The Ark
She nods once, as if plotting a simple course and fixing it there for later. Honey, then bread, then water; she files it away with a thousand other small truths learned by doing, trusting there will be a next time, and another after that, to get it right.
At the mention of water her attention lifts at once, brightening like a sudden break in the clouds. Freshwater, he says, and she knows the difference instinctively, the way such seas pull heavy and greedy against a hull, how they lack the easy give of salt. Still, when he offers the glass she takes it without hesitation. The vessel is small, laughably so, but when she raises it to her lips and drinks, her mind smooths and glistens, a quiet sheen passing over it like moonlight on calm water. She lowers the glass with a soft, involuntary sound of pleasure, breath easing out of her, and nods at him in appreciation.
As his thumb brushes her chin, gathering the stray honey, she barely registers it given how familiar and practical it is, not unlike the way he’s always leaned to clear a spill from the cabin floor without breaking stride. She takes another bite of bread and washes it down with water this time, and that helps; the tightness eases, not gone but loosening, the ache shifting into something manageable.
She glances around the deck then, noting the extra bodies still lingering, the way the night refuses to settle. "Usually they've quieted down by now," she observes, before turning her ocean-deep eyes back to him. "And you..you’re usually in your cabin," she goes on, or "already ashore." Nights when rest wouldn’t take, when he’d leave her riding steady and return with dawn clinging to him but not just that, with sex and smoke and oil braided into his scent, the particular mix she’d soon learn belonged to the House of Midnight. She studies him now, head tilting slightly, as if feeling his weight through the deck the way she always has.
"Do you want to go?" She says before lifting the glass again, water catching the light as she drinks. "I'd go with you." Not that she knew what it would entail, of course, but if sleep was once again going to elude Jack in a way which would leave him frustrated rather than just merely manic, she'd not stop him from seeking out this new remedy.
At the mention of water her attention lifts at once, brightening like a sudden break in the clouds. Freshwater, he says, and she knows the difference instinctively, the way such seas pull heavy and greedy against a hull, how they lack the easy give of salt. Still, when he offers the glass she takes it without hesitation. The vessel is small, laughably so, but when she raises it to her lips and drinks, her mind smooths and glistens, a quiet sheen passing over it like moonlight on calm water. She lowers the glass with a soft, involuntary sound of pleasure, breath easing out of her, and nods at him in appreciation.
As his thumb brushes her chin, gathering the stray honey, she barely registers it given how familiar and practical it is, not unlike the way he’s always leaned to clear a spill from the cabin floor without breaking stride. She takes another bite of bread and washes it down with water this time, and that helps; the tightness eases, not gone but loosening, the ache shifting into something manageable.
She glances around the deck then, noting the extra bodies still lingering, the way the night refuses to settle. "Usually they've quieted down by now," she observes, before turning her ocean-deep eyes back to him. "And you..you’re usually in your cabin," she goes on, or "already ashore." Nights when rest wouldn’t take, when he’d leave her riding steady and return with dawn clinging to him but not just that, with sex and smoke and oil braided into his scent, the particular mix she’d soon learn belonged to the House of Midnight. She studies him now, head tilting slightly, as if feeling his weight through the deck the way she always has.
"Do you want to go?" She says before lifting the glass again, water catching the light as she drinks. "I'd go with you." Not that she knew what it would entail, of course, but if sleep was once again going to elude Jack in a way which would leave him frustrated rather than just merely manic, she'd not stop him from seeking out this new remedy.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze,
but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
