![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
An idea I had in the swimming pool today
I thought of this while swimming today - I plan to write it up into a proper short story type of thing later, but thought I'd put it up here in its raw form and see what you thought. It's a folkloric tale from Va'andosa, the country my novel project The Night Tower is set in. Let me know what you think!
The Eternal Swimmer - a Va'andosi Folktale
There was once a sailor aboard a merchant ship who, on quarrelling with his shipmate, cast him overboard in a storm, where the other man drowned. Nobody saw what he had done, and the sailor believed that he had escaped his just fate.
But that night, a knock came sounding at the door to the berthing deck, and when the cabin boy got up to open it, a woman stood in the doorway, her hair in wet tangles around her face and eyes blazing with an unholy light.
"Who has thrown my son into the ocean, and left him there to drown?"
The sailor said nothing, while all around him his shipmates awoke and cried out in fear, as she stalked amongst their hammocks, the cold wind coming through the open door setting them to swaying rough from side ot side.
"Who has thrown my son into the sea, and raised not a hand to help him?"
The sailor said nothing.
"Who is that threw my son into the deeps, to make food for fish and worms?" she asked a third time, and stopped beside the sailor's hammock, staring deep into his eyes, her mouth growing tighter and tighter until it split open to reveal a shark's sharp teeth. "You. You did this." And she grabbed the sailor by his hair and dragged him from his bed, all the way to the deck where she cast him out into the waves. "Never again will your foot touch land."
The sailor was a strong swimmer, however, and kicked his way back to the side of the ship, clutching to the wood and crying out for mercy, but when the nightwatchman stepped forward with a rope the woman turned to him with a snarl and said, "Any ship that takes this man onboard will surely sink, for a great beast will rise from the depths to devour those who help this murdering wretch." And the man stepped back, sorely afraid.
Behind him, the sailor heard the sea begin to moan, as though something came that the water itself feared. And he began to swim, panic rising in his heart until it was all he could hear, that and the strange moan of the sea.
To this day, you can hear him tap-tap-tapping against the side of your ship in the night, if you lay quiet in the stillness of the darkest time. But he is always turned away by the man on watch, who holds his lantern high, brandishes his boat-hook and tells him "You may not come aboard, sailor, for fear of she who cursed you." And the sailor cries out in his exhaustion, cries out for pity, but finds none, and swims away to find another ship to beg for mercy.
There was once a sailor aboard a merchant ship who, on quarrelling with his shipmate, cast him overboard in a storm, where the other man drowned. Nobody saw what he had done, and the sailor believed that he had escaped his just fate.
But that night, a knock came sounding at the door to the berthing deck, and when the cabin boy got up to open it, a woman stood in the doorway, her hair in wet tangles around her face and eyes blazing with an unholy light.
"Who has thrown my son into the ocean, and left him there to drown?"
The sailor said nothing, while all around him his shipmates awoke and cried out in fear, as she stalked amongst their hammocks, the cold wind coming through the open door setting them to swaying rough from side ot side.
"Who has thrown my son into the sea, and raised not a hand to help him?"
The sailor said nothing.
"Who is that threw my son into the deeps, to make food for fish and worms?" she asked a third time, and stopped beside the sailor's hammock, staring deep into his eyes, her mouth growing tighter and tighter until it split open to reveal a shark's sharp teeth. "You. You did this." And she grabbed the sailor by his hair and dragged him from his bed, all the way to the deck where she cast him out into the waves. "Never again will your foot touch land."
The sailor was a strong swimmer, however, and kicked his way back to the side of the ship, clutching to the wood and crying out for mercy, but when the nightwatchman stepped forward with a rope the woman turned to him with a snarl and said, "Any ship that takes this man onboard will surely sink, for a great beast will rise from the depths to devour those who help this murdering wretch." And the man stepped back, sorely afraid.
Behind him, the sailor heard the sea begin to moan, as though something came that the water itself feared. And he began to swim, panic rising in his heart until it was all he could hear, that and the strange moan of the sea.
To this day, you can hear him tap-tap-tapping against the side of your ship in the night, if you lay quiet in the stillness of the darkest time. But he is always turned away by the man on watch, who holds his lantern high, brandishes his boat-hook and tells him "You may not come aboard, sailor, for fear of she who cursed you." And the sailor cries out in his exhaustion, cries out for pity, but finds none, and swims away to find another ship to beg for mercy.