The Far Wild

12 - Small Lives, Small Ambitions

* * *

Suni

The Far Wild was everything I’d imagined and more. It was a naturalist’s dream, and we hadn’t even landed yet.

In the five days we’d been flying I’d already seen more animals of interest than in all of my studies to become a naturalist. Birds were the easiest to spot and, though I couldn’t be sure without further investigation, I’d recorded what looked to be at least six previously undescribed species. Several looked to be related to the common turkey vulture, but the rest were more diverse. A fiercely plumed fishing hawk watching the swamp, a flock of small, brightly colored insectivorous birds diving and darting above the reeds, and even a crane of such extraordinary size it left me itching to check Professor Symeos’ reference library. The water bird looked like it could easily be one of the biggest extant species.

In addition to the birds, I’d also spotted three new types of monkey in the canopy, what was probably a subspecies of water buffalo, and, while passing low and slow over a river, what was unmistakably the silhouette of a bull shark. In a river!

Sharks were known to hunt in brackish waters, but the fishermen of Lekarsos had long claimed to see them upriver in the Nostos. Misidentifications, we’d always thought. But this had been a shark, I’d seen it with my own eyes. We’d need to come back and do salinity tests. Maybe the river here had an unusually high salt content? Or maybe bull sharks weren’t as dependent on saltwater to survive as we’d thought? Professor Symeos had an old theory that they had a special organ that controlled salt release throughout their bodies, but I’d always thought that sounded a bit far-fetched.

Simply put, the wilderness of the Far Wild was even more untouched, even more pristine, even more bursting with life than I’d dared to hope. Sooner or later I had to get down on the ground. Needed a closer look at all this and then at least a dozen more expeditions to properly catalogue even half of what I’d been seeing. It was overwhelming in all the best ways.

I’d been drawing everything I’d seen and already my first journal was halfway full of rough sketches. Most weren’t usable, but they helped keep the image of the animals in my mind. I could refine them when I came back on a proper expedition. For the moment, though, my reservoir quill was out of ink.

I’d rested a plank of wood across two barrels, creating a sort of desk on deck that’d been my workspace these past days. It was steady enough, but still I made sure to move my journal safely out of spill range before reaching into my bag to retrieve an ink bottle. I steadied my hands, then began to carefully drip fresh ink from the bottle into the capsule at the rear of my quill.

“I hope your entire bag is full of nothing but ink and paper.” Senesio stepped into the corner of my vision, hands on his hips and a slight smile on his face. “Otherwise, at the rate you’ve been working, there won’t be enough. An admirable work ethic, if I do say so myself.”

“There’s so much to be done,” I mumbled through pursed lips, keeping my focus on the ink.

“Well there’s one thing we both agree on, eh?” He leaned against the makeshift table, bumping it and making me spill some ink, then sighed. “If only everyone else shared the mindset.”

I finished pouring and capped the bottle, then set it aside. “What do you mean?”

“Forgive the directness of my asking, but how well traveled are you, Suni Koudounas? Your surname tells me your family is Cyphite, which makes sense. But have you spent much time beyond the borders of our island empire? Have you journeyed to far-flung places? Seen the wonders of the world? Dined at strangers’ tables and conversed with peoples foreign and fantastic?”

Not exactly a normal line of questioning. Where was he going with it?

“I’ve... traveled a bit,” I said, unsure what to say. “Though nothing so dramatic as you make it sound.”

“And you’ve met many people?”

“My schoolmates and friends growing up, associates and professors at the college in the capital, and, well, you and everyone else in Lekarsos. Why?”

“While I’ve many journeys left to undertake, I have spent most of my life traveling and there’s one absolute I’ve learned in that time.” He paused, drawing it out for what felt like dramatic effect. “People are all the same, Suni. No matter where you go in the world. They’re content with their small lives, with their small ambitions.” He stepped up to the ship’s rail, then rested both hands on it and leaned forward, facing the horizon. “They’re afraid to yearn for what they really want. And if, in some fever-filled night, they do let themselves dream of it, by morning they’ll wake and go about their normal lives anyway.”

“That’s a rather pessimistic view of humanity.”

“It is, isn’t it? But a truth, nonetheless. I’ve seen it in my travels.” He turned back toward me and there was something different in his eyes. Not anger, not sadness. No, something else.

Ambition.

“I’ve seen these small people trapped in their small lives and I refuse to join them. And I think, whether you realize it or not, you’re the same way.”

Well that was quite a jump. Where was he getting that from?

“Don’t laugh,” he said. “I can see you want to, but think about it. Why, of all the places you could go to become a naturalist, did you choose Lekarsos? And further, the Far Wild?” He stretched his arms out wide. “They say the Far Wild is where you go to die, after all.”

“I didn’t come here to die.”

Senesio smiled at that. “I know you didn’t.” He said it low and soft. And his words sounded all the more confident for it. “And neither did I.” He clapped his hands together and all at once, the seriousness dropped from his tone, replaced with a jaunty excitement. “Besides, who has time to die? There’s far too much left to do. If only my biographer had realized that.”

“Your biographer died?” There was a story there, I was sure, though less sure it was one I wanted to hear.

“Ancestors above, no. He didn’t die, he did something much worse.” Senesio lowered his voice to a whisper. “He quit.”

He quit? And that’s worse than... that’s...

I sighed. This was getting ridiculous. Though, as I was starting to realize, that was Senesio’s modus operandi.

“Senesio, I have a lot of work to do. We’re not going to be here long, and I have to record everything while we are.”

“Of course, of course. I completely understand.”

“But.” I said the word and he hung on it, waiting to hear what was coming next. Admittedly, he had piqued my curiosity.

“But what?” he asked.

“I’m curious. You said you followed your ambition to the Far Wild? But what, exactly, is your ambition?”

“I don’t want much,” he said, crossing his arms and slouching against the ship’s rail. “Wealth beyond measure and fame beyond reason should be enough.” He raised a finger as if just remembering. “And maybe a small kingdom somewhere warm.”

Oh. Oh, I see. It took me a moment to fully process all of that. He was joking, surely. I smirked.

“Not exactly dreaming big, are you?”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s a start. At some point I’m sure I’ll grow bored of all that and aspire for something more.”

More? More than that?

“You’re serious?”

Senesio looked confused. “Of course.”

“Senesio, you don’t just become a king. It’s not a thing you just earn.”

“Come now, Suni. That’s the normal person in you talking. Don’t be normal. Be more.” He paused a moment, then nodded. “Take Professor Symeos, for instance. That old geezer’s famous from here to the capital and beyond. He didn’t achieve that by being normal. He achieved it by pursuing his ambition.”

“Well, that’s fair. But I don’t know if it was ambition so much as passion. He loves his work.”

“Bah. Passion, ambition? They’re one and the same.”

Okay, he had a point there. I think I understood what he was getting at.

“People like Professor Symeos, like your teacher, Kamil, they didn’t—”

“Skyship ahead!” The call came from the bow of our ship and all at once, I’d forgotten Senesio. “Skyship ahead! On the prairie!”

I rushed from my seat and toward the bow to get a view. It was Kamil’s skyship, it had to be!