BobtailCon
April 28th, 2018, 06:35 AM
First fish I caught was a rockhead off the coast of the Hammerhead Reef. Old enough to reel it myself, young enough not to know its name, but I learned it quick when I brought it to market. I always regretted that. Should have eaten it. Should always eat what you catch, no use selling what you catch, like selling a part of your soul. People don’t understand it, but those people don’t fish like we do on the Reef.
Artificers came to town rarely, their robes whipping in the salty wind, and shivering from the cold that they weren’t acclimated to. They were from the deserts and the sands, from the hot sun. They didn’t know of ocean fog and sea winds.
I remember the first time I saw them come to town, when I was a young man. They went from the road straight to the inn and warmed themselves by the fire. I remember sitting at one of the many booths of the common room, and watching these mysterious men with their thick robes and their old tomes that they thumbed through. They were so strange to me. They would look up and glance and nod at each other from under their hoods as if they spoke, but they never said a word. But I could see the silent conversations they had between themselves. It was like some secret language that I was witnessing; some perverse thought I should keep to myself. I just didn’t understand that.
I approached one of them that night. The others had retreated to their rooms, and there was one of them left in the common room, sitting hunched in his chair as he put his weak hands near the fireplace. A yellowed tome sat in his lap, and as I approached, the hooded man closed the book and looked up to me.
He was old, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. As the hood came up, I saw that he had no eyes, only dark crystals that sprouted from his eye sockets like jagged weeds and encrusted themselves in his browline. And from his brow they jutted like a horn out his forehead. And then I felt something.
It wasn’t like an emotion; wasn’t something you felt in your chest. I felt this in my head. My voice, the one I hear in my imaginations; the intangible narrator of my thoughts, but it wasn’t repeating my thoughts.
Who are you, young one? My mind asked.
I almost spoke, but then made a focused thought.
Who are you? I thought back.
I am Jadis. The thought came to me.
Why are you here? I thought to the Artificer.
We’re here for you. Came the Artificer.
Artificers came to town rarely, their robes whipping in the salty wind, and shivering from the cold that they weren’t acclimated to. They were from the deserts and the sands, from the hot sun. They didn’t know of ocean fog and sea winds.
I remember the first time I saw them come to town, when I was a young man. They went from the road straight to the inn and warmed themselves by the fire. I remember sitting at one of the many booths of the common room, and watching these mysterious men with their thick robes and their old tomes that they thumbed through. They were so strange to me. They would look up and glance and nod at each other from under their hoods as if they spoke, but they never said a word. But I could see the silent conversations they had between themselves. It was like some secret language that I was witnessing; some perverse thought I should keep to myself. I just didn’t understand that.
I approached one of them that night. The others had retreated to their rooms, and there was one of them left in the common room, sitting hunched in his chair as he put his weak hands near the fireplace. A yellowed tome sat in his lap, and as I approached, the hooded man closed the book and looked up to me.
He was old, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. As the hood came up, I saw that he had no eyes, only dark crystals that sprouted from his eye sockets like jagged weeds and encrusted themselves in his browline. And from his brow they jutted like a horn out his forehead. And then I felt something.
It wasn’t like an emotion; wasn’t something you felt in your chest. I felt this in my head. My voice, the one I hear in my imaginations; the intangible narrator of my thoughts, but it wasn’t repeating my thoughts.
Who are you, young one? My mind asked.
I almost spoke, but then made a focused thought.
Who are you? I thought back.
I am Jadis. The thought came to me.
Why are you here? I thought to the Artificer.
We’re here for you. Came the Artificer.