Syrena

let the water take me

Knowledge is power. Wallowing in self-pity is not. It’s a lesson she’s only learned recently, and only now does she realize just how much time she wasted in Helovia when she could have been learning. Other herds come knocking on her door asking for stories that she does not have to give. It’s exhausting somedays, chasing those stories, chasing knowledge that she should have already had. She’s new enough to Helovia that there is, at least, much she shouldn’t know. But she doesn’t know as much as she should.

Like the damn invasion of the Falls. She was there, and she spent most of it being pissed that her bath has been interrupted. So yes, she knows there was an invasion led by some from the Edge and she thinks the Basin, but she couldn’t tell you why or who or anything beyond that. And this, at least, she should know. She should know how her home began, but all she knows is it wasn’t always the Hidden Falls. But she knows no more than that.

She shouldn’t be wasting time at the sea, but sometimes, she just needs a break. She’s tired and achy and cold and miserable all the damn time and she’s tired of smiling at strangers. But of course, she doesn’t get a break. Instead, something quite literally runs into her rump and she goes reeling away trying impossibly hard not to scream. “What the he…” but her words get cut off as she smashes into the glass wall that holds the ocean at bay and when she sees the child that had run into her. She may be a grouch, but he was a child, and she managed some small soft spot for children.

He’s already apologizing, and she just nods slightly, straighten herself out and getting off the damn glass wall. She needed to learn to deal with touch. Reeling away and nearly smashing a few bones to bits was not an acceptable way to handle anything, let alone an innocent accident. Crowds were becoming a constant in her life – how could she avoid touch forever? The thought sends shivers down her spine though, because it is one thing she is not sure she can learn to change.

“Syrena,” she offers after a long pause when the boy’s barrage of questions comes to a halt. It takes her a minute to process all the questions, and a minute not to just walk the hell away. But she thinks of the little filly who’d found her in the ocean and left a damn dent in her heart, and she softens a bit. Not that a smile crosses her face, or that her voice is anything but deadpan, but she simply looks a bit more approachable.

“The world as in Helovia, or the world outside its borders? There’s a very big world outside this one.” She begins, which is not a helpful answer at all. But she sticks with it anyway. “And where are you from, so I know what other Gods you seek to learn of? There are four in Helovia total. I can’t say how they got their powers, or even if they are bossed around.” Though she suspects he’s probably right, she wonders by what rules the Gods operate. They must have some, to maintain balance in the world or something. But in truth, she does not know. Could she ask the Earth God – would he answer such questions?

And when did she start to care?
"words"