Tales from Virdinia

Pearl

Night had fallen, and Corranne lazed on the wooden raft that her brother was encouraging out to sea. Anticipation coursed through her, and it was an effort to stay still. Many had told her that she was torn between two worlds, the one above the surface and the one beneath it. They spoke the truth.

By day Coranne reluctantly walked, but by night she swam and that was when she was truly alive. She felt trapped on the ground, hating the feel of her weight upon its surface, the way that only her feet truly connected with it. Under the surface, however, every part of her was connected to the world that she loved. She was addicted to its constant caress, entranced by the sheer abundance of life beneath the ocean's rippling surface.

Corranne watched her brother. He stood at the edge of their raft, urging it forward with a single, large paddle. It broke through the surface rhythmically, scattering the dappled moonlight with each stroke. They both shared their mother's dark eyes and skin, and their father's dirty blonde hair, yet he was taller, stronger too.

A flutter of excitement went through Corranne as the sea splashed over the raft's edge and onto her feet. It the same every night. They had made this trip since they were children, yet the anticipation had never diminished. She lived for this, spent every minute of daylight longing for it.

They still had a good ten minutes to go before they reached their destination, the water still dark beneath them, and Corranne stared up at the stars. Dozens of constellations cast their stories across the heavens, and Corranne knew each and every one. There was the weeping bride, her husband lost to her, trapped on the other end of the horizon. They had been separated by Urdine, the great golden dragon whose wings arched across the sky. His great, red eye was brighter than usual tonight, the sky clear of clouds for once.

"What do you think the stars are, Hectine?" she asked her brother.

He rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. It had been a regular question since they had been children, and Corranne grinned at him, waiting for whatever ridiculous theory he would throw her way.

He paused, staring at the sky with exaggerated concentration, "Everyone knows what they are, sister, I'm surprised you ask! They are, of course, the bodies of great winged lizards! They flew too high, and too close to the sun, before bursting into flames!"

Corranne snorted with laughter. It was almost as good as his answer the evening before, when he had claimed each star to be a small version of the sun. Its babies, he had said with a sly wink.

A faint glow grabbed her attention, and she sat upright with a broad smile. Further out, the sea had awoken, and she was ready to join it. She had slept long enough today.

Soon, they were over the glow, it filling the ocean for as far as the eye could see. It was no longer dark beneath the raft, and Corranne stared down at the world below. It was a great reef, countless varieties of glowing corals growing from the sea bed in vast forests that blazed with luminous colour. Slim, violently-green trees of coral had erupted from the sand to towering dozens of feet high, their wide, stony branches almost touching the surface. Around them, shoals of small, silver fish billowed like smoke, their scales sparkling with flecks of green. At the base of the trees were clusters of round , blue coral, they shaped like upturned bowls and pock-marked with craters. Every now and then, sleek yellow fish with tails of crimson would risk getting close to them, and spines of pink would burst from their depths. You could not swim too close to those ones, Corranne had learnt that the hard way as a child. The seabed was scattered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, myriad types of corals claiming them as their own. Some were large, like the orange ones with arms like lace, others smaller and harder, their branches thick but still glorious in their multitude of colours.