Mermaid

She had gotten by for a few days on the island, catching crabs and small fingerling fish when she could and she watched the weather and the waves, picking out the rip that had dragged her this far and making sure to avoid it on her journey back. She was young, and though she was large for her age, she was still too small to make the swim unaided. She had decided to make the journey beneath the full moon, and almost drowned trying to get back to the mainland. Fortune would have it that a mother turtle on her way to lay eggs on the shore (unknown to the girl) either blindly careened into her path and carried her the last length to shore, or she had seen and known, and taken pity on the girl. As the heavy creature pulled herself up onto the sand, Deluge coughed and spluttered and marvelled at the size of the sea beast. No wonder it had felt like the earth coming up to hold her. She would have barely been a load for the ancient ocean dweller. "Uhh, thanks…" she offered, not quite sure if the turtle would understand her or not, but she didn’t have much else to offer, until the lumbering giant continued it’s way up the sand and then began to dig.

Well that was something she could help with. Sand flew fast beneath her pale stomach as she attempted to help the creature dig it’s hole. She had never seen anything this bizarre in her life. When the turtle turned around the girl became confused, was she just digging a hole for fun and now she was returning to the ocean? But as eggs began to be laid with Deluge holding a front row seat, her face heated beneath her fur and she stammered for a few moments before she fled, mortified… Sand turned to soil and moor grass seemed to spring up between her toes.

The sodden, sandy, glowing girl trudged across the moor with little regard for who called it home. She had come in from the ocean, and missed any markers that would have declared this land claimed, and even if she had found them, it was doubtful she would have taken a detour, tired and hungry as she was. Her honey-hued eyes were trained on the sky, unfamiliar stars winking down at her. She had to try and get home.

Her head turned this way and that as shivered wracked her frame. Some of these stars she didn’t know. Everything was different to how it should be if she was sitting on the obsidian sand, and to get the stars to where they should be, she would have to travel that way? East? and maybe a little bit north? She had not concept of just how far she had come, and now that it came to getting home, the journey ahead was daunting.

Deluge gave her head a shake to dislodge the water from her ears. Yeah, that way. She supposed, taking a stab in the dark. Anything was better than standing here and freezing. If it didn’t get her home, maybe it would get her to someone who could point her in the right direction. Her strides lengthened and the glow of her coat brightened, a shooting star across the barren landscape, her head on an angle, one ear turned forward, and the other back.

She took a passing interest in the foggy moonlit landscape, wondering if it would look more vibrant under the sun? Under the muted glow of the fat full moon, everything was painted in shades of grey, just like she was, the vibrant purple of whatever the fragrant plant she crushed under her paws dulling to the deepest purple she had ever seen.

Wisps of fog reached out to embrace her and she wondered if perhaps she should try to swing around, to keep a clear eye on the sky? But judging by the wall that rose up before her, she would find herself running in circles. It would be best to stay her course and try to get to where she was going as quickly as she could. It wasn’t until she reached the outskirts, a wall of stone rising up before her and the distant bleeting of goats that she realised her transgression. Well, no point putting out a call now. All she would have to do is scramble up the stones and give a flick of her bobbed tail and she would be free of this place, right?

Surely everyone was soundly asleep and she would be nothing but a salt-water and seafood trail, shooting like an arrow across the moor come morning, no havoc left in her wake, just passing through, right? Nails scrabbled on stone as she moved to make her final escape. She just wanted to get home to her siblings.