Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 431: Daddy

A tiny room with a shallow ceiling was what Donna called home on World's Crown.

Nene sat before a table inside the room, eating while chatting gleefully with Sparkle sitting next to her. She talked about trivial matters, but she was happy nonetheless. Sparkle listened to her quietly on the side.

Donna took a sip of her mushroom soup and smiled at the heartwarming scene. An adult's happiness was a complicated hodgepodge of many things, but children were different. They could find joy in the simplest things.

"Mommy, can Sparkle sleep with me tonight?" Nene asked excitedly with a spoon in hand.

"Sure, but you girls have to sleep early tonight. No whispering under the blankets, all right?" Donna replied.

Nene nodded and thrust her spoon upward to cheer at her mother's reply.

"Hurry up and eat; the bread is getting cold," Donna urged.

The oil lamp on the table flickered, bestowing warmth upon the tiny house.

Farmers had little entertainment, so they would usually sleep after dinner and a quick bath.

Beneath the huge blanket riddled with fabric patches, Nene and Sparkle squeezed together, whispering and giggling to each other.

Nene revealed a beaming smile and snuggled closer to Sparkle. "Sparkle, I told you so much about myself; your turn now! Have you encountered anything interesting?"

Sparkle stared at the low ceiling up above and recalled everything she had encountered so far in her less than a year of life.

"Mmhm. I once found a big bone in the sea. The bone was really, really big. I could crawl inside of it and play. It was really fun," Sparkle replied.

"What else? What else? Tell me more," Nene urged with shining eyes.

Sparkle thought hard about it, but she shook her head and said, "That's it; that's all."

"No way," Nene said, eyes widening in surprise. "You encountered only one interesting thing?"

Sparkle nodded quietly.

"How about your family?" Nene asked, "What kind of people are your mommy and daddy?"

Sparkle's chatterbox trait awakened at the mention of her mommy. "Mommy does many things every day. I don't really understand what she's doing, but she sometimes plays ball with me, and I really like it; it's really fun. I also like her smell.

"Sometimes, she would speak to me in another language. And it's a language that no one else knows aside from me, Daddy, and Mommy.

"When I couldn't really talk yet, Mommy let me go and play with other people so that I'd learn how they talk. That's how I learned how to talk, and that's why I really love Mommy."

Nene nodded. "Mmhm. I love my mommy, too. What about your daddy? What kind of person is your daddy?"

"Daddy" Sparkle's eyes sparkled as she reminisced. "Daddy couldn't even recognize me when I first went to him myself. The last time I visited him where he lived, he stayed with Mommy all day and ignored me.

"And he doesn't play ball with me like Mommy does. He has never hugged me to sleep, either. Actually, I'm a bit scared of him. What do you think? Does he not like me?"

"Does your Daddy bring yummy food for you to eat whenever he comes back home?" Nene asked, and her eyes sparkled as she reminisced. "I remember when I was three, Daddy would bring me all sorts of delicacies whenever he came back home. I don't know what they're called; all I remember is that they're very tasty.

"Those delicacies can't be found on the island, and some of them were sweet, some made my tongue numb, and some were really spicy."

Sparkle tilted her head and pondered briefly before saying, "My daddy never really bought me anything to eat."

The prone Nene nodded and pointed out. "Sounds like your daddy is a bad daddy. Maybe it's because he's always out at sea and can't see you often, but

Nene trailed off, and she sounded slightly envious as she continued, "Having a daddy is still better than not having a daddy. I still want to see my daddy again, even if he ignores me forever.

"That way, others won't call me a fatherless child, at the very least."

Nene's words had yet to finish echoing in the air when faint, suppressed sobbing echoed from the partition next to them.

Nene glanced at where the sobbing had come from and put a finger to her lips, shushing toward Sparkle.

"Sparkle, let's keep it down. I think we woke up Mommy," Nene said softly.

Sparkle nodded and imitated the volume of Nene's voice, replying, "Okay, let's keep it down. Nene, what happened to your daddy?"

"It's been a long time since Daddy last returned, but it's okay. Many children on this island are in the same situation as methey have no fathers, too. Yes, we have no fathers, but if other children tease us for that, we beat them up together."

"Where did their daddies go?"

"What happened to my daddy happened to their daddies as well. Their daddies went out to sea and never came back."

Sparkle seemed confused as she asked, "Is the sea very dangerous? I don't find it dangerous at all."

"The sea is very dangerous," Nene said. She spread her arms and imitated her mother's tone of voice before continuing, "The ship has an enclosed, hostile environment; if something were to go awry, you'd be in big trouble.

"Run out of water, and you'll die of thirst; run out of food, and you'll starve. In addition, there are many different monsters in the water, and they find naughty children particularly tasty"

"Pfft!" Nene erupted into laughter and collapsed on top of Sparkle while laughing.

Eventually, Nene's giggling faded away, and she revealed a somber expression as she said, "Actually, what I told you was what Mommy told me. I actually don't know whether the sea is dangerous or not. All I know is that my daddy went out to sea one day and never came back.

"I I really miss Daddy."

Nene's cheerful giggling vanished, and silence descended upon the room.

If the sea is very dangerous, does that mean Daddy might never come back one day? Sparkle thought, and she was reminded of that strange two-nosed creature that had flung Charles' ship from the seabed toward the surface.

An unprecedented emotion welled up in Sparkle's heart just then. Sparkle felt the urge to go to Charles and tell him not to go out to sea anymore. Charles had never really paid any attention to her, but she still didn't want Charles to end up like Nene's father, who had gone out to sea one day and never came back.

Time passed swiftly, and morning came.

Nene woke up and found Sparkle staring at the ceiling.

Nene reached out to hug Sparkle. "Good morning, Sparkle. How come you're already awake when it's still so early?"

Nene noticed something just then. She picked up the oil lamp next to her and walked over to the window. Upon seeing the strange scenery outside the window, Nene's eyes sparkled in excitement.

"Sparkle, look! Today's a sporey day! That's great. Having one sporey day in a month means that our ryegrass will grow well, and we'll have a great harvest!"

Gray powder descended like snowflakes, creating a strange scenery outside. There wasn't any snow in the Subterranean Sea, which meant the "snowflakes" were the colossal mushroom's spores, and spores were nourishment for the ryegrass.

Nene recalled something just then. She ran excitedly over to the kitchen and rushed to her mother making breakfast. "Mommy! It's a sporey day today, so is it okay if Sparkle goes home a bit later today?"