With practiced form, the sailors cut the rope just as the portal was entered. The freed leviathan sang as it rushed onward, and the boat careened and swirled through the wake, coming to a sudden rest on calm, blue seas.
Home.
Well, the world in which home was located, at least.
"Help!" Caspian yelled to the sky. "Pull up the nets!"
One or two faces peeked over the bulwark, and then yelling and orders were bandied about for several seconds before he felt the heave of being pulled upward.
It was a beautiful day, warm and bright. The contrast to the storm they'd just escaped was nothing short of jarring. Finally spilling onto the deck like a pair of fish, Caspian rushed to untangle himself and Naomi.
She lay unconscious beside him, and he worried that she'd gone through too much.
"Naomi. Can you hear me? Wake up." He looked her up and down, then put his hand by her mouth and nose to feel whether she was breathing. "Please, please."
The murmurs of the crew were mixed around him. Many wondered how he had survived being thrown off the ship; most had not seen anything and were asking how he'd gotten tangled in the nets. A few had forgotten entirely that there had been a woman on board the ship for the past several days.
"Please, Please, Naomi," His whispers continued. He lifted her shoulders and head into his arms and turned her to her side, only to be horrified at the ugly wounds across her back. The angry claw marks left by the gargoyle's talons bled heavily.
Suddenly, she began coughing, and then vomited green seawater profusely onto the deck. But she was alive!
Caspian held back her hair, knowing his cap that she had been wearing was lost forever in the sea of this world or the other. As she finished throwing up, he scooped her fully into his arms and strode to the Captain's quarters as quickly as he could.
"Get us home, immediately," He ordered the men as he passed. Edmar watched with a fathomless expression, but did not contradict his younger brother's commands. The battered crew quickly went about their tasks.
Once inside, he laid her carefully on the pallet next to his father's bed where she had been sleeping.
He hadn't joined her after that first night, being too afraid of the precedent it might set.
She wasn't fully conscious; her eyes were closed and she shivered, either from the hypothermia of the other world's icy waters or from the shock of her injuries.
Laying her on her stomach, he peeled fabric out of the wounds and retrieved clean bandages to treat them as best he could.
She was shivering in her wet clothes, but he shied away from the idea of undressing her semi-conscious form. He settled for wrapping her in layers of blankets, hoping that was good enough. He sent someone outside the door to retrieve her dress from the hold, if it was still there after the attack, so that she would have her own things to wear when she was able.
That accomplished, he checked on his unconscious father. He hadn't paid attention to how heavily the ship was damaged by the gargoyles, but here, at least, things seemed intact.
The Commodore was breathing evenly, but showed no signs of change. A knock at the door announced the delivery of Naomi's original clothing, and Caspian's attention roved back to his wife as he held her dress. The bodice would be too tight across her wounds, but the skirts could be worn with one of the other loose-fitting shirts he'd found for her to wear over the past several days.
Her shivering had slowed, but not stopped, and he laid another blanket gently on her. She flinched slightly at the extra weight, and her dark eyelashes fluttered.
"Naomi?" He asked, kneeling down on the floor next to her.
Suddenly jerking fully awake in a panic, she cried out in pain.
"Shhhh," He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, compassion and guilt in equal measure flooding over him. She should never have been on the boat.
"Caspian?" She coughed again, and he quickly grabbed a bowl for her to vomit into. Her voice was hoarse and shaky. "Why?"
"Rest now," He ignored the question. "I have your clothes here. What you're wearing is rather wet, and a little shredded."
Naomi looked at him as if she'd failed to understand his words.
"Do you want me to step out? Or do you need help?" He tried not to cringe as he spoke. She blinked at him slowly.
"What?" She croaked as she shook her head and lifted a hand to touch it as if that might clear her thoughts.
"Wet clothes." He pointed at her. "Dry clothes," He placed the dress next to her. "Can you do it yourself or do you need help?"
"Um." She blinked rapidly and her brow furrowed as she struggled to speak. "I don't know." She tried sitting up and winced as she did so.
He wanted to help, but there was nowhere on her back to support her that wasn't either bandaged wounds or bare skin.
Her mind seemed to be clearing as she took in the pain. She felt the touch of air on her back and glanced at Caspian with mild alarm.
"Turn around." She whispered, barely managing to avoid another coughing fit.
He complied quickly, and listened anxiously to the sounds of her struggles. When he heard a sharp inhale he almost turned around on reflex to help her, but maintained his position.
"You will ask for help if you need it, won't you?" He asked evenly. Though he didn't want to, he couldn't deny that basically ignoring her was just as difficult a task.
"Mmm." She answered weakly. Was he to assume that was a yes?
"Are you all right?" He turned his head very slightly to hear her better.
There was no answer.
"Naomi?" He almost began to turn more.
"Almost," She whispered, her voice nearly gone.
"Do you need me?" He ventured again. Why was she so stubborn?
"Yes," The defeated word was almost inaudible, but he turned around.
Her back was to him. She had managed to stand and get out of the wet clothing, and into her skirts and the loose-fitting shirt, but had restarted the bleeding in the process. The blood was soaking through the fabric.
"I see." He said, unsure exactly how to proceed.
"Will we be home soon? Mayra could help," Naomi suggested, choking on the words. It sounded as if her throat was damaged by the otherworldly seawater.
Caspian pressed his lips together and filled a cup with water for her to drink.
"It hurts to look at you, or hear you speak," He teased lightly, and she turned her head to look at him.
"Sorry," she croaked, even though it obviously hurt to do so, and he raised his eyebrows. She smiled timidly in response.
His relief that she had survived the ordeal was overwhelming, and her smile made his already light heart skip a beat.
"Didn't I just tell you it hurts to hear you speak? And there you go, doing it anyway. You must not like me one bit," A glint in his eyes kept any sting out of his words. She opened her mouth to reply and he held up a finger to silence her.
"Ah, ah, ah, Silence is the best medicine for my recovery, which is of paramount importance in this room." He glanced from her, to his father, and then looked down at himself. "Obviously I'm in the most dire condition here and in need of care."
Her mouth pinched together and she nodded in amused agreement.
"Now, the sight of blood offends me sorely, so I must insist that you cease that bleeding on your back." He made a show of disgust, and she adopted a properly abashed expression. He indicated for her to lie back down on the pallet, and she complied with only a hint of a nervous expression on her face.
Though he had already bandaged these wounds once, she had not been fully cognizant of it.
Gently, he pulled the loose shirt upward to reveal her back, and began removing the bloody bandages. His fingers tingled every time they grazed her skin, and she began shivering slightly again.
"Are you cold?" He asked, his humor fleeing for a moment. She shook her head no, and he wondered at it.
He made quick work of the injuries, pressing when necessary to stem the flow of blood. Replacing the garment, his eyes wandered upward to her face.
Had she been watching him the whole time? Her expression made him wonder what she had seen.
"Do you need anything?" Another headshake. "Your blankets?" She hesitated, and he smiled.
"Just because you don't want to need anything doesn't mean you have to deny actually needing anything. You only make my job harder when you make me guess at it."
She stuck her lower lip out slightly. She didn't like that.
His gaze settled on it, and her breath caught in her throat.