Mythical Creatures, Part VIII ish
And more! VIII (ish)
Ships in The Night
Above
Co-Authored (and greatly improved) by slwatson .
It was the middle of November and the nearer the brigantine came to the coordinates that Harry kept folded in his pocket, the warmer and warmer the weather became. It did not make sense to the grew; they were not nearly far enough south for this weather to be anything but wrong. Nevertheless, it was a small blessing as it made everything quite a lot easier once they had come through the storms that raged between the ever colder weather to the warmer winds that still lay ahead of them.
It was dark and late, middle watch, perhaps around five bells. Though Harry was sleeping enough to stay functional, but he was too restless to sleep for very long. The Welshman was focused and deeply single-minded; the crew fell in and followed suit. The mood on Al Na'ir was tense and quieter than it had been in recent memory. Nobody spoke about the missing Captain and Mate, and not everybody thought it was a foregone conclusion that they were out somewhere, waiting to be found.
He came from his quarters to the helm, to check with Grey about any sightings or progress. Nothing had been out of the ordinary, and they stood beneath a sliver of a moon on an overcast night, floating between two seas of black. Harry looked up at the stars for a moment and he remember laying on the roof of the Daily Bread, his head near enough hers to feel the warmth coming from her, pointing up as they looked at the strange constellations that neither had grown up with, but both had come to know after years and years in a strange new world. The unusual softness to her voice as she said the names she knew best for many of them; the elvish. He hoped that wherever she was, she could look up and see Emerwen, the shepherdess. This time of year, her crook pointed due west. It was the way home.
It was unlikely that Harold Lowe would have spent much more time on this thought, but all the same, Ducky's voice pulled him abruptly from it.
"Nav lights off the port side, Captain."
Harry took a look, and as he looked at the navigation lights, he felt his heart race a little. It was very possible that he was looking at the ketch.
"Heave to, and send out our call sign."
"Aye aye, sir."
Al Na'ir slowed, and the lights of one ship winked at another. Harry was still, his face inscrutable as he watched the lights, careful not to blink; he needed to be certain, and at the end of the signal, it had been. It was.
"It's Te Maru," said the Captain to his Mate, letting out the breath he had been holding. Ducky called the news across the deck, and his watch erupted in cheers that certainly roused Mister Grey's watch. Though he felt so cautiously hopeful, Harry did not suppress his little grin as he gave the next command, and the signal light spoke again across the water. Someone was safe aboard his ketch.
Approach. We Wait.
Each pattern meant a letter, and the whole of it was repeated twice. It danced in that instant, wonderful way that light does, carrying what cannot be heard and crossing distances in ways that people cannot. The first time it leaves from one place. The second time it lands us in another.
Approach. We Wait.
Ayrani read the signs, and with a turbulent mixture of relief and dread, she responded to the message with a flash of her own.
Aye Aye.
She doused the sails and used the engine to pull Te Maru strongly to port and set it at the Al Na'ir. She came up along side her, aligning her starboard to Te Maru's port. With a deep, deep breath and a brave face, Ayrani Lightwind waited to see Harold Lowe. She wasn't entirely certain what was about to happen, but she knew that at least she wasn't searching alone in the dark, anymore.
It did not take Harry more than a moment, looking at Rani's face, to know. He just did. He could feel it all through him; the surge of tentative hope that had accompanied the sighting of Te Maru giving way to the inevitable fact, written on the elf's brave face.
She's not here.
That didn't stop him from having a fool's moment of hope; a look up and down the barely lit decks. A look towards the hatch to the cabins they'd so often shared. But he just knew.
She's not here.
What Harry didn't know was where she was. If she was. He left the silence for a very long moment; he knew Rani, knew that he would have it explained to him in some way or another, what it was that had happened. On the sea, in the night, there was near no sound aside that of water lapping at the sides of the two vessels, side-by-side and the creak of rigging and rope. And Harry, for that moment, took the silence to steel himself for whatever news Rani would give him.
Above, Emerwen showed the way home. Below, Harold Lowe let go of the notion that he would be setting course for that home tonight. He cast the constellation only one more look, then brought his chin down and levelled near-black eyes on Rani. The tone was commanding, though never cold -- he knew very well of the ways that the women had their lives braided together. It was businesslike. He meant to bring Maia home, one way or another.
"She's not here. Where is she?"
Ayrani mouthed the words slowly, clearly.
'I do not know.'
It took a few minutes to sort the basics out. She showed him her charts, and she had marked everywhere she had been. Rani had filled a log with obsessive notes about where she had been and what she had found in and around the nearest seven islands. Though she had found nothing, that was something: Rani had a good idea of where Maia wasn't. The logbook for Te Maru was a little leaner, as she had kept the ketch on the move and was often busy actively sailing it. Nevertheless, that part of the story was clear. Maia had disappeared about a month ago, and the elf had spent every waking moment since combing the seas and the nearby islands for any tiny trace of her Captain. Harry could see that Ayrani was even leaner than usual, and that she has tired. He had thought to send her home and tell her to rest up, but what happened in the hour that followed changed his mind.
Undecided what course to follow next, Harry had taken Ayrani's notes to his quarters to pour over them for a short while, to try to see something that she might have missed. Strange and hopeless as it all seemed, that there was no trace of Maia was a strangely hopeful thing. He could not imagine that she would ever go quietly, or that Maia d'Thalia could ever just leave without a trace. There was something that they were missing. Rani had taken a few minutes to wash her face and eat a little, both of which improved her color significantly. It was this version of the elf-weary but bright eyed, sharp and lean-who rapped on the door to his quarters.
"Come," said the Captain, and the elf entered the room and closed the door behind her. Harry looked up from her notes, still very much in command of himself and the situation. After all, he was the captain.
"I do not believe she is dead." The voice was halting and rasped, strange against the natural lilt of softer consonants and open vowels. It was wholly foreign to Harry's ears. He did not know her well, but he was aware that she had once vowed silence and she had yet to break it. That certainly got his attention.
"Go on, Rani."
"I must stay with this ship to find her. I am not too tired to work, and work well. I am not so wan that I cannot perform whatever I must, but I have to find her. There is a debt.
"I was taken, once, and there was no trace left to follow. My world was anguish, humiliation, blood, but I was not to die. No. I was not for death. I could survive the cage and the lock and key because I knew that one day, she would know, and she would find the man who put the collar around my neck. She found me first, and then we found him, and justice would come.
"We were not women, when we brought him his justice, but she has not been merely woman in some time. This, I think you know. She is Idisi. Valkyrie. The terrible things in the world, they look on her, and they know her. I can tell you the leviathan knew it, knew it when he locked his monstrous eye on her ship. It rose from the water, which churned and churned. There was a strange light, and foam, and the wind died, and there it was. She did not fear it. She looked the beast eye in his eye, and then she took his eye. The ship took damage. I remember thinking we may sink, but then I remember nothing. The black.
"I awoke and there was nothing. She was gone, Captain, and the ship had been set right. So right. Too right. It looks as though nothing has happened ever to the ship. I think that something took her and left me. I think if we can find where the beast was slain, we can find her again, but I cannot tell you. I would know it there. I would feel it in my bones. The air is different where it happened. I know that it is not far, but I cannot tell where until we are there again. I will beg for you to keep me on this ship."
She winced a little, but she did not press against her own throat, which protested at using so many words after so long. Harry regarded her, and asked one more question of the strange elf.
"Is there anything else that you have noticed that has been odd?"
Rani thought about it for a moment, and then she answered. "Dolphins. There have been always dolphins in my wake, since she left."
It was an hour since hope had risen up and fallen down again, though it was a comfort to Harry that the last person who had seen Maia on the surface was just as convinced as he was that she could not simply vanish. It did sound a little off-kilter, but not exactly crazy that she may be able to somehow intuit a precise point on the ocean; elves were more than a little uncanny in some ways and Ayrani Lightwind was a truly extraordinary navigator. He made a few notes of his own and came to his decision: Al Na'ir would stay on a steady course for the precise coordinates Maia had sent. As Rani and Maia had left that very place and were headed from there to home, it would at least guarantee that they'd be in some proximity of where the fight with the leviathan had occurred. It was determined that Jonson and Tylderen would take Te Maru back home. Lowe gave them cash for restocking and sent them on their way.
As Te Maru pushed west, the pod of dolphins stayed with the eastbound Al Na'ir, leaping in her wake. Harry kept with them.
Where is she?
Ships in The Night
Above
Co-Authored (and greatly improved) by slwatson .
It was the middle of November and the nearer the brigantine came to the coordinates that Harry kept folded in his pocket, the warmer and warmer the weather became. It did not make sense to the grew; they were not nearly far enough south for this weather to be anything but wrong. Nevertheless, it was a small blessing as it made everything quite a lot easier once they had come through the storms that raged between the ever colder weather to the warmer winds that still lay ahead of them.
It was dark and late, middle watch, perhaps around five bells. Though Harry was sleeping enough to stay functional, but he was too restless to sleep for very long. The Welshman was focused and deeply single-minded; the crew fell in and followed suit. The mood on Al Na'ir was tense and quieter than it had been in recent memory. Nobody spoke about the missing Captain and Mate, and not everybody thought it was a foregone conclusion that they were out somewhere, waiting to be found.
He came from his quarters to the helm, to check with Grey about any sightings or progress. Nothing had been out of the ordinary, and they stood beneath a sliver of a moon on an overcast night, floating between two seas of black. Harry looked up at the stars for a moment and he remember laying on the roof of the Daily Bread, his head near enough hers to feel the warmth coming from her, pointing up as they looked at the strange constellations that neither had grown up with, but both had come to know after years and years in a strange new world. The unusual softness to her voice as she said the names she knew best for many of them; the elvish. He hoped that wherever she was, she could look up and see Emerwen, the shepherdess. This time of year, her crook pointed due west. It was the way home.
It was unlikely that Harold Lowe would have spent much more time on this thought, but all the same, Ducky's voice pulled him abruptly from it.
"Nav lights off the port side, Captain."
Harry took a look, and as he looked at the navigation lights, he felt his heart race a little. It was very possible that he was looking at the ketch.
"Heave to, and send out our call sign."
"Aye aye, sir."
Al Na'ir slowed, and the lights of one ship winked at another. Harry was still, his face inscrutable as he watched the lights, careful not to blink; he needed to be certain, and at the end of the signal, it had been. It was.
"It's Te Maru," said the Captain to his Mate, letting out the breath he had been holding. Ducky called the news across the deck, and his watch erupted in cheers that certainly roused Mister Grey's watch. Though he felt so cautiously hopeful, Harry did not suppress his little grin as he gave the next command, and the signal light spoke again across the water. Someone was safe aboard his ketch.
Approach. We Wait.
Each pattern meant a letter, and the whole of it was repeated twice. It danced in that instant, wonderful way that light does, carrying what cannot be heard and crossing distances in ways that people cannot. The first time it leaves from one place. The second time it lands us in another.
Approach. We Wait.
Ayrani read the signs, and with a turbulent mixture of relief and dread, she responded to the message with a flash of her own.
Aye Aye.
She doused the sails and used the engine to pull Te Maru strongly to port and set it at the Al Na'ir. She came up along side her, aligning her starboard to Te Maru's port. With a deep, deep breath and a brave face, Ayrani Lightwind waited to see Harold Lowe. She wasn't entirely certain what was about to happen, but she knew that at least she wasn't searching alone in the dark, anymore.
It did not take Harry more than a moment, looking at Rani's face, to know. He just did. He could feel it all through him; the surge of tentative hope that had accompanied the sighting of Te Maru giving way to the inevitable fact, written on the elf's brave face.
She's not here.
That didn't stop him from having a fool's moment of hope; a look up and down the barely lit decks. A look towards the hatch to the cabins they'd so often shared. But he just knew.
She's not here.
What Harry didn't know was where she was. If she was. He left the silence for a very long moment; he knew Rani, knew that he would have it explained to him in some way or another, what it was that had happened. On the sea, in the night, there was near no sound aside that of water lapping at the sides of the two vessels, side-by-side and the creak of rigging and rope. And Harry, for that moment, took the silence to steel himself for whatever news Rani would give him.
Above, Emerwen showed the way home. Below, Harold Lowe let go of the notion that he would be setting course for that home tonight. He cast the constellation only one more look, then brought his chin down and levelled near-black eyes on Rani. The tone was commanding, though never cold -- he knew very well of the ways that the women had their lives braided together. It was businesslike. He meant to bring Maia home, one way or another.
"She's not here. Where is she?"
Ayrani mouthed the words slowly, clearly.
'I do not know.'
It took a few minutes to sort the basics out. She showed him her charts, and she had marked everywhere she had been. Rani had filled a log with obsessive notes about where she had been and what she had found in and around the nearest seven islands. Though she had found nothing, that was something: Rani had a good idea of where Maia wasn't. The logbook for Te Maru was a little leaner, as she had kept the ketch on the move and was often busy actively sailing it. Nevertheless, that part of the story was clear. Maia had disappeared about a month ago, and the elf had spent every waking moment since combing the seas and the nearby islands for any tiny trace of her Captain. Harry could see that Ayrani was even leaner than usual, and that she has tired. He had thought to send her home and tell her to rest up, but what happened in the hour that followed changed his mind.
Undecided what course to follow next, Harry had taken Ayrani's notes to his quarters to pour over them for a short while, to try to see something that she might have missed. Strange and hopeless as it all seemed, that there was no trace of Maia was a strangely hopeful thing. He could not imagine that she would ever go quietly, or that Maia d'Thalia could ever just leave without a trace. There was something that they were missing. Rani had taken a few minutes to wash her face and eat a little, both of which improved her color significantly. It was this version of the elf-weary but bright eyed, sharp and lean-who rapped on the door to his quarters.
"Come," said the Captain, and the elf entered the room and closed the door behind her. Harry looked up from her notes, still very much in command of himself and the situation. After all, he was the captain.
"I do not believe she is dead." The voice was halting and rasped, strange against the natural lilt of softer consonants and open vowels. It was wholly foreign to Harry's ears. He did not know her well, but he was aware that she had once vowed silence and she had yet to break it. That certainly got his attention.
"Go on, Rani."
"I must stay with this ship to find her. I am not too tired to work, and work well. I am not so wan that I cannot perform whatever I must, but I have to find her. There is a debt.
"I was taken, once, and there was no trace left to follow. My world was anguish, humiliation, blood, but I was not to die. No. I was not for death. I could survive the cage and the lock and key because I knew that one day, she would know, and she would find the man who put the collar around my neck. She found me first, and then we found him, and justice would come.
"We were not women, when we brought him his justice, but she has not been merely woman in some time. This, I think you know. She is Idisi. Valkyrie. The terrible things in the world, they look on her, and they know her. I can tell you the leviathan knew it, knew it when he locked his monstrous eye on her ship. It rose from the water, which churned and churned. There was a strange light, and foam, and the wind died, and there it was. She did not fear it. She looked the beast eye in his eye, and then she took his eye. The ship took damage. I remember thinking we may sink, but then I remember nothing. The black.
"I awoke and there was nothing. She was gone, Captain, and the ship had been set right. So right. Too right. It looks as though nothing has happened ever to the ship. I think that something took her and left me. I think if we can find where the beast was slain, we can find her again, but I cannot tell you. I would know it there. I would feel it in my bones. The air is different where it happened. I know that it is not far, but I cannot tell where until we are there again. I will beg for you to keep me on this ship."
She winced a little, but she did not press against her own throat, which protested at using so many words after so long. Harry regarded her, and asked one more question of the strange elf.
"Is there anything else that you have noticed that has been odd?"
Rani thought about it for a moment, and then she answered. "Dolphins. There have been always dolphins in my wake, since she left."
It was an hour since hope had risen up and fallen down again, though it was a comfort to Harry that the last person who had seen Maia on the surface was just as convinced as he was that she could not simply vanish. It did sound a little off-kilter, but not exactly crazy that she may be able to somehow intuit a precise point on the ocean; elves were more than a little uncanny in some ways and Ayrani Lightwind was a truly extraordinary navigator. He made a few notes of his own and came to his decision: Al Na'ir would stay on a steady course for the precise coordinates Maia had sent. As Rani and Maia had left that very place and were headed from there to home, it would at least guarantee that they'd be in some proximity of where the fight with the leviathan had occurred. It was determined that Jonson and Tylderen would take Te Maru back home. Lowe gave them cash for restocking and sent them on their way.
As Te Maru pushed west, the pod of dolphins stayed with the eastbound Al Na'ir, leaping in her wake. Harry kept with them.
Where is she?