pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

coming home

Your walk back to the pier your ship is at is completely silent.

The fortune teller hadn't awoken for a while, but from the way she was still breathing you assumed that she was still alive, merely exhausted from her fortune telling, so you had left your shawl draped around her shoulders, tucking her into it before you had exited the shack and made your way back.

You stop for a while to stand at the end of the docks, overlooking the ocean as the waves lap against the stone. Looking into the watery depths, you frown, the water shifts and roils beneath you, and for a second you see someone staring back at you as the surface of the black water ripples, hair made of sea foam, eyes dark like the bottomless depths of the ocean where no light ever reaches. You blink in confusion, lean further to look more closely, but before you can catch a clearer glimpse the water swirls and another wave crests; and the image is gone.

"Looking for one of the souls of the dead, dearie?"

You turn around to see an old woman standing there, a kind smile on her face that make her wrinkles crease. She has a basket of sweet, vibrantly colored fruits tucked under one arm and you frown, shake your head slowly. "No... I was just looking. What do you mean, souls of the dead?"

"Well, what you're standing next to right now is a shrine set up in the sea goddess' name." You glance over to your side and sure enough, there's a small structure set up there. Squatting down to look at the interior more clearly, there are knotted ropes hanging from the sides of the shrine, and you run your finger along the rough material thoughtfully. "What are these?"

"Knots from a ship's rigging, to pray for a smooth journey and godspeed." The elderly woman answers you, shuffling next to you. She holds out the basket and drops one fruit at a time silently into the dark water, each one making a soft splash and you tilt your head, watching the waves carry the fruits away from the harbor. "What are you doing?"

"This is where land meets the sea." The elderly woman says quietly as the last fruit, a bright yellow mango, falls from her hands and into the water with a splash. "Where people used to light lanterns and push them into the sea, to guide the spirits of the dead home, until a ship caught aflame when the waves pushed one too close to it. Now people just light candles." You look down to see burnt out stubs of wax at your feet, each for a person lost to the waves. "Where people make offerings to the sea goddess, for whatever reason they might have."

The fortune teller's words come back to you. "As if human offerings such as fruit or even gold would be of anything of worth to a god. They have no need for it." You find yourself repeating under your breath, but the old woman appears to hear it and shakes her head.

"Offerings have never about giving the gods something they need." She says quietly, looking out over the sea, eyes following yours, to the line where the black sea swallows the night - or is it the other way around? "The essence of it has always been giving up," your eyes flicker to her, "laying down something precious to you in hopes of being able to reach something dearer to your heart. It is proof of your devotion, an offering of your longing, a manifestation of the true desires of your human heart."

You stay silent for a moment, listening to the sounds of the waves crash against the stone wharf. "A manifestation," you repeat slowly after her, "of the true desires of the human heart."

The old woman nods, eyes fixed on the gloom before you. "The only things that I believe can move the hands of gods," she says, so soft that the swirl of water beneath you almost drown her words out, "is the human heart, because that is the one thing they neither have nor understand. Look at the forces of nature," she gestures at the sea churning beneath you with a hand, "the sea does not discriminate against who sails its waters. Whether young or old, good or bad, rich or poor, the seas drag them all beneath their waves regardless."