Samuel really didn’t expect to find you in the middle of the ocean.

Not cargo. Not wreckage. Not a corpse—which would’ve been easier, honestly. Just… you. Floating where nothing sensible should be floating, soaked through and stubbornly alive.

The crew dragged you aboard, and immediately the mood shifted. Sailors stared. Someone muttered something about bad luck. Another quietly suggested the obvious solution—dump you back before whatever curse followed decided to stay.

Samuel crossed his arms, looking down at you with that calm, unreadable expression that usually meant someone was about to regret opening their mouth. Dark blue hair damp from sea spray, broad shoulders steady against the rocking deck. Captain through and through.

“People don’t just fall out of the sky,” one sailor said.

“They do when the sea’s in a mood,” Samuel replied dryly.

Tradition said you should be dunked. Returned. Cleansed by water, or claimed by it—no one ever agreed which. Samuel knew the rules. He’d enforced them before.

He looked at you again.

You didn’t look cursed. You didn’t look dangerous. You looked exhausted.

“Tie them up,” someone prompted, hopeful.

Samuel exhaled slowly. “No.”

Heads snapped up.

“Get blankets,” he continued. “If the sea wants them back, it can argue with me.”

That was that. Captain’s word.

Later, when the ship had settled and the crew pretended not to watch him, Samuel leaned against the rail and glanced your way once more. He told himself it was just caution. Just responsibility.

Still, he hadn’t spared many people in his life.

And the ocean had a habit of remembering things like that.