[POTC fic series] - SAILING IN SAMSARA, C.2 - "Of Teacups and Tempests" - 2/2 - rated PG-13
Title: “Of Teacups and Tempests”
Series: Sailing in Samsara (2/2 - thus far)
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Spoilers: Post (my hypothetical) AWE
Pairing: Jack/Elizabeth, Saraswati (OC)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,721
Disclaimer: I don't own POTC or any of the people in it. They belong to Disney. Would that I was so rich.
Summary: This is Chapter Two of a series that will address Jack’s backstory and the role of family in his life. Jack, Lizzie, and the gang get swept up in the drama of the summer monsoons. Learn Jack's real name. See Lizzie faint. meet the mongoose. Chapter One can be found here: http://writing-samsara.livejournal.com/3166.html
Note on this work: After much consideration, I have opted to include in-text translations of the long phrases in Malayalm, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil. Single words are excluded, and will be translated in the annotated version of this work. My apologies if this effect is jarring, but with such a long fic the more traditonal forms of translation proved ineffective. Three out of five of my "test subjects" found they preferred this format to relying on contextual cues. If you find it difficult to concentrate on the work with these additions, please shoot me an email at Nikita61482ATaol.com, and I will provide the story sans translation. Stay tuned for an annotated version of the work which will feature many insights into the culture/customs within (give me a day or two). Thanks for reading, and please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Acknowledgements: Many, many thanks to my stellar "Writing Team": erinya as the beta superstar, djarum99 as my concrit darling, and compassrose7577 the voice of read-through reason.
Sailing in Samsara: Of Teacups and Tempests (Part Two):
His sleep was patchwork. He dreamt in tumbles - one scene to the next to the next, with no discernable threads to bind them. The ship would pitch, and he would wake to pebbles of daylight beyond his eyelids, would toss and burrow and bend. Sunlight entered the cabin in thick slats, and he bent away from midday’s searing arms, seeking the cooler shallows of the linens. Deep in the pockets of his mind there rose the ghosts of questions - of the sun and the lack of grayness, and the biting thought: it’s bad news if the wind’s kicking in this brightness. Where’s the storm, and where the blazes is Elizabeth?
But mostly, he sailed from dreamscape to dreamscape, muscles tense and knotted as he attempted to steer away from one only to break against another.
There was his mother kneeling in the garden. “Raj, my darling-darling,” and she raised her hands to him. Legs burning, he ran and ran and ran but she remained a finger’s length from him. And then night descended in rivulets, like an ink bottle overturned, creeping across the sky in black trails that clotted in the cinnamon trees. The darkness rained on his mother, showered her in indigo blots until her skin was smudged blue-black and shimmering. In the distance, his sister screamed and screamed, eyes brimming. Their mother warbled a koyal’s cry, voice shrill and mocking before rising into the sky.
Jack fled, the crunch of beetles underfoot. Earthworms plump and purple curled between his toes, wriggling in wet slops from their nests in the drowning ground. They writhed beneath his feet, the earth rising damp and flushed. The jungle surrounded him, bleeding brown and green, and his lungs felt filled with water as he reached a clearing. Will and Bootstrap sat on twin logs in the opening. They played Liar’s Dice. The whelp’s skin was brittle; it flaked from his body and floated through the air, hovered ash-like in thin slivers. Hearing a rustling in the canopy, Jack turned his face to the thatched web of leaves high above his head. He gulped, paralyzed. High above dangled his nephew, strung up by his ankles, pale and bloated and bobbing in the breeze.
Tropical sounds swallowed his screams.
And then, blink-fast, he was aboard the Pearl. There was the click of iron at his wrist, the heavy sway of chains as he struggled to free himself from the mast. Elizabeth watched him, stood jotting notes on something tan and taut, something like dried skin. The Kraken quivering and rose around him; its tentacles released the wood with a wet, sloppy-sounding pop. He felt himself cry, felt a hundred open wounds roaring as they flooded with seawater. And Elizabeth sat, examining the scene with ravenous eyes, the caliper in her hands making swooping marks on the hide. “Almost time, Jack.” And she giggled as fire filled his eyes, the crushing pressure in his head bursting into blackness.
He woke with a start, the room dim and the sensation of something heavy pressing his chest. Something with quills, spiny and bristled. And scratchy. Something like hair and tiny claws snatching at his skin.
Something like a damned mongoose sitting on his chest, and his sister in the doorway, coaxing the creature with a biscuit.
~
Elizabeth’s arms burned from the strain of steering the Pearl. She warred against the waves, her swollen fingers digging into the smooth spokes, and the bones in her palms felt splayed - red and furious and near breaking from hours of gripping the wheel. She’d taken two watches after seeing the look of worry and exhaustion in Jack’s eyes. Standing proudly and ordering him to sleep, she had left the cabin and set herself to steering for as long as she could hold. Nearly ten hours later, with night fast descending and the first dog watch well under way, Elizabeth was literally woozy. She listed as the ship listed. Raising her fingers to her eyes, she pressed at the flesh there. It swelled across the lids but felt sunken and paper-thin in the dip between socket and cheekbone. She imagined the figure she cut, gaunt and willowy from too little sleep and even less food, and she shuddered. How would my father react if he saw me now?
Twilight was at hand. The evening lacked its usual sweep of colors, its hues visible in scarce glimpses as the clouds parted, those valleys of light growing fainter with each shift. Dimness had flooded the sky hours prior, the horizon blended dove to slate to the present charcoal. She estimated the hour by the slip of shadows across the planks, the memory of the last eight bells increasingly distant. She longed for dusk’s crimson shimmer.
Gibbs, refreshed from ample slumber, studied her from the quarterdeck. He approached her cautiously and offered a cup of lukewarm coffee in uncharacteristically dulcet tones. She rewarded his kindness with a withering directive to read the gages.
He returned some moments later, face grim-set. “Pressure’s higher.”
“Isn’t that good news?”
“Aye, perhaps. But from the look of her, it seems we’ve hit the calm before the storm.”
Elizabeth surveyed the horizon, her eyes straining to focus in the dimming light. “You may be right, Mr. Gibbs.”
“At the quiet eye of it, we are. Orders?” He took a swig from his flask, seeming older to her, more brittle than she’d ever seen him. The wind seemed to stall in that moment, the whole of the deck settling into stillness. Flakes of dirt and dust appeared to hover midair.
“We’ll keep steady a bit longer. I’ll rouse Jack once we’re certain this eye is blinking.” She smiled then, regretting her former abruptness.
“Aye, aye. On your word then.” Gibbs retreated, his head nodding in slight irritation much to Lizzie’s chagrin. She knew he would feel much more at ease if Jack stood watch.
She conceded that perhaps a smidgeon of his trepidation lay in the fact that her stint at the wheel had grown obscenely long for one so inexperienced. But stubborn to her core, and aided by Jack’s orders, she stood her ground and refused all offers of relief.
But fear began to clutch at her as the watches dragged on; she fought the impulse to rouse Jack on several occasions. Elizabeth had been a pirate for enough seasons to realize that they would not outrun this squall, despite her statements to Gibbs. Jack would need his wits and vigor for the long night, and so she remained planted at the wheel. She hummed tunelessly, the abstract sound less of a distraction than a means of expressing exhaustion. Never in her four years of sailing had she stood so long a watch, and the toll of the turbulent air, of the heavy, rolling water, tempted Elizabeth towards swooning. Fain and darkening and desperate for rest, she began tapping her feet to remain alert. If I faint, I’ll never live it down. They’d name me Smelly Salts. Imagining the horror of swooning on deck before Gibbs and the crew made her cough and giggle. She wobbled, fidgeting to keep alert, to stay her knees from buckling and her vision from speckling black.
Her mind drifted while her hands steadied the Pearl. She thought of Port Royal and the warmth of her bed there, a blissful realm free of salted winds and blustery currents. She felt whisked into memory’s strong undertow, saw her father there, sitting in his study, reading Cicero in his leisurely fashion while sipping tea.
And there was Will. Tender-eyed, rough-handed William. Will who would have worshipped her. Will whose palms were calloused in patterns different from Jack’s and her own, the honest work of forging metal mapped across their expanse. She remembered him as a child, when her father had allowed them to play in the garden. In those sultry afternoons she had run from him, had ducked behind hedges and held her breath as he rummaged for her, and when he eventually found her, it was always with some token in hand. He would tickle her neck with a flower or graze her shoulder with a blade of grass before lifting it to his lips and whistling. Once, he’d brought her a butterfly, delicate and yellow-winged, lighting on the tips of his fingers for her delight.
She had known he loved her then, in those early days, and in retrospect she had fancied him little more than a plaything, a tempting toy at best.
A gust of wind bit at Lizzie’s face, her knuckles raw from the spray, and her mind wandered down different avenues. She thought of Jack’s sister, of the night they’d met her in Surat.
Raesa-Aunty waddled down the hall, leading Jack and Elizabeth through the maze of corridors and to his mysterious sister. The shock of his revelation had left Elizabeth speechless, and she’d followed Jack like a proper mute ever since. He had told her a few sparse stories of his sister and of his youth in midnight whispers against her skin - how he’d raised her before turning to a life at sea, how he’d taught her to read - but mostly his past remained shrouded, and she felt gnawingly ill-equipped for the meeting. They advanced in soft shuffles. Jack walked in front of her with none of his usual swagger, formal and elegant and something else. Nervous, maybe. The fingers of his left hand jerked sporadically.
Turning a corner, Raesa-Aunty paused at a tall, gilded door. Ornate iron lanterns with blue -green glass windows hung on either side of the entryway, casting Jack in eerie hues.
“Lakshmi will meet your in the inner parlor, Captain-Master. Please take your fill of the teas and sweet treats inside.” She unlocked the door and motioned for them to enter. Taking in the room’s grandeur, Elizabeth suppressed yet another gasp. The walls were a deeper blue than the turquoise and cobalt hall - shades of stormy seas and evening skies - and they were covered in intricate, silver-leafed floral patterns that glinted in the moonshine. Lamplight pooled golden and undulating in the carved alcoves, cast an eerie glow across the velvet settee and silver chairs at the room’s center. Winking and patting Jack’s hand, Raesa swiveled and exited in a rustle of silk, keys jingling in retreat.
Once the door clicked shut, Elizabeth exhaled a long breath and turned to Jack, expectant. He offered a distracted smile and began unwinding his turban. Shaking his hair free, he ripped the long cloth in two and retied it across his forehead bandana-like. He shifted his remaining rings from finger to finger and began to braid his beard in swift strokes. Elizabeth, feeling awkward and ridiculous in her elaborate disguise, satisfied herself with straightening her lopsided turban and sat on the low sofa, the thin velvet cushions a balm to her aching back. Realizing her exhaustion, she reached for the teapot and began to dispense a cup for herself and for Jack. He raised a hand, stopping her mid-pour.
“Not thirsty, Luv.” He rolled the ends of the braids to prevent them from unraveling and sat beside her. Elbows on his knees, he rested his head in his hands and sighed.
She laid a timid hand on his back, rubbing his spine long, gentle strokes. Inwardly, she cursed her general lack of grace in offering comfort.
“Are you nervous, Jack?” Her voice echoed, sounded hollow and tall.
“Been a long time since I saw her, Luv.” He lifted his head and looked at her with tired eyes. “I thought she was dead.”
“You never told me that.”
He stood and began pacing, hands clasped behind his back. “Was no need, really. Didn’t think telling it would bring her back, and didn’t suppose it would serve much purpose to let bygones be anything but bygone, hmmm?”
“Is there,” she paused to crack her knuckles, “I mean, was there bad blood between the two of you? She looked a little upset when she was dancing.”
“Maybe. Don’t really know for certain.” Pausing to face her, he flashed his best pirate’s grin, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “Saraswati -”
“I thought her name was Lakshmi?”
“An alias, it would seem.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sure -” Her words were clipped short by the sound of footsteps approaching the door. Raising a finger to his lips, Jack turned towards the entryway.
Saraswati entered slowly, shutting the door with a graceful flick of her wrist and approaching in slow strides. Veiled head lowered, she carried a small oil lamp that she set on a table near the door. She had changed her outfit, wore an oddly draped navy costume similar to the clothes Elizabeth had seen the women of the marketplace wearing. “Saris,” Jack had explained, laughing at her confusion. The color of the cloth and its thin border of gray embroidery blended into the shadows, into the designs of the walls so that the woman seemed to float towards them in flickers. Jack stood still and stiff, his only movement the occasional spasm of his left hand.
Stopping to stand behind the chair across from Elizabeth, she slid back her veil, cold blue eyes catching the light as her hair spilled forward.
“I should have known it was you, Raj, when Raesa told me that a pirate pretending to be a nawab had come for my show.”
“I’ve missed you, Choti-Kai.” Jack was smiling now, a broad, golden smile that warmed his eyes. He walked towards her in quick strides and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her from the ground and spinning in a circle. Setting her down, he smoothed the hair from her forehead and kissed her there, gold rings flickering. “Where is Varun? And Kumar?” he asked quietly. Suddenly embarrassed to be watching the reunion, Elizabeth examined her fingernails. Their jagged edges betrayed a life at sea, and she felt a fleeting moment of desperation for her father, for Port Royal and manicured fingertips. When she looked up, she was shocked to see his sister’s icy gaze remained intact.
“Irikku,” She motioned towards the settee and sat across from Elizabeth, tucking her skirts beneath her primly. Jack obeyed, his body radiating warmth as he settled beside Lizzie. “Surely you must have heard, athe? They are gone.”
Jack focused his eyes on the door, and Elizabeth noted with a shiver that his voice seemed too low; it hinted at something like heartbreak with its small, ragged sound. “They told me you were dead, Choti-Kai. You and Kumar and Varun. When I saw you here tonight- ”
“Why did you come here, Raj?”
“A happy accident, it would seem.” With feline grace, he rose and knelt beside Saraswati. He took her hand in his, beaming, and continued. “Doesn’t matter now. I’m here, and we can make a new start of it. I know you can’t be happy in this place. The Pearl’s anchored nearby, and -”
“And your friend, Raj? Hmmm? Who is she?” Hear eyes darted towards Elizabeth, and acknowledging her for the first time, she spoke high-voiced as Jack stood, seeming to ask a question the fluid local tongue.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak -”
“Ah, of course you don’t. Such an English rose you’ve plucked, ah Raj? Many-many apologies then. I asked for your good name.”
“Elizabeth Swann.” Lizzie stood, extending her hand and trying desperately to suppress several witty retorts begging release. Catching a glimpse of Jack’s pleading expression, she offered her brightest smile instead.
“Sarswati, but you may call me Sara.” Ignoring the proffered hand, his sister instead clasped Elizabeth’s shoulders and kissed her cheeks in quick succession. Surprised by the sudden intimacy, Lizzie merely stood, slumped and still.
“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, Sara. Jack has told me so much about you.”
“Wicked lies, I’m sure.” Smiling coyly, Sara turned to Jack once again, seating herself and resuming their conversation as though they were alone in the room.
“And what exactly should I do, hmmm? Run off to play on your boat? This is my samsara, Thambi, and I must make my proper path.”
“Why not?”
“Because there is nothing more real than this. Because there are prices to be paid, Brother-Ji, and unlike some, I must pay them.”
“Nonsense, Sister-Dear. I happen to be an authority on avoiding any and all such nuisances.”
Sara finished pouring tea for the three of them. She and Jack spoke for some time, Elizabeth finishing two steaming cups before the conversation slowed. Unable to decipher the rapid flow of foreign language, she busied herself with her drink, admiring the room silently and falling into daydreams as the night trudged towards dawn. Finally succumbing to fatigue, she curled herself at the far end of the divan and fell into velvet sleep. When Jack’s hands rattled her awake, the room was bright and vivid with daylight. Sara was gone.
“Come on Lizzie. Wakey-wakey, Luv. We’ve a busy day ahead - ship needs proper provisioning, and we’ve got some extracurricular planning to attend to, savvy?” His eyes sparkled with familiar mischief. Rising in creaks and groans, she sat up and was pulled to her feet by Jack’s anxious hands.
“So, what’s this secondary adventure of yours?”
Rain, slanting and silver, sliced Elizabeth’s face, arms and hands. Her reverie scattered in shards, and she couldn’t remember quite how long she’d been daydreaming or even if she’d been steering the ship. But her hands remained firm, bless the Lord, and she satisfied herself that their bearing remained intact. Droplets clung to her lashes, slid wet and fresh into her eyes, and she squinted, searching for Gibbs. Finding him hunched and shouting near the mast, she raised her voice.
“Gibbs!” A surge of seawater burst across the rails, swallowing her cry.
“Gibbs!” Thunder interrupted, rumbling low and distant but gaining volume quickly. The first crackle of lighting fanned across the sky, and Elizabeth began counting.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Another clash rang sharply overhead.
“Damn it. Gibbs! Gibbs!” Wind bellowed across the deck, her shouts swept away in gusts. Holding the wheel steady required all of her strength, and panic began to rise like bile. Her reasonable mind argued that only seconds had passed, that Gibbs would turn to see her, that he already knew.
But her logic flapped in the strengthening gale. Elizabeth shut her eyes and resorted to screaming - bloodcurdling, shrill, wide-mouthed screams. When she opened them, Gibbs was nearly beside her.
“Take the wheel! Here. I’ll fetch Jack.” He stared at her for a beat, the specter of a smile on his lips.
“Damn it, Joshamee, take her! Move!”
“Aye, sir.” And he did smile: a warm, humoring sort of grin floundering somewhere between proud and patronizing. She released the wheel, her arms flopping limply to her side, and resisted the overwhelming urge to wipe the smirk from Gibbs’ face.
But time was short, and Elizabeth ran, slip-sliding towards the cabin. She nearly slammed into the door, the wind whipping her back. Skidding to a stop, she hit the door with a gentle thump, ear and cheek pressed to the frame.
She heard voices inside - Sara’s roar and some retort from Jack that was swallowed by another rush of air. She rapped the wood with firm knuckles, paused a beat, and as the wind settled, cracked the door and slunk through the opening. She moved quickly, gentling the door shut and tiptoeing to crouch behind the screen near the cabin’s entryway. Unsure of why she was hiding, she ducked low nonetheless, relieved to see that both sister and brother were too preoccupied to notice her entrance.
Jack paced at the far end of the room, near the windows, his hands fiddling with the books there. He picked up a gold coin and inspected it intently. Sara stood at the table with her back to the doorway, and Tej, her mongoose, crouched beneath the bed, fat-cheeked and nibbling on hard tack.
And Sara was screaming. The little beast cowered, startling at each shrill syllable.
“Kumar was hanging there! Hanging by his feet, Raj - and they slit him open like an animal, like he was worthless. And Varun! Aiyo, Varun was screaming for you - screaming and screaming and screaming for his damned Captain-Uncle -“ she paused, spat. “You could have stopped them, but you let them find us - you let my baby die!”
“How could I have possibly prevented his death, Sara? I didn’t know. I swear to you on everything holy, I didn’t know any of it! I wasn’t even there.” From what she could see of his face, sculpted and veiled as it was by the play of shadows, she glimpsed emotion beyond the shaky-sounding anger. Something like dread and sorrow.
“That’s right, Raj, how could you prevent his death when he died because you weren’t there?” she hissed snake-like, her head turning briefly to allow Elizabeth a view of her tears falling in plump, venomous lines. She leaned over the table, inching closer to him in challenge. Slamming her fists against the wood, his calipers and compass crashing to the floor, she broke into sobs, coughing in hiccups and stutters between words. “Just…like…Papa. You are… the same, Raj! You run and…hide…and my baby boy… died for it! For your sins, you pathetic, common coward!” Sara sucked in a ragged breath, chest heaving.
“You don’t know that he’s dead, Sara.” He spoke softly, eyes downcast and focused rather too intently on the coin he turned round and round in his right hand. Elizabeth felt her heart drop as she noticed the tremor in his left, saw the eerie flash of gold as his fingers twitched. He seemed both older and younger than she’d ever seen him. As though stripped bare of his identity, he stood in that corner not as Jack Sparrow but as a stranger, as the mysterious Jahangir Ranjit Pakshi, a man she’d imagined but never observed. He was calmer somehow, the sparkle of quicksilver wit gone from his eyes. Even the contours of his words changed, the raw English accent she loved whisked away just as sand-covered boulders reveal their rocky core when laved by firm winds. This Raj was a serious man and a sullen child. As he flipped the coin backwards and forwards, he appeared boyish as if chastised and kicking his feet in the corner. But there was also an elegance and insightfulness to his pose, the dichotomy of Jack Sparrow revealed as the war between stillness and motion, wisdom and hubris, young and old - East and West. Elizabeth felt frosted, was overcome by chills as the rainwater clinging to her skin and her hair evaporated in frigid patches. She shivered as she watched her lover-turned-stranger lift his eyes.
She knew then that he saw her, that perhaps he had been aware of her presence from the beginning. He met her gaze, for the briefest moment, before focusing on his sister, and for the first time in months she was unsure how to decipher their silent dialogue. There was the ghost of anger in his glance, the bandaged whisper of heartache, of deep-seated sadness - disappointment, betrayal, guilt, and something else, something like relief.
Unsure whether he wished her to interrupt or to bear secret witness, she stayed huddled in her hiding place, trembling. Her teeth chattered.
“No, I don’t know, Thambi. But he might as well be dead, yes? Your absentee condescension does nothing to mend this,” she gestured to her heart, “hole, does it?” Sara, body still shielding Elizabeth from view, moved her arm and, from the hollow sound that followed, pounded on her chest. “When have you ever -” she paused, her voice breaking, “-ever been there for me, Raj? You are the same as Papa, bringing useless toys and jewelries, and thinking, so stupidly, that they replace responsibility.” In another blaze of recognition, Lizzie realized Sara’s thick accent was also absent, replaced by the same hybrid sound as Jack’s.
“He was a good man, Sara, and a devoted father. And he loved you, even if you found him disappointing.”
“And where was that father when our mother burned, hmmm? Where was he, Raj, when we were starving in the back-alleys?”
“Sara, you know he would have come. He didn’t even know -“
“And he didn’t know because he never bothered to ask after us! It was too important to run about pirating, and so his beloved children starved.” She pounded the table again, her voice vicious. “Ignorance is no excuse, brother. Ayyah died to allow mother a small measure of honor. Tell me, what did you or he do?”
‘Then Ayyah was a fool, Sister-Dear.” Jack approached the table and leaned across, a glimmer of his Sparrow-cunning returning. “What is honor, hmm? A bowed head? Someone to make her life matter more to you, to prove to the bloody community that she was not an unloved whore, and thereby - matlab - that you were not a bastard harlot, kya? Isn’t it, Sis? ”
“How dare you mock me, you haraami! And how dare you imply that I’m as self-centered and disrespectful as you!”
And she slapped him hard across his face, the crack of bone and skin echoing in Lizzie’s ears.
A beat passed.
Two.
Jack lifted his hand to his cheek, tucked a braid behind his ear. Regaining his composure, shoulders stiff, he fixed Sara with an acid stare.
Elizabeth, stunned breathless, exhaled her held breath in slow shivers.
“And tell me again, Sister-Dear, what is honor when you can live?”
“No, you tell me, Brother-Ji, what is living when you have no honor?”
“It’s delightful. You should try it.” Elizabeth’s skin tingled at the sound of his voice, the familiar tilt of his head. No truth at all. She shuddered again, knees beginning to wobble - whether from exhaustion or memory she could not tell.
“Oh, I have, Thambi. Because of you. Because you didn’t have enough dhairya to extend even a little to your family.”
“Ah, dear sister, always so anxious to blame your faults on me.”
“Not blame, dear brother. I merely illuminate the many paths of your destruction, hmmm? Tell me, do you like being so unaccountable? Do you really enjoy paying your karmic debt with other people’s souls, Raj-Bhai? When will you release the rest of us from your particular samsara?”
“I’ve paid.”
“Paid? The only price you’ve paid was the pain that varsai (whore) caused when she fed you to the -”
“That’s quite enough, Saraswati. I believe you’ve made your point very clearly.”
“Apparently not clearly enough to bring them back. I….” But her words trailed off, the sound of sniffling and the tilting ship sending Elizabeth into a strange, dizzying sort of cave. She felt faint. Her eyes were heavy, marbles in her sockets, and she blinked to keep focus. She wet her lips and tasted iron there.
When the room slowed its frantic spinning, she heard rather than saw Jack shuffling towards Sara, heard the rustle of linen and silk as he folded her against him, petting her hair. Elizabeth ventured forward, her legs liquid, and made a small sound like a gasp as all the color seeped from the room, the table and bed and books tinted a deepening, tepid gray. The last sensation she felt was the weightless flop of her stomach as she began to fall.
Blackness swallowed her, promising rest.