sooner or later there will be a community for me to put this in, instead

[distractionary]

D —

I miss you. Your face, your hands. This ship treads the ocean without pause and I do not know how to mark the days – they are only your absence, the lack of your presence, the silence where your words are not. In every port I find new trinkets that beg your attention; in every rest period there is wood in my hands that I might carve for you another gift, or a shark's jaw to decorate. I have yet to decide if ink or carving will best suit it, but the ink I have used to date will not bleed more deeply into the bone.





D —

Today, Corolanthus jumped into the harbor and broke his arm. I did try to stop him, but he wouldn't listen when I said there were rocks.





D —

I think two weeks have passed since I last saw you. I have missed you in every moment, although I cannot be perfectly honest in saying that you have never left my thoughts. Storms have passed us on the sea, and some of Her Majesty's Navy don't have the grace or sense that Water gave a clownfish, as evidenced by the fact that Corolanthus has been moping around with a broken arm since his impetuous and ill-advised foray into the harbor. Oddly enough, he didn't believe us when we told him that fjords looked like that because there were lots of sharp rocks. At least the shark resulting from the incident left us well-fed, and I have a jaw for you.

Corolanthus has attempted to argue with me, through the haze of his painkillers, that as he was the bait for the shark, he should be the one given the chance to gift you – he will be completely unable to decorate it, however, and I put him back in his hammock and commenced work again. I will not tell you my methods, as I want your gift to be a surprise.

Long has it been since I have tread the waves, but I feel alone in remembering how well a port will fascinate with its trinkets – all of those new to the navy have packed their trunks full of clothing for all weather, of pictures to remind them of home (still carefully framed), of careful methods passed down from their grandmother's generation at least to treat an abundance of sun or wind. They have left themselves no spaces for souvenirs, no room to pack the gifts they would wish to pass along to their loved ones back home. I am making a very small mint in renting out space in my locker, for now, to those who have run out of their own. Eventually I will insist they remove the clothing they have never worn and the remedies they have never used that are redundant besides – there is a berth on this ship full of supplies in case of accidents, as with Corolanthus, and the sun does not trouble a sailor as much as it seems they would think, besides.

I had dreams about you, last night, and your hands and your mouth as you crept into my bedchamber in the city. I am afraid to sleep, now, as there are others in my berth on the ship, and I do not want them to hear me cry out your name in my sleep. You deserve greater respect than that from them.





D —

I love the seas and oceans, and I miss you. Maybe when this tour is over, in another year, we can take your yacht to Dalartas once again.





D —

I used to think that I was good at writing letters to you. Now, I feel I am not. There are gifts for you I have amassed, and I will have them shipped to you soon – we will be in port a few days from my writing, and maybe this letter will accompany your gifts. I have tried writing, from time to time, nearly every day in fact – the words that once served me so well do not serve me any longer. I wish to speak of my love and desire for you, and I do not know how to speak of such things in letters. Every time I try, my words twist away from me.

I hope that the cooler weather agrees with you, and that there is still plenty of shark in the capital. We eat well, while on tour, but the tastes are very strange to us. We will be in Atlantis next week, and have already been informed that the consulate is going to host a party for us, welcoming us to that port. Perhaps there will be shark there, or at least something that we can eat and enjoy the tastes of home, the gifts of our cousins.

These letters have long since turned meaningless. I give up.

— C