A/N: Well, now isn't this fun? I've got another story that I get to mutilate and twist about evilly! Bwa ha ha!
Alright, if anyone who has read my other twisted story (The Truth of Beauty) is reading this, you are in luck. I've decided that I like twisting old tales into my own creatures, and have decided (with the help of April and Imouto) to create a little series that I am calling the Interpreted Fairytales series. IF, for short. (What's up with me and acronyms? I've got ANY, ACE, and now IF!)
So, yeah, I hope that many people who read and loved Truth come back and try out this newest addition. Of course, if it stinks really horribly and nobody likes it...well, too bad. I'm not going to stop it, it's too much fun already.
PLEASE NOTE: Like Truth, this story only begins in first person! It sets up the story, and if you don't like it, then just skip to the break and read from there. You won't miss anything really major, I promise.
Now, enjoy!
Stories come and go. They turn from stories into legend as people begin to doubt the honesty and truth behind the tellings. Legends become myth as the legends are forgotten, swept away by the tides of change as they are told less and less to the next generation of children. And, eventually, myths fade from existance, forgotten lessons that will never be recovered.
In one village, there is one such story, and I feel that I should write it down before it becomes a faded memory. It took me foever to find it, and I'm afraid that if I don't there will be no way for my adoring neices and nephews to know about the dangers that lurk in the unknown.
But what do I know?I'm sure you're asking the same question I've been dying to know the answer to. I mean, what does a young woman know, when she has her elders to provide information and knowledge for her? Better yet, when she has her men folk to do the thinking and writing for her?
It would possibly be that way, if I had any men living around me. I've long ago scared them off with my temper, letting them know just who is boss around my home. I've only ever had one man whom I've ever loved, but he is currently out on a sailing venture in which he so lovingly prevented me from accompanying him on. He has been gone for some time, so he has no say in what I write currently. Plus, I'm bored, so it works out in the end.
As for my elders...Well, I never really listened to them anyway. Who needs them, when they are completely biased on the workings of the world, prevent change with every ounce of their being, and say one thing but do something completely different?
No, I think I'll stick to my own way of doing things, thank you very much.
But there is one thing that they are right on. The sea is one place to be wary of, and they make a point of teaching all children to respect the ocean and all of her treasures and curses hidden beneath the calm (or, if she's really angry, furious) waves that lap against the shore.
They warn us all that if we aren't careful, that we'll be swept under, taken into the dark depths of her bosom, never surfacing again. We'll become a part of her, leaving behind everything and never returning to the lang and people we love.
And when someone asks why the ocean does that, all they say is "The sea king demands sacrafices. If you are too mindless to respect his laws, then you deserve to serve him under the waves for all eternity."
But something just didn't make sense when they told me that. And so I hunted for the myth, for the legend that was once truth, through countless towns and cities until I came across a story that made sense. It was, unsurprisingly, in a small sea-side village made up of almos all sailors. No big deal, right? Well, what made it so much better was that the person who told me about it also swore on his mother's grave that it was true. He even claimed that he was the decendent of one of the people.
So I told the man to relate the tale to me, taking down extensive notes and compiling a decent mountain of paper for me to take home. He was incredibly specific, from who wore what to what happened when. He made it incredibly easy for me to follow him, and in the end, he was very persuasive.
Traveling back to my village, I have decided to stay and write this at my old desk until the time that my husband makes it back to me, or I finish this...whichever comes first. I just hope that someone out there takes pity on a 'brainless woman' and believes that this tale should be told to their children, their children's children, and even onto their granchildren's children, as I believe it was meant to be.
The sea is a glorious place to the people on land. It holds so many wonder, so many mysteries in its dark depths. No person to ever walk the land had ever seen what it held for them, and maybe that was why so many men took to the waters each year, on great ships that cut through the water, on the great being that is the ocean.
However, if they thought it was amazing above the surface, or even barely below, they should have seen it in its deepest, icy depths. There, in the darkness that would make even a grown man afraid to approach, laid a great city.
If man could lay a name to the metal that made up the palace and its surroundings, they would have called it gold. If they could have laid a name to the light that illuminated it, they would have said it was lit by millions of candles that never flickered. And if they would name the occupants that inhabited the glorious city, they would have called them merpeople.
However, man would be wrong. There was no metal to be found under the sea; it would all rust awfully, making the glimmering city into a twisting maze of death. They had no way of lighting fire underneath the water, even if they knew what the strange element was in this world of water. And the citizens of the city were not merely half-fish and half-human; there were species that were half-shark, whale, dolphin, and even a handful that were part of a creature that had no name in the human tongue.
And so they would be instead awe-struck by the wonders that were part of the everyday life of the city dwellers of Atlantis.
Kagome thought it was the most boring place she had ever been to. Granted, she had never been anywhere outside of Atlantis, but she thought that anywhere other than her birth city would be better than here. It was too dark, it was too crowded, and regardless of what her father said, it was cold!
Shivering under her blankets, Kagome curled up even tighter into a ball. She tucked her fin underneath her, the deep green scales shimmering softly in the coral light. Regardless of what humans thought, there were some breeds of coral that, in fact, did glow in the dark; the palace and houses surrounding it were proof of that.
Kagome would have loved to fall back asleep, snuggling into her sea-sponge bed and tucking her algae blanket even further under her slender body. And she would have, easily. The one good thing about living so far under the water was the fact that it was always dark, allowing people to sleep whenever they felt like it.
The only problem was, one of her elder sisters chose that moment to decide that Kagome had slept long enough. The black-haired girl in question had only a moments warning before her blanket was, quite literally, ripped to shreds.
Sitting up angrily, Kagome glared at her sister. "Kikyo! Why did you do that?" she snapped.
Kikyo was only about a season-cycle older than Kagome. The two sister's were nearly identical when it came to coloring, both with muddy eyes and dark hair. Kikyo even had a green tail, though hers was much lighter than Kagome's. However, that was where the similarities ended.
Where Kagome liked to let her hair loose and had never chosen to style it, Kikyo liked to keep hers hooked back into a wild tail that tangled itself almost instantly. She also chose to cut bangs, going straight across and some of them left longer so that they protected her delicate ears.
Kikyo smiled a little too sweetly. "Dear sister, aren't you forgetting? Father said that he wanted to see us, all of us, as soon as the guard switched. That was a while ago, and now we're both late. Or didn't you care?"
Kagome 'eep'-ed and dove out of her bed. "I totally forgot!" She scrambled to drag a comb through her hair, growling when snarls prevented the object from traveling smoothly.
Another perk to living under the ocean was that you never had to change. Men and women alike never had to worry about wearing anything over their chests- it just wasn't done. Besides the fact that there was no type of cloth available to the sea folk that wouldn't hinder their movement, it just wasn't comfortable to them. It was completely natural to wear nothing, and it didn't embarrass them one bit.
And so it didn't take Kagome long to finish and join her sister in the hallway, racing to meet their father and hoping that the king's infamous temper didn't effect two of his adoring daughters.
Swimming as fast as they could, it still took the two girls some time before they made it to the antechamber. What could they do? It was a very large palace, with so many halls that even a dolphin would get lost in it. One had, too, on more than one occasion.
When the two burst into the room, they were both out of breath and panting heavily. It was really easy to loose one's breath underwater- all of the pressure on top of the exhertion made it hard to breath.
There were only two other occupants in the room, Kagome and Kikyo's other sisters. Their father wasn't in sight, probably finishing up some meeting or, more likely, a meal.
It irked Kikyo, knowing that she could have had a few moments more of sleep before she had to be in front of her father. She didn't even know what he wanted, but it couldn't have been that important. After all, even though the sea king tended to have a temper, he rarely took things seriously.
"It's about time you two showed up. What took you so long?" That was Keiko, the youngest of the girls. She was a exactly one season-cycle younger than Kagome, with chesnut-colored hair and brighter eyes than her two siblings. Her tail was a light turqoise color, and she liked to keep her hair the shortest of the four sisters. She said it made her even faster in the water, and that could be proven in the fact that she always beat the four of them in races. Although, that could have also been due to the fact that she was often seen chasing after her delinquint boyfriend.
"I was hoping you were father. He's late again," said the eldest, Botan, with annoyance coating her voice. She was the most colorful of the four sisters- somehow, she had been born with blue hair. She kept it in a style similar to Kikyo's, only, like Kagome, she chose to never cut it. Her eyes were another shocker, as they were a pure enough pink to make a salmon envious. Her tail was a lavendar rainbow, no two scales exactly the same color. All in all, she was an eye-catcher.
"Tell me again," Kagome began, "just why is he always late?" She screamed in frustration, beating her fists in the air.
Kikyo smirked and floated over to the others. "What's up, Kagome? Have you been flitting about the surface again?" She shook her head and clucked her tongue. "You know Father has forbid all sea folk from going anywhere outside the canyon. Are you trying to get into trouble?" Her eye held a glint that Kagome didn't like.
Kagome huffed and crossed her arms. "Are you kidding me? After that last fiasco, did you think that I would be that stupid?"
Kikyo's eyes just glittered maliciously.
The fact was, Kagome was a horrible lier. She had, in fact, been outside the canyon many times. Last night had been her latest adventure, the young woman having chosen to spend her time sleeping instead up at the surface. She couldn't help it; it was an amazing place up there.
Up there, there was light. Natural and warm, and so bright that it hurt for her to look directly at it. There were creatures that cried out with an annoying voice, swimming high overhead and gliding on the above-sea tides. There were even great big beasts made out of a strange, hard shell that glided on the barrier between sea and above-sea. Those were the most amazing of anything on the surface, and Kagome went out of her way to watch them whenever the great being passed.
Kagome just couldn't understand what was so dangerous up there to make it forbidden to leave Atlantis.
However, Kagome wasn't able to dwell on her thoughts any longer, for a large racket at the entrance announced the entry of a very important person. A great knot of folk, from dolphin-tailed merchants to shark-bodied guards, proceeded a single seahorse. The tiny creature cleared its throat with a self-important air, and made a loud announcement in a squeaking voice.
"I present his royal Majesty, the sea king!"
End Chapter
Dedicated to Imouto, for getting me through Truth, the titles for both of my IF series stories, and for making me laugh at myself while I try and come up with ideas.
Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please review.