It's a sort of a game, though there's a serious aspect to it as well. The Rays converge to take the focus and give it to the ocean. While we're all in one place, it's also a chance to talk and exchange news. We're not a family the way a Tiderider mother ship is, so it's not often we see each other.
How do you know a Ray when you meet one? Is there a particular greeting they use?
Not a special greeting, exactly, but Ocean Friends have phrases that can identify ourselves to each other during a conversation.
Are all the other Friends also Rays?
No. Anyone who loves the ocean can be his friend, but a Ray has to be able to travel freely, which excludes anyone tethered to a family ship. That's why Rays are mostly men. Women who are close to the mast can't just sail off on non-family business. Not that it's so easy for a man either, since auxiliary boats are property of the bloodline. He has to be a sailor in good standing, with no current duties, to be able to request an aux for a personal errand.
That doesn't seem like it should be so difficult.
Oh, being a good sailor is easy. It's the part about not having current duties that happens so rarely. That may be the most important qualification for being a Ray.
Well, now I'm curious. Suppose you had someone who was a Ray who suddenly started going after the focus all the time. How would you get him to stop?
The Rays have no system for removing members, if that's what you're asking. What would probably happen is that other Rays would figure out that one of them is misusing his time, and stop sharing information with him. He'd have no choice but to get back to his assigned duties, and any further discipline for shirking would be the responsibility of the Tiderider family he's sailing with. But that kind of situation hasn't come up.
You mean recently? Or ever in the history of the Ocean's Friends?
I do mean ever. The Rays are looking for the focus, remember, as an effigy of the corrupted mindset causing fear and apathy toward the ocean. Someone who would place the hunt over the safety of his mother ship on the ocean has a corrupted mindset already and probably doesn't consider himself an Ocean Friend.
If they can't just go off and look for the focus, how are they able to find it?
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