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There’s a moment, as he takes her hand, when it crystallizes in Fjord’s mind that he is standing on the edge of a sheer cliff.
He’s not a fool—he has been aware of Avantika’s attention from the moment they first set foot on the Squall Eater, and Beau’s warnings and Caleb’s veiled prompts have only enhanced his awareness of what tonight could become. He may be dense in some ways, but he’s not obtuse enough to enter a room with a beautiful, thinly-clothed woman drunk on both alcohol and power, who has been laser-focused on him for the past few days, and not see where this particular situation is heading.
They’re all concerned for him, he knows. He entered the room tonight holding Nott’s vial of acid in his pocket, loose between his fingers. Their words of warning still ring in his ears. He could have chosen not to come. Even Caleb wouldn’t have faulted him that, would have worked with the others to find a way around Avantika that wouldn’t require this move. Part of Fjord desperately wants to turn around, even now wants to pull away from her hand sharply, bid her goodnight, hurry down the halls of the ship to the cabin he shares with Caduceus. Sleep. Gods, he needs to sleep.
Another part of him, though, wants nothing more than to be exactly where he is.
The way Fjord is drawn to Avantika is not a coming together of hearts or minds. It is not a purely physical attraction either, though Avantika is learned and confident in her ability to make it appear as such a thing. The thing that set Fjord walking down that hallway to Avantika’s quarters tonight, and the first night they were on board the ship, is a soul-deep connection that Fjord has never in his life felt with another person, and he knows that he will walk down that hallway every night she summons him from now until eternity to feed it.
He knows, underneath, that it isn’t really a connection to Avantika that’s pulling him.
Fjord isn’t a fanatic. He doesn’t want to release this serpent demi-god, knows that his mind is barely capable of grasping the potential ramifications of such a thing. He isn’t even sure he wants the power he’s been promised, isn’t sure that he doesn’t want to dig his hand into his stomach right now and rip that yellow eyeball out from wherever it’s settled within him. But there’s something in Uk’otoa, in its words, in its endless, all-consuming stare. Something that he is incapable of ignoring.
It’s as if Uk’otoa has buried itself into deep, deep into the matter of Fjord’s mind and is refusing to let go. There’s an impulse—a powerful, reckless pull that surfaces just enough for Fjord to notice that it’s there all too often—to do everything he possibly can to get those orbs to their intended places. To sacrifice anything and anyone necessary to obtain the power that Avantika now wields so easily. Fjord likes to think of himself as a calm and rational person. He’s not sure that he is a good leader, but he can usually fake it at the very least, put on a mask of collectedness. That’s all slipping away now. Since the second they hit the coast, it seems, he’s losing control over his composure. He’s never been great at weighing the odds of a situation, but his decisions have become shoddier and he holds onto his failures longer than normal. When he shakes his head and stops for a moment he can distance himself from the irrationality that flows uncontrolled through his mind, but that river is getting stronger the longer they spend with Avantika, the longer he dwells on Uk’otoa.
(Sometimes, he wonders if it isn’t at all coming back to the sea that’s done it. If this collapsing of his carefully crafted mask began long before they hit the Menagerie Coast. If it’s got nothing to do with Uk’otoa, and everything to do with cold iron tight around his wrists and dirty fabric on his tongue and Jester’s bruised, unconscious form beside him and Yasha’s muffled cries of pain around the corner and the echo of a battle and a death he’s helpless to stop thrumming through his head over and over and over and over—)
There’s something more important to him than Uk’otoa, than Avantika. It’s odd, he thinks, that right now the safest choice for him, should he decide to commit himself to this fully—to give himself over to the serpent constricting around everything in his life, to the immense power and the safety and the strength that it offers—is to walk away from Avantika. To not give her even the illusion of the upper hand. To present himself as an equal partner on all terms, setting himself up for their future endeavors as someone to contend with. If he wants to win, he has to keep her off balance, keep her believing that he has something she doesn’t, get her desperate and reckless so that she makes mistakes that he can capitalize on. Surrendering to her game will give him no advantage in this side-by-side arms race they are engaged in. But, but. There is that draw. And there is the strange fact that, right now, it is coming from somewhere else. The fact that even as he folds his fingers around hers, his mind is nowhere near her, or the snake.
He remembers Beau’s hand on his shoulder, her stubborn assurance that they would keep each other in check. Caleb’s analytical assessments, cool but not uncaring, a current of power beneath the surface that Fjord has desperately tried to emulate since the moment they met. Nott’s understated yet obvious care for all of them—the vial of acid sits heavy in his pocket still, untouched but a strange comfort. Caduceus’s wise and confusing words, somehow still soothing at all times. Yasha’s quiet, steady strength.
He can still feel Jester’s lips on his. The vacuum in his lungs dragging at only water. The memory of what it will feel like—drowning, once again. The absolute certainty that it was worth it.
His left hand reaches out as if to grasp his sword. The Falchion doesn’t materialize, but he can feel the ghost of Summer’s Dance, the way the grip feels in his fingers, the way it twirled gracefully, lethally over Molly’s.
Do what you have to.
It’s not to feed the serpent, then, at all. Not in the end.
It’s to keep them safe.
Fjord grasps Avantika’s hand in his, tighter this time. Edges his toes right up to the drop-off. Peers over.
Jumps.