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Freminet hovered at the bottom of the trench in sweet, soft silence.
Well, it wasn’t silent, not really. The ocean was loud. The distant waves above roared and currents burbled in his ear. Unseen creatures clicked and popped from their crevices. Blubberbeasts moaned their mournful song that resonated in his chest, his lungs, any hollow space where it could settle in and make itself home. Underwater, sound was felt as much as heard.
That’s why he liked it here so much. The cacophony within and without him left no room for anything originating from his head. Freminet floated with his face to the surface next to one of the many underwater studies that littered the deep and focused on the physical sensations. He didn’t anticipate wanting to rest somewhere dry, but the thoughts were getting harder to drown and, well, Lyney and Lynette didn’t deserve to wonder what happened to him and Father still needed him.
He let the shifting currents rock his limp body and the seagrass brush his legs. This must be what birds felt in their tree nests, or babies in their cradles. His favorite ballast rock sat solid on his chest, carefully selected for this particular haunt to keep him at the perfect depth.
He hoped this is what death felt like. It wouldn’t be so bad, being a ghost, so long as he could stay here. He cracked an eye and watched the sunlight filter in until one of the dead things flitted by. This one took the shape of a ray. The wake of its passage rippled over his skin, a subtle change in pressure only detectable with years of experience. Attunement to the waves had saved his life on more than one occasion, alerting him to a rushing predator before his ears or eyes ever could.
Few predators came for him anymore. He sighed and watched unnecessary breath rise, the bubbles warping under the pressure as they hurried skyward. In doing that, he noticed the distant, watery sun get a little bit brighter.
Then even brighter.
Freminet, being a man of above average intelligence and even higher self preservation despite his demons, immediately dumped his weight and darted into the cover of seagrass. He curled behind a rock and swayed in time with the foliage, watching a point of light cut through the water like a knife – a shooting star, a comet with a tail of bubbles, a blade dropped from Heaven.
The light made it halfway down the trench before gravity retracted its assistance, slowing, and now Freminet could see that it was the Traveler. He squinted while he watched.
The Traveler swam straight down, undulating his body as if he’d lived in water his entire life, clawing forward for extra speed. Freminet could just barely make out the determined scowl on the normally cheerful man’s face. The blue of the water neutralized the gold of his hair, compounded with distance from the sun, and soon that brilliant shine was almost identical to Freminet’s washed-out beige.
The Traveler kept swimming past Freminet’s hiding place without sparing a glance to his surroundings, continuing until he reached the bottom of the trench. Once there, he pivoted to curl his legs under himself and gripped the muck like a runner about to launch.
The Traveler squeezed his eyes tight and grimaced, his braid floating angelically around him despite its bleaching. Unease prompted Freminet to retreat farther behind his rock and stare while the water tensed, listening in to the descender’s command. The assorted spots on the Traveler’s chest and wrists glowed brighter than Freminet had ever seen before – teal, green, gold, and purple, a kaleidoscope of color flickering so fast it almost looked white. The shimmer of something like wings flickered to life behind his back and the water coiled around him like a spring. Then, with one flap of his shattered wings, he was off.
Freminet tilted his head back to watch the Traveler rise. He rocketed off the seabed in an explosion of silt and the panicking of fish. That ascent would leave even Freminet shuddering with the bends and he winced in sympathy.
It didn’t seem to bother the Traveler, though. He went up, up, until he rejoined that soft sun above once more.
“...Huh.”
Once the dust settled, Freminet let his body go slack and lay horizontal again. Disturbed sealife crept out of their hiding places and soon things were almost back to normal. He’d seen stranger and more upsetting things, and the Traveler’s business was no business of his, so he just shut his eyes and tried to doze once more.
He managed about three minutes before the tension returned. Freminet felt it before he saw it, diving back into his grass cocoon before the Traveler could spot him. There he was, again, plummeting towards the seabed with a grim expression. His swimming seemed almost… angry.
Again, the Traveler knelt on the seafloor with a strange light and again, he shot back up.
This repeated three times.
The ascent must’ve been a quarter mile every time, and Freminet had no way to know much higher the Traveler went, how he possibly got enough height to hit the water like that. Even the diving gulls hit the water with less force and they were made to strike hard and deep.
The Traveler started to flag on the fourth repetition. He still glared unwaveringly at his goal… whatever it was, but now his mouth hung open and his movements grew sluggish. Then, they lost coordination, his arms out of sync with his legs.
Twice more and the Traveler looked like he was positively floundering. Freminet crept to the edge of his concealment, debating whether to step in before he passed out. The Traveler met the seabed one last time and knelt in the same pose, but the ocean had grown tired of his little ritual and the light of his chest throbbed a dull blue instead of white. No wings blinked into life. He strained a few times, silt puffing up where he grabbed at the floor, and after a few more tries he groaned loud enough for Freminet to hear and limped off to the nearby library.
Freminet shadowed him. The Traveler was sluggish, slow after admitting defeat, and he stumbled through the airlock. Freminet expected him to recover but instead he dropped to his knees hard and just… sat there. His shoulders sagged forward, bereft of their glass wings, and he dug at his forehead and bangs. Was he crying? Should Freminet do something?
If he was crying, Freminet felt a deep shame for watching. Hadn’t he done the same thing so many nights – fled to the bottom of the ocean where nobody could see his weakness? There must be something seriously wrong with him to sit here and violate the Traveler’s privacy so.
But, it wasn’t some perverted curiosity or a desire to get the upper hand that prompted Freminet to swim closer. He was powerless to soothe his own agonies, but if he could help the Traveler, that’d make him useful, right? He could be the supporting character in someone else’s story.
As Freminet approached, the Traveler abruptly stood and flicked the water out of his gold-again braid. He marched to the interior of the room and started pacing back and forth, back and forth, over and over again as if he had any energy left to burn. He was so engrossed in his route that he didn’t even look up when Freminet dropped through the airlock on light feet.
Freminet waited at the door and watched him for a minute. The Traveler mumbled something repetitive to himself in an alien language with one hand in his hair and the other arm wrapped around his own waist. It sounded more like static than words, like the feedback of Freminet’s diving helmet when he got too close to a ruin guard’s core, but it buzzed with an anger that transcended language.
Freminet shyly cleared his throat.
The Traveler paused mid-step and snapped his head over to face the sound. Freminet could see now that his eyes were red – red and puffy and very, very confused.
They stared at each other for way too long. Water dripped down Freminet’s legs and plopped on the floor, the only sound in the room.
“...Hey Freminet,” the Traveler choked out after an awkward moment. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
The silence was both tangible and painful. It weighed on Freminet, aiding his indecision and freezing his tongue. The Traveler coughed and hurriedly wiped his face, turning his shoulder to the door. “Good. Good… I didn’t, uh, expect to see you here. I thought you only came down here when you were upset.”
His voice frayed at the edges of each word like fabric ripping at the seams. Freminet did the brave thing and took one more step into the room, just barely moving past the doorway, and ignored the Traveler’s statement. “You don’t have to hide it, you know. The ocean won’t tell.”
He waved him off. “It’s nothing you need to see. I’m sorry I disturbed your spot.”
“It’s everyone’s spot,” Freminet replied blandly. “I… uhm…”
He hated taking the initiative. The Traveler looked deeply uncomfortable with his presence and he wondered whether he made a huge mistake. Then again, Lyney looked the same way when Lynette finally tracked him down after a bad mission, and Lynette when Lyney found her. They always felt better when they talked to each other, and archons knew Freminet would like some company when he was at the edge.
“Still, I’m sorry. I’ll go.” The Traveler’s voice cracked on the last word.
“Why? What are a few more tears to a sea of sorrow?”
“If I start crying in front of you, I won’t stop,” the Traveler threatened. Begged? It was a strange tone, equal parts remnant hostility and pleading. Freminet had made that sound many times before, but he’d never heard it coming from someone that he looked up to.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind.” Freminet looked around the room and settled for sitting in the puddle he brought in with him, crossing his legs and pulling his shorts down to better cover himself. “What’s wrong?”
The Traveler laughed miserably. “What isn’t wrong?”
He resumed his pacing, his braid swinging out and slapping wet against his back with how abruptly he turned. “It’s a lot. It’s a lot that I–” his breath hitched “–a lot that I can’t tell you.” He turned back suddenly. “Not that I don’t trust you! I just, I can’t tell anyone.”
Freminet frowned. “...What can you tell me?”
The Traveler hugged his own waist and stared at a bookshelf rather than answer.
“What were you… doing? Outside? I’ve never seen someone dive like that.” Besides himself, of course, when he had to get away before the screaming in his head made its way out his mouth.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not enough,” the Traveler said, hoarse.
“Not enough for what?”
“Anything,” he whined. “I can’t do ANYTHING!” It was the first time Freminet had ever heard him yell and he flinched despite himself. The floodgates opened as the Traveler resumed his pacing once again. “I can’t fight, I can’t fly, that bitch clipped my wings and stuck me in a hole. I’m getting some of my strength back but it’s not enough and–”
He put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I thought the Abyss were the bad guys, and then the Fatui, and now I’m not sure about either. I have no idea what’s happening and I’m too weak to make something right. I can’t leave, I don’t have my sister, I might have fight my sister and I can’t tell Paimon any of this and–”
Freminet shrank down. Maybe he should’ve listened to the Traveler’s warning.
The panicking man had made four laps across the floor. He stared where his feet fell, talking too fast, too high, like a kettle about to boil over. “I don’t do well alone, Freminet. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I’m not strong enough. I used to be so powerful, more than you can image, but I was never– my sister was the one–”
Freminet watched, horrified, while the Traveler broke down into hysterical wheezing. How could he feel that way? The man that had fistfought archons and won?!
“I shouldn’t have to beg your stupid gods for help. I’m supposed to be the light that breaks the night. I’m supposed to protect you. I can barely protect myself! I shouldn’t need mortal help! If I was just, if I could–”
…There really was no hope, was there? They were all failures.
Freminet’s hands had found Pers without him consciously thinking to, the Traveler’s crying background noise now, and soon he clutched his best friend of his own design in his lap. The cold metal of the clockwork penguin pricked his skin, grounding him.
Lyney and Lynette didn’t seem to feel useless. Father definitely didn’t. He had to believe that, for their asset’s sake if not his own.
Freminet cleared his throat once he’d gotten his own bile to settle. The Traveler still trembled in the middle of the room. “Should you… sit down?”
He moved to follow the suggestion without an intelligible word, leaning against the adjacent wall with his face in his hands. Freminet shuffled to get closer but not too close, settling to hover a few feet away. Here he could hear the Traveler apologize between gasps. The words ran together like a rote prayer more than a meaningful admission and Freminet knew that he’d mumble the same chant whether he had company or not.
He knew this kind of crying. He’d done it many times before, most frequent when he first joined the House but creeping up more often, lately. This was the crying where you watched yourself from a distance, confused at the movie starring your absent body. It was better than being present in the moment, but the headache that came after…
Freminet squeezed his eyes shut and shoved Pers into the Traveler’s lap.
He knew better than to hug people when they were this upset. He tried to hug Lyney, once, when they both needed it, and his brother had darted across the room with an actual hiss before either of them had the presence of mind to react. Pers was the only comfort he knew how to give that wouldn’t make things worse.
His heart leapt into his throat seeing the Traveler’s hand twitch over the clockwork penguin, and it pounded seeing him hold it to his chest after a moment of hesitation. He thought himself weak, but Freminet knew he could shatter his friend in his fist.
“You’re such a sweet kid…” the Traveler eventually managed.
Freminet didn’t know what to say to that. Lyney and Lynette had said similar things, encouragingly. Father had said so warningly. But the Traveler said so heartbroken. He cried harder, if anything, but at least now it was intentional, maybe even cathartic. This was no longer the ‘someone else’ crying.
Freminet shifted even closer (closer to Pers) and hunched at the Traveler’s side. “It’ll be okay,” he said lamely. “Things will get better.” They had to.
The Traveler chuckled and wiped his face on his gauntlet. “It will,” he murmured with more conviction than Freminet felt. “It’s just the question of getting there…”
They sat like that for a while, the Traveler eventually subsiding into exhausted hiccups after what felt like hours. At some point he pulled Freminet into a side hug and he hated to admit to himself that it was exactly what he needed. Freminet let his head rest against the other man’s shoulder and curled under his protection.
How pathetic. He’d wanted to comfort the Traveler and here he was, fighting back his own tears. How could the gods possibly survive under the weight of their people’s feelings?
Maybe this was the real meaning of the prophecy. Maybe the reason the world was flooding was because it was too horrible to witness, that even gods and dragons could do naught but weep until it finally sank beneath their grief.
If it took the destruction of the world for them to feel better, well, Freminet couldn’t really blame them.