[Set Sail] Little Courage Sets Sail

The day the Eladrian Sea opened before them, Pinku tightened the strap of his lifeline twice more than necessary and pretended his paws weren’t shaking. Little Courage rocked in Windan’s quiet harbor which felt steadfast if he didn’t look down at the water too long.

“Ready?” Aremis asked in a soft, hopeful voice. The orange bab hovered by the mast, eyes bright. “As I’ll ever be,” Pinku answered, trying to sound level-headed and landing somewhere between calm and nervous. The lifeline ran from his belt to a little iron ring at the base of the mast. If he slipped, he wouldn’t go far. If he slipped… he tugged the strap again for the umteenth time and looked anywhere but down into the water though it didn’t make the ocean feel less like a maw to Pinku. He didn’t swim. He didn’t even wade unless it was a tide pool and Aremis was nearby.

But Little Courage had a bird for a figurehead and a sail stitched from a faded cloth they’d found together. She had been built for a different kind of bravery. The one that let you go a little farther today than you did yesterday. Pinku would have to believe in that, and let a bit of Little Courage’s courage give him strength as well. If she could do it, so could he.

They cast off at dawn when Windan’s residents were still waking up and seabirds began searching for breakfast. Aremis steered while Pinku held the coiled rope and tried to look important. The Eladrian Sea lay out in a blue expanse, islands like little jewels scattered in the distance. Somewhere, according to rumor, a forest of coral grew straight above the sea like a tangle of branching antlers. The old fishers at the dock had advised against looking for it.“There be churning water,” one warned, “It’ll swallow you and your ship whole if you’re not careful.”

Pinku had bobbed his head, wanting to look calm. He told himself they’d peek from far away. But as Little Courage slipped out onto the open water, the horizon yawning wide, he decided very far away might be better than just far away.

“Aremis,” he said as calmly as he could, “what if we start with something safe? Maybe… Lantern Quay? They’ll have a map.”

Aremis lit up. “Maps! And craft stalls. I heard they have a stall that sells tiny sails for model boats. Imagine making a miniature fleet, Pinku!”

Pinku could imagine it very clearly. Little ships on the windowsill that couldn’t drown him under any circumstance. “Lantern Quay it is.”

They charted their course by an old harbor chart and Aremis’s optimistic sense of direction. Pinku kept his eyes on the horizon and his paws on the lines. The first time a swell lifted Little Courage in a soft roll, his stomach leapt the way it did at the top of a swing. He swallowed hard and fixed his gaze on Aremis’s back. Aremis had a calming aura and his calm steadied Pinku better than any rope.

“Do you think it’s real?” Aremis asked after a while. “The coral forest?”

“If it exists,” Pinku said, “I vote we admire it from somewhere far away. Maybe an island with tea. And a bench.”

Aremis giggled. “A bench by the sea is very you.”

“It’s a good place to be safe from churning water,” Pinku muttered. The truth was, he felt plenty brave already, and that feeling was a delicate thing he had no interest in mixing with heroics like braving churns out at sea.

By midmorning the harbor was behind them and the open water surrounded them, rippling waves in every direction. Pinku avoided looking straight down, but he could not avoid the smell of sea-salt and the sight of waves from all around them. He breathed through his mouth and counted the swell of waves against the hull: one-two-three, one-two-three.

They passed a reef-bell, an iron bell suspended over a shoal that rang a warning on days when the waters grew stormy that could be heard for miles. Pinku watched Aremis’s ears twitch, both of them already brimming with stories for the evening when they’d recall it as though the bell had tolled just for them.

Lantern Quay rose from the horizon by noon, with limestone and little white houses. Paper lanterns were strung from pier to pier, each one painted with strange patterns and swayed softly in the breeze as a dockhand waved them in. “First time?” she asked, eyeing their patched sail and the bird at the bow.

“Our first voyage,” Aremis said proudly. Pinku managed a smile and followed Aremis along the pier, staying carefully on the planks that looked the least aged and ready to dunk clumsy babs into the brine.

Lantern Quay had all the things stories promised a port would: a stall selling a dozen kinds of rope where Aremis lingered, whispering the knot names under his breath from a book he’d read just before their voyage, a shop of sea biscuits that tasted like sugar cookies, and a chartmaker who inked maps.

“We’re bound for Windan’s coral forest,” Aremis announced, which made Pinku freeze.

“From very far away,” Pinku added hastily.

The eladrian chartmaker’s whiskers twitched. “Most who look for it find something else instead.” He drew a ring on their map with his pen. “Here’s the Churn,” he said. “Sailors say it cradles the coral. It pushes and pulls you until you don’t know left from right, and when you steady yourself, there’s no forest, only more sea.”

Pinku had never been more pleased to hear such discouragement. “What about other islands?” he asked. “Ones without a Churn.”

“Plenty of those.” The chartmaker dotted a blot of ink near a cluster of islands with his pen. “The Thimble Isles. Threader’s Key for rope, Buttoncap who sell their famous mushroom soup and Murmur Shoals for finding the best shells to hear the sea from.”

“We’ll do that then,” Aremis said, eyes shining.

Pinku resisted the urge to claim he could hear the sea just fine from the safety of a window.

They left Lantern Quay in the afternoon. Aremis insisted on trying one sugar cookie every hour and brought a tin back with him from them to share later.

They never saw coral, not even a hint of it. If coral trees rose above the water anywhere near Windan, they remained hidden from two small babs with a staggering resolve. “Must have taken a wrong turn,” Aremis said at one point, when a line of water that looked grey instead of blue started to gather on the horizon.

“No matter,” Pinku said firmly, his level head catching up to his pounding heart. “We’ll explore what we can explore. That was the idea, wasn’t it?”

“We built a boat,” Aremis agreed. “So now we get to go explore.”

They went to Murmur Shoals first. The tide there spread over wide sandbars, leaving the water glittering like glass. Little Courage slid into the shallows until her keel touched bottom with a soft thud.

“Let’s hop out,” Aremis said, already wagging his tail. “This is the place for shells. The best ones to hear the sea from.”

Pinku hesitated at the water lapping his ankles, but the sandbars kept the sea at bay. Safe enough, he told himself, especially with Aremis already bounding onto the damp sand, eyes bright.

They disembarked, paws sinking into wet sand, and the hunt began. Every few steps, one of them stopped to pick up a shell, hold it to their ear, and judge it.

“This one,” Aremis declared, lifting a smooth spiral the color of sunset. He pressed it to his ear, eyes narrowing in concentration. “I hear… a whole orchestra. Drums and trumpets!”

Pinku snorted, pulling one from the sand that shimmered pale pink. “Mine’s better. It’s got whispers. Proper sea secrets. Yours just sounds like you’re hungry for dinner.”

“Does not!” Aremis huffed, but his mouth turned upwards and he snorted, betraying his laughter.

They kept at it, showing off each find with more dramatic stories about them than the last. Aremis found a fat, bumpy shell and declared it had the voice of a grumpy old captain. Pinku uncovered a long, curling cone and swore it contained a siren’s lullaby, then dropped it when a crab scuttled out, sending both of them into a fit of giggles.

“Best two out of three?” Aremis said, holding up his growing pile of shells like trophies.

“You mean best five out of seven,” Pinku shot back, cheeks puffed in mock challenge as he scrambled for another.

By the time they finished, the sand around them was littered with runner-up shells, each one dismissed with the exaggerated seriousness of judges until they finally agreed on two winners; Aremis’s sunset spiral, which hummed with a deep rhythm like a stormy sea, and Pinku’s delicate pale-pink shell with the gentle sound of waves lapping on the beach.

They carried their prizes back to Little Courage, tails high and laughter still bubbling between them.

“Now,” Aremis said, carefully setting the shells in a pouch, “where to next?”

“Anywhere,” Pinku said, grinning. “We’ve got the sea’s voices with us now.”

And with that, they pushed off once more, the shoals fading behind them with a chorus of gentle farewells.

At Threader’s Key, Aremis bartered their coins for a spool of quality twine and practiced tying knots until his tail wagged with satisfaction while Pinku watched, smiling. Afterwards they watched from the rocks as the local babs held a race. Boats speeding through an obstacle course, each crew shouting and hollering with pride as they skimmed the finish, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Aremis, who adored sports and competitions, let out happy yips and cheers and clapped each time a crew swooped by.

“You could try,” Pinku suggested, imagining how much fun his best friend might have. Aremis blanched. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. Watching is perfectly fine.” He leaned against Pinku, giggling anyway each time a boat turned too hard, missing an obstacle. “That one sails like a drunk seagull.”

“Graceful?” Pinku teased. Aremis snorted and laughed.

They kept going. 

On Buttoncap, the air smelled like earth and damp wood, mushrooms growing in wide patches across the island. The islanders wore mushroom-shaped caps and sent them away with a paper sack of little dried ones for stew with an invitation to return for their famous soup. “It doesn’t have to be storming to feel like an adventure,” Aremis said as they ate on the beach.

Pinku nodded. “No storm would be ideal, actually.” 

Which of course is exactly when they found one.

They didn’t see it at first, only felt it. The water changed and the waves rose and fell in long heaves. Clouds gathered and when they trimmed sail and turned Little Courage toward the clearest path away, the sea seemed to nudge them elsewhere.

“The Churn,” Aremis breathed, and Pinku’s stomach fell. The lifeline tugged against his belt and he gripped the rope until his pads ached. “Let’s not go there,” he said.

“Agreed,” Aremis answered at once. Even so, the Churn did not care for their agreement. The water took Little Courage up one long swell of water and then flung her down the other. The carved bird at the bow plunged and reappeared and the boat creaked in a way that made Pinku fear it would come apart.

“Hold on,” Aremis said, trying to angle them away. His face was calm but his tail had turned itself into a stiff pole.

Pinku swallowed, heart hammering against his ribs, and did the thing he was good at. He secured lines, moved where Aremis pointed, and most of all he kept calm.

A spray of water slicked the deck and Pinku’s paws went out from under him. He yelped, fell hard on his side and began skidding towards the low rail. The ocean yawned open like a mouth. For a long heartbeat, his vision tunnelled to the tug of the rope at his waist, the way the carved bird bobbed in the corner of his vision, and the color of Aremis’s coat as he lunged for Pinku.

Aremis caught him by the paw and hauled him back, collapsing with Pinku in a soggy heap. The boat leaned and the mast rattled. “You with me?” Aremis asked, foreheads touching.

“I’m here,” Pinku heard himself say. He hadn’t gone over, he was safe.

“Good,” Aremis murmured like a prayer. “Good… good.”

They breathed together for a moment, forehead to forehead. Then Pinku sat up and got his paws back under him, ignoring the way his legs wobbled like jelly. He squinted toward the sail. One of the ties had snapped, leaving the corner to flap wildly. “If we shorten it,” he said over the roar, “she’ll stop fighting us.”

“Can you…” Aremis began and Pinku was already moving with the same thought. He crawled along the deck, belly low, all four paws and his tail a fifth magnet to the wood. He had tied that very tie earlier on at Lantern Quay when Aremis showed him a bowline twice and Pinku had insisted on doing it thrice. He eventually reached the flapping corner, clutched it, and wrapped the line just as Aremis had taught him; loop, under, through, pull. The rope bit into his pads but the knot held.

Little Courage gentled just enough for them to edge away from the rough sea of the Churn and towards the gentler swells of water. By the time the clouds dispersed and the rough water let them go, Pinku’s heart was racing. Aremis’s fur was plastered and drenched with water and Pinku imagined he didn’t look much better. Aremis looked at him, smiling with relief. “We made it out,” Aremis said softly.

They let the boat rock her way to a tiny island, one of the unremarkable ones the chartmaker had not bothered to name. There was a single tree and sand still wet from the last high tide. It was perfect. They set down anchor and laid out their supplies: the tin of biscuits that tasted like sugar cookies, a paper packet of dried mushrooms they’d been too excited to cook, and a little brass box Pinku had hidden in his bag.

“A present,” he announced, sliding the box towards Aremis with as much mysterious drama as he could manage in his excitement. Aremis’s eyes went huge and he opened the box and made a small, excited sound.

Inside, placed upon the felt of the box lay a set of miniature pennants the size of his claws, each one painted with the patterns from the Threader’s Key regatta. “For your miniature fleet,” Pinku said, the words suddenly shy. “If you… want a fleet.”

Aremis did want one. He wanted it so much that he leaned forward and grabbed and squished Pinku into a tight hug and whispered, “You are the best friend,” in a bright voice.

They stayed until evening. A tern strutted along the beach inspecting the newcomers on its island. A small bottle washed ashore containing a slip of paper so water-logged it could have been a letter from a century ago. Pinku told Aremis it was a cursed captain’s confession in a whisper that made Aremis squeak and then laugh until his sides hurt.

When the sun began to set, they raised their sail again. The Eladrian Sea spread around them, no coral forest in sight, only the proof of other wonders: the reef-bell over the shoal and the lanterns of faraway towns glowing like stars in the distant dark.

They sailed back toward Windan while Pinku leaned against the mast and watched the stars wink to life in the sky. He was tired. He was proud. He was… he realized it with a strange sense of wonder, less afraid.

“Next time, where shall we go?” Aremis asked.

Pinku considered. So many islands. So many names waiting to be said. “The Whispering Keys,” he decided. “Or maybe…” a yawn caught him, soft and surprising, “maybe home first, for mushroom soup.”

“Perfect,” Aremis said.

They made it to Windan, the harbor was a hush of water lapping against hulls and the sound of sailors securing their vessels with rope and anchor and Little Courage slid into her berth to rest.

They went up the pier where lanterns swayed, ready to welcome travellers home. Pinku felt the fatigue pool between his shoulder blades. His fear of water had not left him, but he thought he was a little braver now.

He could have ended the day right there and called it a victory. A small fear tamed. But adventures had a way of not keeping to schedules. They kept living for the telling.

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“Wait,” Aremis said, lounging on the rug in front of the small fireplace to keep warm as evening settled in. “What do we call the island with the mushrooms? Buttoncap or Pepper Hat? Because I wrote Buttoncap but now I’m second-guessing.”

Pinku blinked at the blue-lined notebook in front of him. He’d been hunched over it so long his striped horns had left dimples at the top of the page. The room smelled faintly of salt, but that was the sea-salt caramel cocoa cooling on the low table beside him. And the rhythm in his ears was not waves on a hull, but Aremis’s tail thumping every time he got excited about a sentence. Their little ship, Little Courage, the model, sat on the windowsill, the firelight highlighting her figurehead.

He pressed the stub of his pencil against his lip. “Buttoncap,” he decided. “Pepper Hat sounds like the grumpy innkeeper we meet there.”

Aremis scribbled, tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth as it always did when he concentrated. He had turned the harbor chart they’d created into a map twice its size by taping more paper to the edges. It covered the rug between them like an extra carpet. The Thimble Isles were dots of pink ink, the Churn a circle of gray strokes and warning notes. Lantern Quay had a smiling lantern doodled beside it. The Whispering Keys waited to the south, their names not yet chosen, a space left for future ideas.

“And the regatta?” Aremis asked. “We watched from the rocks, right? We didn’t race.”

Pinku glanced at Aremis in thought for a moment and smiled. “We watched,” he said gently. “You clapped for every boat and you said that one of them sailed like a drunk seagull.”

Aremis’s ears went rosy. “Keep that line, please.”

“Already did.” Pinku tapped the page and read aloud, “‘Aremis clapped for every boat, even the slow ones. Especially the slow ones. He said they sailed like a group of drunk seagulls.’”

Aremis rolled onto his back and giggled until his tail bumped the cocoa mug. Pinku slid it away with a careful paw to save their favorite drink from disaster.

They were not sailors on an open sea. Not tonight. They were two babs on a living-room floor with a map spread between them. Their cheek patches brushed when they leaned together to disagree about whether Little Courage creaked or glided through the waves when the wind changed. They brushed cheeks again when a sentence landed just right. When they needed a break from writing, Aremis and Pinku made miniature pennants from colorful paper and they tied them to Little Courage’s model mast with thread.

After a while, Aremis stretched one paw until it touched Pinku’s. “Next chapter,” he said, tapping the empty space on the map with another paw. “The Whispering Keys.”

Pinku smiled. “Tomorrow. I’m falling asleep on the rug and that would make for a very short adventure.”

“Short but cozy,” Aremis laughed.

Pinku tucked the pencil behind his ear and looked at Little Courage on the sill. She’d sailed that day. In a tide pool weeks ago and in their minds tonight. He set the notebook aside and rolled to the spot beside Aremis. They lay like two dust bunnies, distinguishable only by color. The map rustled in the heat and the sea drawn on paper looked every bit as wide as the one outside town.

“Where should we go next?” Aremis asked drowsily, more to the ceiling than to Pinku.

“Everywhere,” Pinku answered. Then more enthusiastically. “But specifically to Pepper Hat’s inn to order mushroom soup. And to Murmur Shoals to hear the sea whisper in the shells again. And…” he yawned, interrupting himself, “...to bed.”

Aremis giggled, then made a contented sound that meant he agreed. Pinku’s eyelids began to feel heavy, but they shared ideas long into the night until his eyelids closed to bring him to the world of dreams. When he dreamed, it was of lanterns on piers and a reef-bell that rang and a boat whose courage was exactly the size it needed to be for its small captains.

And come morning, after the cocoa mugs were washed, they would set sail again. Paws tucked under them on their living-room floor, pencils at the ready, travelling the Eladrian Sea with words. Little Courage waited on the windowsill, her tiny pennants fluttering whenever heat rose from the vents, as if she too was eager to know which island their story would carry them to next.