She warns of a thousand tentacles and a faulty slip into the vast, treacherous sea – but he does not shiver, all but grin to her remarks with the thought of great, tentacled, toothy things that rest in the trenches. It is only when he remembers being dragged into the depths of a stormy sea that his grin slowly vanishes, but not into a fearful expression but a soft scowl that seems more plainly placed than its former glee. To think it was tentacles, and not seaweed, that had wrapped his ankles as he swam furiously against the current that dragged him down, down. Into that murky blue below that swam with indiscernible shadows and the lore of a many seawrecked sailors. There was much of the sea to be known – he was raised too far from it, in a place that dreaded tales of dragons in the mountains much more than the serpents of the seas – to perceive its depths and what rested in it. Too naive to truly fear the old ones that bathed in briny darkness.
Perhaps if he had been told tales of the sea instead of tales of the toothy, jagged mountains that bore their fire-breathing fiends from the depths of fathomless caves, he might have feared it even more. Perhaps, like having been told those tales of smoking mountains, he would have feared it less. Regardless it was there, always there, far beyond the treeline as it always had been, waiting for him.
He caught himself staring back at the ocean when she spoke again and made to follow him – and he took care not to let his mind linger too long at it, not to search too deeply for tentacles or fins or the trace of not-moonlight summoned from the veining waves. He realized in pondering that it was not what existed in those bottomless depths, those cursed leagues that stretched on and on into innumerable darknesses, those unending nights of reef dreams and coral nightmares, that unsettled him at his core. It was the ocean itself – the might of it. The length of it, stretching on as far as the eye can see and beyond even that – into places he would never know, and the depth below even that. The sheer unknowables of it. It was not a fear that was born from these wonders, but a deep seated respect that gathered that fear, that the sea looked to him not as a home.
The sea looked to him as an open coffin looks to the reckless.
Somewhere between them her voice comes to him over the waves like a gurgle of seawater and the cry of gulls and he realizes he has been looking to the ocean again. He looked back to her momentarily, searching her eyes for the mischief that lingered as she joined him in his journey into the woods. There is no reflection of the ocean in there, and for that he is somewhat placated and will never understand why. There is only fire there, burning bright and wild, temperate and unbidden, and despite knowing her spite was a fuse short of a hair's breadth, he thinks her temper is not quite so terrible as the unconquerable currents of the ocean. Without another word, he allows her to bridge the gap of silence as she pleases, and in turning against the sea, seeks again the depths of the woods.
finite.
Perhaps if he had been told tales of the sea instead of tales of the toothy, jagged mountains that bore their fire-breathing fiends from the depths of fathomless caves, he might have feared it even more. Perhaps, like having been told those tales of smoking mountains, he would have feared it less. Regardless it was there, always there, far beyond the treeline as it always had been, waiting for him.
He caught himself staring back at the ocean when she spoke again and made to follow him – and he took care not to let his mind linger too long at it, not to search too deeply for tentacles or fins or the trace of not-moonlight summoned from the veining waves. He realized in pondering that it was not what existed in those bottomless depths, those cursed leagues that stretched on and on into innumerable darknesses, those unending nights of reef dreams and coral nightmares, that unsettled him at his core. It was the ocean itself – the might of it. The length of it, stretching on as far as the eye can see and beyond even that – into places he would never know, and the depth below even that. The sheer unknowables of it. It was not a fear that was born from these wonders, but a deep seated respect that gathered that fear, that the sea looked to him not as a home.
The sea looked to him as an open coffin looks to the reckless.
Somewhere between them her voice comes to him over the waves like a gurgle of seawater and the cry of gulls and he realizes he has been looking to the ocean again. He looked back to her momentarily, searching her eyes for the mischief that lingered as she joined him in his journey into the woods. There is no reflection of the ocean in there, and for that he is somewhat placated and will never understand why. There is only fire there, burning bright and wild, temperate and unbidden, and despite knowing her spite was a fuse short of a hair's breadth, he thinks her temper is not quite so terrible as the unconquerable currents of the ocean. Without another word, he allows her to bridge the gap of silence as she pleases, and in turning against the sea, seeks again the depths of the woods.
finite.
