[SilhouetteStation]

Username: SilhouetteStation
Name: Neirissa
4883/5000 words
3/3 art pieces



There are some who are born into their destiny. Whose presence is as old as the sky, the wind, the world. Who come as naturally as the waves lapping at the sandy shore, the salty spray evaporating into the air, the foam on white capped waves that absorb back into the water. The Ancient sprites are as old as time itself. They didn't just witness the creation of the world - they helped to create it themselves.

The Sky, the Earth, and the Sea; the sacred three.

Possession of such power is something mortals could only dream about. Even to other sprites, the sacred three are revered and respected greatly. The three of them help to keep the world in order by balancing the nature that lives within it. The three balance each other out and, if that balance were to be disrupted, the disruption would spread like ripples in a pond across the land.

It has been a very long time since I first emerged into the world. My first thoughts were jumbled, confusing and colorful, but I knew what I needed; water. And from there, the ocean was born. It grew from a puddle around me, filling spaces, washing up against the cliffs that my sibling Earth created. Sky watched from above as our creations blended, creating lands surrounded by great seas. We worked in harmony to create this land, to make it our own, to make it our home. The feeling of water touching my body, absorbing into my being, my soul, reaching up above my head and blanketing me in waves. I have never known such comfort as the ocean. I was born to be the sprite of the sea. My essence was the sea. I was the sea.

I have watched other Sprites come to life, born from my siblings and I to help create and cultivate this new and wonderful world that we made. Our first collaboration was to bring the Sun and Moon to life, to create day and night. Earth created sprites of Nature to grow grass, trees, and flowers. Sky created sprites to control weather and seasons. I created sprites to live upon the land, to reside over lakes and swamps and streams. The Sun helped to create nourishing sunlight, while the Moon helped to create ocean tides and light for night creatures to get around. We live mostly in harmony; like all families, we have our moments. Earth and Sky created more sprites than I to help with their duties. I was more reserved. There was a reason I sent my sprites to live away from the sea, and more inland by fresh water.

The ocean was my home. My everything. I didn't want to share it. Sprites were not supposed to experience things such as selfishness and greed, but my intentions were pure. I loved the ocean like I would love my own child. In a sense, the ocean was my child. But it also cared for me in turn, and I thrived in my aquatic world. We sustained each other. Two life forces, two forces of nature, we are one in the same.

Over the years, we came to realize something as Sprites. Like the nature we were connected too, we too could sometimes be unpredictable. Our emotions could become temperamental, but with the help of each other, we could become balanced once more. Sometimes we encountered things out of our control, things that affected us in ways we never expected. It becomes a matter of how we cope with these things, and how we overcome these challenges to keep balance.

But some things are harder to cope with than others.

- - - - -



It was another gorgeous day. Even being so far down in deeper water, I could still see sunlight dancing on the surface. They rippled slightly with the gentle waves, shimmering and golden. Down here, everything was quiet. Sounds faded the further down you swam, and I loved the solitude it gave me. I could hear myself down here. If I concentrated, I could hear the ocean. The fish, the seaweed, the slightest shift of sand. Sometimes I stayed down here for hours, just floating still. Just being.

We had so much responsibility, so many duties. Times we had to ourselves were often fleeting, and we took any chance we got. But we were bound to the ways of a Sprite, and so we knew that at some point we would have to return to them.

I swam upwards, the muscles in my long tail propelling me swiftly and silently through the water. The sunlight on the surface intensified, until it filled my vision and my head broke through into air. Above, a few stray clouds drifted across a pale blue sky. Out here, in the deepest and remote ocean, even the gulls didn't fly in this place. The water was wonderfully clean and pure. If anyone had asked, I'd tell them this was my favorite place to be. I had the ability to roam the entire ocean, but this is still where I'd choose to be.

Ducking my head back under the water, I began my long swim. Part of my duty was to routinely explore the sea, checking to see if anything needed help, keeping everything in check. I knew the ocean like the back of my hand, and my speed meant that I could cover the wide expanse of water in roughly a week. It was always a pleasure, seeing new things on my scheduled journey. New coral growths, schools of fish, circling sharks; I knew all of them as my friends.

One of the places I enjoyed most was one of the first stops on my route, a small cove at the edge of a forest. The water was lovely and cool, pebbles scattered across the beach, the clay cliffs providing a sense of serenity and seclusion. The last time I'd been, a recent storm must have scattered debris from the nearest town, because I'd found a few smashed barrels and bits of garbage scattered on the beach. I'd asked one of my Sprites to pass on a message, and it would be nice to see it clean again.

I swam through a narrow rocky passage, the roof overhead blocking out the sun for a few moments, before the path opened up again and I emerged into the cove. Sunlight was shimmering on the water here, too, and I let out a little sigh as my head came out of the water. Birds chirping. A light breeze through the leafy trees. Lovely.

All of a sudden, an odd sensation came over me. A cold feeling, spreading through my fingers and arms, sending a shiver of foreboding down my spine. My stomach felt queasy, and when I swallowed, my mouth tasted bitter. Then I saw them; the smashed barrels. They hadn't been cleaned. In fact, there were more. Bits of wood and metal brushed the shoreline. One of them had contained food, which was now rotting in the shallows. I realized with a start that it wasn't just sunlight on the water; another container was leaking oil.

My nose wrinkled in disgust. Who would do this to the cove? To the water? Did this look like a dumping ground to them? The closer I got to the mess, the more I felt sickness rolling over me, like waves washing over the shore. My head began to feel nauseous. What's going on? I've never felt like this before…

Thoughts spinning, I reached up a hand to hold my head.

Then I saw my hand.

My mouth opened to let out a scream, but no noise came out.

What…?



My hand was turning black. I could feel it, like something thick and dark was creeping up through my veins. Something sticky was seeping out of my fingertips, over my claws, dripping into the water. It spread out over the surface of the water, blending in with the liquid already there. Cold horror ran through my body as I realized it was oil.

I was leaking oil.

I swam. Through the rocky tunnel, away from the cove, into deeper ocean. All thoughts of checking the sea were forgotten. I swam and swam, faster than I had before, adrenaline propelling me onwards. I didn't stop until I'd reached my favorite place, my safe space, and there I stayed. I hardly noticed that the oil vanished, and my hands returned to normal. All I could think of was how my water had been dirtied, disrespected, and it had made me taint my own cove. My own ocean.

I was hurting my old child.

I was in my safe place, alone, deep in the sea, and that is where I stayed for a very long time.

- - - - -

The moon changed from full to half before I dared to leave my place in the deep ocean. I'd felt the pull to check the sea, to carry out my usual routine, but I'd pushed down the urge. I knew I couldn't ignore it any longer, and reluctantly, I started swimming. My fear kept me from nearing too close to the shallows, and I checked things from afar. Anxiety was a tight knot in my chest. I kept checking my hands, but they didn't change. It was the knowledge that they had that made me scared.

My duty as the sprite of the Sea meant that I was supposed to protect this place. It shook me to the core that I hadn't done that. Not only had the cove become polluted, but my body had reacted in a way that I didn't know could happen. I'd never known someone to disrespect the ocean in such a way. My sprites had reported some pollution in their freshwater areas, but after stern words with the nearby residents, things had been cleaned. But for people to deliberately discard so much trash into the cove? To make the water toxic, and not clean it up?

Well, I assumed it wasn't clean. I hadn't actually been back to check. Every time I thought of returning the anxiety began to grow, and my way of coping with it and carrying out my duties was to ignore it. I'd not told anyone what happened - how could I? They might think I'd failed as a sprite. No, this was something I needed to keep to myself. I could handle this alone.

But I supposed that meant returning to the source of the problem.

I had to return to the cove.

- - - - -

It took all of my courage to return to that place, but even before I'd gone through the stone tunnel, I knew I'd left it too long. Bile rose in my throat as I saw thin traces of tainted water and oil leaking out, like a trail leading me to the source. My breathing was shaky, but I forced myself to swim down and through. In the dark tunnel, I felt my hands begin to change. When I emerged, saw that the filth and pollution had been added, my body began to change. The anger coursing through my veins seemed to speed up the process, the repulsion at what I was seeing, driving this change within me.

My hands changed to black, fingertips dripping black sludge once again. My hair was darkening, hanging limp around my shoulders. It was a strange sensation, knowing it was me, even though it didn't look like me. I'd not known a me like this existed until now. I knew that bad things could bring out the worst in mortals; I hadn't known it could do the same to sprites.

For a long, stretched out moment, I just looked. Blinked. Took it all in. Processed. Tried to conjure up some sort of reaction, but all I felt was drained. Tired. Disappointed. A lot, in summary. The knowledge that my body had changed again weighed like a stone in my stomach, heavy and uncomfortable. There was an underlying thought, too, that I was desperately trying not to focus on.

I've failed as a sprite.

The closer I swam to shore, the closer I came to the pollution, and the more I changed. I could feel the debris touching me, but I also felt my body respond. I didn't want to look down, to see how the rest of me had reacted. It was bad enough seeing my hands. I forced my breathing to remain even, forced my mind to stay blank. A state of numbness settled itself in my mind, dulling my thought pattern.

As a sprite, I'd never had to deal with anything like this before. I didn't know how to cope. I was stuck somewhere between fight and flight, unsure which path to take, so I was frozen in the middle. Overloaded, but unable to overthink in this state, like the oil was clogging my thought process. Maybe this is the best way to cope. Maybe not feeling this is best.

I couldn't ignore this problem, but I didn't know how to fix it. I'd never had to fix something like this. I'd never had to fix me. But the fear of the unknown kept me from reaching out, and even in this state of mind, I knew I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't let my siblings see me like this, let anyone see me like this. I didn't want anyone to think I wasn't capable, that I needed help. For countless years I'd been taking care of my ocean, alone, and that's how it would continue to be.

I would cope with this alone.

- - - - -

I found that there were ways to hide what was going on. The toxic water made my mind go fuzzy, and it was hard to concentrate when I was in the cove. My body changed completely when I was in there; dark, dripping oil, with only a few traces of my usual pink exterior still showing. But I was managing to keep the water pollution contained to this one place, and stop it from leaking out of the tunnel. Once I left and emerged into clean water, I transformed back. A few hours spent in deep ocean cleared my head, and made me feel normal again. Well, as normal as I could feel. It felt strange, keeping such a drastic secret to myself, but I still wasn't prepared to reveal this metamorphosis to anyone.

Coping with something unexpected - something you didn't even know could happen - was hard. I imagined different people would deal with it in different ways. My version of coping seemed to revolve around keeping the secret safe, and keeping the rest of my ocean safe. Distraction, essentially. I was so alert when going in and out of the cove, and I was overly attentive in checking the rest of the sea. I still did the usual rounds, and forced myself to only focus on the task at hand. At least the rest of the ocean was healthy. Clear, clean, and fresh. Even when the weather sprites got in a spat, and the waves were affected, I still thought the rough sea was beautiful. Wild and untamed like it, it reminded me of what we were at the core. It was also a stark reminder of how we could be affected by outside influences. Like my waves responded to the weather above, my body responded to the water around me.

Sometimes I wondered if any of the other sprites had ever had trouble like this. My freshwater sprites had reported rivers and streams being clogged, sometimes the result of a storm, or rubbish being tossed away. But they were only small areas compared to a whole ocean; a harsh word from them, and the people came to fix the problem. It was better when they owned up to their mistakes, or came together to sort out any issues that arose. This was their world, of course. We helped to control it, but they certainly had a responsibility to help in keeping it healthy.

If there had ever been an issue like this before, none of the other sprites had ever mentioned it. There was more pressure on Sky, Earth, and I; we were the original three, and people looked up to us. We were ancient, powerful beings; symbols of strength, in their mind untouched by troubles. Maybe the mortals didn't think their actions would affect us; they were only small, after all, so what could their actions do? A lot, it seemed. Maybe we needed to teach them better. Maybe they didn't realize how connected we really were to the world around us. But then, it was probably different for Earth and Sky as well. People couldn't pollute their places like they could mine.

I was slowly making my way around to the cove, deep in thought, when I felt a presence near me. I looked up as a shadow passed over the surface of the water and landed on some nearby rocks jutting out of the water. For a foolish second I wondered if they'd noticed me, but their shadow was turned in my direction, waiting. Forcing down a sigh, I swam up until my head broke the surface of the water. Sky stood there in all of their magnificent glory, wings slightly spread and feathers ruffled in the gentle breeze

"Greetings, sister." We didn't exactly conform to any gender binaries, being sprites, but sometimes we liked to present ourselves in specific physical ways. Because of this, Earth and Sky often called me their sister.

I dipped my head. "Greetings, Sky."

Their gaze flickered over me in tiny movements. Out of the three of us, they seemed to pick up the most detail. Looking down from the skies, their sight saw more than others. "Is something bothering you?"

"Why would that be?" I asked, countering their question with another. I kept my voice light, casual. They were often perceptive, and it wasn't easy to throw them off a trail. Not that I've had to before, I thought guiltily to myself. I've never had a lie to hide like this.

"I feel like I've not seen you as much lately," they continued. "We've not all gotten together lately. We're siblings; we should do that more." They tilted their head. "Something bothering you? Yes?"

"You're right," I said smoothly. "We should meet up more. That's a good idea. We could meet up in a few sunrises, if you'd like? You could let Earth know? And ask Sun to put on a show, I know how much they love people admiring their work."

The change of subject seemed to work, and they nodded, seeming pleased that I liked their idea. "That sounds good. I'll let them know. Sun will be pleased to have us watching." Their mouth twitched up in a smile. "I'm fond of them, but goodness, they really do love people admiring their sunrises."

We said our goodbyes, and as I watched them fly off into the clouds, the guilt weighed heavy in my stomach like a stone. With a weary sigh I turned around and carried on my way back to the cove, back to the secret. It's better this way, I tried to convince myself. They don't need to worry about me. I can handle this by myself.

- - - - -

My hair was dark and limp, nails sharpened, black oil dripping from my hands and fins. I was a dirty stain in this little piece of the sea, already littered by human garbage and pollution and carelessness. The state of the cove and I, we were born of the same disregard for water, the same disregard of consequence and care. This water, thick with debris and oil and sludge, had become scarily familiar. It still felt restricting, compressive, but it wasn't abnormal, and that frightened me. I didn't want this to be anything close to normal. I didn't want the people to think that what they'd done was okay. They hadn't added to this atrocity, but they hadn't cleaned it, either. That was left to me, and it was a hard job.

This pollution invaded my thoughts, my brain, made it hard to concentrate on the job at hand. The smell and texture filled my senses. Sunlight couldn't dance on the surface of the water anymore, and often that's what I concentrated on. I wanted to remedy that, and I would. Like my place in the deep ocean, I wanted this place to feel safe again. It was beautiful once, and it would be again.

It took a lot of my energy to keep the pollution from reaching the tunnel and spilling out into the sea. This placed made me feel tired, like my energy was being sapped and leaking out with the oil from my body. Sometimes I wondered if, if I'd dealt with this problem when I first found it, maybe it wouldn't be as bad now. But I'd run, I'd fled and tried to hide and pretend it didn't exist when it did. So maybe it would have been different, yes, but I couldn't dwell on that. I had to focus on the now, on dealing with this the way it was. Sometimes you had to pull strength from determination, and that's what I was doing.

My eyes were closed, but suddenly I felt tears welling underneath the lids. I tried to force back the emotion, focused on what I was supposed to be doing. It was hard, in fairness, to not get emotional sometimes. Mostly I tried to keep that 'numb' feeling, the 'not feeling is for the best' feeling. It was better not to have the distraction. But sometimes I cracked, and the emotion slipped through. I wiped roughly at my eyes without opening them, but more tears welled up. Stop it, I thought fiercely. This doesn't help anyone.

Like you didn't help the cove the first time, and ran away?

Stop it. I've got enough to deal with, without my own thoughts becoming toxic as well.

Coping with this was hard enough. Knowing that the water was in this state and I hadn't been able to prevent it was a heavy weight upon my shoulders. I thought I could cope with fixing it, but perhaps I hadn't anticipated the guilt that would follow.

My eyebrows furrowed as I felt the pollution start to overwhelm me, and I struggled to regain my concentration. Keep it back. Away from the tunnel. Away from the ocean. Keep it contained here. I let out a long, slow breath, trying to relax my tense muscles. Feel the pollution. Cleanse it. Let it dissolve, let it disappear. Move it back towards the shore. Separate the oil, clean the water, make it safe…

I spent longer here than usual. My focus kept slipping, the guilt creeping back into the frayed edges of my mind. Time seemed to work differently when I was in this state, I knew. When I opened my eyes, shadows had moved to different places, and the sun had changed positions. I stared up at the sky, blinking slowly. It was beautiful, fluffy clouds streaked through with pink and gold in a magnificent sunrise.

A chill ran down my spine.
Sunrise?

Panic started building in my chest. Is this the sunrise after I spoke to Sky? Or the sunrise we were supposed to meet? How long had I been here? Oh, why could I never tell after I'd been in this place?

Hurriedly I ducked down and swam through the tunnel, the rocky walls seeming to close in on me as I raced towards the fresh ocean. It'll be fine, I tried to convince myself. It's only been a day. I'll go to my safe space and get back to normal, and by tomorrow I'll be ready to see them. We'll meet up and talk and they won't have to know-

I emerged from the tunnel and stopped.
The veins in my body grew cold.
Suddenly I was all too aware of the oil coming from my fins, the claws on my hands, my dark hair, my dark everything.

I stared, and Sky and Earth stared back.

- - - - -

Being caught in a situation you never wanted to be caught in - being seen in a place you never want to be seen - brings along a unique, somewhat indescribable feeling, and the closest word to describe it is shame.

I had never felt a shame like this.

Shame in my siblings seeing me in such a state.
Shame in not having solved this problem sooner.
Shame in not have being able to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Shame in, after all these months of trying to cope and keep this secret, being found out in a way that showed I was obviously not coping, and I'd had a secret to keep in the first place.

Then came the guilt. Of not telling them, of not being able to cope, of feeling like I'd failed as a sprite.

Lastly, the fear. Of them seeing me as being something close to corrupted, disfigured, and seeing that I hadn't coped well enough to stay as my regular self. That I hadn't had the strength to fight it. They saw me now in all my shame, and guilt, and fear. It was the realization that they might not think I was up to being a sprite that made my eyes well with oily tears.

They'd come looking for me so that we could spend time together as siblings, and all they found was their polluted sister.

I had to show them the cove, of course I did. They said nothing as I explained when I first found it, and how my anger had changed to fear when I saw my body start to transform in response to the pollution. How I'd left it to worsen, for people to add to the filth and debris, and how it was my fault it was so bad now. How I'd tried to hard to fix this by myself because I was so sure I could cope, but it wasn't that easy, and it was a struggle to return here to try and fix things. The pollution here affected me so much, it was all I could do to keep it from spilling out into the ocean, let alone fixing the problem in whole.

A tense silence continued to fill the air around us, heavy with anxiety and anticipation. I saw their horror when they looked at the cove, and some unknown emotion when they looked at me. We left the cove without speaking, and drifted along the coast towards the beach. My body started changing back, and I let out a tiny sigh as I began to feel like myself again. Sky sat on a rocky piece, while Earth stayed on the sand. They exchanged a glance and I hung my head, eyes squeezing shut, waiting for more shame and guilt to overcome me.

"We've failed you."



My head snapped up at Sky's words, mouth hanging open slightly. Their eyes were brimming with sadness, and Earth looked ashamed beyond words. I tried to speak, but no words came out. "We're so sorry," Earth murmured. "We should have known. We should have..." "Been here for you," Sky finished, voice thick. "But we weren't. We've failed you."

"But…" I shook my head, trying to make sense of their reaction. "I'm the one who's failed you! I've failed as a sprite!" But Sky was shaking their head even before I'd finished speaking. "No. We're the ones who failed you. You should have been able to come to us, to speak to us…but you felt you couldn't, and that's not right."

I looked down, a different kind of guilt washing over me. "I'm sorry," I said in a small voice. "I was afraid of what you'd think, and what would happen. I thought…I thought I could cope."

Earth waded out in to the water to be closer to me, and Sky moved forward to balance at the edge of the rocks. Earth reached up to brush away a stray tear from my cheek. "Precious sister," they murmured. "This world is full of twists and turns, some that even we cannot see coming. But when the unexpected arises, we must stand together to face them. I know you would stand with us, and you must know that we will stand with you now. You are strong enough to cope with this, but you don't have to cope with it alone."

Shame, guilt, fear; gone. Ebbing away, washing away like waves from the shore.

Kind eyes, soft words, comforting touches. Relief, support, love; overwhelming, coursing through me like water beating on rocks, carving a new place to spread itself further. The storm I'd felt inside me finally broke, and in the calm, tears fell from my eyes like gentle rain.

"We'll help you fix this," Earth promised. "We'll help you get better."

"And we'll deal with this the right way," Sky said firmly. "Together."

Something within all of us shifted. Like something off-center had suddenly clicked back into place, and for the first time in a long while, the world and the three of us within it felt at ease.

- - - - - - - - - -

Being from a more rural part of New Zealand, I'm absolutely surrounded by a culture of wanting to keep our forests and beaches clean and beautiful. Yes, there's a few bad eggs that don't give much of a toss, and proceed to toss their litter wherever they please. But where one person litters, there's always someone else prepared to pick it up. One of the greatest things I've done was become apart of a project where every week for a month or so, a group of us got together and took a van out to one of the beaches to pick up rubbish. It's bittersweet, seeing how much trash is left behind, but knowing we get to pick it up. You find a lot of typical things - plastic bottles, old fishing wire, straws, and the like. You also find a few strange gems to try and have a laugh at; burnt out tyres, broken glowsticks, the remains of a TV. It's a shock to the system, seeing how many bags you can fill within an hour, but it also feels good. Because of you that bird won't get tangled in a discarded net, a dolphin won't choke on a bottle cap swept back out to sea, the water won't be left to absorb that plastic bag.

Nature is a very beautiful and powerful thing, and every single person has a duty to do their bit to keep it clean. We need to remember that even the smallest actions can have great consequence, so let's make sure they're good ones.

[76heart]

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❝ high in the halls of the ghosts
who remain
sways a queen who's forgotten her name

she swirls through the sea's mist,
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76heart ● female ● 4,300 words
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dancing with the ghosts of the
souls she has so long missed

unable or unwilling to accept,
that the kingdom had fallen in
consequence to her ending inept ❞
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once upon a december - karliene ● dear wormwood - the oh hellos ● how the tide rushes in - anne dudley ● runaway - AURORA
amhrán na farraige ● jenny of oldstones - florence + the machine ● lovely - billie eilish ft. khalid ● jaina's song
once upon a december - broadway cast
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❝ deep in the sea
where the ocean failed me

lives a queen surrounded by sorrow

dancing with the spectrals of faces she once did know,
ones who had been lost to her so long ago

twirls as light as the flight of a sparrow

she whirls through the day, and into the night
forgetting that her kingdom had fallen to a great might

all she can see is the world that used to be

memories of a duty she promised to complete,
a promise that proved to be to great a feat

for the queen who had been a princess with a purpose to watch over the sea

to make sure it's waters stayed rife with only cheer,
and not the terror of great fear

because it's health was tied to the people, they were one and the same

and instead of protecting them as she had promised to do,
with all she had and her life as good queens knew

she had fallen prey to a tyrant's game,

letting her castle turn to watered ash
while standing frozen, watching the clash

turning to a remnant of the glory, just like the rest

as her mind retreated to protect her heart
so it did not wholly shatter upon realizing her kingdom had fallen apart

and she could one day return with a new behest

to save her kingdom when she is finally ready,
in a choice, a goal, that is unwaveringly steady ❞

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xxxShe was no goddess, no deity. She was just a girl born to the sea, born to one day be it’s queen. Perhaps it was nothing but naive to see herself as nothing, to think so little of what she was and the weight she had now and would someday carry even further, but she already knew she could be like that. No one ever dared to say it to her face, but she knew. She knew that look in their eyes, no one ever had to say it for her to know they thought she was some foolish little spoiled princess who knew nothing yet of how to be a queen or how to rule. They were right in that, vey right. She was young and small and still learning the strength of her fins, but she was willing to learn, and she wanted to learn. Mother said that was a part of growing older, of going from princess to queen. Queens knew they always had more to learn, that they had flaws to work on and change, and Loreley wanted to be that kind of queen. She wanted to be the type of ruler who listened, who grew with her people, who changed with the sea. She just hoped she could be that, and that she'd be good at it, and she wouldn't always be this inexperienced, this naive.
xxxShifting, she looked up to her mother, raising her head from where it had been resting tiredly upon her shoulder, ignoring the feeling of emptiness as her cheek left the familiar, ever so comforting softness of her fur and scales. Her eyes, all for of them, two crystal blue, and two a deep coral pink- her absolute favorite colors-, searching her mother's face, watching the way her eyes scanned the pages of the worn story book they read each night, catching up to where Loreley's father had read to her the previous night. She did it with a grace she presumed only a queen like her mother could have, especially while doing something so very good and kind. Lorey knew that some mothers and fathers didn't care about the stories they read to their kits at night; they merely read them because it was what their child desired. That was a love, with some at least, but her mother wasn't like that. Her mother got into it just as much as she did; she put her heart fully into the story, and into sharing it with her daughter, the daughter of the sea. That wasn't a sacrificial love, it was a selfless, true, wholehearted love, and she hoped she could be like that with her people someday. She wanted to care about the problems, the hopes, the dreams, the sorrows, the joys, the highs, the lows- all of it, as her mother cared for the books she had read to her daughter a thousand times before.
xxxA smile crept across her mother's lips, and she knew where her mother had to be at. She was nearly caught up, at the part where the old seahorse came in. That seahorse was wise, like Mother. She was wise and good, and Lorey wanted to be like her too. Old Lady Seahorse was no queen, but she had the wisdom of one who had sat on the throne for a thousand years and more, and she wanted to have that wiseness someday too. As a princess it was her duty to prepare to be queen, and as a queen it would be her duty to learn, and to grow wise, and to listen to the wiseness of others, so that she may protect her people and keep them safe, and keep the sea safe, too. She wanted to do that, but would she be good at it? Could she ever learn how? Or would she always be this young, this naive? "Mumma?" Her mother's eyes lingered a moment more upon the page, and then turned to her, full of focus and attention.
xxx"Yes my little Lorey?" She spoke softly, gently, as she always did, a tinge of song to her soothing, motherly tone.
xxx"Will I be a good queen someday?" Loreley asked, bright eyes curious, searching, imploring.
xxxWarm arms drew her closer from where they already held her, a paw brushing her hair before settling in place. Her mother let out a sigh, and shifted slightly, her expression filled with thought for a brief moment as she considered how to answer, before clearing, and looking back down to her with a fondness, and the experience of a queen who had been through much hidden behind her coral eyes. "Well, to be a good queen you have to be good to your people. You have to be there for your people. Good rulers are loved by their people, not feared. Fear can buy many things, but it cannot buy what love can. Love buys a loyalty like no other, and it keeps your kingdom united, and strong. Love does not make you weak as some might say, it is precisely what will make you strong, never forget that. You must be fair, and just, and gentle, but not too gentle, and stern, but not too stern. You must learn the balance of things, to learn when you need to be strict and when you must be lighter. You will need to learn how to listen to the sea when she speaks to you, to understand what she is trying to tell. She will always tell you, you need only to know how to hear. Can you do that my sweet?"
xxxShe nodded, slowly, after a long pause and moment of through where she carefully considered her mother's words, all that she had said, with her face scrunched into the expression she always made whenever she was deep in thought, thinking about something really important. It would take some time to learn, but she had a lot of time; she could do it.
xxx"Then I think you'll be a great queen." A wide grin crossed her features, and she playfully brushed her nose with hers, eliciting a giggle from the small princess before pulling back, and her expression going serious again. "But," Lorey's head snapped to her quickly, eyes searching, confused. She knew this was important. "But?" She repeated, head tilting, her focus completely on her mother's words. "There is one other thing you must remember. Our people and the sea, they are entwined, bound together and one and the same. You must never forget that. If something grave happens to our people, the sea, she hurts with us, and her pain can cause some dangerous things. When you are queen, that will be in your hands, and you must keep them safe, no matter the cost, even if that cost is your own life. A queen must be willing to sacrifice everything for her people."

xxxFaded silhouettes spun all around her, long, flowing tails with cascading twirling together to the sound of music she knew so well, music she didn't need to hear on the outside to hear and feel it within. She knew the melody almost better than she knew a great many things; all the customs to greet people, the history of the world above the sea, the names of the countries above the waves and their pantheons of deities. Those were fun, and she enjoyed learning about them, but she didn't enjoy them as much as she enjoyed dancing, as much as she loved the feeling of freeness that she felt when she was able to whirl through the water like she was weightless, and this current song, a haunting one of a twinkling waltz, happened to be her favorite. It was the song her parents had first danced too, the one they had fallen in love to, and the one she was about to be crowned to when the dancing was done. A couple, one adorned in pearls and the other in the most refined shells whirled through past her, but she didn't notice, she didn't even feel the ripple of water as they passed her by; she was much to focused on the sound of the song, her eyes closed, as she waited patiently for her father to arrive and lead her in the first official dance of her coronation ceremony.

xxxEchoes of laughter faded with time bounced across the walls of the hall, of the ancient throne room that she had always known. Some pillars, and parts of the ceiling, were a bit faded than others, holding a distinct outline of a ghostly white against what stood strong and opaque, like the memories of what it once had been, but she didn't notice. Why would she? There was nothing wrong, it was as it always had been, with walls colored a pearlescent white, and strong tall columns of the purest white, with a ceiling painted in the stories, in the history of her family and her people's past. It was as pristine as it had been a thousand years ago, as spotless as it had been since it had been built. There was no cause for alarm, no reason to believe it was all some haunted facade. No one else saw, they were all dancing, the ancient walls peering through the shapes of their elegant fins. It was a happy day, not one for alarm, not one for distress. There was beautiful music, laughter, her parents, her friends, and dancing. It was one of the happiest days of her life, and would hopefully always remain that. She gave a happy twirl of her own as another pair danced past, their gowns whirling with the sea, their hair swimming about them like they floated through the sky. A pang of cold rushed through her as one of their fin's brushed one of her own, but as quickly as the feeling came, it was gone, and she only happily watched them dance away, unaware of the shimmer their outlines and features held, and the faint transparent color held within. They colors were such vibrant hues, such beautiful greens and blues. The blue reminded her of her father, of his crystal blue eyes, the ones that mirrored one set of her own, and all over again, she felt a surge of happiness and pride, and excitement as the dance that would come. It would be her last dance as a princess, and her first step, or rather, swim as a queen, as the queen, and as the sea's voice and daughter.
xxxFor so long, she had been preparing for this. Was she ready? Did she need to prepare for more? She knew to be kind, to be generous, to be fair, to be stern where it was needed, and gentle where it was not, and she knew to protect her people, and to listen to the sea. She hadn't forgotten her mother's words, the ones she uttered so many years ago, and she never would. They were her rules to live by, her guide book, her goals, and she planned to achieve each and every one of them and make her parents proud. She couldn't wait to see the pride in their eyes, the same pride that had always been in hers when she watched them, and saw them rule, as a united king, and a united queen, a pair loved by their subjects, and formidable to any who dared cross their paths. They commanded a respect, but no fear, never fear. She was proud to be their daughter, and she wanted nothing more than to make them proud of her, to see that same pride, and to do them proud. Loreley wanted to be good to her people, and the sea, and everyone else within it who depended on her waters to find sanctuary and survive. After her father came, and they danced, that responsibility would fall to her, and she just hoped that she could make everyone proud, and do right by them all, a thought that she should have known she had before as silent memories of screams echoed throughout the hall, screams she just couldn't hear.

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❝ on the day of her coronation, after the crown reached her head, the kingdom, oh it fell
as the old queen stepped down with her king, and their lives were cut short, like a bucket cut loose and forever lost in a well

the walls of the castle tumbled down,
and the only sounds were the shrieks of terror bouncing around

swaths of enemies burst forth,
carrying weapons of tridents, their tips pointing north

they were lead by a king oh so very cruel,
a king who forced his subjects to follow each and ever rule

he was more tyrant than king,
but no one could say that, for their lives were ended before their ears could ring

he had been trying for so long to bring the kingdom down,
that when he was met with screams instead of groveling he could only frown

and speak two orders that would offer two fates,
both choices a destiny they'd hate

arrows flew to those who refused to comply,
causing more and more to whiz by

the good king, pinned by a boulder was quickly hit,
a shot the tyrant was most pleased to not miss

the new queen was aimed for next,
but the good queen moved before her, and red bloomed from her chest

and her daughter could only muster a sob,
standing as frozen as an old sunken log

she had had everything, and then the crown was placed upon her brow, and it all went away,
and the moment it fell as she lurched forward to catch the former queen, her heart fell with it, and her mind could do nothing but relieve the good of that day ❞

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xxx"Loreley!"
xxxShe spun around, her eyes instantly lighting up with a glee she had only ever felt very few times before. It was her father, he was here, and they were to dance. "Father!"
xxxHe reached her far quicker than he should have, cutting through the water as if he were nothing, but she didn't care, she only cared that he was here at last, that he was with her. He took her in his arms, his grip feeling absent, and bare, and then spun her around joyfully, as if she were a child again, enjoying the way it felt to go against the current during their little games, only she didn't realize it was she who was doing the spinning, and his grip was never there.

xxxAll around them the dancing ceased, and they formed a circle around herself, and her father, as the music changed. This waltz was regal, and refined, but it held an energy most didn't, and she could hear it echoing within her hears as if she had heard it for the first time so many years ago. Her father gently pulled her toward the center of the ring, and the dancing began. He lead her expertly through the steps she had fumbled so terribly through during practice, and he made it look so incredibly easy, as if he were floating in air, without draping fins to tangle, or glow and goop to distract. Small sparkles trailed after him where the goop should have been, but his deep, resonating voice that felt like it could so melodiously ricochet off a thousand walls reached her ears first, and she didn't have a moment to notice, because her vision had begun to blur.
xxx"Oh my Lorey, I am so proud of you. You have worked so hard for this, and I am so honored to see our crowns passed down to you. There is nothing you could do to change that." The words were whispered, and filled entirely with the pride of a father's love.
xxx"I truly hope I can make you proud, always father. I want to do right by our people." He smiled in response to her words, swirling them closer to the edge and giving her the opportunity to catch some whispers, as the couples, per custom, began to pull away to dance again.
xxx"You have made me proud just by growing into you, I love you." She didn't notice the voices around her weren't speaking, that they only rung in her ears, and that the words she heard her father say weren't the ones spoken by his lips, or what he tried to convey with his eye. "I love you, too."

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❝ she dances with the faded apparitions of her past
not knowing that the ghosts of the memories can never last

that they're trying to tell her what to do,
tell her that this scene is not one that's new

friends she once knew, and family held dear
their ghostly whispers fallen on deaf ears

but she was too completely blind to what had happened
her mind wrapped in it's self-made distraction

no longer seeing that the times, they have changed
and that she is all alone with the ghosts who remained ❞

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xxxSoon, the dance with her father came to an end, as all dances did, and they had to part ways, so she could begin her crowning of becoming the queen. He pulled her close for once last embrace, and for only the briefest of moments did she wonder why she couldn't feel his paws brush against her face, pushing a loose curl back into it's place, before they parted, and the wonder was gone.

xxxLoreley swam slowly up to the throne, where her mother would soon join her with a new crown, a melding of the crowns of her parents, forged by her mother's song, and the smiths who were older than the castle's very walls. She could feel her heart beating within her chest, the blood rushing to her ears, and as she swam up to it, those were the only sounds she could hear. Her heart, and it's beating. A sound she had heard from no one else that night, but had no idea that it had been lacking.

xxxWhen she finally reached it, after only a few mere moments that felt like centuries at the least, she paused, taking a final look at the thrones, at her parent's thrones, before they would no longer be there, and a new one just for her would be carried out, again a perfect mixture of the convoluted swirls and patterns covering theirs, and the colors; a coral for her mother, a turquoise for her father.
xxxLorey took a deep breath, trying to calm the shaking in her limbs, and began to turn, but something, a flash in the mirror, an inkling that she just had to look, caught her gaze and gave her pause for the first time in so long. The mirror was no longer as perfect as it had always been, without a single flaw or imperfection upon it's surface. It had been cracked, and nearly all was missing from it, except for jagged pieces that framed eyes, a pair of eyes she knew, and glowing eyes that she didn't recognize, yet somehow knew as well as she knew herself.

x
❝ what are these eyes that i see?
these two sets of four staring back at me?

are they mine?
have i truly lost such track of time?

i can barely remember that shade of blue,
when did they take on this purple hue? ❞

xxxThose eyes, those strange, strange eyes, glowing back at her, the eyes so unfamiliar and yet familiar all the same, were her own, and like the mirror, everything began to crack.

xxxPhantom cries filled the halls, the ghosts of their pained cries echoing throughout time. She was sure her own piercing scream and grief-stricken sobs echoed with them, too. But how could they? There was no tragedy here, her kingdom was safe, her people were all behind her, waiting to see her crowned, her father among them, and her mother in the room next door, just about to emerge. If she just turned, she would see that it was all okay, that nothing wrong was there, that there were no soldiers with orca's fins, that there were no spears and tridents or arrows of bones. This mirror was only an illusion, a trick played by her fraying nerves, right? Right? If she only could turn, then she would see, it would all be okay, it was all right there, everything was fine. She could feel her heart beating faster, rushing to her ears again as her pulse raced with fear, as she struggled to fight what she knew was a fact, what she knew was a reality, but unknowing as to which reality that was. She wanted to raise her paws to her ears, to block out the world and swim somewhere to hide until it all went away and she had some quiet, some peace to think, and then she saw it, as her body turned without her even realizing it had, the memory of her mother propelling herself in front of her, the barbed arrow of bone that pierced her, the flash that ended her life, and everything came back all at once, teaching her the meaning of what it felt like to drown on the air of which she breathed.
xxxThis wasn't real, none of it had been, not since that the flash that brought about her mother's death, not since the ancient block's of the palace had fallen down like the tower, crashing to the palace for and scattering dust a debris, denting the perfect floor and causing cracks to spiral out like a water's ripple, or a spider's web. Everything began to fall around her, the glow of what once was, the ghosts of her past, her memories of it's prime. The dancing figures faded away into dust, and her father, and mother, crumpled in place to the floor, their ghosts falling from her view. Up above, the ceiling's illusion crumbled away to ghostly ash, falling upon her like a non existent rain, like a volcano eruption upon her from beneath the sea, leaving only broken pieces of her history painted above, and a break in the rock that made her choke down a sob.

xxxIt was all gone now, all gone away, and she was left with nothing but the ruins of the kingdom she had allowed to fall, and the sea she had cut so deep.

xxxShe couldn't breathe, she could only choke, and look in fear at what she had done. How long had she been here, dancing with phantoms, with her ghosts? The water had become intrinsic with disparity and decay, the ache in the hearts of her people, the blackening in her own, the green that had swept through her form the moment her crown had clattered to the ground.

xxxLoreley had allowed this to happen.

xxxShe had done this.

xxxShe had failed.

xxxShe had promised her mother that she would always protect the sea, that she would guard it, and keep it safe, with her people, and she had broken that promise. She had neither her people nor the health of the sea, and instead of stopping it, she had been in her own world, coping with the state because she couldn't handle it's truth until it all broke around her into scattered pieces all over again. She could have stopped this, stopped the sea from becoming so sick, so ill, so filled with despair, and hopelessness, and death. It held no change in appearance, but she didn't need to see it's change to know it had happened, she could feel it, the sea was telling her to feel it, choking her with it, and now it was up to her to fix it.

xxxShe was done coping, done hiding in her memories, done hiding with ghosts. She had to do something before it was too late, before this couldn't be prepared, before all of her people were gone.

xxxShe just had to hope that she wasn't too late, and that the sea's daughter, and her people's queen, could save them in time, before the sickness tied with the water's life snuffed out every bit of light, and fell from a source of life for all, and brightness, to darkness, to death.

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it's not a whole lot, but for my crested gecko goose, instead of doing a normal tank, I went with a bioactive vivarium, meaning it's it's own little ecosystem. instead of putting her waste somewhere outside or burning it, the little spring tails and isopods that make up her clean up crew clean it all up, because for them that's some tastey food. just today I actually switched to a deep heat projector for her as well, which uses less energy and conserves more heat, and soon I'll be switching to some lovely biodegradable cups for her food.
several years ago I was also in a zoo camp at a local zoo and we raised over 200$ from donations and selling arts and crafts we had been making throughout the camp to raise awareness for the awfulness that is palm oil, and to help conserve the trees and save the orangutans, and ever since I've been doing my best to avoid palm oil whenever I possibly can.
my family also locally recycles what we can (a heck ton of Lipton tea bottles, mostly), and we keep any plastic bags we may have and carry in our own cloth bags for whenever we go shopping for groceries.
I'd love to go out and clean up the lake less than a minute from my house a bit, but since I'm really queasy about that sort of stuff and all the fish skeletons and crawfish sheds make that difficult, so hopefully someday I'm able to do that!

anyway, thank you so much to anyone who reads my form and I wish everyone the best of luck! I can't wait to see who they go to <3

[iguana]

res

[vervain.]

DragonOfEmber

Coping, in this inky polluted mess of my home, is hard. My heart breaks every day as I watch the world around me wither and suffer beneath the hands of humans. It's sickening, the death i have to watch around me. My friends, my family, they're all getting sick, and my heart is breaking. I'm sitting here, suffering in squalor while humans take over the sea we'd lived in long before they'd gotten here.

Can't they see? Why don't they notice how much they're hurting us, how sick we've gotten.

[Cyrano]

mark

[❌ DYNAMIGHT ❌]

hey guys !! quick note just to clarify !! the answer to your contribution toward the environment is not part of judging, however it is to give everyone some food for thought of what they can being doing to be environmentally concious and to give others an idea of what they can do!

[King Andre]

watching

[royalpoppy]

1] How does this Kalon cope with the current state of the water it lives in?
2] How have you [the user] helped the environment or been environmentally friendly recently? This can be anything from an image of some clean up project that you've done to just telling us something good you've done [ex. conserving water/energy, participating in recycling projects etc].
royalpoppy

[kaatlove]

my g o d thats a stunning kalon

just gonn a a u hh h mark

[Kyar]

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"Nature was made to be conquered."


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


once, i looked into eyes other than my own
crystal clarity
i see my being
looking back with such sorrow
floating aimless in this sea of nothing

curved glass twists the colors
as my fins flow as one with the water surrounding me
melding into this purified batch
the false security
i've been trained to fear

that is what they do here
train
train the fools
train the brilliant
train the forces of the world to bend to their desires

and it works

each soothing caress of the water tells me
"for now"
and i know "for now" is not "forever"

this endless place
where the lights stay on
no passing of time holds meaning
beyond fear

the eyes i once looked upon
were those who belonged to me
the life the world had to offer
once, long ago

once, i was the sea

my arms wrapped around me
i let myself sink
and rest a moment
at the bottom of my tank
sterile
empty
cold

how long has it been
since my waves kissed the shoreline
tossed the sands at the the deepest depths
rolled along the mouths of the earth's core

once the eyes i saw were mine
but not of this body
of the sea
the fish, the birds who broke the surface
diving for the insatiable hunger
of a nesting brood
a sea filled with life of more kinds
than anyone but i could imagine

how long has it been?
in this timeless world
first wrought by man's hunger
tossed aside by his vision
the sea began to die

now my head rests on the base of a tank
that holds so little and yet
the entirety of the sea

what is left
but to wait

tears bud in my own eyes
the only eyes i ever see
and i shake with panic

the water is stirring
it's happening again

first the filters stop
though they should know i don't need them

the water shudders
one of the only sounds i hear

and it begins

before i see the first drop of thick darkness
my body falls into shock

screams
desperation
pleading
begging
screaming
and i know they don't hear

my voice breaks in terror
the cries ring out against my head like distant daggers
as my vision tunnels
thoughts stop
adrenaline takes over

i hear the impact of my tail
the screech of nails against the glass
sobbing
screams

my body moves without me
panic
fear
fear
as the liquid slips lower

the thuds grow louder
the bruises begin to swell
i don't know where i am
but all around me i hear screams
whose voice do i hear?
so distant
it can't be my own

the first time
i suck in the foul liquid
my chest seizes
the second breath
i don't know which way is up
by the third i don't remember
who i am
or who i was

i know panic
fear
screams
whose screams?

the thundering is louder
i'm moving so fast
but i can't breathe

i suck in for nothing
my lungs protest
agony
i can't breathe

the screaming turns to horrible sobs
and then
silence

the last thing i see
are eyes
but they aren't my own


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Man's purpose on this earth has always been to dominate. Overcome. Thousands of years ago, we feared darkness. And so, we created light. We hungered, and we hunted. We adapted. We overcame. Life is a game, and we are its masters. Our best weapon is progress. Intelligence. Diligence. Passion. You have been selected from your respective fields of study for your exemplary understanding of these values. All these qualities we ask of you in your time here at Progress.

"Our research has been instrumental in not only advancing our place in the world, but at saving the lives of our citizens. As you are all aware, our greatest threats are those we cannot face. The rampant use of biological weaponry against our populous will come to an end, and it will be at our hands. Progress Laboratories has spent innumerable units in the pursuit of health, safety, and prevention. Above all else, our aim is to create a faultless cure, to set up an immunity blanket that will protect our people for the generations of hardship always on the horizon. Your training has prepared you to take your role here..."

How long is this going to go on? You follow the Captain eagerly, but you can only listen to the company's elevator pitch for so long. You knew all this when you applied to the Progress Labs internship. As one of the top-rated experiences in the City, you had plenty of competition, which meant yes, plenty of research. The application process was brutal. But somehow, you'd impressed them. You made the cut.

Today you're getting your assignment. In the dozens of fields the laboratory has to offer, you have your hopes set on one: Creation. They actually created life, built perfect specimens of humanity to beat the bioweapons at their game. You'd seen it on the news, every station broadcasting the same message. Rebexi. Preliminary testing showed that they could withstand the impact of bioweaponry at full force. And what if it was true? Imagine the good it could do the world. That's why you had to be part of this.

"...so we find ourselves asking the same question. How do we overcome nature?"

You stop, almost missing the cue as you tune back in to the Captain's speech. He's stopped outside a room with a large "RESTRICTED" label.

"Only one of us will have the opportunity to actually work in this zone," he went on, "but I want you all to see the power our discoveries have had. Come."

You follow, eyeing the handful of others who look just as curious. What was the idea? Overcoming nature... is this the Creation room?

You step inside in silence, and what shocks you first is how empty the space is. The room is lit by a massive central light, replicating the sun lights dispersed in the atmosphere above the City. The door shuts behind you, and you have to squint while your eyes adjust. Suddenly, something is in your hand. Dark glasses. Huh. You pull them on and the room comes into view. All kinds of technology you've never seen covers two sizable tabletops and expands to the walls of the room. The room is rectangular, stretching back beyond the light, which appears roughly central to the area. You can't see beyond it. It's too bright.

Beside you, a trio of laboratory staff gives you a momentary greeting before returning to work, adjusting levels and monitoring information flashing by at a rate that makes your head spin. What is this place?

The longer you stand in silence, the more you wonder... and finally, as a full minute passes, something else starts to come into view. You didn't realize before because of the light's intensity, but the center of the room doesn't only consist of light. The whole space below the light is taken up by a glistening tank of water. It's so blue, and the light gives it a strange, almost glowing quality.

"This," the Captain finally speaks again, "is Nature."

The group moves forward, and you tentatively join them. Something about the room is giving you a strange feeling, but... you just can't place it. The tank has an unreal quality to it, something so perfect and pristine...

And then you see her. A face is hovering just beyond the glass. In the water. Colors ripple with the waves as if the two were one. Blindingly beautiful pinks and blues, and fins, a tail? You've never seen anything like her. Crystal blue eyes are looking out at the Captain's face, but they seem distant, almost ethereal. This is... Nature?



Every beauty, every model, every perfect face and outfit you've seen sculpted across the countless monitor screens all over the City. Suddenly, none of them seem real. There is something astoundingly real about her beauty, and for the very first time, you wonder what the world looked like in natural state. Before the empire city. Before bioweaponry even existed. You'd heard stories, rumors, but they never felt real. This is something remarkable and... this is real.

"This is a mutation created by nature, a force we have long struggled against, but no more. You see Nature as it is now, deceptive and enticing. Nature created this beast only to destroy what we have built. This, we will not allow. It is absolutely necessary that we keep Nature under our control."

He nods to one of the workers, and dials are turned, keycodes entered, lights flicker.

"What you are about to witness may be frightening. Understand that we show you Nature's potential to destroy, to kill. This is the very nature of our enemy. It is the ultimate force of destruction, and of death."

You turn to watch the tank, as the Captain instructs. At first, all you see is Nature, drifting peacefully along the bottom of the tank, but...

A thin stream of dark liquid starts to drizzle into the tank. The water, once completely spotless, slowly begins to thicken. The dark cloud works its way lower, and Nature starts moving in jerking, frightening motions. It's convulsing like it's sick, and...

Change. At first it feels subtle, like the light above is reflecting the darkness down along her plated tail. The colors, once vibrant and mesmerizing, twist into something putrid, awful. Pinks and blues become muddled, muddy, and a darkness overtakes the once beautiful hair, the vibrant fins. What once flowed like water now wavers in a sickly mire. The movements, so gentle and fluid, became first frightened and frantic. You felt your heart jump to your throat watching the fear in her eyes, and then...

A gaping mouth, trapped in a silent, horrible scream. Her face has contorted to something awful, something that hits you in the chest and makes your head spin. You can feel a dizziness coming over you, like some part of your head can hear it even though the room around you remains silent. And then the deep, echoing thud. Thud. Thud. The impacts of her body, flung wildly at the glass, so strong that even against the soundproof barrier, the vibrations are making it through. You watch massive claws dragging violently along the glass as it tries to escape. Piercing eyes. That horrible scream, now a screaming snarl. The movements are rapid, jagged, forced and frantic, no pattern, no reason, as it flings itself around and around. Impact, claws, screaming, eyes, darkness...

What is happening?

Why are they doing this?

What is that thing?

You feel dizzy, and then a strong hand grabs your arm. It's the Captain.

"Come," he directs you, and you have no choice but to follow. The movements of the beast finally out of sight, you almost feel as though you can breathe again. The ringing slowly subsides, the thudding softens. You're by the doors now. Through what little you can make out, you're certain your classmates are all here too. The door opens, and they flood out, you drop the glasses, and your eyes protest with stabbing pains. Your heart is still racing, how could any of this be happening?

The Captain's arm is still on your shoulder as a group of lab workers rush to the aid of your classmates. No one says anything, but they seem to know what to do. The two of you stand by as in seconds, the hallway is cleared. As if nothing happened. Slowly, your heart begins to pace itself. Your breaths grow deeper, slower, more steady. That is, until he speaks again.

"You," he turns, his eyes locking on yours, "will be working with Nature."

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The first two weeks were torture. Your eyes never seemed to want to behave themselves, the headaches, constant. Adjusting from Nature's room to anywhere else in the lab was so painful even a bathroom break was a nightmare. You learned very quickly that it's best to bring a lunch along and to leave the room as little as possible. The end of the day was just as bad, after ages being inside with that blindingly powerful light, adjusting to the City's outdoor light regulations felt like walking into a dream.

Now, you've gotten used to it.

It's been almost a month since you first set foot inside Progress, and in that time, you've only seen Nature in its true form just that once. Almost always, they keep it in clean water. The purified water prevents it from changing, which is why it needs constant monitoring. The creature isn't like people. It can't feel, or think, or make rational decisions. All it can do is destroy, unless we stop it.

Still. You can't bring yourself to look anymore.

Every time you've looked at that tank, you can't see it as Nature. You see her. You see the most beautiful woman you've never been able to imagine, you see fear, you see sorrow. You see everything in that face that you've seen in yourself, all the moments you doubted, all the times you were lost and afraid. She looks so ancient and lovely, but so much like a child, too. What you see in her draws out emotions you can't being to comprehend.

So you hide.

Keep your eyes down. Better for them anyway. The light is awful.

Keep your eyes down, focus on your work, concentrate. You're still getting the hang of this, there are still readings you miss, don't understand. You still need to perfect each system. They expect you to be able to operate every device in the room on your own.

Keep your eyes down, and you won't see it as her.


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Two months in, they introduced you to Nature once more. This time, you kept your eyes down as the thundering collisions went on, and on...

You still felt like your head was going to explode, but this time, you were ready for it. They gave you a pill, something to calm the headaches, and you can already tell that the dizziness is nothing like it was that very first time. Still, you feel something aching in your heart, and you wonder if the noises its making can really be contained by the sonic-barrier dual glass. You don't ask, though. You don't want to doubt that it really is under complete control.

Finally, the thundering stops, and the light in the room dims more than you've ever seen. It takes your eyes a few moments longer to adjust. Whatever frenzy Nature had been in has stopped. It's swimming now, much more rapidly than it did in the clean water, and something about it is different. The face is still beautiful, something you never could've guessed by the horrible screams it'd sported in transition. But now that it seems settled into this form, this dark entity... you feel its power. The face is strong, beautiful, but deadly. The look in her eyes is something you've never seen. Like a goddess, she glides on with a kind of power and authority that makes your body tremble. She-- wait. No, it.

You catch yourself, for the first time in a very long time, thinking of Nature as "she."

Why? This was exactly the beast that had convinced you that "she" was nothing more than an illusion, something the mutation in the earth had created to fight back against the humans who sought to conquer it. How was it doing this again? It's playing with your head, toying with your mind, creating a face that you can only see as human when you know it isn't. You know that. Right?

...Right?

She glides past, and icy glowing eyes lock on your form. When did you approach the glass?

Faintly, you hear one of your mentors shout. But you can't really remember why you approached. You can't really remember moving. Your hand starts to reach for the tank before everything goes blinding white.


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You forgot your lunch at home today. Rookie mistake. You've been having this bad dream lately, but you can't ever seem to remember it. This morning, the restless night was enough to really throw you off your game. Nearly missing the light tram in, and of course, forgetting your lunch.

At least, with time, your eyes have gotten much better at adjusting. It's not great, but within five minutes of stepping out of the Nature room, you're feeling alright.

It's your first time in the cafeteria since your very first day. It's a sizable space, but somehow manages to be totally packed anyway. There are way more people here at Progress than you realized.

You get through the line and you're surprised to admit that the food actually smells pretty good. Even though Progress isn't technically sanctioned by the Government, you're pretty sure the Government has been funding them anyway. How else would they get food like this on a regular Tuesday?

You take a seat next to someone you don't recognize, but who looks about your age. He smiles at you through a mouthful of food, then wipes his face and offers a hand.

"Hey. One of the new interns, huh? You liking it?" he smiles. His white hair is tousled in a way that almost feels intentional, but you can't be sure. His purple eyes are bright and perky, and you can feel yourself relaxing around him. Everyone here at the lab has been so professional, for the first time, you feel like you're sitting with a real human person. The only person who doesn't take all of this way too seriously.

You answer that yes, you are, still getting the hang of things.

"That's fantastic. I'm always glad to see more people who really care getting involved. I'm Dr. Avrich. You can call me Ebon."

Ebon Avrich? The scientist who developed and trained Rebexi? If you have your story right, the entire release program was completely his doing. He is the scientist you'd been wanting to study under? But... he's so young.

"So I'm guessing you know me," he chuckles.

You admit that you do.

"That's okay. Rebexi was a massive breakthrough, and they've been doing fantastic at integration with the populous. I meet with them every other day and we check in, plus we've got surveillance on them, but don't tell them I said that," he winks. "Honestly I tried to opt out of it, but they wouldn't allow me to send them out without something," he explains. "So, what about you? Which field are you in?"

You bite your tongue. Can you tell him that you're working with Nature? Why do you feel like you can't? You ask yourself the question, but you already know why. The biotoxins Nature produces in its oil-induced form? One of the key components to the bioweapons that have been plaguing the City for over one hundred years. You'd been asked to leave the room, after your incident, but you came back early enough to see the quantity of the toxin they'd gathered. You know how many lab-grown immunity testers there are, like Rebexi. There's no way a toxin so potent was needed in that quantity, not even for all the immunity and prevention tests they're running. A single drop could wipe out the entire population of the lab, properly mixed and dispersed.

So why were they taking so much?

In the end, you say, "Nature."

"Nature?" he breathes, and a look of fascination comes over him. "I've never met Nature. What's she like?"

She. You feel your stomach knot up. Ever since the second transformation, you've tried so hard to avoid calling her she. But before you even realize what you're doing, you say it.

"She's beautiful."


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You wake up with chills. You remember the dream.

soft
everything feels soft
the sounds
the touch
your sight

and you realize
you must be underwater

it's dark
all around you
but you can hear it
the water
pressing in against your eardrums
in a steady gurgle

the first spot of light is comforting
the second confusing
the third mesmerizing
and suddenly there are hundreds

you're adrift with tiny floating specks of light
that don't seem to be born of any system
any technology
that you've seen

something about the light feels wrong
it feels
natural

and as you float
darkness presses in from behind the light
you see a massive cable
followed by a whirlwind of others
twisting
giant circles lining the sides
a massive
clawlike mouth
an eye
bigger than all of you
and you scream
and you scream
you scream
in silence


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The morning's revelation still fresh on your mind, you feel less prepared than ever for today's examination.

The Captain sent in a request a week ago that you be ready, today, to operate the lab on your own. You'll be alone in the room, but closely monitored with video surveillance and a sort of panic button to be pressed in case of an immediate emergency. They want you to operate on your own without actually leaving you alone. It feels a bit like what Ebon had told you about Rebexi. Wanting them to experience the world on their own, but not without careful monitoring. So much like the Progress you've come to know.

Your eyes adjust quickly, and as usual, you keep them away from the tank. You move first to check the deposit levels, to ensure the sonic barrier is still intact. The sound waves that bounce between the two walls of glass are the primary force in maintaining the integrity of the system. Without it, the interference of all the humming devices in the room would supposedly leave Nature in a constant frenzy. You'd never seen it, of course, but it makes sense. Nature hasn't really responded well to anything man-made.

You check the light levels, ensure that the beams are coming down in the correct pattern, that the water isn't stagnant, that the temperature is normal and continuing to balance with the activity level of the creature inside. At all times, everything must be absolutely perfe--

The hair on the back of your neck stands up. The darkness of the screen before you, the blinking dots charting the pH levels of the water... You remember your dream. Suddenly the darkness around the light of the tank feels horribly oppressive. Your breath quickens, and you try to stead yourself. Breathe, just... breathe. You close your eyes for a moment, and try to focus on something else. You haven't checked the glass readings yet.

You move to the other table, and your eyes catch the dial for the sonic barrier. Then they look up, and meet hers.

She's staring at you, for the very first time, she's looking right at you. In her darkened form, she'd been looking your direction but you're sure that in this moment, the soft blue and pink eyes are locked on yours. You freeze. She's always been so timid, so afraid. But as you look at her now, you don't see that. You don't see the power and anger the other form held, but you see something else. It's a motherly sort of look. Longing? Compassion? You can't seem to place it.

But it's different. It's like... she's seeing right through you.

You're not sure how long it is before you move again. There is a time where you feel her breath, the water against her skin, almost as if it was your own face you were seeing behind that glass. The sensation is unfathomable, but you feel it. You're really feeling it, almost like... the dream...

And then you hear it. A deep, resounding rumble, not unlike the thundering thuds you've heard as she tries to escape. It's faint, so distant. Her lips... She's singing.

For a moment, you're back in reality. You're faced with a choice. The distant hint of a song, something is drawing you to it in the very core of your being. You've been told a thousand times that Nature is here to destroy, to play games, to trick you. But Nature existed first. No one seems to want to acknowledge that. And the labs... what are they doing with her, really? Are they controlling her to prevent the toxins from spreading, or is she exactly the thing bringing them to us in the first place? You don't know, you don't know... But you feel your hand over the sonic barrier. In your heart, as you close your eyes, you know that you need to know. Something about this feels... right.

You turn the dial.

The barrier drops.

And then you hear it.

Her song is nothing like you would've expected. Not like a woman's voice, not soft, sweet, no words to be made out.

It's powerful. It thunders, deep, resonant, calling like distant blares of one of the massive Government ships, but there's a different tone to it. It's hauntingly beautiful, carried through the water, filling the space, echoing back, and as your eyes meet hers again, all you see is white.

Then blue.

White.

Your eyes adjust, and you see a wave. Larger than anything you could ever fathom, or perhaps you're tiny, you don't know. Everything around you glistens under a sunlight so wildly unfamiliar, it has a golden tinge as the distant orb hovers motionless above. You're not sure where you are, but the smell, it smells of salt and a strange kind of air you've never felt before. The breeze is powerful, enough to toss the waves in massive swells, back and forth. And all you can see, all around, is water. No buildings. No ships. No drones, vehicles, trams. You hear the crashing force of the water, and you're floating.

You look down.

Everything around has been so brilliantly blue, until this. Your toes are bare, your entire body naked, but you don't feel cold. It feels warm, inviting, like it's holding you. And the colors.

Distant, below your toes, are thousands of colorful beings you can't begin to understand. Strange growths line massive rocks, bright oranges and yellows, reds, green. What must be some sort of creature, all packed together, moving almost like one unit, race past, beady eyes and fins like hers. Like Nature's. They exist in all colors, all shapes, bizarre sizes and some almost unrecognizable as living. How can something so strange possibly exist? This couldn't be real, you don't know what any of these are. But it feels so real. You can feel it, you can hear it, you can smell it...

And then the song. You realize you've never lost it, but now, it has a direction. You pull yourself forward, through the water, until you can see something so absolutely monstrous in size that that detail alone is enough to stop you. You're aware that even at the size it appears, it's far away. But it seems to be the source of the sound. The giant creature, massive fins and a long, powerful tail, gliding and signing through the waves deep below. And suddenly it rises, growing larger, larger, larger, until it breaks the surface, water spraying up in the light, and crashes down with a force enough to send you toppling over. The cold spray hits your face, and you realize it isn't just a dream.

Water. It splashes against your cheeks as you find yourself prone on the ground, laying just a few feet from the tank. Still fully clothed, but the light above the tank is dimming. Wait. No, the water. It's the water. The song. Your mind tries to process it all at once, the song still echoing in your ears, rumbling against the metal walls of the lab as sirens are blaring and you're aware that the auto-lock must've been put into place. You're trapped in here, and as you look up, she's changing.

You never hit the button. You're sure of it. Even now, you can see that the pipes leading the oil into the tank are still sitting above the water level, completely dry. You scramble to your feet and realize that... it's her. From her mouth, the liquid begins to pour. Her eyes. Her hands. She's changing on her own. The others must've left you here to die, to be swept away by whatever was about to happen. You brought this upon yourself. You let down the barrier. Your heart thunders in your chest, but... you can't take your eyes off hers. It's like the song has you under a spell, like the waves still ring in your ears...

The glass bursts with a terrible crash. The tiny leaks that had sprayed at your face crackle and snap as shards of glass scatter about the room. Both layers, gone. No thrashing. No claws. All of this at the power of her song. The murky water begins to pour out, and there's nowhere to hide. Desperately, you reach for the panic button, but no one responds. They've left you here. You're alone.

"No, child," a voice echoes through the space, through your head, so equally balanced you're not sure where it's coming from. "You are not alone."



You see her now, the proud, powerful face of darkness, glowing white eyes still suspended in the water as it pours out from the tank.

Your mouth opens in terror, but no scream escapes. Instead, your heart slows. Your breath evens. A blanket of calm comes over your body as your mind is still screaming, trying to escape. You can't move. What have you done? What have you done?

"In time," she goes on, her voice resonating with a chord in your head that makes your whole body shiver. "You will see."

Your head spins again, and darkness swirls in. For just an instant, you see the horrible beast of your nightmares. But this time, you see it all. And you know, as you watch it glide past, you're watching through her eyes. The massive beast you suddenly know still lurks in the depths of the world, somewhere deep within the earth, waiting to be freed. You gasp, and you're back in the room.

And she's gone.


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^
Part 1 - Water
5,056 words
(word count approved by Jiinxed!)



Part 2 - Service
Final Notes
Credits
v


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This may seem like a little thing, but I think it's my most significant accomplishment as of late.
I didn't realize as a kid what a hassle it is to recycle plastic bags. Not only grocery bags, but plastic packaging, bags from bread and other foods, those Amazon bubble envelopes. Not the kind of stuff you can just toss in the recycling bin at home.
Because of that, for a long time, I felt bad - but I'd just throw them away.
Or - I'd repurpose them. I'd use them to clean the litterbox, or I'd use them to cover things I'd have to take outside in the rain and didn't want to get wet. Fine enough, at least they were going for something.
But recently I made the commitment to actually go through the effort. No more throwing away plastic bags.
That's meant finding a space to gather up the plastic I inevitably do acquire, somewhere my cats won't dig into it and eat it (a surprisingly difficult challenge). That meant finding a new litter that can be flushed, rather than needing to be disposed of in a plastic bag. And that meant going through the effort of finding a place locally that will accept plastic bags and recycle them, planning the trip, and making it happen.

I know it's just a little thing, but it's taken a lot for me to get to that point. There was always something else to be worried about as a young adult, and man it was so much easier just to throw things away. Now, I'll actually take the time to clean out and prepare the bags for recycling, and make sure I'm checking everything that goes out - garbage, or recycling?
Really, if we can't make these things work for us, it's only gonna hurt us down the road. I'm glad that I was able to make this change, even if it was just a small one.


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Final Notes
Thank you so much to anyone who took the time to read my form! I've enjoyed developing this idea and I hope it's worth the read, regardless of whether or not I end up taking this darling home. Best of luck to all contestants, and thanks for the chance to participate! :)

Artwork Credit:
"This is Nature"
"You Are Not Alone"

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