Chapter Text
Before there was only Salt, there was water, too, and the city knew what it was meant to be: a home. And so it blessed its people with the gifts they would need to thrive, gills and fins and scales and anything else they desired. The Salt was part of the water, then, and they were inseparable, flowing together, home to all marine life from the largest whale to the tiniest zooplankton and every strange and wonderful creature in between. They all needed this water to live, and the Salt was happy to be a part of it, or at least it would have been if it could have stopped to think about whether it felt anything at all.
For it never realized how strongly it felt until its soul was bared to the world, the water taken from it, the life taken from it, until there was nothing left but empty space where the world that was meant to be had vanished. The whales, the zooplankton, so much in between… lost along with the water, unable to live without it. Those who survived became hardened and tough, the Salt lending them armour, one of the few gifts it could still give.
Some of the humans stayed. Many packed up and left, making this once-beautiful city even more of a ghost town, but some stayed, because they had nowhere else to go, or at least nowhere else they wanted to go. Even now they still think of it as home, though some think so with resentment. Some say don't go out on the Salt, you may never come back, and stick to their safe little houses, where if they don't look out the window or try to run the tap they might almost convince themselves everything is still as it should be.
The Salt watches them all, though it never takes much interest in those who stay away. It has many eyes, and most of them follow those who dare to venture closer. Those who try to understand it. None of them ever quite succeed, for if it does not even understand itself, how could they? It does not understand what it feels when it sees them, either, some strange mix of confusion and frustration and protectiveness and anger and curiosity that it could not put a name to even if it spoke the language of humans.
The Salt is not one thing. The Salt is many. When the water left, it took all cohesion with it, and what remains is a thousand different facets of something empty, each trying to fill that emptiness in its own way. The Salt shuts itself off from the world. The Salt spreads tendrils of itself into the world and makes itself known. The Salt lashes out. The Salt protects. The Salt leads people to their doom, leaves them to wander endlessly over the still and unforgiving sand. The Salt rescues people and brings them safely back to where they belong. How could an ocean without water ever be anything but a paradox?
Its people seek to destroy it and save it all at once. It cannot be what it was meant to be without the water. It cannot be what it has become if the water comes back. Will it be death, or rebirth? Those that call themselves the Coven believe it will be something beautiful. The Salt is not beautiful. It knows this. Sometimes it is not sure if they do.
Some eyes follow the Coven closer than others. Sharp yellow ones that glow like the distant lights in the dark, as if they might lead anyone astray who looks too close -- but how could they? These eyes will close softly for the right people, anyone who's ready with a kind word or a gentle hand or a scrap of food.
The cat has many names, and everyone it meets along the way seems to add another one. Scrunkly. Bob. Crunchmaster Salami. Missy. The Void. Spaghetti-o. Kitty. ORB. Little Bastard. Salty. Sir Fuzzypants. Shadow. Mittens. 1976 Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk 1. It will answer to anything. It would answer to things that would make the average person's ears bleed and their eyes roll back in their head while it sat there calmly. No one has tried to uncover its truest names yet. It is probably best that they haven't.
The cat wanders the endless expanse with no fear. It is home. It belonged here far longer than the Coven did, sat and watched as they each found their way out there. Sometimes it leads them there itself. Sometimes it leads them to danger, but it always leads them out again. These are its people. They are good to it, and so it is good to them. They saw this solitary creature, fur patchy and stiff and spiked with salt, ears tattered, teeth yellowed and crooked, ribs showing, and still they cooed over it, called it cute. It is not cute, but it will forgive them for their misjudgment, especially if they have a little salami to offer.
Some of them truly believe it is just a cat. It lets them go on believing this, for their sakes.
The Salt does not know what to do with it. The Salt has tried to get rid of it in fits of anger and despair, tired of it reaching out. There is nothing left, the Salt says. You waste my time. You give everyone hope where there is none. You are a blight upon this already-blighted world.
And the cat purrs, and flicks its tail, and continues to weave its way undaunted through its home, knowing that enough of the Salt does not want it gone, will not destroy the part of itself that still cares.
You are impossible, the Salt says sullenly, as close to an apology as it will get. The cat purrs harder and curls up on the bow of a ship under the bright sky, waiting for its people to wake so they may continue trying to wake its world, too.
