Anneli is on a mission. Dai had been sent to find The Island, where one can make whatever wish they'd like, by Marian, The Countess of Fire. Anneli managed to get a crew for a ship, The Felicitas, and they had set sail. But then the sun all but went out. And their first supply run almost ended in the crew's death.
Lore Note: Vaeltaja (elves) do not see themselves in terms of male and female, given how little reproduction happens in a vaeltajan lifespan. We decided that elves would instead classify themselves in terms of how much Grief a vaeltaja carried on their soul. To them the differences between even a Grief of B1 and B2 would be noticeable, although for simplicity's sake they'd stick to what we think would make four categories:
Grief B0-B3: mu (singular and multiple)/mul (possesive)
Grief B4-B7 dai/dail
Grief B8-9 ta/tal
B10, but not yet sailed into the Void tor/torl
Oh, and those who died? They're referred to as the triumphant, both in noun and pronoun.
The wind was against the Felicitas, yet again. They'd run out of water and were almost out of food, but this wind was no closer to getting them to land. The crew's torchlight tried to pierce the black water below and the black skies above, and died in both attempts.
Anneli and Thungal knew he was gone, if he had ever been there at all. But now they could hear the lapping of the waves on the shore. The Felicitas wasn't too far off. Brutus and Fingar returned with water. They didn't have enough for a voyage, but there was certainly enough for supper around a fire, with friends, in the pitch black.
Anneli commanded the mainsail come down, as it wasn't helping them get to land. Hands grabbed the rope and pulled. Aloisio tripped on a strip of his teal robes, bowling everyone else over. Fingar, who had been picking at Aloisio since he first got on the Felicitas, shouted at him. "Again! You and that robe! It's on, all the time, always getting in your way. In our way. It's in tatters! What's the point of hanging onto it?"
"Fingar... attenSHUN!!!" Fingar turned on dail heel to face Anneli, face frozen. "Don't chide poor Aloisio for holding onto something so dear to him, even after all the pain it put us all through. You still keep a splinter from your first ship, correct? You keep it on you?" Fingar flushed a bit but said nothing. They got the sail up on the next try.
Thungal took Anneli aside, to the aft deck. "I miss real sailing," Thungal sighed. "The wood's wrong. So's the smell."
"I don't like it either," agreed Anneli. "I can't look over the railing and see the world below. I can't descend upon the wind or go to the Void above, to visit the stars. We're just on a flat painting. But this is good enough for the lyhyt and so it'll have to do for now."
"You seem to have an affection for the humans, Captain," Thungal stated. "Are you sure that's wise? They don't have our perspective and thus our wisdom. Their hearts can be good, but shouldn't we be guiding them, instead of treating them like peers?"
"I don't know if we're wiser than they are, legitimately," said Anneli. "Their passion, the lack of time they have to consider things, makes them learn much faster than we do. Humans also have to learn from each other in order to make it in their lives, in a manner that we vaeltaja never learn to do. They live in and through each other. We shouldn't discount that."
Thungals eyes looked inward for a moment, and dai finally nodded after a moment.
WHUMP
The Felicitas shook.
"What was that?" asked Thungal.
"I don't want to find out! Fingar, can you see any land, anything?" shouted Anneli.
Fingar, who had climbed up into the crow's nest, was knocked out by the next WHUMP; the fall left a few bruises but Fingar was quite coherent. "There's an island, northwest, within a few hours."
"We need to survive till then," declared Anneli, who had run over to the railing to see if the... something... had surfaced.
Anneli was suspended in darkness. Vaeltaja often talked about the vastness of space as the Void, but the truth was that space was filled with light and life. This place was entirely different; a darkness so complete that Anneli wasn't sure if dail eyes were opened or closed. Somehow Anneli knew dai was underwater, in the true Void.
A current grabbed dail legs and Anneli was pulled, water rushing around dai. Lights and teeth whoosed past Anneli. A great darkness with rocks loomed under dail feet. The rocks were too sharp. And they were all moving, together, in unison.
Anneli wasn't being dragged into a canyon.
SPLASH
Anneli's lungs filled with salty water. Dai popped up, coughing, to the surface, drawing dail sword and jamming it into the Felicitas, hauling dailself onto the ship as fast as dai could go, eager hands pulling dai up. "What do we have left, far as food is concerned?" Every jaw but Anneli's was slack. Anneli turned around, but all dai saw were the ripples from something far, far, far too large to be believed in. Shaking off the shock of those waves, Anneli ran down to the hold, to where Remus the cook kept their reserves. A solitary fifteen pound side of pork greeted dai. It was their last source of food and they were already out of water. "Help me!" Anneli shouted, yanking the meat acrost the floor, to the stairs. "We'll be dead if we don't distract it, whatever it is."
There was a naked human woman, standing upon the water; she was looking right at Anneli. The others paused in terror.
And then the jaws came up. They were impossibly large, easily able to swallow the ship in their enormity. The Woman, who grew out of the snout, rose into the air, staring with unseeing eyes... still right at Anneli. "HEAVE" yelled Anneli, and the side of pork flew right into the impossible jaws. One blink later and they were alone, the wake of water raising their ship.
A few hours later and the Felicitas happened upon the island Fingar had seen in the previously brighter gloom of what passed for noon. Anneli had Fingar run the Felicitas up onto shore, given the monstrosity they had encountered. Anneli ordered Brutus the navigator and Fingar south along the shoreline, while dai and Thungal went north. Aloisio and Remus were left to guard the ship. Even with their elven eyes Anneli and Thungal needed a torch. They set out, an orange light in the black, feet walking lightly atop the sand, hardly leaving prints. A forest loomed on their right in the black; fallen leaves barely crunched beneath their light footfalls. The trees were almost bare. But Anneli and Thungal found what they were looking for: deer tracks. Following the tracks the pair happened upon a clearing, with the hart picking at what remained of some withered grass. One good heave of Anneli's spear and the hart breathed its last. They cut the arteries, bled the deer out, and Anneli hoisted it upon dail shoulders.
Unfortunately Anneli and Thungal couldn't figiure the way back. The forest looked the same, especially as the world returned to its new almost pitch-black state of night. "Welcome. It has been a long time since I saw someone," said a voice who could be felt, not heard. Thungal and Anneli both started, looking around.
"Where are you! Show yourself!" commanded Anneli.
There was a chuckle of genuine mirth. "How can I show myself if I don't know where you are, Oh Sailing One?"
"Sailed," corrected Anneli. "I am one of Those Who Sailed."
"Oh, but your voyage isn't over yet, young one!" chided The Voice. "Welcome to the Journey, Anneli. Until we meet again."
It was enough, for now.
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