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She can feel the pulse of the shell in her blood.
She does not know what it wants. It wants something. Perhaps it is telling her to listen, she thinks, when, accompanied by Tan, she glides silently through the hold of the ship and hears the activity of the sailors. She has always enjoyed acting the ghost.
The shell must, as always, be the priority. It belongs to her people, and belongs to her. It talks to her in her sleep, she knows; even though she can never remember its words when she wakes, it has a message waiting for her when her eyes close.
The motion of the ship soothes her to sleep as the Obra Dinn sails south.
When she dreams, the shell, impossibly huge, bobs in the sea-spray wake of the ship, tracing along the path already traveled. She sees herself, in a small rowboat, along with a half-dozen others, adrift. The shell pushes the boat further away from the ship, and she knows, somehow, that should this come to pass she will never see home again.
She wakes to a pounding on the door, Tan shouting for her to come quickly. Lau – dedicated, loyal, calm as he always is – has been accused of murder.
She knows Lau is innocent. The shell tried to warn her. It tried, and failed, because she was too dense. She was too focused, and now Lau will die.
She cannot bring herself to watch his execution. She cannot bring herself to do anything but sit in her cabin and brood. Tan and Sia try to help her, but when the chest, its liquid sloshing, lands securely in the rowboat alongside her – scraping against her tied hands, not quite enough to dislodge the bindings – she nearly feels relief. The Obra Dinn behind her grows smaller as the sailors row steadily, and she can feel the shell calling out to the beasts.
When one of them leaps into the boat on top of her, she whispers a goodbye – and an apology – to her people.