apocalypsehowcomm | LOG - July Catch-all [Closed for Now]

She hadn't swum that far, had she? The thought strikes Mercy as she finds herself sitting on her surfboard, well away from shore with the sensation that she's drifting even further. The instructor had shown her how to duck past the waves, to get out farther where the waves were just a little bigger, but now she's beyond those breaks, the murky depths below her hiding... gods only know what.

This is too far out. She is too far out, and the memories of the kelpies come back to her mind. What if those are out here? What if they see her? She's not a selkie anymore, and she doesn't have the swimming ability that had come with the constricting seal skin.

The panic starts to set in. She's out too far, and while she's a strong swimmer, this ocean is so much bigger than the Abbey Pond, or even Essex Bay. She can't see beyond the horizon. Her heart starts to pound as she lies back on the board and starts paddling hard. Her drift away from shore slows, but she's still not getting closer.

"Help! He-hey! Help, I can't- Help!"

Nobody asked Ade to play lifeguard. Really, he hadn't even intended to. It's just that once you've spent enough time doing marine rescue drills, it's not exactly possible to just turn those instincts off. So when he spots a surfer fighting the tide some ways out, it catches his attention. At first, he just watches, unsure of what he's seeing. The pounding waves are too loud to hear anything from that far out, but if he focuses, he swears he can see her yelling.

Well. Better safe than sorry. He grabs a bodyboard and runs into the surf, wondering in the back of his mind whether or not c'nataat still has enough juice to give him gills if he needs them. He hopes he doesn't have to find out.

The woman hadn't looked that distant when he first spotted her from the beach but after a few seconds of swimming, Ade realizes that she's further out than he expected—and so is he. He suddenly wishes he had brought more than just a bodyboard. He's almost relieved when he feels the rip current tugging at him—at least that's a known quantity, one that he's been trained to deal with.

"Hey!" he shouts as soon as he's within earshot. "Don't fight it—just let it carry you!" He demonstrates, holding tight to the bodyboard beneath him and letting the current drag him along, focusing only on staying afloat. "Happens all the time. Just stay calm!"

"It's carrying me out!" She does have enough sense to pause in her efforts, but she immediately starts drifting backward faster, which is alarming. "Don't come out too much farther! You'll get trapped, too." Trapped and carried away out to sea, never to be seen again. She remembers one of her early conversations with Jon, where he'd been sneering about the tides and how destructive they could be. This isn't destructive, necessarily, but it is frightening. Is this part of the Spring Tide? She's fine with being in awe of a god, but the Brother had never frightened her, not until the end, and there had been more disappointment than anything else there.

"I don't- I don't know how to get out of this."

It is carrying them out and with alarming speed. Ade does his best not to let his own apprehension show, continuing to paddle out to the woman despite her warning.

"Don't worry about me, ma'am. I'm a marine—this is my natural habitat." He flashes a quick smile, trying to ease her nerves. The worst thing either of them can do right now is panic. "And you don't have to do anything yet. We wait for the riptide to weaken, then swim parallel to the shore until we're out."

Even a strong current like this can't go on forever. Still, beneath his veneer of composure, a different fear prickles at Ade. He can get the woman back to shore—of that he's virtually certain. The only question is whether he'll need her fear to do it.

"I don't know what a marine is." Mercy's trying to keep it together, and she's generally okay with that, but the ocean... The ocean really is starting to be a scary place, overall. "But unless them's fish or those things with too many legs, I don't think this is rightly where you belong, sir."

But... parallel. Don't fight it, just go around it. Isn't that the wisdom of gravedigging, too? Don't fight a large stone with your shovel, the stone will win every time. Dig around it, find a place with less resistance.

"Should-should we start paddling to the side now? I don't reckon we can wait much longer, the speed we're going out."

Ade hates seeing women afraid. It makes him nervous—and nervous is not what he needs to be right now. He tries to focus on the ocean around them, on the current pulling them along. It's not weakening, at least not enough to make a surefire break for it—but if it pulls them out much further, they'll be in for a perilous return trip anyway.

Whatever decision he makes, they'll need to commit to it and fast. He pauses for only a fraction of a second before making up his mind.

"Okay. Parallel to the shore now. Follow my lead."

And he begins to kick, swimming to the side as he'd instructed and resisting the urge to cant towards the shore. They'll only wear themselves out fighting directly against the current.

Mercy keeps to her surfboard and lies down flat again to paddle with him. They do start to head to the side, but she can see they're still going, out. She orders herself not to panic. A Sister of the Spring Tide should not fear the ocean. There is nothing in these depths that her new god has not known and created.

Except there might well be. Except Crys had regaled her with tales of monstrous things swarming in the unknowable depths, waiting to pull a body down so far, they could never reach the sun again. Mercy's breath starts to come more quickly. She's panicking. This isn't helping.

"You sure this is working, sir?" she calls before the sense of something touching her leg registers. It's nothing more than piece of seaweed, but in her mind's eye, she sees the mane of a kelpie. They're out here. They're out here and they're going to murder everyone, or worse. Mercy yelps flails, and falls off her board. It's only a second or two before it's swept away from her... and then catched on her cuff and starts dragging her through the water as she struggles.

It is working, at least to Ade's mind. Maybe they're still getting pulled away from the shore, but so long as they're still managing sideways movement, they're theoretically getting nearer to the riptide's end. Once they're out, they'll still have to figure out how to make it back to land, but at least they have floatation devices. There's still a good chance they can make it, even without c'nataat—

And then the woman falls from her surfboard and Ade feels his heart leap into his throat. He twists around and now he does fight the current, trying to swim back towards her against the tide. Had something knocked her off? Adrenaline courses through him despite his best attempts to stay calm and he feels the all-too-familiar stirrings of panic starting around his gut.

'After,' he thinks fervently to himself. 'You can lose your nerve after.'

The second he's close enough, he lunges for her board, reaching across so he can grab her and haul her back on. The relentless current sweeps his own bodyboard away in the process but that hardly matters. Ade isn't worried about himself right now.

"Hey, stay with me!" he shouts, desperately hoping that she's still conscious. "We're almost out of this!"

"I'm sorry!" Mercy gasps before coughing up salt water. "I didn't mean to!" She's conscious and feeling all the worse for it. "I felt something grab me. You-" His board. It's just the one between them now, and they're still drifting out. Albeit at a slower pace than they were before. Does this mean they're getting toward the edge of the riptide?

"Okay. Okay, you're right. We can do this. We can each take one side of the board, right? Point it toward the edge and keep going." They can do this. She has to be able to do this. Dying at sea isn't an option, not if she's going to foolishly take someone down with her. The thought of what's beneath them does make her stomach church, though. If she could just know, it would make this so much easier.

Relief hits Ade like a flood when he sees that the woman is still conscious, though it doesn't show on his face. He's hyper-focused now, eyes wide and instincts sharpened to a razor's edge by fear and training alike. When her face falls upon noticing the loss of his bodyboard, Ade just gives a quick shake of his head.

"Don't worry about that. Harder to get separated like this anyway."

Her plan gets a nod, just as quick, and he immediately moves into position on the other side of the surfboard. They can do this. They just have to make it to the edge and then swim diagonally back to the shore. It's textbook—they just need to have the energy to make it back.

He helps to maneuver the surfboard to face the edge once more, then looks at the woman again. How much strength does she have left? Ade is trying not to think about c'nataat, about his argument with Winter. But the part of his brain that has been conditioned to always prepare for the worst keeps running on in the background. It's thinking about infection vectors. It's thinking about the fact that he doesn't have his knife.

Ade tears his gaze away from her and focuses on the blue expanse before them once more. "Alright, on my mark. One, two—three." And he begins to push the board forward.

On three, Mercy starts kicking. Exhaustion is beginning to take hold and she realizes just how cold it is out here. The shallower water must be warmed from the sun because it's just icy now. Not enough to freeze her up, but between that and the adrenaline beginning to fade from its peak, she knows she won't be able to do this for ages. Just as well that their push out to sea slows more and more as they move to the side until there's no further tug of the riptide. They're out so far, but there's actually some hope of getting back.

"Think... think we can s-start heading in?" She tries to keep the chatter out of her teeth, but some of it is there.

LOG - July Catch-all [Closed for Now]

For Ade

no subject

no subject

no subject

I'm sorry my brain is slowly rotting. Gonna refocus on this so we can keep it clipping!

no worries! as you can see, i'm pretty slow lately myself

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject