"You've got spirit, I'll give you that much', the Captain laughed. He opened his mouth to let escape the guffaw that had been building in his belly. It was not captain like to laugh so, but the child had caused such tension on the ship that the emotion he usually shoved deep in his gut had been fermenting like the second mates home brew and could not help but belch from the airlock of his oesophegal tract. There was a faint taste of seagulls and salt in his mouth and he reminded himself to brush his teeth this week.
'You can't kill it!' Esme's legs were cycling mid air. He had hooked her from her britches to the bowsprit and the bities were gnashing the water below. 'The King will be furious!'
'The King?' the Captain roared. 'That infantile, idiotic, ignorant, ignoble, inept, incompetent IGNORAMUS?'
'He's not a fan', the quartermaster whispered to the boatswain. Last week he had sworn for ten minutes about the royal command for all ships to give up the chase for the gargantuan sea creature, using adjectival phrases largely beginning with 's', including self-aggrandizing, which was a new one for the quartermaster, necessitating a peep at Johnson's dictionary. It was true. The King did have a tendency to big note his achievements. No doubt if they did kill the Captains equivalent of the white whale, the King would claim he held the harpoon.
'But..' The stitches of Esme's britches were beginning to pop. 'Captain, if you kill the Umibozu, we will all die! Please!' She had not stowed away on the Captains ship for a year, vandalising the weapons of sea monster destruction and putting laxatives in the crews gruel, to die now. The Umibozu needed her, and they all needed the Umibozu. She had to make him see.
The Captain's impressive crimson and snow peppered moustache gloomed over his black-as-the-ace-of-spades beard. It was a beard that demanded authority, so it was no suprise he had risen so quickly up the salt splattered ranks of the New Kingdom's armada. He has used his new power and might to hunt the Umibozu since it was first sighted off the coast of Japan, when that island had fallen into the sea in the Great Storm of '46. It was not the only landmass to disappear after the quakes and tsunamis of that year. Much of the islands in Indonesia also were lost, and the Captains family, who were at home in the Maldives, were never heard from them again. He still had nightmares of returning to the islands, only to see endless, infinite sea, his home underwater like the fabled Atlantis. Death to the Umibozu it was. The high waters were already here - hell was right behind.
'He will never relent' the boatswain whispered the quartermaster. 'But our lives depend on it'.
The quartermaster nodded. He had seen it with his own eyes, the Umibozu moving through the radioactive waters of the Pacific, and the Geiger counter no longer showing readings in it's wake, the incessant cicada like code of it's alarm silenced as the great creature passed. With each flushing of water through it's great gills, it rid the ocean of toxic waste, from subatomic particles to plastics that mimicked jellyfish, absorbing them into it's being. Rusting containers, plastic ducks, billions of water bottles, prophylactics, giant thongs, abandoned yachts, all disappeared.
Yet the Japanese had named it for a terrifying creature from their mythology, a sea spirit that appears to sailors on calm seas that have turned tempestuous and tumultuous, as the ocean did that day of the Great Quake. It was a name that invoked fear and loathing. Who else to blame for the death of thousands, the nuclear power stations spilling waste into already ailing seas? But this new monster untrapped from the deep wasn't humanoid like it's namesake, but rather whale like, although a blue whale to it would be like a flea beside an elephant. Still, the name and reputation stuck. The Armada of the New Kingdom had been chasing it for many years, and it became the scapewhale of all the world's manmade problems. The Kingdom had launched a media campaign against it that ensured global support, both psychological and financial, and funneled all angst and sea military might into hunting it.
The Captain would not be swayed against it, despite having his doubts about the King's ability to make wise decisions.
'Save that murdering, malingering, malignant, malicious, malformed MONSTER?' the Captain alliterated, as he always did when he was angry, furious, enraged or all three. 'That mother - '
But suddenly the water swirled and rose, the ship moving with it. As if on queue, summoned by Esme's pleading for it's life, the beast moved through the water to reveal itself, a gargantuan and magnificent miracle birthed from tragedy to save a dying ocean. Iridescent scales laced it's sea black flesh, twinkling in the afternoon sunshine. Great birds whirled in it's wake, albatrosses and eagles, gannetts and puffins, pelagic birds that were rarely seen anymore due to the overfishing that had turned the world's waters into wastelands. Huge shoals of fish swirled in happy eddies by it's flanks, chased by playful dolphins long thought extinct. Great manta rays flapped their underwater wings gracefully by it's expansive nose. Seals and walruses blubbered by and a family of humpback whales breached behind, dwarfed by the Umibozu's colossal tail.
'See?' cried Esme, her tears joining the salty fray beneath her as the world-saver gracefully slid by, protecting an entire ecosystem of crustaceans, mammals, fish and birds as it went.
For once the Captain was lost for words. Kneeling on the deck his lips were moving but no adjectives were forthcoming. It was as if the white whale he had been chasing was but a dream. Here was God, and more besides. His family seemed small sacrifice - indeed, they honoured the Umibozu with their deaths.
The quartermaster had never seen the man so paralysed, so moved, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder with deep respect and affection. He stood between the man and the rest of the awed crew, hiding the Captain's rather unmanly tears. The Captain still had a job to do, after all. Together with Esme, the quartermaster saw with diamond clarity, they would spend the rest of their days following the greatest sea creature that had ever lived, sworn to protect it as it brought the world's oceans back to joyful life.
This is a response to the Ink Well prompt 'spirit'. The images are created on Adobe Express and use images from Unsplash to creat the collage
With Love,
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