"How about changing your attire Captain. You want to continue to wear that tattered navy trench coat?" said Tom.
"Yeah, you're right. Is there any clothes that I can change here?" replied Ahab.
Tom continued while chuckling a little bit, "Why do you ask me Elias? You literally can write your favourite suit yourself. You have the books that can help you decide your own story!"
Ahab takes a look towards the blank books and the pen closely. His expression is still in disbelief that he literally decides his next second, minute, hour, day, month, year… basically he decides his own narratives.
Tom looks at Ahab with a smile, "Write your favourite outfit, Captain."
Ahab looks back at Tom and nods a little bit. He opened the books and started to think about what outfit that he wanted to wear. He can choose anything from a nice suit to exclusive clothing but he decided to write something that he surely felt comfortable with.
Everything around Ahab starts glowing again. The golden ink in the books starts floating and transforms into something. By the end of the very bright glow, Ahab's whole outfit and looks have basically transformed. His hair is messy but looks very cool. He now is wearing a blue navy trench coat with a beautiful gold lining and a logo of two harpoon cross together. Inside the trench coat, he is wearing a white shirt that has the collar and two buttons from top unbuttoned. He wears a black trouser with a brown belt that has a skull design on its head. He is wearing a black boots with a golden design like a true captain looks.
"Still with the captain's looks, Elias?", Tom looks at Ahab while smiling.
"I can run from my past, can I? So, at least I can feel still in my story while wearing this. Besides, I do feel that this outfit is the most comfortable for me." say Ahab.
"Hey, you can wear whatever you want. You are the author of your story and besides that you look hella cool in this outfit!" replied Tom.
Ahab smiled but suddenly his face went back to being serious. Suddenly, he asked Tom a question with a serious tone.
"So, what did I have to do now?"
Tom looks at him and says, "Glad you asked."
"Since you are unwritten and not chained to any story, you can travel into any story in the vast space of fiction" says Tom.
"And… that's mean?" replied Ahab.
Tom replied, "That means you can enter any story that has been created in fiction without ruining and destroying the story narratives and you can get out of the story easily because the story narratives don't have you as a linked character. So, it is like you never ever exist in the story!"
"Hmm I still can't comprehend any of this narrative space thing but, slowly learned something about it. But, based on your tone, I can feel that you have something for me to do." says Ahab.
Tom smiles, he knows that Ahab is really smart. He already knew what Tom was trying to say. Tom continued, "Follow me, I have something for you."
The library shifted again. A door appeared in the distance. A new shelf rolled in beside them, empty. He walked toward the door and looked back, "You coming?".
Ahab stared at the empty shelf for a moment and then said,
"Let's go."
Tom walked with his usual calm but sharp stride down the marble floor of the Infinite Library, a place where the silence was thicker than any fog Ahab had sailed through.
Ahab followed, now more composed, the Pen of the Unwritten resting inside the pocket of his new trench coat that he had created for himself.
They came to a balcony overlooking the Sea of Stories, a vast, glimmering ocean stretching beyond the horizon, filled with floating ink islands, drifting parchment waves, and broken book spines rising like shipwrecks.
"You see this place, it's called the Sea of Stories. A literal vast space filled with human fiction, fantasy and imagination. Like the real ocean, it is mostly infinite and no one ever can find where the end of it. Any books, cartoons, anime, games and any fiction media that you ever know is here."
Ahab looked gasped in admiration but also felt haunting. It's basically like an ocean that he used to sail but for human whole imagination. "So, this is where every book in the library was created?"
Tom replied, "Yes, and it was sorted and kept fast by the Leviathan itself. But, it kept growing bigger and bigger by day so, the Leviathan have created two more entities to help it. The first is Moby, the white whale created from human obsession and greed. But two negative feelings of humans have created a kind and strong protector of fiction, basically a basic math of negative and negative equal positives."
Suddenly, the ground trembled beneath them.
A deep, ethereal whale song echoed across the library, vibrating through the bookshelves and making dust rain from ancient scrolls.
Ahab turned to the sea of stories and emerging from its inky waves came the White Whale itself.
Moby Dick.
Harpoons still scarred his back, but his presence was majestic, no longer monstrous. His eyes met Ahab's not with rage, but with ancient wisdom. Its whale song can be heard through all infinite space of the multiverse.
""He's not just a whale here. He's a living archetype. A survivor of myth. A force of the sea that's seen every version of his own story. And now… looks like he is interested in you and wants to join your journey as a partner" says Tom.
Ahab is surprised and shocked when he hears Tom's statement that Moby wants to be his partner. Ahab slowly muttered under his breath, "I thought you would hate me because of my past."
Moby humming again but this time in Ahab's hearing the humming translated to the word that he can understand.
"I don't judge a being by his past and future. My whole existence might be judgment itself but I still have empathy and I see that you are not doing anything like your father." says Moby.
Moby continued humming, "Your whole life might be filled with judgement from whole other characters for having a faulty bloodline but that is not your choice. I have watched you since, I learned there is a story about you that has been created and I conclude, you always have a good heart."
Hearing those kind words from Moby put a tear on Ahab's eyes and a little bit warm on his ice cold heart. The world never gave him a kind word so, hearing it felt weird for the young captain. He looks up to see Moby's Body filled with scar and even still attached with a broken old harpoon. Ahab with a sad and emotional voice says "I am sorry for what they have done to you…" but Moby quickly replies with a humming that translates, "This is nothing and you should not apologise about it at all. Instead, I'm the one who should apologise for taking your father from his family."
"No, he saw that coming. It isn't anybody's fault." reply Ahab. Ahab's forehead touched the white whale's head. The whale let out a soft exhale, mist curling like ink in the air.Tom smiled, a little bit for a beautiful silence moment for both.
"I guess you both have settled the score," says Tom.
Ahab wipes his eyes and asks Tom "Where is the other one, the other entity leviathan created."
Tom and Moby suddenly felt intense even though Ahab could feel it. Tom replied, "He is a traitor. He doesn't belong here anymore."
Ahab can feel the tense and a little bit of rage on both of them. He stops questioning about the other entity because he knows both of them have a grudge on them.
Then, Tom calmed from the tense feeling and apologised for his weird act. Ahab thinks in his thoughts, whatever thing that this other entity has done must be really bad to make two beings powered by The Leviathan to be filled with rage and hatred to it.
Tom looks at Ahab and continues to say, "Ahab I have a mission that only you can do right now."
Ahab replied, "and what is that?"
Tom continued, "You're unchained by any stories now. Not just lost, Ahab—unanchored. You don't belong to one book anymore. You belong to all of them."
Ahab jokingly replied, "And what do I do now? Haunt forgotten tales?"
"No. Save them." reply Tom while smirking.
He continued, "The world needs storytellers, Ahab. And stories need protectors. There are other characters out there. Some lost. Some are dangerous. And some who think they can erase history itself."
Tom raised a finger, and with a flash, a shelf unfurled before them, containing tattered and unfinished stories. Then he says, "These are the broken ones. Stories that were cut short, lost in fire, or twisted by those who tried to rewrite them for power. Your task… is to sail into these fragments and give them an ending, not the original one, but one that makes them whole again."
"You're not just a character anymore, Ahab. You're the anchor for drifting tales."
"And you entrust me with a mission as important as this." say Ahab
Tom replied "Because you are the one who can do it. With your specialty on being a captain, this must be a piece of cake to you."
Ahab continued, "How can I give an ending to other stories. I even say to Jones that other people can not decide on how others' stories end."
"Jones and you are different. Remember what you say to Jones that, if you don't even know about the others story, how can you decide on how it ends. So, that's why you need to experience the story as a whole. After that, you decide on how the story will end." Tom.
"So I need to live in the story?" Ahab felt a little bit surprised.
"Yeah! Besides, it's not like you have other things to do here anyways.", Tom said jokingly.
"Oh, that's fair. That's a great argument." Ahab replied.
Ahab continued, "How about you and the Leviathan? Weren't both of you also an unchained being?".
"I need to be in the library all the time to prevent intruders or any unwanted things in here and The Leviathan needs to keep the Sea of Stories and the library in check because of the rapid growth of stories created in the whole multiverse." answered Tom.
"Sounds harder than my task," Ahab said.
Tom quickly reply "It is"
Tom pulled out a map made of stitched story fragments, glowing faintly.
"Your first task, there's a story of a loyal knight that ends with tortured and betrayal. It was never meant to end that way. Sail into it. Find the truth and give it a new horizon."
Tom flicked his hand and it formed into a staircase that formed from the balcony into the Sea of Stories. Moby Dick waited below, tail resting against a boat formed from drifted tales, a vessel patched with poetry, myth, and parchment sails.
Ahab stepped toward the edge of the balcony where a staircase had formed, descending straight into the Sea of Stories.
Tom smiled faintly, "Remember, Ahab. The moment you rewrite with honesty… you give a lost story a soul."
Ahab placed the pen and the blank book in his belt,
"Then let's find the ending for the lost story."