saltqueen

Grandmothers tell stories of a land where eels were once woven in the hair of girls deemed too beautiful. Then, they were buried in salt. So none would love them, even in death, any who looked upon them were cursed to join them in their grave.

The sea swallowed those lands long ago, and scattered the salt graves. Now the girls walk free.

If you look upon a Saltqueen, you turn into the same salt they were buried in. The curse has outlasted the bitter ones who made it.

radio angler

A fish as fat as three trawlers sits in the water, tugged along by the current. It floats. It waits.

Dozens of tendrils hover around it, dancing from time to time as they produce the radio-sounds desperate humans find most comforting.

In halcyon days, it delighted in the thrill of hunting ships, until the ships grew too fast, and it grew easier to lure instead of hunt. The old glories lose their lustre, generation after generation. It looks only for the easy meal now.

barnacled

A barnacle can climb aboard a human as easy as a rock. They burrow roots deep, tangling with yours, where they discover the honey-sweet taste of freedom.

A single barnacle is easy enough to yank off, but beware: it only takes an hour for one to be a dozen.

As the barnacles breed, they drive you to wander. Your mind dulls, flitting and floating like a child, like an animal. You cannot end the day in the same place as yesterday without succumbing to a pain worse than death.

All Barnacled long to spread the joy they’ve found. They scratch, ploughing a field in your skin, planting microscopic seeds in the wounds. When the hour turns, they flower into barnacles of their own.

The barnacles die if they go without a sea-bath for more than a week.