Work Text:
It's quiet, up in the crow's nest, the sky less raucous than the groaning roll of the ship through sea. The wind is a lonely, mournful thing, a low singing in Kit's ears that swallows the sounds below.
She sits with her back to the railing and her legs folded, and in her lap rests a strange dish. It might nominally be a cake, fancy and garishly decorated, except for the fact that it glows faintly and never seems to run out and doesn't rot. There's an energy to it, and Kit probes at it with a Watcher's hand, deeper and deeper, as she sinks her thoughts into fleeting sensations all around her: wind crawling over her skin and murmuring in her ears.
A strange use of my gift, a voice says, a whistle of cold mountaintop air resonating within the confines of Kit's skull.
Another wind bears down on the crow's nest like a gale, like the flapping of great wings. It trembles down to the marrow of Kit's essence without disturbing a hair on her head. Unseen lines of airflow become visible in her Watcher's sight, tracing out proportions of some great creature that shrinks and shrinks as it coalesces around the crow's nest.
What alights on the railing across from Kit is nominally a bird, except that she can see the sky through the glowing, swirling, immaterial contours of its form. At some angles, it might be a falcon; at others, the approximation of a parakeet.
"I wasn't sure if it would work," Kit admits, though it does not feel the same as being abruptly summoned to attend to godly squabbles, as Abydon speaking from the forge, as the profound sense of Eothas here in the physical world. It's... deadened, is the nearest word that comes to mind. Her heartbeat doesn't pound in time with Hylea's presence. Kit files that information away, next to the mere fact that it worked at all.
And you wished to see if it would? Hylea asks.
"Not just that," Kit says, carefully lifting the dish and setting it down beside her. "But I did want to see. Thank you for answering."
The bird, which now looks like a swift, flutters its wings in something like a shrug or a sigh. I am surprised, Hylea says. You are the last mortal that I would expect to reach out. You were, a delicate pause follows, distinctly unhappy, when last I saw you. In all of the times I have seen you, as of late.
"... I don't like gatherings," Kit says, noncommittal, thinking none too favorably of incorporeal doors and grating bells.
The wind in Kit's ears echoes with something like a laugh, high and gossamer. You take to your posts of leadership quite well, then, Hylea says, just as discreet in her doubt.
"Alright," Kit says. "I don't like gods, and I don't like it when gods try to tell me what to do."
The ethereal profile of a sparrow leans forward, balanced perfectly even though its feet are not quite wrapped around the railing. And yet, Hylea says, here we are, and you speak more carefully than I am accustomed to. Am I to assume that I am exempt from your ire?
Kit meets the creature's gaze steadily, and it doesn't hurt, deep beneath her eye sockets. As if there is not enough of Hylea present to ripple through the mortal fabric of things. But there is enough to converse, and that evidence will suffice, for now. The mechanisms are still there, Kit thinks. The slipstream is dead.
It isn't exactly reassuring.
"More or less," Kit says, which is as much as she's willing to concede.
Then why have you summoned me? Hylea asks, not unkindly, and the large eyes of an owl stare unblinking at her. You have your proof that we are not entirely cut off from your realm. Why, then, am I here?
Something nervous twists tight within Kit's stomach, now that she can no longer dance around the issue. She needs an answer. She doesn't want it. "The godlike," she says, then takes a breath to steady her lungs. "What will happen to them?"
The silhouette of the owl stills as the ship rocks. Some swell of foam flashes white in the corner of Kit's eye, out on the surface of the deep sea. I see, Hylea says, guarded. It seems that you are learning to think like a god, Watcher.
"Answer the question," Kit snaps. Hardly -- an unflattering view of the gods and access to some of their secrets is all she's needed for dreadful speculation to run rampant.
Feathers ruffle, a wave of troubled thought through strange plumage. It depends, Hylea says, grave.
On the godlike in question, she doesn't say, but Kit hears it, and something rushes in her ears that isn't wind. Calm slips through her fingers, grains of sand swept away by a thundering ocean. "You have no right," Kit says, hot. "None of you have any right--"
I will not harm Pallegina, Hylea says, conciliatory.
Internally, Kit relaxes by a fraction. Out loud, she says, "That's not good enough."
Hylea is silent. The ocean wind is not, though it is distant now, as if unable to make headway against the presence of a god.
"You care about kith," Kit says, and she has to pry her gritted teeth apart. She'd made a very deliberate note of which god had asked her for what. Of everything they'd said to her. Threat assessment, one might call it. "If that's just for show..."
It isn't, Hylea says, the heron flexing its wings again, agitation rippling like a stone tossed into water. I do not wish to see kith suffer. I never imagined that Eothas would stoop to such levels. Her consternation is a faraway thing, separated from Kit's senses by unfathomable distance, and yet it doesn't ring insincerely.
Kit holds her tongue and her offer, waiting.
I do not wish to die, either, Hylea says, and then she is silent again, a long, ponderous stretch of far off, mournful wind and groaning wood through water. Until, at last: But I will not buy my survival, if the price is living souls.
Tension bleeds out of Kit's shoulders, and she tries not to slump against the railing.
It would be a temporary measure, at most, Hylea adds. Not a long-term solution.
Kit nods and files that information away too, as she gathers herself again. "I don't want to leave you to rot," she says. "Well... most of you. I won't lie: part of me really, really wants to. But you're right. I don't want to think like a god." She pauses. Takes a breath. Thinks about godseeds and adra statues, lets her thoughts shine brightly for Hylea's eyes. "You don't get the Wheel back. I'll die before I let that happen. But if kith can find some way for you to survive without it -- in the Here, I mean -- then I'll help."
A species that Kit doesn't recognize cocks its head at her. Many of us will not settle for a diminished existence, Hylea says.
"They can take what they're given, or they can die," Kit says frankly. "What about you?"
Was this a bargain you planned to offer? Hylea asks. Your personal attention granted to the matter, in exchange for godlike souls?
"I didn't have to, did I?" Kit says.
A gust washes over Kit, a resonant energy that curves with amusement, rather like a smile. I would like to dwell on the surface again, Hylea says, reminiscent, and the hummingbird sways with the gentle motion of the ship. It's been so long... When the apparition's eyes lock with Kit’s again, an ibis sits perched across the crow's nest. But my kin will not be idle. I cannot guarantee how they will react to our... current situation.
"Can you reason with them?" Kit asks. "Convince them to wait?"
The ibis bristles.
"Can you try?" Kit asks.
The bird snaps its beak at her. Kit has no name for it now. I promise nothing, Hylea says, a subdued melancholy in the clarion ring of her voice, except effort. You ask much here, Watcher.
"Effort is all I'm asking for," Kit says, and another question follows, more nervous than she means it to sound. But it's something she’s been dwelling on for too long, with too much anxiety. "And I'm... not sure how Ondra feels about me, honestly. So if I ask her the same thing, or if you do..." She trails off.
I cannot say with certainty, Hylea says. But I do not believe that she would harm her favored child, if that is a comfort to you.
Kit lets loose a slow breath. It is, even though it still isn't good enough. But it will do for now. She considers pursuing the matter further, if only to get a feel for what Hylea thinks, but a heaviness in her eyes and tongue stops her. Something is wearing on her, a slow-growing exhaustion that she should not be feeling, all circumstances considered. Perhaps it's a side effect of communing with the gods in the absence of the Wheel.
She notes that down too, in a corner of her mind that will hold the information long enough to get her back to her cabin. She really should have brought something to write on, but lugging up the cake without making a mess of things was hard enough.
"Thank you," Kit says instead, and the starling preens a little. Kit's eyes flick downward, to the dish at her side. "And thanks for the gift. It... helped."
I thought it might, Hylea says. You were quite sickly, when Berath sent you back.
Kit doesn't particularly like the fact that Hylea knew that, but she lets it slide. "Will it ever run out?"
All things do, Hylea answers. As Rymrgand is ever so fond of reminding us. But not for some time. It depends on the degree of consumption, each time it is used.
Kit nods, slow and thoughtful. "Thanks," she says again, and she taps at the gold platter. "I might be in touch."
The wind that trickles past Kit's face is warm, as it picks up momentum. Farewell, Watcher.
When Hylea's presence departs, another bird that Kit can't name dissipates with a powerful gust, a metaphysical flurry that undulates through Kit's essence but does not stir her clothes. The winds of Eora's surface rush back in, whispering in her ears and ghosting over her skin.
Kit blinks heavy eyes and discards the idea of climbing back down right away. Instead, as her thoughts circle the conversation with an eagle's keen eye, she helps herself to a bit of the cake and observes with a curious eye as it makes no dent in the mass of the dish.