Chapter Text
It was rare that the sea was ever still. Shimmery turquoise water stretched on for miles, typically lulled to sway by a warm salty breeze. Usually scattered with a dolphin or two, maybe a school of fish, or even the squawks from the flock of crossing seagulls. Yet this water remains disturbingly rigid, only reflecting the light of the spring sun with no betrayal of any signs of life.
It sinks a stone in Vi’s stomach.
“Yo Sis!” She hears, startling her from her thoughts as she turns to squint at a silhouette perched up on the beam behind her. The sun prevents her from really seeing Jinx, but it’s her all the same as she easily glides down the mast. “Whatcha doin’, slackin’ off again?”
Vi rolls her eyes. “No, I was just…taking a breather.”
Jinx drops gracefully next to her, feet thudding against the wooden paneled floor, and leans her back against the railing with her forearms relaxed on the wood banister. She’s dressed in an outfit similar to Vi’s, except it’s much cuter on her. White shirt, white pants, sailor hat tipped to the side of her head, all lined with blue trimmings. “Mmm, not entirely convincing. Your eyebrow does this like, thing, when you’re thinking too hard. Maybe you shouldn’t do that, it might give you wrinkles.”
A searing hot burst of irritation flashes through her, eye twitching as a result. Jinx stands there proudly, idly twirling a braid in her hand. “Ooooh oh, oh! I know this twitch too! That’s the twitch in your eye that you get when you get all pissy.”
“That’s it, you brat.” Vi grits out, hurling herself toward a manically giggling Jinx at full throttle. The two of them end up on the wet floorboards, tugging at each other and throwing hands wildly. They fall completely into it, full on wrestling while their sailor counterparts mill about and actually do what they’re supposed to. No one pays mind to Vi and Jinx either; it would be weirder to spot them out of their antics.
Vi manhandles her sister into a chokehold, one hand wrapped around a long braid as her mouth goes snapping near her ear. “Oh what, given up already sister ? Tap out, fucker.”
“Shut up! As if I’d give up to you!” Jinx wheezes, clawing and biting at Vi’s arm.
“Are you sure?” Vi tightens her grip, gathering more of the braid in her hand and pulling on it slowly.
“Stop, asshole! You’re gonna’ ruin my hair, and do you know how long that shit takes to braid?”
“Mmm, sorry, don’t recall caring.” Vi hums, and her sister lets out a feral screech.
“Alright, alright! You win! Let me go, you lunatic!” Jinx gasps, wriggling around in Vi’s tight vice before she finally ceases. Jinx coughs, lurching forward and slapping a hand to her chest. “Y’know, sometimes I swear you’re trying to kill me.”
“You say that after you pushed me off the bow last week.” Vi scoffs, standing up and wiping at her (once) white pants. Her uniforms are always (mostly) clean, but they definitely suffer from overuse.
“And? You deserved it. I’d do it again, bitch.” Jinx sneers.
“Why you-” Vi extends a leg out in preparation to finish what she started, but stops when Jinx throws her hands up in defense and huffs at her with an incredulous look on her face.
“You resort to anger so quickly. Anyways, that’s not why I came to bother you.” She states, her words flushing out most of the annoyance Vi was riddled with. Most, because one could never expect Jinx to actually follow through to being complacent.
“Out with it.”
“Sheesh, feisty. Dad just wanted me to check on you, is all. He’s apparently been worried about how quiet you’ve been all day, and you know what a worry wart he is.” She laughs, her gaze shifting from Vi’s and finding interest somewhere else.
It draws her own attention, following the path to find that Vander is in fact, standing on the helm, his eyes cupped very blatantly by his hands. He notices them watching and fumbles, turning away, picking up a dirtied towel to rub at the banister, totally nonchalantly.
Vi snorts, shaking her head in amusement as her shoulders soften from tension. He only sent Jinx too because he knows how much he annoys his daughter with all his pestering worry - he’s been like the moment that Vi decided to join his crusade and step foot on a ship. She would have thought that after nearly a decade aboard he would have chilled out, but Vander has always been consistent and dedicated. She admires him for that…when it’s not at her expense, of course.
Except this time the worry is well-placed. A frown stretches her lips, the tension building in her shoulders once again. Her eyes trail away to find Jinx already staring at her, waiting expectantly with an arched eyebrow. Vi sighs, raising a hand and rubbing the side of her neck in pensive thought.
“I… have a bad feeling, I guess.” Vi acquiesces, moving to lean her forearms against the banister, resuming her position from earlier where she was watching the sea. “A storm is nothing we aren’t used to, and with the conditions today I think there’s definitely one coming, just - this one feels a lot more harrowing.”
Jinx is silent as she leans up beside her, head taking purchase on Vi’s shoulder as she watches the sea with her. For once, she’s silent, a look of contemplation passing over her face while Vi’s words linger in the air. After a moment of silence she hums thoughtfully, tracing the line of wooden railing with her finger.
“You think we should tell dad to try and prepare for it?” Jinx offers, and Vi’s heart tightens in her chest. Others may gloss over her intuition or tell her she’s overreacting, but never Jinx. No, she’s been her number one supporter despite all that they’ve been through - it makes them both insane, bouncing off of each other the way that they do, but it’s right for them. Vi will always appreciate that something like their dynamic will never change. She’s grateful that she can have her sister in her life again in general, free of (most) complications.
Vi wrinkles her nose thoughtfully, turning her gaze to stare at the murky depths below the ship. So dark she wonders that if she stared hard enough, the answer would alight itself beneath the surface and liberate her from all the other thoughts thundering against her skull. Yet the depth never changes, continuing to remain as mysterious as always. All she’s given is the reflection of the boat and two little bright spots of color, blue and pink against the tide.
“Nah, he’s gonna’ do his ‘Captain's intuition is the best - don’t worry a hair on your head’ and then tell me we’re alright.” Vi mocks, tucking her arms in and resting her chin down on top. “Like I said earlier, we’ve been through plenty of storms. Nothing we haven’t survived before.”
“Mmmkay, if you say so.” Jinx hums, shrugging her shoulders. “For what it’s worth, you’re usually right, but we’ll see. Say, do you-”
Vi doesn’t see the interruption so much as she hears it, the small little thud and ‘oof’ that cuts Jinx off mid conversation. She lifts her head up and peers down to see Isha gesturing wildly at Jinx, already moving too much for her to have concentrated on what she was signing.
“You caught a what?” Jinx exclaims, excitement bursting on her features as Isha turns to Vi. She begins gesturing again, forming shapes and movements with her hands to explain her curious catch. Vi nods enthusiastically, a small smile curling on her lips as she watches the young teen wholeheartedly.
“Sure thing, kid.” Vi laughs, reaching forward to ruffle her hair. She giggles and swats away Vi’s hand, as she takes her renewed excitement to lurch forward and tug Jinx by the hand. Her sister peers at her questioningly, and Vi just shakes her head.
“We’ll talk later.” She reassures her. Jinx takes that in full stride, now willingly running with Isha across the deck, hand in hand. Vi stares fondly at the disappearing pair, a quiet breath leaving her.
She wonders what exactly Jinx wanted to discuss that got her to hesitate in the first place, considering Vi has a hard time keeping her to herself when Isha shows up. The two of them are inseparable, just like…
Just how Vi and Powder used to be.
Vi shoves that thought down, drowning it with overwhelming fondness that she feels for the both of them. As long as the two of them are thriving, safe, happy and loved, that’s all she could possibly care about. The lot of them have spent way too long dealing with demons and skeletons to continue to grieve over things that have been long dead.
Instead she decides to go bother her father on the Helm, where she catches him sharing a full belly laugh with Benzo. She’s more than delighted to join them, needing nothing more than the warmth that her family provides.
๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✩࿐࿔
Vi couldn’t sleep.
She’s tossing this way and that, stirring and constantly repositioning herself. No matter how hard she tries, this spot isn’t comfortable, and that one contorts her arm at a weird angle. She isn’t sure how much time passes while she adjusts, or how many moments she spends staring with half-lidded blurry eyes at the moon peeking through the small window.
She’s so exhausted. At some point, it becomes entirely too futile to try and fight any longer.
Vi eventually falls flat against the thin cotton mattress, arms falling over the edges as she stares at the wooden ceiling in terrible dismay. There are snores all around her, softly slumbered and drifting off to a land far beyond her own. She’s never known jealousy, so this is one hell of a moment to get to meet her.
She wants to scream, so, so badly. Maybe that would somehow tire her to sleep. Now that it’s all been robbed, she forces herself to find something else to do to occupy her time. Quietly, she lifts the thin blanket off of her and toes the wooden floorboards. She slips her feet into her shoes, and then stands up to lightly tread across the floor. Vi’s attempting her best effort in not making any sound, so every creak and groan causes her to flinch. It feels like centuries later when she pops out of the cellar door, greeted with a darkness that swallows her quickly. She pulls the lamp off the post, turning its cog to ignite a fire and use it to cast a soft glow.
She shuts the door quietly behind her, and then peers up the gigantic mast standing before her. She takes in a big breath, and begins scaling the hand rails up the side. It takes her a good minute to reach the top, and when she finally does, she’s given a fucking heart attack.
In the crow’s nest rests Ekko, fiddling with what looks like a spyglass, face cast aglow by his own little small lantern. He himself startles at Vi’s presence, nearly dropping the thing from his hands and fumbling around just to catch it.
“My gods, Vi!”
“I could say the same thing to you. What the hell are you doing up here at this hour?” She questions, clambering in while staring at him incredulously.
Ekko recuperates himself and leans his back to the wall, steadying the spyglass between his fiddling fingers. Never still, this one. Just like Jinx, always needs something to work between his hands. “Couldn’t sleep. Same as you, I’m sure.”
“Something like that.” Vi mutters, walking over and leaning against the railing beside him. She falls into her favorite activity, eyes tracked on the constellations mapped across the night sky.
“What ghosts are you tryna’ chase away?” Ekko wonders quietly, head tilted to peer at his friend. She glances back at him, a small sigh falling from her lips.
“Not any that seem willing.” Vi replies with a slowly forming frown. “Just…a lot of useless thoughts and feelings. We’re supposed to hit land in a couple hours anyways, so I guess maybe that’s enough to keep me up. Excitement, or something.”
“You don’t seem very excited to me.” Ekko snorts.
Vi purses her lips, shrugging her shoulders and toying with the ends of her frayed night shirt. “Yeah, well, we’ve spent so long out here, I guess I don’t know what to expect. I’m just prepared for the worst.”
“What an optimist you are.” Ekko grins, poking her side with his below. She huffs and swats at him, but can’t help the small smile on her lips.
“That’s our reality, isn’t it? We never know what’s coming next. Speaking of, what’s on your mind then? If it’s not our impending doom.” She jokes, in her own attempt of keeping it lighthearted. They clearly both have too much on their mind to dwell on this any more deeply than they have to.
Ekko hesitates, and his fiddling with the spyglass increases until Vi reaches out and places a comforting hand over his. He peers at her with a heavy gaze, analyzing her for something she isn’t sure he’ll find. Whatever it was he doesn’t, because he gives up with a sigh and places the spyglass on the railing beside him.
“I’ve considered leaving.”
Well, that’s not what she expected.
“And taking Jinx and Isha with me.”
Well that’s definitely not what she expected.
“What?” She replies, because how else is she supposed to react? He wants to leave? To where? They’re all with family and she doesn’t understand why he would want to. “Ekko, where is this coming from?”
Ekko pushes off the railing, crossing his arms over his chest and feet sliding across the floor. He begins slowly pacing, his face with an expression of pensive thought. “This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about it. Or ninth, for that matter. I just… I see us, I see you all, and this life - sailing, barely scraping by with expenses, never being in a place long enough to call home - it’s not a life I imagine for myself. Jinx might not say it, but… I don’t think this is a life for her to live either. I mean, look at all the trinkets she keeps making, or how she constantly talks about ‘getting back to mainland’ so she can keep working on her things. So Isha could get to see more and not just the sea for days on end.”
He stops, turning bodily toward Vi with a renewed, hardened expression. “Vander thinks it’s a good idea, too.”
Her heart beats in her chest. It thuds, harder and harder, picking up in rate, until she could feel tense anger coursing through her veins. Until it warps her expression, eyebrows cinching and her teeth clenched in her mouth. “You’ve all talked about this without me.”
“We just, didn’t know how receptive you would be-”
“About leaving. About abandoning security, being some place that I - that none of us can protect you three from. After what we’ve been through, what we’ve already seen?” Vi snaps, her anger barely restrained. Her hands tighten to fists by her sides, her anger knotting up, tightening up into a ball in her chest. “And you’re telling me this shit now?”
Vi feels it fester in her, boiling and searing as she stares Ekko down. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s attempting to keep his own cool. “I know, I just, never knew a good time and - I mean, my gods Vi, I think we’re grown enough to decide on how we take care of ourselves. You’ve done your job, you don’t need to protect us, and you don’t need to be such a big sister anymore.”
We don’t need you anymore.
His words ran a hot blade into the middle of her heart, deep and piercing until it cut all the way through. She can barely breathe around it, barely feel herself functioning outside of the loud drumming in her ears. Her vision blurs, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of anger or the intrusive tears that bubble on her waterline. Either way, it all culminates in her throat, and where she wants to find words, they bury themselves with the rest of it.
They don’t need her. They don’t need her? She’s done nothing but protect her people, her family, and now she loses that purpose? Vi has only found herself one motivation in life, something that she can pride herself in; she’s never wanted anything more than to be the reason her family gets to live to another day. It gave her a reason to live another day.
What purpose does her life have if it isn’t to be someone else's shield?
“This is all your fault. All your fault!”
She’d failed her purpose once. She wonders if maybe she isn’t as good at it as she might have convinced herself she was. She can feel her resolve crumbling, something shattering inside her, but she doesn’t cry, no. She gets angry.
Ekko recognizes her shift in expression immediately, and holds his hands up as if attempting to calm an animal. It just puts her more on edge, and she’s gritting her teeth together so hard at this point she’s sure one of them is going to crack. She can’t keep herself still, pacing, clenching and unclenching her fists - the energy is building, and it has nowhere to go. “Vi, listen-”
“No, Ekko. I’ve done enough listening. You gave me mere hours to sleep on this, and you expect me not to be pissed off? To make me fucking choose between you guys or dad-”
“Hey, whoa, no one’s making you choose anything. I-”
“You think I’m gonna’ leave you all alone? What if something happens, and-”
“Violet!” Ekko snaps, giving her enough of a shock to render her speechless. They stare at each other, Ekko appearing more irritated than she’s ever seen him - yet he remains collected, reducing her to nothing more than a cageless animal. “Are you done?”
“Am I done? You’re taking up my sister and-”
“Are you done?” He repeats, and her mouth clamps shut. Vi needs an outlet. She’s itching, and there’s so much noise in her head that she believes it might actually explode. The anger is pulsing behind her teeth, sending quivers through her body, trapped with no exit. So she finds one.
In a fit, she reels her arm back and connects fist with wooden pole, listening to the way that it cracks under her knuckles, but is nothing compared to the scream that rips from her throat. The pain that follows is pale in comparison to the ache in her chest, the one that’s left when her anger is fueled into the mast. The pain that she refuses to deal with, but it’s all she’s left with. She wants to seethe, to throw another punch, but she’s tired. So, so tired and exhausted.
When she pulls her fist away her eyes are met with a splinter in the wood; a mark of the damage that will always be there, a reminder of her anguish. She clenches her jaw, tightens her hands into fists, but relinquishes most of whatever residing anger was left. She crumbles, her knees suddenly feeling weakened and she’s forced to slide down and rest against the structure she’s just assaulted. Closing her eyes, she pays no mind to the creak of the floorboards, or the warmth of a body as it finds a place beside her.
For a moment, there’s silence. Thoughts cycle through her head, all harrowing and vindictive - but quiet. They no longer thrash against her skull to cause her ache, no longer blare in her ears. Now the deafening sound is gone, and all that’s left is the quiet creaks of a rickety ship and the splash of seawater on the hull.
When she’s finally ready she lets out a drawn out sigh, running a hand over her face and opening her eyes. They find Ekko’s in the darkness, that hold their own mirth and sorrow. “Okay.” She breathes. “Okay, go ahead.”
“We will always need you, Vi.” He begins, and that awful ache only grows. “Don’t get me wrong. We will always need you, but you’ve protected us well enough. We’ve grown up, Vi. Grown out of this sailing life, out of needing a caretaker. And I’ve always thought you needed to go out there and find yourself too. So we are leaving. Finding ourselves out there in the world? It’s our purpose. You need to find yours.”
She bites down on her tongue to prevent herself from stating that she’d already found her purpose.
“It’s not going to be easy to swallow. We know that. Once we get to Piltover, we’ll handle the last of whatever trades we’re finishing, and then we’re staying to figure out our life. And we’ll have each other to look out for one another. Maybe you should consider doing the same, especially since… Vander agrees. He thinks it’s time we all found our own paths. Just… consider it. What’s left for you to take care of?”
What’s left for you to take care of?
She isn’t sure. She doesn’t know if she ever will be.
Ekko leaves her there to think and process, but it becomes difficult with every passing second. Piltover isn’t completely unknown to her. It is the country right next to her own, but…she’s never been one to care about getting to know the places they visit. There’s thousands of thoughts swirling in her head, questions about this place of choice, what they’ll do, if they’ll actually be okay, and so forth - yet none of them are presented with a satisfying answer.
She’s never really needed an answer, Vi just knows what needs to get done and does the job. She is a doer, never been one for the path of curiosity. So when she’s forced into a position where she has to be the one to wonder, it feels like she’s been given a labyrinth to navigate. There’s no book or letter that could spell it out for her, not in a world like this. She thought she had it figured out.
She’d thought a lot of wrong things, apparently. How could she ever hope to find the path meant for her? What difference could she possibly make in her own life? Nothing is ever easy, and she’s well aware of that notion. She just desperately needs to know when it’ll stop feeling impossible.
She hardly wants to touch on the thought of Jinx not being by her side anymore. Her flesh and blood, farther than Vi’s hands could ever reach.
She supposes it’s always been that way.
Jinx is the last fleeting thought she has before exhaustion pulls her under, right beneath the twinkling starry skies, shining brighter than they ever have before in a spot she's always oddly found comfortable to fall asleep in.
๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✩࿐࿔
Vi startles awake at the splash of water on her face. Anger fills her immediately on the assumption that Vander came up there and dumped a bucket of water on her head again, only to realize that it’s rain.
Heavy rain. An onslaught that’s too much for any old regular storm. Her stomach plummets, fear draining warmth faster than the whipping cold rain splattering against her face and body. She hears shouting from down below, and then a crack of thunder that booms deafeningly loud in her ears. She hisses, clutching at them as she watches a bolt of lightning flash too close for comfort, with another thunderous roar from the sky.
They’ve been through storms before. Living on the sea came with those parameters, so her movements are practiced as she snaps to her feet and hastily undoes the clasps holding the sail together. This storm had to have moved in suddenly, because she can audibly hear how hard her fellow sailors are working to prepare their ship for the worst of this storm.
So this should be easy. It’s another storm surge, she keeps telling herself. So why is it that her whole being is blaring with alarms as if they’d never been through this before? She’s never felt a surge like this through her own self, to her very soul, shaking her not from the cold, but with every nerve alight.
She couldn’t get down the mast faster. She doesn’t even climb down, just grips the sides of the railing and sails down rapidly. Her shoes slosh onto the wet ground, losing no time and sprinting across the deck as crewmates rush around her. With a fleeting panic she searches for anyone, somebody to figure out the rundown, and spots Vander at the wheel and arduously working to keep the ship under control. His booming voice carries over the howling winds and barrage of rainwater, working a ship and its crew with an ease that she’s always admired him for.
He spots her as she runs up, and knows his answer before she even asks her question. “Jinx is with Isha in the cellar watching for leaks, Ekko is with Mylo battening down the hatches, and I need you to secure and drop sails. Now!”
Vi moves faster than she ever has in her life. She does this despite the way anxiety grips her by the throat, the way that her heart threatens to burst out of her chest, or how her stomach holds an unbearable weight. Everything is normal right now, and they’re proceeding the way they should be, yet… anxiety lingers as an oppressive haunting shadow over her shoulder. Waiting. Just waiting. For what, she isn’t sure she wants to find out.
Vi is abruptly flung from her spot when a particularly high wave hits the side of the ship, nearly capsizing the entire thing right then. She rolls until she hits the wooden railing of the ship with a devastating slam that takes all the breath from her lungs. She wheezes, clutching her chest and falling to her hands and knees as the ship rocks back toward the other side. There are terrorized screams and shouts of various crewmates being flung around like ragdolls, so terribly overwhelming that she nearly misses the sight of someone’s hand just barely holding onto the banister.
“Shit!” She curses, forcing herself to breathe through it and scrambling to her feet to assist. She practically hurls herself against the edge, tossing her arms over to grip the man by his shirt and haul him back onto the ship with a strained yell. It ends up being Mylo, who lays on the floor with his eyes shut tight and panting heavily.
“I need a minute,” He wheezes. Vi grits her teeth, refusing to allow him a moment of rest and dragging him to his feet the same way she got him back on the boat.
“No the fuck you don’t. Go down and help Jinx!” She orders. He glares at her but listens regardless, traversing like a baby deer across the unstable deck back down to the cellars. She doesn’t get a moment of reprieve as the boat is tossed by another unforgiving wave, but this time she braces herself and grips the banister to keep from falling over.
The hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise. She hears it before she sees it, the most head-splitting and thunderous crackle of lightning like an explosion in her ears. She clutches them in agony, only to jolt back when the lightning strikes the boat and sends wood and board flying everywhere.
It splinters the mainmast, breaks off bits of railing holding the sails, and sets the other half of sails on fire. Falling and flying debris hit several men, and Vi watches in horror as one completely takes out a crew member off of the boat and into the dark depths of the sea, never to be seen again. The scream that tears from her throat will never amount to the agony that wrenches in her chest, the anguish that holds her captive.
Move. You have to move!
She gathers her whits and pushes sopping hair out of her face, eyes tracking her next objective as the storm rampages. She spots a man trapped underneath a piece of debris, and she’s barely able to run over as the ship is tossed by another monstrous wave. She manages to keep her balance through it and run over to aid him, using every bit of raw power and adrenaline that she has to lift the massive piece of wood and hurl it in a different direction.
“Cellar, now!” She barks at him, and he barely spares her a glance as he follows her orders and rushes to the cellar of the boat. She glances up at Vander, whose face appears openly ashen and distraught. It’s unusual from his typical calm facade, so she follows his line of sight to the front of the boat.
Things could not possibly grow worse.
Rocks. Sharp, protruding, gigantic rocks climbing steadily toward them, previously shrouded by the onslaught of precipitation.
They’re not going to make it.
“Vi!” She hears, snapping her head to see Ekko hardly able to move toward her on staggering feet, clutching at his side. She sees blood. A lot of it. “Vi! Vander’s a fucking lunatic, he’s gonna’ steer through it! He wants everyone to get to the bottom cellar!”
Vi shakes her head vigorously, clenching her fists by her side. “There’s no way he can manage everything on his own, I’m gonna’ stay here and help him. You need to go down and stay safe and out of this.”
“You’re gonna’ get yourself killed! Vi, c’mon man-” He’s interrupted when they’re lurched viciously to the side, nearly missing the mainmast as he grips it to keep himself steady with a pained grunt.
“Ekko, get the fuck out of here!” Vi screeches, and he glares at her, stubborn with his feet planted, until she physically has to push him in the direction of the cellar. With no choice but to keep moving in that direction, he disappears through the door as another bolt of lightning strikes another part of the ship. Farther from her, but splinters and cracks the ship all the same and sets a fire even the rain has trouble putting out. It doesn’t take longer than a few minutes, but Vi rushes around securing what she can, even as she’s barely able to cling to the ship with how unrelenting the sea is.
Vi catches movement out of the corner of her eye. When she whips her head around to acknowledge it, she notices that one side of a sail is still loosely bound with rope, as if abandoned in the middle of its undoing. A shudder runs through her, a terrible chill that she knows has nothing to do with the nightmare of a storm. She doesn’t want to dwell on it any longer, especially since she’s wasting precious seconds that could be the difference in whether they arrive alive or not.
She has no time to climb the mast’s railing. Instead, she judges the distance from the ground to the bottom sail, deems it a suitable distance, and lowers her body slightly with her arms extended. She launches up, fingers narrowly managing to get a decent enough grip on the sail. She takes a deep breath, and hauls herself up with a groan, her right arms muscles straining with effort. She feels the burn, but powers through it, until she can reach her other hand up and tug herself on top completely.
“-Vi, Violet!” She catches through the whipping wind, her gaze snapping down to see Vander waving with blatant panic written on his features, one hand still gripping the wheel. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so…terrified. He’s someone who’s always made it out to have such a calm and focused demeanor, so to see him this frantic is jarring.
“I can’t- I can’t hear you!” She shouts back, only able to really try and squint to make out what Vander is saying to her. It’s almost like… like he’s saying -
The blood that drains from her is enough of a realization that she’s going to have to move a little quicker.
She picks up haste, maneuvering quickly and carefully on the thin sail beam. She has to get closer to the edge, so she scoots forward without any hesitation. She knows the minute she falls prey to her anxiety, the second she stops to quell the beating of her heart, it could spell the end for her.
The wind is unkind as it pushes and threatens her, no matter how steady her feet are. She speeds it up, jumping off one foot to grasp the end of the rope and yoinking on it, and as she does she loses footing, traction being lost on such a narrow piece of wood, barely the width of her forearm. The rope is somehow enough to keep her from losing her balance completely, so she rights herself and tosses her other hand up to completely loosen the rope.
She thinks she hears her dad’s screams. A distant shout, too easily blended with the deafening howl of the wind and torrential downpour. She’s not able to take much away after the sail begins to drop, because in a moment of nothing, of this strange stillness, there’s just space. She’s done it, right? They all have to make it back now, she’s just increased their chances exponentially.
Vi never finds out.
A wave, massive, bigger than anything she’s ever seen in her life, had crept up behind her, taking the place of the haunting shadow. She’s hardly got a tilt of her head moved to really capture it for the monstrosity it is, because it smacks the bow and bursts over the entire ship, snatching her into its grasp and delivering her directly into the treacherous depths of a dark sea.
It doesn’t end. A current drags her through ravenous waters, pulling her through rock and stone that she is unable to defend herself against. Her body has become a ragdoll to the ocean, cracking ribs on jagged rocks and lacerating several parts of her body. She has enough of a conscience to brace herself for impacts, and narrowly dodges a jutted edge that would definitely have pierced her had she not been on a pure adrenaline kick to keep fighting despite her rapidly weakening body.
Another wave drags her underneath once more, one that she emerges from a lot quicker than before. Desperately she attempts to grasp at any rock, needing to slow down or even naively hoping for some kind of refuge from this hell. Her hands aren’t able to grip anything, too slippery to grasp onto, but exceptionally sharp and detrimental to her hands. She’s gained more in bloodied palms than she has even found a thread of a possibility she might actually make it out alive.
She’s terrified. Every moment that leads up to this one pales in comparison to the pain and terror she’s dealing with. Each time she was dragged under, slammed into another rock, or violently pulled in various directions, she is instilled with the realization that her life is seeping out from her rapidly and there was nothing she could do about it.
She could only embody the fear and the cold. So, terribly, deeply cold. She couldn’t feel her fingers, no matter how much she ached to move them. Her knees wouldn’t bend, and - her breath was stolen.
Vi was hurting.
Everywhere.
Time had vanished. There was nothing left for her, except succumbing to a means to an end. She finds complete silence and riddance of her pain when the next tug smacks her head against a sharp rock, and most consciousness is ripped from her.
Right before she loses her edge entirely, she hears a voice. An accented one, rich and soothing, something she's heard but she couldn't quite put a finger on. A voice that's haunted her conscious before, every time right before something goes amiss, like a beacon amidst the dark.
“Don't give up, Violet.” She hears. “Keep fighting.”
Then the world stops, anguish sinking with her.