The Bones of the Leviathan

Not much is known of the Leviathan race beside the fact that they are proud. Each creature adorns the banner of their den, in the form of a species of seaweed associated with each, bound together to make cape-like garments. At first, it was believed that they had become accidentally ensnared, but as more sightings of the creatures were marked and the phenomena remained consistent, new theories blossomed. 

Now, we believe that the seaweed represents either families or regions, and it appears that each group has relations with one another in some way, whether good or bad. Concubulbos seaweed is the mark of a group that has favorable relations with the ones bearing procanus kelp, but a dreadful history with the acersegreos weed wearers.

It’s a miracle that humans even know this, because otherwise Leviathan are a mystery. Even knowing just this much which I’ve overheard in a tavern, I find myself interested—eager, is more likely the word—in learning more. But it isn’t as though I have the means to set out and observe the Leviathan myself. I am but a woman freshly turned from a girl, and even if I could find a way for a captain to let me aboard a ship, there is no charter seeking out the creatures. To approach a Leviathan—to advance on them, from their perspective—is to dance with wreckage.

My mother would have told me this is nonsense, if she were still around to lecture. But I can still hear her voice in my mind as it was. I should leave this alone, and for years, I do.

But from the comfort of the port town in which I reside, I collect what I can, even making it a point to sell my wares to sailors and other ship dwellers in a single minded effort to scrap together what knowledge I can. One sailor tells of a Leviathan, or multiple, kicking up a storm of sand deep below the surface, enough that it could be seen from the deck of a ship above. It struck the sailors dumb why the creatures would dig, since it wasn’t as though they would make use of the sand cloud as a masking mechanism; there isn’t a creature alive they would need to hide from. But I have a theory of my own as to why they would need to dig such a mammoth hole.

The Leviathan are proud, are they not? Maybe they give their dead an honorable burial as we do.

The types of banners each pack wears become my business to know, and when and where they are seen. I begin to ask questions outright instead of hoping the subject will come up, and some sailors find out that they can trade information with me for a small discount on my pickled stocks that won’t go bad with them on their long journeys.

I know more than anyone in the world, I think, which is still very little.

“I’ve always meant to ask but never have, and I guess I should now that you’re leaving,” Asher says, leaning his hip against my stall with arms crossed casually. “What has you so interested in Leviathan, Lilah?”

As many questions as I’ve had, no one has bothered to ask me why. As such, I’ve never thought it through enough to give an appropriate response.

“They just… I’m not sure, there’s just a majesty about them, don’t you think?”

I have never been able to describe why I feel such a connection to them, especially since I’ve never laid eyes on one. All I have to go on are descriptions, and once or twice, a crude drawing. Maybe it’s the idea of them, but really, even given ample time to consider, I don’t think I would be able to describe my fascination. 

“I guess, if you can see past the ship destroying part.”

“They don’t destroy all ships, otherwise we would never hear of accounts of them at all.”

In each story I’ve ever heard of them, the ship made the decision to take no action against the creature, so I can only assume that when left alone, the Leviathan will follow suit. Given the pride of the creature, I’m sure they won’t tolerate an outright attack; I’ve begun to think of them like the warrior men of the human race, putting anything on the line for their honor.

“Whatever you say. I hope the next place has all the Leviathan experts of your dreams, my sweet Lilah,” he said, taking my hand and placing a kiss on its back.

Asher has always been a flirt of epic proportion. I’ve witnessed him make a pass at multiple women in the same sentence, but these strategies normally do him no good. He stopped making any serious requests for me long ago, but he still puts hefty teasing into his words and actions for the simple fun of it. 

I laugh and jokingly wipe the back of my hand on his uniform, as though disgusted, even though I never could be. Asher has been a friend for a long while—and not only because he is my chief source of information. I’m sincerely saddened at the prospect of no longer seeing him.

My family is moving further inland. My grandparents left us their land, on which my father and brothers will be able to extend their farming substantially. It’s a good thing for our family, but not for my heart, not when the sea will no longer be within my daily reach. We won’t be especially far, but enough that I won’t have access to ports or sailors any longer. To get to the nearest shore, I’ll need to travel two days by horse, which I won’t have the time for often, perhaps every other month. Peddling our wares is primarily my duty in the family, especially since mother passed, and is a time consuming job that requires consistency if the people will come to rely on our services. 

“It won’t, but thank you, Asher,” I say, throwing him a wink for old times sake. He puts his hand over his heart and clutches his chest, and I can only laugh or else I will cry.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Without the muscle and sinew, it’s smaller than I would have thought. But it is true that I’ve never seen one in real life, so the stories could easily be exaggerated, whether on purpose for the drama of it or unintentionally when the memory clouds from the adrenaline soaking the sailors blood upon seeing it. No matter the size, Leviathan are deadly to humans and ships alike.

One thing I can’t deny, though, is its majesty. The others see a big pile of bones, thousands or perhaps millions of years old, just waiting to decay into nothing. Whoever came before me at least had an interest, that much was clear, as they never would have dug the bones up in the first place if they hadn’t. But now they stood bare and abandoned. I can’t tell if I’m happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to see this or appalled that someone has done it.

I imagine the Leviathan kicking up the sand, mud, and clay at the bottom of the sea to deposit their fallen friend, sister, or brother into its depths. We as humans do the same, and while I can’t possibly know the feelings the Leviathan go through, I picture anguish.

This is a desecration, I conclude.

For weeks, I pedal my family's wares in town for eight hours a day, then come to the site where the great skeleton lays so I may chip at the hole I’ve begun to dig. My progress is slow, as I am only one woman not well versed in frequent physical labor. My arms feel as though they may fall off at any given time of day, but I do not stop and I do not let myself rest a single day. My two brothers come and help me once in a while, not because they understand my motivation, but because they are good and do not wish to see me drive myself into the ground. It’s the most I could ask of them.

I do enjoy doing it by myself, though, because then I can speak to the bones. I know they cannot listen, but I tell them of what the world has become in its absence anyhow. There is much I haven’t seen, but I try to describe to the best of my ability what has been told to me. I tell the bones of my life too, a far less interesting subject. But I suppose that if I had been in the ground without a soul to hear from for however long it had been, I would welcome any sort of conversation. I feel silly doing so, but sometimes I pretend as though the bones answer back, and I imagine it is a male. He asks me questions in my mind which I faithfully answer. I cannot do this when my brothers are present, or risk seeming like a fool. I do still appreciate their help, of course.

My father does no such thing. Not only does he not understand, but he does not care. Maybe time has not been kind to the poor man, as there are things in his past that have remained unnamed even to his children. Perhaps he is too jaded to care for other beings, especially ones long dead and with so little in common. I can take these things into account without needing to ask, and find little fault in his disinclination.

It has been two months by the time the hole is large enough. Zane and Cohan help me with the larger bones that I could not conceive moving on my own. But by the time I have finally replaced the dirt atop the bones, I am alone with the calm that my task has helped me achieve. Every moment that the Leviathan was above ground made my heart want to weep, and now I feel content.

This is what he would have wanted.

As I sit in the freshly kicked up dirt all around me, no regard to the clothing I don as it has already been sullied dozens of times over, my gaze affixes to the quickly darkening sky and I imagine it is the sea. I may not have seen it had I simply gone home when my task was complete, but my wistfulness allows me to see something very faint in the stars. For a long moment, I believe I have been deprived of too much sleep and have convinced myself of something that is not there, but it only becomes clearer and clearer.

A Leviathan, or how I had always dreamed they would look, flies down from the inky depths of the sky. I am struck dumb as the image draws nearer, only to land just before me, above where I have lain the bones to rest. He is not a physical thing, as the body is translucent, his lines marked by starlight. His eyes close and head dips, and I am so lost for words that I can only repeat the action. For a long while, we stare at one another.

“How— I—”

There are hundreds of questions I could ask this creature, but none come to mind. For nearly every waking moment of the past decade, I’ve yearned to know everything that I could of the very thing that stands before me, but it suddenly feels unimportant that I know the Leviathans mating habits or the length of its life cycle. Inexplicably, I just gawk.

The creature lifts his chin, as though imploring me to continue. I have done him a service, this I understand, and he seems to want to do something for me in return.

I can think of nothing to ask for.

“Live on,” I finally say. It’s a foolhardy and sentimental thing to say, as the creature—dead perhaps a million years—cannot live, but I have every intention of bringing his memory with me, of sharing this tale with others. Maybe I won’t be believed, but someone, somewhere will have doubts, will think that perhaps there’s a chance at this magic existing. This Leviathan will live on through me, and then those like me.

This message is not received as I intend it. 

A swirling cloud of mist and glimmer encase the Leviathan, and if its expression wasn’t one of peace, I may have panicked. Still, there’s a tightness in my chest as I am sure this is my final moment with it. I did not find anything out as I’ve always dreamed, but I don’t feel disappointed. Seeing it and feeling its gratitude is more than enough for me. Awe douses me as a performance of color and light replace the vision of the huge serpent, the breathtaking sight surely inspiring every dream of my future.

The space the mist occupies shrinks, and I am certain the Leviathan will be there no longer when it fades as the size dwindles further and further. But left in its wake when the lights fade and the dimness of night causes me to squint is a man.

I blink profusely, certain my eyes are playing tricks on me. 

“Lilah,” he says, and hearing my name in the deep gravel that is his voice, like I imagine the course sands at the very bottom of the sea to be, is a shock to my body.

“Y— You’re— You’re the Leviathan?”

He nods, and I think I may pass out. Somehow, I speak instead.

“What is your name?”

He smiles as though he wasn’t expecting this to be my first question, but pleased that it was.

“I am called Emet.”

I test the name on my tongue, in a whisper that comes out hoarse and disbelieving. As I do, he moves closer, and a part of me is terrified, but there is more of me that’s intrigued at what he’ll do next. 

“There is much you wish to know,” he says. 

It’s an understatement, but again, I can’t come up with the words if I tried. It is only partially because I am distracted by his beauty; he is every bit of majesty that I have associated with the creature he once was, still is in his soul. 

“I— Yes, but… But I don’t need to. You don’t owe me anything.”

I’m not going to behave as though my act of decency has incurred me any sort of favor with Emet, an ancient being of untold power. I can’t presume that he has all the time in the world to tell me everything I want to know, as I am such a glutton for knowledge that I don’t believe we would ever be through.

Again, he smiles, and it is both light and intense in a way I can’t comprehend the coexistence of. Perhaps it’s not the soft shape of his lips, but his eyes that pierce me, a rich cerulean that I swear glows in the darkness, guiding me to him.

“I owe you my life.”

Emet takes my hand, and I am struck by how large his are, and by how firmly he holds me, like he thinks I will disappear if he does not cling. But it is I who fears he will go; he is precious, not me. But when he looks into my eyes as he does now, I think that I must be wrong.

“You don’t. But if you’d like to give it to me, I won’t object,” I say, adding a bit of snark to my words that make me question who in the seven seas I think I am. But his fond grin tells of a familiarity, and it is now that I wonder for the first time if he could hear me as I spoke to his bones for days on end.

“I would. I would love to give it to you, Lilah,” Emet says, then pulls me closer still to lean his forehead against mine.

I don’t know what words need to be spoken; I’m not convinced that any do. I do not know this man and he does not know me, but somehow that feels untrue. I spent weeks at his side, in a sense, and while we could never engage properly, I feel my soul has been introduced to his still. 

All this time I knew there was so much that I did not know, but it turns out that the extent of which is boundless. Yet, I know enough to fathom the value.