The Watersprites Prologue — The Seed and the Raven
They fell for centuries.
Silver streaks in the night sky are barely noticed or wished upon. Meteor showers, the scientists said. Light shows. Atmospheric dust. Most vanished in flame long before the world could touch them. A few struck deep—deserts, oceans, permafrost—and were cracked open by curious hands. Cold rock. Broken shells. The seed was lost.
But some—only a few—landed softly. Slipped unseen into hidden waters: woodland ponds, jungle pools, forgotten river eddies. And there, cradled in mud and weed, they waited. For decades. For centuries. Walnut-dark, metallic, and sealed, they pulsed faintly with a rhythm not born of Earth.
The people who lived closest to such places—those who watched the rivers and listened to the trees—spoke in whispers of what might lie beneath. They did not try to break them open. They knew better. They told stories instead. Of a bird that walked between worlds. A feathered shadow. A sharp-eyed trickster.
They spoke of Raven.
Raven who could steal the sun or drop a pebble into silence and make it sing. Raven, who, from time to time, would perch on the branch above a sleeping pond, tilt its head and let out a single call. No warning. Not welcome. A summoning.
In some places, that was enough. The shell would shift. A crack would run down its spine. And something inside would wake.
Child-shaped, fluid-limbed, and luminous with damp light, they would rise from the mud like dreams returning. Not human, not animal—watersprites, the old ones said. Born from stars, midwifed by water, and guided into breath by Raven’s eye.
But most never made it. Drought, frost, fear. Some were devoured. Others changed too slowly and missed the call. Only a few reached childhood. Fewer still survived it.
Yet those who did began to feel a pull—a deep, cellular yearning toward a place they’d never seen. A lake, far to the north. Cold, deep, and waiting. There, others would gather. There, the old story would begin again.
And Raven?
Raven would be watching.
Leave a Reply