A/N: This started as an observation of the noise wind makes around my window, which morphed into a rapunzel oneshot, which couldn't quite separate itself from the little mermaid, which is growing out of a oneshot and into a story all it's own. I'm finally pinning down some idea of where it's going and decided now would be a good time to put it up and see how it's received while I contemplate what happens next. If you like it please review!
They say you can hear the ocean in a conch shell. A small peach colored one dangles from my neck on an unremovable silver chain. Though I've strained my ear to listen, only hollow echoes reach my ear. But sometimes, when the gusty air whooshes around my window, it also makes a high whistling sound and I am reminded of the call of seagulls against the crashing waves.
Once in a while, when the air is still and silent, and the emptiness presses in too tightly, I sing. I sing the song of the ocean, and I remember. Nights of singing pass through my memory. Nights of begging to go with my sisters, but never being old enough. Nights of longing for just one glimpse of the world my sisters sang to. Nights of feeling trapped in singing for my father, while another song filled my soul.
The song of the ocean dies on my lips.
But the wind slowly returns. It never stays away for long. High up in this tower it seems the air has nothing better to do but swirl around my solitary window. When I look out, the breeze twirls in and out of my hair and I wonder if it mimics the pull of the ocean waves. Though I strain my eyes, I cannot see the ocean. And yet I have seen other towers. Before I came to be here, I saw towers within sight and sound and smell of the salty ocean waves. Towers with bright lights shining into the distance, even on the darkest night. Towers with the one thing I envy most, a staircase. Great winding staircases for climbing in and out. When she offered me a tower, in exchange for my pitiful gift of aonori seaweed, these were the towers I dreamed of. I knew not what I bargained for.
It is dark. The stars are not out tonight. I both need and dread these lightless nights. She comes.
"Aonori," she calls, mocking my gift with her name for me, "Aonori, let down your hair." For one solid moment I consider refusing. But my dwindling supply of food and freshwater leads me to wrap my long locks around the brace and throw the braid she taught me to weave out the window.
It is only when she visits that the guilt floods my heart. In solitude I can fancy myself the victim. The pitiful recipient of cruelty caught in a grand and evil scheme of which I am unaware. But when she comes and I converse with the dreaded witch queen of the seven seas as though we were friends I shudder with remorse. It is our lack of options in companionship, I try to console myself. But in bitterness I remember it is she who locked me in my solitude. As I listen to her prattle on of the weeds in her ocean herb-bed I cannot help but wonder why she bothered imprisoning me at all. Soon my mind is contorted with confusion from too many contradictions I cannot sort out, and I breathe a sigh of relief when at last she climbs down my braid, leaving me in solitude once again. In the quiet I find consistency.
There are trees below my window. Thick trees blocking the ground from sight. On really windy days they sway in the breeze. The leafy tops dip and push against each other, while never breaking their leafy barrier to the ground. I watch from above and wonder if this is how the ocean looks to those who have never swam in it. I have never walked in the forest. The forest is closer than the ocean now, yet still haunts me in its mystery. I feel the song stir that has ever been in my heart, but still I cannot find it. I sing another ocean song, but this time I form it to my will. Though I carry an ocean tune, I sing of the trees below my window. But rather than soar as I hoped it would, the place in my heart feels tighter than ever. Somehow I know there are forest songs, and this is far from one of them. Bitter tears flow down my cheeks and for two days I stubbornly refuse to sing at all.
Eager for more? Ideas on where it's going? Thoughts on how well the two fairy tales are melding together? Let me know!!