Albert woke up that morning with a heavy head. He washed his face from the marks of sleep but couldn't wash away the image of that man saving his life from his confused mind. The thought of that emotionless man saving his life was choking him like a rope wrapping around his heart squeezing all it anger and malice out of it, to pump into every part of his body. He covered his face desperately because he hated to think this way. He looked between the stuffs he had brought with him from home to divert himself from thinking about the incident. Beside clothes, he found his beloved books and his mother's handkerchief. He held it feeling nostalgic; he wandered in pain what his mother might be doing now... she must be feeling lonely without her only son. He held the handkerchief to his heart but a paper fell from it. Albert opened it; it was an old letter from a count who offered him a well - paid job in his palace. The letter must have accidently got mixed with his baggage. He could recall how he immediately turned down the count's offer claiming that he had other plans for joining the navy still, the count didn't accept this and gave him more time to think. Albert thought this was good, in case something was to change and his dream become abandoned. A knock on the door made him turn frightened as if someone had showed up to punish him for having such thoughts but it was only Alice checking on him since he didn't seem himself at all the other day. She looked at the piece paper he desperately tried to hide asking in worry that he might planning something stupid:
"What are you hiding Albert?"
"Nothing..."
He tried to hide it quickly but his hand was trembling. Alice got a hold of it and read the first lines, Albert didn't say anything nor did she. Alice returned the paper and left the room without any word. Was she angry? She was for sure. After all, there was a promise made, a dream shared and he was thinking to drop it but he did not... even if still held to the letter, it meant nothing! This reaction that he could not put into a reason imprisoned him in his room till the evening started to descend.
*****
With a bent head and continual sighs, Albert finally left his room and entered Vincent's room to check on his injured friend. Vincent tried in pain to get up, his wound was better than before but his face was still pale. Albert brought a chair close to his bed and sat asking how he feels now. Vincent replied that he was fine. Albert didn't add anything else and stayed silent, looking deep in thoughts that Vincent was the one to start the conversation of checking up on him:
"It seems to me that you're the one who isn't feeling well. What is it?"
Albert turned his face; he didn't know how to describe what he was feeling but his face expression conveyed everything. Vincent guessed, certain he was right:
"Are you upset because Alex showed up saving us?"
Albert left his chair and went in the room back and forth. He first met Vincent Carrol when he was appointed with him to this ship and they quickly became friends and in this short period he had spent with him he could know what type of person he was, a gentle honest man whom he can open himself to without any fear yet the thoughts he bore after that incident were so dark that he couldn't tell them to such a nice person fearing he would look really ungrateful and thankless. In the end, he settled with these short words:
"I can't deny my frustration about it, but his interference saved you so it doesn't matter..."
Albert couldn't stay in the room anymore, he was lying. It mattered so much that he was wishing to shoot Alex with the same pistol he had saved him with. This idea was rooting more and more in his head but then again every time he recalled that it was his father that chose to keep that man alive on his own account, he felt that he was forced to respect him but just couldn't, everything about "that man" as he usually referred to him was irritating and driving him to feel bitterness in his heart that not even the sight of the clear wide - opened sea could erase. He wished Vincent a fast recovery and intended to leave but a heart breaking question stopped him:
"Do you miss home?"
Albert lifted his hand that was holding to the doorknob, he'd always felt that he was a fish captured in a dried aquarium where it can only swim in its imagination and now, what could be only seen in his imagination was seen in reality, but he was not the least happy. Vincent added in a soothing tone as if Albert was the injured one and he was the one nursing him.
"It was your dream to board a ship and travel the world if I recall correctly..."
The hand jumped again to the doorknob; Albert recognized that what was drawn in his imagination was totally different. In the reality he was living and seeing, there was that man dominating the seas with his fancy mighty ship; this scenery looked pale and ridiculous in his eyes. Albert turned at Vincent smiling:
"That's stupid. I'm not suited to such a trivial thing... I already miss home so much and the warming heart noise of the capital, don't you Vincent? "
He smiled again at Vincent while the injured man said nothing and watched his young friend leaving with his smile vanishing with every step he took further.
*****
Albert wanted to rush back to his room but he couldn't prevent himself from stopping to gaze at the moon guiding the ship by his silver light. He was not the only one at the foredeck as these rays sparkled like transparent silk covering the princess's, who was also there, arms and hands. Princess Selene was standing in the ship's forepart welcoming the wind gust with her burnt brown long hair; Albert didn't want to disturb her privacy so he went back to his room quietly but his steps were as heavy as his thoughts making the royal figure turns at him saying:
"I pray nothing is wrong , sir Albert?"
Albert stopped looking at her; he was like an open book for her to read that it made him wonder for the second time if her extremely wide eyes made her capable of seeing things people usually don't see. She noticed the surprise in his eyes and smiled the smile of someone who had encountered these thoughts from other countless times. Albert joined her looking at the wooden engraving of the ship instead of the dark blue scenery, making the princess wonder:
"Does this scenery not interest you?"
"I prefer the green color, your royal highness."
The princess looked at him for an instant then turned her face again at the sea, Albert looked at her with the side of eye to see what reaction did his reply leave but her sleepy eyes said nothing to his disappointment. Albert bowed excusing himself but the princess stopped him:
"Why is it wide? Why do you think the sea is so wide?"
Albert gazed at the dark horizon; it was so far from his reach, he couldn't grasp it with is hand no matter how far he extended it, his arm was already feeling numb and tired, there was no point in merely trying to touch it, but that didn't answer the question. Albert thought with faded eyes and uninterested tone:
"Maybe to make us get lost, knowing we will never reach our destination, going forward pointlessly."
The princess shrugged her shoulders showing that his answer may be right, he half expected her to oppose him with a lecture or a metaphor but perhaps even herself did not know the correct answer. Albert recalled the letter he read that morning, the offer the count had gifted him. At that instant it seemed worthy of giving up that pointless going forward he spoke of.
"The heart is like a wave; it rises up and goes down continually. It breaks a boat sometime but at another time it leads it safely. We're just like this water... transparent yet none is brave enough to be transparent in front of himself, no one dare to dive deeply inside himself. I envy those who can do this without fear of what may lay there and be honest to themselves and their desires..."
The princess said this putting her hands on her heart, as if feeling sorry for how coward a person can be but Albert proposed a different opinion:
"We're not like the sea; the sea is a death call. People sails through it facing storms and the whims of wind uncertain if they will ever make it home again, leaving behind their beloveds for nothing but a grave in a dark bottom. "
"They leave their dreams behind too."
"I don't call such madness and rashness dreams, they are whimsies... a person should see to his safety."
"That's true enough."
Albert turned at her looking surprised. The princess smiled, his last move revealed that he wasn't expecting her to agree with him and that he wasn't convinced with the argument he was putting. Albert shied away from looking at her; was she trying to open his heart in front of his eyes? She released his now clasping hands to the wooden edge intending to leave, looking at him one last time with the same smile on her pale lips going on:
"However, only in the world of masks!"
Albert recalled the masquerade, the feeling of disgust he had at the night of the ball, Albert couldn't but ask her eagerly forgetting about manners:
"Why weren't you wearing a mask back then?"
Albert dared to ask stopping the princess. she looked at the sea once more pointing at something.
"Can you see it, the wave that reaches the sky?"
Albert followed her finger but saw nothing but the empty papers between the two blue covers of that book. He didn't know what to say, was she seeing with her wide eyes things that aren't naturally seen? He stared at her; she was still standing pointing with her hand, her eyes even seemed wider while their blueness became brighter as if drinking up the sea water as she went on:
"I wasn't wearing one because I want to see it."
Albert bowed gently and left the princess for her fancy world, while in that condition he could see neither the sea nor the sky, all what he could see was a bottomless hole.