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12th Day in the 4th of Ründ’s Months, Dry Season, in the 29th Year of King Bornidin the Young’s Reign, 126th Reckoned Year
Follow the rainbow, we’ll leave you a sign’, so I look for treasure to find.
All my loves have gone away, away, sailed away.
All the suns have set away, away, set away.
They left behind, treasures to find, and riches there untold.
So I will follow, through sea and hollow, an’ seek my loves gold.
All my loves have gone away, away, sailed away.
All the suns have set away, away, set away.
Left me alone, no love to call my own, but with gold yet to find.
Behind, they left me, alone lost at sea, with treasure on my mind.
So I follow the rainbow, to treasure left behind…
From ‘Treasure Left Behind’, Shanty Composed by Benafield of Broadfell in the 123rd Reckoned Year
Petsune grumbles in annoyance at his climb up to the crow’s nest. Chapel’s insult of him being slow makes him even more irritated, so he answers peevishly, “I don’t think priests' robes were made with rigging in mind…” Looking at the goofy smile on Captain Chapel’s half obscured face, Petsune finds himself impossibly disarmed and annoyed at the same time. “So, Captain, is there any particular reason you brought me up here?” The Captain points his fancy white eyeglass away from Petsune and continues scanning the sea, then says, “Nope.”
“No?”
Chapel turns the whole way round and is facing away from Petsune and then says, “Not any particular reason, no. I happened to be up here. You happened to be down there.”
Chapel doesn’t say anything else, just scans the endless horizon. Petsune says with annoyance, “How very considerate of you.”
For some reason, he finds himself comfortable enough around Chapel to be making snarky comments. The Captain doesn’t say anything, so Petsune follows the angle of his eyeglass, squinting to see what he’s looking at. Petsune strains to make out anything of interest, to no avail, but Chapel speaks up again, “Are you afraid of heights, Pet?”
Petsune relaxes his gaze and looks at Chapel, who is still gazing through his eyeglass. “Heights? No, I uh, I never had problems with heights…”
Chapel turns to meet Petsune’s gaze, his eyeglass lowered and the goofy smirk is gone, supplanted by a look of seriousness and gravity. The captain locks eyes with Petsune and inquires, “And what are you afraid of?”
The shift in tone is so jarring that for a moment Petsune forgets his comfortability and recalls all the nagging questions he has. Could this strange man be a decoy Captain? Maybe Mavis is the true Captain and this is a pirate vessel? Maybe they sent him up here to keep him out of the way… Chapel’s gaze is still fixed on Petsune, so he begins stammering out a reply, “Scared? I, uh, I’m not scared. Of anything. Or I mean, I am, um scared - not of you, of course, your perfectly nice hah… I’m just, um, well I’m…” Through all the stuttering, the Captain keeps his gaze on Petsune. He finally gets out an answer, “I’m… I’m scared of the water… well not just water, but uh deep water. There’s so many dangerous and um big creatures out there, that’s what’s scary. I suppose.”
Chapel stares into Petsune’s soul a few seconds longer and then replies, “Yeah, there are big things out there. And you probably should be afraid of them. The sea is not a safe place. It demands respect,” And then the goofy smile returns, and he adds, “but it’s fun. Not to mention beautiful: the things you witness out here… Gives you perspective.”
With that, the Captain takes up his eyeglass and begins scanning the nearby waters again. Petsune is left feeling flustered, so he doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he looks around and still doesn’t see what the Captain is looking for, so he speaks up, “Why are you up here? What exactly are you looking for?”
The Captain doesn’t leave off his scanning of the waters, but responds in his usual friendly carefree manner, “You remember where we’re going?”
“Yes, you said you’re sailing for Ginders Port, right?”
“Right. They call it Ginders Port because it lies along the migration path of the ginder rays that come down from the Green Sea in the east.”
“Okay… so you’re… looking for Ginders?” Petsune replies incredulously, “aren’t they supposed to be harmless?”
At this, the Captain collapses his eyeglass and looks at Petsune with a smirk, “Didn’t I just get done telling you the sea isn’t safe? Have you ever seen a ginder, Pet? They are two towers wide, and a tower long.”
“I’m not familiar with this measurement, is it a whaling term?”
“Yeah. A tower is 100 feet.”
“Oh… so… oh… wow. That’s bigger than I thought…”
The captain’s smirk broadens and he says, “Remember what I said about respecting the things out there? A good sized ginder could accidentally capsize a boat that isn’t paying attention.”
Then he extends his eyeglass and resumes his vigil. For the next ten minutes Chapel scans the horizon, and Petsune sits idly. He is looking around the vast open ocean, with its glittering blue surface and featureless horizon. Below them, someone is singing in a deep voice, and Petsune finds himself enraptured by the voice and song as it drifts out across the water. It is both sad and sweet in a way, he thought only the hymns of church could be.
Petsune is almost startled right out of the nest when Chapel yells out, “Ginders, portside! Hold the Lady steady!”
Petsune recomposes himself and can’t help but think, “such a commanding voice… it hardly sounded like him…” With this thought, Petsune realizes that Chapel isn’t the one steering the boat. He wonders who is, and finds his mind returning to earlier concerns. Could Chapel be some kind of distraction while the true captain runs the ship? If they could distract him until they get rid of him at Ginders, he wouldn’t have time to ask questions. That would make sense if this was in fact a pirate ship. But before he can think too much about this, he sees one of the most beautiful and terrifying things he has ever witnessed. Huge diamond-shaped shadows begin surfacing from deeper below, each one with a spike-like tail longer than two main-masts trailing along behind. The closer they get to the surface, the more detail Petsune can see. They are flapping their four underwater wings in a more graceful version of flight. The tips of the top wings on the ginders closest to the boat break through the surface with a white spray of mist, leaving two wakes 170 feet apart. Petsune watches as a huge 100-foot ginder glides directly under the ship, and he marvels at being able to see both wingtips on either side of the boat. The tail alone stretches out behind for over 100 feet and is still going under the ship when Petsune looks off to the sides. Hundreds of ginders are migrating through here, each doing the slow dance of flapping their wings and occasionally breaking the surface. The imposing shadows of each ginder ray as they glide just below the surface is both a breathtaking and terrifying experience.
Petsune looks to Chapel and wonders if this is as incredible to him, since he probably sees this type of thing often. One glimpse of Chapel’s face and Petsune can tell it is still an awesome experience. One of the smaller ginders is so close to the surface that Petsune can see the scratches and scrapes on its back, probably from predators or ships. As if in confirmation of this, the smaller ginder passes under the boat and Petsune feels a slight bump. This causes the boat to rock on its keel and the crow’s nest sways wildly. Petsune feels certain the mast will snap, and he ends up hugging the mast tightly as the ship settles. The ginder rays seem to continue endlessly, surfacing from deeper waters to loom just below the surface as immense shadows. Petsune thinks aloud as they watch, “Why are they surfacing here?”
Chapel responds while looking through his eyeglass, down at the passing shadows, “They feed on smaller fish like runnykit, gipps, and fee. Those fish all happen to follow ships pretty closely and feed off the refuse and scraps left behind.” Chapel hands his eyeglass over to Petsune and says, “take a look”.
Petsune carefully takes the proffered eyeglass, marveling at its beauty, and places it over his left eye, making small adjustments to focus it. Off the portside of the ship, Petsune can now see more detail. Some of the white frothy wakes of water are actually fish leaping up and away from the passing giants. As one of the ginders draws closer, Pet can now see that the lower set of wide-reaching wings have been curled below the ray to form a funnel. The rays swim at the fish and funnel them with their lower wings, forcing food into their mouths. The mouth of the ginder ray lay most of the way back on their underside. Petsune watches in awe as the massive beasts glide by, just below the ship. After five minutes of watching the migrating rays, the last few stragglers pass the ship and there are no longer sounds of splashing fish or curious ginders bumping the hull. Instead, there is the sound of lightly lapping waves, creaking ropes, and the soft snick of Chapel’s eyeglass as he closes it. The Captain looks to Petsune with a sort of beatific smile on his face and he says, “Well, that never gets old.”
Without warning, the Captain leans backward and falls out of the nest. Petsune screams in fright and dives to the edge of the nest to see if the Captain is alright. He is standing on a branch that was just out of view from where Petsune was sitting, and he is laughing merrily as he continues to descend through the far apart branches. Petsune feels all of his earlier conflicting emotions of annoyance and respect return just as quick as they left. He descends from the nest in the intended way; via rigging and ropes. Petsune slips at the last possible rung of rope and falls to the deck with a rather heavy thud. He gets up and dusts off unseen dirt, then looks around to ensure no one saw. To his dismay, two of the crew are stifling laughter and pretending they are working. Seeking to assuage his growing embarrassment, Petsune decides to see who is piloting the ship. He looks to where the ship wheel is and is unsurprised by what he sees.
There, Petsune sees a very pirate-looking Mavis steering the ship. Mavis is wearing a trifold hat that looks nailed onto his head, a worn-out waistcoat that’s unbuttoned, and a long old overcoat that a smaller man could get lost in, not to mention several guns strapped on with leather belts. The somewhat intimidating look of Mavis reminds Petsune of his earlier questions: is this a pirate ship? Who is the real captain? And why does it change its sails? Materializing from nowhere, Chapel is behind Petsune, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Petsune yells out, “Saints!” and the same two crew members from earlier burst out in uproarious laughter.
The Captain exclaims with a burst of energy, “Now! Introductions!”, then he’s leading Petsune off somewhere with a hand on his back; a gesture Petsune is becoming very familiar with.
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