Flashback The Ocean's Tithe

[Banu Seafoam]

Banu

27th of Spring, 505 AV

The ship's deck was slippery like most things were after rain. Banu had discovered, more or less, that the only thing that was certain to never make her slip and fall was the ocean. You can't slip while you're swimming, right? She didn't think so.

The five-year-old child peeked her head up from below deck, eyeing the shiny wooden floor of her father's boat suspiciously. Past experiences flashed through her head. She'd crawl up there on all fours, pull herself onto her feet, take one step...and then boom. The sky would be somersaulting above her and then the hard ground would grab her. Skinned knees and skinned palms were no fun.

Should she risk it? A small, annoying voice in her head was screaming no, but the prize. The prize was so close. Her father's special stash of dried seaweed, one she was to never, ever touch, was just sitting there. Alone. With no one to keep it company.

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Lia Aarna had called her father over onto her ship, and for once, Banu was left completely alone. Normally, she would be upset by this development. Adult matters were so interesting, mainly because she was never allowed to get involved. But today, he had thrown the basket of seaweed aside like it was nothing to heed the Lia's call. Banu had watched it roll across the deck with awe and envy. The sacred snack of her father, abandoned like it was nothing.

"Stay here, Banu," he'd said breathlessly. "Don't move."

Banu was a good girl. She'd stay. But asking her not to move was asking too much. It was completely unfair, she thought.

And looking at the seaweed now, spilling out of the basket in all of its salty green glory, Banu knew her father wouldn't mind if she walked across the deck. And he wouldn't notice if one piece of seaweed went missing, right? It was just one after all.

So it was decided. She'd make the treacherous journey across the slick wooden boards to the perfect, most delicious food. After a brief struggle on the stairs, she landed on the deck, hands first, knees second. Crawling forward, she snuck a quick glance over the side of the boat, where the Lia's ship was anchored just a little ways away.

Her father and her uncle were both scurrying all over the deck like they had a crab attached to their finger and couldn't shake it off. She raised her eyebrows sympathetically. In all her five years of observing them, she had concluded, with sufficient evidence, that adults were weird. They did weird things and they looked at each other weird and they talked about the weirdest things.

"Grab water," her father's echoey voice drifted over the rolling green ocean.

"Saltwater?" Her uncle asked. "Or rain water?"

Her father paused. "Uh..."

"Which one? Which one?!"

"How am I supposed to know, I'm not a midwife, Dhilan!"

Her uncle frantically grabbed a bucket of rain water. "I'm not one either, Khalid. I'm going with rain water."

Rainwater or salt water? Banu tilted her head. Did it really matter? You could drink both, right? And who was so thirsty that both her father and her uncle were called over to the Lia's ship just to get water? Banu always got her own water, and she was five.

Adults. Weird.

It was better to just ignore them and focus on the important things, like her journey. She brought herself up to her feet and took one shaking step, watching her toes as they connected with the wet, slimy wood. Closing her eyes, she waited for the ground to fall from under her.

Nothing happened.

She took the next step with more confidence. Again, nothing. She was on a roll.

The seaweed sat in its basket, mocking her, but not for long. She closed the distance between them with newfound ease. Perhaps the boat was not so slippery when wet, she concluded. Or maybe Banu was just special.

The girl plopped down on her bottom next to the seaweed, her face glowing with pride. She reached for a piece and then hesitated, glancing once again at the Lia's ship to see if her father was looking.

The other boat's deck was deserted. Banu was free to eat in peace.

Should I? She asked herself.

You came this far.

That's right, she had, and hard work deserved reward. She reached down with no more reservation and snatched one of the emerald strips.

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[Banu Seafoam]

Banu

27th of Spring, 505 AV

After twenty strips of seaweed, Banu started to feel bloated. She licked her salt blistered lips and stared at the basket wondering where she went wrong. How did one tiny piece of seaweed turn into twenty so quickly?

This bad, this is really bad, this is really, really bad.

When her father got back on the boat, Banu was going to be fish food. To think that she, at such a young age, would be faced with her inevitable demise? It was awful! The girl shut her eyes tight, only to met with the vision of her dangling from her father's fishhook, ready to be fed to the sharks.

He's gonna kill me.

Banu was too young to die! She had to come up with a convincing story. It wasn't really lying if you did it to save your own life, right? Quickly, she went through her library of vast life experiences to find the perfect cover up. That's when she remembered something her cousin, Mati, had taught her.

Rule one of trying to appear innocent: Distance yourself as far away from the crime scene as possible.

Silently, she thanked Laviku for Mati's boundless wisdom.

Maybe, just maybe, if she pretended to be asleep in the cabin, her father would think a stray gull had stolen his seaweed. It had to work! He did just leave it there, after all, in view of the whole wide world!

She wiped her mouth with her bare arm to try and erase any lingering evidence before starting to crawl back to the cabin. The movement made her stomach lurch and suddenly, she felt like if she didn't lay down now, she'd be decorating the floors of her father's ship with half-digested seaweed. That would be enough to condemn her, considering she'd never seen any seagull's vomit before.

She groaned and flopped down, laying with her face pressed against the boards of the deck.

"I'm never eating seaweed again," she vowed. It was an oath that she subconsciously knew she would break - who could refrain from seaweed forever, after all? But in the moment it seemed like a perfectly feasible promise to make.

After a few self-disciplinary head butts against the deck, Banu began to worm her way across the expanse of the ship, but the pace was unbearably slow.

I need to stand up, she decided. It took much more effort than Banu expected, with her stomach jumping and churning and making loud noises of complaint. The girl leaned against the railing and tried to think about something else, anything else.

And that's when the first scream ripped across the water.

Banu was so startled, she jumped. The movement resulted in a total loss of balance, her sickness combined with the slippery wet floor creating a deadly combination. She went head over heels onto the ground and her head bounced off the deck like it was a seal-skin ball.

Just as she was recovering, pulling her injured form off the ground, a second scream met her ears.

Laviku, it's loud.

She rubbed her head and blinked.

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[Banu Seafoam]

Banu

27th of Spring, 505 AV

Banu sat with crisscrossed legs, rubbing her temple and watching the Lia's ship as it rocked up and down, up and down, on the rolling blue sea water.

Every muscle in her body was stiff, every little noise making her crane her head to identify the source.

What was th-that screaming? Had it come from the Lia's ship? Was Papa okay?

It had stopped almost as it had started, and its blood-curdling properties had washed all thoughts of seaweed and impending death out of her mind - temporarily.

She glanced at the water, where the podkin seemed restless, not jumping or making their high pitched squeals, but silent, as if in dreadful anticipation. They knew something was wrong. Banu clutched her stomach and ground her teeth. Their feelings were rippling over her like a suffocating fog.


Is this my fault? The thought was brief, but it flashed through her mind with a waterfall of chills that trickled down her back. She unwound her legs and kicked at the overturned basket of seaweed. Because I ate the seaweed, did I hurt someone? A fat tear drop rolled off her cheek. Maybe her father had told Banu not to touch the seaweed for a reason. Maybe it was...cursed.

Her stomach dropped.

"No, no, no, no!" She banged her heels against the deck and erupted into sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she screamed. "I didn't mean to! I really didn't!"

"Banu?" Her father's head popped up from below the deck of the Lia's ship. "What's wrong?"

Banu looked at him, her big blue eyes drowning in tears. "I'm sorry," the words came out between gulps of breath. "I didn't know eating the seaweed would do that, I promise. I promise!"

His expression turned dark and Banu curled into a ball.

"You ate the seaweed?" He asked.

The little girl bobbed her head and leaned down to wipe her nose on her pants leg.

"And this is what you're carrying on about?"

Banu's eyes shot wide open. "I didn't mean to kill anyone. I didn't!"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Banu, how many times have I told you. Seaweed makes you sick. Just you. No one else. You didn't kill anyone." He glared at her ashen face and then lowered his voice, speaking to himself. "Except maybe me, for the next couple days, while you get it out of your system."

She opened her mouth to respond when another scream came hurling out of the Lia's cabin.

"Damnit," her father hissed. He pointed a bony finger at her. "Stay right there, don't go below deck, you hear? If you start to feel sick--" he pointed at the ocean. "Got it? Not on the deck of my boat." Then he whirled around and disappeared, an echoey fragment of his voice drifting to Banu. "Did the rag fall out again?"

She sat still, straining to hear more when a burning sensation flooded Banu's throat. She clamored over to the railing just in time. The dolphins looked up at her as if they were offended by her emptying the contents of her stomach into their ocean.

"Sorry," she murmured.

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