Work Text:
It is only when he reaches the edge that he stops.
The surge around him does not. It’s a stampede, a tsunami of starving men all ravenous for their first taste of freedom, and it is all because of him.
Him, and the man who hesitates on the cusp of his liberty to call out for his fellow leader.
Kino’s answer is lost to the wind and the roar of voices and the fog that has his own mind in an iron grip.
I can’t swim.
The words seem to come from somewhere far away as he repeats them. Somewhere filled with sunlight and the laughter of children and warm arms ready to welcome him home at the end of the day.
Somewhere that, deep down, he knows he’ll never see again.
I can’t swim.
Keef takes a half-step forward, and then he is gone before he can finish the words forming on his lips, swept over the edge by the crowd.
I can’t swim.
He’s so close. He can feel the rays of sunlight dancing across his face. He’s so close. And after all of this, the gateway to escape is still locked.
He has known from the start, from the very moment he set foot in this accursed husk of plasteel, that there is no way out for him.
But there is for Keef. There is for Melshi, for everyone who listened.
And in an instant, the man who took down Narkina Five no longer fears the void looming beneath him.
And then the ground is no more. The ocean reaches up to embrace him, to welcome him home.
And at long last, Kino Loy finds his way out.