Timestamp: 1st of Summer, 519 A.V.
Kelski stood on the deck of the ship looking towards the shore. Wind whipped her long ombre hair around her. The ship was pausing here before it hit Zeltiva to unload her portion of cargo. But it was difficult. They had no dock, and there was no trail from the piece of land she had decided to settle into the city proper itself. There were mountains anyhow, surrounding the city, and any sort of road would have to be carved into benches along the banks most likely by a Reimancer. That would take magic she didn’t have at the moment.
And the quandary of the matter was that the Waveraider was unwilling to go to Zeltiva, unload everything first then sail back here to unload her goods. They wanted to unload completely, reload, then set off back north. As a result, they had to ferry everything in to the beach from the ship. Most of what they brought was disassembled for ease of transporting – like their wagon – but there were troubled spots.
The horses and mule would have to be belly banded, hoisted, then released into the water to swim to the shore. Kelski was going to experiment with things to see if she could solidify the water, hardening it so the horses could walk across it instead of swim for it. She couldn’t do it for all the freight. She just wasn’t strong enough, but concentrating hard, with the horses all on deck and part of their freight already on the beach, she was willing to try. The Sea Eagle climbed in her human form down a set of netting draped over the side of the ship.
She waited while the sailors hooked up Moth – the calmest of the three mounts she’d brought and centered herself. She breathed in, released a breath, breathed out, and reached out to touch the water. Res filled the sea, connecting her power to the water and lighting up her first element. Kelski knew immediately that she wasn’t going to be strong enough. Frowning, she glanced up where the sailors were still hooking up Moth to the hoist. A voice interrupted her, whispering almost in her ear.
“Together djedaughter. Together.” Gilthas said, hanging onto the rope netting as well. Kelski hadn’t even heard or felt him climb down. He probably hadn’t. She glanced up at him, took courage from his confidence, and the two mages reached out to touch the water together. Kelski saw a path then, bright in her awareness, of water growing hard in her mind. A panicked whinny sounded overhead as grey hooves thrashed at the air as the horse was lifted up and over the side.
Kelski looked up to see they had blindfolded Moth, fully expecting him to panic. He was nervous, but she could see so far he wasn’t panicked. Kelski thought perhaps it was Maisa’s presence that prevented it. She wasn’t sure if Anja was going to bring his Strider ashore here or wait until Zeltiva, but regardless the mare was present and calming.
The hoist soon lowered the horse and when he got near the water, instead of his hooves dipping into it, they clapped down on it as if setting down on frozen ice. It was slick like ice too, and it took him a moment to find his footing. Kelski grabbed at his halter, left his blindfold on, and whispered softly to him all the while concentrating on the power she could feel beneath his feet. She helped Gilthas unhook one side of the belly band hoist, so the sailors could lift it back into the ship again, and then turned to lead the still-blindfolded horse across the solid water and past the gently lapping waves of the bay and onto the sand. She only unblindfolded him when she got him tethered to crates on the beach.
Then, as fast as she could, she went back for Shadow whom was lowered next, then Kizzy, breathless by the time the three horses were unloaded. Holding the water into a more solid state was difficult, but Gilthas’ power took part of the strain. It wasn’t an element gathering, a creation, or anything of the sort. It was a simple state change. Viscous to solid. It was the less straining sort of Reimancy, but a more showy thing for the ordinary sailors that now looked at Kelski and Gilthas as if they were dangerous and perhaps less than sane.
Unloading on a beach in the Wildlands would do that regardless as to whether they were mages or not.
Kelski had a great deal of freight on the ship, and it took more time to unload it than it had to load it. All the livestock took time too, though getting the goat herd onto the beach was far easier than it was getting the horses safe. The ship was riding higher and higher in the water the more possessions, animals and people the beach gathered. And when they were finally unloaded, all Kelski could do was look at a whole lifetime of hope resting just above the waterline of a strange beach in the middle of nowhere and realize things had drastically changed in her life.
There was so much to do. Getting everything off the Waveraider and onto the beach was just a start. They had to get the animals contained, put up a pavilion, and see about storing their things. Things like the piano, which was hand-carried across the solidified water, had to be sheltered from the elements. Kelski had an enormous sea cave in the outcropping of rock she’d decided to call Sea Eagle Point that she hoped would do for temporary animal shelter and storage to her possessions.
They’d have to defend it, but it was in a good defensible position already, having only two entrances, a fresh water source, and all their food supplies. Kelski wanted to protect the food at all cost. Some of the dried goods she’d brought from Sunberth would be the reason they lived or died over the next season or two.
They had to get crops in the ground, food put away for winter, and some sort of permanent shelter built before the snow flew… if it snowed at all here.
So when everything was finally unloaded, Kelski set about walking among the crates, reading her careful labels, and moving things around according to priority. She’d already located the pavilion, set its huge canvas bundles aside – it was a big one – the one she’d held the New Years Eve party at the first of spring. They’d need to get it up, the food in the sea cave well in the back above the high water marks, and settle the animals… and that was all before nightfall.
It was going to be a lot of work. And if they didn’t get started soon, they wouldn’t make their ‘darkness’ deadline.