Leviathan

"Sailors have long known that if you don't think about the Leviathan, it might not think about you. And if it does, well, that's when things get... damp."

— A captain

 

The Tremble in the Deep

  There are tales, and there are truths, and somewhere in the swirling deep between them lies the Leviathan. It is older than maps, older than compasses, older even than fear itself. Sailors have whispered its name for generations, and the sea seems to shudder when they do. Not out of reverence, not out of terror, but out of recognition - like an old lover hearing a forgotten name.   Legends say the Leviathan was formed in the first days, when the seas were untamed and the world still young. It is said to guard the deepest places, where the water grows so cold and dark that light forgets how to shine. Some believe it is a servant of a greater power, a warden that ensures no mortal stumbles upon things best left hidden. Others claim it is that power, a primordial force that hungers for chaos and balance in equal measure.   They say the Leviathan is a beast of impossible size, a thing of coiled shadow and gleaming scales, its body vast enough to entangle a dozen galleons in its embrace. But those who have seen it and lived long enough to stagger ashore with their sanity intact speak not of scales or shadow. They speak of eyes. Great, luminous, ancient eyes that peer not just at you but through you, as if it knows all the small, mean secrets you've tried to bury under years and waves. They speak of a sound. A deep resonant groan that seems to come from everywhere at once, as though the very ocean is lamenting.  

Enter the Salt Chuck

  The Leviathan is no mere predator. It is not content to swallow sailors and sink ships - though it has done both, effortlessly, and often. No, the Leviathan is a story-maker. It leaves survivors because it understands that terror only lasts so long, but tales? Tales can last forever. It lets the storytellers crawl back to their villages, hoarse and wild-eyed, to breathe life into the myths that keep it alive.   Ships vanish in its wake. Sometimes there is wreckage, half-shattered timbers washed ashore days later. Sometimes there is nothing at all, only an empty horizon and a lingering unease, as if the ocean itself had swallowed a secret too great to share.   And yet, there are whose who seek it. Foolish adventurers chasing immortality, desperate scholars searching for answers. They say that to look upon the Leviathan is to understand the ocean itself: its vastness, its indifference, its quiet, patient rage. But no chart can lead to it, no compass can find its path.   The Leviathan does not hunt. It does not flee. It simply is. And the sea bows before it. And somewhere, deep beneath the waves, it endures.