The Generation of Ships

It had been four generations since the white had returned to the world, or so the elders would tell us. Four generations since the cold had lay its heavy veil upon the earth and choked the colour out of everything. The first generation, we had been told, traveled northward, in search of an escape from the ever worsening chill. The second generation headed south out of desperation, the North having obviously failed them. The third wandered aimlessly, no longer burdened with hope that leaded their feet and dimmed their eyes. The fourth settled, accepting that there would be no more paradise, no more colour. The elders were of the fourth. They named the generations hope, desperation, despair and acceptance. They tried to tell us of the colours, of things not even they had seen. Things their parents' parents had not laid eyes upon. They desired only to keep history, to kindle the spark of hope; but as the fifth generation, we had no such capacity. We knew only the white - the snows and the frosts, the ice floes and knife winds. We saw only white: white in the land and white in the sea. Even the fish we pulled from the waters reflected white, and thus were one more mirror of the white. As the fifth we knew nothing but what we saw, and there would have been no surprise had our generation been called the white in glorious hindsight. But even in a land where time is frozen still does the hourglass turn. And even amidst the cold, unchanging wasteland we grudgingly called home did the world seek to foster change.

During the fifth turn of the seventh cycle, at the dark of the tenth season, of the fifth generation - our world changed. As the fishers rose to their duties, they noted a stillness upon the air. Stillness being no odd occurrence, but the fishers spoke of a "death of all sound"; a silence to be the end of all silences. The waves had quietened, the water birds had gone and the knife wind, though blowing, made no sound at all. They cast their bone fishing poles into the waters, only to be greeted by stillness. Not a single fish leapt from the strings of their poles, no brave sea bird returned to chance a go at the catches, for there were none. The fisherman persisted, being no strangers to a quiet morning. They persisted until sunrise. The pale, vermillion orb clawed its way above the white horizon, resembling not so much a sun as the tired eye of an old snowbeast - not wanting to cast its glare upon the white but knowing it had to to continue its comfortable sleep. Turning bright the snow and ice, it touched its lethargic fingers upon something to the south that made the fishers drop their poles and run for the village. Upon the white, still ocean... it touched upon something dark. 

The tale of the dark form upon the waters caused little, if any ripples among those of the fifth that heard it. It was assumed that the fishers had slept poorly the night and had shared a waking dream of a cloud crossing the ocean. It was laughed off by all but a few hunters. Hunters who understood the terror in the eye of the fishers, who had, indeed, seen the terror reflected in their own eyes when confronted with a strange and vicious snowbeast. It was not the fishers who rose to greet the sun where ice met water the next morning, but a small band of hunters. Laying prone amongst the snow, furs rendering them almost invisible, they awaited the new sun. Once again the dark shape to the south appeared upon the waters, yet the hunters did not flee. Breath held, they watched the dark shape as it drew closer, separating itself from dark mass into several distinct shapes. Black squares and triangles drew the eye easily, yet they were as rippling hair upon the head of a pale daughter. Beneath the sails grew the true beast: grey and brown materials of which the hunters had never before seen fashioned into odd and twisted shapes which cut through the waters effortlessly and silently. The hunters, their nerve as deep ice, held their ground and watched as the dark shapes drifted past. One of the hunters, keen of eye, noticed movement upon one the creatures. Dark as the sails and odd of gait, but almost... human? He tried to indicate this to his brother nearby, but it was too late: the dark creatures were gone. 

That night the air of the village almost vibrated from fear and excitement. The fishers, no longer objects of derision and ridicule, were questioned of every detail, though they knew little. The hunters said nothing to all but the elders, the remnants of the fourth. A roaring council fire burned into the night and very few were brave enough sleep. 

The next morning, the sun clawing its way once more into view, the elders stood upon the frozen beaches. Flanked by two of the hunters, they awaited the dark shapes upon the horizon. And come they did - dark mass from distance, terrible shapes when nearer. As they drew close an elder trembled and collapsed. This time, the hunters trained their eyes to the top of the odd, twisted shapes. And movement they did see. Men - certainly men - in thick, black furs. But furs of the sort of beast no hunter would ever lay eyes upon. The men turned and watched the elders upon the beach; not moving, just staring. Staring as their strange creatures drifted by. And that night, under the watch of the other elders, the fainted one awoke with a scream of "ships, ships!" and fell once more into sleep, a sleep she did not awaken from.

People went to the beach the next day, but the dark creatures did not return. They returned every day afterwards, until the fishers had to shoo them away for fear of no fish. Day after day the numbers dwindled, until the memory of the black shapes faded from short, white memories. But from that day the name of the fifth generation would never be white again. The fifth generation would be the generation of ships.