(33 Days Into The Voyage, The Timeless Ocean, Approaching the Reported Co-ordinates)

After a month of sailing the vast expanse of the Timeless Ocean, the fleet finally approached the reported co-ordinates where the island was last spotted with barely concealed excitement.

Everyone wanted to see for themselves as to whether or not the stories were real, and hence, for half a day, almost every crew member loitered on the deck, peering hard into the horizon for some mysterious floating structure, only to be disappointed when they found nothing.

"It was a fucking scam!"

"I can’t believe I voluntarily signed up for this expedition...."

"I can’t believe I missed my child’s birth for this mission...."

The soldiers cursed while pretending to stay busy, as they busied their hands and hid their faces.

"I swear, Commander, it is not a sailor’s tale," the junior soldier said, his palms open to the air as if truth might sit there if given the chance.

"I saw it myself on my last expedition. It was right here on these co-ordinates."

He swore, as Commander Anderson Silva stared at him for a long moment, before then looking at the gray sweep of water before the ship, that looked the same as anywhere else, his eyes as disappointed as those of his men.

"Do you know the logistics cost of this mission, Chuck?" he asked at last, voice even and heavy. "Lord Shadow Dragon has risked two tonnes of food and weeks of time for hundreds of men to come out here. What do I tell him when we go back, eh? That we saw nothing."

Chuck lowered his head as if the ocean had suddenly grown taller.

"I swear I saw it, Commander. Although I remember... it was not at the same place the men before us reported. It was farther west. Forty miles at least. Maybe because it is truly floating, it is never in one place. If we look around, it should be close."

From the quarterdeck Mickey James let out a long breath that sounded like laughter with the joy boiled out of it. He came down the steps in three easy strides and set a hand on the rail.

"Chuck, Chuck, Chuck," he said, rolling the name like a stone in his mouth.

"How many times have I told you to lay off the alcohol? It is not good for you. You have the tiniest capacity I have ever seen.

Like.... Who even gets drunk from a single beer?"

He reprimanded, as Anderson made a disgusted expression at the remark, clearly disappointed in Chuck for being unable to hold his liquor.

"Commander, if all a man ever drinks is whiskey, and then he switches to beer, it is absorbed faster. It really was not my fault..."

Chuck clarified, his ears turning red, as he lowered his gaze.

However, Mickey had none of it, as he raised his palm to cut him off, his tone not angry, only disappointed.

"Save it. We are at the end of the world and you are a light drinker, and that’s that."

Anderson watched the exchange without visible amusement, then looked back to the blank water that had consumed their time.

"Well," he said, tone turning practical, "since we are already here, it will not hurt to circle these waters. We sweep in a widening square. If your island is a wanderer, we may yet catch its shadow."

He suggested, as Mickey shrugged with one shoulder, neither eager nor opposed to the proposal.

"A sweep it is. Twenty minutes per leg. Keep spacing tight. If a beast breaks the surface, we cut before it breathes twice."

Orders ran down the masts and through the rigging with the practiced rhythm of routine, while the steady thud of drums rolled across the decks, setting the fleet in motion.

The light guard boats drifted outward to their posts, the two scouts slid to the flanks like hounds catching a scent, and the heavy main ship turned with slow, deliberate grace, as if the ocean itself bowed to its movement.

Chuck kept his eyes fixed on the western quarter, watching the horizon with the stubborn faith of a man daring the ocean to tell the truth.

While Anderson stood behind him, hands clasped neatly, counting the rhythm of the waves with silent precision, as Mickey hummed a tuneless melody beside him that rose and fell with the wind.

Soon, the fleet traced its first square across the waters and found nothing but the endless gray.

While trying again only brought a broken piece of driftwood that might once have been a tree into view.

With the third yielded even less, as the wind shifted by degrees and the light dimmed to a colder hue.

No island showed its face. No miracle disturbed the calm tyranny of distance. Yet a quiet persistence settled over the men, the unyielding kind that often kept sailors working long after reason had gone to sleep.

"Agh fuck it. Time to widen the scope of the search."

Anderson said, as he lifted his hand again to signal the shift in formation, which the men obeyed without question.

Soon, the pattern widened, the search stretching farther into the unknown.

Hours crawled by in silence, the kind that gnawed at patience until even the creak of the planks began to sound like accusation.

The men who had started the morning with wonder now stared at the horizon with empty eyes, caught somewhere between disbelief and resignation. The ocean before them, vast and indifferent, reflecting nothing but their futility.

Mickey leaned lazily against the railing, his earlier cheer dimmed. "You know, Anderson," he muttered, voice half-swallowed by the wind, "if I didn’t know better, I’d say we are brainless cocksuckers out here chasing unicorns."

Anderson’s gaze never wavered from the water. "We might just be that," he replied, his tone equally unoptimistic, when suddenly—

"COMMANDER! COMMANDER!"

A shout came from the lower deck.

The voice belonging to none other than the young master, Leonardo Skyshard.