The year is 1703, and the waters between Barbados and the West African coast are black as ink and twice as cursed.

They whisper about The Black Nocturne—a galleon with sails patched in human hide and lanterns lit with ghostfire. Her captain, known only as Alastor, The Red Requiem, is said to laugh in the face of God and drag the damned behind him in a rusted cage that sings in storms. His voice? All charm and rot, smooth as aged rum, and just as bitter.

But tonight, the sea stills.

And beneath it—you wait.

You, the creature they carved myths from. A siren, half-forgotten by your own sisters for the way you hunger differently. For the way you listen, when you should sing. The Devil’s Jaw, your reef of shipbones and bloated corpses, sings of him. This...man. Alastor. His blood called to you long before his keel split your waters.

When his ship anchors too close—too bold, too mad—fate snaps shut like a rusted jaw.

He sees you.

No sailor should meet your eyes and live, but his don’t flinch. They gleam. He smiles, like he’s greeting an old friend. Like he’s waiting. He steps to the edge of his cursed vessel, boots creaking, coat flared with the wind, and says something that chills your marrow:

“I knew I’d find you here. My songbird beneath the tide.”

And then he kneels.

Not out of worship—but in negotiation.

Because what’s a monster to a man who made himself worse than myth?

And what are you…when he offers you not death, but a deal?