[Flashback] Wayward [Open]

by **Fala'mar** on May 4th, 2011, 5:12 pm

Spring 505, Day 4

Today was the day she was going to the surface. Momentous occasions often sprung from the most mundane of motivations. This particular day was remarkably unceremonious. Fala’mar fled the coralline walls of Charbosi to escape the stifling sense of boredom, angst, and other problematic feelings that occurred to those poor individuals stuck idling at the threshold of adolescence. Fala was an iron-willed Charoda girl. She had a fanciful mind and was a master at tricking herself into bravery, determination, and almost anything else her mind could think of.

For a long time the Charoda had lived in fear of the surface and the dangers and unknowns it held. The deep-seated anxiety for the land and its inhabitants seeped its way into stories, warnings, and frequent telling looks passed onto youngsters by parents and elders. Fala’s own parents harbored a crippling fear for the surface after her brother went there and never returned. It was unclear whether he had been killed or simply left and never returned. It was much more likely the former. Those fears were a greater boundary than any physical obstruction that prevented the water-dwelling people from being drawn to the surface. Had they settled in a different part of Mizahar—perhaps the Konti-protected shores of Mura or even along the trade routes of Zeltiva, maybe they could have been scholars, healers, traders, even artisans among the land walkers. But the only thing surrounding the depths of their reclusive city was the wild jungle of Falyndar.

Of course, Fala’mar had not seen these wilds for herself. Beware of the jungle. The warning was clear and crisp. All she had were images of meat-eating savages with spears, bone jewelry, and dark painted skin and tales of serpentine beings—like sentient eels the Elders had warned—that could devour a Charoda whole. However, as Fala drifted along the outskirts of Charbosi, propelling herself aimlessly through the water, she had emptied her mind of these ominous warnings.

She was thinking of dawn.

In the darkened depths of the ocean the time of day was less apparent; the only token of personal knowledge Fala had of the surface was those first few waves of light that would filter and ripple down through the water until they reached her—one of the few natural indications she had that a new day had started. In Charbosi the sun was not the same as it was for land dwellers. It was sensed in the subtle lightening of the ocean floor, the barely perceptible shift in temperature, the fleeting reflective strands of light that darted off the backs of silvery fish. It was a fractured mysterious source of light and warmth. One that Fala was determined to see for herself.

Powerful legs and webbed feet suddenly shot out from underneath her as the Charoda pushed herself upward. Fala was a deft swimmer, her narrow body svelte and streamlined, built for speedy underwater travel. She moved through the salty water with acrobatic ease, climbing farther and farther upwards. As minutes passed, she could see the rippling spots of light dappling the surface become larger and brighter.

The Charoda was filled with an exhilarating mixture of nervousness and excitement the moment before she broke the surface. The sunlight was almost becoming unbearably bright for her filmy translucent eyes that had only been accustomed to murky depths. She could feel the waves becoming more powerful, her swimming becoming unsteadied as the powerful rocking tides began enveloping her small body. With one last determined kick, arms reaching toward the sky, Fala broke the ocean’s surface.

And breathed.

Pure air, unfiltered through gills, filled her lungs. The taste of it was divine. Salty and fresh. It stung.

Fala was immediately overwhelmed by the dizzying sensation created by the blinding brightness of the sun’s harsh rays and the deafening roar of the ocean. The Charoda sputtered and tried to cover her eyes from the burning rays of light. The sun was fresh and raw, the heat like a searing stream bursting against her skin. Her eyes had little time to adjust to the sudden unfiltered light. All she could see were splotches of bright colors before her eyes finally became somewhat accustomed to the new area.

To an onlooker from a distance, Fala, with her wild gray tentacle tresses beaded with shells, fragments of smooth metal and glass, and coral, may have looked simply like a lonesome bed of seaweed or debris, haphazardly caught in the looming waves and wayward sea foam.

It was disorienting for Fala to try and take everything in at once: the blue expanse of the sky, the fiery orb of the sun, everything a little brighter and crisper than it would have been underwater. Bobbing along to the rhythm of the tides, Fala tilted her head and finally her gaze rested upon the line of green land only a few minutes swim away.

The Jungle.

Immediately and impulsively, like instinct that was born and bred deep within her, Fala felt a sickening feeling washing over her. All those years of conditioning to fear the jungle had finally kicked in. The stories, the nightmares, the moments of silence that said more than words, all those nights her family spent mourning the loss of her brother… she felt that now. The green shore seemed benign enough—it could even be considered beautiful—but being so suddenly close to the land and its unseen inhabitants made the Charoda feel like stone had settled along the walls of her stomach.

The sudden screech of something above her that could have been a bird snapped her out of her trance-like fixation on the jungle outskirts. Sickened and anxiety-ridden, the Charoda quickly disappeared beneath the waves, swimming back toward her underwater haven, the matted bed of seaweed or sea glass or whatever else she could have been mistaken for disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

OOC :

by **Fala'mar** on May 6th, 2011, 4:34 am

Spring 505, Day 11

Over the course of the next week, Fala’mar returned to the surface. In a society of scavengers, it was easy to slip away under the guise of work. She usually went there after dinner right before the sun dipped below the horizon. She found it to be less daunting to go to the surface during the late afternoon when the rusty marooned shades of sunlight were less startling. Each time she returned, it became easier: the sun less blinding and harsh and the air less raw. She had discovered clouds. She would spend hours adrift atop the waves, paddling in meandering circles, arms stretched outward like a marine snow angel as she watched the clouds slide across the sky as if pulled by the horizon. She was fascinated by how the buoyant clouds would hang low, building atop one another, their underbellies illuminated a rosy pink by the setting sun.

When she was not focused on the sky, the wondrous basin of light that it was, she looked to the land. For the most part she stayed far enough away to avoid any detection from land dwellers and allowed enough space for a speedy submersion if she was detected. The foliage bordering the shore was lush and dense. She could not see what lay inside. Later in the week, she became braver—or more foolish, depending on the outcome. She glided closer and closer to the sandy shores, allowing herself to get close enough that her filmy webbed feet could touch the gritty shoals.

She began exploring the shallows of the jungle’s shores, traversing the rocky inlets, the pools of warm water filled with verdant life, and even the sand-strewn beaches for a short period of time. A scavenger and a hoarder at heart, Fala enjoyed collecting the dried up broken pieces of white coral that washed up on the beach, the smooth colorful glass, the broken shells, and the starchy dead seaweed. She had taken to braiding the pieces of seaweed into tough lengths of rope and fastening the coral onto them as pendants. She brought along a temporary satchel made from a large pieces of stitched kelp to hide and carry her hoarded treasures.

On the 11th day of Spring, Fala found a deep tidal pool indenting the shoreline’s rocky perimeter. The dark rocks were tall enough to keep the splashing water trapped in a clear pool and offered some semblance of protection from the inner jungles. Fala sat on one of the black rocks, dipping her feet in the warm tidal waters and singing softly to herself in Char as she braided that day’s ragtag collection of coral and shells together with long strands of seaweed.

Little did the young Charoda know of the dangers of the surface, the deceit and cruelty of its inhabitants, or the violence and loneliness she would eventually encounter in her days a world away from the home she knew. But in that moment of reverie, enjoying the bliss of childhood finds, the first step in a first start, and the simple joy she found in the warmth of the sun on her legs, she felt she could get used to this new land.