Disclaimer: I don't own Jane and the Dragon. If I did, there would be more episodes than the meager number I currently have on my computer.
Thalassophobia:
Thalassophobia: the irrational fear of the ocean.
Ordinarily, when one thought of the ocean, they thought of calm, rolling waves and sea foam. Perhaps, if you were a sea man, you thought of rigging, sails, and long trips away from home. Yet neither of these ideas was going through the mind of the green reptile gliding nervously along the coast, coming down to the very edge of the shore as he let his friend dismount.
"Look at it all, Dragon! Have you seen anything so magnificent?"
"Yes, my reflection flying over the lake, for one." Despite the typical sort of reply, a definite sense of tension had settled over the reptile's frame, and his eyes bored into the innocently lapping waves with something close to wary suspicion.
"And such humility on your part!" Jane fired back, turning to look at her reptilian companion. "How about we go walking near the water?"
"Er, I-I think I will stay here. Plenty of sun, might as well catch a quick nap." Dragon ad-libbed, throwing in a fake yawn for good measure and settling down on the warm sand. He hadn't wanted to come here, of course, but he found himself unable to come up with a good reason to refuse Jane's idea. So now he was here of all places, hoping quietly that she wouldn't notice the fact that his wings were still taunt and tense, or that the serenely blue-green water would just stay right where it was. Particularly the last bit.
Thankfully if Jane had noticed anything wrong, she didn't comment.
"Alright, Dragon. I'll go walk along the water then. You can stay here."
"Champion." He replied, giving the red-head a grin before lowering his head to rest on his paws and closing his eyes. However, as he could hear the sounds of her footfalls moving away through the sand his head raised minutely, a hint of anxiety leaking into his gaze. "Do not go too far, Jane."
"Of course, Dragon." She answers, a hint of concern of her own glimmering for just a second at the odd shift in tone. But the green settles back down, so she sees no reason to pursue the issue, letting him get on with his nap as she meanders down the beach, occasionally stopping to glance and pick up a shell that has washed up on the shore. His eye remains partly open a moment longer to follow her progress, before closing to at least get some semblance of the calm he had been attempting to show earlier. In truth, the sight of the ocean had made him just a tad more uneasy than he cared to admit.
Though the sand was warm and the sun's heat soothing, making his mind sluggish and calm; sleep came easily enough afterwards.
He was flying through the air, the wind pushing invitingly at his wings and allowing him to climb and loop through the air with ease. In his element, Dragon flipped and rolled with the wind, allowing a cry of giddiness at the autonomy his wings allowed him. Below he could see the expanse of green and occasional grey that was a castle or a rocky hillside, with the infrequent splatter of blue that was a lake or a river running through the landscape. For a moment, he was the king of the skies, and he loved every second of it, the power and freedom of the wind and clouds. And speaking of the clouds, there was a particularly large cluster not too far ahead, and not far from where he was flying. Determination and liveliness took hold, and he sped up through the white mist to see the sun begin its afternoon descent to the horizon. As he looped through the tops of the clouds, the orange orb sank lower and lower, until it was just a sliver of bright color on the darkening sky. Yet he felt no need to head back to his cave, he actually quite liked flying at night.
Though there was something wrong, even if it took him a few moments to notice it; the moon had not started to rise and the clouds were beginning to grow darker and more threatening, swirling up to hide the open sky from his view. It grew hard to see, and he briefly felt a flair of panic before stuffing it down. He was a dragon; he could handle this…wrongness. Changing direction, he started for the earth; if he couldn't find his way from the air, he would just land and wait out this strange weather on the ground instead.
Yet just before he broke through the clouds he felt a thrill of foreboding, coupled with a familiar salty tang assault his nose and a coolness in the air around him. He caught sight of the water's surface mere feet before he plunged into it, the darkness of the clouds and sky mingling together with the darkness and terrible suffocating feeling of the sea. He did not know which way was up and which way would force him deeper, but he instinctively swam upward, breaking the surface in a state close to terror as he took in his surroundings.
There was no land to be seen for miles, something that made the fear grow worse. That could not be true, he had been flying over land not several hours ago, and he couldn't have gone so far without noticing something beforehand. Where was the shore?!
His wings had started to grow heavy, the cold water seemingly sapping the ability to move and fly out of them. They dragged in the salt water, drawing him under along with his growing exhaustion as he attempted to remain floating and not slide under again. All the while he kept looking, meandering as best he could in the most likely direction, nose clogged by the stink of sea salt. There had to be land somewhere, he had not gone that far away…
But even his strength couldn't hold him above water forever, and his limbs seemed to pull him down more than keep him up. He choked as some of the ocean splashed into his maw; gagging on the acrid taste of sea water as his panic got the best of him. Flailing sluggishly to stay afloat, his might finally faded enough for him to slip under the waves with a few gurgling cries as the darkness seemed to close in from all fronts.
Water washed over his snout as he opened his eyes, letting his panic out for a moment in a shout that seemed to reverberate its way out of his ribcage and through his maw, though he choked it off as he snapped his jaw closed, instead letting out a strangled and nearly squeaky exclamation.
"Where did you come from?!"
Granted in some small part of his mind Dragon scoffed at himself for talking to the ocean water, which most certainly could not have responded back no matter how much he tried to reason with it. Yet that was not the part of his feelings that he was listening to at the moment, his thoughts purely in the state only complete panic could offer as he realized that the salty ocean was lapping at his feet. If he had been thinking calmly he would have remembered that the ocean often rose and fell in cycles; right now it seemed as though his dream was attempting to become reality and he was heading right back into the dark suffocation of the waves that he had somehow managed to escape. Scrambling backwards and out of the sea spray, Dragon very briefly took a long moment to calm his rapidly thundering heart and take stock of his situation. As he threw a short, spiteful glare at the water, he suddenly became aware of the fact that the sun had sunk quite a bit in the sky since he had last seen Jane, and the redhead was nowhere in sight.
"Jane?" He bleated, letting a few seconds go by without answer before feeling his breathing quicken along with his heartbeat. "Jane?!"
Nothing, just the sounds of the water and the occasional bird call, none of which were what would help alleviate the blind fright Dragon was starting to feel at the moment. Staying well away from the water, he hurried across the sand in the direction he remembered seeing his short-life friend heading in.
"JANE?!" He called louder, completely forgetting his earlier attempts to control his terror. Right now all he could think about was the suffocating blackness of the waves, the fear of being unable to see even a sliver of land on a gloomy horizon, and a certain red-head girl who could no doubt be drawn out into the dark waters, and he was not about to let that happen-.
Shouting her name at a pitch that would leave even the loudest rolls of thunder jealous, Dragon came at a run over the rise of the dune, and was forced to roll at the height of his gallop to the side to avoid mowing down the much smaller human, who had broken into a run herself at his racket. As he swiftly threw himself to the side, Jane skidded and partially went down on her backside in her own manner of evading the oncoming reptile. Both sat and lay respectively, stunned into silence by the sudden turn of events, though it was Jane who recovered first.
"Dragon?" She croaked through a voice that had been partly clogged by the sand that had been kicked up in the wake of the excitement. Dragon could only quietly lie on his side, astonished into a near-stupor and feeling his head spin somewhat at the dizzying turn in events. He found his friend, she was not drowning in the dark water, and he wasn't either, so why did he still feel like he couldn't quite get his breath, much less answer her?
More than a little worried for her friend now, Jane cautiously approached the green reptile, noticing the light tremble that seemed to be reverberating through the forelimb when she gently rested a hand on it.
"Dragon, are you alright?" She tried again, noticing his eyes flicker to her for an instant before turning back to the sand. Though the tension was draining out from the scaled forearm in shades, and Dragon quietly rubbed the back of his paw against his snout to mask a sigh. Though he grimaced nary a moment later at the sand which found itself on his muzzle, the action helped melt away some of the leftover anxiety clinging to his frame. Granted, the quick glance he made at the water might have given away exactly what had bothered him so much, and the last think he wanted was to reveal such a juvenile weakness even to his best friend, but he still needed to reassure himself that the water was well over there and well away from the pair of them.
"Are you…afraid of the ocean?" Jane asks haltingly, sometimes far more perceptive than the reptile would like, but this time it's alright because he really did not want to explain why he had managed to get this worked up. Nodding minutely, Dragon somehow manages to draw himself in even more, though he certainly does not attempt to stop the squire from coming closer to his head. Her hand rests just on the crown of his head, the touch light but solid, real, and more than a welcome comfort. Though he knows he will probably have to answer more than just one yes or no question later, Dragon allows the presence of his short-life friend to chase the last bits of the fear and terrible strangling sensation in his throat away. Despite his calm, the fire-breather could definitely say he wasn't expecting to hear the following from Jane.
"Dragon, I am so sorry."
"Whu-Why are you sorry?"
"For bringing you here when you did not want to be. If I had known-."
And he finds himself interrupting by this point, because if there is anything he doesn't like, its Jane beating herself up like this when he is partly to blame as well.
"No, no. It was my fault too."
A long silence goes through the pair, at which Dragon chances another glance in the direction of the ocean, noticing the sun lowering steadily on the horizon as he attempts to subtly dig his claws in a bit to remind himself that he is on the ground and not in any danger of ending up in the expanse of water. The motion is not entirely missed by Jane, who quietly moves to somewhat wrap her arms around his head in a hug. Though the gesture does initially help quell the old phantoms, Dragon cannot help but feel vulnerable, and hate every bit of the feeling.
"I feel like an idiot." He blurts out before he can stop himself, though he can't bother himself to feel embarrassed by it. After all, Jane has a knack of bringing down any sort of barriers or fronts he puts up, even the ones that have been up for centuries. Part of being friends with someone, he supposes, though he's not certain if he would trade the relationship for any sort of security his mind could offer.
"Why?" The oh-so-small two-legged asks, and strangely the one-word question prompts an answer to come to his tongue.
"Not supposed to let something get to me like this. Big terrifying dragon and I am scared of the ocean. What kind of dragon lets something like that bother them?"
"Everyone is afraid of something, Dragon. Remember when I was afraid of the dark?"
"Yes." He admits, though there is something in his mind that finds fault with that comparison as well. "Though you stopped. I have…had this for a long time."
"How long?" Jane questions, unable to keep the note of curiosity out of her voice. Dragon can't find it in his heart to deny her now. After all, he's come this far.
"Very long. I was much, much littler then. I remember falling while flying…" He can't really find words to name the terror of suddenly being dropped into wet darkness and trails off, though Jane does not need to hear much more, resuming her attempts at comfort. He cannot find any reason to not accept them, and just quietly leans his head towards his much smaller friend.
It seems far too soon when she pulls away, a sudden grin present on her features that utterly baffles him.
"Come on, you big newt. I want to show you something."
He follows her across the shore, around the places where the water has risen, though he does attempt to wade through a few just to prove that he is not as afraid as he was a little while ago, though he still edges closer to land than he does to the water.
Eventually they reach an area that is more rock instead of sand, and the land has risen up into a cliff which arches over the area like a half-sort of cave that can only partly shelter its secrets from the outside world. The ocean has already come in somewhat, little interconnecting pools over most of the rock, with one deeper one in the middle. By this point, the sun has completely sunk down, the moon's glow beginning to illuminate the beach, as well as the little inlet they were currently standing in.
Though he is definitely glad to see the silvery light, it is not what draws Dragon's attention to the larger pool. The moonlight has lit up most of the area, reflecting off of and, more to his eyes than Jane's, partially showing the rocky bottom to the thing.
"It was easier to walk around earlier. You should have seen it; there were so many creatures down there!"
"I think they still are there." Dragon remarks offhand as his eyes catch snatches of movement under the water's surface. He sees more outlines than colors, the wiggling fronds of some ocean-going plant waving in the currents of the water as it whips through the rocks and out back to the open water. Out and in. A nice, calming pattern. He can also see little fish as they dart through the rocky crags and the underwater plant things. It's almost like him watching things from his cliff, the comparison making him relax a bit more.
He watches the paths the fish take, even allowing his claws to get somewhat within lapping distance of the water because it looks so calm and unassuming now. Though that's about when he notices that Jane is leaning tiredly against his leg, and suggests quietly that they go back. She acquiesces, though not before he manages to quietly duck his head down to her level.
"Thank you, Jane."
Yeah, putting Dragon in a vulnerable spot was difficult, seeing as most things don't really ruffle him [unless it concerns Jane, then he will be really ruffled]. But, the way I see it, when you have a long-held fear like that, to the point where certain circumstances can send you into a panic, things that you might have considered as unlikely don't seem quite so odd. You could probably hear someone mention to you that Bigfoot, Nessie, the Abominable Snowman, and the thing from the Lucky Charms box all went out and played poker and it would probably register as barely an odd blip in the spectrum of reality to you. But, yeah, old traumatic experiences make for good friendship moments, don't they?
And to my Dragon-muse, if you're mad about this, then you really aren't going to like what I'm gonna do to you for the next oneshot. [Evilest, foreshadowing grin goes here. Quake in fear, folks.]