He raises his hand over his brow to shade his gaze from the summer sun. Furrowed brow and eyes squinted, the ocean still blinds his gaze like a blue, diamond-studded sheet rolling in the wind. All the flashes of light twinkling in and out, too many to count. Each one a miracle. To be a demigod who could sail among them all, this he would surely do if he could. As Erathor did, journeying beyond before returning back to the parched desert.
The life of the Erishe are not for sailing. Theirs is to toil under the burning sun. Walking on the burning sand. Piercing their lips against the burning air. The chariots on the sea of heroes and gods, he will not know.
Not yet.
But he looks past the ocean today, as he does many days. Today is different. Today he knows, somehow, one of those twinkles of blinding light is for him. Not him--but still for him. Across the ocean, somehow he knows, though the words make no sense: his brother was born.
*
The Neran boy turns 11 today, and steals to the docks to look at the boats and wait for his friend. Two hours will pass before his father and uncle will return from the hunt and expect him to join the family in gratitude to the Seven. He will admire the small boats and imagine himself on one of them in the next year or two...sailing the bay. But he cares not about fishing. Surely there beyond the bay awaits adventure, treasure, glory. If he could build a boat better than the fishing canoes...one to penetrate the mist. Why haven't they yet? Perhaps he'll be the first...
He looks beyond the bay and into the cloudy horizon beyond, and his mind's adventure pauses as he wonders about the world itself...wondering what lies beyond.
He feels it. Something out there--he will meet someone out there. Not a calling, or a longing exactly. Just a knowing. He knows someone out there, like he knows his siblings and his parents and his cousins. One of his clan is out there. He will find him.
*
The Neran castaway despaired, his virtue had been measured by the unforgiving sea and was found wanting. It took his ship, his crew, his cousin and captain. He had but to wait for death. He prayed until consciousness left him.
*
The old mann raises his hand over his brow, to shade his gaze from the sun. Furrowed brow and eyes squinted, he could no longer read the scrolls his children scribe for him, but he can still see out in the ocean. He still looks. Married to the desert and the sun, he still gazes out at the ocean, like a fool shamelessly staring at another woman.
Today his long-secret lover surprised him with an unexpected sight. A sea creature? Transfixed, he glares harder. Something, floating. Not a creature. Something floating in rhythm with the rolling ocean waves. Patiently he waits to discern it--and shock as he realizes its some kind of mann. A moment more of disbelief as he absorbs the sight, and the next thing he realizes is he's knee deep in water. He doesn't even remember the strange ideas his soul whispered to him as he gazed out so many times over the years. Utterly unconscious of it. Somehow he feels it anyway. It's a mann. Limp and lifeless, sprawled over some piece of strange wood--not like the sad little raft he made those years ago. This mann is surely drowned. Long dead, the ocean must have bleached his body if its color.
Still, he wades toward it. Neck deep, he reaches for the wood, and it almost pulls him with it. Losing his footing, he thinks his family cannot see him now, and no one knows he went into the ocean like a fool. This mysterious flotsom may cost him his life. But the top of his foot scrapes the sand again, and he digs it in deeper, holding his prize. He realizes he's already exhausted, unsure he can make it back to shore. He breathes hard and spits out salt water. He pulls, and walks back. His vision starts to go black at times, but by that time his face is no longer taking water. He stopped feeling his body and has to glance sideways to see he's actually still clutching the strange wood with the pale body. He feels surprise to realize he will probably make it to the shore again, see his family again, hear his wife chastise him. His exhaustion wins out only after the water is below his knees, and he collapses on top of his alien prize.
The feeling comes back to his body in a wave of pain. He doesn't mind because he's grateful for each breath. His head face down on the wood waiting for his breath to calm and his strength to return---he hears coughing. It's a couple of seconds before he realizes that it isn't his own, and he slowly lifts his head up to see the pale corpse moving. A wave of horror and amazement overtakes him, but he's too spent to stand and flee the rest of the way to shore. So he watches as his mind races. Are the tales of the Qin who live under the sea true? Did he save one? Will it drag him back under the ocean for its next meal? It sure is coughing loudly...
The pale water mann lifts his head, and sees his ebony companion. They recognize the mutual alarm in each others' eyes, and they both know their safety is at the mercy of the other. It's the Erishe who is first to intuit some sort of comfort from this, and wraps his dark arm around the soggy-flanneled Neran. They stumble, hunched and with an arm locked around each other, back to the wet sand, before collapsing back onto the shore.
Back to the sunny care of his lifelong spouse the hot sun, the old man takes in the awe of his survival, and gratitude towards the notion he may live until the end of the day.
The Neran wonders if he's dead, and this thin, black, strangely dressed old mann is some sentry to the afterlife.
Their gazes meet each other once again, instinctively examining each other's face for malice, yet finding none. Their dangerous alarm towards one another from a minute ago evaporates, and their racing hearts begin to relax as they recouperate.
They examine each other. Aliens. Yet Menn. The Erishe speaks, and points to the ocean. The Neran is amazed at the Erishe's voice--so different than any he's ever heard. He's clueless as to what was said, but points to the water and nods his head.
The Erishe's eyebrows furrow and he looks gravely at the pale Neran. He repeats the words, still pointing to the ocean, but at a downward angle---and the Neran notices. Unsure of what that could possible mean, he points higher--not to the sky, but the horizon. His string of words just as incomprehensible, still the Erishe understands--even if by accident. He's not from under the water. He's from across the sea.
The old Erishe looks back at the ocean, unbelieving of the miracle he's experiencing. The late afternoon sun starting to set, and lights dance on the surface of the ocean. He remembers.
He raises his eyebrows and speaks once again, pointing to horizon and asking some sort of question, as if to confirm.
The Neran follows the Erishe's finger pointing to the horizon, and nods his head again.
The old mann's face lights up like a boy's and a broad smile emerges. He nods. He announces his understanding with one more incomprehensible, three syllable word.
*
The young Neran mann found it frustrating the old mann insisted on calling him by that word ever since. He tried repeatedly to get the Erishe to learn his real name, but few of them ever made the effort. They just addressed him by the name the old mann gave him.
It would be several months before he figured out the word was "Brother."
It would be weeks more before he learned that more precisely to be "Little Brother."
He didn't mind so much after that. At least one of the old mann's daughters bothered to learn his real name...
Still, it wouldn't be for weeks more that the Spirit Womann told them both why the Water Qin brought the Old Mann's soul-brother across the ocean to the Erishe...
