Flashback Thirteen Ways To Honour The Sea

[Meriann]

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5th Autumn 504 AV
"Speech"

Summer winds still blew the tranquil Kelpfire pod across the centre of the Suvan's vast plains, even as Autumn made its presence known in the shape of early migrating birds that occasionally drove across the crystalline blue skies in 'V' shapes. Murray, Meriann's younger brother, was delighted in the birds, and pointed them out excitedly every time a group silently flew overhead. "Look!" he would say, "That's the second group this season!" He had counted every one with a studious concentration, whilst Meriann and Trisa laughed and teased the floppy haired boy. Meriann was equally excited though. Early migrations meant a cold winter, but although she exalted in the warmth of the summer months, there was a special charm to winter and the danger and excitement it brought. Many a time she had clung for dear life as their palivar bucked and tossed in fearsome storms, only to emerge afterwards, jubilant and riding the high of another amazing survival of Laviku's exhilarating world.

Today was a different kind of exciting, however, one that the young Svefra girl had been excited for ever since the turn of the season. Today was the day. Her day! She had awoken early to the clatter of her father's pipe against the railing directly above her sleeping quarters. Truthfully, she had barely slept overnight, and so the quiet but distinctive noise was an indication that it was a new day. She stirred, yawned loudly, and shot upright in the bed, her eyes wide and alighting on the still-sleeping forms of her siblings. For a moment, she considered letting them sleep, and rest. But, they had a birthday to celebrate. Wickedly, she leant over her eldest sister, finger poised, and with a glint in her eye she poked Allie firmly on the forehead.

The older girl awoke with a shout and a cry, and Meriann couldn't help but fall over onto the blanket, giggling fittishly and trying to poke her again and again as Allie protested. The play-fighting soon woke her other siblings, who were in equal measure silly and disgruntled at having been awoken before Syna had even graced the sky. The birthday girl was alive and full of energy, and as was often the case, that energy spread through the children like wildfire until they were all screaming and laughing. Meriann's mother and father might, if they had been worried at the noise, have come running at the sounds of screaming, but lying in bed, Suzie only rolled her eyes and smiled a parent's smile.

Up on deck, Daman silently began casting the nets over the side of the ship. Like others in their small but effective pod, mornings were for fishing, even if it was a special day. There was little wind, but enough to keep the few ships that formed the Kelpfires pod moving along, dancing sedately in the foamy waves. Ordinarily, whoever caught the fish one day would have a rest the next, but today they were going to be cooking up a feast, and potentially having the opportunity to sell some on at the next city they found. Daman, pipe protruding from his lips, cast the net overboard and sauntered over to adjust the bearing slightly, before calling down to his wife and children. He was careful to avoid any mention of the word 'birthday', well aware that it would set Meriann into an even more excitable state, and so instead he simply called with a wry smile, "Get up here ye lazy lot, and quit your mirth before y'get yourselves worn out, crazy childers!"

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[Meriann]

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"Speech"

In the height of their childish madness, their father's rallying cry spilt the wild Svefra children up the rickety steps of the palivar and spreading out onto the deck. Meriann ran especially fast and well, and aimed directly for her father as she leapt into a tackling hug that knocked the wind out of both of them. Laughing, Daman wheezed and pulled her off, ruffling her hair and bumping the edge of his pipe against her nose. "You're a maniac, daughter-mine." Meriann, bright-eyed, only nodded and grinned fit to burst.

The others went to their usual morning tasks. They had not had food since last evening, and so, as was usual, it was time to break their fast. The Kelpfires had about three ships between them, with some occasionally leaving and others occasionally joining for a short spell. They did not hold a particular pattern of migration across the Suvan or even the Outer Oceans, because the leaders and the Lia at the heart of the close-knit family group did not agree with strictness and discipline. However, the Kelpfires did have particular spots that they often inhabited at set times. This, at the start of Autumn, was one of those times and one of those places.

When the northern Suvan grew cold and blustery as Winter drew in, many Svefra (the Kelpfires included), braved the treacherous middle Suvan to languish in the warmth of the south. It was here, beyond the lip of the rushing middle sea, that the Svefra pod found refuge and entertainment at Vanti Island. It was here that the Kelpfires had almost reached, that sparkling early Autumn day, and it was here that they planned to party into the evening and send their thirteen praises to Laviku, all in the name of a little girl's birthday.

Daman linked his arm around his wife's lower back, and tipped Meriann off and told her to get yesterday's leftover fish and seaweed bread. Her mother and father kissed each other a good morning, and Meriann was off below deck, on a special mission. She had helped bake the bread yesterday, watching her mother pound the fish into a mash, and she knew exactly where it was stored. Shortly after, Daman sent Trisa down too, and the two girls shared a grin as they began gathering all the breakfast things to eat up on the deck.

"Tris, do you remember last year? Do you remember K'Ma... K'Mavia? The beach? I wonder if we'll get to stay up later as we're a year older!" Meriann loved her birthday. Every year for as far back as she could remember, the girl had been to Vanti Island. Each year, the Kelpfire pod met up with the Hundredwave pod on the glimmering nighttime beach of the island, and sent their utmost respects to Laviku. Like it often did with the Svefra, they eventually turned the whole thing into a party once Zintila's jewels bedecked the sky. For years, Meriann had tried and failed to stay awake long enough to be concious through the whole of the long night, and this time, she was determined she would not fall asleep.

Tris giggled as Meriann stared at her with owlish blue eyes, until the two of them were distracted by their mother's hungry shout. Quickly, the two sisters gathered the bread, and a small pot of precious butter, as well as a couple of utterly brown bananas and rushed up the stairs. The family were joined by a man named Huster, a laughing, youthful man that had his eye on Allie, a fact that Meriann constantly teased her about. He exclaimed with contented happiness as the two sisters laid out the food on the deck, and everyone began to tuck in, gulping down the strong, energy-rich banana with the crusty fish bread.

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[Meriann]

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"Speech"

The young Svefra girl loved her mother's sea bread. But what completed it was the butter, that rich and creamy and salty magic. They only had a small amount between them, as it didn't tend to keep that well on long voyages, but the sliver of butter gave her breakfast that bit of an edge. As the family ate, they talked. Meriann was too busy stuffing her face, but Allie chatted animatedly with Huster, whilst Daman joked with his other daughter and son. The rigging clinked regularly and repeatedly above their heads, and the sails billowed in a steady wind. Suzie, her mother, was keeping one eye on her food and one eye on the sailing. The birthday girl had almost finished her bread as she stood and went to give her mother a helping hand.

The helping hand actually turned out to be more like a lesson in sailing as Meri wiped crumbs from her face and upturned her eyes to watch her mother's subtle shifts of the tiller. "Mam, how do you know the right way to go?" After a filling morning meal, the young girl had finally settled down and a bit of regularity had settled over her. The life of a sailor had to have routine, and that was the way even for Svefra youth. Suzie smiled, and then shook her head in mock horror. "D'ye not remember what I told you last time you asked?" Meriann shook her head dejectedly, her shoulders dropping. "Sorry, mam. I forgot."

The older woman frowned, but it was not true disappointment. Meriann smiled brightly almost instantaneously as her mother pulled her to the tiller, the sadness forgotten. "Okay, feel the strength and power behind this." Suzie placed her daughter's hands on the weighty wooden tiller, and together they pulled it to one side. "That power is the force of the water as we go against the current flow. It feels difficult, yeah? Now, if we push it the way we are now, and we let the sails swooop over like that!" She grinned and winked at Meriann as the boom began to shift. "Well, if we do that we'll change course. But we don't want to, because we're almost at the island. Look, can ye see it there, in the distance?"

Meriann's eyes widened, and she peered out eagerly. She followed the point of her mother's finger, and burst into a bright laugh as the point of the island shimmered into being under the blooming sunrise of the new morning. "I see it! I can't wait!" All manner of thoughts now jostled through her head, demanding her attention. Whether she would see her friends again, whether she would have beer, whether she would dare a run through the bonfire like Allie once did, to her sheer amazement. She thought too, and perhaps most importantly, about what she would give and sacrifice to Laviku.

It was a tradition of the Kelpfires to offer praise to Laviku, their patron god, on a birthday. For each year, there was to be one sacrifice or prayer or praise. It was the task and the honour of the one whose birthday it was to conduct the final act of worship. Each year, Meriann spent each fleeting moment to herself to worry about it and to formulate what she would do. This year was no exception. Her hand drifted from the tiller as she briefly panicked about the complete lack of clue of what to do. But never in a thousand years would she ask anyone else for help. She would come up with an act worthy of Laviku and her family, otherwise she did not dare think of the consequences.

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[Meriann]

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"Speech"

Almost as soon as she wasn't paying attention, her mother's warm, rough hands slapped firmly down on her own. "Pay attention, girlie! You've got a long way to go... You cannae waste your time dawdlin' and losin' concentration. Here, look'it what Arla is doing with Ladywave over there. The wind's picking up now, and we don't want to drift off-course. Vanti Island is not so bad to land at, but it ain't the easiest thing in the world either. If we stray off-course now, we'll have to work agains' the wind. Which," she nodded sagely, "You know means trouble." Meriann did. The sea came first and foremost in the levels of importance to any Svefra, but wind was a close and almost parallel second. If you couldn't work or understand the wind then you were already scuppered.

The young girl drank in every drop of information Suzie passed down to her. Suzie taught smoothly and frequently, and Meriann was a willing pupil. She was prone to distraction from time to time, but as she had grown so her levels of concentration had risen. Suzie now noted the engrossed look on her daughter's face, and thought back to her as a baby. Back then, she'd had an almost scary look of concentration on her face. Swimming had been easy, of course, but walking had been a challenge for the chubby-faced baby girl, one that she had cried about many a time as she had come bumping down onto the deck.

All this reminiscing was lost on the girl in question though, who had both hands on the tiller and was feeling her mother's gradual and tiny shifts as they occurred. She was dying to speak, and finally could not hold back her impatience. "Ma, I wanna do it on my own. Can I? Jus' for a little bit?" Her hopeful eyes gazed up at her mother pleadingly, although a tiny hint of a cheeky smirk lingered on her lips, as she exaggerated the tremble in her voice. Suzie, well-aware of her daughter's wily ways, laughed and playfully clapped her round the shoulders. "Get awae with you and your cheekiness, Meri. Of course you can, but can you tell me why you should? Why you think you could?"

Suddenly serious, Meriann frowned, and spoke with clarity as she answered. "Because I know that you keep a steady hand on the tiller, and I will too. I know that I won't crash into anything. I think I should because I know I can do it, and if I can't I've got you Ma." At this, Meriann's face softened from its formal and honest answering to a look of complete trust. It was natural and instinctive, because she completely and utterly trusted her mother, and her family. Although it would take years to understand this, at that singular point in time Meriann felt a fullness of love and respect and trust shimmering though the air that connected the small but vibrant family. Everything was right with the world.

As if she too could feel this golden bond, Suzie leaned forwards to kiss her youngest daughter on the forehead, and slipped her hands off the tiller as Meriann stood firmly grasping the timeworn wood in both hands. "Let's see how you do, girlie." It was now her time to shine. Meriann didn't notice her oldest sister and father watching her from the corners of her eyes, she didn't even see her mother's glances, even as close as she was. Instead, the girl concentrated hard on the thrumming through the tiller, to the ships that sailed close by, and the taste of the wind that suddenly filled her every pore. There was so much to remember! A sudden shift in the currents almost made her jerk the tiller in shock, but just in time she heard a slight cough from behind her and remembered that all she needed to do was gently turn it.

Heat flooded her face, but she didn't care as a grin spilled out and she muttered a quiet, "Yesss!" Satisfied, and gradually becoming acclimatised to the feeling of it, she tossed a look over her shoulder and yelled to her brother and her closest rival, "Look'it, Murray! Betcha can't do this!" The younger lad squawked at the unfairness of the comment, and she giggled and tossed her hair triumphantly. It was as she did this that her stance relaxed, and at the same time, the wind picked up sending the ship at a funny angle.

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[Meriann]

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"Speech"

Under the surface of the water, away from anything Meriann could see, the rudder protested against the quick tug of the sails above. Under her hands the tiller jerked suddenly, and Meriann desperately attempted to keep hold on the smooth, wooden surface as it tried to swing away from her. For a moment, she thought she had it... then the wooden pole pulled her hands off and it swung free of her grip. Launching forwards, Meriann cursed and tried to gain purchase on the tiller, but by now it had momentum and she wasn't strong enough to stop it. She dug her heels into the bleached wooden deck, and applied as much pressure as she could, both arms finally around the long pole in her tightest grip.

The squall of wind died down, and the pressure under the boat eased. Her heart was beating as loud as the slap of a whale's tail on the crest of a wave. She turned her head to Suzie, her mother, with her dark hair partially obscuring her face, to find her smiling approvingly. Meriann quickly relinquished the control with relief and a small part of disappointment. "Well, that weren't too bad, miss Meriann, although the look on your face..." Suzie snorted, and over to the starboard Murray joined in the laughter. Meri merely stuck out her tongue in defiance, but still... Inside, she was glowing. Her older sisters were already well-practised, and she hated falling behind. In any family group, there is always a hint of competition, and Meriann in all her stubborn and feisty ways, held the lion's share of that competitiveness.

Where Allie fell more and more into a comfortable role as their Lia's companion and assistant, and Trisa was content to simply exist and be grateful for it, Meriann always felt an urge driving her on. It was why she teased and fought and laughed uproariously, without break or pause. It was why she was so desperate to be better at everything. She didn't even realise that she was this way. She wouldn't for a long time, not until the pod's fortunes had changed and shifted just as much as the myriad tides along Laviku's golden beaches and she was a good bit older but in some ways not much wiser than her thirteen year old self that stood on the deck and gazed out with the rising sun at the approaching island.

Something akin to a bell passed. The sun was a little higher in the sky, a gleaming, burning coin that still gave plenty of heat that radiated down onto her skin and layered further tan down. She was climbing the rigging, on an errand from her father. They were not far from disembarking for the next few days at Vanti Island, but Daman's eagle eyes had spotted a broken portion of the mast, right at the very top of the rigging. The plan had been to wait until they were moored, but Meriann had grown restless and impatient, and Daman had given in and told her to climb up and see what the damage was.

Now she placed one hand above the other as the hoisted herself up the complicated network of ropes and pulleys and occasional handholds on the mast itself. She was soon warm, even as a child it was difficult work pulling your own body weight up. She squinted ahead of her, at home with the rocking lilt of the ship's movement as she guessed which was the easiest way to climb there. Down below, Daman smoked and kept a wily eye on his wayward daughter, but Meriann was oblivious to her own personal safety net. To her, she was the most adventurous and brave young Svefra girl ever to have existed, a fact that showed itself in the teeth-bared grin and the fearless way she extended her hand to reaches that were almost too far away.

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[Meriann]

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"Speech"

She had almost reached the top. Theirs wasn't as huge a ship as some in Zeltiva, the wondrous city of boats. Yet it wasn't small either. Meriann looked down, briefly, and that feeling of being a conqueror quickly evaporated as her legs suddenly felt wooden. She looked up, gazing instead into the endless blue sky, and the few seabirds circling overhead. She stopped climbing, and breathed deeply through her nose, trying to ignore the floor beneath her. The clear, sharp saline air blitzed through her nostrils and straight to her head, the feeling as refreshing as anything else the girl knew. She closed her eyes briefly as serenity washed over her, and then she pictured the beach and the swell of the ocean surf, the warmth of the shore water and the playful face of her beloved tavan. All thoughts of falling were now lost to her, gone in the winds of her imagination, and she grabbed the top rung of the final handhold of the mast, and pulled her feet up onto the perilous wooden spur without further ado.

She looked around, one hand firmly grasping the top of the sail. A brisk wind blew here, noticeably different from the atmosphere down on deck. She could also see the broken section. Up close, it was obvious that the broken wood was not an issue. It might have been that Daman knew that too- hence why he had postponed the inspection of it. After all, if it had been something of importance, then it could have been dangerous if they came across a storm or even a spot of bad weather. In fact, to Meriann's mostly untrained eyes, the broken part was indeed of great importance. It definitely looked damaged and worrisome.

Meriann craned further to look at the top decoration with wide eyes. Old, dried guano from passing seabirds littered the surface, but the decoration itself had cracked somehow, and part of it was hanging on my just a splinter or two. She shuffled around the spur she stood on, trying to see the damaged section from all angles. There was the remaining, untouched part fixed to the top of the mast. And there was the damaged bit, looking for all the world like someone had dropped something very heavy on it and smashed it. Meriann thought it looked like an old wound though. There were no fresh marks or new wood showing. A small hairline crack glinted with fresh, inside wood, but the rest of it seemed okay.

Her voice shrilled down to Daman below, although she looked into the horizon rather than risk vertigo and look downwards. "Part of it is broken almost off Da! What do you want me to do? Bring it down?" She waited patiently as Zulrav played with her hair, and then Daman yelled up to her. "Aye Meri, jus' pull it off if y'can!" So she did, reaching up with her free hand and obtaining a tiny prick of a splinter in the process. The carved object was lighter than she thought, but awkwardly shaped. Climbing down with it in her hand would be difficult, so instead she angled her hand so it would miss the billowing sails. Over the sound of the clinking rigging, she shouted again, "Can I drop it Da?" The answer this time came quickly, "Aye daughter!"

Without hesitation, and with a little ounce of mischief, she let the split decoration fall from her hand. Contrary to what she thought she might hear, instead there was a dull thump as Daman caught it in a bunched up cloak. "Alrigh', y'can come down now Meri Annie!" She rolled her eyes at the nickname, but the sudden billowing of the sail obscured any thought of retaliation at the silly nickname. Instead, she began to carefully back down the rigging, placing her feet carefully and going as slowly as she could.

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