A Harmony of Water and Weald: a Sea Foam and Silence collection: Fairytale Verses

By Dove Cooper

She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.

 

Maris has always been intrigued by humans, whether new among them or having lived with them for a year, her curiosity remains. A Harmony of Water and Weald is a collection exploring some of Maris's darker moments as she learns what it means to be human and a glimpse at what her life and family is like after the Sea Witch's deadline has passed.

 

Though her desire to learn about humanity is insatiable, her new life isn't all sweetness and love. She's abandoned her sisters to live among a people she doesn't understand, walking on feet like she was never meant to. Sometimes her life is homesickness, sometimes frustration, often confusion. Always, though, it is wonder and fierce delight at life.

 

A Harmony of Water and Weald is a companion to Sea Foam and Silence and contains pieces set both during and after events in that verse novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Kraken Collective
• Release date: Sep 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386646075

Book preview

A Harmony of Water and Weald by Dove CooperA Harmony of Water and Weald by Dove Cooper

Table of Contents

Foreword

Sea Foam and Silence

This Roar of Tiny Voices

I Am a Mermaid?

Everything I Gave Up

Cutlery

Land-shark

Dogs Are Not for Eating

As the Sea Sings a Susurrus Lullaby

In a Flutter

The Nature of Our Relationship

Unmoored

I Didn't Understand

The Present

Stillness Like This

Being Still

Overboard

Introductions

Alf

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Sample: The Ice Princess's Fair Illusion

Thank you for reading!

Foreword

The story of Sea Foam and Silence is an interesting one. To me, anyway. I originally wrote it as a short poetic retelling of The Little Mermaid. Just a glimpse of what the story would look like, if the titular mermaid was asexual.

Once I’d written it, the story wouldn’t leave me alone, though. There was far more to the story than that single, brief poem. And so I expanded on it, used it as a road map and an outline for a longer piece that became the verse novel Sea Foam and Silence as it exists today.

The narrative still wouldn’t leave me alone. Writing the verse novel threw up at least two other ideas for a fairytale retelling (in verse), but more than that... I felt that there were still more stories to be told about Maris, Bernhard and Asta. That there was far more to Maris’s explorations of land (and love) than the verse novel had captured.

Thus, A Harmony of Water and Weald was created. It’s a companion piece to Sea Foam and Silence and while you’ll get more out of this collection if you’ve read that first it’s not required. I’ve included the original Sea Foam and Silence poem to serve as a sort of summary for the verse novel. I hope you’ll find it a fun and enjoyable addition!

Originally this book was a small collection of poems set during and after the events of Sea Foam and Silence, aimed at exploring more of Maris’s reactions to this strange, dry land that she has chosen to live in. I was aiming for about four poems in each of these two parts of the verse novel. It was just a nice companion extra for people who wanted to see more of this world.

I should have known that plan wouldn’t last. They never do. As I wrote the poems, the ones set after the verse novel developed a storyline of their own. Um, oops? I had fun exploring Maris’s life after she finds her family, though, and I hope that you’ll enjoy reading about it too.

Some of these poems are responses to things that readers told me they wanted to see more of, so if you were a reader asking for more of a specific thing I hope that these pieces live up to your hopes in that regard!

Is this all that I have in store for Maris? The part where I wrote a tiny verse novel with her adventures after the main narrative suggests not! I thoroughly enjoy writing her voice and us humans and life on land can be utterly strange, so maybe one day there’ll be another collection of pieces. For now, though, please enjoy this collection and let yourself flow along with our little mermaid’s adventurous spirit and her discovery of land and human life anew. You might find a new perspective on things we often take for granted!

Dove Cooper

28 July, 2017

Sea Foam and Silence

She warned of the pain. She did.

But no warning can prepare you.

Nothing can.

She didn’t warn of the hardship,

Of this confused maze of life.

How could she?

How could any of us have