Short, for/inspired by Fantasy Fool's Writing Challenge. Something of a character sketch.
Vindictive, murmured the captain, pressed with wilting weariness against tiller, swaying.
Along the shore voices hailed him, and the low hum of sailor’s shanties quivered over the water. ‘Cap’n Zhaim!’ they called. ‘Zhaim, laddie!’ and ‘Ho!’. Still Zhaim kept his head low, profile bleak with moment’s abstraction. Low on the horizon the sun cast shadows and flickering mirage across the sea.
‘Ho laddie!’ The wharf stirred in common commotion; a rust-red kerchief waved above the sun-burnt heads.
Zhaim turned away, hand listing a desultory moment over the tiller - but there was no purpose in his gaze. The ship might go where she would.
“Cap’n sir -”
“Aye?” The captain turned, eyes focused.
Mr. Arran stood, bewildered in mizzen’s thin shade.
“Shall we take her to port, sir?”
For a quivering moment, Zhaim said nothing, and his gaze wandered again as if the present were a distant time. Vindictive, formed his lips.
“Cap’n?”
“No.” Zhaim straightened - “No. Back for open sea, Mr. Arran - for the open, God’s blood, away.”
And ‘ho!’ came from the shore, red-rust waved. ‘Ho, laddie! Cap’n!…’
Stiffened, the captain’s pensivity became conscious, a sudden weary, startled shadow hanging over his features; he watched the horizon, back to the fading calls, threading shanties. His grip over the rail blanched knuckles white.
“Heading, cap’n?” muttered the helmsman, ducking out from below to take the tiller from Arran.
“West.”
Puzzled, Arran turned into the wind, sun-creased features wan beneath the tan.
“West, is it?”
“West.” shrugged the helmsman.
“To port in Chervyak, to Sjever -”
Though voices low, the words carried in the breeze.
“No.” Zhaim recoiled from the side, nearly reeling, “No, not Sjever, Mr. Arran. Bloody well not that thrice-damned country of -” he faltered. “West. West, Turrel - farther West.”
He wheeled away, gaze falling, ashen. Vindictive, he spoke soundlessly, eyes flicking to the fading wharf - the rust-red kerchief still held, blurred, wavering.
“Not Sjever,” he turned, “West, Mr. Arran. West.”
“Aye, sir,” came Turrel’s puzzled acknowledgment.
But Zhaim’s attention had scattered again, gaze turned into the burning horizon.
“You were meant…” he murmured, “Meant…” and the words fell and twisted back. Vindictive.
At Turrel’s side, shadow 'cross his face, Mr. Arran turned pointedly away, creased features sour under Turrel’s quizzical glance. The shore’s amicable murmur was fleeting, tangled in the sea’s peevish breeze. The mizzen groaned under a gust.
“Sjever's his land though, now, i’n’ it?” said Turrel. “Cap’n’s from off West.”
“His land,” Arran said, “Aye, his, don’t you know?”
And this time the wind was crossed and the Captain was bleakly ignorant of the first mate’s muttered gossip. He leaned, brooding into the breeze, eyes watching more than the gilt glamour of dusk across the sea.
I'm seriously loving it!