A blip on a vast patch of shifting blue. That was the ferry to the strait from a bird's eye.
On such a blip of a ferry, Anaphol enjoyed his perfectly sizzled tortilla-olive steak. It truly melted in his mouth in between the teeth.
"Chef Gusti," Naph gulped down another bite. "You truly know your stuff!" He let the steak unravel itself on his tongue as his mouth readjusted the pieces inside it for better enjoyment.
Chef Gusti bowed slightly, "I am honored, sir." The man's pride didn't let him not to be humble. His height may showcase the pride it held, but it was his stature that marked his words across.
Naph felt the sentimentality, thus he took his plate while affirmatively suggesting Gusti is an excellent cook but he wishes to watch the sea more.
He may have cracked under all his façade. Yet he needed to be together in it for the choices he had made.
"For Extea." Thrusting another bite into his hungry mouth as he wandered on the lower deck one hand holding on his plate, the other on to his tortilla, and his eyes and feet finding the seat best suited for viewing and engaging different people.
He wanted to be busy, not alone. Not today, not after his last eight hours.
Naph attempted a tune he had learned by mimicking people in The Outro Restro, as he chewed the dish. 'Anything works,' he comforted the thoughts under the realizations that awaited him.
The tune seldom went high, its melody only remembered within. A facsimile played on his tongue.
He found a new seat in the long restaurant of the lower deck. "That is a really long restaurant," another bite into the mouth.
His energy and peppiness returned bit by bit.
Settling on it, he glanced sideways. A multitude of people were sitting all around him.
Naph let his eyes wander away. Letting the passengers think of the boy as a first time passenger, which he was.
His need of putting in a partial façade hid under a cloak of truth that he carried through his life's experiences.
"The light shimmers weirdly on the sea." Naph let the comment hang.
A passenger looked up from their book they engrossed themselves in while snacking on a light oily chips and sauce. "Hmm, you are a first timer?" The young adult asked as he also looked out in the same direction as Naph.
Naph nodded, he was rather enjoying the shimmering of sun's reflection in the wider patch of the sea. "I wonder why it shimmers so?"
The young adult put his book down and his left hand went to the brown unkempt hair. Massaging through it, his right picked up another chip dipping it into the light red chilli sauce, "How old are you?"
Naph took a snip of his steak while the other tortilla rolls rested crisply. "Does it matter?"
"Not to me, but it does help in explaining the effect." Young adult boy picked up another chip from his bowl of chips. "So?"
Naph raised his shoulders for a split second in defiance of the willingness to answer. His eyes went away into the front visible of the sea from where he was on the lower deck.
The young adult let a stifled laugh become an exhale. Continuing his book reading he didn't engage further with the boy.
The boy however, considered the words his mind reminded him most today.
Message of Extea delivered by Shrik. While he wasn't sure the long haired guy's name truly was Shrik, Naph didn't believe it was.
His mind recalled word for word Extea's message.
"Leave the kingdom and cross the ocean. Think of it as another caestre, you have to survive. For Sevenren and for Bulwark."
He didn't mutter this, nor let his mouth piece it together word by word purely through lip movements.
'Why and what kingdom is already answered by Shrik. But why was Extea sure that Kingdom of Streno will be able to get Sevenren under itself?' Chewing through another small steak bit, he considered a thought trail.
"Hey, kid." A voice cut in Naph's thoughts.
He gazed to his right, a man in his thirties held onto a newspaper. "Uh, did you happen to know of what's the current news on the continent? I didn't get out of the ferry since its last rotation from Groinlo, Southern Regda to Rentilaco. I just want to know what I just read is true to the streets too."
The man looked legit perplexed at the news he might have read. Naph rolled over the thoughts in his mind and answered, "As for how much I know, Rentilaco is sending an army to Sevenren and Anapahol, as the name said by the announcer, is dead. I saw the march of a platoon in the central divide."
That was where Naph had lost most of his pursuers in Rentilaco. The street shared its name with the street that ran all the way across Rentilaco to Sevenren and to other few territories on Sevenren's eastern front.
The man's gaze felt a bit hollow on getting his confirmation, "thank you. Thank you. Uh, how's that dish you eating? I think I'll like to order one."
"Oh this?" Naph held up the tortilla-olive steak from today's chef's special. "It is perfect. Melts in my mouth while I chew taking my time with the tortilla and its sauces. The olive scent is just perfect!"
He gave a thumbs up.
The man nodded to the review, standing up he walked away to one of the counters of the restaurant.
While he gave that review of a delicious dish, his mind kept a log of his thought's trail on Extea's message.
He hadn't had time to process it.
But a few things were odd in the message.
And Naph considered, 'why didn't Extea himself came to deliver it? How strong is he truly?'
He remembered the dozen descending tornadoes, the vanishment of Shrik with no evidence before or after.
Naph still did not want to believe that Sevenren would get wiped out. 'No, the general in that march after recognizing me would have given a different subtle hint. I don't think until then Sevenren city had been lost forever.'
Extracting himself out of a distraction he looked back onto the sea. "The sea truly is marvelous," Anaphol let the words hang.
The young adult quipped back, "saying it twice won't make others talk to you."
"It worked on you quipping back," Naph chewed his first bite of the tortilla rolls. His main dish of tortilla-olive steak finished.
A subtle nasal laugh escaped the young adult, his brown hair swung in the rolling winds of the lower deck. But he did not continue the conversation with Naph.
Nor Naph wanted to. He wished to follow the trail of thought he had created over the day.
'I have next three hours. Using it well is important.' His right hand picked a tortilla roll for his lips to savour.
Anaphol's memory and thought both worked towards the hints in the message by Extea.
'Cross the ocean?' He recollected how many oceans around the continent were. That's when it hit him.
'Shrik said to go north. But in the northern direction there is no ocean. Only a massive sea that separates two continents. What's the name of the northern continent again?' He murmured his thoughts together in his mind.
Biting on the tortilla rolls became an involuntary action for him.
'There's three oceans. One in the east, one in the west where I am headed, and another in the south. But there's none in the north. Not to what I know.' He ruffled his grey hair by his left ear.
'So, north would have been bad. Then, there's Extea saying consider the ocean as a caestre. That is a weird analogy.' He looked dead center into the middle of a new roll.
'How could an ocean be a caestre? Aren't caestre supposed to be 'calamities given form'?' Naph's mind was running at best with his knowledge on caestre and continents.
"Maybe a library could help?" He worded it out loud in a faint whisper.
The young adult shook his head to Naph's whisper.
Naph went on to eat the next tortilla roll as well. Completing the lunch he needed.
A few minutes more he let himself be dazzled by the tides of the sea.
'I am still not in an ocean. This is a sea or better a strait.' A thought snuck in.
Picking up his plate he walked to a dishbin, sliding his plate atop the collected dirty pile of plates.
He has chosen his next destination on the ferry. The library.
While Naph walked in to the interior of the lower and middle deck where the library was located.
A crew mate on the upper deck spotted some unusual activity in the sea area a few nautical kilometres away from the ship. This crewmate sped fast to the nearest alarm lever and pulled on it.
The entire ferry's crew and its passengers heard the loud ringing alarm. A crew mate on the lower deck, where the young adult reading a book sat, said aloud.
"Uh, not again! This is the third time there is a swarm of caestre attacking the ship! Are we cursed or what?" The crewmate left the task he was assigned to and started calling the crew inside the restaurant.
"Prepare for another assault on this safe route. The hell is this route safe, stupid strait and its troubles!" Grunting the crewmate sped away to his position as per the protocols.