Work Text:
He was born in the Zee. And like many others of the same fate, he became a Zee-faring Captain, the daring ones that ventured out into the perpetual darkness. His people were a hardy bunch ––– living on the edge of the world and leaving their marks on the sparse dry-lands amidst the Zee.
There was light, yes ––– precious products of steam engines and the dim, temporary luminescence harvested from some mysterious creature in the Zee. But that was not all. There was also Sunlight, a myth known by all but seen by none, lost but not forgotten. It sang the tale of Above, a world just beyond the reach of the Zee-dwellers; it sang of sweet morning dews, dappled forest floors, and the sunbaked air.
The Captain, growing up in the central hub of the Zee, has heard many tales. From beer-soaked sailors in pubs to rowdy laborers on the platforms, everyone told the same thing, the same forbidden tale ––– “oh such glory was the light! Golden! Shimmering!” ––– and a hardy worker he was, the Captain paid no attention to these drunken stories. “Mind on the business,” muttered the Captain quietly to himself, that was his motto.
However, to some, to those daring captains that have caught a glimpse of it in some remote corner of the Zee, Sunlight was a siren’s song calling to them, promising to them the lost treasures of life…
The Captain was true to his word. He led a group of faithful sailors ferrying some of the most coveted construction materials between the farms and quarries and the major hubs, the pillars of Zee-dwellers’ achievements.
He took a deep breath, letting the salt-laden air sink deep within his lungs, and boarded his ship. An old rusty thing it was, it still carried the stones like clockwork, a home in the black expanse for the sailors, keeping them grounded lest they actually drift away like many others before them. The Captain knew the value of holding on to his roots, or so he thought, and thus he kept his “goodies” with him every time he set sail: some caskets of heart-warming wine, a little fiddle that has seen the worst of the storms, a deck of molding cards, and a painting of the central hub in all its light and glory. It was no different for this trip, to and back from a new granite outpost in a corner of the Zee. He took a last wistful look at the painting and the harbor, carefully folded the piece of paper, and placed it in the secure pocket above his heart. He raised his thundering voice, signaling the crew to undock, and then they were off, charting a course through the heart of the Zee.
“Oi! Cap’n! Wake up! The clouds!”
That was the first thing he woke up to after six days at Zee, living off of the luminescence of the Zee creatures. What nonsense is it now? The Captain whispered quietly to himself. Not that clouds didn’t exist down here; they did, but they rarely announced their presence to the naked eyes as there was no light, no shades to help distinguish them from the blackest background. And so, besides the annoyance, the Captain walked out of his room with just the slightest bit of excitement simmering in the recess of his mind ––– What could we have stumbled upon?
As he steadied himself against the railing outside of the cabin, the sight that greeted him, however, wasn’t like the epic drawings that he sometimes saw through the windows of a gallery. It was a hideous look. Rolling black waves slapped against the hull of the ship, their energy dissipating in the form of more black foams and bubbles. Had I really been so deeply asleep? And the clouds, visible for the first time in almost forever, appeared more like claws now, carving streaks of inky trails open in the once smooth horizon. Heavy raindrops bled from the clouds and landed harshly on his bare hands. The Captain stared blankly at the staggering waves that were fast approaching their hauler along with the vortex winds. A dark part of him wondered just how much worse this could be. Could I be the first? The First to tell such tales? It took him moments to reel his mind back as the simmering excitement tugged him farther and farther away from his role as a responsible Captain.
“Engine! Lower the ––” was all that the Captain could say before a heavy wave shoved their ship aside, sending him tumbling along the upper deck until he found the railings again with a loud thud.
Neither the flying barrels nor the battered sailors fighting for their dear life caught the Captain’s attention. He had his eyes fixed upon the clouds. The streaks gave way for chasms in the skies, and behind them were… lights? Sunlight? All the tales flashed through his mind at once –––
“Oh the warmth that kissed my skin!”
“Such brightness in front of my eyes!”
“It was all honey and nectar and gold like the sweetest fruit…”
A sailor clambered to the Captain’s side, holding tightly onto the safety lines as water sloshed over the deck, and started dragging him to safety.
“We need you by the helm Cap’n!”
“No!” The Captain snapped as he slapped the sailor’s hand away, shaking violently as the cold crept under his skin from the drenched clothes. “You… you don’t see this?” He slowly turned his head to the sailor and looked at him with wide eyes.
“Captain we need –––”
“How can you not? This is what people talk about! Sunlight!” The Captain struggled to stand up and reached for the skies as if he could feel the radiating heat better that way. Another towering wave hit the hauler, knocking the Captain against the railing once more. The last remnant of his vision was of the blinding light from above as he surrendered to unconsciousness.
Soft lights, pale sands, and gentle rolling waves. The Captain stood on the edge of the waters and simply admired the scenery. But the peace didn’t last long as wafts of wind picked up behind him. He turned to find three pairs of wings shrouded in a golden aura by the Sunlight from above. The creature regarded the Captain for a moment before turning away, taking the light with him and leaving shadows behind.
“Wait!” Yelled the Captain as panic took over in wake of the Light’s retreat, the departure of something so profoundly different from all that he had known, and yet so familiar.
“Let me have it! The Sunlight once more!”
The six-winged creature paused at that, and he looked down at the human. “Imagine having all the Sunlight you have ever thought of. Every day, every week, every year. Don’t you want it to be perpetual instead of a fleeting moment? You can have it all. You can write the forbidden tale like none other could…”
And then the wings moved, expelling the air and taking that Sunlight with them…
When the Captain woke up, he was back inside his cabin, tucked in on his bed. On his table was a glass of his wine and a note from his sailors. He scrambled up and rushed to the window for any sign of that light, all golden and glorious, but all he found was the pale green luminescence shrouding the damaged hauler. When he looked up, the chasms were gone. The horizon was once again a smooth black backdrop. His face immediately fell at the sign of normalcy, of the usual darkness, which until this moment, had never bothered him or any Zee-dwellers before.
I need to know.
That thought lingered on his mind weeks after he has returned from the storm-ravaged trip. Day after day he laid awake at night, remembering the golden dream full of sunlight, of the vision. He grabbed his overcoat from the hangers and boarded his ship with bloodshot eyes. A decision was made; he had to find it; he believed that he could find it. And so the Captain parted the harbor with nothing else but fuels and supplies; his darling painting, now stained with salt, and wine, and the deck of clammy cards forgotten in a corner of his apartment.
The Captain was used to solitude. Being at Zee meant limited connection for weeks, even months. He was also used to knowing that he would return to drylands every time, to return to the bars and bazaars that made up society. But this time he was truly alone. He barely slept. And when he did sleep, it teemed with dreams of that Sunlight, of the promises to a brighter, better, world. When he didn’t sleep, he kept himself busy, running to and fro from the wheelhouse to the engine, keeping his precious hauler, the last of his faithful companion, alive. The walls in his cabin were covered in maps and notes. The Captain was then hunched over the table, eyes trained on the Central Map of Zee, tirelessly making sure that he had checked all regions of suspicious weather, leaving every stone turned in his path.
How long had it been?
Slowly but surely the Captain started looking gaunt. Eating became a chore, a means of survival, as nothing else mattered until he would be able to “write the tales like none other could.” It would be epic, the Captain decided as he looked at himself in the mirror, cheekbones so prominent that they seemed to poke at his skin. His hair looked tousled for a lack of care, a strand here and another strand there, almost looking matted. Then there were his eyes. The Captain had been a spirited man with bright, attentive, focused eyes. They were equally bright now, but they had lost their focus, as if there were a screen behind them, shrouding the light from ever reaching his attention. He turned to the sketch behind him, a short work of the glorious scene: the cracks in the skies and the golden light that peeked through perpetual darkness.
Days later, the Captain woke up to rain splattering on his windows again, not unlike the last storm, and he took that to his heart. This is my chance! He hastily dressed, forgetting the buttons on his shirt along the way, grabbed the ragged overcoat and stepped outside. Streaking black skies and billowing black waters surrounded him. He saw a shimmering edge just to the north, faint glows that seemed to push past the heavy sheet of darkness. He rushed to the wheelhouse and began chasing the pale flicker of light.
The edge of the Zee had always been a mystery, but that was where the Captain was now, cruising far beyond mapped waters. The Captain ignored the flashing red lights scattered across the console, turned a deaf ear to the blaring alarms that signaled to him the limits of his hauler, and steamed into the storm, pushing past wave after wave. The lights always seemed to be one step ahead: he sailed forth one league, and the shimmer retreated by one.
The first sign that told the Captain he truly had been close wasn’t the brightness itself. It was of the Zee itself. The Zee had always seemed like a black hole as there weren’t any lights to give its waters the reflective property they were supposed to have. But now the far-off waves were glinting; the waters weren’t pitch black anymore, they, instead, appeared blue, just like how they’d looked in the Captain’s dream. He turned off the engine, moored the hauler, and walked onto the deck despite the rocking Zees and all his common sense as a sailor screaming “NO!” deep inside his head. I need to be closer! To bear witness! Waves continued to batter the hull of the ship, tossing it around like a mere children’s toy even with the mooring.
The skies began to crack, Sunlight poured through the gaps like rainfall. The Captain let out a shrilling cry and raised his hand as if to net the precious Sunlight. Just as he seemed to finally feel the warmth, the hull suddenly shifted as a heavy wave hit the frame. Within a second, the Captain fell to his knees. He watched the light slip between his fingers, casting shadows on wherever it didn’t land. The darkness of the Zee that occupied his entire life became unbearable. There the Captain knelt on the floor, utterly wrecked by the sights before him. His face paled, and trails of water reflected the luminescence, catching him in a ghastly glow. Another huge wave splashed across the ship, but not even that woke the Captain from his stupor. The power of the Zee continued to push the ship out of the edge of the Zee; the Sunlight taking the Captain’s soul with it. And with the last sweet taste of the Sunlight, the Captain found himself again in a dark abyss.