He was alive…
The Serpente was gently heeled to port, rolling waves breaking at her bow to ripple the length of her waterline, trailing abaft her stern in a foamy “V.” The sea was a roiling indigo landscape, tipped in crimson where her waves broke in spindrift. Breathing deep of the fresh air, Buchanan thought then that he could grow to love the sea. Love the ship, with the wind on her sails, the rigging taut, the sea dark & surging with immeasurable power, everything humming in a salty harmony. To reconfigure and restrict one’s world to the span of a vessel’s deck, the open ocean, and all that sky overhead might not be a bad trade. To test oneself against something so beautiful and dangerous in equal measure, it felt in that moment like a calling, something larger than himself. He knew he would recall to the end of his days what he was feeling, the music and mystery of it all.
He realized that he was the farthest from home that he’d ever been. The Scottish Highlands and all that he had ever known were lost in his wake. New countries, even new continents, lay before him. He knew that with each new land under his feet, he would grow and change, just as he had done when he first set foot on the Serpente. His life had been forever altered when he answered Clan Buchanan’s call at Culloden, and though he would still change that decision if he could, foregoing all that he’d suffered, he couldn’t argue that in the end he would be the better for it … if he survived the days to come.
Genre: Historical
The Serpente was gently heeled to port, rolling waves breaking at her bow to ripple the length of her waterline, trailing abaft her stern in a foamy “V.” The sea was a roiling indigo landscape, tipped in crimson where her waves broke in spindrift. Breathing deep of the fresh air, Buchanan thought then that he could grow to love the sea. Love the ship, with the wind on her sails, the rigging taut, the sea dark & surging with immeasurable power, everything humming in a salty harmony. To reconfigure and restrict one’s world to the span of a vessel’s deck, the open ocean, and all that sky overhead might not be a bad trade. To test oneself against something so beautiful and dangerous in equal measure, it felt in that moment like a calling, something larger than himself. He knew he would recall to the end of his days what he was feeling, the music and mystery of it all.
He realized that he was the farthest from home that he’d ever been. The Scottish Highlands and all that he had ever known were lost in his wake. New countries, even new continents, lay before him. He knew that with each new land under his feet, he would grow and change, just as he had done when he first set foot on the Serpente. His life had been forever altered when he answered Clan Buchanan’s call at Culloden, and though he would still change that decision if he could, foregoing all that he’d suffered, he couldn’t argue that in the end he would be the better for it … if he survived the days to come.
Genre: Historical
Used availability for Brian A Hopkins's The Woman of Color's Tale