The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 6: Tidal Cove]

Sand in her gears, ink in her joints. The sea was mocking, mocking, begging her: come back my darling, come back my love, I can laugh for the both of us with my throat full of sand, for you and all the other lost things, come back, come back, come back.

Countess scrabbled harder, fingers yielding little screams and little purchase in the sand. Holly and Algernon were out of sight, the only sounds her own sluggish ticking and clicking and that fucking ocean pawing with dreary insistence at her legs. Her voltaic cannon shot errant sparks, she shrieked and thrashed and threatened just about everyone she'd ever met but her legs still wouldn't lift her out of this goddamned fucking damn sand and there.

"Holly." Bitch.

"Help me." It wasn't intended as a question, but the last syllable trailed off unbidden. The elf flinched, and turned back the way she'd come.

"You know fear. You know that I don't feel it. I'm not scared of you or of drowning. Holly. Look at me."

She did, and wished she hadn't, because Countess was right. The full spectrum of anger from resentment to murderous rage rose off the amalgam like steam. Another wave rattled over Countess, the pebbles-on-metal adding harshness to the sound of it receding. Countess slid seaward another half-foot, lenses fixed on Holly.

"You're a machine, or electric, or, or something. I'm pretty sure you and water won't mix."

"No, but it shan't kill me either. And I rrrrrrrsssshcan wait and wait and hate and sssssshkyou, Holly, until Algernon forgets rrrrrrrsssshto breathe or one of you dash your heads open on a sssssshk. Then I'll be there. rrrrrrrssssh Next round. sssssshk And I'll be angry. And rrrrrrrssssh in this shitty miserable corner of nowheresssssshk will tell you how to escape, or to kill the Controller, or kill me. In caserrrrrrrssssh you were still considering."

Holly had edged closer, toeing Countess' first frantic claw marks and still keeping a body-length away. The wave receded, and the machine-woman's legs jutted from the shallows like some alien coral formation.

"I'm going to use your resolve," Holly finally said. "Sue me, but I'm going to need my own for myself to stay convinced this was a good idea."

"Fine."

Holly resolved the resolve into a length of chain, and tossed one end to Countess. A couple minutes' straining and pulling dragged Countess onto more solid ground. By the time Holly had found a suitably action-packed young adult fiction novel to get her pep back, most of Countess' legs were working again.

"Marvellous." Countess nearly sounded her old (creepily chirpy) self again. "Now, would you rather I proceed to get out of your way, or remain in your sight until you find Algernon?"

This turnaround was a bit more than Holly could handle. "I- I'll search the other end of the beach. By myself, I mean. If the both of us washed up there, chances are Algernon did too."

"I'll be off to the tower, then." Countess raised her chin toward the crumbling spire. "It's the quickest way to see the extent of our location."

Holly's first thought was that climbing that thing was probably suicide, then remembered who she was talking to. "Excuse my scepticism, but the Controller wouldn't have dumped us somewhere with a mage's academy over the next hill."

"LeMarche couldn't tell me where the next round would be," chirped Countess, already testing her boulder-climbing prowess. "He did, however, give me some conventions used by the authors when they designed round settings."

"Right." Holly winced as Countess' leg slipped, eliciting a shriek from the rock underfoot. "That Message... guy... thing, he can come tell me if there's anything worth knowing, right?"

Countess didn't skip a beat, though she did miss another step and split a pebble in two. "Of course," she said.