[FFVI] Dark Water (Celes, SFW)

[wallwalker]

Title: Dark Water
Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Character: Celes
Word Count: 469
Rating: Probably SFW, mentions of death and rot (which is pretty appropriate for this part of the game.)
Summary: The journey from the island to the mainland wasn't easy.
Notes: Written for an old prompt at fic_promptly: Final Fantasy VI, Celes, sailing the raft on the foul waters of the ruined world and trying not to lose hope before she reaches the mainland.

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Celes would never forget the smell of the horrible dark water. It haunted her, the foul stench of sick fish and rotting seaweed - she sees clusters of dead and dying things tangled around her and pushes herself away from them as best she can with the paddle that Cid had left for her. She doesn’t want to know what else the seaweed is wrapped around.

The wind is largely still, the sun dim in the sky. She travels on currents and tries to keep going north as the sun rises and falls, hoping that the sun still rises and sets the same as it did before everything changed. She scans the horizon as she sails, knowing she cannot afford to fall asleep, that there could be any number of dangers the moment she closed her eyes. Her only hope is that she can find land soon.

The cynical part of her mind knows that this was most likely a futile attempt, that she had no idea where she was and didn’t know which way to go or how long the journey would take. In a few hours she would not be able to stay awake any longer, and she would be lost at sea, drifting forever. But there was a small part of her, the one that had kept dashing to the ocean to try to find fish for her Grandpa, who knew that this was her only hope, that she had to stay awake as long as she could. No one was going to find her on that tiny island. She had to find others if she was going to survive. And he had done all this work, working on the raft; the least she could do was try.

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She barely remembered the end of the journey, as anticlimatic as it seemed - one moment she had been sailing, barely keeping her eyes open. The next she had found herself lying on wet sand, coughing; she didn’t even remember falling asleep. But the raft was gone, possibly damaged and pulled back under the water, and she was alive. Starving and exhausted even after falling unconscious, but alive.

A plume of smoke rose in the distance. Celes stood up, her legs still wobbly from the long journey, and started to walk, one foot in front of the other, slowly and painfully. She didn’t know why she was alive, why she hadn’t been eaten - maybe the smell of the seawater near the island kept the beasts at bay, she had to be permeated by it now, covered in its filth. She had to hope that the smoke meant a fire, a village, perhaps food and hot water for a bath. Hope was the only thing she had left - and at least she had come this far. That had to mean something.