Chapter Text
Callum draws the Fulminis rune, the gestures coming to his mind easily, but his body doesn’t respond like normal. His limbs ache and his vision is blurry. Still, he manages to complete the rune, speak the trigger words, and to his relief, he feels the surge of magic run through him.
Finnegrin is gesturing too, and he hears those awful words again.
Desperately trying to ignore him, Callum attempts to direct the lightning, uses every part of his being to channel it towards Finnegrin. It’ll be weaker than he wants, that he knows. He’s exhausted, mentally and physically, but all he needs in this moment is to throw Finnegrin off, to gain some kind of upper hand.
He doesn’t have a choice.
Gasping in shock, he can do nothing when his hand is somehow wrenched upwards and to his despair, the blast of lightning he summoned streaks towards the clouds, flashing uselessly across the dark sky.
“What did you think you could do, boy? I control everyone on this ship.” Finnegrin asks, mild amusement evident in his voice. “Everyone.”
The pain hits him slowly at first. A sharp bite in his fingers but it travels quickly, creeping along his hands and up his arms.
“Callum!”
Rayla cries out and his attention falters for a moment. He gasps as he tries to push the hurt from his mind, tries to concentrate on his connection to Sky, to find a way to resist. The blue crawls across his chest and his heart constricts in agonising shudders as the light spreads across his torso.
Still, he can breathe through this pain. He has to.
It will all have been for nothing if he doesn’t break free now. He’d have done Dark Magic again for no reason if he doesn’t find a way to fight back, to resist the spell. All those pointless promises never to touch the dark art… hollow and empty if he can’t save them all.
He didn’t have a choice, he had to do it. He couldn’t let Rayla die.
He’d promised himself he’d never do Dark Magic again, even at his lowest, when he’d discovered spells that would help him find her or at the very least confirm she was alive, he’d stopped. Told himself she wouldn’t want that, that it would be letting her down. That was before he even knew doing Dark Magic gave Aaravos a conduit to control him, to take him over.
And yet he had fallen, he gave in.
Faced with her imminent death, promises had evaporated instantaneously and without hesitation. He’d do anything for her. Explore hidden depths, parts of himself he didn’t understand. Didn’t like.
Parts of himself that scared him.
That made him want to shy away, even as he plunged forward, into darkness and whatever awaited him there.
And it hits him, like waking up suddenly from a dream, like a wave crashing over him.
The Ocean… he understands it.
There is no way to control everything… sometimes anything, sometimes even himself. All he can do it roll with the waves, the current.
The tides are true as the ocean is deep.
“Callum! No!” Rayla struggles against her bonds, catching his attention. Her face is distraught and terrified as she struggles against the multitude of ropes they have tried to use to bind her.
She’s relentless though, refusing to give up. Hurting herself in her desperation to break free.
To help him.
He wants to tell her it’s all right, that he can resist Finnegrin’s wicked magic, but he needs to dispel the hold the pirate has over him first. Taking a calming breath, he prepares to do so, and Finnegrin even turns his head slightly.
He can save them; Callum can save them all.
Finnegrin sneers at Rayla, mouthing to Deadwood. “Shut her up.”
The great hulking mass approaches Rayla, drawing his enormous fist high to strike her. She hits the deck, a muffled cry almost smothered by her slumped, unmoving body.
“No!” Callum gasps, the images of the runes needed to banish the spell immediately leaving his mind as he tries pointlessly to reach for Rayla. A moment later, his strength finally fails him, and he collapses first to his knees, then his side as his body shudders and shakes, now utterly at the mercy of the freezing spell.
Finnegrin stalks over to him, Deadwood dragging Rayla behind.
Callum tries once again to resist the spell, to draw the rune he needs to set him free, but his limbs only twitch and jerk as Rayla is thrown to the deck beside him. She cries out softly as her head hits the wood, her eyebrow split and bright red blood running into her eye.
She seems to pay it no mind though, her vision fixed on him as she blinks back tears. “Callum,” she sobs softly, wriggling against her bonds to try and get close to him.
Callum’s heart aches like when she was twitching and shaking on deck as Finnegrin tortured her. Rage and heartache battle each other as he reaches into his new arcanum and drags the runes to the forefront of his mind.
He can still break free. He can protect her.
“I told you I control you, boy.” Finnegrin smirks as he kneels by Callum’s head. “You and everyone else on this ship.”
As quickly as his frozen limbs will allow, Callum draws the rune and says the words, the unimaginable cold beginning to immediately melt from his body even as the rune disappears into the air. He glares at Finnegrin, pushing himself up off the deck. “You don’t control anything.”