Cerule

Chapter Three

In no time at all my feet touched bottom, and I looked down, eying the various underwater plant life with a wary eye as a school of small orange and blue striped fish scurried away from me. The water was incredibly clear, and I detected a few larger animals, snake like but with fins, slithering off in the near distance. Then something quite a bit larger with jaws and fins loomed and took down one of the slithery fish and I decided to up my tempo up the incline of underwater sandy bottom. In a few moments my head broke the surface, and I felt the gentle push of surf on my body pushing me further ashore.

I was still weak, and as I moved up onto land, my legs felt wobbly. But ahh the sensation of real planetary atmosphere, the breeze on my body, my face, my nipples and cock, nearly made me faint with pleasure.

A mix of fern like plants, palms of various kinds to judge by the fronds, all clustered densely with some sort of tall pine tree that towered over the more typically tropical foliage, all greeted my eyes.

But I turned around to look at the sea, noting other small beach Islands many of them barely breaking the surface of a nest of shoals. And into the midst of this sailed a small ship. I heard a yell and saw pointing arms and fingers at me from some men aboard the vessel.

A beautiful little ship, it had a noticeable sheer, with two masts and appeared to be a mix of fore and aft and square-rigged ship of about twenty meters in length.

“I don’t see any armaments.” I said to myself, but “Mind” answered me. “Four cranked projectile weapons, like catapults, two per side.”

And that I looked more closely I could see the contraptions he had observed. But I could also see that the men aboard the ship were variously armed and appeared anxious. Were they friend or foe?

“Any clue to who they are? Not on Zorath’s side, I hope.”

“The Zorian Imperial banner is black and purple with a gold staff topped by a large purplish red stone with rays that suggest it glows. Over the staff is depicted a three-tiered golden crown.”

Looking up to the top of the taller of the two masts I saw a white banner edged in blue with a bird like avian silhouette in blue with wings open across the middle. So not Zorath’s. I breathed a sigh of relief until “Mind” said. “Searching memories for the meaning of this ship’s banner.”

“Mind meant Par’s memories. “It could be the banner of an ally of Nor, or Nor itself. There is a memory. here.”

Into my mind came a memory of pain, I was in the water, clutching a piece of rigging, looking on as a large banner floated nearby. It was white with a blue border, and the memory was clear, of looking upon it and thinking disappointment and overwhelming regret that I was going to die. It was the banner of Nor. The pain made me feel faint as I emerged from the flash back.

“I need a head wound, preferably two weeks old, Mind.” It came to me as that vessel drew nearer, inching its way toward the Islet where I stood, that I had not thought things through. I needed a head wound to have a reason to have trouble speaking and remembering. With that ship lowering a boat into the water, doubtless to come and fetch me from this beach, there were countless other things I hadn’t thought of. Well, it would have to come to me as we went along. “Ouch!” I muttered as a lancing pain on the back of my head nearly blinded me.

“You now have a head wound, Par, which shows signs of healing.” Mind pronounced without a jot of sympathy.

“Well thank you so ever much.” I said dryly, wincing in pain.

“You're welcome.”

I could feel my eyes rolling as I watched the progress of the men from the ship. Six men had gone aboard the rowboat, all of them shirtless, hair worn either with a top knot or ponytail. All of them were fit, I could tell that even at a distance. A young man in a faded blue waist cut jacket hopped in last and took the tiller as the boat took off, the men rowing quickly. Meanwhile the ship, had not quite stopped, but swiveled slowly and turned to glide across my vision as if to pass the Island.

There was a yell and the man at the tiller was waving toward me, a come-on gesture. Well, there was no mistaking that, and I wasn’t about to stay on this beach when I needed to be headed back where they came from. I headed into the water moving out until it was up to my neck and began to swim.

I didn’t get far before I head another yell and looked up. The men in the boat were pointing, their oars getting tangled up as they stopped rowing. I turned to look and saw a scaly glittery fin above the surface, turning and heading toward me. Oh crap. A quick calculation told me I would not make it to the boat before the big nasty fish thing got me.

Considering my options, I decided to chance the thought that this predator might be big but dumb, and I stopped swimming, going still in the water, filling my lungs with air to keep myself nominally afloat, but my head sank to where my eyes were underwater.

Oh, fuck the size of the thing and those jaws were no laughing matter, but I stayed still as it loomed up to me, jaws gaping… well here goes, I thought, time for me to test out my immortality again. Hell, after plunging through an atmosphere and burning to s crisp and not much more than a skull, what could a big nasty fishy do?

I closed my eyes as the mouth filled my vision and waited. There was a shove, a rude sort of punch that pushed me sideways. I opened my mouth to see I was untouched, and the monster was swimming past me. Well Hallelujah, good to see some similarities to old Terra sharks. However, I wasn’t going to stick around in case the beasty changed its mind. I swam onward toward the bottom of the boat I saw a few boat lengths away and saw ore blades invade the water.

I emerged near the side of the boat and heard some shouts of surprise as I shook the water from my ears, looking up into more or less human faces.

I took hold of an oar blade pulled myself to the side and reached up.

After some hesitation they took my wrists and hauled. I let them do the work, truly not having an ounce of strength left in me. They pulled me up over and in and I rolled onto my back in the bottom of the boat and closed my eyes.

“Arrigh stop wi er starin and set too. Roh, roh, roh, (which I translated to mean row, row row.)

“Permission to put you to sleep to allow you to regain strength and full functionality.” Mind urged

I felt the pull and urge of the boat under oars and consented, cautioning Mind not to improve my appearance too quickly. I had the feeling he wanted to say something smart back but refrained. Then as everything began to fade away, I heard one man say. “Ar a ring”. And another sailor said, “bloody hung loi a oarse.” The sailors rowing all laughed while the man at the tiller snapped at them to “stow it.”

I felt some anxiety of my own ease as I heard what sounded like ancient earth English. Apparently, the old British ship that had landed here kept some vestige of their language going. I shouldn’t have too much trouble. I looked up at the young man at the tiller and noticed he was damn cute, fit with dimples framing a very kissable mouth. Things were definitely looking up. Then everything went blissfully dark.

"Thank you, Mind."

"You're welcome."