Wenser had once revered this sea beyond measure.
Born into a fishing family and raised in the coastal town of Salt Rock Port, no one understood the sea's fickle moods better than he did.
It was the countless times his mother had nagged him while sitting on a low stool outside the door, basking in the sun and mending fishing nets—repeated so often that he could still remember it clearly—the bitter lessons learned by other fishing families in town;
It was the suffocating air his father suppressed before every voyage, and the almost festive, carefree atmosphere in their cottage after he returned safely to port, no matter how much he had caught.
From the moment he had first begun to understand things as a child, Wenser had already gained a relatively shallow but reliable understanding of this mysterious and dangerous sea through the two elders in his family.
Not until he had first planted both feet on the deck, rocking gently beneath the wash of seawater; not until he had first shouted himself hoarse while helping his father gather the sails and rigging in a storm; not until he had first seen his mother on the pier, holding his younger sister and waiting quietly for who knew how long, her eyes reddening when she saw him—
Only then had Wenser finally formed a vague understanding of the sea itself, and of himself, one he could personally comprehend.
Under normal circumstances, he should have grown up through one fortunate or uneventful return voyage after another, gradually learning fishing techniques from his father, using his earnings to buy his mother a few new clothes, and picking up several colorful seashells his little sister loved whenever he came home.
But that was how the sea was—fickle and unpredictable. He had known that for