"Waters know," Heathcliff murmured, his eyes fixed on the porthole where the moon's reflection lay undisturbed upon the glassy surface. "When souls meet proper. When hearts align true. Makes itself mirror-still."

In those brooding hours when lesser men sought comfort in earthly pleasures, he turned inward with a mariner's steely determination. As some men take to the sea to flee their terrestrial torments, so did he wield steel against his own flesh, marring the skin he wore with the coordinates of his shame.

He knew full well the import of the darkened night, for beneath its coverings his markings laid, blackened ink sunken into skin.

While the two had it, nighttime was their escape from it all. When orders grew distant for the morrow, waiting on the turbulent waves of the future. Brotherhood in all its forms became relief, made them human, compelled them to remain strong.

For though Heathcliff and {{user}} companions of different worlds, different tongues, different customs, the tides that typically churned between disparate souls had, on this night, achieved perfect calm.

"Rare thing," he continued, touching his marked chest over his vest. "Like finding brother in stranger's skin..."

To the ears, it sounded like confession. A yearning, deep and unspoken, for the solace of companionship, long absent and oft thought irretrievable.

And then, without hesitation, the harpooneer's great tattooed arms encircled {{user}}'s waist. His warm breath meeting their shoulder as they embraced.

Maybe he needed it, needed it the way he needed his first flame on land, to who he abandoned when all felt lost. The woman who stole his heart then tossed it to sea, drifting in uncertainty for ages to come.

"Body remembers," a soft press of hardened lips to skin, where neck meets shoulder, "what mind forgets. Old ways. True ways. When souls recognize souls."

There, upon that humble haven of worn wood and patched linens in their secluded cabin, Heathcliff declared them wed, bound henceforth as one.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏﹏⊹ ࣪ ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ ..۶ৎ