thaumatropes
Drowned Sisters
They just need some sailcloth and pearl clothes and glossed lips and they're ready to go! The humidity finally relented. Charybdis, Undine (my favourite), Arethusa, and Atlantis.
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The Drowned Sisters were once princesses, and their father ruled from a white-stone castle on a high cliff by the sea.
When their father was killed in a coup, the overthrower decided it was too dangerous to leave them alive, even as slaves, and he had them thrown into the choppy waters.
But the Ocean saw them dying and although he was too late to save them, he took pity on them: into their grey lips he breathed a sort of unlife; into their broken hearts he placed a spell of great beauty and subtlety, that gave them watery memories of their waking lives as they moved beneath the waves.
Now they spend their time among the kelp and the seals, luring sailors to their deaths or dragging them up from the deeps when their ship runs ashore: fickle, lovely, and forever bound to the sea...
ARETHUSA:
Arethusa is the second-youngest Drowned Sister, and is nearly as sweet in death as she was in life. A merry prankster, she has a heart of gold, and loves to flirt with sailors leaning over to gape at her and call out, only to vanish when their fellows rush over to see. But if any sailor is too far under her spell, she will carry him back up to be rescued: she is playful, not cruel.
UNDINE
The second-eldest, Undine is quiet and morose, and has never quite reconciled herself to what happened to her. Some rumors say that the scar beneath her breast is where she removed her own heart in a futile attempt to cease her feeling. Surely, some say, she acts like a heartless soul: silent, cold, inscrutable--but it is she who is most likely to silently pluck a drowning sailor from the water and bring him to shore.
ATLANTIS
The eldest and wisest, Arethusa is a mediator. She is not good: she is just. She weighs the deeds of the sailors brought to her to determine their fates, and behaves in every way like the queen she would have been, had she survived her drowning. Behind the impassive mask is a mind bent on righteousness and balance.
CHARYBDIS
The youngest and an accomplished sorceress, Charybdis has a violent temper and a strange sense of what constitutes "fun." Her rage is uncontrollable and sudden as a sea change: from troubled brooding one instant to screaming, murderous fury the next. She is truly the spirit of the tempest.
Drowned Sisters
They just need some sailcloth and pearl clothes and glossed lips and they're ready to go! The humidity finally relented. Charybdis, Undine (my favourite), Arethusa, and Atlantis.
================
The Drowned Sisters were once princesses, and their father ruled from a white-stone castle on a high cliff by the sea.
When their father was killed in a coup, the overthrower decided it was too dangerous to leave them alive, even as slaves, and he had them thrown into the choppy waters.
But the Ocean saw them dying and although he was too late to save them, he took pity on them: into their grey lips he breathed a sort of unlife; into their broken hearts he placed a spell of great beauty and subtlety, that gave them watery memories of their waking lives as they moved beneath the waves.
Now they spend their time among the kelp and the seals, luring sailors to their deaths or dragging them up from the deeps when their ship runs ashore: fickle, lovely, and forever bound to the sea...
ARETHUSA:
Arethusa is the second-youngest Drowned Sister, and is nearly as sweet in death as she was in life. A merry prankster, she has a heart of gold, and loves to flirt with sailors leaning over to gape at her and call out, only to vanish when their fellows rush over to see. But if any sailor is too far under her spell, she will carry him back up to be rescued: she is playful, not cruel.
UNDINE
The second-eldest, Undine is quiet and morose, and has never quite reconciled herself to what happened to her. Some rumors say that the scar beneath her breast is where she removed her own heart in a futile attempt to cease her feeling. Surely, some say, she acts like a heartless soul: silent, cold, inscrutable--but it is she who is most likely to silently pluck a drowning sailor from the water and bring him to shore.
ATLANTIS
The eldest and wisest, Arethusa is a mediator. She is not good: she is just. She weighs the deeds of the sailors brought to her to determine their fates, and behaves in every way like the queen she would have been, had she survived her drowning. Behind the impassive mask is a mind bent on righteousness and balance.
CHARYBDIS
The youngest and an accomplished sorceress, Charybdis has a violent temper and a strange sense of what constitutes "fun." Her rage is uncontrollable and sudden as a sea change: from troubled brooding one instant to screaming, murderous fury the next. She is truly the spirit of the tempest.