#meja seeing a hot but half-dead sailor wash up on her beach: this is fine. this won't affect my life even a little

[reneesbooks]

wip intro - salt and brine

oh shit oh fuck. i uh. i had an idea for a short story about a side character's parents and uh. i got a little invested so fuck it i'm gonna write it.

genre: romance

status: drafting. it's going to be a short story i swear <- we all know i'm a liar by now. draft 0 is done and marinating. currently editing

summary: Meja is used to her life. She has her five-year-old daughter, Reijka, her bright spot through her husband's dark moods. She has the cove where she sets the traps, her place of refuge. She is strong, and nothing can really hurt her.

Then an outsider washes into her cove with a storm, and her world thrown to the tides. Tradition states that she should kill him herself for intruding on their land, but she can't bring herself to do it, nor can she let the hypothermia take him. She hides him in her cellar, nurses him back to health under Stian's nose, and drags him back to the cove when he is well enough. She plans to send him on his way and never speak of this unfortunate incident again.

But he keeps coming back to the cove.

Kamon isn't sure what to think about the silent Hass woman that saved him on that rocky beach. He'd expected her to kill him, then expected her husband to kill him. But she'd saved him, and then refused to let him save her in return and take her with him away from her shouting husband and fading bruises. So he keeps returning to the cove, even if she still won't speak to an outsider like him. Even if all she ever gives him are silent, longing looks--he keeps coming back to the cove.

picrew

clockwise from top left-- Meja, Kamon, Stian, and Reijka. this does take place in the same world as the raedoran cycle, though it happens in one of the other countries and doesn't connect to the main plot at all. however it is going to take over my brain until i write it and i'm dragging all y'all with me.

tag: salt and brine

snippet:

She picks her way carefully over a few new pieces of driftwood. A storm had blown through late the night before, and apparently it carried through more than just rough seas. Meja sighs. Half her traps will be ruined, if the amount of debris on the beach is any indication.

A weak groan echoes from one of the piles of driftwood and Meja's head snaps up.

“Hello?” she calls. She drops the ice from her lip so that she has both hands free to grab a large stick in one and a large rock in the other. “Is someone there?”

She steps over one of the chunks of driftwood and her eyes widen in shock. There is a man lying on the rocky beach, his tattered sailors' uniform soaked and clinging to his amber skin. His arm is looped around one of the driftwood branches, as if he'd held onto it until it carried him to shore. His head lolls back and another pitiful groan escapes his lips.

An outsider. Meja freezes, her fingers clenching around the rock and stick in her hands. He is alive, awake, even, limbs twitching as consciousness returns to them. She stands there dumbly as he rolls onto his side and coughs, seawater spilling from his lips.

He collapses against the ground again, his breathing shallow, and Meja realizes that he's dying, his lips blue and fingers shaking. She sets down the rock and stick and takes another cautious step towards him. The outsider's eyes flicker to her for the first time and widen. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, feet scrabbling on the rocky beach, but quickly collapses against the ground again, his painful, ragged breathing devolving into a hacking cough.

Meja should walk away. He is an outsider, an intruder. She should kill him for daring to be on Hass soil, for contaminating their land. But he looks scared. And with how blue his fingertips are, he will die soon without help.

She kneels next to him and he flinches back. She slips the shawl off her shoulders and wraps it around him, then her fingers around his wrist. His dark eyes are wide looking up at her and she wonders if she is being the biggest fool to ever live, doing this.

She tugs him to his feet. He stumbles and she steadies him, allowing him to lean on her. He tries to ask her a question, his hoarse voice struggling to form the common tongue, but she ignores him. She starts to walk back towards the house and he stumbles alongside her.

This is a bad idea. Stian will be home and will kill you both. You can't do this.

She ignores the voice in her head too and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. She couldn't just leave this man to die on the shore. She'll help him recover, then send him back to wherever he came from. Soon this will all be a strange story to never tell another soul, something to dream of late at night when Stian is asleep and she is tending her bruises.

Reijka is still asleep when they reach the house. Meja pulls the outsider to the cellar door and shuts them inside. He collapses into a sitting position against the wall, coughing weakly. She lights the lantern with trembling fingers. She has a few blankets stashed behind the crates of food, in case a bad enough storm blows through that they have to shelter here. She turns to the outsider with one and wraps it around his shoulders, then crouches down to pull off his soaked boots. He doesn't protest and she wraps another of the blankets around his feet.

She makes enough space behind the crates for him to lay down. Stian never comes down here, and he won't be visible from the doorway. As long as he's quiet, she'll be able to hide him long enough for him to get better. She heats up a few large stones in the fire while she builds up the courage to strip him of the rest of his wet clothes. They'll keep him cold, slow his recovery, but she's not sure he's able to do it himself yet. He barely moved as she laid him down in his hiding place, his eyelashes fluttering.

The stones are warm enough. She puts out the fire and lifts them out, carrying them down to the cellar. The outsider has managed to pull his shirt most of the way off, and she can see his trousers tangled around his ankles. He yanks the blanket over himself again and she quickly averts her eyes, her cheeks burning with shame.

After a few sharp breaths, she turns back and helps him pull the shirt and trousers the rest of the way off. She hangs them to dry along the back wall, cloaked in shadows, and moves the stones so that they surround the outsider, offering warmth. She gets another blanket and throws it over him. His eyes are following her sleepily. Good. He'll need to sleep to heal, now that he's warm enough.

She steps back and puts a finger to her lips. The outsider nods, his eyelids drifting shut. Meja exhales slowly, watching him slip into a deep sleep.

What the hell did I just do?

taglist (ask to be added! <3): @oh-no-another-idea

#yes i am still working on thieves i am simply also writing this. like a palette cleanser. #in case ur wondering this all happened bc arthur was getting chatty with a barkeep and accidentally convinced her to tell him her backstory #original fiction #short story #writeblr #writeblr community #salt and brine #rb original #meja seeing a hot but half-dead sailor wash up on her beach: this is fine. this won't affect my life even a little #kamon waking up to see a hass woman standing over him with a rock and a stick: ah fuck i'm going to die