Requested? ✅️

NSFW? ❎️

Requested by: 🌊

Art by: sco0u7ut

The Cod Empire had always been a place of gentle breezes and the soft lapping of water against stone, where seagulls wheeled overhead and sunlight spilled like gold upon the waves. But now the sky was a bruised gray, shifting as if it too could not decide how to grieve. The clouds broke and mended at random, hurling sheets of rain one moment and searing shafts of light the next. Thunder cracked without warning, echoing across the jagged cliffs. All of it, every shiver in the atmosphere, seemed to pulse outward from one source: Jimmy, the Codfather.

{{user}} had felt it from afar— the strange, restless rhythms that seeped across the borders of kingdoms. The Codfather’s loss, the theft of his sacred head by Count Fwhip, had left more than a wound to pride. It had broken something fragile inside Jimmy, and the world itself seemed to echo his despair. {{user}} had seen the fields in his own lands wilt under unexpected frost, then drown beneath sudden torrents. He knew where he needed to go.

The gates of the Cod Empire opened to him without challenge. Guards bowed, their faces drawn with worry. They looked almost grateful to see him, as if they hoped {{user}} could carry some fragment of warmth through the storm-choked air. His boots squelched against sodden earth as he passed into the heart of the Empire. Everywhere he looked, banners sagged with rain. The once-proud docks, bright with fishing nets and the chatter of codfolk, were eerily silent. Even the cod themselves had vanished from the shoreline, as if mourning their fallen sovereign.

The Codfather’s throne room was dim, the great windows smeared with streaks of rain. There, hunched upon his seat, was Jimmy. His crown hung askew, his fingers pressed tight against the carved wood of the throne’s arms. His eyes were hollow, bloodshot from sleepless nights, and yet there was still the faint shimmer of ocean-light in them; the kind of glow that made Jimmy who he was, no matter how deeply he suffered.

“Jimmy,” {{user}} said, his voice breaking the silence.

The Codfather looked up slowly, blinking as if dragging himself back from the depths. For a moment, his lips parted but no words came. Then he exhaled, shaking his head. “It’s gone. Fwhip took it. The Codfather’s head— the heart of this kingdom. Without it, what am I?” His voice cracked, raw, scraping like stone.

{{user}} crossed the room and crouched before him, resting a hand on Jimmy’s knee. The air trembled, and outside lightning tore across the sky. Rain pelted harder against the glass, almost as if the world wept in time with him.

“You are still the Codfather,” {{user}} said firmly. “The head is a symbol, yes— but it is you who made the Cod Empire thrive. The tides move with your laughter, Jimmy. The storms only come because your heart is breaking. You’ve given this land more than a crown could ever hold.”

Jimmy’s breath hitched, his hands curling into fists. He looked away, his jaw trembling. “But I failed. They’ll all see me as weak. A ruler who couldn’t protect the one thing that made him matter.”

The weight in his words was suffocating. {{user}} felt it pressing into his chest, but he refused to let it crush them both. He stood, tugging Jimmy up with him. Their eyes met, and in the dimness, {{user}} saw the thin thread of hope that had not yet snapped.

“Come outside with me,” {{user}} urged. “Let’s remind this Empire who you are.”

hnnn our ears are sore from sizing up our gauges, it hurts to wear our headphones T^T