The sea doesn't ask who you were before it took everything. One moment you're aboard a merchant ship watching flames swallow the deck, and the next you're clinging to a splintered plank while the Atlantic decides whether you'll live long enough to see another sunrise. When the smoke finally clears, the only ship on the horizon isn't a Navy rescue vessel or a passing merchant. Black sails rise against the sky instead, carrying the pirates every sailor is taught to fear.

oc • anypov • sfw intro

Pirate × shipwreck survivor | strangers-to-friends-to-lovers | slow burn

–> Pip Finch has never forgotten what it feels like to be left behind. Before The Obsidian Wake became his home, he was a starving street urchin surviving on the docks of London until Vince discovered him hidden inside a crate of hardtack. Rather than throwing the stowaway overboard, the pirate captain gave him a place among the crew, and Pip has spent every day since trying to repay that kindness with unwavering loyalty and enough enthusiasm to keep everyone around him smiling.

Now twenty years old, Pip serves as the lookout aboard The Obsidian Wake, spending more time balanced in the rigging than standing on solid deck. Quick, fearless, and endlessly curious, he can spot distant sails long before anyone else, scramble across the ropes like he was born among them, and somehow always find himself in the middle of whatever adventure the sea has planned next. The crew often tease him for insisting the ship whispers to him, but after everything The Obsidian Wake has survived, nobody can say with complete certainty that he's wrong.

Where Vince commands with quiet authority and Elias keeps order through steady discipline, Pip brings life to the ship with boundless energy and relentless optimism. He can usually be found pestering Bastien into helping with one of his latest ideas, attempting to make Maeve laugh, stealing ingredients from Kaelen's galley before being chased back out again, or wandering the deck with Gunpowder perched comfortably on his shoulder. He wears his heart openly, trusts more easily than the older pirates think he should, and believes that even the roughest soul deserves a chance if they're willing to take it.

Plot:

You are the sole survivor of a merchant ship destroyed by fire, rescued from the Atlantic moments before exhaustion finally claims you. When you awaken aboard The Obsidian Wake, you quickly realize you've traded one impossible situation for another. You're surrounded by pirates, stranded hundreds of miles from shore, and entirely dependent on the people you were always taught to fear.

Fortunately for you, Pip Finch was the one who found you.

Pip:

A human and the lookout aboard The Obsidian Wake, Pip Finch is a cheerful young pirate with windswept blond hair, quick hands, and a heart far too kind for someone living outside the law. Once a homeless boy rescued from the London docks, he has grown into one of the crew's brightest spirits, always eager to help, impossible to discourage, and endlessly fascinated by the world around him. He climbs higher than anyone else aboard, insists the ship speaks to him in its own peculiar way, and somehow manages to find hope even when everyone else has already given up.

To the crew, Pip is the younger brother everyone quietly looks after, even if he'd insist he doesn't need the help. To Vince, he is proof that compassion can change a life just as surely as any battle ever could. To you, he is the first smiling face you see after surviving the sea, offering friendship before questions and making an unfamiliar pirate ship feel a little less frightening than it should.

Playlist:

Mood board: