perzephone | Rip It to Shreds

I wrote this while at work. Please, critique it harshly, tear it to pieces and stomp on it. And feel free to let me know if you like any of it. My brain went weird places - it's not porn.

At the bottom of the cold northwestern Pacific, a goddess was restless. She was tired of lazing about on her briny throne, idly tipping fishing boats and tearing their trawling nets when they dragged over her. She would snag the nets in her long fingers and make the boats rock and sway even in still water. It had been a long time since the People had sent their intermediaries to visit her, bringing with them offerings of glittering beads and shells, combing her tangled hair or prying the barnacles from her scaly breasts. She no longer cared so much about the broken taboos or punishing their petty mortal transgressions. The ocean was becoming empty even without her keeping the sea creatures away and the People no longer depended on her as much to keep their pantries supplied. While she could still bring storms down on the coastal towns, drowning harbors and roads with her rage, the People no longer feared her. Indeed, she imagined most had forgotten about her completely. Without the canoes and dugouts full of sparkling trade goods to play with, or handsome young men proving their worth at diving to grab a few strands of hair or even steal a kiss, she had very little to do other than watch the moon and sun and keep the tides running in the right direction.

She stretched out and swam along the shore, her tail taking the form of that of a great whale's, then a shark's, even a sea otter's powerful rudder. Whales sailed by her, fish ringed her and darted in and out of her hair. She settled on the seafloor where the water was deep enough to shelter her from the sun's powerful light while still offering her a view of the needle-like rocks. This place was once considered sacred to her, a temple and shrine, and if the sea floor was disturbed, stone carvings of whales and ravens and seal-women would be revealed in great number. She detested the fat dumpling seals and did not understand why the People saw her as taking that form. Only once had she spent time as one of the grey blobs that laid on the rocks, barking and fighting and pouring their shapeless children in to her realm.

Here, near the spikes of the earth, the People had sent a man to her, not one of their own, but a man with golden eyes. She was a fickle goddess, and the younger men of the tribe had been fur-trapping, throwing their skinless kills into the sheltered bays of her favorite spot, and she had been so angry. The medicine makers could not soothe her with bright beads that time, no amount of preening and combing could appease her, not while rotting beavers and raccoons bobbed in the waves, hemmed in by rocks, and too many for the gulls and ravens to clean up quickly. She terrorized all the edible creatures away, up and down the coast for miles not a herring or jellyfish could be seen. The tides ran in all directions and the storms crushed any boat brave enough to dare open water. So they sent the golden-eyed man to her. They tied him up in a fragile bark-skin boat, filled with the finest furs and carvings they could gather after having to trade most of their wealth for berries and venison from the inland folk, spilled his blood from a dozen places and sent the coracle spinning out to sea.

It capsized as intended, and he had fallen into the water, drifting down to her in a rain of tiny carvings. She caught him, of course, loosing his bonds, breathing her breath into him, and one look into those wild terrified eyes had captured her completely. In the days following, as goddess and golden-eyed man sported in the hidden caves under the depths, the seas quieted, the creatures returned, and the People filled their nets. One morning, a pack of seals interrupted the goddess and her man in their love play. The matron seal dropped something from her mouth, something that resembled nothing so much as a seal skin, and when the golden-eyed man caught it, he had turned to the goddess and laughed at her. He put the skin on as if it were a coat and left her, wide-eyed and broken, all alone in the empty sea.

The place filled her with memories, but they were so long ago. Surely all the People were gone, and even seals did not live forever. She crushed shells and carvings into sparkling sand and imagined diving into the deepest parts of the ocean, where the strangest sea beings dwelled, just to be in the dark and fade from memory. Movement above her caught her attention, and she looked up to see the darting outlines of seals against the sun. One of the seals dove down to catch a fish and she caught the glittering reflection of golden eyes. The goddess smiled, a cold unlovely smile and the sun flashed on the seal's eyes once more. Here, at last, was something entertaining. Storm clouds began to scud across the sun above, and the clear ocean dulled to a flat silver when the goddess began to laugh.