Zairah
I had a dream, which was not all a dream... The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless..
Zairah didn’t even see the foot until the deck tilted out from under her. One heartbeat she was standing, the next she was a blur of coat and limbs and air before she hit the planks with a flat, shocking thud.
The sound knocked the wind out of her, but what escaped wasn’t a groan. It was a laugh — sharp, breathless, bubbling up from somewhere too deep to be sensible. She lay there for a second, staring up at the washed-out Deepfrost sky, the cold biting through her clothes, and grinned like someone who’d just learned gravity was real and couldn’t wait to test it again.
“Okay,” she managed, voice rasped raw from the fall. “You hit harder than I thought.”
Her tail twitched against the boards, an unconscious lash of something between irritation and thrill. She pushed herself up with her palms, hair falling wild around her face, cheeks flushed from cold and contact. When her eyes found Thalassa again, they were bright — too bright — with the same dangerous excitement that had burned through her when she first smelled blood in the temple.
Standing now, she rolled her shoulders, testing the sore spot in her back. It hurt, but it was the kind of pain that made her feel real. Like the world had finally pressed back.
Zairah dropped into a sloppy imitation of Thalassa’s stance — knees bent, weight too far forward, tail flicking behind her like a faulty metronome. “Alright, captain,” she said, half-breathless, half-amused. “Your turn to try not to fall.”
There was no mockery in it. Just challenge; honest and raw and maybe a little reckless, the way everything in her was. No sooner had the words passed her lips when she went for it, striking out with her own foot. The motion felt forced and unnatural, but she tried anyway.
The sound knocked the wind out of her, but what escaped wasn’t a groan. It was a laugh — sharp, breathless, bubbling up from somewhere too deep to be sensible. She lay there for a second, staring up at the washed-out Deepfrost sky, the cold biting through her clothes, and grinned like someone who’d just learned gravity was real and couldn’t wait to test it again.
“Okay,” she managed, voice rasped raw from the fall. “You hit harder than I thought.”
Her tail twitched against the boards, an unconscious lash of something between irritation and thrill. She pushed herself up with her palms, hair falling wild around her face, cheeks flushed from cold and contact. When her eyes found Thalassa again, they were bright — too bright — with the same dangerous excitement that had burned through her when she first smelled blood in the temple.
Standing now, she rolled her shoulders, testing the sore spot in her back. It hurt, but it was the kind of pain that made her feel real. Like the world had finally pressed back.
Zairah dropped into a sloppy imitation of Thalassa’s stance — knees bent, weight too far forward, tail flicking behind her like a faulty metronome. “Alright, captain,” she said, half-breathless, half-amused. “Your turn to try not to fall.”
There was no mockery in it. Just challenge; honest and raw and maybe a little reckless, the way everything in her was. No sooner had the words passed her lips when she went for it, striking out with her own foot. The motion felt forced and unnatural, but she tried anyway.
(Training 1/4)
