The Eagle and The Rat [Arno Victor Dorain]

IX - Á Travers la Mer

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[Re-Entering Sequence]

Maxime didn't want to leave. She felt the cartilage in her joint solidify and her lungs turn to stone, her statuette body so heavy it broke the wooden port she stood on and fell right into the ocean where she'd just sit alone.

"Eeeeegypt, right?" Arno said through a yawn.

"Yes," she answered, "Cairo, Egypt."

He hummed, stretching his arms sluggishly, "And how long are you staying there?"

She didn't know. "It's private." She hoped it wasn't long.

"Apologies," he said, "I forget that I'm only your locksmith and not the man who saved you from a bunch of ruffians."

She scoffed, "Saved me? I was the one who took on the group of three while you struggled with the two."

"I didn't want to look flashy." He looked at her. "Are you nervous?"

For a long moment, she was deadly silent. Not in the violent sense, but in the lifeless corpse way, gone in her sleep. "Yes."

He watched her eyes look past the horizon, the blue of the ocean endless and terrifying, but even then, its tumultuous waves soothed both of them. Everything was uncertain, just like those waves. "You'll be alright."

"I know," she agreed.

"Good," he answered simply, "then you have nothing to be nervous for."

"Then I'm stressed," she added.

"And what are you stressed about?"

"What kind of trouble my idiot locksmith will get into while I'm away," she joked, elbowing him in the side, as she walked up to her ship.

Arno followed her still. "Nothing I can't get out of myself-" She stopped at the head of the ship, looking up to the grand sails as the bellowed and danced in the wind. "-I promise."

The wind made a blaring whistling sound against her ears, as if it tries to warn her, to wake her up from this nightmare. Why was she panicking so? This was meant to be happy. This was the end of a good day, a good memory with someone who had haunted her from the second she'd met Charles Dorian almost a decade and a half ago. So why did her heart slam itself against her chest so hard? Why was she-

"Scared," she told him, as she took in a quick and shallow breath, "I'm scared."

Arno placed a hand on her shoulder, the most she'd let him touch her besides seconds earlier when she elbowed him. He moved her to face him, and his eyes scanned her face with notable concern, his eyebrows furrowed, as his thumb began to rub her shoulder. "Maxime," he said, trying to get her attention away from the sails and sea and adventure approaching her, "you're pale."

"I'd hope so," she answered, "I was born with light skin."

"You look sick, I mean," he corrected, not falling for her joke, "are you alright? Are you in danger?"

"Always," she admitted, eyes still looking into the distance, "it's been a while since I haven't been."

In her crypticness, Arno couldn't find anything to grasp onto. He had no clue the magnitude of danger she was in. He only knew she was scared, and though he had only known her for a day, he couldn't not feel his mind, body, and soul shake with her. "You don't have to get on that ship if you don't want to," he said cautiously, still unaware if that was truly the thing that had been bugging her, "we can turn around, head back to Versailles, and figure it out from there."