Will you come with me?
It had taken more strength to ask that question that it did for him to murder those Garlean soldiers. It had more taken more guts to ask that question than to face the Clutchfather himself and to witness him lift Ryanti up like he was nothing and place the young man’s life in those hands of his. It was a silly thing to confront that reality and accept it as truth. There were some things about life in this world that Ryanti scoffed at or gazed upon with amusion in his brow. This was one of those moments. Why had it been so hard to ask…
When she had called him being out of his Twelve-damned mind, there was a look in his eye that he gave back to her when she burrowed her gaze into his own. What she saw beyond Ryanti’s warm, aquamarine eyes that would remind any seagoers of Costa Del Sol’s ocean waves in the gleaming summer mornings, was an element of acceptance. He knew this was all just crazy… it was not even remotely sane. Both of them had already gotten much more out of what they bargained for.
He had gotten used to that hard look. For some reason, that gaze had never pierced into his chest and stung or hurt the young man. What he saw in her eyes was the color of the Dravanian pines that he was fortunate enough to bare witness to in his last mission up North, where the rivers were crystal clear and the sun was always bright. Those trees were evergreen. They did not waiver in weakness to the coming fall, and retained their color throughout the long, lonely winter. Her answer gave him the same kind of feeling that he experienced back then: a feeling of peace. Of relief.
He witnessed her running her hand through her hair – undoing what was left of Leura’s handiwork back during a time where she was well, which already seemed like such a long time ago when it barely was. When he felt something warm and moving upon the palm of his hand, Ryanti was reminded that he still had it out, and looked down to see a hair tie and a bobby pin or two. He glanced down upon the tools as the sea’s wind picked up once more.
The cold breeze was welcoming to him. It seeped below the surface of his undershirt and made him feel a little bit more alive. The items in his palm began to vibrate, as if at any moment they were to be kidnapped, and swept away by the wind. Ryanti couldn’t help but smile when she asked him if he had ever kept a braid underwater. It was the first time he had smiled all day.
“Can’t say I have… It must be a real pain.†He told her with a soft and calm voice. Right when the objects were about to be stolen from him by the wind, the young man closed his fist before it could happen and lifted his gaze from his hand to Sounsyy with a single blink. He had never seen her with her hair down. The brunette strands danced all along the wind with much more grace than Ryanti’s shorter hair ever could. Her image before him caused time to slow down just a little bit, and for but a moment Ryanti found time frozen.
After that moment had passed, he maneuvered his closed fist over one of the loose pockets in his trousers, and allowed the objects to fall inside of it. Just in case. “The first thing…†Ryanti murmured, trying to jumpstart his memory back again after so much information caused it to overload. Oh how he wanted to just continue to get lost in this sunset though. “The first thing I need you to do is to rest.â€
It was apparently obvious that Ryanti had not gotten enough sleep when he passed out in Eighty-five’s cot. He didn’t seem like he was fully energetic and ready for anything like he usually was. He tried to get the codwebs out of his mind by running a hand through his whitewashed locks. “Welro and I can handle things up here right now.†It was curious to see that Ryanti had mentioned himself and not Jonathan.
“Drink some of that juice we confiscated from the Garleans. Take a nap. Rest.†He rested his shoulder against the Mast, biting his lip a little bit before continuing. “Rest in that place where you can lay down fully. Not in your chair. And… try not to do it with wine. That’s the last thing your body needs right now after… all of that blood you gave.â€
He solemnly turned his back to her, placing his hands on his hips and sighing, looking left and right but no longer able to see the sun. Despite the evening still retaining its light, the sun had already fell below the horizon. “Rest until everyone else is, when it is darkest. Then come out again… I’ll be here. I’ll light up a part of the deck… then I can get you ready. Just be prepared to learn.â€
He gave a few cricks to his neck, then glanced back at her with a warm smile. “I’m glad you’re coming.â€
Just when he was about to walk away, after the first step he stopped in his tracks. “Oh, and… “he said to her, trailing for a moment as he gathered his breath. “I know a good amount of people contributed to saving Eighty-five’s… Leura’s… life. But so did you.†And with that, the determined Sharlayan agent walked away again. Even though he really, really didn’t want to.
---
As the dusk slowly began to turn to night, it had become very difficult for what remained of the healthy crew to keep up with their tasks. They were beginning to complete most of their initial duties in order to keep the ship afloat and livable in. But it would become apparent they would have to spend a while on repairing the ship enough to be able to sail again reliably. Their postures were drenched with fatigue and they were drudging on. The looks on their faces told the entire story.
But no one had it as hard as Ryanti. Since he had put the Captain to rest, his face wore a look as if he had just been rescued from a war zone. It was contorted and stressed enough to make him look like he been right along besides Sounsyy in Carteneau. He wasn’t beside her then, but he had been beside her and all the others in this naval battle, and it was horrid enough to live through. Jonathan and Forty-three were busy discussing with themselves the best way Ryanti should approach this task now that he was alone in his duties. It was a constant see-saw of cleaning, stopping to read more and talk more, cleaning, stopping, cleaning, stopping… until Forty-three had backed off with a sad, pity look in his eye. But Jonathan knew so such thing as slowing down.
Ryanti placed the mop down upon the wine spill in the Captain’s quarters. He must have looked like a machine from the outside. But inside, swiping all of the wine off of the floor and squeezing it out into a pale was the only kind of outlet that kept him sane right now. He gripped the mop pedals as if they were the throat of his worst enemy. P’welro had taken the young man with her to clean the Captain’s place out. Being by the person he could confide into the most was something he needed right now and she knew it.
Ryanti had seen Cynthia’s slug that the Captain had pulled out of the chair. It was sitting on her next right next to the Kobold’s helm. Was it to be a future memento for her? Something else to remind her of what she had survived? What she had survived… that had to have been the same very slug that had grazed Ryanti’s shoulder when he had tackled her to the floor on the eve of the battle. That was the first time he acknowledged the red bruise that was healing on his left shoulder. He graced two fingertips slowly across the wound to P’welro’s witness. “I took a bullet for her. Am I lost cause?†He had asked her then. She had laughed a little bit. It was funny. He laughed a little bit too. He needed that.
But as he wringed out the mop again and saw the crimson liquid that could be mistaken for blood drip into the pot, a thought raced his mind.
I don’t want her to feel like she deserves a bullet.
He glanced over at the woman four years his senior, then got back to cleaning. All the while, he knew he was going to eventually have to tell the acting Captain what was going to happen. He knew that it probably wasn’t for the best if the news was just broken out in front of an entire crowd. It had to be broken out first to the highest acting role on the ship right now.
“She’s going with me, Welro. Sounsyy is going to dive down with me.†He mentioned out of the blue, but the tone in his voice told the first mate that he had always been meaning to tell her all day. “I have to take her. She has to go. I’ll keep her safe.†He glanced at the young woman once more, and his resolve was written all over his face. It was a strength beyond strength – a faith that he had to grasp onto in order to survive the storm.
Just then, a crippled Jonathan had called for his name. Ryanti shifted his attention to the open door with a bit of a startled look on his face. His breathing was still as the air he was exhaling froze in his lungs. Jonathan nudged his head to beckon to talk to him, with papers still in his hand. He did not look happy.
Perhaps from Sounsyy’s cot, she might have heard the argument. Shouting and yelling near the entrance to her cot between the leader of the Sharlayan unit and its keeper. “She had no business in this, Seventy-seven! You are not going to defy the will of our superiors by exposing non-sanctioned Eorzeans to this kind of exposure!†Jonathan had boomed with the voice of his old drill instructor roots.
“We have no choice! There’s no one left! I can’t do this on my own or else I’ll just be sent down there to die! You –know- this and yet you –STILL- lecture me about doing what is paramount to suicide!†Ryanti had yelled back, the frustration of this entire evening catching up with him. “I’m lecturing about doing what is –PROPER- of you as a Keeper!†Jonathan had shouted back, hopping about on his one foot as his voice continued to boom. Forty-three was rubbing his eyes underneath his spectacles, shaking his head at what this had gotten to.
“What is –PROPER- of –US- is to –HELP- people! To give them a better –LIFE-! Something has to give! Something has to give eventually, Jonathan! I’m tired of this bureaucracy all of the time! We’re out here in the middle of Twelves-damn nowhere and no one has –ZERO- idea of what I am getting into and I need her!â€
“That gods-damned artifact has twisted your mind!†Jonathan shouted at Ryanti and the young man had enough after that. With a fire in his heart as well as in his eyes, he stood up to his commanding officer, catching the attention of everyone around him that had wondered what the commotion was all about.
“You think so? You don’t have any faith in me, Sixteen?†He questioned him with a tight, angry voice. “You don’t have any faith in what we do? How we are supposed to bring about change? To end suffering? You don’t have any faith in what we carry with us on this ship? We –NEED- faith! We –NEED- faith, Sixteen! Without faith… without faith we might as well be dragging our corpses under the bow of this ship because –WE HAVE ALREADY LOST-!â€
He grabbed the commanding officer’s crutch firmly in his hands, which caused Jonathan to grab at it with anger in his expression but helpless at ripping it away from the young man’s grasp. Ryanti had the ability to embarrass him, to knock him over right where he stood. “I believe the red tape and the immortality associated with this line of work has twisted your mind, Jonathan. Because of this, I deem you currently unfit to continue your service as commanding officer of this unit.â€
A knife went through the gaze of Jonathan’s. “You wouldn’t d-“
“-I- -just- -did-.â€
He let go of the crutch and Jonathan hopped backwards once or twice before resting his shoulder upon the side of the railing, his normally impenetrable expression showing a slight hint of surprise and bewilderment. “I don’t need to make a formal statement about taking over.†Ryanti murmured, glancing over at Forty-three, who was just looking on with a grizzled look about him. “I already have.â€
He swallowed his dry mouth and took calm, slow steps away from the man and looked two and fro at everyone around him with dizzy eyes, not even sure what he had just done. “I need to see my equipment.†He had told P’welro eventually. “I need to get myself ready for tomorrow. Just… tell the crew one at a time what is going on with the Captain. So that once morning comes, well... it wouldn’t be so hard.â€
---
Ryanti had gotten some sleep. A little bit. Maybe an hour or two. Hell, the entire crew almost was. Sent back down to rest, all of them were. Everyone was just too exhausted.
After he had the argument with Jonathan, he had quickly ended up in the same little storage room that they had been in prior to the battle, that they had slept in together. Eighty-five’s blanket was still partially open when she had slid out of bed that morning when she thought she was going to dive with the rest of the crew. Just to think, they could have already been on the mission right now… all four of them. Now that wasn’t meant to be. But was it always never meant to be?
He wondered that to himself as he laid out the Sharlayan equipment across the center of the ship’s deck, in which he had decided would be the best place to do this. They still had the intact mast, which was an easy place to hang torches. As he lit the fires and the warm yellow light simmered off of his skin, he thought of a man and a woman on a starship to save the world. He gave the flames a soft blow of his breath, catching the shadow of the Captain within the aura of the torch’s light. He had turned his head to her and said “Ready to get started?â€
Under the gaze of Menphina’s moon, I began to teach Sounsyy all about the equipment that would be taking down there. It was a very surreal thing to teach the basics about equipment that was claimed to be more valuable than our lives to her.
The first thing I did was lay out all of our gadgets. I taught her how the grappling hook that she saw that we had in our naval battle worked. I showed her the cable. It was a kind of imitation Garlean fiber that the Ironworks had made. I showed her to pick it off of the belt we had and how to shoot it. She shot it up around the mast’s arms and climbed a bit of it while I watched.
I showed her how our explosives worked, which was something else we used in the fight. I didn’t pull any pins, but I explained to her what would happen. You pulled it, threw it and it would explode in a flash of powder and shrapnel. We both knew that it was easier to explain everything if you just… left the science out. So that’s what I did. It’s not like I knew any better about how it was designed either.
I let her see the wound on my suit. I let her see how it had patched itself up over time so that the only way you can tell it had ever been pierced was its discoloration compared to the rest of the outfit. I explained to her when it’s teared open, it will release a medical gel that’ll seep over your wound and sterilize it while working on healing it. Then the threading would re-sauterize itself. Some kind of magical charm, I told her. Honestly, I didn’t know how it worked.
I explained to her how our canteens could scoop up dirty water and filter it. I told her about the little square patch on the side of it and how it would change from red to green once you shook it enough and the filter did its work. By this point, I couldn’t hide my liking to these kinds of things. It was amazing technology and… there was a part of me that was having fun showing her all of this in the dead of night at an ungodly hour with barely any sleep and the warmth of the torch’s fire over us. I joked about how you could probably drink your own piss in one of these. Am I sailor now? Probably not. But dirtier, yeah... probably.
Then I let her see how the rations worked. I showed her what amounted to a bag. That same kind of bag one would get from packaged treats in Garlemald. I didn’t want to waste any of them, but I explained to her how you could pour water into one of the pockets, and the alchemical powder inside would react to the water and boil up, ‘cooking’ the nutritional meals inside so that maybe we wouldn’t have to vomit our meals out while… while diving down there.
Then we tried putting on the suit. I told her how to buckle the straps in. I explained to her how not to worry about clipping the water-tight seals together, that it would come later. I taught her how to latch on the boots, what gauges to check on her suit to make sure she was doing alright, and I even explained to her a little bit of the science behind how aether was embedded into the weaving, and how air was vented through micro-tubing in-between the threading to give us breathable air for a while with the help of a mouthpiece that would hang from her collarbone when attached. It looked like it was made for her… her form was as black as the night sky in front of me. This was actually happening, I thought.
The most fun I had was showing her how the goggles worked. It had three different modes, I had explained to her. Night vision, thermals vision, and aetherial vision. She just looked at me, confused. Heh, well, I guess there was no other choice but to just put them on her and let her see for herself. I remember the first time I hit the switch. Suddenly, the pitch darkness of the ocean blue and the reality around her became a slight shade of green, but she could see. See any better than a torch would provide her. Seeing her reaction to that was priceless. Even better when I switched it to thermal and stepped in front of her, moving an arm up and down like a fool. We had to turn it off after that, though. It only had a limited time of running. I guess that’s why we had flashlights.
The weapons were the worst though. She held that pistol as if she was allergic to it. It was the first moment that I realized how strange it was that I was the teacher and… her the student. I had tossed a pierce of a broke barrel out to sea, and turned on one of my torch-less flashlights so that she could see it floating in the water. I spent a long time showing her how to grip it right. How to spread her legs out right. How to look down the sights. We couldn’t really use live rounds with the pistol. There was just too little of them left. So we decided to move onto the rifle because, well with two other of my unit injured… we had a ton of ammunition to spare now.
“Come on, Sounsyy. I know you can do it.†A gun shot fired out. A single round from the Sharlayan rifle. A fountain of water plopped up next to the piece of the broken barrel. “Loosen your shoulders up. Don’t let the recoil take you back. Imagine like it’s someone ramming your shield and stand your ground against it. Try again.â€
A few slower, hesitant shots rang out. A few more fountains of water. They were slightly closer, but they were not hitting the target. The shots slowly began to ring out more rapidly, but they kept on missing. When the Captain had lowered the rifle a bit in seething frustration, she suddenly felt a hand grip onto the stock of the rifle. Ryanti was there, with his head a bit down and glancing over her shoulders, his height looming over her back, as if to shield her embarrassment from the ship she owned.
“Hold on… take a few deep breaths. No one’s watching you but me.†He advised her. Normally he would be a little timid and hesitant to be this hands-on with her training, but had found it… necessarily, and probably the best way to teach her. He adjusted the stock of the rifle to rest in the perfect spot on her shoulder. “Just like that.†He voice came from behind her ears, and he softly gripped the forearm of her trigger arm, adjusting it to properly circumvent along the stock and keep a fine place to rest the rifle on.
His palms were very warm, and ever so slightly having a shake to them when he rose her arm. There was a deep, deep fear behind every single he made. A fear that was only apparent to Sounsyy now, when he was this close to her, this hands-on with her position to make sure everything was right. He was scared. Just as scared as what was going to happen as Sounsyy was. How could someone even possibly have a rational mind about themselves on the eve of… diving into the unknown? But Ryanti’s voice was calm, collected, and soothing. He was trying as hard as he can to not scare her any further by his own fear. “Don’t use your fingers.†He murmured to her, his fingertips finding themselves on the Captain’s hand that held the end of the rifle aloft. “Rest your palm upon the barrel…†He murmured, shifting her hand to where the weight rested upon her palm.
He glanced over to look at her legs, which were a little too close to one another. “Spread your legs out a little more.†He told her, after a moment nodding his head. “That’s good enough.â€
A moment passed, and Sounsyy’s tunnel vision of the barrel, and the rifle she held in her hands, was interrupted by Ryanti’s arms. They slowly extended outwards, shadowing where her limbs were. He parted his legs a little bit, and stood behind her, shadowing her posture and looking slightly over her head at the target. “You need to grip it hard.†He had said, once again allowing his hand to envelop Sounsyy’s own that held the barrel, squeezing it a bit to emulate the kind of firmness for her. “Like this. Now look down the sights and adjust for distance…†Her trigger finger felt Ryanti’s finger slide in below it. “Ready… ?†He had whispered to her, and pulled the trigger back, a shot ringing out.
It might have been amusing if anyone was out to watch this. But of course, the Roehmerl was anchored, and there was no need for someone to steer the course during those ungodly hours. But maybe one or two of the crew had peaked from the stairs? The Allagan relic, which had been resting in the compartment box where the equipment was stored upon the deck they were on began to glow again, in a warm, encompassing blue light.
The barrel floated in the water, with a gaping hole in the middle of it. “Again. Ready… ?†He squeezed the trigger again, letting her deal with the ricochet, knocking Ryanti back a tiny bit before he took another step forward, just to do it all over again. The piece of wood flipped about the ocean’s waves as their shots began to pick it apart. With every hit, Ryanti’s smile got a little wider. “Alright…†He murmured to her, finally letting go of her barrel hand and sliding his finger off of the trigger. He backed up a few spaces, yet for some reason… he felt the same feeling he felt earlier that dusk when he had walked away from before.
“This time do it without me.†He said to her, his arms still a little outstretched, but now he was a few ilms away. “And remember: have faith. That is how we operate. Now… go.â€
It had taken more strength to ask that question that it did for him to murder those Garlean soldiers. It had more taken more guts to ask that question than to face the Clutchfather himself and to witness him lift Ryanti up like he was nothing and place the young man’s life in those hands of his. It was a silly thing to confront that reality and accept it as truth. There were some things about life in this world that Ryanti scoffed at or gazed upon with amusion in his brow. This was one of those moments. Why had it been so hard to ask…
When she had called him being out of his Twelve-damned mind, there was a look in his eye that he gave back to her when she burrowed her gaze into his own. What she saw beyond Ryanti’s warm, aquamarine eyes that would remind any seagoers of Costa Del Sol’s ocean waves in the gleaming summer mornings, was an element of acceptance. He knew this was all just crazy… it was not even remotely sane. Both of them had already gotten much more out of what they bargained for.
He had gotten used to that hard look. For some reason, that gaze had never pierced into his chest and stung or hurt the young man. What he saw in her eyes was the color of the Dravanian pines that he was fortunate enough to bare witness to in his last mission up North, where the rivers were crystal clear and the sun was always bright. Those trees were evergreen. They did not waiver in weakness to the coming fall, and retained their color throughout the long, lonely winter. Her answer gave him the same kind of feeling that he experienced back then: a feeling of peace. Of relief.
He witnessed her running her hand through her hair – undoing what was left of Leura’s handiwork back during a time where she was well, which already seemed like such a long time ago when it barely was. When he felt something warm and moving upon the palm of his hand, Ryanti was reminded that he still had it out, and looked down to see a hair tie and a bobby pin or two. He glanced down upon the tools as the sea’s wind picked up once more.
The cold breeze was welcoming to him. It seeped below the surface of his undershirt and made him feel a little bit more alive. The items in his palm began to vibrate, as if at any moment they were to be kidnapped, and swept away by the wind. Ryanti couldn’t help but smile when she asked him if he had ever kept a braid underwater. It was the first time he had smiled all day.
“Can’t say I have… It must be a real pain.†He told her with a soft and calm voice. Right when the objects were about to be stolen from him by the wind, the young man closed his fist before it could happen and lifted his gaze from his hand to Sounsyy with a single blink. He had never seen her with her hair down. The brunette strands danced all along the wind with much more grace than Ryanti’s shorter hair ever could. Her image before him caused time to slow down just a little bit, and for but a moment Ryanti found time frozen.
After that moment had passed, he maneuvered his closed fist over one of the loose pockets in his trousers, and allowed the objects to fall inside of it. Just in case. “The first thing…†Ryanti murmured, trying to jumpstart his memory back again after so much information caused it to overload. Oh how he wanted to just continue to get lost in this sunset though. “The first thing I need you to do is to rest.â€
It was apparently obvious that Ryanti had not gotten enough sleep when he passed out in Eighty-five’s cot. He didn’t seem like he was fully energetic and ready for anything like he usually was. He tried to get the codwebs out of his mind by running a hand through his whitewashed locks. “Welro and I can handle things up here right now.†It was curious to see that Ryanti had mentioned himself and not Jonathan.
“Drink some of that juice we confiscated from the Garleans. Take a nap. Rest.†He rested his shoulder against the Mast, biting his lip a little bit before continuing. “Rest in that place where you can lay down fully. Not in your chair. And… try not to do it with wine. That’s the last thing your body needs right now after… all of that blood you gave.â€
He solemnly turned his back to her, placing his hands on his hips and sighing, looking left and right but no longer able to see the sun. Despite the evening still retaining its light, the sun had already fell below the horizon. “Rest until everyone else is, when it is darkest. Then come out again… I’ll be here. I’ll light up a part of the deck… then I can get you ready. Just be prepared to learn.â€
He gave a few cricks to his neck, then glanced back at her with a warm smile. “I’m glad you’re coming.â€
Just when he was about to walk away, after the first step he stopped in his tracks. “Oh, and… “he said to her, trailing for a moment as he gathered his breath. “I know a good amount of people contributed to saving Eighty-five’s… Leura’s… life. But so did you.†And with that, the determined Sharlayan agent walked away again. Even though he really, really didn’t want to.
---
As the dusk slowly began to turn to night, it had become very difficult for what remained of the healthy crew to keep up with their tasks. They were beginning to complete most of their initial duties in order to keep the ship afloat and livable in. But it would become apparent they would have to spend a while on repairing the ship enough to be able to sail again reliably. Their postures were drenched with fatigue and they were drudging on. The looks on their faces told the entire story.
But no one had it as hard as Ryanti. Since he had put the Captain to rest, his face wore a look as if he had just been rescued from a war zone. It was contorted and stressed enough to make him look like he been right along besides Sounsyy in Carteneau. He wasn’t beside her then, but he had been beside her and all the others in this naval battle, and it was horrid enough to live through. Jonathan and Forty-three were busy discussing with themselves the best way Ryanti should approach this task now that he was alone in his duties. It was a constant see-saw of cleaning, stopping to read more and talk more, cleaning, stopping, cleaning, stopping… until Forty-three had backed off with a sad, pity look in his eye. But Jonathan knew so such thing as slowing down.
Ryanti placed the mop down upon the wine spill in the Captain’s quarters. He must have looked like a machine from the outside. But inside, swiping all of the wine off of the floor and squeezing it out into a pale was the only kind of outlet that kept him sane right now. He gripped the mop pedals as if they were the throat of his worst enemy. P’welro had taken the young man with her to clean the Captain’s place out. Being by the person he could confide into the most was something he needed right now and she knew it.
Ryanti had seen Cynthia’s slug that the Captain had pulled out of the chair. It was sitting on her next right next to the Kobold’s helm. Was it to be a future memento for her? Something else to remind her of what she had survived? What she had survived… that had to have been the same very slug that had grazed Ryanti’s shoulder when he had tackled her to the floor on the eve of the battle. That was the first time he acknowledged the red bruise that was healing on his left shoulder. He graced two fingertips slowly across the wound to P’welro’s witness. “I took a bullet for her. Am I lost cause?†He had asked her then. She had laughed a little bit. It was funny. He laughed a little bit too. He needed that.
But as he wringed out the mop again and saw the crimson liquid that could be mistaken for blood drip into the pot, a thought raced his mind.
I don’t want her to feel like she deserves a bullet.
He glanced over at the woman four years his senior, then got back to cleaning. All the while, he knew he was going to eventually have to tell the acting Captain what was going to happen. He knew that it probably wasn’t for the best if the news was just broken out in front of an entire crowd. It had to be broken out first to the highest acting role on the ship right now.
“She’s going with me, Welro. Sounsyy is going to dive down with me.†He mentioned out of the blue, but the tone in his voice told the first mate that he had always been meaning to tell her all day. “I have to take her. She has to go. I’ll keep her safe.†He glanced at the young woman once more, and his resolve was written all over his face. It was a strength beyond strength – a faith that he had to grasp onto in order to survive the storm.
Just then, a crippled Jonathan had called for his name. Ryanti shifted his attention to the open door with a bit of a startled look on his face. His breathing was still as the air he was exhaling froze in his lungs. Jonathan nudged his head to beckon to talk to him, with papers still in his hand. He did not look happy.
Perhaps from Sounsyy’s cot, she might have heard the argument. Shouting and yelling near the entrance to her cot between the leader of the Sharlayan unit and its keeper. “She had no business in this, Seventy-seven! You are not going to defy the will of our superiors by exposing non-sanctioned Eorzeans to this kind of exposure!†Jonathan had boomed with the voice of his old drill instructor roots.
“We have no choice! There’s no one left! I can’t do this on my own or else I’ll just be sent down there to die! You –know- this and yet you –STILL- lecture me about doing what is paramount to suicide!†Ryanti had yelled back, the frustration of this entire evening catching up with him. “I’m lecturing about doing what is –PROPER- of you as a Keeper!†Jonathan had shouted back, hopping about on his one foot as his voice continued to boom. Forty-three was rubbing his eyes underneath his spectacles, shaking his head at what this had gotten to.
“What is –PROPER- of –US- is to –HELP- people! To give them a better –LIFE-! Something has to give! Something has to give eventually, Jonathan! I’m tired of this bureaucracy all of the time! We’re out here in the middle of Twelves-damn nowhere and no one has –ZERO- idea of what I am getting into and I need her!â€
“That gods-damned artifact has twisted your mind!†Jonathan shouted at Ryanti and the young man had enough after that. With a fire in his heart as well as in his eyes, he stood up to his commanding officer, catching the attention of everyone around him that had wondered what the commotion was all about.
“You think so? You don’t have any faith in me, Sixteen?†He questioned him with a tight, angry voice. “You don’t have any faith in what we do? How we are supposed to bring about change? To end suffering? You don’t have any faith in what we carry with us on this ship? We –NEED- faith! We –NEED- faith, Sixteen! Without faith… without faith we might as well be dragging our corpses under the bow of this ship because –WE HAVE ALREADY LOST-!â€
He grabbed the commanding officer’s crutch firmly in his hands, which caused Jonathan to grab at it with anger in his expression but helpless at ripping it away from the young man’s grasp. Ryanti had the ability to embarrass him, to knock him over right where he stood. “I believe the red tape and the immortality associated with this line of work has twisted your mind, Jonathan. Because of this, I deem you currently unfit to continue your service as commanding officer of this unit.â€
A knife went through the gaze of Jonathan’s. “You wouldn’t d-“
“-I- -just- -did-.â€
He let go of the crutch and Jonathan hopped backwards once or twice before resting his shoulder upon the side of the railing, his normally impenetrable expression showing a slight hint of surprise and bewilderment. “I don’t need to make a formal statement about taking over.†Ryanti murmured, glancing over at Forty-three, who was just looking on with a grizzled look about him. “I already have.â€
He swallowed his dry mouth and took calm, slow steps away from the man and looked two and fro at everyone around him with dizzy eyes, not even sure what he had just done. “I need to see my equipment.†He had told P’welro eventually. “I need to get myself ready for tomorrow. Just… tell the crew one at a time what is going on with the Captain. So that once morning comes, well... it wouldn’t be so hard.â€
---
Ryanti had gotten some sleep. A little bit. Maybe an hour or two. Hell, the entire crew almost was. Sent back down to rest, all of them were. Everyone was just too exhausted.
After he had the argument with Jonathan, he had quickly ended up in the same little storage room that they had been in prior to the battle, that they had slept in together. Eighty-five’s blanket was still partially open when she had slid out of bed that morning when she thought she was going to dive with the rest of the crew. Just to think, they could have already been on the mission right now… all four of them. Now that wasn’t meant to be. But was it always never meant to be?
He wondered that to himself as he laid out the Sharlayan equipment across the center of the ship’s deck, in which he had decided would be the best place to do this. They still had the intact mast, which was an easy place to hang torches. As he lit the fires and the warm yellow light simmered off of his skin, he thought of a man and a woman on a starship to save the world. He gave the flames a soft blow of his breath, catching the shadow of the Captain within the aura of the torch’s light. He had turned his head to her and said “Ready to get started?â€
Under the gaze of Menphina’s moon, I began to teach Sounsyy all about the equipment that would be taking down there. It was a very surreal thing to teach the basics about equipment that was claimed to be more valuable than our lives to her.
The first thing I did was lay out all of our gadgets. I taught her how the grappling hook that she saw that we had in our naval battle worked. I showed her the cable. It was a kind of imitation Garlean fiber that the Ironworks had made. I showed her to pick it off of the belt we had and how to shoot it. She shot it up around the mast’s arms and climbed a bit of it while I watched.
I showed her how our explosives worked, which was something else we used in the fight. I didn’t pull any pins, but I explained to her what would happen. You pulled it, threw it and it would explode in a flash of powder and shrapnel. We both knew that it was easier to explain everything if you just… left the science out. So that’s what I did. It’s not like I knew any better about how it was designed either.
I let her see the wound on my suit. I let her see how it had patched itself up over time so that the only way you can tell it had ever been pierced was its discoloration compared to the rest of the outfit. I explained to her when it’s teared open, it will release a medical gel that’ll seep over your wound and sterilize it while working on healing it. Then the threading would re-sauterize itself. Some kind of magical charm, I told her. Honestly, I didn’t know how it worked.
I explained to her how our canteens could scoop up dirty water and filter it. I told her about the little square patch on the side of it and how it would change from red to green once you shook it enough and the filter did its work. By this point, I couldn’t hide my liking to these kinds of things. It was amazing technology and… there was a part of me that was having fun showing her all of this in the dead of night at an ungodly hour with barely any sleep and the warmth of the torch’s fire over us. I joked about how you could probably drink your own piss in one of these. Am I sailor now? Probably not. But dirtier, yeah... probably.
Then I let her see how the rations worked. I showed her what amounted to a bag. That same kind of bag one would get from packaged treats in Garlemald. I didn’t want to waste any of them, but I explained to her how you could pour water into one of the pockets, and the alchemical powder inside would react to the water and boil up, ‘cooking’ the nutritional meals inside so that maybe we wouldn’t have to vomit our meals out while… while diving down there.
Then we tried putting on the suit. I told her how to buckle the straps in. I explained to her how not to worry about clipping the water-tight seals together, that it would come later. I taught her how to latch on the boots, what gauges to check on her suit to make sure she was doing alright, and I even explained to her a little bit of the science behind how aether was embedded into the weaving, and how air was vented through micro-tubing in-between the threading to give us breathable air for a while with the help of a mouthpiece that would hang from her collarbone when attached. It looked like it was made for her… her form was as black as the night sky in front of me. This was actually happening, I thought.
The most fun I had was showing her how the goggles worked. It had three different modes, I had explained to her. Night vision, thermals vision, and aetherial vision. She just looked at me, confused. Heh, well, I guess there was no other choice but to just put them on her and let her see for herself. I remember the first time I hit the switch. Suddenly, the pitch darkness of the ocean blue and the reality around her became a slight shade of green, but she could see. See any better than a torch would provide her. Seeing her reaction to that was priceless. Even better when I switched it to thermal and stepped in front of her, moving an arm up and down like a fool. We had to turn it off after that, though. It only had a limited time of running. I guess that’s why we had flashlights.
The weapons were the worst though. She held that pistol as if she was allergic to it. It was the first moment that I realized how strange it was that I was the teacher and… her the student. I had tossed a pierce of a broke barrel out to sea, and turned on one of my torch-less flashlights so that she could see it floating in the water. I spent a long time showing her how to grip it right. How to spread her legs out right. How to look down the sights. We couldn’t really use live rounds with the pistol. There was just too little of them left. So we decided to move onto the rifle because, well with two other of my unit injured… we had a ton of ammunition to spare now.
“Come on, Sounsyy. I know you can do it.†A gun shot fired out. A single round from the Sharlayan rifle. A fountain of water plopped up next to the piece of the broken barrel. “Loosen your shoulders up. Don’t let the recoil take you back. Imagine like it’s someone ramming your shield and stand your ground against it. Try again.â€
A few slower, hesitant shots rang out. A few more fountains of water. They were slightly closer, but they were not hitting the target. The shots slowly began to ring out more rapidly, but they kept on missing. When the Captain had lowered the rifle a bit in seething frustration, she suddenly felt a hand grip onto the stock of the rifle. Ryanti was there, with his head a bit down and glancing over her shoulders, his height looming over her back, as if to shield her embarrassment from the ship she owned.
“Hold on… take a few deep breaths. No one’s watching you but me.†He advised her. Normally he would be a little timid and hesitant to be this hands-on with her training, but had found it… necessarily, and probably the best way to teach her. He adjusted the stock of the rifle to rest in the perfect spot on her shoulder. “Just like that.†He voice came from behind her ears, and he softly gripped the forearm of her trigger arm, adjusting it to properly circumvent along the stock and keep a fine place to rest the rifle on.
His palms were very warm, and ever so slightly having a shake to them when he rose her arm. There was a deep, deep fear behind every single he made. A fear that was only apparent to Sounsyy now, when he was this close to her, this hands-on with her position to make sure everything was right. He was scared. Just as scared as what was going to happen as Sounsyy was. How could someone even possibly have a rational mind about themselves on the eve of… diving into the unknown? But Ryanti’s voice was calm, collected, and soothing. He was trying as hard as he can to not scare her any further by his own fear. “Don’t use your fingers.†He murmured to her, his fingertips finding themselves on the Captain’s hand that held the end of the rifle aloft. “Rest your palm upon the barrel…†He murmured, shifting her hand to where the weight rested upon her palm.
He glanced over to look at her legs, which were a little too close to one another. “Spread your legs out a little more.†He told her, after a moment nodding his head. “That’s good enough.â€
A moment passed, and Sounsyy’s tunnel vision of the barrel, and the rifle she held in her hands, was interrupted by Ryanti’s arms. They slowly extended outwards, shadowing where her limbs were. He parted his legs a little bit, and stood behind her, shadowing her posture and looking slightly over her head at the target. “You need to grip it hard.†He had said, once again allowing his hand to envelop Sounsyy’s own that held the barrel, squeezing it a bit to emulate the kind of firmness for her. “Like this. Now look down the sights and adjust for distance…†Her trigger finger felt Ryanti’s finger slide in below it. “Ready… ?†He had whispered to her, and pulled the trigger back, a shot ringing out.
It might have been amusing if anyone was out to watch this. But of course, the Roehmerl was anchored, and there was no need for someone to steer the course during those ungodly hours. But maybe one or two of the crew had peaked from the stairs? The Allagan relic, which had been resting in the compartment box where the equipment was stored upon the deck they were on began to glow again, in a warm, encompassing blue light.
The barrel floated in the water, with a gaping hole in the middle of it. “Again. Ready… ?†He squeezed the trigger again, letting her deal with the ricochet, knocking Ryanti back a tiny bit before he took another step forward, just to do it all over again. The piece of wood flipped about the ocean’s waves as their shots began to pick it apart. With every hit, Ryanti’s smile got a little wider. “Alright…†He murmured to her, finally letting go of her barrel hand and sliding his finger off of the trigger. He backed up a few spaces, yet for some reason… he felt the same feeling he felt earlier that dusk when he had walked away from before.
“This time do it without me.†He said to her, his arms still a little outstretched, but now he was a few ilms away. “And remember: have faith. That is how we operate. Now… go.â€