From Before the End – The Ship of Dreams

It’s a draft… but I wanted to share.

In a tiny fishing village nestled betwixt and between the sea, the forests, and the mountains, there was a solid, sturdy boy named Jeran.

Hair bleached blond by the sun and whipped into a stiff crest by the salt and the spray, barefoot in most weathers, it seemed Jeran had always been a part of NestledbytheSea. And that was almost true. On the rare occasion that there was time for talk, and folk troubled themselves to ask the lad where (or more to the point, who) he’d come from, Jeran would give a lazy, one sided smile. “Might as well say I’m the son of the wind and the waves,” and something about the insouciance of the words, or the way the boy’s jaw set worked the magic of discouraging questioners.

Though he would not give more of his antecedents than that, the townsfolk had come to trust Jeran nonetheless. He seemed to always turn up when extra hands were needed. And so clever his hands were! It seemed there was nothing of the trade of the sea he did not know, whether it was fishing nets wanting mended or a flat bottomed hull wanting tarred. There was no job so dirty, noisome, or tedious that Jeran wouldn’t lend his aid. And always, always with goodwill and thoughtfulness. 

The Widow Carpenter’s shingles were renewed like magic each fall, and wood chopped to get her through the winter. When this had been accomplished, no one knew; it would simply be done once the air got a certain nip to it.

Builder Halron had broken his leg in the busy summer season, and went from a prosperous man to one who did not know what he could barter to feed himself through the winter. The week after the accident, a small skiff of the type that could be sailed by an injured man and several casks of smoked fish turned up at the dock off his porch. 

Whenever asked, Jeran would give his one sided smile and proclaim that he had no knowledge of how these things had come to pass. “Lots of good hearted people in this village, glad to do for one another. It’s why I never wanted to call anywhere else home!”

When they stopped to think about it, not one of the longtime residents of NestledbytheSea could put a finger on just when the boy had turned up. It just seemed he’d always been there, a lanky, tireless blond boy with pretty sea green eyes.

And that was more or less the way Jeran wanted it.

He had come to this tiny village to be a part of a community that took its living from the sea, not only to be a part of it, but to learn everything there was to know about that ever changing beauty. When Jeran was not, to his mind, earning his place within the village, he could sit at the mouth of his sea cave for hours. Watching the waves lap against the rock, the changing colors of the sun and moons reflecting off the waters. Sometimes he’d feel the call of the magic, and slip beneath the surface to feel himself and all the forms of life seemingly suspended in space and time. Resting upon the ocean floor, he’d let the sands trickle through his fingers, and wait.

What he was waiting for, Jeran didn’t precisely know. It was as though he was perched on the edge of the dock, ready to dive into the water, but the perching went on and on. 

And so Jeran schooled himself to patience. He smiled his smile, he helped where he could, and when the waiting became too much to bear, he wrapped himself in the arms of the ocean herself. She always understood him, and soothed him when no other pursuit could.

It came as no surprise to him that when the first call came, he was dozing there in a tangle of kelp. He slept better under the water, as though all the pressure of it held him together and let him hear only what truly mattered.

In his dream, he saw a beautifully curved bow rise from the waves and slice through them, clean as a knife. This vessel rode upon the water, towering above the currents that could swamp the flat bottomed scows the villagers used for fishing and trading wares along the coast. It was gilded by the moon that paid a path to the northeast, dancing with starlight. 

For the first time in his long, long life, Jeran felt a longing deep into his bones. He must stand upon that ship and be carried where the stars followed. When morning came, it found him woolen headed and muzzy. It seemed all he could think of was how the ship had been shaped.  The curving sides that held it aloft in the water would give far better control in the vast open waters, making all manner of voyages possible.

Before the sun was a handspan over the horizon, Jeran found himself at Master Halron’s door, pushing himself in on that good man’s breakfast. While at first sleepily annoyed, there was something about Jeran’s ideas that intrigued him and fired his imagination almost in spite of himself.

“Working the wood to warp it intentionally can be done, I learned that in my time with the elven woodsmiths. Would that one of them were here!” The builder had one of those mobile faces with bushy eyebrows and an overly pronounced, beaky nose that works itself into exaggerated expressions without its owner’s permission. Just now, the dark brows were drawn together in thought as he fetched a stick and began sketching on a sand table under the window’s light, a piece of forgotten toast dangling from his other hand.

“See here, lad,” he said, pointing with the stick after he’d drawn what Jeran had described. “If we drill out the joins correctly and assemble it together like so, tarring the seams well… I think this is what you’re wanting?”

Jeran leaned over the table, for once, smiling with both halves of his mouth. It was a beatific grin that lit his whole face, and suddenly neither Master Halron nor his wife begrudged the break in their morning routine. Before they knew it (and for reasons that were difficult to explain later), they had agreed to help Jeran build his dream. Having their hands seized, wrung in thanks then led to the trio madly capering about the small cottage. 

They could never describe it to anyone but each other, but for the builder and his wife, it would become a long cherished memory.

“The only problem,” wheezed the good master as he tried to catch his breath, “is that I do not have enough seasoned wood on hand for such an undertaking.”

“No problem at all, Master Halron. I shall see to it immediately!” Again flashing that bright grin, Jeran was out the door before another word could be spoken.

The builder’s lady fell into her chair at the small dining table, and hand on her chest. “My word, I’ve never seen the like from our Jeran, did you see the way his eyes shone?” And her smile was almost as bright as Jeran’s had been.

Master Halron laughed, a carefree sound he hadn’t made since he was a very young boy himself. “My dear, I do believe we are about to see a thing that has never been seen before, and it fair takes my breath away.”

As the builder and his wife finished plotting their next steps over breakfast, Jeran’s feet carried him to the furthest part of the village that could still be rightfully considered part of the village. Unlike the paths by the beach that were paved with smooth stone, from the last bend of the path onwards was paved with wood chips.

Banly was a woodcutter that had fallen in love with a local girl while visiting for a trader’s mission who had just never left. He’d found a spot by the forests he so loved, built his wife to be a fine log cabin, and settled in among a people that needed him, but never really understood his fascination with trees. Redheaded (and bearded), squat and muscled with the demands of his profession, he had three sons that had turned out just like him, and two daughters that had followed their mother’s ways to the sea.

When you live in the forest, the demands of the sun are not quite as insistent as when you live upon an eastern shore, and Jeran found the whole family still at table for breakfast. To be sure, it was a massive table and a massive breakfast; Jeran found himself dwarfed by the four burly men with their bristly beards. 

“Master Banly! I have a need for quite a lot of wood.”

The eldest woodcutter harrumphed and glared at this stripling lad balefully. Some people need to build up to the concept of morning, and Banly just so happened to be one of them. He jabbed a finger at his youngest son, then made a shooing motion. Being of a sunnier disposition to greet the day, the boy (who was still a foot taller than Jeran and used to his father’s grumpiness) grinned and motioned Jeran into his seat with a wink.

Once seated, another grunt and point saw to it Jeran was presented with a more than ample breakfast. While it may have daunted him any other day, making dreams come true was apparently appetite building, and the boy fell to the overflowing plate with a will. Only once about half of the contents had been consumed was there another grunt from Banly in his direction.

“Of course, Master Banly, I want to build a ship. A ship of the likes we’ve never seen before, that can go beyond the largest of the waves and cross the sea,” he waved a forkful of eggs towards the general direction of the coast.

Banly made a garumph into his beard, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

“I have no idea, I just know how we need to go about building the ship. There could be anything out there- sea monsters, naiads, mermaids, maybe a new way to see the whole world!” Just considering all of the possibilities made Jeran’s head spin. Always before, he’d been content to watch the world from this tiny corner of it, but as suddenly as he was asked the question (though to be fair, whether or not that was the question is only known to Banly) it was as if the entire world beckoned to him. 

The woodsman stared at Jeran for a long minute, his head cocked to the side as though he strained to hear music from too far away. It made everyone at the table pause, straining to hear what Master Banly heard.

The mistress of the house remembered the moment that Banly had clasped her hand to his breast while they took their vows, and how it had pounded against her knuckles.

The eldest brother’s imagination was fired by this ship Jeran had spoken of, and he could almost see it, as he heard the bite of the axes, thudding into the flesh of his friends. Then the pounding of the hammers that would give them new life out upon the waves, to go far beyond the horizon. He resolved to find the tree spirits that would wish such a fate.

The youngest daughter, though… she had eyes only for Jeran. While most saw a brightness within him, then the kindness that he let flow from him, young Salda saw him standing in the prow of this ship he imagined, ever facing forward to see what came next. Leading with a pure heart, never looking behind him, but ever forward to each new sight and new day. She lost her heart to that mad young man for then and always, and always knew that he would never be more than kind to her.

But her heart was gone from that moment and she followed him on all of his voyages, save the last.

From time to time, there can be a special kind of madness and magic, when inspiration is able to kindle and catch fire amongst a group of folk. So it was that summer in NestledbytheSea once Masters Halron and Banly began working from a dream. Everyone genuinely liked Jeran and respected the masters, and before long, work on the usual summer projects was lain aside that they may turn all available hands to this ship. Those that could follow Master Halron’s sketches guided those that couldn’t, while those that couldn’t swing a hammer lent their backs to help carry the lumber. Those that could do neither of those instead saw to the care and feeding of the laborers. And still others, after an evening’s consultation with Master Halron and Jeran, began work upon the immense sails that would be required.

Hoping to please the dreamer with their gift, the sails began to take form. The lady of the oyster beds had a cousin who traded with the elves on occasion, and offered an exorbitant price that she lay hands on a particular type of oil that would stain the rough cloth a deep blue and seal it against the air. When she showed the other sewers what she had wrought, nothing would do but that the Widow Carpenter’s wedding gown be plucked free of all the beautiful silver embroidery that graced it.

When a young girl expressed her astonishment that the widow was willing to destroy the lovely dress, the old woman smiled. For just that moment in time, the gathered were all able to glimpse the girl she had been when last she wore it. “Child, I had my moment with this, and I could have wished it to have been passed on to a girl of my own. But as that did not come to pass, I would rather the thread shine out to the world than be wasted on just me. And the dress is still lovely to me, as a memory of what was and a reminder of how much further a piece of me and my Merk still go.”

So if there were a few tears that fell as the stars of their sky were stitched upon the deep blue sailcloth, some of them were in hope, and others in remembrance.

All through the summer, NestledbytheSea buzzed from before dawn to very late in the long nights, watching the bones of the dream rise on the beach next to the largest dock. Within two weeks, the ribs were there, two more saw the planks begin to hug around them. A sturdy, spacious cabin was planned for below the decks, with space meant to carry all manner of things. Already, those that plied their flat bottomed boats up and down the coast to trade saw the merits of such a shape for carrying cargo. Their conversations of future hopes made a fine counterpoint to the work of the present during the evenings, and everyone had their own little trove of insight to share.

About three months from the time Jeran awoke from his dream in the grotto, his ship was all but completed. He awoke on the first morning with the crisp bite of fall to see his sails, the beautiful silver starred sky sails being hoisted into the rays of dawn’s light.

There are moments in life that are too perfect for mere words, and a space in our hearts for those sights, sounds, and feelings to be permanently etched. To recall them is to be back, for a little while, in that one time and place, a gift to carry through all of one’s days.

So that moment was for Jeran, the day he set sail in his dream with Salda, her cousin Rippen, and a stowaway squirrel named Climber to see what lay beyond the horizon.

Their journeys would become legend.