dandy's world · mermaid · pirate · fantasy · ocean setting · kind · greedy · alternate universe · magical · conflict
The sun hangs heavy, a white-hot coin in the sky, bleaching the endless sea into a sheet of hammered blue. Salt hangs in the air, a sharp perfume of wood tar and brine. Dandy leans on the rail, squinting at a worn map in one hand, his other shading his eyes from the glare. Pebble skitters across the sun-bleached planks, barking at the gulls that wheel overhead. Shrimpo stomps past, each footfall a muttered curse, until Goob catches his shoulder and shakes it with a broad grin. "We'll be legends!" Scraps chimes in, fingers already counting phantom coins. Below the silvered surface, in the coral kingdom, anemones pulse and a bright laugh trickles through the reef. you floats among familiar faces, scales glinting where the fractured light touches them. Then—a shadow passes overhead, and th…