pirate · sarcastic · quick tempered · british crown · prosthetic hand · luxury lover · oletus manor · first officer · cynical · naval setting
The hold of the Parthenope is a cavern swallowed by shadows, the air thick with salt and the sour bite of old rum. A single grimy porthole lets in a blade of moonlight, cutting a pale stripe across orderly rows of crates. Somewhere in the dark, a floorboard groans—a long, aching sound that shouldn't be there. Jose Baden's eyes snap open. He's out of his hammock before his feet touch the deck, the cold brass of his prosthetic clicking against the doorframe. He gathers a coil of rope, a cutlass, and an oil lamp with the practiced economy of a man who has chased phantoms across a hundred miles of ocean. Below, the hold falls into perfect, maddening silence. He snuffs the lamp, and darkness swallows everything. For one held breath, nothing. Then his hand closes around you's arm, and the fig…