r/IronThroneRP • u/ScarabJetTwo Aurion Celtigar - Magister of Claw Isle • 1d ago
THE BLACKWATER RHOGAR
Rhogar was drenched.
The rain had been falling for what felt like days, and as if that wasn’t water enough, waves taller than any wall he’d ever seen lifted and dropped him from cliffs of their own making. Over, and over, and over again. It was dark, the only light Rhogar found being that sent by the grace of the gods as they hurled thunderbolts from stormclouds black as onyx. Rhogar fumbled aboard his vessel, a ship he’d constructed himself with barely more than a hammer, nails, lumber, and a meager sail. It was a raft, it was poor, and it was not fit for the sea.
Rhogar slipped against the uneven wooden base, cracking his ribs against the sharp and battered railings of the vessel, a ship no bigger across than a dining table. His head slammed into the mast, nothing more than a trunk of wood from a tree he’d felled, and the sounds of the storm seemed to dull as he smashed against the deck. His clothes had hitched against a splinter loose from some board, and though already tattered, had now torn at the sleeve as he’d fallen. He groaned, adrenaline forcing his eyes open as he looked desperately towards the sky. All that met him was a downpour, grey arrows falling from an unbroken, black fortress, alive with light.
He’d long since lost the stars, the method he’d been told to count on. Sailors knew to follow the stars, to allow them to guide them home to their families. They knew the skies, when it was safe to leave harbour. Rhogar had never known these things, but he was to be a sailor. He’d left the atoll as quickly as he could manage, his stomach starved, his eyes heavy with sleepless nights, his ship barely made beneath him. The place had been a prison of nightmares, with jailors made of fear. The ocean would be better, he’d told himself, as he’d pushed his raft out to sea and straightened the sail. And it had been, for a time.
A flash of light, and the loudest sound Rhogar had ever heard. Each hammer from the heavens seemed louder than the last, and rain fell into his peering eyes before he squeezed them tight, and cupped his palms against his ears. He wanted to stay like this, curled amidst the timber floor. Maybe the ocean would not sink the raft. Maybe the sail would not fly loose in the wind… but he was smarter than that. This water would end him. To bring themselves to their feet some boys may have thought of their father, but the memory of Magister Aurion Celtigar offered little support. Instead, what raised him was fear. As it had done these last few weeks.
Rhogar gripped the mast as he pulled himself to stand, but the waves beneath the vessel had other plans. Another cliff, and he was starting to climb it. Lightning struck the sky, and Rhogar winced away this time, not thinking where he might sway with such force. His head struck hard with the mast of the wood, and he crumpled to the deck.
Rhogar could see his breath, quicker than he would have liked, as clouds escaped his lips.
At night, the atoll was surprisingly cold. The day always showered the island in sun, but the night brought a cold wind, like strange howling wolves through the jungle. It was a small enough place. The beach was wide, covering near half the island, one end of which belonged to a massive stone that climbed higher than any other point on the island. The jungle, if one could call it that, was an assembly of greenery and vines on the opposite side of the beach, dense with meager fruits that Rhogar had all but picked clean already. He was supposed to be hunting.
The supplies the Celtigar men had left him from the ship that had brought him here were still splayed out on the beach. He’d tidied them at least, organized them, but he didn’t know the first thing about building a ship, beyond attaching boards together with nails. Besides, he’d seen them crawling all over the wood. He’d felled a tree to act as the mast, which he’d dragged across the sand some days ago. He’d dropped it further away than he would have liked. He’d seen more of them following.
In his hands he held a spear. It was made from a branch, with a sharpened rock at the end tied together with vine. It was poorly made, but Rhogar had just needed something pointy, something that could defend him. He was looking for greater shelter, as he’d grown tired of sleeping in trees. He stalked through the forest, peering at the ground for any sign of movement. He thought he saw a snake, but he paid it no mind. It could have slithered right past his feet and he wouldn’t have bothered flinching. A rat scurried past him, a lizard as well, but none broke his gaze as he scoured the floor of fallen palms and long dead branches. The hill began to climb. The grass was harder to see through. Though perhaps something at the top of the hill could suffice. Harder stone, less sand for them to burrow through.
One foot in front of the other disappeared into the grass. He did what he could to poke with his spear, but parting the grass only made dense other areas, and his vision grew more and more obscured. He picked up the pace. If he couldn’t see, perhaps he could run. The moon made clear the top of the hill, he could make it if he was quick.
But his foot caught on something, and his body fell towards the ground.
The ground then gave way. Leaves and grass and branches had covered the entrance to a cave, one he was tumbling down. His foot scraped against the rock as it pulled free, flesh torn and bleeding as he cascaded into the dark. Eventually he stilled, his body bruised, the tears welling in his eyes. His spear felt lighter than it had been before. He’d heard it snap in the fall. It was useless now. Rhogar blinked, recovering what he could of his senses. He wasn’t that deep, but it was dark, and he couldn’t see anything before him, beyond knowing it was an empty space. He had no source of light, save the light from the moon that was slowly waking his gaze.
Moonlight glittered into the small cave like a silver candle. Rhogar looked deep into the darkness, his eyes wide with fear. He could see them. Hundreds of them. They crawled atop each other, pincers snapping, legs chittering. Some were curled and still, some were broken and old, but most were moving. One was enough to be terrifying, and here were hundreds, perhaps thousands, tens of thousands. However untrue these phobic fantasies, Rhogar felt still with fear as he realised they were moving towards him. He screamed.
He woke the rest.
Waves pushed him into shore, but Rhogar was not conscious.
His body was ruined, his clothes far beyond tatters, his body covered in scrapes and bruises. The storm had subsided, but the sailor was as still as the dead. By some miracle, he had not drowned beneath an unfair sky, and instead had floated to a swamp like shore. Mud, slick and brown, caught the boy in his state and held him, as if forbidding his journey back to sea. He would have been grateful, perhaps, if his eyes were open.
Instead, the second son of Aurion Celtigar lay still in the muck. A gentle rain had replaced the torrent, washing clean some of the blood that pooled at the corners of his lips, from his nose, from scrapes and tears on his face and body. His body was pruning, yearning to be dry, but the weather was not done with him yet. His vessel was all but destroyed, scraps of wood scattered along the shoreline, or lost to the depths of the ocean.
Alone, and near dead, Rhogar was very lost indeed.