RP:A Drowning

Summary: Solo RP. Despairing after failing to fight in Negotiation, Frostmaw Style, Dominic looks off the shores of Cenril for answers.

I: The Great Below

Dominic stood at the water’s edge, hands curled up in fists, the waves teasing at his bare feet. His boots lay discarded at a distance, along with his other effects -- haphazardly strewn in a path down the beach from the mainland. One long breath, staring out at the sea. Two. Three. Then he forged a path ahead, frigid waves crashing and parting where they met his form. He paused when he’d waded to chest depth; gathered ashes sifted through his fingertips and dispersed into the water around him.

Time and time again, he’d seen this done. In his time serving the Daggers they had never strayed too far from the ocean if they could help it, even though it wasn’t their primary source of trade. For the clan had had their own customs, their own insular ways of thinking and doing that strayed from the rest of Catal, rituals meant to strengthen their warriors or heal the wounded or send the dead onward to their next journey, and many of them featured the sea as a central piece. This was no different. When at a loss, seek answers from the depths with enough determination and one would either find the way forward or drown looking for it. Those who fell into the latter category would lend the ocean’s favor to their comrades through their passing. And the ocean was fury, and she was rebirth, and she was strength. She could do all things, and take all things away, and she was revered most highly for this. Being chosen to stay at her side was an honor. So there was no bad outcome here, not for someone desperate enough to take part in the ritual in the first place.

Dominic cast one last glance for the shore over his shoulder, and then stepped forward again and submerged himself fully. Never mind the threat of hostile seaborn; if that was what was fated to befall him here, at least he’d have his answer, and the sea would have her claim.

The brine stirred around and below and above him, a reminder of earlier days. He never should have left that ship; everything beyond it was a precipice overlooking a boundless void, and he’d been teetering on the edge ever since. And no matter how he tried to find a steady foothold, there was simply nothing here for him. Battles and duels and the vanquishing of oversized vermin brought no joy; it was Brand’s way, not his. Training or looking for trouble only staved off the inevitable: a looming, gnawing lack of purpose that lay in waiting, so persistent he could swear it was alive, a predator set on hunting him. And no matter which way he turned, he only got closer to the abyss.

Even once he’d found some way to make himself useful, he didn’t have the stomach for it. At Frostmaw, his knees had buckled and he’d been lost in the sea of combatants, the swirl of chaos overloading his senses, leaving him ultimately unable to do absolutely anything of consequence. It was the one thing he’d thought might give him a reason to invest in his continued existence, and he’d flubbed it. Worthless.

In the end, Dominic was a useless bystander in his own life, and everything of consequence -- for good or ill -- had been Brand’s doing. The undoing of the Sunderia. Saving Khitti. An untold number of deaths or lives otherwise ruined, in self-defense or... very much not. So what was he even doing here in this body that only ever half belonged to him at best, a mere barnacle on the vessel they shared? A parasite shackled to a host he didn’t even like?

Why am I still here?

The air grew stale in his lungs. He wouldn’t reach for more, he wouldn’t. Defiant green eyes stared up through the water’s ceiling and towards the sunlight that diffused through it, that sunlight that danced in jubilant mockery on his skin. The answer would come to him, or the sea would take him, or he would rise up for breath in a moment of weakness and have to start the ritual again from the beginning, rinse and repeat as necessary.

I can’t remember what I thought was so important… that I just had to escape, just had to try to make my way on my own. It’s all a blank now. Doesn’t make sense anymore.

And at last the sea responded as his vision grew dim, a strong undertow gripping him by the ankles and pulling him down and further out.

II: Underneath It All

Did you really forget so thoroughly? We’ve been through this dance before, kid. There’s nothin’ out there for ya -- certainly not some sea goddess.

Everything stung. His throat felt coated by some abrasive film, his eyes felt swollen, and opening them gained him no sight.

Do you remember anything about the times you ventured out into the maelstrom, lookin’ for answers, like now? And hoping you’d meet Gideon at the bottom of the ocean?

When had that happened?

And every time I dragged you back, cuz I wasn’t gonna die; wasn’t gonna let -you- die. ‘Specially not over some sadistic scum like him.

Dominic’s memories of his former master were blurred and tattered, as if he’d only ever known him through a hundred overheard tales. A few things rippled to the surface mostly intact, but far more were only fragments that floated away again before he could piece them together.

I used to hate you for that and so much else, y’know? Cuz I didn’t understand why you were so gorram weak. I resented bein’ stuck in this body, tied t’you. Couldn’t fathom the emotions tied to your memories; still don’t, half the time. Never understood how you were so attached to a man who was so relentlessly cruel to us -- unless he wanted something. I mean, seven hells, kid. Gideon’s temperament made me look like a frakking housepet. How’d you not see that?

His heart stung, too.

Heh. Turns out you’ll do anything to chase after a little affection, or, failing that, a little direction. Right down to drownin’ yourself for it.

But his lungs -- they burned, and ached, and felt like they might split open.

You wanted to reunite with a man who only ever used us. A man I had to kill, cuz he woulda killed us if I hadn’t.

That part, Dominic remembered perfectly. He still had the nightmares.

You wouldn’t remember, but after about the fifth time I dragged you outta that water you -begged- me to take it all away from you. I wouldn’t let you die, but you didn’t want to live without your precious master. So you shoved those memories off on me, castoffs like everything else. You were a husk without them for a long while, but that didn’t seem to matter to you.

He tried to grab at the memories, but they kept slipping through his fingers. Had he really never wondered before where all the missing time had gone? Why his years in slavery were the emotion-pocked blur of a fading dream?

And yet, somehow, here you are again.

Sound came roaring back to Dominic’s consciousness. He reeled, floundered vaguely onto his side and coughed up lungs full of sea water. The sand clung to his clothes like it was mud. The sun seared his eyeballs, for the instant he left them unshielded. He clenched them shut again and groaned. Had Brand pulled their communal form to shore? He didn’t remember that, either.

When will you learn there’s nothin’ out there for ya anymore?

The ritual -- no, he had to try again. There had to be something. The sea would have his answers. She had to.

You already have your ‘answers’. You just don’t like ‘em. Try to shut me out again if you want, but you know it’s true.

Dominic started to push himself up on unsteady arms, but they quickly collapsed under his weight.

There -is- no purpose for you. There -are- no answers but the ones you make for yourself.

Of course Brand would say such a thing. Brand didn’t need a purpose; he was content as long as there was fighting to be had, or a promise of future combat.

And you’re so -very- different, is that it? You’re not simply afraid of how good it feels to have that power, to know that you could hold someone else’s life in your hands? You’ve never recklessly put yourself in harm’s way just for the thrill of getting yourself back out? You’ve never craved a fight so badly that you bent the truth to try to stir things up?

Dominic froze in his struggle to stand. What? ...Oh. Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

Look, kid. You’ve made it this far by lettin’ me be everything you pushed away, and everything you didn’t want to be. As far as I’ve been able to figure, I wouldn’t exist otherwise. Your inaction made me, your denial, your amazing capacity for self-deception. But if you think of me as such an awful being, if you would separate my thoughts and actions so thoroughly from your own... what does that make you, for creating me? At least I can -admit- what I am, what I like... what I’m good at. You keep throwing yourself into that gorram ocean tryin’ ta deny that we’re two sides of the same miserable, gods-forsaken coin.

Dominic vomited up more of the brine.

Doesn’t have to be today. And I know you; I know it won’t be. Maybe it’ll be never, heh. But the sooner you embrace what you are, the sooner you can turn it into something positive... if you find that’s even what you want to do anymore; if you find your morals and your ideals are still so rigidly benevolent as you like to think they are. Cuz it don’t matter to me, kid. But in the meantime, I’m not going anywhere... and neither are you, long as I’m here.

Because -my- purpose? My purpose is survival.