The Moon Dolphin - A Seachosen Myth
Emmett takes a deep breath, pulls Carlo in under his arm, and starts lifting the fork himself so Carlo can finish his breakfast. “A long time ago, far away from here, a family of dolphins lived in the sea.”
He waits for Carlo to chime in, as always. “A cold sea like ours?”
“No. A warm sea, where the sun shines and the ground is made of sand that looks like someone poured gold over everything.” Emmett’s never seen the places his parents described. He’s not sure he’s doing justice to what it must be like, even in his own imagination. But it seems to enthrall Carlo all the same.
The story had been a good one for the nights they huddled together on a thin mattress with the cold wind howling, the few coals left of their fire banked under ash to keep them alive until morning, and Emmett and Carlo wrapped in every blanket they owned to do the same. The only warmth they were going to feel was the thought of what it must be like to stand under the sun. Emmett had thought those nights were the coldest anyone could feel. But this place, despite its dozen fireplaces and tightly sealed windows, is filled with a kind of cold no flames can drive out.
Emmett continues before he can get lost in the shadows in his own head. “One little dolphin was more curious than all the rest of his family. He swam along reefs covered with all colors of corals, and deep down into caves where things lived that had no eyes.”
Carlo shudders and wiggles a bit closer. “Like cave bears?”
“Like cave bears.” Emmett’s only ever seen the corpse of one of the twisted monstrosities that live in the starsilver mine, but once was enough. The eyeless creature with a nose that looked like fingers and claws as sharp and long as kitchen knives haunted his dreams for years.
Now the monsters he’s most afraid of have human faces.
“One night, the little dolphin was swimming close to the surface of the sea when he saw something shining. Like someone had dropped a bright round silver coin on top of the water.” Emmett has no idea how a dolphin would know what a coin was, or care if it did, but that’s how his parents told the story. “When he swam up to catch it, the bright thing disappeared as soon as his nose touched it.”
“Where did it go?” Carlo bounces slightly on the bed.
Emmett raises an eyebrow. “Do you know?”
“Into the sky!” Carlo says with a giggle, pointing up to the ceiling.
“That’s right. The little dolphin looked up, and there was that bright, bright circle in the sky. Now this dolphin was very good at jumping. He used to leap out of the water to say hi to his friends the…” His parents sometimes said seagulls, but Emmett has seen plenty of those around the docks and never found them particularly worth knowing. “Puffins.” He tries to change birds every time he tells the story so Carlo can never be quite sure which one Emmett will pick.
Carlo laughs, then takes the fork from Emmett and shoves a heap of shredded potatoes into his mouth, puffing up his cheeks.
“Well, the dolphin figured the bright shiny thing couldn’t be any higher up than birds were. So he started jumping and jumping.” Emmett uses his now-free hand to imitate the arcing leaps. “Higher and higher. But he couldn’t quite reach it. Finally, he swam all the way down to the bottom of the sea.” Emmett holds his hand beside the bed, below the level of the mattress. “Then he swam up, up, up as fast as he could. And he leaped out of the water…” Emmett’s hand goes as far up as he can reach. “And pop!”
“Where was he?” Carlo asks.
“Inside the moon!” Emmett replies. “The little dolphin was swimming around in a big white bubble. He could look down and see the waves underneath him, and his family swimming around, but when he tried to tell them where he was, they couldn’t hear him.”
“Poor dolphin.” Carlo’s shoulders slump.
“He started jumping up and down inside the moon. When his family looked up, they could see him in there, a gray spot instead of all the white. So they started leaping up themselves, trying to bring him back down. But none of them could jump quite as high as that little dolphin. And ever since, dolphins jump out of the sea at night, trying to reach their lost brother in the moon. If you look up at the sky, you can see the little gray shape of him still inside.”
Emmett has no idea why his son is so fond of a story that ends with a little creature separated forever from its whole family. But he also can’t bring himself to change this story and end it any other way.
“But we don’t have a moon,” Carlo says.
“Not here. It’s outside the wards. People who don’t live in Rime can see it.” Emmett shrugs. “But we have the lights.”
“I like the lights.” Carlo sets his fork down, his plate now empty. “Do you think there’s any dolphins in them?”
Emmett has no intention of telling him about trapped spirits.
Summary
The Seachosen explain the pattern of the shadows on the surface of their world's moon, which can be viewed as loosely resembling a dolphin, as the permanent outline of a young, curious dolphin who saw the moon glowing, leaped too high after it, and became forever trapped inside it. The legend claims that when the dolphins leap out of the water in the moonlight, they're searching for their lost brother.
Related Ethnicities
Related Locations
Related People
Comments