The seaman's tale

One late evening on "the Ruby", the last days had been quiet and the sea laid still. The men grew slowly bored and tried to compensate the missing adventures with rum. The hours getting long and coming closer to midnight one of the older men, with white hair and nearly no teeth started to tell a story:
Once there was a young adventurer, full of longing and wonder in his heart. He sets of to discover the world and it happens what has to happen. He falls in love, with the sea. In her he finds his one true love, endless and indomitable. Her love is unyielding and unforgiving, but her waves carry him around the world and never let him down.
He visited places so far away, that no other living soul ever laid eyes upon them, but his lover guides him further and further. For years it's just him and her. She lets him see islands floating in the sky, beaches made of pure gold, creatures living in her, blinking their eyes at him, as big as the eye of Abendego, but never hurting him, for that her protection was upon him.
But on one fateful day he came upon a city, exotic and vivid. This city was filled with people different from anything he has ever seen before. And it was in this city, that he lost his heart again. Every man knew without doubt, that she had to be the most beautiful women on the material plane. Even though only few have actually ever seen her. She had skin, as red as a ruby, curled horns and a singing voice, which made the gods behind the divine gate cry for her beauty, in a way that you could not decide if she rose up straight from the hells or the heavens.
She pulled the adventurer under her spell, and for her he left the sea behind to make this women his own, but his love should stay unreturned. He was stubborn and not ready to give up his love for a woman who could truly be his, so he stayed. He stayed for many years trying everything he could think of to charm her, the way she charmed him, but without any results.
One day desperate for her love, he declared his undying love for her was greater and more important than his own sword hand and he pulled out his sword and cut of his own right hand.
It was at this point, that some of the other men startet to protest, an old and grimy dwarf said:
My father told the story way better! He didn't ablate his own hand! It was a rival for the womens love! On this day he saw another men in front of her house bringing her presents and singing to her to win her affection and he called the man for a duel for her love. He fought brave and strong, but than the woman stepped out on her balcony to witness the fight for her heart. Distracted by her beauty his rival was able to take him by surprise and severed his right hand. It was in this moment that he lost the fight and the women forever.
At this moment another man spoke up, who stayed silent before:
Oh my, you have no idea what you are talking about, do you? It was not a rival or himself. It was her! His real true love: the sea. He realized his grave mistake and decided to go back to her, for she was the only one worthy of his love. But the sea was resentful and unforgiving as always and she took his hand as a retribution for his betrayal.
But in the end all men agreed on one thing:
In the end he went back to the sea, back to his love, who would never leave him, never let him drown, even though she could. He changed the name of his ship and his flag to never forget, the women, who was even more unattainable and out of reach than the sea herself. And so he swore an oath to the sea, that he would never leave her again, as long as he lived. Since then he circumnavigates the world again, never setting a foot again on solid ground. Just him and his true love, still alive, made immortal by the sea, so that they would never be separated again.