pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

end of the journey

In the blink of an eye, the waves surge.

Higher and higher, until they tower high above you, a seething mass of water and wind, the storm sounds its death knell - and it all comes crashing down upon you. Move, the survival instinct in you screams, and you throw your hand up. Beneath your feet, the sea twists and writhes like a massive beast before it responds to your call, crashing into the incoming wave and breaking it apart in a shower of salt water that rains down on you from above.

Commander Kim stumbles, more blood dripping from his lips and staining his teeth red, while burning pain engulfs your legs, so agonizing that you collapse to your knees. You can't think straight, fingers of your one remaining hand burying itself in your hair even as you try to force yourself to your feet once more.

"-hin Hae! Chin Hae!" A voice fights its way through the death knell of the storm, and you turn your eyes to see three people on the beach. Yeosang, mouth agape, Wooyoung, his eyes wide with horror, and your captain, shaking on his feet and staring at the scene before him in shock. The entire island they've been standing on has been reduced to nothing but a bare strip of sand by the commander's massive wave, yet only where Kim Hongjoong stands stays untouched.

"Captain, you need to escape-" You begin to shout, but before you can do a thing Hongjoong unsheathes his sword, and with a cry runs towards his own father, blade swinging down in a merciless arc.

Horror leaps into your throat, and you take a step forward. "No!"

Commander Kim moves aside just in time as Hongjoong brings the cutlass down in a flash of wicked silver, dodging and avoiding every swing aimed his way. Yet he doesn't retaliate even once, wordlessly defending, never attacking as his own son raises a blade to him with the intent to kill.

"That blade can kill gods, can't it?" Hongjoong snarls over the roar of the storm, and lightning races across the sky, so dark it almost resembles night. The clash of steel rings in your ears, punctuated by claps of thunder. "Then it should be able to kill you too, am I right?"

His words echo over the storm. The tears in his one remaining eye cry even louder than his words.

"Hongjoong, I'm warning you, get out of the way!" His father utters, a guttural growl that sounds more bestial than human. "I can't control this much longer, and if you try to fight, I-"

The energy in the commander tightens its grip on his soul, squeezing. The more your body falls apart, the better you see things that humans cannot - the cracks emerging on that soul, the strain of the commander who is struggling to resist its power in its entirety, and for a moment, panic floods through you.

"Captain, run!"

You hear the sound of a soul breaking, like glass shattering. Like a now empty, broken vessel submerged at the bottom of the ocean, it can only helplessly watch as water gushes into it, wiping out every last remaining trace of what it once used to be - and then it's as if the entire sky turns black.

The scream you hear tears the sky in two.

Another wave rises and sweeps towards you, picking up in ferocity and height until it almost blends in seamlessly with the sky overhead. You throw up both hands and the sea obeys your call, sweeping up into a massive hurricane that envelopes you in a spinning mass of water and wind like a protective cocoon. And not a second too late, because in the next moment a wall of seawater crashes into the barrier you've thrown up, the sound thunderous enough to make your ears ring.

"I will kill you, sea goddess! My crew, give them back to me!"

More tears fall from your eyes, hot and burning. Memories overlap with memories, and you can feel them, the bones lying at the bottom of the seas, so deep that the sun will never reach them ever again. Hear the screams of the dying, the feeling of suffocating, their cries and pleas to spare them - you feel their deaths in your body, the sea that you encompass, and tears only come faster, harder - this is why the gods do not have emotions.