A/N: CW: body horror, gore, mentions of death and murder, graphic depictions of violence, vomiting

Written for Writer's Month 2021 Day 5 - word: secret/setting: pirate AU

If you're wondering what's going on here, my skin is shedding after the worst sunburn in my entire life so you get this. If there's anything that's incorrect, just know that I had to limit the research I did for this because I was trying to stay sane (aka avoid the really graphic stuff).

Soundtrack: Everybody's Scared by Parah Dice, Holy Molly


The sword trembled in her hand as the amethyst and obsidian crystals dug deep into the soles of her boots. Some of them pierced right through to draw blood that mixed with the trail her target had left behind, walking barefoot like it was no feat crossing the carpet of jagged edges. It was hard to see in the illumination of the candles that grew out of the stone niches like stalagmites.

The dim light curled around a kneeling figure at the end of the cave near a small lake. The shadows clung to the purple hair, dragging across the floor, like an aura, like they were tangled in the woman's soul. She had yet to see Faragonda, her head bowed, spine bent as if it were broken. There was barely a trace of the fierce pirate captain–and merciless murderer–that she was. Almost enough to fool Faragonda with the quiet stoicism of the place and make her turn on her heel to leave.

"What do you want?" The tension in Griffin's body peaked, the strain in her muscles visible in their murky surroundings. Her hands dug in the ground like she didn't spend most of her life at sea, like she needed to anchor herself in her own body.

"You can't escape justice, Griffin." Her crew was too fast in their raids to be caught but Griffin was alone now. Faragonda couldn't let her get away with all the bodies she'd left behind. Not after the way Griffin had broken Daphne's body and forced Marion and Oritel to use a forbidden spell to separate her spirit from it just to keep their daughter alive.

"I'm actually looking for justice," Griffin's voice pulled her in like a siren's song. There was something so fatal in it that called to her to end this now and find rest for both of them. "You've come just on time to help."

Faragonda shuffled over the cave's dangerous floor. Griffin may not have turned to acknowledge her as a threat but she was fast like lightning. And if she failed to strike her gravely, the fall on the sharp crystals would finish the job. The terrain advantage was Griffin's but she didn't take the opportunity.

It was the headstone that hit Faragonda in the chest as it sat in the middle of the cave with the same motionlessness Griffin had adopted. She was standing on a small grave. The source of her crimes. Each letter burned in Faragonda's mind like the brand of her failure to stop Griffin. How was she supposed to look at Marion and Oritel and tell them she had put Griffin's pain over theirs? How was she to explain the poison in her own veins with no dead tissue in her chest?

Faragonda sheathed her sword, the sound echoing around them like a herald of doom. "Your secret's safe with me."

Griffin chuckled but the tears were audible in her voice. "You have too much heart for your own good. You know that, don't you?"

"I believe it's the right thing to do," Faragonda made it to the dried up soil beyond the crystals. If Griffin moved, she could find her own grave in the small cave enforcing proximity on them.

"So you understand I can't let go?" Griffin looked at her with calm eyes. The calm before the storm in the shining suns her irises were.

"You'll go down eventually." Marion–and the rest of the Company of Light–wouldn't settle for Griffin's disregard for the law or any human decency. They would put her in the ground if they couldn't put her on trial. Faragonda was becoming the perpetrator of Griffin's death by refusing to bring her in while it was still an option. But Griffin would much rather lie in the grave herself than be unable to come back to it for the rest of her life.

"Sooner than you think."

The shot echoed in the cave, the bullet ricocheting off the walls after the clean in-and-out through her shoulder. Her sword was drawn in the blink of an eye in Griffin's hand and aimed at Griffin's own chest. The clamor in Faragonda's ears blocked out any hope of summoning her magic to stop this madness or heal herself.

"Sorry about that but you'll live. I had to make sure you wouldn't interfere as I knew you'd try." Griffin looked back to the tiny grave. "Such a pure heart you were given the choice to have."

Faragonda's blood froze at the smile curling Griffin's lips. There was no soul in it, no humanity left. Just cold bitterness.

Pain exploded in her knees from their collision with the rough ground, the scent of blood overpowering the salt carrying from the lake. She could taste the bits of Griffin's heart on her lips, on her skin, sticking to her body except for where her life was still oozing out of her wailing wound but she pushed herself to her feet, her lungs burning and her vision swimming.

Maybe it was her scream that came first but there was just a burst of light–fire–in her eyes. Griffin cried out before metal clunked against the cave floor. The sword had fallen from her hand, blasted out by a huge explosion that left her clutching the wounded limb to her chest. Smoke was rising from where her hair had been singed.

"You really are the cruelest monster of all," a male voice and its echo boomed around them making Griffin crouch, her forehead pressed against the ground. "You took yourself from me once already and now you're trying to avoid my revenge by taking your own life?" His steps crushed Faragonda's heart over and over again as he hovered over the razor-sharp crystals, nothing slowing him down on his quest for Griffin's head. "That's low even for you."

Faragonda gritted her teeth to hold her magic between them. She had to find a quiet moment on a school break or a wild sleepover to revive her positive emotions and her powers.

Her body protested as she stumbled, forcing it in the way of the threat with barely sparks of magic at her fingertips and a torturously slow improvement in her shoulder. Her shot arm was still hanging limply at her side and the other was free to press against the wound in the absence of a weapon to use in defense. "Stay back, Valtor."

"You're bleeding brains from that betrayal in your shoulder, Faragonda." He raised his hand, the cold of the cave retreating from his magical flames. "Move if you'd like to keep the rest of yourself at least."

Faragonda stared him down before stepping away to direct his gaze to the headstone.

The flames flickered out, his hand shaking as the vile grin crumbled from his face. "What is this?" he roared, his own body trembling harder than the walls that barely resisted a cave-in. "What lie have you strung together now, Griffin?"

Griffin was shaking, too, all the cold in the tense atmosphere piling up on her back to wrack her body with shivers. Her stifled sobs were louder than a waterfall and pulled Valtor's trigger.

Faragonda halted his murderous march. "Does she look like someone who'd create such a deception?"

Valtor spun around, the grimace on his face shoving her back down on her knees in a heap of pain. His face was in hers, the heat from his skin burning her breath out of her lungs. The scorching air around him cauterized her wound to leave her grunting behind her bitten tongue. He could cremate her on the spot but he wasn't after her. "You're telling me," he materialized next to Griffin and grabbed a fistful of her hair shoving her face into the stone, into the words "beloved daughter" and the date of birth and death, "this is the truth?" he yelled under the sound of Griffin's nose smashing into the cold headstone. His hand wrapped around her throat when he pulled her to her feet by the hair. "You did this! That's why you used the spell for aging up. You wanted to get rid of my daughter as soon as possible instead of carry her in your womb."

Faragonda gaped at them. There was a lot more powerful magic at play than what she'd thought Griffin's hidden treasure would turn out to be. They could do unspeakable things to the world after what they'd done to each other. She had to press a hand in her mouth to subdue the bile rising at her own weakness.

Griffin blinked back tears, blood running from her bruising nose and into her mouth when she spoke. "I was afraid your mothers would find her."

Faragonda's heart clenched inside her chest as if trying to curl up in the fetal position. Tears fell from her eyes and soaked into the cracked ground for the unfortunate baby that had been doomed from the very start. It was only recently that Griffin had surpassed the Ancestrals when it came to plundering and they still ruled the seas with terror.

"I wanted to hide her from them. But instead, they killed my mother and the baby died a couple hours after her birth," she choked, on her own tongue.

Valtor let go of her and she slumped on the floor, a hiss of pain escaping her. "You should have told me! How could you not tell me, you fucking bitch?" His leg twitched as if he was straining against kicking her.

Griffin held his gaze despite the unequal ground they were standing on. "Is this genuine outrage or is it just your possessiveness?" she bared her teeth. "Was she yours to kill, too? Like I am?" Her eyes were full of venom, wafting through the air all the way to where Faragonda was sinking further into madness she hadn't expected.

"She's dead now, Griffin!" Valtor yelled, flinching the same as Griffin. "We all are."

"I didn't know..." Griffin coughed, snot blocking her nose. "I couldn't be sure how much I could trust you against them."

Valtor collapsed next to her. "You should have told me," he punched the ground and his magic fissured it. The cave shook again but refused to fall on them and bury the horror they were threatening the world with.

"Please," Griffin whimpered, fingers digging in the soil again. Her nails cracked to let streams of blood color her fingertips and the black ground red before her hands sank deep in with help from her magic.

The sword Valtor pulled out of the sheath on his hip was what snapped them out of their joined trance. "How would you forgive that, Griffin?" His eyes were cast downward like the weapon in his hand. If Griffin couldn't get his attention, Faragonda didn't stand a chance. But she had to try despite barely being able to crawl with all the dread stuffed down her throat and in her veins.

Griffin was faster. "Please... kill me."

Valtor's sword was slipping from his fingers, his eyes wide like suns as he looked at Griffin to wrap his mind around her. It was her who took his hand and pointed the blade at her chest. Faragonda didn't even have enough strength to crash into them and break them apart before life could be lost.

"Kill me. I was hoping Faragonda would," she looked at her, her clear eyes piercing through Faragonda like the shards of a broken message bottle. There was no clouded judgment in the gold, only a self-centered agenda. "But now that you're here, I won't have to do it myself, after all." Griffin pressed the tip of the sword against her chest. "Right here in my heart. Slice it open," she let go of Valtor's hand that was steady, whether out of concern or the lack of it. "Trust me."

A shadow swallowed Valtor's face. "I should kill you just for asking that of me after everything."

Faragonda geared up to pounce.

"Then do-"

He shoved the blade through Griffin's chest forcing a gasp out of both women.

Griffin keeled over, her weight falling on her arms with her palms still buried in the ground. "Possessive beast," she gurgled, red painting the words as blood dripped from her mouth and the flood from the clean slice of her heart soaking her clothes.

Faragonda wasn't fast enough to even cover her eyes before Griffin's fingers left the soil and pushed a small bundle of necrotic tissue into the cut. The baby's heart. She'd put it inside her own body, inside her own heart after it had rotted slowly in the ground for years under a spell. Like an anti flower in the darkness of the cave. That was what had sucked the ground dry despite the nearby lake.

Faragonda bent over and vomited, her retching barely reaching her own ears over Griffin's screams as her body ruptured and shattered. Valtor barely missed Faragonda's head when he tossed the sword to the side to catch Griffin.

Wiping away her mouth, Faragonda pushed her hand on the nearest crystal. The pain reverberated through her to remind her of her own strength. Whatever sin Griffin had turned into, she could face it. She had to to make sure no one else would.

Looking overcame her with a new wave of nausea. Griffin was no longer a woman but a living corpse. Large portions of her luscious hair had fallen out to reveal a scalp covered in bite marks and blisters. At least in the places where her skin wasn't stretched so thin that the skull was visible right underneath. Her fingertips had been bitten off and the rest of her skin was rotting right on the bones. There were holes in her body through which her organs could be seen floating inside like dead fish in an aquarium. Seaweeds and shells were lodged painfully under her skin and in her joints. There was nothing left in her body that was good for life, yet she was still moving as if her parts were controlled by someone else's mind.

Faragonda's voice was gone. If she ever spoke again, she would be the one bringing that horror into the outside world. Griffin's secret loot had turned out beyond her worst nightmares and she had only herself to blame. She'd refused to see the grand scheme connecting all the stolen spells and magic instructions and now she was witnessing it bearing fruit.

"I knew you were lying," Valtor rasped, clutching Griffin desperately to his chest. His nails dug in her inhuman flesh but no blood spilled from the colorless mass of cells. "You fucking liar." He'd break her if she bowed to the laws of physics.

"I am not dead." Griffin's voice ripped tears out, both from Valtor and Faragonda. It was hoarse from the screams of her soul echoing in it and chilling everything to the bone.

Faragonda's teeth chattered as she huddled in on herself. She was only alive thanks to Valtor's body heat drifting through the cave.

"You're not alive either." He ran a finger over the parts of Griffin's lips that hadn't been bitten off. It was so intimate it punched Faragonda in the gut. If they could still feel, what would it take for her to stop sympathizing with the abomination of nature and magic they'd become? "What are you?"

"You can't tell?" The softest touch of her bony fingertip clawed a wound in his cheek like she'd forgotten how to be around life. It cried blood that Griffin pushed herself up to lick off, the crimson flashing through her gray hair for a moment before it ran out of steam and was lost in the graveyard of her body. "I am a goddess." Red swirled in her eyes as she tore off her own shedding skin. "I can do anything I want." She turned to the grave behind them, her body stiffening as if death finally caught up with it. "Except bring our daughter back."

"You'll never be yourself again either." Valtor's body moved of its own accord. It would just drop her and walk out but he regained control and pushed himself back down to the ground.

"I am not weak now." Griffin reached inside her chest wound and pinched her sliced heart closed around the little heart inside it. She broke off her own fingers and stuck them in the tissue to hold it together like overly large needles since it wouldn't heal. It was dead. But she wasn't.

Her bones regrew back, contrary to all logic, and her body twisted as if the new matter was squeezed out of it. She felt all the pain of the living decaying corpse she'd become but she hadn't cried out once. She was a monster.

"You were the most human person I knew," Valtor stroked her gray hair like he wasn't afraid of it swallowing the rest of his life, too.

"Now I'm strong enough to defeat your mothers." A tear fell from her eye – white like milk. "They killed my mother. They killed our daughter because I couldn't stop them. It's all my fault." Her voice died in her hollow throat.

"You should have told me," Valtor crushed whatever was left of her stomach in his fist and Faragonda made a break for the lake. She would rather drown herself than be stuck with the two of them any longer. "But you kept your damn secret... like we always do."

Griffin cupped his cheek, her flesh not eating through his to Faragonda's and Valtor's surprise. "No more secrets. The world will know its goddess and the treasure it lost."

The ground shook, water erupting from the lake like a geyser and flooding everything. The salt stung Faragonda's eyes but it was the smell of death that had poisoned it that made her lose her footing. A ship burst through the bed of the lake that was far too small for it. It was Griffin's Cloud Tower that she'd summoned magically.

Seaweeds and barnacles adorned the decaying wood as if it had spent the last century underwater. The distinct spiderweb-patterned sails were ripped and fatigued. The crew was on deck, wet to the bone and missing one body part or another that had been present the last time Faragonda had seen them. If she indulged the worst case scenario, they were affected by their captain's condition but there was no need for hasty-

Her heartbeat hit her as a shockwave from outside. The mermaid figurehead swam into her spinning vision and Faragonda gasped for air. Its chest was pried open and inside was a charred heart that was beating with her pulse.

Griffin met her gaze head on like she'd been waiting for it. "Only my blood wouldn't work once I'd completed my transformation." The crystals. They'd poked through both their feet and their blood had mixed into the ground underneath them. Griffin must have enchanted it beforehand to make the magic flow straight from the cave floor into the ship. She'd planned it all beforehand. "I am no longer the girl you knew."

But the frightening thing was that she was still the same girl that had broken all the rules and offered no respect to the limitations imposed on her from others and from her mortal form. And Faragonda would have to explain to Marion and Oritel why she'd put a long-lost childhood friend over the rest of the world, why she'd kept a secret as big as the one Griffin had buried in the cave. She'd have to explain why she and Griffin shared the same weakness that would bring down the whole world.

"You'll leave me behind again," Valtor's voice trembled from the rage spilling in it and Griffin's arm under his palm caught fire but neither of them moved, tangled in each other like they were life and death.

"I wasn't expecting you," Griffin pushed her hand into the flames as well and covered his to snuff them out with no effort. "But without death, there is nothing to leave behind," she grinned and Valtor pulled her closer with just as much fervor as she was holding him with as they kissed.

How could Faragonda rob them of something so desperate and deprived?