Jynara Chapter 1, Birth

“Jynara. Jynara. Jynara,” strange words flowed through my head. I opened my eyes and saw a sea of black over my head. A sea of black with tiny pinpricks of light scattered here and there. Floating next to me, below the gorgeous sight, was… another me! Wait, the other me was slightly different, it smelled unlike me and was bigger.

“Jynara, do you not know who I am?” It spoke! “I am your mother.”

“Mo-ther? Moth-er? Mother?” I tried out the word.

“Yes, mother. Are you hungry?” my mother asked.

“Hungry?” I asked. My mother pointed with her flipper and I followed its path wind-milling my fins awkwardly until I moved forward.

“What is this white stuff?” I asked.

“It’s milk. That is what you drink so you are not hungry,” my mother answered.

“Oh, do you drink milk? It tastes good,” I asked.

“No, you drink milk when you are young. I eat krill, which are tiny creatures. Now drink the milk, I don’t want you to starve,” my mother replied.

I obeyed and when I was full, my mother nudged me back up to the surface so I could breathe. “Where am I? What is your name? How Did I-?”

“Hush, my name, other than mother, is Silvenka. You still call me mother but if you ever get lost and find someone other than me say you are looking for Silvenka. Your father’s name is Keerel but you will most likely not see him until we get to the feeding grounds. Right now you are off the coast of a place called Australia. Soon we will be setting out to out feeding grounds near a chain of islands called the Aleutians.” Mother explained.

“I like it here. Why will we have to go somewhere else?” I complained.

“I have to go to the Aleutians because that is the place where I eat my own food,” Mother replied.

“You mean you don’t eat at all before we get to the feeding grounds?” I couldn’t believe it.

“The food I eat is at the islands so to answer your question, no,” she said.

“What is that big white-” I pause to search for a word, “blob in the black sea.”

“That is called a moon and those miniature dots are stars. They float in the sky, but you can only see them at night. There are two kinds of sky, day and night. Day is a pretty blue color with a shinning yellow dot called the sun and night is black, filled with stars and the moon. You have much to learn, Jynara, but someday you will know it all.