Chapter Text
It began with Ed realizing Kira's still a little mad at him.
She’s trying not to be, but there it is. And Ed doesn’t blame her a bit! He had abandoned her, had put his own grief before her well-being, had given her space to doubt him. If he had been a better father—a better man—he never would have given Forge the opportunity to find that hairline fracture and turn it into a break. That’s on Ed, and he knows it; and it’ll take more than an apology to fix everything. It's been two years, but Ed thinks it might take the rest of his life to make up for this particular failure.
But once you stop failing, you’ve failed.
And all the while, Kira’s been growing up; wanting her own life and her own adventures, without her parents lurking over her shoulder the entire time. Ed knows he needs to let it happen, give her the skills to survive on her own, or she’ll bolt the same way he did. Better to have it with people she knows and trusts, than alone.
But it broke his heart, just the same, watching her go with Simon and Doric, the three of them off on their own little adventure without him and Holga. Kira had felt ready, and experience was the best teacher. Simon and Doric are perfectly capable of keeping Kira safe–certainly better than Ed is, as history has shown. It’s fine. They’ll be fine. Probably.
Holga had dealt with her complicated feelings regarding her girl growing up by haring off to her boyfriend’s for a few days, leaving Ed alone for the first time in what seemed like years.
Ed’s never been good at “alone”.
So he took himself off to the tavern to nurse a beer and a mildly bruised heart; and then Captain Alpeneye had sidled up to him, said she was looking for a Chanter for her next trip out, since Beth was off having a baby; and asked if Ed was interested. It's not meant to be a long trip; just a day or two, if it goes smoothly. All Ed has to do is help haul in the catch and lead the work-songs. It's good pay.
Ed’s hesitant.
Maer Dualdon is a deadly lake—always cold, and prone to sudden, violent storms, that show up fast, with little to no warning; from a dead calm to a shrieking wind in seconds, water foaming like drool from a rabid dog. More than one fishing boat had been lost to a sudden squall or ice storm; and with them, their unfortunate crew. Holga’s ancestors might lay in solid ground, but most of Ed’s had been consigned to the depths of the Maer.
The lake does not give up her dead.
But they need the money, if Ed wants to give his daughter any kind of decent education, give her a future beyond heists and pickpocketing. When he gets to where he's going, Zia will certainly be thoroughly ashamed of Ed, but he wants something better for their daughter.
So he tosses back the rest of his ale, and goes home to pack for the morning.
It’s not so bad, at first. Ed hasn’t been on a fishing vessel since before his marriage, but it comes back to him, bit by bit. He still knows the chanting songs from when he was a boy, and trots them out; old, beloved favourites of any born-and-bred fisherman’s welp, sang the same way his father had, twenty years and change ago. It’s not exciting, and Ed’s bored as hell, but it keeps his hands busy.
It's a placid, warm day; they've loaded the last of the catch and are headed back, and Ed is looking forward to solid ground and dinner. Maybe play a bit at the tavern; work on a few new songs without distractions. It might be nice to have a few days to himself, actually. Clearly he just needed some perspective.
He looks out, smiling slightly, as white-capped waves start to appear on what was once a dead-calm surface, just as someone starts shouting a warning.
The wind suddenly starts screaming, and Ed’s hit with a sharp knot of fear.
Ed had heard an explosion, once. A flour mill, filled with fine dust; some kind of spark from who-knows-what, and five people dead.
He knows what this is.
He wishes he didn’t.
There are few ways to survive a Maer Squall on a fishing boat–mostly luck and magic. Ed's got plenty of the one, and nearly none of the other–but there's people waiting for him back home, and he owes the crew a chance.
Ed reaches into the Weave, searching for the magic lurking behind his breastbone. It's a struggle, but he manages to find the Song just in time for the storm to hit in earnest.
It's minutes, but it feels like eternity. Ed grips the mast with bloodless fingers, looking out into a world of blurry white, doing his best to gentle the wind just enough for the helmsperson to at least try to keep the boat from capsizing. He’s soaked through and freezing; even in summer, the Maer is dangerously cold. His throat is raw and bloody from the magic, too prolonged and too strong for his rusty skills–he can feel the ache in the back of his teeth, travelling up his spine into a band of pressure around his head and eyes. It’s an agony. His voice is gone, burned away in seconds, and the world is growing dark around the edges. Ed spares a thought for Holga, who had told him to have fun and not die: but the screams of the storm drown out all his thoughts. He is the Song, and the Song is him, and there is nothing left of Edgin Darvis except noise.
The wind is screaming around them, like all the soulless legions of Asmodeus; and they’re being tossed on the waves like a child’s toy. The Troutblight is pitching all over the place, the creaking of the wood and the snapping of the sail merging with the sound of the wind; a terrifying symphony out of nightmare.
And then–
it stops.
The waves are still rocking the boat horrifically, and the boat is still creaking; but the wind itself has dissipated.
The crew is silent. Ed can just barely make out Hrothgar heading his way, and he sinks to the ground, and puts his head between his knees. He hurts.. He can't seem to focus. His nose is bleeding now, and he's just with it enough to know that's a bad sign; if he's lucky, it'll clot soon. If he’s not, well—Hrothgar might be able to stop it until they reach the shore, and get him to a proper healer.
There's damage to the boat, and Ed knows that it’ll take all hands to keep it from flooding while the Troutblight limps back to Targos. Ed can't bring himself to help, but no one seems to expect him to–instead, he leans against the mast, eyes closed. He thinks he can feel the nosebleed stop; certainly his face feels less tacky. He should thank Hrothgar. He cracks his eyes open with a monumental effort to do so, but his eyes are instead drawn to the shore.
There are people on the docks: families, friends, lovers; all desperate to see if the Troutblight is the only survivor of the squall. Ed thinks he can identify the vague shape of Holga, even through the blur of exhaustion and pain, and his heart gives a little swoop of gladness. There were probably things that were more reliable than Holga. Ed couldn't name them.
Between the noticing and the docking, Ed has just enough time to register that Xenk is also apparently on hand before the paladin damn near hauls him out of the boat and gives him the sort of bruising, desperate kiss you usually got from erotica novels; there’s a warm little feeling in the vicinity of his chest, and the nausea disappears just in time for Holga to snatch him from Xenk and give him a bone-cracking hug.
Ed blinks at them both, then passes out.