The trials passed, and Jorsie’s plans seemed to be working. Graeslin assured everyone that they were close to harbor. Zarik, however, barely managed to keep a polite façade. He fell into a quiet, brooding attitude as soon as he’d made the decision to remain on the ship… but while Graeslin had eventually come out of her own brooding funk, the young man hadn’t lifted from his. Whenever he wasn’t asleep, he kept near Hazel and refused to be separated from her. If Jorsie required her for his trickery, then Zarik was right beside her.
He wasn’t hostile, in any sense of the word, but he was detached. It was obvious to anyone who had an inkling of psychological understanding that Zarik was preparing himself. Fostered apathy for the possible moment when he might need to abandon the ship and all on it. Thus, the reason why he kept himself stuck to Hazel’s side was clearly so he could bring her with.
Graeslin sharing the full story about the artifact that this Oberan had stolen from her didn't help much. The whole thing put Zarik in an even worse slump of mood. Several trials later, he still was no closer to what felt like a possible solution if it came to it. Only Jorsie’s trickery kept things stabilized and hopeful.
Zarik despised few other things as much as he scorned the internal feeling of helplessness.
And he felt it acutely in those trials.
On the third attempt of Jorsie’s to speak with the Leviathan, things took a turn for the worse. He’d been near for the other two and noticed the difference in the ambassador’s expressions though he didn’t understand the ancient language… although he’d picked up a few words in the past several trials by listening and a brief conversation with Jorsie in which he had tried to find amends but only ended up frustrated by the Etzori ambassador by the end of it.
The storm worsened, the ship rocked, and a tentacle assaulted with a grab of Jorsie.
Zarik immediately took hold of Hazel, lifted her in his arms, and retreated from the ship railing. He went to press his back against the nearest hold that led elsewhere to the ship quarters. His wings fluttered. Hazel buried her face against his shoulder, scared by the sight of Jorsie as it was. Breath shallow, Zarik tried to comfort Hazel as he smoothed her hair out.
A false history? False accounts? Zarik realized what the Leviathan was saying. His eyes, lit up with crimson hue, widened from the realization. Historian records about legends couldn’t be counted on, how would they have gotten their information? What were their references? How much did history get warped by the passage of time and transfer of events into tales. He understood this from his brief dabbling when he’d started the spread of propaganda among the islands for advantage of the populace.
How could Jorsie had been so careless?
Not only that, but Zarik also realized – in those fleeting trills of his mind working while he listened to the puppeted speech of Jorsie – that the Leviathan had planted such discrepancies. He’d planned to live this long?! For the first time since Kasoria had made mention of the intelligence of the Protean… Zarik believed it.
He got mesmerized by his realization and the laughter. If it weren’t for Hazel squeezing the air out of him with her arms around his neck, he might’ve been totally dazed in awed observation.
It was a lesson. Zarik absorbed it, almost greedily. The threat of the comment flew past him. He wanted to learn more from this ancient being, now.
Momentarily easing Hazel’s arms, he gasped a breath and watched as the rays started around the ship. His eyes went from crimson to amber in color, though lit in the entire orbs with trails of light that flickered around his dark lashes. He stepped away from the safety of the wall, and levitated a few inches. Hazel still in his arms, he looked up to the sky where the rays were headed toward.
He didn’t appear afraid. He didn’t feel afraid. This time, Zarik was too fascinated.
Something walled them in, trapped them, and a slight smile hinted at the corners of Zarik’s chapped lips.
He heard the shouts of the crew, the rush to do anything they could, the rising panic when it seemed there weren’t many options – if any.
Then he heard Kasoria, “I ain’t gonna say it, but… y’know.”
Zarik barely acknowledged him. Other than a swift glance in consideration whether to hand Hazel to the Raggedy Man or not… he decided not to. Instead, he flitted back to the wall and set Hazel down. He handed her a rope, tied to a sturdy iron loop attached to the wall. The biqaj told his adopted daughter to keep a hold on it, but he didn’t leash her to it – knowing full well how that was a recipe for disaster if the ship jerked the child too forcibly. Better for her to let go and fall overboard than to get her spine snapped.
Nearby, he heard the confusion of Jorsie and the anger of Graeslin.
He left Hazel's side then. The biqaj had started to raise, leaving the ground of the deck, but he paused when he heard his initiate give an uncharacteristically enthusiastic shout:
“I’ve got it… I’ve got it!”
Zarik hovered in the air, looked at the older man, and stared at him. Though he only extended a sliver of patience for the abrogant to explain, due to the pressing nature of time, he didn’t have any doubt that something of worth might be said. The biqaj believed Kasoria to be clever, and he extended confidence for his initiate’s ability to have sincerely come up with a strategy without a hint of sarcasm about it.
The Orb to rupture… and… put up a barrier?
Zarik lowered a couple inches, closer to the deck near Kasoria. He hummed in a thoughtful sound. The blond kept his tongue still, however, until he was certain that the man was finished speaking – only for the Etzori to point directly at him. He blinked, his expression more of demure patience than shock or confusion, though a slight furrow of concern deepened on his dark brows.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep from speaking. Mage to mage, he didn’t like the possibility for his dreamwalking initiate. Even if it worked and got everyone else out safe.
“A few breaks?!” There was the shock, in an upset tremor to his southern-accented voice. Zarik’s eyes lost their warmth and a cool ice blue gathered in his irises while he stared at Kasoria and ignored the chaos that occurred around them. He spoke in a tone as if chiding a reckless child. “You cannot hold something like that for a few breaks, against a Protean! Let alone the first Protean! Forget death, you’ll overstep and might lose yourself because of it!”
Zarik shook his head. He rubbed his scarred forehead, then said, “I could maybe help channel the ether? I don’t know if it’s possible, but I was able to with… maybe I could with you too. If we could establish some sort of link to one another, maybe between our sparks…”
“Or… I can… I could try to transfer the Protean’s ether…” he realized as he looked at the rays suddenly. He insisted, “I don’t know what to do with artifacts! I can’t whip up a second orb or fragment or… It doesn’t work like that! Ma-maybe… well, if anything, I can distract possible attention from you while you prepare the first charge, Graeslin, and you prepare for the barrier, and then… then I’ll try to help regulate your ether, Kas, if you need it.”
It wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t a game. But Zarik turned to Jorsie next. He clapped a hand on the ambassador’s shoulder and said, “Tell me how to say in the language to the Leviathan that I am a Becomer, that I am hunted… hunted by another Protean. One who might be even stronger than him, with greater totems. Tell me the words, now.”
He winced, uncertain if such a thing would appeal to the revealed mage – difficult to discern the ambitions of such things, especially one that was so old – but Zarik had realized during the puppeted speech just how lucid the Leviathan truly was. Far more than he’d wagered from what Kasoria had said and the other conversations, for it had seemed easy to trick the beast and as such, Zarik assumed the beast was small-minded and the intelligence eroded by many eras rather than expanded. Now he realized it was the latter, and he felt foolish to fall for something he knew plenty about – acting dumb.
As soon as he got the correct words of the ancient language from Jorsie, he repeated them in his head, then flew up to the crow’s nest of the ship. The young mage held onto the wooden mast, and he shouted over the crash of the waves and the commotion of the sailors, in the ancient tongue. He could only hope he said it well enough to be understood by the creature. He repeated the words, if only to focus attention away from the others while they followed their strategies.
His mutated ether-laden legs slid out from his spine, through the back of his tunic with ease, shaped similar to a beetle. He used the sharp points to skitter up to the very top of the mast. He placed his actual feet at the top, close enough to touch the Leviathan.
With just a jump and flight of his wings, he could grab the creature, take a bite from it... devour and unleash and attempt to become whatever the Protean was. He could, but he wasn't sure if he should...
