Untamed

5th Place 10-13 Category Junior Authors Short Story Contest 2009
 
by Kimberley Monteith
   
Admeta sat at the edge of the ocean. In those days, water was not at all as it is today. It was smooth, and stationary as glass. And though it was cold and wet, it did not yet have the ability to tame the dancing flames of the fires that frequently, in that time, were used. But Admeta’s people treasured it beyond all else, and would never dream of hurting it, for it sparkled as though made of a thousand precious gems.

Admeta breathed out slowly and contently as she looked dreamily towards the water. With a small smile on her face, Admeta looked slowly at the sky and suddenly, jumped to her feet. The first two stars of the night (Merscapul and Geronishta) were already out, she should have been home much earlier when the sun (Halinstia) began her nightly bleeding, but, as always, Admeta had forgotten the curfew. The water
was entirely that beautiful.

When she got to her village, Admeta looked about and saw that the woman and children were already preparing for the men’s return from hunting. Admeta swore, they would be home any minute and she still had to get into her brightly died dress that was for special days only.

She scrambled home and jumped through the door, “I’m home, Galspeet!” She called to her mother and flung herself into the segment of the puny clay building that was
the room she and her grandmother, Fleetish, used.

Fleetish was just putting the final piece of leather in her snow-white hair when Admeta burst past the cloth divider. Admeta had just taken off her day-wear shift and was reaching out to the bright red one that was to be used that evening, when the horns started to blast.

“UGH!” Admeta cried she couldn’t just go out with out wearing anything - that was so primitive, her great grandmother’s generation had been the last one to even consider going out without wearing anything. So Admeta made the choice that changed the course of her life forever, she got dressed.

Finally, Admeta got the dress on and her hair braided with some strands of grass entwined into it. But even as she sped through the dressing process, it was still dark when she ran down the path to the village’s meeting place.

On the way, Admeta ran into another person. This surprised her because she had assumed that she would be the only living person still getting to the meeting place and also, this person was walking away from Admeta’s destination.

“Hello,” said the figure in a deep and strangely musical voice. The figure reached into his pocket and pulled something out that in the gloom, Admeta could not see. Suddenly, with a sharp crack, a small light sputtered into existence. With the aide of this mysterious light, Admeta saw that the figure was a man with sparkling sky blue
eyes and a honey coloured beard and hair, everything else of him was covered by a large cloak.

“Hi.” Said Admeta, her eyes were clearly challenging him.

“My name is Nishallba.” He told her solemnly.

“You mean, like the god?” Admeta scoffed. She’d never really had time to listen to the stories that the old-ones told around the fire for the little-ones to hear.

But the man only laughed softly, perfectly and nodded. “Can something be like what it is?”

“Are you telling me that you’re a god?”

“Yes.”

“But those are only stories, the old-ones made them up.”

“Did they?”

“Of course.”

“Then tell me one thing, Admeta, am I made up?”

“No of course no - wait! I never told you my name, how do you know it?”

“I already told you, I am a god.”

“Prove it.”

“If you insist…” he said and with a snap of his fingers, Nishallba was gone, all but a whisper of his voice which remained in her mind.

When Admeta got to the meeting place, the arrival ceremonies were done and everyone stared at her as she entered the clearing. “Admeta,” addressed the commanding voice of her village’s head elder, “I hope that you have an excellent
explanation for being late - again - because if you don’t, you will be put to death.”

“I do, I was on the way here, late I admit, but not so late, and I bumped into Nishallba, and…”

“Silence! How dare you use Nishallba as an excuse for your own incompetence! How dare you use his name with such little respect! You shall be burned at the stake for this, burned I say, this very night!”

Quickly the preparations were made and soon, Admeta was standing on the huge pile of wood that the villagers had found, flames lapping at her toes. No one argued on Admeta’s behalf. Admeta howled loudly as the fire raced up her body in a sheer wall of extraordinary pain. When it reached her chin when she let a yowl of rage, anguish, and fear that some how sounded almost musical and brave. It was the last sound she ever made.

Admeta’s eyes snapped open. She was lying on a large couch in a giant pavilion. There was a door in the wall right in front of Admeta, and through it strode, Nishallba and a woman who Admeta assumed was Killdra, Nishallba’s wife. “Hello my dear,” Killdra said with a warm and inviting tone to her clear, strong voice.

Nishallba and Killdra spent the rest of the evening explaining to Admeta that she was dead and that she had a very important choice to make, they needed a god of the
ocean and if she wanted, the job could be Admeta’s; she could become a goddess or really die. In Admeta’s opinion there was never a choice; of course she would become a goddess. And so it was that Admeta was made goddess of the seas.

Sometimes she was angry about her fate and so the water was angry too. Other times, she was happy to be an immortal and the sea was quiet and calm. Plus Admeta had been a teenager when she had died and so her (and the ocean’s) moods could change at a moment’s notice. And she could put out flame, only because she had died by way of fire.

A month after becoming an immortal, Admeta was visited by Nishallba. When she saw that it was him at the door of her palace under the sea, she smiled warmly and let him in. “Admeta,” he said, “I was coming to tell you what your new name would be, the one that would tell all what you are, but then I realized something--"

“What?”

“Admeta is the perfect name for you and the seas.”
“What does it mean? I had always wondered but mother - I mean Galspeet - never told me.”

“It means untamed in the Greek language.” And with that, Nishallba left to teach the world the true name for the ocean.

Eventually, the people of the world forgot the real name of the waters, but the truth behind them has always remained the same.

Untamed.

Kimberley writes...

I wrote Untamed as a school project. I had a lot of fun creating it and making up names for the characters. I also loved being able to use the name Admeta (said Ad-Meet-a) because I've been looking for an excuse to do that ever since I found it on a baby name website(it really is Greek for untamed). Finally, I was excited to draw the connection
between human emotions and the ocean. What we all are in one way or another: untamed.

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