The Song of the Sea, or ...

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Arch(chameleon)Dwaginess
Posts: 25
(4/13/03 9:18 am)
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The Song of the Sea, or ...

I used to write. A lot. Nowadays, I don't write nearly as much as I think that I ought to. I have all of these marvelous plots chasing each others' tails in my head, but I've forgotten how to actually tell the tale. Most of the things I do write purely as stories have a folk- or fairy-tale flavor to the voice, which I do like, but I seem to run out of places to put dialogue ... oh well.

Following is a short tale I wrote, oh, a year or so ago, as a part of the backstory of a seaserpent character I was bringing into play at an RP webchat.

The Song of the Sea,
or How the dragon shed its skin and made the Ocean cry

A long, long time ago, the dragons in our corner of the world were just like the ones your da tells you stories of on winter nights. Indeed! Great scaly beasts with long whiskers and sharp teeth and deep eyes. Did he tell you never to look into a dragon's eyes, child? Good. It is well that you do not, for there are some what say that if you look too deep and learn too much, the Powers decree that you must become as a dragon, yourself -- oh, but that's another tale, and nothing to do with the song of the sea.

Long ago, we had dragons just like those tales you're told. Oh, but ours weren't the ravaging monsters like the tales; ours were shy and quiet, and really, it was quite rare to catch sight of one. They kept themselves off in the places we didn't go, places where no roads went or where they were forgotten. You've seen how sometime a farmer's land goes poor -- young Mr. Turner and his family picked up and moved for that two years past, you remember? Well, sometimes the dragons would claim that land, if it were far enough from the main ways, and it's said that in a year or two the land would be just as green and fertile as the way it were before it were touched. So it's said!

And then the magic came into our land -- or perhaps that's when it went, as we always had our little hedgewizards and soothsayers and herbwomen and earthtakers. But that was when the Great Mages came to our land, and they must have squeezed every bit of ley into their hands as they could, for our own little ways suddenly seemed small and puling, indeed. Indeed! It was a terrible time when the crops withered in the fields and knots unraveled and children cried and those soothsayers who were still saying anything were saying it would all come to naught and be a bad thing all over.

Now, you're thinking of the ways you know and doubtless thinking how fish will fly before you'll believe a soothsayer's words. I know that smirk! Wipe that look off your face before your mother sees you! Back in those days soothsayers had power, remember -- or they had power before the Great Mages swept it all up, and maybe there was just enough left for dribbles and drabbles of true telling. And fish do fly. Ask your father.

As it happens, they were right. Oh, but we weren't to know that for years to come, and even the sayers themselves couldn't tell where the bland years ended and the bad began, and when it was that the worst had passed. The Great Mages scraped up all the ley, it's said, and hoarded it away in their houses of stone and kept it shut away from the light and the people, and maybe from the dragons, too. It's only a sure thing that they -- the dragons, that is -- came roaring out their mountains with fire on their tongues and demanding the return of the way things were. There were those among the people demanding the same thing, just so you know. Those Great Mages were awfully high-and-mighty types, and didn't make themselves too popular with the farmers and the fishermen, not to mention the hedgewizards and herbwomen and soothsayers and earthtakers.

Well, then. It's said that the Great Mages came out of their houses and faced the dragons, and that in keeping with their greedy nature they wanted to keep the magic all to themselves, and bother the dragons. And it did bother the dragons -- your da told you what short tempers possessed those beasties in the tales? Well, ours were the same in that respect. The refusal of the Great Mages to release even a little of the magic made them so angry that they couldn't see straight. I'm not so sure about that part of the song, myself: I would think that a dragon wouldn't have any problem seeing Mages and stone houses not his own length before him. Ah, but that's the way this tale goes, and I only tell you as it was told to me.

Oh, and the wars they waged were great and furious, or so it's said. They tried, the dragons did, to ask the Great Mages to put the magic back, but of course the Mages were having none of it. Then the dragons would lose their tempers again and the Great Mages would tease them by using their own stolen magic to ward the dragons off, and all in all it was a sore time for everyone, except maybe for the Mages. The more time that went by the more desperate the dragons got. It's said, so it is, that without their magic the dragons sickened, and certainly that was a good thing for the Great Mages. The more time that went by they more they walked high on magic, and with little contest from those from whom they had stolen it.

But dragons are survivors, child, and you've learned that from your da, nah? Just like the seastars, they are, that to cut one in half means there will be two the next time you haul in your net. Well -- perhaps not, the dragons, but they are survivors at least. I don't think there are any as great at it as a seastar, unless it is the Ocean Mother. Has your da taught you her tale? He is remiss! It is every father's duty to teach his children ways, and every grandmother's to explain why it is so. So it is! It's all a story of its own, so it is, and tomorrow I shall teach you the whys of it, but for now only know that the Ocean Mother is she who directs the fish into our nets, and the seals and the whales to our harpoons. Soon you will go out with your da, and he will teach you the ways to thank the fish and the seals and the whales for giving us their bodies so that we might live.

The ley flows differently in the ocean, so it's said, and although there are fish-mages and seal-mages and whale-mages, they have learnt to share their magic and let the ley run its own course through their world. How the dragons knew this, only the dragons know -- well, presumably the fish-mages and seal-mages and whale-mages know, and the Ocean Mother herself, but they are as hard to ask about it as a dragon -- but the dragons knew of the sea ley and the way it flowed and that the Great Mages could not reach it. And they appealed, so they did, to the Ocean Mother, to take them in and make them hers so that they might live as her other creatures lived, and not be bereft of the magic. The Ocean Mother considered long and hard, so it's said, because it is no easy thing to go from a life of air and land to a life below the waves, and because she had heard through her children that the loathing of the dragons for the Great Mages ran as deep and strong as the bottom currents, and almost as cold, and she could harbour no deep ill-will toward humans whom she still looked upon as her clan.

Ah, well, and you know what she must have decided then! No one saw them go, so it's said, but probably the Great Mages noticed first, and the fishermen second. There are tales for other days where the fisherman in those first days and weeks brought in their nets to find them tangled with the skins of dragons. So it's said! The Ocean Mother bade them shed their shapes like lizards do, or crabs, and when the last skin was shed there was within a sea serpent as are carved on every boat's prow and painted on every fisherman's door. The Ocean Mother extracted a promise, so she did, that in return for their shelter they should forget their quarrel with those of the land and live as the rest of her children did, without rancor and without regret.

But dragons, even in the skins of sea serpents, had long memories and longer minds. Generations came and went of fishermen and farmers and smallmages without any magic, and the dragons learnt the ways and the powers of their new homes and bodies and remembered the ways things had been. Although they were nourished by the magic of the sea, the magic of the land was still known to them, and they watched as the Great Mages buried it all away and looked for more. And they were afraid. I think you remember how well the monsters you were convinced lived in the dark scared you when you were small, and how well you took pains to avoid them or banish them or show them that they had no rights over your sleep. So it was.

It's said, so it is, that Great Mages looked next to the sea, as all men do in time return to the endless, and that the dragons forgot their promises to the Ocean Mother in their fear and desire to protect her. The wars they waged were small and subtle, so it's said, but great and furious also, as the Great Mages missed the small things until they had built into a Great Thing, and then even all the pent-up magic housed in their stone walls could not keep back the sea, but they tried. Oh, they tried! And when the God of Storms sent winds and rain in with the sea, for raw passion of any sort is bound to draw his attention, the Great Mages were sealed in their fate. The Ocean Mother moaned as the land was consumed by her waves.

And the Ocean Mother was furious because the dragons had forgotten their promise, and the Great Mages were furious because they had lost their stones and their power to the sea, and the farmers and the fishermen were furious because their boats were broken and their fields were flooded and their families sometimes drowned, and all the smallmages were greatly disappointed because there would be no more magic in the land for a long, long time, and there is still only a little even now. This is why our people moved and why there are no Great Mages, and why sea serpents have lost the ways to the sea ley and the sympathy of the Ocean Mother. They are even more shy now, the sea serpents, than they were as dragons, so it's said, but even without magic behind them they are among the most fearsome creatures in the sea. More than the shark, yes, child, and more than the kraken. This is why they are carved and painted into prows and onto doors, and why we must kill them quickly when they are caught in our nets, and why we pray especially hard to the Ocean Mother when we do, and why she sings so sorrowfully when storms stir her waters to drown the land, because her memory is the longest of all.

--
~Gweenie

Oneirosuchus, the dreaming crocodile
(cleverly disguised as an absent-minded chameleonic green dragoness)
(lurker extraordinaire)

GreenLaire.net | Elfwood | LJ

dracothrope

Fledgling
Posts: 17
(4/13/03 1:31 pm)
Reply

Re: The Song of the Sea, or ...

Wow, the way you wrote that made it seem almost as if my own grandmother was sitting there and telling it! I'm extremely impressed... I hope you post more!

Drakenhart

Fledgling
Posts: 37
(4/13/03 4:52 pm)
Reply

Re: The Song of the Sea, or ...

Oh wow, that is just lovely!

The ending is such a hook and shocker too. ^.^ Nice work!!

"Feed the hungry with the knowledge of how to care for the Earth, so that the Earth will feed them in return."

| elfwood | furbid | lj |
Kao by Naryu

Yellow wolf

Hatchling
Posts: 5
(6/1/03 7:51 pm)
Reply

Re: The Song of the Sea, or ...

Abesolutely beautiful! Must have taken quite a bit of time to write that. I actually like it, mind if I email it to some of my friends?

Look at my side pic...isn't he cute!
Sig image and stuff (C) me of coarse!
Lycanthropos City|Two Worlds|LJ Writings

oneirosuchus

Arch(chameleon)Dwaginess
Posts: 87
(6/2/03 6:51 am)
Reply

Re: The Song of the Sea, or ...

Why not just point 'em here? You don't have to be a member to read. *grin*

--
~Gweenie

Oneirosuchus, the dreaming crocodile
(cleverly disguised as an absent-minded chameleonic green dragoness)
(lurker extraordinaire)

GreenLaire.net | Elfwood | LJ

Yellow wolf

Hatchling
Posts: 8
(6/2/03 7:45 am)
Reply

Re: The Song of the Sea, or ...

Lol, alright, alright. If that is what you would rather me do. They might even join if I ask of it.

Look at my side pic...isn't he cute!
Sig image and stuff (C) me of coarse!
Lycanthropos City|Two Worlds|LJ Writings

The Dragon's Laire > Show & Tell > The Song of the Sea, or ...
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oneirosuchus Arch(chameleon)Dwaginess Posts: 25 (4/13/03 9:18 am) Reply	The Song of the Sea, or ... I used to write. A lot. Nowadays, I don't write nearly as much as I think that I ought to. I have all of these marvelous plots chasing each others' tails in my head, but I've forgotten how to actually tell the tale. Most of the things I do write purely as stories have a folk- or fairy-tale flavor to the voice, which I do like, but I seem to run out of places to put dialogue ... oh well. Following is a short tale I wrote, oh, a year or so ago, as a part of the backstory of a seaserpent character I was bringing into play at an RP webchat. The Song of the Sea, or How the dragon shed its skin and made the Ocean cry A long, long time ago, the dragons in our corner of the world were just like the ones your da tells you stories of on winter nights. Indeed! Great scaly beasts with long whiskers and sharp teeth and deep eyes. Did he tell you never to look into a dragon's eyes, child? Good. It is well that you do not, for there are some what say that if you look too deep and learn too much, the Powers decree that you must become as a dragon, yourself -- oh, but that's another tale, and nothing to do with the song of the sea. Long ago, we had dragons just like those tales you're told. Oh, but ours weren't the ravaging monsters like the tales; ours were shy and quiet, and really, it was quite rare to catch sight of one. They kept themselves off in the places we didn't go, places where no roads went or where they were forgotten. You've seen how sometime a farmer's land goes poor -- young Mr. Turner and his family picked up and moved for that two years past, you remember? Well, sometimes the dragons would claim that land, if it were far enough from the main ways, and it's said that in a year or two the land would be just as green and fertile as the way it were before it were touched. So it's said! And then the magic came into our land -- or perhaps that's when it went, as we always had our little hedgewizards and soothsayers and herbwomen and earthtakers. But that was when the Great Mages came to our land, and they must have squeezed every bit of ley into their hands as they could, for our own little ways suddenly seemed small and puling, indeed. Indeed! It was a terrible time when the crops withered in the fields and knots unraveled and children cried and those soothsayers who were still saying anything were saying it would all come to naught and be a bad thing all over. Now, you're thinking of the ways you know and doubtless thinking how fish will fly before you'll believe a soothsayer's words. I know that smirk! Wipe that look off your face before your mother sees you! Back in those days soothsayers had power, remember -- or they had power before the Great Mages swept it all up, and maybe there was just enough left for dribbles and drabbles of true telling. And fish do fly. Ask your father. As it happens, they were right. Oh, but we weren't to know that for years to come, and even the sayers themselves couldn't tell where the bland years ended and the bad began, and when it was that the worst had passed. The Great Mages scraped up all the ley, it's said, and hoarded it away in their houses of stone and kept it shut away from the light and the people, and maybe from the dragons, too. It's only a sure thing that they -- the dragons, that is -- came roaring out their mountains with fire on their tongues and demanding the return of the way things were. There were those among the people demanding the same thing, just so you know. Those Great Mages were awfully high-and-mighty types, and didn't make themselves too popular with the farmers and the fishermen, not to mention the hedgewizards and herbwomen and soothsayers and earthtakers. Well, then. It's said that the Great Mages came out of their houses and faced the dragons, and that in keeping with their greedy nature they wanted to keep the magic all to themselves, and bother the dragons. And it did bother the dragons -- your da told you what short tempers possessed those beasties in the tales? Well, ours were the same in that respect. The refusal of the Great Mages to release even a little of the magic made them so angry that they couldn't see straight. I'm not so sure about that part of the song, myself: I would think that a dragon wouldn't have any problem seeing Mages and stone houses not his own length before him. Ah, but that's the way this tale goes, and I only tell you as it was told to me. Oh, and the wars they waged were great and furious, or so it's said. They tried, the dragons did, to ask the Great Mages to put the magic back, but of course the Mages were having none of it. Then the dragons would lose their tempers again and the Great Mages would tease them by using their own stolen magic to ward the dragons off, and all in all it was a sore time for everyone, except maybe for the Mages. The more time that went by the more desperate the dragons got. It's said, so it is, that without their magic the dragons sickened, and certainly that was a good thing for the Great Mages. The more time that went by they more they walked high on magic, and with little contest from those from whom they had stolen it. But dragons are survivors, child, and you've learned that from your da, nah? Just like the seastars, they are, that to cut one in half means there will be two the next time you haul in your net. Well -- perhaps not, the dragons, but they are survivors at least. I don't think there are any as great at it as a seastar, unless it is the Ocean Mother. Has your da taught you her tale? He is remiss! It is every father's duty to teach his children ways, and every grandmother's to explain why it is so. So it is! It's all a story of its own, so it is, and tomorrow I shall teach you the whys of it, but for now only know that the Ocean Mother is she who directs the fish into our nets, and the seals and the whales to our harpoons. Soon you will go out with your da, and he will teach you the ways to thank the fish and the seals and the whales for giving us their bodies so that we might live. The ley flows differently in the ocean, so it's said, and although there are fish-mages and seal-mages and whale-mages, they have learnt to share their magic and let the ley run its own course through their world. How the dragons knew this, only the dragons know -- well, presumably the fish-mages and seal-mages and whale-mages know, and the Ocean Mother herself, but they are as hard to ask about it as a dragon -- but the dragons knew of the sea ley and the way it flowed and that the Great Mages could not reach it. And they appealed, so they did, to the Ocean Mother, to take them in and make them hers so that they might live as her other creatures lived, and not be bereft of the magic. The Ocean Mother considered long and hard, so it's said, because it is no easy thing to go from a life of air and land to a life below the waves, and because she had heard through her children that the loathing of the dragons for the Great Mages ran as deep and strong as the bottom currents, and almost as cold, and she could harbour no deep ill-will toward humans whom she still looked upon as her clan. Ah, well, and you know what she must have decided then! No one saw them go, so it's said, but probably the Great Mages noticed first, and the fishermen second. There are tales for other days where the fisherman in those first days and weeks brought in their nets to find them tangled with the skins of dragons. So it's said! The Ocean Mother bade them shed their shapes like lizards do, or crabs, and when the last skin was shed there was within a sea serpent as are carved on every boat's prow and painted on every fisherman's door. The Ocean Mother extracted a promise, so she did, that in return for their shelter they should forget their quarrel with those of the land and live as the rest of her children did, without rancor and without regret. But dragons, even in the skins of sea serpents, had long memories and longer minds. Generations came and went of fishermen and farmers and smallmages without any magic, and the dragons learnt the ways and the powers of their new homes and bodies and remembered the ways things had been. Although they were nourished by the magic of the sea, the magic of the land was still known to them, and they watched as the Great Mages buried it all away and looked for more. And they were afraid. I think you remember how well the monsters you were convinced lived in the dark scared you when you were small, and how well you took pains to avoid them or banish them or show them that they had no rights over your sleep. So it was. It's said, so it is, that Great Mages looked next to the sea, as all men do in time return to the endless, and that the dragons forgot their promises to the Ocean Mother in their fear and desire to protect her. The wars they waged were small and subtle, so it's said, but great and furious also, as the Great Mages missed the small things until they had built into a Great Thing, and then even all the pent-up magic housed in their stone walls could not keep back the sea, but they tried. Oh, they tried! And when the God of Storms sent winds and rain in with the sea, for raw passion of any sort is bound to draw his attention, the Great Mages were sealed in their fate. The Ocean Mother moaned as the land was consumed by her waves. And the Ocean Mother was furious because the dragons had forgotten their promise, and the Great Mages were furious because they had lost their stones and their power to the sea, and the farmers and the fishermen were furious because their boats were broken and their fields were flooded and their families sometimes drowned, and all the smallmages were greatly disappointed because there would be no more magic in the land for a long, long time, and there is still only a little even now. This is why our people moved and why there are no Great Mages, and why sea serpents have lost the ways to the sea ley and the sympathy of the Ocean Mother. They are even more shy now, the sea serpents, than they were as dragons, so it's said, but even without magic behind them they are among the most fearsome creatures in the sea. More than the shark, yes, child, and more than the kraken. This is why they are carved and painted into prows and onto doors, and why we must kill them quickly when they are caught in our nets, and why we pray especially hard to the Ocean Mother when we do, and why she sings so sorrowfully when storms stir her waters to drown the land, because her memory is the longest of all. -- ~Gweenie Oneirosuchus, the dreaming crocodile (cleverly disguised as an absent-minded chameleonic green dragoness) (lurker extraordinaire) GreenLaire.net \| Elfwood \| LJ
dracothrope Fledgling Posts: 17 (4/13/03 1:31 pm) Reply	Re: The Song of the Sea, or ... Wow, the way you wrote that made it seem almost as if my own grandmother was sitting there and telling it! I'm extremely impressed... I hope you post more!
Drakenhart Fledgling Posts: 37 (4/13/03 4:52 pm) Reply	Re: The Song of the Sea, or ... Oh wow, that is just lovely! The ending is such a hook and shocker too. ^.^ Nice work!! "Feed the hungry with the knowledge of how to care for the Earth, so that the Earth will feed them in return." \| elfwood \| furbid \| lj \| Kao by Naryu
Yellow wolf Hatchling Posts: 5 (6/1/03 7:51 pm) Reply	Re: The Song of the Sea, or ... Abesolutely beautiful! Must have taken quite a bit of time to write that. I actually like it, mind if I email it to some of my friends? Look at my side pic...isn't he cute! Sig image and stuff (C) me of coarse! Lycanthropos City\|Two Worlds\|LJ Writings
oneirosuchus Arch(chameleon)Dwaginess Posts: 87 (6/2/03 6:51 am) Reply	Re: The Song of the Sea, or ... Why not just point 'em here? You don't have to be a member to read. grin -- ~Gweenie Oneirosuchus, the dreaming crocodile (cleverly disguised as an absent-minded chameleonic green dragoness) (lurker extraordinaire) GreenLaire.net \| Elfwood \| LJ
Yellow wolf Hatchling Posts: 8 (6/2/03 7:45 am) Reply	Re: The Song of the Sea, or ... Lol, alright, alright. If that is what you would rather me do. They might even join if I ask of it. Look at my side pic...isn't he cute! Sig image and stuff (C) me of coarse! Lycanthropos City\|Two Worlds\|LJ Writings