WAVEWEAVER

By Stephen R. Sobotka, Jr. 

### 

Ever thought you'd want to be stranded in an island paradise like this one? Where the sky and water are in such contrasting shades of blue and aquamarine, and the sand is such a brilliant white that it makes the pictures in a brochure look frumpy? And the breeze hardly blows, save to bring the scents of exotic spices of papaya, cinnabar and coconut to your nose? Where the atmosphere would calm even the most frazzled of nerves after just five minutes?

Well, I'm sick of it, and it's not all because of the setting!

"You're not con-cen-traiting," Triton told me, speaking in that little sing-song tone I usually identify little irritants with.

I turned around, crossing my arms over my breasts as I scowled at him from where I stood in waist-deep water. "You try concentrating when you're soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone!"

Triton just chuckled from his cross-legged seat on the back of a large loggerhead turtle that floated idly in the lagoon that encircled us. If I’d seen this gray-green skinned being, with his wet breechcloth and straggle-strand hair someplace else, I might have found him amusing…

As it stood, with him grinning like a parrotfish at my exasperation, I wasn’t all that amused.

He waggled his bluish, bushy eyebrows at me. "It shouldn't matter how wet you get," he commented, pointing one talon-tipped finger at me before reversing the gesture towards his chest. "Never does to me." 

I reached up and brushed some damp hair from my face, puffing out an exasperated breath. "That's because you spend most of your life that way!" Which wasn't an idle thing to say, really, but since I'd been standing in sea water since shortly after sunrise, my shorts and halter top were saturated with it. Running my tongue over my teeth, I just knew It would take a while before the salt-taste could be banished from my mouth. 

Triton smoothly folded his legs into a lotus position before speaking. "Seawater has a great preservative nature," he beamed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the inside of his knees, watching me intently. "But, let's get back to the lesson at hand, hm?" 

Right…the lesson. 

Not since I started my vacation a week ago did I think I'd be spending time out in the middle of somewhere, in the South Pacific, on an island with the immortal son of the former Lord of The Seas…but, thanks to one of those sudden storms and a half tank of fuel in my rental boat, here I was. Smack in the middle of something that should have - might have - been a wild dream, but... ah, what could I do? Fate seems to love playing little tricks on people like me! When that thought caromed through my head, I slapped my flat hand against the water. 

"Temper, temper." Triton shifted a bit, looking at me intently with those large, black eyes. You might have called them 'fish eyes', but to me they looked more like those belonging to a blue shark: large, with unblinking pupils. "Unless you can concentrate, you're never going to... how do you mortal's say it these days? 'Get the hang' of what I'm teaching you?" 

"Hang of it…right," I sighed. Ever since he found me two days ago - half-baked from exposure and dried out on thirst - Triton had been keen on keeping me alive. He hardly ever had the company of mortals anymore...so he said.

After letting me recover and rest for a few days, I finally got up the nerve to ask him to help me get back to civilization. He was reluctant, at first, but then he agreed...on one condition. So, now here I was trying to learn the fine art of 'wave weaving'. To put it bluntly, it’s how to move water with a thought. Good ol' telekinesis. The stuff of comic books and science fiction movies! 

Triton smacked his lips. I'd noticed he did that when he was thinking something over. "You know, Jason and Odysseus could do this when they were boys. Perhaps it's because you're-." 

"If you say it's because I'm a woman," I growled, turning around to glare at him. 

"Well, much as I recall," he sing-songed. "There weren't many women in my father's time that were sailors." 

I continued to glower at him. How did he expect me to concentrate, when he kept making comments like that!? 

Shrugging, he added, "But there’s no reason that you can’t learn how to control the waves. It's all a simple matter of using your will and soul." Opening one hand, he held it out over the gentle waters beside him. A small waterspout emerged, burbling and twisting like some fountain in miniature. Relaxing his hand, the column of seawater collapsed back into the waves. He grinned at my frowning face. "See?" 

"Fine thing," I shot back, albeit without much heat. "You're the son of a sea god…or so you claim. The only time I can get water to do anything for me is when I pump it out of my faucet at home." 

Triton snorted wetly. "Ah! Mortals…we leave you alone for a few hundred centuries, and you lose some of the basic fundamental skills you need to survive in this world! How do you think Jason navigated the seas in his quest for the Golden Fleece, hm? The stars? Some mortal's invention? No! He had the waves and the wind, and help from any good sea creature that would listen to him." 

I crossed my arms over my chest, balancing on my toes in the soft sand on the lagoon's bottom. "Are you saying I have to learn to speak to a tuna, before I'll get this right?" 

Shaking his head, Triton replied, "Not in the least…" His voice took on a funny pitch as he continued to speak. "All that's needed here…is the proper motivation." 

"'The proper motivation'?" 

"Exactly!" Triton unlimbered one leg, tapping the loggerhead on the side to get it to move in close behind me. "How do you think a mortal learns to swim…back in the days when my father's father ruled?" 

That threw me for a bit. "Huh?" 

Moving back around in front of me, he rolled his eyes in that universal motion of 'why must they always do things the hard way?' "How did you learn to swim!?" 

I thought for a moment, frowning when I came to that particular memory. "Well…I know my dad threw me in the deep end of a pool when I was eight. I had to learn how to float pretty damn quick, or else." 

Triton nodded. "It's the same all over." Again, his words had a odd lilt to them. "After all, a baby turtle learns to swim faster than the sharks, or else..." His eyes slid away from me, glancing behind me as another grin wrapped itself around his lips.

Something made the hairs along my neck start to prickle. Call it a woman's 'sixth sense' or whatever malarkey you choose... all I knew is that when I turned around, I caught sight of a dark dorsal fin cutting across the top of the swell. 

Of course, I panicked! What else could I do!? Thrashing backwards, I kicked out against the dark shape...stupid for me to do, sure! I was in shallows where bulls and tigers loved to hunt and feed, and all I did was churn up a nice batch of vibes that practically screamed 'EAT ME!' at a shark! 

I then let out a scream, and all I could see in front of me was a mass of pointed teeth and red foam on the water--! 

But, then the shark slopped back into the water and dissolved back into the sand and water Triton had made it out of. 

Breathing heavy, I slipped down until the water covered my shoulders, resting back on my hands in the sand. After my heartbeat returned to calmer rhythms, I shot my green-skinned teacher a heated look! 

"Well, murk! I thought that would have done something!" He sighed, propping one hand under his chin as he looked sadly at me.