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MerMay 30 - Big Mouth

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   “Hey, Jake!”  Ben reached over weakly and gave his fellow castaway a shove, “Wake up!”
“What is it?!” Jake raised up instantly, “A ship?”
“Nay,” he replied sadly, “but you’d better have a look.  The home-folks ain’t never gonna believe this otherwise.”
The sailor lifted the brim of his slicker from his eyes and scanned the horizon, making a conscious effort to stave off the peevishness that was building after days in the little lifeboat.  “I don’t see anything,” he grumbled.
“Not there,” Ben grinned (Jake had no idea what business the boatswain had in grinning at a time like this), “Look ye downward.”
The sailor narrowed his eyes, but it wasn’t like he had anything better to do just now.  He glanced over the gunwales - and his breath caught in his throat.
“By the Blessed!” he gasped, “Is that what I think it is?”
“Lenarians,” nodded Ben, “Has to be.  Them whose cities made the Maurdavians’ temples look like rude hovels, until the gods sank their towers beneath the waves.”
Jake chewed the idea over.  He didn’t believe in the old tales really.  He’d seen too much of the world  - but looking at the intricately-worked walls with their overgrowth of coral, he supposed all stories had to be based on something.
“The home-folks ain’t never gonna believe this,” the boatswain breathed again.
Long moments passed, as the ruins passed beneath them.  Nothing stirred among those towers, but for crowds of tiny shrimps that made Jake’s belly tighten in frustration and hunger.  
“The stories say that some of the Lenarians was spared,” Ben mused, “that they was able to live somehow in their sunken city, by the blessing of the gods - to adapt.”
Jake punched the inside of the hull.  “How would any man adapt to living in the deeps?” he shot back.  There was no rescue down there, nor even any lookouts.  
At the boatswain’s hurt and apologetic expression, the sailor immediately regretted his harshness.  The man was a good fellow, even if he was a dreamer and a romantic.  “I’m sorry,” he amended, and slumped back against the side of their little craft, “We’re supposed to be holding onto hope out here, not dashing it - but how’s a person meant to live down there?  Grow fins?”
“Maybe,” Ben replied, his tone defensive, “Might be you’re too quick to dismiss the power of the gods.”
“Yeah, well…”  Jake was too tired to argue - too damned worn out from hunger and thirst and baking sun, and his words leaked out of him slowly, “maybe if the gods sent us a bite of food, I might be more inclined to take them seriously.”
No sooner had the sailor said the words, when a strange sound came up from below the lifeboat - a rushing, rustling sound like fingernails all over the planks.  The two castaways looked over the sides, and were met by a silver-pink mass of shrimps, pressed together in a rolling, roiling bait-ball.  The little sea-beasts swarmed madly, matting together in a great rolling mass that pushed their craft sideways.  Individuals shot free of the bait-ball and flitted into the air like some alien, low-level rainstorm.  Many of them pattered down into the boat, and flopped there, stranded.
“Dinner is served!” the boatswain cackled, and Jake knew he’d never hear the end of it now.
But before he could raise a retort, there came another sound - and a triangluar form like the sail of a skiff rose up from the water.  Slaty grey in colour, it rose on a mast of the same hue - up and up like one of those ancient towers of the deep.
“It’s an arm!” Ben cried in disbelief.
“Codswallop!” Jake shot back - but now that it had been said, his mind refused to shake it.  The “sail” at the top had all the look of a hand, its fingers fused together in a great flipper.  It began to lean over on its slender “wrist” - while, below, a toned and grey bicep rose and revealed a finely-curved shoulder.  When the shoulder proved to be attached to a feminine neck and breast, the sailor knew he’d lost his mind.
Ben’s response did nothing to help the situation.  “Weigh-hey,” he murmured in witless awe, “up she rises.”
The creature did indeed rise, lunging at the surface.  It - she - had all the semblance of a lovely woman - but one grown larger than a main-mast.  For a moment, Jake wondered if some goddess had indeed heard him.
Then the “woman” opened her mouth.  The gape did not stop at the corners, but split along the cheeks, down the neck, and partway along the chest to swallow up a gargantuan mouthful of shrimp.  The two men screamed, and a great eye opened in the house-sized, half-submerged face.  The ice-blue center fell upon their minuscule craft, and the creature’s tail breached the surface, impossibly far behind her.  With all the grace of the water she called home, the colossa arched and veered away in a vast arc.  Then she turned onto her back, belly bulging with captured shrimp and seawater, which she slowly squeezed out of her mouth.  As she deflated, she sank away, and moved with breathtaking speed into the haze of the deep, powered by vast and powerful flukes.
Jake stared after the incomprehensible being for long moments, then looked to the deck of the lifeboat.  The Lemarian’s by-catch - hundreds of finger-sized shrimps - flopped and wriggled around the mariners’ feet.  Each contained a mouthful of fresh water within them - not enough to quench one’s thirst, but maybe enough to help them last a little longer.
“The home-folks ain’t never gonna believe this,” Ben said.

*******

Okay, okay, MerMay is over and you're all tired of fish-ladies - but I had to get this last one out for :iconconnan-bell: and :iconsandcastler: - both of whom gave me some lovely feedback and additional inspiration.  It's hard to focus on a single subject for a whole month (especially if one has no time for side-projects), and their input gave me a boost of interest when I needed it.  Connan-Bell provided me with the notion that, in an ocean environment, a mermaid might end up growing to a colossal size.  I postulated that a creature like that would need a rich diet - perhaps filter-feeding like whale sharks, giant rays and rorquals - and this idea was born.  I do love me some speculative biology!
The Lemarian architecture below the water is a direct copy of one of Sandcastler's amazing, fleeting artworks.  After seeing his structures, I just had to try and depict one, but my humble scribblings don't do them justice.  Go and check his page for some amazing work!  They remind me of something between a coral reef and Angkor Wat, and seemed to fit the theme of MerMay perfectly.
I have several MerMay sketches that turned out pretty well, and a half-finished homage to my favourite mermaids - those in the 2003 Peter Pan movie.  However, rather than doing another sketchdump, I think I'll save them for next year, and do them as finished pieces.  Sometimes, things grow better with age.

What's up next?  I'm thinking I'll illustrate some of the characters from my new Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying campaign - and, of course, a visit or two to the Dayah Forest.  Stay tuned!

Drawn in GIMP, using a Wacom Intuos Pro Large.
Creation Time:  9 hours
Thanks again to www.obsidiandawn.com/category/… - this time for their "Mist" and "Animal Prints" brushes.  If you use GIMP or Photoshop, check them out for some handy resources.
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3000x3000px 4.7 MB
Mature
© 2018 - 2024 Djake
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Ndzoodzoo's avatar
Daaamn, that mouth though! What a weird story. good job