Arrival

by **Quint Caravel** on November 12th, 2013, 10:41 am

3rd month of fall, 513 AV (~ around day 60/61 ~)
Just off shore Sunberth...

Though he had Svefra blood in him, and had been out to sea for years, Quint Caravel had never seen anything like the torrential downpour he was now experiencing. It was like the skies opened and had decided they were never going to close. It was like clouds had been filled to bursting and now had become flooded themselves. Like mighty rivers that became swollen and sent dams bursting. Like a shower that never ends.

The casinor lurched and twisted beneath him, a wave came crashing down on the deck, and for the first time in his life Quint was scared of losing her.

"I just don't know what to make of this," he said to his sister Xiva. "We'd better dock before we're overwhelmed and lose everything."

Xiva took the wheel while Quint raced to make sure everything was secure. He managed to make sure their important supplies were locked down and that their Mizas were safe but he wasn't able to save everything. Xiva had done their laundry and had hung some clothes up to dry before the storm hit. Now another wave hit, the clothesline snapped, and Xiva's favorite dress went flying over the side. Quint tried to grab it and almost went overboard himself. He hit his head against the port bulkhead and everything went black for a moment...

by **Quint Caravel** on November 14th, 2013, 7:05 am

For a moment he was dazed, and that moment almost cost him his life.

Another wave came and washed Quint off the casinor and into the deep blue sea. For a long agonizing instant he was hurtling in the air. Suddenly he was plunging deep into the autumn-cold waters off the coast of Sunberth. It was crazy. It was like being in a dream. He just couldn't believe: he was part Svefra! And now he was drowning in the middle of nowhere.

He stayed like that for another moment or two, frozen in complete and utter shock at his situation. For the first time in his life he regretted not having ever played to Laviku. His sister Xiva was a loyal person who prayed to Laviku several times a day. She had a gnosis mark from him and everything; there was no question that she was very devout.

Once, a summer past, the two of them had been stranded on a desert island when Xiva's casinor had been wrecked in a storm much like this one. Quint himself was angry and miserable and ready to curse himself, his sister and every god he could think of, including Laviku, but his sister prevented him from saying a cross word. She said to him: "We just have to pray to Laviku and it will be all right. Just you wait and watch." And she was right. She talked Quint into helping her prepare an altar to the Sea God, and she went through all the rites and rituals. Quint didn't really pay attention as he was still sulking, but he was sure that Xiva believed she was doing everything correctly. And perhaps because of her sincere belief and her devout heart, the two of them were rescued almost immediately by a Konti vessel.

The experience made Xiva that much more religious.

Quint was not sure what to make of anything. He believed Laviku was responsible for wrecking their first ship, so it made little sense to him that the God of the Sea would then save them. What was the point? What was gained? The only change was that Xiva had become more devout. Would a god really manipulate the material world just to gain a follower? Quint had no idea.

And right now, he was sorry that he had never worshiped Laviku himself. Because the sad fact was, Quint really had no idea how to swim. None at all.

And unless he figured something out in the next few seconds, he was a dead man.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 15th, 2013, 8:45 am

Quint’s life flashed before his eyes. They say that in the moment just before you die, you see all of it with crystal clarity, every moment from the minute you were born right up until the present realization that you are about to depart this mortal coil and perhaps find yourself as a ghost or a Nuit. Well, that is what his Uncle Pondar used to say. Perhaps other people had said it as well. Quint had never actually met a Nuit or ghost before and become friends with one of them to ask what it was like to hold on when it was time to let go. Which was ironic considering that his lost love Vankita used to accuse him of doing that very thing, being unable to let go of stuff. She meant that he was the sort of man who could not let go of a grudge or forgive a slight, but he was also the sort of man who remained loyal to his friends long after they had truly grown apart, simply because of some fond memory that he cherished from when they were all much younger. That being the case, you would think that when his life flashed before his eyes, he would have seen it all, every memory and every moment, all of it cascading through his mind like the waters off the Cobalt Mountain Range.

Except it was not like that all. To Quint’s horror and shock, when his life flashed before his eyes he saw no moments that he regretted. He saw no moments that he cherished. He saw nothing of interest at all. He might as well have been born yesterday for all that it mattered: he had made no impact on the world at all. No impact in any real sense. No children that he knew of or had ever connected with. No love except for Vankita, and she had been lost to him since the day of the Djed Storm. No job worth mentioning. He’d never been a hero or a villain. Never been a mage or a warrior. He was truly a nobody, a man that the universe would not care about if he suddenly blinked out of existence. He was the opposite of a ghost or a Nuit: they were here long after they should be. Quint was alive, but had done absolutely nothing with his life. His djed was probably as pristine as that of a rock.

He was a nobody. If he drowned right now, it would not matter to anyone. He was not the sort of man that Mizahar would ever miss. If there was a god or goddess out there of boredom and indifference, he or she was probably rooting for Quint to find (or found) a temple and get a gnosis that was guaranteed to do nothing, just like Quint.

Even Quint’s lazy and indolent half-sister Xiva had gained a gnosis of Laviku, and she had frittered her life away much as her brother had done. Unlike Quint, she was a full Svefra and had a much better knowledge of the sea. For example, she could swim. Perhaps she would miss Quint if he drowned right now. They weren’t even that close, having been raised by separate fathers, and Xiva was not at all a sentimental girl. So perhaps she wouldn’t mourn him very much.

And that was it. If he sunk to the bottom, his net effect on the world right now would be a single sad afternoon for one Svefra woman. There would be no grand funeral. No legions of admirers. No fans and supporters. Not even an enemy come to gloat. No man or god or ghost or Nuit or Inarta would care.

If he had a regret, he might have accepted his fate. But the realization that he had done nothing worthwhile in his life-- that he had done pretty much nothing-- that galvanized him. Here now was his moment of decision: he could sink or he could swim. He didn't know how to swim, but he wasn't willing to give up and die. Without yet knowing what he was doing, he began to kick and punch at the water. Some things could be learned from a book. Some lessons had to be learned at the edge of a sword. For Quint Caravel, the best way to teach him something like swimming was to throw him into the deep edge of the pool and see if he died or not. This was much deeper than a pool, but Quint Caravel had no intention of dying.

His head went under the water and he took in a lungful of something that wasn't air, causing him to burst above the waves and cough loudly. He slapped at the surface of the water, kicking his legs spasmodically in a rhythm that did not help him at all. The water was cold and the night was dark and Quint remembered why he was always so scared to try things: because he so often failed. And right now, he realized he was not succeeding.

This realization came as his head dropped below the surface of the water a second time.
He was in a bad place and things were getting worse.

Then, out of nowhere he heard the quack of his duck. His Tavan! The little guy would save him!

No, he was too far away. Even if he grabbed the duck he would just take it down with him to the depths below. But still, he owned a duck. He had seen it paddle across the waves. He could do that.

Still not sure what to do with his hands he started dog-paddling with his legs, kicking and churning at the water until his head bounced back above the surface.

Excellent! He now had the most rudimentary understanding of what to do in the water: don't drown. But if he didn't do something else to improve his chances, he was still going to die.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 15th, 2013, 9:08 am

Quint rubbed the water from his eyes. He had figured out what to do with his legs-- at least a tiny bit-- and it was enough to keep him from plunging down, but he was cold and hungry and tired, and only had a minute to think of something else or he was still a dead man.

He didn't recall ever seeing his duck use anything but his legs, and anyway he had arms and not wings. What could he do? What an embarrassing Svefra he was: he had no idea how to swim. Well, he was still Svefra, even if only partially. Even if he had no gnosis of Laviku. Even if he sometimes got seasick on his casinor.

Well, he wasn't going to give up. Not now. Other men fought on because they could say 'not after everything I've been through! but he couldn't say that. He had been through nothing. He had always held himself back. And now it was the regret of never trying, the fear of dying a total nobody that spurred him on.

He kept slapping at the water and churning his legs. It was the most novice, most pathethic display of swimming ever seen. If his sister could see him now she'd be laughing at him. But Quint kept fighting on, refusing to let himself drown.

The water was cold and dark and he was tired. He started to slow down, kicking less and slapping at the water less. This led him to discover that he had been wasting his energy. He observed the water and his own actions, and he began to see that being tired was a good thing. It was keeping any feelings of panic from overwhelming him, and it was keeping his motions to a minimum.

Maybe his situation was hopeless. Maybe it wasn't. But the more tired he became, the more efficient his movements as he no longer had the energy to keep fighting the water. He was forced to take deeper and deeper breaths as his body slipped up and down in the ocean waves, and while he still didn't know enough to get anywhere, he absorbed one fundamental realization: he had to stop fighting the current before he grew too weak to do anything but give up and drown.

Unfortunately, he might have come to that realization too late. He was now a better swimmer than he had been a little while ago, and he was a better swimmer then compared to the Quint Caravel who had plunged over the side of the casinor. But he had lost much time already, he had lost energy-- he had even lost hold of Xiva's dress and the clothes he had tried to grab before going overboard, and so now he might have gained a small measure of experience, but it might not be enough to save his life.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 15th, 2013, 9:29 am

Unsure what to do, Quint leaned back and turned his face up towards the moon. He was tired. Very tired. His stomach hurt, he felt an odd stabbing sensation in his side-- a muscle he was not used to using now complained about suddenly being thrust into action. He couldn't see anyone in the water, he couldn't feel much more than the cold water, he had no idea where his sister and the casinor were, and he wasn't sure what to do next.

And so he gave up. He leaned back, stretched his arms out and decided to relax and enjoy himself for a moment before the inevitable happened. There were some pretty horrible ways to go, such as being burned alive in a fire or being tortured in a gaol or wounded in battle with your guts spilling out all over the ground. Quint wasn't even sure dying of very old age was pleasant as that usually involved some illness and pain. All in all, curling up to sleep in a snowbank or drifting off into deep waters... this seemed soothing to him. It seemed right and natural.

And it seemed like he was doing something wrong. He apparently couldn't even die correctly.

The waters took him, and he sunk lower and lower. Legs and feet below the water. Chest now below the waters. Arms and hands below the water. Mouth below the water. Ears below the water. . .

He said his goodbyes to his Tavan and sister, and waited to sink the rest of the way.

And he realized that in a very rudimentary way, he had discovered another aspect of swimming: he was floating. Maybe not for much longer, and maybe not in a way that could save his life, but still it bought him a moment to regain some lost energy. It gave him an opportunity to collect his thoughts, to take some deep breaths, and to start moving his arms and legs around gently.

Quint Caravel had found some truce between life and death, between anger and resignation and between sinking and not sinking. It was not exactly a pleasant moment: his eyes stung from the water, he was again acutely aware of how cold he was, and more and more muscles were joining the complaint line forming in his brain. But it got him swimming again-- if his incompetent stabs at the water could be called that-- and with his head now pointing up he started looking for either the casinor or the shoreline.

He was just not ready to give up. Quint kept looking around, trying to spot anything that wasn't deep blue sea. He kicked to the left and looked that way. Nothing. He spun and kicked to the right and looked that way. Nothing. Then he realized something: he had plunged head-first from the ship. The casinor was somewhere behind him.

Quint wasn't able to turn without plunging into the water again, so he took a deep breath and just accepted the bracing cold shock to his head and face for a moment, then twisted in the water before come up again like a demented pink corkscrew with piercing blue eyes.

There! A smudge of brown against the blue. Now he need to figure out how to get there from here, and to do so in the next few moments. Because he might be out of the water, but he wasn't out of the woods.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 17th, 2013, 6:04 am

He rested for a few moments. Now that he had discovered-- even in a very basic and rudimentary form-- how to float, he took advantage of that fact by letting his body relax for a little bit. Because he was exhausted. He was cold and wet and tired and feeling miserable on multiple levels all at once. His stomach ached and various muscles felt cramped. Only the fact that sheer exhaustion was making him sleepy kept him from opening his eyes wide and panicking at the total insanity and unfairness of his situation. Less than a day out from Sunberth, perhaps even less than an hour, and there was a good chance that he was going to die out here, a sea-sick Svefra capable of drowning.

This was ironic. His Uncle Pondar once dated a girl with two gnosis marks from Laviku. She was able to make a living as a deep-sea pearl diver because she was able to... well, Quint didn't really know what technically was involved, but she could basically hold her breath underwater, or something like that. Most of the people in the Pod had marks. Even Xiva Caravel had one. If she was out here, she could just summon some giant fish to help her out.

Quint, however, was on his own. He was always alone. He stared up at the moon. "By the gods, if I survive this night, I promise to do something with my life. I don't want to drown here a total nobody with no real friends, no one to truly miss or mourn me."

Looking up, he remembered the time he had been in Lhavit two years ago. His family was always dragging him around the country and the world, but that's what they were: nomadic sailors. If it had a port or was even close to water, Quint's family had visited it.
He knew little of the moon himself-- he knew little of most celestial things, be it astrology or astronomy or the ways of gods and goddesses-- but right now it was the only sliver of light in an otherwise empty sky, and it gave him solace to gaze up at it.

In some ways he felt he truly understood the moon. He was a man of many phases and facets, always acting and showing the world a different side of him, and he was a man of quicksilver temperament, waxing and waning as his moods took him. Sometimes he was hot and energetic and other times he was cold and lethargic. There was no middle ground with him. Perhaps that is why he never truly accomplished anything, and never finished the things he started. Maybe that was why he was always running away from girls, from commitment, from a real job or any sort of responsibility. Quint really had no idea; he was not used to musing on things like this; then again, he was not used to this amount of solitude. On some deep level he was not happy with himself; perhaps he considered himself flawed or unworthy in some way. Whatever the reason, he always attempted to distract himself with wine, women and song.

But now there was no distraction. There were no distractions at all. Nothing here but him and the wide blue sea. And he was not enjoying what he was discovering about either one. Perhaps because he was still so terrible at it, he hated swimming. And maybe because he was not the type to engage in philosophy or introspection, he was not very good at that either. It was time to move.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 17th, 2013, 6:35 am

His moment of rest and reflection was over. It was time to move. He thanked whatever gods were watching him and keeping an eye on him so that he had not yet drowned-- and he promised himself he would let Xiva do whatever sacrifices to Laviku on his behalf as her particular deity was not exactly helping but at least he was not hurting Quint in any way. He was being benignly indifferent, and that was acceptable to Quint Caravel.

Quint was capable of writing, at least in a crude and sloppy fashion, and so he promised himself that he would write down his adventure in Lhavit so that others would know of his adventures during the Lunar Festival. After all, he had gained some solace from watching the moon tonight, and Quint Caravel was a man who always made good on his debts, be it to man or monster or moon.

And he had seen the moon a great deal this season. His dreams all season long had been plague by some strange vision of a Masquerade Ball that he kept attending, and so he kept waking up and pacing around, often stopping to look out over the railing at the moon on the horizon or up in the sky. He felt soothed when he did so, and then he was able to go back to sleep.

A feeling that he was ready to embrace right now. It would be so easy to just give in or give up, to just let himself sink below the waves. He was actually surprised at the combination of events and memories that had come together tonight in a unique and novel way, because for the first time in his life he was starting to realize the value of having some mental fortitude to go along with a strong physical constitution.

It made sense, though. Tenacity had never been a skill that he had embraced. Stubborn people bothered him, and he personally preferred to always go along. And he liked other people who always went along with things. Tenacious people were bothersome. They stood their ground. They insisted on being heard, on having their own way, on making a difference. That was not the Quint Caravel way at all.

Except... perhaps now it was. Maybe. A little bit. Because the value in it was that it was keeping him alive.

It was all well and good to say that he had a self of life, or a sense of self-preservation. That was fine for ducking out of the way of a sword or running out of a falling building. But it didn't help in sustained situations like this one. After the initial impulse of self preservation faded, if your situation had not noticeable improved then there was a very strong possibility that you were going to die. Adrenalin only lasted so long. It seemed longer when you were going through it, but situations can last far longer than people can. And this situation-- of him in the deep cold water-- had now been going on for so long that if he hadn't developed even some rudimentary tenacity, he would have died. Drowned.

But he hadn't drowned. Not yet anyway. He had found some mental reserves inside himself that he never knew he had. And therefore he had bought himself some time to stay alive so that he could plan and make his next move.

For the first time that evening, Quint Caravel felt a new feeling: optimism.

And feeling happy, he began to swing his arms around. He had already figured out what to do with his head, chest, and legs. And he had figured out how to do nothing, how to swim in a floating position. Now if he could figure out what to do with his arms, that might be the last bit he needed to put this all together. He might get somewhere.

by **Quint Caravel** on November 17th, 2013, 6:47 am

He might get somewhere!

A feeling of enthusiasm washed over him. In a way known to no magician (or maybe it was, he really had no idea) the index card of his soul changed slightly as a new bit of information was added to his djed. He didn't know this; he couldn't manipulate it or use it in any way. This was the simple, natural process of life. But something fundamental changed within him, and his djed now vibrated at a slighter deeper harmony, a slightly richer and more complex tone. Or maybe it didn't. But he felt like-- he didn't really have the words to express how he felt-- but he felt different.

Nearly drowning had changed him. Being immersed in the waters had become like a ritual bath to him. Some of the negative emotions washed out of him as he realized what was truly important in life: namely it was being alive, having friends, and mattering. Ghosts were more alive than him in some ways, because they clung to moments that were long since past. He never had any such moments. But now he wanted to make some. Now he felt that life was precious to him. Now he wanted to live! Now he wanted to stand on his own two feet on land and run around and do things. Not just the usual things he did like eating and drinking and sleeping, but good stuff. Worthy stuff. Stuff that counted. Moments that mattered. He wanted to go from being a man with potential to a man with actual kinetic energy.

And the only way that that was going to happen was if he got himself out of this mess before he drowned.

He took a deep breath, knowing that he might slip under the water if he didn't. As a side effect, all these deep breaths that he was taking combined with all the focus on swimming and trying to stay alive had changed his thoughts. He felt more meditative and more decisive than he had ever felt before. And that made him feel good. Which made him want to live and get back to shore.

And the only way to do that was to figure out how to swim. To really swim, so that he could make it to shore... or at least to the casinor. If he could get in range and call out, Xiva could do the rest, Laviku willing.

So now he twisted and moved his arms around. At first he got nowhere. For a while he just spun in a lazy circle, not quite get the hanging of it. Then he did get the hang of it but didn't realize what he was doing right so he ended up just making a big splash.

"This is frustrating," he muttered, wishing he knew the names of some gods so that he could curse someone appropriately. But he knew nothing useful. Eventually, he just went with "By the moon above, I want to figure this out." Like the moon that changed phased or the quicksilver that rose and fell with the weather, he wanted to become someone that was worthy of conquering this challenge. This was a situation like any other that he had been in; he just had to figure it out. He just had to keep going and not quit. As with the time right now, it was always darkest before the dawn. This was hard, but he kept talking himself into going on. He didn't want to go on and had to use a bit of self-persuasion, but he persevered. "Come on Quinton, you can do this. You want to do this. Think how proud you'll feel if you accomplish this. At least, think how not-dead you will feel. I appeal to you, me to you (or you to you?) and to your self of self preservation and self worth. Don't give up now. There's a future wife and children out there somewhere waiting for you to be a part of their life. There are future friends out there. Jobs you will have. Cities you will visit. The strands of life and time surround you, beckoning you. Be a part of the future. And that means no quitting now!"

by **Quint Caravel** on November 17th, 2013, 7:14 am

For a long moment, he did nothing. He closed his eyes and took another breath, just letting the words of his own pep-talk wash over him the way the water was doing. Quint wasn't sure if he agreed or disagreed everything he said. But he agreed with the general gist of it.

Fine. Then it was settled. He was going to keep going. Somehow, someway, he was going to find a way out of this.

And first things first. The water was beginning to feel warm. That meant his temperature was no longer as far apart from the temperature of the water as it should be. Even as a partial Svefra, he knew what that meant. This was his final chance to figure out how to swim to safety or he would soon be dead, even if he did not drown.

Now that he was down to his last reserves of mental and physical energy, Quint doubled down in his efforts. He started watching his arms and the ocean's surface as best as he could, trying to observe which motions were effective and which were simply counter-productive. It was hard to do with only moonlight to guide him but it was not the hardest situation he had ever been in, if he was being honest with himself. And for right now, he was.

If he was being honest with himself, his hardest moment was losing 'Kita in the Djed storm. Xiva had lost her man as well. That was a tough season for the Caravel family. Hearts were broken and egos were crushed, hopes were destroyed and dreams were shattered. Compared to all that, this was just his body on the line. His soul was at peace, because as he already realized the moment he first plunged into the water, he simply had no regrets.

Except of course that he had been too much of a coward to live his life and therefore end up with regrets to have.

Well, that was going to change. Here and now.

Slowly. Very slowly. He started moving his arms around in the right way. First the left, then the right. In rhythm with his legs. He began to kick when he stroked his arms.

He was also doing several things wrong; he didn't know how to turn his head to the side or when to sip air and when not to sip water. He didn't know how to time his strokes for maximum efficiency. He didn't know when to kick his feet up or when to coast. In fact he pretty much did not know the vast majority of things necessary to be a decent swimmer. And if he hadn't plunged off the casinor and found himself swept up in the current so that he was still within range, he'd have been a dead man anyway. And that last bit was due more to Xiva and the mark of Laviku she had more than it had to do with anything Quint was doing. A good percentage of it-- maybe 95% or more of it-- was due to Xiva Caravel realizing that Quint had been swept overboard while she was still within a nautical mile of him.

But even so, even with all that, the last little bit had to come from Quint himself. He had to want to swim and save himself, and he had to find a reason within himself to do those things. And he had, so he did.

It was physically the most agonizing thing he had ever done. And perhaps he had only really gone the length of a small pool or pond. Perhaps not even that far. But he had done it, and he had done it himself, and so by the time his hand brushed the side of the casinor it was a different Quint Caravel who was pulled aboard the small ship than the boy who had plunged overboard.

He felt Xiva hug him and he hugged her back. He remembered collapsing to the deck. He didn't remember the rest. He had made it, and that was the important thing.

It might take a few days of sleep, of hot baths and lots of soup, but he had made it. He had arrived.

by **Vanari** on February 7th, 2014, 8:21 pm

Quint Caravel

Observation	+3 XP
Philosophy	+5 XP
Swimming	+4 XP

Lores :

Notes :