The constant pendulum of nature, crashing in, retreating out, in, out, in and out, over and over, taking away and bringing back. Waves were unbothered by the passing tides and fancies of men. It was nature's breath, in and out. Steady breathing. In. Out. Each breath in brought life: shells crawling across the shore waiting to be collected by some exploring child imagining himself to be running his fingers through the very artifacts of Atlantis, fish brought to the feet of a man dying of hunger, and crabs washed from their shallow homes just to cantankerously burrow back into their surroundings. Each breath took away, too: the footprints of a traveller effaced from the sands to be recorded in the silent tombs the ocean wrote on the white tips of her tides, the corpses and souls of skeletal fish ready to be taken back into the arms of their mothering sea, and the pools of watery messengers it had sent to collect the very sunshine and soil the ocean would miss while it was away.
Mysteries were brought to shore by the waves; histories were washed away.
Today, on an especially cold Achtus day, there was a mystery who hoped the waves would wash away its history aboard the Papillon as it navigated through the snow falling on the navy waters of Mahogany Bay. The Papillon was a light-weight, tri-masted sloop-of-war, a small ship once used for quick escapes, now used by Fenrir Henway for quick trades and shipments of cooking spices throughout the kingdoms of Vita. The very wood of the boat carried the sharp smells of earth and spice familiar to curry with it, almost pungently enough to drown out the smell of salt and fish from the water below it. Fenrir Henway was a kind and trusting man; he had let a mystery aboard his ship, given the promise that it would help him unload on arrival to Old Rose Harbor.
The mystery was in the ship’s crow’s nest: a young man whose clean-shaven face had nearly shaken away the pollen that followed him from the Spring season of his young life. Snow sprinkled and frozen into the strands of his dirty blonde hair danced like stars in the wind, and now and again the hair came to whip him painfully in the frosted red skin of his face. He squinted his eyes, the same grey as the sky around him, against the wind as he tried to find the dark grey mass of land through the storm. The biting breeze forced tears out of his eyes, but they froze onto his cheek before they could descend. His jaw quivered in the cold, and he wrapped the thin jacket around him tighter, trying to squeeze the last bit of heat out of it as if were merely an orange he was juicing.
He had never felt a winter quite so cold. Yet, winters in Bastia felt the caressed his face the same way, combed his hair with the same force. The large furnace beneath the deck of the ship could beat back any cold that nipped his fingers, but it could not touch the frost that had gripped his very soul. Everyone the boy had ever had was gone. Even now, months later, the thought of it combined with the churning of the ship nearly made the boy vomit onto the ship two stories below him. He had gone home after his brother had died, gone home to see if he would find his brother, mother, and father there like he had so many years before, yet the silence in the house was deafening, the darkness blinding. He had had months to recover, years to prepare, but he was still free falling into the pit in his stomach, unable to steady his feet on a solid piece of-
“Land!” he cried hoarsely as the dark outline rose forebodingly on the horizon. “Land ho!” he repeated his squawk, pointing wildly starboard. He searched the deck below him to ensure that a member of the crew saw him. Mr. Davey, the caned helmsman, caught sight of his wild gestures, and deftly hit the helm with his cane.The boy fell back into the wooden nest roughly as the ship turned, every movement of the ship exaggerated when so high up. He sat back up and rested his arms and chin on the edge of the nest, watching the land approach.
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“A’ight, Benny, let’s getcha down ‘ere,” called Captain Fenrir Henway up to the crow’s nest as the ship slid slowly and gracefully into the pier. Obediently, Benton Borteillo, affectionately donned ‘Benny,’ swung his legs over the side of the crow’s nest. He waved them blindly in the air until the caught the pegs meant to serve as ladder rungs, and began his descent. After a short minute, his booted feet connected with the deck and emanated a dull thud. He looked down at and awaited orders from the short captain, a bearded man with a belly that looked like it had never released any of the food he had eaten in all 48 years of his life.
“Getcha a few boxes, Benny, an’ start t’rowin’ off ‘ere to teh dock boys down t’ere. Afta’ that, ya’re free ta go. We’ve ‘ad a real good run, you an’ I. Ya alwehs gotcha a place on my Papillon,” the man smiled, his eyes crinkling from behind his beard before he turned towards the mentioned crates on the deck. They were empty now; Fenrir took the boxes to the other kingdoms full and brought their empty ones back to be filled in Old Rose before he repeated the whole ordeal. It was a quick job, an easy one Benton had quickly accepted in exchange for a ride to Old Rose. As he threw the boxes down the wooden incline to awaiting hands, he could feel the bulky package rubbing oddly against his stomach where it had been tucked into the waistband of his pants. Old Rose was the place to be for business.