Mother Ocean/Story

It was early morning. In front of Civriel, the sun sat at the halfway point between the horizon and the sky. Behind him stood the small bundle of buildings that formed the Tethys Community Beach Club. Yesterday marked the end of the high summer season. The club's doors were shut, except for the little kahveon. The chairs were still out for anyone to use, but they would see very few people taking advantage of them for months. No more families would come to the shore and spend hours laying about or playing in the water.

Today marked an ending, too. The end of his formative years on one planet. By the afternoon, he would be elsewhere. On the first leg of an intersystem journey taking him away from home. A journey that would ultimately end on another world, far away from this place.

He had made the decision to attend the Cultural University on Aeithera because the history and archaeology departments there were among the best in the galaxy. At least, that had been the conscious reason. The unconscious reason, when he had become aware of it, was one that he couldn't understand. It felt like a calling from some higher deity, or an impulse drawn from the most primitive region of the inner mind. Yet it was strong, and persistent. He had to leave everything familiar behind. His place, ultimately, lay somewhere out in the galaxy.

But his heart felt another pull...to stay here on Vouroso, where his soul felt most complete. On the world of the Mother Ocean...How could he leave? There was too much that he loved, which by all normal logic should keep him here. His parents and sister. The other members of his family. His friends. Ena.

Making the decision to leave wasn't nearly as difficult as following through with it.

The required applications had taken three hours to fill out. During that time, one half of his thoughts had been focused upon such important matters as remembering to spell his name right and how to write comprehensible answers for the essay questions. But the other half of his concentration was focused on how to explain this to Ena. He never worked up the courage to tell her about it, not until after he had received his acceptance. She wanted to get married and raise children. He wanted that too. But not yet.

The morning mist was dissolving, and the clouds were beginning to thin out, revealing patches of blue. It was going to be a beautiful day.

Off in the distance, the first fishing trampers were heading out to catch nuri. The tradition of working on the water was intertwined into the bonds that formed the society of Vouroso. Ancient trading vessels set out from Medoun in the far north, and sailed across the sea, setting up nation states that eventually coalesced into a unified civilization. Much later on, they went out into the galaxy, continuing the mercantile vocation their ancestors had begun millenia ago.

He was going to miss the harvest season. By now, his father and some other kinsmen would be out in the vineyard, taking the metsimes from the vines and gathering them into baskets. Within three months, each small fruit would become part of the wine called metsima...another thing that he cherished from this world. The first tasting was subtle in its sweetness. A gift of the islands, blessed by the winds and currents of the ocean herself. The sea before him was growing choppy, caused by a change of winds.

Civriel glanced over his shoulder. Looming over the beach below was the Castillon of Ceuta, the last remaining fortress from the days when Vouroso was nothing more than a world of disconnected nations.

He could see the ghosts of vessels from those times. The meturahs, still plying their trade across the aquamarine and azure waters, heading for ports that no longer existed. The kiturahs, ancient warships set high with billowing white sails and deep blue pennants. The haturahs, with their lone sheets made from royal blue traille stretched across the masts, pushed along by ghostly breezes. Phantom fishing boats, constructed of cesim wood when it still could be found here, returning at night with the sounds of their long dead crews calling out to each other in the darkness.

These were not mirages. He had always been able to see and hear them through inner sight. This was the primary manifestation of some power carried within his blood. What the Vouro called mfan, the power of clear light. Or what the Triniteos, those three legendary Jedi Masters from this world, would have known as the Force.

Did that mean anything? It certainly couldn't mean that he was destined to become a Jedi. They hadn't existed for ages, and weren't likely to return so long as the Emperor held the galaxy in a death grip.

But the instinct remained. It caused the drive within him to leave. Try as he might, it could not be ignored or denied. Civriel knew that it would do no good to stay here with the familiar rather than follow the instinct. To go beyond the known out into the unknown was a great challenge. But it was essential.

Still, the things that he would miss...like spending an afternoon on the family's haturah, the new one constructed by his uncle...set with her glorious ultramarine colored broadcloth sails, the twenty good fortune stitches added to the corners by his aunt. One lazy afternoon alone, granted to him by his father as a gift before he left. A generous gift, so close to the beginning of the harvest season, when every available hand was needed. But his father understood the need to collect as many memories as possible before the long journey. Once upon a time, his father had "taken up the grant" and spent two years offworld. He knew it was necessary to collect as many memories as possible, like small bundles of shore roses, and pull them into oneself, to keep the sting of missing was what most cherished at bay.

Memories...the crashing of waves, the sight of ganni and meuste drifting and gliding over the delicate blue surface dotted with whitecaps. Water that could be utterly cold in the morning, then perfectly warm by the end of the afternoon. Older memories...standing with his mother the first time he was brought to the shore...not here at the club, but at one of the smaller beaches, where the sand wasn't quite as soft or bright...he had a vague image of screaming in childish terror as the receding tidal pull swept past his ankles.

That first experience did not have a negative effect. He learned to swim by the age of three. And soon, Civriel seemed to act as one of the Mother's offspring when in her element. Holding his breath had come naturally to him.

He felt no sense of danger that day when he headed out past the safety markers. That had caused a ruckus when he came back and found his mother crying, his father angry, and his little sister laughing at his predicament.

Many nights he would sneak out of the house and head down to sit on the rocks for hours watching the sky come alive with the flash and shine of stars. Those were the times when the calling was strong enough to almost overwhelm him. As if the stars were saying that he must come forth from the ocean, and reach out to the sky.

Touch the stars, then go among them and explore.

Casting off from a familiar shore...but he wouldn't be adrift. There would always be a mooring line that kept a part of his soul tied here, to the blue island in the middle of the black sea.

Civriel let out a breath. The ferry would be coming soon, taking him to the mainland. Then he would head for the spaceport, and board the first of three shuttles that would take him to the planet where the next phase of his life would begin.

For now, he was leaving home. But there would be semester breaks when he could return. And one day, when he graduated, he could always return and stay for good…if he were inclined to do so at that point.

He stared out at the sea once more, then turned and headed for the main building of the club. His mother, sister and Ena had come with him and were waiting inside, sitting at a small table in the kahveon. He had just enough time to join them in a farewell toast, and to create one last memory for his collection.