Sari Spotting a Shadowed Shape on the Sea

Something about the smooth settling this day unsettles Alessari. The night prior, nothing went wrong as well, but they at least had to do things. Felazo directed them and steered the ship from current to current. But now, like the last journey, they’d entered one of the more powerful currents. And so, the day is empty of activity. It didn’t help that in the morning, the small school of fish she noticed near the edge of the Ekzokia almost entirely refused to bite, leaving her with only a slight meal to make for her expanding number of compatriots.

Fortunately for her, Denlo seemed happy to eat whatever she was offering and Renalt slept through the morning, so while a slight meal, it is not as bad as it could have been. As people go about the rest of their days, Alessari slides once more up the main mast. She doubts any dangerous ships will approach while they’re in this current, there are other dangers on the sea. And, besides, she finds it relaxing and comforting, being up high in the air and looking down over the world. It reminds her in some small part of home, though the lack of other trees to move into does make the vast openness feel almost false. Like it is a walled room in a vast castle, whose walls and floors are painted to seem like the world outside. And she, as well as the others, are all locked in that room, where every direction seems like a way out, but none truly are. Not that Alessari would tell any of the others about that feeling. That might be seen as a sign of weakness, and until she knows these people much better, she will hide her weaknesses to the best of her ability. Even if that means that occasionally, when she stands at the top of the mast overlooking the world, her thoughts get a little dark.

As morning presses on towards noontime, she begins to see in front of the Ekzokia on the horizon a shadowy shape, malformed and uneven, sticking up ever so slightly off the surface of the water. As the sun reaches its zenith and Alessari decides to grab something to drink, the shadow has grown ever so slightly. They are approaching it. She probably should tell someone, the huntress considers as she slides herself down the mast with great ease. Felazo is napping on deck bathed in the sun’s warm glow. Renalt is strumming hesitantly on his lute, as though he is either writing some new tune or practicing something he has certainly forgotten. Sister Hilan is seated near the musician, but not too close, clearly enraptured in whatever he’s doing and pretending she isn’t. No one is doing anything important, clearly. She heads over to awaken their captain.

The monstrous monkey-creature Kalzia stops her. It chitters something that feels negative, like perhaps she isn’t supposed to wake the Sea Elf up. Brushing the little monster off, she moves past with ease, in part due to her skill at it and in part due to Kalzia being ill suited to the bodyguard life. Alessari walks up to Felazo and taps him on the shoulder. “What?” Felazo mumbles out, then opening his eyes slightly, immediately shuts them. “Dang it, it’s still too bright for anything important to be going on. I thought I told Kalzia to keep people away.”

“Something is on the horizon, and we’re growing closer to it,” Alessari states in reply. Always best to be direct.

This gets Felazo to sit up. “What?” he repeats, this time no longer half-asleep.

Alessari gestures towards the shape ahead. It’s visible from the deck, but not as well as it is from the top of the mast. “I don’t know what that is, but it is bigger than it was before.”

Felazo begins muttering to himself, pulls out his journal, looks up at the sail, then glances at the sun, then mutters some more. Finally, he furrows his brow and says, “I’ll get back to you about that,” before hurrying down into the ship, towards his quarters.

A moment later, Denlo moves up the stairs and looks around. Seeing Alessari alone near Kalzia, he walks over to her. “What’s wrong?” he asks. He, like Alessari, understands less is often more.

Alessari gestures towards the front of the boat, in the direction of the shape.

Denlo looks over at the shape, then around it, scanning the horizon. “Not good. Is it getting closer?”

“Yes.” Alessari’s answer is quick and to the point.

Denlo takes a breath, slowing it down slightly. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. Too far away to tell right now, though Felazo started muttering and headed below after I warned him.”

Denlo nods at the woman. “If it gets close enough to see details, tell Ren. If you can’t tell what it is, he probably’ll be able to.”

The Elf nods back at the Elfi’ika. “I will, he seems to know a lot more than he lets on. When you decide to head back down, do check in on our captain.” Denlo sighs, looks around, and starts to head back. Noticing this, Alessari stops him. “Not now.”

“I was heading down now,” Denlo replies, as though it were a simple matter.

Alessari furrows her brow. “Why? You’ve barely been up here all trip. Only come up when we have maneuvers to make or food to eat.”

Denlo nods. “Essentially.”

“Why?”

“Look around,” the killer says, “What do you see?” Before the huntress could finish coming up with a good response, he answers his own question. “Nothing. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I notice a lot. I’d rather not always notice that.” And with that, he turns on his heel and heads down into the belly of the ship.

Alessari thinks about that for a moment. It does make some twisted sense, she supposes. Inside the ship, the killer might be more trapped, but there were plenty of places to hide and he could put the fact they were in a house surrounded by empty space out of his mind in the moment. She begins to wander back towards the mast. Renalt must have noticed her conversation with Denlo, because he stopped whatever he’d been doing and is walking towards her.

“Dearest huntress,” the bard offers with a bow of his head, “Whilst you be down here amongst us grounded folk, I wonder whether I may bend thy ear?”

She looks the strange man up and down. “Depends on the topic,” she answers honestly.

“The mystical ability and proficiency you did demonstrate in the bout of combat you aided the deathly Denlo in, when we did first meet while in the Collective of Peaceable Fisherfolk,” he replies, equally honestly.

It takes Alessari slightly off guard. If the man wants to talk magic, she figures he could go to Felazo. Their captain is the magic expert. “What about the spark?”

“‘Tis an old magic, and one I must admit with which I am not entirely familiar,” he says, “I seem to recall it being most commonly touched by those with meaningful interactions in areas where the ley lie twisted, or flows over its bounds beyond what nature ought to hold. Be your understanding the same, or didst I recall the soul of thy magical twistings incorrectly?”

The huntress starts to answer quickly. “That does sound about right,” she says before she realizes the true purpose behind the musician’s eyes. “But you don’t care about that, you’re just fishing for my past.”

Renalt laughs a pleasant laugh. “Not quite correct, mine deadly huntress, though the heart of the theory be more right than wrong. I do care about the source of thy ability. I simply know myself to be correct in my recollection. So, do you wish to speak more of the source?”

“No,” Alessari states coldly. The musician already had seemed suspicious to her eyes, clearly more than he tried to look, and his roundabout demeanor in getting the information makes her all the more concerned.

Renalt sighs. “Very well,” he says, “Allow me to go through my thoughts on the matter aloud, if you mind not? The use of the name Sari as a shortened form means thy primary interactions in youth be with solely other Elfish individuals. Which puts you as a member of the Alliance of Carrosa or the Kingdom that Rages.” He’s watching her intently as he speaks. “Because you travel with one of the Pious Nation, most would guess Carrosa, but as you be clearly on the run and met with her on the road, saving her life if I recall correct, either is still a possibility.” He is remarkably good at this, Alessari considers. The human gentleman’s eyes stare still, feeling like they’re boring into her very soul. “Yes, either is a good chance,” he adds, putting a strange emphasis on ‘either’. “Which brings us to the nature of your magic. The classic tales tell of two locales of ages long past that may well hold such an overflow of nature. Amongst the Alliance lie the Ley Islets. It is said each isle of the islets sprouted forth where two or more leylines met, protecting the lands nearby from the destructive wrath from which the sea was born.” He pauses, considering, then continues, “But that seems unlikely. The good sister of the Bold Flame claims you met on Yolryta, but the most logical way to flee the Ley Islets would be North, shooting the gap between the Pious Nation and the Successor Kingdom towards the Imperium. That brings us to the Clifffronts in the Kingdom. The area around which the edges of the shield that rose forth to protect the land from the destruction of Vyrroltea first met. A magical act so powerful that nature itself still writhes in empowered discomfort.” He pauses once more, looking at me. “But that be not right either. That would make thy flight to Yolryta travel all the way across Vyrrolte’ytta. You would have been caught by whatever you be trying to escape.” Alessari smiles thinly. Both his guesses were wrong, after all. But Renalt continues. “Which means your connection to over-empowered nature be not from the old stories. Which means you have a connection to Ressyta.” Alessari can’t help but drop her thin smile, if only for a moment. It’s Renalt’s turn to smile. “But you hold yourself not in the manner of any soldier of which I am aware,” he presses.

“Stop it,” Alessari pushes back this time.

Renalt puts on a face of faux innocence. “I thought you had no problem with my speaking aloud the thoughts running in mine mind?”

Alessari simply stares the little man down. She realized too late what had been happening. He was watching her reactions. She’d told him everything, even though she’d not said a word. She doesn’t intend to let him keep on fishing for information.

“Very well, lone lady of loveliest life and loss,” Renalt replies to the look with a slight bow, “I shalt not think aloud further until thine own word finally gives me glorious permission to speak more on your life before us.”

“That won’t happen,” the huntress replies.

“Mayhaps,” Renalt replies. “We will wait whilst one with worldly wisdom wonders wherefor one would withhold one’s weighty warnings and whether whatever one withholds’s worth one’s worrisome wounds of wordlessness.”

Alessari smiles an unfriendly grin. “That will never happen,” she informs the musician.

The musician smiles back at the huntress, his grin much more friendly. “You assume yourself the one here with worldly wisdom?” he asks rhetorically, before chuckling to himself and heading back towards the ship’s rear.

Shaking her head, Alessari heads over to the barrel of fresh water with a hint of alcohol to prevent diseases, scooping herself out a skin-full. Sipping the drink, she heads back up the mast. Of course she was the one with worldly wisdom, she muses, but only for a moment. Then she realizes it. Everyone but Hilan, and possibly Felazo, aboard the Ekzokia is keeping something quiet. Some kind of secret. Renalt might well have meant anyone. Or everyone. She looks out at the shape growing on the horizon. It seems to almost split into several shapes as they continue to grow closer to it. And it seems to have no end. Worrying.