View source for The Barrel-Eyed Whale

==Author: Arissa Moonchild==

==The Creature==
The Barrel-Eyed Whale is a monolithically large sea-beast that skims along the plains of the oceans beneath the midnight zone. Outside of its magnitude, (as large as a medium-sized city) and its entirely translucent head, its body is fish-like and nondescript with massive fins that propel it along the abyssal hills. Inside of its head, instead of organs and circulatory systems, it houses a lush, swampy garden full of plant and animal life, vibrant, alive, and sparkling with bioluminescence that makes it a very real home to its inhabitants.

==The Tale==
This is the story of family: of a community of Sisters, a monster, and the 'Mother' that extracts a price from her 'Daughters'.

Once every generation, The Barrel-Eyed Whale makes its ponderous way to the surface from the impossible depths and swallows young Amaian women whole. How it is able to find or sense them is a mystery, though some claim that an old Amaian woman is always present at the 'time of the swallowing'. 

Upon being devoured, the 'community' of women collected are slowly moved from massive esophageal chambers until they are shunted forward into its membranous head. There, the women of each generation tend to the fragile but utterly beautiful ecosystem that both feeds its captors, and their living residence. It is said that if the 'Mother' of any community is willing to sacrifice a 'daughter' for the good of the whole, The Swimming Death will pass them by on its next generational trip. 

No one knows how or why this bargain can be made, but Mother always knows, and the daughters are always offered, unless tribute is paid to the old woman; tribute that may be much more steep than a caged existence in paradise. Thus, the Mother tells the story, the Daughters accept the story, and we all know that should we become the next sacrifice, we have our sisters waiting in the The Deep Cage, and we shall not be alone.