The first thing Sonder stepped onto that had been shaped by people wasn't a road
It was a set of wooden stairs that led down. They creaked under her weight. And they seemed to be old and clearly shaped by years of saltwater and boots.
She stood at the edge of town, where the city and harbor met, though the harbor lay lower.
When she turned her head to the right, she could see the harbor spread out messily.
There were small boats that bobbed closer to the piers.
Some were narrow, their sails obviously patched; others were squat, piled with crates and nets.
They knocked against the pier as the water shifted.
Further out, anchored where the water was deeper, was a much larger ship.
It was hard to miss.
It rose tall from the water, built of dark wood, with multiple masts that reached skyward. Its sails furled, just docked.
People, sailors most likely, moved across its deck, preparing for the next take off, talking and shouting but too far for Sonder to decipher their meaning.
She watched for a moment.
Sireacht drifted forward, curious, but Sonder drew her back with a gentle hand.
"We don't have time to explore," she said to her. "Maybe later."
Sonder wasn't used to the sea, but to her, it seemed that big ships meant long journeys. She hoped that her destination wasn't so far away that she needed to spend a lot of time on a boat.
The notion of staying for weeks on a ship, surrounded by nothing but endless ocean, wasn't one that sat pleasantly in her stomach.
She glanced out to the open sea, and the Dico thread was still there, unmoving, leading to the ocean.
"I don't need a whole voyage," she said to herself.
If she could hire a small boat and someone willing, to go a little way out, maybe that would be enough.
Or maybe someone here knew what lay in that direction.
More land, or an island.
What she was really hoping, frightening as it was, was that the shard, or whatever it was that the thread led to, wasn't in the ocean itself.
Lying in the deep waters, unreachable by her hands.
It was a fear she almost prayed to not come true.
Even so, she considered what she would do if it were so in the meanwhile.
If a shard was really at the bottom of the ocean, how would she be able to reach it?
Some combination of swimming and magic?
Maybe there were some merfolk in this town that she could talk to and ask for any solutions.
But the thought fell apart almost immediately.
She didn't want anyone to handle a shard.
Maybe they had something that could help a land-dweller reach the bottom?
She sighed. First, she had to find a boat.