Spirits of Falajen

by Ginger Salazar

  “Petty Officer Trenn, retrieve your shipmate before she drowns,” Master Chief ordered off-handedly.

  “Aye, Master Chief,” he replied and dived flawlessly into the ocean after his shipmate.

  Small waves kept splashing Brisethi’s face, making it difficult for her to breathe properly. Her limbs grew tired with each movement. She saw the recruit petty officer dive in and made every effort to swim toward him.

  “You are the dumbest of all the bitches, you know that?” Trenn yelled over the sound of the water, over the sound of their fellow recruits stating the Dominion Creed. He yanked on her uniform to drag her across the waves toward the ship.

  She ignored him and allowed herself to float on her back while he swam them toward the rope ladder that was being rolled down for them. He let go of her to pull himself onto the ladder with ease and left her to take care of herself. The added weight of her soaking uniform and the force of the waves pulling her against the side of the ship made it difficult for her to hold onto the ladder, let alone pull her body up high enough for her feet to catch the bottom of it.

  The order for the sails to be let down had been given as soon as the two recruits reached the ship. The sails caught wind immediately and the ship’s sudden acceleration caused the wet rope to slip from one of Brisethi’s hands. She held on using the remaining hand with all her might, too frightened and exhausted to even scream for help.

  Ibrienne and Korteni stood at the railing, trying to untangle the top of the ladder to lower it further. Korteni attempted to climb over the railing and onto the ladder. She realized she wouldn’t have the strength to pull her up. The best she was able to do was use her mystics to part the ocean waves away from her. “Vorsen!” Korteni yelled, beckoning to him. “She can’t reach the rest of the ladder, come help her!”

  Etyne rushed over from where he was helping set the sails. Glancing over the side, he quickly hauled himself over and descended the ladder until he was close enough to grab Brisethi’s hand. He shouted at her to let go of the ladder so he could pull her up. When their eyes met, he could see the fear reflected in her gaze but only gripped her hand harder. He imagined that she must have seen the same fear in his own eyes the day he nearly fell off the side of a mountain. “Come on, Sen Asel, it's just like climbing the icy cliffs! All that extra water weight is equivalent to all that gear we carried on our backs!” She finally did his bidding and managed to get her foot on the lowest step once he pulled her up towards him. Slowly, they made their way up the ladder. Etyne glanced down occasionally to make sure Brisethi was still moving.

  Ibrienne and Korteni were standing by to help Brisethi haul herself over the railing where she remained seated on the deck, coughing up water. Korteni used her mystic to pull the water from Brisethi’s lungs. Ibrienne tended to her as well and helped her below decks, but Etyne stormed past toward Trenn.

  “You piece of shit!” Etyne shouted as his fist flew to Trenn’s face. “Why didn’t you help her onto the ladder?”

  Trenn touched his face briefly then tried to throw a punch in return but was easily deflected by Etyne. “It isn’t my problem that silly whore can’t pull herself up. She shouldn’t have gotten herself thrown overboard in the first place!”

  Etyne made as if to hit him again. Instead, he shoved Trenn and walked away, his fists clenched. They really missed out on the combat training, he thought dully when he realized how easy it was to hit the other recruit.

  In the female berthing, Brisethi was still slightly trembling, her body cold and worn out as she removed her wet uniform to change into a second set.

  Sulica walked into their compartment. She said with a laugh, “He flung you off of the ship like a rag doll. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”

  “I’ll throw you off if you don’t stop laughing,” Brisethi snapped.

  Sulica remembered their previous engagement and didn’t doubt her threat for a second. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. “Master Chief wants to see you on the bridge. He’s probably going to send you to captain’s mast,” she smirked.

  “I couldn’t care less if I’m demoted during expedition training.” Brisethi rolled her eyes then laced up her wet boots and walked out. She wished she could stop shivering. If she had better control of her fire mystics, she would be able to instantly dry her clothes. It was a skill she planned on mastering soon enough, especially if being flung overboard was to become a common occurrence. She knocked on the door of the Commander’s cabin.

  Brisethi had expected Master Chief and the Commander to take turns yelling at her, but, because it wasn’t an open mast where all the recruits could watch, the two men were suspiciously calm.

  “I know who your father is, Sen Asel,” Master Chief was saying in a very different tone than the last she’d heard. “I wouldn’t have thrown you off the ship without his permission. I understand you have taken after your father’s sense of humor, but when you’re in formation, I expect you to remain professional. I won’t give you special treatment just because your father is an admiral. In fact, I may even go harder on you because he told me I should.” Master Chief glanced at Commander Nessel who nodded in agreement.

  “I accept the challenge,” she said, not even realizing the words had escaped her. She didn’t know why she was smirking or why she had blurted out such a horrible response. Silently, she cursed her father for his countless sea stories of courage and insubordination.

  Master Chief Braul slowly brought his palm up to his forehead, clearly exasperated with her conduct.

  Commander Nessel spoke, “I still keep in contact with Admiral Tirinnis Sen Asel. I wouldn’t want to send him bad news of his daughter acting up to her chain of command,” the mild-mannered officer threatened quietly. “With that being said,“ he continued, “I’m demoting you. I want you to prove to me you deserve to graduate in one year as one of the highest ranking recruits.”

  Master Chief Braul took a knife from his boot to cut the sewn on rank from her sleeve. “Carry on,” the Commander said in dismissal.

  -:- -:- -:-

  In the mess hall, Korteni was quick to help Brisethi sew on her new demoted rank. She could see in Brisethi’s gray eyes that her morale had been diminished.

  “I could go kill him for you, if you’d like? For a fee of ninety-nine frakshins, that is,” Antuni Crommik jokingly commented.

  “I have ninety-nine frakshins if you can take care of someone else for me,” Etyne added while cutting into the overcooked meat they were eating. He was still heated from Kanilas Trenn’s actions earlier that morning, not realizing how defensive he had become of his combat partner.

  “While I appreciate the ‘generous’ offer, Antuni, I’ll have to decline. Our training has been a bit relaxed in the past few months and I’m actually looking forward to this challenge,” Brisethi said in a tone that convinced no one.

  Ibrienne finished chewing her food before stating, “You’re out of your mind.”

  Briethi kindly smiled her gratitude for the compliment in Ibrienne’s way.

  Thunder startled the entire crew in the galley as shouts were heard in the passageways. “Secure for sea!” shouted passing sailors. The ship had approached a storm.

  Brisethi was giddy with excitement as the companions rushed to put their dishes away. Storms filled her spirit with joy as the ship heavily listed from the fierce waves, causing her to nearly walk on the bulkhead of the passageways.

  It was almost impossible to strap down everything when the storm had rapidly brewed. Brisethi, Etyne and Antuni rushed to the upper deck to help with the sails. Most were already tearing from the winds. Brisethi ran in the rain to the bow to assist in securing the foremast. As she helped a fellow shipmate in tying the ropes, she looked behind her when the sailor shouted. Her face was pale at the sight of a wave taller than their ship rapidly approaching.

  “Korteni!” Brisethi shouted upon seeing her friend on the bow. She was braced for impact, but staring at the wave before them. She could
not hear anyone.

  Brisethi’s heart pounded at the thought of drowning but ran to her friend anyway. “We have to get below decks!”

  “You do, but I can part this wave,” Korteni calmly stated.

  Brisethi refused to abandon her dearest friend and watched, spellbound, as Korteni brought up one hand toward the peak of the wave. It divided itself from the top to the bottom, allowing safe passage of their ship.

  “By the spirits, what a sight!” Brisethi exclaimed.

  The following waves were slightly smaller as the helmsman confidently guided the crew through them until the end of the storm.

  Division Forty-One spent the following few months learning to efficiently extinguish ship fires, tie knots, moor lines, and how to properly raise, lower and replace sails and anchors. They navigated the ship day and night, charting maps and plotting courses to nearby islands while patrolling the seas around Sariadne. They had circumnavigated their entire continent twice, even pulling into the Res’Baveth harbor, only to train on mooring the ship. The crew was not allowed to enter the very city they were so close to, the splendid capital city in their sight. Much of the crew spent their idle time that day watching as fresh supplies came aboard. Some had the brief thought of sneaking out to explore, but anyone who was caught lingering more than a moment was given a task below decks, out of sight.

  But the worst two months for Brisethi were spent diving off the ship and swimming to the shore of the islands. The recruits were trained to swim calm seas and rough ones, shark and jellyfish-infested waters and tropical lagoons.

  Brisethi had always been a terrible swimmer and was even worse at holding her breath. Each day of swim training began with the recruits submerging themselves nearly thirty feet below the surface using dense rocks the size of their heads and walking with them along the seafloor to the shore. Slowly, Brisethi saw improvement in her progress, and, by the fourth week, she was able to advance farther than she ever had.

  She could see the waves breaking above her and only needed to move a few more paces until her head would reach the surface. Her head pounded from the lack of air. Suddenly, she exhaled but couldn’t bring herself to drop the rock. Her foot took another step, but she was unable to resist the urge to inhale. Dropping the rock, she leapt from the sandy floor and inhaled just a second too soon. Water filled her lungs as she coughed and inhaled more water, suffocating, drowning, and watching the light above her fade.

  Etyne had already reached the shore and was waiting for his combat partner to either come up for air or finish the trial. He sprung into action the moment he saw her lifeless body breach the surface. Along with Koteni, they dived into the sea, racing to retrieve her. She was the third Resarian in the division to drown since swim training had begun.

  Korteni reached her first, half a second before Etyne. With the use of her water mystics, she was able to bid the tide to push them to the shore faster. Master Chief Braul began shouting for Petty Officer Sestas to heal Brisethi as Etyne performed the resuscitation process each of them had all been taught. By his second attempt of blowing air into her mouth, Brisethi suddenly began coughing up sea water while Korteni extracted the remaining water from her lungs with her dwindling energy, forcing as much out as she possibly could. Ibrienne used her mystics to accelerate the oxygen back into her body.

  “Did I make it?” Brisethi asked, still coughing as she crawled to her knees. The salt left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  “You were about as successful as Trenn and Crommik,” Etyne chuckled with Korteni and Ibrienne.

  “But they drowned – oh.” She stopped mid-sentence, realizing she had been saved just as the other two were in the first week. However, Crommik and Trenn eventually passed by the fifth week, leaving Brisethi and a half-dozen others still unable to pass the endurance test. It was an achievement medal she desperately wanted to add to her collection of certifications. Although she only had a medal for her archery, pistol, and rifle marksmanship, she wanted the navy underwater endurance one as well. Only two weeks remained to achieve her goal.

  Brisethi sat on the sandy beach holding her knees up to her chest. Her black swim top and shorts were covered in sand. She shook her head once to get some water out of her ear that Korteni had missed.

  Brisethi’s thoughts darkened. She wasn’t used to disappointment and failure. She normally excelled in everything she did. But running underwater wasn’t meant for Resarians. Especially not for Resarians whose spirit mystics specialized in fire.

  “This is a nightmare,” she muttered to her friends while Ibrienne finished examining her. Etyne had finally sat down next to her to watch their division finish up the morning endurance training.

  “Drowning? I’m sure it is,” he elbowed her. “I can’t imagine inhaling water instead of air. Please don’t repeat that, I don’t want to taste your salty face again.”

  Nearly out of breath from exhausting her mystic energy, Korteni added with a wink, “You sure rushed to resuscitate her before I could have the chance, unlike with Trenn and Crommick.”

  Brisethi peered sideways at her combat partner. “Oh really?” she licked her lips and winced from the salt of the ocean water.

  Etyne glared at Korteni. “I was underwater still trying to qualify, too!”

  Chapter XVI

  “Fire!” Master Chief Braul shouted.

  The recruits lit the sixteen canons instantaneously, creating deafening reverberations and flashy explosions. Each Dominion vessel was designed to be infused with the mystic of the commanding officer at the time. Commander Maerc Nessel’s mystic enhanced the accuracy, speed and distance of each projectile in the cannons.

  Their target was a massive cliff of a desolate island in the south, rising a thousand feet above the mists, too barren for civilization. After the entire morning was spent on target practice with the cannons, the crew was sent to repaint the cliffs with more targets for the next round.

  Since no proper dock had ever been built for the massive ship at the island, the crew had to row small boats to the opposite shore of the island. From there, they hiked through a dead forest ascending toward the cliffs, and repelled down the face of the tall cliffs on a single rope with their canisters of paint.

  Brisethi had been all too eager to be the one to paint the cliffs while Vorsen secured her rope. The crisp autumn air and slight overcast sky with her feet on firm ground far away from water put her in a good mood. As soon as she stood at the edge of the cliff, however, her heart sank at the sight of waves crashing fiercely against the sharp rocks below.

  “Vorsen, I changed my-” she began.

  “No, Sen Asel,” Etyne interrupted, joining her at the edge. “We’ve already established this. You’re the better artist. Now go down there and paint the best red and black circles anyone will have ever destroyed with mystic-propelled cannon balls.” Etyne secured the straps around her waist and thighs. He wasn’t about to admit that he was slightly still traumatized from the last cliff he dangled from nearly two years ago.

  “How unfair!” she pouted. “We should have made the decision when we got to the peak and tested who was better at grasping the other,” she jested but her confidence quickly dissipated. She placed the large paintbrush in one of her pockets and took a deep breath.

  “I’ve already been in your grasp, remember? It was terrifying!” More seriously, he added, “I won’t let anything happen to you, you trust me, right?” Etyne rested his hands on her shoulders to reassure her.

  Brisethi slowly nodded, though she still glared into his startling pupil-less aqua eyes. When Etyne had fully secured both his and her straps to one another and to the stationary pulley on the ground, they both knelt down and crawled to the edge. She breathed heavily, trying not to panic at the thought of leaving the safe surface of the ground.

  “You need to work on these panic attacks of yours,” Etyne teased, grabbing her hands and nudging her toward the edge. “Don’t look down;” he was mostly telling himself, “keep your eyes on y
our footing, feet on the cliff, hands on the rope. I’m going to let go of your hands, now, alright?”

  As she hung on the edge, he released his grip on her clammy hands to pick up the canister of paint. He handed it to her, but she was reluctant to remove her hands from the rope. With a grin, he used extra twine to tie the canister to her belt.

  “Are you ready to be lowered?” he asked when he was done.

  Brisethi finally regained her courage and smiled, “Let’s paint some cliffs already, you’re holding me back!”

  “Ha, literally,” he jested back.

  She was the last of twelve sailors to repel to the middle of the cliff. She only needed to paint four large targets as big as her own body and as far apart as she could reach whether above, below or side by side. When she wasn’t thinking about her life dangling in Etyne’s hands, she concentrated on painting large, perfect circles within circles, which she found to be surprisingly calming.

  Before joining the military, she had passed many hours painting the landscapes surrounding her parents’ home. Even on sunny days, she changed the atmosphere in her paintings to stormy, dark skies over rough seas, erupting volcanoes behind an abysmal lake, or approaching snowstorms over ancient ruins and dead forests. Everything about her seemed to thrive in destructive weather. Despite her gloomy paintings, she always enjoyed humming lively songs to herself. As she continued her work, she began to softly sing a ballad she’d overheard years ago.

  Etyne remained sitting on his knees to counter the weight of his partner below. He gazed about at the other recruits involved in the project, noticing where the majority of stronger men held the ropes for their lighter painting partners. The half of the division not assigned to painting today remained on the ship for routine maintenance and cleaning of the cannons.

  As the group worked, a violet overcast sky above created a misty ambience over the sea. Behind them, the dead forest helped set a gloomy mood on the tiny desolate island. The only wildlife that could be heard were the seabirds that seemed to inhabit every coastline.