They sailed the opposite direction.

"Kill me."

Serana was in a miserable mood. They hadn't sailed too far away without her at the helm, but that was kind of the problem. She was the only one that could justify the travel time it would take and she kept the distance a secret from Graven, who shivered and jumped on his spot even with his thick coat on. She smiled every time he made the most sullen look over her casual attire, glaring at him when he had so much as a hint of a flame on his fingertip for warmth.

"Not fair," he hissed between chattering teeth. "Do I have to be out here? It's freezing in the night!"

"You're the one that followed me up here," she pointed out with a dry tone. "Do you remember why?"

"Of course not."

Serana chuckled. "Confident even when it's not your finest moment. You are something else."

His grin rattled things inside of her. She played it calm and collected, nonchalant while she steered. She would have been a liar if she said she hadn't wished to feel his presence closer to her. It wasn't something she would ever admit out loud. "At least I'm being honest with myself, like he said. He doesn't expect me to be honest to him." She glimpsed at him. "Come to think of it... he never seems to expect anything. From me, or anything. I guess his love for experimentation extends beyond alchemy and magic."

Her eyes were caught.

He smiled, and there was something electrifying about it, but subdued as if he was harnessing a secret. "Something on your mind, Serana?"

"Plenty." She shook her head. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

She nodded.

"Hm..." Graven capered over to her, and the spring in his step rattled those things inside of her again. She faced forward, stiff as cold muscles roused from sleep. A bold finger traced from the knuckle of her index, down the thin metacarpal bone and to her wrist. He gently brushed back and forth that line as he fixated his gaze squarely on hers, for as much as he could study beside her. She stiffened even more when his hand fell. "You're lying."

Serana refused to let it show on her face and shrugged. "That's your opinion."

"It's fact. An over-thinker does not simply have nothing on her mind." He clasped his wrists behind him and faced forward. She wanted to melt with relief then and there. She couldn't handle all the conflicting thoughts and feelings inside of her, while he played with his boundaries. A glint danced in those red eyes, as if he knew something she didn't, and his restrained playfulness prodded her curiosity. He gestured to the open sea before them. "An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship."

Her eyes slid over to observe him and deduce where he was going with this, but when his gaze connected with hers, she looked away. She chewed the inside of her lip when he chuckled, but played it cool. "Where did that come from? What are you alluding to?"

"You don't want to go home." He didn't even bat an eye, but held up a finger to silence the protest she was about to stir. "Let me finish first, and then you can refute the truth."

"The truth! Where does he get all these ideas and arrogance from?"

Was it really arrogance?

"You're also trying to protect me and you from whatever is waiting for us at home." Graven peered at her, and she knew he was scrutinizing her expressions. "An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Whatever horrors and negativity await us, I assure you, it cannot put us down." He turned to her and his finger came to rest upon her lips when her mouth opened, silencing another protest. "Unless we allow it to get inside us. I plan to disallow it."

Something about him allowed touch. Her brain screamed that she had turned him down and explicitly remembered telling him she didn't want to be courted, but her body was telling him otherwise. She closed her eyes when his hands fell on her shoulders as he stepped behind her, rubbing up and down her arms.

"You can't defeat your demons if you're still enjoying their company, Serana. Don't be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence, and if you don't let it die then it won't let you live." Graven tentatively wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. She should've pushed away from him. She sunk deeper instead, even when he gently prodded her with his conclusion. "I'm finished now."

Serana sucked in a slow breath. She shook her head and opened her eyes, fixated on his gray hands, thumbs idly swiping up and down. "What makes you think I'm a prisoner?"

"Your body and expressions betray you more than your tongue, especially when you think you're not being watched." His forehead rested against the back of her head. "There is a reason why I turn to the windows and the portholes, or the wine bottles. They are the windows to the soul, bearing the reflection of your true feelings to what I say, rather than your tempered responses. You don't need to choose your words with me, Sera." He tightened his embrace. "I hope that one day you'll also feel that we can be honest to each other without repercussions."

Second by second, the warmth of his breath grew hotter and nearer. Her words were choked off and her head lulled back on his shoulder when he kissed her neck. They trailed off to her shoulder as he pulled on her sleeve to expose it, murmuring paralytic words into her skin.

"You're safe."

"What the?" Serana couldn't risk poking her palm to see if this was a dream, not when he could see it. She resorted to other little tricks like pinching herself, or looking around to see if there was anything she could read that would stay static if this was reality. She didn't remember going to bed and initiating another bout of lucid dreaming. Her breath wooshed out of her when he let go of her and took a step back. Who said he could stop?

"And I will do my best to ensure you stay safe and free even when we return home." He slid his hands over hers on the wheel's pegs. Despite his shivers over the chill in the air, his skin pulsed images of fire in her mind. He slipped away and head towards the hatch, but not before he looked her dead in the eye. "Promise me you'll wake me up when we get there?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Serana blurted.

He smiled. It was small, stricken with a lace of angst, exposing sorrow buried in the soul. He disappeared without an answer.

"Not one of my favorite habits of yours, Graven." Serana thought with a heavy sigh. She renewed her focus on sailing, but her mind strayed and ventured off to reflect on his words. He was so young and yet his soul was old, bearing the weight of wisdom that seemed to scream of personal experience, one that she could relate to.

Minutes later, the hatch opened, but only Graven's head popped out in a fury. "Sera!"

The frantic gesture roused adrenaline and her heart kicked at her chest, ready and bracing herself for some sort of emergency or battle. "What? What's wrong?"

He looked guilty. "I'm sorry, Sera, I did it again. I should have asked you first."

"Ominous." Serana's brow creased. "Asked me about what?"

"I experimented again."

"Kill me." The images in her mind refused to leave despite knowing the truth.

Graven stepped out, and her eyes widened at the disaster of slimy goo on his clothes. "And the pot blew up on me."

"Again?"

His head hung. "Again."

Pain bit her lip when she stopped herself from laughing, but her voice shook with it. "We don't have an infinite supply of cabins and clothes, Graven."

"I know... Any chance you've seen any buckets and spare rope? I'm going to cast it overboard to fill them with water."

Serana pointed in the direction of the ship's stern. She bit her lip harder when he emerged fully, his footsteps squelching and slipping about. She fought hard to stay mature and focused on her task at hand, but he looked so embarrassed and miserable in between the cracks of the stoic veneer he fought just as hard to maintain. It was thoroughly amusing to see him struggling just to pull a bucket of water back up on the deck, his foot propped against the railing for leverage as he pulled with his full body.

"That anchor must have slaughtered his arms. I could help..."

It didn't mean she would.

Why would she get rid of her entertainment? It made sailing less mind-numbing, and took the edge off the scrambling reflection over him. She sincerely did her best not to smile when he squelched his way back to the hatch with half the water spilling out his buckets. He took many trips, and it was only when silence prolonged for what felt like an era that it forced realization to dawn, when his earnest voice echoed in her thoughts.

"I enjoy your company, Sera."

Serana folded her arms on top of the wheel's pegs and burrowed her mouth in her forearm, muffling her confession. "I enjoy your company, Grave."

Grave. Lazy with the last syllable, like him, but it had a profound effect on the images within her mind. She jolted in her skin when she could almost see the coffin behind her eyes and hear the pounding of the lid. She rushed to poke her palm and scrutinized the finger that hadn't gone through. She wasn't dreaming. She wondered if some of the things Graven said were just injected from her dream just as the memories were injecting themselves now.

"I must be tired. Perhaps I'll retire to the cabins and get some real sleep, if there are any cabins left that haven't been abused by Graven." She smiled at that. The temptation was strong to neglect her duty for one more night, but she was torn and couldn't pull herself away from the wheel. She needed to relax though. Tension bulked in her shoulders and being uptight wasn't going to get her any closer to clarity for anything, at this rate. "If only I had a good book, or something."

A loud explosion was muffled beneath the hatch, and she rolled her eyes when she heard Graven's yelp. "Nothing is going to be spared in there."

Minutes later, the hatch opened, and Graven's head popped out with less gusto and more hesitance than ever before. "Sera?"

"Did it explode again, Graven?"

His head hung. "Yes..."

"Gods, he sounds so sullen." She locked the club in the wheel and reluctantly went to him. "Would you like some help?"

Ruby eyes lit up like a match. "With my experiment?"

"Can he please stop saying experiment?" Serana shrugged. "I was thinking cleaning, but sure. I know a bit of alchemy too. Maybe I can help you with your... experiment."

Graven's enthusiasm seemed dulled, for some reason. He regarded her with this deeply thoughtful and serious look that was unbecoming of his current disaster of an appearance. Her hand reached with a mind of it's own to comb the slime that drooped down his forehead and flicked the excess off her hand with indifference rather than disgust, and it seemed to be what won him over. He snatched her wrist and pulled her down the hatch without warning, and he laughed like a madman.

"Forget alchemy, I have better ideas with you!"

"Very ominous now." Serana allowed herself to be dragged, and her suspicions were correct about there not being any cabins left. Each one they passed had either possessed a putrid smell, broken things strewn about, or goo dripping down walls. She was brought to what was probably the last normal one left, and her heart raced when Graven stripped. That didn't bode well with what he just said. "What kind of ideas does he have?!"

"W-what are you doing Graven?"

"I want you to freeze my clothes in thick ice, and then I'm going to set the ice on fire." He didn't seem to put any considerable thought at all behind his madness, both words and action. He threw his clothes on the floor and abruptly left the room. "One second! Don't start without me!"

Serana stared at the doorway in disbelief. The man strut about in his loincloth with all the confidence and nonchalance in the world. She did not ever think she would ever get to this stage of a relationship. If this could be called a relationship. "What in Oblivion is this, actually? I told him I didn't want to be courted, yet he persists, and yet he also treats me as if I'm Erandur or something. I don't understand him..."

Was this normal in this era? Was this how normal or not well-off people acted around each other? "I hope Runayr isn't like this with other men or these two need to be told this isn't what someone does." Not in Serana's world anyways. She jumped in her skin when Graven whipped around the corner with the biggest grin to date, holding a bucket in each hand.

"After we finish with my clothes, I have another experiment we can do together. I'm learning how to manipulate water." He was so giddy, like a child. He sat cross-legged on the floor and set the buckets aside to tap his dirty clothes. "Go on, now. Freeze them."

"I only have about a hundred questions I'd like to ask first." But she went ahead with it anyways and shrugged, stretching her hand out towards the clothes as she chilled the air in the entire room. She smirked when Graven shivered and rubbed himself on the floor, goosebumps breaking out all over his gray skin, but his riveted focus was completely invested in his clothes. "He doesn't care about anything else except useless experiments. What does he even seek to gain with this?"

Whatever it was, she couldn't deny being curious. She snapped her fingers and froze the clothes. He waved his hand over and flames erupted, dancing on top of the block of ice. He laughed. "Doesn't that look cool? Or hot, I guess. Actually now I don't know. What a confusing and contradicting predicament, indeed."

Serana stared at him. "Is there any purpose beyond that?"

"Does there have to be?"

She gaped in disbelief. "You made me waste my magicka just for something to look cool and make bad jokes about it?"

Graven either didn't hear the problem in her tone and question, or ignored it. He shrugged and extinguished the flames, then dragged a bucket over. He hovered his hand above the water and closed his eyes. "I was under the impression he got the water to wash his clothes. I need to remember that common sense doesn't apply to him."

"What are you doing now?" Serana asked.

"Concentrating. Meditating. Relaxing. The mind opens up more when one is immersed in creativity rather than practicality. The answers become clearer. Intuitive."

She frowned. "What answers are you seeking?"

Silence was her only answer. She knelt to watch his progress. Her curiosity was sparked once again when the water from the bucket drew up and flowed towards his palm, defying gravity. Runes activated on his tattooed arm and torso. Electric blue wisps floated away from his skin, dousing the room in light that hadn't harmed her to look at. How he was able to make something that couldn't be molded or controlled to bend to his will was nothing short of fascinating.

"To what end are you learning to manipulate water?" Serana was lost in the sight as the trail of water weaved circles as it crawled up his arm. "How is he commanding it?"

"To unlock it's secrets in how to create it," he murmured peacefully. His brows lightly scrunched, and droplets of sweat mixed with the specks of goo on his face. His expression flickered, lost out of concentration, and the water came crashing down with a disappointed sigh. The glow of the runes on his skin dispersed. He opened his eyes and looked ashamed. "In the College of Winterhold, the Arch-Mage said it was impossible. Nobody could create the waters of life from nothing, for such a feat was akin to creating oxygen to breathe. There was one ambitious theory that water could be transmuted from another element, like how one could turn iron into gold, but no one has ever come close to finding out. It's one of my many projects."

"That still doesn't really answer my question. To what end are you learning this for?"

"To be closer to Ama, of course. Magic wasn't just a tool to her. It was an art. To me, it is a dance." Graven held his palm up, where a small puddle of water rested between the creases of his skin. "It doesn't always have to be used for practical purposes. Haven't you ever studied something just for the love of learning and expanding your mind, and your abilities? I may not have a direction to take my own theories to, but maybe someday my experiments may yield something fruitful for another student who will take direction with my techniques."

"So you're a pioneer, of sorts..." Serana looked at the bucket, and she held her hand over the water. To create or manipulate any element was to take it's essence into her being and understand it down to the core, which was why she would never be able to understand what she loathed, like fire. She didn't know where to begin understanding water, other than that it flowed and it was pliable, able to take on various forms whether it be ice or vapor. Armed with basic ideas, she could do nothing to the water, and she fell on her rear with a frown. "How do you have all the answers? You always sound like you have it all figured out."

"Hardly." Graven pushed the bucket aside and scooted closer to her, reaching to take her hand in his. He turned her palm up and traced the creases of it. "I don't search for answers. They come to me when they're meant to, and I don't think I have it all figured out. This is just my perception of what's around me, or what I've already learned, but there is still so much out there I wish to understand." He peered up at her. "For instance: you. I still want to court you. I know you're just as intrigued and curious as I am to find out what it is that tethers us together."

She looked down at the bucket. "You don't know what's waiting for you if you try."

"I don't know what waits for me when I experiment either, evidently." He gestured to his frozen clothes and dipped lower to meet her eyes. "That's part of the journey. That's what I'm in for: the adventure, not the prize, even with all the obstacles and hardships. I don't make a habit of running away from fear. I run towards it." He thankfully gave space and withdrew, rising and stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. "I'll clean this mess up later, after I catch up on rest."

Serana tried to look anywhere but at his loincloth, wondering if he was truly that oblivious to how inappropriate his current state was. He didn't seem to have a speck of shame in the world. He tapped the doorframe on his way out. "Feel free to experiment if you'd like. I'm going to find the cleanest cabin left to sleep now. Please think about what I've said, that's all I ask. Good night, Sera."

"Sweet dreams, Graven," she mumbled without thought. She was left with more questions than answers as always with him, and she forced herself to head back up to the helm so that she could at least do something while she was at the mercy of her conflicting thoughts.

"Why can't things be simple? Why can't he let this go?" Serana yanked the club out the steering wheel and stared at it, frowning. "Why can't I let go? What am I afraid of?"

Was it fear, or was it doubt? She didn't feel like she deserved something wonderful, even if it was a friendship. Maybe it just wasn't for vampires. Her family used to be loving and intelligent and influential in positive ways, but that was all torn apart the moment father had been swept under the promise of power, and went so far as to sacrifice a thousand of innocent freeholders in his region in order to gain favor and attention from Molag Bal. That kind of repulsive tribute had to have stained and cursed every family member. Blood was the legacy and the greatest achievement of the Volkihars.

Thoughts spiraled into a deep and dark hole while she sailed. When she snapped out of it, she saw the castle in the furthest corner and poked her hand. Her finger didn't go through. What was a horror and should have been a dream was real. Her heart leaped to her throat and screamed at her to turn the wheel away, but she was stuck. She looked at the hatch.

"Promise me you'll wake me up when we get there?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Serana nibbled on her lip. She stuck the club back in the wheel and quietly snuck to the lower decks, making sure Graven was asleep before she left to collect and change into her clothes. A spicy aroma wafted from them and she held her red shirt to her nose, her heart plummeting to her stomach when she took a deep breath.

"Why can't I let go?"

It was a question she was even afraid to answer. She freed herself of her oversized rags and changed into her clothes, running a hand down fabric that was carefully licked by flame. Nothing was seared off. She ached and was overcome with exhaustion over such a simple fact, and she had to force herself to return to the decks above. She watched the castle as it gradually grew larger, closer. Serana dropped the anchor to stop the ship and buy herself time.

"I can let go. I can."

It became a mental chant. She had to push herself. She couldn't push his voice out of her mind though.

"You're like a diamond. You need a little pressure. And heat."

Every part of her screamed to go down to him. She grabbed the ropes that anchored to the sails and stood up on the ship railing instead, looking down at the water. She looked at the coarse rope scratching her hand. "I can let go. I can let go of the rope. Of him. I can swim."

"I can't tell... are you running away from your fear, or towards it? It seems you've found yourself in a paradox."

The sudden voice almost made her fall, and her head whipped over her shoulder. Her eyes widened in panic when they met Graven's. He smiled sadly, hands stuffed in oversized trousers that she was sure was to help hold them up. He slowly approached and stood by her side, but stayed on the deck. She was at a loss for words.

"I thought..." Serana winced at how hoarse she sounded. She cleared her throat to try and maintain some semblance of dignity. "I thought you were asleep?"

"I'm a light sleeper. I was awake the moment you opened the hatch to come down." Graven stared at the castle. After a good length's time of tense silence, he sighed and left her side. Something about his tempered tone made her feel guilty, especially when he landed the killing blow with indifference that was far more unbecoming of him than his thoughtfulness.

"Don't forget to take your scroll with you."

"Aren't you going to stop me?" Serana blurted.

Graven stopped and shrugged in defeat. "I already tried. If I couldn't prevent this, then I can't stop this. Some things I can control. I never intended to with you."

And he disappeared to the lower level.

Serana groaned. "Still not one of my favorite habits of yours, Graven." She carefully sat down on the railing and buried her head in her hands.

"I can't let go..."


Author's Note

The slow ship arc is just about done and things are going to stir up in the next chapter. I'm finally at the part I've been looking forward to write the most! I hope to see you all there and that you enjoy it! With more experiments, of course :P