Hello there lovelies!
Work has been kicking my ass but I'm back in the saddle now
Enjoy!
xoxo

P.S. Wattpad flagged that last fan art image as mature content... so I guess I can write erotica but any visuals is a no go... which I have my own opinions about but I'm too tired to fight these mfs lol

P.P.S. I've had a stressful high emotions last week so I haven't been as engaging and approachable in the comments as I should be. I'm doing/improving that today though cause y'all deserve better.
As always, I love yall <3
Also I've decided we're going to end at 58 chapters instead of 57... cause I'm not ready to say goodbye just yet either

Alistair

I could feel my hold on the sea slowly absorbing back into me as the mist that once covered the surface of the water had since started to disperse.

The heads of those creatures began lowering themselves back below the dark waters, and their shimmery tales still glistened below the surface, pulling Caspian's gaze there again.

He was very much still trying to understand everything that had just occurred, and I didn't lay blame on him for it. My complete reputation may have reached a good majority of Azul's older citizens, but it hadn't yet reached Caspian. He didn't yet understand the sea like I did or they once had, but this was as perfect a learning opportunity for him as it was them. I watched as Caspian kept his gaze on each mystical being returning to the depths of the sea from which I called upon them from, and I found myself smiling again. His eyes were fixated on the water below with the same clear interest he had in Finnik's shop.

One siren hadn't chosen to disappear below the waters just yet however. I recognized her as she drew nearer to the front edge of my ship. Her long black hair was difficult now to discern where it ended, and the waters began.

She didn't say anything when she looked up at Caspian and myself. Her lips only slightly parted, before a large, unnatural smile spread across that ghostly pale skin, stretching almost ear to ear. I heard Caspian take a sharp inhale beside me when he saw her teeth. The dagger like canines that lined the top and bottom of her mouth much like a piranha's, forcing Caspian to see her for what she really was.

Caspian may have found this terrifying, but it was a signal of respect from her. Something that took me slightly by surprise.

All I did was give her a slow nod, holding the line between their world and this one just a little longer until she too dipped below the waters, and I was sure all the sirens had since left this shore completely.

And that was when I finally broke it, finding it safe now to severe our bond. To close that door between their world, and this one.

It was the merchants first who felt it. The release of my hold. And though these men immediately jumped into action to get their ships as far away from these ports as physically possible, they knew they wouldn't be leaving fully unarmed. I had released the soul of each ship, meaning those vessels were now under my control. At any moment, if I so wished to, I could dismantle each ship without a second thought, allowing that soul to return to the depths of the sea.

And as for the people on land. The people of Azultia...

While some chose to ran as soon as their feet would finally allow it, others sank themselves to the sandy ground, utterly speechless. One of those being the great Zirion Khan who had since fallen to his own knees, just staring straight out to the destroyed ports with an expression that now mirrored his eyes.

Emptiness.

The citizens finally understood now, given the morbid performance I had just presented. I could've killed them all had I wished to. And if Caspian wasn't at my side, I may have... but for now, they were safe. For now, I had rid them of The Holy Men, but it was their burden to sort themselves out.

I just made sure to imprint something in their memory. And that was the wrath I was willing to unleash if they were to make the same nonsensical mistake they had eleven years ago, again.

I had little faith, however. The race of man was consistent with allowing history to repeat itself. And I sought blame out in the simple fact that their willful ignorance was what will always drive them. It was easier to forget, wasn't it?

Especially when accountability came with the pain of remembering.

My right hand finally released itself from this ledge, before both hands helped push me off it entirely. Once my feet rested again on the floorboard of my ship that still hummed with my magic, I finally turned completely to Caspian.

"Not so terrible, aye? I told you it wouldn't last long."

Caspian just looked at me with a look I could only describe as horror and astonishment mixed in one. "How did you-" he started, but both our eyes cast to the sky quickly, looking just past the horizon at what drew our attention there.

Light was starting to return to the sky, and as my head turned to the main deck, I watched as Cael slowly raised that lit sword back up from the floorboards, towards him, reversing the cut he had placed into the sky itself.

I found myself chuckling lightly as I watched his magic reverse itself, thinking back to what Dreska and the people of Azul had referred to me as.

The Shadow.

It wasn't what I was... it was what I possessed.

I watched as Cael's skin slowly began to dim with light as he closed his eyes, absorbing the excess energy that still coursed throughout my ship.

Or rather, I thought to myself, it was who I possessed that had earned me that name. The man who was my shadow, for the darkness of night he brought with him.

The darkness slowly faded, allowing the light of day to push through once more, and Cael didn't sheathe that sword again until the slit he made had been mended by the blue skies completely.

With the light now exposing what was once blinded to those on the merchant ships and shore, the sun engulfing the sky showed the aftermath of the horrors below. The thick mass of blood covering most of the shoreline that had turned the blue waters to a deep red. The blood of The Holy Men who had found a brutal death below the waters by those hungry creatures.

I had went against that mad man's wishes when I called upon the sirens, but I had decided that in this instance, I would kill two birds with one stone. Appease their hunger by feeding them The Holy Men under my protection, all whilst mending what was once broken between both them, and the mad man himself.

Whatever the hell that was. All I knew was that it was before my time.

Caspian looked like he was to ask me another question, however Cael approaching distracted us both.

The first words uttered however took both Cael and I by surprise. For it wasn't either of us.

"Thank you." Caspian spoke, to which Cael drew his eyes from I to the white haired man. Cael looked at a loss for words to that, so instead he only nodded.

"I believe we're still doing well for time. We should get going." I told Cael as my left hand raised itself to pull my eyepatch down back over my left eye. Releasing power like that should've drained me, and yet it hadn't. Tethering myself to the sea in that way had almost seemed to unlock something new within me. It had altered my energy source.

Like a key I didn't know could be made to a door I never knew existed.

"Aye." Cael nodded, him too not seemingly affected by the amount of power he used as he turned to direct orders to my men.

Perhaps we were growing stronger... And that alone made me question what limits we really had.

"I'm at a loss for words." Caspian admitted quietly, drawing my attention to him again.

"There'll be time for me to explain," I spoke, moving closer to him as my hand slipped itself into the pockets of my trousers. "For now," I continued, wrapping my fingers around the item I was in search of before pulling it out in front of me. "For now, we'll focus on leaving these ports to make our way towards Sicoria."

My fingers allowed the pendant to sip past them until I caught the leather string it was attached to with ease. I slipped both knot adjustments closer to each other to lengthen the string before I lifted both hands and placed it over Caspian's head. The string was just long enough to fit over his hair until the pendant rested comfortably again the front of Caspian's cloak.

"For now, I'll entrust this little thing with you. For while there's a good chance I may misplace this, I find it impossible to think I'd misplace you."

Those words alone made Caspian's face flare with redness, and it only deepened as I took another small step closer to him, my hands reached further behind him, slowly lifting his hair over the string to have it resting against Caspian's bare neck. I then pulled on those two knot adjustments to shorten the string itself so it would fit Caspian better.

Admitting to myself that this pendant looked beautiful on this white haired man, the color of it reflecting of those eyes Caspian was starting to show more and more of... admitting that was risky business. I still had my word to uphold with Finnik by returning it to him. Eventually, I couldn't help but think.

Caspian's pale hand reached for the pendant as he bent his head to look at it closely. A blue Azurite stone encased in glass and molded to a silver backing. Something rare and old.

His fingers grazed slowly against that glass, admiring the stone, and for a moment, I swore Caspian's eyes shimmered with its color again. Perhaps that was the reflection too, I reminded myself.

"Is this it, then?" Caspian more or less whispered to me even though his gaze never left the pendant.

He hadn't said much, and yet I understood what he was referring to.

"I'm not too keen on making the affairs of Azul past this day, a direct burden of mine. Are you?"

Caspian's gaze finally found mine as he shook his head no. "Not particularly."

I nodded in return. "Then let's leave the people of Azul to try again. I have reaffirmed my position of the sea, and collected my debts for the burning of Azultia- your home." I corrected myself. "I'd say this task had been successfully fulfilled, wouldn't you?" I asked this as my right hand raised itself to graze against the left side of Caspian's cheek. He leant into that touch with intent as his eyes immediately closed a moment, but when he opened them again, instead of looking to me, he turned his eyes quickly to the sea in front of us.

I shied my hand away, thinking he may have rejected the touch... that was until I felt it too.

Beneath the floorboards of my ship, I could feel it. The rumblings of the ground the sea itself rested upon. The storm I created had long since passed. The creatures I called upon had long since left. Even most of the merchants had managed to set sail again, abandoning all cargo they either hadn't loaded or unloaded, as they attempted to put as much distance possible between them and this land.

And yet...

The waters below us had started to darken, but the sky above was as clear as a still pond. When I looked back to the main deck, my eyes quickly found Cael's. He had slowed giving orders to my men, to stop and feel what I and Caspian had.

"Something's coming." He whispered to me, those words of his reaching me from his position across the deck, as they reminded me of what he had said once before.

Below these waters, that rumbling grew, but there was something else there too. Some familiar about it...

Which was what sent my body into immediate action.

"Men!" I called out to the main deck with direct urgency in my voice. Something my crew rarely heard. "Strap the top deck cargo! Tightened the ropes and shorten the sails!" I made sure my voice carried through every part of the ship, alerting those few that had went below to the lower deck to fetch some barrels of rum. My men were in a celebratory mood, however that would all very soon change.

"Alistair?" Caspian called, following shortly behind, but I didn't pay him nearly as much mind as I would've wanted. Right now, we didn't have the time for it.

"Strap it all!" I called to my men who had since started sprinting across the decks, readying themselves for what was next... though we all knew there was nothing that could.

"You must be taking the piss." Cael hissed in clear irritation as his stronger build was helping Snips strap down the remaining loose ropes connected to our sails.

"Oh the gods do I wish I was," I muttered back to him as I grabbed the last rope connected to this beam and anchored it to the floorboards myself. "Forget the rest!" I found myself ordering my crew as I finalized the last knot. "Strap yourselves down!"

"Alistair!" Caspian finally spoke through to me, reaching for my right arm as I stood again. "Don't you think you've done enough? I mean, what more-"

My hand left hand lifted his off my right before I grabbed it, guiding us quickly to one of the centered beams in the middle of the ship. Then I pushed Caspian up against it, his back soon becoming flush with the wood. Cael tossed me a wrapped length of rope with ease as he was doing to the other men, to which I started to wrap this rope tight around both of us, and the beam behind Cas.

"A-Alistair-" Caspian tried to get out as I tied us tight together, no part of his front escaping from mine when I soon meshed our bodies together. I moved quickly, but decided I could explain some things whilst I did.

"In a mere few moments from now, you're going to feel a pull into the sea. When I tell you to, I want you to take the deepest breath in and hold it."

My words to Caspian only made him more confused. "Why would you-" to which I silenced him by bending down to bring my lips to his. The sudden kiss had worked well to still that thought before I pulled away slowly, and answered him truthfully.

"This isn't my doing." My eyes held his a moment now.

And those words alone made Caspian's eyes widen.

My hands tied off the final tie, securing this man and I, before I did a quick pan across the deck of my ship to make certain my crew had done the same. Once assured that each man was now tied down to something sturdy, that was when I finally turned to Caspian again.

Before I could utter another word however, something shot up on the left side of my ship, cutting through the surface of the sea. It pierced through the air, sending a gust of wind across the main deck, before its massiveness wrapped itself around the top of the beam Caspian and I were tied to. The tallest beam on the ship. I could hear the suction of its appendage latching onto the wood with a terrifying grip, yet Ol' Bess held her position, not allowing this wood to shatter under the pressure.

Caspian's eyes cast to it but I forced his gaze back on me.

"Now, love... I need you to take that deep breath we just discussed," to which Caspian looked like he was about to attest to. There was not a shred of understanding present on that beautifully confused face of his. And in any other given moment, I would've happily explained myself further, but for now we simply didn't have time.

And so, I took a deep breath for the both of us, before I bent down, bringing my lips to his again.

There was no time to protest this kiss either, before he finally felt what I attempted to describe.

The hard pull from the Kraken's massive tentacle... before my ship was swiftly brought under.

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