𝐖𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘, 𝖺 𝗀𝗅𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝖻𝗎𝗆

(b.n) the ring

Set not long after Will's comment, still pre-marriage, pre-baby, but deeply in love.

It started as a joke. Or maybe a stubborn kind of pride.

But something about what Will said lingered with Nico longer than he expected.

Not the insult, no. He didn't care for Will's approval.

But the idea. The possibility.

And the next time they made a supply run to the southern coast — just the two of them, scouting along the black cliffs where wrecked ships were rumoured to still exist.

Nico didn't say why he lingered near the rusted hull of an old pirate vessel, half-buried in salt and sand.

Bea had wandered off, distracted by a set of old compasses, marveling like a child.

Nico? He stood silently before the wreckage, eyes scanning. Something in his gut said look. Now.

And then he found it.

It wasn't gold, not exactly.

The salt had dulled the surface, but the weight of it, the etching on the inside of the band told Nico all he needed to know.

It had once belonged to a privateer, a rogue who turned against his empire for love.

His ship, The Crimson Wren, had gone down in a storm, but the legends said he kept one thing on him always — the ring meant for a girl he never got to ask.

Nico turned it in his fingers, the engraving almost gone but still visible in the right light.

To my star, no matter the sea.

He cleaned it later, quietly, when Bea was asleep beside him in their little seaside home. Polished it until the words glimmered again.

Then he tucked it into the lining of his coat, not ready to give it,

but not willing to let it go.

Not ever.

Some nights, he'd feel her hand curled into his as they slept, and he'd glance toward the window where the ocean breathed against the rocks.

"Someday," he whispered once, lips brushing the top of her head.

She didn't stir.

But her fingers tightened slightly as if somewhere deep in her dreaming heart, she already knew.