potosi | or say we're only dreaming;

[ it's been two months since princess tessarae edison was kidnapped--or, maybe traded is a better word. either way, the kingdoms have been at search for the great scourge of the seas; they call her the sea witch, they call her hell on heels, whatever it is, minji park is a wanted woman, considering the bounty she carries now is greater than any other pirate on the seas. everyone assumed tessa was long dead by now, as surely the pirate bastard would have sent her to her watery grave the moment no money came up, but these assumptions would be wrong.

after all, the reasons for this kidnapping were a bit...strange.

but not to go into too much on that, tessa is starting to slowly become comfortable with the ship and the people within it. spending time with newt that first day helped; the other girl is sweet and kind of motherly and with her help, tess began to settle into her new life at sea.

well. hers and minjis.

minji was--she was frustrating, sometimes. true to her name, she just took things, often with no concern for her wellbeing, or for human lives. she was brash and reckless and sometimes she drove tessa nuts, but other times, they clicked together like nothing else. the talk, the banter, even just looking up from scrubbing the floors--scrubbing the floors, seriously--and seeing her there. it was easy in a way that nothing else in her life had ever been. and after minji had nearly died on her last raid, saved only via some ridiculously intuitive tag team thing she must have had planned with newt all along, tess was starting to find she was sort of attached to the girl.

(attached enough to kiss her when she came back.)

but, she can't stop thinking about it. the kiss, about minji, the situation that had occurred mere hours before, and so tess gets up in the dead of night when the ship is silent and tiptoes on bare feet through the passenger quarters, and upstairs to the captain's on the main deck. the door's unlocked, like it usually is at night, and she pushes it open, quietly, then stares at the sleeping form on the bed. it's so dark and minji's turned on her side, so tess just kind of quietly sneaks across the room and gingerly climbs into the bed, until she can feel the warmth of minji next to her and the sea rocking outside. carefully, tess curls her fingers up against her shoulder blades and tips her head forward, resting her nose between her lightly curled fists and trying to fight down the rushing beat of her heart and be quiet all at once. ]

[ Truthfully, Minji has been known as a ruthless monster to most men that fair the seas. Women are torn on the matter - either she's a scourge like all pirates, or they pine for the life she leads - but are, regardless, spared. Does she hate men? Not really. Her closest friend, before his death, had been one. They just frequently underestimate her, despite the fact that she pulls their britches over their head and beats them at their own games. At least they've gotten it figured out to the point that they've upped her bounty, deigned to actually give her the price she so rightly deserves.

(She keeps the wanted posters on the wall in her room, pinned with daggers like trophies, in a way. The most recent one still makes her laugh, because of the list of crimes.)

So she isn't shocked when Tessa gets angry with her, tries to tell her off for what she does, what she says. She's so drastically different, has lived a drastically different life, that Minji is willing to let it slide unless she decides to take it a step too far. Which, normally she doesn't. They butt heads every now and then, but they reign one another in and then balance each other out. It's been nice, because the only people she's really felt that sync with since she lost Ben so long ago have been Newt and Allie. And, really, they need a reprieve from dealing with Minji so exclusively.

Meaning she's extremely thankful for the fact that Tessa is settling in with the crew. Yeah, she makes faces about the chores, but even the captain helps with them. Have to keep the ship in shipshape, after all, and it's everyone's home.

You take care of your home, it takes care of you, and you form your bonds with your crew-family. They'll watch your back when you go on nearly suicidal missions in the midst of raids, much like the last one. Minji's used to those ones, in particular, and they give Newt grey hairs that she'll likely deny for the next millennia, but she still saves her life just like she knew she would.

On the other hand, she did not know that Tess would kiss her. Huh.

A little banged up and crashing from an adrenaline high, Minji goes to bed earlier than normal. She strips down to practically nothing, climbs into bed, and pretends that she doesn't think about the kiss the entire time. She can't get it out of her head, the softness of her lips coupled with the near desperation of it as she gripped tight to her shirt, the feeling of her dark chestnut hair underneath Minji's fingers the moment she'd slid them through it. Even in her doze, she thinks she feels her breath and her touch, the warmth of her body.

And then she realizes that she does, and she rouses slowly, blinking her eyes open and staying still for a couple minutes. Once she's sure she's not dreaming, she sifts slowly, rolling onto her other side so that she can hook an arm around her slender waist wordlessly. ]

[ honestly, she wasn't sure how she was expecting minji to react; tessa didn't even really think this one through. like several things in her life (getting kidnapped) tessa kind of just threw herself into this with the sort of hope that it would work out well enough, and apparently it had. because, suddenly, minji had rolled over and curled up with her and it felt like absolute bliss. her body was warm and soft and tessa could still phantom feel her lips on her own, wind-chapped skin on soft and pampered, the feeling of her fingers in her hair. just the thought of it makes her ears burn a little, and tessy dips forward to bury her head against her collarbone.

but it occurs to her about three seconds later that there is definitely something missing from this picture--in this case, it would be a shirt.

tessa's eyes snap open and she shoots backwards an inch or two, separating herself from minji as she goes so red it has to be visible in the moonlight, and she squeaks-- ] Where are your clothes?!

[ --because maybe tessa is still kind of a delicate flower after two months on the ship. was minji expecting this? did she do this on purpose? just because tessa kissed her? no, probably not, she probably just slept naked, it makes perfect sense, but still. tess covers her eyes with both hands, obviously totally embarrassed. ] Oh my god, I'm sorry.

[ Content and more than willing to just go back to sleep, even if the idea of kissing Tessa again comes to mind, Minji gets settled right there and lets the princess insert herself where she likes. It doesn't even occur to her that she's shirtless, that the only article of clothing on her body are the thin breeches that stop below her knees. She's hardly the picture of ladylike, at least by society's norms.

So, the outburst surprises her for a split second. She blinks dazedly at the blushing girl, squinting at her in the dim light, trying to figure out what she's talking about.

She looks down at herself, the swell of her breast where Tess had originally tucked herself.

Ah.

With a heavy sigh, she shifts to sit up a little, clearing her throat of sleep as she reaches for where she'd thrown her poet shirt. It's nearby, in case she needs to go running out in the middle of the night, but she normally doesn't wear it unless it's balls to the wall cold out. She pulls it on, for Tessa's sake. ] S'fine, s'fine - norm'ly just don't wear shirts.

Sorry. [ tess apologizes again, cringing at her own stupidity--seriously, how dumb can you be, tessarae--but also doesn't uncover her eyes, mostly because she's embarrassed and that was a lot to take in at once. this whole...girls thing is all very new and very much situated solely on minji, and suddenly mashing her cheek into her topless torso was probably considered "taking it too far". there are talks of virtue and goodness and things tessy has never done, ever, and that is most certainly one of them.

she sets with her legs folded underneath her and her hands on her eyes, listening for the rustle of fabric, but also trying to calm herself down. her entire reason for coming in here was to be quiet and sneaky, to manage to curl up with minji like every single part of her wanted to do, almost needily, and she'd been about as subtle as a bag of bricks about it. subtlety? not her strong suit, apparently.

tess mumbles from behind her hands, trying to save at least an inch of her dignity: ] I can go, if you want--go back to sleep, I'm so sorry. I probably can't be in here anyway, right?

[ all of this is spoken in a small voice, like she's trying to stay as hushed as possible, but also because she's still really embarrassed. geez. ]

[ Stretching her arms above her head, once the shirt is in place, Minji pops her spine before she reaches out and slips her fingers around Tessa's delicate wrists. She's all pale skin, dusted in stars and smooth as porcelain, and beautiful browns - dark, long hair and bright, wide eyes. Right now, she can't really see those eyes, but she can see how her skin is flushed red from her embarrassment.

Instead of pushing her away, she pulls her hands free from her face, kissing her knuckles where she holds them together. ] No. You can be here whenever you want, for anything. Just never thought you'd wanna come in here, didn't... y'know, think in advance about clothes.

[ Eyes flicking across her face, taking her in, she reaches out with one of her sea-worn hands, brushing a bit of stray hair away and tucking it behind her ear. The past two months have been rather interesting, really, because of this development between them. Minji's wanted to kiss her since day one, but has behaved herself beyond kissing her hand or her cheek. And then little miss Princess Tessarae was the one to pull her into a kiss, full of relief and want.

She cups her cheek, thumbing at the high point of it. ] It's okay.

[ it's weird to see minji as sort of...vulnerable, but that's what she is right now, isn't she? sleepy eyed and beautiful (and half naked, but tess is trying really hard to forget that right now) and not swaggering around the deck with a captain's grace and sense of order. here, she's just a regular person, and tess likes that, likes the idea of familiarizing herself with the way minji is outside of her coat and hat. this is the person she wants to kiss, she thinks, sort of absently, and has to squash that thought quickly before she starts turning colors again.

the kiss on her knuckles does that same trick, though, and the color flushes up her cheeks again, instantly warming against minji's palm and making tess feel further embarrassed but also kind of warm and squirmy inside, in the magic way that can only come from having a crush. princess tessarae had only ever had a crush once in her life, on a great knight named brendan in her guard, but it was not weeks later that it was announced she was betrothed, and away it went. she never liked her fiancee, and maybe all of those feelings of passion had to be directed at someone. whatever it was, tess had fallen hard for minji, in a way girls like her just don't usually fall.

reaching up with her small hand, she covers minji's calloused one with her own on her cheek, holding it there gently. ] Okay.

[ her gaze flickers away for a minute--staring at minji for too long is a little like staring into the sun--and asks a question. ] Can I...stay here?

[ She's still here. Tessa is still here, and she's - they're holding hands, basically. What a juvenile thing to get giddy over, but Minji has been trying her damnedest to keep her hands mostly to herself and not pressure Tess, or make her feel uncomfortable. The banter has helped, the teasing and flirting, and the care that they've offered one another.

And while her crew, for the most part, treats her like a person rather than some other entity, Tessa is an outsider that's come in knowing her reputation. Knowing that people fear and loathe her. But she doesn't fear her, now, and didn't really display much of it at the start despite how it was an undercurrent to her bravery. Ever since then, she's treated her like a person. It's kind of nice, to have someone that isn't the crew acting like she's a human being instead of a wanted criminal.

She leans in towards her, though raises her chin, so that she can press her lips to her temple where her gaze is cast aside. It's a small gesture, but Minji hopes that it's as welcomed as she feels it's encouraging. Accompanying it is the brush of her thumb over her cheek, hand staying where it's held. ]

You can always stay here.

[ tess almost instantly gets butterflies at the small, soft kiss--such actions might have made her roll her eyes a little before, but now it's a whole other world entirely. whatever wall that was between them has officially broken down, considering their kiss, earlier, which tessa really hasn't stopped considering since it happened. it's kind of unfortunate, but was also kind of the reason she made her way out here into the captain's quarters.

fidgeting a little, the princess lifts her head and gives her a small, genuine quirk of a smile, a little shy but still real, and drops her hand. carefully, with some scooting down the bed, she shifts into the warmth of minji's blankets and pulls them up to her chin, still staring at her in a way that could almost be construed as twitterpated. tess is honestly, more than anything, just glad that minji is still alive after the nightmare that came earlier in the day. sure, they got away with a ridiculous amount of treasure, but minji also almost died, and tess was getting way too attached to her for her to keep making such reckless decisions. they could have left earlier, could have ignored that last ship, and tess admires it, a little, but it also scares her. she's brave, but also stupid. the stupidest smartest person tessa has ever met.

either way, she slips one of her hands out of the blankets and leaves it open, resting palm up on the pillows between them; an invitation. ]

[ A surge of affection rushes through Minji as Tessa fidgets down into her bed again, and she very nearly presses a hand to her heart from the swell of it. She can't help but want to just sit there and kiss her face all over, touch her cheeks and her nose and her brow, trace the pretty bow of her lips. But she pulls back the urge for now, because there's a gorgeous princess in her bed and leaving an open invitation for her.

Shifting, she drops down onto her side and reaches to bring the blankets up around her shoulders again. It hides away the hand, but it doesn't stop her from taking it; she slides her hand up her wrist, traces the warmth of her palm, and then moves to slot their fingers together.

It was love at first sight, for sure, but it was a downhill journey from there. She fell even more head over heels for the girl in her bed, the one that she maybe kidnapped more than a little selfishly. But they've found their place, now. And maybe she'll work to be more careful, because she has her Tessarae to come back to.

Not really that much of a romantic, she still can't resist the thought of it. She can't resist kissing her knuckles again, either, before she brings their hands to press against her chest so that Tessa can feel the thrum of her heart in her ribs. ]

[ tess has to suppress the urge to giggle, which is sort of weird. she's never really been courted by someone she was actually interested in before--even in this case, the interest took time to kindle, considering the odd situation. in a way, okay, she'd been stolen, but tessa had also come willingly. she'd been longing for a sense of adventure, and suddenly, there it was, handed to her practically on a silver platter. here, she shed her skirts and learned how to sword fight, studied star charts and translated languages whenever they approached foreign ships. she was finding her place here, and it was starting to feel a little like home.

and minji, with her smile so bright it felt like the sunshine, was a key part in that.

at least nowadays, anyway. so tessa keeps that gentle smile on her face and runs her thumb over the side of her hand, and can't help the sort of girlish-- ] Hi. [ that comes out of her mouth. feeling very dumb after that, tessa snaps her mouth shut and lets her gaze trail down to their connected hands, listens to the sound of her heartbeat, feeling her pulse against her fingers. ]

[ The "maybe" of settling down after a life of constant pillaging and plundering and thievery has come up every now and then amongst everyone - Minji knows that Newt and Allie want to do it, someday, because they're practically married. (Technically, Minji could marry them, as a captain. She'd love to, if they asked.) There's a handful of people on her crew that have families, that come and go when they have enough money to take care of their important persons. She gets that. Women of all ages and kinds are welcome on her ship, so long as they're loyal and hardworking.

But Minji didn't ever really think about it. Never had what Newt and Allie have.

And then there was Tessa. ] Hi.

[ She grins at her, bright and girlish rather than roguish. Her voice remains low, despite the fact they're in the quiet of her private room. But she can't help it, as she watches Tessa's eyes drop down. ]

So I'm gonna be really honest with you? [ Posed as a question, but a casual one. ] I really want to kiss you.

[ that's...really kind of cute. tessa's definitely never found herself thinking that about minji before. she's cute, with her short hair and her big bright smile, and it's hard to think that this is the same woman who half of the men of the kingdoms are terrified of. she just has a lot of different facets, and tessa finds herself wanting to know all of them, to unravel the threads of her lifetime with delicate, caring fingers and understand everything she can about her and more.

she flushes, though, when she mentions kissing; if minji's observant, she might feel tessy's toes curling underneath the blankets, like she needs somewhere to put all of her feelings. which, she kind of does. she's just now getting used to the feelings themselves, and they're dangerous things, particularly when the object of your affections is more likely to go down with her ship than most anything else.

so, reaching up, tess's small hand finds minji's cheek, and she scooches upwards in the blankets to press her mouth to hers, gently. she'd initiated the first kiss, and she'll initiate the second, too, soft and shy but also not enough to pull away instantly. instead, she holds the kiss for a little bit, kind of relishing in the butterflies it gives her. ]

[ It's an interesting thing, to feel comfortable enough with someone to let walls down. Minji doesn't have the same ones that Newt or Allie do, by any means, but she has her own that are steady and tall. She's observant and quiet but sarcastic and dry in spades to balance out the trials she's been through, flirty and teasing and a general menace, as Newt would say. But she can relax, when it's just the two of them. She's not really sweet or romantic, not at all, but she can be sweeter when it comes to her little princess, she thinks.

And she loves that she's seen signs of the same behavior in Tessa. By comparison, Tessa is far more reserved and quiet. Serious. But she's learning sarcasm and how to make jokes, and she's opening up to the rest of them. She's opening up to Minji.

Slowly, Min brings her free hand up to set against Tess' waist, meeting her in the kiss in quiet contentment. Because Tessa isn't the only one whose toes curl, isn't the only one that lingers there. And she doesn't hesitate to lean into it a little more, not quite initiating another kiss but instead acting exactly on what she said. She really does want to kiss her. A lot. ]

[ it seems like it'd be easy to get lost in this; tessa could maybe kiss minji for the rest of her life and be totally happy with it. her lips are soft and really the first ones she'd ever kissed outside of sweet pecks for her mother and father. it must be different than kissing a boy, but, then again, tess wouldn't really know. all she knows is that kissing minji is really, really great.

her arms shift up a little until she can rest one over her shoulder, hooking it gently around her back and scooting in closer, just fine with minji moving in more. compared to how things might have been a couple months ago, this is pure bliss. every day on the ship, tessa learns new things, and this relationship is becoming one of them, even if "relationship" seems like a silly word to put on it.

she pulls away slowly, arm still over her shoulder, and her brown eyes search minji's face for a minute, looking for something she's not sure she can put a name to. whatever it is, tess exhales with a faint grin on her face, looking down at the space between them again. ] Anytime I want?

[ Right now, the kisses are perfectly tame. Minji has no problem with that, despite the fanciful daydreams she's had over the past months, because it's so easy for them to fall into one another like this. She thumbs a little at the silky soft material of her nightgown at her waist, fascinated by the texture and the way it follows the curve of Tess' body. She's kissed people before - boys and girls alike, because kissing is something to be enjoyed - but this is different.

As all things are, with Tessy.

When she feels her arm come up about her shoulder, she slips her own further around her waist, until she can get her hand into the subtle dip of her spine. It stays there, innocent as anything for the time being, and she resists the urge to follow the line of her back, up to the wing of a shoulder. There's time for exploration, because, after all, she's waited this long already for a simple kiss. Minji can wait longer for more.

She kisses her brow when she draws back, from one side to the next, sweeping across it in little, feather soft things. It doesn't stop the smile from spreading across her face, threatening to split into a grin. ] Anytime.

Okay. [ all the time it is, then. tessa doesn't mind her little quarters in the passenger area of the ship, but since she kissed minji that first day, they sure have started to feel lonely. the warmth and weight of her arm against her waist is soothing and comfortable, and she can most definitely see herself sleeping here for the forseeable future.

tessa's cheeks turn a little pinker as she considers it, has to fight down the faintest flush of affection in her chest, and she glances down at the space between them and lifts her gaze under her eyelashes, look nothing short of, well, adoring. she's not sure when this happened, when she started caring about minji like this but she does. irrevocably so.

so, she lifts her small hands and curls them in the front of the shirt she's now wearing, and tips up to kiss her. once, twice, again, over and over, until it's something she can get lost in--something maybe a little less chaste. ]

[ By telling Tessa she's welcome at any time, Minji really hopes that it means she'll come by more often. Not even just at night - she'd love to see her at all hours of the day, as if they don't already constantly see one another - but perhaps especially then. Because this moment, this moment right here, is the most perfect thing she's known in a long time, something that just feels like it belongs. And that's part of what she'd felt, when she first laid eyes on Tessa.

The feeling is just even more powerful, now, in the night, just the two of them touching and kissing.

Nightgowns are incredibly restrictive, in Minji's opinion. It's why she doesn't wear them, why she doesn't like dresses in general. But she slides her hand up the length of Tessa's spine, rucking up the thin cloth a little on her way, until she finally feels skin between her shoulder blades. And then she goes up higher, curls her fingers around the back of her neck and beneath the sweep of her brown hair.

If Tessa wanted to move back, the hold is loose enough for it, and she tries to make that obvious. But at the same time, she dips in a little more into the kiss, each one that follows, until parts her lips and teases her tongue against the swell of Tess' bottom one. Just the faintest touch, almost testing but no less confident. ]

[ tess's toes curl out of instinct--is she really about to make out with minji in the dark like this? of course she is. she's not exactly confident but tess isn't exactly shy, either, because her own kind of stupid boldness tends to make up for that. so where her fingers are curled in her shirt, she tightens them a little, and opens her mouth to let her in.

she wouldn't have pictured herself here when she first arrived on the ship. actually, tess would have probably retched at the thought. but now that she's gotten to know minji more than the pirate captain and maybe gotten just a little stockholm-syndrome-y (although not badly; it's not like she was ever treated badly, just that her...means of arrival was a little strange.) she's comfortable with her. minji's brave and smart and funny and.

a really good kisser. did she mention that? her eyes flutter and back behind them, tess's foot pops. ]

[ Thumbing at the patch of skin behind Tessa's hair, Minji feels a sort of thrill at the fact that the kiss gets a little less chaste, a little more intimate. This is something that she never expected would happen, truth be told, even with the way they've been growing closer. It's a perfect, easy sort of thing, but it practically heats up her skin in the process. Like every point of contact is on fire.

But it's the best thing she's ever felt before, Tess is the best thing she's ever had. But never owned, because a person is not a thing to own and her little princess has always been very adamant about that.

There's a shift, somewhere behind her, but she doesn't know what it is. Rather than question it, though, she brings her other hand up to frame her face. Kiss her a little more deeply. ]

or say we're only dreaming;

immediately hands it over

yaaaassssss

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It would've been nice if I hit send on this last night.