Seaflower - 12

 The first thing that Tye did when he walked into his room was look at the drawing on the wall.  Noticing something he walked to it, picked up the appropriate color and fixed the part that stood out.  Drawing was something of an obsession that he developed from after he recovered from the being thrown off the ship.   His current picture was of a seaflower floating over cupped hands.  Though it already looked incredibly real, some parts seemed to change colors as you moved, much like the real thing.

There were more drawings on the wall.  There wasn’t any quite as detailed, some came close.  The goddess touched the one of the little cleaning girl.  It looked real, but rather than be a huge poster like the one he was currently working on, it fit on a normal sized white page.

Tye waited patiently watching the goddess look and touch the pictures.  She stared at his first drawing for a long while.  It wasn’t very good, mostly just outline and rough coloring, but it was a moment from the first fight he saw.  A female was blowing on her hand, water particles for the background; he had colored it but no detail or shading.

“You like drawing.” She finally said, turning to him with a smile.

“Yes.”

“You have gotten very good, but that’s not why I’m here.  What do you know of the creation of man?”  She asked sitting on his desk, kicking her feet softly.

Tye sat down in his chair and wondered, “Only that we were created in the likeness of god.”

“Do you know why some people can use magic and others can not?”

“No.” Tye admitted, “I have never thought about it.”

“You were taught correctly, man was created in our likeness.  Both my counter-part and I created men.  I gave mine the gift of magic.  My counter-part didn’t, thinking that powers should be reserved for gods.

“Though it wasn’t encouraged, there were couples made of both races.  Some of the children were magical, some not.  The families normally lived among my counterpart’s people.  While his race was less forgiving, it is easier to pretend to be ‘normal’ than be normal and live among people who can do magic without thinking.”

Tye wondered where this was going, but he found her story along with her voice fascinating.

“My race was much smaller in numbers, also took longer to grow.  What takes you 18 years to be a man can take about 40 for my people.  My people also stop aging at will.  They loved to learn and experiment.  They are slow to anger; there was never war with my people.”

“So what happened to them?”

“While one of the leaders was exploring, he became corrupt and because the rest of them wouldn’t follow him anymore he did something unspeakable.  Something that drove my people into having me hide them deep in the sea until such tie was safe enough for them to come back into the world.”

“Why couldn’t you kill the corrupt leader?”

“I gave my people free will.  I do not mean the free will that my counter-part gave you.  By free will they have life for as long as they will to live without my interference.  I cannot kill them, nor have they figured out how to kill themselves, for it is not so easy.  Killing each other is just something that they do not even comprehend, so they did not even try to figure out how.  Violence is not in there nature.”

“So how did the one guy become corrupt?”

“He learned it from my counter-parts race, and he liked it.”

“What happened to him?”

“When my people went into hiding I erased his memory of them and all evidence of my peoples, minus the ones who lived among my counter-part’s people.  I told them what happened then gave them the choice of hiding with my people or becoming more like the ones they lived with.  I gave the ones who stayed behind the ability to grow old and die, though I let them keep there magic, discouraging them to use it.  I made sure to always hear and answer them, but unless they came to the sea I would not walk among them, my counter-part became possessive of the land.”

“That is how you became goddess of the sea?”

“I created water, and he formed the lands.  At the time we agreed to share, but only really rule what we made.”

“What does this have to do with my ship?”

“I had promised to bring my people out of hiding once the corrupt one finally stopped living.  It has been at least 300 years since I hid them.  And I had that nice little breakdown after my judgment day.  Sometime within the last 30 years he finally died.  I cannot find anything but a tomb that I fear to open.”

“So how is bringing your people out of hiding a great adventure?”  Tye was a bit confused, but he had never studied religion before and teaching about the goddess had been forbidden.  When he went to basic they only spent one day learning about the two gods and the background of the world.  When he was in school to become an officer the only they would say is that she did exist and that it was very important to pray to her the first night after you leave land.

“My people had encased themselves, and I took that and hid it in a part of the ocean.  After doing so I set traps so that one person could not do it alone and men would get discouraged.”

“300 years? Surely even by then they would all be dead, hiding in the sea.”

“You’ll understand when the time comes.”

Tye leaned on his thighs, looking at the goddess in wonder.  Part of him would follow the goddess any wear in a heartbeat, willing to do anything she asked, but the thought of his crew made him second guess himself.

“My goddess as much as I want to say yes, I must put my men before myself.  What of them? Will they live? Will they get hurt? Will I need the whole CAG or just my ship?  What about the planes?  How will I persuade the navy to fund this mission? How soon do you want this to happen? So many questions my love.”  Tye shut his mouth and turned a deep red, facing away from the goddess. “Forgive me, I did not mean to say that out loud.”

“Oh Tyde,” She sighed, touching his cheek and slowly guided his face to look at her. They held eye contact for what felt like forever.  All doubts wiped away from Tye’s mind.