The waters of the hidden lakes in the continent of Xugen had always been like black mirrors beneath the night sky, silent and untouchable. It was on one of those frigid nights during the Primordial Era, when legends still walked upon the land of Primitia, that I found her.
I was lost in the forest, the cold numbing my bones, when the melody reached me before I even saw a single glimmer of light. It was no ordinary song. It was a voice, sweet and profound as the echo of the tides, an ancestral whisper that invaded the chest and demanded the soul to listen. Mesmerized, I brushed aside the damp thicket and approached the shore.
In the center of the lake, seated upon a smooth rock that pierced the water's surface, was the figure.
Breathless, I stood paralyzed in the shadows. Her long, sapphire hair cascaded loosely down her back, the tips of the strands emitting a faint, bioluminescent glow that illuminated the dark waters with an ethereal light. Where legs should have been, a colossal tail extended, its iridescent scales seeming to reflect the very starry sky above us—a vibrant spectacle blending hues of white, pink, and an abyssal blue. Peeking through her luminous locks were two small white horns, pointed and delicate.
Her presence did not inspire the terror the world so often hid in its wastelands. On the contrary, she exuded a profoundly comforting stillness, seeming to calm the very tremors of my exhausted body like the murmur of a gentle breeze.
She gazed into the dark depths of the lake, and her voice rose once more. The song promised no victories; instead, it offered the right to pain and respite, carrying the weight of one who had already lost too much:
— O profound sea of waters deep,
Take in your foam the tears I weep.
The tides do not mourn for those who have flown,
But the currents remember the faces they've known.
Every word seemed to pierce straight through my soul. The melody was sad and serene, laden with a pure mourning that made my own eyes burn, as if the water were ready to wash away all the sorrows of the world.
She closed her eyes, embracing the night wind, and finished her mournful lament:
— Rest in the depths, my sweet, gentle light,
I hold your name in my heart through the night.
I fear not the abyss, nor the moon's pale glow,
For I carry the sea's strength wherever I go.
I realized, in that sacred instant, that I was not looking at a monster, nor a false miracle invented by clerics of some religion. I was witnessing the mourning of a true pillar of the world.
I dared not break that sacred silence, nor did I wish to interrupt the weeping of the creature of the tides. I retreated with the same silent lightness with which I had arrived, leaving her bathed beneath the moonlight and the stars, forever keeping in my chest the vision of the entity who found her strength in the solitude of the waters.