Chapter 5 Spring Equinox - Capesford

~* A few days prior, the morning of the Spring Equinox *~

Gulls screeched their calls at the skies. They did this every morning as the fishing fleet of Capesford raced the dawn. Wrenn wasn't hurried, she had been careful in her preparation. Her gut had told her today was going to be an excellent day to fish. She only awaited her uncle as she watched the moon kiss the Cliffs of Ophine and the sky grow brighter. She never hurried her uncle, and didn't insult him to help him walk the dock to his boat, so he took his time, and she happily waited beside the sea.

The weather was mild, despite the morning mists that would burn off soon enough. The waves were gentle in their lapping. The bustle of the dock really began as Charles boarded his boat, The Dawnracer, with the help of his niece. They now just waited as the Devout of Ophine blessed each boat. They always were blessed last. Both Charles and Wrenn, with conviction in their heart, and the love of the ocean beating in their chest, recited the blessings with the Devout before they moved to set off.

"Racing the dawn?" He asked as he situated himself on the seat near the tiller. Draping his jacketed arm over it, he started stuffing his pipe.

"Never!" Wrenn tossed a laugh at her uncle, and responded, "We make the dawn chase us!" Wrenn secured the riggings as she chatted freely with Charles, "My plan is to get back in time to set out twice. We will fill our nets, our tank, and get to the markets before they open. Then we should set out once more to get you sheepshead and enjoy lunch on the sea."

"Your plan is it?" He chuckled and leaned to pull and unloop their boat from the pier. He began the process of coiling, and nodded, "Good plan."

"Aye Captain." she nodded and shoved their craft off with a push of her heel. Before long, and long before dawn, she unfurled her sails as the rest of the other boats struggled to keep up, "I'm going to make you fish stew tonight, I have onions, potatoes, spinach and some good kelp I found. And a lemon, a whole lemon at the market."

"Ya should be going tonight to the festival with all the other lasses your age." He chided and pulled the lines adjusting the sail as they cleared the breakers past the docks. Before them was nothing but water. Behind their impressive lead, the fishing fleet started making to water.

"You should come with me in that case. What if I meet a handsome, young sailor and sail off to get married?" She teased.

"Ha! Yer saying it like a threat lass. They're welcome to have ya! I've been trying to get rid of you for years and years." Charles pretended to lament with a laugh.

"Aw, and here I thought I was your good-luck charm." She retorted. He tapped a pendant of a wren on his chest and winked at her.

She wasn't wrong. She had been extremely lucky the last six years they had known each other. He had come across her sleeping under the canvass sails in his boat. He sat there awhile, perched on the gunwale peering down at the sleeping girl. She couldn't have been older than her early teens. He would have been well within his rights to toss her overboard, but he saw the bruises and marks on her. He saw she was a sliver of a girl, too thin and frail for much. So instead, he laid his jacket on her and waited for her to wake up.

When she woke up she explained she was searching for her family. She explained she had escaped a family who had 'fostered' her from the orphanage as a domestic maid. He believed the story, even without the battered bruises and lashes. Charles first took her to the temple where he could get her help. On his way up the hill to the Temple of Ophine, he had a change of heart.

He arrived at the temple and waited outside for sometime in silence with the girl pressed to his side. He patted her shoulder and felt her tremble in fear. He steeled his resolve and they walked into the temple proper. He had been here plenty of times, in fact the fishermen of Capesford were among the most devout to make the steep journey up the hill to worship the Goddess of Water. He moved past the pillars sculpted to look like moving water, and beneath the solid marble roof they held overhead. He stepped past the water features, fountains, and falls until he found the High Priest, a Wielder of Water.

Charles outright lied to the holy man explaining the girl was his niece. The fisherman explained that by some grace of Ophine, he found the last member of his family. After years of searching, he found her, and he named her there and then. The High Priest knew they looked nothing alike. The High Priest knew Charles had no surviving family. The High Priest knew what the marks on her body meant. The High Priest greeted Wrenn Capesford to the temple and established a familial relationship through the temple itself - absolving the girl of her state as a slave.

It would come to cost Charles years of wages to settle the debt with her former owners, but the matter was resolved. This was Charles' niece. Neither Charles or Wrenn ever mentioned the matter again. Wrenn, in turn, did all she could to care for and repay the kindness Charles had shown her. She first cleaned the small two-room shack they occupied. She made it a home. She soon prepared hot meals for her uncle, and had everything set to welcome him home from his time on the sea. She swiftly learned to cut and prepare fish he caught for sale at the market, bypassing the need to sell to the fishmonger.

Every morning she would see him off in the mornings, and by noon she was there again to greet him and help him with his tasks. Six years had since aged Charles rapidly, and he was already an old man. Eventually Wrenn found herself doing many of the tasks to prepare him for his journey, and then ultimately accompanying him. This was met with indignant and superstitious outrage from the other sailors. It didn't matter if Wrenn learned all their customs, traditions, their supersitions, and exhibited them daily. Daily she thanked Ophine for her great fortune.

It didn't matter that Wrenn learned the knots, and subtleties of the sea as well as seasoned captains. It only mattered that Wrenn was a woman who was fishing, and Wrenn had become quite successful at it. The Dawnracer consistently out fished every other craft at Capesford. Rare fish, unusual fish, abundant fish, deep water fish that shouldn't be as close to shore, the Dawnracer caught them all. More remarkable than this was the fish maintained a high quality, and merchants would come from neighboring cities to seek merchants with Dawnracer fish. Her abundant success earned her the title of "Water Witch".

Today, the fishermen treated her no differently. Some were bold enough and asked her for luck. Most spat at her for daring to be there. Despite the distain, almost all of them chased the Dawnracer. They veered north, a speck on the horizon as the sun threatened to crest. They stopped in the open water near the Cliffs of Ophine, where the Temple was situated atop. Beneath the cliffs the sea had carved away large overhangs and caverns. Usually, this location was too rough for their type of craft, but today the ocean behaved. Charles adjusted the tiller hard starboard and the boat responded with a graceful dip and stilled. Sails were lowered and achors were dropped.

Wrenn worked her slender frame with dedication and uncanny strength. The water was clear and beneath them revealed schools of fish. Charles watched as Wrenn smiled,

"I knew it." She beamed and lowered the nets as Charles instructed.

They were met by other boats as they cast their second round of nets. Dawn broke as they winched in nets wriggling with fish. Between the casts the pair would swiftly dress the fish as much as they could. As early morning drifted on, the pair already made full-sail back to the port. After dropping off the goods and getting a very nice share Wrenn was true to her word.

She got a lunch for the pair and tossed the bag of coins back at Charles as they prepared to set off again. Wrenn was set on sheepshead, Charles' favorite. It wasn't the correct season, but she didn't let that stop her. It didn't matter how, she was set to get the fish. As they settled with their poles, nestled somewhere between the shore and the atolls, Charles began eating the fresh bread and butter. Though his legs were not as steady as they ought to be, dropped his bread and stood with the support of the mast. It took Wrenn a few moments to understand what caught her uncle's attention.

Past the atolls was a mass. At first Wrenn confused it with some continent she had never seen before, with mountains that scraped the bellies of clouds. The noon sun shone clearly, reflecting and refracting around and through the mass. The wave was so large Wrenn had no way to describe it. It barreled towards Capesford. Despite how far it was from shore, it had started draining the shoreline and exposed the seafloor.

Wrenn first marveled at how silent the mass was. Aside the typical sound of water around her, the steady drift toward the mass, and the gulls, there was no sound. The colossal swell ate the atolls. It simply pulled them straight up and into the wall of water rushing inland. It would easily engulf their boat. It would easily engulf the city. It would easily scale the Cliffs of Ophine and eat the temple. The entire spread of the horizon was the wave.

"By Ophine." Charles said. He kissed his pendant and moved as if he were young and spry. He ignored his bones and forced them with all his strength to put himself between Wrenn and the oncoming power of the ocean. He turned his back to the sea and grabbed her shoulders. The roar started, like rolling thunder. It only grew louder. He gripped the girl to his chest and said before the noise robbed him of his words, "I love ya lass. I'm here. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here."

The words poured out in a litany of sincerity. The shade of the wave befell them as moisture made the air thick with spray. The Dawnracer eased itself and attempted it's way up the vertical incline, then the anchor snapped crushing part of her in the process. Charles looked down at Wrenn and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Wrenn's eyes flashed in horror, grief, and disbelief. Her gaze settled on the determination as the man before her protected her, and enveloped her with his strong embrace. She screamed,

"I love you too!" Her words were sincere but filled with fury of Charle's fate. She gripped the old man as the boat threatened to be thrown into the sea. She felt it, in an instant. A bolt through her. That moment cracked something deep within her. A place she knew, it felt familiar. The power she felt was infinite. Wrenn latched onto this and allowed it to empower her temperament to match, and overpower the sea. The emotion whipped out from her first in a tentacle then in pulsing waves. The entire wave stalled. They slid on the deck as the young woman raged against the water. Frozen in place, but not solid like ice, the wave remained fluid, rippling. The boat obeyed the laws of nature and started to slide back down the face of the wave to rejoin the sea.

Charles moved, locking his storm-grey eyes on the handle of the tiller. He pulled hard and attempted to correct the boat as it limped down the wave at an increasing speed. He screamed as he pulled, "Are you doing this lass?"

Wrenn's reply was amplified through each droplet of moisture around them, "Yes."

The mass of water slowly started to dissolve, spreading itself back into the ocean it came from. Eventually, with great care, all was returned as it was before. Terrified, Wrenn begged Charles to sail away from this place. He attempted to do just that, fighting the unyielding current as it pushed in the opposite direction. The boat limped all the way to the docks despite their best efforts, as if it were sailing itself. Ever closer to the shore. Ever closer to the crowds. Ever closer to the awaiting Inquisition.