[Flashback] Drowning is a strange way to meet people (Sable)

[Wrenmae]

Spring 22, 507 AV

Life has funny ways of connection. Lines of webbing stretch between each life one encounters, like the gossamer threads of destiny. Often most are unaware of its presence, the pull of strings to dance a step too far, to begin a conversation. In this manner all are wound together under the rules of narrative, ghosting in and out of stories as minor characters and supporting cast. Sometimes antagonists, sometimes heroes, but everyone plays a role. Life is not a series of random circumstances and blind lives stumbling around, arms outstretched. Life is the planned chapter book progress of a story...and one is only as important a character as they try to be.

Wrenmae balanced a book in one hand, the other thrust out to accommodate his balance. On the docks, the smell of brine and sea salt stung his nose, brought tears to his eyes, but kept his mind sharp. The sailors yelled their nautical terms, laughed, sung, told tales of distant lands Wrenmae had only heard of loosely. Sometimes they brought spices from the desert, sometimes horses from Cyphrus. Trade was rife here in the port of Alvadas and everyone seemed in a perpetual hurry to shove off or move on.

Wrenmae, of course, kept his attention focused on the book on his open hand. A History of Reimancy and Its Uses...the kind of book he would expect Kit to have. He'd borrowed it, fully intending to return it, but had somehow not gotten around to it as of yet. It was theft, sorta, and Wrenmae tried to put that thought out of his head as he traversed the long docks, balancing precariously on the edge.

Reimancy was not an art to be taken lightly. The users could control an entire storm if they wanted, or at least supposedly. The initiation, however, seemed the most problematic. In every case documented by the book, the result was painful, even agonizing. Some died. Somehow Wrenmae could not get past this fact. Kit's father had forced this fate on her, taken the life of his daughter into his owns hands in order to teach her this kind of dangerous art. It was ludicrous, maddening.

Tempting.

Wrenmae sighed and closed the book, reaching near the end of the dock and crossing it to balance on some stacked wood and barrels. Something about nimbly vaulting from high place to high place amused him. He was a cat, some feline imbued thief. It helped to think of himself that way, most of the world could care less about his existence. The idea he might be remembered was the most alluring thought he could have had.

Of course, the pitfall of pride and dreaming is the lack of attention to the world around you. One sailor stumbled with a heavy crate, dropping it on the slanted wood Wrenmae was crossing. The sheer weight of the crate vaulted the storyteller skyward and out across the sea.

For a moment he was flying, truly flying, and that moment was enough for him to want it, to continue his soaring path.

But Zulrav did not hear him, and he landed with a tremendous splash several yards away from the wooden dock. The book was behind him, dropped on the edge of the dock where he'd been hurled from. Now he was floundering in the water, remembering only now that he hadn't had the decency to teach himself swimming.


All his panic, all his talents, none of them would convince the water to release its hold. He waved his arms, beat at the waves around him, gasping past lungs filling with water as a Zeltivan merchant vessel, admittedly not paying attention, strafed by him, catching his head against the prow.

The blow was sudden as it was relieving.

All fight seeped from his bones and Wrename simply vanished beneath the waves...sinking, sinking into a crushing black abyss beneath.

There was nothing here but silence.

And the sea hummed the lullaby of death...again

And again

And again.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

A thread of ink, no more than the elegant curve left in the wake of an errant coal-black drop abandoned and sent fleeing on a path it was never meant to take. A thread of sunshine, focused and unyielding in its chosen course yet foiled by a single sheet of water, refracted, rerouted, redestined to collide with a stain it was never meant to know. The corporeal threads fate picked up when gossamer ones proved too weak. The ink drop, opaque and unfathomable, set loose without guidance stood no chance against that beam of concentrated illumination. Its path would end prematurely, dried up like so much dust to flake off without leaving more than a memory of what might have been. Yet the deed was done. The connection made. A rich earthiness, a scent some described as lush while others considered putrid, tainted Sable’s first deep breath of the day. It invaded and distorted the clean scent of ocean air. The ocean had a dignity about it. When Dira claimed something, the ocean welcomed it into its bosom, drawing it down, down into the black depths where the corpse nourished those around it without leaving any sign. Or spit it back out, adding one more pile of rot to the plethora of decaying objects spread willy nilly over land masses. She couldn’t help it; every time the scent of earth wafted up, the thin and reedy voice of her grandmother chided her in unceasing attempts to corrupt an insatiable curiosity about land. Frankly, she liked the smell of flowers and that was more than enough to outweigh the disgust of occasional filth. There were two sides to every coin; Sable was quite sure that the Charodae had a completely different view of the ocean and its procedure for dealing with dead animals and plants. How unpleasant it must be to be swimming along and then have a sinking dead whale bump into your head. A rolling gait carried her from the cabin she’d spent the night in toward the prow as sharpening blue eyes explored the unfamiliar deck. Nope, this wasn’t her ship. That sail should be burned before repaired one more time. In fact, this whole shabby, unkempt vessel should probably be lit on fire before ever taken out into open seas again. What kind of a captain allowed their baby to fall into such negligence? “Hey baby, you fell asleep before we got to the good parts, how about we make up for that this morning?” a voice purred nearby in what was supposed to be suave charm. Sable fiercely squelched down on the urge to expel the remnants of last night’s ale all over the deck. Not that it would have made any difference for the ship, in fact, it might be considered an improvement. Laviku, she must have been schnockered out of her mind last night. Where was Sybil? How had she let her baby sister be whisked off by this slob? Regarding the man with undisguised revulsion, Sable breezed by and trotted down the gangway into a maze of creaking hulls and crowd of sailors. Just as the prospect of finding the casinor that had brought the four Tempests into port seemed insurmountable, the small, excellently maintained vessel popped up between two huge fishing operations and behind a wall of gleefully bellowing sailors. To ease the unloading of a sizable catch, they used a charming ditty about which barmaids could be mistakenly sent off with the fish. Skirting the lively bunch, and somewhat relieved when they lapsed into a local language, the lanky Svefran girl gratefully boarded the Coral Drop. No one else was on board at the moment, so after some quick ablutions to facilitate a return to humanity, Sable tucked a small sewing kit under an arm and sauntered back out to scurry up to the roof of the cabin. Sybil insisted that it was time for Sable to learn a trade of some kind, and what could be more perfect than the one she herself excelled at? The younger girl did not share this enthusiasm. And, it was only the fortunate happenstance that Sable was mid wind-up to chuck the kit overboard, after stabbing herself again, that drew her eyes to the frothy water off her port bow. White ripples contrasted brightly against the dirty water of the docks, the ship’s wake masking all signs that some poor sop had been swallowed up. But Sable was already moving. She rolled off the cabin and landed nimbly on her feet. The only hitch in subsequent smooth leap overboard came as a pause to grab a large bladder. The murkiness of civilization’s taint in the cold water slowed the search. Only a cabin boy on the docks, one that had apparently witnessed the entire fiasco, saved the drowning man from his inept rescuer. Once he realized that she had lost her bearings, the boy screamed out directions to guide the struggling Svefra toward the correct area. The worst part was diving down to try and find the slowly sinking body. Sable wasn’t a strong swimmer. The float, she’d propped her chest on it and kicked furiously, was instrumental in her quick arrival at the scene. Otherwise she would have been doggy paddling. Thankfully the man’s skin glowed against the depths. Tugging, tugging, tugging, her actions more flail than finesse, Sable managed to get the unresponsive boy’s nose above water. Breathing heavily, bordering hyperventilation, the Svefra cursed her sad swimming ability and flailed around some more in an attempt to use the float to keep both of them above water. Thankfully, a complete familiarity to the sensations of deep water kept panic from fouling up the already bumpy rescue. The noise had attracted a small group at this point but no more ships to bean the swimmers over their heads. Their legs became tangled loosely with the rope knotted to the float. It was meant for trapping, after all. “Lay on yer back and pin the bladder between yer chest and his neck!” a voice of authority finally rang out, followed by some splashes. The old sea salt had had enough of watching people watch the struggle and pushed several good Samaritans overboard. Sable fiercely held on to her prize and the men settled for simply helping the girl get into the proper rescue position. They kept a check on everything for the slow trip back to safety. Thick, gnarled hands hauled both kids out of the water and deposited them on the dock. “Ye swim about as well as seahorse shyke,” the same old salt from earlier groused with an exhalation of stench comparable to his analogy. A pale arm lay limply on the deck, stiffened red fingers stretched out to the young man as a sailor rolled him on his side and thumped his back solidly. Dimly, through the sound of pulsing blood and the earplugs of water, penetrated the crack of the sailor sternly ordering the boy to cough out the water he’d inhaled. Without thought, without care, without a single shred of experience or knowledge in this sort of use, djed swelled and res puffed from the tips of those rigid digits. Oblivious to the audience, that handy self-preservation instinct apparently inert, the delicate wisp of gaseous res curled toward those pallid and limp lips. It slipped in to the unnaturally still orifice, caressing his tongue and dancing between his teeth before gently descending like a natural breath into his throat. Lidded blue hues traced down his face, neck, then chest, as though they could watch the progress of her essence exploring his innermost recesses. After a moment they tracked back up. She could feel the extraneous water from his lungs converging on the res and obediently following it back out. As it spilled into his mouth, freedom in sight, another tendril descended into the newly cleared conduit. This one pulled air down along with it. The air fluttered eagerly, delicately. Sable tried to take just enough to encourage the boy’s lungs to work on their own again. But there was no way for her to know what she was doing, what the consequences would be. She had no idea there were two passages from the throat, one to the lungs and the other to the stomach and that there was a good chance she’d pulled from both. Either way, the girl stiffly pushed to her knees and shouldered into the rapidly dispersing group, ignoring any vomiting or unpleasantness to tenderly brush her fingertips across his handsome, moist brow and push the hair from his eyes.

[Wrenmae]

Shadows begot shadows, that tar-black eternity each man and woman faced alone. In death, all were lonely souls, the shuffled feet of singularity forcing them down the spiral to oblivion. To set the truth in frames of understanding, drowning never hurt. The blow to his head was what roiled pain into the calculation, an agony that dulled as the bleak cold rushed in to replace his vitality, eager to trade in the market of last hopes.

There were bubbles at first, pockets of dreams that escapes his body like men from sinking vessels. One by one they columned toward the surface, seeking new homes to harbor them, to fuel their sparked ambitions. He reached for them, his pallid skin shocking midst the umbra of the sea. His soul had not yet fled, but he was phantom-pale, languid fingers grasping at nothing.

Nothing.

In the end, there was only nothing.

"Back again, boyo? Not the most protagonist decision."

A voice, interloper, an invader to the requiem of passing. Wrenmae almost ignored it, but the Void ate at the edges of his consciousness, a hungry lesson taught beneath a thatched roof. How strange it was to think that wizards died of magic, their own arts a poisoned dagger.

"Let him rest, he's had enough." Another, quieter, a child. "It's more peaceful an end than I expected."

"An optimist! What hands we have to applaud your gleeful sunrise proclamation. Dead? Dead? Since when do heroes fade?" Harsh applause, the smacking of sarcastic skin.

"Ignore him," the child again, apologetic even, what did he have to be sorry for? "He likes to hear himself speak."

"Better to speak than communicate by bubbles," sardonic laughter, peals of homespun derangement held loosely in a threaded binding. "Whoever cheated out of life by drowning?"

"Plenty," the child spat, an edge of immature rage flaring along his syllables, "And at least it isn't painful. He's just going to sleep."

Wrenmae was quiet, all he had were these voices left to bicker. One, the sarcastic adult, a jaded creature jabbering laughter, the sort of fool one might overlook on a street corner, or sell your eyes to for a night. The other, a child, soft and wise beyond his years but almost fatalistic. Who were they? Both sounded familiar, the kind of sounds he'd heard before but couldn't place.

Rough hands, iron-hard fingers, murmured conversation, wet, wet, cold, sunlight, dull, thrush-soft, dawn? Noon. The world beyond...a thrumming pain.

A bray of laughter. "Sorry bitty boy, looks to be the world is caving sideways. No story ends without a good climax and boyo, boyo, boyo, this chapter just got spicy."

"I can't ever understand you."

"No one read you storybooks when you were little? Tragic fate for one so young."

"If storybooks contain your nonsense, I'm better off without."

"All'a thought, All'a thought, we are already versed in narrative form...spin me a top and see where it lands, but I guarantee this toy is still spinning."

Something alien, thick, mucous, no...softer, gas? Liquid? Down his throat, through his skin, his body. Something shifting, (breaking?) BUILDING, alien, invader, choking, P-
Anic.

"Lo," a chuckle and the tremor of a dam, something scuttling in his nerves, "They're playing our song."

Agony. It spoke of agony.

"Wakey, wakey..." that voice again, fading, "Let's get you dancing."


Sunlight and a dock, blue eyes bright above his own but something dark and alien inside him. GODS but it hurt! It was everywhere at once, her thick Res permeating his nerves, teaching Djed to react in kind, flaring wildly against her own. Wrenmae bucked with such savage speed he hurled his rescuers away from him. His mouth was open, a perfect hole of darkness and the gurgled scream of pure adrenaline and pain.

Pause.

Wrenmae turned sideways, vomiting brackish water across the dock, spewing from his lungs until he was hoarse. His blood was mixed with it, his mind was mixed with it. What was it? Questions were like brands across his brain, oxygen roaring into his lungs and he scrambled against the dock, fingers gritting against the splintered wood and shredding nails atop them. The experience was nothing short of traumatic.

Murmurs became laughter, applause, a life had been spared Laviku's depths and Dira's hands...but what remained was the half-woken panic of an animal in agony. Wrenmae rolled across the ground, flailing his arms and pressing bloody fingers against his skin, trying to extract the substance that remained, that would not leave.

He was not thinking.

Blood flowed freely from the wound on the back of his head, a dizzying reminder of his limitations as human. Weakly throwing his arms back, the storyteller lay, as if dead, quiet on the dock again. The presence had faded from him, but it left something behind.

It left the imprint of understanding.

It left its stain.

He blinked, sunlight forcing his eyes closed again and throbbing pain resounded his his heartbeat,

beat
beat
beat

"Gods..." Wrenmae gasped, his voice a croaking whisper, "Gods...am I dead?"

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Oh, Laviku, what had she done? Mind reeling, Sable staggered back as though the flesh of his forehead had scorched her. She fell hard onto her butt, head snapping back, and dragged herself out of range of his convulsions. Trembling, Sable curled in on herself, rocking, rocking, rocking, watching his body process the torture she’d forced upon him. His fluids coated the weathered boards of the dock; they escaped with frozen viscosity between the planks to disappear into the unforgiving ocean. Laviku’s realm took the tainted expulsions, diluting and rendering them inert. But the man, his agony didn’t wash away so easily. What she’d done to him didn’t wash away. The sounds: retching, wood and fingernails snapping, groans like a hull splintering over rock. On her butt with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking, the sounds dulled and dimmed. She’d covered her ears, but couldn’t tear her eyes away as he ripped at his own flesh, leaving bloody tear drops as his essence mixed with the sheen of water that coated him. So much blood. And bile. And suffering. His question faded into the salty breeze. In the distance, people continued working, but not a single indication of their presence intruded on Wrenmae and Sable. The dock around the two teenagers was, for the first time in collective memory, deserted. Far away, where those sailors continued on oblivious to the tortured man writhing, the few witnesses converged and quickly set about in harsh, hushed whispers sharing what they’d seen. Devils, witches, Gods…Someone was teaching that boy a lesson. Cries finally registered. Rhythmic, scared, pitiful. They belonged to the girl with the blue eyes, accompanying each exhalation. It might have been ten ticks, maybe ten chimes before Sable’s vacant blue eyes dropped from the too-still figure before her, taking stock of the surrounding situation. No one was going to come explain the situation, take control, tell her to put the float between her chest and his neck. No one. Just her. To explain. Sluggishly, she jerked forward onto her knees. She felt naked and exposed without her legs protecting her chest. On hands and knees the lanky girl crawled forward, palms and shins and feet coated with blood and bile. It smelled putrid. “No,” she told him, her terrified face coming into view above his own again. The water slicking her hair back on her head made it look light brown. Her lips were white, a faint red ring glowing on her bottom lip from where she’d dug in her teeth. A smattering of his vomit sliced across her right cheek. “You…you’re not.” Regret and panic flashed across the girl’s features, nestling in the crease between her drawn brows, right before she disappeared from view. No, no, no…she couldn’t-she’d saved his life and that was all he could blame her for. That was all anyone could ask for. Staggering to her feet, clutching herself with trembling arms, the girl tottered off down the deck, the rope from the bladder still tangled around one ankle and tugging the float along after. Skkt skit with every step forward toward the Coral Drop. The Incident had taken place on one arm of dock and her casinor was berthed on the next one over. Padding unsteadily, his bile left little prints of her feet on the wood. One left turn. Relief at no longer having him at her back practically knocked her over. Around the second left turn the float got stuck on a plank and tugged the rope free from her ankle as she mounted her gangway and disappeared into the warm confines of her ship.

[Wrenmae]

Moments beget moments, these moments bred with others and soon there was nothing but seas of moments between his revival and his current position. His muscles ached, burned even, and pushing himself to his feet, he cast furtive glances around him. One sailor laughed, shouted "He's alive!" and it was met with a chorus of laughter and applause. Wrenmae, always the spectacle, felt oddly ashamed rather than emboldened in the attention. When he spoke, only cold fingers of water, deadened and dissolved, fell from his lips to the dock.

He choked.

His savior was gone now, fled most likely, the horror in her voice chimed in his mind like funeral bells. Why so horrified? What had she done to him? Looking down at his hands he found them pale, shaking, weak, but whole. Nothing else felt amiss, only that strange 'otherness' left behind. He had been invaded by something.

But what?

To his watering eyes she left a trail, footprints in his vomit. He tried to push the image from his mind, thanks with bile too poor a gift for his rescuer. Before he followed her he retrieved the book on Reimancy, still borrowing, and set off down the docks. Eyes followed him, mostly curious, some perhaps wondering what crime he'd committed to be tortured so.

Heavy gazes, heavy eyes, weighing between his shoulder blades.

He almost missed the water bladder outside the Coral Drop, caught on the ground it glared at him with a swiftly drying wet patch. Leaning down, he took it in his hands and felt the skin against his own. It smelled of the sea, no identifying marks besides it. The only ship on this side of the dock was the Coral Drop, and although it might have been seen as rude to simply intrude.

Well.

Recently dead men were slow to adopt the customs of the living to their revived repertoire.

He climbed up the side of the boat, loitering on the main deck, water bladder hanging loosely from his open hand.

"Err, Excuse me?" His voice was hoarse, even ragged. He coughed and swallowed, trying to command a less savage tone, "I...Um, I think you left your...whatever this is, and I...I just wanted to return it. Err..."

Poorly spoken, poorly spoken. Was he unable to speak?

"I want to thank you for rescuing me." It was a booming request, louder than he intended.

"And maybe answer a few questions..." A whispered followup.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Too many moments; the familiar process of preparing to embark on the casinor became tedious and difficult, time ticking by in so many wasted moments as the Svefra fumbled desperately with uncooperative lines. The filth of his innards coated and burned her skin with the acidic taint of her violation. Around the hull, Laviku’s domain surged with the lingering dilutions of it. Sullied. Filthy. Clean water, refreshing with only the sting of salt, beckoned. Out there, away from this place, she would find cleansing in Laviku’s breast. The unexpected voice, grating across fried nerves, intimidated her into stillness. Behind the mast, presence obscured by the mainsail, the odiferous girl held her breath. When it seemed that the interloper was only a helpful sailor coming to return something, for the Svefra had no recollection of the lost bladder, she inched out to receive him. Her tenuously composed inquisitive expression broke, however, as he offered appreciation at the same time her eyes found his face. Relief mutated into something dark and remorseful. Why couldn’t he leave it be? She’d saved his life; that should more than account for the violation of her warped experiment. The girl’s long form shrank in on itself, her terrified face dropping toward the deck for a moment as though it could somehow provide a way out of this encounter. He shouldn’t be here. The solace of Laviku’s purity sang in sweet beckoning. The wash swelled and emphasized his appreciation. He didn’t know. Perhaps he thought drowning was always that painful. Perhaps he did know but didn’t care. Some people always knew when she manipulated her djed that way. He was crazy if he thought that incident was acceptable. “Laviku wasn’t ready to accept you, yet,” she finally husked to brush him off, not having caught his final comment and the resolve it hinted at. Clearing her throat, visage still troubled and vaguely suspicious, she gestured noncommittally to his general area. “Thank you, just leave it anywhere.” With one last awkward hesitation, the girl snapped the line clutched in white knuckles and glanced up to make sure the sail was properly set. Without looking at him again, Sable hastily tied it off to a cleat and scurried to disengage the casinor from the dock. A few ticks more and she'd be clear of this place. Only when she almost brushed against the boy on her way to the helm did she stop to recognize that she should perhaps let him off the boat. "I've got to get away from the docks for a few bells." The Coral Drop drifted. "To clean up," she explained awkwardly. The idea of going through the trouble of getting him across the few feet of water now spanning between the ship and the dock pained her. "You can come." Oh, to feel her sins washed away and Laviku's forgiveness envelope her. It couldn't come soon enough.

[Wrenmae]

Saviors were always a strange bunch, reinforced now as the girl bounced from place to place, a hummingbird on hurricane breeze. Wrenmae tried to keep up, he did, following her movement with his eyes as his mouth tried to sound the words of thanks his heart wanted him to say. But 'thank you' seemed trite and all other forms of language fell away from him into the corners of understanding. Language would not help him here and he was beginning to slowly understand.

Holding the bladder in an outstretched hand, he laid it gently near the mast, holding his breath as she bustled past him. The Casinor was singularly the smallest boat besides a rowboat the storyteller had seen. The way she moved indicated a loneliness, a prepared sort that was self sufficient, even as it rang hollowly. No one to speak to during the preparation to make sail, no one to trade tales with or swap notes like passing breath between pursed lips.

He didn't answer her, not yet. Although most of her dialogue left no room for expansion. She almost seemed disgusted, regretful of her decision to wrest Wrenmae from those briny depths. It was an uncomfortable sensation, and one he didn't remark on immediately. Instead he sat back against the rail of the ship and stared down at the sea rippling just breaths beneath him. At once point in time it would have claimed him...but now it seemed harmless, uncaring.

Clearing his throat, he busied himself writing water from his clothes, setting the book away from the puddles of water and vowing to pick it up again some other time. The distance passed between the docks and although part of him wanted to leave her, eschew her dismissive...even disgusted manner for some reprieve of other interaction...but the rest of him rebelled, sending tremors to his legs and blinding his vision with sudden agony.

No, deft motions like jumping were still well beyond his ability, and he would loathe another cold embrace of the sea...perhaps this time there would be no other 'savior' and he would drift away unnoticed.

"My name is Wrenmae," he said at last, dangling an arm surreptitiously over the edge of the boat, fingers trailing water when the boat turned too far his direction, "But...I dunno, maybe you should get more of an answer for saving me." He shrugged, as though knowledge was some sort of consolation prize rather than a gift. "The name may father gave me was Egyptus, but I chose Wrenmae when I arrived in Alvadas...Wrenmae Sek, not terribly creative, is it?"

He sighed, leaning his head back along the lip of the boat and staring up at the sky. "You did something to me, didn't you? Was it magic?" The question was pointed, only observed quietly. The clouds passed above him as the boat rocked beneath him. Part of his nature quailed.

The rest of it reveled.

"So you're alone on the ship? Just you and the sea?" He looked up at her, lolling his head groggily, blood still seeping across his neck, "Sounds lonely, I think...maybe I can repay you with a story or something."

He was quiet a moment, pensive.

"I don't want to be rude, but what do you mean by cleaning? If you mean bathing...err, I can look away or something." He was at a loss, most of his well meaning and honeyed words abandoning him in a buzz clouding both mind and soul. Everything seemed upside down and turned around...especially the part where he should feel invigorated. Shouldn't having ones life saved elicit some sort of change?

All the stories he'd read seemed to indicate a change coming on a man who found their mortality brought into painful perspective. Instead all he felt was empty, like the sea had swallowed some toll from him as he drifted within it.

In the end, he was not awake for his rescue.

He'd missed it all.

And that made it feel incomplete.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Distance gained incrementally, the sounds and rush of the harbor seemed to vanish far too quickly, as though Laviku sought to sooth the clash between seafarers and landlubbers by allowing the sensory stimulation to fade away before it really should have. The docks weren’t that far away, nor were they left behind quickly, as the young woman continued her unusually clumsy attempts to sail. Clearly, this frustration at ineptitude added to the girl’s agitation. Several times her face threatened to crumple into tears, the Svefra wrapped up in her own world and quite oblivious to the discomfort of her guest. Even pulling the luff out of the sails eluded the young woman as she manipulated the main and jib sheets from the helm. Lingering traces of his violent expulsions had been brushed off onto most of the area surrounding her. The wind cut horizontally across the deck, a light fluttering breeze that allowed them to inch along even if it did no more than chill their heavy wet clothing. A large vessel passed some distance away, and the wake bounced the little Coral Drop effortlessly. But she hadn’t been raised to be rude or deceitful. His interruption was almost like a blessing, perfectly timed to cut off another looming wave of hysterically desperate tears. Slumped back, tearing her gaze from the stubbornly luffing jib, the skipper gave his introduction full attention. She looked at him like it was the first time she’d ever seen him. Her face was strangely still and open. Changing one’s name wasn’t unheard of among the Svefra, but it involved becoming part of a new family, embracing something, not losing something. To abandon such ties for no reason seemed strange. Was he running from something that his name tied him to? Their transport gimped along, following the coast with sails that snapped sharply when a gust hit. The water brightened from the opaque blackness of mysterious depth to the comforting blues and greens of shallows. Peace surged from the dancing waters and surrounded the little vessel as they entered a stretch of uninhabited coast. The trek here had been short, since the city wasn’t directly on the water. Letting Wrenmae continue uninterrupted, the sullied girl glided through halting the ship and setting the anchor. When she finally stood before him, offering that float he’d just returned, a small smile tugged faintly at the corner of her pink lips. Everything would be all right. “Wrenmae Egyptus Sek, will you come swim with me?” she invited, gesturing graciously to the beckoning waves. “You can save your story to soothe my sister when we return and find her waiting for us.” Without stripping, she slipped over the edge into the water, treading lazily. She gazed up at him, eyes darkening with intimacy. There was nothing he wanted to know from her that he wouldn’t. There was nothing she wouldn’t listen to if he chose to share it. She’d been millimeters from his beating heart, had felt the warm embrace of his life force as it circulated through every cell in his body. His uneasiness, his conflicted desire to know, stirring behind those dark eyes, she’d felt the tainted soul from which these tendrils sprang. But right now they smelled atrocious. After all, he’d been laying in what she’d simply crawled through. “Come on, you’ll be safe with me.”

[Wrenmae]

He watched her with a sort of languid curiosity, and she swam in the air as the boat rolled from wave to wave. The Casinor was small enough to 'feel' the tumult of the ocean, to turn with each incremental wave and fall back to each valley between. There was a sense of weightlessness here, like floating just barely over the sea, untouched by water and yet subject to it whim. Personally, Wrenmae wasn't sure how everyone could be so comfortable with sailing. The idea that the ground was not their own, that it would shift at a moments notice and hurl them into the sea itself...well, the thought frightened him.

He took the air bladder hesitantly, feeling the rough texture and the unyielding surface. Like a tiny boat, it would keep him afloat...but personally he wasn't completely sure about re-entering a place that had almost killed him.

"I..." He started, hesitance suffusing his words, but looking up at her, he stopped. Her smile, that confident refutement of danger. There was a quiet acceptance on those features, an entirely different mixture of emotions from the frenzied and disgusted silence of before. It was as though some unknown spirit had plucked her anxieties directly from her head and laid them to rest on the open water. "Sure." he finished, taking the bladder.

He followed her into the water, step by careful step, pausing for an eternal moment, legs dangling off the boat, skipping across the water, before plunging into the familiar depths again. Blood washed away from the cut on his forehead and the salt water stung suddenly, sobering.

He came up gasping, spitting water and clinging to the float bladder desperately. For a moment, Wrenmae panicked, he didn't see her among the waves and the idea of climbing back into the Casinor and sitting adrift absolutely terrified him.

But then.

Then.

She was there, bobbing in the water as sleek as some ocean born creature, serene. Wrenmae calmed, taking in deep breaths and kicking his feet unevenly beneath the water. He'd never swam before, barely tread water, and now it was like learning to walk again...just in a fluid rather than a solid. He pushed himself up over the bladder and kicked toward Sable, smiling more at his progress than at her.

She was pretty, especially among the cascading waters...pretty enough to fall in love with, as simple sayings went. Personally, Wrenmae wasn't sure he believed those stories...told with wide smiles and knowing jabs from those around a bar table. Sudden emotion, the swelling feeling of connection...well, those were temporary things. As a storyteller, he knew that inspiring emotions was part of his trade...but they never lasted much farther than the story.

She had saved his life, but that did not mean they were connected by fate.

If fate existed.

"So just you and your sister ride this ship?" He paddled in circles, kicking at the long shapes of fish beneath his feet, "Doesn't it get...ya know, lonely out here? I mean, not to say your sister is bad company...but if you sail anywhere but Alvadas, you must not see many other people out here."

He struggled to remain afloat for a moment, kicking his legs discordantly,

"And I want to know what you did to me on the dock...I mean, it felt strange...was it magic?"

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Laviku embraced his subjects with the perfect pressure. He supported but didn’t stifle, released but didn’t abandon. The perfect balance between earth and air. It might feel like he could swallow you up at a moment’s notice, and he could, but more often than not it took only a clear head to resurface. At first, the only difference between Sable’s neophyte motions and Wrenmae’s was a fundamental difference in perspective regarding the medium in which they paddled. However, his comfort level soon seemed to approach that of his serene companion. He hadn’t balked at getting back in the water so soon after being endangered by it and Sable checked off some previously unknown requirement regarding his character. A part of her had blamed his earlier predicament on his eye color, but now she wasn’t so sure. Blond locks compressed against her skull only to flare out like sunlight around her shoulders, swaying peacefully in the shifting brine. Drifting close enough for him to reach out and touch as he circled, affection stirred within the magnetic eyes that didn’t stray far from his pleased ones. “The Drop belongs to a cousin, we only hopped aboard for Alvadas for a change of heading. My sister and I normally live on a large ship with the rest of our family.” It felt like small talk, and Sable closed her eyes, laying back and staying afloat with only the laziest of kicks. The gentle sloshing of their bodies breaking the water became poignant, and the girl kept an ear on her companion to ensure they didn’t drift apart while she indulged a moment of complete relaxation. “We left the rest of our pod behind this time. There are a lot of Tempests, so it’s not so lonely, but we always make the most of running into another pod. Sometimes the party lasts for weeks, but that’s only if there are a lot of people.” She straightened again, lids fluttering to clear away rough, salty drops. Subtle fingers closed over his forearms where they hugged the float, the currents from her kicking legs pushing into his own as they floated together. Her hands exerted a strange pressure on his muscle, insistent but light. The ship gradually shrank in the distance, the duo carried closer to shore where the water brightened considerably. A single drop ran down the delicate line of her nose, hugged the tip, and quivered at the edge of her top lip. Quivered just a hand’s breadth from his own. A puff of air sent it flying over his head. She nodded once, lips pursed and eyes boring into his own. “Does that bother you, Wrenmae Egyptus Sek?”