The Sinking Ship

Every day, a new sun rose above Paradise, slowly but surely embracing the sea, the land, and all living creatures that took shelter in either one of those two.

Life pulsed throughout Paradise just like blood is pumped through a mortal’s heart, Night followers got replaced with the followers of the day, both relying on each other to complete the many tasks that needed to be done to ensure the cycle of life continued without fault, and still got their much-needed restoration period as they took turns hibernating.

Being a nymph meant being a part of the ever-unfolding secrets that the universe kept to itself, much like hormones were the magic that organized a mortal’s body, nymphs were the magic that organized the elements of the mortal world. Amalthea, however, was a different story.

Her extraordinary life force meant that she rarely needed restoration, a few days a month were more than enough for the heiress, she was committed to her role with every particle of her being, which made her less playful compared to the other nymphs, but she had many more tricks up her sleeve than all of them combined.

She never sought an explanation for her uniqueness, she was content being who she was and there were always much more important issues for her to be occupied with, the heiress did have what most would refer to as an endless amount of time, but this did not mean that she had enough time to do everything she desired to accomplish, with that much potential, there was always room for taking more responsibility.

If it were not for the queen’s constant balancing, Amalthea’s schedule would have been even more cramped than how it already was, the heiress would not have minded carrying the world on her shoulders, it was not that difficult if she really put her mind to it.

With the first colors painting the sky by the talented brush of the morning, gazing way beyond what mortals could see, Amalthea stood alone over the familiar aging sand. It liked telling the heiress stories about the good old days whenever it found an opportunity to do so, from the bottom of its deeply buried heart, the sand was boiling with concern for the nymph’s well-being overall, but seeing that she was especially absent minded and lacking with comments to his ongoing story today, it noted that she was acting completely out of nature, and it simply could not let it be even if it meant it should swallow the island whole to rid the heiress of her overweighing responsibilities.

“It is not like that, it is just that something is calling for me, a song that I do not believe I have ever heard before.”

‘That was it’ the sand thought grievously, the great Amalthea had finally pushed herself too much, and Paradise’s balance was at risk of falling into the hands of those immature others who loved to pull horrific pranks such as changing the sand’s color into a rainbow!

“Meli apologized for that more than once already, will you ever let it go, old fellow?”

The sand was not holding a grudge or being vindictive, it was simply looking out for the heiress’s best interest.

“My followers will look out for you and the rest of this island’s habitats in case I go absent, you will always remain in good hands, old fellow. I will take a look from the heavens since you have the ground already covered for me.”

Anna arrived next to Amalthea to take over the scouting mission, surely the heiress had more urgent business to attend to.

“Amalthea, leave this to me, I will comb the entire perimeter and come to you with news that will assure your heart.”

“It would have been fine any other time, Anna, but something has gone wrong somewhere near us, stay put until I come back to you and alert the others to stand by on high alert.”

Amalthea felt the excitement of the early winter’s wind as it cascaded longingly in layers around the heiress’s spirit form, as she started ascending the air, she felt a well-hidden objection reaching her, the source of the disapproval to what she was about to do was coming from the sea, and just like that, she finally understood what was going on.

Whenever her senses gave her an unusual reading of her surroundings, it was never the question of what, and always the question of who. She stopped ascending in her magnificent spirit form that looked like she was dressed in lightning, she gave her full attention to the ill-tempered sea.

“What have you done now?”

Her voice was the thunder over the disobedient sea, the waves whimpered as they strived to sink down to the bottom, they did not wish to be on the surface and on the receiving end of her evident fury, no nature component of habitat on Paradise, especially not those who consisted of elements, wished to have a fall off with the nymphs, let alone their queen or their heiress, it historically proved to be extremely harmful to everyone involved in the dispute.

“What is it that you hide from me?”

Amalthea thundered again, with her patience wearing thin, before the sea even had the chance to confess its misdeeds, it came to her, the faint disturbance in the laws of nature when a mortal life is on the verge of crossing over to the spirit world, there was not only one life, there were three.

“Talk to me!”

The sea believed that it has crossed the point of no return already, so instead of answering the heiress, it began to speed up its attempt to swallow the humans who had fallen off their ship whole.

“Not under my nose, you will not.”

The sea understood the responsibility nymphs had to protect all kinds and shapes of life-force, but the nymphs do not own the answers to everything, the sea had justified reasons for being stubborn, this was not a normal ship, something about it was concerningly wrong that it would be better to swallow it into oblivion than face unassertive consequences.

Before the sea gave her further explanation to his solo performance, Amalthea leaped further up in the sky until she saw it, not the fisherman's boat that was carried by mistake near Paradise and lost its way as she had briefly imagined it to be, but a great ship that was burning brilliantly, the crew was running around and shouting, four of them already had thrown themselves into the dark waters, their survival hanging on to the kindness of the unkind sea.