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The clouds in the sky have been building and swirling in a constant crescendo of oncoming rain since the early morning. Caspian can smell it. The moisture gathers on his skin with the promise of a storm.
Lizzie skins her hand over the dark wooden railing. The glossy finish has worn down just enough to develop a catching roughness to become shallowly damp; she rubs her fingers together, the cool water drying in the friction, and sighs.
“We’ll be in the heart of it soon,” Caspian says thoughtfully from her left. She nods.
“Have anybody above board begin tying themselves to the center pegs. I don’t want anybody lost.”
Toward the middle of the Crescent Moon , embedded and reinforced with metal, are thick stakes carved into the very build of the ship. In the case of a storm, all crew members are told to use tight-woven, heavy duty ropes knotted around their middle and secured to these pegs. The captain takes no chances.
Caspian leaves to do just that, spreading the word around to the twenty-person crew. Secure your valuables. Double and triple check the sails. Tie down the crates -- we can’t afford to lose any valuables or provisions. Most of all, if your hands are on deck, tie yourself to the center pegs. We can’t afford to lose you.
Knots are tightened and checked from the scattered crew. The low, thrumming nerves of anticipation radiate between everybody, especially as the wind picks up and the waves thrash with growing fierceness against the side of the ship. A particularly strong one tips it off-kilter enough to send a gangly youth stumbling, their rope fumbling between their fingers in a panic, the water that floods the boards slipping under the soles of their boots. Their rope pulls tight with a sudden tension, catching them from their descent, and goes slack all at once as they regain their balance with help from Marshall John. He’d made his way through the entire crew, testing all the ropes for this very reason.
“Caspian!” Lizzie yells over the white noise of rain falling against the wood. Caspian snaps to attention and darts across the deck, hands held out in front of himself.
He gathers his energy and pushes against the barrier of water, against the violence of nature itself, to try and keep the ship steady. Voices live and die within the throats of their owners; the wind swipes and whips, drowning them all in endless cascades of pattering rain and howling air. Caspian blinks through the rainwater gathered on his eyelids, taking a deep breath, and spreads his arms wide like he’s welcoming a hug. The water gathers in a floating, swirling pattern around his forearms, distorting the dark tattoos beneath, and in one sudden movement he slams his hands together, dispelling the uneven ocean building under the ship and leaving them with a relatively even
He glances back, worried for the wellbeing of everyone on board, but the wall of trampling rain has become so thick and confusing that he can’t see much. The water wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t moving so quickly, so violently – as it is, it’s a constant blurriness, resetting his eyesight whenever it seems as though something is coming into focus. He huffs and turns back toward the railing, making a rather easy decision: with no resistance, because he never tied himself down, he dives over the side of the ship into the savage waves below.
He cuts through the crashing seafoam soundlessly. Instantly his senses are dulled, and the chill of the water slips across his skin and seeps through the sheer, lightweight fabric of his billowing sleeves. The waves above and around him pulse and shift, dragging the ship along. He pushes himself forward through the water, a couple dozen feet below the bottom of the ship. It’s easier, submerged in the waves, to control them; there’s less direct conflict with the other elements when he’s pushing them from the bottom up from the safety of the deep ocean stillness.
With both hands outstretched, he guides the water away from the boat, leaving it on an island away from the clawing waves. He sighs, his magic coursing through him like a current, suspended in miles of empty, deep ocean on all sides, including down. He can see in the pitch darkness dimly, courtesy of his darkvision, but the only object in sight is the massive ship floating overhead. He keeps his focus there - his vision tapers off eventually, not too far from where he is, and the idea of that absolute darkness unnerves him.
Caspian doesn’t know how long it’s been when something else catches his eye. A flicker of movement to his right draws his attention away from his hyperfocus on the boat. He’s trained enough that the strength of his magic and its aim doesn’t falter.
The silhouette in the water sinks slowly, arms limp, short hair reaching toward the surface. It’s a body.
Caspian immediately lets his magic die away from the boat. It has survived much worse, and Elizabeth is an incredibly competent captain. She’s managed without him before, and can do so again. Besides, he knows that what she values most is the lives of her crew - she would not want one lost overboard.
He propels himself with a current and powerful legs. A steady growing light seeps in overhead, through the suddenly calming sea, but Caspian doesn’t notice; in one stronger burst, he captures the body in his arms in a whirlwind, and kicks upwards, toward the oddly timed beams dripping like oil in the water.
Only then does he glance properly at the person he’s helping. His face is limp, and his torso in Caspian’s arms is laden with muscle, but gaunt. The notches in his spine fit between Caspian’s fingers, and the cut of his hip bone through the thin drawstring pants is sharp. Caspian slows steadily to a stop, until they’re hovering a dozen feet below the surface, illuminated by a glittering sunlight that wasn’t there hardly a minute ago.
His skin is a deep seafoam, illustrated with warmly contrasting swirls and patterns that crawl up his arms and dissipate in clusters on his neck and into his cheeks, like freckles. On his neck, delicate, orange-tinted gills shudder frantically, small bursts of oxygen pulled in through the water. His fin-like ears float limply with his hair, where a crown of coral grows from the scalp.
Caspian curls around him, knees tucked under his back, palm cradling his head. Gillion’s limbs – his arms, his legs, his tail with its intricate flared fin at the end – dangle from his torso as loose weight, fighting to drag him to the depths of empty ocean. Caspian had forgotten how small he really was: a head shorter, his bulk bolstered only by the carefully curated muscle from exhaustive training.
Caspian never wants to move.
Nobody, including the crew of the Albatross , has seen nor heard from Gillion in months.
When Caspian breaks the surface, he’s shocked by the warmth that beats against his skin. The only remnants from the storm that was raging is a soft blanket of misty drizzle from the wispy clouds above. The sun breaks through the slight coverage.
Lizzie is bent over the railing, gazing into the water, but it’s the young human that almost fell earlier on that notices them first. Their name is Fritz; they’re a skilled sailor with sharp eyesight, though they maintain a hesitancy toward combat. They exclaim wordlessly in triumph, and direct Lizzie’s attention to Caspian’s form in the water.
Somebody casts down a rope. Caspian, before beginning to climb, creates a bubble of slow-moving water around Gillion to keep him from sinking. He wraps his hand around the rope and hoists himself up with quick, sure steps, hopping over the railing. Lizzie asks him something, but he doesn’t answer. Her irritation is cut off when she sees where his attention is directed.
He shapes the water to hoist Gillion upward, and lowers him gently onto the deck. The tension of the bubble dissipates as it hits the wood, and Gillion falls limp against the damp boards.
In the light, like this, it’s easier to see the damage done. The brilliant colors of his coral have dulled, and the rest of him holds a similarly gray pallor. His bone structure is starkly evident in comparison to when they last saw him, and his muscle, while still defined and strong, has diminished.
Caspian drops to his knees next to Gillion. The stillness scares him; he hovers his fingers over Gillion’s parted lips to feel the breath ghost over them, and presses his ear to Gillion’s slow-beating heart.
Lizzie’s voice breaks through the curious murmurs above him. “Is that…?”
“Gillion,” is the answer, from Marshall John. Caspian feels his shadow travel over them, and lifts his head to watch him lower himself gingerly, like a sudden movement would destroy the visage of their friend. John reaches out one large hand and then stops, afraid. His hand, even poised above, spans nearly the entire area of Gillion’s chest. “Is he -” his throat chokes his voice into silence.
John is a very large man, and a very strong one. But his emotions are bigger than he is. His entire body trembles. Already, a sheen of tears is building over his eyes, while Caspian is numb with shock; though he gets the distinct feeling that they both don’t want to move, or breathe, or blink, in case Gillion should disappear.
“He’s alive,” Caspian whispers. His throat works to wet his dry mouth, and he realizes that he said it not because John needed to hear it, but because he needed to say it.
Gillion’s form shifts as John scoops his hands underneath him. He gathers Gillion’s legs and tail together, and wraps his forearm underneath his torso. He sinks into the warmth of John’s chest, and his ear fins twitch sluggishly. Nobody follows John as he navigates the stairs below board, toward Rudith’s makeshift apothecary and infirmary.
Magic from the callnch shell, simple as it is, has become a recognizable comfort for Caspian. The easy incantation of communication spells elicits not monotony, but memories of late nights over still waters, of Gillion’s heavy breaths as he exercises a hundred miles away, of his quiet voice in his ear, of occasional group calls with John and his fishy friend that leaves him hiding laughter behind pressed lips. It’s effortless in terms of the arcane, but the deep, sure foundations of one of his closest friendships was built with its unadorned threads, and so its meaning is immeasurable.
He brushes his thumb over the smooth finish. The last they talked to the crew of the Albatross, maybe two weeks ago, they were near despondent. They’d traveled to Zero, and dropped off Ollie, where they stayed for longer than they’d planned. Caspian is sure that they had no idea what to do, so they stuck around for weeks on end, until they finally took off to… nowhere. Jay had almost stayed on Zero, if Lizzie’s intuition was to be believed. Chip was drifting. The rest of the crew were similarly unsure of their path.
Caspian sighs. Bites the bullet. Chip’s voice rings out across tinny magic communication.
“Chip,” he greets. “We found him.”
The shock of his silence swells in Caspian’s chest.
“Caspian?”
Caspian jolts. He’d dozed off only barely, tethered to consciousness by his worry, that constant running stream of thoughts just beneath the surface. His head spins, and he presses his hands on the wooden armrests of his rickety chair.
Gillion is watching him from the salt water-filled bathtub. His head is above the water, and his hair curls and floats on the surface, where the rest of him is submerged.
Caspian retrieves a bowl of fish soup from the counter. A spell cast by Rudith keeps it warm. Gillion struggles to sit up.
“Wh-” his breath falls away from him, and he strains, frustration painted on his face. Caspian sets the bowl down and helps him sit up.
“It’s alright,” he says softly. Gillion makes a pitiful sound in his throat, his vocal chords squeaking with pain and stiffness, and leans into Caspian’s fleeting touch. Once he settles, Caspian retrieves the bowl from the floor, offering it to him. “Eat first, my friend,” he encourages, and Gillion tentatively takes the bowl. He sniffs it, reproaching, but relaxes significantly when the familiar scent of simple fish and broth answers his investigation.
He tries to take a sip, but a tremor shakes his hands. They’re weak.
He glances at Caspian. The soup sloshes in the bowl as his frustration and embarrassment grow. In a few seconds a sheen of tears builds over his eyes.
Caspian presses his hands on Gillion’s. The bowl stills, and Gillion stares into the contents with a fierceness akin to battle, eyes wide in rebellion against the tears. Caspian can feel the trembling under his palms.
“Gillion,” he whispers. Gillion curls his fingers against the bowl, and Caspian pries it from him. His claws leave scratches in the wood, and when Caspian sets it down the sounds of it clunking softly is loud in the silence. Gillion sniffs, head hung low. A fat droplet falls down his nose into the water, and he swishes his hand once, erasing any evidence of its disturbance in the overwhelming shifting of the water.
“I- I’m sorry, Caspian, I don’t… I don’t know what came over me!” He laughs wetly and strikes the stray, escaping tears from his face. Caspian is kneeled by the tub, chair abandoned behind him. Gillion swallows, Caspian hesitates, the air desperately tense and silent.
Caspian lays a gentle hand on Gillion’s shoulder. “Gillion,” he asserts gingerly, “you have nothing at all to be sorry for.” Gillion sniffs and looks at him. Caspian continues, “I don’t… know what happened. I’ve gotten precious little information from your crew, but – be sure, my friend -” he lets his hand fall away from Gillion’s shoulder, and picked up his hand, pressing it between his two palms. “- I do not blame you. Nobody does.”
Gillion wipes at his eyes. “Caspian, I want to hug you, but- but I think, I think it would be too much. For me.”
Caspian wonders when the last time Gillion had been touched was. He loosens his grip on Gillion’s hand, worried about negative stimuli, but Gillion squeezes almost reachingly in response. Caspian keeps his hands pressed flat.
He tilts his head, fond. “You don’t have to.”
“But I want to,” Gillion doubles down. He is startlingly sincere. “I just- want you to know that.”
“Of course,” Caspian answers. It’s soft and floaty. Gillion’s hand is cold and wet, and his eyes are distant, bloodshot.
It’s a week before Gillion can stand unassisted, and even then it’s only for minutes at a time. His exhaustion is palpable, and he spends much of his time asleep or dizzily fighting sleep away. The Albatross changed course to, roughly, intersect with the Crescent Moon.
What time Gillion spends awake he uses to speak on the callnch with his fellow captains and his crew. If he’s not doing that, he’s doing poor facsimiles of training, which amounts to tapping into the long-dormant strength that eludes him. Otherwise, he speaks with Marshall John, awkwardly but kindly with curious crew members, or — and, more often than not — spending time with Caspian.
To be true, Caspian takes the free time he’s allowed in order to act as Gillion’s protector. Though he needs none, the act of sitting beside him when he can’t stand any longer, of helping him work through the emaciation trauma left on his body, of catching him up to the world that spun without him through small, inconsequential stories and thoughtful discussions between them on politics (as far as Gillion can manage), religion, the future, their role in it —
It, admittedly, balms the open, festering sore of Gillion’s absence.
He does not talk of his time away, and Caspian is… hesitant to ask about it. In a perfect world, it would be brought up at Gillion’s behest — a situation where he would tell Caspian, only when he is ready. But Caspian knows Gillion well enough to know that there is no chance of it coming up, unless Caspian is the one to take initiative. The issue is that there is precious little Caspian can use in order to parse Gillion’s own feelings on the matter.
What Caspian has noticed is that as soon as Gillion is well enough to travel above deck, he spends hours bathing in the sun, and gazing at the clouds. The proof of the world brings him immense joy. He watches the sea often and longingly, but does not yet test his strength against the openness of deep water.
The night, especially, is hard for Caspian to pin down. Gillion is loath to fall asleep in the total, still darkness of the infirmary. Even when above deck, the dim light of the moon and stars is often accompanied by a bioluminescence of magic, alight in the freckled scale patterns on Gillion’s skin, the light rising and falling with his breath like his very lungs. It is as though he, himself, is a part of the sky. Yet the constant magic, at a constant low thrum, would take a toll on anybody, most of all somebody recovering from such frailty as Gillion is.
It is on one such night that Caspian joins him. It is clear of clouds. Far away from them, the sky bursts in stars and plumes of purple, smoke-like galaxies. The moon shines like a newly minted coin, and its reflection distorts in the water like melted silver. Gillion gleams. He is a beacon, a beauty, and Caspian, for a moment, sees him as a lighthouse. What lovely protection, what isolated familiarity. Do not go to it, for the rocks it lights will sink you.
But still, always, he is Gillion, an equal, a partner, a friend. Caspian joins him at the railing while the sky explodes in light and the sea catches the shrapnel.
“Gillion,” he greets softly, the sound slicing like a knife in the quiet. “Are you alright?”
Gillion’s eyes linger on the horizon, and he drags them away to look at Caspian. “I…” he falters. He really does look like something otherworldly, here. “Caspian, I’m not sure,” he answers honestly. “I feel as though I am- losing time.” He frowns.
Caspian gives him time to collect his thoughts. “Losing time?“ he parrots, gently urging.
“Even when I am awake, it feels as though I’m asleep. I’ve lost something. I don’t.. know what.” He frowns, attention drifting back out to sea, unanchored.
Caspian breathes deeply, and the salty brine calms his senses. He sets a hand on Gillion’s arm, and Gillion turns to him. “My friend,” he starts, sincere, a bleeding heart, my friend, my confidant, my love, “what happened, when you were gone?”
“Nothing,” is the answer, but it is final, not flippant. It is weighty. Gillion would not lie to him. “Nothing, mostly, after- well.” He stops.
“You can tell me in due time, or never, if it suits you,” Caspian assured. Gillion blinks back to the present.
“I think-“ he swallows, and it clicks in his throat. “I could never tell, if I was awake, I- it felt..” he sways on his feet. Caspian steps forward. Gillion gently surrenders his weight into Caspian’s open arms.
It’s silent for a few seconds. When Gillion speaks, his chest vibrates beneath Caspian’s wrapped arms. “It felt like I was being forgotten.” Again, silence. He shifts. “But not- not just, the passing way, those thoughts you get. It felt as though, at any moment, I would be pulled apart, and I would be nothing. I was falling into nothing, from nothing. I- Caspian. Caspian.” He says his name like a prayer. “It was loss. I wanted to fall forever. I was sure that when I hit, I would be lost.” And then he is quiet.
Caspian has nothing of comfort. He shelters Gillion in his arms, even as the words ring in his head and he tries to make sense of them. Gillion’s skin glimmers dimly in a constant stream of magic that radiates from him like frost.
Caspian opens the well of the arcane and releases a soothing healing magic through him to Gillion. All that it does is relax Gillion, like hot tea, like silent ocean, but it connects them. The warm golden glow alights his crown of coral like a halo.