The next day, I visited the village chief and requested permission to end my apprenticeship under master Arne, and instead start learning to fish. In addition, I asked for permission to heal people with flesh-related injuries when I had leftover mana. Since I had four runes, and Olav had already said he was willing to take me aboard, the village chief didn’t have any reason to refuse my first request. Regarding my second request, he made me first demonstrate my ability by nicking himself with a spear point, which I quickly healed up. Afterwards, the village chief gave me permission to heal people. Finally, near the end of our conversation, I mentioned my experiment with drowning, and my ability to survive underwater. The village chief simply nodded his head after I finished recounting my experiment and the results.

“We know, little Miria,” he said, giving me an exhausted smile. “We’re hoping for the best, but there are so many strange and unique abilities in this world that it’s hard to know if we successfully stopped word from spreading about our islands. If we’re lucky, the empire of Megailia doesn’t know about our existence, and life can continue the way it always has. However, we have no perfect way of stopping information from spreading. So all we can do is prepare for the worst together with the other villagers.” Then, the village chief patted my head. “Don’t worry too much about it, okay? It’s something adults should think about, not children.” After that, he didn’t say anything else about the outsiders, and so I reluctantly dropped the topic as well. We chatted for a few more minutes, before I left.

The next day, I went to say goodbye to Master Arne and Sallia.

When I stared at the door to master Arne’s workplace, I felt a mixture of nervousness and anticipation. I didn’t know exactly how to feel – on one hand, I respected Master Arne. He had helped Sallia and I learn how to make tools for years. He was a kind man and a good teacher. I didn’t regret a single second of the time I had spent in his workshop, and I had made a lot of fun memories building tools with Sallia and learning how to craft tools from fish bones here.

On the other hand, I was excited to hunt another great fish. I wanted to return to the ocean and feel the waves and fly through the skies again. Not to mention, killing the great fish was bound to be worth a lot more Achievement than crafting tools, now that the penalty for doing the same thing was getting worse and worse. I had only gotten 300 Achievement for crafting 1000 tools, and I was more than a little afraid of how long it would take before I got my next reward. I also wanted to explore what was unique about this world’s ocean. It was much better for my long term growth if I spent a lot of time learning how to fish.

Finally, with mixed feelings, I opened the door.

Inside, Arne and Sallia were sitting there, staring at the door. Were they waiting for me?

I looked around the inside of the room, and saw a few bowls filled with my favorite kinds of berries, as well as a variety of other foods. The room had been cleaned, and all of the working tools I was used to seeing strewn about had been moved to another room.

“So you’re going on the fishing boats, eh lass?” Arne grinned at me. There was a little bit of sadness mixed into his smile, but not very much - it looked like he had hoped I would stay, but had expected me to leave. Sallia looked at me as well, and I could see a mixture of feelings on her face – happiness for me, frustration that I was leaving the workshop, and a little bit of sadness as well. Even though we would still see each other every day, the amount of time the two of us spent together would drop by a huge amount. All of her mixed emotions were tangled together on her face. She looked at me and did her best to smile, absently winding her hair around her finger as she fidgeted.

“Congratulations, Miria!” She finally said, her voice echoing loudly in the quiet room.

I decided not to call her out, and simply gave her a smile.

“I get to join the fishing boats tomorrow. I’m happy that I finally get to contribute more to the village and do more dangerous adult work,” I said, giving Arne and Sallia a smile. Then, realizing my words could hurt Arne’s and Sallia’s feelings if they misunderstood what I meant, I quickly added, “not that crafting isn’t critical to the village, of course. I just want to be back among the waves, and I want to fish again – it’s been something I’ve been looking forward to.” Arne simply chuckled, before reaching down and giving me a pat on the head.

“Don’t feel guilty about moving, little Miria. Sometimes, even if it makes other people feel sad, you have to move forward with your own life, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about that. Besides, I know that you’ve been looking forward to this for years. I won’t lie and say I won’t miss you. But your path is your own, and while I’m sad to see you leave the workshop, I’m glad you’re moving forward towards your own happiness.” Then, Arne gave me a small grin. “However, you did hint that crafting isn’t as important as ‘dangerous adult work’ like fishing, so I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. So if you ever feel that fishing just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, come back here. I’ll make you craft another hundred tools as punishment, to let you realize the value of tool making, okay?” I smiled, feeling a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through my heart. Sallia watched as Arne and I bantered, so I felt the need to pull her back into the conversation.

I walked over to Sallia, and pulled her into a hug. “Of course I’ll still visit you too. You, Felix and I will always be together.” I gave her the biggest and most reassuring smile I could, before I released her from the hug.

Arne simply gave us both a smile, before he turned back to the bowls of berries and assorted food on the table. “Come on! Let’s eat! I heard from your father that you really like this kind of berry, right? Let’s celebrate your last day at the workshop!”

The three of us had a good time eating berries and talking for several hours afterwards. Sallia still looked like she had mixed feelings at the end of it, but she was smiling more than she was frowning by the end of the day.

As I thought about that, and my future on the boats, I smiled. Tomorrow, I would finally go back on the fishing boats for the first time in four years. I had spent years waiting for this – the water, the wind, the strangeness of the ocean… they all called to me. I was excited.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

* * *

The next day was my second time aboard the fishing boats. Now that I had four runes, my father, Olav, and Claus smiled at me as I boarded the boat, welcoming me to my new apprenticeship. The boat looked a little empty, now that Joanne and Agnar weren’t part of the boat anymore, but in their place stood a new fisherwoman. She looked to be about seventeen, and had an easy smile when she looked at me.

“So it’s little Miria again,” said Olav. “I’m glad to see ya getting’ ready to head back to the sea!” He made no mention of the two missing members of his boat. It had been three years, so perhaps he had simply gotten used to their absence.

I cracked a grin at him. “I’m glad to be back, Olav!”

Claus also offered me a congratulatory grin. “I’m glad to see you growing up as well, little Miria. I’ve heard you’re pretty good at resisting the call of the ocean, so I’m glad to have someone young and eager to learn aboard the ship. Just be careful as we run through the teaching process, or we might end up crashing into the surface of the ocean. I don’t want to swim back. If we drop from too high up, we can get hurt, even if we have all three physical runes.” He gave me a mischievous grin. “Of course, such incidents are pretty rare. And let me also introduce you to Edel. She’s the newest member of our boat, and she joined last year after learning from one of the other boats. She’s a ray of sunshine in our group of four. And you know me, Claus, and your father already.”

Edel’s smile brightened, as she leaned closer to me. “You’re Miria, right? I’ve seen you around the village from time to time. Nice to meet you!” She reached out her hand towards me, and I shook it.

After that, Olav seemed to be done with introductions, and gave the boat one final scan.

“That’s everyone. All right, let’s start out by heading twenty meters up - that kind of height won’t be a problem if we fall, but it’ll give us enough room to teach Miria the ropes.”

The adults put their hands on the sides of the boat, and the boat lurched into motion. However, unlike my first hunt ceremony, this time, Olav turned back to me almost immediately.

“All right, Miria. Here’s somethin’ ya need to always keep in mind while flyin’. Normally, when we pour mana into the boat, we also have to imagine the boat goin’ in a certain direction. For example, we might think o’ the boat moving forward, or right, or left, or up. However, we aren’t always goin’ to be imagining exactly the same thing, right? Part of fishin’ is learnin’ to mitigate that problem. Even if it ain’t exact, we gotta all think o’ flyin’ the boat in the same direction. Fishin’ is about teamwork, because if we don’t imagine the same things, we might be sendin’ the boat spinnin’ in circles, or even drop back into the ocean.” Olav chuckled.

“I want ya to keep that in mind, durin’ the rest of the lesson. Now, the first thing you’ll learn is how to put mana into the floatwood. Put yer hand on the wood, and then send mana from your runes into it. You know how to use your ability, right? Try to use your ability on the floatwood, and then… intentionally fail. It should create a small amount o’ pure mana that’ll fuel the floatwood.”

I did as Olav suggested, and tried ‘healing’ the wood. Since I had no water to convert into healing, and the wood wasn’t alive, my ability immediately failed. The floatwood absorbed the mana created when my ability failed, and the boat lurched a bit to its side. Not enough to throw us out of the sky, or toss anyone overboard - but enough that I could feel the boat moving.

Olav chuckled. “A bit more mana than you needed to add, but not bad. Now, like I said earlier, ya need ta learn how to move the boat in a certain direction, as well. Try sendin’ the boat forward a bit. It’s a bit hard ta manage thinkin’ about two things at once, but with some practice you’ll manage…”

I placed my hand on the side of the boat again. Experimentally, I began to try to imagine both healing the wood, and propelling the boat forward. It was surprisingly difficult to imagine both at the same time. After a few moments, I lost my mental image of sending mana into the boat, and ended up sitting there doing almost nothing. Concentrating on both things at the same time was hard. I turned back to Olav, wondering if there was a shortcut I was missing. He cackled as he saw my expression.

“Messed up already, eh? Don’t worry – it’s pretty normal. Well, just work on visualizin’ both at the same time until ya can do it, and that should be a good start to movin’ the boat, eh? Once ya know how ta do the basics, I’ll teach ya how to coordinate with the rest of us.”

The next few hours passed with Olav mostly teaching me how to properly move the boat, while the rest of the sailors threw in helpful tidbits from the side. It was hard – it took me multiple hours just to get the proper ‘visualization technique’ down. I attributed part of my difficulty to my low intelligence. It hadn’t been that big of a penalty when I was younger, but as I got older my low intelligence became increasingly annoying to work around. However, after several hours I finally got some of the technique down. My control over directions was a bit weak, but I was starting to get the hang of it.

After that, Olav started teaching me how to coordinate with the rest of the team. It took several more hours to start responding instantly to Olav’s commands, but as time passed I started to get the hang of it.

It was slow going, and I was still only sometimes helpful to the rest of the fishermen, but Olav deemed it good enough that we could start slowly flying around.

The rest of the day was uneventful – we didn’t move very far from the island the entire day, and since the team had me on board, they didn’t go after any fish. The team just continuously walked me through the process of moving the boat around and coordinating with the team, over and over again.

Even though it was uneventful, I enjoyed it. Learning more about how to control the floatwood, learning to work with the other fishermen, and trying to coordinate was unexpectedly fun, even if I was terrible at it right now. And I enjoyed the environment as well – the feeling of the breeze swirling across the surface of the ocean, the sun overhead, causing the sea to light up like radiant jewels spread as far as the eye could see… Even though the ocean was actively trying to lure people into it, and frequently drove people mad in this world, as long as one ignored the Call of the Ocean it was surprisingly beautiful.

It didn’t have the same terrifying, extraordinary awe of the storms during storm season, but it held a kind of tranquil beauty instead. I could feel a connection with the sea, as well – the image I had used to create my first rune resonated with the ocean sprawling in all directions, making me feel at home. As I spent time here, I could feel my understanding of and control over my rune start to increase, as I got better and better at coordinating my imagination with the rest of the team and learned how to manipulate floatwood.

It was one of the happiest days of my life. When we got back to the shore, I couldn’t stop grinning. Though, deep down, I couldn’t help but wonder how long my peace in this world would last. If there was one thing I had learned about life on the islands, it was that danger was rarely visible. However, it was never far away, either.