The marsh wade

I sat perched on his shoulders like a panicked gargoyle, claws sunk into his leather, tail wrapped round his neck like a wet rope of terror, and when my master spoke, calm as a man strolling through a library instead of chest-deep marsh filth, I could feel the tension snap in the air.

“Pontune,” he said, voice steady, cold, unbothered, “I suppose you’re carrying the goblin.”

Pontune blinked through the reeds. Her hair hung in sodden strings across her face. Her noble posture had drowned somewhere behind us. She clutched at a floating log with both arms like a cat who’d just discovered water is a real thing. “You, want me, to WHAT?” she sputtered.

The goblin bobbed beside her, kicking just enough to keep his head above water. “YES! YES LIFT ME! LIFT ME LIKE HIGH JUDGE!” He reached toward her with tiny swamp-pruned hands.

Pontune’s expression folded. Not anger. Not panic. Something closer to utter disbelief that the universe had brought her to this exact moment. I could practically feel her noble bloodline vibrating in humiliation. But the inlet didn’t care who her ancestors were. The water dragged at her thighs. She was slipping deeper with every push of the mud.

“I, cannot carry” she protested, voice cracking like a snapped reed.

My master trudged forward, my thighs locked around his shoulders tighter than sense should allow, and he didn’t even slow. His steps carved a steady rhythm through the murky water, determination radiating through the bond like a lodestone guiding me through panic.

“If you don’t carry him,” he said calmly, “he's drowning.”

Pontune looked down. The goblin’s chin dipped under for half a second. He resurfaced instantly. “HELP! I AM SHORT KING, NOT FISH!” Pontune made a noise that might’ve been a sob or a curse. Then She reached down, hooked both hands under the goblin’s arms, and hauled him upright with all the dignity of a drowning aristocrat rescuing a screaming frog.

He clung to her immediately, arms tight around her neck, legs kicking behind her like a terrified baby duck. “YES! YES! BIG LADY SAVED ME!” he yelled in her ear. “MY HERO!”

Pontune’s soul visibly attempted to leave her body. “I am,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “not, your, lady.” She tried to reposition him, but every adjustment just made him cling tighter. His wet goblin cheek squished against her shoulder. His feet thrashed. His breath wheezed. He giggled.

Pontune stared dead ahead with the look of a noblewoman reconsidering every decision that had led her to this swamp. “I suppose,” she muttered darkly, “this is… fine.”

I snorted above my master’s head, a sharp, involuntary sound, half laughter, half predatory satisfaction at seeing someone else in misery for once. My master kept walking.

The marsh inlet stretched out ahead of us, an endless sheet of black-green water, thick with fog and drifting algae, reeds poking through like skeletal fingers. The sky was a grey bruise. The horizon was nothing but smudged shapes where land should be.

“Come on,” my master said. Calm. Pragmatic. Noir in the bone. “We’ll find land eventually. The inlet isn’t that big. A few hours wide.”

I pressed my cheek into his hair, ears flicking sharply at every splash and ripple, claws tightening around his armour as if that would somehow keep me higher above the stink. Hours in water. Hours above this… horror. Every instinct in my body howled. But his voice anchored me.
The bond steadied me. His presence cut through the terror like a warm blade through drowning frost.

Pontune trudged behind us, each step a battle against mud, marsh pull, and goblin limbs flailing against her ribs. “Hours,” she said flatly. “A few hours. In this.” She glared at the endless water. “At this rate I’ll be a skeleton by dawn.”

The goblin kicked happily in her arms. “YES! WE MARCH TOGETHER! BATTLE GROUP OF THREE AND HALF!”

Pontune closed her eyes. “I hate this.”

I purred down at my master’s ear, chin resting atop his head, tail tightening round him like a terrified vine. “I don’t care how long it takes,” I murmured. “As long as I don’t touch the water.”

A beat of silence.

My master exhaled, deeply, painfully, the sound of a man resigning himself to the weight of a full-grown catgirl glued to his shoulders with the tenacity of a starving octopus. Then he kept walking. And I clung to him like his body was the last dry thing left in the entire world.

The marsh had stopped pretending to be water an hour ago. It was a graveyard of half-submerged reeds, a fog-choked nothing that tasted like rot and old secrets. My master kept moving under me, steady, relentless, a walking pillar in a drowning world. Pontune slogged somewhere behind, swamp-drunk goblin clinging to her like a spoiled toddler. My claws stayed sunk into my master’s shoulders, my tail wrapped so tight around his chest it might as well have been a third arm.

Then...

A shape cut through the fog. A dark hull. A real one. Proper tall sides, lanterns, a full deck. A vessel, not a floating coffin. And snapping in the wind above it Bogclutch colours. Our clan. My ears twitched up so sharply they smacked the underside of my master’s chin. For one heartbeat I forgot to breathe.

I didn’t have hands free. I didn’t have footing. I didn’t even have dignity. But I had lungs. And a yandere catgirl’s survival instincts. I drew in breath, sharp, desperate, ragged, and let loose a sound that wasn’t human, wasn’t polite, wasn’t anything but raw territorial command mixed with hope:

Performance / Intimidation check combined 14 Modifiers: +5 Charisma +4 Intimidation +2 Enhanced Senses projection = 25

The noise ripped out of my throat and tore across the inlet, a deep, resonant, rolling screech-yowl, halfway between a hunting cat and a banshee with a territorial complaint. Loud enough to rattle reeds. Loud enough to make Pontune shriek in surprise. Loud enough that theThe marsh wade goblin nearly climbed onto her head.

And loud enough to reach the Bogclutch vessel. A pause. Shouting on the deck. Figure silhouettes crowding the rail. A lantern swung. Light sliced through the fog. Then we heard it, a goblin voice amplified by a speaking horn:

“IS THAT—? HEY! HEY! IS THAT THE MASTER? AND THE CAT?!” Another goblin shrieked: “THE CAT SCREAM CALL! THAT’S THEM!”

I clung tighter to my master’s shoulders, chest pressed to the back of his head, tail cinching him like a terrified, grateful snake. “They heard me,” I murmured into his hair, every syllable warm with wild relief. “They’re ours.”

Pontune sagged in the water behind us. The goblin in her arms hollered triumphantly. And the Bogclutch vessel began turning toward us, goblin voices raising in frantic excitement. We weren’t out. We weren’t safe. But for the first time since the boat sank. We had a way home.

I felt the moment before it happened. The Bogclutch vessel loomed out of the fog, high hull, lanterns blazing, goblins shouting, ropes dropping. The scent of dry wood and goblin tar hit my nose like salvation itself.

Dry. Safe. Not water. Instinct took over. Not thought. Not calculation. Just raw, feral, primal cat-mechanics. My body uncoiled from your shoulders like a crossbow bolt released, legs extending, claws digging in for traction before launching me skyward. The world blurred. The marsh fell away beneath me. The boat rose to meet me.

I hit the hull with all four limbs at once, claws punching into the soaked timber. A goblin shrieked as I scrambled upward, scaling the side in a frantic, ripping blur. My tail snapped behind me, trying to balance a jump it had no say in.

I vaulted over the railing. And landed on the deck. Boots. Salted planks. Dry. My knees hit the wood, claws gouging long, desperate trails. My hands slapped down on either side. And then...

The bond snapped. Not gently. Not quietly. Not like a thread breaking. It tore. Tore straight through my ribs. Straight through my head. Straight through my soul. Like a brand ripped out of my chest with a hooked blade. I froze.

Every muscle in my body seized. My tail slammed flat. My ears shot straight up so hard the cartilage burned. The deck tilted. My vision caved inward. The noise of goblins blurred into a single crushing silence.

He wasn’t within ten feet. He wasn’t close. He wasn’t with me.

MASTER WASN’T WITH ME.

The pain hit like a hammer to the spine. A hot, violent spike of panic detonated in my ribs, ricocheting up my throat into a soundless scream. My claws scraped grooves into the deck so deep a goblin yelped and backed away. I gasped, once, then the scream finally ripped out.

A sound that didn’t belong to anything sane. A sound that split lantern glass. A sound that made goblins flinch like arrows were raining from the sky. I spun around so fast my tail cracked the air, pupils shrunk to pinpoints.

Where. Where. WHERE.

My master stood half-submerged in the inlet, chest-deep, hands still out, shoulders bare where I’d launched off him. Fog curled around him like a ghost.

Too far. MUCH too far.

The bond, it wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t numb. It was gone. And the space where it lived felt like fire. My reaction was instant. Violent. Uncontrolled. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t think. I moved. My claws tore into the deck for traction and I sprinted to the railing like a beast let out of a cage, teeth bared, ears flat, vision tunnelling around the shape of him.

Goblins dove aside.

“MASTER—!”

The word cracked in the centre, split by agony, panic, rage, all coiling together into something explosive and feral. My legs trembled so hard the deck shuddered beneath me. My entire body arched over the rail, claws digging grooves in the wood, tail lashing behind me uncontrollably. A wild, broken sound tore out of my throat:

“DON’T, LEAVE,  ME!”

My voice broke on the last word. I was shaking so violently it looked like convulsions. The goblins, brave as they normally were, backed away in a terrified fan shape.

My claws loosened from the railing. My muscles coiled tight. My tail snapped behind me, aiming, balancing, desperate.

And I jumped. Not dainty. Not graceful. Not controlled. I launched off the deck like a fired arrow. My lungs locked. Every hair on my body stood stiff and wet. Fog rushed upward. The world narrowed to HIM

ONLY HIM, ALWAYS HIM

Then the water hit me. A cold, suffocating slap of stink and mud and nightmare that swallowed me whole. It dragged at my fur instantly, the stink rising like a living creature. The cold sliced through me. My limbs flailed once, twice, then the marshbed caught my knees and I staggered upright with a choking sob. Waist-deep. Chest-deep. I could feel it soaking into my armour, my fur, my skin.

My ears flattened so hard they hurt. My tail, my tail was under the water, floating somewhere behind me like a severed limb, and I screamed. Not in words. Not even in cat-speech. Just raw sound, panic cracking through the air like lighting splitting a tree.

“MASTER!”

I clawed through the water toward him, half-running, half-swimming, half-dragging myself through the mud like a dying animal desperate to reach safety before the world closed in. The stink hit me next. That horrible, acidic, clinging bog smell rising into my nose, coating my tongue, seeping into my fur. And something inside me snapped. Pain. Horror. Terror. Shame. All folding into a jagged, violent mixture that sent my mind spiralling.

I stumbled the last few steps and slammed into him, chest to chest, arms latching around his neck, legs wrapping his waist, my whole soaked, shaking body clinging to him like I would die if he stepped away again.

The bond, the bond snapped back together like a lightning strike through my skull. The absence vanished. The world righted. Breath returned. Colour returned. Meaning returned. Everything locked back into place. Except my mind. 

“You left, you LEFT, don’t, don’t EVER, do that, don’t, don’t, don’t...”

I buried my face against his neck, claws biting through his armour, my tail dragging heavy behind me in the water as if it were no longer part of me at all.

The world had narrowed to a trembling, waterlogged tunnel, me wrapped around my master’s torso like a terrified parasite, claws sunk so deep into his armour I could feel the layers beneath, my breath coming in broken, frantic bursts against his neck.

The marsh clung to my tail like a living curse. Every ripple tightened my spine. Every shift of cold water made my stomach twist. I didn’t even hear the splashing, or the goblin’s panicked kicking, or Pontune’s miserable slogging.

Pontune and the goblin were hauled up first, dripping, coughing, the goblin still hugging her like a drowning toddler. Both collapsed onto the deck, gasping like they’d outrun a burning forest.

But my master didn’t move. He stood planted in the marsh inlet, half-submerged, my whole body wrapped around him like a second skin.Shaking. Clinging. Barely breathing. Because if he took one more step away, one more inch the bond would snap again...

And I would die.

I pressed my dripping forehead to his, my breath shuddering out in weak, terrified tremors, ears low and limp against my skull. That was when I heard him, quiet, steady, impossibly calm through the panic tearing me open. “Can we please get out of this marsh.” His voice was soft. Low. Not mocking. Not sharp. Almost gentle. And he said it while looking directly into my eyes. Not at the water. Not at Pontune’s meltdown behind him. Not at the goblin yelling about leeches.

He was looking at me. Straight at me. Even soaked, freezing, half-drowned… he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t even annoyed. He was asking me. Asking me.

Something inside my ribs cracked at that, a fragile, painful sound only I could feel. My breath hitched in my throat, claws loosening a fraction but my arms refusing to let go completely. My tail, sodden and heavy, drifted against his leg like a dying serpent.

He wasn’t pushing me away. He wasn’t prying me off. He wasn’t scolding me for the jump. He was just… here. Anchored. Still. Reaching me through the fog of panic like the only star in a sky that had just collapsed. My lips parted, but no words came out at first, only a shaky, broken sound that belonged to something more animal than girl.

“M… master…” I blinked water from my eyelashes, staring at him through a storm of terror and relief. “You… you stayed close.” Another trembling breath. “You didn’t leave me… you didn’t…”

I clung to him like a living chain, limbs locked tight around his body, soaked fur plastered to my skin, breath trembling against his throat. Every goblin hand that reached toward us, every rope, every attempt to help, earned the same reaction from me:

A hiss. Not a warning hiss. Not a scared hiss. A murder hiss. Teeth bared. Pupils razor-thin. Ears flat and shaking. The kind of noise a cornered predator makes when the next thing it kills will be out of pure principle.

“DON’T, TOUCH, US,” I spat, each word rippling like venom.

Only my master was allowed near me. Only he was safe. He kept walking anyway, steady, calm, accepting my entire feral collapse without a single complaint. The water drained around us as he waded toward the vessel. I felt every step through his chest, through the bond, through the trembling in my own limbs.

Then the hull met his hands. He started climbing. With me still wrapped around him. Master hauled us upward, wet boots on rope, rope on rail, rail to deck, until finally he pulled himself over the side and collapsed onto the planks.

I collapsed with him. Not off of him. Onto him. Chest to chest. Fur to leather. My whole shaking body folding down over him like a blanket that had survived hell. He exhaled. A long, exhausted, human breath. The sound eased something bone-deep inside me, something that had been tight and trembling and feral since the moment I felt the bond rip.

A soft, eerie, too-sweet curl of lips. Eyes wide, unblinking, soaked in adoration and something razor-sharp beneath it. A smile that said I had shattered, and put myself together in a new shape.

“Master…” I whispered, voice suddenly smooth, soft, sing-song in a way that didn’t match the chaos around us at all. “…you scared me.” My tail curled slowly around his thigh, no panic now. Just possession.

My fingers slid up his chest, tracing the soaked leather, an affectionate movement wrapped in territorial greed. “You shouldn’t do that again,” I said, tone sweet, honeyed, far too sweet. “Not because I’ll fall apart…” My eyes widened in blissful devotion. “…but because next time, I might not let anyone else on this boat live through it.” The goblins froze.

Pontune swallowed. The marsh wind shifted. And I leaned down, pressing my forehead softly against his, purring with a sweetness that did not match the trembling aftermath of panic,“…but you’re here now,” I breathed, soft and warm and unhinged.

“And I won’t let go. EVER”

@Senar2020