Thanks Linda for suggesting today’s word. This one didn’t turn out as I expected, but here it is!

She watches from far out to sea, where the water turns a deep azure blue and where the waves begin their journey to the shore, growing from small bumps to roaring peaks. Her hair is the greenish-brown colour of kelp, and floats around her shoulders, her white, luminescent skin almost glowing in the midday sun, reflecting its light back to the water surrounding her, where it jumps and mirrors, effectively hiding her from any stray gaze flicking her way. Not that anyone on the beach has ever looked much further than their own tiny patch of sand, in her experience.

It is high season. The beach is packed, people sandwiched together, almost rubbing shoulders, yet steadfastly remaining separate from each other. Many are lying supine on gaudy towels, glistening in the diamond-hard summer rays. But the water on their skin is false; just the sweat drawn from their bodies by the glare of harsh Father Sun as he asserts his dominance over the day, trying to dry all he sees. She wonders how they manage not to dry out and crack apart, their parched bodies dissipating on the wind.

The small people, the children, are constantly running around screaming, playing games and generally making noise. They scamper in and out of the shallows, splashing, pushing and chasing. She shudders, her tail flicking beneath her in distaste at the sight of their spindly appendages carrying them around. A small child is pushed and falls face first into a dying wave as it casts its last breath onto the sand. As it recedes, spent, the child rolls over and starts to bawl, its face red and its mouth open so wide that it looks like it will swallow itself up. Unfortunately that is prevented when an adult rushes forwards and picks it up, scolding all and sundry for their carelessness.

Others are swimming; their gangly, slow progress laughable. Again she flicks her tail, this time in smug superiority, admiring its strength, her caudal fin billowing like a Portuguese Man-O-War, transparent yet tough.

She prefers to visit the shores in the early morning, when the crowds have yet to gather and she shares her sea only with people that love it almost as much as her – surfers. She pities them their ungainliness and the need to use a rigid board to ride the waves, but also finds them infinitely fascinating. Their balance, their wide stance, the bunching of their muscles as they make their boards dance across the waves, leaning over to run their fingers through the bubbling foam crests as they strive to become one with the ocean.

Sometimes she likes to surf alongside them, diving down beneath when they turn her way. She especially likes to swim beneath them when they are sat, waiting patiently for their next wave watching their strange-shaped feet and little wriggly toes as they paddle. She thinks it would be a great lark to grab one of them around the ankle one day – what a giggle their shocked reaction would be!

Her favourite time though is the night-time, when she and the other sea-animals have the waves to themselves and they can play together. The moon-silvered water is dark and enigmatic then, with no human sounds to drown out the crash of waves onto the beach and the satisfied whisper as, once spent, it is drawn back into the ocean’s embrace.

At night she can jump and race, and her scales will glitter in the light cast by Mother Moon, and her great tail will crest the waves as she dives down into the inky depths of her home.