92nd of Winter, 520 A.V.Occurs HereThe beach sands spread out beneath his feet. The chilled taste of half-frozen salt sprayed off from the cold Suvan. Winter was easing, but its harsh nature was ever-present even into the last days of its dominion over the Sea of Grass. The Azurite Watchtower would flare green from blue soon enough; from what Bandin had heard it'd slowly get a lot warmer and rain would replace the snow he'd come to be used to this past season.
But not yet. His toes were cold within his black, leather boots; the numbed digits flexed stiffly against the tight cow skin.
He already felt the draw of change within his nippy bones. That change, in particular, had been only a week or two in the making. Deeply pondered impulsivity was his brand, along with a healthy does of wanderlust.
Leth illuminated the ocean beautifully, he noted; something about the blues made black, rippling like liquid midnight. The young smith loved the moon, even above his brighter lover.
His next trip would ferry him across the great continental gulf that separated Cyhrus from Falyndar. He'd never sailed upon the Suvan. It would likely prove to be interesting, at the least.
He couldn't shake the feeling that things were changing for him. He was leaving another woman in Riverfall--though that was a mess and a half. He'd never promised her forever. He'd leave, but he'd never lie; and, as always, a part of him would stay behind in the memories to haunt the place he'd left behind--at least in his own mind.
He'd seen her for the last time today. Told her that too. Morning goodbyes never held the weight they deserved.
Syka awaited. Jungle and heat. The polar opposite of Riverfall in winter, so he'd assume. Bouncing between such extremes of living was, also, his way.
He'd learn something here. Experience another thing there. Love someone, friend or other, and then leave. He was happy with that. He'd seen so much, enough to let him know there was so much more to see, and that excited him. More than he could explain, that was
his excitement and his joy.
It wasn't getting old. That was the worst part: he didn't think it ever would.
He was, however, beginning to crave ownership over something of his own. Luxury one day, even, perhaps. If he could just find a way to sate his curiosity while also setting down roots.
It was a conundrum, an arithmetic he just couldn't calculate a proof for. Maybe he'd have to settle for
almost having solved it--someday. Who knew when.
What the future held, though, perhaps only the gods knew. Bandin looked to the sky.
He'd feared the night once. Sunberth was hardly safe during the day. Darkness did its inhabitants no favors, at least the honest ones. Now, in this new place, down by the docks of the cliff city he'd come to admire, Bandin basked in the chilly moonlight, completely unafraid of anything but a runny nose catching up to him in the morning.
In his hand he held a small trinket. Small, but gorgeously carved and looking quite expensive indeed. The thing was polished to glistening where its wooden skin was smooth, but rough and dangerously lifelike where its raised scales of wood appeared thick and impenetrable--incredibly realistic indeed. The depicted creature was apparently a Kalvikasi of legend, one of the sea god's sired demi-divinities; this one was somewhere between a whale and a great horned narwhal in its looks, though it had the long twisting neck of a sea snake and the teeth of a great shark--entirely otherworldly, really. Bandin had been swayed by a fanciful impulse to purchase the fine decoration, even despite the stretch of a price.
He'd heard the stories. Laviku was the lord of the seas. He demanded tribute. And, while Bandin had never been the praying type, he, for some reason, found himself grasping for sentimental musings this night. Even if the whole ordeal made him feel slightly uncomfortable altogether.
The young man approached the tide and waded forward into the icy water. He only went until shin-deepness, however. He couldn't stay in long; he was already feeling the jitters. He didn't want to risk sinking off a sand-bar.
The stars glinted off the surface of the slightly shifting waves. There was a certain comfort in the uncomfortable chill and the feeling of the tides washing around him.
"I'm not really asking you to protect this journey," Bandin admitted. "I imagine the crew have that covered. I am asking for this journey to take me somewhere I was supposed to go."
He paused. "No fateful shipwrecks, though, please."
The smith sat the Kalvikasi sculpture into the water ahead of him and watched as the tide began to pull it away.
