[quote=@RomanAria]
[@Dedonus] Aww. You're so sweet. Thank you for taking the effort to do this. And I would love to read what you had already written, if you wouldn't mind sharing it, anyway.
[/quote]

Thanks. :sun  The text below is not complete.  I will update as I get time to do so.

As I promised [@RomanAria] in the contest thread for RPGC #3, here is the summary of what I had intended to do with my entry (but never got time to complete).  Once I get home, I will post what I had before I threw up the white flag.  I'm going to be a little light on the summary at the beginning because I actually have text written for that part.

[hider=Peri Asterōn: Mikra Kymata]
	 The world can be divided into four regions: the land, the sky, the seas, and the underworld.  While the land, personified by the primordial goddess Gaia, was not ruled by one single god or goddess, the remaining three regions were given out to the three sons of Kronos by lot.  Hades, both the oldest and the youngest brother, received the underworld as his lot.  While men fear him, it is only out of the fear of death itself rather than a fear of Hades’ own schemes.  Unless you were one of those philosophers or their pupils, who does not fear death itself?  Zeus, the King of Gods and Men, received the sky as his lot, fitting for the Thunderer and the one who enjoys the company of his golden eagle.  Finally, Poseidon, the middle son, received the seas by lot.

	In Poseidon’s realm, one would find a variety of lesser deities and nymphs inhabiting the seas and rivers of the world.  Even non immortal creatures populate these seas, filling these regions just as the birds and insects fill the skies and animals and mortals the land.  However, one lesser known group of immortals are called the [i]Kymatai[/i], as the Hellenes refer to them, or the [i]Undines[/i], as they are named in the Latin tongue.  I will continue to use the former name, as the Hellenes were the first to use this term and those who use Latin, including the Romans, assimilated the term for their own usage.

	The origin of these names is full of errors and misunderstandings.  Originally, [i]Kymata[/i], which is the term that is now used to refer to an individual of these immortals, comes from the Hellenic word “wave” ([i]kyma[/i]).  At some point, people began to use the plural form, [i]Kymata[/i], to refer to the individuals (as they do now), in spite of the fact that “waves” ([i]kymata[/i]) is not grammatically feminine, let alone the fact that they were using a plural noun to refer to a singular being.  Therefore, as people used [i]Kymata[/i] as the singular, the Hellenes regularized its forms, causing the plural form to become [i]Kymatai[/i].  The Hellenes have debated for a long time over who was the culprit of this error.  Only one conclusion has been made and it is that the Ionians were not responsible because they would not have mistaken an “alpha” with an “eta”.

	The Latin-speakers are not free from guilt, either.  Seeing the error that their eastern neighbors had made, when the stories of the [i]Kymatai[/i] reached the Italian shores, the Latins were fervent on restoring the form to its proper declension, as it was originally a 3rd declension noun that was assimilated into the 1st.  However, in doing so, the Latins committed the same error but only in reverse.  Their name for these nymphs, the [i]Undines[/i], come from their version of “wave” ([i]unda[/i]), which is a 1st declension noun in Latin.  In trying to restore [i]Kymatai[/i] to its proper declension, the Latins forced [i]unda[/i] into the 3rd declension, too, resulting in [i]Undines[/i].

	Unlike their Nereid sisters, the [i]Kymatai[/i] do not have the appearance of mortals.  Instead, they seem like a hybrid creature, just as Centaurs are half-man, half-horse, or the Sirens, who are half-woman, half-bird.  While the lower portion of these nymphs might seem like those of fish, a more accurate comparison would be to dolphins, as they have no scales covering their bodies.  Therefore, as a result of their physiology, the [i]Kymatai[/i] are not able to freely move on land as the other nymphs can.

	Long ago, after the sons of Herakles regained their rightful thrones in the land of Pelops, but prior to Xerxes leading the hordes of the Orient against the heroes of Hellas, there was a [i]Kymata[/i] who had six daughters.  Each daughter was born one year after another, until the six daughter was born.  Each daughter was born with a particular skill.  For example, one would have found a welcome place in the band of Artemis, if her finned body did not inhibit her ability to travel on land.  Another had beauty that could have challenged that of Aphrodite, if anyone would even dare to make such a claim.  The sixth and youngest daughter had the natural talent of weaving.  Different poets and authors have given this girl various names over the years.  The most reoccurring name is Ephydris, which is an apt [url= http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De)fudri%2Fs&highlight=spider]name[/url] due to her talents.  Others provide the name Melissa, while the Athenians give her the name Melitta, as the Athens would write accessory as ‘accettory’

	On their sixteenth birthday, each young Kymatai were allowed to approach the surface and explore the human realm.  After each girl went to the surface and returned, she told her remaining sisters all about her experiences.  The first daughter swam down the river Nile, catching sight of the pyramids that were built by the Egyptian pharaohs of old.  One particular sight that this daughter mentioned was of the Sphinx that guarded the pyramids of Kleops, Khephren, and Mycerinus.  Unlike the Sphinx that terrorized Thebes until Oidepos answered her riddle, this Sphinx was a guardian of the burial monuments of these three pharaohs.  It is unknown whether or not these two creatures were related, but Herodotus also mentioned in his [i]Histories[/i] two other variants of the Sphinx, one with a ram head and one with a falcon’s.

	The following year, the second daughter was allowed to ascend to the surface.  The second sister found a sandy bank to bask upon, looking out over the dark blue waves of the sea.  From a distance, this young daughter could discern a ship sailing past her.  Wanting to show of her elegant voice to the mortals, the second sister began singing a beautiful melody for the sailors.  However, once the sailors heard the song of the young Kymata, they turned their ship around without any delay, believing her to be a siren.  When the second daughter told this story to her sisters, they all broke out into laughter.  How stupid must these mortals be to confuse the Kymatai with Sirens?  Sirens are half-bird, half-woman monsters that use their alluring vocal cords to guide sailors to their deaths.

	Year after year, when each of her sisters returned from their treks to the surface world, Ephydris eagerly listened to her sister’s report, dreaming of what she will see when she is permitted to ascend to the surface and explore this strange, new world.  Would she see things as marvelous as her sisters?  Would she be able to find the shores of Troy where the armies of the Atreidai landed so that they could punish Alexander for kidnapping the Spartan king’s wife?  Or would she see the pillars of Herakles, the farthest point of that Hellenes hero.  These questions filled the young Kymata’s head every time one of her sisters told her tale of the land above the waves.

	However, her day finally came and the young Ephydris set out from her sheltered home amongst the Kymatai.  As she swam through the clear waters of the sea, Ephydris saw schools of fish billowing back and forth as it tried to remained protected from predators with safety in numbers.  She saw marine turtles lazily glide through the shining waters, almost as if they had nowhere important to go.  She could even barely discern the dark blue tops of some sharks beneath her as they swim past the young Kymata.

	However, way down in the depths of the sea, Ephydris could make out the appearance of a large, marine animal.  Larger than anything that she has ever seen, the young Kymata only relieved to see the creature slowly swimming in the opposite direction.  This giant fish had what seemed to be armor plating covering its face.  Through these plates, the mouth of this monster formed into what looked like a beak, a feature more suitable for a bird rather than a fish.

	Instead of dwelling on the thought of this monster, Ephydris rose to the surface.  A few miles away from a nearby island, called Aigina by the Hellenes, sat a Trireme.  The ship itself was interesting to Ephydris, as the eyes painted on it almost made it seem like a living creature.[/hider]

My main intent was to try to use the constellation "bonus" category as the foundation of my entry.  I intended my entry to one piece of a fiction piece of work that would explain either how the constellations came to be or why they are called by their respective names.  The constellation was going to be Ketus (the sea monster that Perseus slayed).  Besides the Perseus myth reference, I was also going to be heavily inspired  by Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid (with the plot seeming similar to the beginning of this fairy tale, but deviating later on).  This would have been the base of entry.  Also, the setting is at the end of the "Homeric" or "Mythic" age of Greece.

The beginning of my piece (besides some etiological digression at the beginning that I had fun writing :sun) follows a similar plot as Andersen's LM: 6 daughters who, when each one comes of age, are allowed to come to the surface to explore the surface world.  Some things the daughters see include the Pyramids of Giza, along with a digression about the difference between the Greek and Egyptian sphinx, and there is a scene where mortal sailors confuse one of the "mermaids" (I call them Kymatai - see the explanation when I post what I had as of last night) with a siren and th e"mermaids" laugh about it because the humans must be very stupid to mix up "mermaids" (half-fish) with sirens (half-bird).

The final daughter has a similar experience as her counterpart in Andersen's LM: encountering a ship (a Trireme in my case) and becomes infatuated with a young man aboard the ship.  Then a sudden storm comes and wrecks the ship, tossing its occupants into the see.  The youngest daughter saves her "crush" from suffering a watery grave and drags him ashore.  After watching over the unconscious man overnight, in the morning, she hides back in the sea when th eman regains his consciousness.  I planned on mixing the original scene from the Andersen fairy tale (a princess from another kingdom finding her) with Odysseus' encounter with Nausicaa in the [i]Odyssey[/i].  The final daughter throws a rock at the girl who finds the "prince", but no one sees the "mermaid" do it.

I was also planning on incorporating the whole "soul" plot/motif that was present in Andersen's fairy tale.  However, since the "mermaids" were 'related' to the Nereids (i.e. Sea Nymphs), they would be immortal biologically speaking instead of turning into sea foam after 300 years.  The youngest daughter would therefore be faced with a dilimma simiilar to that of Achilles: live a long life and have no fame or live a short life (or experience death of loved ones, as mortals are, as the name hints at, do not live forever) but be remembered forever.  The youngest daughter uses the exemplum of Thetis (mother of Achilles) to motivate herself.

Next, the youngest daughter sets out to weave a tapestry that depicts the story of Perseus (and possibly the story of Peleus and Thetis if time permitted), as the first is relevant to the constellation aspect, while the latter is relevant because of the marriage between a mortal and immortal.  She does this so that she can "beat out" the mortal girl who found the young "prince" on the beach (in Andersen's fairy tale, the prince does in fact is married to the girl who finds him on the beach).  After working on it for two years (perfectionist!), she finally undertook the journey for a second time.

I will update this as soon as I can. :sun