“I earned my place with the tidal waves.”
I barely notice the bodies pressing in against me or their words and their anger. I'm so far gone from this mortal coil already.
I'm already gone.
There is nothing but the sea until Aspara finds me. There is nothing but my roaring soul and the salted sting of the sea wrapping itself around my heart and soul. I know that she is the only thing in the world that might break me loose from it now, the only bit of mortal flesh and bone that might be powerful enough to save me.
But there are three bits of my heart waiting on the ship and only one on the shore. And I know that there are thousands of innocents suffering that do not have the strength to rise up against their lash and chain cages. Maybe it makes me a terrible mother, maybe it makes me a terrible mortal, maybe--
Maybe I deserve to die in my war because even when Aspara touches our horns together like blades I can still hardly take my eyes from the sea. All I do is brush my nose to her ears, and breathe that hush, hush, hush song that I've sung to her every night the walls cannot stop talking.
It's all I do before I'm off to the sea, and the ship, and my black-oil rage.
Even the tears running into the cracks between my snarling, feral teeth taste like brine now. There is no moonlight left in them, no stardust in my blood. I'm all fire now, all wrath, all rage, all ocean ferocity. I am dissolving.
dissolving
disintegrating
There is only the sea as it rises up to press like roots seeking dirt at the scales dusting my stomach. I am salt, and brine, and sea-water breaching the gates. The tide wraps itself around my neck and clenches. It pours into my lungs like rain and my entire body screams a hallelujah like I've been suffocating for years and only just remembered the taste of air. For a moment I flicker between this body and the one beneath it as my soul and form try to realign themselves.
Wrong, I was so wrong. This isn't dissolving.
This is...
This is..
Rising.
Like I am the queen of it, shedding my night black crown for one of bone-white coral and seaweed, the tide rises with me.
Together we go towards our ship, with a dragon roaring a battle-cry above our heads. The sea and I mount the stairs we make into the side of our ship. Together we look at all the bits of our heart going to war with us.
Together we smile.
Together we snarl.
Together we will conquer and there will be blood in the water.
/out
