The Speechless Sea

Chapter 1

.*.*.*Twenty years later*.*.*.

"Merlin come back!" cried Gwen's delicate voice, ringing through the marine water as if it were a bell through thin mountain air.

The sunlight penetrated the dimming darkness of the sea sending lines of shimmering light into her depths illuminations the floating phytoplankton gently photosynthesising in the current and the two icthyic figures venturing through the fields of sea grass towards the kelp forest that towered high above them, reaching towards the surface a hundred fathoms above.

"Merlin!" Gwen called again, after her friend. She swan swiftly after him, her tail brightly shining purple then lilac then magenta then tyrian then amythest in the dim light that filtered through the greenery of the microscopic plant life. Merlin turned suspended in the water and grinned cheekily at her.

"Hurry up! There could be anything in there!" He called to her, his inky black hair like ink drifting in the water around his ivory pale face. His tail glimmered subtly, shades of blue, cerulean, sapphire, azure, all dancing together like the sea itself was trapped in his scales. He was the son of the ocean. His tail, the colour of the clear waters in the height of summer, reflecting a clouldless sky, had never been seen before in city of Atlantis. When he was a child the court sourcer took one look at the way his tail blended with the waters and proclaimed that the prospehy would come to pass - the ancient tales of the man who would unite the people would rest on the shoulders of the young boy. His father and mother despaired in silent anguish that the youngest son would bare the weight of the legendary tragedy and lose. To their shame and greif they buried the prophecy, like a stone, secret in the sea bed, and watched their son grow mercurial as quicksilver.

"I really don't think we should be doing this" she said nervously gliding up beside him, chewing her lip.

"It's totally safe Gwen, I promise" Merlin reasonded with a gentle eye roll.

"Well...." she dithered. Paused and suspended in the murky water. Merlin made up her mind for her.

"Come on!" with an ultramarine flash he darted away into the kelp trees. With an exasperhated sigh Gwen followed through the dense undersea brush. The tall kelp plants loomed either side blocking out the deficient sunlight that filtered down to these depths and greating a dark blackness between the fronds with only the occasional flash of cobalt to guide her way. Soon she emerged, suddenly, at the edge of an undersea cliff, the rocks beneath her giving way to a deep plunge, where Merlin waited for her.

"Look at it! Isn't it beautiful?" He gasped arduously and Gwen cast her gaze widely over the chasm before them. A large ship, broken and bent lay on the ocean floor, gently lit but clearly visible to her eyes, adapted to living so deep below the sun's reach. It's fore mast stood tall, being the only mast of the ship that remained intact, ragged pale white sales drifting in the ocean current, and providing a necessary shelter for small shoals of fish to shelter and hide. A hole in the hull loomed darkley as shoals of fishes swerved in and out of the portholes, riding the gentle ocean current from the cold depths of the shattered stern. Gwn bit her tongue.

"Come on!" With another quick flick of his tail Merlin was gone, down further into the depths to investigate.

"I really don't think we should be here Merlin...." his friend called helplessly after him, before taking off herself; in the same direction as which Merlin travelled, speedily flickering her fins to catch him up.

"Look at this! Isn't it beautiful?" the mermaid asked, wander shining in his wide eyes and dancing off his tongue and past his lips.

"What is it?" Gwen asked cynically and confused.