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Zolf wakes up on a beach he doesn’t recognise. Though all he sees at first is an ivory, grey-muted sky, he knows with absolute certainty he’s never been here before. The sand beneath him is warm and fluid, shifting imperceptibly with every breath he takes, while the murmur of waves fades in and out.
His fingers sink into black foreign sand as he pushes himself up enough to sit straight and take in his unfamiliar surroundings. Seemingly without a cause, a ripple of pain blooms in his lower abdomen and nests itself there, too faint for Zolf to really notice as he studies the cliff side enclosing the small patch of shore where he lies.
The rock face reminds him of marble columns he’s seen ages ago in history books, imposing and carved and majestic. ‘Unscalable’ is the word that seeps into his mind, though he’s not sure why. His eyes climb up the white cliff face, accented here and there by coal-colored streaks, where the sand appears to have carved its way inside the rock. He shudders. Something about the sight sends him back to Dover, when he’d climbed up the chalk cliff edge from which emerged the resolute figure of Poseidon, saving lost sailors from the ocean.
Shakily, Zolf rises to his feet, leans down to swipe away at the loose sand on his pants and freezes. After a beat, his hands descend on his knees, then methodically make their way down the side of his calves, outlining flesh and muscle all the way down to his ankles and feet.
He stands up straight again and forces himself to take a long breath. He repeats his previous actions one more time, this time focusing on the strange sensation of feeling in his legs.
Last he remembered, that wasn’t a thing. Last he remembered... what could he remember? His hand goes unconsciously to his lower abdomen, where the strange sort of phantom pain continues to throb faintly. There’s something important he’s missing, some piece of context that will reveal how he ended up in his bay. But clearly, there’s nothing here.
He wills his legs, his real legs to move. The first step is the hardest, as the pain swells up once again, but he ignores it, and after that, it seems to get fainter and fainter the more he walks. Looking down to his bare feet, he observes the soft, shifting sand curl around his ankles each time one of his feet makes contact with the ground. Is it... playing with him? For the sake of his own sanity, he shifts his gaze up.
Relief floods through him as he reaches the rock façade and lays his palm on the cool stone, which feels delightfully normal. Letting his hand smooth over the wind-polished wall, he follows it down to the edge of the water until sea foam starts brushing at his toes. The next wave sweeps higher, water flowing at his ankles, and suddenly he remembers cold, and wind, and falling faster and faster. The memory leaves him as quickly as the receding water.
With no landmark in sight, no set destination in mind, he carries on walking along the cliff, one hand continually trailing its surface to keep himself steady were he to lose his footing. He leaves the cove behind him, steadily trudging onwards, determined to find some sign that he isn’t alone here.
After a few hours, he glances back, eager to check his progress. He stops dead in his tracks. There is maybe less than a five minute walk between him and the side of the beach where he woke up. Pain flares up in his abdomen once more, as if awakened by the burst of panic coursing in his veins as the reality of this situation finally dawns on Zolf. With gritted teeth, he fights the searing sensation and his rising fear as best he can by making himself take another step, and then another, until eventually he’s forced to recognise that he can’t go on any longer.
Defeated, he retraces his invisible steps back to the starting line of his trek and tries to find the imprint of a sleeping body in the sand. Failing to so, he slumps back onto the sand. This random spot will do just fine. Almost magically, or perhaps indeed magically, his midriff stops aching and he seizes the chance to get his breathing under control again.
If he had any idea, any clue of how he had ended up here, then maybe he could figure a way out of this place- yet every attempt to scroll back his memories ends the same, with him forgetting what he was even trying to achieve in the first place, as his mind gets distracted by the unreal quality of his surroundings. Surely, someone will come find him here. There must be people out there who know him, who care about him, or at least, rely on him.
His eyes catch an irregularity in the horizon, a small triangular dark shape that wasn’t there before. Zolf knows what he hopes it to be, but refuses to get up; they’re too far anyway. But the shape grows progressively larger and larger. After a few minutes, it becomes undeniable- there’s a ship heading his way.
Zolf springs to his feet in an instant and releases a wordless shout, anything to get their attention. To his relief, the ship continues to draw closer, its sails now distinctively carving triangular shapes against the featureless sky. Now, if he squints, he can perceive a small but slim figure with their side leaning against the mast. The image ignites a spark of recognition.
Sasha.
She’s too far to be sure, but he knows, without a doubt, that there’s no other person it could be. His feet bring him closer to the waterline. A smile forms at his lips as he recognises her stark features, from her inky short-cropped hair and to her pale, almost translucent skin, sharply contrasting her black robe-like attire.
“Sasha!” he calls out, and incredibly, she waves back at him. His shout appears to have sprung her into action, as she begins to pull at various ropes, working to lower the sails above her as the small sailboat glides nearer to the shore.
Upon its reaching shallow waters, Zolf watches her jump off into the water like she’s done this a thousand times and start wading her way to him.
“Hey boss,” she greets, her entire face breaking into a wide smile.
Zolf meets her halfway and pulls her into a bone-crushing hug, his arms holding on as tightly as they can to her wiry frame. He feels her let out a small laugh as she reciprocates his embrace. He’s taken aback a little; he can’t remember the last time he saw Sasha act that carefree.
The questions waging a war inside his head urge him to pull away again. He looks her up and down, wondering at how healthy and put together she seems. Wasn’t she sick the last time they met, or is he remembering something wrong?
He catches Sasha doing the same on her side, her eyes finally stopping on his very non-metallic legs. There’s an awkward moment where he sees her mouth open, hesitate, then close shut again.
He pats one hand on his thigh in acknowledgment. “Yeah, they’re new to me too,” he says, breaking the silence.
“Oh! Well they look cool. Not that your prosthetic ones weren’t cool, they were. And probably worth a lot more than a real leg if I’m being honest,” Sasha says, as she nods emphatically. The familiarity of how quickly she strings her words together hits him with a pang of affection.
Skipping over how she would know the price of a real leg, Zolf asks his most pressing question, “Sasha, where are we?”
She looks around, the wind lightly ruffling her hair while she scrutinises their surroundings. “Umm, not sure exactly. Only ever been here once, I think. But it might not even have been the same island.”
That doesn’t tell him much at all.
“There are other islands around?” Perhaps some of them will have people who can tell him exactly where the hell he is.
“Oh yeah, a bunch!” she replies, and starts heading towards the shore. Zolf doesn’t need to be asked to follow; the thought of losing sight of her fills him with unreasonable anguish. “I haven’t visited all of them yet, you know, since there are so many. This one’s pretty boring since it’s just sand and cliffs, but some of them actually have weird fruits that explode when you cut into them but that taste delicious or big birds that really like fried meat!” She throws a swift glance backwards, as if to check he’s still listening. “Anyway, you’ll see for yourself. I’ll show you around. The Cutlass is big enough for the both of us for sure.”
Back on dry land, Sasha starts wringing sea water from the drenched bottom of her dress. Zolf can tell it’s a pretty hopeless endeavour, but keeps his mouth shut; there’s something awfully nostalgic about watching her fuss with her outfit.
Aware of the silence starting to settle again, he questions, “The Cutlass?”
For a quick moment, she stops squeezing at the soaked fabric and looks up to catch his gaze, before nodding towards the unmoored sailboat. “That’s her. I wanted her to have a cool name, one that kinda scares people just when they hear it whispered. So I thought, okay, maybe a name like ‘Dagger’ or something. And then I remembered what pirates use! So now, she’s my Cutlass,” she explains with a proud grin.
Zolf casts an approving glance at the Cutlass. “It’s not a bad name.”
“Zolf!” A deep voice cries from above.
His head immediately shifts up towards the sky, searching for the source of the muffled echo that called out for him, but finds nothing but an empty light sky that hurts his eyes the longer he peers at it. His gaze drops back to Sasha, staring at him quizzically.
“What was that?” he asks, voice slightly on edge.
She tilts her head questioningly. “What?”
He rubs his hand at the back of his neck to keep it from flying to his aching side, the intensity of the throbbing having returned with a vengeance. In more unpleasant ways than one, it feels like a hot rod is repeatedly being prodded through his chest.
Brows furrowed, Sasha takes a step toward him but he stops her with a raised hand.
He stifles a groan and presses on despite the mixture of concern and confusion on her face, “You still haven’t told me where we are. Or why we’re here.”
“Oh. Well we can talk about that later, once we’re out at sea, going full speed and having fun, you know,” she says, a little too enthusiastically for Zolf to believe her. She’s never been the best liar, and her poker face has barely improved since they separated in Rome. No, wait- Prague.
Zolf just stares at her. “Sasha.”
Her eyes lower to the ground, and he watches her build uneven walls of sand with the sides of her sandals. “I was gonna tell you later,” she murmurs, voice barely rising over the breeze and the gentle crash of waves, and Zolf approaches her to make sure he doesn’t miss a word. “But maybe I was sort of hoping that you’d get it before I had to.”
Eyes downcast, words reluctant but conceding to Zolf, he’s seen it before. In Prague, when they uttered their goodbyes around unfinished drinks. Then, he’d never seen her after that day; their paths hadn’t crossed again for some reason, because-
“Oh.” The legs make sense now. The weird dreamscape. And Sasha. Grief washes over him anew. “I- I left. And I wasn’t there for you like I should've been.” His voice breaks without his consent and he has to pause to draw a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, Sasha.”
Beyond the tears starting to blur his vision, he’s vaguely aware of an agitated Sasha rushing towards him. Warm hands drop on his shoulder but burning shame and guilt keep him from meeting her gaze.
“Zolf, it’s okay. Really. Rome wasn’t the end for me, it was just another beginning. I got to help other people the same way you helped me. I passed on my knife tricks to the kids I rescued, and they drove me so crazy, I swear, but also made me love them so much. I never- I never thought I’d get that. I never even knew I wanted that.”
Her reassurances only vaguely register with Zolf, distracted by far-off echoes of his name sounding in the gaps between each of her words. Detaching himself from her hands, he twists around in the same spot, striving to catch a glimpse of whoever is shouting themselves hoarse to get his attention, but finds nothing but the same ivory cliff walls and endless ocean spreading around him.
“Zolf, you’re kind of-”
He spins back towards Sasha. “You can’t hear it?” he checks with her, but is immediately met with a shake of her head.
“Zolf, please.”
This time, there’s no mistaking it. The shrill undertones of that voice laced with blunt fear and anguish. It’s Hamid. It’s his friend, his companion. All at once, his side shoots up in distress, cutting the breath from his lungs, and his knees crumple to the ground.
In an instant, Sasha has sunk to his side and grasped his arm supportively. At the sight of her knitted brows and her lips chewed between her teeth, Zolf wonders for a brief second if he’s about to die, before he has to hold back bouts of wheezing laughter at the absurdity of that thought. Unsurprisingly, Sasha looks at him like he’s completely lost his mind, and he can’t say that he blames her.
“Zolf, we need you to wake up.”
Zolf smirks through his agony. This one’s easy. He’d recognise Wilde’s false composure from a world away.
He lays his palm on Sasha’s hand, still clutched tightly at his shoulder as if he’s about to be swallowed up from below. For the first time, he notices how her lean, nimble hands are smaller than his, despite her being human.
He squeezes her hand and admits, “I think the others are calling for me.”
A flash of disappointment sweeps then leaves her features before Zolf is even sure he’s seen it. She leans towards him and places her free hand on his shoulder, now trembling from the spasms of pain shooting from below.
She looks him dead in the eyes. “Then you gotta go back to them, boss. No other way about it.”
Her promise to sail aboard the Cutlass with him resurfaces from the back of his consciousness. His eyes slide to the sailboat, floating idly by the shore and he can almost feel robust winds pushing at his back and the familiar burn of weathered ropes on his skin. He sees Sasha standing at the bow of the ship, pointing at some mysterious island in the distance, an unfinished map folded in her hand.
His eyes settle back on hers. “Here seems easier.”
“It is,” she acknowledges, her thumb rubbing at his shoulder. “But it’ll always be waiting for you. And so will I.”
“Mr. Smith, Mr.- Zolf!”
He leans his forehead onto Sasha’s collarbone, protruding slightly from the fabric of her dress. His goodbye is jammed in the back of his throat; he’s not ready yet. Above him, he feels her chin gently settle on top of his hair.
“Good luck, Zolf.”
He closes his eyes, surrendering himself to the pain-induced torpor gradually taking hold of his body. “Don’t go exploring everything without me.”
“Yes, boss,” she promises, a smile evident in her voice.
Zolf wakes up to complete chaos.
All around him, jagged metal parts are firmly planted into the ice, like javelins flung by someone with Azu’s upper-arm strength. Lifting his head with effort, his eyes discover what used to be the Vengeance some distance away, coated in flames and not unlike the colossal ribcages they’d observed from the safety of their ship. Well, except on fire.
Below the wreckage of their one-way ticket to Svalbard, he discovers what’s been weighing on his ribcage since he opened his eyes.
“Hamid,” he tries, but it comes out as a cough.
The fur-lined hood laying on his chest flies up to reveal Hamid’s tear-streaked cheeks below a pair of red puffy eyes, held wide open and gawking intensely at Zolf. His coat is smudged with bright crimson blood which thankfully doesn’t appear to be his.
For a few seconds, Hamid stays frozen like that, before he suddenly twists around to scream to his left, “Oh, gods. Azu, quick! He’s alive!”
Trusting Hamid and Azu to fix whatever’s wrong with him, he lets his head drop back onto the ice.
Guess Sasha will have to wait a little longer.