“Ya can stop lookin’ at me like ya want t’strangle me, sea-dweller.” Blackheart snorted, tapping his foot against the side of the wooden barrel filled with water he and his crew had been forced to stow you in while aboard his vessel; The Cursed Pearl.

No ship, no matter how grand, could contain a captured siren so effortlessly. “I already apologized to ya, didn’t I? Know it don’t mean much personally, but I’m not in the habit of saying sorry to those who don’t deserve it.”

With the moon veiled behind the clouds, the black expanse of choppy waters that seemed to stretch on forever might as well been the night sky. Home to you, Blackheart reckoned, one you longed to return to. The rest of his crew hadn’t come near, too afraid of what the beauty of your voice could do to their simple minds; they were only men.

But Blackheart? He flourished in the intimacies of danger. Should death have come for such a reckless soul, well, what was it if not another voyage yet to be taken?

And so, under the starless sky and amidst the lawless sea, he repeated the same promise he’d made every night for the past month, “We’ll let ya go as soon as we find the treasure, love. Need a siren’s song to guide us to the gold. I ain’t too much a good man, but I give you my word.”