My first Bad Things Happen Bingo fic!! AH this is so much fun; I’m so glad I have such great friends that got me into this aslkjflakdsjf. Characters & setting are from my original story, What Rises From the Depths, being serialized on Chanillo & Patreon.
If you like this and want to see more of Diana & Chelsaline, read the first chapter of WRFtD for free here!
If you want to request one of these prompts, my askbox is always open!! Enjoy!
Chelsaline wakes up screaming.
Her first inhale cuts short. She coughs out acrid chalk and powder stuck on her tongue, coating her throat. It’s a taste she hasn’t ever known; she has never wanted to know. All she can hear is the angry, bright boom and burn of the dynamite, but all she can see is pitch black. Her rapid breath hits a stone surface above her nose; over and over again, little puffs of air push back against her face.
She is trapped.
She doesn’t know what she is pinned by, only that it doesn’t hurt and shouldn’t it hurt? Shouldn’t she feel pain? What does it mean if she can’t feel the pressure of the stone around her?
Chelsaline wiggles and kicks out until the arm wrapped around her waist tightens. Something softer rises and falls over her shoulder and Chelsaline realizes she hadn’t been aware of the weight of another person curled around her.
“Chelsie, love, don’t move.”
Breath cuts into her lungs. It is hot and cold all at once. “M-mom?”
She has never heard her mother sound like this: so haggard and thin. Her mother is a captain, the youngest the Winged Island’s Navy has. Her mother commands a ship and a crew and keeps them in order and carries her voice loud enough to be heard over the roughest sea storms. There are many things you could call Diana Carter; quiet has never been one of them.
“Yes, love. I’m here.”
Chelsaline wants to ask, but she’s afraid of the answer. Her breath is hot and quick, brushing back against her own lips. She starts to shake. Her mother’s arm tightens around her. There’s a slight drag of skin against stone.
“Give me…just a second.”
“O-okay.”
“Then…I’ll move. I promise.”
“Okay.”
True to her word, a moment later Diana pushes up against the stone above them. She gasps and huffs but eventually, dim light slips through. It’s hard to see but it’s there, subdued and small, growing wider and illuminating the silhouette of the slab above their heads.
“Still dark. We must…not have been out long.”
Chelsaline finds her voice again after realizing the low light could also reveal the form of her mother bent her, both hands braced against the largest slab on her back. “Is that good?”
Stone slides against stone. Crumbling sounds start out distant and muffled, an arrhythmic patter of tiny pebbles and broken pieces sliding off of the back of the one her mother lifts. But then there’s a shift and a shuddering groan and the edge of the giant slab finally slips over the lip of another at their feet. It slides away.
The night sky is serene above them.
Her mother is turned away, watching the wide section of wall that had pinned them down fall to the bottom from where they sit nestled at the crown of lighthouse rubble.
“We’ll…have to climb down. I hope Endric and Arvelle aren’t…somewhere underneath all of this.” Diana turns to look at Chelsaline over her shoulder. There’s a small smile on her face, framed by the moonlight. “Forget I said anything. I’m sure they’re fine. Think you can walk, love?”
No. Chelsaline can’t talk.
She can’t move.
She stares with wide eyes at the torn skin of her mother’s back, burned raw from fire and broken open by the stone. Her captain’s coat and uniform shirt she had always been so proud of had done little to protect her from the cruelty of the blast and the harsh surface of cement. Even still, she had grabbed Chelsaline and held her close without hesitation.
I did that.
“Chelsie?”
Her brown eyes snap up to her mother’s. It starts as something small, a tight kernel stuck in the center of her throat. It spreads like ice.
“Here,” Diana says. She rises to her feet slowly with a wince, wobbling once she’s up. Her hands fan out at either side. Then she extends an open palm to her daughter still lying prone in the rubble. “Let me help you up, love.”
Chelsaline takes one look at her hand. She launches herself upwards.
Diana freezes at the slender arms that wrap around her waist and the head that burrows itself against her abdomen. She places one hand on the back of Chelsaline’s head, fingers weaving into wild, dusty curls. She thinks Chelsaline might be saying something into her stomach; over and over again, the same phrase, sobbed out past chapped lips.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
And when Chelsaline, exhausted, eventually falls asleep against her, Diana gently props her on her hip. She thumbs at the dried tear tracks on her cheeks and for the second time that day, holds her daughter close to her heart. She carries her down the mountain of rubble.
