one hundred moments || a challenge

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Set myself the New Year's Resolution of making sure every single one of my characters has at least one art piece or written work, and I figured this might help. Credit for the prompts goes to ravenya, and they can be found here c: I'd appreciate it if no-one posted here, but you're free to message me about stuff.

the beginning of the end / seek and destroy / satisfied / fortune favors the brave / here's to the fools / trust / way down we go /circling the drain /redemption / we are the wild / "Look me in the eye. Say it to my face." / crawl / bones / equinox /eclipsed / thunder in their eyes / frailties / a space between / the moon is dead / one step at a time / electric gold / breakdown / vulnerability < stone cold / fire away / on the edge of the world / as we knew it / deep / "Do it." / cyan / equilibrium / the eye of the beholder / surface / too many ticks, not enough tocks / breach / thanatophobia / turning pages / she has a wild look in her eyes / from riches to rags / fever / a thousand, tiny little pieces / victory / "Breathe." / vertigo / never speak / cloudy with a chance of catastrophe / survival / raw / starstruck, earthbound / we depend on you / the wolves will always call you back / pine / godforsaken / "I know! I know, okay?" / mine / dead fall / no one, nowhere / shake / glory / ephemeral / hello/goodbye / intricate / end game / shoot for the moon (even if you miss you'll probably float in space for a while). / a lifetime / what do i do? / beings / lost world / obsidian / sleepy head / gemini vibes / thy body is thy temple / amethyst / </error> / how did we get here? / if only for a moment / bring you back down / light / sanctimonious / these walls will build my casket / creeping suspicion / purity / roots like the trees / technicolor / taken /drop / a fire inside it / wash / it will come / beg / petals over their eyes / listen close / throw down your aces / cliff edge / approaching / the last of us / if i could do it again / one more time / finally

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1. the beginning of the end
featuring;; ness and orca
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The calm water of the bay lapped playfully against the side of the boat, splashing just high enough to hit Ness' fingers as she peered over the railing into the depths.
"So this is where it was sighted?"
The captain of the ship nodded, adjusting his cap as he followed her gaze.
"That's right. The locals said it walked from the cave to the shipwreck and then back again. Dunno what it was looking for, they said it didn't even notice them looking at it."
"Hm, alright," Ness replied, turning back to look at him. "You sure you can get me down there?"
"Yup. Got all the equipment below deck, I'll ping you when it's time to resurface," the captain replied, heading back to the front of the boat. Ness gave him a grateful nod and descended the stairs, changing into a wet suit and donning the rest of the scuba equipment. This wasn't her first experience with underwater exploration, but she certainly wasn't an expert. Tufts of her yellow-green fur stuck out awkwardly from underneath the waterproof fabric, and the oxygen tanks she wore were slightly crooked. But this would work well enough.
Back on the boat deck, she donned her flippers and gave one final nod to the captain before slipping into the water. She sank slowly, giving herself a moment to adjust before opening her eyes. The water of the bay was clear and warm, perfect for finding a large marine animal. Which was exactly what Ness had come here to do.
Rumor had it that some kind of strange marine cryptid had been sighted in the area. Ness didn't know too much, but it was reported to be about the size of the boat she had come on so she guessed it wouldn't be too difficult to find.
She turned around in the water so that she was facing the remains of an old ship. She didn't know what kind of boat it was, but it had definitely been here for a while. Corals and fish had completely taken it over, and not much of the original wood could be seen. It was its own little community, and Ness eagerly swam towards it.
As she got closer, she realized that the boat was really just an empty shell. There was a vast space inside of it, with all of the life crowding around its decomposing walls. Though small fish darted through the corals and aquatic plants, Ness could see something larger moving inside. Something much larger.
She ducked down behind some corals, scattering the fish that had gathered there. Peering over, her eyes widened behind her diving mask as she saw the creature that had taken residence in the old boat. It was a large, stocky thing, with the build of a dinosaur and the colours of a killer whale. Ness guessed that it must be about thirty feet in height. It had strange fins on its back, shaped like something in between a butterfly's wing and an angelfish's fin. Its tail was more of a short, bulging mass, and its feet were incredibly small. It also had four eyes instead of two.
But something didn't seem right. Over the years, Ness had observed and taken notes on several aquatic cryptids. They all were active hunters who moved quickly to catch their food. This creature simply stood there, slowly looking around and occasionally opening its mouth to catch something inside. Curious, Ness came out from her hiding spot and swam closer.
The creature turned to look in her direction, but Ness noticed that it seemed to look past her rather than at her. Ness swam closer, watching the cryptid carefully. It didn't seem to want to hurt her, and Ness guessed that she was too big to be prey. When she was only a few meters away, it turned to look right at her. Ness could immediately see what was wrong.
This cryptid was blind.
Light from the surface revealed cataracts, so Ness knew this was age related. And every movement the creature made was stiff and slow, as if it hurt to move too quickly or too much. The realization hit Ness like a train; it had come here to die.
The young Kalon didn't have much time to dwell on it though, as the captain of her dive ship was pinging her to resurface. She backed out of the boat still facing the cryptid, giving it one last sad glance before she swam upwards and out of the water. She scrambled back onto the boat, removing her mask and tanks. The captain gave her an expectant look.
"That thing's no threat," Ness assured him. "It's the beginning of the end for it, I think. It won't be bothering anyone."
The captain nodded, turning away. Ness was certain that he wouldn't send anyone after it, but she still felt incredibly sad. What was it like, accepting your end?

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2. seek and destroy
featuring;; ekkehard and tecel
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The ginger cat ran his finger over the map one last time before looking at the path ahead. So that was where they were hiding. Ekkehard gently urged his horse, Tecel, forward down the trail. She was a new acquisition, but they'd bonded over the past few months due to their similar upbringings. Both had been taken as youngsters and raised to be weapons, but now they were both free to live their own lives. It was difficult, but Ekkehard felt sure that they could both get through it.
This day's mission would definitely help with that. Ekkehard had been given some information about where one of the people who had turned him into a weapon - or Hazard Cat as they called it, though he despised the term - had gone into hiding. Ekkehard's mission was simple; seek out this person and then, with Tecel's help, destroy them.
The road was dusty and long, but by the time the sun was beginning to set, horse and rider were close to their destination. Ekkehard could see the house that had been described to him off in the distance, and he slowed Tecel down to a walk. They'd have to use the element of surprise here, or they risked getting killed themselves. His modified left hand gripped the sword on his hip tightly. This had to go right.
When they were still at a safe distance, Ekkehard climbed down from the saddle and slipped his hand under Tecel's bridle. She huffed and he smiled, using his normal hand to scratch her behind the ears. He didn't like using the modified one around her. It had long, sharp claws made of metal that Ekkehard was sure would hurt the mare if he wasn't careful. Instead, he kept that hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. The hand had no nerves in it, but somehow this felt more comfortable.
The house they would be entering was a rundown structure made mostly of stone. It was surrounded by a lone wall and some desert brush, and a wind chime hung from the porch above the front door. It seemed to comprise of only one floor, and had very few windows. The wind chimes would be a problem; if they brushed past them, it might alert whoever was inside. Ekkehard turned to Tecel and gestured at the wind chimes, hoping she could do something about them.
Tecel nodded and closed her eyes, focusing her energy so that she could control it. Ekkehard knew that she had only ever used her nature powers for destruction, so having a gentle enough hold over them to stop the wind chime from moving would be difficult. But the mare managed it. Thick vines rose up from the ground below her feet, snaking up the side of the house and crawling along the roof of the porch. Slowly, so slowly, they curled around each of the metal tubes of the wind chime, holding them still. When Tecel was satisfied, she stomped a foot on the end of the vine, disconnecting it from herself and turning it into a permanent structure. Ekkehard nodded happily, then got ready to enter the house.
The ginger cat moved slowly around the front door. Gripping his sword tightly, he used his other hand to try the door handle. It was unlocked, and he carefully pushed the door open. The house was small on the inside, and the room he'd walked into was a mix of kitchen and living room. There was a bedroom and bathroom off to the side, but it was the room in the back that caught Ekkehard's interest. The door was ajar, and a blue light emanated from it. Ekkehard stepped cautiously inside, doing his best to keep the wooden floor from creaking underneath him.
What he saw inside the room startled him. There were counters and shelves and tables, all cluttered and completely covered with myriad scientific instruments. There were all kinds of microscopes, test tubes, even beakers filled with strange liquids and powders. What was this place?
Tecel suddenly whinnied at the doorway, and Ekkehard span around, pointing his sword straight ahead of him. He was faced with an odd sight. An old man in a wheelchair had appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide at the sight of Ekkehard.
"Y-you...!"
Ekkehard frowned.
"Do I know you?" he asked, keeping his sword in front of him defensively. The old man nodded, reaching out a hand and pointing at Ekkehard's modified arm.
"What did they do to you...?"
Ekkehard could feel himself growing confused and frustrated. What did this old man mean?
"Explain yourself," he murmured, tightening the grip on his sword. Though this man didn't seem to be any threat, Ekkehard didn't want to take any chances. The old man withdrew his hand, sadness crossing his face.
"They told me that you were sick, that you needed to be fixed. They said you needed help breathing and that you'd lost an arm. So I built you new parts. The vent was to help you breath, the chest piece to pump blood. I built a new arm; I was so proud of the work." His head dropped some, and Ekkehard lowered his sword.
"But then I saw the reports. The framework I'd built to save you; they'd modified it all. They'd turned you into some kind of fighter. That's not what I'd worked on you for. Then-" The old man gestured to the workshop that Ekkehard still stood in. "They gave me all of this. They said they wanted the modifications to be better next time. More efficient. More...perfect."
The man gave Ekkehard a pleading look.
"I know you owe my nothing, but I want to ask you a favor," he said. Ekkehard raised an eyebrow, but allowed the man to keep talking.
"Can you destroy all of that? I'm too afraid to do it myself; I'm worried they might come after me. I don't want that stuff to hurt anyone else."
Ekkehard thought long and hard. The sadness across the old man's face convinced him that he was telling the truth, but would this bring a greater threat to Ekkehard and Tecel? The ginger cat decided to come to a compromise.
"I'll destroy that stuff if you can tell me where 'they' are hiding," he replied. The old man nodded.
"Last I heard, they had a compound in the south, down in the mountains somewhere. They keep it well hidden and well defended."
Ekkehard nodded slowly. He knew where that was. Without saying another word, he turned around and swung his sword across the top of one of the desks. Tecel huffed in surprise at the noise of glass and metal crashing to the floor. Ekkehard swung his sword again and again until nothing was left, and only then did he turn back to the old man. Neither of them said anything, but Ekkehard nodded and walked out of the house.
The ginger cat climbed back into Tecel's saddle, sheathing his sword. This wasn't quite what he had come here to do, but it still felt right. He scratched Tecel behind the ears with his good hand and then urged her onward to the South. They had more business to attend to.

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3. satisfied
featuring;; riaz, ✧ 浮気者 ✧'s emrick and masayuki
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Riaz was losing his weapon-making edge. Had he been in a better mood, he probably would have laughed heartily at the pun. But Riaz was not in a better mood. In fact, his current mood was very foul indeed.
The last few weapons that he’d smithed just hadn’t felt right. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was wrong, but he wasn’t pleased with any of his work.
Still, it wasn't like he could just quit. Being a blacksmith was Riaz's livelihood, so if he didn't keep working he wouldn't make any money. He pushed the axe he had just finished to one side and set out a new strip of metal. Maybe the next sword he made would break him out of his funk. He looked over the strip of metal closely, then took a step back and looked at it from a distance. It was important to the Flamegator that he look at his projects from every angle. He'd use that to form a vision in his head of what to make.
No ideas came to mind immediately, but Riaz pushed forward. He lit the fire of his forge and pumped air in to get the flames' heat just right. Once he was happy with it, he donned his thick gloves and grabbed the metal with his tongs.
The heat from the metal was comforting to the Flamegator, and as usual he found himself mesmerized by the way it glowed. He was almost tempted to reach out and touch it, but although he was technically fireproof, he didn't want to risk it. Once the strip of metal was heated evenly, Riaz carefully transferred it over to his anvil.
There was a spread of tools on the workbench to his left, and the first he picked up was the hammer. The muscles in his arms rippled under his fur as he beat the metal into shape. To an outsider the clanging noise would probably be deafening, but Riaz had been doing this for long enough that he was able to tune it out. So much so that he easily heard the chime of the doorbell as someone walked into the forgery. He nodded silently at the father and son who had entered, watching them from the corner of his eye.
They were two Makoatls, and Riaz listened in on their conversation as he worked. He couldn't help but notice that the younger Mako's blue eyes were fixed on the sword Riaz was making, and the Flamegator stifled a smile.
"Emrick, come look at this," the older Mako called. "I want you to look carefully at all of these. It's important we get you something you can use now that you stay home by yourself."
Ah, a weapon of self-defense. Riaz hammered away thoughtfully, lost in his thoughts. The two Makos browsed for a while longer before Riaz broke out of his thoughts. He'd let his mind and instincts do most of the work, and when he looked down the sword had come out smaller than he'd originally intended. Small enough even for a child...
"Hey kid, do ya wanna try this one?" Riaz asked, his voice gruff. He carefully cooled the sword off and made it safe as the young Mako and his father approached.
"Grip it tightly, like this."
"You can take it, Emrick. Does it feel good in your hand?" the older Mako asked. Emrick nodded, turning the blade over and admiring it. Riaz nodded in approval.
"I sell ya that one," he said to the older Mako. "It'll fit his needs just fine. He'll grow out of it eventually though."
The older Mako nodded, and Riaz finished wrapping some leather around the hilt while the money was counted. The two Makoatls thanked him and left, leaving him leaning against his workbench. That sword had been perfect, and Riaz felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
For the first time in a while, Riaz was satisfied with his work.

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4. fortune favors the brave
featuring;; mamba and aslan
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mamba was glad for the merge. The silver black tobiano stallion didn't know what the humans had done, but suddenly an entire herd of horses had joined them at Shadow Cove. They called themselves Padros, and after Mamba had gotten done marveling at their bright colours and interesting traits, he'd gone out of his way to try and make friends. Most of them had taken a more professional approach, and a few didn't seem happy that they had to work with more horses, but Mamba had managed to make one friend.
His name was Aslan, and he didn't act like a coworker like many of the others. In fact, the first thing he had done was walk right up to Thor, leader of the Tolter herd, and greet him as though they were foalhood friends. This was an incredible achievement in Mamba's eyes; Thor was known for being stern, stoic, and scarily unfriendly to anyone who he thought acted too casually.
Mamba had asked him about it afterwards, but Aslan didn't bat an eyelid.
"Fortune favors the brave, y'know," he said, causing Mamba to tilt his head in confusion. Aslan noticed his confused look and chuckled.
"You've never 'eard that one, eh? All it means is that if yer confident and determined and don't back down, things'll generally tend to go yer way."
The gold champagne Padro shook out his mane.
"All I'm sayin' is, if I'd o' never gone up to Thor and introduced m'self, 'e might never 'ave accepted me into yer stables. We're strangers to 'im, but if we act like we're friends right away, then we don't 'ave to go through all the awkwardness. We can just go straight to trainin' and workin'."
That made sense to Mamba, and in the following weeks the two became rather close. Aslan was something of a mentor to the Tolter; where Mamba may have been cautious and unsure of what to do, Aslan was unafraid to jump right in and get things done. Their friendship quickly grew strong, and they became practically inseparable.

[shortstop]

5. here's to the fools
featuring;; ness and tori
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Tori raised an eyebrow as Ness finished securing the rope to the edge of the wall. Ness met his eye and huffed, tightened the knot in the rope grumpily.
"I'm not saying it's a dumb idea-" Tori started.
"It's a fine idea," Ness cut him off, the glint in her eye something that Tori was more than used to. "Scaling down the wall is the best way to see the cyptid without disturbing it by walking around inside."
"And you're sure it's safe?" Tori asked as Ness tied the rope to the harness she was wearing.
"Perfectly safe," Ness snapped back. "Help me down, please?"
Tori sighed and nodded, stepping forward to grab the rope and then holding it tight as Ness climbed over the wall. Ness shot Tori a grin before she descended, but her confidence didn't mean much to him. Ness had gotten into all kinds of trouble over the years while she looked for crytids to 'make friends with'. Tori was convinced that they just wanted to eat her.
Movement at the other end of the rope stopped and Tori held it still. He glanced over the edge of the abandoned building and caught sight of Ness staring into a window. Tori said nothing, knowing it was better to just wait until she was done. Instead he stepped back and stared out over the rest of the city. It was kind of a nice view from up here, with the last dregs of sunlight peeking out over the tops of the high rise buildings. The noise and bustle of the city was merely a low hum, and a light breeze pushed past the edges of Tori's jacket to tussle his fur.
The tranquility was broken by a sudden and rather desperate series of hissed whispers. Tori snapped back to attention and perked his ears.
"Pull me up. Pull me up. Pull me up."
Tori got right to it and starting pulling on the rope. He pulled Ness all the way back onto the roof, but he wasn't able to get a word out before Ness threw off her harness and started pulling at his arm.
"We need to leave immediately."
"Wha-?"
"Like, right now!"
And then the wall gave way.
Ness's fingers tightened around Tori's wrist as the huge beast clambered up onto the roof. Bricks and concrete fled the scene in all directions, and Tori quickened his pace to get away from whatever monstrosity Ness had managed to upset.
"I thought you were just gonna look at it?!" Tori cried as the pair of Kalons launched themselves down the stairs.
"You can yell at me about it later," Ness replied loudly, her voice barely audible over the crash of building materials above them. "Let's just get out of here!"

[shortstop]

6. trust
featuring;; keone, noor, and ness
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The soft, plush blankets didn’t do much to comfort the little Kalon that was wrapped securely inside of them. Keone had messed up big time, and now he was sure that he was going to pay the price for it.
Keone hadn’t meant to cause trouble. He was just trying to impress Ness, hoping maybe she’d like him enough that they could actually be friends. So he’d climbed up on the back of the couch and stood up like that. He’d called out to Ness, showing her just how close he was to touching the ceiling.
And then Keone had fallen.
Desperate hands had reached out and found the only thing they could hold onto, which happened to be a shelf. The shelf, of course, was no match for the force of a falling Kalon, so both it and Keone crashed down onto the wooden floor. Keone was up immediately and fled into his room, wrapping the blanket from his bed around him and hiding in between the bed and the wall.
The door to the bedroom slid open, making a familiar noise on the carpet. Keone tensed.
"Keone."
That was Noor's voice. Noor was Keone's new parent? Guardian? Keeper? Keone wasn't sure how to phrase it.
Noor's voice was flat, and tears started forming at the edges of Keone's eyes.
"Keone. Come out, please."
"N-no!" Keone protested, voice muffled by the blanket.
Footsteps on the carpet let Keone know that Noor was moving towards him, and they stopped right in front of where Keone was hiding.
"Keone, please come out."
"No! You'll send me back!"
"Send you- Keone, I just want to make sure you didn't hurt yourself."
Keone started to sniffle, but finally poked his head out of the large blanket. When he met eyes with Noor, all he saw on the older Kalon's face was concern.
"How do I know you won't send me back?" Keone mumbled, wiping his eyes with the blanket. "That's what the others did."
"I have no reason to send you back, do I?" Noor responded, fishing Keone's hands out from the blanket and holding them in their own.
"I don't know that," Keone responded, still sniffling.
"Guess you'll just have to trust me then," Noor hummed, gently leading Keone out of his hiding spot. "Now; did you hurt yourself?"
"But I broke a bunch of things," Keone reminded them.
"Things can be replaced," Noor replied with a shrug, rolling up Keone's sleeves to check his arms. "You, on the other hand, cannot."
Noor's finger brushed against Keone's elbow and Keone flinched away.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm fi-"
"I'll get a bandaid. Come on."
Keone trailed behind Noor, eyes slowly drying. He kept waiting for some kind of anger, maybe angry words under Noor's breath about the damage he had caused.
But there was nothing.

[shortstop]

7. way down we go
featuring;; Fern
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The huge rock formations of the granite maze loomed like stoic giants far above where Fern stood. The Blitzle felt that they were staring her down, trying to dissuade her from entering. But Fern wasn't intimidated by something as simple as stone. Her hooves made sharp noises that echoed ominously as she strode into the mountains.
A warm, dry wind snaked through the collection of stone formations. It carried along with it even the smallest sounds, delivering them to Fern's alert ears. There was something lurking in the crevices. Fern would have to be careful.
At least the mission was an easy one. Poverty in the region led many people to gather their own food. The Geodude that Fern had been sent out to find was no exception. A young kid, he'd been sent out to find good rocks to feed his family and just hadn't returned. Whether this would be a rescue mission or a recovery remained to be seen, but Fern held out hope that it would have a happy ending.
The skittering sound of claws against bare rock had Fern twisting into a more defensive stance. She slowed her pace and kept her eyes alert. Not alert enough, however, to notice the rock that she kicked with a hoof.
At once there was a loud screaming sound from somewhere above and Fern instinctively ducked. As a reaction she let off a Shock Wave attack, but even when it hit the target, it didn't stop the Geodude from swinging at her a second time.
"I'm sorry! I'm not trying to hit you!"
As Fern jumped out of the way a third time, she was able to get a good look at the situation. The Geodude had been tied up in such a way that when swung from a large rope, his arms were outstretched and his fists clenched.
"I'll get you our of there; hold on," Fern assured him. She aimed another electric attack at the rope this time, and much to her relief it cut clean through.
The Geodude and the remaining ropes tumbled to the ground, and Fern jumped forward to break their fall. The Blitzle let out a grunt as the full weight of the other Pokemon landed on top of her. That had hurt quite a bit.
The Geodude pulled himself off of Fern and moved back, allowing the Blitzle to stand.
"Are you alright?" he asked, and Fern nodded. "Thank you for getting me out of there."
"Don't mention it," Fern replied bluntly. "We just have to get us both out of here in one piece. What's your name?"
"I'm Josh," the Geodude explained. "You have a rescue team badge? So you can just warp us out of here, right?"
"Warping takes time," Fern explained. "We need to get into a safe position before we can use the badge."
"That might be hard," Josh sighed. "I was kidnapped by kobolds; they have eyes everywhere."
"Ugh, understood," Fern replied. "Let's go. Come on. Oh, and I'm Fern by the way."
"Sounds good, Fern!"
The skittering of claws made itself known again, and Fern pushed Josh behind a formation before ducking that way herself. It was then that she caught sight of something that could prove very, very useful.
"Head for that crevice," Fern hissed as a rock came flying towards where they were hiding.
Both Pokemon dove for the opening as a hail of rocks came crashing down upon them. Fern and Josh were hit a few times, but they made it into cover.
"Hold on to me!"
Josh grabbed on to Fern's shoulder and Fern used her power word to activate the rescue team badge. There was a flash of light, and when Fern opened her eyes again, they were both standing outside the entrance of the rock maze. Fern breathed a sigh of relief, shaking the dust from her fur and then turning to Josh.
"Let's get you home."

[shortstop]

8. circling the drain
featuring;; bersaglio and orca
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sails being battered by the wind made a very unique sound. It was almost louder than the thunder of the storm, and Bersaglio grunted as she gripped the ropes of the mast tightly. Skilled hands worked quickly to take down the sails, preventing the Kalon and her boat from being pulled further out into the sea. But Bersaglio wouldn't be getting out of the situation that easily.
The boat continued to move away from her island home. Bersaglio felt her heart pound a little harder, a little faster in her chest. She felt her focus start to slip just a bit, as she grappled desperately at the ship's wheel. If she could just turn the rudder, maybe she could change the boat's course.
She clung tightly to her life jacket, the coat she wore underneath flapping wildly in the fierce wind. The island was getting further and further away, and when Bersaglio swung her head around to look out to see, she saw the waves continuing to build into a monstrous whirlpool. Terror pushed its way out of her lungs as a howl, and the boat took a sudden dive towards the depths. Bersaglio flinched away, gripping the wheel as tightly as she could.
The boat struck the water hard, and Bersaglio lost her footing. Her arms flailed wildly but she found no grip on the slick deck of the boat. She grunted and took in a mouthful of salty water as she hit the side of the boat, her life jacket failing to keep her above the surface.
Something nudged her from below and she pushed away, not wanting to be dragged down with the boat. But she was nudged again. Then lifted? Bersgalio could suddenly see above the waves, all the way to her island which now looked so tiny in the distance. She looked down and almost fell back into the water.
She was atop some gargantuan monster's head. Bersaglio knew then that she must have died. There was no way this could be real. It looked like some kind of orca, but also some kind of dinosaur. The monster glanced down at Bersaglio's destroyed boat, then started heading towards the island. Bersaglio flopped down on its head, watching her boat disappear beneath the waves.

[shortstop]

9. redemption
featuring;; emrys and kalidas
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The sound in the distance was incessant, and wasn't dulled even when Emrys pinned their one remaining ear back. As a leading member of the forces of hell, it wasn't as though Emrys really needed sleep. Some nights though, there was so little to do that Emrys could put their head down and relax.
But something somewhere was crying and screaming, and it kept Emrys tense. They rolled over and opened their eyes, not seeing much through the darkness. There was no movement out there, certainly nothing to suggest any kind of commotion. In fact the forest was oddly still. So Emrys pushed themselves to their feet and decided to investigate, making peace with the fact that they would get no rest on this night.
They followed the noise with a silence that only a demon could master. They found the source quite quickly. Someone had wrapped a baby in a mess of blankets, placed them in a cardboard box, and left them in the middle of a forest clearing. Emrys stood over the child and the crying faded away, replaced with coos of curiosity.
"You shouldn't interfere," cut a voice through the darkness. "It'll be taken by the elements soon enough, and the other humans will have to suffer the consequences for leaving it here."
Emrys knew the voice well, but they didn't turn their head to face the owner. They took a moment to process the words before replying, cursing Kalidas for speaking in English. It was just like the guy to interfere in Emrys' affairs. Kalidas just couldn't bring himself to leave Emrys alone. It was strange, almost obsessive. And it always seemed to end poorly.
"And help you improve your numbers?" Emrys growled. "Come on, Kalidas. I have no reason to help you out."
"But abandoning a child is a major sin," Kalidas whined, stepping into view. "Especially if it dies. Imagine the promotion I could get for taking that information back to the boss."
"You won't be getting any other promotion," Emrys replied with a low tone. "This little one hasn't done anything wrong. I'm going to return it to the mortals."
As a judge of the hells, Emrys had the power to decide who exactly would be sent into the fiery depths. As a spy for the boss, Kalidas benefited from bringing back information on sinful activities. This often put the two at odds with each other.
"The mortals have already decided that they don't want it," Kalidas replied, brushing up against Emrys with narrowed eyes and a wide grin. "Just leave it here."
"No," Emrys snapped back, teeth glinting in the dim light. They fished the baby out of the box so it hung securely in the blankets. All four of Kalidas' eyes widened momentarily before rage flashed through them.
"You're a demon! You shouldn't be interfering!" Kalidas said, the frustration more than apparent in his voice.
But Emrys ignored him, turning their back and walking away.