Prelude :

As Much Of A Beginning

as Anything Else

"Give me the beginning.

Give me back to the beginning.

I want it to remember me, even though I have forgotten it."

My fingers are grazing along the edge of the ship.

I am taking my hand on a walk, as per Spirit's request. The wood of this ship is coarse and frayed, yet it refuses to splinter me no matter that I have begun dragging this hand as I quicken my steps. I pause to look down at the waves and I think how this wood and that water have become an example of lovers, though not the kind I want to be. I wonder if the water feels bitter to be known vast and wide, though never deep. Perhaps the wood feels bitter about that, too.

The last time I visited with Spirit she asked how long it had been since my poor hands had been on a stroll. "They need walking too, you know," she said to me. I gestured around the two of us then, "Well you and I are on a walk right now, so I s'pose these hands are getting their stroll in." In a beat she turned to face me, pulled my right palm to her mouth and blew out. My hand looked like a too-big spider on her face as she puffed her breath into my hand. In response to my frown and lazy hand, she dropped her hold and said through a sluggish smile, "These are not the hands of a great lover, not yet." I could tell she was getting sleepy again, so I led us back the way we came.

Sometimes I can't tell if I don't understand her because I'm so new, or because there's actually not anything to be understood.

But now my right hand is on a stroll on the edge of the ship. I guess because this hand, at least, remembers what Spirit said and would like to be a great lover someday. Perhaps a daring lover, even, with the way it's guiding me toward plank. I’m not even sure why we have a plank on this ship, the women here seem like they’d more use it as a diving board than anything. My bare feet slow their pace to trail behind my hand, and I’m being led down the stairs from Quarter deck to Main deck, back towards where I started this walk. My hand continues on its way around ship and I am wondering where the beginning must be. The beginning of it all. And if I'll ever find it. If the beginning would just let me take hold of it, it would know the feeling of being something precious and tiny in my palms under a dark nothing and I would sweet talk it into telling me the secret of conception.

The wood under my fingers is wrinkled and rough and strong. So wrinkled this wood. As wrinkled as that old woman. Why would we ever think of wrinkled things as soft or useless. Who ever decided that? So much doesn't make sense here. The wrinkles that are grooves in this wood are making sure I know that it has weathered these waters many times and always kept afloat. The wrinkles of waves in these waters are coaxing this massive boat towards some ever-longing arrival that I still need to ask about.

Right hand grips the railing along the stairs up to Fore deck and urges my legs to pass her up. Once they do she loosens her grip along the rail, and I find my body gliding into sultry steps as it drags my blushing right hand. How coy. I look down at my left fingers and acknowledge the tiny engraving of wrinkles there, which are the writings of identity for this body. These wrinkles a code that I share with every woman on this ship. And the wrinkles of that old woman- old women? So many faces. All those old women whose faces and hearts were more like crumpled sandpaper than anything withered. Buleghhh. I shivered at the thought of those old women and Right hand contracted too, finding its step back in line with my body. Weathered absolutely, those women, but not withered. Who were all these old women. "I've got to remember to ask about them," I mumbled aloud as I indulged in my ever-present urge to spin. Round and round and round, Right hand still leading as she twists the air around me, step turning step turning step.

And there. Here, Right hand landing at my own finish line. "I will go dancing into my ending," I mumbled again. I am back at the stern, in my starting place. In my ending place. Staring at my hand that has idly started moving from side to side, side to side. Ending beginning, ending beginning. You can always find them next to each other, Ending and Beginning. You can always go back and forth between them, back and forth, just like my hand over this nailed-in threshold where one piece of wood meets the other.

Beginnings and Endings always make something round.

And that is why one half of the story is always running parallel to the other half of the story, even in its roundness. My hand had taken me on a walk around the ship from beginning through end, linear. But had I just cut through deck from port to starboard, I would've jumped through time to a different part of the story. And if I kept jumping back and forth like that all over the deck with a string of silver something behind me I could spin a gossamer web. I bet Ralu would love to see a gossamer web like that from up above.

Whenever I wanted I could just stop my web spinning, and pull on that string until it led me all the way back to the beginning, which is always right next to its ending.

Seeing them together like this, Beginning and Ending, with my right fingers still moving back and forth between them, I wonder why we ever separated them. I wonder if it was ever important to give them name. Why it was ever important to try and speak of things at all, anyway, and that the Sky must love being so quiet up there with nothing ever trapping her into being anything specific, not even language to try-

"Atlas."

"Mmhh-"

In an exhale I was slurped from my own stupor and came to see that twilight was fading into morning. Not even Morning would think of itself as simple as a Beginning, and I s'pose a nocturnal thing like myself wouldn't either. I sighed a pitiful sound as I turned to find Kimyona standing behind me several feet away. Her expression was austere but kind, as any would hope for in a ship captain they'd wished for in a dream. I'd come to learn that while Yona was steadfast, she was not like the concrete of a pillar, nor solid earth beneath bare feet. She was more like a spine. Something of being proud, but not prideful. I don't know how to say it beautiful yet- the words have all been so much too soon- but I loved this way of her. When I am more than a few weeks old I will talk of Captain Kimyona Kotori in a dignified way.

"Kotori! Ohayooo!"

"Goodmorning to you, too, Atlas. I can see you've been up for a while, now. Shadow found you."

Her eyes swept from my face down to my feet, and as my eyes followed I realized why she was standing so far away from me. You could call it polite that Kimyona was mindful not to step on Shadow, but it's been made clear that the women on this ship fully regard Shadow as a woman as real as any other. I have come to acknowledger her in this way as well, for though she does not speak with voice, she's plenty mouthy with her body language.

"Oh, blasted shit. I haven't gotten used to that yet. How's Sky doing?"

Yona breathed out a small laugh, "She's fine, she's just been walking round in an oval for a couple hours. You can look to see through her eyes, you know."

"Eughhhll." Me, groaning, which I've been doing a lot of since arriving here. "I know. I'm still getting used to everything, I wasn't expecting to be here for a couple more linear years."

At this, Yona came to stand next to me at the helm, poised with her hands behind her back as I was slumped forward on my forearms. Morning was being shy with its light through thin mist. It had a slateness to it. Felt like the conversation we were about to have was somehow important to the morning too, and it wanted to listen in. Even the wrinkled waves were trying not to disturb the scene we were being set in together. I decided this kind was my favorite; an eavesdropping Morning.

"So, where did you go" Yona spoke casually.

"Uhnh? When?" I could feel my eyes needing their sleep.

"Just a bit ago. In your mind. Sorry to pull you out, I hate when people don't allow me come back on my own. But I've got to start getting Sky ready for her day."

"Oh. Right." I paused for a moment trying to pinpoint what was even worth mentioning from all of that midnight musing. I assumed I’d get the same answers as all the times I've asked before, but I tried again anyway- "I was just thinking of the beginning."

Yona side-eyed me with a gentle knowing smirk.

"I justttttt wanna know how it started, Yona, why won't anyone tell me?"

She was softly smiling now. "Have you asked Spirit for the story?"

"Yes, and every time I ask she just looks at me through her sleepy eye slits and says 'You haven't tugged enough to find the beginning, yet. Tend to your ropes, Atlas.'" Annoyance was in my voice, and I slumped my chin into my hands for support. "Why can't one of you guys just tell me?"

"Well none of us know, for one. And for two, Spirit's right, your ropes have hardly been tended to."

I dropped my face and turned to look at her, "What do you mean none of you know?"

"None of us know the story of the beginning."

In this moment I could feel the jetlag of my birth. Arrival can be jarring anywhere you find it, but particularly when you're early. Though early is only relevant if your following the story from beginning to end without jumping your gossamer web about and-

"To my knowledge, the only one who has ever come close to knowing is Comet, but even she won't push Spirit until she is ready to share that story." Yona said, clearly taking note of the exhaustion on my face, too.

"I just don't understand how we know are headed home if we don't know where we are from." I said.

She looked at me so gentle then. I could be safe to sleep under that kind of gaze.

"Home and From are not the same."

I grabbed the ledge and pulled back, letting my head sink all the way down between my arms as I closed my eyes, pulled and stretched. Yona placed her her hand firmly on the small of my back and lightly shook me just a little. She waited a moment before speaking again.

"I need to get Sky moving through her day- Shadow, will you please accompany me?"

I opened my eyes to see the black blob below me take shape at this request and I couldn't help but notice the rather detached position she'd been laying in, in contrast to my stance above her. Shadow stepped from the floor of my feet to the floor of Kimyona's, playfully finding a matched rhythm as they turned to walk toward Main. "You need to start sleeping, Atlas. We will speak of beginnings, and home, and ropes later, but for now you need to rest."

“Ahhh, I will rest and then we will speak of those things in that order! Deal, Captain?" I said it perky as I stood to watch her go, and Yona gave me a dismissive smirk and side wave as her and Shadow made their way down the steps. Feeling Shadow's weight move off of me was such a relief. It would've been more appropriate to have named her Silhouette considering how heavy she is. I don't know how I didn't notice her step to me earlier, my head must've been so far away. I wonder why she even accompanied me during that time of night, Sky must not have slept much if I was the one in light.

I breathed in my new weightlessness, yawned, stretchedddd back, and my eyes trailed up main mast to crow's nest so high above. And there she was, as she always is.

Eyes as bright as an emblazoned pear, hiding half her face behind her basket. I've never needed to see the whole thing to know she wants a bite outta what she's looking at. There is always a hairline crack in her eyes when they're like this. Glaring back at her, emotionless, I stayed right where I was wanting to make a show of boredom.

With a quickness she seemed to simmer out and her eyes faded to a soft green of soil as the hunger fled from her face. She grabbed the line above her and jumped up to a crouch at the ledge of her seat. She looked at me with a moment of indifference and looked away toward Morning.

I let a sharp gaze linger for a moment knowing she could sense it. Took a couple steps toward Main before dropping my eyes to the scene before me. The reality of everyone stirring about made me stop in my steps.

There were so many stories that I needed to learn from them all. So many.

I sighed.

A long sigh. I made my way as invisibly as I could through the decks down to my room.

I was groaning and muttering about nothing in particular as I fell back into my little cubby.

I will learn their stories. For now I have a long sleep to tend to.