"Still no regrets?"

"No."

A shower of salt water rained over their heads, drenching them to the bone. There was a pause.

"Still?"

"Aearion, we are already soaked. None." Oh, the boys were having no trouble making light of this. Being the butt of their jokes for the past hours, Tindalma was not.

"Really, Tily? This is the second storm in a week. I think Osse is laughing at you for being so stubborn," Aearion continued his rambling from where he stood, tying down a barrel that had slipped loose and nearly gone over board.

She pursed her lips, swinging the prow into a white capped wave rolling toward their port side. "I may have one."

"Do tell."

"Not leaving Faelon to drown. Then he wouldn't be encouraging your idiocy."

From the bow, Faelon shot her a glare over his shoulder. Aearion only finished securing the knot and turned toward her with a pout.

"That's not very nice."

"Neither is the weather," she grumbled under her breath. A gust of wind caught her hair and tossed them about her face. She swept them back in frustration, frowning at the sky as lightning split the dark clouds apart, shedding light for a brief moment on the wrathful sea.

Alright, maybe she regretted it a little.

The roll of thunder rang across the empty horizon. Nothing but storm and clouds and dark for miles. This storm was unlike the previous. In place of rolling swells the size of mountains, these waves rose sporadically, crowned with foam that gleamed each time the lightning flashed, tipping their white heads down for them as if reaching out. Come down to the deep with us, they seemed to say as they rushed over the deck. Come away, come away.

Not today.

Tindalma pulled them into the next wave, spearing the prow through the crown and breaking over the top. Sea water poured across the deck, rushing over her feet and draining off behind her as they rose up the next whitecap.

She watched in distaste as the remainder of the water gathered around the hatch to the hold. They had shut it after coming up on deck, but the wood could only stop so much. It would mean wet bedding. Not that they would get much rest until the storm passed anyway.

The bow dipped into the next valley between waves and came down smoothly. The swan figurehead's eyes seemed to gleam in defiance as the lightning flashed again.

It brought a smile to her face as they began mounting the next swell.

It was in that moment, Tindalma felt something shift beneath her feet. At first she though she had imagined it, then Aearion stepped back from his knots, staring down at the deck in confusion.

She tensed as they broke the top of the wave, slamming down onto the surface of the water again. A low groan reverberated through the slick wood.

Aearion looked up to meet her gaze, a chill question in his eyes. She tipped her head toward the hatch, urging him to look into it and he nodded in response, beckoning Faelon over to finish the knots.

A cold feeling seeped through her, not from the chill rain. Creaking was normal for all the stress the hull was under, but shifting in the deck was not a good sign. Considering their previous luck on this voyage, it was almost certainly trouble.

Finishing retying the barrels, Faelon left his place at the bow and made his way back toward her, stumbling with the roll of the waves.

"Did you feel that?"

She nodded grimly. "Aearion went down to check for issues." Just then the hatch opened. Aearion crawled out, shutting the flap behind him, and picking his way in their direction. His face for once was grim.

"What did you find?" Faelon asked as he got closer.

Aearion only shook his head. "The hull is filling with water."

"How?" he demanded in shock. "The hatch is relatively water tight. It's always kept the hold mostly dry."

Her cousin once again shook his head. "It's not coming from above."

"Do we have a leak?"

"Worse. The keel is developing a crack."

Silence followed those deadly words.

The keel. The backbone of the vessel. Without it, the ship would be no more than a weak shell. And that only for a little while. If it split fully, the waves would break them in half.

It was a moment before, Tindalma could find words. "How badly?"

"It's not good. I watched it widen. We hit the valley of that last swell and it just..." he trailed off, fitting his fingers together and slowly pulling them apart like fraying wood to illustrate.

"We can try to pump out excess water to relieve the pressure," she suggested, knowing the answer before Aearion even had the chance to shake his head.

"It's coming in faster than we could bail. If the keel doesn't fracture before it can fill, it'll sink us."

Drawing a deep breath, Tindalma tried her best to remain calm. Sink. Fracture. Those were not good words for a sailor to hear. They had little time.

"Faelon, try and brace it." He nodded and struck off across the deck, determination in his steely eyes, though repairing such an essential part while at sea was nigh on impossible. Keels were not meant to be broken. They were crafted from the strongest wood, capable of carrying a ship through any storm. Breaking the keel usually spelled the doom of the ship.

Turning to Aearion, she fixed him with a steady gaze. "Bail what you can. The income should slow with Faelon working on it."

He nodded grimly, turning to follow Faelon below.

Left alone on deck, she fixed her attention on the next wave heading for them, trying to find the path through that would stress the keel the least without capsizing them. As the swell rolled toward them, she angled the prow slightly to its right, sliding over the edge at a precarious tilt.

The ship creaked and groaned and she winced, swallowing hard as the next wave presented itself.

"Valar help us," she prayed softly, the wind stealing the words from her lips and sweeping them away. Lightning burst across the sky again, and something white caught her eye; the flash of a gull's wing as it wheeled over their mast.

Hope struck through her. A gull meant land nearby. Land meant their possible salvation. A smile lit her face. The gull wheeled once more, facing into the driving wind and pausing to fix her with its beady gaze for a brief moment before turning and diving away and vanishing into the drear darkness.

She swung around, searching for the line on the horizon that would be their rescue, but the waves seemed to rise up everywhere she turned, walling them in and blocking her view. Determined to sight shore, she turned the ship into the tallest wave nearby, rising up its side.

Lightning flashed again as the swan ship crested the peak, high above any other obstacle and dread closed around her heart like an icy fist.

Oh, Valar.

"Faelon! Aearion! Come back! Cliffs! Rocks dead ahead!" she shouted, pounding one foot on the deck, trying desperately to catch their attention as she swung the ship away from certain destruction. The cliffs rose behind them, an insurmountable wall of cruel, jagged stone. There were no breaks in it, no rivers or coves they could slip into to escape. Only the promise of a swift watery grave.

"Were you calling?" Aearion's head appeared, peeping up out of the hatch.

"Cliffs!" she shouted over the roar of the wing, hoping he could hear her. The look of horror on his face told her he did. He vanished, reappearing a moment later with Faelon behind him.

They stood for a moment at the bow, watching the cliffs that grew ever closer with each passing second. The winds blew toward the cliffs. The waves drove forward. There seemed to be a current as well, pulling them on.

Tindalma looked into the grave faces of her friends for what she realized might be the last time. Even if they managed to outrun the certain death ahead, they could not last long with the keel tearing them apart. There was no escape.

No one spoke. Instead, she placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

"It has been a pleasure traveling with you, my dear friends," she said quietly. Faelon nodded, and Aearion placed a hand on her arm.

"You as well," he agreed.

The last wave between them and the cliff pitched into the unyielding rock face. Tindalma screwed her eyes shut, drawing her friends in close as the sea raised them to the sky, then dropped them like a stone.

The sound of the ship crunching against the rock was earsplitting, grinding and creaking as the keel split in half and the fore half of the ship was folded beneath them. Then the water washed over them, a force so powerful she lost her grip on Aearion, and he vanished into the swirling chaos. Salt water stung her eyes and nose and throat as she struggled to breathe air that was not there.

Then Faelon's grip on her arm tightened, yanking her up. Her head broke the surface beside his, hacking out salt water and trying to draw in another breath before the next wave drove them against the cliffs again.

Panic sent strength to her limbs, but there was nothing she could do as swell after swell turned over, pounding against the rocks without end.

A chill calm settled over her. Perhaps it would not be so bad to die in the embrace of the sea.

Another crest rolled over them, and she felt her body slam against the stone wall. Faelon's grip slipped away, and he too was gone, lost to the sea. And Tindalma was alone. The receding wave pulled her up to the surface, but she could only manage a weak cough as she broke away from the water again.

A glint of white overhead caught her eye. The gull. It wheeled above, fixing her with its beady gaze again, before the water closed over her head. She felt the currents tug at her limp ankles, drawing her deeper, away from the fierce waves, and the sky, and the gull.

Black spots danced in her vision as she sank deeper into the waves and deeper into the darkness.

Through the haze she could almost make out the glimmer of the white gull's wings as the blackness closed over her.