Songs of Sea, Sand, and Sky: A Collection of Short Stories

Hey, everyone. This thread is going to be home to a bunch of short stories set in a fantasy world I have yet to come up with a name for, where the vast majority of people live nomadic lives in the air or on the sea.

I only just thought of how making this thread and how the setting might work (although I've had some of these ideas for a long time, and the concept is certainly not a new one), so I really don't know how this will end up going! But breaking it up into short stories is going to be a good writing exercise for me, I think, as it should stop some of the stagnation that comes with brewing a long adventure for too long.

Stories:

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"The Astronomer" -- In progress.

Peoples:

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Guiren -- The "turtle people". Nomads who live on the backs of giant turtles in the sea, and make their living fishing, trading, and weaving. Mostly live in the tropical north. Language is loosely based off of Chinese.

Places:

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The mangrove forests -- A huge swath of large aquatic trees growing in shallow water in the tropical north, interspersed with small islands and swampy regions. Home to astounding life and biodiversity -- the equivalent of real-world rainforests.

The Astronomer:

Shizhu lay on her stomach on the edge of the wooden walkway, her long black hair nearly skimming the water an arms-length below. Sunlight sparkled on the peaks of little ripples, dappled by the trees overhead -- finally coming to a rest on the ocean floor five feet below, where it illuminated little pink crabs and brown water-lizards and tan walkfish scuttling and scrambling and flailing around on the sandy bed.

She leaned downward a bit to get a better view, resting her chin on the edge of the board, the tips of her hair dipping in and out of the waves. If she timed it right and used her chin as lever, how close could she get her hair to the water without it going in? Up, down, no, not quite, up, whoops, it went in a bit there, up, then down quite a bit, up, up...

Dear gods she was bored.

Of course her parents had to leave her here to "watch the Gui." Pfft. As if the turtle couldn't take care of itself. And so she was stuck here, lying on its back, bored out of her skull, like she did every day, the one time she could have actually done something different for a change! They only visited the mangroves for a few weeks every year! And here she was at the edge of the forest stuck on the back of a stupid reptile too big to fit between the trees, while her brothers and parents kayaked and fished and swam and climbed trees and picked fruit...

The boards below her jerked, and she swore as she rolled across the platform. The stupid turtle was snapping at a nearby dolphin, which was clearly much more intent on messing with the Gui than allowing itself to be eaten.

Of course, her parents hadn't left her here because of her bad leg, despite what they claimed. They both knew that she could still swim and kayak better than either of her brothers. No, this was clearly still about...

> The fact she lost something precious weeks ago. They said they weren't mad, but it was utterly irreplacable! It was to go in for research, or to be auctioned but she ended up losing it while trying to show off.

>Their superstition. As if the strange mark that had appeared on her body automatically meant she was cursed or something!

>A fish. Specifically, a really BIG fish that she claimed to see flying THROUGH the mangrove the first day they arrived here, like some form of weird aquatic-themed ghost. She wanted to follow it, and her parents thought she was crazy. Or just looking to get into trouble. Which might be true but is besides the point. That ghost-fish was real, and it was flying, and it was beautiful.

>Their hope that the Eel Prince might come and take her away as his bride, bringing status and fortune to her family.

> The dragon that was up in the sky that claimed to eat little children! However real or unreal the dragon is, however, she felt as if it was her friend.