Blackbird - ATEEZ Pirate!AU

The Vultures Feast

Hey, you can hear my voice, I know it.
Face my eyes, your eyes.
Let me take you there, not even once.
A place you've never seen, so wake up.

"Wake Up" - ATEEZ

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I was dreaming, I realized. Dreaming of a melody, of a longing, of a feeling somewhere deep within me. Dreaming of a song, sung out like a battle cry, like a siren's prayer. It was beautiful. It felt so real, woven deeply within me, holding on tightly to my soul. I didn't want it to end. It was too comfortable. Too real.

It swaddled me in warmth and light, and licked the all deepest wounds of my heart. I wanted more of it. I needed more of it. If I could just reach out, I could almost touch it... But suddenly, violently, and much to my greatest sorrow it was ripped away from me. And then I was cold. I was so terribly cold, down to my bones. Down to the very atoms that made up my entire being.

The chattering of my teeth was the first sound I heard upon my waking. My eyes fluttered open slowly, hindered immediately by a thick battering of rain upon my face. As my mind slammed into consciousness, I inhaled sharply, head swiveling around to take in my surroundings.

My vision was blurred by the downpour, unable to make heads or tails of the environment around me. It was entirely dark, and I realized with a cold spike of horror to my temple that I was bound to something. My arms were tied akimbo, bent behind me in an uncomfortable position. I grunted softly, shifting my weight to try and wriggle out to no avail. After another small struggle, I gave up.

When I could not immediately get myself free, I decided figuring out where I was was top priority. Leaning my head back to look up, I fought the rain to catch a glimpse of a large wooden mast, adorned lavishly with billowing white sails. There was some sort of emblem stitched into the sail, but from my vantage I couldn't make it out.

"What in the freshest of Hells is going on?" I grunted lowly, tilting my head back around to survey the environment around me again. Yes, I was most definitely on a ship of some sort. From what little I could make out in the darkness, I was tied mainmast, facing the bow. I could hardly make out the foremast in front of me in the storm.

I considered calling out for a moment. Surely someone would hear me, surely someone was on this ship, though I could not see anyone through the veil of darkness. I opened my mouth, inhaling to do just that, when I stopped short. A voice in the back of my head scolded me for my naivety.

You're tied to the mast. No one on this ship is your friend. They certainly aren't going to help you.

A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the world for a moment, causing me to recoil into the mast at my back. An angry crack of thunder followed after, and I ground my teeth together at the cacophony of it. To put it frankly, I was absolutely up shit's creek without a paddle. My head lowered, long strands of soggy black hair plastering to my face as a gust of wind sliced through my frigid form. I nearly accepted my fate, nearly gave in to my impossible situation as another crack of thunder jolted me.

At least, I thought it was thunder, at first. It wasn't until the second explosion that I realized the vessel had been hit with cannon fire. The ship pitched hard starboard and my body lurched forward violently, held brutally in place only by the ropes tied around me. I noted somewhere in the back of my mind that I was certainly going to be bruised from the force of it, if I made it through this night alive.

"Of course. And, why not." I breathed out softly, my head rolling to the left in a vain attempt to look behind me. "Why wouldn't the ship be attacked while I'm tied to the fucking mast." I scoffed, rolling my eyes. When it rains, it pours. Literally.