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Hermine sneezes as a breeze carries some unknown contaminant into her face, nearly dropping her bottle of beer into the water below as she does so.
Finneas laughs as she groans, wiping her nose with the back of her arm. “Allergies?” The Boyar shoots him a look before she looks back out at the open water, sunset dimmed by the distant storm clouds.
“There’s something out here that we don’t have in the Delmer Wilds,” she says. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s in full bloom. I’ve been sneezing for weeks.” Finneas takes a sip of his own beer, humming a tuneless acknowledgement. When he swallows, Hermine watches the knot on his throat bob out of the corner of her eye.
“I know of a tincture that might help,” he says, leaning forward and folding his arms over the top of the railing. “There’s a doctor that makes it over on Breaka, in the Archipelago - kind of a quack, but my sister swears by his stuff.” Hermine snorts out a laugh. “Maybe next time I swing by Breaka, I can…” He trails off. The lot of them had stopped doing that as much over the last couple of months, but every now and then they slip up.
Next time. Next time, what? There is no returning to their ancestral homes, no returning to the cities and ports they came from, no visiting the past.
The ship bobs in the water as a larger ripple comes from deeper in the sea. The two of them are alone on the ship here, their crew having returned to the shoreside community for the next few days. They could see their little fires in the distance, on the shore there.
“Well, I doubt whatever it is is going to come below with us,” Hermine says wryly before tipping her bottle against her lips and sucking down the last few gulps of beer. She doesn’t like the taste of it much, but she certainly prefers it to the wine she had been given at her engagement feast. She rests her arms on the railing too, and looks over at Finneas.
Most of all, she likes that Finneas gives her whatever she wants.
He looks over to her, meeting her gaze. She doesn’t look away like she usually does when he catches her staring. With the end of the world getting closer every day, what little shyness she had about her desires seems more and more pointless. He smiles at her, the orange-pink glow of the distant sunset glinting in the deep brown-black irises of his eyes. “Need a refill?” She smiles, nods, and holds out the bottle for him to take.
He grunts and creaks as he pulls his legs out from the water and stands up, steadying himself on the various lines that the two of them had secured when work finished for the day. She watches him go for a moment, admiring the wiry muscle of his arms and back through the sweat-soaked, white shirt that he wore. She feels a twisting in her gut, a cliche fluttering in her chest.
He was… what, forty? Forty-five? Hermine had seen a lot of men his age and younger, and he was by far the best looking of all of them. She tried to ignore it, especially with how dire their mission is, but more often than not in her idle moments she found herself thinking of him. He seemed awkward when she flirted with him, but it was hard not to. He was smart, strong, kind - he had a laugh that was infectious, and a wit that matched her own. She liked that she could say something dark and get a laugh out of him while everyone else shuffled uncomfortably.
Finneas slips a hand on her shoulder as he lowers himself back to his previous seat, squeezing her shoulder lightly before offering her a new bottle. She smiles at him, thanks him, and takes it - her fingers more than just grazing over his. She swears that she can see a faint flush on his cheeks, and she feels a swell of triumph at the sight. “So,” she says, idly swirling the bottle and watching he liquid move inside. “What do you think?”
“Hm?” Finneas looks at her, brow furrowed in confusion as he takes a sip from his own fresh bottle of beer. She rests her head on her arms, her own brown-black eyes focused on his.
“About all of this. It’s not like you were called like the rest of us.”
“Ah.” Finneas looks out at the water, where in the distance the sun is nearly fully below the horizon. “I suppose I don’t really have much time to think about it.”
“You have time now .”
“Boyar, I don’t know that-“
“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Hermine?” She chides, lightly smacking him in the arm. “Come on, humor me .”
He smiles sadly, and takes another swig. He’s quiet for a long moment, seemingly taking her request seriously. She simply watches him all the while, the silence between them filled with the sound of water lapping at his boat as it bobs lazily. “It makes me sad,” he finally says after a long time, and Hermine furrows her brow. He glances at her, chuckling lightly. “Oh come on, don’t give me that look,” he says. “How could I not be? It’s incredible, the work that all of you have put into this - and don’t get me wrong, I’m so glad to be part of it.” He looks out over the railing, down into the glittering water. “But it’s still the end of… well, everything.”
She reaches out, sliding her hand down the underside of his arm until her fingers find his. He looks up, surprise flitting across his features for a moment before he relaxes. Her fingers slip between his, and she squeezes their palms together in a gesture meant to comfort her as much as him. “Yeah, that might be true,” she says softly, her soft features earnest, “but it’s also the beginning , yeah?” He smiles, and she looks at him expectantly. “ Yeah ?” She squeezes his hand again, and he laughs.
“Yeah, alright,” he says pulling his hand away from hers as he takes another swig of his beer. Her heart sinks a bit when he pulls away, but she masks her disappointment with another swig of her own. A silence falls over them for a long time before, without warning, she feels his hand around her bicep. “You’ve really put on some muscle,” he says jovially, squeezing. “I was afraid you were going to break my hand just then.” She laughs, switching her beer to her right hand in order to slide her other hand up to brush her fingers over his knuckles. She shudders, and she swears that she can feel him do the same.
Th-thump. Th-thump.
Hermine’s eyes are hooded by her dark lashes as she looks down at their hands, swirling her fingers over his thumb, onto his wrist, his forearm. She hears his breath catch for a moment, but he doesn’t pull away. As she looks up, she finds that he is staring at her with an expression that she can’t immediately place. “Boyar-“
“ Hermine ,” she hisses, sliding her hand further up, near his elbow. He does not break his gaze, and she is at last able to place the expression as hunger .
“…Hermine.” She looks down at his lips as he speaks, almost unconsciously leaning towards him. She can feel his pulse quicken under her fingers, and she sees him leaning towards her as well, lips parted. She can almost taste the beer on his tongue as her lips hover over his, her breath quick. He suddenly stops, tightening his grip on her arm. She looks up into his eyes, and sees panic there now. “Hermine, how…” He breathes, and she can feel it on her lips. “How old are you?”
That sinking feeling again. It’s stronger now as she understands what he’s asking her.
“Old enough,” she whispers, not knowing if he’ll take sixteen as an acceptable answer. Her heart rate picks up as he stares at her, searching her gaze for something incriminating. She can feel panic rising in her chest, the tenuous courtship she’s been pushing on him unraveling beneath her far quicker than she can repair it. She knows she gave him the wrong answer - she can feel it in the stiffness of his body language.
Please .
She closes her eyes as she does the same with the gap between their lips, hitting her own lip against her teeth with the ferocity of her kiss. He doesn’t pull back right away, not as she moves her lips against his with ardor and inexperience, but his grip on her arm tightens and she feels him shiver.
He pulls away abruptly, exhaling deeply as he separates from her completely. The world has grown dimmer, only the faintest light from the sun casting his face in shadow. She stares at him, suddenly feeling a chill in the air that makes her shiver. “…Finn-“
“I’m going to turn in for the night, I think,” he says as he pushes himself back, drawing his feet out of the water and standing. “I think I’ve had a few too many.”
“Finn, wait-“
“Get some sleep, okay? We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
She stares after him as he slips below deck, her face red with shame, her fingers gripped tightly around the neck of the bottle. She presses her lips together until they go white, fighting back tears. She watches as the glow from an oil lamp comes on from below deck, listens to him crawling to the front bunk, and at last sees the light go dark as he shuts the door.
She turns back towards the shore, inwardly scolding herself and trying not to panic. Why did I do that? Stupid. Stupid! She exhales hard, pressing her empty hand against her eye as she tries to keep herself from crying. That was so stupid. I shouldn’t have done that. He probably hates me now. Another exhale, and she opens her eyes. Across the dark water, she focuses her gaze on the distant fires on the shoreside, trying hard not to think of how surprisingly soft Finneas Cawl’s lips had been.
She watches the fires for a long time before she too stands, resisting the urge to fling her bottle into the sea. There would be time for fits after they moved below the waves. Panning her gaze up, she watches as the lightning in the distant storm illuminates the great beasts within. She shudders in the cold night breeze, her thoughts turning away from Finneas and toward their greater goal.
As darkness falls over the Ethersea, the last person on the water slips below deck, and resigns herself to whatever dark dreams sleep has in store for her.