Salveran Tides Ch. 06

"You're coming out of that pool whether you bloody want to or not, Princess!"

Leona's world flipped end over end. The blackness was replaced by a dark blue sky dotted with stars. Two pairs of strong arms hooked under her shoulders and hauled her bodily backwards along the smooth stone that ringed the tide pools. They deposited her on her back, the coarse grain of sand prickling against her scales.

Vi was there in a moment, the witch leaning over Leona's prone body. Her dark eyes studied Leona's face. "Leona, are you all right?'

"Does she bloody look alright?" Scarlet stomped into Leona's field of view. Her head was still very much attached to her shoulders, her face screwed up in anger. "What the bloody fuck are you doing mucking around with those damn rituals again?"

"She asked me," Vi shot back, still tending to Leona. Her hands cupped Leona's face, pressing gently on her forehead. "Leona, come back to us. What you saw was not real."

Slowly, Leona raised her hands and put them on her chest. Her heart was hammering enough that she could feel it against her palm. "What...what was that?"

"A swirling current of magic that peers along the line of the past to the future," Vi said. She put a hand under the back of Leona's head and helped her sit up.

A chill went up Leona's spine. "Then...was that the future? The fire? The blood, the death?"

"The only thing is shows with accuracy is the past, as those events are set in stone. The future is malleable." Vi's face darkened as she looked towards the pool. "Though there was definitely something else out there that was trying to make you see what it wanted you to see. Even if it was a lie."

"It's all bollocks, Princess," Scarlet said. The pirate was staring out at the sea, the breeze ruffling the stray hairs around her forehead. "Don't let anything you saw in there get in your noggin. All it'll do is ruin you." Her eye flicked down to Leona. "Now put some bloody pants on, the both of you. You're liable to poke someone's eye out with that monster, Vi."

Leona scrunched her body up, mashing her breasts into her knees and ducking her head away from the pirate's gaze. Vi snorted. "You're just jealous."

"As if." Scarlet turned on her heel and hiked away, leaving Leona alone with the witch.

"You're trembling," Vi said, resting her hands on Leona's shoulders. "Are you cold?"

The visions she'd seen in the tide pool seemed to be seared into her retinas. "No," Leona whispered.

Vi didn't press her, and didn't move away from her side. Both of them remained on the beach for a time, watching the waves lap against the shore and listening to the jungle rustle against the brush of wind.

"You said you've had dealings with my kind before." Leona asked when the silence had begun to seem awkward. "In what way?"

Vi kneaded her shoulders. "My life has been long, and I have ranged far across the world from the place where I came. Several decades ago I made the acquaintance of one Raeden on a shore far from...what is it?"

Leona had sat bolt upright at the mention of the name. "You knew my father?"

Vi blinked, looking from Leona's face to the pendant around her neck. A flush crept up her face and neck. "I knew your father, it seems. And, well, knew him."

"Oh. Oh!" Leona felt a strange wriggle in her stomach. The thought of her father...with Vi. And now she'd...

"We can never let Scarlet know," Vi whispered. "She would never let us hear the end of it."

"Agreed," Leona deadpanned. She shook her head, dismissing the squicky thoughts to be ruminated over later. "How much time did the two of you spend together? And what did you do?"

"Raeden came to me one day a long time ago. I had a beach dwelling similar to the one I have on this island, though this was on a beach on the mainland rather than an island. I was gathering coin for further travels, healing people from the local villages and towns and experimenting with draughts on the beach. He watched me from afar, then came to me to ask for my help."

"With what?"

"There was a sickness of some manner that was running through the altaean population at the time. He wanted my help to cure it, and all the altaean methods weren't working. I spent several weeks with him treating the sick and developing a cure. We struck up a friendship." Vi looked at the island around them. "He was the one to show me this place, as a matter of fact."

"Really?" Leona looked at her. "What's so special about this place?"

Vi blinked. "You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"The storm around the island." Vi pointed out the wall of clouds in the distance, barely visible in the darkness of the night. "It's a product of altaean magic."

"Explain this to me again," Scarlet said, her eyes flat and displeased. "One more time."

Leona checked the harness that Vi had made for her overnight. The witch had made it as an extension to her leather armor, a crude but effective holster for the Tidecaller. "There are altaean ruins under the island that house some sort of magical thing that powers the storm around this place. I'm going to go down there and take a look."

"And you're going to futz with it? Tempting fate there, aren't you?"

"Perhaps." Leona drew the straps tight, feeling them cinch against her scales. "But I'm curious about it. It might help me with my mission, add another artifact to my arsenal to bring back home."

Scarlet munched on an apple, juices trickling down her chin. "You ever going to elaborate on why you need all this stuff?"

"Probably not." Leona gazed levelly at the pirate. Behind Scarlet's curtain of red hair, Lexaeus and Yesseil were finishing work on the cutter, trying their hardest to make it look like they weren't eavesdropping. "I need to keep a few secrets to myself."

Scarlet arched an eyebrow, then smirked and chucked the apple core into the sea. "Don't dally down there. We'll leave as soon as you get back up. I don't want to tarry around here with Vi any longer."

"What's your deal with her?" Leona asked. "You got along just fine in the past, and now you hate her? For what reason?"

"I don't hate Vi," Scarlet said. "If I did I never would've taken us close to the Pentacle." She inclined her head towards the beach. Vi stood in the shallows, the waves lapping at her ankles. "But there's no small amount of mutual estrangement between the two of us. And little love lost."

"Does it have anything to do with your one gold eye? The one that's the same as hers?"

Said golden eye blinked, then grew distant. "Just get down there and do what you have to, Princess," the pirate muttered. She stood up and walked towards the helm, leaving Leona alone. The altaean stared after her for a moment, then turned, walked to the bow, and leaped into the sea.

The ocean swallowed her, welcoming her back into its embrace. Leona pivoted underwater and swam north, following Vi's directions. There was an inlet on the northern part of the island, underneath which was the hidden entrance to an altaean ruin. Though Vi had never seen it, she claimed it was where Leona's father had gone at some point while they were together.

So Leona swam her way around the island until she saw the line of the island curve inward into a small inlet. She kicked hard, angling her body downward. As she dove down, the light filtering down from the water's surface became less intense, and her eyes adjusted to compensate for it. True to Vi's word, there was a square-shaped stone entrance resting on the ocean floor.

Leona swam into it, her hand reaching up to slide along the stone. It had been hewn smooth from a deep water quarry, anchored in place by coraltite. There were symbols carved in an ancient altaean dialect that Leona wasn't familiar with, and she wondered what they spoke of.

Through the entrance was a long tunnel lined with blue crystals that looked like the same kind inlaid into the Tidecaller. The stones lit up as Leona swam past, and she realized that the stone on the Tidecaller was glowing as well. Am I causing this? She wondered.

As she passed through the tunnel, the mouth widened into a large circular cavern filled to the top with water. Leona swam into it, and watched as the light from the blue wall crystals lit up the whole room, casting the whole space in blue light. At the center of the cavern was a stone dias, and Leona moved closer, expecting to see something there.

However, there was nothing on the dias at all.

Leona frowned and swam down to the dias' base, checking it from every angle that she could for secret compartments. She did a full circle around and found nothing before swimming back up to the crown of the dias and looking it over again. At the top of the stone structure was a small slot aout two inches wide, surrounded on all sides by intricate curved carvings. Had there been something mounted there before that was now missing?

As Leona examined the stone, she realized she'd seen the pattern before. She reached behind her and drew the Tidecaller off her back. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the sweeping blade and the dias. The patterns were the same. She telescoped the weapon out to its full length with a flick of her wrist, turning the haft over in her hands. It looked just about wide enough.

She adjusted her body in the water, and floated down a little so she could jam the end of the Tidecaller into the slot on the dias. There was a water-muffled crack that blew her head over heels backwards through the water. When Leona righted herself, she saw the Tidecaller jutting upright, the gem in the blade glowing as bright as a midday sun. On the walls around her, the gems set into the stone glowed with similar intensity. Then, one by one, they winked out, starting from the bottom of the cavern. The dimness crept up the walls until it was above the Tidecaller, then with a final burst of magic, the last of the stones winked out, leaving only the one in the Tidecaller glowing.

Taking care, Leona swam forward until she could touch the long weapon. She took it in hand and yanked it out of the slot. It felt no different in her hand, save for the gem glowing bright. Weird, she thought. But it looks like that's all that's in here. Better ask Vi if there's more than just this one cave.

Leona flipped over and kicked hard, swimming out of the underwater chamber and through the tunnel. As she hit open water, something felt off to her, but she couldn't place what. She swam towards the surface.

Water splashed around her hair as she poked her head above the waves. What was wrong became clear immediately - the large circular storm around the island was gone, nothing but clear skies all the way to the horizon.

Save of course, for the line of ships flying the same flags that had chased them all the way to the island two days prior.

"Not good," Leona muttered, as the sails on many of the ships snapped taut and they began to move. "Definitely not good."