26. Adrian
Adrian
I’d been held up in my room or on deck for days.
Was it a bit cowardly to only go to places I knew Sage wouldn’t be?
Maybe, but every time I saw her, my mind wandered to all the things I did to her.
All the things I still wanted to do to her.
And that would be way overstepping. We were both here for a purpose, and it would never work anyway.
I couldn’t imagine her wanting to stay on this ship forever, and me in the castle? That would be a laugh. It would be easy enough to hook up, get it out of my system, and not think about it again, but something told me that wouldn’t be how that went. And I couldn’t deal with anything messy.
I was halfway through reviewing the recent invoices when a loud thud sounded on the ship. At first, I convinced myself it was a heavy wave, but there was a concerning scraping sound.
I was up and slithering down the hall in minutes, headed towards the top deck. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who heard it, feet pounding the steps as everyone ran to the top deck.
Almost everyone there was looking over the edge, assumably seeing whatever was causing the sound.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Connie was at my side in a moment. “I think we’ve hit a rock,” she said.
“Why was no one on watch?” I asked.
“Torque was keeping watch in the bird’s nest,” Connie said. “Said he didn’t see anything the whole time he was up there.”
I’d heard excuses like that before, but looking down into the water, I couldn’t even see the rock myself.
“We need to steer away from it,” I said.
“Bee is trying,” Connie said, “but it seems we’re stuck in a pretty jagged bit that’s holding us against the rock.”
“Moons,” I cursed.
I left the edge of the ship and started up the steps towards the bow.
Bee was there, holding the helm to the right, trying to correct best as they could.
They made eye contact with me. “I’m trying to steer her back, Cap,” they said. “It’s just a bit difficult with the tide.”
I approached them quickly. “Don’t pull too hard right,” I instructed. “It will pull too far and damage the router.” With the way the ship was scraping, damage was going to be expected, but we wanted to mitigate as much as possible.
“Aye, aye,” Bee said, letting up on their tight pull of the handles.
The scraping quickly became horrendous. Every sound warning of a new breach that was surely being formed. But there was nothing to do at this point other than wait it out to see what would happen.
The rock had reached the stern and that was when I heard it. The telltale sign of the rudder being smashed to bits.
When I rushed back down from the helm, Bramwell was there, talking to Connie about what was happening.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Everything’s fine up here,” I said, “but there’s assuredly damage on the hull. And I think the rudder snapped.”
“That’s what that sound was,” Bramwell said. “I was worried it was some kind of attack.”
I couldn’t even consider that possibility. We were prepared for anything if we had to fight, but with Sage here, it would be way more dangerous.
That’s when I realized Sage wasn’t with him. “Where is she?” I asked.
He didn’t need me to tell him who she was. “I left her below, figured if it was a fight it would be best for her to be down there.”
While that was true, there’s no way of telling where a leak may have sprung.
“Connie,” I said, “have Anne and some of the others assess the damage is, I need to go downstairs.”
“Aye,” she confirmed.
I didn’t waste any time, going back down below deck to the war room where I knew she would be.
There was no water running into the hall, which was always a good sign. When I opened the door, I didn’t see anything at first. Had she gone back to her room?
“Sage?”.
“H-here,” she stuttered.
I realized she was tucked into the back corner of the wall, all but hidden for view.
She was curled in on herself, tears freely flowing down her face. It had been so long since I’ve seen somebody cry that it took me by surprise.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Are we going to sink?” she asked, a slight blubber in each of her words.
“No, everything’s going to be fine,” I assured her.
“That’s good,” she said, but her voice made it clear it was anything but.
“We just hit a rock,” I said, sinking down so I was closer to her level. “There will be some damage, but nothing too severe.” That was more of a hope I was speaking into existence, but I was trying to calm her, and myself, to a certain extent.
“Y-yeah.” Her breathing was short, coming out in bursts.
“Follow my breathing,” I said, taking loud deep breaths in and out.
She did her best, but it was obvious she was still struggling to reel herself back from the attack she was having.
“Can I try something?” I asked, knowing it was going to sound strange.
“Sure,” she said, still crumpled into herself.
I helped her up to standing, and then uncoiled my tail.
“I’m going to wrap myself around you,” I explained.
“Why?” Her lack of argument said enough about how trapped in her head she was.
“Sometimes pressure can be grounding with these things,” I said. “It could help.”
She only nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. I got to work, wrapping her from the bottom of her legs around to her midsection. It was a bit awkward, but my tail was long enough to reach up to her chest.
“Tell me if it gets too tight,” I said, letting my grip tighten just a bit, to give her some pressure to anchor to.
She took a couple of the deepest breaths she’d had since we started. The tension in her shoulders started to slip, and I could feel the relaxation settle over her entire body.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Getting there,” she said, finally using more than monosyllabic words.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but I kept a tight hold on her until she told me she was feeling better.
“Thank you,” she said, “how did you know that would work?”
Did I want to tell her? She just let me see her so vulnerable, but I hardly ever talked about Coltar anymore.
“One of the guys—my friend—who used to be on the ship had similar attacks. We did a lot of trial and error.”
Once we tried just dunking his head in ice; it was dumb, but it did shock him out of it. Though we found better things, like a weighted blanket, that weren’t as intense.
“Did he get another job?” she asked.
“No. He died.”
The words felt heavy on my tongue. It had been years, but sometimes I could still imagine him coming up the deck steps, probably still hungover from the night before.
“I see.”
We sat in a companionable silence for a little while. At some point, she leaned her head against my shoulder, a comfort for us both.
“Do you need to go back to work?” she asked.
“I should check on the crew,” I said, knowing I should be out there handling things. But the pull to stay here, to comfort her, was too strong.
“I’ll be okay,” she assured me, but her voice was still shaky.
I took a deep breath, trying to decide what to do.
“I need to check on everything,” I said. “But only for a minute. What if I meet you, in my room?”
She glanced up at me from the side of her gaze. “Your room?”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
We stood, and I led her to my room, settling her in my bed before quickly going to ensure the ship wouldn’t sink.