The zee, its blackened waters pitch,
Calls to me, with eerie glow:
It seeks to leave me all betwitched,
So I need not fear the undertow.
Yet any wizened sailor knows:
The zee, though it seems kinder than the sun above,
Does not hesitate to take and impose
Its violent rules and turn your flesh thereof.
The Surface sings, its dangers kind:
Burning sun, merciful and gold.
Kind - mind, tied, tine, wind, shined, mined...
Gold - sold, told, old, rolled, mold...
I should just give up on this. Who can capture the true beauty of the sun?
If the Poet stays on land, in London, even if ne travels briefly by zee from time to time, ne never runs into sunlight. Mirrorcatch boxes are not a trade ne is interested in, at least not with sunlight in them.
But smuggling is profitable. There's an island with sunshine falling from an open hole in the Neath. The port of Naples has a small trade the Poet can do, whenever ne needs to risk running through the Cumean canal. The Dawn Machine hides in a far corner of the Neath. And with all of this before nem, ne ends up with an addiction to sunlight.
Ne is no weak-willed fool. Ne does not beg to be left behind the way members of nir crew sometimes do. Ne fights it. But nir dreams are of sunlight, and ne takes riskier and riskier excursions to the surface, ignores the dangers as ne sometimes takes a mirrorcatch box full of sunlight for nemself, like a drug.
If ne knows the Cladery Heir, ne swallows nir embarrassment and has the obsession cut out of nem. But, the first time ne tastes sunlight again - and, despite nir best efforts to avoid it, ne does taste sunlight again - nir obsession returns.
If the Poet cannot control it, if the Poet fails to find balance, the sunlight ultimately takes nem. Ne took too many risks. Ne sat and swallowed a whole load of boxed sunlight. Whatever the case, ne burns to death. It is a blissful, wonderful death; but it still kills nem, and ne does not return from this death.
But... perhaps the Poet is luckier. Cleverer. The Sunpoisoned Poet fights nir obsession with all ne has. Ne finds Aestival, and founds a colony there; where ne can taste sunlight, without being burned by it. And ne controls nir impulses. As ne continues to travel the zee, continues to grow, ne eventually finds more light than sunlight. Ne seeks out hope and freedom and love, and brings it to others.
Aestival stands on its own two feet, a colony that the Poet rules. It is a colony for refugees from the rules and machinations of the Neath; it is a colony of freedom from the surface and from lies. Ne allies with the downtrodden, the underdogs, the people most in need of hope. And when ne sets out from Aestival, ne rescues those most in need of rescuing, even from themselves.
No longer poisoned by the sun, the Poet becomes greater: a Lightbringer.