Regatta (February)

Caspian sighed. The gods were conspiring against him, they must have been. By all rights, by the origins of his name (after all, who else would get an entire sea named after them?) he ought to be in the lead. Unfortunately, at this rate, he would end up second to last.

The sleek shadow of another catamaran caracoled around his own, the bottom of the boat barely skimming the surface of the currents. Foam spewed and the icy swells left in its wake rammed both vessel and man, leaving them drenched in the midst of winter weather. Momentum further played its hand, twisting the catamaran at an odd angle that blocked off the rest of the river to the nonexistent competitors behind them, a grievance a good half hour of careful maneuvering could mend. Even a few minutes and not only was the last place trophy, a mocking award of compensation, probable, but it was most likely guaranteed. (He couldn’t help but muse that maybe this was karma for holding an unofficial regatta in a too narrow river, one that, now that he thought about it, even the tourists avoided.)

“Beautiful day, wouldn’t you agree?” His friend lay sprawled across the back end of the hull, slender fingers idly drumming along one of the oars.

She was right, of course. The sun trickled through the canopy hanging overhead, leaving golden splotches in the shade. Birds native to the riverbanks sang to each other, merry in ignorant jubilee. The sky was clear, a cerulean a dozen tints lighter than the deeper resonance of the water, but none of that mattered. At all.

“Lai… Either jump off now to lessen the mass or help row.”

Despite his evident ire, Lailani laughed, the sound soft and gliding across the scintillations of the river. He let out another sigh, noting the condensation from his breath, and closed his eyes. The hypnotic timbre of her voice coupled with the lulling undulations of the narrow waters, loosening the sorry state of their catamaran before an opposing wind would revert any progress, was making him seasick. Back and forth, left to right, to and fro…

When next he woke, the movement had stopped. It was odd, with his eyes closed and the memory of his nausea foremost, that there ought to be a certain stillness to… well, everything. The first question to cross his mind was something along the lines of the classic ‘am I dead?’ but an immediate evaluation choked the words. Then he dared to open his eyes.

--

This is a set of monthly writing prompts I get from a friend, and so each month, I'm given a prompt to write about that will continue off the previous to serve as chapters of a story.