A speck of dark blue in the distance grows and grows until there’s a planet right in front of them. Jaiyra is too dizzy to look closely at it, to inspect it for any more dangers lurking beneath the surface, but he doesn’t have much choice except to aim for it when the meatball creature hits them its final time, lurching them into the planet’s gravitational pull.
Vision unblurring, he makes out the side of crashing waves, and for a moment he thinks they’re going to sink to the bottom of some deep ocean, suffocating under water rather than within a meaty flesh monster. At least they won’t end up a part of the waves as one homogeneous being, with him forced to listen to the sound of Enoch Gris’ ugly crying for the rest of his eternity.
The ocean ends up being only a few feet deep. Malvedae had thought enough to reach out to the controls when they broke the horizon, softening their landing with their single engine.
Jaiyra releases the prince long enough to turn over and hurl.
“Did it f-follow?” Enoch Gris demanded, “Did-did– bleurg–”
Braus Straus hurled ugly too. Jaiyra purged even harder after seeing it.
The prince began to shake his head, and then froze, reaching out to grip the control panel and stabilize himself so he didn’t throw up as well. It wasn’t something Jaiyra thought Daea would even be able to do, and even if it was, he doubted the prince would do it. It wasn’t very royal at all, Jaiyra imagined.
“No,” the prince said, quietly. And then, after staring up at the horizon harder, “It stopped just before the gravitational pull reached us. It doesn’t seem to want to approach the planet.”
The monstrous being not wanting to get close to the planet they just landed on? The loud silence that followed the prince’s statement confirmed just what everyone thought of that. The waves were probably going to try and start consuming them too the second they caught their breath.
On edge, Jaiyra straightened, still rubbing at his temples to try and stomp the hammering headache. By the time they reached home, his brain would be completely scrambled with all the tossing and turning it was doing around in his head. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was how he died. Not to a flesh consuming monster, or a raging ocean, or any of the other horrors that lurked within the Spyre realm, but because he couldn’t handle all the dizziness he was being forced through. Rais weren’t meant to sustain such movement.
Neither were Braus Straus or Daea, but neither Malvedae or Enoch Gris took longer than a few minutes to recompose themselves and balk out the window at the horizon.
“They don’t have any oceans on Braus Straus,” Enoch Gris admitted, voice filled with pure awe. She didn’t seem to realize yet that the ocean didn’t have an apparent end in sight and the only surfaces available were a few rocks jutting out of the surf, which couldn’t be a good sign at all. “It’s more gorgeous than they described, don’t you think, fair–Malvedae?”
The prince hummed non-committedly, gaze still darkened from the horrors they’d just narrowly escaped, but he probably could’ve said it was the most hideous sight he’d ever seen and Enoch Gris wouldn’t bat an eye as awed as she was by the vision before them. Being that her planet was made out of acres and acres of sand, Jaiyra couldn’t peg her for her astonishment. From what he was aware, the small being spent most of their time digging tunnels to escape the hundreds of stars around their planet and all the heat it put out. Jaiyra had never actually been in any of those tunnels, as small as they were, but he couldn’t imagine they had any large seas or oceans hidden beneath the crust of their planet. It was probably dark and murky, and smelt just as bad as Enoch Gris herself.
On Wruunk they never had anything as big and grand as the waters before them now, their closest thing to a lake being the streets after the sewage drains clogged up during a heavy shower. When Rai Hela first showed him a lake on Core 786, he’d been fifteen and nothing could impress him. He’d simply shrugged when one of her crewmates animatedly told him about how gorgeous the waters could be. And then he nearly drowned to death when that same crew member taught him how to swim (without informing him beforehand that she couldn’t swim either).
If he tilted his head a certain way and squinted, watching the way the light danced across the waves, highlighting their ends right before they crashed into one another, or the way they hit the rocks and sprayed upwards into little gems, he supposed it could be considered pretty. But by the time he’d noticed the light, his head was wrapped up in wondering where it was coming from. They hadn’t passed near any close stars from what he was aware of.
The view from within their escape pod was limiting, and there was an engine he needed to check out, so Jaiyra headed for the door.
“Where are you going?!” Enoch Gris demanded, turning quickly from her admiring to set an admonishing look on him. As if she thought he was running away from them, that he even had the ability to on a place like this. What was she expecting him to do? Swim his way back home on his own?
Arching an eyebrow, Jaiyra hit the side of the ship with his fist demonstratively. Immediately, the ship clanked back a multitude of complaints, rumbling concerningly. Truer words had never been spoken, the ship needed a tune up.
“Let me go out first,” Malvedae said, tearing his gaze away from the horizon at the sound of the complaining pod. Rolling his eyes when Jaiyra opened his mouth to routinely refuse the offered assistance, he reasoned, “You’re Origin, aren’t you? Daea are less susceptible to toxins. I’ll just check the air quickly and then you can do your broody, lone wolf thing and fix the engines.”
“Broody lone-wolf–” Jaiyra started, unsure how he should take such a comment, but figuring it was probably meant as an insult based on the tone at least. Cutting off when he remembered something, the last time he’d been called an Origin, he quickly changed the subject. “Who’s Ayri?”
Malvedae, mouth already open to argue back against whatever Jaiyra was likely going to say before that moment about Rais’ being able to hold their breath and needing to fix their engines on their own, froze.
“Ayri Ira?” Enoch Gris questioned, pointedly, as though he should’ve known her name already.
Jaiyra supposed it wasn’t the best time to ask such a question and take the prince off guard, maybe it could even be considered rude, but in the heat of their escape he hadn’t had the chance to really think over everything that had happened. And he wasn’t sure if he’d get another chance to, with how often his brain was being spun around in his head and danger had them in a constant chokehold. There likely wouldn’t be a better time to clear the air than now, when the only danger they had to face was a foot deep and rocking gently against the edge of the ship.
And it had admittedly the tone of Ayri Ira had admittedly bothered him. Especially now thinking about it head on. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop thinking about it until the prince cleared the air of why he was on nickname basis with a Pleiad commander. Why a key to the destruction of the universe was on such a familiar basis with one of the anticipated destructors.
“She’s not–” Malvedae started, crossing his arms and turning his head to the side. Face falling flat then, impassive, he seemed contemplative for a moment, as if he were deciding whether he wanted to tell Jaiyra or not. Then defiantly, he finally said, “She’s none of your business.”
Jaiyra would argue that everything to do with this mission was Rai business, and thus, his. And you don’t mess with Rai business.
“I think I deserve to know why you were so willing to turn all of us in for her sake,” Jaiyra said, turning to Enoch Gris expectantly. He would’ve preferred to get the answers from the prince, but if he wasn’t willing to speak, it was clear the Braus Straus knew. And he was never one to shy away from easy information. “So? Who is she and why does she call the Fairest Grace of the Daeadem Dynasty Mal.”
Enoch Gris blinked slowly, as if taken by the information herself. Turning to the prince, she frowned, “Is this true, your fair–Malvedae?”
Malvedae’s blank look morphed into a scowl as he rounded on Jaiyra again. “Why does it matter? We’re in the middle of the Spyres with no clear idea for escape and you think the most important thing is to question my relation to–”
“The commander and founder of the Pleiad,” Enoch Gris cut in. Her voice was quiet, soft and contemplative, but seemed to ring out in the hangar as though it were a shout she’d let out at the top of her little lungs.
Jaiyra rolled the thought around in his mind. How Malvedae seemed so willing to trust the Pleiad commander and back their ship back into the Armeggedon, how he had flinched at the sound of her voice and heeded her commands passively. How he had admitted that he came to their hands himself, rather than had a Rai take him there. Each piece of information continued to get more and more damning.
The prince seemed to realize this himself as well, turning away from them and crossing his arms over his chest tightly. Still not budging on what he had to say about their relationship, continuing on with his stubborn silence on the matter.
Technically, he was right. His relation to the Pleiad commander hardly mattered now that they were lost in space, stuck in a dimension that no one understood or had ever returned from, being chased by flesh monsters and stranded on ocean planets with only a single engine and a raggedy ship to sustain themselves. Their pasts hardly seemed like an important point of discussion for the time being, and yet still, Jaiyra had dozens of questions he wanted to pelt at the Daea in spite of however much the answers mattered.
It wasn’t him who asked any of them first however. Instead it’s Enoch Gris, stepping towards the prince and tilting her head up at him. “Malvedae… I don’t mean any disrespect… but, it is important for the Braus Straus people to know something like that,” with each word, her voice became stronger, until they were firm and decisive. Suddenly the shell of the shaking Braus Straus was gone, leaving Jaiyra to wonder what she was back before he’d caught her. Why she had been hunting down Rotch, another key, and what information she had to give him. “To know that a key is so close to the Pleiad–”
“I’m not close to her,” Malvedae interrupted, icily. It was the first time he’d spoken so coldly to Enoch, and the Braus Straus seemed just as taken aback as Jaiyra was. They’d seemed to have struck a chord with him. “The Braus Straus have nothing to worry about, especially now that I’m here.” And then he laughs, dryly, turning and starting for the door. “Maybe this is the best case scenario after all, they can’t destroy the universe if one of their keys isn’t even in it.”
Silence descended upon the ship, and Jaiyra didn’t try to stop him when he exited first, before him.
Enoch Gris broke it within the next minute.
“I pissed off the fairest prince of Daeadem,” Enoch Gris said, voice deaf of any emotion. And then, her eyes went wide and her one hand flew up to her bald head to scratch at it. “Oh my stars, I pissed off the fairest prince of Daeadem!”
Jaiyra wasn’t half as panicked with the notion as he was, inspecting his hands. Sure, he hadn’t wanted the prince to walk off in a fit of rage because of his own probing–he’d probably get the silent treatment for a good while because of it–but he figured at some point the prince was going to blow up. The whole day had been a roller coaster of emotions for all of them, and it was only natural a delicate prince such as him wouldn’t be able to withstand it. It was shocking that he even had for as long as he did.
Besides, it was information that he and Enoch Gris were owed at the very least. Or at least, he was owed, being the ringleader of the entire mission.
“Rai Jaiyra!” the annoyed yell of his voice brought him back into focus. From the look on her face, Enoch Gris had attempted to call for his attention for a while now, but Jaiyra was used to his name being called in that tone enough that it was easy for him to ignore it. Seeing as she had his attention now, she glowered. “This is your fault, you–”
“Yeah, yeah, everything is my fault,” Jaiyra said with a roll of his eyes, waving her off. She fumed, making move as if to argue some more, but Jaiyra cut to the chase quickly, not wanting to waste any more breath on the disagreement than he had to. “Look, I just wanted to understand his motives.”
Enoch Gris’ were pretty clear. She had been given a bounty at the wrong time and was stuck in this situation purely because of Jaiyra’s own faults. Jaiyra himself was only helping for the money he’d receive when they finally reached their own galaxy again, as any Rai’s motives would be in such a situation. Both of them were pretty easy to read.
Malvedae, however, was a wild card.
According to him, he’d been in Pleiad prisons because he turned himself in. A key had turned himself into one of the people who were hunting him down for whatever reason. To make it even more suspicious, he’d been willing to heed the commands of the army’s leader, which at first had seemed self-sacrificial, but the more Jaiyra learned of it, the more he began to believe that there may be something hidden behind his motives. Potentially, he could be on the Pleiad side, for whatever reason. And while that may not matter in this wherever they were, it would matter as soon as they got back. And it would be very telling of his character if nothing else.
Jaiyra would prefer to understand the people he was putting his life on the line for. At least it would make him better prepared for a betrayal.
“He saved us from the meatball monster,” Enoch Gris pointed out, as though that was proof enough that he wouldn’t turn on them at moment’s notice.
“He saved himself from the meatball monster as well, you can’t just say he did it all for us,” he rebutted quickly, only to be met with Enoch Gris’ groan.
Scratching at her bald head again, she stared out at the ocean sullenly. “Must all Rai be so suspicious of everything?”
Yes. As a Rai, everything was always on the line. Beings didn’t trust them, so they didn’t trust them back. They stuck to themselves or with other Rais’, but they normally never worked with other beings unless it was a contractional effort and temporary.
But Enoch Gris would probably scoff and try to tell him off about Rais’ their untrustworthy nature, so instead of answering, he shrugged non committedly and ignored her complaints about her head and shoulder and everything hurting and needing it looked over.
A few hours later, Malvedae returns to the cockpit, in a more gloomier mood than he had been before. At first, Jaiyra thinks he’ll ignore them for a while, keeping to himself in some corner and doing moody Daea things (and who would be the Lone Wolf then), but then he’s at the control panel and Jaiyra isn’t dumb enough to leave him to himself there after the conversation they’d just had.
Enoch Gris gave him a warning look as he approached that he unwisely chose to ignore.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked, attempting to come off harmlessly curious. Malvedae’s cutting gaze saw through him immediately.
Shooting him a pointed smile, the Daea responded in a sweet voice, “Attempting to blow up the ship and everyone on it.”
And then, when Jaiyra’s expression froze, he continued, “That was a joke, asshole.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Jaiyra demanded in turn, stepping closer in spite of the assurance that the prince had been kidding. It was better to be safe than sorry after all.
Sneering at the sudden closeness, the prince shot him one of the most annoyed looks Jaiyra had ever had placed upon him. Which was really saying a lot, because Jaiyra had been privy to many annoyed looks in his time. “You could start by trusting me the slightest bit, Rai.”
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That last word almost seemed spat at. So he did have a bad history with Jaiyra’s kind, it seemed. Jaiyra was more than willing to make it a bad future with them as well.
Tentatively, Enoch Gris came up behind them, shoving her fist into the back of Jaiyra’s knee and making him nearly collapse in what would’ve been the most embarrassing fashion.
“Your fairest,” she said, and Malvedae’s eyebrow twitched in response to the title. He didn’t call her out on it however, and she continued onward accordingly. “Is there something you needed to do with the control panel? Any way I could assist you?”
At the sound of the Braus Straus’ kind offer, the hardness of the prince’s expression seemed to melt entirely. Dropping his hands from the control panel, he turned his head to face her entirely, going as far as to bend down slightly, a few strands of his fine hair slipping over his shoulder. Jaiyra huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and condemning himself to just listen over said shoulder.
“This planet’s light source is three moons,” he explained. The statement made Jaiyra frown in wonderment, wondering why such a thing would matter and then shaking his head. He doubted it even mattered, and wondered what that had anything to do with him needing to be at the control panel. He wasn’t left to wonder long however, because the prince followed it up quickly with an explanation of, “The tide follows its pattern.”
Wruunk didn’t have any moons. Jaiyra couldn’t be blamed for the fact that he hadn’t factored in the gravitational pull and the water when he hadn’t grown up by hundreds of moons the way the prince had.
Enoch Gris at least seemed to understand even less, raising an eyebrow at the words in clear confusion. Braus Straus also didn’t have any moons, only the all too bright stars so she couldn’t take any blame either.
Realizing this, the prince grimaced, stepping back from the control panels finally and sitting before her, legs crossed. Now face to face with him, Enoch Gris had turned a brilliant shade of magenta, and Jaiyra doubted she heard a single word of what Malvedae began to explain to her. “Moons tend to affect water levels on planets because of the gravitational pull. The more moons there are, the more pullback there will be, sometimes leading to dangerous situations like big waves of water and sudden flooding.”
Daeadem was famed for its architecture, structured in such a way that the beings lived far above any water on their planet's surface, where they were safe from even the biggest of tsunamis. Jaiyra had once heard that the capital palace scraped against the stars, it was that tall. Though he couldn’t confirm, only members of the royal family and very important guests were able to enter the place. Rai’s were never considered important guests in any context. More often, unwelcome pests and intruders.
“This planet has three moons, coming from the north. The light we’ve been seeing comes from them,” he explained, gesturing for the Braus Straus to look for herself through the window. Unwelcomed, Jaiyra followed her, batting off her grubby palm as he shoved at her to make more room for himself to see. Sure enough, three stunning moons were peeking out of the horizon, their silver lighting adding a beautiful touch to each curve of the waves. A shame something so beautiful was also so very foreboding, Jaiyra didn’t have to listen to understand what came next. “They’re advancing over us soon, and they’ll be pulling tons and tons of water with them when they do.”
With the prince’s next words, Jaiyra felt a newly familiar heated stare on his back. “So unless you want us to get crushed under the pressure of however much water is on this planet, I’d suggest you trust me for a single moment long enough to check the ship for any way to survive this.”
Jaiyra lifted his hands into the air in mock surrender and somehow the prince’s glare seemed to become even hotter. Jaiyra had been glared at by far worse people for far worse reasons however, and he didn’t hold back from shooting the prince a smirk in spite of their situation. At his side, Enoch Gris groaned, aiming a kick at his leg that he barely side stepped in time to say, “Do as you please, your fairest. Though, if you want anyone to be able to trust you, honesty would probably be a good start, wouldn’t it?”
Jaiyra was very bad at being elusive and mysterious the way Rais were meant to be. He was also awful at not stirring the kettle. In fact, if there were a kettle anywhere near him, he was shaking it with all his might, sending the contents sailing all about in his haste to get it shaken. Rai’s were supposed to stay away from most kettles. Especially burning hot fuming ones.
Enoch Gris managed to kick him this time, very hard on the side of his leg. Somehow, he remains standing. He’s going to have a permanent dent in his leg the shape of her foot at this point.
The time the prince had spent above the ship brooding seemed to have cooled him down slightly, enough so that he at least didn't storm off again with a few growled out statements. However, his anger is evident in the way he raises and turns back to the control panel, each movement a bit too stiff for the gracefulness he’d assumed since joining them in the corridor. When he begins to mess with the buttons, he punches each of them, hard and fast and seemingly uncoordinated.
“I’ve never lied to you,” the prince said, in between his rapid fire tapping. Pausing to glare up at Jaiyra, he asked, “Can you say the same, revenant Rai?”
Rai’s don’t lie. Jaiyra is grinning confidently when he nods.
Malvedae returns the expression, though his smile is tight and his words are anything but kind when he said, “You’re only cooperating with us because you see us as easy money. You’re so greedy it makes me sick, and you want to question my motives?”
It wasn’t the first time his character had been questioned as a notorious bounty hunter. But it was the first time it stung enough that Jaiyra couldn’t brush it off with a laugh or a cocky nod.
Jaiyra would never be ashamed about how he as a Rai ran his business. It was this or starving to death on Wruunk, if he was one of the lucky ones that didn’t get picked off by one of the gangs first. A prince born into the riches of the Daeadem reign, famed for his appearance alone wherever he went, wouldn’t be the one to judge him for what he’d had to do in order to survive. No one got to judge him for that.
“Shocked that someone can see through your pretty face enough to call you out on your bullshit?” Jaiyra shot back, and now the prince isn’t even bothering to look down at the keys, glaring up at him instead. “You’re either stupid naive or close friends with the person who wants to destroy Prioxis–I’d prefer to know before I spend a night in the same ship as you.”
“I already told you we’re not close friends–”
“Then what are you to her, fairest? Because last I check, it’s against any every one of your planet’s stupid rules to call you anything but your proper title, no matter what you insist.” Another truth. The prince was to be referred to only as his fairest grace, or some other just as fancy variation of the title. Some bullshit etiquette rules that everyone in the galaxy knew very well, either from the live executions that followed violations of the rules, or from the hundreds of romance novels featuring one of the three royal children of Daeadem.
Malvedae turned away again, unable to even face Jaiyra, and the truth, the Rai added arrogantly in his mind. He was only able to be prideful for a few moments after however, because then the prince was questioning his hard earned title as a Rai. “And what of you? Rai Jaiyra, how do you earn that title when you can’t even deliver a bounty without being caught?”
“You’re changing the subject–”
“No, I want to know,” Malvedae cut him off, tilting his head innocently. “Which Rai promoted you when you do this poor of a job? Being scammed by the bots and then getting locked away in prison? Nearly dying on your way out? What type of Rai are you to get yourself stuck in a Spyre, hm?”
Jaiyra’s eye twitched. Stepping forward, he stopped right across from the control panel, hands gripping the other side of it. The prince didn’t so much as flinch, practically leaning back in the face of his intimidation attempt. “And what type of Daeadem prince are you to heed the command of a Pleiad soldier so easily? Oh right. Not the vivacious or the bold–” Malvedae’s eyes narrowed and Jaiyra smirked winningly, knowing he’d won this round. “No, just the fairest. The fairest who can’t hold his own–”
Jaiyra supposed the punch was a long time coming.
Enoch Gris groaned, muttering something that vaguely sounded like boys, but Jaiyra was too busy seeing stars and planets spin across his vision to pay it any mind. Dizzy as he was, he didn’t let that hinder his smirk in the slightest, the victorious expression stretching across his mouth in spite of the bruise reddening his jaw. He’d gotten the prince to break first.
It felt less like a victory at the sound of the prince’s wavering voice.
“I’m not some double crossing traitor you have to worry about, you asshole,” Malvedae said, voice softer than it had been before. All anger seemed to have dissipated, leaving behind a hollow tone. Jaiyra couldn’t help but think it was worse than any rage. “If you don’t trust me enough to reinforce the shields on the ships, I can go sit in a corner for you to do it yourself.”
Rai Hela had tried to chastise him before. By yelling and shouting or taking things away, she’d done her best to try and raise a punk of a kid into a formidable coven member. But no matter what she said or how hard she went, she’d never really been able to make him feel the way he did now. Like a kicked puppy. Like he made a grave error. Regret.
When the offer was met with a stiff silence, the prince nodded, curtly.
“Good. Now please leave me the fuck alone.”
Enoch Gris kicked him again. This time Jaiyra allowed himself to be taken down, stumbling a bit away from Malvedae before he crumpled to the ground.
The sounds of the controls being fiddled with was the only noise on the ship for the next hour.
When the wave comes into view, it’s a tiny speck of blue in the distance. Enoch Gris questions why they should worry so much about it when it’s hardly a few inches tall based on her measurements. Malvedae has a foreboding look on his expression and his fingers dance across the controls faster than before.
Enoch Gris puts him to work cleaning all the vomit their ship hosts with a dirty rag she’d found next to the food rations. Jaiyra doesn’t complain because it gives him something to do other than rerun the heated conversation they’d just had over in his mind again or stare out at the wave that only gets bigger and bigger as each minute passes.
By the time it reaches the point where even Enoch Gris can’t write it off as a small little thing they shouldn’t worry themselves over, all scrapes of vomit have been cleaned, and Malvedae has stepped back from the control panel, claiming there’s nothing else he could do.
Earlier, Enoch Gris had stepped out to take a peek at the engine, saying something about maybe getting it back into shape before the wave hit, but she’d surrendered almost immediately. Claiming they’d need more than a few hours to make the thing workable again, she’d simply sealed the door to the ship shut, and then placed several objects before it for extra measures (though Jaiyra doubted a few gloves would make much a difference between hundreds of tons of water). It wasn’t as though they had the parts to fix it either. They could only hope they’d still be alive and well in a few hours to solve all their problems, but with how pale the prince's blue skin had gotten, Jaiyra doubted there was any hope in such a desire.
When the water starts rocking against the ship violently, sending them scrambling to reach the closest surface, Jaiyra regrets having ever scraped Enoch Gris’s disgusting, purple throwup from the ground. At this rate, the whole floor would be covered in both of their spit and vomit permanently.
“How long will–” Enoch Gris swallowed hard. It takes her a long minute before she opens her mouth again. “How long until the wave passes over?”
Malvedae, who’d chosen to stand before the window to watch the oncoming wave, squinted. Holding on tightly to the framing of the window, he stumbled a bit with a fierce rock of the ship as he answered, over his shoulder, “Nine hours, I think.”
Nine hours of rocking back and forth again? They’d barely had any time to rest and here they were spinning all over again.
Enoch Gris looked as distressed as he felt with the answer. Crossing her eyes, the Braus Straus let out a whine of complaint, tightening her hold on one of the empty shelves behind the cockpit. “When will we ever stop spinning?” she cried out.
Jaiyra really resonated with the desperation in her voice. The last thing he’d expected to kill him in the Spyres was an endless round of ring around the rosey. What type of Rai was he to be taken out by a spell of dizziness over any horrifying monster?
The shitty type according to a certain prince, who didn’t at all look affected by their spinning.
Egged on by the sight, Jaiyra stumbled over to the control panel, hardly maintaining his balance as he practically fell against it. A win no matter what, since he’d managed to make it there at all without falling on his ass and ending up rolling around on the floor of the ship like some sort of sorry ball. Malvedae and Enoch both seemed to disagree, both of their heads swiveling towards him in differing states of concern. The prince’s more concealed and Enoch’s far more green.
Jaiyra wondered if he should’ve been offended by such expressions. Enoch confirmed as much with her immediate snap of: “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make us not spin for an hour,” Jaiyra responded without missing a beat. He’d imagine she should’ve been on board with such a statement, ready to rally him on. Instead she only looked even more concerned.
Just who was she paying to get her back to their prime world again?
“Rai,” Malvedae said, seemingly having demoted him back to his title. Jaiyra took note of it, making a mental note to sound extra annoying the next time he said the word fairest. At the next few words the fairest said, he heavily considered adding a few kissy faces as he said the name. “The barriers I set up are delicate. Before your blundering fingers mess them up, I’d suggest you move far away from them.”
That was definitely meant to be offensive. Jaiyra responded in turn by staring the prince directly in his stupid silver eyes as he ran his fingers across the keys.
Enoch screamed when their ship bobbed under the water. The prince cursed.
Jaiyra didn’t give them a chance to begin complaining and yelling for him to step back before he was fiddling with the keys again, bobbling the ship up and down concerningly. A popping sound began somewhere around the back of the ship that he should’ve probably taken careful note of, but he was too busy enjoying the fact that the prince’s expressionless masked had slipped off in the face of his fears to pay it any mind beyond baseline acknowledgement. A mistake that had far too quick consequences.
The lights of the ship flickered along the sound of a thunderous roar from the sky above. And then the ship went dead silent, the popping sound faulting alongside all other noises the ship had been making beforehand. Including the engine.
“Rai.” Jaiyra didn’t even have to look up to make out the expression on Malvedae’s face, entire chock full of rage. Already, he had begun pounding on the control panel, hoping to get it working back into shape with just the right knock on it. By the time he’d begun banging at it with both hands, Malvedae had spoken again, voice more a growl, “What the fuck did I tell–”
Thankfully, Jaiyra never had to hear the verbal beating the prince had been planning to deal to him. Which sounded like it would’ve torn a new one into him, and Jaiyra had already had enough torn into him throughout his life that this one probably was the one to finally rip him in two.
Instead, the ship shoots downward a few hundred feet.
Enoch Gris has such an ugly, piercing scream that Jaiyra can’t hear his own over the sound of it.
Rai Hela was a ship collector of sorts. She loved having the fastest models to ride around in and show off, cranking up the engines as high as they could go for any and every mission she had. Jaiyra had had the misfortune of enough whiplash and car sickness to attest to her thirst for speed, knowing her attachment to quickness like an annoying old friend he’d kill to get rid of. But no speed Rai Hela had ever taken him on could ever attest to the speed at which their ship had dropped through the water.
As though it had free fell, the pod cut through the water that was only supposed to be a foot tall. When the water had reached heights enough that there was still room for them to continue downward by the time the engine had sputtered out its final breath, Jaiyra hadn’t a clue. From being swallowed by a meatball monster without a clue, to sailing over a deep sea without ever knowing, his perception skills were deeply suffering the longer they spent in the Spyre.
Glancing around the ship confirmed that neither the prince nor Enoch had suffered from the sudden drop. Because they’d all gripped so hard onto the surfaces around them to try to lessen the impact of the rocking, they’d been saved from being slammed into the ceiling during the drop. The same couldn’t be said about a majority of their supplies. A box of some crisps dropped from the ceiling and hit Enoch in the face as though to remind of such.
“What.” Enoch Gris said, the box slipping off her face and landing against the ground with the movement of her lips. Words blunt, cutting, she continued, “Was the point of that?”
Jaiyra would have to watch his words if he wanted to keep his ankles, it seemed.
Jaiyra had never been good at watching his words. The only reason he managed to keep his ankles in the next few minutes was because of the prince seeming to take some sort of mercy on him in spite of their current standoff. In between blowing some white strands of hair of his face, Malvedae managed to say, “The rocking isn’t reaching us down here.”
Instead of being grateful at his advancement to their situation, Enoch Gris frowned, a troubled type of frown. As though she were considering the best way to make the worst out of the situation Jaiyra had just fixed for her. Doing as such, she asked, warily, “What’s the catch?”
Jaiyra scoffed. “I add fifty billion to your credit–” Seeing as Enoch Gris had begun to frown, taking it seriously, he was quick to add– “there’s no catch, I just couldn’t stand the rocking anymore.”
He just hadn’t thought his plan of fucking with the ship controls until they’d blast up slightly would result in something like this. His plan had been to get the fuck off the planet, not to dive deeper into it. Looking out into the peaceful blue stretched out before them, the water humming serenely against the ship rather than fighting against it, he supposed this was just as good an outcome. It worked out, maybe not the way he had anticipated, but hey–if it’s not broke, don’t knock it. Or however the phrase went.
Although the prince was pursing his lips, inspecting the water around them with an analytical gaze, picking it apart for any potential dangers to throw in the Rai’s face as proof he’d just fucked up again, he didn’t seem to find any immediate problems to point out. After inspecting the water six times over, Malvedae caved with a slight sigh, shoulders slumping at not having anything to blame on the Rai for the time being. One more point to Jaiyra then.
With Malvedae lacking any complaints, Enoch Gris seemed to be at ease as well. Tentatively, she released her hold on the shelves she’d latched onto, approaching the window next to the prince to peer out at the blue beyond with a sigh of her own, though hers was more admiring than disappointed.
Silence was starting to grow accustomed to the ship. Not a comfortable one either. One heavy enough to rival the water pressure currently pressing down on the walls of their pod, and seemed to fill up the entire room, coating every shift and movement.
To his credit, Jaiyra tried not to disturb it as best he could, even if he wanted to. The conversation with the prince still was far from over. Even if they had established some core details, the Rai was still teeming with unanswered questions and whys. If he looked at it critically, it was honestly all unnecessary information he could’ve lived with out. He really didn’t need to know every detail of the prince’s relations with the Pleiad, and it was none of his business. Rai stayed out of internal affairs after all, and the destruction of the galaxy wasn’t supposed to matter that much to him after all.
But it was like an itch that he couldn’t quite reach. Something just far enough that he couldn’t scratch and sate it. He felt as though he needed to know, even if he didn’t actually need to know at all.
Asking had let to outbursts twice before, and the last thing their silence needed at the moment was another one, so Jaiyra decided not to disturb it. If not for his own sake, than for Enoch Gris’, who’s eyes had glazed over as she studied the waters near dreamily.
When he started caring for Enoch Gris enough to decide not to disturb her silence and awing, he didn’t want to think about. It must’ve been Stockholm Syndrome.
Malvedae respected the silence just as well as he did for long enough for Jaiyra to take to the back of the ship for a much needed nap. He wouldn’t wake up for another few hours, to the sound of the prince and the Braus Straus talking in a hushed whisper about the oceans on Daeadem and the tunnels on Braus Straus, innocent discussions. For the sake of keeping up his suspicious guise, he’d listened for a while, until his eyelids grew heavy and he was lulled back to sleep once more. Daea’s were notorious for having the best lullabies after all, the prince’s descriptions of the cascading waters of his home in a honey-drizzled story, could’ve been considered as much. No matter how badly it crashed with the unassuming horrors Enoch Gris was telling about the deep tunnels of her home world (crazed monsters hiding out in deep, abandoned tunnels was nothing worth laughing at, but Enoch would vehemently disagree it seemed (Jaiyra was even less inclined to go to Braus Straus than he had been before)).
When Jaiyra woke for the final time, it was to the clanking of metal against metal.
Panicking momentarily that the ship had caved to the water pressure, that Malvedae had maybe purposely not secured the ship enough, he shot up, turning to the walls around them. Not spotting a dent that hadn’t been there before, he then made a quick look around the ship to his unwanted crewmates. Neither of which were awake, slumped against the wall across from Jaiyra, against one another.
Raising to his feet, quieter than he normally would’ve, the Rai stood and started around the ship, in search of what was making all the fuss. He didn’t have to walk far before he saw it, through the window of the ship.
Ship parts. Glittering in the water like undiscovered gems at him.
Jaiyra gawked.
Converters, screws of all different sizes, large panes of metal. All of it swarming around them in the water like a school of fish around its next meal. It was enough that Jaiyra initially thought it was another meat monster, coming to pull them into its mass of a form, before a few of the pieces hit against the glass and bounced of as it naturally should’ve rather than molding together with them.
A grin erupted onto Jaiyra’s face.
They’d finally caught their big break. It only took chancing death twice before they’d struck gold–third time really was the charm, it seemed. Letting out a laugh of pure joy, he walked closer to the window, admiring a whole engine that floated past, perfect to attach to the end of the ship.
Fittingly, it was right then when the first skeleton floated past as well.
Jaiyra couldn’t tell what species it was supposed to be, as eroded and broken as it was. A big hole had formed at the base of the skull, knocking out the entire front of its face. Its spine had six limbs attached, of varying sizes, and the remains of the clothes attached to its body were tattered and mere handkerchiefs rather than anything useful. Since it was the first, the Rai hadn’t batted an eye, accustomed to the sight and knowing for certain that with that many ship parts floating around, there must’ve been a pilot somewhere within the murk of ocean around them.
No, it wasn’t until the sixteenth skeleton floated by that he began to worry some.
And then the twenty-seventh floated by, and Jaiyra was at the control panel checking their depth.
Seventeen hundred feet.
Jaiyra reread the words five times, switched the language from the core language, to a Messier dialect he was more familiar with and then back again. And then he woke up Malvedae and Enoch Gris.