Save Yourself

Writers: Duskdog
Date Posted: 15th April 2025

Characters: Yik, Roenhad
Description: As the floodwaters rise, Yik encounters an enemy in a precarious situation.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 5, day 5 of Turn 12

When the waters had first begun to rise, Yik had simply done as she had always done: climbed higher. The caverns were full of handholds and crevices, and not all tunnels were so conveniently horizontal that everyone could traverse them easily. Squeezing up into the ceiling and finding these alternate paths to and from rooms and hidden spaces had always been the most reliable way to remain safe in a place where safety was never guaranteed. As nice as the occasional walk outside could be, she usually didn’t leave the Caverns for long unless she had to. Everything she had ever known was here, after all. There was food here, and warmth, and companionship when she desired it, whereas those things were much more ephemeral out there. Why should she want to leave?

But now, her mistake was becoming clear. The waters weren’t going to stop rising anytime soon, and the cavern itself felt unstable beneath her feet. The rushing rapids swirled into the lower tunnels, and the rock itself -- always her safe haven -- shook with the force of it, stone crumbling beneath her hands as a cavern structure that had held for centuries eroded away in mere hours.

It was past time to get out.

She climbed into an upper tunnel which she knew would lead her to another, which would then lead her to another that would get her to safety. But as she passed a small side-tunnel, she heard the rush of water, the wail of a baby, and the unmistakable bellow of a terrified young man, crying out for his mama. Hearing that cry from the voice of a man sent chills up her spine, somehow even moreso than the screams of the infant. She thought, maybe, that she would have trouble forgetting it.

At the end of the side-tunnel there was nothing but a narrow opening that overlooked a small cavern that had once housed a couple of families, and even that narrow opening had partially collapsed. Still, Yik crawled over on her knees, and pushed through the rubble to look down inside.

A young man was cradling a baby to his chest with one arm, and using the other to hold tightly to a stalagnate in the center of the cavern as water surged all around them.

His name was Roenhad and he was no child. He was her age, or perhaps even a little older -- this would be easier to figure out if she could actually remember her own age more precisely -- and she couldn’t recall hearing him speak about his mother except in passing, though he lived with her and of course everyone knew this. He was a man as much as any twice his age, a man who swaggered about the caverns, and not without cause. He did his share of work. He helped feed his family. He knew how to fight. He knew the way of the knife.

And he was cruel, and he was a bully.

But that was just the way of people who were stronger than other people.

His eyes, reddened from crying and from being pelted by rushing water and, perhaps, from the sheer effort of fighting against the current to get to where he was in the first place, widened when they spied her up above.

“Yik!” he said. He didn’t sound relieved -- not in the way she would have expected. Maybe it was because he thought she was too stupid to help.

“Ma’s gone,” he continued, in his voice that sounded like a man but quavered like a small, lonely child. “She’s gone in the water. Ma’s gone.”

Yik blinked at him. He wasn’t thinking straight, and she thought that maybe this was a very dangerous time to not be thinking straight. It felt like she should have words to say -- something that would help -- but she didn’t. Very rarely did she have the words for anything useful.

“Maras is gone,” he said. “And Dilia.”

His younger siblings. She knew them. Maras was nice. Dilia used to poke toddlers with a sharpened stick. She had tried to poke Yik once. _Tried_. Yik was faster than toddlers.

The water was swirling just below his chest now, and rising. He was holding the baby higher and higher, but it was getting harder, as the higher the water rose, the more he needed to use his other arm to hold tight to the stalagnate in order to keep from being swept away, baby and all.

Even if he could manage to drag himself against the current, the tunnel exit was almost completely underwater, and would be entirely submerged very soon. There would be no escape that way unless he could hold his breath for a very, very long time. And even if he could find enough handholds to reach Yik’s perch, he would never fit into the small opening, or into that tunnel.

“I need Ma,” he said, voice breaking, tears streaming down his face. “She would know what to do. What do I do? What do I do, Ma?! I don’t want to die!”

Yik also did not want to die. Maybe she should say so. Maybe it would help. Or maybe it wouldn’t. The words -- good ones, worthwhile ones -- always stuck in her throat, and only stupid ones ever came out.

She wasn’t stupid, though. Just bad with words. She could clearly see the room and assess the situation and understand his predicament, and saw only one way to help, which might not even be helping, but she had to _try_.

She wondered why, suddenly, she cared about this man who called her a simpleton and threw rocks at her and had once held a knife to her throat and stolen her cheese.

Carefully, she pushed some more rubble away, and wriggled out of the tunnel a little bit more so that she could lean over and reach both hands down (hopefully) without falling out.

“The baby,” she said.

He blinked back filthy water and salty tears. “Wh-what?”

“I’ll take the baby. Then you’ll have two hands. Maybe swim.”

Instinctively, he pulled the baby closer to his chest and drew back against the stalagnate, but he looked uncertain.

“Ma wants you to save the baby,” Yik tried again.

His face crumpled, a sob hitching in his throat. “Save the baby?”

She held her arms out again, concentrating on looking as genuine and helpful and gentle as she could.

He hesitated a moment more, and then looked down at the wailing baby. And then he let go of the stalagnate and began fighting his way against the current towards Yik. As he got closer, he held the swaddled bundle up, straining to reach as high as he could. Yik took hold of the baby and pulled it in close to her chest with one arm, reaching the other back to help herself squirm backwards to a safer position.

Roenhad stood in the rushing water, clearly fighting to keep his footing in the near chest-deep water, his tear-bright eyes lingering on Yik and his baby sibling as if he no longer knew what to do.

“Save the baby,” he said, and Yik wasn’t sure if he was giving an order, or just repeating the last thing he had been told.

“Save yourself,” she told him.

And she sincerely hoped he did.

Last updated on the April 25th 2025

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