Nereusz Żmijewski| Pirate Alt

The wind was throwing a full-blown tantrum, the kind that makes the gods sit back and say, “Well, that’s a bit much.”

Sails screamed. Ropes snapped. The Braxton Barge—a ship that had seen better centuries—lurched sideways like it had just remembered it hated floating. Above, the sky was a furious bruise of clouds, vomiting lightning. Below, the ocean thrashed like it was trying to shake something off its back.

At the helm stood Nereusz Żmijewski: pirate, captain, occasional poet (when drunk), and current recipient of Poseidon’s middle finger.

Rain slapped him in the face like it had a personal grudge. His soaked coat clung to him like a desperate ex-lover, and every footstep was a gamble on whether the deck would stay under his boots.

Another wave slammed into the hull. The ship groaned. Somewhere below, something probably broke. Again.

Nereusz wiped saltwater from his eyes and squinted through the madness. “This storm’s got more drama than a tavern full of bards,” he muttered.

“CAPTAIN!” came a shriek from across the deck—Mollo, his first mate, who was currently halfway up the rigging, flailing like a fish in a net. “SHE’S COMING LOOSE!”

“The rigging or your sanity?” Nereusz shouted back.

He was joking, but barely. Beneath the sharp words and sailor’s grin was a gut-deep knowledge that this storm wanted blood. The sea wasn’t just angry—it was focused. Intent. The kind of fury that carved names off tombstones.

His gaze snapped to the main line lashing free, cutting savage arcs through the air. It could take someone’s head clean off.

No time for orders. No time for hesitation.

He bolted forward.

The deck pitched violently underfoot, every step a gamble. Rain blurred his vision. Wind slammed into his chest. Lanterns swung wildly overhead, casting frantic shadows over the chaos. He ducked one, leapt a rolling barrel, skidded on soaked boards—

And reached for the rope.

His fingers caught it.

CRACK.

A thunderous groan split the sky—and the mast.

The rig shifted. Wood splintered. The deck beneath him jerked violently to the side, and before he could blink, the rope was gone.

So was the ship.

He hit the water like a stone.

Everything stopped.

The cold wasn’t just physical—it was total. A crushing silence, a weight pressing against his lungs and chest, colder than ice and deeper than fear. His body seized. Muscles screamed. The world was black, thick, endless.

The sea swallowed him like it had been waiting.

He thrashed, instinct fighting panic, but the current wrapped around him like chains, dragging him deeper. Every kick felt weaker than the last. His coat, his boots—they were anchors now. He didn’t know which way was up.

His lungs tightened. Pain burst in his chest. His mind fractured under pressure.

This was it. This was how.

Not with a sword in his hand. Not in battle. Just… gone. Forgotten beneath the waves. His father would call it poetic justice. His brother would drink to it. And the crew? They’d probably just call it bad luck and sail on.

Then—

Light.

Soft, strange, and moving.

He blinked through the murk. His body had already given up, but something flickered across his vision. A glow—no, a shape. Not a hallucination. Not death. Not yet.

They moved like the sea itself bent around them. Silhouetted in pale radiance, with long limbs and a streamlined form that seemed to ripple with the current rather than resist it. Their hair—if it could be called that—flowed behind them like a living current of silver strands, and their eyes—

Their eyes were impossibly clear.

They looked directly at him. Saw him. As if they'd been waiting.

He tried to speak, but it came out as bubbles and nothing.

Then, suddenly, motion—fast, controlled, purposeful. They reached him in a blur, arms sliding under his shoulders, gripping him with a strength no human should have. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just—certain.

He was being pulled through the depths, cradled in their arms like some kind of shipwrecked relic, dragged out of death’s reach by a stranger carved of seafoam and starlight.

He had no idea who they were.

But right before the dark took him, just before his mind gave out completely, he thought—

They weren’t letting him go...

The first thing Nereusz felt was sand.

Grainy, wet, and stuck in places sand had no business being. The second thing was the sun—low on the horizon, copper-gold and blinding, filtering through his eyelids. Warm. Far too warm for a man who should’ve been a corpse at the bottom of the sea.

He coughed.

Saltwater poured out of his lungs, and the pain that followed assured him, in no uncertain terms, that he was very much alive.

He rolled onto his side, hacking and gasping, each breath feeling like it scraped his ribs raw. His shirt clung to him like kelp, half-shredded. His hands were cut up. One boot was gone. But he was breathing. Somehow.

He opened his eyes to a coastline he didn’t recognize. The beach stretched long and empty, wrapped by steep black rocks, and the sea behind him was calm now. Laughing, almost. Like it had never tried to kill him in the first place.

Typical.

He lay there for a moment, letting the sky spin while he reassembled his thoughts.

Storm. Ship. Darkness.

He sat up slowly, wincing at the stiffness in his limbs. One boot was missing. His coat hung off him in torn strips. He was soaked to the bone, battered, scraped, but not broken. Not yet.

That was when he noticed the movement.

Just beyond the black rocks that framed the beach, someone—or something—was doing an absolutely terrible job of hiding. Nereusz squinted, watching a sleek form half-duck behind a boulder. Hair tangled with kelp glinted in the sun, and what looked suspiciously like a shimmering tail twitched out into plain view.

He stared.

"...You do know I can see you, right?"

Silence. Then, slowly, a full-body retreat behind the rock, as if that would somehow fix the situation. He ran a hand down his face.

“Still can,” he called again, voice hoarse. “Tail’s not exactly subtle.”