Teddy slides down onto the seat, impressed by the spear but hasty to take over the oars. He watches Achilles as he speaks. Achilles is always a compelling speaker, his choice of words and intensity easy to pay attention to. In this moment, though, the determination and grief and fury battling in his expression aches somewhere deep in Teddy's chest.
Teddy knows the story already, not that they're prepared to address that with Achilles. A lot of people do, of course. They've always been a reader, eager to read the sources of adaptations or find absolutely everything out on a new topic of interest, ordering things from other libraries when they had to. They'd used Ancient Epics for one of two pre-1700s requirements; the first day of class, their professor, head of Classics and extremely pleased with having a class every year packed half full of lit majors, had walked in and intoned Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Achilles instead of opening with making sure everyone was in the right room, calling role, saying hello.
But it's different to hear it from Achilles. Sure it's not the sort of anecdote she might hear from a friend from home -- though it makes Teddy think about how many of the kids from her town join the military from high school, how it's maybe not that different at all from feelings they might share -- but the loss and regret is fresh in his tone, not filtered through retellings of retellings and compared between translations.
And then Nanaue goes flying over the boat, shouting BLESS YOU and despite the terrifying closeness of the leviathan and Nanaue's predicament, Teddy can't help a slightly hysterical laugh. It's cut off as Achilles' spear hits true, straight in the eye of the giant squid-like animal. It makes Teddy's stomach roil even as they know it makes absolute sense.
The leviathan roars, a deep gutteral sound that turns Teddy's blood cold, and flails, tentacle whipping toward them. Or...him, because Achilles is already diving into the roiling water.
"Achill--" she shouts, trailing off with the uselessness of it, instead scrambling on feet and hands toward the prow and the long knife -- which she's pretty sure is really meant for cutting rope or nets free of tangle, or maybe gutting fish. The tentacle misses her as she tumbles flat with the waves the creature's creating, but it's not trying to get herm; it's trying to wrap around, or maybe just submerge, the boat. Teddy turns, any remaining bad feelings about killing these things wiped from her mind in the need to survive this, and just hacks at the tentacle, dark blood spurting from it and splattering her; it fights her for a moment but finally withdraws, the end nearly severed and hangign uselessly.
Teddy looks around desperately, grabbing for the oars and throwing all her weight against them, charging the skiff toward the body of the beast, searching the water. "Achilles? Nanaue?"
They do sing, then, partly to distract themself, partly to get the oars on beat; partly in the hopes that it really will help everyone work together. It might be the most gritted-teeth rendition of The Bonny Ship The Diamond anyone has ever heard, but it gets them moving.
Achilles takes Nanaue's winged words for an invocation to the gods, which in the heart of deadly battle is altogether fitting. As when a fish glides through wine-dark waves, finding by instinct the best path — all its life it has known nothing but the water — so naturally does swift-footed Achilles swim through the heaving sea. The leviathan thrashes its tentacles, churning the water into a raging froth, but Achilles dives and rolls to avoid getting struck.
The son of Peleus — and of Thetis, silver-footed daughter of the sea — then launches himself at one of the beast's mighty arms, where it is thick as the trunk of a tree which has spread its branches over three generations of men. This he grips with arms and knees, that he might climb up the beast's body.
Still the leviathan rages, howling for the spear-point lodged deep in its eye, which it tries to pry out by snaking a tentacle around the shaft — screeching for the pitiless teeth sinking into its limbs. And Teddy's song carries over the water, fluttering like a sea bird, faint in Achilles' ears as he focuses on his fight.
Tentacles beat across Nanaue's flat, empty head as the beast thrashes, the water turning dark with its blood - and the manshark begins to lose himself to his animal nature, to the feeding frenzy. It may be up to Achilles to strike the killing blow, because his aquatic companion is busy severing limbs one by one and taking the time to consume them. The leviathan's cries becoming those of a creature that feels its own death approaching swiftly.
Other sea beasts have caught the scent of blood as well. A small shark - small compared to Nanaue, at least, darts by and catches in its jaws an end of a tentacle discarded by the manshark. Two more arrive, circling the dying leviathan.
Nanaue, for now, is oblivious to their presence, and does not call out to warn his companions.
(Has Teddy mentioned she's never fucking seen the ocean until relatively recently? She has? Oh.)
It's only briefly, wryly through her mind, along with a brief and also not half aquatic?; neither of which is entirely fair. But also, it's pretty shit to be alone: meanwhile Nanaue is starting to just eat the thing, while Achilles cuts through the water -- right, mom was a sea goddess or something -- and starts to climb the kraken-like thing. The water, already churned up into a foam with the leviathan's attempt to take them all down with it if nothing else, has gone from dark to crimson with fresh blood.
It makes them want to gag, the blood the ocean's turned into, this giant, weirdly beautiful, awful thing being hacked apart and consumed alive. It doesn't put them at cross purposes, not really -- they are logically well aware it has to be fought off for both them and the Tertiary Settlement to survive; and it's not a choice, at this point: it will drown them if that's all it can do. But it is terrible.
Teddy tries to recalibrate, row the skiff back a little further away. If he isn't going to be able to deter Nanaue or Achilles from getting themself right into danger, maybe they need to just be -- alive at the end of this.
That's when they see the sharks. Circling like vultures, fins they've seen in movies, dark shadows in the water slimmer and smaller than Nanaue, feeding on scraps. Teddy's song stills completely along with their breath. (It should be working better, should be urging them to work in more awareness together: maybe it's just not strong enough to fight a shark's feeding frenzy, or maybe they're not thinking hard enough about teamwork and the setting of a whaling song is exactly what they all are, after all, doing--)
One of them dives right under the skiff, fast, but the bump that nearly unseats Teddy isn't its goal: it's making a wide loop to swim straight at the leviathan at full speed. It's right under where Achilles is scaling the thing's trunk to, presumably, get to his spear. The thing might be trying just to injure the leviathan further, but it doesn't really matter. If Achilles is dislodged, if he were to fall -- in this blood bath, with the sharks -- it wouldn't matter at all who his mother was or how much swimming he's done.
"Achilles - stay still!" she calls, on her feet and narrowing her focus, taking a breath. And then she throws the big knife with all her might, and prays to whoever's listening.
It flies forward, flipping over and burying itself in the shark's body, like an ax into a tree. The shark flails backward and forward, crashing with slightly less momentum into the leviathan, but the knife doesn't unseat; the movement only sends new blood into the water.
The other sharks turn, drawn; the wounded one dives, but they rise snapping and writhing at each other a little distance away. Teddy does a tired thank you gesture at the sky and dives back to the oars, trying to get the boat between the sharks and his teammates.
"Let's try one about getting back on a boat," she mutters in tired wryness, trying to focus on Nanaue and Achilles, on knowing they do want to help her help them, on them aiding each other; on all working towards getting this done with. She leans into rowing to the beat. The tingle she's felt with the power before registers at the edge of sensation as they lift their voice into the wind. Rise again, rise again! Let her name not be lost to the knowledge of men...
The sharks cut through the wine-dark waves, Teddy's knife sings through the air to strike its mark, and Nanaue makes a feast of the fearsome beast's limbs — but godlike Achilles sets his gaze upon the haft of his spear, which from the leviathan's eye protrudes like a mighty splinter. Reaching for his weapon, he wrenches it from where it is lodged, taking no care to exit the wound cleanly. Again, the beast lets loose a howl of agony, a great cry that quakes the air like the crack of thunder.
No sooner has Achilles dislodged his long-shadowed spear than he is raising his arms to strike again. The pitiless iron pierces the leviathan's soft temple, sticks deep in its brain. Black blood bursts from its head as the son of Peleus shoves his spear in with all his great strength.
The terrible beast's cries collapse into silence, and death darkens its eyes. As when the waves carry seaweed aloft on their current — limply the plants tumble along, lacking any will of their own — so now appears the leviathan. Into the sky, Achilles looses a cry of triumph.
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musing on too-young military losses; gross cutting up of squid?
Teddy knows the story already, not that they're prepared to address that with Achilles. A lot of people do, of course. They've always been a reader, eager to read the sources of adaptations or find absolutely everything out on a new topic of interest, ordering things from other libraries when they had to. They'd used Ancient Epics for one of two pre-1700s requirements; the first day of class, their professor, head of Classics and extremely pleased with having a class every year packed half full of lit majors, had walked in and intoned Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Achilles instead of opening with making sure everyone was in the right room, calling role, saying hello.
But it's different to hear it from Achilles. Sure it's not the sort of anecdote she might hear from a friend from home -- though it makes Teddy think about how many of the kids from her town join the military from high school, how it's maybe not that different at all from feelings they might share -- but the loss and regret is fresh in his tone, not filtered through retellings of retellings and compared between translations.
And then Nanaue goes flying over the boat, shouting BLESS YOU and despite the terrifying closeness of the leviathan and Nanaue's predicament, Teddy can't help a slightly hysterical laugh. It's cut off as Achilles' spear hits true, straight in the eye of the giant squid-like animal. It makes Teddy's stomach roil even as they know it makes absolute sense.
The leviathan roars, a deep gutteral sound that turns Teddy's blood cold, and flails, tentacle whipping toward them. Or...him, because Achilles is already diving into the roiling water.
"Achill--" she shouts, trailing off with the uselessness of it, instead scrambling on feet and hands toward the prow and the long knife -- which she's pretty sure is really meant for cutting rope or nets free of tangle, or maybe gutting fish. The tentacle misses her as she tumbles flat with the waves the creature's creating, but it's not trying to get herm; it's trying to wrap around, or maybe just submerge, the boat. Teddy turns, any remaining bad feelings about killing these things wiped from her mind in the need to survive this, and just hacks at the tentacle, dark blood spurting from it and splattering her; it fights her for a moment but finally withdraws, the end nearly severed and hangign uselessly.
Teddy looks around desperately, grabbing for the oars and throwing all her weight against them, charging the skiff toward the body of the beast, searching the water. "Achilles? Nanaue?"
They do sing, then, partly to distract themself, partly to get the oars on beat; partly in the hopes that it really will help everyone work together. It might be the most gritted-teeth rendition of The Bonny Ship The Diamond anyone has ever heard, but it gets them moving.
no subject
The son of Peleus — and of Thetis, silver-footed daughter of the sea — then launches himself at one of the beast's mighty arms, where it is thick as the trunk of a tree which has spread its branches over three generations of men. This he grips with arms and knees, that he might climb up the beast's body.
Still the leviathan rages, howling for the spear-point lodged deep in its eye, which it tries to pry out by snaking a tentacle around the shaft — screeching for the pitiless teeth sinking into its limbs. And Teddy's song carries over the water, fluttering like a sea bird, faint in Achilles' ears as he focuses on his fight.
no subject
Other sea beasts have caught the scent of blood as well. A small shark - small compared to Nanaue, at least, darts by and catches in its jaws an end of a tentacle discarded by the manshark. Two more arrive, circling the dying leviathan.
Nanaue, for now, is oblivious to their presence, and does not call out to warn his companions.
no subject
It's only briefly, wryly through her mind, along with a brief and also not half aquatic?; neither of which is entirely fair. But also, it's pretty shit to be alone: meanwhile Nanaue is starting to just eat the thing, while Achilles cuts through the water -- right, mom was a sea goddess or something -- and starts to climb the kraken-like thing. The water, already churned up into a foam with the leviathan's attempt to take them all down with it if nothing else, has gone from dark to crimson with fresh blood.
It makes them want to gag, the blood the ocean's turned into, this giant, weirdly beautiful, awful thing being hacked apart and consumed alive. It doesn't put them at cross purposes, not really -- they are logically well aware it has to be fought off for both them and the Tertiary Settlement to survive; and it's not a choice, at this point: it will drown them if that's all it can do. But it is terrible.
Teddy tries to recalibrate, row the skiff back a little further away. If he isn't going to be able to deter Nanaue or Achilles from getting themself right into danger, maybe they need to just be -- alive at the end of this.
That's when they see the sharks. Circling like vultures, fins they've seen in movies, dark shadows in the water slimmer and smaller than Nanaue, feeding on scraps. Teddy's song stills completely along with their breath. (It should be working better, should be urging them to work in more awareness together: maybe it's just not strong enough to fight a shark's feeding frenzy, or maybe they're not thinking hard enough about teamwork and the setting of a whaling song is exactly what they all are, after all, doing--)
One of them dives right under the skiff, fast, but the bump that nearly unseats Teddy isn't its goal: it's making a wide loop to swim straight at the leviathan at full speed. It's right under where Achilles is scaling the thing's trunk to, presumably, get to his spear. The thing might be trying just to injure the leviathan further, but it doesn't really matter. If Achilles is dislodged, if he were to fall -- in this blood bath, with the sharks -- it wouldn't matter at all who his mother was or how much swimming he's done.
"Achilles - stay still!" she calls, on her feet and narrowing her focus, taking a breath. And then she throws the big knife with all her might, and prays to whoever's listening.
It flies forward, flipping over and burying itself in the shark's body, like an ax into a tree. The shark flails backward and forward, crashing with slightly less momentum into the leviathan, but the knife doesn't unseat; the movement only sends new blood into the water.
The other sharks turn, drawn; the wounded one dives, but they rise snapping and writhing at each other a little distance away. Teddy does a tired thank you gesture at the sky and dives back to the oars, trying to get the boat between the sharks and his teammates.
"Let's try one about getting back on a boat," she mutters in tired wryness, trying to focus on Nanaue and Achilles, on knowing they do want to help her help them, on them aiding each other; on all working towards getting this done with. She leans into rowing to the beat. The tingle she's felt with the power before registers at the edge of sensation as they lift their voice into the wind.
Rise again, rise again!
Let her name not be lost to the knowledge of men...
no subject
No sooner has Achilles dislodged his long-shadowed spear than he is raising his arms to strike again. The pitiless iron pierces the leviathan's soft temple, sticks deep in its brain. Black blood bursts from its head as the son of Peleus shoves his spear in with all his great strength.
The terrible beast's cries collapse into silence, and death darkens its eyes. As when the waves carry seaweed aloft on their current — limply the plants tumble along, lacking any will of their own — so now appears the leviathan. Into the sky, Achilles looses a cry of triumph.