After the Islands

It smelt like salt, like wood, like the ocean. What on earth was all of this? With a rub to one eye, they opened into darkness. Not moony darkness, but salted darkness without sand. What on the gracious islands was this? You couldn't make sense of it. There were people crowded around him, shoulder to shoulder, closer than you wanted. Both men and women lined his sight, now rolling out of his sight. A boat, but one caught in utter darkness. Panic rose in his chest. This wasn't home, or bed, or the song of his mother, or the hand of his father, nor even the hum of his brothers. This was not a thing he knew at all. What should he even try