The Ark
She considers Jack's look for only a moment, thoughts smoothing out like a tide finding its channel, and then she brandishes a grin that’s all promise and mischief. "I might be new to legs," she purrs, voice warm with confidence, "but I’m fairly sure I can still bring him to his knees if I need to."
As the enter onto the main deck, the Ark doesn’t raise her voice. A slow breath slips from her instead—a sound rich and indulgent, like canvas filling cleanly or water breaking just right against a cutting hull—and it carries. It rolls across the deck and into the men without asking permission. Those who have only ever known her as timber and tar receive nothing at all. Her attention slides around them like water around pilings, leaving them oddly chilled, suddenly unsure why they were looking in the first place. But the others—the ones who have slept against her bulkheads, who have scrubbed her decks until their hands split, who have spoken to her in low voices when the night was too quiet—they feel it the moment her gaze finds them.
It is not a look so much as a current that will have their breath catching; cups still halfway to mouths linger there, forgotten. The fiddle stutters, a note pulled long and wrong as fingers lose their place. Heat pools low and sudden, a pulse answering another pulse they don’t quite understand, and the deck beneath their boots feels unsteady in a way it never has before. She does not smile at them—not fully—but the curve of her mouth promises something vast and dangerous and close, and that is worse.
For a heartbeat, for a handful of heartbeats, she is all they can see. Not woman, not ship, but something older and more intimate than either; the place where hunger and safety have always tangled. They will replay it later in the dark, tracing the memory until sleep refuses to come, until desire coils tight and restless in their chests, until they wake the next night with it still lodged there, unresolved and aching, for how can they satisfy themselves when she is all around them? And she knows it. She has always known what it means to be looked at like home. Like power.
The Ark moves then, long stride confident despite the novelty of it, drawn unerringly toward Bassian. She hasn’t seen him before, not like this, but she knows him all the same. The scrape of his chair against her boards as he slides away from the card table hits her nerves like a bad note, a groan of wood on wood that makes her teeth ache, yet her smile remains in place as she lifts a hand to indicate he ought to stay put.
Like poured water she flows into his lap, tall body folding into the space with ease, settling there as naturally as cargo stowed where it belongs. Even dwarfed by his size, she makes him look clumsy by comparison. Her hands slide into his hair, fingers firm, drawing his head down until her mouth brushes the shell of his ear. No one else will hear the words, save for Jack, just as the Captain will likewise feel the sudden spike of Bassian's arousal cut short by cold water flooding his thoughts as the Ark details what will happen if his aim in the head continues to be poor.
She leans back, lifting her head, one brow arched. Bassian’s face has gone red clear down his neck, guilt written plainly across his features, wide-eyed and boyish in its sincerity. She pats his cheek, affectionate as anything, and then turns her attention outward, fully aware of every gaze on her, of skin bared and heat rising and attention caught fast in her wake. "What?" she asks, smile returning, slow and unapologetic. "It’s not like you don’t know who I am."
Magic: Siren Call | Her voice carries unnaturally well over water and open spaces, reaching ears it shouldn’t be able to reach. At sea, it can slip through fog, wind, and distance as though carried along the surface of the waves themselves.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered | Cost: Action
Magic: Siren's Song | When she hums, sings, or even speaks softly for long enough, she can make those around her feel an urge to draw closer, linger, or stay put.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered | Cost: Action
As the enter onto the main deck, the Ark doesn’t raise her voice. A slow breath slips from her instead—a sound rich and indulgent, like canvas filling cleanly or water breaking just right against a cutting hull—and it carries. It rolls across the deck and into the men without asking permission. Those who have only ever known her as timber and tar receive nothing at all. Her attention slides around them like water around pilings, leaving them oddly chilled, suddenly unsure why they were looking in the first place. But the others—the ones who have slept against her bulkheads, who have scrubbed her decks until their hands split, who have spoken to her in low voices when the night was too quiet—they feel it the moment her gaze finds them.
It is not a look so much as a current that will have their breath catching; cups still halfway to mouths linger there, forgotten. The fiddle stutters, a note pulled long and wrong as fingers lose their place. Heat pools low and sudden, a pulse answering another pulse they don’t quite understand, and the deck beneath their boots feels unsteady in a way it never has before. She does not smile at them—not fully—but the curve of her mouth promises something vast and dangerous and close, and that is worse.
For a heartbeat, for a handful of heartbeats, she is all they can see. Not woman, not ship, but something older and more intimate than either; the place where hunger and safety have always tangled. They will replay it later in the dark, tracing the memory until sleep refuses to come, until desire coils tight and restless in their chests, until they wake the next night with it still lodged there, unresolved and aching, for how can they satisfy themselves when she is all around them? And she knows it. She has always known what it means to be looked at like home. Like power.
The Ark moves then, long stride confident despite the novelty of it, drawn unerringly toward Bassian. She hasn’t seen him before, not like this, but she knows him all the same. The scrape of his chair against her boards as he slides away from the card table hits her nerves like a bad note, a groan of wood on wood that makes her teeth ache, yet her smile remains in place as she lifts a hand to indicate he ought to stay put.
Like poured water she flows into his lap, tall body folding into the space with ease, settling there as naturally as cargo stowed where it belongs. Even dwarfed by his size, she makes him look clumsy by comparison. Her hands slide into his hair, fingers firm, drawing his head down until her mouth brushes the shell of his ear. No one else will hear the words, save for Jack, just as the Captain will likewise feel the sudden spike of Bassian's arousal cut short by cold water flooding his thoughts as the Ark details what will happen if his aim in the head continues to be poor.
She leans back, lifting her head, one brow arched. Bassian’s face has gone red clear down his neck, guilt written plainly across his features, wide-eyed and boyish in its sincerity. She pats his cheek, affectionate as anything, and then turns her attention outward, fully aware of every gaze on her, of skin bared and heat rising and attention caught fast in her wake. "What?" she asks, smile returning, slow and unapologetic. "It’s not like you don’t know who I am."
Magic: Siren Call | Her voice carries unnaturally well over water and open spaces, reaching ears it shouldn’t be able to reach. At sea, it can slip through fog, wind, and distance as though carried along the surface of the waves themselves.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered | Cost: Action
Magic: Siren's Song | When she hums, sings, or even speaks softly for long enough, she can make those around her feel an urge to draw closer, linger, or stay put.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered | Cost: Action
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze,
but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
