The Woman from the Sea

There is a legend more than three thousand years old. It tells of a beautiful woman walking out of the sea. She was gifted with extraordinary abilities and she was not of this earth. She was to undergo many trials before fulfilling her ultimate destiny in the long-range fate of all men and women on planet Earth.

The woman walked out of the sea. She marched from the water into the sandy beach. She had no idea where she was or what she was doing in the water. She simply knew that she had to leave the water due to some enterprise she had to undertake on land.

She walked on the sands and paused to look at her surroundings. The beach did not look familiar. The beach was small and receded from the sea to give way to a rather vast plain. The woman walked onto that plain. She turned around to look at the sea and felt a bit of a relief that she was gone from it. The relief was soon replaced by a feeling of dread. She missed the water as if it were an actual person. She looked up at the skies. It was a bright morning, and the sun was high in the sky. If she didn't have so much in her mind, she would have thought it was a beautiful day in the making. Why was she headed toward land? She had urgent business to attend to, that had to be why. Why else would she be walking at all?

After hours of walking, the woman came to a small river deep in the plain. She stopped there and looked at the water. She touched it and felt a bit of calm. She had gotten a bit desperate to find what she was looking for. Of course, it would help if she knew what she was looking for in the first place, which she did not. She remained at the edge of the water. She looked at the water. It was different from what she was used to, she could tell by the mere touch. This was fresh water. She went into it, fully immersing herself. Being in the water felt right. She was so into it that she didn't notice the time flying by. It was only when the afternoon arrived that she realized how much time she had wasted. She walked out of the water. She went back into the plain, always heading west for some reason. It was as if she were being guided by something.

It wasn't long before she came in view of a human settlement...

She entered the city. It was a small city near the sea. The buildings were square and white. There was a main street and a huge, booming marketplace. There was also a small palace where she assumed the rulers of the city lived. She looked about and saw all sorts of things. Men and women walking around in strange attire. Children running through the streets and chasing dogs. Animals being brought to the butcher, not knowing what fate awaited them. The woman who came from the sea walked among them. They stared at her. She barely noticed. She didn't think much about it. She was looking for something or someone and that seemed to be the only thing in her mind. The people of the city were staring and pointing fingers. She approached a man and asked him something. She was very surprised by the words that came out of her mouth. She asked him about people from the water. He looked at her as if she were crazy.

She continued walking and describing others like herself. She couldn't understand why the other people were staring, until she found a mirror. She looked at her reflection and although she liked what she saw, it did not look familiar. She was a tall woman, easily a couple of inches above six feet. Her hair was long and black, and her eyes were a very pale blue. Her skin was bronze. She wore a red tunic made of strange material that ressembled silk but felt different. The tunic ended in a sort of pants that were very tight on her long legs. The pants ended at her ankles and it was only then that she noticed that she was barefoot. The burning sands, the hard dirt floor of the city, none of that bothered her. She was beautiful, and strange.

She approached a man who identified himself as Maduk and inquired about where she might find an inn. The man looked at her. She didn't flinch. He smiled. She could tell that he wanted to do something other than give her directions but something in her eyes told him to back off. He told her where the inn was. She went there. The innkeeper was a short man with red hair. His name was Mateo. He kept the inn with his wife Thea, a black-haired woman who was slightly taller than him. She asked for a room for the night. They looked at her strangely.

"It is odd for a woman to be traveling alone." said Mateo.

" Especially one like you." said his wife.

The woman from the sea looked at them.

" I am on a journey and seeking something important. I wish to purchase a room for the night. I have the means to pay. What do you say to that?"

The man looked at her and smiled. " It wouldn't be proper."

The woman from the sea looked at the little man and his wife. She felt something inside her rise up. It was a deep-seated anger. She had taken a piece of gold from a pouch that she carried and had been prepared to be generous but now she was angry. Very angry. The little man's wife pointed at her with a cane.

"Leave."

That was it. The woman from the sea snatched up the little woman and threw her back against the wall with such force that there was an audible crack. She grabbed the little man and sent him to his wife, throwing a five-foot-nine, two-hundred pound man through the air with ease. She then stopped and looked at her hands. She had been unaware that such force resided inside them. She turned, to see the other patrons of the inn looking at her. They were mostly men and the women in the inn-tavern were clearly "ladies of the night". One man got up and approached her. She stood facing him and hissed. He backed down. With wild eyes, she looked at them.

"Puny humans." she heard herself say.

With that, she leapt through the door. She ran through the street, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and those damn humans. She ran through the town, suddenly finding its confines to be unbearable. How could people lived so packed together like animals? Humans were strange. She ran to the port, instinctively knowing where the water was. She could hear people chasing her. She considered standing and fighting back, knowing that she would most likely prevail but she just wanted to leave. The human settlement made her sick. She ran through streets and corners, evading loud pursuers until she found the port. People stopped to look at this tall, beautiful woman running like crazy through the port.

She could see the water. It was beautiful and seemed to be calling to her. She leapt into it. Almost immediately she felt better. She remained underwater and swam as fast as she could away from the port and the humans. Whatever she was looking for, she doubted it would have chosen to remain in such a barbaric place. She would find it elsewhere...

The woman had been swimming for several days. She didn't know where she was going but going to dry land was out of the question. She didn't want to have to deal with humans. Those puny, primitive barbarians made her sick to her stomach. She loved being in the water. She didn't need to surface like humans did. She could breathe just fine. She saw a dolphin pack and joined them, effortlessly keeping pace with those expert swimmers. She loved dolphins. She was so filled with pleasure just by their mere proximity that she didn't notice the threat until it was too late. The Sperm whale came out of nowhere. An incredible power locked inside a black and gray streamlined body. The sperm whale. The orca came after the dolphins. The woman from the sea saw a baby dolphin and its mother shrinking away in fear of the black and white monster. The sperm whale stretched its jaws open and came after them.

The woman quickly swam to the scene and stepped between the two of them. She looked at the whale. It charged her. She knew what she seemed to him. She looked like one of the earth-bound creatures known as the humans. She grimaced and stood her ground, or rather her position as the sperm whale made an underwater charge. Never before had she felt such brutality and sheer ferocity as the beast rammed her and sent her spiraling down. She fell through the water toward the depths. She thought the sperm whale was coming after her but it had resumed its hunt for the dolphins. She had to get back up, pronto.

She swam as fast as she could. The whale went after the dolphins at full speed. They had no chance of getting away. The woman's head popped out of the water and she saw a rather strange scene. She saw that the sperm whale had abandoned its hunt for the dolphins. She breathed a sigh of relief and saw...them. There was a vessel in the water. Humans in boats going after the sperm whale. The massive beast tried to get away from them but they cornered it. She watched as the ships closed in on the whale. Men in their boats readied harpoons. They threw them onto the whale. Several harpoons thudded against its bulk. She could only watch helplessly as the humans prepared to slay one of the ocean's mightiest beasts.

She refused to just stand by and watch. With a mighty stroke, she swam toward the scene. The helpless sperm whale was desperately trying to resist the harpooners. They struck at it and red blood filled the water. The woman from the sea could sense the creature's pain. She saw the men cast a huge net over it to further entrap it. She went under the boats and pushed with a mighty heave. Her fists struck the wooden boats and punched holes through. The men panicked when they saw water coming into their boat. She went under the other boat and pushed with all of her strength. The boat and its occupants fell into the water. She then went to the sperm whale and tore the nets and harpoons out of its flesh. It weakly swam away.

She popped her head out of the water, to see the men struggling. It looked so comical that she laughed. She saw the main vessel coming to pick up the turned over ones and the crew that was treading water. She couldn't resist laughing. The vessel came and picked up its occupants. The woman from the sea looked at the men and kept laughing. She didn't notice the small boat coming behind her or the large man with the large paddle who whacked her upside the head with it. The woman from the sea felt some pain, and then blacked out.

When she woke up, she was lying on the deck of a wooden ship. She was bound hand and foot. She could hear all that was happening around her. The men were talking.

"She's coming back."

"No way, how could she recover so quickly?"

" I smell witchcraft."

" I say we throw her overboard."

"We found her overboard."

The woman from the sea lay on the deck. She felt weak, so exposed to the sun's rays. She was far away from the waters that nourished her. She was there, in a human vessel, surrounded by these strange creatures. One of them carried a bucket of something and dropped it on her face.

"Wake up, witch." he said.

The woman from the sea looked at him and saw his smiling, wild face. She grunted and struggled in her bonds, wanting to free herself. The men laughed at her feeble attempts. She was bound by thick iron chains. Apparently, some of them had glimpsed her chasing the sperm whale and before that, the dolphins. They thought she was some sort of odd creature and wanted to sell her back to civilization.

"What is your name? " one of them asked.

The woman from the sea looked at the man. He was tall and young by human standards. His hair was black and his eyes blue. When she refused to answer, he just smirked.

" I shall call you Teja, in my language it means the woman from the sea."

" Teja?" the woman asked, incredulous.

The man nodded. He said a couple more things then walked away. The vessel was making its way back to port. Already the woman from the sea could smell the scent of land in the air. She felt a feeling of dread take her. Her power resided in the water. If she remained for long on land, she would become helpless. She didn't want her human captors to know this. She was just hoping for a chance to get some water, revive her strength, break those bonds and leave. When she asked for some water, she was refused.

"No sustenance for witches."

They brought her back to land. In chains they brought her out of the boat and into the Port. She hoped to throw herself into the water but as she walked on the bridge, she was flanked by two rough-looking men on each side. Sheesh. She was not getting away. They marched her to the marketplace. As they walked through the streets, a large crowd gathered. This was the same town where a few days ago she had beaten a difficult innkeeper and his frivolous wife. Word had gone around fast and people seemed to think she was anything from a witch to a female demon. She didn't want to contemplate what fate awaited her.

She went into the marketplace. She was brought into a house, in the dark. She remained bound hand and foot. The woman from the sea crouched in a corner. Being on land was beginning to drain her. She felt very tired. She felt as if she were being drained by each passing moment that she spent away from the water. In the dark, she felt someone touch her.

"Who are you?" someone asked.

The woman from the sea turned to look at a female form. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she saw another woman. A slave. She seethed when she thought that humans treated their own kind that way.

"I am called Lyta." said the woman.

The woman from the sea looked at the slave woman.

"They call me Teja. It means woman from the sea."

"where are you from, Teja?" Lyta asked.

"The water." said Teja.

She thought about the endless oceans, her home. This was where she would be returning, and soon. Even if she had to take on the entire human population of the city to do it.

To be continued...