Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It came out of nowhere.

There was never any warning, not when it had happened, and certainly not when she dreamed.

The waters were warm, the sea shining like a beautiful sapphire in the afternoon sun.

Scratch knew it was a nightmare. It was the same nightmare she’d had for eight, nearly nine years now.

She was standing on her surfboard, and the most beautiful wave was forming right before her, absolutely perfect in every way to surf it all the way back to the shore.

She was so wrong, she had been so stupid. 

But Scratch had only been twelve when it happened. 

There was the barest ripple disturbing the water, and her past self had less than a second to react.

She was fast, her mum had gifted her that, just like her mom had given her magic, even if Scratch hadn’t known that just yet.

But a fraction of a second, standing on a surfboard a couple hundred feet from the shore, there was nothing she could do but scream.

It wasn’t just a sea serpent, it was some primordial monster. It didn’t have a single head, it had nine, all propelled by a tubular body that whipped through the water with a horrid sort of grace.

Scratch knew that she survived. She knew that her mom and her mum were there in an instant, magic shredding the serpent while her mum swam out to Scratch, saving her from death by drowning, just as the gift of her mum’s blood kept her from bleeding out and dying in Jinx’s arms.

But that moment, that instant where she lost her right leg, where she lost her left arm?

All she could do was scream.

“AHHHH!!”

Scratch bolted upright, propped up on her arm.

Her only arm. The one the serpent had left her.

Sitting up, Scratch reached over and gently lay her hand on the rune-craft socket that replaced her shoulder. The rune-crafted metal in her leg and her shoulder had been replaced twice now. It had to be done, keeping her sockets and corresponding prosthetics in line with her growth.

Scratch hoped she was done growing. Each time her mum had to rebuild her shoulder, had to rebuild the metal plate that capped off her leg well above where her knee once was, each time had hurt more than the last.

Given that she was now a bit taller than mum and a bit shorter than mom, odds were good she was gonna be this size for the rest of her life.

“Unless I lose my other leg, then I guess mum could make me taller…” Scratch muttered with a vein of dark humor in her tone.

Swinging her leg over the edge of her bed, she reached over to her nightstand, and her prosthetics. With a practiced hand, she picked up her arm and slotted it into the socket.

“Nnnh,” Scratch hissed, the sharp pain of reconnecting her mechanical arm with her body was a familiar, though not especially welcome, hurt. First, she flexed her fingers, then her wrist, her elbow, and then rolled her shoulder. A little ritual to make sure everything was functioning normally. 

Her leg was easier to reconnect since she had both her arms now, though the pain was no better. Wiggling her toes, then rolling her ankle, flexing her knee, and her other morning ritual was done.

Running her hands through her acid green mohawk, Scratch put a little shape into it, even though she’d have get it cut down by about half if she wanted it to stand straight up and not kinda flop over to the side. Oh well.

Pulling on some shorts, a tank top, and a pair of ratty old sneakers, Scratch made her way upstairs to the kitchen. The smells hit her before anything else, rolls, bacon, eggs and cheese. The sounds were drowned out by the uncessing movements of the sea, little waves lapping up against her home.

Her mom, Lux, was working at the stove, and her mum, Jinx looked up from the pop-gun she was working on at the kitchen table.

“The dream again?”

Scratch nodded with a tired sigh, “Yeah, the sea serpent again.”

Jinx winced and set aside her tools, “I’m sorry to hear that honey. Do you want anything special for breakfast?”

Pulling out one of the chairs from around the table, Scratch sat down and groaned, “I don’t especially want to link that memory with foods I like, that sounds like a pretty fast track to ruining my meals.”

Nodding, Jinx picked up her tools again, “Fair enough. Speaking of meals, Sunshine, how’s it looking?”

Mom called over her shoulder, “Two minutes Sunflower, so put your toys and tools away.”

Jinx chuckled, and moved her latest project off to one side of the table, leaving just enough space for the three of them and their plates.

It was only two minutes of listening to her mom cooking and the cries of the nearby gulls. There were always birds around meal times who wanted to snatch up some food for themselves, but even the most dim-witted among them somehow knew that there was no food to be had from the house on the waves, just gunpowder and death.

Well, most of the time at least, Scratch mused. Mum did have to shoot an exceptionally brave or especially stupid bird every now and again to reestablish some fear in the damn flying pests.

“Breakfast is served,” Mom said, putting a plated omelet and a small roll in front of everyone, before sitting down to tuck in. As always, mom’s cooking was a delight, miles above what mum could make.

“Do we have any pepper left?” mum asked, shaking the little weighted peppermill and being rewarded with nary a sound.

Lux shook her head, and put down her fork. “Sorry Jinx, but the latest supplier got stabbed at the Bloodfin Brothel, and had all their cargo stolen as a result. We’ll have to find a new seller soon if you want pepper.

“Shit,” mum grumbled, but set the mill down and started cutting into her omelet. “It’s not like it needs it, your cooking is great as always, butcha know…”

Mom nodded, smirking, “I know, you like a little spice with your meals.”

“That would explain the sound of chains and moans last night.” Scratch sighed, before turning to a rapidly blushing Lux, “You forgot to put up a sound barrier mom. I threw one of my bubbles up, but I’d rather not have to do that again any time soon.”

Lux supputered like a misfiring engine, and Jinx was very focused on her omelet all of a sudden. 

Scratch laughed, “Mom, mum, I’m twenty, I could care less about what the two of you are doing when the lights are off, or when they’re on for that matter. I just don’t wanna hear you goin’ at it.”

Mum coughed into her fist, “Ah, noted Scratch. So, moving on, got any plans for the day?”

Jerking one thumb toward Lux, Scratch nodded, “A bit of this and that. Mom wants some help charging a few batteries, and then I was gonna surf for a bit, maybe pop into town for lunch or somethin’.”

Even after all these years, Scratch still saw the flicker of fear on her parents' faces when she mentioned surfing, a fear that she suspected would never fully go away.

In all fairness, it was a fear she shared. But if she didn’t surf, she’d only grow more and more afraid of the sea. And given where she and her parents lived, that would be a very bad phobia to develop. So everytime she had the nightmare, she would surf.

Well, unless there was a storm, that was just begging for trouble.

After that instant of fear, mom nodded and started collecting empty plates. “Do you need any money sweetie? Last I heard all the shore-side pubs and restaurants raised their prices. Something about recent increased tensions between Piltover, and well, Bilgewater.”

Mum threw her hands up as if warding off accusations, “If anyone says this is my fault, tell them if they wanna fuck around they’re gonna find out.”

“Sunflower, it’s not your fault. Only a handful of people from Piltover or Zaun even know you’re here; no one trusts the word of a freebooter from Bilgewater, or those who trade with them.” Moving the plates over to the sink, Mom set them down. “Maybe it’s all just gossip and rumor. A trade ship sinks here or there, someone got greedy and raised the price of goods, it could be just about anything.”

Scratch got up and started to stretch a bit. She wasn’t leaving just yet, but it never hurt to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. She wasn’t mum, she didn’t have quite that level of impossible energy and innate flexibility. “It’s probably just someone getting greedy. I saw a ship from Piltover sailing into port yesterday, so they can’t be that mad at us.” 

“Hmm, good to know,” muttered mum, “I guess I’ll keep my head down until they buzz off. Back to your mom’s question tho, do you need a couple of coins for lunch?” 

Scratch shook her head with an insolent smile on her lips, “Nah, I’ll find some place that needs a battery charged and trade a little magic for a meal and a couple drinks.”

“Don’t go doing that too often honey, or you’ll drive the price of our services down,” chided mom, but there was a smirk that she couldn’t quite hide, especially since mum had the same exact expression.

Flapping one hand, Scratch walked over to a small chest on the far side of the galley and gently flipped open the lid. 

Sure, most of the batteries inside were totally drained, and mum had done a great job of improving their stability almost to the point of perfection, but being rough with something that held a great deal of energy in a thumb-sized cylinder of metal was not exactly a great idea.

“How many do you need me to do mom?”

Lux shrugged, washing off the dishes with what amounted to a scrub brush of hard light. “If you could charge ten of them sweetie, that would be really helpful.”

Taking a deep breath in, Scratch poked at the lump of energy that lived in her heart. Soul? Whatever, she woke up her magic.

She couldn’t do all the stuff her mom did, Scratch hadn’t inherited Lux’s photomancy. She had her own magic, and as best as her parents and her could figure it out between the three of them, they’d eventually decided that Scrath's magic was a form of telekinesis.

As Scratch slowly pushed her magic into the battery, she mused about what her magic really did for her. She could grab stuff from across a room, and similarly toss stuff away from her too. If she put enough effort into it, she could throw stuff fast enough to cause some serious damage. In the same vein, while she couldn’t like, break bones or bend metal or anything, soft tissue and stuff made out of wood was easy enough to crush with her magic.

Lastly, and Scratch cursed after every nightmare that she hadn’t known this that fateful day nearly nine years ago, she could throw up shields of pure magic. The little bubbles or panes of energy were strong enough to stop some pretty serious damage, and the closer the shield was to her, the stronger it got.

Shaking her head, Scratch picked up another battery and started charging it. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, she could barely do anything with her magic for a while after she started using it. Well, aside from letting Scratch keep her rune-craft limbs topped off and letting them move a little more smoothly.

A double handful of minutes later, Scratch let out a slow breath and set the last of the ten batteries aside. Mom could crank out fifty of the little metal cylinders every hour and have energy to spare. But Scratch wasn’t Lux, and odds were good she’d never have quite the level of power that mom did. But that was alright, her mom was her mom, her mum was her mum, and Scratch was Scratch.

“Hey mom, mum, I got the last one done! I’m headed out!”

“Have fun sweetie!” Mum called out from up above on the sun deck. Gotta maintain that tan, Scratch mentally chuckled. Mom wouldn’t respond, she was probably a few decks down pouring magic into Jinx’s latest creation, which was either a weapon, a tool, or a toy (the most likely option). While rune-craft weapons would always fetch premium coin, Scratch knew both mom and mum did their best to not destabilize Bilgewater too much by arming one particular gang or crew with too much enchanted wargear at a time.

Well, aside from Miss Fortune’s crew, but since her parents had the Pirate Queen’s support in continuing to live in their little patch of sea without Piltover going ape-shit, well, what was a little not-quite-bribery between friends?

With a chuckle, Scratch stepped out onto the deck, and grabbed her surfboard from where it was tied down. Leaning the chunk of wood against the railing, she was quick to also grab her shark's grin mask off of the wall, expertly strapping it around her nose and mouth. It had been a very scary moment for everyone when Scratch found out that swimming was no longer something she could do. Turns out when half your limbs are made of metal, buoyancy was not something you had a lot of. The mask was another product of her parent’s ingenuity, a shaped metal plate that generated its own little bubble of air for Scratch to breathe as she slowly walked back to shore.

Nowadays she had enough control over her magic to swim, or at least push herself around and not risk falling into an undersea trench and just-

“Ugh!” Scratch shuddered at the thought. “Glad those days are behind me,” she rasped, the mask giving her words just a hint of a harsh metal on metal sounding edge.

Kicking off her shoes, Scratch balanced the board on one of the railings, and with a quick little jump, she hopped onto the board and rode it off the edge of her home.

As the water rushed up to meet her, Scratch burned a few droplets of her magic and created a slope for her to ride, leveling out her descent, and spitting her out to ride a little self made wave further towards shore.

Eventually, the board slowed down, and Scratch had to lay down on it so she didn’t tip over and lose another damn surfboard this month. Paddling with her arms, she cut towards the shore on an angle, mostly keeping out to sea, but aiming for the distant sands of one of Bilgewater’s many beaches.

Keeping her head on a swivel, Scratch looked for a wave to ride to shore. Well, also keeping her eyes out for bloodfins, harpoon squids, razorfish, sea snakes, berserk sharks…

“I mean, that shit doesn't hang out this close to shore… usually,” Scratch rasped. In point of fact, the fishing boats were just dots on the horizon, the frequent comings and goings of Bilgewater’s many docks pushing fish away from the shore and shallows.

A few idelic minutes of slowly paddling and enjoying the late morning sun, Scratch saw her wave.

It was a cruel thing, rising rapidly out of the ocean like some furious Celestial was using the waters to slap Scratch off her board.

“Game on!” roared Scratch, rising to a low crouch, and kicking her magic to life once more. She didn't have her mom's seemingly limitless reserves, but what she had she recovered lightning quick.

Strictly speaking, using her magic to push her board at the wave like she'd strapped a rocket to the backside of it wasn't quiiiiite proper surfing, but fuck if it wasn't a lot more fun this way.

“Wahoo!” she shrieked, hair whipping behind her like some ragged war banner, her board throwing up a ferocious wake of water cut clean through by Scratch's magic.

The wave rose up to the sky, dominating Scratch's view, the raging hand of the sea threatening to crush her like an ant.

For an instant, Scratch saw it again, saw her nightmare, her horror, her pain swimming toward her, many mouths open, ready to finish the job.

But she gritted her teeth and surged forward, banishing the phantom of her past as she took a grip on the edge of her board and raced up the savage body of the wave.

With a final burst of magic, Scratch was above the wave. The sea became the sky, the sky the ocean, Scratch flipping over and over like a barrel kicked downhill.

It was a wonderful feeling, a song in her heart, a symphony of joy and adrenaline. 

Still gripping the edge of her board, Scratch stuck the landing with practiced ease, balancing on the pinnacle of the wave. Aside from a slight crouch in her legs, she stood tall and let her voice ring out over the uncaring sea.

“Maiden of the sea, oh she could never be me! Daughter of the deeps, oh she could never be me!”

Flicking her magic, Scratch did a little hop and twist with her board, spinning like a corkscrew atop the wave.

“Sister of the storms, oh she could never be me! Child of the shores, oh she could never be me!”

The wave was almost spent, the shore rapidly approaching, and Scratch stood up even taller, using a small pane of magic to stabilize her and keep her from slipping off.

“So what am I, if none of them could be me?! I am the Queen of the waves, of the tides, of the surf, now that could be me!!”

“Help!!”

Scratch's heart skipped a beat, and her eyes snapped to the shore, a growl ripping its way out of her throat. With a fresh burst of magic, her surfboard leapt forward, and in an instant Scratch was skidding across the wet sands where sea ended and land began.

Three men were surrounding a young woman, chuckling darkly. The woman wore clothes that screamed ‘Piltover’ and not just Piltover but also ‘rich’. A flowing mane of bright pink hair cascaded down her back, and her sapphire blue eyes darted to and fro, desperately seeking escape that simply wasn't there. 

One of the men, a thick set gangster with more scars and tattoos than clear skin pulled a knife and started closing in on the tourist. “Scream all you want darling, no fancy Enforcers here in Bilgewater. Now be nice and quiet, and maybe you won't lose too many fingers before we auction you off to the highest bidder…”

“Hey shrimp dicks!” rasped Scratch, stalking up the beach with her board under one arm, “I'll give you lot one chance to fuck off and leave the Piltie alone before I pull your fucking cocks off and feed them to the fishes!”

“Oh shit, that's Scratch,” one of the three gasped, backing away slowly while the third slaver fumbled for the cutlass tucked into his belt.

The one with the knife started walking toward Scratch, sneering at her as he towered above the self proclaimed queen of the surf. “Step off you seaweed looking fuck, we found her first, so how about you-”

The knife left the slaver's hand in a lethal arc, whipped at Scratch's throat with unerring accuracy, at a range that no one could possibly dodge.

No one but the famed and feared Loose Cannon, or in this case, her daughter.

Something in Scratch's blood snapped and fizzed, and suddenly her board was right in front of her, the lacquered wood catching the dagger with a solid ‘thunk’.

“Wrong move shrimp dick,” Scratch growled, and before the slaver had even an instant to react, Scratch let go of her board and kicked it straight at him.

The board flew at the man like a door kicked free of its hinges, and while the plank of wood was a lot lighter than the average door, most doors aren't kicked by a very angry Scratch putting her inherited blood to full use.

The board crashed into the no-longer-knife wielding slaver with bone cracking force, throwing him clear off his feet, face smashed flatter than a flounder. He tumbled about a dozen feet before laying perfectly still face down in the sands, a distance which Scratch idly noted was a new record for her.

“Look out!” screamed the Piltie, and Scratch turned to face her.

The slaver who had recognized Scratch was sprinting away from her as fast as he could, but the last idiot was an idiot, and raced toward Scratch, cutlass raised high and a bloodthirsty cry on his lips.

A bloodthirsty cry that died in a wet gurgle when Scratch raised one hand and lashed out with her magic, seizing onto the man's throat from ten feet away. Putting a little more energy into the spell, Scratch forced the gangster onto his tip-toes, his legs desperately kicking to try and find the ground again. The slaver dropped his cutlass and started scratching at his neck, desperate to pull away the invisible hand that was slowly choking the life out of him.

“Stop it, you're going to kill him!”

Scratch blinked and looked away from the slaver she was slowly throttling back to the Piltie who looked quite distraught. “Uh, that is the idea, uh, Pinkie or whatever your name is.”

The woman looked positively shocked at the notion that Scratch was knowingly killing a man, before she shook her head and ran over to her savior and started pulling at her right arm, the one Scratch was holding up as if she was physically choking the man and not doing it magically.

“You can’t do this, it’s wrong, you can’t use magic like this!”

Scratch blinked again, “Wow, got it in one. And for your information, I totally can. Look, I’m doing it right now actually.”

“STOP!”

The word thundered through Scratch’s soul, and before her mind caught up with her body, she’d already dropped her arm and let the slaver fall to the ground, wheezing and purple in the face, but alive.

“That was-”

“Oh, oh no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I didn’t mean-”

Scratch reached out and grabbed the Piltie’s face by both cheeks, forcing her to look Scratch in the eye. “So that’s why you knew I was using magic. You’re a mage too. Son of a bitch, that’s a first.”

“You have pretty eyes.”

Scratch let her hands drop away and rolled her pretty eyes, “Holy shit, you were about to be kidnapped and sold into slavery, you watched me kick a guy halfway down the beach, choke another guy out with my mind, commanded me to spare him using your magic, and that’s what you say?!” 

The Piltie blushed but stood up straight, even though that was about a head shorter than Scratch. Cripes, mum was about that tall, thought Scratch, before she shook her head and tried to tune in to whatever the pink haired woman was saying.

“-and you can’t use magic like that, my parents told me so and everyone on the Council agreed, so that’s why I know you can’t hurt people with magic cause it’s wrong and extra illegal and-”

“I will spare this dipshit’s life if you stop trying to lecture me!” Scratch rasped, rubbing her temples as the Piltie slowly stopped talking.

“Oh, well. I guess that’s agreeable. Oh, I never introduced myself, my name is Seraphine. And, um, thank you for rescuing me, you were rather dashing, even though you were also a bit, uh, violent about it.”

Scratch shrugged, looking from the slaver who was still laying in the sand without moving in any way, shape, or form, to the one who was trying to silently crawl away. Walking towards the crawler, Scratch called back over one shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it. So, no magical violence, right Sera?”

Seraphine nodded rapidly, “Yes, exactly, it’s not right to use a gift like magic to hurt others, and on top of that assault and murder and other bad things like that are very illegal and-”

Whatever Seraphine was saying was rather suddenly drowned out by a high pitched shriek of extreme pain as Scratch brought her rune-craft foot down right between the crawling slavers legs.

“... Tell me you did not just do what I think you just did.”

“Okay, I did not just do whatever it is you think I did,” Scratch rasped, walking back to Seraphine while the slaver slowly curled into a ball, clutching his crotch and crying.

“You’re insane. This whole place is freaking insane!! What is wrong with you people!?!”

With a shrug, Scratch ran a hand through her hair, trying to tease some of that mohawk shape back into it. “Piltie, if you think I’m bad, you ain't seen nothin’ yet.” Dragging her mask down around her neck, Scratch threw her arms wide open and gave Seraphine her most dazzling (and therefore manic) grin.

“Welcome to Bilgewater, Sera.”

Chapter Text

After a long few seconds of silence, Scratch shrugged and walked over to the crying man and rifled through his pockets, grabbing a fistful of silver coins, then started walking to the closest ladder that led up from the waters and onto a pier. “So, anyway, happy to have met you, best of luck with the next group of criminal scum you run into, but I’m gonna go get lunch.”

That seemed to kick Seraphine’s brain into gear, and she rushed over to Scratch’s side. “What do you mean I haven’t seen anything yet?! It can get even worse!?!”

“Oh yeah, totally. Ever seen two full crews go at it in a bar? The walkways are pretty damn slick after that sort of row.”

“You have to be kidding me. Whole, whole groups of people just kill each other? And you’re fine with that?! You just hurt two men, stole from one, and now you’re going to grab lunch like nothing happened?”

Scratch shaded her eyes and took a quick glance at the position of the sun, “I'm getting tired of being called “you”, my name is Scratch. And I guess it’ll be more of a brunch really, but fighting always puts the rumblies in my tumbly.” Putting her hands on the pitted and scarred metal ladder, Scratch started to climb one rung at a time, testing each bar with a tug before putting her full weight on it. “Seriously tho Pinkie, if you want to follow me, that’s fine, but I’m not gonna wait around and play twenty questions with you while the tide comes in.”

With a strangled sound of disgust, the ladder started to shake, and Scratch smiled to herself. Maybe her day in town would be a little more interesting than usual.

Reaching the top of the ladder, Scratch took a quick look around. The streets were mostly cobbles, and what parts of the street that were planks had been worn smooth by countless feet, making splinters a rare occurrence. Not a pleasant occurrence for Scratch, but given how fast she healed, it was sort of a non-issue.

“So,” Scratch laughed, turning around to offer Seraphine a helping hand to Seraphine as she climbed onto the pier, “brunch?”

Seraphine studiously ignored Scratch’s hand and clambered onto the pier by herself. Turning her nose up with a sniff, the Piltie looked away from Scratch with folded arms. “I refuse to eat with someone who is so callous to the people around them. If my parents found out that I broke bread with someone who stole, and who hurt two men like it was nothing, why they’d-”

Scratch was already walking away, waving the stuck-up tourist a fond farewell, “Whelp, good luck finding anyone to eat with here, and have fun with the two guys approaching you with a club and a burlap sack.”

With a very mouse-like “Eeep!”, Seraphine rushed to Scratch’s side, and latched onto her arm like a lamprey. Well, briefly that is, until a moment later when she realized she was hugging sun warmed metal.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, I didn’t tug on that did I? Did I pull any of it out of place, oh I’m so sorry I didn’t notice and-”

“Girl chill, take a breath,” Scratch cackled, “you sound like my parents every time I’ve had to get these puppies resized.” With a shudder, Scratch tried not to think about that too hard, especially the pain that came from a fresh refitting.

Seraphine blinked, no longer hanging off of Scratch’s arm but looking up at her new brunch buddy with curious eyes. “These puppies? Wait, you-”

Pausing to reach down, Scratch tapped her left arm to her right leg, the clang of metal on metal perfectly audible in spite of Bilgewater’s perpetually busy streets. “Arm and a leg, not sure how you missed noticing these, but let’s not dwell on that any further. Do you like seafood?”

Blinking, Sera nodded with a smile, “Oh yes, thank you for asking Scratch! I’m fond of charred Noxian pikefish, do you know anywhere that may serve some?”

“That’s from Noxus, and we don’t import fish.”

“Okay, well, what about a nice filet of trout? Trout is from all over, right?”

“If you can point me to a patch of freshwater in the middle of the ocean, I got a bridge to sell ya.”

“O-okay, um, oh! Golden tuna! That’s a saltwater fish!”

Scratch nodded, and for a brief moment Seraphine beamed with joy. It was only a moment though as Scratch then muttered, “Wellll…”

“No Scratch, no no no no no. Tuna is a saltwater fish, I know that for sure!”

Hunching her shoulders, Scratch groaned, “Yeah, but it’s a saltwater fish from Demacia, and again, sorry, we don’t import fish.”

Scratch turned her head a bit and watched in real time as Seraphine went from disbelief, to angry, to sorrow, to acceptance. Wait, no, back to sorrow as pinprick tears started to build in the corners of her pretty sapphire eyes.

Scratch held up her hands, and shushed her impromptu tag-along, “Okay, okay, I know we don’t have your favorites, but I know seafood like the back of my hand, and I’ll get you-”

“Which hand?”

Scratch stopped, blinked, looked down at her two hands, then back up to Seraphine with dead eyes and a perfectly still face. “Bitch, I will tie you to an anchor and throw you out to sea.” With a sigh, Scratch ran her organic hand through her hair, grumbling, “But since you’re- you're a tourist, I’ll let that joke slide. Let’s go.”

Scratch started to stomp off, well aware of the pink Piltie jogging along in her wake. And after a few minutes, huffing and puffing along in her wake.

Turning to look over her shoulder, Scratch sighed when it became apparent that Seraphine was falling behind.

Weakness wasn’t always going to get you jumped, Bilgewater wasn’t that ruthless.

…

Scratch shook her head and stopped on the walkway, tapping her metal foot while Seraphine caught up.

Took Seraphine a hot second, but she did catch up, stopping with her hands on her knees, head bowed as Seraphine tried to get her breath back. “Why, why are you walking so fast? Is brunch really that important to you?”

“Didn’t notice I was moving quick really, and yeah, I wanna eat something. I must have been out on the water a bit longer than I thought, we may actually be eating lunch.”

Sera stood up and let out a shaky breath, “How could you not know how fast you were walking? Don't you have someone to just, go on a stroll with?”

Scratch frowned and started stomping away from Seraphine, “Don’t worry about that, let’s just get going. If we stand around and jaw all day, we’ll be eating dinner.”

Sera scurried to catch up with her, and Scratch turned Seraphine’s words over and over in her head.

She did not like the conclusions she was drawing from that one damn question.

Shaking her head, Scratch stopped so suddenly that Seraphine nearly crashed into her back.

“Sorry, I, I got distracted by all the people, and the sounds. There’s just, just so much color here.”

Scratch raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded like she understood a damn thing Sera was saying. “Well, anyway, we’re here.”

Seraphine looked at the building they were standing in front of, and then turned to Scratch, eyes wide with horror. “You’re kidding right? Right? There’s no way this place is a restaurant.”

“Uh, it ain't, it’s a bar.”

“Oh Celestials above preserve me. A bar!!” Seraphine hissed, “you want to drink?! At this hour, on a weekday, in a place called Big Busty Rodger’s Slutty Crab Shack?!?”

“That and eat lunch, now come on,” Scratch said, grabbing Seraphine’s hand and dragging her into the bar.

“Hey-o Rodger, what’s cracking?”

The colossal vastaya burbled something, his crab-like face not exactly shaped for speech above the waves. Chitinous hands gripped a wooden tankard, rubbing the rim with a dirty rag.

Seraphine couldn’t help but stare at the massive bipedal crab-man, averting her gaze as soon as she saw a black beady eye swivel her way. Again, that burbling sort of speech and Scratch laughed.

“You always say that! And she’s a tourist, believe it or not. Anyway, trade you a battery charge for two crab pots and,” Scratch looked to Seraphine, and her grin widened, “a pair of double ration grogs!”

“What!?” Seraphine hissed, but saw no mercy in Scratch’s merciless rictus of a smile. There was actually something about her grin that tickled Seraphine’s memory, but before she could try and tease the thought out, Scratch pulled on her hand and got the both of them seated in a booth set into the back wall of the bar.

Scratch looked inordinately pleased with herself, at least until Seraphine kicked her in the shins under the table.

“Ow Pinkie, what the shit?”

“I should be asking you that Scratch!” Seraphine half-shouted with more venom than the average sea snake in her voice. “You drag me into a bar, you order for me, in fact you order alcohol for me, and then you drag me to a booth that’s the furthest from the door out of this, this bar!”

Scratch took one look at Seraphine’s face and wilted. “Okay, strictly speaking, all of those things are true. But may Nagakabouros throttle me in my sleep if I’m lying, I have no ill-intentions.”

“No ill-intentions?!” Seraphine snarled, and Scratch could feel something burning through her heart, her mind, a sense of shame she could not place. “Why if this was Piltover you’d have a dozen Enforcers-”

“This isn’t Piltover,” growled Scratch, pushing aside guilt with anger, “This isn’t even Zaun! You’re not in Demacia, or Ionia, or anywhere else. You’re in fucking Bilgewater, Piltie, and since I saved your ass from being enslaved, just- just!”

Scratch didn’t know when she’d leapt to her feet, or when Seraphine had done the same, and she couldn’t recall leaning over the table to snarl in Seraphine’s face, but Seraphine was looking at with Scratch with just as much revulsion and rage stretched across her features.

“Just what, Bilgerat?” Seraphine sneered, and Scratch briefly wondered if she should have just abandoned this walking headache back on the pier.

But she shook her head, mom would throw her overboard if she behaved like an utter bastard.

“...never mind.” Scratch sighed and flopped down on her side of the booth. Looking around the half-full bar, she sighed again. Her mum and mom were not gonna be happy when they heard about this shouting match. Not like, mad or anything, just… ugh, concern and disappointment were somehow worse.

“... okay,” Seraphine grumbled, sitting down in time just for a metal object to whip past her head, drawing a shrill shriek out of her.

Meanwhile, Scratch bounced the battery in her hand, shooting Rodger’s first mate a bit of a glare, “You’re lucky my reflexes are good Shimmy, or that might have been bad.”

The borderline skeletal man shrugged, “But you’re Scratch, so your reflexes are that good. Food’ll be out in a pinch, but I got your drinks right here.”

Shimmy set down two wooden tankards, one in front of each of them. The one in front of Seraphine didn’t stay there for long, Scratch leaning over to snatch it away before Seraphine had even moved a muscle. “You got my drinks. Go be a sport and grab a half-ration grog for the tourist.”

With another shrug, Shimmy walked off, looking for all the world like the world's most distressing marionette forced to life by cruel fate.

Seraphine eyed the two mugs in front of Scratch, then looked back to the green-haired woman. “You didn’t really order both of those for you did you?”

“I totally did,” Scratch deadpanned, swirling one of the mugs around before taking a great swig of the drink. “You didn’t like hearing we were going into a bar, so I figured I’d just give you a little scare.”

“You’re lying.”

At that, Scratch smiled, slouching down in her seat, throwing her fleshy leg up onto the table, “I guess we’ll never know.”

Seraphine dropped her head with a sigh, mumbling something into her hair before sitting up straight and facing Scratch again. “...Fine. But please take your leg off the table, that’s so unsanitary!”

“...Fine.” Scratch mumbled, and swung her leg back off the table, fiddling with the metal cylinder in one hand, taking a drink with the other. “You might as well get comfy though, we’re gonna be here a while.”

“Huh?” was about as far as Seraphine got before Shimmy set down another mug of grog in front of her, this one smelling mostly of water and only faintly of rum.

“Oh, thank you!”

Shimmy looked taken aback, and turned to Scratch, “You weren’t kidding about her being a tourist. Where did you find this one?”

Scratch shrugged and set her grog down, giving Seraphine some side-eye, “A bit down the ways, you know how it is. And before you ask Shimmy, no, not even for thirty serpents.”

With another one of those jerky, bony shrugs, Shimmy turned around and walked off, just in time for Rodger to walk up and drop two huge pots of seafood onto the table without a burbled word.

“Battery will be done in a tick Rodger,” Scratch said with a smile. Rodger nodded and ambled away, and Seraphine turned her attention back to the pot of seafood in front of her.

“The broth looks like mud.”

“Adds flavor.”

“I can see a squid eye in mine.”

“Adds flavor.”

“I think that piece of fish is still bleeding.”

“Adds-”

“Shut up, just shut up! I can’t believe you! I can’t even start to think of why I trusted you- you- you rapscallion!”

Scratch sighed and looked at her mugs with something like longing. “Fine then. But before you storm off and go back to your crew and parents, at least eat something.”

With a disgusted sigh, Seraphine settled back into her seat, picked up a spoon she would expect to see in a trash heap, and took a tiny sip of the broth.

Then a larger one.

Then she took a spoonful of the soup broth and drank it like it was life saving medicine.

With a fork, she speared a chunk of half-bloody fish and gulped it down without chewing, her eyes bright and shining with glee.

Scratch smiled bitterly, and started in on her own pot, eschewing her fork and spoon to grab tentacles and tear open crab legs with her bare hands.

That was it for a while, just the sounds of gulping and spearing, cracking and biting, all interspersed with swings of grog.

Seraphine sat back first, pushing a mostly empty pot away from herself, “Oh goodness, I haven’t eaten like that in weeks.”

Scratch looked at Seraphine askance, “You must have sailed in on a real dogshit ship then. Every sailor I know does at least a little fishing, fresh seafood shouldn’t be that rare during a voyage.”

Seraphine looked away from Scratch’s probing gaze, and gently coughed into one hand, “Well, yes, I mean, it wasn’t quite so much, or cooked quite so well. Yes, that’s all.”

“Well, fair enough. You done?”

Seraphine gave a small nod, and Scratch dug a couple of octagonal silver coins out of her pocket. “Glad I picked these up. Oi, Shimmy, come ‘ere!”

Seraphine blinked and all of a sudden the herky jerky skeletal man was standing at their table.

“What can I do for ya Scratch?”

Tossing the two coins and the small cylinder of metal to him, Scratch got up from the booth. “We’re done here Shimmy. Don’t die.”

Shimmy nodded like Scratch had said the most normal thing in the world, “Wouldn’t dream of it. See ya next time!”

Upon realizing she was being left behind, Seraphine leapt to her feet and raced out of the bar after Scratch.

“You unmannered little so and so! You were going to leave without even saying goodbye?!”

Scratch turned around and stared down at Seraphine. “First off, I don’t think you have room to call anyone little. Secondly, didn’t we just have a big shouting match in Rodger’s place where you called me a Bilgerat, and told me you never should have trusted me, yadda yadda yadda?”

“Well,” Seraphine murmured, “Such an occurrence may have happened, yes…”

“So by my reckoning, after saving your skin at that beach and buying you lunch, I don’t owe you anything, a fond farewell or otherwise.”

Sera winced, “Okay, yes, and I’m sorry I didn’t thank you for the lunch, and I do want to thank you for the food, so, um, thank you,”

“Don’t mention it,” Scratch deadpanned.
“Right, but, uh, I was thinking that since we’re saying goodbye, maybe you wouldn’t mind pointing me back in the direction of the docks? I need to find a ship.”

Scratch tipped her head back and shut her eyes, holding them closed for longer than was typically advisable in this stretch of town. After that long moment, Scratch looked back down at Seraphine. “You’re kidding, right?”

Shrinking in on herself, the pink haired Piltie gave Scratch a truly pitiful look, and suddenly Scratch felt bad for all the times she’d deployed puppy eyes on mom. She’d done it to mum too, but it worked a lot less often.

“Mother Serpent, you’re not fucking kidding,” Scratch said with a deep, soulborne sigh. “Why me? You’re from Piltover, and a fancy part based on what you’re wearing. Just go pay some kid to run you back to that Piltie ship you came in on.”

“... i don’t have any money…” Seraphine whispered, flinching as Scratch grabbed her by both shoulders, leaning down to hiss in her face.

“You’re kidding. You’re fucking kidding. You came to a den of fucking mercs, pirates, and quasi-illegitimate businessmen, without any money?!”

Again with the puppy dog eyes, and Scratch almost bumped into someone as she staggered backwards from Seraphine. Shaking her head, she motioned for Seraphine to follow her. “Okay, fine, in your sorry state my mom really will throw me overboard, and mum will tie weights to my feet if I abandon you like this. Okay, well once you get back to your ship, I bet you have some stuff to pawn off, some spare dresses, or like, a bracelet or something, and-”

“... i don’t have any stuff…”

There was next to nothing that could trip Scratch up. She was nimble, reacted quickly, and had a mind as sharp as a tack. She still nearly fell over her own feet at Seraphine's whispered confession. Stumbling, she whipped around to look at Seraphine, who didn’t just have puppy dog eyes, she had a whole kennel of pleading wrapped up in the pitiful look she was giving Scratch.

Scratch opened her mouth to say something, then closed it with a click. Grabbing Seraphine by the hand, she all but dragged the other woman into a nearby alleyway, using her magic to bodily throw its other occupant onto the street.

“Hey, what’s the big ide-”

The man shut his trap as Scratch threw the last of her looted serpents at him, scooping up the coins and running off.

Pushing Sera up against a grungy wooden plank wall, Scratch looked left and right, up and down too, before she started whispering in a voice that was both horrified, impressed, and angry. “You have no money, you have no stuff but the dress on your back and whatever is in your pockets. Did you get robbed by the crew then they threw you down the gangplank or something?!”

Sera was doing her best to retain that famous Piltovian stiff upper lip and all that, but the pinpricks of tears were starting to turn into just regular tears as she shook her head. “I had to use the money and stuff I'd brought in order to bribe the crew into not throwing me overboard mid-voyage when they found my hidey-hole. And thank you for noticing that the dress has pockets, it was actually-”

“Got it, okay, pockets, okay, terrible idea to stowaway, alright. So when you said you wanted me to walk you to the docks to find a ship, you weren’t talking about the one you sailed in on, were you?!”

Say what you will about Sera, Scratch thought, but she had guts. Sending her pink hair flying this way and that, she looked up at Scratch and whispered back, “No, I needed to get there so I could grab a ship.”

“You’re fucking mental. Literally beyond insane, and I know mum, so that’s saying something.” Scratch rubbed her fleshy hand over her face, before looking around again. No one yet, but someone was gonna come bother them at some point, and they may not just toss them some serpents and push them out of the alley.

“What was you plan?! Why did you do this?!”

“I have to find it! The Syren’s Pendant!” Sera hissed, with fire and steel ringing in her voice. “No one would believe me, not even with the map, so I have to go do it myself!”

“Map? Some ratty old map convinced you to sail from the luxury and comfort of Piltover for the fucking anarchy and violence of Bilgewater!?! All for some jewelry?!!”

Seraphine bared her teeth and shoved a hand down the front of her dress.

Scratch quickly looked for movement around them again until the sound of rustling fabric stopped. Gotta be careful around these parts after all.

“Look! It’s authentic, every single academic, expert, and professor I could get in touch with swore up and down that this was a real map, a real map from when the Shadow Isles went by another name!”
Scratch looked, and her jaw dropped.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuuuuuuck.

“Put that fucking thing away right fucking now!” Scratch almost screamed, and a flinching Seraphine shoved the map back down the front of her dress.

“I told you it’s real! It’s real and I’ve got to find it!”
Scratch nodded, eyes haunted. “Yeah, okay, nope, I believe you, now follow me as fast as you can… no, fuck it, get on my back, we can’t go slow.”

Scratch crouched down, and after a moment’s hesitation, felt Seraphine slip her legs into the seat that Scratch made with her arms, and gingerly placed her own arms around Scratch’s neck.

“Why do we need to run? Where are you taking me?!”

“We’re going to see my godmothers.”

“What?! Who!?! Why?!”

“Because if anyone will know what to do, it’ll be Auntie Sarah and Auntie Illaoi.”

And then Scratch began to run like her life depended on it.

Because if that really was the map, more than just her life was on the line.

Chapter Text

Seraphine shrieked as Scratch took yet another hairpin turn down yet another alleyway on Fleet Street.

At least that was Scratch’s best guess as to why Sera was screaming, she couldn’t exactly stop to ask her what she was freaking out about.

Scratch discarded the thought as a useless one, and tried to focus on where she was running. Toward Auntie Sarah’s house to be sure, but the fine details needed some active attention. Especially since she was taking so many damn side alleys for the sake of avoiding knots of people she couldn’t slip by or shoulder past.

“Scratch, Scratch! Why are we going so fast!?”

“I’ll tell you in a second,” Scratch screamed back, hoping that Sera could hear her over the rumble of Bilgewater’s occupants and the shouts of shock or annoyance as Scratch blew past other street goer’s and alleyway occupants.

Spotting what she’d been looking for just a few blocks down, she gritted her teeth and poured on the speed. The wooden lift was on its way down, and there was a line que’d up to use the contraption to move up the spires of rock and boats lashed to said rock that made up Bilgewater.

Scratch was pushing her body too hard, she knew it, but every second counted, because every second added up into a minute, and every minute added up to an hour, and so on and so forth. She wasn’t going to make the lift before it started moving back up with a fresh batch of people.

“Shit, shit, shit, wait, Sera!”

“What?”

“Move the crowd! We need that lift!”

Scratch could feel Seraphine start to deny her, to tell Scratch that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. She’d been quite adamant that using her magic was something she wouldn’t do lightly.

“Do it or you walk the rest of the way!”

The bundle of kindness and Piltovian courtesy suddenly stiffened, and Scratch could almost hear the calculations being run in Sera’s head. And then Seraphine took a great big breath in.

“Get Out Of Our Way!”

And everyone did. Moving in an eerie synchronicity, each and every one of the people in the queue stepped to the side, clearing a channel for Scratch to sprint down, straight onto the wooden platform with a harsh wail as her metal foot raised hell scraping against one of the iron bands that held the whole thing together.

The screech seemed to break whatever magic Seraphine had hit the crowd with, and Scratch reached out with her own magic for the leaver that would send her and Seraphine up the mountainside, slapping it to turn it on.

And then for good measure, she ripped the leaver in half, leaving a giant knot of splinters instead of something that could be used to halt and reverse their ride to the top.

Scratch slumped to the ground as she grabbed the wooden beam she’d just wrenched off the elevator controls before tossing it down on the platform. Maybe someone could stick it back together sharpish so no one got too mad about the delay.

“Scratch, what the hell is all this! What did you see on that map that’s got you like this?! Why are you-”

“I saw hope Sera,” Scratch panted, “Hope not just for me, or you, or even Bilgewater. I saw hope for the whole world.”

Seraphine’s eyes went as wide as saucers, and she glanced down at the parchment stuffed in her top. “What? No, no way, what? It’s just a treasure map!”

Groaning, Scratch got back to her feet, feeling more than a little unstable. She’d bounce back, but it would take a minute or five. “Yeah, it’s a treasure map all right, and one of the treasures is hope.”

The sight of the top of their ride had Scratch groaning again. Turning to Seraphine, she sighed, “Any chance you can carry me for a bit? Or just, jog, that’d work too.”

The platform was nearly at the top, and Seraphine was still staring down her top. “Hope? Really, truly hope?”

“May Nagakabouros throttle me in my sle-”

Seraphine squared her shoulders and clenched her hands into fists, giving Scratch a sharp nod. “Okay, hope it is.”

Before Scratch had even a hot second to process how different Seraphine looked when she had just locked eyes with Scratch, the platform came to a shuddering halt, and Sera grabbed her hand. “Come on, I think I see what I need!” and just like that, Sera dragged Scratch like a toy doll over to a pile of junk and scraps.

Scratch was too tired and too jelly legged to do anything but follow her companion over to the trash, her blood still too hot, her insides feeling scrambled.

“Hey, hey, Scratch, gimmie a hand with this!” Seraphine cheered, trying to maneuver what looked like an old slab of metal, free of rust, but warped at the edges like someone had held it near an open fire for too long until it had started to droop.

Even feeling like death warmed over, Scratch had enough strength to help Sera pull the metal free of the other junk. Letting it fall to the ground with a clang, the drooping metal looking like the ugliest bowl in all of Bil-

Well, maybe not the ugliest bowl she’d ever seen Bilgewater, but it was a strong contender.

“Quick, get in!”

Sera’s shout snapped Scratch out of her memories of bowls and bowl-like things, and she stared at Seraphine with a look of confusion, “Wait, what, why?”

“Get in!” Seraphine snapped, and before she knew it, Scratch was pressed up against Sera in the center of the metal dish. “I’ll need directions, okay? You can just point, I’ll manage it from there.”

“Uh…” was as far as Scratch got before Seraphine began to sing . 

Scratch didn’t know the language, she’d never even heard the tune before, which given the hodgepodge nature of Bilgewater's population was really saying something.

What she did know is that the dish she was sitting in started moving, lazily lifting itself off the ground, before moving forward at a much less lazy pace. Actually a pretty fucking rapid pace.

Shaking her head, Scratch saw the intersection they were zipping toward, and remembering the instructions Seraphine had barked at her a handful of seconds ago, pointed toward the right side of the path and aiming a bit upward to indicate the slope rising up to meet them. 

The tone of the song changed, new words, but the same language, the same tune, and all of a sudden the dish swiveled toward the path Scratch was pointing toward, racing up the hill with barely a hint of delay. There were a lot of questions Scratch decided she’d ask later, but the path branched just ahead again, so Scratch kept pointing the way forward.

Through twists and turns, Scratch pointed and Sera moved them with her song. Weaving lyrics and tune into an ever-changing melody, a melody that sent the two of them racing through the lanes and streets.

“Wait, who has control of the lift to- oh shit!” Scratch shouted, and turned around to Seraphine, “Can this thing fly?!”

To her credit, Sera’s voice only wobbled a little bit when she looked down at Scratch with a look of confusion and a bit of fear.

“No time to explain, can we fly in this thing?!” Scratch shouted, looking around at where the bowl was in relation to where the next turn was. One way would take them to a lift they’d need to go down in order to get to her Auntie's house. That would be slow and safer, or maybe not, given that it was currently in the hold of a gang that was nominally aligned with the Pirate Queen’s interests. This would be a good thing, but the gang kinda sorta had a vendetta against Scratch for just a handful of thefts and like, two broken bones, tops. One of the bones had been in someone’s neck, but that was beside the point.

The other branch let to what was definitely a dead end, unless Sera could-

As they barreled toward the intersection, Seraphine looked down at Scratch, and nodded.

With a manic grin that threatened to split her head in half, Scratch pointed toward the dead end, “Alright, we’re gonna run out of road real fast, so whatever you’re gonna do, do it soon!!”

Scratch whipped back around and gripped the edges of the bowl tight, and almost yelped in shock when Seraphine opted to wrap her arms around Scratch’s midsection rather than latch onto the bowl. 

No time to think about that, because all of a sudden, a few screaming civilians and a destroyed pop-up food stall later, the moment of truth was upon them. That is to say the ground plummeted away from them, and Scratch briefly wondered if mum’s reflexes and recovery speed would let her bail out before she turned into a smear on the ground.

This thought would have lingered a bit longer, but they weren’t falling. Seraphine was singing louder, honestly at a volume her svelte frame shouldn’t have been able to produce, and the sound should have deafened Scratch. But the words, the sound rolled right through her. 

By Nagakabouros, it felt good, it was the feeling she got from surfing, it was the moment of conquering her nightmare another day, it was her singing at the top of a killer wave.

“There Sera, we’re going there!” Scratch shouted over the feeling of elation, and she heard the tune change, twisting the bowl toward the other spire of rock topped with a fancy looking manor.

There was nothing else Scratch could do but hold on and enjoy the sensation of wind whipping through her hair, the sensation of Seraphine’s magic all around her.

Until there was a warble in Sera’s voice, and a hiccup in her magic. They started losing altitude rapidly, and if Scratch didn’t have her metal hand practically dug into the side of the bowl, that could have been a lot more worrisome than it was.

It was still very fucking worrying, but Scratch could keep her thoughts at least semi-coherent. And she had one idea, even if it was absolutely batshit insane.

Letting go of the bowl with her flesh hand, she slapped it over Seraphine’s hands that were wrapped around Scratch’s waist in a death grip. And through that touch, Scratch started pumping magic into Seraphine like she was some sort of living battery.

The pitch of Seraphine’s song jumped, her volume soared, and suddenly the flying bowl stabilized and leapt forward like a hunting hound off the leash.

Scratch’s magic was pouring out of her like a tidal wave, crashing into and through Seraphine as pure power. Scratch stared at the manor in the rapidly closing distance and prayed to Mother Serpent that her motion would not end here this day.

There were shouts and screams from below them, and the crackle of gunfire. Seraphine’s choice of ride was quite literally a lifesaver as bullets clanged and ricocheted off the bottom of the curved metal disk.

“Top floor,” Scratch gasped. Her vision was going black around the edges, air was starting to feel like a scarce resource, and her blood felt like it was boiling her from the inside out.

Seraphine’s song was weakening, but rather than wobbling and threatening to toss the two of them into the gorge deep below, it seemed like a controlled descent. Well, maybe a little fast to be called controlled, but shit, she’d take it.

Even with her vision fading, Scratch could see the well crafted facade of her Auntie’s house, and in particular, the large window that they were barreling towards. As scrambled as her brain felt, Scratch pulled her hand off of Seraphine’s and held it up in front of them. What little of her magic she had left, she poured out into a shield. And for the first time ever, her magic had color. It was the same acid green of her hair, but with all the light and fire of her eyes.

There was barely enough for half a dome, just enough to cover Scratch and Seraphine.

And it was just barely enough. Scratch screamed with pain as her shield threatened to crack and let a hurricane of glass and wooden shrapnel shred them as the two of them burst through the window.

The landing was a miserable affair, the pitted and scarred bowl cutting a furrow through pricy imported hardwood flooring.

Well, the ship it had been looted from was foreign, which was kinda like imported in a sense.

A desk, several tables, and a handful of chairs all died in the name of slowing Scratch and Seraphine down. And thanks to their valiant sacrifice, the two of them did not slam into the far wall too hard. There was a very noticeable dent in said wall, but that wasn’t too bad all things considered.

The next thing Scratch noticed was Seraphine shaking her. The second thing was her hearing popped back in, which was good because there was a lot of sound to process. Some screaming from outside, Auntie Sarah having what was probably a perfectly reasonable meltdown given all the property damage Scratch had a not insignificant hand in causing.

“Scratch! Scratch come on, you can’t leave me now, I need you! We have to find hope together! We have to-”

“Oh shush!” snapped Pirate Queen Sarah Fortune, stomping over to the patch of splinter free ground Seraphine had dragged Scratch over to. “If she’s still breathing, she’s fine. But Scratch, you’d better have a damn good reason to drag this poor thing along, through my fucking window and wrecking my fucking parlor, or I’m sending you back home without your arm.”

Scratch coughed, and there was definitely some bone in her right arm trying to twist itself back into shape. But her Auntie was right, she’d bounce back. If losing an arm and a leg didn’t do her in, Scratch was pretty confident in her ability to recover from just about anything.

Fortune glowered down at Scratch and Seraphine, who was turning white as a sheet as she realized exactly who Scratch had been calling ‘Auntie’ all this time.

With a groan, Scratch propped herself up on her rune-craft arm, waving to Seraphine with the other, “She’s got the map Auntie. That map, the one you and Auntie Illaoi talk about wistfully after too much wine.”

“One, that’s impossible, and two, I’ve told you a thousand times, Scratch, you have to stop calling me that.”

Scratch snorted and sat up a little further, her resilience on full display. “Stop answering to me calling you Auntie then, Auntie.”

Sighing, Captain Fortune pinched the bridge of her nose for a few breaths before looking down at Scratch again. “Thirty seconds are almost up Scratch, so start pulling that arm of yours off.”

“Oh, okay, you’re serious about that. Seraphine, can you show my godmother the map before she puts a gun to my head?”

That seemed to snap Seraphine out of her stupor, and she quickly plunged a hand down the front of her dress, pulling out the surprisingly undamaged map.

“Here Miss Fortune, oh I’m sorry, Captain Fortune, no, wait, I mean Queen Fort-”

Miss Captain Queen Fortune stared daggers down at Scratch, grabbing the map out of a trembling Seraphine’s hand. “So not only did you get a tourist involved, you used some ratty ass old map to trick her into it? Your mom is going to throw you off the deck like an anchor Scratch.”

“Auntie, read it. You can strap me to a cannonball and shoot me out to sea if you don’t believe me then.”

Fortune rolled her eyes and flicked open the map with a practiced hand.

And she staggered back, eyes going from jaded to shocked in an instant, her hands shaking, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly for a few seconds.

“Sera, help me to my feet would ya?”

With no small amount of grunting and Scratch putting in ninety five percent of the effort, Seraphine helped her partner in crime back onto her feet. “So Auntie, do you still need me to take my arm off, or do you believe me now?”

The door to the parlor burst open, and several of Queen Fortune’s inner circle swarmed in, cutlasses raised, pistols cocked and loaded. It took almost a whole second of wild looks and weapons swinging about before the crew noticed Seraphine with her arms up, and Scratch just waving tiredly. 

“Oh, it’s just Scratch.”

“It’s just Scratch guys, pack it in!”

“False alarm, the brat is back!”

Blades were sheathed, hammers uncocked and blunderbusses carefully unloaded as the assorted mercs, pirates, and quasi-illegitimate business men walked out of the room like nothing was wrong at all.

Seraphine turned to look at Scratch, whispering, “What have you done to elicit such a reaction?”

Scratch shrugged, “Eh, it’s a bit of a story, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s more like ‘stories’ Scratch, but we can reminisce another time,” Fortune cut in, handing the map back to Seraphine, who unceremoniously stuffed it down the front of her dress. Fortune cocked an eyebrow before shaking her head, “You’re lucky that map is enchanted to almost the point of invulnerability, but thankfully it is.”

Seraphine gulped heavily, looking down her top with something like horror. “Uh. That is good?”

“Very,” Fortune deadpanned, taking a step back so she could look at both Scratch and Seraphine. “Illaoi should be here soon, I’m pretty sure she was nearby. I’d offer the two of you something to drink, but some idiot crashed through my liquor cabinet.”

Seraphine looked like she was about to burst into tears until Scratch patted her on the back, “Don’t cry Sera, she’s talking about me.” Scratch turned back to her godmother and offered her a sheepish grin, “I’ll level with you Auntie, I forgot where you stashed the goods.”

Fortune sighed and threw her hands up. “It was not the best, I keep that in my bedroom. But really Scratch, you’re not even going to offer to pay for the damages? Not even just the booze?”

“Um, excuse me, but what is it about this map that’s so special?” Seraphine murmured, “Scratch dragged me to see the Pirate Queen of Bilgewater, who is apparently her godmother, insisting that we had to go as fast as possible. I had to use my magic twice, and one time it was on people! People!!”

Fortune put her hands up in a placating gesture, “That’s fair, and I apologize for Scratch not having a lick of common courtesy or common sense-”

“Offense taken.”

“Offense intended. As I was saying, let me ask you this, why did you sail here with this map?”

As Seraphine fidgeted, Auntie Illaoi charged up the stairs into the parlor, a slightly worn and battered icon of Nagakabouros slung over one shoulder. While Pirate Queen Fortune wore an altered uniform of an Admiral from Piltover (most likely stripped off an admiral’s body, but no one really mentioned that fact very often), the Truth Bearer of Nagakabouros wore the humble garb of a Burha priestess. It did look very nice, but besides the type (and cost) of the fabric and a little embroidery around the edges, it was the same as any other priestess’s vestments.

“Sarah, I came as fast as I could, what in the Mother Serpent’s name happen- Oh, Nagakabouros preserve me, it’s you Scratch.”

Seraphine stared daggers at Scratch, hissing, “What did you?!”

Ignoring that very embarrassing question, Scratch waved to Auntie Illaoi, “Hey there Auntie-I-actually-love-”

“Offense taken,” chirped Queen Fortune.

“Offense intended, anyway, Seraphine, I know you just put it away, but before Auntie Illaoi decides my spirit needs testing again, can you show her the map?”

With a sigh, Seraphine dug the map out again, and held it out for Illaoi to see.

Unlike Auntie Sarah, Auntie Illaoi took one look at the map, and eyes shining with awe, looked to her paramour, “So it has come to pass. Hah, you owe me a twelve year bottle of Bilgeport rum Sarah!”

Seraphine put the map down her top again, and stamped her foot, “No more distractions, no more interruptions! What is on this map other than treasure, why is Scratch insisting there’s hope on it?!”

Pirate Queen Sara Fortune and Truth Bearer Illaoi, looked at each other, then to Scratch, and finally back to Sera. “That’s because that map, among other things, may very well let us cleanse the Shadow Isles.”

Chapter Text

“Wha- wha- what?!”

Scratch nodded sagely, “Yup, that was my reaction when I heard about this thing the first time too.”

Fortune chuckled, “I think you swore a fair bit more, Scratch, but yes, much the same.” Turning to Seraphine, she shrugged, “To answer your next question, the map isn’t showing some secret cove we can sail into on the Shadow Isles where there is a magical button we press to fix everything.”

“There is a secret cove that only this map leads to, dear.”

Fortune shot Illaoi a look before sighing, “Okay, yes, there is a secret cove, but before all that, there are a series of smaller isles that must be visited and tasks completed on each of those isles, all done in a specific order.”

Seraphine looked down her top, then sighed and just pulled the map out again, spreading it out on the only desk that had survived the dynamic entry she had made with Scratch.

“Okay, so, where are we going?”

Scratch and her aunts stepped over to the table and then everyone turned slowly and looked over to Illaoi, who sighed before pointing to icons on the map. “There are a total of four tasks before the way is revealed. One for each point on a compass, or maybe one for each season. Well, maybe it’s because they are the four outlying islands that once held life surrounding the main one.”

“Is the order written down on the map?” Seraphine asked with a quavering voice. Scratch cast a glance at Seraphine, but the pink haired woman didn’t look scared, or hesitant, nothing like that.

She looked excited.

Bringing her attention back to the map and surrounding conversation, it seemed that an argument had sprung up while Scratch wasn’t paying attention.

“You can’t stop me Illaoi, I’m going on this expedition! You need to stay here to keep the peace between the Buhru and the gangs! Most of my crew will be here to help-”

“Sarah, my beloved, there are more gangs than there are stars in the sky. I’m not their Pirate Queen, and I cannot command their respect. Bilgewater will be a slaughterhouse if you’re gone for a week, maybe even less!”

“I’m the one with the ship!”
“I’m the one who can read the map!”

Scratch stepped between her two aunts and held up her hands in a peaceful gesture.

“Auntie Illaoi, Auntie Sarah, what if you’re both wrong?”

Which got her arms slapped down by Auntie Illaoi and the back of her head slapped by Auntie Sarah, “Scratch, bless your heart, but now is not the time for jokes.”

“Only out of my love for you did I let you slap me Auntie, but I’m being serious!” Pointing to Auntie Illaoi then back to the map. “I don’t know all the runes, but I can almost read these! And if I can piece together some of it, mum will have it down pat.”

Auntie Illaoi cocked an eyebrow at Scratch, who rolled her eyes and pointed to a block of text in one corner of the map, “This chunk is an introduction of sorts. Based on the few titles I can read; they’re some sort of royal sage or court magician.”

Illaoi’s eyes widened as Scratch pointed out the inverted compass correctly and started to pick out other bits and parts of the map. Shrugging, Scratch turned back to Auntie Illaoi. “It’s close enough to the old runes to be legible to me, and definitely mum. If you can give a brief rundown on some of the odd bits to me, I’ll repeat it to mum, and we’ll be good to go.”

Fortune looked seven sorts of smug until Scratch turned to her and shook her head. “And for you Auntie Sarah, there’s no need for you to come along.”

That got another cocked eyebrow, though this time it was from Fortune. Which, again, got a roll of the eyes out of Scratch. “Auntie, I live on a damn ship. Give me and mom like, a few days and we’ll get a proper means of propulsion squared away.”

Scratch’s aunts looked at each other, sighed, and then turned back to Scratch with a look of grim acceptance on Illaoi’s face and weary resignation on Fortune’s.

“Oh gods, you’re making sense Scratch. That’s usually a bad sign.”

Scratch held one hand over her heart, “Ow, you’re killing me Auntie Fortune!”

Illaoi tapped her finger on the desk with a slight frown, “I must ask you Scratch, where will you get a crew? I can’t imagine you, your mothers, and this lost little lamb will be able to operate a ship the size of your home all by yourselves.”

Seraphine looked over to Illaoi, “Lost little lamb…?”

“I mean no offense, but you have the air of one who should not be on such an adventure, to Bilgewater, much less the Shadow Isles.”

Seraphine thrust her chin out and Scratch was once again reminded of the pink haired woman’s resolve. “I stole away in the dead of night to escape my gilded cage. I hid on a ship to get here, throwing everything I had away to stay on that ship when the crew threatened to throw me away. I risked everything just for a chance at the Syr- at my prize, at the treasure I need. I am no lamb.”

Illaoi blinked and turned to Scratch who could only offer her godmother a nod. Every word of what Seraphine had said was true, and honestly, hearing her repeat those events in that tone, that voice threaded with steel and fire? Well, it was enough to ignite a fire in Scratch’s own veins. What a grand adventure she’d lucked into.

Fortune shrugged, “Well that’s all well and good, but back to the question my paramour asked, Scratch, where are you getting a crew? Your parents are not navigators, and no matter how strong you are, the three of you cannot take on a full pirate crew if they decide to take that risk of attacking your ship.”

Scratch winced. Thanks to her mum’s decorations, their floating home was nothing if not distinctive. Mom had talked her out of painting her traditional graffiti all over the sides of the ship, but here and there were clear signs of mum’s presence. Splashes of paint in gold and blue, strange mechanical devices littering the upper deck, and some of the cannon ports (which mum had to beg, bargain, and promise to never use them while anchored off Bilgewater to get) had very distinctive looking weapons poking out. The, uh, one with a grinning shark's head was not actually all that subtle, but no ships from Piltover had gotten close enough to spot it, thankfully.

So while her home had no small amount of firepower, they simply didn’t have the hands to man the guns, repel boarders… yadda yadda yadda, and Scratch didn’t know enough people to fill the bunks.

Oh right, they also needed to empty a few rooms for food, munitions, sleeping space… ahhh fuck.

Auntie Sarah must have seen the thousand yard stare Scratch was developing and sighed, clapping a hand on Scratch's shoulder. “Okay, okay, Illaoi and I will help. This is an opportunity too good to pass up, and we can’t wait for you to wrangle a halfway competent, and trustworthy, crew.”

Illaoi set her idol down, grunting “I have more than a few of my kin who would leap at the chance for this opportunity, and I can swear for their loyalty. I can fund the installation of masts and sails, which can be… expedited.”

Scratch didn’t quite like the tone Auntie Illaoi’s took when she said ‘expedited’, but she knew her aunt wouldn’t do anything horrid. The Burha were her people to lead, so it wouldn’t take much convincing for them to help. So the ‘convincing’ Auntie Illaoi was talking about would not be aimed at them, more likely some other poor sod. And Scratch knew firsthand how ‘convincing’ a quick test of spirit could be.

Oof.

With a sigh, Fortune flapped one hand in Scratch’s direction, “And I can let you use a few of my crew that aren’t vital to day-to-day operations. If the Burha can handle the sails and decks, I’ll send some of my better gunners and fighters. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to use some of your mum’s toys.”

Scratch gave her aunt’s a great big smile, “Thanks auntie’s, that’s a huge help. While I think me and my folks can help with repelling borders, any chance one of these crewmembers is a good navigator? And maybe someone to help direct the cannon crews and handle logistics?”

“No.”

“No.”

Scratch rubbed her temples, “Okay, okay, I can probably tackle that, maybe.”

“Scratch?” asked Seraphine, back in that worried voice that had gotten her labeled a lamb, “have you even asked your parents about this? I mean, I know you haven’t done so today, but have your parents given you the ability to just, go on expeditions with their home whenever?”

Fortune and Illaoi’s eyes snapped to a rapidly paling Scratch and started to dig into her soul. 

“Scratch…” Auntie Sarah growled, “You didn’t mention this little detail.”

Raising her hands in defense, Scratch backed up a couple of steps, “Well, I had to bring the news as fast as I could, you know, so we could get this thing rolling, and-”

“Go talk to your damn parents you little brat!” shouted Fortune, pointing to the stairs down and out of the manor.

Scratch winced, “Uh, can I borrow a rowboat? I wasn’t expecting to have to go home with a guest.”

Illaoi placed a hand on Fortune’s shoulder, as much in restraint as in support. “Scratch, I’d swear by the Mother Serpent you are as smart as your mum, sometimes more. And then you pull stunts like this, and I find myself biting my tongue before giving such an oath.”

“... So about that rowboat?”

Fortune looked like she was about to go for her guns when Illaoi stepped in front of her and quickly waved a hand for Scratch to leave, “Take my boat, just bring it back someday.”

“You got it Auntie Illaoi, bye Auntie Sarah, I’ll let you know when mom and mum sign off on this!”

Grabbing Seraphine by the hand, Scratch started toward the stairs, only to come up short when Seraphine dug in her heels and pulled back. “No, no, no, stop dragging me places! Don’t I get a say in where I stay?!”

Scratch immediately stopped moving and let go of Sera’s hands, and drew in a great breath between her teeth, eyes flitting from Auntie Sarah, Auntie Illaoi, and Seraphine. And honestly, it was Seraphine’s look of righteous anger that made Scratch the most ashamed.

“Scratch, talk. Now.” hissed Auntie Illaoi, which was a very bad sign. Usually it was Auntie Sarah who went off at Scratch, but when Auntie Illaoi’s voice dropped into a hiss, a very thorough and very very unkind ‘testing of spirit’ was not usually far off.

Seraphine must have seen the fear in Scratch’s eyes, turning around to face Illaoi and Fortune herself. “I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. Scratch saved me from thugs on the beach. She did drag me into a bar, but also treated me to the first filling meal I’ve had in weeks. Finally, while she dragged me here, the last leg of the journey I helped with,” she said, waving one arm at the metal bowl still sitting in the corner of the room. “And given what this map is, oh let me go grab that, I would quite like to keep it with me, I can see why she wanted to let you know as soon as possible.”

Fortune and Illaoi looked a lot less likely to send Scratch back to her parents in a box (they'd done it before, and it was a very small and very uncomfortable box), but as Sera finished stuffing the legendary map back down her dress, she turned to Scratch with no small amount of frustration on her face. “All that aside though, Scratch, please let me choose for myself. Maybe I could stay here with Queen Fortune, or with your Auntie Illaoi?”

“Mmm, no.”

“Forgive me, but I cannot.”

Seraphine heaved a great sigh and looked at Scratch with pure defeat in her eyes. “Somehow this is worse than just being dragged along to your house. Well, let’s get going, Scratch.”

Scratch ran her hand through her hair and nodded. “I’ll, uh, I’ll try and make sure you have a say in what we do. I’m… I’m not used to having to consult someone else on what I’m doing.”

Sera looked shocked, and both of her aunt’s looked sad, maybe even a little pitying.

“Mother Serpent this is awkward, I’m going to snag that boat. I’ll be down by the private dock whenever you want to catch up Sera.”

Scratch started to walk off, and within ten seconds Seraphine was right beside her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay Sera, you’re right. I have just been dragging you around without asking, and that’s not fair of me.” Scratch sighed and took a practiced turn down a hallway before going down an elegant spiral staircase. She still didn’t know where Auntie Sarah had picked that one up from.

“Well… thank you for acknowledging it.”

Scratch nodded, and for the next couple of minutes they walked in silence, aside from a few brief greetings with some of Fortune’s crew. At the end of the walk, Scratch and Seraphine came to stop in front of a small rowboat.

“Welp, hop on down,” Scratch said, and followed words with actions, forgoing the nearby rope ladder between the boat and the dock.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll climb thanks,” came the cautious reply, and Seraphine started her way down the ladder.

Scratch winced and nearly tipped the boat over when Seraphine slipped on the waterlogged ropes with a scream. Grabbing onto Seraphine by the hip as she nearly got dunked in the drink, Scratch quickly stabilized the boat with her magic, more or less grabbing the water with her mind and shaping it to keep them upright.

With a thud, Scratch sat back onto one of the benches, battling the waters of the bay as they tried to claim the two of them. After a hair raising few seconds, Scratch let her head sag and breathed a sigh of relief as the waters calmed enough for her to let go of her magic.

“Um, you can let go of me now.”

Scratch’s head snapped back up and she almost threw Seraphine off of her, refraining from that course of action because she wasn’t a total fucking moron. She did let go instantly and leaned away from Seraphine, who got up in a crouch and walked to the little bench toward the front of the boat. Looking down at the two oars sitting on the bottom of the boat, Seraphine looked back up at Scratch, “Um, I hate to make you do more of the work, but I don’t think I’ll be of much use rowing.”

Scratch opened her mouth to remind Seraphine she’d just used her magic to fly a whole ass metal bowl through the air. But Scratch didn’t especially feel like pushing her luck. It’s not like she was actually going to use the oars anyway.

“No problem Sera, you just sit back and relax, I know it’s been something of a whirlwind day for you.”

“Oh, well, thank you Scratch, it has… it has been a bit more excitement than I usually have in a day. Or a month. I’m actually fairly certain I’ve had whole years with less excitement than this day.”

Scratch laughed, dunking one hand into the water to push the boat forward like a living engine, “No argument from me. It’s not every day a cute girl rockets into my life, carrying a legendary map that promises an adventure of a lifetime, and is a mage, and just-”

“You think I’m cute?”

Scratch nearly tipped over the boat as she shoved way more of her magic into the water than she’d intended and all but launched the rowboat forward like a stone skipping over a lake.

“Waaah! Scratch, slow down, slow down!” Seraphine screamed, and after another moment or two of bouncing across the water, Scratch managed to get her magic under control, slowing down her output to a more reasonable stream of force. Breathing heavily, Scratch used her free hand to rake her hair back into shape, glancing at Sera from the corner of her eye, watching her do much the same with her suddenly windswept hair.

“Um… did you really say I was cute?”
Scratch considered herself pretty brave. She had the resilience, the tools (and the magic) to get herself into and out of all sorts of scary situations. Hell, even surfing could be dangerous given the local wildlife.

But that question almost made her heart stop with fear.

Seraphine was still looking at her with an expression that Scratch couldn’t quite place. Maybe she could lie, just, play it off as a slip of the tongue. But those eyes, those sparkling sapphire eyes, Scratch just couldn’t bear to act like she didn’t know exactly what she said.

Seraphine started to look away from Scratch, and seeing that hint of disappointment in her eyes, Scratch couldn’t even pretend.

“Yeah… I- I said, um, that you’re… cute.”

Scratch couldn’t keep looking into Sera’s eyes. She turned her head to the side and focused on the horizon, keeping an eye out for her home. But just out of the corner of her eye, Scratch could see Seraphine give her just a little smile. No, couldn’t be, must just be a trick of the light.

A few minutes later, Scratch sighed with relief watching her home come into view. Turning to Seraphine, “There it is, home sweet home.”

Sera had a very focused expression on her face, like she was trying to recall a memory as the boat home came into view. Whatever it was she was trying to dredge up didn’t quite come to her as Scratch pulled up against the side of the ship.

“Um, so, Sera,” Scratch mumbled, still not quite looking at Seraphine, “I usually just have to pull myself and my surfboard up with me. Uh, I haven't tried to lift a whole ass rowboat by myself.”

“Oh, uh, I’ll do my best.”

And Seraphine began to sing again. It was just as beautiful as before. The song was much the same as what Seraphine had used to move the metal bowl, and just like before, the rowboat started to lift into the air.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Scratch shouted up, “Hi mum, hi mom, I’m home with a guest!”

Underneath Seraphine’s beautiful singing, only silence greeted her.

Wait, not quite silence.

“Nagakabouros, please, I beg, do not test my faith like this,” Scratch groaned before turning to Seraphine, “Hey Sera, when we get onboard, just, plug your ears for a moment.”

Seraphine looked confused but nodded gamely enough. Scratch helped Seraphine maneuver the rowboat with her own magic, and Seraphine gently let the rowboat come to rest on the deck. Scratch stepped off the boat and hung up her mask on its designated hook.

“Kay, one second,” Scratch muttered, and once Seraphine had put her hands over her ears, Scratch pulled her magic together and slapped the deck a few times, sending thunderclaps of noise throughout the ship.

“Mom! Mum! Sound! Barrier!! Come on, I brought a guest!!!”

Blessedly, the sound of her parents having sex stopped, and Scratch sighed and motioned for Seraphine to take her hands off her ears. “Come on in, I’ll make you a grilled cheese or something. I think we still have some ice cream in the cold cabinet.”

Seraphine blinked a few times but nodded, “You have a cold cabinet? Like, an ice chest?”

Scratch shrugged and with a flicker of magic, turned on the stove. Waving her hands around herself, Scratch pulled cheese from the cold cabinet, some bread from the drawer, the skillet from under the stove. Like the time she was throwing up that shield for her and Sera, her magic had taken on that brilliant acid green hue. Maybe it was just her imagination, but her magic was a touch more responsive, a little bit stronger… huh.

“Wow…” Seraphine breathed, “this is amazing… you’re amazing, Scratch.”

Scratch nearly fumbled the knife she was using to saw off a few slices of bread in mid-air. “What? No no, it’s not that special, it’s just gonna be a grilled cheese, don’t get your hopes up.”

“You’re kidding right? This level of control? This precision? Scratch, you’re- you’re incredible.”

Scratch all but choked on her spit, rasping out, “Uh, if you say so. Go grab a seat at the table, I’ll bring your sandwich over to you.”

She heard Sera pull a chair out and take a seat, and for a few blessed minutes, there was just the sound of the sea, the sizzle of the bread toasting on the skillet, and Scratch’s own thoughts.

She did not particularly want those thoughts, but confusion and fear weren’t as bad as her nightmares. So, at least there was a silver lining there.

With a flick of magic, Scratch pulled one of the toasting sandwiches off the skillet, plated it, and gently floated it over to Seraphine. “Oh, shit, Sera, I’m sorry, I forgot to even ask if you liked grilled cheese, uh, do you want something else, I can-”

Laughter, beautiful laughter filled the cabin, and Scratch wondered if she could somehow grab some of that laughter out of the air and bottle it to listen to later.

“Thank you for asking Scratch, but I’m thrilled to have a grilled cheese. My parents didn’t like me eating them after I turned six or so, said it wasn’t proper dining. So this, this sandwich? Thank you.”

Scratch nodded before turning all her focus to her own sandwich, because she could smell it getting a bit more burned than she liked it. That was the reason. Yup.

After another moment or two, Scratch picked up her sandwich and slid into her usual seat at the table. Somewhat belatedly, she realized her typical seat was right next to Seraphine, but it was her typical seat, and so… so she sat next to her guest.

By the time the two of them had finished their sandwiches, mom quietly let herself into the kitchen, “Welcome home honey. Sorry about the, uh, noise, your mum and I didn’t expect you home so soon. After lunch came and went, we guessed you were going to be out for the day, and so-”

“Mom, please, I do not need to know the why’s. I don't really need to know anything. Just, please, I beg you, sound barrier. Please, I brought over a guest. Her name is Seraphine. Seraphine, this is my mom, Lux.”

Lux’s eyes snapped over to Seraphine and she gave the pink-haired a bit of a wave and a smile. “Not every day we have guests, and it’s even rarer that Scratch is the one to bring them over.” Turning to Scratch, Lux gave a little sigh, “So since you brought a guest over, I take it you lost your surfboard and had to borrow a rowboat from someone.”

Scratch winced, “Uh, yeah. I promise it was for a good cause, but it got banged up by the main docks. Like, I think I may have just about kicked it in half… Uh, the rowboat is from Auntie Illaoi, I should be able to return it tomorrow.”

Seraphine gave Lux a nod and a sheepish smile, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Lux. I was very fortunate to run into Scratch when I did, and she was kind enough to treat me to lunch.”

Whether it was belated recognition of the style of Seraphine’s dress, or the sound of her accent, Lux’s jaw dropped, and her eyes jumped from Seraphine, to Scratch, to the sound of footsteps coming up to the galley.

“Sunflower!”

Mum rounded the corner, a look of confusion on her face, tattoos on full display, her hair tied up in her favorite two loose braids. “I’m here Sunshine, I’m here. Hi, you must be Scratch’s mystery guest, it’s nice to meet you! My name is-”

“Wait, Mum!”

“Sunflower!!”

Seraphine leapt to her feet, sending her chair flying, eyes wide with fear and screamed, “YOUR MOM IS FUCKING JINX!?!”

Chapter Text

“Okay, technically yes, cause Lux is mom and Jinx is mum, so yes, my mom is-”

Mom put a hand on Scratch’s shoulder, “Sweetie, I don’t think now is a good time for semantics.”

Seraphine was, in fact, not especially interested in semantics at the moment. She was humming that strange tune, and both plates were floating in the air, wobbly but decidedly guided by her magic.

Scratch looked between her parents and her guest, and slowly got to her feet with a low growl, “Sera, if you do not lower those fucking pla-”

“It’s fine Scratch, it’s fine,” Jinx said with a sigh, pulling a chair out and flopping down at the table, “she can threaten me all she wants, no worries.”

Lux looked to Scratch and nodded toward her chair, sitting down herself. Scratch cast one more long look at Seraphine, but shrugged and sat down too.

Seraphine’s humming stuttered and faltered, and one of the plates smashed against the floor. Scratch sighed and started pulling the shards off the floor, making sure not to nick Sera’s legs with any of the sharp bits.

After tossing the ceramic shards over the side of the ship, Scratch let go of her magic and sort of leaned back in her chair. “Soo… how’s it going mum? Any progress on those toys?”

Jinx nodded, “Yeah, the pop-guns are coming along great. Thanks to your mom’s help, I think I’ve figured out how to recharge them by leaving them out in the sunlight. I mean, it’ll take a while to charge, and I have to make sure removing the charge plate breaks it, but ya know, it’d be a nightmare for Sunshine to have to charge even more batteries.”

Lux smiled and leaned over to give mum a little kiss on the top of her head, “Thanks Sunflower, I know you’ll get it sorted out soon.”

Mum all but purred in contentment, and Scratch was in the middle of rolling her eyes when the second plate hit the ground. Second verse, same as the first, it shattered into useless pieces. Scratch grabbed the ceramic shards with her magic again and tossed them overboard, turning back to the table as Sera collapsed into her chair.

“Wha- What’s going on? You’re Jinx, the Loose Canon! There are freaking horror stories told about you! Washer dreadful novellas detailing your- your terrorism! And you’re just, you’re just here?! With a wife and a kid and nothing is wrong and-!”

Seraphine finally ran out of breath, holding onto the edge of the table in a white knuckled grip, like letting go would detach her from reality itself.

Mum shrugged, “I mean, did you hurt Scratch?”

Sera blinked and turned to Scratch before turning back to Jinx, “Well, no, she’s been… well, maybe a bit uncouth, but I couldn’t imagine hurting her.”

Mum nodded and then jerked a thumb to Lux, “Are you going to hurt my Sunshine? Or wreck our home?”

Seraphine looked around, catching Lux’s eye and then turning back to Jinx, “Um… no? I- I- don’t understand, why- why are you asking me all this?”

Jinx cackled, just a little bit, clapping a hand over her mouth when she saw Seraphine twitch, “Sorry, just struck me as funny. I’m asking because by the sounds of it, I don’t have any reason to do anything to you other than offer you some ice cream. Oh, do we have some cookies left over?”

Mom laughed, “No Sunflower, you ate all of them last night, remember?”

Mum fidgeted in her seat, looking a little ashamed, “I was kinda sorta hoping you’d secreted a few away, ya know, just in case?”

That got another laugh from Lux, and a guffaw from Scratch, “Mum, hiding sweets from you is a fool’s errand. We both know you’d turn the whole galley upside down looking for something to munch on.”

Seraphine looked at the three of them with confusion bordering on downright disbelief. “So you just… you just live here? No schemes to sail back to Piltover and wreak havoc? No, no selling weapons to people who seek to injure us?”

Jinx looked back to Seraphine and shrugged, “Some of the weapons we sell might get used against Piltovian ships, but they’re just as likely to be used against Noxian ships, or Ionian, or just on other residents of Bilgewater. And before you ask, the only weapons we sell are pistols and rifles, no cannons, no rockets, nothing big.”

“I saw the cannons dotting the hull of this ship! You-!”

“Sera,” Scratch cut in, “you almost got sold into slavery this morning. I’ve told you about gang and crew fights that get so bloody the streets run red. This is Bilgewater, and sometimes the best way to avoid conflict is to be such a thorny target that no one even tries to mess with you.”

Mum and mom shared a look before turning back to Scratch, “Any gang we know?”

Scratch ducked her head, “Uh, I didn’t ask, I kinda just, uh, resolved the issue.”

Seraphine looked at Scratch in shock, “You resolved the issue? You killed one man and castrated another! And I had to stop you from choking that man to death! The only man who survived is the one who fled from your very presence!”

Lux rubbed her temples, while Jinx just shook her head, “Scratch, you have to start solving problems with a bit less lethal force.”

“Sorry mum…”

“No worries sweetie, just something to try and remember going forward.”

After a moment of silence passed, Sera looked between the three family members, “That- That’s it?! Your child killed a man and crippled another for life, and that’s it!?!”

All she got were shrugs around the table, and Lux piped up, “Seraphine, you have to understand, this is not a lawful place. Miss Fortune has been doing her best to create law and order, but even after all these years, there’s only so much she’s been able to do.”

Jinx nodded, “Her crew controls a great deal of Bilgewater, either by their own force or by the force of those who have thrown their lot in with her. And to her credit, laws are being slowly established and enforced, but… well, you’ve experienced first hand that ‘slowly established’ is the key phrase there.”

“I would be getting chewed out more if they weren’t slavers,” Scratch mumbled, resting her head on the table. “I’ll make sure to give Auntie Sarah a description of the one who got away when I go to return Auntie Illaoi’s boat.”

“Sweetie,” Lux said in a gentle, but firm tone, “you and I both know that Illaoi practically lives with Sarah. So that means you got the boat at Sarah’s private dock. So since you were there, why didn’t you tell her about the new slaver gang?”

Scratch quickly blanched and turned nervous eyes to Seraphine, “Um, would you be so kind as to show my parents the map. I really don’t want to be thrown overboard again this month.”

Seraphine shot Scratch a half lidded look, but with a sigh, dug the map out of her top again. Laying it flat on the table, she waved one hand over the map, “I just thought it was an usually robust treasure map that would lead me to a… treasure I really want. Turns out, according to Scratch, Miss Fortune, and Miss Illaoi, that this map also depicts a way to-”

“Purify the Shadow Isles,” Lux and Jinx chimed in at the same time, Jinx running a finger across the patches of text that littered the map.

Lux looked over to Scratch and Seraphine, “I can’t read it, but I know enough about history to see how old this damn thing is. And if it’s as old as I suspect it is, then it’s definitely the map that Illaoi and Sarah wax poetic about once they have enough to drink.”

“I can read it, well, mostly,” Jinx murmured, “and it’s definitely the map. Scratch, did you notice the-”

“Inverted compass rose, yeah, and I think it’s written by one of the royal sages of the Blessed Isles, someone who saw the writing on the wall.”

Jinx nodded, not looking up from the map, “Court mage, but very good, I’ll teach you the runes you’ll need to read this, more or less.” 

Scratch nodded and smiled, “Sounds good, and I’ll get Auntie Illaoi to help fill in the blanks. So since you can read it, you can man the helm, right?”

Mom and mum winced, and mum shot Scratch an apologetic look, “I can read it, but I don’t know the first thing about sailing. I’m more likely to crash us into a hidden outcropping of rock as I am to get us there safely.” 

Scratch turned to mom, only to get waved off, “Sorry sweetie, but the border between Demacia and Noxus is not exactly a place to do nautical training.”

“Okay, okay, not ideal,” Scratch muttered, “So we need someone to steer and interpret the map with mum’s help, and someone to help manage the sailors, the guns, the logistics.”

Mom snapped her fingers, “Logistics I do understand. I’ll start clearing some rooms out for rations, bunks, munitions…”

Seraphine cautiously raised one hand, “Don’t you need space for water? Even I know you can’t drink seawater.”

Mum chuckled, “Don’t worry about that. Turning seawater into something you can drink was a trick Sunshine and I got sorted out before we’d even left our exile. Had to, can’t carry much drinking water on a raft. Also, you don’t need to raise your hand. You’re a guest, just pipe up whenever.”

“Oh, um, thank you… Jinx. Goodness, that might take some getting used to. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you turn saltwater into potable water?”

Mum turned to mom, who just shrugged, “It’s not like we don’t sell them Sunflower, no real secret to be had. Well, assuming they don’t pull the whole thing apart, decipher your rune alignment, then-”

“Right, right, no issue sharing the basics.” Jinx turned back to Seraphine, “You get one barrel full of seawater. You pour it through a pipe and funnel system, etched with a whole slew of runes, powered by a battery or a mage, and once it passes through the whole system, it comes out the other end perfectly drinkable, if a bit… stale tasting.”

“How can water taste stale?”

“Excellent question, moving on,” Jinx said with a snicker. “So we need someone to handle the sailing, and one to help direct the crew.”

Scratch winced before turning to Jinx, “Mum, are my honorary uncles around?”

Mom sighed, and Mum winced too, “Yes, they’re staying at ‘The Motherly Sea’. With any luck, Twist hasn’t gotten bored of cheating at cards, and Graves hasn’t killed anyone important.”

Lux turned to Jinx, “We really shouldn’t have let them be her uncles. They’ve been nothing but a bad influence on her.”

Scratch frowned, “Hey, I don’t think that’s true! Uncle Twist taught me how to count cards, palm cards, pickpocket, spot suckers, how to avoid looking like a sucker, and Uncle Graves taught me how to shoot a shotgun, what cigar brands and blends are the best, what to drink, how to win drinking contests, and… uh how to drink?”

Mom just sighed, and Seraphine gave Scratch a look of utmost concern, “Scratch, how is that not just a whole list of bad influences?”

“Bilgewater,” laughed Scratch.

“Bilgewater,” Jinx said solemnly. 

“Bilgewater,” groaned Lux.

Seraphine looked like she was about to cry from sheer exhaustion and a bit of horror, so Scratch tapped on the table a few times, turning to her new adventuring companion, “You’ve had a hell of a day, and probably a hell of the last few weeks to boot. Why don’t you have a shower and we’ll try and sort out some sleeping arrangements for you.”

With a shaky nod, Seraphine cast a wary glance at Jinx, who just smiled and waved. “Um, well that does sound nice. If it’s not too much trouble… do you have any clothes I can borrow Scratch?”

Lux and Jinx shared a look, then back to Scratch who nodded. “You’ll probably fit better into some of mum’s clothes than mine, but I might have a few things that probably wouldn’t fall off you if you’d prefer.” 

Seraphine looked nervously between Scratch and Jinx, “Um, if it’s alright with you Scratch, can you try and dig those few things up? Not that I don’t, well, I mean, I’m sure your clothes are lovely, uh-”

Jinx just cackled again, then clapped one hand over her mouth when she saw Seraphine flinch. “Ahahaha, oh sorry about that. Ahem, yeah, if you’re more comfortable with Scratch’s old clothes, that’s totally fine, no offense taken.”

Lux looked between Scratch and Seraphine, “If you’d like, Scratch can help you around our home. Sunflower and I will go find you someplace to sleep.”

Scratch cocked an eyebrow at her mom, but shrugged and got up from the table, “Fair enough. Come on Sera, let’s get you to the shower.” Scratch stuck her hands into her shorts and started walking toward the stairwell leading down into the rest of her home. Bare seconds later, Seraphine all but crashed into Scratch’s back, “Scratch, don’t just leave me up there!”

Scratch cackled, and started to move down the stairs, “Aww come on Sera, it’s just my folks, they’re as kind as it gets around here.”

“You have quite frequently reminded me that ‘around here’ is a lawless wasteland where it seems that only the strong and ruthless have the right to exist.” Seraphine scoffed, but she followed Scratch gamely enough.

“Eh, fair enough, anywhere, here’s my room.”

Scratch threw the door open, and Seraphine looked at her with some confusion, “I thought you were taking me to the shower? Do you have a shower in your bedroom?”

“Yeah, it’s a tiny thing, but I got it. Had to give up a chunk of my room to get it installed, but it's absolutely worth it. Have you ever tried to get up to pee missing an arm and a leg? Not fun.”

Scratch stepped into her room, and pointed to the closed door on her left, “There’s the bathroom. There’s some soap by the sink, and you can just use the towel hanging up on the back of the door. It’s fresh, mom should have washed it today.”

“Uh, what about shampoo? Maybe a little conditioner?” Seraphine asked, looking paler and paler as Scratch turned to look at her askance. “No, of course you don’t,” she finished with a sigh. Looking around the room, Seraphine flapped one hand at the dresser, “Can we at least look for some clothes I can change into first? I would like to not have to put these back on after finally getting clean- wait hold up is that a guitar!?”

Seraphine was across the room like a shot, coming down to a crouch as she looked over Scratch’s instrument of choice. It was a harsh thing, made of metal and crafted without concern for life or limb. The bottom third of the guitar was nearly a dull blade, an ax head for Scratch’s axe. Strings of what looked like coiled metal ran up and down the otherwise straight line of the body and neck, and a pair of thin wire cables poked out of the bottom of the creature of metal and pain.

Scratch rubbed at the back of her neck, “I mean, I guess. I’m okay with it. Your singing is way better.”

“That’s apples and oranges Scratch!” Sera snapped with a surprising amount of fire in her voice. “I can’t play any instruments, and not only can you sing, you can play a guitar! That’s awesome! You have to play for me, you have to, You Have To Play! ”

Scratch was two steps toward her guitar before Seraphine clapped her hands over her mouth, “Oh no, I’m sorry Scratch, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry!” Sera leapt forward, grabbing onto Scratch’s metal arm and pulling her away from the guitar, “Come on Scratch, you can do it, you don’t need to listen to me!”

It took a few more seconds of pleading and pulling, but Scratch shook her head and took a step back before turning to Seraphine, “Well, that was unexpected. You know Sera, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use magic to coerce me into doing things.”

Scratch had expected a little sheepishness, maybe a stammered heartfelt apology from Sera. She did not expect the pink haired songstress to collapse to the floor and burst into tears. “I’m so sorry Scratch, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was doing so well today, I was doing so well!”

Scratch looked around frantically, as if mom or mum were about to materialize and throw her overboard. “Okay, okay, it’s okay, I’m not mad. Okay, that’s a lie, I’m a little mad, but I’m fine, see?” Scratch crouched down and gently touched Seraphine’s shoulder, giving her a little pat, “You’re fine, it was just a little slip-up, I getcha.”

It took a minute or two, but Seraphine went from sobbing to sniffling, and from sniffling to just a few tears and hiccups, which in turn faded away too. Since her folks hadn’t come to throw her into the sea, Scratch breathed a sigh of relief and scootched back from Sera. “Feeling better?”

“Mmm-hm, yeah, a little bit. Um, can I just, take a shower? I’ll- I’ll explain later, okay?”

Before Scratch could nod, Seraphine was up and moving, nearly slamming the door to the bathroom closed. Walking over to the door, Scratch knocked lightly and called out, “Sera, knob on the left is cold, knob on the right is hot! Try not to use the hot knob too much, it eats up a lot of magic, okay?”

“... Okay.”

Letting out a sigh, Scratch went back over to the dresser and started to pick through her clothes. Most of the shirt hems would be all but tickling Sera’s kneecaps, but Scratch had a few crop-tops and other high cut shirts that might be more Sera’s size. On the flip side, Scratch’s main issue with pants was not making sure her pants or skirt were a decent enough fit, but keeping the waist the right size. A little tight on Scratch would probably be alright on Sera, ditto the uh, panties. That was a supremely awkward realization, that if Sera’s clothes were dirty, her, um…

There were a few bits and bobs for Sera’s bits and bobs that Scratch set out on her bed for her guest, along with the shirts, shorts, and even a skirt that she’d found. Just in time, as Scratch heard the shower shut off. Beating a hasty retreat, Scratch felt her blood sizzle as she ran out of the room, closing the door behind her as she left.

There was maybe a five-second pause before Scratch heard the door to the bathroom creak open, and another five-second pause before Scratch heard Sera through the door, “Um, are these clothes on the bed for me?”

Scratch nodded, then slapped her forehead on the realization that Seraphine almost certainly couldn’t see through walls. “Yeah, I tried to set out stuff that should fit you, no promises on the… well, on the anything really.”

“Oh, um, thanks… I feel mean asking this, but are these-”

Scratch laughed, “Yeah, they’re all clean. If you want some dirty clothes, there’s a wooden hamper by the-”

“No no no, please don’t say any more. I’m sure what you’ve set out will be just fine.”

Scratch nodded, slapped her forehead again, but decided she didn’t really need to say anything. Which she immediately recognized as a bad decision, as she heard Seraphine start sorting through clothing, just before the sound of a sodden towel hit the floor.

Scratch jumped up and ran down the hall mortified. It- it wasn’t like it was a big deal, they were both girls! And Sera prolly didn’t swing that way. And Sera was all upper crust and fancy from Piltover, so there’s no way she’d even like Scratch like-

Not that Scratch felt like she liked Seraphine like-

“Nope, nope, nope, shut up brain, shuuuuut up,” Scratch groaned before wandering down the hall again, letting out a sigh of relief since she didn’t hear the rustling of fabric anymore. Before her brain could start wondering which bits and bobs Sera had picked out for her bits and bobs, Scratch knocked on the door. “Hey Sera, would you prefer to sleep in my room? That way you don’t have to wander around if you need the bathroom later tonight, yeah?”

There was a long moment of silence before Seraphine responded, “I really appreciate the offer, and that sounds lovely, but… um…”

“Um what?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any fresh sheets, would you?”

Scratch almost slapped her head again, catching herself at the last minute. “Oh fuckin’ a, I didn’t think of that. Just hold tight, I’ll go grab some from my mom.”

Scratch didn’t bother waiting for a response, jogging away from her room at a brisk pace. “Mom! We got any fresh sheets laying around?”

“Over here Scratch, the room next to Sunflower’s workshop!”

A double handful of seconds later, and Scratch came to a halt next to said room in question. Mom and mum were busy hanging hammocks between the support beams or hanging from hooks that dotted the walls.

Running a hand through her hair, Scratch looked from the hammocks to her parents, “Did we alway have this many hammocks? I thought we had, like, six at best.”

Mom shrugged and mum cackled, “We got them just after you were born, Sarah brought her crew over to celebrate. Her whole crew actually, enough hammocks for everyone, and enough rum to kill us all.”

Now it was mom’s turn to laugh, “Says the woman who almost drank Rafen into a coma. Even that big fellow, the ammo loader for that large cannon coming out the bow of Sarah’s ship, that fifty pound one?”

“Seventy pounder, I think he nicknamed it Queen Bess.”

“Whatever, even he almost died, and he challenged you after Rafen.”

Jinx shrugged and finished tying off another hammock, “What can I say, I got a good metabolism. Speaking of, are you sure we don’t have any cookies left?”

Scratch and Lux sighed in tandem, and mum threw her hands up in defeat, “Okay, okay, I get it. Anyway, that’s how we got so many hammocks. And yes Scratch, we have some spare sheets, hell, you’ve got some in the bottom of your dresser too. What brought this up?”

“Oh, I figured Sera could use my bed, that way she doesn’t have to navigate much at all if she needs to use the bathroom at night.”

Mom smiled, “That’s so kind of you Scratch. Your mum is right, you should have fresh sheets in your dresser’s bottom drawer. Will you be sleeping in the guest bed then?”

Scratch shuffled her feet, the runic one making a little more noise as she accidentally scuffed the floor. “Annnnd this is why I wear shoes in the house, bloody hell,” Scratch muttered. “Nah, I’ll just take a hammock, maybe that one between those supports.”

Lux looked to Jinx, who just shrugged, “I guess that works. I’ll grab you a pillow and blanket sweetie.”

“Thanks mum, I’m gonna let Sera know the score.”

With a quick wave, Scratch took another double handful of seconds to get back to her room. Knocking on the door, she called out “Hey Sera, Scratch here. The bedsheets are in the bottom drawer of the dresser, do you want a hand putting them on the bed?”

The door creaked open, and Seraphine half hid behind it, not even looking at Scratch’s face, let alone her eyes. “Thanks, that would be a big help…” Seraphine all but whispered, and stepped away from the door.

As the door clicked closed, Scratch got to work pulling all the bedsheets off her bed, while Sera dug out the fresh ones.

“So… you gonna explain the whole, ‘using magic to force me to play my guitar’ thing?”

Sera stiffened, but kept her head down as she smoothed out the fresh sheets, “Well, I did say that I'd explain later, and it's, um, well I suppose it is what could be called later…”

The pause lasted an uncomfortably long time before Seraphine finished tucking in the sheets with a sigh. “Let me start by saying you have an amazing degree of precision, even the other accredited mages back in Piltover would struggle to make a sandwich as neatly as you did.”

Awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck, Scratch mumbled, “I mean, mom always said I had a deft hand with my magic, nice to hear another opinion I guess. But it's really just doing one little thing a buncha times to keep it neat and tidy, and the spell isn't super complicated really…”

Seraphine just stared boggle eyed at Scratch, “You know what, skip the precision thing. Who cares if you’re casting the same thing ‘a buncha times’ as you say, do you know how many spells other mages can manage at once? Most of them, me too in fact, can only do one singular spell at a time! Even the most powerful mages, the one's with their own workshops, could manage two, maybe three if they put their all into it. How many simultaneous spells were you actively casting and controlling up in the kitchen?”

“Technically it's called a galley, but uh, I guess it was, I dunno, five-ish? One was just keeping the stove powered though, so it's really just four.”

Seraphine jumped up from the bed, grabbed Scratch by the shoulders and shook her, “Just four? Just four!?! Scratch, I just told you the most powerful mages I know, working at full efficiency, can handle two!! You can do double that at once, moving with a degree of precision that I've only rarely seen, and you just, you just take it for granted?!?”

Scratch was getting a little annoyed being shaken like a baby's rattle, but before she could object, Seraphine began to cry, her arms sagging as her legs seemed about ready to buckle and send her toppling to the floor.

“You have so much control, Scratch. You know exactly what you're doing, exactly how to do it, no focus to help you cast, no hesitation, just- just-”

Sera started sobbing harder, and her legs really did give way, forcing Scratch to kneel down or get one of her more ratty shirts ripped clean off her. “Uh, I'm sorry? Mom taught me how to use magic, and she's really good at that, something about being the commander of the mage corps I guess. Maybe she could-”

Seraphine started to sob even harder so Scratch bit her tongue, feeling sorrow worm its way through her own heart. Whatever had Sera so upset must have been a monstrous thing. And Scratch had dealt with enough monstrous things to know Sera was in no state to hear anything Scratch might have to say.

So she sat, and Sera cried, and blessedly, neither of her parents burst into the room to tie Scratch to a rusty anchor and throw her overboard. Given that whoever did the throwing would always slap Scratch's breathing mask on her before kicking her off the boat made the experience somewhat bearable. But even if she could wiggle herself free from whatever weight she'd been strapped to, dragging herself to shore or back onto her home's main deck with magic alone? That was never any fun.

It took some time, but Seraphine stopped crying and her hands fell away from Scratch’s tank top, leaving her to curl up into a little ball at the foot of the bed. “I can handle my songs. One at a time, but they work like I want. But every time I talk to someone, every single time, I don't risk a ‘little slip-up’ Scratch. I've done it to you today twice, accidently used my magic to force others to do what I tell them. I've used my magic to make someone tell the truth, I've used my magic to put a song in someone's head for weeks. All ‘little slip-ups’, and each example gets worse and worse as I’ve gotten older. The more my magic grows Scratch, the more I learn and listen and experience, the less control I feel like I have.”

Scratch opened her mouth to say something, but when Sera looked up at her, tears cutting glittering streaks down her pale cheeks, sapphire eyes full of pain and tears yet to be shed, Scratch suddenly had nothing to say. She closed her mouth with a click, and just nodded.

“The last… the last ‘slip-up’ was when I fled for the docks in Piltover, as I escaped from my gilded cage. Two Enforcers saw me running down the street with a bag overflowing with fancy clothes and nearly dripping with shiny trinkets. They did what any reasonable officer of the law would do and ordered me to halt. I did, but I was so scared Scratch, I was so scared they'd recognize me, or that they'd have a mage alarm with them, or…”

Scratch mentally filed the fact that Piltover had something called ‘mage alarms’ away for later, mom liked to know about magic stuff from around the world. Mental records in order, she tuned back into Seraphine's story.

“And that's when I made my biggest slip-up Scratch, I was so terrified of being caught and dragged back home that I- I told them to drop dead and leave me alone.”

Sucking a harsh breath between her teeth, Scratch whispered, “They didn't…?”

Seraphine had another bout of crying, but between sobs, she choked out, “They did. They just… they just dropped to the ground, just like I’d told them to. I threw up as soon as I realized what had happened, I feel like that’s important somehow.”

There was nothing Scratch could say. Had she done that the first time she’d snuffed out a soul? What about the first time she’d done it with magic? She could barely remember. If a month went by where she hadn’t killed someone, it was a very lucky month.

Mother Serpent, how long had it been before she stopped bothering to keep track? How long had it been since she even cared? Fuckin’ a, now that was a bit of self reflection Scratch could do without. Or maybe it was exactly something she should think about. Ugh.

“I still got away. Snuck onto a ship heading to Bilgewater, and I got here, if only barely.”

Scratch nodded, “I can guess I know why you didn’t just make those guys on the beach piss off.”

Sera shuddered, but didn’t start crying again, “I couldn’t, how could I use my magic like that again? What if I told them to walk away and they walked into the sea? What if I told them to stop moving, and they stopped breathing too?”

“When you called for help. Was that magic?”

Sera shrunk in on herself, “I think it was, but I promise I didn’t mean it, I was just so scared it just, I think it just slipped out.”

Scratch nodded, moving a little bit away from Seraphine to get a better look at her. She looked so small, so afraid and alone. But there was another thing bouncing around in her mind, and she winced.

“And when I told you to move people out of the way…”

“I didn’t want to, not really. But there weren’t any railings to fall over, and it was a very small thing to ask. I tried really really really hard to only put a little magic into it, and I got just the right amount. One of the few times in my life that my magic has ever cooperated.”

Scratch tapped one metal finger on the floor, her thoughts in a jumble. One thought in particular jumbled its way to the top.

“So, this Syren’s Pendant, you think it’ll help you control your magic? I can’t imagine any other reason for you to literally risk your life coming here.”

Sera nodded, whispering in a rasp, “That’s what I heard, what I read. And I need it Scratch, I need something, anything to keep me from hurting more people.”

Scratch nodded, and slowly got up. “Okay Sera, I’m on board.”

Seraphine blinked and looked up from her own kneecaps to stare at Scratch incredulously, “I’ve- I’ve just admitted to killing two men, confessed that I can only barely control my magic, that I sailed down here as a fugitive, and you make a boat pun?”

“Not intentionally, you get pretty desensitized to these things when you live on a ship.” Scratch held up her hands in a placating gesture, “What I’m saying is that while we gotta help seal away the Harrowing, no questions about that, I’m here for ya. I’m gonna help you find that pendant.”

Sera slowly got to her feet and held out one hand, “Promise?”

Scratch stuck her prosthetic in Sera’s all too soft hand and shook it. “May Nagakaborous throttle me in my sleep if I’m lying, yes, I promise.”

Seraphine stepped back as she let go of Scratch’s hand, her face a mask of wonder. “I… thank you Scratch. I… thank you.”

Scratch opened her mouth to say something, anything maybe halfway sensible.

But with starlight filling her room, that light dancing over Sera’s perfect features, turning her eyes an even more beautiful sapphire, what Scratch did say was, “Anything for you, songbird.”

Seraphine’s jaw dropped, Scratch jolted like she’d just been shocked, and before Seraphine could say anything, Scratch had already thrown the door open and bolted out of the room, sprinting down the halls damn near as fast as her mum could.

She dived into her claimed hammock, her magic lashing out to slam the door to the room closed, the bed of netting swaying wildly underneath her. Scratch put her hand over her heart, and marveled at how fast it was beating and yet not bashing clear through her ribs. As her heart slowed down to a slightly less worrying pace, Scratch detached her prosthetics, only noting the pain of uncoupling distantly. 

Magically tossing her limbs into another nearby hammock, Scratch pulled her blanket over her head and curled up in her hammock like she was a scared little girl all over again.

The name she’d given Sera, which was totally just a nickname and not any other kind of name and she didn’t do that intentionally, and she definitely didn’t mean anything by it… Mother Serpent, she was- no, she was fine, it was fine.

But as the sway of the hammock and the calming sounds of the sea lulled Scratch to sleep, one other thought hit her like a thunderbolt.

There hadn’t been any fresh pillow cases, or spare pillows.

And Seraphine hadn’t asked about either of those things.

“... It’s- it’s fine. It means nothing, and it’s just a nickname… it’s fine…”

Chapter Text

“So… how’d you sleep?”

Seraphine’s head snapped up from her breakfast as she looked to Jinx before quickly looking away, “Oh, it was quite pleasant. The mattress was very plush, and uh, the way the ship rocks in the waves is surprisingly soothing.”

Jinx nodded with a grin that almost didn’t make Seraphine shudder in her own skin, “I’m glad to hear that Seraphine.”

“Mm,” Seraphine hummed, “ah, thanks for asking. Oh, and thank you for the meal.”

Jinx chucked and hiked one thumb over to Lux, “You can thank Sunshine for that one, I could burn water.”

“You make a great grilled cheese mum!”

Jinx laughed again, so did Lux. Seraphine on the other hand, did everything in her power to not look at Scratch. The acid green haired woman sitting next to her was abuzz with energy. Seraphine wondered if Scratch knew how brightly her soul shined. Jinx threw off chaotic energy, riotous blues and pink explosions dancing through her words and movements. Lux was more subdued, a steady glow of sunlight, but a core of tempered steel blades glittered beneath that light.

Scratch’s soul, by the Celestials, Scratch’s soul was so bright. It glittered like an emerald held up to catch the starlight of a perfectly clear night sky. Waves of acidic greens crashed against the edges of her soul, a roiling tide of emotions and thoughts.

Before she could start picking through the sounds and sights of Scratch’s emotions and feelings, Seraphine pushed her magic back down, tuning the world of souls and songs out, coming back into the world that everyone else could see.

“So, uh, how’s that sound Sera?”

Seraphine shook her head and ground the heel of one hand into her eye before she could look at Scratch, “I’m so sorry Scratch, I had zoned out a bit. Would you mind repeating the question?”

Scratch shrugged, “I was asking if you wanted to come with me to return Auntie Illaoi’s boat and try to hunt down my uncles.”

Seraphine froze. On the one hand, spending some indeterminate amount of time with Scratch, possibly the whole day, in a city that demanded she stay close to Scratch. Which, for some reason, made her guts twist with anxiety. Probably just having to go back into Bilgewater proper.

On the other hand, spending some indeterminate amount of time on a ship with an internationally renowned and feared terrorist. The very same Jinx that she’d heard countless horror stories about growing up, the scars of her wrath still visible on the city of Piltover more than twenty years later.

Seraphine shivered, remembering all the veterans of that civil war she’d seen, men and women who relied on clockwork limbs, with thousand yard stares, with gruesome scars, some visible, some not.

“Um, yeah Scratch, I’m interested to meet these uncles of yours… even if they do sound… a bit… um…”

Jinx and Scratch cackled, a noise that made Seraphine flinch, a reflex she hoped would fade sooner rather than later.

Lux sighed, “They sound like Bilgewater natives, is what you mean to say.”

Seraphine nodded, “Yes, that sums it up I suppose.”

Scratch and Jinx finally got the last of their laughter out, and Scratch nodded at Seraphine, her grin still a bit worryingly manic. “Sounds like a plan. I’m thinking we kit you out with a dagger and a pistol?”

Seraphine nearly choked on empty air, “I- I beg your pardon?! You can’t be suggesting I carry weapons!”

Jinx, Lux, and Scratch all nodded, “Well, yeah? Told ya last night, sometimes the best way to keep trouble away is to look like too much trouble yourself.”

“I- I don’t even know how to use a gun! And- and a knife!?! Like, the thing you use to stab someone?!”

Scratch just shrugged again, “Okay, we can skip the knife, but you’re gonna need something to look at least a little intimidating, so the gun stays.”

“... Can it be unloaded? I don’t want to shoot anyone.”

Jinx nodded, “Sure thing. Lemmie go fetcha one, and then  you and Scratch can go fetch her uncles.”

“Mum, real quick, can I have a box of shells, the good ones, to help bribe Uncle Graves? Not much we can offer Uncle Twist, but he’ll tag along if Uncle Graves agrees to this adventure.”

Lux shuddered and gave Jinx a pleading look, but Jinx sighed and nodded, “Okay, okay, but only as a last resort, okay?”

Scratch nodded, “May Nagakabouros throttle me in my sleep if I’m lying, they will only be a last resort.”

Lux sighed, “Sweetie, your Aunt Illaoi probably wouldn’t like how often you make that oath.”

As Scratch started debating the theological implications of invoking her deity for simple promises, Seraphine got up and started moving plates to the sink. Twisting a knob, Seraphine silently marveled at the clean water coming out. Even having had a shower in the stuff last night, it was still shocking. Surrounded by salt water, Jinx and Lux had made a home where clean water was never a concern.

Seraphine shuddered as she cleaned the dishes. Maybe it was for the best that Jinx didn’t have any plans to return to Piltover. Turning saltwater into clean water was one thing, but if Jinx and her wife used that ingenuity and power lash out? Attack the city and the people living there, destroy what and who had sought to destroy them?

If they changed their minds, Seraphine wondered if she’d even have a home to return to after this adventure.

“Anyway mom, Auntie Illaoi doesn’t seem to mind when I do it, and if the Mother Serpent had any issues, well, I’d probably know by now.”

Lux sighed and held up her hands in surrender before turning to Seraphine, “Thank you for doing the dishes Seraphine. You are such a considerate young woman, unlike a certain someone we both know.”

Scratch clutched her chest, “Oof, my heart! Wounded by my own mother!”

Lux and Seraphine shared a giggle, but before anyone could say anything else, Jinx popped back up and tossed a shoulder bag to Scratch. “There ya go sweetie, there's your last resort to get your uncles to sign on for this adventure. And for you,” Jinx said, handing Seraphine a belt with some sort of pistol tucked into it.

She swallowed heavily and clutching the belt, looked at Scratch who gave her a solemn nod. “Trust me, Sera, you’re gonna want it. Mum, it’s unloaded, right?”

Jinx nodded as Seraphine carefully put the belt on, grimacing as the pistol came to rest against her leg. Nodding to herself, Seraphine set her shoulders and pointed to the rowboat sitting on the main deck, “Shall we get going? The sooner I can get this beastly thing off of me, the better.”

Scratch nodded, hopping up to do a little stretching, “Sure thing, though you're gonna have to help me with getting the boat into the water.”

They walked over to the boat, and between Seraphine's song and Scratch's telekinesis, they got the rowboat down into the water with the minimum amount of splashing.

Seraphine tried to sit still as Scratch started pushing the rowboat through the sea with one hand. Well, one hand pouring magical energy into the waters to push them along, but still, one hand.

But it was proving to be very hard to sit still, given that her options were either to have the sun in her eyes… or look at Scratch.

Or look at the bottom of the boat, but it was quite hard to stay focused on wood, so Seraphine found herself bouncing between the three options.

If Scratch noticed Seraphine’s behavior, she didn’t say anything. Actually, from the few glances she threw at Scratch, it seemed like the green haired girl was doing her best to not look at Seraphine either, craning her head this way and that to keep Seraphine out of her field of view.

So the ride was rather uncomfortable, but it was also mercifully brief. Since it was daytime out and not dusk, Scratch didn’t have to go slow and steady. She really was unfairly dashing, the way her hair whipped in the breeze, the cocksure grin she wore like a favorite jacket as she bent the rules of reality to pilot the little rowboat.

And she was so, so pretty whenever her eye caught Seraphine’s and she suddenly got less cocksure and more flustered. Celestial’s above, this was going to be a very awkward day.

But thankfully, before too long, Scratch managed to get the rowboat lined up against Queen Fortune’s private dock with the minimum amount of bumping. 

Scratch didn’t waste any time, grabbing one of the ropes that lined the dock and tying the rowboat down. “Do you want to try the rope ladder again, or do you want a hand?”

Seraphine looked at the rope ladder, just as waterlogged and slippery as it was last night, then to Scratch before holding out one hand, “Um, yeah, a hand up would be nice.”

A metallic hand, not cold, but colder than Seraphine’s hand for sure, clasped her by the wrist, and Seraphine wrapped her hand around Scratch’s wrist in turn. 

“Heave-ho!” Scratch cheered, and without delay Scratch lifted Seraphine clear off the boat, swinging her over until her feet were planted on the dock. “There ya go. Now come on, let’s go find-”

“Scratch you fucking idiot!”

Scratch hung her head with a sigh before turning around, “Hello Auntie Sarah, we were just about to come find you.”

Queen Fortune was stomping down the dock, and while her hands were not on her pistols, they were closed into white-knuckled fists. Given all that, Seraphine wondered how far off she was from trying to shoot Scratch.

“Why am I finding out from my first-mate rather than my idiot god-child that there are slavers operating in my fucking city?! You were in my damned office yesterday, and you didn’t say anything!”

Scratch sighed, “Well, that saves me the trouble of telling you now. As for why, I dunno Auntie, maybe I’m just some sort of idiot like you keep shouting. Words can be hurtful, ya know.”

Seraphine took several steps backward with a yelp when Queen Fortune took a haymaker swing at Scratch. She missed, which given that Seraphine could barely even see Scratch sway out of the way wasn’t all that surprising really.

“You are such an irresponsible,” swing and a miss, “irredeemable,” swing and a miss, “useless!” swing and the sound of flesh impacting on metal as Scratch caught Queen Fortune’s fourth punch. Seraphine winced and Queen Fortune hissed in pain, tugging at her captured fist for a hot second before Scratch let her go.

“Auntie, I understand, you’d rather have found out yesterday, but I think that you can forgive me since we were all a little surprised by the whole, ‘artifact map that may save the world from the Harrowing’ thing. Also, that was three more swings than usual, did you have to shoot someone today?”

Seraphine looked at Queen Fortune’s soul of gunsmoke and sea salt, and winced. She was definitely in pain, or maybe just frustrated and  disappointed.

“Ugh… yes. Sorry Scratch, I just…” Queen Fortune looked around the docks quickly before sagging a bit and running her hands over her face. “I’ve been running this damn city for damn near twenty five years, and somedays it feels like not a damn thing has changed. When are people going to stop trying to kill me for trying to protect the people who need protection?”

Seraphine took a few timid steps forward, and Scratch gently patted Queen Fortune on one shoulder. “I know Auntie, I know. But as someone who grew up here under your rule, I can tell you it’s better, it’s gotten a lot better. Yeah, the violence is apparently a bit excessive according to mom, though mum says it’s not that bad. But the people getting shot and shanked are pirates, mercs, that lot. The people who live here? We’re doing so much better. No more protection money, no more shakedowns or random beatings, kidnappings damn near never happen. And when someone does lift a cutlass in aggression out in the open, they don’t find indifferent eyes watching their violence, but more blades than they can parry pulled on them.” 

Queen Fortune sniffled a little before squaring her shoulders and nodding. “Thank you Scratch, I think I needed to hear that… You’re still a fucking idiot for not mentioning the slaver earlier though.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, whatever,” Scratch sighed, rolling her eyes. “Look, mom and mum signed off on this adventure, so you and Illaoi have the go-ahead to get a mast installed and start shifting some provisions aboard. Sera and I are gonna go secure someone to man the helm, so, see ya later.”

Queen Fortune’s eyes narrowed as Scratch started walking away, “Anyone I know, Scratch?”

Seraphine started following after Scratch, who had frozen mid-step at the question, “Uh, well, you know, you do know a lot of people, so probably?” She brought her foot down, and quickly picked up the pace.

“You’re going to get Twist and Graves aren’t you? Scratch! Come back here you fucker!”

Seraphine started to jog after her, then outright ran as Scratch, once again, forgot how fast she could move. But with a screaming pirate queen carrying two pistols, and clearly with a bit of a temper behind her, Seraphine didn’t mind the brief sprint. Though by the time Queen Fortune’s howls of anger faded away, Seraphine was nearly out of breath, and Scratch was still going strong.

It took another few twists and turns before Seraphine’s legs were screaming and air was at an all time low. Maybe Scratch heard her, maybe she noticed Seraphine stumbling, or maybe she finally remembered that Seraphine was not in the best of shape, but she slowed down to a walk, letting Seraphine catch up and get her breath back.

“Sorry Sera, but as you may have guessed, Auntie Sarah and my uncles don’t really get along super well. And she was very much not having a good day so far. Ugh, shooting someone first thing in the morning, that must have been annoying.”

Seraphine was getting her breath back, and took a moment to straighten her hair and smooth out her skirt. “I feel like shooting someone should always put you in a bad mood, but as you and your parents have taken great pains to explain to me, this is Bilgewater.”

Scratch nodded and took a turn to the right, “Yeah, it kinda is. Auntie Sarah really has been making things better for the residents, but there are always newcomers who haven’t gotten the message, and well… Bilgewater is still Bilgewater.”

Seraphine followed Scratch, but the further they walked, the more certain Seraphine got that Scratch wasn’t moving toward the lift she could see in the distance. Tugging on Scratch’s metal arm, Seraphine hissed, “Scratch, don’t we need to take the lift? I distinctly remember a lift between the beach and where we are now.”

Scratch rubbed the back of her neck, grimacing slightly, “Uh, well, you may also remember that we didn’t take that lift over there, we’re going by foot from here. Don’t worry, we can go slow.”

Seraphine nodded, then frowned, “... why are we walking though? If walking this way was faster than the lift, why didn’t we come this way when we first went to see you Aunt?”

With a wince, Scratch mumbled, “Uh, the gang in particular, the one that controls that lift, they don't like me. I may have, uh, borrowed a few things, and may have broken a few bones once or twice.”

Seraphine slapped Scratch's arm, then winced as her hand impacted unyielding metal. “You are just the worst! We have to take the long way around because you hurt and stole from people!? After all you said to Queen Fortune, you- you- you unrepentant rapscallion!”

Scratch hunched her shoulders and picked up the pace a little bit, not so much that Seraphine had to jog, but it was a near thing. “Look, the gang was under another boss, and they hadn’t signed on with Auntie yet, and the stuff I stole they had stolen first, which I gave back to the people who got stolen from, so it’s fair game really.”

Seraphine sighed from the bottom of her soul and slapped Scratch’s arm again, much more gently this time around. “You are still an unrepentant rapscallion, and your parents really should have instilled some proper manners in you, but at least you didn’t kill or maim anyone.”

“...”

The face Scratch made and the way she hunched her shoulders even more made Seraphine stop dead in the street. “Celestials above, you did, didn’t you? You killed someone, murdered someone just to retrieve some stolen goods!?! Really!?!”

Scratch slowed down again with a sigh, “Okay, yes, I did sort of kind of kill someone. It was self defense though, he was shooting at me!”

Seraphine wondered if she should cry or laugh at the absolute absurdity of her life. The woman who saved her, fed her, gave her a place to sleep, who promised to help find the Syren’s Pendent, she was also an unrepentant murderer, a thief, drank during the day, and just generally seemed like a true Bilgewater native.

And worst of all, Seraphine still thought she was attracti- uh, cute.

Celestials save her, as much as there was something wrong with Scratch, there was definitely something wrong with her too. Shaking her head, Seraphine picked up the pace again, for once forcing Scratch to pick up her pace to keep in stride with her. 

Following Scratch’s directions, Seraphine let her legs do the walking and let her mind wander. She did think Scratch was cute, and she did have very pretty eyes, but she was- she was so uncouth! And Seraphine didn’t approve of many of her behaviors, so clearly that meant it couldn’t work. Besides, the nickname Scratch had given her was just a nickname, surely Scratch hadn’t meant anything by it! She probably didn’t even think of Seraphine like that, no no, definitively not! They weren’t even friends really, she’d only known Scratch for a day!

Not that Seraphine was thinking about Scratch like that, no no no, surely not. Scratch was just cute… well, more handsome than cute, or she was cute in a very roguish way, or maybe-

Seraphine slapped her cheeks, looking away when Scratch turned to give her a look. It was fine, she was just… mentally complimenting a frie- mentally complimenting an acquaintance's appearance, nothing wrong with that.

Totally normal. Very normal. It was fine, it was very totally fine.

“Hey, Sera, eyes up,” Scratch whispered, and Seraphine snapped out of her pondering. She was standing in front of a building with a crooked sign reading ‘The Motherly Sea’, and oh what a building it was. It was clearly cobbled together from at least two wrecked ships stacked on top of each other, the whole thing standing nearly sixty feet tall.

Seraphine was still taking in the structure in all of its dilapidated glory when the saloon style double doors crashed open and two men came racing out. One was wearing a long duster and a wide brimmed hat that concealed his face. While he busily stuffed a deck of cards into one pocket and a fistful of silver coins into the other, his companion wheeled around on one foot and fired a double barreled shotgun into the ground outside the ramshackle building, drawing curses and screams from inside the building.

Scratch sighed, grabbed Seraphine by one arm and started running after the two men, “Hi uncles! Can I interest you in a place to hide?”

The shotgun toting man looked at Scratch with the same expression Seraphine associated with a beggar receiving a handful of gold hexes.

“Scratch?! Oh thank fuck, lead the way! Our ship’s at the southside docks!”

Scratch slid to a halt, and crouched down, “Climb on Seraphine, this is gonna be a sprint!”

Seraphine jumped onto Scratch’s back without pause, putting her hands on the green haired woman’s shoulders, legs through the loop of her arms. When Scratch stood up and Seraphine found herself sitting in Scratch’s hands, well, Seraphine wondered if maybe she should have just tried to sprint along with Scratch and the two men.

Like a shot, Scratch started running, her uncles trailing behind her, occasionally throwing cards that crackled with magic, or firing shotgun blasts into the ground to deter their pursuers. Scratch took twists and turns seemingly at random, but even in their brief time together, Seraphine knew that every dark alleyway and narrow side street was the best choice to make their way down to the docks.

Bursting out into the sunlight, Scratch made one more hairpin turn before barreling down the docks. “Sera, keep an eye out for a ship with an ace of spades on the flag!”

Seraphine twisted her head to the right and started looking for the flag in question. The ships tied up were a colorful collection, all sorts of shapes and sizes, all with different flags. 

Scratch and her uncles had to slow down. Or more accurately, Scratch had to slow down to let her uncles catch up.

This, unfortunately, coincided with a sudden lack of people on the docks, and their pursuers also catching up. Their pursuers and their assorted collection of firearms.

Shots rang out from behind them, and Seraphine screamed in fear as she felt something whip past her head close enough to disrupt her hair. Her new potential traveling companions were not spared either, one of them letting out a cry of pain, followed shortly by the sound of someone crashing to the wooden floorboards of the dock.

Scratch spun around and let go of Seraphine, and she screamed again as she went tumbling down the docks for another few feet. Adrenaline and primal fear helped Seraphine get back onto her feet quickly, trying to get herself reorientated. 

“Keep looking for that flag Sera! We need to bail!”

Seraphine looked back and gasped. One of the men, the tall one whose face Seraphine still couldn’t see, was more or less draped over the other man’s shoulders, blood dribbling down the side of one leg. Scratch, meanwhile, was at the very back of the whole party, backpedaling just as fast as her uncles were limping forward, her arms outstretched as if to physically support the shimmering green disk of magic in front of her. The shield rippled and frothed with every impact, in many ways acting like the sea that Scratch had grown up on. Seraphine turned away and started running forward, desperately looking for the flag while gunshots rang out behind her. But even as she ran, she couldn’t help but wonder about Scratch’s magic. When they’d first met, her magic was invisible, or nearly so. But then, in the metal bowl, Scratch’s magic had taken on a greenish hue. Now, it was not only green, but it moved differently, behaving like water rather than just a bubble of protective energy.

That particular magical quandary would have to wait for later, because Seraphine spotted the flag. Pointing, she called out, “There it is, I see it!”

Seraphine and Scratch’s uncles broke into a sprint, while the green haired woman began to slow down. Seraphine turned around and let the two men limp past her. “Please get the ship ready to move! I’m going to help Scratch!”

With that, Seraphine slipped past the two men and started running back to Scratch’s side. Gunfire popped and snapped, and it was clear that Scratch was starting to feel the effort of maintaining her shield. Sweat was pouring down her brow, and her face was contorted in a snarl of concentration and pain.

Skidding to a stop, Seraphine suddenly realized that she didn’t know what she could do to help. Her control over her magic was spotty at best, and the consequences were dire if she used the wrong words or too much or too little power; there were just too many variables. And the only trick she knew how to do with her song was moving things.

Wait.

Seraphine looked down at the wooden planks that made up the docks and took a deep breath. The words flowed through her mind, the tempo and tone rising up from her soul. The wood beneath her feet trembled, and as her voice soared with ancient joy, with unchained magic from when the world was young, it was not just the planks under her feet who shook and rattled.

For she sang not for them, but to the wood underneath the feet of the brigands and gunners racing toward them, singing to the long since cut down and fractured trees. And those souls of the forest, long since consigned to float on water and salt, then trod upon by countless feet, they responded to Seraphine’s song beautifully.

There was an explosion of wood, each and every plank and support ripping free from each other, throwing cutthroats and pirates this way and that, some slamming into buildings, others tossed into the bay or falling through the space left by the dancing and twirling fragments of the forest.

Seraphine tried her best to tune out the cries of pain her actions had caused, letting the song die off as she grabbed Scratch by her metal arm and started pulling, “Come on Scratch, we have to go!”

Scratch sagged in Seraphine’s grip, almost collapsing to the floor as she finally let her shield drop. “Rig- right. I’m coming songbird, I’m- I’m here.”

Trying not to think about how that nickname made her heart flutter, Seraphine put Scratch’s arm over her shoulders and started to pull her along. It was more of a shamble or a stagger, but they were moving toward the boat. The uninjured man was quickly running around the ship, pulling at lines and fussing with the sail. The other man stood at the wheel of the ship with a bandage hastily tied around his injured leg.

It was a hair-raising eternity before Seraphine made it to the little plank of wood, the uh, the gangplank, that was it.

While Seraphine mentally congratulated herself on remembering another bit of sailing terminology, Scratch had recovered enough of her strength to stumble down the gangplank by herself, Seraphine hot on her heels.

No sooner had her feet touched down on the deck than the broad man with a shotgun kicked the gangplank away to splash into the waters below. “Scratch!” he shouted, “Get us out to sea!”

Scratch barely looked like she could move, let alone use magic, but with a cry of exertion and pain, a wave of that emerald and acid green magic pushed against the wood and stone of the pier, and the whole boat bucked like an angry horse. But that burst of magic did the trick, the ship drunkenly swinging about and surging out into open waters. The sail caught a wind out to sea, and they were off like a shot. 

Seraphine collapsed to the deck with a great sigh of relief, laying next to a similarly prone Scratch.

Blessedly, the two men left them well enough alone until Scratch sat up with a groan, “Uncle Graves, Uncle Twist, what in the fucking goddamn did you do ?”

“Twist got caught cheating.”

“Malcolm refused to pay his tab.”

“You also refused to pay your tab!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t smash a full bottle of rum over the bartenders head!”

Scratch flopped back down onto the deck and rolled around a little bit like a child throwing a tantrum, “Nagakabouros, please have mercy on your daughter. Mom was right, you two are terrible uncles. Whatever, we’re headed to my house, you know where that is, right?”

The stocky man, apparently named Graves, stuck a cigar into the corner of his mouth and lit it off a match he struck against his cheek. “Oh goody. You hear that Twist, we’re going to go see Jinx and Lux, aren’t we lucky?”

In spite of the angle Seraphine was looking from, she still couldn’t see Twist’s face, but she sure did hear him curse a blue streak. After a solid minute of swearing, he turned to Scratch who was in the process of getting to her feet, “Scratch, buddy, are you sure we need to hide out at your parent’s place? Can’t you put in a good word with one of your aunts? We’ve hidden out at Fortune’s private dock a time or two, surely she’s-”

Scratch held her arms up in a big X, and Seraphine found herself shaking her head. “Nope, sorry Uncle Twist, but uh, she’s in a pretty foul mood right now.”

Graves looked to Twist then back to Scratch, “Well, at you isn’t news, but surely she’d be fine letting us cool our heels until things settle down, right?”

“Um, Mr. Graves,” Seraphine hesitantly squeaked, “Queen Fortune was already in a bad mood when we saw her. And when she heard we were coming to get you, she, uh, she started shouting and nearly drew her pistols.”

Graves and Twist shared a look before they both looked to Scratch. “Scratch, would you mind introducing this lovely young lady to your dear Uncle Graves?”

“Ahem.”

“And to a much lesser extent, your tolerated Uncle Twist?”

“Fuck you Malcolm.”

Scratch sighed and offered Seraphine a metallic hand up, which Seraphine gladly took. She still wasn’t quite used to the bob and heave of seafaring, so having someone to lean on was a welcome oh heck, she was holding hands with Scratch and she was smiling at her and be cool, be cool, this was fine, no problem.

Seraphine nearly fell over when she let go of Scratch’s hand at the same moment that Scratch let go of hers, already turning away to face her uncles. “Yeah, yeah, save the lovers quarrel for later. This is Seraphine, she’s from Piltover, she can sing like none other, a pretty dang powerful mage, oh, and she brought the map. Yes, that map. You know the one.”

Graves physically recoiled, and the boat shivered as Twist briefly threw his hands in the air, “Oh you little shit, you weren’t coming to visit us, you want me to take the helm on this hocus-pocus bullshit adventure!”
Anger boiled up from somewhere inside Seraphine, and she stamped one foot, surprised to feel her face twist into a snarl. “Don’t you dare insult Scratch, and don’t you double dare say that this is some sort of phony baloney adventure!”

Twist leaned over the wheel to stare down at Seraphine, and she felt her legs shaking. The man had gone from an unassuming figure working the ship’s wheel to a menacing thing of shadows and magical energy. “Listen here missy, I’ve been around the world a time or two, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people will play cards no matter how little money they have. But if I’ve learned two things, it’s the thing about cards, and that if you find a map promising you treasure and wonders beyond your imagination, it’s bullshit.”

Seraphine thought she was angry before, but nope, she was just a little irate. Now she was angry. Graves and Scratch were saying stuff, trying to convince Twist in their own ways, both appealing to reason, to a sense of adventure, so on and so forth. Seraphine, on the other hand, wanted blood.

“Okay, you know what, fine. Fine fine fine. I bet I can beat you at cards.”

The ship went deathly quiet, it felt like even the sound of the wind and the waves vanished. Seraphine could feel the magic boiling off of Twist, could hear the wood of the wheel creaking, threatening to splinter and crack under his furious grip. 

“... Okay. What do you want to bet?”

Seraphine thrust her chin out, “My life.”

“What!?!” Scratch hissed, rushing over to Seraphine’s side, “She’s kidding, she’s just a little frustrated Uncle Twist, it’s-”

“No. I’m serious. I need this, and I need this adventure enough to bet my life.”

The shadow that was Twist’s face projected the sense of a frown, or maybe a snarl, “I can’t exactly spend your life. I only bet with coin.”

Seraphine snarled right back, “I’ve been missing from the gilded cage called my home for weeks now. I know, as sure as the sun rises and sets, that there will be a bounty of hundreds, if not thousands of gold hexes for my safe return. If you take me back to Piltover, you’ll walk away with more money than you can spend in a year.”

The sense of menace faded, and Seraphine sneered, “That is, if you think you can win, of course.”

Ah, yup, there was the menace again, the sense of barely contained rage. “Fine. One hand of poker, five card draw. Whoever gets the best hand wins.”

Seraphine pushed down the sense of rising panic that was boiling up from her guts and her soul, “Deal. But when I win, you’re sailing us to the Shadow Isles, and around the isles, and wherever else we need to go to complete this adventure.”

Twist stepped away from the wheel and stomped over to Seraphine, cards dancing between his fingers, swirling around his hands on streamers of magical energy.

Seraphine could feel sweat breaking out on her brow that had nothing to do with the noonday sun. If she didn’t win, her life was over. She’d be alive, but only technically. She’d never have her freedom again, and she’d be put in Stillwater’s mage ward once her power finally got away from her for good.

“Sera, you can’t be serious! Almost no one wins against Uncle Twist, and even fewer win when he doesn’t want them to!”

Seraphine shrugged off Scratch’s hand, doing her best to calm her breathing. “I can do this Scratch. I can do it. Just back me up, okay?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Scratch slowly nod and step away to stand next to Graves.

“You don’t mind if I deal, do you?”

“Go for it,” Seraphine drawled, putting as much haughty, upper crust Piltover accent into her words as she could manage.

There was a flicker of magic, and all of a sudden, there were five cards in front of Seraphine, cards that she plucked out of the air. Twist was holding his cards too, a feeling of superiority radiating off his shadowy features.

But before he could say anything, in that same sneering, upper crust accent, Seraphine said, “You Should Fold.”

The air crackled with her magic, because she wanted it to. She didn’t want to hold back, she in fact wanted, as poker players were so fond of saying, to go all in. And her magic was all too happy to do just that. Twist’s magic was brushed aside like an errant cobweb in the path of a hurricane, and Seraphine’s words and will were carved into his mind.

“I fold.”

Twist’s voice didn’t quaver, and he didn’t hesitate to click his fingers and make all the cards fly back into a complete deck, the ones in Seraphine’s hands included.

There was a second of stunned silence before Graves took his cigar out of his mouth, an utterly dumbfounded expression on his face. “Uhh… Twist? Did you just… fold?”

Twist shook like he was a dog trying to dry off. His hands came up to his face, and he rubbed the shadows where his eyes presumably were. “I… I did? No, no, I… I did?!?”

Seraphine threw Scratch a pleading glance, and her acquaintance stepped up beautifully, “Oh yeah, you very much did. Dunno what hand you got, but it must have been total dogshit, cause when Seraphine suggested you fold, bing bang boom, game’s over and Sera’s the winner.”

Graves and Twist looked to Scratch, then to Seraphine, then to each other. Graves shrugged, and Twist looked shell shocked, or as shell shocked as a face shrouded in shadows could manage. “No, no fucking way. You cheated!”

“Prove it.”

“Why you little-!”

Graves wandered over and threw one arm over Twist’s shoulders, then tightening up his grip until he had Twist in a headlock. “Come on Twist, don’t get your panties in a twist, heh. Ya made a bet, and ya lost. Time to knuckle down and get on with this lil adventure. Look on the bright side, the Shadow Isles got all sorts of fancy knick-knacks we can pawn off for whisky and women!”

Twist tried to wriggle out of Graves’ grip, but he couldn’t even budge his traveling companion, “Okay, okay, fine! Just let me go you oaf!”

Graves gave Twist’s neck another little squeeze before letting go with a chuckle, and Twist stood up, brushing his long coat off before taking a moment to glower at Seraphine. “A bet’s a bet, even if you did cheat. I’ll play helmsman on this damned voyage.”

Seraphine turned to Scratch with a wild grin, and felt her grin stretch even wider to see the excitement glittering in her frie- ahem, her aquaintence’s eyes. The green haired girl all but ran over to Seraphine, coming to a screeching halt right before she tackled Seraphine in a hug. She and Scratch both sort of jittered in place for a moment before Scratch took a step back and coughed into one hand. “Uh, well done Sera. But, not for nothing, didn’t you want to keep that sort of trick to a minimum?”

Seraphine shuffled her feet, looking away from Scratch, “Well, yes- but I- it was- I…”

The realization of what she’d done, what she’d done with only the barest provocation hit Seraphine like a sack of bricks, and she ran for the edge of the ship, only just reaching the railing before she threw up. Tears and snot mixed with bile and breakfast as she cried and vomited and cried some more. 

She was turning into a monster, she was corrupting minds and forcing people to do her bidding without care or concern. What, she wouldn’t manipulate a dozen men to stop shooting at her, but she was happy to crush a single man’s will for her own gain?

Seraphine retched again, stomach empty of anything but her own disgust and self loathing. Was this her own magic turning against her? Was the first mind to fall to corruption her own?

A hand of sun warmed metal started rubbing her back, and Seraphine heard Scratch call out, “No worries Uncle Graves, mum’s cooking must have caught up with her, just a little seasickness is all!” In a much quieter voice, one meant for Seraphine alone, “Sera, it’s okay. It was just a slip up, real small one, it’s okay”

“It wasn’t a slip up Scratch,” Seraphine rasped, fighting to not dry heave, “I meant to do it. I need this so bad, I need the pendant so bad. So when he said he wouldn’t pilot the boat, wouldn’t help us, I just, I just- I was just so angry.”

The hand on her back never stopped moving, didn’t even pause when Seraphine said she’d done it on purpose. Seraphine wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.

“It’s still okay, okay Sera? Uncle Twist didn’t get hurt, and it was just a one time command, no biggie, okay?” Scratch sucked a breath through her teeth, “Okay, maybe you don’t think it’s okay, I get that, uh, sorta. But I’m here for you, okay?”

Seraphine couldn’t use her words, she was too busy sobbing, but she nodded. Scratch was there for her. Ever since they’d met, Scratch had acted to help and protect Seraphine. How safe, how at peace she felt next to Scratch.

...

Which was totally absolutely fine, and didn’t mean anything whatsoever. And even if it meant something, it was clearly a platonic feeling, obviously.

Shoving a whole mess of feelings and thoughts into a tiny little box to deal with hopefully never, Seraphine straightened back up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks Scratch. I think I needed to hear that. So… thanks.”

Scratch nodded, smiling gently, “Of course Sera. I told ya yesterday, I’m here for ya. We’re gonna get you that pendant, yeah?”

Seraphine smiled too, “Yeah. Thanks Scratch.”

Scratch’s cheeks flushed before she ducked her head and mumbled some excuse to walk away, keeping her head low as she slouched off.

Without warning, Seraphine’s magic surged, and the world of color and souls that only Seraphine could see hit her like a sucker punch. She couldn’t help but see the souls of her acquaintances. Twist’s soul was a thing of shadows, hints of coins and cards poking through that darkness. Graves, his soul rang with a jolly sort of happiness, even as a past he would not or could not let go chewed away at that joy.

And Scratch’s soul, oh Celestial’s above, it was still so beautiful. That glittering sea of emerald and acid made Seraphine want to cry all over again, her soul was so perfect, so wonderful. And as her magic swelled, Seraphine heard the tune of Scratch’s soul, dissected the colors and shine to see her feelings, to see that- 

Seraphine clenched her eyes closed and turned away from her acquaint- no, her friend, fighting to push away her magic, demanding it give Seraphine her eyes back. 

Because she refused to believe that Scratch’s soul didn’t sing with friendship for her too. It had sung and danced and shined with something Seraphine hadn’t ever seen before, but it wasn’t friendship. Quietly, Seraphine began to cry again, let herself cry again.

Why did it hurt so much? She’d barely known Scratch for a full day, but it hurt so much, it hurt so much that Seraphine wondered if she was going crazy.

Even if Seraphine had decided that Scratch was her friend, it made perfect sense that Scratch wouldn’t see her as a friend yet, it had only been a day!

So why did it hurt so much?

Why did it hurt so fucking much?

Chapter Text

“This thing handles about as well as Graves walks when he’s drunk.”

Scratch rolled her eyes at her uncle, “Well la-de-da ya diva, at least it handles at all. My house might be on the water, but it wasn’t built with actually sailing around in mind.”

Twisted Fate turned to glower at his honorary niece, but Scratch just gave him a cheeky smile and a wave as she walked down the stairs from the sundeck and its hastily installed steering wheel. Mom and mum had figured out a way to link the rudder with the wheel without having to rebuild the whole ship. Something something, sympathetic arcane connection, something something.

Looking up, Scratch heaved a sigh. There was no getting around having a mast installed, two actually. One built right in the middle of her home, and a smaller one closer to the bow. The sails flapped lazily in the breeze, but even what little wind there was easily gave the ship the power to move. 

But it wasn’t nice to see her new home additions, Nagakabouros knows they hadn’t been installed with any care for aesthetics. Needs must, she supposed.

As much as it was probably an absolutely horrible, no good idea, Scratch did have to admit the splashes of blue and gold paint all across the sails made the dang things a bit less of an eyesore.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to let Jinx draw all over the sails?”
Glancing to the side, Scratch gave Seraphine a shrug. “It was either paint the sails or deal with however else mum dealt with the changes to her home.”

Seraphine tucked one lock of candyfloss pink hair behind her ear, and Scratch tried to look away as smoothly as she could before she found herself staring. In spite of offers to buy her more clothes while the construction of the masts was ongoing, Sera had refused. So this day she was wearing more of Scratch’s clothes, namely some shorts that were blessedly not all that short on Sera’s petite frame. It was the top that was more of an issue, a cut down t-shirt that only just reached the bottom of Sera’s ribs. 

Scratch shook her head. It wasn’t really a problem, it was totally fine. But there were a lot of guys on the crews, and some of them had been throwing the occasional glance Sera’s way. More than a few of the women too. Which was fine, totally reasonable really, Sera looked amazing whatever she was wearing.

Which Scratch also noticed but it was just like noticing a nice wave, or a pretty seashell, totally fine, very reasonable. Totally.

If Sera noticed Scratch’s behavior, she didn’t react, rather just tucking that same lock of hair behind her ear as the wind briefly picked up. “Okay, but what could be worse than letting Jinx basically paint a giant ‘Jinx is here’ sign on the ship?”

Scratch shrugged again, “I mean, she didn’t put her name on the ship anywhere or something like that. And worse would be, uh, her other idea of mounting her hot pink minigun on a pintle mount, and then onto the bow of the ship. So, the paint is one thing, but she never used gold in the bad old days, so it’s not a total give away. However, I've heard the exploits of Pow-Pow, and while this isn’t the exact same gun, that little rascal was there in the bad old days, which is much more of a give away.”

Sera shuddered and hugged herself, and Scratch winced. She’d run into a few pirates and smugglers from Piltover, and their reaction was very much the same if they found out Jinx lived within spitting distance of Bilgewater propper. Well, that or they tried to kill mum, or mom, or Scratch, which never turned out well for them.

After a moment, Sera seemed to pull herself together with a nod, straightening her shoulders, and tugging at the bottom of her shirt in an absentminded fashion. “Okay, well, I suppose the sail thing is better than that.”

“Glad you agree,” cheered mum, popping out of one of the hatches added to the deck. With the faintest grunt of effort, Jinx pulled herself up on one arm, dragging a wooden frame of sailcloth behind her. “Sunshine really put her foot down on the weapons thing, so Pow-Pow gets to chill in the workshop with Fishbones.” Mum shrugged and started wandering toward the sundeck, which Scratch supposed was also the helm now.

“Scratch. Why did your mother just walk by without any clothes on?”

“Force of habit I guess,” Scratch muttered, “that and she really, really doesn’t like tan-lines.”

“Celestials preserve me, that is something I did not need to see or know.”

Scratch sighed and motioned toward the railing, leaning over to look at Bilgewater in the distance. Soon enough, the last of the supplies would be stashed away and Scratch would be sailing away.

Feeling more than seeing Sera join her at the railing, Scratch gestured to the city of scum and villainy. “You know what’s weird Sera? Not only is this the first time I’ll be away from Bilgewater, but I got a feeling in my gut that I’ll actually miss it.”

Sera bumped her slim shoulder against Scratch’s metallic shoulder, “It’s… well, I’m not going to miss this place in the slightest, but you grew up here. This is your home, and home is always hard to leave.”

Scratch threw Seraphine a glance, “Was it hard to leave Piltover for this nightmare town?”

Sera stiffened up and leaned away from Scratch. Ignoring the way her heart dropped into her stomach, Scratch shuffled away too, rubbing her rune-craft arm a little. It didn’t feel especially warm, but maybe it had bothered Seraphine.

“Uh, I think my situation is a little unique. But… even so, I do miss home, just a little bit. Besides being in Zaun a little bit, I’ve never really gone anywhere else either.”

“Oh, you’ve been to Zaun? How was it!? Mum tells me stories sometimes, and some sailors come from there and will talk about it, but like, that’s them, what about you?!”

Sera took another little step back from Scratch with a wince. “Um, well, technically I was born there. But it was only just across the bridge from Piltover, so not… Zaun Zaun, I guess. Or at least not what most people would think of as Zaun probably.”

Scratch scuffed her foot, now safely in a sneaker so she didn’t damage the deck, and sort of shrugged, “I mean, if you don’t wanna talk about it or anything, that’s fine, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Seraphine nodded slowly, “I don’t feel uncomfortable, I just don’t think I can tell you much of anything. I’m… I’m much more a product of Piltover than Zaun, my family moved across the bridge when I was about six or so?”

“Ah, okay…” Scratch mumbled, turning back to Bilgewater, watching a line of rowboats loaded with supplies coming toward the ship, signaling that it was almost time to properly set sail. With a sigh, she turned to Sera, “Hey, looks like it’s about time we get going. That… night when you first stayed over, you said that you wanted me to play my guitar, right?”

To her credit, Seraphine only winced a little bit as she hung her head, “Well, yes, I guess you could phrase it that way…”

“Uh, do you want to hear me play now?”

Sera’s head snapped back up, and Scratch couldn’t help but grin a little at the glee on the pink-haired woman’s face. “Oh goodness yes! I mean, while the way I went about asking was very very wrong, I was also very serious, I would love to hear you play!”

Scratch found herself leaning away as Sera leaned in, laughing as the pink haired songstress realized what she was doing and nearly fell over trying to scrabble away from Scratch.

“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes,” Scratch chuckled as she raked one hand through her hair, “Find a nice place to sit, I’ll be right back.”

Before Sera could object, Scratch slipped past her and used a little bit of magic to cushion her fall when she jumped down a hatch into the belly of her home. Dodging past a few of the Burha deckhands sent by Illaoi and their colorful curses, Scratch all but threw herself into her room. 

Err. 

Seraphine’s room. Well, her room still, but Seraphine was using it so-

Scratch slapped her cheeks and pulled her eyes away from the little indent in the pillow Seraphine-

Scratch slapped her cheeks a little harder this time, and marched her stupid totally-only-an-adventure-buddy ass over to her guitar. Snatching the metal beast up by the neck, Scratch dug around the detritus surrounding the guitar to pull out a modified shark’s grin mask.

Pulling the mask on, Scratch threw her guitar on her back with the help of a handy little leather strap. Scratch turned back to the door in a way so that she didn’t look at Sera’s be- her bed, it was still Scratch’s bed.

Shaking her head, Scratch closed the door behind her and jogged back to the hatch and the main deck. 

Looking around, it wasn’t hard to spot Seraphine. In spite of the fact that rope ladders seemed to not like her, Seraphine had managed to climb some rigging and was tucked in amongst the ropes. She let go of the rigging just long enough to wave at Scratch, which was almost long enough for her to slip and fall off the rope, but Seraphine caught herself at the last second.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Scratch waved back and started making her way up to the ship’s bow. Coming to the edge of the ship proper, Scratch kicked off her shoes and started walking up the bowsprit, balancing on the wooden beam with a practiced ease.

Not to say her home had been equipped with one before, the bowsprit had been installed with the masts and other such things, but it was honestly easier than balancing on her surfboard.

Reaching just about the end of the bowsprit, Scratch turned around and waved at Sera, and tried not to grin too broadly when she waved back. Not that anyone could see her grin, facemask and all that, but it seemed important to not be smiling like a fool.

Unslinging her guitar from her back, Scratch took a few seconds to twist at the pegs, plucking each string to check the tone. Nagakaborous preserve her if she played out of tune in front of Sera. Why that thought filled her with a strange sort of dread, Scratch decided she wasn’t going to examine that too closely.

After a moment, Scratch nodded to herself, her guitar was in tune enough to her ears. Crouching down, she picked up the two wire cables that came out of the base of her guitar. With a well practiced flick of her magic, Scratch opened up a pair of small ports situated in her metal leg, just an inch or so above her knee. Plugging the cables into those ports, Scratch was rewarded with the feeling of stabbing pain as her body linked with her guitar.

And with a more concentrated burst of magic, panels that had not been there a moment ago slid aside, revealing two concaves of metal. Rings surrounding rings surrounding rings of metal, each one smaller than the last created those two dishes sunk into her leg. 

Picking at a guitar string, Scratch heard the speakers in her thigh resonate with the sound, replacing the gentle plink of strings with a harsh howl.

“Up and attem girl, we got a boat to rock,” Scratch said, standing up and reaching for the cable tucked away inside her mask.

But her eyes flickered to Seraphine and she faltered. Playing her guitar was one thing, but singing in front of her adventure buddy? Especially having heard Sera sing? Even Nagakaborous wouldn’t be able to save her from the lethal amount of embarrassment she’d feel. So, no lyrics, but Scratch knew a few songs, mostly the ones she wrote herself, that were guitar only.

Strumming her guitar and making a few last minute tweaks to her pegs, Taking a quick glance at the rather notable lack of shadows around her, Scratch raised her voice, going so far as to cup her hands around her mask to shout, “Good afternoon you unscrupulous, uncouth, unmannered fuckin’ so on and so forths! I hope you’re ready for a little music, and if you’re not, get ready cause I’m playing anyway!”

“Play Free Bird !”

Scratch flipped the mouthy Burha deckhand the bird, “There ya go, one free bird! Now, in honor of the Queen Bess, I give you Big Fucking Gun !” And without further ado, Scratch flooded her leg with her magic and brought her song to life.

It started innocently enough, some bass teasing out the melody. Then she really started hitting her guitar, her speakers turning her aggressive motions into a guttural howl. What her hands could not do, her magic filled in the gaps, her shin giving birth to fresh speakers, each roaring away with their own bits. Impossible volume, bone shaking bass, a symphony of anger and rage conjured to life with years of practice and months of experimentation to craft her speakers.

During a short lull in her strumming, Scratch couldn’t hold back, and ripping the cable out of her mask, slammed it into the head of her guitar. Her voice burst out in a savage scream, no words, just soulborne violence. Her mask was an amplifier all of its own, and with every shout, every cheer, every roared note that complimented her song, it echoed across the deck, across the sea, all throughout the winds and the waves and the city she was soon to leave behind.

For an eternity that was far too short, Scratch poured herself into her guitar, and from her guitar out into the world. But, the song did come to an end, and Scratch looked up, taking in the cheers and roars of her crowd. Energized, the sailors threw boxes to each other, passing crates of provisions and other supplies down into the belly of her home. Off to her right, Scratch could see the line of boats retreating from the ship, their goods delivered, their job done.

So now… now it was time to leave.

Scratch turned away from the crowd, away from Sera, turning toward Bilgewater. As the sails were unfurled and caught the wind, the ship started moving out to sea. With a sigh, Scratch turned away from her home city and dug four silver serpents out of her shorts. Taking a moment to float two over to Sera, Scratch held up the other two coins.

“Alright, alright, time to get traditional. Souls of Bilgewater, give the sea your tithe. For the first time, or for the last time, we ride the waves for treasure and adventure, so let us pay our dues to the tides and those who came before us!”

It was a somber thing, as every sailor moved to a railing and threw two coins overboard. Some threw copper, some threw silver, and Scratch was fairly certain she saw a few gold coins sink to the deeps as well. Seraphine looked at Scratch with some confusion but turned to the railing and did her best to pitch the two silver serpents into the sea. Scratch had to give the coins a little magical nudge to get them overboard proper, but they got there in the end.

Scratch nodded, and looked back to her guitar. She picked away at the strings, coaxing out a tune that could only really be called mournful. Her voice was still full of rasp, laced through with hurt, but it was no longer a cry of rage. Instead, Scratch crooned, slowly weaving the song together from memories that were full of pain, and moments where hope was but a thin sliver of light in the dark.

Slowly, those who hadn’t been on deck at the start of the song filtered their way up to throw their own tithes overboard. By the time Scratch stopped her playing, the deck was packed to bursting, several of the deckhands tucked away in the rigging like Sera was. Standing up at the helm, her parents and her uncles watched. Lux had one arm slung over Jinx’s shoulders, leaning into each other as dark memories of the sea washed over them. Uncle Graves and Uncle Twist had their heads bowed, though Twist hadn’t taken his hat off, and Graves hadn’t stopped smoking. Oh well, Scratch knew they’d paid their tithes, and ultimately that’s what mattered most. 

It wasn’t just uncaring waves and the cruel winds that the sailors were trying to ward away with coin and prayer. But some things were not to be mentioned, even when paying their tithe.

Scratch shook her head and uncoupled her guitar from her mask and her leg, riding out the pain with just a little grunt. The speakers that dotted her thigh and shin vanished back into her leg, the metal smooth as glass, like they had never been there at all.

Slinging her guitar, Scratch walked back down the bowsprit and wiggled her feet back into her ratty ass shoes. “I really do need to get these replaced at some point,” she sighed. 

“I’ll say. Those shoes look like they’re going to fall apart any minute now.”

Scratch barely managed to not snap her neck looking up at Sera, but luck was on her side. Getting to her feet, Scratch pulled her mask down and offered Seraphine a shrug. “What can I say, I’m cheap.”

“Uh huh. Remind me, how many surfboards do you go through in a month?”

“Uhh…”

Sera shook her head, “The fact you’re counting on your fingers right now tells me you’re not cheap, you just have other expenses getting in the way of your wardrobe.”

With a shrug, Scratch slung her guitar onto her back and waved away Sera’s words “Yeah, yeah, you got me there. Anyway, let’s grab lunch.”

A quick stroll across the deck, and the two of them let themselves into the galley.

Which was actually crammed elbow to elbow with hungry sailors on hastily installed benches and one overworked chef.

Scratch ran a hand through her oversized mohawk before shooting Sera a somewhat apologetic look. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t think about lunch time for us also being lunch time for everyone else too… okay, one sec.”

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Scratch shouted, “Hey, Biscuit! Gonna let me cut in line!?”

The aging cook turned away from the stove top and shook a ladle at Scratch, heedless of how soup spattered the surrounding area, a few sailors included. His voice cut through the noise of the galley, but it was utterly incomprehensible gibberish laced through with perfectly enunciated curse words.

Turning to Scratch, Sera had to half-shout, “What is he saying?”

With a shrug, Scratch started waved her hands, and thin waves of acid green magic leapt across the galley. While her magic pulled open cabinets, Scratch shrugged. “Honestly, no idea, I don’t think anyone knows what Biscuit says anymore. Getting shot in the head will do that to you I suppose. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he isn’t gonna give us lunch anytime soon, so it’s time to improvise.”

Wrapping her magic around a wedge of cheese, a pair of apples, and a loaf of bread, Scratch whipped the food back over to her and Seraphine, “Thanks Biscuit, see you at dinner time!”

Followed out of the galley by a tide of swears and the laughter of a few sailors, Scratch led Seraphine up the stairs to the sundeck, turning around to take a seat on the top of the steps.

Sera looked at her askance, but slowly took the seat on the stairs right next to Scratch.

Scratch realized, tragically too late to do anything about it, that the stair wasn’t wide enough for there to be even an inch of space separating the two of them.

Turning her face away slightly, Scratch tore off a piece of bread before handing Seraphine the loaf. “Uh, here, hold that, lemmie cut this cheese down a bit.”

Still giving Scratch that look, Sera took the bread, and set it in her lap with the two apples she’d been carrying. “Are you carrying a knife, oh Celestials, why did I bother asking, of course you do.”

Scratch briefly looked over at Sera and grinned, “No need, I got just the trick for this. Probably. Actually I’ve never tried this before, so wish me luck.”

Sera’s look morphed into a flat stare, but she sighed, “Good luck Scratch.”

Not trusting her voice, Scratch just nodded before turning all her attention to the cheese, and her magic.

Taking grasp of the cheese, Scratch wrapped it in a sea of her magic. It was still so strange to see her magic have a color. Mom’s magic had a color, gold and all the shades of the sun and the stars. But for whatever reason, Scratch just didn't have color in her magic. So why did she develop it now?

Shaking her head, Scratch turned her focus back to the experiment at hand. Slowly, Scratch tried to will the cheese into two halves. She tried to imagine her magic like a blade, not pulling or tearing, but cutting, a singular slice of acid green power.

So obviously what she actually did was squish the top half into a pancake, tearing it away from the bottom half in a small burst of cheese bits.

With a sigh, Scratch passed Sera the piece of cheese that was not flat, “Okay, well, glad I just tried that on a piece of cheese and not like… I dunno, an apple or something. Less spray this way.”

Sera tore off a bit of cheese from her half and popped it in her mouth with a bite of bread. “So you just conducted a magical experiment, with no preparation or steps taken to ensure safety, to try and cut cheese?”

Scratch shrugged and started folding her cheese into a tiny cube, “I mean, when you phrase it like that, it sounds bad.”

Seraphine sighed from the very bottom of her soul and pulled off more bread before passing the loaf back to Scratch. They ate in silence, side by side, for a while. 

Finishing off the last of her apple, the bread and cheese long gone, Scratch craned her neck to look back to the sea. Bilgewater wasn’t there anymore, not even a speck on the horizon. The sun was slowly but surely dipping lower and lower in the sky.

“Miss it already?”

Scratch looked at Sera from the corner of her eye, and raked one hand through her mohawk. “Not really, it’s more that… okay, kinda. It’s just weird not being able to see it. Even when I did a little sailing with Auntie Illaoi, I could always see it.”

Sera nodded and got up, careful not to send Scratch or herself tumbling down the stairs. Holding onto the rail for dear life as the ship hit a rogue wave, Seraphine offered Scratch a shaky smile. “Um, I hate to leave on that note, but I’m going to catch a sunburn if I stay out here much longer. If you need me, I’ll be in your- err my- well not, it’s still your-”

Scratch chuckled and flapped one hand at Seraphine, pulling her guitar into her lap, “I know what you mean. I’m gonna stick around up here and… play a bit more. See you later, yeah?”

With another nod, Sera walked back down the stairs, and after a minute or so, Scratch followed suit. Rather than head into the belly of her home, Scratch went back up the bowsprit, and lay down on the column of sun-kissed wood. Plugging her guitar back in, it hurt like it always did.

Like it always would, a permanent reminder of her nightmare. A nightmare that she always tithed for, a prayer of silver to ward that unique hell away…

With a snarl, Scratch started plucking the strings, a fast paced song, full of anger and defiance. Her pain would always be part of her, so she nurtured her anger, her defiance. She wouldn’t let her nightmare hold her back.

Nothing would hold her back from helping Sera find that pendent…

Chapter Text

“Scratch, wake up!!”

Scratch did, in point of fact, wake up to Seraphine's screaming. That said, given that she was in a hammock, her immediate reaction to try and swing herself out of the net resulted in her landing face first onto the floor.

Her arm, leg, and guitar falling to the floor with her, Scratch snarled, “Ow, fuck fuck dammit, what’s going on Sera?!”

Seraphine helpfully grabbed Scratch’s prosthetic limbs from where they’d fallen and pushed them in front of her, “You need to get up to the main deck, no, we both need to, now now now!”

Scratch scowled but managed to push herself upright, and took a deep, bracing breath. Grabbing her rune-craft arm and slamming it home, Scratch let that breath out in a hiss of pain. Second verse, same as the first, and with a second hiss of pain, Scratch had her leg attached too.

Scratch sprang to her feet before the aftershocks of pain had fully faded, and nodded to Seraphine, “Okay, main deck, let’s go.” 

Suiting action to words, Scratch started running for the main deck, all but flying up the ladder to reach a scene of absolute bedlam. Sailors had cutlasses drawn, pistols cocked and loaded, everyone shouting and cursing at each other. 

It didn’t take a genius to see what the issue was. 

An absolute slab of a sailor, one of Auntie Fortune’s crew, was holding a child Scratch hadn't seen before with one hand, all but dangling the kid over the edge of the boat. In his other hand, the massive bastard was waving around a blunderbuss that looked like a hacked down cannon, and Scratch had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t loaded with flower petals and confetti.

Scratch could see her parents and uncles, and it was clear why Seraphine ran to get Scratch. Mom and mum were standing back to back, but mum only had a dagger, and while mom’s hands were wreathed in magic, Scratch knew that she couldn’t use anything offensive without the very real potential of blowing a hole in the ship.

Uncle Twist was at the helm, shadows licking around the edges of his body, playing cards lashing out every time someone tried to get close. Honestly, he was probably the safest, especially compared to Uncle Graves. Still smoking a cigar, Graves had his hands raised, staring down the double barrels of his own shotgun.

Scratch’s blood roiled and surged, her magic a tempestuous thing, begging to be released like a tidal wave across the whole deck. Some of the gunners and deckhands were turning to her, bringing weapons to bear to hold her in place with the threat of terminal lead poisoning.

Scratch grit her teeth, but before she could do anything, even really think of anything, one of the pistols changed course to point somewhere behind Scratch.

Lower than Scratch.

Toward a certain pink haired woman who was climbing up the ladder to join Scratch on the deck.

Scratch didn’t see red, the corners of her vision didn’t tinge mauve, she barely even twitched.

But unthinking, protective rage summoned a whirlpool of magic, acid-green sorcery poured out of her rune-crafted limbs, magical waters suddenly wrapped around every weapon on deck.

No one flinched, no one pulled a trigger, because Scratch didn’t give them the chance.

With a pained scream of exertion, Scratch clenched her prosthetic hand into a fist, and every single weapon on deck was crushed into a cube of metal. Every gun barrel, every blade, nothing was spared. 

Of course, Scratch barely noticed the clatter of useless hilts and grips to the deck, falling over as the strain of her spell-craft left her dancing on the edge of a blackout. 

Falling backwards as her heart stuttered and her body suddenly felt like it was made of molten lead, she got lucky, as Seraphine managed to catch her before Scratch could bounce her head off the deck.

Two sounds broke through Scratch’s foggy mind. One, a roar of pain and the sound of bones breaking, though who was broken or doing the breaking was a bit of a mystery since Scratch’s vision was an absolute mess of flashing colors and yawning darkness.

The other thing, well, that was easier to process since it was just Uncle Graves screaming at her. 

“Scratch you little fucking shitass fucking bastard! You squished my fucking gun!! I liked that fucking gun you fucking fucker!!!”

As Graves continued to curse Scratch out, the mutters of confusion turned to angry whispers, then furious shouting. By the time Scratch had recovered enough to sit up with Seraphine’s help, the whole deck seemed ready to descend into violence all over again.

Staggering to her feet, again with Seraphine’s help, Scratch started elbowing her way through the crowd, using tiny bursts of her recovering magic to shove particularly obstinate obstacles aside.

Limping out of the brewing melee, Scratch entered some sort of no-man’s land. The goliath of a man was clutching at a nose that now looked like a pancake, but he was still standing and screaming at mum, his hand clenched into fists the size of mum’s head. Blood on her forehead, Jinx was screaming right back at him while Lux had adopted a guarded stance near the child, fists raised and eyes full of golden fire.

Elbowing Sera in the ribs, Scratch rasped, “Any idea what’s going on?”

Sera shrugged then took a deep breath in, her voice suddenly rolling like thunder across the whole ship, “Would someone kindly explain what caused this disturbance?”

Scratch silently thanked her mum for the ability to bounce back from damn near anything as she briefly went deaf in her left ear. But Sera's shout had the intended effect of getting everyone to shut up, though not for long.

“We can’t keep a stowaway on board!”

“We can’t throw a whole ass child overboard!”

“She’s bad luck, and she’s not tithed!!”

“Our provisions are already going to be sorely tested just getting to the Isles, we can’t feed another mouth for however long this whole journey might take!”

“She’s a fucking child! We can’t just leave her to die!!”

“The brat’s from Bilgewater, she knew what being a stowaway means!”

“Forget the provisions, it’s the bad luck! We’re sailing to the fucking Shadow Isles! We don’t need more bad luck!!”

On a hunch, Scratch had just enough time to clap her hands over her ears before Seraphine screamed like a banshee of old myth, howling, “ Everyone Just Shut Up For A Minute!! ”

Maybe it was the proximity, or maybe Seraphine really was just that powerful, but Scratch would have sworn she could feel Sera’s magical command brand her soul, a searing touch of a truly monstrous power. So even as her mouth flapped, not a single sound escaped Scratch’s throat. 

Very impressive, faintly terrifying, but feeling Seraphine’s magic wrap around her own was kinda arous- neat, it was neat.

In the minute of magically enforced silence, Scratch and Sera walked over to the little huddle of Lux, Jinx, and the stowaway. Looking the kid over, Scratch winced. Her little face was pinched with hunger, and the look in her eyes reminded Scratch of an animal caught in a trap. She was breathing raggedly, twitching and twisting as she looked for an escape that simply wasn’t there.

While the kid was pulling at heartstrings Scratch didn’t even know she had, Seraphine was all but crying from the get go. Kneeling down, the pink haired songstress opened her arms and smiled patiently at the young girl. The little stowaway almost threw herself overboard trying to jump away from Seraphine, but after a few seconds, then a few more, she’d calmed down enough to approach Sera. 

But just as the kiddo was reaching out to grasp one of Sera’s hands, the forced silence ended, and the cries of outrage, curses, and swears filled the deck again.

Mom turned to mum and half-shouted, “Any bright ideas on how we can quell a mutiny?”

Mum shrugged, but Scratch only saw it out of the corner of her eye as she wheeled around to look at the huge guy with the smashed nose. With a snarl, Scratch brought a hand up and grabbed empty air.

Acid green magic surged out from Scratch’s arm and wrapped itself around the man’s neck, slowly lifting him from his feet until just his tiptoes were planted on the deck.

“Scratch, less lethal, less lethal!”

Sera’s cry cut through all the screaming, and Scratch blinked a couple of times before she sighed and with a twitch, the sorcerous waters around the man’s neck flowed downward until they were wrapped around his barrel shaped torso. Scratch still kept him on his tip toes, but loosened the overall pressure of her grip, if only to let the jackass breathe.

All the noise slowly faded away as Scratch dragged the big man over to the edge of the ship, then up onto the railing, and then started leaning him back. If she let go with her magic, he was going into the sea. And with a bloody mess of a nose, the bloodfins and berserk sharks would tear him apart. If he was lucky, he’d be dead before they started eating him, but Scratch doubted that would be the case.

The slap to the back of the head was expected, and so was the second one. The third was a bit of a surprise, but Scratch sighed.

“Mom, mum, and who I’m guessing is Sera, please hit me when I’m not focusing on giving some fuck knuckle a taste of his own medicine.”

“Scratch, you put that man back on the deck this instant,” Lux snapped, “or I will find those magazines of yours and pitch them overboard.”

Moving as fast as she could without breaking any bones, Scratch pulled the bastard off the railing and dumped him back onto the deck. Spinning around to mom, she dropped to her knees and held up her hands in supplication, “Mother dearest-”

“Wow, I’m standing right here honey.”

“Sorry mum. Uh, right, mom, please please please don’t throw away those magazines, those were really hard to get and one of them is a limited edition and everything!!”

“Magazines?”

Scratch froze, mind, body, heart, and soul, before slowly turning her head to look at a very curious and confused Seraphine. 

Sera looked from Scratch to Lux to Jinx and then back to Scratch, hands held up somewhat defensively. “I was just, curious I guess,” Sera squeaked, “what sort of magazines would make you beg like this Scratch? I mean, I’m very happy you didn’t drop that man into the sea, that could have been very bad, but I’ve never seen you this… um, well, begging isn’t something I thought you’d do.”

Turning her head back to her parents, Scratch shook her head wildly, “It’s nothing, right? Just some comics! Right?!”

Lux was doing her best to hold back her laughter, while Jinx was just grinning maniacally, waggling one hand, “Oh I dunno about that, Scratch. If those are just comics, then they were clearly drawn in a brothel, given all the-”

“You fucking bitches!” roared the guy with the broken nose, prompting Scratch to jump to her feet and take a few steps forward, raising her arms to ward off any punches. But the giant just stomped forward until he was basically screaming right in Scratch’s face, “We have to get rid of the kid! Kids are bad luck, stowaways are bad luck, the untithed are bad luck, where we’re going is bad luck, and fucking Jinx is literally named bad fucking luck!”

With every word, the crew was getting riled up again, sailors pulling spare knives, daggers, and pistols, weapons that Scratch hadn’t crushed during her magical disarmament. And for better or for worse, it seemed like the part of the crew inclined to throw a child overboard was also the part of the crew most inclined to carry extra weapons.

Scratch’s mind raced, because the whole situation was getting worse, and pretty damn fast. Her magic replenished quickly, but not fast enough for her to do what she did just a few minutes ago. So, brute force was off the table.

Scratch briefly contemplated asking Seraphine to magically command the crew to stop being bastards, but by the grace of Nagakabouros she restrained herself. Now was not a good time to casually suggest Seraphine use her magic more than she already had. So there went the charismatic (sorta) option.

Which left…

Scratch winced, spent a precious second reconsidering her options, then winced even harder.

Fuck.

“Fine, fine, fine! Have it your way you bastards!” Scratch shouted, throwing up her arms in frustration. Turning on a heel, she lashed out and grabbed the child by one arm. Scratch almost faltered then and there. The kid really was skin and bones, and the kicks she threw at Scratch’s ankles were about as strong as a gentle breeze.

“Scratch!”

“Honey!”

Scratch turned to her parents and mouthed “Trust me.” Not looking to see if mom and mum were going to follow her lead, Scratch quickly leaned closer to Seraphine, hissing “Go to my room, open the porthole, and stick your arms out.”

Scratch quite honestly expected Seraphine to slap her, or scream, or use her magic to stop Scratch in her tracks. So when Sera nodded and raced for the steps back down into the ship, Scratch felt more than a little shocked. 

She would have pondered that particular response for more than an instant if it wasn’t for the squirming child in her grasp. Swapping the kid to her metallic hand, Scratch made a grand show of stomping over to the aft of the ship. Pushing past stunned crewmembers and fending off less stunned ones with fist and magic, Scratch bent low, wrapping her other arm around the kid. Pulling the stowaway to her chest, Scratch whispered as loud as she dared, “Hold onto my arm, and when I get you over the edge, kick me in the ribs and twist my arm to the right. We can get out of this, just don’t let go of the fucking arm, okay?”

The headbutt to Scratch’s temple stung, but Scratch noted with approval that as she lifted the kid up, the little stowaway was already wrapping herself around Scratch’s metal arm. Maybe it was some desperate desire to live that made her take the chance to trust what Scratch was saying, or maybe it was because she had a good angle to start kicking Scratch in the ribs, but either way at least she was doing what Scratch had asked.

“Scratch, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare!” snarled Graves, and given the sudden cry of pain and the sound of boots stomping her way at a rapid rate, Scratch lifted the kid onto the railing, and gave the little scamp a nod.

No one survived growing up in Bilgewater by being slow on the uptake, so with a little breathless grunt, the stowaway slammed both feet into Scratch’s chest and twisted her whole body to the right.

Normally, this wouldn’t do anything other than hurt, which it did, but Scratch had accounted for that. With a tiny spark of magic, Scratch disengaged her arm, letting it pop free of her shoulder.

It hurt, it hurt so much. It was a sloppy disengagement, it was done with far too much force, and Scratch couldn’t take her time to really brace herself against the pain. So it hurt. Memories of when she’d lost her arm, her flesh and blood arm, swam through Scratch’s mind, it hurt so damn much.

But Scratch had to focus through the pain, because otherwise she’d be going overboard next. She could feel her arm in free fall, and if she could feel it, she could move it. With a sob, she yanked the arm, altering its trajectory. And if Sera was ready then maybe-

Something, or rather someone, crashed into Scratch’s back, and only by dint of long years of hard practice did Scratch keep her magical grip on her prosthetic arm.

Strong hands grabbed Scratch by the shoulders and spun her around. The fact that the meat of one palm was mashed against the rune-crafted metal of her shoulder socket almost made Scratch faint with pain, but by the grace of Nagakaborus she didn’t drop her arm into the sea. It was about all she could do to pull the thing back onto the deck, which given that Uncle Graves was shaking her and screaming curses in her face was actually a fairly remarkable feat.

“You rotten fucking brat! You should know better! You should be better! What the fuck is wrong with you Scratch?!”

Scratch couldn’t help but mentally tune her uncle out, hoping someone had picked up her arm so it wouldn’t roll off the ship. Her head hurt, her shoulder hurt, even her magic hurt. That last one was quite new, but given the circumstances, perhaps not surprising. 

Since Seraphine hadn’t screamed with horror, Scratch had to assume that her little gambit had worked. Now all she had to do was not get punted overboard herself.

“You fucking fuck fucker, are you even fucking listening?! That’s it, you’re fucking going overboard, you fucking find that kid or you ain’t-”

Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the need to go see if her gamble had worked, or maybe she was just plain out of patience for this whole fucking mess, but whatever the reason was, Scratch opted for a response that was as pithy as it was violent.

Which, much to Graves' infinite despair, meant Scratch kneed her uncle right in the dick.

And due to how Graves was standing, it was not her flesh and blood knee that made contact.

Scratch did her best to not put too much force into it, but Graves didn’t have time to appreciate his god-daughter’s restraint. He had a busy schedule of rolling around on the deck, clutching his crotch, and softly crying.

Before anyone else could really say anything, Scratch snatched her arm out of a nearby crewmate’s hands, slammed it back into the socket with a grunt of pain, and started stomping down the stairs to the main deck.

“There,” she snarled, “problem fucking solved. If any of you have an issue with how that got resolved, go stab that big asshole for starting this whole mess.” 

Shoving anyone who got in her way to the side, either with her magic or with her prosthetic arm, Scratch made her way into the galley. She was a little more gentle with Biscut, but she didn’t let the old seadog stop her from grabbing enough food for two and a wooden tankard to boot.

Maybe it was her past history of turning to overwhelming violence as a solution to her problems, or maybe it was the fact she’d just thrown a child overboard, but after a few more magical shoves and snarled threats, the crew cleared a path for her all the way over to one of the hatches that led into the belly of the ship.

She paused at the edge of the hatch, and gave the entire crew a look. “I’m going to my fucking room, and if any of you shit-heels decide to bother me, I will turn you into chum with my fucking mind, got that?!”

Mumbled agreements washed over Scratch, and with a nod, she leapt down the hatch, and took off running.

“Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay,” she rasped, taking corners at frankly unwise speeds as she raced toward her room.

Skidding to a halt that would definitively earn Scratch her parent’s ire, she wasted no time in banging on the door, “Sera, it’s Scratch, did it work, let me in, there’s no one in the hallway, hurry hurry hur-”

The door opened up, and Scratch almost ran straight into Seraphine who was standing in the door frame. Sera poked her head out of the doorway, looking left and right in the most suspicious manner possible before she beckoned Scratch into the bedroom.

Scratch slipped inside and let out a sigh of relief when she spotted the little stowaway curled up on herself in one corner of the room.

“Oh Mother Serpent, thank you for your grace,” Scratch sobbed, falling to her knees, letting the food she’d collected tumble from her arms as she covered her face. She knew she couldn’t really hide the tears, and definitely couldn’t hide the sobbing, but so long as she couldn’t see whatever look Seraphine was giving her that would be enough.

Blessedly, neither Seraphine nor the kid interrupted Scratch’s crying session. Distantly, Scratch heard the faucet in the bathroom filling the tankard, and the sound of a starving child tearing apart a loaf of bread.  

It took a bit longer than Scratch would have liked to get the tears to stop, but by the time she’d managed to get her emotions under control, the kid had already finished a whole loaf of bread, an apple, and both little segments of lime that Scratch had swiped from the galley. 

Looking around, Scratch noted that the kid was still stuffed into one corner of the room, eyes flicking between Scratch, the door out, and Seraphine. Sera was sitting at the foot of the bed, one eye on the kid with her brow furrowed in concern and concentration.

Scratch sat up, and that motion was enough to catch Seraphine’s eye. Before Scratch had a chance to say anything, Sera murmured, “Scratch, what do we do now? I managed to catch her and get her inside, but that’s only one part of the problem.”

Now it was Scratch’s turn to look concerned, “You think she’ll get spotted again? I figured she’d just stay in the room…”

Seraphine shook her head, and gestured at the door leading out into the hallway, “Scratch, even if she agrees to stay in here, we’ll have to bring all her food to her. Someone is going to notice if the two of us are suddenly eating for three.”

Drumming her fingers on the floor in a steady rhythm of metal on wood, Scratch frowned, “Uh, we could cut back on how much we eat and give the spare food to the kid?”

Now both Seraphine and the kid shook their heads, Sera piping up first, “We’d all be at greater risk of illness if we split our citrus rations like that. And you should know best that we really don’t have a lot of spare rations anyway. Malnutrition is no fun on the open sea, trust me.”

Scratch nodded, wincing, but turned her focus to the child, “You looked like you had something to say kiddo?”

The little Bilgewater native’s shoulders slumped, though the look of indignation didn’t fall off her face. Carefully, making sure to catch Scratch’s eye, the young girl started crooking her fingers this way and that, sketching out the signs Scratch recognized as Bilgewater’s unique form of sign language,

‘i’m not weak, i can work for my food’

Scratch winced and looked the kid up and down, “Listen sea-sprite, you’re tiny, skin and bones at best, and mute. I wish I could tell you that last bit wasn’t a problem, but if you can’t sing out when you need help or see something, people are going to get hurt.”

“Beyond that,” Seraphine cut in, “the fact that Scratch had to save you from being thrown overboard means you’re not particularly loved by the crew, and I don’t think Scratch will be able to rescue you again.”

Scratch nearly snapped her neck looking over at Sera, “Wait, you can read Bilge-sign?”

“Um, well, no,” Sera mumbled, twisting about so much that she wasn’t even facing Scratch. “But it was easy enough to follow what you were saying, and, um, my magic occasionally gives me the gist of what something is thin- saying, just saying.”

Scratch shared a look with the stowaway before shrugging. Sera was clearly hiding something, but it now wasn’t the time to ask about it. Running one hand through her mohawk, Scratch gave the kid a sympathetic look, “I get what you’re saying, but for the moment at least, are you okay just keeping your head down in my bedroom?”

The stowaway frowned, but she nodded all the same, hands flapping and flickering as she signed,

‘fine, but im not named kid or whatever, my name is isha’  

Scratch let out a sigh of relief and slowly got to her feet, “Fair enough, welcome aboard Isha. I’m gonna go tell my parents and uncles that you’re okay, and probably apologize to Uncle Graves for kneeing him in the dick.”

Scratch had one hand on the door when Sera called out, “Scratch, uh, you may, um, also want to move back in here.”

Twisting around to look over her shoulder at Seraphine, Scratch saw that she probably looked just as flushed and flustered as Scratch felt.

The pink haired was studiously avoiding looking at Scratch, twirling one lock of hair around a finger, mumbling, “I mean, won’t half the crew be pretty upset about you, you know, because of the whole, tossing Isha overboard?”

Scratch blinked a couple of times before turning back around and opening the door just a crack. Looking up and down the hallway, Scratch slipped out through the door and turned around, keeping her eyes off of Seraphine as she nodded, “Sounds like a plan, um, lemmie just grab my guitar too and uh, I’ll be right back.”

“Um, good. See you soon?”

“Yeah, uh, see you soon.”

Just as she was closing the door, Scratch caught a glimpse of Isha. The little sea-sprite was flicking her gaze between Seraphine and Scratch with the most exasperated expression on her little face that Scratch had ever seen.

Turning away from the door and hearing the click of the lock, Scratch started loping down the corridor, muttering to herself, “What was that look for…?”

Chapter Text

“There,” Scratch groaned, pushing the shotgun into Uncle Graves' hands, “now quit bitching at me about destroying your old shotgun.”

It had taken Scratch five sleepless nights to get that damn weapon built to her mum's satisfaction, and another three nights to enchant it to mom’s satisfaction. Frankly, if Graves wouldn’t take the gun, Scratch was quite certain she’d beat him to death with the damn thing.

“... It’s only got one barrel," Graves grumbled around his cigar, turning the comparatively slim weapon over in his hands, “and when I tug on the handgrip, the damn thing starts to move.”

Looking up at Scratch, Graves opened his mouth to continue critiquing the gun when he caught sight of the murder in Scratch’s eyes. “Gimmie the damn thing,” she snapped, all but ripping the gun out of Graves’ hands.

Scratch worked the pump, neatly catching shell after shell with magic as they popped out of the gun, “Holds ten shells, nine internal, one in the chamber.”

Grabbing one of the floating shells, Scratch slapped it into the open action and worked the pump to get the shell in a firing position. “First one in the side like that,” she growled, “the other nine go into this loading port, like this.”

One by one, Scratch pushed nine shells into the loading port on the bottom of the gun.

Shoving it into Graves’s hands again, Scratch finally calmed down enough to not growl or snarl, just tiredly grumbling, “Work the pump after every shot, and then laugh at everyone standing in front of ya. If you don’t like it after you use it, fuck you, that’s my apology for squishing your old shotgun anyway.”

Graves was still frowning when he caught sight of the string of runes that ran down the length of the barrel. Pointing at them, he grumbled in return, “These aren’t gonna explode when I shoot this thing, right?”

Scratch threw her hands up in the air, a strangled noise of disgust escaping her lips, “Nagakabouros, preserve your child from this unbeliever, no Uncle Graves, I’m not trying to fucking kill you. In spite of you threatening to throw me overboard, I do still quite like you.”

Graves nodded and slung the shotgun over his shoulder, tucking it into the old shotgun’s holster. “Well, in my defense, I did just watch you drop Isha off the side of the ship.”

Sighing, Scratch ran her flesh hand over her face, “That’s fair, but she’s fine, I didn’t castrate you, and I gave you a new shotgun. Now excuse me, but I’m going the fuck to sleep, I’ve been up for almost eight days now building that damn gun in addition to as many new pistols and cutlasses as I could without frying my brain, and I need a damn bed.”

Graves looked through a nearby porthole and nodded, “Well, it certainly is dark enough. Yeah, we’ll call it square, you have a good night’s rest, Scratch.”

Scratch had already turned away and started stumbling down the hallway. She was so beat that she almost missed the door to her shared room, and very nearly smashed her face against the door when she tried to open it and walk through it on reflex.

“Sera, lemmie in, I know it’s late but I need to sleep too.”

The time it took Sera to get the door open for her was not as fast as Scratch would have liked, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d feared. With a clatter of the latch, the door slowly creaked open so Seraphine could continue her ritual of looking up and down the hall in what really was the most suspicious manner possible.

Beckoning Scratch in with a wave, Sera was quick to close and lock the door behind Scratch. Adjusting her sleepwear of choice, a t-shirt that hung down to mid-thigh, Seraphine turned toward Scratch, mummuring, “What are you doing this late? And where have you been sleeping? Wait, ignore that, when have you been sleeping, you look like you’re half dead.”

Scratch very nearly missed the edge of the bed when she sat down, and with a heavy sigh started to pull her grease stained shirt over her head. Her words were laden with pure exhaustion, mumbling “Been in the workshop, I think I finally got enough good will back that the crew doesn’t want to kill me anymore. Which means I can finally fucking get more than an hour or two of sleep.”

Scratch had wriggled out of her top and was halfway through stripping off her pants before a strangled sound caught her attention. Exhaustion was making thinking very difficult, but even in her fugue state, Scratch came to the sudden realization that her bra was probably still hanging up in the workshop and not on her chest. 

Scratch looked down at her tits, and scrunched her face up as her poor little brain tried to come up with the reason why misplacing her bra mattered.

After a solid five seconds, Scratch remembered that Sera was the one who’d made that strangled sound.

She was in the same room as Seraphine with her tits out.

She was flashing her boobs at Seraphine.

Her girls were free range in front of Seraphine.

Ohhhhh, that’s why Seraphine had made that sound.

…

“ Fuck! ” Scratch barked, grabbing the bed sheet and covering up her chest. “Merciful Nagakabouros, Sera, I am so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, fuck, I’ll go sleep in the bathroom or somethin’, lemmie just get-”

“No.”

Scratch froze and almost fell out of the bed when an errant wave slapped against the side of the hull making the ship rock. Turning her head to look at Sera, Scratch nearly died on the spot.

Seraphine’s face was as red as a tomato, and she had her hands clapped over her eyes, ruined somewhat by the fact that she was clearly peeking through her fingers. With a shaky breath, the sapphire eyed beauty continued, “You look like you need it more. Just, uh, let me grab a pillow and I’ll-”

“No, uh, no, you don’t need to do that. It’s uh, um, it’s totally fine, I’ll-”

No longer looking from between her fingers, Seraphine took a couple steps forward, seemingly unconscious of the fact that she was walking closer to Scratch rather than the other side of the bed where she could grab the pillow she’d been using.

Scratch swallowed as her blood hissed and popped in her veins, heart roaring to life as certain parts of her psyche started to run wild. And without the energy to filter her words, Scratch mumbled, “You could, ya know, um, take half of the bed. It’s um, big enough for the two of us, cause ya know, uh, we’re both pretty slender.”

Seraphine’s eyes went wide, and then whatever part of Scratch that had taken the wheel went full throttle, “Does that sound okay, songbird?”

Forget how wide Sera’s eyes were, her jaw dropped to the damn floor, and the only noise she made was a strangled groan, a noise that Scratch thought she recognized but immediately discarded. There was no way Sera was thinking of Scratch’s offer seriously. And there was less than no way Sera was looking at her like that, in that way Scratch suspected she looked at Seraphine whenever she had a moment of weakness.

Given Scratch was very distracted thinking things she would usually stuff into a little box and repress, she thought it was forgivable that she didn’t see Isha until the little sea sprite had already shoved Sera at Scratch, prompting the pink haired woman to squeak and fall into Scratch’s arms.

Arms which had to let go of the bedsheet to help catch Seraphine, which meant that except for that raggedy old t-shirt Sera was wearing, they were nearly skin to skin.

Looking around a petrified Sera, Scratch caught Isha rolling her eyes, an impish grin on her face as she turned away and dragged her blanket and pillow into the bathroom, gently closing the door behind her.

“... I’m okay with that, Scratch.”

Scratch rocked back, looking up at Seraphine to see a smile that was a mix of anxious and hopeful. Gently pulling her hands away from Seraphine, her crus- her adventure buddy straightened up, stepping back and slowly walking to the other side of the bed, eyes flitting between where she was going and Scratch’s chest.

Averting her gaze, Scratch lowered her head, clumsily taking off her arm and leg, setting them down with old ease into the little cubby near the head of the bed. With a bit of floundering and the rustle of fabric, she got her whole body on the bed, head on pillow, blanket to chin, doing her best to give Sera enough space that her leg was only a couple of inches from hanging off the side. 

It turned out that Scratch’s efforts weren’t quite enough, and soon enough Scratch was quite literally laying shoulder to shoulder with Seraphine in the bed.

With a start, Scratch realized that they were touching skin to skin, which made sense to her, seeing as both of them were under the same blanket. Not daring to look to her right, Scratch started to push more of the sheet over to Seraphine, trying to tuck it in between the two of them while she mumbled, “Um, it’s kinda chilly tonight, and I don’t need that much of the bed sheet, I run kinda hot.”

Seraphine mumbled right back, “No, it’s okay, you can have some of the sheet too.”

“Doesn’t that mean we’ll be touching all nig-”

“S-shut up,” Sera whispered, and there was that hint of steel and fire that made Scratch shiver, “just shut up and let me… I- I wan- I want-”

As much steel and fire as there was in Seraphine’s voice, there was just as much nervousness, fear, pleading, but she eventually stammered out, “I- I want to be t-t-touching you.”

Scratch suddenly couldn’t get enough air, and she couldn’t help but look over at the other woman, finding her crus- adven- no, very much her crush was looking back at her with those perfect blue eyes that shined so beautifully in the dim starlight that suffused the room. Perfect eyes, half hidden with candy floss pink hair. Beautiful soft looking lips, parted just enough for Sera to breathe heavily, just enough for her to whisper so quietly Scratch almost missed it, “Do you want that too, my syren?” 

Scratch could barely speak, but with a bit of wiggling brought up her one remaining arm and gently cupped Sera’s face, running her thumb over silky soft skin, her heart beating like it wanted to bash its way out of her chest.

“Yeah. I want to be touching you too, songbird.”

Sera all but purred in Scratch’s hand, and for a time, they shared a blissful silence.

Silence that was broken when Sera whispered in a low, husky voice, “Can I-, I want to touch more of you. I want to touch all of you.”

Now it was Scratch’s turn to look like a tomato, her face heating up as she blushed. For a moment, her mouth worked silently, but eventually she managed to croak out, “You mean, like, cuddle, r-right?”

Sera’s smile was something straight out of Scratch’s dreams, and she slowly pulled the bed sheet off both herself and Scratch. And as the bed sheet crept lower, Scratch’s whole train of thought violently derailed, a ‘no survivor's’ level of derailed if Scratch had the mind to rank such a thing.

Because Seraphine wasn’t wearing the ragged shirt she’d been wearing when Scratch arrived.

She wasn’t wearing anything under that either, her perky little breasts on full display. 

And as the bed sheet finally fell away, Scratch saw that it wasn’t just Seraphine’s eyes that were glistening in the starlight. Beads of lust sat like dewdrops among Sera’s closely cropped bush, and she shivered as she watched Scratch’s eyes wander up and down her body.

“No, I mean I want to touch you, Scratch. I want to taste you. Do you want me to do that?”

Scratch started trying to wriggle out of her panties. Easy enough to slip the band off the stump of her right leg, but her undergarment stubbornly refused to slip down her other, fleshy leg. One second turned into a few seconds, then from a few seconds it turned into too damn many seconds as her underwear continued to fight against her wishes.

“Is this a yes, Scratch?”

Scratch looked up from where she was grappling with her panties to find Seraphine upright on her knees, looking down at Scratch with undisguised lust in her eyes. She was all but panting, both hands between her legs as she played with herself while she watched Scratch fumble around.

“If you don’t say yes, I can’t touch you Scratch. If you don’t say yes, I can’t taste you, syren.”

With a growl of need, Scratch decided that she didn’t really care about this pair of panties and just ripped the damn thing off of her, throwing it aside like the useless scrap of fabric that it was. 

Scratch snapped out her hand, and a wave of sea-foam green magic erupted out of her, the waters splashing to cover the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Tiny runes etched into the porthole flared with acid green power, and the sound of the sea grew distant, softened by some enchantment or the other.

“I just coated the room in my magic, nothing will get in or out, not even sound. I triggered the runes set into the porthole, we’ll get air but sound won’t get out, you have no idea how long it took me to etch that damn rune array.”

Seraphine cocked an eyebrow, but before she could get a word out, Scratch pushed herself up with her magic, sitting up until she was eye to eye with Seraphine, her one arm clutching at Sera’s shoulder, madness in her eyes as she rasped, “Yes. Touch me songbird, taste me, fuck me until I’m drooling, mindless mess. I’ve wanted this ever since-”

“The first night, right? When you called me songbird for the first time.”

Scratch nodded, opening her mouth mindlessly when Seraphine brought two love slicked fingers just before her lips. Gently, Sera pushed them into Scratch’s mouth, slowly working the two digits in and out as Scratch suckled and drank in the flavor.

“I’ve wanted it since that night too, my syren. I didn’t admit it to myself, I tried so hard to just see you as a friend.” Sera pulled her fingers out of Scratch’s mouth, and slowly ran her tongue up the length of her finger, licking up the drool that Scratch had left behind. 

Scratch nodded dumbly, swallowing heavily as Seraphine ran one hand through her mohawk, her other hand snaking its way behind Scratch’s neck.

“I can see it now, I understand why your soul shined with more than friendship, why it looked so strange to me when we saved your uncles.”

Some small part of Scratch wondered what Sera meant that she could see Scratch’s soul, but it was a very small and very quiet part of her.

“When I looked at your soul, when I saw how it reacted to me, I was horrified, because it didn’t look like friendship dancing through your soul, it wasn’t even base and crude lust.”

Seraphine leaned in, close enough that Scratch could feel Sera’s breath on her face, close enough that she could see the raging pyre of need in her songbird’s eyes.

“I had never seen it before, but now I know what it is, Scratch. You don’t see me just as a friend, or even as someone to just lust over.”

With a raspy whisper, Scratch cut in, “I saw you as someone to love. No matter what I tried to tell myself, I saw you as someone to give my heart to. I fell in love that first night. I love you, Sera.”

Sera was closer still, her lips fractions of an inch from Scratch’s, and in a voice so quiet yet so loud, she gently whispered, “I love you too, Scratch.”

The kiss was sudden, fierce, and Scratch found herself being pushed onto her back as Seraphine threw herself into Scratch’s arm. Chest pressed to chest, tongue grappled with tongue, and the need to breathe was a horrid curse that they shared.

Seraphine pulled away from the kiss first, panting, “Can I taste you, my syren?”

Scratch nodded vigorously, and much to her horror, begged, “Please songbird, please. Please touch me.”

Sera slid down Scratch’s belly, pausing to kiss her abs, to lick a fading scar from some misadventure long gone past. By the time Seraphine finished kissing her way down Scratch’s stomach and then lower still, they were both sweating, panting as their bodies burned with unfettered lust.

One finger tracing around the edges of Scratch’s pussy, Sera cooed, “You’re so smooth down here, syren.” Locking eyes with Scratch, Sera’s voice dropped into a throaty purr, “Did you shave for you, or were you thinking of me?”

“No, I just have no hair from the neck down, couldn’t tell you why,” Scratch whimpered, “but can you please stop teasing me and just ~ahhhhhhhn~!! ”

Scratch's plea was lost in a rapturous howl as Sera pressed her tongue hard against Scratch’s clit. Slowly, without pulling back from that little bead of nerves, Sera began to flex and roll her tongue, sending waves of pleasure through Scratch’s soul.

Not stopping her tongue for even an instant, Seraphine gently pushed one finger into Scratch’s pussy, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth when she felt how wet and receptive Scratch’s slit was. Her green haired syren screamed into the palm of her hand as Sera began to flex and curl that finger in just the right way to conjure a gush of lust out of her.

Every nerve singing with pleasure, Scratch’s eyes began to glow acid green, and as she moaned and whimpered, she managed to breathlessly gasp, “Can I, ahhhn, can I touch you too, songbird? I want to t-touch you with my magic.”

Without pausing in her ministrations, Seraphine took her free hand off of Scratch’s thigh and gave her a thumbs up. While the gesture felt somewhat out of place, Scratch didn’t mind, she barely had any mind left.

What little brain power she had to spare was crammed into a single spell, one that Scratch had practiced well under such circumstances. First time doing it to someone else, but Scratch was absolutely confident the spell would work, and work safely.

Slowly, carefully, Scratch reached out with her magic, watching streams and rivers of her mana flow down her arm, then from her arm into her hand. Gently running her fingers through Sera’s hair, Scratch carefully urged her magic along, droplets of sorcery running across Sera’s skin like she was standing in a thunderstorm.

Seraphine shivered, and for the first time since she’d pushed Scratch down, Sera had to pull her tongue away from Scratch’s clit, moaning as the acid green mana flowed down her back, down her sides, down her front, all converging at her pussy.

Scratch screwed her eyes closed in concentration, and Seraphine’s moan turned into a shriek of pleasure as Scratch’s magic began to work its way in and out of her cunt, waves of mana that struck Seraphine in all the right places, in all the right ways. Like the tides themselves, Scratch’s magic advanced and retreated, strong, deep strokes of sorcery, all directed by a mind dedicated to giving Sera as much pleasure as possible.

“Harder,” Sera gasped, pulling her finger out of Scratch’s pussy to lay one hand on each of her thighs, pushing them apart until Scratch was nearly doing a split. “Harder, better, faster, stronger,” she groaned, eyes wide but unseeing as Scratch did her best to drown her in ecstasy. Even blind to the world around her, Seraphine’s tongue found its way into Scratch’s pussy, silencing her own moans just as Scratch started to cry out in pleasure.

Between licks, between magical thrusts, between moans and gasps, Scratch would look down at her songbird, only to see Sera looking up at her syren. Scratch could see not just the madness of ecstasy in Sera’s eyes, but also the fires of love.

Well, no she couldn’t, there was an awful lot of madness and ecstasy in Sera’s eyes, but Scratch knew the love was there too.

For an eternity, Scratch danced on the edge of life and a little death. Her heart thumped out a crazed tempo in her chest, a frenetic beat driven by unceasing pleasure. 

But just as Scratch was tipping over into the oblivion of what promised to be a sanity shattering orgasm, Seraphine suddenly pulled away from Scratch’s pussy, letting out a high pitched moan that nearly finished Scratch off.

Hips bucking, Sera tried to grind against Scratch’s magic, the steady trickle of that acid green mana dripping off of her a vibrant accompaniment to lust glittering down her thighs.

“Harder, please syren, more, more, more!”

As much as Scratch wanted Sera’s tongue to be inside her and not just hanging out in the open air as Seraphine panted and groaned, she had to admit that hearing her songbird beg for her touch was pleasurable in its own right.

That said, Scratch didn’t want to start throwing more power into the spell. She was damn confident in her control, but she wasn’t confident in her ability to guess exactly how much punishment Sera’s pussy could take before Scratch accidentally hurt her.

Lucky for Seraphine, Scratch was the inventive sort, and just like she’d practiced her magical dildo spell for years, she’d been tweaking it and improving it for just as long.

For a split second her eyes flashed like green lightning, and with the briefest flicker of arcane power, every droplet of Scratch’s mana that dotted Seraphine’s skin started to vibrate.

Vibrations that affected all of Scratch’s mana that was inside Seraphine too.

The faint hum of the green dyed magic was utterly lost as Sera howled like a lost soul, a sudden gush of lusts running down her thighs as she bucked and thrashed. Seraphine’s grip on Scratch’s thighs went from firm to painful in that instant, her fingers digging into flesh with bruising force that would have left Scratch wincing in most other circumstances. At the moment however, given that her brain felt like it had melted into a euphoric soup, the pain simply didn’t register. Scratch didn’t stop twisting and tweaking her spellcraft, listening to the cries of pleasure that rippled and poured off of Seraphine’s soul. 

All those little gasps and moans, each and every one of them resonated in Scratch’s own soul, her whole body burning with just enough pleasure to keep her balanced on the cusp of her own orgasm, but never quite enough to finish what Sera’s tongue had started.

But to hear her songbird cry out in ecstasy, to hear her name on Sera’s lips while she shivered and squirmed her way through her orgasam? Absolutely worth it.

With one last satisfied moan, Seraphine went slack, and Scratch dispelled her magic. For a blissful eternity, Scratch lay there, propping herself up on her arm just enough to get a better look at Sera. And looking at her crush, her love, her lover, a small smile found its way onto Scratch’s face.

Even as Seraphine drooled on the sheets, as her body quaked with the aftershocks of her little death, she was so beautiful.

“You’re so beautiful, songbird,” Scratch hummed, propping herself up with magic so she could play with Seraphine’s hair, gently running her fingers through those silken strands. “You’re always so beautiful.”

Sera was in no shape to reply, so Scratch just hummed a meaningless tune while she stroked Seraphine’s hair, being especially careful to avoid creating any snarls or knots.

By the time the spark of recognition returned to Sera’s eyes, Scratch was on the verge of nodding off. Sex was a hell of a stimulant, but now that the fun was over, her exhaustion was back with a grudge and a two by four full of nails. 

With a yawn, Scratch gave Sera a little smile, “I’d like to propose round two songbird, but I am on the verge of blacking out.”

“Wait, syren,” Seraphine rasped, her voice hoarse and scratchy from all the screaming and moaning, “I want to- I-”

Taking a big breath in, Sera looked Scratch right in the eye, and that look, those beautiful blue eyes full of fire and steel and love, made Scratch shiver with excitement.

“Do you trust me?”

“With my very soul, songbird.”

Blinking at both the speed and surety of Scratch’s reply, Sera took another deep breath, “Okay, well, um, do you want me to make you feel good? W-with my magic, I think I can-”

Scratch cupped Seraphine’s face with her hand. Guiding Sera up until she was sitting upright, chest to chest with Scratch, she rasped, “If you think you can do it, then I know you can Sera.”

What Scratch intended to be a gentle kiss was anything but, and for the second time that night, Sera pushed Scratch down. Rather than inch her way down Scratch’s body though, she crawled up until she was straddling Scratch’s waist. Gone was the nervous young woman from moments ago, now Scratch was staring up into the face of someone who knew exactly what she wanted and was in the perfect position to get it.

Leaning down, putting one hand on either side of Scratch’s head, Sera’s hair fell forward, creating a veil of beautiful pink hair that narrowed Scratch’s vision to Sera and Sera alone.

“Cum For Me, My Syren.”

Sera’s magic crashed through Scratch’s soul like a tidal wave, washing away conscious thought and replacing it with rapture. Every part of her body sang with ecstasy, her mind wholly consumed by pleasure, her soul bathed in the euphoria of Sera’s command.

In many ways, it was like one of Auntie Illaoi’s tests of spirit. Scratch felt disconnected from reality, her mind and magic separated from her body as every muscle and nerve burned with unthinkable bliss. She could feel every thread of the sheets beneath her, the sensation of Seraphine grinding herself against Scratch’s ill defined abs, the scent of their lusts mingling together. Her eyes were useless, her vision filled with the white of newly birthed stars and the black of the unending void. 

Granted, Auntie’s tests never felt this good, but the whole disembodied thing was kinda similar.

MY CHILD, CHILD OF THE SEA, CHILD WHO USES MY NAME IN OATH

The, uh, the fact she could see an avatar of Nagakabouros floating above her while her body was twitching and moaning of its own accord? That was another notable similarity, albeit one that was very, very terrifying, especially since getting a divine vision had never happened to Scratch before.

YOU SAIL FOR DANGEROUS WATERS, TOWARD AN EVEN MORE DANGEROUS GOAL

According to her aunts, Nagakabouros’ avatar was… well, in Scratch’s mind at least she sounded more or less like Auntie Illaoi, but with green skin.

Not this time. This time, Scratch saw the Nagakabouros that she imagined.

YOUR SPIRIT WILL BE TESTED LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Scratch saw a true monster of the oceans, something that could eat the monster of her dreams and memories as easily as Scratch could eat a grain of rice. The goddess never stopped moving, her body an ever shifting mass of all the creatures of the deep.

YOUR WITS, YOUR STRENGTH, YOUR MAGIC, ALL MAY FAIL YOU

Unlimited power, impossible strength, the cruelty of all the oceans and all the seas, all of it radiating off this abomination like heat off a sun baked metal plate.

YOUR VERY LIFE MAY BE FORFEIT, YOUR SOUL LOST AND DAMNED

If it wasn’t for her goddess’ eyes, Scratch would never offer her prayers to this horror. But Nagakabouros’ eyes were like those of her mom, or mum. For all the power and wrath and danger that her body suggested, the goddess’ eyes were the eyes of a stern but loving mother.

WILL YOU FALTER? WILL YOU BREAK? WILL YOU BETRAY YOUR OATH?

Unbidden, Sera’s face came to Scratch’s mind. That night, that first night when Scratch called her songbird, that night when she swore to help Seraphine find the Syren’s Pendant. She thought of those tear filled eyes, those sapphire eyes that had been filled with so much sorrow and fear that Scratch could have drowned in them.

Scratch remembered her oath, and knew without a doubt that if she betrayed it now she would not wake up in the morning.

And yet, even in the face of her goddess, she needed no divine threat to know her answer.

“Never.”

Scratch could feel herself falling back into her body, the home of her soul drawing her back in before her heart stopped or she breathed her last. Even still, Scratch stared up at her goddess, looked into eyes that were as alien as they were caring, and with a voice that rang with defiance, “May you throttle me in my sleep if I falter. May you fill my lungs with seawater if I break. May you bleed me until the seas turn red if I betray my oaths to you.”

Scratch’s vision was going fuzzy, and distantly she could feel Seraphine pounding on her chest, desperately trying to wake Scratch up from her divine stupor.

“But if I betray my songbird, Mother Serpent, may you drag me down to the bottom of the sea and feed me to your children.”

The sound of her blood surging through her body was almost deafening, and the starlight that filled the room seemed to be as blinding as the noonday sun.

Even so, Scratch could see the amused cant in her goddess’ posture, and hear a faint hint of laughter in her words.

GO THEN, MY CHILD, GO WITH MY BLESSING AND SAVE THE WORLD

With a suddenness that knocked what little air was left in Scratch’s lungs right out of her, Scratch found herself back in her own body. Her head hurt, her ears were ringing, and her muscles were burning. Most painfully of all her skin felt like it was being stabbed over and over by a thousand poisoned needles.

“Scratch!? Please say something, please! I didn’t mean it, please come back to me Scratch, please!!”

Her voice was weak, her breath rattled in her lungs, and her very soul hurt, but Scratch still managed to croak out, “I’m here, songbird, I’m still here.”

Sera didn’t stop sobbing, but she did flop down onto Scratch’s chest, wrapping her arms around Scratch to pull them even closer together, “I’m so sorry Scratch, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t think, I’m sorry, I’m-”

It was not a graceful kiss. Sera’s lips tasted of tears, and Scratch didn’t have enough breath to keep the kiss going for very long. All in all though, it did the job.

Pulling back, Scratch hoarsely whispered, “It wasn’t you songbird. You gave me such pleasure that I left my body, you did nothing wrong and quite frankly I wanna do it again another time.”

Sera hiccuped and buried her face in the crook of Scratch’s neck, shaking her head as the tears continued to flow.

Scratch nodded absentmindedly, wrapping her one arm around Sera’s shoulders and squeezing tight, “Yeah, that’s fair. But it really wasn’t your fault. I came so hard I saw Nagakaborous. The issue was that she wanted me to hang out and have a chat. Which, I’m guessing, is not good for the body.”

After another few moments of hiccups, Seraphine managed to squeak out between sobs, “If she h-hurts you li-like that again, I’ll kill th-the bitch.” 

With a nervous laugh, Scratch twisted around a bit to kiss the top of Sera’s head. She wanted to keep talking, wanted to reassure Seraphine that the divine chit-chat was almost certainly a one time deal, but a yawn that threatened to split the top of her head off quickly put an end to that.

“I’m okay songbird, I’m okay, Mother Serpent gave me her blessing even.”

Her eyes were falling closed, sleep’s grudge hadn’t gone away in the slightest, the metaphorical sandman having upgraded his weapon of choice from a two by four with nails to a rather hefty looking crowbar.

“W-what blessing?”

Scratch yawned again, and for the life of her couldn’t keep her eyes open, “Uh, dunno, but she said somethin’ about saving the world.”

There was an instant of pause, and Scratch was almost done with the whole ‘being awake’ thing when Seraphine found her voice again.

“She said fucking what?!?”