Gabriel Jeroschewitz, December 6th, 2025, Happy New Year Dedicated to Robert Burns.
The Fête of the Immortal Sea
as seen by Elric Fen, Shore-Watcher of Glassehaven
I tell yu now of that nite, tho it’s a thing I shudnt keep in my mouth long — it heavs on the mind like deep tide on the ribcage. It wer late in the warm-seazun, the kind yu call the Heartsmonth, when the town does its lantern-show, the Fête of Lumes. Women in silk-colors, men in bright coats, laughter like a spun chain runnin down the quay. We all was lookin landward at the gardens, at the quick lovers dartin from bower to bower, while out-behind us the sea lay quiet — quiet in a way that is its own kind of sound.
I was not partake like the others. I am shore-watcher, so my eyes go sea-side. I dont kno if you felt it before: how the sea can seem asleep in its skin but its deep belly is turnin. Its coil moves miles under, and if yu listen long yu can near feel it in your own chest. That nite, for no reason I cud name, I got the sudden sense that it was lookin back at me.
Yu mustnt think me fancy-talkin. I mean plain: the sea lookt. As if it had found me in the crowd and wanted a word.
Now, Glassehaven has its old yarns — the ones we half-jest about in the taverns but half-hide from children. Fêtes that wer watched from the waves themselves, by things not fish nor bird. Times when ships lay at anchor right off the quay and the music carried out across the water, to be answered by lights out at the black edge, lights that was not lantern nor star. Old folk say the sea got memory longer than any church record, and it keeps the faces of them that stood at its lip, even thousand years gone.
On that nite I swear I heard it call, not in sound but in pull. My feet wanted the wet stones. My hands felt the salt-stick from the air. And my heart — it quickt like a lad in first courtship, only this was no girl’s glance, but something far deep.
The fête went loud then — some manner of fire-thrower and drum-beaters in the garden-square. The lovers all pressed in close to see, petals from the bower-trees falling in their hair. But the sea behind them, it flasht. Not the white of common lightning — no — this was a red fork in the clouds, a spear of it, split in two mid-air and stabbing down into the far horizon.
And between that spear’s flicker and the next breath, I saw the ships — three of them, pale sails in the half-dark — all shudder at once. A quiver ran up the masts and the canvas went slack as if a hand had been laid on their backs.
I thought of old says: When the Immortal watches, mortal timbers feel it.
I started toward the breakwater. The stones there old and black with weed, slipper as eel-skin. A man shudnt walk alone past the last lamplight, not with deep tide on the turn — but my steps was not my choosing.
When I come to the water-edge, it was no longer quiet. Slow roll, yes, but each rise carried in it a sound like far music. Not played on strings nor pipes — more a thrum, a deep tune that yu don’t so much hear as feel low in the gut. It made me think: maybe the sea’s own heart got its rhythms, and now it wanted me to match mine to it.
I looked back — the fête was still bright, still laughing, still throwing its perishable flowers in the garden. But even from there, I could see how small it was against the seaface.
Yu see, the sea don’t care if yu are name-known or name-lost. It don’t care if yu are kissing under boughs or dancing in paint and wine. It’s seen every fête along every shore since man first thought to put a lamp in the dark. It’s seen lovers vow under myrtle trees and orange nights. It’s seen them sink together when the ship goes down, the music stopped mid-note. Their bones rest under miles now, no light there at all.
The red forks came again — higher this time, and stranger. They didn’t strike down but seemed to pause mid-sky, like they was holding. And in their light I saw out past the breakwater — shapes, pale as sails, but taller and narrow. Not ships.
They was lined in a half-ring, far enough that their feet — if they had feet — must be in water too deep for the harbor’s chart. I cudnt count them proper. Their heads was not heads, more curves where the lightning caught and slid off.
I thought — fool that I am — that maybe they was watching the fête same as me. But the longer I stared, the more I knew their gaze was not on the gardens. It was fixed on the quay. On me.
I felt it then, hard in the chest: a mighty power, as if the whole sea had leaned in. Joy, yes — not joy like a mortal’s, but that nameless lift yu get when yu are part of something too big for all your words. It was as if I’d been chosen to stand in that moment between the fête and the Immortal.
The power came with a promise. Not in speech, but in tide: You will not be forgot.
I can’t tell proper how it happen next. There was a change — a cold drawn up through every wave at once. The music from the fête faltered, a drum missed its beat. A smell of iron ran in the wind.
Then — nothing. The garden’s light still shone, the lovers still laughed. But a shadow had moved between us. Not one yu see with eyes, but one yu sense in the bones.
Behind that shadow lay a place I shud not go.
The Immortal waited. The ring of pale shapes held as the red lightning spears froze mid-sky. I felt my breath slow, my pulse match the low-thrum in the tide.
It was asking — no, it was offering. A fête of its own, with no end.
I knew the old tales: the ones who accept are taken. Not drowned like common shipwreck, but brought into the depth where time is not. They say those ones dance there forever, music of eternity in the quiet — no breath, no day, no night, just the endless.
The quayside stones under my hand was slick. The water close enough to take me in one step more. My heart was strong — too strong for any mortal fête.
I thought of the lovers back in the bower, their flowers already fading. I thought of ships that sailed for joy only to sink by morning. And I thought of the Immortal, who has kept its own music longer than the stars.
I stepped forward.
The water rose — not high, not rough — just enough to take my balance. The ring of shapes parted, two and two, making a way. The red lightning swam down into the path, turning the black into a strange warm gold.
I didn’t fall. I went.
I can’t tell yu the rest in mortal words. There’s no sense of hour in that place, only the feel of the sea’s heart opening to you. Vast gardens there too, not bough nor flower but coral risen like towers, weed streaming like silks. Others moved about me — not fish, not men, but tall and curve-headed, their long arms carrying lights no fire ever made.
We danced. We danced without ground underfoot, and the music was the deepthrum and the pulse of the tide.
It was love, if love is being part of a thing that will never end.
I don’t remember leaving. One breath I was there, the next I stood again at the quay, dawn just breaking, the fête gone. Not a petal left on the stones.
But I carry it. The power, the joy without name. I am still shore-watcher here in Glassehaven, but some nights — the warm-seazun nights — the sea will look back at me.
And I know it remembers.
Postscript by Elric Fen:
If yu read this and think to go alone to the breakwater on Heartsmonth, yer a fool. The Immortal gives only one fête to each man. And once yu step forward, there’s no turning back — save if it sends you. But if it does, yu will be never whole again for mortal shores.or sing Auld Lang Syne,
