Lirran makes a crude record of their travel. [https://i.imgur.com/jIVwY9M.png]
Lirran awoke to another day and crawled out from what he called a “tent” at the bow of the boat. It had been five days at sea and by now, the two of them had established a rhythm. Navigator Kaza would sail at night and he at day. While she was at the rudder, she was half asleep and would visit him in his meditations in the bay of dreams.
He had meditated much on the unity of body and mind at the foundation and what Kaza had said turned true: his mind and body were now seemingly closer connected than ever, making it easier for him to have them be independent, conversely. At first it seemed counter-intuitive, but just like the idol, it allowed him to find his body more easily and was braver in letting go of it for a while, because he knew they would reunite more easily when the time had come. If he knew he could catch up with the boat, he would be more willing to jump off the railing for a swim, for sure, something Kaza would sometimes do when the wind was weaker.
He had also learned to speak a few words in Kaza's tongue. Very early in his dreams, she had made it clear that it was a trade tongue, developed based on the native tongues of some tzappatt tribes to facilitate trade and other interactions between airbreathers and waterbreathers. Her true tongue had many more sounds his ears would not be able to hear or distinguish from another, just like she could not make the airbreathing tongues with her waterbreather mouth. It was highly rigid in its rule, making sure by the placement of each word the exact meaning of the sentence, leaving very little room for ambiguity.
“True good were be sleep?” Kaza asked.
“Sleep were be good!” Lirran answered.
The grammar was very rigid and every meaning was specifically implied in sentence structure. Ever for things like tenses and cases there were specific words to determine that, making misunderstandings nigh impossible but also statements very monotonous and simplistic. He checked the rigging. He had reinforced most of it with pitch and nails, but in some places he still didn’t trust his layman craftsmanship. He dreaded the day they would get into dire weather.
He asked Kaza how far she had come. “How great were travel distance?”
“Same same.”
Lirran groaned. “Less than 50 miles again then?” In his frustration, it slipped out in his native tongue. Of course, he knew a tiny boat with a crappy sail and mast like that wouldn’t do very well, but he still had hoped it to be faster.
“When will arrive we Argivi?”
“One month, then nnngeo’kui’tz more.”
She spoke in simple words for him, but still built in ones he hadn’t heard yet so he could deduce them. Nnngeo'kui’tz was not a word he knew, but since she had talked about numbers and duration, he knew it had to be something like that. He knew all numbers from one to ten, so it was not one of those. Maybe it was a duration apart from days, months and hours he hadn’t yet learned.
“What is meaning of word: Nnngeo’kui’tz?”
Kaza thought about his question for a moment. “nnngeo’kui’tz to eight is four.”
At that Lirran could not hold back his own Ulsol tongue. “One and a half months?”
Kaza nodded. “Yes.”
Lirran groaned again and sat down next to Kaza to relief her from her night duty. They ate breakfast together, then she crawled into the tent and got a few hours of sleep. Despite her ability to be asleep and awake at the same time, she preferred a proper sleep when possible.
The wind was steadily blowing from the south and carrying them along fine. Lirran was looking forward to reaching the strait of Argivi. Finally a resemblance of civilisation, the city of Niisa would offer all the things they’d need to make the dangerous journey. The boat had taken on some more water. Scooping it out was a normal task, Lirran had even been put to work the pumps back on the Gusthopper, but he had the feeling it was getting worse in this boat. He wanted to take it out of the water and properly inspect it to patch it up with pitch.
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It was just before noon, during a light snack of ship’s biscuit, that Lirran dared to ask a question, in his native tongue, even if it would rub his Navigator the wrong way.
“My Navigator, what do you plan on doing in the City of Niisa? We can stock up on many supplies there and even buy charts. I heard there is not a thing that exists under the sun that one cannot get in Niisa, maybe we can even hire a shipwright to rig a proper mast.”
But Kaza shook her head. “No Niisa.”
Lirran was shocked. “Are you recommending we pass by Niisa on our way through the strait of Argivi?”
Again, Kaza shook her head. “No strait. We will go to north of Argivi, then towards east.”
Lirran had trouble to understand what his Navigator was proposing. “Excuse me? We can’t skip from north of Argivi to Barir! It’s thousands of miles of open ocean! We might as well try to wander up a vertical cliffside!”
Kaza started a flurry of angry sounds of which only a few Lirran understood, among them “I am Navigator” and “I say, therefore you go!” Her sentiment was obvious.
Lirran sat there, taken aback, confused and baffled by the outburst. The normally so calm tzappatt Navigator would not take any more of his insubordination.
“Yes, my Navigator. We will head to north of Argivi.”
Kaza nodded. “You not know much.”
“You said my old-”
A loud rasping sound ended by a harsh stop came from Kaza, reminding him to speak in the trade tongue to learn it.
“But I can’t express what I want to s-”
AGAIN, the rasping sound.
“I not know much tongue.”
Kaza gave a smug look, having taught him exactly the point she wanted. He kept his peace before crawling back into the tent to continue her nap.
As the coast crawled by the improvised sailboat, Lirran had much time to think. He thought about the past lessons. At the foundations, body and mind are the same. He had spent entire nights meditating on it until he had an epiphany: the mental realm at the threshold, the border where he awakens in sleep each time, is the same as the material realm. Or at least an imprint of it. It cannot change. On the beach, we are safe because we are held by the material realm, similar to how the beam of the ship was held by two ropes, sentient beings were held from both the mental and the material realm. Only when we stray are we in danger of predation by the malicious forces, because the contact of the material realm keeps us anchored there.
It had back then hit him and for the first time, he felt as if he was understanding something rather than being told. Lirran’s old master had never taught him any of such revelations because he never considered the wide-reaching ramifications of this, thinking only about healing, not preventing harm or fighting back. But Navigator Kaza had taken the fight up and charged into the darkness, clad in her own light. And he was preparing to look to the same star as she was.
Lirran found his centre, felt how the waves acted against the hull and keel of the boat, where he could use them to push the boat along and where he could steer across their crest most easily. He found his mental body and looked at his hand. With just a little bit of concentration, he began to see that slight double shimmer at the edges, his most basic awareness of himself in the mental realm. His mental hand moved faster, more concisely, it felt now as if his body lagged behind, delayed as if in the denser water. He tried moving some more, but always his body would follow. He flexed his hand, balled his fist and tried again. I know they are one, but that means they can be one independently. I can move my arm and my leg independently, I should move my mental and my corporeal body independently.
He tried again, moving his hand up and down in the breeze, letting the wind push it up or down. The wind only exists here, it should not have an influence on my mental body. It should not.
And then it didn’t. He saw his mental and his corporeal arm separate, like two sheets of paper finally coming apart. He marvelled at the two left arms he suddenly had, both as real as could be. He saw his own mental body and when he raised it up, he could see the stars of perfect geometry surrounding his hand in a narrow margin. Lirran marvelled at the observation. Was he spiritwalking? Was he projecting into the realm beyond?
A wave hit the boat and his concentration was disturbed, his corporeal hand snapped back towards his mental hand, as if it caught up with reality. The sudden movement threatened to break his arm, as the flesh and bone twisted and accelerated to its new position. The pain he felt was real but quickly subsided. He realized this had been a dangerous experiment, but at least he had not tried to do something with his mind where his body could not follow.
He tried again and this time, his two bodies came apart effortlessly. He was looking forward to telling his Navigator about this milestone. For now, he needed to keep the ship steady to make progress moth in the mental and material realm.