Closed [Job thread] It's the Leaving That's Strange

[Karin]

9th Spring, 516 AV
Aboard the Mischief
7th bell

Karin awoke in her bunk, swaying and feeling the throb of a headache starting. Two days into sailing, and the girl still hadn't got used to the feeling, the motions of the ship. It's constant pitching to and fro felt natural, but it was a kind of natural she hadn't quite got the hang of yet. But she was confident, no, determined that she would. She was a Svefra, she had to.

Today, like the day before that, was a working day. Of course, any day on a ship was a working day- she'd soon discovered that they needed almost constant maintenance, keeping it on course, making sure the sails were set right, and other assorted tasks that had her running back and forth yesterday. Her arms still ached from hauling rope, and the girl had visible rope burns on her palms.

When described so, the whole experience sounded miserable. But to Karin, the opposite was much closer to the truth. The girl was loving it. It was the proximity to the waves, and the distance from the shore that really enchanted her. The rigging, and the sails billowing, and even the people, who sometimes got in the way and sometimes laughed too raucously but nonetheless were a crew. A crew of a ship...

That same crew however, had taken her on with the sole condition that she worked for a living. When she'd approached the captain, she wasn't sure what she was expecting, and she had half-assumed she could pay her way on board. But instead, Eudora had insisted with a devilish grin, that if she wanted passage, she would work for it. Karin had nodded and agreed, and that was that. But it hadn't been until yesterday that she'd realised what she'd taken on.

But, it was her heritage as a Svefra, and she would get on with it. Not to say that it couldn't be enjoyable, because it was. But it was still a job. Karin stretched, feeling her shoulder click, and pulled on her trousers whilst her bunkmate snoozed on. Nearby she could smell the morning's breakfast being cooked, unknown but tempting. Voices raised in jest roared and Karin rolled her eyes. If there was one thing about this ship that she disliked, it was the performers.

The narrow, darkly-lit passage leading to the deck was soon cleared, and she surfaced into an overcast day. Alvadas was gone, swallowed by the endless coast that was just visible in the distance at the stern. The sea seemed calm, and already people were milling about. Karin knew what she had to do though. She would get her orders soon enough.



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Of the sea...

[Karin]

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Whilst the girl waited on the deck, she adjusted herself to the rocking of the boat, admiring the Mischief. Today it was bedecked with tiny shells that encrusted every available surface, although the illusionary creatures shuffled out of the way as soon as you went to touch them. Karin grabbed the railing as she surfaced, but her grip lessened without noticing as she got used to it.

Her orders came soon enough, although they weren't to her in particular, but rather to her and the group of other obviously new people who'd signed up. There were about six of them, three quarters looked experienced to some degree, but the others looked a little green around the gills. Karin was glad to be somewhere in the middle of the two, and pitied the young man who suddenly leaned over the edge of the ship to throw up.

As it turned out, one of the older, more experienced crew members came over with a grin to organise the new recruits. He was a tall man, with bones through his ears and wild hair tied up in a rough bun on the top of his head. But his smile seemed genuine as he called out, "Oh haye there! I've been directed to give you newbies a little bit of a walk through. Some of ye will have experience, I've no doubt. But there's no harm in learnin' a little more about the ways of the Mischief!"

Karin put on a determined face, and smoothed her hands over her trousers. She was wearing her brown, laced trousers and a grey top, her Oceanus mark visible on her left shoulder. She didn't want to let herself, or the crew down. She perked up and listened to the man explaining.

"... So I'm sure you're all acquainted with this, of course? This is the main mast, being the mast that's in the middle, y'see. There are plenty of sails on this ole ship, even if Ionu herself sometimes hides them. For the most part though, you'll be getting to know this mast fully. I'll be your guide- or your torturer." She man trailed off, chuckling sinisterly, but then smirked and patted a nervous-looking man on the back. "Seriously though, you've nothing to fear from me. Aye, I'm the most light-hearted feller you'll meet."

Karin gazed up at the mast, counting the sails. It looked a long way up, but to her surprise there were people up there, clambering over the wooden poles as if they were on dry ground. She blinked in surprise, and then gulped quietly to herself. However, her attention was quickly drawn away as the strange man continued talking.

"So, this here is where you lot will be workin'! We're changing course to avoid an island, hardly worth bothering about but the Cap'n says we'd cut too close. And to do that", the man said with a hearty slap of the nearest sail, "We'll need to adjust where this 'ere mast is pointing, and all of these pretty white sails."



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Of the sea...

[Karin]

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Karin glanced up again, and looked at the size, and the thickness of the mast. Above their heads lay a mass of ropes, that to her inexperienced eyes looked knotted and tangled, but were obviously able to do their job. She looked around at her fellow trainee sailors, and saw to her satisfaction that they mostly seemed to be as confused as she.

"Aye! So, first off, we'll need to wait on the orders from the others. Shouldn't be long now. Whilst we wait, I'll tell ye all you need to do. So, all we'll need to be doing is a'hauling on these ropes. All six of you on a rope each. I'll sing you a little ditty to keep you in time, because timing is important. got it?" Karin nodded, and walked over to stand in front of the rope. It was thick, just a touch thinner than her wrist, and nothing like the twine she kept in her bunk below deck.

Without wondering, the girl merely stood in front of her section of rope, but her thoughts were jolted as some commotion sprung up, crew members springing to their stations before a command was shouted. Bone-ear echoed the command, and with a tense but determined feeling, the girl grabbed the rope. She started to unwind it, and marvelled at how much more difficult it was than it looked! Before she'd even started to pull on the rope, her palms were red from rope burn.

But she gritted her teeth. "Haul away!" The command given, Karin started to pull. And pull. Others around her suffered the same, as the sheer difficulty of moving the sails sunk in. She pulled with all her might, and eventually had to brace her feet against the wooden railing that lay in front of her to pull the rope down.

She kept at it, pulling and pulling whilst the bone-eared man sang a song, something about a dog, although the words rushed over her head. Yesterday she'd been scrubbing floors- today was a lot harder than that. Yet, despite it, she was enjoying herself. She took a great deal of pleasure from hard, manual labour. She'd felt the same kind of repetitiveness whilst sawing planks with Cadog and Ferny at the workshop. And with the labour, she felt Alvadas fading behind her.

It wasn't that she was forgetting the place. Merely, that she was realising that this life was her future now. And she liked it that way. She grinned, as a sudden gust whipped her blonde hair about her face like a maelstrom. She and her fellow deckhands were working in unison now, or as much in unison as was possible with their relatively small skill level.



-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Karin]

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And yet, as soon as they seemed to stabilise, the crew member with the bone earring shouted something. Over the rush of blood in her ears, Karin almost found it hard to hear what he said. Yet, she felt a strange tension in the rope, and stopped pulling. Apparently, they'd done what they needed to. She looked around and then looked down at her own hands, still clutching the rope. "Oy, tie that!"

Her fellow deckhands were looping their ropes around the metal block that obviously existed simply to allow rope to be tied to it. She followed suit, looping the rope around the block, trying to imitate the nearest sailor as well as she could. She wasn't sure if it was secure, so she tugged it from above. It didn't slip, so she stood back from the rigging, hands on her knees.

"So, there you have it! We've adjusted this, now follow me!" I never realised sailing a ship was so petching difficult, the girl thought, but followed nonetheless. They journeyed a short distance across the deck, and the girl watched everything with the eye of an eagle. She'd thought that there wasn't much going on, when she'd first joined the ship. But she saw now that that was merely another kind of illusion. Wherever she looked there were people doing things, tying ropes, checking sails, climbing, tying, pulling... It was truly a marvellous sight.

Soon however, they had arrived where the bone-earred man wanted them to be. It was a location not much different from where they'd just been, and Karin wondered idly why they'd moved. Her question was soon answered by the man. "Get yourselves a rope between you! I noticed that your rope-tying skills are not up to scratch. We'll have to change that!"

Karin felt a little more at home with rope-tying, as she'd tried her hand at it before. Yet, as the man started to explain, she tried to keep all the different threads of information in place and found herself struggling. "... And so this section goes over this one, and here ye go!" She took the rope in hand and tried looping it over and over, as the man suggested. Nothing happened, except she made a mess.

But, she was determined. With a focused mind, she looped the rope around the metal block, and did another loop. After a few more tries, and a few more fails, she finally got it. She gave it a firm tug, and felt the warm feeling of satisfaction when it stayed in place. The knot was secure, and the girl gently pressed her red-raw hands to her lips to cool them.

However, if having rough hands was the price to pay for being able to say that she could tie a knot and sail a ship, then the girl didn't care one jot. She'd trade rough hands for being a sailor any day.





-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Karin]

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"So, that's what we call belaying. Not so difficult, right?" The man grinned, a bright white smile splitting across his scorched features like lightening. It was infectious- Karin smiled too. "For all those who don't know, this 'ere is a cleat, and you'll always need to make fast to the cleat like we just did. That is, belaying is the same as making fast to the cleat."

"Try it out a few times more, like. There'll be a bell sounding in just a few ticks and when that happens, you can go get yer breakfast!" He guffawed, and wandered off out of sight. The recruits visibly relaxed, despite the man's sunny outlook. A conversation soon struck up, but Karin wasn't interested in the talk. She wanted to tackle the job at hand, and figure it out exactly. She'd got the tying right once, but she wanted to get it right every time, not just once.

She carefully unwound the belayed rope, and coiled it around her arm messily. Then, taking the end, she looped it around the cleat. Yet, it caught somehow, and instead of looping gracefully over the top, the rope coiled like a snake around the base of the cleat. It didn't look right in her eyes, and she gave it a quick tug. She was right, the knot was terrible, and it uncoiled rapidly.

But, she tried once again. A loop underneath, and then around here like this, and then over the top, and underneath, and over the top, and underneath... The end result of her efforts was a neat mass of rope, that when she pulled it, it held. She almost considered stopping there and then, having finished her task. Yet, something stopped her, and she bent to undo it again.

Perhaps it was the desire to not give up. Maybe it was because of Karin's aim to be on the sea, finally realised. The girl didn't know, but she knew she needed to do it again, and again, and again to get it right. The sailors that surrounded her day and night were practised individuals, and their masterful command of knots, ropes and sails were something that she too aspired to be.

Alvadas' shops, streets and houses were here home, there was no doubt about that. But because of her leaving, and her homelessness, she now realised that she was free to do as she pleased now, no longer tied down to one place. Unlike the rope she was belaying, Karin could slip free and fly... That thought was strange, and she almost couldn't accept it. But, yes. She could, and she would.

A bell rung, breaking her from her reverie. It's light tinkling summoned her peers forwards, leaving their stations behind. Karin waited a few moments, aware that there wouldn't be much space if she crowded forwards at once as well. Instead, she neatly coiled her rope, tucking the loose end underneath to make sure it stayed secure. Hesitantly, she hung the coiled rope loosely from the cleat, and rested her hand on it for a brief moment before walking away from the smells of breakfast and the happy chatter of sailors.

The deck was sparkling clean, the sails a bright white above her in the steadily rising sun. The air was alive with the sounds and smells of sailing, curious little creaks and groans of ropes, wood and sails. The smells of brine and porridge, tar and suds, with the sweet, sweet scent of the ocean above it all. Karin took a deep breath, and leaned out over the railings, letting the steady breeze catch her hair, and the sea spray light on her face.

Alvadas was far behind her. Not just geographically, but mentally now. She had left it. It would always be there, but she didn't have to always be there too. Here was home now, for a time. Perhaps another of the cities on the way would become her home. Maybe she would return, even. There was a call from behind her, one of the recruits waving her over.

She smiled a nervous smile, unused to company, but walked towards breakfast. Whether she would make new friends along the way was another story, but she felt optimistic for her future.

-2598 words



-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Sayana]

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request. If there's anything I may have missed, please PM me and I'll be happy to look into it.

 

Karin

Skills

• Endurance: 3
• Observation: 4
• Sailing: 4
• Bodybuilding: 1
• Weaving: 2

Lores

• Location: The Mischief
• Working as a crew
• Sailing: The main mast and its function
• Sailing: Adjusting sails by hauling ropes
• Sailing: Basic belaying
• Weaving: Basic sailor's knot
• Cleat: Metal part on a ship to tie ropes to
• No longer tied to Alvadas and her old home

Comments: Lovely thread. I liked the mix of work and learning new sailing skills, coupled with a bit of reminiscent but mostly optimistic thoughts about the future. Can't wait to see Karin discover more of her Svefra heritage and truly set sail into the sun.

Your Grader,

Sayana

Boxcode design: Firenze