A Ship Called Surprise Pt. 01

My first month at sea was hell, not that I was expecting anything different. There's a reason you never hear stories about how brilliant never touching the ground is.

I wrote a diary entry when I was feeling poetic, saying "The shuddering of the Surprise is matched only by the shuddering of my shoulders as I heave the contents of my stomach overboard", and immediately threw up on that too. So the diary went overboard with the rest.

The weather? Rain and hail pummel the ship for days at a time, and just when you think it might never stop, the sun tears through the clouds and scorches the moisture from everything except Seamus' greasy hair. Lunch has been stewed carrots and beetroot for 4 months, so you can decide what you think about that.

The crew, on the other hand, is actually pretty swell (I've been brushing up on my sea puns). Gilligan was tossed out of his house in the middle of the night, in a similar fashion to me, so naturally, we're best friends.

Believe it or not, this wasn't the dream young Zahara had for her life. My father sold me off for a barrel of whiskey and one tuna one humid night when he was in a mood, can't say I'm surprised. Well, I thought I was worth at least 3 tunas, but otherwise, I'm not particularly surprised at the turn of events.

They say women are bad luck on ships and typically get thrown over, but the Surprise takes help wherever it can get it. The ratio is 5 women, 8 men, Captain Vance, and his three-legged dog Fredrick.

"Zaza, what are you staring at?" Gill always seems to find me when I'm deep in thought and staring off into space.

"Oh shit, nothing, I was just really deep in thought, writing my life story in my head again y'know." I'm not ashamed of how theatrical I can be, even privately.

A smirk crept onto Gill's weathered face.

"Is that so? Are you sure you aren't thinking about Arielle's supple skin in the moonlight? Do you think her freckles look like stars in the inky night sky?"

Goddammit. Gill read my diary before it got ruined, which I beat his ass for, but not hard enough to get rid of the memories of what he read. My eyes narrow and Gill frolics away giggling like some kind of manic cupid.

Despite my continuing affairs with the Surprise's engineer Malekai, a stoic, gentle giant type, he doesn't have my heart. My lust? Absolutely. My love? That's blossoming in a different flower bed entirely.

Arielle is the most magnificent creature I've ever seen. Her waist-length red hair billows out behind her as she stands navigating the stars, like s trail of flames that never dies. Her stormy eyes could turn men to stone and melt a lover like butter in her white, rough palms. She's ethereal. And she likes me back.

Physically, we're opposites. She's tall and ghostly pale, chiselled and severe. My body has the curves of a mountain range and my skin is the lighter shade of a tiger's eye gemstone, as Arielle would later come to describe it. When our eyes meet, it's as though fire and ice are dancing a dangerous, secret dance. I literally dream about having her hands tangled in my hair every other night. When I'm not dreaming of land of course.

Before, after three weeks on board, I started getting looks from her. I'd catch her giving me the side-eye in the kitchen, stealing glances at me during crew meetings, and once or twice I caught her full-on staring at me, and when we locked eyes she was so shocked she nearly choked on her wine.

After that, I became totally fascinated by her. I would sneak scribbles under her door, sketches of seagulls and riddles for her to solve. She seemed like the type to enjoy a challenge, something we share, but I didn't think she'd actually return them.

The same night I heard a scratching and rustling on the deck, a long shadow by the door, and saw the folded and yellowing paper slide through the crack beneath the weathered cedar. She drew a petrel and answered my riddles in scrawls of spidery letters.

That's when I started falling for her. I smiled into the swaying darkness, Gill snoring aggressively 4 feet from me in his hammock.

The ship was separated into all the usual parts, but lucky us, there were two different cabins for the crew. Captain Vance gave up his cabin in favour of sleeping under the stars on the bow. He'd set up a cosy hammock, and this way if his dog Fredrick got seasick again, he could just lean over the rail.

There's me in one cabin with Gill, Sam, Seamus, Amaarah, Soren, and Finn. Then, down the corridor, there's Arielle with Benji, Calypso, Malekai, and Rosie. So all I had to do to get to Arielle was shuffle down the corridor in the dark, and avoid detection by the entire crew.

The back and forth of letters, riddles, and sketches went on for days, and each night the ritual was the same. I slipped a note in her satchel full of mysteries she always carried, she would return it under the door full of answers.

Every night I learned something new about her, and vice-versa. She was an orphan on another Continent, Aestraya, and her saving grace from a life of misery was Captain Guerlain, a stern but hearty woman with her own ship and a soft spot for Arielle. Goodbye to the freezing land of Aestraya, hello to the wild and windy rest of the world.

She walked by her one day in an alleyway and allegedly told her to "Just come on then", and a confused seven-year-old Arielle silently obliged, what else was she going to do? And that's how she ended up loving the sea more than she could love any human being.

This would've discouraged most people, but you can't reason with someone who's already smitten. I told her about my father, and my dreams of becoming a dancer and an actor in my previous life, and she drew me a picture of two ravens in the midst of an acrobatic mating dance. Real subtle.

Every night was like this, but not tonight. Tonight marks the eighth night, and tensions are high on The Surprise.

"I told you I bloody gave them to Sam! Why would I keep a hold of your "good socks" Torren, to wear? They smell like a festering oyster!"

Sam was in charge of washing that day, which included Torren's prized pair of socks, the only pair without holes. This was apparently worth starting a fight over. A fight which, apparently, none of the amused and smirking onlookers was willing to put down their knitting to intervene in.

"Gilligan Lang, you're a scumbag and I don't respect ye. But I swear if ye took me socks I'll throttle ye and there'll be nothing left to disrespect."

I sighed exasperated and looked over at Gill, who looked back completely incredulous. Gill has a bad track record, but why the hell would he steal socks? He doesn't even wear shoes! I really wasn't looking to get caught in the middle of a fistfight in the claustrophobic cabin.

"Torren, I know this is important to you. But let's take a second to remember that Gill here doesn't ever wear shoes, he doesn't wear socks, he barely even wears a shirt. Are you seeing why this doesn't make sense?"

Torren apparently was in a worse mood than usual and was determined to take his hangover out on the nearest bystander. I went to grab Cap Vance from the bow, he's really quite a gentle soul, but physically he could probably throw a horse.

I rounded the corner humming a song I vaguely remember from childhood, something about a ladybug. Why are they called ladybugs anyway? It's not like they're all --

My train of thought was smacked away suddenly when I speed-walked, hard and fast, and looking really angry because of how hard I was thinking about ladybugs, into Arielle.

"Ari! I mean, Arielle, I'm so sorry I'm just on the way to fetch Cap, there's a scuffle, Torren's throwing a hissy fit because someone did laundry I guess."

Arielle's flustered expression and awkward body language softened when she realized my aggression wasn't directed at her, and a chuckle crept up on her. "Torren was bitching about his socks for about an hour this morning, he's seriously lost it. It's not our fault he doesn't remember throwing his stuff on the washing pile when he's black-out."

I laugh and shake my head. She looked at me for a long time just then, the navigator, searching for answers in my freckles and the flecks in my irises. I looked back, and without even thinking, I stepped forward and reached my hand out to hers.

Just then, I felt an electricity that I'd never felt before. I was the thrashing ocean, touched by purple lightning bolts, illuminated in the blackness of the night. My hand slid further up her arm and I could feel her goosebumps and the hair standing on end. We couldn't tear our eyes away from one another.

Her eyes were filled with a mix of tenderness and desire, echoed by the way her lips parted slightly as she brought her hand to my waist. I wondered what she saw in mine. What I felt inside was a desperation, a hunger to taste her, a drive to devour her right then and there.

She stepped closer, looking down at me, her salty smell consuming me.

"What the fuck is going on?! You lot are testing my patience, I swear this is the last time-"

This bellowing was coming from the bow, in the voice of a furious Captain. Somebody had evidently called him while I was distracted, which, while for the best, caused Ari and me to jerk away from each other, bringing me to trip over a rogue stool lying on its side.

"Ari, I-"

But she was already sprinting towards the bow, leaving me on my ass in the corridor.