Skedaddle

[Emora Deen]

Laya looked to Telanis when she saw the man. He looked inhumanly ill. Supernaturally ill. “Lay him down quickly,” she said, helping to clear off a spot of him. She went back to Telanis, her eyes looking at him in the hopes he could read her thoughts.

She didn’t want to believe that Adonis would do something like this, especially to the crew that would insure that safe return to Telanis’s home country, but he was angry.

He was deadly angry.

[Soran Nightblade]

Telanis couldn't pull his eyes from the suffering in front of him. He could feel the darkness rolling off the sick man, just as it rolled off his brother. The same exact flavor of darkness. He reached out with a very still hand to the infected man as they laid him down. He touched the man's chest and let himself sense the human's intense suffering. This couldn't have happened by chance. No natural illness would take such a toll so fast.

He tried it anyway. Leaning over the man, he touched his forehead to the man's. A glow surrounded them, but nothing happened. If anything, the man looked worse. Just like the people Adonis had infected in the village before.

Telanis sat back and stared at the sick man. "This is not good," he barely whispered to Laya while the doctor and his crewmate stared at the scene.

[Emora Deen]

Adonis was the only one with that type of power. He was taking out his rage on these people. He was taking out his desire to kill her on these people.

Laya looked at the suffering man and swallowed her fear. It was slowly replaced by anger. “I’ll be right back,” she told Telanis. “Don’t leave here. I’ll be right back.”

Laya left the room, slamming into the wall on the outside as the ship tipped sideways. She moved towards the steps leading up into the storm. Water rushed down soaking the floor. She ascended them, the rain drenching her as she went up.

She clutched at the railing on the steps and pushed her hair from her face as the wind tossed it. The rain soaked through her clothes and matted her long brown hair. She searched the deck for Adonis and found him.

A wave rose up and washed across the deck. It slammed her into the wood, but her clutch on the railing never faltered.

“Adonis!” she yelled, but knew full well he couldn’t hear her.

She went to him, stumbling on the deck and using the mast for support when she reached it. “Adonis!” she screamed when she managed to stumble towards him. She grabbed his shoulder. “Stop this! Don’t hurt these people!”

He was the only person who knew on board that could do that. “I know you hate me! I know you are angry with me! If you want to kill someone then kill me, but don’t you dare bring these people into it. You are no better than the man who hurt you if you continue on doing this to innocent people!” She yelled over the roar of the storm. The ship groaned, and another wave washed across the deck. She grabbed onto Adonis’s arm before she was washed away. “So kill me! But, don’t you dare curse these people.”

Her gray eyes swirled in rhythm with the storm. She meant every word.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis was tightening a cleat on deck when Laya grabbed his shoulder. He spun toward her tensely, more displeased by the human contact than he was by the storm itself. But she spoke, and he listened. After a few words, confused alarm began to spread through his nerves. He managed to keep his eyes hard as he remembered the feeling he'd had a minute ago. "As enjoyable as that sounds, no one here is cursed," he said flatly.

As if on cue, someone shouted on the other side of the deck. A sailor was crouched next to three men who had been in the middle of lowering the mainsail. "Help! These men are sick!" he half-screamed.

[Emora Deen]

Laya looked away from those calling for help and her eyes burned into Adonis. “You have to be the second vilest person I have ever met in my life. You speak of weak and corrupt humans, yet you let yourself be worst than them. If you truly want to save your brother from darkness then don’t fall into it yourself.”

She turned and went to the people hovering around the fallen bodies. “We need to get them down below.”

Laya helped as best she could them carry the bodies below one by one. They had to leave as many hands on deck as possible to help keep the ship afloat.

The medical ward was filling up fast, and Laya couldn’t help but worry that being so close to the sick would make her ill as well. She had to think of a way to get Adonis to stop… What made him remove the curse from her last time?

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis didn't have much time to argue with Laya, because the crew on deck were dropping like flies. In a matter of minutes, he was the only one still standing. The men's fear rippled through his senses, magnified by the sheer number of people infected. They were strewn all over the deck, most too ill to sit up. He grabbed hold of a line that had been dropped by a crewman and began tugging to draw the sails down before the wind wrecked them. The next time Laya came up to the deck, he shouted into the wind, "Leave them for now! We need these things dropped before they drag the ship over!"

He put authority in his voice, but the prospect that he and Laya were going to have to crew the ship alone was becoming a horrifying reality.

[Emora Deen]

Laya looked at the rope blankly. She didn’t know what to do, but as she watched Adonis she began to get the idea. She jumped in along next to him, pulling on the rope to lower the sails. A wave rose up over the edge of the ship. It struck her, sending her off her feet.

She toppled into the mast. She clamored to her feet and kept pulling until her arms were sore. But the sail had slowly lowered.

Another wave, the ship dipped. She felt like a rag doll being slung around on the deck. She watched the bodies as they slid back and forth across the wood, hoping known would go over. “I’ll be next,” she called over the wind. “The medics fell ill… I’m the only human not sick. Why? I have to be next Adonis… Tell me. Truthfully. Is this you?!”

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis paused his wrestling with the lines for a minute to look at her. The work was helping him ignore what was going on, but her question jerked him back to reality, and the fact that she was probably right. Who else could have done this? And he had felt something black stir in him, something he didn't even understand at the time. "Probably," he acknowledged, squinting into the rain at her. There wasn't much point in lying about it. In a few minutes, she'd probably be as sick as the rest of them. Though it was strange that she was unaffected... If he'd cast a hex inadvertently, wouldn't she be the first one hit? After everything she'd done...?

The ship lurched sideways. Adonis looked over at the helm, where no one was left to man the wheel. He ran to it and grabbed the rungs of the tiller, but it broke through his grasp and spun harshly in the force of the waves, giving him a rough hit in the back of his wrist. He grimaced at the spinning wheel. In this weather, it would take two men to steer the ship. "Help me turn it into the wind."

[Emora Deen]

She didn’t know how to respond to what he was saying. It sounded like he wasn’t sure himself.

Laya watched Adonis as he tried to stop the spinning wheel. “You’re going to break something,” she yelled as he eyes scanned the deck for something to make it stop. She found a wooden staff, a mop handle and she grabbed it.

Laya looked at the spinning wheel, watching it carefully, and when she thought the time was right she shoved the mop head forward. It went through the spokes and the force jerked the mop handle down. She kept her hands on it, but it took her with it and she sat on her rear, holding the handle tight against her. It knocked the wind out of her, but she held it nevertheless.

“Okay, get your hands on it…” she breathed out. She stood; keeping the mop head locked inside until he could get a grip on it and right the course. Then they could hold it in place with the brass lock.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis had to acknowledge her ingenuity. He reached down and took hold where she'd instructed, putting his lean but muscular body to work against the force of the waves. "I have it," he said, holding it steady. He couldn't help glancing at her, to see if her eyes were inky black like the rest of them. He had no way to say it, especially not to her. There was no way to admit that the power he'd claimed was scaring the hell out of him at the moment. That he had no idea what was going on or if he was capable of fixing it.

[Emora Deen]

Laya slid along the mop handle until she could get her hands on the wheel to help him. “Okay…” she muttered, tilting her head up to him. “Don’t let go…” She kicked the handle out from between the spokes of the wheel and suddenly felt the force of the wind and the waves against it. She pulled helping Adonis turn the wheel and the ship into the wind. When it was in the proper place she moved her hand to a brass knob on pier that held the wheel. She tapped it into one of the holes on the wheel, and it held the helm in place.

When it was over she gave a heavy sigh, and met his eyes gain. Given the stance they had with each other, they were working surprisingly well together.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis held steady while Laya steered. His arms and legs felt like stone, but he knew it was just shock. He felt inside himself for a solution to what was happening. What kind of spell would it take to undo this kind of hex? Would trying to harness black magic for that purpose just risk him losing even more control? "I don't know how I did this," he murmured, not realizing he'd spoken out loud until the words had escaped. He sounded breathless - not the way he was used to hearing his own voice.

[Emora Deen]

Laya looked down. “Maybe your hatred for me did it,” she told him. “Maybe you wanted me dead so bad and couldn’t do it in front of Telanis that you’re power had to go somewhere. So it went into these people. Still… it doesn’t explain why I am not sick. When I was the reason for your rage.”

The wind tossed her hair, and her dress clung close to her skin. The water soaked through every bit of her clothing, drenched her entire form. Her feet sloshed in her boots as she stepped away from the helm.

“What next?” she asked him, wondering if there was anything else they needed to do.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis looked out at the stormy sky around them. "We wait." He shook his head crossly. "The black magics have possessive influences over their wielders. I've always been immune to them, before. It has no influence over pure magics, any more than pure magics can influence it." He didn't want to think about what that might mean. That he'd used up the last bit of what he'd originally been, and there was no Light left in him. He could become just another burnout warlock with no sanity left to control the power he had. He could kill every human on this ship, and doom his brother in the process.

[Emora Deen]

Laya nodded. “I’m going to tie them to the deck. There is no more room below. At least that will keep them from falling overboard.”

Laya went to it, going from person to person and lassoing them together, then tying them to the railing of the deck. When she was done she looked back to Adonis. “I’m going down below to get lighter clothes on. These are too heavy to work in the rain… I’m going to check on Telanis.”