@onlyashymaid idk if this is what you were expecting when I said drabble because honestly this wasn’t what I was expecting to write but this is what came out so...
As to what she was expecting when she married a witch, Asha wasn’t sure. She’d heard tales of witches from her mother as a young girl, all of which seemed like ridiculous superstition now that she’d actually become acquainted with several witches. Her new wife didn’t spend her evenings mumbling incantations or sacrificing animals to horned gods and in fact if Beck had performed any spells at all, Asha had not been aware of it. The only notable differences between Beck and anyone else she’d ever met was the woman’s unnatural boldness and her great love for all of the natural world.
Getting Beck to come inside was something of a miracle in and of itself. And once she was inside, she seemed incredibly uncomfortable; she’d nervously glance around the ship’s cabin or drum her fingers anxiously on her leg beneath the table when she thought Asha wasn’t looking. All the while, her wild eyes would be restlessly scanning the room. Theon had suggested she was simply disinterested and looking for entertainment, Asha herself could not shake the feeling that she was looking for an exit.
Often she’d wake to find herself alone in the bed and the times when she would pursue her wild wife, she would arrive on the deck only to find Beck was gone entirely. Her disappearance had incited a mass panic the first time but Beck reappeared in their bed before dawn broke---somehow.
Asha gripped the hand rail leading up from her cabin to the deck of the ship. She’d woken to find her wife had abandoned her once again and remembering just how cold it had been when she’d retired, resigned herself to go and collect her wandering wife before she caught a chill. Did witches get sick? She wondered, only to quickly come to the revelation that she didn’t want to find out.
The wind on the deck was frigid and each burst cut clean through skin and flesh down to bone. Asha winced, ducked back into the hall for a moment, and then pressed out into the night once more. The air was filled with a salty mist that tickled along her lashes and settled on her cheeks. With every breath in she could taste a hint of saltiness along her tongue. It was a familiar, pleasant taste.
To her relief, she spotted Beck immediately. She was sitting with her legs curled around the side of the boat at the bow of the ship and beside her, the thick grey fur of her massive, ragged dog looked pale and shone in the light of the moon. There were only two crewmen on deck and both of them were at the wheel. Each man diverted his watchful, curious gaze when they saw their captain approach the young witch. The dog jerked his head around instantly to watch Asha’s approach, silently swaying his tail in greeting.
“You’ll freeze out here.” Asha said, doing her best to sound playful rather than firm, “What would your king say if you were frozen solid before we ever made port.”
Beck snorted. “He’s my brother, not my king. And I don’t imagine he’d say anything---he’d just try and kill you… Then again, he knows how I am. You could blame it on how impossibly stubborn I am.”
“Come inside.” Whatever quick witted words Asha might have offered at any other time turned to a stern demand in the face of a cold wind that hit her skin like a whip. She heard the sail snap and flap behind her, and the groaning of sea-sogged ropes as they strained to stay in position. From up close she could see her wife’s cheeks had been tinged with pink and that her arms were perpetually crossed to hide her bare fingers from the bite of the wind. Asha herself could already feel her own limbs begin to groan beneath the weight of the night air. She reached out an arm anyway and caught Beck around her waist to lead her back to bed; the witch didn’t move. Her wide eyes were fixated on the rolling tumultuous waves below. Asha almost wondered if she was considering leaping from the boat altogether. In this cold it would mean certain death. Once more she tugged on her wife’s waist and once more the stubborn witch clamped her thighs over the side of the boat and refused to be moved.
“Beck I-”
“Do you hear them?” She whispered. For a moment her eyes left the water to meet Asha’s own confused gaze. There was wonderment and curiosity brimming in her eyes; the feelings spilled out from her in just a second’s glance and Asha felt them rushing over her like a relentless current. She was drowned in the sentastion, instantly blown adrift. She was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of the waves, a sound she was so used to she often ignored, and she felt the mist clinging to her lips, to her skin, every tiny chilling bead of salt water as is settled on her body. The cold no longer stunned her but settled into her flesh, and Asha couldn’t remember a time when it had not been there---even if only moments ago it had not been. The boat rocked them in perfect rhythm with the ocean below and she realized just how in tune with that motion her own body was. Every twitch of a muscle, every rock of her weight, was perfectly in sync with the vessel and likewise, the ocean below. Years on the sea had taught her as much.
“Do you know them?” She asked, her eyes drifting back to the water below. In the silver edges of the waves her eyes caught a glimpse of something and Asha stepped ever closer to the side of the ship and peered deep into the sea.
“They know you. They know your ships, they know your blood… your souls.”
In the black ocean and its pale tipped waves a faint light began to grow. In one breath it was dim and distant, like a star on a smoggy eve. By the time she drew a second breath, the light had grown tenfold; a halo shimmering and reflecting the light of the moon and at its heart was a black pit the size of Asha’s head, perhaps even larger. Asha blinked to clear the mist from her vision.
It was an eye. An enormous, unblinking eye that was staring up at her from the depths. It was easily the largest eye she’d ever seen. The creature staring at her was so large that when Asha peered down its length to its head, or into the distance towards its tail, she could not see its end. Long tentacles caressed the splashing waves, they explored the sides of her ship, and they danced in the shadowed depths below the beast. It’s skin was red as blood in one moment and white as a ghost in the next and it took a moment to realize that it was no trick of light which deceived her eyes, but something purposeful, something meant to be seen.
She could not be certain if she was sick or excited. Every bit of her body trembled, and every moment she wondered when she would awaken from this bizarre dream. Only once in her life could she ever remember being overwhelmed before, and it had been an entirely different feeling from what stirred with her now.
“Did you---tell it to come here?” Her words were breathy and quiet.
“Her.” Beck said. “And I did not tell her anything. In the nights, the deep waters sing and I do not sleep. Tonight, I answered the song. I called to her as she calls to the ships, to the waters, to anything that might hear.”
“You can do that?” Asha wished she could have brought herself to look at Beck, but she did not dare let her eye wander from the beast below. She wanted to see with her eyes, to know that Beck was wore no trace of a lie on her face, but she did not look.
“I am a witch. What do you think that means?”
She had---absolutely no idea. The witches were largely a mystery to her. Asha could not have fathomed that such a small, unassuming woman could call up a kraken from the depths of the sea. The magic she had seen from Beck’s people before had all been petty, miscellaneous tasks like tying a rope or levitating a bucket. Impressive but ordinary. Anyone could have merely tied the knot by hand or picked up the bucket on their arm. And Asha had not even seen Beck perform such menial displays of magic.
“Look.” At first Asha did not obey, but a faint light caught her eye and she looked to Beck, holding a little golden sphere in her palm. She held it out over the side of the boat and dropped it into the water. Like a torch being struck and illuminating a room, the ocean was flooded with a yellow glow. The illumination revealed not only the size of the beast below, but a hundred--perhaps even two or three hundred-- smaller, similar shapes. Each was at least the size of a fishing vessel, and flew gracefully through the water with fleshy wings.
Men were shouting. Asha raised her head to see the fleet springing to life as the word spread like wildfire. People yelled as though they were seeing the face of the Drowned God himself. The witches emerged on their ships as well. Winged beasts poured from their windows on the massive carriers and filled the skies. They screamed and dipped and dove in the air above the glowing waters; they dodged smacking tentacles with effortless precision and beneath it all she heard singing and the low call of a drum. It was the witches, of course, they would find any excuse to sing, but her own men followed suit, raising their voices in a familiar tune which Asha knew, but had never heard played aloud before.
The light dimmed beneath them as the music drew to a close and wave after wave piled on top of the kraken which swam along the edge of her boat until she was buried in water. Eventually she disappeared altogether beneath the surf and the spell that had so captivated Asha herself fizzled and eventually faded completely until she was left cold and blinking at the waves below. She did not doubt for a moment what she’d seen.
“Do you---do that often?” She asked, still feeling breathless. She looked to Beck when she heard a tiny chuckle.
“I do what I think I need to.” It wasn’t an answer to her question. In fact, the statement prompted more questions than it answered, but Asha didn’t ask. She doubted there was any less cryptic response awaiting her down that road. And now Beck was smiling up at her with a bright, enchanting grin.
The witch slid from the side of the ship and tugged at her hand, “Come on. I’m freezing.”
