Ankyra Sound a bruise upon the silent moon

It was a cruelty beyond measure to push the water-spirit from the womb into a world that seemed, in comparison, dry as a bone. She enjoyed a few seconds more of quiet bliss before the sac was pierced and she took in a breath—and began to wail. Her legs churned wildly, finding only air to resist them and not the familiar press of the sea. Though it still was dark and silent as the depths of the ocean, it felt different, and that was panic enough for her.

Even as she was placed against her mother's belly and she found a teat to suckle, she still was traumatized by the events of today. What was once an idyllic life amidst the amniotic fluid was over. Now she had to grapple with this new reality, so foreign and frightening and terribly dry.

And the girl whose earthly lives ranged from prehistoric protozoan to fearsome plesiosaur, from dolphin to whale to kelpie and mermaid, things about which Odysseus had written and around which fantasies had been crafted. . . She was now terra-bound, fur-cloaked, lupine. A wolf named Nieve.

Only time would tell how this, exactly, would pan out for the sea sprite.