One lone Selkie, even garbed in modest blues and browns, is a very noticeable addition to Leuda's naturally drab landscape. At least, that's how I feel. Compared to the ashen ground and flat rocky cliff top, I might as well be wearing my festival clothes. But we Selkies, gaudy and festive in our furs and (stolen) silks, are like that, aren't we? Regardless, The leather sack I've carried and set next to me is slightly less unobtrusive, and I run my fingers over its tooled designs without much thought, pondering such useless things as Selkie attire. Breezes that smell of salt drift about in flurries, ruffling my hair and clothes, but they don't disturb the pensive silence up here. All is quiet, save for the ocean and my thoughts.
Here, though, the ocean isn't so much a sound as it is a part of life. Most of us aged five years or older have long since learned to not listen to it. Even so, the constancy is comforting. The sound of air whispering through the short scrubby grass is a a melodic addition to the sea's song, sounding like the strings of an instrument long forgotten. I close my eyes. This is the only place in Luida when the sounds of nature are not completely drowned out by the pounding of wave against rock. Perhaps that's why I like it here, though given the choice I'd take the ocean's strong noise to the sound of, say, a farm in Fum.
Perhaps I've just spent too much time in this briny atmosphere here to even contemplate living in such an earthy place. A smile tugs at my lips; as a child, I'd seen a gentle-natured cow on a trip to the mainland, and had been frightened of the creature. Vegetables and fruit are pale in comparison to salted meats and fish, and I'd like kill any plant I was set to care for. Yes, farm work is not for me. But soon, I'll have to travel to these locations. In my mind's eye, I can picture the golden fields of wheat, with Clavats in farmer's attire working the fields, but the time for such sights isn't upon me quite yet.
I berate myself half-heartedly. Like a little girl, I'm only thinking of the pleasant bits of my journey. Seriousness is the attitude I should be feeling, and fear will be the emotion lingering in my stomach when I must enter a monster's den to fill the chalice. Again, my traitorous thoughts run away with the possibilities… Cold, dripping caves that have never seen the light of day. Fields of sand scorchingly hot that they supposedly dry the very spit in your mouth. Forests of mushrooms that tower over you, and have towered over everyone who came before you for centuries. All that strife for one droplet of Myrrh. Though I'm used to the chill carried by the sea breeze, I shiver just a bit.
Down below, slate-colored water washes in and out, leaving behind bubbles and sea foam. After the breaking waves, the ocean is calm, its rolling motion undisturbed. Underneath the surface of the water, there's surely an undercurrent waiting to suck you under, but that is, of course, avoidable. I remember once, that a young Selkie girl was once lost to a riptide, and that when she washed up on the shore, she was nothing more than a ghostly specter of herself. That memory is sad, yet so many other happy memories surround it, ranging from something so trivial as casting my first net to the grand festivals and feasts the village threw to celebrate a bountiful fishing season.
Am I going to remember all of this? Will the sudden descent into a new world leave room for nothing but the present in my mind? If I do forget, and lose my way, will I be a lost soul? Forgotten, my voice as lost to the ears of my kinsman as one of the howling winds that comes from over the ocean, speaking of places unknown? Memories, through storytelling, are as important to our culture and life as fish are to the ocean. All races are like that, from the Yukes passing down their experience through finely scripted tomes, to the Clavats oft-repeated proverbs and practical lessons.
If I make it, this moment in itself could be a tale, or at least the beginning of one. I shall be sure to tell of how the wind seems to be stand still for the briefest of moments, and how I can hear the deep chords of a chiming bell resonating up to my lofty location as clearly as if I were in the bell tower myself. There is no tune in the bell's song, it is simply there to tell everyone to come, and not tarry. Certainly, it's telling me to move along, I know that. Being fleet-footed is one of the many benefits of my Selkie heritage, and it should not take me but a moment to get to the village's center. My feet are taking the ground in long strides before I've gotten my satchel's buckles fixed around my waist.
The gathered Selkies applaud, some clasping a hand to their heart and performing the traditional salute in my honor, and others (the wilder ones, I suspect) letting out a whoop or yell. Our elder wrinkles his nose at the smell of dust as he closes the ceremonial book, but his lips crease to form a smile. He spoke the last words but a moment ago. Having accepted my vows, and promising to gather Myrrh to replenish our crystal and keep the miasma at bay, the ceremony is over. Watery sunlight reflects off the chalice in my hands, lighting up the silver-wrought details. All that is left now is for me to leave.
Similarly, a few others beside myself linger. They walk over to give me gifts or just wish me luck before I depart. Some are practical:
"Don't be afraid to take what's yours, and don't do anymore than you've got to!"
"Eat a good meal every day, and don't you forget it!"
Others encourage me:
"Let memories light your way."
"Make your way with courage, and return home like a river to the ocean."
The last well-wisher is a woman who looks vaguely familiar to me, though I cannot place where I've seen her before.
"My son went, long ago, with his caravan. Everyone came back, but not 'im. He's lost, to someplace I'll never know."
I remember now... that's where I've seen her before; she was the mother of a caravaner, a handsome young man with much ahead of him, several years back. Any words of solace I might offer she has surely heard before, so instead, I gently wrap an arm around her in a loose embrace, only to find that I can feel the sharply defined bones of her shoulders through the fabric of her shirt. We part, and I watch as she absently tucks a lose strand of hair behind her ear.
"May you not meet the same fate," she says quietly, and drifts away.
Her son was not the only one to have not returned. The same amount, if not more, of returning caravans are short a member than the ones that come back fully intact. The looks on the faces of the surviving caravaners are hollow and sad, their triumphant homecoming marred just a little because one of their group did not live to witness it. Once, it was not a Selkie that came to Leuda at the end of the year, but a Yuke. He had brought with him somber tidings and a worn journal riddled with scorch marks.
Even now, the chalice in my hands that I'm fiddling with is a reminder; it has had many siblings over the decades, some of which are still clutched in the skeletal hands of their owners. Yet, many of the ones that made it back are displayed in prominent places as tokens of hope. I look aside, casting my searching gaze at our crystal.
Even in its size and grandeur, it mirrors the lesser one on my chalice. A tiny chink is visible in the side, where my piece was carved out. By the time I next see it, the indentation will have filled in completely, and that small trace of this venture shall be gone.
But if resolutions and wishes are anything to go by, I will return. Att the end of this year, I shall come back to Leuda bearing a full chalice of Myrrh and a journal filled with accounts of my wayfaring. Someday, far from this one and many years from now, I can see myself as one of the Selkies that sits around a fire telling younger minds about my adventures. My memories shall give them confidence and stories to take along for their quests, I hope.
No future other than the bright one I imagine can exist in my mind. Ending the story I'll keep in my journal so happily is not just a blind desire, of course; I can hear it in the tide.
A/N: ...And there you have it! My debut fanfiction, my writing premier! Thanks a ton for reading and getting this far, peeps. Apologies in advance for getting any details wrong; it's been years since I played FF:CC... Constructive criticism is welcome, though I would appreciate it if any potential critics weren't too, um... self-confidence-crushing. Thanks!