Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

“Aye,” said Marisa. “I have seen your face in my own dreams. Felt your eye searching . . . and heard you calling out with deeper questions to match my own.”

“Were you given answers?”

“Little more than you,” said Marisa. “But enough to know that you are favored among the light. A wounded one, broken by the horrors of this world . . . and yet still seeking for wholeness.”

“Are we not all of us seeking for such?” Watawa asked.

“One would hope so, would they not?” Marisa asked ruefully. “Have you brought the boy’s father?”

Watawa squirmed under her stare. “How am I to know who this boy’s father is? I have never seen his likeness before. Not even in my dreams.”

“No,” said Marisa. “But you know that my words are true. As does he.” She looked to the dark water just beyond the boat’s edge, the waves still choppy and shielding all that swam beneath.

“It seems to me that you are gifted greater sight than that granted unto me, Silkie,” said Watawa. “What need have you to bring me into this poor boy’s affair?”

“Because as broken as you deem yourself to be, Open Shell, you are still among the favored few to rise against the darkness.” Marisa smiled when Watawa sagged beneath her claim. “I wished to meet with you, if only for a scattered moment in time. Oft times the purest in heart are such disbelievers in themselves that they will not recognize the truth of their own light. Much as you sense the light in the others, I have found it helps to hear such goodness as those others see it in us also. Aye, if only that we might take the tender seed of encouragement and see it nurtured for all those other times of dark and doubt.”

His shoulders straightening, Watawa clenched a fist and held it against his breast. “You honor me . . . and yet I do not know your name to thank you for such kindness.”

“Nor do you need to know my name for your gratefulness to carry, Open Shell,” said Marisa. “Your actions in venturing above to serve all those beneath who cannot ascend speaks far greater to your worth than any humble words of thanks would do.”

Watawa nodded, then looked away from her and back to Allambee instead. “What then for this boy? If you mean for us to move him, I have my doubts it be in his interests.”

To Chidi’s mind, Allambee’s pain seemed to ease once more as Marisa stroked his brow over and again to remove the sweat beads.

“No,” Marisa continued in answer to Watawa. “What lies beneath the Salt is this boy’s greatest interest. Say rather, his meeting of the one who waits for him there.”

Watawa looked on Allambee once more. “From the tales I have already heard below of his stand against the Orcs, this is no mere boy. This one here is a born warrior.” He glanced at Chidi next. “An aumakua by all accounts. One who has shown great honor to his people and his father.”

“Then let us help them to finally meet,” said Marisa, moving to take hold of a tarp end they had lain Allambee upon. “Aye, that his father and his people might sing his praises and his name.”

As Watawa moved to take up another end, Allambee winced and groaned at the movement.

“Stop!” Chidi cried out. “You’re hurting him.”

“A little pain for a greater purpose,” said Marisa, continuing to keep her hold of the tarp end.

When Watawa also refused to drop his end, Chidi looked to Bryant for aid. With his sigh, she took it as a signal he was of two minds about the situation.

Marisa ended any debate by speaking to him before Chidi could. “What would you do, David Bryant? What offering made? What pain endured, if the chance were given you to meet the child you lost? To hold that child in your arms . . . aye, if you could but glimpse their face for a few precious moments?”

That’s not fair. Chidi thought when seeing Bryant’s mind made up even before he too reached for another of the tarp ends. You’re using his pain against him.

“Bryant,” she said. “You don’t have to do this . . .”

“I do, Chidi,” he said. “And you ought to as well, ‘specially with all the times you heard this boy talk about his destiny and meeting his daddy. If Allambee’s gonna die today, we can at least help him to see that one wish through.”

Chidi’s muscles tensed at that, her vision blurring even as she found herself reaching for the tarp end at her feet to help the others in sharing the load. Pulling the tarp taut, they acted as one to lift and then maneuver Allambee’s body as gently as could be allowed to the furthest reaches of the boat. When Chidi stepped to its edge, she looked upon the silvery, shadowed tails and forms of all those swimming below in wait.

Chidi gasped when their fingers broke the surface. A dozen hands slowly rose to accept the one offered to them. And when the transferring came, Allambee passed from those upon the boat to all those awaiting below, Chidi gazed upon the face of her fallen friend once more. She prepared herself to say goodbye, all of her experiences both ashore and beneath the Salt warning that she would never again see the face of Allambee Omondi in the above again.

The tarp teased away beneath her grip.

Chidi refused to let go.

Allambee’s eyes fluttered open at the last, finding her gaze among all the rest gathered on the boat. His hand reached for her, closing on her wrist. “Chidi . . .” he said, his voice barely audible among the Salted chop and the wind whistling off the watery surface. “Chidi . . .”

“I’m here,” Chidi wept, kneeling to kiss his hand. “I’m right here.”

Allambee’s grip relented his claim of her. “Stay . . .” he whispered. “Stay with