Forty Years of This [Monster Hunter World]

Chapter 1

"Forty years?" The fiver stared bewildered at the Commander. The old man grinned down at the new hunter.

"I aged well, didn't I?" The Commander always felt a bit smug when the new arrivals finally figured out how long he and the remnants of the First Fleet had been there.

The kid (they were all young things to him) took a moment to respond, then grinned back at him and nodded. "Yes sir, you certainly did."

The Commander's smile faded as he looked over the fiver, or the "little meteor" as the Quartermaster had put it.

Shooting star? The Quartermaster had crinkled his nose. Pray tell, you do know those don't make it to the ground. Or if they do, they leave a crater. Don't kill this little meteor with your unfair expectations.

"And the Field Team Leader is your grandson?" The hunter was no older than twenty-five, but still older than the Commander had been when he'd first crossed. The hunter looked up at the sky as if in thought before murmuring, "I didn't realize he was younger than me."

Accepting mortality and the risks involved in hunting and learning how to balance them against the rewards was an integral part of the Commander's job. It was his job. He was damned good at it, but as he grew older, he had more moments of seeing the fresh faced hunters less as fully capable individuals and more as something to be shielded. They were all experienced hunters before they joined the commission, but the Quartermaster's words rang in his ears.

The damned old man had always been painfully cautious. From the day they met boarding the first ship to that morning's breakfast, the Quartermaster was planning for the worst (and supposedly hoping for the best). And in the Commander's brief distraction from the potential of sending someone young to do something horribly dangerous, he smiled.

-----

 One ship. A beautiful creation with a keel and frame reinforced with bone like its very own spine. The Celestial Pursuit. The name was intoxicating, and the man who would become the Commander was in love. He stood atop the deck watching the thunder clouds grow on the horizon and the water begin to churn. When he heard footsteps behind him, he spoke without looking.

"I never thought this would be an easy journey, but I didn't expect a storm to blow up before the second day." There was no response, but the Commander saw the man from the corner of his eye, and for a moment he thought he knew who he was. After all, there were few people as tall as the Admiral.

But the man beside him was not his friend. Not yet. It was the Quartermaster who looked down at him from the corner of his eye with a judgmental frown. In their initial meeting, the Commander had found him off putting and cold. Despite being a hunter, he was immaculately groomed with posture so stiff the Commander could only imagine he'd been military or had a rod implanted in him. Or perhaps both. And despite being little more than a year older than the Commander and about as old as the Admiral, his hair was grey, and his facial hair was better suited to the villain of a children's story.

At their first meeting mere days ago, the Commander had almost laughed when he saw the grey sideburns and pointed goatee. Almost. The Quartermaster had a glare that could freeze sunlight.

"No," the Quartermaster replied sharply.

"Is there a problem?" The Commander turned to face him. "I advise that you air any grievances you have now."

"No." His reply was just as terse as his first. "I came to stand beside you in the interest of knowing you. Do you take issue with me? Speak plainly, for I will not know it otherwise."

The Commander chuckled. "Not at all." He smiled at the Quartermaster, but the man continued to frown.

"The storm may push us through more quickly than anticipated," the Quartermaster continued. "But that's not likely to be good. We are largely arriving blind, and if we are unable to see our destination before we happen upon it--"

"You do not need to tell me what might and might not happen." The Commander waved a hand. "Leave that worry to the Captain and the Admiral. We'll get there."

But for the rest of the journey, the sea roiled against them as if it were alive and actively trying to push them back. There was no crewman or commissioner that was spared from the brutal rains or the strict duties of seafare. And when in the distance they saw the vague shape of land, they had little time to prepare before the sea drove them to it. The Commander watched in horror as a titanic wave heaved the ship and slammed it into the rocky cliffs of the new world.

The ship held through the first impact. The Captain bellowed orders, but it was not her words that the Commander heard. He felt as though he watched himself, detached and unfeeling, as the rain poured down and the waves slammed against them. A voice called out, "Man overboard!" And he became a passenger in his body, as something else took over him. He reached for a rope and a float, spotted the crewmate, then dove into the waters below.

When the frigid water hit him, it shocked him back into himself. The rope ripped through his grasp, and in the consuming, quiet dark of the water below the waves, he searched for the body of the man overboard. He knew where the man had been, but as the ocean shifted and churned, he couldn't be certain the man was still there. Upon surfacing, he spotted the man in the waves.

The Commander was a strong swimmer. He was a strong runner, climber, hunter-- whatever athletic endeavor he had put himself to, he excelled in it. But before he could reach the man, a wave rose and crushed them both beneath it.

Submerged into that otherworldly muted darkness, the Commander barely made out the drifting body of the man he'd thrown himself into the deep for. As they both sank, the Commander kicked his way to the man and grabbed him by the shoulder. He clung to the man knowing full well they'd been separated from the ship, but by the stars above he would not give up. Their crewmates wouldn't let them go so easily either.

They surfaced again just as a wave mightier than before heaved them against the new world.