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[Paytience]

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The Magnet flipped. Existing in that confined space, no matter how breezy, closed off her lungs. Her consciousness dragged to the center and chained to the reddened leaves. Her spirit weighted down by facts she could not change and a future whose landscape was vastly different on this trip back through binding ties. Beyond those walls her heart escaped, the shell incomplete but mobile. Motions were completed, routine crisp and easy without any substance behind it.

On spot dictated how she crested upon the tides. One spot coiled her options. She could remain and suffocate or withdraw and drift endlessly lost to the experience. Alone in a sea of people, the silence pounded in her ears.

Tugging on the rope for tension, she double checked the sails and did her cursory last minute check of all boards and systems. As soon as the Old Man arrived.. they would depart.

[Arahim]

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Were he to reach further, slip precarious his hold, Arahim could touch the rushing waters below. Tempted to make real the pattern he watched shift, and splay before him by the simplest method of actual, physical interaction, and in turn, to influence its course. And while the cold spray of the sea upon his skin delighted him with a sense of unbound freedom, he could not help but feel as though Life had offered him its least choice cuts.

Nor could he tear his gaze from the wild display of infinity stretching from horizon to places beyond. Laid out in purposeful invitation when seen with the right eyes.

How steep would be my fall?

The sun sat low in the sky, swollen and bloated like a blob of unused orange paint. Distended at its bottom, Day's waning sphere touched the ocean, and sent molten gold across the great watery expanse.

A portentous conflagration unchecked.

Waves capped in motes of fiery silver lent what was already beyond mere description, a dreamlike quality both beautiful, and terrifying.

Barefooted, his toes curled over the wooden rail, Arahim leaned over the burnished mirror as the keel of the Nomad shorn through with a smooth speed that left the cold winds shrieking in her wake like recent, but dimmed memory.

He scuttled to and fro in an effort to miss nothing. Hopping over knots and rigging along the gunwale, ducking under the sails, and making use of rope and netting to swing himself forward, or over the side in wide arcs, only to find his footing again.

The brief thrill of flight and weightlessness was dizzying.

Laughter bubbling over until it threatened his sense of balance.

He didn't think on his destination, and happily lost track of any sense of time. What words he shared with Paytience were quickly forgotten. Left behind and lost on the salt touched air.

She watched him as if she knew this. Her posture tight, she regarded him with a look equal parts annoyance and amusement. The conflict within her obvious, as she busied herself with the task of running the ship, and keeping course.

Arahim closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.

He did not envy her.

[Arahim]

---

"Isn't that the way you do things?"

"Maybe. Until you find more important things to fill the holes."

His talk with Paytience was clipped, and over without ceremony, and on his own terms. He saw no need to await the arrival of a single, flippant drunkard who may, or may not have caught his sister's eye. Her cold scrutiny making him want to smile, far more than cringe, or break.

In place of laughing at the idea that he was some problem to be solved, if only he would speak, Arahim left.

Sometimes family was safest kept just beyond a wall...as circumstance dictated. Tonight was such a time.

The trip had been exhilirating, even if he had forgotten what need drove him to make the journey. Paytience had asked, and he had agreed.

And an hour later he was alone in the place of his birth, and a day's long ride from his home.

She did not need him. Not for this.

It seemed a waste.