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Of Oysters, Pearls and Magic - Part II: Mirra.
I woke one morning as I would every morning to join the women. I fetched my black skin and the breathing apparatus, padding bare-foot to the edge of the sea where the rest of the women stood, doing their stretching exercises to get their blood circulation going. Their arms curved, dipped and bent as the sun rose. This scene remains one of the enduring memories inside me.
The older and more experienced women dove in first, followed by the younger and learning women, including me. The water was warm against my exposed skin and I placed the breathing apparatus in my mouth. Having done so, I joined my sisters, the daughters of the sea, gliding down into the colder layers, to the oyster beds.
The sea is Her own world, a world filled with shades and veils of light, flows and currents. She has Her own moods too, lightening and darkening – the trick is to know them. After generations of diving, the women have understood her and now swim with a healthy respect for Her. This lesson is taught to all the daughters; it is as vital as the letters we learn in the teaching hut, if not the most important, like breathing. I breathed in and out, bubbles filtering through the apparatus, trailing behind me like some shimmering tail. I swam with shoals of tiny finger-fish flashing their scales in the underwater light. Light refracts in the sea.
I spied the oysters. Clusters of mature ones. My hands were gloved, my right holding a small knife gifted to me by my mother after I had completed my first dive, my left the basket. Whispering silent thanks, I dislodged the oysters gently, taking care not to hold onto the razor edges too tightly. I hefted one, testing its weight: it was heavy, meaning good fat flesh. I looked around me, seeing the slender forms of other women hard at work. Like porpoises, a song praised the grace of the women. Like porpoises swimming in unison, crescent moons dancing together.
Once my basket was filled, I headed back to the surface, kicking hard, letting the momentum propel me upwards. I emerged, inhaling deeply the briny air. A commotion on the shore drew my attention. There was a crowd, mainly of young girls and of men; they surrounded a woman, pointing their fingers and yelling at her. One of the more vehement yellers was my Second Father.
As I treaded water, moving closer to the shore, I could see that the woman was not that old, somewhat youngish in appearance. She wore a long brown robe and her hair was the black of night. She had pearls circling her brow and they gleamed like a crown or a diadem. She ignored the yelling and glanced at me with a small smile, before turning away, followed by the crowd.
I was intrigued by this woman and became preoccupied with questions regarding her appearance. Why were people hostile to her? Who was she?
As the women removed the shells and picked the malformed pearls (because even for edible oysters, they produce pearls), I worked out enough courage to ask my grandmother.
“Who was the woman on the shore?” I asked, my fingers working automatically, sorting the pearls in terms of their sizes. I sometimes collected the ones that called out to me.
Grandmother simply looked at me and answered, “The sea-witch.” Her voice bore a tone of finality, her expression a look of no-more-questions-asked.
I grew perturbed. Why was Second Father so rude to her? Second Father was not my birth father, but he married my mother and was considered family. He was also a strong proponent of men’s magic and used his light proudly, sometimes arrogantly. At the night circles, he demonstrated it with extravagant and elaborate disks, dwarfing First Father’s and the rest of the men folk. He owned a silver fish and carried himself like a merchant from the City. He took an active dislike of me and I shared similar sentiments. Only the love of my mother prevented me from doing anything. We are daughters of the sea, part of an ancient lineage. Even then we show courtesy to visitors and extend our hospitality, especially to the storytellers and the rag-and-bone men who drop by to trade stories and goods for warm comfortable lodgings and food.
As the day eased into early afternoon, the stately air-blimps arrived to transport the baskets of oysters to the City. The women pulled them with practiced ease to the open carriages and made sure there was no spillage from the containers. I watched the silver fish slowly ascend into the skies, humming as their propellers rotated rapidly. I caught a glimpse of light, interlinked and criss-crossed like an intricate web, winking tantalizingly from one silver fish as it passed overhead. Magic. It whispered in my blood, awakening my senses to fire.
I dreamed of the sea-witch that night and she danced with the waves, green on green, her pearls gleaming in the sun, singing oddly familiar words Mirra-Mirra-Mirra.
My name.
~*~
I am the daughter of oyster-divers and pearl-gatherers. I know the moods of the sea like I know my own. She can be kind one day and angry-raging the other. We get storms now and then, seasonal monsoons and the occasional typhoon. For seasons like these, we stay indoors, listening to the howling wind and the rain pummeling against the outer walls of our huts. Outside we know the sea is storm-tossed and the women occupy themselves with netting and assorted distractions: we too are storm-tossed inside, disliking being stuck in enclosed living quarters and longing for the sea.
There is a song in my mind. A snippet, actually, from my dreams. Mirra-Mirra-Mirra. It stirs within me like the sea kelp fronds lit with sun. I wonder what it means.
Part I: Daughter Of The Sea.
The older and more experienced women dove in first, followed by the younger and learning women, including me. The water was warm against my exposed skin and I placed the breathing apparatus in my mouth. Having done so, I joined my sisters, the daughters of the sea, gliding down into the colder layers, to the oyster beds.
The sea is Her own world, a world filled with shades and veils of light, flows and currents. She has Her own moods too, lightening and darkening – the trick is to know them. After generations of diving, the women have understood her and now swim with a healthy respect for Her. This lesson is taught to all the daughters; it is as vital as the letters we learn in the teaching hut, if not the most important, like breathing. I breathed in and out, bubbles filtering through the apparatus, trailing behind me like some shimmering tail. I swam with shoals of tiny finger-fish flashing their scales in the underwater light. Light refracts in the sea.
I spied the oysters. Clusters of mature ones. My hands were gloved, my right holding a small knife gifted to me by my mother after I had completed my first dive, my left the basket. Whispering silent thanks, I dislodged the oysters gently, taking care not to hold onto the razor edges too tightly. I hefted one, testing its weight: it was heavy, meaning good fat flesh. I looked around me, seeing the slender forms of other women hard at work. Like porpoises, a song praised the grace of the women. Like porpoises swimming in unison, crescent moons dancing together.
Once my basket was filled, I headed back to the surface, kicking hard, letting the momentum propel me upwards. I emerged, inhaling deeply the briny air. A commotion on the shore drew my attention. There was a crowd, mainly of young girls and of men; they surrounded a woman, pointing their fingers and yelling at her. One of the more vehement yellers was my Second Father.
As I treaded water, moving closer to the shore, I could see that the woman was not that old, somewhat youngish in appearance. She wore a long brown robe and her hair was the black of night. She had pearls circling her brow and they gleamed like a crown or a diadem. She ignored the yelling and glanced at me with a small smile, before turning away, followed by the crowd.
I was intrigued by this woman and became preoccupied with questions regarding her appearance. Why were people hostile to her? Who was she?
As the women removed the shells and picked the malformed pearls (because even for edible oysters, they produce pearls), I worked out enough courage to ask my grandmother.
“Who was the woman on the shore?” I asked, my fingers working automatically, sorting the pearls in terms of their sizes. I sometimes collected the ones that called out to me.
Grandmother simply looked at me and answered, “The sea-witch.” Her voice bore a tone of finality, her expression a look of no-more-questions-asked.
I grew perturbed. Why was Second Father so rude to her? Second Father was not my birth father, but he married my mother and was considered family. He was also a strong proponent of men’s magic and used his light proudly, sometimes arrogantly. At the night circles, he demonstrated it with extravagant and elaborate disks, dwarfing First Father’s and the rest of the men folk. He owned a silver fish and carried himself like a merchant from the City. He took an active dislike of me and I shared similar sentiments. Only the love of my mother prevented me from doing anything. We are daughters of the sea, part of an ancient lineage. Even then we show courtesy to visitors and extend our hospitality, especially to the storytellers and the rag-and-bone men who drop by to trade stories and goods for warm comfortable lodgings and food.
As the day eased into early afternoon, the stately air-blimps arrived to transport the baskets of oysters to the City. The women pulled them with practiced ease to the open carriages and made sure there was no spillage from the containers. I watched the silver fish slowly ascend into the skies, humming as their propellers rotated rapidly. I caught a glimpse of light, interlinked and criss-crossed like an intricate web, winking tantalizingly from one silver fish as it passed overhead. Magic. It whispered in my blood, awakening my senses to fire.
I dreamed of the sea-witch that night and she danced with the waves, green on green, her pearls gleaming in the sun, singing oddly familiar words Mirra-Mirra-Mirra.
My name.
~*~
I am the daughter of oyster-divers and pearl-gatherers. I know the moods of the sea like I know my own. She can be kind one day and angry-raging the other. We get storms now and then, seasonal monsoons and the occasional typhoon. For seasons like these, we stay indoors, listening to the howling wind and the rain pummeling against the outer walls of our huts. Outside we know the sea is storm-tossed and the women occupy themselves with netting and assorted distractions: we too are storm-tossed inside, disliking being stuck in enclosed living quarters and longing for the sea.
There is a song in my mind. A snippet, actually, from my dreams. Mirra-Mirra-Mirra. It stirs within me like the sea kelp fronds lit with sun. I wonder what it means.
Part I: Daughter Of The Sea.
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no subject
Personally, I can think of quite a few directions this could go in. I eagerly await more information to see if any of my hunches are correct.
no subject
Thank you for your comments. They have been great encouragement for me. ;)
no subject
Sirona does explain things simply because she is trying to leave a record for the future and must assume that certain things which are a given in her civilization might not be understood by another civilization.
Think about how valuable the diaries of SamuelPeys is to us because he wrote about the mundane little aspects of everyday post-Elizibethan life. In some ways it is boring as all get out, but it contains so much information that has been lost through the centuries.
You are so welcome. I am learning from my own writings that actual content in commentary is far more valuable than a "Wow! Good job!" I'm trying to let you know what works, because I also need to know what works for my stories.
no subject
I agree that record-keeping is vital. It's what makes history an information trove. I think what I am doing is that the information in Mirra's world is explained slowly and gradually.
"Wow! Good job!" is okay. But sometimes, I would like more critique? ;) And *nudge* Genesis Wars? I want to know more.
no subject
In a way the 2 1/2 months of illness helped us to give the plot more depth and less 'off the cuff' format.
(Good omen going right now - filk.com is playing Heather Alexander's "March of Cambredth"! Swoon!)
E-mail me at crippledkat (at) msn (dot) com (you know where the symbols go) and I can send you an attachment in a Word-friendly format.