a thousand languages cannot describe my hunger

she did not seem to fit herself easily here, amongst the sickbay; if she had been a doctor, she would have been brilliant — and, ultimately, useless. there was something to be said about containing all the knowledge of the human body, of understanding how it came together and how it could break, and of not being able to be at ease with a patient. not being able to coax their troubles from them, not being able to gain their trust. but, he supposed, that was why she was not a doctor. she could give full truths and blunt knowledge here. she could be as sharp as a quill to paper. 

“the polar bear has no cruelness to it as it tears its food apart.” a horrible reflection of his conversation with vladya, what felt like years ago. a horrible reflection, cracked with the ending of his story. what is a creature born of terror? could it ever learn to recognize anything else? “no, i would never call the natural cruel,” he agreed. “but if something has intelligence, if it has understanding to pain and to weakness… if the polar bear did not tear its food but played with it, spent weeks watching it, came to understand it, love it in its own way, and then sliced it apart delicately, in all the ways that would hurt its prey the most — is there not cruelty to that?” 

a breath, a recollection. “it is good to know the gods were not all cruel — but i suppose that does not mean they were kind.” 

her head dips as she listens, pictures diagrams in books, claws in glass cages, bears in the wild, the step through the pages into the senses and the brutal fear they bring, the horror accompanied. tilts her head at the conclusion he comes to, pulls the propositions into order, itches to shred them, ink blot and torn parchment, wonders if the cost isn’t in blood.

‘ no. ‘ shakes her head, raises her gaze. ‘ not many gods are kind. ‘ a beat, a consideration.

‘ i would not say that polar bears are not intelligent, and also would not say that nature is incapable of being cruel. but those veer on the theoretical, the philosophical, and i doubt that’s what concerns you. ‘

“Certainly not you or I.” Sends it across to the tides, over the railing, keeps her face to it. The direction that had damned Pippa- we need to go deeper. Chin dipped and she leans against her elbows, with all that layering of material, all the protection to keep her from sticking there. What would it matter now, when there’s something out there will flay them easier than frost. Burn them the same. Pick a torture, pick an undoing, and still it wont be your choice.  “Do you think it should be the Captain?” Even that is a riddle, and she forgets it for a moment. That Captain should mean Marc or Captain should mean Mal. It depends on the perspective. And that’s what she’s trying to figure out. 

“Who is the Captain, to you?” There’s even more roads from that question, not a certain answer, not the necessity of one. If only there was some indicator. If only she could ask Lijin straight. “Would you go to him if I said the wrong thing? If I picked the wrong answer? I find the thought of all that strays from his message, of how we shall find freedom at port.”

when have they ever been allowed to take charge? when has control ever been something now taken on and held with force, with frost-bitten white-knuckled grips that demand recognition and then take an equal amount of strength to stay there? not you or I and lijin looks down to her hands, to their open, chapped grip, to the now-nearly faded paler skin on her ring finger, to the fainter band on her pointer. rings and promises and changes wrought.

He’s not gonna be left looking up at someone, not unless there’s laces coming untied and coins dipping in his hand. And since the woman doesn’t seem the kind to want a quick push against the wall, Lan is up on it. Bounces straight, arms above his head. The apology is a nice fork in the road; he stops for a moment, grins at it, all pale lips. Then he moves on, eyes grazing. Mind only slightly teetering on the hook of her question. Oh, this? It was me fuckin’ gran’s. Lavinia of Hanover. Where’d the fuck ya think? God, what do they teach this people up there?

❝ Jewelry? Hardly, ma’am. I think you’ve a mind to flatter me. ❞

He rises on the toes, inches above her. A palm’s length, maybe more; his own palms cracking under the ceiling as if he’s trying to upend it. Harmless, pithless; yet a display nonetheless. The sailor stretches until all those wait hours are scrounged from his bones.

Then he’s back to stature. Still towers, still glowers; but there’s a light of something unassuming at play on his face. He almost smiles. ❝ Won it from a wardroom bloke. You know, them with the epaulets. Why? Fancy rolling one for it? ❞ Lan doesn’t expect she’ll say yes, though not because the etiquette is hard in place. No, slumming it was about right, as far as people like her went. He’s certain the woman has spat on a pair of dice at least once before, that she brawled as much as she bossed around. That’s what runs the game.

It was always the tastiest delicacy, wasn’t it, when you got rich and respected enough to afford the behaviour of your lessers, when you could coop and corrupt it for the sake of your betters. He loved it, this bluster of pants, of sleeves rolled up and ready for a knuckle fight. Plenty of birds in Europe were strutting about like that. It always made him want to laugh. Wanted to let them know, put them out of the self-aggrandizement show, the ridiculous touch of it: I grew up with women who could eat you up. Who probably should have, now that I think on it. Hurry along now. There’s a heated carriage waiting for your arse, after you’re done frolicking in the mud.  

❝ You were going somewhere, hm? Why not make a time of it? ❞

she hasn’t felt this surge of energy, the sudden speed at which her thoughts dance along, in near a year, on adventures that were far too risky for her, face to face with a snake that hadn’t been rattling, the edge of a cliff that crumbles beneath her feet, life and death and knowledge and ideas that spiral and jump as she stares the threat in the eyes.

she cannot tear her gaze away from the ring.

(( it’s here, it’s always been here. when did he get it? does he know what it is? what has it done? does she take it back? does she want it back? does she leave him condemned or throw it into the maw of the next endless doorway she sees and hopes it enough of a sacrifice? is it a ticket out or a descent straight to destruction? ))

he stands, stretches up, and she tracks the movement with her eyes, watched the ring get pressed into the ceiling, near dissapearing from sight if not for the glint of it in the light. she doesn’t bother to acknowledge the show of strength, had faced animals far larger and scarier and ran them off. it’s the ring, it’s the casual way he’s wearing it, the way he wears the shadows and the power of the moment around him like a cape, a crown, lordly and above.

(( does the ring prefer him? would it come back? does she want to leave it with him? symbiosis or consumption? ))

she wants to slap the look right off his face, the one that says he knows who she is, the mocking twist to the suggestion. to disagree is to prove her rich taste as weakness, to agree is to not prove anything at all. she wants to get close, slip a stiletto through his ribs.

“We can’t stay here either.” It’s an odd comment to make, given she’s spent the last few days repeating over and over again how she must stay on the island. How she must remain there. The difference is no surprise, the condition, the exception, the rule; there are other people to consider, other people want to go there, again. They can’t stay there because there might be some fool enough to think that their chances there are better than their chances aboard. Better than a change in direction or a loss of it. 

The air is cold, but she can barely feel it now. There’s a balance between how cold she already feels. and the outstretching of nature. Like there’s nothing of a temperature at all, just a neutrality. Even to her head it doesn’t sound right, doesn’t seem right. If Lijin were to shiver she would notice and then she would note it. 

“Evasion.” Thinks how good at it Lijin must be, has proved to be, even in those few moments. And yet they’re both on the ship. Despite all the running away people are doing, there’s nowhere to run. “It’s control in a way, when there’s none to be had. Always a man in charge, except this time. It might not make a difference, but I like to know who I’m dealing with. So yes, I suppose that’s it. And you? Have you theories?”

can’t go back, can’t go forwards, can’t stay. do i go left, where nothing is right? or do i go right, where nothing is left?

loss of direction, loss, running towards, running from. human lives are dictated by movement, on a planet that spins through a universe, hurtling through time without any way to reverse it, nostalgia only ever a passing flavour, people only ever a passing moment. they are grains of sand worn away to dust, destined for death, for even gods and rulers are rendered to shapeless forgotten things buried beneath the earth.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Sohrab’s lips purse thoughtfully as they, of all things, crack a joke ( eyes crinkling slightly ) “sounds like you’ve really cocked it up.” Takes one to know one, is the clear sentiment. 

Then, in a tone a measure more serious, they twine their fingers together behind their back and venture to add “when you were young, I thought the trick to teach you was to harden you the way the world was bound to. Figured if I got there first, the blows that followed would be as nothing,” she grunted. “I was your enemy, when I should’ve been your ally.” 

That is to say “I should’ve championed you. For that,” and this is the hardest admission yet, “I am sorry.” Then, rather abruptly, they clear their throat and turn their gaze on Lijin entirely now. “So— have your been their enemy, or their ally? The rest— luck, or whatever we’re calling it, was never in your hands.”

the pressure is released at the joke, tension, sombriety, the sensation of rushing headlong into emotions relieved. lijin scoffs at it, settles back into her usual self, buries the vulnerability back deep. animals showing off matching wounds, examine the way they caused them, on the other, on themself.

sohrab’s explanation, apology, who the fuck knows what, rushes on too fast for lijin to latch on, to comment in kind, to reassure or hit back, and perhaps her silence is for the best. the apology is rough, a struggle for them both, and lijin just nods, finds her own throat tight, moves past it. it doesn’t bear thinking on - the past ( she wants to laugh, she wants to weep ). there’s nothing that can change there.

they remember that day in half dreams, deep and waking both, and only in flashes of barely-wrought sensations. fingers clawing through dirt and tearing themselves open on jagged rocks, air rending through their lungs as they tried to catch their breath. wondering if their life was meant to end there, at another’s hands - or in their absence.

but there is no grudge, and iles doesn’t blame lijin for her recklessness any more than they blame themself for their own naivete, for banking their life on another’s judgment. it’d nearly been the death of them, but better a hard lesson learned now than never, and they’re almost grateful that it was lijin to teach them this. who better?

“sounds like one and the same to me. perhaps the former is reserved for polite company and subterfuge - but i wouldn’t know. been a long time since i felt like i had to speak our mother’s tongue in front of someone who didn’t understand it.”  

they laugh at her evasion, low and hollow, but never malicious. there will be no convincing her that they harbor no ill will for how they parted - neither of them are terribly sentimental, and such cooing solace would be a strain and ill-fitting on them both. “not that big. especially not for guests, left to mill about wherever we won’t get in the way.” they shrug, watching various deckhands and seaman walk around cradling muskets to their chests as they tended to their duties. like children clinging to their pacifiers. “i suppose. at least nothing important, else we would have already said it. even now, this bears no mention, does it? a mutiny, in the grand scheme of things, feels like nothing more than pebble cast into the water. we’ll land in port, leave, with little spoken about between us.”

-

perhaps they are the same. perhaps it’s all the same, every action, every emotion, every desire every sin every hurt, can be boiled down to fear. different layers for different situations, different levels of self-delusion. perhaps it has always been fear. ‘ believe what you will. the words weren’t for him. ‘

she feels like cloth wrung dry, threadbare and worn, self as a shell that part of iles used to reside within. she cannot believe that they do not hate her, but is too tired, too used to their voice in her head condemning already, to react to the laugh. it’s a lie and they both know it, stand together to watch it shrivel and die. it doesn’t matter.

one might think, to learn the diasporic tale of her existence, that material objects ought to have incredible value to her. unusual value, even. for was avarice not the explicable hamartia of a starving thing? it may not be flattering — as plenty about human beings was not — yet it could be understandable, and was empathy not a perspicacious tool to employ? the knife that bleeding hearts twisted inside themselves.

yet such is not the case. raw as a wound, jaya does not consider pretending so either. there may be trepidation, but there is no veil aflutter betwixt the two dark-haired women; there is a gesture, and there is a reaction – a reaction, simply, doubling as response, for the gunner-woman is whittled, down to the marrow, and her marrow burns with the words lijin extends, the picture of nonchalance, with a onyx gaze that gleams with knowing better.

i thought of you –

ah, and there’s the rub, is it not so?

material objects mean naught to her. they are enjoyable, of course; the occasional sadist, the hereditary masochist, the discombobulation of scattered identities though she may be… yet she knows, knows only as those who have learnt heart-rending lessons can know — those lessons which rend a person apart, that remake them — that what is not there can be taken, and what is taken can be lost, as easily as anything one is born into, or granted. gifted, even. the latter, the gunner can only assume. she cannot remember the last time she was presented with one.

it is to be thought of that is incalculable in value. that is boundless in magnitude.

she knows that her weathered companion’s ease stays her. makes it possible to keep them – to tug them over callused hands and tender pulse, and don them, without her gaze dropping from hers. “i will not fucking regift them, zhang, for fuck’s sake,” is all jaya offers, with an expressive roll of her eyes, more like herself than much else about this disquieting exchange.

she nods. thank you, her eyes say. her mouth does not know how to shape the words, without them tasting like weakness.

♦ ♦ ♦

it’s with no judgement or amusment on the other’s behalf, but lijin lets the gifts be tugged from her hands, lets her eyes soften a near inexpressibly slight amount, knows the taste of blood and bone, ash and avarice, but this is something positive in its haunting, harkening back to something achingly familiar and near worn away, bandage unwrapped and tender skin that hurts in the wind.

they do not know how to say it, a thousand words and histories and identities between them, could catalogue and extract every bone in a person, but no accent or language can voice the way that she reads the thanks, or the way she replies, tilts her head, then covers it with a smirk at the words used to mask.

it’s in a thought, it’s in an action, it’s in the blink of an eye and the tilt of posture. even feral things have to find a place to roost, or to rest the night. perhaps there will be something to find here, to come back to. ‘ good. ‘ she says instead, then gently distangles the thread, the moment, inclines her head and walks away.

through the cacophony inside of his mind, the howling laughter that fills up every space of his skull and threatens to push, to smash the barrier of bone and release itself into his bloodstream, to force him out of his body like an old coat, something useless against the cold–he manages to wrap his fingers around the thought. “so, there’s a reason, then–” he says it slowly, through gritted teeth, as though each syllable were a delicate fragment of ancient pottery with a stark black grecian drawing of something horrible, something that could only be studied and understood for what it was once it was reunited into a whole.

“a ring–” theseus ties the red string to his belt. this is his starting point. this will lead him out of the darkness. ali baba, mama says in his memory–her voice barely a whisper that slides between the other voices in his mind like a tendril of smoke, walks up to the cave of the forty thieves and speaks the magic words. “you have a ring, that makes noise and causes you to dream of drowning–in sand and in water.” open sesame, says ali baba. i will return with the head of the minotaur. says theseus. so they both walk into the darkness.

“that could be it–a reason for all of this.” he looks at her, even though she will not turn her head and meet his eyes. “don’t you see? maybe we could put a stop to all of this and save ourselves–its a common theme in so much folklore–” he gets to his feet, begins pacing as he tries to catch his thoughts, flighty winged things that are almost impossible to discern from the others that have rooted inside of him, let alone to pin to the table like specimens. “once the wrong is righted, then the world will correct itself. in the arabian nights–ali baba only takes what he needs from the cave, and he is allowed to live, to keep what he has taken. but cassim–he takes too much, he is killed by the thieves.” he drags his hands through his hair, worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “perseus’s grandfather tried to kill his mother while she was pregnant with him, and he was the one that killed him–the wrong was righted, and perseus became the king.” 

he grins wolfishly and chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “maybe all we have to do is put it back, and i’ll have my mind to myself, be able to sleep again–you’ll be able to do your work. you said it makes you dream of sand–did you find it in persia? egypt? i’m almost fluent in persian, maybe there’s something you missed, an inscription of some kind that will tell us what it is exactly. don’t be sorry–we can still fix this, you just have to help me.” 

there’s a reason, and she wants to gag, guilt a bitter charcoal paste slathered in her mouth, hears the grit and hears the distress, hears a righteous anger - for who wouldn’t be angry at her, for unearthing that kind of evil? for bringing it onboard with her? for not taking and healing or burning or destroying it? she had dug it out of the sane, then she had washed her hands of it, as though water could do anything about the stains on her skin, on her bone, on her soul.

every word he says condemns her, teacher reduced to learning a bitter lesson at the hands of a pupil, and she feels her spine solidify to stone, curved towards the ground, to the horizon.

then he gets to her feet and she cannot help but buckle, eyes tracked towards the movement, watches as he paces. ( james used to pace, in the study, book held open in one hand, other gesturing towards and invisible audience, announcing to the world his thoughts, his discoveries. she used to work to it, background music, or eager participant. she cannot wonder what he would have thought )

❝ The way I was thinkin’ it’ll play ❞, they start, voice scraping on, ❝ is that some gobshite will try to free Dowling, wrench him out like a cull through the backdoors. And then that gingernut with the musket will fire. The rest, as they say, is a cock-up. ❞ The sailor cranes to her, limbs reshuffling out of repose. Their body bunches against the wall, and their knee is pulled up to chest, makes a bench-rest for their chin. What follows is a once over: his moment of taking stock. A minced look, leveled and small. Something more parts than piecemeal.

So this is her from up close, then; this is how she cleans up, when the rigging is pushed out of sight. There are no finishing touches: no would-be apprentice with a mop of wiry hair, no drawing charcoal, no apple-polishing. She is swaddled in nothing but the brig’s lantern. It swings over their heads, exposes the lack of his sleep, the lack of her purpose. Not a flattering light, either. Sheep tallow, rather than beeswax, and giving a traitorous shine      in tune with the times.

I have your sins on my hand, bone-eater. Didn’t mean to, but there it is. Let us see where they take us. I’ve dug far more graves in than you could ever dig them out.

He sweeps his other leg out of the way. Gives her free passage through the corridor, should she wish to make a run for it. ❝ Name’s Lonan Baird, ma’am. We actually crossed once before, down our first port of call. Some northern place t’ could freeze your bollocks off. You had me lift a box. A damn behemoth. Though that’s no memory to keep, unless yer the one doing the back-breaking. ❞ A flit of tongue, going up and out to wet their upper lip. The sailor tucks it in the pad of his mouth, laves on a grin. ❝ Let’s just say I cursed you for a few days, and then I was off it. But then, what are curses in this place, amn’t I right? ❞

the rest, as a cock-up. he’s not wrong, and the sharp smile grows edges as she acknowledges her own amusement, acknowledges the possibility. hell knows that the events of the past four, five, ten, twenty months have been nothing but cock-up following mistake following disaster, stupid decisions and impulsive actions and the sheer selfishness of each person leading them into this final fucking mess.

he looks over at her, moves his legs, but she doesn’t bother continuing forward. she doesn’t not know him, but she recognises him, and not from some docks - it is not his face that feels familiar.

she wants to mock, or make light, wants to pull the coat of her wealth and class around her and throw it in his face. she wants to berate, grab him by the collar and shove a pistol in his ribs for the audacity, wants to scoff, ignore, hadn’t noticed a thing in the euphoria of being away from home and that cursed piece.

‘ sure. ‘ her hands tuck into trouser pockets, she tilts her head to examine him back. abrasive, shadowed, something dark lingering where the lamplight flickers in the edges of his face, a mergng of the bounty hunters and treasure seekers she’d encountered, magpie and gold filchers, who you’d be best to keep your gun by your best for fear that they would take your tent whilst you slept in it.

‘ sorry about that. ‘ as though he’s made more of negative space, highlights all that pull his features out of the hidden parts of the corridor, edge of his jaw, the metal of his gun, his ring.

She follows, to the cold, to potential escape. Follows, and there’s something not quite right in that. Ayla has never been obedient in her life, has never followed anyone but Malachy Dowling, as Captain, as leader. It swirls in her head that now she’s following behind everyone, like a terrified duckling, to see what path they choose. The only difference is, that she wants to course-correct.  It’s a choice; forward motion (upward mobility is what it will look like. Captain swapped for Admiral), but it’s the only option that allows the conversation to continue. With Lijin (with Marc). 

Presses up to the railing and keeps close. It’s a barrier to the sea, a restraint, a warning. There are lines should not be crossed.  ‘escape, or be devoured’ if only her own freedom were more important than the Captains, but it never has been. Not to her. There’s the love, for it wont be found anywhere else, certainly not in a mouth.  “I think it’ll want us until it has us, and then it wont want us anymore. The only question is whether it’ll be too late for us, or whether it declines to destroy us wholly.”  She sees the island still, with the ship moving away. Might always see it, just a blur in the distance that can not be wiped clean from the lens of her eye.  “I know that if we go back, it wont be to the past, and it will not be before. Yet it’s a more likely after, a better argument for keeping everyone alive. There are too many risks to the unknown, to moving forward without a clear command of it. Would you agree?” 

want us until it has us - perhaps their fates have been left to the whims of a child, one who demands the world then spurns it when it arrives, sickened by the very sweetness or bitter taste they had desired. the cat playing with the mouse, who bats them around until their spine is broken, then stalks away, leaving them to rot.

is it hungry? does it desire? what cause has it to hunt them other that curiosity and its territory trespassed upon? is there anything they can do to placate, to flee, to rescue?

the air is cold as it blows around them, the spray cold enough to leave red marks as it splashes against their exposed skin, pulls her out of her body even as it grounds her. she would rather have burnt alive in the heat of the desert, succumbed to it in her sleep and lethargy. this feels like poison, false hope that she cannot help but draw upon, free from the ring but not free from that which it called upon, not free from the feath and its hauntings and its evil.

of all those that might grace his doorstep ( for more than his place of rest or the common mess, the sickbay was his ), he had not expected the scholar. he had always reached out to her — letters, attention, fascination. he had not expected to see her here, with compassion as much as curiosity. ( for it had to be there, didn’t it, for someone like her? ) he had not expected her to reach out to him. 

“i’ve found they’re the most stubborn kind of patient.” he had treated only two in his day, each insisting they knew better, each being delirious enough with fever that they most assuredly did not. and when had the last time he had gone to a doctor? there were some days he thought he’d rather perform surgery on himself. “insufferable know-it-alls, most times.” 

a twitch of a smile, of something familiar to him, there and then gone. 

“you’ve seen so much of the world. you’re filled with brilliant ideas i could never think of. you’re a scholar, truly — so i ask this of you in that frame. in the idea that you will tell me the way of it, straightforward and blunt.” he set his notebook aside, turned to her fully. his hands were folded and his expression deep in a thought. “in all the stories of all the gods in all the lands, are they always cruel?”

he answers the question, her uncertainity buried deep enough that it doesn’t show in the flicker of a responding smile she manages to grace him. at least it seems he is himself, in as much as the trauma and loss and time here has left any of them human. still, it’s something - it’s a smile, it’s a sign, it’s a suggestion that this might not be the end for them all.

he turns towards her, puts down the book in his hands and as she looks around she can see the titles and the excerpts and the diagrams and - ah. whilst she may not know how to extend sympathy or kindness anymore, this, this could be something she can help in, knowledge and brute force and discovery the very thing that flows through her.

( is it healthy? is it the way that they should proceed? she can see the toll it has taken on the both of them, but her own life means so little at this point, less if she could not even protect volodya. she could dissuade him, force him to stay in reality, with the living, rather than in the search for the dead. but she has never known how to do that. )

she leans against the chair, wouldn’t know how to sit. ‘ never all the gods. but every story i’ve ever encounted, from the deific to the practically human to the animistic to the ones who’ve left this universe - what do you mean of cruelty? an animalistic need to survive? the sheer chaos and uncompromising form of nature? the explanation of the capacity of evil or the reason for the monstrous things we can do to each other? would you ever call the natural cruel? ‘

this ship, framed by the universe in this garish instance, feels like a world folded in on itself. look up and see a tumultuous loyalties, bonds broken and thieved and haunted, old patterns repeating. ghosts reappearing, silvery and stranger than the were living. mirror images, but the details are crooked and cloudy and move in and out the corner of one’s eye - old acquaintances, cleaved into unforgiving sharpness by their exploits and circumstances.

“害怕大聲說話?” they approach her not as a friend, not as an enemy, but as a relic, a thing left to the wild and forgotten. how long had it been since they’d last seen each other in a valley teeming with slippery slopes and beasts with teeth? how much longer, even, has it been with james? 

all the while, they’ve known her to be self-assured, adept, and on one occasion - dangerous. strange to see her strained, resorting to their mother tongue. such habits speak of secrecy. 

“you’ve been avoiding me.”

the voice from behind her is near enough to make her start, if not for the familiarity of it - at first it’s not a person but another haunting, she’s used to it, used to this voice, this face, not even on this ship. he’d haunted her home, her dreams, spectral and distant, just a voice, a flash of hair, red or bruised, close calls where she’s not able to reach out fast enough and he slips out her hand -

but no, for once, this is not a haunting. is it worse, did she hope for it to be? rather than a facing of guilt but still they’re alive. how selfish can she be? how far will she have to dig before she can unearth herself?

‘ discretion isn’t the same as fear, ‘ she replies to the first, matter of fact, turning to face not a spectre but something slide sideways and rematerialised. ‘ it’s a large ship. and we have little to talk about. ‘

‘ 我操 -- 为什么. 他妈的那个笨蛋 ‘ lijin mutters as she watches the activity begin to start up again on the ship, people moving into new positions, empty gaps where key people are missing, chains of command severed and tied again hastily. sure, she had fled britain, but she had fled the ring, and now she was more than certain that the ring was lingering on board and there was no sense in continuing the journey.

after all they had seen - but of course, marcus hadn’t any of it, had schemed and remained on board, planning on how to cut their legs out from under them. why? that idiot, what was he running from? she thought she’d known him, at least well enough to not believe that this was just for power, or some selfish desire to conquer the artic.