Music From The Deep

In The Wake Of Death

The crew of the Tidewalker barely managed to limp their vessel into a Nehapor dock. The storm that had claimed Sedrick's life had brought with it lightning that had struck the main mast, nearly crippling their vessel after the storm had passed and left them in a windless sea. It would have killed the rest of the crew had they not been blown so close to Tume during the storm. Now there was time to resupply and repair the ship, as well as figure out what to do about Sedrick's death.

Captain Tetsuya wiped his brow, looking over his ragged crew. The ship seemed almost silent in the wake of Sedrick's death. The boy had been part of the crew since his seventeenth birthday, joining as soon as he was able to help his family. Tetsuya had admired the boy's courage and joviality despite his reasons for boarding the Tidewalker.

Eight years he had been part of the crew. Eight years of the boy raising his voice in many a poorly sung shanty. Eight years and now he was gone. Tetsuya couldn't help but feel a deep sorrow weighing down his body.

He was getting too old for this. This had been the first death in nearly a year, when his quartermaster had died of a wasting illness. For him, they had given him a proper sailor's death, weighting his body and dropping him in the ocean. It had been what he wanted, what he had told Tetsuya as he had lain dying.

But there was no body for the crew to mourn over for Sedrick. His body had been claimed by the sea. And Tetsuya knew that Sedrick would have wanted his body to go back to his family in Zealash.

Oh, gods, the boy's family...

Gritting his teeth, Tetsuya pushed the thoughts out of his head and started overseeing the docking of his ship. As he was doing this, one of his sailors approached him. It was Cardiff, a young man from Zealash and perhaps Sedrick's closest friend. The young man was looking very intensely at Tetsuya as though he wanted to talk to him.

Tetsuya stepped away from the group of sailors he was overseeing, nodding at him to speak.

"Sedrick wasn't cast overboard," Cardiff said in a rush, looking angry. "I saw him jump."

The captain froze. Sedrick wasn't the self-destructive, suicidal sort. He loved the sea, cared for his family. Yes, the boy had lost his father, but that had been well over a year ago. He had stayed on shore for a few months before rejoining the crew, comfortable that his mother would be able to handle his absence.

Sedrick would never subject his mother to such sorrow.

"I refuse to believe that Sedrick would have ended his own life in such a way," Tetsuya said shortly, starting to move on from the conversation with Cardiff. "Get back to help with docking."

"No! Wait!" Cardiff cried. "I saw a siren!"

This got Tetsuya's attention. He slowly turned his head to look at the young man, whose eyes had grown wide with desperation. The captain sighed, before gesturing for the sailor to follow him to his quarters. He followed and they both disappeared into Tetsuya's quarters, before he shut the door and turned to look at Cardiff.

"Tell me exactly what you saw,"

"Just as the storm was setting in, I was looking out toward the storm front. I thought I had seen something in the water, so I looked closer. I didn't see anything anymore, thought maybe it was just a whale taking a breath before it went under. I went back to the masts, but not even fifteen minutes later I saw it again. It was definitely a siren, black hair and scales on her face and neck. She was only above the surface for a minute, it had just started raining, before she went back under. She had a dark tail, full black, I think.