Chapter Text
The first day at sea she did not dare emerge from the crowded private quarters her and her companions had been given.
The ancient beating of the drums that filled her mind grew louder with every passing hour. Tahlia had not unpacked, but sat on her small bunk with her legs cross under her. She tried to focus, to find the string of nature that she always clung to in meditation to calm her. A dozen prayers were offered up to the Wild Mother, the first ones carefully worded, and the final a manic begging for control and safety.
Please, she prayed, please don’t let me hurt them. Let brand hold true. Keep me collared and chained, keep the waves far from me.
Tahlia Tempest they’d called her in the sleepy fishing village she’d been born in, a babe birthed in the heart of a violent storm. And now, now there was nothing she feared more than the Tempest she was, the Tempest that called to her very soul.
Every prayer brought an echo of a memory she’d tried to bury deep, yet could never forget. The corpses of her friends, people who’d helped raise her so well that they might as well have been family. The village that had trusted her, kept her, soothed her. The storm her panic had summoned - their corpses, bloated and blue, evidence of the monster she become when she lost control, when the tides rushed to her aid, not understanding that the only true danger was her own mind, her violent, merciless emotions that brought ruin to the world as often as to herself.
Her husband, gone, taken by the waves, foolishly believing his tide touched wife would keep him safe. Her love a dagger in his back, in her own heart.
Her fingers pressed against her brow, feeling the slight uplifted flesh where the dark brand of the various phases of the moon rested. An echo of how they controlled the tides, and now the mark now controlled her. Controlled the horrible, endless power that rested within her.
A power none should possess. No mortal could be trusted it with it. Certainly not her.
This close to the sea, aboard the massive ship called the Wakeful, the drums beat loud in her mind, a strange song only she seemed to hear. It drowned all else out any time she was too close to the sea - or dared to stay away for too long. Ever since she’d taken the brand upon her brow, every moment was a precarious balance.
And now, she could hardly think, could hardly breathe. She saw all of their faces in front of her, her new companions, their faces contorting as the tides bloated and broke them, all because she could not contain herself.
Her nails clutched at her brow too tightly, her breath coming too fast. The heel of her palm pressed to her eyes until white spots burst within the black of her vision. She’d told them, warned them, but the quest they found themself on was only supposed to be a single trip, quick, fleeting. She thought she could endure. Yet, now they found themselves with the reality of being at sea for months.
How could she contain herself for so long? The thought of hurting any of them made her stomach twist into knots, her throat tight with impending grief. She couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be contained or controlled.
Old, sour thoughts rose, thoughts she never quite escaped from. How safer the world would be if she could find the strength to end things in truth. A poison, a bright mushroom, a blade to a carefully plucked artery. A watery end of her own, perhaps. A grave of violent waves, of gnashing teeth from hungry creatures, drawing the salt water into the cavity of her chest, filling where air should have been.
Perhaps that was the only way to protect them.
The horrible drums thrummed louder with every passing thought, throbbing in her veins, stabbing against her temples as it drowned out every other bustling sound of the ship and crew. Tahlia’s breath came too fast, too heavy, her dark curls falling in onyx curtains around her face as she clutched at her brow, crescent marks pressed against her flesh where her nails pressed too sharply.
There was only that ancient song, calling her to give in entirely, to answer as the tide demanded. Her lips trembled, her left leg twitching. Too much, it was all too much, why couldn’t they hear -
She didn’t even hear him enter.
A warm hand slid against her bare foot, fingers curling around her ankle.
“Tahlia.”
A smooth, deep voice tinged in concern, spoken softly. Strong fingers pressed just so to the bone of her ankle, a slightly rough thumb gliding soothingly. His voice cut through the maddening drums, perhaps the only thing that could.
Elias.
The lover she shouldn’t have taken, that strange Cleric. A companion she never saw coming, a connection she didn’t know how to make sense of, forged in the span of two days.
“ Tahlia .”
His voice was more insistent now, though his hand was still gentle upon her ankle. The small bed dipped as he pressed a knee to it to get closer to her, his hand traveling up her calf.
“Hey, it’s alright. Let go, you’re hurting yourself.”
It took a moment too long, but he managed to convince her, her clawing fingers falling away from her brow. She blinked at him from under her strange gaze, eyes rimmed in gold, all hidden away by the fog that covered her eyes in entirety.
Every time she looked at him, she was struck by just how lovely he was. Pretty in a way men never desired to be. A lithe frame wired with surprising muscle, a sharp jawline, a soft mouth that rarely smiled. A head covered in blonde curls so blonde they were starkly white, eyes that seemed to be deadened, yet every now and then cut with shocking emotion.
His brow pinched with worry now, leaning close to her. His hand left her leg, smoothing over her brow, tracing the length of the dark brand there.
The drums continued to pound, louder, more ferocious in their tempo, but the echo of his voice cut through - seemingly the only thing that could. Her eyes found his mouth first, watching it shape around his spoken words, before shifting to his eyes.
Whatever he saw in her face had him moving from only pressing a knee to the bed, to crawling next to her. The thin mattress dipped with his weight, the bunk above them looming, casting the lower bed in shadows as lines of sunlight filtered in from thin spaces of the ship’s planks and the lone tiny window.
Tahlia managed to keep herself from trembling until his arms wrapped around her and pulled her close. Her head pressed to his chest, his heartbeat a steady, lulling sound. His arms wrapped about her, thumb rubbing soothing circles on her shoulder.
“I can’t, I can’t control it. It’s so loud Elias, everything is - I shouldn’t have come. Not with you, not with any of you. Something horrible is going to happen, I can’t be trusted -“
Her words came to fast, muffled against his chest, but Elias seemed to be able to make sense of them. It the sea of her breaking, manic emotions he was steady. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, the small sea shells wound through her curls glinting slightly in the low sunlight.
“You can. You wouldn’t hurt them, I won’t hurt me. I’m here, Tahlia. When it’s loud, I’ll be here, until you come back to yourself.”
His voice was a soft rumble against her ear, and with every moment he held her, the drums grew a little more quiet. Tahlia didn’t dare open her eyes, wrapped in his arms, all of her fears twisting like daggers in her chest.
“It’s calling me, Elias. I don’t know how long I can . . .”
“It can call as often as it likes, but you are beholden to none but yourself. I will not let the tide take you.” His fingers shifted, curling under her chin, pulling her gaze to look at him. Her lips parted at the intense determination she found glinting in his gaze. “Not now, not ever.”
When he kisses her, it doesn’t taste like the hazy, drunken night on the beach. There is none of the hungry desperation of two fools clinging to one another as though they’ve trying to devour one another whole. His lips are soft, a whisper against her own.
There is no hunger, but she thinks there might be salvation.
The kiss is slow and soft as the breeze, and when it ends Elias shifts until his body lays along the bed, pulling her with him. His fingers dance along her spine, his lips pressed to her brow.
He is not so large and wonderfully overwhelming as her husband had been. He does not make her feel small in his arms, and being there does not instantly fill her with the essence of safety, as though nothing can touch her.
But he feels an equal, another tainted by fate, corrupted by a bloodline he cannot control. They are the same in this, running from their fates, clinging to one another as though it might somehow save them from destruction.
The drums never truly fade, but his heartbeat grows louder than the constant thrumming of tide calling her to its depths. For a moment, she is not the Tempest, she is held. For now, she believes him.