The ship rocked beneath us. The waves crashed like heartbeats, like they always did; a familiar, constant thrumming. Stay in the hull long enough, you’ll learn when the ocean is tired, when it’s calm, when it’s furious, without ever seeing it. Today, as we’re pulled through the skin of the earth with full sails, it’s watchful. The winds- now, I’ve never really understood the winds. But the ocean breathes. I’ve spent most of my time on ships in their dark bellies, where the creaking is the loudest, where I used to fear that the cracks between the planks would burst at any moment. It’s familiar now. It’s second nature. Especially when they don’t give us hammocks and I’m forced to sway with the waves.
“You look like you’re trying to talk the ship into turning us around,” my cellmate said in a low voice, staring at me from across our shared corner.
I opened my eyes and took my palm away from the floor, folding my hands across my lap. “How do you know I’m not trying to sink us?”
“Ahh, he’s got humor,” they replied, crossing their arms. They’ve been real persistent in conversation these days. Asked just about as many questions as the interrogator.
“You need something?” I asked defensively.
“I need you to loosen up!”
I rolled my eyes. I’d tell them to go bother to someone else, but all of our neighboring cells were empty or filled with supplies. Which drove home my ‘they’re a spy’ theory. You didn’t keep two prisoners in the same cell if you didn’t have to. It was easier for us to get into fights. Or escape.
“It’s been two days, you ain’t even told me your name,” they added.
“You haven’t earned that yet. ‘Sides, you haven’t told me yours,”
They tilted their head. “Oh, so now you’re interested? Well, I’m so glad you asked. You can call me Gav,” they paused, searching for a reaction. “See how easy that was?”
“Gav,” I echoed, the name unfamiliar on my tongue.
“So?”
“So what,” I said.
Gav opened their mouth to speak, but closed it again and pursed their lips. It must have been a minute before they spoke again.
“Where’d you get that scar?”
I rolled my eyes again. “Fighting Jörmungandr,”
“What’s that accent?”
“I come from the south,”
“Ah, that one sounded honest. So you’re not from around here?”
“Where does the water come from?”
“What?”
“Everywhere. Nowhere. That’s where I’m from,” I said, gesturing around me.
“I was going to say the sky. You’re weird,”
“Not the worst thing I’ve been called,”
“Who said it was an insult?”
“I think you’re the weird one. Awfully personable for a criminal,”
You’re not exactly the rough and tumble baddie I see ‘round these parts, neither, blondie. You look my age,”
You’re right. But I don’t go around making niceties with other prisoners,”
"Gotta pass the time somehow. I can’t talk to inanimate objects like you,” they mocked.
“I’m not talking to it,” I grumbled in response.
“Uh huh, yeah,”
“Just listening,” I added under my breath.
That received a somewhat incredulous look from Gav.
“To the ocean, I mean,”
“And what’s it telling you?”
“It’s waiting for something,” I said.
“Ah, so you really are crazy then,”
I gave an exasperated flail of my arms. “I’m in here for a reason,”
When they didn’t respond immediately, I rose, taking a moment to stretch out my cramped limbs and shake the loose thoughts from my head. My head touched the ceiling if I stood on my toes. I wondered what the men above deck were thinking. Gav watched me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. I had no space to pace around, so I sat back down with a huff.
“Restless, aren’t you?”
“You try being this tall,”
“You try being this short,”
“You’re not that short,”
They looked at me. Okay, so maybe they were shorter than even the captain, the skinny man who I had mistaken as the cabin boy at first. That mistake gave me a bruise or two.
“You know, I won’t stop bothering you until you at least tell me your name,”
“You’re a horrible interrogator,"
“I’ll get you to crack some day, blondie,”
I thought about the ocean as I felt the ship begin to turn. We’d be docking in due time, and who knew what would happen to us then.
“If we last that long, Gav,”