The Last Seer

#EDIT

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. That much we knew.

Vespera snapped her spyglass shut, and as she did, the shrill clang of brass cut through the thick silence of the captain’s quarters.

The ship’s second mate, Pietro, had settled into a comfortable doze behind her despite every effort to stay awake as he sat at the wide, mahogany table awaiting her input. The map and compass in his lap flew out and away from him as the sound of the spyglass shocked him awake, and he jerked to attention with an uncharacteristic yelp.

“Aye,” he grumbled as he rubbed one eye, watching the compass roll halfway across the room with the other.

They had all been at sea together for nearly three months, but that was the only thing the crew couldn’t swallow about Vespera— her stillness.

None of them would disagree that it was a rocky start. They initially found her imperious, and resented the way she shouted commands as the captain fumed not two feet away. Their resentment, however, transformed quickly to respect. Anyone’s would if that person single-handedly helped them avoid a fleet of pirate ships, or more than one deadly storm. Once that had happened, it didn’t even bother the crew that she insisted on eating in the galley with them for every meal. If anything, they thought she made for good conversation- something a team of self-ascribed sea rats lacked after working with each other for nearly ten years.

All of that they could handle, because they could still pretend she was just another person aboard the ship. That is, until she made it utterly impossible.

What made the crew still hold their breath around their odd, adopted member was Vespera’s ability to seamlessly melt into her surroundings. The woman could stand so still, and for so long, that if any of them weren’t paying close enough attention-- which often they weren’t-- she would become just another part of the ship’s woodwork. It wasn’t until she decided to move or speak again, that they all experienced a level of humbling they never expected, and always hated.

To be fair, that’s what Captain Jacobs told them to anticipate out of a 900 years-old Seer when the Grand Temple of Stelara first commissioned the crew’s services. They were chosen to venture to the ash-buried shores of Adrisia— an ancient, mass grave of a land filled with volcanic giants and treacherous, old Magick— but it was more the idea of an Elder Seer onboard their ship that made the crew second-guess their commitment.

“Stillness is part a’ their nature, an' make no mistake,” Jacobs said at the tavern the night before anchors-aweigh, the light of its fireplace and the darkness of the dingy room dancing an ominous jig across the captain’s scarred face.

The more the Captain talked, the more the faces of his crew fell in a dark decrescendo, and it was right then that Pietro recalled the rhyme the neighborhood children often sang back in his coastal homeland of Voloxë -- one of the five realms that made up the Southern Hand of the continent, Stelara being its northwestern neighbor, and the epicenter of it all.

As he stared into the fire, he began to hear the echoes of little footsteps as he and the other children would dart and skip down the narrow, twisting alleyways of Voloxë's capital city, Ribikë, to its centre square every week.

From the alleyways, they would burst onto the square like a swarm of ornate starlings, their faces stained with the juice of ripe cherries, their hair knotted with colorful ribbons and tinkling silver chimes. A traveling circus of mayhem and joy, they answered only to the whims of fun itself as they breezily ignored the squalls of stall-keepers, and dodged the odd city guard. Around and around, they'd dance in circles and jot to and fro, ducking under long, Eskirian rugs being held as if they were tree trunks, and jumping over barrels of Avelandian wine. They sang and shouted many things as they made their way through, but their chosen favorite was the rhyme that got them the most disapproving looks, though they wouldn't understand until they were older.

"You never see a Seer run, but if you do, you know you’re done!"

Despite the grim feeling the crew shared when they first boarded the 1,000-ton Noble Rover, they all found it rather easy to console each other from the start, saying that the Temple money was too good to turn down. After that, a chorus of nods always followed, and they would return to what they were doing. That was what they said out loud, at least. The consolation they didn't say aloud, but what comforted them even more than five pounds of gold each, was that their contract also stated they would never be drafted by the Knights of the Temple to fight the other-worldly evil that had staged a dark coup upon Stelara's Opal Valley some three decades ago.

They might have to cross over the Royal Trade Route into the perilous waters of the Adrisian Sea, but at least they wouldn’t have to stare into the infinite eyes of a specter, or into the mouth of a bluefire-breathing dragon.

Pietro did wonder at first what the Temple was doing sending one of their Elder Seers all the way across the ocean, when so much havoc was being wreaked in their home Realm, but after three months of theorizing, he had exhausted himself.

He reached down to the floor and picked up the map he had clumsily dropped with a sigh, tossing it gently on the table. If he hadn’t fully gotten used to having an Elder Seer on board, he at least had become accustomed to the embarrassment it sometimes caused.

He looked back over at Vespera, ready to hear one of her witty remarks about him needing to stay alert, but what he saw this time made him deeply wish he was still dozing.

You never see a Seer run, but if you do, you know you’re done!

Though she rarely ever stood above anyone’s chest, Vespera somehow always managed to be the most formidable person in the room— a single hair never out of place. With her shoulders always back, her head held ever-high, and her movement always both graceful and deliberate, she immediately destroyed every preconceived notion the crew had of what their honored guest would look and act like. Most of them expected for her to be an old, frail creature freshly-emerged from the crypts of the Grand Temple, but the person they met that fateful morning three months ago was none of those things. It horrified as much as it mystified them.

In fact, it wasn’t long before Pietro believed that, even if the ship capsized, Vespera’s long, ink-black hair would still remain taut in its signature braided coil at the nape of her neck. He first imagined it as he was mending a sail a week into the trip, and began to laugh uncontrollably as he pictured Vespera shouting expert orders in her sharp, clear voice on top of a wobbly shard of red oak, her calculating grey eyes still brighter than the light reflecting off of the open water.

But Pietro wasn’t laughing now.

Vespera’s hands, normally loose at her side, were clasped tight into fists; her square shoulders even tighter.

You never see a Seer run, but if you do, you know you’re done.

“Alert the captain,” she said quietly, her jaw clenched.

“We’re almost there.”

Pietro’s eyes darted to look out the wide windows which lined the back wall of the ship. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he looked back to the Seer, his face twisted in confusion.

The view at which she had been looking faced the opposite of where the ship was headed. What could she have possibly seen in the spyglass?

“A-are you sure, Elder Vespera? That is, we’re heading north-west and-"

“You had better pick that compass up before somebody steps on it,” she interrupted sharply, those eyes glinting in a way he had never seen before.

Pietro felt more bewildered than ever. Vespera held her gaze on him another moment, and then began to walk quickly across the floor to the opposite side of the room.

"Though you won't be needing much of it now," he heard her mutter.

Pietro tried to temper his fear as he walked over to where the compass had landed, but the rapid tempo of his pulse only strengthened it. He knelt down, and felt the fear win.

He blinked in disbelief, and gingerly picked up the device between a shaking thumb and forefinger.

"What-" he whispered, in an octave above silence.

He blinked again-- this time harder-- but it made no difference. His vision revealed the same, impossible sight. Before he could stop himself, Pietro swore every curse he knew, and dropped the compass as if it were a hot coal.

The glass of its face shattered from the impact, but Vespera was right. It had no need for its original function, anymore. To Pietro's utter horror, the arrow had gone completely haywire, as if someone— or something— was rapidly spinning the device around, and around, and around. Only, no one was.

“It’s not possible,” he said.

He whipped his head up to the Seer, but she wasn't focused on him-- or the compass-- at all. In fact, the Seer had whisked open the curtain which shielded the captain's privy from the rest of the room.

"What are you..." Pietro began to say, but his voice had grown hoarse.

Vespera, who Pietro knew for a fact had never cleaned a privy in her lifetime, reached down and yanked off the top, wooden seat of it with a single heft.

"From now on, it's safe to assume everything will be a riddle," she said grimly, setting the board down with a thud.

"And that starts with our navigation."

She reached down into the space below the lid, causing Pietro to nearly faint from shock, and quickly stood back up with something in her hands. Pietro squinted his eyes to make out that it was a long, cylindrical case, black as pitch and seemingly made of some kind of iron.

"This place was not created with the intention of being found," she said quietly, her voice strained as she lugged the case over the table.

"'This place'?" Pietro repeated.

She fiddled with the top of the case, and pressed a button invisible to Pietro's eyes. The lid of the case swung to the side, revealing a gold-plated cavity within. Pietro saw from Vespera's profile that one corner of her mouth had turned up into a small smile.

"Our destination, my dear Pietro," she said softly.

The second mate took a step towards her, the edges of his mind seeming to blur.

"You mean to tell me we are two whole weeks ahead of schedule? In what world?!" he cried. "What you are saying is absurd! Utterly absurd!"

Vespera's back straightened into a rigid line as she froze, the stillness ever- ready to come forth. After several excruciating moments of silence, she turned to him.

"Listen," she said. "Listen to your surroundings, sailor."

Pietro frowned in disapproval, but he calmed his breath and perked his ears.

There was no wind, no sails being whipped. No crew members shouting. He strode quickly over to look out the windows. The waters were nearly as calm as a lake... but they were still in the ocean!

Or were they?

"We are no longer pushing through the waves, Pietro," the Seer said, a shadow seeming to have fallen across her face.

"We are being pulled."

"Pulled... by a tide?" he asked, praying the answer was yes.

Vespera's mouth formed into a thin line, and when they met each other's eyes, he knew the answer was no.

He exhaled in disbelief, and plopped down in the nearest chair. They both stayed still for a moment in the new quiet, the only noise being the creaking of the wood around them.

"Pietro?" she said softly.

"Hm?"

His eyes were trained on the floor, his mind lost in thoughts that Vespera imagined could only be of panic and mutiny.

"The Captain," she repeated. "Please?"

"Oh," he replied, and stood up quickly -- too quickly. Before he could make any attempts to stop it, the bile that had been rising in his throat for several minutes came spewing out of his mouth.

Silence engulfed the cabin again.

Vespera reached her hand out, and Pietro could've sworn he saw concern beneath her unbreakable veneer.

He put his hands up to stop her, and wiped his mouth.

"Right. Sorry. Okay. Captain Jacobs," he said, adding, "and then a mop."

Vespera watched him scurry out of the room, and continued to gaze at the empty doorway as the sound of his footsteps disappeared to the upper deck. Once their echoes had receded, Vespera rested the case on the table, and she herself sunk into the nearest chair just as Pietro had before.

As soon as she caught sight of the compass arrow frantically whirring around, a sensation that was both strange, and yet somehow routine, crept down her spine. It wasn't until the feeling had reached the heels of her feet that she realized it had a name.

She had known it ever since she could speak, but it always felt like someone else's word, not hers. After such a long time of staying alive, Vespera had begun to assume, despite her very best judgement, that she was the exception to the foundations of nature. However, when she saw that compass raging quietly in Pietro's lap, she realized that Nature had, in fact, simply been patient with her.

It was called many things by many creatures, but for Seers, it was called the Advent. Her Death was coming, and it was inevitable. Perhaps Pietro had felt it, too. She only hoped it was her life, and her life alone, that would be claimed on this journey.

She opened her eyes, and sighed. With a careful hand, she reached into the case and pulled out a long, coiled scroll. She laid it on the table, and with gentle hands smoothed the parchment open.

Looking straight at it, anyone would think it was just an ordinary map, albeit ornate and exceptionally well-made. She ran her hands over its surface again, the sharp tip of her finger tracing the outline of its title -- Adris'ia.

But, just like Adrisia was no ordinary land, this was not an ordinary map.

She took a sharp breath in, and delicately scooped up the scroll, holding it closer to the light of the window. In an instant, the dull, yellow texture of the parchment was gone. In its wake, was something else entirely.

It was still a page, but a page alive. Its texture was that of tiny, iridescent scales strangely reminiscent of none other than a dragon; golden, and in perfect symmetry. It glinted brilliantly as it caught the light, and if you were looking at it for the first time, no one would be surprised if you asked if the scales were actually moving. You would only have to be brave enough to hear the answer.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. That much Vespera knew. And while it was her divine and appointed duty to bring back the only known thing that could banish them back to their world, even prophecies have a way of being tragically misunderstood.

She shook her head, attempting to banish the thought of the Advent-- of anything other than the path ahead of her. Nine centuries had led her to this moment, and nothing would hinder her. Death would simply have to follow her until she was done.

She leaned in close to the shimmering map, and took a deep breath in. When she exhaled, in her air she whispered the forgotten words of Adris'ia; a sacred beckoning of a powerful, eager force.

"Revellio ama-natura."

The words seemed to take on a life of their own, bouncing around the room in a strange, soft echo, until they came back to where Vespera stood. The map suddenly burst awake with color, and motion.

She gasped, and her face broke into a smile as brilliant as the map itself. It was certainly something to have lived nearly 15 lifetimes of man, and to still experience genuine surprise.

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. And someday-- someday soon if Vespera had anything to do with it-- Stelara would be free again.