“Rides the South Wind to Distant Shores” was one of those people who had the perfect name for their profession. It wasn't uncommon amongst sailors, but his was uncommonly good. His crew called him Captain Southshore, and he was the Captain of a big ‘ol boat, with several decks and quite a lot of crew. You don’t care about the details.
Captain Southshore was not an introspective man. Right now he was in his cabin, at the end of his morning consultation of the maps and charts and tools. Behind him his cabin kid, some distant cousin that had been foisted upon him by a relative, hovered by the door nervously. The brat had only been at sea a couple of days, and hadn’t found their place in the social order yet. Give it time.
He went to address them, and had to hesitate for a moment, clicking his fingers at them rather than admit that he couldn’t remember their name.
“Seabound, Sir,” the kid filled in, and Southshore raised his eyes. Sailors often had names related to the sea, but that one was a little bit on the nose, and wasn’t the first Seabound he’d ever met either. “That your given name, uh, Boy?”
“Yessir”
Southshore considered correcting the lad, informing him that ‘Sir’ wasn’t the right word to use, and that “Captain” would have been more appropriate, but he decided he couldn’t be bothered. Respect had been shown and that was what mattered, there were more important things to do with his time than worry about correct terminology!
“Hmm, okay walk with me, tell me your full name” He bustled out of the cabin, the boy following behind him at a run.
“I did sir, yesterday,” the boy frowned, trotting to keep up.
“Yes, well, tell me again.”
The boy glared at him, as if this was some kind of test. “It’s ‘Bound for Sea, Bound for Service’ sir”
“Gods!” Southshore had to stop his march mid-step to think about that, “that’s a jolly depressing name, your parents pick that for you?”
“Yes, I know sir, they did, and you said all that yesterday.”
Captain Southshore shrugged. Maybe he had, but the present and the future him were the only things that mattered, the past had been and gone, and had nothing left to teach him.
Although if he had taken the time to reflect, he would have said that so far, that past had been working out pretty well for him. Captain of his own trading vessel at the age of only forty, bought and paid for, his job mostly consisted of making sure it got from point A to point B without the crew drinking too much of the alcohol and without too much of the cargo falling overboard.
As he marched across the deck, toward the ship-nose, or the "prow" as the cook insisted on correcting him, from where they were polishing the bell, he admired his ship. Ships were complicated things, and not as easy to build as you might think!
The timbers of the outsidey-bit, or the "hull", as the ships carpenter shouted at him from across the deck, were made of live wood, the trunk and wind-catcher ("sails" corrected the boy, they were learning fast!) were bright and green, grown especially for the purpose and kept alive and healthy by a dedicated mage. There was always a job for talent on the sea, be it Growth or Change, but a good Growth mage earned their weight in gold. He was lucky, the lad he'd picked up was very young, but would grow into a powerhouse one day. His previous mage had been glad to retire to a life on the islands, pockets heavy with back-pay.
His first-mate was waiting for them at the wheel, and beneath their feet the wood was shiny and polished, waxed and varnished to within an inch of it’s life. Around them the activity on the ship was smooth and practised.
The shiny floor wasn't as dangerous as it looked, well, not anymore, the varnish was mixed with a little sand, and the wax was already starting to pit from the rain the night before. Somebody better get on that, or he’d have words!
When they weren't correcting his lack of proper lexicon, most of the crew's job whilst at sea was to keep the ship from sinking or dying. He didn’t have the slightest idea what went into keeping the thing alive, but generations of work had been put into designing the ship-trees, and they mostly had it down by now.
If he looked down the side and into the water, then he would see roots clinging tightly to the hull, like vines up the side of an old country house. The salt-water wasn’t terribly magic-heavy, but after a storm there could be enough in the water to cause problems, and the roots helped draw it up before it could damage the ship.
All in all, the whole boat was a modern marvel of engineering, and he didn’t care a whit, as long as it was shiny and clean. The vessel got from one place to another and made him good money at the end of the month, and that was all that mattered. After-all, he was the captain, and one of the hallmarks of a good captain is being able to delegate!
-
Captain Southshore stood by the wheel for a time, arms behind his back and nose to the wind, admiring the ripples of the blue sea before them. Beside him the first mate was silent, her hands loose on the wheel, and behind him the cabin kid hovered, copying his pose, nose raised high. The boy really was learning quickly!
Their next stop was on the island of Vocil. It was the biggest island in the chain, and had once, hundreds or thousands of years before, been an active volcano, hence the name. Nowadays it was an up-and-coming port, all fancy artisans and crafts-people, coming together to create wondrous buildings and magnificent ships and lots of things he could sell.
It was there that his ship had been grown, and it was there that it would go for maintenance, when that was next needed, but for now they were sailing smoothly and this was just a quick stop. They would swap out cargo and crew, and be away by morning.
They had been at sea for several weeks now, with only brief stops, and the sailors were getting restless, starting to complain about the food and the company. This was always a good place to pick up new hands.
He shook his gaze from the shadow of the island in the distance, to look beyond it, into what was known as the Distant Ocean. Now that was the place to go. If he was allowed to sail out there, then he would learn all the correct boat-words, you could bet on it.
You could see the edges of it from here, this close to the archipelago, but in his lifetime none he knew had ventured out there and lived to tell the tale. His ship was a rugged thing, but it was still, at best, a Barge. Made to sail the small safe waters of the Inland Sea, between the Western Continent it's protective islands.
To take his ship outside of it’s comfort zone would see it beaten to pieces within days. Made rotten by the storms that hammered the seas off the coast, unadulterated and pure, the magic would eat through the dead wood of his deck like hot needles through pig fat.
Out there there was nothing to draw it up, the water too deep, no forests or plants to sup the magic away, and his ship would be a feast.
Sill, with longing eyes, he stared out into the Distant Ocean. One day he would sail out there, one day.
-
The cargo they were unloading today mostly consisted of perishable goods. Flour and rice, salted meats, that sort of thing. The island of Vocil had fertile ground, but not a large amount of it, and they mostly focused on quality over quantity. In return for his basic goods he received coffee and chocolate, both in high demand on the mainland, along with fruits and spices that weren’t grown elsewhere. For non-perishables he picked up little pieces of artwork made from volcanic glass and tiny glass bottles of black sand. Always popular back on the mainland.
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Each island in the chain had it’s own specialities, but above all else, Vocil was known for what it called "dragon fruits." They were large things, the size of a babies head, and the skin on the outside was a bright silver and patterned like little scales. Once you managed to break into them, the insides were a deep, rich red, and filled with seeds. Supposedly they had been bred decades ago to commemorate something or other to do with the Postal Dragon, but that was well before his time. Maybe it had delivered them a really big parcel, or an especially fat child, who knew.
Either way, the fruits and goods were packed carefully down into the cargo-space, or "the hold", corrected the woman tying down the barrels. A weeks journey at the best speed they could make, and it would all be delivered to the mainland, still bright and fresh. They would get good money for that.
-
The next morning he watched as the land receded behind them, and cabin kid… Seabound? What an awful name, bit into one of the fruits for the first time. His annoyed face as he fought his way through the thick leathery skin, to his joy at the sweet seeds inside. Southshore always kept a few aside for just this reason, there was no better way to cheer up a crew than fruit.
Ok there were some better ways, but no easier way, and none for kids his age.
As he stepped out of his cabin and onto the deck, there were shouts and exclamations from his crew. As he looked up to see what all the commotion was about, a shadow passed overhead, rustling the sails and drawing a cheer from all who saw it. As the Postal Dragon swept over them, bags bulging with parcels and letters, Southshore grumbled to himself, casting a last glance towards the Distant Ocean.
He wished his ship had the freedom of a dragon, to explore those fierce horizons. One day.
-
They had been warned off from the city of Cericil weeks before, but he had wanted to see it for himself. Something had happened last fall, and now the harbour gates were drawn and barred, just a smudge in the distance, his crew unwilling to sail closer. Together they stood for a moment, the deck creaking beneath them, a silent vigil for the lost.
The loss of Cericil bit a normally reliable chunk out of their route, and that upset him almost as much as the supposed loss of life. Under normal circumstances they would pick up a good shipment of fish or coal there, which could then be taken up the coast or around the islands for a reasonable profit. The coal was a hassle, even more-so than the fish, but it was always in demand and easy to shift, and if his crew were feeling it then they could even do several trips before moving on.
There had been talk of funding a canal up towards the mines, which would have been good for trade. His ship was too big to make the journey inland, but he could have hired a barger and horse for relatively little, at least in comparison to what they stood to make. There was even talk of steam-powered ships, easy to fuel in the coal-rich area.
Messy business, though, transporting coal. Even when contained, the dust would seep out of the barrels, staining the walls and floors of the hold in permanent ways. Not to mention the damage it did to the lungs of his crew.
He had invested in some barrels just for the purpose, but they were lost to him now, stored in a warehouse somewhere in the locked up city, probably filled with coal he would never be able to pick up. What a waste. All that profit, left to rot.
With a sigh, he made a motion with his hand, and the crew got back to work around him, drifting back to their posts, the ship turning away. It wasn't the first port they'd seen lost, and wouldn't be the last, but all you could do was carry on.
-
The thunder rumbled in the sky, and there were hurried shouts from the sailors around him. Their mage had started complaining that morning, of headaches and strange colours in the air, and they had heeded his warnings. The kid may have been half his height and a quarter his age, but you didn't argue with your mage, that was how you ended up fishing your goods out of the sea.
They were a couple of days travel from away from their destination port, but there was a small island a few hours away that they had marked down as a water source. He'd never needed to visit there, but it was known to some of the crew.
Southshore leant on the railing and looked down the side of the ship. The water here was crystal clear and relatively shallow, and far below him he could see coral beds and fish, as well as seaweed swaying in the underwater breeze ("currents", supplied his navigator, distractedly, not looking up from his charts).
Somewhere behind him, a sailor congratulated him on remembering that they were called "Charts", and he resisted the urge to throw the papers at them. Cocky buggers!
-
They had waited a little long to turn and his navigator was worried it might be too late. The mage had been concerned, but not worried, and together they had chalked it down as just a regular storm, but by mid-afternoon it was obvious that something was wrong.
The waters, which had been clear that morning, were starting to bloom, growing greener with every moment that passed. The smell of rotten fish and green-stuff hung heavy in the air, and the ship creaked alarmingly as they pushed her for all she was worth.
Halfway to the water-island the ship had let out a final groan, and the mage had fallen back from where they had been standing, hands against the mast. Southshore had stood and watched, resigned, as flowers had started to bloom from the crows nest, great pink and white things that you were never meant to see under normal circumstances.
That, he nodded to himself, was a Bad Sign.
Southshore had a talent for numbers, and for speaking, but he had no talent for magic. Even so, the air felt heavy and muted around him, the colours wrong, and as he stared up at the great flowers, he considered that the petals were a shade of… Something, something between yellow and blue, something which made his head hurt.
Well, it obviously wasn't doing him any good to look at it, so he stopped, instead choosing to inspect his ship once more.
The railings, which stopped the sailors from falling off into the sea when things got too boisterous, were beginning to crumble. He could see where the waves had splashed up onto them and the thin rods were slowly pitting and thinning. Hm, he would have to talk to the carpenter about that.
"Don't trust the railings!" He shouted, and several of the crew glanced around at him, and then towards the edges of the ship. Good job, he was helping.
Somewhere above them the thunder rumbled again, despite the blue, blue sky, and Southshore headed towards the bow. Better check their heading, just in case.
-
He had never before witnessed a mage get so annoyed that they kicked the ship, but that's what his mage was doing. Or had been doing, as several kicks in they had damaged something in their foot, and were instead now curled up at the bottom of the mast, crying. The cabin kid was squatting down with a hand on their shoulder, trying to comfort them, but it seemed like a wasted effort.
Most of the crew were below-decks at this point, just those needed to sail the ship staying up top, moving around warily on the increasingly rotten planks.
Their sail had bloomed, at some point, to match the mast, and they were all very consciously not looking at it. The sea surrounding their small sanctuary was thick with algae, and in places the seaweed, normally many feet below them, was poking out of the surface, searching for light. Southshore watched as the whole mass seemed to roil and roll, the movements of the waves mixing with the movements of life and death, sped up far too fast, like a fly-wheel out of control, the machines of the factory champing and crashing until with a great sound they would grind themselves to death.
He glanced over at the mage, still curled up at the bottom of the mast, and then once up at the sail.
Ouch. He blinked the colours out of his eyes, turning back towards the sea, making sure not to learn too heavily on the rain-eaten rail. His brief glimpse, apart from giving him a headache, had also shown him great holes in the sail, gaps rents which weren't meant to be there. The sails and the hull were all a part of one great same, and if one section was dying… He didn't want to think about what that meant for the rest of it.
Probably a good time to go talk to whoever was operating the helm. And to kick the mage back into gear while he was at it!
-
The rain started in the early evening, and Southshore stood on the beach, his people sitting on the sand around him, and watched as his ship sank beneath the waves. They had gotten what they could off of her, but it wasn't a lot, and what had been a spattering of moisture in the air was rapidly turning into great blue sheets, hammering at the trees above them and filling the air with noise and magic.
He raised his face into it, feeling it burn across his body, eating up the sweat and tears. By his feet the cabin boy shivered, their arms wrapped around their knees. Poor kid, only a few months in and already one ship down, if they were unlucky, then that omen would follow them for life. Might be best if he found himself a nice job on shore, his cousin owned a grocers, maybe that would suit.
There were creaks and groans from the sea ahead of them, and he watched as his ship rose up once more above the waves, huge and beautiful, shedding the last of the dead planks in great flakes. He knew that below those rolling waves, she was now rooted into the sand and the mud of the sea-bed, never to move again. Great flowers bloomed and died as the ship drank in the magic from the air and the nutrients from the earth, and Southshore sighed, shaking his head.
It would live on for a hundred years before fading peacefully away, if what his mage had told him was correct, now merely an interesting part of the local ecology.
Well. No point in crying over spilt tea. His charts had indicated a cave and a natural spring somewhere on the island, time to organise his crew, and to see if the water was still good.