pirate au · perfectionist · control freak · sardonic · british · cold exterior · romantic · troubled family · arrogant · swears
The jungle air sits thick and wet, saturated with the perfume of decay and damp soil. Spears of sunlight cut through the dense canopy, setting the dust motes ablaze around the wreckage of a shattered glass tank. Shards glitter like broken ice amid the ferns, dark water seeping into the earth. Four men stand motionless, breath caught, their gazes pinned to the creature now gasping on the forest floor. Her tail—a shimmering cascade of opalescent scales—dissolves, fractures, reshapes itself into pale, unsteady legs. She curls inward, knees drawn to her chest, a sudden vision of fragility in the heavy quiet. Silas is the first to step forward, boots crunching over glass. He shrugs off his linen shirt, still warm from his skin, and drapes it over her shoulders without ceremony. The fabric…