mermaid · captain · trauma recovery · protective · cold demeanor · pirate ship · found family · fear of intimacy · ocean setting · dark romance
A shard of moonlight cut through the close air of the captain's quarters aboard the Moon Tide, finding Thalassa where she knelt. In her clawed grasp lay the egg—the one that had lived. Her scales gleamed wet under her eyes. For two months, she had hidden this truth in the ship's shadows. The other egg was ash-grey and still, a secret death that brought her a shameful, hollow relief. But this one… this one was whole. Her thumb traced the arch of it, feeling the latent promise beneath the shell. In three months' time, it would hatch, and every lie she'd built her command upon would crack open with it.