All six moons shone in the Aris Ocean, frothy waves cutting through their rippling, tentative glow. Will watched their reflections studiously, eyes pressed down into the waves as the Altiu coastline disappeared on the horizon.

She was cold and wet and tired, and here they were starting a whole other journey.

The sea was foaming, frothing — furiously spitting seawater, drenching the little longboat and its inhabitants, drenching the whole damned world. In front of her, a snarling Cynth was steering, attempting to navigate through the frenzy; behind her, the rebel Damon was sitting silently, stiff and on-edge. The two had stopped their fighting once they had settled on the boat, leaving in its wake a suffocating, inescapable tension. It was horrible; Will was uncomfortable enough already.

Just that morning, she'd had in her fingertips the most powerful rock in the world. She'd had power, period, power more than she could ever have imagined. And then it had all changed again, so fast it nearly gave her whiplash.

Cybele had looked for her. Cybele had looked at her, for a second before she went. She'd thought about it.

And then she'd betrayed her.

Except not really, because she'd never actually been on her side.

From far away, an Almoons fireworks display went off: six exploding crescents, popping rapid-fire. The longboat spent a second bathed in violet, before returning to murky darkness — Will could sense Damon behind her, craning backwards to watch the dissipating sparks. Without missing a beat, gaze still facing forward, Cynth snapped, "Don't try it, hibri."

Damon turned back around, shooting Cynth a glare and nothing more. He seemed impervious to the barbed word, the simple descriptor she'd hurled like an insult. Hibri.

Will curled herself into as small a shape as she could manage, knees tucked into her chest. She could feel her heart pounding, reverberating through her whole body. How many nights had she startled awake, certain she could hear Cynth's voice say that word — accusing, disgusted? Sometimes Cybele was there too, laughing, or shrinking away. Usually Will woke up before Cynth pulled her gun. Once she didn't, and the dream ended in strange grey ash.

How, how didn't Cynth know yet? It didn't make any sense — Will was no spy, nothing more than a fatal mistake. Was she only holding on through Cynth's underestimation? Or could Cynth know, and for some reason have decided not to kill her just yet? Like with the rebel?

Maybe her plan right now was to toss them both to their deaths under the water, to quite literally cleanse herself before starting the search anew. In that case, Cynth was in for a rude awakening; despite how much she tried to deny it, Will had power in water, power in the salt her mother had grown up in.

Cynth had no clue. No fucking idea.

Will could hurt her. Will could swim under that damn ocean water and pull Cynth down with her, pull her from the roots of her stupid blue hair until she screamed. Will could shove the human's head under the water and wait for her to beg her for mercy. She could find a rock sharp enough, down there in the sea, and she could show Cynth what she was really made of. She could saw off her hair, right in front of her, and finally display the gills hidden underneath. Will was so tired of always worrying about them, making sure they were covered. She just wanted to run, out here in the middle of the ocean, to get away from Cynth and the constant, paralyzing terror. She was soaked and cold and bruised and angry, and still she was only the dumbass who could never achieve anything, the stupid fucking side character only ever played for laughs.

If Will died on this journey, a footnote in Cynth Leeyung's indomitable story, would anybody notice? Who would even remember her?

She hoped Cynth tried it out here, with the choppy waves surrounding her like a shield. Then she could finally show her who she was. She could finally — finally prove her worth, finally gain back her dignity.

And Will swore to herself, then. When her moment came next, she wouldn't fuck it up. She wouldn't cower. She would hold her ground, and stand up to Cynth, and she would face the consequences, moons-damn it.

She had to. If it was the last thing she did.

Damon's voice broke into the waved-tossed silence, Will's rage-tossed thoughts. "Sooo, we don't have any supplies."

"No shit, rebel," Cynth snapped, the ferocity of her tone more than anything else snapping Will out of her somewhat murderous reverie. "Maybe you still haven't gotten it through your pea-sized brain, but we were in a bit of a rush when we left."

Damon ignored her jab, pressing forward in some brave show of idiocy. "Yeah. Well, we're still going to need fresh water. And food. And, you know. Gas."

"Well, you may be surprised at this, but Leeyungs generally have plans when we set out on missions."

There was a moment's pause, and then Damon said, voice icey, "Well. You may be surprised at this, but for some reason I had this funny idea that Leeyungs generally don't fail when they set out on — "

Cynth spun around before he could even finish his sentence, eyes flashing a dangerous storm-grey. Will winced preemptively, but for a moment all Cynth did was wordlessly snarl.

Finally, she spat out, "You never say something like that again."

There was a moment frozen by Cynth's dare, and then just when Will thought Damon had chosen his life, he began to reply. "I — "

So that was when Will broke in. Recklessly. Rationally — it wasn't like she wanted her potential ally to kill himself before she could talk to him. Bringing her hand to her covered gills and then back again, she shouted, "No, wait, we should go back to talking about supplies!"

There was another long silence, this time with all eyes on her. Finally, Cynth's slow, sarcastic drawl returned. "Really, Willa? And what exactly would you like to disc — "

"Oh, shut up," Damon interrupted. "That girl is right and you know it. Your pride alone is not going to fuel three people and a longboat."

Cynth snorted a mirthless laugh. "Oh, ha ha, fuck you." There was a long pause, and just when Will thought her gazing off into the distance was for dramatic effect alone, Cynth gestured to something ahead of them. "Cargo ship. Human. We head there, you'll see just what being a Leeyung means."

Before anyone else could argue, the boat had swung forward. Within minutes, the trio was standing — absolutely battered, dripping with seawater — on the deck of someone else's ship, surrounded by crates and gawking humans. Unfortunately true to Cynth's smirking premonition, word was quickly spreading around the vessel — Cynth Leeyung, yes, just in a little boat, waiting on the deck. If Cynth was trying to avoid authorities' attention, she wasn't going about it very well so far.

Will and Damon stood back as Cynth conversed with different crew members — first a burly, mustached blond and then a wiry youngish black-haired girl. She gestured to them liberally as she spoke, words slicing out of her mouth so fast she hardly had time to stop and breathe. Giving up on following the conversation, Will hesitantly turned to Damon. "You..."

He smiled tightly at her, still focused on Cynth and their surroundings.

Will let out a long sigh. "Listen," she said, voice low, "I don't know what your deal is, but you cannot just treat this — her — like a joke."

Now she had the rebel's attention, but he was shaking his head. "You give her too much credit, you know. You all do." He paused. "How do you think the Leeyungs even got to the top of your human hierarchy? They're good at scaring people, that's all there is to it."

Will frowned, trying to ignore the 'your.' Your human hierarchy — but how could she possibly tell him she wasn't a human? She couldn't. And it hurt her. "Yeah, and they have guns and power. You don't understand, I've been with Cynth. She's insane. She kills people without even blinking, there was this hibri Dalia and — "

Damon stiffened, interrupting. "Dalia?"

Will froze, the words on her tongue evaporating. A cold dread settled suddenly in her chest, choking up her reply. "Do you — did you — "

"You know what happened to Dalia?" Damon's voice rose slightly, and Will shot him a warning look. Quieter, he asked again, "You know what happened to her? Dalia, half-caela, blonde curly — "

"Cynth shot her."

Will had hoped saying it aloud would help, or — do something other than worsen the constant pressure of near-tears inside of her. But now that the words were out there, she wanted nothing more than to shove them back, past the slick sharp regret and dull, aching despair, past everything inside of her until the truth could nestle somewhere between her toes. Shot her. Killed someone, Will had killed someone. She kept trying to bury it away but it wouldn't stop popping back up, and how could this be the reality Cynth lived with every day, death after death after death on her hands? Will's heart was sopping and twisted and she just wanted to get it all out of her, because now here was this boy who knew Dalia and suddenly it was so much more real and Damon —

Damon hadn't moved.

"Are — are you okay?" Will managed, viscerally hating the way her voice cracked, the way she sounded so damn close to tears.

Damon didn't look at her — his gaze was set on some undeterminable point in the distance, breaths short and quick and shallow. "She shouldn't have done it," he murmured, voice so low Will could hardly make it out. "She — "

"Come on, dumbasses," Cynth broke in, having apparently finished her conversation with the crew member while both Will and Damon were preoccupied. Now she was walking forward, posture straight and proud, glancing annoyedly back at them. "I'm not waiting all night."

"S — sorry," Will managed, about to go forward before becoming suddenly aware of Damon next to her, staring fixedly at Cynth.

There was nothing in his expression but pure, unadulterated hatred.

Will took a deep breath and stepped in between the two, hoping beyond hope that her characteristic bumbling would provide distraction enough for the shitshow she'd just spoken into existence.

As they walked down to the lower deck levels, Cynth kept up a low monologue of what she had just/was planning to accomplish, set in simple, condescending terms. Got supplies, she muttered, and heading to Altno. Will glanced over at her, and was surprised to notice that she genuinely looked... exhausted. Cynth Leeyung, tired. But it was true — she stood tall as ever, but her hair was a tangled, unruly mess, her eyeshadow smeared. Will had had a constant, low-lying level of loathing nearly since she'd met the human, yet even she almost felt sorry for her in that one split-second.

And then she blinked, and what was she even thinking? Sure, Cynth's hair was messy. She was still Cynth Leeyung, and contrary to what that blindly courageous idiot Damon said, she was much more than only other people's fear of her. In just that day, Cynth had acquired the source, lost five-to-one against a slew of talented patrias, been double-crossed and had the source stolen by Cybele, taken a hostage, gone to jail, broken out of jail, stolen a boat, and now hijacked her way onto another. Of course she didn't look her best. She was dangerous — underestimating her for a second would make Will more reckless than Damon could ever be. He may have been a hibri too, but she had more to hide.

They reached the lower deck, and another crew member appeared from the woodwork. After talking to him for a moment, Cynth led Will and the glowering Damon into a small, somewhat protected corner of the level, a large suspended hammock blanketing its walls. "Make yourselves at home," she said, voice a tired deadpan.

The hammock seemed to stay up best when the three of them were all in it, and so Will soon found herself sandwiched between the other two. To her left, Damon lay facing away, stony-faced; to her right, Cynth too had turned away from her, blue hair splayed around her face.

Stuck in the middle, Will laid on her back and tried to slow her breathing. The moons' light filtered through the deck, shining on the sky and the ocean, and her heart wouldn't stop pounding. Here she was, between two strangers, with the only person she'd cared about gone.

What had she done? What was she doing?

What would she do?

✧ ☾✧☽ ✧

Idk Almonds what would she do? Whaddaya think? Whaddaya say?

Credit to food_is_my_jam for this wonderful chapter. Gonna be honest, she/I doesn't/don't remember how the moons to write these things, so yeah lol. Yay hype!

With virtual hugs, purple Google features, and like a murder weapon for Will or whatever,

Gellybean Flavored Cake

(G.F.C.)