Echo of the Drowned

In the deepest, darkest depths of the sea lies a forgotten kingdom — the Rose Reef.
Everything there is pink — from soft, swaying seagrass to translucent schools of fish — as if the whole world is steeped in an endless rose-tinted dream.

Princess Coralia was the last of her kind. Her hair flowed like damp cherry blossom silk, her eyes shimmered with forgotten starlight.
On the day she was born, the old sea witch whispered to the undertow:
"This child is fated to seek a heart that does not exist."

In the Rose Reef, no creature had a heart.
They lived on tide and memory — alone, drifting, half-asleep.
Only those with a heart could truly love, or be loved.

As she grew, the waves began to sing to her — soft, distant, full of longing.
She followed a path woven from pink sea serpents, past shattered shell forests, and into a spinning dream.

At the heart of the whirlpool slept a giant whale.
Legend said its heart was the source of all love, powerful enough to awaken any lost soul.

Coralia floated above its brow and began to sing a siren’s lullaby, nearly lost to time.
She sang for a year — until her body faded, growing transparent, ready to vanish into seafoam.

Then, the whale heard.
It opened one deep, ancient eye. From its chest rose a glowing pink stone — a heart — and it melted into hers.

In that moment, the Rose Reef collapsed.
The coral crumbled into pink foam, and only Coralia remained — the first soul beneath the sea to carry love within her.

The ocean stirred.
And for the first time, she felt her heartbeat echoed — gently, distantly, from another soul.

So she drifted on,
seeking not just a heart,
but the one who could answer her own.

“May you find the echo of your heartbeat, even on the loneliest journey.”