Luka Draft
Description
Sixteen. The youngest crew member aboard by several years, and it shows in the ways he cannot control: the face still settling into what it will become, the body in the awkward mid-process of adolescence, the eyes that carry more than he means them to. He works hard. He does not complain. These are his credentials.
He follows Petar Boskovic at whatever distance is plausible — close enough to observe, far enough to maintain the fiction that it is coincidence. Petar accepts this without acknowledging it. The arrangement is functional for both of them.
He is fascinated by the passengers. He is caught staring and looks away too fast when noticed. He speaks broken Italian and a little trade-Greek picked up from the crew.
Background
First long voyage. Whatever he expected, La Speranza’s route to the east — out through the Strait of Otranto and the long Mediterranean crossing beyond it, waters he has only heard about — is the first time he has been out of sight of the Dalmatian coast for more than a few days. He does not say this.
He was among the crew that Nathaniel Holt directed to load the passengers’ supply crates at Trieste. He carried the heavier ones without being asked to and did not make anything of it.
Personality
Curious, quiet, brave in the way that is really the refusal to be seen being afraid. He wants to know what England is like — not the politics, not the geography, but what it feels like to be there, the texture of it, the way the world is different beyond what he knows. He will ask this of any passenger who stays still long enough and seems approachable, in broken sentences that take more courage than they appear to.
His fear during the becalming will be visible to anyone paying attention. He will not admit it.
Motivations
Get through this voyage without disgracing himself. Understand the world beyond the Dalmatian coast. Stay close to Petar.
Connections
- Petar Boskovic — The bosun he orbits; the closest thing aboard to safety
- Nathaniel Holt — The officer who directed him at Trieste; a man who speaks to crew as crew rather than cargo
- Drago — Fellow Dalmatian, older, louder; a model for what fear can become if it isn’t managed
Appearances
Relationships
- Professional Petar Boskovic — Follows the bosun like a shadow on his first long voyage. Petar is the fixed point he orients around when everything else becomes uncertain.
- Professional Nathaniel Holt — Directed by Holt to load supply crates at Trieste — his first encounter with the naval officer who now moves among the crew.
- Professional La Speranza — First long voyage; the ship is simultaneously his home and the source of everything that frightens him.