Sins & Virtues

Chapter Fourteen: Louder than words

Truett

Seer Port, Seasail

The common folk of Seerfayre were far more accepting of Truett's impairment than the wealthy and nobility. They perhaps did not understand it as Timothee and Delilah did, but they made allowances for him, rather than expecting him to adapt to them. They knew, from years of sailing with the now king, of fishing side by side and hauling in nets together, to get his attention before speaking. They knew to get Timothee if Truett was struggling to understand. They knew actions spoke louder than words.

When Delilah's anxiety over leaving Jasper finally ebbed to the point she was happy to leave him with Inesa and Lady Trya, Timothee's mother, Timothee persuaded the two royals to join him at the port for the Squid Salute.

The weather was beginning to warm and the waters with it, luring out the shoals of silver squid; iridescent squid that shone blue and silver under the moonlight, when they were easiest to catch, venturing to the surface to chase the warm waters before the night cooled them. Every year, when the squid were first spotted in the waters, a celebration would spread out all along the port, from one end to the other. Small bonfires would be lit, skewered fish cooking over them, and drinks would be shared while they watched the squids sparkle and shine at the surface. No nets or boats would be sent out, not until the next night. On their first night, the squid were free to frolic and the people were free to enjoy watching them, and celebrate them.

It was not abnormal to see the blue bloods at the Squid Salute. They used to come every year with their parents. Most of the nobles preferred not to attend, but the royal couple enjoyed it and encouraged their children to enjoy it too. If anyone looked at them with surprise that year, it was because nobody had expected them to attend, but Truett had had enough of grieving.

He discarded the black suit he'd taken to wearing over the last few months, and donned the blue and grey colours of his household again; his favourite long coat with parallel brass buttons and heavy boots scratched from fishing hooks and course netting.

Delilah had followed his lead, wearing a black gown until she saw him and promptly turning back upstairs to change. She was a vision in the cobalt blue dress, its light skirt and petticoat stopping at her shins to show the lace-up boots, the dress cinched at the waist with a laced corset decorated with scales of silver thread. Her blonde hair fell about her shoulders and her relieved face was finally free of the stresses and tiredness of her grief. She had taken both their arms as they walked down to the port.

The celebrations were well underway when they arrived, and they soon found themselves upon a stone jetty, sitting near a bonfire, perched on overturned crates and sipping star fruit rum out of mismatched tankards. For the first hour, the sun diving beneath the horizon and the moon starting her climb, Delilah's eyes flickered towards the dark silhouette of the castle, towering over them even across the city and down in the port. The moon had crested past the tall cliffs that fjorded either side of the slender entrance into the port, by the time the princess forgot to monitor the castle and sang along to the tunes that had begun to play.

- Her smile is back - Timothee signed to him, not daring to say the words out loud, lest she overhear.

Truett nodded, smiling. - I was worried -

- Me too - Timothee agreed, watching the princess as her brother was. He was dressed similarly to Truett, a button-breasted jacket in the sea foam green of the Du Fray household. It was similar to what the royal sailors wore, an ode to his training with them. The king's friend was blond like him, but a shade darker, and his eyes a similar shade of green. He was handsome and kind, and perhaps that was why the uptight nobles accepted him into court and disregarded his birthright as a bastard.