The Lighthouse
A Causeway Story — featuring Molan
The air is silent and still within the Navigator’s Conclave, the gentle tide of apprentice voices breaking against clean white sandstone like fresh foam. It is calm respite in the wake of the endless typhoons, and Molan lets the familiar tempo of his hands untangling snarled rigging calm the concerns in his heart.
Over, under, back; a meditative rhythm he has practiced since he first got his toddling legs under him, as familiar as the rolling waves of the sea.
“Of course I’d find you here.”
Molan looks up at the First Navigator, resplendent in her dress uniform. His hands do not skip a beat. “Akariana. Fair weather to you.”
“Is it truly so, Molan?”
He takes a slow breath, and sets aside the heavy ropes with a wry smile. “You think I’d lie?”
She laughs, and sits next to him. “You’ve told many tall sailor’s tales in your time.”
“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t lie about this.”
Akariana sighs. “You do seem awfully at ease with the state of things. This is… indefinite, Molan. Possibly forever. Nobody would blame you for refusing, or requiring compromise.”
Indefinite. Forever. Molan breathes steadily. “My influence can keep the storms at bay. If that means I never set foot on the water again? Well. One sailor weighed against every other. It’s an easy scale to balance, isn’t it?”
Akariana’s face twists, and Molan gives her a serene smile.
“We stay the course,” he says, quiet but indomitable, as he picks up the tangled rigging and seeks out the steadying rhythm. Over, under, back.
“You’ve been saying for years that it’d be good to have me here more often.”
“Not like this.” She touches one of the heavy ropes gently, considering. Molan allows it. Let her find her way to the same answer he’s already found his peace in.
An entire row of tangles have come free under his hands before Akariana speaks again. “We will find a way to ease this burden for you, Molan. You won’t always have to carry it alone.”
Over, under, back. A metronome for the beat of his heart, a calm core at the very epicentre of the storms that still rage just outside the very edge of his influence.
It’s not the same thrilling rise and fall of the waves beneath his feet, the scent of salt-shrouded timbers and creaking ropes. It’s not the home the sea held for his heart for so long.
For now, he will hold fast, stay steady. And it will be enough.
