The Swimmer of the Sky

In a red swimsuit, she waded through the clear blue. With her arms, she cut through the winds as they softly caressed her skin. The woman swam through the air.

She was a child of The King of the Seas and The Queen of the Storms, so whispers one of the legends.

But one day, she was needed. For one day, the sky would fall.

The mayor of one of the cities she swam above called to her on a day the winding pavement gleamed, “Please, this prophecy spoken on the winds about the falling sky is making the city chicken. Is there anything you can do?”

And she smiled and nodded. For she knew this day would come.

Sleeping in a cloud she turned as thunder rumbled, The Swimmer was caught in the crux of troubled sleep.

“My child,” Said the gigantic wispy cloud form of her mother in her dreams, “Why don’t you attack the cities like your siblings?”

The Swimmer shook her head.

“I will not give you back your voice until you have something to say.”
The Swimmer swam from her, as her thunderous darkened cloud mother boomed: “Mark my words girl, we will see to it that all the skies fall!”

The city paved with clean cream stones that winded over hills continued its life of harmless civility.

Then the sky quaked.

The city folk looked up, and indigo rips appeared in the sky like it had been scratched. Outburst the sky spirits.

She saw them, while she lounged on a cloud. Wings the colour of a storm churned sea, with fangs and claws.

The sky swimmer shot off towards them.

The people of the city shook beneath a sky of chaos, helpless and afraid.

The spirits swooped down, clawing, drawing blood.

One even ripped a baby from the arms of their father. “My everything!”

A red bolt from the blue shot out and fizzled the spirit to oblivion. The baby fell through the sky.

The Swimmer skydived and grabbed the baby, then placed them in their father's arms. “Thank you.”

The Swimmer nodded. She then darted back up into the sky.

The Swimmer pulled out seemingly from thin air a red trident, and shot crimson bolts at the air spirits, making them explode like fireworks around her as onlookers applauded.

“Shame on you!” came a screech from above, and in a trail of black smoke, the swimmer was plunged deeper skyward.

Caught in gusts of smoke black and blood-in-the-water red, two legends in-flight attacked each other.

The creature, trailing black smoke and wafting the winds with large bat wings, spat, “Half-sister who swims the sky seas, I will bring you to your knees!”

The Swimmer’s sister clawed and bit, causing blood to form a red mist in the air. But The Swimmer had too much care for those she looked after to let herself die, and she wished for many more days to swim through her waves of skies without care.

The Swimmer managed to pull out her red trident and plunge it into her half-sister's chest. She screamed and when the sky swimmer pulled the dripping trident out, she shrieked “I will be back, and next time …” She ripped a hole into the fabric of the sky and smiled, saying as quietly as the breath of a mouse, “I will bring mother.”

The swimmer of the sky swam through the upper blue, belly full of the cakes the city folk had given her as gifts.

As she let the sky wade past her, she let certain facts sink in;

She can never be part of her dad’s world, and due to her choices, can never be part of her mothers. So she decided to be part of her world. And that’s ok for her.