1st Winter 498
Trente's frail shell shivered unctrollably. It wasn't freezing not yet, but he shivered. His stomach had been past hunger, past pain, for nearly a season. Still, with his deathly assistant, the curse that sustained him, he grew stronger. His head still throbbed, but the endless pit within his bully had dulled to a searing throbbing pain, ever present. His mind had calmed from the frenzy it had been entrapped within, and with this clarity had come aspiration. Though, no mean to find it. Present on his mind was shelter, not food. It would be the first night of cold, he had felt it in his bones, and finally it had arrived.
He quaked, and shivered.
Navigation of the flotilla was not easy without the ease of swimming. Earlier in the year he had taken the waterways, Laviku's crutch to allow him access to the boats of his pleasing, not he was forced to expend much more effort in his exploits, not to mention the risk involved.
He had been marked, scared, and cut away from what lineage he may have had to those people. Most would not attack him unprovoked, usually sparing only an angry glare. Some would spit on him in passing, but as long as he was not on their boat, their home, or stealing from them, Trente was usually left unnoticed. There was the occasional drunk, that would take to violence. And rarer the sympathetic look of a Svefra stranger.
He appeared young, sliding uncontrollably into puberty, a process he would halt if he could, for the demand it put on his body, on his appetite. Still, his experience stretched beyond that of a normal human on that cusp. Fourteen years he had spent, slowly and gracefully aging into the young man he was. There was no pride in that, once but not in the animal the past year had made him. He had no way of knowing it but in a fort night he would turn fifteen, the age of adulthood for most human societies. It was laughable, that this drawn rat of a boy, leaping from boat to boat in fear, stealing for food, would have been considered an adult. His stomach showed signs of severe malnutrition, his skin yellow with unhealth, his limbs thin with severe definition of the sparing muscle he had manage to maintain. Worse was his face, sunken and gaunt.
He wasn't dying, though. He had been, but what he was now, as atrocious as the idea, was nowhere near to Dira than a season before. He had done the unthinkable, had lost his soul and his Syliran dignity. Some time, in that life long long past, he had wanted to be a Knight. Brave, honorable, strong. It was laughable then, had it not been so horrible.
He clamped his teeth firmly together, careful not to bite his dry tongue, or even worse yelp out as gravity pulled evenly back on him, beckoning him toward the water below. With frantic arms he clumsily shifted his weight with an unprecise jerk, pelvis shifting out over the side, bare feet clung weakly to the boat's rim, as shaking hands grasped. He had prepared for the fall, ready for the inhale, to brace himself against the cold and heartless black water below. But, his fingers had found it, a net strung from the rim of the boat, up to a sail. No, a crows nest, would that do? Everything was a question of survival.
He pulled himself closer to the net, leaning into it, arms wrapped desperately around it, for fear a wave might rock him again. Balance was hard, even more so in the dark. He felt dizzy with darkness, as if some creature played havoc with his mind. As if the darkness itself were said creature. Starless, an even layer of clouds lay blanket over the Flotilla, and Leth lended little assistance, with just a sliver. Even the gods were an enemy the boy, Leth above, Laviku blow.
It seemed some days the most virtuous ally he had, the only ally, was his wretched curse of a possessor.
The muffled sound of drunk chatter bled upward through the planks of the boat he slung deftly to. It was early still, for them, but for Trent the coldness had already set in. There was no fire to warm him, and so he had to find shelter quickly, sleep through the night. He tried not to think of what he would do when mid winter arrived.
With great effort he steadied one foot on the rough wood, and hoisted the second awkwardly up into a step of the netting. Then, his arm unwrapped from the ropework and reached up, discovering a cross section of wood, giving shape to the strung net. He took a deep breath, and began the journey up. Not a difficult job for a grown healthy man, not even if Trente were no man. But in that condition, it caused a revolt in his body. He was disoriented, felt like emptying his empty stomach, and worst of all his muscles roars at him, demanded he cease the expenditure of energy. It caused his heart to pound, and dryness to reach his eyes in lack of tears. The whole experience burned.
Half way up he stopped, it was too much, and he wrapped his arms securely in once more. His throat was dry, but he had no water to sooth it. His stomach drily heaved, and it assaulted every muscle within his abdomen. Nothing came out, not even saliva. He felt pressure around his eyes, but paid no mind. He waited, almost impatiently, for his body to recover.
He was thankful for the shirt he had managed earlier that season. The assaults upon him were less so now with his mark concealed, though many still seemed to know, for reasons he could not place. More so, it protected from the cool breeze that threatened him. Still he worried, the wind blew, it seemed like a torrent to the weak child. Then it happened, a drop of rain, then another, and soon torrential downpour. Trente feared more so, he had to collect water to drink, but it would mean nothing if he didn't get out of the cold.
He let his head fall back, and opened his mouth. Drops teased his face, striking his eye, the outside corner of his lip, up his nostril. Even when the savored drops fell to his tongue they were meager, and nonsustaining. Still, it fulfilled him, as much as candy would a normal child. It was life...
The familiar coolness churned in his bones. His mouth snapped shut, and he clung closer to the netting. He felt her, she was coming, she wanted to spur him on, to give him the strength to move past the pain. She was clumsy though their dexterity had improved. The aching insanity that followed her churning inside of him had ceased to harm him. He still felt the fear, though. A dull aching insanity that sustained him, yet left him nothing.
"No." He said, under his breath, but at loudly as he could. "I can do it. I can do it." He insisted, and the churning moves indecisively within him a moment, before tentatively casing. Trente had no choice, he unwrapped his arm once more, and rose his foot, searching for another foothold. All when a sound came with sudden fury upward, a man, with a hooded lantern, covered in a water retardant hide, staggering drunkenly in defiance of the sudden rain.
The sheer panic of the sound caused Trente's foot, still on the wet rope, to slip. He made a noise, though he wasn't sure how loud, as gravity took him harshly over, ripping him down. One hand was left burning, feeling scraped, though it was not, as it slipped reluctantly from a handhold, but the other stuck firm, and after a moment he hung more firmly from the ropes.
Had he heard me? He wondered, then the light touched on him. A short fluid of Fravata followed shortly after, and words that Trente recognized. That was bad, for Trente had only had opportunity to learn the foulest and most foreboding curses of words in that language.
Trente scrambled. One foot, the second. The roped trembled and swung under him. Observation restricted by hung Trente stared down, trying to make sense of a world moving too fast for his undernourished mind to comprehend. Light, the man was shaking the ropes. Trente clung tight, and so the man got bigger. No. Closer. The ropes shook and trembled under his superior weight as he moved at what seemed to be lightening toward Trente.
There was something different about this man, a focus. Trente was trespassing, yes, but this man was so quick to lunge. He seemed familiar, from that blurred existence Trente could divine through his hunger and terror. He knew about Trente's mark, and perhaps more. Had Trente trespassed against him in a more profound way then stealing lodging for a night? Perhaps, but Trente only cared for one thing. The man was a threat.
Trente let his foot fall through the hole, directed toward the man climbing the opposite side. It was intended to connect with his face, maybe knock him down, but the world disagreed with Trente's perception. Instead, the man dexterously reached up, and grabbed clumsily, but firmly, a hold of the boy's leg. The sound of others came onto deck. Crowds were bad, crowds were very bad.
"Help!" He croaked, unable to scream. The coldness within him exploded, bloomed into overwhelming pain and suffering. The insanity was back. It would only buy him a moment, and only save him from one man. Trente had no idea how he would survive. There was no escape upward, or onto the ship. The next ship was far too much of a jump to hope for safely, and the fall would likely twist an ankle, or break a fragile bone.
An almost glowing lightness came from Trente's chest, exiting gave birth to a gruesome sight. Kinky dark hair, skin, and what appeared to be copious amount of blood spurted from her neck this time as she shot from him. The man's hand coiled before she even reached him. Now was Trente's chance.
He prayed to Laviku, and pushed back, letting the man, the Ghost, and the secure ropes fall away from him, upward. The chock of cold hit him hard, and threatened to dissipated the gallant breath he had managed before hitting the water. He fought it though. Darkness was everywhere, and he struggled for a moment to detect gravity, that force that moments before had so much sway over him. He let the water settle around him, then let loose a single bubble. It ran, tickling and tumbling down his chest, and up his pants before Trente lost it.
Tucking his thin frame inward, Trente pivoted, and roated the opposite way in the water, and started up. His eyes spread wide in the burning salty water, tears unprotected against the assault. He was looking for light, prove he was heading the right way. And it was clear enough, the sparing lamplight seemed some bright beacon in comparison to the void which embraced him, Fravata swearing and patting of rain removed.
He did not surface, not yet, he held his breath, deep in his lunges, cycling it up to his mouth, and back down with the burning began. The looked to the light above him, the cut off, and groped outward. His fingers scraped against the hard side of the Svefra ship he had been on. Trente tucked his feet up once more, and kicked hard against the ship, propelling himself away. It was clumsy, but he did what he could to flatten his body, then awkwardly aided the glide through the abyss of darkness with kicks from his legs and wild swings of his tired arms.
Slowly he let himself drift up for air. Then, thud. Another ship. Panic hit him, hard. His momentum had been obliterated, and he groped through the resistant darkness upward, trying to find the slope of the boat's bottom. He couldn't at first, unsure which way was up. And reluctantly he let another bit of quickly staling air out of his mouth. Than lost it. He tried again, this time holding his armed out in front of him. The darkness was absolute, and another try was given before he gave up in frustration, his precious air and time slipping around. He could hear the heartbeat in his eats, and the pressure in his longest as he picked a direction, along the ships bottom, and swam.
Oh please, Laviku. God, please.
His lungs responded before his mind knew he has broken surface. He panicked at first, had he breathed water? Was he drowning? No, gasping, the sudden sound of pounding rain, and muffled sounds of Fravata swears from the far side of the ship he now groped at the side of, trying to find a hand hold. Finally, after blind and weak wading he found something, a ring, bolted into the boat's side. He clung deathly to it, his small tender fingers wedging painfully into it.
That's when he felt it, the overwhelming feeling of change. The time struck midnight, winter had officially arrived, and something changed. It stilled Trente, startling him, this wave of intuition. Stupidly he blinked, still treading water, and gasping for air. But calmly, he looked around.
And above Trente, on the next boat over, he stood. A porcelain, no stronger, marble statue, poised but breathing above. Elegance incarnate, and Trente knew not what to think. How pure he seemed there, yet oddly tragic, and this Trente felt a connection to. The man looked directly at him, and Trente met eyes.
The boy's eyes flexed, fluctuated and shook with a myriad of blue tones, but the intensity was constant. Bright, almost gleaming from the water, he shown of Laviku's grace, quite clearly, in his brilliant yet peculiar eyes. He did not have to ask for help, it was obvious in his state, in his expression, that he was weak, and had nothing.
Perhaps it wasn't Laviku who answered his prayer, it was Leth.
Trente's frail shell shivered unctrollably. It wasn't freezing not yet, but he shivered. His stomach had been past hunger, past pain, for nearly a season. Still, with his deathly assistant, the curse that sustained him, he grew stronger. His head still throbbed, but the endless pit within his bully had dulled to a searing throbbing pain, ever present. His mind had calmed from the frenzy it had been entrapped within, and with this clarity had come aspiration. Though, no mean to find it. Present on his mind was shelter, not food. It would be the first night of cold, he had felt it in his bones, and finally it had arrived.
He quaked, and shivered.
Navigation of the flotilla was not easy without the ease of swimming. Earlier in the year he had taken the waterways, Laviku's crutch to allow him access to the boats of his pleasing, not he was forced to expend much more effort in his exploits, not to mention the risk involved.
He had been marked, scared, and cut away from what lineage he may have had to those people. Most would not attack him unprovoked, usually sparing only an angry glare. Some would spit on him in passing, but as long as he was not on their boat, their home, or stealing from them, Trente was usually left unnoticed. There was the occasional drunk, that would take to violence. And rarer the sympathetic look of a Svefra stranger.
He appeared young, sliding uncontrollably into puberty, a process he would halt if he could, for the demand it put on his body, on his appetite. Still, his experience stretched beyond that of a normal human on that cusp. Fourteen years he had spent, slowly and gracefully aging into the young man he was. There was no pride in that, once but not in the animal the past year had made him. He had no way of knowing it but in a fort night he would turn fifteen, the age of adulthood for most human societies. It was laughable, that this drawn rat of a boy, leaping from boat to boat in fear, stealing for food, would have been considered an adult. His stomach showed signs of severe malnutrition, his skin yellow with unhealth, his limbs thin with severe definition of the sparing muscle he had manage to maintain. Worse was his face, sunken and gaunt.
He wasn't dying, though. He had been, but what he was now, as atrocious as the idea, was nowhere near to Dira than a season before. He had done the unthinkable, had lost his soul and his Syliran dignity. Some time, in that life long long past, he had wanted to be a Knight. Brave, honorable, strong. It was laughable then, had it not been so horrible.
He clamped his teeth firmly together, careful not to bite his dry tongue, or even worse yelp out as gravity pulled evenly back on him, beckoning him toward the water below. With frantic arms he clumsily shifted his weight with an unprecise jerk, pelvis shifting out over the side, bare feet clung weakly to the boat's rim, as shaking hands grasped. He had prepared for the fall, ready for the inhale, to brace himself against the cold and heartless black water below. But, his fingers had found it, a net strung from the rim of the boat, up to a sail. No, a crows nest, would that do? Everything was a question of survival.
He pulled himself closer to the net, leaning into it, arms wrapped desperately around it, for fear a wave might rock him again. Balance was hard, even more so in the dark. He felt dizzy with darkness, as if some creature played havoc with his mind. As if the darkness itself were said creature. Starless, an even layer of clouds lay blanket over the Flotilla, and Leth lended little assistance, with just a sliver. Even the gods were an enemy the boy, Leth above, Laviku blow.
It seemed some days the most virtuous ally he had, the only ally, was his wretched curse of a possessor.
The muffled sound of drunk chatter bled upward through the planks of the boat he slung deftly to. It was early still, for them, but for Trent the coldness had already set in. There was no fire to warm him, and so he had to find shelter quickly, sleep through the night. He tried not to think of what he would do when mid winter arrived.
With great effort he steadied one foot on the rough wood, and hoisted the second awkwardly up into a step of the netting. Then, his arm unwrapped from the ropework and reached up, discovering a cross section of wood, giving shape to the strung net. He took a deep breath, and began the journey up. Not a difficult job for a grown healthy man, not even if Trente were no man. But in that condition, it caused a revolt in his body. He was disoriented, felt like emptying his empty stomach, and worst of all his muscles roars at him, demanded he cease the expenditure of energy. It caused his heart to pound, and dryness to reach his eyes in lack of tears. The whole experience burned.
Half way up he stopped, it was too much, and he wrapped his arms securely in once more. His throat was dry, but he had no water to sooth it. His stomach drily heaved, and it assaulted every muscle within his abdomen. Nothing came out, not even saliva. He felt pressure around his eyes, but paid no mind. He waited, almost impatiently, for his body to recover.
He was thankful for the shirt he had managed earlier that season. The assaults upon him were less so now with his mark concealed, though many still seemed to know, for reasons he could not place. More so, it protected from the cool breeze that threatened him. Still he worried, the wind blew, it seemed like a torrent to the weak child. Then it happened, a drop of rain, then another, and soon torrential downpour. Trente feared more so, he had to collect water to drink, but it would mean nothing if he didn't get out of the cold.
He let his head fall back, and opened his mouth. Drops teased his face, striking his eye, the outside corner of his lip, up his nostril. Even when the savored drops fell to his tongue they were meager, and nonsustaining. Still, it fulfilled him, as much as candy would a normal child. It was life...
The familiar coolness churned in his bones. His mouth snapped shut, and he clung closer to the netting. He felt her, she was coming, she wanted to spur him on, to give him the strength to move past the pain. She was clumsy though their dexterity had improved. The aching insanity that followed her churning inside of him had ceased to harm him. He still felt the fear, though. A dull aching insanity that sustained him, yet left him nothing.
"No." He said, under his breath, but at loudly as he could. "I can do it. I can do it." He insisted, and the churning moves indecisively within him a moment, before tentatively casing. Trente had no choice, he unwrapped his arm once more, and rose his foot, searching for another foothold. All when a sound came with sudden fury upward, a man, with a hooded lantern, covered in a water retardant hide, staggering drunkenly in defiance of the sudden rain.
The sheer panic of the sound caused Trente's foot, still on the wet rope, to slip. He made a noise, though he wasn't sure how loud, as gravity took him harshly over, ripping him down. One hand was left burning, feeling scraped, though it was not, as it slipped reluctantly from a handhold, but the other stuck firm, and after a moment he hung more firmly from the ropes.
Had he heard me? He wondered, then the light touched on him. A short fluid of Fravata followed shortly after, and words that Trente recognized. That was bad, for Trente had only had opportunity to learn the foulest and most foreboding curses of words in that language.
Trente scrambled. One foot, the second. The roped trembled and swung under him. Observation restricted by hung Trente stared down, trying to make sense of a world moving too fast for his undernourished mind to comprehend. Light, the man was shaking the ropes. Trente clung tight, and so the man got bigger. No. Closer. The ropes shook and trembled under his superior weight as he moved at what seemed to be lightening toward Trente.
There was something different about this man, a focus. Trente was trespassing, yes, but this man was so quick to lunge. He seemed familiar, from that blurred existence Trente could divine through his hunger and terror. He knew about Trente's mark, and perhaps more. Had Trente trespassed against him in a more profound way then stealing lodging for a night? Perhaps, but Trente only cared for one thing. The man was a threat.
Trente let his foot fall through the hole, directed toward the man climbing the opposite side. It was intended to connect with his face, maybe knock him down, but the world disagreed with Trente's perception. Instead, the man dexterously reached up, and grabbed clumsily, but firmly, a hold of the boy's leg. The sound of others came onto deck. Crowds were bad, crowds were very bad.
"Help!" He croaked, unable to scream. The coldness within him exploded, bloomed into overwhelming pain and suffering. The insanity was back. It would only buy him a moment, and only save him from one man. Trente had no idea how he would survive. There was no escape upward, or onto the ship. The next ship was far too much of a jump to hope for safely, and the fall would likely twist an ankle, or break a fragile bone.
An almost glowing lightness came from Trente's chest, exiting gave birth to a gruesome sight. Kinky dark hair, skin, and what appeared to be copious amount of blood spurted from her neck this time as she shot from him. The man's hand coiled before she even reached him. Now was Trente's chance.
He prayed to Laviku, and pushed back, letting the man, the Ghost, and the secure ropes fall away from him, upward. The chock of cold hit him hard, and threatened to dissipated the gallant breath he had managed before hitting the water. He fought it though. Darkness was everywhere, and he struggled for a moment to detect gravity, that force that moments before had so much sway over him. He let the water settle around him, then let loose a single bubble. It ran, tickling and tumbling down his chest, and up his pants before Trente lost it.
Tucking his thin frame inward, Trente pivoted, and roated the opposite way in the water, and started up. His eyes spread wide in the burning salty water, tears unprotected against the assault. He was looking for light, prove he was heading the right way. And it was clear enough, the sparing lamplight seemed some bright beacon in comparison to the void which embraced him, Fravata swearing and patting of rain removed.
He did not surface, not yet, he held his breath, deep in his lunges, cycling it up to his mouth, and back down with the burning began. The looked to the light above him, the cut off, and groped outward. His fingers scraped against the hard side of the Svefra ship he had been on. Trente tucked his feet up once more, and kicked hard against the ship, propelling himself away. It was clumsy, but he did what he could to flatten his body, then awkwardly aided the glide through the abyss of darkness with kicks from his legs and wild swings of his tired arms.
Slowly he let himself drift up for air. Then, thud. Another ship. Panic hit him, hard. His momentum had been obliterated, and he groped through the resistant darkness upward, trying to find the slope of the boat's bottom. He couldn't at first, unsure which way was up. And reluctantly he let another bit of quickly staling air out of his mouth. Than lost it. He tried again, this time holding his armed out in front of him. The darkness was absolute, and another try was given before he gave up in frustration, his precious air and time slipping around. He could hear the heartbeat in his eats, and the pressure in his longest as he picked a direction, along the ships bottom, and swam.
Oh please, Laviku. God, please.
His lungs responded before his mind knew he has broken surface. He panicked at first, had he breathed water? Was he drowning? No, gasping, the sudden sound of pounding rain, and muffled sounds of Fravata swears from the far side of the ship he now groped at the side of, trying to find a hand hold. Finally, after blind and weak wading he found something, a ring, bolted into the boat's side. He clung deathly to it, his small tender fingers wedging painfully into it.
That's when he felt it, the overwhelming feeling of change. The time struck midnight, winter had officially arrived, and something changed. It stilled Trente, startling him, this wave of intuition. Stupidly he blinked, still treading water, and gasping for air. But calmly, he looked around.
And above Trente, on the next boat over, he stood. A porcelain, no stronger, marble statue, poised but breathing above. Elegance incarnate, and Trente knew not what to think. How pure he seemed there, yet oddly tragic, and this Trente felt a connection to. The man looked directly at him, and Trente met eyes.
The boy's eyes flexed, fluctuated and shook with a myriad of blue tones, but the intensity was constant. Bright, almost gleaming from the water, he shown of Laviku's grace, quite clearly, in his brilliant yet peculiar eyes. He did not have to ask for help, it was obvious in his state, in his expression, that he was weak, and had nothing.
Perhaps it wasn't Laviku who answered his prayer, it was Leth.
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