The Last Voyage of the Alynel and the Arren.
Down in the deserted dock, the queenly ship, Alynel, is flying a black flag of mourning. Her deck is deserted and no one dares to go on board and search for a crew member to ask why the graceful beauty of her elegant prow and smooth ropes is interrupted by looming funeral trappings. Alynel and her sister ship are legends among sailors and their somber attitude cannot bode well for the dock that was bright and busy before they descended, a wave of gloomy fog riding on their backs.
Rumor says that for the Alynel, the currents are always favorable and that even the wind will reverse itself in order to catch her sails. A beautiful girl has often been spotted in the crow’s nest by the other crews who have passed this ship out at sea, a girl with pale red eyes and long sweeping hair the same color as a summer sky. Today, black ribbons hang from the crows nest, and weeping can distantly be heard from a woman, cloaked in black, who sits perched on the rigging and cries. Deep into the night, the ship lies in the dock and mournful, wailing music plays from ghostly pipes out across the water.
Late that night, or perhaps early the next morning, the Alynel sets sail, leaving behind a trail of enchanted blue and black roses that float, immovable, refusing to sink or let the other ships pass. It is raining now, a pathetic drizzly rain, and in the distance, through the wispy fog, horrible wailing can be heard. When she meets with the Arren, neither crew cheers as they would ordinarily; instead, the Arren goes ahead and the Alynel quietly follows behind. They travel faster than should be possible: the seemingly still ocean currents whisking them towards their destination at alarming speeds. The only crew members who are working are Tirade and nightshade, who enchant feverishly, bewitching flowers, Tirade the blue and Nightshade the Black. They toss them over board from the back of the Alynel, leaving a glowing trail of roses that stretches eerily into the distance.
They have no fear of being followed for two reasons: one practical and one esoteric. The practical reason is that Riiski, the pirate Queen declared yesterday when confirming the rumors of Lucien’s death, that it was to be a day of peace: no ships were to sail unless they wanted to risk her eternal enmity. Tonight, every port on the Blade coast is jam packed and every flag is at half mast, for Lucien was well -liked and respected by those who knew him well, and a legend to those that did not. Where the Alynel was docked a few hours ago, three ships now bunch together, trading stories about the legendary Alynel, the sailors getting drunk and toasting each other in Lucien’s name.
While sailors salute each other " To Lucien!", The Alynel and the Arren continue sailing. The second reason that the ships fear no pursuit is that ever since they met, they have had an escort of a roiling mass of marine animals and spirits. To either side of the trail of flowers, tide runner nymphs perched on the back of sinuous black marine dragons, singing mournful songs in their bubbly voices. Beside the dragons are Jellyfish, so many of them that you could mistake them for an island. Lucien always liked jellyfish, Vara remembers mournfully. It was one of his quirks. Next to the jellyfish, sharks and sea serpents come to pay their respects to the prince of the Crushing Dark. Lastly come the Giant Squids, the monstrous octopi, some kraken and other strange creatures of the Deep, like angler fish. Overhead the gulls are wheeling, although it is night, and the crews of the Alynel and Arren shiver. No seaman would dare come near this strange funeral procession.
Alan, the navigator on the Alynel, is part banshee, and he leads the mourning chorus with his strangely loud, wild, sorrowful wail. Besides both of the ships, about fifteen feet back, a chorus of mermaids joins in his song, their voices churning the water into frothy whirlpools and unnatural waves, but in front of the Arren all is eerily still. The water the ships are traveling on seems as still as water in a pond, but judging by the speed that Nightshade’s petals disappear into the distance, they are moving faster then a whale swims. Encased in an aura of their own, the ship travel on, the sky above them calm and cloudless, with vicious storm clouds of driving rain to their right and left.
After what seems like endless time to the crews, " Approaching destination!" Riiski yells from the Arren. Alan changes his note and his jewelry magnifies it so that it echoes out over the water, signaling the halt of the funeral procession. The animals form a vast, multilayered oval around the ships, with the twining dragons first, with the jellyfish under them in the water, then the sharks, the squids, and lastly the looming octupi and squid, surrounded by creatures of the deep. Except for the dragons, which continue circling the ships, the procession is eerily still. Even the nymphs and the mermaids have stopped their songs, hanging in somber silence in the water. Nightshade and Tirade toss their last few roses into the water, which is perfectly still. Nightshade claps and the roses soundlessly form a triangle around the ship. Even the rain has stopped.
In front of the oval, a swirl starts gradually in the water. " Who are we waiting for?" Tirade whispers quietly to Nightshade. " The guest of honor, " Nightshade replies tersely.
" Lucien’s mother, the Queen of light water, is going to consecrate the ships..." " Wow.. I didn’t know Luci was so important. He never talked abou-" "Shh!" The swirl has grown into a huge whirlpool and out of it a platform rises with the court of Water Elementals standing on it in a glow of translucent light. In the center, the queen, adorned in white cloth, sits on a throne of pure water. Rather than speak, she raises an arm, and the water begins to swirl, and then to sing as the nereids of the deep water sing the water into a huge dome that encircles the ships and then descends until it is just barely beyond the top of the prow. The high thin song of the nymphs and the deep resonance of the nereids penetrates the crew members, saturates them with so much water magic that for many of them it is difficult to breathe, to move. Then, the queen speaks, but many cannot understand because the power of that voice strikes them like an arrow, and afterwards they can only remember the sound, not the words. Riiski understands, and Alan, understands, and Vara understands, and shivers. The song is quiet and faint now, but the chill in the air is worse.
" Lucien, ti e chi vergusse de le sond de wyr." begins the queen. " Lucien, you will be missed to the heart of the sea... " Her soliloquy is heard clearly, loud and across the funeral procession, redolent with deep sadness. She speaks for longer than time can last for the bewildered sailors. At one point, she gestures to the ships, and then falls silent. Riiski smiles mirthlessly and signals to the sailors to start removing the funeral trappings and instead deck out the ships in all their splendor as if they were " going out to battle, for all the world to see." The dark covers from the Arren are collected and put into chests, but the Alynel’s trappings are stowed in the hull. The sails of brilliant blue go up, with their silver insignia, Lucien’s insignia, blazing defiantly through the darkness. The crew who are leaving wear black, but those who are staying don their most radiant finery. " The next time we see Lucien, the ship must be adequately splendid."
The Queen continues speaking. " There is not enough time now for mourning, and that is not why we are here. Tonight we send company to my son, we bury his dream with him, since Faust has left no body for me to honor with the proper funeral rites. Tonight, we send to him his ships, and his crew, to sleep until such time as we may know my son again." She raises her hands over her head and a light mist forms, creeping over the ships, permeating them and protecting their wood from any damage that might be done by the water. The dragons slide up to right next to the ships and the crew members who are wearing black line up towards the side and salute their comrades, taking with them the two chests of funeral trappings. The ship is stacked high with gold, treasures, weapons and everything that Lucien ever won for the ships or the crew. One final salute, and the crew mount the dragons and withdraw to a safe distance. " Do Luci proud, okay?" says Tirade to Edain, as he steps onto his dragon. " They will hear the story of the Alynel and the Arren in every port under heaven," Edain promises.
The Queen, who has watched all of this with implacable eyes, calls down a rain of holy water on the sailors. Each sparkling bead hangs in front of one of the seven who chose to stay behind. Vara laughs and scoops it up in the cup hanging from her waist, then goes down to toast the others. " To Lucien!" Nightshade now passes around a transparent drink in an amber color. Alan gestures and the crew go below deck, except for Nightshade and Vara, who assumes dragon form and winds loosely around the Alynel. Strangely, she does not list, not even a little. Nightshade raises her arms and the roses glow brilliantly from the ship all the way back to the port. In the center of each one is a glittering coin or a jewel that glows with a spectral light. The nymphs voices crest, reaching an impossible height, and Nightshade tosses petals all over he deck of the ship, a final safeguard against the water, and goes below deck.
As the voices ebb, the Queen blows, and ships begin to sink in the water still inside an air bubble. From a distance, the crew members who could not or did not want to go watch as the ships sink, and the roses sink, still glowing, and the animals follow them down, circling, and the nymphs sing. The water slowly creeps down the mast now, clear clear water that slowly surrounds the ship as the crew members sleep. When it reaches the deck and brushes the roses, there is a final brilliant glow, and then the roses begin to fade until only their centers dully shine. Inside, the crew members are frozen in time, filled with a brilliant water energy that will prevent the decay of their bodies, exposed as they are to the water that now fills very part of the ship. From forecastle to stern, the ships are underwater, yet the ink on paper does not run, and the fabrics do not show signs of ruin, and the crew members do not drown.
Above where the ships were, a ring of calm grows around the queen. She gestures to the crew, who sit miserably on hawks now. " Come closer." The ports at the blade coast are calm now. It is almost morning, and the sky is slowly becoming blue in the little ring of storm free sky above the Queen. She raises her arms and the circle grows as the ships sink further and further down. On the fringes of the circle, storms form: wild shrieking hurricanes and vicious typhoons. Tomorrow, or late that night, ports around the world will be struck with calamities, with storms, and the dead of the ocean will walk up the beaches and drag the living in. " Let Faust presume to trifle with us..." declares the queen. Inside the circle, the crew waits until the Queen has gone back into the water and the tempests have howled off to ride away. They will alight in many different cities and tell the story of the ships to everyone that they meet so that Lucien is reincarnated he can know that his faithful crew is waiting for him.
Underneath the water, the ships are still sinking. When they hit the bottom, nearly a day later, the nymphs will seal them in a cave with only one entrance where they will wait in splendored silence, the path to them paved in roses. Stacked to the brim with treasure, the ships wait, an the sailors sleep. Edain looks back, and sighs softly. " Companions fit for anyone on their way to the underworld. Godspeed, Lucien!"
~ Years later, Eluciden and Cruxis will follow the flowers to the now legendary ships- but that’s another story. ~
Rest in peace, Lucien.
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satisfied
accomplished
ecstatic
aggravated
blah
cheerful
amused
tired
creative
excited
indescribable
contemplative
mellow
chipper
guilty
