Eric of Melatoninboner #1
It was a long night—as long as most others—and it was temperate, the Island in the Sea was neither brighter nor darker than allowed by the moon above, and on that island, in a manse of symmetric dimensions, slept Eric, whose skin was average for his race and whose face was curved in an ovular shape. His sleep was sound and deep, for at least an hour before bed he had a habit of retiring from busy company and sipping tea from the land of Öm; in those moments spent on the balcony basking in the pleasant night air, hearing the waves beat against the Island in the Sea, Eric reflected on his day then exhaled his regrets. In this way, no overbearing guilt accumulated in his consciousness, and life continued on.
He woke. He stretched. He yawned; there were no dreams to remember, only flitting recollections of colour or shape. He thought he may have dreamed of his lover, Clara, but then he thought that it was more likely he was merely imposing an order on his dreams after the fact, that what had really occurred was more or less only as meaningful as he believed it to be. Yet the thought stuck with him, as he dressed in a grey tunic of wool he realized that he missed her. It felt bad to miss Clara, who had left on a diplomatic mission to Ynnsbar to secure the trade of dragon-spice. He sighed. He stretched, this time touching his toes.
Breakfast was somewhat strained. Braggsdaligack, head huge and wrinkled, shot strange looks over Eric's scrambled eggs. Eric had always resented Braggsdaligack for his eccentricity; this was not a great hatred, but a tolerable sense of irritation. The old chief ruled the Island in the Sea by his whims, rather than through the seasonal traditions that had long ruled the isle's placid people. His enormous laugh filled the hall on most mornings; now, with Braggs all quiet, Eric missed his normally irritating laughter. The tension mounted all the way up to Eric's tongue where he held it fast. No, thought Eric, I will speak to him in private afterwards so as not to make a scene.
He found the chief in his chamber.
"Chief Braggsdaligack Morgangornstrum III" said Eric, who unfailingly pronounced complex names by practicing them between meetings, "I could not help but detect tension over breakfast. This made me feel somewhat stressed. I am telling you this because I have a habit of being honest with my feelings so as to purge potential animosity in my relations: if I have caused you any displeasure, let me know."
Eric was invited to sit on a chair decorated with the coloured feathers of rainbow larks, a piece in Braggsdaligack's collection of foreign upholstery. "Eric, Horsemaster of Wester-isle," said Braggs, for it is custom on the Island in the Sea to begin conversations by using formal names, "you are as perceptive as ever." He dabbed sweat on his forehead with a cloth. "It is Clara..."
"Clara..." and Eric looked up the rafters and wondered about her wellbeing.
"She sent me a letter and in it asked me not to tell you of the letter or of its contents."
"Yet you tell me anyway?" There was some tension between Eric's belief that requests for privacy be respected and his interest as to Clara's wellbeing. Moreover, they'd sworn no secrets between each other, that day on the arched bridges of Gluck, The Known City. Those were his favourite memories, and he wondered why his betrothed would keep secrets.
"I tell you because I feel you are like a nephew to me, and I owe much to your father."
"Father..." and Eric thought of his father, once lord of now lost Melatoninboner, and ached after his absence.
Braggsdaligack rose from his seat, the light of the window turning his considerable bulk into swathing shadow, and strode to a shelf filled with knick-knacks: the horns of strange animals, dolls dressed in foreign garb. "Clara," he muttered, as if reticent to speak too loudly, "has become a sorcerer's apprentice. She will not return."
First Eric looked to the ground: he picked a spot, that between two planks, and focused on it to steady himself. Then he took a deep breath, and looked at the strange objects in Braggsdaligack's room. He counted their many colours, yellows more brilliant than any on the Isle; reds as foreboding as blood; blues brilliant as greenest sea—he stood, and with one cry vented his mixed confusion and sadness:
"Sorcery!?"
Braggsdaligack put both hands awkwardly on Eric's arm, unsure how to console him. "She fulfilled her duty, you know. We've another three years of trade with Ynnsbar, and they will take our fish and our wist-wood for their dragon spice. Isn't that good news?"
Eric brushed off his chief, then apologized. "It is not that she has left me, it's that she told me nothing and is consorting with arcane and strange things, things of which I have no concept."
"She did not wish to hurt you."
"And it is thus that people are hurt the most."
It was three months he attended to his duties and oversaw the grooming of the horses, their exercise, and slept as he always had, as if nothing had changed. Of course this pleased Braggsdaligack, who in quiet conversation assumed that Eric must have a breaking point as all men, and was sure that that would be it.
And none notice that one night he took two teas from Öm, rather than one. He knew then that there within him was an unresolved fracture that would spread like cracks in porcelain, that would one day turn to great regret and shatter him into so many shards.
In secret, he prepared a ship to Ynnsbar.