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Description

WARNING FOR LANGUAGE/CASUAL MISOGYNY:

---

When he was a child he had been afraid of the sea. Trips to the seaside--nominally a treat--consisted almost entirely of him playing in the sand, one eye fearfully turned towards the water, and inevitably were followed up by weeks of dreams in which an enormous grey-blue wall rose suddenly out of the ocean and swallowed him whole.

He could objectively trace the series of desperate decisions that had resulted in a little boy who got a trip to the seaside each summer becoming an old man who had no choice but to work on the water, but it was not a fond map to chart. He was a man who could never help but pick at his wounds, though, and in this one geography he was an expert cartographer, rising with the sun to stand on the strand with a pipe in his hand and a bottle already in his belly, pretending as though he was surveying the weather with an old salt’s expert eye when he was, in fact, retreading the awful paths that had led to this godforsaken reliance on the sea. Too late to undo them now. He’d once had to sever a knot in an old rope, and where the rope had frayed beyond usefulness the knot had been weathered by salt and rain and tar until it had become an intractable mass. Such, he thought, was his own course.

The sea was a woman, to other sailors: a lover, a mother, a bitch, depending on who you asked and when and how good their haul had been. This made sense. He had always been afraid of women, too.

These were men who boasted of their mastery of the sea. They had domesticated it, tamed it, and weathered its storms and emerged victors, and had miles of stories to tell for it. He did not tell stories, because he did not feel as though he--or any of these other stupid men--had mastered the sea. Working with the ocean was like working with a feral she-bear, he thought, who tolerated you as an intriguing novelty til the day she grew tired of your futile attempts to tame her, and took your head off before promptly forgetting you. Some might fool themselves into believing that their flimsy collars would keep them safe, but he knew better and lived with a constant sense of the danger heavy on his chest, his heart pounding each time he took a swell. His chest ached nowadays after every voyage, after every day on the water, the rigging between it and his ribs and the back of his head too taut and bringing pain. It was enough to make him think that perhaps his heart would give out before the bear would bite, but he knew better. In his heart of hearts he was afraid, but on his better days he was angry, instead.

One day that dream-wave would come, real and hard, and it would close over him. The old bitch always got what was hers, in the end, and whether he regretted it or not, he’d signed himself over to her.

---

I had a big struggle with how to do this prompt until I realized that it was because while my image of how Mariner fit in his previous life was clear, my image of Mariner himself was not so clear. I think this suits that--his face is obscured but the details of his life are here, and that is what he mostly recalls and what I mostly see clearly.

AP: 100 (neat!)
10 (shaded)
+20 (scenic bg)
+5 (full body)
+50 (origin prompt)
+5 (personal)
+10 (500 words)

GP: 27
4 (shaded)
+2 (full body)
+6 (scenic bg)
+10 (origin prompt)
+5 (500 words)

Description

WARNING FOR LANGUAGE/CASUAL MISOGYNY:

---

When he was a child he had been afraid of the sea. Trips to the seaside--nominally a treat--consisted almost entirely of him playing in the sand, one eye fearfully turned towards the water, and inevitably were followed up by weeks of dreams in which an enormous grey-blue wall rose suddenly out of the ocean and swallowed him whole.

He could objectively trace the series of desperate decisions that had resulted in a little boy who got a trip to the seaside each summer becoming an old man who had no choice but to work on the water, but it was not a fond map to chart. He was a man who could never help but pick at his wounds, though, and in this one geography he was an expert cartographer, rising with the sun to stand on the strand with a pipe in his hand and a bottle already in his belly, pretending as though he was surveying the weather with an old salt’s expert eye when he was, in fact, retreading the awful paths that had led to this godforsaken reliance on the sea. Too late to undo them now. He’d once had to sever a knot in an old rope, and where the rope had frayed beyond usefulness the knot had been weathered by salt and rain and tar until it had become an intractable mass. Such, he thought, was his own course.

The sea was a woman, to other sailors: a lover, a mother, a bitch, depending on who you asked and when and how good their haul had been. This made sense. He had always been afraid of women, too.

These were men who boasted of their mastery of the sea. They had domesticated it, tamed it, and weathered its storms and emerged victors, and had miles of stories to tell for it. He did not tell stories, because he did not feel as though he--or any of these other stupid men--had mastered the sea. Working with the ocean was like working with a feral she-bear, he thought, who tolerated you as an intriguing novelty til the day she grew tired of your futile attempts to tame her, and took your head off before promptly forgetting you. Some might fool themselves into believing that their flimsy collars would keep them safe, but he knew better and lived with a constant sense of the danger heavy on his chest, his heart pounding each time he took a swell. His chest ached nowadays after every voyage, after every day on the water, the rigging between it and his ribs and the back of his head too taut and bringing pain. It was enough to make him think that perhaps his heart would give out before the bear would bite, but he knew better. In his heart of hearts he was afraid, but on his better days he was angry, instead.

One day that dream-wave would come, real and hard, and it would close over him. The old bitch always got what was hers, in the end, and whether he regretted it or not, he’d signed himself over to her.

---

I had a big struggle with how to do this prompt until I realized that it was because while my image of how Mariner fit in his previous life was clear, my image of Mariner himself was not so clear. I think this suits that--his face is obscured but the details of his life are here, and that is what he mostly recalls and what I mostly see clearly.

AP: 100 (neat!)
10 (shaded)
+20 (scenic bg)
+5 (full body)
+50 (origin prompt)
+5 (personal)
+10 (500 words)

GP: 27
4 (shaded)
+2 (full body)
+6 (scenic bg)
+10 (origin prompt)
+5 (500 words)