Elegy of the Leaves

XIX | The Abyss

Claire awoke with a sharp inhale. She jerked as she hung on her chord. Her body ached, and she relaxed her arms, letting them hang behind her. She stared at the starboard railing above her. The Valkyrie seemed to have come to rest on its port side, but how? And where?

Claire craned her head around. On her right was a large column of dirt that stretched and curled into an arch over to her left. She could see the glimpse of grass at its base, but not much beyond the wreckage of the ship's stern. A piece of one of the propulsion engines groaned as it tore itself away from the ship and crashed into the ground beneath. Smoke hung black in the air around her, curling up and toward her feet over the edge of the ship.

"Get those fires put out!" Vausse yelled from somewhere below her.

Claire sighed and closed her eyes. Things couldn't be that bad if he was still barking orders at the crew. How many were left now? Her brother's face flashed behind her eyelids, and tears streamed from beneath them without warning.

Claire shook her head. As much as she wanted too, this was no time to breakdown over the death of her brother. The Empire, the man who took Evan and Tahlia's life, had sailed away, and she wasn't going to give up until she had at least taken his life in vengeance for what he took from her.

She curled her body towards her belt so she could see the clasp that held her chord. She grabbed the chord in her left hand and pushed down a lever on her backside. A hiss came from behind her and she felt herself being pulled up by the wench on her front.

"Where The Abyss were these when I was in training?" she marveled. She eased off the lever as she came to the console she'd clipped herself too before they were torn from the sky. She grasped the edge with her hands and set her feat on the side of the housing that held the helm. She unclipped herself from the console and turned away from the ship.

The sun was above her as she gazed out over the edge of an isle. Large chunks of rock and dirt floated around it like smaller isles. Below her was a small edge of grass before the isle ended. Patches of char littered it from where the flames had escaped the ship, but now they were just smoldering patches of smoke. Vausse and the crew must be on the other side of the ship behind her, putting out more grass fires that came from the ship before it burned them, but where were they getting the water?

Claire looked down. Her heart quickened at the thought of jumping. She was too high to just land without breaking something. She'd have to roll when she hit the ground to avoid that. But if she rolled to far... Claire shook her head at the thought. She'd fallen from the sky and survived; perhaps, she could do it again.

However, one thing was clear. If she stayed perched on the helm as she was now, she'd never get her vengeance.

Claire bent her knees. If she'd thought the railing below her would help, she'd aim for that, but that was more of risk. If she landed wrong, her leg could go between the beams and break, or she could fall straight through, breaking the beams and be cut open by the splintered wood on the way down. No, it was safer to try and not just roll of the edge of the isle. She aimed for a patch of grass that remained unburnt. Perhaps it would slow her roll or give her something to grab if she did roll too far.

She let her feet leave the helm. He hair whipped up as she fell, and her heart leapt into her throat.

The ground came fast and hard, and she crumpled into a ball, throwing all her inertia away from her as she rolled. She opened her body as her back slammed into a ground. She coughed. The wind was knocked from her by her breastplate. Her feet slid off the edge. Her heart stopped as she grabbed around in a frenzy to halt her slide.

Her knees slid off next. She dug her hands into the dirt and grass, uprooting and ripping tufts of it from the earth. She stopped just before her butt slid over, however. Claire flung herself onto her stomach, trying to fill her lungs as she pulled herself back onto the isle.