Amphitrite - Wilbur Soot

~one~

 One big misconception about monsters is that all of us were born this way. Most of my sisters were, and the majority of the big names were as well. But at the very bottom of the monster hierarchy pole sits those like me, who were thrust into this lifestyle by several unfortunate events. Take Scylla for example, who was a beautiful nymph. Circe sought revenge on her over some boy, and overnight the perfect Scylla was mutated into a monstrous being with six heads and twelve arms. Scylla did not wish to be ugly and terrifying. Nobody does.

I was lucky enough to fall into my monsterhood on the shores of Helia, a coastal kingdom, when I was very young. You will find that throughout this telling of my story that I shy away from the subject of my death, or I guess, what was supposed to be my death. I'm getting better at coming to terms with it all, but I'm not quite there yet. Maybe someday.

The tale of Lorelai, or at least what the village people know of it, starts with a rambunctious little girl with white-blonde hair. She had bright blue eyes that were filled with innocent bliss. One day, she wanders away from her family and ends up on the beach. The beach that harbored rough, unforgiving gray waters is the same one that swallowed me whole. What the townspeople tell their children is that anyone who ventures down to the beach will never return. They say that Thetis is a formidable goddess, when she's just a sea nymph. She is the lowest of the lowest gods. The only thing she's been able to do is mother Achilles, but she didn't even do that well.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am the little girl. I am Lorelai. I have never cut my hair, and after years of being in the water, it has lost its waves and grown straight and thin. My blue eyes turned black as coal after Thetis deemed me acceptable to save. My limbs are thin and wiry; I'm not much to look at. The only thing that made me special was my voice, which was as clear as glass and as strong as steel. It was the envy of the other naiads I called my sisters. Their voices were like waves crashing against rocks; a lot like their mother's. Thetis' voice hurt my ears and brought tears to my eyes. It was no wonder that I spent so long away from that torturous cove under the sea.

"Lorelai! Get your head out of the clouds and help us get rid of the Elder Guardian," one of my sisters shouted at me. I never bothered to learn all their names since most of them despised me anyway. I was the only daughter of Thetis that wasn't actually her daughter. I was the only one without a tail, without grayish-white skin, without razor-sharp teeth, without inky black hair that swirled behind my head as I swam.

"Leave it alone. It's on its way out," I said without emotion. The sister huffed and swam away, a trail of bubbles following her. My sisters never wore clothes, but then again, they had no need to. They would never go where the prying eyes of men wished to deflower them. I, however, wore the shirts I took off the backs of skeletons I found in shipwrecks and the skirts and corsets I bought at markets using pearls instead of gold. It's rather ironic that I would willingly wear the same shirts that my aggressors did. But life is filled with irony, isn't it?

I recall being within the first few years of my monsterhood when a strange winged man perched on the rocky cave I often frequented. My ten-year-old self had no manners and gaped at this marvel of a creature with his twelve-foot wingspan. All he did was look at me strangely, whisper my name, and then take off into the cloudy sky until he was nothing more than a black dot over the horizon. I thought nothing of it then; I had been witness to more outlandish happenings. I tried asking Thetis about him, but at the mention of a winged man the waters around her churned and all of my naiad sisters ducked behind the black rocks. The wrath of Thetis was only ever rivaled by the wrath of her son.

"The boys are on the shore again," Daphne, the only naiad who treated me well, said in her waves-on-rocks voice. I've been told that the voice of gods is painful to the ears of mortals, and vice versa. I never understood where my voice fit in that spectrum.

"Which ones?" I asked. She had sat next to me on a rock, her gray tail idly swishing in the water. At a glance, Daphne was exactly like every other naiad in Thetis' court. But what set her apart were the flecks of gold in her coal eyes and the streaks of blonde in her hair. I asked her about it one time. She had gotten flustered and mumbled something about Apollo.

"Those kingdomless princes. The ones you like to watch." She looked around conspiratorially. "They brought the older one with the guitar." I watched as her angular face sweetened into a smile.

"Let's go." I had been watching this group of boys for the past ten years. I watched the little blonde boy spar with the little horned brunette with sticks while the water lapped at their feet. I watched the eldest boy with the glasses grow into his clothes, and I listened as his voice deepened from an uncertain tenor to a warm baritone. I would like to say that I could pinpoint exactly when all these things happened, but I had been busy growing up as well. And when you grow up alongside someone, you don't realize what's happening until you look back years later.

Truth be told, they weren't really boys anymore. They were men. The eldest would be turning twenty-four that year if I wasn't mistaken. Both the younger ones were seventeen. Every now and again a gangly halfling and a shorter, rounder woman would tag along and laugh at the younger boys' antics. The only other visitors to the beach came in the dead of night. They were all children, and I made sure they made it back home okay. No one else should have to go through what I did. 

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It begins!!!!

I'm so excited to show off the characters in this tale. 

Remember to eat something good, drink a glass of water, get some sleep, take your meds, and stay caught up on your homework!

I love you, and I'll see you in the next chapter!!