Ship of Magic by Hobb Robin

journey, nothing he did pleased the captain. If he saw a task that needed doing and put men to work on it, he was told he'd overstepped his authority. If he did only the duties that were precisely assigned to him, he was told he was a lazy lackwit. With each passing day, Bingtown grew nearer, but Haven grew more abrasive as well. Brashen was thinking that when they tied up in their home port, if Vestrit wasn't ready to step back on as captain again, Brashen would step off the
Vivacia
's decks for the last time. It gave him a pang, but he reminded himself there were other ships, some of them fine ones, and Brashen had a name now as a good hand. It wasn't like it had been when he'd first sailed and he'd had to take any berth he could get on any ship. Back then, surviving a voyage had been his highest priority. That first ship out, that first voyage and his nightmare were all tied together in his mind.
    He had been fourteen the first time he'd seen a sea serpent. It was ten long years ago now, and he had been as green as the grass stains on a tumble's skirts. He'd been less than three weeks aboard his first ship, a wallowing Chalcedean sow called the
Spray.
Even in the best of water she moved like a pregnant woman pushing a barrow, and in a following sea no one could predict where the deck would be from one moment to the next. So he'd been seasick, and sore, both from the unaccustomed work and from a well-earned drubbing from the mate the night before. Sore in spirit, too, for in the dark that slimy Farsey had come to crouch by him as he slept in the forepeak, offering him words of sympathy for his bruises and then a sudden hand groping under his blanket. He'd rebuffed Farsey, but not without humiliation. The tubby sailor had a lot of muscle underneath his lard, and his hands had been all over Brashen even as the boy had punched and pummeled and writhed away from him. None of the other hands sleeping in the forepeak had so much as stirred in their blankets, let alone offered to aid him. He was not popular with the other sailors, for his body was too unscarred and his language too elevated for their tastes. “Schoolboy” they called him, not guessing how that stung. They knew they couldn't trust him to know his business, let alone do it, and a man like that aboard a ship is a man who gets other men killed.
    So when he fled the forepeak and Farsey, he went to the afterdeck to sit huddled in his blanket and sniffle a bit to himself. The school and masters and endless lessons that had seemed so intolerable now beckoned to him like a siren, recalling him to soft beds and hot meals and hours that belonged to him alone. Here on the
Spray,
if he was seen to be idle, he caught the end of a rope. Even now, if the mate came across him, he'd either be ordered back below or put to work. He knew he should try to sleep. Instead he stared out over the oily water heaving in their wake and felt an answering unrest in his own belly. He'd have puked again, if there had been anything left to retch up. He leaned his forehead on the railing and tried to find one breath of air that did not taste of either the tarry ship or the salt water that surrounded it.
    It was while he was looking at the shining black water rolling so effortlessly away from the ship that it occurred to him he had one other option. It had never presented itself to him before. Now it beckoned to him, simple and logical. Slip into the water. A few minutes of discomfort, and then it would all be over. He'd never have to answer to anyone again, or feel the snap of a rope against his ribs. He'd never have to feel ashamed or frustrated or stupid again. Best of all, the decision would only take an instant, and then it would be done. There'd be no agonizing over it, not even a prayer of undoing it. One moment of decisiveness would be all he'd have to find.
    He stood up. He leaned over the railing, searching within himself for that one moment of strength to seize control of his own fate.