Bilges

The bilges sprawl before you as you come down a lavish staircase with filigree dancing beneath your fingers on the solid handrails. Creeping vines caress the supporting slats, a variety of blossoms adding bursts of vibrant color. These blossoms are highlighted by the intermittent glow of flitting, busy buggy bottoms, as lightning bugs zap back and forth between flowers. Before you stretches a vaulted ceiling with arches of such extravagant woodwork that you cannot tell where oak worked by the hands of mortals ends, and the intricate lace of vines begins. This skien of twisting, tangled knots of life drip lines of ethereal light, swaying gently (just a hint out of time with the natural swell of the waves embracing the ship) a hair’s breadth above your head. If you stand on your tiptoes to get a closer look, they seem to retract towards the ceiling, somehow always just avoiding your skin. A constant motion ripples through the greenery above, the rasping of chitinous legs and slippery scales creating a susurration that is inherently calming.

Thin walkways wind throughout the vast expanse before you, grates of elaborate weaves of wood that seem to hover on the surface tension of the bilge water below. The arches above mix with mounded islands of mushrooms surrounded by lily-pads and wafting green tendrils to create tunnels that seem comfortingly close while also allowing for the open line of view through the expanse of the bilges. Bioluminescent algae dances upon the surface of the water, swirling in strange currents that wind upon and amongst themselves in a fractal curling that invites your eyes and mind on a journey beyond reality, if you could just find the right path of thought, you’re sure you could go down that rabbit hole forever. A splash to the side catches your attention. Pumpkin is frollicing with their friends and family, a small herd of miniature hippopotami in neon colors splash and honk in laughter in an area of open water. A pair of rats in suits sit on toadstools next to the pond, discussing a treatise one of them has written on the effect of the future on the present that contains many words you do not understand.

You walk farther in and a whooshing sound draws your attention, the whoosh is the sound of water and a crystal turtle speeding down a masterfully crafted slide that while having a rather shallow angle, generates an astounding amount of acceleration as GlorYay! is flung forward by their momentum into another clear pool and another gathering of creatures. Many are familiar, but just slightly beyond the norm, while some defy description. All around you are the muted sounds of merrymaking and life, at a level that you know fills the space yet would allow for conversation with no difficulty whatsoever. The sound and creatures galavant amongst a verdant wetland, an entire ecosystem sprawling and vibrantly self sustaining, filtering the bilgewater that flows in from the stern, until it reaches the bow purified and clear as crystal.

Finally you see before you a curtain of pendulous branchlets, speckled with buds, leaves, and flowers, visited by hovering hummingbirds that sparkle in the dim shafts of light that filter between the boards of the deck above. Bats flood through the space, pulling on stout vines you were not originally aware of, and the curtain parts. A vast mat of moss replaces the walkway grates, a perfect seeming triangle of deep green pointing to the bow, spotted here and there with patches of mushrooms and plants. The hull is lined with shelves and cabinets, with even more exotic specimens in special pots and jars. Vials and tubes bubble with strangely colored liquids, and glitter seems to float from the mouths of flasks. A pool emits an eerie blue glow in the center of the triangle. And finally, in a place of obvious honor there resides a hand in a lavish miniature glass palace, wending and winding in convoluted twists and turns that challenge the mind as if phasing into planes normal eyes cannot comprehend. An orange light emanates from an eye shaped hole in the palm of the hand, and neon green vines burst forth to slip and slide through the entirety of the hand’s spectacular domain. You have reached the inner sanctum of Scrimmble Scrammble, the SEER.