[Ships at Sea] Stormy Weather
Title: Stormy Weather
Story/Character: Ships at Sea / Godscalck, Johim
Rating: PG-13
word count: 1,800
brigits_flame prompt of "if it's not broke...".
* * * * *
The Storm caught the Eendracht in the midst of the Gulf with open seas on all sides and in retrospect the captain was thankful for it. It had been fair winds and bright sun all the long day until just past noon, when the head of the Storm swirled up out of nowhere; the Watch barely had time to cry out the warning before they had already passed through the leading edge into what-was.
It was a deep one; Godscalck knew it from the first breath, thick and wet as a greenhouse in his lungs and tasting of things that no man living had ever known. The Storm edge always carried rain with it and it burst over the deck in thick drops from a suddenly overcast sky, warm as bath water. Godscalck drew air in through his teeth, hands tight on the wheel that fought him as the waves shifted and changed beneath them, the sails dropping limp one moment and whipping the next with an entirely different wind that caught them across the bow. The Eendracht's crew was a good one and experienced; the Watch's cry had them moving before they ever cleared the edge, men boiling like angry ants over deck and rigging alike to bring the ship back under control.
The deep warm air of what-was filled Godscalck's throat, prickling wet and electric over his skin, and made his voice grate when he raised it to bellow over the rush of the rain and the snap of canvas. "Man the guns! Load and charge, get the cranks turning!" The rain cut the visibility to half, the seas around them no longer crystal clear, and the deepest edges of what-was weren't safe for man or ship. Godscalck dug his nails into the wood of the wheel and breathed a short prayer that it wouldn't be needed.
Johim scrambled onto the upper deck just as they caught the wind again, the sails filling properly and the wheel easing beneath Godscalck's hands. "Deep one!" the other man called by way of greeting. His hands were full of chart books that he dumped onto the Navigator's table behind the captain; his boy, trailing after him, had an armful of instruments that were added to the pile. Theo's eyes, behind the rain spattered glass of his new lenses, were wide and white rimmed but he did as he was told and stayed out of the way as Johim's quick hands sorted out what he needed.
"Just tell me it's not a long one," Godscalck snapped. Johim shook his head, pushing a chart aside to clear the slate part of the table, the tap tap click of chalk sounding in pattering rhythm as he jotted figures that were washed away by fat raindrops almost as quickly as he made them.
"Storm spout," he answered shortly. "They're never long, here again, gone again, quick as that. Southeast," he added, before Godscalck could demand a heading. "Due southeast, and as you love God keep it steady! We're in the Narrows!"
Godscalck swore, hard and vicious, and shouted orders, spinning the wheel with one eye on the compass. Ships ran aground deep in the what-was; open sea could become solid land and vice versa. Every sailor knew the stories, of wooden hulls crushed and all hands lost, nothing but flotsam found long after, remnant of an impact in what should have been deep seas. The charted paths between the deepest Storms and what-is were short of detail but Johim had never been wrong before and Godscalck turned the Eendracht's nose southeast as though all their lives might depend on it and said another prayer.
Some days, every man knew, God listened; other days, it simply wasn't meant to be. The electric chill that raised the hair at his nape and had nothing to do with the warm drops of the rain wasn't assuaged by prayer and the Watch's second warning yell came only a few short minutes on proper course. Godscalck was spinning the wheel to bring them around before he ever saw it; deep, he thought desperately, they were too damned deep into what-was and the thing that breached the waves off their starboard side was nearly half as long as the Eendracht was, water sheeting off of dark skin marked with paler patterns and a massive mouthful of teeth longer than a man's arm. It was something out of a man's nightmares, a by-gone relic whose bones belonged in a museum, but in the what-was it was alive and well and always, always, hungry.
Chaos and bedlam. Battles, in hindsight, always had the same tinge to them in Godscalck's memory - chaos and bedlam, anchored in the feel of the wheel beneath his hands and the scratch of his throat as he shouted orders until he was near hoarse. The guns had already been loaded on his former order; the crankshafts in the belly of the Eendracht spinning lightning into the gears and the sound of them was like none other, thick with the humming drone of a thousand angry bees that buzzed and crackled through a man's teeth as the charge was primed. The ship wallowed, clumsy and awkward against the thick jawed monstrosity that was circling them, but all it took was one shot lined up along the bow, every hand on line and sail to bring her into position and the deep crack and boom of the side cannons herding the beast towards their front.
The hum of the main guns was a fever pitch deep in Godscalck's bones and he had survived on the seas too long, through too many encounters, not to trust instinct when a flash of breaching mass dove from view. "Fire!" he roared, spinning the wheel sharply. "Fire!"
The crackle became a deafening shriek that traveled the whole length of the Eendracht's hull in half a heartbeat as the rail mounted guns fired. Before them the surfacing beast added a deeper, bone chilling roar to the thick air before diving again. "Reload!" Godscalck bellowed, because they'd clipped it, they'd only clipped it, and hungry was bad but hungry and angry was the Devil's own luck.
Someone grabbed his sleeve and Johim was there, nails dug into Godscalck's arm through the fabric. "South!" he yelled into the captain's ear. "Nine degrees south!"
"The beast-"
"Leave it! Nine degrees south and we're out!"
Swearing, Godscalck relayed the order, turning the ship away from the battle. An impact across their side shuddered the deck beneath their feet. The side cannon's roared, men yelled, but one degree more of fighting wind and wave and there, there, the sails filled and the Eendracht leapt forward, strong and whole, away from the shriek of her pursuer.
The edge of the Storm, when they breached it, was like the curtains drawn back from Heaven, back into the crystal clear sea and bright sun of what-is.
* * * * *
It was all clean up from there, to take stock of any damage and put everything back in its place. It had only been a minor storm-spout, tiny in duration, and barely worth a note in the logbook; no hands lost, no damage to cargo or ship, despite the adrenaline that kept them all working at a fever pitch for half the afternoon. By early evening the Eendracht was underway again, smooth seas and gentle winds wafting them south through the Gulf. In the aftermath of giving orders and taking inventory Godscalck didn't see Johim again until clear into supper, when the other man came to table with an uncharacteristic frown and barely a grunt of greeting.
"Not a bad Storm," Godscalck remarked. "Quick, even for a spout, thanks be to God."
Johim half shrugged, one shoulder moving stiffly, and poked at his plate rather than look up. Godscalck sighed. "It's not your fault, man."
That hit home, as the captain had suspected it might. Johim looked up, stung, his mouth a tight line. "Yes, it is..."
"You can't predict a spout," Godscalck interrupted sensibly. It seemed to catch the Navigator by surprise, mouth hanging open for a moment before he blinked and then scowled down at his food.
"I'm not talking about the God cursed spout." Johim stabbed his fork into his meat and huffed. "Theo," he said, abruptly. "I need to take him to the Guild."
Godscalck frowned. "Thought you already had?" He looked around. "Where is the boy? Thought he was your damned shadow."
Johim's lips pressed thinner. "In my cabin," he admitted. "Gave him two fifths of rum to stop the shaking and sent him to go sleep it off."
"Oh," Godscalck said, and then, more heartfelt, "...oh." It had been the boy's first Storm at sea, and a stiff drink was both the green sailor's reward and a needed medicinal after that right of passage.
"He shouldn't be here," Johim was saying, the words ground out from between his teeth as he glared at the table top. "He's too damned young. Guild would have him serve a year at port before he ever came on ship, another year doing short runs through safe waters. I didn't... He's good, Heyne. He's good, he'll make a good Navigator, and I didn't want to wait..."
"So he got what every other green deckhand and cabin boy gets first time out of port," Godscalck noted. "We all survive it."
Johim's expression twisted. "The Guild..."
"Has their way of doing it, and for sure they've been doing it as long as any of us have been around," Godscalck agreed. "And will be doing it long after - I've seen the Guild's coat of arms salvaged off of wrecks from what-will-be. Mayhap they've got a reason for it." He shrugged. "Or maybe not. Should have's never do a man much good. The boy's here now."
Johim didn't answer, shoving food around on his plate. Godscalck shrugged and went back to his own meal, and only several bites later did the Navigator speak up again. "He's going to have a head on him tomorrow morning."
Godscalck snorted. "And there's another first ever sailor goes through. If he pukes on my deck he can damned well clean it up." Johim's mouth twitched in a shadow of the other man's normal smile. Shaking his head, he picked up his fork, taking his first bite.
"Tell him you said that," he promised around the mouthful. Godscalck waved him away.
"You do that." He regarded the other man soberly. "If he doesn't crack tomorrow, or the day after, or after that... take him to the Guild when we get back to Amsterdam. If he's made for the sea he'll last until then."
Johim nodded silently. Satisfied, Godscalck turned back to his own meal.
[continued in In the Blood]
Story/Character: Ships at Sea / Godscalck, Johim
Rating: PG-13
word count: 1,800
brigits_flame prompt of "if it's not broke...".
* * * * *
The Storm caught the Eendracht in the midst of the Gulf with open seas on all sides and in retrospect the captain was thankful for it. It had been fair winds and bright sun all the long day until just past noon, when the head of the Storm swirled up out of nowhere; the Watch barely had time to cry out the warning before they had already passed through the leading edge into what-was.
It was a deep one; Godscalck knew it from the first breath, thick and wet as a greenhouse in his lungs and tasting of things that no man living had ever known. The Storm edge always carried rain with it and it burst over the deck in thick drops from a suddenly overcast sky, warm as bath water. Godscalck drew air in through his teeth, hands tight on the wheel that fought him as the waves shifted and changed beneath them, the sails dropping limp one moment and whipping the next with an entirely different wind that caught them across the bow. The Eendracht's crew was a good one and experienced; the Watch's cry had them moving before they ever cleared the edge, men boiling like angry ants over deck and rigging alike to bring the ship back under control.
The deep warm air of what-was filled Godscalck's throat, prickling wet and electric over his skin, and made his voice grate when he raised it to bellow over the rush of the rain and the snap of canvas. "Man the guns! Load and charge, get the cranks turning!" The rain cut the visibility to half, the seas around them no longer crystal clear, and the deepest edges of what-was weren't safe for man or ship. Godscalck dug his nails into the wood of the wheel and breathed a short prayer that it wouldn't be needed.
Johim scrambled onto the upper deck just as they caught the wind again, the sails filling properly and the wheel easing beneath Godscalck's hands. "Deep one!" the other man called by way of greeting. His hands were full of chart books that he dumped onto the Navigator's table behind the captain; his boy, trailing after him, had an armful of instruments that were added to the pile. Theo's eyes, behind the rain spattered glass of his new lenses, were wide and white rimmed but he did as he was told and stayed out of the way as Johim's quick hands sorted out what he needed.
"Just tell me it's not a long one," Godscalck snapped. Johim shook his head, pushing a chart aside to clear the slate part of the table, the tap tap click of chalk sounding in pattering rhythm as he jotted figures that were washed away by fat raindrops almost as quickly as he made them.
"Storm spout," he answered shortly. "They're never long, here again, gone again, quick as that. Southeast," he added, before Godscalck could demand a heading. "Due southeast, and as you love God keep it steady! We're in the Narrows!"
Godscalck swore, hard and vicious, and shouted orders, spinning the wheel with one eye on the compass. Ships ran aground deep in the what-was; open sea could become solid land and vice versa. Every sailor knew the stories, of wooden hulls crushed and all hands lost, nothing but flotsam found long after, remnant of an impact in what should have been deep seas. The charted paths between the deepest Storms and what-is were short of detail but Johim had never been wrong before and Godscalck turned the Eendracht's nose southeast as though all their lives might depend on it and said another prayer.
Some days, every man knew, God listened; other days, it simply wasn't meant to be. The electric chill that raised the hair at his nape and had nothing to do with the warm drops of the rain wasn't assuaged by prayer and the Watch's second warning yell came only a few short minutes on proper course. Godscalck was spinning the wheel to bring them around before he ever saw it; deep, he thought desperately, they were too damned deep into what-was and the thing that breached the waves off their starboard side was nearly half as long as the Eendracht was, water sheeting off of dark skin marked with paler patterns and a massive mouthful of teeth longer than a man's arm. It was something out of a man's nightmares, a by-gone relic whose bones belonged in a museum, but in the what-was it was alive and well and always, always, hungry.
Chaos and bedlam. Battles, in hindsight, always had the same tinge to them in Godscalck's memory - chaos and bedlam, anchored in the feel of the wheel beneath his hands and the scratch of his throat as he shouted orders until he was near hoarse. The guns had already been loaded on his former order; the crankshafts in the belly of the Eendracht spinning lightning into the gears and the sound of them was like none other, thick with the humming drone of a thousand angry bees that buzzed and crackled through a man's teeth as the charge was primed. The ship wallowed, clumsy and awkward against the thick jawed monstrosity that was circling them, but all it took was one shot lined up along the bow, every hand on line and sail to bring her into position and the deep crack and boom of the side cannons herding the beast towards their front.
The hum of the main guns was a fever pitch deep in Godscalck's bones and he had survived on the seas too long, through too many encounters, not to trust instinct when a flash of breaching mass dove from view. "Fire!" he roared, spinning the wheel sharply. "Fire!"
The crackle became a deafening shriek that traveled the whole length of the Eendracht's hull in half a heartbeat as the rail mounted guns fired. Before them the surfacing beast added a deeper, bone chilling roar to the thick air before diving again. "Reload!" Godscalck bellowed, because they'd clipped it, they'd only clipped it, and hungry was bad but hungry and angry was the Devil's own luck.
Someone grabbed his sleeve and Johim was there, nails dug into Godscalck's arm through the fabric. "South!" he yelled into the captain's ear. "Nine degrees south!"
"The beast-"
"Leave it! Nine degrees south and we're out!"
Swearing, Godscalck relayed the order, turning the ship away from the battle. An impact across their side shuddered the deck beneath their feet. The side cannon's roared, men yelled, but one degree more of fighting wind and wave and there, there, the sails filled and the Eendracht leapt forward, strong and whole, away from the shriek of her pursuer.
The edge of the Storm, when they breached it, was like the curtains drawn back from Heaven, back into the crystal clear sea and bright sun of what-is.
* * * * *
It was all clean up from there, to take stock of any damage and put everything back in its place. It had only been a minor storm-spout, tiny in duration, and barely worth a note in the logbook; no hands lost, no damage to cargo or ship, despite the adrenaline that kept them all working at a fever pitch for half the afternoon. By early evening the Eendracht was underway again, smooth seas and gentle winds wafting them south through the Gulf. In the aftermath of giving orders and taking inventory Godscalck didn't see Johim again until clear into supper, when the other man came to table with an uncharacteristic frown and barely a grunt of greeting.
"Not a bad Storm," Godscalck remarked. "Quick, even for a spout, thanks be to God."
Johim half shrugged, one shoulder moving stiffly, and poked at his plate rather than look up. Godscalck sighed. "It's not your fault, man."
That hit home, as the captain had suspected it might. Johim looked up, stung, his mouth a tight line. "Yes, it is..."
"You can't predict a spout," Godscalck interrupted sensibly. It seemed to catch the Navigator by surprise, mouth hanging open for a moment before he blinked and then scowled down at his food.
"I'm not talking about the God cursed spout." Johim stabbed his fork into his meat and huffed. "Theo," he said, abruptly. "I need to take him to the Guild."
Godscalck frowned. "Thought you already had?" He looked around. "Where is the boy? Thought he was your damned shadow."
Johim's lips pressed thinner. "In my cabin," he admitted. "Gave him two fifths of rum to stop the shaking and sent him to go sleep it off."
"Oh," Godscalck said, and then, more heartfelt, "...oh." It had been the boy's first Storm at sea, and a stiff drink was both the green sailor's reward and a needed medicinal after that right of passage.
"He shouldn't be here," Johim was saying, the words ground out from between his teeth as he glared at the table top. "He's too damned young. Guild would have him serve a year at port before he ever came on ship, another year doing short runs through safe waters. I didn't... He's good, Heyne. He's good, he'll make a good Navigator, and I didn't want to wait..."
"So he got what every other green deckhand and cabin boy gets first time out of port," Godscalck noted. "We all survive it."
Johim's expression twisted. "The Guild..."
"Has their way of doing it, and for sure they've been doing it as long as any of us have been around," Godscalck agreed. "And will be doing it long after - I've seen the Guild's coat of arms salvaged off of wrecks from what-will-be. Mayhap they've got a reason for it." He shrugged. "Or maybe not. Should have's never do a man much good. The boy's here now."
Johim didn't answer, shoving food around on his plate. Godscalck shrugged and went back to his own meal, and only several bites later did the Navigator speak up again. "He's going to have a head on him tomorrow morning."
Godscalck snorted. "And there's another first ever sailor goes through. If he pukes on my deck he can damned well clean it up." Johim's mouth twitched in a shadow of the other man's normal smile. Shaking his head, he picked up his fork, taking his first bite.
"Tell him you said that," he promised around the mouthful. Godscalck waved him away.
"You do that." He regarded the other man soberly. "If he doesn't crack tomorrow, or the day after, or after that... take him to the Guild when we get back to Amsterdam. If he's made for the sea he'll last until then."
Johim nodded silently. Satisfied, Godscalck turned back to his own meal.
[continued in In the Blood]