|
• dead on Jun 2, 2018 1:20:22 GMT
|
|
|
♔The Silver Swan rocked back and forth on gentle waves, the sun shining high in the blue, summer sky, reflecting off crystal waters. In this area of the Geytia Sea, the water was so clear, you could nearly see the ocean floor. Analia hung off the boat’s edge, her journal tucked under her arm and a pencil tapping on her jaw. She gazed out over the waters fondly, watching as they rolled gently over one another, undisturbed. No land could be spotted as far as the eye could see. There was nothing but sea ahead, and Analia could smell adventure on the salty breeze.
She had been told countless times that Ardria was the last piece of land, and that there was nothing beyond the place they called home. She was told she would sail off the edge of the world before she found anything else. However, she had never settled with being told it was impossible, for nothing was impossible. Besides, she knew from personal experience that this was not the end. What did people believe about the land of Tatrius, her own home? Where did they assume the natives live? They were silly to think Ardria was the last refuge.
Analia turned her eyes down to the ocean below her. Today, with the sun shining on them, the small bit of brown on the outer edge of her left eye shown especially bright, contrasting the blue of the rest of the eye. A multitude of colourful fish darted away from the wooden sides of the boat, and she could nearly spot the Silver Swan’s shadow on the ocean sands far below. Eventually they entered a kelp field, and Analia’s sharp eyes spotted a shadow within the swaying dulse. With a large tail, it followed them with ease and peered at them with eyes that reflect all light. Eventually, it sped off with a quick flick of that tail, and Analia had a good glimpse at its full body. Still today, she believed it was a Kelpie, and that they are not extinct creatures.
The young maiden pulled away from the starboard side, walking across the plank boards of the large boat. She ran her fingers over the large, front mast and nearly skipped to the poop deck, running up three flights of stairs to reach it. On her way, she passed many a crewman who nodded and smiled at her, and she beamed back at them and waved, saying her hellos. She had tucked her leather journal into the belt of her soft, cotton pants when she pulled away from her position, but now she dragged it back out. With her white, linen shirt flowing in the gentle breeze and her soft, brown hair blowing around, she leaned back out over the edge of the boat. The wake they created today was not as large as usual, but stretched out over the sea for miles. The waves were so smooth; it was an overly dreamy day.
Analia tucked a part of her hair behind her right ear, placing her journal on the boat’s railing and opening it with a satisfying crinkle. She had a journal for her daily notes, which she kept by her hammock and wrote in at the end of each day, and one for recording plants and animals on her journeys. This journal was for her sketches. She pressed her hand gently on the seam and brought her pencil to the page, drawing out what she saw of the kelpie. It much resembled a horse, with a fish-like tail and fins off its jawline. Analia believed the creature to be one of beauty, though she had heard some stories of their treachery. She wasn’t sure she entirely trusted them to be true.
Once she had drawn her picture, she scribbled out a description and decided to classify the species with her knowledge of the latin language. She simply called it Equum aquam, or Water horse, then shut her book and bound it with a leather tie, closing her pencil in it. She turned on her heel with a smile, her hair flying over her shoulders, and strode down to the main deck of the ship. As she crossed the landing and headed for gallery opening, someone called out to her.
“Analia! Wait up! Where are you going in such a hurry? It’s a beauty day, don’t you think you should stay out in the sunshine?”
A man with a gentle, wrinkled face jogged lightly up to her and walked beside her as she ducked under the entrance into the dark. Dim, elegant lanterns hung on every stanchion and beam. They passed through the deck together, fading in and out of the shadows. “George, I can’t be out there all day,” she responded, holding up her journal, shaking it, and raising her eyebrows. “We have things to do.” After saying this, she added a friendly smile. Eventually, they climbed down another set of steep stairs into a lower deck.
“What did you see this time, my little Analia.” A smile crossed his face, pulling at the wrinkled skin over his neck and jaw.
“A kelpie,” was all she responded with as she pushed through a load of hanging beads, a simply decoration the crewmen had thought would spruce up the dully lit area. They clinked together and swung back into their place behind her. George came in behind her and watched her as she climbed up a supporting beam and swung herself agilely into her hammock, one of the highest in the room.
George tapped his foot and shook his head. “How you get up and down there every day, I do not know. And a kelpie, you say?” He smiled again, a sparkle showing in his green eyes. “I heard they were extinct.”
Analia was going through her stuff when she was told this. She peeked over the edge of the soft cloth, looking at him below. “Look for yourself,” she said and tossed down her book of sketches. He caught it and flipped through the parchment pages, finding the Kelpie. “Well I’ll be,” he murmured to himself.
“It seems odd that she would be out here, though,” Analia told him, finding what she had been looking for and holding it up in the light. It glinted like a strange property of metal, before she placed it on her hand and held it even. It was a gorgeous compass, a gift from her grandfather. However, it had been acting strangely for a day now. The point simply spun in circles, stopped, and spun the other way. “I heard they only inhabited the lochs and pools of the Keavla Wetlands.”
“They say all sorts of nonsense about the Keavla Wetlands. And if you’re trying to get that compass to work, it’s no use. All of our compasses have been out of whack since passing over the Outer Edge.”
Analia placed her compass back into her things and sighed to herself, before climbing out of the fabric and coming down to his side once more. On the way, she mused an impressed question to him. “So we’ve finally reached the edge?”
“Uncharted waters. I can see why they weren’t able to chart them.”
Analia gave him a beaming smile and grabbed his arm gently. “It’s a good thing nothing is impossible!” She told him as her hand slid down into his hand. She held it for a moment before walking around him and climbing the stairs. Behind her, she could hear him say to himself, “One day she’s going to kill herself chasing fairy tales. Her father gave her too many ideas.”
George had been her father’s best friend, and had been named Analia’s godfather. He was only forty-six, though his years on the ocean, squinting at the sun reflected waters, had caused him premature wrinkles. He looked to be at least fifty-five.
He was not the captain of the Silver Swan, though he was quite close to being one. He basically owned the ship along with the captain. Some of the crew called him Captain, though he was officially the First Mate. He was a skilled wanderer, and could chart almost all of Ardria without blinking. However, he had become tired of the known waters and had come on this adventure for kicks.
○○○
When night finally dropped onto the Silver Swan, the waters had become less than lovely. A storm had kicked up, and the waves already pulsed with chaos. Each hill became a mountain, and no one could catch a blink of sleep. Analia lay on her back in her hammock, her hands on her stomach. She stared at the beams of the ceiling, wondering to herself and listening to the waves crash around the boat.
A large crack suddenly sounded, and Analia nearly fell out of her bed, looking out over the deck and peering through the beads separating the sleeping area from the rest of the cabin. She heard multiple thumps beneath her, and looked down to see four to five of the crew run through the beads and up to the main deck. After about ten minutes, one came back down and yelled out to the rest of the crew, “The mainmast split into two!”
Worry flooded Analia, and a murmur started all around, growing to a gentle, ongoing noise. The crew was a sense of anxiety, yet they all seemed to fall back into silence after half an hour. Still, Analia could not sleep, not with the creeping dread that seeped through her veins like poison. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t explain...
Analia was awoken by a shout three hours later. She had no idea how she had fallen asleep, but she had, and now she regretted it. A deafening roar had surrounded the boat, and a strangely close splashing noise screamed in her ears. She looked over her hammock to see the floor moving. After a moment, she realised it was water. The ship was doomed to sink.
Without hesitation, she grabbed what little was valuable to her: her journal, her sketchbook, and her grandfather’s compass. The rest of her valuables she had left at home, and had wisely done so. With ease, she flung herself to the mast that held up her hammock and slid down it. With a splash, her boots hit the deck and she waded through the shallow water. The rest of the crew had already evacuated, and so forgotten her up higher than the rest of them.
She raced to the stairs and up to the main deck, getting pounded in the face with large droplets of water. The ship was sinking fast, and there was nothing the crew could do about it. They were busily unhooking a cock boat, and it fell into the water with a splash. The captain was directing people to the boat, letting them get a space before he did. Eventually, George, the Captain, and Analia were the only ones left on the ship.
“Analia!” George shouted at her over the roar of the waves. “Get in the boat!”
“Not without you!” She shouted back at him, leading him to the ladder that lead to the boat, which crashed over the large waves. Salty spray dampened all their clothes, which stuck to their bodies. He climbed down the rope hesitantly, looking back up at her once he touched down. “You next, sir,” She said, turning to the Captain and letting him down the rope.
Her peers in the Arctic had always bullied her for her compassion. It was a weakness, they had told her, and she would eventually die saving someone else. If that was today, she wouldn’t care, as long as she saw her friends to safety. The Captain gave her a hesitate glance, before he, too, climbed down the ladder and motioned for her to follow.
Analia turned to gaze one last time over the Silver Swan. She was a beautiful boat, made by the best of crafters, and the maiden was sad to see her go. With her grandfather’s compass in her pocket and her journals tight in her hand, she took one step on the ladder when a giant wave hit the side of the boat, throwing her off balance. A crack sounded all around the crew, and the bowsprit fell off the front of the ship, causing it to become unstable. The water had slowly creeped on the main deck, covering it in a shallow layer. Boxes and boards floated in the water around them, and that was when she noticed it. The cock boat had begun to drift away from the main ship, leaving Analia. As she stared at it, fear began to steal into her heart, and she frantically looked for a nearby box that would keep her above water.
She clutched everything she valued close to her as she climbed on a box and hung over it, floating on the water that drowned her ship. Each wave looked like a mountain, and all she could remember was the faint glow of a giant fish in the next wave before darkness overtook her.
○○○
Analia awoke to gentle water running over her face. She lay on her belly, the right side of her face crammed into the sand, waves washing over her. She still held her journals in her left hand, and stared at them as she blinked bleariness out of her eyes.
Suddenly, it all hit her, and she scrambled to her feet in a mad dash, her clothes soaked and her body almost completely covered in sand. She looked around her frantically, before she spotted a small house off in the distance. She ran towards it with amazing speed, when a friendly face, contorted with worry, exited the small living and came towards her.
Analia stumbled into the woman’s arms, and was asked numerous times what was wrong. All Analia could do was shake, point, and give the lady large, worried eyes. She tried to say something, but then broke down into a giant sob and crumbled to her knees, burying her head into her pants and shaking. If anything, she needed a hug, a blanket, and a warm cup of tea. She had fallen into shock, and words weren’t a possibility at the moment. She squeezed her journals tight, her blue eyes squeezed shut as she leaned into the lady, her mind a jumble of thoughts. She was wrecked.
coded by pinn @ thqno tags
|
|
|