Salty Tears

Ancient people lived in the ocean. They were able to breath underwater and swim with great power and speed. Their fingers and toes had webbing and the sea was very peaceful towards them. These ancient people had complete control over the water and its creatures. It was on land where they had to hold their breath and struggle getting around.

With these ancient people in control, the ocean was in harmony and peace. Hurricanes, the storms of rage, were hardly ever encountered. The schools of fish behaved, and predators only ate what they needed to survive. Whales, dolphins, and sharks all got along without any disagreements between them. This was all because of the rule of the ancient people.

To maintain this harmony, the people elected a King from the most respected and honored among them. This king had a wife and daughter which became the respective Queen and Princess.

A handsome, rebellious boy of a lesser respect rejected this royal election. He believed the ocean would be left alone to fall into its own. He thought the land in fact was more delightful and that it alone should be where people were to rein. Land was viewed as being chaotic, however, the boy found it to be similar to the chaos that lived within man.

His beliefs holding firm, the boy devised a plan. He thought perhaps he could force mankind onto land by causing an underwater volcanic eruption to turn most the ocean into steam while creating more land. He searched for weeks and found the most humongous volcano that he believed would do the trick.

In his mind, there was no time to waste, so he forced the volcano to explode. The volcano worked almost as he expected. It turned a lot of the water into steam and took it to the heavens in the clouds that still roam above our heads today. The event also created more land. However, the eruption didn't destroy enough of the sea to force the ancient people onto land as the boy had hoped.

The King became enraged. This didn't couple well with the King's new found sense of power. In haste, the King proclaimed himself to be the best and only judge for this heinous crime. The boy was dragged to the royal palace, and it was there that the King alone decided that the boy would be banished to the chaotic land in which he created. Upon the King's orders, the boy's webbing between his fingers and toes were cut off, thus decreasing his swimming abilities dramatically. Yet, the King was not aware that his daughter saw this traumatic event occur. She became ashamed of her father and felt bad for the rebel boy.

That night as the boy was being carried off into exile, the princess ran away from her home and followed him. The princess, seeing her father in a new light, wished to help the boy in any way she could. Together, she and the boy lived on the calm shore line between land and ocean. The princess hunted for enough food to feed them both and helped to heal the boy's wounds. Meanwhile, the boy gained experience on land and slowly became less and less dependent on the food brought from the sea. It didn't take long for the handsome young boy and beautiful princess to fall in love with one another. The boy missed his princess every time she left for food in the ocean where he was no longer welcome. He decided to try to convince her to come live with him. Once the princess heard this proposition, she got scared as she ached with growing home sickness, an illness she'd never had before. Yet again, the princess slipped away during the night. This time she headed back home. She hoped that her father may be convinced to reconsider the boy's banishment.

Her father, the King, instead faced her with even more fury than he had for the rebel boy. The King saw his daughter's help towards the boy as a betrayal. Increasingly angry, the King ferociously banished and ultimately disowned the princess. She received the same webbing dismemberment. The King also decided on many accommodating punishments for the chaos of land that had poisoned his daughter: waves to thrash and erode the shore, hurricanes to cause great destruction upon its wake, and a curse. The curse stated that any being with loyalty to land would not be able to see the people of the sea and that these land people's eyes would burn in the presence of the ocean.

The (former) princess was devastated. She began to weep, an action that was foreign to all people at the time. The girl was being dragged away when her mother, The Queen, took her for some final goodbyes. The Queen was merciful and felt sorrow for her poor daughter. The girl continued to cry even in the presence of her gracious mother. The Queen mourned for her daughter and wished to give her a gift, a reminder of home. An idea set itself into the Queen's mind, so she picked up some salt from the ocean floor and placed it on the inside of her daughter's eyes. As a mother more than a queen, she held her daughter and told the girl anytime that she got sad that her very tears would remind her of home and be a comfort.

Alas, the girl was taken to land. There she would stay with her love and birth our land-faring civilization. Children who received more of the boy's blood enjoyed land over the ocean, while children with more of the girl's blood stayed nearer to and enjoyed the sea. Today, no one can be sure if the ancient people still exist, only rare myths of sighting mermaids and mermen make us wonder.