Title: On the Deck of a Dream
“Fandom:” @kallende-dnd
Characters: Seren Swift, Ravi
Warnings: Nightmare, Angst, Grief
Words: 252
Here, have another little Seren thing that’s been hanging out in my Google Drive.
Seren feels the ship before she sees it, pitching and rolling beneath her boots. She knows, before she opens her eyes, that she is aboard The Shark again. She can hear it in the snapping of the sails.
She feels Ravi before she sees him, too; a hand at the small of her back steadies her against an unrelenting wind. Something is wrong, she realizes. Finally, she looks.
A mountainous slab of ocean hovers against a perfect blue sky, casting the ship into shadow as it smothers the sun. For a breathless moment it just hangs there, a menacing curtain behind The Shark’s pregnant sails. Then it begins to collapse.
“Seren,” Ravi says, and she turns toward his voice.
He’s pale beneath his sailor’s tan, and his eyes are bright and urgent. The hand on her back moves to tightly clutch one of her own while the other slips something into her coat pocket. She notices with terror that he’s shaking.
Seren tries to speak to him, tries to ask him what he’s doing, but the words refuse to form. Ravi pulls her roughly into an embrace.
The wave slams onto the deck just as his arms lock around her back, and Seren sits up in her bedroll with a startled cry.
There’s a moment, before her body catches up with her brain, when she can still feel Ravi pressed against her. Then the moment passes, and Seren presses both hands over her mouth to keep the others from hearing her sobs.