V / Age Of Sail. - Tumblr Posts

🪐 — EDWARD TEACH​  for  izzy !

here’s the tragedy:   a beautiful boy is sitting on your bed.  he doesn’t tell you he loves you,  but he does.  devotion stronger than a cannon ball to the gut,  the kind of it he would drown for,  if only you asked.  edward lays his head on the bed,  eyes on the ceiling for a moment or two before turning them on izzy  —  the angle is a bit weird,  and his neck will soon start to feel funny,  but he makes it work somehow.   ‘  whatever you want,  really.  just make it piraty enough.  ’   he thinks on it,  shakes his head and then turns to face the bed,  elbows on it,  one hand ending up on izzy’s knee for good measure.  no,  it’s not enough.  he wanted this moment to be branded on both their minds,  something undeniable,  a tether and that only works two ways instead of just one. 

'  wanna do something crazy,  iz?  ’   a near whisper,  as if they’re conspiring,  or on the edge of something greater than themselves,  his eyes now boring into izzy’s ones without pause.  perhaps it’s the fading adrenaline from the earlier raid,  but he feels a touch dizzy,  as if drunk or feverish.   '  do the same for me.  mark me,  make me yours.  ’   this is not what captains usually ask of their first mates,  edward is pretty sure,  but he also couldn’t care less.  carve your name into my arm and lick the blood from it afterwards,  only then will i know we are inextricably bound. 

      IT IS NOTHING LESS THAN A BLESSING  to have edward’s eyes on him.  despite his father’s attempts, izzy had never become a religious man.  how could he believe in anything greater than this ?  when edward looks at him, he knows that there is nothing in any heaven that could hope to match the rush he feels, nor is there anything from any hell that could keep izzy away from him now.  ‘ want to do something crazy ? ’  edward asks him,  &  he doesn’t even have to consider it before he’s nodding  —  he’s already crazy for him.                               but it’s what comes next that shocks izzy into stillness, a breath pulling sharply into his lungs when edward says ‘ make me yours. ’   &  for a moment, he is certain he must have misheard.  he belongs entirely to his captain, of course.  that much felt so obvious that it went without saying, especially now that he wore the proof of their bond plain on his face.  but the idea that edward wants to belong to him, too is something izzy has never expected,  &  surely never dared let himself hope for.  there is nothing he would not do for his captain if it was asked of him.  but this is something he would actually ask for, if he could ever manage to find the voice to speak with.  ❝ edward, ❞  is all he manages at first.  &  when izzy says his name it sounds rather like a prayer.                 &  then he moves, eager to take the opportunity before edward loses that manic look that izzy loves so much. not a moment later, his captain is laying out on the sleeping bunk instead with a bottle in his left hand, his first mate perched loyally at his side.  edward’s right arm is extended out so that izzy can hold the hand firmly in his left, with the needle re-inked in his right.  &  in spite of the adrenaline that’s running through him, his grip is steady, just as he promised.  ❝ i’m going to put the first one right here, ❞  he says, tapping a smooth spot on the back of edward’s hand near his wrist.  ❝ if you like it, you can have more.  but this one here, this is ours.  this one will be just for us. ❞   &  then izzy catches his captain’s eye one final time before the needle descends, smoothing the place he plans to press their mark into with soothing strokes of his thumb.  ❝ &  don’t bite your tongue off, ❞  is his final warning before leaning forward  &  pressing the first beads of ink beneath his skin.

🪐 — EDWARD TEACH  for  stede !

if only he weren’t so ridiculously spellbound,   then yes,  he would manage to free himself rather quick.  a well placed kick,  or maybe just a knee,  and stede would probably go down  —  but this is hardly him sparring,  is it?  the real thing has never been this meek.  edward teach doesn’t just give up without fighting until the end,  and yet he is rendered harmless without even a blade against his throat.  stede is not helping matters,  on his part,  keeping up that talk.  he clearly doesn’t know what mess he is making of edward’s brain.  and it’s bloody unfair of him.  absolutely maddening.   ‘  yeah,  that’s right  —  you won,  stede.  why don’t you just kiss me and be done with it?  ’   damn his tongue,  too loose and disconnected from his brain to function as it should.  he will claim to have taken a nonexistent blow to the head,  if this goes south.  because surely that’s going to work. 

   IT MUST BE A TRAP.  that’s the first thing he thinks  — that this will be just like back in his boarding school days, when nigel had tricked him into french-kissing one of the stable horses in front of everyone.   &  the long-ago quieted laughter of his classmates echoes in his ears as stede recoils back a step, forcing some distance between them as his face flushes hot with embarrassment.  ❝ what ?  but i wasn’t  —  i didn’t mean — ❞  his blade drops at his side, the duel entirely forgotten,  &  stede’s eyes follows it to the finely lacquered deck, suddenly unable to look ed in the face.  in the past, denial has always suited him best, but his sudden nerves make the words overflow disconnectedly from his lips.  ❝ i’ve never  —  well, it’s not that i’ve  never.  but mary  &  i,  we didn’t often  —  she didn’t seem to  —  ❞  &  even stede can tell he’s babbling now, cutting himself off mid-sentence with a dry laugh.  ❝ that is to say, i didn’t expect that  kissing  would be part of our captaining lessons.  i thought that pirates were usually so busy raiding  &  dueling each other that they had little time left over for such... activities ? ❞

      HUMANS WERE ALWAYS dim, slow creatures, but they were especially pathetic at night when they could barely see. convenient, considering that venturing out of her coffin & onto the deck during the daylight hours would quickly cook her alive. but after the caribbean sun had slipped beneath the horizon, it was a simple matter for nadja & laszlo to turn into bats & fly over to their targeted ship before returning to their human bodies & feeding upon the crewmen. once their thirst had been sated, it was much easier to plunder whatever they pleased from the cargo. & between the two of them, they often left the cabins & the hold alike picked clean.          this crew had put up a particularly heartfelt fight, but nadja still cut through them without much difficulty, their dedication to protecting whatever the vessel carried only encouraging her to move faster. when the spanish soldiers had all been felled, nadja left laszlo to feed & pressed on below, eager to discover what cargo the humans seemed so ready to give their lives defending. a locked door awaited, but it barely delayed her as she crashed through, tearing the iron padlocks from one chest after another & flinging their lids open. & when each one had its contents revealed, she squealed in delight, calling for her husband to come & see the spoils for himself.        she was untangling a long strand of pearls from a cache overflowing with gold chains & jeweled pendants when laszlo appeared behind her, sweeping her into his arms & drawing out another adoring squeal. ❝ look, my love, look ! it's the most gold i've ever seen in one place — & it's all ours ! ❞ his compliment earned him a kiss, nadja pausing in her celebration long enough to to lick a few lingering droplets of the captain's blood from his lips before she found her feet again. ❝ but must we really tell the rest of crew ? we did all the work of taking the ship after all — is seems fair that we should get all the reward. ❞ she mused, returning to the pile of jewelry & freeing the pearls from the chest at last before draping them loosely around her pale neck. ❝ i think we deserve to keep the finest things for ourselves for once, don't you my dear ? ❞

     THE DRAINED CORPSE OF THE FINAL SPANISH FOE dropped unceremoniously to the ground. The sound of his wife’s voice beckoned him down the hull until he found his way to a door halfway ajar. “ What have you found, my darl-? ” His words were cut short as he stepped into the room, the sight before him truly being one to behold. Several chests all opened to reveal an array of glistening jewels and coins. However, it was the sight of Nadja standing there, the light of her lantern flickering against her skink, which would have made his heart skip a beat was he not already dead. “ Look at that! ” Laszlo wrapped his arms around Nadja’s waist, momentarily lifting her in his excitement. “ Were you not here those jewels would be the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen today.” He let her go, although one hand lingered on the small of her back as the other scooped out a handful of the gold doubloons. “ We should probably let the rest of the crew know… ”

‘wait ‘til you see what’s down here. we’re going to be… um, rich.’ — for laszlo from nadja sent by @musecraft