END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[saltwaterlungs]

She searches his face for a moment for... something. Then pulls her hand back, tucks it against her chest, and leaves to go look.

[goodweather]

When she returns, he's there in the exact same position as when she left, only he's put his hands down and he's staring somewhere vaguely downwards instead of up. There's still a delay, but he looks up this time when he hears footsteps circling back.

[saltwaterlungs]

"They might be being held somewhere else. Like if they were too dangerous to keep with the rest of us."

Which is to say...

[goodweather]

"That's what I thought," he whispers, though it doesn't sound like he means to.

He reaches through the bars for her again with dull, unadorned fingers.

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy offers her hand again, trying to recall if she ever remembers him without talons. Maybe it was something he got here, like her wall-climbing and everything else.

A soft huff.

"We'll be alright."

[goodweather]

That's it. That's all he needs to hear. He doesn't look any less lethargic, but he settles a bit, grasping for Darcy's hand like it's the only real thing in this place, not even him. Look at her, standing up with her head still on straight. If he could only follow her out this time.

He just sits there and breathes for a while. Let him have this greed.

[saltwaterlungs]

She sits there with him. When it's time to go, somebody will grab her, but she can spare this time.

Quietly,

"It's okay. It's my turn now, I'll get us out. I've got you this time."

[goodweather]

She says, like he's ever actually managed to protect her from something.

He wants to follow her, but there's really no better illustration of her action and his helplessness than her out in the hall on her feet and him still in the cage. There's nothing he can do. Maybe--maybe he can set down, then. Just for a second.

She'll have to go eventually. She's in the hall, he isn't. Gone again. Like how he came home for a few months before getting taken here, and now he'll never see it again. Is this how Darcy felt when he left her in that stupid labyrinth? She will go, another person slipped through his grasp, and the house will be empty, and the kitchen table will be empty, and then--and then maybe he'll have never existed at all.

"Come back," he pleads. "I love you."

[saltwaterlungs]

"I will," she lies, "I promise. Je t'aime bien aussi."

From the worst of her despair. From loneliness. From the stubborn delusion that she has to do it all herself. All of it, he's kept those wolves from the door. A debt that can never be repaid. If he hadn't caught her as she fell from that most recent precipice, she wouldn't be standing now. Darcy would have given into despair a long, long time ago without him.

Darcy sits, side by side with him. Leaning her weight into the bars.

"Lorsque j'avais six ans j'ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image," she starts. She only has a few more lines in her memory, but. Maybe it'll be enough.

[goodweather]

Phil leans back against the bars, still clutching her hand, head slightly bowed.

That's simply it, then. When Darcy disappears from this world, so will he.

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy stumbles through all the rest she remembers, or half remembers. And then she runs out of words entirely, and Phil seems no more soothed than he was a moment ago. She isn't good at this like Phil is.

So she stays a while longer. Let her presence be enough.

[goodweather]

Darcy’s presence is as enormous a gift as it could possibly be, but it alone won’t save them from this. It won’t dissipate these bars or take them away from his place and find them somewhere safe to land. That’s a job for many hands, and one that, frankly, looks like he’s going to have to just wait around for.

She has to go. He has to let her go. Break his own heart on purpose. She hasn’t seen to anyone else yet, and she will have to leave the hall with whoever else has been strange enough or strong enough or clever enough to make it out.

Phil extends a (ragged, ragged) wing to brush towards himself some of the other quills he fashioned, variously smaller and thinner things with most of the barbs shaved off. Pushes them through the bars, in case they might be useful. Plucks one more, which he can’t really maneuver to tuck behind her ear from here, but hopefully the idea carries.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Dad-" she tries to ward him away from plucking another feather, when he's already looking like a bird that hit a skyscraper. But obviously she can't stop him, no more than he could stop her self-destructing the previous month. There's no cure for this, not when he has every reason to be afraid and stressed.

She takes the quills and sticks them up her sleeves, feeling the feather against her cheek before she puts it behind her ear.

"I'll be back," she repeats, "I swear to you, I'll come back."

[goodweather]

Phil nods. That's not all of it, though.

One: he passes over a cord, around four and a half feet long, woven from Flan's hair. He'd picked it up for himself obviously, but if they're going to be leaving, then this is getting passed to them.

Two: one last hope. One last blessing. "Knock 'em dead, hurricane."

There. Nothing left to give now. All that he has left goes with her, and then maybe he'll have done one thing right as a father.

[saltwaterlungs]

A small nod. With all he's given already, it has to be enough. One last reach through the bars just to brush against him one last time, and then...

She stands up again, gives him a small salute, and goes off to her fate.