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She stood on the shore in Seyda Neen and looked at the sea. The locals thought her main reason to come there in the month of Last Seed the third time in a row was because it was where and when she started her journey in Morrowind — from an unknown prisoner apparently sent into exile to a revered hero. But she had her own reason, only known to her and one other person — the navigator of the ship that brought her to Seyda Neen on the morning of Last Seed the 16th, 3E427.
The ship had just a skeleton crew and two prisoners: her and a Dark Elf named Jiub. From the crew's chatter, she knew they were to pick up more crew members in Morrowind to take them back to Cyrodiil and a bunch of prisoners to transfer to prisons elsewhere in the Empire.
Crew members could easily lose their jobs for mingling with convicts, but she and Jiub were in a peculiar situation: prisoners to be released. Not yet free, but they had no motivation to escape or hijack the ship either, so there was no need to throw them in locked cells or chain them, and they were just given berths on the crew deck.
Jiub cycled between silently contemplating his past and ranting about cliff racers in Morrowind. He never tried to talk to the ship crew. He never really talked to her, either — never even asked her about her name until the last moment before they were released and parted ways. She also assumed that the crew wouldn't want to talk to a prisoner but one day, she was so bored that she finally decided to approach a young Imperial women and asked, "Excuse me if this is inappropriate... what's your name?".
The Imperial woman looked at her and just said, "Gaia... Not very original, I know, one Gaia among thousands.".
"I was nicknamed 'pisciculus mortiferus' because I was the best swimmer among the kids in my village.", she continued. "That's how they'd say 'a little slaughterfish' in Cyrodiil. Even teachers started calling me that, usually without the second part, just "pisciculus". You can call me that if you want. What do they call a slaughterfish where you grew up?"
She tried to remember but couldn't and just said: "They don't, I suppose... I grew up far from the sea, and there're no river slaughterfish, thank gods. Nice to meet you, Gaia. I assume you already know my name from the ship's manifest?".
Gaia laughed. "No, I'm not a guard", she said; "I have no reason to read those manifests. I'm a navigator. I only care about guiding ships to their destinations."
They started hanging out together on the upper deck when Gaia wasn't busy with her navigator duties. She'd recite poems and sing songs to Gaia, and occasionally tell her about her time in the Imperial City's prison — how they'd hide smuggled items from the guards in wall cracks and the like. Gaia would tell her about the faraway lands she visited and about the art of seafaring. She felt very comfortable with Gaia, and at some point realized that she also couldn't stop looking at her at every chance. But she tried to hide it as much as she could because she assumed that Gaia might not even want her friendship, much less anything else — just someone to keep her company during the boring voyage to a gods-forsaken, barbaric province.
One night, when they were due to arrive in Morrowind the next day, Gaia took her outside to show her how to use stars for navigation.
"You see that bright star there? You can use it to find the north."
She was reasonably well-versed in spells and letters but what Gaia was doing to guide the ship was pure magic to her, and she didn't even get which exact star it was.
So Gaia put her hands on her shoulder and the back of her head and turned her in the right direction.
"See, right next to that moon? You can also find your position if you have a book that says how high the sun and the moons are in different places on different days at a given time... and you need a tool to measure how high they are precisely — it's still a very new thing, I've only seen it in the Arcane University in the Imperial City. Then you draw two overlapping circles on the map, and it gives you two points where you can be; one of those is where you are. And you know where you are because you know where you aren't."
Gaia noticed that she was visibly confused and decided to say something to comfort her.
"I know it can be daunting at first, but keep looking at the sky, and you'll get a hang of it. It will be no time before people start calling you the lady of the moon and stars. Lady Moon-and-Star..."
She realized that Gaia's arms were still wrapped around her and finally found the courage to lift her arms and put them on Gaia's shoulders.
"You also want to show me something?", asked Gaia.
She was about to withdraw but Gaia sensed her hesitation and started gently stroking her hair. After a few minutes spent like that in silence, she turned to Gaia and gave her a quick peck on her lips.
Gaia smiled, held her tightly, and kissed her. She couldn't remember Gaia's kiss in detail because she completely lost her sense of reality when it happened. It wasn't an unambiguous, passionate invitation to something more. But it was confident and comforting — like a goodnight kiss one may give their spouse. The sense of trust was more exciting than the physical sensation of kissing someone she was attracted to.
"Gaia... do you have... someone?", she asked.
"Not really. Well, not at all. I wouldn't even want to, right now — why make someone spend most of their time worrying if I already died in a shipwreck, or if I have a sweetheart in every port of the Empire? I wouldn't want to give up my love of the sea to settle down, though. Maybe if I can become a pilot in a large port... those jobs pay really well, if you can find your way in, and you don't spend a lot of your time in the high seas. "
She looked at Gaia and thought that she was in a similar situation. She had no idea what she was going to do in a strange land. They would drop her on the shore, and then what? She could't even play the lute and sing on town squares and in taverns, because she had no lute, or the money to buy one. To be a freelance adventurer, she'd also need to find a decent weapon and armor, and those were never cheap. Become a day laborer? Try to join some of the imperial guilds? How could she possibly be thinking about relationships if she didn't know where she was going to live?
She buried her face in Gaia's shoulder to get at least an illusory and fleeting sense of security.
"If at least one of us gets her life together...", she said, in a tone that sounded more like a wish than a question.
"Then we'll buy our own ship and sail all over the world", Gaia responded jokingly to lighten the mood, and continued after a short pause, "Sounds like a plan? But we should better get inside now. A storm is coming."
She had no idea how Gaia could predict a storm but soon she heard a distant thunder and thought that she should never doubt her words when it came to seafaring.
She wrapped herself in a blanket in her berth and instantly fell asleep. At night, she had a strange dream that she couldn't make any sense of. Shortly before dawn, she felt that Gaia kissed her on her forehead, but she wasn't sure if it was a dream or not.
Jiub, her fellow prisoner, woke her up. "Not even the storm could wake you", he noted. They were both about to be released. She saw Gaia on her way up and approached her but all Gaia said to her was, "The sooner you leave, the sooner we can move on".
She was upset and confused but then realized that a crew member giving a farewell hug to a prisoner dressed in rugs would raise many eyebrows. For now, they had to play their roles.
She remembered vividly how she stepped on the shore and understood that she would almost certainly never meet Gaia again.
The silt strider's call snapped her out of her reverie. She heard people gossiping that the Census and Excise recently arrested a whole gang of smugglers in a haven hidden behind very dangerous rocks but to confiscate their boat and bring it to Seyda Neen, they had to bring a pilot from the large port in Ebonheart and pay a huge fee to have that pilot guide it among those horrid rocks. The pilot was, apparently, going to take a silt strider back.
"And so should I", she thought to herself. She headed towards the silt strider port and noticed someone in the line of passengers waiting to board. Someone who couldn't possibly be... but before she could finish that thought, she had already shouted 'Gaia?!' and their eyes met. They both looked at each other in disbelief for a few moments,
"There is much to discuss, much to learn", said an old Orc to himself, who wasn't even paying attention to those two people who found each other.
Gaia laughed. "Can't say it better. There is much to discuss, much to learn. Have you learnt how to find the North Star? You'll need it if you still want to sail with me. Do you?"
"I do...", she said; "I do".