Tag: loch-loch whoostheer

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The Euphoric Chronicles: The Tale Of Tonii the Mermaid (contd.)

                                               

                                                          Onward

 

   We fast forward 18 years and we find that Tonii and her father have grown their business and now have four boats in their fishing fleet. Tonii has an education that is reserved more for those families that could afford to send their children to the best academies within Lollashire and those select few that have made the trip beyond the ‘shires and been able to travel abroad. Her father oversaw her education, teaching her all that he knew and by the time she was nine he knew that she needed more than what he was able to provide having exhausted his knowledge base the year before and was now learning as he taught her.

   He made an appeal to the council that oversaw such matters within the ‘shire and they agreed to have Tonii tested. None among the council believed that a girl coming from such a background would ever be able to pass such rigorous exams but her father was well respected among his peers and among those, some of whom were on the council, that purchased the fish that he caught. He was known to be honest and just with his customers, helpful to those in need, and it was evident that he had some kind of rudimentary education.

   Tonii’s father brought her before the council 12 days before her tenth year and walked with her to the massive wood and iron doors of the council’s chambers. He knew he would have to leave her but he also knew that she was more than ready. He grabbed the oversized iron forged rings and opened the heavy doors and as they swung outward he stepped to the side, leaving Tonii standing alone in the entrance. This is how it was done, a ritual of sorts. She had to stand in the entrance and then be called on to enter into the chamber. She stood looking into the depths of the chamber realizing that it had one continuous wall. There weren't any corners within. It was just a large circular room with a ceiling that seemed to go on to the heavens. She let her eyes drift upwards careful not to move her head. She didn't want to appear nervous or in awe of such a room. As her gaze shifted upward she realized that she couldn't actually see where the ceiling or roof ended. It was so high that there was just a dim point of light, a skylight of some sort perhaps, to give it an end. The members of the council were seated inside. A  man’s voice shrouded in ages of wisdom called out to her to enter into the chamber and to stand before them.

   The five members of the council all wore blood red robes with the crest of Lollashire emblazoned across the shapeless fronts of the robes and they were seated in a semi-circle with a lone chair known as the Intwistatien set out from them at a distance of about 10 feet. Tonii made her way into the chamber and stood in front of the chair, facing the council. She was asked her name and her age and what kind of schooling she had. She answered and then was instructed to sit in the chair for the questions that would determine whether or not she would gain admittance into one of the academies. She answered them correctly and as quickly as they were asked until the oldest member of the council, an old crone known as “Re” leaned her red robed body forward and focused her ancient yellowed eyes on Tonii and asked in a halting voice that was a cross between a screech and a whisper, “What is the true nature of the Loch?”

   Tonii was taken aback by the unexpected question. Up until this point all of the questions were based on numbers, letters, general knowledge of the known world, the history of the Islands, but this was something that she didn't know the answer to and as she sat there for what seemed an eternity but really was but a few seconds she wondered if this was one of the questions her father had warned might be asked. He called it a Kehraeic question, one which didn't have an answer. There was no right or wrong response other than not to respond at all and she thought that might be what she was going to have to do. She slowly drew in a breath as she looked slowly from one wizened face to another and then back to Re whom she saw had a bit of a thin crooked smile stretched across her age cracked face.

   She lowered her head just a bit. A test, everything is a test; her father had told her often enough and surely this was a test as well. Not the question but how she responded to the question that had no answer.

   She quickly flashed to a mental image that she had of the mother she never knew. It was made up from descriptions that she had elicited from her father over the years. She could see her, the mother that never held her in her arms, never sang her to sleep while rocking her gently, an image that was so clear she felt as if she was real. In the few brief seconds that had seemingly stretched to several lifetimes she had an answer for Re and the council.

   She brought her eyes level with theirs, sat up a little straighter and said in a clear, melodic voice, “The true nature of the Loch is something that cannot be seen or touched. It must be felt with your heart for the true nature of the Loch is what we are, what we have been, what we will be and what the Loch will be is because of what we do now.”

   The council gasped collectively and they all looked stunned except for Re. She sat there staring at Tonii, nodding her head and mouthed silently to her “Yes”

    Tonii had not only answered all their questions correctly but she also provided an answer to the last question, a question that had been asked of every potential student and to date there had only been a handful that had dared answer, the last being Seejay Keeves. She was however the first girl to ever put forth an answer to the council’s query.

   Her admittance was approved and she entered the Academie Valan vo’ Du. The head of the academy was Re. Re turned out to be much kinder than she looked in person and personally oversaw Tonii’s first year at the school. With Re overseeing her first year Tonii progressed quickly with her studies and by the start of her third year at the academy the council had to meet to decide on Re’s request to have Tonii advanced a couple of academic levels. There was little debate as the council knew that Tonii had more than proven herself in the short time she had been at the school and her advancement was readily approved.

    The school was just a few hours walk from the fishing village so Tonii was able to come home often to see and work with her father on his boat. He worried that she was spending too much time with him when she should be making friends and spending time with children her own age. It’s not that she was without friends for she had become quite popular at the academy despite being something of a curiosity with her background. She was with children who came from a life she couldn't possibly imagine but she thought to herself they could never imagine the wonderment and beauty of her life either.

   She missed her father and she knew that he missed her as he had no one else in his life. He always seemed to be working or in motion, a non-stop blur of energy. If he wasn't out on the water catching fish he was cleaning the ones he did catch to take to market, or mending the sails, or doing much needed repairs and upkeep to the Holt. The only time he ever slowed was when she came home from school to visit. He would make them something to eat and ask her questions about the things she was learning. He would sit and listen in awe, realizing that his little girl was growing up right before his eyes. He could swear he could see her change as she spoke. He knew that her course was set and was going to have a good life ahead of her.

   If he really knew what her future held he wouldn't have ever let her leave.

   To be continued…..

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The Euphoric Chronicles: The Tale Of Tonii the Mermaid

   Most fairy tales begin with “Once Upon a Time” but this is not your standard fairy tale. This is a story that has been born by pure chance, that rare occurrence when everything in the universe seems to be in some sort of cosmic harmony and then comes crashing to the ground with the speed of a meteor and years later when the stardust has settled the landscape has been forever changed.

   So our story begins not in a land far, far away but on an island in the Florida Keys only they weren’t the Florida Keys just yet. They were known by another name, the Lollashire Islands. The Lollashires were actually a chain of islands that stretched from what it is now the southernmost part of Florida to Cancun. The Gulf of Mexico was called Loch- Loch Whoostheer and was a veritable watery Garden of Eden. It was known worldwide to be one the three Majestics of Euphoria, natural wonders so grand they defied all possible descriptions although there had been many a bard and poetess that had tried. The magic that permeated all living things within the Lollashires and Loch-Loch Whoostheer was so strong that it voided the vocabulary of the people that tried to describe its beauty.

   The Lollashires were ruled in a just and fair fashion by Keeves. The Keeves were more protectors than true royals and the head of the family was more a high sheriff than a king. Over generations they had come to see it as their duty to ensure the safety and livelihoods of those that lived in the ‘shires. They were also the guardians of the Loch and all the creatures that inhabited the waters within the chain of the Lollashire Islands.

    At the time of this tale the head of the Keeves was Seejay Keeves. Seejay had been the protector and guardian for far longer than most people could remember. He was the older of two brothers and his younger brother was called Gregee. Where Seejay was kind and respected by all those in the ‘shires, Gregee was the complete opposite and was known to be vain and unnecessarily cruel. Where Seejay had skin that had been bronzed by the sun and stood tall among his fellow man, Gregee was hunched, his body twisted in ways that no mortal man could ever possibly endure and his skin had an unnatural translucence to it. It was whispered among many that if the sun was directly behind him you could see the inner workings of his body. People often wondered but never spoke aloud of how these two brothers could have ever been born within the same family. It was long rumored that Gregee was a changeling, switched for a human baby soon after birth by the Taverneer, a sea troll said to inhabit the waters outside the protection of the Lollashire Islands and who coveted the abundance of exotic sea-life within the Loch.

    Now in most romantic fairy tales there is a girl, a princess or some damsel in distress and we are not too far removed from that scenario with exception that the female in question was not a young girl, a princess, or a damsel in distress. She was the daughter of a simple fisherman of the Loch. She had grown up surrounded by the amazing, seemingly depthless crystal clear waters of Lollashire and to be sure it turned out that her first love was that of the water. To be in it, on it, or near it is what she lived for. It was said that she could swim before she crawled and could dive five meters beneath the clear waters before she could walk. When she turned ten years of age she started to go out upon the waters in her father’s boat, a fishing craft known as a Holt. The Holt was 32 feet long and 12 feet wide and boasted two sails that enabled it to make its way out onto the Loch and set its fishing nets out to catch its allotted share of fish.

    By the time she was 12 she could handle the Holt almost as well as her father, who had been working boats of its size since he was a boy of nine. His father had fished these waters as his father’s father had and so on for many generations. She was the only daughter of the fisherman and in fact was his only child. Her mother had died shortly after her birth and it had been left to her father to raise her on his own. He never sought to remarry such was the sadness at the loss of his wife but the joy and happiness of his daughter dulled the ever constant ache of lost love. He thought to name her after her mother but knew in his heart that it might be too much of a reminder of his loss. He went out in the Holt one night with his newborn daughter and sailed out onto the Loch. The wind was calm but there was enough of a breeze to fill the sails and the night sky was clear with a mass of stars staring down on him and his daughter. This is where he liked to come, out on the water, to think and contemplate what he perceived as life’s mysteries.          

    He came to a spot he knew by his heart, so much so there was no need for one of his tattered Loch charts. He dropped the sails and let them fall gently onto the worn deck. They fluttered down, falling and folding upon themselves as if they had a mind of their own. He looked down at his sleeping daughter, her breaths pushing through her slightly open mouth. He looked up and out onto what seemed like an endless expanse of water. It seemed to go on forever and although he was but a simple fisherman he was by no means simple in his thinking. He had a learned knowledge of his place in this world. He could read and write, add and subtract numbers. All useful things for someone who made his living on the water but they were by no means necessary. He knew plenty of his fellow tradesmen that could do neither but they knew the water, they knew how to fish and as far as they were concerned that was all they needed. He made himself available and taught those who wished to be taught and helped those who did not want to be bothered with such worldly concepts. It was because of his nature, his being of who he was, that he met the woman who would eventually become his wife and the mother to their daughter if but only for a few hours.

   He reached down and picked up his daughter and held her tightly in his arms. The gentle rocking motion of the boat providing something he hoped that he would be able to provide to her, comfort and peace. He looked up and was searching the patterns and shapes that the twinkling lights made. He knew the names of most of the shapes and there were some people who held those shapes responsible for their fate. He was not one of those people but he repeated the names silently to himself as his eyes swept the sky; Mantoo, Ashki, Farnk, Bolof, Eber, Crasstil, Jezeri, Bodipal, and there was one more but he could not yet see it. He lowered his gaze to the barely discernible horizon and started sweeping his eyes back and forth all while moving his head up. He was looking straight towards where the winds came during the cold time and he found the brightest spot in the sky. Now he started to look down and to the right, searching and there it was, right where it always had been and as far as he knew where it always would be. It sparkled brighter than the other points of light except for one other. It was one of two stars that were the eyes within the shape. Its twin was just to its left and it shone and sparked in the night sky just as brightly. This was Tonii, known to be to those who believed, the protector of the seas. It was at that moment he knew that this is what he would name his daughter. He pulled the blanket down from her small pink face and whispered to her “Tonii, I will protect you and and honor the memory of your mother for it is because of my love for you and your mother that I live”

   The baby girl opened her eyes, a startling iridescent blue, and looked up at her father and cooed softly. She closed her eyes, once, twice, and then was asleep once more. Her father laid her down in the bunchu, a type of bassinet, and covered her with another blanket. Once he was sure she was secure in her sleep he raised his sails and started to work the Holt back to the village. He became aware of how long he had been out on the Loch when he saw the thin sliver of light breaking across the horizon.

To Be Continued……………………