The Storm Queen

Boom—the rumble of thunder echoes in her ears. Crash—the thud of waves, slamming against the rocky, black cliffs, drenches her with spray as she steps onto the soaking wet sand. As lightning streaks the black sky like daggers, it illuminates her as she stands on the beach.  

The Storm Queen. Her skin is white, glistening like a pearl, and her eyes are blue-green, the same color as the waves that crash against the shore. Her hair is long and black like the midnight zone of the ocean, and it whips around her face in the howling wind. Her dress, long strands of seaweed reaching to her knees, sways and swishes with every breath of the storm. Around her neck, on a string of braided seaweed, hangs a rare and breathtakingly beautiful paua abalone shell, and tiny earrings of the same shell glisten in her ears. A calm expression rests upon her lovely and yet so mysterious face.   

Rain pours from the sky—knives slicing through the air and into the furious sea. The fresh, salty, cold air rushes into her lungs, and fills her with energy, like electricity running through her veins.

As she walks towards the huge, seething waves, she seems to glow with a light from deep within the ocean almost like bioluminescence. The storm seems to scream a greeting to her as it throws itself furiously onto the land: hello, welcome. Her gaze is fixed upon the barely visible horizon—just a thin line where black sky and wild waves meet.  

The lighthouse on the cliff above her does little to sweep away the darkness with its seemingly weak beam of light. She hears nothing but the intense anger of the storm; has a nose only for the fresh, cold air; only the salty taste of the waves touches her tongue, and her skin feels only the wind and spray upon it.  

Without any sound, she walks to the edge of the water and slips under the waves. They wash away her footprints.