Floating Is the Best
Floating.
Floating.
The sound of lapping waves was a soft pillow.
The gentle sense of motion felt like a cradle for the ages.
Floating was the absolute best…
I lay face-down on Edward’s broad back with my eyes closed.
At first I had planned to get up right away and look around.
The blue sky stretched overhead was something I had never seen before, and the white clouds drifting on the wind were fascinating.
I wanted a closer look at the fish leaping from the surface and the small whales swimming alongside Edward.
The ship visible far beyond the horizon had me curious too.
But Edward’s back as she raced across the sea was far more comfortable than I had expected.
With every forward surge her back rose and fell in the tiniest increments.
It was never so violent that it rattled my brain, nor so still that it grew boring.
It was exactly the right amount of motion for sleep.
Each time her great tail fluke pushed against the water, a heavy vibration traveled up through her back.
Thump.
Then came the sound of water parting and closing again.
Splash.
Whoosh.
Thump.
Splash.
Whoosh.
The rhythmic sounds continued without end.
Listening to them, my mind loosened of its own accord.
The warmth of the sunlight that had soaked into Edward’s back was just right as well.
It was the kind of midday that should have been scorching, yet the sea breeze kept blowing and cooling the heat.
The skin against my cheek was rough and firm, yet every time I shifted it yielded with a slight springy give before returning.
It was nothing like a soft bed.
Strangely, though, it was not uncomfortable.
It felt heavy and steady, like a rocking chair made of old wood with a thick blanket laid over it.
“Hnn…”
I shifted a little, searching for the most comfortable spot.
I stretched both arms forward and pressed one cheek flat against Edward’s back.
My silver hair, long enough to reach my heels, could not all fit on her back and spilled down either side in long streams.
The tips of my hair brushed the seawater.
Each time the cold water slid past, the wet strands swayed gently.
A few small fish, mistaking the silver for food, swam closer.
One carefully nudged the tip of a strand with its mouth.
Without even opening my eyes I flicked a finger.
A droplet that had clung among the hairs gathered into a round bead and tapped the little fish on the head.
Startled, it flipped and fled.
Soon curiosity won out and it returned.
Even that motion came to me clearly through the water.
Even with my eyes closed, the sea became my unseen eyes.
The way Edward’s massive body cleaved the water.
The long, wavering shafts of sunlight beneath the surface.
A school of fish far away turning as one.
A giant ray drifting slowly through the depths, crabs hiding in the sand on the bottom—
if I wished, I could look at them all.
So there was no real need to open my eyes.
Even lifting my eyelids felt a little bothersome.
I had come down to see the world, but that did not mean I had to rush about.
The world was not going to run away.
What I failed to see today I could see tomorrow; if I did not feel like seeing it tomorrow, I could see it the day after that.
There was plenty of time.
Exactly how much I did not know, but at least I seemed free of any worry about growing old and dying.
The Primordial Sea still lived inside me, and every drop of water in this world was faintly connected to it.
If I wanted, I could cross to any other sea at any moment.
I could follow a river deep into a continent, or ride a single raindrop down onto a high mountain peak.
Thinking that way, any reason to hurry vanished even further.
“Edward.”
When I called her name in a small voice, a low rumble answered from below.
Woooong.
I could not tell how she had taken the name.
The cry that had reached me through the water when we first met had carried meanings hard to put into human words.
A sound that meant the wide sea.
A sound that meant waves stretching to distant places.
A sound that meant a being who had swum alone for long ages.
I had heard all of it and still could not be bothered to unpack each meaning and invent a name, so I simply pulled out one that had been familiar in my previous life.
Edward.
Somehow it suited a large, dignified whale.
When I called her that she had paused for a moment, then given a low cry.
She did not seem to dislike it.
After that I kept calling her Edward.
“I’m going to sleep.”
Wooooong.
A cry mixed with worry and tension touched my back.
I cracked open the eyes I had been keeping shut.
Edward’s movement had slowed noticeably.
The body that had been surging forward, throwing up broad waves, now moved with careful caution, as if being pushed by the swell.
The force of her tail fluke had lessened too.
She was fretting that I might roll off her back while I slept.
“It’s fine.”
I gave her back a light pat with my palm.
“Even if I fall, it’s just water.”
Edward answered with a low cry.
It clearly meant that was not the problem.
She knew, to some degree, that I could not be hurt by falling into the water.
Even so, she seemed unable to accept the idea of letting me fall from her back at all.
Edward tilted her body even more carefully.
She was tensing so that the broad back rising near the surface would stay as level as possible.
When a small wave approached she moved first to break it; when the side wind grew strong she turned so that the wind was at her back.
Even when she exhaled she turned her head aside so that spray would not reach me lying on her back.
I felt those movements for a while, then the corner of my mouth lifted a little.
“Good girl.”
I stroked her back once with my fingertips.
Beneath the rough skin the enormous muscles shifted minutely.
Edward’s cry rose a little higher.
Wooong.
She seemed pleased.
The body that had been rigid with tension a moment before gradually loosened.
I closed my eyes again and rested my cheek.
“Still, you don’t have to go so slowly.”
Woooong.
“I like the rocking.”
The moment the words left me, Edward’s tail moved with a bit more strength.
Her massive body cut through the current and surged forward.
Her back rose slowly, then settled.
Splash.
As we crested one wave my body tilted gently.
My hair, spread across her back, slid to one side and then returned.
I let out a long breath that escaped on its own.
“That’s it…”
In my previous life I had tried countless methods just to fall asleep.
I had bought soft pillows; I had hunted for mattresses said to be good for the body.
Hearing that the sound of rain or waves helped people sleep, I had played hours-long videos on my phone.
The wave sounds on the screen only sounded convincing for the first few minutes.
After a while the fact that the same sound was looping became obvious to the ear, and the ads that cut in every so often woke me up.
Now it was different.
Right beside my ear the real sea was rolling.
The waves never made the same sound twice.
When a small ripple struck Edward’s flank the sound was light and clear.
When she cleaved a large wave I heard the heavy water collapsing beneath the surface.
When the wind strengthened the crests broke into fine spray; when it calmed the sound continued as softly as thin cloth brushing past.
Beneath it all was the sound of Edward’s heart.
Thud.
After a long interval, again.
Thud.
It was a vast heart that had beaten without stopping for hundreds of years.
At first it was so low I could barely separate it from the waves.
Once I began to notice it, it traveled through my entire body.
Through my cheek, my chest, my palms, the slow pulse seeped in.
The sea’s waves and the whale’s heart kept different rhythms yet continued together.
Between them my own breathing naturally fell into step.
I drew breath slowly.
I let it out even more slowly.
Strength left my body.
“A cradle for the ages…”
I could not even finish the words before my lips went slack.
Was there a better cradle than this?
Lying on the Primordial Sea had been comfortable too.
Floating without touching anything anywhere, I could forget the weight of my body.
But there had been no motion carrying me along.
Even if the sea had rippled at my will, in the end I had been the one who had to make it move.
On Edward’s back I advanced without doing a thing.
Just by lying there the wind and sunlight changed, and the surrounding scents and sounds shifted little by little.
Even while I slept the world was drawing nearer.
I would arrive at the destination without effort.
No way of traveling could have suited my personality better.
Floating was the best.
Floating while someone else did the moving was even better.
I gave Edward’s back a light hug.
My slender arms could not encircle her body; even spreading them as wide as I could, I could only hold a small portion.
Still, a hug was a hug.
“Shall we keep traveling together from now on?”
It was a half-asleep mutter.
Edward’s body gave a great sudden shudder.
Her huge tail fluke stopped moving and her speed dropped.
When the rocking vanished all at once I frowned slightly.
“Why’d you stop…”
Wooooooong.
A long sound that resonated all the way to the deep sea continued.
There were so many emotions packed into it that I could not take them in at once.
Surprise.
Joy.
Fear.
The desire to confirm she had not misheard.
The resolve to carry me anywhere at all.
Even the stubborn determination never to yield her place to any other being.
Half asleep, I accepted the meaning.
“Mm…”
I felt I should conserve even the strength to answer, so I made only a short sound.
“If you don’t want to, never mind…”
Edward immediately cried out with force.
Woooooooong!
The seawater vibrated heavily.
A school of fish that had been passing nearby scattered in every direction in fright, and seabirds resting on the surface flapped their wings and took flight.
That cry went beyond mere “I don’t mind.”
Gladly.
Without fail.
Forever.
Anywhere you wish.
Edward was answering with every means of expression she possessed.
“Too loud…”
Eyes still closed, I patted her back twice.
“You’ll wake me up.”
Edward’s cry cut off at once.
Her entire massive body went rigid.
A moment later a very small sound rose from the water.
Wooong…
It was a careful, dejected cry.
I sighed and stroked her back with my palm.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”
Wooong.
“I said your voice was loud.”
Wooong.
“Let’s travel together.”
This time Edward did not cry out.
Instead her tail fluke moved slowly.
The motion was even more careful than before.
Yet the joy traveling through her body could not be hidden.
The current grew lighter.
The sea, as if rejoicing in time with Edward’s feelings, shattered the sunlight into fine sparkles.
Beneath the surface small fish formed schools and followed at her side.
A whale far away gave a low cry, and instead of answering Edward simply surged forward with even greater strength.
She seemed to want to boast to the entire sea that I was lying on her back.
I did not bother to stop that feeling.
I did not have the strength to stop it either.
I was sleepy.
The pleasantly rocking back, the warm sunlight, and the soft sound of waves pulled at me again.
My eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
“Wake me when we arrive…”
At my words Edward tilted her body the tiniest bit, then righted it.
It felt as if she had nodded.
I adjusted my position one last time and settled.
I gathered a few strands of silver hair and laid them under my cheek.
The rest I left to the wind and water.
Warm sunlight settled on my back, and the smell of the sea tickled the tip of my nose with every breath I drew.
The sea of my previous life had seemed strongly salty, but the scent I felt now was a little different.
Mixed among the salt was the smell of life.
Fish and seaweed.
The fragrance of distant flower pollen carried on the wind.
The scent of earth and trees that had flowed down from rivers.
It was the smell of a world where countless lives were living.
The world my children had shaped.
The sight of me, the moment I came down to see that world, already trying to sleep on a whale’s back, felt a little pathetic.
But only for a moment.
In the first place this was a world I had found too bothersome to make myself and had left to the children.
It would have been stranger if someone like me were bustling about diligently.
I would sightsee at my leisure.
If I did not feel like walking I would float on the water; if swimming felt like a chore I would ask Edward to carry me.
When I got hungry I would go to a market and eat something delicious; when I got sleepy I would lie down and sleep wherever I was.
There was no need to learn everything about the world all at once.
One thing at a time.
Only when I felt like looking.
Thinking that way, my heart grew easy.
“As expected…”
I muttered in a voice already half asleep.
“Floating is the best…”
Before the words even finished, my breathing evened out.
Edward felt the small warmth against her back and slowed her pace a little.
She raised her back higher above the surface.
It was a movement meant to keep seawater from touching Tia’s body.
When a large wave approached from afar she turned sideways and broke it first with her head and fins.
When the wind grew cold she changed course toward a warm current.
When the sunlight became too strong she deliberately chose places where clouds cast their shade and swam there.
She could not move the clouds themselves.
But Edward, who had lived for hundreds of years upon the sea, knew the paths the clouds would take from nothing more than the scent of the wind and the subtle differences in water temperature.
Until now she had used that knowledge to find food and avoid storms.
Now she used it so that the small being asleep on her back could rest in comfort.
Whenever Tia stirred, Edward immediately corrected the tilt of her body.
Sometimes a finger twitched or a small breath slipped between her lips; then Edward carefully checked for any sign that she might have woken.
She did not wake.
Silver hair covered Edward’s broad back.
Caught by the sunlight, the hair glittered like waves.
A few strands spilled down the side and dipped into the sea, and fish circled slowly around them.
No living thing dared touch them.
Even the fish that had first approached out of curiosity quietly kept their distance once they felt the power flowing from that hair.
They did not flee.
Lowering their bodies as if bowing their heads, they followed behind Edward.
One school.
Two schools.
Before long thousands of fish surrounded the great whale.
Sharks and sea turtles mixed into the procession as well.
Ordinarily they would have hunted one another.
Now none of them bared their teeth.
A sea serpent that had been swimming in the depths stretched its long body and followed after them; distant whales exchanged low cries and gathered one by one.
A vast procession with Edward at its head crossed the sea.
At its center a small girl with silver hair trailing all the way to her heels slept on.
She did not see the countless lives following her.
She paid them no mind.
Using the sound of the waves as her pillow and the great whale’s back as her cradle, she simply slept in perfect comfort.
How much time passed?
Beyond the horizon land gradually revealed itself.
At first it was nothing more than a black line drawn across the blue sea.
As the distance closed, low cliffs and a wide sandy beach came into view.
Atop the cliffs a long white wall stretched, and inside it red and brown roofs clustered densely.
At the heart of the city a massive temple with a pointed spire rose high.
Dozens of ships lay at anchor in the harbor.
Stevedores moved cargo along the docks; fishermen packed freshly caught fish into baskets.
From a high watchtower a soldier scanning the sea spotted Edward.
“Th-The King of the Sea!”
he shouted strangely.