If you don't let me out, someone needs to take me for walks. Fortunately, at least someone here cares about my welfare.] Spate draws herself up to an impressive height, and seemingly using only core strength to balance without touching the barrel, gently caresses Sam's chin with two fingers, making high-pitched kissy noises with her mouth. As you come to settle, she bites the side of his neck. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oy! ]Sam pushes her away from his face. (link: ">")[== You fold your arms. (text-color:#F0F)[ What crock of shit is going on here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Er, sorry captain... she did look bored this morning, so while I was changing her water, I figured I'd help her get some fresh air. Doesn't she look so much nicer up here in the sun? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm part siren on my mother's side. We have to come up and eat travellers every few years, but the way I eat them, they always come back for more. ]Spate relaxes into Sam's shoulders, massaging them with those thick, webbed fingers. (link: ">")[== Sam relaxes. (if: $samroute)[You know how tense that back is. Spate is doing the nation a service.](else:)[That looks good as fuck. What the hell.] You can practically hear him purr, a noise you didn't know that Sam could make. You would really like to hear him make that noise. Or make that noise yourself. You are extremely flexible. Blight DAMN that looks so good. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Deep water creature that I am, I must admit the sun makes me look quite good. Don't you think, my big, strong man?] Spate falls across Sam's bicep, practically hanging from it. Her butt is nearly exposed, and yeah, it looks pretty good. She looks to you, knowing literally, exactly what she's doing. (link: ">")[== You make pointed eye contact with Sam. (text-color:#F0F)[ Having fun?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Erm... yes, Captain! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Staying on course?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Always, Captain!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Carry on, then.] (link: ">")[== Spate calls after you, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, you can't spend even a little more time with us? You're such a prude.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ (if: $spateroute)[I'll see you later, won't I?](else:)[I think he can handle you just fine without my help!]] (link: ">")[== Spate calls, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No FAIR, ]after you. But you're already striding away, and the lid of your hat hides the blush. You should probably have asked Bas if she's okay with PDA, because she's in eyeshot, but it's not like she's ever been particularly restrained about it. (link: ">")[== This is the part where I tell you exactly what you're walking away from: the mermaid's skin, nearly translucent in the light, the sensual flutter of veins beneath the skin, of diamond teeth gleaming in the air. Deep pockets of pigmentation set to fire by the midday glow, scales flaking and sparkling off in a way butterflies would die of envy to see. Her gills flaring at her full height, cilia bristling with playful joy as they heave unusable air, suck closed, and then flare again on the exhale. The long tail of the mermaid, notable in motifs across the world, like a woman's hair-- set up in fin upon fin of lazy color, a perfect combination of form and function. You have bought ashore one fantastic looking mermaid. She knows it, and she is having an amazing time bothering you all. [[cool||DECK HUB]]]]

... ... Sometimes, you can't be around people, and you can't be alone. [[...|DAY 4 NIGHT]]

(if: not (visited: "Deck Deck D4-1"))[(display: "Deck Deck D4-1")](else:)[ (if: $ohno)[You are, frankly, against seeing Sam today, after yesterday. It's not that you think-- well, you don't know what you should think. Still, you approach cautiously, seeing nothing in particular... off. (text-color:#F0F)[ Feeling better?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yes, sir!] (link: ">")[== You clear your throat. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam, have you ever seen anyone on this boat do anything... strange? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ On this boat? I think it would be more worthwhile to list people I haven't seen done something strange.] Sam screws up their nose in thought. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Uh, never mind. That's no one.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Really? What's the weirdest thing you've seen Bas do?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Bas does card tricks. Like, slinging a card from the cupola to the wheel card tricks. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oooh.](You're getting distracted.) (text-color:#F0F)[ I mean, more, things of the... occult variety.] (link: ">")[== Sam folds his arms. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No, I don't think so.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're certain.] (link: ">")[== Sam's glance goes dire. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain. If something did happen... you don't sail back into a storm to see what's inside it. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Please. Let it go.] You give them a long, earnest glance, but their expression only darkens. They steady their hands around the wheel, tensing them. You notice the slight tremor, but if you say nothing, no one will get hurt. [[That's always been your modus operandi, coward.|DECK HUB]]] (else:) [It's too damn early to be up, but you have a job... for however long, who knows. Still, you've been on edge since last night, and since you have the skeleton crew to end all skeleton crews, you and Justin sometimes take turns mopping blood from the wood. (The secret about mopping blood from wood is that it never comes out, of course. But you can make it a lot less obvious, and pungent.) So you're not surprised to see Justin there, but what you are surprised to see is that someone's holding Justin's lute, and it's not Justin. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Is that an 'A'?] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:cyan)[ Yep.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So, if I start there-- then go to C-- ]Sam twangs the individual strings, creating a sound not unlike an instrument asking a question. He puts his tongue out, rearranging his fingers on the strings. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I don't understand how you make it fluid.] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:cyan)[ Practice. ]Justin massages a rag into the wood of the wheel, which is no longer splattered with intestines. (text-colour:cyan)[ Show me how to hold a sword, sometime, and we're even?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Sure, sure. Cap! ]Sam frantically waves the lute, only to be stopped by Justin's firm hand on its handle. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Justin's teaching me how to play the lute! It's so... gender-affirming!] (link: ">")[== (text-colour:cyan)[ Sam. Women can play instruments.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I know, I know... but it makes me feel like twinkier eye candy...] (link: ">")[== Justin smiles, good-naturedly. (text-colour:cyan)[ Fancy a try, Captain?] (link: ">")[== You whistle. (text-color:#F0F)[ No, I've got more pressing concerns. Pass me the rag?] (link: ">")[== Justin slings one your way. (text-colour:cyan)[ Most of it's out.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You do good work. Sam, give us a tune?] (link: ">")[== It's a nice morning, and even though Sam starts over every few seconds, it's not a bad tune. The seagulls settle to listen, reminding you you're not as far from shore as you thought, and as the sun rises into the sky, you remind yourself that for all your failings, you've made somewhere people can play music. [[While scrubbing out the blood, but nobody's perfect.|DECK HUB]]]]

You are still pacing the boat. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Really cap'n, I think I got it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I guess that's good to know.] (link: ">")[== The distant rocking of the boat buffets the nothingness that is this conversation. Sam whistles a tune to himself. When you're still pacing, he pipes back in, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You don't think I'm boring, do you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ How could I-- no, of course you're not boring. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I mean. You are the only one who ever visits.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[(if: (visited: "Deck Deck D4-2"))[No, no, Spate visited...](else:)[That's because you're competent.] Also, the crew is stretched extremely thin.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ah. Well, at least we have all our bases covered..?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's my fault.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Well, piracy doesn't pay what it used to. Especially if you don't really kill many people.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I wouldn't say I'm against killing people, per se. I would say I'm against dying.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I suppose that would be a career risk of killing people.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That it is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hmmm.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Before you came, there was a lot more of... last night.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Do y' miss it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I don't miss the person who enjoyed it more, no. Scared my enemies damn near well as I scared myself.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You were very impressive...] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F)[You too, Sam. For a novice.] (link: ">")[== Sam beams. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Heh, I'll take it. Y'know, swashbuckling's what got me into the whole thing... but I knew from the start I didn't really have the guts.] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F)[You've got something a lot more valuable.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[A horrific sleep schedule? Chronic back pain?] (text-color: #F0F)[I was going to say, a heart, but you should probably work on those other two.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Never talked about work-life balance in the swashbucklers, either.] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F)[Yeah, well, Joffey and I have had to read a lot of pamphlets from the union. Just take care of yourself, kid. Or I'll have to hear about it.] [[Leave him alone. You've got enough on your plate without going into the union-mandated "Burn-out Isn't Bollocks-- How To Tell If Your Crew Is Suffering Poor Work-Life Balance" readings.|DECK HUB]]

When you walk by the wheel, you feel a tug at the edge of your coat. You whip around to see Sam looking horribly forlorn. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Say... if all of this doesn't work out.] (link: ">")[== Right. Eleventh hour, and one of your greatest defenders has turned on you. Now this is a regular mutiny. Feigning confidence, you laugh, (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you talking about? It's all going to be fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Of course! But let's say... hypoallergenically... it didn't? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I think that's when... you're allergic to cats.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I'm not.] (link: ">")[== You realize you might be talking so far past each other that the pair of you are in danger of plowing the ship into No Man's Land without so much as turning the wheel. (text-color:#F0F)[ Tell me what you were going to say.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So... you know I whittle, right?] (link: ">")[== (if: $specialflag)[You did.](else:)[You didn't.] Sam ruffles around in his pockets for something. After a good minute, he drags out a handful of wood shavings, in the center of which is a small, crudely carved sculpture. You turn it over. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's a nice woman you've got there, with the hair peaks. ](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh, uh, it's a dog. Standing on its back feet-- there was a bit of a custom back in my homeland to share these little totems back and forth, putting them in the windows, sometimes we'd play games with them where we'd put them on chessboards and have them go on adventures... usually they'd be animal-people.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Is... the dog a woman? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, cap. You were right after all. ]He smiles, softly. You turn it over in your hand, admiring the flat of the wood, the little curve of the tail pressed against the back so it doesn't break off, the playful eyes and little curled smile on the creature. It is, in fact, wearing clothing, specifically, something not asimilar to your coat. Your face tenses up a bit. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's very nice.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Had a good spot of inspiration lately. Lots of time at sea gives you too much time to have idle hands, eh?] (link: ">")[== Yeah your old crew used to say that a lot and none of them were artisans. (text-color:#F0F)[ Mhm.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I'm just saying. If we were tradesmen, we could travel like this, just on land.] You realize he's moved up close to you, which you don't mind, but he's close enough for you to tell that his eyes are just a touch wet. It would be one thing if this were just the sea air, but those are tear tracts, and Sam's breath is dead sober, so this is a feelings-feelings conversation. The sober type. The scary type. And if there's one thing you've learned, you can not duck out of a conversation when the handsome butch has given you a wooden figurine, so no way out but through. Sam continues, at increasing speed, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And Joffey would be our treasurer, of course, and you're the talker, so you'd do the sales. I bet Bryll could cut trees down for material, and since Bas used to do surveying, they could help us //find// the trees...] (link: ">")[== (if: $basknowledge)[Cool how you recently learned that.](else:)[You did not know that.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And I'm sure Siel, uh, Siel could protect us from bandits! And we'll still need food, and if we ever wanted to expand, Spate could help us get an edge in the underwater market...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We're getting Spate in on this before Justin? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh, stars, of course I can't forget about Justin! Do you think he'd do a little jingle for us?] (link: ">")[== You've got to cut him off there before he's written an entire novel about the life you all don't have together, selling wooden figurines. (text-color:#F0F)[ Look, if you're sick of being a pirate, Sam, I'll tender your resignation, but you know I'll never find a better helmsman than you.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I don't want to resign! Sailing's the best thing that ever happened to me!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Just a long, elaborate what-if, then?] (link: ">")[== Finally out of breath, Sam murmurs. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ah--I trust Spate, but if we end up running out of money, anyways... I just don't want anything to happen to our family.] (link: ">")[== You look at him for longer than the situation warrants. (text-color:#F0F)[ Family. ]You run the word over in your mouth. Surely, no one else thinks that-- there's nothing particularly homey about the amount of threatened homocide that goes on here, let alone the ornery company. Piracy is a business of fear, not love, and you'd rather be feared, because being loved is extremely threatening. You're not anyone's father, just their shitty boss, and... you clutch the little figure closer in your hands. You notice, running your finger across the wood, that the buttons are the same as your coat's, with the same number of rows, and the same belt and breaches. (text-color:#F0F)[ I've got a few gold coins left in my coffers. You mind if I buy this off you?] (link: ">")[== Sam's eyes light up. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So you do like it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Of course I like it. Maybe sometime, if we find a ship we don't feel like gutting everyone on, we can put up the merchant flags for real and see if they'll take a few, too. Maybe if we made variants that were less common, we could start a sort of secondary market, get the word out.] (link: ">")[== Sam's smile grows so wide you think he might be in danger of breaking open the edges of his mouth. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You've got a real knack for this sort of thing! Say, maybe if we made the 'rare' variants some sort of gold color? And-- we could give them ranks, and backstories!] (link: ">")[== You spend the evening, discussing your plans for your empire of mildly pirate-based novelty animal people figurines. You have a veritable twenty years of collectable releases planned out by the time you're called in for [[dinner.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]

(if:$joffeyseentwice)[Joffey seems to have locked the door shut, the coy fellow. You certainly hope that they aren't going to lock you out of your room tonight, when you come calling for your bedfellow.] (else-if:$joffeyseenonce)[(display:"Captain's Quarters D1-2")] [[ah well|DAY 1 EVENING]]

You peek into your quarters. They are, as ever, perfectly serviceable. Serviceable as the soft smell of oak that leaches into Joffey and you's clothing, always rendering the pair of you with the same scent... the lovely little bookshelf in the corner, tucked away with more knowledge than the seas know what to do with... a set of candles in case you need summon up any dread gods from the deep... and of course, you and Joffey's twin bayonets, which are nearly out of ammo. They rest in the corner like two old biddies, the picture of domesticity. The rest of the scene, ah, not so much. Joffey gives a quiet "hmph" when you come in, and their ginger ponytail tosses as they throw themselves to scribing madly with a pen. You look over at a list of various preparations, written in the chickenscratch you're sure would be no less apalling if you were literate, which you are not. There's also a map on Joffey's right, as well as a blue-bound book on mermaids. (text-color:#F0F)[Learn anything, yet?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Tsk.] (link: ">")[== You grin. (text-color:#F0F)[What I'm hearing is, you've found out from your studies that our aquatic antiquarian is probably right about the treasure, and now you have to deal with the fact that I made a good decision. Boom. Cue the humorously small instruments.] (link: ">")[== Joffey's lip curls. (if: $joffeytheotherday)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Of course, after the stunt you pulled last night, it only makes sense you would immediately run to me with your tail between your legs.] Joffey pauses in a moment of deep consideration. (text-color:#d9480f)[Apologies if that's offensive.] (text-color:#F0F)[How could it not be? An untucked tail is a captain's greatest asset! Why, have I got my coattails tucked in? ] You do an experimental little spin to check that your coattails are not, in fact, tucked in. You expect the knowledge that they flutter out behind you to placate Joffey, but when you look back over to them, they are scowling even more deeply. One of Joffey's intolerable low moods, you reckon.] (text-color:#F0F)[I could use your help though.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[When couldn't you? Go on and delegate, then.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Alright, I'd really like you to... ] (link: ">")[== |hook>[ (link:"check in on the infirmitchen.")[(replace:?hook)[''Check on the infirmitchen.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey nods.(text-color:#d9480f)[The infirmitchen? Let me guess, you're worried about the food holding for ten more days... not a bad practical thing to be concerned about, to be entirely honest.] (link: ">")[== That was definitely what you were thinking. (text-color:#F0F)[Always good to be prepared, right?](link: ">")[== (Plus, Grog scares the crap out of you.) You think you see a glimmer of respect in Joffey's eyes. (text-color:#d9480f)[Of course, Captain.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Assess our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey braids their hands together in something you recognize as stress. What, Joffey's not afraid of fish, are they? Or are they allergic? Or perhaps there's still an itty bitty bit of tension from back when you, um, well, perhaps Joffey and you have had some disagreements lately. Of course, it's not like anything could keep the pair of you on bad terms for long, but... (text-color:#d9480f)[I'll handle it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Be delicate. This is a complex political situation.] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks back to you with a slight snarl across the bridge of their nose, quickly hidden behind an upwards push of their glasses. Folding their arms, they say, (text-color:#d9480f)[And obviously, you trust me to handle complicated political situations, don't you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No one else.] And a bit more pointedly: (text-color:#F0F)[That's why I'm delegating you.] (link: ">")[== Joffey sighs, slacks their shoulders.(text-color:#d9480f)[Of course Captain. Thank you, Captain.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"survey the weapons deck.")[(replace:?hook)[''Survey the weapons deck.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[The weapons deck.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Wasn't part of choosing to go this infernal route the possibility of having a completely uncontested run of it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Don't be naive, Joffey. We're pirates.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I suppose one mustn't be. I'll get the inventory up to date, and ensure Siel feels confident about how many of our paces we've been put through.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"give our helmsman a reprieve.")[(replace:?hook)[''Give our helmsman a repreieve.'' {(set:$sam to $sam+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[ If I knew you would use my knowledge of sailing to constantly force me to take the wheel, perhaps I wouldn't have taken those lessons.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Heavens forbid you get some sun on your cheeks.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You know I'm far too slight to man the boat with any real efficiency. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That can't be true. You've got a pirate's body, through and through, even though you're happy to pretend you're just a wilted nobleman.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You're just saying that to goad me into doing work I'm hardly built for.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey. If anyone is aware of the limits of your physique, it would be me.] (link: ">")[== Joffey flushes a bright scarlet, looks away. Resentfully, they murmur, (text-color:#d9480f)[I guess it would be you, wouldn't it. Well, I'll do it. But don't expect much. I'm not Sam.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' (text-color:#d9480f)[Why, is something up there?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Just a better view. Not to mention that Bas could serve to hear a thing or two about our current goals, and they aren't going to hear it from me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Ah, a diplomatic mission in your long-standing war against one of our own crewmembers. Am I supposed to threaten them or ask them about their feelings?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Dealer's choice.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I was joking.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[...] You shrug. (text-color:#F0F)[Just check in there for me. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Of course, Captain.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} Joffey squints at you, incredulous. (text-color:#d9480f)[You really are being a clown this week, aren't you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. I want you to have a nice day.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Is this your way of distracting me from a catastrophe?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Close! It's my way of reminding you that everything is taken care of, and we're all going to be alright.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[What a deeply threatening possibility. ] (link: ">")[== Yet, you do see them smile on the way out. And you know time spent by Joffey is never time wasted, so it's not as if you could possibly regret peeking in to give them a break. And it makes you a better captain, too, just to pause in the doorway, remind them things will be alright. Provided they believe you. And stars help you, you think that they just might. [[Thanks, Joffey|DECK HUB]]]]]

(if: $joffeyseen) [Joffey scoffs at you when you enter. You flash your most truly pathetic, loving gaze in their direction, for which you gain an aggressive eyeroll. You squeeze in and around to your quarters, placing yourself daintily on the bed, and Joffey immediately snaps, (text-color:#d9480f)[Do you sincerely not have another damn thing to do?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Nooo... what do you want to do?](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Run the ship somewhere besides into the nearest sandbar!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's Sam's job, Joffey.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[God's wounds, you cretin, one more word of this and I'm going to box you between the ears!] Joffey has used that as an opener for sex on several occasions, so you can be forgiven for meeting this knowledge with an unnecessary amount of enthusiasm. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'll bring the wine, mate. Grog's got to have it.](link: ">")[== There's no hiding it-- your trembling first mate is blushing. Ha, ha.(text-color:#d9480f)[Get out of here!]{(set: $joffeywine to 1)}] [[You do, but you're more than a little coy about it...|DECK HUB]] (else:)[(display:"Captain's Quarters D1-1")]

You storm (if:$joffeyseenday1)[back] into Joffey's-- you mean, your room-- and fling open the door. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey!] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain...] (link: ">")[== (if:$seenbasday2 or $seensamday2)[ (text-color:#F0F)[I have deduced... we are going nowhere.] (link: ">")[== Joffey turns around. (text-color:#d9480f)[Took you that long.] First of all, ouch. Second of all, not what you meant. Third of all... ouch. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I mean today in particular. The weather is not cooperating.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Pulled a page out of your book, did it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I can't fix the weather, Howl, I can't even reel you in, much less the zephyrs. Do you want me to run damage control?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[...Essentially.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Excellent.]] (link: ">")[== (else:) [ (text-color:#F0F)[Tasks!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Oh yes... they appear to be in order, don't they. Why don't we do our silly little tasks?]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Alright, I'd really like you to... ] (link: ">")[== |hook>[ (link:"check in on the infirmitchen.")[(replace:?hook)[''Check on the infirmitchen.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey sighs.(text-color:#d9480f)[Though I abhor the smell of fish, and even more so abhor a waste of my time, I will once again delegate my worries back to your inscrutable whims. So we can consider this more of a blow-for-blow than a proper waste of my time.] (link: ">")[== [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (if:$spatenotseen)[ (link:"assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Assess our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey braids their hands together in something you recognize as stress. What, Joffey's not afraid of fish, are they? Or are they allergic? Or perhaps there's still an itty bitty bit of tension from back when you, um, well, perhaps Joffey and you have had some disagreements lately. Of course, it's not like anything could keep the pair of you on bad terms for long, but... (text-color:#d9480f)[I'll handle it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Be delicate. This is a complex political situation.] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks back to you with a slight snarl across the bridge of their nose, quickly hidden behind an upwards push of their glasses. Folding their arms, they say, (text-color:#d9480f)[So complicated you haven't even talked to the damn fish yet, have you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Hey. Unfair.] (link: ">")[== Joffey rolls their eyes, pinches the bridge of their nose to calm themselves down.(text-color:#d9480f)[If you want to get us into Scylla's mouth, you better not realize while you're in there that you hate teeth, is all I'm saying. Because it turns out our immediate future really... really... depends on you liking teeth.] [[Another inscrutable metaphor? Thanks, Joffey!|DECK HUB]]]]] (else:)[(link:"re-assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Re-assess our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey frowns. (text-color:#d9480f)[Haven't you already talked to the fish?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Well. Yes. But they get lonely down there.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[If I take the steering wheel, can Sam do it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I don't care as long as it gets done, but why do you hate them so much?] (link: ">")[== Joffey shoots you a dour and allegedly meaningful glance. You try not to immediately freeze under the weight of it. [[Fine, then. Keep your secrets, you bastard.|DECK HUB]]]]] (link:"survey the weapons deck.")[(replace:?hook)[''Survey the weapons deck.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} (if:$delegatedjoffeytosielalready)[Joffey smirks. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Surveiled. Don't ask again. Siel and I are like oil and water. (text-color:#F0F)[She likes me fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Oh, is that so?]] (else:)[ (text-color:#d9480f)[The weapons deck.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Wasn't part of choosing to go this infernal route the possibility of having a completely uncontested run of it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Don't be naive, Joffey. We're pirates.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I suppose one mustn't be. I'll get the inventory up to date, and ensure Siel feels confident about how many of our paces we've been put through.] ] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"give our helmsman a reprieve.")[(replace:?hook)[''Give our helmsman a repreieve.'' {(set:$sam to $sam+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[Sam certainly could use it. I think I've never seen him not be at the wheel before, honestly. And when I say I haven't, you know I mean. That he literally. Never leaves. It's impressive as it is concerning.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I mean, I know the industry has some pretty messed up standards for helmsmen, but we're not enforcing those on him, are we?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[No, no, no.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Just benefiting from them.] (link: ">")[== [[Someone (not me) should be looking out for this boy (not me, but someone).|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' (if:$bas < 5)[Joffey stares at you headon. (text-color:#d9480f)[You do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[What do you mean, I do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You heard me. Go talk to them. Yourself. They clearly hate you, and I don't like having to deal with the massive blow your little spat is having on the crew.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[It's not a little spat. It's a consistent obstinance.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Then fire them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[They're too good!] (link: ">")[== Joffey casts you a look. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This time, I'll do it. Next time?]] (link: ">")[== (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Done.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Aren't you going to like... grill me or something?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, I recreate your day from what I hear from everyone else in the boat, and apparently you're doing alright. So I'm going to have to just...] They look mournfully away. (text-color:#d9480f)[Not nag you for once.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Once in a blue moon, huh.]] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} (if:$notdonethis)[ Joffey squints at you, incredulous. (text-color:#d9480f)[You really are being a clown this week, aren't you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. I want you to have a nice day.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Is this your way of distracting me from a catastrophe?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Close! It's my way of reminding you that everything is taken care of, and we're all going to be alright.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[What a deeply threatening possibility. ] (link: ">")[== Yet, you do see them smile on the way out. And you know time spent by Joffey is never time wasted, so it's not as if you could possibly regret peeking in to give them a break. And it makes you a better captain, too, just to pause in the doorway, remind them things will be alright. Provided they believe you. And stars help you, you think that they just might.] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[What are you doing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Wishing... you... a nice day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[We only have so much time in a day. Why are you wasting it?] (link: ">")[== You stare blankly at them. (text-color:#d9480f)[Never mind. Go.] (link: ">")[== You linger in the doorway for a little. When you do finally go, the door whines on its hinges, loud and painful.] [[Thanks, Joffey|DECK HUB]]]]]

(if: $joffeyseen) [Joffey casts you a (if:$joffeyseentwiceday1)[different look from last time](else:)[strange look]. You are no stranger to strangeness from Joffey, so you take all this in stride, but they tilt their head downward, as if to indicate something, and you sort of just stall in the doorway. (text-color:#F0F)[Things are...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Roughly how you expected they'd be, captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Damn.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Slow day. Not much to be done about it. Did my work nonetheless, so did you, hopefully, instead of dawdling in my doorway, and we'll move along.] (link: ">")[== They return to their writing, in a way that for reasons you can't entirely explain, kind of pisses you off. (text-color:#F0F)[Wait.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Yes?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Are you... still angry at me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I'm a professional. I don't get angry. I get back to work.] (link: ">")[== Your shoulders sag. This is so typical. (link: ">")[== More softly, they add, (text-color:#d9480f)[And you should too, Captain.] [[Alright...|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[(display:"Captain's Quarters D2-1")]

You swing open the door, excited to talk to-- (text-color:#F0F)[Bryll?] Bryll is sitting on the edge of Joffey's desk-- and yes it is Joffey's desk, not only can you not read or write (so you don't need it) but Joffey just hates it when you sit on their pretty desk--and they're just talking, in a low, barely audible voice, to Joffey, like some kind of mutiny. You lean in the doorway. (text-color:#F0F)[What's going on here, a round of fuckall?] (text-color:#d9480f)[I don't play that silly game.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[You play plenty of silly games, dear first mate. One of them happens to be fuckall.] (text-color:#d9480f)[You lot play for money. I may be interested in the logistical side of things, but I'm certainly not stooping to gambling with our meagre bounty.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[Not so meagre when you gamble it, is it? ] (text-color:#d9480f)[SPEAKING of it no longer being so meagre, good captain, how are things progressing?] (if: $samseenday2 or $basseenday2) [(text-color:#F0F)[Erm.] (text-color:#d9480f)[Right, right, not good. I did talk to Bas and Sam as well, although the latter was as helpful as the boat can be in this case, which is not very, and the former can't exactly control the weather.] (text-color:#F0F)[That's not what we hired them for?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ ...] (text-color:#F0F)[Kidding, kidding.] ] (else:) [ (text-color:#d9480f)[It's to be expected, really. Anyways, on your behalf, I've talked to Sam and Bas. Bas isn't seeing much more wind in the near future, judging by the cloud patterns, and Sam is steering us straight and slow as the boat will go. We might have some other options, but none of them will really expedite the journey much, and as you know, our supplies are minimal, and we will have an extremely unhappy crew when the grog runs out.] (text-color:#F0F)[He wouldn't run out on us!] (text-color:#d9480f)[The spirits, captain.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Ooh, ooh! Let me do one. ] She clears her throat. In her best Captain Howl accent (which you, as Captain Howl, find a little disquieting, if accurate), she states: (text-color:#90c6f9)["Spirits? We're no ghost ship, second mate."] (text-color:#d9480f)[Bryllig. Don't encourage them.]](text-color:#d9480f)[In any case, I suppose we might need to discuss it with the crew this evening. You have planned how to negotiate with the fish if we can't make the destination in five days, haven't you? And how to navigate provisions?] (if: $sielseenday2 or $spateseenday2) [ (text-color:#F0F)[Well, I've thought about it, for certain, but there are some factors...]] (else:) [(text-color:#F0F)[Erm...] (text-color:#d9480f)[Great god, I have to do everything around here. ]](text-color:#d9480f)[Shall we account for some factors then?] (text-color:#90c6f9)[Couple's talk?] (text-color:#d9480f)[Yes, Bryllig, couple's talk.] They leave, with a little sad wave. Joffey rolls their eyes. (if: $points is 2)[(text-color:#d9480f)[I will admit that I appreciate everything you've done for me lately, especially your performance today. And I know you must feel I'm shepherding you...] (text-color:#F0F)[Gods, Joffey, at least a little bit, sometimes. Surely you must understand that.] (text-color:#d9480f)[Listen... this has been a bad year. And I don't doubt your proficiency as a sailor, or as a fisher, or as a weapons-master, or a chef, or with supply management, or whatever. It's that you truly don't understand how to delegate, even a little, and everyone knows clear as day when you're nervous. Do you understand?] (text-color:#F0F)[Harsh.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I know. And when we were on another ship...] (text-color:#F0F)[We weren't, for very long. It wasn't //theirs//, for very long.] (text-color:#d9480f)[Look, what you can do, it's wonderful if we need to mutiny. It can hurt people. Bad people. But it can't protect good people. And sometimes, I really need to work with someone who can protect good people. And when you struck off on this whole silly plan, I thought, well, our good people are going to get hurt.] (text-color:#F0F)[The alternative was admitting defeat.]] (else-if: $points is 1) [(text-color:#d9480f)[I'm sure something else got in the way. Sigh... at least I know you attempted to do it, before getting distracted. And it does seem like wrangling everyone takes an egregiously large toll on our action economy. ] (text-color:#F0F)[Very generous. Thanks, Joffey.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ But we simply must be serious about this.] (text-color:#F0F)[Save for a peck of wind, everything's going fine! Serious about what?]] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Listen. You may have done literally everything wrong today, but you at least came to me at the time I told you to, so I'll give you that.] (text-color:#F0F)[Glad you can give me something.] (text-color:#d9480f)[You big, stupid dog, you're lucky I give you anything!] (text-color:#F0F)[...]] (text-color:#d9480f)[...] (text-color:#d9480f)[Do you //really// trust that mermaid?] |hook>[ (link:"Absolutely.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[Absolutely. ] Joffey stalks around you like a cat. (if: $fishacquired or $tubacquired)[(text-color:#d9480f)[I know you spend hours running little petty errands for them. Is that the extent of trust between pirates now? Is that what builds trust with you? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I spend all day doing errands for you, and I trust you more than anything.] (text-color:#d9480f)[And that took me years. Getting you to do what I want is like squeezing water out of a rock, and I am wringing my hands, over and over, completely for your benefit, and I get nothing. And now this fish--] (text-color:#F0F)[Is this about the fish, or is this about us?] (text-color:#d9480f)[They're using us.] (text-color:#F0F)[We're using them. I talk to them. Frequently. It's mutually understood, and I'm humoring their theatrics because I can get to them that way. ] (text-color:#d9480f)[You think they're that shallow?] (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey. I know they're that shallow. That's one of the best things about them. Alright?] Joffey sighs, clamps their head in their hands and massages their temples. (text-color:#d9480f)[ It's your funeral.] (text-color:#F0F)[It doesn't have to be anyone's funeral if you can just trust me. Okay?] Joffey casts a despondent look at you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ God help me, I do.] (text-color:#F0F)[Then please act like it.] {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} [[And you step away. Because there isn't anything else to do, or to say. Not right now-- but you can make it up to them. In time.|DAY 2 EVENING]]] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh, you trust them. Isn't that fantastic. Is that why you never talk to them?] (text-color:#F0F)[Just because I'm holding them at arm's length--] (text-color:#d9480f)[Give me one thing they've said to you that indicates. That they're not lying. ] (text-color:#F0F)[Their original pitch had details that--] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I don't care if they have it or not. Prove they're going to give it to us when the time comes. Otherwise none of this matters.] Your face crinkles up. (text-color:#F0F)[I just know.] Joffey yells like a feral animal is trying to tear its way out of their throat. It's not something you haven't seen before, but it's ugly, nonetheless, unbecoming. You rarely see them this mad, and even though you're on the same side ('the same side'), the whole thing puts you horribly on edge. But you just stare at them, staring at you, beads of water pouring from their eyes. For a moment, in your dry throat, you feel like you might be in danger. You feel like you might have everything ripped from you, and when it happens, you don't know what you'll do, how you'll protect yourself. If you can even justify doing so when you've made them hate you this much, after all these years, with such a small gesture. (text-color:#d9480f)[Just go.] Wounded, they add, (text-color:#d9480f)[And talk to them, if you want them hear this much. Just... get out of my face.] {(set:$joffey to $joffey-2)} [[You step out.|DAY 2 EVENING]]]] (link:"I had no other choice.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#d9480f)[No other choice...] (text-color:#F0F)[No, really. Please, tell me what you would do. You don't mean it with any malice, but you see the way their face folds up at the mention of it.] (text-color:#d9480f)[This was a horrible dream, Howl. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ It wasn't. It was the best dream either of us has ever had. I can't lose it. Can you?] You watch their ginger lashes flicker shut in contemplation. (text-color:#d9480f)[That's why I feel like I have to defend it. And sometimes, so often, it doesn't feel like you care at all. Do you know how hard it is to be the villain of your story? I'm your best friend.] You pause. (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey, you're my matelot.] They cast you the saddest smile you've ever seen. (text-color:#d9480f)[Yeah. And you're mine.] (text-color:#F0F)[I'm still your matelot. If this doesn't work, I... I promise we'll go to shore. And we hopefully won't get our throats cut, and we have ways to get out if someone tries. Powerful reasons. I know it's not what you wanted. I wish I could be good. But I am what I am, and I believe that I can do this. You don't have to, anymore than you think you can. But I'm going to keep doing my job. And I hope you can do yours.] Joffey lowers their head, and you realize they've dropped to one knee. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I am yours to command, always.] {(set:$joffey to $joffey+2)} And you drop to your own, perk their chin up with a finger. (text-color:#F0F)[And I'm yours.] [[As ever, as it's always been, as it will always be, for the pair of you.|DAY 2 EVENING]] ]]]]

You stand by the door. Usually, you swing right in, but today you feel you owe Joffey a little bit of distance. (if: $joffeygift is "snuff")[You have been doing what you can to make up for it...](else:)[You should really be doing what you can to make up for it...] As stupid as you know this sounds, sometimes it's easier for you to express care through giving Joffey things than actually talking to them. This seems like something you should work on. The pair of you, you mean. But you don't think you're gonna. Or you don't think you really can. Or you've tried in the past, and it comes out wrong, every time, makes it worse. Sometimes it feels like all of you will forever remain exactly where you were, holding each other after the worst night of your life. Sometimes it feels like all of you will forever remain exactly where you were, with their gun pressed like a kiss against your head. So you get them things. You try to make them feel acknowledged. And you never ask hard questions, because you don't think you can deal with hard answers. There has to be someone in this damned ship who can do romance better than you. |hook>[ (if: $joffeygift does not contain "wine")[(link: "Get them some wine.") [(replace: ?hook)[ You amble down into the bowels of your lovely abode to retrieve alcohol, the universal way to say sorry in a way that will make someone else need to say sorry again later. Luckily, you have some stashed away in the basement. As you walk past, Grog looks up from bandaging Siel's hand to give you a gruff nod. (text-color:#F0F)[ Didn't know either of you could bleed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Please,] she snarls. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ So that wasn't cooking wine, then.] (link: ">")[== You roll the bottle around. (text-color:#F0F)[ Depends. How much did you use? I don't want to garnish wages, here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Then don't.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joking, joking... though this does explain why the fish were so nice the other week.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Team effort.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What got your hand?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Part of the mast.] (link: ">")[== What is wrong with the wood on this ship? (text-color:#F0F)[ Addressable?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Easily. Won't notice it.] (link: ">")[== You wave your hands to end this chunk of the conversation. (text-color:#F0F)[ I take my wine, you don't say anything, the three of us, brandy on the mainland until we don't remember the next week.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Deal.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Taken.] [[You have acquired so much more than wine tonight.|DECK HUB]]]]] (if: $joffeygift does not contain "ring")[(link: "This is stupid, but Bas definitely has opinions. Helpful opinions? Who's to say.") [(replace: ?hook)[ You feel (if: $bas > 5)[confident](else:)[borderline suicidal] in your decision to mount the cuppola and ask Bas for a gift. You can tell from Bas's expression that she feels similarly. (text-color:#257925)[(if:$seenbastoday)[Didn't I tell you to get out of here?](else:)[You should get out of here.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry, I really need a favor-- do you know what Joffey likes?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Nothing,] she deadpans. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, really.] (link: ">")[== Bas rolls her eyes. (text-color:#257925)[ I have been doing some metallurgy a while, and their hands are basically a cutlery rack for rings, so I assume they'd like this.] They throw something bright into the air, and you catch it, a little star between your fingers. (text-color:#257925)[ This is scrap, obviously. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Baaaas. Were you making rings for the whole crew?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Now I'm certainly not,] they murmur. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Bas.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ You should propose to them with this. It's tin as your marriage.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh! That is coming up!] You snap your fingers. (text-color:#F0F)[ Anniversary ten. Thank you, Bas, this is a good start.] You throw it back to her. (text-color:#F0F)[ You should give it to them yourself, wouldn't want to take credit for your efforts.] There are some rings in your closet you bought on the mainland, you could easily give them any of those. You tend to hoard things for Joffey and forget about things. Or maybe you're a hoarder who loves their matelot. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Inconceivable. Ten years?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Yep!!! Isn't that wonderful!!! I love them so much!!! Goodbye!] (link: ">")[== With that, you scamper down the ladder. Leave it to Bas to provide no help and plenty of inspiration. [[Someone has to.|DECK HUB]]]]] (if: $joffeygift does not contain "scale")[(link: "What if you stopped their feud with Spate by calmly telling Spate to be nice. What then.") [(replace: ?hook)[ It's a long shot, but you figure you could probably broker peace between Joffey and Spate if you tried hard enough. This would make not only Joffey's life better, but also yours, because every time they fight you have to resist the urge to dramatically run between them like you're taking a bullet for them both. And cry. You descend into the gloom, where Spate is waiting, filing her nails. She barely even looks up at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You smell like sentiment. Is there a problem? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I was just thinking about how much I love Joffey... and I was wondering if there was some way you could also love Joffey. More than you do, right now, at least.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Threesome.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (link: ">")[== Spate flips her hair scornfully. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Then no.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Come on! Why do you hate them?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I don't hate them. I hate desperation, clinginess, teacher's pets of all varieties, effete intellectuals, people who look at me funny, and of course, worst of all, monogamists. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You can't just torture my matelot for being faithful.] (link: ">")[== Spate looks up from filing their nails and purses their lips. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Honey, that makes two of us. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's not the point!] (link: ">")[== Spate starts scratching their boob. You begin to become extremely confused about where this conversation might be going when they at last dislodge something from their boob, which they present to you with a flourish. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Just take this and have them eat it if you want me to stop being a bitch.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I am not doing that.] (link: ">")[== They lean forward so far they almost splash the bucket over. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Do it and I'll be nice.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You have to just be pulling my leg, I mean, this is directly from your boob--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You eat it, then!] (link: ">")[== You snatch it, swallow it whole, and stare reproachfully at them. (text-color:#F0F)[ What chemicals did you put in here? Phermones? Poison?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Nothing, but if you're feeling some phermonal influence, I suppose I could--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ If this is an aphrodisiac, you really should have waited until after dinner.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's-- now I'm not saying it.] They fold their arms. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Your crass assumptions about mermaid culture have offended me, your lust for your boyfriend turns me off, and your refusal to listen to me is an orange flag.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ The aphrodisiacs are in the paste, girl. We're like dolphins.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oooooh.] (You have no idea what that means and honestly you're a little scared to find out.) Well. As much as I've loved this talk, we should probably never mention it again. (link: ">")[== Spate's fins tilt. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Mhm. And I'm cozying up to your twink, or something?] [[Yeah!! Sure!! Whatever!!!|DECK HUB]]]]] (if: $joffeygift does not contain "knife")[(link: "You're running out of options. Ask Siel.") [(replace: ?hook)[ You don't think Siel is good at giving gifts. Okay, that was harsh-- you don't think whatever Siel will suggest will hold a smidge of use for your particular... use case. But when you think of 'people with items', Siel definitely comes to mind, and isn't the first step to procuring a gift going where the gifts are. Yeah, that sounds right. You knock on the door to the weapons hold. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Eh. I'm napping.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm wondering if we have anything in our inventory for--] (link: ">")[== Siel opens the door. She surveys you, then turns back around, the door whining shut. You stand there, gobsmacked, as you consider if being rude counts as first base for treason. Of course, you run a workplace where anyone can slam the door to their living space (that's not Siel's living space, but she does sleep there so often you might as well throw her the bone and just say it is what she's made of it) but you do wish that Siel didn't slam the doors because there's a chance the door's durability will decrease if she she slams it and you can't afford any more doors, and you figure she likes a door, because it's easy to put knives in. Plus, whatever she gets up to back there, she clearly doesn't long for people to see it. Plus, QPArgh sleepovers. Siel opens the door again. She deposits a knife in your hands. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ He'll love it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Uh.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'm napping. Goodbye.] [[well fuck you are now the owner of one (1) knife|DECK HUB]]]]] (if: $joffeygift does not contain "snuff")[(link: "Sam sucks the least out of anyone you know, surely he will have ideas?") [(replace: ?hook)[ You know Sam keeps a spare bit of snuff on hand, which is great, because Joffey loves the stuff. Whenever you can't think of what to get your partner, drugs are probably a start, right? Plus, you get to talk to Sam. Which. Hey, you love talking to Sam! (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam!] (link: ">")[== The helmsman is immediately at attention, his whole face split in a horrifically goofy smile. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain! Just the person I wanted to see.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why, is something the matter?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No, I just always want to see you!] (link: ">")[== Oh my god why are you asking him for a favor his very existence is a constant favor to you??? (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh lord. My sweet, sweet prince. I have to ask you for something today.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Uh... okay. ] (link: ">")[== You throw your arms around his perfect, muscular shoulders. There are gods with less perfect physiques, who have offered less to mankind. And here you are begging a favor? You might as well ask the sun to adjust its light for your pleasure, or the yawning glory of the sunset to enhance its lights. (text-color:#F0F)[ Can. I borrow some snuff.] (link: ">")[== Sam gets out his personal, fancy dandy case, and tosses it to you like a fishmonger throwing out their smallest minnow. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Course, cap.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, Sam, are you sure you don't want this?] (link: ">")[== Sam reaches a hand back out, their features braided with the concern of a confused dog. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Do... you want me to take it back?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you want to take it back?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Do you not want it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you have any preferences about if I can have it, like, were you going to use it, or is this being freely given because it means nothing to you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I mean, obviously not nothing, because I wouldn't give you something I didn't care about, you're my captain, it's not trash--] (link: ">")[== Justin swings the lute between the pair of you until you're back at an acceptable difference. (text-colour:cyan)[ He's offering it to you willingly and he's only going to take it back if he thinks it'll make you happier. ] (link: ">")[== You put a hand on Justin's shoulder. (text-color:#F0F)[ God do you ever need a raise.] (link: ">")[== Justin tips his hat. (text-colour:cyan)[ Okay. ] [[what a normal conversation that resolved so well|DECK HUB]]]]] (if: $joffeygift does not contain "perfume")[(link: "God, just ask Bryll.")[(replace: ?hook)[ Mouselike, you wander the ship for her... she's not easy to find. God! You would swear Bryll was up to something by the way she always seems to be in a new location. Then again, you did hire her as a pseudo-quartermaster, and she tends to spend a lot of time cleaning, which you suppose would take her all around the ship. You're pondering if it's worth it to go up to the poop and ask Bas about it when a ginger-brown blur descends in front of you, from the ceiling. (text-color:#F0F)[What are you doing? The ceilings aren't even that high!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I'm five-nothing and I thought I saw mold.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you find mold?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ ... no.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. Well, that's good to hear.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Siel's been ensuring the kitchen's up to standard, though. Since she's in there. On my behalf.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You'd really think you were inspecting, instead of cleaning...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I mean. I would really hate for either of my girlfriends to get sick, so I guess you can kind of think of it as both, if you'd like.] As the silence drags between you, and you wonder who is employing who once again, Bryll claps her hands together. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ So! I'm sure you're off to get into misadventures with someone on the ship--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Actually, I wanted to know what you think I should get Joffey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Hmmmmmm have you tried cologne?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No? Do we have cologne?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Just guessing. I've totally caught them sniffing your shirt-- ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ --you know, and then wistfully staring up at the sky, so they seem like someone who's kinda, sensorily grounded? Hey, wait, if everything works out, consider this an outstanding debt of yours when we divide up the treasure.] She bolts off in the other direction, towards the quarters. Which she presumably has mastered to such a degree that she can now produce perfume from them at will. You're very lucky to have some of the best and brightest on the sea on your-- you hear footsteps as she rockets back, producing a very small vial with a spritz top. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Tada!] (link: ">")[== You roll it between your fingers. Yeah, that's a strong scent, alright. You're really not sure from the anecdote if this is more of a you-put-it-on thing or an actually-for-Joffey thing. (text-color:#F0F)[ This is really considerate. Thanks, Bryll.] (link: ">")[== Bryll smiles coyly. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Don't mention it.] [[Ah ahah ahaha ok I think|DECK HUB]]]]]]

(text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey!] (link: ">")[== You will never believe where Joffey is. He casts you a look like a wet cat scowling back at the hands that put it in the water. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Pleased to see you today, Captain.] (link: ">")[== Joffey primarily uses that voice when he is minutes away from wringing your neck out like a sponge. You bound over and see what he's writing. Using the red ink today. That certainly can not be good. (text-color:#F0F)[ Does somebody need a pep talk today?] (link: ">")[== They drop their quill and close the book they were writing in. Bad game, Joffey, bad game. That's surely going to be smooshed when it all gets down to it, isn't it? (text-color:#d9480f)[ I warned you about today literally every way I could and you did not listen to me.] They grit their teeth. On one hand, you do feel quite badly about how you've behaved in the past week or so, especially because the union doctors back on the mainland did tell you that Joffey's diet and heart health didn't really match up, implicating "other external factors". On the other hand, you were going to have to give up on a lifelong dream or disturb Joffey's cardiovascular health, and given only ten things have gone wrong so far, you feel pretty good about that! (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's because it's going to be fine, Joffey. What was I supposed to do, swing the whole ship around? We would have lost half our crew.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ As opposed to tonight. Where we are highly liable to lose our entire crew. You idiot.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Noooo.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No!!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Damnit, just tell me who you want me to surveil like a hawk today. I'm sure at least one of these inepts needs monitoring, like some sort of worthless child.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, I, for one, believe in the competence of my crew. But I suppose you could keep a look out for...] |hook>[ (link:"check in on the infirmitchen.")[(replace:?hook)[''Check on the infirmitchen.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey sighs.(text-color:#d9480f)[I do hate going down there, but...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You hate going down there? Since when?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Since we hired a medic/chef/ominous man with a cleaver twice the size of my head? Really, Captain, you can be so dense.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You wanted to hire him!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I wanted to make a singular financially prudent decision. His rates were low enough to indicate that he probably wasn't going to find work elsewhere.] (link: ">")[== You pout at Joffey. You remember this-- most of your crew, for some reason or another, have come on for free, or for a share of the treasure on retrieval. This is fairly standard for pirates, with the more skilled roles oscillating between either high pay or high contract, as mediated by the thriving pirate labor unions. When one is willing to settle for less, usually this means... well, one receives more. And by more, you mean more difficulties! (text-color:#F0F)[Personally I haven't had a problem with Grog once. And I think you are. Frankly. Being a little rude.] (link: ">")[== Joffey pouts in a way that informs you there might be some more to look into. Maybe you should go down there yourself. ...Soon. [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]]] (if:$spatenotseen)[ (link:"assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Assess our escort.'' Joffey braids their hands together in something you recognize as stress, but by stress, you mean, the veins are practically popping out of their beautiful hands! (text-color:#d9480f)[ Go. Talk. To. The. Fish. Yourself. (link: ">")[== You stare blankly at Joffey. (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you second-guessing my--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes! Go look at the fucking fish! You clown! You impediment! You rock beneath my toes! {(set:$joffey to $joffey-2)} [[okay okay jeez|DECK HUB]]]]] (else:)[(link:"re-assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Re-assess our escort.'' (text-color:#d9480f)[ No.] (link: ">")[== You usually don't get outright nos. You pout a little, unhelpfully. Joffey folds their arms. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Come on. you know as well as I do that they don't like me. I don't like them, either. You wanted this. Can you take accountability for once in your life and see it through? I have to manage everything else, anyways.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's not true. I walk all over this ship and talk to everyone all day. What're you doing, reading your books?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Taxes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. Ew. ] (link: ">")[== Joffey rolls their eyes harder than you've ever seen, and you've seen those puppies roll like dice on a craps table. Bashfully, you laugh to yourself. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sorry, sorry. I'll manage it. I promise. ] [[I'm not trying to be a bastard, I'm just trying to be efficient.|DECK HUB]]]]]] (link:"survey the weapons deck.")[(replace:?hook)[''Survey the weapons deck.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} Joffey shrugs. (text-color:#d9480f)[(if:$delegated2)[You know, I've done it twice already, right? I certainly think you can make better use of me.] (else:) [Really. Must I? With her?]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You don't like Bas, you don't like Siel, you don't like Spate, and you don't like Grog.] (link: ">")[== Joffey nods. (text-color:#F0F)[ Who do you like?] (link: ">")[== Joffey's face wrinkles. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Well, Sam is fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That's... like saying you like dogs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I hate dogs.] (link: ">")[== You grimace at them. (text-color:#F0F)[ Just makes delegating tedious...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I don't search the deck because I want to see people. I do it because I assume, usually correctly, that you need help.] (link: ">")[== You huff. (if: $seenjoffeyfightsiel)[(text-color:#F0F)[ And don't tell me you and Siel don't get along. I've seen you fight. You fight like people who like each other.] (link: ">")[== Your first mate waves you off. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Taking inventory can't hurt. Even if enemy ships are the least of our worries. ]] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"give our helmsman a reprieve.")[(replace:?hook)[''Give our helmsman a repreieve.'' {(set:$sam to $sam+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'll bring a book out to read. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Sam certainly could use it. I think I've never seen him not be at the wheel before, honestly. And when I say I haven't, you know I mean. That he literally. Never leaves. It's impressive as it is concerning.] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F)[Don't most of you stand around in roughly the same place all day? How else am I supposed to find you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #d9480f)[Hmm... I will say, it is just as impressive how little you do, as how much Sam does. I'll go get him that break.] [[Hey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' (if:$bas < 5)[(if not $arguedaboutit)[Joffey stares at you headon. (text-color:#d9480f)[You do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[What do you mean, I do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You heard me. Go talk to them. Yourself. They clearly hate you, and I don't like having to deal with the massive blow your little spat is having on the crew.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[It's not a little spat. It's a consistent obstinance.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Then fire them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[They're too good!] (link: ">")[== Joffey casts you a look. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This time, I'll do it. Next time?]] (link: ">")[== (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ Hm.]] (link: ">")[==] (else:)[ (text-color:#d9480f)[ Thought you were getting along with them better, lately...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ That in no way stops me from wanting someone to look out there. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ But it's really not a demanding job.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Look! It's not always about that! Sometimes I have my own purposes, and sometimes those purposes! May or may not demand! Randomly speaking with everyone on the ship.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I recently read about this thing... chaos theory. The idea that the smallest change can make an impossible to calculate difference... could perhaps usher in a completely unique world, one which couldn't have happened, save for the action of an often completely unaware party...] (GOD they are SO HOT when they talk about shit you do not understand at all.) (text-color:#d9480f)[ What universe are you trying to steer us towards, my good captain?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Lord, Joffey, you make me sound so much more interesting than I am.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You really don't need to tell me that.] They tilt their eyebrows, inquisitively. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'll do my best to intuit your unknowable plans, and convey them to Bas.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you.] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} (if:$donethis is 2)[ Joffey stammers. You grin, and they swing the rapier at your nose. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Cut it out!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Cut what out!!!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Wasting my time. Wasting YOUR time.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We don't even have enough time in the day to say 'have a nice day' to each other anymore?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Alright. Have a horrible day.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I will!] (link: ">")[== You slam the door. They open it behind you and slam it back. You're gonna do this again. There's literally no doubt about it.] (else-if: $donethis is 1)[ Joffey squints at you, incredulous. (text-color:#d9480f)[You really are being a clown this week, aren't you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. I want you to have a nice day.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Is this your way of distracting me from a catastrophe?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Close! It's my way of reminding you that everything is taken care of, and we're all going to be alright.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[What a deeply threatening possibility. ] (link: ">")[== Yet, you do see them smile on the way out. And you know time spent by Joffey is never time wasted, so it's not as if you could possibly regret peeking in to give them a break. And it makes you a better captain, too, just to pause in the doorway, remind them things will be alright. Provided they believe you. And stars help you, you think that they just might.] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[What are you doing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Wishing... you... a nice day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[We only have so much time in a day. Why are you wasting it?] (link: ">")[== You stare blankly at them. (text-color:#d9480f)[Never mind. Go.] (link: ">")[== You linger in the doorway for a little. When you do finally go, the door whines on its hinges, loud and painful.] [[Thanks, Joffey|DECK HUB]]]]]

(display: "Captain's Quarters D3-2")

(text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I told you it would be okay.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, you just didn't say anything at all, and it happened to be okay. It's not nearly the same thing. ] They fold their hands, neatly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ But I will grant you that we did all survive the night. (if: (visited: "Joffey Night 3"))[And you were... well-behaved. Unusually so, given your condition, in comparison to how it's managed in the past. You don't have to be coy about this. You know the scrapes Joffey has. You remember, in foggy canine brain, the end of a barrel, both of your mouths heavy with iron. The animal still stirring in you lopes forwards, for a minute, stares with its unblinking eyes at the person who loves you. It is not supposed to feel guilt, so instead, it licks its chops and ambles back to sleep.]] (link: ">")[== You do the most cloying courtsey of your entire life. |hook>[ (link:"check in on the infirmitchen.")[(replace:?hook)[''Check on the infirmitchen.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey wrinkles his nose.(text-color:#d9480f)[Have you sometimes felt something might be horribly wrong, there?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ There's something wrong with most of the people we hire, no? Horrible is basically an application-tier word for pirates.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I don't know why I expected you to understand... I mean... disconcerting. Viscerally.] (link: ">")[== (if: $grog > 6 or $grog < 2)[You remember the sound of metal on wood.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're salivating.] (link: ">")[== You really hadn't noticed. Joffey sighs, snapping their book shut. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose I can go ensure our rations are being spread, and check on the fish-catching and rainwater situation. It never hurts to check. ] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (if:$spatenotseen)[ (link:"assess our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Assess our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)(set:$joffey to $joffey-2)} Joffey stares at you blankly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm going to be quite honest, captain.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Fire away.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ If you ever do something like this, ever again, they will find you dead in our room. ] [[Sounds hot.|DECK HUB]]]]] (else:)[(link:"spend some quality time with Spate.")[(replace:?hook)[''spend some quality time with Spate.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey hits the table. (text-color:#d9480f)[ What is your damn fascination with having me talk to the mermaid?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What personal biases do you have against her? Are you merphobic? Joffey, if you're merphobic, that's something we need to work on.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I-- damn-- when I check in on her, she talks about you to me!] (link: ">")[== Of fucking course. (text-color:#F0F)[ And you didn't say anything to me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ It's not relevant to the state of the crew, it's--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ She says she-- ]Joffey's face is a flushed red that makes their hair look blonde. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I told her that she needed to stop being so crass with you. She said that if I were more crass, I wouldn't be your second or third choice all the damn time. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks away, adjusts their collar meticulously. (text-color:#F0F)[ Why don't you ever talk to me about things like this?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Because it's my job to be someone you don't have to think that hard about, so you can have fun, and figure everyone else out, and if I start needing things, you'll stop having an easy option, and if I'm not that...] Joffey shrugs. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ... You know, I have talked to her. And she says things to get under people's skin, impulsively, because it's the only way she has power in a situation like this.] You can already see Joffey opening their mouth, and you lower your hands. (text-color:#F0F)[ And look, you know as well as I do, that doesn't mean I validate those concerns. I'm on your side. If I haven't done enough to convince you of that, that's on me, and I need to do something to make sure you do feel that way.] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks harshly away. (text-color:#F0F)[ And I know what things make you doubt me, so you don't need to put it softly.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ ... Then I won't.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I need to do this. There wasn't another option. But that doesn't mean I'm alright with this being miserable for you.] (link: ">")[== [[She can't treat you that way. I promise I'll sort this out.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"survey the weapons deck.")[(replace:?hook)[''Survey the weapons deck.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} (if:$delegatedtwice or $delegatedonce)[Joffey rolls their eyes.] (if: $sielroute)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain, the other night I heard creaking coming from the deck.] (link: ">")[== You flush a furious crimson. (text-color:#F0F)[ You did, then?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ And I saw... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You saw.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I think... things may be in a better situation than I assumed they were in. Either that or much, much worse. To be frank, I don't know what to assume, right now. You know trust doesn't come easily to me. And I'm not... The words fizzle in their throat.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't expect you to be.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ There are some things I can never give you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't need you to.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You won't... leave with her, will you?] (link: ">")[== It's the first time Joffey's ever had someone who might pull you away, part of you figures. Another figures, Joffey has always been waiting for this to happen. You can see both possibilities flicker like lightning in their eyes, in their thumbs racing over each other. You take the knot of their hands, and kiss it open. (text-color:#F0F)[ No.] [[You want things no one understands wanting. Not even Joffey. But Joffey has been your faithful servant, your whole life, and you will not abandon them, for anything.|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ Have you investigated their personal items, recently?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What a queer thing to ask.] (link: ">")[== Joffey gives you the most disgusted, incredulous look. God forbid a man use 'queer' exactly the way it was intended in the present year? (text-color:#F0F)[ I try to leave me crewmates to their own devices, as much as I can manage. Has something given you cause for concern? (if:$basweed)[ We really shouldn't do that. As someone who uh. Recently learned about some of our crewmates' predelictions. To me that seems like an unfair and unwise. Idea.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ As a matter of fact, I have indeed stumbled upon some, well. Are you familiar with myths about animal people?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, Joffey. Just because one of our crewmates is literally named 'Siel' and is wearing a white coat, you're going to charge them with baseless selkie rumors?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No one's seen one in fifty years. I just think it's notable.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I, personally, have a strong desire not to interrogate my crewmates for their strong animal motifs.] (link: ">")[== Joffey sighs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Let's hope this is a mutual courtesy. Otherwise, you're just an idiot.] [[Your idiot <3 <3 <3|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"give our helmsman a reprieve.")[(replace:?hook)[''Give our helmsman a repreieve.'' {(set:$sam to $sam+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[ You know, I know you're worried about him. But he doesn't take that many night shifts.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ True. Just one long day shift... I think that isolates him, too, though.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ What, not having to get out of bed in the middle of the night?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sitting pretty all day, sleeping alone all night. I don't really see him talk to anyone. Er, anyways. I didn't, before Spate came along.] (link: ">")[== That gets a grimace out of Joffey, not altogether unwarranted. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I hope you're not trying to endear me to the mermaid again.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing of the sort... merely thinking about how Sam will be when he's gone...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You know we aren't paid to keep their social lives in order on top of all of our dedications to them as a crew, don't you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ We aren't paid. We pay them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'll relieve him. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You can be a real sweetheart.] [[They have at least the goodwill to look charmed by that. And let's be so real. They're charmed by you less these days|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' Joffey whistles. You whistle back. Joffey whistles again, this time more dramatically, a call of some bird you've never seen. Joffey's voice trills tremendously, and then they cast you the longest, driest glare. (text-color:#F0F)[ Er. Forgot what we're doing here.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm trying to figure out if I can make a noise so high that only you can hear it. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Been attempting to figure out the best way to get things through your head. Recently considering resorting to subliminal messaging.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Really? But everything is going so well...] [[Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} (if:$donethreetimes)[Joffey catches it before it comes, raises a hand and closes it before you can speak. They look at you for a long time. (text-color:#d9480f)[ ... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ It is working, you know. That's why I want you to stop.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're so averse to being charmed by me?] (link: ">")[== Joffey tilts their head. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm averse to many things. But loving you has always made me break out in hives.] (link: ">")[== You walk to Joffey, put your head against his. You close your eyes. They're warm, their hair smells nicer than it should, and the whisper of alcohol around them is much slighter than it usually is on days like these. (text-color:#d9480f)[ But I do love you.] [[I love you, too...|DECK HUB]]] (else-if:$donetwice)[Joffey stammers, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Cut it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Why? Bothering you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes! Bothering me! Now cut it out!] (link: ">")[== [[Fine fine fine fine (not fine I'm going to keep it up you look so cute flustered ahaha)|DECK HUB]]] (else-if:$doneonce)[Joffey sighs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Just for special occasions, then?] (link: ">")[== You try not to look put off. It doesn't look good on you. Many things don't, but your crestfallenness when it all falls apart is one of the bigger contenders. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'll try to make it every day...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Wasting my time?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Making sure you have a nice day.] (link: ">")[== Joffey waves you away. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Then do your job.] (link: ">")[== [[Joffeyyyyyyy.|DECK HUB]]] (else:)[Joffey barely looks up when you say it, which is unfortunate, because it means they won't catch the overlarge smile on your face, practically hanging off both sides. (text-color:#d9480f)[ That's novel.] [[Sorry.|DECK HUB]]]]]]]

Joffey turns when you come in. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Can't get enough of me?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You already know that to be true... no use in my denying it, is there?] (link: ">")[== Joffey gives you a horribly abashed look. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Listen, this wasn't the only thing that could go wrong. I still don't trust Spate. I still don't trust-- ]They cut themselves off. Chew the inside of their mouth in that familiar way. (text-color:#d9480f)[ At this rate, our luck will have us ram another crew head-on. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And then we'll have more than our share to return with to the mainland. If our crew can do one thing, it's fight.] (link: ">")[== Joffey laughs sternly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Isn't that the truth.] (link: ">")[== Their belaguered sigh is almost too much to bear. You go to sit beside them, but there isn't room in the ragged, formerly upholstered chair. They smell sweeter than usual. (text-color:#F0F)[ Put something on?] (link: ">")[== (if: $joffeygift contains "perfume")[(text-color:#d9480f)[ You've already forgotten, haven't you.]](else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[ I want to feel nice sometime, they say, a little defensively.]] (link: ">")[== (if: $joffeygift contains "perfume")[(text-color:#F0F)[ No. Just wanted you to say it.]](else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[ You feel nice?]] You breathe in deep, letting them linger. When you realize you're draped around them-- well, that's around when they shove you back off. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Really, I am busy. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Damn, with what?] (link: ">")[== Joffey leers at you, taps their pen expectantly on the table. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Documentation. Research. Cross-referencing old tomes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Do they say 'Spate's a liar' in huge red lettering?] (link: ">")[== Joffey folds their hands to their face. (text-color:#d9480f)[ The... the opposite.] (link: ">")[== You try to suppress the unbidden smile that sparks across your face. You do a horrible, horrible job. Joffey scowls at you. (text-color:#d9480f)[Just because you've proven something might not be completely fabricated doesn't mean it's the truth.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah. Well there's always one thing you can depend on.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Go on. ](You can sense their patience wearing thin.) (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[(if: $joffeyroute)[I love you, you terrible old hag.](else:)[Your stubbornness.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You bastard, get out! ]They throw one of your old boots at you, and it hits the wall just to your side as you open the door, cackling madly, their face horrifically contorted into that overexaggerated scowl you think they put on for your benefit. You can't help but notice their face is flushed. You should (if: $joffeyroute)[express your affections](else:)[torment them back] more often. (link: ">")[== (You wish... quite badly... that you could make them hate Spate a little less.) [[You do your best.|DECK HUB]]

You fling open the door late today on a mission to give Joffey a mission. This is a noble quest which can only be impeded by-- (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Joffey?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Yes, I'm Joffey.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[And Bryll! You're here!] (link: ">")[== Bryll kicks her feet. She's on that pretty desk (if:$seenbryllcq is True)[again], flicking her feet back and forth. She gives you this flickering look, rolling her fingers with a similar enthusiasm, and beams in a way that shines through her skin. She has one of the most beautiful smiles you've ever seen, really, something you wouldn't dream of telling her when she's interrupting your business with your first mate. (text-color:#d9480f)[I swear, Captain, I'm not letting her in.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[That's funny! How does she get in then!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Well. It's not like we lock the door.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Yeah, it's not like we lock the door. (if: $bryllcount > 2)[And it's not like you mind if I'm anywhere else, so what's the problem?]] (link: ">")[== They're both looking at you with-- never mind. You need to resolve the situation, this is nearly the end of your journey, you've got a lot on your mind. This isn't the time to hesitate, this is the time to do what Joffey does best and delegate. (if:$seenjoffey4)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Even though I've already had to delegate today.] (text-color:#F0F)[Even though you've already had to delegate today. And you're being soooo brave about it.]] (link: ">")[== |hook>[ (link:"check our final meal prep.")[(replace:?hook)[''Check our final meal prep.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey nods.(text-color:#d9480f)[It will be nice to finally get the fish off the meal plan, regardless of my personal feelings on her, won't it? She does consume more food than three sailors, and we were already strained for supplies] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Siel's really stepped up!] Joffey's face flickers with a sudden bolt of acknowledgement.(text-color:#d9480f)[We should really do something for her.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[I happen to know where she services her harpoon. I know we don't want to overstep what we do with anyone's share of the treasure, but we could at least try to ensure she gets proper maintenance on it?] (text-color:#d9480f)[Can't believe she hunts with that thing.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[It's because that's not the only thing she hunts with, but you didn't hear it from me.] Joffey raises an eyebrow. You puff your cheeks out. (if:not $sielroute)[The mysteries of your crew are unceasing and literally none of them want you in on them. I mean come on.] [[Thanks, Joffey. And Siel.|DECK HUB]]]] (if:$spatenotseen)[ (link:"deal with our escort.")[(replace:?hook)[''Deal with our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey and Bryll both give you a look. (text-color:#d9480f)[We're so boned.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)['Nuff said. Moving on? ] (link: ">")[== [[God your crew hates you. Thanks, Joffey...|DECK HUB]]]]] (else:)[(link:"chat with our escort?")[(replace:?hook)[''Chat with our escort.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey turns their lip up at this. (text-color:#d9480f)[You don't have anything better for me to do than idle chitchat? (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[What do you think the captain does all day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I reiterate my statement.] (link: ">")[== Bryll laughs, but it's one of those 'pffft' laughs that people make when they're clearly joking about you, and first of all. Hey. Second of all. Heyyyyy. (text-color:#F0F)[Talking to Spate is an extremely important job. ] (link: ">")[== Joffey turns to Bryll. (text-color:#d9480f)[Congratulations. Consider the task delegated.] (link: ">")[== Bryll pinches their ear. While your jaw hits the floor, Joffey rolls their eyes like a bratty teenager. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Be nice. Be nice, Joffey!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[We'll talk about this later.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You talk?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Bye bye, Captain!] She's much stronger than you (unfortunately). It is not difficult for her to brute force you out of the room and consequently shut the door. [[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA|DECK HUB]]]]] (link:"survey the weapons deck.")[(replace:?hook)[''Survey the weapons deck.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} (text-color:#d9480f)[Never anything to do down there.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Oh, that's not true. At this time of day, you could brush up on your swordplay, couldn't you, Joffey?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[My swordplay's fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[If third or fourth best on the ship is fine, then sure.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Says who?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Says the kill count.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[We haven't-- that's hardly-- you certainly can't--] Joffey folds their arms. (text-color:#d9480f)[You don't know my full kill count.] (link: ">")[== Bryll's eyes flick over to you. (text-color:#90c6f9)[One.] (link: ">")[== You laugh. (text-color:#F0F)[It's much higher than one.] (link: ">")[== Joffey, bright red, grabs both of you by the cuff, and shoves you out of the quarters in a fit of hysterical strength. Bryll is off, cackling, on her ropes before you can give her what-for about it. You're not sure what just happened, but you hope this has at least inspired Joffey to do the thing you told them to do. [[Sucks to suck man.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' (if:$bas < 5)[ Bryll snickers. (text-color:#F0F)[What?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[No, no, go on.] (link: ">")[== They're both ganging up on you! Is that why Bryll's in here? To stage a coup?] (link: ">")[== Sympathetically, Bryll says at last, (text-color:#90c6f9)[You tell me what needs to be said, I'll go talk to Bas. She really is quite sweet if you get to know her.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[It perhaps takes a lot for the dear captain to get to know her. That's all. Joffey folds their arms contemplatively.] (link: ">")[== Bryll shrugs her wide shoulders. (text-color:#90c6f9)[We all do our best, right? In our own way.] (link: ">")[== Joffey tilts their head so that their eyes meet yours, out of the corner of their face. It's an odd way of making eye contact, but it seems to be their prefered one. (text-color:#d9480f)[I suppose.] [[Thanks... everyone.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} Before anyone can say anything, Bryll slams both of her hands on the table, hard. (text-color:#90c6f9)[TALK TO EACH OTHER! PLEASE!] (link: ">")[== You stare at each other for a good long while, with the face you both make when you first wake up, groggy and confused. (text-color:#d9480f)[Hello, Captain.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Um. Hi.] You slowly skirt toward the edge of the room. You open the door to let yourself out. You close it. You internally resolve not to think of what just happened for the rest of the day. [[Cool and epic|DECK HUB]]]]]]

You walk in. Joffey is tapping their quill against the edge of their tongue for the moisture. When you step in, they give you a firm nod. (text-color:#F0F)[ One last time?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ One last time. Delegate away.] |hook>[ (link:"Talk to Grog.")[(replace:?hook)[''Talk to Grog.'' {(set:$grog to $grog+1)} Joffey ponders this for a moment. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose we've always had a rather fine working relationship. (text-color:#F0F)[ I am proud of you for managing to not upset every single person on the boat, just most of them. Joffey gives you a half-hearted shrug. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You knew when you-- They pause. (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you really trying to decide if I hired you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose. (text-color:#F0F)[ Does a ship hire a mermaid to put on the prow? Does it hire the name it blazons its flanks with? Does the sailor hire the legends they sing of, with all the raw and violence they can pack within their parched throats? (text-color:#d9480f)[ Get to the point. Am I being deified or objectified? (text-color:#F0F)[ You're my reason d'etraire. So I really wish you liked everyone I bought aboard, but I should also emphasize you most certainly have the power to, within reason, excuse anyone who doesn't fit those standards. I will, (At this point Joffey is rolling their eyes at your loquacious facsimile of their verbiage.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Offer that you were perhaps the most preeminent hirer, so your regrets will come with a tidy 'hm' from yours truly, but-- (text-color:#d9480f)[ Fine. I suppose I do have one thing to say on the matter. They hesitate, in a way that makes you lean forwards. Joffey certainly isn't one to couch their discomfort in a fine sautee of minced words and half-measures, so when you see their face break merely trying to phrase it, your concern is piqued. (if: $grogroute)[Worse, it's a familiar discomfort. You wonder if--] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Sometimes, when I bring my lantern out to sit by the sea, late at night, I hear the sound of someone slamming a cleaver against wood. (text-color:#F0F)[ There were... very different sounds on this ship back on the day. You certainly can't hold the festivity we once had against the silence now. Joffey holds up a hand. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I was no fan of that festivity. You don't need to pitch it back to me. I merely mean, and I suggest you take this with as little discomfort as you can afford it bring you, that there are things in this world that can not be explained. Some of those things are not kind. And they may be closer than they appear. I take precautions. Do you? (...)(if:$grogroute)[No.](else-if:$grog < 3)[You don't think you've preserved yourself adequately.](else-if: $grog > 6)[These things know where to find you, when they ask. That's enough reason for a chiding from Joffey, alone. The worst part is that you've answered.](else:)[He's being a little bit melodramatic about this, you figure.] You nod stiffly. [[I do what I can, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] [(link:"Chat with Spate.")[(replace:?hook)[''Spate.'' {(set:$spate to $spate+1)} Joffey laughs. (text-color:#F0F)[ What. Joffey wipes tears from the corner of their eyes, snorting and wheezing all the while like an old dog. (text-color:#F0F)[ What! (text-color:#d9480f)[ I... pardon me, I apologize. (text-color:#F0F)[ You absolutely don't. Get on with it. (text-color:#d9480f)[ So... the other day... (if:$joffeyseenspate)[when I was doing your bidding, she](else:)[when we were at dinner, they brought me aside. Needless to say, I was alarmed, given we essentially never talk. She] seemed schemier than usual. She then proceeded to ask me if I had ever considered a threesome. When I told her I was monogamous-- well. (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you tell her she was monophobic? (text-color:#d9480f)[ Indeed I did. (text-color:#F0F)[ How'd she take it. (text-color:#d9480f)[ With immense pride. She called me a raisin in the sun. (text-color:#F0F)[ You don't have to go back down there. (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, no... before her insults were extremely personal, battles designed in such a way that I couldn't possibly win them. Now she's throwing darts wild with every attempt to simply enrage me. I think-- and this is a hypothesis based off of seeing you interact with Bas for far longer than I ever desired-- she might be growing fond of me. (text-color:#F0F)[ Romantically? (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, but I certainly do present a challenge. And she loves a good climb. Just look at her with Sam. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you-- (text-color:#d9480f)[ No. I do want to torment her though. I think she'd respect that. Unfortunately you agree. Flirting with the intent to emotionally paralyze your foe is becoming a time honored tradition on your boat, and you are going to have a hard time explaining this at intimacy clinics if Sam yaps about it. You really hope that they don't try to rehome him. Himbos usually go for a lot, and the only reason he didn't is because he didn't know he was one. (The commitment to the art overwhelms you.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Well... far be it from me to stop you from tormenting our meal ticket... (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain, captain. I've kept us on the right track so far. Can't you trust me to sort business from pleasure? They stand in a flash of crimson. Unfortunately, you would trust Joffey with just about anything. Whether or not it's good for you is no object. [[You do a little flirting yourself, don't you. Joffey's allowed to play occasionally. Or whatever this is.|DECK HUB]]] (link:"Speak with Siel?")[(replace:?hook)[''Speak with Siel.'' {(set:$siel to $siel+1)} (if:$joffeyhastalkedaboutsielbeingsiel)[Joffey: You haven't interrogated her, have you? Howl: If it is what you think it is, and what you think it is is anything like it is for... others. Joffey: You're such a bleeding heart. Howl: I'm just being consistent. Joffey: It's a different situation. If you go, everything falls apart. Howl: Hasn't it always been falling apart? Joffey sits in silence for a long time. Joffey: I guess one more thing being your fault when it goes horribly wrong... doesn't really change anything. Howl: Love you, Joffey. Joffey rolls their eyes. Joffey: Something has to make all this worth while. [[Aww (???)|DECK HUB]]]] (else:)[ Joffey: She's a selkie. Howl: What! No way! (You say.(if:$sielroute)[ Unconvincingly.]) Joffey: Well? Are you going to handle the situation? Howl: Handle what? The part where she can get more food than a normal human? Or the part where she's slick as a fish in water when she handles the blade? Joffey: Eh. It's not a performance issue, it's more that usually this sort of thing demands... clearance. Their eyes lower. Joffey: Considering that blade could be at our throat, next. Howl: That aside, aree any of our crewmates being truthful with us. Including us, to them? Joffey seems to think about this for a while. Howl: I don't know. I know this is, in a way, how we got into all of these stupid situations in the first place, but some part of me--deep down in my gut--really thinks we should leave well enough alone. Joffey relents. Joffey: Well, enough. I suppose it's alone. [[If someone treated you that way, a long time ago, maybe things would have turned out different.|DECK HUB]]]  (link:"Sam?")[(replace:?hook)[''Sam?'' {(set:$sam to $sam+1)} Joffey: ... Howl: What? He's the easiest to talk to. Joffey: He's the easiest for you to talk to. I... mmmm... he makes me uncomfortable. Howl: What?! You say, a little too loudly even for your doors-closed private quarters. Joffey makes a gesture with their hands that reminds you to shut the fuck up, for the love of the sea. Joffey: It's not personal, I promise. It's... he seems a little young? Howl: He's five years younger than us. Joffey: No, no. Immature, I mean. Howl: Really? Everyone else thinks he's a lot like me. Joffey: It's an act with you. You look off to the side. Joffey: What? Howl: ... You think I'm acting? Joffey: I think you're extremely nuanced in a way that's hard to pick up on from a distance. I think you've been hurt, and fuck me, this is problematic, but sometimes it's hard to be around people who don't really understand the sorts of things I've been forced to learn about the world. Howl: I think... he wouldn't know if he had been hurt. I think he'd stick it out (link:"climb the poop.")[(replace:?hook)[''Climb the poop.'' (if:$bas < 5)[Joffey stares at you headon. (text-color:#d9480f)[You do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[What do you mean, I do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You heard me. Go talk to them. Yourself. They clearly hate you, and I don't like having to deal with the massive blow your little spat is having on the crew.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[It's not a little spat. It's a consistent obstinance.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Then fire them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[They're too good!] (link: ">")[== Joffey casts you a look. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This time, I'll do it. Next time?]] (link: ">")[== (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Done.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Aren't you going to like... grill me or something?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, I recreate your day from what I hear from everyone else in the boat, and apparently you're doing alright. So I'm going to have to just...] They look mournfully away. (text-color:#d9480f)[Not nag you for once.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Once in a blue moon, huh.]] [[Thanks, Joffey.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"have a nice day.")[(replace:?hook)[''Have a nice day.'' {(set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} (if:$notdonethis)[ Joffey squints at you, incredulous. (text-color:#d9480f)[You really are being a clown this week, aren't you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[No. I want you to have a nice day.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Is this your way of distracting me from a catastrophe?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Close! It's my way of reminding you that everything is taken care of, and we're all going to be alright.](link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[What a deeply threatening possibility. ] (link: ">")[== Yet, you do see them smile on the way out. And you know time spent by Joffey is never time wasted, so it's not as if you could possibly regret peeking in to give them a break. And it makes you a better captain, too, just to pause in the doorway, remind them things will be alright. Provided they believe you. And stars help you, you think that they just might.] (else:)[(text-color:#d9480f)[What are you doing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Wishing... you... a nice day?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[We only have so much time in a day. Why are you wasting it?] (link: ">")[== You stare blankly at them. (text-color:#d9480f)[Never mind. Go.] (link: ">")[== You linger in the doorway for a little. When you do finally go, the door whines on its hinges, loud and painful.] [[Thanks, Joffey|DECK HUB]]]]]]

(display: "Captain's Quarters D3-2")

You're hesitant when you come in. You try to be, because otherwise their shoulders fly to their ears. No matter how many times you come in, no matter how you try to soften it. No fast movements. It's one of those things you have to learn to change, because by nature, you are sound and light and violent interjection. You have learned to love this about yourself, but sometimes, you wish you were simpler, in ways that would make you more pallatable. Joffey seems to notice, though. They tip their chair back, unflinching, the edge of their boot snagged around the corner of the table. Their eyes crinkle around the edges. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Long journey, eh, cap?] (link: ">")[== You situate yourself beside them, on the ground, crouching there by your desk. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure has been. How're logistics? Things looking pallatable? We going to weather this storm?] (link: ">")[== Joffey shrugs, puts their quill down. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I wouldn't rule anything out, at this point. This entire thing has surprised me so badly I won't even try to understand it, anymore. What I will say is, if you handle whatever comes next as well as you've handled this, I really doubt there's anything at all that can stop you now. No, it's not about that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ It's about... (if:$joffeygift's length is 0)[us](else:)[all these gifts you've been getting me lately].] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh? ](You feel a little nervous?) (link: ">")[== (if: $joffeygift's length is 0)[Joffey looks wearily at you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Cap, this whole thing is not working out. ] (link: ">")[== You look at them for a long time, a little bit of a frown across your face. (text-color:#F0F)[ What do you mean... not working out?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh, nothing. I'm sorry I underestimated you, you know? I didn't... well. I think we should... break up.] (link: ">")[== Your mouth hangs open. (text-color:#F0F)[ You want to stop being matelots?] (link: ">")[== Joffey runs their hands together. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I... I'm proud of you, and this week. And what you've done. But I don't think I can be a part of it anymore. I think I'm just... ruining your fun. And your future. So I'd like to be out of it. When we hit shore, I'll go.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[[[You're leaving?|Joffey Fail 2]]]] (else-if: $joffeygift's length > 5)[(text-color:#F0F)[ I suppose this has all been. A little excessive?] (link: ">")[== As Joffey places one gift after the other on their desk, you realized that excessive might have been an understatement. You're cleanly looking at six or seven things you've gotten them, all in the last week. You flash them a timid little grin. Joffey sighs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Look. I understand, at the beginning of this, I was less than supportive. But this is just-- Howl, this is ridiculous.] (link: ">")[== You hang your head a little. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sorry...] (link: ">")[== Joffey shakes their head. You realize, after a moment of prolonged silence, that there are little tears welling in their eyes. (text-color:#d9480f)[ And I love it so much??] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. I mean, then. Yeah! Yes! I did all this on purpose. I just knew you were going to have-- have a great time. You've got to be absolutely pleased as punch with me right now, hm?] (link: ">")[== Joffey slams their head into your shoulder. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You stupid fucking dog.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ahahahahahaha. Also the best dog? Right? Right?] (link: ">")[== They kiss your ear. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes. Unfortunately, you are the best dog. And I love you so much.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I-- let's! Let's hang out tonight. And I'll show you an even better time. How would that make you feel, Joff?] (link: ">")[== Joffey sighs, a sound you feel in your bones. It's healing. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Aye aye, Captain.]] (link: ">")[== (else-if: $joffeygift's length > 3)[(text-color:#F0F)[ Quite an assemblage, no?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I... I mean, a good number of these things were clearly from our crewmates, right? $joffeygift's 1st? $joffeygift's 2nd? ] (link: ">")[== You nod. (text-color:#d9480f)[ ... I think I'm just glad that you're really taking all my advice to heart... I didn't think that you were.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. Joffey.] (link: ">")[== (To be honest, you doubt you would have talked to everyone you talked to if you weren't occasionally trying to grab something for Joffey... It's less that you were good because you were listening. It's more that Joffey just makes you good. Perhaps to an extent that you've deeply, deeply undersold to yourself. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you.] (link: ">")[== Joffey looks gently at you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ For?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ For... pushing me. Making me take better care of myself, better care of the people around me. And thank you, most of all, for being you. Always.] (link: ">")[== Joffey smirks. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose, if that's all you have to say, I'll let you get away with it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh thank god.] (link: ">")[== Joffey ruffles your hair, affectionately. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Let's just say that you've more than made up for your horrendous behavior, and that I am, to my absolute appallment, extremely proud of you. And leave it at that.] You're out of the doghouse, motherfucker! WOOHOO! (link: ">")[==] (else:)[ (text-color:#d9480f)[ What was that all about? I mean, $joffeygift's 1st? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh... sometimes I think I'm just in the mood to surprise you, is all.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Mmmm. You should do it more often, you know. I like that sort of thing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Consider this all a sort of, er, trial run. For when we're rich. Then I'll buy you everything you've ever wanted.] (link: ">")[== Joffey laughs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ A little attention and the occasional game plan on your wild shenanigans will more than cover me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah... (Yeah, Joffey would like things that you can't put a price on. For example, your compliance, which people have been trying to buy, unsuccessfully, since the day you were born.)] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ But, I do suppose if you're offering, I would quite enjoy a nice vintage wine. Not to mention that the new spa on the mainland could be nice to attend together... and our bed has taken quite a large amount of wear from your--] Joffey looks you up and down at this. You flap your hand in mock embarassment. (text-color:#d9480f)[ We should replace the bed.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Right. I'll get right on it.] (link: ">")[== Their taste for the finer things has always made them easy for you to please. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement, given that you love to please them. (link: ">")[==] (if: not $joffeyroute)[(text-color:#F0F)[ We haven't even had time to use it all, have we. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Ha! You've been so busy.] They run their hand against your head, and you close your eyes, lean into it. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You really can't act like that all the time. You're embarassing. You're embarassing me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Have you ever noticed how the things you find the most embarassing about me are also the ones you clearly find the most charming?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ What are you trying to say, you ruffian?] (link: ">")[== Your eyes gleam with devilry. (text-color:#F0F)[ [[Keep petting.|DAY 5 NIGHT]]] (else:)[(text-color:#F0F)[ I'll see you tonight, then, and we can have a little fun, can't we?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're at it again, aren't you. After abandoning me for a whole night...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It was... well, it was a lot. I mean, for the pair of us. Wolf nights always are, and after, I've found it's best to... stay out of the way.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Good lord, "I've found." Are you doing tests on my behavior or something? Trying to figure out the best way to scientifically appease me so I don't run you through with my blade.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Not with nearly so much panache, but, uh. Yes, I do care about how you're feeling, generally, and your moods, are, well.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Say one more word and you won't be seeing me again tonight.] (link: ">")[== You bravely shut your fucking mouth. [[Yessir...|DAY 5 NIGHT]]]]

You wake up with a harpoon to your neck. This happens not infrequently in your fantasies, of course. But this very clearly isn't one of your fantasies, because the face on the other side of the harpoon is clothed, scowling, and everyone is gathered around, clothed, and scowling. (text-color:#F0F)[ Good god!] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You have the right to speak no longer. At the investigation of the Jabberwocky, you have been judged unable to command this ship, and as a danger to yourself and others as an illegal, unregistered werewolf responsible for thirty-two murders.] You stammer something, then look side to side. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's... that's not true...] You spy Joffey, being held by Bryll, near the edge of the crowd. They're clearly being restrained, face red and puffy with tears. You can remember the last time Joffey cried. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Say it and look me in the eyes.] Bound, you stare into her eyes, to the dark rims and for once, without letting your eyes fall to the alluring spades of her teeth. You focus in the hazy, silver pools, trying to form the words, but your mouth dries up. (text-color:#F0F)[ You know my character better than this.] Bas steps in, stands at the ready. (if: not $basroute)[(text-color:#257925)[ We know your character more than well enough.]] (else:)[ (text-color:#257925)[ I'm loathe to do this to someone I considered a friend, of sorts. But your unreliability has reached complete undeniability. This... will be for the best.]] You grimace. Bryll, still holding Joffey, looks away. Joffey is still weeping, softly. You thrash against your restraints, but they're expertly tied. Your shoulders rise and fall in a gentle shrug. Really, there's no point in dragging this out, you have to admit... and some creeping part has been waiting for this particular shoe to drop for too long. Like a dog with its tail between its legs, you shrink back, slightly. (text-color:#F0F)[ Will my crew be reassigned?] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We've noticed no problems with their conduct. If anything, a good few of them could be in contention for a raise.] (She's lying. She's noticed. But that's no problem at all.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Good... good, good.] You close your eyes. You bow your head. You notice your restraints are loose enough. You don't want to do anything but spook her-- not really. But you do hate the criminal justice system. You hate the jury. You hate the judges. It's not that you think you shouldn't be taken care of. It's not that you don't want to be put down. It's not that you need to live. It's that you are a pirate-- You will not make it to the shore. And you know what she is, deep down, and what you are, and so you expect it. The second you pull free your knife, the harpoon slams through your chest. And the last few moments are fantastic. You wish... the two of you could kill each other on better terms. But you get at least some of what you want-- You die a captain. //She's rough around the edges, and rougher is the law. You've proved a bit unsavory, and met her jaw! You'd think for pirate captains, ruthlessness would be no flaw... Come on Captain Howl, tighten up morals. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

You spring into the cabin with (if:$wine)[the wine](else:)[nothing but good news in hand]. (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey, Joffey dear. I'm here.] You swerve around the cabin, lighting your few candles. The boat hiccups, if only to display the precarity of fire, but you just cast Joffey a big, wolfish grin. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Here for what?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[A date! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[A ... I mean, the date is, erm, I believe it's a Thursday... I definitely know when in the lunar cycle it is...] (They sound more than a little ticked off, and you try to pretend you don't notice, because it's totally going to harsh the vibe.) (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Don't play coy! You know what a date is, Joffey. Remember how we used to hang out on the ladder together, and we would play footsie around the old captain and first mate?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[To be honest, I try not to think of those days much.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[So you don't even remember the dates I took you on? When we went out to the poop deck and took turns pretending to be washed overboard, pulling each other up? Nights on the rope, just talking wherever we thought we wouldn't be overheard? Playing pranks on the helmsman on the night shift?] (link: ">")[== Joffey casts you a look that's one part coy and one part venom. (text-color:#d9480f)[How could I forget. Really makes you wonder why we left, hm? ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[So maybe we both prefer not to think about things! Selectively! Well isn't that charming.] (link: ">")[== By now Joffey has rolled their eyes, in a way that lets you know they're willing to go along with the bit. Which you find to be just the sweetest thing in the whole world. (text-color:#F0F)[And I (if:$wine)[got](else:)[can get] you the rest of the wine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Don't you think we should try to save it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[For what?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Pacifying your crew members, a show of goodwill, maybe the damn fish will ask for it as payment, only the winds know with this lot. It truly is like playing fuckall with some horrific god and hoping that things turn out alright.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey, when was the last time you thought of yourself as the problem that needs to be solved, rather than the one doing the solving?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You literally could not be more aware why I can't do that. Nine times out of ten you are the reason there is a problem to be solved.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[So this one time, the problem is you. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Please, I'm never the problem.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Let me take care of you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[May I...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[May you what? ] (link: ">")[== They slip their fingers around the back of your ear, and scratch in that way that makes your leg twitch. You hear an amused laugh escape their lips, something they'd almost never allow themselves unless they were down a drink. As your leg continues to slap unhelpfully against your mutual bed, you feel them lean in closer, slowly, and press their head to yours. (text-color:#d9480f)[I know you're trying. You know I can't stand you. But I still know you're trying.] (link: ">")[== (if: $wine is True)[(text-color:#d9480f)[Fuck it. Let's get out the wine.]](else:)[Joffey grabs something from under the bed, swerves it up for you to see. It's a nice, dark bottle of wine, much nicer than what you'd been on your way to grab.] (text-color:#d9480f)[Bottoms up.] (link: ">")[== Your leg slaps against the bed as Joffey pours you both a glass, occasionally casting a half-sultry, half-exhausted look back at you. Whether or not they're really into it, you're glad to see a smile across their stretched little face. Joffey gives you a glass, then pours their own into yours, and drinks straight from the bottle. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey!!! You maniac!!!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[If you think that's reckless. You clearly don't remember our 'dates' either.] A new, linear stain creases their otherwise quite kempt linens. They stretch out beside you, placing the wine beneath your bed, corked. Their eyes roll to you, probing for a reaction. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Don't throw up on me, prommy?] (link: ">")[== Joffey lurches forwards, and when you recoil instinctively back, they laugh, harshly. (text-color:#d9480f)[I come from a proud family of extremely slight-figured and functional alcoholics.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Well. You'd need to do a lot more than that to make them proud.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Don't be an idiot. They'd never be proud of me. I went to become a fucking pirate.] (link: ">")[== You laugh alongside them, and even though every word they're saying rings alarm bells in your mind, their tone is easy, relaxed, moreso than you've heard in what feels like months. Which is understandable. Weird few months for you both. (text-color:#d9480f)[I am tired.] (link: ">")[== It feels like an admission. (text-color:#F0F)[Then rest.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Will you take care of things if I do?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I'll try.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[That's not enough. I need you to just do it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I can't just do it. I can try. And I need you to let go anyways.] (link: ">")[== They move away from you, falling to your side. You see desolation in that small, lovely face, the twitch of a noble ginger brow and soft, pink lips only slightly stained from an old tobacco habit. They were born for something besides the sea, but the weathering their freckled face has taken shows that whatever they were born for, they chose the ocean. They chose you. (text-color:#F0F)[I didn't mean literally let go.] (link: ">")[== When they don't move, curling slightly about themselves, you ask, (text-color:#F0F)[May I?] (link: ">")[== They give you a long, serious look, one you recognize. Uptilted eyebrows, the lip trembling, the smell of wine in their breath that they're trying to hide by breathing, prolongedly, through their nose. And then, when they nod, you pull them to you, and they turn to rest easy in your arms. You listen to the rattle of their breath late into the night, until you lose it to the deep, deep waters of sleep.

You wake up to the thumping of a boat as it lands upon shore. You slam out of bed, with far more force than warranted, and Joffey jolts up beside you. (text-color:#d9480f)[ What the--] (text-color:#F0F)[ Something's horribly wrong.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ No shit.] The two of you throw on your clothes and walk outside together, only to find-- how could this all have happened in the middle of the night?! You're further off course than you could have possibly imagined, because the sea maps have never put you in the way of any land, and here you are, on the shore of an island. An island is sort of a soft, sweet way of putting it-- you're on the edge of a bristling forest, a rim of stony shores around it that have done a number on the wood of your ship. At the edge of that forest, too, is a rim of orange-red flowers, placed there almost purposefully. (link: ">")[== You can hear her laughing on the bridge. You slam the door open to see Bas climbing out of the ship, looking back to you with something between madness and pure contempt. (text-color:#257925)[ It's real. I've shown them all-- it's real!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Bas, you fool, wherever we are, we'll never get home!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ That doesn't matter!] She descends over the side of the boat. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey! Her partners.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ On it. Sam as well?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What do you need?] Sam stands behind you, his usual nonchalance threatened by a sudden surge of worry. You've screwed him, you really have. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam. The damage to the hull. Assess it. We've-- something horrible has happened. We've been deceived entirely off-course.] (link: ">")[== Joffey re-emerges with Bryll and Siel trailing them. (text-color:#d9480f)[ They claim they know nothing of the mutiny. I wouldn't trust them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're kidding me.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Joffey, you've been tracking the stars, have you not?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Yes... we can't be that far off-course. I truly have no idea where we are, but it's... strange. If you had a hand in this dealing, this is something far beyond what I thought anyone, especially anyone mortal, has the capacity to deal in. To fabricate maps--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ We didn't. But in the past, especially before we met them, Bas was... consumed by a fixation. We thought it was getting better. But if her madness has, in a way, swallowed us... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're talking nonsense.] (link: ">")[== Siel looks solemnly aside. For once, her hair is removed from her ponytail, falling in ragged clumps about her shoulders. She says, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Captain... I can assure you that this point, it would do a great deal of good for you to consider other possibilities besides sense.] (link: ">")[== You storm downstairs. You have to talk to Spate, at least-- if everyone else is so inclined to throw themselves into a fantasy on the open ocean, to be this calm in the mouth of the beast, at least you won't forget why you're here. You walk past them, almost forgetting what you were down here to do, and whip around when you hear their voice. Weakly, they say, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Captain... I heard commotion upstairs.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ It's nothing.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Can I ask what sort of nothing it is?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ The sort you don't have to concern yourself with.] (link: ">")[== They look taken aback. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Alright... can I go upstairs? I'd like to see my boy.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ There's been a minor setback. You-- you can come up in a moment, but we need to resolve this first.] Lies. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Will you, now?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes,] you snap. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Alright... I trust you.] Their fins fall to their sides. You can't let them up anymore. You can't let them know. You can see it in their eyes, too-- this quiet desperation, knowing they've put themselves in your hands and you've almost immediately proven your utter incompetence. Your teeth grind against each other. She's made you a fool. (link: ">")[== When you surmount the deck again, things have only deteriorated. Bryll and Siel are over the side-- obviously going to her, what was Joffey thinking-- and only Joffey remains at the helm of the ship, ginger brows kneaded and face contorted in an expression of reflective panic. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's not looking good, captain.] Sam calls from the side of the ship. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Maybe in a few... weeks? No, the repair can surely go faster with good timber... but we're run so far aground, it's taking water fast... has anyone seen Grog?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Who cares where Grog is! ](Because you can't find them.) (link: ">")[== Joffey puts a hand on your shoulder. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain. Don't lose your mind.] (link: ">")[== You whip around, face drawn into a snarl. (text-color:#F0F)[ I wouldn't, if we had sailed straight--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain, I think we did.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you saying?!] (link: ">")[== Joffey moves their hand back from their shoulder. (text-color:#d9480f)[ It feels like an act of God--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, it's an act of that fucking bastard we invited on board, who has-- I remind you-- always hated me personally! Now, if there's a god we should be acting on, I can-- I've torn gods apart before, haven't I.] Your voice is low. (link: ">")[== Joffey warns you, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Elisa. You'll gain nothing from this.] (link: ">")[== As you descend over the side of the boat, you laugh. (text-color:#F0F)[ There's nothing left to gain, is there? That's not the point. ] (link: ">")[== Hell. One man's heaven, one man's dream... it's another man's hell. You suppose you have a few days left before your crew tears you apart. This was a failure of leadership-- they're bound to. Not to mention what will happen when you hit the full moon and you're-- Well. No use worrying about it now. There's a time for such concerns, and there's a time for action. You've entered a time wherein only action can save you, you figure. They don't have that much of a running start, do they? See how they fancy your usual banter, when you're at your wits end. See how they fancy you when you don't take their abuse. If you get to them first, you'll make sure you don't die in this hell alone. //Addicted to the chase, the chase has made her true. You've ended up in her dream, what does that make you? Reality bends and contorts with the morning dew... Come on Captain Howl, and get a clue. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

You're almost done color-coding their library when Joffey comes in, already looking perplexed at your unusually stately room. Then you drop to your knees, brandish the snuff container, and their expression goes from bewildered to uncomfortably bemused. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Thouuuught I threw that overboard.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh?] Joffey looks away. They've already undone their ponytail, so they have a lot of room to hide in the maze of their hair. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Trying to quit.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah. Yes. Sorry. I can get you something--] They snatch it from your hands, coat their gums with it. You think to yourself, when did you last see them do it? Their smell had barely changed, it was so heavy on them, but certainly you had at least guessed they were lightening up... They move across the room, fall backwards onto your mattress. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Forget about it. I want to savor this. Come to bed.] You sit at the edge of the bed. (text-color:#F0F)[ What does savoring mean, for you, exactly? We could go to the deck, or--] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Put the candle on.] You own one candle. Last time you were at shore, you purchased it for Joffey. Joffey also informed you in no unclear terms that this was an unnecessary gift, did not brighten the room quite as nice as the lavender they'd purchased to deal with your perpetual halotosis, could burn the boat down. Then you kept it here, anyways, and Joffey's desk is a mess of wax from late nights. You gently light the candle. Joffey exhales so heavily you can hear it from across the room. Joffey turns over. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You owe me, for tomorrow. ] You know what to do, already. You press your thumbs between their shoulders, and begin to massage Joffey's omnipresent knots out of their back. (text-color:#F0F)[ You need to get up and walk more. If you weren't cooped up in here, your back wouldn't be so tight.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I do, in fact, leave quite often.] You move to (text-color:#F0F)[ Um. Hm. Like... when.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Whenever you delegate tasks for me to do. Which you have been making use of at a truly staggering pace recently. You've outstripped yourself completely.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Huh? Stripping?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I am dealing with a truly irregular genius here, aren't I.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Certainly.] Joffey sighs, belagueredly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ For once, you actually have done something utterly genius.] They look at you, tilting their head just so you get the red edges of their eyes from the tan blanket. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Listen, are you trying to make up this whole affair to me, or are you trying to fuck me? Because you're usually this nice when you get on some wild, romantic spree around the... well, the full moon.] (text-color:#F0F)[I'm just being pleasant. It's not against the law to be unusually pleasant with your matelot.] They push your hands off of them, turn towards the ceiling. They look up at the ceiling with sort of a bemused, strange expression, face twitching as if they've scented something unpleasant. (The candle isn't that bad. Really. You think. You hope.) It's hard to tell exactly what they're thinking. Sometimes, when Joffey's comfortable, Joffey forgets what their face is doing. They had some truly nasty nicknames back in the day for this. You do what you can to help and just place your nose near their face, close enough to breathe the scent of their hair in. They smell like autumn in the inland, back somewhere you'd only visited once, a hazy childhood memory you were surprised to hear was Joffey's whole childhood. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Why must you do that.] You take your face out of their hair. (text-color:#F0F)[ It's very pleasant. Also there isn't much room on the bed where you aren't, right now. ] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Why must you do the things you do?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Like making us money? Like taking a gift fish without carefully examining its teeth?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Those two things, in that order, yes, with emphasis that your failure to do the second might cause your failure to do the first, which I only nominally think you're doing. Does that explain my concern? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ It does. But it's going to work.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Not to mention the timing, which you've neglected. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I can handle it. We're not that new of a crew, we handled it last month.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ We had a cellar to hide you in last month. We were on land at the time.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I can handle it. ] Joffey stares off to the side. Their lip is set. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You couldn't have consulted me, could you?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Where was the time to consult you? It would have made us both seem weak. Decisive, quick action is what the sea respects. And if you didn't want to take risks, you wouldn't have entered the career with the second-highest job mortality rate on the entire bleeding planet.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Damn, what's the first?] You grin devilishly. (text-color:#F0F)[ Naval officer.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Well, surely we've contributed to that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ We've contributed to both.] You laugh to yourself, and they laugh with you, more of a pleased "hmm" than a proper laugh. Then you turn, too, to stare at the ceiling. It's a lot less nice to look at than your first mate is, but you figure it's probably menacing them at least a little to have eyes on them that long. At the very least, you remember them saying something like that, and while you're doing things Joffey likes, you remember Joffey really likes when you pay attention to things you've told them multiple times. Such as, "stop staring at my boobs", or "you need to convince someone who isn't us to swab the deck", or "doing ropeplay during daylight hours impacts people's ability to take you seriously as their captain". You definitely don't always agree with Joffey, but if you didn't value their input, you wouldn't have made them first mate. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Do you think about it?] (text-color:#F0F)[ What?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Y'know. Our contributions to the death toll.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't remember most of it.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You were a real demon.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, sometimes devils need their own demons. And sometimes killers get killed. I don't think I'd regret if I was conscious for it. Is that why... you're afraid of tomorrow?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ No. Yes.] They shuffle. (text-color:#d9480f)[Maybe. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Can you trust me?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ No.] You both pause for a second. At least it's nice to hear them admit it, after days and weeks of yelling at each other. That little "no" at the kernel of everything, buried under layers of euphemistic seagull shit, burning like a live ember on the wooden mast of your boat. And even you know that boats don't take well to fire. (text-color:#F0F)[ Then why did you come after me?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Because you didn't have anyone else to-- because I didn't have any other choice-- ]You both stare at each other with this one, and they wad it up in their mouth, throw it out. Finally, they sigh. (text-color:#d9480f)[Where else would I go?] You move yourself up into a sitting position, and they do, too. You feel their fingers clench around your bare shoulders, the way they used to when you were both back in the hold of the old ship, where the smell of vomit and sweat was so thick you almost couldn't smell their hair when your nose was buried in it. (text-color:#d9480f)[ This okay? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Always is. Believe it or not, I do like you.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're tense.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Say it again.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're tense.] (text-color:#F0F)[ The other thing.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ ... this okay?] So fucking coy. (text-color:#d9480f)[ That I don't trust you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ There we go.] You both sit in silence. They continue to knead your shoulders. And in another time, in another life, maybe this is the moment where you would fling them to the bed and fuck out the nightmare of this conversation. In another time, it wouldn't be your call to make, and you'd just be the animal whose mouth they were keeping closed, until they couldn't, and then you were the thing that ate your old family whole. You were a cautionary tale, and they were the protagonist, and you were not accountable for helping people, only for hurting them, and feeling a little bad afterwards. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Look. I'm still here, aren't I?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Then stay here.] Their fingers press against old scars, careful, cautious, rough as you like, gentle as you need. (text-color:#F0F)[ Please.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Can you just... let me be skeptical? Because I can't get better over night. I can't trust in every impossible thing you do, even if they end up okay in the end. You have to let me be the voice of reason sometimes.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I have, and I still did this, and you're still mad at me, so it clearly doesn't balance us out. It just makes us angry. And lonely.] You can feel the way they're pursing their lips without seeing it. You can feel their back tense without it touching you. You can hear the words running through their head, that cavalcade of half-formed excuses dying out before reaching their tongue. And you can feel their heartbeat through their hands. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Okay.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What does okay mean?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ It means... I appreciate it. And I feel better about talking to you now, and that we can talk. It means even if we have a long way to go, I'll stick behind you on this. You give the orders. I'll try to make it work.] You sigh, slump out of their hands, even though you don't want to. (text-color:#d9480f)[ But next time, don't organize my books. I had a system going. Read, unread, theoretically going to read, currently reading? All organized by my personal interest in their contents?] You look over at the bookshelf. Most ships don't have bookshelves. They might have a few maps for navigation, but you love spending money badly, and you love how excited Joffey gets in bookstores. You thought your system was great, and it made a little rainbow on your shelf. But what do you know. (text-color:#d9480f)[ And anyways, you didn't even color code them correctly.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm colorblind.] You feel Joffey's hands reach around you, patting your belly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ It was a horrible idea. But you still did it.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Is that a metaphor?] You can feel their laugh in every hair on the back of your neck. (text-color:#d9480f)[ No.] You lie together, through the rest of the night. And it's not really a date, not in the way you meant to give them one. But you close your eyes anyway, let them clutch you tight. And you fall asleep like that, even though the heat is so intense it nearly boils you into [[one, awful body.|DECK HUB]]

The sky is gray, and the clouds are flat as the pelt of a tamed cat. Something about them unsettles you. It's like the entire sky has been flattened, pressing you in between the sea and it, and it threatens to grow closer with every swell of saltwater beneath your boat. You feel some distant tang in the back of your throat, like blood. Then you hear the muttering. Sam's hands, clasped to the wheel. Rigidly. Him repeating the same line like a prayer-- paralyzed, but still speaking. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.] (link: ">")[== You wonder why he keeps muttering that, when you don't seem to be in any immediate danger. You've also never seen Sam look so desolately empty before. The skin around his chest is red and tight, probably because of those bandages they already have on, and his eyes are the same unflattering color. He looks like he's seen a ghost. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry, captain...] (link: ">")[== And then you realize, day by day, he always looks a little more like this. Always a little worse than last time, without letting anyone in on it. Always a little more like a ghost, something holding the space where a person was. A lost satellite at sea, marking a place while always, slowly, rusting away. He looks desolately out at the horizon, and you realize that you might not know Sam at all. This is when Bas walks up to you and seizes you by the coat. (text-color:#257925)[We're fucked!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Hold on, hold on, hold on. I still have no idea what's happening here... Why are you all so pissed off? Did something go wrong?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Of course something went wrong! Are you fucking stupid? Have you even //been// into the hold today? It's leaking?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[We've had leaks before. I'm sure we can...] (link: ">")[== Joffey says it. (text-color:#d9480f)[We're completely aground, captain. On a sandbar. ] (link: ">")[== Sam physically shakes. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I didn't know...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You didn't think to navigate around that, Bas?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[I did and I gave him the sailing orders the other night! This is nearly the opposite way of where we were supposed to go. Do you know how tired you would have to be to screw this up entirely?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[It's not as if it matters now, anyways.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[With no food, dozens of leagues from most paths tread by passenger boats... where notably, no one with a half-competent helmsman would ever go, because the water around here is too shallow, as //dozens of buoys should have indicated//.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry...] You'll be another one of those ghosts. // A pirate must be crafty, when living on the lam. But none's a greater himbo than our good friend Sam! He doesn't care for himself well, and needs a helping hand Come on Captain Howl, and give a damn. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

Sam is the one who comes to get you. Sweet, naive, faithful Sam. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Erm.] (link: ">")[== You rise from sun-drowsed slumber, Joffey long having roused and lumbered off. (text-color:#F0F)[ What's the matter, Sam?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[They're gone.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[You're going to need to be more specific, almost everyone on this ship is a "they" at least twice a week.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Well, uh, captain... they're... you know, the, our fri--prison--escort? The mermaid, captain. The mermaid is gone.] (link: ">")[== Through Sam's stammering, you get the picture, when they at last say 'mermaid', undeniably, 'mermaid', your heart drops directly into your chest. You permit yourself some wretched, ill-defined choking noise, you stagger out of your cabin, your heart burning with pain-- can't you see Joffey's inquisitive, sad, knowing eyes behind you? Didn't you already guess the cost before you paid it? Your pride, a few days' hope, for the ultimate blow of defeat: no treasure, no safety, no trust. While you do go downstairs to check the barrel, it's cursory, you spill it out and the water on the ground seeps into the poor, faithful floorboards. The moisture will rot there with everything else. You won't have a ship for long, why bother to keep it. When this yields nothing, you check everywhere: the infirmitchen, which seemingly has every fish but yours, the weapons hold, where no white teeth glint from between bonewhite weapons, and you're caught by the collar climbing the poop deck. (text-color:#d9480f)[It's over, captain.] (link: ">")[== You push them back, eyes glittering with anger, but as your crew shuffles forwards, like scorned dogs, you collapse from the rungs, a miserable pile of fabric and flesh. When the howl rips from your throat, raw with anger and unwarranted betrayal, it is long, and vicious, but it, too, fades. You have to admit defeat. There's no way to save it. So, knowing the world as you know it is about to end, you only say: (text-color:#F0F)[Sam, take us home.] (link: ">")[== And as the ship begins to turn, you hear the distant plucking of strings, along with a distant whistle. As the tune picks up, you realize you are about to receive a bonafide serenade from your wayward bard. And god help you, even though you're not in the mood for it, you listen. // The blow must be tremendous, losing a fishy friend Though they never were that friendly even when they're penned Should've humored her sometimes, though her teasing never end Come on Captain Howl, your luck goes with the wind. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

When your mind starts going, you know where to go, the same way the waves know to leach all their water back to the sea, the same way salmon know which way to spring upshore, the way turtles know where to put their eggs. You bound into your quarters, sweat pouring off your face, your mouth frozen open, a mask of pain, and Joffey is nowhere, Joffey is-- your mind races through the places Joffey should be, the things you should have, you suppress a whine from an elongating face, collapse on your floor and try to remember how to make every single bone in your body breaking sound as quiet as possible. Red swims in front of your eyes, a mask through which the world is only the blurry wash your tears burn through, and as your thumbs draw into nothingness, fingers becoming unusably hard, you do what you always do and curl around yourself very, very tight. You press your eyes closed, feeling your skin sting, and your tail swings to your defense, very close to your body. Distantly, you hear the door creak open, and then bolt shut, bolt shut a second time, and bolt shut a third time. You heave several ragged breaths, lying perfectly still. A new nose catches the electric scent of fear, the meat-like simmer of anger, and smells Joffey-- the booze, the hollow echo of chew, the slight warmth of mainland, the omnipresent battering of the sea, the oak heart, and human, human always smells like something, smells so lovely. You do not meet his gaze. They do not like looking at you like this, something you are aware of as your new legs find their purchase on the ground. You look at him, licking your muzzle to get some of the tooth-blood off, and sneeze. Joffey is holding a dagger in their hand. They hold it directly out at you, like a kitten's dewclaw pointed against a tiger. You are aware it would hurt, but you would also like, very much, to take it from their hand. You snort again. You open your mouth. Are distantly aware, in the same way a child is, that if you speak, you will be punished. If you move, you may also be punished. You stand nonetheless, fur bristling, just... aware of them. Joffey says a lot of words. You do not remember most of the words, and you are not horribly interested in trying to do so. Something runs underneath-- the same electricity from earlier, weaving its way through the delicate dance of crumpled hands, flailing of the arms, the occasional point directly at you, in which your name is never said. You sit and watch. Eventually, as you are somewhat uncomfortable, you lean your muzzle and front paws down onto the bed. It smells like you, but in a way you kind of resent. Another snort. Joffey trembles. The fear-scent is much stronger, now. You look toward them, bored. It's going to be a long, and boring night, you think, and it's going to be so long. You do not especially like long, boring nights, but usually you spend nights like this in a locked cell somewhere, and once the woods, but that was a privilege, and you think you might remember having to walk back from that, and Joffey being quite upset. You are pretty sure there is nothing in the world you could do that would not make Joffey upset. You are sorry you exist in the body of Joffey's matelot, occasionally, but that is the most cohesive thought you'll have all night, and it's one you always forget. At last, Joffey sits on the edge of the bed. They do not turn their back to you, and when your nose comes forward, they hold the knife between your eyes, saying something very threatening. You stare at them. You lower your head, and prod your nose into their side. That's good Joffey. You close your eyes and savor a stronger hint of them, the excess of sweat, even for Joffey, accumulating on their sides. Joffey is so stressed that the sweat is practically popping off them, in little beads of lightning. Something about this makes you extraordinarily hungry. You hear a noise in their body, rising with panic you don't need words for. You open your eyes, move backwards. Joffey is still sitting there. You lick your teeth. You move your head forward again, to knock the hand with the knife to the side. They allow this. You think that you may be making progress. You wait for their heart to slow down before leaning, ever so slightly, to the left, so that more of your stomach is visible. You look back over to them, attempting to indicate that you are submitting. You are definitely not submitting, because you are in charge of protecting Joffey, but you believe that it may be important to use unorthodox, next-level dog tactics to convince Joffey that you are safe. You are safe. Joffey slowly moves forward. You suppress the urge to show teeth as someone moves toward you, something which does not happen often, but which, as always, is happening with someone who has a knife in their hand, or a gun. You can smell the electricity rising in them as they run a hand along the side of your face, toward your ears, which flick back and forth. They massage their fingers through a matt of dark fur. (text-color:#d9480f)[Howl?] That's your name. Your tail thumps once against the floor, and Joffey almost dives toward it to stop. (text-color:#d9480f)[No.] That's familiar. They must have said that word at least three times earlier, but it was surrounded by way too many other words to make it out. You keep your tail still, but you push your face toward them. They return to petting it, stopping every time your tail moves. You get the memo. You keep your tail very still. Joffey's fingers wander down toward your flattened chest, where they've so often lingered, and continue scratching. They have blunted fingernails, which is unfortunate, and their hand is shaking. Your tongue blots the side of their face. (text-color:#d9480f)[No.] You murmur your dissent. (text-color:#d9480f)[No whining.] You mumble more quietly. You are just closing your eyes when you feel them stop, recoil slightly, and begin to breathe very intensely. They are mumbling to themself again. You do not know enough about the words, which are broken fragments in your mind, to get them to stop. You press your head as close to theirs as you can, and with one paw, scoop them in. They resist, arms dragging against you, and as you are about to let them go, they grab knots of your hair in a way you will not dignify, crying into your fur. Your arm tenses, but does not move. (text-color:#d9480f)[ --scared of--] Your ears flick. (text-color:#d9480f)[--trying to keep it out of my head, but--] (text-color:#d9480f)[--killed them--] You have been very bad, when you needed to be bad. You remember. But you won't be bad tonight. This space is safe, and it is sacred, and you are protecting it. Joffey does not understand this. You do not even understand this, unless your entire face is pressed into it, feels it. This is a world that doesn't understand nuance much better than you do. You are not good, but you have always done what needs to be done. For this reason, it is very, very dangerous for you to be alive. (text-color:#d9480f)[--with me.] You nudge them again, with your face. You are trying to get them to understand that a very large wolf is not going to be able to give a reasonable rebuttal to what they are saying. You are trying to get them to understand you are you, or something like you. You want them to know, in a way that hurts your heart, that you love them, and you don't know if they know that you love them. Joffey has stopped talking, and is breathing, raspily, into your fur. You have put your whole snout over their head, which is not optimal for smelling Joffey, but does place them so that as much of them is as close to as much of you as possible. This means that the two of you are next to each other, which is where they should be for the rest of your life. You press your paw to their back. You tap it, lightly. (text-color:#d9480f)[No. Ouch.] Joffey is not being extremely grateful tonight, and it is very difficult for you to show affection. You still heed the no, ears back. Your tail swishes across the floor. (text-color:#d9480f)[Love you.] Your tail bounces a little. (text-color:#d9480f)[No. No noise.] You make a long, drawn out whine, hiding it in your chest as much as possible. (text-color:#d9480f)[That's just... how it has to be.] To your surprise, they keep talking. Slowly, quietly, so you know it's just for you, again. They draw little shapes in your fur while talking; accept their fate when you grumble when they try to pull away, and they are yours again, as they have been for so long. You don't know what most of it is, you want to, but you really don't. But you do recognize, (text-color:#d9480f)[--and I am enjoying our dates--] and you know better than to thump your tail. You pretend you haven't heard a word they've said, keep your gaze steady ahead, on the door, in case anyone ever comes to hurt you, again. No one will. (No one will.)

You didn't come in, last night. Joffey hasn't said much about it today-- you used to get so much clap from them when you disappeared for one night, or another. And it's not the sort of joyful ribbing you'd get from your fellow companions on old ships, and it isn't even quite jealousy. Joffey always sounds a little like they don't expect you to come back. It's something in the tilt of their shoulders, the silence, the way they try to keep everything from coming out not just bitter, but personal, at all. (text-color:#d9480f)[ No one else to bother?] Well, maybe that's jealousy. They're in bed with a book in hand, and you settle next to them, over the sheets. You lay your head on the edge of their stomach, and they scoop your head and deposit your chin back on the blanket. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh, please. You only get permission to do that if you physically can't stop yourself.] You put your head back on their stomach. (text-color:#F0F)[Perhaps I can't.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I need to stop being nice to you every month. It makes you cocky...] You tilt your head slightly. (text-color:#F0F)[You're nice to me? I don't remember.] Joffey closes the book, still holding it in one hand. They have your attention now. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Good.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But let's say, hypothetically, I did overhear that you liked our dates, though?] And now the book is on the table. Moving forwards with the expession of a recovering drunk (and you do smell the wine on their lips, faint but insidious, and mixed with something much stronger), they rise to sitting, to look past you, towards the sea, and guard their more tender parts. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey... I trust you more than anyone. I care for you more than anyone.] You kind of softly fold the tips of your fingers over each other. (text-color:#F0F)[ You weren't scared, were you? I remember that I might have bared my teeth at you?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm always scared.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Weren't always.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ ... Captain.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Howl is fine.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Elisa, you killed nine people.] (text-color:#F0F)[ We've killed so many more than nine people.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ And eaten how many?] You both sit in silence. (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah. That one was just me.] You lift your chin, resolutely. (text-color:#F0F)[ I told you that you could leave. I didn't expect you to come in that night.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ The door can't be bolted from the outside. I told you to... if you hadn't... it's so risky. We have so long we'll have to do it. All our lives. It's so hard to protect you.] That feels familiar, in a way that involuntarily makes you lick your teeth. (text-color:#F0F)[ I've realized something.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Go on.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Whether or not we-- wherever I go for the night. You are always here. I don't work that way, and I assumed no one in our profession did, or cared. But I want you to know what you are to me, and I feel more safe about the wolf than ever. I feel more safe about us than ever, what we can do. So we can leave it until we have the treasure, so you can decide if I'm a complete idiot-- ] The rings burn ice-hot in your pocket. Joffey runs to the bookshelf. They fling a satchel at you. You open it, and see several sets of rings inside. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's a lot of jewelry, Joffey.] You mouse around in the pile, unsure what's happening with your declaration, exactly. (text-color:#F0F)[ ... they're all... paired.] You lean forward. (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, Joffey, I just got Bas to make some...] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Idiot! Absolute buffoon! I've been gathering these for years and-- you -- at the moment I'm most ready to walk away, you--] You regard each other for a moment. They laugh. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Right. ]They shake their head, looking upset again, for a moment. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Sorry, it'll take a moment. All this is-- it's just unexpected, is all.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Good unexpected?] They kiss you on the head. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Good unexpected.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're forgiven. ] (text-color:#F0F)[Would you like to... er, would you...?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Why don't we go out onto the deck?] (text-color:#F0F)[I really didn't take you for the type, but alright.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ No, no. I've liked these... dates. I just want to go look at the moon with you, before this whole sordid affair comes to a close.] (text-color:#F0F)[Well. Erm. I suppose that can be arranged?] No one's outside. Joffey leans their head against yours, their eyelashes flickering against your forehead like starlight flickers over the water. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I just wanted to feel for a while like I was actually married to you.] You breathe, and it feels like it takes far too long for the air to pass through your lungs. The cycling of it stirs something in you, shudders, inevitably, to a pathetic stop. (text-color:#F0F)[ You are married to me, Joffey. We're matelots.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ What does that mean to you?] (text-color:#F0F)[ In every way that matters, in every way you want to have me, I am yours.] Joffey slams a fist against the deck. (text-color:#d9480f)[ So why is it like pulling teeth to get you to listen to me? To take me on stupid dates?] You would flatten your ears, if you could flatten your human ears. But your words will have to do. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey. It's because I have always been stubborn, and I've never been good at romance. It has nothing to do with you.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Say it again.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing to do with you.] They return their head to your shoulder, sniffing disdainfully. (text-color:#d9480f)[ And say... say something else.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You're very handsome tonight.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ And every night, really.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes, and the days, too. And I love you.] Joffey's fingers grip yours, tightly. Both of you are looking away from each other, still-- for some reason looking directly at them right now feels like looking into the sun. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You too, Elisa.] You crane your head to stare at them-- the embarassed, mildly constipated expression they wear. They turn out of your sight, and away from you. (text-color:#F0F)[ I couldn't have possibly guessed.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Which pair of rings are going to be ours, though? I'm fine with using one of the ones you've acquired, but...] (text-color:#d9480f)[ All of them. We're going to use all of them.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey, I don't think I have enough fingers... ] You wanted to sleep tonight, but well... the sun is rising.

It's been a while. You almost don't expect to see her there when you crawl up the cupola-- or maybe you'll get that old boot to the face, doomed to fall down the ropes back out of some weird, blossoming friendship. But you're quiet-- so quiet-- and she doesn't see your eyes peek over the edge. She's drawing again, sketching a corner of that map you've seen her working on. (text-color:#257925)[ Shouldn't you be elsewhere?] (text-color:#F0F)[ They... told me to leave.] (text-color:#257925)[ I would be sitting there right now. There's this slight edge to their voice, the one they get when they're being coy and competitive with you.] You don't need to be reminded of your failure. (text-color:#257925)[ I give you too much shit, don't I.] The wind stings the corner of your eye. If you flutter your eyelashes right, it won't even burn them, and the air will dab dry what it burned damp. Bas returns to drawing, in the corner. You lean heavily onto the cuppola, trying to ignore that the wood has seen better days and the metal up here doesn't get nearly the same treatment the metal below does. Let alone that the whole thing screams that it's used to Bas's weight, not yours. You're war-weight. War-wolf. You're... You look back. She still hasn't asked you to go. You ask yourself to go, and your muscles don't respond. You slide, miserably, towards the ground, and look up at the sky. Dozens of points of white light, suspended in the heavens cream underbelly, blink back at you, crying light into your eyes. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you do the stars, too?] She flips the page over, and a meticulous starmap unfolds on the page. There are letter annotations next to a good number of them, which she gestures to with the pen. (text-color:#257925)[ Sailors from where I come from can get from anywhere in the world, to anywhere else, and it's mostly by stars. Growing up, my parents would tell me how their parents were the most valued navigators on the mainland, even generations removed from the teaching of their ancestors, far from it.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Were they navigators, too?] (text-color:#257925)[ Oh, no. We came ashore with business. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ What business.] (text-color:#257925)[Someone has to run the merchant ships. Makes you one hell of a pirate, knowing what their routes are.] (text-color:#F0F)[White collar criminal? Against your own family. How could you.] (text-color:#257925)[ Eh, a pretty woman told me to. At the time, I was...] She pokes the edge of her lip with her pen, sucks the nib. (text-color:#257925)[ I was thinking, I should die, but I want to do something worse. If I'm just going to give up anyways... there's no reason that needs to be pedestrian. And then I looked across my desk and saw a map, and realized that I could ruin everything.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You've got a lot going on.] (text-color:#257925)[ I'm guessing you do, too, seeing as you never say anything about it, and constantly exchange these miserable furtive looks with Joffey like the two of you are in the process of burying a body]. She crosses her legs. (text-color:#257925)[ Are you going to return the favor? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Still seeing how far I can get.] (text-color:#257925)[ Please. You've rounded the corners already. What do you want to know? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't know. Why don't you like me?] (text-color:#257925)[ That's the most forward thing you've ever said.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Can not possibly be true.] Bas rolls her eyes. (text-color:#257925)[I don't like anyone who puts on the faces you put on. Blundering around, pretending that you give orders you'll never keep or keep us to, managing your workspace poorly... ] (text-color:#F0F)[What could I possibly do that would win your approval?] (text-color:#257925)[ Action.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You hated the boldest choice I've ever made near more than Joffey.] (text-color:#257925)[ Perhaps you should've started small.] (text-color:#F0F)[ From Ms. Burn Down a Building or Poison The Water Main?] (text-color:#257925)[ That's suicide. It's different from building a reputation.] Bas stares off towards the water. (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think you would've gone through with it.] (text-color:#257925)[ No... it wouldn't have hurt anyone who had it coming. The people who actually brought me there, they were all in their ivory towers, safe as they'd ever been. Everyone else, on my level, it would be easy to strike out at them. But all I'd be doing is dragging one more crab back into the boiling water.] You shrug. (text-color:#F0F)[ If you could, somehow, use another crab to grapple yourself out of the pot... but that other crab would die in the process... would you do it?] (text-color:#257925)[ Otherwise, we both die.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Fair enough.] (text-color:#257925)[ You owe me at least something about yourself. I hate being emotionally candid. It's agonizing. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... ]You look up at the stars. (text-color:#F0F)[ My family were all farmers, who had moved toward the capitol so they could try to live a little better. My brother had scarlet fever, died at two, I think they always thought, if they had just worked a little harder, a little earlier, they could have saved him. The doctors said as much.] (text-color:#257925)[ Asshole doctors.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah... but hey, even after we moved, my folks got sick. I couldn't take orders for shit, so I was about as helpful at service jobs as a rabid animal. Figured I still owed them something, so I started robbing rich kids, moved up to blackmail... fuck them, threaten to tell their mothers, that sort of thing. One of them may have gotten disowned. ] (text-color:#257925)[ Is it still illegal?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, yeah, but only if you can prove it ruptured the hymen. You can slice someone's dowry in half in one afternoon, and the worst part is, half of them didn't have it. Lost it riding horses or something.] (text-color:#257925)[ That... that can happen?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Horses are better at destroying vaginas than I ever was.] (text-color:#257925)[ That's going down in the corner.] (text-color:#F0F)[ The corner?] Bas briskly turns the page. You're not stupid enough to grab her book, which would rightfully get you thrown into the ocean, but you're roughly brash enough to peer over her shoulder, by now. And when you do, it's with delight that spreads across your face like the red of a slap to it. She has so many little things in the margins... where on most maps, monsters would lurk, is a picture of the edge of Joffey's face, smudged slightly by a stain of beer she's woven into her design. There's a quote from dinner a few nights ago, and the hulking sihlouette of Two-Peg Susan drawn on the very top of her ship, looking over the sunrise. In a loopy cipher, notes far more furtive are hidden as well-- you jolt back, finding your gaze met by Bas's, and realize that she hasn't pulled away. (text-color:#257925)[ ...] (text-color:#F0F)[ You're... very... I mean...] (text-color:#257925)[ Go on.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I can't evaluate any of this, you know. There's nothing good in me for soft things at all.] (text-color:#257925)[ Soft?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Delicate.] (text-color:#257925)[ Means of survival are usually anything but.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But to put faith in something like a page, I--] (text-color:#257925)[ Is this a long, fancy way of saying you're illiterate?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes.] (text-color:#257925)[ Then don't. And don't degrade yourself, it degrades me. Especially when you don't intend to. You should just...] She trails off. (text-color:#257925)[ Say what you meant. Not the inverse of it, and then again. No more double negatives.] (text-color:#F0F)[I like getting to see the way you see the world.] (text-color:#257925)[ Thank you.] (text-color:#F0F)[Feels... warm.] (text-color:#257925)[ Well, against my best instincts, I have to admit that you can set a space.] You feel her shoulder against yours. That, too, is warm. Radiant with heat, even, which you realize is partially the glow of both your faces. (text-color:#257925)[ Leave me to it?] (text-color:#F0F)[Of course.] You slink back into the night, feeling something glitter, like starlight, across your senses. It was barely a compliment, you remind yourself. You're so impressed by scraps, dear god, that it's nothing short of embarassing.

You manage to crawl your way up. By now, you know what you'll find. It doesn't stop you from trying to reach it. You should both know better than to try to be rid of each other, by now. As you heave yourself up the final stretch, you feel a hand close around yours. It throws you far enough off balance that you lose your grip with one hand, instinctively flexing with the other, and the hand awkwardly brings you slamming back against the rope. (text-color:#F0F)[ Blight be damned.] Bas's hand unweaves from yours. (text-color:#257925)[ What're you here for?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Another assassination attempt, apparently?] You hear footsteps, and rise to find her standing at the other side of the cuppola. Her unguarded book lies upon the ground, next to her inkwell, and her arms are folded, her hat toussled awkwardly sideways. (text-color:#257925)[ Ha, ha. Very funny.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I enjoyed talking with you the other night. I figured I might give it one last go, with so much riding on the line tomorrow.] She quirks a playful eyebrow. (text-color:#257925)[ Only the other night?] You quirk one back. (text-color:#F0F)[ It was a step up.] Bas turns to you, slightly put off, and leans back into the crow's nest. (text-color:#257925)[ Commiserating tends to do that to people.] She trails off. You're losing her. You came up for a reason, and only now do you realize what it might have been. (text-color:#F0F)[ At the academies. What were you studying?] She turns at that. (text-color:#257925)[ That obvious, hm.] What the fuck does she think your game is. (text-color:#F0F)[ No... what? I just...] (text-color:#257925)[ Guess.] Far be it from you to disobey a pretty woman who hates your guts. |hook>[(link:"The stars.")[(replace:$hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ Let me guess. The stars you're always drawing.] Bas looks despondently at you. (text-color:#257925)[ My family knows more about the stars than any institutions do.] (text-color:#F0F)[ What, and they won't have you teach?] She laughs harshly. (text-color:#257925)[ Maybe if they weren't so proud, they'd consider it. But they've made their bed. They only want us in it if we tuck it the same way they do.] [== ]] (link:"The sea.")[(replace:$hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ Something useful for this sort of life... the ocean.] (text-color:#257925)[ Never even considered it.] Fuck. (text-color:#F0F)[ But--] She chides, (text-color:#257925)[ You couldn't have come up with anything more interesting, could you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm beginning to remember why we've never hung out together before.] She laughs, and the malice dissipates like snow in a spring thaw. You can't help but stare at her, praying she won't notice. [==]] (link:"Old things.")[(replace:$hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ Something... old.] That's the stuff universities are made of, no? Bas smiles. (text-color:#257925)[ Sort of. But that's so vague that you could have said anything. I won't give it to you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Aw, what? ] [==]] (link:"New things.")[(replace:$hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ The forefront of innovation. Steam power. Necromancy. Alchemy.] She looks at you skew. (text-color:#257925)[ Oh, you think I did bullshit.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Only a few of those things are bullshit!] [=]]] (text-color:#257925)[ No, actually, I was a biologist. There was a flower in one of my mother's nursery-rhymes, that I was interested in. Of course, she claimed it was a myth, but I was able to get ahold of some library books that made mention of a flower that when ground up, served as a way to stop unwanted pregnancies.] (text-color:#F0F)[ There's a children's song about forcing a miscarriage. ] She waves it off. (text-color:#257925)[ They didn't call it that. The song was about the petals of a flower protecting a woman from a storm, but it seemed like it might have been allegorical. Can't think of a bigger storm than... ] Both of you are quiet. (text-color:#257925)[ It was a good first lead. I was used to puzzles like that. My father used to leave them for me around the house, with a chestnut or fruit he'd gotten from market as a prize if I found the end of his little trail of riddles. Say. Your parents have any traditions?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, god. Why are we asking about my parents, now?] (text-color:#257925)[ I'm keeping you on your toes. It's called active listening.] You think. Your memories of your parents are like stones at the bottom of a two-foot pond. You can make them out, if you try, but the detail, if it was ever that important to begin with. Truly, a lot of who you used to be was burned out of you, and when you saw the dregs of whatever was left, you shook them off like water from a dog's back. (text-color:#F0F)[ We had fruit, too, once or twice. For the holidays around the end of the year. When I saw how much joy it brought them, I think it might've encouraged me to start stealing. ](You wish there were more stories in your life that ended well. There are a few you could point to, but the only family in them is Joffey, and your story together is far from over.) You shake your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're keeping me on the edge of my seat, here. The flower. Was it real?] (text-color:#257925)[ I saw it. In the museum in the capitol.] (text-color:#F0F)[ They put plants in the museums?] Bas smiles sadly. (text-color:#257925)[ Of course they do. If they're dead. ] Your face falls. You watch her eyes fall off to the side, and then she shakes her head, dips her hat. (text-color:#F0F)[ But it was alive.] (text-color:#257925)[ See, that's what I thought. Given where it was from, I figured-- I staked my early academic career on it-- that the flower was likely out on an island or two, still out of reach. I was able to stow away for cheap on a sailing ship, and we stopped on islands where my ancestors used to live. I met a lot of half-familiar people. I saw a lot of half-familiar things. None of them were //jujilei//. ] She gives you a sad little half shrug. (text-color:#257925)[ I kept looking. Every island was another tiny death, to me. Watching all the living thinigs around me, I only had eyes for the flower my mother murmured to me. It has to be out there, I thought. They couldn't have destroyed it. It can't simply be gone. People remembered it, too. They remembered the song, remembered their grandparents using it. I found other flowers that people claimed had the same properties-- bunk. I met cousins-- worthless. One more island, further off. Scoured mounds of birdshit on the ocean like they could give flower. I was convinced she--] Her shoulders rise and fall, and she takes in a shuddering breath. (text-color:#257925)[ And one day I didn't come home, and no one missed me, or remembered I had been there.] Your hand extends to her, holds in the air. When she doesn't react, you draw it back. She shakes her head again, like she's trying to dispel old spirits from her head. (text-color:#257925)[It's a good gig. I get to meet new people... scour the ocean, inch by inch... I don't know what I'd do if I did find it. Tell the world where I'll never be welcome again that it's out there? Give the knowledge to someone else they will believe?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Do they deserve it?] (text-color:#257925)[ No one deserves anything, I don't think.] She pauses. (text-color:#257925)[ I was so furious something so important had been allowed to die, and no one noticed. I knew why it had died. Who killed it. It was before these things were really considerations. For a long time, while the empire consolidates, we are all of us, little more than mortuarists. Cataloguing the dead that we hadn't even noticed die.] She sighs. (text-color:#F0F)[ Heavy work.] (text-color:#257925)[ Eh, so's piracy.] (text-color:#F0F)[ So this...] (text-color:#257925)[ I don't know how to make a better world. I know how to hurt people, hopefully the people who made it how it is. I know how to fight over the scraps. But I can't make it better.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself.] (text-color:#257925)[ It's what they teach you to strive for in school... you learn a lot about the world, how much is in it. Then you're called to protect some of it, or save some of it, or at least get to know some of it. It was a noble dream. I only bring it up because, well, it turned out I was better served working for someone who I really believe can make the world a better place.] You nod, close your eyes. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's Bryll, isn't it.] (text-color:#257925)[ Siel's the same.] She pauses. (text-color:#257925)[ Besides other things she wants. The two of us, looking for something we know we won't find, and her, making what she doesn't know for sure is out there.] She pauses again, longer, this time. Her eyes glance toward your half-shut ones, and then away, burning with guilt. (text-color:#257925)[ You know we were sent here to keep an eye on you, right?] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... I may have worked out as much.] (text-color:#257925)[ I... thought you might have figured it out.] You lean heavily against the cupola. (text-color:#F0F)[ Bryll's a cop, hm? ] (text-color:#257925)[ We're not cops, we're union representatives. Don't you dare.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... ] (text-color:#257925)[ I'm only letting you know now because, barring any horrific situation, you've actually passed inspection... and because we're compromised.] You lean forward. (text-color:#F0F)[ Am I allowed to make assumptions about why you're compromised?] She snaps, (text-color:#257925)[ I hate the look on your face right now. Truly.] You grin wider. (text-color:#257925)[ I suppose I am... fond of you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Funny way of showing it.] (text-color:#257925)[ And this ship... this story.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Me as well. Glad to have something in common.] Bas rolls her eyes. (text-color:#257925)[ So that's my sob story. At least let me know one thing about you that you don't think anyone knows.] You lean against the wood. The stars flood your eyes. (text-color:#F0F)[ One thing?] (text-color:#257925)[ Anything.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... I'm proud I made it here.] And she leans back, too. And the pair of you watch the distant stars. [[It's nice at the end of the world.|DAY 6]]

After today's round of beer, speech, dizzying amount of social interaction, you could use a breather before bed. You nod adieu to Joffey, as you tend to do before getting into mischief, and they (if: $joffey > 5)[give you a curt nod](else:)[scowl and slam the door on you, playfully, youuuu hope]. Since most of your crew doesn't exactly come up to look at the stars after dunking their heads in beer and fish swill, you have the whole deck to yourself. An errant drunk thought leads you to the prow, where you sit, kicking your legs over the edge. Sam's about to take the first of several night shifts at the wheel, but you're not especially inclined to talk to him either... something about the sea, tonight, thrashing and dark, makes you unspeakably lonely. It also reminds you of the hair of one of your crewmates. It's very silly to be fond of someone who isn't fond of you, but it has this undeniable appeal. You think you might have a crush. That might be the first time you've even thought such a thing out loud, but it makes sense. All the teasing does get to you, doesn't it? You have a bit of a crush. And on nights like these, sitting alone against the water, you think of them staring out at the waves, and wonder, hopefully, if their antagonism is a mask for the fact the pair of you have more in common than you'd like to admit. Okay, never mind. Going way too far. Drunkenly, you climb the rungs of the crow's nest for a better view. At the very least, you can clear your head for a moment, look further into the distance, back in time at the waters where you were, earlier today. Isn't it funny to be able to see-- Your hand hits the wood at the top, and the edge of a boot hits your hand. Gently, at first, then, with a slight twist, it leans into your fingers. You gasp and drag it back, flinging it out while holding tight with your other hand. You stare into her defiant eyes, that black wave of hair sihlouetted by a nearly full moon. (text-color:#257925)[ You sincerely don't have anyone else to bother?] You attempt to keep your mouth shut, because otherwise the boot is going in there next. (text-color:#F0F)[ No. I checked my list-- ] (text-color:#257925)[ Happy to be the last thing on it. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Erm. ] They step out of their way. (text-color:#257925)[ Well, what is it you need to do? Let's just get it over with. ] You should probably not tell Bas that the thing on your list is 'improve your relationship with Bas', something which doesn't really seem to be happening on your visit here. You slouch into a standing position on the cuppola, looking over the sea out of the corner of your eyes. Quick. Think of a conversation topic. |hook>[ (link:"Why she joined this ship.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ So. What does bring Bas Lastname to piracy on my fine vessel?] (text-color:#257925)[ Money.] (She lies, with not a hint of hesitation or remourse.) You scoff. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure.] (text-color:#257925)[ What? We're pirates! We don't do background checks.] (text-color:#F0F)[First of all, yes, we literally did, because you're all union. And it's necessary! What if you were an industry plant, put here by one of my rivals?] (text-color:#257925)[ Then half your crew would be industry plants.] Youse close your eyes, lean back with the faux-confidence you know drives her insane. (text-color:#F0F)[ I didn't know I was so well-regarded in the pirating industry that they have to send sabotage agents. We must be stealing a hell of a haul.] Bas barks. (text-color:#257925)[ You wish!] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, yeah? Well, if you could've found a better rival, you wouldn't have, would you? Tell my competitors we piss over the side of the boat at them.] (text-color:#257925)[ Crude.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Piss. Over. The. Boat.]]] (link:"The water.")[(replace:?hook)[ You smise. This is the lady-killer. (text-color:#F0F)[ Nice water we're having, huh?] (text-color:#257925)[ It's really bad news if there's a storm by night. Night's supposed to be calm.] (text-color:#F0F)[ It's... really calm though. Like a plate.] (text-color:#257925)[ Yes, it is unusually calm.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] Bas starts laughing, to your horror. (text-color:#257925)[ Great job, breaking the silence. What's next? Going to ask me about the wood?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah. What are these markings?] You rap your nails against a highly-whittled area of your beautiful ship. (text-color:#257925)[ Um.] Bas goes quiet. (text-color:#257925)[ Practicing crosshatching. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ With wood?] (text-color:#257925)[ You've never done woodcutting.] (text-color:#F0F)[ W... no, I've never done woodcutting. I can't even read, do you think I have access to art supplies?] You pat the side of the ship down again. (text-color:#F0F)[ And she's not art supplies!] (text-color:#257925)[ Loud and clear. Loud. And. Clear. ]She flicks a knife in front of you, not close enough to be across your face, but with some deliberate, as the kids say, finger action. She twirls it around a few times. (text-color:#257925)[ You've never carved anything?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Ha! ]You laugh. Of course, you don't talk much about what the boat was like before you owned it, and you don't plan to. There was, however, a good deal of rule breaking involved, and you do have EH+JW carved random places, in little hearts, all over the ship. No one's seen it yet. You //reckon// no one's seen it yet. (text-color:#F0F)[ You'll never find it.] Bas hmmms thoughtfully. (text-color:#257925)[ So that's what's on the underside of the cuppola. ]She smiles ruthlessly. (text-color:#257925)[ I'll just have to put the QPArgh's little crossed heart somewhere even harder to reach. Front of the prow, maybe, while we sail?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I eagerly await your worst.] (text-color:#257925)[ But she's not art supplies?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Depends on the art. ] You would NEVER prevent homosexuals from doing gay things on your ship. You are an ALLY. And a bit of a PERVERT.]] (link:"Break the tension with a joke.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ Come here often?] Bas replies, (text-color:#257925)[ Try again.] This is going to take all your expertise. You mentally cycle through all your worst jokes. (text-color:#F0F)[(cycling-link: "Call me the ocean, because that one fell flat.", "Hey matey, coming often is a talent.", "What did the seagull say to the crab? Um, just one bite, no need to be shellfish?", "Hey, it's the SS Misadventure, not the SS Competent Joker.")] You stumble through your repetoir, like a comedian throwing their cue cards nervously across the stage. (Pirates in this universe actually have a very thriving stand-up scene, making this joke not anachronistic. In fact, there's a good chance Howl was unsuccessful in this scene at one point, but we'll leave that up to an exercise in the reader's imagination.) Bas gives you the most absolutely pathetic laugh you've ever heard in your life. It's like if a goat was condescending to you. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're impossible.] (text-color:#257925)[ You had no chance. I hate jokes.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Really.] (text-color:#257925)[ There was... this guy in the union, right? On land? Wouldn't stop making jokes at me. Like, at me, at me. They weren't about me, but he would always look at me after he made them, like it was mandatory I, specifically, found them funny. He never did anything that actually crossed any rules, but it was just... that was worse, almost. Feeling like I couldn't tell him to stop bothering me without just being a jerk. This constant sense I was being asked to attend to him. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Eugh.] You shudder. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sorry, I... man. Hopefully he cut it out eventually. I... haven't had to think about men in so long.] Bas laughs. You two, if nothing else, can bond over a little bit of casual misandry. Sagely, she points out, (text-color:#257925)[ Justin's a man.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Justin's a gentleman, and a friend to lesbians everywhere.] (text-color:#257925)[ You know, whatever else I can say about this ship. I do appreciate that everyone here is pretty chill. Being stuck on a crew where someone gets on your nerves, that's...] She looks at you. Extensively. And her face wrinkles up. You pretend to be flattered. (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh. Really?] (text-color:#257925)[ No, it's... look. We have our differences. But if they became really problematic, Bryll and you would have to hash it out. She takes good care of me.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah?] (text-color:#257925)[ Yeah.] You recognize the smile on her face, crescent-moon twin of your own when you think about... well, both of you have people looking out for you. You've got to remember to give Joffey a big hug tomorrow, and thank them for keeping things mostly under control and not seizing power from under your nose. Good old Joff. Joffing off. Joffing onwards, even. (text-color:#257925)[ Don't think this means I won't keep bullying you, though. As long as it's our dynamic, I mean.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I wouldn't dream of asking you to stop.]]]] (text-color:#257925)[ ...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Thinking about something?] (text-color:#257925)[ Only that... it's not so bad. Being up here at night.] You don't need to talk about anything, any longer. [[You pass a night in amicable silence. In the morning, you will forget when it was you went to sleep, and how long you were awake-- it will just feel like an eternity strung out in dazzling light, held between you and them.|DECK HUB]]

And there it is. Again, like a heartbeat, with the insistence of one, the sound of wood on steel. The intercession of flesh doesn't even bother the fall of the knife, that simple, rhythmic punch. The scrape only occurs when the wood is tormented, to push the fish away into a nearby bucket. Then all of that is brought up again, cubed one more time. the bone is tenderly removed. You feel your mouth begin to water, but it's not from the fish. You've eaten enough fish to last a lifetime. You've eaten your fill and then some. You don't know if you can be hungry anymore, if hunger is one of the things that eating the wrong thing can take away from you. You grip something, and it grips back, grips your desire to keep holding, wrests it out. For the rest of your life, something about every fundamental movement is made mechanical. The knife continues to fall. Everyone should be asleep. Two eyes glow in the dark. He hasn't even noticed you. You sit nearby, in silence. Some part of you knows that this is strange even to a level you don't usually subscribe to, strange to a degree you should be concerned about. Another part of you is just watching, and your mouth is watering. The knife has come up and down too many times. This can no longer be about preparing food. There can't be cubes that fine left on the table, even if the point of this endeavor was to prepare fish. But you know one thing, and one thing only-- (if:$d2grogjoffey)[Just like Joffey warned you. Extremely weird behavior. There are reasons that people are warned about rather than recruited. You should be warned about, too, so you understand. You sympathize.] There goes the knife. There goes your mouth. There goes your heartbeat. There goes the water. There goes the world. For a moment, something sparks in your mind-- you aren't dealing with a person, you remember. You can never be people again, you remember. For a moment, your mouth tastes like blood. The cleaver is inches from your face. The wall splits like an old cheese. Metal fills your nose-- from blood, from adrenaline, from the cleaver, you don't know. Instead, you look. (text-color:#748)[What do you want?] You don't hesitate. (text-color:#F0F)[To be on the other end of that knife.] (text-color:#748)[Is that all.] Then, delicately, they brush your shirt out of the way. And then they bite. They bite down so hard that it goes from sex, to something that isn't sex at all, to something that can not be described as any less than spiritual. The pain is like a white-hot poker, it is like placing your hand in a fire and holding it there, and you are enduring. It is like drowning and you are enduring it. You feel something inside of you exit existence completely, come back, disappear again. You put your hand to where their face is. They step back. Your hand clasps the wound. There's nothing there-- no wound, no blood. Your breath catches. (text-color:#F0F)[Vampire?] (text-color:#748)[No.] And then. (text-color:#748)[I won't see you again.] They put the knife on the table. They walk past you, out toward the dorms of your sailors. (text-color:#748)[You don't deserve it.] Your face twists slightly, though with what, you cannot say. You do sleep that night. But you do not [[dream|DECK HUB]]-- instead, you are given darkness, like an aftertaste.

You really have to talk about last night. // What the fuck. // If this was anyone else in your crew, you would consider it a fireable offense if they came to you. You would also probably fire yourself if you caught wind of the fact that you had eaten twenty people and stolen a ship. It turns out there are a lot of things that can really change the mood of the night, and it turns out one of the bigger ones you hadn't counted on coming up more than once is cannibalism. // What the fuck. // Then again, it's not that you got eaten. It's that you went down in a trance while salivating beneath a blood moon on a haunted and twisted version of your ship and wordlessly got fucked on a bench by a skinless version of one of your crewmates in a hell dimension where their very being penetrated your sense of reality, and you shared in the intimacy of total knowledge of each other, which involved a shared sense of boundless hunger from a childhood trauma of yours which lead to a domino-chain of violence which arguably ruined your entire life. // What the fuckkkkk. // The intimacy coordinators did not cover if demonic persuasion counted as coerced sex. You feel somewhat middling about the whole thing. There were no safe words. You aren't sure that your immortal soul is safe, but you also aren't sure that you had one. You would like to do it again. You do not explain to Joffey what's up. Joffey takes one look at you and puts their hands up softly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm going to read a book and fall asleep. Tomorrow, I either flay you alive and hoist your skin from the flagpole, or I give you a little kiss on the forehead and we both make enough money to continue this happy charade of a romance until we both enter menopause.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's great, Joffey.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I can tell you're not listening to me.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You haven't sensed a demonic presence on board, lately, Joffey?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ What flavor of demonic? Lecherous? Mammonic? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Pits of hell, heart of an ancient thing, pillars of iron, stones in the water, the bottom of the ocean and the crushing depths of an ancient hunger?] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh. No, but I've definitely read about Dread Charybdis before. One of the more famous elders of the deep? Surfaces at the end of the world to drag the entire world into its maw?] (text-color:#F0F)[ //Fuck//.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Always seemed like a really yonic way to die.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Take me now.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ What.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm going to strike a deal with you, for the sake of tomorrow, and pretend you are deeply ill with fever. I am also going to gently, gently remind you that acknowledgment of the outer gods is the first way to let them into your head, and that if there were, hypothetically, to be a force of raw infinite power aboard, that it is your duty as a captain to not die, and not to get us killed by it. By whatever means that might take.] Hopefully Coitus, you think. Then you think, I am so unbelievably doomed. You clap your hands together. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm going to go.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Right.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Pray for me.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Let's not attract anything else's attention. Just don't die?] Fuckin' Joffey. You walk out onto the maindeck, and down into the hold, and around the corner into the infirmitchen. It's tucked so cutely away, on the back side of the ship... its proximity, vertically, to your cabin. If you were newly investigating this mystery, it would be quite easy to assert the possibility of that being why you hear the cleaver, every night-- it's just loud, and nearby. Unfortunately, there is no explaining away anything you saw last night, now is there! There are no mysteries, only answers! Your crown and all the blood that can flow from it are going to paint the town a vibrant red. What a nightmare, you can't stop thinking to yourself. If you think it loud enough, you won't be able to hear the distant thunk of a cleaver, rising and falling, and maybe your mouth will even stop watering. You've at least been able to unhear the murmuring deep in your brain, near the stem-- the voice in you that says you can be known again, in total surrender. The guilty thing that wishes to be abdicated by retreating to a world where nothing it did could truly be considered a crime. You're hesitating at the door. You don't hesitate. You don't believe in personal space. You aren't salivating right now. You are a captain, speaking to a member of your workplace, about improper workplace behavior, such as bending your boss over a table and fucking them raw while being covered in something that isn't quite blood. Also in the fact that their existence as a thing outside of the domain of the ordinary may be endangering everyone aboard, given that they are probably a lightningrod for the eldritch, if not a literal manifestation of a trauma that consumes people alive. So you walk in. (text-color:#F0F)[ You owe me... uh... ] It's there again. It isn't them. It's something else, with guts strewn like a jellyfish's stingers all around them. A ball of blood with half distinguished features, uncannily like a human heart, its white veins, on inspection, the ridge of an arm, or its valves a clump of crusted blood. They waver between being and not being. (text-color:#F0F)[ Uhhhhh. Are you. Can you hear me. ] White-blue eyes open, as if they were always there. A head nods, and around that head hair moves, thick with something not-entirely-liquid, but unmistakeably hair. A nose inhales, and you see it rise slightly against a broad face. A rough, low voice says, (text-color:#748)[ It doesn't let me see any other part of it.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Um.] They rise to stand. (text-color:#748)[ You're not another part of it. But you could be. You could have been. ]Every single bone in their back cracks as if being put into place as they rise, vertebrae by vertebrae. (text-color:#748)[ You aren't supposed to see. If you see, you aren't supposed to remember. And if you remember, I'm not supposed to live.] (text-color:#F0F)[ All three of those things are happening.] (You think you see tension release from their shoulders, but as broad as they are, and as cloaked in half-light, it's hard to know.) Grog moves towards you with surprising speed. They take your head and grab it between their fingers, their hand spanning your face as they lift it up. You feel a blood vessel in your neck pulse repeatedly, what runs beneath it preparing to be spilled. You watch as his nostrils flare, then your eyes move up to his. They are-- on examination-- a perplexing, quixotic color. Either they're pulsing, or your vision is, and the murk of gray, silver, and gold seems to filter like silt around their pupils. It's not something anyone would notice if they weren't looking-- unless they were allowed to stop and get a good look. Their eyes close, withdrawn, and your head is drawn forwards, your ear even with their mouth. (text-color:#748)[What do you want.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I want to know how you became like this.] Grog snorts. (text-color:#748)[ It won't save me.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I... just want to know.] They nod, and begin. (text-color:#748)[ Long ago, I ate the heart of something from the bottom of the sea. And the sea, ever since, has tried to take it back in every way it knows how. Fifty ships. One, the harpies. One, the rocks. One, the kraken. One, even I have not been allowed to remember. There are many, many things that lurk at the edge of the world. You can't fear them if you're dead, so they leave survivors. Sometimes, they decide to be efficient. No good sailor needs to have just one tale.] You feel your heart rattle in your chest. (text-color:#748)[ You get a taste for it. It always finds you, so you seek it first. You don't get attached. You wait for the story to play out the way it always does. You wait for the end of the world. Eventually, the narrative slides over you. Only for a moment do you see the gold eyes of the hunting thing as it hurtles down its track. Your crewmates turn to eating each others' organs. Your boat begins to take on water. A bird the size of a thundercloud descends and tears your mast away. When you are alone with the world, it doesn't hide from you anymore. For a moment, it will say one loud, impossible word. The word will kill everyone, and leave a few alive to stammer its weakened corpse to the mainland, where no one will hear it. As long as there is a boundary. As long as there is anticipation. As long as not everything can be known. Fear will always stake its claim, and it will stake its claim first and most strongly on the sailor.] And you nod, because you have heard stories. You are, you believe, a bit of an averted story yourself. There are definitely ones being told about you right now... and you do depend on them not being fully believed, especially because they will certainly never be told with any degree of gentleness for your side. You wonder how many monsters are like you. Many, you suspect. But there are also some things too terrible for comprehension. "Monster", as a category, can mean just about anything. There's no use purifying the company you keep, nor do you want to. (text-color:#748)[ You are close to the fear. But you should be very... very fortunate... that fear has chosen not to have you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (text-color:#748)[ It's over.] (text-color:#F0F)[ So what. You get to pretend to be a person again.] They don't answer. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do any of them ever live.] (text-color:#748)[ No.] (text-color:#F0F)[ So, what then? We crash on the rocks tomorrow?] (text-color:#748)[ Every time I think this is the end of it. It keeps going.] (text-color:#F0F)[ The sex I'm guessing.] (text-color:#748)[ That's new.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh my god. You're an eldritch virgin.] They look away. (text-color:#748)[ Wasn't a virgin before.] (text-color:#F0F)[ After?] (text-color:#748)[ Never had sex while--] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, while your face is still mostly muscle and ooze pulp palpitating and reforming into your human complexion.] (text-color:#748)[ You're not scared.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm terrified. It just sounds like you've usually killed people-- or been witness to the death of people-- with a lot of uninspiring coping mechanisms.] Their eyebrows rise. (text-color:#F0F)[ You wouldn't...] They look away again. (text-color:#748)[ I thought you would be dead. I don't like knowing... that anything... is looking at me. I don't remember what I look like. Which means no one does.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh.] (text-color:#748)[ If this isn't a horror story anymore. Or a tragedy. It isn't a story I am supposed to be part of.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You. Could be something else?] (text-color:#748)[ A finger can not unbecome the hand. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Whatever's past you... it remembers me. It thinks of me, for whatever that's worth to me. Either of us. If it's a very long tragedy, then--] Grog cups your head with one hand. There is a gentleness in it that isn't there before. Something speaks, like blood gurgling in a throat. Something speaks, like bubbles of water in a sea so deep, they will travel upwards for weeks to reach the surface. (text-color:#748)[ Elisa Howl. This story is over, and no-one else is going to die.] You sigh in relief you didn't know you could feel. An absolution rises from your shoulders like morning mist, something peeling clear of you like a layer of skin. You feel tears welling at the corner of your eyes, but it will not do to let that thing know you have the luxury of crying while it does not. Instead, you put your hand on its hand. (text-color:#F0F)[ I hope you find whatever end of the story you're seeking.] Grog doesn't respond. Instead, they move their fingers across your skin-- feeling the run of your cheekbone, tracing the side of your nose, the place where your ear attaches. You take your own hand and move it across their face, across the snarl of stray hairs on their lip and chin, up to their long eyelashes and the wrinkles at the corner of their eyes. You lean in, and you kiss them. Their breath, expectedly, is all fish. You feel one of their teeth push in where your tongue meets it. When you recoil, mildly concerned, they say, (text-color:#748)[ It's not in good condition.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Your...] (text-color:#748)[ The body. ] You nod. (text-color:#F0F)[ Does it-- do you like me?] Grog looks at you for a long time, as if trying to make a verdict. You're used to this-- you live with Joffey, and have tormented them for as long as you love them. Being a burden is really no burden at all, for you. It comes with the territory. But when Grog huffs, and says at last, (text-color:#748)[ There's no difference. Hell wants you. So does its mouth.] You can't take that as enthusiastic consent, you guess. Or you don't want the end of everything to be you, pushing too hard again, opening your mouth where you should close it. (text-color:#F0F)[ I--] You do know what you want to say. (text-color:#F0F)[ I hope you had fun.] Grog closes their eyes. At last, they nod. (text-color:#F0F)[ The part of you that's witnessing-- thanks for being with us. And whatever's behind that-- thank you for... not... killing us. Not taking us down the road where we would have died. Or something?] (text-color:#748)[ You did that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh.] (This is the weirdest affirmation you've ever been given on your leadership style?) (text-color:#748)[ Goodbye, Captain.] And you don't want to go, but you find yourself with your hand around the door. Then you find yourself upstairs, in your room. You think you dream of watching a red moon on a red sky, streaked through with clouds the color of sinew. You may even touch one of the stones in the water, the massive teeth of something hungry which has decided not to eat you for reasons you can't comprehend. And you think it likes-- you hope it likes-- the way you run your finger around whatever soft gum you can find. But that's just a small piece of it, so small that it may not have noticed you at all. It may not have chosen to do anything. What you do remember, for certain, is what you say to Joffey when you return to your shared room: (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey. Everything's going to be OK.]

It's been a moment. You might mistakenly believe that you hallucinated the affair of two nights ago (then again, it's not like you don't have a penchant for seeing impossible things, lately, and only some of them could have been hallucinations). You might mistakenly believe that you will see nothing when you walk into the basement. When you don't hear nothing, you are already made aware that this assumption is unfair. Because nothing about it was a hair out of place. You just didn't know what it meant, yet. You are trying to sleep. The ship howls on all of its ribs. You feel water on your face that you can not wipe away. Behind your closed eyes, the white teeth of encroaching waves gleam in a bared smile. When you were first at sea, you used to take the hem of your breast bindings and breathe into them. At first, it reminded you of the smell of home. Then, when every molecule of home had disappeared through your nose, it gave you back the smell of yourself, a reminder, indisputably, that you were not already lost to the sea. Later, it gave you the smell of a dozen rank lovers, and then Joffey, the combination of tar and wood and something raw and earthy forever engraved in your mind. Tonight, you smell fish. Tonight, you hear the sound of the cleaver descending on wood in your temples, instead of your own heart. It is slow, and steady, and doesn't sync quite right with the ship's murmuring, for as dreadfully close as it is. It pulses through your veins, and Joffey feels still as a board beside you. For a moment, you think of nudging him awake. You are trying to sleep. Your mouth is full of saliva so pure it tastes slightly like iron. You rise from your bed, and step into the red-black afterglow of the fight. You drag yourself across the deck, which the tide has forgotten to clean. A spot where someone died is stained with viscera, a bit of flesh wedged into the floorboards. A characteristic stain on the rail looks like someone threw a watermelon against it. They didn't. You walk between the ropes and see where Bryll strangled someone with loose rigging. Waste of rope, to have it hang. Spit floods your mouth at the thought of blood. The older you get, the less the wolf wants to go back to sleep when it is no longer needed. There are no stars. You are trying to sleep. You step into the basement. Spate must be settled somewhere in the darkness, but you cannot see or hear her. For a dreadful moment, you think all of this must have been for nothing. Your head turns, hearing footsteps, and you realize your heart is pounding so hard you can hear it through the floorboards. No-- the boat is heaving so hard against heavy water that it creaks and thunders against itself. No-- someone is driving a cleaver into wood. (Who was at the helm tonight?) Your mouth fills with saliva. When did you last eat? You remember putting your mouth around something. You forget what it was. Was it someone else's body? Was that what they wanted? You want to be someone who eats people who want to be eaten, but consensual eatings are like jokes where the person you laugh at laughs along-- even if they're funny, they can't be every joke. No matter how nice would that be. You walk towards the kitchen. You are hungry. You cannot sleep. You have accepted this. You move as you do when you are transformed, dragged along by a leash you cannot see into the future. You move as you do in memory, inexorably towards the destination you are going to reach. You stand in the doorway. They are not asleep. You are not asleep. There are bandages hung on the walls. Of course, of course-- trying to bandage their wounds. They must have gotten hurt at some point. You wedge yourself between deepening fields of bandage and hanging, slick, wet fish, towards the noise at the center of it. Something blood-purple and churning fixes eyes it does not have on you. Fish behind you spill blood. You are not supposed to be in someone else's nightmare. You are not far gone enough to have one yourself. You do not belong to something that would keep you so far away from your own body that you become a setting, something which can be inhabited by people without them ever noticing you are there. You are an actor and not the scene. You are a character and not the letters printed on the page, not the ink in which they are written, rotting in a book in the back of a library in the basement of a rich man. You are a hungry animal, but you are not the hunger which it feels. You are not the sharpness of iron, you are one of the shapes iron can take, which has fancied itself animate. You are looking at something with saliva at the edges of your mouth and you put your hands through it, dragging out a body you remember. (text-color:#F0F)[ I have always been hungry. My whole life. Was I thinking of you?] Grog responds, coated in blood, by slamming one hand against your shoulder. It drips an ichor you can not identify as anything at all, except for what you think might be at the very bottom of the sea. You have been alone since the moment it happened. But you have always been back then-- the moment you were married to hunger forever. (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you remember when I was turned?] Eyes open in a face that almost looks like a face again, ice-white. The person that was, a dozen years ago or more, breathes a bubble of blood out of its reforming mouth. (text-color:#748)[ Yes. I remember it.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I've been so lonely... nothing is as bad as me.] (text-color:#748)[ Not nothing. ] You give up, for the first time in a dozen years, being the thing which has to do the hurting, in order for something to be hurt. Its hand steals over you and becomes more a hand, and you oblige it as it guides you onto the table. You You lie, twitching and immobilized, as blood drips across your face, and as something which can not feel and cannot remember and can not want attempts to understand you through the only means it has available. It pulls your shirt over your head, gentle until it tosses it aside, and grabs the corner of your pants and drags them down. You feel heat emanating from your body, and need sharper than steel deep in your hips. Legs twist with muscle, then pale skin, and you feel them enter you like a falling icicle onto the head of a sparrow, like a blade into a tiger, like a dog's tooth into a mouse. You feel them work deeper inside of you, from somewhere outside ourself. One hand grabs your shoulder, the other holds a breast, and you continue to twitch as your bodies rock against each other. It hurts, like it did the first time. You don't want to ever stop hurting. It burns until burning is all there is, their eyes are the only thing over you in the dark. You hear them breathe, and you remember that a person is touching you. Your arm scrambles for theirs. You rock up, and as you climax, you kiss them. Their eyes close, and open. They withdraw. You feel cold and warm all over, that awful temperature where your body fights against the frostbite with dizzying waves of expensive heat. (text-color:#748)[ You were supposed to die that night.] You step forwards. (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you. Are you a werewolf? Are you something else? I hear you in my dreams.] (text-color:#748)[ I've already told you.] That's true. You not only know them, but they might be the only person aboard you can truly claim to know. The only person who was in your head that night, who saw you do it. The person who watches every time you go somewhere you can't come back from. The one who watches you step back from the line when you realize you're close, and refuse to cross it. No person at all. Just a feeling, borne to witness. Every good ghost story has a ghost, and a ghost is just a story about the place it's haunting. (text-color:#F0F)[ The danger's over.] Not yet. (text-color:#F0F)[ Has anyone survived getting this close?] If something is always killing you, and you live a few minutes more, or a few minutes less, that's not surviving. You die when you die. You don't get over hunger. You endure it. You feel very small. Then you do the only thing you have done all week. You step forwards, towards them. They are at the back of the room, in a dark corner that is not yet entirely a dark corner, and may still be soft to the touch, velvet-red and coursing with flesh. You feel a fleck of it on your face, but if you brush it away, it will not be there. You put a hand to the wall of that room, and feel only slightly wet wood beneath your hands. Your other hand is against their face. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're still human, too. It can't take all of you.] They look at you with unrestrained envy. (text-color:#F0F)[ My crew can't be caught in the middle of this.] (text-color:#748)[ There is nothing alive that isn't caught in the middle of this.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you come here to haunt all of them, or did you come here to haunt me?] They do not answer. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'll see you tomorrow, or I'll see you in hell. But I will see you. And I'll atone for it for the rest of my life. Or what did you say? I'll survive a few minutes more, or a few less.] Ice-blue eyes follow you as you go to collect your clothing. (text-color:#F0F)[ Not the first devil I've fucked.] (Bluffing.) You stuff your limbs back through their respective holes. Your mouth is dry, now. You're a person. You're not sure if you're aroused or scared or upset or regretful. You mainly just feel like you want to go back to bed. (text-color:#F0F)[ Not the first devil.] You feel like yourself as you leave. You want to look over your shoulder. You don't know if they want privacy, or if they feel enough like a person to want privacy. So you just look away.

It takes a while to stalk around the decks for her. Always been impressive, her ability to hide herself in plain sight, in such a cramped location. Yet she does, seemingly constantly. When you do find her, it's near the helm, but out to the side, her legs flung precariously over the side as she stares over the back of the boat, at the slight wake. (text-color:#F0F)[ Found you.] She does her little wave. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You certainly did find me! And I've got other things to do tonight, so you might wish to unfind me at your nearest convenience.] You sit down beside her. (text-color:#F0F)[ Other things?] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Yes! Other things.] You lean back on your hands. (text-color:#F0F)[Funny. I don't have anything else to do.] She points at you accusingly. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Liar! I truly can't imagine anything sadder than going back to your first mate, who so obviously loves you with their whole heart and clearly needs a DTR.] (text-color:#F0F)[ The hell is a DTR?] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Define. The. Relatiarrrghship. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Putting 'argh' in the middle of this has, for once, totally not elucidated what you're talking about to me.] She snorts. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ So, tell me, what are you and Joffey, exactly?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, naturally, we're matelots, as we agreed upon while founding this ship. That was for the financial benefits, of course. And then we occasionally keep each other's company, when things are going especially well or badly. ] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Given all that, would you consider yourself to be in a romantic relationship with Joffey?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well...] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ An exclusive romantic relationship with Joffey?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Definitely not that.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Does Joffey know it's definitely not that? What would you say Joffey thinks you have? A matelotship in name only? Matelots with benefits? Or the other big 'm' word-- formally //married//.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I guess it's never really come up?] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ That's why you DTR. You know what Chappel Davy Roans says-- don't be DTF if you won't be DTR later.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Huh. Seems out of character for her.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Eh, she's a mythological figure.] She hesitates for a moment, lips pursed. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ This has been cute, actually, and I can do what I was going to do tonight... basically any other night. You want to come see my favorite place on the ship?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Sure.] Bryllig hops onto the side of the ship like she's going to throw herself into the water-- never a good sign. Then she leans against the ropes and swings herself up in a stunning feat of upper body strength, finally bouncing into a location where the ropes cross into a sort of makeshift hammock. With far less aplomb, you follow, and she situates you by her side, such that you can hear the beating of her heart and every gentle, husky breath she takes. Her thickly bound hair falls around you, and you lean against her side. She leans back, tapping her cheek to your forehead, so you know that all is well. She crosses her legs, leans back into the rigging, and takes a long draw of air through her nose. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Look up.] You do. The Tail shines in long, glimmering, languid light above you, a long river of stars and starstuff. (text-color:#F0F)[ Usually I'm under the deck by now.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ That's funny. I'll sleep in random places around the ship by day, 'cause the girls and I take night shifts at the helm. Honestly, it... suits me more than well enough to be behind the scenes.] It is funny. You don't really know what you hired her for-- a rigger, extra hands. But you've definitely found that when good things happen, Bryll's not far behind. A sort of supernatural good luck charm-- no, you're not that lucky. The opposite, in fact. But a bulwark of goodness. You both stare at the stars for a while, and you blink. (text-color:#F0F)[Thanks for the advice, earlier. You really are good at this.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well. I'm made good by the people I love. You are too, right?] (text-color:#F0F)[Right.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[Then that's one more thing we have in common!] She pats you on the shoulder, then swings down. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Seeya, cap. Maybe you'll find me again, sometime?] You, far less gracefully, descend from on high. She's given you a lot to think about.

(text-color:#90c6f9)[ Find me, again?] Ah. That's how you'll end this. You walk over to Bryll, who is sitting on the rigging. She's turned around so she's staring down at you, the way you stare at the sea, sometimes, and wait for dolphins to surface. She grabs your hand. Surely, she can't lift you all the way directly into the rigging, you think. And then she swings you. You're on solid ground, and she doesn't have much of an angle, so it's not a hard swing. Still, you buckle back, and your head hits the rope, dropping her hand. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Come up! Come on! (text-color:#F0F)[ Coming, coming, coming... You pull your head through the squares at the bottom, where the mesh is nowhere near tight enough to lean into, but easy to move through. You step onto the first rung in the little gym she's set up for herself, then the next, unsteadily. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Heheh. You're bad at this. You collapse into a sitting position. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're in good spirits. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You think so? (text-color:#F0F)[ I think that's where Bas gets it from. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ How do you know I didn't get it from her? You consider it. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm trying to decide if it's funnier if she got it from you, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Well. Which is true? You realize Bryll is waiting on you for an answer, eyes wide. (text-color:#F0F)[ What. You tell me about everyone, and now I tell you? Bryll [] [] you get five such questions. Bryll stops again. There she is, probing you to answer... you have this uncomfortable feeling, the one Siel always gives you, that you're being graded. It's not romantic, not... I mean. You definitely didn't expect for there to be anything particularly intimate about tonight, it's just that people usually don't threaten you without sexual intent. Either that or they're normal-threatening you. But with Bryll, it's more like... she's made a wish, and she wants to know if it's true, or not. [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I see you being kind to them, in your own way... it's fun to watch everyone growing together. I once heard someone say that people used to be different, before gods cut us in half... (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I think it's really stupid to center things like that, I guess. One way of doing things. One way of finding others. I don't think there's some one thing that could fix you, either. I think we make ourselves... our worlds... our lives... every day. We decide, together, what the world is supposed to be like. What people are supposed to be. It's a story we're all writing together. She pauses, then adds. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ But I am biased. I do think we should do it together. (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't know that I was ever trying to do anything like that. Sometimes it feel like the pieces just fell where they fell, and I-- you sweep your (text-color:#90c6f9)[ I could tell you everything. Or we could do some ropes. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Who knows. If you were to have one, maybe, in some cosmic way, some other version of us would have the other. She tilts her head. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Maybe I really can't convince you. But if you feel so strongly that it seems like you can only pick one, who am I to tell you not to pick it? [] []

You aren't really sure why you took her up on her offer. It's not that you're not fond of Siel-- among your crewmates, her relationship to yours is certainly far from adversarial, if not especially emotional or personal. And sometimes, you like that, certainly you prefer it to the catfights you have with Bas or the uneasy, stressful silence with Grog. It's not what you have with Joffey, but what you have with Joffey doesn't really have a positive valence so much as it has a strong valence. The strongest. Your face flattens, something inside you curling in muppetish fashion as you stand in the stairwell. (if:$seensielday1or2)[You've been coming to her classes, after all, for some reason. It's just not a reason you can identify.] Even if you have no good reason to, even if you asked for this (and why did you ask for this?), you hesitate. Something inside you which has always protected you smells danger, but instead of turning away or snarling as it does, it opens its mouth. Other people scare you all the time. You don't usually scare yourself. Not this year. The floorboards creak on your descent, ominously, and you look both ways to catch that no one is around before turning down the hall to the weapons bay. The small room has just a glimpse of moonlight, white as the underbelly of a fish convincing its next victim that it's just a part of the sky. And there, white hair lit like a haloed cloud, she is. You doubt she sleeps in here, so it's likely she went out of the way for you, too. She staggers onto her feet, a wave rolling into a distant shore. A calm tide, but that scares you more. When the water draws away, placidly still, that means something much stronger is coming up. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Show me yours and I'll show you mine.] Your fingers go for your pants. She seizes it there, holds it, and you comically gulp down spit, a noise that surprises you given that your throat is dry as a plank. You notice for the first time that there's an undertone of black at the edges of her fingernails. Looking up to her bruise-colored lips, you wonder how many parts of her body look drowned, and against your better judgment, how many of them you'll get to see tonight. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Pervert.] She snaps your fingers like a dry plank, too. Your wrist trembles in her hand. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[I know you know what I'm asking for.] She tilts your head up like you're a prize animal. In a way no one would ever address their prize animal, she snarls, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[If you didn't want to be honest, you shouldn't have come.] (text-color:#F0F)[You want me to be honest. You spread your free arm. (text-color:#F0F)[ Make me an honest man. That's me being honest.] She lets you go with a forcefulness that makes you recoil, makes evident the red welts forming on your hand. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[More of this, this posturing. Where is it? Do you have a second skin, too? Did you bring it?] You really thought you were getting closer. Apparently, getting closer for Siel entails watching her have a nervous breakdown where you have no idea what she's talking about. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Don't lie. I can smell it.] You move your head back, take a long whiff of the room. (text-color:#F0F)[What? Metal? Animal magnetism--] That gets her. You think, for a moment, she is about to slap your face, but instead she swings the door open. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[This was a mistake.] Either be honest with me or don't play with me. She bares her teeth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Or else.] You spread your hands. (text-color:#F0F)[I really, really don't know what you want.] Siel surveils you with disdain. With a hoarseness in her voice that borders on what you must guess is legitimate sadness, she says, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Then I can't tell you. ] And then she leaves. Man, if you knew this was what you had coming to you, you would have done something else, tonight.

You do not make it to your quarters in time. Crap crap crap-- it's never good to be agitated going into a change, and as the moon shines a violent, strobing light over the boat, you rush into the bowels of it, cornering yourself behind piles and piles of old fishing net. Fur bursts through uniform, and your mouth lengthens and twists into a long snarl. Your body ripples with new muscle, and a tail tucks between your legs as toes rise and pawpads harden. Awareness grows dim, and remains at a low hum, as if someone, long ago, had given one order-- stay. Feeling the last of the change fining up the details of a massive, black-furred wolf, you curl into the corner, like a mold on the wood of the ship. And you lie there for a while. At some point, you close your eyes, but this only makes your nose stronger. Usually, you can at least convince your body to sleep. Tonight, though, you catch a tang that you now realize is always there, only hidden by the stronger, more familiar scents of the cabin. In the hull, there's nothing to save you from it. You lick your chops, suddenly grateful to have them. There's something with you in the dark. The smell is aquatic, but not quite fishy-- ancient, but not old. The reek of another predator, all blood and fluid and fur. Under it, the soft scent of linens, of chalk, of someone else's sea. The highlands you've never been to, written as plain as any map onto your senses. You bare your teeth with a delight only hunters know, face brindling into a mask and hackles rising as fishing net falls from around you. Bravely, she jerks the fur beneath your neck. You would kill anyone who tried this, but not anything, and when she meets your eyes you only want to tear her skin off her body because you want to see what's underneath. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Liar.] Your ears flatten, a growl rumbling deep in your throat. She has a pelt across her back, hanging loosely off her body, and she says, snidely, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ One of those. You can't turn back. Just my luck. You get the vague sense, between words you don't understand, that she's taunting you. You are much larger than her right now, which you let her know, moving forwards and sloughing the rest of the net from your body. As you move in a tightening circle around her, she puts her coat over one arm, a large, finned hand extending out from it. She moves the other, and her back begins to change. With two hands losing all grip on dexterity, she moves the hood of the coat over her face, and what stretches out is not a sea lion, and is not a person, and is large as you are. Its spade-teeth flicker out of its jaw as it breathes, as if emerging from deep water, or having been choked. Drawn up to her full height, she's shorter than you. Her tail's too thick to swing in warning, her hackles too slanted to the sea to raise. There's no threat she can offer back that isn't a mouthful of teeth and a defiant, holding stare. You are aware the smells of the place are those of people who belong to you-- are yours-- and she is, too, by being on your ship. You lunge, and she slams you with an unexpectedly heavy paw. You double back, choking on blood, and bare your teeth again, circling. Even with no pack to your back, you are still the protector of this place, and will prosecute as needed. She readies herself, too, unbothered. When your next swipe comes, haphazard, it's a simple dodge from an animal which shouldn't be able to dodge. You bark, chuffingly, and notice her stare roll away from you, towards the rest of the basement. Looking to flee, obviously. A sign of weakness. Then, she flattens herself, to the greatest of her ability, into a bow. It's not the tooth-licking you'd expect from an inferior, but it's at least unthreatening, a small animal asking you to play. You don't play, on nights like these. You sit in the corner and wait for it to be over. She drags herself, with manageable grace, to the stairs, and looks back at you again, the little white in her eyes just a sliver of anticipation. Leaving. You flatten your ears and follow her onto the deck, feeling a sudden guilt seize you. You're definitely not allowed up here, with the wind ruffling your fur, and with scents from abreast the ship rippling through your nose. Her smell, too. So obvious you can't believe a human nose could miss it, the overtones of chalk and heather more audible from outside of the hull. She's kept her coat well-washed, to the best of her ability. How else would she ever smell home again? You realize you've gotten too close, without even a trace of the hostility you were supposed to be using to manage her. She's standing still, expression untraceable. There's no movement in the fur, the haunches, the ears, to track. Even though she looks a little like a dog, there's nothing in her you can grab onto-- nothing to work out. Whereas your body is that of a pack animal, you're nothing but signals. What's she made for? There has to be some advantage-- She hauls herself out from under your nose and eyes, suddenly overtaken by something more interesting than you. You see all of her muscles tense, making skin into a tapestry of raw power, and then, over meter-tall barricades, she launches herself into the sea. Your gaze doesn't even go to the black water below. You just leap. When you hit the water, you are enraptured by how it feels on your fur-- the whole world reaching a long hand around you, holding you tight. Your sense of smell is obliterated by the heavy tang of salt, and your eyes are next to useless, but as your paws straddle the ocean on instinct, you find it's truly not so bad. Easier, by far, than it is You have to be dreaming. You have to be dead. There has to be nothing else in the entire world but the pair of you. You feel your fur ripple with panic, damp as it is, and stagger up, vision immediately fixed on Joffey's cabin, with the single A quick breath, even through saltwater, reminds you that they went in a few hours ago and have not come out since, and that no one else has gone in to visit them. That's not enough. You get up, shake, and launch yourself in that direction, only to be caught at the nape. She's got you. You lunge around, this time And then her teeth recede. The moment is long, your breath equally heavy, and She steps out of her skin. She drags her head against yours, running an arm along the length of your snout, and pressed her forehead into the crook between your snout and your eyes. You press back, opening your mouth into a bared grin, with the tongue lolling out. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ See you again, old friend.] You don't remember where you [[sleep|DECK HUB]]

It's been a night since... well. Since. And some part of you is nervous, sneaking down to where you think the pair of you will meet up. She's so--subtle with her flirtations. Sometimes you think you imagined that night, with her body and yours floating in the water dark as your pelts. Your nostrils still burn with the undeniable scent of blood. Your mouth still waters. But then you come downstairs, she's in the weapons bay. Waiting for you? Preparing to kill something? You have no idea. She's sitting there, pale pelt draped around her shoulders. It doesn't disguise the heavy muscle underneath. If anything, the muscle moves through the skin, to an extent you've never seen even tight clothing work around and against an arm. She's playing her fingers around the edge of a harpoon, in a way that worries the edge of the blade. You imagine her putting her fingers like that through your teeth, when they're blade-sized. You try to stop thinking about that. She leans back, a quick glance letting you know that she has, in fact, seen you as well. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Well.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ...Sorry. I know that this isn't... I'm not what you want right now. And I won't be, for a while. But I was thinking about you anyways.] Siel stands. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I never said that.] She strides over to you, slamming the door shut behind you. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I was thinking of you as well.] Her hand clasps the side of your face. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You're very handsome.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You think so.] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Beautiful. Dangerous. Filled with surprises. ] She runs her fingers across your gums, feeling out where the fangs hide under your teeth, ready to press through at the next full moon. She lingers there, on the still-tender skin, and drags her thumbs back to the edges of your mouth, feeling the cut-up jowls still cleaning house. The fingers work their way down to the hair on the back of your neck, eliciting a long, throaty rumble of approval, and finally, with a nonchalant unbuttoning of your loose buttons through pressure alone, those firm, callused pads press against your nipples. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ All good?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes.] She leans into your ear, and you hear the rusty rattle of the sea, smell salt and fur. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ And this?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Please.] Her sharp teeth cut your neck, savoring the jolt of pain, and your body relaxes into hers as she moves from a bite into a kiss, tasting the wound. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'm rough, like the ocean is rough. Is that alright?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I took way more than this the other night.] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Ah, ah, ah... I have to wait a month to give you that much again.] That's fucking unfair, you think, and when her body presses into yours, you don't think much at all. She has your feet up in the air and her knee directly into your taint, the pressure firm and steady, rolling through you the way the ocean does. She grabs handfuls of hair as your bodies wind against each other, your hair against hers, a salt-and-pepper map of sweat and glistening heat. You feel something bright in the back of your mouth as you kiss her, your tongue swiping spade-teeth, getting the smell of your own blood twisted up with the harsh, salty scent of her own mouth. She is ragged, and she is fantastic, and she takes you like this is a ritual she's been preparing her whole life for. As you come the first time, she asks, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ May I eat you?] And you nod, frantically, not even knowing if you can feel better than this. She makes her way down your side, trailing little dark hickeys down the side of your body. You're shaking too hard to stand by the time she's reached your legs, and she moves over an ammunitions crate to sit on. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ They've seen worse.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Really.] The word barely leaves your mouth before her tongue flicks against your g-spot, once more banishing all thought. She opens you with a ferocity you can barely fathom, your mouth hanging open as her hands work the back gates while her mouth works the front. Every cell in your body radiates with pleasure as she explores your cunt with the same joy she did your mouth, occasionally stopping to wipe seawater on the side of your legs with a gentle kiss. When you spasm forwards, she catches you, kissing the hair of your happy trail until she's followed it back up to your belly button. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ That's my dog...] Her eyes glint with a violent spark of mischief. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Bark for me.] She starts again in earnest, amping up the tempo with every strained whine that leaves your mouth, blurring into one, long tapering whimper as your hands grab her shoulders, biting and kissing the corner of her neck as she presses you through what feels like minutes of bliss. You feel like you are drowning in pleasure, in the smell of salt, in the rhythm of her body. When she finally removes her hands and mouth, stopping to kiss your ankle, she leans into your lap like she intends to sleep there, listening to the beat of your heart. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ That's good.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I--] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I'll take it later. Now you have to let me rest.] You sigh, still dizzy, and flick one of her longer strands of white-blonde hair behind her ear. You see her lips perk, and you run your fingers against her head, settling to massage scruffy passages and scratch between long, ponytail bound strands. You hear her soft breath, feel it warm against your leg as she presses her face against your stomach. You sit like that for a long time, then get off the barrel, spooning her. She doesn't move, save for to kick closer to you, pressing into your side. She's a good few inches shorter than you, and she breathes quickly in her sleep, her arms tucked in. She doesn't look uncomfortable on the floor at all, but doesn't protest when you drag some tarp over the pair of you. [[You're her good dog. You'll keep her nice and warm, tonight.|DAY 6]]

The underdeck is dark and dank late at night, and drops of spray trickle down from above, in testament to the dubious condition of your ship. You creep past where your crewmates sleep, wandering through the labyrinth, and catch a set of ice-green spheres hovering in the gloom. Below them, nearly imperceptible, is a cut gray smile, across which flickers a line of darkness-- a mermaid licking their tongue across their teeth. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Come downstairs to check on me, have we?] (link: ">")[== The face you make is entirely not your fault. After all, your interactions with Spate thus far have been a little... questionable. Surely the mermaid must be aware of the way they're coming across, something which is only confirmed when you hear them coo, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[We only bite if asked politely, Captain. Come a little closer.] (link: ">")[== This is the point where you give them what-for, inform them what the rules will be like on your ship, and what you will not tolerate. But you step closer to say it-- (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Good girl.] (link: ">")[== Perhaps the talking to can wait. As you approach the mermaid, throat bobbing with something between concern and excitement, they lean forward, sniffing once. Then they draw up, their full height a reminder that things live long, large, and different in the deep. A body made for catching and killing things that a human would balk at, lithe with muscle and dazzling with pearlescent scales. You don't need to know that even now, they are coiled close to breaking(if:$tubacquired is True)[, and you wonder how long they would have been able to bear the awful wait of being made much too small]. Spines flap against their sides, probing the air, testing you. You've heard that things with spines like those will kill you if you try to eat them. You don't know what will happen if they try to eat you. The mermaid, finding no purchase anywhere else in the rank, desolate world, drapes her hands across your shoulders. You stand there, smelling jellyfish, salt, plasma, rotten wood, the world. Something cold opens your mouth and you accept it, gratefully, your own tongue flicking out. She smells like things left on the shore. You smell like a corpse. Bodies are bodies, forced to submit to what you put them through. Your hands reach out, as if in a dream, and you shift to accomodate her. When her fingers linger on your skin, you can hear the noise you make from inside her body, as well as yours. She draws back, body undulating behind her. There's not much room for it, and there she is, massive, caged, yours, no one's. Like catching lightning inside a glass bottle and leaving it on the shelf. You feel the absence of her inside you. There are myths about the saliva of mermaids, nasty ones. There are rumors that their neurotoxins leave their victims wanting until they die. The mermaid's eyes soften, a smile playing on her thin lips. Bristle-teeth come out, and she tilts her head just to the side.(text-color:#e3c8f9)[Ah... I didn't know how I didn't notice earlier. You're a monster too.] (link: ">")[== You crack an uneven grin. (text-color:#F0F)[ Is this a metaphor?] Their eyes narrow, coolly. They regard you with the same expression they used to regard the fish, earlier. Then they lower their ears. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh, you're boring. I forgot.]They lounge at the edge of their {(if:$tubacquired is True)[barrel](else:)[tub]}, and with a noncommital slam of their tail that you can hear from here, lean over the edge. (link: ">")[== You figure you're not misinterpreting this, even a little. And more importantly, you're now certain, whereas you were earllier only entertaining the possibility, that you are being mocked. You, as a creature who needs to force their way into being, can not sustain being mocked. You have to assert dominance. You look at those white teeth. You aren't doing this because your entire body is pulsing with blood. You're doing this because it's essentially still contract. |hook>[(link: "Kiss her.")[(replace:?hook)[(display:"SpateN1-Pt2")]] (link: "Kiss her!")[(replace:?hook)[(display:"SpateN1-Pt2")]] (link: "KISS HER!!!")[(replace:?hook)[(display:"SpateN1-Pt2")]]]

It's been a hard day. You've taken to unwinding the same way each night this week, well, save the one. So once again, you slip into the dark, find her there, waiting, her eyes wide, at perfect attention. (text-color:#F0F)[ Miss me?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Got nothing to do but to wait for you.] You feel a sudden sting of regret. She has to notice the look on your face, because she drops her head against the side of the (if: $tubacquired)[tub](else:)[barrel] and says, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ There really is no such thing as a relationship without some kind of power dynamic, you know. If you want, you can say I'm extorting you too.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Guess we'll have that all settled inside the next day.] Spate narrows her eyes. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You really think I could still be lying, hm?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't know if you know this or not, but pirates aren't exactly known for honorable conduct. You scratch my back, I stab yours...] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ah, and the transaction has already taken place.] They look at you entirely too innocently. She opens one hand, slaps the (if: $tubacquired)[tub](else:)[barrel], and then looks up at you again. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Looook. There's only one thing you owe me, you know? ] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm guessing you've recently decided you don't fuck around.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ On the contrary. I've decided I'd like to. Usually I don't let people get teeth near the grippers, but...] She arches her back, pulling more of herself out of the tub and stalking down to the floor with her arms. She's practically a thick wedge of muscle, somewhere between fish and snake-- oh, you're stupid. That's just an eel. You're describing an eel. As she slinks towards you, she snarls, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Look. I can't make this look sexy for that long. You need to get over here and suck my fucking twin dicks or I'm going to kill you to death.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well, if you're going to kill me to death.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You are not allowed to be into me threatening you right now. ] You step closer, intent on meeting her halfway, and as you kneel down in worship she tackles you backwards. The pair of you lock mouth to mouth, tongues twisting together and apart, and water pours over your sides as she twists herself against you. You bite her, leaving a trail down her side, and slip your fingers against the frills on her gills. (text-color:#F0F)[ Good?] She's making a heavy, strained infrasound, and her eyes are fully dilated. She responds by, with a shuddering jaw and sharp teeth, attempting to shut you up. You drag your fingers back and forth faster, and all that escapes her mouth is a long, shuddering sigh. Trying to keep the pace, you move your mouth down towards her stomach, rolling her over so you're on top. Finally, your mouth traces the edge of one of the clasper. Back in the day, you were known for hitting two pipes at once. You never thought you'd hit them quite like this. You alternate, feeling them strain in your mouth-- somewhere between finger-sucking and good old girldick. Then you take both of them and, thankful for their skinniness, slam both as far down your throat as they'll go. Spate buckles beneath her and you play her like a church organ, hands on the gills, mouth on the claspers.You drag your mouth back up, savoring every turn as you pleasure the whole length of it, taking it so slow as to savor the very ends. As her body peaks, all of her roiling in pleasure, you suck again, settling into a slow rhythm, before beginning to accelerate. Oh yes. You are going to get a good grade in oral sex, something which is reasonable to want and possible to achieve. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Good-- good g-girl--] She rests her hands in your hair, her fingers kneading the back of your neck. You feel your mouth tremble with warmth, and you swallow, your lips finding purchase closer to her neck again. As her body settles back on the ground, you kiss her over and over. (text-color:#F0F)[ Ey. Ey, there we are. Mwa mwah mwah.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hhhh. Hhhh. You... are... very experienced, aren't you.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Don't worry. I promise you're not falling for an amateur. This is true-blue professionalism.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'd hate to leave you blue--] You kiss her neck. (text-color:#F0F)[ Hey. Let's just lie here.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ But it's... the last time.] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... You turn over, so you're also on your back.] You stare at the ceiling, feel her staring at you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hm...] (text-color:#F0F)[ What.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You'll kill me.] (text-color:#F0F)[ No I won't. Then I won't get paid.] They snort. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ That's a fantastic point, sugar. But you won't like what I'm going to say.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That I'm bad at oral sex?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No, oh, honey. No. No. I'm just doing the most classic lesbian trick in the book.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Which ex is it.] Spate sighs, taps her chin with a finger. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, they grow up so fast. That's just awful. Tsk.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm a bit of a doomed prophet.] Not true! You have actually never predicted a single thing, ever, in your life! (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Unrewarding career path. There's too many of them to think of, anyhow. It's more of a... hm. I'm thinking about people, I suppose.] (text-color:#F0F)[ All mammals look the same?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well, long time since I had sex with an animal person. You lot are harder to pin down by the day. Mermaids, we'll last a little longer... until there are no places left in the ocean left to hide. If we keep our cover low enough, then we'll never be found. It's all a little less bad than it looks, but..]. She shakes her head. You're not surprised that she knows who you are. (text-color:#F0F)[ Well? (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I wish we could all be more a part of each other's stories than we are. I wish what we were made more sense to people, inspired some capacity for joy instead of fear. I want to receive a billion more blowjobs. I want to be held in people's hands and ferried all around the ship, laughing like maniacs. I want to have fun, and people are always so fun. It's always a real pain to go back-- I never want to go back.] (text-color:#F0F)[ How many times am I going to have to ask you to stay before you stay?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It'll be a long time from now. ]She kisses you on the forehead. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Before I listen. You're at the end of your career-- a good end, a deserved end. There's a few more things I need to do before I can relax.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You're never going to tell us what you're running from, are you.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I told you. I'm a thief, and a liar.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Why steal anything from anyone?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh. That old secret. I thought you would have figured it out.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Go on.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[The only way to get humans to keep picking you up is to actually give them what they ask for.] And she kisses you again, over and over. Ah. Well, if you could buy anything, perhaps it would be a world where you weren't buying her time. Perhaps a big old pond in your backyard you could salt until she was comfortable, though that would probably kill everything around it. For now, you sit in a bouquet of kisses, on every bit of spare and open salt-pocked skin, until the burns from little scars and the nick of her teeth and bad shaves all blend together into a single, beating warmth across your body. You lift her back into the water, and her gills breathe easier at once, gently turning the ocean through her. She looks up at you with sleepy delight, and extends a hand to you again. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Thanks for humoring me. I'll tip well.] You kiss her hand as it slides along her face. (text-color:#F0F)[ Thank you for saving my life. I'm sorry that costs money.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Sugar baby... I want to buy happiness for every silly person in the world, stuck above the waves where no one can have as much as they want.] You have been touched by something very old, and very cloying, and too kind for its own good. You have brushed against a brightness which has lived for hundreds of years, and will live for hundreds more, into a world you wouldn't recognize, laughing, teasing, kissing and being kissed, fucking and being fucked. You think, and even when she dies, mermaids will go on forever. We will never kill them. Even if we ruin everything-- mermaids will never perish from the earth. [[There will always be something in the deep shaped like us, that we can not entirely understand. There will always be something that could understand us, or love us, or destroy us. We will reach for it, and it will reach for us.|DECK HUB]]

You come back. There was nothing else you could possibly do-- the salt in your mouth has made your spit taste funny all day, salt which you think might be coming from a hole left somewhere in the soft inner pink of your mouth, but one you can't locate. Every time you tasted it, you thought about them. Something as innocuous, as constant as salt, doesn't have the right to remind you of a stranger. Joffey is the boards. Maybe you'll give Sam the wind, or Grog the taste of metal that sometimes hits your mouth when you put too much fork on too little meat. The others are new, their webs in your mind fickle and spotty. You take to people slowly. Something as simple as salt is not up for grabs. Precious on land, enormous on sea-- everywhere and out of reach. You hear something slap in the dark. The rush of water in your mouth is embarassing as it is thrilling. You are professional. You did what you had to do last night to shut her up. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I must have been a paltry meal, if you came back for seconds.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Got it in one.] Their nasty, sharkish grin emerges from the dark, as well as their face. They grin in a way that makes you think they are savoring the power they have over you. Well, you can both savor the power they have over you. You've stepped over far enough to grab their neck with your teeth. Their frills rise and shudder, fitfully, and they exhale in a soft whine which turns into a long breath, more like the rudder of some heavy steam-engine than a purr or anything else more animalistic. You see vents along their ribs rise and fall at the edge of the water, massaging it. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I want you. ] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Then take me.] In a feat of fishing that would have you crowned at most competitions, you swing them over your head, eight feet of flesh and salt and water. As you feel your legs give slightly, they grab your cheek and say, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Trust fall.] And they run their mouth along the edge of your chin. In a moment of weakness, you fall backwards and they end up sprawled atop you, deceptively light, their length curling around your legs and their arms propping them up, playfully. You look up into their eyes. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Have you pinned, now. ] You swing them around, a gesture that leads from your shoulders but really comes from the legs, pulling them off, buckling them, arranging them beneath you. They stare up in awe, frills tapping the edges of your chin, mouth cut into a shape too shy and small to be their usual smile. You breathe heavily, energy you didn't know you had pouring out of you, the scent of saltwater not nearly as strong as the warm smell of your sweaty, unwashed body. (text-color:#F0F)[ Pride goeth.] Spate grabs a fistful of your hair and you feel their claspers hook your pants and pull down. You whine. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Your boat is covered in //nasty, nasty fucking splinters//. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Hhhghhh... ] You feel them at the edge of your legs, brushing the hair there with a cloying gentleness. Everything, to them, is another game, and you see it in their eyes again, all that kindness snapped back to steel, with the enthusiasm of a bear trap. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I bet you like having something thrust into you out of nowhere too, hm? ] They both slide in, with the dexterity of fingers. You feel them twine and twist in you, exploring you. They strain, their fingers pulling you into them by the hair, and you pull against each other, your mouth bound up in their unpronounced shoulders. (text-color:#e3c8f9) [Now that's much better to have in you than a stray piece of unrefurbished wood. (if: $clearedallspate) [You know what I am. You treat me like it, don't you? Let me take care of you, too. Receive this one boon from the sea.] (else:) [I'm something else. Don't you want to find out?]] Your tongue streaks down their chest, stops around the breasts-- not sensitive, nothing. Seized by inspiration, you kiss the edge of their gills, and hear that deep, humming noise again-- louder as you bite the edge, leaving a black-blue bruise on their silvered body, like a lake at night reflecting an inverted moon. Your lips find purchase just under the edge, and you suck poison, like the devil's fingers you used to eat at crab festivals at a child, from the frilled, feathery lines there, which flutter in your mouth as Spate moans. You rock faster, guiding her up to the brink, and when you both come, you are still holding her, like a butterfly, at the edge of your lips. You kiss them again, for good measure. You savor the summer that settles over you both. (text-color:#F0F)[ First time with a mammal?] Spate laughs, softly, claspers leaving you to tuck into their sheathe. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Did it seem like it?] You tilt your head, rocking it against her hammering chest. Multiple beats-- how many hearts do mermaids have? You laugh. (text-color:#F0F)[ No, you don't seem like an amateur.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You don't either. Her fingers still find purchase in your hair, petting you. ] You mumble softly, (text-color:#F0F)[ Feels nice.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Yeah?] You nod. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well, no one said you had to hurry to put me back.] You lie there, for a while, then, breath to breath, shallow rest to shallow rest. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ ... (if: $fishacquired and $tubacquired)[Well, thank you for humoring me.] (else:)[I like to be humored, you know.]] (text-color:#F0F)[ ... ]You nod. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I promise I'll leave a good review.] (text-color:#F0F)[ You might be the first one.] They laugh, harshly. But their fingers stop in your hair, drum the side of your ear for a moment. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well, both of us can afford to take the win, I think.] [[You take it. Gladly.|DECK HUB]]

While you were a little taken aback by his earlier proclamation, you toss and turn a little in Joffey's-- you mean your-- bed before you decide it's probably best to hear the man out on his dalliances. After all, if you are not to dally, what are you, really? Surely, a pirate captain is allowed to sleep with her inferiors as her inferiors demand it. All the great captains have engaged in webs of friendcest nearly deep as their coffers. And Sam seemed so excited, and to disappoint Sam... nay, you shant. So, with some trepidation, you slowly ease your way down towards the lower decks. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I haven't done this in so long! ] You're not sure you would be bragging about that, but sure. You amicably follow him down the stairs. How good are your crew's barracks, again? It's going to be awkward if you're trying to fuck on top of Bas, or something. You know that a bunch of the hammock area is nooked, because it was supposed to hold far more people than you actually do. When you get there, it's silent. It's not that there aren't other hammocks-- it's that they're empty. Sam beams. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Gets lonely down here!] Yeah, but it maybe shouldn't? (text-color:#F0F)[Where the blessed hell is everyone else.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Ha! You want company?] (text-color:#F0F)[I wouldn't say that much. I'm more... concerned about the discipline of my sailors.] (if: (visited: "Bas Night 1"))[(Though you suppose you saw Bas pretty late last night, and she wasn't in bed either...?)] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[You needn't concern yourself with my discipline, cap!] Sam situates himself in his hammock. He pulls a tarp over him and puts his hands on the edge of it, smiling. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[So, which one do you want to sleep in?] Oh, he's coy. You place a hand on the nearest wall, looming over him. (text-color:#F0F)[Yours, Sam.] Sam laughs. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[It's going to be crowded!] (text-color:#F0F)[I'm known for my tight fits around here.] Sam smiles. He pats the hammock, and you settle in beside him. Then you wait. Sam turns over, so that his back is facing yours, and you see his chest rise and fall. You realize you probably misinterpreted the "sleeping with him" part of this. In your defense, it could not possibly have been less obvious. Maybe you just have... a dirty mind? There's something else you've realized. (text-color:#F0F)[Did you change at all?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Eh? I've got my coat off.] Yep. And underneath, below their shirt, is... (text-color:#F0F)[Do you... understand how a binder works?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[If you bind them for long enough, they go away, right? It's like orthopedics.] (text-color:#F0F)[It's not like orthopedics. Breasts and bunions are not similar.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Aw.] (text-color:#F0F)[And if you wear this all day and all night, you're going to break your back.] You pat him on the back, and the wheeze you hear only confirms your suspicions. (text-color:#F0F)[Captain's orders, you need to take this off before bed.] Sam turns over in bed, casting you a pained look. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I really don't like... no, you're right. It won't matter how it looks if I break my back.] He tossles your hair, then comes to stand, making the whole hammock swing. You look away as he unbinds, shamelessly, without any warning to you. (Were you totally not flirting earlier? You should probably clarify that, right? Either way--) (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Geez, now I'm embarassed... I can't believe I flubbed a chance to hang out with you by being such a tool.] (text-color:#F0F)[You didn't flub it.] Your beautiful man pouts. (text-color:#F0F)[You can make it up to me by... having a good night's sleep. With or without me in the hammock.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Sir, I-- I have a request to make.] His face violently red, he asks. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Do you think you could... hold me? I have a hard time sleeping without the pressure, so, if someone else did... and then, they could stop when I fell asleep?] (text-color:#F0F)[I can't do that every night.] Sam's face falls. (text-color:#F0F)[But this one...] And there it goes again. Like a boomerang, his facial expression turns entirely around. He cozies up to you, and you gently put your arms around him, slowly increasing pressure, trying to avoid his breasts, not only because of the impropriety, but because you know, sometimes, just remembering they're there can be part of the problem. For his part, Sam shoves his shoulders back toward your face, and they are fantastic shoulders, so you'll forgive him. He sighs breathily into your arms, and then is still. It's not the strangest night you've had aboard. He smells like sunlight off the water. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Captain?] You nod, gently. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[If I did hurt my back.] (text-color:#F0F)[Yes?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Would you fire me?] You pause for a minute. Sam has shown no real propensity for doing anything else useful besides manning the wheel and lugging things around. A pirate with a back injury is worse than having no pirate, common knowledge states. |hook>[(link:"Be harsh.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[What else would you do?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ ...] The silence lengthens between you. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry I took you, tonight, too. Away from anyone else who could have you.] You feel a lump of ice in your throat. Sam's chin grazes one of your arms. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I'm sorry I'm so selfish.] You lean against him. (text-color:#F0F)[You aren't, Sam.] Sam sighs. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Yes, but--] (text-color:#F0F)[You're not. Please, don't get hurt. For me?] Sam holds close to you. You feel your heart sting, but in time, you are treated to shallow breathing, and the promise, at last, of [[sleep.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"Be kind.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[No. Of course not.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Alright. Good.] (text-color:#F0F)[That's not an invitation to keep binding this way, Sam.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Awww.] The two of you pass the night in a perfect silence. Every now and then, you hear his breath catch in his throat-- and you hope he's breathing easier. You try not to keep your arms exactly where they are, even though one of them is going numb. It's easier, in the silence, not to think about it too hard-- you've always wanted to hold them, they've always wanted to be held. You don't want anything more or less from it, though you would have had it. And tomorrow, they'll treat themselves a little better. The night couldn't be better, could it? You feel yourself swayed by the ocean, and let yourself fall into an easy [[sleep.|DECK HUB]]]]]

You're about to return to your quarters when you see him, sitting in the stairwell with a curious expression. His lip is pulled into a wide, pathetic pout that would make more sense on a puppydog than a man. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain...] You settle against the wall, standing over him. (text-color:#F0F)[ What's the matter?] He puts a hand against the small of the back, the place you just can't reach when you try to itch it. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I can't get the blood off my back. Could you-- potentially--] So this sounds like a setup to you if you've ever heard one. (text-color:#F0F)[ No one else on the ship is tending to wounds right now? Have you seen Grog?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No, no wounds here. I would say this is definitively not my blood. I don't even think it's blood I spilled. If anything, it might be from that combo Joffey got off with the rapier? What do you call it, the Skewer?] That isn't the only Joffey specialty called the Skewer. Zing. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'll go get some damp rags.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You can't just use a dry rag and spit on it? You didn't know that Sam was that sort of guy, but you can indulge him a little. He's been a good dog of war today, just like you, and if there's anything you wanted, back in the day, after fighting their battles, it was affection. (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh? You want a little indirect kiss?] Sam flushes absolutely scarlet at that, and bolts up, hiding his face with his hands. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I'll get the rags! Meet me in something more comfortable in my cot?] (You somehow get the feeling the whole room will be cleared out. Why, oh why, is the whole ship trying to, well, ship you together?) As Sam runs away, you change out of your own clothing. (if:$joffeyinjured)[You don't look across the empty bed. More than anything, you wish you could hold them tonight, but disturbing them would be... well. You won't do it. They'll be alright, you remind yourself. You've seen them go through worse. You used to be there in the infirmary with them, the two of you spread out like you were going to your graves, tattered in fabric. Don't think about Joffey. Don't think about Joffey when you're with other men, you remind yourself. That bit of ginger glances out of your mind's eye, you imagine them turning over in bed, reminding you with a long, drawn out sigh that they can't stand your whimpering while they try to read their book.] You usually sleep in the clothes you wake in, more or less, so all there is to do is change into something with a good deal less of blood. Most of your wardrobe will do for this purpose. You find yourself dawdling between something with a little more cleavage and the plainest shirt you can find, which smells a little nicer than the rest. You put one on over the other, insulating you completely, and saunter downstairs. Heh. Sam won't see it coming. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam?] Sam bolts up like a cat from the--expectedly--empty bedchambers. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain! I didn't see you coming?] (text-color:#F0F)[ We really need to get the horse blinders off your head, don't we, Sam.] Sam taps his head for a moment, checking for horse blinders he can't see, and then places his hand back, confused. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Um, alright.] He spreads his arms. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So, um, I got the rags, and since there are multiple beds, youuuuu don't have to sleep with me! Yay!] You give the world's most halfhearted cheer. (text-color:#F0F)[ Let me at those rags, at least.] Sam sits on the ground in the middle of the room, looking timid, and you drag the empty barrel in the corner over and situate yourself on it. You draw your hands around his jacket to remove it, and then, underneath, are the bandages-- one line of light fabric at a time, you unbind him. He smells horrifically sweaty, caked as much as blood as in his own juices. Underneath that, though, is an altogether not too troublesome earthiness. He smells like a person, to put it quaintly. You try not to lean forwards. (text-color:#F0F)[ Rag?] He jolts back to attention beneath you, shoulder muscles rippling, and hands you the rag. Then he settles, again, like a bird out of flight, or an otter in the ocean, left to drift. His breath is soft as you wipe down his back, pressing the rugged corners of it into curves in his musculature. You feel as if you're polishing a statue, albeit one that occasionally makes a soft noise of relief as you gently place water against what, even if Sam protests there were none, are clearly his wounds. (if:(visited:"Deck Deck D4-2"))[You think back to earlier, and y](else:)[Y]ou have an idea. (text-color:#F0F)[ Can I massage your back?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Um... if you'd like to?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Would you like that?] Sam curls back in on himself. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Very much so, captain... if it's not too much to ask for. ] You press your thumbs into his back, beneath the muscle, and push back and forth. He has a tight back, with muscles taut and skin occasionally bruised from continuous binding. You have to be tough, but gentle. That is, he is demanding to massage. He is also extremely rewarding to take care of-- you've barely started before you can feel the warmth of his shoulders as he occasionally brushes up against you, sighing with relief as your hands find purchase in snags of muscle and push against them until they loosen up, at least a bit. His head comes to rest on your leg, and as you push it back up, you run your hands up and down his neck, kneading the skin. (text-color:#F0F)[ This alright?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's wonderful... everything you do is wonderful.] You are very lucky that you do not have a tail. It would give you away terribly in this moment. Steadying yourself, you manage to keep yourself to a quiet, (text-color:#F0F)[ Mhm.] as you roll your arm into his shoulder, working it back and forth across the tough muscle there. (text-color:#F0F)[ You have some crazy traps, Sam.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What's trapped?] (text-color:#F0F)[ It's the muscle?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh,] Sam replies. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Legs, though, they're not so good. ] You severely doubt that! (text-color:#F0F)[ Let me at them? ] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Oh, Captain, I really couldn't--] (text-color:#F0F)[ Couldn't let me? Or don't want?] Sam tilts his head down again, a penguin chick trying to bury his own head in his ruff. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain, I really don't know how to ask for things.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Ohohoh. I'm hearing a yes, but until I hear it louder, I'm not going to do anything.] You release your hands. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Lie down.] Sam lies down on the wood, and you step off the barrel, working your thumbs along the spine. Sam sighs in relief as you carefully work your way around the muscles on his back, practicing what Joffey taught you over the years. You get your elbow in there, and then-- you hesitate as you make it to the lower back. No butt, you remind yourself. He's very close to naked, and you want to make sure he feels safe. God, he's hard to figure out, too. If he did want something, would he even know to ask for it? Or have the courage to do so? There is, despite your relatively evenly distributed leadership style (you give orders, Joffey gets people to listen, and then Grog doesn't, Bas doesn't, Siel doesn't, Bryll nominally does, and Justin does whatever the fuck he wants), there's a power differential there you'd feel bad telling him to wade across, especially if you were the one to initiate. He's also definitely flirted with you, though, you think as you feel those calves. These are some fantastic fucking calves. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain? A confession?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeah?] Sam brings his legs together. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You ever had a crush on another pirate before?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam. I'm married.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ That's not a crush. Isn't it a, you know. A wedding of financial convenience?] (text-color:#F0F)[ We sleep together.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I feel like you're not answering my question. ] (Goddamnit, Sam, fair enough.) (text-color:#F0F)[ Why do you bring it up? Do you have a crush? ] Sam kicks his legs a little bit. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain! That's scandalous!] (text-color:#F0F)[ They'd be really lucky to have you, Sam. And I'm sure... whoever they are... they're probably waiting for you to make the first move. You're so strapping. ] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Do you really think so?] (text-color:#F0F)[Sam, I'm an expert.] This seems to reassure him. You don't know how you became Sam's model of conventional butch attractiveness, but you'll take it? (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I always feel like it's on me to make the first move... but I never want to do it. ] (text-color:#F0F)[ Who's this about? Fish?] Sam crumples. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Erm, no, not exactly...] You raise your eyebrows with interest. (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's... someone on the mainland! You've never met her.] It would be extremely juvenile of you to be disappointed. You try not to make the most pathetic face imaginable. Sam flips over. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Can I do your back now?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Well. If you're uncomfortable seeing me in a state of moderate undress--] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Um!!! Uh!!! Well!! I mean!!! I certainly would be... comfortable... but I also... would really... um.] Sam covers his face with his hands. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain, I'm not that good at giving massages... after all that, I wouldn't want you to be disappointed...] (text-color:#F0F)[ You're not going to disappoint me. Worst thing that can happen is that I give you some tips.] You take off your coat. Then you take off your shirt, and Sam flinches away as if hit. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam. Another shirt.] Sam stares back over and sees your-- god help you-- second shirt you put under your first shirt. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'll keep this on. It's a light fabric, so you should be able to massage me through it, no problem.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Aye, aye... ] You lie down. Sam places his hands on you-- you feel them flutter like a nervous rain across your shoulders before finding purchase. He sort of moves your shoulders back and forth, and then starts digging his palms in. Now that's good. You snap approval, and he moves along the spine, imitating what you did. He's able to get pretty deep into the muscle without trying particularly hard, and he has nice, strong hands, so anything he does is already perfect. You find yourself sinking into it-- the soft noise of water, somewhere far away, the slight light of a covered candle, his hands, the fragrant wood. You haven't had a moment to yourself in a moment, where someone's there without them needing to be there-- where everything has to be focused on making sure you're entertaining them, outwitting them, caring for them, protecting them. Sam's just here, unquestionably, like a tree over a meadow. You can sleep beneath it without worrying about how your presence tears it apart. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Is that good?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Fantastic...] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You're just saying that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ 'm not. ]You stretch yourself out. You wonder how it would feel for Sam to scratch the wolf behind its ears. You couldn't inflict it on him, of course. You can't trust yourself to behave. But it's always wanted affection it can't ask for, and can't be trusted with. At least you can have it now. If you act first. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ The girl from the mainland...] (text-color:#F0F)[ She your first crush?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Eh? No, I suppose... well. She is and she isn't, you see? Before I was me, I was. Hm, I was someone else. She's sleeping under the hill now. I left her on the land. ]His hands turn your back like water. You slip deeper into bliss. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ She had a lot of dalliances. I s'ppose that was one of the reasons I'm Sam now. I would be with people and I'd realize, no matter how close to me they got, they wouldn't see anything I liked about myself... they had this different person-- a thing, really, they were looking at. And I s'ppose that thing wasn't Sam. I know I can be a little theatrical...] he trails off, arm against your shoulder, getting a tight knot. (text-color:#F0F)[ C'mon. Keep going.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ This is, I mean, I am... I suppose. Her dream of what people would be looking at, if she could choose. But it's hard to know what a dream would want... all my life, my dream was just to be me. And I am me, now. But I never thought about what I'd do when I had that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Commendable, getting that far. Plenty of people don't. ] His thumbs drag outwards from your spine, up and down your back. (text-color:#F0F)[ So, this mainland girl? She's your first stab at it?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Making up for lost time, I guess...] He draws to stand. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Sorry, my fingers are worn. Shall we... get to bed? You can go back upstairs, if you want. I know you... you have a lot of other people who need your time.] You settle in what's usually Bryll's cot. She's the least likely to kill you, by a margin. (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think I'd make it up the stairs. You have a real talent, Sam. ] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I... do?] Your eyes flicker close. You can hear him stepping into his hammock, hear it cracking as he settles. You sit in your own, watching him from across the room, silently. Your heart is jumping in the petty little way it does, so wildly you think you'll have to calm it by grabbing it with your hands and making it stop. After several sleepless minutes, all of which feel much longer, you walk across the room, stand over his cot. He turns over, as if expecting you. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Have you seen my other shirt? I'm cold without it.] Sam's hand drags across the floor, and then he lifts it up. You think he's going to wave you off, prepare to accept it, and then he slings it around your head and drags you forwards with it. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Share?] You fall into his cot, and this time, he nestles against your chest without hesitation. His breath is soft against your shirt, and you gently snake a hand around his head, to pet him. He's so excellent at cuddling, without even trying to do so... you're having a hard time staying awake. Filled with warmth, and light, you settle for a soft night. [[The world is good. The world is good. The world is good, and you are with the most beautiful boy in the world.|DECK HUB]]

You're about to head to your room and nod off when you decide it would be prudent to check on Spate. It's not as if she can go anywhere, but you'd still feel better if you'd recently seen her on the last night before you're planned to get roughly where she wanted to go. Likewise, you've come to (if:$spate>5)[enjoy](else:)[tolerate] her company, and she's a mutual friend of Sam's. Well, mutual 'friend' is a strong-- too soft-- the wrong word for the mutual interest you share in Sam. She's been hanging off of your sailor boy ever since you bought her aboard, and you don't blame her-- of all the fruits of the land, Sam is the peach. Sweet, always rosy, simply unmatchable. So while Spate has been, to put it lightly, taking massive bites, you've... Well. You have done fucking nothing useful. You've been sleeping together, a few times. You share flirtatious remarks. Sam occasionally makes one which is clearly aimed specifically at you. But whenever boundaries come to it, neither of you have made any interest explicit, and both of you do tend to braggadociously flirt with people as a means of, well, asserting a certain butch character-- a je ne sais quoi of womanizing that a woman can then pull you around with to her heart's content. You play more of a conniving wolf that can be easily destroyed by any protagonist-y women worth her sauce, Sam's more playing up the classic 'himbo' persona, from the Fantasy French 'himbeaux', or, 'to be clouted about the ears until one doesn't think of very much, anymore'. You're stalling. You're stalling even talking to Spate, your eyes continuing to land down the hall, where some part of you hopes all the beds will once again be empty... (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hey! You! Aren't you going to hurry?] You turn around, looking only mildly ashamed. Spate drums her fingers on her aquatic place of repose. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm not the only one who's waiting for you tonight. I wouldn't even dream of taking your time.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's a change of pace.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Change your pace, you moron! Don't you realize how much trouble you're causing for Sam?] Huh. Trouble? (text-color:#F0F)[ What would you know about that?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well, first of all, we're best friends. Second of all, we boned.] Ah. That's the crush. You suppose you've been a little oblivious (if:(visited:"Deck Deck D4-2"))[(MAYBE A LOT OBLIVIOUS? YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS?)] but it certainly falls in line. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Why do you seem so crestfallen? I wouldn't have taken you for a bigot.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Eh??? I have nothing against-- I mean. I'm glad you fucked him, actually. I... I'm so glad... that somebody. Had sex with that twink.] Internally you are gushing blood. This is a category 5 gushing blood moment. You don't think anyone has ever suffered more since they crucified Jesus Christ on the plank. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh. Psh. No, I figured you were chauvinistically furious at me for deflowering your little pansy before you got a chance.] (text-color:#F0F)[ We're not... we aren't.] You pause. (text-color:#F0F)[ He and I are not having. A thing.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Do you want to be a thing?] Do bees like honey? Do they inexplicably fly, hither and tither, in spite of their extremely small wings? (text-color:#F0F)[ Yeeeees?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Then you need to see him! It was almost sad fucking him, he kept talking about you so much. Just on and on, oh my god the Captain's abs, the Captain is so dashing, have you listened to them talk, she's so handsome, blah blah blah blah fancy hat blah. ] Spate spits that last bit. You adjust your fancy hat. (text-color:#F0F)[ Uh... you too.] Spate scoffs and folds her arms. Then she points dramatically to the cabin. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ He is in the hallway alone. Are you familiar with the kabedon?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Do mermaids kabedon? Is that even effective with the whole... being able to move up and down out of it thing?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Every culture in the history of the world! Has had the kabedon! Whether or not they knew the word for it! The appeal of someone you are obsessed with slamming the wall behind you is eternal! In the water! On land! In lava! In the void of space! You must, or I will not give you your fucking treasure! You must fucking kabedon that handsome twink right now!] (text-color:#F0F)[ Uh--] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Now!] Her furious hiss sends you running down the hall, to face what now feels nearly as obvious as the fact that Spate and Sam had sex at one point-- Spate and Sam definitely also wanted to have sex with YOU at this point. You have been so horny for all your crewmates that you nearly missed your crewmates engaging in horrific bottom-to-bottom communication over you. (Well you wouldn't say you "missed Spate" so much as "just really didn't have that much time for it, but--) You turn a corner, close to the infirmary, and there he is, standing in the hall. He looks at you. You look at him. You walk towards him, and he stars to glance at your arm. It's time-- the heavens themselves have decreed it. You take your hand, and slam it directly behind his head, against the wall. You lean into it. (text-color:#F0F)[ Nice to see you.] Sam faints. (link:"FUCK.")[ You take your fainted companion to the infirmitchen, which thankfully, is literally just behind the door. When you step in with a fainted man in your hands, Grog responds with (text-color:#748)[ I thought we might be out of that infernal darkness. (text-color:#F0F)[ He's-- he's not dead, he just fainted--] Grog places a hand to the front of Sam's head, and then looks at you. He squints. (text-color:#748)[ Classic case of kabedon. He'll wake up if he gets a true love's kiss. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's fucking bullshit. You are just saying bullshit. That is not how the kabedon works. You are all just collectively pulling my leg. ] Grog shrugs. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm not going to kiss him--] You look back down at Sam, whose eyes are wide open, and whose face has curled into the largest pout you've ever seen on him. No, not a pout. This man looks sad in the way a clown looks sad. This man looks sad in the way a kicked dog looks sad. You have just made Sam sad in the way that anyone makes anyone sad, but in such a way that it has gone through shattering his persona all the way around to being acted out perfectly in character. He is giving you full pathetic man bravado. With immense strength, he tears himself out of your hands. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I understand, my man. Say no more.] (text-color:#F0F)[ But I-- ] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You don't need to make excuses.] (text-color:#748)[ Depths be damned, boy, listen to them!] (text-color:#F0F)[ -- I was going to say I DON'T WANT TO KISS YOU WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT!] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ohhhh. But... do you really... want to kiss me?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes! And I had no idea if you wanted to kiss me, because you never explicitly asked me to! I didn't want to assume! I thought I was just misinterpreting you--] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ But-- we were sleeping together. I just didn't want to assume that you wanted anything more, and I didn't want to ask if it would make you uncomfortable--] (text-color:#F0F)[ SAM.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ WHAT.] (text-color:#F0F)[ WHY DO YOU THINK I DIDN'T TRY ANYTHING.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ OHHHH.] He leans towards you. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ So. Um. You do want to kiss?] (text-color:#748)[ LEAVE.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Right, right-- have fun, uh, chopping your fish?] Grog points the cleaver towards the exit. The two of you run out giggling like children, and Sam's hand taps yours and you grab his. The two of you swing into the bedroom, your free hand grabbing and flinging you out around the doorframe, and you fall sideways into one of the hammocks, legs tangled across the ground, a mass of stupid limbs and tension. You look up into his brave, gray eyes, his smile, the swoop of his shorn-short hair and the peculiar amount of effort he's put into the hem of his shirt, and popping and layering it correctly so it all looks good. You're going to ruin all of it. You spring to him, and your teeth click, Sam immediately recoiling, apologizing. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Sorry, Cap. Sorry, I just, wow I just fucked that up. Awful kiss.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That just means-- you learn a thing or two. ]And you grab him by that perfect popped collar, and kiss him, hard. Then soft, soft as you can, and the way he leans in lets you know he's the type of romantic who likes everything gentle. You are the best girl in the entire world as he runs his fingers through your hair, holding you tight against his chest so you can feel his beating heart as you kiss him, over and over, just to let him know you're not done with him yet. Your cheek warm against his beating heart, you ask, (text-color:#F0F)[ Why didn't you say anything? You idiot.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Did you know female sheep stand still when they're in love? So if two girls were to see each other, they'd never meet.] Sadly, he sighs, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I may be a man, but I'm still a lesbian.] You cast him a look. Not a, I don't believe you look. Not even a, me too look, but god, same. Just a, god. Whatever it is that you are. However you choose to identify. You are so beautiful. And so good. And you try so hard. And it's okay if no one else in the world is watching, or you feel that way. I'm watching. You will never be unspoken for. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Weighty look over there, captain. Got a lot on your mind?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Nothing. Nothing on my mind at all.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I try to keep nothing there, either.] (text-color:#F0F)[ God, I know.] You lean in to kiss him deep, and you're surprised when he swerves you, kisses you gently on the cheek instead. You feel his eyelashes flutter against the side of your face, where your hairline meets your temples. (text-color:#F0F)[ Was that too sudden?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I kind of want to... take it really slow. Besides Spate, I've sort of... I, um... this isn't something I've really done before.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Never? That's impossible, you-- I mean, unless you didn't want to, and that's completely understandable. If you don't want to. But if you did, you're spectacular, I can't imagine-- how could the world possibly miss out on such a dreamboat?] Sam laughs softly, but you recognize a note of sadness in it. He draws back so you can see his smile, soft as a waning moon, close to the horizon, where it's largest, goldest, warmest. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Whatever you see in me, I really think you're the only person who sees it, Cap.] You press your head against his chest, nuzzling it. (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't believe it. I don't. ] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Well, in the words of the ancient pirate ninja Naruto... believe it.] Gently, you place your arms around his shoulders, which are so broad, and so strong. You can feel the muscle rippling underneath the nightshirt, and if you were to pull it off, you have no doubt he'd make a better study of human anatomy alive than most would make, even dead. (text-color:#F0F)[ If someone did want you, though... what would you want them to do?] Sam scrunches their face. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's going to take me a while to figure out what I'd want.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's okay. We're in no hurry.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ But, uh, well, Spate...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Ah.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Bit me?] (text-color:#F0F)[ I can bite you.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Okay, just, don't tell me when, because I'll get nervous.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Or where?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Don't bite my eyes? Because I think those would, pop or something.] (text-color:#F0F)[ So, I don't really think I was going to do that, but I appreciate the heads up.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ And you know, probably don't, cut anything off with your teeth...] (text-color:#F0F)[Alright. Did Spate hurt you or something?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Um. No. I just was thinking about it for a while, you know, in my quarters. Alone. And then I figured that if it really did happen, maybe something could come off, or get hurt. Or something. And then I got scared. ] (text-color:#F0F)[Were you worried someone was going to. Bite your already not attached, very much prosthetic penis. Off.] (You have seen Sam's strap before. First of all, there was a night where you all played truth or dare. That was a very stupid night, and you were all very drunk. Second of all, both of you go to intimacy lessons on the mainland at the pirate union hub. They host them fairly regularly. Sam turns away from you, rolling over and depriving you of his incredibly warm chest. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ That's it. You're losing your Sam privileges.] (text-color:#F0F)[ No! No! What do I do to get them back?] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Kiss on the back.] You oblige. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Now on the shoulder.] You kiss him again. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ The other shoulder?] You could keep doing this all night. You let him know. (text-color:#F0F)[ And a little interest on that purchase.] You bite him on the shoulder, just a nip. He looks up at you with extreme warmth in his eyes, and you suck and leave a red mark across that vast tapestry of muscle. Then you ask (text-color:#F0F)[ Can I please have my Sam privileges back now?] Sam rolls back over, nearly smacking you in the face, you dodge deftly. He looks at you. You look at him. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Hi.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Hi.] (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ You wanna sleep with me tonight?] You laugh. (text-color:#F0F)[ I thought you'd never ask...] [[Morning will come. But this night, the first of many such cases, will last long enough to leave sunlight speckled across the front of your mind for days. It will keep you warm in future storms, water pouring from the lines in your face-- it will do what love does. God willing, it will pave the way for time to work through everything he would like, and that you would like. And you will have it all.|DAY 6]]]

You wake up to a gun at your back. It's a familiar feeling, an old one. You close your eyes tight. (text-color:#F0F)[Mutiny, Joffey?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[You know what you did.] (link: ">")[== They sound regretful, but they don't sound all that sorry. You look at their eyes and see an expression you recognize from your old crew, the look you'd give the sorry souls who wronged you just before they passed on. There was a bitterness that your crew shared that bound you all tighter than blood, tight as the venom in your guts. It was knowing that in a world where it's you or the other guy, usually the other guy has failed, failed in some way. It's knowing you need to take something to live. It's knowing that to live is to eat, and to eat is to tear other living things apart. There is a way to do that guiltlessly, and remourselessly, and it will fix you inside, steel you. It will make you so cold that nothing can reach you anymore. The look in your captains' eye when you mutinied was that same look, inverted. It wasn't fear. It was just a simple, well, are you strong enough to kill me? Are you strong enough not to regret it? And you never regretted it. You were glad you made it out. But now you stare down the barrel of that same gun and you wish you could regret it, you wish there was something to miss. You wish that Joffey would hesitate, mourn you, grieve you-- and maybe they will, much much much later. You hope so. You hope hurting you hurts them. But mostly you wish they just didn't feel like they had to do it. As you step onto the dock, you see the others clustered around. They knew-- have known, for a while, likely. You didn't know you teetered so close to the edge of the edge of everything, but you should've known. You close your eyes tight, and a single tear funeral marches down the side of your cheek. Joffey leans in close, whispers: (text-color:#d9480f)[I'll take care of your ship. And your crew.] (link: ">")[== Not expecting it to fix anything, you say, (text-color:#F0F)[Joffey. I love you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[Then you should've taken better care of me, captain.] When you hear the gun go, you aren't surprised, or angry, or anything. You're a fish in the mouth of a seal. In the hands of a mermaid. You're the thing that wasn't strong enough to survive. Distantly, you hear the strum of that distant little lute, and your fingers begin to curl, and your eyes close to that resounding song. You know you aren't being eulogized. // Your red right hand's betrayed you, your matelot and first mate Failure after failure on their nerves must grate He's tried to change your course, but you won't take that bait Come on Captain Howl, sorry it's too late. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

You awake in a fugue state. Something is wrong-- has been wrong. Something is waking up-- is awake-- was awoken-- you aren't here, you're here. Your stomach hurts, you're too full, you're starving. You see yourself, across the ship, from the open door of your cabin, throwing up into a barrel. Black water spills out across the deck from it, and as you stumble over, you feel a chill darker than water. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey... Joffey! ] (link: ">")[== You swing around, and your first mate... well, they're in bed. As they always are. For a moment, your heart warms-- this is just another ominous morning, they happen. Something always gets to your lot at sea, and Joffey'll set you straight. You shake your head, wading through the water on the deck as it tilts with the ship. God, water this turbulent in the morning is horribly strange. You've got to ask Bas why they thought it was a good idea to steer through-- A bird shits on your head-- is shitting-- no, that's just bile from the poop deck. Who's bleeding up there. (text-color:#F0F)[ Bas? Are you at your station?] (link: ">")[== Bas steps up from the hold, bleary-eyed. (text-color:#257925)[ No, Captain. It's still dark out--I'm taking over on the wheel until Sam wakes up.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Who's shift is it now, then?] (link: ">")[== Bas opens her mouth to speak, and both of you pause, turning to the sound of a knife hitting wood, over and over. You feel your heartbeat sync to it-- strive against it, as if hoping to escape your chest through your throat. (text-color:#257925)[ Wasn't it... yours?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[You should go back to sleep. It will hurt less if you aren't conscious.] You hear their voice coming from the bow, and there they are, scattering crumbs across the water. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Did you sail us into this chop? You should've come to get someone. This is--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Captain. You sailed us into this chop. Don't you remember? ] He points to the poop deck. (link: ">")[== The cupola is overflowing with bodies, and you recognize them all. The blood is an inch thick on the deck and climbing, a dark, heavy tide. You feel the nostrils of something that will eat you-- the way you have eaten-- flare. Attracted by blood. Attracted by narrative. Attracted, simply. You feel a god fall in love, and gods kill what they like. (text-color:#748)[ Oh, Eliza. You should never kill that many people at sea. At least they rest on land. There's not as much of a chance of them finding you and dragging you down to where they sleep.] (link: ">")[== Bas stares at you in abject, confused horror. You bare your teeth. (text-color:#F0F)[ That's not-- I--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ Pleasure knowing you. Good luck figuring out how to steer us out of this, next time.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you talking about? There is no next time.] (link: ">")[== And a wailing sounds from the deep, the heartbeat at its center, with an eerie music lacing around it. you hear something heavier than the world crack the bow in two, and the entire ship is taken, all at once, deep underwater. Drowning is painful, which is why you're glad that the pressure erupts the softest parts of you first. (The lyrics echo up... from somewhere in the back of your mind... you hate that your last thoughts are going to be of Justin's silly little song, but you're almost forced to think about it...) // With even the strangest sort it's best to keep an eye, Otherwise risk your fingers in a knife-filled pie. One imagines what got you, he knew would go awry? Come on Captain Howl, they're a troubling guy. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

(text-color:#F0F)[My secret is that I've actually never played Fuckall for keeps. Ever. At all.] You proceed to lose so bad at Fuckall that you not only die, your whole crew dies. You lose so bad at Fuckall that the universe explodes. // You suck at fuckall so bad, you lost the entire game. You're really bad at gambling and you're fucking lame. I thought that 'fuck all' was practically your middle name, Come on Captain Howl, you fucked none, for shame. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

You walk into the basement (you crawl into the basement) you fall on your knees in the basement (hallelujah) your mouth extending into a smile too big for human consumption (you are so happy to see him again) and as you come into the kitchen like a child in the morning on Christmas you see the feast (you have been starving for so long) an already butchered animal laid out in blood and surrounded by eyes and scales and (you are going to eat the chef) you feel something put its gentle hands around your neck (you feel something put its furious hands around your neck) and you are going to take those first so tender so tender you feel it laugh you are the way you were as kids when nothing hurt and everything could be given and taken away so easily and every agony was salvaged by tomorrow every agony except the hunger the hunger the hunger the hunger the hunger your mother could not make you well your father could not make you well the king's men could not make you well your lover could not make you well you want something that you lost long ago you want something that you lost long ago red like the planks of the church basement red like the rust on an old knife red like her scarf which she lent you in the winter pink like her tongue when she stuck it out to catch the snow (the first time her mother let you walk her home) pink like your father's irises when he came home, smelling like the city pink like the little stuffed dog on your window when you were bitten, you put it away there's no time for dreaming when you have the real thing your family all around you, their mouths red and smiles white // Come on, Captain Howl... Come on, Captain Howl... Come, Captain Howl... Captain...//

Dashing This will be a nice way to die, you think. In Joffey's arms. By firing squad, by enemy, by the sea herself. You think you always wanted to die in Joffey's arms. // hold me Come on Captain Howl,. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

You wake up and your mouth smells like vomit. You're a pirate, so this isn't something you're not used to. In fact, if anything, this is the thing you're most used to, even if lately you've been trying to be a responsible captain. You move, naked, through sweat-caked sheets, which bend as you attempt to pass through them. As you're pulling a hand to your mouth, you realize that there's a rope against your arm-- last night must have been a movie, huh? Just like a pirate to hogtie and run. Plus, the ropes are far, far too loose for a... person. You look down and see yellowed chunks alongside a thick, vibrant scarlet. Then, at the end of the bed, a human hand. It's pale, and slim, and familiar. (text-color:#F0F)[ No. No.] (link: ">")[== You swivel around to see the clawmarks in the wall, the signs of struggle, you feel the agony of a half-closed wound throb in your leg as you wrench yourself out of the ropes, which are loose and encrusted with blood-- blood and fur. Your hands shake as you pull them free. In the corner, you notice Joffey's bookshelf, toppled over. You put your hand to your mouth, trying to ignore the smell of blood and the overwhelming nausea. Someone argues outside the door, and then you hear someone bust in. Joffey aims a rifle at you, their aim just... just as good as ever. You look up at them, despondent. (text-color:#F0F)[ Did I kill her?] (link: ">")[== Bryll enters behind them, in an outfit you haven't seen her in yet. It's black formalwear, extremely butch, very chic. What she wears on her body is nothing compared to the look of fury and horror she wears on her face. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Captain Howl--] (link: ">")[== Joffey corrects her, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Former.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Former Captain Howl, of the SS Misadventure, you are under arrest for failure to disclose lycanthropy, for attempted manslaughter, and for the five-year cold case on the murder of twenty pirates about the SS Marigold. You have the right to remain silent, but know that we have some very, very convincing evidence to link you to these crimes.] Like the fucking hand, she doesn't say. Like my wife's fucking hand, on your bed, covered in vomit. (link: ">")[== Even as she doles out judgment, your heart drops with relief. Attempted manslaughter means not-manslaughter. (text-color:#F0F)[Is she alright?] (link: ">")[== Siel steps in behind Bryll, her cauterized wound extremely visible-- bound in so many layers of white, that you can hardly smell the raging scent of iron around the wound. You grimace. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ It was my good hand.] (link: ">")[== You fall against the wall, a frenzied series of chromatic dots burning in your vision. No one's dead. Everything is over. No one's dead. Everything is over. No one's dead. You didn't kill anyone! You're innocent, you're innocent, you're innocent. Your mouth is watering. You've been hungry for so long. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Watch her.] (link: ">")[== Siel nods, dutifully, and Joffey passes her the pistol, trembling with rage. (text-color:#F0F)[ Hey... cat's out of the bag.] You lower your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ I made them--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Don't cover for me, Elisa.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ ...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ We did what we did. It's over now. ]They sound so tired. Your mouth is so raw with blood. Your sheets are so dirty. Joffey hates it when you throw up in this bed, so much you almost never drink to a reasonable excess. Joffey's bed... it's such a wonderful bed. You hang your head heavier. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Let me handle this, now.] (link: ">")[== As the door shuts behind her, you stare into Siel's eyes. You get the feeling that nothing is for Joffey to handle. You've always felt-- you've always wondered about Siel. What she wants. Why she's always looked at you... in the way that she does. You've always-- wondered-- Siel is walking towards you. You strain, though not particularly hard, as she approaches you, and puts the metal barrel of the gun directly to your head. She presses a thin finger against your mouth. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ It's a shame to kill one of the last beautiful things in the world,] Siel says. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ But they won't let you live free. It's better this way.] (link: ">")[== That's the last thing you see. For ten years, you have been a wild animal waiting to be put down. In the end, before the blankness, it feels so obvious that everything was always going to be this way. //Sometimes in this life, it's killing or be killed. Not really so in this one, put that in your build I suppose sometimes the reaping's not worth what you've tilled? Come on Captain Howl, this is what the wolf willed. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

// Come on Captain Howl,. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

Ah, you realize, water coming over the hold in a torrent of white. It wasn't enough this time. As the boat tilts to the side, and then continues to tilt, you feel the ocean wipe you clean of everything. All sin, all love, everything you wanted, everything you couldn't stand to give up, everything falls through the water, in giant planks around you as the hull itself cracks at the edge. The bodies fall off you-- the ocean wrests your family apart, at the last moment, and some part of you thinks, good. Thinks, maybe, just maybe, they won't be taken out by the swing of the hull. You think, god, this was always my grave, I just hadn't realized how close I was to stepping in it. But here I am. Here I am. You feel Joffey tight around you, and pull them off, a ribbon of ginger in the deep water. A thin beam of silver ripples behind them, pearlescent, and you think, Spate, please. I know you don't like them, but Spate, //please//... You see the mast coming, but that doesn't matter. It hits your head. It makes you silent. // A captain's life is tricky, and you came really close Don't fear, you were right there, so don't give up the ghost! Be truer to your crewmates, so you can get their most Come on Captain Howl, sorry this run's toast. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

(text-color:#F0F)[ No, I'm like, not joking.] The faces of your entire crew fall. Why should they? You can't count how many of them want this, but it must be more than half. You're supposed to be the emissary of their will, the arbitrator of their hopes. If you say you go, you go, but if you say you turn around, there has to be good reason to turn around... (cycling-link:"Too little food left on the ship.","There's going to be continued uproar from Joffey, the whole way, and it would be safer just to turn and seek opportunities they've found ashore.", "You hate this job, and have hated it, for a while. You're not ashamed to abandon ship. It's abandoned you, after all.", "Surprise! No reason!", "The hating is grating on you. Really.") (link: ">")[== Stammering between excuses, you at last offer a weighty shrug. You see the faces of all your crewmates fall, and for a moment, you're tempted to say, Just kidding! I bet you all really want to go on that quest now, eh? Woah, who's pessimistic about our chances now? Who's distrustful now? But truthfully, even though you're willing to risk some minor antagonism with your crew, something about holding your failing faith above their heads and raising it just out of reach when they snap at it seems like a losing battle. Even if you could win long enough to regain their trust, even if you somehow pulled this thing off, given your lack of confidence... ...Well, it's simple. Beneath your bravado, you haven't been a team anymore for a while. You wish you were. But you just aren't. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Well. Thank you for wasting my time, I suppose.] (link: ">")[== Joffey interjects, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Thank you for coming to your senses.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ There's a lot of sandbars on this part of the shore, so I guess I could turn us all the way around... would be a moment, but I'm sure it would work. Bas?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ We'll go over it.] She pats Sam on the back. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#748)[ 'e can get out the rest of the swill. Shant go unused.] (link: ">")[== Slowly, they filter into planning around you, an octopus without its head somehow moving with more grace than before the thing was lopped off. You stagger out of the galley, your bravado waning, and onto the deck. The sun, hardly overhead, is a ball of wounded fire descending into the ocean. Its lowest point now fingers the edge of the sea, its light so paled out as to be easy to look at, without even the alluring danger of a burnt eye. You see a flash of scarlet at your side, joining you on the rail. Together, you sit precariously on the edge of everything. (text-color:#F0F)[ Here to make me walk the plank?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ You'll see this was the right decision, in time.] (link: ">")[== You doff your hat again, run your fingers over the fabric in your hands. Even salt-pocked, there's such a comfort woven into every thread. (text-color:#F0F)[ This feels like a mistake. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Then go in--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I know what you're about to say. I'm not going to do that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Great. Because I don't want you to.] (link: ">")[== You smile. You shake your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ I guess I should've listened to you from the start, shouldn't I?] (link: ">")[== Joffey preens a little at that, though they'd never admit to it if you pointed it out. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I suppose it shouldn't have been off the table.] (link: ">")[== You shake your head. Meanwhile, Sam is approaching, Spate in his arms. She looks so natural there you almost forget about the look of raw evil she's throwing you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Not many ships coming out this way. I'm going to have a hell of a time catching another ride.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You're free to come into the shore with us. We're not evil, we're not turning around without telling you and selling you for scales. We just can't take you any further.] (link: ">")[== Spate sighs, languishing in Sam's thick arms. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Not evil! Merely pathetic! Truly the bane of my existence to know so many of the sort. ]She leers. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Go on. Dump me.] (link: ">")[== Sam almost chucks them instinctively, but you hold a hand up to stop him. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're good being dumped here?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ First of all, I better not be dumped. Second, no, but like, this is certainly better than where I was. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Not even going to try to change my mind?] (link: ">")[== Spate lets out a harsh laugh, in what seems like, to you, almost a different voice. You wonder if they've been putting on specific airs this whole time just to fuck with you-- it certainly wouldn't fall out of line for how you've experienced them so far. As they snort inwards, shaking their head and giving you the most 'oh we have fun here' eyeroll you've ever seen, they flip their hand to you and say, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I spent all day talking to your crew. It's for the best you drop me off now, really.] (link: ">")[== Harsh. Fair. You hate your life a little bit. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Boytoy. Throw me over!] (link: ">")[== And, out of control as so many things are, delicately, kindly, heartbreakingly, kind of awkwardly, Spate falls into the sea. The three of you watch for a good long while for them to resurface, some part of you hoping, desparetely, that everyone makes you stop-- makes you continue-- states, as you so often want to hear and so little get to say, that they believe in you. But why should anyone, really? You three become two, then two become you, alone at the edge of the ship, looking headlong at the place where the horizon tapers. It's beautiful, really. It's always so beautiful. Maybe you shouldn't have things like this anymore. A small price to pay for the shame of being a failed captain on an aborted goose chase. You catch a figure out of the corner of your eye, and turn, your head tilting. Justin stands behind you, his fingers trailing around his bow and the edge of his violin. A single, agonized note whines from the bow, and his eyes close gently. (text-color:#F0F)[ What are you doing? ] (link: ">")[== Justin smiles. Now that you think of it, you don't think you've ever heard Justin sing before. Silly, you know. He is your bard, after all, isn't he? (text-colour:cyan)[ I'm going to sing us out, Captain. You flourish your hand. It's silly, of course, petty in the way you always sort of want to be, deep down. No better time for it, really. (text-color:#F0F)[ Then sing away.] His fingers nimbly strike the chords, and he begins: // I don't know how you did it, stopping when you begin If losing was a sport then it's a sport you'd win! If you could do it different, how would you change that spin? Come on Captain Howl, it's not such a sin. A pirate's life is tricky, we know it to be true. No one can sail alone, so we depend on crew Be good to all your shipmates, and they'll be good to you. Come on Captain Howl, and see it through.//

{(if: (passage:)'s tags contains "beginning")[(css: "tw-sidebar{display:none;}")[]] (if: $competence > 10)[(set: $a to "Distinguished")](else-if: $competence > 5)[(set: $a to "Competent")](else:)[(set: $a to "Disaster")] (if: $eldritch is = $astral and $astral is = $eldritch)[(set:$b to "Neutral")](else-if: $eldritch > $astral and $eldritch > $feral)[(set: $b to "Eldritch")](else-if:$astral > $eldritch and $feral > $eldritch)[(set: $b to "Astal"](else:)[(set: $b to "Feral")]} (append: ?SideBar)[ Captain HOWL, of the SS MISADVENTURE Alignment: $a $b (link: "Save.")[(save-game:"Save")] (link:"Load")[(load-game:"Save")]]

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[(display: (nth: $thing, "Weapons Hold D1-1", "Weapons Hold D1-2", "Weapons Hold D1-3", "Weapons Hold D2-1", "Weapons Hold D2-2", "Weapons Hold D2-3", "Weapons Hold D3-1", "Weapons Hold D3-2", "Weapons Hold D3-3", "Weapons Hold D4-1", "Weapons Hold D4-2", "Weapons Hold D4-3", "Weapons Hold D5-1", "Weapons Hold D5-2", "Weapons Hold D5-3"))] [[DECK HUB]] {(set: $thing to $thing + 1)}

[(display: (nth: $thing, "Deck Deck D1-1", "Deck Deck D1-2", "Deck Deck D1-3", "Deck Deck D2-1", "Deck Deck D2-2", "Deck Deck D2-3", "Deck Deck D3-1", "Deck Deck D3-2", "Deck Deck D3-3", "Deck Deck D4-1", "Deck Deck D4-2", "Deck Deck D4-3", "Deck Deck D5-1", "Deck Deck D5-2", "Deck Deck D5-3"))] [[DECK HUB]] {(set: $thing to $thing + 1)}

[(display: (nth: $thing, "Captain's Quarters D1-1", "Captain's Quarters D1-2", "Captain's Quarters D1-3", "Captain's Quarters D2-1", "Captain's Quarters D2-2", "Captain's Quarters D2-3", "Captain's Quarters D3-1", "Captain's Quarters D3-2", "Captain's Quarters D3-3", "Captain's Quarters D4-1", "Captain's Quarters D4-2", "Captain's Quarters D4-3", "Captain's Quarters D5-1", "Captain's Quarters D5-2", "Captain's Quarters D5-3"))] [[DECK HUB]] {(set: $thing to $thing + 1)}

COLOR CHECK (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Hello, Cap'n!] (text-color:#F0F)[Are you disobeying a direct order?] (text-color:#d9480f)[You must be insane.] (text-color:#257925)[Are you stupid? Get out!] (text-color:#748)[Go on.] (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Do you even know what you are?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Dinner is served.] (text-color:#90c6f9)[Are you following me?] (text-colour:cyan)[Fate is never preoccupied.]

You lunge forward and grab her by the neck, holding her whole body up with a knee while your tongue explores her teeth. Her mouth opens and your tongue rushes in like water, careful to avoid the multitude of sharp points. It's like rubbing your tongue between two planes of sandpaper. It should not be sexy. You are making it work. Her frighteningly limber tongue greets yours as your grip turns mutual, a bridge of flesh and saltwater, one of her claspers grabbing the rim of your pants. The barrel/tub tips and sends you both onto the ground, awash in salt. You yank your pants down and her two dextrous claspers begin to explore your skin, finding purchase and holding, like two hands that can tease you while her one of her hands grabs your neck, the other moving around your breast. Fuck. She has insane anatomical advantages you couldn't even have dreamed of thirty minutes ago. Fortunately, anatomical advantages always come with a kicker on the receiving side as well. You bite her chin, then whisper: (text-color:#F0F)[ Is the ear thing true?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[So you are nasty.] (link: ">")[== You finger the rims of her fins, feeling them trill like the wings of insects, her whole body reverbrating with pleasure that thrums out of her gills. Like any distracted lover, you feel her claspers lapsing in their deliberate, continued motion, leaving you wildly blueballed right in the middle of the act. As your tongue runs along her chest, stopping to survey the saline, almost metallic taste of the gills, you feel them shudder and contract. Her fingers move down to grab your ass, and you take her hand from her and rub it against your face. (text-color:#F0F)[How's that for room service?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Service top.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Brat.] (link: ">")[== Spate grins. They draw back toward their overturned aquatic abode with a horrible pout. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You'll clean up, won't you?] (link: ">")[== You wipe saltwater from your face, ignoring the fact that your clothes are soaked and it will legitimately take a huge chunk of the night to do this. (text-color:#F0F)[Depends. You going to behave from now on?] (link: ">")[== Spate's eyes roll up, her finger tapping the side of her face. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[No... but now, I think you'll know why.] God. You think you might be tempted to keep giving her shit anyways.

{(set: $fuckallbit to True) (set: $i to $i+1) (set:$bas to $bas+1)(set:$bryll to $bryll+1)($set:$siel to $siel+1)(set:$grog to $grog+1)} A strategist's maneuver! While it seems downright silly to spend time with the crew playing cards when there's a first mate in your bedroom and a flat-breasted fish on the floor, you know that it's the whole crew that makes a ship, and there's no better way to prove your mettle than a little hand-eye coordination. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Deal you in, Captain?] (link: ">")[== She knows what you want before you even sit down. You give a curt, professional nod, and Bryllig arches the back of the cards before running them through themselves, then passing around the table until each of you has a fifth of the deck. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Need a reminder?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[If she needs a reminder, she needs to go to a different table.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I have it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#90c6f9)[Good. I'll start.] (link: ">")[== They place a card. Bas places another, then Siel, then Grog. You place one of higher value than the last, and play continues. Grog puts two facedown. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[Fuckall.] (link: ">")[== The chef resentfully draws the pile back toward them. Play continues. Bas slaps the pile. (text-color:#257925)[Twins.] (link: ">")[== They pass it off to Siel, who was almost free of the last of their cards. (text-color:#90c6f9)[That's pat.] (text-color:#257925)[Read them.] (link: ">")[== Siel lifts the top two cards, which are in fact a pair of aces. Bryllig draws the pile, though she doesn't look that resentful. Somehow, three rounds later, all of Bryllig's cards are gone, followed shortly by Grog, whom gets up to start on dinner. Holding far more cards than you started with, you stare over your group. (text-color:#257925)[Not so brave, now--] (text-color:#F0F)[Twins.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Do you expect me to call that? I can see they're twins.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[But I called twins first, so I do get to choose who takes them.] (link: ">")[== Siel, who is down to three cards, arches an expectant eyebrow. (text-color:#F0F)[I don't think I can beat her. But I do think I can make you lose.] (link: ">")[== You pass them the rest of the deck. Several feverish rounds later, you and Bas are still dead even, slapping back and forth as you both make outrageous calls and immediately call each other's bluff on it. One horribly lucky draw near the end, you make what looks like an obvious bluff, they call, and you pass them the deck and play your final card. With a satisfied chuckle, you get to your feet. The others are long gone. (text-color:#257925)[ Let's hope you're better with the merm than you are at cards. Second to last won't cut it. (text-color:#F0F)[Next time, we put something on the line for the winner.] (link: ">")[== Bas scoffs. That went well. (if: $i is 2)[[DECK HUB]]

{(set: $joffeybit to True) (set: $i to $i+1) (set:$joffey to $joffey+1)} You knock on your own door. It's indignant to knock, but you knock. (text-color:#d9480f)[Go away, captain.] (link: ">")[== You scoff. (text-color:#F0F)[ I am putting us back in good winds, Joffey! You can't mean to stay in there forever!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I can not tell you how much I obviously mean to stay in here forever. You absolute harlequin. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Harlequin? That's Captain Harlequin to you, right now, and you're breaking rank?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[I'm sure if I can hear you on the other side of this door, which is nearly thick as you are, your crew can also hear you being a buffoonish child. I'm very busy doing calculations on how to perserve food, morale, and my fraying sanity after your ridiculous tricks, which have once again besieged us with a force no other ship could hope to match. Why don't you run along and do nothing?] (link: ">")[== Joffey must be mad, because when they're mad they bring out the words like 'calculation', 'siege', and 'buffoon'. Truth be told, you have plenty of choice words for Joffey yourself, but once again, captainly duty depends on you to withhold them. A solitary tear comes to your eye, thinking about the duties you must gracefully bear. At least Joffey doesn't have to be so aggrieved. (text-color:#F0F)[Great idea, Joffey, I'll attend to the others while you run logistics. I'm glad to have you at my back, like the sails have wind. What would I do without you?] (link: ">")[== You hear a dainty cough behind the door. You smugly take this for appreciation. (if: $i is 2)[[DECK HUB]]

{(set: $spatebit to True) (set: $i to $i+1) (set:$spate to $spate+1)(set:$sam to $sam+1)} It would look like Sam is already on it. You mentally notch Sam back up in your "best boy" list, a position which you feel cowardly for ever abandoning. Then again, if you had to make the list, it would usually look as follows: 1) Sam. 2) Justin, your ickle babyboy. 3) Every other boy on the damn planet, in no discriminate order. So it's not exactly like there was a startling amount of competition. But if there were one surefire way to earn your affection, it would be to wrangle a cloying, salty fish, who is currently listing out demands to Sam, who seems to be listening wholeheartedly. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[So first we'll get the water. I don't mind, for now, if it's not heated, but at some point I'm going to need a hot and a cold water barrel, which I imagine you can do by heating some water in the sunlight, can't you? Otherwise mermaid skin gets horribly wrinkly, and I don't know if I can find you my treasure if I get ugly. Now, as you can see, the edges of my fins are in clear disrepair, so the second thing I need is a fishbone comb. We can survive in small pools for days, but a mermaid can hardly survive without a comb for hours, and I left mine at home.] (link: ">")[== Somehow you doubt that. You intervene with a casual 'ehem'. (text-color:#F0F)[Ehem.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[And finally, I don't know if you landlubbers have figured out nail care yet, but I'm sure you haven't figured out scale care--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Ehem. Ehehehehem. Hem.] (link: ">")[== Spate turns to look at you, their face affixed in a cloying little frown. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Captain, is something the matter?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Sam, you can't do all of those things at once. Go build the barrel, and I'll keep our guest on the nets in the meantime.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Ew.] (link: ">")[== Sam gently lifts the mermaid into your arms. At first, you think, mermaids are surprisingly light. Then you feel Sam's arms recede, and suddenly the weight in your arms triples. It is too late for you to pawn off Spate on anyone else without looking inadequate, so you flip the fish into a fireman's carry. For this, you receive an aggrieved gasp and the flapping of a tail against your chest. (text-color:#F0F)[Sir-- ma'am--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Good bitch is fine.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[--I'm not calling you that. Please do not slap my breasts.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You mammals are so sensitive. Don't you have little pasties made of seashells for those?] (link: ">")[== You remember a centerfold with a mermaid on it from your youth, when the only time you saw women loving women were in the much-hated raunchy pirate magazines that have spread across the coast faster than the Black Plague. It was the first time you realized there was something to life beyond what you had been told you could experience. It was also the first time you saw a mermaid, or someone's depiction of a mermaid, and that mermaid was wearing little shells over their boobs. Spate is not wearing shells over their boobs. (text-color:#F0F)[We thought you guys had boob shells.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[What? Why would we put shells on our boobs?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[Do you have boobs?] (link: ">")[== Spate scoffs. As you put them gently down on the netting, they grab their nearly flat chest. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[I can't believe we're more like most mammals than you are on this one, but only when we're pregnant. Doesn't it seem a little lewd to have them out all the time? Even with your boob shells?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[They're... they're called bras, usually, and they're made of soft fabric.] (link: ">")[== Spate slaps the deck with their tail. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[You guys are some of the most fantastic perverts I've ever seen. So excited to sail with you, Captain! And your huge bag of meat. What a man! I'm excited for a little cultural exchange.] (link: ">")[== You roll your eyes at this. It's one thing to have a mermaid on board-- certainly worse pirates have weathered worse, with very little issue. What's really stressful is having a shameless flirt on board during a time of political crisis. The average pirate ship is a powder keg of horny sapphics of all varieties, pronouns, predilections, and scurviness. A good captain can keep the tangled web of friends, matelots, and sidepieces ship-shape, but now that you have a fish in your midst serving her best eel realness, you might have to adjust. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[I found an empty bucket! Getting the water down there now!] (link: ">")[== And maybe you want to get to Sam before Spate does. You mean Spate before Sam does. Whatever. You aren't monogamous. And from the look Spate is giving you, you get the feeling they aren't either. (if: $i is 2)[[DECK HUB]]

As you turn the corner toward the infirmitchen, you feel a gentle pull at your neck. It's hard to make eye contact with Spate, given that they're wrapped so tightly around you, but it's easy to tell when a motion is deliberate. Partially because they have nasty fingernails, and they use them. (if: $spateroute is True)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Babe.] (You flush a violent red.](else:)[(text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Darling...]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Problem? ] (link: ">")[== Spate's fins tilt slightly. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Are we heading towards the infirmary?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Figured we could get you a fish, and me a drink, if I'm going to haul you around all day. ] (link: ">")[== Spate makes a face, one that doesn't look nearly as teasing as their usual mock-disugst. They shuffle in your arms, and beneath their girth you can feel a heartbeat beginning to flutter wildly. With deep, wary hesitance, barely smoothed over by the veneer of saccharine brattishness, they offer with a wave of their hand, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You can bring it by me tonight. (if: $spateroute is True)[Unless you don't want to see me again, mmm?]] (if: $day is 3)[(You don't want to tell them you have other plans tonight. Plans they absolutely should not be part of.] (else:)[Begrudgingly, you roll your eyes at that. You might as well go see them, right?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Might be gone by then. What's wrong, fish? Not a drinker?] (link: ">")[== They put their arm against the doorway-- you are rocked backwards by the intensity of their grip. For a moment, you remember that you are holding something that is, in essence, allowing itself to be held. Their fins frill up, eyes sharp with alarm, playfully wide pupils dilated to slits so thin, you can barely see them in the undership murk. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I am going to... have to insist... we don't go in there, love.] (link: ">")[== You open your mouth. (text-color:#F0F)[ Of-- of course. ]As you walk away, in a much lower voice, you add, (text-color:#F0F)[ But if you could at least let me know what you're worried about, I could better accomodate you?] (link: ">")[== They shuffle uncomfortably. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I just don't want to go down there. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[...] You hoist them a little. (text-color:#F0F)[ Let's turn around, then?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Yes. Please.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ You don't think they're dangerous, do you? ] (link: ">")[== Spate looks away for a while. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Be careful,] they say at last. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You can ask how many ships they've been on, if you really want to know.] (link: ">")[== You nod, resolutely. You (if: $grog > 6)[have been trying to investigate anyways, and this does, unfortunately, line up with how it's been going so far.](else:)[have always gotten a bad feeling from them, to the point where you subconsciously avoid the infirmitchen, yourself.] And while you know Spate well enough by now to know the rumors about mermaids having fish for pets is a misconception, even you, looking far less like a fish, sometimes watch Grog raise and lower the cleaver and feel something fall on your chest, heavy and cold. [[We've got other places to be... |DECK HUB]]

No one's under the illusion that you're somehow going to make it up the entire poop deck with a mermaid in your arms. For a moment, you try some configuration where you backpack Spate, but at last the mermaid says, (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I have unusually good arm strength for a mermaid.] You turn around and wait, painstakingly, for them to crawl off your back. This isn't the first time you've just sort of sat here and reflected on the painful intimacy of your dynamic. You feel like a weight has been lifted when they leave, because it has. But you still do smell like an open-air fish market, which at this point, is a comfort. Think of it as a matching couple's costume. (text-color:#F0F)[ You're not dry?] (link: ">")[== Spate flashes you an amused look, frilling their fins. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Darling, you're hardly doing enough to keep me wet.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ All I'm saying, is if you want to get back in the tub--] (link: ">")[== Spate's already scaling the ropes. They're long-- way longer than they seem, even in your arms-- so this leaves you down at the bottom for a while. Once their tail disappears into the cuppola (you hear Bas's disgruntled voice, already, and immediately feel some small sense of mirth in your decision making) you saunter after, making record time. Reiterating with a quick clear of her throat, for your benefit, Bas says, (text-color:#257925)[ You're not supposed to be up here...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm breaking the surface tension.] (link: ">")[== Bas gives you an utterly despairing look. Usually it's addressed solely to you, or given to your companions with you as the object, so this is new. Maybe new in a fun way, or maybe you're about to piss Bas off in a way you'll come to regret horribly later. Really you have not decided yet! (text-color:#257925)[ I understand the captain has some compulsion to needlessly interfere in all of our affairs... (if: $bas > 5)[And sometimes, she can even be more than amusing enough to earn her keep.] It's you that I don't understand. What are you up to?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I pay luxury prices for transport. I ask for luxury treatment. I'd like to have the luxury of surveying the whole premises.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[Sounds nice. Especially for a model where you pay up after your trip. Most businesses don't do that. Especially illegal ones.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ My body's collateral.] She winks at you. You pretend to look at a seagull overhead, who is in turn looking for which of your heads would be most prudent to shit on. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[We won't //have// your body when you go to get our prize!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Fair, fair. I suppose you are all trusting me at my word on a ridiculous fetch quest.] They splay their hands. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ And I'm trusting you not to kill me, sell my body, eat me--] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Oh my god.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Hey. Things are bad up here. Land-dwellers have to pay-- what do you call it? Rent? Tabaxis?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ What economic model do you have under the sea, exactly?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Lots of time alone, half your brain off, deeper than any human has ever been, gloaming fearfully in the dark. Existing in a state where the water outside and inside of your body are part of one thing. Exalting the mother, who is also the daughter. Also an infrasonic rumor mill we share with whales and inter-mermaid transactions completely litigated by hatesex. ] (link: ">")[== Bas casts you a look. (text-color:#257925)[ Hopefully you're not litigating anything here with hatesex.] (link: ">")[== And you've been reeled in. (text-color:#F0F)[ We should go.] (link: ">")[== (if: $spateroute)[Spate flicks their tail.](else:)[Spate laughs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No one's asked me to litigate with hatesex yet, but rest assured I'd tip for that!]]They hoist themselves up and give Bas a hearty pat on the back. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You're so funny, sunshine. You have a fantastic day. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Need some help moving--] (link: ">")[== Spate is already on the ropes. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'll be waiting for you. These arms are tough, but my poor, sensitive skin is lanced with splinters already. I'm going to have horrible scale irritation if we don't do something about it soon. ]With a wink, they swing out of view. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Do what.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm going to be so honest. They're just like that.] (link: ">")[== Bas looks despairingly at you. (text-color:#257925)[ I'm going to guess, and this is me being generous, that I just got three times the information you've gotten from them in three days by talking to them for twenty minutes.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Steady on, and I'll pretend I haven't been watching you and your girlfriends bend ship rules as you feel like it. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Oh, lord, forgive me for sleeping in the weapons room.] Bas looks away, indignant. (text-color:#257925)[ You don't know everything about my rationale, and I don't know everything about you. This was just about me offering you a bit of-- and may I stress-- free advice. Ask follow up questions.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I ask you plenty.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ Funny. Ask them to the people who clearly want to talk to you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And if I were to want to talk with you?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#257925)[ (if: $bas > 5)[You're insistent.](else:)[Let's just say that would be news to me.] Now say it with me...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Off of your deck, I know.] (if: $basroute) [You flash her a wink.(text-color:#F0F)[ Just wanted to make sure Spate got a look at the best view on the ship.]] [[Descend.|DECK HUB]]

When you enter the weapons hold, Siel is sharpening a big, old knife. She looks up at you and Siel and her nostrils crumple perceptibly. (if: $evening)[(text-color:#F0F)[ Place looks a bit empty.](if: $sielroute and $day is 4)[(text-color:#F0F)[Hey, there.] She looks betrayed. She has every right to be, just as you have ever right to be busy. With someone else. You watch her gaze wander across your body, her interest betrayed by the slightest glimmer of black gum and white teeth in the reflection of her knife.]] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Fish,] she says, apathetically. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[And whatever the dog dragged in.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ (if: $sielroute)[That's enough of that, Siel.](else:)[That's not-- that's not even how the turn of phrase goes.]] (link: ">")[== (if: $sielroute)[She obliges with a little bow. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Well, as long as you come by when I want you, I don't care how you spend the rest of your time.]](else:)[Siel snorts under her breath, watching you with a passive gleam of annoyance.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't know why we're doing this. Do you two have anything you'd even like to say to each other?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ha, not really. You want to compare fishing tips?] (link: ">")[== Siel thinks on this. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Have you ever battled the great squid?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Killed more than my share. A good number of them were already dead, or close to it. No reason to attack other predators when they\'ll all die eventually.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ No sport in that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ No sport in being hungry. I prefer to find my sport, ]They lean back against your face, looking up at you with doe eyes. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ On land. With more interesting adversaries.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Land prey.] As the land prey, you resent this. You can swim. Probably. Spate gives Siel the longest, dryest, most withering look. And then-- and you don\'t need to see this to know it happened-- she bites her lip. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Your conception of experience is completely foreign to me. I do not understand you, and I do not want to.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ What? Every time I come back, they've invented a new game, or a new fucking... whatever, politics, or some new gizmo everyone's jizzing over, like books, and indoor plumbing, and new fuck in a stick that you can smoke. I'm not going to keep present on all that crap. It's actually extremely easy to keep present on sex.] (link: ">")[== Knowing that Spate would not smoke weed with you makes you really sad, because you feel like Spate would smoke loud. However, you respect that she probably has a respiratory system intolerant to smoke, and in spirit, you think she smokes loud as hell, and that's all that matters. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ ... Hm. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Why, you plan on sticking around for a thousand years? You'll get bored of every sport there is, too.] She flays her hand dramatically. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Not killing. It's the oldest game. You're forgetting what it is to live... the insistent call of battle.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ The harpoon in the back wasn't there a century ago... a century from now, I'm sure it won't be. They'll find ways to kill so fast there won't be sport in them. It'll just be, like, want these bitches dead? Good for you, girl! Slaughter! ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Perhaps your pleasures will also be replaced, then.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ah. If we're to fight speculatively, I suppose we have a jury here. Come on, Howl... ] Ah fuck you have no moral opinions on this whatsoever and your id impulse to kill is reasonably well suppressed and sublimated INTO your desire to dominate and be brutally dominated sexually. This is basically like asking one of those vegan dogs a question. Like, what question, who knows. Point being, it's already having a pretty bad time. |hook>[(link:"Obviously they aren't going to make a machine that does sex.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ I don't think you can ever really replace sex...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ WAIT!] (link: ">")[== Siel raises her eyebrows. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I've realized that they already have made a machine that can do sex! Have either of you ever fucked a hydrothermal vent?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Neither of us can dive to reach a hydrothermal vent.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I do not know what a hydrothermal vent is.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh! That sucks! That sucks so bad! Enjoy your inferior mammal sex, you fucking idiots. You must be absolutely fucking miserable. Oh my god. They don't haven have hydrothermal vents. What are we living in, the pre-Promethean era?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I do not know that one either.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Pre-underwater fire. Keep up. Oh, wow. You're going to love this one. Girls, you can put your whole pussy on a huge swell of water deep beneath the ocean, and it will clean your damn cooch out. By every single scale on the great mother of the stars, you will never ever find a single man who is as good as a hydrothermal vent. Mermaids meet there to participate in orgies... do politics... political orgies... you know. Girl's night.] (link: ">")[== Siel is staring at you. You aren't sure exactly if she's mortified, or thrilled, or if she just wants you to use your capacity as captain to stop whatever the hell is going on here, because her expression is exactly the same as every other time she looks at you. Dead. Fucking. Blank. (text-color:#F0F)[ I'm sorry,] you whisper. (link: ">")[== Siel nods. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Your allegiance with me in these difficult times is very charming. Come over sometime and don't bring the source of them.] (link: ">")[== Spate scoffs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ What! Don't form solidarity with her! I'll fuck your wives!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ They are both asexual.] She continues sharpening her knife.(link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Metaphysically!] (link: ">")[== You carry Spate out before she can make a scene. As you step out, you say, (text-color:#F0F)[ You really need to be more considerate of the ace community, you know. It's not like you can just make grand, totalizing statements about sex and expect everyone to agree with them when not everyone even experiences sexual attraction to begin with.] (link: ">")[== Spate sighs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's... it's more abstract than that. It's about social dominance.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ With Siel? You should just give up already.] (link: ">")[== Spate folds her arms. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ She's not untouchable. Can you not smell the yearning?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ No, I can't smell her yearning.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ That's a you problem. It's super obvious. What's worse, I almost guarantee she's yearning for you, and you haven't noticed.] (link: ">")[== (if: $sielroute)[(text-color:#F0F)[ Let's not talk for a little while.]](else:)[You raise an eyebrow. Historically, you've labored under the delusion that Spate has at least a little something-something going on socially, some certain level of merm me sai quois. But this has to be... the first stupid thing you've ever heard them say. You decide not to question it. (text-color:#F0F)[ Let's... cause problems elsewhere.]] [[Yeah you didn't expect this to go well. So you're honestly not that disappointed. Just how it is |DECK HUB]]]] (link:"There will always be something to kill that poses a challenge to humanity. Even if that something is humans, or something humans have made.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ I think the point of an arms race is that both sides are racing. Otherwise it's an arms victory lap. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Mmm.] She looks satisfied. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Seems like an unsatisfying way to spend the rest of our lifespan as a species.] She tilts her head. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ What we have, with the ocean... any other relationship is an attempt to replicate it. The stars overhead... the places we make on land... all pale imitations of the mother in the sea. We bleed salt, too. Killing and dying and eating and being eaten in her... that's all there is. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh my god. Can we like, switch places? Because I'm so fucking sick of Mommy. ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ ...] She narrows her eyes. You get the sense that both of them are now trespassing on some very sensitive ground for the other. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Hey! Both of you!!! Let's just not! Talk about whatever this is???] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Coward.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Coward.] They both say it at the same time. (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Like, me , or...? ]There's a tension in the air you very distinctly remember from on the mainland when a bar fight was about to break out. (text-color:#F0F)[ I just remembered. Spate, we need to go scratch Sam's back. He always gets a little itch between his shoulders at exactly this time of day, and I cut all my fingernails when I was trying to get really good at manual sex.] (link: ">")[== Spate claps. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ooh! Back muscles!] [[You rush her out before the two of them can get into their different philosophies on the nurturing power and almighty ordering spirit of the ocean.|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"They'll replace both of them, and we'll all live in hell. It will be miserable, and I won't be around to see it, because I have a Normal Lifespan.")[(replace:?hook)[ (text-color:#F0F)[ What if everything's ruined, at some point in the future? No killing. No eating. Just, you know. Sitting in a room. Not that I'll have to deal with it, but you might, Spate. And Siel, uh. I assume you have a normal lifespan, right? You're human?] (link: ">")[== Siel pointedly ignores the latter half of your interrogation. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ I think I'd kill myself.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh girl! Samesies!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ We are not samesies on the eternal value of the spirit, and the ways in which having your life lived for you diminishes the sacred task of living. You are a shameful hedonist, and I am life in service of the divine force which moves through all things.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Girl. Never pit two bad bitches against each other!] (link: ">")[== Siel rolls her eyes. It's so Bas-like you almost snort. [[Yeah I guess that answers that. Spate can we go now. Please|DECK HUB]]]] (link:"Ladies, ladies, ladies. All ways of being consumed by the Other are valid, whether they're fatal or not! Let's try to UPLIFT each other's extremely transactional feelings about being alive and reproducing and what not, not tear them down! ")[(replace:?hook)[ You wring your hands a bit. If there are any two people who are most going to flay whatever answer you give next alive, you're right in front of them. (text-color:#F0F)[ Uh... never pit two bad bitches against each other?] Siel nods sagely. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Ah... the coward.] (link: ">")[== To your distinct horror, Spate concurs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ The coward... of course...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ It's worth discussing these things in more forceful company.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ I can be forceful company!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You mean you're going to change your opinion to appeal to whichever of us you're currently trying to seduce?] asks Spate, with a level of prescience that almost makes you gasp. She then flashes you finger guns, once again really stretching your suspension of disbelief on how similar human and mermaid culture are, realistically. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Because that's what I do!] (link: ">")[== Siel threateningly swings her whetstone against the blade of the harpoon. At this point, you're convinced that everything is plenty fucking sharp enough, and she just does that whenever she wants to scare the shit out of you. Well, good news: IT WORKS. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Both of you need to leave me alone.] [[Aye aye... sorry... Siel.|DECK HUB]]]]]

Every time you cross the deck, Spate has been waving to Sam. You've (if: $samroute)[tried to outwave them, which is a futile endeavor because you have no idea who Sam is waving back to](else:)[allowed them to go over, although it usually seems like they have literally nothing to say to each other]. At this point it makes the most sense that you should just hang out over here, and more importantly, finally have someone else deal with your extremely heavy, talkative, and unfriendly scarf. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Captain! Our honored guest! What a two-for-one.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ My boytoy! Hello, you.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Admittedly, it's kind of slow... but slow's good! Much better than days on the shore, haha.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ooooh. Tell me more.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Shore's busy. We're an amateur vessel, so we get one week at most before we have to turnaround... docking's expensive. So it's a mad hustle for filing paperwork, discussing payout, deciding on bounties, enjoying the ladybrother's club... ] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Oh? The queers?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, I think the captain and I are really the only two people who take advantage of it... we're actually a fairly sex-light crew, if you can believe it. And then, the QPArrrgh are all relatively new, so while they're allowed to go pursue things on their own, we haven't written up a contract with them yet.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You do contracts.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Yeah, that's all super important. There's intimacy training on land if you're into it, but they can't regulate what happens out here, so--] Sam pumps their fist. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ It's up to me to set an example!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Wow. Have you set one recently?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Haven't gotten the chance, haha... I mean, I... I'm not that much to look at.] (WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!) (link: ">")[== Spate leans over your shoulder, shifting her weight from you to poor, hapless Sam. With a finger, she tilts his chin up. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Would you like to?] (link: ">")[== Sam turns a shade of beetred you've only seen before in spilled blood and sunsets. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Wowie, I don't think I'd ever considered... I mean, you're so pretty, and I...] (link: ">")[== (text-color: #F0F)[Going to put a quick pin in this and say, that as someone who is standing, right here, I think you guys should have this conversation later.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Really? Seems like the kind of freak shit you'd be into, honestly.] (link: ">")[== You sever the siren touch of the mermaid. (text-color: #F0F)[And we are leaving.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e6e8d9)[Bye, Captain! Bye, Spate!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Tootle-oo, darling.] Oh my god you hate this fucking fish so much. [[I mean! Not to be sex negative! But also! Awkward situation for you to be put in!|DECK HUB]]

You ask Spate for roughly the fifth time: (text-color:#F0F)[ Are you sure this is a good idea.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's such a bad idea. We should do it!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Because they really, really do not like you, and it feels like it's mutual.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Mhm!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ And I am only entertaining this because I want to mediate it, and I am going to mediate it in a way that respects both of you, but when I say that, I hope you realize that I am bound to tear anything that hurts my matelot into pieces.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Darling, I'd love for you to tear me into pieces. You've kept some of your fingernails, yes?] She grins horrifically. (link: ">")[== You cast them a heavy stare, and they squirm a bit around your neck. They pull themselves around you, and you can feel their hearts pound out of time, a little faster than before. You feel their frills fall off to their sides. You put your hand on the ice-cold doorknob of you and Joffey's room. (text-color:#F0F)[ Tell me to turn around, and I turn around.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I don't pull out.] (link: ">")[== You groan and open the door. Joffey looks up, fleetingly, as they do when you come in, then looks up again, scrambles up, and against the wall, as if cornered. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You bastard. You can NOT bed them in my room.] Then, to Spate, they sneer, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Fish.] (link: ">")[== Spate sticks out their tongue. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Bastard.] (link: ">")[== You lower Spate to the ground, so that you're no longer holding up one of the parties you're trying to mediate between (kinda sends a message, and if anything, you would prefer not to send a single message in the thick of this), and she slides forwards as if dropped, with a wounded little whine. Joffey throws their arms up and grabs a book from the nearest shelf and begins furiously writing. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey, what are you doing?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Going back to work. They don't want to have a serious conversation. I most certainly don't want to have a serious conversation. We're sparing each other's time by refusing to spend it grasping for an olive branch neither of us are interested in giving.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ What the mammal said, about the obtuse metaphor I have no context for.] Spate purrs. (link: ">")[== Joffey laughs. You look to Joffey. You look to Spate. And you have the worst possible idea. You fall onto the bed between the pair of them and say, (text-color:#F0F)[ Stop joking. I'm trying to do my captainly duties and the pair of you are being so difficult.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ And you think I'm the brat.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ And people think I'm the bottom.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Ha!] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ She can't be giving you a harder time than she's giving me, can she?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[(if:$spateroute)[Well, I would say the 'hard time' has some 'long running benefits'.](else-if:$clearedallspate)[She just needs to be properly incentivized, is all.](else:)[Sister, you live on land. Meanwhile, I'm being carted around in my little bucket all day, just waiting for her to give me a hard time.]] (link: ">")[== Even though they're still writing, and the view is hard, you can see a little smile poking out around the edge of their face. (text-color:#d9480f)[(if:$spateroute)[I know all about long running benefits.](else-if:$clearedallspate)[You're going to have to enlighten me. We can share notes.](else:)[I'm a big fan of my own little bucket, myself. It has a nice bed, doesn't it?]] (link: ">")[== Spate cackles. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Alright, alright. I'll get out of your neat ponytail, leave you to it.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Appreciated.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[ Wait!] (link: ">")[== Both of them look at you with-- and you wish they would both realize this-- the same look of utter contempt. Trying not to cackle with glee (unbecoming AND unhelpful), you say, (text-color:#F0F)[ Truce?] (link: ">")[== Spate runs their hand along their side the wrong way and yanks. A thin stream of blood trickling from their side, they extend their hand to you,and when you attempt to take it, they slip a scale into your hands. They look at you, gently. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's for them.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I don't want that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You really won't like what mermaids do with it, then.] They flick their tongue out. (link: ">")[== You gulp. You can think of at least one thing. And that's just the cleanest thing you can think of. (text-color:#F0F)[Eat... it?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ I definitely don't want that.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[Come onnnn, it's how we broker truces. I guess the human equivalent would be for you to share hair with me... or skin cells...] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#F0F)[I could eat your scale, and Joffey's hair, and we can just pretend you both made up?] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm sure some of your organic matter will end up back inside the both of us, anyways.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#d9480f)[ Oh! Classy.] (link: ">")[== You prick one of Joffey's hairs from their ponytail, and hold it in your hand with the scale. You gulp both back. It tastes like keratin! Very exciting. (text-color:#F0F)[ All... good, guys?] (link: ">")[== Joffey folds their arms, and looks past you, to Spate. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Look. Do I understand you? No. Do I like you? No. Do I want you near my woman? No. But I'm a well travelled fellow, and I see a petty bitch when I know one. I can not lie. The mermaid read you like a stable current clear between the continents.] (link: ">")[== (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Now that's the first correct observation you've made about me all night. Listen. I know an obstinate brat when I see one. I've made her work for me, and I could make her work for you. Her eyes gleam with devilish delight.] (link: ">")[== You swallow. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ There's our girl. Uppies?] Spate clasps and unclasps their hands. (link: ">")[== Joffey walks over, kisses you on the cheek, and helps lift the mermaid into your arms. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Why don't you two get back to causing problems on purpose. ] [[yaaaaay|DECK HUB]]

You hobble downstairs. The taste of salt in the air is thick, owing to the recent maneuvers you've had to pull-- it's a real wonder the ship isn't at the bottom of the ocean, you marvel. You allow your eyes to flicker closed in victory, exhale a long, deep sigh. That has to be the worst of it. They're hidden in the darkness, coiled and ready to strike, and still you are-- so easily-- the monster. It's not even a question worth negotiating. Your eyes are the ones that burn like falling suns in the darkness, you're the one who can tell how they're feeling by just the curve of their smell on the roof of your mouth. You're the one with bloody gums from where the teeth pushed through, giving you the potential to be so much more than you can handle. You didn't show them that, and you're glad, even though you're beginning to acertain they've guessed. You're a monster, and monsters have to be careful. Even when someone wants to be eaten. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Can't get enough of me, can you?] Their voice trails across storage, too loud, too proud. Liable to wake someone up. They probably want to keep you on edge-- they've interfered with your pride, they've wound themselves into your profit. Your respect dangles by the thread of their compliance. You can see it in their eyes-- their viciously sharp eyeliner matching their smile. But that isn't why you're here, is it? You stride over, whisper against their frills. (text-color:#F0F)[ Shut up.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, is this where I'm supposed to say 'make me'? ] Oh, but they shiver-- you see their ears twitch. You run your tongue along the line of the frill, brewing with horrible ideas. (text-color:#F0F)[ I changed my mind. Why don't you keep talking?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Oh, you bitc-- aghk. ]Your mouth closes on their fin, sucking, and you see them writhe, their claspers fully extended like outstretched arms. Your hand moves down to stroke the skin the wrong way, rough as it can be smooth, and you feel them tense at the touch. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You think you're good enough to--] (text-color:#F0F)[ I think you're a brat. And I think you want to be shut up.] You massage their claspers against each other, and as their breath tightens, desperately, they move their mouth to yours-- a tie is always better than a loss. Your tongues thrash in each other's mouths like a ship against a great white whale. Their teeth prick your lip like a guitarist testing the strings of a new instrument, and their fingers search something to tune, settling on working the breasts. When she comes, you come, too-- just the look on her face is enough to send you over the edge. You settle against her heart, panting, listening to the rasp in her amphibious body as it works through air it hardly wants. The gills flutter and tickle your chest, feeling you. You sort of want to fistfuck them, but that can wait. After the workout you had earlier... it's just nice to have this. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ So, no one died, right?] (text-color:#F0F)[ You need to work on your pillow talk.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Did they?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Do you care.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ If it impacts your chances of getting me to my destination, I'd be stupid not to.] (text-color:#F0F)[ Those chances aren't impacted.] Spate's tail flicks against your leg, the edge of their tailfins kissing your toes. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Can you just tell me if anyone died or not.] (text-color:#F0F)[ No. No one died.] Spate coughs. (text-color:#F0F)[ So, do mermaids... do crews? Raids? Any of that good stuff?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Great. We've reached the talking stage. What is that, third and a half base?] (text-color:#F0F)[ After moving in together.] They lean their head against yours, flicking your areola until it hardens. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You and the first mate with one bed, huh.] (text-color:#F0F)[ We slept together before that, too. ] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You bring anyone else to the bed, or do I have to start doing administrative labor for that.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I think you would have to contribute some hours, yeah.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I have some talents.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I mean... ]Your voice gets much quieter. (text-color:#F0F)[ You definitely have some talents.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Yeah, yeah. Though you should all be set on food, so fishing wouldn't be as useful...] (text-color:#F0F)[ Set?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You did shoot people today, no?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Oooooooooh. Yeah, no, we throw those overboard. Is that-- ] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ It's not a person, anymore. And you will eat them-- you always eat them, sooner or later. We're all particles on the tide. Honestly, with mermaids, it's common to try to die somewhere you know another mermaid will find you. Usually hearts are eaten to symbolize commitment, but livers, intestines, that's all just for substenance. Supposedly, mermaids are amongst the best-tasting fish. ]They pause. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You're really quiet.] (text-color:#F0F)[ How did we get into cannibalism, again?] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Same way anyone gets there. First you murder someone... then you need to dispose of the body... honestly, murder might be one of the quaintest human traditions. Imagine seeing someone for the first time and thinking, I guess they'll die.] The boat creaks beneath you. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm getting the sense... eating people isn't your favorite conversation topic?] (text-color:#F0F)[ You're an empath.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Mmmhm.] They pat you right between the boobs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ I'm done now. Put me back in. You need to go sleep with Joffey.] (text-color:#F0F)[ I think I might hate both of you.] (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ But you're still here eating our hearts, right? Has to count for something.] (text-color:#F0F)[ That's not the only thing I want to eat. ] Their frills twitch forwards. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Tomorrow?] (text-color:#F0F)[ Tomorrow.] Fish is back on the menu, boys. [[yippee|DECK HUB]]

(text-color:#90c6f9)[ Oh, too bad... She falls through the ropes, dropping down to the ground. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You're good, you know that. You're pretty good. But I think you could pay better attention. You cough. (text-color:#F0F)[ What does that mean? (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Think of it like a game. You figure out (text-color:#F0F)[ This-- this is our last night! (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Oh! That's a bummer. Then I guess the moment's over. You stammer out some muttered disbelief

Wrapped in preliminary bandages, you open the door to your quarters and see Joffey there, the corners of their eyes crinkling, their chest rising and falling, and fall directly against them. (text-color:#F0F)[ Blight. You're okay. Blight. (text-color:#d9480f)[ It was a raggedy ship, no registration. They had to have been desperate to seek us out. (text-color:#F0F)[ Yes. Of course. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You did an excellent job commanding, too. I was stricken. (text-color:#F0F)[ You were stricken? (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm always stricken by you. They say it so matter of factly, as if everything in the last week doesn't pull to a perfect contrary. Up close, the unfamiliar scents of strangers and their blood linger on them, not to mention the salt of an attempted wash and the reek of your own bed. You lean into them, your mouth against their chest, the bare skin of it, your hands tossed uselessly aside. This close, you don't see any lasting injury, but anything could have hurt them, and you would have been utterly unable to-- (text-color:#d9480f)[ Elisa, you know I don't need saving. If anything, it's them who should be afraid of me. Don't coddle me. Weakly, you respond, (text-color:#F0F)[ Coddle you? Last time I checked, I was the one currently lying directly in your breasts. You can feel them laugh as it blooms through their body. They need to be kept safe from the world. Moreover, anything that hurts them needs to die. Their hand falls over your hair, runs back and forth across it. (if: $joffeygift includes 'wine')[Finally, they murmur, (text-color:#d9480f)[ We could... no, I'm in no mood for wine tonight.](if: $joffeygift includes 'snuff')[(text-color:#d9480f)[ Ah, I'm not feeling snuff...] (text-color:#d9480f)[ There has to be some way to bleed me of the tension I'm feeling right now, certainly. (text-color:#F0F)[ A long nap. Their fingers seize in your hair. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I was thinking, you could apologize more formally for getting me into all this. A low rumble grows in your throat into a hearty growl. (text-color:#F0F)[ If you're thinking of what I expect, I hope you know that you won't be punishing me. Joffey responds, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Maybe I don't want you to be punished. Maybe I just want to be rewarded, and I want you to do it. Joffey continues, (text-color:#d9480f)[ The only thing scarier than you on that battlefield-- You rise over them, pressing the pillow around their head. (text-color:#F0F)[ Was you, I reckon? They smile. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I know a dozen ways to kill a man. I utilized at least four the other night. Their fingers trace your neck. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're lucky. This close to me, you might be in danger yourself, are you not? You kiss their cheek. (text-color:#F0F)[ I think I'm less in mortal peril and more in eternal servitude. Joffey says, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Then serve. Your lips grasp the edge of their chin, eliciting a soft sigh of joy from Joffey as you bite the crooks of their neck. Working down to the collarbone, you plant a kiss across the small of their neck, then carry on to the other side, up to their ear. (text-color:#F0F)[ That what you were thinking?] Joffey grabs the neck of your shirt and pulls your lips to theirs. They're passionate, fast and daring as they are with a blade, and their other hand wastes no time grabbing your ass. You pull it away, anchoring it with your hand to the bed, and continue to kiss them while you restrain them. Joffey attempts to unbutton their shirt with one hand, but their arm is shaking. You only have to add a little pressure to the bite to get them so gone they can't keep fidgeting. (text-color:#F0F)[ This is what they're afraid of, out there? (text-color:#d9480f)[ So that's how you play it. Dirty bastard. Joffey twists their arm free, pulling their shirt off mere moments before you incapacitate them with your mouth over their breast. They seize up, whimpering as you sink your teeth in, and relaxing as you move to flick the araeola with your tongue. Gentler, now, you kiss one and rotate the other until you can feel their knees beginning to shake. Your legs seize around theirs, holding them steady, as you rock against them, feeling them grow warm beneath your grip. (text-color:#F0F)[ Pants. Joffey sighs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ I've got-- (text-color:#F0F)[ Go get it. Joffey steps up, and you lie, perfectly in your element, as they go to the closet for the rope and of course, the harness. You stand, as well, kicking off pieces of clothing as you go. Joffey pulls you in. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You're mine. Don't you ever forget that.] Howl: I want to be the one who does it, this time. Joffey lifts their head. Joffey: Grow a spine again recently? Howl: Joffey pauses, looming over you with that disaffected look you've grown too familiar with lately. (text-color:#F0F)[ Joffey... you're not really going to cut me off, are you? Joffey runs a hand along the side of your face. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Why? Are you lonely? ] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Good girl.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ I'm taking it off. (text-color:#F0F)[ Off? (text-color:#d9480f)[ I want to be able to hold you when you use it. (text-color:#F0F)[ Of course. They slip your ropes, easily as if they were never bound, and come up to kiss you as you sit. Their hand goes to You push deeper, feeling your own cunt pulse with heat as your blade heats them from the inside. You twist it deep as the knife you have in their heart, their arms clasped around you, tight, grabbing everything they can manage. Trying to fold you in, to bring you deeper still. The pair of you press against each other like a ship against a wave, pleasure wrecking you both.

The fish keeps her promise. The good pirate Bryll reveals she's a detective, but that she's found you innocent of all your stupid crimes. The chef turns out to be a bit of a maverick, of the murderous variety. You handle that, too, going safely into shore. Your crew could live many, many more adventures, but you'd be down a member-- they leave the morning you land on shore. They say goodbye, kiss you on the forehead the way they always do, take a few, but not all, of their books. You say every word you wish you'd said, all too fast, all at once, in some sluice of sentiment that you already know needed to be spread far thinner for it to have much of an effect. You say every word you can possibly say, as if it will save you. Ah, it doesn't matter. Nothing in the world matters. You've lost them.

After the end of everything, nothing else was supposed to happen. But then you feel it-- a slight change in the air, the scent of ozone on your nose. The ground dipping like a cat stretching out, the jerk upwards as it rolls you across its long, dark body. The beginning sweats of a soft rain, and the sky purpling nearly straight from blue. Dinner can wait. Howl: Bas! You call up, hoping she's still up there. Howl: What the hell are we sailing through? Bas slides down the ladder to your side. Bas: A full stop. Howl: Is that a sort of storm? Bas: No, it's punctuation. The conversation, likewise, is punctuated by the howl of wind overhead. Bas: I haven't a clue what could bring something on this fast, there's no atmospheric disturbance, nothing wrong with the temperature of the air-- probably some sea-based microburst. As long as we don't hit a waterspout, the hull should be able to take it, but we need to pull it to the side to hold it steady, stat. Howl: Shall we get the crew? Clutching their hat, Joffey calls through an increasingly heavy curtain of water, Joffey: Delegating as we speak. Have you considered that some god wants you dead? It's a pleasing alternate hypothesis at this point. Howl: Why, we're really going back to the hypothesis I've had since the day I was born? Seems a little lazy. Joffey scoffs at you. Joffey: I'll go help batten down the hatches. You call after them, Howl: Don't freak out! I promise we'll get through this! Joffey calls back, Joffey: You've deadened every single one of my nerve endings! Howl: I trust you're slightly more concerned. Bas appraises you for a moment. Bas: I... well. (if: $bas < 3)[There's nothing to be done now.](else-if:$bas < 6)[I've come to respect your judgment, if not your person.](else:)[I must admit you've surprised me.] They nod, in typical, stiff Bas fashion. You hear Sam cry from behind you. Sam: Shit, that's stiff! Justin: That's what he said! Howl: Justin! Siel and Bryll are also above board. Bryll's whipping about like a maniac on the ropes, Howl: Of course.

You all arrange yourselves into even more of a circle. This is not an especially taxing task until Grog mumbles, Grog: Not on the table. It can't happen again. And since none of you want to know what she meant by that, you exit into the main hold and sit around. You manage to acquire everyone this way, which is at least three more people than you thought there'd be. You now have a lot of space, a few good lanterns left burning, a group of extremely curious pirates, and more power than you would ever wring out of your workplace codes of conduct, willingly given to you by a bunch of vain and duplicitous bastards who are probably going to use this to find your weaknesses. Your weakness is pretty women. So things are already going pretty fucking bad. Spate: Someone start already! Bryll: Are you volunteering? Spate leans against the barrel. Spate: My life is already one long dare, and I have no shame. What do you think you could possibly do to me? She gives you a long, lancing glare. Spate: Actually, I kind of want to see her try to figure something out. Howl: I'm not also coming up with the truths and dares. Bryll: Ethics in pirate workplace truth or dare...? Joffey: Lack of creativity...? Bas: Not willing to just ask all of us to give you a little pet on the head and call you good girl..? Howl: Precisely. I'll set up a general framework, you guys... work it, I guess. So! [Truth.] It dawns on you that Spate was probably the worst person to go first provided you pick 'truth', because there are so many things you don't know about Spate, and so many ways this could go... agley. After all, Spate's honesty is one of the most charming and distressing things about them and frequently manages Spate: Most... hmmm. Hm. Grog. Grog casts them a merciless glare. Spate instantly ducks. Spate: You're always flinging that thing around! Day and night! Grog: This was supposed to be a truth about the mermaid. Spate: Oh, please. I'm sure you'd all love to hear about what us girls get up to twenty thousand leagues under, but I'm not here to give you a lesson. I'm here to fuck nasty, cause problems, and give you guys a completely unwarranted amount of money. Just a, ludicrous, pussy-wet-on-sight, make at least three of you famous on contact, career redeeming, life choice validating, pile of cash. Bas: You have a lot to live up to, then. Spate: Don't we all, hm? But Captain's daddy, and unlike most of you, I've neeeever disappointed my parents. (How is this like. More sexual than the dare? Not that you would know, but come on?) [Dare.] (if:$sam>$spate)[] (else-if:$spate>$sam)[Spate, with very little hesitation, goes, Spate: Eenie, meenie, meinie, just kidding, obviously I'm a social climber. Captain! ] (else-if:$spate=$sam)[Spate looks hungrily around the room, a cackle rising in her throat. Spate: My pick. I thought that this was supposed to be embarassing for me, not everyone else. Sam: Come on! Pick! He's (text-color:#F0F)[Go on... I promise we won't mind...] Spate looks directly across the room SAM The circle continues to the (if:$samkissed)[bekissed](else:)[all too excited] butch to the clockwise of Spate. He sways back and forth slightly, clearly drunk as a skunk, and throws his hands up, nearly getting Spate in the nose. The mermaid sighs, rubbing fingers through Sam's hair. Sam: Heh... me next! You get the feeling that this entire venture is doing Sam a favor. Many things that go badly for the rest of you are cool to Sam, who hasn't been to enough bad parties to know they're generally embarassing to be affiliated with. [Truth.] Sam looks around the room. The silence that falls on the room is mildly terse, and you see his face about to fall like a period-appropriate-volleyball [Dare.] Siel begins. (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Dare you to drink the (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ohhhh man I can not throw up on command. Guess I'm going to have to keep drinking. Howl (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I've spent so long suppressing my gag reflex... I'm actually a very sensitive (text-color:#d9480f)[ Captain, this is painful. You have to pardon him. You shake your head. (text-color:#F0F)[ This is a sacred rite. I can't pardon anyone, and I can't be pardoned. Joffey sniffs. (text-color:#d9480f)[ If we end up in a knife game situation, again... The pair of you have what people call 'history'. Most of that history composes of everyone you've ever loved dying in ways that would be funny if they weren't stupid and aggravating up close. A life time of frat-pranking taken to the logical extreme of total annihilation. (text-color:#F0F)[ He'll throw up before anything happens. (Oooooooh man he so will. He's going to need to piss like a racehorse all night, too. For his sake, you hope no one notices him if he stops drinking-- but it's Sam, so getting him to stop, is...) SIEL [Truth.] [Dare.] You hold your hands up. (text-color:#F0F)[ Sam, you need to stop drinking. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What? Siel sighs. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ I can keep going! I-- He gags, spits up a little in the corner. The area doesn't smell any worse, because first of all, plenty of people have thrown up here before. Second, it's almost entirely fish water, which was already here. He's just managed to spend an exceedingly long time moving fish water from one corner of the room to another. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Ech. Sorry, just clearing my palette-- Bryll claps her hands together. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You hurl, you... churl. BRYLL [Truth.] (text-color:#d9480f)[ Favorite wife. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Depends on the day! (text-color:#d9480f)[ Today. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Which one of you got You notice that Siel does not seem particularly put off by this. [Dare.] Sam chimes in, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Do a split! (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Oh! Easy! She drops directly into the splits. She throws her hands out to either side in a little 'ta-da' and shakes them. There's a round of good-natured applause (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ Did you know she could do that? (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No! But I thought it would be cool if she could. Spate laughs. (text-color:#e3c8f9)[ You weren't planning to keep asking people until they did it, were you? (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ No... but mainly because it would be rude if I took up all the dares... Siel and Bas help Bryll out of her split, and she comes to stand with a bow. She gives you a little wink as she does so. You give her another round of applause-- you have no idea why she'd need to single you out like that. Still, it's undeniably nice to be the center of her attention... even if you get the sense you've passed a test, which makes you think there was one, which isn't a great feeling when you haven't, so to speak, been studying. Nor do you think you know what subject she's grading you on. Right next to her, Grog rests uneasily. The whole group leans in slightly. They're waiting on you again. This... is a little ridiculous. What is there to pick with Grog? [Truth.] You all look at Grog. There are obviously a lot of things you could ask Grog about their life. It feels kind of rude to ask them about any of them... they have small, damp guy privilege without being a small, damp guy, you guess, there's sort of an aura of impermeable sadness around them. Asking them for a dare at least would have opened the door to them doing any number of ridiculous tasks. Learning something about them feels like a larger violation of their person than anything else you could ask them to do. (Isn't that... basically the point of this game? Ugh, maybe you should have just played poker. This is feeling like less of a morale boost by the second.) Finally, Sam peeps up. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ What's your favorite thing to eat? This gets a considerable murmur from the group, ridiculous softball or not. Maybe you should all do softballs. It engenders warm, fuzzy feelings. And brother, tonight your gender is pretty damn warm and fuzzy. Grog: Fish. Sam's face falls a little. (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Any... fish in particular? (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ You have to choose. (She's a lot [Dare.] Before anyone else can say anything, Sam chips in, (text-color:#e6e8d9)[ Put the cleaver down. For the rest of the game. Around the circle, you get a round BAS [Truth.] [Dare.] JOFFEY You look around the circle-- everyone looks around the circle. Unfortunately there is only one person left. You grin and shrug as everyone begins to chant-- (text-color:#257925)[ Joffey, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ Joffey, Siel: Joffey, Sam: Joffey! Joffey is looking directly at you. As is customary for Joffey, they look... mildly peeved. As the peever, and as such the sole entity responsible for this whole situation, you give them a sad, guilty little shrug. Joffey's nose scrunches up. They adjust their ponytail. Joffey: Well, Captain. Which plank am I walking? [Truth.] Before anyone else can say anything, Bryll chips in again. If you were to be uncharitable-- and you would never be uncharitable-- you might say that this all feels like a scheme of hers. Sometimes, everything feels like a scheme of hers, which is just ridiculous, because there's no way she could have conspired to make all this happen. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ If you weren't pirating, where would you see yourself today? Joffey casts you a long look. Joffey: Well. I don't know. Ooooooooooooof. [Dare.] Sam says, Sam: Give the Captain a little kiss! Joffey scoots over to you. As the drunken room holds its breath, Joffey gives you the mildest peck on the cheek. They then stand up, and with aplomb, bow to the audience. Spate: Come on. Use your fucking mouth for something besides telling me off. Joffey sits back down. They look you dead in the eyes. While holding your hand like a thespian cradles a skull, they bring their lips to yours. It is, not chaste, per se, but very much a mom-and-dad-in-front-of-the-kids kind of kiss. You butt heads a little bit. You feel, although this might also be the beer, the sort of cheery warmth you always associate with casual intimacy with Joffey. You are not altogether unpleased to be in love-- or at least in highly contractual marriage-- with them. Siel: With tongue! Aren't you matelots? Joffey's face pulls away, far enough for you to see the steel in their eyes. And then, as their tongue presses against yours, something clicks, and Joffey isn't just using tongue-- Joffey is abusing tongue. Joffey is fencing in your mouth, dragging it back out so the audience gets a good look, Joffey is digging fingers into the side of your neck and slinging an arm around your back. They dip you low, directly to the ground, and the next thing you know they are practically tonguefucking you against the boards of the hold. You're not sure that applause is actually going on, anymore. It might just be the roaring of water in your ears. When Joffey draws back, your nipples are super hard. So this is going to be a shitty half hour. If you sit perfectly still, maybe you won't jump out of your skin and pin them against the wall and fuck them hard. Joffey is looking at you like this is the best part. Joffey is kind of a dick. Joffey is very good at what they do. Joffey, unfortunately, has pulled this a lot at company parties. With a dramatic twist of their hand, they offer to the watching crowd, Joffey: I hope you perverts are all satisfied. Now, if you'd like to see more of that, I'd encourage you all to either fuck my wife at your own convenience, get some game, or, and this seems like the most likely course of action, just go fuck yourselves. At this point, you are beginning to realize this might have been a mistake to do drunk (if:$spatekiss or $joffeykiss)[and now super fucking horny]--scratch that, to do, period-- and not just because it's finally your turn. Joffey's the first to take up the cheer. Joffey: Captain. Sam quickly follows in. Sam: Captain! Captain! (text-color:#F0F)[ I should share the love a little, shouldn't I? HOWL [Truth.] Bas's lancing glare moves against you. You see, for a moment, triumph in her eyes-- if she wanted to talk to you, she could have just asked. Siel cuts in, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ What animal are you. (text-color:#F0F)[ Hummus sapient. You look to Joffey for approval. (text-color:#F0F)[ Did I get that right? (text-color:#d9480f)[ No. You didn't even get close. Bryll intervenes, (text-color:#90c6f9)[ It's more of a... (text-color:#F0F)[Like... emotionally? Yeah, I'd say I've got that dog in me. Not like, I would never fuck a dog. Just to be clear. I mean, spiritually I've got a dog vibe going on.] Bas sighs. Bryll claps her hands together. (text-color:#90c6f9)[Well. That was a bust. Now. Do you have a crush on anyone aboard right now!!!] Before you can answer, and GOD do you have an answer, Joffey bangs a cup against the wall. Exercising captain's privilege with a degree of personal prejudice you would never stoop to yourself, they call, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Everyone. Bed. Now. Bryll knocks her arm against you as she leaves. (text-color:#90c6f9)[ You can tell me. Won't let anyone else know. Prommy. Your face flushes, slightly. (if: $bryll > 5)[This would be a bad time to inform her...](else:)[ It would be embarassing to reveal, but you also get the sense that, if you and Bryll were closer, she would be an excellent ally to commiserate with. It's something to consider.] Joffey grabs you by the arm, a little harshly. (text-color:#d9480f)[ Fun night. Enough of this nonsense. Farewell to you all. (text-color:#F0F)[ Oh, Joffey. Yours wasn't so bad, was it? As you leave the room, Joffey murmurs, (text-color:#d9480f)[ Your egalitarian approach to power will have us all killed eventually, you know that, don't you, Captain. (text-color:#F0F)[ Afraid of children's games? Joffey releases you from their grip, but their expression is still dire. Dire old Joffey, you think. No wonder they can never catch a break, all coiled up the way they are. (text-color:#d9480f)[ You know, Captain, few people are crueller than a child. [Dare.] You feel everyone in the room's gaze. You try to lift your head-- you feel reasonably competent the worst thing they could ask you to do would be, not only doable, but reasonably unembarassing. You are, however, reminded of why people do not play games like these with their boss. Telling your boss to strip is a weird power dynamic, to say the least. Or telling your boss to jump off the plank... take lashes... well. One of those things would be more fun than the other. (text-color:#F0F)[ What? No dares?] Siel and Joffey begin to speak at the same time. Siel concedes, (text-color:#d2f9c8)[ Yours.] Well that's certainly a dynamic you'll have to explore at some point in the future! Joffey clears their throat, then says, Joffey: Boobs. (text-color:#F0F)[ What.] Joffey: Shirt off. Boobs. Anyone who wants to put their face in your boobs, is allowed to put their face, directly, in your boobs. The room hollers with delight, which is funny, because you're pretty sure half the room is asexual. Whatever, man. Some people just have an aesthetic appreciation for boobs. It's not worth getting into. (text-color:#F0F)[ I didn't know you were into free use. ] Joffey: They're good boobs. It's public service. You have literally no objection to this? Siel: You smell like the ocean. Sam blows a raspberry. Sam: Always wanted to do that. It's true. They flap like the wings of eagles... Howl: Get out of there. (text-color:#F0F)[ Has everyone had a good time? You get very generous applause. (text-color:#F0F)[ Great! Go the fuck to sleep!