I breathe in sharply as the sun beats down on my skin.
My boat sways in the sea beneath me,
The sway, the only thing that binds me here and gives me strength.
I wish to know the land,
To know the stone beneath my feet.
A feeling lingers inside my chest like a long-held memory,
But the sea is what holds me.
I look out into the Mianthin Sea,
Its waters are still and unmoving,
A perfect mirror that stretches the world.
A sea without breath,
a sea without time,
A sea that looks so solid you could walk upon it.
I knew a man who tried.
He faded into the mist of still water.
It is a terrifying thing.
To be in still water.
Something wakes beneath it.
Something stirs,
As if groaning after too long a rest.
The mirror trembles from that groan.
Sickening ripples move across the surface slowly.
My heart races.
Instinctively, I grab my sun pendant at my neck, squeezing it tightly, too tightly.
Its sharp edges bring the kind of pain that keeps me in my body.
I watch as the water moves for the first time in one hundred years.
Something inside me stirs, quietly knowing that something greater is coming,
Something I will need to bear.