Disclaimer: I am not J K Rowling or Robert Jordan and their worlds of Harry Potter and the Wheel of Time. These two created the fun little worlds I have decided to play in with no thought of profit to myself. So I promise that if I did own these I wouldn't have had Hermione with Ron, though I would have been happy to see her be married to Rand al'Thor if ever the two worlds should meet.
Chapter Thirty One: The Hungry Sea
Clamoring to find firm footing in the hard wind driven sea water flowing across the breaking deck, Hermione's world was coming apart at the seams both figuratively and quite literally. In all the women's rush to form a link, not a one of them thought to prepare for the backlash non-channellors normally start up on when faced with the works of Aes Sedai, even if it is for the betterment of all parties involved. Ancient justifiable fears of the One Power running amuck inspires the ungifted into riotous mobs with pitch forks and bonfires on their minds. Plus the witches also stupidly, or maybe arrogantly, ran up topside and went about their work without a thought to tying on safety lines apiece as if reality has no power over them.
Both mistakes are costing them now in the most dire of results.
A deranged youthful sailor close her own age was trying to gut her while he cackles with insane fear, "How much will them White Cloaks do be payin' fer a traitorous baby witch like yer? Try to be murderin' me now yer wicked wife'a Ol'Snap!"
Stumbling in a backpedal to escape the steely glimmering cutlas slashing the air where she once stood seconds ago. To say she is having a rough go of things is a gross understatement. She is struggling to keep a hold of Saidar with this fear maddened fool, the great ruddy storm trying to drown her, and her loves were all in similar dire straights.
Childhood instinct from years at Hogwarts tries to supercede her cool headed Aes Sedai training. An itch for a wand burns her hand as a few hundred tricky spells tickle her lips and tongue. Then there is the impulse to seek shelter from the storm now drowning her by rain, sea spray, and unchecked mountainous waves. In a quiet class room or privacy it is nothing to keep focused on calm serenity. In a bit of a barney with a single or lone unified group of foes, she has found herself ready and able to take on the challenge with able aplomb. However here on this sinking tub of dry rotten timbers in a mad devil born storm, on a ship eating sea, with a hoard of a mob maddened seamen her calm focus is finding it wishes to be off on holiday.
She isn't a simpering halfwit coward but she did feel justification for her fears freezing her tongue to the roof of her mouth and seeing her mind on a forced sabbatical. This was all very unfair as to being distinctly ludicrous.
A silky smooth shape sliding between her and the deranged seadog frightens her somewhat worse as she tumbles to the decking when her heels catch on her own thrice cursed longer than useful skirt hem. Falling to the busted wooden floor of the Fair Eyed Lad is a disaster in the make as the rushing ocean waters pull at her to join the swirling flotsam and jetsam being dragged out to the eagerly devouring sea. However a swift pair of arms catch her up just about simultaneously as the sailor dies in a twirling blow from a wicked looking cudgel.
Another insane man coming to the aid of the dying boy is met by a spinning counter blow parrying the wide swung ax the sailor was chopping away with. As a second pair of arms finish pulling her to her feet, the first person halting her fall darts forward to perform a spinning low swung blow crushing the ax welding mad man's right knee in a sickening crunch. Off to the side, a wild eyed sailor with a billhook ends the man but is unfortunately sent sailing by a loose bit of rigging still with its pulley tackle catching him mid chest. A fourth seaman screaming about witches and the end of days starts a leaping charge into the fray.
Swinging high and wide a large remnant of a fishing net to try and tangle up the darting dark shapes that saved her life, the seadog is unheeding of the deadly wash of wave tossed sea trying to send them all to a watery grave. His run is slowed when he half falls in landing, thus his net passes wide of the pair. The pair she can just barely tell have flaming red banners of hair react as if a single man in two bodies. Both easily dodge the mis thrown net and the cutlas slashes of the sailor's mad mates diving into cut the pair down.
"Ione help me." Daphne demands from beside her, glowing like the sun with Saidar as the swinging mass of mainsail hurls towards the embattled men.
Snatching back her own control of her power with the reprieve of no killer sailors trying to fillet her, Ione's weave entwines with Daph's to deflect and partially sever in half the ship slaying pendulum. Spinning aside, the mess isn't even seen by the men fighting in its one time path.
Blinking away briney rain water burning her eyes, she witnesses how deadly the Weasley Twins are. One of whom was rolling left to evade a cutlas slash that has too much inertia thus allowing the other twin to hammer down a blow to the sailor's overstretched shoulder. Unfazed or slowed, the first twin springs back in with a counter stroke against another man's lunge aimed at his brother with a twirling upswing that shatters the fellow's jaw from below. Showering them all in blood, teeth, and bits of bone.
She can't stand the horrific violence, but knows the boys were all honed to a perfect set of killers in order for the Aes Sedai like herself to be free to face the larger battles simple men or women can't counter. Even Neville, as sweet and gentle as he is, has become an indomitable wall of spinning warfare, amply proven as he is still hauling on the ragged remains of the rope Harjit is hanging from while using a long hafted billhook to disarm a sea crazed sailor.
Up above, her Harry's whipcord strength and agility is keeping him alive as he is doing incredible feats of acrobatics. Her love is glorious to watch, but she was dead terrified at his being forced up there to fight the Sea of Storms.
"Girls!" Corilta half snarls, half begs for them to once more return to their beleaguered link. Every time they are fully engaged to fight this monstrous storm new obstcles are sent in to wrench them apart. It is proving difficult to stay together in this, but it was becoming ever the more important to keep at it with hammer and tongs.
Groans of over taxed wood and droning sub-tonal hammer blows of the ocean on the ship's hull warns her and the rest of the witches they must hurry and return to hurling their combined might at this Shadow driven gale.
Taking her Daphne's pale slender hand, they let the older witch take custody of their fiery near full powered mights. Weaves of Water, Air, and Earth encase the worn out hull in an attempt to protect the fragile wood from a rupture. More rapid fired Air Walls drive aside much of the storm's unholy strength. It is awe inspiring to be a part of, but her logical mind was reading the clues. What is deduced is that it won't be near enough.
They will get steadily more tired, and then they will die unless they can find a safe escape from this living nightmare. For one thing the oncoming rocks won't simply bounce off them harmlessly. Nor will these ceaseless monster waves stop hurling them into either the clawing reef or under the next counter wave they come up on.
Emmatilde, whose paltry talent has met its limit Hermione decides as the flighty girl begins screaming deliriously. If there were time the other far more steady and powerful witches would come to sooth the poor thing. For now, when locked in this deadly combat of Saidar versus the Sea of Storms, none of them can be spared to coddle the silly Ghealdaner. The linked witches were all the Fair Eyed Lad has to protect them all from certain doom.
Drawing on the strength of her Circlemate, Ione hisses, "Help the men or by the Light be quiet, Emm. We're busy!"
Daph's thumb rubbing circles into her hand and grim nod gives her a bit of needed support. They were in perfect accord here, some things have more urgency than others. Caring for the weaker willed is less of a need than keeping the ship off the rocks. There is a time for gentle care and this was not as the bigger battle is looming ever larger ahead. She may have went off the rails before and acted a silly spell slinging stick shaking Wilder, but now her focus and heart are aimed totally on doing her part in denying the sea their lives.
Remembering all the majestic hasty weaves of Corilta's long years as a full Aes Sedai Sister, Ione is encouraged when the woman tries to fight smart and steer guiding Water jets into shove the wallow sided hull away from this headlong ride into the teeth of the rocks.
While this all is going on she sees every wizard down on the top deck with her stop dead with sickly white faces staring about in horror. Well all save Harry up high above whose voice bellows out in parseltongue a defiant enraged command. His heart stopping position of dangling spread eagle by a grip on ax, mainmast, and a rope from the rigging she herself has severed earlier, is eerily reminiscent of a condemned man hoisted on a rack.
The ships tilting forward, straight into the icy sea is her first indication she's missing something. Then the sky above becomes shrouded by raging frothy ocean arching around them all as if they were a ship in a bottle hurled into the Sea of Storms on a lark. Where seconds ago they were struggling to stand in the force of a hurricane force wind, it was now deathly still and quieter than a graveyard.
The link evaporates as all but the three full Sisters aboard are shocked into letting go of the One Power. Hermione herself is again that tiny ickle Firsty facing the rogue Mountain Troll. Bone freezing fear is holding her dead still as her world turns and bobs below her feet. If not for Daphne's hand in hers she'd have let out a rather girlish scream of primal terror as she witnesses the Fair Eyed Lad seemingly sink headlong into the deep.
A burst of the One Power from out of her sight sends a whip of Air lancing through the dead air to slice free the ropes now unimpeded by the wind or whatnot from dragging her boyfriend to his death. The severed rope falls in a slithering pile on the deck instead though as he hangs on.
Seeing him fighting on and knowing the battle is not finished, she is snapped out of her stupor. Feeling sheepishly silly for that empty headed stupification, she shakes herself to snap her weary emotionally drained head back on straight to reconnect to the One Power. Her amazing newly out girlfriend Daphne too shivers violently back into the here and now. Together they relink up with the beleaguered Sisters to carry on the life or death fight with the stormy seas.
What they bring to bear is considerable, and yet is proven too little too late when the sea finally flows off from above them. With its parting over head it returns to being godawful in its fury, as if enraged it were ever denied them moments ago. They are more akin to a child's toy boat at bath time than a full sized sailing ship full of frantic grown adults. Having lost so much time in uniting to defend the Fair Eyed Lad, they are unable to shunt aside the rough sea's waves hurling in to dizzily spin them this way and that. Sometimes they are staying near to drowning by the ocean sucking them in, and then just as quick they are almost flying as the sea tosses the ship and all aboard half in the air.
Pitching and yawing, the ship turns sickeningly to be hit side on by a wave that blots out the sky. Rolling as if the carpet has been yanked from out below them, Daph and Ione fall into each others arms. Their drowning screams unify with others also forcefully flung free of the ship's wooden surface bodily into the raging sky and sea. Some were managing to stay aboard but not all as the ship is swept over by a new wave washing in from the fore.
When in this wild tumult Ione is reminded of her watching the "Poseidon Adventure" on the telly she is afraid this will be the end. By how it seemed the rocky maw of the ocean floor below her looks, the Sea of Storms was eagerly anticipating a fine meal of those aboard this doomed ship of fools. Opening wide in a ship devouring swallowing bite the hungry ocean awaits Daphne and her to help fill its gluttonous gob.
A hard yank on her hair stops her lover and her from a decent into eternity. She wants to howl in pain from the scalp rending jerk back and up. Then Daphne and her are swung to safety in a neck twisting toss by one of the Warders when the scow rolls back to upright. Brine in her eyes makes their rescuer a bleary misshapen mass of light and shadow.
Saying her thanks is circumvented by the sight of Sualdra Sedai vainly using an intriguing weave of Air, Water, and Spirit to channel away the sea swell seeking to claim the souls alive still. One man in particular is in the care of the compassionate Brown, his broken and limp body is laying in a near heap in the wreckage. Sualdra's weave is siphoning and redirecting away the drowning sea swell the top deck is awash in. Pinned among the ruined wreckage of the collapsing midship it is hard to see al his injuries. What she can observe in all the running water's passing is blood and viscera pouring out of a wickedly long past bone deep gash extending from his shoulder to hip. Witnessing this turns her stomach when it becomes abundantly evident he is going to die no matter if he is freed from his prison.
However she stops from mentioning this as Daphne coughs in a bone weary panic, "Luna!"
Taking a second longer look with a sharp jerk of her head back to the pitiful sailor, Ione sees their airy lover. A sight that stole the breath in her lungs as Luna lay in a too motionless heap beneath the dying man. Ocean water was already near to swallowing the tiny blonde whole.
Instinct and blind rage has Hermione take to pulling off wood, ropes, barrels, and metal off her treasured waif in a wild flurry of weaves. Daphne's own weaves were taking up the chore of redirecting the frothing evil sea water mere breaths away submerging their gentlest girlfriend, and maybe stealing away with Luna from them forever.
"Careful girls. You have to be cautious or this deck planking will finish giving out under us all." Sualdra warns in an exhausted wheeze, "Think Hermione... Browns think."
Pulled up short by that and the crunching surge of the deck buckling more in resounding cracks, she takes a deep breath and focuses on how to save her love and maybe the man on top if at all possible. Plus it is turning into real neat trick to remain on her feet in the Fair Eyed Lad's twisting leaping across the storm tossed waves.
Out beyond the wretched ruins of the railing, in a world blinding flash of lightening is a jagged row of rocks protruding from the sea like teeth ripping out of the froth white sea like a rabid animal. Time was becoming a precious commodity.
Making a decision she'll hate for the rest of her life, she sends out a giant clawing crain shaped weave of Air and Water to grab and clear off the rubble burying her beautifully odd lover. Her Circlemate may yet live but the ill fated sailor was a dead man already even if he yet breaths. His injuries were too extensive for any aboard to Heal, there being so little time to reach her beloved Ravenclaw, he went with rest of the refuse. Moving him also reveals that where her witch lay was a large hole getting steadily larger as it was filling the below decks.
Paling at the sight, Ione rushes to her love's prone body praying the girl lives still. It wasn't fair to imagine a tender loving soul of the likes of Luna be ruthlessly tortured and the murdered by the heartless Pattern.
Rolling the dear girl over she decides to try CPR, but it is unneeded when a weak shaky grip of her tiny girlfriend takes her hand with an embarrassed mewling of pain, "I forgot to duck."
Busting out a teary laugh of relief, Ione cries free as you like.
"We're not moving naturally." Sualdra notes with no small modicum of concern. A gash running down from her forehead to chin is rivering blood in the rain drenching them.
It was mind boggling in truth for them as Hermione witnesses the Fair Eyed Lad backing up the oncoming waves as if it were a minivan in a rain flooded shopping center than a ship dying in the torrent beaten Sea of Storms. If it were not so dire a predicament Hermione may have taken to laughing, as it is she may do so with no small amount of hysteria sneaking in. Not that she will ever admit that openly of course.
The Brown Sister's Warder and Corilta Sedai appear from the ruined aft deck with the Captain in the arms of the Blue's own Warder. No one else were visible to the three Circlemates. If they made it, there will be too many to mourn for. So many dead for such a stupidly planned trip that Hermione will never feel this journey was ever justified. They may as well have chanced the overland routes if this were to be the cost paid in the offing.
"Me ship..." Captain Nerman wept bitterly with a busted right arm. "Me beautiful laddy-ohs... All me boyoes..."
"Peace Cora. We seem to be given a second run of hope by the Pattern. Maybe there are powers outside of this storm or my experience at work here today. So hold fast, your boys and ship may yet survive with us." Corilta tries calming the Captain with burning fear in the Sister's eyes as the ship shivers against unknown counter forces crushing it between them.
Lightening arching scarily close in an explosive snap crack, shows her the Sister is right. They were still moving unnaturally away from the rocks in reverse like a car backing down a driveway.
As there are no weaves visible to her it meant one or more of the boys are still alive. It also gave her hope as she catches a glimpse of Parvati and Ginny aiding a distraught Emmatilde back aboard. Then there is Neville and Alicia hauling in the Weasley twins and a spitting and coughing Ange. She isn't able to see the rest through all the blinding rain curtaining out much of the world except in short surging pauses. A fact that is putting a huge burr in her blanket as Harjit is one she can not locate easily.
This unacceptable turn of events might be remedied with a massive light weave up high on the faltering mainmast. Interdicting her plan is the lurching jerk of the ocean on the ship, sending them all careening to their knees or what not in the offing. A quick look tells her the terrible truth that they were once again drawn into a deadman's charge straight into the ravenous rocky reef awaiting its feast.
Daph spat out a long stream of hateful invectives for the Wheel and dodgy wooden wallow sided scows parading as seaworthy ships. Agreeing with the sentiment Hermione is beyond convinced the feeble Fair Eyed Lad is amply proven to be more tar and dry rot than sturdy timbers in this trial by adversity. With that in mind she gets her mind focused on the tasks ahead by taking a deep calming breath and shake of her head. It was either sit and bemoan a cruel end or stand and put her back into the fight of their young lives for all they care for in this brutal medieval Age. Dying in the Third Age as victims of a deranged hurricane or whatever the sailor sorts call this type of killer storm, will do neither them or their loved ones back in their rightful Age any good. It isn't in her to not step up and put her hand to the plow when her world, loved ones, and pure old sense of justice is in danger by man, beast, or inclement weather.
"Ice? Where in the Light is ice coming from in these waters? These are the tropics." Corilta's laconic Warder worries out loud in barely masked fear, to his bondmate Sister.
He was right. Steaming, breath stealing ice is crawling up and over the side of the ship in thickening unnatural tendrils. Growing and multiplying up from the sea in crystalline tentacles reaching up in a wide writhing mass forming a miniature glacier with an alarming speed. Flowing out and devouring the sea swell's backwash, it covers the aft end of the ship and is moving over the deck as if it is wishing to be the one to destroy their ship before the rocks or storm can. Spreading out towards more of the aft and them, the ice flows form a beautiful deadly flesh freezing web. When it passes over some of the dead the corpses crack, split, then explode in frozen gobbets pelting the living. When these contact bare flesh it burns as fast as if the person poured boiling oil on themselves.
Diving for cover with Fire laced Air walls to protect them all, Hermione pulls Luna in tight, using her own body as a shield for her battered dazed girlfriend. She isn't alone in reacting quickly to this new evil seeking their deaths either. Daphne also whips a whirling intricate weave of a thousand fine streamers of Saidar to form a blanketing barrier around the living and parts of the fracturing ship.
The angry look of determination on her Slytherin Circlemate's face is harder than the fdinest steel. Back in their proper Age, Hermione mistakenly assumed all Snakes were slippery cowardly bigots without an ounce of character or clean emotion, but her friends from that House were anything but those stupidly ignorant thoughts. Her loving Daphne in particular is a fabulous breath taking witch whose will equals any of the Circle and sometimes can be far braver than any of the Lions, Hermione included. Gazing up into that aquiline elegant face of her lover's has Ione both glad that she isn't the woman's enemy, but even more thankful that she is one of the few Daph loves beyond measure.
She also found herself falling harder for the Snake as the witch is a marvelous example of everything Ione finds attractive in a lover, male and female. A look that stuns her to find mirrored for herself in the fiery light of Daphne's Saidar enfolded eyes. Their mutual gaze of need and adoration is powerfully intoxicating, and only intensifies with their shared love with the dazed but beaming Luna between them.
The protective need in them for one another is all encompassing and fully shared as if they were of one mind and body. A bi-witch could easily live in the promises held in their three ways gaze. This silent exchange held many more promises but one was more immediate above all the rest. They'll make it through this little dust up with nature, and more importantly is that they will see it done side by side. Afterward there is plenty of time to explore further the very much more private and delightful depths of this mutual love they bare for one another.
'Light and love', Hermione's mind whistles to herself, 'I'm a right lucky witch to have a wizard like Harjit and a Circle of witches of their calibers loving me. Holy Crickets a jumpin' I hope I can measure up to such a wondrous lot.'
Finding a second wind under Daphne's protective guardianship, Ione tries to stand with their Luna cradled close. Her words were almost drowned out by the shrieking winds returning to its full vengeful strength and its demented partner of the pounding surf on the ragged craggy reef summoning them in inexorably to their dooms.
"We can't save the ship. We have a chance if we abandon it and save those left alive." she manages to speak in her new self aware voice from this forge like Age.
Someone has to make the hard choices and she is by far the most powerful there. Powerful enough to outrank most women alive in the Light if she were to be utterly honest with herself. There really are very few to equal or best her that she knows of. Nyneave, Egwene, Alayne, Daphne, Ginny, the Patils, and Luna all are close with the first probably the sole her better, but she wasn't ever going to just sit and await for others to take charge ever again.
"Corilta, if we're to reach Salidar it has to be on land. This storm is proof enough of the Pattern's will as it has smashingly put paid to this little holiday cruise at sea. Call the ship a wash and lets get to sa-" she is interrupted by a crashing creaky boom of the rocks hammering against the Saidar crafted reinforcement of the hull. This interruption was ominous but nothing like the rending explosive detonations of the creepy ice striking both next.
Ship shaking explosions rock them this way and that, which sends Ione to her knees again. This time though a splinter the length of her hand and the width of a small paperback novel punctures her thigh, eliciting a cry of pain from her lips like few others she's unleashed in her short life. Scarlet blood washout from her wound as salt water rushes into the torn open breech.
Around her, the others too are in for a rough go by what her starry pained vision allows her to take in. Beside her, Luna is clawing at the blood and ocean slicked wood dagger in her leg. Daphne though is down on one knee, holding up a span of the mainmast's crossbeams with a large cupping weave Ione can barely make out as mostly Water in the light bursts erupting in her eyesight.
"Child, let us." Sualdra is trying to aid Luna with Corilta's Warder striving to free the Brown's man from a tangle of tackle anchored rigging.
"I won't lose her!" Luna actually cries out in a voice with very little resemblance to the Ravenclaw's normally soft airy one.
Patting her and Luna tenderly, Sualdra replies. "I've no intention of letting the sea have a girl of your Pillow Friend's potential. Especially not when she will one day lead my Ajah to glory and honor." A statement proving that an Aes Sedai is always and forever a creature of the White Tower. "Now Daphne, toss that aside as we need your strength more in this than flexing for your lady loves."
Power illuminates the witches around her as the pair of Warders, both now blessedly free of encumbrances, set about to go get the rest of the survivors.
Feeling the older witch's hand partly enter her leg's gaping injury to tug out the offensive hunk of wood has Hermione half pass out in a startled cry of unvarnished agony. Luna's hands on her shoulders keep her from fighting them off in a native fight or flight reaction.
They almost have it out before there is a second attempt by the sea to impale the Fair Eyed Lad on the rocks greedily awaiting them. By the sound of it, the shields were holding for now, however the tub of tar wallow bottomed scow rolls, pitches, and then catches on the rocks by the ice bound aft end. Sad bit for her was that this sends Sualdra and her up in the air to be caught by a passing surge of the sea. Dragging them to the railing, the two witches are a wild tangle of limbs, dresses, ropes, wood, and screams of pained terror.
Flowing up high as the ropes of the destroyed rigging wrap neatly around them, Ione's world starts rapidly losing focus. The pops and explosions of colourful light in her vision accompanies a mind blanking pain when Sualdra's hand replaces the wooden invader, splitting open the rent skin and muscles further when the woman was still tugging out the splinter.
Struggling to remove her hand to grab the wrecked railing before they both follow the wreckage overboard, Sualdra Sedai causes more damage. Feeling the Brown's elegant heavily be ringed fingers rip out more flesh is about as much as the teen witch can take. Keeping her focus and awareness takes her every fiber of willpower to not fail herself and her five soul mates. Her Circle and their wizard require her best, and losing it now was not an option in her mind.
Gritting back her torturous pain stealing away with her wits, Hermione lets her heart guide by the inner sea swell of images, moments, and feelings she's laid up of her lovers, friends, and family to surrender and embrace Saidar at nearly beyond her fullest potential. Succeeding by the knowledge her Circle and their one and only wizard, Harry, were now wholly official and open as a group unto themselves, she whips out a long heavy weave to grab a hold of the ship to stop their being swept irretrievably out to the roiling sea.
Blinking from the tears streaming down her cheeks birthed from the painful exertion, she is glad Sualdra is able to grasp onto the outstretched arm of a man frantically reaching for them. Steeling her resolve to hold on to the One Power till they're safe, Hermione anchors herself in the up lifting scene of her Daphne and Luna both also reaching out for her. They were magnificent women and girlfriends that deserve her giving it her all to stay by their sides.
Blood loss is making her woozy but she gives them her best winning smile of hope.
Too bad there is a third strike of the ship on the rocks, this go around though it carries up from the abyss a resounding deep rumbling boom that she feels tingling in her extremities. A thundering crack of timbers shattering as Corilta's Saidar walls fail are the following death scream of the Fair Eyed Lad being breeched worse than Hermione's leg.
Ocean water surging in the rent open hull is as swift or faster than what occurred to her own gaping wound. This onslaught helps the next wave hammer them home onto the jagged reefs fangs. Twisting and writhing of the dying ship jerks the Sister and her back into the hungry grasp of the deep. Her safety line weave is useless as the rail it is attached to also is busted off in the death throws of the dead scow. Seeing this in the woozy haze swallowing her, she makes it let go of the rail and hurl up, out and latching hold of the mainmast's base. If not for this they would've been lost for a certain as the sea's pull on their bit of flotsam is caught on an underwater rip current that gives the a right hard shake when her weave rejects its ownership of them. As it is the whiplash is dreadful for her will to hang on.
Leaping in after them is the Warders in a pair of elegant dives. A vision that reminds her pointedly of how gorgeous and deadly these sort of men are. Her friends and lover Harry are just such men. The realization of how the boys have blossomed into not only warriors par none, but also into real heroic men makes her wonder in a half lucid laugh how not all changes this Age has wrought in them are shaded with evil.
The Warder team manfully cut and fight apart the entrapping wreckage dragging Sualdra and her into a mutual watery grave. Neither man wastes time on extraneous movements, but work in silky efficient unison. Their efforts were showing fruit as the ropes were lightening on Hermione whose focus is rapidly draining as blood loss and the need for air are competing for the right to be her ruin.
A wrenching twist of the Fair Eyed Lad and the evil ocean near does it for her as it throws the two tangled women to where their heads dash against one another. Involuntary needs to let out cries of pain gives the ocean an opening for their lives. Sualdra's man saves the Sister with his own breath, however Hermione is to deep in the wicked wreckage to be given the same. A drowning rush of sea water from the unfortunate event makes her finally fail to maintain her hold on Saidar any longer.
Her starved lungs sucking in the deadly watery breath denies her the ability to notice much beyond her gagging and choking. In the barely noticeable periphery is the sight of the two Warders working even more frantically with grimmer determination burning in their eyes.
Both of these almost Aes Sedai seeming ageless men, as longtime Warders are wont to becoming, whose hardened visages never flinch or waver, were showing signs of strain. In Sualdra's quick aid of a weave the woman has used before on a drowning man to clear her lungs, Hermione is brought back from the eternal embrace of the Mother. Seeing the weary strain on two veteran Warders trying to save her life, she becomes scared enough to almost completely lose all of her downward spiraling mental faculties. So much so she comes in a breath of screaming out the final vestiges of her wits along with the air gifted to her by Sualdra. If she didn't have the burning need to be worthy her five lovers she might have lost all her good sense and ended with her embattled lungs refilling with
She does scream though when first Corilta's man is skewered on a long busted shard of deck work torn up from the faltering ship's death throws. A huge mistake she can not unmake even if she wishes to when like her leg's injury, the Sea of Storms seeks to fill her with a briny destruction ruining her from the inside out. Sinking her along with all the rest of the broken detritus of the lost vessel that defied it once to often. Unfortunately, water isn't meant for breathing unless one is a ruddy fish as her lungs should have learned before but the base need for oxygen can over ride the best of souls in the darkness of the sea.
Coughing and choking silently in under the rest of the rubbish from the dead ship, she has little to no fight left in her now. All that is left to her is watching in pain soaked horror when Sualdra's Warder is next to be caught unawares by the violent vicious sea as his head is hit by an errant sinking galley pot sending him floating into the deadly invisible current to the gobsmacked Sister's own inner horror. Wicked twists of Fate has his senseless body tangle up in the leading refuse as if being inhaled in one enormous bite of life. Now without Hermione's safety line weave or the valiant aid of the Warders, the two witches are perilously close to returning to their own doomed journey into the dark abyss.
Panic sets into the older woman in a silent half scream as they too begin their decent. Bond Loss has the woman visibly rendered a near mindless husk of a witch. If in a safe location and with the patient care of gentle but firm Sisters, Sualdra would have a good chance at recovery. This is no such place and time for that.
Weeping for her own loves, Ione's fading life spark is left watching helplessly as the Aes Sedai she's inextricably entangled with vainly tugs and reaches out pitifully for her dead vanishing Warder. Indelibly burned into her mind by this heartbreaking last moments of her life is the image of Bond Loss mentally and emotionally the one time serine and composed witch in the mere matter of seconds.
Rage, pain, anguish, and so much more visibly shatters what is a strong willed and intelligent human being, rendering them into a near feral state as if they were never anything more than a savage brutalized beast in the fields. This once incredibly sharp minded witch is a living shell that now is only seeking to forsake all in a mad bid to retrieve her lost bonded companion. Forgetting life and reality the woman only cares to have back the drowned warrior.
In a tiny sheltered part of Hermione's being is a voice crying out for her Harry and Circle. More so Harry as she knew the man would only see dying in like manner as noble. A thought that carries her into the silence of eternal darkness in this finality of her life.
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Sensing that this dark storm is not done yet with unleashing more evil on them all, Daphne is not taken by surprise when Corilta suddenly grows boneless in a soul chilling scream to haunt any that may hear it. Where moments ago the Sister was a tower of Aes Sedai calm imperious strength, the witch now lays rag doll like beside the already heartbroken Captain Nerman.
"Oh Light..." she gasps and scrambles to the woman, Daphne is stopped by Luna's weak imploring hand.
"Ione... she's in danger." Luna pleads with her piteously, "The Grave of the Cruel Deep... I saw it when she took Harry out to the River Erinen... Only love can save and- and I am too weak."
Luna's voice at the end of that were bitter with self disgust.
Spinning to look out to the roiling ocean she sees their Harry fall limply to the ruined deck. Screaming out his name for help and fear for his life, Daphne is frozen by her need to aid both her lovers. What sets her course though is the knowledge that of all them here in this horrific place and time, she is the sole individual able to rescue their bookish drowning lover.
Taking a deep breath and kicking off her leather clogs, Daph dashes to the side of the sinking ship to dive into the sea after her ill fated woman. On her lips is the endless running prayer that the Wheel or Fate wasn't playing her for a fool by stealing away Harry in the offing and that her Ione was in no danger at all.
What she finds in the icy dark waters is her love hanging limp in the ruins of the ship's death throws, being jerked and tugged downward by a crazed looking Sualdra. Having little time to think and explore all the options open to her, she lashes out with Saidar to cut free the Sister from Ione. In her fright and battle against the hungry sea she is less than precise in her aim, to the ruinous detriment of the older insane witch struggling to swim headlong into the cold abyss. Cursing at her inept aim, Daphne wishes she could do more for the deranged witch besides lacerate the suicidal Sister. Now unburdened by Hermione and the Fair Eyed Lad, the mad witch shoots arrow straight down out of her range of sight.
Loathing herself for letting the distraught witch go commit suicide, she has to forcefully shove these grim thoughts aside to save her brave, beautiful love still wrapped up in the sinking wreckage a hidden current is summoning it all to.
Battling through the water, more than simply swimming the murky storm stirred waters, the one time Slytherin is praying to the Light, Creator, and the other hidden forces that her Gryffindor girlfriend yet lives. A mute plea to the universe they were not parting so soon from one another especially now that they are truthfully out in the open as a singular whole person.
Tossed off course a time or two she refuses to give up hope. Her Ione may yet be alive and she is all her lover has as a rescuing champion. If this is the Pattern punishing her for daring to come out and live as bisexual pureblood witch in the open, she'd burn it to the ground as her Hermione is an innocent brave loving soul. Fairness may be an impossible hope from the oft cruel Age Lace, but she won't let it have an easy victory as she stays on task.
To aid her she delves into her power to cut and clear a way to her beloved Kitten. Whipping a weave of sharpened Air to clear away the rubbish devouring the wrecked ship and all inside its timber constructed confines, she is more careful now than before to be able to not carve into her hanging lost lover. Also in her use of Saidar, she remembers the rules of inertia and pushes a great jet of Water and Air weaves behind her to push off from the ship. This massive surge of energy hurls her bullet like to her suspended drowning Circlemate.
Catching the mostly freed witch floating anchored by the craggy reef from a frayed loose rope, Daphne uses a final jet of Fire laced Water to rip apart the length of tar coated hemp. The bid works only to well as Hermione and herself are snatched by an invisible seeming rip current to be turned into just a bit more of rubbish swirling into the dark deeps. Whirling and snagging on all in it the many bits of detritus seem to year for the living to join it all in the lost abyss. A surge in the sea also sends more of the condemned Fair Eyed Lad down on top of them. She frees them from this on a desperate throw of a weave high and into the craggy rocks standing defiant of the sea's hunger to vanquish all that stands in its endless restless wanderings. Her weave is strained but she hauls them out of the current in a silent vow to never let the sea have any of her loves lives.
Finding her love staring as if already a dead woman or discarded doll, the assumption of death could be forgiven. And yet with dread filling her heart, she turns it into righteous fuel for her next gambit to rescue her angel. Pulling her witch in tight, she uses a weave the suicidal Sualdra used on a river boat man whom fell over board on the trip from Tar Valon to Tear. It was ingenious as it draws out much of the water invading a drowning person. Making use of it on Hermione with worried caution as she fears to dehydrate her dying witch, she hangs on tight to her girlfriend. Then as the sea is no place to come back to with nothing in one's lungs, Daphne forcefully seals her lips to Ione's to bestow her own breath into her witch's limp body, along with is a second weave of Air she hopes to help amplify the amount given.
At first nothing happens, which turn's her blood in her veins as ice laden as the ocean they were whirling about in. Her fear is forgotten when miraculously Ione jerks in a silent spasm that nearly tears their lips apart. Clutching hold tighter than ever before with every ounce of her strength, she is gratified to see and feel Hermione's return to the living. Somewhere in all this the impromptu One Power CPR is transformed into a mutual celebration of love and victory. Their arms and legs entangle as their kiss becomes a real one full of needed joyous release.
It is sublime to be reunited and alive together, that is till out of the wreckage from above comes a long crossbeam of the fracturing mainmast hurtling towards them, sped in part by the heartless rip current's inexhaustible power. Stunned into mutual inaction both witches cling to one another in horror as the pillion of wood spears towards them with wave whipped tentacles of rig rope, ripped sailcloth, and the corpse of a sailor whose head is a pulpy mess.
Hurtling out from elsewhere is a long thin masculine form with long red hair. His trajectory slams into the pair of witches whom he gathers up to drag them bodily out of the way of certain doom. He is strong but the current of the sea is going to take them all till Daphne uses a new whip of Air, Water, and Spirit to shove them al upward off the mainmast's falling bits passing them by. Buoying her is Hermione gazing on her with adoration once more causing her to blush from the unspoken praise and the promise of more reward for later that has her tingling with pent up desire.
In her mind though is also a countdown, 'Now for Harry then Gin-Gin and Par. We are not losing each other now... or ever!'
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Gasping for air to fill her tired half drowned lungs, Parvati tries to figure out where both she is and what has happened to her odd family. Losing her Circle and Harjit will kill her but she also refuses to let the vicious Sea of Storms lay claim to the rest of her loved ones, especially her twin. Pads may have no use for a freakish witch chasing witch, but that is not how Par felt in reverse. Her sister was her other her. They could be seen as opposite as night and day but to her, Padma was her first friend, compatriot, and councilor-in-chief.
"Pads!" she gulps and spits out through the sea surge seeking to dash her against the rocky reef that slew the Fair Eyed Lad. "Harjit! Inone! Gin-" She is cut off from yelling more by a larger wave submerging her.
By best her best guesses she might have to lay out as to what has taken place, she is a few hundred feet north of the ship sinking and cracking under the assault of the breakers slamming it into the rocks. All around her are the torn or broken remains of the ruined tub of glorified tar. If not for her clutching tight to the craggy slick claw like fingers of the reef, she'd have been swept out to sea a long time ago. Well that and pure mad luck at the very least. Eddies and swirls in the disorienting shoal has her unable to figure out more than that. She is just glad she didn't face the same ignominious fate of the Green Sister Kinarial, whose broken body keeps getting smashed against the stony fingers Par is clinging to as they stretch out and up into the dark heartless sky.
When Parvati had last been fully aware where she was and how all those all she loves were doing in this villainous storm, the Fair Eyed Lad's mainmast had still been erect in the last moments of their ship. Before it was breeched by the rocks as Corilta's reinforcing had denied it from occurring in a deafening drum note. As for herself she was aiding in pulling out of the ocean those tossed off the top deck by that fateful half roll's spinning her world about crazily where she were sure that the stupid scow had decided to climb back-end up the waves. Ange had been aiding a sailor towards Ali's outstretched hands. Tracey had arrived and enlisted her in hoisting Neville and Blaise back by a long rope. Gin-Gin was looking for Luna frantically. Up on deck was the Green and Pads trying to heal the injured under the protection of the Weasley boys and the Green's Army of Warders. Those men were in a terrific fight with the storm maddened sailors were insensible with fright and long dormant bigotries about witches.
Somewhere in all that the ship struck the rocks again and then all Par knows is that she awoke here in the water with zero idea what took place in the in-between. Considering what has clearly taken place with the fracturing ruins of the Fair eyed Lad, she is probably lucky to have awoke at all as the sea is taking great fun in bashing the wreckage savagely upon the reef.
Watching helplessly, she is trapped with very little to do to at the very least give Kinerial some dignity instead of a slow body demolishing pummeling on these hateful rocky fingers. The witch had been a fairer sort than many Aes Sedai she knew. Plus the determination of Parvati to become a Green too made them Sisters in more than being White Tower trained women.
Blind lightening flashes continue to slash the sky in taunting snapshots of the murder of the Fair Eyed Lad. These bursts showed her a plethora of nightmares her freezing wakened self is left only to be a witness to instead of pre-empt from ever occurring. At this terrible moment she might only be capable enough to light a match, that is if she is even able to embrace Saidar at all. So in her helpless uselessness she sees men and the Aes Sedai die before her salt scorched eyes.
Bitter anguish flays her soul at the memory of watching the insanely creaming Kinerial cradling a limp dark male shaped body. The heartbreaking shrieks were the terrifying sounds to have roused her from her own doom of drowning in these unholy life crushing depths.
Hearing the haunting keening wails even now in a ghostly taunt of her own heart's dread that her own man and witches were murdered, Par strives to force out of her mind the tormenting event ever being a true premonition. It doesn't last long as she relives the moment the screams stopped in a deep crashing boom that tore the Sister and deadman off their craggy perch in a horrible suddenness. In one second, the poor older Sister was alive and mourning, the next the woman was a broken floating heap being dashed about the cruel rocks. Glimpses in the world lighting lightening, Par is forced to see a growing crimson tinge to the vile dark sea pooling around her and the dead witch.
Praying for salvation and a daring plea for hope, she cries out again in a renewed surge of self preservation, "Harry! Pads! Ginny!"
She was preparing to try more after evading the next wave clawing at her to join Kinerial as a matched set of Greens. Blessings of the Pattern came out of the dark though to her mixed joy and mounting dread.
"Par?" a screaming cry of a voice she loves washes over her, "Hel-" A splashing cry cuts that from finishing.
Finding a whole new level of personal strength within her, Parvati throws herself off her dubious sanctuary to come to the aid of her lover. Hindi witches are women who don't die or give up easily when those they love are in danger. This vile storm has had its due in blood and craves far more, but she'd not allow it her family or loves if an ounce of strength remains in her.
Swimming valiantly against the wild rollicking ocean with her flagging endurance, she focuses solely on her love out there. Par's heart burns with determination as hard or harder than the life stealing cold sapping what all that remains in her.
Up ahead of her is one of the lovely witches she has opened her heart to in defiance of all that her traditional English and Hindi magical kind raising has denounced as forbidden and foul. Setting her teeth and driving forward with renewed purpose, she stretches out and grips a hold of brown dress and limp armed shoulders. Dragging up on the dead weight of the girl to bring her love above the splashing roll of the waves, she is overjoyed to be greeted by her lover's shivering awake to fight back to life. She is also rewarded by a desperate loving kiss of joy. They lived so too must the others.
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Water logged and well away beyond angry, Ginny is adrift on the rolling sea, being sucked further and further out from the demolished misnamed Fair Eyed Lad. Its untimely passing was not a gentle one. Nor was her own violent hurling into the frigid sea from its top deck when the ice covered aft finally gave from the pounding ocean waves and strengthening gale force winds bashing apart what little was left of the ship against the reef. Tossing her high and wide in a far arching flight when the super chilled frozen wood explodes some more nearby to her. Covering her yell of disbelief and fright is covered by the detonation as is her being slung out by the explosions eruption of splinters and Quaffle sized stones of ice. She was sent out beyond the sight of the others when everyone else is looking for the missing Hermione, Daphne, Luna, Parvati, and their shepherding Aes Sedai and Warders.
One of her brothers had yelled that he found Luna about the time Ginny took her unwanted flight. If he had she was hoping it were true as she lost hold of her girlfriend in the forward tipping of the still moderately whole Fair Eyed Lad aft over end. A fact she was frantic to correct in fear for her tiny witches life and her promise to never let go. As for the rest she didn't exactly know where or what happened to them save Par's vanishing in all the chaos of the ship's first striking the rocks. Somewhere in all that mess her Hindi witch had just up and disappeared in the roiling eruptions, collisions, and thrashing about. It was all taking a toll on Ginny as one by one all her five soul mates were being plucked out of her life one by one. A rightful mind numbing to panic had instilled itself in her heart in the midst of it all. The evil Shadowborn storm hit them hard and in the offing was meticulously ripping away those she's been preparing to live her life with as a dutiful loving wife for husband and Circle. At least out here, if the others are already sailing the Stygian shores in a return to the Pattern, she'll be able to join them soon in their mutual watery grave. Then again she refuses to forsake her hope they may be merely out here adrift among these wicked claw like rocks. In which case she may well be in the perfect place to find and rescue them all.
It seems an insane hope with little proof of merit, but it was a better set of things to pray for than give up completely. Her not sharing this life or the one to come in the Beyond are alternate realities she'll find unlivable. Weasley's are a hard lot to kill and an even harder lot to force them into yielding in defeat when fighting for their families. Her Harry and Circle were her spouses even without the vows to be spoken verbally yet. In the very deepest corners of her essence she is their adoring wife of both Harry and the Circle. There is no other future she'll allow to take root in her heart.
"Ginny!" she barely hears over the raging torrent and its thunderous roar from crashing waves.
She tries to answer from her small patch of planking, an impromptu life saver she'd gratefully found earlier. It's scant two feet by three is hardly a safe harbour, but it is keeping her afloat for now. Traitorously it is also too bloody slick to trust completely as it shoots out from her grasp when she lets go with one hand to call out for the gorgeous witch that owns that lovely voice crying out to her.
"Par? He-" she tries to answer back in hope to her girlfriend only to be interrupted by the irksome plank depositing her in the water. With a surprising gurglingsplash off her fleeing board into the swirling flow of the sea, she flounders in the stunning twist.
Splashing wildly in a thrashing grab for the tricky bit of lumber, she swallows a mouthful or two of briny sea water. Coughing and losing her senses in the terrible deluge, she is unprepared to react well to her plight. Complicating things more is when Kinerial's body whirls up into her view scaring the living daylights out of her.
Holding onto unreasonable hope, she fights to stay afloat but her panicked swallowing of the sea has her gagging so badly that she involuntarily keeps sucking up more of the deadly stuff into her lungs. Finally she begins to lose her strength and slowly sinks below the surface. She wants to fight but up is becoming a difficult direction to find. However her fighting to the last is rewarded when her lovely flawless girlfriend, Par flies out of the dark mawed reef to hoisting her up and into the moderately clear air. Wheezing and coughing away the drowning ocean water in a rather unladylike puking fit, Gin's senses return to her.
Never more clear headed than he were then, she is nevertheless unable to verbalize what she is feeling. It is quickly proven Par concurs as they bodily hurl into each others arms. Wrapping up into one another's longing passion and joy, their lips meet in hungry rejoice of one another being returned to them. Setting fire to their relief and desire to be safe and loved is their thankfulness that this storm has not stolen everything from them. It was a glorious release of the overburdening dread they were being squashed flat by in this living nightmare. Finding ne another also gave them the anchoring hope to locate the rest of their lovers, family, and friends.
"I was so afraid." she confesses as Par's free hand from treading water caresses her cheek. "Merlin and the Light... I was-"
Par's elegant cinnamon brown fingers silence her while her loving girlfriend coforts her tiredly, "I know. Believe me ow much I know that."
Letting out a suppressed watery giggle of relief, Gin scans their surroundings, knowing full well that they may have found one another, but both won't survive bobbing about in these wicked waves. They have to find a better floatation device for them than her traitorous hunk of planking, which was seemingly drifting back her way in a teasing taunt beyond her reach. Ignoring it in hopes of saving their strength for a better option, she catches sight of a pair of wooden shutters for the Captain's cabin caught on the stony terrace of the killer reef. How the things escaped the ice she wasn't to concerned to find out just then. She was just glad they had.
"Come on Babe." she cheerfully catches Par's attention whom was looking ready to make a swim for the ruins of the Fair Eyed Lad. "I see a pair of rides for us. Their not much but they're better than nothing."
"So I'm Babe now?" Par teases with a water spitting grin in the frothy salt water.
"Too much too soon?" she worries while trying to keep her head above water as well.
"Not at all... Baby Girl." Par smirks with a touch of sadness and another spit of briny water. "I just wish we hadn't wasted so much time being silly scared little chits. We could've been who we are and with who we want long ago."
That admission appears to have put the fight back into Par as the older witch is visibly all business in a shivering shake of the head.
"Lets get those rides. I've had it up to here with our little dip in the sea. Our family probably has a longing for nice quiet camping trip on solid ground as much as I do." Par half jokes.
Fighting not to laugh and chug her weight in sea water, Gin takes off for the shutters. Parvati joins her in moments, neither say a word more to avoid drowning but Ginny's heart is lighter than it had been. It is a dreadful state of being when certain you're absolutely alone in a mad world trying to kill you.
Getting to the shutters proves easier than swimming away from the dying ship as the rollicking storm surge is all to happy to speed their way to a sudden end upon the reef. Dodging the fate of their one time ship's being smashed into kindling on the rocks is another kettle of fish. Using Saidar, Ginny denies the reef making lunch of them as she builds a buffer of Air and her native Fire to cushion their slamming on the rocks. A little help but it gives them a chance to grab hold of the slick reef instead of smeared across its surface. Crawling up on the slippery rocks she almost crows in victory. The shutters were not alone on their craggy beach as some ropes and wooden pulleys were snarled up on the same stretch of ground.
Helping one another up further onto the weathered wave battered ledge, the pair of teen witches take a second or two to breath and chafe their chilled muscles cramping because of their unwanted icy sea water baths. Sharing encouraging smiles they chatter their teeth from the harsh spraying wind cutting right through their sodden dresses.
"Bugger I don't ever want to swim in the ocean again. Nice dry land for me from now on thank you very much." Ginny jokes before setting to pull free the shutters.
Parvati joins her with a shivering emphatic shake of the head. Together they manage to free them even without a single weave or outside help. Trouble came when the second is caught by a gale winds slamming into it. Ripping it out of Gin's hands it makes her over balance and fall back into the water, winding herself in the offing. Poor Parvati though is sent into the rocks by the shutter's turning into a parasail, slamming the Hindi witch hard against the reef fingers with a sickening soft crunch.
Wheezing and fighting to suck in air while scrambling back up to her girlfriend, Ginny is freaked out by the weird angle her lover's arm is twisted into. Dazed and weeping piteously, Par just lays there under the wooden shutter.
Pulling it off the witch she tries to think clearly. Healing is not her forte as she has only had one lesson in it that was interrupted before she saw more than half the basic weave required. Nor are its mundane arts that the Wise Women as she is pants at Potioneering in both her life's Ages. She'd give a fortune to have Madam Pomphrey' or Nyneave's help on this blasted rock.
Making a snap decision, Gin grabs up the shutters with a weave of Air, using up most of her remaining energy to do it. If she could get them on the pair of impromptu canoes, they may have a chance to avoid being drowned among these killer rocks.
Holding them in the swirling waves with every ounce of her willpower, she drags her girlfriend over and back out in the sea. The surging villainous waves are actually aiding her again in lifting her love aboard one of the shutters. Casting her eyes around this way and that she spots a belt from one of the Captain's many outlandish outfits. The wide leather thing may well keep Par on the other shutter if Ginny can keep them together in this mess.
Weary to the point of failure now, the red headed Accepted starts to try and secure her Circlemate to safety. Par will be safe if it kills Ginny to do it, she determines in her hammering heart. Momentarily losing focus when the elaborate metal brad work cuts her hand, she lets go of her wavering weaves at the worst possible time. Her reward for this lapse is a hard knock to the back of the head by her own designated shutter.
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For the second time this dreadful night or day or whatever this long running nightmare is, Parvati is ripped from the cruel clutches of the abyss by waking up in the icy waters striving to devour her. This go around however is different as she feels like a poorly used porcelain doll as both her face is blinded by bleeding sea stung scratches and her arm is a limp hanging ruin. Floating beside her, face down in the deeper tide pools along the jagged reef is her cherished Gin-Gin. The bright eyed red head's coppery crown though is a literal blood drenched mess too eerily similar to Kinerial's crumpled corpse's raven locks for Par's comfort.
Stifling a scream of heartbroken loss, Par lifts her lover's face out of the briny pool they were somehow in. A tired weak gasping cough is her sliver of silver lined hope for keeping her love alive. Bitter hate fills her mouth with bile at the unfairness of Fate to just rip away the lives of the honest and good, but then raise the monestrous Elaida on the Amyrlin Seat.
Bumping into her is one of the shutters strangely with a wide leather belt woven into its slats. Its presence is baffling in its timely arrival, as if a blessing from the Wheel. Witch or not, she has nothing more left in her to vouchsafe her missing loves and family's lives. Gin-Gin on the other hand, she can save.
Taking advantage of the lull in the waves tearing apart the wreckage, she uses her entire remaining physical strength to lift and strap down her Ginny to the shutter turned gurney. Biting back the urge to scream out in pain when she is forcing her busted limb to finish saving her witch, she starts to cry.
Wind and rain sweeping the rocky surface of the bare reef beats against her, reminding her of Kinerial's unholy gruesome fate. Unwilling to allow that for her own witch, she digs deep to find stable control of Saidar.
A tiny mewling from Gin-Gin fortifies her decisions. There was no way she will be getting both of them to safety. This storm was demanding a sacrifice of blood and she would be damned if it will be her lone surviving Circlemate.
Combing away the blood infused sodden red locks from her love's unconscious face, she studies the younger witch. How stupid of them to meekly follow others and live hidden in the skirt tails of their elders. What a great tragic waste they let fear keep them closeted up from their lone loving wizard when in truth they should've trusted him and their hearts.
Breathing unsteadily from the onset of Shock and her anguished heartache, Par caresses Gin's angelic freckled face. Leaning over she kisses one last time the lips of her lover.
"Goodbye Ginevra... think well of me and remember I will be in the Pattern waiting for you and the others. Know that I was, am, and will always be yours, our Circle's, and our Harjit's witch." with that benediction of parting, Par lifts Gin's shutter with an Air weave tied off to give her lover a chance to survive. A second weave of Air and Water shoves the limp red head on a course away from the rocks and hopefully the safety of land. As she watches with a teary wave, a large wave and her too long denied Shock sweeps her out and away with oblivion vanquishing her awareness for a third time.
One she knew will be her last if the Wheel is as cruel and cold as she believes it to be. But this time it is worth it to have lived this long and be able to do as much as she can to rescue her love.
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Fires of the dying Fair Eyed Lad's final passing ably show how volatile casks of near pure alcohol that is Illianer Rum can be. A magnificent terrible devastating parting shot of the doomed ship. The view is both a magnificent show of pyrotechnics and a horrific goodbye to those lost to the survivors. Huddling on top of the hasty raft made from strapped together remnant top deck planks and barrels, Luna is in a state of broken hearted confusion. Living almost her entire life with her Sight, Visions, and Foretelling; even with her daddy's Sight muting charms she is more used to having a fair advanced warning of the future, and is subsequently more the like ready for coming disasters.
Coming to the Third Age, she is finding out how others must see life, especially with the theft of her gifts momentarily under Elaida's ownership. She is terrified beyond words at what the unknown holds for her and those she loves. Bouncing in a free fall wherever the Wheel spins them is uncomfortably hard. Left powerless and blind, she can only pray that those fires are not the funerary pyres of her missing loved ones.
Rubbing her back consolingly is her weary should've been brother in-law George. His eyes were likely as haunted by the fiery blaze on the rocky reef now barely visible in the lashing rain and lessening waves. If she had the will she may have turned to see, but that has to be a noisy distraction solely for her. Back there were so many she'd pinned hers for all time. Gin-Gin, Par, and ... and her supposed to be Warder Harry. Then there are the rest, their odd large loving family of lost misfits, like herself.
Had she been blinded by love to have misread the truth of her Circle being candles and him their centering foundation holding each others lives safe? It couldn't be, but the dark truth is that they were probably gone if she is to be honest and brutally logical.
"They'll have made it." George chirrups in a straining hopefulness drowning in grief,"My... I know they- they live. We just have to hold fast."
"Idon't feel any more danger..." Daphne sobs with Ione's now slumbering head in her lap. Having no one with the skill at Healing in any shape to lead them, they could merely stop most of the bleeding and make their love comfortable. But seeing her survive will be an iffy venture to guess over.
Comfort is all they could try offering for the emotionally shattered Captain and Bond Loss maddened Corilta Sedai. So many lost their lives in this evil, unnatural storm, it is hard to feel grateful to have survived themselves.
A trembling shake in George's care of her has her find some part of her own old self to lean into him and hug him close. He's lost two siblings, a brother in-law as close as a brother, two sisters in-law, and the love of his life. Plus they've lost Emmatilde, Neville, Pads, Tracey, and Blaise. All that they have left are those on this tiny One Power powered life raft on an enormous empty sea.
"There is always hope." Daphne weeps in prayer, "My Mum taught me that."
Smiling through the pain, Luna nods though she was sorely doubtful of the sentiment.
Wrackspurts were gathering to try driving her back to the edge of insanity, or over it. With how she felt so empty, it was impossible for her to shoo them off. She is barely capable of sitting here in her broken stupor.
Turning away from the tableau of the bonfire claiming her loved ones, she instead gazes out into the East where her eyes are free of witnessing her loves' passing on like her mother. Left behind like a rotten wicked girl again...
In the distance she sees an odd shape bobbing alone on a vast wave dragging away rubbish from the dead Fair Eyed Lad. The vague barrel shape is strange in that it is moving in jerky fits up top above the water line.
She tries to see more, to gain just the right vantage to understand it. She has to puzzle it out why it is drawing her attention so strongly. Its most likely nothing or a delusion of her grief. Then it hits her as if a bolt out of the dark blue skies.
Slipping out of her bewildered lips comes words that should give her heart a final blow as it screams in horror, but instead her soul is comforted by the dread message, "When the Daughter of the Game Keep bellows in its hunt, the Lord of Ravens shall welcome home those whom are strangers bringing the Seeds of the Alabaster and Stygian. Fire riding knight has a hearth he does not know waiting for she, the undaunted Dauntless Stranger. Praise the lost Seed Bearers for they carry the Daughter of the Hart and She-Who-Is-Grande in His Line, Mother to the Sacrificial Matriarch of Dragons and Ravens."
Boneless now from the revelation, she is afire with shattered joy. She also knows that some dark turns can never conquer them unless they allow it.
"Blood and ashes! What in Merlin's Pink dainties was that!" George yelps in alarm.
"A Vision." Daphne too is growing a touch brighter if chilled to the bone on the inside, "Luna is your Sight-"
"Yes it is, Daph. But over there! Over there is a survivor too." Luna preens with a happy jab of her finger in the barrel rider's direction.
Following that, her Slytherin Circlemate frowns in study of the distant object and person. Finally Luna feels Daphne shift the weaves powering them towards the other survivor's barrel at an exhilarating speed that makes her giggle from the acceleration.
Clinging to the ragged boards, Luna laughs in excitement the closer they get to the person. If one person other than them can be alive out here, maybe just maybe, others too may yet live as well. Her family may not have died. Her loves may yet be coming home to her arms.
Her three firsts have to be out there. Her first friend, her first true girlfriend, as well as her first and only boyfriend simply have to be alive. Her Visions could not have failed her, she just did not foresee a few more rough spots between then and now.
Nearing the barrel, Emmatilde weakly waves at them with one of Harry's daggers anchoring a rope tying the sweet farm girl to the floating wooden island.
"Harjit, Gin-Gin, Par..." Luna breaths in prayer to the Creator, "Please bring them home. Please bring them all home."
As always there is no answer outside off the odd quirk in the seeming smallest miracles. Harry's dagger was glimmering in the lightening flashes and flickers of the fire. The fear that her Sight may have named an unthinkable fate is glowing the shiny blade, but so too is hope.
She chooses the hope, as anything is survivable if love and hope lives.