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Sonja still couldn't believe that she had actually done it, she'd revived Capsize, she was alive sleeping a couple feet away from her. She'd call it a miracle if it weren't for all the work she put in, the hours and the sickness and the stress. It had all meant something, it hadn't been for nothing. There was a certain level of giddiness that still hadn't worn off about that, a level of excitement both that she had actually proven everyone that had doubted she could revive her wrong and beyond that an unending relief that she'd saved her, that she'd righted the failure of all those years ago. Those feelings were pretty much all that were keeping her awake right now, keeping her watching the campfire as her eyes all too often flickered over to the sleeping pirate as if needing to check she hadn't just disappeared.
She did feel the need to stay awake, kind of unfortunate as exhaustion was quite quickly setting in, but she needed to keep watch. Capsize was very much in and out of consciousness, completely fine when she was awake, but she was exhausted in a way that Sonja supposed made sense given that was unable to rest as a spirit. And she imagined that coming back from the dead for the second, possibly the third time (though Sonja had no idea if that memory had really been Capsize’s, or just a manifested figment of her own doubt), had its toll physically, though thankfully it seemed like she was going to be able to sleep it off. Sleeping off a decade of death, including a good couple years of constant wakefulness as a spirit, the fact she was recovering as quickly as she was something Sonja could only attribute to the woman's stubbornness. The only downside was it was making the journey a lot slower on the return, since riding with an exhausted woman was slow. Their ride out had taken three days, but currently the return journey had taken eight with herself and Capsize due to finally get back tomorrow. Spark should've already arrived back, the man having volunteered after the first day to ride ahead, to let the others know they were all alive and well, which was a bigger announcement than such words typically would be.
So, Sonja was keeping watch at night. She didn't technically need to, the fire would keep away any monsters and it wasn't going to go out, but she felt more like she should. She'd spent all this time bringing her back, it couldn't help but play on her mind all the things that could go wrong while they still weren't quite home yet. She couldn’t quell the anxiety that something was going to go wrong, that if she went to sleep, Capsize wouldn’t be okay when she woke up. She knew it wasn’t something she should logically fear, but she couldn’t take her mind off the terrible possibilities. So, she sat staring into the flames, trying to ignore the creeping pangs of tiredness.
“You’re still awake, Fox?” Capsize sat up with a quiet groan, glad though a little concerned to see the other woman still awake. She’d grown used to waking up to find Sonja already awake. However, given the fact that morning didn’t seem close to dawning, she knew that the other woman hadn’t simply awoken, but rather that she hadn’t slept yet. She frowned at that thought. In her odd memories of being a spirit, fractured memories atop different memories, she remembered her barely resting. It hadn’t bothered her as a spirit, she liked the interactions they had while alone late at night, but now she was alive again and had a more concrete train of thought, and she couldn’t help but worry that she hadn’t seen her resting at all yet. "I think tomorrow will be even slower if you don't get at least some sleep."
"Hmm, no, I'm fine. Really, I'm just not tired," She tried to reassure, though Capsize certainly wasn't convinced. She knew what tiredness looked like on her friends. Now she was aware that things had changed, she'd been told by Conway, the older Sparklez, that it'd been ten years. Ten years since the rescue of Ianite, ten years since she met an early end. Though she questioned this a little as Fox certainly didn't look a decade older, it had been briefly explained that nearly everyone had experienced a slightly different gap in time in terms of actually lived experience and whether or not they'd aged, an explanation that made little sense to her, but she nodded along to anyway to save time. Yet despite however much time had passed, she could still tell when Fox was waning, wanting to sleep but denying it to herself.
"At least lie down. Might trick your brain into resting," She said, being careful to make it sound like a suggestion not an order. It was an odd little tick in her brain, continuously reminding herself that she wasn't on a mission anymore. Her goal had long since been complete, not by herself but it was completed nonetheless, so there wasn't a mission. It was a lot less relaxing than she thought it would be, but it had technically only been a few days for her, she assumed, or more hoped, that her mind would settle into it. But for now, she decided to instead let her mind worry about something else and it wasn't like she was against worrying about Sonja.
Sonja hesitated. She saw furrowed brows betraying the worry behind her smile. It almost felt funny, the person who had been dead a decade was worried about her, but it also felt... nice? Was that the word she was looking for? It was like the universe confirming that this was all real. But at the same time, she didn't want to relax. Or rather she felt like she shouldn't. Because somehow being relaxed would lead to this all not being real despite how illogical such a thought was. But Capsize smiled, and Sonja felt herself unable to say no to her. Well, just because she was going to lie down didn’t mean she had to sleep, or even put her out of her sight. So, she pulled her own bedroll over, not quite next to Capsize though close to it, especially as there was nothing around but the two of them and the campfire.
They lay face to face, both looking towards each other as the fire crackled in the background. In the quiet of the night, both couldn’t help but take in the differences in the other. Capsize noticed the subtle differences in Sonja’s appearance. It was clear to her that that she was a few years only, certainly not ten, but definitely a couple. Though that came less from her actually looking older and more that she just looked happier, far surer of herself. There were some physical differences, she noticed that the fur on her eyes and tail now had some patches lightly tinted purple, but overall, it was mostly just that she seemed more confident and happier with herself. In comparison, it was impossible for Sonja to not notice the changes in Capsize’s appearance. There was a scar across her neck where Furia had originally killed her, not quite fresh but far from faded. The parts of her body that had been out of focus in her spirit form were now tinted blue like a drowned. But it was undeniably still her. Her bronze skin, her freckles, the smaller faded scars on her face, they were all still there, still as they ever had been. It was really her, here and alive like she should be.
As both stared at the other, they realised just how close they were. Far closer than any two friends maybe should be, but neither woman moved away. There wasn’t a feeling of awkwardness as there might be if the two were truly just friends, but there was something there. Neither had ever really confronted it, and definitely weren’t ready too, but it definitely lingered in the night air as they realised this would be the last night that they spent alone like this.
“I’m really glad you’re the one who revived me, Fox,” Capsize said, her voice low as her tiredness began to come back. She supposed it wasn’t really like she could’ve had a preference, but here and now she could say she was happy it was her here rather than any of the others. She liked Conway, but she was glad he went ahead instead of Fox. In a way, she wondered if her happiness at her being the first person she saw when she came back was a betrayal, that maybe she should have wanted it to be Ianite, but she was genuinely happy that it was Sonja. She was glad that this could be sorted away from Ianite, away from whatever their connection was and now was going to be, and glad that she was still here with someone that she… felt happy with? She wasn’t quite sure of the best to describe it, it just felt right to be here with her.
“I’m glad that it worked, that you’re here,” She was still almost in disbelief. She wanted to say that she never doubted her own abilities, but that just wouldn’t be true. She’d forced herself to not to, to not listen to Martha or any of her own doubtful thoughts, but now it had worked she could admit that there had been so many times where she questioned and doubted. But looking at Capsize, she couldn’t find any doubt, other than the lingering anxiety of it somehow being reversed. That feeling she couldn’t shift, even though she was so close to her, even when it was so clear how alive she was, because now she was here alive, she couldn’t lose her again. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah… I am…”
There was a beat of silence.
“Things have changed a lot since I died,” She said, her drowsy thoughts thinking through her odd memories of being a ghost alongside what she’d been told by Fox and Conway. There was the obvious, that Ianite had been freed, that there were a host of new people that had come from a completely different world, and the fact that Tom and Jordan were missing. However, it was also like the whole landscape had changed, though it was still recognisable there were new plants and animals, the sky was higher, and the underground deeper. It was exciting, there was so much for her to explore, to figure out, but she also couldn’t hide but worry about where she fit in now. This was a different world than the one she'd left, and maybe that meant something, was some kind of bad omen. Though, some of the new elements had already spread to her as the drowned zombies hadn’t really existed back then. “It’s gonna take a while to get used to it all.”
“I’ll help you with that. We’re all kind of getting used to it,” Sonja said, hoping to quell any nerves she had. And Capsize felt comfort in her words, in her smile. “When you’re ready, we’ll explore anything you want.”
“I’d like that. I… I think I’d like a pet, maybe. You lot always had some, I think it’d be nice,” Her words were getting slower. She genuinely did feel drained. She was recovering slowly from the sheer exhaustion of being in a living body again, but it was a process, especially as she’d never been great at sleeping when she was alive. It led to moments like this, where her body was tired, and her thoughts were becoming more difficult for her to follow making it difficult to say everything she wanted to say. Right now, she was mostly focused on the fact that she liked seeing the smile growing on Sonja’s face.
“Yeah! We could find you a parrot, complete the look,” She laughed. She’d look right with a parrot on her shoulder, just imagining it made Sonja smile. Capsize, pretty much asleep again, shook her head.
“No… I think I…” She looked at the ears on top of her friend’s head. “I’d like a fox… They’re cute…”
Her last few words were barely heard by the other woman as she dropped into sleep. Still, Sonja flushed bright red, though she chastised herself for doing so. She wasn’t thinking about her, she was clearly talking about the animals. Obviously it was just about the animals, as a ghost she'd seemed fascinated by them. It was just an animal she liked. Of course, Spark hadn’t had any explanation for why she was so interested in foxes, and they hadn’t been around before her death, but Sonja wrote that off. They were probably something in a story she liked, or something important in Ianitee culture. She’d ask her sometime, when she was more settled. She’d help her find a fox too, because seeing her smile made her heart flutter. But that didn’t mean anything either.
Neither was ready to say their feelings out loud. Neither was really sure what she felt for the other at this point in time. However, as Sonja finally managed to relax into sleep, the two women were close. When Capsize awoke the following morning, they were even closer, the two having cuddled together in their sleep. She didn’t move for quite a while, and when she did it was careful to not disturb the other woman, a smile on her face. Maybe neither was quite ready to say anything but, there was something between them. It didn’t need to be said out loud though, not yet anyway.