Coral swam slowly, with trepidation, into the reception hall of her father, the Sea King. The lord of the ocean, clad in the visage of a giant turtle, rested on the sands, quiet save for the pensive shifting of a flipper.
Gone were the dolphins who had swum and sung across the vaulted chamber. Gone were the crabs who danced on the tables of rock, leaving behind their gifts of shells and jade. Gone were Coral's brothers and sisters, come to congratulate her on the anniversary of her birth.
There was only the Sea King, dimming the sanctuary with cold green melancholy.
"Father?" she asked, setting her fluke timidly upon the sand beside his beak, wishing she could cure his mood.
"Today you are fifteen years old," he said. "Today you venture into the world for the first time."
Her brows drew together. Hours earlier, he had celebrated this same fact.
"I feel her," he said. "She is waiting for you."
The current streaming off his shell carried the sting of an Arctic floe. Coral shuddered in the chill. "The Sea Witch?" she asked.
"She has always thwarted me. I am Life. She is Death. I tell the amoeba to divide, I make fertile the eggs of the marlin, I anchor the roots of the kelp. She brings to them age, rot, and dissipation. She and I may never share the same place and moment, but I feel her presence. I know her desires."
The Sea King turned his turtle eyes toward his offspring. Massive and opaque, the pupils dwarfed her, capturing her reflection like an insect in amber. Her long red tresses flowed rich and full around her human half, down to the dorsal fin on her long, whalelike fluke.
"She hates you most of all," the king said. "You are beautiful, you brim with young life, and because you are made from my essence, you will not succumb to the decay she has loosed upon the rest of my world. To kill you, she must actively break the magic which formed you, with your consent."
Coral lay a hand gently on her sire's beak. "Why would I give her my consent?"
The turtle closed his eyes, as if in pain, shutting out the reflected vision of her. "I cannot protect you, once you leave these walls. You must dare Death alone, if you are to overcome her. If you are my true child, and if you make the right choices, you will prevail. If not..."
One of his fins moved, spawning a surge of water that sent Coral back, into the central portion of the grotto. The quivering of his great eyelids betrayed that he would rather have cupped her form beneath him, and guarded her forever.
"Go, my daughter. Show the world your beauty. Be all that you can."
The currents lifted her up, gently buoying her through the long passageway to the open ocean. Her father's grief followed her, as he wept for older children who had never returned to his side.
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