The Great Fish.

When Ponto Proudfoot was in his younger years and setting out on his first adventure for his novels he caught a carriage heading west. He crossed over valleys and deserts, rivers and streams. Through villages and great cities encased in stone he went. Eventually he came across the mountains. Now you may have seen mountains before but these mountains touched the sky above. Standing there like great guardians of the land waiting to be conquered. Ponto climbed those mountains for weeks fighting off the weather and beasts alike until he reached their summit. 

From up there, the land crept away from him until there was land no more, instead, a vast expanse of endless water lay before him. He ended his journey in a small lumber village deep in the woods along the coastline of the endless ocean before him. Ponto Proudfoot worked for several months milling and carving lumber until he saved enough money to catch a boat to continue his journey west. eventually he found a fishing boat willing to take him, though he did not have enough cash to get a free ride. The only option was to work on the ship as a fisherman as he headed out to sea. 

Initially he planned on working until he hit the next island and be on his way. Days turned to weeks, and weeks into month, he barely noticed the time passing as he honed his skills as a fisherman. His beard grew long and his hair even longer, it became easier for him as he grew accustomed to the bad weather of the North Sea. The rain that never ended and the waves that crashed heavily onto the bowels of the ship were like a song, soothing him as he worked.

 Eventually the weather broke and he was met with a calm sea. The surface resembled a mirror and the waters extended the sky beneath him, he was flying. Looking down he watched the clouds  turn from white to pink and eventually a dark red before disappearing, making way for the stars. Looking out at the endless cosmos that lay before him, he saw it. A ripple in the water, barely a blip once it hit the ship. Another came and went and eventually they grew in size until the ship jumped up from the impact. 

Ponto was barely able to catch the railing as he fell back down to the deck. The warning bell began to ring as the captain fired up the crew. The nets were pulled in and the safety boats secured. One by one the crew ran below deck yelling endlessly into the void. Ponto stood there, frozen, a testament to the shock that over came him as he saw it. A fin broke the surface and grew taller, reaching for the sky. Five feet, then ten, eventually it stood taller than the ships deck out of the water before diving deep below the surface.

 The water settled and returned to the endless sky. Ponto sighed in relief, and let out a small laugh. Just then it happened, the mighty fish rushed the surface and left the sea behind leaping out of the water and over the ship. It’s scales were easily ten feet across, and the body they covered stretched fifty meters long and twenty meters across. A great behemoth was soaring above them and coming down fast. He watched as it crashed into the water on the other side of the ship causing a massive wave to spring forth tilting the ship. 

Ponto Proudfoot fell into the depths below, surrounded by nothing but deep blue waters. The cold stung like knives and he rushed to the surface for air. The ship he fell from was cast away in the wake of the great fish further and further to the horizon. He was alone, stranded in the waters of the north looking furiously for anything he could grab a hold of.  Eventually he found a barrel that fell from the ships deck, one they used to hold the fish they caught. He emptied it as fast as he could hoping to float inside of it when the tail of the beast struck the sea. A wave over took the barrel and ponto, spinning him below the surface. There he saw the beast, in all of her glory. Strong and resilient beneath the waves above. 

Her scales glowed a deep green in the moonlight revealing a beautiful world below the surface. With her was a small pup, a baby Goliath learning to survive. The world grew dark as he watched them swim further north until Ponto Proudfoot himself, ran out of air.

The world grew dark. 

He awoke several days later on a beach. Next to him was the fishing barrel, broken and scattered across the sand. A small child awaited him, poking at his unconscious body with a stick. “How did I get to this beach?” He asked him while swatting his stick away. He pointed to the ocean and drew a dash in the sand before mimicking a vomiting sound. Ponto then understood what had happened, he had been eaten by that great fish. A tasty meal, the great beast believed, but upon tasting him decided the halfling was not good enough to eat and spat him back out upon shore washing her mouth out with the salt water she called home.

Ponto would travel with the boy that found him for a little while, telling the story of the great fish to anyone who would listen. Many fisherman listened and exaggerated their own tales to be the man to catch the biggest fish. The villagers around him laughed off his tale as a fisherman's story, a sliver of truth with whole bunch of elaborate exaggerations. Though they enjoyed the tales of the sea and the thrilling fights between the local fisherman and the monsters they wrangled, Ponto's story was different. He never caught the great fish, instead the fish, had caught him.