The Amphitrite Quest
Ephyra moved swiftly through the still water, her delicate
tail whipping behind her, without creating so much as a ripple. A flash of
golden – could that be it? She dived to the seafloor, only to discover a white
piece of broken coral reflecting the golden sunlight. A sudden fear, wound in
threads of melancholy, engulfed her, and she sank to the sand, too cold in the
warm waters to move.
The oceans were changing – they had been changing for many
moons now, morphing into dark places of secrets and fear. She had watched as the
northern oceans she called home had lost colour, the sand turning black, the
waters turning grey. She had watched as her sisters, their eyes once as blue as
the cerulean foam of the Aegean Sea, had spoken words of acid and rancour, as
their eyes turned to orbs of soot.
So she had left, travelling across the oceans to the only
other home she had known – the Zelbiel Reef in the warm equatorial waters. The
coral reef was nothing like she remembered it. As a young Nereid, she had
visited it often with her sisters, frolicking in the shallow waters with
yellowtail snappers, chasing the green turtles, slowly floating along with the
manatees, hiding from the reef sharks. But there was no life here now, none of
her childhood friends. The iridescent brain corals that had once so delighted
the little Nereids were now a stark white, matching the stark whiteness of the
once-yellow staghorn corals. The oceans were changing.
But Ephyra had not travelled so far simply in search of an
old home. No, she would never have left her sisters to the mercy of the dark
powers and fled in search of a new life. So why did her heart ache so? Why was
there such a feeling of finality, of loss, of homelessness?
A water snake brushed against her arm, jolting Ephyra back
to reality, to the urgency of her quest. No, she wasn’t here in search of a
home. She was here in search of hope. It may only be legend, or simply a
children’s rhyme, but it was her only hope. She could still hear her mother’s
voice singing the lullaby…
When the waters turn dark and dreary, my dear,
When the oceans are under a spell,
Let go of your worries, your dolour, your fear,
Hold onto the Amphitrite shell…
The Amphitrite shell – the golden shell of hope. She must
find it, oh she must! For if she didn’t, her home would be drowned in darkness
forever, drowning her sisters in its darkness as well.
With the urgency brought on by this dark thought, Ephyra
began her search. The Zelbiel Reef was wide as it was long, but the stark white
couldn’t hide a glowing golden for long, could it? Many times the reflecting
golden light deceived her into believing her quest had been successful, and
each time her heart rose to the top of her very throat, and each time it sank
back lower than before. How many hours she spent there, she did not know. All
she knew was, she could not fail.
.
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.
,
“EPHYRA!” came a voice rushing through the waters, now dark
in the moonless night, a voice familiar yet terrible all at once. It was a
voice she once loved, still did, but one that now terrified her every scale.
There was nowhere to hide, her cerulean hair and slate grey body stark against
the white reef. There was nothing she could do but keep looking.
“EPHYRA…” The voice was closer now, so close that she felt
the water ripple under its force.
“Let go of your
worries, your dolour, your fear / Hold onto the Amphitrite shell…” Ephyra
said to herself. “Come on, come ON!”
A glint of golden in the dark water… Ephyra felt her gills
close in a sudden rush of excitement, her tail whipping faster than it ever had
as she dived for the shell.
But something was wrong. The water around her was colder,
darker, her gills struggling to draw air from it.
“Ephyra…”
She was here. Ione, her body spreading hopelessness and fear
in the water. Ephyra stared – her beautiful sister, the loveliest of them all,
with the bluest eyes and the bluest hair, now dark all over, evil. The spear in
her hand, blacker than the blackest black, sharper than the reef shark’s teeth,
was pointed at Ephyra.
“Ione, sister, let me help you. Please, let me…”
Just then, Ione let out a terrible, agonising scream,
rushing forward with the spear in her hands. Ephyra dived, thrashing and
flailing, and her own scream of pain joined Ione’s, as she cut her palm on a
stone-hard coral. “All is lost,” she thought, as the water around her turned
frothy and muddy and bloody… with a glint of golden.
“Ephyra, you are to be one of us!” screamed Ione, propelling
herself forward with the strength of her long tail, spear still in hand.
“And you one of us,” said Ephyra, holding up the Amphitrite
shell high above her head, glowing a brighter golden the tighter she held it,
the force of it pushing Ione back in a lurch, the spear grazing Ephyra’s chest
as she went.
