Serena: Don't Be Afraid

Elitash said, “I spoke to Hansel.”

She told them that their captain had abandoned them. Sold the Blade. Taken their savings, every last red cent, to set himself up nicely on the land. Washed his hands of them all, without a word. And they were all silent for a moment, staring at her in degrees of disbelief and anger, before they started clamoring.

Siobhan slammed her fist on the table and growled, “Where is he?”

Hunter jolted up from her seat, leaning across the table to stare Elitash down, incredulous and angry at the same time. “No. Why would Mishka do that?” she demanded.

“Why would Mishka do that?” Chirp mimicked in a smaller, sadder voice, holding his mandolin to his chest, and Crunch put a hand on his shoulder and said nothing.

Almost too quiet to be heard, Corven asked, “Where is Hansel?” She was impassive. It wasn't clear if she were worried about him or bent on questioning him more directly.

Serena was silent, a hand over her mouth.

She thought of Hansel, eyes glazed over, dripping his own blood from his mouth, standing over her as lightning struck the sea behind him. She'd seen him kill Hunter. Seen him kill Chirp. The vision changed, over time -- she had seen him bury his axes in Siobhan, his teeth in Corven, snap Crunch's neck.

Mishka had never been there.

He wasn't here now.

She felt a sense of encroaching doom, an inverted echo of death reaching back in time to her and whispering warnings, and she felt an immense fear for all of them, and she felt heartbroken for her friend.

Elitash had slipped into the tavern from the back entrance. Serena thought no one else must have noticed, or they simply weren't thinking now, as they badgered her for answers that she couldn't or wouldn't provide. She looked tired and old and kept one arm crossed over her chest as she made pacifying gestures with the other hand. She had been on Mishka's crew longer than any of them, and always kept him at arm's length, as if she were the seer and had known this were coming.

But Serena had been there nearly as long, and seen more. Seen the fond way she looked at him. Seen her pick him up off a bar floor when he'd had too much to drink, and carry him across her shoulders back to the ship. Seen her pat his arm in passing and seen him not flinch away, the way he did with everyone else, save for Hansel.

This was going to be a series of problems, and Elitash would shoulder all that she could, and Corven would deal with what was left, even though they were two of the worst hurt by the betrayal. Serena pulled away from the group and ducked out the back door, into the dark alley still dripping from the earlier rain. It wasn't some sixth sense that guided her -- just intuition. An educated guess. She rounded the corner.

Hansel sat on a crate, slumped over, his head in his hands. His shoulders shook, and as she picked her way closer to him, she could hear him gasping in breaths, choking on them. No doubt Elitash had stayed with him until he had settled, before -- she loved him as much as she did Mishka -- but once she'd left he must have been unable to keep it under control.

He despised letting them see his emotions. It hadn't always been that way; he was full of rage and it had been unrestrained, once, loosed on any of them at a moment's notice. Elitash had pinned his arms and barked for Serena's help, and Serena would touch her fingers to his lips and command him to be calm, and while he was -- while he was distant and foggy -- she would fix a hard stare on Elitash and remind her:

*He's going to kill us all.*

None of them had ever taken her seriously. Mishka least of all. At some point he had even started getting closer to Hansel when the rage hit him, touching his chest, murmuring to him, and as if under a spell Hansel would calm down. His shoulders would slump and some fire in him would go out.

*He's going to kill us all,* Serena kept saying, but she stopped finding Hansel dangerous. He was -- afraid. Deeply afraid, and angry at himself for it. She'd seen that in him, as well, and she watched Mishka talk him out of his fear, piece by piece. And when her goddess plagued her with the same vision, over and over again, she began to understand what she was being shown, began to understand what she was being told.

Hansel swayed over her in the storm and was still, and bleeding, and he was afraid.

In the alley beside their favorite bar, she dropped down silently in front of him and covered his hands with hers, and he flinched away and his head jerked up. He was out of control for the first time in years, and he was merely broken and miserable, and embarrassed by her seeing him this way. Not angry.

“There,” she said quietly. “Don't be afraid.” She touched his face, carefully, to wipe away his tears with a thumb, and he let her. “We'll make it through,” she said, as if she had seen that, too, and not the horrifying opposite.

He looked at her for a moment, then shook his head and broke further. She stood to pull him against her, and he buried his face in her stomach and cried, and held onto her desperately, but gently, even in this state. She considered spelling him, not because he was a wild beast that would kill them all and needed to be managed, at best, if not put down (*You're only saying this because he has orc blood*, Mishka had said, disapprovingly, never believing her fortunes), but to give him some relief, a brief reprieve from this devastation.

Instead she hesitantly petted his hair, the way she had seen Mishka do to soothe him. She whispered, “I'm sorry you're hurting, my friend. I'm sorry I can't heal this for you.” And when he grit his teeth and cried harder, she softly reminded him, “Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.”