Cedar Sanderson is doing N'inktober, so I'm going to follow along and do what I've been trained to do by the Raconteur Press Postcard books: come up with a story to match her visual prompts. I can't guarantee that I'll have a complete story for every image, but I'm going to at least try to come up with a scene, a start, or an idea!
Shell Poisonous
When Amaranth was little, Kell would sing to her every evening. Not always the same song, of course; but something. As her daughter learned the pleasure of song, they would lift their voices together and let them echo through the ocean. When Amaranth was older, though, she no longer wanted to sing with her mother. She still sang, of course – what mermaid could not? – but she insisted on doing so alone. And so Amaranth claimed the fading of the day as her own.
Then came the year when Amaranth reached the fullness of her growth. The time for her to leave and strike out on her own. There were tears, of course, from both of them. For Kell, the sadness of her daughter’s departure was leavened with fierce pride. Few of her kind bore children at all, and many of them did not live to see adulthood. The sea was life, but it was also death. Their claws and teeth might be sharp, but they were no match for some of the things that lurked below the waves, or above.
Warnings were given; cautions were raised; and then, promises made, Amaranth had darted off into the warm waters to find her own way, over on the other side of the island.
Even then, Kell could still hear her daughter sing. At the turning of the day, she would stop and float, listening. From miles away, she would hear her daughter’s voice, rippling through the water, singing the sun to rest. Once or twice, she even stopped by to visit.
When the sounds of rough wood piercing the waves had come to her earlier in the week, her first impulse had been to go to her daughter. To protect her. To guard her and guide her once again. She had gone as far as a quarter of the way around the island when she heard her daughter’s song. Quieter, thicker; a song sung from the hidden deeps.
She’d turned back, then. Proud once more, this time at her daughter’s caution. Amaranth had learned well.
Then, in the early morning light, she heard the screams.
She swam as she never had before. After five minutes, her gills were raw. After ten, her arms and tail were aching.
After fifteen, she plunged though the cloud of blood slowly expanding in the still water.
She followed the trail of it up from the deep. Up into the shadow of the creaking hull of the ship. Up to the surface, where she broke through the waves in time to see the hairy, long-limbed ship monsters hoot and holler as they hauled Amaranth’s limp form over the rail and out of sight.
Even as they did so, one of the creatures spotted her. It hooted and danced, calling the attention of the others. Within moments, a heavy hook was slung off the side. Something bright glinted in the sunlight as it arced through the air toward her. Kell dove, reaching for the safety of the deep as the the hook and line plunged into the water near her.
She had been afraid it would hit her, or that it would follow her down. Instead, it bobbed there on the surface, shining gold in the morning light just below the surface. She swam up to it cautiously, wondering, and knowing.
A fine golden crown sat within a toothed cage, tied with the lightest thread. It looked as if would be nothing for her to reach in and snatch the crown from the mechanism. Not that she would. She was curious, yes; but decades of experience made her cautious. She could see how the cage might close, trapping a limb within.
She knew Amaranth shared her curiosity, but lacked her experience. Her daughter would not have taken the time to examine the trap thoroughly.
Kell swam around the ship, searching. Hoping. That they would tire of her. That they would send her back. That it was all a mistake, that it was a misunderstanding, surely…
She swam until the sun sank to touch the horizon. They she held herself still, waiting.
She hung there in the water, straining to hear, until the sun died, leaving behind the blackest night. She stayed there, motionless, barely thinking, letting the waves batter her to and fro like a dead thing throughout the night.
When the sun rose again, Kell was already near the edge of the island. She hummed Amaranth’s favorite song as she skimmed slowly above the sea floor. Tiny fish darted around her as she went, bright flashes of color, lit by the rising sun. They circled her like a halo, feeding off the debris her passage lifted from the tropical sands as she searched.
She spotted the shell hidden behind a piece of kelp easily enough. Picking it up was tricky. Tired as she was, she moved with extra care. The venom would not kill her, but it would make her sick. Even so, when she picked up the shell, the cone snail’s proboscis thrust forward, waving and seeking.
She murmured an apology to the snail as she grasped the proboscis at its base, keeping it from withdrawing. As soon as she did so, the snail’s tooth thrust out, barbed tip seeking prey.
She held it there, quivering, as she swam to the ship. The hook was still in the water. She reached up and grasped the line, pulling herself up and partially out of the water. She wound herself about the line and sat on the top of the cage, snail still in one hand.
Up on the ship, something stirred. Pointed. Called. Others of its kind crowded the rail, hollering and waving. A voice boomed, and the crowd of monsters started hauling on the line, pulling her to the ship.
She began to sing. Her voice was different, here in the thin air. As she sang, she slipped her fingers into the shell and squeezed the snail within. Drops of thick, milky venom welled up from the snail’s tooth. She dabbed a drop on the tip of each of her fingers, making sure that each claw was dripping with the venom.
A huge brute covered in black, bristly hair and knobby skin pushed through the crowd of ship-things to stare at her. It turned and yelled, and the crowd of monsters quieted, all of them staring down at her in silence as they worked the rope, hauling her up.
She smiled up at them and stopped singing for a moment. Just long enough to put the last drops of venom on each of her fangs as they hauled her over the edge.
Then, in the early morning light, she heard their screams.
Now, this is a spooky season story! And one that would fit in a certain anthology...