Headfirst into the Abyss

It’s been quiet on Sleeping Sun so far, really quiet—the only big news happening right now is actually Scylla landing. Viktor knows the crew – they’ve been Charybdis’ mentor during their time as cadets – and he knows they probably won’t like many people and being there, but he thinks that he deserves to be there.

That, and Zain would mock him if he didn’t come.

The landing is not usual, not really—they spend a lot of time in the storage space because they’ve flown last hours of their journey under high pressure and everything needs to be evened out before the ship can open. It takes them perhaps even more to get to their senses and look presentable. Viktor knows the feeling all too well.

Despite the protocol – Scylla have always been known to follow it almost blindly – it is Virgil that comes out first, dark eyes dropping and the permanent scowl on her face serving its name all too well. She gets out, donned all in red, uniforms all identical to those Viktor and his crew are wearing, save for the colour. The first steps she takes look awkward because their ship had gravity higher than the Sleeping Sun does. The complex is imitating the Earth, and while her body weight most likely approves of his, her actual body needs a while to catch up.

All in all, Virgil doesn’t look like she’s a happy camper.

“Oy! Virginia!” It’s Thana that calls out to her first, hand stretched in the air and waving. When woman looks their way, Viktor smiles too. She only nods – he notices that she looks endlessly tired – and then approaches the closes person to her, Viktor’s mother. He can see them exchanging words with each other, and then Virgil disappears into the closest hallway, quick gone. She doesn’t return for minutes later.

It’s Jo that follows few minutes later, worried expression on her face, but she remains calm, too. Her talk with Phoebe is different – she’s quick and somewhat urgent, although her face doesn’t betray anything. Phoebe nods several times, says something to those close to her and gets inside the ship. On wobbly legs, Jo approaches the small group waiting for them.

“Hey.” She’s quiet. It’s Thana she hugs first; she holds her younger sister for few minutes. When she pulls away, Viktor sees that her lower lip is trembling.

“Is everything okay?” He asks when she gets to him, not the one to put things away ‘for later’ and Jo shakes her head, pale strands gliding over the fabric of the coat effortlessly. She’s half-Zephyr, just like Zain is half-wraith, and she and Thana look only a little bit alike. Half-sisters, and all that – had they been sisters fully, Jo’s hair would’ve been a lot darker.

It’s the expression on Jo’s face that he’s more worried about, however, because it conveys more than words.

“We’ve spent two and a half years with Cecilia, you know? She’s been a real good navigator, one of the best we’ve had over the years. We’ve avoided—countless solar storms, asteroid belts, stray satellites, black holes, what you will, you know, and she—she just.” Jo stops, inhales. It’s rare to see her show any emotion at all, from what Viktor could remember of her, and it’s upsetting to see her showing them now. “She was a good person.”

“What happened?” Thana asks, the first one to speak after a short pause. “What happened to her? Are the rest of you okay?”

Naim leaves Scylla next, steps heavy and echoing, and follows after Virgil without a single glance to his surroundings. There’s blood on his red sleeves and on his hands. Now that Viktor looks at Jo’s hands, they are bloody too.

“We were travelling under high gravity. We were all doped up, I know because I checked it myself, entered it into a journal.” Jo’s the medic, Viktor remembers. “She was fine, but when we got close to the landing she just—it was just two hours ago. She couldn’t get up and her bones were just, you know... broken. I don’t know how that happened.”

A pause, a long one, because Jo is inhaling and exhaling, her hair raising at the sides of her neck where the fin-like addition to lungs was. He found it strange and fascinating; alien anatomy was nothing new, after all.

“Potter was in room with her. Naim, too. Both unconscious, but they were fine. I cannot explain this. How do I explain this?” She clings to Thana, her hands red from the blood and pale from the loss of same. Only belatedly does Viktor realise that Zephyrs’ blood is not red.

He remembers it only after he remembers this first – his sister had been the navigator on Scylla before she disappeared. He doesn’t really think it’s the coincidence, not with the tall figure of the Grimgrinner looming about as the lifeless body was brought out of the wretched ship.