A Sea of Potential

It is not the salt, nor the waves that calm her heartache. It is not the creaking of the boards beneath her feet or the warmth of the sun behind her closed eyes. It’s not even the spray across her sun-browned face as she stands at the bow of her ship as it comes to life with the beckoning of the wind that eases the pain she has been holding within her these last six years. These six years spent upon the shore, chased and hunted, set upon by the forces of the world that would seek to keep her from that which she loves more than life itself.

No, it is not these things that lift the yoke from her shoulders and set her soul at peace once again. It is the wind. That enigmatic force felt and heard and tasted yet unseen and untamed. The wind that blows her hair loose of the tie keeping it prisoner and sets it free to dance in the wake of its power. The wind that fills her lungs and breathes life into her. This is the balm for the six years of pain and fear and anger she leaves behind on the shores of Brinalia, never to return again.

No, now that she has possession of The Aradonya once more, she has no need to step foot back upon the dryness of that place again. She is reunited, rejoined with her lady love once again and nothing will come between them. She knows this within her heart as surely as she knows her name, as surely as she knows her life is meant to be spent upon these tumultuous, unknowable waters. She knows she will die before she let’s them take The Aradonya from her again, and of this she is correct. Her life will be hers to forfeit in the name of love. Of course, it is not true love, not the bond that connects souls and transforms them into more than the sum of their parts. For The Aradonya is many things, many miraculous and impossible things, but it is not, under most definitions of the word, alive. 

Her soul’s ache slaked, she turns her back upon the bow and makes her way towards the helm of her ship. As she walks, her bare feet clapping upon the ancient planks of sea-worn oak, her mind drifts back to what feels like a lifetime ago but in reality is only a handful of years. ‘I used to be so different’ she thinks to herself, ‘so quiet, so lost’. Through the windows of her mind she can see herself, a bookish girl of fourteen, stepping up the gangway of a long forgotten vessel, bound for a new life across the Bromlen Sea. Her father, stoic and awkward the way a lifelong soldier can be when confronted by the soft and ephemeral, tries to place a comforting hand upon her shoulder but only manages to cause her to stumble forward slightly. She is used to this attempted consolation and knows it is honest in it’s attempt, however far from the mark it lands. A blur overtakes her recollective vision and suddenly she is looking upon the blackened skies, howling winds, and blinding lightning strikes of the storm that changed everything. 

She watches her younger self turn back from the deck rail, arm outstretched toward her father. He is running towards her with all the strength of his body, and it is not enough. Another lightning strike disintegrates most of the foremast and as what’s left if it falls, charred and burning, towards the deck of the ship, her younger self watches in horror as it lands upon her father, pinning him to the deck. As she sat upon the sandy shore of the island, in the wake of the wreak, she liked to think it was the impact of the mast that killed her father. She knows now, with the experience of life beneath her, that the mast merely ensured his eventual demise. Weather by burning alive or drowning in the depths of the sea, she does not know, as the next lightning bolt strikes the bow of the ship, tearing the front away and plummeting her into the briny depths below.

Another blur, another scene from her lost adolescence, a year spent upon an island alone. A year spent hunting and fending off the beasts of the dark forrest of her island prison. A year spent honing the weapon she was becoming. And then the voice. Soft at first, quietly pricking at the back of her mind. Questions of loyalty, questions of trust, of the value of freedom from the constraints of the world. Then promises, gifts and rewards. Recompense. A vision. A vision of ship unlike anything the world had ever seen, a ship of true value for whosoever held the manifesto. 

She is snapped back to her reality by the sound of cannon fire. 

“No, not now!” She screams to no one, and drops into a hurtling sprint back to the helm. “Why can’t they just leave us alone? You are mine, only mine, and they can’t have you!” 

She reaches the helm and takes stock of her situation. Two Brinalian Dreadnoughts are closing in. The Aradonya is faster than them three to one, but she had thought she’d had more time and now the massive war ships were right on top of her. No time to flee, only time to fight. The first shot from the Dreadnought skims across the port side hull, missing but barely. The second, from the other Dreadnought, crashes through the starboard railing about midship. She curses aloud and pulls hard upon the wheel as she shouts “Tacking port-side, prepare to fire all canons!” The lines upon the ship shift and flow, the boom swinging about and The Aradonya turns harshly to port, crewless and automatic. The rapid move is a surprise to the Dreadnought, as is the hail of cannon fire that follows.