Alex.J.Cobalt

“Docked, Captain!”

Captain Elaya Truthwatch tipped the edge of her hat at her First Mate, Rodgers, to acknowledge the information.

“We’re here for five days, Crew!” she yelled over the ship. Her voice carried easily in the still breeze, “be respectful, but more importantly, drink them dry!”

The Crew cheered. Those on the first rotation off the ship scrambled towards the gangplank. It would do them good to burn off steam after the long month at sea. After the horrors they had seen at Tiola’s Bay, they needed something to distract them.

For Elaya, however, there could be no distraction. The knowledge she had could change the Five Seas for good. Unag the First Watcher was alive, somehow, twisted beyond all recognition and hell-bent on revenge against all the Truthwatchers that roamed the seas.

I need to talk to Mother Imnano, Elaya thought. She grabbed the edge of the Quarterdeck, vaulting over the wooden balustrade, letting herself fall the seven feet to the deck.

She landed easily. Any Truthwatcher could. A benefit of their position and their oath was the superhuman reflexes and the ability to heal faster than a normal mortal could.

Elaya straightened, feeling her legs slowly knit back together. The pain was inconsequential, seventy years of being a Truthwatcher had made her immune to pain. She could feel it, but it was no more than an annoyance.

Some said that Truthwatchers were immune to fear as well as pain. Elaya knew that was complete rubbish, she might have seen thing in her hundred and thirty odd years, but fear was a sensation she knew well.

And she felt it now. The thought of Unag alive again was more terrifying than the monsters of the deep, or the Horizon pirates, or even taking the Truthwatcher test in the Caves of Garat. He’d already halved her crew and they hadn’t even landed in Tiola’s Bay. The next Truthwatcher who heard the screams from the sea might land, and then who knew what would happen.

Well I know what will happen, Elaya thought, he will try and kill us all.

This flashfiction was first posted in 2020

Featured Image by Alice Hampson on Unsplash

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