#Songs of the Sea

[krastbannert]

FFF #256 - color of the deep

Huh, this is a record for me, I think. It's only been two weeks since I did one of these.

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Prompt was Muted Colors, posted on AO3 as "color of the deep."

Is this the best thing I've ever written? Absolutely not. Was it fun? Yes, actually, it was, and I finally got to briefly describe what mermaids in this universe look like, so that was fun.

------

“The true beauty of the sea is only seen from beneath the waves.” - Kasoni proverb

------

The first thing he notices are the colors.

Everything is distorted, muted, grayed out, like a film was placed over a lens.

It’s strange, he thinks. It’s a different world down here. It’s at once totally alien, completely against everything he has ever known, and yet…something feels so familiar. Not like home, but something so incredibly close that he can’t put a name to it.

He glances around, blinking against the water; the feeling of breathing in water, even knowing that whatever spell that Ilaera and Aris had conjured was working, was so alien, but it offered so much.

He’d never seen her home. Not really. Hakim had only seen photographs, and even then, only once. Rya almost couldn’t believe him when he told her that - she’d just stared across the poker table, her cards folded in her hands, mouth practically on the floor.

“Really, geezer? Of all the places you’ve been, you haven’t been down there?”

He’d just shrugged. He grew up in the desert, and not exactly near the coast, either - she’d seen his home, seen the desert and the stark beauty that lay hidden within.

“What’s it like?” he asks.

Rya had just paused for a moment, and closed her eyes, as if she was somewhere else, sometime else, almost.

“I’ll show you.”

(He can remember when he’d told her the same thing, what feels like a lifetime ago.)

It takes months, but finally, somehow, they end up in Kasoni, and she takes him to the reef she’d grown up on - it’s the exact opposite of the desert he’d born to.

Everywhere he looks, there’s life. He floats along with the current, barely kicking his feet, gazing on as fish dart in and out of the coral, a spectacle of shimmering, muted color that he’s never imagined in his wildest dreams. He can glance up above him, at the surface of the water, and even in the day it sparkles like starlight.

But what he can’t stop looking at is the colors.

They’re everywhere he looks.

Red and green and orange and blue and purple and yellow and a thousand other colors he can’t even begin to name, but all somehow dark and distorted. 

And yet, somehow, it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

So many colors flash before his eyes as he clumsily kicks his feet, hovering over the coral, that he can’t help but stare, no matter what he tries.

They flash in front of his eyes, on the fish and coral and even in the water itself, somehow, and he barely even knows where to look.

A tiny orange and white clownfish pokes out of an anemone, stares at him for a brief moment, then darts back into the waving tentacles. A moray, mottled green and yellow, stares at him, lazily watching out of its little corner. A spotted grouper - a massive fish, almost as big as him, he thinks - darts faster than he could have imagined after an octopus that changes color even as he watches.

(Hakim can scarcely believe it.

All his life, he’d remembered color in the clothes and the glass of his village.

But here, deep beneath the waves in the reefs of Kasoni, color is everywhere.)

(If he could stay here for a thousand years, he would.)

Even Rya, somewhere in the distance, shines with color, the scales of her tail a glimmering gold and turquoise beacon in the distance. (She was whispering to something massive - a shark, she’d said, that she’d known when they were both just pups. )

(He never pretended to understand her.)

Hakim barely pays attention to her, though, even when she swims back to his side, darting around him with an unbelievable grace. He just stares at the colors all around him, at the iridescent light that shines down from above the water, at the way it shines on the coral and the fish.

(They’re muted and indistinct, and he knows that some scientist would say it’s because of the water, because it blocks the light and the colors this far down.

He’d tell them to come down here, and see for themselves, just how little that mattered.)

“How do you like it?” Rya asks him later when they finally, finally come to the surface, her smile bearing her sharp canines, her gills fluttering in the air.

(Maybe it’s just the spell that let him stay underwater with Rya, but somehow, even her face, still striped gold and yellow and with tiny fins on the side and back of her neck, seems just a little more colorful.)

(He’d shown her the desert, and the beauty that lived in the harshest place on Iera.

She’d shown him the ocean, and the most colorful world he’d ever imagined.)

Hakim just smiles as he thinks of the world of color below them, at the grayed out, muted world that somehow had more life than anywhere else he’d seen in his life.

(It was enough, almost, to make him believe again.)

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

[manwalksintobar]

The Sea Is History // Derek Walcott

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that grey vault. The sea has locked them all. The sea is history.

First, there was the heaving oil of nothing, heavy as chaos, then, like a light at the end of a tunnel,

the lantern of a lonely caravel, and that was Genesis. Then there were the packed cries, the shit, the moaning;

Exodus. Bone soldered by coral to bone on the tilting sea-floor mantled by the benediction of the shark’s shadow,

that was The Ark of The Covenant. Then came through the plucked wires of sunlight on the sea-floor

the plangent harps of the Babylonian bondage as the cowries clustered white on the manacles of the drowned women,

and those were the ivory bracelets of The Song of Solomon, and the ocean kept turning its empty pages

because this was not history, then came the men with eyes heavy as anchors who sank without tombs

brigands who barbecued cattle, leaving their charred ribs like palmleaves on the shore, then the foaming, rabid maw

of the tidal wave swallowing Port Royal, and that was Jonah, and where is your Renaissance?

Sir, it is locked in the sea-sands out there past the reef’s moiling shelf, where the man-o-wars floated down;

strop on these goggles, I’ll guide you there myself, it’s all subtle and submarine, through colonnades of coral

past the gothic windows of sea-fans, to where the crusty grouper, onyx-eyed blinks, weighted by its jewels like a queen,

and these groyned ribs with barnacles pitted like stone, are the cathedrals,

and the furnace before the hurricanes and the bones ground by windmills into marl and corn-meal,

and that was Lamentations that was just Lamentations it was not history;

then came, like scum on the river’s drying lip the brown reeds of villages mantling and congealing into towns,

and at evening, the midges’ choirs and above them, the spires lancing the side of God

bleeding to sunset and that was The New Testament.

The came the white sister’s clapping like the waves’ progress, and that was Emancipation—

jubilation, O jubilation— vanishing swiftly as the sea’s lace dries in the sun,

but that was not history, that was only faith, and then each rock broke into its own nation,

then came the synod of flies, then came the secretarial heron, then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote,

fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis, like khaki police,

and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each page closely, and then in the dark ears of ferns

and in the salt chuckle of rocks with their sea-pools, there was the sound like a rumour without any echo

of history, really beginning.

(via The Paris Review)

[ranaraeuchle]

When I was a kid, my family used to help out at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival selling kites and tops at one of the artisan stands there. It was near one of the stages, and one of the musicians there sang the most incredible songs of the old world... sea shanties, sea songs, songs from long ago in Canada - of the Northwest Passage, of hunting and trapping, and of Fiddler's Green.

I have no idea what happened to the musician, but I still have every word of Fiddler's Green stored in my head.

I'm not sure how much of the song was authentic, how much was his own writing, or something that came from other tales of the sea, but it's still a magical place for me.

When I saw Stephen Fry in The Sandman, I can't even begin to explain just how much it meant to me. My heart feels full, and although the land there isn't exactly like what I remembered from the song, I could put the transformation scene to the music in my mind, and it fit perfectly.

All it needed was another ship.

Oh, Fiddler's Green is a land I hear tell, where the fishermen go when they don't go to hell.

Where you lie at your leisure, there's no work to do.

And the skipper's below makin' tea for the crew.

Wrap me up in me oilskin and jumper, and pour on the old southeast sea.

Just tell me old shipmates, I'm takin' a trip, mates, and I'll see ya someday in Fiddler's Green.

[silverfoxstole]

I think this is becoming my current favourite song. I just love the tune.

It’s in German, but there’s a translation here

[honourablejester]

Oh, I didn’t know that.

I was listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on youtube, and browsing the comments several people mentioned …

Okay. The song is about the real sinking of the freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975. And there’s a line in the song:

“In the Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral,

The Church Bell chimed till it rang twenty nine times,

For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”

Which references something that the actual Maritime Church in Detroit did in honour of the ship’s crew. And I just found out in those youtube comments for his song that when Gordon Lightfoot died in May last year (2023), the Maritime Church rang those bells again, this time 30 times. Once for every man on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and once more for Gordon Lightfoot.

That’s … That is a memorial I would be proud to have earned. And proud to give. I do like that. A lot.

Apparently, the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior also lit its beacon in honour of him.

Sorry. I’m having … extremely maritime sort of feelings over here. Songs and memorials, bells and beacons, and the ways we carry memory forward. That’s … that’s a good memorial. I like that.

[passionpeachy]

Song of the Sea - Reimagined Movie Poster (Reupload)

[everydaylouie]

just figured out how to do this lmaooo

[cosmicwhoreo]

Twisted Reflections Was planning on using Copacabana Lyrics instead, but I thought this looked powerful on it's own. BUT~

[celine-song]

Song of the Sea (2014) dir. Tomm Moore

[herbarimoon]

And all I ever do is soak through you

(Alex G - Soaker)

[vivienvalentino]

Come away oh human child, to the waters and the wild, with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

SONG OF THE SEA — 2014, dir. Tomm Moore

[krastbannert]

FFF #254 - edge of forever

Huh. It's only been...just about 44 weeks since I did one of these.

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Prompt was Horizon Line, posted on AO3 as "edge of forever".

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“It is beyond the sea, at the edge of the horizon, that we find our calling.” - Kasoni proverb

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“You look surprised.”

Corvin turns, glances behind him, shakes his head.

It’s only been a week since the storm began, but it feels as if it’s the first clear day in a year. The sun shines, sparkling off the waves, glittering like shards of glass thrown across the world, the sky bigger than any Corvin has seen, even in the six months he’s been on the Tethyria Blue. Clouds dot the sky, just small little wisps high up in the sky, and in the distance a few white cotton balls - but so much is just that big, blue sky, meeting the water all the way out at the horizon, at the edge of forever.

“I’m not used to seeing it,” he admits, turning back.” Not like this.”

Torauk grunts, settles next to him, his arms on the second rail - the dwarf is just barely able to see over the top rail, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Nothing ever did, Corvin thinks.

“I could see it every day, back home,” Corvin continues,” if I just looked outside. But it…it wasn’t even close to this.”

It’s true.

Back home in Ashcliffe, standing on top of the wall around Oldtown that towered on top of the cliffs that gave the city its name, it felt like he could see for forever. But there were islands and ships and off-shore oil and etherite platforms, and he could, on a clear day, just barely make out the other side of the straits.

But here? Hundreds of miles out to sea?

There’s nothing.

The great blue horizon just…keeps going. Forever, it seems. If he squints he can almost see the curve of Iera, far out in the distance, farther than he should be able to see. The iridescent water just…keeps going. Into forever, it seems - and farther beyond.

(He wonders, sometimes, what’s out there - he knows it’s a crazy thing to think. That the Tethyria Blue goes everywhere, that he’d see it all, as long as he stays on the ship.

But still, something just keeps eating at him.

What’s there, he keeps wondering?)

“Aye,” Torauk grumbles, twisting a finger in his beard.” It’s a pretty sight, lad.”

Corvin barely hears him, just keeps staring at the waves, the wind in his face.

(He remembers the first time Ilaera had taken him out here, that first day they were on the Tethyria Blue together.

He’d wanted to make fun of her when she suggested it.

But he’d listened - and now, he can’t stop coming out here.)

(He doesn’t understand it.

It’s just the ocean. Just water.

So what made him come out here every day?)

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Torauk speaks.

“I remember when I was your age, lad,” Torauk muses.” I was convinced I’d stay in my Freehold forever, working with my father and my brothers, just another hammer at the forge - but I had an itch. I’m six-hundred years old, and it’s still there, somewhere.”

Torauk turns, smiles up at him.” You got the itch, too, lad. That’s why you’re out here, each and every day.”

“I don’t get it,” Corvin frowns.

Torauk just shakes his head.” You will, lad, one day. Just don’t stop looking at that horizon.”

Don’t stop looking, he thinks to himself as Torauk pats him on the back, hobbles away.

He can do that.

[mercurymoths]

*cartoon saloon-ifys your linked universe*

More fun messing around with the chain in the cartoon saloon style!

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[taviamoth]

Amidst a large police presence, thousands of demonstrators in Malmö, Sweden emerged to protest the zionist entity's participation in the Eurovision contest.

The "israeli" performer was relentlessly booed by the crowd, a fact that will be concealed by the contest organizers on the screens with anti-booing technology. The crowd yelled "Free Palestine!" It is noteworthy that Palestine-associated clothing items and flags were banned from being displayed at the contest.

In Belgium, the TV broadcaster showing the contest interrupted the zionist broadcast to say: "This is a trade union action. We condemn the violations of human rights by the state of 'israel.' Furthermore, the state of 'israel' is destroying freedom of the press. That is why we interrupt the image for a moment."

The European Broadcasting Union has refused to ban the zionist entity from participating in the European contest, despite widespread boycott calls.

[icys-junkyard]

Remember when you could unleash other peoples music taste upon the world by unplugging their headphone jack

Ingo wanted to be a Sibling and lightly prank Emmet by revealing his tunes to the break room. Not only the depot agents, but Ingo himself are shocked at what they hear. Ingo's so shocked and amused he just keeps going off like "Sea shanties!! Why not listen to rail shanties? Track-laying work songs?? 1800s train folksongs!? The betrayal! A song about the sea of all things! You hate the sea! And boats! Emmet you're a train conductor, what happened!? Where is the railway-loving, train-engineering brother I grew up with???"

[someonetooksendnoodles]

i’m such a whore for jaw-dropping, heavily stylized, thematically laden, full of heart animation. will forever be impressed at the stories that are coming from non-disney studios having their moment to shine.