Private Edge of the Abyss

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

THe woman had a look as her hair was plastered to her head and shoulder with a look. "I've been in prison for seven years, this is... only worse but there was at least a chance to fight back." She spoke and mistral looked at her while he was there. "So, the obvious question is why and what was the plan but do you know what was done to her." He said it as he pointed towards the catatonic woman still in the outfit... the wife was well.. she was not moving still. Breathing sure, she seemed to react to light but nothing was taking her out of that moment. The woman looked. "They had something, a spider or something and used it. We found it and it made the one selkath be like that for a few days."

Mistral looked and would have to get Aya in on that if there was something that could be done. "And the reason why? Jackie already said you were with them first before prison and then you left." He said it and the woman looked for a moment... then she spit at the railing and water. "I was, then I go to prison. Do my duty to the family and that shutta of a daughter of his." Mistral looked and remained there as he moved looking at Ana. "The one on Coruscant?" He said it with a look. "Yeah her, she left with her new boyfriend but only after making sure her old one didn't follow. Her old boyfriend was my brother and she had him killed."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana listened quietly as the story unfolded, her expression flattening with every additional layer of family betrayal, prison sentences, and dead boyfriends. Between the talk of spiders that erased people for days and whatever else this night still intended to become, she had reached a point where she could no longer determine where organized crime ended and melodrama began. Now, she was mostly tracking survival rates.

Her gaze shifted briefly toward the catatonic woman, lingering there as she tried to reconcile that eerie stillness with the idea of a living creature being responsible for it, and she found she did not like the thought at all. When the conversation circled back to accusations and revenge, certainties delivered with no evidence beyond emotion and history, Ana blinked once.

"Isn't it guilty until proven innocent?" she asked, her tone perfectly serious for a single second before her brow furrowed slightly. "Or is it the other way around? I spend most of my time around criminals and slicers, so the distinction tends to get blurry."

There was a trace of dry exhaustion in her voice as she leaned back against the cabin wall, her arms folding loosely while rain continued to hammer the roof above them.

"Though based on tonight," she continued more thoughtfully, "everyone involved appears guilty of something. Personally, I'm more interested in the spider."

The statement sounded every bit as concerning out loud as it should have.

"Anything capable of shutting someone down neurologically for days isn't accidental," she said, her attention shifting back toward the injured woman. "Did they breed it, engineer it, or just find something terrible in a cave and decide to weaponize it because that is apparently how people make decisions around here?"

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Mistral was looking at her and gave a shrug. "Most are guilty of something in my experience but there is something to be said about what we have here as a situation." He looked though at the wife. "As to the spiders, I don't know if it is natural it is likely an evolution to something that they would have needed to escape." He was looking at it and Aya spoke. "They are not that special. The spiders were used for weapons, when we would hunt, when we would go after the larger sea beasts. A spear isn't goign to do a lot of damage but if you can stick it into something it will stiffen, it will still and you can beach it and then a village is fed."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana stared at Aya for a moment after the explanation, her expression caught somewhere between professional curiosity and growing concern for the planet's entire ecosystem.

"You say 'not that special'," she said carefully, "but where I come from, spiders that can neurologically disable large creatures long enough to drag them onto shore would be considered deeply memorable."

Her gaze drifted toward the catatonic woman again, the analytical part of her mind already trying to reconstruct the mechanism behind it. Venom delivery. Paralytic response. Duration. Recovery rates. Whether cognition remained intact during immobilization.

She was not thrilled by any of the possibilities.

"Though," she admitted after a moment, "using a natural toxin for hunting at least makes more sense than half the decisions everyone else here has made tonight."

That included all of them.

Leaning back slightly as the boat rolled beneath another wave, she folded her arms more tightly against the lingering cold and looked toward Aya again.

"How long does it last?" she asked, her tone shifting back toward practical concern. "The paralysis, I mean. And does it always wear off naturally, or are we hoping she wakes up because the spider eventually loses interest in ruining lives?"

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"In most cases a day or two. It burns through the body slowly." She said it while she was moving and she was checking on the woman with a look. "The real danger is when it is used and you are drowning. So we'll need to keep things safe here." She was looking at Mistral and he gave a nod while checking the wound. With some of the boats supplies. "We'll be able to staunch the bleeding for a moment but it is going to need a lot of work and we can't take the pressure off of it otherwise you are going to bleed out." He said it while he was working on her injuries but had set it out. "At least for the moment we can breathe."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana listened carefully, her attention fixed on the catatonic woman now with a sharper focus than before. A day or two. Long enough to be terrifying, short enough to survive if nothing else went wrong. The explanation about drowning, though, made her expression tighten slightly as her eyes drifted instinctively toward the black water outside the cabin.

"That is an aggressively hostile evolutionary trait," she muttered quietly, more to herself than anyone else.

Still, hearing that it eventually burned through the system on its own eased at least one concern from the constantly expanding pile currently occupying her mind. Not permanent. Not usually fatal. That qualified as optimism tonight.

Her gaze shifted toward Mistral as he worked on the injured woman, and despite the exhaustion dragging at him, his hands still moved with enough steadiness to keep her alive. Ana watched the pressure dressing, the improvised stabilization, and the careful refusal to disturb anything that might restart the bleeding.

"I hate how much of tonight has depended on the phrase 'for the moment,'" she admitted softly.

The boat rocked beneath them again, though far less violently now, and for the first time since the fortress, she allowed herself to exhale fully. They were cold, exhausted, injured, probably still being hunted by someone, and trapped on a stolen boat in the middle of a storm.

But they were alive. For the moment.

"At least breathing is a nice change of pace," she added with dry understatement as she pulled one of the thermal blankets tighter around the catatonic woman's shoulders to help keep her warm while they rode out the rest of the storm.

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"That is usually what you get." Mistral said it while he was finishing up and the woman was looking at him but he spoke. "Don't look at me like that, I got a job but what happened I am not unsympathetic to but all of this for whatever it is that you were trying to do is a dangerous thing." He said it while finishing up and sitting back for a moment but took inventory of himself. "I am too old for this, retirement sounds good, just find a resort world, have a place on the beach, some little drinks with strange or suggestive names and lots of sand." He was saying it like a daze and a joke as he was mostly recounting his original plan and how he wanted to go back t that now.

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana listened to him describe retirement with the distant, half-serious tone of someone mentally trying to crawl out of the last several hours and into a reality involving sunlight and significantly fewer near-death experiences.

Honestly, she understood the appeal.

The image itself was almost absurdly peaceful compared to where they currently were: soaked through, exhausted, drifting across stormwater with injured criminals and possible victims of neurological spider venom, while Seastone piloted a stolen boat somewhere behind them.

Her eyes drifted briefly toward the rain-streaked darkness outside before settling back on Mistral.

"I'm too young to retire," she said quietly, pulling one knee up slightly against the bench as the boat rolled beneath them.

A small pause followed.

"But I do understand the appeal of drinking something brightly colored while absolutely nothing tries to kill me."

There was a trace of tired amusement in her voice now, softened by exhaustion and the strange calm that settles after surviving something catastrophic.

"Though based on tonight," she continued more thoughtfully, "I suspect if you actually reached a quiet resort world, someone would immediately hand you a cursed map and ask for help investigating ancient ruins."

Her gaze shifted briefly toward Seastone.

"And somehow she would already have explosives."

That part felt inevitable.

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

He laughed at her. "That is what the plan was before." He chuckled again as Seastone spoke. "Hey explosions are cool and explosives are important fashion accessories." She said it while she was looking around. "But I will have to restock when I get the chance, next time I am going to get something bigger... something we can use against lots of enemies." She said it and was excited while Aya was looking at them but she found a place to sit with a little relaxing but was still aware. "Retirement could be fun, Maybe one day with a boat... a nice boat with a pilot for it who is not certified insane and obsessed with blowing everything up."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana looked toward Seastone as she enthusiastically explained that explosives were apparently a fashion accessory, and whatever remaining energy she had for arguing with that statement simply failed to materialize.

At this point, opposing the Twi'lek's logic felt less like debate and more like attempting to redirect the weather.

"I'm becoming increasingly concerned that you view high explosives the same way normal people view jewelry," she said dryly, though the exhaustion in her voice softened the edge of it.

Her gaze drifted briefly toward Aya when she mentioned a sane pilot, and for the first time all night, Ana actually considered the concept seriously. Quiet water. Stable deck. No collapsing ruins. No creatures climbing walls in storms.

It sounded suspiciously fictional.

"I think your mistake," she said thoughtfully, "is assuming anyone willing to pilot boats through storms for a living is mentally stable to begin with."

A small pause followed as the boat cut through another wave, gentler now than before.

"Though I admit," she continued, settling back slightly against the cabin wall, "the idea of a quiet boat with no one trying to weaponize it does sound appealing."

Her eyes slid sideways toward Seastone again.

"Which probably means she would immediately try to attach torpedoes to it."

That seemed inevitable enough to say with confidence.

Still, despite herself, there was something lighter in the cabin now. The storm was weakening, the immediate danger had finally fallen behind them, and for the first time since entering the fortress, nobody sounded like they were seconds away from dying.

Ana exhaled quietly and let herself relax against the motion of the boat just a little more.

"If nothing else," she added softly, "I think we've officially crossed the line between survival and a very bad vacation."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"And pointy things, boats were made with ramming speed in mind." Seastone said it as the large shark moved over and distracted her. "Stop driving the woman crazy, you did good, like a puppy and I'll help you burn off the energy." She said it and Aya was moving over as the storm area was subsided more. It was calming as she pointed out. "You can see where the storms meet and where they converge... it is still dangerous this we'll stop over and take a moment." She said it and pointed as Seastone was moving. "You two go get tired." She pointed below deck resigned but looked at Mistral and Ana. "A bad vacation is able to be done and important at least. The islands will provide a few and we are not out of this yet. One more storm and it will let me get my directions. No point getting out of here on the far side of the storms and being in the middle of the ocean."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana watched the exchange with growing suspicion as the shark woman very effectively redirected Seastone away from both explosives and structural modifications. The sudden change in behavior was so immediate it felt practiced, which honestly raised several additional questions Ana was not certain she wanted answered.

Then Aya pointed below deck. Ana blinked once. Her eyes shifted slowly toward Mistral before returning to Aya with an expression of genuine analytical concern.

"Does she mean what I think she means?" she asked quietly. A brief pause followed as the realization fully caught up. "…Because that explains an alarming amount about this crew dynamic."

There was no judgment in it, only tired deduction delivered with the same calm tone she used for diagnosing faulty circuitry or possible explosions.

The boat rocked gently beneath them now as the storm weakened around the edges, revealing dark stretches of calmer ocean beyond the violent walls of rain. Ana looked toward the convergence Aya pointed out, studying the shifting weather patterns with slightly more comfort now that they were no longer actively climbing fortresses to survive.

"Stopping long enough to get bearings is probably the smart move," she admitted after a moment, drawing the thermal blanket a little tighter around herself now that the adrenaline was finally burning away. "I would prefer not to survive all of this only to drift into open ocean because we guessed incorrectly during a storm."

Her gaze lingered on the calmer waters beyond the stormline.

"Though," she added more quietly, "I am starting to understand why people stay out here."

The islands. The storms. The strange people who somehow survived both. Dangerous. Chaotic. Illogical. But alive in a way most places weren't.

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

There was a look from Aya and she gave a nod. "Yes mostly, Sioric has several mates and they stay back with the children while she works so." Aya said it while she went to the wheel and was guiding them in. Mistral looked for a moment but wasn't going to touch that before he was looking and they went towards the islands. "So how many other dangers are out here, we had whatever was on the island, then those things on the fortress and the storms and whatever is in the rivers." He spoke while listing it off with his fingers and Aya spoke. "There is the maze, some much more dangerous fish out there, whales and birds... watch out for some of the swooping one they have parasites on their talons that will infect the blood."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana stared at Aya in complete silence after the increasingly horrifying list continued expanding.

First, the storms. Then the fortress creatures. Then the rivers. Now, blood parasites are delivered by airborne predators.

At this point, the planet itself felt personally offended by the visitors' existence.

"I need everyone here to understand," she said slowly, "that every new sentence somehow makes this place sound less survivable."

Her eyes shifted toward the dark waters beyond the boat, then up toward the sky as though checking for murderous birds immediately.

"The fish are dangerous. The rivers are dangerous. The weather is dangerous. The wildlife apparently attacks from every possible elevation." A beat. "And now there are infectious sky predators."

She folded her arms more tightly beneath the blanket around her shoulders, exhaustion and disbelief mixing freely now. "Who looked at all of this and decided to build civilizations here?" The question felt increasingly reasonable.

Still, despite the complaint, her attention remained fixed on the islands emerging beyond the weakening storm. Jagged silhouettes against dark water, alive with danger and motion and people stubborn enough to endure all of it.

Ana exhaled quietly. "Actually," she corrected herself after a moment, "never mind. I think I understand now." Her gaze shifted briefly toward the group around her. "Anyone who survives here long enough probably stops being intimidated by normal problems."

A small pause followed before she added dryly: "Though I would still appreciate fewer parasite birds in my immediate future."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Aya looked at Ana while she was talking and waited patiently until she was done with a small look. "Welcome to Spira's dark waters, Kono did tell you it was bad here and he only really knows for sure about the locals." THere was a grin on her face though while she was bringing the boat around to the island and slowed it down. Not going to a dock itself but she was checking it with a motion for Mistral to hold her hand as she neaed over and was checking the siding with him able to pull her back up. "The rest of Spira is really beautiful it is a resort world for a reason but there is this small region that is dangerous.. people accept it and no one tries to build out here."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana watched Aya lean over the side of the boat with complete confidence while Mistral anchored her from behind, and somehow that felt entirely consistent with everything else she had learned tonight about the people of Spira's dark waters.

Danger here was not avoided.

It was negotiated with.

"Kono may have understated it slightly," she replied dryly, though there was far less complaint in her voice now than there had been earlier.

The island ahead emerged more clearly as the storm weakened around them, dark rock and dense vegetation lit intermittently by distant flashes of lightning. Smaller. Quieter. Less openly murderous than the fortress, which admittedly was not a difficult standard to achieve.

Ana looked out across the water for a long moment before speaking again.

"Actually, the fact nobody tries to build out here might be the smartest thing I've heard all night."

A faint trace of amusement touched her voice as she adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and leaned back against the cabin wall again.

"Most places see storms, hostile wildlife, parasitic birds, and sea predators and decide not to settle there."

A brief pause followed.

"Your people apparently looked at all of that and decided it was excellent territory for fishing and combat training."

Despite herself, though, she could see the appeal now that the immediate terror was fading. The islands felt raw and alive in a way polished resort worlds rarely did. Dangerous, yes, but honest about it.

Her gaze drifted back toward the distant wall of storm they had escaped.

"I think I understand why the rest of the planet leaves this region alone," she admitted quietly. "And I think I understand why the people who stay here never do."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Mistral gave a nod in agreement to Ana as Aya was coming up after she had checked it. "In a way, the dark water islands are not for everyone but it is where wars happened, where we fought and brought those who were attacking." Aya said it but she was looking at it as they were close and she spoke. "The boat though is good enough, it is shorter range then what we would want normally but it would survive. The storms are the danger and this was made to survive in the storms but it will still smash against a rock." Mistral was looking at it and he slid the knife into a sheath on his forearm incase he needed it while the wookiee was checking things. "Though we are going to want to be ready and get the cargo area secured so we are not all on deck."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana gave a small nod as Aya explained the islands, her gaze drifting toward the dark water and jagged rocks surrounding them.

"That makes sense," she said quietly. "Places built around surviving storms probably shape the people the same way."

She crouched near one of the unsecured containers and tightened the restraint holding it in place before glancing toward the nearby rocks again.

"I trust the boat more than I trust the coastline right now," she admitted dryly.

The hull rolled beneath another wave, gentler now than before, and Ana steadied herself against the wall before looking back toward Mistral.

"Also," she added, "for someone trying to retire, you seem unusually comfortable sprinting through collapsing fortresses during storms."

A faint trace of tired amusement crossed her expression.

"I think your definition of easy work is broken."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

He gave her a look but grinned. "Sprinting is important when things are chasing you to either kill you, eat you or worse and sometimes you hope it is in that order." He said it with a look and Aya guided them in close enough before she was throwing the rope and getting out. "We are going to want the coastline for now... less storms and it is shallow enough the big things can't get close." She said it securing the line as she sat down in the sand for a smaller moment. "It will also give us a chance to dry some of the clothing, at least where needed as this is not going to be the most comfortable if we stay in wet and heavy clothing."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana stepped carefully off the boat once Aya secured the line, her boots sinking slightly into the wet sand as the storm continued to grumble farther out over the water. The calmer shoreline already felt infinitely better than the fortress, though that standard had become alarmingly low over the course of the night.

Then Aya mentioned drying clothes.

Ana blinked once and looked toward her with immediate suspicion.

"Is she suggesting I get naked?" she asked quietly toward Mistral, as though genuinely trying to verify whether that had just become part of the survival plan.

A brief pause followed before her gaze shifted toward her soaked sleeves and waterlogged clothing.

"…Because unfortunately she is also not entirely wrong."

There was clear resignation in her voice now as she brushed wet hair back from her face and looked toward the small stretch of shoreline they had claimed for the moment.

"I hate how practical this planet's terrible ideas keep turning out to be."

Mistral