It was a wild, stormy, sea-squall night, the storm was blowing very hard, and everything in the waves and sky and land was all in an uproar. Down in the depths of the sea, the fishes were lying quiet and still in the safety of their rock-tunnels, and all the mermaids and the mermen and the sprites and the sea-maidens had long ago retreated into the safety of their houses.

All, that is, except Kianda.

Now Kianda, a slim, young mermaid, with dark skin and turquoise hair, was floating on the edge of a coral sea-cave, watching the storm and enjoying the excitement and wildness of the sea-squall. Her mother knew of Kianda’s taste for adventure, and so she had told her often to keep to home and stay still when the sea was dangerous.

But Kianda knew about the outside world; she had seen storms and waves before, and the wild, angry sea with its writhing foam was very dear to her heart. The water was cold and green and clear, and it came in and out in great gusts, making the coral rock and the sea-caves roar and rumble, but Kianda liked it, and she let it play with her hair and her tail, and it flung her all about, as if she weighed no more than a bubble.

The storm came in a hurricane, and a great wall of water broke over some coastal town, washing ships and houses onto the shore and all about among the sand-dunes. Kianda was carried along in the wall of water, but she was washed up high on the sand-dunes, just at the edge of the wrecked town.