War of water and earth. Chapter one. The choice.

Shadows moved across the black lake, leaves whispered lightly in the wind. Arya looked up at the moon and smiled. She loved to roam outside when no one else was around. Near her Andy waited, peering threw the leaves of a tree at her as she walked the silent shore.

She dipped first one then both of her feet into the cold water and sighed. She could feel the water rushing over her feet, feel the gentle current trying its best to pull her away from the land, and she wanted to follow it, she wanted to do so ever so much.

"Your there, aren't you?" She whispered, and slowly in the water a darkness separated itself from the rest of the shadows and made its way ponderously toward shore. When it got to be just three or so feet from her it fountained up into the form of a man.

He was tall and handsome with deep eyes and wild, flowing hair. His arms were strong, and his features soft like water. He reached out for Arya, but she took a step back, away from him.

"Come play Arya, come play in the water." He called to her, and his voice was like raw music, beautiful and enchanting. It almost broke Arya's heart to hear the simple plea.

"You know I cannot Sonay." She said, though she did not move away. "If I were to join you at night by the rules of magic I would be yours forever. Doomed to live in your lake and obey your rules."

"But you want to. Can you deny your feelings for the water. It speaks to you, it enters you and leaves you breathless. Come Arya, come into the water!"

"No!" And with that denial Arya tore her eyes from the water and stepped back unto the shore. The sand clung to her feet, but she didn't care. She kept backing up till she had reached the base of the trees. Then she did something she should not have done, she turned her head ever so slightly and looked into Sonay's cold, wet eyes.

In her head she heard the roar of the ocean, the touch of the wave. She could see the past, when all waters were one and when the sea men were friends with the strange human creatures that lived on land. She saw the first sea children playing with the first men child. There was a beautiful sea girl, with hair the color of ice and eyes like the sea after a storm.

Far in the distance a man saw her too, saw her play with his child, saw her beauty and agility. Arya saw the man come to where the children were playing. There were two of the sea children there that day, but the man went to the girl.

He grabbed her and his son and began to pull them toward his cave. The other sea child, a boy much smaller and younger than the girl cried out and attempted to fight the man, but the man was so much bigger than the child, the sea boy stood no chance. He was left unconscious by a tree.

The man reached his cave and told his son to stand at the entrance and let no one enter, not even other men. Then he took the struggling girl into his cave and closed the skins, blocking all view.

Time passed in the vision. Shadows moved around the trees, and at ones base the sea boy began to stir. The man child saw, but did not know what to do. He wished to help his friends but he could not go against his father.

The sea boy awoke completely. He stood up and looked at the cave where he knew the sea girl, his sister, had been taken. He could not invade it alone, he was too young. He left, yelling over his shoulder to the man child that if he wanted to live, he would be gone when the sea boy returned.

More time passed, but the man child did not leave. He shook where he stood, but he could not leave his place by the door. Slowly the light began to fade, the sun to hide behind the hill. His mother returned, but the man child told her what his father had said, that no one could enter the cave. His mother looked scared, but went by one of the trees and waited. Soon full darkness fell on the forest.

The sea people came, men, woman children and all. The first sea boy who's sister was in the cave led them, and fire was in his eyes. He pointed to the cave, and two of the biggest sea men walked up to it.

"Let us pass." Arya heard one say.
"I cannot." Answered the man child. And so the men raised their hands and hit the man child, who fell to the side. His mother screamed and ran to her child, picking him up and pulling him as far away from the sea people as she could. Fear was in her eyes, and as she looked down on her only son that fear grew to anguish. Her heart broke, and a sound that had never been heard in all the world came from her lips, that of a mother who has just found her child dead.

The two sea men moved to the furs and ripped them apart. There inside was the man, and there inside was the sea girl. Her hair, once so beautiful, was now dirty and smudged, her skin once so flawless was now bruised and torn but the worst of all was her eyes. No longer did they look at the world with innocence. She law on the floor at the mans feet, and he sat proud upon his chair.

"She is mine now. You know the rules of magic sea men. She is mine for the rest of her life, and if you kill me she will never be able to enter the sea ever again. She will become human, as her descendants will ever after be. "

The sea men knew this but they did not care. It was not their nor the mans decision. The sea boy entered the cave and moved to the sea girl. He knelt beside her and whispered in her ear, then she whispered in his. He stood and looked the man in the eyes.

"She chooses." The boy said in Arya's mind, and she watched petrified as the boy took a knife from his belt and drove it deep into the mans heart. As the man lay there, gasping his last breath the boy stood over him and spoke one last time.

"Serin would rather die a thousand deaths, and never enter the sea, then belong to you." The sea men moved off, but for a while the boy stayed, standing by his sister as her features turned. Her skin became pink like the mens, her hair became black, only her eyes stayed the same. The boy reached out and touched his sister, but she pushed him away.

"Go on Sonay, go on to the sea. You can't save me, don't even try."

And just like that Arya was back in the woods at the waters edge. She looked at the man who stood in the water, and saw the boy once again. Thousands of years must have passed since he had been the boy, but it was him none the less.

"Come into the water......" She heard him call again.

"I Am NOT your Serin!" Arya yelled, and she ran, ran back up the hill and strait to her tent. She dived inside, and quickly made her way to her bed. When she got there she cried until she fell asleep.

Out in the darkness Andy waited for the river thing to go back into the deeps so he could sneak back to camp, but it didn't. Instead it seemed to flow over to his side, over to where his trees branches dangled into the water. When it reached the point a hand reached out and grabbed the branches, pulling a body up out of the water and into the tree.

Andy looked at the man thing, and it looked at him. Then it said in a thin, sad voice.

"She is not yours, and she will be ours again."