Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Mother died. It happened today, yesterday or twelve years ago... Something of the sort. Nico blamed the true sea. And himself, of course.
Once, —a very long time ago—Nico worshipped the waters; He was baptized in blue lagoons, practiced his pilgrimage by the shallow ponds. He whispered his vespers with the vaona, hummed his hymns on the harbor.
But now, he was a stranger to the seas. They turned into a poison for him. A sick, sick reminder of a moment that became the catalyst for his current life. Yet, on certain dank midnights when the burden became to much to bear, he greeted them like a lover scorned.
Tonight was one of those nights. Nico was at the pier, watching the sea once again. The waters were dark and treacherous, it was raining too... The type of rain Nico abhorred. Rain that only ever fell in Ketterdam. Rain that felt like oil against the skin and the smell would linger on a man's clothes for days. Just like on the ship the night she died.
He inched towards the coast, the crashing of the sea against the jagged boulders sending shivers of revulsion crawling up his spine. Still, he crawled into the clutches of the sea. It was poison on his skin, in his throat, in his eyes but still—like an addict— he embraced the waves as they guided him to the deep.
The waters were extra perilous today. Choking Nico, blinding him. He prayed to them to take him now, take him as they took his mother. Take him as vengeance for his infidelity with the dry land... for his abandonment. It was fitting, Nico had once been the sea himself. A lost fish, a soft wave.
Nico almost believed the sea was angry because they knew Nico would crawl back into their perfidious arms on this night, like he did every year. Water had memory, Inej had said... Maybe she had been right.
But even his prayers weren't enough. They ceased their choking, their duplicitous waves and whirling. Forcing Nico out of the waters. Back to the shore like the terrestrial being he had become. They crashed against the rocks once more, splashing him in the face as he crawled out. Laughing at him, the kracken... What a joke. Nico had become more bird than fish. And the seas knew it.
Mercy was what the waters had given him. But Nico didn't deserve mercy, not today. Not for the grave sin he was to commit. Only the saints could save Nico now, but they had seemed to have abandoned him as well. So, he prayed that the devils would bless the soul of Nico Vanderzee, the boy who would kidnap a would-be saint...
