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“Romeo,Romeo,where-….where the fuck is Romeo?”
“Heather Lukas!” Aaron gasped at his little sister, “language!”
“You and Judy said I shouldn’t censor myself,” Heather responded dryly, adjusting the pointed hat she’d spent hours on for this very performance she,Rose and Peter were meant to be putting on in the depths of their family’s grounds.Peter, of course, was now nowhere to be found.
“I meant- oh, never mind what I meant.Come on, we’ve got a little brother to find-“ Aaron sighed and snapped his notebook shut, drawing the attention of Judith, who’d been busy snickering at Heather’s ‘creative liberties’ she’d taken to perform Romeo and Juliet with her brother - namely changing the story from being about lovers to being about siblings separated at birth - and with that,Aaron continued “-and let’s try to be quick,if I miss dinner again because Peter doesn’t know how to stay still I swear to The One Alone I’ll-“ Judith clapped him upside the head,hissing through her teeth at his choice of words.
“No Lonely talk in front of the little ones, remember?”
Aaron whined, rubbing at his head, but nodded. And with that, the four siblings began the search for their brother.
They found him standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out to the churning sea below. Heather, not knowing nor caring that startling someone that close to a roughly 40 foot drop is not safe, cupped her hands ‘round her mouth and shouted;
“PETER!”
The little boy startled and nearly slipped on the ground that was still a little damp from last night’s rain, his feet scrabbling for purchase for a moment before Aaron yelped and surged forward to grab his younger brother and pull him back.
“Peter!What were you thinking, going off on your own?!You could’ve been hurt or worse!”
Peter blinked up at him, then looked back out to the crashing waves - or, more accurately, the ships atop it.
“…what’re those?”
“Those, my brother dearest-“ Judith began, plucking Peter from his older brother’s arms in a futile attempt to stop Aaron’s fretting “-are ships. Some of them probably belong to Uncle Nathaniel.”
Peter’s eyes sparkled.
“Uncle Nathaniel gets to go on those?” He asked, voice hushed with awe.Judith snickered, ruffled Peter’s hair and ignored the shock of white that was slowly swallowing his reddish curls, then answered.
“No, no. He doesn’t go on them - none of us do - he just owns them. Does the paperwork, you understand.”
Peter did not, in fact, understand. But he frowned anyways because he understood enough to know he was not, to his infinite disappointment, being given an easy excuse to ride one of the mechanical wonders cutting through the saltwater like a hot knife through butter.His hands raised to his chest subconsciously, fingers dancing on his coat as he started worrying his lip, trying to find his words.Judith smiled knowingly.
“Want to have a closer look?We can go down to the beach, if you like.”
She pointed down to the small area of sand at the bottom of the cliff that struggled against the waves. Peter felt a smile ghost across his face, but before he could answer-
“Judith, our nanny said to stay away from the cliffs!” Aaron’s voice shook a little. Judith waved a hand dismissively, already herding three of her younger siblings to a safe passage down,
“What nanny doesn’t know won’t hurt her, Aaron!” she called over her shoulder, “but if you’re that scared,you can stay up here on the edge and wait-“
“No, no, I’m coming,I’m coming, I just thought that-…Rose could be scared.”
Rosaline Lukas, who was already half-dragging her twin sister down the cliff side, poked her head back up to shoot her oldest brother an incredulous glare, which the older boy shrunk beneath. Judith barked out a laugh, and the five children descended into the bay.
As soon as Peter’s feet hit the sand, he felt like he’d entered his own personal heaven.His body relaxed as the wind whipped around him, and he approached the shore and felt the water lapping at his - now scuffed - leather shoes.His siblings followed close behind, all of them pausing to admire the water before setting to their own activities; Aaron sat on the sand and opened his notebook once more, beginning to write a new poem almost as soon as his pen left his pocket,Judith found a particularly large, sturdy piece of driftwood and began writing in the sand, and Rose and Heather went towards the rock pools as fast as their six year old legs could take them, searching for crabs and fish. Peter, however, remained right at the shore, watching the ships.He knew, then, that this was where he belonged.Not in a study like his uncle Nathaniel, no - the sea was his home.It had been calling him, and now he could not imagine anything more wonderful than sailing that deep, open water on a ship of his own.No, he was certain in his infinite eight year old wisdom that there was nothing better or more important on the planet than the chance to be on one of those ships.His mind was set.He was already imagining it - standing on his very own boat, the smell of salt in the air and the cold wind surrounding him and the roar of the waves breaking against his ship-
“Peter,the tide’s coming in and if we don’t go soon we’ll be late to supper.Come along now,you can come back tomorrow.”
Peter frowned again, but stepped reluctantly back away from his future and allowed himself to be led back up the cliffs and through the forest and right up to the huge building he and his siblings called home.Dinner was, as always, eaten in silence and followed by bed.But as soon as the house was quiet enough,Peter slipped out of his room and into the library, snapping up any books that looked to be about ships and taking his bounty back to read hiding under the covers.When he was late to breakfast the next day, his nanny would discover him snoring beneath his blanket, face buried in a book about maritime history that had acted as his bedtime story.The books would be placed back on their shelves and Peter would be dressed and brought down to eat as he still rubbed his eyes and blinked slowly.Unbeknownst to anyone, especially Peter himself, that beach would be what his corner of his patron would mould itself after, though with much more fog, and would become where he’d retreat whenever a voyage on The Tundra was either not an option or not enough to replenish his connection to The One Alone.It was where he’d hide the day after he was branded, where he’d cry for his siblings when doing so in front of even the help was not safe, where he’d slip away to be joyful when his uncle gave him his very own ship, where he’d stomp around when someone was being particularly annoying and he couldn’t vanish them.
In short,the bay would become his home,his sanctuary and,in his eyes,the most comforting place on Earth.