Chapter 1: Fear
Stay away from the sea.
My father would repeat that to me often. He always looked so terribly sad while saying so that I never argued. Never asked more questions. The most obvious one, of course, being why was he a fisherman if the sea was so terrible.
My father is one. A fisherman, that is. A great one, once upon a time, if the stories around town are to be believed. I never knew him as such. A mediocre fisherman and a mediocre father, that’s all he's ever been to me.
He’s barely able to put food on the table, not enough to feed me and certainly not enough to feed himself. He goes hungry often. Yet, he refuses to change. Refuses to let me help him. And so I’m stuck watching both him and my chances at a good life waste away.
If it weren’t for the rest of town, we would have starved long ago. Warebonear-By-The-Sea is a rocky, desolate place and the people living here reflect that. Oh sure, they have hopes and dreams and jobs. But their eyes are empty. I can see it. When I look at them, instead of anything I feel reflected back it’s just emptiness.
Emptiness, or pity. For a town nicknamed Wary, the people living there sure seem to throw themselves into helping my father and I. It makes me wonder what they seen in us, in our small life just outside the town itself. What makes them think that we are so desperate we need the help of every single one of them. What makes them think we need their pity. I want to scream every time I hear them take softer tones, speak to me as though I’m stupid. It’s a hard life for everyone. What makes me so much more desperate, so different?
I don’t know, and honestly I’m not sure I want to.
I pull my hood up and wrap a scarf around myself before I head into market. Besides keeping myself from freezing, it makes me feel better. Like if I’m hidden no one will recognize me, and I won’t have to deal with those looks. I won't have to deal with that emptiness.
The basket on my back is heavy, wrapped with bundles of nets and cloth, all items that were sent to me for repair. My work is much less expensive than anyone else’s, probably because I discount for every piece of help that’s offered to me. I can make it in Wary just like everyone else, and I’ll prove it.
My most important cargo is hanging in a bag by my waist. Combs and needles, hair pins and pendants-each created from bone or shell gifted to me to be carved. These items are infinitely more precious than the nets, and infinitely more fragile. It’s not work I get often, but when I do I make enough copper I feel the heavy weight ease of my shoulders for a time.
Beauty isn’t ranked very high in Wary, put aside for more practical things more often than not. It fills me with a certain sense of pride that the work I create, the flowers and animals I carve into each piece, are sought out. Even the small church on edge of town has commissioned me for small statues of Thalassa and Gaia. I never go to see them, not interested in praying to gods that care little for me, but they did bring me more business so I can’t complain.
I’m walking alone, as I often do. My father leaves before dawn to head out and fish. If effort equaled reward, we’d be rich. Instead, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. My father has called himself unlucky, and I’m inclined to agree. It’s a rare day that he’s able to get enough of a haul to feed us, let alone give the required tithe to the Vincani family.
Still, that’s what the market is for. Every week I walk the twenty minutes to town with whatever work I was given the previous week. Sometimes it’s a lot, and I know I’ll make enough for it to be worth it. Sometimes I’m forced to wonder why I even try.
This is a good week though, multiple families needing repairs and two carved bone combs. I’ll be able to feed myself until next week with the money, which is all I’m looking for.
As I crest the hill leading into Wary, I’m able to look down at the sea, boats floating on it looking small enough for me to pick them up. Somewhere down there my father is hauling in nets and traps. Resentment burns in my chest, fighting with yearning. I want to be out there with him, want to help. But he’d never allow me. He’d just repeat the same thing as always. Stay away from the sea. As though that’s easy, or even feasible, in a small fishing town like Wary.
I try to bury the resentment, as I have every time I’ve felt it before. It’s hard. I remind myself that he is doing his best, trying to protect me. It’s just that his best isn’t very good and every attempt to protect me seems to hurt me more.
From here I can also see the town. Market day means that instead of the town square being empty it’s full of people. Maybe fifteen or twenty, which is everybody living in Wary that’s not out fishing. The market itself will be full of the fish that were caught in the past week and of course the occasional extra vegetables that very few families are able to spare. I’ve tried to grow my own, both to sell and to eat. I have a black thumb though, and can’t seem to get anything to even sprout let alone grow large enough to eat. Rather than growing my own I prefer to forage when the weather allows, which is rarely. That means I spend more on food than I want too when winter comes and I can my gums ache and my hands start to shake.
I take a deep breath of mostly-fresh air before I head into Wary. The town’s air is always stagnant, stinking of fish and feces. With the cold air biting at my lungs and the salty scent of the sea, the breath isn’t nearly as refreshing as I’d hoped it would be. Nothing to be done about that, so I continue into town, hoping that today will be a good day.
