Live to Venture (#0)

45 | The Pact of Adventure

The sky is starlit and dark beyond the border of Myria. Out there, in all that water, there could be something. Perhaps something organized, something civil. Or perhaps it was evil, chaotic, everything someone feared. Or perhaps, there was just, very simply, nothing.

Tonight, beyond the borders, there is a ship floating in the windless water. From the outside view, the red sails and the black wood are impossible to see. There is something eerie about that ship. Something paranormal, especially tonight.

Around the ship, bodies sink through the water slowly, until they rest on the ocean floor. One of them is Rhea Sheer, a woman who had spent the last year of her life living in a haze of anger and hate. Another is Hannah Brynn, a spindly, humorous girl who'd simply picked the wrong side. Beside her, resting on the sandy floor with a hole through his head, is Jon Slint, a man who'd tasted the Devil for a moment too long. A moment longer than most.

The only survivor of the Starling tonight is the one who had the sense to flee before. The one who jumped overboard, the one left alive. It's not his first time. His story is not quite over. He'll be back.

Above the sinking or sunken bodies is that ship, silent and dark save for the crackling fire. It twirls and spirals, contained in a large rum barrel. One by one, the crew of that ship throw into it their memories of the last year. Their weapons are burned of the blood, their clothes are smoked out, their eyes are cleared of these days, their minds wiped of these events.

The strategist, once a man with a deep love for his fiancé, tosses his engagement ring in the fire. That woman he'd loved is dead, and so is their past. He cannot change what he has done, he may only move forward. He will not hold onto that ring anymore. He will forget of the conversation in the captain's quarters. He will let go of his harboured hate for his leader. He will step forward and move on.

The navigator, only an artist, tosses a very small stack of paper into the fire. As the edges curl and burn, so do the drawings on them. They were sketched on a navy ship, in the candlelight after his scouting shifts. They are the beginning of his talent, but they are not a part of him anymore.

The Captain tosses a full bottle of rum into the fire, causing it to spark and roar even louder. It's the emergency bottle the crew kept in hiding for disinfecting, and it is officially the last bottle on the ship. The moment the glass leaves his hand, he will never touch a drop of liquor again in his life. This year is forgotten and gone. By his crew, by the world, by himself. What happened to the Starling? People will start to ask. It tried the Avourienne, is the response they'll get. No one truly knows what happened tonight other than this crew, and they are burning their memories. He will learn nothing from this, other than to never touch liquor ever again, and to never, until his last breath, let go of his lover.

But the other strategist—the new one—she doesn't toss anything into the fire. She did not, and will never, forget. To everyone else, this is a year of suffering they never want to experience ever again. To everyone else, this year is full of things they wish to forget. But to her, this year holds the things she must never forget. There are lessons learned here, but by and large, the biggest one is to let go of those rules, once and for all. She will modify them to suit herself. To not fear the uncertain, but to simply live.

For the adventure.