*
Maanta's pale, thin legs reflected dim crescents of sunlight as the rays pierced the surface and refracted through the northern current of Orion's Birth, giving a prismatic sheen to the multicolored fins on either side of his ankles. Warm curtains of light delicately played across Maanta's body before finding rest upon the surrounding sand; his chest a canvas for their wavering, his eyes of pure opal dreaming longingly of the births above.
His slim, white fingertips sifted meticulously through the soft earth as he gazed towards Orion's oceanic sky. Maanta's frail insecurities showed not in this majestic place. This was his place. This was his home.
I wonder what all of this means, Maanta thought as he breathed in the brisk midday passing currents.
All about Orion's Birth, bubbling plumes of silver, emerald, and other hues swam towards the sea births overhead. This transparent liquid was long feared by his race and forbidden from their sands.
In youth, before his mother's death, Maanta had been taught this belief. Amongst his mother’s kelp-melded cove, embedded along the East Shale Wall, she spoke of these things. The myth of the transparent fluid was something she had told him of. Her sweet scent of jelly flora still fresh upon his mind, her words simmering upon his tongue...
“Junge Fisch," she had said, "Many fathoms past whence aqua fabrics first roamed the world and mortals breathed their beginnings we existed of the transparent womb. Our elder ones traversed many wheres above the seas and partook much of those wheres’ fruits. Seas were not the places in which our ancestors dwelled. And so it was for many years that men ate northern meats and northern fruits and cherished the world of sand.
Then one day a dark being fell from beyond the northern land plummeting deep within north's soil, for in this sand, air, we breathed, and Gelu kept all where sands did meet the water's shore. Gelu had shunned the dark one and so gave him forth the ancestors to do with as they wished.
With coming tides came knowledge from the dark man, allowing our ancestors to grow north fields vaster than a chasm’s deepest deep and providing them with gems in such amounts that greed took their souls. And so it was, that man took in Gelu's drowned son and many shrines were erected in his glorification. The dark one was pleased and soot and shade disgraced the sand.
Gelu forsake our ancestors for this and so, as he had drowned the dark one he soon would drown our peoples. Telling only the pure of heart, Noa, of his plans Gelu forsook the realm of men commanding the currents which we breathe into our gills to devour all the northern sands giving birth to our new world.
Legend has it that the dark one still dwells somewhere beneath our depths shunned by our people for all time’s realm. Few of our people adapted to the ocean breath and it is said that if any man breathes north fluid again his soul shall cease to be.”
Maanta's mother had finished this particular haunting tale with a warning to never approach the deadly fluid which pulsed within the walls of Orion's Birth. Of course this was all the more reason for Maanta to seek out the fluid. Because of this very tale the people of the Meridian Hearth Sands dared not venture past the glowing runed walls. Maanta was the only one to have entered within this place for many tides and was shunned for doing so.
Water currents swam between his slim, pale back and the clay earth beneath him. Closing his eyes, Maanta submerged his fingertips within the cool clay, embracing the currents rippling beneath his body. When he closed his eyes he almost felt as if he were a Manta Ray and not just a Maanta boy, with his swiveling body braced close to the sand and kelp floor. He imagined he was a ray combing the depths for food and exploring the world, speaking to the fish as he pulsed along. He imagined the sunlight warming his closed eyelids to be molten crevices in the crust of the Meridian Hearth Sands, illuminating his trail to future seaweed fields and volcanic chasm delves.
A school of glimmering fish swam in unison across his long bluish gray fins, tickling them. The fish flowed with graceful ease until the horizon swallowed their path. While immersing his thoughts in the cast of imaginary lava webs and swaying vegetation, Maanta awoke. One lone ripple peacefully swept itself across his daydream, then another, and then another until every precious flowing droplet of his illusion shivered into a blur.
*
Water calmly embraced Maanta’s eyes as the makings of Orion’s Birth wove his thoughts from their dream scape into reality. The marble runed wall, which was built long ago to assist Orion’s Birth in performing whatever task it might have been created to perform, had begun to echo its melodic song in skipping waves across the inner sanctum.
It was here that Maanta lay; his pale, trembling fingers grasping soft earth while he had dreamt his daydream. Swarming, bubble plumes rose from the inner room and from the very sand beneath where Maanta had hovered and slept just moments prior.
They dance like fish schools, Maanta thought while watching as the bubbles waltzed towards their new home with the rest of their fluid’s family on the ocean’s surface.
Releasing his embrace from the ocean floor, Maanta used his ankle fins and cupped webbed fingers to swim his way up and over the inner Orion’s Birth wall. Along his ascent away, he wove somersaults and flips through the inner room’s bubble tapestry and managed the last minute rescue of a pearl white snail from the sand a few feet from the wall. He tucked it in a whale hide satchel his mother had gifted him some time before her passing. The tiny visitor would be safe here until Maanta could find a more suitable place to set his newfound friend down.
Once far enough away from the happenings in Orion’s Birth, Maanta curled a half turn to peer back on this place he so loved.
Orion’s Birth consisted of three oval walls. Two were made of stone that was consumed by millennia of kelp, coral and anemone inhabitation. The third, inner wall, was pure shimmering white, splattered with glowing runes the size of a young whale’s fin. This wall glowed with the soft, seemingly beaconing light of north’s constellations. Their calm, entrancing beams glimmered off the coral-covered walls, sprinkling shades of yellow, red and orange throughout the depths. Four outstretched pillars in the center of the final ring stood as titans and draped a shadow down on the surrounding sands. Their arms reached up as far as the eye could see.
All of a sudden, the center of Orion’s Birth filled with the clear liquid in a vast plume, which vaulted upwards and pressed in rolling currents against the ocean’s upper film. Filaments sand drifted slowly down. Neon streamers of light also danced before Maanta’s eyes. He had seen this display so many times yet was always mystified by the sight. He knew it was deadly if you got caught up in its plume, however it was also incredible. The currents were coming, and now it was time for his wild ride back to the Meridian Hearth Sands.
Maanta grinned with anticipation. Dipping swiftly down, he swam with ease. He knew what he would discover upon reaching the floor.
Archa…
His fingers quickly slipped around her smooth fins, and Maanta braced himself for what he knew was soon to come.
Archa was warmed by her friend Maanta’s body once more close along her back. Her deep dolphin eyes swept the distance in preparation, partaking of the calm before the storm.
*
Currents surged down the towering, transparent walls of the fluid column; swarming towards the ocean floor. A flurry of sand stirred as the currents dashed and swept for the ocean’s expanse, carrying many creatures and sands far, far from their homes.
The pair, Maanta and Archa, caught the pummeling current with ease, disappearing from Orion’s Birth, destined for Meridia. Maanta softly kissed the dolphin’s forehead and pulled himself closer to his friend in a tight embrace. The two… a harpoon in the ocean’s breeze.
3
Swim the Way
Swimming in the waters away from Orion’s Birth