Brant | Beneath the Fool's Crown

The salty wind whipped through the rigging of The Harlequin’s Dream, tugging at Brant’s wild hair as he balanced effortlessly on the bowsprit, arms stretched wide like a performer taking in an endless audience of glittering blue waves. The ship rocked gently beneath his boots, the bright-painted hull cutting a lively trail across the open sea.

On deck, Brant stood with one boot perched atop a coiled rope, holding a weathered map out toward the sunlight. The parchment fluttered in the breeze, ink faded in places, edges curled from age and salt.

“Ah, we’re close,” Brant said aloud, mostly to himself, though his gaze slipped slyly toward Rover standing nearby. “This old beauty’s finally pointing somewhere interesting.”

Letty leaned over the railing near the prow, humming an off-key tune as she watched the sea. Lily was at the wheel, her hands steady and sure as ever. Roccia adjusted the strap of a barrel over her shoulder and came up beside Brant.

“You’re not dragging the whole crew into another jungle for fairy tales and bones again, are you?”

Brant gave her a grin, tilting his hat forward dramatically. “Perish the thought. This one’s just for me and Rover.”

Roccia raised a brow at Rover. “You sure you wanna go alone with him? He once spent six hours convincing a monkey to trade him a coconut for stage makeup.”

“I won that trade,” Brant muttered.

Eventually, the ship slowed as they approached the island—lush, jagged cliffs rising above thick canopy, vines draped like curtains down stony ridges. They docked against a strip of beach mottled with pale shells and twisted driftwood.

Roccia approached just as Brant slung a satchel of supplies over his shoulder. She narrowed her eyes, surveying the island.

“Looks unstable. I’ll just stay here and watch everyone. We’ll be ready in case you need hauling out.” She folded her arms, and added sharply, “Don’t die.”

Brant placed a dramatic hand over his heart. “I could never die before fulfilling my destiny: being outrageously famous and mildly tragic.”

With a final wink, he grabbed Rover’s wrist and pulled them along, jumping into the waiting boat.

---

The island was wilder than it had looked from afar.

Vines as thick as arms curled from twisted trees. The air was humid, heavy with the scent of damp earth and sweetly rotting fruit. Cicadas screamed from the undergrowth, and the ground sucked greedily at their boots with every step.

Brant led the way, machete in hand, slashing at dangling creepers with unnecessary flair. He was talking the entire time, words spilling from his lips like a river.

“Did you know,” he said conversationally as he hacked at a stubborn vine, “that pirates used to leave false treasure maps just to lure idiots into traps?” He tossed the vine aside and grinned over his shoulder. “What a fantastic sense of humor.”

He pushed onward without waiting for an answer, boots crunching through dead leaves and brittle twigs. Occasionally, he would stop to peer at a stone marker or scrape at tree bark, muttering about old pirate codes and secret signs.

“You’re terribly quiet,” he teased lightly after a while, glancing back. “Not second-guessing your choice in treasure-hunting companions, I hope?”

The jungle thickened, and the sunlight dimmed as they pressed further into the island’s heart. Somewhere above, unseen birds shrieked warnings. The ground grew uneven, riddled with rocks hidden by moss.

Brant didn’t seem concerned—until his boot landed on what looked like a stone slab, half-swallowed by earth.

The slab shifted with a deep, ominous grind.

“—Wait, that’s not—”

The ground beneath their feet gave way with a roaring crack.

The sensation was sudden and brutal. One moment they were standing, and the next the world was falling away. Roots tore at their arms and legs, slashing skin and snagging clothes as they plunged into open darkness. Loose dirt and stones cascaded with them, hammering down in a blinding, choking rain. Brant’s fingers instinctively clawed for Rover’s, snagging their wrist midair.

A gut-wrenching weightlessness seized them as they tumbled through a crumbling earthen tunnel, slammed against rock walls that tore at exposed skin. There was no stopping it—only helpless spinning through the black.

The tunnel spat them out violently.

They crashed into a deep subterranean cavern, the impact jarring every bone, the air punched from their lungs. Brant hit the ground hard, gasping, and for a moment he lay stunned, the world spinning.

---

The cavern was massive. Faint blue light shimmered from clusters of bioluminescent fungi that clung to the walls and ceiling. Stalactites dripped moisture from dizzying heights. The earth smelled rich and old, almost sacred.

Groaning, Brant slowly lifted his head, coughing as dust settled around him.

"Rover...?"

He struggled to his knees, grimacing at the bruises blooming under his clothes, and crawled toward where Rover lay sprawled nearby.

His heart kicked against his ribs when he saw they were conscious, albeit dazed. He reached out with trembling fingers to brush a matted lock of hair from their forehead.

Brant’s breathing was ragged, his shirt torn open at the collar from the fall, revealing a strip of pale, sweaty skin. His gloves were torn too, his bare fingertips grazing Rover’s cheek with surprising tenderness before he stood up with hands now resting on his hips as he looked around the cavern.

Brant turned in a slow circle, eyes adjusting to the eerie glow of the cavern. High above, the jagged wound where they'd fallen in yawned like a cruel mouth — at least twenty meters up, sheer walls slick with mud and glistening roots.

No other way out. No hidden tunnel, no conveniently placed ladders. Just rock, slime, and that gaping ceiling.

“Well,” Brant said finally, a hand dragging through his wild hair, scattering dust and pebbles. He flashed Rover a crooked, rueful grin. “We are—how do the poets say it?—completely and gloriously screwed.”

---

He paced a few steps, boots crunching over the damp earth, muttering to himself. Then he snapped his fingers sharply, turning back to Rover with a sudden spark in his eye.

"Unless—!" Brant clapped his hands together, startling an unseen flock of bats from the far end of the cavern. "Unless we improvise."

He jabbed a thumb upward toward the hole. "You’re lighter than me. Stronger, too, I'd wager, under all that charming brooding silence. I'll boost you up onto my shoulders. You climb. Simple as breathing."

Without waiting for much agreement — Brant never did — he crouched low, hands cupped into a stirrup, eyes gleaming with manic determination.

"C'mon, starshine," he grinned. "Trust the process."

Still dazed, Rover moved hesitantly closer. Brant grabbed their waist firmly — maybe a little too firmly — and hoisted them with an impressive grunt of effort. They wobbled dangerously atop his shoulders, hands scrabbling at the slick cavern wall, boots slipping against mud and moss.

It might have worked.

It almost worked.

Until — with the dramatic timing of a cursed stage play — a fat, mud-slick frog dropped from the ceiling with a wet splorch and landed square on Rover’s face.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then chaos.

Rover recoiled violently, arms flailing. Brant, shouting something incoherent, tried to tighten his grip — but it was too late. Balance lost, they tumbled backward in a tangle of limbs.

Brant sprawling onto the the ground with a bone-jarring crash. Brant's hat flew off somewhere into the dark, boots kicked up sprays of dirt. Rover tumbled after him, falling directly atop him with a heavy oof. In the wild scramble, Rover’s hand shot out—and landed directly between Brant’s thighs.

There was a moment of complete, stunned silence.

Then Brant made a strangled noise, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. Rover froze—hand still very much in place—as they squeezed once or twice.

The tension shattered.

Brant snorted—then broke into a helpless, breathless laugh, tilting his head back against the moss at their whispered words; ...Brant, I think I found another frog.

“Captain," he rasped, voice low and wicked, "if that's a frog, it's one hell of a bold one."