The young cabin boy’s day was over, his captain to bed; and he knew that he, too, should be rolled up in his own hammock with the powder monkeys below. But the men were yarning tonight to pass the time, and many of them had a soft spot for the young lad. They would tell him tales of the sea, taking pleasure both in their skill at spinning tales, and at his interest in their words. The boy hung rapt now as a scarred old veteran sailor drew on his pipe and let out a cloud of smoke to be blown away on the wind coming through the gunports, then spat out out the nearest one, and launch into a fresh story.
“There are those who claim that the world is round,” said the fellow; “that the Sea bends back upon itself without end and goes about the earth in a circle that never stops; that you can sail from one point to any other point on any other seacoast without flying away into the heavens. And they would be right…except when they are wrong. For there are those who know the spells which, for a time briefer than can be measured, yet longer than the world is old, can unbend the Sea and open the door to the skies, and a ship may sail away to a world beyond the world…the world of the Sea Queen’s folk.”
“Don’t you mean the Sea King, sir? Ol’ King Neptune?” the cabin boy said, puzzled.
“Nah, lad, nah; this place is beyond Neptune’s trident, and farther than even Davy Jones ever sailed. Tall and proud stands the palace of the Sea Queen, resting upon a rock in the midst of an ocean that is truly without end. Great crystals are mounted atop the tallest tower of the castle, weaving a Spell that seals away the outer world from this place, keeping its people and the waters they live in safe from harm – most of the time.
“But, when the power of the Spell fails, when strangers slip through and threaten her folk, that is the time for the Sea Queen to intercede.”
“Beautiful is this mistress of the waves, but not in the way men of the outer bawn would usually think of beauty. Tall she stands, proud and regal and erect, with a grace that is as fluid as the water even when she’s walking upon the dry land. Her flesh is the blue of the deep ocean and the green of the waves in spate; her clothing the white of those waves’ foamy tops before gettin’ blown off by the gale; and she is bejeweled with silver from the coasts of her islands, and pearls from the creatures of the sea.”
“And in her eyes is the glow of power — power no mortal, man or woman, has ever known — power over the waves, and the winds, and the creatures that soar or swim in this place.”
“Some say that she was once a human woman, as you and me are human, who fell in love with a man of that place who had slipped into our world by accident. When he found the way home, she couldn’t bear to be parted from him, and so she sailed with him on his fish-scale boat through the door to his world. And once there, her thoughts became less and less like a woman’s, and more and more like them, and she learned the ways of magic. All of this changed her into the creature she is today. And the people of that place declared her their queen, and giver her their love and loyalty.”
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The key piece here is Wicca Merlin’s exotic gown Sirena. Jewelry by Lazuri and Eclectica, shoes by Baby Monkey.
Around the Grid 