coelum | heaven

Unfortunately, dawn came a lot faster than Cirrus hoped it would. She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep during the night. How could she, knowing that in mere hours her purpose on the ship would be fulfilled? Given Baekhyun’s “promise” to her in the beginning, that could only mean one thing: her death.

Cirrus anticipated that Baekhyun would call her into his room before the Sun even fully rose, but he did not. Hours had passed, and she was still laying in her hammock. She didn’t to even attempt to fall asleep. For one, the anxiety she was feeling about having to stare death in the eyes kept her awake.

The second reason was because her dreams kept getting more vivid, and strange. She would dream about the dark prison cell she inhabited previously, and would often get it confused with reality. It wouldn’t be until the lights flickered on that the princess realized her dream wasn’t taking place in the ship’s cell – she was in her room in the castle.

Someone knocked on her door, then inserted a key and unlocked it. Ardent peeked into the room and flashed her his signature smile before waltzing in. Cirrus hadn’t seen the first mate in days, and had to admit that seeing his smile helped her feel a little bit more at peace.

“Good morning, princess,” he greeted her with a bow. Then he looked up and grinned even wider. “Today’s the day!”

“Why are you fetching me today?” she asked, trying to prevent her voice from shaking.

“Baekhyun just woke up about half an hour ago,” Ardent chuckled and twirled the silver key around his finger. “Apparently he was too excited that he didn’t get too much sleep last night.”

That makes two of us, she thought.

Cirrus got up from the hammock and placed her feet on the ground. She stood up, but wobbled as a result of lack of sleep. The fatigue was evident in her face. Her dark circles indicated that she hadn’t been sleeping well, and her complexion had grown pale.

Ardent ran to her side and used his hands to stabilize her. Cirrus grabbed his hands and removed them from her body. She wasn’t weak enough that she would resort to a pirate’s help.

“Are you okay?” Ardent asked, his expression showing that he was genuinely concerned.

“Fine,” Cirrus replied coldly. At the sound of her distant tone, Ardent took a few steps back. He could have sworn that she hadn’t been so cold before. He even recalled catching glimpses of her smiling during her walks with Baekhyun. Why had she turned so cold overnight?

Ardent stepped to the side and gestured for Cirrus to walk out first. When she stepped out of the room, he followed behind her. The first mate knocked against Baekhyun’s door, and when the captain gave them the okay, the pair walked in. Baekhyun was situated at his desk, his eyes fervently examining the map before him. He looked up at them, and the corners of his lips curled into a grin.

“Take a seat, princess,” he instructed her. Cirrus sat down in the wooden chair that was opposite to him. The captain pushed the map towards her, and handed her a sheet of paper and a pen. “Read it out to me first, then write the translations down.”

Cirrus gulped, and took hold of the map with her fingers. The paper felt fragile in her hands, and she had to squint to make out some of the characters. She furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to make sense of the map. There were illustrations of islands, but they weren’t important. She examined the margins, where lines written in Coelum were present.

Something wasn’t quite right.

The princess had been used to the “flowery language” that was present in the ancient scriptures she had read, but these verses were in a league of their own.

When she hadn’t said anything for a while, Baekhyun cleared his throat and stared at her. She pulled her eyes away from the map for a second and met his intense gaze. His eyes were practically ablaze, and caused her to immediately look away from them. She wasn’t used to seeing eyes filled with so much passion.

“You can read it, correct?” Baekhyun asked, his tone indicating that he was becoming impatient with her.

She nodded her head in response, then said, “I’m going to start reading from the top, after this line, alright?”

“What does that line say?” he asked.

“It says ‘Pirate King’,” she replied.

Baekhyun nodded his head in approval, and she began reading from the ancient text.

“Meet your doom around the gorge, be saved through it. Rests there several lyrics, do not pay them heed. Be wary of the enchantment, capture the talk and find the rock,” she said diligently. Then, with a confused look in her face, she continued, “The second one doesn’t make sense. I read ‘Tongue of the wise ones you must seek’ but the rest doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun asked.

She took the pen and began writing the translation on the paper: Ackbl nda itewh ixedm ogethert in armonyh. Erewh ereth is ackbl ereth is itewh, nda erewh ereth is itewh ereth is ackbl. Ouy illw indf eth neo ithw othb ereth.

Baekhyun stared at the paper and scoffed. “So you can’t read it after all.”

“I can,” Cirrus argued back.

“The translation doesn’t make sense,” Baekhyun pointed out.

“I’m translating each character into its corresponding English letter, and this is the result I get. My translation is not wrong,” Cirrus said with confidence.

“Do the other parts make sense?” Ardent suddenly asked. The princess and captain stared at him, and he continued, “If she translates everything else correctly, then maybe there’s something else to the second clue.”

Baekhyun sighed and gave Cirrus the permission to continue translating the text. She proceeded to the third clue, “Perform the ancient ritual of the two beings that find harmony in one another. Of these, only one will guide you.”

When no one said anything, Cirrus took that as a hint to continue onto the fourth clue, “The beast hides amidst the beauty, and the beauty shadows the beast. Having one thousand moons of patience, he has learned to fly.”

Finally, she read the fifth and final verse, “Be wary of the sleeping powder, which they shall dust often upon your heads. Earn their favour and they will guide you. Look not in caves or the ground, for to them it provides no value.”

“What do they mean?” Ardent asked curiously once Cirrus had finished reading everything.

Baekhyun shook his head and muttered, “I don’t know.” He didn’t like to not know things. He hated feeling clueless and unsure about things because it reminded him of a certain dumb captain with red hair. He ruffled through his hair in frustration, then yelled out, “I don’t know!”

As if regretting his sudden outburst, Baekhyun immediately quieted down. He sighed once again and propped his elbows onto the desk. “Write all the translations down,” he told Cirrus. The princess obliged, and neatly wrote the translations down one by one. Once she was finished, Baekhyun snagged the paper from her and examined the translations.

“We should go,” Ardent whispered to her.

“But he hasn’t dismissed us yet,” she whispered back.

“When he’s like this, not even an elephant can get him out of that trance. In fact, it’s wiser to leave him be,” Ardent replied in a hushed voice. The first mate motioned for her to stand up, and she unconsciously obliged. Right before they reached the door, he grinned at her playfully and said, “Watch this.”

Then, Ardent raised his voice and shouted, “Hey Baek, I’m just gonna take the princess and go outside to announce to everyone that I’m the new captain! You’ve been dethroned!”

Cirrus was startled by his sudden increase in volume, and placed a hand over her pounding heart. “Yeah, sure whatever,” Baekhyun mumbled and waved a hand in the air. He didn’t even glance up to look at them.

Ardent smiled cheekily at her and whispered, “I told you so.”

.::.        .::.        .::.

Cirrus hadn’t expected the first mate to have actually stuck by his words – to some extent. She expected him to drop her off at her room and continue with the rest of his day. Instead, he had brought her out onto the deck. He took in a deep breath of fresh air and cheered, “Woohoo! Ain’t the weather lovely today, love?”

She had to admit that he was right. The Sun was high in the sky, and not a single cloud was in sight. Seagulls flew above them, singing their songs and casting shadows upon the ship’s deck. The warm breeze and mild rays from the Sun tingled her skin and made her feel rejuvenated.

Cirrus noted the small number of crew members currently out on deck. “There aren’t very much of you,” she wondered aloud.

“We’ve got 15, including Baekhyun,” he said with a wink. “The captain doesn’t believe in quantity over quality. He accepted us into his crew because he told us, and I quote, ‘You’d make a suitable addition to my tale’. I think that was his way of telling us we were competent people,” he laughed.

15? That’s incredibly small, she thought as she recalled the sheer number of people who had been on Chanyeol’s ship.

“We’ve got trouble!”

Ardent shot his head up and met the gaze of a man sitting atop the crow’s nest. The man held a telescope in his hand, and shouted, “Ship at 12 o’clock!”

All traces of amusement left Ardent’s face and was replaced by sternness. The princess had never seen the first mate so serious before, and wondered what was happening.

“Who is it?” Ardent yelled back.

“Not sure, I’ve never seen that jolly roger before! It looks like a skull with a crack in it,” the crewmate replied.

“Damn those new rookies. Where’s the creativity in that?,” Ardent said with a smirk. Then, he unsheathed his sword, pointed it into the air and announced, “Prepare for battle!”

Within seconds, the entire crew scrambled into formation carrying their weapons. Cirrus was at a loss of what to do in the situation; she had never been on a battlefield before. Was she supposed to run? Hide? But where?

Ardent’s voice snapped her out of her trance. He stood in front of her protectively and said, “Get back to your room. It’ll be the safest place for you.”

Cirrus nodded her head quickly and turned around in the direction of the cabins. As she was running, she heard the enemy ship drop their anchor, followed by cries of war. Despite her hunger and lack of sleep, she ran as fast as she could. She turned her head back once and found Ardent clashing swords with a member of the enemy ship. When she turned her head back around, she collided with a pirate.

She looked at the pirate she had bumped into. Is he part of Baekhyun’s crew? Cirrus had only met two members of the Lux Pirates, so she was unsure which crew the pirate standing in front of her belonged to. The pirate looked surprised, but his face quickly twisted into one of hunger and lust. He grabbed her arm and yanked her close to him.

“I didn’t know they had women on this ship!” he laughed and yanked her even closer to him. “I don’t want no gold if I found a woman as pretty as you.”

“Princess!” Ardent exclaimed when he saw that she had been captured by another pirate. He slashed his opponent in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground. Ardent started running towards them, clutching his sword with one hand and an enraged expression on his face. “Let go of her!”

“Princess?” asked the confused pirate. Then, his lips curled into a devilish grin and he started laughing even harder than before. “I’ve heard about you! Yes, now that I see it, you are her! The missing princess! Today’s my lucky day!”

The pirate sheathed his sword. Using his two free hands, he grabbed hold of Cirrus by the waist and hoisted her up into the air. He started running towards his own ship with the princess dangling from his shoulder.

“Ardent!” she cried. The first mate rushed to follow after them, but was stopped by an ambush of enemy pirates and was forced to engage in battle with them.

The pirate jumped over the ledge of Baekhyun’s ship and landed onto his own. He walked to the middle of the deck, and threw her on the ground. He his lips and said, “To think I’d find a treasure as good as you” as he towered above her.

Cirrus couldn’t believe it; this was her third time being kidnapped by a band of pirates. She looked over at Baekhyun’s ship from the ground and suddenly longed to go back. She looked up at the man who had taken her, and when she met his heartless eyes she knew that she’d be doomed on this ship.

He took a few steps closer to her, his gaze never leaving her. Cirrus closed her eyes and prepared for the worst, but nothing happened. Instead, she heard bodies collide followed by a “thump” on the ground. When she opened her eyes, the bandit’s unconscious body laid next to her and Baekhyun was now towering above her.

For just a brief second, Cirrus felt a sense of joy and relief when she met his gaze.

He hoisted her up onto her feet and wrapped an arm around her protectively. The scene seemed all too familiar to Cirrus as she was reminded about how he had stolen her from Chanyeol’s grasp.

Pirates of the enemy ship charged at Baekhyun with raised swords. He brought the princess closer to him and swiftly dodged their attacks. He swung his rapier and slashed through their flesh, leaving them wounded and on the ground.

Baekhyun continued to dodge their attacks, while slipping in his own. He expertly maneuvered their way towards the edge of the ship, and if it weren’t for all the violence, Cirrus would have thought they were dancing by the way they moved across the deck. Baekhyun fended off the last pirate and quickly sheathed his sword. In less than a second, he carried Cirrus in his arms and jumped up onto the ledge of the ship. He jumped off their ship and landed onto the deck of his own.

Still holding Cirrus in his arms, Baekhyun scanned the area to make sure no enemies remained standing. Ardent was crouching on the ground and he held a hand over a wound on his side. He winced in pain, but as soon as he laid eyes on the pair, he forced a smile.

“Really, what am I to do with you, princess? You always seem to want to run away,” Baekhyun looked at her and said with a smirk.

“I wasn’t – they took me an-“ Cirrus started but was interrupted by Baekhyun. He shook his head disapprovingly and clicked his tongue at her.

“This is why only I take you out on walks. No one else here is competent enough to do so,” he said arrogantly. “Look what happened when I left you with Ardent. We get raided and you get kidnapped, again. Maybe I should never leave you out of my sight.”

Cirrus was about to protest when she realized he was still carrying her in his arms. She flailed around and tried to push herself off of him. Much to her dismay, he tightened his hold on her and pulled her closer in. After enjoying the sight of her struggling for a brief second, he suddenly released his grip on her and she fell to the ground. Cirrus massaged the part of her back that had hit the ground and let out a groan.

When she looked up at him, he wore an amused smirk on his face. “I save you and this is the kind of repayment I get?” he asked. “Do they not teach manners in the palace?”

“T-thanks,” she mumbled quietly, which caused his smirk to grow even larger. She wasn’t very fond of the idea of thanking a pirate.

He squatted down to reach her eye-level and she noticed the light that seemed to sparkle in his nearly black orbs. “I figured it out,” he informed her. His excitement was evident on his face; an expression he had never shown her before. Cirrus wondered how many faces Baekhyun Lux had, and added the newly discovered one to her repertoire. She didn’t know why she felt the need to count them, but did so anyway.

“Figured what out?” she asked skeptically.

“The first clue,” he said in delight.

A/N: Well, what do you think of the translations? :) Also I meant to do this a long time ago, but some of you guys have thought of really clever puns LOL. So, lemme introduce the pun of the update:

Ardent is definatley Arr'ight in my books.

^ And as another reader said: These puns are whale made by your beloved readers.

\\ xoxo