riptide | kyojuro rengoku

prologue

FOR AS LONG AS YOU COULD REMEMBER, the ocean called out to you. Born of taboo and magic, your milky white eyes didn't process the bend of the light around you. Topiary, birds, stones, they were all figments of your imagination; things you would never be able to actually see.

The ocean was the only thing you could be sure of. The dimness, repetitive ripples on the murky surface, even the pigments of salt in the water, you caught it all. Your father made haste with this, returning to his position as a sailor with his crew; not one of the feisty pirates, but ones that search for the unknown.

Your father's love for cartography sent him to all kinds of places as you met creatures humans didn't know the name of: a large green body roped with numerous appendages, six eyes scattered across its face as its jaw unhinged like a snake to swallow up a lantern-headed fish; the swarms of neon-colored fish that moved together as one.

When you had told your father this, he had kissed your forehead and a part of you remembered the sound of his laugh. How he had anchored his ship in odd places, called for his crew, and held you against his chest as you tried to make sense of where they stood. Of course, though, as you two ventured into the darkness, the irony of it all broke it apart.

For your father had blindly ventured forth, leaving his daughter to watch as his passion swallowed him up whole, cursing him to death.