i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow

He does not sleep often, but he had been sleeping when his world turned upside down.

He feels the rumble first—distant, distinct, otherworldly—and perhaps it is the curse of never sleeping deep or the decades of training, but he wakes quickly. Nyktos rolls in the water, his body stretching out along the current where he had been resting, and angles his head toward the side, a series of quick clicking noises helping orient him. It has been years since he lost his sight and most days he no longer mourns it, but that doesn’t stop the gut punch in situations like this; it would be so much easier.

But he doesn’t dwell on it. He can’t.

Instead, he makes his way out, his body morphing into the sleek body of a black marlin—one of his preferred forms. The heft of it is familiar and he spears forward, focusing on what he can gather from the sounds that make their way back to him. He should check on Helice—the thought causes a twist in his belly and his chest clenches. He should try to find the Queen and ensure that she’s safe. The Prince.

But instead his body drags him forward, closer to the source of that unearthly rumbling.

He breaks the surface of the water, coming back to his more natural form, the watery scales running down his neck glistening in the weak light. It’s not the first time that he has come up for oxygen, although truthfully he can’t remember the last time he did, but this is…different. Something new.

His mouth thins as he moves forward through the waves seamlessly, coming up to land. His feet find purchase and he drags himself up, the water dripping off of him feeling like pieces of himself lost. A swallow and the churning of his thoughts dull as he picks up a familiar metallic tang in the air.

It couldn’t be.

Another step, flinging out his senses to map the area, and when it confirms where he is, his heart stops.

It couldn’t possibly be.

nyktos

i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow

His body is alert, nerves thrumming with awareness. Decades of training have prepared him for this, he knows, and while the air around the ruins has grown stagnant, the metallic tang having long since faded, that does not stop the fear that settles into his belly like a seed. (He had once hated himself for every ounce of fear he ever felt, but he has long since grown past such foolish things of youth. Fear was as much a tool as bravery and he relies on it now, letting the adrenaline sharpen the senses he still has.)

It is how he hears the strange scraping of her walk, the drag of her tail.

There is a low, fast clicking noise as he maps the area once more, angling his translucent head to the side, finding the general shape of her perched on the rock. He cannot make out the details of her, cannot see the horns that curve and the tears that run claws down her cheeks, but he knows enough that she is different from the Baltians he knows best. She is more like the enemy, he thinks, but he quickly dismisses the idea.

It was impossible.

Even here, even after the heart shook.

Impossible.

He tips an ear toward her as she murmurs and barely makes out the sound of it, his teeth clenching at the designation. In his youth, he might’ve snapped back at her. Might have said something foolish and hot-headed as a retort. But now he just bristles, holding onto the reins of his temper with the sure-footedness of a soldier who knew exactly how to keep control. He angles his masked head toward her, the water still dripping from him and splashing onto the ground, and even though he cannot see her, you would barely know it for the way that he seems perfectly attuned to where she is. “Where are we?” he asks, and if he is embarrassed to be a soldier asking such basic questions, it does not show on the stern lines of his face.

nyktos

i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow

As she glides closer, he takes a step back, centering his weight and stilling his pulse. He feels his senses sharpen as they have for so many centuries and he angles his head in her direction, a watery ear tipping toward her. That strange, throaty clicking noise sounds again and he tracks her progress until she lands close enough to engage but far enough away to keep him standing in the defense versus charging.

“This land is old,” he affirms, because he knows in his bones where they are. He knows even when dread sluices though him and his blood runs cold with memory. “Older than you could ever imagine.” It is not patronizing, although it is hard to tell with how unyielding his voice is, and he doesn’t bother to soften it further to avoid bruising her ego on the edges of it. Nyktos does not know how to be different than what he is. He doesn’t know how to be anything but this soldier standing in front of her.

But she hasn’t answered his question yet—not the real one—and so he presses on. He will have to answer to the Queen and the General when he returns and he can’t return empty-handed. Not when he had come here first instead of gathering to them and awaiting orders. (For all of his obedience, he never had wrung out that final thread of rebellion from his bones.) “I mean the land around it though,” he clarifies, trying to smooth the conversation enough to gather information. “What this land is now couched in.”

She asks him a question in return and though he is loath to give up personal details, he knows that an eye for an eye is what is just so he looks at her without seeing. “I am a solder of the Baltian kingdom.”

nyktos