Pearls and Sapphires

Twice now I have found myself in Port Kar; once by invitation and now.. by chance. Precious coppers were spent on new clothing, a brown robe of inexpensive fabric and an inn, where I am allowed to stay for free, so long as I give a third of my earnings to the inn keeper, a woman I met at the Sardar Faire.

Readings are few and far between, most weary of my.. talents, though two have paid in gems, both pearls and sapphires, a cost that far exceeded the simple three copper I require. I put aside all of my earnings, so that when the time comes, I can find my way back to AR and my daughter. I miss my little Charm, more and more everyday, trying to imagine what new things she’s learned, I resentful at the fact she was taken away from me so cruelly. At least I’m sure that Gabriel and Zarah are taking good care of her, despite of who her father is.

Castor. My heart aches for him so and I know not if is he alive.. or dead.

Perhaps it is better not to know.

Finders Keepers

How quickly I was becoming sick of dry salted fish, food taken from the staples of others. I took no more than I needed, occasionally leaving something in its place to compensate for the loss of what I stole.

I had lost count of the days, though I know there were many, thinking that I would never reach any sort of dignified civilization. I kept to the land as much as possible, marshes the bane of my existence, always fearful of what I would come across. I tried to move little by day, not wishing to be discovered, but at times even this was unavoidable. And as I had already witnessed, sometimes night creatures were more horrible then those I might run into during the day.

The moons illuminated my weaving pathway, water carrying me from one parcel of land to the next, a pilgrimage that seemed never ending. At times I was certain I was walking in circles, while other times everything seemed so unfamiliar.

And then I saw it. A lonely square of rence floating serenely near a tuft of reeds as if it was waiting for me. My card.. the last to be found, a card that I had always had a hard time holding on to. The Lovers Card. We were all together again.. at last.

The Rencer

To my surprise only one card eluded me. Though many were torn and crumbled, I was coming to realize that nothing was beyond repair.

With the faded cards of past glories carefully tucked away, my journey began. A pilgrimage through rence and water, straying as far from human life as I possibly could, but of course, not even that could last forever.

The moons seemed unusually bright to me, well lighting my path so that.. hopefully, no misguided steps would find me throat deep in water. I had purposely waited for the darkness, so that I could slip by the stilted houses unnoticed. Twice I had seen the water beasts reeling beneath the sea, but both times they were far enough away so that I hadn’t worried about them. My luck was about to run out… again.

I had just made it past the lowly lit homes of those that worked the rence and water for a living, wondering how I was going to cross what I thought looked like a particularly deep ravine. There were shadows in the distance, black silhouettes against the lightness of night sky, standing erect atop floating platforms, with what looked to be a long stick, which I assumed was used to move the makeshift boats. I new it was now or never. I would have to cross here and now, or take the chance of being found out.

Silently I slipped into the water, small rippling watery circles pushing away from me as I fully immersed myself. The water was cold and I was shivering before I was even half way to the other side. It was then I realized my folly, feeling the sandpaper rough flesh of something slithering past me. Immediately my movement ceased and I closed my eyes, my jaw clenched tightly, awaiting for something to sink its teeth into me, or at the very least, drag me beneath the water where I would disappear forever.

But nothing happened. Some frozen ehns later I started to move again, only to stop for a second time at the feel of something moving past me. I could not go back, I could not go forward, my progress stalled by whatever it was I shared the water with. I could see the shadow that had loomed some distance away was closing in on me, the long stick pushing through the water making a quiet swishing sound, but this time I could feel the creature that swayed against my leg hurry past me, so quickly in fact, that I thought I would surely lose my balance. And it was headed in the direction of the rencer.

I called out to him in warning, a warning as I had feared had come too late, the thrashing of water heard, the small droplets of unforgiving waves spilling over my face. It was during this confusion I decided it best to attempt passage to dryer land, hoping the commotion would prove to be excellent cover for my hurried motion. When I looked back over my shoulder, the raft was empty and the waters had stilled. I had survived.. at the cost of another.

Deliverance

It wasn’t until the following morning that I saw the extent of the destruction, one aggravated by the soft tipped waves that never ceased in their quest for certain annihilation, erasing all that once was.

Boxes, brittle with the seas vengeance, lay strewn over the course of a full pasang. Two broken bodies, half a mast, a small pouch of copper tarsks, torn sacks of what might have once held grain and a crate of wine, intact. Deliverance.

The cards which had once sought such sweet solace in the pouch at my side were gone. If they were calling to me, such songs were now falling on deaf ears. I knew even if I was lucky enough to find some of them that I would never again hold the entirety of ancient murmurs. The timeworn whispers of my past were gone forever, and for the first time in my life we were parted, in all likelihood, never to be joined again.

I sat in the sand, facing the ocean, my knees drawn up with a circle of arms draped around my legs. For ahns I stayed there, staring out over the crested waves of the sea, until finally my eyes could take no more and I slept. It was not the sleep of exhaustion, but a repose of spirit, an indication that all was not as it seemed, a fact that was never more true then when I awoke. The Two of Cups card had been washed upward over the sand to settle near my right foot. Wet, worn and a little more faded then what I remembered, but I knew if one could find me, that soon we would all be together again.