Hello all! Please enjoy my story and review. Story and characters are all mine, though they are inspired by the stories mentioned above.

Introduction

There was once, long ago, a time when the sky held no color. In the day as the sun trekked across the heavens the sky would turn from black, to gray, to black again as the moon rose. There was color on the earth of course; the leaves were green, the soil was dark, and the water was blue. Mysterious, impenetrable blue.

The people of the land led prosperous and full lives. The forests were full of game and their fields were always covered in greens and reds and yellows. Yet, being people, they were curious of what lay beyond their village. Several families decided to explore past the reaches of the village, so they packed up everything they could carry and set out into the world. They traveled to the West until they discovered a rather unexpected obstacle blocking their journey. A large, wet obstacle.

In their old village there had been lakes and rivers nearby so they were of course familiar with bodies of water, but none of them had ever encountered an ocean before. It was daunting to behold, and believing it to be a body of fresh water they decided to remain by the sea. One can imagine their surprise when they discovered this water was different and not at all pleasant to drink. Part of the group decided to continue along the shore in search of a way around the ocean since they saw no use for the water, but the other half decided to stay. For them the sea seemed like something wonderful, and they were quite curious to discover what secrets it held. They located several rivers that flowed into the sea, and so, had enough fresh water to thrive. The people were happy and they believed they had found the perfect place to live. There was much celebrating in the first days and much building to be done as the adults worked and the children played along the shore away from the village where the cliffs dropped down into beaches. It was during these first weeks of settling that they discovered that they were not the only people who lived by the shore.

A young girl of this other tribe liked very much to approach the growing village nearby her own home to watch the other children play. They skipped about from slick lichen-covered rock to rock, splashed in the shallows, chased each other along the soft-sanded beach; it all looked like great fun.

For several afternoons she watched them, trying to build up the courage to join them. Finally, one afternoon, she approached a girl who had been jumping from rock to rock out into the sea, hair as dark as the deepest chasms sailing in the ocean breeze. The little girl was flying from rock to rock with such joy that she didn't even notice our curious friend until she was practically on top of her.

When the little girl first saw her, she shrieked, more out of surprise than fright. She had never heard of people being in the big water thing before. The girl in the water darted away at the startling sound but the girl on the rock called out for her to come back, for she had not meant to frighten her. Slowly, the girl in the water returned, and the girl on the rock started talking right away, both excited at her discovery and desperate to keep the strange girl from swimming away.

At first, the girl in the water remained hesitant, but slowly, as her deep maroon eyes glistened with amusement at the rambling, excitable voice of the land girl, she became very comfortable. When the land girl had chattered up a storm, and finally decided to breathe again, the sea girl couldn't help but laugh. The land girl soon joined her and they laughed til their sides ached and their heads buzzed with mirth. Once they'd regained some measure of breath and composure, they looked back at each other's faces...and burst into laughter all over again. Between the red-faced gasping and eventually intelligible conversation, the two children found themselves in the company of a new and wonderful friend.

They talked and talked and the girl in the sea finally asked her new friend if she would like to play with her in the water, since her mother had told her never to go on land. The girl on the rock said yes right away, eager to explore the new world before her which her friend had woven into a wonderland of life and color hidden just beneath the waves. It was at that moment, as the girls joined hands and moved towards the water that the land girl's mother came to get her off the rocks and back home for supper.

When she saw her daughter in the hands of a strange looking girl with pale skin and red eyes, she screamed. Both children wheeled towards the noise. This sudden movement made the little girl twist and fall from of the slippery rock and into the ocean. To her mother it looked like she'd been pulled in.

As things would turn out, the little girl hit her head on the rock as she fell and when her friend saw the blood she didn't know what else to do besides bring her to her own mother to get help. So down she took her friend, all the way to her own home. As you can probably guess, neither child knew that the land girl could not hold her breath for such a long time. The people of the sea were quite surprised and saddened to discover their neighbors on land this way and were even more grieved when, while trying to return the body of the young girl, several of them were attacked by the land people. For the people of the sea, their barbaric, violent neighbors were not worth their time; while the people of the land stoked a loathing amongst them for those of the sea. It did not take long for the events of that fateful day to be woven into a terrifying tale of vicious beasts who stole away children into the ocean with eyes painted in blood.

This was the beginning of the hate and fear for one another that would remain for many, many generations. Those on land were taught to loathe the people of the sea and vice versa. Slowly, the curiosity that had brought the two peoples into contact in the first place was trained out of them until nothing but animosity remained. Well, except for in the hearts of a delicate few.