A crackling storm, splitting through malefic clouds lightning, beguiled the waters of a sea mercilessly, and encapsulated within its swelling waves, rose and drowned a small body fashioned not to brave such terrible displays of fury. 

Her ill-fated course changed with the untempered ways of the sea, and, from one up-surging arm to another, no sooner did she find her desolate self trapped in the darkest caverns of a cave that prayer, desperate to escape her as the water in her lungs, echoed against rocky walls long starved of sound.

Before she knew refuge, the cruel trials cast upon her scaly limbs weighed them heavily to her sides as slumber, sweet, dewy and long-awaited, stole her into a silent world. 

Forsaken atop a jagged rock, her person thus forced to wakefulness, the nymph realized herself in the company of ghastly creatures.

In the dimness, pallid hands made to reach for her, caress her scales, her flapping tail of blue and gold, but found, to their dismay, no flesh supple enough to vessel their desires, for they fell apart alike  silk against her skin. Souls, moaning wispily through hollowed mouths thick with the stench of death, loomed over her, the abyss in their eyes with which they regarded her lost to any forms of solace. 

Wailing in terror, the nymph thrust her veined tail at them, wishing to escape the entrapment they had shackled about her. They understood her not, their hands heedless in their wandering, their desires hoarse in their crude intentions. 

“Desecrate not my kingdom with such callous sounds, nymph, for you will learn the call of my wrath is ever paramount to the call of your sea. The dead, above all, are owed care.” 

A sound alike howling wind and grating brimstones rolled through a carved opening before her—it was the most frightening sound she had heard yet. The souls at once dispersed, fighting for shadowed nooks and seeking shelter behind towering boulders. From the darkness chanted they a most foreboding chorus, as though welcoming Death himself into the room with her. Forked hisses of snakes slithered up walls, misshapen ghouls danced in the feverish hue of the fire now ablaze around her, and cold air, carrying in it many a parting breath of long buried humans, blanketed her scaly form, settling in her bones fear unlike any other. Striking the Earth, the very rocks in the room rose and collapsed in ancient prayer—boom, boom, boom—and tortured screams ensued, bleeding her ears dry. 

Finally, the chaos singled into one shape; a creature adorned in lavish robes, the flowy materials cascading down a tall frame, stepped through the opening, and a bed of dark curls falling over broad shoulders, curtaining shadowed but sharp features and even sharper eyes, brought forth a sight that gave chase to her panic-stricken heart. The creature lifted a sleeved arm, and from his robe flew out a raven, lax-feathered and graceful in flight. 

“Greet right our guest, old friend.” 

With its beak, once, twice, thrice, it tapped against the depressed ground to her tail, and water, pure and of the clearest blue, gurgled out, sponging her until the narrow of her waist. Only then did her thirst for nourishment dawn on her, and a pleased sigh, as though a command of its own, slipped through ruby lips. With a powerful jerk of her tail, she sent bulks of water sizzling into the fire around her. 

The raven took flight and perched itself on the creature’s gaunt shoulder. “How fare you now? It is to the very souls you disobliged you owe your gratitude, for it is they who brought news of your stranded body to my plying ears.” 

“Then it is to them my heart beats its gratefulness,” the nymph responded in like. At her melodiously kindred and heavenly carved voice, an unlikely twin to her distressed one, the disconsolate cave reacted, rumbling keenly through its walls, cooing its fires, and melting its souls. Impish eyes glazed with uncertainty, the nymph, when next she spoke, thought best to mind her tone. 

“Perhaps,” her slant, tender, her language, cautious, filled the space, “I have passed and I do not know it? I, this wretched and accursed me, have attained what no immortal before me has, and fallen into a slumber deep?” 

Shrouded as though by night itself, the creature sought out his seat, fashioned of earthly gems, stones, and bones, at the center of the room, claiming suavely what dutifully awaited him. “If Death favored you, nymph, Death would surely know. I know no such thing. Accursed, you remain.” 

“What a miserable girl I am! Fallen into the hands of Death himself and ever awake I remain; surely, the souls you nourish know of a better fate than I.” With a pained cry that shook the very heart of the cave, the nymph shielded her face in her plump hands and wept a song of the most tragic. 

“You desecrate afresh my kingdom. Why do you wail? Cease such terrible sounds.” 

“Oh, Death! If dared I asked, though as willing as any parting soul, have you power to relieve me of this vessel and set free my spirit?” 

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The fires hissed, the souls moaned. “I take not what is not owed me.” 

“Is sacrifice your desire? Gift you I can my own heart. Take it! It is of no value to me. For too long I have only known its betrayal, torment, and ridicule. Take it, so I may be free!” 

Silence. The fires dared not dance. 

Then, “your eyes drunken with such zeal, but it wasn’t a moment past fear crippled you. The sea has certainly guided you to a most inconspicuous abode, do you not agree? Alas, you are but a guest. One that I, mighty as I may be, will have to entertain, for I do house them impressively. Do tell, then, nymph, why it is your soul wants the taste many a godly creature flees? What tales has your young heart woven?” 

“Treat me not cruelly; I shan’t fall victim to an unfriendly ear. You seek knowledge of private affairs. But…bare my heart to you I concede under one condition: will then you set free my soul?” 

The darkness enflamed around him until it surmounted into a chilling void. “…Eye for an eye.” 

Arching a gilled spine, the nymph settled herself upon the rock, her tail curling around its base and her fingers adroitly combing silken strands of pure ivory, and thus her intricate lacing of her tale began. “It was not always that I possessed such features; once, I thought them jewels of this world, but now…they wrinkle my buoyancy. How horrid it is. You see, I was human before, I do not know how long ago, for time evades me, but I was, and I had the prettiest legs. They could sprint shore to shore. Oh, how I could envy yours right about now! What sad feeling, that is, wishing for something you have got not. My senseless heart erred often in that regard, thus my sour fate. It was of my own doing, I fear to admit, when I followed a wretched creature into a sea. He said… He said… Oh, woe to me!” 

Tears, alike rounded pebbles, spilled onto her scaled lap, and she shied her face away from Death, mourning a heart in her she once knew to be whole. 

“He promised me eternity. I said…that we were so, so, so different—alike the abundance of seas and lands. I trembled, but it was not of fear. It was rather of hope, it dripped alike honeyed wine from the back of my throat, and it begged him to take a sip. Begged him to wash down the dubiety I had summoned. He did. Oh, how he did! I care not if we are as different as the oceans, seas, and rivers are to hills, mountains, and sands, because we are the shore, he had valiantly promised. Come to me in waves, be they stormy or calm, and I shall gladly offer you a place of refuge upon my wet sands, edgy reefs, and rocky heights. My heart had leapt into his very hands, for none sang to me like he. 

I surrendered my legs for tumultuous waters, my lungs for bristly corals, and my life for his…and one day, he deserted me. It was love, Death, and, alike the silvery moon, it came with a shadowed side, dark and cruel. I soldiered not its pain, for I knew not love could hurt with so a vicious ardor. The agony lessened not; it only festered! Now, the storm within is much harsher than the ones I have been left all alone to brave. The waters despise me! They bore me not; they care for me not! I long for my home, my poor home, and my poor parents. How I long to embrace them; surely, they must have missed me as I them. Surely, forgiveness and warm embraces are what await me in their arms. Yet, how selfish of me to dream so. I abandoned them as much as the creature did me; I deserve not their love, their kindness. It shall be theirs to keep for each other, for I know the hurt I have cast on them is in need of mending, if my own is anything to go by! Perhaps, fates have decidedly dragged me to you, Death, so that I may breathe my last here, in your kingdom of sheltered bones. I am ready for such an honor.” 

Mirthless laughter, rusty with disuse, met her words. Uncurling from his seat, he tossed at the fires old bones laying askew, and they roared, crackling hotter. “Honor? How distasteful your prose, nymph. Even the mightiest warrior admits to Death’s amiss regard, for it swings with vengeance, as it is always lurking, ever watchful, and ever equipped to drop low its scythe. You know not what you ask for. To you, I am tempted to say: prayer suffices you, as it has many a pitiful soul before you.” 

His words ripped from her arms the last bit of comfort she had left as she, caving into herself, let loose a wave of fresh cries, the sounds so deep and disturbing, even the souls joined her their own guttural echoes. “Has Death no honor of his own, that he shall trick a vulnerable nymph to seduce words from her solemn? Gift you must those treacherous eyes to me, for you kept not your promise. I bared you scars not even the mighty sea could bestow, while you flaunt brashly empty words!” 

Her talons sharpened, her gills flared, and certain boldness gleamed in the tips of her canines. Death came to her with sharp speed; his pale, spindly fingers bonnily pressing shut her lips. Whatever complaint she heatedly hosted wilted away in her velvety tongue, and heavy silence impregnated the space between them.

“Thrice now you fondle insolently my mercy. I ask you tread carefully my waters, nymph, for I could toss you to my hounds, have their venomous fangs at you, repeatedly, dawn upon dawn, forever—a befitting fate—and no sooner find myself in better spirits. I care not for your tormented self—my kingdom has welcomed many a misfortunate person that your unordinary self pales not in comparison. Now, as per our bargain, heed well. Immortality shall be stripped from you, for, true to your ineptness, it becomes you not, but it will come at a price of three.” 

The nymph responded in her first taste of bliss in a long time, her fervor evident in the manner she took in her own hands Death’s fingers and pressed them onto her erratic breast. “Tell me what it is that I must do, and I shall do them with no grievances!” 

Withdrawing a murky morsel from his robes, he fed it to the raven still nesting on his person, its small, sleek neck craning in piqued attention. “Three journeys you must make; three hearts you must win; and three faults you must unburden. Fail to do so, I will claim from you your beating heart and toss you back to the sea to roam deathless.” 

Unclutching his fingers, she steeled her spine. “Where is it that I must journey, and how will I know success?” 

“Burden me not with such queries as they are but yours to answer.” Witnessing a fool’s ever-growing fanaticism in the nymph’s shimmering eyes, Death’s wide chest suddenly weighed heavy with pity. “Braver men have fled from less. Now, what I gift you,” he plucked a feather from his friend and hid it behind the curve of her ear, “binds you to my kingdom and ever you find yourself successful in your endeavor, only wish, and you shall appear.” 

Digging two fingers in her chest, he firmly pushed and, alarmed, she fell back into the puddle of water—only its depths swallowed her whole. 

“Farewell,” echoed Death.