echol-world-of-sea

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I imagine that my home is a beautiful place. I don't remember it, but at night, when I'm permitted to leave the Dominion, I imagine what it was like. The Imperials flaunt their military might, they tell war stories, they rewrite the history of their world to shine on them alone. They turned my people in enemies, into monsters, into beasts to be tamed and controlled.

Being the way I am has made me hate the sea. It is even more ever-present than my mistress, its sound follows me. I am the sea, because of what they made me into, and I despise it. It heals me, and I despise it. Even the blessings of my abilities are not blessings to me.

I am made to hate my existence, will I ever be free of it?

[echol-world-of-sea]

I thought I saw one today. A gensal. Unfortunately it was only a rather long piece of seaweed.

Gallia's eyes [translation: suns] burn bright above me, and the wind is dead. It is far too many leagues to row to the next island chain, but my food stocks will not last forever. I keep watching the horizon.

The sea is so dead without the breeze. It lays out before me like a giant pane of glass. I hope every day to see a gensal shatter the surface with its lithe body.

I speak of a legend as if it were reality... I can still hear Bromihn's chiding voice. He would think me one of the fools. Ah ah, I miss his teachings. But, I know the gensal must be real, why else would the stories of the Stars Glory mention them so often? I only wish I had gotten a peek at the histories before they were taken by the Imperials.

Again to my troubles with the weather, and again Bromihn chides me. Only this time, I can counter. I cannot control the wind! No more than a fish may take to the land. I work away at a fishing net as I think these things, since I'd seen some fish darting by earlier.

--

I've seen one! I swear it on the Stars Glory, the nine Pillars, and my own life. What Bromihn would say now, oh it makes me giddy.

I know it must've been afraid of me, with all the shouting I did when I spotted it. I hope I haven't frightened it too much.

It was long, like an eel, and so sleek in the water. Its horns curled back from its head like white teeth. I didn't get a look at its eyes unfortunately. I want to see if I can see it better in the morning.

[echol-world-of-sea]

I don't think I've ever seen this many people at once.

This coming from a girl who grew up on the Farli Islands, the busiest port in the world next to the Imperial Dominion.

My grandad talked about days when the Stars Glory held court on these same islands. People flocked from everywhere, he said. He said the dock was so crowded with ships that the skyline bristled thick with masts. I can't even imagine it.

Today, the Pillars are doing the same, holding court to address the complaints of their people. The grand amphitheater is already packed, and from my perch high on the wall, their motions seem to mimic the waves of the sea.

I probably should be in the box with Lnare, my mentor and one of the seven Pillars of the Dominion, but I prefer the wide open space of the top of the amphitheater to the cramped lounge of the luxury box.

Besides, she'll probably send Braelich to fetch me anyway. He's sort of like her personal assistant. I don't think he likes me much. Honestly, I don't think he likes anything much. For now, I'll stay standing on top of the world, until he has to bring me back down.

[echol-world-of-sea]

We made land at the central island, and even from the shore I could see the fighting was fierce. Blood mixed with the tide as my battalion splashed up the beach. The bodies of the soldiers, those of my brothers and the enemy both lay in mangled heaps upon each other, some dead, some in the throes of death, their wails nearly drowned by the clash of weapons further up the beach.

The trumpet sounded and we advanced on the enemy, orderly at first, but then the formations broke as we charged into the fray. For some time the chaos of battle thrummed in my skull, and I surged forward with strength as the tide seemed to turn.

The enemy received reinforcements. Clambering over the ridge, they descended upon us like a rainstorm, and we began to lose the beach.

I fought back at left and right, but still they pushed us back, ever back. My brothers crowded behind me and around me, their shields desperately held against the onslaught of blows. I felt the sea lapping at my heels, felt a blade slice my leg and I fell, the water stinging my cuts.

Others fell around me, and still others fled for the ships. I felt my wounds overcoming me. It was the end.

...

I awoke, alive again.

Alive? I am not sure if that is the correct word, I did not feel quite right. Heat burned under my skin, within my chest. In the back of my skull, I could hear the pulsing call of the sea.

I was not the same man who died on the beach.

[echol-world-of-sea]

Morning comes and the winds still. I'm left adrift somewhere north of the algae fields. It is a dangerous place to drift, with recent reports of gensal in the area. I am not inclined to trust that the Imperial Navy has fully exterminated the creatures from our waters, no matter what the navy says.

I write this from my quarters with my alter to holy Lerrel on my desk beside me. Would he hate us for killing their gensal? Their pets? Very little is known about the relationship between the Stars Glory and their gensal beasts, but what still remains in the histories states that they were bonded together.

The Imperials try to deny even that, they seek to wipe the gensal from the depths of our waters. For what purpose do they do this? I do not know, I do not seek the political schemes of the Imperials. I am more inclined to believe that the gensal are a threat to Imperial power, why else would our rulers try to eliminate them?

I am on the deck now, I continue this entry under the light of my algae sphere, the moon watches me from high in the sky. I remember some weeks ago, when I had docked at the Imperial islands, a proclamation had been issued by the Imperials that any fishing party that returned with proof of killing a gensal would be granted great wealth. Even the Imperials have grown lazy in seeking to maintain their control of the people, and thus turned to their own subjects to eliminate any chance of the Stars Glory returning.

The Stars Glory... our first ancient order of government. The unification between man and sea must have been powerful, I wonder at the idea of it. So much is forgotten, so much remains unknown.

The wind has returned.

[echol-world-of-sea]

A Pirates Life for Me

[echol-world-of-sea]

[echol-world-of-sea]

Aftenstemning (1878)

— by Amaldus Clarin Nielsen

[echol-world-of-sea]

Tsuchiya Koitsu

Sunset at Tomonotsu, Inland Sea

1940

[echol-world-of-sea]

[echol-world-of-sea]

My soul is beneath the waves

[echol-world-of-sea]

[echol-world-of-sea]

The waves of Echol run deep and wild. Their power is known well by all who sail her. And many sail her.

The people of Echol are like her waves. They flow with their mother sea wherever she chooses to take them.

There are those who have taken to the land, what little there is. They have grown accustomed to the stability of their solid ground. They have fattened themselves on the labors of the sea without ever risking their own lives. They have become sedentary. They have forgotten their mother the sea.

The sea will not be kind to those who cannot change. Something is coming, something deep and ancient and wild, that will remind its children the power of the sea.