Sea

Richie gazed out at the sea.

The fierce sea wind lifted his hair, revealing a weathered face that seemed to have been scoured by salt.

"I still clearly remember the night before I was to be burned alive."

"That night, I came to the shore simply because, before I died, I wanted to see with my own eyes what the mysterious sea looked like."

Richie stared blankly at the crimson sea.

"That night, I stood before the black sea in awe."

"The waves that had roared like thunder through my dreams day and night finally revealed their true form before me."

"Once I saw the sea, I suddenly understood everything."

"I understood why those tribespeople who had defied the ancestral teachings all rushed toward the sea without fear, like moths flying into flame, then vanished amid those endless waves."

"The sea... it was so terrifying, so distant that it nearly drove one to despair, yet that very despair drew one in with its mystery."

"It was like..."

Richie's Adam's apple bobbed. The metaphor he had yet to form caught in his throat.

He seemed to be searching for something exact, or perhaps something that did not exist at all.

"A living mountain range."

He found the description.

"Mountains that breathe, mountains that devour your gaze. A mountain range far greater than any other."

"Once you look at it, you can never pull your eyes away."

Richie asked,

"Have you ever thought about whether, one day, we might see the scenery beyond those mountains?"

Naen's hand, which had been trailing through the seawater lit by the sunset, stopped. She said nothing.

Only after a long while did she speak.

"I have, but we are neither birds nor fish. We can only live on this island."

The two fell silent at the same time.

But Naen was the first to pull herself free of that mood.

As if comforting Richie, yet also comforting herself, she suddenly joked,

"But it isn't absolute."

"Do you think Master Blair, with his great wisdom, could invent some medicine that would make people grow gills and fins after drinking it, or perhaps a pair of wings? Then we could swim into the sea or fly into the sky, all the way to the end of the horizon, and see what truly lies there."

A faint smile appeared on Richie's face.

If Blair could truly invent something so miraculous, something nearly like a Divine Miracle, Richie would have long since handed over the position of chieftain.

He also remembered something.

Among the "inheritance" once stored in that cave were several murals and sheets of Hemp Paper recording "history."

The cave walls depicted the scene of the gods bestowing the Mangrove Forest and fertile soil upon them. This was something everyone knew.

But on the cave walls and the Hemp Paper preserved by the previous chieftain, there were also drawings that recorded an obscure history and certain things.

He suddenly asked,

"Have you heard of boats?"

"Boats?"

Richie told Naen about the things depicted in the drawings on the Hemp Paper he had seen back then.

"I think it was a magical tool. No matter how fierce the wind and waves, it would not sink into the sea. Instead, it would float upon the surface."

"I call it a boat. Perhaps our ancestors used boats to come from the sea to this island."

"I gave it to Blair. If he can build a boat, perhaps people will be able to reach the other side of the sea and see what the scenery there is truly like."

Richie's gaze upon the sea did not change.

"Unfortunately, even if a boat is built, I fear I will not be able to venture into this wondrous sea."

"Why?"

"I am God-Chosen."

Richie said it naturally, just as he had told the tribespeople countless times.

"The gods gave me a mission, making me the pillar of the Tribe. This is the sole and great mission of my life. I cannot abandon the Tribe and the people of this island for my own desires."

Naen pondered for a while.

She looked at the ants carrying shrimp back and forth across the beach.

"Do we look like a colony of ants in the eyes of the gods?"

Richie froze.

Though he knew Naen's thoughts could sometimes leap from one thing to another,

he still found it hard to keep up with her train of thought.

Naen merely crouched there, her white brows furrowed as if she were struggling to think and organize her words before she finally said,

"Do you think that the things we see as grand and the things we see as tiny are all equally small in the eyes of the gods?"

"Perhaps what we consider great, the gods consider small instead. And perhaps the insignificant little things we consider meaningless are great in the eyes of the gods?"

"Maybe everything we do is meaningless to the gods."

"Or perhaps everything has meaning, whether great or small."

"The gods chose you. Perhaps it is because everything you do will have meaning, isn't it?"

After Naen finished speaking,

Richie remained silent for a long time.

She thought Richie had been angered by her words, so she hurriedly brushed the grit from her hemp clothes and stood up.

"Of course, I was just guessing wildly. Please don't be angry, and don't repeat what I said. Otherwise, if the elders find out, they may accuse me of intending to blaspheme against and distort the gods."

Richie was not angry.

He looked at the sea, then at Naen.

In the end, only a faint smile appeared on his face.

"Perhaps you are right. Everything we do has meaning."

"But I still cannot stop worrying about the Tribe."

"If the child we are about to have can inherit the position of God-Chosen, then perhaps, many years from now, when we have grown old, there will come a day when we can go to the end of the sea."

Naen looked at the sea and smiled.

"I think that day will come."

But...

Naen never lived to see that day.

About half a year later,

she died during an extraordinarily long night—

because of the two children in her womb.

Years of hunger and suffering had long left her frail body unable to bear such a burden.

The elders' prophecy had truly come to pass.

The fate of dying young had indeed arrived.

It simply had not fallen upon the children.

When loud cries rang out, Naen, who had been tightly holding Richie's hand, slowly released her pale fingers as though she had fulfilled some promise.

Naen died.

Richie merely watched in silence as his wife's cold body was buried in the earth.

Everything in the Tribe continued as usual.

Women dying from childbirth was an ordinary occurrence in the Tribe.

Outsiders could not see that this had dealt the chieftain any blow.

He still appeared to be the same steady chieftain.

Only, he was far quieter than before.

The days once again passed slowly.

Until one day,

Richie came to the sea again and began the Sea Festival prayers with the tribespeople.

A colony of ants crawled past the altar.

In a daze, the figure from many years ago surged through his heart again with the waves.

For a moment, his prayer stopped.

But in the end, choking back tears, he merely knelt there and resumed praying devoutly to the sea alongside the somewhat puzzled crowd.

"God—"

Following their chieftain's choked voice, the people continued the prayer.

"May Your mercy shine upon everyone like sunlight. May that radiance melt every encroaching shadow, and may the Torch of Faith forever shine for You."

Amid the sound of prayer, a tear fell into the surging waves.

And within those turbulent, rolling waves,

the gods remained silent.