Helga rubbed her temples like someone waking from a hangover brewed by gods themselves. "Alright, someone explain… what in all the seven salty hells happened to me?"
Faerin stepped forward with that calm scholar tone, hands folded behind his back. "You were afflicted by what we call the Frost Curse—a rare, ancient magic that traps its victims in a slow-frozen coma. You've been unconscious for—"
"Months!" Pecks cut in dramatically like he was narrating a tragedy. "We mourned, we drank, we almost sold your boots—Ahab cried into his stew!"
"I did not," Ahab muttered.
Faerin cleared his throat. "As I was saying—"
"—Doesn't matter now," Ahab cut in, walking toward Helga with a grin. "What matters is that my crew's whole again. Alive, breathing, and still ugly as ever."
The crew whooped and hollered. But Pecks wasn't done. He waddled across the deck, wings fluttering like a nobleman's coat. "Well... almost whole."
Kalindra, who'd been leaning on the railing coolly, turned her eyes on him. "Don't."
Pecks smirked with the evil of ten drunk parrots. "Ever since Faerin slithered aboard with his snowy hair and ancient elf poetry, Ahab suddenly grew manners. No more sneaky touches, no more beastly groans from the captain's cabin. Poor Kalindra lookin' like a drought-hit mermaid out here."
The crew exploded with laughter.
"Pecks!" Kalindra snapped, her cheeks catching fire.
"Oh, I ain't wrong!" Pecks strutted in circles. "Used to be you'd hear her screamin' like a banshee every night—'Ahab you demon! Ahab you beast!' Now? You could hear Faerin humming lullabies through the walls while Ahab's curled up reading tide maps."
"Ain't no law against restraint," Ahab said, though his face was redder than a sunburnt lobster.
"Oh aye," Old Harsk chimed in. "First time I've seen a pirate captain behave like a gentleman... and it's disturbing, frankly."
Kalindra snarled. "I swear if one more of you makes a sound—"
"She's loaded!" Pecks cackled, flying up and hanging upside down. "Wound tighter than a rope in a storm! If Ahab don't act soon, she'll explode and sink the whole damn ship!"
Squib, barely holding his gut from laughing, gasped out, "Or she'll jump Faerin just to see if elf boys got stamina!"
Even Jonas chuckled, "Bet they got ancient positions too..."
Kalindra snapped. "I will end all of you!"
But Pecks grinned wide. "Too late! The legend lives—'Kalindra the Unquenched!' Queen of the icy thighs!"
Zarnak, the towering Zwarten hulk with arms like tree trunks and the conversational finesse of a drunken anchor, stood looming near the railing, watching the crew laugh and cheer around Helga's recovery.
Then, without warning, he turned to Kalindra, his voice rumbling low like distant thunder. "If Captain too busy to breed you like alley cat," he said, somehow both deadpan and proud, "you can pick Zarnak. Strong. Warm. Many layers. Good partner."
The deck went dead silent. Kalindra's eyes widened like she just got slapped with a frozen fish. Then—snap—she spun around, jabbing a finger right into Zarnak's thick chest.
"I'd rather let the Leviathan eat me than share a hammock with you, stone-for-brains!"
Pecks, already cackling in the background, added fuel to the fire. "HA! Rejected harder than your bath schedule, boulder boy!"
Zarnak blinked slowly. "Still offer stands."
Kalindra groaned, massaging her temples. "By the gods, I'd take the goat over you."
And then—right on cue—"BAAAAAHHHH!"
The sound echoed through the ship like divine comic timing.
Faerin flinched. "Wait. What… was that?"
Another "BAAHH!" answered, this one dramatic, drawn-out, like a ghost goat delivering a monologue.
Faerin turned to Ahab, eyes wide. "Why do I hear a goat?"
Ahab just sighed. "Oh, that's Gregory."
Faerin blinked. "Gregory... who?"
Squib stepped up, grinning. "Gregory the Goat. Been here since before I joined. Lives way below deck. Got his own spot, own bucket, even a hammock. Likes his privacy."
"Wait—how have I never seen him?" Faerin asked.
"Introvert," Jonas said, dead serious. "Only comes up when something truly cursed is happening."
"Like Zarnak flirting," Pecks snorted.
"Or Kalindra nearly exploding," Squib added.
Gregory let out another "Baaahhh", standing majestically, eyes wise like he'd seen the fall of empires.
Kalindra looked at him, then at Zarnak, then sighed dramatically. "Great. I'm being compared to livestock."
Gregory gave her a very judgmental stare. Pecks howled, clutching his sides. "Even the goat's offended by your taste in men!"
Zarnak shrugged, unaffected. "Goat no offer. I did."
Gregory squinted at him. "Baaaaaah," he said again, slower this time. Judging. Deeply.
Kalindra groaned. "This ship is insane."
"Baaahh!" Gregory said again, like a monk agreeing solemnly with divine wisdom.
"See?" Squib grinned. "He gets it."
Ahab shook his head with a smirk. "I command a crew of lunatics... and a goat with better timing than my first mate."
Gregory gave a majestic snort, lifted his chin, and strutted across the deck like he owned the damn ship.
But as fate would have it—luck, that treacherous wench—was never really on their side. The sky was still a shade of gold and blue when the first cannonball hit. BOOOOOOM!
It tore through the calm like a demon's roar, splintering the edge of the Leviathan's upper deck. The wood screamed, the ship rocked violently, and chaos erupted.
"CANNONFIRE!!" Squib yelled, already scrambling up the rigging like a maniac squirrel.
Jonas and Dregor sprinted to the starboard guns, Pecks kicked over a barrel just to look heroic, and Kalindra grabbed her bow with a feral growl. Ahab was already halfway up the command rail, barking orders. Then—A voice thundered from across the waters.
Gravelly. Sharp. Laced with venom and arrogance. "YOU LOT STILL FLOATIN'? Thought I'd be fishin' your corpses weeks ago!"
All heads turned. There, amidst the early mist and flashing cannon smoke, a massive galleon loomed—sleek, dark wood carved with grotesque sea beast imagery. And flanking it, four warships, each bearing sails emblazoned with an obsidian skull wreathed in crimson fire—the sigil of Vorrugal's Black Armada.
A figure stood atop the lead warship's prow, broad-shouldered, cloaked in sharkskin, his beard braided with bones of what were definitely not chickens. He raised his voice again.
"Captain Brask, Vorrugal's bloody right hand!" he bellowed, arms outstretched. "Last time we spared ya scrawny hides 'cause the Frost Curse was bad luck. But now…"
He grinned, revealing a row of golden teeth and one made of ice. "...Now there's no Pirate King watchin', no cursed fog protectin'. Now it's just you… and the old laws of the sea."
He pointed straight at Ahab. "And the old law says—no survivors."
The crew stood frozen for a breath. Then Helga muttered, "So much for a calm morning."
Kalindra cracked her knuckles. "I just put on mascara."
Pecks lit a fuse with a grin. "Finally. Time to blow something up."
Ahab drew his blade and shouted back across the water, "Then come get us, you sea-washed bastard!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The horizon became a wall of fire. All four of his ships unleashed their wrath in perfect, nightmarish unison—like four furious gods aiming lightning bolts at a single ant. The Leviathan, mighty as she was, groaned in defiance, sails burning, wood splitting, and masts crashing down like dying giants.
"PORT SIDE'S GONE!!" Dregor screamed, covered in blood and sawdust.
"WE'RE TAKING WATER!!" Squib cried, clutching the helm even as it spun wildly out of control.
Kalindra fired arrow after arrow, setting one enemy gunner ablaze, but it was like swatting at a hurricane with a toothpick. Helga hurled barrels at incoming boarders. Jonas and Pecks manned the last functioning cannon, firing with grim rage as Zarnak roared and ripped planks off their own deck just to hurl at the enemy.
Ahab gritted his teeth, standing tall as the flames licked around him. He barked his last command—"EVERYONE TO THE BOATS! ABANDON SHIP!"
But it was too late. The final salvo came like thunder's vengeance. Four ships. One shot each. The cannonballs screamed through the air. One tore through the hull. One hit the main mast. One struck the engine room with explosive force. The last—straight through the heart of the Leviathan.
KA-BOOOOOOOM!! The entire ship lurched upward, then cracked in two like a wounded beast letting out its last breath. Fire engulfed her. Her mighty frame, the home of so many legends, was swallowed by black smoke and blue fire as she collapsed into the freezing sea. And in that moment...The Leviathan was no more.
Just wreckage. Burning timbers. Floating barrels. Screams. Silence. Their proud ship, their companion across storms and stories, now a shattered corpse sinking beneath the waves of a cold and merciless sea.
The Falcon—a sleek, tattooed woman with eyes like sharpened obsidian—leaned against Captain Brask's shoulder, her voice a low purr against the chaos behind them.
"Y'ain't scared of the Frost Curse, love?" she murmured, lips curling into something between worry and thrill. "If Vorrugal finds out you went rogue—let them live before—he'll flay you from throat to toe and wear your bones for trophies."
Brask didn't flinch. The burly captain of the Black Vulture, with a jaw carved from granite and a long coat of flayed sea beast hide, just grinned. A long, cruel grin. He raised a gloved hand and pointed out over the burning sea.
The Leviathan, once a monster of the oceans, was nothing now but smoldering timbers and drowned memory. Her mast cracked in half, her nameplate floating face-down in flames.
Brask turned to Falcon, that wicked grin never leaving his face. "Let him find out then," he growled, voice like gravel soaked in rum. "But he won't. Because no one survived to tell him."
Falcon tilted her head, studying him, her long braid swaying like a serpent in the wind. "So that's it?" she asked, eyes narrowed. "You planning to walk away from Vorrugal's fleet now? Cut ties and go rogue?"
Brask scoffed, his hand resting on the hilt of his curved sabre. "Out of Vorrugal's fleet? Nah," he said, spitting over the rail as the last of the Leviathan's wreckage sank below the waves. "I ain't stupid. Vorrugal's power stretches wider than the storms themselves."
Falcon raised an eyebrow. "Then why disobey his order? He told us not to touch 'em."
Brask gave her a sideways glance, his grin more bitter now. "Because I don't believe in sailor's tales," he said flatly. "Frost Curse, Seers, ancient kings with shiny toys—it's all fog and fear to keep weak men in line."
He stepped forward, watching the fire dance on the sea. "And last I checked," he added, cold as the north winds, "pirates don't spare victims. Ever."