The Great War: Chapter 18
Making a new friend
The ocean water is stained brown with clumps of soil and fragments of obliterated homes as the Island Destroyer passes by the wreckage of the once-island. With a heavy heart, Mathew leans on the ship’s railing and stares down at the waters below.
“The feeling’ll pass,” Lorn comments next to him, the redhead from the cannon hold.
“What feeling?” Mathew asks.
“It’s all over your face,” Lorn chuckles. “The guilt. These islands are only small and unnecessary. Hardly even mapped half the time.”
Still, Mathew lets out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t come to plunder and pillage. I came to fight.”
“I’m sure many want to be on the front line, mate. Though if all of us went there, who’d man the ships?” Lorn tugs at his vest and flashes Mathew a smile. “I’m grateful to be given a role to play in this war. You should, too.”
Lorn has a point. Mathew had to apply to have a chance to help in the war effort. Still, he feels like he belongs with his sword in hand cutting through those witches rather than spending his cycles blowing up small, inconsequential, unmapped islands.
“What got ye to enlist?” Lorn asks, his brown eyes wide with curiosity.
“Felt like it,” Mathew replies curtly.
The sailor laughs at his answer. “Sounds like it’s more than that!” Mathew simply laces his fingers together and refuses to elaborate. He doesn’t want to think about his family right now.
“And why’re ye here, mate?” he asks Lorn instead.
“Felt like it,” Lorn replies smugly, then shakes his head and adds, “My ma put me up to this.”
Hm, Mathew hums, a pang of sadness stabbing at his heart as his thoughts stray to his own mother and her bright smile as she sits by his side by the ocean and waves her hands before her, weaving together long sparkling streams of ice crystals in the air for his viewing pleasure…
“You have a father?” Mathew asks.
“Oh, sure I did,” Lorn replies with a forced chuckle. “Didn’t like ‘im much.”
“Somethin’ happen to him?”
“He left.”
A moment of silence passes between the two, allowing Mathew’s mind to run wild. Did Lorn’s parents split? Was his father a witch and left for Korodon? Or was he executed instead?
“Don’t miss ‘im much,” Lorn speaks up again. “Was a decent cook, but that’s about all I liked about ‘im. How about yours?”
Mathew presses his lips together. How much should he say about himself to this semi-stranger?
“Nothin’ too special. Father went sailing, mother kept me fed.”
“Any siblings?”
Mathew decides to shake his head. As far as he’s concerned, his siblings don’t even exist. “Nah.”
Lorn only shrugs in response, and the two return to staring at the ocean. They still haven’t left the view of the once-island’s stain on the beautiful waves of the cycle as the cool salty breeze flows over the deck.
“Ain’t you cold?” Lorn inquires. Mathew turns to the sailor and looks him up and down. Long pants made of thick leather, long cotton shirt sleeves, a leather vest and cloth wraps around his forearms. Compared to Mathew’s thin cloth pants and short sleeved shirt, Lorn is rather wrapped up.
“Guessing you’re sensitive?” Mathew just laughs.
“Just want to keep warm, mate,” Lorn replies with a small smile. He begins to step away from the railing. “Going to see if I can be of use below deck. Come with?”
“Aye, mate,” Mathew says, stepping away from the railing as well. He really shouldn’t have been standing around as long as he has been. Might as well put himself to use than mulling over a island that now no longer exists.