Seawater pooled in the pattern of Landon's feet as he walked along the shore.
It was a miserably warm day, the late afternoon sun baking the salt of the ocean into his skin. It was only saved from being unbearable by the wind which made the waves and tousled the curls of Landon's hair.
His legs, knees, and hands were coated in a fine layer of sand. The small grains burrowed beneath his nails but he didn't have the time to wash them. Every moment he spent doing something pointless like that was a moment wasted. There was only so much time before the tide came back in and, before it did, Landon intended the beach to be picked clean of its treasures.
Landon's clever eyes darted from clumps of seaweed to swells of seafoam, never lingering on anything for very long. He was like a bird of prey, a hunter high above.
When he finally found something, Landon raced towards it, grabbing it as quickly as he could before shoving it in his half-filled wooden bucket. He glanced suspiciously at the other children on the beach. They were like him, all dressed in the same scraps of ill-fitting clothing given to them by the cathedral. They all had that tell-tale thinness of those who never got enough to eat.
The others seemed distracted—some chasing crabs, others shooting stones at gulls with slingshots, and the rest digging in the sand to find any creature abandoned there by the tide—but they might get bored or lazy and decide to take Landon's treasures. The priests said not to but they said a bunch of things and the bigger kids didn't always listen.
Landon ran from treasure to treasure, collecting them in his bucket as he went. His back ached from how frequently he bent to inspect an object that had caught his eye and his arms strained to carry the ever-increasing weight in his bucket.
As the sun sunk lower and lower and the tide rose higher and higher, the others abandoned their conquests, returning to the cathedral for dinner and gifting the things they'd found that day to the gods. The priests said it was a way for Sea Children to pay the gods back since they had no money, no parents, and no chance for survival if the cathedral hadn't taken them in.
There was an official name for the orphaned children cared for by the cathedral, but as far as Landon knew, all the people of Jihn—from the littlest baby to the oldest priest—had forgotten what it was. Instead, they were called Sea Children.
The priests told a pretty story about it. Jihn was a kingdom of the sea. The people of Jihn were only allowed to live such happy and prosperous lives due to its waves. In a way, everyone was a Sea Child. Like a mother, the sea nurtured them, feeding them with fish and seaweed and crabs. Like a father, the sea protected them, keeping them far away from the territory-starved empires of the north. Without the sea, none of them would be alive.
So, when a child had no mortal mother or father to raise them, the only parent left was the sea. Thus, they were Sea Children.
The people in the village had a different story, one that was much less pretty. They said that they were called Sea Children because they were the children that the cathedral made work by the sea all day, collecting things for the priests to either sell or use. They were Sea Children because they weren't School Children. They would never learn to read.
Landon ran through the village as fast as he could while carrying the full bucket. He still had to be careful, though. No one had ever taken his bucket on the trip back but that didn't mean that no one ever would. For all he knew, someone was watching him right now, waiting for the moment he lowered his guard to take his things.
Thankfully, most people in the village kept as far away from Landon as they could. They didn't like Sea Children. It was something to do with their stink. Landon couldn't smell it himself, but he knew that Sea Children carried the ocean wherever they went, both the sweet scent of saltwater and the stench of dead fish.
Near the center of the village, high on a hill, was the cathedral. It was a big and probably impressive place if one was seeing it for the first time. However, to Landon, the stone walls were just walls with a bit of mold growing on them and the pillars were just pillars with cracks like cobwebs and the faded blue roofs were just roofs in need of a new coat of paint.
Landon couldn't enter through the front. The priests yelled at them whenever they did. They were dirty and would get the carpets and seats and all the beautiful things inside of the cathedral dirty too.
There was a small water pump in the courtyard outside of the orphanage and Landon used it to rinse off most of the sand. There was always a bit left, but there was always a bit left on everyone and everything.
Entering the orphanage, Landon was quickly swallowed by the loudness of it. Landon had been in the orphanage for over a year now, but he had never gotten used to the sheer amount of sound. The younger kids were always wailing and the older ones were always laughing and the ones his age were usually just screaming. Landon scowled as he walked towards his usual spot at the second of the three wooden tables.
Before he could reach his destination, however, he was stopped by one of the priests. His name was Mei and since he came to the cathedral a few months ago, he'd quickly become Landon's favorite of all the priests. He was soft-spoken and very pretty with a nice face and big brown eyes. There was something gentle and almost deer-like in him, and whenever Mei looked at Landon, Landon thought he might actually care about the Sea Children.
"Landon," Mei said, "you have to turn your bucket in before you sit down."
"Oh, I forgot," Landon said.
Mei smiled at him and guided him over to the table where there were a bunch of other buckets, empty and full and in between. A couple of priests were counting the things in the buckets and a couple of others were moving about, arranging the buckets and their contents in a pattern Landon had no hope of seeing.
"So, what did you find today?" Mei asked, sitting down behind the table and picking up a quill so he could write down what Landon had brought in the big book that kept track of what everyone brought every day.
"Lots of stuff." Landon pushed his bucket over for Mei to see.
The reaction was instant. Mei's expression was never not kind, but it did fall slightly, dipping into the realm of disappointment when he saw Landon's collection.
"Landon, we've talked about this before," Mei said, softly. "These things... as much as you like collecting rocks and pieces of glass, they aren't exactly useful." His lips thinned slightly. "The gods may not care what you give, but you should think of the people. They're the ones who you are meant to serve."
Landon said nothing, just looked at his feet.
Mei sighed. "Take this and dump it out somewhere. Quickly, so you're back for dinner."
"Alright," Landon said, pulling his bucket away.
They had spoken many, many times about what Landon needed to be picking up on the beach but every time they told him not to gather something, it only made Landon yearn to find more of it. It was only when no one wanted something—neither gods or people—that the thing could become Landon's.
Though Mei likely intended for Landon to dump the contents of the bucker somewhere outside, Landon instead walked upstairs to his room. It was a small thing, made smaller by the number of boys he shared it with. The beds only had a single, thin sheet, but Jihn was a warm kingdom with only a few days of the year that would keep them up shivering.
Landon knelt by his bed, pulling out a wooden box that he'd scavenged from the kitchens. It was already almost full and with this bucket, it was nearly overflowing. Landon grinned at the thought. He had so many things, so many treasures that he couldn't even keep them all in one box anymore. He'd need to see if the kitchens had another box he could take.
Shoving the box back under the bed, Landon pulled out the only other possession that he had, something that he'd come to the orphanage with.
Landon couldn't remember his parents if he ever had such a thing. He'd arrived at the orphanage when he was around ten or eleven, a fever burning his body so badly that they didn't think he'd survive. But... Landon had. Only, when he woke, the only memories he had were fragmented and fleeting. He couldn't remember who he was or who his parents were. All he had was a single dagger.
It was the prettiest thing that Landon had ever seen. There were days when he couldn't believe it belonged to someone like him. He usually kept it in its sheath—stroking the soft fabric like a prayer—but every once in a while, he'd peek at the metal, more silver than the moon.
This dagger was all the inheritance Landon had. A box of scavenged trash under his bed was all that he'd made for himself. Landon's only parent was the sea.
Yet, his fool's heart screamed for more.