Thank you very much! It is quite a good coat, isn't it?

As to where I got it... well, it's a long story. Fitting, since it takes place a long time ago. In fact, it was on my very first sea voyage. I wanted so badly to get out of my home lair that I'd signed onto a merchant ship as a deckhand, even though I'd never sailed across anything larger than a puddle before. I don't think I even knew how to swim.

It was supposed to be a simple voyage, just skirting the shores of the Sea of a Thousand Currents, carrying cargo to sell to some Water clans. Now that I look back, it was simple, though I didn't think so then. I was seasick and miserable the whole time and I'm fairly sure the only reason I wasn't put ashore immediately was that the captain felt sorry for me.

About halfway through the voyage, the weather started getting bad. A few lookouts had flown ahead, and they came back in a hurry shouting about a hurricane. There weren't any ports close enough to pull in to, so the captain gave orders to head further out to sea. I thought it was crazy, but I know now that if we had stayed along the shore then the wind and waves would have smashed us up against it and that would have been it. This way, there was at least a chance we could survive. And sure, we could all fly. We could have abandoned ship. But that would have meant abandoning the cargo, and halfway through the voyage we'd only been able to sell about a third of it. Deserting it would have made the trip a failure, and the captain wasn't willing to do that.

So we furled the sails, battened the hatches, and sailed straight into the fiercest storm I have seen.

It was pretty touch and go for a while, there were a lot of repairs to be made when we finally limped back to port, but we survived! We survived! In a paralyzed ship with no sails to speak of, more than a few leaks, and extremely uncertain location. The scouts could see no landmarks no matter how high they flew, and navigating by stars was out of the question until the sun went down. We still had fresh water, though, so waiting for night wasn't much of a hardship. The time was spent making any repairs we could and waiting.

When the sun went down, however, we couldn't see any stars. The sea had washed them out.The water below us began to glow green and blue until it was bright enough to hide the stars. I know now that it must have been some kind of glowing algae or seaweed, but my younger self was convinced it was magic and was terrified. I could tell many others in the crew were concerned as well. Without the stars, how could we find our way out? The captain told us to just raise sail and keep going. Sooner or later, we'd get out of this area and back to where we could see the stars. There wasn't much to do then, just stare over the railing at this strange luminescent seascape. A few started playing dice. Another crew member, a Coatl if I remember correctly, decided to do a little fishing and threw a line overboard.

I'll never forget that night. I've seen a lot of strange things in my life, but that still ranks among the strangest. The sea below us glowed and cast weird shadows and light, the sky above wasn't even dark but murky, with blue and green reflections of the water. It was very quiet as well; there were no birds, and none of us spoke. It was as if we were all afraid to break the spell.

It was broken, however, by the Coatl who just wanted to fish for a midnight snack. She was clutching at the line, screaming and squawking. It wasn't clear at first as to what the commotion was, but then the thing she'd caught breached and everyone caught their breath at once. That line had snared a Spiney Whale.

I'd heard of them before, of course. My home clan's coli fighters would bring home runestones and brag about defeating them. We weren't fighters, though. We were sailors and merchants barely afloat in the strangest waters we'd ever been in, suddenly in danger from one of the most frightening creatures of the deep.

The captain probably saved us all. He sprinted for the wheel, shouting orders. Those that the orders were directed to scrambled to obey. The rest of us just scrambled, heading to wherever we felt was safest. Up the riggings, below the deck, to the captain's side. I wasn't experienced enough to know what to do or where to hide so I froze, staring at the monster that had begun to tug the ship about. The Coatl who'd caught it had her wrist tangled in the fishing line; by some horrifying miracle it hadn't broken and released the whale but had stayed whole and kept it tethered to the ship. She had her tail wrapped around a railing and was trying desperately to unknot herself, tearing at the rope with teeth and claws.

It was another sight I'll never forget. The ocean colored everything sickly green, the beast was twisting wildly and throwing up waves higher than the ship, the crew were rushing every which way, and there I was standing dumbly as the poor Coatl was yanked off the rail and into the water, screaming piteously.

I don't know why I did what I did. I just reacted, and only realized later what a crazy thing it was to do. I ran forward and launched myself from the deck into the sea. As I hit the water I remembered that I couldn't swim, but luckily, I didn't have to. My initial plunge broke the surface, yes, (and how surreal it felt, that it was better lit under the water than above!) but I bobbed quickly back up. It must have been another strange property of that area, that it contained enough salt to float a Pearlcatcher. I looked around again, trying to orient myself when I saw the Coatl again disappearing underwater. Once the whale was free of the ship, there was nothing left to hold it to the surface and it was already heading back to the depths from whence it came.

Luckily, I was already close and so when I lunged forward I was able to grab the end of the Coatl's tail and was pulled underwater again with her. She was still working furiously, shredding at the knot so furiously her claws tore and began to bleed. I wish I could say I was any kind of help, but I really wasn't. All I did was hold onto her tail and hope and pray that she would get herself free and that the sea would let us back up to the surface. And it did. She tore herself free; the whale continued downward but the salt buoyed us up.

We continued another two nights and days before leaving that glowing sea and spotting another ship, who was glad to resupply us and help with repairs in exchange for a crate or two of (mostly intact) crimson silks. I was called a hero, even though I really wasn't. What I was was impulsive, and dumb, and possessed of a strong grip. The Coatl was an experienced sailor who only had the bad luck to catch a monster. I was an amateur who couldn't even swim and survived only through the fantastic luck of that buoyant sea. Still, she appreciated the gesture, and took me under her wing after that. Taught me to swim, even! And next time we made port she bought me this coat. At the time, it was the best clothing I'd ever owned. And though I could easily replace it now, I've kept it cleaned and kept it mended.

I wouldn't think of wearing any other one.