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Once upon a time, the sea fell in love with a man.
He came from one of the cities along her coast. And every evening, he would go down to the beach to see her. Together, they would walk barefoot in the sand as the tides rolled in around them.
Every night, before they parted, he would ask her to come with him so that they could be together forever.
Every night, she would shake her head.
I am the ocean, she would say. I am the salt in the breeze, and the whisper in the spray. I am the gull’s cry at dawn, and the storm in the surf. The roar of the tides, and the song in the waves. I am all this, and I am more, but I cannot leave my world behind.
Until one night, he took her hand and held her close.
Then I will come to you, he promised. I will build us a home on an island far away, and we can stay with each other forever. Just give me your heart, so I know you are sure.
She looked up into his eyes, soft and wanting and clear as the sky.
Is that all?
Yes.
Then it is yours, she said. It has always been yours.
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Once upon a time, on a sea-kissed midnight with the moon high above, the ocean went to meet her lover at the paradise they would share together.
He was not there.
He would not come.
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Once upon a time, in a grief-torn-tempest, the ocean, alone, gave birth to a daughter.
She had sun-warmed skin and hair like the deep, bright, sandy freckles and eyes that glowed, purple like a sunset at sea.
She would be loved. She would be protected.
She was all that mattered, now.
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Once upon a time, in a small fishing boat off the coast of Port Damali, a man and a woman were tossed against the crying waves, thrown into a sobbing storm, dashed upon the rocky shores of a sea turned bitter by betrayal.
The next day, their young son would be moved to the local orphanage.
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And that, was where this story began.
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Fjord was a troublesome boy, because none of the other children liked him very much. Maybe it was the way his limbs didn’t seem to fit his body, maybe the way his head was just a little too big. He had floppy hair, and big teeth, and a smile that used to be able to light up a room.
Though these days, not so much.
These days, he did everything he could to avoid the taunting of the others. Usually that meant sneaking away from the orphanage building—an old manor along the water covered in chipped blue paint and years of green algae. He would push back a loose plank of wood that only he knew about, and escape onto the sand beyond. He would run down to the beach and play by himself in the tide pools until nighttime, when he would have to return home.
He made friends with the starfish and learned not to touch urchins. He scared seagulls away from crabs and rescued minnows that got trapped when the tide rolled out.
But his favorite thing to do, above all, was to watch the sunset.
He liked the way the sky melted into soft oranges, striking golds, reds that trailed across candy-pink clouds, and especially the deep, glowing purple of the quiet night above.
It was beautiful. But it was sad, because Fjord also knew it meant he would have to leave.
One day, as he stood upon a rocky outcropping and stared at the slow-falling sun, he moved a little too far to the left to get a better look, and lost his footing on the wet stone.
He fell right into the water, but it wasn’t deep enough to catch him fully. He hit his head on the sand below and quickly, his vision went dark.
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Someone else saw him.
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Jester was not allowed onto the beach. She knew this, and she knew it was for her own safety, but still, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to the colorful cities and strange little ships that sailed around the waters. She told her momma this, told her that the land was calling, and that a part of her was missing. But it made the sea very sad to hear this, and eventually, Jester stopped asking to go.
Instead she would spend her days traipsing through the waves, talking to fish and imaginary friends she would make up along the way. She collected shells to show her momma and played hide-and-seek with the turtles, but every so often, she would find herself swimming up to the sky, popping her head out of the surf, and just for a moment, watching the people in the distance go about their lives.
Until one day, when she saw a boy fall from the rocks, and not get up.
Jester had heard, from stories that her momma told about sailors, that people could not live very long in the water.
Jester had been protected, had been loved, all her life.
All she knew, was how to be kind.
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Fjord awoke with his back on the rocks, with seawater on his tongue. It took him a moment to gather himself and sit up, and look around, and as he glanced downwards, he came face-to-face another child.
It was a girl. She was hanging off the side of the large stone where he sat, her upper-body visible but the rest submerged. She had dark skin, and short black hair, and purple eyes that glowed like the sunset in the sky above. Fjord had never seen eyes quite like that before. Right now, they stared back at him with twinkle of smug satisfaction.
“You were drowning,” she said, when he continued to stare. “You’re welcome.”
He blinked. He frowned.
“Why would I thank you for drowning?”
The girl rolled her eyes and poked him teasingly in the chest. “’Cause I saved you, dummy. You’re welcome.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
She beamed at that, and poked him again. “You’re welcome. Oh, look! I drew you while you were sleeping.”
She pointed up the shore, past the rocks and water where they sat, to a small patch of sand with a stick lying next to it. It was a bit hard to see in the fading light, but scored into the beach, with thin, meticulous lines, was a very rudimentary sketch of Fjord’s face, eyes closed and hair wild.
He wasn’t much of an artist, but even he could tell that it was good.
“Wow,” he said.
“Thanks,” she grinned. “Hey, what’s your name? I’m Jester.”
“What? Oh, uh, Fjord. It’s nice to meet you.”
Jester laughed, a sound that felt like a soft ocean breeze. “It’s nice to meet you too. You know, you’re the first human I’ve ever met.”
Maybe it was the way his lungs still ached, or the way his gaze couldn’t seem to leave hers, but Fjord was too distracted to find anything strange in that choice of words.
“You’re the nicest human I’ve ever met too,” he said. “I’ve got to go home, now, but do you want to be friends?”
Jester’s smile grew, and she clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh my gosh, yes! That sounds like so much fun! You should come back here tomorrow, I can bring some of my favorite seashells.”
“I’ve got some shells too,” Fjord offered shyly. “I can also show you, if you’d like?”
Jester’s eyes sparkled. “I’d love that. And I should go now too, but I’m excited to see you again!”
Fjord turned quickly and pointed at the buildings on the cliffs above them. “Would you, um, would you like to walk back to the city with me?” he asked. “I live in that building, but I can—”
There was a faint sploosh behind him. He spun around, eyes wide, and frowned.
Jester had vanished. He would spend the next twenty minutes combing through beach and the rocks, looking for her. But as he would continue to find nothing, and as the sky grew darker and darker, he would sigh, give one last glance to the drawing in the sand, and eventually, he would head back home.
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That night, Jester told her mother what had happened. She explained how nice the boy had been, how kind his eyes had seemed, how his smile could have lit the darkest seas. She begged, and she pleaded, to be allowed this friend.
That night, the seas grew rocky with a mother’s fear and desperate love.
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Fjord told the other children about what had happened, and they laughed.
Fjord told the women running the orphanage about what had happened, and they said that it had probably just been a dream—
The next day, he found his way down to the shore with a little pouch of shells clutched tightly in his hands, his heart full at the thought of seeing his new friend.
She was not there.
She would not come.
—and after a while, he started to believe it too.
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Years passed. When the orphanage would no longer house him, Fjord made his way down to the docks and found the first merchant vessel sailing out from the coast in need of extra hands. He found himself helping crew members haul barrels into the cargo hold, and after a day of hard labor, the captain offered him a place onboard.
Fjord took it, and didn’t look back.
He would spend the next summer, and then fall, and then winter, and repeat, sailing to and from the docks on the Lucidian Ocean, making himself useful to whatever crews offered pay. He learned about every part of a ship, learned the ins and outs of sails and rigging, and though he ended up being a shit navigator, he still learned the names of the constellations and could almost always find north.
He ended up as the bosun in many of his later journeys, and usually volunteered to keep an evening lookout. He lived for the quiet nights he would spend abovedeck, staring up into the stars with the wind in his hair, the sound of the waves rolling gently down below.
But always, somehow, somewhere at the back of his mind, whenever he had a moment to himself, Fjord would feel like there was still something missing. Like no matter how far he traveled, whatever he was searching for, could not be found
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Years passed. One day, tired of living always in the watchful embrace of her mother, and longing to return to the shore, Jester made a deal with a wandering spirit.
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The Menagerie Coast always had the best sunsets, and even after all this time, Port Damali’s were still the most beautiful of all. Whenever Fjord returned to those docks, he would find a chance to slip away, to venture out onto the cliffs above, to stand there and watch the colors bloom across the sky.
One day, after climbing the last step of the sea-slick trail that led up to his favorite spot, he saw someone already there.
It was a woman. Her back was turned to him, and Fjord had a hard time making out any details with the sun so bright and blinding. But he could tell that she was barefoot, and wore a loose, silky-white dress with wide, flowing sleeves, a hem that just grazed the back of her calves.
She had an easel set out before her, and she was in the middle of painting.
She was so close to the edge of the cliffs. One wrong step, and she would fall.
Fjord took a step towards her. He felt terrible for interrupting, but he more scared of what could happen.
“Miss?” he called out. “Miss, it’s not safe there.”
This startled her, paintbrush wobbling in her hand. She didn’t turn around, but Fjord could hear the sigh before she spoke.
“It’s not that dangerous. And I’m a little busy.”
He found himself carefully moving closer.
“I know you might think that,” he said, “but those rocks can get quite slippery. I wouldn’t want you fallin’ into the ocean, and gettin’ hurt.”
“Ha! The sea can’t hurt me.”
Fjord raised an eyebrow. “It certainly can,” he said. “I know this, I’m a sailor.”
The woman set her brush down on the easel, and turned.
Fjord couldn’t see much of her face, silhouetted as she was by the sunset. But what he could see stole his breath away. Her eyes. They were a glittering, shocking purple, like the lavender sky beyond. And maybe it was the light, or a reflection off the water, but her eyes seemed to glow as she looked back at him, as she raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” she asked.
Fjord just stared. He couldn’t do much else.
“Are you listening?” she waved a hand. “Mister?”
Something flickered at the edge of his mind. He took a semi-conscious step forwards.
“Do I…know you?”
The woman snorted. “I think I would remember meeting someone so dumb,” she said. Then she paused and added a little more hesitantly, “Come…come closer. Let me get a better look at you.”
Fjord snapped out of it. “I don’t think I should,” he said. “Like I said, it really is dangerous, that close to the edge.”
The woman sighed. “I’ll protect you, you big baby. Come on!”
Something in her tone washed all the fear away. Fjord nodded.
Closer now, he could see the splash of freckles against her dark skin, the rosy dimples framing her smile. She seemed to be considering him just as carefully, not making a sound until he stopped just a few feet in front of her.
“Well,” she said softly. “If I have met you before, it’s a shame that I’ve forgotten someone so handsome.”
Fjord blushed. “That’s…mighty kind of you, miss. But, um…the same goes for you.”
“Oh, you think I’m handsome?”
“I, uh, I meant…you’re quite pretty,” he muttered, cheeks growing even darker.
The girl laughed, a sound that felt like a soft ocean breeze. “Thank you. Do you like my painting?”
Fjord glanced at the easel, though it was hard to tear his gaze away from her grin. Her artwork was unfinished, mostly pencil lines at the moment, but the few splashes of color creeping in at the edge of the canvas shone in fading sunlight. If he squinted, Fjord almost couldn’t tell where the real sunset ended, and the paint began.
He wasn’t much of an artist, but he knew that it would be one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.
“Wow,” he breathed.
“Thanks,” she grinned. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“What? Oh, uh, I’m Fjord.”
And then, the woman froze.
“W-what?” she asked.
Fjord raised an eyebrow. “My name is Fjord,” he repeated. “It’s not that common, I know, but, uh…it’s the one my parents gave me?”
The woman’s expression had gone slightly panicky. She glanced around nervously, and took a step backwards.
“Fjord,” she muttered. “Fjord, like…like the boy from the beach?”
He frowned. “Like…excuse me?”
“Like the boy from the beach,” she echoed. “Oh, gods, I wasn’t supposed to ever see you again!”
Fjord moved closer. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What…what does that mean?”
The woman shook her head, her bright eyes full of worry. “I made a promise,” she whispered, “I made I promise, and I shouldn’t see you. I-I have to go now, I have to g—”
She took one wrong step.
She plummeted off the side of the cliff.
Fjord, without even thinking, threw himself off after her.
His descent was swift, and final, and as the wind rushed past him and the rocky shores grew closer, he had only a second to realize that it would take a miracle for him not to be killed—
But he crashed into waves, into nothing but water. It still hurt like hell, but it certainly would have hurt more to hit stone. Now the immediate issue was that he couldn’t breathe, could barely see, the saltwater stung at his eyes and tore at his lungs, and couldn’t figure out which way was which. More importantly, where did she go? Was she down below, or did she fall farther out, or, gods forbid, did she hit the rocks?
He thrashed around desperately, tried to turn his body around to see, but the effort to keep from sinking was draining the life away from him. He couldn’t keep this up, but he also couldn’t leave without her—
And then he felt a pair of arms swept under his, a powerful grip that pulled him up, up, up towards the surface.
He felt something else behind him too, something that should have felt like a pair of legs, but didn’t.
And then they both broke above the surface. She dragged him through the surf and up onto a flat slab of stone where he started coughing immediately. But when he glanced up, vision hazy, all he could do was stare at the figure bent over him.
“You idiot!” she cried, poking him hard in the chest. “Why did you do that?”
Fjord weakly reached up and brushed the hair away from her eyes. Her tears shimmered faintly in the light of the sunset.
“Hey, Jester,” he murmured. And the last thought he had before unconsciousness took him, was:
“I found you.”
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Once upon a time, the sea had a daughter, who had fallen in love with a man.
But she had also made a deal, with a wandering spirit, that in exchange for the freedom to visit the shore, she would give her whole heart over, and leave that love behind.
She had done so easily, quickly, without hesitation, because she never thought that she would see him again.
Until, that was, now.