S. Welles - To Ocean's End

I will. I promise. Stay alive.

I pulled my mind away from hers, the last thing I felt from her a fearful yearning for everything to turn out okay. The tsunami was barely visible on the horizon but it was moving with purpose. With my powers I felt out the size and shape of the thing. It was wide enough to take out Newport. Just Newport. It was maybe a three-foot swell stretching for miles, but it was steadily growing as the seabed sloped upwards. However, it didn’t need to be a tall wave to cause destruction; just a lot of momentum, which it had. One huge mass of water sent with the sole purpose of wiping my home off the map. I was so furious and desperate that I could barely focus on using my command over water.

I lowered into a fighting stance to better keep my balance, then threw everything I had at the tsunami. If I couldn’t stop it, the wave would collect all the rubble and pull it out to sea, just swallow up all of Newport and leave behind nothing but foundations full of water. My home was probably leveled already. I wanted to at least pick through the pieces for salvageable parts of my past once this was all over.

I threw every last ounce of will at the tsunami. I forced myself to tune out my desperation and instead focus on intent. Desperation made me tense up and want to beg the wave to stop. In a battle of wills, that kind of approach would guarantee my loss. I focused on the task at hand, the size of the wave, its mass, its velocity, and how to neutralize all that. A little voice in my head told me it couldn’t be done, a little voice right from my gut. Only a god could conjure a tsunami at will. Only a god could stop it.

A piece of the argumentative conversation with Amphitrite in the cave popped into my mind, the part where she’d explained that actions weren’t simply undone. There was only forward action, growth from choices made. She’d made the decision to create the tsunami. Now the consequences would be endured. I could try all I wanted to stop the wave, but it would be a vain effort.

I just couldn’t accept that. Not with my home on the line.

Every last ton of water resisted my will, barreling through it like I wasn’t even there. The strain gave me a splitting headache. The water around me began to get sucked out to sea, pulling at my legs. I dug my clawed feet into the sand and it began to pile up behind my ankles. I held my hands over the ocean and leaned back as I pulled like I was playing tug-of-war with two ropes. I pulled at the receding water, hoping to rob the tsunami of more fuel. The line of water before me slowed to a standstill, but the rest of the few miles only slowed, until the strain was too much. One multi-ton water demon versus millions of tons of water didn’t stand a chance. I let go and started gasping for air as the water receded, leaving nothing but sand all around me.

I pulled my feet free, jerking them with a squelch, then reasserted a balanced stance and braced my hands against an invisible wall. It was time to change tactics. I had to find a way to stop the tsunami. It just couldn’t reach Newport. I flung every last ounce of will at it again, urging it to stop barreling to shore. The splitting headache returned but I accepted it and narrowed my eyes. The tsunami showed no signs of slowing, but I couldn’t give up. Just like Jessie had spent months kicking at her cell door on Tethys’s ship, until it finally broke, I would contend with the wave until it finally yielded to my will. It just had to yield if I kept at it long enough.

You are a stubborn one, Dyne Lavere.

Amphitrite’s voice made me do a full-body flinch. I pushed aside my surprise and reasserted my will against the tsunami.

You already know how this will end, yet you try anyway. You’re breaking my heart yet again.

I felt sorrow in her words. She was sincerely heartbroken, watching me fight, but I refused to accept it, couldn’t accept that she felt anything but hate and contempt for me. You don’t have a heart.

If that’s what you wish to believe, then I won’t argue. I pity you and what I must do to break you, but break you must. I suggest saving your precious crew while you still can. I have spared them from my creatures, but I won’t save them from the coming tide.

The sorrow emanating from her lingered in my chest, even after I felt her consciousness peel away from mine. My heart was already heavy from Newport’s devastation. Her added weight made my knees buckle. And her words… I took a deep breath and focused my concentration on the wave. I pressed my will against the front of it, imagining my arms were long enough to block the whole thing, and I pushed against it, trying to catch it, cradle it, hold it still—anything but reach land. Between the excruciating pain from the battle of wills and my multitude of injuries, tears fell down my snout. My vision blurred as I pushed against the tsunami with everything I had.

The wave barreled towards shore without variation. I could hear it rumbling. It sounded like the roar of a waterfall and the chug of a train. The wave gained height and the leading edge spilled over into a frothing breaker, turning brown with sand. I pushed against the leading edge, sending it up like high winds blow whitecaps away, but more water kept rolling in. I pushed up from the bottom, willing the entire wave to go up, instead of towards land. For some crazy reason it started working on the patch of wave directly in front of me. I spread my will outwards and pushed more of the tsunami into the air, and soon I had a mile-wide dome reaching for the fog. It cast a shadow over me. The tsunami rose high overhead, roaring away, but the higher it rose, the heavier it weighed on my will. If I could just hang in there and keep forcing it to go up, until it lost all forward momentum, I might just be able to win this fight.

Never assume defeat.

I began to teeter backwards as the battle of wills physically pushed on my body, but I somehow managed to maintain concentration as I staggered and regained balance. I spread my will farther, trying to catch the entire width of the wave, but I couldn’t reach it all. The father I reached, the harder it was to keep hold of what was already under some control, and the worse my head hurt. My entire body began to throb. I didn’t want to know how badly I was bleeding.

The tidal wave spread into a semicircle as the edge farthest to my left made landfall. I wanted to catch it but I’d lose my hold on everything if I stretched my will any farther. The washing away of Newport began.

I detached myself from the heartache that cropped up. I couldn’t let the sight break my concentration. My spine felt like it was going to snap, and my arms felt like two cement blocks with insufficient blood pumping to my muscles. They began to tingle and my whole body began to shake. Panic began to creep in. The tsunami wasn’t anywhere near done rolling in.

My will began to crack. The truth of the matter began to sink in. I began to concede that I stood no chance against the force of a tsunami. The series of waves were piling up, driving the water higher and higher. Next thing I knew, I was on my knees with shaking hands level with my head. The wall of water I’d created dwarfed me. Even though it was morning, it looked dark enough to be evening.

I got one foot back under me and couldn’t move without losing concentration. I was fighting a losing battle but I didn’t want to believe I couldn’t protect my home. It couldn’t be possible for me to fail at this. The wall of water began to crest, and the edges spread inland. I pushed against it, but the mass in front of me slowly crept forward, and when it brushed up against my knee, I made the mistake of stretching my will to push it back. The sheer size and strength of the tsunami crushed me all at once. My will broke and I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore. I toppled backwards, my body getting driven into the sand, and my mind saying “no” over and over. This couldn’t be happening. I gasped for breath and let blood flow back into my aching arms as my brain refused to believe what it was seeing. Gravity pulled the water back to the ocean floor and the tsunami’s momentum heaved it inland.