The Speechless Sea

Prologue

There was a sun above the ocean. It dangled lowly in the springtide sky, glittering azurley and refracting into motes of air that danced above the nonchallant sea. It was blue:- The kind of blue that only exists in dreams that sits on the tip of your tongue and then when you find the words for to describe it, it lively dances away into the sky and joins the daughters of the air in aphashic bliss as they tumble and meander in the gusty wind above the becalmed sea. It lay, smoth like a dolphin, off the coast of Camelot like a limpid millpond. It expanded into eternity before swirling their course onto the white sands of the beach that glimmered like frosty ice, white horses dancing like dressage horses up the shore line before cracking and foaming into the untorrid crystalline waters.

Through the cloudless air glid two cormorants in a graceful avian dance, seeking for delights in the colossal ocean below, once the playground of viscous invaders, now untouched, and peaceful as liquid glass.

Schools of Fish swam their merry way through the supine fathomage of the water, their scales catching the minty lights and shining all the colours of the rainbow: reds that burnt like embers glowing impossibly underwater where fire can't live, silvers which promised riches untold and caked in coral, the yellow of a jealous heart full of bile, and a misty green. The watchful birds eyed them from above, as the wryly fish darted their ways about their day, shifting together so they looked like one big fish, knowing the birds were watching them as they moved through the clear air that was drenched in salt and tickled the lungs and nose of the young boy who stood on the beach, watching up at the sight of the swirling birds in the sky above him.

He was barefoot and blond. His toes wriggled and wormed their way into the sand blyly, revelling in the simple pleasure of sensation as his heart beat with an unnamed desire : it was the longing for adventure. As his eyes which were as blue as sapphires looked at the water, a figure popped his head above the mighty untracked waters, the blavk hair and pale skin of a young merchild.

The boy on the shoreline stood entrance. the moment frozen as two pairs of eyes met across the lapping waters. Their hearts beat. The boy looked into the merchild's eyes and he did the same. They looked into each others eyes. The blond child looked away first, calling to his carer in delighted glee.

"Gaius! Come and look!" he called excitedly over the shifting sands that covered the ground between them.

An aging man ambled down the sand, his hair streaked grey and an andequate red robe about his shoulders.

"What is it, your majesty?" he asked, smiling an indulgent smile at the excited young boy.

"I sawed a Mermaid! Look, he's just out there! In the sea!" explained the child in excitement, pointing to where he had seen the merchild, he turned back, his face falling like a picture from a wall, and crashing into smithereens, as nothing was there, not even a ripple in the glassy water. Beside him Gaius sighed gently and crouched down swolely until their eye levels were equal.

"Arthur, my boy, you know how your father King Uther feels about the ocean. There are no mermaids." he explained gently as the crestfallen blonde boy's eyes welled with tears as though the seas themselves sipped over his eyes. He smiled kindly and took the childs hand, ushering him away from the seas to his home in the castle.

"But-" started the young prince, as he gazed back at the open empty sea, trying to convince himself he had imagined skin of the snowest white and ebony hair, and eyes that sparkled bluely with the gentle mirth of the ocean in which they sat.

"Come one, let's see if cook has any of her toffee apple cakes left." he said, guiding the boy up the beach, away from the danger of adventure. The pair of them wound their way back to the castle, which stood formidably on a cliff overhanging the waters, leaving behind the docile sands that sat timelessly on the beach, shifting but never moving, like the sands of time of an hourglass.