#abovedeck

[stray-kaz]

A Book and A Nap : a Roronoa Zoro x f!reader blurb

Summary: You and Zoro have some peace in the middle of the maelstrom.

A/N: Thank you, @writingmysanity for lending me your idea! :)

The ship's wine cellar was a cool reprieve from the heat of the world abovedeck, and it was where you and Zoro retreated to when the hoopla became too much. The hammock swung gently with you both resting in it, Zoro's head and shoulders in your lap as you half sat, half lay behind him, book in hand.

His crown pressed against your stomach and as you read out loud to him, you slowly combed your fingers through his hair, occasionally scratching gently at his scalp. He sleepily grunted every time you did that.

A soft golden glow spilled through the window and poured over you like honey, soaking you in light and warmth. Your eyelids grew heavy as you read and you fought to keep them up, doing your best to concentrate on the words.

Your hand stilled in Zoro's hair and you glanced down to see his chest rising and falling evenly and his eyes closed, dark lashes like streaks against his skin. You could barely even hear him breathing. You stopped your reading and started to close the book, when his tired voice interrupted you.

"Why'd you stop?" he mumbled, pressing his head a little harder into your stomach; he didn't bother with opening his eyes.

You stroked his hair again, lightly.

"I thought you fell asleep" you said, stroking the tip of one finger down past the bridge of his nose.

He smiled faintly and shook his head.

"Nah, flower. Keep going."

You leaned back a bit further and did as you were bidden, though you were yawning before you reached the end of the third page. When you paused then, there was no response, no interruption to ask you to continue.

You smiled as your eyes slid shut and the book closed against your chest.

You fell asleep like that, one hand in Zoro's hair and the other on his shoulder, always connected to him.

Tagging: @elizabeth-karenina

[aurore-parle-de-ses-idees]

7 with est 👀👀👀

7- hoarse/voiceless

this is absolutely au for est, because there are quite a few major beats in waves & wind that wouldn't really land right after all the au-ing i did four or five years ago. however. i wanted to put est on a boat <3 rough ch 5.3 for spoiler purposes

It’s a little funny, you think, that you’ve never really sailed. Not properly, not like this, not on the open sea where there’s no horizon in any direction and the water is even more unchanging than the open fields of Rohan. The Long Lake is wide and so is Nenuial, but they have nothing on these endless waters- and Sirgon and Daxamat both laugh when they tell you you’ve not yet left the Bay of Belfalas.

You know the storm is coming even belowdecks. It’s no sense so arcane as some of your crew seem to think- only long years spent studying the rising and release of thunder. You warn the others, and hope you don’t frighten Caebar too badly, and go up to the deck.

Dark clouds gather in the distance, visible from miles away with nothing at all to hide them- or to break them. You clamber up into the tangle of low-hanging rigging in the forecastle where Daxamat scowls at the oncoming storm.

“I swear the storms did not used to be so frequent or so angry in the Bay,” he says, and you grip the nearest lines for balance as the Wave-hunter tilts down a steep swell. The waves are already growing rougher.

“Is there no avoiding this one?” you ask, though you have no hope the answer will be yes. Daxamat gives you a disbelieving look.

“Not unless your fancy rocks can split the storm before us,” he says and you smile with half your mouth.

“You overestimate me,” you say, and he sighs.

“I was afraid that was the case.”

You study the angry stormfront. “...is there anything we can do to prepare for it?” You know the storm, but not the sea.

“Tie down anything that can be tied,” Daxamat says with a grim laugh. “Stay out of the way of actual sailors. And… make sure your knights are out of their armor. They wouldn’t want to go overboard like that.” You glance at him sharply.

“You think that’s so serious a risk?” Dax only shrugs, half leaping and half falling from the rail to the pitching deck.

“The way my last voyage ended? It seems better to be cautious in these waters these days.”

You wish, an hour later, that you could indeed control storms as Daxamat said, but you only ever borrow their power for a moment. There is power enough in this one to tear the ship apart.

No one is abovedecks who does not need to be- especially those of you who aren’t sailors. Sirgon listens to the groaning of the Wave-hunter and frowns over the nervous muttering of the rest of your crew, packed into the largest cabin and summarily instructed to stay there until the storm passed.

“We are far too near the Shield Isles for my liking to cross a storm this fierce,” Sirgon says to you under his breath. “We are on the side of the Grinding Jaws, and they were not named lightly.”

The Wave-hunter pitches to the side and even Sirgon staggers. Daxamat has already gone up to the deck to help, taking Sigileth and Legolas with him. You wonder how long it will be before you and the sons of Elrond will be asked to follow. You flex your hands, cold from the damp and the biting winds, and tighten the bindings on your rune-bag and Elenagil in her sheath.

The Wave-hunter shudders under your feet. Sirgon draws a sharp breath. There are cries from above. You're only halfway to the narrow stairs up when the deck goes out from underneath you and wood splinters with a sound only a little softer than thunder.

The water is cold and dark and churns so badly you couldn’t say if it was stone or ship or scattered crew that slams into you from all directions. You’re not a stranger to the water, but you've not seen anything quite like this before.

Well. You’re hardly seeing anything right now, either.

Lightning illuminates the water, brief but bright enough to find the surface. You reach for it, clawing your way skyward while thunder rumbles the water around you like a drum.

Something heavy strikes you across the back. Something cracks; you can’t tell if it’s you or the unseen thing. You lose your air, and you breathe in seawater, and you grab fruitlessly for something solid and choke on the wrathful bay until the waters take you away.

---

It’s dawn when you wake, pink in the sky and gold in the sand and black and brown and brilliant green in the cliffs above you. Your legs are still in the water, brushed by waves that seem gentle in apology for the storm before. You push yourself up, and your back screams as if struck anew, and you fall flat in the sand with a groan.

What became of the rest of the Wave-hunter? you ask silently of the sand beneath your cheek. It doesn’t reply, and you spit some of it from your mouth and drag yourself inch by inch beyond the reach of the water. You lost a shoe somewhere- only the one, though. Your throat hurts. Slowly, you gather yourself, and hope that walking will seem like less of a trial once you are standing.

A shadow falls over you. Someone speaks, and it sounds like Black Speech, and in sudden panic you throw yourself to your feet, already reaching for where your rune-bag should be.

Somehow, it’s still there, though it’s full of water and some of its contents must have escaped. You draw out a stone, but instead of words of power you only get out a harsh fit of coughing as your throat protests absolutely everything it can think of. When you can breathe again you throw the stone aside and draw Elenagil instead, falteringly taking the stance Faeron had tried so hard to teach you.

It is a group of goblins and orcs who scramble away from you, weapons raised and eyes hard, but they don’t fall on you immediately, even when you wobble and fall back to one knee. One of them elbows another and they argue in almost-whispers among themselves. Your head aches less badly than the rest of you and you think you can follow most of it. Some words are Westron and some are the Black Speech and some are another tongue altogether. Umbari, perhaps? You don’t know much of it yet. You catch wait and recognize and Gundabad, and after that trust and safe and can’t let her-. You try to speak, and cough some more, and, eventually, lower Elenagil.

“Who are you?” you ask, hoarsely, in Black Speech like you only really practiced properly with Viznak in the swamps. You’re not sure which of them is more surprised to hear it.

[ashwin-the-artless]

Cities

Here's a post that strongly intersects with @your-tutor-abacus' blog, but I think I'll write about generics and let it reference this post when it goes to write about specifics.

The cities on the Sunspot (`etekeyerrinwuf) are build very differently than most cities on Earth (or, at least U.S. cities) and there are good reasons for this.

We all tend to take for granted what we've grown up with, so when we write about living and doing things in the cities where we've grown up, we'll tend to reference metropolitan civil structures without explaining them. Unless the story has a moment that specifically deals with why those structures exist, then we might get introspective an analyze them.

But, when you gone from one culture to an alien one, it absolutely prompts analysis and you can find yourself obsessed with it for a while, so I'm claiming this subject.

What are Sunspot cities like?

Unlike Earth cities, which have mostly grown up naturally around various human settlements that gathered around important resources, Sunspot cities were designed from the the ground up deliberately.

Some Earth cities were created in similar ways, especially the colonial ones. A country will pick a spot where it wants a city and hire a bunch of professionals (or politicians) to socially engineer the city to meet some sort of national ideal and to practice social engineering in the process.

There are still some real fundamental differences between that and what happened when the Sunspot was built.

Unlike any place on Earth, or the Earth itself, the Sunspot is a constructed world, built literally from the ground up (or inward) to be a safe place for its inhabitants to exist with sufficient resources for everyone.

It's a spaceship, not a planet, even though it's big enough to have multiple cities in it, and a whole ecosystem of plants and animals. And it had to be designed to be indefinitely sustainable.

Part of that was, in contrast to its predecessor ship, was making sure that every living thing on the ship (including every person) had equal access to resources in order to minimize conflict.

So, wherever you might live on the Sunspot, ports in the floor and/or ceiling deliver everything you could possibly need to thrive there.

You, as a living being with a biological vessel, get an allotment of ship resources, and it's probably more than you'll ever use, because the population is kept low enough to do that (which is a dire concern on a generational starship, but a false one on Earth, really).

This means that neighborhoods, communities, and cities are not built around your typical sets of resources. In fact, Belowdecks, they aren't built around any resources.

Abovedecks, in the Garden, the primary resource considered is psychological. Each city is built in an area of the Garden where the environment may best fit the psychological needs of a predicted portion of the population.

So, there are cities in the plains, the mountains, the forests, the shorelines, near rivers, and under the water to create a wide range of possible living conditions and psychological amenities.

But, besides that, the organization of neighborhoods and specialized buildings is totally different than Earthlings may be used to.

Because, the one resource that the ship systems cannot control, just by virtue of the two Living Rights, are people. Community.

But community can be encouraged and accommodated.

So, all quarters and structures Belowdecks are modular and reconfigurable. Designed so that wall can be constructed or removed as needed. Hallways are left permanently in their original locations to make navigation easy and accessible to all, but between the hallways people can do just about anything.

But, by default, the Founding Crew set this up with sets of personal quarters arranged to surround communal gathering spaces. And those communal gathering spaces have been used for libraries, audiences, galleries, warehouses, kitchens/cafeterias, and Artistry collectives of all types. And the resulting structure overall resembles the arrangement of cells in living tissue, with the community spaces serving as the cytoplasm and organelles contained by the cell walls of the living quarters. Each cell developing into a specialized purpose according to its inhabitants whims and agreements.

And then, the Abovedecks cities where designed in a similar way, except that the potential cells were originally simply foundations for buildings, and they were placed spaced out enough so that their development would have minimal impact on the environment around them.

It's been over a hundred and thirty millennia since then, and the cities and communities have evolved a lot. But the basic structure and pressures (or lack of pressures) from resources remain. And certain collectives or types of Artistry have gathered or dispersed in each city over time and given them their respective characters.

Some cities, like Gopra Pyle, have a huge central collective that unifies all the smaller collectives around it, and have developed sort of a singular municipal Art project that everyone's proud of that has spanned generations of contribution.

Others, like Frra, are more diverse, sometimes homogeneous and sometimes divided, with four major collectives to countless collectives more evenly distributed throughout their perimeter.

So, like, in most cities on the Sunspot, you're not going to find anything like a commercial district or industrial site or set of warehouses. You might find an audience with surrounding libraries that's frequently utilized by the local government, and that might look like a governmental district in an Earth city. But the civic pride that is displayed by that area by its architecture and activities is going to be unusual to Earth sensibilities, and likely a lot more fluid and less focused.

With the Network, the resource tubes, and tram system, almost everything aboard the Sunspot is decentralized. And it shows.

If anything in a city serves as a landmark or gets your attention, it's usually a communal work of art commemorating a past even, serving as a meeting place that you too can use, or just sitting there trying to be beautiful.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Mal de Mer - Ch: 4 - Treasure Part II

Summary:

A high-seas honeymoon. Two adversaries, bound by matrimony. A future full of peril and possibility. And a word that neither enjoys adding to their lexicon: Compromise.

War was simpler business…

Part of the 'Forward But Never Forget/XOXO' AU. Can be read as a standalone series.

Thank you for the graphics @lipsticksandmolotovs<3

Mal de Mer on AO3

Mal de Mer on FFnet

CHAPTER

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X

꧁꧂

Maybe I'm just too demanding Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold?

~ "When Doves Cry" - Prince

A vista of endless blue gives way jagged black peaks rising like a city's skyline.

The Hydra—or so the artificial port is called—sits in a hollow formed by two undersea cliffs, which shield the anchorage from both sides. The sun, a blinding glare, winks off the superstructure. At first glimpse, it resembles a mirage: a phantasmagoria of glass and steel. Closer, it resolves from myth to mundanity: a sprawling, low-slung complex, with an array of docks, hangars and fueling stations. Its colossal weight of ten thousand metric tons is held afloat by a series of airtight nitrogen capsules, encased beneath the steel-plated underbelly. Beneath, miles down, is a bed of solid granite. The complex's anchor, a six-mile-long steel tether, is secured by titanium-plated cables to a peak on the seabed.

The design, a masterwork of engineering, is an homage to its maker: Viktor, the Machine Herald. For an unknown sum, he'd crafted the facility, first as a prototype, then as a permanent installation. Silco had also commissioned his expertise for designing a fleet of specialized vessels: the Siren's Call. A collection of sleek submersibles, built to his exact specifications, and piloted by a cadre of elite seamen.

Their function: transporting precious cargo from the Hydra, back to Zaun.

A fan of sea-spray kicks in the wake of a fleet of skiffs. It sparkles in the intense brightness of the sun, like a handful of tiny diamonds flung to the sky.  Silco, at the helm of the lead craft, navigates with a smuggler's ease. The craft's prow, a narrow point, slices a white streak in the water. Inside, the passengers—Cevila, Hector, Lady Dennings, Garlen—huddle, blindfolded and guarded, in its wake.

Abovedeck, Mel sits hunkered behind her husband. She has taken off her inadequate boots and tucked her skirts between her knees. Her bare ankles are rashed with gooseflesh; her dress, half-drenched, clings like a second skin.

This, she thinks, is why he'd asked her to lose the chiffon.

Seamlessly, Silco threads his boat through the maze of piers, and slips between two massive derricks. Then he steers into a small basin, where a pair of towering steel doors yawn open.

At the fore, the port's emblem gleams: Zaun's dagger-winged chem-shield, etched in vivid green.

They are, officially, in the belly of the beast.

Mel, braced against the spray, stares in mute awe.

The hangar is colossal: a maelstrom of sound and motion. A web of florescent lights, strung overhead, casts a harsh white glare. Everywhere, men and women, in labcoats or overalls with Zaun's crest,  pass in and out. Some, armed with clipboards, are inspecting cargo. Others, armed with power tools, swarm the corners: checking seals, topping up fuel tanks, testing equipment.

Cranes swing. Pulleys screech. Engines roar.  The scene is a sensory assault: an undersea hive, humming with one singular purpose.

Progress.

As her eyes adjust to the dazzling brightness, Mel makes out the dimensions of the dry docks: a spread of interlocking piers and canals, all set in an intricate steel gridwork. Ships of every size and class are anchored: freighters, frigates, ferries. A flotilla of motorboats, their hulls painted the distinctive Zaunite green, zigzag in between like darting minnows. The acrid stink of exhaust and brine is overpowering. 

Silco, at the wheel, takes a deep inhale.

"Funny, isn't it?" he says, quietly.

Dazed, Mel says, "What is?"

"What can be achieved if coin is actually invested where it's due."

The spray hits Mel's face, cold as a slap. She is still in shock. She'd had no clue this behemoth existed. No inkling of the depth and breadth of Silco's designs.

Her voice doesn't quaver. But there's a taut note: like the twinge of a pulled muscle. "How long?"

"Three years, give or take. I've had my eye on these waters since before Zaun's independence. The initial plan, if you can even call it that, was to mine minerals from the seabed. Metals, crystals, ore. Anything we could find." A twist of the wheel, and their boat, with a gentle jerk, eases around a corner. "The project had to be scrapped. We lacked the resources to extract. Not to mention the funds to build a port. Revolution's a costly business. So's maintaining control over a city. Especially one that's eating itself alive."

"So, you turned your eye elsewhere."

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

"Shimmer."

His profile is inscrutable: a figurehead at the prow. "Yes."

Mel feels no anger yet. Only a dull hiving in the pit of her belly. The same feeling she gets whenever their arguments veer into dark territory. A sense of disorientation—surrealism—at how easily Silco shifts between extremes.

How, without warning, he steals all her air, and leaves her suffocating.

"And this?" she grits out. "When did you discover glyphs under the seabed? Or that they linked to a portal system?"

"I knew nothing about the glyphs. Only that, since my smuggling days, there were stories of a secret network used by Oshra Va'Zaun's navy. A shortcut between sea routes, where ships, powered by ancient magic, could pass from point A to point B in a heartbeat. Like Piltover's Hex-Gates, but at sea." The corner of his lip curls. "As a young man, I'd always thought the maps drawn up by different navies seemed—odd. The Noxians, for example, are too busy with their conquests to chart out a thorough seaway. They're more concerned with securing the strait's borders, rather than what lies underneath. Demacia, meanwhile, is a landlocked bore. They have no real seafaring tradition, nor the need for one. Their navy's purpose is mostly for patrol, and the odd skirmish here and there."

"And Piltover?"

"Piltover has always been the authority. Or so it claims. It is, however, a city built on greed. The first thing I did after Zaun's independence was to invest in archaic runes from the Shadow Isles. I gifted these to Jinx. For her research into the arcane, and its connection to Zaun's network of magic leylines. Soon, she and Viktor discovered a common thread. The runic systems were not simply confined to Zaun. They were also present, on a much larger scale, along the coastline. A stretch of sea-passage, coincidentally, where Zaun was already establishing a nautical corridor."

The hiving in Mel's belly is spreading. The truth is a bitter sting.

She whispers, "You planned all this."

His profile shifts: three-quarters to the light. The left side, a dark slash. "Is that a crime?"

"The coin from each investment I approved throughout the years. Each transaction sanctioned at my table. Each project aimed at mutual prosperity between our cities." Mel's fingers clench the railing. "It was all being funneled into this!"

"It was being put to proper use."

"This—this is an act of subterfuge!"

The engines rumble as they slow. She's glad for the white-noise. It serves as a screen. The rest of the party, belowdeck, cannot hear them.  And yet, the privacy is its own torment.

Here, there is nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.

Silco, his eye fixed on the horizon, says, "This is an act of necessity."

"Necessity?"

"Zaun's independence is a reality, not a dream. Reality requires capital. And, unlike Piltover, I can't rely on a bottomless treasury of stolen goods. Our mines are ripe with gems. But gems mean nothing without trade routes, and markets, and vessels to transport them. We are one of Runeterra's most well-situated cities, but we can only export via one single corridor: your Hex-Gates." His good eye swivels her way. "If I had asked the Council, you think they would have funded this port? This fleet? The Iron Pearl?"

"You had no right to—"

"No right?" His tone is biting. "I have every right. Zaun is a sovereign state. This is statehood in motion. Fissurefolk have a history of carving out a living, no matter the odds. We've navigated these seas for centuries before the Cataclysm. We've endured wars, famine, natural disasters, and the collapse of an entire empire. We've fought and bled and clawed our way to a foothold. If anything, the least you can do is to afford us the dignity of making our own way."

"You," Mel fires back, "are undercutting the city that supported you."

"Piltover has already taken its pound of flesh. Now, we're taking back our share."

A dull throb begins in Mel's temples. She'd always known Piltover's stranglehold on Zaun. The city's natural bounty: a vast reserve, kept under lock and key by dint of the Peace Treaty.  After the Siege, and Zaun's rupture from Piltover, she'd needed to assuage the Council's fears: that Zaun could be, if no longer a treasurebox, a viable trading link. That an accord between them was of mutual benefit. 

Two cities: partners in prosperity.

But what Silco has constructed, with the aid of her city's coffers, is a different beast. A counterpoint to Piltover's supremacy: a network of ports and channels, hidden from view, and under his absolute governance. A private empire, beyond her grasp—or the Council's oversight.

A disaster, Mel thinks, with a thousand mile radius.

Once word gets out, the Council will be in uproar. They'll see the Iron Pearl as a direct challenge: their monopoly on foreign goods undermined in the span of a night.  Investors will be stricken. Some, dreading a capsized market, will flee. Others, emboldened, will seek Zaun as the next safe harbor.  Global trading networks will split along two faultlines. Shipping chains will likewise crack at the seams.

A tectonic shift, as profound as the invention of the Hex-gates.

And Mel, a wedge, caught in between.

Trust me, he'd said.

I do, she'd replied.

The irony is not lost on her: her trust, like her marriage, has led her into a trap.

And, like any trapped animal, she lashes out.

"This your idea of compromise? An ambush in plain sight?" She hears her voice crack, and hates herself for it. "I would've given you anything. All you had to do was ask. But no—you'd rather skulk around in the shadows. Scheming like a—"

"You call it scheming. I call it strategy."  Silco's hands, guiding the wheel, are steady. "Or did you expect me to stay on sufferance? My city's trade—its lifeblood—tied for generations to your Hexgates. My future hinging—year after year—on accords written by your Council. Bureaucracy, backtracking, backstabbing. A charade of concessions, with Zaun's dignity as the cost?"

"Charade?" Her face goes hot, then cold. "Is that what you see this voyage as?"

"Worse. I see it as a farce." His knuckles, she notices, are whitening. "You, playing at being my wife. Putting on a show for all your guests. The men and women who've undermined my city at every turn. And what do you do? Peddle your smiles to grease their palms. Force my hand, and force yours, and force everyone else's—all to keep the peace." His laugh is pitched low. And yet it slices through the air. "Peace. If this is the price, I'd rather go to war."

The pain, like a needle, pierces Mel's skull.

She'd known, since the voyage began, that he was angry. That he was sick of the hollow platitudes and hidden barbs. But she'd thought, with her efforts this morning, that she'd successfully mitigated the damage. Diplomacy, rather than daggers—all to the goal of keeping the status quo.

A false premise, she realizes.

Zaun no longer recognizes the status quo. Not when the city has an undersea fortress, and a fleet of ships, and a web of trade routes.

"This—this is politics," she tries to reason. "You've seen me do this countless times!"

"That's precisely the point."

"What point?"

"You." It is a sibilant hiss. "Doing this. Every. Damn. Time."

"Silco—"

"You have a gift for it, Mel. I won't deny." The wheel spins beneath his fingertips.  The craft veers into a narrow canal, bordered on both sides by towering cranes. "I've always enjoyed it. How you can turn a crooked cause into a straight road. Turn a cutthroat into a charity case. But have you stopped to consider—just once—that I don't want to be your charity case? That watching you play nice with those leeches and bootlickers, day after day, makes me sick? That I'd rather toss the lot of them overboard than have you sacrifice a shred of yourself for my city's coffers."

"I am a Councilor," Mel protests. "My duty is—"

"Your duty is to be my wife!"

The whipcrack timbre cuts off the words in her throat. For a moment, Mel can do nothing but stare. His expression—the slow hardening shift of muscles, the creeping chill of mismatched eyes—is as remote as a dying star.

In her mind's eye, she sees their wedding night: her ruined silk underthings a breadcrumb trail between parlor and bedroom. Thinks of Silco, a phantom silhouette in the gloom: on top of her, inside her, filling her, all burning eyes and biting kisses and sweat-slick skin. Thinks of the aftermath: of him cradling her in his arms, his fingertips tracing the scratches his teeth had gouged, his whispers a cool balm to the fire his touch had lit.

"We'll get there," he'd promised her, again and again. "Just give it time."

"Time," Mel had whispered, clinging to his neck.

"All we need. All I ask."

"You could ask for more."

His chuckle had grated deliciously against her skin. "I'm greedy, my sweet wife. I take what I want."

And she'd smiled, and let him take.

Wife.

The word, entwining with sensuous tenderness, now constricts like a noose.

"My wife," Silco repeats, quieter, but with an unmerciful intensity that cuts her to the quick. "Not the prop to humanize me in front of hysterical prudes like the Dennings. Not the pincushion to hide behind when Cevila Ferros slings barbs about my bloodline. Not the bargaining chip to trot out when Hector wants to renegotiate a loan, in exchange for a few harmless gropes. Certainly not a piece of meat for Garlen and his pack of jackals to paw at in full view—all for the good of my city." A vein pulses dangerously in his forehead. "My wife, Mel. Mine."

Mine.

The word, like a key, unlocks the full dimension of his rage.

She'd known he was a jealous man. Had assumed, in her naïveté, that it was born of a bruised male ego. Because he was a powerful man, who'd risen from nothing. And, like all power-hungry men, he'd sooner hoard her attention than share it.

Now, she sees her mistake: the root cause of his jealousy was never the sharing.

It was the humiliation.

Having a shipful of strangers, in all their privilege, look down their noses at him. To treat him, publicly, with varying degrees of hostility—all because he'd been born in the wrong place, and raised by the wrong people, and bested his own fate with his bare hands. To be regarded, in turns, as a volatile threat, an exotic savage, or a useful commodity—but never as an equal.

And Mel, in the course of a single evening, had condoned the whole circus.

In her mind, she was protecting his interests. In her heart, she was trying to make amends. In her actions, she was keeping the peace.

But in Silco's eyes, she was making a mockery of her vows.

And with this voyage, selling his soul. All to keep Piltover's good standing at Zaun's expense.

Mel's throat hitches. She can feel the miserable tremors of childhood bubbling up. Her fingers clench the rail; the only thing left to cling to. For a terrifying heartbeat, she is a girl again, condemned beneath her mother's shadow.

But Silco is not Ambessa.

And she is no longer a girl.

"I did this," she grits out, "for us."

"No," Silco says, flatly. "You did this for them."

"They're our guests."

"They are the enemy."

"Silco, they—"

"My enemies," he says. "By word. By deed. The difference, Mel, is that both of mine have teeth."

The salt-spray stings Mel's eyes. Adrenaline, cold as seawater, sluices down her spine.

And it hits her:

I am in hostile territory.

"Why have you brought us here?" she says. "What are you planning?"

At the word—us—there is a change in his expression. It is subtle, but unmistakable. Suddenly, the fluid animation that powers his every move is gone. The man left behind is—not an effigy—but a facsimile of human life. Skin and bones and blood, but nothing more.

Beneath, there is a bottomless void.

And it is very, very hungry.

"I told you," he says. "This is a treasure hunt."

"Silco—"

"I've given them the bait. Now all that's left is to reel them in."

"Reel them in for what?" Without realizing, Mel has begun to edge away. To put herself between him and the bodies belowdeck. "Silco, these are my guests. My allies. I am responsible for their safety."

His stare doesn't falter. "So am I."

"Tell me," Mel says, her heart pounding. "Please."

He is still a moment longer. Then he lifts a hand and smooths back the flyaway curls that have broken rank from her coif. The gesture is oddly gentle. And yet, Mel has a sense that he's gripping her throat in a fist.

"Put your boots on," he says, deathly soft. "We're here."

And the skiff, neat as a pin, glides into the dock.

The guests, in a dazed cluster, file off the skiffs.

Their blindfolds stripped, they resemble, to Mel's eye, a school of bewildered fish: faces palely pinched, eyes gleaming, mouths working. Their shoes squeak on the steel plates. Many, still in their finery beneath their life-vests, shiver in the deepsea chill. There are whispers. Shaking heads. Furtive glances. As if, beneath the dazzling florescence, a monster lurks.

It's the fear that's always in the back of their minds.

The fear, Mel realizes, that Zaun will be their undoing.

She, too, is stunned. Not simply by the sheer size and scope of the Hydra, but by the fact that Silco has, for years, managed to conceal such a behemoth construction. She'd known he was cunning. Known he had a gift for biding his time. But to have built, under her city's nose, a sprawling, multi-level port complex, and an armada of submersibles...

It's not a matter of scheming. It's a matter of strategy.

Did you expect me to stay on sufferance?

Trust me—and don't run.

Her mind, a stifled storm, feels the full brunt of his words.

In her ear, Ambessa's lesson, learned the hard way:

Marriage is a sea unto itself... If you try to tame it, it will swallow you.

"Mel?"

Lady Denning's voice, like a clubbing blow, sends her stumbling back to the present. She blinks. The crowd, a collage of anxious faces, solidifies.  The noblewoman is clutching the spray-dampened hem of Mel's sleeve. Her lips, blue-tinged with cold, are pursed in a moue of distress.

"I think," she quavers, "I may have caught a chill."

Mel's nurturing instincts kick into gear. "Stay close. We'll find you someplace warm."

"Mel, where are we? This place—I don't recall our itinerary including it. Is this truly one of Zaun's ports? The size of it—" Her eyes flit, birdlike, over the vast expanse of metal. "Why, it's like the mouth of a leviathan!"

"Sssh. My husband wanted us to see the fruits of Zaun's progress."

"Progress! Oh yes. And then we'll go home?"

"Of course."

"Oh thank gods." A childlike hiccup. "I'm truly not dressed for an expedition."

"I wouldn't worry." Mel, her arm firmly looped around the woman's waist, casts a swift glance at the rest of the group. They are, she notices, also clumped in clusters. The women, huddling together. The men, pacing around them in small, tight circles. The air, despite the chill, crackles with tension. "The sooner we see the treasure, the sooner we'll leave."

"Treasure." Lady Denning jitters a forced laugh. "Yes. A treasure. How—how exciting."

"It will be, yes."

The answer is rote: a reflex honed over years of crisis.

Inside, she is paralyzed. She'd been prepared to deal with the economic repercussions of the Iron Pearl. Nightmare scenarios of Piltover's trade networks collapsing into a morass of litigation. Zaun's ships, their holds laden with contraband, being impounded at sea. The Council, furious, holding her at fault—

All of that, she could've dealt with. She's a Medarda, and Medardas can outfox the fiercest threats.

But Silco's plan, whatever it is, is a different beast.

She has no precedent for this. No guidepost; no rules of conduct. Only a feeling, as visceral as the bite of winter, that something is closing in.

She looks across the platform, and there, a hundred feet away, is her husband.

He is speaking to the crew: wiry, sharp-eyed men and women in grease-streaked uniforms. They are all Fissure-born: Mel can tell by the tattoos and scars crosshatched on their bodies; by the glint of cybernetic implants on their hands or faces; by the sinewy muscles that flex in their shoulders and arms.

Ambessa had often liked to say there's no trusting a man or woman without a single scar.

A marked man has more backbone in his pinkie than an entire pedigree of soft-skinned cowards.

If that is the case, then these are the most upright people in existence.

A court to a crooked king.

In their midst, Silco is a slender silhouette. His features are set in blandly neutral lines; his body holds an easy languor. And yet his voice, compelling in its slow articulation, holds the group in thrall. They do not shrink in subservience, like serfs under their liege's boot. Instead they lean in: grim-faced, intent. The deference in their stance verges on reverence.

Mel knows how much power the Eye of Zaun wields. In Piltover, he is a formidable adversary.  On the global stage, he is an up-and-coming terror.

Here, in Zaun's territory, he is a god among men.

Succinctly, he issues a series of orders. As one, the crew nod. A single gesture, and they disperse: each vanishing down a different corridor of the maze. The last of the men—a hulking brute, with a shock of bright orange hair and a face that's a mass of knotted scars—touches his fist to his chest. His mouth, a lipless slash, cracks in a smile.

Silco imparts the barest smile in turn.

Then, he turns—and his eyes, two chips of different-colored ice, lock onto Mel's. She feels, again, as if her throat is being encircled in a cold fist—and lovingly, oh so lovingly, squeezed.

A blink, and the pressure is gone.

And her husband, closing the distance, is at her side.

"The crew are bringing around carts," he says, pleasantly. "They'll escort the guests to the viewing gallery. Give them a bird's eye view of the haul."

"Haul?" Mel keeps her frayed nerves from her voice, "Of what?"

"Patience. You'll see." He gestures to the brute-faced crewman. "This is Kolt. He and his men will handle the party's safety."

The man, with an affable grin, nods. "Yessir."

Lady Dennings, huddled close to Mel, whispers, "Safety? I—I don't understand. From what?"

"Protocol," Silco says smoothly. "Nothing more."

The poor woman, trembling, presses closer to Mel. "I think," she mumbles, "I need a hot drink. And a dry cloak."

"You'll have both, and more. Just an hour's patience."

"An hour—?"

The noblewoman's voice fades into white-noise. From within the warrens of the Hydra, a strange rumble erupts. A low-pitched buzzing at first, it grows, like a wave, into an earsplitting discordance. It resembles a thousand metal gears grinding against each other. And yet the echo is surreally musical, like a symphony swelling from the depths the sea.

The guests, crying out, huddle into protective swarms. Some clap their hands to their ears. Cevila, hissing like a wet cat, swats free of her cringing husband. Hector, quivering volubly, nearly stumbles to his knees. Garlen, swearing, draws a pistol, and is immediately restrained by his own retinue.

Lady Dennings, clinging to Mel's waist, nearly swoons. Bracing her elbow, Mel holds her steady. Her skin crawls with seven layers of gooseflesh. The sound is everywhere: a palpable force, vibrating up her spine. It feels like a descent from foreboding to doom. Her mind, always balanced on an effortless gyre of equilibrium, is suddenly off-kilter. The imagination conjures a monster: vast and unseen, rousing itself from slumber. Acres of sea-water, churning, as it begins its slow crawl towards the light.

Only Silco stands his ground. He is preternaturally calm, his hands laced behind his back, his profile cut from cracked stone.

Like a conductor before his infernal orchestra.

Then—

The demonic grinding fades. The molecules in the air, pinwheeling spastically, begin to settle. The silence throbs into lingering aftershocks—until, gradually, the ordinary hum of activity resumes.

As one, the guests heave out a collective sigh.

"My stars," Hector wheezes. "That was frightful!"

Cevila cries. "It was a seaquake!"

"Feh," Garlen grunts. "More like a faulty engine. I've heard worse at Zaun's foundries."

To punctuate his point, he kicks the railing. His boot-heel rebounds off the metal with a hollow clang. Sound and fury, Mel thinks, signifying nothing. Underneath, he is terrified.

Lady Dennings, curled at Mel's side, is a wreck. Her eyes are swimming; her cheeks wet.

"Oh, dear gods," she whimpers. "Please, Mel. Let's just go. Please."

"Hush," Mel soothes, though her heart is pounding. "It's over. We're fine."

"That noise—ghastly! It sounded like a monster."

"No monster," Mel says, hoping she's right. "Only—"

"Magic," Silco finishes.

At this, the noblewoman buries her face in Mel's shoulder.  Mel, keeping her composure, holds Silco's stare. Even with the distance between them, she can feel the electricity of impending danger in the air jump like a needle into the red.

"Magic," she repeats, flatly. "What sort?"

"The undersea glyphs. They emanate a resonance, each time they are used." His tone is light, but the gleam in his eyes is pure blackness. "Different frequencies for different distances. That, for instance, was an arrival."

"An arrival of what?"

"Treasure."

Lady Dennings has begun to whimper. Reflexively, Mel smooths circles between her shoulderblades. She's a delicate soul, prone to the vapors. Her husband, the milquetoast, is too feckless to do anything but hover.

Mel's own husband, the bastard, is only a stone's throw away. And yet, the distance might as well be the breadth of an ocean.

"I don't care for games," she says, leveling the turmoil beneath her tone into steel. "Explain yourself. Or show us the way out."

"I intend to."

"What?"

"The way out. That's where we're going."  With a languid sweep of his arm, Silco gestures them deeper into the abyssal maze. "Tread carefully, my dear. The rest of you: come."

It's not a request, but a decree.

And the guests—the hostages, in all but name—follow.

The cart ride is a rollercoaster.

Not the exhilarating type: with loops, and spins, and a plunge that leaves you cheerfully breathless. This is the opposite: a series of gut-wrenching spirals and gravity-defying corkscrews. The carts, a fleet of narrow, flat-bedded vessels, are designed for efficiency rather than comfort. Mel, seated with Silco, grips the edges with bloodless knuckles. She's half-certain the next twist will send them colliding straight into a dead-end.

The interior of the Hydra is a labyrinth. The network of zigzagging corridors, catwalks and canals is an infrastructural marvel: a cityscape unto itself. Everywhere, generators throb. A latticework of pipes snakes overhead. Workers rush to and fro. The pulse of machinery is a warm womb, burgeoning with possibility.

A sense of the world changing shape.

The Medardas, Mel thinks, believe in keeping the world as it is.

Now Silco, with a single decade's work, has thrown that belief into a tailspin.

He sits, an impassive silhouette, in the seat opposite. She'd always known he could keep a cool head under pressure. Now, witnessing his calm in the face of the unknown is terrifying. He is no longer the man who'd kissed her, with such fierce tenderness, at breakfast. Nor the sly enigma who'd sat, smoking, at the bar, while Mel had spun her diplomatic web.

This is a stranger: an ice-cold entity, his plans locked behind a sheet of blankness.

She feels for the ring he'd given her, twists it on her finger. It's all she can do not to wrench it off and fling it in his face.

"Bastard," she hisses under her breath.

He doesn't flinch. "So many have said."

"I will never forgive you."

"Many have said that, too." A beat. "I wonder how many times I'll have to listen to you say it."

"Not much longer, the rate you're going." Her rage has calcified into a core of gold: reactive to nothing, and solid to the worst blow. The Medarda rage, Ambessa used to say. It's why our women are the fiercest.  "I'm beginning to see why Sevika warned me to steer clear."

A crease—instantly flattened—passes beneath his forehead.

"Sevika?"

"Before the engagement was publicized. She pulled me aside. Told me I was taking a huge gamble. That she didn't think you and I would suit." Mel, sensing the chink, presses her attack. "She never told you, did she?"

Silco, motionless, says nothing.

"Now I see why. Truth has no appeal to you. Only games." A glance at the guests, a straggling cluster in the rear cart. The poor things are terrified: the women shaking, the men pale. Only Garlen, the bullheaded brute, looks ready for a fight.  "She warned me of that, too. She said, if this was a passing fancy, I should keep an escape route open. But if it was a permanent fixation, you'd make my life a living hell."

The crease appears again. And holds.

"What," he says, "did you tell her?"

"I advised her to save her breath. I said I wasn't afraid. I was a Medarda. And Medardas, come hell or high water, always get what they want."

"A bloodline of unparalleled ambition."

"I believe the word Sevika used was 'blind hubris.' I could tell she didn't think much of my pedigree—or my choice. When she left, I thought she was simply bitter. All her years of loyal service, and her beloved leader had bypassed her. Worse, he'd chosen a Topsider." Mel smiles without humor. "Blind hubris is right. I didn't understand at all. Her warning was less about me, and more about you."

There is no change in Silco's expression. Yet the opacity is deceptive: more a veil than wall.

"Sevika," he says, low, "has only ever had Zaun's interests at heart."

"Does she know the full extent of your plans?"

"Yes. She is loyal to the cause."

"Then perhaps it's her you should've chosen."

She'd meant to hit below the belt. But his answer, flat in its simplicity, leaves her reeling.

"I nearly did."

The cart's wheels shriek. Sparks leap. They round a corner, and the corridor narrows. The walls, composed of industrial metal, are streaked with rust.

Or blood.

Mel's throat closes. "You two—"

"She was my comrade. When necessary, my sounding board." The timbre is even. "Sometimes more."

The veil is drawn. Behind, Silco is unknowable. But no longer, Mel thinks, untouchable.

"Did you—" she begins.

"Did I what? Trust her? A damn sight more than I do you. Did I fuck her? Yes, and often. Love her?" He doesn't bother hiding the derision. "Sevika never angled for my love. She knew where she stood. In my bed, and at my side. That's what made her a good lieutenant. She understood loyalty." A shrug, careless, but weighted with intent. "Unlike some."

Mel lowers her head. There is a tiny taste of blood where she's bitten her underlip. It fades fast beneath the sourness of rage.

She thinks of Sevika: all hard lines, and cold dark eyes. Of her body—scarred, sinewy and so unlike her own—that Silco must've taken pleasure in. The thought of them together is an ugly blemish on her mind's eye.  And yet, she thinks of the rapport between them: a seamless coordination of word and deed. The implicit understanding of each other's motivations. The tacit safekeeping of the other's secrets. The fierce devotion, born from a shared purpose.

He says Sevika, and his surface stays deceptively slick. But if she dives deeper, the waters are bloodstained.

"You," she says, "loved her."

"That's not what I—"

The rebuff is too sharp. Like the crease in his brow.  His facade: cracked.

And Mel, a lifetime's study of her mother, sees her opening.

"You loved her," she says, "but you had to let her go."

She has him. She knows, by the flicker of his eyes.

"Yes," he admits, finally. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because, in Sevika's words, I'd already committed myself. Because the crisis between you and I was too fraught to sidestep. Because if I'd kept her around, I'd have done something... rash. Selfish." Another shrug. "She told me, in simple terms, to get on with it. Even if, by the end, my cold feet had morphed into fins." He offers a thin smile. "Mal de Matrimonium. It takes a certain woman to inspire it."

"Like me."

"Yes."  The smile fades. "I'm sure of many odds, Mel. Sure of Zaun. Sure of Sevika. Even Jinx, my wildcard, works in ways I can predict. But you? You're the one variable I cannot account for. And that makes matters... complicated."

"You regret our marriage.

"I never said that." A long, awful silence. “I detest the waste."

Mel, stunned, stares.

"I've lived long enough to know, when the dice are cast, the result is a tossup. It's the nature of the beast. With you, it was always a question of whether it was desire—or the desire to make a difference. Whether I could live with the first. And whether I could afford the second."  His stare, unerring, holds hers. "With Sevika, the scales were simpler. She understood my means. She understood my ends. Our desires didn't hold us hostage. They were simply a natural consequence. I've no doubt, had I chosen her, she'd have my bollocks on a platter. But, at the end of the day, Zaun would be the stronger for it." A beat. "And my life, safer."

Safer.

The word slashes through Mel's fugue. In her mind, she sees a pair of warm tawny eyes. A smile, pure and true. Arms enfolding her, and soft lips kissing her forehead, her nose, her mouth. A different man, a better man—his embrace a refuge rather than a tightrope. To the last, he'd cradled her close, and whispered, with all his heart: 

Don't go.

I'll take care of us. We'll be okay.

If she could've chosen her Happy Ending, it would've been Jayce.

But there is no such thing as Happy Endings. Or, if there are, her mother made sure she'd lost hers the moment she was born.

A Medarda, Ambessa always said, languishes in safety.

It is in danger that she shines.

The cart shudders, its speed decelerating. Mel's anger—that golden core—has gone brittle. His confession is an axe. Each sentence, a blow.

But her spine does not bend.

"It's too late," she says flatly. "You’ve chosen me."

"I have."

"I'll oblige you, if you wish. Your bollocks on a platter." Her smile barely wavers. "Your heart, I've yet to find."

Now the crease deepens. Barely perceptible: a cut of shadow.

“Mel,” he says, warningly. "Let's be grown-ups about this."

"Oh, indeed!"

"We entered this union with our eyes open. Our motives were never altruistic, much less romantic. You sought to stabilize your Council seat. I, a means to leverage my city's independence. It was a bargain struck with a single clause. To both our benefit." He shakes his head. "The rest is noise."

"I've seen how well you deal with noise."

"And I've seen how you manage the same. But this is not noise." A grim chuckle. "This is our future."

"Don't presume to speak for me."

"I'm not presuming. I'm stating facts." He leans forward. "If you had no intention of seeing this through, you would've cut your losses. Hell, you had the perfect chance. Back on the ship, you could've sided against me. Could've claimed ignorance, or trickery, or betrayal. Instead, you chose to stand by me. Why?"

"Because—"

Because I've failed one relationship already.

Because I’m tired of losing what’s mine.

Because, gods help me, I—

The words stick in her throat. The truth, too deep, refuses to dislodge without bleeding.

"Because I gave my word," Mel snaps. "Earlier today, you made me promise not to run. You said, and I quote: 'I've a great deal to hide. But the endgame is the same as your schemes for my city: a step toward something greater.' Now you've taken me to a secret stronghold. A place you've built with Piltover's money, and kept hidden from Piltover's eye. You've put a shipful of foreign dignitaries on the chopping block. Tell me—is this the endgame? Because it's beginning to look like a declaration of war." 

The crease disappears between Silco's brows. In its place is a frown. It's not the frown he makes when she's displeased him. It's the frown that lingers in the aftermath of his daily Shimmer-shot. When the pain is a dull, grinding ache, and the medicine's effects have yet to kick in.

"War," he says, "is the last thing I want."

"Then what do you want?"

"What I've always wanted. A better tomorrow."

"For who?" She looks him dead in the eye. "You—or us?"

"That depends on the ‘us.’"

The cart snakes sharply down a corridor between two columns, jogging left and right. Sparks fan from a welder's torch above; the glittering embers, sulfurous and bright, cascade past his cheek. His profile is shadow, set against a background of fireflies.

"Us," he goes on. "What's your definition of the word, Mel? Is it a piece of paper? A ring? The words we say, or the acts we share? Or is it those great heaving ideals: peace, prosperity, and the common good? Because all of that won't happen unless my city's free. Free to be a powerhouse unto itself. Free to control its own destiny, and make its own choice. That, Mel, is my endgame."

"And my guests?"

"Witnesses—or collateral."

Mel stops short.

"They can choose to swim with the tide. Or resist, and drown." 

The golden core flares into molten fury. Without meaning to, Mel bolts to her feet.

"If you touch a hair on their heads—"

The cart shoots past the corridor and veers sharply to a stop. The sudden change of momentum, from full speed to dead stillness, throws Mel off balance.

The world spins. Her fingers skitter off the metal grille. She pitches forward.  

Then—

Warmth. Solidity. Anchorage.

Mel, reeling, finds herself enfolded in Silco's arms. His breath, soft and smoky, gusts against her temple.

"Trust me," he murmurs. "That's all I ask."

The golden core is in meltdown. A thousand sensations, a thousand emotions, fractaling into a single streak of focus. For a moment she isn't sure whether to cling, or claw. Her body is caught in a mad swelter, a furnace-blast of need. The only certainty is the thud of her heart, and the scent of his skin.

Then, like a match, her clarity ignites.

"Let me go," she seethes.

He obeys. The air is a vacuum: chill where his warmth had been. His mismatched eyes kick off a strange smokeless heat that Mel feels all the way to her spine.

But he makes no further move.

"Your choice," he says, very quietly. "Same as theirs."

Then, without waiting for a response, he steps off the cart.

Mel is left to gather herself. Her guests, disembarking dazedly, are looking to her for direction. She feels, the way she had in girlhood, the weight of the world bearing down. A thousand pairs of eyes, a thousand expectations. Lady and Lord Dennings, huddled together like children. Hector and his wife, whispering furiously. Garlen, his fists clenched, pacing the length of the platform.

And Silco, loping ahead, his shadow a shark's dorsal fin cutting through the light.

"This way," he calls.

The guests, in a straggling line, follow.

Mel brings up the rear, her belly a pit. A few faces swivel her way. She forces a bright smile.

"We're nearly there," she soothes. "All will be well."

Her confidence—an unraveling lie—is the only veil she has left.

The viewing gallery, a vast circular arena, is submerged deep in the Hydra's belly.

The cantilevered walls are lined with portholes: round, glass-paned halos, crusted with salt. They offer a perfect three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the undersea vista. The depths are lit by the bluish glow of spotlights. Despite their incredible intensity, they do not illuminate much. Just a stratum of alien landscape: the swirling patina of deep-sea sediment, dotted with the skeletal carcasses of sunken ships. Now and then, a shoal of fish flits by, trailing a ghostly phosphorescence. Squids materializing, then vanishing, in a tangle of pale tendrils. Eels undulating slowly in the current.

It is an abyssal kingdom, guarded by the dark.

In the center of the arena is a colossal pit. Ringed by a rudimentary safety rail, it resembles an amphitheater. The rim is a series of interconnected catwalks, in concentric circles. At their aperture, a single walkway juts out. It leads, not to a door, but a tank. It is colossal: shaped like an hourglass, with a diameter nearly twenty feet wide. Its surface is perfectly smooth: a mirror of polished glass.

The bottom chamber is empty save for a layer of powdery white sand. Either it is Mel's imagination, or the grains seem to hover a half-inch above the floor.  The top chamber is constructed out of scaffolding. Upon the platform sits a dais shaped like a hexagonal star. Its points are etched with a series of sigils

Mel recognizes the patterns. They are similar to the ones on the Hexcore.  

At the pyramid's base sits a series of blocks. They are etched with letters: a script so incongruous it verges on absurd.  

XOXOXOXO

Atop the dais rests a metal cylinder. A glowing purple sphere, the size of a man's fist, floats in a cradle in its base. Hidden behind its faceted surface, Mel glimpses the dimensions of a mysterious shape: a pentapod, conchical and quill-spined. Trapped like a fly in resin, its silhouette is delineated, then swallowed, then delineated again, in pulsations of light. 

Her pulse kicks up a notch.

Everywhere, the air holds a palpable crackle. The glyphs are a throbbing lattice. The sea's currents, a massive heartbeat.

Science. Chem-tech. Magic.

All converging, like the spokes of a wheel, upon a single, impossible nexus.

"This," Silco says, "is the greatest treasure aboard the Hydra."

The guests, hushed, stare at the hourglass. They resemble children beholding a forbidden toy.

Hector pipes nervously. "It looks—like a fossil."

Garlen snorts. "A gewgaw from the Fissures, more’n likely."

"But it seems—alive!"

"Psssh. Just Trencher trickery." Garlen cuts a scathing look Silco's way. "Isn't that right?"

Silco's look of placid indulgence never wavers. In the marine twilight, he resembles a figment of the deep: coiled and patient. Biding his time before the fatal strike.

"Trickery, no," he says, lightly. "A relic, yes."

"Relic?"

"Indeed." He gestures to the floating sphere. "This is what the ancients called the Forbidden Idol."

The guests fall deathly silent. Their expressions are a spectrum of dread and disbelief. They've heard the old tales, in some fashion. The legend of the Forbidden Idol: an arcane device, forged by the sorcerers of Oshra Va’Zaun, to unlock the gates of the Netherworld. Its existence had, for generations, been relegated to a fairytale. The Idol, if it ever existed, was lost to the silt of time.

Now, here it is: floating serenely before them.

"Gods above," Lady Denning whimpers.

"No gods," Silco corrects. "Only industrious men. I'm sure we all know the legends. In the days before the Cataclysm, the Idol was a symbol of the Void. A vessel believed to house a multivariate spirit. The key to all knowledge. In the right hands, it could unlock the mysteries of time and space. In the wrong ones, it could usher the end of days."

His tone is casual. As if describing a peculiar species of coral.

"Horseshit," Garlen grunts.

"Perhaps. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The Idol does, indeed, contain a matrix of information. But not to the universe. The knowledge stored within is far more mundane. The details of a project—a map, if you will—compiled by voyagers from the First City."

Cevila, white-faced and tightly-wound, snaps, "Voyagers? You mean—" 

"Mages," Mel cuts in softly.

Silco nods. "The original architects of Oshra Va'Zaun. Their purpose was to establish a concourse between our world and the Void.  They believed the binary could be bridged, through the use of the right conduits. Sigils. Seals. Gems. Taken altogether, they'd be capable of translating the energies of the Void into a language comprehensible to mortal minds."

"Language?" Hector echoes. "A language of what?"

"Power."

The word falls with the faintest ripple; a stone arrowing straight into the depths.

"Power is the only language the Void understands. It is not an entity that can be bargained with. It is a primordial force; a vast reservoir capable of granting—and destroying—life.  The mages sought to transmute this raw essence into a finite form. To capture a shard of the infinite, and distill it. To that end, they devised an artifact that contained, within itself, the blueprint for its own construction. A creature, born in the Void, and imbued with a fraction of its wisdom. A living repository. They trapped this creature, ageless, in a stasis field. Through sigils and spells, they calcified the beast, and imprisoned its consciousness, until it could no longer escape its enclosure."

The Idol coruscates hypnotically. The stone’s facets ripple and reform. The pentapod, briefly, seems to flex its coiled body. Then, the light subsides, and it slips back into inertia.

"The Void's ambassador," Silco says. "Frozen between life and death. A hostage to the whims of progress."

Lady Dennings shivers. "How dreadful."

"Men, playing god, are singularly cruel." A beat. "But their ingenuity? Undeniable. The creature's body has been alchemized into flesh and bone. Its spirit is sealed into the crystal. And its knowledge—a compendium of a hundred thousand years—condensed into a single volume. All of it written on the pages of its own prison."

The silence stretches. All eyes, in their orbit, are fixed on the Idol. Mel imagines the weight of it: a vast, crushing pressure like the bottom of the sea.

If the creature were ever to awaken, would the crystal shatter, or the world?

"This," Silco continues, "was the oracle of Oshra Va'Zaun. The old mages used it for their own ends. With its energies, they fueled their city. Their architecture. Their weapons. Their ships. They discovered zones, on land and sea, where the boundaries between our world and the Void were thinnest. There, they established nodes: glyphs carved into seamounts, obelisks erected at cliffsides, temples built from the bones of the earth. And, invisible to the naked eye, a network of ley-lines, linking each node to the other."

"Like a spiderweb," Mel says.

"Precisely. A web sensitive to the currents of the Void. It took years, and thousands of lives. When the final node was completed, the mages—foolishly—decided to test their creation. They activated the web, and drew from the Void an unprecedented amount of energy. Too much, for manmade structures to contain. The network collapsed into the waves. The mages were wiped out. The Idol sank to the bottom of the sea. Out of sight—but never truly gone. As the centuries passed, it continued to serve as a magical beacon. A siren, singing its song. Calling out, to those willing to listen."

The guests, half-seduced, have drifted toward the railing. A few lift their hands, as if to reach for the Idol.

Like pilgrims at a temple, Mel thinks.

Or moths lured to a flame.

Lady Dennings, and a few others, shrink back.

"Gods above,” she breathes. “This is—madness."

"On the contrary,” Silco says. “This is the purest expression of physics. Two charges, positive and negative, in a magnetic field. A force, pulling them together, by increments of time and space." The gleam in his eyes briefly shutters. "That’s how Jinx was able to find the Idol. An affinity of blood—or spirit. At great cost to herself, she recovered the relic from a distant shore. At great risk, she decoded its secrets, and unlocked the power contained within. All to make the dream a reality."

The dream, Mel thinks.

A network of undersea glyphs.

A trade route traversed in minutes.

A city: shining, strong, self-contained.

Free.

"So how's it work?" Garlen demands. "How's it haul cargo between places?"

Silco's half-smile cuts like a blade. "As I said. Resonance. The Idol is sensitive to the frequency of the Void. Each glyph buried along the seabed exudes a unique vibration, which the Idol is attuned to. Like a song of call and response. Zaun's navigators—over the years—have made deep-dives, mapping every glyph hidden under the waters of this strait. Their patterns are recorded, then faithfully carved into the dais in a series of sigils. Now, each time a different sequence of sigils is activated, the Idol broadcasts a corresponding vibration across the distance. The matching glyph, transforming these vibrations into sympathetic wave, opens a conduit. A portal that can be crossed by any vessel. Anywhere."

"Anywhere," Garlen repeats dubiously.

"Anywhere within Zaun's network. Which, I assure you, is extensive."

Hector whispers. "How—how far?"

"A dozen cities, spanning Valoran and the southern coast of Shurima. All linked by ley-lines of magical hotspots. Each one hosts a port similar to the Hydra." He spreads his arms. "The Hydra itself? The epicenter. From here, our goods are transported to Zaun’s shores. At the Iron Pearl, they're unloaded and redistributed to buyers from far-flung lands. A perfect loop: no delays, no customs. All right at Zaun's doorstep."

The silence shudders—not with dread, but temptation. In the guests' faces, Mel sees the naked dimensions of greed taking shape. A trading nexus without parallel. For a politician, hungry for favor, it is a banquet. Investments in everything from textiles, tech, trinkets. All available at a fraction of the expense, with a quarter of the wait. The returns would be astronomical.

All Zaun asks is the right to traffic freely across the seas. The right to be seen as a trading partner, rather than a pauper.

"But what of the danger?" Lady Dennings interjects. "The Idol's energy... It's unstable. Isn't it? Look at the way it's pulsing. And the sound earlier. So ominous..."

Silco's half-smile deepens.

"That, my lady, is the song of progress. The power of this Idol is derived from the Void. The same Void that destroyed the world, in ages past." He tips a mocking salute. "A debt, I'm afraid, the world has yet to repay."

Lady Dennings lets out a low, terrified moan.

"Hush, now. It's less volatile than you think. The sigils on the dais act as a mechanism to dampen the force. Jinx calls it a Hex-Code. She uses a great deal of technical jargon, so I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, each combination of sigils controlling the Idol does not simply activate its power. It also ensures the power remains within a controlled radius." He indicates to the letters embedded into the base of the dais: XOXOXO. "No doubt, you've noticed the particular script."

"What is that?" Cevila says. "It doesn't look like any rune I've ever seen."

"Because you haven't. Jinx made it up. A private joke." The grin that touches his lips suggests he's the only one privy to the humor. "Simply put, it means 'Crossing Over.' It's the acronym Jinx and Viktor used to first calibrate the intensity of the Hexcore’s power. Now it's a safety mechanism. A trapped-key interlock, as Jinx calls it. Through a combination known only to Jinx, and myself, the magic of the Idol can be safely manipulated."

Lady Dennings' hand flutters over her heart. "But—what if you two were to have an accident? Wouldn't that be catastrophic?" 

"My daughter, and I, are very careful. We're aware the power at our fingertips is vast. If the worst should pass, there are failsafes in place. Including an automatic lockdown sequence. The Hydra also has its own protective wards. They mitigate the worst of the Idol's force. As long as we take care, and follow the proper procedures, it is safe."

The final syllables, soothingly authoritative, fall like a spell. Mel senses the guests' fear abating; a narcolepsy of calm washing over the arena.

"And now," Silco says, "for the demonstration."

The guests jerk into alertness.

Turning, Silco gestures to someone. It is Kolt, the stolid man from earlier. His craggy features are unreadable. But the shadow of a grin touches his lips. Mel, watching him stride into view, feels a frisson of foreboding. But Kolt only crosses to a narrow control panel at the corner. A series of switches are thrown, a sequence of dials turned.

A moment later, the molecules in the air begin to hum.

It is a high-pitched note, piercingly pure. Mel flinches. The guests cry out, covering their ears. Then, like a tuning fork, the sound modulates. From a discordant thrum to a deep, melodic pulse. It is, Mel realizes, the same frequency that had been heard earlier. But more sonorous, and less frightening, like an underwater dirge.

Like the sea itself given voice.

Inside the hourglass, currents spiral. On the dais, the pyramid's panels, in sequence, begin shifting. The sigils glow a preternatural blue. One by one, they slide up and down, aligning into the desired configuration. At the base, the blocks imprinted with X's and O's slot into their grooves. The purple sphere, the Idol, gives off an irradiated glow. Inside, the pentapod seems to strain against its prison. Mel catches a glimpse of a single, cyclopean eye.

A scream builds in her throat, threatening to burst.  The frequency reaches a crescendo. The light's intensity is blinding, searing, melting.

Then it happens.

In the bottom chamber, the sand begins to rise. It accumulates slowly, drifting as if on a current. Then it coalesces into a vortex. Mel thinks of the shapes she'd seen across nature: fractals, radials, double-helixes. Each shape, a geometric construct: a blueprint of life. A snowflake, an atom, an embryo.

And then—

Gold.

Formed from the particles, and solidifying. The grains of sand, all congealing into a single point. The gold takes shape, and mass, and dimension. Nuggets, becoming chunks, becoming ingots. A river of riches, pouring from the vortex and spilling into the chamber.  The hoard is the color of the sun, and flashes with a warmth that dazzles.

Then the frequency shifts. The glow ebbs. The Idol goes dormant. In the chamber, the vortex collapses, and only the gold remains. It is a vast pile: a king's ransom. Enough to make the Council's coffers tremble. 

Enough to set the mind of every guest aflame.

"How—" Garlen begins, then falls silent. He is thunderstruck. "How did it—"

"Sands from the seabed of the Urvashian Islands," Silco says. "Their minerals, according to alchemists, are the purest counterbalances of elemental energy. Each time cargo is transported, the sands are placed in the hourglass. They act as a stabilizer, absorbing the effluvium of the Void. By the time the cargo is retrieved, the sands go inert. Harmless." A quirk of the brow. "Best of all, we've no need to replace them. Their potency never wanes. They can be used over and over, indefinitely."

The guests are speechless. Even the bullheaded Garlen is mute with awe. Their eyes, passing from the Idol to the gold, are lit with a collective fever.

The crewmen, wheeling in a pair of crates on flatbed carts, make their way down the catwalk. Mel follows their progress. With utmost care, they unlock the chamber, and heave out the gold. The ingots, stacked neatly, fill the crates. Their movements are matter-of-fact: they've witnessed this miracle a hundred times before. But a twinkle of elation catches in their eyes.

They are all Zaunites: born and bred in grime. Now, they've hit paydirt. That twinkle is the taste of a life changed.

A future, free.

Silco, at the railing, watches them work. When they've finished, the crate is sealed. The crewmen wheel their burden toward the elevator. The grille gates clang shut. With a whirr of cables, the cart begins its ascent. A few men wave jauntily at the guests.  Silco tips his own chin, a laconic farewell. His smile, though thin, is a rare sight.

The smile of a man whose dreams are, inch by inch, becoming real.

Then his eyes meet hers.

Something, briefly, breaks through the rigidly neutral expression. Something he'd tried to hold back, and could not.

It's not a look she can name. But Mel's throat catches. In lament, or longing, she cannot say. 

The scale of his will is beyond measure. What else could he have accomplished, had he not been cheated? Has he cheated her, now, of her own choices?

Or only bypassed her own prejudices?

"Where—" Garlen swallows, and tries again. "Where'd the gold come from? It looked—"

"Icathian?" Silco, his eyes still on Mel's, nods. "You are correct. Payment, for a contract. We're aiding in the restoration of their capital, after its sacking at the hands of Noxus. As recompense, the chieftain has granted Zaun the rights to navigate the southern waters. A boon, given Icathia's history. The strait is a graveyard of lost civilizations—and buried treasure. It took years, and a great deal of coin, to excavate the remnants. The gold you see is a small percentage. Our share." A shrug. "Yours too, if you wish."

The guests stir. A few murmur. Cevila's face holds a harpy's lineaments. Hector's waxen countenance is flushed. Garlen's massive fists are clenched. Lady Dennings appears on the verge of swooning. The rest, spines jellied and appetites whetted, are starved fish circling round their own greed like chum on a hook.

Silco's words resound in Mel's head.

"I've given them the bait. Now, all that's left is to reel them in."

"The Iron Pearl," Silco continues, "cannot flourish as a Free Trade Zone, without the cooperation of Zaun's allies. That is, after all, the reason we've sojourned these waters. To broker peace, and forge alliances. You are my guests. Your presence here is a show of good faith. And your goodwill, in the coming days, will be integral to the success of this endeavor. I'm certain, should your nations respect Zaun's independence, you'll receive your just dues. In partnership—and profit."

There is a bland smile on his face. But his words are a stormfront. They move, inexorably, blotting out the space. They push aside all resistance, making impossible anything other than the total awareness of him. The gallery's temperature changes perceptibly from a cool draft to a chill. 

Mel, weaned on her mother's lessons, feels goosebumps pebbling her skin. The guests, stripped equally bare, shiver. Even Garlen's sneer has gone brittle.

The offer, soft-spoken, is the soul of diplomacy. But not a single man or woman is insensible to the undertow. Zaun has established, with possession of the Forbidden Idol, a series of gateways at the doorsteps of every nation. Should a war be declared, these channels can be easily cut off. A chokehold, economic and strategic, that will strangle the ports into poverty. Retaliation will mean incurring Zaun's wrath: the cost, incalculable. Weapons of unknown potency. Threats, in a dozen secret hideaways. And a sorceress, mad as a hatter, whose whims may, at any moment, turn the tide.

All of this, Silco has spelled out in the politest terms.

Alongside the third option.

A handshake—between the guests, and the man whose worth they now know is worth gold.  The man they can no longer afford to snub. After six nights of insulting everything from his city's origins to his personhood, their arrogance has led them to this moment. He: the powerbroker. They: a motley assemblage of aristocrats, a thousand leagues from home. Without the protection of their vaults, their vassals, their vanity.

With only Silco's word to guarantee their safe return.

There are no gods at sea, Ambessa used to say. Only the depths, and their mercy.

Silco's mercy, Mel thinks, will be less forthcoming.

"This is—" Cevila clears her throat. In more modulated tones than Mel has ever heard: "This is a marvelous opportunity, Your Chancellorship. But it is—that is—there is a lot to take in."

"In—Indeed," Hector says. "I, for one, will have to confer with my peers. They’ll need to—we’ll all need to—”

He breaks off. The rest nod their agreement. A few glance around, seeking guidance, or a savior.

Their eyes alight on Mel.

Mel, who has been in Silco's crosshairs the whole time. Who, by a series of events that now seem utterly inevitable, has been maneuvered to stand either beside the man whose hand will tip the scales of power—or be the last barricade between him and progress.  Her choices, her convictions, her desires—all flowing weightlessly on a single rolling wave, and converging upon this very moment.

Did he plan this, too?

Or did he let the chips fall where they may, and seize the opportunity as it arose?

The air in the arena goes chokingly thick. The guests, a chorus of anxious breathing, stare at her. Silco's eyes never once leave her face. He is reading the small nuances of her expression like sailors read the stars. She can practically see him calculating the odds: gains weighed and losses tallied.

He is the highwire act, balanced between the heights and the abyss.

He is the shark, circling bloodless waters.

He is the bridegroom, waiting at the altar.

Waiting, Mel realizes, for her to make the call.

He's laid a gauntlet at her feet: a choice, with no margin for error. And yet, the ultimate test of trust.

If she refuses him, then she is the last line of defense. Piltover will become a citadel, with its worst nightmare at the doorstep. Her marriage: a failed gambit, her alliance with him a sham. She'll have to reconnoiter in every sense: reestablish her reputation, rally her allies, then re-enter the fray with all her armor intact.

And if she sides with him...

If she sides with him, Piltover's pinnacle is his to scale. The Hex-gates will no longer be the bastions of her nation. Their reach will stagnate, while his will grow.  Not an imbalance, but a parity.  One that, if she can believe him, will secure a better future. If she can believe he wants nothing more than a handshake, and a bargain. If she can believe that his ambition, though vast, is not bottomless.  That the dream he has built, with the labor of his own hands, is the best hope for a divided land.

"Trust me," he'd said, and kissed her.

And imperative—and a dare.

A Medarda, Ambessa had said, will risk all, if only to shine.

And she, in this moment, is the only Medarda present. The sole voice of authority. Her approval is a green light, or a red signal. One word, and she seals her fate, and Zaun's. One word, and the scales of balance are tipped. A stalemate of seeping blood and crippling self-sabotage—or the chance to walk falteringly forward, hand-in-hand.

You are a Medarda,  Mel thinks.

A Medarda does not simply stand.

A Medarda stakes her claim.

And he, Silco, is hers.

Schatze, Ambessa had called her father. Treasure.

And he'd been hers, for a time.

Until the day he'd sailed off, and caught his death.

Mel, the last of the Medardas, lifts her chin.

She thinks of Jayce, and the breakthroughs of Hex-tech. That night she'd crossed the threshold into Heimerdinger's office, and beheld the miracles conjured by a boy, desperately willed, thrusting himself beyond the constraints of mundanity to kiss the stars. And how, by the end, his ascent had become a collision course with disaster: Icarus with his wings clipped, and shadows etched beneath his bright eyes, and the ghost of the dead child, cold as the void, lingering at his feet.

She'd thought him, in his brilliance, unstoppable.

And she'd learnt that even a sun can burn out.

Now, she takes in Silco's silhouette. The Idol's radiance, a violet starburst, touches his face with eerie luminescence—the steep angles and unforgiving ridges not otherworldly but subaqueous. He is Icarus' shadow, a distorted mirror of his ambition: wings scabbed into scar-tissue and claws dripping blood, his trajectory not upward, but deeper into the dark. 

Yet the burn in his eyes is the same.  The desire: to push past the limits of the known; to see the world, and everything in it, transformed.

Will he, Mel wonders, prove the death of her own ambition, or its fulfillment?

"Trust me," he'd said.

A siren's lure, calling her to the depths. Calling her home.

Mel makes her choice.

"This," she says softly, "is certainly a leap to progress."

Silco's remote smile does not alter. "A leap? I'd call it a bridge."

"And its foundations? Are they stone—or sand?"

"They are as solid as gold." 

If he's aiming for a weak-spot, it doesn't show in Mel's smile. Instead, she steps closer. Close enough to share the same air. To see the way his nostrils flare, just the tiniest bit. The way his body shifts, infinitesimally, toward her own.

Inside her, the golden core flares: a heat-seeker, finding the one spot in the ocean's depths that is warmest.

She looks into his mismatched eyes. The green, a glacial rime, unyielding. The red, a blood moon, waxing. Both: watching her intently. Waiting for the next move.

"Gold," she says, "is not a foundation. It is a lure."

He doesn't blink. Doesn't so much as breathe.

"It is not what keeps a city's ships at the dock. Nor its people loyal. Nor its trade, stable and profitable." She tips her chin. "That's all built on trust. On an exchange of values, and the willingness to compromise. A bridge built of gold—one based in profit—is a bridge that will collapse under the first sign of strain. Because the real value—the intangible—lies in the bonds we build." Her eyes probe, deftly, behind his forbidding stare, to the human impulses buried at its root. "It is trust that keeps the gates open. It is trust that holds nations together. Without it, a bridge can never be built."

He remains motionless. But in his eyes: a flicker. "Are you speaking of Piltover, or Zaun?"

"I speak of both, as one." She leans forward, and speaks for his ears alone. "Because they are one."

He smiles. It is, in a strange way, the smile that had first won her over—out of hostile distance and into wary truce. The smile that, in its slow, steady burn, had drawn her closer and closer. A glint so full of fire and shadow, a conspirator's promise and a lover's secrecy, that it had been like a spark struck to a fuse, a chain reaction set into motion until all at once she was caught and burning too.

Jayce, Mel knows, was her match.  Always incandescent; always brilliant.

Silco is her catalyst. Always igniting, always setting her ablaze.

"A bridge, then," he says.

She nods. "A bridge."

There is a collective breath. The guests relax into whisperings and nervous trills of laughter. They weren't, Mel realizes, certain whether she was truly in on the secret, or if she'd been blindsided the same as them.  Then again: why would they assume she and Silco had a rapport? That he'd chosen her as his partner, in every way? Their own marriages—and it hits Mel with a belated shock—have been predicated on nothing beyond political convenience. One-sixth remain unconsummated, one-third in the throes of extramarital affairs, and the remainder enduring a mutually-beneficial detente.

No desire. No trust. No love.

Marriage: the purest definition of compromise.

Silco, Mel thinks, would rather have something different.

So would she.

"A bridge," she repeats, her eyes never once leaving his. "Across borders. Across the seas. Across all that divides us." Her voice softens. "For a better future."

The guests' crosstalk flows with ease now. She has, as Piltover's envoy, conceded the point. The wrinkles of the Iron Pearl's operation will need to be smoothed out. The terms of the trade agreement negotiated. But the groundwork has been given leeway to settle. Piltover may remain, ostensibly, the neutral party. They may neither invest their coinage, nor participate directly. But, like any partner, they'll have a finger in the pie—and a hand in shaping the terms.

It is a formidable concession.

One that, Mel hopes, will not come back to haunt her.

"Piltover," she continues, "will honor the treaties, and respect Zaun's sovereignty. In exchange, Zaun will guarantee the safe passage of Piltover's ships through these waters.  And those vessels belonging to the nations who are recognized as our allies." She pauses, then adds, very quietly: "Is that agreeable?"

Silco's smile—a sly sideways slant—returns. "To the dot."

"Then, perhaps, I might make a suggestion. As a gesture of good faith."

"Of course."

She smiles, demurely. "I believe the Hydra should have a new name. One less... intimidating."

His brow quirks. "Such as?"

"I was thinking—" Beneath her lashes, she casts him a pointed look. "Thesaurus."

"Like a repository?"

"Like the old Shuriman vault."

His look—of surprise, recognition, and humor—is fleeting. But it is no mirage. The grin cuts his features into an uncanny semblance of boyishness. It is, she thinks, the first time she has ever seen him smile without a trace of irony.  The golden core inside her, deliquescing, is a slow, heavy, heated pulse.  The crowd of guests, the vast room, the Idol, fade back.

He is all she can see: the prize at the blackest depths.

"It sounds," he says, "like the fitting end to a treasure hunt."

[wordspin-shares]

WIP Tag Game

I was tagged by @darknightfrombeyond forever ago. Thank you so much for thinking of me! <3

From the draft of the next chapter of my Grishaverse fic, Thread of Twilight: (more than one line, but I couldn't help it)

Daria halted underneath the overhead structure, watching as the ship left its berth. She saw the Darkling walking toward the port bow, looking over the expanse of deep blue sea ahead. That was the place where she saw him most often during the next days. He was there when she went abovedeck after finishing her rounds of the bilges every morning, and he was there gazing across the water at sundown.

Tagging: @bi-ologistofthehills, @thecharmedburrowspn-files, @asirensrage, @mabonetsamhain, @foxesandmagic, @moustache-bonnet, @mariedemedicis, @bluebell-winter, and anyone else who sees this!

[thetragicallynerdy]

how about Jim and other character(s) of your choice, celebrating something? Happy holidays! 💛

Ooh thank you friend!! I love it!!

Okay so this isn't actually holiday related, but the idea settled in so have some Frenchie and Jim during The Kraken Era, birthday style.

--

"Hey, asshole." "You know," Frenchie said, ignoring Jim in favour of continuing to sloppily stitch the shirt he was mending, "we really need to work on your people skills. Find a suitable alternative and whatnot. 'Hello, my darling beloved friend Frenchie.' 'Hello, my bestest mate in the entire world.' 'Hello, my fellow miserable minstrel.' 'Hello -'"

Jim groaned and flopped down onto the deck beside him, shoulder butting up against his, thighs pressed together. That's how he really knew they were friends. They kept leaning against him. Without a knife in their hand, even!

"Fuck off. Listen."

He tilted his head towards them. "Listening."

"No, like - fuck, would you put that down a second and look at me?"

Frenchie finally looked up from his sewing to squint at them. They gave him an exasperated look that he chose to interpret as fond, mouth turned down in a scowl.

"Looking at your lovely grumpy face, m'dear. What is it?"

They made a grumbling noise and dragged something from their coat, shoving it at him. A little parcel, wrapped in a spare rag. Frenchie stared at it, then at them.

"Take it!" Jim hissed, shaking the little parcel when he still didn't move. "It's not gonna bite, jesucristo."

Frenchie set down his sewing and took it gingerly. Even if they said it wasn't going to bite, that didn't mean there weren't sharp edges. Or teeth. Or explosives. Or -

It was light in his hands. Small, something hard underneath the fabric. He looked at Jim, then back at it. When they jerked there chin in a 'go on' motion, he slowly unwrapped it. And stopped. And stared.

Inside was a shiny bright harmonica. Its metal gleamed in the sun, as pretty as anything he'd ever seen. Almost as pretty as his lute. It was a bit dinged in places, signs of wear around the edges - but it had been polished, like someone wanted it to look new.

"Jimmy," he breathed, "where the hell did you get this?"

When he looked back at them Jim was no longer making eye contact. They were staring at the deck, fidgeting with a knife he hadn't seen them pull out, cheeks flushed a light red.

"Won it off a guy at the last port," they mumbled. "You - you like it, right? You know how to play it."

"I don't," he admitted, "but I can't wait to learn."

He ran his fingers over the metal, itching to start right now. But Izzy was abovedecks, and he'd probably throw a fit.

Frenchie threw his arm around Jim's shoulders and dragged them in for a tight hug, pressing a kiss to the top of their hat. He released them just as quick, before they could do something with that knife, or shove him away. Just as long of a hug as he thought they might accept.

"Thank you. I fucking love it."

Black eyes met his. "Yeah?"

He grinned and nodded. "Yeah."

They slumped against his side, just for a moment, before straightening, face hidden under their hat. "Good. I just - y'know. You said, a while back, that it's - anyway. Um. Happy Birthday."

Frenchie found himself staring again. "What?"

They flushed deeper. "Happy Birthday? I know that like. Everything sucks right now. But. Yeah."

"Oh," he choked out, throat suddenly tight. He hadn't even realized. But that Jim had, and had remembered, and bought him an actual fucking birthday gift? He clutched the harmonica to his chest. "No, I - fuck, I forgot. Didn't know what day it was."

"Oh shit," Jim said, voice soft. "Sorry, man. I thought you knew."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Nope. Dummy who doesn't have a calendar, that's me."

Jim chewed on their lip. "... I only know because I keep a journal. That's all." They punched him lightly in the arm. "And only I get to call you a dummy. You're fucking brilliant, okay?" Before he could protest they had stood, dusting off their trousers and holding out a hand. "C'mon. We're gonna go steal some rum and hide in the hold until Izzy comes looking. Celebrate your birthday properly."

He took their hand and let them haul him to his feet. It was stupid, and would probably get them in trouble. But god, what was life without a little stupidity and celebration here and there?

"You're on."

[attzi-gearburst]

DWC Day 1 Instinct/Neglect (Iranji)

Word Count: 1500 Summary: Iranji has a nightmare about a bad night from his past. Warnings: drowning, injury, death

@daily-writing-challenge

The storm came out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Iranji woke to the sound of wood cracking and groaning above him just as the ship toppled sideways, knocking him and his crewmates out of their hammocks and onto the floor of the hold. Abovedeck, someone was screaming, but between the roar of the wind and the waves lashing at the ship, it just sounded like noise.

She righted herself, which sent everyone who’d come out of their hammocks rolling. Iranji moved with this out of instinct, using the momentum of the sway to get himself closer to the stairs. He scrambled up them on all fours, and came abovedeck into absolute chaos.

The mast was gone, split and fallen across the middle of the ship, with the sails in the waves and taking on water. It had taken out half of the deck railings as it fell, leaving anyone on board at the mercy of the waves crashing over top of her. The weight of the broken mast had her listing, and that was making it harder for her to bounce back when a wave hit.

���Gotta get the mast off!” he shouted, looking around for anyone else on the crew. Three people scrambled from where they’d been clinging to things that were actually tied down. While they moved, Iranji turned and repeated his shout to the sailors still in the sleeping quarters. That done, he bolted to help the others already trying to shove the broken remains of the mast into the water so that the rest of the ship would be free.

They had to time their shoves carefully; if they pushed when a wave hit from their backs, the ship nearly capsized. Thankfully, his voice carried, and the others listened to his orders to heave and stop. Eventually, the sails themselves did the rest of the work, dragging the last bit of shattered mast into the water like it was being devoured. The ship immediately bobbed back upright, and a few of the people who had helped began to cheer. But Iranji felt anything but relief as he turned his full attention to the storm roiling above them. It was like nothing he had ever seen.

For one brief moment, it felt like the storm was looking back. He froze, rocking on the unsteady ship, staring up into the clouds, frantically trying to think of a way to survive this. Elaina and the girls needed him to come back.

That was his last thought before the lightning struck, coming directly down from the point he’d been staring into. It hit him slightly off-center, taking out his left eye as it used his body as a conduit to reach the ship. The sheer amount of water on the deck caused the bolt to travel further, and several of his crewmates fell to the remains of the deck just as he did.

The pain wracking his body was so strong that he wasn’t even fully aware that he could no longer see on his left side. He needed to breathe, but his lungs wouldn’t obey. He needed to get up, to save the ship, to check on the others, but his legs were useless. And even all of that didn’t seem as crucial as it should, because the sheer amount of pain he was in was preventing his body from working properly. It suffused him. It smothered him.

Elaina. Rhiannon. Reese. Again, he tried to inhale.

Elaina. Rhiannon. Reese. Another failed breath. His remaining vision began to go dim.

Loa save me. I’m not ready to die. My girls need me.

The ship rocked wildly, and an even bigger wave crashed over its side, catching his limp, disobedient body and pushing it right after the mast. The chill shock of the water on seared and whole skin alike was enough to make him finally, finally gasp for air, and he got a single breath in before he began to sink.

Loa save me. I’m not ready to die. My girls need me. He repeated it in his head like a chant as he willed his arms and legs to move. He was a strong swimmer, even in a storm, but this time the storm had struck first. He closed his good eye as he was pulled under by a wave and focused on holding his breath.

Beneath the water, he could hear the groaning of the ship as the waves beat at her mercilessly, but behind it all was the crystalline sound of water droplets hitting the waves, giving the entire debacle a sense of ethereal unreality. It was cold, it was quiet, and the rain was singing to him as he sank deeper into the only place that had ever felt like home.

Eventually, he had to exhale. As he did, he felt something large rise up beneath him, bumping into his back and stopping his descent. The skin of the creature felt like sandpaper, and the shock of it on his bare back made him suck in a breath. Salt water flooded his lungs immediately, and some of the pain he’d felt when the lightning hit returned. He tried to thrash, to do anything to resurface–

Iranji sits bolt upright, nearly falling out of his hammock, and begins gasping for breath.

Loa save me. I’m not ready to die. My girls need me.

Those old thoughts run through his head again, as he spins to drop his legs to the floor, turning his hammock into a chair. He rubs at his odd eye and sighs, trying to dredge up the rest of the memories. Once he did, they would leave him alone for a while.

As he lay dying on the back of the creature that had stopped him from sinking further, he’d heard a voice in his head: Rise. Regenerate. You will not die today. As he blacked out, the thing beneath him had begun to surface. But you will never again love anything as much as you love the sea. There is so much here for you to learn for me.

He’d come to in a gentle rain, draped over a floating crate, lungs achy and wheezy, left side of his body on fire. A large shark was circling around him, but Iranji had been too drained to worry about it for the moment. He’d lain there, focusing on his pain, willing himself to regenerate, because once his wounds were healed he’d be able to figure out how to stay alive.

The eye had taken the longest, and something hadn’t seemed quite right about his vision from that side when it was restored. In the moment, however, he’d been distracted by his left arm and leg: as the wounds healed, what reappeared was not skin, but scales, much like a shark’s. They were darker than his skin, but not as rough to the touch as shark skin would be. He’d shoved all that aside to be dealt with later and turned his attention to his surroundings, looking for his ship, for his crew.

Pieces of both had been in the water surrounding him. Sharks were feeding on the remains of his friends, but any time they’d tried to approach Iranji, the shark circling him had chased them away.

His shark companion had remained with him until a ship that had survived the storm found the wreckage and began to seek survivors. He’d been weak, and incredibly dehydrated, but he’d survived. The strange new crew that had saved him had kept looking at him sidelong, which had caused him to keep to himself when he wasn’t helping with repairs. Eventually, he’d caught sight of himself in a mirror while washing up, and realized why they were all so wary; his vision wasn’t the only thing strange about his newly-regenerated eye.

Iranji stopped rubbing at his odd eye and looked down at his shoulder, where the scales remained. One finger ran along the skin around his eye, where the scales also remained. He knew now that the loa Gral had saved him from drowning that night.

Twelve years after the Cataclysm, and he still didn’t know if Elaina and their daughters had survived, but the last thing Gral had said to him had turned out to be right: since that day, he was only content when he was on the water. And so, he simply hadn’t looked further once he’d learned that their home port was now completely underwater. Heartless? Possibly. But he was well aware that he’d come out of the water different; if she and the girls were still alive, it might be a good thing that they hadn’t been reunited.

He slipped out of his hammock and wove through the sleeping forms of the others until he reached the deck, taking deep, fresh breaths of salt air and enjoying the calm of the night.

There was nothing like this anywhere on land. He loved being first mate of the Glittering Prize, and despite the nightmares he was content.

[thespacelizard]

dress up

@fluffbruary day 16! time for some more shenanigans with Jarlaxle and Artemis and Jarlaxle's semi-suicidal urge to play dress-up with Calimshan's grumpiest export. Up on AO3 here.

In which Jarlaxle plays dress-up.

“No.”

“You’ve hardly even looked—”

Artemis picked Jarlaxle up and lifted him bodily from where he stood blocking the door. Always one to make the best of a bad situation, Jarlaxle wrapped his legs tightly around Entreri’s waist and his arms—only slightly less tightly—around his neck.

“Let go.”

“To borrow a phrase from you—no.”

He smiled brightly into Artemis’ glare. The Eyecatcher creaked around them, rolling idly in the slow lull of Deepwater Harbour’s mild tide. Muffled shouts filtered down from abovedecks; his crew, keeping themselves busy. He nudged at Artemis’ cheek with his nose, brushed his lips against his ear.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he purred, in his most seductive tone—it rarely worked on Artemis, but it was worth a try. He felt Artemis shiver, and had just started working on a persuasive line of kisses along his jaw, when he was all at once flung to the bed. Success, perhaps?

“Goodbye.” Artemis turned for the door. Jarlaxle flung a pillow at him—he snatched it out of the air and threw it right back.

“You are such a spoilsport,” Jarlaxle said, hugging the pillow to his chest.

“And you are a busybody. You have played dress-up with me more than enough since we’ve been in this city.”

“One party! That’s it, that’s all I’ve done, I’ve hardly been breathing down your neck—though gods know you could use someone to do so.”

“One was more than enough.” Artemis threw a glance at the chair where the pile of clothes Jarlaxle has so far failed to get him into still sat. “You are not making me up like one of your sailors. I do have some dignity left.”

“Really? I could have sworn you lost the last of it when that eighteen-year-old wizard backhanded you.”

About half a second after the remark had left his mouth, he was flat on his back with his hands pinned above his head. He squirmed; Artemis tightened his grip. “Is this a threat or a promise? I do so enjoy it when you play rough, abbil.”

Artemis glared at him. “Sometimes I think you want me to stab you—don’t make your obvious joke.” Jarlaxle shut his mouth. Then he opened it again, speaking now with a softer tone, as pleading as Entreri was likely to listen to.

“Just for five minutes? Please?”

Artemis held his gaze for a long moment. Jarlaxle couldn’t quite suppress a shiver—there was always something fatalistically erotic in being the sole subject of Artemis Entreri’s attention. Finally, Artemis sighed, and let him go.

“Five minutes.”

Jarlaxle arranged himself cross-legged and waited very patiently and politely, making absolutely zero suggestive comments as Artemis undressed. Really, he was being exceptionally restrained. Entreri being as efficient as he was, it did not take long before he’d swapped his usual dull, practical attire for that which Jarlaxle had chosen.

Sailor, Artemis had called it—theatrical pirate was more like it; a little Zord, a little Jarlaxle, a lot of tight leather breeches and well-fitting white shirt. Said shirt was open to the navel, Jarlaxle having carefully removed most of the buttons to achieve just such an effect. Artemis stood there, one hand on his hip pushing the long black coat back just so, and Jarlaxle suppressed a little sigh of satisfaction. In his other hand he held a tricorn hat, which he pointed threateningly at Jarlaxle.

“There are limits,” he said. He held out his arms, taking himself in more fully. “I look ridiculous.”

“On the contrary,” Jarlaxle slipped from the bed and crossed to him, not bothering to hide so much as an inch of the hunger in his eyes, “you look delicious.”

He slid his hands over the warm, exposed skin of Artemis’ chest, all solid muscle. He shifted close, pressed a kiss to Artemis’ jaw, then his mouth, and then, whilst Entreri was distracted, plucked the tricorn from his hand and deftly set it atop his head. Artemis bit his lip and shoved him back with a curse.

“Oh, it seems I’ve drawn the ire of the notorious captain Entreri,” Jarlaxle said. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. “Whatever shall I do?”

“Get on your knees and beg for mercy,” Artemis growled.

Jarlaxle dropped to the floor.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

[monimolimnion]

hello my beloved!!! for the prompts: "Stede, mate... not that I think it's a bad idea, necessarily, but d'you mind telling me exactly _why_ Izzy is locked in the brig with two casks of rum and a seagull?" or, if you're feeling more aa inclined: "Maya Fey, you cannot seriously be proposing that my upstairs bathroom is haunted by a ghost." ty!!

i have been hoarding these last asks from the 5 sentence ask meme for a rainy day! and boy is it wet inside my brain of late. so here we go!

"Stede, mate," says Ed, coming up behind his co-captain with a bracing arm around his waist - habit, after everything that has happened, and something he can't bear to not do abovedeck even with peering eyes all around (who reminded him at regular intervals that it was 'gross' and 'like, totally grounds for a malpractice suit'. Sometimes he almost feels vindicated for the overboard thing. A little bit.)

"Yes, darling?" says Stede absently, without looking back but swaying into his touch, unconscious, even as he remains staring out over the side of the ship into the waves. He has that little pucker between his brows that means he's mulling something over, or troubled, in a way he's trying not to let fully consume him. Ed has a decent guess as to what that is, if not exactly why.

"Not that I think it's a bad idea, necessarily, but d'you mind telling me exactly why Izzy is locked in the brig with two casks of rum and a seagull?"

And there it is - the pucker deepens, worried, and yet dancing around the set of his mouth is the curl of mischief that he has hidden all this time under frippery, designed to drape over and mask it - but Ed knows better now.

"Why don't you ask him?" says Stede, a little archly.

"I did. He said to ask you. Then he fell back asleep." Not that he was really conscious to begin with...

Stede sighs, sobering. "He's adamant that Buttons be cast ashore. I wouldn't let him. Things... escalated."

"Buttons? I thought he liked Buttons."

He really had thought that. Despite a few screws being loose and rattling around audibly in there, he'd always got the impression Iz found Buttons the most capable at sailing by that far he was lonely. That he liked him the best, besides Lucius, maybe, but then that was love and hate and other things all in equal measure.

"So did I. But he got on the sauce at port, and started going on aboutwitchcraft. Said he'd hexed him."

"Well we know he does... Do that." Whether it actually works or not is another thing.

"Aye. Iz was admant Buttons'd made something not work properly... to be honest, he wasn't that coherent, so I'm not sure what it is."

Uh oh.

"I'm... sure he'll be fine."

Stede's mouth pulls sideways into carefully contained amusement. "Me, too. Regardless, apparently Buttons has stationed Olivia to watch over him until everything... resolves itself."

Ed tries his utmost not to burst into laughter that would absolutely spread intrigue like wildfire amongst this, the most gossipy crew on the seven seas.

"Wise," he manages to choke out, swaying closer to Stede and feeling his partner's ribcage tremble with the same effort that reverberates through his own; this, just one more of the most mundane of moments that nevertheless nestle like beach sand into every nook and cranny of his heart and body, everpresent.

He has no reason to want to wash them away anymore, either, so he lets this moment settle there like all the others; a pristine beach of memory, awash over past bedrock and open wide to the ocean spray of the future.

Never a dull day aboard the Revenge.

[vickyvicarious]

As I was talking about the Demeter today, I decided to make a graph for anyone else who has been having trouble visualizing just how bad these attacks are.

Not only is the time between attacks getting shorter each time, but the number of crew available to actually sail the ship is getting drastically smaller.

There's also a second graph under the cut with spoilers for the entire journey, if anyone's interested:

(The ship doesn't wash ashore for several more days, so I just set the captain's death the day after his last entry. It's definitely possible he stayed alive a day or two more, though, and just stayed lashed to the wheel and didn't write anything else.)

[idanwyn-et-al]

(XIV||22-5): Cutting Corners.

(Continued from here.)

Though she was bereft of her usual aetheric shortcuts, Idanwyn found it comforting that she could still perform her duties without their aid. During this step of their preparations, she often took herself abovedecks, casting her mind along the geomantic fields for as far as she could, sampling wave, wind, and building levin to help the ship and Her crew chart their course.

That's not how she’d learned to sail, though. Her aether had remained largely latent until six years ago; a gift of old Hellsguard magicks and ink from a former friend carved a stream for that deep reservoir, even as it covered and buried the painful memories etched into her pale skin beneath.

Moons in a dark desert cave. No escape. No hope. Only---a song, from time to time. A song that was worth it. And eventually, Seran, and his fiery charge to free her. Before they knew each other; before their love that had blossomed, followed its course to its peaceful parting of ways.

Idanwyn shook her head, dispelling those old memories. She reached within herself to look upon them from time to time; turned the pain and despair over within her mind’s eye, before stowing them carefully away again. Each time, the sadness healed a bit more; each time, it felt less like terror that could shatter the ground beneath her feet whenever she heard the liquid slide of chainmail, smelled alchemical furnaces working. Now was not the right time; she is the Captain, and it is time to fill that role.

(Continued here!)

[chiropteracupola]

quantum dad polycule quantum dad polycule quantum dad polycule

it has been A While since I have worked on quantum dad polycule, but it still has a very special place in my heart all the same.

I've discussed this one before, I'm sure, but the general gist of it is the gentlemen/the dad squad slowly getting over their various Difficulties on the voyage home, and eventually ending up in the titular Polycule of Assorted Father Figures. featuring, along the way, such fun happenings as 'Trelawney Dealing With Jealousy In What He Thinks Are Perfectly Reasonable Ways', 'Livesey Completely Failing To Be Subtle About His Increasingly Obvious Crush', and 'Smollett Being Really Uncomfortable All The Time and Refusing To Relax Even Though He Just Got Shot Twice.'

and under the readmore is a bite of the fic itself:

The two of them picked their way down the passage, Smollett being guided along with one hand pressed fast across his chest and the other secured tightly in the folds of Livesey’s sleeve. It was much more work to get to the upper deck than he recalled, but step by step, he managed to make his way. At last, he reached the open air, and, blinking at the sudden light, hauled himself upright.

Standing on deck again felt strange, the energy and balance that he had lost in his time below making him feel out of place even as he stepped slowly across the familiar boards. But the cool wind that cut through his shirt and tugged at his hair was the same as any breeze that had borne him up before, and at that, he managed a slight smile. To taste clean, clear, salt-lightened air again, after the thick warm dampness of the cabin was a pleasure he had dearly missed. Now, with that mended, he was sure that things might begin to fall into place again. Barefoot, with his hair loose around his shoulders, he felt himself to be almost a new man. His closely-bound heart fluttered with an unfamiliar violence, a sort of rich joy he could only ascribe to the freshness of the wind and the snap of canvas above him. For a long moment, he soared.

Livesey placed a hand on his good elbow, and he felt tethered again, like a bird come back at last to perch on the falconer’s hand.

“A little airing out will do you good.” Livesey put a hand to his jaw again, and Smollett allowed his head to be drawn down so that his face could be examined, though he did not quite know at that moment just what the doctor looked for so intently. “A bit of sunlight, as well. It is my opinion that no-one should be kept in so …cramped a space a moment longer than he has to.”

“I may stay abovedecks for the afternoon, then?” and the sheer awkward childishness of asking such a permission on his own ship did not sting as it would have previously, but instead made one corner of his mouth turn up into something that was very nearly a smile.

“You may have as long as you like,” said Livesey, and at that, the strained little quirk of the mouth became a smile in earnest.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Mal de Mer - Ch: 4 - Treasure (Part II)

Summary:

A high-seas honeymoon. Two adversaries, bound by matrimony. A future full of peril and possibility. And a word that neither enjoys adding to their lexicon: Compromise.

War was simpler business…

Part of the ‘Forward But Never Forget/XOXO’ AU. Can be read as a standalone series.

Thank you for the graphics @lipsticksandmolotovs<3

Mal de Mer on AO3

Mal de Mer on FFnet

CHAPTER

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII

A vista of endless blue gives way jagged black peaks rising like a city's skyline.

The Hydra—or so the artificial port is called—sits in a hollow formed by two undersea cliffs, which shield the anchorage from both sides. The sun, a blinding glare, winks off the superstructure. At first glimpse, it resembles a mirage: a phantasmagoria of glass and steel. Closer, it resolves from myth to mundanity: a sprawling, low-slung complex, with an array of docks, hangars and fueling stations. Its colossal weight of ten thousand metric tons is held afloat by a series of airtight nitrogen capsules, encased beneath the steel-plated underbelly. Beneath, miles down, is a bed of solid granite. The complex's anchor, a six-mile-long steel tether, is secured by titanium-plated cables to a peak on the seabed.

The design, a masterwork of engineering, is an homage to its maker: Viktor, the Machine Herald. For an unknown sum, he'd crafted the facility, first as a prototype, then as a permanent installation. Silco had also commissioned his expertise for designing a fleet of specialized vessels: the Siren's Call. A collection of sleek submersibles, built to his exact specifications, and piloted by a cadre of elite seamen.

Their function: transporting precious cargo from the Hydra, back to Zaun.

A fan of sea-spray kicks in the wake of a fleet of skiffs. It sparkles in the intense brightness of the sun, like a handful of tiny diamonds flung to the sky.  Silco, at the helm of the lead craft, navigates with a smuggler's ease. The craft's prow, a narrow point, slices a white streak in the water. Inside, the passengers—Cevila, Hector, Lady Dennings, Garlen—huddle, blindfolded and guarded, in its wake.

Abovedeck, Mel sits hunkered behind her husband. She has taken off her inadequate boots and tucked her skirts between her knees. Her bare ankles are rashed with gooseflesh; her dress, half-drenched, clings like a second skin.

This, she thinks, is why he'd asked her to lose the chiffon.

Seamlessly, Silco threads his boat through the maze of piers, and slips between two massive derricks. Then he steers into a small basin, where a pair of towering steel doors yawn open.

At the fore, the port's emblem gleams: Zaun's dagger-winged chem-shield, etched in vivid green.

They are, officially, in the belly of the beast.

Mel, braced against the spray, stares in mute awe.

The hangar is colossal: a maelstrom of sound and motion. A web of florescent lights, strung overhead, casts a harsh white glare. Everywhere, men and women, in labcoats or overalls with Zaun's crest,  pass in and out. Some, armed with clipboards, are inspecting cargo. Others, armed with power tools, swarm the corners: checking seals, topping up fuel tanks, testing equipment.

Cranes swing. Pulleys screech. Engines roar.  The scene is a sensory assault: an undersea hive, humming with one singular purpose.

Progress.

As her eyes adjust to the dazzling brightness, Mel makes out the dimensions of the dry docks: a spread of interlocking piers and canals, all set in an intricate steel gridwork. Ships of every size and class are anchored: freighters, frigates, ferries. A flotilla of motorboats, their hulls painted the distinctive Zaunite green, zigzag in between like darting minnows. The acrid stink of exhaust and brine is overpowering. 

Silco, at the wheel, takes a deep inhale.

"Funny, isn't it?" he says, quietly.

Dazed, Mel says, "What is?"

"What can be achieved if coin is actually invested where it's due."

The spray hits Mel's face, cold as a slap. She is still in shock. She'd had no clue this behemoth existed. No inkling of the depth and breadth of Silco's designs.

Her voice doesn't quaver. But there's a taut note: like the twinge of a pulled muscle. "How long?"

"Three years, give or take. I've had my eye on these waters since before Zaun's independence. The initial plan, if you can even call it that, was to mine minerals from the seabed. Metals, crystals, ore. Anything we could find." A twist of the wheel, and their boat, with a gentle jerk, eases around a corner. "The project had to be scrapped. We lacked the resources to extract. Not to mention the funds to build a port. Revolution's a costly business. So's maintaining control over a city. Especially one that's eating itself alive."

 "So, you turned your eye elsewhere."

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

"Shimmer."

His profile is inscrutable: a figurehead at the prow. "Yes."

Mel feels no anger yet. Only a dull hiving in the pit of her belly. The same feeling she gets whenever their arguments veer into dark territory. A sense of disorientation—surrealism—at how easily Silco shifts between extremes.

How, without warning, he steals all her air, and leaves her suffocating.

"And this?" she grits out. "When did you discover glyphs under the seabed? Or that they linked to a portal system?"

"I knew nothing about the glyphs. Only that, since my smuggling days, there were stories of a secret network used by Oshra Va'Zaun's navy. A shortcut between sea routes, where ships, powered by ancient magic, could pass from point A to point B in a heartbeat. Like Piltover's Hex-Gates, but at sea." The corner of his lip curls. "As a young man, I'd always thought the maps drawn up by different navies seemed—odd. The Noxians, for example, are too busy with their conquests to chart out a thorough seaway. They're more concerned with securing the strait's borders, rather than what lies underneath. Demacia, meanwhile, is a landlocked bore. They have no real seafaring tradition, nor the need for one. Their navy's purpose is mostly for patrol, and the odd skirmish here and there."

 "And Piltover?"

"Piltover has always been the authority. Or so it claims. It is, however, a city built on greed. The first thing I did after Zaun's independence was to invest in archaic runes from the Shadow Isles. I gifted these to Jinx. For her research into the arcane, and its connection to Zaun's network of magic leylines. Soon, she and Viktor discovered a common thread. The runic systems were not simply confined to Zaun. They were also present, on a much larger scale, along the coastline. A stretch of sea-passage, coincidentally, where Zaun was already establishing a nautical corridor."

The hiving in Mel's belly is spreading. The truth is a bitter sting.

She whispers, "You planned all this."

His profile shifts: three-quarters to the light. The left side, a dark slash. "Is that a crime?"

"The coin from each investment I approved throughout the years. Each transaction sanctioned at my table. Each project aimed at mutual prosperity between our cities." Mel's fingers clench the railing. "It was all being funneled into this!"

"It was being put to proper use."

"This—this is an act of subterfuge!"

The engines rumble as they slow. She's glad for the white-noise. It serves as a screen. The rest of the party, belowdeck, cannot hear them.  And yet, the privacy is its own torment.

 Here, there is nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.

Silco, his eye fixed on the horizon, says, "This is an act of necessity."

"Necessity?"

"Zaun's independence is a reality, not a dream. Reality requires capital. And, unlike Piltover, I can't rely on a bottomless treasury of stolen goods. Our mines are ripe with gems. But gems mean nothing without trade routes, and markets, and vessels to transport them. We are one of Runeterra's most well-situated cities, but we can only export via one single corridor: your Hex-Gates." His good eye swivels her way. "If I had asked the Council, you think they would have funded this port? This fleet? The Iron Pearl?"

"You had no right to—"

"No right?" His tone is biting. "I have every right. Zaun is a sovereign state. This is statehood in motion. Fissurefolk have a history of carving out a living, no matter the odds. We've navigated these seas for centuries before the Cataclysm. We've endured wars, famine, natural disasters, and the collapse of an entire empire. We've fought and bled and clawed our way to a foothold. If anything, the least you can do is to afford us the dignity of making our own way."

"You," Mel fires back, "are undercutting the city that supported you."

"Piltover has already taken its pound of flesh. Now, we're taking back our share."

A dull throb begins in Mel's temples. She'd always known Piltover's stranglehold on Zaun. The city's natural bounty: a vast reserve, kept under lock and key by dint of the Peace Treaty.  After the Siege, and Zaun's rupture from Piltover, she'd needed to assuage the Council's fears: that Zaun could be, if no longer a treasurebox, a viable trading link. That an accord between them was of mutual benefit. 

Two cities: partners in prosperity.

But what Silco has constructed, with the aid of her city's coffers, is a different beast. A counterpoint to Piltover's supremacy: a network of ports and channels, hidden from view, and under his absolute governance. A private empire, beyond her grasp—or the Council's oversight.

A disaster, Mel thinks, with a thousand mile radius.

Once word gets out, the Council will be in uproar. They'll see the Iron Pearl as a direct challenge: their monopoly on foreign goods undermined in the span of a night.  Investors will be stricken. Some, dreading a capsized market, will flee. Others, emboldened, will seek Zaun as the next safe harbor.  Global trading networks will split along two faultlines. Shipping chains will likewise crack at the seams.

A tectonic shift, as profound as the invention of the Hex-gates.

And Mel, a wedge, caught in between.

Trust me, he'd said.

I do, she'd replied.

The irony is not lost on her: her trust, like her marriage, has led her into a trap.

And, like any trapped animal, she lashes out.

"This your idea of compromise? An ambush in plain sight?" She hears her voice crack, and hates herself for it. "I would've given you anything. All you had to do was ask. But no—you'd rather skulk around in the shadows. Scheming like a—"

"You call it scheming. I call it strategy."  Silco's hands, guiding the wheel, are steady. "Or did you expect me to stay on sufferance? My city's trade—its lifeblood—tied for generations to your Hexgates. My future hinging—year after year—on accords written by your Council. Bureaucracy, backtracking, backstabbing. A charade of concessions, with Zaun's dignity as the cost?"

"Charade?" Her face goes hot, then cold. "Is that what you see this voyage as?"

"Worse. I see it as a farce." His knuckles, she notices, are whitening. "You, playing at being my wife. Putting on a show for all your guests. The men and women who've undermined my city at every turn. And what do you do? Peddle your smiles to grease their palms. Force my hand, and force yours, and force everyone else's—all to keep the peace." His laugh is pitched low. And yet it slices through the air. "Peace. If this is the price, I'd rather go to war."

The pain, like a needle, pierces Mel's skull.

She'd known, since the voyage began, that he was angry. That he was sick of the hollow platitudes and hidden barbs. But she'd thought, with her efforts this morning, that she'd successfully mitigated the damage. Diplomacy, rather than daggers—all to the goal of keeping the status quo.

A false premise, she realizes.

Zaun no longer recognizes the status quo. Not when the city has an undersea fortress, and a fleet of ships, and a web of trade routes.

"This—this is politics," she tries to reason. "You've seen me do this countless times!"

"That's precisely the point."

"What point?"

"You." It is a sibilant hiss. "Doing this. Every. Damn. Time."

"Silco—"

"You have a gift for it, Mel. I won't deny." The wheel spins beneath his fingertips.  The craft veers into a narrow canal, bordered on both sides by towering cranes. "I've always enjoyed it. How you can turn a crooked cause into a straight road. Turn a cutthroat into a charity case. But have you stopped to consider—just once—that I don't want to be your charity case? That watching you play nice with those leeches and bootlickers, day after day, makes me sick? That I'd rather toss the lot of them overboard than have you sacrifice a shred of yourself for my city's coffers."

"I am a Councilor," Mel protests. "My duty is—"

"Your duty is to be my wife!"

The whipcrack timbre cuts off the words in her throat. For a moment, Mel can do nothing but stare. His expression—the slow hardening shift of muscles, the creeping chill of mismatched eyes—is as remote as a dying star.

In her mind's eye, she sees their wedding night: her ruined silk underthings a breadcrumb trail between parlor and bedroom. Thinks of Silco, a phantom silhouette in the gloom: on top of her, inside her, filling her, all burning eyes and biting kisses and sweat-slick skin. Thinks of the aftermath: of him cradling her in his arms, his fingertips tracing the scratches his teeth had gouged, his whispers a cool balm to the fire his touch had lit.

"We'll get there," he'd promised her, again and again. "Just give it time."

"Time," Mel had whispered, clinging to his neck.

"All we need. All I ask."

"You could ask for more."

His chuckle had grated deliciously against her skin. "I'm greedy, my sweet wife. I take what I want."

And she'd smiled, and let him take.

Wife.

The word, entwining with sensuous tenderness, now constricts like a noose.

"My wife," Silco repeats, quieter, but with an unmerciful intensity that cuts her to the quick. "Not the prop to humanize me in front of hysterical prudes like the Dennings. Not the pincushion to hide behind when Cevila Ferros slings barbs about my bloodline. Not the bargaining chip to trot out when Hector wants to renegotiate a loan, in exchange for a few harmless gropes. Certainly not a piece of meat for Garlen and his pack of jackals to paw at in full view—all for the good of my city." A vein pulses dangerously in his forehead. "My wife, Mel. Mine."

Mine.

The word, like a key, unlocks the full dimension of his rage.

She'd known he was a jealous man. Had assumed, in her naïveté, that it was born of a bruised male ego. Because he was a powerful man, who'd risen from nothing. And, like all power-hungry men, he'd sooner hoard her attention than share it.

Now, she sees her mistake: the root cause of his jealousy was never the sharing.

It was the humiliation.

Having a shipful of strangers, in all their privilege, look down their noses at him. To treat him, publicly, with varying degrees of hostility—all because he'd been born in the wrong place, and raised by the wrong people, and bested his own fate with his bare hands. To be regarded, in turns, as a volatile threat, an exotic savage, or a useful commodity—but never as an equal.

And Mel, in the course of a single evening, had condoned the whole circus.

In her mind, she was protecting his interests. In her heart, she was trying to make amends. In her actions, she was keeping the peace.

But in Silco's eyes, she was making a mockery of her vows.

And with this voyage, selling his soul. All to keep Piltover's good standing at Zaun's expense.

Mel's throat hitches. She can feel the miserable tremors of childhood bubbling up. Her fingers clench the rail; the only thing left to cling to. For a terrifying heartbeat, she is a girl again, condemned beneath her mother's shadow.

But Silco is not Ambessa.

And she is no longer a girl.

"I did this," she grits out, "for us."

"No," Silco says, flatly. "You did this for them."

"They're our guests."

"They are the enemy."

"Silco, they—"

"My enemies," he says. "By word. By deed. The difference, Mel, is that both of mine have teeth."

The salt-spray stings Mel's eyes. Adrenaline, cold as seawater, sluices down her spine.

And it hits her:

I am in hostile territory.

"Why have you brought us here?" she says. "What are you planning?"

At the word—us—there is a change in his expression. It is subtle, but unmistakable. Suddenly, the fluid animation that powers his every move is gone. The man left behind is—not an effigy—but a facsimile of human life. Skin and bones and blood, but nothing more.

Beneath, there is a bottomless void.

And it is very, very hungry.

"I told you," he says. "This is a treasure hunt."

"Silco—"

"I've given them the bait. Now all that's left is to reel them in."

"Reel them in for what?" Without realizing, Mel has begun to edge away. To put herself between him and the bodies belowdeck. "Silco, these are my guests. My allies. I am responsible for their safety."

His stare doesn't falter. "So am I."

"Tell me," Mel says, her heart pounding. "Please."

He is still a moment longer. Then he lifts a hand and smooths back the flyaway curls that have broken rank from her coif. The gesture is oddly gentle. And yet, Mel has a sense that he's gripping her throat in a fist.

"Put your boots on," he says, deathly soft. "We're here."

And the skiff, neat as a pin, glides into the dock.

*

The guests, in a dazed cluster, file off the skiffs.

Their blindfolds stripped, they resemble, to Mel's eye, a school of bewildered fish: faces palely pinched, eyes gleaming, mouths working. Their shoes squeak on the steel plates. Many, still in their finery beneath their life-vests, shiver in the deepsea chill. There are whispers. Shaking heads. Furtive glances. As if, beneath the dazzling florescence, a monster lurks.

It's the fear that's always in the back of their minds.

The fear, Mel realizes, that Zaun will be their undoing.

She, too, is stunned. Not simply by the sheer size and scope of the Hydra, but by the fact that Silco has, for years, managed to conceal such a behemoth construction. She'd known he was cunning. Known he had a gift for biding his time. But to have built, under her city's nose, a sprawling, multi-level port complex, and an armada of submersibles...

It's not a matter of scheming. It's a matter of strategy.

Did you expect me to stay on sufferance?

Trust me—and don't run.

Her mind, a stifled storm, feels the full brunt of his words.

In her ear, Ambessa's lesson, learned the hard way:

Marriage is a sea unto itself... If you try to tame it, it will swallow you.

"Mel?"

Lady Denning's voice, like a clubbing blow, sends her stumbling back to the present. She blinks. The crowd, a collage of anxious faces, solidifies.  The noblewoman is clutching the spray-dampened hem of Mel's sleeve. Her lips, blue-tinged with cold, are pursed in a moue of distress.

"I think," she quavers, "I may have caught a chill."

Mel's nurturing instincts kick into gear. "Stay close. We'll find you someplace warm."

"Mel, where are we? This place—I don't recall our itinerary including it. Is this truly one of Zaun's ports? The size of it—" Her eyes flit, birdlike, over the vast expanse of metal. "Why, it's like the mouth of a leviathan!"

"Sssh. My husband wanted us to see the fruits of Zaun's progress."

"Progress! Oh yes. And then we'll go home?"

"Of course."

"Oh thank gods." A childlike hiccup. "I'm truly not dressed for an expedition."

"I wouldn't worry." Mel, her arm firmly looped around the woman's waist, casts a swift glance at the rest of the group. They are, she notices, also clumped in clusters. The women, huddling together. The men, pacing around them in small, tight circles. The air, despite the chill, crackles with tension. "The sooner we see the treasure, the sooner we'll leave."

"Treasure." Lady Denning jitters a forced laugh. "Yes. A treasure. How—how exciting."

"It will be, yes."

The answer is rote: a reflex honed over years of crisis.

Inside, she is paralyzed. She'd been prepared to deal with the economic repercussions of the Iron Pearl. Nightmare scenarios of Piltover's trade networks collapsing into a morass of litigation. Zaun's ships, their holds laden with contraband, being impounded at sea. The Council, furious, holding her at fault—

All of that, she could've dealt with. She's a Medarda, and Medardas can outfox the fiercest threats.

But Silco's plan, whatever it is, is a different beast.

She has no precedent for this. No guidepost; no rules of conduct. Only a feeling, as visceral as the bite of winter, that something is closing in.

She looks across the platform, and there, a hundred feet away, is her husband.

He is speaking to the crew: wiry, sharp-eyed men and women in grease-streaked uniforms. They are all Fissure-born: Mel can tell by the tattoos and scars crosshatched on their bodies; by the glint of cybernetic implants on their hands or faces; by the sinewy muscles that flex in their shoulders and arms.

Ambessa had often liked to say there's no trusting a man or woman without a single scar.

A marked man has more backbone in his pinkie than an entire pedigree of soft-skinned cowards.

If that is the case, then these are the most upright people in existence.

A court to a crooked king.

In their midst, Silco is a slender silhouette. His features are set in blandly neutral lines; his body holds an easy languor. And yet his voice, compelling in its slow articulation, holds the group in thrall. They do not shrink in subservience, like serfs under their liege's boot. Instead they lean in: grim-faced, intent. The deference in their stance verges on reverence.

Mel knows how much power the Eye of Zaun wields. In Piltover, he is a formidable adversary.  On the global stage, he is an up-and-coming terror.

Here, in Zaun's territory, he is a god among men.

Succinctly, he issues a series of orders. As one, the crew nod. A single gesture, and they disperse: each vanishing down a different corridor of the maze. The last of the men—a hulking brute, with a shock of bright orange hair and a face that's a mass of knotted scars—touches his fist to his chest. His mouth, a lipless slash, cracks in a smile.

Silco imparts the barest smile in turn.

Then, he turns—and his eyes, two chips of different-colored ice, lock onto Mel's. She feels, again, as if her throat is being encircled in a cold fist—and lovingly, oh so lovingly, squeezed.

A blink, and the pressure is gone.

And her husband, closing the distance, is at her side.

"The crew are bringing around carts," he says, pleasantly. "He'll escort the guests to the viewing gallery. They'll have a bird's eye view of the haul."

"Haul?" Mel keeps her frayed nerves from her voice, "Of what?"

"Patience. You'll see." He gestures to the brute-faced crewman. "This is Kolt. He and his men will handle the party's safety."

The man, with an affable grin, nods. "Yessir."

Lady Dennings, huddled close to Mel, whispers, "Safety? I—I don't understand. From what?"

 "Protocol," Silco says smoothly. "Nothing more."

The poor woman, trembling, presses closer to Mel. "I think," she mumbles, "I need a hot drink. And a dry cloak."

"You'll have both, and more. Just an hour's patience."

"An hour—?"

The noblewoman's voice fades into white-noise. From within the warrens of the Hydra, a strange rumble erupts. A low-pitched buzzing at first, it grows, like a wave, into an earsplitting discordance. It resembles a thousand metal gears grinding against each other. And yet the echo is surreally musical, like a symphony swelling from the depths the sea.

The guests, crying out, huddle into protective swarms. Some clap their hands to their ears. Cevila, hissing like a wet cat, swats free of her cringing husband. Hector, quivering volubly, nearly stumbles to his knees. Garlen, swearing, draws a pistol, and is immediately restrained by his own retinue.

Lady Dennings, clinging to Mel's waist, nearly swoons. Bracing her elbow, Mel holds her steady. Her skin crawls with seven layers of gooseflesh. The sound is everywhere: a palpable force, vibrating up her spine. It feels like a descent from foreboding to doom. Her mind, always balanced on an effortless gyre of equilibrium, is suddenly off-kilter. The imagination conjures a monster: vast and unseen, rousing itself from slumber. Acres of sea-water, churning, as it begins its slow crawl towards the light.

Only Silco stands his ground. He is preternaturally calm, his hands laced behind his back, his profile cut from cracked stone.

Like a conductor before his infernal orchestra.

Then—

The demonic grinding fades. The molecules in the air, pinwheeling spastically, begin to settle. The silence throbs into lingering aftershocks—until, gradually, the ordinary hum of activity resumes.

As one, the guests heave out a collective sigh.

"My stars," Hector wheezes. "That was frightful!"

Cevila cries. "It was a seaquake!"

"Feh," Garlen grunts. "More like a faulty engine. I've heard worse at Zaun's foundries."

To punctuate his point, he kicks the railing. His boot-heel rebounds off the metal with a hollow clang. Sound and fury, Mel thinks, signifying nothing. Underneath, he is terrified.

Lady Dennings, curled at Mel's side, is a wreck. Her eyes are swimming; her cheeks wet.

"Oh, dear gods," she whimpers. "Please, Mel. Let's just go. Please."

"Hush," Mel soothes, though her heart is pounding. "It's over. We're fine."

"That noise—ghastly! It sounded like a monster."

"No monster," Mel says, hoping she's right. "Only—"

"Magic," Silco finishes.

At this, the noblewoman buries her face in Mel's shoulder.  Mel, keeping her composure, holds Silco's stare. Even with the distance between them, she can feel the electricity of impending danger in the air jump like a needle into the red.

"Magic," she repeats, flatly. "What sort?"

"The undersea glyphs. They emanate a resonance, each time they are used." His tone is light, but the gleam in his eyes is pure blackness. "Different frequencies for different distances. That, for instance, was an arrival."

"An arrival of what?"

"Treasure."

Lady Dennings has begun to whimper. Reflexively, Mel smooths circles between her shoulderblades. She's a delicate soul, prone to the vapors. Her husband, the milquetoast, is too feckless to do anything but hover.

Mel's own husband, the bastard, is only a stone's throw away. And yet, the distance might as well be the breadth of an ocean.

"I don't care for games," she says, leveling the turmoil beneath her tone into steel. "Explain yourself. Or show us the way out."

"I intend to."

"What?"

"The way out. That's where we're going."  With a languid sweep of his arm, Silco gestures them deeper into the abyssal maze. "Tread carefully, my dear. The rest of you: come."

It's not a request, but a decree.

And the guests—the hostages, in all but name—follow.

*

The cart ride is a rollercoaster.

Not the exhilarating type: with loops, and spins, and a plunge that leaves you cheerfully breathless. This is the opposite: a series of gut-wrenching spirals and gravity-defying corkscrews. The carts, a fleet of narrow, flat-bedded vessels, are designed for efficiency rather than comfort. Mel, seated with Silco, grips the edges with bloodless knuckles. She's half-certain the next twist will send them colliding straight into a dead-end.

The interior of the Hydra is a labyrinth. The network of zigzagging corridors, catwalks and canals is an infrastructural marvel: a cityscape unto itself. Everywhere, generators throb. A latticework of pipes snakes overhead. Workers rush to and fro. The pulse of machinery is a warm womb, burgeoning with possibility.

A sense of the world changing shape.

The Medardas, Mel thinks, believe in keeping the world as it is.

Now Silco, with a single decade's work, has thrown that belief into a tailspin.

He sits, an impassive silhouette, in the seat opposite. She'd always known he could keep a cool head under pressure. Now, witnessing his calm in the face of the unknown is terrifying. He is no longer the man who'd kissed her, with such fierce tenderness, at breakfast. Nor the sly enigma who'd sat, smoking, at the bar, while Mel had spun her diplomatic web.

This is a stranger: an ice-cold entity, his plans locked behind a sheet of blankness.

She feels for the ring he'd given her, twists it on her finger. It's all she can do not to wrench it off and fling it in his face.

"Bastard," she hisses under her breath.

He doesn't flinch. "So many have said."

"I will never forgive you."

"Many have said that, too." A beat. "I wonder how many times I'll have to listen to you say it."

"Not much longer, the rate you're going." Her rage has calcified into a core of gold: reactive to nothing, and solid to the worst blow. The Medarda rage, Ambessa used to say. It's why our women are the fiercest.  "I'm beginning to see why Sevika warned me to steer clear."

A crease—instantly flattened—passes beneath his forehead.

"Sevika?"

"Before the engagement was publicized. She pulled me aside. Told me I was taking a huge gamble. That she didn't think you and I would suit." Mel, sensing the chink, presses her attack. "She never told you, did she?"

Silco, motionless, says nothing.

"Now I see why. Truth has no appeal to you. Only games." A glance at the guests, a straggling cluster in the rear cart. The poor things are terrified: the women shaking, the men pale. Only Garlen, the bullheaded brute, looks ready for a fight.  "She warned me of that, too. She said, if this was a passing fancy, I should keep an escape route open. But if it was a permanent fixation, you'd make my life a living hell."

The crease appears again. And holds.

"What," he says, "did you tell her?"

"I advised her to save her breath. I said I wasn't afraid. I was a Medarda. And Medardas, come hell or high water, always get what they want."

"A bloodline of unparalleled ambition."

"I believe the word Sevika used was 'blind hubris.' I could tell she didn't think much of my pedigree—or my choice. When she left, I thought she was simply bitter. All her years of loyal service, and her beloved leader had bypassed her. Worse, he'd chosen a Topsider." Mel smiles without humor. "Blind hubris is right. I didn't understand at all. Her warning was less about me, and more about you."

There is no change in Silco's expression. Yet the opacity is deceptive: more a veil than wall.

"Sevika," he says, low, "has only ever had Zaun's interests at heart."

"Does she know the full extent of your plans?"

"Yes. She is loyal to the cause."

"Then perhaps it's her you should've chosen."

She'd meant to hit below the belt. But his answer, flat in its simplicity, leaves her reeling.

"I nearly did."

The cart's wheels shriek. Sparks leap. They round a corner, and the corridor narrows. The walls, composed of industrial metal, are streaked with rust.

Or blood.

Mel's throat closes. "You two—"

"She was my comrade. When necessary, my sounding board." The timbre is even. "Sometimes more."

The veil is drawn. Behind, Silco is unknowable. But no longer, Mel thinks, untouchable.

"Did you—" she begins.

"Did I what? Trust her? A damn sight more than I do you. Did I fuck her? Yes, and often. Love her?" He doesn't bother hiding the derision. "Sevika never angled for my love. She knew where she stood. In my bed, and at my side. That's what made her a good lieutenant. She understood loyalty." A shrug, careless, but weighted with intent. "Unlike some."

Mel lowers her head. There is a tiny taste of blood where she's bitten her underlip. It fades fast beneath the sourness of rage.

She thinks of Sevika: all hard lines, and cold dark eyes. Of her body—scarred, sinewy and so unlike her own—that Silco must've taken pleasure in. The thought of them together is an ugly blemish on her mind's eye.  And yet, she thinks of the rapport between them: a seamless coordination of word and deed. The implicit understanding of each other's motivations. The tacit safekeeping of the other's secrets. The fierce devotion, born from a shared purpose.

He says Sevika, and his surface stays deceptively slick. But if she dives deeper, the waters are bloodstained.

"You," she says, "loved her."

"That's not what I—"

The rebuff is too sharp. Like the crease in his brow.  His facade: cracked.

And Mel, a lifetime's study of her mother, sees her opening.

"You loved her," she says, "but you had to let her go."

She has him. She knows, by the flicker of his eyes.

"Yes," he admits, finally. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because, in Sevika's words, I'd already committed myself. Because the crisis between you and I was too fraught to sidestep. Because if I'd kept her around, I'd have done something... rash. Selfish." Another shrug. "She told me, in simple terms, to get on with it. Even if, by the end, my cold feet had morphed into fins." He offers a thin smile. "Mal de Matrimonium. It takes a certain woman to inspire it."

"Like me."

"Yes."  The smile fades. "I'm sure of many odds, Mel. Sure of Zaun. Sure of Sevika. Even Jinx, my wildcard, works in ways I can predict. But you? You're the one variable I cannot account for. And that makes matters... complicated."

"You regret our marriage.

"I never said that." A long, awful silence. “I detest the waste."

Mel, stunned, stares.

"I've lived long enough to know, when the dice are cast, the result is a tossup. It's the nature of the beast. With you, it was always a question of whether it was desire—or the desire to make a difference. Whether I could live with the first. And whether I could afford the second."  His stare, unerring, holds hers. "With Sevika, the scales were simpler. She understood my means. She understood my ends. Our desires didn't hold us hostage. They were simply a natural consequence. I've no doubt, had I chosen her, she'd have my bollocks on a platter. But, at the end of the day, Zaun would be the stronger for it." A beat. "And my life, safer."

Safer.

The word slashes through Mel's fugue. In her mind, she sees a pair of warm tawny eyes. A smile, pure and true. Arms enfolding her, and soft lips kissing her forehead, her nose, her mouth. A different man, a better man—his embrace a refuge rather than a tightrope. To the last, he'd cradled her close, and whispered, with all his heart: 

Don't go.

I'll take care of us. We'll be okay.

If she could've chosen her Happy Ending, it would've been Jayce.

But there is no such thing as Happy Endings. Or, if there are, her mother made sure she'd lost hers the moment she was born.

A Medarda, Ambessa always said, languishes in safety.

It is in danger that she shines.

The cart shudders, its speed decelerating. Mel's anger—that golden core—has gone brittle. His confession is an axe. Each sentence, a blow.

But her spine does not bend.

"It's too late," she says flatly. "You’ve chosen me."

"I have."

"I'll oblige you, if you wish. Your bollocks on a platter." Her smile barely wavers. "Your heart, I've yet to find."

Now the crease deepens. Barely perceptible: a cut of shadow.

“Mel,” he says, warningly. "Let's be grown-ups about this."

"Oh, indeed!"

"We entered this union with our eyes open. Our motives were never altruistic, much less romantic. You sought to stabilize your Council seat. I, a means to leverage my city's independence. It was a bargain struck with a single clause. To both our benefit." He shakes his head. "The rest is noise."

"I've seen how well you deal with noise."

"And I've seen how you manage the same. But this is not noise." A grim chuckle. "This is our future."

"Don't presume to speak for me."

"I'm not presuming. I'm stating facts." He leans forward. "If you had no intention of seeing this through, you would've cut your losses. Hell, you had the perfect chance. Back on the ship, you could've sided against me. Could've claimed ignorance, or trickery, or betrayal. Instead, you chose to stand by me. Why?"

"Because—"

Because I've failed one relationship already.

Because I’m tired of losing what’s mine.

Because, gods help me, I—

The words stick in her throat. The truth, too deep, refuses to dislodge without bleeding.

"Because I gave my word," Mel snaps. "Earlier today, you made me promise not to run. You said, and I quote: 'I've a great deal to hide. But the endgame is the same as your schemes for my city: a step toward something greater.' Now you've taken me to a secret stronghold. A place you've built with Piltover's money, and kept hidden from Piltover's eye. You've put a shipful of foreign dignitaries on the chopping block. Tell me—is this the endgame? Because it's beginning to look like a declaration of war." 

The crease disappears between Silco's brows. In its place is a frown. It's not the frown he makes when she's displeased him. It's the frown that lingers in the aftermath of his daily Shimmer-shot. When the pain is a dull, grinding ache, and the medicine's effects have yet to kick in.

"War," he says, "is the last thing I want."

"Then what do you want?"

"What I've always wanted. A better tomorrow."

"For who?" She looks him dead in the eye. "You—or us?"

"That depends on the ‘us.’"

The cart snakes sharply down a corridor between two columns, jogging left and right. Sparks fan from a welder's torch above; the glittering embers, sulfurous and bright, cascade past his cheek. His profile is shadow, set against a background of fireflies.

"Us," he goes on. "What's your definition of the word, Mel? Is it a piece of paper? A ring? The words we say, or the acts we share? Or is it those great heaving ideals: peace, prosperity, and the common good? Because all of that won't happen unless my city's free. Free to be a powerhouse unto itself. Free to control its own destiny, and make its own choice. That, Mel, is my endgame."

"And my guests?"

"Witnesses—or collateral."

Mel stops short.

"They can choose to swim with the tide. Or resist, and drown." 

The golden core flares into molten fury. Without meaning to, Mel bolts to her feet.

"If you touch a hair on their heads—"

The cart shoots past the corridor and veers sharply to a stop. The sudden change of momentum, from full speed to dead stillness, throws Mel off balance.

The world spins. Her fingers skitter off the metal grille. She pitches forward.  

Then—

Warmth. Solidity. Anchorage.

Mel, reeling, finds herself enfolded in Silco's arms. His breath, soft and smoky, gusts against her temple.

"Trust me," he murmurs. "That's all I ask."

The golden core is in meltdown. A thousand sensations, a thousand emotions, fractaling into a single streak of focus. For a moment she isn't sure whether to cling, or claw. Her body is caught in a mad swelter, a furnace-blast of need. The only certainty is the thud of her heart, and the scent of his skin.

Then, like a match, her clarity ignites.

"Let me go," she seethes.

He obeys. The air is a vacuum: chill where his warmth had been. His mismatched eyes kick off a strange smokeless heat that Mel feels all the way to her spine.

But he makes no further move.

"Your choice," he says, very quietly. "Same as theirs."

Then, without waiting for a response, he steps off the cart.

Mel is left to gather herself. Her guests, disembarking dazedly, are looking to her for direction. She feels, the way she had in girlhood, the weight of the world bearing down. A thousand pairs of eyes, a thousand expectations. Lady and Lord Dennings, huddled together like children. Hector and his wife, whispering furiously. Garlen, his fists clenched, pacing the length of the platform.

And Silco, loping ahead, his shadow a shark's dorsal fin cutting through the light.

"This way," he calls.

The guests, in a straggling line, follow.

Mel brings up the rea, her belly a pit. A few faces swivel her way. She forces a bright smile.

"We're nearly there," she soothes. "All will be well."

Her confidence—an unraveling lie—is the only veil she has left.

*

The viewing gallery, a vast circular arena, is submerged deep in the Hydra's belly.

The cantilevered walls are lined with portholes: round, glass-paned halos, crusted with salt. They offer a perfect three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the undersea vista. The depths are lit by the bluish glow of spotlights. Despite their incredible intensity, they do not illuminate much. Just a stratum of alien landscape: the swirling patina of deep-sea sediment, dotted with the skeletal carcasses of sunken ships. Now and then, a shoal of fish flits by, trailing a ghostly phosphorescence. Squids materializing, then vanishing, in a tangle of pale tendrils. Eels undulating slowly in the current.

It is an abyssal kingdom, guarded by the dark.

In the center of the arena is a colossal pit. Ringed by a rudimentary safety rail, it resembles an amphitheater. The rim is a series of interconnected catwalks, in concentric circles. At their aperture, a single walkway juts out. It leads, not to a door, but a tank. It is colossal: shaped like an hourglass, with a diameter nearly twenty feet wide. Its surface is perfectly smooth: a mirror of polished glass.

The bottom chamber is empty save for a layer of powdery white sand. Either it is Mel's imagination, or the grains seem to hover a half-inch above the floor.  The top chamber is constructed out of scaffolding. Upon the platform sits a dais shaped like a hexagonal star. Its points are etched with a series of sigils

Mel recognizes the patterns. They are similar to the ones on the Hexcore.  

At the pyramid's base sits a series of blocks. They are etched with letters: a script so incongruous it verges on absurd.  

XOXOXOXO

Atop the dais rests a metal cylinder. A glowing purple sphere, the size of a man's fist, floats in a cradle in its base. Hidden behind its faceted surface, Mel glimpses the dimensions of a mysterious shape: a pentapod, conchical and quill-spined. Trapped like a fly in resin, its silhouette is delineated, then swallowed, then delineated again, in pulsations of light. 

Her pulse kicks up a notch.

Everywhere, the air holds a palpable crackle. The glyphs are a throbbing lattice. The sea's currents, a massive heartbeat.

Science. Chem-tech. Magic.

All converging, like the spokes of a wheel, upon a single, impossible nexus.

"This," Silco says, "is the greatest treasure aboard the Hydra."

The guests, hushed, stare at the hourglass. They resemble children beholding a forbidden toy.

Hector pipes nervously. "It looks—like a fossil."

Garlen snorts. "A a gewgaw from the Fissures, more’n likely."

"But it seems—alive!"

"Psssh. Just Trencher trickery." Garlen cuts a scathing look Silco's way. "Isn't that right?"

Silco's look of placid indulgence never wavers. In the marine twilight, he resembles a figment of the deep: coiled and patient. Biding his time before the fatal strike.

"Trickery, no," he says, lightly. "A relic, yes."

"Relic?"

"Indeed." He gestures to the floating sphere. "This is what the ancients called the Forbidden Idol."

The guests fall deathly silent. Their expressions are a spectrum of dread and disbelief. They've heard the old tales, in some fashion. The legend of the Forbidden Idol: an arcane device, forged by the sorcerers of Oshra Va’Zaun, to unlock the gates of the Netherworld. Its existence had, for generations, been relegated to a fairytale. The Idol, if it ever existed, was lost to the silt of time.

Now, here it is: floating serenely before them.

"Gods above," Lady Denning whimpers.

"No gods," Silco corrects. "Only industrious men. I'm sure we all know the legends. In the days before the Cataclysm, the Idol was a symbol of the Void. A vessel believed to house a multivariate spirit. The key to all knowledge. In the right hands, it could unlock the mysteries of time and space. In the wrong ones, it could usher the end of days."

His tone is casual. As if describing a peculiar species of coral.

"Horseshit," Garlen grunts.

"Perhaps. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The Idol does, indeed, contain a matrix of information. But not to the universe. The knowledge stored within is far more mundane. The details of a project—a map, if you will—compiled by voyagers from the First City."

Cevila, white-faced and tightly-wound, snaps, "Voyagers? You mean—" 

"Mages," Mel cuts in softly.

Silco nods. "The original architects of Oshra Va'Zaun. Their purpose was to establish a concourse between our world and the Void.  They believed the binary could be bridged, through the use of the right conduits. Sigils. Seals. Gems. Taken altogether, they'd be capable of translating the energies of the Void into a language comprehensible to mortal minds."

"Language?" Hector echoes. "A language of what?"

"Power."

The word falls with the faintest ripple; a stone arrowing straight into the depths.

"Power is the only language the Void understands. It is not an entity that can be bargained with. It is a primordial force; a vast reservoir capable of granting—and destroying—life.  The mages sought to transmute this raw essence into a finite form. To capture a shard of the infinite, and distill it. To that end, they devised an artifact that contained, within itself, the blueprint for its own construction. A creature, born in the Void, and imbued with a fraction of its wisdom. A living repository. They trapped this creature, ageless, in a stasis field. Through sigils and spells, they calcified the beast, and imprisoned its consciousness, until it could no longer escape its enclosure."

The Idol coruscates hypnotically. The stone’s facets ripple and reform. The pentapod, briefly, seems to flex its coiled body. Then, the light subsides, and it slips back into inertia.

"The Void's ambassador," Silco says. "Frozen between life and death. A hostage to the whims of progress."

Lady Dennings shivers. "How dreadful."

"Men, playing god, are singularly cruel." A beat. "But their ingenuity? Undeniable. The creature's body has been alchemized into flesh and bone. Its spirit is sealed into the crystal. And its knowledge—a compendium of a hundred thousand years—condensed into a single volume. All of it written on the pages of its own prison."

The silence stretches. All eyes, in their orbit, are fixed on the Idol. Mel imagines the weight of it: a vast, crushing pressure like the bottom of the sea.

If the creature were ever to awaken, would the crystal shatter, or the world?

"This," Silco continues, "was the oracle of Oshra Va'Zaun. The old mages used it for their own ends. With its energies, they fueled their city. Their architecture. Their weapons. Their ships. They discovered zones, on land and sea, where the boundaries between our world and the Void were thinnest. There, they established nodes: glyphs carved into seamounts, obelisks erected at cliffsides, temples built from the bones of the earth. And, invisible to the naked eye, a network of ley-lines, linking each node to the other."

"Like a spiderweb," Mel says.

"Precisely. A web sensitive to the currents of the Void. It took years, and thousands of lives. When the final node was completed, the mages—foolishly—decided to test their creation. They activated the web, and drew from the Void an unprecedented amount of energy. Too much, for manmade structures to contain. The network collapsed into the waves. The mages were wiped out. The Idol sank to the bottom of the sea. Out of sight—but never truly gone. As the centuries passed, it continued to serve as a magical beacon. A siren, singing its song. Calling out, to those willing to listen."

The guests, half-seduced, have drifted toward the railing. A few lift their hands, as if to reach for the Idol.

Like pilgrims at a temple, Mel thinks.

Or moths lured to a flame.

Lady Dennings, and a few others, drink back.

"Gods above,” she breathes. “This is—madness."

"On the contrary,” Silco says. “This is the purest expression of physics. Two charge, positive and negative, in a magnetic field. A force, pulling them together, by increments of time and space." The gleam in his eyes briefly shutters. "That’s how Jinx was able to find the Idol. An affinity of blood—or spirit. At great cost to herself, she recovered the relic from a distant shore. At great risk, she decode its secrets, and unlocked the power contained within. All to make the dream a reality."

The dream, Mel thinks.

A network of undersea glyphs.

A trade route traversed in minutes.

A city: shining, strong, self-contained.

Free.

"So how's it work?" Garlen demands. "How's it haul cargo between places?"

Silco's half-smile cuts like a blade. "As I said. Resonance. The Idol is sensitive to the frequency of the Void. Each glyph buried along the seabed exudes a unique vibration, which the Idol is attuned to. Like a song of call and response. Zaun's navigators—over the years—have made deep-dives, mapping every glyph hidden under the waters of this strait. Their patterns are recorded, then faithfully carved into the dais in a series of sigils. Now, each time a different sequence of sigils is activated, the Idol broadcasts a corresponding vibration across the distance. The matching glyph, transforming these vibrations into sympathetic wave, opens a conduit. A portal that can be crossed by any vessel. Anywhere."

"Anywhere," Garlen repeats dubiously.

"Anywhere within Zaun's network. Which, I assure you, is extensive."

Hector whispers. "How—how far?"

"A dozen cities, spanning Valoran and the southern coast of Shurima. All linked by ley-lines of magical hotspots. Each one hosts a port similar to the Hydra." He spreads his arms. "The Hydra itself? The epicenter. From here, our goods are transported to Zaun’s shores. At the Iron Pearl, they're unloaded and redistributed to buyers from far-flung lands. A perfect loop: no delays, no customs. All right at Zaun's doorstep."

The silence shudders—not with dread, but temptation. In the guests' faces, Mel sees the naked dimensions of greed taking shape. A trading nexus without parallel. For a politician, hungry for favor, it is a banquet. Investments in everything from textiles, tech, trinkets. All available at a fraction of the expense, with a quarter of the wait. The returns would be astronomical.

All Zaun asks is the right to traffic freely across the seas. The right to be seen as a trading partner, rather than a pauper.

"But what of the danger?" Lady Dennings interjects. "The Idol's energy... It's unstable. Isn't it? Look at the way it's pulsing. And the sound earlier. So ominous..."

Silco's half-smile deepens.

"That, my lady, is the song of progress. The power of this Idol is derived from the Void. The same Void that destroyed the world, in ages past." He tips a mocking salute. "A debt, I'm afraid, the world has yet to repay."

Lady Dennings lets out a low, terrified moan.

"Hush, now. It's less volatile than you think. The sigils on the dais act as a mechanism to dampen the force. Jinx calls it a Hex-Code. She uses a great deal of technical jargon, so I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, each combination of sigils controlling the Idol does not simply activate its power. It also ensures the power remains within a controlled radius." He indicates to the letters embedded into the base of the dais: XOXOXO. "No doubt, you've noticed the particular script."

"What is that?" Cevila says. "It doesn't look like any rune I've ever seen."

"Because you haven't. Jinx made it up. A private joke." The grin that touches his lips suggests he's the only one privy to the humor. "Simply put, it means 'Crossing Over.' It's the acronym Jinx and Viktor used to first calibrate the intensity of the Hexcore’s power. Now it's a safety mechanism. A trapped-key interlock, as Jinx calls it. Through a combination known only to Jinx, and myself, the magic of the Idol can be safely manipulated."

Lady Dennings' hand flutters over her heart. "But—what if you two were to have an accident? Wouldn't that be catastrophic?" 

"My daughter, and I, are very careful. We're aware the power at our fingertips is vast. If the worst should pass, there are failsafes in place. Including an automatic lockdown sequence. The Hydra also has its own protective wards. They mitigate the worst of the Idol's force. As long as we take care, and follow the proper procedures, it is safe."

The final syllables, soothingly authoritative, fall like a spell. Mel senses the guests' fear abating; a narcolepsy of calm washing over the arena.

"And now," Silco says, "for the demonstration."

The guests jerk into alertness.

Turning, Silco gestures to someone. It is Kolt, the stolid man from earlier. His craggy features are unreadable. But the shadow of a grin touches his lips. Mel, watching him stride into view, feels a frisson of foreboding. But Kolt only crosses to a narrow control panel at the corner. A series of switches are thrown, a sequence of dials turned.

A moment later, the molecules in the air begin to hum.

It is a high-pitched note, piercingly pure. Mel flinches. The guests cry out, covering their ears. Then, like a tuning fork, the sound modulates. From a discordant thrum to a deep, melodic pulse. It is, Mel realizes, the same frequency that had been heard earlier. But more sonorous, and less frightening, like an underwater dirge.

Like the sea itself given voice.

Inside the hourglass, currents spiral. On the dais, the pyramid's panels, in sequence, begin shifting. The sigils glow a preternatural blue. One by one, they slide up and down, aligning into the desired configuration. At the base, the blocks imprinted with X's and O's slot into their grooves. The purple sphere, the Idol, gives off an irradiated glow. Inside, the pentapod seems to strain against its prison. Mel catches a glimpse of a single, cyclopean eye.

A scream builds in her throat, threatening to burst.  The frequency reaches a crescendo. The light's intensity is blinding, searing, melting.

Then it happens.

In the bottom chamber, the sand begins to rise. It accumulates slowly, drifting as if on a current. Then it coalesces into a vortex. Mel thinks of the shapes she'd seen in across nature: fractals, radials, double-helixes. Each shape, a geometric construct: a blueprint of life. A snowflake, an atom, an embryo.

And then—

Gold.

Formed from the particles, and solidifying. The grains of sand, all congealing into a single mass. The gold takes shape, and mass, and dimension. Nuggets, becoming chunks, becoming ingots. A river of riches, pouring from the vortex and spilling into the chamber.  The hoard is the color of the sun, and flashes with a warmth that dazzles.

 Then the frequency shifts. The glow ebbs. The Idol goes dormant. In the chamber, the vortex collapses, and only the gold remains. It is a vast pile: a king's ransom. Enough to make the Council's coffers tremble. 

Enough to set the mind of every guest aflame.

"How—" Garlen begins, then falls silent. He is thunderstruck. "How did it—"

"Sands from the seabed of the Urvashian Islands," Silco says. "Their minerals, according to alchemists, are the purest counterbalances of elemental energy. Each time cargo is transported, the sands are placed in the hourglass. They act as a stabilizer, absorbing the effluvium of the Void. By the time the cargo is retrieved, the sands go inert. Harmless." A quirk of the brow. "Best of all, we've no need to replace them. Their potency never wanes. They can be used over and over, indefinitely."

The guests are speechless. Even the bullheaded Garlen is mute with awe. Their eyes, passing from the Idol to the gold, are lit with a collective fever.

The crewmen, wheeling in a pair of crates on flatbed carts, make their way down the catwalk. Mel follows their progress. With utmost care, they unlock the chamber, and heave out the gold. The ingots, stacked neatly, fill the crates. Their movements are matter-of-fact: they've witnessed this miracle a hundred times before. But a twinkle of elation catches in their eyes.

They are all Zaunites: born and bred in grime. Now, they've hit paydirt. That twinkle is the taste of a life changed.

A future, free.

Silco, at the railing, watches them work. When they've finished, the crate is sealed. The crewmen wheel their burden toward the elevator. The grille gates clang shut. With a whirr of cables, the cart begins its ascent. A few men wave jauntily at the guests.  Silco tips his own chin, a laconic farewell. His smile, though thin, is a rare sight.

The smile of a man whose dreams are, inch by inch, becoming real.

Then his eyes meet hers.

Something, briefly, breaks through the rigidly neutral expression. Something he'd tried to hold back, and could not.

It's not a look she can name. But Mel's throat catches. In lament, or longing, she cannot say. 

The scale of his will is beyond measure. What else could he have accomplished, had he not been cheated? Has he cheated her, now, of her own choices?

Or only bypassed her own prejudices?

"Where—" Garlen swallows, and tries again. "Where'd the gold come from? It looked—"

"Icathian?" Silco, his eyes still on Mel's, nods. "You are correct. Payment, for a contract. We're aiding in the restoration of their capital, after its sacking at the hands of Noxus. As recompense, the chieftain has granted Zaun the rights to navigate the southern waters. A boon, given Icathia's history. The strait is a graveyard of lost civilizations—and buried treasure. It took years, and a great deal of coin, to excavate the remnants. The gold you see is a small percentage. Our share." A shrug. "Yours too, if you wish."

The guests stir. A few murmur. Cevila's face holds a harpy's lineaments. Hector's waxen countenance is flushed. Garlen's massive fists are clenched. Lady Dennings appears on the verge of swooning. The rest, spines jellied and appetites whetted, are starved fish circling round their own greed like chum on a hook.

Silco's words resound in Mel's head.

"I've given them the bait. Now, all that's left is to reel them in."

"The Iron Pearl," Silco continues, "cannot flourish as a Free Trade Zone, without the cooperation of Zaun's allies. That is, after all, the reason we've sojourned these waters. To broker peace, and forge alliances. You are my guests. Your presence here is a show of good faith. And your goodwill, in the coming days, will be integral to the success of this endeavor. I'm certain, should your nations respect Zaun's independence, you'll receive your just dues. In partnership—and profit."

There is a bland smile on his face. But his words are a stormfront. They move, inexorably, blotting out the space. They push aside all resistance, making impossible anything other than the total awareness of him. The gallery's temperature changes perceptibly from a cool draft to a chill. 

Mel, weaned on her mother's lessons, feels goosebumps pebbling her skin. The guests, stripped equally bare, shiver. Even Garlen's sneer has gone brittle.

The offer, soft-spoken, is the soul of diplomacy. But not a single man or woman is insensible to the undertow. Zaun has established, with possession of the Forbidden Idol, a series of gateways at the doorsteps of every nation. Should a war be declared, these channels can be easily cut off. A chokehold, economic and strategic, that will strangle the ports into poverty. Retaliation will mean incurring Zaun's wrath: the cost, incalculable. Weapons of unknown potency. Threats, in a dozen secret hideaways. And a sorceress, mad as a hatter, whose whims may, at any moment, turn the tide.

All of this, Silco has spelled out in the politest terms.

Alongside the third option.

A handshake—between the guests, and the man whose worth they now know is worth gold.  The man they can no longer afford to snub. After six nights of insulting everything from his city's origins to his personhood, their arrogance has led them to this moment. He: the powerbroker. They: a motley assemblage of aristocrats, a thousand leagues from home. Without the protection of their vaults, their vassals, their vanity.

With only Silco's word to guarantee their safe return.

There are no gods at sea, Ambessa used to say. Only the depths, and their mercy.

Silco's mercy, Mel thinks, will be less forthcoming.

"This is—" Cevila clears her throat. In more modulated tones than Mel has ever heard: "This is a marvelous opportunity, Your Chancellorship. But it is—that is—there is a lot to take in."

"In—Indeed," Hector says. "I, for one, will have to confer with my peers. They’ll need to—we’ll all need to—”

He breaks off. The rest nod their agreement. A few glance around, seeking guidance, or a savior.

Their eyes alight on Mel.

Mel, who has been in Silco's crosshairs the whole time. Who, by a series of events that now seem utterly inevitable, has been maneuvered to stand either beside the man whose hand will tip the scales of power—or be the last barricade between him and progress.  Her choices, her convictions, her desires—all flowing weightlessly on a single rolling wave, and converging upon this very moment.

Did he plan this, too?

Or did he let the chips fall where they may, and seize the opportunity as it arose?

The air in the arena goes chokingly thick. The guests, a chorus of anxious breathing, stare at her. Silco's eyes never once leave her face. He is reading the small nuances of her expression like sailors read the stars. She can practically see him calculating the odds: gains weighed and losses tallied.

He is the highwire act, balanced between the heights and the abyss.

He is the shark, circling bloodless waters.

He is the bridegroom, waiting at the altar.

Waiting, Mel realizes, for her to make the call.

He's laid a gauntlet at her feet: a choice, with no margin for error. And yet, the ultimate test of trust.

If she refuses him, then she is the last line of defense. Piltover will become a citadel, with its worst nightmare at the doorstep. Her marriage: a failed gambit, her alliance with him a sham. She'll have to reconnoiter in every sense: reestablish her reputation, rally her allies, then re-enter the fray with all her armor intact.

And if she sides with him...

If she sides with him, Piltover's pinnacle is his to scale. The Hex-gates will no longer be the bastions of her nation. Their reach will stagnate, while his will grow.  Not an imbalance, but a parity.  One that, if she can believe him, will secure a better future. If she can believe he wants nothing more than a handshake, and a bargain. If she can believe that his ambition, though vast, is not bottomless.  That the dream he has built, with the labor of his own hands, is the best hope for a divided land.

"Trust me," he'd said, and kissed her.

And imperative—and a dare.

A Medarda, Ambessa had said, will risk all, if only to shine.

And she, in this moment, is the only Medarda present. The sole voice of authority. Her approval is a green light, or a red signal. One word, and she seals her fate, and Zaun's. One word, and the scales of balance are tipped. A stalemate of seeping blood and crippling self-sabotage—or the chance to walk falteringly forward, hand-in-hand.

You are a Medarda,  Mel thinks.

A Medarda does not simply stand.

A Medarda stakes her claim.

And he, Silco, is hers.

Schatze, Ambessa had called her father. Treasure.

And he'd been hers, for a time.

Until the day he'd sailed off, and caught his death.

Mel, the last of the Medardas, lifts her chin.

She thinks of Jayce, and the breakthroughs of Hex-tech. That night she'd crossed the threshold into Heimerdinger's office, and beheld the miracles conjured by a boy, desperately willed, thrusting himself beyond the constraints of mundanity to kiss the stars. And how, by the end, his ascent had become a collision course with disaster: Icarus with his wings clipped, and shadows etched beneath his bright eyes, and the ghost of the dead child, cold as the void, lingering at his feet.

She'd thought him, in his brilliance, unstoppable.

And she'd learnt that even a sun can burn out.

Now, she takes in Silco's silhouette. The Idol's radiance, a violet starburst, touches his face with eerie luminescence—the steep angles and unforgiving ridges not otherworldly but subaqueous. He is Icarus' shadow, a distorted mirror of his ambition: wings scabbed into scar-tissue and claws dripping blood, his trajectory not upward, but deeper into the dark. 

Yet the burn in his eyes is the same.  The desire: to push past the limits of the known; to see the world, and everything in it, transformed.

Will he, Mel wonders, prove the death of her own ambition, or its fulfillment?

"Trust me," he'd said.

A siren's lure, calling her to the depths. Calling her home.

Mel makes her choice.

"This," she says softly, "is certainly a leap to progress."

Silco's remote smile does not alter. "A leap? I'd call it a bridge."

"And its foundations? Are they stone—or sand?"

"They are as solid as gold." 

If he's aiming for a weak-spot, it doesn't show in Mel's smile. Instead, she steps closer. Close enough to share the same air. To see the way his nostrils flare, just the tiniest bit. The way his body shifts, infinitesimally, toward her own.

Inside her, the golden core flares: a heat-seeker, finding the one spot in the ocean's depths that is warmest.

She looks into his mismatched eyes. The green, a glacial rime, unyielding. The red, a blood moon, waxing. Both: watching her intently. Waiting for the next move.

"Gold," she says, "is not a foundation. It is a lure."

He doesn't blink. Doesn't so much as breathe.

"It is not what keeps a city's ships at the dock. Nor its people loyal. Nor its trade, stable and profitable." She tips her chin. "That's all built on trust. On an exchange of values, and the willingness to compromise. A bridge built of gold—one based in profit—is a bridge that will collapse under the first sign of strain. Because the real value—the intangible—lies in the bonds we build." Her eyes probe, deftly, behind his forbidding stare, to the human impulses buried at its root. "It is trust that keeps the gates open. It is trust that holds nations together. Without it, a bridge can never be built."

He remains motionless. But in his eyes: a flicker. "Are you speaking of Piltover, or Zaun?"

"I speak of both, as one." She leans forward, and speaks for his ears alone. "Because they are one."

He smiles. It is, in a strange way, the smile that had first won her over—out of hostile distance and into wary truce. The smile that, in its slow, steady burn, had drawn her closer and closer. A glint so full of fire and shadow, a conspirator's promise and a lover's secrecy, that it had been like a spark struck to a fuse, a chain reaction set into motion until all at once she was caught and burning too.

Jayce, Mel knows, was her match.  Always incandescent; always brilliant.

Silco is her catalyst. Always igniting, always setting her ablaze.

"A bridge, then," he says.

She nods. "A bridge."

There is a collective breath. The guests relax into whisperings and nervous trills of laughter. They weren't, Mel realizes, certain whether she was truly in on the secret, or if she'd been blindsided the same as them.  Then again: why would they assume she and Silco had a rapport? That he'd chosen her as his partner, in every way? Their own marriages—and it hits Mel with a belated shock—have been predicated on nothing beyond political convenience. One-sixth remain unconsummated, one-third in the throes of extramarital affairs, and the remainder enduring a mutually-beneficial detente.

No desire. No trust. No love.

Marriage: the purest definition of compromise.

Silco, Mel thinks, would rather have something different.

So would she.

"A bridge," she repeats, her eyes never once leaving his. "Across borders. Across the seas. Across all that divides us." Her voice softens. "For a better future."

The guests' crosstalk flows with ease now. She has, as Piltover's envoy, conceded the point. The wrinkles of the Iron Pearl's operation will need to be smoothed out. The terms of the trade agreement negotiated. But the groundwork has been given leeway to settle. Piltover may remain, ostensibly, the neutral party. They may neither invest their coinage, nor participate directly. But, like any partner, they'll have a finger in the pie—and a hand in shaping the terms.

It is a formidable concession.

One that, Mel hopes, will not come back to haunt her.

"Piltover," she continues, "will honor the treaties, and respect Zaun's sovereignty. In exchange, Zaun will guarantee the safe passage of Piltover's ships through these waters.  And those vessels belonging to the nations who are recognized as our allies." She pauses, then adds, very quietly: "Is that agreeable?"

Silco's smile—a sly sideways slant—returns. "To the dot."

"Then, perhaps, I might make a suggestion. As a gesture of good faith."

"Of course."

She smiles, demurely. "I believe the Hydra should have a new name. One less... intimidating."

His brow quirks. "Such as?"

"I was thinking—" Beneath her lashes, she casts him a pointed look. "Thesaurus."

"Like a repository?"

"Like the old Shuriman vault."

His look—of surprise, recognition, and humor—is fleeting. But it is no mirage. The grin cuts his features into an uncanny semblance of boyishness. It is, she thinks, the first time she has ever seen him smile without a trace of irony.  The golden core inside her, deliquescing, is a slow, heavy, heated pulse.  The crowd of guests, the vast room, the Idol, fade back.

He is all she can see: the prize at the blackest depths.

"It sounds," he says, "like the fitting end to a treasure hunt."

[babineni]

Shelter - Chapter 1: Aloth

Shelter is a collection of prompt replies, centering around the theme of "comfort kisses", featuring my Watcher, Gaura. Some of the relationships featured here are romantic, others are not. Overall this is an exploration of different dynamics expressed through similar acts of intimacy. (originally posted on ao3, now backed up here)

Roughly 1.3k words

Gaura was half-asleep when she heard knocking on her cabin's door. She yawned as she sat up and tried to rub the drowsiness from her eyes. She noticed that she rubbed them to rythm of the sea shanties sung above by her crew. The realization made her smile. The Watcher quickly made her way to the door to let Aloth in - she could recognize his soft, considerate but still insistent knocking anywhere.

The wizard was only half-dressed: he only had his trousers and his sleeveless undershirt on. The Watcher noticed the marks of crumpled sheets on his skin as soon as she laid eyes on him. Aloth shot her a quick, tired smile but he couldn't hide the anguish in his eyes.

'I'm sorry, did I wake you up?' He asked.

'Only sort of,' Gaura stepped aside so he could come in. 'You know, this could be avoided, if you just moved your things in here.'

Aloth let out a nervous chuckle as he stepped past her. 'Forgive me for saying this, but your presence is... a little overwhelming. As of now, I mean.'

The Watcher's heart sank. 'Am I too much?' She asked as she closed the door behind the wizard and let out a sigh.

'No! No, that is... not what I meant,' Aloth reached for her hand gingerly, prompting her to turn towards him. 'It's just... when I'm by your side, I find it all the easier to let you occupy my every thought,' a blush spread on his face. 'I... often have to re-read the books I read in your presence,' he let out a short, awkward laugh.

Gaura softly chuckled at the admission and left a peck on his lips. 'So you're saying, I'm distracting you.'

'That might have been a better way to put it,' Aloth's blush took a deeper shade. The Watcher laughed again, her voice ringing louder and clearer, and she pulled him into her embrace.

'Relax. I'm the one who needs to apologize,' she said as she caressed the elf's hair. 'I did promise I wouldn't make demands of you, didn't I?' She pulled away slightly and ran her hands down Aloth's chest. She played with the hem of his shirt as she continued. 'I guess I get overwhelmed by my feelings for you too.'

Gaura glimpsed the wizard's lips curving up ever so slightly before he pressed them against hers. She kissed back, slowly, casually, lazily, hoping that Aloth could read the safety and warmth he filled her with from the movement of her tongue and taste of her mouth. She grasped his shirt and stepped back, pulling him along until her back hit the cabin door.

'You didn't come here to discuss semantics, I hope,' the Watcher whispered, her face not even an inch away from the elf's.

'Indeed,' Aloth sighed and pulled away. He gave her a pained and apologetic look. 'However I didn't come for the reasons you assume either,' he turned his gaze upwards to the ceiling, and the music coming from abovedeck. 'I know that singing is a sign of a happy crew, but...' he closed his eyes, his face was distorted by anguish for a moment before he looked at the Watcher again, 'it makes sleeping a particularly challenging ordeal.'

'You don't need to tell me about that,' Gaura replied as she made her way back to her bed. She sat down and patted a spot beside her. 'Tell me then: how would you like me to help?'

Aloth followed her to her bed, but instead of sitting down, he stood a step away, in front of the Watcher, and nervously wringed his fingers. 'I just... I would like to listen to you instead of them.'

Gaura smiled at the request, even if she didn't quite understand Aloth's anxiety over it. She lied down, making sure that he had enough space to lie beside her. Aloth, however, leaned over her once he climbed on the bed.

'Would you mind?' He asked, his fingers brushing against Gaura's thigh gently. She gave him a nod and the two shuffled around until Aloth got to rest between her legs, and he could lay down his head on her chest, right above her heart.

Gaura smoothed down a flame that fluttered as her heart started racing. She sung the first tune that came to her mind, hoping that she could distract the wizard from her rapid heartbeat.

 'It's a fine three-master, thin like a bird...'

Aloth sat up immediately and turned to her, frowning. The Watcher burst out laughing and sat up as well to leave a kiss on the scar above his brow. His expression softened at the touch of her lips and a moment later, he was laughing as well. Gaura gave him a kiss on the lips then, which was turned shallow by their smiles.

When they laid back down, Aloth moved a little higher - he rested his head on her collarbones this time, close enough for the Watcher to feel the scent of his hair.

'What do you want me to sing then?' She asked, tracing each long strand of his hair with a finger.

There was a pause. Gaura was almost convinced that Aloth fell asleep.

'I remember a melody I heard in Brighthollow,' he spoke quietly and cautiously as if his reminiscence was both an old story and heavy cofession weighing on his heart. 'During particularly sleepless nights, if I opened the window and listened intently, I could hear a song played on a violin.' He chuckled a little joylessly, somewhat overcome by nostalgia and seemingly unaware that the Watcher's hand stopped.

Distant memories surfaced in Gaura's mind. There were nights at Caed Nua, when the spirits where particularly restless, too restless for her ignore. On these nights she would pick up her violin and venture into the hedge maze behind Brighthollow. She would play. Just play. Each note left the strings at random, or so she thought. She didn't think anyone was listening. And she didn't think the mere mention of it would... That it would...

'I'm not even entirely certain I truly heard it. Maybe my exhaustion used to played tricks on me,' Aloth continued. 'But right now... That would be the song I'd like to hear most. Isn't that silly?'

Gaura blinked, trying to supress the prickling sensation in her eyes and pressed her lips on Aloth's hair. She took a moment to calm herself before she answered.

'Those were improvisations, Aloth. I never recorded them.'

Her reply prompted the wizard to push himself up and look at her. The Watcher shrugged and deep down she hoped, she could stand his gaze without bursting into tears.

'They're gone,' she said. 'Along with my violin and Brighthollow.'

Aloth nodded as he processed her words. Gaura could see her flames reflected in his eyes while he watched her.

'I miss Caed Nua, too. Even with the ghosts and the monsters swarming up from the Endless Paths... It was a place that felt like home. Moreso than anywhere else I've ever been.'

The Watcher sighed. 'I suppose much of what made Caed Nua feel the way it did,' she cupped Aloth's face, 'is right here.'

The wizard blew a kiss on her palm and the warmth of his gesture spread all over the Watcher body in an instant.

'That truly means a lot,' he said before he leaned in for another kiss on her cheek. 'I'm certain Neketaka has a music shop somewhere, I'd be happy to help you find a new violin next time we go there.'

'And I'm certain I can think of a lullaby for you,' Gaura smiled at him.

'If you feel inclined,' Aloth laid back down, 'but it's no longer necessary.'

The Watcher listened. She couldn't hear anything but the ocean beyond her window.

'Typical,' she muttered, making Aloth snicker quietly.

In a few minutes, they drifted off into a deep sleep, surrounded by no sounds other than those of the crashing waves and their own breathing.

[thetragicallynerdy]

work in progress wednesdays - 2nd person jim concussion style

You waver standing up. Head going light, just for a moment, arm tossed out to the side as if to grab the nothing that’s there to hold you up. You suck in a breath, grit your teeth, and it clears.

“Jim…”

You ignore Frenchie, direct your glare resolutely forward and storm your way out of the room. It’s the rocking of the ship that makes it feel like you can’t walk straight. That’s all it is. You’re fine. You’re fine.

You’re not fine.

--

You understand why some people hate the sun, now. You’ve always loved it, especially as a child - love the way it warms you, heats you to the core, turns the golden brown of your skin a deeper hue. Love to feel it on your shoulders, your arms, the slopes of your cheeks, tempered by the sea breeze that always comes easily in Ste. Augustine, and even more so here in the middle of the ocean. As much as you bitch and complain about the heat and the sweat and the smell of hot bodies – you love the sun.

But now the brightness of its rays feels like daggers in your eyes, your skull. Your eyes burn all the time, and each time you step from belowdecks into the sunny Caribbean day is like being struck all over again. Your head throbs, your stomach turns. You stumble across the deck, try and make your clumsy hands and feet obey. You try and avoid the sun, avoid the curse its placed upon you. You squint, hide under your hat, try and stick to the shadows - but it only helps so much. Look away from the sharp glint of the sun reflecting off the water, try and avoid any jobs that require you to watch out over the seas and the skies. You beg for night watch, but that hurts too, the moon’s glint just as painful to see.

Izzy snaps at you anytime he catches you squeezing your eyes shut or pressing your palms over them. You try and stop. You can’t.

You wonder if its possible to hide belowdecks forever. You wonder if it would’ve been better to stay in your cell, where at least the hurt was contained, where at least you weren’t struck down anew by everything around you.

You always loved the sun. It feels like another loss, now. And perhaps it's a cliche to compare the pain it brings to Oluwande's absence, but -

You always loved the sun.

--

“Shouldn’t still be bothering you,” Frenchie mutters, when he catches you rubbing at your temple, slumped against a wall. “They hit you too hard.”

“It’s just a fucking headache,” you snap. Irritation has always come easily to you, but now it feels so close at hand, anger settled at the tips of your fingers. Better irritation than the sorrow that clings too, that threatens to drown you if you let it raise its head for too long. “Not enough fucking water. I’m fine.”

Frenchie gives you a look, and the irritation drains. You blink back sudden tears, guilt and grief crowding in.

“Right,” he says softly. He must not be afraid of you any longer, because he reaches out despite the tongue lashing, touches a hand gently to your shoulder. “Must be demons at play, then.”

--

It would be better if you could sleep. You’re tired, so fucking tired, but every time you lay down it takes hours and hours to find any rest. Every time you close your eyes the headache rares its head, threatens to send you spinning. There’s a heaviness, an ache you didn’t think was possible. It feels like there’s a spike through your eye, splitting your brain in two. It feels like –

Lying down helps, even as it doesn’t. Slowly, the ache recedes into something manageable each time you try and sleep. Slowly, you grow more and more restless as the pounding in your skull keeps you awake, and the thoughts that trickle slowly during the day run faster and faster, until panic seizes your lungs, until you have to go abovedecks and slump against the railing in the moonlight, too tired to pace.

You are exhausted, all the time. Body heavy in a way that makes no sense to you. You’ve always been light, strong, your body a weapon that you wield with ease. Now your body is a weapon, but it’s been turned against you. You cannot sleep, cannot run and throw and move like you used to. Or – when you do, you suffer for it. You run and leap and fight, and after the adrenaline of the raid fades, you cling to walls and railings to keep yourself upright, wonder if Izzy will notice if you disappear onto your own ship while the others comb through loot.

“Fucking get back to work,” he spits at you when he finds you slumped on a crate and trying to catch your breath, trying to ease the ache in your skull that threatens to split you in half. When you bare your teeth he raises a hand –

You stumble away just in time to avoid the blow. Grab the thing you’re supposed to be carrying and somehow make it belowdecks.

You don’t want to find out if you can take another hit.

TBC

[aliatori]

F&F WIP - Meet Aurele

(As I continue to plug away at the follow up to The Forsaken and the Forsworn, I figured I'd introduce some new side characters along the way. Aurele became one of my favourites quite quickly, so have this combination WIP/character introduction:)

-----

“If you’re not both a surgeon and a necromancer, get out of my operating theatre, now.” Aurele turns xyr slender back on the gathered crew, collecting a selection of implements from the nearby cabinetry. Xe jabs one pale, slightly too long finger at the thrashing, raving form of Sparrow in Camille’s arms without looking. “Especially them. I cannot think straight with their incessant caterwauling.”

“You heard xem! Don’t just stand about slack-jawed, get moving!” Gabriel bellows, trying his best to ignore how still Luc has gone in his arms.

Camille shoots Gabriel an aggrieved glance, tricorne hat askew and deep lines of worry etched across her bloodied face, before other hands finally join her, all but dragging Sparrow through the Squall's corridors and back abovedeck.

“That includes you, Captain.” An astringent, medicinal odor overpowers the stale herb-and-copper scent of the surgeon’s quarters as Aurele tips a dark glass bottle over xyr hands and douses both in clear liquid. “Place my patient on the table and leave.”

“Like hells it does. Last I checked, I give the orders on this ship, not you. I’m staying.” Gabriel grunts—Luc’s not exactly light, especially as dead weight—and complies with the second part of Aurele’s demand, placing him on the table as gently as he can.

Aurele’s unblinking gaze, opaline and unsettling, flicks from Lucien’s prone from to Gabriel. Before xe can argue further, another fit overtakes the Squall’s second mate, his spine bending at an unnatural angle and throat gurgling as more black froth spills from his mouth.

“Fine. Hold him down.” Light glints off the scalpel Aurele produces from the pockets of xyr apron. “This will be an excellent opportunity to further my knowledge... and highly unpleasant for both of you.”