Writing Prompt: June 23 - "Write a fantasy story that begins in this setting [image]"

Yu had lived his entire life on the water. So had his father and grandfather before him. For as long as anyone in his family could remember, they had lived a floating existence - drifting through lakes, rivers, ponds, and the occasional ocean bay. As they travelled, they met peoples from all realms and as their elders made matches for the men of the tribe from each new location, their family grew. Each couple who joined arms was given their own room as marker of their commitment to each other and to the tribe. They would be tied to the group literally and figuratively.

Yu waited all winter for the first warm evening to break because on that night, all rooms would be lit. Starting from the elders in the center of the tribe and rippling outward, eventually the entire tribe would be glowing and warm and reflect in the sky and the water. Once all rooms were alight, the elders would lead the tribe in the dance that brought them to their next body, where they would float for the spring months into the summer.

This year's migration ritual was especially meaningful, as this year he would be promised a match with his commitment partner. He, and the three other boys born in his year, would make their ways to the center, in the dark, and sit before the elders. They would examine each of them in turn - examining their pasts and their futures, what they had already accomplished and what tribulations they would encounter. They would then promised a match best suited to what the future held. This would be Yu's last night spent as a Whole Child for the remainder of his days.

The three boys entered the elder room quietly and respectfully. They took their seats on mats below the dais where the current elders sat in a tight arc and peered out at them, still and unblinking. Yu had heard it said that when an elder came to be, they no longer needed in the same way that the rest of the people needed. They were fed and cared for in the same basic ways, but they became less of themselves as they had always been and more as one with the other elders. They became much more still, and rarely spoke. Even though he had heard these stories from childhood, experiencing their presence was completely different than anything he could have imagined.

For a time, the room remained still. All bodies in attendance took breath with the gentle movement of the water beneath them. The first elder spoke.

"You come to our room whole children, and will leave as half men. As our tribe has known from ages past, a man is only half without his commitment. We have seen your growth and your failures. We have empowered your families to bring you to this present. We will now feel into your futures and provide you with a match to make you whole once again."

At a wave from this elder, the first of the four boys stood and knelt at the center of the elders' platform. One by one, the elders held out their aged hands, speckled with sun and a lifetime of work done for the tribe. Some closed their eyes and some merely lost focus. Some hummed slightly as they stared into the future. Some were silent. One appeared to cease breathing, and then, with a rattling gasp, returned to his original stillness. They retracted their hands to their laps and one elder raised their voice.

"We have seen. You may go, Half-Man. You will become Whole soon."

The second and third boys completed the ritual in the same way. Each being told "We have seen. You may go, Half-Man. You will become Whole soon."

Yu was the last to undergo the elder's review. He took his place on the platform and waited.

And waited.

His knees began to ache. The elders showed no signs of being done with his review, but it hadn't taken this long with the others - had it?

At last, he heard the rattling elder release his hold on the future and return to the present. He raised his head and looked at each elder in turn. They were all staring at him, their eyes intently bright and fiercely focused. This was not what he had seen happen just now three times before.

"We have seen." the speaker announced, "You must go, Half-Man. You will not become Whole."

Ice crept into Yu's veins from the back of his skull trickling down his spine and making his heart beat faster. "I.... what?"

"You, Half-Man, must depart the tribe. You cannot become Whole. Go to your family's room and gather your things. At dawn, you must go."

Yu was stunned. He had never heard of anyone leaving the tribe. Where would they have gone? No, this wasn't right. He had been a good child, a productive member of the tribe - even as he was young. He was supposed to be promised a match and then spend the night with the other boys looking forward to being made Whole once a match had been found.

He started to speak, but before he could bring words from his throat, the elders' eyes flashed dangerously and they stood as one. "You must go." they rumbled quietly. "Must go. Must go. Must go..."

Terror struck his heart and he scrambled to leave the elder room as fast as he could to get away from that mad chanting, He ran, through passages and over lashing cables that kept the tribe rooms together. He skirted the other boys who had waited for him, and darted around other Whole relatives who had known it was his night for evaluation. He only stopped when he arrived at his own empty room near the outskirts of the tribe.

Panting, he rested his hands on his knees - the sudden strength elders' voices as they made their declaration still echoing in his memory. They had to have been wrong, but they didn't sound like they thought they were wrong. He whirled around his room. He didn't really need to gather anything, right? There had been a mistake, he would not be forced to leave the tribe. He could not be Half for the rest of his life. He was going to be made Whole, as every man before him had been made Whole. This was all a mistake.

Yu heard rustling outside his room, and his room jolted slightly, as if pushed.

He pulled back the flaps of his room to see a black expanse of night reflected in the water between his room's decking and that of his life-long neighbors. That wasn't right. There should not be water between the rooms. They were all connected. Always. He saw shadowy figures move silently away from the cut lashings that were slowly sinking into the inky water as the amount of night between him and his entire life grew and grew.

True panic set in, and he instinctively dove into the still-cold spring stillness to swim to his tribe. He was a strong swimmer, but he knew what was happening now and he would have to move harder and faster than he ever had before to have a hope of catching one of the trailing lashings to haul himself up.

In between strokes, as he took in watery breaths, he saw what he had been looking forward to for the past months. The tribe was lighting up, from the center out. From the elder's room to the outskirts, room by room. Within seconds the entire tribe was glowing - just like it always did - just like Yu dreamed about seeing every year.

His arms were burning, his legs were getting heavy, and he wasn't catching up. The tribe began pulsating with the migration dance.

He called out, sputtering through the realization of what was coming and confusion of why it was happening without him, but noone heard him. The tribe became brighter.

"No! Wait! I'm..." Yu continued sputtering "I'm.... Here! Just... WAIT!"

The tribe appeared to be on fire now, light pouring out from every room and now filtering between the rooms as well.

"NO!" Yu cried. "No! I'm HERE!"

The tribe burned white and then, with a final burst that blinded Yu, it vanished.

Yu kept swimming to where the tribe had been, milliseconds ago. He saw spots of where the rooms had been, taking up his vision with sickly green, blue, and purple spots as he stared across the blackness of the now-empty water.

He stopped swimming forward, he couldn't see anymore. The tears weren't flushing the spots from his eyes, but they poured out regardless.

Treading night, he screamed across the surface in utter heartbreak, though noone was there anymore to hear him. He gasped and coughed and wept for his abandonment, his exile. The adrenaline was still making waves through his calves and shoulders, dumping alternating fire and ice on his bones.

Suddenly, the recognition of the danger he was in now came to the forefront. His room. No. Where was his room?? Had it left with the tribe?

He spun in the water and saw his only refuge, dimly lit, and bobbing away from him.

He spun again towards where the tribe had departed, and once again to his room. Exhaustion was setting in. He had no choice. One last shriek of anguish and he turned his back on the tribe who had turned their back on him, and made for his last splinter of safety and identity. He pulled himself up on his narrow deck and collapsed, still sobbing dry tears as hopelessness and sleep consumed him.