Chapter Text
When Palina swallows the first gulp of saltwater, coarse and coating, she can’t help but call it fate.
Her vision fades to swimming blue and bright bursts of bubbles, tiny beads of oxygen that were of no use to her here. Her goggles flap uselessly at her neck; she has no strength to get them where they should be.
For a moment, she sees a fatal streak of heat. It splits the ocean like a comet through the sky. Her gaze darts upward, and her lord’s pup crests the surface. She cannot hear his gulps for air, but she can imagine it, and that’s enough for her. Her body crests in a graceful arc. Palina belongs here, after all. The ocean was hers first.
Then that streak begins to fade. Bright orange cools to deep red, and then she can’t see it at all in the depths. Palina does not know why, but panic begins in her sternum and projects. Her body jerks, and with the last reserve of oxygen, she lunged forward with one arm.
But what can she do? Her eyes close, and not of her own accord. She freezes in place, and she does not fight it. She has lost to space. She has lost to time. She thinks of Irida, small and brilliant, leading her Clan as far as the sky, to Almighty Sinnoh.
Palina does not feel the grip on her arm. She doesn’t feel anything at all. Instead, she watches the magma cool into blue and watches as the ocean greets the sunlight.