Enough Tears to drown in.
1 Some time ago
She used to fear the ocean. There was always that gibbering animal place inside her, behind the practiced calm and the cultivated arrogance, that could never forget the moment when burning flesh met salt water.
She had been burning brightly by then, past the time when the pitch they had coated her in had burned away, and the fires had been fueled by her own fat and tissues.
There was nothing left to protect raw and weeping nerves from the impact of the brine against them.
The agony....it had changed her. Made her cry out in a terrible rage at what had been done to her, bellowing her hatred into the depths.
At the time, she was not picky about letting in what answered her. The pain left no room for rational thought, the rage left no room for caution.
And so she had almost been lost.
2 Lisa
She hung in the depths that had no end, the thrum and pulse of the water surrounding and caressing her. She was a tall woman, taller than most men, lean and hard muscled and seemingly crafted only of sharp edges, without curves or softness in any feature. Her eyes shone gold, her hair was a mass of inky threads that surrounded her like the issuance of a squid, and her frame was wrapped in a dress of scarlet and vermillion.
She had only recently begun wearing dresses again.
Her arts allowed her to breathe here, she specifically used the magic she had been born to, and not the Kraken’s gifts.
She knew that calling on that power would fail her. You do not face an old enemy by hiding behind the shadow of a new servant.
She could feel it down there.
Grandmother Fathom. That old, terrible thing.
She remembered staring out the window of her own eyes as the Hag rode her flesh. She carefully dissected and compartmentalized the fear the memory sparked.
No place for that now.
A wrinkle and twist in the waters near her, and Lisa turned her golden eyes to the shape that swam into being. A tired old shape, a smith whose name she kept forgetting.
“Did you bring it?” her voice murmured in his mind
He frowned, swimming easily despite the armor he bore. From his back he pulled a long bundle, long as a pike, wrapped in layer upon layer of something like spidersilk, only of far less mundane origin.
“Aye. I have it. The strangest commission I’ve ever taken, that’s for sure. What the hell do you think this thing can do?”
He busied himself as he responded, unwrapping and carefully stowing the Eldritch cloth. Revealed was a harpoon of adamantine, carved along its length with runic script. A dull shine seemed to leak from slight cracks along the serrated head, which took up almost half of its ten foot length.
“It only has to do two things, Paladin. Pierce...and shine.” something of her old ferocity returned to her smile, as she took the long weapon in her hands. This was it.
He left without another word, only a narrow-eyed gaze and a mistrusting stare. She ignored him, just as he chose to ignore her, when they had no business with each other. Too much history, corrupting an alliance that could have been if Grandmother Fathom had not made her move.
Barely even respect to link them now.
3. Descending
She floated down, down, ever further down. This was a strange and twisted part of the Feywild, corrupted by an overlapping of sorts, the Elemental Plane of Water bleeding over into this Fey ocean. Here there lived strange Fey, more akin to the beings that dwelt in coral and undersea vents than anything recognizable on the surface. The deeper she went, the stranger and brighter the eyes that studied her in a mix of curiosity and fear.
Slowly she drifted down beside a shape that loomed from the dark, a mountain of coral and kelp whose sides descended hundreds of feet below. Even Lisa’s eyes , tied as they were to the magic of shadow, could not penetrate that darkness. At a certain point she stopped, harpoon couched upon one shoulder in a practiced grip, her other hand lifting, and the coral pendant clutched inside began to glow as she cast upon it a simple cantrip.
And as the light surrounded her.....the coral mountain moved.
Shadow and Light
Grandmother Fathom was a horror unto herself.
When a writer states that something defies description, or is unknowable, they are face to face with something that is alien to their perception and sensibilities.
The Sea Hag known as Grandmother Fathom was worse, for she was once something understandable enough to be documented in lore, common enough to be known of to academics and mystics.
She was no simple Fey now.
Coral coated most of her, her titanic limbs and torso armored in the living reefs. Her hair was a vast forest of animate kelp, her jaws were filled with teeth formed from the splintered bones of whales and various leviathans.
Her eyes were pools of phosphorescent chemicals harvested from millennia of preying in the utter deeps, each shining orb the size of a small house. In one enormous hand she held a shield crafted from the complete shell of a dragon turtle...in the other a whip woven of Kraken tentacles.
The eyes focused. They recognized. The great voice issued from the terrible jaws.
YOU
A rumble that shook the waters for miles.
TREACHEROUS WHORE
Lisa smiled to herself, the momentary wry humor lightening her spirit despite the tremor shaking her frame. well, she isn’t wrong
“Hello, Grandmother. I did promise I would come back”
The roar of rage that answered her flippant comment shook the waters of the Feywild, small beings dying from terror as the old Hag issued forth her show of power. Lisa did not move. Not yet.
WHAT FOOLISH GAME ARE YOU PLAYING, THAT YOU WOULD DARE CROSS MY SIGHT AGAIN, OATHBREAKER, THIEF?
Lisa remained silent. Words were unnecessary. No dialogue would change things.
Grandmother Fathom noticed the harpoon.
BATTLE, IS IT? THERE IS NOT A SPARK OF POWER IN THAT PUNY STICK. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR WITS?
She reared up, lifting herself higher, spreading her arms wide as she mocked Lisa.
I HAVE SWEPT WHOLE FLEETS BENEATH THE WAVES WITH MY BARE HANDS. I HAVE SHATTERED LEVIATHANS AND GODS OF THE SEA WITH MY MAGIC. AND A BROKEN WHORE COMES TO ME IN CHALLENGE?
Lisa nods. “Yes, well done, you aren’t senile enough to miss the obvious.” She flips the harpoon lightly through the water, until it rests in a throwing grip.
“But you are senile enough to forget your most important truth, old Crone.”
She flexes, and whispers the name of the spear, the masterwork that was crafted only to be used once.
“Just as this sorceress was once a whore....you were once much, much smaller.”
And with a crack of sound like ice shattering ,the spear flies true, piercing just deep enough crack the outer shell of coral that the old Hag had grown,
Carrying inside her a small coral charm, shining with the simplest light spell.
The Traitor-Witch
The plan was something only Lisa could have come up with, and in fairness, it relied a lot on timing, luck, and an accurate guess.
Somewhere, within the hulk that was Grandmother Fathom, her original body lie. A Sea Hag, not much larger than a very tall human woman, a small and comparatively tender heart inside such a monstrous frame.
And a harpoon designed to penetrate just deep enough could reach the spaces within the outer body.
And a light carried by such a spear inside....
Well, it is dark within a body. And darkness has no shadows. You need a light for that.
Lisa Dale materialized from the shadow she could see, using the eye she had hidden in the coral charm. She burst from the shadow cast inside Grandmother Fathom, and in the instant she arrived her golden gaze met the terrified , true black eyes of a being that had not know fear since first she had built herself a body that could challenge gods.
And Lisa smiled as chain lightning arced forth from her hands, shattering the ancient Hag’s true frame into blackened scraps of screams and wet, jumping through the titanic body and leaving devastation from within.
Escaping the body once Grandmother Fathom was dead took much much longer, and by the time she managed it, and the Planar Gate home, and dragged herself onto the battered boards of Mistshore’s least used docks,
She was fucking exhausted.
Tears enough..
The rain woke her, laying on her back upon the boards. Luckily it woke her in time to call a Hound from her shadow to drive off a couple of skulkers out to check her dress for shinies.
The rain tasted sweet, and Lisa lay still for a time. It was a hollow feeling.
But better an empty place inside than a place filled with regret and shame.
Better nothing than what had been before.
strange she thought, the rain tastes like salt
Some people, you see, never admit their tears.