#aethermara

Entry 003 - The Wren Runs Wrong

Previously: Thaddius spent three unplanned days in Tideworn Quay.

He met Grelda, port master, who told him the truth without being asked.

He met an orange cat named Niko who arrived on a crewless ghost ship eleven years ago.

He did not pet her. She did not bite him. This was an agreement.

He boarded his ship at noon, on time, with his coat too big and his pocket empty.

He thought he knew where it was going.

Part One: The Wren

The ship was called the Wren.

Thaddius had not known this until he was already aboard and they were already moving, because the name was painted on the stern in letters that were confident enough in their own authority that they hadn't bothered to be legible from the dock. He'd had to lean over the railing at an inadvisable angle to read it. A sailor had grabbed the back of his coat before he went into the harbor. This had been good. The coat was too big for him but he preferred to keep wearing it.

The Wren. It was a small ship — a single-masted trader with an attitude that suggested it had opinions about being called small. The crew was eight, plus the captain, plus Thaddius, who was technically a passenger and who was already sensing this was going to become a complicated distinction.

He found a spot at the bow and watched Tideworn Quay recede. The harbor district grew smaller. The obsidian cliffs shrank. Somewhere on those docks, an orange cat was sitting at the end of the Anchorage bar watching the harbor in the way she always did — the way that had been going on for eleven years and would go on after he was gone, because some things are larger than any particular departure.

He put his hand in his coat pocket.

Nothing there.

The sea opened up ahead of them, green-black and enormous, and the Wren leaned into it like something that had been waiting.

Part Two: The Wrong Direction

He noticed it on the second day. Not immediately — it arrived the way wrong notes arrive in music, not on first hearing but on the third, when something in you finally admits that the song is not going where you thought it was going.

The sun was on the wrong side of the ship.

Thaddius stood at the bow and looked at it for a while with the careful attention of someone who has made navigation errors before and has learned to take the possibility seriously before committing to the conclusion. He checked the time. He checked the position of the sun. He looked at the coastline — the thin dark line of it on the horizon, the shape of the headlands.

The Wren was sailing northeast. He had paid for passage southwest. These were not the same direction, in the same way that north and south are not the same direction, a distinction that felt increasingly important.

He found the first mate, a tall woman named Dectra who had the bearing of someone who had answered questions she didn't want to answer before and had become very efficient at it.

"We've changed course," said Thaddius.

"Captain's orders," said Dectra.

"I paid for passage to—"

"Captain's orders," said Dectra, and walked away in the manner of someone for whom this conversation was over.

Thaddius looked at the wrong sun for another moment. Then he went to find the captain.

Part Three: Captain Orvell Pruche

Captain Orvell Pruche was a man constructed entirely of bad decisions that had somehow accumulated into a career. He was not malicious, which made him more dangerous than malicious would have been, because malicious at least has a consistent internal logic you can work with. Orvell Pruche operated on a rotating basis of whatever seemed like a good idea at the time, and what seemed like a good idea at the time was currently: a faster passage contract from a merchant in the Veilmar Dominion who had offered triple the rate if Pruche could deliver a cargo nobody on the ship had seen.

"You're the mouse," said Pruche, when Thaddius arrived at his cabin. He was studying charts with the concentration of a man who did not entirely understand what he was looking at.

"I am a mouse," said Thaddius. "I'm also a paying passenger going to a destination that is no longer our heading. I'd like to understand why."

"Business opportunity," said Pruche. "You'll be compensated for the delay. Two extra days, maybe three."

"And the cargo?"

Pruche waved a hand. "Merchant goods. Nothing unusual."

"Have you seen it?"

"The merchant assured me—"

"Have you seen it," said Thaddius.

A pause. Pruche looked at his charts. "It's in the hold," he said. "Sealed. Merchant's orders."

Thaddius looked at him for a long moment. He thought about a crewless ship arriving in a harbor with one name on one piece of paper. He thought about sealed things. He thought about the feeling that had been growing in his chest since yesterday, not quite sound and not quite direction — more like pressure. Like a compass needle moving without his permission.

"Captain," he said carefully, "I think you should turn the ship around."

"I think," said Pruche, "that I am the captain."

"Yes," said Thaddius. "For now."

He said it without meaning to. The words arrived fully formed, from somewhere he didn't entirely recognize. Pruche looked up from his charts. Thaddius looked back at him with the calm expression of a small pirate who has surprised himself and is choosing, in the absence of any better plan, to commit to it.

Part Four: The Hold

He found Dectra on the main deck.

"Something's wrong with the cargo," he said.

"You don't know that."

"No," said Thaddius. "But you do."

A long pause. The Wren moved through a swell. Dectra looked at the horizon for a moment — the northeast horizon, the wrong one — and then looked at Thaddius with the expression of someone who has been waiting for someone else to say the thing first.

"The hold has been warm since we loaded," she said quietly. "Two degrees above what cargo storage should be. I've checked the seal three times. It's bolted from the inside."

Thaddius absorbed this. "Bolted from the inside."

"Captain said it was the mechanism. I've been on this ship for seven years. There is no mechanism."

The pressure in his chest was a direction now. He couldn't have pointed at it on a map but he could feel it — steady, patient, old, like something that had been waiting for him to catch up.

"How many of the crew do you trust?" he asked.

Dectra studied him. "You're a very small pirate to be asking that question."

"I'm aware," said Thaddius. "How many?"

"Five," said Dectra. "Including me."

"Good," said Thaddius. He straightened his collar. The coat was too big. It had always been too big. He had sailed in it and slept in it and carried things in it that were no longer there, and on one previous occasion he had almost gone into a harbor in it and a stranger had grabbed it to save him. It was, he thought, a coat with a history of keeping him afloat. "That's enough," he said. "Give me ten minutes."

Part Five: The Taking of the Wren

It was not, in the end, a dramatic mutiny. Thaddius had been in situations that required dramatic and situations that required precise, and he had learned — slowly, and at some cost — that precise was almost always better.

He went back to the captain's cabin. He knocked. Pruche opened the door. Thaddius handed him a very clearly written note.

"What is this," said Pruche.

"An inventory of my concerns," said Thaddius. "A proposed new heading. And the terms under which your log will reflect that you made this decision yourself, voluntarily, in the interest of crew safety."

"You can't just—"

"Dectra," said Thaddius, without raising his voice.

Dectra appeared at his shoulder. Behind her, in a loose and not entirely coincidental arrangement, were five sailors who had apparently been passing by.

Pruche looked at the note. He looked at Thaddius. He looked at Dectra. He looked at the five sailors.

"Two degrees above standard in the hold," Thaddius said quietly. "Bolted from the inside. A cargo you haven't seen, from a merchant you met twice. There are people on this ship, Captain, who have families in port. I'd like to return them."

Pruche sat down heavily in his chair. He was not, Thaddius thought, a bad man. He was a man who had made a decision quickly without asking enough questions, which was a different thing, and one that could sometimes still be corrected.

"What's in the hold?" said Pruche, quietly now.

"I don't know," said Thaddius honestly. "That's the problem."

Pruche stared at the note for a long moment. Then he signed it.

Part Six: The Settling

The Wren turned south. Dectra took the wheel herself. The crew moved efficiently, quietly, with the particular energy of people who have been waiting for someone to make a decision and are relieved the decision has finally been made.

Thaddius stood at the stern and watched the northeast horizon recede. The pressure in his chest eased — not gone, never entirely gone, but settled. The compass needle that had been turning without his permission had found its bearing and gone still.

He had not planned any of this. He had boarded a ship with a ticket to somewhere, and the ship had gone wrong, and something in him had known it before he could have articulated how. He had learned, over the years, to trust that knowing — the sensation that arrived before the reasoning did, the direction that came from somewhere he couldn't name. He did not understand it. He had stopped needing to understand it. You felt the bearing. You followed it. You dealt with the consequences, which were sometimes significant and sometimes involved politely removing a captain from temporary authority over his own vessel.

He put his hand in his coat pocket.

Nothing there.

A pause. Something different this time — not absence, but a kind of warmth where the emptiness usually was. Like the pocket had held something recently. Like the air inside was different from the air outside. He stood with his hand in the pocket for a long moment and did not examine it too closely, because some things are better felt than analyzed.

He watched the sea.

Somewhere below them, deep in the hold, the temperature was normal. Whatever had been in the sealed cargo — Dectra's crew had opened the hatch at last, carefully, and found it empty, as if whatever had needed passage had simply disembarked into the open water while no one was watching — was gone.

The Wren ran south, small and fast, exactly the size the ocean needed it to be.

Thaddius J. Mouse will return in two weeks.

He is going to arrive at his original destination.

It will not be what he was told it was.

He is beginning to notice this is a pattern.

Navigator's Note: The hold opened empty. The pocket was warm.

The Drifting God does not appear. He does not need to.

Entry 002 - The Cat at the Anchorage

Every Other Wednesday · March 25, 2026

Previously: Thaddius J. Mouse missed his ship by three minutes because he stopped to help a crab with a hat.

He is stranded in Tideworn Quay for three days.

Grelda, the port master, told him he looked like he could use them.

There is an orange cat at the Anchorage. He was told not to pet it.

He almost petted it.

Part One: Day One, Morning

The room at the Anchorage was small and smelled of salt and old rope and something that might have been lavender, which seemed optimistic given the surroundings. There was a window. The window looked out over the harbor. The harbor, at dawn, was already operating at full capacity — shouting, loading, the creak and complaint of ships that had been awake longer than anyone else.

Thaddius sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it for a while.

This was the kind of morning where everything felt slightly further away than usual. Not bad, exactly. Just — distant. Like looking at the world through sea glass. He knew this kind of morning. He had a lot of experience with this kind of morning. The trick, he had found, was not to demand more of it than it could give. You had a sea-glass morning, you moved carefully through it, you did small things, and eventually the glass thinned out. Usually.

He put on his coat. Too big. Always too big. He straightened the collar anyway.

"Right," he said, to the harbor. "Small things."

The harbor did not respond, which was correct behavior.

Part Two: The Cat

He found her at the end of the bar, as cats find themselves at the end of things — not by arriving but by simply having always been there.

She was orange and substantial and had the expression of someone who had heard every piece of news in this port for the last eleven years and had opinions about all of it. One ear had a small notch. Her tail moved in a slow, deliberate arc, like a pendulum counting down something.

Thaddius sat down at the bar. He ordered porridge. He did not look at the cat.

The cat looked at him.

He ate his porridge. He looked at the harbor through the window. The cat's gaze was a physical thing, like a hand on his shoulder — patient and very certain of itself.

"I'm not going to pet you," he said, without turning.

The cat said nothing. The pendulum continued.

"The port master specifically told me not to." He paused. "She said you bite."

The cat yawned. It was an enormous, architectural yawn, revealing more teeth than seemed strictly necessary. Then she closed her mouth and resumed looking at him.

He turned to look at her directly. She was maybe eighteen inches away. Up close, her eyes were an unsettling shade of amber — the color of old lantern light, or something seen through a jar of honey, or — something else. Something he couldn't quite place.

"What is your name?" he asked.

This was, as it turned out, the right question.

Part Three: Grelda's Answer

He found Grelda at the port master's office, same as yesterday, ledger open, not looking up.

"The cat at the Anchorage," said Thaddius.

"What about her."

"What is her name?"

Grelda looked up. This was already more than she'd done on his previous visit. "Why."

"She looked at me."

"She looks at everyone."

"It felt specific," said Thaddius.

A pause. Grelda set down her pen. This, Thaddius was already learning, was the equivalent of anyone else stopping what they were doing, standing up, and crossing the room. He waited.

"Her name," said Grelda, "is a matter of some local disagreement. She showed up eleven years ago on a ship that came in wrong."

"Came in wrong how?"

"Came in without a crew."

Thaddius was quiet for a moment. Outside, the harbor went about its business. "And she was on it."

"Sitting at the bow," said Grelda. "Watching the dock come toward her like she'd done it a hundred times. We searched the ship. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. No sign of where anyone had gone." She picked up her pen again. "The harbormaster before me logged it as a ghost ship. The records are somewhere. I've never looked."

"And her name?"

"Depends who you ask. The dockworkers call her Riddle. The Anchorage family call her Marmalade." Grelda made a small sound that was possibly the architectural skeleton of a laugh. "She doesn't answer to either."

"What do you call her?" said Thaddius.

Grelda looked at him for a long moment. "I call her by the name on the ship's manifest," she said. "The only piece of paper on the whole vessel that had anything written on it."

"Which was?"

"Niko," said Grelda, and picked up her pen.

Part Four: The Second Morning

He sat with it for the rest of the day. He walked the harbor. He helped a child retrieve a kite from a rigging, which took longer than expected and involved more knots than were really warranted for a kite. He ate something fried from a stall near the eastern dock that he could not identify but enjoyed. He watched the tide go out and come back.

He thought about the name. He thought about the ship that had come in without a crew. He thought about the kind of story that left a single piece of paper with a single name on it, and a cat sitting at the bow watching the dock approach like it was expected.

He had the feeling — not for the first time in his life, but sharply — of being adjacent to something larger. Not part of it yet. Not outside it. Just — nearby. The way you feel when you've entered a room where something important happened before you arrived, and the room still remembers.

That evening he came back to the Anchorage and sat at the bar and ate a reasonable dinner and the cat came and sat next to his elbow and looked at the harbor with him.

He did not pet her.

She did not bite him.

This felt like an agreement.

Part Five: Day Three

On the morning of the third day, the sea-glass was gone. He noticed it the way you notice weather changing — the light was slightly different, the harbor slightly louder, his own thinking slightly less like moving through water. He was still carrying the weight he always carried. But it had shifted to a position he knew, the place between his shoulder blades where it lived when he was managing.

Managing was enough. Managing was, on many days, the whole achievement.

He packed his bag. He checked the coat pocket. Nothing there. He straightened the collar.

He went to find Grelda.

"My ship," he said.

"Leaves at noon," she said, not looking up. "Don't be late."

"I won't be late."

"You said that last time."

"There wasn't a crab last time."

"There's always something," said Grelda. "That's the whole of it. There's always something that seems worth stopping for." She did look up then, briefly. "The question is whether you end up somewhere better than where you were going."

Thaddius considered Tideworn Quay. The harbor in the early light. A kite retrieved from rigging. An orange cat named after a ghost ship. Three days he hadn't expected, in a place he hadn't planned to be, that had given him something he hadn't known to look for.

"Yes," he said. "I think so."

Grelda made a sound. "Go catch your ship," she said. "Come back if you end up this way again."

"I will," said Thaddius.

He meant it.

The Settling

He was on the dock with twenty minutes to spare. Below him, in the water between two hulls, a crab was moving with slow authority toward wherever crabs go when they are not retrieving hats from puddles.

The cat appeared at his left ankle.

He looked down. She looked up. The amber eyes caught the noon light and held it.

"I'm leaving," he told her.

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned and walked back up the dock toward the Anchorage — not hurrying, not performing indifference, just going.

Thaddius watched her go.

He thought: I came here to go somewhere else. I arrived three minutes late and stayed three days and met a port master who told me the truth and a cat who came from a ghost ship and who sat with me without asking for anything.

He thought: sometimes missing the tide is the tide.

His ship was boarding. He picked up his bag — coat too big, collar straight, pocket empty — and he went.

Thaddius J. Mouse will return in two weeks.

He has a ship now. He does not yet know where it's actually going.

Series: Thaddius J. Mouse · Entry 001

— A note before we begin —

You may have found this blog through the transmissions. You may have found it by accident, which is the best way to find things. Either way — welcome. There is a mouse. He has a coat that doesn't quite fit. He is trying to get somewhere. This is his story, told every other Wednesday, which is an unusual day for adventures but here we are.

Part One: The Arrival

The thing about tides is that they do not care about your schedule.

Thaddius J. Mouse stood on the dock at Tideworn Quay and watched his ship — or rather, the ship he had been planning to board — disappear around the headland with a sort of magnificent indifference. It had not waited. He had been three minutes late. He had been three minutes late because he had stopped to help an elderly crab retrieve a hat from a puddle, which had seemed like the right thing to do at the time and still seemed like the right thing to do, just — the ship was gone.

He adjusted his coat. The coat was too big for him and had been too big for him for two years and he was not going to think about that right now. He had a dock, a harbor, and a place he was supposed to be that he was now not going to reach on schedule. He had been in worse situations. He tried to remember one.

Part Two: The Quay

Tideworn Quay, as it turned out, was an excellent place to be stranded if you were going to be stranded somewhere. This was cold comfort of the highest quality.

The harbor district was loud in the way that harbor districts always are — ropes and wood and argument and the smell of salt and things being unloaded from places he'd never been. Thaddius was, by nature, a creature who preferred quiet. He had made his peace with the fact that the sea rarely offered it. The sea offered movement and purpose and the occasional spectacular sunset. Quiet was something you found in the spaces between, like a comfortable chair tucked into a corner of a busy tavern.

He found the corner. He found the chair. He ordered something warm and watched the harbor operate without him for a while.

The thing he was carrying — the thing he always carried, the low-grade hum of too-much-feeling that sat behind his eyes on difficult days — was present today. It had been present for a while. He had learned not to fight it directly. Fighting it directly was like arguing with weather. You could acknowledge it. You could dress for it. You could not make it stop by telling it to stop.

He drank his warm thing. He watched the harbor. A small orange cat crossed the dock at a distance and looked at him for a long moment before continuing wherever it was going.

"Alright," said Thaddius, to no one in particular. He wasn't sure what he meant by it. Something in the category of: I am still here. Something in the category of: this counts as progress, even if it doesn't look like it.

Part Three: The Port Master's Office

The port master was a large woman named Grelda who had the particular energy of someone who had heard every possible excuse for missing a ship and had stopped finding any of them interesting about fifteen years ago.

"You missed the tide," she said, without looking up from her ledger.

"I was helping a crab with—"

"You missed the tide," said Grelda.

Thaddius considered this. It was accurate. "Is there another ship going—"

"Not for three days."

"Three days," he repeated.

"Three days," said Grelda. "The Anchorage has rooms. Don't pet the cat at the bar, she bites." She paused, finally looking up. She looked at him for a moment with the kind of attention that felt like being measured. "You look like you could use three days," she said, not unkindly. Then she looked back at her ledger.

Thaddius stood in the doorway for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. "Thank you," he said.

"Don't thank me," said Grelda. "Buy a better watch."

Part Four: The Settling

That evening, Thaddius sat on the end of the dock with his feet not quite reaching the water and watched the place where his ship had been. The sky was doing something complicated with colors — the kind of sunset that seemed almost aggressive in its beauty, as if the world was making a point.

He put his hand in the coat pocket. Nothing there. He already knew that. He checked anyway.

Three days in Tideworn Quay. He didn't know anyone here. The harbor was full of ships going places he'd never been and people who knew things he didn't. There was a small orange cat somewhere on this dock that apparently bit people. He had missed his ship because he had stopped to help a crab, which was the kind of decision he would probably make again tomorrow under the same circumstances.

Somewhere across the harbor, a lantern was lit. Then another. Then a row of them, amber against the darkening water.

"Alright," said Thaddius again. This time he knew what he meant.

He meant: I am still here. I am going to find out what there is to find out in this place. I am carrying something heavy and I am carrying it anyway and that is, it turns out, the whole of what I have to offer. It has been enough before. It will probably be enough again.

He got up. He went to find the Anchorage.

He did not pet the cat.

(He almost petted the cat.)

Thaddius J. Mouse will return in two weeks.