Chapter Text
Sinbad, Ja’far, Drakon, and co. finally got out of the dungeon, Sinbad’s loss was still weighing in her chest, fresh and heavy. Why did it have to be Allie? Why couldn’t she have been the one to die, instead? Drakon seemed to sense Sinbad’s dread and gave her a comforting back rub.
“Thanks, Drakon, but I’ll be fine. I swear,” Sinbad smiled shakily. Drakon frowned in concern, but nodded and turned away from her nonetheless. Sinbad grumbled to herself, how no one overheard her was a wonder, “first Papa, then Mama, now Allie? It’s like anyone I care for dies.”
That’s when Sinbad made the gravest mistake of her life and began distancing herself from her comrades. Not in a way that they would notice, but in a way that didn’t allow her to suffer further loss. Everyone one happy, none of her comrades knew her well , so it was easy to fool them. There was never anything wrong…
Not that they knew of, anyway.
Sinbad would occasionally skip meals, claiming she wasn’t hungry when she really felt guilty for forgetting about Allie and letting her die. Drakon stayed with Sinbad for a while, helping her where he could and becoming a trusted friend to Sinbad. She often confided in him, which always seemed to help her push through.
But eventually, he decided he needed to leave and make sure Serendine was safe, so Sinbad let him go. She cared for Serendine too; she was sure they would be good friends in the future.
And off went her first and only anchor.
She began skipping more meals; food just wasn’t interesting to her anymore. Whenever she got the chance, she locked herself in her room at the hotel they were all staying at and worked relentlessly throughout the night on plans, whether they got used or not didn’t matter. She just needed something to avoid the thoughts in her mind, the nightmares of her daughter's crushed body lying mangled on the dungeon floor.
One night, Ja’far walked up to her, glaring through her, asking a simple question.
“Are you okay?”
Sinbad froze. What did she say? Should she be honest or lie? Tell him the truth about the nightmares or just write it off as working on backup plans? She found difficulty in thinking straight, feeling terribly overwhelmed.
“Sin?”
“I…” Sinbad had nothing to say. Such a small question overwhelmed her. There were so many things to take into account when answering. The last thing she wanted to do was let it slip that the demon that was feeding off of his and his companions' energy killed Allie, that would make him feel guilty, and the poor boy had already suffered enough.
Drip drop.
Sinbad didn’t even realise she had been crying until she heard the teardrops land on the floor. She glanced down and quickly wiped her eyes. She looked back at Ja’far. “No, no, I am not okay.”
“Do you… want to talk about it?” Ja’far asked softly. Sinbad felt something being lifted off her shoulders. She nodded wordlessly and beckoned Ja’far into her room.
“Just sit on the bed, okay?” Sinbad smiled weakly. She closed the door softly and walked over, sitting next to Ja’far. “Sorry for making you worry, Jaffy. I didn’t mean to.”
“Well, to be honest, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t flaunt my trauma everywhere I go either,” Ja’far joked uncomfortably. The two sat in silence for a while. Soon, Sinbad began to fiddle with the bandages covering her eye.
“These are about due for a change. I’ll do that quickly,” Sinbad said, unwrapping them. Ja’far looked at the wound and almost threw up. It looked like one of the most painful scars he’d ever seen, and as an assassin, that’s saying something.
It was thin and jagged like it was torn multiple times in the same place. From what Ja’far could see, it was uninfected, which was good. What worried him most, however, was the lack of an eyeball in the socket. A glass ball replaced it instead, somehow staying in despite Sinbad’s lack of an eyelid.
“You probably want to know what happened to my eye, don’t you?” Sinbad asked, not looking up as she shuffled through her draw for some fresh bandages.
“Yeah,” Ja’far admitted.
And so she told him. She told him about how Allie got trapped underwater and snatched up by the monster there, about how they were both nearly swallowed alive and managed to escape with nothing but an eye lost. She told him the aftermath of it, how she passed out and had to convince Hinahoho to keep moving once she had brought herself back to reality.
When she got up to the part about the demons that fed off Ja’far’s life energy, she hesitated. “I guess you know what happened next, don’t you?”
“What about Allie? She wasn’t with us when we left the dungeon,” Ja’far asked. Sinbad felt tears well up in her eye. Sinbad quickly turned back to her table, changing her bandages slowly. “Sin?”
Sinbad heard the creak of her bed as Ja’far jumped off and walked over to her. He looked up at her face before realisation struck him. “Oh, oh my god. Sinbad, I’m so sorry.”
Sinbad broke down, falling to her knees and letting her emotions pour out. “I-It’s all m-my fault!” She cried, “I couldn’t protect h-her!”
Ja’far didn’t know what to do, so he did what he faintly remembered made him feel better once, not so long ago. He hugged her, trying not to flinch as Sinbad latched her arms around him, hugging back tightly. Ja’far just rubbed circles into her back soothingly.
Eventually, Sinbad shaking stopped and pulled away from Ja’far. “Thank you, Jaffy, I feel much better now that’s off my chest. Thank you,” Sinbad thanked, smiling brightly despite the red marks around her eyes and on her cheeks.
“Anytime.”