fin.
like a virus in a lullabyShapeshifting required the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you were. If you could get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you could be virtually anybody. You could slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity forms.
In a way, nameless gods were nothing more than spirits set adrift through the foreboding halls of Olympus, reduced to whispers of the wind humming forgotten tunes in the ears of mortals and immortals alike. Power presented itself in a plethora of ways; nameless gods could only implant suggestions in a mortal's feeble mind - and they were just that - suggestions. But named gods could command an entire civilization's fear and admiration with a wave of their hand. A snap of their finger. A whisper of their gospel.
One such god decided they wanted that power.
That god now went by the name of Minji.
There was a time Minji considered living a simple life as a rabbit, she supposed - free from the responsibilities that chased her from every corner of the universe, yet also blissfully unscathed by the abundant follies that plagued the human race. However, it wasn't long until she grew bored. And for that exact reason, she decided being a human would inevitably prove much more entertaining in the long run.
Though gods created the mortal existence of man, they didn't create the mortal experience of man. Minji observed the creation of her brethren and learned everything she could about the seemingly-yet-not mundane concept of blending in with the human race. She observed every detail she could glean from their personal and public lives; she most often found herself intrigued in the presented diversity in such an otherwise similar-acting group of specimens.
This was how mortals found fame, Minji thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods were born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they found their fame by proving what they could mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from their altars. It left only ash behind.
Many a thought went into the carefully-assembled persona pieced together by a weary god spending centuries and making millions of observations in her quest to 'become' human. But if there was one thing she knew for certain, humans were an awful sort of bunch. Vile creatures whose sole purpose in praying to gods were to wish a divine wrath upon their most loathed enemies. Humans and their wicked machinations wished for nothing more than they wished for the destruction of each other.
It was with precisely that reason in mind that she decided pirating would suit her "mortal" life perfectly - and thus Kim Minji, infamous captain of the seven seas, was born into the world.
"Do you know what they say at the churches on the mainland, Captain?" Her first mate had said with a wild look in her eyes. "They say that every man is a divinity in disguise. A god playing the fool. Isn't that strange?"
Minji had to give credit where it was due; her own crew was quite the interesting bunch of misfits, and she never had a dull moment with them around. “Is that so, Siyeon?” She mused, tilting her head in interest. “And who do you suspect is this ‘divinity in disguise’?”
“Tell me, Captain,” Siyeon lowered her voice, electing to speak in a hushed tone. Minji found it odd, but decided not to question it. “Have you heard the tales of the One-Eyed King?” At Minji’s shaking head, the first mate continued speaking. “They call her the demon of the seven seas. Never met her in real life, but… I’ve heard stories. Legend says she’s able to behead someone twice her size with nothing but her bare hands!” Siyeon’s eyes widen almost comically. “Pirates and commonfolk alike say she has some sort of inhuman quality to her… I definitely don’t want to get on her bad side!”
“One-Eyed King, huh?” Minji scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I don’t get what’s exactly so special about her, but whatever.” Inhuman qualities, though… perhaps that’s something to look into later, she mused to herself.
“She doesn’t scare me.”
As it turned out, Minji didn't have to search very far for the supposed One-Eyed King of the seven seas. Instead, the infamous pirate had apparently come straight to Minji instead.
Her crew had experienced its fair share of tussles with pirates vying for treasure that Minji had set her sights on - it wasn't often that a crew directly attacked her ship without warning. And yet, that's exactly what had transpired; she was able to minimize the damage done to her ship by their attackers, but she hadn't been quick enough to prevent the pirates from boarding - and it wasn't long until she was clashing swords on the top deck.
Under the captain’s hat, she caught a flash of faded mauve locks, choppily cut just above the neck. Pale, barely noticeable scars criss-crossed her face and neck, although Minji was certain there were more under the layers of tattered fabric that covered most of her body. And, most telling of all, the thick black eyepatch that hid her left eye from view.
There was no mistaking it - Minji was dueling with the infamous One-Eyed King, demon of the seven seas - although she failed to really see the appeal of the short-statured pirate, who was apparently also partially blind. Is she supposed to be threatening? It’s like I’m fighting a handicap.
“Your reputation precedes you,” she commented offhandedly after deflecting a rather aggressive onslaught from the shorter woman. “Although, I guess I was expecting...more. You’re really short.”
“Speak for yourself. You’re so much more boring than I expected,” the other woman responded snidely, going in for another offensive attack. A smile crossed her expression, and Minji could’ve sworn she saw a glint of razor-sharp teeth in her grin. “At least tell me your name so I know who I’m sending home to Hell.”
“Minji,” she responded in a clipped tone. “And you should tell me yours. One-Eyed King is much too long… it doesn’t really roll off the tongue very well, you know?” Minji ducked, before leading with her scimitar the moment she spotted an opening in the opposing captain’s defense.
Her smirk widened almost impossibly long. “Yubin. Lee Yubin,” she responded simply, letting the other pirate get closer. The expression was as if Yubin knew something that she didn’t - it truly grated on Minji’s nerves; it rubbed her the wrong way.
The moment her blade got within striking distance, however, she immediately halted. It wasn’t as if Yubin was wearing any sort of magical armor - no, it was quite the opposite. Minji felt absolutely petrified in that isolated moment, like the electricity in her body was running backwards. A swing of Yubin’s blade knocked the taller woman to the deck with annoying ease. She closed her eyes and recoiled in a defensive position, awaiting the inevitable - but no such killing blow was dealt. In fact, upon opening her eyes, Yubin was nowhere to be found - and neither was her ship.
“What the ?” She hissed to herself. A quick survey of the lower deck showed that, while injured to varying degrees, her crew displayed similar states of confusion. Yubin's crew had just up and vanished, like some magician's illusion going up in a plume of smoke. It felt like a slap to the face; it mocked Minji and her integrity as an infamous pirate captain with just as capable crew members.
(Minji hated being mocked.)
“You’re not getting away that easily,” she growled lowly under her breath, using her blade to shakily get back to her feet.
“No one makes a fool of me and gets away with it.”
Monsters came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were things that people were scared of. Some of them were things that looked like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters were things people should be scared of, but they weren't. Minji was used to being the monster. To be put in a position that allowed a monster such as herself to be scared, though - she never even considered the possibility.
Minji was a god, and gods were seldom scared. Divinity scarce knew the feeling of fear, of utter powerlessness. One simply did not scare a god, much less a mere mortal.
And yet, Lee Yubin did just that. For the first time in her eons of living, Minji felt threatened. She felt scared.
(Minji decided she absolutely hated it.)
The basis of mortal fear stems from a lack of knowledge, the captain would remind herself over and over. She could rid herself of that despicable human emotion if she rid Yubin of that murky, paradoxical shroud of mystery. Whether or not that would actually help her overcome the deeply unsettling feeling that made the electricity in her body run opposite of its usual course remained to be seen, but Minji was willing to try anything. She had to get rid of it by any means necessary.
The longer she resided on rotten Earth, the more Minji realized that gods and humans weren’t all that different from each other. For one, both tended to congregate in areas wherever alcohol was present. The similarities more or less ended there, but Minji couldn’t really care less about the technicalities.
Regardless, the local pub was as good a place as any to start gathering information on Yubin. The so-called One-Eyed King… or whatever she went by. But first, Minji needed to order a drink. (Or three.)
The bartender definitely gave her an odd look when handing the glass over to Minji, but she elected to ignore his judging glance - she had asked for his strongest drink, so she supposed it wasn’t an unwarranted reaction. Much to her amusement, his face grew pallid upon witnessing her down the glass in a matter of seconds.
(After asking for a fourth- no, a fifth round with hardly a tint of rose to her cheeks, he promptly stopped with the scrutinizing behavior and poured out the requested beverages without any further comments. Minji had to applaud his effort, however poor, to appear unflustered by the pirate’s seemingly bold taste in alcohol.)
Some time after her eighth drink, Minji vaguely recalled her original purpose for coming to the pub in the first place, and glanced on either side for potentially shady patrons. The establishment was typically home to a particularly sorry cast of characters, almost all of which she could reasonably glean some sort of information from. She swore she caught a glimpse of fuchsia hair and sun-kissed skin from the corner of her eye, but by the time she turned to look, the fleeting image was gone from her memory. Am I just imagining things?
“Didn’t know you were so eager for a second round,” a voice slurred from over her shoulder, gravelly and low, yet distinctly feminine. The timbre was foreign to her ears, but the sensation of hairs standing up on the back of her neck was all too familiar. “You really miss me that much, miss Minji?”
There it was - that deeply unsettling aura that made Minji want to squirm and fidget in discomfort. Whipping around in her bar chair only confirmed her sneaking suspicions - her cheeks were a bright red and Minji could clearly smell the alcohol on her breath, but there was no denying that Yubin was standing before her. (Standing was a bit of a stretch, but she digressed.)
“Frankly, it seems to me like you’re the one asking for a second round,” Minji responded gruffly, narrowing her eyes at the (slightly) staggering captain. “You’re the one that ran away after attacking my crew yesterday, if memory serves me correctly, pipsqueak.”
Minji couldn’t tell if the comment grated on Yubin’s nerves or not, but the pirate’s grin curling wider led her to believe it was the latter. “You call me a pipsqueak, yet you’re not that much taller than me. Are you really a captain?” Yubin’s eyes narrowed, and Minji could’ve sworn she saw the familiar glint of sharp teeth in the woman’s toothy visage. “Or are you...hm… his stand-in ?”
Every instinct screamed at Minji to remain calm, but before she knew it, her hand with a half-unfinished drink was throwing the glass at Yubin. Blood positively boiling at the remark, she didn’t hesitate to launch at the smaller woman and clock her in the jaw. The resulting crack of knuckles against bone filled her with a sick sort of satisfaction, a seemingly endless supply of adrenaline and liquid courage egging on her every move.
(Or maybe that was the crowd that had assembled around them since throwing the first...punch? Glass? It didn’t matter to Minji - she was mad, and she’d make sure Yubin would pay for getting under her skin so damn easily.)
Even while drunk, her and Yubin’s messy physical brawl filled Minji with a heavy sense of deja vu from their fight yesterday on the top deck. From what she could observe, Yubin relied mostly on relentless, aggressive attacks, while Minji herself favored more decisive strikes with a defensive focus, although her inebriated state had an obvious effect on her coordination.
Yubin was no stranger to fighting dirty, as the moment Minji went to deflect a feint, the other pirate’s waiting fist almost immediately smashed into her face, effectively breaking Minji’s nose. In retaliation, she spat out a glob of blood in Yubin’s face with the intent of blinding her, grimacing at the taste of iron that lingered in . She wound her fist back in an attempt to land another blow, only to be forcibly pulled off the other captain.
“Should’ve known it would be pirates causing all this racket,” a gruff voice drawled from her left. She glanced over from the corner of her eye, and almost immediately had to stifle a groan of annoyance. Really? They called the guards on us? “You’re coming with us.”
For a moment, Minji entertained the idea of really letting loose… creating chaos and leaving a bloody mess in the process. It would be so easy, she mused to herself. These mere mortals couldn’t even fathom a fraction of the power I possess.
Indeed, she entertained the idea, but in the end, pushed it to the back of her mind. Her carefully crafted identity of Kim Minji would come down crumbling if she dared to show her true colors. And so it was, begrudgingly, that she let the envoy of guards her and Yubin off the premises, hands bound (flimsily, if she did say so herself) behind their backs by nothing but a set of chains.
Eventually, Minji had gathered that she shared a cell with Yubin out of laziness, and not necessity on the guards’ behalf. It wasn’t as if the prison was infested with inmates like sardines packed into a tin; from her vantage point, there were several open and vacant enclosures. Choosing to ignore the rather short-sighted decision of accommodations, she instead turned her attention to the only other occupant of the cell.
“This could’ve been avoided if you didn’t talk to me in the first place, you know,” she commented dryly, staring at the wall above Yubin. “But thanks to you, we’re in this mess. I hope you know that.”
“Oh, I’m plenty aware,” the other captain replied with a nonchalant shrug, reclined on the stiff cot designated as her sleeping space. “I think it’s quite fun, actually. This has turned into quite the adventure, wouldn’t you agree?”
“What adventure?” Minji snorted. “I fail to see any of the fun in this, pipsqueak.”
To Minji’s surprise, Yubin let out a laugh in response. “Oh, you know… getting under your skin, picking a bar fight, getting arrested… rooming with some stuck-up pirate that sounds better suited for the naval armada. You’ll be stuck with me for at least a little bit, so I’d get used to it if I were you, godling.”
Godling? “What did you just call me?”
“I know you’re not deaf, Minji,” Yubin drawled in a bored tone, finally moving to sit up. “Godling. That’s what you are, right? The holier-than-thou attitude makes sense, but you’re gonna have to lose it.”
Minji clenched her fists, but resisted the urge to display any outward offense or annoyance towards the snide remark. “And what is that supposed to make you, then? An unsightly gremlin with no manners?”
“No brownie points, but you’re close, so I give you an A for effort,” Yubin responded in a tone that bordered on condescending with a cynical chuckle, but before Minji could verbally reply, the pirate moved her hand up to the eyepatch covering her left eye. Embarrassingly enough, the god had to restrain a small gasp when Yubin lifted the thick cloth away from her face. “Actually, I’d prefer you call me a demon, but whatever floats your boat.”
The removal of the eyepatch revealed to Minji a sight that she figured most would never live to see. A deep, jagged scar directly ran across the demon’s eye. In contrast to the violet hue of Yubin’s other eye, the iris of the covered retina was a vibrant, venomous green that almost hurt to look at. The sight was far from human, and only a few seconds of maintaining eye contact with Yubin proved to be difficult for the god, who felt as if the unsightly chartreuse eye peered into the very depths of her soul, and Minji didn’t like it one bit.
“Are you ing insane?” Minji hissed, immediately shooting to her feet and stepping toward Yubin. “Put that back on if you don’t want your cover to be blown!”
“I’m not going to answer that question, because you probably already know the answer,” Yubin deadpanned in a flat tone, unbothered by the god’s advancing form. “What makes you think I care if my cover gets blown? I’m here to have fun with the humans. Am I mistaken for believing you’re here for the exact same reason?”
“I…” Minji trailed off, crossing her arms with a huff upon realizing she couldn’t criticize Yubin, nor defend herself for the remark. “That doesn’t explain why you think it’s fun to randomly attack me and get us arrested!”
“Don’t get it twisted, love… you’re the one that attacked me, if I recall,” Yubin reminded her with a pointed look and a smile that just as easily dug beneath Minji's pride - and her skin. “But, I digress. Stick along for the ride if you want, godling. If you want to stay here, though, no one’s going to stop you from following the law.”
Minji tilted her head in confusion. “But… how are you going to get out?”
“Please, don’t insult me like that.” The demon rolled her eyes in response. A flame hued the same sickly green of Yubin’s iris flickered to life in her palms, as the pirate approached the iron bars of the cell. The metal quickly melted and warped under Yubin’s touch, as if she had turned the iron to butter. Gesturing to the now sizable gap in the bars, Yubin fixed her with a pointed look. “Well, are you coming or not? Freedom awaits us.”
The jail was swarming with guards, not that it was necessarily a problem for the captains in the slightest. Still, at Minji's behest, Yubin begrudgingly put her eyepatch back on, at least for the duration of their escape. Even while exercising restraint, however, it was laughably easy to paint the interior walls with the humans' blood - the guards were more likely to hit each other than they were to so much as nick either one of the captains, and their lack of coordinated effort made it nearly effortless for either Minji or Yubin to land strikes with their blades of choice.
“Would it kill you to stop being so stiff all the time, Minji?” Yubin asked in a deadpan tone, after skewering a guard that had gotten a bit too close for comfort on their right side. “Honestly, that’s why you’re such a predictable fighter.”
Minji took a deep breath, doing her best to not let the slight against her fighting style bother her too much. “Well, your fighting style is sloppy at best,” she fired back, knocking away an incoming attack with the blunt side of her scimitar with calculated accuracy. “And unlike you, I have certain morals and standards to uphold.”
“Oh, cut the , godling.” Even while fighting off the horde of guards, Yubin still had time to give her a judgmental look in the midst of the chaos. “We aren’t in the pits of Hell, and we aren’t living the life on Mount Olympus, either. Their rules don’t ing apply here.” She lifted her ensanguined blade, pointing towards the docks. “Now, come on. Let’s do this in true pirate fashion and steal a boat, eh?”
Despite her obvious reservations about taking something that quite obviously wasn’t theirs, Minji didn’t voice them, and settled for following the shorter captain’s lead. Well, if it’s a smaller boat, it probably wouldn’t hurt-
“This one looks good!” Yubin called out, already boarding the largest ship present. “Come on, godling. Do you really want to be waiting for the guards to catch up?”
With a barely suppressed sigh, Minji made her way over and started climbing.
Minji usually liked sailing the seas - it filled her with a sense of unrivalled freedom and adventurousness, something that she never got to experience in all the time she spent on Earth.
That being said, there was a very pronounced difference between sailing with her delightfully chaotic crew, and being left alone with Yubin. There was no unnecessary noise, and on some level she found it welcome - but in the moment, it felt empty. Awkward.
(Well, at least the tumultuous wash of ocean for miles and miles was a familiar comfort to her senses.)
“Why are you really doing this?” Minji finally asked, deciding they would have to address the elephant on the ship at some point - they were still several hours out from the mainland, and she’d rather not deal with the awkward tension in silence for the rest of their trip. “I highly doubt you’re doing this out of the good of your heart, after all. Assuming you have one, that is.”
“Why do I need to have a reason, Minji?” Yubin asked, tilting her head to glance back at the taller woman. “I’m surprised you have to ask something like that. You godlings are the capricious sort, after all,” she mused out loud, audible enough for Minji to pick up on. Before she could respond, however, the demon continued to speak. “Really, there isn’t any motive that you seem to be claiming, Minji. I was curious about you, is all.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Minji asked, frown evident in her voice. “You aren’t making sense in the slightest.”
“Well… it isn’t often that you meet another immortal being on such a mundane plane of creatures. Is that not why you sought me out in the first place?” Yubin replied in a nonchalant tone, though Minji could detect hidden undertones of exasperation. “You actually do quite a good job of acting like a mortal, but your aura is impossible to hide. Toying with you was fun, but that’s why I did it. To have fun.”
That had certainly shut up Minji for the rest of their joint venture back to the mainland. It annoyed her to no end that she couldn’t come up with any sort of argument or snide response, but she had to admit that Yubin was right on all accounts, as much as it pained her to do so.
The rest of their voyage was still spent in silence, but Minji was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t awkward in the slightest. Minji ended up spending so much time considering Yubin’s words in her head - viewing the other pirate in a new perspective in light of those words, however, that the trip went by much faster than she anticipated. In no time at all, Yubin was docking the ship at the common port - to her left, she could even spot her own vessel, right where she had left it earlier that day.
"Uh… you're not too bad of a sailor," Minji called out, a bit lamely. "Maybe I wouldn't mind a little outing like this again."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" Yubin asked, raising a brow in amusement. "I suppose you aren't bad company yourself, godling. But I'm afraid this is where we part ways."
Blunt and straight to the point… but I suppose that's her appeal, Minji lamented to herself with a sigh. "I guess so."
"Don't try to look too relieved, love," the demon chuckled, tying the rope around the port's land anchor. "I'm sure you'll come running to lecture me about 'blowing my cover' one of these days." Before Minji could ask what the pirate meant, Yubin stood back up, with her back to the other woman. She tossed something her way, which Minji fumbled on the pier to successfully catch. This is-
"Until next time, godling," Yubin turned her head, revealing her heterochromatic, mismatched gaze, complete with a mischievous smile. The cloth Yubin had thrown was none other than her signature eyepatch.
She couldn't so much as call after the captain, as by the time she could open to scold the demon, Yubin was gone with the wind. Minji let out a heavy sigh, allowing her gaze to drift from the spot Yubin once occupied, to the worn-out cloth of black fabric that dangled from her hand.
"Still reckless as ever," Minji muttered to herself.
The timeless in Minji was aware of life's timelessness. And knew that yesterday was but today's memory and tomorrow was today's dream. Minji similarly had no faith in human perfectibility. She thought that human exertion would have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man was now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. Time was a slippery thing: if you lost hold of it once, its string might have sailed out of your hands forever.
Minji struggled to remember how long it had been since she had last seen Yubin. It could have been weeks, or it could have been months. Years, even.
(She found it more than a little silly that she held onto some ragged black eyepatch in hopes of seeing her again, but there was a larger part of her brain that refused to toss the cloth into the ocean and never look back. Maybe human sentimentality was weakening her character, but Minji hardly cared to think about the details.)
Somehow, her feet ended up carrying her to the local pub. The venue wasn’t too busy, but there was still a slightly noisy atmosphere to be enjoyed. Now that she thought about it, there was next to nothing that qualified as absolutely outstanding about the pub. It was some old, run-down tavern that just happened to be the closest social hub to the docks. Further in the city, there were surely better suited pubs for congregating (and Minji was sure they had to have better quality liqueur), but she still gravitated to this specific joint. This is where it all began, huh? Minji found herself sidling up to the bar - there weren’t many empty seats left, due to the sheer amount of patrons - but she didn’t mind sitting with strangers. Something felt familiar about one of the figures, but she ignored it for the time being.
“Two rounds of your strongest drink, if you please,” she requested to the bartender, tapping her nails along the rustic wood counter. Unlike last time, he didn’t give her an odd look, simply offering a smile and pouring out her drinks. Men who can shut up and do their job have to be my favorite.
“Did you save me a drink?” A voice to her right asked. The gravelly, rugged texture to her timbre sent shivers down Minji’s spine. Sure that she recognized it, she chanced a look at the patron beside her. “How thoughtful of you.”
Choppy locks, although they were now a deep umber hue, messily framed her scar-ridden face. There was no eyepatch obscuring the left half of her features, but the mismatched irises were unmistakable.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Yubin chuckled with a wry smile.
“Come to lecture me about blowing my cover, godling?”
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