the princess & the pirate ; amber & hafen [10th]

The new presence was taken with caution, but I allowed her to lay next to me. My eyes shut for a second listening to the wind, imaging I was laying on the rocky coast just outside the cabin, with Drea’s laughter ringing in my ears, smiling as we found the heroes and monsters of the legends in the sky. Clouds shaping to immortalize the ones who only lived on through our words. At night gathered outside with the other kids, a small fire as we sang their tales and danced to their legacy.

When she breaks the silence I turn my head to face the mystery girl who laid beside me. There was no hostility on her face, tangled locks of thin brown hair against her pale skin reminded me of Drea. A storm in her own right, rare in simplicity but deadly If not careful.

Amber must have been a poor judge of character, or she saw the spark Drea had when she agreed to take me under her wing. There was a fight in my eyes she had recognized the day she picked me up at the pier. There was a pure intention in both Amber and Drea’s voices echoing into their souls and radiating a sense of comfort inexplicable to the common person.

A gift from the sea, a blessing from the old gods.

“I don’t see the dragon.” I mused with my eyes searching for a fable in the clouds. Instead, I saw 8 tentacles coiled around a ship, the most feared of all creatures. Some say the kraken was nothing more than a myth, but most of us at sea knew better than to doubt in her existence. A mighty force, the one thing any sailor or pirate could agree on: The ocean belonged to her. It was the Kraken’s water and only in her grace were we allowed to sail.

“At home in four, we tell a story of Scylla. The ocean belongs to her, every one of us knows to make an offering of our best catch to appease her before we set sail. Look at the eight tentacles, they are wrapped around a ship.” I outlined the figure in the clouds with my two cuffed hands. “We would always say that the lethal waves of a bad storm were Scylla making herself known. Unhappy with the waste being dumped into her ocean…it’s her revenge for all lubber’s crimes. My home is this little cabin on the coast. There is an old story that the cabin was built on top of Scylla’s cave, us kids who have no home would find protection at sea with Scylla offering us a hearth above her cave. That’s the reason why our cabin has never been destroyed in any storm.”

I turned back to face her, hoping she would treat the story I considered part of my heritage with respect. A group of kids with no ties to their past, found comfort in the myths until it became our own culture, our history and most importantly our responsibility to be make sure they were never forgotten.

“I’m Hafen, you’re not bothering me at all.”