[SE] If I hit the bottom will I break?

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

She watched his features, waiting for expressions to envelop into woe, regret, melancholy, or some visceral anger she wouldn’t understand. Maybe he was ready though, when none of that seemed to occur, and she was left with raised brows and a quiet ‘huh’ under her breath. It quickly altered into a smile, shrugging her shoulders and adhering to the task at hand. Thereafter, she floated over to the boat, deft at handling all things nautical after years upon the Ark, and then her own Firecracker. Fangorn and Sila made themselves quite comfortable too.

Once they slid from shore she gazed out over the water, then moved into her bag, pulling out the range of alcohol choices, should he want to partake – a wicked little grin spreading. Twisting off the cap to hers, with a soft, metallic clink, there’d been no indication of the sudden subject change, but she was suddenly very glad for the liquor. Save for the sudden choking bit, trouble swallowing when it’d already been halfway down her throat and her voice had wanted to crackle against the seams.

Sputtering for a second, she took a deep breath and refocused. “What?” Truthfully, it made sense, they did live in the same region. Didn't mean it irritated her any less. “How is the fuckwad?”

ISKRA

He glances towards the assortment of drink she hoists from her pack, 'brows lifting, impressed with her collection. With the sails catching the mild wind, Iskra sets the rudder so it'll stay straight (enough) and abandons his post as Captain to grab a drink of his own. He selects on the repasados, having had many a drink with his mom before tonight, and choosing to honor her on most of those occasions with her spirit of choice. He holds it up in a cheers to Mel, a smile finding its place on his features despite everything.

Tilting his head back to take a swig, he chuckles around the bottle at her sputtering, barely managing to avoid it himself as the laughter and the burn mix. He grins tauntingly over the bottle at her, wiping away the kiss of alcohol with the back of a hand as the bottle drops limply to his side. "Yeah," he confirms, nodding for extra emphasis. Though Sah lives in the same area as him, that isn't exactly what he meant. Smirking at her name, he can't keep back the low laugh that threads into his recounting.

"He's strong," Iskra admits with a mild grimace at the memory. "Ended up getting into a fight with him...I think. I did most of the fighting, he mostly was trying not to." Not one of his finer moments, but if he can admit it to anyone, it's her. "I called him out about the," he squints and just ends up gesturing vaguely towards her. "He's adamant it was an accident. Says he went all out because you'd always been stronger, that he didn't realize as a fresh demi-god you'd been weakened." Iskra scratches idly at his chin, still not entirely sure what to make of it. Sah had certainly seemed honest, but it's a bizarre thing for such a quick death to result in a tournament of all places.

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

She immediately rolled her eyes, hiding all the other emotional pieces suddenly rumbling back into play. On those pretenses, he took another long swig from the bottle, this time not sputtering it up but using it to mask a world of shame and weakness, only glancing at him again when he offered the sentiments. “Wh-why on earth did you fight him?” Which became all the more crystal clear – strength, a calling out, an “accident”. “Yeah, I heard all that shit before.” She'd even tried to unravel her magic at him soon thereafter - but it hadn't been enough.

Her jaw set into a mulish expression again, returning to stare over the ocean, gazing along a horizon she’d seen over and over and over. “I think what I hate most,” she finally revealed, after sitting on it for a few seconds, twisting the glass in her hands. “Is that it was all over and done with like it was nothing. One little blip because he was so much stronger than me at the time.” She’d always been the domineering one; surviving, thriving, unrelenting – and while she’d returned to those vantage points, it’d only been because of Ronin, and her own surefire determination. “Because of one asshole’s mistake.”

She knew it was hypocritical – she and Ronin both, together, had once made the same error. But it hadn’t been committed purposefully on the person – the stranger had been invisible, wrong place, wrong time, as they were all trying to unleash dominion upon a monster. Sah had just been a fucking git. “Won’t happen again though,” she sniffed, adamant and certain and obstinate.

ISKRA

He leans deeper into the side of the skiff as he measures her reaction. Without looking he tilts some of his drink overboard, for Ampere, because this is what it's about isn't it? Piecing out life with friends and beating up (or being beaten up by) motherfuckers. Appreciating the beach and doing your damndest to move on with another shot of tequila—it's all Ampere coded.

"Might have vastly underestimated his strength," Iskra admits when she asks, because the other why should be clear, he fucking deserved it. He nods, as if expecting she would have heard all those reasons. They didn't feel practiced or rehearsed, per say...but they also felt a bit empty. Sah said he'd been sorry, and Iskra thinks he believes that, but he also can't quite believe it happened at all still. He takes another pull of from the bottle.

She goes somewhere distant, a place he knows too well—but it's rare, seeing her drift like that. She's normally incredibly grounded, accepting even if it's I dislike it. She rarely seems unmoored, and it's perhaps the thing he admires most about her. She doesn't go there long though, returning before he can even decide how he should attempt to comfort her, so he just sucks his teeth in agreement. "I know it won't." It's not said with that terrified possessive protection he'd felt before in the woods, as if he'd shelter her from it ever occurring again, as if he'd keep her from ever having the risk again. It's an acknowledgement of strength and intelligence. An accident, a mistake, whatever it was, she'd learned from it, that much is clear.

"Had him zap me too," Iskra admits with a mischievous gleam to his eye. Maybe he wouldn't have, if Ludo hadn't demanded it, but it certainly gives him a newfound appreciation for what Mel went through, and for what his mother could do. He flicks his gaze back over the boat to the sea and tosses another glug in for her. "Shit hurts. I felt like I wanted to die." A grin manages to find its place as he looks up at her, bits of the old him finally drifting back into place after being buried beneath a grief so oppressive he became someone else entirely. "Can't wait to have an axe with it."

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

As if suddenly remembering why they were there, she watched Iskra tilt some of his water into the sea, and then she followed suit, watching as the dregs of liquor poured amidst the swells and waves. Her own mother wasn’t one for any of the spirits – though she’d damned well earned it – and then Melita finished off the last of the swigs, hoisting it upwards for Ampere, before placing it amongst the empty portions along the hull.

Her brow arched at the underestimating of strength, rolling her eyes and shaking her head soon after, struggling not to give over a thousand other litanies and curses to coincide. She shouldn’t have felt hollow or sunken in over the notions of last year again and again and again, but it was such a sticking point, a nuisance, a broad stroke of her failure that it maimed more than she’d like to admit.

Though the next admittance came forth as one of the heaviest sighs she’d ever unleashed, and by then she’d already procured another bottle. Leaning back against one of the boards, so her head rested firmly on the side of the boat, she stared up at the evening sky, the spread of stars and clouds. “What a grand idea. Did you want matching scars?” Glancing back his way though, she could tell he didn’t quite suffer as much (a good thing); no slashes and puckering across his chest, like hers, spiderwebbing out in thin lines towards her heart. “Maybe Sah figured out how not to murder someone immediately.” Her jaw clenched tightly, eyes narrowing back at the sky, listening to Fangorn drifting asleep nearby and the soft breaths of Sila coasting somewhere near her shoulder.

But when it came to Iskra’s impending axe and Ampere’s once-wielding bolts, the Honeybee knew she’d have to eventually get over that sudden, inherent fear. She hadn’t had it before – and it was unlike her to let death shape the foundations of her consternations and discomposure. Propping her feet up on some old equipment, she didn’t let the silence shield her, mind rampaging through a series of intervals. “Yeah. And then you electrocute your enemies,” came on a feral grin. “Like Vesper, mm? He seemed to piss you off.”

ISKRA

He expects her to laugh. Something sharp, a snort of approval, maybe a toast to idiocy and lightning. When she doesn’t, when she just sighs like something’s breaking loose from the bottom of her lungs, his grin falters. He glances over, watches her lean back with the bottle, eyes on the stars. It hits him then, how deep it really went, how much it still sits in her bones. he’s so good at acting unbothered and strong that he hadn’t even considered it might still rankle her.

“It would be cool,” he says after a beat, voice softer, eyes trained on her. “Matching scars. Better than matching tattoos, although we should consider that idea too.” The joke is lighter, like his smile, tentative around this subject now that he's more aware of how it still weighs on her. "But yeah...he didn't go full out, and healed me after."

He perks up, shifting toward her with new energy as she talks about zapping enemies.“Exactly!” His eyes flash with the idea of it. “I bet I could use it to cook too when I'm not at home.” He scrunches up his face, second-guessing the idea as he imagines a piece of charred meat and a forest fire he'll have to put out.

Then she says his name—Vesper—and just like that, the spark dims a bit. Iskra leans into the side of the boat, forearms braced on the edge and flicks his gaze out towards the sea instead of the Honeybee. The stars are just starting to show through the sky’s bruised edge. “He’s fucking irritating,” he mutters. “Says things he shouldn’t. Impossible to catch. Always looks so damn smug too, like he's holding all the cards and each one's a winner.” Iskra's hand clenches, like he still has a taste for punching that damn scrawny face and all the venom that had come from it.

He hesitates for a second, then glances back at her, 'brows drawn. “How well do you know him?” Should he be worried?

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

She didn’t muster the sentiments lingering in her chest – that no, she’d never want him to experience that level of pain, that sudden onslaught of death – and whatever her eyes conveyed as they swung back to him were tiny fragments of it. They became less furrowed and narrowed the moment of jocular tattoos settled in, and she gave a low chuckle, supplied and followed by another swig of alcohol. “Yeah, like what?”

Sah not going all out, healing after, made some inclination she couldn’t quite parse through spark and sizzle in her brain. Probably rage. Or maybe gratitude that he’d learned something. Just burdened with the notion that it’d taken her life to even put a dent into it. “Well, glad you’re okay,” she mustered, gaze going upward again, rather than leaning into multitudes. “He’s still a dick.”

But then the mental image of him using an ax to cook food made her brows pinch together, and she ended up chuckling at the insane mental image. “Brilliant.” She would’ve kept the line going, except now she’d seemed to stir something up in him with Vesper, and she paused, head tilting to direct her full attention back to him – watching as he braced and dimmed. Well, weren’t they a pair of livewires, tripping over one another and sending little snippets of incendiary pieces. “Not much. I pissed him off once because his sister came at me, and I didn’t coddle up to her entitled bullshit.” She shrugged; unbothered, but he seemed to be. “Mmm, then you come up with shit or find things to counter him.” Or give one another a wide berth; she didn’t think Vesper for one to frequent Halo, despite dodgeball endeavors.

ISKRA

He's not prepared for her to entertain the offer, but his expression turns sly as he glances across at her, sipping from his bottle in tempo with her. "Something dumb, but meaningful, so we smile every time we see it." Which would be better than the numerous ones he had that were just dumb and dumb, fogged over with the forgetfulness of liquor. The name 'Bradley' scrawled across one shoulder in particular puzzles him. "We could get... Ludo flipping the bird, or Goose steering the Firecracker," he laughs faintly.

An edge softens at her admittance, and the laughter fades a bit. "Yeah, me too," unlike when Sah had done it to her, they had not head the world's demi-gods surrounding them. He likely would have remained with Mort, but Sah did learn a few things about reading strength matches from her, it'd seem. The chuckles are drawn back by her final word on the matter though, the sound puffing of the tip of the bottle raised to his lips, the sound chiming over the glass.

He can't find any trace of real familiarity of affection in her tone. So not friends, it seems. Just two demi-gods living on the same beach. The best he could hope for, he supposes, other than outright hatred. "Mm, easier said than done," he sighs bitterly. "He's a tricky fucker. Just poof vanishes out from under you when you finally get a hold of him, and has as many arms as an octopus with those, shadows." Next time, if there will be one, Iskra will have to find something he can better use at a distance. The axe will help, but as she once pointed out to him, he'd need a way to recall it easily. As for the non physical aspects, Iskra's not so sure that's his strong suit.

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

She rolled her eyes, a playful nuance, to be expected when it came to the jocular points of their conversation. “Ooh yes,” was conveyed with avid agreement over stupefying and dim-witted decisions, hands going upwards, one finger outlining the stupidity in intangible qualities, as if drawing it from invisible ink amidst the stars ahead. “Ludo pretending to be Safrin would also be a contender.” It had to be better than some of the tattoos clustered together on him.

Striving to move away from pockets of Sah because all they did was further rile and irritate her, she listened to the sentiments of Vesper and Iskra’s rage instead, brow arching, before finally blowing a raspberry in a loud huff. “Yeah, but there are ways around that.” Plied by alcohol, she dropped the bottle on the edge of the hull and rounded her fingers to look like glasses in front of her eyes, glancing back at him to signify the goofy expression. “Could get some goggles or some shit to see through invisibility…maybe some gloves to grab hold of shadows…just gotta be creative.” It’d be oddly specific, but sometimes spite was like that. And who was she to defy his malice and pettiness – if not encourage it?

Humming under her breath, convinced they were brilliant ideas, she snagged at her bottle again, finishing off this portion too. “Anything else you have to do for your mom?”

ISKRA

Laughter cleaves any lingering tension and ire, rising in response to her antics that bring him swiftly back to boyhood. Days spent doing nothing other than playing pretend and mimicking the world in the most dramatic fashion, when they were so light it's a wonder the breeze didn't carry them away into the horizon like a kite. "Oh, I'm definitely getting a way to see invisibility after the shit you pulled during the snowball fight," he fires back with a faint narrowing of his eyes, all mock vengeance. Although, having an excuse to tackle her had certainly been worth it, even if all he got was a foot.

That line of thought is interrupted before it drifts into dangerous water though, as she quickly sobers him with the reminder of this outing. Not for trading rivalries and plans for assured destruction, but for honoring a woman that deserves to have the warm kind of memories, not the ones that have grown cold and dark around her loss. So he just nods, meandering back to the sails to close them, setting up anchor now that they're far enough from the coast and the quiet of the sea has crept in with low laps against the hull. Night has fully settled now, all the haze of dusk scoured away into nothing but ink and diamonds, almost hard to separate from the depthless ocean that cradles them with it's own mysterious void below.

"I thought," he starts softly, pulling forth a little wooden bird from his pack and setting it on the lip of the boat's side. It's a blue jay, her favorite colors, and just as wild and beautiful as her. Unmistakable, in the way she'd always managed to be. "I thought maybe it'd be worth remembering a few of the best times with her." He slumps slowly down to the ground, back pressing against the boat side as his head tilts up at the stars, like maybe he'll be able to find her smiling down from there. "Like... do you remember that time I wanted to see if we could fly on that shitty little plane contraption I built? So we went up to this tall cliff, and we were ready to roll right off it—I think maybe we tested it once on something way smaller and it went well, so we figured what could go wrong?" He shakes his head and chuckles at their stupidity, face crinkling around it with something heavier than humor. "She caught us just before we plummeted to our deaths. She gave us both a good scolding, I think I might have permanently lost some hearing that day. A few days later though she took us on that really fast sky ship across the desert, where they did some racing. She never said it, but I know that was her trying to let us fly."

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

An audacious snort followed his statement, enough that she’s tilting her head back at him, hand pressing at her chest in mock offense. “Meeeee?” complete with a batting of her eyelashes and a very faux look of innocence; a sign she’d obviously do it all again. Like dangling bait and seeing if he’d give chase, she then shrugged, complete with a Cheshire grin, before everything else seemed to soften and incline back towards his mother.

With her only maternal figure having sacrificed herself to ensure her daughters survived, the Honeybee’s parental guidance had been greatly lessened. Ampere had been a force, clearly always trying to rein in ridiculous, hardheaded children, and though they’d given her multitudes of anguish and frustration, she still hadn’t cowed them. There’d been opportunities to unfurl, rather than another dramatic and languishing death by idiots. And while she might have always tried to fly, sooner or later, the story lingered in the back of her mind, contorting her expression into something a bit calmer and more compliant, the smile drawn back into quiet regard, rather than trying to rankle Iskra further.

Her eyes went to the little wooden blue jay; her heart sinking for him again. For all the times she’d witnessed demise, this one had impacted him in ways she couldn’t quite possibly reach, and so rather than delving into the tales so far, she watched the figure perched on the side, leaning nearby, offering a sigh, a question in the arch of her brow (how do you have the patience to make that), but going unsaid, not intending to maul and ruin his moment. The snicker accompanying was warm, a light bout of laughter settling into her ribcage and exultant, bouncing outwards against the metallic frameworks of the rented boat. Better times and images, forgoing those hardened lines of depression. “Listen, I still think we could’ve made it,” she winked. Her gaze went upward, away from the blue jay and back along the rise and swell of the waves. “And now we can.” Fly – that was – because nothing was going to stop Melita, and she’d drag him alongside if she needed to. “We could always get you your own skyboat too.”

The teasing smile lingered again, before a wistful breath took over, and she took another swig of what remained in the bottle. “Orrrrr there was the time we raided her little cabinet and got stupid drunk.”

ISKRA

Her belief that they would have made it is perhaps an indicator of her madness, a rejection of reality as it stands. There’d never been anything close to capable of carrying them at that height in that childish prototype. He takes her words for the comfort they offer though, the promise that they would have been able to conquer the sky, just the two of them, if they had tried hard enough. His gaze flicks over to her, bright and appreciative, as she scans the stars and dreams among them. "Then we could race," he agrees with a glimmer of mischief for what reckless speeds and altitudes they could face off against.

At her tale, a laugh breaks free, rumbling around the bottle as he fights to swallow his draught against the burst of humor. It comes easier now—the happiness—with the heat of the liquor, with the fire of Melita so close, with the golden shimmer of good times now gone... Could the weight of the world have actually been this light, all this time, if he'd bothered to linger at her side and lend some of it to her capable shoulders? "Oooh she was mad mad that day." His wolfish grin says he doesn't regret it one bit. "I puked so much that day."

He twists around, leaning against the side of the boat, hand holding just the tail of the little wooden bird while his other one hangs the bottle over the side. He inhales heavily and exhales loudly. "Hey, mom." he says low, like he can't really rally the words any higher, not without finally breaking. "I miss you, a lot, and I'm sorry... for everything." For the way he carried her memory like a set of irons, never something she would have wanted. For the way he failed to make something of himself. For the fact she had to leave so soon, too soon for it to be fair to her. Only certain parts of that could he repair, and gods, he was trying to, now.

"I promise, I'll visit you more often, and I'll work hard to make you proud." Maybe now she could rest a bit easier, and he could shrug off her shadow. He owed it to her to manage it, because she didn't deserve to be drug behind him like this. "Bye, mom." The words drag like anchors. Too big for his throat, too heavy for water—but they make it out, cracked and shaking all the same. He tips the bird into the sea, and the bottle slips from his hand into the ocean, floating for a bit until it takes on enough seawater to gradually sink below the surface. His next breath shudders, finding new space to fill inside him where he'd grown a bit hollow, where he used to shelve all the grief. He sags away from the edge, laying flat on the boat's floor, trying to remind himself how to breath.

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water

melita

and she recklessly plays with matches

“Exactly,” she moved her brows up and down, childish and fiendish all at once, the promise of racing embellishing her smirk. She’d happily and contentedly beat his ass every time across the skies – but it’d be something to aid in their repertoires, beyond the chaotic amusements.

Content to hear his laugh again, she leaned further against the side of the boat, watching the jay and the bottle and the man. “Gods, same. And then the hangover. On top of her yelling.” Her eyes flickered outward again, along the sea, watching the waves cast forth, the current pulling outward, then in. “But she meant well.” She hadn’t intended for them to perish under the murk and weight of their own stupidity anyway. Maybe she would’ve been a voice of reason and insisted Melita not enter a damned tournament.

Then she was quiet as he began his goodbyes, perfecting, capable of stillness while she listened. Heard between the lines. Hoped that Ampere didn’t fault her son for trying to find and destroy himself in the process of his grief, that he’d clamber back, slowly but surely, away from the mess that her demise had manifested. Wasn’t the woman’s fault. Much like her own mother, the damage had simply been done – salvation one moment, and then none the next. All they had left were opportunities and chances, time thereafter.

Wanting to honor Ampere too, in her own way, the demigod narrowed her eyes, drawing into her wild magic. Wiggling her fingers, she stared across the expanse, hoping that it’d be the lightning thresholds come to unfurl – and instead, witnessed as a burst of water cannoned across the waves. Maybe a proper sendoff to the bottle.

Muffling a laugh, she came to sit next to him, fingers carding through his hair; far gentler than she’d be under normal circumstances. “Proud of you,” she remarked with a smirk, before giving a few taps of her index finger against his forehead, as if to remind him he should’ve done this ages ago. "Want me to steer us back?"

ISKRA

The burst of water catches him by surprise. He flinches first, instinct braced for something worse, before realizing it came from her. He glances over, finding a small smile, grateful for her addition and the energy that matches Ampere.

Too heavy to do anything more than that though, he sinks to the boat floor, dimly aware as she sits next to him. When her fingers find his hair he stills completely, the breaths he's still fighting to find included. There's no teasing, no chaos, just for this moment. It's only warmth, comfort, her. It’s such a simple thing, casual even, but to him it lands like lightning, soft and searing. Years of missing her, of wanting her, as he always had from the moment he first met her, blaze against him with a warmth that nearly scalds him. His eyes close as she gently drifts through the strands, something in his chest unclenching, something he didn’t even know was tight, and he dares to imagine that this moment could last.

When she speaks, his lips part into a slow, stunned smile, and the tap-tap-tap to his forehead only deepens it. "You are?" he murmurs, eyes cracking open to meet hers, gleaming and soft and suddenly, impossibly close. He should leave it there. Let the tenderness be a gift from her he'll keep, that he'll cherish. Maybe it's the sudden weightlessness he feels though, or the courage from the drink, or just the way he’s alive in a way he hasn’t felt in years and she's right there.

So he shifts, practicing something he's read in the hopes of a moment like this, something she should want, by all his understanding of women and smut. He rolls onto his elbow, and with his other hand at her side, he tries to guide her down, to rise over her—each arm bracing around her head. It's not forceful, it's barely a pin, but it's deliberate. A cage made of breath and warmth and want, the kind that trembles slightly, because he isn't sure what comes next.

He hovers above her, barely breathing, like he’s waiting to see if she’ll move—push him off, pull him closer, laugh in his face. His gaze drops to her mouth, then drags back up slowly, a practiced smolder on full display. It's not heat, it's hope blooming through him. Something he’s kept buried so deep for so long he almost doesn’t recognize it as his own—this fragile, aching thing that dares to imagine there might be something here besides old memories drenched in sun. That maybe this isn’t just kindness, or comfort, or drink. Maybe it's her. Maybe it's them.

His heart pounds in his chest, loud enough he’s sure she can hear it. Whatever she does, he’ll take it. He can play it off as a joke if she refuses, even if it'll wound some deeper part of him. He can blame the bottle, even he's more drunk than this most nights. He can do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't ruin this by daring to ask for something more.

I'm losin' my grip, caught up in the current
I can't swim, I'm startin' to slip
I'm runnin' out of breath, I'm scared to death
I gotta keep my head up, Up above the water