Sea Shepherds | Complete

Sea Shepherds | For The Whales

I snorted in annoyance as my gold-blonde hair stayed in knots, even snapping two of the teeth of my comb off with a muffled "crack." I stifled a curse and ruffled through my dresser drawer for my spare comb. A hideous shade of hot pink and unnecessarily adorned with neon, plastic bows, I felt as though as I was about to throw up just looking at it.
After a considerable amount of yanking at my hair, giving me reason to worry about the amount of hair I would lose in two weeks' time, I bounded out of my apartment like a sailfish, bolting for the bus that was closing its doors and preparing to leave. "Wait!" I yelled, waving my arms and still running for my life. Thank God, the bus stopped. I squeezed into the already tightly packed bus, and tried to keep a grip on the handrail as it sped off to Friday Harbour. Living in Washington had its perks.

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Wading through the crowds of tourists at the Friday Harbour Resort, I found it was, ironically, a Thursday. By Friday I would be long gone. Despite me almost being late, I found myself suppressing little squeals of excitement and having an uncontrollable skip in my footsteps. Picking my way to the docks, where a medium-sized boat waited, I watched a redhead and a black-haired guy push a rowboat up a ramp into the lower level of the ship. The ship had a magnificent hull of black and a shining coat of white on the deck, a tanned young man standing at the front, yelling orders.
"Wrong direction, Mellie!"
"Leo, get moving!"
"Yes m'am." Wait, what?
"Where's reporter Daniels?"
I cringed. Looking at my waterproof watch, I knew I was late. This guy was the captain.
I decided to announce my presence first, and worry about gender nouns and pronouns later. "Hi...you were looking for a reporter Daniels?"
"Yes!" They yelled. I'd resorted to "they," not wanting to be flayed alive for using the wrong pronoun. "She's late!"
"I'm right here!" I protested.
"Get on board." They huffed. "Captain Robin Brown, not at your service. Mellie, show her to her room."
  "Yes m'am." The redhead said.
  "Isn't the captain a 'he'?'" I asked once we were out of earshot.
  "By birth. He's gender fluid." The redhead explained. "Today's preferred pronouns are 'she' and 'her.'" I nodded to show I understood, even though I didn't. It wasn't hard to see why I was known for being too innocent for my own good. "It's a pleasure to have you, m'am. I'm Mellie."
  "Please, just call me Lyria." Smiling, Mellie walked off to join the other members of the crew as I threw open the door to my room.
  "You have to be kidding me."
The "room" was a flimsy partitioned square of an actual room, the user's name scribbled on the scavenged material for the partitions. The only furniture in each was a bedroll, each an unknown smell I wouldn't call fragrant. But I was going to be a reporter for the Sea Shepherds. I wasn't much of a whale-lover, and I wouldn't go as far as to attack ships on the sea even if I did. Their cause? Eh. The Sea Shepherds were famous. Being their reporter for two weeks? It would earn me fame. I'd have a name in the reporting business. Companies begging and giving me thousands of dollars for being the reporter at their show seemed to be a fruitful reward for sleeping in a bedroll for two weeks. No bedroll would dampen my excitement for the bright future ahead.

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The first week passed in a flash. Shots were beautiful, operations successful, video editing flawless. Sitting in my partition of the room, I tried to work on my script. The voiceover had to be perfect to rival everything else.
"Whales—an endangered species. This is" I crossed it out.
"The Sea Shepherds. Guardia—" I crossed it out.
Every single voiceover could never convey the emotion that flowed out of me so naturally any other day. On my second page of drafts, the truth dawned on me—I didn't care about those whales. They could go extinct, for all I cared. I didn't care about the Sea Shepherds. As long as they didn't leave me stranded on a deserted island, they could get wiped out for all I cared. There was no emotion for me to show.
"Miss Daniels." Captain Brown literally tore down the walls as he (today he was a "he") crashed through the partitions, and I barely stopped myself from screaming out loud.
"Can't you knock?" I squeaked, attempting to make my sorry self sound annoyed. But I'd been on this ship for a week now, and I knew Robin Brown was the kind of person who looked tough, yet was actually considerate and kind on the inside. Something was wrong.
"It's your film crew."

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  "A failure shot." They whispered. "They can't always win. We need to show the world the Sea Shepherds need more help."
  I turned my head to see what everyone was looking at, and my mouth widened in an "o." Even without any expertise I knew this was a baby whale, the "Hoshi Eight" reeling it up with a net. Two shadows on the deck that loomed over us turned a crank that pulled the whale further away from home inch by inch. It thrashed, and for one horrible second I saw the whale look at us. Its eyes. Full of hurt and betrayal. It was afraid. It had feelings.
  My heart broke.
  "The film crew won't let us do our job." Leo, an Asian, complained. "They say it's perfect for exposing Japan to the public, make their dumb show look all-rounded."
  "We agreed on letting you decide." Mellie whispered. "The life of that whale...what happens is up to you."
  I could hear the whale panting from metres away.
  "Film crew." I tried to keep my voice as low and calm as possible. "That's an innocent life. Shepherds, do your job." Their expressions filled with grim determination as they hastily reached for the last of their gear, but the crew's faces all said the same thing. Thank you.
  In the background, I felt the film crew yell at me. All I heard was a faint buzz in my ears as I watched three intrepid shepherds save the life of an innocent creature.
  They were heroes. And I found I couldn't just sit and watch and do nothing as they saved whales from extinction. I had to help too.
  "You wasted a perfect shot!" A cameraman I remembered as Ben yelled in my ear as I jerked out of my thought. "All you've done the past week is help us! And now you side with them, the moment a slightly cuter baby whale comes on?"
  "Ben, this isn't about shots." I explained. "The whale had a life to live. You couldn't possibly kill off a whale for a few seconds of footage." I was challenging him now. All of them, daring the film crew to deny a life came before footage. "Put down that fancy camera for once."

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  That night I stood at the front of the ship, leaning on the balcony of iron. A cool, summer breeze chopped through my hair, which I'd chosen to leave down that night.
  Captain Robin walked over and tapped me on the shoulder.
  "Miss Daniels?"
  "Captain Brown, honestly, just call me Lyria."
  "Lyria. I'm sorry about the partition." She ran a hand through her pageboy haircut.
  Hold on. She? Her? I guess there was something about the aura Captain Brown gave out that made people feel she was a "she."
  "And...thank you for letting us save that whale today."
  I found my face muscles pulling into a soft smile, even though my brain was thinking about anything except smiling.
  "For the whales, Captain Brown."
  "Robin will do, Lyria. For the whales. By any chance related to Abraham Lincoln's quote 'of the people, by the people, for the people?'"
   "Never thought about it that way." I had a new idea for a voiceover.

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  "Abraham Lincoln once said 'Of the people, by the people, for the people.'" I let my voice finish vibrating through the air. "They may not be of the whales, they may not be by the whales." I stopped to take a deep breath, because I felt my voice ready to crack. "But they are for the whales. These are the Sea Shepherds, on 'Whale Wars.'" I motioned for the cameraman to stop recording, and ordered him to go get some sleep. Twelve hours from now, I would be home, likely famous and sought after for the reputation I was building.
But had I really done it for the reputation?
At the start, yes. Now? I stared out of the window, the setting sun illuminating the sea in a beautiful kaleidoscope of pinks, oranges, yellows and purples. I couldn't imagine why I'd aimed for the fame in the first place.
They are for the whales. My voice echoed. And so am I.