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akindofmagictoo · 1 year

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Beneath the Waves

a continuation of the Hurricane x ARMV crossover Potions and Pirates, and a gift to my beloved @ashen-crest in return for her wonderful hurt-comfort

part 1, in which we answer the question of “what will Aella get up to with a potion of water breathing?”. part 2 coming tomorrow.

Word Count: 2697

TW/CW: drowning, claustrophobia, panic attack

Context: Ambrose and Eli washed up on the Hurricane, and as a thank you for saving them, Ambrose brewed a potion of water breathing and sent it to Aella, Tempest and Theo. The full thing can be found on my Wattpad, @/zcmitchell.

Breathing underwater was certainly a strange situation, but Aella could have lived in the feeling forever. She flipped over to look back up at the surface, already so far away, but not so far that she couldn’t see the sunlight on its surface. The water of Wavemeet’s bay was so clear. Clear and blue, just like Theo’s eyes.

She could picture them now, actually. He’d tried not to show it when she dived, but she’d seen the worry in them. The little furrow of his brow as he clung resolutely to the other end of the rope now tied around her ankle, ready to help pull her out at a moment’s notice despite his hatred of deep water. If she squinted really hard at the surface, she could maybe see the dark smudge that marked the jetty.

As much as she trusted him, she was also glad that he had his uncle and several of the Hurricane’s crew standing by to help as well. Not that she really needed help. The rope had been obtained at Tempest’s suggestion and Theo’s insistence, even though Aella had never needed to dive with a rope before, not in a clear deep area like this one. But Theo had asked her to take it, and she didn’t mind the slight extra tug on her ankle if it kept him from being too worried about her.

This potion had a time limit on it, she recalled. She should keep going.

She turned a slow flip backwards and kicked, forcing herself further down into the inky gloom below.

Since the sun was directly overhead, it pierced far into the darkness beneath the water, but eventually even its last soft rays had to give way to the embrace of the cold depths. She pressed on, stroke after stroke, feeling the deep satisfying burn in her muscles as she propelled herself deeper and deeper, letting the abyss wrap around her like a dark cloak.

She liked it less when she couldn’t see.

For a split second, she could hear the sound of a cell door locking behind her… but no, she was just diving. This was safe darkness. The sea was safe, she reminded herself; it always had been, ever since she was a tiny child too young to walk.

Tempest, Aria, Marisa and Cai had held her while she learned to swim. Theo, Emmy and Victoire were holding onto her now, all of them ready to feel three tugs on the rope and pull her safely back to the surface.

She could leave now if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. Not with so much left to explore. She was Aella Onyeisi, veteran of the Hurricane, and she had survived horrors far greater than this. She would not be turned back because she was scared of the dark.

As she reached forward for another stroke, her fingers brushed something. She stopped mid-motion and extended her hand again. Whatever it was was smooth and cold, and strangely familiar. She kicked behind her so she could place her hand flat on the surface. Still oddly normal, but in the darkness it was difficult to tell what.

Wood. It was wood, worn smooth by time and water.

It felt like the wood of a ship.

She felt along the surface in front of her until she reached an edge, then pulled herself along it, hand over hand. Alright, so that felt like it could be a railing, which meant that either she was on the deck or hanging off the side — at least as far as that description applied when she seemed to be more or less horizontal. She pulled her feet forward until they also met the wreck, gauging angles as best she could in her head. Off the side it was. With a gentle push against the hull, she hoisted herself up level with the rail.

Was that light, or just her mind playing tricks on her? She screwed her eyes shut and waited a moment. Whatever it was she’d just seen was gone. When she opened her eyes again, it seemed to be back. Just a very faint glow somewhere in front of her, maybe one or two arm’s lengths away.

Another gentle push sent her flipping over the rail and downwards towards the deck. The glow brightened as she moved forwards. It seemed there was a hole in the deck, and the light was coming from within. She kicked out behind her, pushing herself towards the gap.

The gap’s edges had once been jagged, but just like the rest of the ship, they had been rounded and smoothed by currents. She wrapped a hand around the edge and peered over. This gap seemed to lead into the ship’s hold, and that hold was covered in softly glowing algae.

In places, there were only small pinpricks of it, tiny blue stars in the dark. But one corner was completely covered, and it was that glow that had summoned her.

The algae didn’t hold her attention for long, however, because its light gleamed off metal in the furthest, deepest corner of the hold. She wriggled through the gap — a tight fit, even for her — and into the hold.

Whatever had happened to the ship, the hole in the deck was the least of the damage. Support beams and all sorts of loose chunks of wood and metal stuck into the room at odd angles. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but off to one side, sticking up from the sea floor, was what might have been another ship’s ram. Two shipwrecks?

Keeping an eye out in front of her for further debris, and both hands, she swam deeper into the room, heading for the metallic glimmer ahead. What could it be? Weapons? Treasure? Some further indication of what had sunk this ship? She didn’t know, but she needed to find out.

As she swam, she realised the algae wasn’t just blue. Patches were green and purple, and even one or two small specks of gold dappled the overlapping glows. On one wall, just at the edge of her peripheral vision, was something else gold. When she turned, it wasn’t algae, but a picture frame. Parts of it still shone, though parts were covered in algae or tarnish. She flipped over, avoiding a loosely floating crossbeam, and swam closer. The wall with the portrait was tilted such that it seemed more like a ceiling, so she floated underneath it on her back while she inspected it. It seemed to be some rich-looking white man, dressed like a merchant. Perhaps this wasn’t a hold. Maybe it was a cabin. Hard to know. She turned back over, surveying the dimly lit room. That could be a table in the far corner, a broken half-cabinet still attached to another wall.

Time limit, she reminded herself. Time limit. She abandoned the portrait and dove for the gleam in the bottom corner.

It was indeed metal that the algae had glinted off. A small chest, not much bigger than her two fists, the metal bands around it tarnished and aged, but not enough to dull their shine. And it didn’t seem to be locked. She drew her dagger and dug it under the latch.

The latch sprang open to reveal… treasure.

Pearl necklaces. Golden earrings. Shining jewels in every colour she could imagine and several she had never seen before. A golden ring set with an amber stone. Silver chains with delicate pendants attached. All of it reflecting the colours of the algae behind her, blue and green and purple and pink. All of it beautiful.

She was probably running out of time on her potion. She shut the chest and gathered it into her arms, and let herself sink down into the corner, ready to kick off upwards.

Was that a ram over there? Surely she could check quickly? She shifted direction, swimming in that direction instead.

It was a ship’s ram, forced through the hull but not fitting tightly. Of course. The ship had likely sunk thanks to taking on water, which was harder to do if the ram remained to plug the hole. She hadn’t expected to find a shipwreck here, let alone one that had lost a battle. Rams were a pirate tactic, and Theo said they hadn’t been seen in Wavemeet for a very long time.

TIME LIMIT. Perhaps she’d have to write to Ambrose to ask him for more of the potion. There were so many unanswered questions in her mind, answers to be found somewhere in this wreck. But she couldn’t stay to find them out, not without getting herself into significant trouble. Theo would be very worried about her if she pushed her limits on the potion. He’d be worried enough about her as it was. She should go.

Finding her way back to the hole in the deck was fairly easy. Manoeuvring through while keeping her hold on the chest was harder, but she managed it without catching her clothes on the edges of the gap or dropping her loot. Now all that was left to do was swim back to the surface, and let herself be reeled up like a beautiful fish if the potion started to wear off. Easy. She kicked off the deck.

The rope around her ankle pulled her up short.

Shit.

She jerked her knee up to her chest to dislodge whatever it was caught on. Or rather, tried. The motion simply pulled her back down.

What could it be tangled up in? It could be anything. But she might have time to fix it. She took a deep breath in, then let it go, and dived back down.

It seemed that in all her roaming of the room, the rope had gotten looped around some sort of metal apparatus on the wall. She braced her foot on the wall, tucked her jewel chest safely under her arm, and tugged.

Nothing. Her hands just slid on the wet rope.

She looped the rope around her hands and tried again. Still nothing. In frustration, she launched a kick at the wall. The shipwreck might be old, but it wasn’t that old. All she managed to do was send a jolt of pain through her heel. What could she do? She could cut the rope, but it was thick rope, and tying it securely back around her ankle underwater would be pretty difficult. She could hook the rope around something else and use that as leverage to pry the metal off the wall. That didn’t seem likely to work either. Shit.

She yanked on the rope a third time. The wall seemed to groan, a rough grating sound that echoed through the whole room. Something struck her shoulder and she bit back a yelp, letting go of the rope.

The whole shipwreck was shifting. She glanced down; what she could see of the ‘floor’ was starting to rock and slide to one side.

She had to get out.

How could she get out? Could she still get to the deck gap safely? She should have enough slack in her rope still, but… she glanced up towards the gap and nearly shrieked.

The shipwreck seemed to be falling towards her.

She couldn’t breathe.

Why couldn’t she breathe? The potion should still be in effect. Her hands flew to her throat, her heart beating erratically beneath her fingertips. The water pressed in around her, colder now, chilling her to the bone, the glow of the algae seeming to retreat to the corners of the room.

No. No no no NO. Why was the algae fading? Was she dying? Was she going to be stuck down here until her air ran out, with Theo and her friends unable to pull her up because the bloody rope was bloody stuck and—

She had to get out. She had to leave. She fumbled for the knife at her belt, her fingers slow and clumsy, barely able to feel anything. Knife. Knife. Where is it? Had she left it where the jewel chest had been?

Around her, wood creaked and cracked.

She still couldn’t breathe. She was running out of time. No time. No time.

There! Her numb fingers closed on the handle. She squeezed it tightly, so tightly her nails dug into her palm, though she barely felt it. Then she grabbed the rope and began to saw at it, still gasping for breath in the cold water. Come on, come on… the rope was thick, but not that thick. She could do this.

Deep breaths, she heard Theo say in her mind. With every scrap of reason she had left, she forced herself to listen. Deep breaths. One breath in as she drew the knife one way; one breath out with the next stroke. She could still breathe. The potion was still working. And slowly, slowly but surely, the rope fibres were splitting beneath her blade.

Don’t look at the ship. Don’t think about how to get out. Cut the rope. One task at a time. One task at a time. Just one. It will be okay. It has to be.

The rope snapped free so suddenly she could hardly believe it. In the same moment, the ship rocked beneath her again. A beam crashed hard into her back, sending pain firing like lightning through her chest.

Time to go.

She dodged another slowly falling piece of ship and dragged herself through the hole in the deck. Its edges caught on her shirt this time. She didn’t care. She barely noticed it past the throbbing in her back. She just had to leave.

Swimming up was harder than swimming down. She was tired, she was scared, and she had to work harder to pull herself towards the surface.

One stroke at a time, she told herself. Theo would be waiting for her. She needed to get back to him. The only way to do that was to swim.

Something scaled brushed past her bare foot. She shuddered and kicked harder. As with any bay, there were stories of creatures in the water. Some good, some bad. Theo’s parents’ friend, Nell, swore she’d seen several nasty-looking sea serpents in the bay. On the other hand, Theo’s father had told a story of going swimming in the bay and almost drowning, but waking on the shore with a single shimmering scale on the sand beside him.

Neither story had been proven, but either could be true. The Hurricane had run afoul of a kraken far too recently for Aella to really doubt either story. Either way, she’d rather not take her chances with nasty sea serpents. She swam on.

She could see the surface of the water, the rays of the sun spilling down, not quite reaching all the way to her yet, but close. So close. The muscles in her arms and legs burned; she shifted her treasure from one arm to the other. Her chest was burning too. Breathing was difficult now. Was it the potion wearing off? Was she just tired? She had to keep going. The rope would do nothing for her now; in her haste to swim back up, she hadn’t thought to follow it. She had to keep swimming.

The burning wasn’t going away. She was so close now, close enough to see the sun sparkling on tiny waves in the bay. Just as beautiful as before. No, even more beautiful, because it meant safety, and now she desperately needed that safety.

Something brushed her foot again. She ignored it, still striving for the surface.

As before, she breathed in and took in water, but this time it stung. This was wrong. This was bad. There was nothing in the water to help her anymore. She tried to breathe it out, but there was nowhere to send it. No. No no no.

The surface seemed to dim. She wanted to scream, but she had no air left to do it. She wanted to keep swimming, but she had no more strength for it. Nothing she could do but watch her vision fade to nothing.

Potions and Pirates Taglist: @copper-dragon-in-disguise @diphthongsfordays @pepperdee @zmwrites @the-orangeauthor @quilloftheclouds

Hurricane Taglist: @writingbyjillian @oddsandinks @ahowlinwolf @aziz-writes @juls-writes @lookinpeach @zmwrites @quilloftheclouds @lowslore @isherwoodj @katnapped @thepsycheofbrokenthings @happyorogeny @magicalwriting @ettawritesnstudies @florraisons @tea-and-pirates @writtendevastation @talesofsorrowandofruin @lilmissravingwriter @zielenbloesem @metanoiamorii @little-boats-on-a-lake @lottieiswriting @violetwrites @the-unwrittenwriter @ink-fireplace-coffee @iparisaltanwing @tragedieds @pamsdrabbles @waysofink @hekat-ie @thehellinsideyourhead @starryeve88 @trans1ence @vellichor-virgo @the-orangeauthor @google-plexed @literary-lavender @crystallized-ink @ellatholmes @seamajorshanties @crowewritesstuff @ashen-crest @astridmayewrites @wannabeauthorzofija @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @waterfallwritings @enchanted-lightning-aes @wizardfromthesea @huloglangit @diphthongsfordays @ruby-overlock @copper-dragon-in-disguise @mr-writes @josephinegerardywriter @teardropsandtherain @emilyoracle @matcha-chai @fablewritten @autie-auden-writes @innocentreticent

ID: a banner with a brown pirate hat in the middle. the hat has two fluffy feathers sticking out of it, one blue and one yellow. the banner is placed above and below the main text. /end ID.

#hurricane x rps #wip potions and pirates #potions and pirates excerpt #wip hurricane #hurricane aella #hurricane aella onyeisi #hurricane theo #hurricane theodore grey #hurricane extras #a rival most vial

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