The Daughter of the Depths and the Fallen Hedgehogs

There were many things that the sea-dwellers did for entertainment, many things that amused the daughters of the depths. There were races along the moon bridge, dancing with dolphins, weaving corals into new shapes, teaching whale whelps to sing. Many things that made them laugh, but surely this one had to be among the best.

“Faster paws, brave land critters, faster paws.” She tried not to laugh, watching the paws more used to dry ground splash furiously in the gently enchanted buoying water. “No nipping at your friend, Scourge of the Seas. Swimming first, terrorizing later. Every sharkling knows this.”

She had met ground creatures before, but usually they were lost and panicked in the sea, needing help to get back home. Not these two. They had played in the water fearlessly and introduced themselves as Fallen Hedgehogs. There had been some explanation about a contest that she did not fully understand, but she did not care. The tiny spiky ground creatures were delightful and she was more than happy to help them in their doomed attempt to become mer overnight. Surely stranger things had happened.

The Fallen Hedgehogs are of course wishing to participate in Fallen God & Goddess Contest 2017. This year brings the Decennial, the celebration for the ten years of Fallen Gods Inc. in Second Life. The market, the hunt and the celebration week of events will take place in October, but the contest is open already. Simply take a picture of yourself wearing a Fallen Gods Inc. skin and send it full perm to Sonya Marmurek before Friday 6th October, 11 PM SLT. Even if you would not win any of the prizes, you are guaranteed the exclusive skin that is given to all the participants and cannot be gained by any other means, so don’t miss out! More contest details here. 

Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Oceanica Still Ivory*
Tattoo: Fallen Gods Inc. – Skychylde, Laguna* at Imaginarium
Mesh Parts: Maitreya Lara Body, Slink Hands, LOGO Alexis Bento Head
Eyes: Banana Banshee – Fae
Hair & Headdress: ~Tableau Vivant~ Longfall Hair – Rainbow
Hedgehogs: Schadenfreude – Costume Hedgies at The Arcade
Poses: Kirin – Athena 2 | Imeka – Lulu 1

The Memory of the Sea

Each pearl is a memory. Some are sparks of joy, leaping within the waves, meeting new friends, swimming in sunlight. Some hold sorrow, carry moments of loss, loneliness, despair. They form within the Sea as all its children experience life. They form within the Sea and the Sea never forgets.
We bear them for her, we beings of starlight and waves, foam and eternity. The pearls wrap around us, moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat. We carry the life of the Sea in all its rich beauty, we laugh with dolphins, we weep with whales, we remember the brief flashes of light before the darkness descends, we treasure the long years of turtles, we feel it all.
The Sea is alive, and she never forgets. 

Scene: 
Cerridwen’s Cauldron – Water Underbrush V2*
Fallen Gods Inc. – Odyssey’s Oracle & Pearls Shelled on Stand*

Body:
Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Sidera Laguna PG*
Eyes: Fallen Gods Inc. – Glowing Eyes*
Hair: Exile – Liaison at Collabor88
Mesh: Maitreya Lara body & Slink hands & feet

Outfit:
Jewel Harness: !dM deviousMind – Lola La Riche* at Genre
Bracelets: Mandala – Pearl Rain Bracelets
Sparkly Auras: Cole’s Corner – Cosmic Consciousness Aura (Serenity) & Heat Wave (Mana Burn)*

Poses:
!bang – Taurus 5
(marukin) [automatism] edge of the swallow’s nest
..::Vibe::.. Blissfully Aware 05

The Other Depths

There are strange creatures swimming in the depths of OtherWorld. Creatures born as colourful as the world around them, camouflaged within the plants, breathing in same bubbles of magic as the plants fluttering within the currents.

They form symbiotic relationships with other creatures, embraces of friendship and support, each lending strength to another in ways the other does not possess. They do not garden, they nurture. For them life flows in one stream that each brings something unique to, for them there is no separation of self from the world, for them they are all one. For them all is life.

If you have not yet visited Fantasy Faire, it’s high time! If you happen to be a mer-creature, I warmly recommend the seas of OtherWorld for you.

Scene: OtherWorld in Fantasy Faire
Tube Sponge Set & Eggplant Set* new releases by Cerridwen’s Cauldron, in FF OtherWorld

Skin: .:Soul:. Gen2 F – Ranitomeya – [FF2016]*  in FF Blackmoor
Hair: Wasabi Pills – Kai* in FF The Golden Delta
Mesh: Maitreya Lara Body, Slink Hands & Feet, Logo Alex Head, .:Soul:. Uni Ears Blix
Tentacles: Storybook – Chasm* in FF Dangarnon
Anklets: Bliensen + MaiTai – Dreki* in FF Lucentia
Tiara: Bliensen + MaiTai – Farfalla Tiara* in FF Lucentia
Particles: Cole’s Corner – Sea Smoke (Mage)* in FF Lucentia

Poses: {NanTra} Defying Gravity 4 | Picture This! Submerge 5 | Musa – Fantasy Pose 43

True Colours

There’s always something new in the world. Always something surprising, something enchanting, something that makes you smile. A flicker of a fin, a composition of colours, a splash that turns to a current.

Bubbles become small stars, every fish is a mermaid in disguise, water is really just air you forgot how to breathe. World is made of magic, wrapped in mystery.

It is challenging to see everything clearly, to see the true colours. We have become used to seeing what we expect to see, often in palettes of greys. It takes strength to close your eyes, take a deep breath of air or water and open your eyes to see the magic.

It takes great courage to leave the grey behind and to embrace the colours, great courage to splash along in the currents of magic that is life and be happy.

Scene:
{anc} I’m planet fish school white & pastel at Fantasy Gacha Carnival
{anc} mist cloud Heavenlyblue at Collabor88
{anc} nebra beads Heavenlyblue at Collabor88
Spyralle – Medusa Purple*
Fantasy Flora – Fantasy Sea Grass light blue

Body:
Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Oceanica Still Ivory* at Enchantment
Hair: Olive – the Sweetpea Hair RARE (old Arcade prize)
Tail: [D]oki – Jelly Mer White/Purple at Enchantment
Head: LOGO Alex Omega
Body: Maitreya
Hands: Slink

Accessories:
Necklace: lassitude & ennui – Chenoeh neckpiece silver* at We Love Roleplay
Headdress: Aisling – Calypso at Enchantment
Breast Covers: Fallen Gods Inc. – Oceanica Breast Shells with pearls Ivory 

Poses: [Black Tulip] – The dance of the mermaid at Enchantment

Dream and Play

We play. There is no night and day down in the depths, there’s just awake and asleep, dream and play. 

Sometimes we leap higher with our friends and companions, leap higher and witness the strange lands of the two-tailed people with their clumsy movements and strange sounds. 

Sometimes when the awake time up above gets really warm and the surface waters caress every motion like a lover, we approach the land to marvel at the beauty such clumsy creatures manage to conjure. Such halls, such statues!

My favourite spot is one of the stone-shaped hippocampi, a friendly creature whose spirit is slumbering in silence. I can feel him through the stone, basking in the sun. Perhaps one day he’ll awaken, rise up and leap back into the waters to play with us.

Perhaps one day the clumsy two-tailed creatures will do the same. Perhaps one day they’ll learn to breathe properly and join us. Perhaps one day we’ll play. Until then we will just visit: their lands, their halls, their statues and their dreams.

Fallen Gods Inc. released the new mer-people to frolic in the seas of the Fairelands: Oceanica skins come with a bunch of appliers, a fancy swirly-coloured mermaid tail that combines mesh and flexi and a mer outfit. The necklaces are a free gift right under the info board in the Fallen Gods Inc. Faire-store in Odyssey. You can also find mer poses by Musa from the same sim and the Yo Bailo poses in Wildehaven Marsh.

The unique double crown by Bliensen + MaiTai is from the last year’s Silent Auction and works as a reminder to go and check what there’s available this year! Silent Auction takes place in the Fairelands Junction, is already running (although more will be still added) and lasts until Saturday 5PM SLT. At that time the auctions close and the highest bidders win their items.

Scene: Odyssey by Alia Baroque in Fantasy Faire

Mermaid: Skin, tail, mer-outfit: Fallen Gods Inc. – Oceanica Indian Ivory* | Necklace: Fallen Gods Inc. – Ivory Shell Necklace, free gift in Odyssey | Eyes: IKON – Immortal Eyes Passion | Hair: Exile – Whispers | Crown: Bliensen + MaiTai – Gilgalad Double Crown (unique from last year’s Silent Auction) | Hands: Slink

Poses: Musa – Mer Pose 2 | Yo Bailo – Mer Pose 9r & 4 | Astalianda – Finity 3

 

The Surfaces of Light

Sometimes the sea is lit from above. The light slides lower within the waves like it had a will of its own, like it was stretching or reaching. Like it is calling.
There’s sparkles there, dancing patterns, delightful in their motions, alluringly restless and alive. The calm steady embrace of the sea feels too quiet, the soft glow of the plants too subtle, even the rougher currents of the storms too steady.

Sometimes when the light reaches down, I reach back. I glide higher, feeling it envelope me, taking my hand, pulling me higher. I can hear its whispers and all the warnings of my elders fade away.

Up there — up here — everything is light! The colours, the strange water around me called air; so delicate, thin and light to move through. The colours overwhelm me, the dancing bright things floating higher… always higher. Just like I did, reaching for the surface despite warnings.

I wonder, if I reached even higher, would my gliding reach another surface, break another barrier, bring me to yet another lighter place? How many surfaces are there? How many worlds can we find if we just keep on swimming up? Always, always up.

It is the fifth day of Fantasy Faire, the first busy weekend is behind us and therefore this is now the perfect time to go shopping. Remember that you can window shop all the RFL vendors in here!

Fairelands Junction is mostly an underwater mer-realm this year. It is also sponsored by Cerridwen’s Cauldron, so its landscaping includes plenty of sea flora from the Cauldron. You can go shop for fantasy plants of your very own in Wildehaven Marsh. The little sea sprite is the latest petite avatar in the Faire-exclusives by Fallen Gods Inc. The older petite Faire-exclusives are also available for the duration of the Faire, all set in Odyssey. All the mer poses are by Yo Bailo and can be found in Wildehaven Marsh.

Scene: Fairelands Junction by Saiyge Lotus at Fantasy Faire | Plenty of Sea Flora: Cerridwen’s Cauldron

Sprite: Fallen Gods Inc. – Sea Sprite* | Hair: Wasabi Pills – Orion Petite Hair Aquatic

Poses: Yo Bailo – Mer Pose 13, 6I, 7r

Azure’s Search for Normal People

Never content with just one world, Azure had long ago mastered the skill of landwalking. The first shifting had been awkward, her new-shaped limbs as useless as a baby fish tail, shuddering on reflex instead of control. But she had learned since. She had learned well.

She taught the craft now to the other curious mermaids, how to control two narrower, more angular tails, how to balance upright on them, how to survive in thin non-supporting air instead of the stronger embrace of water. How to transmute sea shells and coral into human body ornaments and wrappings.

It was perhaps the biggest challenge of them all, to learn which parts of the body should be wrapped in decor and which not, but after the initial mistakes and a lot of landwalker observation, Azure was now confident she had it right. If she could just find landwalkers with a normal skin colour instead of this one endless tribe of sand tones, she’d be happy. 

But no matter how far she had searched she could find no blues and the sand-skins kept raising strange structures wherever she had visited and burning small fires in them. Kneeling was also commonplace, but Azure assumed it was to show off their superior limb control. If she could only find normal people things would be easier: they would explain the landwalker oddities to their mer-cousin, those normal blue people.

The Draco Odyssey/Laguna skin by Fallen Gods Inc. is available in We Love Roleplay event. Azure’s skin was the scaled version underwater and smooth when rising to the surface. The mask by Senzafine, octobra by ieQED, fishnet dress by FDD and the Nereid dress by lassitude & ennui are all from the current round of The Fantasy Collective, conveniently themed around mermaids. The hair by Exile is available in Collabor88.

Scene: Cerridwen’s Cauldron – Jellyfish Weed Crownleaf, Hydra Anemone Indigo 20 Tentacles | Fantasy Flora – Fantasy Sea Grass Light Blue & Fantasy Bubble Plant Blue | Chair: 22769 ~ [bauwerk] Tentacle Chair

Body: Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Draco Odyssey/Laguna Scaled Marks Awake & Smooth* | Eyes: ~*By Snow*~ Midnight Eyes II Indigo* | Lashes: Redgrave – 39 – Luscious | Hair: Exile – Windsong | Tail: !deviousMind – Undine Electric Blue | Hands & Feet: Slink

Outfit 1: Mask: Senzafine – Morgazh Mask* | Bra: ieQED – Octobra Gold | Collar & Bracers: Luas – Revenge Set

Outfit 2: Dress: FDD – GS Mareena Fishnet Tunic Silver | Face Chains: . aisling . – Xanthe N1 Gold

Outfit 3: Dress: lassitude & ennui – Nereid Dress* | Jewelry: House of Rain – Bring On the Dancing Horses Jet/Gold* (rings not available anymore)

Poses: Part of the tentacle chair. | Exposeur – Underwater 7M | {Imeka} – Lulu-Pose 3

Dive Deeper

Dive deeper. It’s summer, it’s time to swim and play. Time to explore for the sake of exploration, to see new sights, try out new things, view visions never encountered before.

 Who says the water isn’t warm enough yet? The sunlight reaches all the way down during the summer nights and where it doesn’t reach, the magic of underwater growth lights the way.

Perhaps if you’re lucky enough in your watery visits you might pique an interest of someone ascending to visit you in return. Curiosity is a remarkable trait, goes both ways.

In the depths all the secrets are yours to find, all the mysteries within your reach. Dive deeper. It’s summer and anything can happen.

Just because I’ve wanted to make a mermaid post the whole spring and never had the time for it: now I did. Besides, frolicking in water is an inseparable part of summer. The only event item in the post is the hair & headdress of the first mermaid, they’re by ~Tableau Vivant~ and available in The Arcade.

Scene: Cerridwen’s Cauldron – Jellyfish Gazebo | Cerridwen’s Cauldron – Hydra Anemone | Forest Feast – Plume Grass Blue

First Mermaid: Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Nirvana, Hell Ed. (J&B Prize 2014, not available anymore) | Hair & Headdress: ~Tableau Vivant~ Longfall Hair Rainbow, Arowana | Eyes: ~*BySnow*~ Midnight Eyes* | Lashes: Redgrave – 39 – Luscious | Eyebrows: Bilo – Black Eyebrow | Hands: Slink | Nails: Beautiful Freak – Galaxy* | Necklace: House of Rain – Bring on the Dancing Horses sapphire/gold* | Tail: The Muses – Ianthe Seaglass* | Pose: Niqotine – Water 15

Second Mermaid: Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Biologic Arachnos Black/Red | Headdress: Bliensen + MaiTai – Seafro* | Eyes: ~*BySnow*~ Midnight Eyes* | Lashes: Redgrave – 39 – Luscious | Eyebrows: Bilo – Black Eyebrow | Jewelry: House of Rain – Abyssal Collar & Cuffs ruby/black* | Spell Effects: Solarium – The Enchanter Essence Hand Aura & Fallen Gods Inc. – Ring Particle Makers | Tail: !deviousMind – Undine Electric Red | Pose: ANA_KorruptGSit

Third Mermaid: Skin: Fallen Gods Inc. – Materica Frosted Anima [NY2014] | Hair: Analog Dog – Scene Nascent | Eyes: IKON – Kaleido Eyes Night | Lashes: Redgrave – 39 – Luscious | Eyebrows: Bilo – Black Eyebrow | Forehead Decor: Evie’s Closet – Archer’s Wick | Modesty Scales: Evie’s Closet – Nymph | Necklace: AZE Designs – Blue Topaz Fluted Scallp Necklace* | Collar/shoulderpads: Sweet Lies – Aqua Gardbrace | Tail: Mer-chandize Cove – Mother of Pearl Tail | Pose: c( Two Cats ) – Magical 2

Surface

There’s peace in the depths of the ocean. The embrace of the water is all-encompassing, world-defining. The currents carry life with them to a steady pulse, the comforting darkness hides one from the sharp, challenging threats.

The surface is scary: gateway to the unknown, the bright lights dancing on it hurting dark-accustomed eyes, the water’s movement more restless, unnerving. Surely it is inhabited by cruel hunters wishing to catch everything that moves and chain the life into suffering.

But should one dare to peek, one might notice that the red of the surface is not blood, but a sunset. Should one dare to stay, enjoy and play with new friends, the threatening chains of fear might prove to be no more than jewelry, worn to symbolize the moment they broke.

We all need to surface at one point or the other, but it is always good to remember where we came from. Comfort zones are necessary for gathering one’s strength to swim on: whether you journey on the surface or dive deeper.

Scene: Sim: Gardenia, Lost Atlantis

Body: Skin: Glam Affair – Roza The Arcade Gacha Events 05 | Hair: Boudoir – Irena black tentacles | Eyes: Repulse – Undead Eyes Silver | Makeup: Zibska – Bassline Smoke* | Tail & fins: =LunaSea= Black Widow

Outfit: Jewelry: Zibska – Ute Set*

Poses: N/A | Exposeur – Underwater 7 (Zodiac) | DieselWorks – Yash Male 10