Daughter of Void

"Past the village, under sea ice,
 haunting the shoreline since days came from nothingness.
 Watching you with unblinking eyes,
 waiting for you to defy."
 The boy observes him before the fire
 Ancient tribesman speaking in somber tongue
 Fascinated, leaves in the night
 Glacial wind bites at his eyes
 Words of elders ring in his mind
 "Hair of a maiden, skin of a basilisk.
 Stealing children too brash to comply,
 sentencing them to the deep."
 "I'll come to you,"
 The child calls to ocean depths from the snow
 He listens for the humming sound
 Wishes for the creature to appear
 Splash of water, unrecognizable noise
 Vision hazy, still his feet move ahead
 Flash of emerald, now a presence inauspicious
 Cranes to see, stability compromised
 Into the blackness of Antarctic sea
 Tidal momentum; submerged in her monarchy
 From waves, he calls to vacant land
 Sinks to the bottom
 Upon realization of his breach, they retrace his tracks
 A form floating near the polar fronds
 Familial collapse
 The tribesman lauds the child
 and curses the monster living in the waves,
 old as the sun
 Rising whale with emerald tail
 Merely adrift, more beast than myth