Short Story: In the Midst of the Storm (There was Warmth)


 * Author: Nathan
 * Google Document

In the Midst of the Storm (There was Warmth) There was a storm over the Eadrenansea. Thousands of miles of screaming winds and crashing waves. Only the remarkably stupid or remarkably brave would dare sail for it. Which of those the champions fell under only time will tell. However, the true hurricane lay far off yet. For now the winds pushed the ship and her passengers through the night. For the few who were still awake at this late hour, a different problem faced them. It was cold. Absurdly disgustingly cold. Every drop of sea spray was whipped to a frozen blade by the storm winds. Below the Desperado groaned and rumbled as the waves made their fury known. Jorah sheltered against the foremast as he watched the storm tossed sea for a sign of anything that wasn't a white capped wave. With each new gust he tried to pull his cloak tighter around his huddled form. His new manta cloak was shockingly warm for its thickness and waterproof as well but without the thick underlayer it was incapable of protecting him. Once again he pulled out his timepiece and wiped off the glass. Squinting through the rain he read the time and swore. Over an hour and a half left of his watch. Sighing, he huddled up under the cloak and tried to settle in for the long haul. As his eyes scanned the horizon he thought of Reides standing his watch back near the helm. He wondered how the other man was dealing with this damnable wind and rain. Probably better than the damn fool of a ranger who had the misfortune of growing up in the everspring. Considering that the other man had yet to unpack his winter cloak Jorah could guess how little the storm and cold were affecting the prince. Gods above what he would do for a warm fire right now. Though were he somehow able to light one in his drenched hellscape, the cold would be the least of his worries. He would instead have to deal with the Desperado's crew and worse, her captain. Jorah tried to imagine his fate if the Kraken caught him lighting a fire on her ship. He immediately gave it up as it got far too gruesome for his taste. Gods know he would be out more than a finger of magma wine in any case. He might have chuckled had a sound not touched his ears. Carried over the winds he heard what sounded worryingly like shouting. He swiveled on the spot searching for the source. Maybe Ashara was here to relieve him early? No, the forward deck was empty save for him and the innumerable ropes that seemed to cover every inch of the vessel. Grimacing he moved from the mast toward the stairs downward. Nope, there was nobody there either. That left him with two possibilities. Either someone fucking invisible had shouted over the storm or he had just imagined it. He wasn't sure which idea he liked less. Either way he wasn't going to stand out here in the wind waiting for insanity or invisible invaders to come for him. So he set about the long process of wrapping his cloak around himself for maximum huddling. He had only just gotten his hands back inside and begun to shake the frost out of them when the sound returned. It was fainter but now that he was waiting for it he could tell for sure it was a voice. A familiar one at that though not so familiar that he could say who it was. Spitting another curse at whoever was shouting he unwrapped his cloak and stepped to the stairs. There had better be a gods-damned attack or he was going to be pissed. He stomped down the rain slicked steps moving quickly towards the sailor standing watch in the middle of the ship. Except of course the man wasn't at his post or anywhere else around the deck. Running on a hunch, Jorah opened the door to the lower decks and lo and behold there was the watch, tucked away in a corner snoozing. He stepped closer to the sleeping man and resisted the urge to kick the sleeping form that he now recognized as Clive. Instead he reached down and used his half frozen hand to shake the man awake. Clive awoke with a start and looked up at him. Above the man loomed a hooded figure with an owl face and faintly glowing green eyes. He then promptly squeaked and scurried away from the ranger. &ldquo;M-M-Monster!&rdquo;Realizing his error Jorah sighed and pulled up his goggles. &ldquo;For fuck&rsquo;s sake Clive it&rsquo;s only me. I need to know if you heard someone shouting earlier.&rdquo; Relieved that whatever horror his waking mind had conjured was in fact just a mildly alcoholic ranger, Clive stood and brushed himself off before speaking. &ldquo;Er, no I haven't heard anything recently. I think I just dozed off a bit.&rdquo; Jorah rolled his eyes and turned back toward the door. &ldquo;I'm going to go check with Reides and the helm to see if they heard it as well. I need you to get back out there and be on the lookout. If I have to freeze my ass off out there then you do too.&rdquo; He then grumpily reseated his goggles and stepped back out into the miserable drizzle. Turning once again to the rear of the ship he stomped up the first flight of stairs, this time even grumpier if that was even possible. Then he summited the last set and stood in view of the wheel. The wind was ferocious this high up on the ship and it took him a second to spot the helmsman. The man was blessedly awake and looked as miserable as Jorah felt. He was, however, worryingly alone. Jorah stepped close and yelled to the man. &ldquo;Where's Reides? Isn't he supposed to be back here standing watch?&rdquo; The Helmsman grunted, audible even over the encroaching storm. &ldquo;He was but then Aske came up here to collect him. You his relief?&rdquo; &ldquo;No, I'm the forward watch right now. I thought I heard some shouting so I came back here to check if everything was alright. Gods Above it is fucking awful out here tonight.&rdquo; The Helmsman cracked a grin. &ldquo;Aye, that it is laddie. And it's only going to get worse the deeper we get into this storm. Now I haven't heard anything but the wind, but If yer looking for yer friend though he went down a deck on the starboard side.&rdquo; &ldquo;Which side is that?&rdquo; He snorted. &ldquo;The right side son. Starboard is the ship's right side. The side you came up from is the port side. That or larboard if yer a real old fashioned type like the Kraken.&rdquo; &ldquo;Fuck, I&rsquo;llget it some day. Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to go check on them. I'll scream if something is wrong.&rdquo; &ldquo;Aye. You do that son.&rdquo; With those final words he turned his head back to the horizon and got to the job of keeping the ship on track. Jorah turned and made for the far side of the ship. He had just made it to the stairs down when he spotted something that he should have noticed on the way up. There, nestled between the stairs and the railing, was a little ramshackle tent with a warm yellow light inside.as he drew closer he began to hear roughhousing and a small shout as the last two conscious members of the ships complement caroused and giggled. Jorah saw red. Well he saw green as the whole world was lit in verdant shades by his goggles but figuratively he saw red. He flew down the last couple of steps and saw the two entangled forms backlit by whatever light was within the tent. His hand reached out and grabbed the flap of the tent and flung it open. In those fleeting moments between grabbing the flap and the tent being open to see into, Jorah's mind caught up with his racing thoughts and realized a few things.  Maybe he was a little too angry about this. It wasn't like it was an important watch. Reides was a good friend who had saved his ass way too many times to be this rude to him. He really did not want to see the wizard in the midst of passion with his lover.  Thankfully for everyone involved, the scenario that the crazed depths of Jorah's mind had cooked up was wrong on several counts. Yes Reides and Aske were both in the tent and yes both were tangled up with each other, but they were both blessedly fully clothed. They were in fact playfully wrestling over a fishing rod when a certain ranger butted in. Jorah stood in the doorway, a thousand thousand questions begging to be asked. He was saved from whatever malformed chimera of a question would have burst forth from him (Likely &ldquo;Why are you both fucking a wrestlefish in here?&rdquo;) by Reides. The ever unflappable wizard piped up first. &ldquo;Oh hey Jorah! Is there something you need?&rdquo; Jorah, still caught in the maelstrom of his confusion at the scene before him, was only able to stare blankly at the two and mouth the word &ldquo;What&rdquo;. Aske, seeming to realize the predicament, untangled himself from the triton and stood up.&rdquo;Yes, uh, is there something wrong Jorah?&rdquo; Shaking himself free from his stupor the ranger spoke. &ldquo;I heard shouting so I came back here to make sure everything was alright and that Tyrian wasn't back or something. What in the Gods names are you two doing in there?.&rdquo; &ldquo;Fishing! Or Atleast getting ready to fish. We were uh.." It was then that Aske jumped in. " We were going to do some late night fishing together. We had meant to do it earlier but with how busy it's been prepping for the storm we just never found the time." Jorah sighed again (gods he had been doing that a lot lately). "So you decided to wrestle in a tent while Reides was supposed to be on watch." If his tone didn't display his displeasure, they could see it instead written on his face.  Aske at least looked sheepish but Reides was having none of that. "Come on Jorah, I just wanted to spend some time with Aske before the storm makes it impossible. Anyway you can join us if you're so twisted up about it." Jorah almost dismissed it out of hand before his eyes fell on the little oil lamp they were using to assemble the rod. "Uegh, fine. I'll stay for a bit and warm up a bit. Then I'm going to head back to my spot and you'd best do the same. Gods above Reides, what if the Kraken caught the two of you?" A flash of worry flitted over Aske&rsquo;s features before Reides waved off his concerns. "It will be fine Jorah. Stop worrying so much. Now get in here, you're letting the wind in." Grumbling, Jorah shook the rain off his cloak and stepped into the tent closing the door behind him. He then plopped down whilst raising his half frostbitten hands to the lamp. While he felt the heat slowly return to his fingers Reides and Aske happily chattered to each other as if he had never entered. It was then that another piece of the puzzle that was Jorah's mind fit into place.  As he watched Aske animatedly finish some story he had obviously started prior to their impromptu wrestling match, Jorah realized why his earlier rage was so sudden and strong. It was not just some misplaced sense of duty. It was also tainted by some Envy. He was aware that the two barely knew each other and yet there was a deep trust there between them. Beyond that it was a level of trust that Jorah wanted and was mad that he didn't have. Well probably not with Reides or Aske but with someone. "What about you Jorah?" He looked up from the lamp to see Aske staring at him. "Er, could you say that one more time?" "Well we've got the line out so all we can do now is wait. So we decided to swap stories and realized we've already shared the ones we know. So do you have any good ones?" "Er well there was that one time in the Detyrwood&hellip;" Reides quickly stopped him. "Nope I've already told that one.&rdquo; &ldquo;...I don't really have a ton of stories guys.&rdquo; Jorah replied.  Reides smiled "Well, you never did tell us about what made you leave Atemcester. You can't just leave us with some half story like "I had issues with the guards" there must have been more than that." Jorah groaned "It's a long story."  "C'mon Jorah," Aske chimed in "Would you rather be out there freezing or in here sharing a story. We promise not to share if it's too embarrassing." "We promise." Reides agreed, smiling.  "Gods what a choice. Fine, I guess I did promise to tell this eventually." Jorah readjusted himself with a grunt. "I was 18 at the time, still living with Julia of course. A friend of mine was going to be moving away and wanted to have one last little adventure before he left. So he went out and grabbed both me and another friend to play a prank on a particularly unpleasant merchant over on harborside. Well I say &lsquo;Merchant&rsquo; but I really mean scam artist wizard. He would run a storefront preying on people coming in on the big ships looking for magic shit. The stuff he sold was cheap and well advertised but it was all junk. Just a bunch of pretty sparks and noise to impress people who didn't know better.&rdquo; Aske then spoke up. &rdquo;Ah, one of those. How noble of you Jorah, getting back at someone who was exploiting clueless travelers. Which one was it?&rdquo; Jorah smiled awkwardly. &ldquo;Sorry but, no names in this story. Some of the things we did back then have fun things like fines and sentences attached to them if they were ever fully traced back to me. I think I've done enough paying for teenage Jorah&rsquo;s mistakes at this point. Moving back around to your first point, no such noble intentions were to be found amongst our little group of pranksters.&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, then what made you decide to mess with him?&rdquo; Reides said, puzzled. &ldquo;He would hire kids to man his store during the summer when the big rush of people would flow in and he would treat us like shit. The usual stuff, long hours of hard work with minimal payment. Didn't help that he was an asshole about it whenever he caught us slacking off. If memory serves correctly all three of us had worked for him at one point or another and we all hated him.&rdquo; Jorah paused in his retelling to take a drink from his flask. Looking up to see the understanding look on Aske&rsquo;s face and the interested (If rather more confused) look on Reides face, he continued. &ldquo;I was actually the last one to be included in this little conspiracy as they had to find me at whatever bar I was cleaning up at. Fuck, at this point even I don&rsquo;t remember what my weekly schedule was other than that I was running drinks for at least three different bars at the time. I mention that because by the time they found me they already had a plan. The ringleader, who I will call Tom for the sake of my sanity, was down by the docks with his parents and had seen the merchant in question bringing in a shipment of his usual junk. In particular Tom saw what looked like a whole crate of his &lsquo;Wand of Fireblast&rsquo;. Now, these &ldquo;wands&rdquo; were essentially sticks that could produce a bit of sparks and a bang. This got Tom thinking. What if we snuck in and set off a bunch of these wands in the middle of the night. We could even use the wands as a distraction while we got away. We all knew the layout of the store and we even knew that he never locked the storage. Tom just needed someone who knew a bit about magic tools and someone who could pick locks. No points for guessing which one I was.&rdquo; &ldquo;I would never have guessed you knew so much about magic that someone would come to you for help.&rdquo; Aske said with faux cheer. &ldquo;Very funny,&rdquo; Jorah deadpanned. &ldquo;Anyway as much as it pains me to say it, at the time I didn't see any issue at all with this plan. We ended up deciding to pull it off the night before Tom left with his parents for Cemouth. I had a late shift closing out a bar in Harborside that night so we would be starting pretty late. It all went pretty well initially. Nobody stopped us while we made our way to his store. I even got through the lock on the back door on my second attempt. It was one of those moments where the gods let the good things pile up so the inevitable collapse is funnier. It wasn't until Tom opened up the crate with the wands that things started to go wrong. Someone I once traveled with said it best I think. &ldquo;It's rarely what you know you don't know that sends a plan off its track. It's what you don't know you don&rsquo;t know that fucks you over.&rdquo; And ho boy did we not know a whole hell of a lot. The first sign that this was not going to go well was the sound of the upstairs door opening. I was the only one who heard it and it had me right confused. You see, we had thought the place would be deserted as the merchant had a fancy place downtown that he usually stayed at. As I would later find out, he had decided to sleep above his store while he was storing his latest batch of merchandise. The second major thing we didn't know was that while the door to his storeroom was unlocked, it was however warded. The second we opened the door, it woke him up. I had about ten seconds to try and process why I was hearing noises in a deserted house when the merchant noticed that the door was open and three figures were rooting around in his back room. He screamed some obscenity at us and threw an orb of light into the room. By some miracle of Alethus we had had the forethought to cover our faces so he didnt see who we were. This sent my more magically inclined friend, who I will be calling Jim for the sake of brevity, into a panic. He decided to set off one of the wands as a distraction. Being practically untrained he didn&rsquo;t just set off one, no instead he set off half the crate.&rdquo; Reides breath caught at this. &ldquo;Yeah, As it turns out, where a single wand may just be a flashy distraction, a baker's dozen acts more like breaking a lantern onto a pile of dry straw. About half the store-room went up in flames like that.&rdquo; Jorah then attempted to snap his fingers but failed several times before he got it right. &ldquo;What happened next?&rdquo; Reides asked, enraptured. &ldquo;Well it's not like we were going to stay and fight the fire so we all sprinted out the back door. We all split up and headed for different parts of town. Tom made for the Inn that his parents were at. Jim apparently slept in a drydock and never got caught. I however did not have the option of staying in Harborside. Julia was expecting me back and I didnt want her asking questions about why I was in the district with the break in all night. Or at least that's how I rationalized it at the time. In any case I made for the bridge into the city center. To the surprise of nobody except me, the Manawarden&rsquo;s had gotten word of the break in and stopped anybody coming from Harborside. I had ditched my mask and makeshift lock picks by then but they stopped me anyway. They had me locked up in the temporary cell at the bridge all night and well into the next day. Thankfully the owner had zero evidence I was involved and I had a great alibi as to why I was over in Harborside so late in the first place so they ended up letting me go. Not sure that was much of a mercy anyway as Julia came and picked me up. She could tell when I was lying and she ripped me a new one once she figured out I was involved. Gods I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever seen her that angry&rdquo; &ldquo;That's all well and good, but why did you leave Atemcester?&rdquo; Aske interrupted. &ldquo;Fine, fine, I'll finish. I may have gotten away with it, but the Manawardens were on my ass everywhere I went, just waiting for me to slip up. I spent another week before I was sick of it and pooled together my savings and paid my way as a deckhand to Hwen. All of my friends were either gone or were too busy and I just didn't see myself cleaning tables and taking care of the gremlins at the orphanage for the rest of my life. I had decided that I was going to be an adventurer not that that ended up happening for a long time. Ended up getting into a huge fight with Julia about that one as well. I spent a solid month on board the &lsquo;Merry Lyvernia&rsquo; before we reached Hwen and I left to go live my life.&rdquo; Jorah concluded lamely. &ldquo;Honestly, looking back it was just the straw that broke the donkey's back. It was just a massive case of the old teenage lust for freedom. I'm sure you both understand.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yeah teenage lust for freedom&hellip;&rdquo; Reides said sheepishly. Aske smiled and opened his mouth to say something before looking introspective for a moment and closing it again. The three then sat for a moment with the two humans warming their hands while the triton sat looking at the fire. Jorah could only wonder as to what the others were thinking of. Was Reides thinking of his own flight from his family? And what had silenced Aske so completely? No matter, it wasn't really Jorah&rsquo;s place to know. Jorah stood, checked his pocket watch, and wrapped his cloak around himself again. &ldquo;I'm going to go back to freezing my ass off and I suggest you two do the same. It's only another half hour till we get relieved and it would be best if we were actually doing our job and not getting handsy with our significant others.&rdquo; Jorah looked pointedly at that and Reides at least had the decency to look sheepish again. &ldquo;Aww c&rsquo;mon Jorah, at least stay while we pull in the fishing line.&rdquo; Reides pined. &ldquo;Who knows, we might need your help pulling it in.&rdquo; &ldquo;Sorry but no, I said I would stand watch so I will stand watch.&rdquo; And so Jorah stepped back out into the wind and rain. Alone again.