Spirit Speaker

The sea breeze filled my lungs as I boarded the Winter Squall. She wasn't the only ship that travelled between Corel and the Capital, but when I saw her name on the dock manifest I made a beeline for her, the princess, Rowan and Miss Rita trailing behind me. 

"Ho, Captain!" I called when I reached the gangplank. 

"Ho!" The captain shouted across the deck.

"You're heading to Corel? My companions and I would like a ride if that's possible."

The captain studied me for a moment, and then his mouth split into a wide grin. 

"Sure thing, Master Mage, come on up."

"You remember me?" I asked, taking the princess's luggage from her, and walking up the gangplank.

"Of course I do, sir. You're the only Mage we've ever transported." The Captain whistled loudly behind him and three sailors walked over. 

"Take their luggage and store it in the spare room." He ordered, before looking back at me. "You will probably want to speak to our wavespeaker."

"If you wouldn't mind, Captain." 

The Captain turned from me and began heading back to his quarters. 

"Ho, Captain! You forgot something!" I called out after him. 

The Captain turned around, just in time to catch the small bag, filled with coin I had tossed at him. "For our accommodations, Captain."

The Captain pocketed the coin, "Much obliged, sir." 

And he walked away. 

I turned to Rowan. "Show Miss Rita to the room." I looked at Miss Rita, who looked very out of place on the gangplank behind Rowan.

"Forgive us, ma'am, you'll have to share with Jaina," I said, using the princess's assumed name. "Rowan and I will sleep on the deck, or in the berths with the sailors. 

 "Not a problem at all, Master Lukas, thank you for giving us the room." 

Miss Rita was a small woman, younger than me, though I couldn't tell by how much. She wore presentable, if comfortable, travelling clothes and her hair was pulled back in a bun from her rather pretty face. 

"Jaina? Will you accompany me to the rooms?" She asked. 

I shook my head. "No, Miss Rita, I'm going to need my student for a few moments. She'll join you a little later."

Miss Rita opened her mouth to object, but Rowan stepped forward before she got a word out.

"Well, Miss Rita, let me lead you to your room." He cut in, taking her arm and leading her below decks. 

"Is she always so…stiff?" I asked the princess. 

"Not usually, you just scare her, Lukas." She explained. "You scare a lot of the servants. They don't know what to make of you."

"Why?" I asked, leading her to the wavespeaker's quarters.

"Dragging a burnt-up corpse through the city streets tends to catch attention, master." Anna's eyes sparkled. "You never did tell me why you did that."

"He tried to steal something from me." 

"How can you not see how saying something like that could terrify someone?"

I knocked on the wavespeaker's door. 

"Wavespeaker? I'm a Mage from the Academy, and I'd like to greet the Winter Squall." 

"Just a moment!" A voice called from behind the door.

"She's a woman?" The princess asked. "I was under the impression that sailors were against having women on their ships."

"Most wavespeakers are women, Jaina. It's got something to do with the moon and the tides. I don't fully understand it."

The door opened, and we were greeted by a puffing, somewhat red-cheeked, weathered, bronze-skinned woman. 

"Oh, Lukas! It's you! Why didn't you say so?"

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me, ma'am." I turned to the princess. "This is-"

"I know who this is." The wavespeaker cut me off. She bowed deeply. "It's an honour to have you on our ship, princess."

"It's a pleasure to meet a wavespeaker, ma'am." The princess replied, curtsying gracefully. 

"She's my student, and I'd like to introduce her to the Winter Squall."

"Of course, come in, come in." She waved us in. 

The wavespeaker's room hadn't changed a bit. The walls were still decked with shells and sea glass. 

The floor was covered in sand, dried kelp and seaweed. 

The wavespeaker quickly drew a simple communication circle in the dirt. 

"Princess, if you wouldn't mind." She said, gesturing to the circle. 

"This is an ancient tradition, Anna. Most spiritspeakers have abandoned it, but I still practice it, and as my student, I'd like you to do the same."

"What do I do?"

"You sit in the middle of the circle, and you reach out to the spirit of the ship, just like you would if you were reaching out to the pavilion. The Winter Squall will take care of the rest."

The princess nervously took her place in the middle of the circle and closed her eyes. 

"She's young." The wavespeaker murmured, sitting on a box next to me. 

"She turned 15 last week."

"That's too young to be able to reach out to spirits." She looked at the princess surprised. "How did you do it?"

I shrugged. "She's always had incredible potential, I just knew how to teach her this time round."

"A good teacher is always important, but I think the majority of her power comes from that spider around her neck." The wavespeaker stood up and knelt in front of the princess. 

"May I?" She asked though she wasn't speaking to me. 

The amulet glowed red for a moment. 

"Thank you, sir." 

The wavespeaker took the spider in her hands and studied it critically. 

"This isn't of this world." She said, letting it go. "It's almost as though the Maiden herself made it, but she wouldn't have made it in the shape of a spider."

"It was given to her by the Weaver," I explained. "The spirit inside is an ancient one, and has been watching over the royal family for centuries."

The wavespeaker closed her eyes again, and then opened them, her face in awe. 

"Gurada." The wavespeaker whispered. "The Fisher."

I cocked my head. "You know of him?"

The wavespeaker nodded. "It's a wavespeaker legend. In the old days, when the world was young, before Arantha was built, before The Kingdom, before the continents split, there was a young fisherman, who used to live on distant shores.

"One night, a spirit appeared, a woman, walking on the water towards him. The fisherman greeted her warmly and took her into his own home, giving her food and warmth. He even gave her his bed and slept on the floor.

"She was gone the next morning. The fisherman went out to fish again and caught more fish that day than he ever had before.

"And that night the spirit returned. He took her into his home, he gave her food and warmth and made the earth his bed again.

"And again, the next morning she was gone. 

This continued for years. Each night, the spirit would appear, and he would eat with her, talk with her, entertain her, make her laugh by the fire, and then he'd sleep on the floor.

"One night, she didn't come. And distraught, the fisherman, now old and grey, went out to look for her.

"He climbed into his small boat and travelled in the direction she came every night. He chased the horizon. 

When he hungered he would fish, and when he thirsted he drank from the sea, the water clean and sweet to him.

"Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. And every night he would watch the horizon, waiting for the spirit, who never came."

"Eventually, he became too weak to row, too tired to fish, too old to reach over the side of the boat for water.

"And the night he was to die, she came to him, and she took him to her home, beneath the waves, and ate with him, and gave him warmth, and gave him her bed for his final resting place.

"That night he passed, the spirit watching over him, her hand on his.

"And the next morning he woke, a spirit. 

"And she took him to the Spirit King, who made them into stars, together, forever shining on a little fisher's hut on a distant shore."

I was silent for a few moments. "And Gurada was the fisherman?"

The wavespeaker nodded. "That's how the story goes anyway, I'm not sure how much has been lost over the years."

- It left out a lot of important details, but that's about the gist of it.

Gurada's voice echoed in my mind. - Della. That's her name, my sea spirit, my star.

"You were mortal once?" I asked surprised. "I thought land spirits were born from…well, the land."

Gurada didn't reply. 

"What happened?" I asked. 

Gurada glowed, red, blue, green, uncertain, before eventually settling on a dull gold.

- She died. My star, my sea spirit. And the Spirit King wouldn't bring her back. I rebelled, angry, and he pulled me from the sky, chained me in the earth, and forced me to act as guardian to a small village that had settled where Arantha is now.

The spirit didn't sound regretful anymore, just tired.

- I was young, brash. I should have known better, but all I could see was my pain. I didn't understand. I do now. 

- I served my sentence and handed the land over to my child. I returned to the Spirit King contrite, feeling like I hadn't done enough to atone more for my betrayal. As a reward for my service, he gave me to a fledgling goddess, the Weaver, who-

He cut off. 

Anna opened her eyes. 

I cleared my throat, and walked to the circle, sitting opposite her. 

"How did it go?"

The weave behind her eyes was pulsing brightly. 

"She's amazing." The princess breathed. "I wanted to spend more time with her, but she sent me back."

"Did she teach you anything?" I asked, remembering the first time I had ever greeted a spirit. The Elven forest had blessed me with a particularly potent ability. 

The princess nodded, raised her hand, focusing for a moment, and a sphere of water appeared floating above it. It began to spin rapidly, and then froze over, into ice, clear as glass.

She handed it to me, and I inspected it critically. 

"A little clumsy." I said, tossing it to and fro between my hands.

The Winter Squall began creaking around me. The princess pulled her tongue at me. 

I tossed the orb back to the princess. 

"But not bad for a first try."