[Hollow Sea] In the Deep End (Areia)

[Pyrre Ej'qy]

2 Vhalar 722

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- Port Diablo

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Pyrre was in a mood.

Although not unusual, this particular mood was darker and meaner, employing thick black claws to drag him deeper into the disconsolate abyss it sprouted from. It seized him wholly and drummed up every horrible and dark thought that had passed through his conscious mind since he had become fully aware of his leg-less situation. Being as hungover as he was certainly didn't help.

Since that fateful experience with Chrien, Pyrre's moods tended to vacillate between an all consuming and agonising numb of hopelessness and the stomach churning bitterness of his loathing. Today, however, it was a different kind of numbness. A quiet one, mind suffocated and subdued by the blackness that wound its way around him like a serpent.

The previous day's monumental event that saw the sky snuffed out had wrecked him mentally and spiritually; losing that connection from U’frek, Tried and Xiur during such an important day to the Biqaj had been shattering and the effects were evident as he moved slowly about his cabin, legs and mind feeling like they were covered with sludge. He was a husk, his soul dry and empty, yet there was a strange sense of peace to this hollowness that paused the racing of his mind. It was oddly trance-like.

Defeated and bereft in every sense of the word, a drunken thought from the previous evening held firm at the forefront of his mind, as if it were the only thought allowed to pass through the possessive blackness that consumed him, body and soul.

He needed to leave.

No, more than that.

He needed to be gone.

He needed to disappear.

He needed to cease to exist.

What else was there for him now? He was useless as a Biqaj - no longer whole, how could he ever sail again? And then it felt like even U’frek had forsaken him. Had the Immortal not simply stood by while Chrien ruined him and then withdrew His presence during Taj’thara? Pyrre did not need any more signs to be convinced - he knew there was no hope for him. Why prolong things further? Fuck Chrien and her desire to see him suffer.

There was no need to prepare for what he was about to do or for where he was about to go.

A break passed, perhaps several - Pyrre was in such a state that time both stilled and flew. It did not matter, though, none of it did. All that mattered was that he would finally have his peace: he would finally right the wrong that saw him survive what happened in the frigid waters of Synnefa Bay.

The suffocating black haze he found himself in sucked the colour from his surroundings as he emerged from the belly of his sloop. First, he raised anchor and then limped across the deck towards the portside where the ship sat broadside to the pier it was moored at, mooring hook hanging loosely in his free left hand. He swung it mechanically towards the first mooring pilon and, after five attempts, loosened the lines. He felt the ship buck.

It wanted to be free.

The second set of mooring lines were freed shortly after. Seating himself on the edge of the deck, he used his crutch to push the ship away and into the current of the deep waters of the port.

Like a leaf floating down a stream, the ship drifted lazily upon the current, mooring lines following behind like two weaving tails. Pyrre offered no guidance in its course, took no active part in its movements, simply sat there, glazed gaze cast off towards the distant horizon yet seeing nothing.

A bell rang and shouts followed.

He had drifted dangerously near a large cog and her crew let it be known. Pyrre did not care. The Shiver could crash into the large vessel and he would welcome it since it would hasten the process of seeing both himself and his equally accursed ship to a watery grave.

Something sailed past his shoulder. It caused the collar of his shirt to wave.

He ignored it all.

The sloop narrowly missed the cog and continued to drift. It was obvious to anyone who might look upon the strange movements of the loosened vessel that the Shiver was not ready to sail: her mainsail remained furled and lashed tight to the boom, jib missing - likely still stashed away somewhere in the hold. It was a pitiful looking thing, the wood splintered and ruined in places from where Chrien had undoubtedly lashed out at it and the bowsprit remained broken, snapped in two with the far end hanging on only by the grace of the lines that ran along it. It was just as sad and battered and broken as the lonesome Biqaj that occupied it.

- the Hollow Sea

Somehow, the sloop made it through the mouth of Port Diablo and into the Hollow Sea. Perhaps it was Chrien who saw the ship find its way, the Seascourge so set on ensuring the only harm that came to the Biqaj be that which wasn’t fatal. Or perhaps U’frek lent a hand in the ship’s wayward navigation, not as absent from the Biqaj’s life as he thought. More likely yet was that Port Diablo was an easier port to navigate. Or, perhaps, in some strange twist of events, luck - of all things - was involved.

Here, on the vast waters of the open water, the ship’s course stuttered. It was a calm day, bright and clear and still, with air so heavy it foretold of coming storms. The ship rocked gently, languidly, to and fro yet did not advance beyond a certain point. Sailor’s called it being becalmed.

Pyrre swept his deep, fathomless purple eyes over the placid scene before him, registering little in his current dolorous state, and limped stiffly back down into his cabin. There, he found a bottle of horribly cheap rum that remained from his Taj'thara celebrations and dragged it back above deck with him. Settling down once more, this time with his legs on either side of the broken bowsprit, he necked a portion of the rum and felt alive for the first time the entire trial.

It was a short-lived bit of fire that went out once the burn passed and he lowered himself onto his back, eyes shutting as he waited for the inevitable.

[Areia]

2nd Vhalar, 722.
The Hollow Sea.

Areia was starving. She had gotten so distracted by the sky-darkness, the darkness that had shrouded the sky the day before, that she had not gotten to devour one fish.

When she had seen that the sky was dark, she had gone straight out to sea. She had spent the long, dark day swimming straight out, toward the Sovor'n grounds.

She had needed to get to the Sovor'n grounds because of the sky-darkness. It had not been a time to be wary, to wait for the sky-darkness to disappear. This was because, should the sky be dark through this season ~the reaping season~ like it was in the dark season, the Sovor'n grounds ~and all of the grounds of the Hollow sea~ would be in dire straits. Because of this, Areia had needed to swim to the Sovor'n grounds, now, with no waiting.

Because of this, Areia had gone to sleep starving. She had gone to sleep starving, too, because she had swum so long and so determinedly toward the Sovor'n grounds through the long, dark day.

In the morning, Areia woke to her starving stomach~ but, in the morning, she woke to light.

Though her stomach was starving, she luxuriated in the light for long moments. She breathed out long, deep breaths that the sky-darkness was gone.

She luxuriated too, in time. Because the sky-darkness was gone, she did not need to get to the Sovor'n grounds before the darkness devastated them. Because of this, there was time to devour fish.

The fish were behaving warily ~they were wary after the darkness of the day before~ and so it was difficult for Areia to devour them. Swimming to one of the low ridges of rock in this locale, Areia stuck her arm into a hole in the rocks, her arm going into the rocks to the shoulder~ but, she was rewarded only by being stung by some sort of stinging fish in the hidey hole.

Sticking her stung fingers into her mouth, Areia hissed to herself. She had not been wary of stinging fish, and so she had been stung.

But, she was starving!

Areia thought of sticking her arm into a different hole in the rocks. If the stinging fish were in the hole she had stuck her arm in, they might not be in a different hole. But, right before she stuck her arm in, she thought, No, I am being unwary. There might be stinging fish in both holes~ this ridge of rocks might be a ridge of stinging fish.

Grumbling to herself about her stung fingers and her grumbling, starving stomach ~grumbling too about the stinging fish~ Areia swam from the ridge of rocks to a different ridge of rocks. But, the fish in the different ridge of rocks had been warned by the disgruntled whispering of the stinging fish, and the fish ~stinging or not-stinging~ in the different ridge were wary. They hid in their holes in the rocks, whispering to the other fish in warning. Because they whispered in their little stinging voices, Areia knew that the fish in the different ridge, too, were stinging fish.

Areia grumbled!

Starving, Areia swam away from the ridges of rocks.

If she was not able to devour the stinging fish in the ridges of rocks, she would devour different fish, in different ridges. Areia swam up from the ridges of rocks, up to the upper waters where there were no ridges~ where there were no ridges to whisper. Areia would swim a distance up in the upper waters. When she had some distance, she would swim down to a different ridge of rocks~ a ridge of rocks that did not whisper, and was not warned of her devouring hands.

It was as Areia was swimming up that she saw the ship, dead in the waters. She was immediately interested in the dead ship.

Areia was starving, but a dead ship was of too much interest to swim by, and so she swam to the dead ship. By the dead ship she scented the waters, and not scenting much of interest ~the dead ship's scent was of wood and other land materials~ she touched one pointed hand to the dead ship's underside.

Areia went dead still in the water, like the ship, and listened to the dead ship's low vibrations through her pointed hand.

Other than the wood's low grumbling ~ships, whether they were dead or living, groaned and grumbled without stop~ there were no vibrations in the wood. Areia listened to the vibrations for long moments, making sure to listen warily, and thought that if the ship had men on it, the men did not vibrate the wood. If the ship had men on it, the men were likely dying, or dead.

Areia was very interested in the dead ship and its dead men.

The dead ship would be hers, Areia thought~ it was lucky to discover a dead ship, and it was very lucky to discover dead men in the midst of the sea. She would send the dead ship down to the depths. The dead ship's spoils would be hers too, and the dead men.

Areia would not be starving, because of the dead men!

Areia touched one pointed hand one more time to the side of the dead ship. There was no movement on the dead ship, no vibrations of men and their movements~ the ship and the men on the ship were definitely dying, or dead. With that, Areia dove down, deep, deep into the waters. She dove down so deeply into the waters that the stinging fish ~who had gone out of their holes when she was gone~ began whispering disgruntledly and went back into their hidey holes.

Deep in the waters, Areia breathed deeply. Then, when she had breathed, she began to swim~ up. Areia shot through the waters, the gradient of the waters going by her~ the deep darkness of the lower waters going to the lightness of the upper waters going to the burning brightness of the upcoming sky. Going through the gradient, Areia gathered all her speed and with one more, strong stroke she shot herself upward into the sky. With speed, she shot out of the water~ she shot straight up the side of the dead ship.

She had not done this before ~she had not boarded a dead ship~ so when she shot out of the water she went with speed, not with subtlety. The ship was dead~ subtlety was not what she needed to board it. She hit the side of the ship with her side, and the sting of the wood hurt her side like the sting of the stinging fish. But there was no stopping~ she shot up the side of the ship.

In the air, Areia shot her arms out. Without subtlety, she grabbed the side of the ship where there was something to grab. She didn't know what of the dead ship she grabbed, but she grabbed it. She was no longer shooting up the side of the ship, and she would go back into the waters without her speed holding her up. Grabbing at the ship in a panic, Areia dug her pointed hands ~though the stung one hurt~ into the dead ship's wood. Slipping and sliding and shimmying her way up, her pointed hands digging into the dead ship's wood, Areia gave one more, strong shove~

and shimmied her way onto the ship's deck.

She was not able to breathe up on the ship, so she did not wait. Smiling a pointed smile, Areia looked at the dead ship, luxuriating in having shot her way up its side~ luxuriating, too, in the dead ship's spoils.

It was then that she saw the man lying on the deck of the dead ship.

But the man she saw was not a dead man.

Notes~
The sky-darkness is the event Always, on the 1st... Link.

[Pyrre Ej'qy]

Time felt as suspended as his ship and the lull only aided Pyrre in entering a state of listlessness, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. It was easy to find this inbetween realm of hypnagogia that skirted actual slumber; his body and mind were exhausted from his existence - from the events that shook him the day before, allowing the tendrils of numbness to to take hold and drag him down deep into such a place. He did not know how long he remained where he was, laid out on his back with a hand resting loosely around his bottle of rum. It did not matter, after all.

Here, his mind drifted yet his thoughts were muted and murky, numerous and yet ill-formed visual bits and pieces jettisoning through his hazy consciousness. Some took on more defined features - dark things lurking in the periphery of his mind’s eye - but most were mixed and muddled flashes.

The inky lurkers grew more pointed as their forms slowly became more articulated, shifting like shadows along the edges of his mind. Slowly, slowly, they grew and lengthened, flickering until one lashed out.

Inwardly, he flinched yet his body was seized in a type of torpor and remained still despite his desperate need to move. To evade. To open his eyes.

He heard a cry in the back of his mind, chilling and hitching at the end of what was said.

It was his mother’s voice.

It was his name she shrieked.

A splash rang out somewhere off to the side of the ship and the Biqaj launched himself back into the present, vivid emerald eyes flashing open as he was left gasping, chest clenched and body wound tight.

He heard a soft, wet thud behind him, followed by a clawing, scratching noise and an even more pronounced thud.

Pyrre’s heart lurched into his throat and fear gripped him, anew. He shot up into a seated position like a man possessed and then whirled around to face the aft of his ship. In his rush, his elbow caught the bottle, knocking it over and he was temporarily distracted from whatever had boarded his ship as he flew his hands to the bottle. He fumbled it repeatedly, hopeless from fear, yet finally seized it up into both hands. He lifted it near his head, brandishing it like a weapon - or a shield, as his emerald eyes sought the intruder.

It felt like something out of his nightmares, one of the many different scenarios recreated from his encounter with Chrien. The things from his hypnagogic state, so eerily resembling claws or tentacles.

But it wasn’t Chrien that had boarded his ship. It was a Mer.

“Fuck,” he hissed before confusion flashed in his eyes. He didn’t dare lower the bottle.

Then, a question: “What are you doing here?” His intent with his words was evident. Fear, hostility, confusion, it swam in his mind and likely in hers, too. And with that, the word ’Intruder’ and the theme of intrusion. There was more, there, albeit he lacked the skill to express it properly to her.

Unwelcome.

This was a private suicide mission. She was not welcome.

Commonxxx Rakahi

[Areia]

[Hollow Sea] In the Deep End.

The man Areia saw was not a dead man. In her thoughts of devouring the ship's dead, and of stealing the dead ship's spoils, and of sinking the dead ship, she had not thought that the dead men on the dead ship would not be dead men.

It would have frightened her, that the man she saw was not a dead man, but~

but Areia saw that the man was much more frightened of her than she was of him. His fright was~ intriguing. Why, she thought to herself, Would the man be frightened of her? Shouldn't she, the mer out of water, be frightened of him?

"unwelcome" the man said to her, and though Areia should have been moving ~this was a moment of movement, when not moving might mean death by the man's hands~ Areia did not move. "unwelcome", he'd said. Something about that was insidious to her, and she thought momentarily, involuntarily, of the Sovor'n tribe.

She was unwelcome to the Sovor'n tribe, too. But, that did not mean she moved when they said to move.

There was something insidious in the "unwelcome", something that reminded the irrespective mer of the sting of the stinging fish, or of the sting of the dead ship's wood in her side. There was something about the man's "unwelcome" that stung her.

But, in this moment, Areia was more intrigued by the man's fright than his sting.

Why would the man be frightened of her? she thought once more. Then she thought, Might the man be weakened by the dead ship?

If the man had been weakened by the dead ship, he might be able to be devoured by Areia. The thought that he might be weakened was a good thought~ Areia would like to devour him.

But, in this next moment, Areia went and dove down into the waters, diving down off the side of the dead ship. It would not be good to try to devour the man, she thought wistfully, though he might be weakened and though ~in her starving~ she would like to devour him.

But though the man might be weakened, he was able to breathe on the dead ship. Areia wasn't able to breathe on the dead ship. This meant that on the dead ship, Areia would be weakened, too.

Diving into the waters, her opportunity to devour the man momentarily gone, Areia grumbled her thoughts to the undevoured man. "If you were dead I would have devoured you," she said grumpily, the thought wistful. She thrashed about a bit in the water in anger. "I thought you were a dead man on a dead ship but you are not dead."

"And," she said angrily, "You are a stinging man, who stings~"

"unwelcome", the man's thought went back to him,

"~like the stinging fish," Areia said angrily. She stuck her stinging fingers back into her mouth to soothe them. Grumbling and spitting, her stung fingers making the spitting pointless, she touched her other pointed hand to the other stinging in her, to her wood-stung side.

Areia thrashed about a bit. When she was mostly through thrashing in the waters to the side of the dead ship, she swam round and round the ship. Swimming, she thrashed a bit more.

Grumbling and stinging and starving, Areia said to the man, "Is the ship dead, or is it sleeping?"

Should the ship be a dead ship, Areia thought, the man on the ship would be a dead man, too, in time. Then the dead ship, the dead ship's spoils, and the dead man would be hers. She would not like to wait for the man to be dead, but then, it would be worth waiting for him to be dead.

Notes~ A beautiful thank you to Pyrre for the beautiful template!

[Pyrre Ej'qy]

He felt confusion in his mind, likely from the Mer; a prick of morbid curiosity. But, mainly, he felt a
tingling of hostility and chafe of irritation. He flared his broad nose and pressed his lips into a tight line as he held her gaze, his equally narrowed, and considered what to do next. He wasn’t aware she couldn’t breathe air and, thus, still felt her something of a threat - for why else would a Mer breach a ship? Perhaps she could be injured and desperate yet his mind was not in a state to think of such rationalities. To him, in his morose and dark state, everything was bad - everything was a threat.

It didn’t help that the feeling had torn free whatever festering scab had grown over the mental and emotional wounds Chrien had left on him. The feel of being able to sense her, to feel her in his head. What he was experiencing now was nowhere near as intense as his experience had been with the Immortal of Spite - and not something he was unfamiliar with having grown up around the presence of Mer - yet the rancidness of the feeling gripped and shook him at his core. The disdain. The loathing hate. It left a bitter taste in his mouth and twisted his insides.

He dared not move anything but his face, hands still brandishing his bottle of rum as if it might somehow serve as a weapon. His thoughts did not change, remaining dark and equally resistant.

Unwelcome.

Dying at the hand of a Mer had never been a factor in this little plan of his and he did not think it was something he would willingly entertain.

No.

He was too of a mood where his all-consuming misery made him wish for a slow and, more importantly, solitary end.

He wanted her gone.

And she went, leaping from the ship nearly as quickly as he judged she must have come. Only then did he slowly lower the bottle to settle it between his legs.

He hadn’t realised how hard his heart was hammering until that moment.

“If you were dead I would have devoured you” hissed like an echo into his mind and he shut his eyes at the irony of it all, a sick and twisted little grin turning up the corners of his lips. He let loose an absurd little laugh as her next bout of irritable words thrashed into his mind and he likened them to the sound he had just heard which he strongly had suspected was the sound of her in the water, moving about just as irritably. The ridiculous laughter bubbled up louder, likely enough for her to hear.

“You’re too early,” he sang out, cynical and dark.

He brought the bottle to his lips and drank deep, his thoughts likely a confusing morasse to the Mer. He wanted to laugh more. He wanted to cry.

Had she known his intent? Is that why she came?

He drank until it hurt too much to continue and, only then, lowered the bottle back down with a sputtering cough. He gazed out back towards the port from whence he had came through bleary eyes and considered what she said next. Again, he chuckled at her wording, charmed by it since it was not far from the truth, and took another long and painful pull from the bottle.

“It’s not dead… yet,” he spoke of the wayward sloop he had left to limp itself along the soft waves, “Injured. Broken. Sad-looking. Like me,” he confessed, perhaps a bit too forthright. He took another quick drink from the bottle and winced before rubbing a hand over his lips, his cheek, the heel digging against a wet, closed eye. He dragged it down his face afterwards and let it fall to his lap as he stared out blankly at the barely discernible lines of tall ships in the distance, their shapes swallowed up by the sky that separated them as small, white horses reared occasionally nearby as the soft watery peaks crested at the urging of the increasing wind.

He felt it blow against the wet of his cheek and tug at his hair and he closed his eyes as he drew in a deep breath. A new thought was channelled, unbidden, to the Mer. Hopeless.

He turned, painfully slow, back to face the bow as gazed out upon the vast, open horizon. To the southwest were dark, angry clouds.

Chrien.

Another pitiful laugh huffed up from his lungs.

“Chrien has a way of breaking things she doesn’t like,” he said slowly, finally finishing his earlier thoughts. Then, regarding what she had said earlier, her wishes, “Are you a patient Mer?” he asked, offhandedly as he watched the clouds light up with lightning. “Because if you are okay with waiting, death shouldn’t be too far off.” His thoughts echoed after his words.

Soon.

He was sure of it.

Commonxxx Rakahi

[Pyrre Ej'qy]

Rewards Requested

Notes/Warnings: TW: Suicidal Ideation (Pyrre)

Thread: [Hollow Sea] In the Deep End (Areia)
City/Area: Surrounding Waters & Landmarks

Renown: Reviewer's discretion
Wealth Points: -
- If you are claiming Wealth Points, please link to your Wealth Thread for this season, as Wealth Points can not be awarded before this is completed:
Collaboration: Yes
Local Language Thread? No

!	Message from: Kasoria
	Done!

[Kasoria]

Pyrre Ej'qy

Really is a shame when a story ends before it begins, huh? This could have been a great exploration of character but alas... only the merest hint. Still, you did a good job evoking Pyrre's literally unmoored and listless depression, just waiting to die on a rudderless boat out in the sea. Kudos for that, and here's hoping he endures it.

• XP: 15
• Knowledges:
  • Discipline: Ignoring outside influences while set to a task
  • Resistance: Using the burn of booze to feel alive
  • Resistance: The good effects of booze can be short-lived
  • Intimidation: Brandishing a bottle against an intruder
  • Socialization: Expressing emotion and intent between the Biqaj-Mer mental link
  • Psychology: Discerning emotion and intent through the Biqaj-Mer mind link
  • Combat: Unarmed: Brawling: Readying a bottle to act as a weapon
  • Resistance: Drinking until it physically hurts

Areia

I loved how you depicted this character. More like the mermaids of Nordic and Grecian myth than the Disney version lol. Shame you couldn't contribute more, hope you come back some day.

• XP: 15
• Knowledges:
  • Detection: Detecting the vibrations of a ship.
  • Swimming: Shooting out of the waters to board a ship.
  • Detection: When detecting fear, fear might mean weakness.
  • Swimming: Diving down off the side of a ship.
  • Tactics: Know your weaknesses, too.
• Consequences:
  • Areia was stung by a stinging fish on her right hand.
  • Areia hit her right side on the side of a ship when boarding the ship~ and got some splinters, too.