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Hello Geoffrey here and welcome back to Nightfall.
“I've mentioned before how much I love to time travel in my mind, especially when”
surprised by a proustian taste that evokes a memory to get lost in. Just today the sense of cackens swept me back to my childhood, to a time when I was deeply fascinated by how they would suddenly appear and hang from trees. The time when I was spellbound by spring doing what spring does best, the reawakening of one storm and flora and fauna, glorious.
In tonight's story I take you back to a memory of a spring in nightfall, when the forest was just beginning to thaw and we'd gathered once more by the ever burning campfire. But before long the six of us found ourselves far from the woods, carried out to the Sargaso sea, a vast unmoving stretch of ocean where sky and water blower into one endless blue.
“With nowhere to be we let it carry us, drifting in that quiet stillness and slowly into”
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In this month, you can step into the dreambrewer, wander through the registry of small wonders, linger at the cafe between the seasons, and for subscribers we arrive at the cealy court as a song of two courts continues, all uninterrupted, tap, try free to claim your free 14 days on Apple Podcasts or follow the link in the show notes, see there. No back to nightfalls. The soft spring sun had begun to thaw nightfalls through.
The grain wasn't quite so solid beneath my feet. The trees were turning green at last, and the pine forest was fragrant for the first time in months. The days were getting longer. The sun's last rays stretched out at 7 o'clock, and you oned late into the evening, breathing golds and pinks into the sky just before nightfall.
Sunlight had found a way to linger a little longer in the sky, but the warm thushered in
by those spring days never managed to carry into the evening.
The evenings were just brisk enough to warrant bundling up beneath blankets, brewing strong
Cups of tea, and crowding around the campfire.
That's evening, I could feel the warmth of the crackling fire on my face, as I cozyed up beside Devani.
“Nightfalls campfire had been burning since long before I arrived, and in all the years”
that I'd relied upon it to saw me through, to cook my food, and boil the water I steeped
my tea leaves in, but never so much has seen it dim.
It burned bright day and night, and its crackle was always somewhere, carrying underneath the birdsong, underscoring our lives in the falls. That evening, as my friends and I sat all around the hearth to sip our tea, and tuck into our boots, something splashed over the sound of the crackling campfire. There was a stirring on the surface of the lake, sending out ripples large enough to draw
the attention of Lyra, Wanda, Devani and myself. The lake had been frozen for much of the winter, and now spring had swept through the
“clearing, and melted the ice by that evening.”
It was still early for Anwin to be surfacing in the lake, and when existed somewhere between human, siren, and celestial being, a meter home in the world she had built beneath the surface of the water. She usually waited until the sunlight stretched past nine o'clock at night, before she fussed herself with swimming up to see us.
I hadn't believed her when she told me it was warmer in the depths of the lake, than it was by the surface, and eventually she'd let me down into the depths to prove me wrong. It had been almost two summers since I'd swam through the world, she built for herself under water. You're early?
“Lyra was already on her feet, arms open, as she strode toward the edge of the lake to greet”
her old friend Anwin. It had been months since the pair had seen one another, months since Anwin, the edges
of whom had always been hazy, had needed to farm herself up, and find her feet on land.
It was no mean feat, and the magic that went into it always astounded me. If the human body were roughly 60% water, Anwin was easily 88% aged duo. Where my friends and I were painted out with acrylics, Anwin's likeness was put together with watercolors. I'm soaking, Anwin warned as she found her feet on the beach, and Lyra threw her arms
around her. Happy new year, Anwin nodded toward the rest of us. We have far past that now, divani laughed as we wondered down the beach to water. I thought, I might find you here, Cersei's voice cut over the commotion. It was just as much of a surprise to find the demigodas, standing at the entrance to the
ravine, as it had been to hear Anwin, splashing on the surface of the lake.
Anwin never gave much away, but that night, with her friends, within reaching distance
at last, she had a hard time fighting the smile from her face. Cersei and Anwin were the oldest of friends, and it seemed that no matter how much time stretched between them, months, weeks, or millennia, nothing could dull their affections for one another. Are you staying long? Lyra asked Anwin, eyes hopeful.
It was easy to forget that there was a time when Lyra and Anwin had only had each other. Back then, the months that they were separated would be spent in the quiet of their own company. Time just cooling in. Anwin said gently. "But I was hoping you might like to accompany me on a little trip. I'm going to the Sargaso Sea tonight. The water temperature is just
For it.
Lyra, he would never manage to find her sea legs, looked torn. She wanted so badly to spend
“time with her friend, but wanted an equal measure to keep her feet where they belonged,”
planted firmly on land. It's very still Anwin assured her, but Lyra looked anything but convinced. It's the stillest of all the seas, actually, Anwin promised. The currents that border it rotate clockwise whilst the Sargaso Sea sits still in the centre. I've heard it call the marine jungle, Cersei interjected. Creatures from coves all round
the globe spend months swimming just to reach it. The Sargaso itself, the weed that the sea
“is so famous for, is dense, golden and float freely on the surface of the water. It creates”
a home for the species that flock there. It's getting late. How would we even get there? Lyra grumbled. But Cersei had an answer to everything. That sea's Lyra medied. A smile pooled at the corners of Cersei's mouth is the lake began to bubble beyond the shoreline. Soon the waters that had been still as the Sargaso Sea was promised to be were rippling and rolling, splashing over the banks of the lake.
A mast poked above the surface of the water first, then a sail, white, pristine, and already rolled
“out as it rose from the depths of the lake. Then came the wooden boat deck and the hull beneath it.”
Where on earth did you get that? Devani looked as all struck as I felt. It washed through town without a crew a few months ago. We've had it parked in the garden ever since. Cersei looked rather proud of the boat she had procured. Well, we won't be able to get that through the ravine. Lyra looked relieved, but it was easy to underestimate Cersei's power. It wasn't like the magic my friends and I drew from nightfalls.
The magic Cersei wielded was divine. She herself was the source of it and she could draw as much from her own well as she pleased. It happened so fast that it was almost a dizzying. Sands swept across the beach as the breeze blew in and the dark of night dipped even darker. I blinked and I was standing on the boat deck in bright summer sunlight. I blinked again and the mountain board that cradled the lake had dissolved around me.
The borders of nightfalls lake softened by the second as I tried to steady myself and the water
that it being bound by its banks flew outwards endlessly until there was only blue as far as the eye could see. The sarcasm C stretched out to round us and beyond it, the Gulf stream, the Azores current, the Canary current, the North Equatorial current, and the Antilles current. Far, far in the distance, the ocean rolled and roared but beneath our boat the sarcasm C was almost unnaturally still. All was quiet and I was so awestruck by the way nightfalls had
simply fallen away with the wave of Cersei's hand, but I didn't dare break the silence that it settled over us. Davani, Wanda, Lyra, Anwin, Cersei and I stood on deck staring out at the endless expanse of a zure blue that stretched out to round us. The sarcasm C was as calm as the skies above
Just a few shades blueer.
us off course. There was just perfect endless stillness and I was intent on soaking it in.
“Our boat didn't sail, it drifted and I was more than content with that. We had nowhere to be,”
nothing to do, nothing to race home for. So, Dante, we let ourselves wash across the sea, fordered not by land, but by more water. It felt like we drifted for hours, blue above and below, fusing together until the world could have turned upside down, and I wouldn't have noticed. Sometimes the sea was the blueer of the two, and sometimes it was the sky. Sometimes they were painted from the same part of the palette, and the horizon became impossible to make out.
In that endless zure, time unraveled around us. There was no knowing where we had drifted from,
“or where we were drifting to. We drifted through calm itself, and I fought off the need for sleep,”
as it settled on my shoulders, and seeped into my thoughts.
When we finally spotted the first blue move sarcasm floating on the surface of the water,
it stood out so starkly against the ceaseless blue that it was impossible to miss. Slowly, steadily, our boat drifted toward that cloud of gold, sitting atop the water. When we were close enough, I leaned over the back of the boat and fished out a piece of the seaweed to inspect. It wasn't as soft or as slimy as I had imagined it might be.
“Sargasam seaweed had a strong stem, and golden leaves that reminded me of the undergrowth in nightfall's”
forest. There was so much of it, and it was so dense that when our boat first pulled alongside
the matted golden leaves, I thought there was no way we would be able to pass through it. Perhaps we should turn back, Lyra suggested, sounding a little unsure. The Sargasam is free floating, and when assured her, it's so neat thick on the water's surface, so we should be able to pass through it easily. I wasn't sure Anwin's words did much to ease Lyra's concerns.
The matted beside our sailing boat stretched away from us, for almost a mile, and appeared almost impossible to break apart. It was only when Lyra saw that our boat seemed to be passing through the weed without too much trouble, that she was finally able to relax. She settled in a sunny spot, stretching out on deck, and it was only then that I was reminded of the time. In our bodies, at least, it was the middle of the night.
The fact that Sargasam was powerful enough to pull the sun back into the sky, so we could explore
the marine jungle, did nothing to chase the exhaustion from my shoulders, once it had settled there. Wake me when the stars come out. Lyra told Devani, before rolling over and drifting off. When it's later, her snores were underscoring our journey through the marine jungle. The Sargasam mat was as dense as the Amazon rainforest, and with our boat bobbing right through the middle of it, it felt just as vast and sprawling. When the sun began to set over
the Sargasam sea that night, the weeds it was so famous for, glistened gold. If it's not attached to the sea bed, how does it grow? I put it to the grape. My voice low so
Is not to disturb Lyra.
Broken pieces of the seaweed grow into independent mats of their own over time. The water is
“perfect for the process here. It's warm and nutrient-dredge, and the sea is still enough,”
that the newly forming mats don't get torn apart. Sargasam can appear in any sea, but it's rare that it's able to flourish like this. This stretch of still water is the only place in marine jungle like this one could accumulate. I looked at the Sargasam stretching around us. I appeared beyond its glittering gold, and noticed the fish darting between the weeds. The closer I looked, the more I saw. The weren't just a few fish. There was an entire world of them.
I didn't notice the Sargasam frog fish at first. It scales were the same browns and gold as the
“seaweed mat itself. Even when it darted between the weeds, it was hard to catch sight of.”
When I did finally manage to follow one through a thin doubt patch of the Sargasam forest, it was chasing after the tiniest of shrimp. I almost celebrated when the frog fish was knocked off its course by a bigger fish, making its way through the mat, and the little shrimp escaped. That's Mahimahi, Sarasay said fondly. Sometimes they're known as dolphin fish, but they aren't actually related to dolphin. The Mahimahi scale suggested it was about
his distant relative of the dolphin, as myself and my friends were. It scales faded from
“aquamarine blue, that the light danced over in bolts, through lime green, and into the brightest”
of lamine yellows. Why are they known as dolphin fish if there is no relation? I had to ask. The older males have a blunt head shape that vaguely resembles that of a dolphin. In most parts of the world, the fish is called Mahimahi though. It's a Hawaiian phrase that means very strong, and they are. The dolphin fish is a particularly strong swimmer. Wanda pointed to the one cutting through the Sargasam in the shadows, cast by the bow of the boat.
That one is only a baby. Barely half the size it will be when it's fully grown, and it will already be capable of swimming around 2,000 kilometers a month. It was hard to imagine that fish fighting its way through thousands of miles of ocean, but I suppose not all creatures were as content to linger in stillness. It's my friends and I were. We liked our odd adventures, but when they were over, and sleep was crowed again to the corners
of our minds, we wanted nothing more than to return home, and settled into sleep. We wild away the last of the daylight hours on the boat deck, watching the young jacks, Mackerel and Marlin, flitting through the Sargasam forest. A recalled how difficult I had found it navigating a path through the Amazon rainforest on my travels, as a young man, and how grateful I'd been to have a guide, leading me through the trees safely.
I can now but wonder how the fish ever managed to find their way around that marine metropolis. It was one thing to make your way across a fixed forest, but another entirely,
to make your way out when the forest itself was moving with the current, and growing by the second.
The fish that made their home in the Sargasam, however, seemed perfectly at ease with the labyrinth sprawling around them. The Sargasam swimming crabs are my favourite. Sarasim marveled, their vicious little critters, coloured just like the frogfish,
To blend into the seaweed.
and when the younger, the little crabs will actually live on their backs.
“They look just like normal crabs, but at their back, they have modified pedals for swimming.”
They live up by the surface of the water, not on the sea bed, and feed on small fish and shrimp. The camouflage is so good that when they're old enough to hunt, they usually strike before their prey as even spotted them. Davani joined Lyra and stretched out on the boat deck. The gold of sunset settled over her skin, and I thought it would be impossible to look away,
but when a pot of oil surfaced just beyond the Sargasam mad, I'll admit I was distracted.
One this glass is slipped from the bridge of her nose, as she stood watching a whale, spouting water in all. The whales were the ocean's biggest mammals and the gentlest of giants. They were so calm that I couldn't help feeling at peace in their present.
“I think those are humpbacks, one the whispered, and as if the whales heard her, one leapt from the water.”
It's calf tried to follow a spastic hood, but flopped unceremoniously into the water with a splash. The whales leapt into the sunset again, and as they splashed back into the water, breaching the edge of the golden Sargasam mad, the seaweed dispersed. They swam slowly through the marine jungle, and I watched an awe as the wheat parted for their noses. Then came back together at the tips of their tails as they swam on by.
That evening was so quiet that if I listened closely, I could hear the whale song carrying through
“the water. Did you know? One the whispered, unable to keep the fact to herself,”
some whale songs can last as long as 30 minutes. The song that we were gifted that evening by the ocean's gentle giants sounded as though it had been sung at thousand times over, at the setting of just as many suns. It was a slow, sleepy source of song that at my eyes growing heavy, and my heart settling. And as the sun bit as good night, with a final fiery flourish blazing across the sky,
I watched the hatchlings in the fish that hadn't yet earned all their scales, settling in for sleep. The Sargasam provided somewhere safe they could rest up for the night. An offered shelter, hiding places, food and warmth just as the densest parts of it offered somewhere for migrating birds to stop and rest for the night. And watched a white bellied bird with a long red beak swooped down and sat along the matted sargasam.
His little chest puffed in and out as he caught his breath, and gradually it slowed and
steady as he settled into a much-needed sleep. Sailors have always avoided the Sargasam.
Sarasiham dover the whale song. They were so sure that the low wind and flat waters would see them drifting slowly for months that they scarcely ventured through these parts. Good thing we have nowhere we need to be then. I smiled. And as I stretched out on the deck that night, I was beyond blast to find that it was the truth. We had all the time in the world, and when the stars finally came out that night,
I still wished that we could have had even more hours drifting beneath them.
The whale song was steady, a lullaby trying me deeper into relaxation with ev...
It's higher notes and did the tension tangled deep in my mind, and its low notes gently
“vibrated the deck beneath me. I felt that song in the very fiber of my being,”
and knew it in my bones. That night, the Sargasam's sea-variant lullaby was playing through my soul as I gazed up at the stars above me. For a long time, Cersei on, no one could figure out
where European heels came from. You can imagine everyone's surprise when they finally realized
that the heels had migrated 10,000 kilometers from here, where their lives began.
“The journey is unbelievably long, but no one is confused as to why they make it.”
The heels begin their lives in a place as peaceful as this, and when they are ready to spawn, they come back here. When they pass, it is here among the golden Sargasam where the water is still the wind's gentle and the weather fair. She finished with a sleepy smile, and I couldn't stifle my on. Eventually, I gave up the fight to keep my eyes open, and listened lazily as Cersei explained that the Sargasam's sea overlapped with the
Burmuda Triangle. As a boy, I'd always been fascinated by the stories that came out of the area,
and I felt the shape of my dreams shifting as a sense of mystery settled in my mind. Plato called this place the impossible sea. He believed that the Sargasam bats were actually mudflats, that the water was shallow, and that this was the very place that the lost city of Atlantis sank.
“Do you believe that as the line between week and sleep started to blur for me?”
I know where Atlantis is, and we are a long way from it. As I drifted off, I could almost hear the longing in the demicadas' voice. I felt the boat bobbing ever so gently beneath me, and I felt my thoughts fade and fused as the borders of my mind opened up. I felt myself drift across the Sargasam sea, drift into my dreams, and drift deep into the most peaceful of sleep. We'll leave our story there for tonight. Sargasam sea sings wondrous doesn't
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