Voyages of the Ocean's Salt: Battle of Brothers

Chapter 1: Constellation

The distance between objects. Between words and hearts and stars. Absence, emptiness, loneliness. No one knew the boy sitting against the wall, not even the boy himself. His life had been empty for so long that all memories were beginning to fade away with the universe expanding further apart, his mind gradually losing itself to the slow rust of boredom. Drifting alone and forgotten, the boy was mere dust, discarded and abandoned on the dirty streets by all. All, except for Lady Space.

A flash, light flooding his eyes, a bang drumming through his ears, the ground lurched forward and the boy with it, his face scraping across the dirt.

The boy picked himself up, eyes opened, before him fire and chaos bursting forth, people all around him scrambling in different directions. Where was he? Slowly his awareness returned. Jevara. A planetary port where space vessels sent dinghies for supplies just on the outskirts of the Tertien Cluster, right on the edge of the dead space of a galaxy. He was standing in between the bazaar and the docks where port coolies, merchants, traders, and all sorts of other less honorable types were all about in panic.

Then, amid the chaos of the burning bazaar, there was a pair of eyes belonging to a cloaked figure, hidden in the shadows. The dark eyes burned with fiery intensity and mania behind the cloak, fixated on commotion at the dock, blind to all else.

Following the gaze of the cloaked figure to the dock, he saw a woman standing above the fray, barking orders to a coolie, securing her supplies to a dinghy. The only person collected, determined to flee as quickly as possible.

"Quit your bellyaching and get these barrels loaded!" she ordered.

"Look around ya Mez Skylark!" the boy heard the coolie respond. "This place is gonna burn! We best off runnin' while we can!"

Striking with features that were almost inhuman, Skylark's skin had a copperish luster, her face unusual with exaggerated features: delicate and pointed, high arches at the brow that curved down to her sharp nose and curled lips. What stood out most were her uncanny eyes: irradiant, fluorescent green, and unnaturally large and round. Her small face seemed to shape itself around her magnifying eyes, flashing like gems. Like a bird of prey, she was beautiful, unnerving, and frightening.

"Kid, the quicker you get rid of me, the better chance you got at getting out of here with the thick of your skin!" she snapped back.

The boy glanced back and saw the cloaked figure lift its arm, a small, brown, slender hand with long, sharpened nails squeezing something small. Instinctively, the boy sprinted towards Skylark, lunging at her, knocking her to the dock floor. Another bang, much louder, much closer, resounded just behind his ear before he was flooded in a ringing silence, and everything went dark.

When the boy awoke, he felt something warm and soft, and everything was dark with a faint greenish glow. He picked himself up tenderly, his joints stiff, his head weighing with the regrets of a night ill spent. Massaging his neck, he found himself wrapped in a blanket on an old, but clean mattress. Where was he? How long did he sleep? When even was the last time he actually slept?

"Easy now," a voice said.

The boy looked up and saw Skylark sitting across from him, her green eyes illuminating the dark room. There were other beds lined orderly against the walls along with trunks, barrels and crates. She walked over and sat upon a bed by his side, gazing into his eyes, filling the emptiness with her fiery green glow.

"You took quite a blow back there for me. You have my thanks," the corners of her small, curled mouth sliced like a thin knife across the bronze clay of her cheek, revealing a row of beautiful, perfectly white teeth.