Down to the Brimming Sea (Philomena, Iskessah)

[Liminal]

20 Spring 516 The morning was already warm -- not the scorching blast-furnace heat of the Aburan summer, but still enough for the horizon to take on a shimmering quality. The breeze was blowing out of the harbor, where the Zeltivan trading ship was waiting. The sailors were busy making the final preparations for departure. For them, it was a trip like any other, a cargo run carrying goods from Akvatar and Eyktol back to Zeltiva. However, they were aware that, at least for the first part of their journey, they would have a pair of passengers. It wasn't entirely unusual for passengers to book passage on a cargo ship. Travel around Mizahar was difficult, and there were few methods safer than a Zeltivan vessel. Adventurers, scholars, and merchants -- if they wanted to go somewhere that the Zeltivan traders ventured -- would not infrequently choose to travel by water. These travelers, however, were different. The ship was carrying an extra longboat, and the plan was to put the boat and the travelers overboard at the ship's nearest approach to Darva. Darva! Mizahar's cursed island, in a way that wasn't even true of Black Rock, home of Dira herself. No one knew what the majority of the island held. It had swallowed two Zeltivan expeditions and the legendary Charm Wright herself, and almost no one who had visited had ever returned. The sailors gave their passengers a wide, almost deferential berth. They wanted no part of whatever adventure or disaster the pair were going to, but they had respect for explorers, no matter how foolhardy. Master Allwave stood on the pier, bedecked in her official white-and-gold uniform. The cargo was loaded, and the ship nearly ready to leave; all that remained was to board the passengers and raise the anchor.

[Iskessah]

The Dhani was taking pity on the poor scurrying humans today--she was in her own human form. And fully dressed, at that. She was in a decent mood, having been able to relax in whatever form she liked to bask in the warm sea breezes for half a year. It had been a pleasant interlude, and she might have continued there indefinitely, but for the rumors that niggled in her brain like a worm. Darva. Iskessah knew she had been there before. She remembered signing on to the previous expedition, remembered the voyage, remembered landing, splitting up to explore the island, and then...then... Nothing. The next thing she remembered was arriving back in Ravok. What had happened to her on that island? It wasn't something she had worried about all the time, and other matters had occupied her attention, but...encountering the name again, here, had brought back a multitude of burning questions. And her history would not quite allow such a mystery to go ignored. And so it was that upon hearing rumors of another expedition to the island from which none had ever returned (except herself, for reasons unknown), Iskessah had approached the small woman and stated in no uncertain terms that the Dhani would be joining her on her voyage. Now, she walked with a confident stride, giving the Captain a brief nod before boarding the ship.

[Philomena]

Minnie arrived early, but had not immediately boarded the ship. She'd left her trunk in the Customs House andgone instead to the long strand of beachfront aside from the harbor itself, and walked alone. Her skin, even the skin of her face, lips, neck, was covered in thickly vined words. She could not read them, but for the names she kept close under her dress, for they were written in Sigorsworn.

She remembered the word because the idea had fascinated her - it was a language created long ago by the Leibsangers Eplusare and Fathi, before their famous schism, as a tongue designed to express emotion audibly. Krindre had spoken about it at length when Minnie had shown interest, but the topic, Minnie had realized, was so far well over her head, the words an endless sequence of alternate pronunciations, bindings of tone and vowel, a queer mix of rigidity and variety. It was the alphabet of this singer's tongue that Krindre had painted her body with on her last night on the island - it had lasted long into the morning, and Minnie had not actually slept, and her body had a tiredness about the limbs that was, paradoxically, refreshing.

There was no more business to be done here - yet. If she lived -- but, then, there was little enough thought of that. She was not blind to what it was she was doing. There are places one does not return from, and she had promised Mother Qalaya to go into the island, not to come out of it. She leaned heavily on her crozier and pulled her light shawl around her shoulders, with a sigh. The sun licked at her now. It was time to turn back toward the harbor now.

She had said farewell to Krindre, and Semiyr... she had had no chance. Semiyr had entered mourning when she heard of Minnie's destination, and entered a vow of silence for it. Minnie and her little assistant had struggled with her to go to bed the morning before, her eyes raw and red, the mourning ribbons heavy on her arms. And Belslea - she had disappeared soon after, while Minnie kissed the silent woman, whereto Minnie could not tell.

She had not walked so far, and the pole steadied her feet in the shifting dunes of the beach. She returned to the customs house, silently, looking into stairwell of Raisa's home - but of course, she would be gone, now, wouldn't she? She took her trunk up awkwardly in her small arm and hauled it behind her toward the port-side.

And there, was Raisa, straight and fair in the cloudless sun, playing at her part. Raisa, her it was, perhaps hardest to leave behind, both the reality and the symbol of her. She was the last great gull of the Wrights under whose wing Minnie could harbor. From here, it was her, alone. If there WERE a Wright on Darva, after all, they would likely have no wing to offer.

And there on the deck, she saw the snake woman. This troubled her as well - she had not invited Iskessah, not really, unless being told one would be inviting someone was to be counted. But there she was, and if she told the truth (and Minnie still saw no reason for her to lie), then she was going BACK to Darva. But why? The question gnawed at her on a practical level (why would anyone go back into the jaws of death?) and a philosophical one (what did it mean that she entered the underworld with a beast at her side?). But, there was, on the way up the gangplank.

Minnie thought of trying to slip onto the boat quietly, but she thought better of it, and simply approached Master Allwave, quietly, and extended a hand with her doubtful curtsey.


x

[Liminal]

Captain Jeremy Mainsail, a grizzled-looking man in his fifties, returned Iskessah's nod before returning to his duties. The berth that Iskessah and Philomena would share was a small room deep in the bow of the ship, with two bunks and a bit of storage underneath them. Raisa turned to Minnie, and for a brief, fleeting moment, the mask of formality and duty on her face broke, revealing sad eyes and a furrowed brow. "Are you ready, Doctor Lefting?" Some part of her still hoped that Minnie would back out of the trip at the last moment, to stay here in Abura with her geldscrying and her notebooks. However, in her heart of hearts, Raisa Allwave knew that it wasn't to be. Minnie's goddess had given her a task, and nothing Raisa could say or do would deflect the academic from her course. Raisa didn't say anything about the unfamiliar words scrawled across Minnie's skin. Indeed, there was almost nothing left to say at all. Raisa's journey had led her here, to Abura, and there was nowhere else for her to go now. Minnie -- and Iskessah -- were on another journey, one that would take them far away, perhaps never to return. "May Qalaya hold you safely in her hands."

[Philomena]

Minnie nodded, and managed a sad little smile, before half-bowing to the Master again. Plucking up what courage she could muster, she offered, "Then may she deliver me back to find you safe here when I'm done."

It was, of course, difficult for to actually BELIEVE this. But she WANTED to believe it. And perhaps that was enough. She shifted the weight of the box in her hands, and began to clomp up the walkway, her greying hair bobbing behind her at the level of most of the sailor's navels. She murmured a song as she left, a song she had heard only once, and from Raisa's own lips:

Come to me, my beloved -
Thou who left so long ago,
Set thy bow
Against thy fiddle string,
Against thy fiddle string.

There was nothing else to do. She ran the back of her arm over her eyes, and turned to Iskessah.

Isn't there a poem about this too? One of the Psalter's.

And shall set the doves in their dovecote, Lord,
And shall take up the serpents instead.
I shall be as a child before them,
Their poison shall be as milk.

She blinked a few times at the thought, and curtseyed again.

"Ms..." she paused a moment. Good mother Qalaya, the woman had had a queer, outlandish name, like a Bonesnapper hissing through a fieldstone wall. What was it? "Ms... Ipsekahn."

That was wrong. Oh, Myri's bum womb, she KNEW that was wrong. She barely managed to stand her ground, but she (badly) faked a cough to make it sound perhaps as if it was simply a slip of her throat. IT was less a deception than an offer to the other conversationalist to ignore the incompetent pronunciation if they had the mercy to do so.

"You are still... still intent on c-coming?"
x

[Iskessah]

Iskessah had been surveying the sailors, evaluating which ones would be most likely to provide her with...entertainment, for the voyage, when she was approached by the small but amusing woman who had initiated this latest quest to Darva. She raised an eyebrow at the butchering of her name, barely managing to conceal the twitch of her lips. The Dhani carefully considered how much of her motives to reveal to the woman. She could not help but think of her as harmless, but she had spent too much time in the company of Ravokian spies to trust based on mere feelings. The fact was, Iskessah knew very little about Philomena's character or reasons for undertaking this voyage. And even if Iskessah could not think of any good reason not to reveal her true feelings to the woman, she knew it was bad practice to share the truth so readily. Raising a sardonic eyebrow, she answered, "Of courssse. I couldn't possssibly let you brave such a dangerousss quesst all alone. Er...Milena...wasss it?" She winked, doing her best to keep the woman guessing. She was not terrible at remembering names, but Philomena would either notice that Iskessah was mocking her and become flustered, or she would be put more at ease by the social balancing of the reciprocal name-slaughter. Either option gave Iskessah an advantage, as far as she was concerned. The Dhani offered her arm to the smaller woman in a silent invitation to escort her to whatever part of the ship they were meant to be quartered. "Tell me more about what you hope to find on Darva," she said, inflecting to make it sound more of a polite question than a demand. She would not admit it, but she was unsettled by how little information they had about the place.