The sea boiled with icy hot anger, a thrashing maw of black water. As lightning split the weeping, screaming skies, so did a smile cross my face, an insane grin that was not there before.
"Row, lads! For mother sky and father sea are making love, wrathful love! The beasts below have heard her call—row!" And we rowed as if for life itself or death; I doubt even Herakles could match us in those last moments. In all our long journeying on the world's seas none had seen such savage power: what god-given winds drove these oars? What unseen spirit pulled at the sweating seamen behind me to make them pull still harder than they might otherwise have done? I'd infected them with my frenzy; I would have my prize.
I could feel it now—a great dark shape rolling beneath us like a mountain rising from the deep. The sporadic flash of lightning illuminated her silhouette, the pale curves of her silvery tail rippling with power and fury, but when she saw us bearing down upon her she began to rise up, rearing out of the waves into view. My obsession. My love. All red-eyed and ragged, soaked through by salt water, gasping air in gulps, chest heaving…but oh! She looked magnificent against the stormy night. A white tower of scale and bosom and beauty, sleek muscle and ivory tresses shining under starlight. "Ah, it's you." A sultry boom rose above the crashing waves. "You are persistent, human. That much is true." She was my greatest prize, the object of my deepest obsession.