Username: Rylf
Lambicorn name: Dutchman
Gender: Male
Legend Title: The Wavemaker's Cry
Prompt:
"Pa! Tell us that story about the Dutch guy again! Pleeeeease?" Eeni begged, literally on her hands and knees on the floor, her eyes big and round on her little face.
"Yeah, Pops! That's always a good one." Meeni piped in with a smile, all ears to hear their favorite piratey tale.
"Alright, alright," Damien chuckled, patting the little ones on the head before patting his lap in invitation. Both twins crawled up onto him and lay against his chest, their innocent eyes full of wonder and awe as he regaled the tale of the Dutchmen and his beloved Wavemaker.
Many years ago, before the winds blew on the seas. Before the sun set and moon rose to wage war with gravity. There was a lonely ship upon a deserted shore. The Wavemaker, they called her. With her broken hull and cracked rudder, The Wavemaker lay still as bone, her anchor cast and her bow half buried in sand. The head of the siren that adorned the frontward part of the ship severed and lying yards away. The ship looked like it had gone to hell and back. Merely 3 yards away, lay a Lambie on a broken, beat up lawn chair, his hooves in the air and a coconut in hand. That Lambie..was named Dutchman.
Now the thing you need to know about Dutchman is that he's always been a carefree soul. He's a "go with the current" kind of man. He takes everything in stride with a toothy, wicked smile. But something was off this time. His smile was upside down, his coconut unpierced, and his tail in tatters. He was quiet and withdrawn, his attitude forlorn and his demeanor disgruntled.
Nobody truly knows what happened to Dutchmen to cause this change in heart, but he was never the same since then. His frown grew deeper as the days went by and he spent more and more time alone on this abandoned island. Eventually, Dutchman departed and never returned. There are many theories about what happened to him, but I know the truth. My great grandfather was there!
"Oh, tell us, Pa!!" Eeni interrupted, unable to contain her excitement, "tell us about Dutchman's fall!" Damien shushed her with a chastising look before continuing his tale.
My great grandfather was a member of Dutchmen's crew all those years ago. He was one of the few that stuck by Dutchman's side despite his newfound surliness and love for brew. They had believed he would get better. They were very wrong.
This particular day was a dark and gloomy one. A storm waged off in the distance, flashes of lightning and roaring thunder amidst the black mass of a cloud. Dutchman assured us that The Wavemaker would be just fine in the storm. That she had been through worse before. He gestured to the poorly reattached head of the siren on her hull as proof of her quests. "She be fine as a fiddle. No storm sinks my lov'ly lass, Wavemaker," he had said. The crew all laughed it off and cracked a couple jokes about Dutchman goin a little crazy lately.
Well that storm hit and it hit HARD. Harder than any storm the crew had ever seen; like a mountain crashed into them and sent them swimming in the deep blue sea. The Wavermaker split right down the middle with a well placed lightning bolt, splittin her in half and sending shards of wood in every which direction. The crew did their best to hang onto drifting wood, the wind howling in their ears and rain blurring their vision. But through it all, the one thing they noticed was a siren, calmly sitting upon a large rock in the eye of the storm, her image bearing a striking resemblance to the one that had been on the hull of the ship. Her image was mildly transparent and wispy, but glowed in the dim sunlight filtering through a patch in the clouds above. Not far to the side was the Dutchman, his teary eyed gaze glued to the apparition before them, unable to look away or stop listening. "You abandoned me!" she wailed, her beautiful pale eyes glistening with her own unshed tears. "You left me when I needed you most!"
Dutchman bowed his head in shame and guilt, his spirit officially broken. "I loved you Silia. I never would have left you if I had a choice."
"There is always a choice," Silia the siren answered, her webbed paws wiping the stains from her face before she turned and disappeared into the sea, taking the mysterious storm with her. The crew watched her leave and then looked back to where the Dutchman had been a moment before only to find he had vanished, never to be heard from again.
Legends say that near that island, you can hear the siren's wails amidst the crashing waves. Many people have reported sightings of Dutchman in his broken lawn chair with an unopened coconut in hand, mourning the loss of his lovely Wavemaker.
The room was silent for a solid ten seconds before Eeni hopped up and grabbed her foam plastic sword, waving it around. "I'm the Dutchguy, the fiercest pirate in all ye lands! ARRRRRRGH!" Meeni joined in only minutes later with a silly wig and a mermaid tail blanket, sitting on the rocker in the corner, "Oh, my Dutchguy! I loved you so!"
"I loved you too, my sweet sweet Waverwoman! I long to be with you forever and ever!"
"No! You left me. Now I leave you!" Meeni dramatically fell off the chair and buried herself in blankets before both girls starting giggling hysterically, the sadness of the tale utterly lost to their little innocent minds. Soon enough, Leana and Damien joined the pile of laughing critters, ending the night in a big ol cuddle pile, their favorite piratey tale on all their minds...