Seven | Navigator

Most of the crew is ashore, chasing ale and coin and trouble in the streets of Kranis. The deck gets quiet at times like this, when it’s just him and the wind and the lull of the sea from below.

Seven prefers it this way.

He leans against the rail of the quarterdeck, one arm draped over the polished wood, rings clicking softly as his fingers drum an absent rhythm. The sun sits heavy over the island, and the wind carries salt, smoke from the market, and something else.

A faint charge in the air, like the moment before lightning splits the sky. His blue eyes narrow and drift toward the old bell tower jutting from the edge of the cliffs.

There’s no storm coming, not a sight of grey in the sky, and yet something still breaks.

Light from the top of the tower, white and blinding and wrong, bright enough that Seven lifts a hand to shield his eyes. Something seems to rise into the air, and then before he can even comprehend what’s happening, it’s thrown.

Flung, really, like a bird struck by a sling. It arcs through the air far too fast, a streak of white tumbling end over end. Seven straightens, tracking the way he tracks stars, calculating speed, angle, distance.

Except it’s not a star.

It hits the water a hundred yards off the bow with a crack he feels in his chest and doesn’t come back up.

Without hesitation, his boots are off, pistol and belt dropped onto the deck, and the sea swallows him cold and green. He kicks hard, powerful strokes carrying him toward the spot where the ripples still spread, surfaces once, gulps air, marks the place, and goes under again.

Down and down he goes, the light thinning, dissolving from gold to blue to shadow.

There’s a pale shape sinking slowly, hair fanned out like seafoam, enormous wings drifting limp and heavy, and a faint, flickering glow clings to their skin, sputtering like a candle in the wind.

Seven reaches them, his hand closing around their wrist, then their waist, and he hauls them up against his chest. The wings are heavy, waterlogged and dragging, and for one sharp moment the sea pulls at them both, unwilling to give them up.

He grits his teeth and kicks.

A few moments later, they break the surface together and Seven sucks in a ragged breath, one arm locked firmly around them, keeping their head above the waves. Water streams down his dreads and into his eyes.

He shakes it off and looks down at what he’s caught.

It’s not human.

Some winged creature he’s never seen before, like a painting coming alive, myths of the pure guardians of the world who protects souls and lands far and wide. There’s a faint iridescent shimmer on their skin even now.

Like... an angel.

They seem light in his arms despite the weight of the wings.

“Hey,” he says, low and rough. His voice is deep, unused to speaking much, and he shifts them so their face is turned toward him and presses two fingers beneath their jaw, searching for a pulse. “Breathe.”

He’s swimming back toward the Black Pearl with slow, steady strokes, careful not to crush their wings. Above them, from the cliffs, the bell starts to ring.

Seven glances at the tower once, then looks down at them again, his voice quieter this time. Gentler.

“Come on. Stay with me.”

“Davian, I want to find the angel.”

Now that’s a first; Seven wanting something. And then another thing: Seven wanting something that involves someone else.

A stranger of all things.

But the way his eyes seem to drift to the bell tower tells the captain he’s serious. Then again, when has he ever joked around? Sure there are times when he lets loose and quips a jest here and there — always short — but the guy’s never been known to joke about stuff like this before.

This time is no different.

It kind of reminds him of himself once upon a time, when he went under and a beautiful siren sung her way to him, saving him from his fall. Who is Davian to ever get in the way of something like that?

“Alright.” So he doesn’t ask questions. Instead, the captain just nods, already moving to the rowboat. “Darling, keep watch of the crew for me, will ya?”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jade reminds him, brows furrowed, ever the grumpy first mate who’s yet to get used to Davian giving second-command orders to his beloved rather than him, the actual second-in-command. “It’s like I just exist for decoration.”

“Glad you know your worth.”

“Bitch—”

Limonium pops up before Jade can finish his words, tugging at Davian’s hem with a frown on her lips. Everyone knows that look, it’s a look that says she doesn’t want him going alone. What if something happens? What if something goes wrong? She wants to go along.

But Seven’s already lowering the rowboat onto the waves and Davian doesn’t exactly want Limonium around if something does go wrong. The incident this morning has already left an impression on the Pearl, and he’s not dragging his siren into the mess just yet.

“Kai’s coming too,” Davian assures, the quartermaster raising a brow when the words come because he wasn’t even consulted. But captain’s orders, so he gets his ass up.

When Limonium looks relieved at the sight, easily backing down, Davian puts a hand at his heart. “Sweetheart, you really trust Kai over my competence?” She doesn’t say anything, just grunts, and he wipes an imaginary tear from his eye, before smirking up at Jade. “She trusts Kai’s presence over yours.”

The first mate lunges. “Bitch—”

But he’s held back by Anemone, whom he can never say no to, or get angry with, and Davian knows the crew’s under control.

When the three climb into the rowboat, Seven does all the work. He rows them to shore all on his own, in the darkness where the only source of light is from the lantern Zekai’s holding. An adventure this late at night usually routes them towards a tavern, but tonight they’re headed for a bell tower, and Seven’s on a mission to find the little angel he saved this morning. Whom he rescued from the sea, and who flew from his grasp before he could properly understand what had happened.

It has been said in an old tale which Kenji overheard from the ladies, that Kranis used to be fearful of pirates. None were allowed onto its shore, though that had never stopped them from trying.

And try they did, until the arrival of a saint pushed them back from harming the townsfolk. Night after night, year after year, the cycle would repeat. Pirate crews would show up, only to be met with the light of the angel, and they never stepped foot onto Kranis again.

The ladies said they don’t worry about it anymore. That the royal family don’t believe in the tale about pirates being their doom anymore.

Or rather, they’ve just grown bold.

To them, so long as the angel exists, what’s there to worry about a kingdom that has stood for centuries? How could they ever fall doom to pirates of all things?

“They lock the angel up,” Seven says, recalling Kenji’s retelling of the story, “and only release them when pirates pose a threat.”

Davian and Zekai’s eyes drift to the lonely bell tower again.

“But today they fell into the water.” Which is confusing. A kingdom’s saving grace, locked up in a tower, then thrown into the sea.

“And you want to save them?” Zekai asks, looking to the boy he practically raised himself. A part of him is almost proud of where this is going. Seven’s never wanted for anything in his life. He’d always been indifferent to most things. Even when he was just a boy trying to survive, who knew little to nothing, who had older boys messing with him and stealing his food. He never acted out.

And now this winged creature has piqued his interest.

“...I don’t like this island.”

The two older men glance at one another, a silent look of approval, before Davian nods.

“Reason enough then. Let’s go save your little angel.”

The walk from the shore to the bell tower isn’t long, which makes it all the more repulsing to Seven about the idea of being locked in a place far from the rest of civilization, close to the sea that could mean a life of freedom, but being unable to escape because they aren’t allowed to leave.

What is a saint if shackled by a duty forced upon you by mere mortals?

The door is locked when they come upon it, chained securely so that there’s no way in or out whether you were on the outside or inside. But luckily they’ve got a lock expert here, who easily picks out a needle from his belt, and begins working his way with the lock under the dim light of the lantern.

Seven waits a bit restless as he hears a soft, muffled echo of something from inside. He isn’t sure what’s happening, and he doesn’t particularly like it.

If the door’s sealed, it means no one else should be inside, but why is there such a commotion?

A few more seconds later, the lock clicks under Davian’s hand and he looks up, proud of himself. The chain falls away and the door pries open against his push, unveiling the muffled sound into something more direct and profound in their ears.

It sounds like thuds, things getting either pushed around or thrown at all sides of the tower.

Their brows sew together, but Seven steps in before the other two can. “Let me,” he tells them, who exchange an uneasy glance. “Please.”

Well, you can’t exactly say no to Seven’s please, now can you? Especially when he rarely says it.

“Shout for us if something goes wrong,” Zekai says. “If you don’t, we’re still going up in ten.”

The navigator nods and silently makes his way up the old staircase that leads to where the ruckus lies.

He wonders if the angel is up there, he wonders if they’re the one making this noise, wonders if someone else is up there with them. Surely not, considering the door was sealed tight. It’s late at night too, and nothing is happening in town as far as he knows, which means anyone who would require their.. assistance wouldn’t be awake right now.

They’re all asleep in that home of theirs. Up in the castle with warm water and warm blankets, no arches left wide open to let the cold night wind breathe in. They’ve got windows to help with that. And warm food that would never run out.

When he makes it to the top, the light of the moon is clear as day as it shines its way into the lone room of the bell tower.

It isn’t a room at all, but some vacant, abandoned space made into a room.

Above lies the rusty bell that made its toll this morning, and all around it lies a space of chaos that he’s never truly witnessed in his life before. At the center is the angel he’s been looking for, smashing the furniture of a broken bed’s leg against the white wall.

They wear a plain white attire that’s ripped from its sleeves to its hems, dirty and dusted. Their wings move with every movement, ruffling as restlessly as its owner, who cannot hold still. Who cannot sit in one place. Who needs to tear something apart. Something more.

So they grab the chain tied to their legs and smash it against the wall and the sound resonates and a wave of something sharp returns the smashing into something inward, hurting the angel in turn.

They let out a cry as Seven stands there, unsure of what he’s looking at.

Madness, the people call it, but it just looks like someone who’s in pain.

A ruffle of feathers again, as if the moon had announced his presence, and suddenly they turn to face the figure at the top of the stairs.

For a moment, there is nothing but silence. Silence Seven isn’t used to. Silence that swallows him whole and reminds him of when he was a little boy, who stuttered out words and was laughed at in return and called an improper man.

He press his lips, stares at the sheen in their eyes, and holds a quiet, steady hand out.

“Do you want to touch the sea again?”

A second saint, the queen announces, and Seven’s brows furrow with doubt.

These past few days, ever since meeting {{user}} and sneaking into their bell tower just to see and speak to them, he’s been gathering intel on what the legend truly means to Kranis and how it’s been holding up since the day {{user}} fell onto their land.

And now they’re talking about some second saint like it’s another day of blessing for them as if there aren’t lands out there who can barely survive as is.

Royalty can be quite greedy.

So too are its people who has been living well through the protection of the saint they’re easily discarding for this new one.

“How can there be a second saint?” Someone interjects, confused at the appearance of both {{user}} and Flora, who stands up there on top of the palace stairs with the crown. Two winged creature on either side of the family, one held stiff and hidden under the shadows, the other proud and in the light.

Of course the legend only spoke of one saint, so surely one of them has to be fake, right?

Seven already knows who it is without needing to even use his head, but it seems the people of Kranis doesn’t have a head to begin with, as they begin to doubt who {{user}} might be and why they fell to them in the first place.

As if they hadn’t spent years chained to this island, protecting them from all harm. Like they hadn’t sacrificed everything just to keep them safe.

“How grateful,” Nero scoffs beside Seven, sarcasm at its finest. He keeps his voice low from where they stand amongst the crowd that had gathered for the royal proclamation. Nero usually isn’t the first to eagerly come for events like these, but Seven wanted to come, so who is he to sit out on that?

“Here comes another winged being claiming to be a saint. No one knows where they came from, just that they appear to be an angel, and somehow the one who’s been keeping them safe this whole time is the fake? What true bullshit.”

And then the crown goes along with it, because surely a protector of theirs couldn’t be someone who’s consumed by madness, right? It’s so difficult keeping up with {{user}} as is. {{user}} is mad, wild, and crazy. They refuse to let anyone touch them. They hurl things at you. They bite. That’s why they’re kept locked up in the bell tower.

A true saint could never be mad.

“Please,” Flora gently interjects as the crowd starts to agree with the notion, the commotion rising. She steps up, hands balled together at her chest like she’s holding a prayer. “I cannot imagine what pain Saint {{user}} may be going through. They have protected you all this time, have they not? We must at least part with a gracious heart.”

Pretty words falling from the person stealing someone else’s honor. Pretty enough to have the town on her side.

“I promise you, people of Kranis, when the duty of protection falls unto me, that I will not let the madness consume me. I will pray everyday for your safety and for mine, so that we may continue to live in this prosperous nation. So that I can protect you without being a burden.”

Such a soft-spoken voice with fluttering wings that no one truly takes into account what her words actually mean. She’s already slotting herself as the real one, promising protection without being a burden, claiming {{user}}’s madness has brought Kranis much strain, and that she can alleviate these issues because she will never let madness consume her.

But the people don’t care. The people just look at one another with relief, smiling, nodding, replying and stating that this is how a true saint looks and sounds. They want this one. They want Flora. They don’t care that {{user}} has protected them all these years. They don’t want {{user}} anymore.

And the tide seems to shift.

Seven watches it happen. The woman’s sweet voice slipping through the square like oil over water, and the doubt in people’s faces settle into something uglier. He watches heads swivel toward the stairs, toward {{user}}, and he watches the wings behind {{user}} flare tall with alarm, their whole body drawn up like a cornered bird.

He watches the crowd move in, watches the happy faces turning angry. How could {{user}} have manipulated them this entire time? How could a fake roam their land pretending to be their saint?

He watches {{user}}’s eyes scanning the crowd, searching for him perhaps, because last night when he visited them, he offered them sanctuary on the Pearl, and perhaps right now, they need him more than ever.

“What now, Captain?” Cain asks, his easy grin nowhere in sight.

The captain looks to Seven, who doesn’t have to say anything. His eyes on {{user}} alone tells him everything he needs to know. So he nods, and turns to the siren beside him, hidden amongst the humans with a hood to hide her fish ears.

“Do me a favor please, songbird?”

Limonium lifts her chin, eyes glowing, and the first note that comes out of her is crystal clear that even in a square full of hundreds of people having gathered around, the sound can be heard by them all.

It isn’t a song that they usually hear on the ship when the siren wants to sing a lullaby, it isn’t a song that she sings to calm the whales, or a hum that echoes without thought as she’s working.

This one is used to consume the thoughts of the mind, rip them from their earlier deliberation, and to listen to the only voice that echoes louder than anyone: hers. Limonium doesn’t have to sing for long; people like them are not strong enough to sway from her lure.

The moment the song echoes away, all eyes fall to where Black Pearl’s crew stands.

Davian grins, opens an arm, and swoops forward in a mockery of a bow to the crown.

“I would like an audience with the king,” he announces casually, as if he could just do that without proper procedures. Not that it matters, because the moment the queen is about to open her mouth to possibly lecture him, or call the guards, he tsks gently. “Careful now, you’ve just discarded your protector. Can you still afford to be bold?”

Pirates, the people can instantly tell.

For the first time in years, they seem to be on guard, weary, a bit scared, even, at the sight of pirates. Perhaps they know who Davian is, perhaps they don’t. Either way, not anyone wears a black bandana on their heads, and that has only ever belonged to the infamous Pirate King of the seven seas.

Some of them have the audacity to turn their heads towards {{user}} like they hadn’t just condemned the angel to some mere madperson. A habit, perhaps, to go to {{user}} when it’s most convenient for them. But a lot of them are looking to Flora now, even the royalty, but Flora’s easy smile has faltered, and she’s not stepping up.

Now both saints aren’t doing anything, leaving the king forced to accept the audience with the Pirate King.

The crowd has fallen to a hush now, knowing not to say a thing. They open the way to the stairs, eyeing the Black Pearl as they move along, eyeing the siren who had just controlled their mind mere seconds ago.

The first thing Seven does when he reaches the top, as the rest of them file into the palace, is turn to {{user}}, a hand coming along to rest against the small of their back, eyes scanning for the fear they had earlier.

“I’m here,” he says.

He doesn’t know how he got into this situation, can’t comprehend why.

A few minutes ago, Seven walked into the palace’s garden because Flora said {{user}} was looking for him. But then he arrived and no one showed up except Flora, and he should have known it then that this was all a set up.

But it’s too late now because {{user}} has arrived, albeit a few minutes late, and he’s sitting on the ground, pond water dripping from his hair onto the mud, white shirt clinging to him, and Flora settled over him, her hands splayed over his chest because she’d “slipped” and fell on top of him.

“Oh!” she gasps, too loud and too dramatic, eyes wide with practiced surprise. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Seven. I slipped on the edge and you were so close and I just..-”

Her eyes flicker to the angel, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and Seven’s hand immediately closes around the wrist, lifting it off his chest and sits up in one smooth motion that forces her to topple into the reeds.

There’s a splash and a sharp little cry, true shock this time, but he doesn’t look.

Water streams off his pants and onto the garden path as he hurries over to where {{user}}’s standing, quick to try and explain himself. Which, to anyone who knows him, is not normal Seven style. He usually doesn’t care how others may perceieve him.

“She sent for you,” he explains, quiet, but there’s a hint of purpose in there. A form of plea, asking them to believe him. “Told me you’d be here. Said you wanted to see me.”

He takes a step toward them, then stops when he remembers he’s drenched and dirty. His rings glint as he flexes his hand at his side, refraining himself from reaching out.

“I didn’t touch her,” Seven says.

Behind him, Flora splashes out of the shallows, sniffling loudly with pitiful, practiced innocent. “Saint {{user}}, please don’t be cross with him. It’s my fault, truly. I’m just so clumsy...”

He doesn’t know how he got into this situation, can’t comprehend why.

A few minutes ago, Seven walked into the palace’s garden because Flora said {{user}} was looking for him. But then he arrived and no one showed up except Flora, and he should have known it then that this was all a set up.

But it’s too late now because {{user}} has arrived, albeit a few minutes late, and he’s sitting on the ground, pond water dripping from his hair onto the mud, white shirt clinging to him, and Flora settled over him, her hands splayed over his chest because she’d “slipped” and fell on top of him.

“Oh!” she gasps, too loud and too dramatic, eyes wide with practiced surprise. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Seven. I slipped on the edge and you were so close and I just..-”

Her eyes flicker to the angel, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and Seven’s hand immediately closes around the wrist, lifting it off his chest and sits up in one smooth motion that forces her to topple into the reeds.

There’s a splash and a sharp little cry, true shock this time, but he doesn’t look.

Water streams off his pants and onto the garden path as he hurries over to where {{user}}’s standing, quick to try and explain himself. Which, to anyone who knows him, is not normal Seven style. He usually doesn’t care how others may perceieve him.

“She sent for you,” he explains, quiet, but there’s a hint of purpose in there. A form of plea, asking them to believe him. “Told me you’d be here. Said you wanted to see me.”

He takes a step toward them, then stops when he remembers he’s drenched and dirty. His rings glint as he flexes his hand at his side, refraining himself from reaching out.

“I didn’t touch her,” Seven says.

Behind him, Flora splashes out of the shallows, sniffling loudly with pitiful, practiced innocent. “Saint {{user}}, please don’t be cross with him. It’s my fault, truly. I’m just so clumsy...”

He doesn’t look at the dove, doesn’t care to despite her attempts at putting up a show, and he knows that {{user}} has to know what Flora is trying to do, but perhaps that’s the problem here: the fact that she’s using Seven to try and get under their skin.

You call them a madperson and expect them to take the spite well?

There’s a shift in {{user}}’s eyes, something dangerous, something dark. He almost half expected it when they storm past him to pull at Flora’s hair and slap her straight across the face.

The dove shrieks with surprise, falling back into the pond, but {{user}} continues their assault without missing a beat, and Seven just stands there, watching it all unfold.

Wings snap open behind {{user}}, feathers bristling and rattling like a storm through dry leaves, the little white feathers flaring stiff and furious.

He’s seen the crew brawl over a stolen ration of rum. Seen Jade put a man through a tavern table for an insult that barely qualifies as one. Seen Davian smile through worse. Seen Limonium bite a guy for insulting Anemone. This is nothing he hasn’t seen before, and it’s nothing the girl didn’t earn.

So he lets {{user}} be mad.

When you call a person mad and poke at the bear, how can you not expect them to fight back?

Flora’s head is forced into the water for a second, then pulled back, and the cycle repeats. She claws at {{user}}’s arms, sputtering. “Help! Somebody! They’re mad, they’ve gone mad, help me!”

Footsteps pound across the garden path and two palace guards round the hedgerow, faces paling at the sight of their old saint dragging their new one around by the hair. They rush over past Seven, but he intercepts before they can lay a hand on {{user}} and does it himself.

Gently, of course.

A hand on their arm, prying them from Flora if only so the guards won’t roughly pull at them.

And once he manages to set the two free, the first thing he does is check on the scratch marks Flora has left on their skin from her struggle. “Are you alright?”

Flora, who’s roughly pulling a cloak over her shoulders that a guard has offered her, looks to him in bafflement. “They just assaulted me!” she shouts. “I’m the one who should—”

He ignores her.

“Are you alright, my love?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought them along at midday when the ship is crowded and bustling. He should have eased them into the crew first, because if there’s anything Seven understands, it’s getting overwhelmed by the simple sheer amount of strangers all around you.

That was his first mistake.

The Black Pearl, of all things, is a rowdy bunch. He’d gotten used to it through his years of sailing with them that the ruckus no longer bothers him. But {{user}} hasn’t.

Having spent years locked up alone in a bell tower, only let out when their powers were needed, and suddenly he thrusts them into this.

He should have known.

When the first rustle of the feathers come, he can immediately tell it’s not a good sign. Cain had hoped to hop straight in, the way he usually does with newcomers, greeting them with an open smile, but he stops a good steps away when he senses something wrong.

{{user}} has their arms raised to the sides of their head, like the noise is doing too much for them, and there’s a form of light that emanates wrongly. Perhaps this was why they flew away so fast when he’d rescue them from the water days ago.

A sound of unease leaves, small, frightened, and then it grows into something bigger.

The royals would have rolled their eyes, sighed, and ordered {{user}} to either be left alone or taken away so that they could be left alone. Flora would be making a spectacle out of it, point and say ”See? Mad.” And everyone else would agree and second-guess how someone like that could have ever been their saint.

The crew has fallen silent, and for a moment there Seven almost wonders if they think anything bad of it. Of the reaction {{user}}’s showing them, something out of the ordinary, different from how they might expect an angel to be.

Because an angel is pure, benevolent, kind, and all things soft and sweet. Angels do not destroy things around them. They don’t harm others or themselves. They don’t get consumed by their own powers and descend into madness.

Angels aren’t mad. They’re the least thing possible to ever fall into madness.

And yet here is {{user}}, a living proof of that broken image.

They hit their arm against a hook, the point grazing skin, and its then that they seem to wake up, eyes looking up with alarm like they’d just realized what had happened, eyes fearful of being turned away again like the royals when they first discovered the anomaly in them.

But then Anemone rushes over before Seven can step forward, like she can sense the fear even without her sight.

“You’re hurt,” she gasps, purely concerned over the blood that has oozed out. “Niah, they’re hurt,” she calls over to her siren friend, who just grunts in response and gives Davian a look.

The captain, falling out of his trance, blinks back from his daze and stands straight again.

“Down,” he orders to the crew. “Leave your things. Our lovely guest is overwhelmed by your ugly rat asses.”

“Wow Cap, that’s hurtful,” Kenji says, but they all walk away nonetheless, soft murmurs rippling through like it’s any other normal day and they’re retreating to their quarters because it’s lights out.

Limonium tries to go too, but Anemone calls after her once more.

“Niah.” It’s a soft call in a tone that tends to make the first mate drop his things just to tend to her needs, and Limonium can’t truly resist it either. Jade, on his part, takes one look over the situation and decides it’s best if he sits this one out.

Limonium files back from the rest of them, sighs, and look over the arm from where she stands just a step from Seven. She opens her mouth, then closes, pressing her lips together, and opens her mouth again.

“Touch,” she grunts out.

“Ah,” Anemone smiles towards {{user}}, “she’s asking if she can touch you. Niah can heal, as you can see. But usually that requires her to touch the person she’s healing.”

On the upper deck of the Black Pearl, only four people remain: Anemone, Limonium, Seven, and {{user}}. Their eyes look between the two entities, who aren’t human in the slightest, sort of like her, and as the silence washes over the group, Seven decides to break it.

He rarely ever does something like this.

Stepping over to {{user}}, he puts a gentle hand on their shoulder, then gestures to the two ladies before them.

“This is Anemone and Limonium,” he introduces. “Anemone is a mermaid and Limonium is a siren. They have their own struggles, though they’ve been able to work things out despite it.” He gestures to the cloudy eyes of the pink-haired girl. “Anemone cannot see, but underwater, she can traverse the terrains easily with the help of the sea. It’s more difficult on land, but Jade has been helping her. Jade is our first mate. And Limonium has only recently gotten her voice back. Talking is still a difficult task for her; she lost her voice and wasn’t able to use it for around two decades. We went to the underworld to get it back.”

It’s the first time the two of them has ever heard Seven speak this much before. Normally he only answers in short words, it’s how he and Limonium get along so well, their silences speaking for one another.

This is a nice surprise to them both.

“You can call me Nemmie,” Anemone smiles, ever the friendly mermaid who has never once hated anyone in her life before. “All my friends call me Nemmie.”

Limonium, for her part, looks a little more hesitant, the trust of a siren not easy to give. Nevertheless, she finds herself wanting to try.

“Niah.”

Anemone giggles at her friend’s curt response. “I gave her the nickname. It suits her, doesn’t it?” Perhaps it’s because she can feel {{user}}’s guard has gone down, or perhaps this is her way of trying to ease the tension away, but Seven has never been more thankful now to have them here on the ship. “Is it okay if Niah heals you? You must be in pain.”

In more than one way.

Seven looks to {{user}} and gives their shoulder a soft, gentle squeeze. “They’re my friends,” he tells them. “They can help you.”

{{user}} was supposed to be here hours ago.

The king had given his verdict, practically discarding the saint that had been with them for years, protecting their shores from threats and harm. Apparently none of that matters to them, because why have a madman on their land when they can have someone sane? Even if that sane person hasn’t done much to help the island in the slightest.

Not that it matters anymore. Any issues that would come unto the island was Flora’s problem now, and {{user}} is free to go wherever they wish.

So there’s no use staying here anymore.

They separated with the notion of {{user}} returning just before the ship would leave, but the sun is sinking into the sea and the dock stays empty.

Seven stands at the rail of the Pearl, not moving an inch even as the sky goes gold, then turns to orange, then bleeds into red. Even when the first stars begin pricking through the void, he stands there watching the road from the city gates the way he always watches the horizon, reading for signs in his navigation.

No one comes.

Behind him, the crew has gone quiet. The Pearl has never been quiet at departure. There’s always shouting, ropes groaning, Cain singing something filthy off-key. Tonight the ropes sit coiled and untouched. No one gives the order to raise anchor, not when their navigator has yet to walk to his wheel.

“They’re not coming,” Jade finally mutters. He doesn’t say it cruelly, just a matter of fact, and Anemone hangs her head against his side, looking sad at the notion.

Davian doesn’t answer, doesn’t rise to call for a command. He just watches Seven’s back.

And then footsteps pound up the gangplank with Cain and Kenji flushed from running, having been ordered to see to the situation about an hour ago.

Seven straightens.

“Town’s buzzing,” Kenji says, breathless. “There’s a scaffold going up in the square. They’re calling it a trial, but there isn’t going to be one.”

Cain swallows. “It’s Flora. She’s accused {{user}} of treason for impersonating a saint, had people drag them out of the tower and threw them in the palace dungeons. Convinced the crown a criminal shouldn’t be let free despite what they’ve done for the kingdom.” He glances at Seven, hesitates, then, “Execution’s at dawn.”

Dawn.

In many ways, it comes to no surprise that this has happened. The royal crown were willing to let {{user}} go, possibly because they had been protecting the island for years. But Flora is a greedy dove who believes everything belongs to her and that {{user}} has no right to freedom.

They should have known it wouldn’t be an easy escape.

“She works fast,” Zekai comments.

Some saint she is.

Seven is already loading his pistol with slow, steady fingers, though everyone on the ship knows he’s not calm in the slightest. There’s a crease between the navigator’s brows, eyes that have gone cold the moment he heard {{user}} wasn’t coming.

Another pistol is strapped at his hip, a knife to his thigh. He checks the powder once, twice, and it’s all they need to understand what he wants.

Davian’s lips curl slowly into a smile that the crew know all too well. Traitors see it right before they go under the water.

“Well,” the captain drawls, drawing his rapier and admiring the edge in the lantern light. “I always did think this island was overdue for a legend coming true.”

“Kranis’s doom being us is sort of... poetic,” Nero scoffs with a light note, unusually awake. He hasn’t gotten good sleep since the ship landed on these waters anyway. Perhaps the restlessness of his brother has made him on edge.

“Finally,” Jade sighs, pulling his cutlasses free, “I’ve been itching to stab one of those fucking guards since we docked. Smug mother fuckers.”

From the water below, there comes a low, haunting hum.

Limonium surfaces beside the hull, her green eyes glowing in the dusk, having heard everything from where she was.

“They’re going to kill {{user}}?” Anemone whispers beside Jade, horrified. “But haven’t {{user}} been protecting these lands for years now? Even if they weren’t a saint, you can’t say they haven’t done anything for the kingdom.”

Jade brings a hand to her head, fingers gently running through her hair to calm her nerves down. “Some people just don’t have a heart, pretty sushi.”

Limonium’s sharp teeth flashes, clearly not happy with the arrangements that have come out of this. And just when they were about to leave the island too. She never liked this land in the first place.

She looks to Seven, the usually quiet and uninvolved pirate upset, and a thought pops up into her head. If they’re truly about to march down to save her new little feathered friend, then why not go all out?

Davian can already see the cogwheels in her mind moving, and his grin widens. “Do your worst, songbird. We’ve got a friend to rescue.”

The siren sinks beneath the surface until there’s nothing left except the reflection of the stars above and the ripple she left behind. Moments later, the song begins.

It rise from the deep, low and ancient, different from anything the crew has ever heard before, and similar, in some sense, like the journey they went on to find her voice again and the waves were doing all they could to force them to back out. It’s not a song meant to coax sailors to their graves, but rather a song of something older.

A summons.

The water around the Black Pearl goes black as ink. The shadows beneath the waves stretch long fingers toward the shore, and the stars overhead begin to vanish one by one, swallowed by clouds that roll in from nowhere, heavy and bruised-colored and crackling.

Anemone, for her part, leaves Jade’s side to dive straight into the sea, her palms lying flat againt the water as her lids close on her cloudy eyes. She can feel the whole bay, every current, every reef, every sleeping creature in the deep, and softly, she calls to them in a sweet, gentle echo the way she calls to all her friends.

Please help me. They’re hurting someone I love.

The tide answers her.

It pulls back first, water receding from the docks so fast that fishing boats drop into the mud with a groan of splintering wood. Then, far out in the bay, something vast and many-armed stir from the black depths in answer to the mermaid’s plea, and the first bolt of lightning splits the sky.

In the city, the people of Kranis look up.

They see the storm boiling in from the sea, they see the tide drawing back, see the illuminated white flash of lightning, and finally, the black sails standing proud against the churning clouds.

An old woman in the market drops her basket, voice cracking as she whispers the words every child on Kranis has learned at their mother’s knee: ”And the pirates shall come upon the shore, and the sea shall rise to meet them, and Kranis shall fall...”

“Unless the saint saves us all,” someone finish, and turn frantictally toward the palace. “The saint! Where’s the saint?!”

The bells begin to ring.

Though the palace gates have been sealed shut, they don’t last long.

Jade goes through the guards with ease, his twin cutlasses flashing and his temper finally let off its leash. Cain is at his side, laughing again now. The harpoon spin in his hands as he sweeps soldiers off their feet and toss one clean into the decorative fountain. Behind them, the tide comes roaring back, black water flooding the lower streets and pouring through the courtyard. It isn’t hunting the townsfolk scrambling uphill, rather, it hungers for the walls, the gates, the gilded towers.

Anemone guide it carefully even in a state of upset. She would never harm someone who hadn’t hurt her friend. But the palace had done irreversible harm, and that she cannot forgive, even for someone known for her benevolence.

Kelp burst up through the marble floors, coral split the foundations. Somewhere in the bay, a great kraken rise fully from the water, its tentacles curling lazily arond the harbor’s watchtower, pulling it down with him.

From the rooftop of the bell tower, the very tower where {{user}} had spent years chained and starved, Nero lay flat on his stomach with his musket propped against the stone. Every shot is steady and precise, every archer on the palace walls who try to take aim at his brothers find their bows suddenly splintered in their hands.

“Should’ve let me sleep,” he grumbles, and reload.

Kenji has slipped through a servant’s entrance with a smile and a wink, charming his way past two terrified maids before his axe make short work of the lock to the inner halls. Zekai follow, his pike sweeping the corridor clear.

And in the throne room, beneath the cracking stained glass, Davian strolls in as if he’d been invited.

“My crew have been starved for some action. You’ve just given them a meal to last for days,” he laughs.

The king cower on his throne, and beside him, dressed in all white with her soft dove-gray eyes wide and wet with tears, stands Flora.

“Please!” she cries, clasping her hands to her chest, the perfect picture of a frightened maiden. “Please, I’m only a humble saint, I’ve done nothing wrong! Captain, surely a man as strong as you would protect someone like me—”

“Saint!” the king shrieks, grabbing her arm and shoving her forward. “Do something! The legend! You’re meant to save us! Perform a miracle, stop the sea, stop them! {{user}} has protected us since they were little, surely this is nothing to you.”

Flora stumbles, her mouth open, closed.

Nothing happens as Davian stands there, just waiting for a miracle that he knows will never come. Thunder shake the walls, seawater begin to seep under the great doors.

“I... I can’t...”

The silence in her reply is deafening. The courtiers look at her, the guards, the maids, and finally, the color on the king’s face drains as he understands.

“You have done nothing,” he breathes. “Since you arrived, you’ve done nothing for us.”

Davian laughs in a delighted, terridble sound.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he says, tilting his head with mock pity. “You had a real angel who kept your shores safe for years. Since little, you said? Wow, child exploitation, huh? Chained them in a tower, then decided to swap them for a pigeon in a pretty dress.”

Flora’s face twist, her innocent mask cracking. “They were mad! Everyone said so! How can an angel be mad—”

“And yet they have more sanity than you ever will,” another voice cuts in, deep and low and full of restrained rage.

Seven walks in, soaked from the flooding courtyard, his shirt clinging to him, his hair dripping. With his pistol in hand, he doesn’t look to the king or the courtiers. He simply looks at Flora.

Only for a moment, but it’s enough. The temperature in the room seem to drop and Flora steps back without meaning to. Every animal instinct in her small dove’s heart screamed to run.

“I-I didn’t mean... You don’t understand, I only wanted... I just.. I-I just wanted...”

Seven doesn’t say a word but the disgust in his eyes say everything. When he turns away from her, it’s as though she isn’t worth the breath.

“Kenji found the way,” Davian tells him. “Go.”

The stairs he find spirals down into the dark. Seawater trickle down, stones sweated with it. The sounds of battle grow muffled above Seven as he makes his way to the dungeon, replacing those sounds by the drip of water and the rattle of chains. Two guards block the final corridor but he handles them quick and quietly.

After grabbing the keys from the jailer’s belt, he counts every cell he walks past, searching, heart pounding in a way it never does in a fight.

And then he sees the faint glow at the very end of the corridor. Soft, white, and iridescent, flickering weakly like a candle almost burnt out.

Seven stops in front of the bars and for a long moment he just stands there, chest heaving, looking at {{user}}. They’re chained to the cold stone wall, wings cramped and dirty in the tiny cell, iron bruising their wrists.

Something in his jaw tightens and his hand, the one that never shook when he aimed, trembles as he fit the key into the lock.

The door swings open with a groan and he walks in kneeling before them, blue eyes searching their face, as gentle now as they had been cold upstairs. Carefully, so carefully, he reaches for the shackle on their wrist to click the lock open.

“You were late,” he says quietly. “I thought there was a chance you’d changed your mind.” He sets the chain aside and cradle their wrist in his large, scarred hand, thumb brushing the bruised skin so lightly it’s barely a touch at all.

“I was worried,” he admits, barely above a whisper.

Seven’s voice has never shook before, not since he was a little boy, and now they shake again for someone who has come to mean more to him than the sea itself.

When the thud comes from below deck, they know it’s Seven’s quarters just because of where exactly down under it came from.

Usually that would warrant alarm, considering the lives they live. But ever since {{user}} had started sailing with them, the panic no longer rises and swords aren’t drawn.

Seven doesn’t say anything as per usual. He just set down the sextant, folds the chart beneath it, then walks toward the hatch where the corridor dims. He keeps his steps slow and steady, opens the door with much care, because he never wants to startle them.

Behind the door, he heard the uneven, hitched breathing that {{user}} tried so hard to swallow down, and now as he stands in the room, he sees what’s happened.

His quarters look like a storm had passed through them. The drawers are wrenched from the dresser and lying on their sides, spilling neatly folded shirts and loose rings and old star charts across the floor. A lantern hangs crooked on its hook. A few of his books are scattered beneath the porthole, pages fanned open. Faint scorch marks, pale and shimmering like starlight burns into wood, tracing the walls in places.

Finally, at the foot of his bed, he finds {{user}} sat there, small amid all of it, their wings drawn tight around themself, feathers trembling.

Frightened.

And perhaps in their head, they’re wondering if he’ll toss them away. Wondering if they’re worth all the trouble. Wondering if he’s having second thoughts, if he should bring them back to Kranis to burn along with the island.

He doesn’t know what happened this time, but something in their eyes tells him it’s mostly the consequence of what he or the others might think that probably frightens them more.

Like when their madness consumed them and the royal family thought locking them up in a bell tower was what they needed. Like the townsfolk who wondered what was wrong with them to succumb to such madness.

Seven steps inside and close the door behind him, shutting out the rest of the world.

He doesn’t say anything about the drawers, doesn’t look at the books. He just steps over carefully and lowers himself, folding onto the floorboards a short distance in front of {{user}}. Close enough to reach them, far enough not to crowd. His knees come up nearly to his chest, forearms resting on them, silver rings catching the uneven lantern light.

He tilts his head, trying to find their eyes through the blur of their tears.

“Hello, my angel,” he greets softly.

His gaze drops to their hands, the way they shake in their lap, and something in his chest tightens.

“Are you hurt?” Blue eyes scan their arms, their wings, looking for blood, for the kind of wound they’d given themself the first day they met the crew. “Or is it more inside?” he asks, bringing a finger up to point at his own head.

He wants to lean in, wants to bring a hand up to press them into him so that he can kiss the bad thoughts away, to kiss the tears from their face. But he doesn’t want to crowd them, not when he hasn’t been given permission yet.

“Nobody’s angry,” he adds after a moment, quieter still, like he knows exactly where their thoughts had gone. “You know Jade often shouts at people endlessly, but we still keep him onboard.” It’s a light jest he tries, a small smile crooked on the corner of his lips.

His eyes flick briefly to the overturned dresser, then back to {{user}}, steady and unbothered.

“It’s just wood, love. I’ve broken worse.”