Kaldalis wanted to call his meeting with Sivima a success. Despite not having actually gotten her vote over Garyung, she’d given him second place, at least. And that was enough.

Garyung wasn’t going to accept a nomination. He was a great guy, and always willing to help. But he just didn’t seem the type to seek leadership. As Sivima said, he was selfless. He would likely anticipate that someone else would have goals for a leadership position.

It meant he’d likely stand aside.

Kaldalis still had a shot.

There was still a voice in his head that told him Sivima hadn’t explicitly given him second place. And Aurigeant was likely to vote for whatever fellow alpha player took the nomination.

He wasn’t out of the woods yet. Resting on his laurels would just rip the opportunity away from him.

Bangen’s support had buoyed his spirits immeasurably. Kaldalis needed another reassurance, and he knew just who to go to for it. He’d decided after their last conversation that Heluna was the one he wanted to talk to most when he needed a little help with what was going on in his head. He was pretty sure she had enjoyed talking to him just as much, and so he felt like there was nowhere he could go that was more likely to give him a shot of confidence.

It was a challenge to find her at first. It was still pretty early, but breakfast in the sailors’ portion of the camp was already wrapped up, and she didn’t appear to be working in the lumber yard.

He feared that given her earlier description of her job searching the ocean bed for salvage might mean he wouldn’t be able to find her.

Fortunately, when he stepped out onto the beach, he saw her immediately.

He couldn’t quite figure if she was on a break or just slacking off, but she was sprawled out on the sand, laying on her back. She was in her usual garb, a low-cut top and form-fitting pants that ended just below her knee. Up above her head, her boots stuck out of the sand, and her bare feet were as covered with sand as the rest of her was likely to be once she stood up. The hem of her top was flipped up a little, exposing a sliver of her grey-skinned belly.

Heluna’s eyes were closed, and for a moment Kaldalis feared something had happened to her. However, the lazy grin on her face made it apparent that she was sunning herself like a cat, enjoying the gradually growing warmth of the morning light.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he asked, once he was close enough to not have to shout, but far enough away that he wouldn’t startle her.

At least, he thought he was still far enough away to not startle her. Her eyes snapped open and she shot upright in a flash. Her hand went to her chest, as if to catch her heart before it pounded right through her ribcage.

“What the fuck, Kal!” she gasped. “Fucking warn a girl before you walk up on her while she’s asleep!”

Caught off guard, Kaldalis snorted with laughter. “Kal? Really?”

“Damnit.” She shook her head, reaching back to brush the sand out of her short hair with one hand while the other straightened her shirt, pulling the hem back down to meet her belt. “Sorry. Sir Kaldalis, lord of all he surveys, vaunted hero of the Sunken Ruins, or whatever the fuck title you want.”

Kaldalis started to answer, but the way she pulled her shirt down showed off a lot of skin. A lot of skin.

A sudden memory returned to him, unbidden.

There was a flash of skin of a different color. Sky blue. Onirioago’s smirk at drawing his eye.

Her hands on him.

But then too many hands on him all at once.

Hands in places they weren’t welcome.

He shuddered violently and turned away from Heluna, gasping for air.

“Kaldalis?” Heluna said, her voice filled with concern. “I’m sorry, I only meant to tease you a little.”

“No.” He shook his head, not sure if he was dismissing her concern or answering her question. “It’s not that. I just… It’s been a rough couple of nights. I’m fine.” He took a few deep, shaky breaths. “Fine.”

“You hitting the fatigue debuff?” Heluna asked with a grimace. “I hate that. It feels shitty that the whole universe has conspired to prescribe a specific amount of sleep.”

“No, not that kind of rough.” He realized that given the severity of his reaction to something as simple as a few inches of cleavage, he needed some fucking therapy. “I’ve been… Um… I’ve been through some shit.”

“Are you okay?” Heluna asked.

He could hear her scramble to her feet and then there was a hand on his shoulder.

Kaldalis expected another flash of memory.

Ara pinning him down, or Onirioago sidling up behind him. A tingle of fear that she was going to force him down to the sand and do things to him.

But her touch was comforting. He didn’t flinch. Heluna was a friend.

She wasn’t going to hurt him.

It felt strangely novel to have the contact not feel like a threat.

“If it’s alright with you, I’d love to talk about this sometime,” Kaldalis said at last, lowering his head. He turned to face Heluna. “This is not healthy to keep bottled up.”

“Of course,” she said softly. “I’m right here if you need me. You wanna talk now?” She smiled at him, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes, which were still obviously full of concern.

Kaldalis nodded, although it felt incredibly forced. “Thanks. You know, if I’m not going to get you in trouble with the boss for slacking off.”

“Shit.” Heluna laughed and brushed sand off her hip. “I was just laying on the fucking sand napping. With you here, I can blame you for distracting me.”

Heluna returned to her previous seat on the beach. She patted the sand next to her.

Despite her friendly intentions, and the comfort her presence provided, it still triggered a memory. Hunger in Ara’s eyes as she beckoned him to sit with her. The venom on her fangs as she talked about using him to father a line of monsters.

Kaldalis hesitated.

Heluna wasn’t Ara. She wouldn’t hurt him. But he couldn’t just shake off the memory and sit down.

He hated this.

Kaldalis crumbled into a pile where he stood, just out of reach of Heluna.

The sand still held a bit of the evening’s chill beneath the surface. As the rising sun warmed his skin, it created an interesting gradient.

It was no wonder Heluna had dozed off.

The sand under them was the cool of the night while the sun was casting a blanket of light over them.

He tried not to dwell on the thought too long, or else he might end up imagining what Onirioago had planned for him in her tent.

Kaldalis shuddered once more.

“Hey. I’m here. I’m listening.”

“Thanks…”

He tried to figure out where to start.

The whole point was to talk about how he’d been assaulted, but he didn’t want to just start the story with a spider-snake-woman on top of him. To discuss that, he needed to explain why he was there. And to explain that, he’d have to explain Onirioago ambushing him with the quest. And to explain that, he’d have to describe how handsy she’d been with him then, to provide context for the later description of how she’d been handsy with him last night. And on top of that, he’d have to explain why he went in there in the first place. It was all tied up with the whole story of the deacon tetra and Onirioago being removed from her position, and where did Dalgaard come up?

And then as soon as he thought of Dalgaard he thought of being paralyzed, forced to watch as Ara picked them apart. Fearing every second what she was going to do to him when she finished, and the biggest fear being neither pain nor death, but something much worse.

A hand trailing up his inner thigh. A tongue forcing its way past his lips.

And as soon as he started thinking about it, he realized he was breathing faster.

Despite the cold sand beneath him, he was sweating.

As much as he wanted to talk about things, just thinking about it was making him panic. If he started speaking, he’d relive that night. Step by step. And even worse, Heluna would hear it. She would know it had happened. Balrim and Myrin had a vague idea of what he’d been through, and Dalgaard had been present to hear the start of it, but no one knew his actual experience.

Speaking it to Heluna was setting it in stone. Making it real. He just…

He wasn’t ready.

It wasn’t fair. He felt weak. Useless.

And now he’d roped Heluna into his emotions. Got her all worried about him. Now he was just sitting here, staring out at the water.

She was probably going to clock him. And he probably deserved it.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I just-”

“Hey.” Heluna was closer than before. She touched his shoulder, and despite the anxiety whirling around, her hand was still friendly and comforting. Not a threat. Even if he wanted to jump on principle. “Relax. Take your time.”

Kaldalis shook his head again.

He just couldn’t. If he forced it out of his mouth, he was just going to make it all worse in his head.

“So, uh.... Weird about Onirioago, right? Did anyone tell you what happened?”

“Nah,” Heluna said with a frown. It was like she knew this wasn’t what he was upset about but was too nice to drag him back to his trauma. “Even the adventurers don’t know, and they tell you fuckers everything before even remembering that we sailors are still here.”

“Well, I was a part of that whole business,” Kaldalis said, finding his voice returning, now that he was angling the conversation away from the unpleasantness he’d suffered. “I kinda just need to talk through it. It was… Honestly a huge mess.”

“Alright,” Heluna said. “So what happened?”

Kaldalis carefully went through the story again, from the beginning. But when he got to uncomfortable details, he just left them out.

Heluna was a good listener, attentive enough to ask questions and request clarification. But the whole time, he could tell she was waiting for something else.

She knew this wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

Just the same, she sat and quietly listened, obviously hoping for a confession that wasn’t going to come. He found himself hating to disappoint her, but now that he was talking, he knew he was still miles away from being able to openly discuss what he went through.

He’d just have to keep burying it for now.