A soft touch. Softer than he deserved. Blood, gold against the sand. His own mixed with hers. A whine, a whimper, as weight of skull and all there in raised up. For something that felt like guidance. Like a choice he did not know he had.

Fear and all the twist and hurt it brought-

Claws dug their points there between the ears. Behind the eyes, and beneath the horns. Came closed about something Param only just felt he had. Burned bright with the wrench of wrist, the rise and fall of waves. Voice there, clear in his mind. He hissed. As Delilah roiled and whipped. Changed back.

Param's eyes wrought wide and open. Pulled to his four feet again. Head set to shake the gold spray spattered about. Head ripped up in snarl and roar as golden streaks ran against his face. Thrashed as anger pumped his heart the faster. Rage burned bright as white iron. The black furred beast broke forward. Hop turned half sprint across the shallows.

Felt the water grow deep mid leap. Pads pressed against wet sand underneath. Waterline at his chest. He turned and leapt back. Paced as tail swished and mouth belt out a roar as waved crashed against midnight frame in white spray.

To be so powerless.

He was swallowed up by seafoam.
 
Delilah croaked for breath, face twisted with an agony that forced tears out of her eyes. She’d fought it, fuck, with everything she had left for how violent it was — and it hadn’t been enough.

“ Param! “ She yelled into the spray, knees and palms leaving their marks in the beach as she struggled to get up. Resulted to a pitiful, grimacing crawl towards the surf. The rowboat billowed closer, enough so already that one might tell the expression on the Shroudmaster’s face.

No scowl, no glower, no ripple of even delight, no nothing. Eyes behind the spectacles pressed closed, unspoken words in the back of the throat. Give me the other, by the surf and the sand. A faster current. Bubbles from lungs not meant for beneath the sea.

“ Stop! He doesn’t know how! “ Delilah’s fangs flashed white as she jumped to the taller waves, keeping her head high lest they take her under. Her eyes searched whatever shallow she could reach, salt and sunlight stinging them to narrow slits.

He’ll learn.

A bracelet clicked, shrill, as a wrist wrenched sideways.
 
And learn he did.

A bone cracking lesson.

What pain didn't find him, the water did. Filled up all the shroud did miss.

Gurgle after desperate gurgle. He sank. Rolled. Washed out in the riptide that was Kurkela, the Shroudmaster.
 
Sand sloshed and water splashed as red heels sank in, coat tails like banners for war in the wake of a leap. Twin moons, glaring white from the sun and pointed to the frantic shape in the surf. Delilah searched, heart in her throat, tossed by waves that grew ever higher. Danger in the force of them, the stir and pull of the Sea.

He’s fucking gone—

Whatever scream she had the breath to give was stolen by the salt-dusted wind, swept away into the breaking water that kept rolling over her. Threatening to take her feet and herself entire to the sudden deep. That dark blue, bubbling under. Was he there, floating away to the current? Her posture bent, pulling back like a spring, waiting for a spot to—

“ Where’s the fish? “

The voice made her snarl, balance almost lost as her focus faltered. One all too prim and proper was coming up along the shoreline, with the steady pace of someone who knew their quarry had nowhere to flee. The shambling shape of the First Mate and couple others at her heel. Bootlickers. Delilah craned her neck to yell.

“ What fish? “

With that, she dove. A decorated hand struck out, fingers taut.

“ Halt! “


*​


It had well gone arse-over-backwards and somersaulted from the perfectly fine sideways it had been the last he’d checked. That was, when he was debating whether to flee into the Sea on some wanton whim. Better chances then, if they get taken to the brig — Could break them out, or something— Negotiations, trade like, or— or—

Such fine little plans they’d had. Now, a bracelet reflected in the beaming sun, order calling to body and spirit. And the kid was going to drown. Squinting at the sun, he chugged the bottle, all that thick, brilliant orange glass and left where he’d almost hid through it all.

A binding spell died in the throat as a figure staggered, sent reeling by a dull, rectangular plonk just beneath the shoulder. A thunderbolt of pain through the arm, to bared teeth and a hiss. What hit her next was a battering ram come running down the bank — he did put his shoulder to it, picking her up — that sent her directly to the Sea in a grand haul.

“ What the fuck— Hey! “ The first mate yelled, mainly at his back as he was already distancing from where he’d left the Shroudmaster to fend for herself.

“ Stop! “

He wouldn’t. Water parted in a great splash as he disappeared in it and the boiling, breathing silence. After Delilah.


*​


She’d found the kid, caught by the arm and pulled up, and Jens got to drag both of them back to shore. Let go to softer sand and remained standing over them with frills and fins flared as Lilah knelt beside the smallest amongst them. Put her clawed hands on the sides of his face.

“ Param? “
 
He was gone.

Turned and twisted back to his usual shape. Naked as the day he was born. And that was part of it, wasn't it? He had been born to it. The old blood he carried. Same as Lilah. Sam as Kro. And every other horned and tailed Deva he had ever come across. Ma and Pa. Gold trails pooling neath them aboard a ship set to Altalusian Shroud Fire.

And the shroudmaster knew that. Every shroudmaster knew that.

Fucked if he ever. Proper and salty.

A clutch. About the bones. Claws dug. And the soup of it all trailed against him. Swirled inside him. Broke about him. Dragged grainy and slushed beneath him.

Heat. Fire. Wind. Gulls crying.

Param.

Heart still beat. Lungs still pulled. Full of wet. He choked. Coughed. Spewed. Brine and mess bubbled from his mouth as his eyes blew open. Cold as the moons they searched a world made of frayed light. Shapes that looked like they belonged. Coughs. Spews. Spills. Curled and hunched as all of him shook.

He cried. Wept. It poured out of him.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered. As he shuddered with storm filled lungs. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Still dreaming of that place beyond the waves. "Lilah," he moaned, hands clutched at whatever they could find. "Jens," rubbed his face against the sand. "I'm sorry,"
 
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