Recollections of the Water

I am four years old, though I can scarce remember it. My mother walks me through one of our ships, at the dock, while most of the crew is off. She shows me the masts, the sails, the sheets, the hold. This is a ship, she tells me, it is on these that we have built ourselves. We are Rassics, and for as long as we have been Rassics, we have made our way on the water. It is what we have chosen, what we continue to choose. We have a role, and she chooses to fulfill it, as did her mother, and her mother’s father, all the way back to the tumult, to Kohl Rassic. We choose to do this, because we are Rassics, and a Rassic has the sea in their blood. In time, she says, so will you.

I am five years old, and my mother has taken me out to sea. One of our tartanes, captained by my uncle Gailan, bringing cloth and flour to a port by the eastern mountains. The trip takes a week each way, which my mother can scarcely spare away from Sutet despite her best delegations, but she wishes to show me the ship in action. She shows me how to test the wind, how to tack against unfavorable weather, how to watch the depth and read a chart. I am a quiet and serious child, and I watch dutifully, taking it all in. She supervises the unloading, when we arrive, and the loading up of ore to return home. This is how a Rassic makes their way, she tells me, we bring a thing from a place where it is to a place where it is not, to where people need it. We traverse an interconnected web of docks and ports, of currents and winds, of roads and rivers and oceans, of carts and ships and fleets bringing the world's needs together. We are not the whole of the thing, but our contribution is essential. She looks so proud when she says it.

I am six years old, and my mother takes me to one of our shipyards. She shows me a great trading ship being built, for the long run to Vokt and back, countless men and women bringing wood and nails and glue and a tect other things that combine to make a whole. She shows me smaller vessels as well, for our shipyard is big, and for nearly an hour, I watch a foreman demonstrate how to caulk a ship with a mallet, a chisel, and a long strand of loose cotton fiber. It's fascinating to watch, though I can tell the man is humoring my mother by slowing his work to explain it. I ask if he will sail the ship when he is done, and he tells me that he will not. The ship will cure for a month, to let the glue set over the caulk, and then be tested in the harbor before its first voyage, but he will not be on it. His place is here, caulking the ships, and seeing that they are properly assembled, and when he is done with this one, he will begin another. When we leave, my mother explains their relationship to me. These people work for us, she tells me. They give us their labor, and in return, we take care of them. We see that they are paid, that they are housed, that their needs are met and that their lives are full. A Rassic worker has a good life, long, and stable, and is cared for as they age or grow infirm, and their children do not want. This is the duty we owe them for their labor. The relation may not be fully equal, she says, but it works as it must for everyone involved, to keep that great web of commerce running. If any part of the web were stripped away, the whole thing would fall apart. This is our great work, this is what the Rassics do. We connect the world to itself.

I am seven years old, and I sit with my mother and father in our home. I'm telling them that though they have instilled and me a love of the sea, I have no desire to rule it. I wish to study magic, I wish to study what makes the world work, what brings the world together. I can tell that my mother is disappointed, and I tell her that I'm sorry, but it is only then at my apology that she scolds me. You are a Rassic, she says, and a Rassic never apologizes for how they choose to live. My sister is there, Texsel, two years younger than I, and already the very image of our mother. In the cheeks, and the eyes, and the fur, and the soul. She will make a far better heir for my mother than I could have. We are too unalike; I am my father's daughter, though I do not know the latter of that yet. My mother tells me that she will arrange for a tutor in the arcane, the best that she can provide for me. I am a smart child, gifted with focus and memory, and so I shall divide my efforts, she tells me. I shall study what I need to be a mage, and I shall study what I need to run the company, in the event that I change my mind. But should I prove to have an aptitude for the magic, then I will make the most of it, she tells me. I am a Rassic, and the Rassics do nothing by half measures. The next day, she takes me to meet the man who would prepare me for my eventual calling, and I acquaint myself with his household staff, and with his granddaughter Maritam, who welcomes the chance for a new friend. I will have much to learn and much to do, but I will not shirk the doing.

I am nect years old. My mother has taken me out to sea, on one of our yachts. We are out for three days, the harbor of Sutet barely a dot on the horizon. She teaches me the ropes, and the sails, and the ties, and the winds. She drills into me, in those days, how to work a ship. We feed ourselves on fish that we catch, and fill the time with lessons and conversation. I think it is then that I truly begin to understand my mother. She believes that our company is necessary for the world to work, that the work we do is essential to sustain the modern world. That is why she has made that company her life, why my sister will make the company her life, why it is so important that we know what we're doing at every level of the operation. We are not the only junction in the web of commerce and diplomacy that sustains our society, she tells me, but all have parts in it. We are important, because we do important things for everyone. She has a seriousness about her, more so than her usual businesslike attitude, and I listen carefully to all that she says, and answer the questions she puts to me. She wants to know me better, I think, to truly understand my choice to abandon the great work. I try to be forthright, and she listens to me, more than I see her listen to most. That I want to see the whole of the thing, to understand its workings, not just maintain my corner of it. She understands me, though it takes her time to do it. It is on this trip that she fully accepts that I will not inherit, but my mother is a Rassic, and a Rassic does not beg off a task before it is done.

I am twect years old. My father and I are taking a riverboat up to Kitet, to observe our branch offices there, and to see the city where I hope to be educated. I get along with my father, in a way that I perhaps don't with my mother. He's a silly old man, warm and caring and quick with a joke, and endlessly curious, endlessly inventive. I watch the working boat on the way up, captained by a distant cousin, and see a new harbor accept us. The city is grand, and my father shows me about, teaches me how to flag a carriage and order food, how to navigate the streets and enjoy the night. It feels strange, to be so far from the ocean, the scent of smoke and soil and bustling life instead of the salt tinge of the sea. I begin to doubt whether I can really live here, but my father is reassuring. I am a Rassic, he reminds me, and if there is one thing that he has learned about us in the time that he has been married to my mother, it is that we have the will to make the world accommodate us. I will manage, and I will thrive, and I could scarcely do any less if I tried.

I am fitect years old. My tutor, the old Metric, is in our home, taking dinner. He is telling my mother and father about my acumen, that I possess an extraordinary aptitude for the magic. He has taught me much, and I have taken a shine to it, and he will be delighted to recommend me for admission to the Academy at Kitet. My mother is pleased, at this. She is accepted that I will be a mage, but I don't think that she could accept mediocrity. I am a Rassic, she tells me once again, and that means that I will excel. I will do the work for which I'm suitable, the work that I have chosen to do, and I will do it in the best and most pleasing way I can. I will have every advantage that she can give me, and I will take that advantage, because I am a Rassic, and we do not accept less than everything.

I am sitect years old. I'm out on the water again, in a tiny keelboat, because I can never truly leave the water behind, not really. It is late spring, and in only a month, I will set off for my education, to become who I am supposed to be. Maritam is on the boat with me, and as we have so often of late, we are spending the time engrossed in one another. She's staying behind, to work with her grandfather, the Metric. His company has much to do, and she has her place in it, the work that she has chosen and wants to do. It will be long years before we can see each other again, in all likelihood, and she wants to make the most of the time that we have together. So do I, really. I'm going to miss her when I'm gone, my constant companion for nearly an ectad, my first love to the extent that those our age can love. If I were another version of myself, looking to lead another life than what I seek, we'd likely be married in few short years. But in this world, we have barely a month, and we are going to make the most of it. When I leave my hometown, not for the first or last time but for the most permanent, I do not want to leave anything unsaid, or undone. I am a Rassic, after all, and a Rassic leaves no room in their mind for ghosts. I will not regret the choice that I have made, I will commit myself fully to it, and I will not leave myself room to second-guess. The waves rock us, the water in the air dampens our fur, and we cling to one another, for the time that we still have.

I am twoct seven years old. It is the mid-autumn, and I have been graduated, my metrical received and approved. I've recovered from the granting of my crestwork, and I will begin to teach in the spring. It is decided, and it is signed, and it will happen. I have the life that I've sought, or will, once I begin. I am who I want to be. But I have a few months yet before that begins, and I elect to do something with them. I go down to the waterfront, with a trunk of clothing and effects, and hire on to one of our ships there as a deckhand, under an assumed name. I do not think the captain is a relation, the company is too big for us to staff it all with the family. We load up meats and eggs and wood from the harbor, and sail all that down to Sutet. I work the deck, run the sheets, and take my pay for the trip when we arrive, but I'm far from satisfied. The captain writes me a letter, and with that in my hand, I hire on to a galleon gearing up for an ocean voyage. This captain is a relation, a fourth cousin, but she does not recognize me either, though of course it’s been more than an ectad since I saw Sutet, saw the water. It feels nostalgic, but no less familiar for the years. We sail up and around the western coast, carrying dry goods bound for Vokt. It's two months, there and back, two months of cleaning and sailing, of running sheets and checking cargo, of close quarters and mediocre fare. Two months of games of dice and cards with the sailors, of salted pork and hard bread and casks of rum and water and a little lime to keep us steady and of good cheer, of a comraderie I did not often find. Two months of a secretive, educational affair with the woman working as lookout on the masthead, of furtive fumblings down in the hold when we're both off watch, and once or twice in the nest when I bring her lunch. The work is hard, but not so hard that I cannot do it. We return to Sutet laden with cured fish and wool and cheese, exports from Vokt prized in the Empire for the remoteness of their origin, and I take my pay and my leave when we arrive. I use that coin to rent a cabin on a riverboat back to Kitet, and return with only a couple of weeks to spare before my classes begin. It was a satisfying diversion, to live at sea, and I feel as though I have completed something important, as though I owed it to myself to see firsthand the life I was leaving behind. If I had any lingering doubts, though, they are put to rest when I step back on the streets of Kitet. I am a Rassic, as my mother so often told me, and we commit ourselves fully to what we choose to be. I suppose I just needed to be reminded.

I am throct years old. I am throct two years old. I am throct four, throct five, throct seven. I feel the years pass, working in Kitet, and I am fulfilled, but I have not forgotten my origin. Once a year, most years, I make the trip down to Sutet in the break between terms. I see my family briefly, I smell the salt in the air, I eat a fresh caught ocean fish, and I borrow a small boat to sail up the coast for a day or two. I am satisfied with the life that I've chosen, and I do not miss what might have been, but neither do I forget. I remind myself, out on the water, that I am a Rassic, even if I have taken my father's name. We come from the water, and we find our way back out to the water, eventually. We always must. The sea is in our blood, and for all my cosmopolitan comfort in the splendor of the capitol, I do still feel a need to return from time to time.

I am foct two years old, soon to be foct three. I am working on a ship of my own, though not one to sail on any sea, and life has grown complicated, political. I receive word that my former mentor and teacher, the old Metric, has died. Young, to pass, though many of his generation bear the scars of the plague in their lungs and heart. I take a carriage down to Sutet, and bring my assistant with me, for in this part of my life she is still only my assistant. We work on the way, refining our designs, toying with enchantment, and stop just before the city to see it from the hill. She comes from the water too, a fishing village on the northern coast, but she's never been this far south. She has never seen a city that was not Kitet, and for all the majesty of the capitol, there is an earnestness to Sutet that jumps out to her. I can only laugh at she marvels at the streets, the waterways, the differences here. I grew up a Rassic, of course, and we have been in Sutet since there was a Sutet worth being in. I could find the waterfront blindfolded, if I had to. I find a room for her at the family manor, we have many to spare, and leave her there when I go to the funeral. She did not know the man, she has little place there among the mourners. I meet Maritam again at the reception, and we speak, we talk about the lives that we have found. Somehow, we'd never quite run into each other the few times I've come back home. We take the time to remember each other's touch, as one does at funerals. There is a sadness to her that wasn't there when we were young, but a pride, as well. She's doing well, her business thriving, a friend to my sister and her wife, her daughter very close to my nieces. Life goes on, without me, as it always must.

The next day, Maritam and I go out again in a small boat. Beyond the harbor, into open ocean, to catch fish and lay together in the sun. It is a chance to speak at length, a chance to be back on the water and back with each other, like we had before I left. A chance to pretend, even briefly, that we do not feel that distance between us. I don't know it yet, but this is the last time I'll ever float on the oceans of my world. The last time I'll ever smell our salt, feel the spray of our surf on my fur. It is the last time I will ever see Maritam, as well, though we did not know that yet either. There is a mournful quality to our time out there, as though we are trying to recapture something we had both long since lost, but I think we both have a better sense of ourselves when we return to land. I am a Rassic, and I live the life that I choose to live in the way that I choose to live it. Wherever I go, no matter how I wander, I make my place in the world to my fullest ability. I make no excuse, and no apology, and I do not allow myself to look back. If I ever begin to forget, the sea will remind me.