Chapter Three:
Beneath the Blood and Sand
Haelyra Potter
III
A storm at sea brings a man two things in quick succession. The clear and irrefutable perception of the trivial size of the boat you were on against the vast brine just a sheet metal plate away from yourself, and a quickening sense of existence. By the time the gale hit The Tempest, the gulls tossed paper in a storm, streaks of white in the heavy dark, tumbling as they struggled against the wind, sea rising beneath them in swells of mountain ranges, rage in the shape of water, tumultuous and merciless and bottomless, and everybody onboard knew they were not going to manage to sail out of its wrothful extent before the eye of the storm creeped over them.
The only answer then was to sail through the storm. Which, on its own, merits fear.
Haelyra Potter, one of eighty-three strong crew and two-hundred and twenty-three passengers, tried her best to keep the ship together in the first thirty minutes. She stumbled and slipped from deck to deck, bouncing in the narrow corridors, shoulders thumping walls as the ground below nauseatingly undulated, tumbling and sliding from room to room, collecting people like a magpie collects shiny pieces of jewellery, herding them down into the better insulated bottom floors.
The radio was wiped out in the first ten minutes, even when she tried to transfigure a new signal box, that too short circuited.
No call for help.
She burned the palm of her hand changing the piston ring that blew in the engine room, even with the cooling charm she had used to try and keep the engine from overheating.
Speed was down by fifty percent.
When the navigational panel in the Bridge on the Bow explodes, Haelyra knew it was over.
We're blind.
There would be no more mitigating the destruction. The sea was going to do what it did best.
Rage.
The only answer, at this point, was to survive.
I will not go quietly into that goodnight, and I won't let anyone else either.
Haelyra thought of gathering as many civilians as she could, anyone and everyone she could get her magpie beak on, and try to apparate them out, Statute of Secrecy be damned. But that thought was like the gulls outside, paper thin in the wind. She could, perhaps, apparate herself and four others safely, but anymore and all would be splinched. Horrendously.
Definitely not over three hundred people in one go.
She could try and do it in rounds, in sets of four, but as The Tempest lurched, and Haelyra went floundering into another wall, the groan of metal stretching as far as it possibly could before a snap, she knew she didn't have the time for it.
The Hull was going to shatter in the next big wave.
Cetus was just outside by the prow, a place she had sent him to try and break the waves before they hit the boat, safe in the storm, bred and reared for this type of weather, and even if she could gather as many as could fit on his back and sent them flying to better skies, these people were Muggles, and even Witches and Wizards, people like Hermione and Ron, those with broom experience and slightly hardier bodies, could not ride a dragon without practice or harness.
They would go flying off into the storm like skin-coloured confetti with one flap of his great wings.
Additionally, Cetus would not, no matter how much she tried to order him to, how much she begged him, leave her behind.
Dragons, at the core of themselves, cared very little for anything or anyone outside their 'nest'.
If he was a little bit older, more in control of his glands and vapers and magic, she could have perhaps used him to try and ease the storm. He was a Water Drake, not a Fire Drake, he did not breathe blaze, hurricanes and typhoons were his thing, but as it was, as far as they had gotten in their training together, all Cetus could do currently was create a raincloud over Grimmauld Place, or dispel the fog in their back garden, or once he had trickled out and formed a tiny pond from his neck gills, but that would hardly save the ship right now.
She could try and make a Portkey from the bric-a-brac laying around, smashed and ruined on the floor from not being strapped down, but Haelyra had never tried that type of complex magic before, was more than likely to create a bomb than a getaway.
So, Haelyra did the only thing she could think in her panic. She gathered the people she could, and she funnelled them down below, and she kept pushing on. She carted down food, clean water, blankets from the storage units. She warded the deck, bubbled it up, despite the confused glances and the startled expressions and exclaims as magic weaved through the air, so even if , and Haelyra truly wished it was an if, The Tempest sank the deck would not, like a buoy it would float up, with enough air and supplies to last perhaps a week if they rationed it properly.
Plenty of time for a rescue ship to find them-
And if Haelyra survived this, enough time for the Ministry of Magic to sanction her and put her on trial for Magic done in front of Muggles.
That, however, mattered not. Not right then. What did matter was the people.
One person.
Seven.
Twenty.
Fifty.
Ninety-eight.
One-hundred and forty-two.
Around she goes, and around she collects, and around she saves.
The ocean had always been a comforting force in Haelyra's life. Whenever she was frayed she would close her eyes and picture the sea, visit it, dive right into the waters, unafraid, feeling the cool caress of the salt and seaweed, sometimes wondering if she had more freckles than the beach had seashells, more salt in her veins, more secrets in her depths.
The ocean had been peace to Haelyra
The ocean had been joy to Haelyra.
The ocean had been home to Haelyra.
When Haelyra made another countless journey, one of many, up into the higher decks to ferret out the people cowering in their rooms, and she came to a port window, staying wearily away on the off chance the pressure outside blew the window right off its bolts, and saw the sea outside truly, there were no thoughts of freckles or seashells, salt or depths.
The water was drawing back.
Right back.
Opening up down below the belly of the ship. Drawing away-
To come crashing right at them.
Water. Such a funny thing it was. In a hand it was weightless, but if you had ever tried to move a bucket of it you begin to understand just how much water actually weighed.
How much would an ocean weigh? A million pails and more moving at overwhelming speeds? The answer was too much.
The answer was always too much.
"Oh god-… Oh god."
The voice startled Haelyra, snatched her gaze like a fish hook, and it took her a moment to see the small boy, a late teenager likely, eighteen, perhaps nineteen at a push, only a year or two younger than herself, standing in the corridor down the way-
Nose pressed up against the port window.
The port window on the side of the tsunami-like wave heading towards them.
Haelyra-
Well, Haelyra, like the ocean, does what she does best.
She tries to save just one last person.
She darted down the hall without thinking, feet swift, mind empty, and she snagged the boy-
Catering crew by his black uniform, by the collar of his wrinkled shirt, and she heaved with all she had.
"Get away from there!"
The boat was already rolling, dipping as the wave crew closer. It swept the feet out from underneath them.
The boy trundled left, down the hall, away from the window, slipping from her fingertips, and Haelyra-
Haelyra stumbled forward.
Right into the port window.
The wave hit The Tempest, and there was no more time left to think, no more time left to plan, no more time.
There was only the sound of reinforced glass breaking.
Haelyra was thrown off her feet with all the fury of the sea outside finally getting in, winded when she was slammed backwards into the opposite wall as murky ocean water came gushing in, and then there was a sharp, deplorable wrench forwards and a dizzying spin.
Haelyra didn't know what was happening. Up was down, left was right, and all there was was saltwater and seconds.
It happened all so fast.
One minute she was on her feet, the next she was thrown clear out of the torn hole where the port window had been.
There was only small bursts of awareness after that, little thoughts in the seconds it took to be inside a ship and then out. She felt a sickening slap to her temple, a searing pain in her right thigh, and those last little thoughts came in with the brackish vortex she was sucked out into.
Oh, the hull is broken.
Oh, a shard of the plating is in my leg.
Oh, I can't breathe.
Oh, I can't see.
Oh.
This time, dying wasn't like going to sleep. Nothing so soft. This time, it felt like being smothered in the black while being spun on her head.
We all go back to whence we came eventually.
IV
The first thing Haelyra felt after being swept out into the cold-immense sea was a lump in her gullet deep down, working its way up through her chest like a snake slithered through the long grass in the summer heat, into her throat and up to her mouth where-
She hacked, coughing, chest seizing and gasping as she vomited-
Choked up seawater.
It burned, her muscles, the water, between her ribs and her teeth, through her mouth and down her nose and she-
Haelyra Potter wheezed back to life, grunting and groaning, belly down like a fish out of water. Something coarse was pressed up against her cheek, underneath her, cloying too, warm to the touch-
Grainy.
She blinked awake, and nearly, truly, retched on bile this time.
The sun above blinded her, hot and golden white that bleached everything else away to formless, colourless splotches, and the sudden, and excruciating, throbbing at her temple churned her stomach to empty, vulgar knots.
A searing pain blazed from her left leg. Her chest snatched on another bout of coughing again. Something loud and rumbling thundered in her head.
The world span-
A hand, soothing as it was gentle, somehow fought through the onslaught of her senses to be felt upon her shoulder, rubbing placating circles.
"O'shek. O'shek. Venim va su. Lukma fonsem sa Sukvar am lit hevin tunsi emsa dulla."
The roaring-
Growling grew stronger, the hand snatched away from her shoulder, and that was when Haelyra realized the noise was not inside her head, nor was it unfamiliar. She winced.
How bad had she hit her head when she went sailing out the port window if I can't even recognize-
The port window!
The Tempest!
Haelyra moaned as she heaved herself over, flopping onto her back, left thigh scorching as it bent awkwardly, almost as if it was attached to the ground, blearily blinking through the pain and the light and the warm sand crusting on the side of her face, the hand reappearing through the noise and the light to not so gently tug at her shoulder.
"Ru ma yomvir! Va si gul wil asuvira! Shonesh, lu renvik. Kos mure Zemin va-"
The spots of dancing light cleared from her vision, and above-
Above spread out the sky, pale in the morning, not a cloud in sight, blue as blue could be, a simmering hot sun beating down upon her.
"Cetus! Calm!"
Her voice was hoarse, ragged in her throat, painful as her leg when she pressed it out her still quaking chest, but it was loud enough to be heard by Cetus who was the source of the growling-
Cetus!
Merlin, her thoughts felt slow, thick as honey, as sickly-sweet as it too. Yet, she turned, as much as her neck would allow her to, over the other way the hand had been, and saw Cetus close by.
He was pressed against an expanse of the beach, spread and abdomen low, elongated neck slunk down, razor teeth gleaming, his presenting spines and fins out in full regalia, in their threatening display of deep reds and astonishing purples, spined tail whipping at the waves not far from Haelyra's feet, taking up much of the strip of beach that was on his side.
From the gills on his neck, tiny puffs and tendrils of dense fog swirled out around his extended neck frill.
He felt threatened-
Haelyra lurched for him, tossing, but the hand on her shoulder stopped her from getting very far. Or, perhaps, she would have fallen back down on her own, given how weak she felt.
"Ru ma! Var fenik kosi tur edfinlem! Lu amri ma gul Vos'demsire lukma rens tu conyun."
Cetus-
She needed to get to Cetus and find the ship-
Haelyra pitched for her dragon, tugging herself closer, but as she did so, her leg tugged back.
She howled at the abrupt unspeakable pain that blistered and slashed up and down her leg like lightning, hands scrabbling for her thigh, fingers meeting-
Something warm.
Something sticky.
Her neck craned and her breath, still rasping, stalled in her chest as the world, anew, reeled hideously around her.
A large, jagged slice of metal painted in the Tempest's turquoise pierced out from her thigh like a crystalline tower, as long as her own arm, stained burgundy with her own blood, and…
Around the shard, punctured much like her own thigh was, was a twisted log of driftwood. Her own backpack intertwined in the branches of it.
Cetus must have dragged me out the ocean.
She really was attached to the floor.
Her head uselessly flopped back to the sand, to the sky, to-
A pair of hands pried her own from her burning thigh.
Right.
Yes.
She wasn't alone-
Finally, Haelyra peeked over to her side, head lolling, waiting for the world to settle once more so she might see something more than a swirl of colour and sickness.
And what she first saw was silver.
Silver hair. Silver hair that brushed leather covered broad shoulders, under a gleaming chest of black armour. He must have felt her gaze, for he swivelled from her thigh and-
Turn him into stars, and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.
That was what William Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, and the thought almost made Haelyra laugh.
This man, for he was a man, was no Romeo. Maybe, she thought, he could be the furthest thing from that boy there ever could be. His violet eyes were too dark for innocence, his lips to full for naivety, and the dimple by his lip spoke only of roguish wickedness. There was a heaviness to his gaze, but a levity to his jaw that clearly new laughter, and the cock of his brow was downright devilish.
No.
This was no Romeo, and Haelyra was no Shakespeare, but she would say he looked like-
Stardust.
He reminded her of burning stardust, too bright in the dark.
Like sin in a suit-
Like sin in a suit of armour.
Just how much fuckin' blood have I lost?
Silver hair and violet eyes… Haelyra had never seen such a thing-
Only in a mirror before.
And that was when she spotted the glint of a knife.
The bastard had a knife in his hand.
He must have seen the panic in her face, what little he could see of it under the blood and sand, must have, too, understood she didn't understand a bloody word he was saying, because he silently jolted his chin in the direction of the driftwood log.
Little branches were nothing but little stubs of sawn-off wood around the expanse of her thigh.
Right.
Merlin, get it together Haelyra.
And yet, when he went back to cutting off branches, trying to untangle her limb so they might be able to pull the metal out, at a rather nasty tug to her leg, Haelyra flinched.
Cetus roared.
I'm surprised he even let this stranger near me.
"Cetus, no!"
Something from the corner of her eye shimmered. Her gaze snapped to it.
A spearhead-
And another.
And another.
From behind the Stardust-man, a group of similarly armoured men stood on the beach in a tight packed circle, spears in hands, swords in others, shields raised in most, all eyeing her dragon-
Shit-
Fuck-
Bitch-
Cetus spotted the challenge, because of course he did, roared again-
The crowd took a step closer, the worst possible thing they could have done, weapons lowering, readying-
The man yelled at the crowd-
"Lu hubvik dehar vunos!"
Cetus stood tall on all his four legs, wings flapped so hard it knocked two of the men down, shouts in that strange language ringing in the air, mouth opening-
Haelyra shot her hand out.
"Accio wand!"
The flap of her bag wiggled and burst open, and the spindly twig of wood flew to her hand. With magic in her palm, and her heart in her throat, Haelyra gritted her teeth, sent a prayer to a god she did not believe in for the damned and the reckless, and kicked her left leg high from her hip.
Her thigh tore itself free from the metal shard, braking the last branch it was attached to with a crunch, blood splattered on golden sand, on Stardust mans' face, driftwood splinters bursting, and with a cry and a quick fire shot, the stemming spell stopped her thigh from bleeding any more than it had.
Cetus reared-
Haelyra rolled, braced as much as she could, weight balanced on her right leg, and dived.
"Hoshar! Hoshar!"
Before she hit solid ground, Cetus was up and in the air, sweeping over, and with an arch and a dip, he caught her mid-air in his taloned foot. The sand kicked up into a blizzard from beneath his wings, the Stardust man was blown backwards, three of the men rushed for him but fell over in the wind-
And just before Cetus flew them too high, Haelyra wiggled an arm free from the foot encasing her, wand point out.
"Accio bag!"
She caught the strap a second later, hooking it on a talon as Cetus flew them up from the beach, over a small cliff, into the blue, blue sky, the Stardust man's voice growing as hazy as a passing cloud.
"Hoshar! Corlys Velaryon se-"
It was too late by then, the pain from her leg was too much, awareness too fragile to hold out under the assault, and safe in her dragon's claw, Haelyra promptly passed right back out.
There was only one last thought this time, misty, sticky, and as heavy as her blood.
Did he say Velaryon?
Translations:
"O'shek. O'shek. Venim va su. Lukma fonsem sa Sukvar am lit hevin tunsi emsa dulla."
Breathe. Breathe. There you go. It seems the Stranger has had his fill this day.
"Ru ma yomvir! Va si gul wil asuvira! Shonesh, lu renvik. Kos mure Zemin va-"
Do not move! You are yet still injured! Gravely, I fear. We must get you-
"Ru ma! Var fenik kosi tur edfinlem! Lu amri ma gul Vos'demsire lukma rens tu conyun."
Do not! Your leg will rip further! I have not yet untangled it from the driftwood."
"Lu hubvik dehar vunos!"
I said stand back!
"Hoshar! Hoshar!"
Wait! Wait!
"Hoshar! Corlys Velaryon se-"
Wait! Corlys Velaryon is-"
Next Chapter: Badly injured but temporarily bandaged and stitched up as best as she could do with her limited resources, Haelyra sets out to find answers about where exactly she is. What she finds instead is a tavern, a confusing map, a renaissance fair run wild, and more questions than answers. She may not know where she was, what this Westeros is, but she did know she had to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, and that was before she noticed she was being followed...
A.N: So Daemon went and caught himself a mermaid all wrapped up in a driftwood net, and then promptly went lost her lol. Things from here on out pick up the pace quite a lot, so here we go folks!
I had this update pretty much done before I posted the last one, so instead of leaving you guys hanging, I thought I would post it now that it's finished. Fingers crossed you all liked it!
Just to clean up house a little, a few notes on this story. I won't be doing any Rhaenyra bashing in this fic (If you haven't noticed I'm team Black over Green yet, boy, you might need an eye test lol). So expect some good, good Rhaenyra/Haelyra friendship coming in soon. There is going to be smut eventually, so if that isn't your thing, I will mark chapters with the smut at the very beginning, so if you still want to read but not read that sort of stuff, feel free to skip a chapter when the time comes. However, if you're not a big fan of courtly politics... What are you doing reading a Game of Thrones fanfic? Joking, but, seriously, this is going to have some heavy handed scheming coming in from all directions, some of it, not so nice. It's civil war my dudes, fuelled by fuckin' dragons, this is going to get messy.
As for updates, I don't have a strict schedule, and I don't think I will create one. I've gotten to the point where updates come when they come, and it only ever ends badly when I try to force myself to write lol.
So there we go lovelies! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Thank you for the follows and favourites, and of course the lovely reviews. If you have a spare moment, don't forget to drop a few words down in the review box over there, I love hearing from you guys, and until next time, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21