The Flowing Sea

Chapter 1

The boat swayed as the waves slowly pushed us farther and farther from shore. The jewels, shining brighter than they had the night before, twinkled, my only company in this lonesome sea of nothing.

If only I could just— I thought, reaching my numb hand up from where it layed on my chest in an effort to grab at the diamonds and quartz in the night sky. They moved and danced through the sky as I rocked rhythmically in my boat, some more beautiful than others as their light moved and shifted, I moved my hand to the silent rhythm of their forbidden symphony. Diamonds glided through my hands, groups and flocks of them dancing around and near the Moon in tribute.

I lowered my hand, and lay there, in my rocking boat watching as they seemed to gather and disperse, the Moon's face shining in approval lighting the now still ocean, with its vast and terrible beauty, making it shine like glass.

With the stillness and calm of my solitude on sea, I began to think. My sisters. My brother. Father. . .

It wasn't even a fortnight ago I had been home. Sitting alone, ready to earn a bit of coin, even though the others would just spend it. I was going to join the bounty hunters who had recruited me, for my skills and heightened senses on foot. My skill with a bow was nearly undefeated, even among adults, and they had wanted it on their team. The coin would be enough for me to get new strings. . . And terribly obnoxious dresses for the girls, which they would adore till the hems were ruined. Wooden toys for Sean, and he would love them.

But that would never happen now. None of it. No dresses. No toys. No bounty. Nothing.

"So exhausting..." I sighed as I closed my eyes, with my jewels no longer dancing. Their silent generous symphony slowed to a silent whisper.

As I lay there I thought of a story my Father had told me about the sea when I was just a boy. He had always said things lurked in the beautiful deadly depths of our oceans, and that we had lost many good men to the creatures dwelling in it. Father always spoke of beautiful dangerous creatures, with tails as long as their own bodies. And skin of so many colors, not even the Merchants in the trading square didn't know all the shades.

Father, as cold as he was, had a soft spot for these beautiful demons of the sea, He knew, or tired to know, everything He could of them.

Their hair is long and shiny and soft, as if made of velvet or silk!, He had said to me in a delirious drunk state. They live for decades and some might even say millenia, and they're quite more beautiful than those "Jewels" you occupy yourself with, Boy. He had sneered, a slick shot at my pride.

But as beautiful as they may be, these creatures, these handmaidens of Death, They seek out the weakest of us. Singing a song of such allure even a King wouldn't be able to resist. . .

And that's all I could recall as I began to slip into a dazed and hungry sleep, sliding to the right side of my boat to look at my Jewels in the reflection of the sea one last time.

My only bit of comfort in this sea of nothingness.

And with the last bit of my strength, I opened my eyes, only to see another set staring up at me.

☾˙❀- -❀˙☽

"Ow!" I squeaked with a jolt, my eyes flying open.

It took me a second to realize I had hit my head on something. And another minute to try and remember where I was. Which, I still didn't know, but wherever "this" was magnificent and horrifyingly beautiful. The space I occupied, which would have been fit for a King, was designed in colors of gray and black and white and shades of the deepest purple I've ever seen.