[piosenniel]

Aboard The Sandpiper

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight . . .

‘Red sky – bodes well for us Mistress.’ Hamar had come up silently behind Piosenniel, his words echoing the old rhyme that ran in her head. ‘Indeed,’ she said, with a nod. Her gaze was taken by a far off pair of frigate birds. They moved gracefully through the air, effortless in their long glides. ‘I wonder if they ever land,’ she thought to herself. ‘I cannot say I have ever seen it so,’ she murmured to herself.

‘Begging your pardon,’ began Hamar, puzzled at her reference.

‘The birds,’ she said, her finger pointing at the faint blotches that skimmed the air, far off. ‘I have never seen one land. They seem to live on the wind.’ Pio laughed at his perplexed expression. ‘No need to answer, Hamar, just doing a little wool-gathering this fair evening.’

She turned from the railing and sat down in a chair nearby, bidding him to do so also. ‘We should be sailing past the Havens of Umbar late tonight , I think,’ Hamar commented as he settled himself against the chair’s back. Pio poured them each a small cup of wine from the flagon on low crate between them. ‘And meet with Faragaer and The Gull late in the afternoon of the following day,’ continued Pio. ‘With any luck, he will have met with one of his trading groups and found some news for us.’ ‘That and a way for you to get in country,’ nodded Hamar, ‘to where you can pick up the trail for Mithadan and Airefalas.’

The conversation fell to desultory observations on the trip south – how the crew was faring, supplies gone through . . . ordinary, day to day things of a ship’s running. Hamar, his wine finished, took his leave to check on the watch for the night.

Pio poured herself another cup of wine and pulled her chair closer to the rail, parking her long legs comfortably on the middle length of thick rope. The sun was just inching down into the waters at the world’s rim, and she knew if she looked behind her the moon would be fat in the darkening sky. Her thoughts wandered, back to voyages made some time ago along this coastline. A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes as a familiar face loomed up and then adjusted itself, growing younger in the remembrance.

Bird’s face . . . twenty-five years ago . . . the same wry smile lurking on the then stranger’s face as on the one of more recent memory . . .