L.T. File: 095: Ŕiɺù Ṭṣübbɞùl-The Floating Heart.
During the War with Zevemlya the Aulvi piloted many ships against the Zevemlyan fleet. None were as notorious as the Floating heart. Indeed, in many ways, the Floating Heart was the beating heart of the Aulven naval fleet. Her boards were living steel, and her sails were anadi silk. She was a living ship, an aquatic born treant whose family was her crew. She led every major expedition, and fought in every major conflict of the The Immortals War until the The Battle of Rising Shores. The captain, Haze, knew how much she and her crew were wanted by the Zevemlyan fleet. She told her crew, and her ship, the Floating Heart, that they could win the war, but they would have to go on a suicide mission. Not a single crewmember left her. The anadi members were given Aulvistones to commemorate their bravery, and the ship was made an official naval officer.
During the events of The Battle of Rising Shores, the Heart led the Zevemlyan fleet into shallow waters, where they surrounded her, and opened fire. To the credit of the Heart, she floundered two of the Zevemlyan vessels that had surrounded her before sinking herself. This allowed the Aulven marine kineticists to raise the shores behind the fleet, trapping them in a new inland sea. The Zevemlyan's slew every member of the Heart and scattered her boards to the water as revenge.
This was the major turning point of the war. With less than half of the fleet, Galvander was forced to retreat, and his ships were harried along the way, thus ending the twenty five years of direct conflict of The Immortals War. The Floating Heart was given a memorial, but none of the aulvistones were ever recovered.
In the following years, Zevemlyan captains reported seeing a ship with the distinct sillhouette of the Floating Heart. Many Zevemlyan sailors took this to be mere rumor or maritime superstition, but as ships began to go missing, the threat became palpable. As far as Faernyr, word had spread of this ghost ship unfurling her sails on the seas of Vyům. The aulvi took heart at this news, and many sailors were sent to look for their fallen sister-ship, though those who had been at The Battle of Rising Shores knew that neither crew nor ship had survived.
It wasn't until the year 95 that an official sighting of the Floating Heart had been made by Aulvi sailors, and they reported the ghostly crew saluting their maritime comrades. The Heart, like it's sailors appeared translucent like seaglass on the waves. Only recently, in the past year, was a member of The Tranquil Shadows able to find the ship. Operative Yssmina, Ashen Sky came across the ship while travelling on an Aulven merchant vessel. When it appeared, she took a rowboat and rowed over to the ghostly galleon.
She was greeted by the ethereal crew. She stated that "the boards were as solid as the day they were made, but I could see through them to the ocean depths below." Haze came to meet her, and was unlike any ghost Ashen Sky had seen prior, more solid. Her voice resonated with a power that Ashen sky had never experienced. She stated later during debreif, that the only word that came to mind was keening. The crew, however, maintained that their mission was never going to be complete until every Zevemlyan vessel was lying on the bottom of the sea, and the war was over. But they did not seem to mind this, nor did they seem to see it as a burden. They hoped that someday it would be complete, so that they could sail for joy rather than for vengeance.
Ashen Sky was given the captain's journal to return to the Aulven people, and with a salute Ashen Sky left the ship. She reported to The Tranquil Shadows before returning the book to the Library of the Son, where it has found a new home, and has been copied many times, quickly becoming an aulven classic. Most notable to the Shadows, is the fact that both ship and anadi crew maintained sentience in their ghostly forms. Perhaps the community of the ship, and the aulvistones have played some role in this, and it is something that The Tranquil Shadows intend to research further.
Summary
The Aulvi ship The Floating Heart, was instrumental in winning The Immortals War, at the cost of itself and it's crew. The ship, though dead, still sails the seas acting as a scourge for the Zevemlyan ships.
Historical Basis
This myth is related in a historical event, and multiple accounts confirm it, but not enough has been done to prove this to any group either in or outside of the conflict.
Spread
This myth has spread across the globe, wherever there is Zevemlyan trade, but not only by the Zevemlyans or Aulvi, by the Hett, Kaigarans, and Hues.
Variations & Mutation
Interesting takes on this myth occur in both Hett and Zevemlyan records. Hett, a group of people defined, in part by their ancestral hatred of the undead see the ship as a curse and a dark omen. Hett are more concerned about the ship than superstitious, and, if they had more ports, would likely enact measures to protect their shores specifically from the floating heart.
Zevemlyans often write about the ship, or speak of it in hushed whispers. While the Hett see it as a dark omen, the Zevemlyan's see it as a looming threat. "Where the Heart sails, hearts stop" is a common phrase among the superstitious sailors of Zevemlya. So the tales talk of bestial visages aulvi, horns covered in seaweed, and eyes hollowed by the sea to sunken skulls promising the drowning death in the void. They speak of the keening of the captain that sucks the life from Zevemlyan sailors who sail too close to her, aging them to dust.
Aulvi tell the tale as that of honored dead, though they are mystified at how the crew all managed to stay together, and how they and the living ship all exist as ghosts without any guidance from the Zmèrpaw shmɞùl-Ghost Guides.
Cultural Reception
Hett hate the idea of undead on the seas.
Aulvi love the idea that their heroes are living their best post-life.
Zevemlyan sailors speak of it only in hushed whispers, while the official record speaks only of their defeat.
In Literature
I. Excerpt from the Captain’s Journal of the Floating Heart
Recovered by Operative Ashen Sky- Yssima of the Tranquil Shadows. Entry dated two days before the Battle of Rising Shores.
Entry 642
The Heart whispers to me again tonight. Not in fear—she has never known it—but in longing, and in sadness. She feels the currents shifting under her living boards. The sea has always spoken to her in the language of flowing blood and rising salt, but now the tides sound like farewells. She tries to hide this from the crew—gods, she loves them too much—but the keel creaks with grief when she thinks no one is listening. Each creak of her floorboards is like the dirge of fallen soldiers. I listen.
I tell her she is not alone. I tell her she is brave. I tell her that the Immortals’ War will end if she chooses to end it. She knows what I am implying. I place my palm against the wheel, and feel it shudder like a breathing thing and I tremble. I know she shuddering not just with fear— we all feel fear—but with resolve. She is Aulven-hearted, though born of seed and living steel.
The crew met tonight on the foredeck. Lanternlight caught their eyes—Anadi arm in arm with their comrades, some in their spider forms, as if in defiance against those who would enslave them, some in their aulvi or human forms, as if to say "try to take what I have become. Aulvi horns shimmering like sunrise through mist. They suspected what I would ask.
I told them plainly:
“There is a path to victory. Though I will not force it upon any of you. Your families and friends know that you have honor only matched by the Jesters, and no-one will question your honor if you leave this ship tonight. But if you stay until morning know that we will win this war, but we will not be around to see its conclusion. It ends tomorrow. It ends with all of us at the bottom of the sea.”
Not a single hand trembled. Not a single soul stepped back. My people. My family. The Heart’s family. The Anadi have become my family as surely as any seafaring aulvi. They have earned their Aulvistones a hundred times over, but I will carve them myself tonight. The ship insists on helping—it can grow the shapes, smooth the edges—but I need my hands to do this. A captain’s duty.
The Zevemlyans hunt us like we are the war itself. And perhaps we are, We were there at the beginning with the sack of Coralport, we will be there at the end as the Shores rise. If they tear us apart, the tide of the war will shift. I feel it in my bones. The Heart feels it in hers.
If this is our final entry together, I want the sea to remember:
We did not flee.
We did not bend.
We did not die for glory.
We died for the generations who will never know our names.
Tomorrow, the sun will rise over Rising Shores.
Tomorrow, the Heart will beat for the last time.
— Haze, Captain of the Floating Heart
II. Extract from the Debrief of Operative Yssmina “Ashen Sky,” Tranquil Shadows
Filed 95 A.I. (After Immortals War)
“The ship manifested at dusk—first as distortion, then as silhouette, then as the full shape of the Heart herself. I felt the temperature drop, though not unpleasantly. Her sails were unfurled though there was no wind.”
The operative rowed alone to the galleon despite warnings from the merchant crew. The ship’s ghostly form registered on contact as solid, but entirely translucent.
“My fingers pressed through the wood at first, as though dipping into cool water, yet the surface resisted just enough to hold my weight. Light passed through everything. I could see schools of fish under the boards.”
The crew appeared next. Ethereal, but solid.
“I expected wraith-thin shades. What greeted me were sailors who looked nearly alive—faces softened only by translucence. The Anadi skittered down the masts, their ghost-silk still trailing. They were as solid and together as the ghosts of Gënlèul- Land of Dawn, though how this was possible I could not say. Captain Haze Emerged last. Her voice—there is no other word than keening. But not the mournful keening of widows. This was… directive. Purposeful. It resonated in my teeth. It was the power of the sea and the Aulven spirit solidified”
When questioned, the Heart’s captain and crew reiterated their mission: to sink all Zevemlyan vessels until the war was truly finished.
“They feel no sorrow about their condition. No resentment. If anything, they sail with joy—joy in purpose, joy in unity, joy in the song the Heart still sings.”
Before the operative departed, Haze presented a physical object—the captain’s journal, intact despite the ghostly state of the galleon.
“She saluted me. I felt the air ripple like heat, though the ship was cold. When I turned back to my rowboat, the Heart was already drifting away—leaving no wake.”
Filed with reverence; This operative recommends no threat level. This crew is our family. They are our kin. Journal was checked for psionic residue at the Tranquil Sanctum, and, after thorough vetting for safety was brought by Ashen-sky to the Library of the Son for codification and replication.
III. Account of Bryngar ap Mael, Hett Sailor
Recorded by a Hett chronicler in 98 A.I.
We Hett know what ghosts are supposed to be—sad echoes, chained fools, restless bones fumbling about in the world of the living. We know how to deal with them. Rites. Hammers. Salt. Flame. Silver. But the Floating Heart? No. No, that thing is wrong.
I was on a merchant run off the western Hett coast. Calm water, steady wind. I was at the prow when the waves fell silent. Not the wind—the waves. As if the sea itself held its breath. First the masts appeared. Long, thin shadows on the horizon. Then the hull—gleaming pale green, like sea-glass. Then the crew on her rails, all standing still as carved quartz.
Their horns were slicked with kelp. Their eyes? Hollow pits lit by the deep. You could tell they weren’t bound by the rites of any righteous death. They were choosing it. They wanted to be out there. That’s the curse part. A ghost that wants. When the captain of that monstrosity let out her cry, I swear on my mother’s teeth, I felt my beard frost over. My cousin's not right anymore. Says he dreams of drowning.
We turned full sail west and never looked back. The Heart didn’t follow. Didn’t need to. She’d seen us. She’d let us go. The Aulvi call it an honor. The Zevemlyans call it a threat. The Hett? We know a curse when we see one—and that ship is the sea’s own anger made flesh... well not flesh exactly.
IV. Account of a Zevemlyan Sailor Who Survived the Floating Heart
Collected from Torrek Lail, deckhand of the warship Galvander's Fist, 97
I shouldn’t be alive. No one says it, but they all look at me like I should’ve drowned with the others. We were patrolling a narrow channel between Zevemlya and the open Vyům seas when the fog rolled in. Thick as wool, tasting like copper on the tongue. The lookout started screaming—said he saw horns above the mist, drifting like antlers over the sea. Then she came. The ghost ship. The Floating Heart.
Her sails didn’t flap. They hung, like shrouds underwater. Her crew watched us with eyes that didn’t blink. And the captain—Haze—they say she was immortal once, or nearly. When she stepped into view, the fog pulled toward her like breath being sucked from a room. I watched her open her mouth. The sound—if you can call it that—ripped the courage from every man aboard. I saw my captain’s face shrivel. I saw three sailors drop dead. The ship listed. The waves turned black.
I jumped. I don’t remember deciding to; my body just fled. When I surfaced, the Heart had already drifted past, her wake pulling the Galvander's Fist sideways. She didn’t ram us. Didn’t fire. Just passed, and men died from being too close. The Zevemlyan navy warns us not to speak her name. But we whisper it anyway.
Where the Heart sails, hearts stop.
And if she ever sets her sights on us again… I won’t jump. I hope.
V. Testimony of Aulven Veteran Laeshira Vahl, Survivor of the Battle of Rising Shores
Recorded in the 90s
I was one-hundred seventy when the Immortals’ War ended at Rising Shores. I fought inland, with the kineticists who raised the new sea. From our vantage we saw everything. The Heart led the enemy fleet just as she had led us for decades—fearless, beautiful, alive. She glowed with the light of her crew’s determination. You could feel her heartbeat in the waves.
When the Zevemlyans surrounded her, we all screamed warnings, though we knew she couldn’t hear us. Apparently she had planned it, had known they would follow her. It was the bravest thing I'd ever seen, and I saw The one-eyed prince.
The Heart fought against the Zevemlyan fleet like a cornered wolverine, hundreds of ships surrounded her. Despite overwhelming fire, she took two before her guns were destroyed. Then the enemy boarded. We couldn’t reach them. They knew we wouldn't be able to, they had planned to go out like this. I saw her masts burning. I saw her list. I saw her captain on the deck, standing tall even as the ship sank under her feet. The last I saw was the captain cutting down waves of Zevemlyans with her glaive. We couldn’t even watch closely; the smoke was too thick. But we heard the screams.
When the steam cleared, the Heart was gone—boards scattered, crew slaughtered. The sea felt wrong, like a bond had snapped. I cried for three days, and I was not the only one. We won the war because of her. We live because she died. So when sailors say she sails again—ghostly, proud, unbroken—I choose to believe them. How could the Heart ever stop beating? Not when her family still calls to her through the waves. Her heartbeat is the heartbeat of every Aulven sailor.
If she is out there, shining like sea-glass… Then maybe death was not her ending.Maybe it was a beginning she chose.
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