Maelstroms and Currents

Posted on Sun Jul 7th, 2024 @ 12:15pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Captain Rueben Gregnol

Mission: Shackles
Location: Cotrie
Timeline: 8 months ago
1226 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Mina hated night watch but they had decided early on that several of the group needed to guard the settlement. She glanced around the darkening sky and poked at the fire that they kept burning constantly to heighten the light that cast shadows everywhere. She hated the nights as they felt so much darker to the pale blue-skinned young woman. Her skin seemed to shine in the daytime but turned dull in the poor light as if she could no longer be absorbed by the night around her. Her slender, long limbs, adapted for both swimming and walking felt heavy on this world, she carried the grace of someone who has spent countless hours navigating the underwater currents and rocky shores of her native world. It had most likely been what had attracted the green-skinned people to her planet.

She glanced up the sky stretched out endlessly above her, a canvas of unfamiliar stars and colours that after so many days and nights were becoming familiar. The ground beneath her feet was strange yet solid, a stark reminder that she was far from home and the oceans that she had grown up by. She could remember the day the green men came to her home and tore her and several other women from the nesting grounds and threw them in different skyships. She had only heard about that type of thing happening before in myths but it had been anything but a story when she had been stolen away.

“The stars seem brighter now the fires are mostly out from the stuff inside the ship.” The woman said to her partner for the night. She glanced down at the device that was around her neck hoping that it was working to allow them to communicate despite being born on different planets.

"It will take time," Xana said softly, echoing the stranger beside her; though the fact that they were all strangers seemed to make them oddly drawn closer together. Her eyes looked up at the foreign sky. "Strange that the stars of our ancestors still light the sky of a world not our own. I take comfort in sensing that they are still watching over us. As should you."

"It is just strange. There is no ocean. I have always had the ocean until they..." She glanced back at the ship. "... Came and stole us and everyone else from our homes. But the starts offer some comfort I suppose." She decided. She had been a simple farmer in her mind but there were people there that had training to do more and they were the ones leading them.

Xana's lips faintly smiled in understanding. "I miss the trees of my home. And the mountains." Her eyes closed slightly as she pictured them in her mind; a peaceful memory, one she wasn't sure if she would grasp again. "We would cast ourselves out from the very top and ride the air currents for miles..." her breathlessness was followed with a sigh. "We must keep our memories, for they may be the only things we can keep of our homes."

"I am trying. Can you not try that here?" Mina wondered glancing at her friend smiling as her feathers danced a little in the slight breeze. "There are mountains somewhere in the distance." She indicated vaguely in the direction that they were viewable in the daytime. The unfamiliar terrain and the absence of the soothing ocean sound she had always known made her feel incredibly alone sometimes as the only other of her species died in the crash.

"The currents are not the same here..." Xana whispered sadly, a longing in her heart to be in that familiar place again. "But at least we have our freedom here. That is something, isn't it?"

Nina sighed softly but the noise came out a lot longer and plunder than she had expected. The air was different there and she was still adjusting to it, it did not feel like it was hurting her but it did make everything feel heavy. “Freedom is a lot compared to what they wanted to do with us.” She commented thinking of what she had heard them wanting to do with her.

Xana touched the other's arm comfortingly. "We sacrificed much to get to this point." Her feathers fluffed out momentarily. "It was worth it to find that freedom, even if it cost us the sky," she reflected, her eyes gazing upwards again.

Nina nodded and giggled at the touch on her arm. The sensation tickled her bare skin as the other woman's feathers fluttered lightly against it. "This world is not what any of us expected," she said, her voice tinged with sadness still despite the comfort that the woman was trying to offer. "But I think the ocean deities did the best they could against the sky demons. I am glad the people that we ended up with are the people that they are."

"As are we all, I think." Xana leaned lightly against Nina's arm as they watched the horizon and the sky.

"I never thought I would find a home here without the ocean," Nina continued softly. "But it’s amazing how adaptable we are. How we can find light even in the darkest places even now." She indicated the darkness around them and then the pair of them stood there in the firelight.

"Often that light must be each other. We all fought for our freedom; and made sacrifices." Her feathers fluttered slightly as she gazed at the stars. "Migration is part of life for my people. Never have any of them wandered quite this far. And with strangers."

"We do not migrate but I do understand the shifts and changes of the oceans and this feels like a..." She paused trying to think of the best word that the little computers could translate before. "...maelstrom. They are one of the most powerful and dangerous whirlpools. Some of my people believe that the whirlpool is a gateway to another world, while others believe that it is a place where sea monsters live. Both seem to be appropriate right now."

"Your seas...my winds." Xana closed her eyes and felt the gentle flow of the air on her skin. "Strange that we come from such different worlds, yet there are many similarities between them. Would that we could witness them again..." she trailed off, that familiar sadness and loss returning at the prospect of never returning there again.

"Just need someone from the earth who is like us and we would have enough to tackle this world." She assured taking the woman's hand in her as she saw the sadness in her new friends. "My mother used to say that everyone came from the same ocean once upon a time and I believe that more and more as I speak to the others." It was hard trying to work out everyone but this close to camp it was easy thanks to the machines.

"I am grateful that we are not alone," Xana sighed, squeezing the hand that held hers. "It is a freedom that was hard won, in the end."

Mina nodded. She was grateful she just wished that she had appreciated what she had back home before she had lost it. It would be the biggest regret of her life.