Chapter Text
The man in the tavern with the glass and the cloak was a man of the sea.
He followed the waves to his next home, and the next and next and next.
He let the voices of the crew tell him just where they wanted to be, just where the waves took them.
And he took them there, he was the ferryman of the living.
And he was alone.
The people he ferried to new lands were not people he knew, not people he spoke to more than a question or two.
Where are you going?
How long will you stay?
That was all he ever asked, if they couldn't sail the crew that could would teach them.
He was the ferryman of the living.
His crew had been witled down to just five over the last months, and he was in search of new passengers.
A man with snow white hair asked to join him, said he had a crew that wanted to get to the opposing coast.
The journey would take weeks.
He accepted.
He found a merchant who needed to deliver his goods, who would pay enough to keep the ship intact, just enough to feed the crew.
The ship was the ferrymans only constant companion, the only thing that stayed.
He had named it the Relation-Ship with young and naive hopes about finding a lover on his travels.
He never did.
The man with white hair met him at the ship the next morning, crew in tow.
He kept his word, so did the merchant.
They set sail once preperations had been made.
The crew could sail, they sailed better than any crew he had ever met, save for the first one when he was only a child.
The white haired man whose name he would never know ordered the crew about like he was captian.
So the ferryman made him his right hand man, just until the journey ended.
The crew laughed and danced and whispered like there was some grand joke he was not a part of.
The ferryman did not mind, he was only the captain, and crews hardly ever told him jokes.
But as time went on he saw that it was not only him that was unaware, but everyone on the ship that had not come from the crew the white haired man brought.
The crew hid something from them, and laughed with high and unnatural voices.
He had not noticed the siren song playing under the words of every one of them.
But they had done no harm thus far, so he let them stay.
He let them stay until the entire ocean was singing that siren song, the silence the crew danced to was no longer silent.
The ferryman didn't know what to do.
Sirens, mermaids, creatures of the deep, all held the power of persuasion.
But he did not want to stop listening.
It felt silly, not wanting a siren song to stop, was that not the point? To lure you in as prey?
But no harm came to the crew, and they landed unharmed on the coast and the sirens went on their way.
But they did not.
The ferryman stayed a few days, to rest, find a new crew.
But when he went to find one, in a tavern on the shore as he was known to do.
He found himself facing the white haired man again.
He had a crew, one that needed to be on the other coast, the one they had traveled from.
He had half a mind to turn him down, he did not want a siren crew on his ship again.
But the siren song under the man's sweet words was enough to convince him, even just long enough to agree.
The man with white hair met him at the ship the next morning, crew in tow.
It wasn't the same crew, but the same strange man that led them, the same siren song under their every word.
The journey would be several weeks, then maybe he could shake the sirens from his life.
He was the ferryman of the living after all, and everyone knows nothing under the sea could truly be considered alive.