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Everyone had told Remus that this new plan of his was the most idiotic thing they had ever heard of. Blood-sworn enemies had agreed with each to be able to tell him he was a bloody idiot, and all he had done was prove them right.
The pressure was suffocating him, and yet it was never going to be enough. (He had tried and hoped in vain, but it would not take this pain away from him).
It had all sounded like such a swell idea, to go to the place where the moon could not reach. There had been scientific grounds for the plan, and even if all else failed, there was no one there who he could hurt if something did go wrong.
There was nothing around him, and yet he could not move.
But in all his calculations he hadn't thought of a mutinous crew. Hadn't considered that the kind of people willing to travel to the end of the known world, might not be the nicest and safest to be around when times got rough. Hadn't been able to imagine that when they got stuck in the ice, he had become rather dispensable.
His screams were falling flat into the endless silence surrounding him, caging him in.
He had been tied to one of the (seemingly) useless canons and pushed over the side of the ship. (Remus still didn't fully understand why they would do that, but he had lived a long enough life to know that some people didn't need a reason to be cruel to others. That existing was enough for someone that was simply bored and looking for entertainment. (His entire life he had tried to stay on the good side of people like that, had stealed, borrowed and bartered all that he had held dear for the faint promise that he would live to see another day.)).
His tears were frozen spectacles on his cheeks, a biting coldness he could not escape no matter how hard he tried.
The sea had no more mercy for Remus than the land had ever had. It swallowed him whole, blood, skin, bones and fur. The one thing it did prove was that Remus had been right with his suspicion that he would be cured when there was no moon to touch him, but that was little consolation.
He couldn't die. Neither the water nor the cold would take him away from all his pain and suffering.
Being chained to the bottom of the ocean did put a man's world into perspective, it gave him nice, long, hours to think about all the choices that had brought him there, and regret every single one of them.
He couldn't breathe.
All his life he had wished for a cure, and now that he had it... Well, it didn't really matter all that much anymore. If this was the price for freedom, he might actually prefer a life of confinement.
This prison was worse than his darkest nightmares, he couldn't move.
Remus looked at the stars above, so far out of reach they could be just as well be memories from a life he couldn't return to. Oh, what he wouldn't give to be granted freedom again.
The darkness was all-compassing, there was never enough light to be able to see, and Remus couldn't take this anymore.
His parents would never know what had happened to him, and he would be just another name on the memorial. Another forgotten body, lost at sea.
No one would ever come for him, no one would ever be able to find him. This prison cell would become the grave for his undying body.
Remus couldn't move his body, couldn't reach for the stars, for the light of dawn that never reached close enough to kiss his starving skin goodbye. He couldn't imagine a life before this endless torture anymore, couldn't comprehend what life would have been without the endless pressure of the water dragging him down.
And down.
And down.
He was in a never-ending circle, a state of suspense in frozen time
Somewhere in time, Remus had closed his eyes and never opened them again. But now his eyes flew open, uncomprehending as to what he was seeing.
There was light. Light, so much closer than the pale imitation the stars were of the sun and moon.
The ice had claimed his being so long ago, was no longer as thick as it used to be. It was giving in to the demands of the light, forcing the black sky to recede to where it came from.
His chains were falling away, he could move again, even if it was barely an inch.
The mighty crack of the ice splitting apart, was the most beautiful thing Remus had ever heard. The release of his body, frozen in time and space, was suddenly moving towards the surface again. The rays of the sun enlightening his pale face and warming his icy blood.
He was never going to be this rash about life-altering decisions again.
The millions of colours of the Northern Lights shone down on Remus' beaten face.