Aterious Grelnin
Aterious Grelnin, is a very mysterious man that lives on the same shore. He owns a cabin not far from Avlin. Aterious was old friend of Avlin's mother. He works with her father as an oceanologist. Avlin doesn't like Aterious very much. He is grumpy, irritable, and constantly replanting dead plants in his old flowerpots. Avlin likes to watch him from a distance. This is because she believes Aterious hates her. He complains out loud about her saying things like "Nosey little rat!" or "flittering useless pretty Bird!" even "Dimwitted Damsel Fly" when he knows she's watching him. For Avlin he is the framework of many unnecessary nightmares and she is determined to be rid of them by conquering her fear of him.
Unfortunately, her efforts to succeed do not bear fruit. Avlin doesn't know why but for long as she can remember, Aterious has haunted her darkest dreams-and worse he seems to know it. He seems very old with his twisted smile and hulking shoulders. As she runs past his cabin he glares at her with dull gray eyes, tightening his old tattered overcoat around him before limping back to his cave of a house. She watches him when he goes into his shack, gazing at the horrible hunched silhouette he casts as he moves around in his house. The shadowy image terrifies her until she can no longer watch and runs home.
He is alone and yet he has never expressed the urge to move from that shore. He seems to be waiting for something to happen. Avlin is afraid of what that may be.
Avlin lives in the tiny broken cabin by the ocean. She doesn't go to school nor has many friends. It is often whispered by the children in the villages that she can't speak! This, of course, is a lie. She most definitely can speak and she can read! Avlin has no interest in other kids because she feels they are too loud and noisy. She is home schooled by her mother and enjoys her studies very much. She often makes up her own stories of how life could be. Her greatest wish is to have a horse to ride in the sea-foamed crest of the shore's waves but she knows that she'll probably never have the chance to get one. The boys in the town make bets as to whether or not they can out run her. Avlin has run so often over the beaches she appears as though she were flying along the shore like a seagull! Infact her most common phrase is "If only I could fly as high as a gull than it would be quiet and I would be alone!" For one of her preferences is to be alone with just the sky and the sea. Her life is simple and solo.
Avlin's father is an aquatic scientist and is gone most of the day. Her mother is a teacher at a nearby school and is considered quite beautiful, but Avlin has inherited her father's long legs and independent spirit. She has her father's pale green eyes-so pale they are almost as blue as the dawning light over the ocean's horizon. She has her mothers brown hair, only she keeps it short and sleek. She is very slender and is not yet 13 years old. She loves to read but her passion is to run like the ocean wind. Avlin feels as if she will be young forever.
Upon the shoreline of South Carolina, on the beach of Abren, stands a small, slightly tilted house. It bows in a defeated way towards the ocean that laps tirelessly at the shore. Every hour or so, a flock of seagulls roosts on the weary frame of the old house. The gulls peck mercilessly at the house before taking off into the air and soaring freely beneath shredded clouds. At a distance the ragged shack reminds you of an old humpbacked man leaning on wobbly cane-like pillars.
The appearance of the house naturally attracts rumors of haunted titles used to scare the gullible and tickle the wiser. Its windows are wide like the eyes of someone that time has crept up on without realizing it. The house's tiny deck is always well-swept and polished. The panels are painted in acorn brown. A brush, still tacky with paint, floats in a paint can not far from the front door, but for all that work the shack remains quite the same. No measure of work can hide its character.
The sand at times tosses itself brutally at the house, challenging its endurance, but still the house holds on, even when the very sand that threatened it, blows into the sea and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. There, far beneath rippling waves and bright sunshine the sand has no memory of how it once cockily beat at a tiny cowering cabin.
The ocean stretches out like a blue carpet. It glitters in the sun's powerful rays. It rolls like hundreds of glass marbles bumping together, scattering, glistening, and then tumbling on towards unknown shores. Sometimes the night is silent while the wind begins to roar, to cry, and thrash at the sea grass sprinkled across the dunes. The deep current slips treasures ashore to be collected by small hands and shovels or mounted in a castle of sand after dawn. These sea treasures are on loan for the early morning risers. By noon the sea reaches across the flat sands to reclaim its sand dollars, shells, bits of drift wood, or shark teeth. For what belongs to the ocean will always belong to the ocean. The sea never forgets that which it so freely gives.
On these beaches, where the boulders lie strewn across the sand, like the moss-covered shells of ancient sea turtles - where the horizon retreats to unexplored coastlines a thousand miles away, and where the local town beyond the dunes is no more than an after thought - here, of all places, is where Winifinatril Senitori Sea Horse of the Atlantic will arrive as a quartz stone upon the beach and begin his adventure in the little cabin by the sea.
This is a fairytale like creature that nobody's ever made up. This is a creature of the sea of the ice and water; this creature is a lover of sea spray and belongs to the ocean.
Its first distinct growth stage is what we call the crystal senitori.This resembles a small piece of white quartz and can be easily mistaken for that normal mineral. There are a few of these thatsometimes turn up by the sea. The creatures inside are rarely identifiable because they will stay in their odd egg until they touch the waves.
Their second more interesting form is the ice dust appearance. This is the time when they bond to a certain person or thing to protect them until they finish growing. What is unique about them now is they are able to take a solid form such as that of an animal or plant.
In their third stage they still are bonded but they prefer solitude. They begin to take form of fish or finned creature indigenous to the sea.
In their fourth form the solitary personality appears. Now they are big enough to ride and swim. Whereas as before they were frightened of the pounding waves they now prefer to be nowhere else.
In their fifth and final form they are completely solid and have taken the permanent shape of a large finned creature with a white body and blue arching fins. Its midsection is that of a dog Beautiful glass-like feathers cover it. Its legs are purely silver fins like that of a seal. Its dorsal fin stretches fromthe base of its neck to the tip of its tail. Its neck is long and curved and it wears an ever-present helm that covers its eyes, giving it an ominous bug like-appearance. It has five horns protruding from its plesiosaur-like head, one unicorn horn in the center of its crested head, two sharp, flat spikes running along its nose, and two large, mandible-like horns growing from its lower jaw. Its roaring cry thunders like crashing waves. The name of the creature in my story is Whenifinatril or Whenifin for short.
She was drifting along the ocean, the wind still, the ocean calm. Thick, soupy clouds filtered out the sharp rays of the morning sun. The beach stretched for miles, like an oatmeal-covered river framed from the West by a steamy, land-borne mist and from the East, by a dull carpet of gray water.
It was a dream. Avlin turned over in her bed not wanting to wake. The dream continued, sweeping her along the shore, like a plane no a gull. She strained to better see what lay directly beneath her. The dunes stuck out of the mist like camel humps. Sea foam splattered the sand. Knobby strands of seaweed glistened like the hair of deep-sea mermaids. And then she saw ita black streak! It was darting along shore so fast and with such agility that she thought it was a mythical seabird.
Then scene began to change, to sharpen with surreal intensity, and a black hound on slender legs and delicate feet was running full out. Ears tucked flat against its sculpted head, its eyes of silver grey, Avlin saw that on its thin chest it bore a white mark of a weeping tear. A collar embedded with rare emeralds and crafted of royal purple gold glittered at its throat. And hanging from that wondrous band an Egyptian charm spoke of exotic heritage. Behind the hound flew a figure clad in silk as soft as seagull feathers. To Avlin's amazement she realized that it was her dream image running with this magnificent Pharaoh hound. How she would love this running companion in the real world! This perfect, oh so elegant Jackal of ancient lineage. Oh to know its name, to claim friendship with it, and roam the dream world. With this hound the world would never grow dark. What a splendid dream this was! She wanted it to go on and on. All at once the scene began to fade.
"Wait!" she cried out in her sleep, "Wait!" but the image slipped away like sand through her fingers. She could feel herself rousing now, but she kept her eyes shut tight. Come back she thought desperately. Suddenly before her eyes flashed a vision so frightening she erupted out her sleep, quivering with terror. In her sleep she had seen a serpent coiled among scarlet pillows, its red body streaked with a single black ribbon that ran from the top of its broad hood to the tip of its tail. Before Avlin broke free of her vision she saw that the serpent possessed two heads, each with a pair of shimmering fangs, each with a pair of cat eyes. As Alvin escaped into wakefulness the heads turned to watch her, one with searing white eyes, the other with eyes burning like the fires of Hades. That was when she had awoken staring up at that dark ceiling witch seemed to glow with the serpents bright pupils, before they faded into the gathering light of the dawns rays.
