“What’s her story?”

The old elven sailor turned slow to Cole, who sat on the railing with a half-eaten apple. Cole felt it was an apt question. He waited a day to ask it, didn’t want the crew thinking him a tourist, but the statue was the most interesting thing aboard the vessel. It had a mysterious aura to it. The sorrowful expression on the woman’s face. The way she reached out for something unseen —no, something missing— just beyond her place at the bow of the boat. Most of all, Cole was entranced by the detail of her beauty, visible beneath her expression of loss. Whoever carved the statue must have loved its subject. All the more curious to why it now sat at the farthest edge of the Breeze Jar, subject to erosion by sea air and ocean spray.

Cole sensed a story, and so he asked.

“What’s your interest in her?” The sailor barked back.

Cole wished he knew the man’s name. He knew the captain, Alice the Whisperer, who’s interesting title was the reason he chose this vessel for transport. Bretton was the cook, a half-human like Cole, and author to a fantastic recipe for shrimp. Regen and Ryan both had the last name Carras, but were not related in any capacity. Regen steered the ship and Ryan played solitaire in the hold, Cole didn’t yet know what job he was supposed to have. Gwen took care of the passengers and helped Cole test his bed his first night aboard. Erie liked Gwen and despised Cole. Cole was half-sure she was trying to kill him now.

“If you don’t know the story, that’s fine.” Cole pressed his back to the bowsprit and ripped another bite out of the juicy apple. “You can tell me something of yourself if you’d prefer. How long have you worked for Captain Alice?”

“As long as she’s owned this ship. It’s not the first she’s captained, but it’s the first she’s owned, and the first she chose the crew for. I was born to the sea and sailed every variation of ship there is, but my hands…”

The man produced his hands, which he kept hidden to the deep pockets of his gray cloak. Both displayed an unmistakable tremor, noticeable even without Cole drawing nearer. “…Useless. My mind’s still sharp, and its my mind the Captain wanted. Tuatha folklore says its good fortune to hire an elder professional to a new venture.”

“Sounds like a scheme by elder professionals to avoid retirement.” Cole mused.

Cole’s leg dangled off the edge of the railing. He cast his eyes to the top deck, where Captain Alice conversed with Regen about their course. “So the Captain’s Tuatha?”

“All true elves are Tuatha,” the old sailor grunted. “If you’re asking whether she was born in Vadalis, the answer is no.”

Cole hummed thoughtfully, never taking his eyes off the Captain. Her interesting name wasn’t the only reason Cole had chosen her for his transport. Captain Alice was a confident woman and dressed to match it. Her blue uniform was custom fitted, and oh, did it fit. Her beet-red hair was captured into two tight bulbs resembling crimson hedges. The scar crossing her neck was pronounced enough that it was visible from here. His eyes stuck to her, Cole reached into his weatherproof bag for his journal and pencil. He wanted to sketch her in this moment.

In his haste and devotion to the female form he had forgotten about the old sailor watching. “Keep your eyes to the horizon. The Captain romances for keeps and I’ve had to clean up too many of her fits after a broken heart.”

“Is that right?” Cole immediately paused his sketch. He was a seducer, not a heart breaker. That’s what he told himself anyways. He did finish the sketch because it had started rather well.

“You’re the bard we picked up, correct?”

“Student bard.” Cole slung his legs back onto the ship. He paced around the statue of the woman. “Taking my seasonal break in Athshin. Something different and exciting. I hope it will make me more worldly.”

He had the distinct impression the old man was analyzing him. He paused his pacing to face the sailor. “So the statue?”

“Aye, the statue.” The old man nodded slowly. “There is a story there, one a ‘student bard’ might find interesting. Granted, I only know most of it second hand from the Captain, who heard it from the ship’s previous owner, who heard it from the statue’s previous owner.”

“Who heard it from a long line of previous owners in turn.” Cole remarked. “There’s a lot of that in story collecting.”

“Hmph. The sculptor’s name is Mallion. Worked during the Reconstruction. This is a replication of their muse, a woman named Lithea, who Mallion named the most beautiful of any being that walked Domhanda.”

“Hard to disagree, when the effort is so clear in the craft.” Cole brushed his hand across the statue’s left arm, the one clenched over her heart. “Love makes people worship others as they would Divines.”

Cole regretted that statement as it once again brought the analyst out in the old man. “Have you ever loved someone that much?”

He asked in the tone of someone asking if you’ve eaten yet.

“I’d like to think I’m in that kind of love right now.” Cole admitted. He faced the shore with a wry smile. “She’s why I’m going to Athshin.”

The sailor doubted him, no doubt because he had just been making eyes at the Captain, and his tryst with Gwen. Cole would let him have his judgments. It wasn’t love Cole wanted from either of those women. Cole equipped his journal once more to sketch the statue. To get the best angle he had to shimmy on to the bowsprit. He had no fear of falling into the waters below. Sailing was smooth, and his stunt was drawing attention. Cole liked attention almost as much as he liked confident women.

Finishing his sketch, he looked to the sailor expectantly. “So why is she so sad?”

“Despair.” The sailor answered bluntly. Perhaps he had told this story so many times that he had become detached from the emotional resonance. Either that, or he was just a poor storyteller.

The sailor nipped a bit of dry skin from his thumb and nodded to the Captain. “Alice has bent herself backward trying to find the statue’s origin. We traced it to Mallion’s gardener, caught the woman just as she was on her deathbed. She told us that the boasting about Lithea’s beauty was Mallion’s undoing. It drew the attention of a being not of mortals. An Archfaer jaunted to their village following the stories of this muse.”

“Which Archfaer?” Cole interrupted. This twist on the story and driven him to making notes again.

The sailor was quiet for a spell. A solemn expression formed on his stiff face. “Who teaches you bardcraft? Not their names or titles. What are they? Are there any Tuatha of Vadalis amongst them?”

Cole’s turn to be silent. He filed through all the professors and masters he knew of that taught at Oran Academy, not just those that he learned from. “I think we have some Vadalis Tuatha that teach extracurriculars. Hunting and subsistence and the like. None that teach storytelling.”

“Then learn this, another Tuatha tradition, and one well learned: You never speak the name of an Archfaer when the story is not in their favor, not unless you share their blood.”

The old man’s tone was grave. Cole wondered how “well learned” this lesson had been for him. Another question for another day. He did not request the story’s continuation until he had jotted this information down. Over the scratching of his pencil he could hear Erie and Gwen conversing nearby. He felt mild sympathy for Erie’s stuttering inability to speak to a pretty girl. It was an act that came so naturally to Cole.

“The Archfaer first appeared as an old man. He came to Mallion to commission a piece, and made idle chatter about their lover, asking if she was truly more beautiful than any other being. When Mallion calmly replied yes, the Archfaer became aggressive, demanding Mallion’s thoughts on beings defined by their beauty. Divines and such. Mallion denied him at every example. Lithea’s beauty was beyond even immortals. Do you agree?”

The sailor pointed firm to the statue. His expression was clear that he would not continue without answer. Cole drummed on his journal, eyes flitting between the sailor and the statue with the rhythm.

“I’d have to meet a Divine of Beauty first. I hear Jolynn is quite stunning.”

The old man stuffed his hands back into his pockets. Cole got the distinct sense he had offended the sailor. Quickly, he offered an expansion on his initial statement.

“Look, she’s gorgeous. The most beautiful statue I’ve ever seen.”

When that did not budge the old man into continuing, Cole stood from his lounging position and walked directly to him, clearing the distance with his long, slender legs.

“—But I imagine there are a lot of statues in the world, and I haven’t seen all of them. And who’s to say how accurate this statue even is? Love clouds judgment more than it does enhance it.”

The sailor’s head swiveled like a hawk's to face Cole, freezing the boy in place. When he spoke, it came as an odd roar: “Is she more beautiful than the woman you love?”

Cole blinked at the sailor. His mouth tightened to a thin line. Facing away from the sailor, he stared upon the statue for the longest time and thought of the woman he loved. The woman he was going to Athshin for. He thought of her orange curls and how they might sway in this sea breeze.

“No. Of course not.” Cole answered in a humbled whisper.

“Why?”

Once again Cole lost his words. His mouth was open, but all that came out was a strained scratching from the back of his throat. “…Because love clouds judgment more than it enhances it.”

The old man nodded slightly, or perhaps he was just swaying with the tilt of the ship. Cole honestly didn’t know how to read this sailor anymore.

“The Archfaer returned to Mallion’s home a second time in the dead of night. There he revealed himself in all of his Faer glory and challenged Mallion to truly say that Lithea was more beautiful. Mallion did. Easily. Plainly.”

The sailor made another nod and somberly tapped the statue with his knuckles. “For this crime of honesty, the Archfaer turned Lithea to stone. A cruel joke about how her beauty should be preserved for all time.”

There was a pregnant delay in Cole’s response. The story’s twist had been stated so simply that he barely registered what had been said. As the revelation hit him his jaw dropped and he looked to the statue, to Lithea, with new understanding. Rather than engage with the story further, he scrambled to equip his journal to put down these details.

“What is your take on that story, as a student bard?”

Cole snapped his journal shut with a satisfying slap. He paced around the statue several times, allowing the tragic expression of Lithea to aid his digestion of the tale. It explained why a statue so old could be immaculate when affixed to the fore of a ship. He motioned to touch her, to brush her stone cheek as he had before, but knowing that was a person beneath the stone made him pull away. After a thoughtful sigh, he turned to the sailor.

“Are you Mallion? Is that what I’m meant to deduce?” Cole asked as if that wasn’t an insane thing to suspect.

“No!” The old man sputtered. “Don’t you know my name?”

“…Of course I do. I was caught up in the moment.” Cole lied. He wasted no time making his next guess. “Then are you the Archfaer?”

“I’m none of the people from the story!” the sailor’s sagely composure was broken by this sudden confusion.

By contrast, Cole was calm. “I’ll accept that. You must have some attachment to this story, everything about how you told it has revealed that.”

The sailor swallowed his confusion. A cryptic expression replaced it. “There’s the sharpness I was expecting. Some people love deeply. Not sure I have loved at all. The Captain is a romantic to rival them all, and I think that’s why she took Lithea onto her vessel. My sister loved deeply, and that love bore a child: Erie.”

The smallest amount of air was sucked between Cole’s teeth. It was dawning on him that this wasn’t just a moral, but a moral to him specifically. His head stuttered in it’s search for Erie. She was in the Crow’s Nest now, still gazing longingly at Gwen, who was singing while she embroidered.

Cole could feel the sailor’s breath on the back of his ear. “—And I know that Erie loves nearly as deeply as any of those I’ve mentioned. Almost as much as Lithea loved Mallion. Olenna Mallion.”

“Olenna.” The name escaped Cole’s throat as a breath. “A woman’s name. Hmm.”

His eyes met the old man’s. For the first time he felt that the sailor was looking at him with a mutual understanding. Though he nearly twitched for it, Cole did not grab his journal.

“Fair enough.” Cole responded.

~-~-~

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Cole found Erie that evening, just before dinner. He blocked her path to the dining hold, an act that made her dislike of him no lesser.

“Do mind if we speak of personal things?” Cole asked quickly with a disarming smile.

“What?” Her lip curled. Erie had a tight triangle of freckles around the base of her nose. Her hair was a dark violet, maybe a sign of Elden ancestry, that blended with the shadows of the candle-lit halls below deck. She had a small, mousey quality to her that was key to her unnoticeability.

She attempted to force her way past him. Cole was quick and lean as a dancer and twisted himself to impede the path once more. Behind him the clinking of cutlery and boasting of sailors drowned out their conversation, but only if they stayed in this spot. He had to gamble on harm coming to his body, so he placed a firm hand on Erie’s shoulder.

“Do you want help with Gwen?”

Erie was prepared to scratch the hand on her shoulder, but froze.

“What?” She repeated with the same expression. Her voice was a bit like that of a wind instrument, or maybe a goose.

“Gwen. The cabin attendant. You do know her, right?”

“Yes, but…” Erie’s face flashed red at record speed. Rather than trying to pass Cole, she now retreated from him. “What are you talking about?”

Cole pursued. “I’m talking about what’s obvious to all on this ship, save maybe Gwen herself.”

“I have seen people fall from this ship by accident.” Erie stopped him firm with her expression. “I could replicate it easily. Who’d notice you’re gone in time?”

“Your uncle for starters.” Cole hissed back.

“He put you up to this?” The red vanished from Gwen’s face and was replaced with the bleach white of horror.

“Not exactly. I’m an observer, and I have observed you struggling to speak to the only woman on this ship that matches your age. Your uncle merely confirmed what I was seeing.”

Erie struck his chest. “You slept with Gwen last night! You’re a morrhaging liar if you mean to set me up with her now!”

Cole winced from her blow and from her volume. He glanced back to the doorway to the dining hold.

“I won’t deny what I did. In my defense, she offered it first. But, er, doesn’t that mean that what you’re after should be easily gotten?”

That was the absolute wrong choice of words. Erie’s scowl deepened and tears quivered on her lower eyelids. She dropped against the wall, furiously bottling every thing she doubtless wanted to scream at him right now.

“I don’t want that from her. I want to hold her and for her to hold me back, and for it to mean something. But she…she doesn’t like women.”

Cole joined her on the floor. “You think she doesn’t like women, or that she doesn’t like you?”

Erie’s fist was clenched, ready to strike him at a moment’s notice. “I’ve seen her with men. Men like you.”

Cole sighed. Like most plans, this went so much simpler in his mind. “Have you ever asked her?”

Erie wiped a tear. “No. Never.”

“Then what is the worst she could say? 'No'?”

“No. The worst she could say is no, then continue to live on this ship with the knowledge that when I look at her it’s not as a friend. The worst she could do is say no, then second-guess every interaction I ever have with her. There are things far worse than her saying ‘no.’”

Cole thumped his head against the wood wall. He’d never thought of it that way, but he had faced so little romantic rejection in his life. Even in circumstances where he’d been the one doing the rejecting he’d never thought how it changed the relationship to the one asking him. Then again, he’d rarely been on the hunt for the kind of intimacy Erie wanted.

Cole swallowed his pride, dashed his persona, and looked at Erie with his most genuine expression.

“Let me help you. Knowing rejection is hard, but never knowing love is worse.”

Erie went through a similar cleansing of self that Cole just did.

“What…is your plan?”

~-~-~

“—I like to think that Olenna is still out there. No one knows where she went. Stranger things have happened than an elf living slightly longer than average. If she is alive, I want to bring Lithea back to her. That’s why she’s at the front of the ship, reaching for the horizon, reaching for the missing piece.”

Captain Alice said this all loudly and proudly. Her title was “The Whisperer,” but evidently that side only came out in rare combat. In her day-to-day she was a fireball of energy that challenged Cole’s commitment not to pursue her. It was especially difficult given how close she was sitting to him.

They were gathered in the dining hold. Cole, Alice, some of the crew, and some of the passengers. Either they were seated at the table, or set against the walls on crates or their own two feet. Dinner had been finished and the strong drinks were being broken open. Cole leaned back in his chair until his head rested on the wall. He shut his eyes and enjoyed the atmosphere around him. His journal sat flat on his chest with it’s companion pencil balanced on his nose. It was a calming exercise in preparation for what he was to do next.

“I think it’s time for you to earn your place.” Alice spoke directly into Cole’s ear, breaking his meditation.

He snapped forward, snatching the pencil and journal with a deft hand and returning to his sitting position as if nothing had changed. The group was looking to him expectantly.

“Jepsen promised your performances were worth the cost of travel. I let you pass the first day because you were still settling in.”

“You’re too kind, m’lady.” Cole quipped as he twirled to the front of the room. “Now I am traveling to dangerous, ill-unified lands, and as such I have seen it prudent to not include delicate instruments in my pack. However, I have a praised voice and equally praised hands, so Cook Bretton has loaned me an empty apple crate for purposes of percussion.”

“We’re out of apples, by the way!” Bretton shouted from the corner in a jeering voice given color by his crooked nose.

“We are entering the Season of Burgundy!” Cole called out. “Which means the Yellow Moon is fast approaching. I hope you all know what gifts you might find for those you find dear. Some give food, some give tools, or toys, or art. I have an aunt that only gives engraved arrowheads. They’re beautiful works of art, but I have no idea what to do with them.”

There were a few chuckles from that. Cole took the lapse to ensure Erie was staying where she was and not retreating to the safety of shadows. She fidgeted with her dining spoon, green eyes moving from Cole, to Gwen, to her uncle. She was strategically seated across from Gwen, who was distracted by an anecdote from Regen. That was fine. Cole’s first song was merely a set up for the second. It gave time for Erie to decide if his plan was worth following. So far, the girl stayed in her seat.

“…This is a song about someone who has no material gift for Yellow Moon, yet they still give perhaps the greatest gift of all. It’s called I’ll Give Love.”

Cole went right in to the number. Usually it required a three person band to do, so Cole improvised a stripped-down rendition and coaxed the audience into aiding the simple chorus. The song as written was meant to be from the point-of-view of a man, but Cole found it easy to keep that ambiguous.

The crowd enjoyed it soundly, and when Cole passed around his hat a few of the other passengers put in a coin or two. When he returned to the center he made a last glance at Erie. Her shoulders were folding in to her chest, and her knuckles were white, but she remained. Cole subtly kicked a bucket her way, just in case her anxiety proved too much for her stomach.

“Love is a great thing.” He said to the audience with a wry tone. “At least, it’s the best thing they’ve come up with so far. Me though? I prefer hedonism.”

He paused for laughter. This lead-in was partially taken from an older bard Cole witnessed on the first day at the academy.

“I’m not being entirely serious when I say that, but I am a boundless bounder, y’know? Something about knowing that nothing stays as it is is far more romantic to me. I don’t mean I wish a life completely free of consequence, more I keep an awareness that time moves on. So sometimes I think the key to a joyful life is to delay consequences as long as you can. One day I’ll wake up mid-life and be a different person, a stranger, let him deal with my consequences. Who I am now? He wants to live.”

There were some cheers of agreement to that.

“Here’s a song about that mindset. I assume many of you know it as you are wanderlust sorts like myself: These Days Won’t Last.”

To his relief they did know the song. It was a soft gamble because they were mainly a Fae crowd and the song was from human lands. It was a call and response song where the singer proposed an action and the audience would echo and perform it.

“If you have a drink in your hand: down it now!

Down it now!

Down it now; Down it now

You’ll want to down it now,

Because these days. Won’t. Last.

These. Days. Won’t Last.

I’ll take no pain

I’ll take no burden

Because I’ll always know for certain that these days won’t last.”

It went on like that. Cole called upon them to clap their hands, to stand up and sit down, and to whoop like cranes.

He got them into a pretty good rhythm, so he enacted the final step of the plan:

“If you got someone you love, look to em’ now!”

That line of the song was not always used. Most often it was saved for wedding receptions, or festival dances. The crowd repeated it back and then made awkward laughter as they either looked to someone they adored, or tried to avoid eye-contact to avoid a misunderstanding.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Erie focused on Gwen, but he also knew that Gwen wasn’t reciprocating. She was staring at him.

Cole felt a sting of panic. He pretended not to notice Gwen. He had to be quick if this plan was to be salvaged. With the chorus still going he performed like he was whipping the crowd into a fervor for a big finish. He skipped around the room, encouraging everyone to sing louder and wilder. With his last steps, he passed behind Erie.

He grimaced to the wall and hazarded a peak at Gwen. Her eyes had drifted off him and were caught meeting Erie’s. Her soft eyes wrinkled into a frown of confusion. Perhaps she thought that Erie misunderstood what she was doing or that there was another reason she was looking at her. The expression didn’t last long, and it quickly melted into understanding. It probably would have taken longer for the message to be understood, were it not for Erie’s face currently being red as an apple.

Cole exhaled and ended the song with a stomp and a hurrah.

Cole went into his next song as if nothing had happened. It was on Erie to resolve the message. Gwen never looked again at Cole, but kept her eyes to Erie with a stagnant, questioning look. Partway through the second chorus Erie relaxed, gave a small, sad nod, and left without a look back.

Cole pulled focus with a dance routine so that none would notice if Gwen slipped away. The only members of the crowd that did notice were Erie’s uncle, who had an unreadable expression that must have been his form of satisfaction, and Captain Alice. She smirked at the doorway Gwen vanished through and made a small nod to Cole to confirm that she understood his role in this, and that she approved.

~-~-~

Cole’s performance closed at an hour in length, at which point Alice gave him reprieve to catch his breath and wet his throat. The crowd dispersed as the crew traded posts with the night shift, and the passengers returned to their cabins. Cole made his way to the top deck to taste the night air.

On the port side of the ship, leaning on the railing, were Gwen and Erie. Both had their backs to him, but they were shoulder to shoulder and in deep conversation. Cole shut out what snippets of their conversation he could hear and strode right past them.

He went to the fore, where Lithea was. She was exactly as he left her. No more weathered, no less a statue. He took a spot beside her and watched the sea roll towards them.

“I did a good thing today.”

He wasn’t certain if he was saying that to Lithea, himself, or the stars and sea. Maybe all three, but it felt good to confirm.

“Jepsen delivered on her promise…”

Captain Alice was behind him, swaying slightly from the pitch of the sea and however many sips of whiskey she took over dinner. She joined him on the railing.

“A young performer capable of holding a crowd through sheer charisma. Keep your heart clean and I could see you going far.”

“My thanks, dear Captain.” Cole made the gesture of a sweeping bow.

She thumbed at the two women farther up the deck. Erie was giggling at something Gwen had said. “You’ve also paid your way for this trip with that. Someone put you up to it, or just that intuitive?”

Cole made a modest shrug. “I’m a romantic. I like to see love bloom. Maybe it was the will of Lithea here.”

The Captain made a thoughtful sigh that matched the whispering of the waves washing over the Breeze Jar.

“We’re of a mind. I believe in a final love, a true love, and I believe that love isn’t always where you were born. That’s why I took to the sea…some day, at some port, I’ll find the man that will make me want to stay on land for the rest of my life.”

“I…think that’s beautiful.”

“But do you believe in it?” She asked in a sudden stern tone.

Cole began an answer, but his voice trailed off. Despite his young age he didn’t even know a slight count of how many girls he had been with. His mother used to joke that he’d begin each week with a new sweetheart. Yes, he was currently traveling to an entire other continent in order to impress a girl, a girl he loved as deep as he assumed he was capable of, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe she would ever be his final love, and it was that realization that forced him to be silent. Even now, he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he might still have a chance for a brief fling with the Captain.

When he did speak, it was to his reflection in the black waters below.

“I believe in final loves, but maybe not everyone finds theirs, or even has one…”

As he took a breath, he could hear Gwen and Erie wish each other goodnight.

“…So when you do find someone you love, you shouldn’t waste the opportunity to find out. After all, most of us won’t live forever, so why not take what few chances we have to be happy now?”

Captain Alice made a wistful sigh. She had her back to the railing and turned her face to the sky. One of her bushy pigtails was pressing into Cole’s shoulder.

“Yes, I think you’ll make for a great bard one day.”

She began to walk away. As he watched her leave, Cole couldn’t help but call out: “Perhaps you want to continue this conversation in your bedchambers?”

She quickly stiffened and stopped her gait. She looked him up and down, then made a small laugh.

“Tell you what: if in ten years you haven’t found your final love, and I haven’t found my final love, then we can continue this conversation.”

She continued on her way, not looking back once.

“Right. Understandable. Sleep well!” Cole called across the deck.

With a self-disappointed sigh he turned to face the waters once more. They were still many days from Athshin. Many days away from what Cole assumed would be a metamorphosis for himself. He wished he could skip to the end of it, just naturally become the man he idealized himself becoming. Just like Lithea no doubt wished to skip to the day she could reunite with Mallion in some form or another.

For now though, both of them stood at the front of the Breeze Jar, pining for their journey’s end and a love’s embrace.