Work Text:
“The story goes like this.
There was an island. Its location now long forgotten.
Its people knew each spirit that dwelled there. They knew the trees, the vines, the bushes, the very rock itself that the island was constructed from. They were the same, they would say. They were made from the island, and the island was made from them. Everything had a purpose and everything was made to fulfill that purpose. There was no such thing as something out of place.
Many many years ago there was a girl who lived on the island. She could hear the island speak to her. The Keeper they called her. The Island’s Keeper.
She would run across it and tend to the things that needed tending to. Listening as she went, and the island would tell her things: who would die, who would give birth, who would fall ill, when the storms would come. And she would prepare for such things and tend to the island in return. Burning its trees, caring for the animals and plants alike. She had magic.
Though she would claim that anyone could do it if they just listened.
By the time she was a woman, the first white settlers came to their shores. Merchants looking for supplies. They offered stories in exchange for fish and fruit. The island people happily supplied them and sent them on their way.
But then another ship came.
And another.
And soon there were more merchants than islanders and there was too much noise to hear the island properly.
They must leave. We cannot have them here. The Island’s Keeper said.
And so, war broke out.
But these settlers were Something Else . They were not made from the island. They did not follow its rules. And so the war lasted only a month before there was hardly anyone of the island left, and the island’s voice grew quieter by the day.
The Island’s Keeper retreated to the heart of the island, where a whirlpool sat and a waterfall fell. And she sat there until she could hear the island’s faint whisper. She asked for assistance. She asked for help and power.
I can provide for you, the island said, I can summon up a great force for you. But it comes at a great cost. We will no longer be made of the same thing. You will become Something Else.
Do it. I will do anything to save what is left.
And so she climbed into the whirlpool.
She sunk down. Deeper and deeper amidst its swirling colors of white, turquoise, and teal. Deeper into the roar of the bone-chilling water.
And the deeper she sunk, the more she burned.
She burned and burned and burned and came out as Something Else .
She climbed to shore as a great beast with nine tails.
Her rage was a fire that could not be extinguished by any means.
And she laid waste to the island and she could not stop.
Her rage hurt even those she loved the most.
She had truly become Something Else .
Reinforcements came and they perished.
More came and those too perished.
Again and again.
All the while the Island’s Keeper was burning. Burning. Burning.
But the beast gave her the ability to regenerate so she never perished. Just burned.
Eventually, the people of the island and the settlers joined forces to stop her.
And they managed to seal it inside of a child.
And that child lived and it was in agreement that the beast would stay sealed inside of one of the island’s people for the rest of time.
But there had been a great toll taken and there were so few of them left that eventually, they were not the island’s people and the settlers, but Something Else . And eventually many of the new inhabitants left the island to find a better life.
Because once the Keeper was gone the island withered. The fish were not as plentiful. The fruit not as ripe. The whirlpool even stopped moving.
Some said that the beast was the spirit of the volcano that created the island and that is why it withered.
Some say it was a demon from hell and it corrupted the land.
I think it was Something Else .
And that is how the story goes.”