Chapter Text
After her song, Rin had slept the whole day and through the following night, barely stirring to have her increasingly usual nightmares toward dawn. The mood on ship was light, and sailors greeted her with warm smiles when she ventured out of their cabin. With the steady tailwind, there was talk of making Waterdeep with a day to spare.
Astarion shadowed her while she played violin (just a normal jaunty shanty) for the working men, and dice with those taking breaks. They laughed and joked with her, even though she won just about every game. She was cheery and funny and frankly delightful.
But Astarion knew better. Her heart was almost constantly too fast. She flinched, when someone dropped a cup or laughed too loud. When one of them passed behind her, her tail drew close and tight around her legs. When she stood on deck, she kept glancing at the horizon, chewing her bottom lip.
He thought she might be practicing not being afraid – the way she kept placing herself near the things that made her breath catch in her throat, only to smile and talk through it.
When she finally, apparently, needed a break from her act and retired back to the cabin, he followed her there too. Gale was reading on his bunk. Rin flopped down heavily on hers, throwing an arm over her eyes. Astarion thought he’d probably allowed her to avoid talking about whatever was going on long enough.
“So, darling.”
“Hmm?”
“You were awfully ominous yesterday. Care to talk about it?”
“I don’t know what –”
“And you’ve made yourself very unavailable all morning, dearest.”
Gale put his book down and sat up straighter. “You did mention the kraken was… loud, yesterday.” He frowned, concern written all over his face. “Does it talk to you?”
Rin took a deep breath, and sighed, resigned. She sat up and crossed her legs, pulling her tail into her lap to fiddle with the tip. “It does, sometimes, in my dreams. Nothing very useful though. It doesn’t want to leave.” She paused. “I’m working on it.”
“By ignoring it?” Astarion asked. Rin ignored the question, which he felt rather proved his point.
“When I sang with the wind, it wanted to join in. It wanted to at Hope’s as well. I didn’t let it, either time. I think it was a bit mad about that, this time.”
“So, you completed both workings while simultaneously suppressing the kraken?” Gale asked quietly. Something in his tone made Astarion think this was not a good thing.
Rin just shrugged.
“There’s a storm chasing us,” she said.
“The kraken’s doing?” Gale asked
Rin shook her head. “No. I’d know, I think. This sounds like something else. It’s… not quite right. It was chasing us even when the wind was against it.”
They were all silent for a moment.
“Well. Fuck.” Astarion said flatly, and huffed a sigh.
“I think it’s okay.” Rin said. “We should outrun it now. You can’t even see it on the horizon so…”
“And you’re sure it’s not the kraken? If it’s not a natural storm, then…” Gale lifted his brows at her.
She chewed her lip again, before answering. “I don’t think the kraken wants to hurt me.”
Gale looked sceptical.
“I know, I know. It’s a terrifying eldritch horror and all that. But I’m starting to think it’s maybe not malicious, exactly.”
“I mean,” Astarion said, “it was drowning you, a little bit, when I last saw it.”
Rin nodded. “Yes. But…” she squirmed, focusing all her attention on her tail. “I don’t think it understands, or understood, that drowning would harm me. When I…” she hesitated for what felt like a long time, and they both kept quiet, giving her space. Astarion moved closer, sitting flush to her thigh so she could feel the weight of him. What little he had.
“When it was born,” she whispered, “I was of the opinion that drowning would be… a good thing, maybe. Safe. A peaceful thing.”
No one spoke for a while. Astarion thought of the way the kraken had cradled her, gentle and deadly, and his stomach twisted with unease.
Gale’s expression didn’t change much, just softened at the edges, thoughtful. He looked down at his hands, then at the floor. “I understand,” he said at last. “Peace can look like a great many things, when you’re already drowning.” Rin finally looked up at that, and something passed between them. It hadn’t been that long ago, that Rin herself had talked Gale out of chasing his own, somewhat more explosive, version of peace.
“I tried to drown myself in a bathtub once,” Astarion said. “It is actually quite unpleasant, I’ll have you know. Not to mention ineffective.”
Her laugh was sudden and loud.
Success.
*******
The next couple of days seemed uneventful. They played cards, and dice, and shared news from their sending stones.
Shadowheart let Rin know there had been no more spawn attacks. She’d sent word to the Selûnites, and expected help might soon arrive to fix the crystal from the Underdark temple. She also said Lae’zel was well, and on a diplomatic mission.
None of them quite believed that part. Gale said he would check the sending spells were operating properly.
Karlach told Astarion about their forays beyond the House of Hope, searching for infernal metals and working on Wyll’s combat skills, now that he could no longer rely on eldritch blasts. Astarion scoffed as he relayed her enthusiastic assessment that Wyll was ‘badass with a glaive.’
Halsin sent greetings to Gale and apparently answered a lot of questions about mushrooms for him. This was exceedingly tedious and Astarion paid almost no attention. The orphans were fine, as far as he could tell. That was nice, he supposed. For Halsin.
The sky darkened over the horizon, but whatever was there seemed still very far away, and the ship sped steadily onward, pushed by Rin’s new friend, the southerly.
At night, Astarion lay himself close to Rin’s face, so any change in her breathing would wake him. But he slept so much more deeply, as a cat, and a few times roused to find her sitting up, tail around her knees, wedged into the corner against the wall. She watched the door, intent, and waiting, through eyelids she could barely lift, fighting sleep.
She would say nothing, when he encouraged her to lay back down, or when he pressed close and purred against her chest. He wasn’t sure whether she was entirely aware, or still in a dream.
He really, really missed having hands.
So, he was greatly relieved, when the captain told them they’d make shore the following day. What could possibly go wrong, in one night?
*******
She is dreaming.
She knows this immediately, recognises the cracked glass of the ocean in her mind. It is perhaps a better dream, than the ones she’s been having – the ones with grasping hands and wicked knives. Still, she sighs, because she is tired of dreaming. Tired of being afraid.
She walks.
She is a little surprised, at the noise her boots make. She expects silence, but each step is the crunch of glass, the breaking of bones. The web of cracks that lay across the ocean like jagged lace has grown more dense, obscuring the darkness on the other side of the mirror.
She grits her teeth, and walks.
There is a low booming noise, like a heartbeat, from below. She ignores it. A soft wail of screaming men. She ignores that too.
Fuck you all, she hisses from between her teeth.
The kraken appears in front of her. It is vast, blotting out her vision with squirming black movement. She takes a step back, involuntary, but the thing is already shrinking, folding itself smaller, tentacles whipping into the void in its centre.
It stands in front of her, in the vague shape of a person. Limbs half-formed, joints bending wrong. Its skin gleams wetly, and within the shape things still writhe, pressing against the surface like trapped eels.
Look – she begins. And then stops. The shape of the kraken moves in a way that is more trembling, than flowing. It shivers with something. Excitement or fear, she cannot tell.
What will you do? It whispers, so quiet she has to strain to make out the words.
What do you mean?
When he comes. The kraken raises something like a hand, pointing up.
She looks up.
The sky is a mirror too, and it is fractured. Light splinters across the surface, illuminating something, moving on the far side. In the distance, a single crack widens, and through it falls lightning. Not a flash, but a pouring of molten, living light. It drips down in thin streams that hiss and steam when they touch the glass ocean.
Each drop leaves a crater that spreads outward, glowing like molten glass. The cracks spider faster, chasing one another toward her boots.
The screaming of men pitches higher, knives in her ears.
The kraken flinches away, drawing her attention. Then it melts, becoming a dark liquid thing, hurrying into a crack to seep into the void below.
Above, on the other side of the sky, beyond the fractured light and glass, a massive eye opens. It is so big that she is not sure how she knows it is an eye. It swirls with dark chaos and the glint of alien galaxies. It looks like a black hole in the world. It looks like the ending of all things.
It fills her with terror so intense she is sure it will shatter her bones.
It fills her with longing, that drags at the heart of her like a fishhook.
When the voice comes, it is soft, almost tender. It doesn’t come from above. It comes from inside her skull; from the place her thoughts live. The words move her tongue as they form.
Why fight what you are, little tempest?
The booming heartbeat intensifies, and she tears her gaze away from the eye. If she keeps looking, she will fall upward, into it, and be unmade. Or remade. She cannot stand beneath that eye, that sees her and through her, that burns, burns, like her own vicious white fire peeling away all the layers of her.
She is on her hands and knees.
Her own face looks back, from the mirror beneath her palms: a creature of darkness and burning light. Of rain and wind and vast coiling tentacles. Of destruction. Of death.
Her reflection grins, mouth splitting impossibly wide. The glass gives way. Hands, its hands, her hands, reach through and close around her throat.
She tries to breathe, but the scream comes first. And her reflection screams with her, radiant in its joy.
*******
She woke to screaming. Her head felt full of roaring noise, her throat was a tearing pain, and her mouth tasted of iron.
The world lurched sideways, and there was the sound of something heavy crashing into wood above her. The screaming was so loud in her ears, and the wind, and thunder. It was impossible to think.
“Rin!” Hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard. Too close. She blinked up into a pale blur of white hair and red eyes. Astarion?
He looked terrible – skin grey and slicked with sweat, eyes sunken and far too bright. “Please,” he said, voice cracking. He sounded desperate. “Please, wake –”
The ship heaved, and Astarion doubled over. Something wet and cold splattered over her neck and chest, the smell of blood filling her nostrils. He pulled back, still retching, dark blood between the fingers over his mouth. Another sharp roll of the ship sent him tumbling to the side, off the bunk.
She was still screaming. Why was she screaming? She needed to run.
“Mystra’s mercy –” hands caught her wrists as she thrashed, “Rin! You’re awake, it’s all right –”
It wasn’t.
The door burst open with a slam that rattled the hinges, and the captain appeared, lantern swinging wildly, eyes furious. Her scream caught in her throat. “No!” she gasped, fighting the hands holding her, desperate to get away. Anywhere, anywhere but this cabin with these men.
Something burned and expanded in her chest.
We can kill them all, the kraken whispered.
“What in the hells are you doing to her?!” the captain bellowed.
“Wait –”
She knew that voice, registered Gale’s face to the side. Eyes wide. What was he doing here? Why was he holding her?
The captain was lunging forward already. He seized Gale by the collar and dragged him bodily from her. Gale flailed, spluttering, trying to speak. The lantern clattered to the floor, rolling, spilling yellow light across the room. She looked down at herself – covered in blood. Astarion was a cat, hissing and spitting in the corner, as Gale struggled with the captain.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Gale yelled.
“Stop,” Rin said, her voice a raw whisper.
Too late. There was a sharp crack as the captain’s fist struck Gale’s face, flinging his head to the side. He stumbled, caught tight in the captain’s grip still, as the man dragged him to the door. “I do not tolerate abuse on my ship!” he shouted. “If you want to pick on women, you can try your luck with the Sea Bitch!”
The sound of boots and shouting vanished up the stairs. For a long moment, she sat frozen. The thunder, the rain, the yelling from above all folded into one ringing note in her ears. In her chest, the kraken squirmed, restless and eager.
Astarion materialised in the shadows. He staggered, a hand on the wall to steady himself, and pulled a dagger from somewhere. The sight of him, about to run up those stairs when he could barely walk in a straight line, cleared some of the fog of panic.
“Wait, don’t,” she said, and he turned to her even though her voice was so broken she couldn’t even hear it herself. He dissolved into a cat.
She scrambled to her feet and stumbled for the door, bracing herself against the tilting wall. The roll of the ship was definitely getting worse.
Thinking quickly, she swiped a hand through the blood on her chest and smeared it under her nose, over her mouth. She climbed the stairs and shoved the external door open.
The wind punched her as soon as she stepped onto the deck. Chaos. Rain hammered down; ropes snapped and whipped through the air. The wind shrieked like a living thing, and thunder suddenly boomed so close it felt like the sky itself was breaking apart.
He is coming. Let me out, the kraken murmured.
“Stop.” she told it.
Sailors shouted over each other, fighting to haul the sails in before the masts tore loose. A flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and she spotted the captain, pushing Gale up against the railing. Gale had a spell, glowing bright in his fist, but instead of defending himself he threw it somewhere else, into the darkness.
“Captain! It was a nightmare!” she screamed over the storm, through the pain in her throat. “It was just a nosebleed! He didn’t hurt me!”
The captain wasn’t listening. The way he was yelling and shoving at Gale, up against that railing, with the hungry ocean grasping up from below…
“Stop!” she yelled.
The captain’s hand tightened on Gale’s collar. She saw the flash of his ring against Gale’s throat. He was yelling.
The next heartbeat, she wasn’t afraid anymore.
Anger rose instead, fierce and sudden. How dare these men? How dare they make her afraid? How dare they ignore her words? How dare they hurt…
Let me… the kraken coaxed, wrapping around her, at one with the fury rising like a tide.
Her vision filled with bright white light.
*******
Astarion had already been running across the deck, paws skidding on the slick planks. Rin was screaming at the captain, but he could already see the man wasn’t going to listen. His fist was drawing back again, and Astarion bared his teeth, ready to sink them into the man’s leg if he had to. He would claw his eyes out, before he let him give Gale to the black waves below.
The ship gave another violent lurch, tilting at a sharp angle, and one of the sailors screamed. A body slid across the deck, tumbling towards the railing. Gale saw him too, flinging a hand toward the hapless idiot.
A burst of blue light sent a Mage Hand after him, catching the back of his jacket and hauling him away from the edge. At that moment, with the captain just pulling the punch, and turning his hand to see the rescue of his crewman, everything went white.
For an instant, the world vanished in the flare. Astarion threw himself down, ears flat, but the brightness pierced his closed eyes, searing through his skull
Then everything slammed back into place.
Rin stood in the centre of the deck, her hands outstretched as though she would hold the storm apart. Her shirt and hair floated slowly in the air, as if she were underwater, and all around her, all around the ship, the rain refused to fall, hanging suspended in the air.
The light spilling from her skin was so bright it turned the storm into a chiaroscuro nightmare. Every shadow sharp as a knife, every horrified expression starkly lit in white and black.
When she spoke, she didn’t sound like a person at all. Her voice was a cataclysm. It was a hurricane of thunder and violence and command, vibrating with power.
“STOP.”
The word detonated through the air and shattered the storm.
It was more than loud. It was absolute. Waves froze mid-rise and collapsed down, flattening themselves like whipped dogs. The wind cut off as if a blade had severed it. The rain hung in the air like glass beads for another second, before it all fell in a sheet, leaving behind clear, quiet air.
There was silence. Perfect, total silence, and the only movement was the faint, sinuous curl of something pale around her shoulders, like spectral arms, or coils of smoke.
Her light slowly dimmed, faint sparks of glowing white shedding away from her, fading before they hit the ground.
Then, faint and mocking, laughter echoed through the air. A low baritone. It came from nowhere, and everywhere, curling through the rigging, low and pleased.
The moment broke. The air moved again, gently, and the ship groaned as the southerly brushed across the surface of the water. The clouds parted, unconcerned, in the sky.
Rin collapsed where she stood.