Forty-eight days.
Finn O'Malley meticulously marked another notch on the small piece of driftwood he kept hidden in his sea chest.
Forty-eight days since the world had ended and begun anew, since the familiar stars of Earth had been replaced by alien constellations, since the Aeternus had become a living, breathing, terrifying marvel.
He was Finn O'Malley, Yeoman to Navigator Valeria Chen, his System role Logkeeper & Cartographic Assistant.
He was seventeen, or had been, before the de-aging had stolen a year or two, leaving him feeling perpetually on the cusp of manhood, yet still a boy in so many ways.
He missed home. He missed it with an ache so profound it sometimes stole his breath.
He missed the smell of peat smoke from his village in County Clare, the taste of his mother's soda bread, the sound of his father's fiddle playing in the evenings.
He missed the green hills, the crashing waves of the Atlantic (the real Atlantic), the easy camaraderie of his friends, the shy smiles of the girls from the next village over.
This new world, this Sea of Ten-Fold Shadows, was a place of wonders and horrors, of constant danger and bewildering change. But it wasn't home. And Finn, more than anything, yearned for home.
His duties kept him busy, mostly.
He assisted Valeria Chen in the charthouse, meticulously copying her complex navigational calculations, updating the ship's log with their course, their encounters, their dwindling supplies.
He was good at it.
His handwriting was neat, his attention to detail sharp. Valeria, though demanding, was a fair taskmaster, and he had learned much from her, his own understanding of celestial navigation and cartography growing with each passing day.
His System skills, 'Eidetic Memory' and 'Spatial Triangulation,' made him surprisingly adept at his work.
But in the quiet moments, in the long, dark watches of the alien night, the homesickness would creep in, a cold, insidious tide.
He would lie in his hammock, listening to the creak of the ship's timbers, the sigh of the wind in the living sails, and he would close his eyes and try to remember the faces of his family, the sound of their voices.
But the memories were starting to fade, to blur, like old photographs left out in the sun.
The core image for this chapter: a distant smudge on the horizon that might be land. It was a hope so fragile, so tentative, it was almost painful to acknowledge.
They had survived the Whispering Reefs, barely. The battle with the Reef Rats had been terrifying, but also… exhilarating.
Finn had played his part, relaying messages, tracking damage reports, even helping Sister Amaris in the infirmary when the casualties started to mount.
He had seen courage, and fear, and sacrifice. He had felt, for the first time, like a true member of the crew, not just a boy tagging along.
But the reefs had taken their toll. They had resupplied, yes.
The strange fungi and crystals they had gathered had, with Cookie's reluctant experimentation and Nythara's guidance, been turned into something resembling edible food.
The ship's sails, nurtured by Marisol with the elemental energies of the reefs, seemed stronger, more vibrant. But they had also lost men.
Not just the three who had chosen to leave, but two more, killed in the pirate attack, their bodies now committed to the alien deep.
The mood on board was a strange mixture of exhaustion, relief, and a new, grim determination.
They were heading towards Caer Danu, their last, best hope for a true sanctuary, a place to rest, to repair, to plan their next move in this insane, cosmic chess game.
Nythara had estimated another week's sail, perhaps less if the currents were favorable.
It was during the dawn watch, a few days after leaving the Whispering Reefs, that it happened.
Finn was on the foredeck, ostensibly swabbing the planks, but mostly just staring out at the endless, dark ocean, his thoughts, as usual, drifting back to Ireland.
The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, the alien sun painting the clouds in hues of bruised purple and blood orange.
"Land ho!" The cry came from the crow's nest, sharp, sudden, electrifying. It was young Billy, one of the other cabin boys, his voice cracking with excitement.
Finn's head snapped up. His heart leaped into his throat. Land? Could it be? After all this time, after all this endless, empty ocean?
He scrambled to the rail, his eyes straining, searching the horizon. And there it was. A smudge.
A faint, dark line against the lightening sky, so distant, so indistinct, it could have been a cloud, a trick of the light, a figment of his desperate imagination. But it was there. It had a shape, a solidity that the shifting clouds lacked.
Others were gathering now, their faces a mixture of hope and disbelief.
Captain Mallory was on the quarterdeck, his spyglass trained on the distant smudge. Valeria Chen stood beside him, her expression unreadable.
Nythara was there too, her storm-grey eyes fixed on the horizon, a faint, enigmatic smile playing on her lips.
"Navigator?" Captain Mallory's voice was carefully neutral. "What do you make of it?"
Valeria lowered her own spyglass. "It is… consistent with Nythara's projections for the coastal regions leading towards the archipelago where Caer Danu is located, Captain. But it is still too distant to be certain. It could be a large island, a peninsula… or merely a particularly persistent bank of fog."
But Finn knew. He felt it in his bones, in the sudden, wild surge of hope that threatened to overwhelm him.
It was land. Real, solid land.
A place where they could walk without the deck swaying beneath their feet. A place where, perhaps, there were trees, and grass, and fresh water that didn't taste of the ship's desalinators.
He thought of his home, of the rugged cliffs of Moher, of the green fields stretching down to the sea.
This wouldn't be Ireland, he knew that. This would be alien land, perhaps as dangerous and terrifying as the alien sea.
But it was land. And for a boy who had grown up with his feet firmly planted on the good earth, that meant everything.
His past life, the one that seemed so distant now, had been defined by that connection to the land.
He wasn't a sailor by nature, not like some of the older hands on the Aeternus.
He had joined the merchant marine out of a sense of adventure, a desire to see the world beyond his small village, to earn money to send back to his family.
He had been good at it, quick to learn, eager to please. But his heart had always remained in the green fields of Clare.
He remembered the day he left home. His mother had wept, pressing a small, worn wooden cross into his hand.
His father had clapped him on the shoulder, his eyes suspiciously bright, and told him to be a good lad, to make them proud.
His younger sister, Siobhan, had clung to him, begging him not to go. He had promised them all he would return, laden with stories and riches.
He had sailed on cargo ships to distant, exotic ports of Lisbon, Marseilles, and Alexandria.
He had seen wonders, yes. But with every new shore, the longing for his own had grown stronger.
His likability was that of an innocent, a dreamer, his homesickness a relatable human emotion that resonated with many on board, even if they didn't voice it as openly.
Now, staring at that distant smudge on the horizon, a new, fierce hope bloomed in Finn's chest.
Maybe, just maybe, this new world wasn't all endless ocean and terrifying monsters.
Maybe there were places here where a person could put down roots, could build a life, could find something resembling… home.
He knew it was a foolish thought, a boy's dream.
Caer Danu, if they even reached it, was a city of pirates and smugglers, not a place for quiet contemplation or pastoral living. And beyond Caer Danu… who knew what horrors, what challenges, awaited them?
But still. Land. The word itself was a prayer, a promise.
As the Aeternus sailed closer, the smudge on the horizon began to take on a more definite shape. It was indeed land.
A long, dark coastline, rising in jagged cliffs from the sea. There were no signs of settlement, no welcoming lights, just the raw, untamed beauty of an alien shore. But it was undeniably, gloriously, land.
A cheer went up from the crew, a spontaneous outburst of relief and joy that even Salty Thorne didn't try to quell.
Men and women clapped each other on the back, their faces alight with a hope that had been absent for too long. Even Captain Mallory allowed himself a rare, tight smile.
Finn felt tears pricking his eyes, and he didn't bother to wipe them away. He looked at the approaching coastline, and for the first time in forty-eight days, he felt a flicker of something other than fear, or despair, or homesickness.
He felt… anticipation. A sense of a new beginning, perhaps. A chance to step onto solid ground, to feel the earth beneath his feet, to breathe air that didn't taste of salt and fear.
He knew it wouldn't be easy. He knew there would be new dangers, new challenges. But as he looked at that distant, alien shore, Finn O'Malley, the boy from County Clare, felt a surge of courage, a determination to face whatever this new world threw at him.
He was a long way from home. But perhaps, just perhaps, he was also on his way to finding a new one.