Written to alexseanchai‘s musical prompt, and set in my Fae Apoc verse, round about the apoc.

There was a week where the stars went out, and that may have been the most terrifying week in any of our lives.

Except the Captain, of course, because nothing scares her.

But I’m starting in the wrong place. I do that. The Captain says it’ll be the death of me, though I can’t see how.

The place to start, if you ask me, would be back when the city flooded and they started the lynchings.

I can’t really say I blame them – I mean, the city was flooding, and it was the fault of monsters, if you look at it a certain way.

On the other hand, it wasn’t us that did it, and it was, or had been, our city too. And it’s hard to be sympathetic when there’s hemp around your neck, if you know what I mean.

There were five of us on that platform, all of us suddenly finding our Masks that hid us from humanity not as, well, mask-like as they used to be. Something about the returned gods – but what it meant to us wasn’t godly, unless hemp is sacred now.

Is hemp sacred now? That would suck.

And we were about to – well, probably die, maybe just be really, really uncomfortable. I’m not sure. There was the satyr and the fishie girl, the selkie and banshee and me, and only the gods know if it would’ve killed any of us – and they’re too busy making chaos to share any information.

And up the river comes this ship, this beautiful beautiful boat – I mean ship, it’s a ship – with Maidenhead painted on it, and at the helm was this beautiful kitsune lady.

Ever been rescued from a lynching by a fox girl? I have!

And when she had swashbuckled us all onto her boat, she gave us all an offer: Sail with me, because the land is no longer safe for our kind. Sail with me, and we’ll rule the seven seas.

Well, who can say no to that? (The banshee, that’s who. But that’s okay). We sailed with her (everyone but the banshee…) and it was beautiful and fun.

Until the week where the stars went out…

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