Elementor (Elementor Series Book 1)

Chapter 2-Namaka

I feel the water in her veins. Yes, Namaka. Perfect. It's all coming together. Child Namaka, goddess of Water. You will live up to your name.
**********************************************************************************
The strangest thing about Namaka, or Nam to her friends, was her hair. Bold, long and blue, it fell over her shoulders, twisting down like a raging river. When she was born, her parents were astounded to see thin, blue hairs, and their colour was often questioned.
Her primary school had rules banning colouring your hair an unnatural colour. So you can imagine the surprise of the teachers when Nam said it was her real hair colour. She provided them with photos of her as a child, with written word from her parents, and even spoken word. Her parents were called into the school to talk about Nam's hair.
The school was persistent that they even got a lock of Nam's hair, which they sent away to be DNA tested. They were shocked to find it had no colouring in it, whatsoever.
Finally, she was believed and, from then on, wore her blue hair with pride. However, she was also inquisitive. She once tried to dye her hair black, but the colour wouldn't stick. It just ran out, returning her hair to its normal (well, normal for her) blue. She tried again in another part of her hair, and once again it slid out, as if her hair was water, washing the dye away.
Namaka was addicted to water. Any water. Rivers, creeks, pools, lakes, oceans, anything she could swim in. When she was young, she believed that the water was hers to control, hers to command. At the beach she believed the waves broke only to catch and carry her.
When she turned six, she was woken at midnight by a strange dream. She was in the ocean, drowning. The tide sucked at her legs, pulling her under. The waves crashed over her, pushing her down. Yet she was not afraid. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she blew bubbles into the water. She controlled the sea and the waves. Then she pushed her hands down, water flying from them. She flew up into the air, and that was when she woke up.
She then slipped silently out of bed, changing into her swimsuit, and padded outside. She slid quietly into the pool, letting the water hold her in its embrace. After a while, Nam got out and hosed herself off. After towelling herself off, she slid back into bed. Every night after that she dreamt of water. But never the ocean. The ocean dream only happened once a month. It signified her midnight swim. It signified freedom.
When Nam went to the beach with her friends, she was always the first into the water. The others often showed off their bodies before joining her. When she was alone, she would retreat to the rock pools at the far end of the beach. But when she was with her friends, Nam was stuck on the main beach with them.
She was taunted at school for her blue hair. Not only that, but when the school went swimming, and others' eyes burned from the chlorine, Nam's eyes were fine. In fact, her eyesight was even better underwater than above, but only slightly. When she went on camp with her grade, they went swimming in the ocean. Others tried to keep their heads high, but she swam gracefully beneath the salty water.
Since she wasn't allowed to wear her hair out in high school, she put it in a ponytail at the back, letting it flow out loosely like rivers over her. Her eyes were a deep, luscious blue, her long lashes strange and black and soft. When she let her imagination run wild, she would run her hands through her hair, imagining it was water.
When she cried, she let her tears fall into her palms and created things with them. She cried often. She cried at school. She was picked on. She cried at home. She was yelled at. She cried herself to sleep because the only times she was happy was when she was with her friends, and when she was asleep.
When she sang or spoke or laughed, her voice sounded beautiful, like water rushing over shingle.
When she was not near water, a part of her ached inside. When she was around water, her heart sang with joy.
On her eighteenth birthday, she and her friends went to the beach. They stayed there for hours, and they acted like kids, burying each other, building sand castles and sand tunnels, and just mucking around.
When Nam arrived home, she felt so tired that she collapsed on her couch (she had moved out of her parents' house and into the family holiday house which her parents didn't use anymore) and fell straight to sleep.
Her dreams were filled with blinding light, and a blonde girl whose smooth voice said "Welcome Namaka, Goddess of Water."