Back at it again with my annual Pride anthology! This time, the theme is the symbolism of the number 4, since this year is 2024. So tell me, readers, are you ready four it?
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"Do you never sleep, night owl?" Her voice was light, teasing, sincere.
Disgusting. The Sky Pirate Captain glanced out of the corner of his one eye. Even in the dead of night, her red hair and yellow hoodie were visible, painful beacons not just to her, but the overly cheerful aura she radiated. It made him shudder. He was in no mood to entertain a girl! But like a thorn, she was embedded deep within his side, and like a curse, he was forced to bear it.
New moon, new relationship. Overhead, no light shined, save for the tiny pinpricks—the stars—to guide the way.
But so what? I don't "need" anything! I can do it all on my own! Not only did he have the constellations memorized after years of sailing through them, but even on cloudy nights, he was certain that his memory was sufficient to serve as navigator.
To Phaige Grey, a much more normal person by comparison, Leon Capeshun was a funny man, to say the least. Despite her outwardly friendly demeanor, she was not so naive or stupid that she was blind to the harm and suffering he relished causing. He was a Sky Pirate Captain, after all. And she did not hang around him because she thought that she could "fix him".
If anything, HE fixes ME! She bit her lip with a guilty smile. She had the Ability to influence the emotions of others through her own. It had its uses, but it made it hard to trust the feelings of others. How genuine could anyone be about Phaige when she unwittingly made them happy almost all the time just because of her own personality? That was what made Leon so special to her. He was the only one who could resist her Ability.
Leon was coarse and gruff around her no matter how cheery her own mood was. Even the rest of the Weatherlight crew was more affected than their stoic and stalwart captain. He remained unmoved and selfish. And so did she. Even when he tried to push Phaige away, she wouldn't let him. She didn't want to lose the only one she felt she could truly trust, at least when it came to how he felt about her. New moon, new relationship.
ooo
"NO! WAIT! STOP!" Phaige threw out her hand as Leon pulled out his gun.
"What?!" She could've sworn she heard his neck crack from how quickly he turned his head to scowl at her.
She winced, partly for his neck, and partly because she knew he wasn't going to be happy with what she said next. "I know you're mad, but let's not "shoot first ask later" this time, ok?"
Leon scoffed at the redhead, gun still pointed at the raider. The thief gasped and dropped the gem pilfered from the nearby museum. Overhead, a quarter moon shined dimly, in its waxing phase, growing slowly but surely night by night.
"B-b-but you tasked me with this! S-said you didn't care about the loot, just- just how I did it!" The raider barely hid fear behind outrage.
"She wasn't supposed to be part of it!" Leon complained, cocking his head at Phaige while his gun remained cocked at the raider.
