#fic: adonia

[robobarbie]

When Adonia comes out, do you think you would make a Wattpad AU hour but with those characters instead?

oh you know we are gonna go HAM with the shitpost fics yes sir

#aai ask #anon ask

[cyanide-latte]

TWST fic: they meet

Summary: (this one pretty much is what it says on the tin)

Word count: 1,165 words

Warnings: references to spiked drinks and ableism

Cleaned it up a tiny bit for posting. @inmateofthemind 's headcanon co-ed mage school (Corlux) is referenced here. Also featuring Kallisto's maiden name! I have so many feels about Chrysanthos's parents I need to just write the two of them together as much as possible, this is just the first one, and no, I am not apologizing, you can't make me.

—————

“Don't drink that.”

“Huh?”

The stranger didn't offer any further explanation until they'd made it out to the terrace, and even then she didn't say a word until she'd plucked the glass from Ilias’s hand and tossed the entire thing over the railing and into the hedges down below. Ilias stared down, openmouthed and flabbergasted for perhaps the first time in his adult life, as she spoke again.

“Sorry if I made a scene or put you on the spot back there,” she began.

“You just—” he stammered, his voice very, very small and full of shock and awe. “That was crystal— a Jupiter family g— and you— threw—”

“If they want to get their chitons in a twist over one little glass, let them,” she said, letting out a small huff and adjusting the large glasses on her face. “They don't scare me. Besides, I didn't see any of them trying to call out Adonias for harassing you, or his buddies for spiking your drink when he did. And my jaw would've hit the floor if any of them actually stepped in to stop you from drinking it.”

A chill raced up his spine, a chill that quickly morphed into an icy anger. So that was it. He should have suspected that there was more to the mocking and harassment than simply trying to make him lose face in front of literally everyone. Inhaling deeply, Ilias breathed out, trying to release some of the immediate tension and regain his usual cool composure. Well, Adonias had lost on both fronts today, and while they were small victories, they were still victories.

He turned to regard his strange savior, who was also turning to look him over.

“To whom do I owe my thanks?” he asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth fast before he could worry about seeming rude.

The woman jolted, her eyes going huge behind the glasses and her face turning a bit pink.

“I- I'm Kallisto. Kallisto Euphemia,” she answered, all the rock-solid confidence from a moment before now gone from her voice. “And, I'm guessing you are…” She trailed off, abruptly looking down at her shoes.

“Adonias thinks he's funny, using the same nickname he teased me with in middle school,” Ilias muttered. “I appreciate you not laughing.”

“A-anyone who thinks calling someone else ‘mentally ill-ias’ is funny,” she said, her voice just a touch steadier this time, “can sit on a cactus.” Clearing her throat, she asked, “Your name is Ilias?”

“Of the Shroud family,” he confirmed tiredly, resting his elbows on the balustrade. “The guests none of the ‘great’ families want at their parties. I'm sure you saw my brothers inside at some point.”

Kallisto walked a little closer, linking her hands in front of her in a demure way that appeared very practiced. “You think nobody wants you at their parties? Why?”

He let out a soft snort. “That's just a fact of life for us,” he said, without animosity or condescension. “The twelve great houses and all the lesser houses never are happy about needing to invite the Shroud family to anything, even the strictly necessary stuff. It's always been that way, and that's not counting if the Jupiter family gets a patriarch who finds it more convenient to just forget to invite us.”

Kallisto let out a grumpy hum of consideration.

“Anyway, thanks for the save. I owe you one. Sorry for spoiling the fun.”

“Y-you didn't spoil—”

Ilias turned and looked at her, smiling ruefully, and her mouth shut with a click. He nodded, having expected as much. “Yeah, I did, I know,” he said, sighing and standing up straight again as he looked at her. Neither notably short or tall, with hair the color of dishwater up in a messy bun, dark blue eyes and deeply tan skin. The glasses and her nondescript, unflattering clothes made it difficult to tell at first, but she seemed to have a round face that balanced out a full mouth and somewhat chubby figure. She stood very poised and rigid—maybe she was a Corlux alumnus?—and looked like she was trying very hard to embody plainness enough to blend in with whatever wallpaper she stood near.

Something about it felt forced or false, or both.

Ilias slid his hands into his pockets and turned to walk away. It was the safer bet.

Still, he couldn't act like a total asshole.

“Have fun at the party or whatever,” he said over his shoulder.

“Wait, you're leaving?!”

She sounded genuinely shocked.

“Yeah, this scene blows,” he answered. No point in not being honest. “Not worth my time. Besides, my brothers will find me later, so it's no big deal if the middle child goes AWOL for a while.”

He continued towards the stairs that led down from the terrace, ready to make a fast escape, but apparently Kallisto wasn't easily deterred.

“Wait a sec!”

He paused and looked back over his shoulder. What was up with her anyway? If she truly was anything like how she tried to appear, then this stupid party wasn't something she gelled with either.

“What?” he asked, withholding a sense of irritation.

“Do you—” she started, then stopped, incoherent noises coming out of her mouth and growing increasingly higher in pitch until, haltingly, she managed to speak. “Would you- like to, er- go? Get a be-v’rage? At a place??”

Ilias blinked rapidly, baffled. “Huh?”

Kallisto helplessly pointed at herself, him, the hedges where she'd tossed his glass, back to him, and then between him and herself, her face going redder and redder by the second.

“I-I-I uh, I um. I owe you? A drink?” she finally said.

He blinked again, slower this time.

He had…

No clue what to make of this woman.

Still, she was being a hell of a lot nicer to him than anyone from any of the other houses had ever been. Euphemia…the name tickled at the back of his mind but he couldn't place what family that was or where they ranked among the others.

He looked her over again, and maintained in his own mind that the image she was presenting was almost totally at odds with whatever she was trying to hide. And yet, he felt a small spark of intrigue. Besides, crafted mousy appearance and all, she was—he had to admit it—cute.

“Yeah, okay,” he answered at last. “Sure.”

A look of utterly stunned surprise came over her. “Uh?”

“Let's go,” he said. “Get a beverage at a place.”

He turned back and started down the stairs, hearing her follow a moment later.

“You're buying,” he added, feeling like she probably needed a reminder. Whatever confusion he'd dealt her probably had temporarily fried her brain.

“If I do,” she said carefully, “will you answer some questions for me?”

He shrugged. “Depends on the questions, I guess.” After a beat, he added, “Might also depend on the drink.”

“I'll- I'll be s-sure to er, indulge you, then.”

—————

Taglist: @elenauaurs @blithesharem @tixdixl @inmateofthemind @simons-twsted-children @ramshacklerumble @rainesol @theleechyskrunkly @thehollowwriter (let me know if you want to be added to the taglist for my writing and posts about my OCs!)

#TWST OCs #Ilias Shroud #Kallisto Shroud #my OCs #TWSTfic #Cyanide speaks

[amlovelies]

Addie part 3: Hope

I don’t know if anyone remembers the self indulgent andromeda six fic I posted at the beginning of the year but here’s the third and final part

fandom: andromeda six

pairing: Vexx Serif/f!traveler (Adonia Peg’asi)

rating: T

words: 1k

read on ao3

part 1, part 2

             When she wakes, she is sure the night before was nothing but a dream. Hazy recollections of music and laughter tease at the edge of her consciousness. Turning over, she spots Vexx’s mask on her bedside table. The black is harsh, out of place, against the soft colors of her décor.  Hesitant fingers reach out to brush against the satin fabric. Real, not just something from a fantasy, but real and solid under her fingers.

               The pain sets in. The ache in her feet from the heels, the soreness in her muscles from hours of dancing, but that doesn’t compare to the tightness in her chest.

               She knows even if he had stayed last night, even if they had made love (and she blushes at the phrase, but all the other words feel so disconnected from what she feels. She’s never been one to use profanity and every other euphemism seems to blasé, too casual for the way her heart swells when his hands are on her) he wouldn’t have been able to spend the night. She is still a princess and he is her guard. They would not be able to have slow quiet mornings waking up in each other’s arms.

               Her dress lies crumpled and wilted by the side of her bed.

               Her lips feel bruised and when closes her eyes, she can almost feel the ghost of his lips moving over them. She can remember so many details with a vivid clarity. A cruel clarity, because it still doesn’t reveal what had gone wrong.

               The face in the mirror is a mess. Dark circles encircle her eyes, and she can see the clear path her tears took in the dark smudges down her cheeks. It all washes away easily, but the mark on her neck does not. Her fingers trace over the edge of it (not just a dream, not this time).

               She gathers up the dress and the masks and shoves them into a dark corner of her closet.

               She spends the day retracing familiar pathways in the garden. She half hopes that he will come join her as he so often did, but there isn’t any sign of him.

               Is he avoiding her? Had she misjudged so badly? There were many things that went unsaid between them, topics that they didn’t broach. But was it really so strange to think that he might want to spend the night with her?

               The day passes with agonizing slowness, and she never spots his familiar form approaching with a crooked smile and mischief in his eyes.

               Three days pass. Three days with no sign of Vexx. The other guards are no help. A shrug and apology, no one will tell her anything. She’d forgotten how quiet her life was before Vexx. Just empty rooms and empty pleasantries.

               One week and she wonders if she is a ghost. Floating through the halls alone and unnoticed, she has always been the least useful of her father’s children. Never charming enough, or smart enough, or ambitious enough. Just treading water until she can be used as a bargaining chip to shore up an alliance. Her whole life spent waiting, until Vexx, and now he’s disappeared and Addie isn’t sure if she can bear it.

               Ten days pass and she is finally able to get a moment alone with Nerissa.                

               “Perhaps he was called away to deal with family issues. I’m sure Vexx is fine.” Nerissa tells her, but Adonia doesn’t miss the crease that appears in her forehead or the way she rushes her out of the office.

               Another week passes and still Adonia hears nothing. She can’t stand to look at the dress she wore to the ball anymore and hides it in the back of the closet.

               She traces the familiar path to where the passageway leads out beyond the palace walls. Their civilian clothes are still where they left them, carefully folded and waiting for them to go on the next adventure. She had almost convinced Vexx to take her to the silver district. She could leave, go try to find him.

               But where could he even be? He mentioned growing up in the silver district, she could try there. She could also go to their favorite café, maybe the staff there had seen him. If she could at least know that he was okay.

               Something had to have happened to him.

               Her mother suggests the yellow gown for the wedding. The one that Adonia has shoved to the back of her closet. How could she ever wear it again without remembering the way Vexx’s hands had made nimble work of the buttons? How could she wear it without replaying the collection of perfect breathless moments before everything had gone wrong?

               The day of the wedding she slips into a similar gown of pale orange. This one has a zipper on the side she can easily manipulate on her own. Her mother purses her lips, but says nothing when Adonia enters the hall.

               She won’t be here long. She had made up her mind the night before. Whatever else had happened between them, she knew Vexx wouldn’t just leave her like that. He couldn’t. Something must be wrong and keeping him away from the palace.

               Getting to the silver district will be easy enough. It’s getting back that will be the hard part, but she’ll have Vexx with her when the time comes. She manages to slip out not long after the ceremony begins.

               Her change of clothes is waiting for her and she slips the music box Nerissa gave her into her pocket. It’s stupid to bring it with her, but she needs the reassurance. She needs the luck.

               Her first few steps are tentative and hesitant. The paths are familiar, and she would barely hazard a second glance if Vexx was with her, but this feels frightening and exposed. She hurries quickly toward the square where they spent so many happy hours.

               She’s almost there when the first explosion rocks the capital.

#andromeda six #a6 vexx #lovelieswrites #oc: traveler adonia #fic: adonia

[justiceforthefool]

red

Adonia could still feel the chill of the crisp, seaside air that had crept into her bones as she fled the warmth and liveliness of the Rowdy Raven. The grand halls of the palace with their high, gaudy ceilings held no more warmth than the outside, and Adonia shivered as she followed Portia’s bouncy step through her temporary home. Her companion was two steps ahead of her, and she was struggling to match her quick strides.

“C’mon Addy! We’ve drawn you a nice hot bath so you can warm up. It’s been getting dreadfully cold at night; I can’t even imagine how you must’ve felt in that outfit!” Portia exclaimed, glancing back at Adonia, who was rubbing her arms through the silky periwinkle fabric of the outfit in question.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for hours,” she groaned. She heard Portia’s tinkling laugh ahead of her.

With nothing else to focus on for the rest of their trek to the baths, Adonia settled her gaze on the woman in front of her. Portia wasn't that much shorter than she was, and only a bit sturdier. Examining her arms, though, Adonia decided Portia could probably lift significantly more weight than she could, and even though she had no reason to believe they'd ever fight, she still wouldn't like to be on the opposite end of a right hook from the red-headed woman. And speaking of red hair...

The shade of Portia’s hair reminded her of someone, of the doctor she had left behind in the tavern. The doctor who had broken into her shop in the middle of the night looking for her teacher. The doctor whose very mention had her blushing like a fool. Dr. Julian Devorak. Cheeks turning pink at the thought of him, she couldn't help but picture his red, unruly mane of hair and her own fingers running through it, pushing it gently away from his forehead.

She was torn when it came to Dr. Devorak. On the one hand, she knew that everyone, save perhaps Portia, believed he had killed Count Lucio. She had no reason to trust him or even think about him in any other light. On the other hand, though, he had not done anything particularly sinister or murderous since she had been in his company. In fact, he had been downright pleasant at the tavern. He had bought her a drink, indulged her questioning, and led her away from the palace guards (or tried to). And with how close he had been to her when he pulled her out of the barrel…

Adonia shivered, but this time it wasn't from the cold. Thoughts of Julian were coming unbidden to her now. She couldn't stop herself from thinking about his piercing grey eye, what it had looked like filled with mirth and laughter and a small twinge of pride as she revealed her attempt at reading his (atrocious) handwriting. Her thoughts moving down his face, she thought next of his strong nose and how it arched beautifully down his angular face. His lips came next, and her blush seemed to spread like wildfire across her cheeks. She was a bit ashamed to admit that she had already wondered what those lips would feel like against her own. They looked soft, warm and inviting. She hoped that someday she would be able to see for herself.

What was she thinking? She tried to snap herself out of it. Telling herself to focus on something else, like counting the steps to the bath or the number of guards they passed on the way, she tried to will thoughts of the doctor - a man suspected for murder - out of her mind. To no avail. Thoughts of his warm breath, of his throaty chuckle consumed her thoughts.

Was this man a murderer? Adonia very much hoped he wasn't. Something in her gut was telling her not to believe everything she had heard so far, and she had trusted her gut to get her this far (the difference was that now her stomach was full of butterflies as well thanks to him). At the very least, she knew in her heart that Julian Devorak was not an evil man.

Portia spoke, breaking the silence in the halls and scaring Adonia out of her reverie.

“You've been awfully quiet Addy. And you're a bit pink, are you alright?” She slowed her pace, matching Adonia’s own. A crease of worry knit itself between her brows as she glanced up at her friend.

“I'm fine, Portia. Just… admiring your hair,” Adonia said, smiling reassuringly.

“My hair?” Portia looked a bit shocked as she twisted a curl around her finger to examine it. Giving the curl a good tug, she beamed at Adonia. “Why, thank you! Sometimes it's so hard to keep in order. I usually just let the curls do what they want.”

“Well, I think your curls are lovely. As is the color of your hair.” Cheeks warm, Adonia realized that she had gained a new appreciation for red curly hair. “A beautiful red.”

#the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana fanfic #oc: adonia #fanapp #mine #julian devorak #portia devorak #listen i would die for them #my ginger bbs #also this is my first fic on tumblr #blease be gentle

[tatooine92]

Homeward, ch. 7 (POTC OC)

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, Adonia Barbossa was abandoned as a child by her father for no discernible reason. Now a pirate captain in her own right, she seeks him to finally demand answers.

Rating: T for language and any various and sundry innuendoes.

A/N: Y’all, I’m really sorry. Stuff at work completely stole my will to write. This may not be a very good chapter, but I wrote it, and that makes me happy. :)

Shoutouts: @soulventure91, @and-will-nice-hat, @queen-scribbles

Present.

"I've seen worse, capitaine, don't worry so much," Jim said with an unconvincing calmness.  

Adonia looked over her shoulder and shot him a glare from where she stood by the tiny window in her equally tiny quarters, cradling her healing arm in its sling. Beckett's ship, the Endeavour, had towed the Dainty Lass from Cuba back to Port Royal, and now Adonia and her crew were being housed ashore while the Lass was repaired—all an elaborate ruse to give her the illusion of freedom while ensuring she didn't run for it. Might as well have thrown them all in prison. At least this way, even if there were guards outside the door, Jim or anyone else from the Lass could come see their captain.

"Aye, you have," she grumbled, "but for us, here, now, in this situation, it is bad. I'll not apologize for worryin'."

She could see the bay from her window, but not the Lass. She had no idea if Beckett had ordered her scrapped just for good measure, or perhaps repainted in Company colors. All she could see were the distant, teal waves of the sea, taunting her. That was all she had seen as they returned. She hadn't seen Port Royal in three years, but now it seemed grim, as if the life of a bustling colony town had been squeezed out of it like water from a rag. Even with the sun above, it all seemed gray. Instead of a garrison of Royal Navy forces, now it was the hub of the Company's operations here. She loved money as much as the next pirate, but, God, it seemed such a burdensome force when it dictated people's lives like this.  

"We are alive," Jim pressed. "We may not like how that bargain was struck, but I tell you even Thom is grateful to live."

"Aye, for now. And what happens when we're forced to fire upon our own kind?"

What happens if my father sees me flying their colors?

Jim didn't have an answer for her, but Adonia knew he was mulling it over, so she didn't press him. He drummed his fingers on his thigh as he sat across the room from her, and she leaned against the window, trying to get a better angle to see if she could see the Lass. Still no.

"Dammit," she sighed.

This waiting game was like to drive her mad. Maybe that was what Beckett was counting on! She already knew she was a hostage, but one plied with a bed and hot meals. Maybe Beckett hoped to steal her crew from her with offers of higher wages, softer beds, prettier whores. But she knew her men. They'd not leave her for a shilling. For the finest rum and the absolute prettiest whore in Tortuga, maybe, but not for a shilling.  

There was a soft knock on the door. Adonia turned, brow arching in surprise when the door didn't immediately open. Jim gave her a furrowed-brow look of uncertainty and got up to answer the door on her behalf. He cracked open the door with a gruff, wary "Qui est-ce?"

"It's Jim, isn't it?" Adonia recognized Lieutenant Groves' voice. "May I see your captain, Jim? Is she within?"

"Let him in," Adonia told Jim. "I don't think this one's come to assassinate me."

"Is that a common concern?" Groves asked as Jim stepped aside and allowed him through.

"I'm not really sure," she replied. "I've never been a hostage before."

Jim snorted a laugh and returned to his chair, fetching his journal and pencil, the two personal items he had, and opening to a blank page. The soft skritch sounds of his work seemed to echo like a clock ticking as Groves awkwardly cleared his throat.  

"I'm sorry this is going so badly for you, Captain Barbossa," he said.  

"At least for right now there's not a gallows with my name on it."

"A gallows...?"

Without a word, Adonia opened the window and gestured Groves to lean close. Over the squawking gulls and the rush of the sea, they could hear the unmistakable dull thud of a gallows trapdoor opening, followed by the inevitable gurgling and choking as the rope tightened. The gruesome noises echoed from the nearby fort courtyard, and Groves paled.

"I—I didn't realize..."

"That Lord Beckett put me in this chamber on purpose?"

"...that he was continuing the hangings. I thought... once he began coaxing the Brethren out of hiding..."

"Allow me a moment of unrepentant cynicism, lieutenant. Folk like Beckett, they get drunk on cruelty rather than rum. I'd not be a bit surprised if he's kept it up just for his amusement."

"...I suppose I knew that," Groves sighed as he shifted back from the window. "It's just that all of this—Beckett's takeover, the hangings, the whole lot—happened so quickly. Speaking for myself, I've barely had time to contemplate the man in whose service I now find myself."

"Find yourself?" Adonia asked, pulling the window closed. Groves nodded.

"Yes. When Lord Beckett arrived in Port Royal, he came with either the king's authority or his ignorance—"

"Aye, well, depending on the day, they're much the same thing."

"Indeed." Groves let out a derisive snort that, just for a moment, showed Adonia how frustrated he was in that blue and gold coat. "But he arrived in Port Royal, and some of us found ourselves suddenly working out our commissions in much different ways than we had expected. I knew we were in for a difficult run when he arrested both the governor and his daughter, but..."

His gaze skipped to the window. An unconscious shudder rippled through his frame. Adonia's brows furrowed. He doesn't want to be here, either.  

"...we rounded up women and children, too," Groves murmured. His gaze was distant, and now his body had half-turned away from Adonia. She tensed with unease. Why confess to her? "Literally any soul who could even remotely be accused of associating with pirates. We didn't even interrogate them. We just—"

He stopped himself as if seeming to remember where he was. Jim's sketching had stopped. The only sound in the room was the soft, incessant ticking of a timepiece by the bed. Adonia looked down and picked at a loose thread on her coat cuff. Groves cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Forgive me," he said. "I did not mean to—that is, I came only to ensure your welfare."

"Well, we're faring," Adonia replied.  

"Then I should leave you be. Certainly, if I hear news of your ship's progress, I'll return with it."

Groves dipped his head in farewell as he turned to go. Adonia glanced out the window at the distant sea and sighed.

"How long were ye looking for me, lieutenant?"

She heard Groves swallow uncomfortably.

"Lord Beckett has sought out every possible pirate or pirate-associated person since his arrival some months ago," he replied. "It's almost a miracle you evaded him this long."

"Not a miracle—cleverness. But, again, how long were ye looking for me, specifically?"

"...ah. After your, er, mercantile scam, there was an open warrant for your arrest, though I'm sure you were aware of that."

"To be expected, aye."

"And Lord Beckett did, of course, have plans to capture you. But then just recently he found a new ally in the pirate lord of Singapore, Sao Feng, who gave up the identity of your father as another pirate lord. So, he's kept you in his sights for this specific reason for less than a month. Not long at all.

"I am sorry, though," he continued, his gaze dropping. "It was unfair to use your father against you. To trap you with the hope of meeting him again... I can only imagine how you felt."

"Can ye?" Adonia asked, turning fully toward him. Across the room, Jim muttered "Eh, merde." Adonia's hands dropped to her side in clenched fists. "To be manipulated, played, into the hands of a bastard like Beckett, when all I wanted was to demand answers of why the man what called himself my father abandoned me?"  

"Abandoned you?" Groves asked. "I thought—"

"That we'd have a happy reunion? Nay. My father, such as he is, dumped me on an empty dock when I was a bitty six years old with nary a reason nor explanation, save that I no longer had a place on his ship. So for eleven years I've been on me own, strugglin' to survive—because that's what I do, lieutenant, I survive—while he's been off gallivanting and God knows what else, freed of the burden of a child he claimed to love. And I'd intended to ask him why."

Silence hung in the air between them. Flushed with fury, Adonia realized how much tension she held in her frame, and she tried to relax her fists, to no avail. She folded her arms tightly and sighed, trying to follow the sigh with a deep breath. The look of surprise and—dare she say—sympathy on Groves' face made her squirm uncomfortably. I don't want your pity. I want my revenge.

"I'm so sorry, captain," he murmured. "I had no idea. I would not wish such a childhood upon anyone, though I can't help but wonder if—"

"If what?" Her eyes narrowed uneasily. Groves tilted his head slightly, as if gauging her response.

"I... assumed you'd heard of what befell your father."

Adonia said nothing, cocking her head and furrowing her brows. What the hell was he on about? She'd heard nothing of her father in eleven years—nothing of any detail, anyway. There were the usual stories of the Black Pearl seen pillaging and plundering, and aye, she'd noticed a fair number of uneasy glances and whispers at the sound of her last name, but...

"Ye'd best speak quick, lieutenant," she said, "and tell me what ye mean."

"About three years ago, my former commander pursued a ship of cursed pirates across the seas—vengeful and cruel, unable to die. The ship was the Black Pearl, and I remember distinctly that your father was her captain, though I did not have the privilege of making his acquaintance. I was not privy to all the details, but Commodore Norrington was able to defeat the pirates only when their curse was broken and your father killed."

The world seemed to abruptly clench around Adonia, squeezing her head at the temples and knocking the breath from her chest. She sagged into the windowsill, her nails digging into the wood. The rumor was true? Anger burned in her chest, and vengeful tears stung her eyes as she looked up at Groves. It wasn't until she felt Jim's hands on her shoulders that she realized she was visibly shaking and hadn't breathed. She gasped raggedly.  

"Dead?" It's all a lie, I'm being lured to my death for a lie, Papa's not a pirate lord, he's not even alive, he's been dead three years and I never even knew...

"Yes, he was. Was!" Groves quickly crossed back to her and crouched beside her, a hand on the windowsill as he looked up at her with soft, apologetic eyes. "I'm so sorry, captain, I didn't finish—Feng testified that your father had come to see him in Singapore, and that is how Feng knew of the Brethren's gathering. I have no idea how he could be dead and then return, but—"

"What is the testimony of a pirate worth to you?" Adonia choked. "Maybe Sao Feng lied! Maybe you've all lied to me and I should kill ye where ye stand."

"...I would appreciate it if you did not, but I would understand if you did," Groves murmured. Adonia stopped cold at that. No, no, she'd not kill a man who had nothing to do with it. A man like this, who looked at her with such gentleness and blushed when they spoke, was a man trapped by orders when his nature was far better than this. She sucked in another shaky breath.

"I'll save my shot for Beckett," she sighed, "if I ever get the chance. So is my father alive or not?"

"A pirate would lie about many things, I'm sure," Groves replied, "but Sao Feng was too eager to save himself. Besides, Beckett's man Mercer corroborated Feng's story and saw your father as well. I'm so sorry, captain. I should have opened with that."

"Aye, that's true." She realized suddenly that her grip had shifted from the windowsill to his shoulder. She swallowed hard and pulled her hand away. "So I am well and truly bait."

"...yes. I'm sorry."

"If ye keep bein' sorry about this, then ye'll not have sorry left for the big mistakes," Adonia snorted. She took one last deep breath to steady herself. Think, Addie, use your brain. You're clever and quick. Best begin to act it. "I understand a man followin' orders. It's not ye I despise.

"Besides," she continued, mustering a smile, "how could I be cruel to me very best customer?"

Groves flushed the color of Adonia's hair and got to his feet, stammering. It's just shirts, she wanted to say to him, but instead she smirked silently and let him fret. It was amusing, in its way, though she couldn't figure why she'd send him into a tizzy like that. Jim chuckled, low in his throat, beside her.

"Well, I—I believe I've overstayed my welcome, as I'd only come to ensure your welfare—" Groves muttered, turning quickly for the door.

"Don't be a stranger!" Adonia called. "I may have more shirts for ye next time!"

The last thing Groves heard as he closed the door was her bright, trilling laugh. Adonia waited for his footsteps to fade down the hall before she looked up at Jim.

"What do ye make of all that, then?"

"Don't think you should've told him about your childhood," Jim mused. "Might come back to find it used against you. But then, maybe not by that boy. Seems to admire you."

"He'd better not," Adonia said. "Admiring a pirate will get him killed."

I hope he doesn't come back. He's too decent to lose his life for talkin' to the likes of me.

"Might be worth checkin' into, this thing about a curse," Jim added. "Might explain a few things."

"Aye, it might at that." I asked you if the treasure was sick, Papa. Why did you lie? "So we continue as planned. We sail so politely and do as told, and when we find my father..."

She trailed off, but Jim nodded in understanding and agreement. Adonia picked herself up and neatened her coat, looking out the window. One day I'll have the truth.

#steph writes #potc fic #potc oc #adonia barbossa #theodore groves

[brekkingthebedwithbuckybarnes]

James ‘Bucky’ Barnes

Chapter 1

OC x Bucky Barnes

Tagging: @vodka-and-some-sass thanks for always being my beta and best friend.

Disclaimer: (This is my first fic on here so I hope it isn’t too bad.) Fluff.

Summary: Adonia is spent with work and exhaustion and missing her best friend. She also doesn’t want to deal with her growing affection for the man with the troubled past, whom everyone seems to be a little worried of. But alas.

It had been a disgustingly long day at the lab. Countless samples, countless tests for each of them, on and on. Addy was sick of vials and thought she’d throw herself out of a window if she saw another one handed to her. Filing the final results away on the hard drive, she packed up and got into the sterilising shower. The only thoughts in her head as she removed her HAZMAT suit were that the yellow was bright enough to give her a migraine and that her bed was only half an hour away.

Stepping out of the lab, she made a beeline for her office, grabbing her bag, phone and car keys and made to leave when a note on the desk caught her eye. “Stark called. Meet him at the compound ASAP. Important.” Sarah’s handwriting. “I’m going to kill all of them someday”, muttered Addy, as she stuffed herself into her coat and took the elevator down, stomped to her parked car and drove the half hour to the Avengers compound. Parking at her usual spot, she walked into the building, the gates opening automatically for her.

Tony was waiting with Steve, locked in an aggressive but whispered conversation. Both of them shut up as she walked up to them, turning to her with troubled faces.

“What is it, Stark?” Addy grumbled.

“Trouble town with Manchurian Candidate”, Tony replied. “The medics haven’t been able to get any answers about it. We were hoping you could have a look?”

“A look. If anyone hands me even a single tiny Eppendorf, there will be smashed windows and I won’t apologise or pay for them.” Taken aback, the two men trailed after her, confused at the unnatural outburst.

She could hear Steve ask Tony what an Eppendorf was and normally she’d have turned around and explained but she was in a mood. Nothing to be done about it.

She turned only when they stepped out of the elevator Tony had taken them up on and he silently led the way to one of the in house labs. On other days, Adonia could spend hours on end in them, but not now. The stress had been eating her head off, and not being able to sleep wasn’t really helping with it.

The three of them entered an examination area, where James was leaning against the headboard, staring into space. “Why him?” was the first thought to flit through Addy’s head before irritated confusion took its place. He sat up when the three of them came in, and said, “Well, Stark, am I being released or is there another evaluation you want to do?” He raised his eyebrows at her, and it annoyed Addy to no end.

“We need answers to why that happened, Barnes, and who better than her-”

“If you’re not going to tell me what 'happened’, I might as well go get that sandwich and some sleep”, Addy snapped. She’d had enough of the twisted words. “Come on, Stark, what’s the problem?”

“Bucky lost control of the arm today. You needn’t have worried about smashing things, he already did that’s already done,” Steve replied quietly. “He did what?!” Adonia now turned to the painfully handsome man sitting with his face ravaged by guilt. “What did you do, James? What happened?” He looked up at the two boys, and Addy in turn gave them a silent command to leave them alone.

“I don’t know” were the first words out of him.

This was going to last even longer than she’d thought. Addy rubbed her eyes. Settling down on the chair opposite him, she kicked off her heels and tucked in her legs under her.

Bucky didn’t miss any movement, it was like he was fixated on her feet, memorising every little thing about them. Bucky, she thought of him as Bucky already, but she called him James. Nicknames felt too personal and she wasn’t ready for it yet.

“James-” “It’s Bucky”, he cut in.

Addy bit her lip. He wasn’t helping matters.

“How about we just talk about what happened? Can you tell me who was here, what you were doing?”

He released a sigh, as if he was tired of the same questions everyone was asking.

He looked away and shifted where he was sitting, half turned away from Adonia, who was trying not to lose her patience.

“It wasn’t even here. I was in the lounge, just… doing nothing. Everyone else was busy with their stuff, Peter had popped in to say hi in between somewhere and everything was as boring as it gets.” A pause.

Addy fought against squirming in the chair and waited.

“I think Nat had texted with her strings of photo faces that I still can’t understand and then a call came. I hadn’t glanced at it, I just thought she’d called to explain the text, but it was a man. Selling some mixer juicer. I don’t know what happened after that, I lost it.”

“Lost it?” Addy had her head on the back of the chair. Definitely a migraine coming on.

“I don’t know what happened, but one second I was fine and the next second I’d thrown the coffee table to the other end of the room and split the cushions. I think some stuff went through the windows too.”

He managed a sidelong glance at Adonia. She just nodded to continue. Sleep, she wanted to sleep so badly.

James was picking at his jacket sleeve as he mumbled out,“ I may have hurled a man into glass doors when he came to see what the noise was.”

“You did WHAT?!” Adonia sat up straighter.

“Yeah, he was the first to come in, it didn’t go well and I’m sorry, okay, I’ve said that repeatedly. I don’t know what had gotten into me.” He looked at her then, his beautiful crystal blue eyes laced with guilt and sorrow and the frustration of not knowing.

Adonia had never been able to hold that gaze for too long before feeling like she was drowning in the blue. She couldn’t hold it now. Her brain was spinning, trying to come up with any possible explanation. She’d been called in because she specialised in neural cell signalling. They thought the Hydra programming was resurfacing, she realised. They needed her to confirm it.

James watched her for a couple of minutes, the clever mind he was so in awe of since he’d met her working at an astonishing speed. It was like he could see the theories she was considering and dismissing. He thought it was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen. He’d scared her, when he

talked about flinging the man. He saw it in her eyes, warm like freshly grounded coffee, before he saw her believing him when he’d said he was sorry. He truly was and would have hugged her then and there for being the only one who’d believed.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” James asked cautiously, hoping his voice didn’t betray what he was thinking.

Addy jumped out of that daze of knowledge she’d filed away in her brain. That beautiful thing, Bucky thought before pushing it away.

“I…I have a few things I’d need to confirm before I reach a conclusion, so I can’t really be sure right now what to say to you,” she said sheepishly. This fucking migraine.

James released another sigh and Addy snapped, “Stop that.”

“What?”

“Sighing.”

“You want me to stop sighing? Why, did it hurt someone?”

Now she loosed a sigh of her own, rubbing the heels of her hands on her forehead. She was the picture of exhaustion, except for the look in her eyes when she raised her head.

There was something fierce in her face as she said, “It doesn’t help matters when you think you should be in prison or something at the drop of a hat.”

“I didn’t say any of that”, James countered.

“You were thinking it, I know,” she said as she got up and picker up her shoes. Fucking heels. “I have tomorrow off from the lab so I’ll run some tests, if you don’t mind. Then we’ll see.”

“Tony won’t be too happy to wait till tomorrow for answers.” Addy almost smiled at the look of surprise on his face.

“Then Tony can deal with it himself. I can’t handle any more Eppendorfs, I think I’ll hurl myself into a glass door if I see one now,” she said as she picked up her bag.

“What’s an Eppendorf?” James asked, as he stood and rolled his shoulders. He’d been sitting, waiting for that punishment, for a long time. He’d lied to Adonia when he’d said he wasn’t thinking like that and he was a little pleased she’d known it.

“Vial. Please don’t make me say it again, I hate them for the day,” she said as she headed for the door, holding it open for him to leave too.

“I should be holding it open for you,” said James, resting his metal hand over her small one.

“Oh please”, Addy was rolling her eyes.

So close. He was too close. It didn’t help her with the matter of thinking straight.

“After you, darling,” James drawled. Teasing her, if only to banish that weary look from her cute face.

He smirked as he saw the word work it’s magic as she straightened, tried to avoid looking at him and stepped out. She waited till he’d walked out and then almost smashed through the sensor as she locked the lab with her fingerprint.

Adonia noticed James’s toopleasedwithhimself expression and it irked her to no end. “Where’s the nervousness gone, Barnes?”

“Well, you assured me I wasn’t getting thrown out, so why should I hold it to my chest?” He was unabashedly grinning now, something he rarely did and she almost never saw. It took her breath away.

They got into the elevator and made it to the lounge floor, Adonia trying to ignore the fact that her head felt like a plane had crashed multiple times on it and James trying to puzzle out her pained expression.

“Something the matter, darling?” he asked finally, as they stepped out.

“You trashed a perfectly nice lounge and you ask me if something is wrong?” She immediately felt guilty for the jab as he winced. “Just a tiring day at the lab. Sorry.”

Tony looked up from where the rest of them were sitting and beckoned them closer. “Figured anything out, genius?”

“I’ll need to run a few tests to confirm what I suspect, but that’ll be tomorrow. I’ll also need his vitals from right after for it,” Addy said, hopping on her bare feet, trying to remain standing though her ankles felt like jelly.

“Oh? And why not today? It’s just 8 and you live here so it’s not like you have to get home late,” Tony turned his chair at them.

She felt James preparing to answer but said before he got the chance to open his mouth, “I’d warned you, Stark. No vials. I want to sleep. Goodnight y'all.”

Addy turned to go to her suite, feeling like she could sprint to it, when she heard Tony say, “We need to keep an eye on you, Manchurian Candidate. Can’t have another incident.”

“Yeah, I know, Stark.”

“I’ll have some security posted out your room and have AI monitoring-”

“You will do nothing of that sort.” All of them jumped at the fury in Adonia’s voice as she whirled around, her face filled with rage. “You will only aggravate whatever happened, and he isn’t a monster, Stark, so don’t you dare.”

Everyone was taken aback by her anger, they’d never known her to lose her temper. She’d fumed earlier but had never outright shouted at them. James looked as though he might have kissed her. And it was that look that checked her and she said a little more calmly, “Supervision to prevent destruction, yes. But don’t be like he’s some twisted monster who’ll tear everything apart. He’s human, he was brutally tortured and he’s just started healing. Don’t undo it. He’s one of us, treat him like it.” With that, Adonia turned and walked away, not trusting herself to keep her emotions in check anymore. The dull pounding had increased to excruciating pain. She’d need a whole jar of painkillers to get through the night. She wanted to cry.

She hadn’t noticed James following her back to the elevator noiselessly and only realised when she was in it and punched her floor number and he rushed in just before the door closed.

“What now? I just want to sleep, so please don’t let it be a long story.” Her voice felt like someone had run a tractor over her vocal cords.

“It’s not a long story,” he looked sheepish as he said it. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For saying I’ll run tests tomorrow?”

“For believing in me. Even Steve sometimes looks at me like I’m a terrible wild beast, like I’ll rip apart everyone around me. Only you don’t. Only you think I don’t need sentries and round the clock observation. Only you think….think that I don’t want to hurt anyone.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat before continuing, “So, thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me for treating you right. Everyone else should too and I’ll make them do it, at gunpoint if necessary,” Addy said, glaring at the elevator controls to focus on speaking, anything other than the man beside her, and the pounding heart which now joined the pounding in her brain.

They had suites on the same floor. Addy glanced at the adjacent door, noticing it locked still. Ames would have helped sort things out, but she’d been gone so long.

James noticed her looking at her best friend’s door. His gaze softened even more as he lifted her chin with his metal hand, the vibranium cold against her skin. “She’ll be back soon, to torment us to death with her stories and lame jokes. Don’t worry.”

Addy smiled at his words, “She has the lamest jokes always, more lame than even Old Man Steve’s” and James thought his heart might explode with the warmth that spread through his chest at that little smile.

“Goodnight, Adonia. And thank you again,” he said as he let go off her chin.

Addy turned to her door and looked back with her hand on the knob, which unlocked at her touch,

“Don’t thank me yet, I still haven’t run the tests.”

“What time do you want to do it?” James crossed his arms against his chest.

She thought for a while and said, “9, after breakfast.”

James only nodded and smiled at her as she made to go in. He strode towards his own room across the common landing, clearing the distance quickly with his long strides.

“Oh, and Adonia?” he called out as she’d been about to close her door. She paused. “Have an antacid pill along with the painkiller. And have them both only after you’ve had food. I told them to send dinner up to your room. I’ll know if you had the meds before eating.”

She’d thought she’d make a meal out of the biscuits and sweets she stocked in her room, and had dismissed the craving for a hot meal when her body had stopped cooperating at all.

So when he said he’d ordered food up, and the antacid she’d forgotten about, she realised, it wasn’t false gratitude shining on her face. She’d have run across the gap separating their rooms if not for the migraine and her aching legs and the exhaustion that the insomnia bouts had brought with it. So she beamed at him instead as he smiled back, pleased at being able to wipe away at least a little worry from her face.

“Thank you, Bucky, and goodnight.”

It was only after the two of them had shut their doors and Addy had had her dinner and meds and had sunk deep into her mattress and numerous quilts that it hit her.

She’d called him Bucky.

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #marvel #fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #firststeps

[trekkele]

1. Favorite star trek fics? 2. Favorite star trek tos episode? 3. Favorite quote from a book?

Favorite star trek fics?

Oh thank goodness you asked fics. I’m going to choose a few from my bookmarks.

Palimpsest - literally one of the most finely crafted and fantastic fics out there. Must be read in the recommended order (its the start of a series). I highly suggest that anyone in any fandom read it if only because it’s so damn good. If I could buy this in a hardcover edition I would.

By Any Other Name (The Man is Still the Same) - an absolutely delightful character study wrapped up in Spock trying to understand Jim, until he suddenly does.

Left Unsaid - Jim is a disaster and needs to be forced to talk about his feelings, but this more fluffy and funny then angsty. Fun coda to Beyond.

Captain’s Log - a two part series that is literally the funniest thing I’ve read in this fandom. Jim is a competent fratboy. (Thats the authors tag)

I will literally go on and on so if you want more please ask! Maybe by category lol.

Favorite TOS Episode?

I actually really like Mudd’s Women. Journey to Babel, Who Mourns for Adonias, and the Trouble with Tribbles are all episodes I would rewatch at any time.

I think it’s obvious by now I have trouble choosing one of anything lol.

Favorite quote from a book?

[He tells me that in his childhood, after I was in Battle School, he decided that the only way to succeed in his work was to deceive people into thinking he was as lovable as me. [—] So from then on he looked at his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, than you are indistinguishable from a good person.]

Ender in Exile, Orson Scott Card.

(Or at least this is one of them)

#asks #anonymously ask three things you want to know about me #ask games

[adrianicsea]

for fanfic asks: f, g, h & s!

HELL YEAH thank you!!

F- share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes and explain why you’re proud of it- ah jeez..... probably this exchange between logan and juliet from aquaphoria (edited here for brevity):

“Sorry,” she said. “Editing’s been a bitch lately.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“You wanna listen to it?”

Logan nodded as he looked up at Juliet from his place on the couch.

“Of course I do,” Logan softly said. “You know I love your stories.”

Logan was pleased to see Juliet finally relax her jaw.

“Thanks, Low,” she said. “But first, do you want some coffee or anything? Aunt Adonia sent me some melomakarona the other day—”

 Within seconds, Logan was on his feet and heading for Juliet’s kitchen.

“You take it easy, Jules!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll make the coffee, don’t worry.”

Logan heard Juliet laugh behind him as he entered Juliet’s kitchen. He beelined for the large plate of cookies sitting on the island and picked one up. It was a bit sticky in his hand, and pieces of chopped walnut fell onto the plate below.

“I can’t believe she sent you all of these and didn’t send me any,” Logan called back to the living room. He took a bite of the cookie and groaned as the taste of honey and orange filled his mouth, along with a slight edge of brandy. “I mean, what the hell? It’s not even close to Christmas!”

“Well, you know how Adonia is about the arts, Logan,” came Juliet’s response. “Maybe she’d send you cookies if you took up painting or something.”

“Whatever,” Logan grumbled to himself.

i really enjoyed writing these two together because like.... their relationship’s got so much potential! we know that the twins really care for each other, and yet they’ve never interacted with one another in canon. it’s impossible to say whether or not my portrayal is faithful to canon, since there’s no canon to be faithful to, but i like to believe that i struck a good balance between logan’s laissez-faire attitude and his genuine love for his sister. i also really enjoyed working in a little bit of lore about the delos family tree and heritage-- melomakarona are cookies made in greece, often around christmastime! it seemed fitting for the delos family, named after a greek island, to have some greek family and culture.

G- do you write your stories start to finish, or out of chronological order?- it depends!!! sometimes i can get a story flowing and bust out the initial draft from start to finish, but other times i struggle with the beginning and jump in on a random scene to fill the rest out later. even when i write stuff start-to-end, though, i usually end up adding additional scenes later on to help the story flow better or to add a little extra je ne sais quois

H- how would you describe your style?- well every time i’ve tried iwl.me for the past two years since i’ve REALLY locked down my writing voice, it’s told me agatha christie.... so like agatha christie i guess, lmao (although i’ve never read her work, so i can’t say for myself). i tend to focus a lot on character and lore expansion in my fic writing, and i would say a hallmark of mine is my tendency to splash description here and there in broad strokes throughout my writing instead of frontloading it all at the start of a new paragraph!

S- any fandom tropes you can’t resist?- there’s several i love to read about, but i don’t think i’ve really.... written many? i used to write a lot of urban fantasy/werewolf AUs but i kind of put those on the backburner because of the reputation they tend to have these days lol

#long post #my writing #sorry for answering this so late like a Fool #tumblr mobile doesn't give me ask notifications anymore lol #logandelos #asks

[starcunning]

2018 in Writing

I’m a triple threat: art, writing, and baking. (There will not be a “2018 in Cooking” list. Sorry.)

January

Nothing long-form, here are some vignettes: Chilson Hector and Astyanax sing a duet

“What is it?” “A song I used to know,” Chilson said. “Something he used to know.” “Oh,” Astyanax said. It wasn’t often his father spoke of his … gene-sire? Father? Former incarnation? Hastur Sejanus had been likened to all these things, but none of them quite fit. Rather than say more, Astyanax lifted fingers to the keys, picking out part of the melody. “There are two voices.” “He used to sing it with his best friend,” Chilson said, his blue eyes distant through the haze of foreign memory.

Tatianna Adonia at sword drill

It was difficult, to be the youngest. To stand furthest from the glory of their forebear, not to envy the laurels that longer service ensured. Saint Alcuin taught humility, and it was this that Tatianna held in her mind as she reversed direction. Each step was a deliberate retreat, her blade brought across her body to defend. The tail of her long queue of blonde hair batted against her shoulderblades with each repetition.

February

Falling Snows

Haurchefant would not be waiting for her at breakfast. The afternoon before, he had kissed her forehead and rode for Ishgard. They would be better protected on the far side of the Steps of Faith, he told her, and he meant to sue for her safety.

He had promised to return, but she had heard such promises before.

March

Excerpts from My Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, my Brother, & Me

Fulgrim: [laughs] Beach tee shirts relax me now! I don’t know what it is! Ferrus Manus: [over] We’re killing fashion, one shirt at a time! Take that. Fulgrim: I would–I .. So .. So sue me! It’s October in West Chemos, I’d like to live on island time for a day! Ferrus Manus: You … Fulgrim: Cut me some slack! Ferrus Manus: I have Spotify open right now on my computer. Do you want me to blast you? Do you want me to put you on blast? 'Cause I got your history right here in the sidebar.  

April

This Beast that Rends Me

“I did it, I suppose, because Nael van Darnus saw a city destroyed and pulled the moon from orbit under the thumb of a god. Our aetherial deficiency is no shield against the influence of eikons, and so, there being but one aegis to adopt, we set forth.” “What would you have done?” Shasi wondered. “Been their Warrior of Light? It is a weightier task than you know.” She could hear the tremble in her voice, and wished she had not spoken.

He came to sit at her feet. “Why?” he said. “The duty of the Warrior of Light is to live,” she said. “For that reason alone I had not thought you would want it. To live, while others die for you.”

May

Untoward [NSFW]

She looked utterly miserable. He had seen her wear this sort of expression but rarely before, and now there it was, darkening her features, and it was his fault. The thought lanced through him, driving him back from the mouth of the stairwell, and he stood, looking transfixed at that forlorn expression a moment longer.

And then, like the child he was, he retreated down the stairs to curl up under the blankets. He wanted to cry, for no reason he could name exactly, but he knew he didn’t deserve to.

June

Elf Nonsense [published in The Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron]

When I woke up in the morning—and I use the term loosely here; I was often asleep until mid-afternoon—my first thought was of my elf. When I went to sleep, often in the dawn hours, my last thought was of her, too. My life became an infinite loop between my bed and my desk. Everything else fell by the wayside.

July

Cassilda oen Domitius and Nael van Darnus: “Kiss me.”

Cassilda might have feared her once; that she was dangerous was common knowledge, with a temper as keen as her gunhalberd’s blade. But the Seventh was no place for soft hearts, and though Cassilda was no trained killer as were her compatriots, she had found the same steel in her spine not long after her assignment.

No, it was something else about Nael van Darnus that intimidated her now.

August

Imogen Spencer and Faustus lux Gereon: “Can I touch you?”

The elezen’s long, elegant fingers were absent the sort of calluses she’d have expected from a soldier—neither did he have the bearing of one, precisely, so perhaps his build had misled her. His hands were cold beneath her own, and she placed them carefully upon the piano keys. The melody she played was simple enough, and she could hardly stop herself from giggling, feeling all at once giddy and girlish. At the Studium she might never have dared, but Sharlayan was far behind her for the nonce, and the world was wide and open and full of such wonders.

September

30-Day OTP Challenge: First Date

Blood smeared his flesh, the same crimson as his tattoos where they wound around his artery. She felt, beneath her fingers, the faintest flutter of a pulse.

She fluttered too, wings of hope beating like moths against her chest.

October

Flow

His name is Thancred Waters.

If he has any hope of surviving, it is in remembering that. He recalls his last moments as a man, in the dank darkness of a sewer.

November

Suffer Me to Cherish You

“When she fought Ifrit … was she afraid?” Shasi wondered. “I don’t know,” Fray said, and it seemed to trouble him. “She was cutting me off already even then. Were you?” “When I first came here? Of course,” she said. “My number was up. Me and my squad. First wave.” “But still you fought.” “I am usually afraid,” Shasi admitted. “And I always fight.”

December

Catocala ilia

“Now you,” he said. “Now I what?” Kallisti asked, dumbstruck as a child. He scoffed, annoyed, turning his masked face from her once more. “Does She teach Her servants nothing?” he groused. “I can tear your defenses down myself, but don’t you think I have enough to do?” Kallisti shivered in the coldness of the night. It was a different darkness than the one which dwelt in him, she realized, and wondered how she had thought all darkness was the same. Had she not learned better in the instant that Elidibus touched her, cold as distant stars?

So there’s no way I’m finishing the Erebidae this year. Sorry about that. Nevertheless, it was an incredible year for me as a writer--I had work published for the first time since 2004 (today, December 31st, is the very last day that donations will be collected from sales of The Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron, benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.). I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time ever, and also wrote a 50,000 word novella in April independent of that organization--just to do it, basically. I also finished a 30-day writing challenge in September. As best I can count it, I wrote 189,662 words in 2018.

In 2019 I’d like to contribute to another zine or project and maybe join a fic exchange. I intend to write two more novellas next year as well. My intention was for both of them to be fanfiction, but I might change my mind and do some original work instead.

#2018 retrospective

[cracktheglasses]

Are there any fandoms you would have been in, if you'd had the internet at the time?

Hmm, this is actually kind of hard to answer! Fandom is pretty much one of the first things I used the internet for, back in 199(4?)(5?). I don’t remember which year I’d discovered ABAR (the alt.books.anne-rice Usenet group), but it was definitely after I’d discovered BBSes, so I’m thinking ‘95. 

My very first American best friend (read, fellow nerd who didn’t judge me too hard for my own nerdery, accent, being a ‘commie’, weird clothes, and all the other shit that contributed to my having a profoundly miserable school experience) and I were obsessed, no, make that OBSESSED with the Vampire Chronicles, which formed the initial basis of our friendship. We read the existing books, we saw the movie, we even read other, non-vampire Anne Rice books. Yes, even Exit to Eden, and I, ever the precocious little jackass, the Sleeping Beauty series (no, I was not supervised in my reading at all, plus, well, the books were already in the house, so all I had to do was steal them to my bedroom, which I did).

Eventually, we added a third fellow nerd, engaged in what I would now describe as lengthy and involved RP sessions with our OCs, and, uh. May have made ourselves some absolutely ridiculous “Give Blood. Save The Vampires” t-shirts (black, naturally, with red très gothic font lettering over white). We thought we were hot shit. I am fairly certain my shirt is still packed up somewhere in my stepfather’s house, and to be honest, if I could fit into it again, I would wear it in a heartbeat.

Anyway, as the only (at the time) internet-haver in our little trio (oh, that 28.8 modem getting upgraded to 33.6 and then eventually to 56K was probably the highlight of the mid-90s for me), I (of course) searched for anything to enhance our Mary Sue sessions, and so I found alt.books.anne-rice, started writing an absolutely gods-awful Spec (that’s what fics were called in this fandom, what with being speculative and all), and got myself briefly adopted as a minion by Adonia, one of the ABAR Family... elders? leaders? mistresses? (tbh, I got pretty disinterested in that aspect quickly; playing with my friends was a lot more fun. 

Sidenote: my OC was female, because I was too scared my friends would laugh at me for having a male OC, but at one point, we killed her physical body, and I invented a ridiculous plot reason for her to be able to move to another body (I’m thinking this was roughly when we got to The Tale of the Body Thief, and also when I briefly dyed my hair black; it looked horrible on me, and I bleached and re-dyed it my customary at the time red again very soon after). This new body was female, too, but now that body-jumping had been established, my plan was to have her move to a male one as soon as possible, though it never quite materialized, because we met more nerds and started playing tabletop Vampire: The Masquerade, and I got very invested in online X-Files fandom (Krycek, my love) but that’s a story for another time and all that. 

#cor rambles #asks #cor's stuff #baby cor #fandom #sithofren

[amlovelies]

Addie

part 2: cruelty

pairing: Vexx/f!traveler (Adonia) warnings: some mild suggestive language words: 1.6k read on ao3 part 1

               Vexx almost makes it back to the barracks. Crescents mark where his nails have dug into his palm, and he is grateful for the late hour as he slides down the wall of the hallway and sinks to the floor. He can still smell her perfume. He has no nose for fragrance but he knows hers well. At first encounter all softness and flowers, like a spring day walking in the gardens, but it’s not the flowers that linger on his skin. Something deeper, something warm and enticing, teases at his senses and sets his pulse racing. He half expects to find her watching him from the end of the hall, but she’s not there. She is back in her room where he left her.

               If he returned and knocked on the door would she answer? Would she let him in? She shouldn’t, but she would. Addie trusts him. She loves him. She hadn’t finishing saying the word, but he’d seen it in her eyes. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s guessed it for a while now, heard it in the way she said his name, felt it when she would squeeze his hand.

He could go back and take all that she offers. Lose himself in her softness, and her warmth and her love.

               A year ago, he’d expected the Princess Adonia to be a vapid and shallow thing, someone only concerned with her wealth and status. Someone expecting to be pampered and coddled at every turn.

               That was until he’d happened upon her creeping out from behind a tapestry. The sight of her like that, cobwebs stuck in her long chestnut hair and smudges on her face, was so at odds with his expectations. Perhaps there’s more to this princess than I thought he’d mused to himself with a soft chuckle.

               There was so much more to her.

               The problem is there’s also so much more to him. Zovack gave him one job, find a way around security, find a way for him to storm the palace, find a way for him to take the throne.  Information he’d had for months now. Information Addie had given him, with a shy smile and sparkling eyes, not knowing it would spell her doom.

               Except it hadn’t.

               It’s been many months since she mentioned a passageway that led out beyond the walls of the palace. She was different in the tunnels. Less guarded, her smile wider. He hadn’t known she had dimples until then.

               “Do you run off and explore the city when I’m not looking princess?” he’d asked leaning close in the confined space.  

               He’d been flattered when he’d first noticed her crush. As much as he pretended it was a tactical move, he enjoyed encouraging her affections. He enjoyed the breathy quality to her voice when she got nervous and her habit of biting her lip when unable to think of a response to his antics.

               “What? No,” she’d responded her voice flustered.

                “I wouldn’t even know where to go. It’s not that I don’t want to,” her voice dropped to a whisper before she went silent. He remembers the longing in her eyes.

               He should have gone to Zovack that night, but he hadn’t. She had given him exactly what they would need. She had given him the tools to bring this whole rotten palace down around them. She had given him the tools to free his parents.

               It would just cost her life.  At the time, he’d told himself he need more information, better information to give Zovack, but was that really the truth? It suddenly wasn’t so easy to sign her death warrant. When did she begin to matter?

               Was it that day he heard music coming from a supposedly empty hall and discovered her dancing? He’d been transfixed by the sight of her. Her body swaying and moving to the music in graceful movements as she balanced on her toes and spun and pirouetted through the empty space. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, so much so that he’d leaned out from the shadows to get a better view. She’d caught him red handed, but been so embarrassed that she’d hadn’t questioned what he was doing so far away from his post. He can’t even remember what excuse he’d come up with. She trusted him. She’d always been too trusting.

               Was it the day he’d finally led her out into the sunshine on the other side of the palace walls? Her tentative first steps into the city that she had lived her whole life in but never visited. She’d looks so different then, her hair in a long braid down her back, in a stolen hat and coat, no longer a princess, but just Adonia.

               They’d sat near one of the cities many fountains sharing a snack and watching the people pass. Her eyes hungry and drinking in all the sights. The children in particular delighted her, “I’m the youngest” she had told him. “Ven’dela was always with her mother, and Arlo didn’t want to waste time playing with a girl.”

               Her voice turned wistful, “I wonder what it would have been like to so many friends, at least I have you now, Vexx.”

               “Of course, Princess,” he’d answered trying to ignore the feelings of guilt her statement elicited.

               Her eyes widened with panic, “you shouldn’t call me that here, what if someone overheard you?”

               “They’d probably think I was flirting with you,” he’d said with a smirk.  “What should I call you then princess? Adonia?”

               “What else would you call me?”

               “I don’t know Adonia is a bit of a mouth full, feels a bit pretentious too,” She scowled, her face all scrunched up.  He’d laughed, she always managed to make him laugh, and after a moment offered, “how about Addie?”

               “Addie?” she tried the name out feeling the syllables out with her mouth, and he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her lips, “I like that.”

               It had been Addie from then on. Not in public, because he was still a guard and she was a princess, but, whenever they were alone. Either exploring the streets of the city or the hidden spaces of the palace, they were alone often.

               As much as he flirted and teased, he hadn’t planned on kissing her. It had happened on one of their many excursions into the city; they’d been caught in a surprise rain storm. The day had started all sunshine and then the skies had darkened. When it began to pour, instead of running for shelter she’d tipped her head back and let the rain fall over her skin. She’d laughed and then kicked water at him from a puddle. Had they run, they probably could have made it back to the passageway relatively dry, but they didn’t. Instead, they laughed and played and by the time they made it they were soaked.

               He hadn’t been thinking about Zovack and revolution, he’d been thinking how the sound of her laugh made him feel light. He hadn’t known until later that it was her first kiss. All he’d known was that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.  

               Zovack has been endlessly patient with him, accepting all his delays and promises to fulfill his mission, but from the coded message Vexx had received this morning his patience has run out. Zovack wants him to report in person, and Nerissa needs more time.

               Time that Vexx would try to buy her.

               Vexx is no fool. He knows that lying to Zovack is dangerous. At best Zovack will think he is a failure, and he’s killed for less than that. The masquerade was one last chance to hold Addie in his arms. To see her smile, and even for just a moment see the world with the joy and wonder that she does.

               She’d looked so beautiful tonight. The yellow of her dress complimented her tawny skin, and even behind her mask her blue eyes had sparkled. She’d felt so right in he’s arms as they’d spun along the ballroom floor.  He’d seen more than a few heads turn to watch her graceful movements and felt the thrill of pride that she was in his arms.

               He’s not sure he’d ever desired someone more.

               It was a goodbye. When they danced in the garden, he’d tried his best to imprint her face on his memory. He wouldn’t let himself forget the way the moonlight shimmered over her features and got caught in her long dark hair. He would remember the quiet of the garden and the feeling that they were all alone in the world. Even now, he can close his eyes he can still feel the warmth of her hand in his.

               He should have made an excuse when she asked him to come to her room, but he hadn’t. He’d had her there, willing, and open. The soft curves of her shivering under his hands and his lips.

               I love her.

               That’s what stopped him. When he heard her begin to say it, he knew he couldn’t go through with this. No matter how much he may want to lose himself in her. No matter how willing she was.

               It would be a cruelty. It was already a cruelty. There was a whole year of cruelties that he had committed against her. A year of smiles and jokes and dreams of a life they could spend together.

               With a shuddering breath, he rises from his slumped position. He only allows himself a glance back down the hall. For a brief moment he considers asking her to run away with him. He always promised to take her traveling.

               It’s a fool’s dream. Zovack would hunt them to the edge of the system and beyond.

               The only thing he can do now is try to buy them time.

               He has to try.

tagging: @lord-king-saint, @bellarxse, @alavidzes, @roses-and-roo, and @pearlsandsteel

#andromeda six #a6 vexx #lovelies writes #oc: traveler adonia #fic: adonia #vn: a6

[tatooine92]

Homeward, ch. 1 (POTC OC)

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, Adonia Barbossa was abandoned as a child by her father for no discernible reason. Now a pirate captain in her own right, she seeks him to finally demand answers.

Rating: T for language and any various and sundry innuendoes.

[Adonia portrait by xandrassketchbook.]

A/N: Oh geez u guise. I can’t believe I’m actually posting an in-progress fic for a character I have had in my head for years and years. Shoutouts to @soulventure91 and @and-will-nice-hat for cheerleading my plunge into the deep end. *blows kisses*

The sharp rap on the door of her cabin startled Adonia from a rest she hadn't realized she had taken. She jerked upright with a mumble, her auburn braid flipping over her shoulder as she tossed her head, and she pressed both palms into the table before her to steady herself as she regained consciousness. It took her a moment to remember she was aboard the Dainty Lass, exactly where she was supposed to be, in her cabin. A lamp, almost out of oil, flickered across the table. Adonia shook the buzzing sleepiness out of the arm that had cradled her head and ran her hands across the maps and notes spread out before her. Before her lay charts of all the ports she had previously called home. Each one had been marked out with progressively angrier scribbles. Damn the East India Trading Company, interfering with a woman's perfectly respectable business ventures. Adonia rubbed her hands over her face and groaned. How was she supposed to keep her crew fed and ship afloat if she was running out of ports to sell in?

The knock on her door repeated, more urgently. Adonia grumbled "coming, coming" as she swung out of her chair, snatching her compass off the table and her hat off the luxurious sleeping accommodations known as "a cot in a corner." Tugging the wide brim of her hat down over her brow, she flung open the doors to her cabin. Before her was her first mate, a slender but well-muscled seaman called Jim who was as steady as a ship in dry dock and had no intentions of ever wearing any name but Jim (he liked the simplicity). Jim's dark skin bore a sheen of sweat and was flecked with salt from the sea spray.

"Comin' up on Tortuga, mon capitaine," he said in his Haitian accent when Adonia appeared.

Adonia sighed as she exited her cabin with Jim. "One of these days I'll be needin' an explanation from the East India Trading Company—" She spat the name. "—as to why they took over every port except the one I can't abide."

"They did it just to make you mad in particular," Jim noted, so smoothly sarcastic you'd almost think he was serious.

Adonia smirked at her first mate as she headed for the wheel of the Lass, her shoulders squared and boots thudding across the deck with the rhythm of a woman on a mission. As had always been her pirating custom, she raided merchant ships, leaving them disabled and relieved of their wealth but otherwise unharmed. The result, of course, was her holds filled to bursting with sugar, rum, silk—name it, and she probably had it. In the past, she had styled herself as a legitimate businesswoman, masquerading as a merchant vessel and sailing into various ports, particularly English settlements, to sell her fine luxuries at a rather considerable profit. These days, with every port closing as the EITC closed its fist around the seas, the facade of legitimacy fell aside, and she was forced to sell what goods she had left almost at a loss to pirates as desperate as she feared her crew might become.  

Besides, she just didn't like Tortuga. The air reeked of bad rum, vomit, and piss, and a few other bodily substances she'd rather not ponder. It always seemed to be in a state of constant rioting and upheaval (more or less literal, considering the vomit). She was a pirate, aye, but she'd always considered herself a lady pirate. "Princess of the seas," she'd been called as a child. Like as not to be a queen someday.

Currently, though, it looked more like "not." She stepped back from the wheel, and Jim set his hand to it as she turned toward the deck rail, withdrawing her compass from the pocket of her dark blue justacorps. Both compass and sundial, it was as big as her palm and set in gold engraved with leaves and little birds. It was a fine piece—expensive. Whoever had owned it before her father had stolen it and called it his must have lived a life that Adonia could only dream of, with a fine house and plentiful food and all the comforts of being a person of quality.

She sighed as she flipped the compass in her palms and rubbed her thumbs over the H.B. engraved on the back in letters almost as wide as the compass itself. When she was inclined to unveil her personal life, she'd say her father only ever gave her two things: her life and a stolen compass. Some father. What kind of man raised her on his ship for six years and then tossed her off at port for no reason with naught but the clothes on her back and that compass? What cruelty could possibly... possibly...

Adonia's throat choked, and she shoved the compass back into her pocket. It'd been eleven years since he'd dumped her off. Here she was now, a woman grown at seventeen, captain of her own ship, still alive and all. Princess of the seas of my own making, no thanks to you, Papa. Yet the bitter tang of her thoughts sat ill with her. There had to be a reason. Papa always had a reason. Though maybe cruelty was reason enough.

Jim called to her, and she turned back, straightening her shoulders and blinking back the tears that had burned her eyes. The Dainty Lass sailed smoothly into port, her crew rushing to bring in sails and lower anchors. Adonia smiled to herself with a surge of pride. They were good men, each one. It'd been a rocky start, inheriting the Lass from her now-retired captain and trying to convince the crew to sail under a woman, but she'd tried and succeeded. Maybe that was a third thing her father had given her: tooth-and-nail tenacity and a spiteful streak to boot.

"We need to offload this haul," she told Jim as the Lass came to rest at anchor. "We sell the loot, then the men can have the night to themselves. We daren't to stay, though, not with the likes of Beckett haunting the tides."

She saw Jim shudder at the mention of Cutler Beckett. In truth, there was not a pirate alive who didn't feel a chill in his bones at the thought of that unreasonably influential and impossibly cruel man. It was a terrible amount of vileness packed into such a short figure.

"We may be safer here then, capitaine," Jim told her. "He is not like to come here."

"Yet." Adonia sharply closed the word with a hard T.  

Jim frowned, but she knew him well enough to know he both believed her and agreed. Safe quarters were few and far between these days. Adonia elected not to think on it, though, as she descended from the wheel. Jim followed her, barking orders to the crew to haul up their cargo for sale. Adonia checked through her inventory manifests—perhaps too detailed for a pirate, but she believed in being honest in her dishonesty—as the men carried the goods ashore. Not near enough to survive much longer, she knew. Even the stores of coin she'd set aside in years of plenty were beginning to diminish. Something had to give—Beckett and his Company, or her.

She left the trading and bartering to Jim and Thom, the Lass's boatswain, as she headed farther into port to pick up news, gossip, and any assorted mail that had found its way to Tortuga for her. The port was somewhat quieter than usual, but there were still hours left to sundown, when all sundry debaucheries emerged in full, uh, glory. Adonia headed to her favorite tavern, a side-alley establishment called the Cat and Crow, where rum was plentiful for her men and wine was plentiful for her. This particular tavern was less seedy than the rest of Tortuga—a rare find indeed—though it still offered all the usual vices and temptations, though none for her. It also served as the closest thing she had to a permanent address, as the proprietor was her former captain's nephew's son-in-law or some such. Never mind. It meant he liked the crew of the Dainty Lass, and it was enough for Adonia.

The Cat and Crow was quiet enough when Adonia entered. Pirates getting an early start on their drinking were clustered throughout, but the noise was only low, mumbled conversation peppered with the occasional guffaw or clank of tankards smashing in a toast. Far to the back, near the stairs, a man and woman were enjoying themselves a little too publicly; even though the woman's skirts covered everything, it was not hard to divine their activities. Adonia rolled her eyes as she crossed to the bar, where the owner was pouring water into one of the rum bottles.

"Ye'd best have a good strong red for me today, Avery," Adonia called as she approached.

Avery, a stocky man with a scraggly beard and an impish grin, grabbed a bottle from under the counter as he turned.

"If it isn't me favorite Cap'n Barbossa," he said, setting the wine bottle and a tankard on the bar. Adonia leaned against it to pop the cork and pour herself a drink, all a-smirk.

"I'm the only one you've met," she said.

"Aye, but ye hear stories. Hence why you're me favorite."

"Oh, and what stories d'ye have for me today?" Adonia took a swig from her wine. Better to get to the gossip than ponder her father, much as something deep in her stung and wanted to ask please, please, have you heard anything from him, I heard a rumor he was dead.

Avery clicked his tongue and leaned conspiratorially toward her. Adonia raised a brow under her hat.

"I heard," he said, "that those louts with the Ee-Eye-Tee-See have gone and unleashed an unholy terror on the seas. It's an enemy that crawled up from the depths and fears nothin' and leaves nary a survivor in its wake. You don't see it comin'. You just turn 'round and there's its guns, sendin' you to meet your maker."

Adonia looked at Avery over the edge of her mug as if he'd lost his grip on every last sense. She was more than familiar with sailors' horror stories, but she fancied herself too worldly-wise for them.

"Avery," she said, voice low, "ye best not be havin' me on."

"Hand to Baby Jaysus, I am not."

"Does anybody know what or who this enemy is, then?"

"They say it's th' Flying Dutchman. Davy Jones an' all."

Adonia's wine burned more than usual in the back of her throat at the sound of the name. She set down her mug and stared at Avery, eyes wide in the shadow of her hat brim. She knew the stories. You didn't live your whole life on ships without the distinct pleasure of one seaman's legend after another. So of course she knew the spine-freezing legends of Davy Jones. This fit, too, with hearing that the Flying Dutchman had been seen more and more frequently in recent days. Oh, God. If the Company had somehow managed to press Jones into its service, no pirate left at sea stood a chance.

But Captain Adonia Barbossa was not one to stay at home with her knitting when there was a fight to be had.

She knocked back another swig of wine, her mind racing. The most obvious answer was to run. Abruptly give up pirating, get to Shipwreck, and stay there, never to see the sea again. Well, that sat ill with her. "Ye were born with a line in your hand," her father used to tell her; she had permanent sea legs and saltwater for blood. Abandoning the sea was not an option. Neither was dying upon it. That left either fighting—one brig against the whole Company armada, unlikely!—or surviving to fight another day. Adonia knew herself. If she was anything, she was a scrapper and a strategist—a survivor. She had not come this far to be cowed by stories of ghost ships. Her blood was salt and steel and fury, and she did not fear death.

"Cap'n!" Avery called to her when she clearly drifted into her own thoughts. Adonia's sharp blue eyes snapped to him.

"Aye." She got to her feet and plunked down enough silver to cover her drink. "Thanks for the news. Anything else?"

"Aye, a bit." Avery glanced about and cleared his throat before lowering his voice. "The elder Cap'n Barbossa's been spotted up in Cuba. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he were like to come here next."

Adonia's stomach dropped as if she'd just misstepped off a cliff. She sagged back down against the bar, perched on a stool this time. Papa's alive. Papa's alive, and he's close.

"How do you know this?" she whispered. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she almost couldn't hear Avery's reply.

"Not exactly as if his ship's subtle," Avery said with a snort. "Nor's it as if he's not a feared name in these waters."

"Feared?"

Avery shrugged. "Eh, feared, respected, same difference."

No, it's really not, Adonia thought. She swallowed hard. "Is that all you know?"

"Aye, but I'll keep ears out for more."

"Do," Adonia said, and she got up.

As she headed for the door, she felt maybe she shouldn't have gotten up in the first place. Her heartbeat echoed in her head, and she suddenly felt like she was trapped between two walls rapidly closing together. Papa's alive. Once again, she was a terrified six-year-old girl standing alone on a dock, watching the black sails of her father's ship be swallowed up by the horizon's flickering line. She dragged her compass out of her pocket and clutched it tight, her fist shaking as it wrapped around the piece.  

How could you leave me, Papa? You said I was your sea princess, you said... you said...

Quick as she could, Adonia rushed back toward the docks and the Lass. She dodged a man puking into a gutter, though just barely, as her eyes blurred with sudden tears. She raced out to the shore and, for a split second of wild fury and pain, nearly hurled the compass to the depths. But she couldn't open her fist to cast it out, and Adonia crumpled onto the damp sand, pulling her knees into her chest, as the tide rolled out, and in, and out, and kissed the toes of her boots each time it came back in.

She couldn't decide if this was good news or horrible news. Would her father even know her if he saw her again? Would he even care to see her? The man who raised his daughter on his ship from infancy only to dump her, alone and destitute, surely couldn't be bothered to know her or want her now. But a deep, aching part of Adonia hungered for that reunion. She wanted to run to him and fling her arms around him, pressing herself into his side in a full-body embrace, the way she used to. She wanted to be greeted warmly with his staccato laugh and sea-strong arms hefting her up and holding her close. Suddenly she missed the smell of sea salt and apple peels that clung to him like perfume, and she missed the tickle of his beard against her forehead as he kissed her hair. Adonia clutched the compass to her chest and buried her face against her knees, sobbing softly. Papa.

#here she is #my girl #I love her so #pirates of the caribbean #potc oc #potc fic #adonia barbossa

[tatooine92]

Homeward, ch. 6 (POTC OC)

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, Adonia Barbossa was abandoned as a child by her father for no discernible reason. Now a pirate captain in her own right, she seeks him to finally demand answers.

Rating: T for language and any various and sundry innuendoes.

A/N: "So, how did Adonia get banned from Port Royal?” WELL I AM GLAD YOU ASKED. Also many kudos to Val for helping me RP this a few weeks ago. Quality.

Shoutouts: @soulventure91, @and-will-nice-hat, @queen-scribbles

Three years ago.

Long ago, as a wee young lass, Adonia had learned that the cleverest pirates became the ones who grew the richest and lived the longest. She liked to think cleverness came naturally to her, honed by a life at sea, and she also liked to think that a life of wealth and prestige could be hers for the taking. Well, maybe not the prestige. Maybe just the wealth. Even if she never earned the title, she still clung to Papa's name for her, his sea princess, though that was all she had left to cling to by this point.

It had been almost effortless to start her mercantile empire. A simple plan, truly—prey upon slow, well-loaded merchant ships, relieve them of their cargo, and leave the crew alive but the ship damaged enough to limp. By the time the vessel would make port, she would be gone, cargo in hand to sell, and all the merchant crew could say was "It was pirates!"  

"But we're not pirates," she liked to tell her crew with a toss of her hair. "We are businessmen."

Businessmen, after all, did not kill or pillage. Damaging a ship enough to slow it down was not the same as broadsiding a coastal village. Besides, if this was a business venture, Adonia felt a certain level of prestige came with it. In this disguise, she could be a proper lady of quality, with all the frippery pertaining thereto.  

It was why her crew chose as their prey ships carrying only the finest goods. She did not deal in agriculture or livestock or slaves. (The mere thought of the latter put a shiver in her bones she'd not soon entertain.) But sugar, silk, fine furniture, gold, silver, gems—these were the building blocks of her little empire, the one that sailed under a simple flag identifying her as a subject of the king rather than as the kingless pirate she knew, deep down, that she was. The Dainty Lass was a merchant brig unaffiliated with any of the major trading companies, though when pressed to answer how that was possible, she insisted she was the mistress of her very own company, Bonny Lassie Trade and Mercantile. A woman in such a business was already enough to raise brows, but Adonia was happy to dance along the edge of polite society and feed them luxuries and vices. 

So it was that she had found her way to the various colonies of the Caribbean, one by one, selling the goods she had amassed. Her prices were just cheaper than market value, but as she had paid not a pound for them, her profit was exquisite. She outfitted herself, her ship, and her crew in naught but the best, all while stashing away her share of the profits in the care of an account manager in Bermuda. Her crew wanted for nothing. Gold and happiness were plentiful among them, and the Dainty Lass found herself a reputation for quality.

Before long Adonia found consistent demand in Port Royal, where she set up a little market stall at the docks and wooed her customers with fine wares, cheap prices, and her own natural, beaming charm. On one visit, even the governor—a friendly older chap that Adonia liked very much—heard of her and came to browse her selection, taking home an elegant velvet chaise. Jim hadn't wanted to even take the chaise from its previous owners, complaining about its size, but Adonia just smirked at him as Governor Swann counted out the gold pieces into her palm.

This visit was no different. The Dainty Lass sailed into Port Royal, flying her (false) colors proudly, and Adonia and Jim set up the little market stall the same as always. A smattering of usual customers came and went, buying cloth and sugar and spices. A tavern owner, griping that his shipment of rum had never come in, bought their entire stock of the stuff and was still grumbling when he left. Adonia was just measuring out a pound of tea for a housewife when a flash of blue cloth caught her eye, and she glanced up to find a young Royal Navy officer browsing the stall. Old fears surged up, and for a split second she thought he'd come to call her on her fraud and hang her. But no—no—he was just calmly browsing. Adonia let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, traded tea for silver, and slid over toward the young officer.

"A fine mornin' to ye, good sir," she said brightly, giving her blue coat and the lace cuffs of her shirt a neatening tug as she smiled. Her auburn hair was long and loose around her shoulders for once, the sea breeze sighing through the strands. "Is there anything in particular you'd hope to see?"

The officer looked up as if not quite expecting to be spoken to. Ever so briefly, their eyes met, blue and brown, and Adonia saw the officer's jaw slacken a little before he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze.

"I—um—yes," he said. He rolled his shoulders and reclaimed his straight-backed posture. His voice was warm and so very proper. It reminded Adonia of a deep, still sea, glassy with sunlight but dark with unknown depths. She quite liked the cut of his jaw and the furrow of his brow. He glanced at her. "It's an odd request, but I wondered if you might have any gentlemen's shirts."

"Gentlemen's shirts?" Adonia repeated. She opened her inventory ledger and started to flip through.

"Yes, as if for a uniform."

"Like the fine one ye've got on?"

To her surprise, the young officer blushed darkly enough she knew he knew she'd noticed.

"Yes, precisely," he stammered. Why do I make him so nervous? It's sugar and rum I'm selling, not meself. "I had ordered some from England but unfortunately they never made it here."

"That is unfortunate," Adonia said. She looked up from her ledger with a bright smile. "Well, Mister...?"

"Groves, ma'am."

"Mister Groves, I do have here in my lists 'gentlemen's shirts, white, three.' So I'd say fortune favors you today. Best not fail to take advantage of that."

"Oh, you—you do?" His brows rose with surprise. "That's... ahem, yes, I would like to see them, please."

Adonia turned for the chest that held her limited collection of clothing and threw it open with a small flourish. Inside, right on top, were the shirts—a recent haul from an inbound merchant vessel. These were such fine quality that she had snatched them right up, and now she was about to re-sell them for more than the cloth was worth! And Jim told her that trying to hawk clothing would never work...

"Right then, here you are," she said warmly, bringing the articles back to her waiting customer. Her eyes glinted in the sun as if with mischief. "In fact just by looking at them I'd say they'll fit you aright."  

"I hope so," Groves replied. He was blushing again, and Adonia's smile faltered slightly as she cocked her head at a small angle. Was he all right?

Just about then, though, another officer, with squared shoulders and furrowed brows, approached Adonia's little market stall. This one held noticeable rank as a second junior officer followed him. She slid a bit to the side, letting Groves inspect his purchase. Best not to hover. Legitimate businesswomen did not hover.

"A useful stock, Groves?" inquired the new officer, casting a sharp green gaze over the wares. Groves turned and quickly saluted.

"Captain Norrington, yes, sir, everything seems to be in order," he replied. He held one of the shirts against his chest to try to gauge the fit.

Adonia slid back over, giving her coat another neatening tug as the stern captain lifted a gold watch chain between his fingers. He looked up and met her gaze, and Adonia had the terrible sense that he could see right through her and knew the wretch that she was. She knew his reputation, of course. His fervor for cleaning up the Caribbean had directly contributed to Port Royal's comparative excellence as a town. The only problem with it was Adonia, of course, danced right along the edge of legitimate and frequently—secretly, she hoped—side-stepped into illegal.  

"You must be Captain... Bonny, is it?" Captain Norrington asked calmly, evenly. There was a patience in his voice that made it impossible to read whether or not he knew Adonia's name was false.

"Yes, indeed, good morning," she replied with a smile. "Anything ye've in mind today, captain?"

He set down the watch chain and turned aside, moving down the row of wares.

"Browsing," he said, an easy aloofness in his tone and posture as his other junior officer trotted alongside.

"Well, do let me know if there's something you'd like; I have more I haven't set out." Adonia eased back toward Groves as he finished checking the shirts. "Do you find them to your liking, sir?"

"I do, very much," he replied. "It's quite extraordinary—they seem to be precisely my measurements."

He carefully folded the shirts back, one at a time. Adonia's gut tensed suddenly with danger. His measurements exactly? And he'd ordered a set of three from England, he said? Surely a coincidence. Men ordered shirts all the time. Neither he nor she had any proof these were the ones.

"You've incredible fortune then!" Adonia said. Groves gave her a tiny smile.

"Yes, I suppose so. How did you come by these?"

"Ah, I've a contact in Barbados who asked did I want any fine gentlemen's shirts, and I did, since I knew I was coming straight to a fort full of fine gentlemen." She gave him a wink and almost laughed as his ears pinkened under his wig.

"Well, then, your man must have excellent estimates," Groves said.

He folded the last shirt, and as he did, a cloth tag stitched into the hem fell out into plain view. Adonia saw his eyebrows rise sharply, and he ducked for a closer look at the tag. Even from where she stood, she could see T. Groves embroidered on the tag. No, no, no, shit!

"Captain!" Groves yelped with surprise. "The shirts I ordered from England, they're here!"

Oh, fuck.

"That's impossible," Norrington replied with an almost weary dismissal. Then Groves carted the shirts to him to show the tag, and the very second he saw the embroidery, his gaze flashed angrily to Adonia, one hand reaching for the hilt of his rapier.

"Gentlemen, I assure you, there must be some mistake," Adonia said as smoothly and calmly as she possibly could. Behind her, Jim squared up and began easing for the Lass. "I am a woman of utmost quality, sir!"

"Quality here having the meaning of thief," Norrington spat. "Is it your practice to steal goods that have already been sold, captain?"

He stepped up closer to her, eyes narrowed. He stood at least five inches above her, and suddenly she felt so small. Now she knew he really could see through her, and he saw exactly the absence of moral fortitude she was afraid he'd see.

"Groves, Gillette, I want this woman and her crew arrested immediately and their cargo confiscated while we compare her inventory to those of the raided merchant ships."

Groves seemed to hesitate, but he began scooping up the wares he could carry as the other officer, Gillette, rushed away, undoubtedly to collect soldiers. Adonia looked over at Groves, her eyes pained as he packed up her goods. He looked back at her, and those brown eyes seemed sad. Dammit, if I'd checked those shirts, this wouldn't have happened—

"I know exactly who you are, Adonia Barbossa," Norrington hissed to her. "You use a false name here but nowhere else, and your ship is completely unregistered. Did you really think the Royal Navy wouldn't find out about your ‘Bonny Lassie Mercantile’ fraud?"

Adonia straightened up, squashing the fear clawing in her chest. She glanced around him to see whether the marines were on their way. She smirked up at the captain, hands on her hips.

"Nay, but it took ye a damned long time," she snapped. "Not quite so bright as you lot like to pretend, a pirate openly at work in your midst! Ban me from your little island if you like, but I'll not go to the gallows!"

Just then, Gillette and the soldiers rounded the corner. From the deck of the Lass, Jim whistled sharply, and immediately the crew stepped to. Adonia leaped back from Norrington just as he drew his sword, grinning almost ferally as she snatched up a few expensive trinkets and her moneybag, shoving them all into every available pocket. She drew her cutlass for good measure as she sprinted away, up the gangway and onto her ship. The captain and Groves both gave chase, but she and Jim yanked the gangway onto the deck just as they stepped on, sending them sprawling onto their backs on the dock. The soldiers immediately dropped into firing formation, tamping powder and shot firmly in place with their ramrods.  

"It's been a true pleasure, gentlemen!" Adonia yelled down to them as the anchor cleared the waterline and wind filled the mainsails. "My regards to the governor; do let me know how he likes his chaise. And lieutenant, I hope you enjoy your shirts!"

The soldiers opened fire on the Lass, and Adonia and Jim dropped flat against the deck to shield themselves from whistling bullets. Bits of the hull splintered off, but not enough to do any real damage. After the volley, Adonia picked herself up and ran for the helm, grabbing the wheel.

"Quickly, love, quickly," she breathed to her ship.

For the Lass, it was full speed ahead to get out of the bay as fast as her sails could take her; without her cargo haul, she was quick and light and able to veer away from the dock before Norrington and his men could board by force. She couldn't help looking back, though, especially at Groves. He'd blushed to talk to her. Maybe if she had been a proper lady, he'd have—

No. Stupid, wishful thinking. Pirates and Navy officers did not mix. They couldn't. One or both would die. But she tried to commit his face to memory, along with the way he was so sweetly flustered. At least the thought might amuse her, if she ever called it to mind again.

She especially needed amusement now, at any rate. Her entire business venture, gone. She still had all the money she'd made over the months—safely in the hands of her contact in Barbados, a clever woman of numbers named Margaret—but everything else was gone. Maybe it could have been worse. She could have been killed on sight or immediately clapped in irons. Losing all her cargo and her good ports was a blow, but, God, it was better than losing the Lass and the crew. If she had to watch Thom swing, or see Jim be cowed and sent away to a sugar plantation again, she'd—well, she didn't know what she'd do.

"I'd grown accustomed to a port without vomit in the streets," she sighed once they were away and Jim was at her side.

"Less of it, anyway," he noted. "But don't you worry, mon capitaine. There's quality ports left in these islands."

"You mock me, sir." She was teasing, at least a bit. Jim gave her a pointed look, and she sighed. They'd been together too long for him not to recognize her eccentricities, as Captain Barnes had termed them, on sight—one of which was her desire to be... well... good.

"Adonia," Jim murmured. "No matter how you dice it, you and us, we're not like them in their fine blue coats and all."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Jim. My coat is also blue."

"Jesus God," he groaned. "Your tongue is gonna get you killed one day. You know exactly what I mean."

Adonia gazed out across the rippling sea. She let out a slow breath. Of course she did. She, her crew, everyone she knew—common thieves and beggars all. They had no place in polite society. Maybe she tried her best to be a good, moral person, but at the end of the day, she was still a pirate. Her lace cuffs weren't more than a costume, a nobody pretending to be somebody. At least she had the sea. The sea didn't care. All it wanted was to know she loved it, and God, she did, enough to be its princess.

A low rumble of laughter from Jim interrupted her thoughts.

"...what?"

"The look on that Groves' face," he laughed, "when he saw the tags."

"Which we should have looked for! Bugger it."

"Aye, and now we're banned from the nicest port in the islands! I told you we shouldn't have taken clothing!"

"You told me, you told me! What, you want me to admit you were right?!"

Jim smirked at her, arms folded over his dark chest. Adonia glared at him.

"Fine. Jim, me lad, you were right. Goddamn."

"Pleasure to sail with you too, capitaine," he said, and he turned to get back to work.

Adonia leaned her chin on the wheel and sighed. Back to square one. But she'd make it. She always did. She was a survivor, and she'd lasted this long. As long as she never had to see any of those officers ever again, she'd be happy.

#steph writes #potc oc #potc fic #adonia barbossa #theodore groves #james norrington

[amlovelies]

Addie

Part 1 of 3: Hunger

pairing: vexx serif/f!traveler (Adonia) ratings/warning: mature-some light spice. angst words: 2.2 k a/n: parts 2 and 3 are written I’m just editing them. this is very self indulgent and my first time writing for a6 so please be gentle 💜 

this is a prequel fic set right after the flashback scene in chapter 3. spoilers for chapter 5

read on ao3

               Adonia’s heart is pounding as they round the corner and slide into yet another of the hidden passageways which traverse the palace walls and grounds. She isn’t sure if the guards figured out the entrance behind the tapestry or not, but they wouldn’t be so lucky twice.

               She slumps against the cold stone wall of the passageway. A laugh threatens to bubble up and burst out of her chest. She can’t remember a time when she’s felt so alive. The whole night feels like a dream, a wonderful dream, and she never would have experienced it if it wasn’t for Vexx.

               She never would have been brave enough, or reckless enough to attend if it wasn’t for him. She’d gotten so used to just creeping through the empty halls and watching others’ lives unfold from the shadows.

               Her heart swells as she looks at him. He’s hard to see in the dim light, especially with his ear pressed up against the false wall listening for any sound of pursuit. Not that she needs to see him to picture his face. His green eyes shining with mischief behind his simple black domino mask and his hair in messy tangles after an evening of dancing and leading his fellow guards on a merry chase.

               “It looks like we lost them,” he says as he turns to face her. He dips into a deep bow before rising and offering her his arm, “shall we promenade your highness?”

               “But of course, my dear sir,” she says with an extravagant curtsy as if they are still in the center of the great hall before a gaggle of assorted nobles rather than in a cramped cobwebbed passage with only the spiders to observe them.

               Adonia slips her arm into his with a giggle and he takes the opportunity to pull her closer and place a brief kiss on her cheek. It’s enough to make her heart skip a beat. It’s almost too easy for him to effect it.

               They set a slow and leisurely pace along the passageway. Neither of them seems to be in any hurry to reach the other side. Their steps are soft, but still echo in the confined spaces. They don’t speak. There’s no need, and besides they’d rather not alert any one to their presence in the walls.  

               When they reach the end, Adonia hesitates before stepping into the moonlit gardens. Even the familiar paths feel more magical tonight, the white blossoms glowing as if lit from within. The air is sweet with their fragrance and she can still hear the music from the party. It is faint, but she can still pick up the melody. She lingers at the edges unwilling to step onto the manicured path. It’s one step closer to this night ending, and if she could, she would stretch this moment out forever.

               Vexx tugs on her hand, “don’t expect me to carry you. I told you not to wear those shoes, besides it’s not much further.” He gestures with a toss of his head to where her rooms lay just across the way.

               “It’s not that,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Thank you for tonight, Vexx. I don’t know if I ever had so much fun.”

               “Not even watching those street performers last month?”

               “Not even then,” she answers with a smile.

               They’d stayed out later than usual that night. Both unwilling to return to the confines of the palace and their assigned roles. It was so much easier to be Addie than to be the Princess Adonia Selene Peg’asi.  The performers had been fascinating and delightful, but what Adonia remembers more is the way that Vexx kissed her when they finally maneuver through the patrolling guards and found themselves in the familiar darkness of the passageway.

               He’d never kissed her like that before, always so careful. Hands on her waist or cupping her face. His kisses soft and tender, never pushing, but that night he had pressed himself against her, his hand tangling in her hair and pressing her back against the wall of the tunnel. She remembers in perfect clarity the shock of his hand delving under her shirt and running over the bare skin of her back.

               It’s not that Adonia is oblivious about sex. When you spend a good part of your free time creeping through abandoned halls you come across some pretty interesting scenes. She remembers a few years ago when she happened across a pair of guards tucked into a corner. She had fled from their soft moans and whimpers a profound feeling of embarrassment overwhelming her normally curious nature.

               She hadn’t been able to run from the way that kiss had made her feel. In the month since there had been a hunger to their kisses that hadn’t been there before.

               “It doesn’t have to end so soon,” Vexx says and Adonia’s skin heats at the way his eyes trace over her body, linger on the curve of her breast, and finally fixate on her lips. “We can still hear the music, how about one more dance?”

               This dance feels different from the ones they’d shared in the ballroom. There it was all fun and laughter, but this feels heavy and wanting. When his hand drifts lower on her back it feels like a question, one she isn’t sure she knows the answer to, but she wants to find out.

               He hums as they spin in the garden pulling her much closer than propriety would allow in the crowded ballroom, even for an anonymous masked couple.

               “I didn’t know you were musical, Vexx,” she teases. “What other secrets are you keeping from me?”

               His steps falter and she almost loses her balance from the jarring movement, “there was a rock,” he mumbles by way of explanation. They find their rhythm again quickly this time without any humming from Vexx.

               Even this attempt at elongating the night comes to an end and they stand in front of her bedchamber door.

               “Good night, Addie.” He drops a brief kiss to the edge of her lips and begins to walk away back toward the barracks.

               “Wait,” she says the word a little too loud for the quiet hallway.

                “I could use some help,” her voice shakes but she swallows down the nerves that threaten to overwhelm her. “With the dress, I mean.” She turns to show the long line of buttons lining the back.

               She’s thought about it for weeks. Lain awake and imagined his lips and the feel of his bares skin under her hands. They have already thrown caution to the wind tonight, so why not this?

               Her face burns as she waits for his response. His hand reaches out and his finger runs down the line of her spine along the neat row of buttons sending a shiver through her body.

               She can’t read the expression on his face, and she can’t bear to wait for his response. She leaves the door open behind her as she enters her room and crosses to turn on the small lamp beside her bed.

               She hears the door click shut behind her and her breath stops until she hears his footsteps approaching her. Her heart is beating so loud, he can probably hear it. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands or her arms or any part of her, so she just stands at the edge of her bed waiting.

               He doesn’t touch the buttons, but instead reaches up to untie the mask covering the top half of her face. Her hands shake as she removes it, but she’s at least happy to have something to do with them.          

               His hands sweep her hair out of the way before placing a soft kiss to the side of her neck. A small whispered gasp of surprise escapes her lips and she feels more than hears the soft chuckle that escapes him.

               His nimble fingers make quick work of the buttons as his lips ghost over her neck. She can feel each kiss like a brand on her skin.

               He reaches the end of the buttons. She swears that, even though they aren’t touching, she can feel the heat of his body on the exposed skin of her back. She thought she would feel more afraid right now, and she does, but more than anything she feels an excitement coursing through her veins.

               She turns to face him and lets the dress drop. It flares out around her as it falls like the petals of a gigantic flower.

               “You’re so very beautiful, Addie.” The words hold none of Vexx’s usual snark. His eyes trace over her face his hand skimming down the column of her throat and dancing lightly along the edge of her breasts.

                Perhaps she should feel bashful, feel nervous and exposed under his gaze, but all Adonia feels is breathless. She could spend forever under his gaze; she hopes she will.

               He still has his mask on. She reaches out and gently removes it from his face. His green eyes are darkened by desire. Desire for her. It’s a heady and new feeling and causes warmth to pool in the pit of her stomach.

               “I am yours. You have to know that,” she says answering his question from earlier in the night.

               She’d been his since that day he took her hand and led her out into the city streets. She’d been his since he called her Addie and looked at her like a real person.

               The kiss starts gentle. Vexx is tentative, but she is done with being tentative.  Adonia wraps her arms around his neck and parts her lips with a sigh, inventing him to deepen the kiss, inviting him to take her breath away. With a groan he pulls her body flush against him. One palm is firm on her lower back keeping her pressed against him while the other hand roams over the bare skin of her waist.  

               She feels dizzy like she forgot to spot. She is already spinning; it’s too late now. Perhaps she should be afraid, but with his arms firm around her Adonia feels safe. He will not let her fall. Her Vexx would never let anything happen to her.

               He walks them backward until she feels the edge of her bed pressing against the edge of her legs.

               “Are you sure?” he asks as he breaks the kiss his eyes searching hers.

                “yes. I’m sure,” she responds. And she is. She wants this; she wants him. She wants to feel his body against hers and lose herself in his arms.

               His next kiss is hungry. Hungrier than any of the stolen kisses they have ever shared. He pushes her back onto the mattress and then he is hovering over her, his hands skimming along her waist gripping her thigh, pulling them closer together. His lips leave hers to kiss down her neck. Trailing over the thin gill scars. Her hands knot in his red hair.

               It’s as if he is everywhere. She feels consumed by him; His name leaves her lips in a soft moan. Her heart is swelling, overflowing, overcome with love. She loves him.  

               “I lo-“ she begins as their eyes meet, but something she sees there makes her pause. Where only a moment ago there was nothing but desire in his eyes something else clouds his expression. He leans forward to press his forehead against hers.

               “Addie,” he whispers before kissing her. This kiss is soft, a gentle press of their lips against each other. The heat that was there only a moment ago is gone, replaced by something stiff and distant.

               “Adonia,” he says as he pushes himself off the bed and into a standing position. A chill runs through her as the cool night air fills the space he had just occupied.

               “It’s late, you should get some rest Princess,” his voice isn’t cold per say, but formal. The way he would address her in a room filled with other people.

               Adonia’s heart plummets and she feels a sinking pit of dread in her stomach. Had she pushed too far? Was this not something he wanted to?

               “Is something wrong?” she hates how pitiful her voice sounds. “Is this not what you want?”

               “No, it’s not that!” he answers stepping towards her as if he wishes to reassure, but pulling back before he touches her.  “It’s been a long night. I don’t want it to be one you regret, Princess.”

               There it is that Princess again. He hasn’t called her princess in private for months. He rarely even calls her Adonia anymore. She’s always Addie with him. She’s only Addie with him.  

               Words die on her lips as she takes in the firm set of his shoulders and the grim line of his lips. Lips which only minutes ago had been blazing a path over her skin. It doesn’t matter that she’s thought about this a hundred times. He’s made up his mind, and to admit that now would only leave her more embarrassed than she already is.

               He spares her any need to respond. She can feel the tears rising up in her eyes and she tries to blink them away. What had gone wrong?

               “Goodnight,” he says before slipping out her door.

tagging: @alavidzes @pearlsandsteel and @roses-and-roo

#andromeda six #a6 vexx #vexx serif #oc: traveler adonia #lovelieswrites #a6 #nsft

[tatooine92]

Homeward, ch. 3 (POTC OC)

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, Adonia Barbossa was abandoned as a child by her father for no discernible reason. Now a pirate captain in her own right, she seeks him to finally demand answers.

Rating: T for language and any various and sundry innuendoes.

A/N: The first appearance of Hector in flashback form. This chapter made me cry, so, like, no pressure. [Side note that I headcannoned Hector and Adonia both as readers before I knew that other folks had similar HCs so I swear I’m not a thief. We’re all just that good.] Usual shout-outs to @soulventure91 and @and-will-nice-hat because Reasons.

Eleven years ago, age 6.

A long time ago, Adonia had learned that part of being a very good girl was to stay aboard in Papa's cabin whenever the crew went ashore somewhere. Well, it was Papa's cabin now anyway. They had got rid of Captain Jack somehow and picked up all kinds of treasure, though when Adonia looked at all the gold coins, they gave her a funny feeling in her stomach. Looking at them, the world seemed strange, like the way everything got all blurry if she crossed her eyes a little.

"Papa," she said one night as they sat together in his cabin. She was pressed into his side, tucked under his arm, while he read to her--one of Aesop's little stories from a great big book of them. "Papa, is the treasure sick?"

"Sick?" Her father lowered the book to his lap. "What kind of a question be that?"

Adonia shrugged and pressed her head to his chest the way a kitten rubs against an offered hand.  

"Just feels funny when I look at it."

Her father clicked his tongue and smoothed her hair.

"I'll not have any blood of mine afeared of gold," he said. "Ye've listened too close to ghost stories, me Addie. Best to put it out of mind. 'Tis only a story, and not a good one."

It most certainly wasn't a story Adonia liked much. And she especially didn't like the scary feeling that slowly crept over the ship, like a vine tearing into a brick building. She didn't like seeing the crew get meaner to each other, and she had to stay in Papa's cabin more often. Sometimes, late at night, she could hear fighting, and then she'd hear Papa get up with a grumble and stomp outside and, in his great big thunderclap voice, spew invective at the offending sailors. Then he'd come back inside and mutter and curse when he thought she was still asleep, and Adonia would shiver under her blankets as the climbing vine feeling got worse.

Then one day they sailed into Tortuga. Adonia didn't like it there. It was loud and smelled bad and people were mean. This time, Papa made her stay in the cabin even before they dropped anchor. He didn't talk to her sweetly or promise to bring her trinkets like he usually did. There was a coldness to him that frightened her—a terrible gleam in his eyes that gave her the sense of a hungry jaguar prowling through a jungle. She stayed in the cabin like a very good girl, reading her books and playing with her little sailors and boats.

Hours passed while she was by herself. She didn't hear anything outside, but she knew to stay put. Papa always came for her when it was safe. She knew it was because the crew would go get drunk and do things that were not good for little girls to see. But it would be fine. Papa would always make it safe for her. He was a good man. He would keep her safe.

But she was worried. Through the windows of the cabin she could see the sun going down. Papa had never been gone so long. But he'd come back; he always did. Adonia didn't know what else to do but wait, and when it came time for bed, she crawled under her blankets with her toy sailors clutched tight and tried to sleep. It was hard to sleep without Papa's pet monkey chittering across the room or without Papa's occasional deep sighs while he dozed. It was hard to sleep without being able to leave her cot and climb into his bed and press her little body entirely into the warmth of his side, under his arm. She whispered "Good night, me Addie" to herself, but she didn't sound like him and it didn't make her any less scared or alone.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, though, because she woke up with a flash of sunlight streaming in through the window and the sounds of the crew outside. She quickly scrambled out of bed just as the cabin doors flew open, and there was Papa. Of course he'd come back, he always did! Adonia threw down her toys and raced to him, flinging her arms around his waist. He didn't hug back like he normally did, but he did softly stroke his fingers down her hair.  

"Time for ye to go ashore, Adonia," he said. There was grit and gravel in his voice that made him sound not at all like Papa.

Adonia craned her head up to him, confused. She didn't know what to ask or say as her father scooped her onto his hip. She looped her arms around his neck and kept staring at him.

"Ashore? You don't let me, Papa, it's too scary for me."

"True though that be, it's best for ye to make your way, lass."

His words sent terror spiking through her like a sudden chill. She clung even tighter to his coat and his shoulders. Make her own way? What did that mean? Did she not get to stay on the Black Pearl anymore? Why? What had she done? Her heart pounded as her father carried her out of the cabin and down the gangway.

"Papa, no, I don't want to go," she begged him. "Whatever I did to make you mad, Papa, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, please don't make me go, I don't want to go!"

Her heart beat so hard she thought it might burst. She dug her fingers into her father's coat and began to tremble. They reached the dock, and he tried to set her down. Adonia screamed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on so tightly that every muscle hurt.

"I don't want to go!" she sobbed. "Papa, please, I'm sorry, please don't make me go!"

"Hush, girl!" he barked at her. The sharpness of his tone startled her into silence, though she still trembled and tears welled.

With her shocked silence, he was able to peel her off him and set her down on the dock. He gripped her shoulders tight enough that it almost hurt. Adonia looked at him, head spinning. What had she even done wrong? Was it because she'd said she was scared of the treasure? That was the only thing remotely bad she could think of. She'd always tried so hard to be very, very good. She was a good little sailor and a good little girl. What had she done?

"There's no place for ye aboard this ship," her father told her in a braced voice. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked pale and sick. "So you're to make your own way."

Adonia shook her head furiously.

"Papa—no—"

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his compass, shoving it into her palms.

"Find your way home," he told her.

"But I am home!" Adonia sobbed.

Her father said nothing else as he got up and turned on heel to stride back aboard. Adonia ran after him quick as she could, but the crew was already pulling in the gangway. No, no, this couldn't be happening, he couldn't be leaving her, why would he do that, Papa loved her, Papa always made it safe for her, what had she done...

"Papa!" she screamed, panic clutching her chest as hard as she clutched the compass. His back was to her. She couldn't tell if he heard her. She screamed louder. "Papa!"

The crew weighed anchor and dropped canvas, and with a horrified shriek Adonia watched the Black Pearl, the only home she'd ever known, turn for open sea. Her breathing short, Adonia looked down into the harbor. If she jumped, she could swim out, climb back aboard... maybe Papa would tell her what she'd done wrong and she could make it better... She tried to shove the compass into her pocket (wouldn't fit) and took a deep breath, jumping off the dock and into the water. She immediately began to paddle for the Pearl.

"Papa! Papa! Come back! Come back for your Addie!"

The water was deeper than she'd expected, and the Pearl was big and fast. Horror chilled her. She'd never catch up. Sobbing, she floated back to the pier and clutched one of the supports as the tide sloshed against her. She sobbed until she couldn't breathe, face streaked with tears and splashed with seawater. She watched, helpless, as the Pearl grew tinier and tinier and then disappeared from view.

"I only ever tried to be good," she gasped.

Her only answer was a screeching gull careening overhead.

#never take cursed aztec gold #ok? #pirates of the caribbean #potc fic #potc oc #adonia barbossa #hector barbossa

[amlovelies]

wip wednesday

I was tagged last week by @dwead-piwate-meggers, @zarnekis, and @agentmasonjars but I didn’t have anything to share, but I do this week!

so I’m tagging those three as well as @narrativefoiltrope, @pearlsandsteel, @lilyoffandoms, @roses-and-roo, and @mistyeyedbi and anyone else who wants to post! I’d love to see what everyone is working on 💜 (as always no pressure☺)

This is from my prequel a6 vexx/adonia fic which has now ballooned to over 4k words and is only getting longer 😬

              Adonia’s heart is pounding as the round the corner and slide into yet another of the hidden passageways which traverse the palace walls and grounds. She isn’t sure if the guards figured out the entrance behind the tapestry or not, but they wouldn’t be so lucky twice.

               She slumps against the cold stone wall of the passageway. A laugh threatens to bubble up and burst out of her chest. She can’t remember a time when she’s felt so alive. The whole night feels like a dream, a wonderful dream, and she never would have experienced it if it wasn’t for Vexx.

               She never would have been brave enough, or reckless enough to attend if it wasn’t for him. She’d gotten so used to just creeping through the empty halls and watching others lives unfold from the shadows.

               Her heart swells as she looks at him. He’s hard to see in the dim light, especially with his ear pressed up against the false wall listening for any sound of pursuit. Not that she needs to see him to picture his face. His green eyes shining with mischief behind his simple black domino mask and his hair in messy tangles after an evening of dancing and leading his fellow guards on a merry chase.

               “It looks like we lost them,” he says as he turns to face her. He dips into a deep bow before rising and offering her his arm, “shall we promenade your highness?”

               “But of course, my dear sir,” she says with an extravagant curtsy as if they are not still in the center of the great hall before a gaggle of assorted nobles rather than in a cramped cobwebbed passage with only the spiders to observe them.

               Adonia slips her arm into his with a giggle and he takes the opportunity to pull her closer and place a brief kiss on her cheek. It’s enough to make her heart skip a beat. It’s almost too easy for him to effect it.

               They set a slow and leisurely pace along the passageway. Neither of them seems to be in any hurry to reach the other side. Their steps are soft, but still echo in the confined spaces. They don’t speak. There’s no need, and besides they’d rather not alert any one to their presence in the walls.  

               When they reach the end Adonia hesitates before stepping into the moonlit gardens. Even the familiar paths feel more magical tonight, the white blossoms glowing as if lit from within. The air is sweet with their fragrance and she can still hear the music from the party. It is faint, but she can still pick up the melody. She lingers at the edges unwilling to step onto the manicured path. It’s one step closer to this night ending, and if she could she would stretch this moment out for ever.

               Vexx tugs on her hand, “don’t expect me to carry you. I told you not to wear those shoes, besides it’s not much further.” He gestures with a toss of his head to where her rooms lay just across the way.

               “It’s not that,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Thank you for tonight, Vexx. I don’t know if I ever had so much fun.”

               “Not even watching those street performers last month?”

               “Not even then,” she answers with a smile.

#wip wednesday #andromeda six