U is for Undine

Once I was fluid, a spirit and sprite of the waters, floating and free. I didn’t think that could change. Innocent of fear, I saw no harm in answering a strange maiden’s call, in reacting to her song. Why shouldn’t I enter the shell she teased me with, if it amused her? Only that shell became a suit of armour and my prison. I am forced to walk around wearing it, doing the maiden’s bidding, causing all sorts of Trouble at Caerac Keep. No one knows I am within the armour. No one knows I’m trapped. I cry out, hoping some sensitive soul will hear me. It’s hard not to be misled by my outer appearance, the voice that issue from the helmet when I speak. I wonder if the maiden stole that voice from somebody, too. She’s got everybody around her fooled, just as she had me fooled. There has to be a loophole in her orders, a way to leave clues to the quartet of younglings seeking the truth in the Keep. Sometimes I wonder if they don’t sense me, if I haven’t touched their sleeping minds, their dreams. The thought gives me hope, even if it’s only faint hope. I wasn’t meant to be trapped like this. My prison will eventually corrode. I’ll either be freed or destroyed. The latter possibility terrifies me, although I wonder if it’s any worse than being a slave. I’m still struggling to get out, to reach the sea, to escape, or to fight back. If only there was a crack in this armour. I’ve got to keep beating at the walls of my prison, to force it to crack. This can’t continue, I can’t continue like this. I shouldn’t.