Nëis couldn’t put a finger on his emotions. He could taste the salt in the air, smell the surf -- but he wasn’t excited about it, not exactly. He still had to meet his captain, and his fellow crewmen, and time would only tell if he could get used to being a part of a group like that. But the promise of the sea and open air, he thought he could deal with the little things, for a life like that. Better than being in a stagnant city.

The room he was staying in was rented, as it had been for the past week. Paid in advance, so he would be able to leave as soon as he needed to. He ate his meals in the room, and he did the same with breakfast that morning -- it was set outside his door per his instructions. Some sort of porridge, and a hard sweet roll of bread. Not very nutritious, and more bland than anything else, but still heavy enough to fill a stomach. Might not keep a man alive for long, but it would damn well keep him full. He ate, set the plate on the bedside table, and grabbed his bag off of the bed. He had packed it the night before in preparation, not too keen on doing much in the mornings.

As he left, he didn’t encounter any of the staff. He wasn’t going to mourn that, certainly. Walking to the docks took him mere minutes. He’d decided to stay as near to them as he could, despite the somewhat more expensive price of it. As far as he could tell, it was worth it. He wasn’t the first to gather near the ship, but he wasn’t interested in having that honor so much as he was in looking at the sea. 

He settled down on the dock, drawing his legs up and leaning against one of the wooden poles. Beside him sat his old leather bag, which held more or less everything he owned. He kept it on his arm, but otherwise didn’t make an attempt to protect it. If a cutpurse did happen to come around, he wasn’t against knocking them plain into the sea. His ‘valuables’ were all waterproof, to his knowledge.

Behind him, several people were milling about. Fellow crewmen, from the looks of it. Just people, so he cast his eyes away, back to the sea and the shoreline. Over time, a few more gathered, and he would look at them shortly before relaxing again. When the stilted discussion turned more towards whispering, he stood to see who was coming and joined the group that had gathered.

When the man came to stand in front of them, his first assumption was that he was a noble. The hard gaze in his eyes, though, said he was anything but, and Nëis realized he was looking at the man who would be his captain.

When no one else spoke for the few seconds of silence that followed, he decided he might as well. He looked down slightly to make eye contact with him, unbothered by the severe look. “I am Nëis Leider,” he said, “and it is good to see that my Captain will be a formidable man.”