[Flashback] Tearaways and Transcendence

[Jetsam]

Set Summer 40th, 497AV in the Anchorage Flotilla

They had already lowered their sails, and now oars had been shipped from the larger boats, the smaller boats hitched to the sterns and broadsides of these, and every member of the Steepdive pod who wasn't already manning the bigger ones clambered onto their decks and took up the oars to row. One of the smallest, with more hair than head and damp baggy clothes, also grabbed an oar. She lived on the largest of the boats, a Palivar; and now she was going to help propel it in, despite her age - twelve - and the fact that the handle of the oar was thicker than her upper arms combined. Jetsam heaved at the massive pole of wood, trying to get it to lift in and out of the water like the other pod members'. Her mother was at the stern directing operations, and chose not to notice her daughter being as ambitious as ever. A few of the other oarsmen and women were casting her irritable looks, though, especially when her oar struck the surface of the water and dragged, causing the ship to veer slightly. Jetsam's arm muscles screamed as she hauled the blade back out from the seawater, and then started to shake violently as she held it in place. "Pathetic!" said a voice behind her from the top of the cabin steps. "Useless!" another chimed in. Jetsam set her teeth. "Shove off!" Sniggering, and bare feet pattering on wooden steps. "Wait!" she gasped, the oar slipping through her fingers. The footsteps stopped. "Why… why don't you show me how good you can do it, huh?" she challenged, trying to inject savagery into her breathless tones. "C'mon, betcha all of you put together can't row like Grandpa over there!" The elder man winked at her as one by one her affronted brothers appeared at her side. They were all younger than her and even smaller, but their ambitions were just as large. Working in unison, the eight gangling limbs of Jetsam and her siblings managed to manoeuvre the oar with almost perfect timing. "This is actually easy!" Breaker, nine declared. "Easy with all of us, yeah," Jetsam retorted, then decided it wouldn't be good older-sister behaviour to make any of them try it on their own. There wouldn't have been time anyway - despite the slowing influence of the youngest Steepdives, the linked-up pod of boats were drawing alongside a floating wooden pier already, and before they could even take another triumphant stroke, their mother was giving the order to stop. The oars were pulled back into the boat; Svefrans leaped ashore with ropes, which were fastened to rings on the dock. Jetsam wasn't watching this, though. She was staring ahead in disbelief. Boat after boat, as far as the eye could see stretched over her horizon, filling her eyes with a blur of rail and deck, mast and sail, flag, chimney, canopy and gangplank. Next to her, the three boys were equally transfixed but a sudden thump on each of their tousled heads brought them back to their senses. Jetsam got her own knock as her mother strode past her, the tall, energetic woman taking only the most fleeting of moments to grin down at her daughter as she headed for the 'shore' with the words "quite a sight, huh?" "It's… it's…" Jetsam scrambled for words, but her brothers weren't as hesitant. "It's awesome!" declared Surf, and "Let's go!" came from the youngest, Wash. No more time was wasted: all three bounded - still barefoot and sweating from their row - onto the pier and away into the cacophony of moored crafts. "WAIT!" Jetsam yelped, and vaulted over herself. She gave chase, passing her mother who was offering another woman a stately greeting in the middle of the jetty but Jetsam didn't bother to find out who it was, she just ran and ran, trying to keep the shaggy heads of her brotherly pack in sight and not stand on anything or anyone or fall into the water or trip over one of the many mooring ropes or railings. She hadn't counted on the weather. Out on the open sea, they never really cared about anything but the wind. Sun and rain could come and go: the Svefra didn't care about getting wet, and in the heat they merely swam to cool off. But here the collection of wooden surfaces and the lack of open water intensified the hot summer's day - and it was hot: a cloudless noon and a ferocious midsummer sun beat down upon her exposed arms and head: she wasn't even wearing a bandana, and though her auburn hair was long and thick and rather tangled, it didn't offer much protection. Her cotton vest and baggy shorts didn't either, and soon she was panting like an exhausted dog and looking around for shade. Her brothers appeared to be long gone, "little buggers," muttered Jetsam under her breath. She began to walk more slowly, the amazing sights all around her a small distraction from the overpowering heat. The further she went, the larger the floating constructions that were almost over-qualified for the term 'ship'. She wanted to keep looking, but she also needed to head back and find her cabin and a drink of water. Vaguely trying to fill both desires, Jetsam angled her path further out towards the edge again, mostly walking over the top of cabin roofs in order to get a better view of her surroundings. This meant making the odd leap that was almost beyond her abilities in order to cross from one to another. One of these she judged badly, jumping too far and overbalancing forwards off the top of the wooden surface. She hit the deck below with a mighty thud, elbows first, and curled up for a moment with her face screwed up in pain: nothing broken, but her nerve endings seemed to think otherwise.

[Pash'nar]

It was so petching hot. Even in the middle of the ocean it seemed as though the heat was inescapable. There was only the hint of a breeze, so Syna's rays were merciless. Pash'nar hadn't been anchored with the flotilla long—only a handful of days. Had anyone noticed? He wasn't sure he cared; he usually kept to himself anyway. He'd picked a quiet edge, far from too many larger ships with larger families together. It made him wary to be so close to so many people, Svefra or not. Too many questions and too many memories … and yet the dark-haired navigator was still a social creature somewhere deep inside. It was too much to always be alone; he might as well spend it with people he pretended to be in the daylight. Sprawled out on his rickety old casinor's deck in the shade of his mainsail, shirtless, barefoot, and sweaty, he was surrounded by maps and charts. Star charts. Sea charts. A sextant. Some writing instruments. A compass. A mess, really. The breeze curled parchment edges and made the papers whisper, but it was hardly strong enough to move them across the worn wood of his deck. He was drawing a fine line between two points when something crash-landed onto his ship. His quill skewed upwards out of his control as charts fluttered upward, compass clattered, and ink splattered. Pash jumped to his feet in surprise, catching the string of choice words behind too-perfect teeth before they escaped. A tan little ball of flesh was curled on his deck. He smirked, turning to catch a few papers before they ended up in the sparkling sea, "Oi!" The false Svefra visibly bristled, but wasn't really interested in threatening children today. It was hard to ignore the spilling ink, but he approached the youth instead, loose maps in one tattooed hand while the other reached out toward the curled up lump on his boat, "You alright? I think y'got the wrong ship, eh?"