The Vagrant's Chronicle: Ebbing Tide

When all returned to wind-calm and wave-still, the sea breeze lightly sang the old homecoming tune...

—Tide Ebb—

When the moon was veiled by black clouds, the ship-song did not cease.

On the sea where the storm gradually stilled, the shattered great ship slowly slid toward the abyss.

The sea beast's spiral vast maw gaped wide; from its body cavity came a low hum like distant thunder. Satisfied, the evil beast of the sea opened its hard reef-like eyelids, wanting one last look at its overreaching foe—and so exposed its fragile giant eye to the dying shipmaster.

He saw the perfect chance; and through his tiny eyes, the sea beast saw a heart darker than the ocean depths.

The storm's last bolt of lightning lit the sky; the great ship's prow split in two between the giant's spiral teeth and was churned to fragments—even the scream of the keel was drowned by the waves.

Then all returned to darkness—until an enraged roar rose again upon the dark sea.

The shipmaster drove his broken sword deep into the sea beast's eye, again and again, until foul venomous tides splashed his whole body, until even the edge of the broken blade snapped off inside the giant's ruptured eyeball.

When countless sharp claws seized him and he faced a perilous fate, he still fought with fists, teeth, and nails. Until the moment he was about to be torn to shreds by the sea beast's claws—

A familiar ship-song came with the salt wind, and the sea beast paused.

"Sing with me the ocean's farewell song, my song of joy.

"When current and wind stand right, I will part from him.

"I hear my old master's call; the spring awaits my return.

"Remember me and the lost master; repeat this melody.

"One day you will find me, sleeping on the abyssal floor...

"—Perhaps by then you too will have been swallowed by the deep dark whirlpool."

The ocean giant's tentacles rose coiled like a throne; the singing girl lay supine among them. Though claws pierced her skin and tentacles clamped her wrists, though her skirts drifted on the sea, she still sang her farewell to the shipmaster.

Then the sea beast gently gathered the girl into the black lacquer of the deep.

In the age when the ocean was ruled by unnatural disaster, those who lived upon the waves rose and fell with the day.

The shipmaster woke on a strange merchant ship. He had lost his own ship and all his crew, left only with a body full of scars and an old deep-sea dream forever echoing with ethereal ship-song—

"When current and wind stand right, I will put to sea to avenge her, she who was lost in the sound of the waves..."