A Sea of Fire and Flame

Once, long ago, a star and the ocean fell in love. But the ocean never stays on the shore for long, and eventually the ocean drew away from the star. The star, heartbroken, retreated to a small island, where she could watch the ocean to see if he would ever have a change of heart.

The star, unknowingly at the time, carried his child. When the child was born, a small boy with skin like his mother and eyes that shifted blue and green, entered the world.

His mother was only with him during the day. When night fell, a different woman, with gray eyes that crackled with lightning, watched him. He grew to love them both, his pale star mother and his storm grandmother. As he grew older, though, he noticed that his mother had some strange habits.

Every morning, she walked the ocean’s shore. The water would draw away from her, before lapping at the footsteps she left in the sand and erasing them like she was never there at all. Tears of liquid fire would roll down her face. They dripped into the waves below, swirling gold until they mixed with the ocean water and disappeared into the sea. 

Every night, she would take her place in the sky, another star. And when the waves strained to reach the moon, the ocean’s latest lover, her light would dim a little more.

His star mother and his storm grandmother would not always get along because of this. “Move on,” his grandmother would whisper. “Do not waste any more of your tears in his water.”

But his mother always got a heated look in her eyes, glowing a little brighter. She would say, “One day he will feel the heat of my tears. One day they will replace all the water in his ocean and there will be a sea of fire and flame. Then he will beg me to take him back.”

His grandmother just shook her head disapprovingly. “Child, I cannot change your mind. But do not let your love and anger consume you.” His grandmother’s eyes would crackle with lightning and his mother’s eyes would burn with fire, but they would turn away and find something to fuss over that wasn’t his mother’s strange behavior. Usually, it was him.

They aged, he grew, and one day they decided he was old enough to be left alone for periods of time. His mother would stay at the ocean a little longer than normal, her tears burning hot and bright as they dripped into the ocean, and his grandmother would give herself time to storm in the sky. He could hear her thunder and lightning from time to time.

One night, a man entered the house. His eyes were a reflection of the boy’s, blue and green. Shifting and changing like the ocean. His hair was blond like sand, and it fell in waves. He talked to the boy, then told him not to mention his visit.

The boy did not know how strange that request was as he had never really interacted much with others, so he obliged. The man came more often, and soon they got to know each other. So when the man asked to take the boy somewhere new, the boy accepted. He did not yet realize that was a mistake.

The man took the boy to the ocean, where he showed the boy his palace. “I am the ocean,” the man said. “But I can also be your home.”

The boy didn’t want that, but he was too scared to say so.

The ocean is a fickle thing. He loses and gains interest easily. Sometimes the boy would be forgotten, and he would go for days without food or fresh water. Being the son of a star and the ocean, he would live, but he still felt the hunger. His lips still grew dry and chapped. His stomach still ached.

The ocean didn’t mean to be cruel, but he didn’t understand the needs of a child. Soon, however, the boy heard rumors of a sea witch. “She stole the princess’s voice,” they murmured. “That vile witch brought her to land and made her human. Apparently the princess had fallen in love with some mortal. Can you believe that?” Then they would lower their voices a bit more. “The princess always was a little odd, though. No wonder she sought out the witch to take her to the shore.”

The boy wasn’t a fool, and he knew that the sea witch could take him back to land. Back to his star mother. When he found her, though, the witch was unwilling.

“Your mother weakens the ocean every day,” the witch said, cold. “Her tears of fire break down the ocean’s strength little by little, and this has been going on for years. By weakening the ocean, she weakens me and my powers.”

The boy, dejected, curled into a ball and sniffled. A tear escaped him, the first he shed in front of her, and the witch startled. “No, boy, don’t cry. You have your father’s eyes, but your mother’s tears. I will make you a deal.”

The boy wiped his eyes and looked at her hopefully, crossing two fingers for luck. 

“If I send you back to land, back to your mother, you must heal her broken heart by the end of the month. But if she still cries in the ocean by the last day of the month, you will return to the ocean whether you like it or not.” The sea witch looked at him without sympathy. She was a cold blooded creature, and her eyes remained flat and dead like the gaze of a fish.

The boy accepted eagerly. Anything to get out of this dank, cold place, where the ocean’s casual cruelty grew a little more every day.

He returned to land, bestowed with hugs and kisses and tears. When they learned where he was and who took him, though, his mother grew even angrier. He could see the thinly veiled rage and sorrow masked behind her burning eyes, so he took her hand. “Mama, don’t be upset. It’s fine now. It’s over. Don’t think of it anymore.” 

She smiled and kissed his forehead, but her grip on his shoulder tightened a little more.

As the days passed, he made an effort. “Mama, don’t go. Stay. Why are you going to the ocean? It’s over. It’s fine.”

She would never listen, though. If anything, she felt as though the ocean had wronged both her and her child.

The days passed in a hurry.

Her tears did not stop.

Every time he saw one roll off her face and drip to the sea, he felt like he was watching sand slip down an hourglass. When the last few grains inevitably started their way down, though, he grabbed her wrist and shut the door. “Do not leave. Please.”

He saw her misery and rage. “I must. I must make him feel the same way he made me.”

But his grip on her wrist tightened. “Listen.”

He told her of the deal he made with the witch. His grandmother, who had been hovering behind her bedroom door, stormed into the room. 

Her eyes crackled with lightning, and her voice was strong as thunder when she said, “Do you see now? You have gotten so lost in your grief and rage that you have forgotten what is in front of you.”

That day, his mother did cry, but it was into the palms of her hands and not the ocean. Though she was a star and not a storm like his grandmother, the way she sobbed was like pouring rain and gray skies.

Still, all storms passed. And it was when she let all of her tears go, let go of the rain that held her down, that she finally was able to let the sun shine through.

In the end, they packed their bags and moved. No more did she walk the sand of the shore and let her tears fall to the sea. Now, she ran in the meadows and the only water on her skin was the morning dew that brushed against her as she walked the valleys with her son and her mother. Her newfound hope was fragile, but every bit as colorful as a rainbow. For it is after the worst storms that the sun can create a beautiful tapestry in the mist.