Selene the Stranded

Here is a picture I made recently.

Selene was traveling via ship with her brother, a wise sailor along with a crew of other weary travelers. Everyone on the ship had heads full of dreams about the new lives they would lead when they got to their destination.

Selene was leaning against the ship, looking out to sea when a sea monster rose it's scaly head above the water. Selene was filled with utter shock and wonderment at the sight of the elegant monster. She leaned closer and reached toward the creature. Just as she was about to touch her finger tip to the top of his head, the monster slithered back into the sea. At the other side of the ship, a huge wave pelted against the wooden hull. The ship swayed and tilted and Selene lurched forward and plummeted down into the sea. She cried for help, but no one heard her. The sky above erupted in rain, the sea crashed over Selene and tugged at her as she waved her hands frantically. The sea carried her far, far away and eventually she found herself on a small rock island.

Selene spent days on the island. She was an optimistic person. She thought that surely someone would find her. But after several days of no signs of humanity, she could feel the thirst and hunger eat away at her optimism. Just at the moment that her despair was at it's greatest, a cormorant swooped from the sky and landed next to her. She kept crying, but as she cried, she began to transform. Her legs fused together and grew scales and fins. Her lungs reinvented themselves within her body. She didn't know it yet, but she was going to be okay. She would survive. She would realize what she had become, a mermaid, and she would dive into the sea.

She would spend the rest of her life as a mermaid. She wanted to transform back into a human. But she couldn't. She didn't know how she had transformed in the first place. She missed her brother. She missed the life she would have probably had as a human. But her life as a mermaid was beautiful in ways her life as a human never could have been. She experienced wonderment on a daily basis. She new the true meaning of adventure and discovery. In some ways she was so grateful for her transformation, because the transformation had guaranteed her life, even if it wasn't the life she always wanted. She wanted a husband a child. As a mermaid, she had never even met another mermaid. She wanted to read books, to climb trees, to go into homes of new friends. Instead she sang songs to the fish and sometimes when feeling brave, talked to the sailors on their ships.

She had no way to know she had become legend on land. The mermaid girl, friend to all sailor. She never lingered long with these sailors, in fear she would be captured and exploited.

Way back on land, her brother grew old, always with the guilt that he had lost his sister at sea. He could never go back to sea after that trip. He moved to the desert.

One day, when Selene's brother was an old man, he ran into a sailor friend traveling through his desert hometown. "I saw your sister." He said. "She is a mermaid!"

Selene's brother laughed, but every night after that for the rest of his life, he had dreams of his sister splashing through the sea with her long, shimmering tail fluttering behind her.