96 Ashan 719
Escape seemed nothing more than a dream. A fanciful idea to consider in fleeting moments of terrible anxiety. Well-acquainted with such measures to keep a calm countenance, Zarik knew - deep in his heart - that to consider escape was to consider something as likely as Immortal intervention. That was to say, something that would never come. When he’d been younger, around Hazel’s age, he had prayed to rain and puddles, and to streams and rivers, lakes and ponds, so U’frek might hear his pleas. He had wanted the Immortal to bring him back to the sea where he believed he belonged, back to his mother and to his sisters, and to the rest of the ship’s crew he’d known as family in the early arcs of his life. Young Zarik would dream of the water rising up, swallowing him whole, then spitting him out of a great wave onto the ship he’d been wrenched away from.
Such a thing never happened, though. It’d never been more than a dream.
So many moments in his short life, Zarik had imagined escape - to run away and never look at the past he’d left behind. He’d thought about it plenty but he never managed to convince himself to go through with the actuality. Not until recently, that was. Not until he’d embodied the temptation of power, within his sparks, had he realized he was meant for more; more than cleaning brain matter off corkscrews and bloody guts off floors. More than spending his trials risking his life in Lair to buy proper herbs at decent prices to make tea. More than soaking porridge from cave oats or constantly fighting the cold in the little stone home he’d thought to be so wonderful and luxurious…
…but turned out to be smaller, plainer, and sadder than even the basement of the home of a nobleman. Zarik, sometimes in his melancholy, wished he’d never seen the lord’s house. He wished he could have remained ignorant of what life for the wealthy was like. He’d been so content before he knew, or so he believed. Now, he understood the Heaps Commune and the things they said, about when they talked of the nobles and their parties and their extravagant natures while people starved to death in Shanty. He’d thought the Commune was as wild-eyed as any immortal devotee or other followers of various beliefs, but now he realized they only knew the truth of what the noble class got up to behind the protected walls and armored guards. He knew the truth too, now.
Maybe he could learn to be content, on the poor side of the wall, again. Happiness would come as it would, like a bird that visited a windowsill from time to time. Zarik had already learned to enjoy its company when it landed, but to let it go when it wished to. In recent arcs, he’d come to seek the stillness of water instead. The calm of nothingness. If no anger was wrought upon him, if no attention paid to his presence, he felt ever grateful for such respite from the ordinary chaos that was his father and then his husband. Both men had their tendencies toward emotion that Zarik could only draw parallels from. He supposed it was why the nobleman had felt so familiar to him despite their many differences. After finding his father dead, he’d felt so confused about what to do. Return to his fickle husband and beg for forgiveness due to his weak and conflicted heart? Try to help the people of the islands, to save them from further needless destruction?
Zarik, so badly, wanted to help them. He’d done what he could with bringing some of the Helians to Quacia to speak with the King, but he didn’t know if it would be enough. The biqaj felt such guilt for what had befallen the people of Agaperos, and still for the victims of his father as well. Though he’d never drawn a drop of fatal blood himself, Zarik blamed himself for each of these deaths as if he’d twisted the knife or compelled the magic himself. He had never murdered a single soul in his entire life and yet, he felt at fault for the deaths of hundreds of innocents. But what could he do? Nothing. He had no power to stop either Guilds nor Revealed. He couldn't even successfully stop his father, a lone elderly man. And now, he had no claim to anything but a bed and the life that gestated in his Zara totem.
Yet, he didn’t have nothing.
He had Hazel. As he’d promised her, several trials ago, he had adopted the eight-arc-old. He could still care for her. While she was just one little orphan, for Zarik, she already meant the world to him. Her existence meant he hadn’t done everything wrong. He’d saved her life not once, but twice, and he wanted her to grow into the strong, smart woman he knew she was meant to be.
…but he didn’t want to stay in Quacia to raise her. While he adored the city in his own way, he knew it wasn’t the sort of place that a girl like Hazel could grow accustomed to. She’d had a childhood of greenery and beaches, and she harbored a resentment for Quacians themselves - seeing them as part of the reason why her entire family was dead. So when the opportunity arose to leave Quacia, for the northern city known as Etzos, he’d taken the chance with little hesitation.
Perhaps he should have been more hesitant, the young man now realized.
He didn’t know where the rupture portal had taken them, but he knew it was against Jorsie’s intentions, and he knew they were at sea. At sea, but not free. The hold they’d stepped inside was meant to be their prison rather than a foyer for friendly reception.
Now his dearly adopted daughter had to endure the confusion and cold uncertainty of imprisonment within the hold of a ship. No matter how comfortable or stable he managed to persuade the situation, it still made them prisoners to strangers.
