Arrival

(part of the 30 Days of Writing Fantasy Challenge)

If you’re new to The Môrdreigiau Chronicles, welcome! You might find the Glossary helpful for some of these words. Colons indicate the sea dragon’s thought communications.

This is part of the “30 Days of Writing Fantasy Challenge” hosted y Luna Asli Kolcu. I have yet to figure out how to classify them here in the Chronicles but as “done is better than posted at all”, here it is. I did a tiny bit of editing as I typed it up out of my mermaid notebook and … this may develop into a much longer story, maybe even using the prompts, but this is as far as it took me today.

Last night, I fell asleep with the start of this story and this morning I woke up to write all of it down in my notebook. Only, somehow I was still in my old childhood bedroom and the neighbours had a dog and I couldn’t find my white dressing gown. Then I woke up for real, made a cup of tea and started scribbling…

A short stone pier stubbed into the leaden waters of the bay. Someone had strung fishing line between the evenly spaced poles. In the summer, these held lanterns, but now they held a little line of bells, with an unwilling tinkling. The still air hung heavy, remembering the punishment dealt by last night’s storm.

An old man shuffled along the stony beach, the black and dark grey rocks tumbling beneath him. Another man on horseback paused to watch the old man bend and poke at a tangled lump of seaweed. The old man crouched.

The one on horseback had come to check for damage in the village after last night’s storm. He watched the old man shove the lump, flipping it over. He saw a pale outstretched arm, bare breasts—

He spurred his mount forward, sliding off at the beach’s edge and scrambled over the slick rounded stones. The woman needed protection, his protection.

He stuttered to a stop, drinking in the sight: a young woman, her skin the colour of buttery parchment, utterly naked except for seaweed twisted around her limbs. Her long black hair fanned out over the stones. Somehow it glittered with a fiery red as if the light had caught it, but the sun had yet to emerge from the dark grey sky.

“Is she dead?” the younger man got out.

“Nay,” grunted the old man, his features hidden by a shock of white hair underneath a floppy woollen cap. “She breathes.”

The two men crouched beside her, watching her chest rise and fall. The younger one tried to rouse himself from his adoring stupor. She had to be a woman of refinement, perhaps lost, overboard from a passing ship in last night’s storm. He cast a reluctant gaze along the beach. The usual flotsam of timber and seaweed marked the stones. No other signs of a wreck.

“She will perish if she stays here.” The younger man took off his coach, a very fine piece of velvet and fur.

“Throw her back,” barked a voice behind them.

“What?” the younger man flinched and turned. The old man remained unmoving.

A woman had spoken, who looked ancient, weathered, but seemed spry enough to be perhaps fifteen years his senior. Her blue eyes flashed. “She’s not one of ours. Give her back to the sea.”

His mouth opened and closed like a gasping fish before hardening into stern lines. “Madam, that is unconscionable! This woman needs our Christian care.”

“She’s naught but trouble,” the wrinkled woman insisted. “She’ll doom us all.”

He ignored her, using a knife to slice away the seaweed that trapped her, leaving wound strands around her elbows and knees. He wrapped her in his cloak and carried her across the beach and into the nearest inn. Her lightness astonished him, even as his fingers sank into the folds of her flesh.

“A room!” he barked.

As lord of the manor, he received his request. He lay down the woman in front of a freshly roaring fire. Her hair needed to dry, he told himself. She’d perish if she slept with wet hair upon a pillow.

He watched her, still wrapped in his cloak, with the addition of a thin blanket from the bed. He’d carefully spread out her long, long tangled hair so it would dry. The way it glistened re and curled as his fingertips combed through it …

He took a steadying breath. Desire had long stopped being a flicker of interest. It blazed, just as her black hair glowed like coals, communicating with the fire.

He would ascertain her name, her place in the world. Whether her station called for wooing or bed, he would have her.

Here’s the link to the challenge announcement. The prompts are in that publication’s chat.

30 Days of Fantasy — A Writing Challenge for the Wonder-Hungry