Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Gods have mercy…”

“Slow breaths. In, then out.” 

Wuk Lamat is slumped in her seat at the back of the cabin, braced against her roiling stomach. Nazarene sits at her side, one hand on the Third Promise’s back and another on her clammy arm. An impromptu storm has been tossing their boat like a toy for nearly a bell now, casting unease over the whole crew — Wuk Lamat especially. As her noises of discomfort seem to die down, Nazarene offers a smile. “There, now. Any better?” She asks.

“Any better? Hah, more like, n-never better… ulp!” Wuk Lamat can barely string a sentence as her hand raises to her mouth. The hue of Nazarene’s smile changes from patience to pity, gripping the young warrior’s hand as she fights to keep her food down. Erenville said it himself, prior to boarding, that this would be no pleasure cruise. But Nazarene didn’t think it would mean playing babysitter for the entire duration; and not just to Wuk Lamat, but to her cloudkin as well. She looks to the opposite side, where her puffin companion, Tug, resides in an enclosed cage. Despite spirited caws and attentive growls, his ruffled feathers and trembling figure betray such feigned confidence. It must be the spitting image of how Nazarene looked some decade ago, crossing the sea from Othard to Eorzea for the very first time.

Thunder drums against walls of the cabin, and Wuk Lamat sighs, planting her pale face in her palm. “Ugh, this is so embarrassing,” she mutters. “I pray you think no less of me, Nazarene.”

“Not at all. Seasickness discriminates not with its victims. To be honest, it’s a miracle I am not in your same state right now.”

Wuk Lamat lifts her head to look at Nazarene. “You…you get seasick, too?”

Nazarene just nods, silently recounting every time the sea had stolen her strength and sustenance before. The mildest of turbulence was enough to aggravate her stomach, constantly earning jeers and jabs from fellow adventurers, all with stronger sea legs than her. Even now, after everything she’s endured, no mode of transportation makes her near as ill…  So how am I unbothered amidst this current tempest? Mayhaps her fluctuating hormones have flipped the odds in her favor. Or, more likely, the sight of one in a poorer state forces Nazarene to ignore her own ailments, so they might both survive the voyage. 

Wuk Lamat’s face sees a brief light of reassurance, only to clear her throat and sit up a bit straighter. “I-I mean, that’s a shame to hear, really,” she says, her voice wooden as she attempts to hold it together. “Seasickness such as this is… very rare for me.”

“Pfft."

The hrothgar’s ears prick at the sound of a scoff, and she turns towards the likely culprit — Erenville. He steals a glance in the two’s direction, a sardonic smirk upon his face, before resuming his conversation with the Leveilleur twins. Wuk Lamat just groans, baring her sharpened teeth. “If I may be so bold, Nazarene, I struggle to find what you see in Erenville. Even as a kid, he’s always been so… I don’t know, prickly.”

Nazarene’s smile fades. Isn’t such a question normally the other way around? “Well, that’s…” Still rubbing Wuk Lamat’s back, she steals her own glance at her lover, locked in a never-ending round of questioning with the twins as they drew nearer to his homeland. She can see the exhaustion weighing on his shoulders and eyelids; a vulnerability that she’d come to find rather endearing. “He is… off-putting at times, sure. But with patience, there’s a rather tender heart under all those toughened layers.” She shrugs. “Kind of like an onion.”

Wuk Lamat looses a scoff of her own, shaking her head. “Please. If anything, he’s less an onion and more a hard-boiled egg.”

There’s a sharp crack in the air, and the very next second, the cabin is turned sideways. Bodies and chairs are sent tumbling; Nazarene just barely grabs Tug’s cage before it could crash against the wall. She, however, is spared no such luck; Wuk Lamat’s muscular frame slams into her, ripping the air from Nazarene’s lungs. By the Twelve, what is happening out there? 

“We’re in the teeth of it now, lads! Reef that sail afore the mast snaps!” Shouts can be heard from the crew outside, and Wuk Lamat shudders as she pulls herself upright. “Seriously? I was just starting to feel better…” 

“Nazarene!” In a trice, Erenville is there, taking the cage from Nazarene’s hands as he kneels at her side. “My love, are you all right?”

“I-I’m fine.” Nazarene coughs, the swaying balance of the cabin testing her senses. She reclaims Tug’s cage to assess the shaking ball of feathers within before casting a look around the cabin. “What about you all? Is anyone hurt?”

“No, thankfully. But by the sounds of it, this storm is—”

A scream from above deck slices Erenville’s words, followed by more shouts of panic. “Man fallen off the mast! We need help!”

That last word, help, triggers something within the room’s seasoned adventurers — as one could only imagine. “Come, we should lend what aid we can!” Alphinaud cries as he grabs his sister’s wrist, bolting up the stairs and into the blistering winds. Krile helps Wuk Lamat to her feet to follow, and Nazarene takes a steady breath, calmly stowing Tug’s cage underneath the back wall’s benches, so to avoid having him thrown across the cabin a second time. Tug just grunts at his owner, confused more than anything, to which Nazarene smiles at him. “Stay calm, little one. It’ll be over before you know it.” 

Meanwhile, Erenville brushes his hair from his face and straightens his back, raising his voice towards the others around him. “Alright, listen up! By the sounds of it, we’re going to need as many hands on deck as we can.” He climbs atop the cabin’s bar counter, drawing all eyes. “Anyone able to stand against these gales, ready yourselves for the worst!” This is a side of Erenville that Nazarene doesn’t usually get to see; no doubt a side he’d developed from countless journeys with his guildship. However, even if his stance is stern, the fear in those golden eyes suggests that an emergency of this level must be rare, even to him. 

“You there, follow the Leveilleur twins, help them get the vulnerable below deck as fast as possible. And you — see to it that every sail is reefed, immediately.” Erenville assigns every individual a task before sending them up the stairs, until only two lalafell remain in their company. “Didina, Gigimolu, you two ought to stay here and keep the cabin secure.” He hops down from the counter. “The last thing we need is the crew coming back to a mess of broken glass. Understood?”

Gigimolu nods; Didina nods as well, though her whole body shakes, from her boots to her rosy topknot. Nazarene’s hands tighten into fists, watching the poor gleaner have to be physically reassured by Gigimolu before she could start moving. For every fearful face on this ship, the Warrior of Light would rise to the occasion with that much more strength. She needs no order from Erenville; memories of Leviathan rising to the surface, she knows exactly how to secure a ship of this size. 

She strides towards the staircase, where a cascade of rainwater spills down to pool at her boots, lightning scarring the blackened cloudscape above. A stray blast of wind hits her face, and she pins her ears instinctively. It’s no wonder there’s panic abound; this is the very definition of a storm. What’s a storm to a savior, though? There’s no time to waste. 

But before she can take another step, Erenville’s hand grips her shoulder, pulling her backward. “You stay here,” he says.

“No.” Nazarene immediately shrugs him off. “They’re going to need help with the aetheric barrier.”

“Listen to me, Nazarene, this is no ordinary tempest. Any example I’d given of the sea’s behaviors before, this is worse — worse than anything even I’ve seen.”

“So I’m to do nothing? I’m the Warrior of Light, need I remind you — if anything, you’re the one who needs to stay behind!”

“Warrior or not, such violent tides are no place for someone in your condition!” Erenville barks, clenching his teeth. “And I’ll not risk anything happening to—”

A chilling screech pierces the air, and both their heads swivel toward the sound. Through the choked view of the torrent above, a body is flung helplessly towards the railings, and Nazarene’s heart skips a beat. Alisaie?! The young elezen shouts in frustration, unable to grab hold of anything as the winds drag her along — but just before she could disappear overboard, there’s a blue blur and a collision, their bodies hitting the deck with a splashing thud. Alphinaud…! Just as fast as she’d been swept up, Alisaie is now safe and sound, her brother fighting against the gales to bring her back to her feet. This had all happened in merely a second — and in that second, what had Nazarene been doing? Just standing there. One second too long.

Without another word, Nazarene pushes past Erenville, disappearing between blinding sheets of rain before he can get another word in edgewise. “Godsdammit…!” he hisses, starting after her, but ultimately getting roped into helping a crewmate with the emergency lanterns. The wind and water batters his senses from every direction, and as much as he tries to keep an eye out, it takes all his concentration to not breathe in buckets of rain, let alone to assist the crew in making sure nothing — no one — is lost to the sea. 

“There,” he says, powering on the last of the lanterns. The sailor next to him groans in partial relief, partial exhaustion. “Yer a godsend, Erenville. Now get yerself below deck before Llymlaen swallows ye whole!”

“You go on ahead.” Erenville raises a hand to shield his eyes from the rain, peering across the deck. “I still need to—”

A furious clap of thunder rattles his bones, sending the sailor running. Snarling, Erenville shakes his waterlogged head and coughs, a burst of wind suffocating his airways. Seven hells, this squall is getting worse by the minute. The sights might be clearer if I—

In that moment, the air begins to crackle, a telltale sign of lightning. But this was to be no ordinary strike, not by the way it brought every single hair on Erenville’s ears and neck to stand on end. Looking to the sky, he sees the veins of levin pulsing within the clouds, and as the static intensifies, his heart leaps into his throat. With a mast as tall as ours, that bolt will surely… He freezes in place, deafened to the cries of his peers urging him to take cover. Realization glues his boots to the ground, hands trembling.

By the gods, this is where it ends. Everything we’ve done, it… it wasn’t enough.

His eyes glaze over, unable to do anything but wait to join Ketenramm in a watery grave. But before that can happen, a tinny whirr vibrates the deck under his feet, forcing him back to the present. Wait, what is—?

“Dammit, lad, get down here!” An arm yanks Erenville down the steps and out of the rain. “What are ya, suicidal?!”

As the Shetona’s eyes adjust, he’s met with several sailors crowded around the stairs to the cabin. But none seem to notice him, all looking past with fingers pointed. That whirr grows sharper, and Erenville turns back around to see the ship’s aetheric barrier deployed, rain pounding against it with the rage of a vidraal. Even still, it’s too dark to see more than five ilms ahead — at least, not until an earsplitting crash summons a monstrous bolt of lightning, the surrounding sky now a blinding sheet of white. Through squinted lids, Erenville’s eyes catch a silhouetted figure near the bow of the ship — the only other figure still out on the decks, next to the helmsman — in defiance of the surrounding cataclysm. And if his heart wasn’t pounding before, it’s now a rapid-fire blast against his ribcage.

There she is. 

The Warrior of Light’s face is completely lost in the darkness, and every spidering strike of levin distorts her silhouette further. She’s towering, titanic, unimitable. Erenville’s lips part in awe, quivering as they mouth silent words. That’s… her? 

“Our skins are saved! Let’s hear it for th’ Champion of Eorzea!” A voice cries out behind Erenville, encouraging a wave of uproarious cheers and chatters to fill the air promptly after.

“I had half a mind to think her mad when she rushed up like that. Forgot the bloody generator was even up there!”

“Naw, mad would be th’ bloke who tried to talk ‘er out of it in the first place. Overheard it meself! What a fool, aye?”

Erenville’s eyes are still locked towards the bow, Nazarene still poised as if to physically block any incoming threats to the helmsman. The words of his peers are not lost on him, though. What a fool. How long had he known Nazarene as the realm-renowned Warrior of Light? How many times had he shared the same room with her legendary weaponry, or bore witness to her supernatural reflexes? Every nail-biting story, every off-handed mention of a god slain here, an eikon felled there? So why, only just now, has the true nature of her strength become so real to him? The quiver in his lips spreads to his whole body, quite literally shaking like a leaf in the rain. 

This is real. She is real. And she is terrifying. 

…

The bulk of the storm takes its leave soon after, and exhaustion hits the vessel’s passengers like a big, wet hammer. While some strip down to underclothes, desperate to escape their soaked garments, others seek comfort in lit candles and libation. A select few merely drop to the floor of the cabin and promptly pass out, the lack of wind and rain being the only comfort they needed. Erenville remained awake for quite a while, only able to sleep well after the winds outside had calmed down — and when his eyes open again, thin strips of sunlight are already peeking through the cabin’s windows, illuminating the serenity before him. 

Everyone’s still asleep… no surprise there. Last night was excruciating. His eyes flit to his side, where a few fulms away, Nazarene is deep in slumber. For you especially. 

Even as every other soul bore a smile on their face, Nazarene remained in a state of stoic vigilance all night. A state that Erenville referred to as her “shut-down state”; one where he knew not to expect a single word out of her. She simply sat at the back of the cabin, keeping a leery eye out whilst cradling an overstimulated Tug within her lap. The two of them now slept soundly, curled into one another like mother and son. The corners of Erenville’s mouth are tempted into a smile by the expression upon her face; eyes are shut tight, her chest rising and falling with a rhythm synchronous to the waves outside. This gentle, generous soul is the same supernatural being that averted their ship from disaster… somehow. 

No one called your name, yet you threw yourself into the thick of it. It must take years of experience to make such swift decisions. Not on invitation, but on instinct. What an extraordinary life you’ve lived… As Erenville’s smile deepens, a pang tightens in his chest. And here I am, still trying to deny that part of you.

One of his sable ears swivels towards the window; outside, the faint cries of seabirds. We’re drawing close to land. Sooner than he’d expected, and at the same time, not soon enough. Looking back to Nazarene, he quietly scooches closer to her, just close enough to gently rest his head on her shoulders. It wakes her not, and the feeling of her weight against his own sends a wash of relief over his body. One last moment of peace, of truly feeling in control of their situation. Because once they set foot on Turali soil, all predictability will vanish.Nazarene Forge, you are the strongest person I know. But please… Erenville lifts his face just enough to plant a kiss to Nazarene’s cheek, his lips moving just enough to send a whisper towards her ear. “From this day forward, let me become your strength.” A plea so soft, only the two lovers and the gods above could hear — and that’s enough for him. His eyelids droop as he leans into Nazarene, indulging in a few more minutes of sleep.