her fight and fury's fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing
The Ark laughs softly under her breath as they cut through the snow, the sound quiet beneath the wind and the muffled crunch of their steps. "If he does manage to make it back, I imagine the story he tells will be as tall as he is." There’s no real concern in her voice, only the expectation that the sailor will either return with all his limbs attached and a heroic account of his own endurance, or require someone to haul him out of a snowbank before morning. Perhaps both.
The cold has worked its way into her more deeply than she’s let on; it has turned the water of her thoughts choppy and close, her human body stiff beneath its layers while the larger part of her waits in the dock with frost worrying at her boards, her rigging, the dark curve of her hull. She hasn’t complained, of course, and when Jack looks back at her over his shoulder she only gives him a crooked smile and reaches to take the hand he offers, letting him guide her aboard as though the quickness of her step has nothing to do with the warmth waiting belowdecks.
Still, she feels him as he moves across her deck, feels the ice surrender beneath the touch of his magic, the small cruel grip of it loosening from lacquered wood and railings and rope. Appreciation runs through her in a warm, tidal current, and though she doesn't speak it out loud, her fingers tighten briefly around his before she lets him go. Jack knows better than anyone what the cold does to her, knows where frost can settle and turn dangerous, and that he busies himself with easing the snow from her before himself has her quietly grateful.
With a small shrug beneath her coat, The Ark tips her head back towards the darkness beyond the gangplank, where distant light from New Haven barely catches against the falling snow. "It’s strange," she says, already moving towards his cabin and the warmth within, "to see everyone acting as though all the LongNight activities are so quaint when they could’ve been enjoying themselves in exactly the same way while the sun was up."
The cold has worked its way into her more deeply than she’s let on; it has turned the water of her thoughts choppy and close, her human body stiff beneath its layers while the larger part of her waits in the dock with frost worrying at her boards, her rigging, the dark curve of her hull. She hasn’t complained, of course, and when Jack looks back at her over his shoulder she only gives him a crooked smile and reaches to take the hand he offers, letting him guide her aboard as though the quickness of her step has nothing to do with the warmth waiting belowdecks.
Still, she feels him as he moves across her deck, feels the ice surrender beneath the touch of his magic, the small cruel grip of it loosening from lacquered wood and railings and rope. Appreciation runs through her in a warm, tidal current, and though she doesn't speak it out loud, her fingers tighten briefly around his before she lets him go. Jack knows better than anyone what the cold does to her, knows where frost can settle and turn dangerous, and that he busies himself with easing the snow from her before himself has her quietly grateful.
With a small shrug beneath her coat, The Ark tips her head back towards the darkness beyond the gangplank, where distant light from New Haven barely catches against the falling snow. "It’s strange," she says, already moving towards his cabin and the warmth within, "to see everyone acting as though all the LongNight activities are so quaint when they could’ve been enjoying themselves in exactly the same way while the sun was up."
sweet and right and merciful, all but washed in the tide of her breathing
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.
