[certified]

Tell me what brings this fable peace
(550 max word limit. Do not exceed.)

ends Nov. 22nd @18:00 PT

Code: Select all

Name:
Prompt:

full base/base: jellyfish

[minifun990]

Mark mark ooh pretty

[c a b b a g e]

Mork <3333

[☼ morgana]

Name: Lilly
Prompt: [550/550]

Peace ebbed and flowed like the tide for Lilly. Her kingdom, of which she was no more then a mere subject, had long been destroyed. Lilly, who watched over the ruins of the kingdom, simply stared. This did not bring her peace. War was brought on by beings of shadow, hatred, malice. It is even said so that they ravaged the surface kingdoms.

That war was long ago. Peace, for what remained of her people and kingdom, had come at a steep cost. Loss. Lilly, by now, was the last of a kingdom who's name only she remembered. Those that survived were forever changed. Like the tides, though, being here brought her much peace just as much as it did not.

Flipping her fin and descending down the sand hill towards the ruins, her jellyfish tendrils flowing in the undertow, she sought memories once more. It was in those that real peace found her. Times before everything fell apart. Swimming towards the library, she reminisced on many hours spent there, studying with colleagues on this or that. Past the tavern where her and friends shared a meal and a drink and a hearty laugh.

Her home. Lilly lingered in front of what remained of it. Painful and pleasant memories both swirled about in her mind, like dancers in a waltz. Lilly drew in a shaking breath. She swore she would never go back inside, but this time, something beckoned her, her heart called to her from within, and she listened. For the first time in an age, she let her heart speak.

Floating inside, memories hit her like a truck. The most bitter, sorrowful, and most recent memory came to the forefront of her mind, as if demanding to be engaged with. It was her father in bed, dying from a grievous wound war had given him. Fresh tears spilled down LiLi's face.

"Why now?" was all she could muster to say, a quiet whisper that hung in the air. No answer came in the form she expected. Her heart led her here for a reason.

This was no way to seek and find peace, hiding in the shadows of the past. And she knew it all too well, but was denying her heart the chance to give her the answer. Now, she had let it, and she knew her heart was right. This was not real peace. This was something she was trying to do to cling to memories of old. To memories of her friends. Her father.

"This is no way to live..." she spoke to herself, as if chastising a child. Another difficult thought crossed her mind as more tears moved in rivers down her cheeks.

It was time to move on.

With one final look behind her, she swam off into the unknown.

--

Many years had passed in Lilly's life since leaving her kingdom behind. But she had found true peace in a life that looked towards the future and that learns from the past, not lives in it. Peace was all around Lilly, in the sea grasses, the corals, in the community she had stumbled upon, in the new space she called home.

True peace and joy had nestled its way into Lilly's heart, and never again did she ignore what it had to say.

[Reiemye]

Name: Hyn
Prompt:

Tomorrow's Hyn

Hyn finds peace in physical evidence.

Every morning, she carves a mark into the same river stone wedged between rocks where she sleeps. She examines yesterday's mark first, studies it, compares it to her memory.

Sometimes the mark looks wrong, the angle off, the depth inconsistent. Those mornings, she doesn't know if she's the Hyn who carved it or the one who woke in her place.

Other mornings, the mark looks right. For a few moments, Hyn believes in who she is.

She talks to herself constantly. "The current is faster today." "That fish has a damaged fin." She speaks to hear her own voice, to confirm it sounds the same as yesterday.

It never quite does. But she keeps talking.

She's created rituals. Surfaces at the same spot every dawn. Drifts the same route each afternoon. Returns to the sleeping bend each night. If she maintains the pattern, perhaps the pattern will maintain her.

But routines can only do so much. The bioluminescence brings peace most of all.

At night, her entire body glows soft blue-pink. She can control the intensity: brighter when focused, dimmer when relaxed. This control feels essential. Proof she's connected to this body, no matter who she really is.

She floats in the darkest stretches where no light penetrates except her own. Watches her glow pulse with her heartbeat. One pulse. Two. Three. The rhythm steady, the same rhythm she remembers from yesterday.

If the glow is the same, she is the same.

If the heartbeat continues, she continues.

If she remembers yesterday's glow, she must be the Hyn who saw it.

Sometimes she holds still in the current and lets water flow through her tendrils. The sensation is immediate, undeniable. If she feels it the same way as yesterday, perhaps she's still herself. Perhaps she has been replaced, but this impostor is close enough that it doesn't matter.

Some nights the fear arrives sharp and sudden, a spike under the ribs: What if the real Hyn drifted away seasons ago, and she’s only the latest echo? What if the stone’s marks are just a chain of strangers reassuring themselves?

Peace comes when she's too tired to argue. When she's drifted so long her mind quiets, the interrogation stops, and she simply exists without asking which Hyn is existing. It comes in pre-dawn moments when her carved mark looks right and her glow pulses steady and the water flows as always. When she whispers, "I'm still here," and believes it for just a moment.

She doesn't know if she's the original Hyn. Doesn't know if she's been replaced once, twice, a hundred times.

But the Rivers flow. Her tendrils glow. Her heart beats. As long as those continue, she can pretend she is real.

The stone will be there tomorrow. She'll carve another mark. Maybe tomorrow's Hyn will look at it and feel the same fragile relief.

[Nanorat]

Name: Marina
Prompt: Brushing her tentacles. They are covered in special stinging cell slime so they dont really need to be brushed, they dont get tangled and will just sway away the moment she swims, but she does it anyway, because it calms her down and makes her feel at peace. She can spend hours with a murex sea shell comb just preening her head and tail, humming a soft melody under her nose and ignoring anything that happens around her, even if a storm is raging just outside the surface.

[ChxosAngxl]

Name: Cerelia
Prompt: Cerelia finds peace in the smallest, softest ways. Quiet things that most creatures overlook. For her, peace isn't found in grand gestures. She finds it in warm, filtered light, especially the kind that slips through water. The soft glow settles along her pastel skin and calms the restless currents in her thoughts. When the world feels too loud, she instinctively drifts toward places where the light bends gently...shallow pools, glades or the hush of dawn before anyone else has begun to stir.

Peace also comes from textures...smooth stones, cool sand, the velvety underside of certain water mushrooms. Her body is sensitive to sensation and grounding herself against something simple and solid slows her breathing and unravels tension. She’ll coil her long tail around a tide worn rock or let her frilled limbs rest against soft moss, absorbing stillness like a quiet heartbeat.

But most of all, peace reaches her through familiar rhythms. The slow, steady pulse of water, the whisper of wind through reeds, the gentle tapping of rain on sea rocks. These sounds remind her of continuity...of things that have always existed and always will. She grew up listening to the world speak in hushes and murmurs and those sounds still center her more deeply than any voice.

She doesn't seek company often, but when they do, it’s because certain individuals bring her a rare, quiet comfort. Creatures who speak softly, move thoughtfully or simply sit with her without asking anything in return. Peace blooms in that kind of presence...the unspoken agreement that neither needs to fill the silence.

And in moments of emotional overwhelm, she turns to creation. Not art in the traditional sense, but small acts of arranging the world: lining shells in spirals, weaving reeds into soft loops, shaping patterns in silt with the tip of her tail. These little rituals let her express what she can't voice and each creation feels like releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
(326 words)

[AnonymousSoul]

*dropping out

[Cloudï]

Name: Madelief
Prompt: When the first rays of sunlight kiss the surface of the water, Madelief finds peace in hearing the first signs of life on a new day. When the world is still in a dreamy state, but slowly wakens with a new breath, when the birds of the sky sing their song to greet the dawn, when the first animals of the land shake the morning dew from their coats. As she sits in shallow waters that ripple around her, she finds the most peace in the promise of another day.

[Shisou]

Name: Cordelia
Prompt: Cordelia finds peace from tending too various injured sea creatures especially jellyfish. Tending too her fellow denizens of the sea has always been something that's brought her a sense of calm and tranquility ever since she was a foal and It's continued to make her feel that way well into adulthood. Jellyfish fish are her favorite sea creature to take care of since Jellyfish specifically bring her the most sense of peace, but also because she's a Jellyfish Merfable so she's always felt a sense of kinship between herself and Jellyfish. Cordelia has gotten so good ar taking care of wounded sea creatures that she's turned what brings her peace into a profession for herself so now she runs a rehabilitation center so she not only take care of any injured sea creatures but also still get the peace and tranquility she gets from helping other creatures of the sea.