A/N: I love the concept of the Foggy Swamp Tribe. Warm-weather waterbenders who teach women to bend and evaded the notice of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom so well that even the Southern Water Tribe doesn't remember them? How much cooler can you get?
But in the actual show they're not modeled after a specific indigenous culture the way the Northern and Southern water tribes are, getting only a U.S. Gulf Coast accent and a joke about Katara not wanting to find out she's related to them. I've decided to model their culture on the Timucua, an extinct native people of Florida.
Meanwhile, the Earth Kingdom boats in this chapter are based on Polynesian sailing vessels, which I imagine were used in the islands between the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. It makes sense to me to assume that a few islands in that region, particularly the Fire Nation colonies, could be based on the Philippines or Indonesia.
If I did my job right, you'll end this chapter feeling seasick. Good luck!
Chapter 2
Dawn broke over the open sea with the Earth Kingdom vanished from the horizon. The waves flowed from the stern, speeding the boat on, and though only one sail was unfurled, no sailor was obligated to pull an oar. Despite the full sail, the breeze that passed over the deck and through the guest shelter was light. The ship nearly matched the speed of the wind.
The men of the Fire Nation rose naturally with the sun, but Huaji and Jeong Jeong, free of their usual logistical obligations, were not out of their cabins to greet the dawn with Iroh. Gen and Saburo, technically still on duty as his bodyguard, emerged from their cabins precisely as he did, and Loto was already seated on the rail at the bow when they arrived. The colonial boy dangled his feet over the open water, comfortable on the sea as if he had come home.
Iroh wondered why Loto joined the army instead of the navy. When they were no longer on the boat, Iroh thought he might ask. The colonial boy's life was as far from his as he imagined the life of anyone who was still a citizen of the Fire Nation. He surely had a story worth keeping in mind, for the man who'd be the first Fire Lord to inherit the colonies and their culture.
There was no room in their masquerade for greeting the dawn according to Fire Nation custom, but Iroh still enjoyed breathing in the energy of the rising sun. The sunrise left all four men feeling rested, yet pleasantly alert as the rest of the guests roused for breakfast. Even Jeong Jeong seemed to have gotten over his seasickness, between the pleasant weather, an early rest, and a long night's sleep.
The morning meal of fruit and steamed sweet buns would have been delicious even if Iroh didn't have a year of soldier's rations to compare it to. The musical trio's morning performance was lovelier with the background sound of the sea, and the ship's cooks brewed fine enough tea that Iroh didn't feel the need to make his own. It was absolutely as pleasant as a vacation, refreshing utterly after years of fighting northern barbarians and taming a raging river.
The sea, silver in the early low sunlight, became the most vivid blue under the noonday sun, clear for several fathoms down. They passed island after island, sailed over channels so deep that the blue seemed to swallow the light, and over reefs so shallow that Iroh realized a Fire Nation ship couldn't safely navigate this route. The shallow-drafting wooden karakoa could never have withstood a second of assault from a Fire Nation ship, but when the sailors unfurled the second sail to the increasing wind, the boat picked up such speed that it barely seemed to touch the surface of the water at all.
With breakfast complete, Iroh had nothing more pressing to do than socialize with the other guests. He acquainted himself with the two true merchants on the ship, playing up his false identity as a tea broker, and learned more about Earth Kingdom porcelain in an afternoon than he'd learned in his life. He continued his conversation with Eun the tea heiress and her husband Kwan, and over the course of the morning learned directions to their plantation. He filed that information away to ensure Fire Nation forces ever assigned to their province knew not to burn the family's property, and to offer them every diplomatic option for the security of trade. When he satisfied his curiosity about his fellow passengers, he got down to the business of discovering, between them and his men, what new Pai Sho tricks this voyage would teach him.
Captain Fang joined them at lunch, to share stories about the wildlife that accompanied their regular voyages. Foxphins appeared as she spoke, a pod of dozens threading in and out of the wake cast off the outriggers. Foxphins often appeared in the greater wake thrown off coal-powered naval ships, but they were a distant sight from the decks of Fire Nation boats with their towering freeboard. On the Swordfish, they leaped at eye level, close enough to enjoy the perfect watercolor blending of their russet-orange and silver hides. Three times Captain Fang pointed to the horizon where a manta-whale was about to breach, her instinct for their appearance almost supernatural.
In the evening the breeze slackened. Sailors emerged from belowdeck to climb to the outriggers and deploy paddles. When Iroh passed the hatch that lead below, the air flowing up from the lower deck was cool - unusually so, unless all sailing vessels were all much cooler inside than the metal ships he was used to. When Iroh asked a sailor about the cool air, the man shrugged and said it was a trade secret - something about a salt-reactive formula in silver pipes the Captain wouldn't share the technical details of with the crew. "Probably too complicated for me to get anyway," the sailor demurred, as he hopped the rail to take his place half in the ocean on the outrigger.
A salt-reactive formula in silver was such a simple thing to promise artificially cool air. Iroh made a note to advise his father to order the Citrine to board the Swordfish with a naval engineer as soon as possible. His father would understand the technicalities once a Fire Nation naval officer copied the captain's work, and cool air belowdecks would vastly improve morale on Fire Nation ships assigned to tropical patrol. His father would be pleased, as would the sailors. This unexpected boon from the Tephra's drydocking improved Iroh's mood more.
He was, unfortunately, the only member of his team whose mood didn't rapidly decline.
The men, after catching entirely up on sleep by the third day of the voyage, got quickly bored of listening to music, playing board games with rich strangers, and looking for animals. It was to be expected of young men who were used to drilling at combat no less than two hours and running no less than five miles a day. Gen and Saburo did their best to curb their energy, sparring on the stern deck three times a day or more. Jeong Jeong, without freedom to be suspected as anything other than a man of money and trade, was restricted to walking circle after circle of the top deck, when he was not too seasick to walk. Loto sparred intermittently with Gen and Saburo, but on the second day he said something to his favorite stewardess that put him out of her favor. The boy wallowed in his embarrassment and frustration, following her only with his eyes now that she responded to his conversation with strictly professional coolness. Huaji didn't have the steam of the younger men to blow off, and was contented to play game after game of Pai Sho. But after taking pity on the sergeant's fruitless quest to win just once, Iroh let him. It was a mistake. Huaji recognized the pity, and was so insulted to be gone easy on that he turned down all of Iroh's subsequent invitations to a game.
The situation threatened to erupt on the fourth morning when Iroh, looking westward for manta whales, absentmindedly took the dish of lychee preserves and emptied the remainder onto his banana fritters.
Saburo cut in before his brain caught up with his stomach. "I wanted some of that," he objected.
Huaji, a sergeant for almost half his service, seemed to expand as his vocation took over. "What did you say, cor -" he cut himself off before speaking Saburo's rank. "What did you say to your employer?"
Iroh held his tongue against his own instinct to snap back that there were more lychee preserves in the world. Saburo already paled with regret and frustration for disrespecting his executive officer. He'd be sick with shame if he knew who he'd truly disrespected, Iroh thought, taking a breath. He put the empty preserve jar down. "Let's not spoil the morning with argument," he said, lightly. "When we reach Changbao, I'll buy you a whole jar," he promised, smiling. He added to Huaji, "We can settle the matter then."
Saburo would not enjoy discipline in Changbao hanging over his head, but by then, Huaji would have calmed down enough to give the corporal his restrictions or extra duties without first shouting until Saburo was half-deaf. And Iroh would buy the corporal a jar, he decided, regretting that he'd inconsiderately taken the preserves without thinking of his men. He waited for Saburo to acknowledge his peace offering. The corporal nodded, frustration fading from his eyes, leaving regret. Huaji nodded, acknowledging the timeframe. He would not forget the discipline the soldier was owed.
Leading men so often turned into moments like this, of holding his own temper to delegate discipline to the appropriate executor, to let all men do their jobs and yet remind all men of their place. All without earning their dislike for being too harsh, or their disrespect for being too soft. The tales of war he'd listened to rapt in youth were so full of glorious battle, one great warrior triumphing over another, cities lost or held, victory in incredible violence. He'd learned since that a whole war was composed mostly of managing other men - but no great storyteller composed epics about delegation, or the intricacies of considering a hundred men's separate feelings and leaving one's own for last. Yet most of what he seemed to do as a military officer was not win a few great victories, but win countless small victories in keeping bored men from taking out their boredom on each other.
The late Fire Lady Ilah, once Captain Ilah, told him to expect as much once he arrived in the field. He'd never doubted her, but he'd found year after year how true his mother's words had been.
The men had the freedom of commoners, though, to occasionally lose their composure. It was out of the question that he do so, even if they believed him only an officer of noble birth. As the stewardess collected the remains of their meal and the men went their ways, each looking to express his own energy in a limited space, he found himself once again circling the deck with Jeong Jeong.
"Looking forward to palace formality yet?" Jeong Jeong said, quietly, as they walked.
Iroh's smile was wry. "Looking farther forward to the field again."
Jeong Jeong's smile said "I told you so" without speaking it aloud.
That fourth night, Iroh awoke several hours after sunset. His mind refused to quiet. He left the cabin to walk the deck again.
The night was cool but windless. The paddlers splashed below, the steersmen calling every tenth stroke to change sides. The wooden boat creaked as it flexed with the waves. It didn't seem a great deal of noise, but Iroh was still almost fully to the stern by the time he overheard the voices raised there.
He leaned around the guest quarters to see the captain and the rescue boat sailor arguing. One second's overview told him the sailor was losing, based on the Captain's stony face. The sailor gestured with irritation as her voice rose and fell, irritation that a naval sailor would never have dared to approach an officer with. Huaji had been ready to drag Saburo behind the boat that morning for so much less. Iroh drew close enough to catch the tail end of the sailor's argument " - won't be here afterward. I can promise you that," she said, clearly expecting the captain to be impacted.
"That's your decision," Captain Fang said, curt.
The sailor scoffed. "It's the all I can do," she said. When the captain remained silent, the sailor's scoff took on disbelief. "It's not like you can replace me!"
The captain's glare made the sailor lean back.
"You're mistaken," the captain said, quietly and clearly. "I am done listening to this."
She swept past the sailor. The younger woman stood in place, slouching with the posture of one who has lost an argument they were so sure of winning. She put one hand to her hip and covered her eyes, ran her hand down her face, and looked far out to sea with a long exhalation.
Iroh cleared his throat as he walked astern.
"Pardon my overhearing," he said as the sailor jumped, eyes pale in the moonlight.
"Sorry you saw that, sir," she sighed, wiping her cheeks. "You oughta be asleep. What are you doing up at this hour?"
"Relaxing's a fine way to pass the time, but now that it's the only thing to do, I'm going a little stir-crazy. I can't sleep." He sat down on a gear locker set against the guest shelter and patted the empty space next to himself. "I can listen to some troubles, if you want to talk -?"
She sighed. "It's just a difference of opinion the captain and I have had for a while. I promise it's not interesting."
"Neither is staring out to sea without any conversation," Iroh pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "Are you and the captain - involved?" he let the question hang meaningfully, and she waved her hands.
"Oh! My goodness no," the sailor exclaimed, laughter in her tone. "The captain has real strict rules about relationships aboard." She rolled her eyes. "The captain has real strict rules about everything."
He got what he wanted, though, as she settled on the locker beside him.
"I've never been good at rules," she admitted. "And everywhere I go has got its own little ones for how people ain't supposed to talk to each other. The captain and half the crew are from the same province, and it's like they speak a language I don't. Part of that language is gettin' listened to by not bein' too mad, but if you state your position real quiet and peaceful, nobody even hears it, so I can't speak up for myself soft like at home -"
Iroh thought of the variety of the rules that applied in the field, that applied undercover in the Earth Kingdom, that applied in the Capital, and the contradictions they required him to navigate. He wondered what it was like to have ever lived without accepting that navigation as background noise in his life. "That sounds like quite the struggle," he said, wondering what distant little rural village the peasant sailor came from, to have seen her own variety of etiquettes to misunderstand.
"I just figured I'd have a place here longer than this," she said, forlorn enough that past his bemusement, he still felt pity. "I like this crew." She paused, looking at the horizon. "I wasn't ready to be done with this life."
"It must be hard, to jump from one life to another," he said. He knew it was hard. He was doing it then, traveling under this false identity on his way home to his identity as the Crown Prince, and then bound to voyage again back to his identity as a major.
He knew the place he'd been born into. He knew it was a hard place, but there was security in it. He knew where he belonged. He had the skills he needed to thrive in that difficulty. The sailor had the freedom to roam the world without anyone caring where she went, but as a consequence, no one cared for her. If he'd ever idly envied a position like hers, now he felt a little smug not to share it.
"It would've been harder not to come all this way," she said.
"You sound like you have a story to tell." A story was good for passing a sleepless night. A pretty woman was good for passing a sleepless night with. The moonlight gleamed on her dark hair, knotted tightly into a bun at the back of her neck. Her pale eyes would be a pretty green in candlelight, and her slow accent grew more pleasant the longer he heard it. "I still have some ginger in my cabin," he offered, remembering she liked it, "and jasmine tea I was saving for a special occasion, if you'd like to tell it where the captain won't hear."
He didn't touch her, but he did lean in to close the distance between them. He kept his smile slow, kind and understanding. The sailor looked at him out of the corner of her eye, vulnerable and thoughtful, and a little sad -
She burst out laughing, put her whole hand on his face and pushed him away.
A different Crown Prince of the Fire Nation would have exploded in fury. This rejection from a peasant who dared to touch him disrespectfully and laugh so hard while she did it would have gotten her as good as exiled in his home –
- his home where he couldn't always tell if someone laughed at his jokes because he was funny, or because he'd be their Fire Lord one day. Home where if a woman spoke to him, it was up to him to determine if the woman liked his company, or liked the prospect of his crown.
"Oh my, does that work for you a lot?" she leaned away, her humor genuine and without anger. She mimicked him through her thick accent. "'Why miss you look so sad, how 'bout you come on back to my fancy rich man cabin with my classy rich man stuff 'n tell me all your little poor gal troubles?'" she laughed again.
He laughed a little too. Obtaining company as himself without a crown was much more rewarding than with. If it meant a few rejections in the course of his life, well, what if it did? He would still be the crown prince of the most powerful nation in the world after a woman such as this moved on. "I'd have to take a few more sea voyages to tell you if it works," he said. "So far I'm 0 for 1."
"I ain't gonna lie, I'm flattered," she said, peeking over her hand. "But just because the captain and I ain't gettin' along doesn't mean I wanna get fired on THIS trip, and passin' time in a guest's room would do it. Besides," she stood up, but looked him up and down. "Talk to me in Changbao maybe? I've got paddlin' duty."
"You know where to find me, if you change your mind, right?" he asked, watching her go.
"It's not that big a boat," she agreed, disappearing over the side.
He intended to try again the next night, waiting at the same locker to get conversation to pass the evening, but by sunset something was wrong.
He wasn't sure why. The sky was sunny in the hour before, but the crew were anxious. They tried not to show it, but he saw the crew lashing the lifeboats at the stern with double lines, knotted for quick release.
Loto confirmed his suspicion. "Yes sir, it smells like a storm. It's that sort of . . ." He tried to figure out how to describe it. "It's hard to tell you what it smells like. It doesn't smell like anything BUT a storm."
Iroh took a deep breath of the air, trying to find the unfamiliar note that meant 'storm -' but he couldn't tell it from the rest of the unfamiliar smells of the open sea.
He returned to his cabin to ensure he had everything he'd need for an emergency. The only irreplaceable thing was the seal that confirmed his identity, in case he needed to leverage his way onto the Citrine and alter its patrol, and he kept that on his person at all times anyway. He looked through his gear, considering what else he'd want on a lifeboat.
He was still sorting when the knock came to his door.
Captain Fang bowed in his doorframe respectfully, and didn't waste her words. "I regret to inform you that we will pass through a storm," she said, with deliberate calm. "We've diverted to the nearest port, but I would like to see your float vest."
He produced his float vest from its hook on the screen wall, and proved he remembered the angle to hold his flare. The captain bowed to him again and moved to the next cabin.
He found his men, intending to brief them as privately as possible. The six men assembled at the stern. Gen and Saburo shifted and frowned, antsy over a threat that they couldn't stab. Jeong Jeong already wore his float vest, and Loto looked at him with quiet skepticism.
"I don't think you need to wear that yet," Iroh said.
"I'm going to anyway," Jeong Jeong said flatly. Already he seemed paler, seasick with anticipation.
"If the amount of money we paid for a safe ship doesn't keep us alive, this ship doesn't deserve to stay afloat," Huaji grumbled. "I think we paid for overcaution."
"Overcaution at sea's not bad," Gen muttered.
"Especially in a tiny wooden boat," Saburo agreed.
"Have you looked outside?" Huaji said. "There's not a cloud over a single star. Diverting the voyage will put us behind at least a day. What if -"
"We could pass the whole evening in could-have-beens," Iroh said, before Huaji mentioned the Citrine or the Colonies where they might be overheard. "If all the crew can do in this situation is head for shore, then there's no point getting upset when they're already doing it. All we can do is rest while we can, instead of working ourselves up over an emergency that may not happen."
The men muttered their agreement, and returned to their rooms.
He wasn't worried.
He couldn't tell the men why he wasn't worried, but as often happened when he faced an uncertainty in life, he remembered his vision.
He'd been so young when he saw his country's banner hanging in the burning city, as vividly as if he were already inside the impenetrable wall. Young enough that he shouldn't have understood, and yet he'd known in that moment that one day he would conquer Ba Sing Se.
It was as inevitable as his mother's death had been. He'd foreseen that, too.
The vision he hadn't wanted to believe had come true, down to the scent of her funereal incense. He would live to fulfill the vision that was of victory.
Distant thunder rolled over the water. He put on layer after layer in case he would need warmth against the rain, and settled down to wait out the storm.
The Swordfish had been so stable on their journey that he had no idea how Jeong Jeong found the motion enough to be sick at. The wide outrigger floats kept the vessel steadier than a Gem twice its length. But within an hour, the pitch of the boat as it flew up and down waves was so extreme that Iroh felt sick enough to need fresh air.
He turned the corner to exit the guest shelter, but met the stewardess Kirakira, wearing her float vest and gripping the rail.
"Please stay inside," she said, her tan face pale in the night, rain lashing her hood. He considered with wonder how brave the young girl was, that she regularly risked these conditions and was as stoic as a soldier now that she'd reached them.
"If I stay in there I'll be sick," he protested, bracing himself in the hall to breathe fresh air. The smell was so sharp, so fresh, like the air before -
"I know, sir, but -"
He grabbed the stewardess and covered her right before the lightning struck.
The crack snapped the hearing out of his right ear. His left heard Kirakira screaming, then more shouts, and the wooden boat was immediately on fire. Before he reacted, a wave extinguished the flames, but a softer crack issued as the mast above them splintered -
How the mast didn't fall and crack the boat in two, he wasn't looking to see, but he heard the five blasts of the bosun's whistle and Captain Fang's voice rising, astonishingly loud over the storm - "Abandon ship!"
The cabin behind him smoked in ruin. He pulled Kirakira to her feet and ran with her to the stern, meeting Eun the tea heiress with her baby howling in her arms along the way, Kwan limping after her. The sailors held the lifeboats in place by lines looped once around wooden cleats. Two men yanked quick-release lines loose at a loud shout of "Cast off!" and the rescue boat slid off the squared-off stern with a splash.
"Get in," ordered one of the sailors, manhandling him into the waiting lifeboat. Eun sobbed as loudly as her baby behind him, her body curled protectively around the infant, Kwan wrapped as much around her as she around their child. Gen and Saburo leaped into the boat fore and aft of him. Across the way sat the two merchants, Loto and Jeong Jeong leaping aboard as the last of the paddlers took their place on the outriggers, prepared to launch -
Huaji was not among them. "Where's the last man?" Iroh shouted to the sailor with the line on his lifeboat. He stood up, but the man shook his head and pushed him back into the canoe. He fended the man off easily, ducked under his arm, and stepped onto the deck already flooded with water.
The sailor screamed at him to get back. Gen and Saburo were shouting, the captain's voice rising over them all as she commanded him to return. The woman had no authority over him, whether she agreed or not.
He ran into the smoking cabin. He'd never put his float vest on, and he was glad not to have his movement hampered. In the dimness he bumped up against something soft and fleshy, and grabbed Huaji under the arm, pulling him over his shoulder.
"You're not doing your job," he joked, as he dragged the sergeant out into the less-dark of open night, the water flooding his boots. "Did you forget what the Captain told us already? It was only a few days ago -"
The sailor at the lifeboat cursed him as heavily as he'd ever heard a man curse, but on his shoulder, Huaji asked in a voice oddly soft for an old sergeant, "Where are we going?" and Iroh looked down to see the gash on the his forehead, the blood running down all the way to his navel, spreading even onto Iroh's chest. He'd mistaken the dampness for a deluge of seawater, there was so much of it. Huaji's jacket was half-on, his eyes unfocused.
"We're going to the colonies, remember?" he said, his own voice shaking suddenly as he dragged the sergeant to the lifeboat. A huge wave tilted the karakoa forward, and he grabbed the rail, holding them from falling back into blackness, his entire stomach suddenly boiling, electricity alive in his chest with terror. When the vessel leveled, both lifeboats were in the water, drifting away.
Iroh half-ran, Huaji stumbling with exhausted determination not to hold him back, and reached the boat in time to grab the bow. He hoisted the sergeant into the water, and the sailors grabbed him, pulled him aboard, reached for Iroh, shouted at him to jump -
Another wave hit the karakoa and heaved the stern to the sky.
Iroh tumbled down the length of the pitching vessel. He failed to grab the rail, slick with water, and plunged into the roaring dark.
He plummeted into the cold water. All the layers he'd put on against the possibility of cold rain were nets weighing him down. His boots sliced through the water without giving any lift to his kicks, as if he kicked only air. He struggled out of his coat, the water pressing his nostrils, his lungs already convulsing with the urge to exhale, the need to breathe and the fear that he would not get to a scream filling his mind. This could be all I feel for the rest of my life, the rest of my life could be waiting for death to take this pain away, the fear screamed in him.
He escaped the jacket and drew his arms down in a powerful pull that made spots cloud his vision. He broke the surface and breathed half a breath before the water surged over him. The wave hadn't even fallen from above on top of him - the water just swelled beside him so fast that his body didn't bob in time with the wave. The surface he'd been at was suddenly overhead. He struggled up again and sucked in a full breath, stomach tight with panic, mouth flooded with salt. His feet were pendulums dragging him down. Water loomed around him, like he'd fallen into a deep hole, and a wave passed through him again. He pulled to the surface and crested a wave, spotting the flares on the lifeboats, and they were -
They were so far off, and they were to his right, not even in the direction the waves broke. He heard no human scream but his own. The water had carried him in a direction totally unexpected.
The ocean dropped him back into a trench between waves, his stomach tossing as the next wave thundered over him and he struggled to the surface once more. He snatched another half-lungful of air before a wave broke again, then filled his lungs without time to look for the lifeboats. Already the salt in his mouth made his tongue feel dry. When he crested a wave again with enough air not to be panicking for breath, the flares on the lifeboats were as small and dim as stars.
The current had ripped him so far away in moments. He punched his fist to the sky and bent a jet of fire. He kept the flare going as long as his breath would allow, and the waves dropped him under without any air left in his lungs.
Lightning flashed overhead as he broke the surface, got a fraction of the breath he needed before his mouth filled with water that he swallowed, to faster get breath back into his lungs. The waves consumed him five times before he had the breath back to firebend again.
He had seen the Fire Nation's banner under the night sky, red with smoke, covering the Earth King's palace and felt the satisfaction, bone-deep, hard-won, beholding what he knew was his greatest victory in life. Destiny could not be denied - and he couldn't fulfill his destiny if he died here. If he could not see the way out, that was his mortal weakness.
But he'd never been so near to death. His destiny had never been so difficult to trust.
Lightning flashed again as he bent all his breath out. His flare was smaller than the last, interrupted when a wave greater than all the rest rolled through him and turned him over. When he broke the surface and breathed in the next swallowed him too fast. He inhaled salt water. He found the surface, struggling to clear his nose, struggling to make a path for the breath to come, to find enough to light another signal fire. Lightning flashed one more time, and thunder nearly shattered his ears. The waves lifted him sharply high, and he prepared his roiling stomach for the drop.
He fell down the face of the wave, slammed onto a hard surface and nearly broke his nose on wooden boards.
The deck tossed beneath him as he hacked. A wave washed over, threatening to sweep him back into the open sea. He landed against - against the mast that he could not see, but felt, and a rope being lashed around him, someone tying him to the mast.
So this is how I escape death this time, he realized, as his destiny became again a certainty.
Hands grabbed his and pulled his arms tighter around the mast, squeezed his hands in wordless comfort as the breaking waves roared all possibility of speech away. He tightened his grip as the deck tilted beneath him, as he fell back and met the resistance of the rope lashing him to the mast, held on to the mast with all his strength to keep the rope from being the all that separated him from the sea, rattling with every breath as he tried to fully inhale and encountered a bubbling sensation of saltwater clogging his lungs.
The deck pitched one way, and he fell against the mast. His breath rattled in his lungs. The deck pitched another way and tossed him against the rope holding him to the mast. He wondered when he would be helped onto the lifeboat, to sit with his men and be rowed to shore. He fell against the mast once more.
The deck pitched again.
And again.
Nothing else happened for hours.
He threw up his dinner, then his lunch, then whatever was left, then nothing at all five times over. The seasickness never ebbed. His head pounded with ceaseless thunder.
The wind and the water chilled him so deeply that he shivered uncontrollably, even as exhaustion consumed him, until he was so desperate to lie down that he would have let go of the mast and let himself be rolled off into the waves to inhale and drown, but the rope held him up when he half-released. He sucked in a breath as the adrenaline sharpened him awake, then ebbed as he sank back down into the misery of cold and motion and thirst, the salt he'd drunk drying him from the inside out.
Every moment that passed, he was certain he could not survive another moment like the one before. Then that moment passed and he was somehow still alive, still in an agony of cold and thirst and exhaustion, still with waves to contend with, thunder searing his ears and rain falling in sheets.
The pounding in his head and the roiling of his stomach was unchanged, but he opened his eyes and saw above him a single round hole in the clouds - the night on the other side purple-blue and full of stars.
The mast stood dark against the circle of clear night, barely swaying. The spinning was no longer from beneath him, but within his pounding head. He glanced to the stern, where the sailor stood with one hand on a line and her other hand on the steering paddle. Her head sagged with exhaustion. She stumbled slightly, waking up again. She slapped her own face sharply and shook her head, turning her darkened face back up to the sail.
He only knew he fell asleep as soon as he'd looked away because it was light with the grey of before-dawn when he opened his eyes again. For the first time in hours, nothing moved. The deck was still beneath him. The rope around him fell loose.
"Arm up," the sailor said, "C'mon now.'
She pulled his arm over her back to help him stand. He tried to thank her, but his voice was as dry as salt. He stumbled off the deck and onto sand, made it a few steps and fell prone, head pounding.
A pulling sensation, deep inside him, unexpected and deeply alien. He coughed like his lungs were turning inside-out and water splattered the sand. He breathed in, suddenly clear and deep.
Desperate to sleep but thirsty beyond rest, he rose up on his elbows. He began to ask for water, but her hand was already at his mouth, full of -
He pulled her hand to his lips and drank down what she offered, cool and sweeter than water ever tasted. He hadn't even finished asking for more before she held both out to him, her cupped hands brimming with sweetness.
He drank what she offered until he couldn't keep upright anymore. He sensed more than heard her collapse beside him on the sand. There was no holding out. He fell into sleep like he'd fallen into the sea, powerless not to.