Yemoja embraced her children, as once more she had tried to save them, but together with their captors they sank under her waves. All she could do was cradle them and soothe their fears and pain and bury them under the most colorful coral.
She felt helpless as she realized all she could do was watch them get herded onto ships like cattle. The lucky ones were returned to her, the unlucky ones were delivered as things to be used and to live a life of torment.
She scoured the shores, trying to fight the monsters without harming her children, the opportunities to do so few and far between.
At best she could harm only the lowest sailors, a rope twisted around a leg which she could pull down to the abyss or a well-placed wave to push them overboard. But the true demons, the lords in the fort, were beyond her reach.
One windstill day she noticed a boy on the walls of a fort, staring at the gentle sway of her waves. His skin was like golden sand reflecting the evening sun, his black hair like waves during a storm and his eyes held every hue of the ocean depths and shallows.
She felt pained seeing him, she had seen his kind before, and knew of the unspeakable way he had come to be. Children like him were often thrown to her to be swallowed up and forgotten, usually fresh from the womb.
But this one was different, for one thing he was alive, older than the babes she was tossed and dressed in finery not unlike the lords who owned the ships of sorrow.
His gaze fell upon one of those ships being loaded with misery, and she noticed how he fought back tears.
Even though the lord had named him his son and he never knew his mother, there was no hiding where she was taken from.
Yemoja’s children would either jeer and glare at him, or look upon him in pity.
The sailors would mock him and call him names, though of course, never within earshot of their superiors.
Yemoja sensed his pain and understood he would never live without it, no matter where he went, so she stole his heart and hid it in a pearl. She placed the pearl in a shimmering blue shell and placed it with her treasures. This heart she would protect from pain and sorrow and he would be able to grow up strong and fearless without ever getting hurt.
The instant she snapped the shell shut she saw the sadness leave his eyes and instead was anger and determination.
That night, screams ran through the fort as the lord had visited his “stock” and had once again found one he deemed pretty enough to satisfy him. He had gotten more careful over time, not wanting another mongrel. This one, who he was assured had not yet bled, would be safe.
He had kept the boy as he was getting older and had no heir to his business, the blue eyes made him hopeful he could keep his provenance secret, but unfortunately there was too much otherness in him for that.
The girl fought, she bit, she scratched, she kicked and above all screamed as she was dragged across the battlements. The guards ignored it as if she was just another seagull shrieking around the fort, they knew the drill and walked away, leaving their lord to his entertainment.
As he leaned his hand on the door of his quarters it flung open inwards, making him stumble. Like Eshu rising from the underworld, the boy rammed a gilded letter opener into his father’s throat and pushed him over the wall to crash on the rocks below.
Yemoja eagerly grabbed him in her waves and slammed him repeatedly onto the rocks, before depositing his mangled corpse onto the beach, she did not want to keep this one and knew these humans buried their dead on land. May his rot at least bring a feast to the maggots.
The boy showed no emotion as he announced his father’s death, he had unfortunately tripped and fallen in the dark and he swore that he had seen no girl. He ordered a quick burial and gave the soldiers leave to grief their lost commander. Knowing most would not want to serve him anyway, he gave them the opportunity to leave in peace.
Soon only he and a few sailors were left, he dragged the cases of stolen weapons to the pens, they would have been sold to various collectors and museums, opened their lids and released the people without a word.
The cases were emptied and the screams were brief.
The last thing the boy did before leaving was setting the ships and docks on fire, he didn’t stay to watch them burn.
Yemoja felt joy and warmth as she saw the flames dance, she wanted to pull the boy into dance and laughter, but as she was the sea she could only follow him from the shore.
The boy traveled from village to village, learning their languages and traditions, learning of the gods that protected them and the songs to venerate them.
He was taught of Yemoja, how she is mother of all, how she is moon, ocean and river and how she is the protector of women.
Believing she had guided him to protect the girl and stand up to his father that night, he never wandered far from the ocean and soon made his trade as a fisherman.
His nets were always full and he thanked her with both the smallest and the largest fish of his catch. The smallest, so it would grow and bring more fish and the largest as he assumed it had benefited from her protection for so long, she wouldn’t want to see it on a plate.
Yemoja wished so badly to talk to him, to tell him she had given him his strength, to dance with him and let him know she would forever keep him safe. She wanted to look directly in his eyes and not just see the blue reflected on her surface.
She spoke to Oya of the Winds about this, who told her of a place where this is possible. A city where gods could take on a form to directly interact with humans. Much much further north was this place, but being the ocean there was no distance to Yemoja as she was there already, she just had to get the boy there.
Oya and Yemoja worked in tandem, summoning a great storm and insurmountable currents, pushing and pulling the boy’s boat further and further to the north.
Caught up in the frenzy, the two goddesses relished in the fury of the winds, the dance of the waves and, perhaps a bit rougher than they planned, deposited the boy on the shores of Cathaìr nan Diathàn, the City of the Gods.
Oya took her winds elsewhere while Yemoja strode on land in wonder. Looking at her hands, her skin like wet earth, her thick shining hair like waves, her hips draped in seven skirts of different hues of blues, her slender neck adorned with corals, pearls and shells and as she moved she shimmered like the light reflecting on a school of fish darting around the reefs.
So this is what her children believed she looked like? She can’t say she disapproved. She gave this form a twirl, her skirts sounding like the waves crashing onto the beach and she walked toward the city swaying like the tides.
The boy, although by now it would be fairer to call him a man, was found cold and covered in bruises by a local fisherwoman who carted him home and nursed him back to health.
Her face was round and red from the cold ocean spray and her form strong and robust from hauling her catch and carting it to the market every day. When she laughed she would slam her rough, calloused hands on the table, shaking the plates. When she slept she snored so loud it seemed like she was daring anyone to try to wake her. Her thin, damaged hair was wound in a messy bun, just to keep it out of her face as she worked.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
It would be several years before Yemoja remembered to visit the boy, the sea being what it is she would just go with the flow and there were many wonders to be discovered on land, Mingling with her fellow deities she learned there was a great feast where all were free to attend, humans of all layers of society and gods of all nations. Here they could find hopeful devouts to bestow blessings upon, though not all devouts would be blessed by the deity they wished help from. Most would not get blessings at all, above all it was fun, there was food, music, dancing and laughter for god and humans alike.
She found the boy, not dancing, but manning a stand. Frying fish, shrimp, scallops and clams to sell to the partygoers. He looked different than when she last saw him, after all, time was less kind to humans, but his warm-sand skin and ocean eyes were unmistakable.
She swayed over to catch his attention with her divine beauty, but he was fully focused on his work. She tried twirling her skirts and showing off her curves, but he only had eyes for the long line of customers waiting to be served.
She strode right up to the cart and leaned languidly on the counter, still he didn’t stop creating the perfect golden crisp on his wares.
“GET TO THE BACK MA’AM, DO YOU WANT TO GET BURNED?! NO CUTTING IN LINE EITHER!” a woman bellowed.
Yemoja startled and stumbled, she would curse this awful woman if she’d be sure not to hurt the boy as well.
He laughed, planted a quick kiss on the woman’s lips and admonished her for scaring the customers. She gave him a playful slap on the arm and told him he’d let anyone walk all over him if she didn’t step in.
Stunned, Yemoja stepped away, he had not recognized her, after all her help and all the offerings he had made to her. Worse, he hadn’t even noticed her! She wasn’t going to announce herself and outright demand his attention, as a devotee it was up to him to give it willingly! She left him and his fishwife to their sales and strode back to the party. She danced the night away, swept off her feet by Anansi, skipping a quickstep with Loki, lost a drinking competition against Dionysus and finally drifted off with Susanoo into the sea.
Yemoja had left the city of the gods, but had decided she wasn’t done traveling yet. Meeting the other deities was fascinating and she set out to meet them all. Or at least all of the ones near bodies of water with her physical form shedded again.
It seemed like an eternity before she once again landed on the shores of Cathaìr nan Diathàn, striding onto the beach, feeling the sand between her toes and seeing a still figure sitting on the rocks, staring out onto the sea.
His skin, loose and wrinkled, was barely discernible next to the sunset glowing on the shore. His eyes, though sunken and tired, still held the ocean.
She walks up to him, and this time notices her.
“It was you, wasn’t it, who helped me free the enslaved all those years ago?” he asked.
She smiled at him.
“It was you, wasn’t it, who stole me away from my land and brought me here to meet my wife?” he asked.
She grinned wider.
“It was you, wasn’t it who cursed me?” he asked.
Her heart sank, her face fell.
“Why, why did you let me live to see her die, and my children, and my grandchildren? Why do I live and keep on growing older, but never know release?” he asked.
Memories, buried deep in the abyss resurfaced as she suddenly remembered a certain shimmering blue shell.
“And why did you make me such a monster that I can’t even mourn them?” he asked.
“I know I should hurt, I know I should feel sad, but there’s…nothing.”
She turned and dove into the waters.
He sighed as he watched her disappear into the surface and buried his head in his hands in anger and frustration.
It didn’t take long for Yemoja to reappear, holding a pearl as gently as if it was a bubble she was afraid to burst.
She held it out to him, saying “I’m sorry…I forgot.”
Anger flaring again he grabbed the pearl while hissing “If you think you can win back my devotion with some meager treasu-“
Tears welled up in his eyes as the pearl sunk into him. He gasped as he was flooded with centuries of sadness and fear. His heart slowed as the years caught up with him at last.
Yemoja caught him as he fell and embraced him, slowly pulling him back to the sea, cradling him into the waves, carrying him back to the beautiful coral garden where all her children were buried.
Beware if you seek the blessings of the gods, for they do not know how it differs from a curse.