Chapter Text
“Captain, are you sure about this?”
Aventurine turned around, looking back at his first mate, who was visibly frowning at him — even more so now that he was smiling back at her.
Soana had been the first to join him. He’d just sunk the ship of a foolish pirate, who’d assumed attacking an eerily deserted ship, save for its unassuming captain, was a good idea.
After inspecting the deck, he’d gone to search the private cabins and the storage rooms. He didn’t need to eat anymore, but he enjoyed doing so — feared he’d lose his mind if he ever stopped.
It was during that inspection that he’d found Soana bound and gagged below deck, covered in blood in the captain’s cabin.
She was going to die, the injury in her gut too deep. Aventurine didn’t need his affinity to Death to realize that. Yet, the anger and resentment still burning in her eyes reminded him of himself, when he’d first made a deal with the Sea.
That was the first time he’d struck a deal with someone as the captain of his damned, cursed ship. To all who wished to avoid death, escape final judgement, in exchange for serving Unjust Destiny, abandoning every chance to set foot on land ever again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you can even start missing me!”
Soana rolled her eyes, obviously still unconvinced by his cheerfulness.
“What if the Sea raise the Kraken on us?” she asked, unrelenting.
Aventurine tilted his head, his one eye twinkling amidst the warm hues the setting sun was painting over him. “Then, we’ll eat octopus for dinner!”
Before departing, he paid a visit to their young guest.
Since they’d found Clara, the crew had cleared one of the less humid cabins below deck, furnishing it as if it were an infirmary.
Clara didn’t know they were a ghost crew, every member of his crew stuck in the moment before Death could’ve reached for them. However, Aventurine suspected Clara had some suspicions — some of his crew mates visibly looked dead. After all, Aventurine could trick Death, but couldn’t cure injuries. Everyone’s body was stuck in the same state as when he’d offered them his deal, for eternity.
Clara was a bright child, she could probably tell the deep blue of his fingers wasn’t make-up or that the three kittens always sleeping curled up around her weren’t truly alive.
He’d fished them out of the Sea soon after Soana joined him. They’d been abandoned inside an empty wine barrel. Aventurine had been genuinely surprise to find the three small kittens still breathing, even if on the brink of Death.
Since then, they’d officially been part of his crew, often time flying around the mainmast with soft sparks of ghost fire, which they’d been forbidden from doing since Clara joined them.
“Mister, you came to visit!” Clara exclaimed. She was sitting up on her bed, the kittens sleeping close to her as if they could keep her warm.
Souls linked to the Unjust Destiny tended to lose most of their abilities to perceive physical sensations — warmth, cold, in particular in extremes, even pleasure — after many years.
“Hey there, Clara,” he waved at her, kneeling beside her bed, “how are you feeling?”
She was pale, warm under his palm even with his senses dulled. Her fever had yet to abide, even if it’d been days, making his concern grow.
They weren’t equipped to deal with a sick patient, much less a child.
“Much better,” she said, with a smile, though Aventurine wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure him or she was just glad she wasn’t in pain anymore.
Aventurine could feel that her condition wasn’t improving, her soul reaching out as if to tie herself to the Unjust Destiny.
It made him want to puke.
“Mreow!” One of the kittens stirred awake, eyes still bleary with sleep. She looked up at Clara, who was now cooing at the kitty, before dropping her full weight on Clara, to return to sleep against her.
His kittens adored Clara, immediately did so from the moment he brought her to the ship. They never left her side, sleeping on her bed, watching over her.
“Ah, kitty,” Clara murmured, scratching behind the her ear.
Aventurine stood up, a smile still on his lips. “That’s good,” he said, “I’ll be unavailable for a while, but Soana and the rest will take care of you, you’ll have to worry for nothing.”
“You’re leaving?” Clara asked, confused. After all, they were high at sea, with no land in sight. “Where…”
Aventurine tilted his head. “I’m going treasure hunting, you’ll love what I’ll bring back.”
The lie came easy to him, a reassuring smile firm on his lips.
He had no intention to worry Clara, nor anyone else in his crew — not for this.
Before leaving, he took a golden brooch from his tattered coat. It was his lucky charm, one of the few memento from his old life. “Here,” he said, pinning the brooch to Clara’s clothes.
“Isn’t this important?” she asked, worried, her little fingers curling protectively around the brooch.
Aventurine smiled, more softly than he remembered doing in a long time. “Then keep it safe. You can give it back to me, when I’m back.”
They’d found Clara around a week ago, floating on a broken a door, amidst the rests of a shipwreck. Pirates had looted a civilian ship, killing everyone themselves or causing their deaths by drowning and hypothermia, minus for a small, lucky child.
Clara had been the only survivor they could find, so close to knock on Death’s door that Aventurine could feel the Unjust Destiny’s power running through him at the perfect chance to strike another deal.
For a moment, Aventurine hesitated. If she were to die on his ship, her soul would be damned for eternity to never walk on land again.
Yet, he couldn’t let a child die, be it from hypothermia or to drown.
He still remembered what it felt like for his body to be dragged to the depths of the Sea, muscles numbed from the freezing cold that was enveloping him in THEIR deadly embrace.
A bargain was what saved him, damning him for eternity.
As the latest Unjust Destiny’s captain, he’d offered to many lost souls another chance at life, after Soana — most accepted, hoping to live the freedom they didn’t have in life, some refused, preferring the chance to meet their loved ones in the afterlife.
He didn’t want to be in a position to make the offer to Clara at all. She’d survived so far, he couldn’t let her down.
Clara didn’t belong with them, a crew of undead Outsiders, but how could he bring her home when none of them could even set foot on land?
Be it luck or coincidence, a couple of days ago, they’d found the remains of the ship of the pirates who’d attacked the vessel Clara was traveling on — it was complete destruction, the ship’s mainmast snapped clean, the sails reduced to shreds, dead bodies still floating around.
He’d ignored every single one of them, focusing instead on the whole scene.
Those weren’t the rests of a simple naval battle — even with his ghost fire, his crew wouldn’t be able to cause this much destruction.
Aventurine, like the rest of his crew or really anyone sailing the Sea, had heard tales of the monstrous beast dwelling at the bottom of the Sea, attacking ships and wrecking havoc everywhere — the Kraken.
Many tales associated the creature to cursed ships and ghosts, even if Aventurine had never met the beast himself — and few others could say to be the cursed captain of a cursed ship with an undead crew.
The idea that he could just summon the Kraken because of that was amusing, but as a plan took shape in his mind, it was true that he was banking on the fact that their different connections to the Sea and afterlife — or lack thereof — would be enough to catch the Kraken’s attention.
After much deliberation, Aventurine chose to bargain again — he’d gained his second chance at a non-life with a gamble, he could test his luck once more.
Which was why, after days spent tracking down the most likely location where the Kraken would’ve been resting, after destroying that pirate ship, Aventurine was setting off by himself, in a small boat.
He stopped paddling only after he was far away enough from the Unjust Destiny that, even if they wished to, none of his crew mates could reach him in time.
Stranded in the middle of nowhere, his boat was rocked mercilessly in all directions by turbulent waves. Aventurine got on his feet, steady as he’d learnt to be even in rough waters.
Then, he flung himself backwards into the cold embrace of the Sea.
He just hoped the Kraken would at least give him the chance to explain himself. This wasn’t the time for his luck to forsake him.
The Sea’s embrace was familiar in all its freezing invasiveness. It enveloped him in its shapeless embrace, as if welcoming him back home.
He wondered if THEY were laughing at him, now.
He’d grown up in a deserted area. As a child, sand was all he knew, but that was a past long gone. It surprised Aventurine that he could still remember any detail at all.
It’d been so long since he’d been able to remember his sister’s face, to feel like HER luck was a blessing, instead of a curse, not so dissimilar to THEIRS.
In that moment, his body numbed down by the everlasting embrace of the Sea, it felt irrationally similar to the blessed rain that still welcomed at every single one of his birthdays.
He kept his one eye open, seeing the dim light of the moon being obscured by the dark waters that were dragging him towards the bottom of the Sea.
It was just as the bluish light at his fingertips became too faint for him to see them in the dark that he felt something hook into his tattered coat and belts, wrapping firmly around his body. Once he felt himself be forcefully dragged away, he closed his eye, letting his fate in HER hands.
When he regained consciousness, he was laying in a shallow pool of water, inside a humid cave completely sank in darkness.
He drifted close to the edge of the pool, unsure if he should get out. Rock formations in the Sea didn’t count as land, but he didn’t want to test his luck, not in this occasion.
With a snap of his fingers, small floating flames of the same colors of his fingers appeared, surrounding him to offer him a better visual.
Not that there was much to see, apart from more rocks and no trace of an opening to see the sky.
With a sigh, he fell back on the pool, floating away. It wasn’t like he could fall sick or die of hypothermia, after all.
“What, exactly, do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice echoed all around him, each word stressed with clear disdain. “First you attempt to drown yourself. Now you wallow in misery in a pool of water… Have you lost the last semblance of your sanity?”
Aventurine stamped down any visible reaction at the unexpected voice. He’d an inkling to whose voice that was, but regardless, it wouldn’t do to show any weakness.
“Don’t worry, friend,” he said, unsure from where the owner of the deep voice was speaking. “I can’t drown.”
Aventurine got on his feet, hiding his shaky ends under water. However, before he could make a move, he was forcefully stopped by something firm yet slimy wrapping around his bust.
Then, without prior notice, he was flung up in the air.
Unconsciously, he flared up his powers, the little fire orbs he’d previously created growing in size until he could clearly see his interlocutor.
With all the legends of the Kraken he'd heard, Aventurine had expected to see a giant cephalopod-like beast, many times the size of the Unjust Destiny.
Indeed, the Kraken was huge. The bottom half of the sea monster was composed entirely of tentacles, one of which had caught him from falling into a ruinous heap of broken bones and a possible snapped neck — he wouldn’t die, unless the ground here counted as land, which he doubted. However, regaining shape after a grave injury was painful and slow. He didn’t have the time for that.
Above the waist, however, the Kraken looked similar in shape to a human man with deep violet hair, the same color of his tentacles, and sharp golden-red eyes. Traces of the squid-like mantle of his lower half appeared in certain areas of his upper body, like his sides and arms. Yet, the handsome face left Aventurine transfixed.
Did he end up disturbing another sea creature — or, worse, an ancient god?
“You’re trespassing, pirate.”
The Kraken dwarfed Aventurine, looming over him, studying him with furrowed brows and brimming curiosity. That last detail surprised him, but even then, Aventurine couldn’t afford to show his cards.
Fake bravado and an easy smile shielded him. “On the contrary, friend. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
The Kraken wasn’t impressed, but he’d yet to attempt to reduce Aventurine to a heap of meat and bones, or even devour him. “Fool, don’t mistake your folly for bravery.”
“Don’t worry, friend. I’ve nothing to fear here,” Aventurine said, mostly convinced this place wasn’t even in the Waking World.
The Kraken raised an eyebrow, a gesture so human it puzzled Aventurine. “Not even flinging you back on land? Little ghost, you’re far from your ship.”
Aventurine refused to show anything but his brave, nonchalant front. “You seem to know me,” he said, hoping the Kraken didn’t notice the ripple in his voice. “It makes the deal I want to propose much smoother.”
“Deal? You’ve been cursed to an eternal life filled with death, captain of the Unjust Destiny,” the Kraken’s words shook him, digging deep into his bones. “What could you ever hope to obtain from me?”
Pushing down his fears, willing his hands to stop shaking, lest the Kraken realized just how weak he truly was, Aventurine’s smile brightened. “I want a chance to set foot on land, again. Only once. You can take anything you wish from me in exchange.”
The Kraken looked at him with plain suspicion. “Anything?”
“Use me as you wish,” he shrugged — even if this deal costed him his remaining eye, it wouldn’t matter.
His offer didn’t move the Kraken, who was scowling deeply down at him, his face darkened by the shadows created by Aventurine’s ghost flames. “Preposterous. Waltzing into my den, expecting an easy way out of your curse? What even made you think I’d dance to your rhythm, foolish captain?”
Aventurine brushed away the embers of hurt warming up, where his heart laid immovable in his chest. “You say that, but everyone has a price, a desire… even an otherworldly creature like you.”
The Kraken’s eyes narrowed. “You start to sound desperate. Maybe you should have thought twice before falling into the icy embrace of the Sea, again.”
Aventurine rolled his eye. “What. C’mon, friend, I’m sure we can get a nice deal.”
“Stop insulting me, pirate,” the Kraken said, his voice thick with annoyance. “My patience is running thin. You should hope I get you back to your little ship, instead of begging for a loophole.”
Aventurine tensed, his expression briefly crumpling. “Look, I…” he said, hastily, as he felt the tentacle tighten around his bust, “you know how my curse works, if anyone dies on the Unjust Destiny, they’re cursed to an eternal life in the sea.” Not that abandoning a dying child somewhere else would be any better, the idea was just unfathomable.
The Kraken didn’t seem impressed, but he did loosen up his hold on him. “The ship you killed both your and the its previous crews for?”
Aventurine hesitated, surprised by how much the Kraken seemed to know. “Not my fault the previous captain of the Unjust Destiny thought he wouldn’t dry up instantly, until he was nothing but dust, the moment he touched land. His fault if you ask me,” he said, shrugging to appear completely unaffected by what had happened, willing his past to stay just a ghastly distant memory. “And considering my duties under my previous captain, I would say I was more of a glorified pet than a member of his crew,” Aventurine added, keeping his voice as blank as possible, not really wanting to relive any of those memories. “You could say my ‘life’ ended with a grandiose last stand, though.”
The Kraken paused, his golden-red eyes dimming with an emotion Aventurine was tentative to name. “Apologies. But I don’t see how anything you’ll offer me could be appealing or worth bargaining for, in exchange for your temporary freedom. After all, you do realize I'd have to borrow the Sea's powers to help you.”
The Kraken seemed to have mellowed out, as if realizing those words had upset Aventurine. Yet, the beast was still unmovable in his decision.
Seemed like his luck had run out, in the end. “Then… could you go in my stead?”
The Kraken blinked at him, his eyelids a nearly transparent membrana covering his eyes. “Explain yourself.”
“There’s a child…” Aventurine said, tentatively, “a still alive, but severely sick child, as a guest of my ship. I need to bring her back on land, find a doctor and lead her back home, she…”
“I see.”
Then, the beast disappeared, plummeting Aventurine to a certain ruinous fall.
He froze. Fear grappled at his dead, cold heart, making him shake in both fury and agony.
No… no, no, no!
Sturdy, human-like arms caught him. “No need to despair.”
Aventurine could swear his heart started to beat once more, just to scare him to death all over again. He tilted his head up, blinking at the shrank Kraken who was now holding Aventurine in his arms. The beast still maintained his inhuman features — the bottom half of his body a heap of tentacles — but his stature was human-shaped, even if he definitely still loomed over Aventurine in both height and size.
“What, are you going to help me now?” he asked, annoyed at being toyed with.
The Kraken didn’t let him down. “I wish to check on the human child,” the beast said, matter-of-factly. “Once her health is stabilized, we can discuss the best way to send her home.”
“Are you a doctor?” Aventurine asked, suspiciously.
“I’ve lived for many Eras,” the Kraken said, tiredly, “foolish captain, healing abilities are just one of the many skills I’ve learnt over time.”
They rose from the depths of the Sea, with little fanfare, the Kraken easily gliding over the surface of the water towards the Unjust Destiny.
His crew was immediately alerted. He could see ghost fires surrounding his ship. Worried they’d attack, Aventurine yelled to gain their attention, hoping his words would reassure the crew.
Once they were closer to the Unjust Destiny, Aventurine could clearly see Soana observing them critically, a large ghost fire ball hovering over her palm, as if ready to attack. However, once Aventurine waved at her with a sheepish smile, she simply sighed, extinguishing the flames.
With surprising ease, the Kraken scaled the ship, dropping Aventurine from his arms only once they could both stand on the deck.
Not waiting for the present bystanders to stop gaping at the scene, Aventurine slapped a hand over Ratio’s firm back. “Got a doctor!”
He could see the disbelief overwhelming his crew mates’ expressions.
“Captain… is that,” Soana said, hesitantly, “the Kraken?”
Aventurine nodded, turning to look at the beast. “About that, can you change into a more human shape?”
The Kraken cocked his head to the side, confused. “What would be the point?”
“The kid doesn’t know she’s on a ghost ship,” Aventurine said. “She knows we’re pirates, and I’m sure she suspects something is up, she’s very smart, but…”
“I understand,” the Kraken said. “You’ll have to offer me something to wear, though.”
“Wha—oh. Oh.”
Standing in front of him — of his whole crew — was now an apparently human man, completely naked and sopping wet.
Aventurine refused to look below the Kraken’s waist, but he could feel Soana’s judgmental stare boring into the back of his skull. Damn, she’d always said that he’d terrible taste in men — and did the Kraken even count as one?
Was he like one of those sailors that, after too many years spent sailing, developed a fascination for marine creatures?
After asking for someone to offer the Kraken a change of clothes that would fit him, Aventurine hushed him under deck, towards Clara’s room.
“One thing,” he said, tugging on the Kraken’s sleeve. “Do you have a name I can call you by?”
The Kraken looked back at him, his striking golden-red eyes running up and down his body. “Ratio. Veritas Ratio.”
“Ratio,” he said, rolling the name on his tongue. He extended his right hand, his deep blue fingers brightening up for a brief moment, as the many rings and jewels reflected the eerie light. “Aventurine, at your disposal.”