Kaydence's Vacation

WARNING: The following post is, like, really long. Maybe make a cup of coffee or geta snack while you read this.

 

-Day 3-

“‘Sup, choomies.”

Kaydence was no stranger to vlogging. She didn’t do it often - streaming was more of her thing - but she’d dabbled a few times. They’d been nothing fancy, merely a few trips to a holiday park or two, but it had been the current trend at the time and the technopath was nothing if not eager to jump on a trend if it meant more views and a bigger payout.

This, though… was the strangest vlog she’d ever done.

Mostly because it wasn’t some mathematically-curated holiday village. It was a large raft floating just off the shores of somewhere in the Kuwahawi island chain.

And it was already late morning. With Kuwahawi being as tropical as it was, not to mention it being mid-late springtime, it hadn’t taken long for the temperature to start climbing up. The air was as humid as the inside of a washing machine and the sun was glaring down on what felt like a full blast already. In the distance, dark, rumbling clouds threatened the chance of a storm - which was not ideal when one was on a piece of floating wood anchored miles from shore. Kaydence was extremely grateful she’d dressed light for this one - thin bikini top, short shorts, flip-flops… if she’d been wearing her usual outfits, she’d have baked by now.

“So, uh…” She flicked some of her bangs out of her eyes - although, with how sweaty she already was, it didn’t stop them sticking to her forehead - and grinned. “Long story short on this one. My coach asked me ‘hey, you wanna go on vacation’? And I was like ‘sure, where you wanna go?’ and then she said something about a tropical island and to meet her, like… three days after she’d left? And I honestly thought it was gonna be, like… some preem cabin overlookin’ the ocean? I didn’t think it was gonna be, well…”

She turned and swung the phone around slowly, giving the potential viewer a good, long look at her surroundings. Although there wasn’t much to look at aside from the great expanse of flat, still sea that glistened in the sunlight. A small boat - the one that had brought Kaydence here - was already a speck in the distance and growing smaller by the second, and the dark clouds had shifted, looking dangerously as though they would sideswipe the raft with whatever winds and rain they would bring.

There was, however, one very large consolation. And that came in the form of Julia Ravensky, who was tugging on the ropes that lowered the sails on the raft.

Oh, yes. This raft had sails. Among… other things. Kaydence took pains to pan the camera around, highlighting all the additions to what had presumably once been no more than a flat lump of wood. An enclosed fire pit and cooking station, a makeshift shelter, a washroom, a fishing chair platform - all of these encircled the raft, their distribution ensuring it didn’t

“As you can see,” said Kaydence as she panned the camera around, “my coach already got everythin’ ready. Shelter, fire pit, cooking stuff… the works. Yeah, she’s hardcore. And if y’all know who she is - and if you don’t, get the frag out from under that rock - then you’ll know I ain’t bullshitting. She’s done survival stuff since she was a chiddler, and she knows her shit back to front. Me? I’m, uh…”

“Could you not call me that, please, Kaydence? Chiddler. I know it’s just some slang term, I’m sure, but it sounds…off to me.” Julia poked her head in from the right side of the camera frame, adjusting a dully colored sweatband with one hand. “Mind if I hold this for a moment?”

“Uh, sure coach.” Kaydence handed the camera over. Julia was a bit more awkward in holding the camera to film herself, though that was more out of lack of practice. Kaydence could definitely see the changes from years past. When they’d met, she’d have actively avoided the camera, let alone made herself part of the Vlog.

“Now, as I’m sure some people would say, how is this a VACATION? Shouldn’t you be doing things in an easier way, instead of making your life harder? Well, yes, that can be a vacation. But if you just wanted to relax and indulge, well, you don’t have to change much. Especially in our lives. ESPECIALLY in our lives. We could probably have a dozen types of relaxing vacations just in our shared employer’s backyard. To me, a vacation is also about going out and doing something you don’t normally do. Moreso Kaydence than myself, but I’ve never done this sort of thing on an open salt water space. A lot of stuff sort of like it on land, and on some lakes, and I read some books, and have some more tucked aside to consult if need be…but to me, stretching your legs, learning some new things, keeping active, that’s a vacation. If you just want to lie somewhere and drink sweet things, well, that’s you. And yes, since I sort of sprang this on Kaydence, I went ahead and did the initial ground work. I like that sort of stuff. I suspect she wouldn’t. Hopefully what I can teach her she’ll never have to use in a bad crisis situation, but I don’t like predicting the possible future. Okay, handing it back Kaydence. I feel the wind, and I suspect you might get a trial by fire soon. Or water, rather.”

Julia vanished from the frame, the camera buffering around before Kaydence was holding it again, panning back to her own face. She suddenly looked a lot less sure of herself. And, if one peered closely, a little pale.

“...like she said. I never did any shit like this. Never roughed it in my life. Miaj panjo kaj paĉjo never even so much as took me on a camping trip. Not that there was much chance of that on Spero, the zen garden of rich assholes. So, uh… this is my first time doing anything like this. And I think coach knew that, which is why she asked me to wait until day three to come on over. It’s… gonna be rough for me, not gonna lie.

“But… it’s a challenge. And you should all know what I’m like with those.”

She made another valiant effort to brush her sweat-slickened hair out of her eyes, seemed to realise the futility of it and gave up with a sigh.

“Anyway, I gotta go. Coach wants to help me get my sea legs. Wherever the fuck those are.”

Of course, she kept it on recording. Just so she could record the time lapse montage of all the times she nearly fell over. And when the rainstorm hit and Kaydence got to test the shelter.

It wasn’t bad. It didn’t completely stop the wind, and some water did drip inside, but Julia mostly didn’t stay in the shelter with her, going out into the mild storm (SURE DIDN’T SEEM MILD TO HER) and making adjustments. Ardent WAS on board, but he was essentially napping in a box. Julia had said that, worst came to worst, he’d basically wrap Kaydence up like a cocoon so she could sleep undisturbed from moisture, cold, and motion.

Julia HAD also brought chocolate. There was roughing it and then there was outright suffering, after all.

-Day 4-

“Ever tried spearfishing?”

“I think you know the answer to that, coach.”

“I always ask.” Julia had procured a very long pole, which she was screwing a barbed spear length onto. “There’s a few ways to do it. We’re gonna do the stand on solid ground, thrust into the immediate water version. Considering you learned at my feet with combat, I think your reflexes can handle getting a pointy end of a spear into a small target, with some practice. Main trick is the water. It can throw off the precise location where the fish is, in one’s vision, just by a bit, until you get the motion down. At least you won’t get nauseous watching them any more; you did get used to the waves very quickly for a ‘land lubber’, Kaydence.”

Kaydence snorted. “You really should put on an eyepatch before you start dropping such words, coach.”

“Why?”

“...I’ll explain later.”

“Okay. Now, normally you’d need to know what kind of fish are around, because you don’t want to spear and eat something that will poison you. But I know those details, so I’ll handle that fact. I also ‘chummed’ the water a bit, to attract some fish. We’ll need to be quick in the fishing. Not traditional chum, which is blood and whatnot. Actually, once we spear a few, the blood might attract other marine life. Not that we’d be in any danger up here, but all our food will likely leave. Maybe what comes along could also be food, but we’re not desperate, so…while we ARE fishing, aim for the head. You want to kill the fish as quick as possible. If you miss, if it’s struggling on the spear, just pull it up and point it at me. I can handle the rest. If I’m not around, you should carry a knife to do that. When it’s passed on, hook it on this assemblage on this pole here.”

“I assume we’re not gonna just bite into ‘em when we’re done.”

“I COULD teach you to do that.” I.e., just eat the fish raw like they were bears or something.

“I’d rather not.” Kaydence pulled a face. “Was never fond of sushi, coach.”

“Don’t blame you. Yes I’ll show you how to clean and gut. Get rid of the scales, remove the innards. I can actually probably use the internals for a stew, depending on certain things. Worst comes to worst, Ardent will eat them.”

“I am not your garbage disposal.”

“You are a lying liar who lies.”

“Kaydence, protest this slander.”

And in one of the strange happenings of life, within an hour, Kaydence had caught seven fish to Julia’s one. It seemed like all those video games teaching hand to eye coordination had some real life use after all. She did still have to offer half of them to Julia, who ended their time in the world with a simple touch. Some use of entrophic powers writ very very small, she explained.

Of course, once the fish were cleaned, and Julia had decided to ‘relax’ by doing a more traditional fishing task, i.e. using a pole, she promptly ‘got her cred back’ as after two hours she’d reeled in a five foot long Pacific bluefin tuna. That fish, however, just got thrown back after a quick vlog recording showing it off. It was not needed for food, so it got to live.

Ardent snickered a great deal when he confided in Kaydence that he’d snuck off into the water and chased the fish into place. Julia might have actually hooked and landed it, but if it hadn’t been for him, she might have caught squat.

-Day 5-

The morning had started simply. Get up, wash, catch breakfast. Kaydence was starting to grow used to the taste of fish by now - as well as the mussels that had started to grow on the bottom of the raft. Shellfish made a nice change now and then. The only issue was the wind making the waters a little choppy, meaning that every step needed to be considered, lest one lose their balance. Even Julia wasn’t striding around like everything was normal, and she’d taken the time to make sure the shelter was firmly set and sealed in case a larger storm rolled in.

After a good forty minutes though, it seemed like the day was just going to be ‘kind of windy’, not ‘going to have the sky and water try and kill you’. Still, it seemed like there wasn’t much else to do but sit around and wait for the wind to die off…

At least, until Julia pointed to a corner of the raft.

“You know what those are, Kaydence?”

Kaydence followed that finger to one of the small piles that were lying on one corner of the raft. She, trying to identify what they were by shape and colour. For a moment, her brain was stumped as to what the lumps of long plastic and folded canvas could possibly be. In her defence, despite the wind, the day was warm already and, her mind somewhat frazzled by how quickly the heat had come on, she was a little slower on the uptake than usual.

But then a vague memory of something she’d done as a young teenager, on one of her many trips to the beach, came rushing back to her. Something she’d enjoyed on the very few times she’d ever done it.

“...when the heck did you get windsurfers, coach?” was all she was able to say. Anything more would give away that she was feeling like Santa Claus.

“Brought them with me. I figured that you’d at least want some modern conveniences.” Julia walked over to the pile and picked one up, revealing the neatly-bundled windsurfing board and sail it had actually been. Stepping over to the edge of the raft, she set the board on the water , lifted the sail on its hinge and stepped off the raft. The board wobbled a little beneath her as she alighted, then turned to her student, who was now practically vibrating like a broken electric toothbrush.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” she asked.

“You kidding?” Kaydence’s eyes sparkled like a bad anime as she grinned. “Coach, I loved windsurfin’! Only did it a few times, but I did it every chance I got!”

“Well, I have technically never done it, but I HAVE done training on moving on water…only a little, but I think it’s not that different. We should be even. How about a race, then? Wind’s good, and with those clouds gone, no signs of an actual storm coming in. First to, say… that atol over there and back?”

“You’re on, coach!” 

Kaydence snatched up her own board so quickly she staggered, but within moments she’d set it down on the water and joined her coach. The two stood side-by-side, although the technopath was a little wobblier - her teeth gritted a bit as she fought to stay upright on the board, trying to remember just what you did. Let’s see… feet like this… hands on the-

Wait… was there something she was forgetting? She felt like-

“Go.”

Julia did not give her the moment to remember. She flipped her sail down, and the wind did the rest. Her board moved slowly at first  - but then a gust caught it, and almost as if a starter pistol had fired, she picked up speed rapidly and skimmed over the waters and away.

“Hey, no fair!” But a grin came over the Speroian’s face as she said it. Okay, if that was how the coach wanted to play… then so be it. She dropped her own sail, and another gust timed itself just right for her to take off in hot pursuit.

As it turned out, Kaydence wasn’t lying. She’d only windsurfed properly a few times, but it was a lot like riding a bike. Once you knew the trick of it - how to shift your weight, how to plant your feet, how to use the sail to move with the wind instead of against it - you never really forgot. The memories of her uncle shouting encouragement from the shore as she fought to keep balance came back to her. And it was as exhilarating as it was back then - the wind in your face, hair whipping, the hiss of water passing underneath you…

But Julia, supposed lack of ANY windsurfing experience aside…well, she was Julia. She was good. Kaydence wasn’t sure what skills she’d promptly adapted, but she’d gotten it down to a science. She leaned well, she kept a firm footing, she made her board twist and skip over the surface as she raced along. And no matter what Kaydence did, she just stayed perfectly ahead of her. In fact, she might have even been drawing away - at least, it seemed so to the technopath. As they raced along, rounded the atol and made back for the raft, it seemed more and more like her coach was starting to peel away.

At this moment, the part of Kaydence that enjoyed overcoming challenges chose that moment to rear a particular ugly hydra’s head. Because she wanted to win, damn it. And the problem was that she was getting the same amount of thrust as Julia was - the latter woman was just using it better. So she couldn’t take advantage of that. And her own wobbly stance meant she couldn’t use weird tricks in control to try and make up the distance. Kaydence hadn’t done it as long as Julia clearly had - her time away doing other, more boring things had clearly taken their toll.

So she decided to cheat.

The signal here was terrible. They were too far away from the island for Kaydence’s phone to get any kind of reception. Doing anything other than filming and texting had been a huge struggle, and vlogging was the best she could do. So it was with a great effort that Kaydence drew upon what digital signals still lingered inside of her phone and, gritting her teeth from the strain, brought her Digimancy to bear. She felt the ones and zeroes swirl around her, then take shape as…

…well, no point in beating about the bush. It was a giant fan. Hey, it technically counted as wind power, right? And it wasn’t like it was a jet engine or paddles or anything like that. It was just more wind… right?

…okay. Maybe she did end up putting a little too much power into getting the fan spinning. And perhaps, just perhaps she missed out on Julia, banking into another turn, catching sight of what the other woman was about to do and being too late to give a warning exclamation.

“Kaydence, wait-”

WHOOSH

Kaydence shot forward as if she’d been fired out of a cannon. She didn’t even have time to scream, or to allow the thought of “oh, right, I forgot the safety ropes” to cross her mind before she crashed into Julia.

Even long afterward, she still wouldn’t quite understand the physics of what happened. Perhaps it was something to do with But essentially, her board smashed into Julia’s, and somehow they became entangled. Which meant that, jolted off balance from the collision, both women had their conveyances literally yanked out from under them as the boards shot off, pushed along by an unholy combination of the wind and Kaydence’s digital construct. But neither woman could appreciate the sight of that, as they were too concerned with the shock of slamming into each other in mid-air, followed by the sudden plunge into the ocean below.

For a horrible moment, Kaydence only knew the confusion of being immersed in cold salt water and a riot of bubbles and spray all around her. Some of it went up her nose and burned horribly, and some went in her mouth, which had been open mid-scream before she submerged. Instinct kicked in, and how she managed to disentangle herself from Julia she didn’t know, but the next instant she was kicking furiously upwards with a speed and strength that surprised even herself.

She surfaced at the same time as Julia. Both of them spent a good moment gasping, spluttering and spitting salt water as they took stock of what had just happened. Then, when the water had cleared from their eyes, they finally were able to watch their boards flying away and into the distance, before Kaydence’s digital construct fizzled out and the boards dropped like stones, hitting the water a great distance off.

There was a moment’s silence as they floated in the open ocean.

“...my bad,” Kaydence muttered, at last. “Put a bit too much oomph into that one.”

Julia didn’t respond immediately, as she’d hoped. In fact, what felt like thirty whole seconds of silent bobbing amidst the waves passed between the two women. A brief flicker of shame and worry ran through the Speroian at that very moment as she looked at the raven-haired woman, whose back was to hers. Why wasn’t she speaking? What was Julia thinking now? Was she mad that her own student tried to cheat in a friendly race? Upset that her board was gone? Thinking of some appropriate punishment to inflict on her student once they got back to the raft? 

She hated that, even now, her mind went down these channels. She knew Julia better than that, and yet… she knew what Julia did to those who got her mad. And those were just strangers. Who knows what she’d to do-

“You don’t say.”

Well, she didn’t sound mad at least.

"...well, since we're now just in the water, might as well do what I planned to do next."

“...what-?”

There was a splash. Kaydence blinked, and saw Julia holding up what looked like two respirators with goggles attached. They’d probably been stored in the hammerspace Ardent provided.

“Well, our boards are heading over the horizon and I don’t feel like chasing them down right now. So let’s do something else to burn off that excess energy you clearly have, since you can’t best me in a fair contest to do it.”

“As if you weren’t planning to use me to make an extra sail,” came Ardent’s voice.

“You continue to be a lying liar who lies.”

Kaydence snorted, and then regretted it as more salt stung her nostrils. She spat and groaned, wrinkling her nose.

“Urgh, forgot about this part,” she groaned. “Seawater up the nose fuckin’ sucks, choom.”

“On that, we’re in agreement. Shouldn’t be a problem with these things.”

----

It wasn’t. The respirator somehow worked like the gills of a fish, getting breathable air out of the water. And in the long, long time the both of them spent under the waves, Kaydence saw a lot.

It started with the coral reefs. A crazy-quilt of strange structures, like the buildings of some far-flung planet, rose out in a riot of pinks, yellows, greens and more. Darting among them were veritable blizzards of fish of different kinds - some Kaydence had seen before in Aqualand’s aquarium section, some she couldn’t put names to if she tried. Anemones waved their tendrils in the air, shrimp scurried on the ground floor.  Some fish swam closer, inspecting these strange intruders to their realm, only to quickly lose interest and shear away in flashes of brilliant colour.

And as Kaydence swam downwards, following in Julia’s wake, more and more wondrous things reared their heads. Giant rays skimmed low over the reefs, letting swarms of fish and shrimp nibble at their sides. Eels poked their heads out from nooks and crannies, jaws yawning wide as though they were shaking off a long nap, then ducked back inside. Nudibranchs, garish handkerchiefs tossed to the floor by careless duchesses, lazily crawled over the branches in search of food. Crabs brandished their claws like old men demanding these young whippersnappers get off of their lawns and leave them in peace.

It was definitely something worth filming. So, of course, Kaydence did. There wasn’t a moment where she wasn’t swinging her phone around to catch a panorama, or taking some snapshots of the sea life that were inclined to stay still. Whatever she could get footage of, she took the chance to do it. Maybe it was her own brain desperately grabbing for stimulus again, or maybe she was trying to distract herself from her earlier blunder. Or maybe she just really liked sea life now. 

But she spent a long time down there, In fact, it only occurred to her how long she’d been at it once she’d gotten back to the raft. The sun was higher in the sky than it had been and the temperature had risen. And then she tried to pull herself out of the water, and hissed as her limbs suddenly began to ache fiercely. Without the water to buoy her up, her body suddenly felt as though she’d been running a marathon and her limbs felt like lead - tiredness had simply snuck up on her.

So after she’d dried off, she immediately headed to the beds for a nap and to rest her tired body.

Julia’s plan had worked surprisingly well.

-Day 6-

It was uncomfortably hot, even by the standards of where they’d ended up. And so it was Kaydence who came up with the idea.

“Coach. I don't really feel like doing extra steps and it's really hot. Why don't we just go swimming?”

“I would,” said Julia as she lay in the deckchair, “but my water gear is still drying from yesterday. Had to hose it thoroughly to get all the salt off. And it could be another hour before it’s dry.”

“You don't need water gear! Put on a swimsuit!”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

Kaydence wasn’t sure why she said what she said next. Perhaps she was getting frustrated with the obvious holes in Julia’s thought process. Maybe it was the heat of the day. Or maybe she just really wanted to jump into the water and not waste time arguing. But in any case, she threw up her hands, turned to where Julia lay and half-yelled:

"Oh, for- It's just us girls, choomie! Skinny dip!"

There was a pause.

"...what?" asked Julia. Whether she didn’t know what Kaydence meant, or was just surprised, Kaydence couldn’t tell.

"Go naked!"

An even longer pause.

"...you know, you're right."

Kaydence had not actually expected her words to have had any effect at all. So it took her a moment for her to register what she’d achieved even as Julia began to undress right in front of her. And when the enormity of it finally hit her, she had to turn away and bite her fist to stop herself giving a yell of jubilation or a fist pump. And then she quickly got herself undressed so that her coach wouldn’t be suspicious of why her student had fallen so mysteriously quiet.

At that moment, the digimancer’s overall opinion on this so-called vacation went from ‘floating boredom’ to ‘100% worth it”.

When she’d finished and turned back, her opinion remained pretty much the same. This was the only time she’d ever seen Julia like this - even in the Suspense, they’d never even showered together. So Kaydence, unable even now to resist a smile at what she saw, was fully prepared to commit the sight to memory as hard as she possibly could.

In short order, though, her attention was drawn to something else about her mentor.

“Jeez,” she gasped. “That’s a lot of scars.”

Julia looked back at her, unfazed by the other woman’s staring. Because both knew it was directed at the patchwork of faded, jagged lines all over her body - slashes, stabs and much more. It wasn’t that she was covered in scars per se, but there was definitely a far higher amount than should be on any one person. It reminded Kaydence of the weird genetic mods some of her friends back on Spero got to make themselves look more like their favourite action BD stars. She’d never understood why anyone would want that kind of look, even now.

But she did now understand why Julia was so private.

A wordless moment, with only the sound of waves and gulls to break the silence, passed.

Not averting her gaze, all Kaydence did was lift one hand to the point between her sternum and her belly. Her fingers found and traced the ragged edges of the small, circular mark that was the only remnant of her own solitary scar. The point where Fusillade’s plasma rifle had pierced through her and miraculously missed all vital organs. It suddenly seemed to wilt pathetically before the criss-crossed markings on the other woman’s pale skin.

“Startin’ to feel like a scrub all over again, coach,” she muttered.

Julia tilted her head. “How so?”

“Fuck, you kiddin’? You got a whole Bayeaux tapestry on that hide! You could walk into any bar in the multiverse and get a free combo meal just by tellin’ the scroll of how you got half those things! Me?” Kaydence motioned to her own old wound. “Ain’t nothin’ to boast about here! ‘Hell yeah, I got skewered by a cyberpsycho when I was a chid- kid’. That wouldn’t even get me a fuckin’ Froot Shoot!”

“Not every scar has to be a badge of pride,” said Julia, simply. “There’s some here I don’t regret having, but plenty that remind me of… less happier moments. I hope what I taught you allows you to avoid as many scars as possible."

Kaydence couldn’t resist a snort. “So what, was your dad's training not amazing-great?"

"Well, yes, but I threw myself into the life really hard, so...it left its mark. And he was learning on the job with me, so, there’s a few marks from that. My little sister, Patty? I wager she has virtually no scars, because he’s learned not to leave marks. Well, in a good way. You know what I mean." Julia turned, and Kaydence once again had to restrain herself from pumping her fist in the air. “Now… about that swim?”

“...oh, shit, yes.”

“Let me just do a quick stretch…”

It was a well and true mystery if Julia had any idea what effect she had on her fellow woman. She could well be doing it on purpose, or it literally might not occur to her. She tried to distract herself by focusing on the worst pattern of scar tissue, a rough circular pattern that started near the woman’s right breast and speckled down her torso to end at her lower thigh.

“Did something try and bite you in two, coach?”

“What? Oh, this? Yeah, it did. Because I threw myself in its mouth so it wouldn’t eat something else. Yes, it hurt. A lot. Worth it. This is one scar I’m definitely proud of, because there’s a family and two other young kids who are likely alive because I let myself get chewed on instead.”

Kaydence did not know how she avoided making some sort of comment around eating that could easily be read as something else. Her strength in that regard, in retrospect, amazed her.

-Day 7-

“Alright, coach, this is how we do.”

What was transpiring on this day was… well, no weirder than what had happened on this raft previously. After learning to spearfish, racing the wind and scuba diving, Kaydence didn’t think this strange vacation was going to be able to surprise her anymore. But the morning had barely begun, and already things were taking a wild turn.

Long story short, Julia had asked her about sunbathing - another on the long list of things that she had never done. But Kaydence had done it - days to the beach were one of her favourite things back on Spero, and she was more than happy to show her coach how it was done. The only wrinkle came when Julia revealed that she hadn’t brought suncream. But it wasn’t much of a wrinkle, because Kaydence had. Several bottles, just to be on the safe side.

“You’ve got real pale skin,” she was saying, “so we gotta go for a high SPF - fifty or above. I got darker skin, so I can get thirty at the least, but I like to go for something a bit higher just to be safe. And since it’s the morning, it's the perfect time to get started.”

“Why the morning?” Julia asked. And it struck Kaydence that her coach, the one who taught her to fight and be resilient and to keep trying, was the one listening to her for once. It was surreal enough that she surreptitiously pinched herself on the thigh just to be sure it wasn’t some weird heat-induced fever dream.

“Morning or evening. But you always gotta do sunbathing then. Never, ever in the afternoons, ya dig? That’s when the sun’s highest and strongest and when you’re most likely to get a burn. Trust me. I knew a guy who wanted to get it done fast, so he only went out in the afternoons. And he fell asleep,” Kaydence added, wincing. “Came back looking like a cooked lobster and couldn’t wear clothes for two whole days. ”

“...I don’t think I’ll need to worry about that,” was Julia’s response after a short silence. “In fact, I’m not even sure I can tan. Stream hardening does a lot more than just make you resilient to damage.”

“Won’t know until we try, coach.”

Applying the lotion went quicker than Kaydence expected. Julia was limber enough to reach those parts of her, like the small of the back, that normally would have taken two people to get at. Which was well enough for the technopath - the idea of having to do those areas was… well, it wouldn’t have dispelled Evolto’s rumours about her reading habits, that was for sure. Kaydence simply applied her own lotion while idly watching Julia.

Because she was supposed to be giving her tips. Things like “don’t put it on too thick” or “you need to really rub it in”. But the more she watched Julia, the more she realised that it wasn’t why she was doing it. It was like the stretch all over again, but ten times worse.

Things didn’t get any better when Julia settled into one of the deck chairs and laid back, popping a pair of sunglasses on.

“...I can see the appeal,” she announced after a few minutes. “It does feel relaxing.”

“Yeah, it… it is.”

It was the most non-response ever that Kaydence could have given. But despite her very best intentions, and despite knowing full well how much of a goddamn idiot she looked at that very moment, she was staring again. Seriously, was Julia doing that on purpose or did she still remain delightfully ignorant of how she looked right now? Just… lying there, in the deckchair, skin all shiny despite all the scars, looking like a goddamn all-natural supermodel-

She hadn’t realised her hand had been inching towards her phone until the smooth edge of it touched her fingers. It startled her, making her jump like a frightened animal, and for a moment she stared at the device lying atop her bag. What was she about to do, just then? Was she…

…oh.

She immediately shoved the thing away from her, then turned away and once again sank her teeth into her finger to stop herself screaming. Multiple conflicting emotions span and churned together in her belly like the world’s most poorly-made Bloody Mary, and she wasn’t sure which one to focus on - the shame for looking at her coach that way, the embarrassment at how she didn’t even know she was doing it or the bewilderment that it had happened at all.

She’d always assumed cabin fever was something that happened alone. Something born of sheer mind-numbing tedium. She thought that being trapped in the straphanger rat-race of Neo Manhattan was the closest she would ever get - the feeling of being dead inside, so dead that you craved literally any kind of stimulus. But she’d barely spent a full week on a raft, miles away from civilization, with only Julia Ravensky for company. And she didn’t know if it was just because she was the only other person on the raft with her, but…

Was this what made sailors see manatees as mermaids?

“Good call,” said a voice in her ear.

Kaydence almost jumped out of her skin before she realised whom was speaking. Somehow, she’d missed the black mass of Ardent slithering out, feeling oddly cold against her skin as he clambered up her form. The realisation that he’d seen the entire thing only made her feel even more mortified, and for a brief moment she wanted to cast herself into the ocean just to avoid the conversation she knew was coming.

“It’s one thing to stare,” said the voice of Ardent. “But photos? Video? Nuh uh. She’s not going to appreciate that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” hissed Kaydence between her teeth. “I’m not that fucking stupid.”

“You you? Yes, I believe you. The parts of you that don’t think? They have more power than you think, and then you’re doing it. Trust me on this. I’ve been on my partner when she’s lost her temper. There’s stuff even she wouldn’t do that she does when the blood is up. Stuff she regrets. It sneaks up on the best of us, the most controlled of us. And no insult, you aren’t quite at THAT level about that thing. Even you’d probably admit that.”

“...maybe?” Kaydence wasn’t sure where this was going to go, nor did she feel eager to see where.

“...I will be upfront with you, Kaydence. This is probably a lost cause. At the moment, at least, it’s not just a matter of different feelings. Between a whole bunch of reasons, Julia really doesn’t feel that way at all towards anyone or anything. Romantic, its more base aspects…it’s like water and oil. She can love platonically, but the rest? Her brain just doesn’t seem to process it. If you try anything, at best, I think all you’ll do is make things awkward. You really think she’s brilliant, but in this? She just would not get it. Not now, at least. I dunno what might happen in the future, but please remember. If you feel she shouldn’t not feel that way, please remember she’s only a few years away from being stuck against my old self. The creature that literally got its jollies from the most horrible pain and suffering any mind could think up. There was bleedover. It couldn’t be prevented. If I had to give a reason why she has almost entombed such things, it’s that. Maybe she’ll sort it out in time, but for now? Off the edge of the map, here there be monsters.”

There was a lot for Kaydence to process there. But the day was hot, and shame and embarrassment were still churning in her gut like rancid butter. Between this and the sweat trickling down her back, the technopath struggled to try and find any kind of response to Ardent that wasn’t digging her own grave any further. How the hell could she explain… anything in the state she was in? That she didn’t even like Julia that way? That, yeah, she was hot in a weird and badass way, but there was absolutely no chance of that happening? That it would have been a horrible breach of the social contract that came with their ‘master and student’ relationship? 

But, even so… the idea that nobody could feel any kind of deeper affection at all… it just didn’t click. It was like she’d made her first trip to Earth all over again. She wanted to cry out at the injustice of it, that there was no way that anyone could not possibly feel something like that. Once again, something about the Kobbers that had excited her let her down. But what the hell were you even supposed to say to something like that? How… why…

In the end, Kaydence gave up. She dropped her head into her hands and let out a long, rattling sigh that expressed all of her mortified shame and self-loathing in one breath.

“Forget it,” she muttered. “It was a stupid mistake. I… I’m sorry.”

That was it. That was all she had. True as the statement was, it was a stupid deflection, and she knew it and was certain Ardent knew it, too. But she just wasn’t ready to handle all of this, not right now. And she wasn’t going to run the risk of having Julia listen in and ask what was going on. She couldn’t deal with… any of it.

There was a long, long silence, broken only by the slosh of water, the whistling of the occasional breeze and the odd cry of a seabird wheeling overhead.

“...want to go diving?” Ardent’s voice was softer now, more consoling. “I can supply oxygen and keep the water pressure off. It’ll help you redirect that energy elsewhere, if nothing else.”

Kaydence grasped this out like a life ring thrown towards a survivor of a sinking ship.

“Yes, please,” she croaked out.

--------

As it turned out, diving did, in fact, help. 

Even though Kaydence had seen the reefs before, it hadn’t lost its lustre on a second go, a mere two days apart. Not even Neo Manhattan at the height of rush hour looked as impressive as a reef in late morning, a riot of colours and activities that beat out the lights and traffic of a city for visual splendour. And it seemed that, everywhere she turned her head, there was some new thing to look at, or something darting out of sight just from the corner of her eye.

It was more than enough to distract her from her earlier faux pas. Nobody could feel down for long when you had all this in front of you.

Naturally, she’d brought her phone again - no way was she not getting more footage of this. And Ardent didn’t just provide Kaydence with oxygen and pressure protection. He also managed to create a set of flippers, meaning every kick she made propelled her forwards as if she had turbines on her feet. With lazy kicks she delved ever downwards, following the natural gradient of the reef as it sloped downwards and away from the island.

“I would like to raise a point.” Exactly how Ardent was talking to her, Kaydence didn’t know. He was basically hooked right into her inner ear: his vibrations translated to her ‘hearing’ him. “Think back to the first weeks with Julia. You remember how tightly wound she was?”

Admittedly, those weeks had been so painful, it had been hard for Kaydence to see past her own suffering. But giving it thought as she kept looking around, she did recall how the woman always seemed to be glancing over her shoulder, always tense, like she expected trouble to come find her no matter how unlikely it was, never mind she had a literal danger sense that would have warned her if it somehow DID find her. The woman just did not know how to relax. To her, a threat was always lurking; it was just a matter of distance.

“Mmmm.” Kaydence couldn’t really talk back. She’d risk a mouthful of sea water. Her tone was enough.

“It shouldn’t have taken me to give you a friendly poke. Julia of those past years, she’d have noticed you herself. She would have said something herself. She’d have been so alert that anything out of the ordinary would make her make a comment. Now? She settled up and pondered the sky. She felt absolutely no need to be keyed up, or even side glancing. She felt she had no reason whatsoever to have any sort of concern about you being around, for ANY reason. Trust me, the woman KNOWS when eyes she wouldn’t want looking at her intently are there, forget me, danger senses, it’s an instinct well bred in her. If she’s that relaxed…well, I’m sure you can draw proper conclusions.”

Ie, okay you have some black feelings, here’s a palette cleanser: she trusts you. Try and focus on that nice fact instead of a few hormone surges. Hormones weren’t exactly dependable things: look at how pregnant women behaved.

It was something to think on, at least.

So of course, while doing THAT, that was when things went wrong. It was also around that time that they reached the continental shelf, where the sandy shore gave way to rock before things took a sudden plummet into deeper darkness. How deep HAD she gone? A fair bit into what Dawn would have told her was the ‘dysphotic zone’, ie the literal ‘twilight zone’. And past the shelf was further down into what would become the “aphotic zone’. Of course, not knowing the names didn’t make much difference - seeing the wide, yawning abyss in front of her still gave Kaydence cause to hesitate, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling.

“I… think we’ve gone down a bit too far,” was all Ardent had to offer. And that, if nothing else, was proof of how much of a bad idea coming here was. He was a good chunk of the reason that Julia was as ‘hardcore’ as she was, in Kaydence’s mind. A lot of her cooler tricks involved him in some way. And if he was worried by how far they’d come down… But then again, if Julia had come down here, and presumably they’d been fine before…

She squinted. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see… movement? The space beyond the darkness suddenly didn’t seem quite so empty - the faint impression of things wriggling in the blackness, or cruising easily through the inky waters, seemed to be reaching her. Of course, in darkness illuminated only by her phone’s torch, it was incredibly hard to tell if that was real or just her strained eyes playing tricks on her.

Even so… the technopath was fairly certain hanging around here was a bad idea. And Ardent, from the tone of his voice as he spoke next, was in agreement.

“I think maybe we should-” he began.

The hairs on the back of Kaydence’s neck were now like spears bristling from the ranks of a Roman army. Her lizard-brain screamed, compelling her to turn around.

Something huge was rushing out of the dark towards her. The light from her phone’s torch danced along its barrel-bodied length, picking out the faded dapples and stripes that ran along its bluish-grey hide and glinting off the crescent tail that sweeped behind it. Black satin eyes glittered horribly for a moment, then rolled back in their sockets, and the mouth yawned open to reveal far too many sharp, crooked teeth for any one animal to have.

Despite being underwater, Kaydence still managed to scream “OH, FOR FRIGG’S SAKE-” in the instant before the thing was upon her.

--------

“This is just a tiger shark, Kaydence,” said Julia, about twenty minutes later. She was now completely clothed and kneeling over the body of said animal, examining it as it bobbed alongside the raft on its side - trying to pull it aboard had nearly capsized the whole structure. It was long dead, and a vicious wound in the top of the skull, still trailing blood, was proof that it had chosen its prey poorly.

“A fucking what?!” Kaydence half-gasped, half-howled from where she lay on the raft, staring up into the sky.

“A tiger shark.” Julia turned to look at her with a bemused quirk in her eyebrow. “You’ve been to that aquarium more than once, Kaydence, surely you know what a shark is?”

“They didn’t have any that fuckin’ big in that place!” was Kaydence’s retort. One hand was still clutching her ribs and her chest was covered in a wreath of small, sharp bruises. The shark’s attack had caught her completely by surprise - it was only thanks to Ardent that she hadn’t been bitten in half or lost a limb, although finding yourself halfway inside a toothy maw was far from a picnic regardless. Of course, she’d quickly made the creature regret it for the few brief moments it had spent in the land of the living trying to choke her down.

“And we don’t have sharks on Spero, anyway!” she added, glaring at Julia from the prone position. Ardent was slithering away from her body as she spoke, his job done.

“Really?” Julia idly reached out one arm and allowed the symbiotic creature to climb up and reunite with her being. “What do you have?”

“Anvilheads. Giant fish with armoured skulls and steel razors instead of teeth. I’m not kidding,” the technopath added on seeing Julia’s expression. “Big problem in the Two-Month War. At least three subs got lost because of ‘em.”

“...even so.” Julia removed one of the dead fish’s teeth, taking a look at it as if it could tell her something she didn’t know. “You were just swimming with some light? Not bleeding?”

“Yeah!”

“...maybe it was starving. Or maddened. Very aggressive, doing that. Even for this species, from what little I know. When we went swimming and I dove deep with Ardent for a bit when you were taking a break, I did see some shadows like this in the water, but they avoided me completely. And I don’t think their instincts are so good that they would run away from me but think you’re a good meal, especially since you also had Ardent with you. Curious…”

“What’s curious is that my fucking ribs haven’t imploded yet,” groaned Kaydence. She would be feeding Ardent all the burgers for a long time to come, she knew. A high-tech bulletproof coat might have been cool, but a shapeshifting being of entropy that could form a protective suit beat that out by many, many miles of not being bitten in half.

She remembered something, and her heart sank.

“...and the fucking gonk ate my phone,” she added.

This was the worst part of the whole ordeal, at least in her mind. She could have taken being halfway inside the mouth of a ravenous fish. She could have dealt with nearly being bitten in two or turned into shreds, or even being gulped down whole. But in the brief struggle of predator and prey, before the roles had suddenly and violently reversed themselves, her phone had slipped from her grasp. And after she’d pulled herself free, she hadn’t been able to find it again. So there was only one place it could have gone.

She looked over at Julia, who seemed to be deep in thought. Then she heaved a sigh.

“Whatever,” she said. “I can get another one. Shit sucks that my entire vlog got digested, but-”

By way of reply, Julia casually shoved her entire arm down the dead shark’s throat.

“Pardonu min?!”

Kaydence watched, wide-eyed, as her coach, up to her shoulder in the gaping maw, rummaged around. She seemed completely unconcerned by the sharp teeth mere inches from her flesh, even when one or two of them poked into her as she felt about, her expression not twitching an inch. For a brief moment, the Speroian began to wonder just how much in blood bags and skin grafts this was going to set Dawn back.

But then Julia drew her hand out, black with Ardent’s semi-solid form and clutching the phone.

“Wouldn’t want to disappoint your viewers, would you?” Julia tossed the device to her student. “Then again, stranger things have been found inside shark stomachs. Garbage cans of the sea, they get called sometimes - at least, from what I’ve read. Hmmm. Maybe we should get Dawn to look this over in more detail. Not sure if tiger sharks are even supposed to be this large…”

Kaydence looked at her, looked at the still-slick phone in her hands, then back at her.

“...fucking preem,” she muttered in awe.

Once again, the entire vacation had become worth it.

---

“Hmmm. A little over thirteen feet.”

Dawn had actually gotten out a hologram measuring stick instead of just eyeballing the large, dead fish strung up in one of her many laboratories. She had one on about one third of the Pearl’s floors, scattered from top to bottom, of various sizes. This was a secondary one; she’d used it for medical inspection of the merfolk in the past.

“So how wrong is that?” Kaydence said.

“Not exceptional. The average is 12. The world record was 15, there’s a specimen roughly recorded as being 18 feet…so this one’s larger than average but not let’s call the fish record books large. Weight seems about right…maybe a touch underweight. Which would fit the starving possibility. I’ll need to do a full autopsy to be sure.”

“How often do they go after peeps?”

“Despite what some horror films might say, most sharks attack humans because they mistake them for their normal prey, like seals.”

“So they only go after fatsos?” It was low-hanging fruit and Kaydence knew it, but hey, the low-hanging fruit got plucked first.

“...or people on surfboards. Shark eyes are pretty damn good, for what they’ve been designed to do, but evolution has put a few weaknesses in them. Their ability to see color is very limited, if non-existent, and the way their eyes are positioned, it’s on the sides of their heads. Not the front like us. Which means they have excellent peripheral vision, but blind spots right behind them and, maybe this is why you got chomped, right in front of them.”

“Oh really? WHY DO THEIR EYES SHINE LIKE DEMONS BY THE WAY?!” That part of the experience had rolled back to the front of her mind.

“Tapetum lucidum.”

A pause, in which Kaydence awkwardly cleared her throat.

“I am assuming,” she said, “that this is you knowing the science and not calling me dumb, boss.”

“It’s part of their eye makeup.” A light was shone into one of said eyes. “A layer of mirrored crystals located behind the retinas. Evolved for helping the shark see in very dim light and murky water. The crystals reflect incoming light which gives the rods in the retina a second chance at detecting light that it might have missed the first time around. Housecats have the same thing; that’s why their eyes glow if you shine light on them.”

“Makes sense. They’re both assholes.”

“Maybe. Sharks, as said, prefer very fatty prey. Seals, like I said. While a shark might take a bite of you, it often will realise this isn’t its normal prey and let you go.”

Kaydence snorted. “Well, pardonu min if I wasn’t gonna let it say sorry and swim off.”

“Tiger sharks ARE considered among the most aggressive of the species. While it’s great whites that get the movie franchises, that’s mainly because they’re bigger and hence their ‘test bites’ are larger and more likely to be lethal. However, tiger sharks are known for having more unprovoked attacks than virtually all the other species, with the exception of maybe bull sharks, but bull sharks tend to make their territory in shallow water. There’s also the fact that tiger sharks have been noted to attempt to eat just about anything. Even MORESO than most other sharks. They’ve found all sorts of inedible junk in tiger shark stomachs. Lumps of coal. Cans of paint. Even senegalese drums, and those aren’t small. It seems like while many sharks might take a test bite, tiger sharks seem less likely to let go when they do. So don’t feel bad about what happened; It’s best you did what you did. Their muscle jaws are elastic. Allows them to swallow things you would assume they couldn’t, like say, those drums. And their jaw strength can crunch through sea turtle shells, so your hide would have been quite easy to get through if you hadn’t had a friend. Still, since Ardent confirmed you weren’t bleeding in any way, as sharks can smell blood even if it’s the tiniest amount and it’s the sort of thing that can be considered provocation, of a sort…then it just attacked you for…some reason.”

“...I am never going into the water again,” was the final verdict.

“Don’t let this shake you, Kaydence. You’ve experienced an extreme anomaly if this is natural. If it’s NOT, well, we’ll discuss that if I find anything out. You want me to save the teeth? Shark teeth necklaces can give you a story, no scars needed.”

“What, how did you know about that?”

“Julia.”

Oh. Well at least Dawn wasn’t spying on them. “What OTHER dirt did you dish on me, coach?”

“Nothing I’m sure Miss Cosineau didn’t already have in her files.” Julia said.

“I assure you, she feels attacked, despite her ever stoic facade.” Ardent said.

“Oh yes. That reminds me. While you were out.  There’s also this.”

Dawn handed Kaydence a note.

“VERY important.” Dawn’s sarcasm was as thick as the cheese Kaydence liked on her pizzas.

“Who’s this from?”

“I am sworn to secrecy.” That should have indicated that it wasn’t all that ‘important’ or ‘dangerous’. Though you’d think otherwise if you read the note.

ATTENTION ROBERTS GIRL

YOU ARE GOING TO BE CHALLENGED BY ME.

WHEN? SOMETIME SORTA SOON!

I WILL ATTACK YOU!

I won’t do it if you’re inside anything. Like, a building, or, one of those things that goes around with wheels, or on a horse, that counts. So you can sleep and eat, I won’t go after you then.

I won’t jump you immediately if you leave places either. Or if you’re with anyone.

BUT OTHERWISE I WILL ATTACK YOU AND WE WILL SEE HOW TOUGH YOU ARE. YOU BETTER BE READY, BECAUSE I’M REALLY REALLY TOUGH AND YOU’LL SEE FOR YOURSELF! SOON!

Signed

Bones

“Let me see that.” Julia plucked the note from a semi-baffled Kaydence’s fingers.

“...and I thought this vacay wasn’t gonna get any weirder,” was all Kaydence could say. And then she immediately plunged into a stupid cat video compilation just so she didn’t have to look at the shark.

It might have been a not so great time for Kaydence to not be paying attention to her teacher. As she missed the slight sigh and eye roll from the woman, though the fact she was facing away from Kaydence also hid that fact, before she folded the note over and handed it back.

“I wager it’s legit. In everything. Best be prepared, Kaydence. Someday, sometime, someone will attack you. Somehow.”

“Could be happening right now.” Ardent said.

Kaydence sighed. She knew that coming back to the Kobber routine would be a bit rough. As much as her overstimulated brain enjoyed the action, the time spent in the sensory deprivation tank had taught her the value of winding down and patience. And the impromptu vacation, for all its downs and ups, had definitely been relaxing in it’s own way. And now not only would she be going back to Whalestrand, but she would also be having to look over her shoulder…

“Let’s hope I’m drunk when it happens,” she muttered.