Chapter Text
Blue’s fist struck the ground with a force that she didn’t know she was capable of, sending sand flying.
Did that really just happen?
Chilly ocean water came and nipped at her hands and knees before receding. She lifted her head as another wave of water sloshed at her; the galleon was quite far away now, sailing away with all the grace of a drunkard in the storm.
Did that really just happen?
She recoiled, feeling a sudden urge to look — she turned her head and Z was still unconscious on the beach nearby. His injuries had not ended this iteration of his life quite yet and for that Blue was thankful. At least, for a moment. Would this have happened if she were not in his company? Z was always so quick to reach for violence and Blue was so worthless in that regard now.
… then again, their company had not been of the polite sort; no one with good intentions boarded a ship in the middle of the night. Other atrocities could have befallen them, but Blue wasn’t sure she was against that if it meant the Forlorn Phoenix would still be floating. As it were now, but a few wooden planks floated in the calm island waters in her stead.
Blue couldn’t decide if she hated or adored Z for his tenacity. Would diplomacy really have worked on those men? Blue doubted it. She very much doubted that she and he would have been spared some sort of awful treatment, and yet she was torn. She couldn’t fight, not in close quarters, not with sword. Her musket was still very useful to her, but that was so hard to manage in a melee fight; she’d done it before, but this time she hadn’t been allotted the opportunity before cannonballs began tearing through the ship.
Getting to her feet, Blue supposed she’d ought to tend to Z as best she could and find them shelter if she wanted to continue to have company. Having not checked the map, she wasn’t really sure where in The Wilds they were, and neither could she see anything that told her where they were.
Standing over him, she wondered how Z had survived being cut, beaten, and she was pretty sure he’d been grazed by one of those cannonballs, if not hit outright. He was in rough shape, but as luck would have it, just as that doctor had said before, their diet of meat and fish made them especially resilient.
Blue’s innards twisted with indecision once more. Once, she had thought Z to be nothing more than a pain in the ass, a thorn in her side — a nuisance. She now thought herself a burden to him, what with her arm and him having spent so much time teaching her of the Sea of Thieves. She knew most of how the world worked now, but there was always something about some island or some area water or a group of pirates… always something more to learn. Logically, she was useless to him, and yet he had become so enamoured with her that he had gone so far as to state that he would be content if she merely tolerated his attentions. How… ‘How ridiculous,’ she forced her mental voice to say.
It was just as ridiculous as the passing thought to kill him and separate herself from him and his company. For as much as Blue wished she could go back to the day they met, do things differently and never accept him on her ship, she couldn’t find it in herself to actually do it. It would be easy, and yet… yet her hands instead found their way under his arms and then she was dragging him up the hill inland.
… something deep in her gut told her to chase after the sinking ship and find her first aid kit. What a stupid thought.
It would’ve been useful, though.
*
It wasn’t quite a cave, more of a tunnel, that Blue had been able to find shelter within. Calling it shelter was a bit generous, but anything to lessen the biting rain and wind was welcome. Something of a campfire had been left behind by a previous party and Blue was thankful for that, even more so when she managed to get it lit.
There wasn’t really much that could be done for Z. Blue applied pressure to one slash that had still oozed blood until it coagulated better. Then, ignoring the rain and wind, she ventured out for some aloe and applied that to all the wounds she found after removing his clothing to dry it out by the fire. She really should’ve done the same for herself.
There were quite a few abandoned items in the tunnel. A few precious bowls had been left behind and Blue let them catch the rain. The water was quite cold, though still pleasant. She managed to get Z to drink some despite his state.
With how dark the storm kept the area, Blue measured time in how long it took their clothes to dry. Z’s were dry fairly quickly and reapplied to further warm him as he laid out beside the fire. At some point — she did not know when — Blue observed the opening of the sky, clouds dispersing and moving away, taking the rain with them. The wind of The Wilds only calmed a little.
When certain nightfall came again, Blue barely slept despite how little she had treated herself to sleep since the Forlorn Phoenix’s sinking. It didn’t appeal to her very much. It hadn’t since Graymarrow, truthfully. Nowadays, the worst she suffered was usually a dream more strange than terrifying; Z’s presence had made those nightmares tolerable when they were bad enough to wake her. More over, she simply didn’t feel like it. That was to say she didn’t want to, nor did she feel especially tired. There was too much to think about, too much to fret over and so much to do with the storm finally gone.
Foraging the islands of the Sea of Thieves was… doable… once upon a time. Blue stared up at the coconuts in the tree and quietly cursed it before moving on.
Barrels, whether they from shipwrecks or otherwise dumped into the water, would regularly wash up on beaches. Sometimes just odds and ends did, too. On the beach of the opposite side of where they had landed, Blue picked a silver cup out of the sand and found herself somehow simultaneously beholden to it and uninspired, so she forced herself to release it and go through the broken barrels around it.
She wished she had a fishing pole. A quick dash and a slice of her dagger felled a pig and that would do just fine. She dragged it back to the tunnel they currently called home and butchered it there to the best of her ability. Cooking on a campfire without a roasting spit would be difficult and result in less than favourable delights, but it would be edible meat all the same.
If Blue didn’t know better, she would’ve said that the smell of meat cooking had been what woke him. Really, though, Z had been rousing slightly for a time now; the sun had shifted across the sky quite a lot since the first signs of consciousness.
Standing over him probably wasn’t the easiest thing for him to wake up to; anything else would’ve been better than just standing over him. Z recoiled slightly when he noticed her and they stared at each other awkwardly. He shifted, grimaced, shifted again, then forced a small grin up at her.
“I take it you feel terrible?” she asked as she crouched down.
“Definitely been better,” he said, voice weak.
Z shifted and she realised he wanted to sit up. Blue took one of his hands and pushed on his back with the other to help him up. It took quite a bit of effort to get him into a proper sitting position.
“Thanks.”
Blue looked from him to the fire. “I believe some of that is ready.”
“I’m starvin’.”
Blue rolled her eyes but couldn’t help a tiny smirk. “I thought you might say that. Stay there,” she insisted as she stood.
“I don’t think I could move if I wanted t’…”
Blue looked down at him, or more specifically at the hip that had been cut rather deeply. “Probably so.”
Moving to the fire, Blue poked and prodded at the cuts of meat around it. Some parts were burnt, some were under-cooked or raw entirely still; she placed those back on the fire after cutting edible pieces off.
“No pineapples?”
Blue paused and looked at him, ready to scold him for such thanklessness. Then she noticed the slight pull of his lips and decided she wanted to strike him for joking at a time like this. She resisted the urge. As she knelt down to his level, Blue recalled that he had provided her with one after her shoulder had been crushed — it wasn’t merely a jest.
“Unfortunately, I only found coconuts that were out of my reach and a few overripe bananas on the beach,” she said. “But I think this will do quite nicely in the long run.”
Z nodded in agreement. He nearly snatched the piece of meat out of her hand that she offered him, but she made a sharp noise to get his attention.
“Eat slowly.”
Z narrowed his eyes at her. Blue was unyielding.
“Eat slowly,” she repeated, emphasising the words. “You were maimed and have gone some time without food.”
He grunted a response as he chewed, then asked, “How long was I out?”
Blue blinked. “I am unsure.”
“Well, how many times have you slept?”
“Twice,” she said with such confidence she nearly believed it herself. When Z looked unconvinced, she added, “It was too cold to sleep with the storm still around and I have had quite a lot on my mind as you can imagine.”
His expression looked better. Z nodded once and worked on the rest of the half-haunch that she had placed in his hands. Blue ate what she had given herself and no more; there was no need for her to eat more, so she resisted the urge to grab more.
When he was done, Z let himself fall back on the ground. Soon enough, he was out again, but Blue was certain it was a restful sleep he found himself in rather than the endless dark of unconsciousness.
Blue hadn’t lied about the last thing she had said, though — there was a lot on her mind, too much to sleep through, it seemed. Despite how little she slept, she wasn’t tired. Despite all that she had ate alongside Z, she was still hungry.
Was that how that worked?
*
Z needed quite a bit of rest, it seemed. Blue didn’t fret over the passage of time; the second time he roused he was capable of being helped up onto his feet. Each time he roused, he would eat and they would speak a little, then Blue would let him get back to sleep in a standing hammock that Blue had found and dragged into their tunnel. Sometimes he would stay awake for a while after that; sometimes he would simply lift his head, roll around, and go back to sleep.
There was only a handful of times that Blue had slept since they had washed up on the beach. That itself was curious to her — how had they gotten there? Blue could recall seeing the galleon come around the island, so close to their ship that they had no real time to react, and then bits and pieces of briefly entertaining their guests before Z decided he could stand no more of their attitudes and attacked them. She supposed it didn’t matter anymore that he had done that, not when that crew knew they had been flying a Reaper’s Bones flag in recent weeks. When Z had kicked one off the deck of the ship and tussled with another, Blue tried to stab the one closest to her and earned a grabbing and twisting of her wrist. It was at that point that their fourth had mounted one of the ship’s cannons.
Idly, she brushed her fingertips over the wrist that had been grabbed. It was still discoloured when she looked, but it didn’t hurt. Her shoulder didn’t hurt, either; her range of motion still hadn’t improved, but it didn’t hurt. Blue decided that wasn’t a problem, and it could make sense given all the stress of the situation. It didn’t explain how they ended up here, though. If she had been in her usual state as of recent, they’d have both drowned. Blue must have managed to drag Z through the water with her. She had to have for there was no other choice — it had to be done.
Blue wasn’t quite sure what to think of the determination that threatened to overwhelm her for a moment there.
Her right foot itched and that distracted her long enough for her mind to wander. A haunting glimpse of red in the sky curbed that immediately.
Captain Flameheart.
Unsure of what she was seeing, Blue scrambled to her feet and ascended the island. When dirt turned to rock, she climbed until she could no longer.
Relatively, it wasn’t far, not across the Sea of Thieves but not the next island over, and certainly not close enough that she could tell what precisely was happening, nor hear what was going on. Surrounding an island that the ghost of a Skeleton Lord’s head hovered above was a great number of green ships… galleons? They seemed tall and wide enough to be. Blue watched one emerge from a tall door made of green swirling energy. Surely she was not seeing this correctly, and surely she did not just hear him laugh from that distance.
It was time for a nap.
*
“Y’ know…” Z started, speaking through a chicken leg.
Blue was certain she was going to dislike what came out of his mouth.
“… every time I wake up, y’re awake.” He paused to eye her. “Y’ all right?”
“I am fine,” Blue said, eyeing him back. “I have been napping here and there when the mood strikes, if you are concerned.”
He lowered his head some at her. “And eatin’?”
“Plenty,” she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
“And drinkin’?”
Blue could not resist glaring daggers at him.
He stared at her for a moment before looking down at his half-eaten chicken leg. “Y’ don’t look so good.”
She could have said that she felt fine, because she did — good, even — but Blue decided she wasn’t having this conversation.
“Am I supposed to feel good after what happened?”
Z recoiled ever so slightly. Shrugging his shoulders, he went back to eating and didn’t look at her again during that meal.
*
“So how long’s that been there?” Z asked as they strolled around the island.
Blue looked up at Flameheart way over yonder with him. Ah. It wasn’t the same day she had first noticed that, was it?
“Uh, a few days?”
“… y’ didn’t… I dunno, y’ didn’t think that was worth mentionin’?”
Blue almost told him that she thought she had hallucinated it. Almost. She just shook her head instead. Z made an exasperated noise.
“Is this not unsurprising?” she asked. When Z raised a brow at her, Blue added, “That he has escalated?” She paused and put her hands on her hips. “Or is doing anything at all, I suppose? He is back, and I presume there is some sort of story as to how he left, then, one that might explain what he is doing now.” Blue shrugged.
“Yea’, I… I guess y’re right.”
She and Z stared out at the distant scene for a moment.
“As to what he is doing, I have no idea.” She paused to look at him; he didn’t look back. “Do… Do you have any ideas?”
Z took a long time to answer in the form of a head shake. Then he said, “I’ve got no ideas.”
Blue decided that if they were both going to be liars now, they could accept each other’s lies.
*
As Z recovered from his injuries, it became more difficult for Blue to hide her strange new habits. She found that she could will herself to sleep, but fatigue did not find her naturally. And each time she tried to sleep, it was more difficult than the last time to block out the world. Everything seemed so loud, scents so strong, light so bright — everything seemed different. She wouldn’t say it was all wrong, but somehow, everything felt different.
When she found a pineapple in a barrel on the other side of the island, Blue had decided she was hungry enough to eat it herself rather than take it back to Z. He was mostly healed anyway, but that choice had unsettled her. More unsettling, it didn’t satisfy her. When she and Z ate them for pleasure, they would split one and half was more than enough. Something about them was just potent in every way, and yet…
Blue kept that to herself.
What she couldn’t contain anymore was a question.
“What is our plan going forward?”
Z looked from the sunset to her. He didn’t look horribly run down for the first time since their stranding. A good nap after dinner probably helped that.
“Whaddya mean?”
Blue gestured to all around them.
Z made a thoughtful noise and pretended to take in their surroundings. “I think y’re pretty smart. What do you think we’re doin’?”
She hated when he did this, but it was also somewhat endearing. It didn’t hurt that he seemed to honestly think that, too.
“I suppose at this point in time…” She paused to think, finding words and putting wandering thoughts together. “Well, we are stuck here unless we find some sort of transportation. We could try to swim, you have told me it is quite possible to swim rather far, but without proper preparation and supplies, I am unsure we would get far, especially given our conditions.
“Which leads me to another point: should we be separated, there is no real guarantee that we find each other — or anyone we know — before finishing a journey all the way back to Smugglers’ Bay. I presume we would like to avoid that, strength in numbers and all.”
Blue refrained from listing other reasons that were less logical; if prompted, Blue would not lie entirely about her having come to enjoy Z’s company. She’d never admit to having any sort of thoughts of burning the bridges entirely, though — the idea had been equal parts alarming and fantastical.
“So, with that being said, simply killing ourselves somehow to be sent elsewhere by the Ferry seems… well, and given the Ferryman’s displeasure to such measures, it seems ill advised. So we will not be doing that.
“My first thought had been that perhaps there would be a rowboat somewhere. It is rather likely given their prolific nature, yes? So I looked over the island’s shoreline. I have looked inland as I’ve walked. I did also look further out to see if our rowboat survived, to no avail.
“Our only real option at this point, I believe, it to simply hope another crew comes by and will be willing to ferry us somewhere useful.”
Having spewed quite a lot of her thought process, Blue looked to Z for his. He seemed to be considering her ideas.
“I think y’re right ‘bout all’a that. Mostly.”
Blue rose a brow at him.
“Right now, yea’, we’re just waitin’ fer somebody t’ come and take us somewhere else, preferably willingly. Or maybe without even knowin’, heh. But we could swim. Just not right now.”
She was about to pipe up and agree, but Z brought the back of his hand to her arm, stroking the skin that was exposed by her rolled up sleeve. She pretended she didn’t notice how dry and flaky it had become.
“Y’re… Y’ve been fine, I guess. I’m gettin’ better. But since we got here y’ve looked worse than I’ve ever seen y’ before.”
Blue narrowed her eyes at that. She couldn’t help a tiny grin and Z chuckled.
“All right, maybe not that bad,” he said. His expression hardened some. “But really, y’re not lookin’ great, Blue.”
He brought his hand up to her face, brushing away the hair that fell forward before tucking it behind her ear and coming to stop at her jawline. The way he was looking at her was so intense it was unsettling. Blue wasn’t doing well, they both knew that, she better than he, but she didn’t think it was anything to be alarmed about — the situation was quite stressful. Z definitely felt some kind of way about it but wasn’t saying so.
“I’m fine,” she blurted out. “I feel perfectly fine, so… so stop trying to make me feel terrible. I do that well enough on my own.”
A moment passed and he chuckled.
Blue was eternally thankful when Z said nothing more about the matter.
*
She said she would sleep nearby after getting Z into his bed of a hammock and so pretended to do so for quite a time — Z had fought sleep off long enough to check her after a while, something she had worried he’d do. After that, though, it took him with a vengeance if the snoring was anything to go by.
Blue found herself sat on a great flat rock. There, in relative darkness, she watched the waves come in, their crests illuminated by the moon and middle-of-the-night aurora. All in all, it was actually fairly bright for nighttime, something she had grown used to here.
There were a lot of things she had grown used to in this strange world. What she couldn’t get used to was the irritation of something being in her sock. Blue had shifted her foot some a moment ago and now it felt wrong. When she removed her boot, something struck her gut as being wrong, but there was nothing to prompt such a feeling, so she willed herself to ignore it. When she began removing her sock, something felt particularly wrong, and when she looked, she was dumbstruck.
Nighttime was bright in the Sea of Thieves, but she decided that didn’t mean she was seeing clearly. Blue brought her hand to her foot — no, there was some sort of… some sort of gouge in her foot? She could clearly feel the indentation at the point where her big toe started in her foot, as though the flesh were missing, like it had just come off. The discolouring and dryness of the remaining flesh wasn’t right, either.
Blue hadn’t been sleeping much. It would have been easy to blame that for what she was seeing, but no, she knew — her foot was rotting away.
Curious, concerned, even, Blue pondered things. Whatever was going on, surely they could do something about it. If it was a worst-case scenario, surely they could amputate the leg and she could have a new way to relate to Z.
Blue paused when she got her pant leg up to her knee and the discolouration certainly went further up, dumbfounded. Perhaps not quite like Z then? She rolled her pant leg back down. Hands on her abdomen, Blue already knew what she was about to see for she could feel it, feel the taunt skin of her stomach and the stiffness of more than mere skin drying. She felt no shock as she lifted her shirt and pushed her belt down to look — there, contained mostly to one side but spreading up and across was more rot, less advanced, but there all the same.
Blue looked at her foot again; she could see just so little of it, at the side where her big toe began, but it was undeniable now: bone. This was no boot rot, no infection run rampant — she felt good, just like Briggsy had when the curse began taking hold.
Blue knew deep down that she would not be so lucky to be a Lord, if such a fate could even be called luck.
For now, she felt good. For now, with sleep eluding her, she had time to contemplate her incoming death, one that the Ferry could not correct. Or at least, not to her knowledge. It was a great curiosity, however, and so attractive a thought that Blue’s hand had wandered to the grip of her dagger. She wondered… or was it too late?
It felt like it was too late for anything and everything.