I have been unlike myself of late, or perhaps more truthfully, I have been more myself than I was before. When the ocean takes a Drifter, we do not mourn in the way that many do. We honor their life by seizing hold of our own. We celebrate and we sing and we dance and we love...we live.
I keep watching Iollan leap from the rigging, a track set to loop in the shadows of my mind. I was untouched by the sirens' song, even as so many others fell helplessly to it...and I do not believe that it marks me stronger. I am simply already trapped in the song of another, and I will follow him blindly to the bottom of the sea.
He has never looked at me before the way that he did last night, as though I was finally the woman he wanted. I flirted shamelessly. I sang for him and I danced for him, and I knew it was reckless even before Lu settled her judgement upon me.
I knew it was a mistake. I knew it was only the liquor and the firelight and the need to dash red hair from his mind. I would have chased that mistake to the dawn, though. I would have drowned myself in our mistake.
I did not leave to save myself. I know he will never love me; I know that my heart has anchored itself to a lost cause - and that my Captain, much like everything else I love - will always sail just out of reach. I know that his regret would have hurt, but no matter what came after, a life in which I have known his touch - even once, even drunk, even as his mistake - is still the life I would choose.
I did not leave to save myself. I left to save him from my own selfish suicide.