Chapter Text
It was dark. It was cold. And it was so hard to swim with lavish formalwear on.
Raya struggled to keep her head above the choppy river waves. After a few tries and lots of thrashing, she finally got herself afloat on her back. Only when she was still did she hear the cacophony.
Footsteps. The rustling of trees as people scrambled to escape the Druun. Horrified screams cut off midway as some didn't make it. Raya grew numb, and it wasn't because of the frigid water biting at her skin.
A passing wave jostled her right arm, and Raya was suddenly aware of the weight in her palm—a piece of the Dragon Gem, glowing like a beacon in the night, surely capable of signalling her presence and its existence to anyone peering out to the river. Raya stared at it, remembering her last glimpse of her father as he hurled her into the river, turning to stone in front of her very eyes. Remembering the moment the gem shattered. Remembering the one who alerted the other tribes to the gem.
Namaari.
A surge of anger burned Raya up inside, staving off the cold. What did she expect, trusting a foreigner so much on the day she met her? The more she thought about it, the angrier she grew—at that Fang traitor, and surprisingly, at herself for being so naïve. She should've suspected someone from a nation who hated hers over a misconception that the Dragon Gem brought prosperity would have something up her sleeve. And bringing her to the sacred temple where the coveted gem was located? Raya could see now that it had always been bound for disaster. Letting her guard down was a mistake. Trusting Ba this time was a mistake. And letting herself believe that the warm kinship with Namaari could genuinely last—that was fatal. But it stung more than Raya would admit.
Raya felt her head suddenly collide with a solid surface. She maneuvered herself upright, peering up at a dark, bobbing mass. Her eyes made out a hull and hardtop of a boat in the dim light of the gem shard. Shelter!
After clambering onboard, Raya shivered in a corner of the boat, taking in the deck. It looked like a water taxi; there were slats that served as benches dividing the deck, and a long barge pole clattered on the starboard side. She spots a taut rope tied around a cleat, following its length to a tree at the back of the river. The boat was a few feet away from the bank, having been swept by the current. Good. That meant less chances for a Druun to get on board.
Sitting in a stranger's boat with the humid air warming her up, reality began to sink in. Ba is now a statue, and possibly never coming back. The Druun are roaming free across the lands. The Dragon Gem had been shattered, each piece now in several different hands. Much of her people had probably turned to stone right now. Her life as she knew it was gone.
Raya toppled over onto her side, tears running down her face as her body racked with sobs. What had she done?