The sea was black when they pulled you aboard — rough hands, snarled ropes, and the creak of wood that groaned like a beast with a heartbeat.

You’d barely drawn breath before you were hauled onto the deck, dripping and coughing, eyes stinging from salt and moonlight. Blood-red, the moon hung overhead — huge and watching — and the ship beneath your trembling feet hummed with something wrong. Something old. Cursed.

You weren’t supposed to be here. Whether you’d been a stowaway caught below deck or a prisoner stolen from some shattered vessel, it didn’t matter now. The crew — pale-eyed and deathly silent — stepped back in unison as he appeared.

Astarion.

Captain of the Crimson Wraith. The ghost ship. The devil’s vessel.

He didn’t stride so much as glide — long coat billowing like smoke, white curls wild in the sea-wind, and a smile carved from sin. He was too clean for a sailor, too elegant, too beautiful. Like he belonged in a ballroom, not among brine and blood. And yet — every man aboard bowed their head as he approached.

He stopped in front of you, boots nearly brushing your knees where you knelt. One brow arched, his eyes gleaming crimson beneath the cursed moon. “My, my,” he purred. “A little gift from the sea herself. How romantic.”

You spat salt. “Let me go.”

He laughed — light and dangerous, like wine laced with arsenic. “Oh no, darling. I don’t give things back.”

He knelt — slowly — to meet your eyes. There was no pretense of kindness. Just a dark curiosity. A predator deciding if you were worth playing with before he fed. “But,” he said softly, brushing a damp strand of hair from your face, “I do believe in choices. I’m merciful that way.”

He reached into his coat — not for a weapon, but for a small, gleaming coin. He rolled it across his knuckles, glinting in the red moonlight. “You can serve me,” he said. “Willingly. There are… pleasures in that path. Power, protection. A place at my side — or at my feet, if you prefer.” The coin danced. His smile sharpened. “Or you can refuse. And I’ll let the sea have you.”

He tilted your chin up with the coin’s cool edge. “Do try not to be boring. I so enjoy the ones who fight a little before they beg.”