Sea Salt

With trowel in hand, she set her basket down on the storm-washed beach and started digging for clams. The weather had finally turned nice enough to come here with your little daughter, Mina. The last of their stored meat was two weeks gone. They needed whatever clams she could dig up today.   "No," a young voice wailed, followed by little sobs. Her head snapped up, and she looked down the beach. Mina kicked at a wave that had washed over her tiny bucket and spoon.   Shaking her head with a smile, she set down the trowel. Walking a dozen steps, she reached her daughter. "What's wrong, Mina?"   "The sea ate my pretty sand hut!" The little girl declared, lifting her little bucket as another wave rolled in.   "You can make another-" her mother froze as her eyes spied something pink inside her daughter's bucket. "What's th-"   "Pretty sand, Mama," Mina interrupted. "I made a hut and the sea ate it."   "Where did you get it?" The little girl turned and pointed at a distant ridge overgrown with grasses and weeds. A long strip of greenery had been washed away, revealing a narrow band of pink. Her mother sucked in a breath, and tears sprang into her eyes.   Their struggling days were over. That was not pretty sand, it was pink salt.

  Sea salt is one of the simplest and most plentiful things those who live in the Basquay Sea region can harvest. Every table holds a salt grinder, while every pantry stores a sack full for cooking and preserving. It is the one ingredient that accentuates everything it is in.   Selling salt locally is considered apprentice work for every young merchant to begin learning the art of the trade. Serious salt merchants do not bother selling locally.   What they do is gather as much as they can and caravan deeper inland where salt is much harder to come by. This is where the real money in the salt trade is made. It is here where refining posts have been established. The more refined the salt, the more folks will pay for it. It has become a serious industry for those averse to living a life at sea.