Simon was twenty and a day with a thick mop of blonde hair that he would trim just high enough to stay clear of his amber eyes. His face was small-mouthed and rail-thin, yet he seemed larger than life on that boat. His mentor Henry had given him command of his very own ship and the men aboard her. He seemed her 'Falcon's rest' for the nest he had found at the top of the mast.
'The Seeker' drifted from port just in front of them, with another support ship not far behind. Simon hadn't seen the 'Sacrifice '; she had been sent out a month prior to dig out a furrow for the other ships to pass through. The shallow sea is known for its high sea floors so close to the surface that a man could stand with only his ankles getting wet without an island in sight. Most of the islands were uninhabited, but if the words of Tharin Estrid were to be believed, the inhabited ones are what you should worry about.
Weeks of nothing but eastward blowing wind followed. For days they would row in shifts with hoisted sails. On the fifth week of the expedition, an island came to sight. Dense with forest and smoke bellowing from the mountain at its centre.
"Steer as far from the islands as you can", Simon yelled to the helmsman from his place on the rows.
"Captain, I can see the 'Sacrifice'!" the lookout yelled after some time.
Simon stood, shaking the ache from his arms and snatching a spyglass from a sailor. Three men walked, shirtless and with britches pulled up past their knees from the island. At least sixty more were digging in the sand bank. The sight of the ships stopped their work, and their cheers carried across the water. Though that was the last thing Simon remembered, a fever burned through him so violently all he could do was sleep and vomit.
Demons danced about his dark room, spreading fire with each movement of their distorted bodies. Black and blacker they pranced, and hotter his head got. Every noise around him seemed muffled, yet their laughter throbbed inside his mind no matter how he screamed or plugged his ears. Each demon seemed taller than the tallest of The Seekers' masts and smaller than any sailor amongst them. Rows of teeth filled their mouths one moment and the next they were bare. It would take a month to wake from this stupor.
Simon shot up out of bed, a damp cloth slapping onto his lap. The boat gently rocked as he struggled to stand. A single island, half submerged in water, sat in the water. At some point during the fever, his men had brought him aboard The Seeker to be tended to by the ship's doctor. The east-blowing winds still stopped the boats from making any real progress.
The next few weeks blurred together. The only changes he could see were the facial hair of him and his men and the slowly expanding sea. The whole time they had passed through the shattered isles, the support ships would have to escort The Seeker through a narrow, winding path with crystal-clear waters, but now the waters grew deeper in depth and colour.
Colourful rocks and fish littered the sea floor, and both sharks and dolphins swam along the surface as the Falcon's rest sliced through the water like a knife. One of the men was a young Eriun and would dive down with nothing but a three-pronged spear and a bag. He would dive for thrice as long as the rest and come up with bountiful harvests of pink crabs with small claws, tiny creatures with the face of a horse, a yellow and blue snake creature that writhed in the bag and a beautiful emerald-clad shrimp. White spots speckled its underbelly with crimson outlines along every piece of its armour plating. Its pink bulbous eyes squinted at Simon before snapping its hand forward and splitting his fingernail in half.
Days and more passed without a moment of rest on the oars, yet no land came into view. A single gull flew over the ships in a long circle two weeks after collecting the crew of Sacrifice. Her stomach was white and her beak yellow. Simon rushed up the masthead where the falcons had built a thatch nest long ago. His eyes ached and burned as he stared out to the setting sun, a small speck silhouetted by yellow sat miles in front of them.