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Beasts of the Beauties

By Corvus no Genmu

"Abyssal Depths"

He wasn't hunting her.

Not in the strictest sense of the word for if he was she'd surely have been swallowed down and forgotten like prior meals. He had no intention of eating her, which made this sudden urge to stalk her from a distance all the more confounding for him. He held little love for those who shared the blood of the Slayers in their veins even diluted as it as amongst her kindred. Such small affection did he have for her kindred that he made it a point to never attack a settlement lest they strike at him first. If they did…

Well, there was no need to worry for a second attempt made at ending his life.

Or want of food for that matter…

Still, the question remained to be asked, what in the name of the Elders was he doing? He was following what was at best a small snack for reasons he, as of yet, could not fully explain. A small snack that could very easily become an incredibly large nuisance depending on the size of her kindreds' settlement and how important she was to them. So why bother with this needless trailing? It wasn't her spark, for hers was no different than any other of her kindred. It couldn't have been her appearance either despite the vivid brightness of her hair, color the likes of which he hadn't seen since he staked a claim in this part of the deeper depths. It was a shade that attracted a gaze but did not warrant its continuation no matter how difficult it was for his eyes to turn away.

Then he heard it again.

Her Voice.

Yes, such a marvelous sound it was that to label it so simply as a voice would be a gross injustice to the wondrous melody her every word invoked. She was speaking more to herself than any of the deep dwellers who she wrongfully thought would offer some salvation to her and reveal to her a secreted pathway back into brighter waters. He could not make out her words but he could feel the despair in them, which became all the more evident with the sound of her weeping.

He eased forward from behind her chosen refuge for the night. He smelled her taste on the cold currents and lapped at his jaws unwittingly. It had been a while since he last dined… but no. Curiosity was not a common vice in his kindred but even a monster such as he could wonder at what kind of happenstance brought a bright-water dweller down to the deeper depths. He came up just behind her refuge, great eyes narrowed and massive jaw set in a deep scowl as crocodilian claws raised up slowly to grasp—

A flash of light!

He reared back, surprised at the sudden intensity even from so far away. No mere light but a power to make even an Elder pause in concern. Such a thing could not, should not, be here in these abysmal waters. Crimson light ignited in his eyes whilst lightning danced along his massive form as his curiosity was washed away beneath a tide of fury. Such an encroachment, such a call for challenge, would not go unanswered and as he reared back to answer in kind, his anger was brought to a jarring halt not just by her Voice but her words as well.

The Trident…?

A slow blink as rusted gears started turning towards an even more startling realization.

Daddy?!

By the time he had collected his wits, she had already gone back the way she had come. He followed from just above the luminous forest with his spines scraping lightly against the rocky ceiling above. He hid his own natural ambience of his dorsal spikes but could do nothing for the reddish glow of his eyes though their shine was nowhere near as bright as they had been but moment's ago. He watched as parent and child were reunited and listened to the question he himself would have asked of her. What brought her to these depths, so far away from home?

She did not speak, much to his pity, but she did answer all the same by extending her arm forward to reveal—

A trinket?

Her father bellowed with fury and their hidden observer's hood tightened in disdain. Little love for the Slayers aside, such objects did not warrant that manner of reaction. Shiny yes but it was hardly deadly. She spoke in her defense, her Voice ringing pleasantly in his ears and he realized just what kind of monster her parent was, to make a youngling find the darkness of the deeper depths a safer refuge than her own home.

Then he spotted a deeper dweller, a leftover from his last hunt. So this was where it had run off to…

Reptilian orbs narrowed at the leftover's words, so assured that there was no means to leave the deeper depths yet it was not fear from predation that voiced the statement. What was it then if not false bravado, a fool's cowardice? The father ignored the leftover for what it was and took his child to him as she grasped her pet tightly to her own chest. The Trident flared with power and it took every bit of self-control to not react to such an open display of hostility in the heart of his territory.

That was when he spotted it.

The raging whirlpool that appeared from the opening of massive, fanged jaws and any self-control he possessed was immediately forgotten with three simple words.

Intruder!

Fight!

KILL!

He shot downwards in a twisting charge embraced by the serpentine coils of lightning that sparked and roasted the leftover to a crisp as it sought refuge from a confrontation of titans. A ball of electricity shot forth from his jaws and impacted into the center of the swirling vortex. A pained scream and the whirlpool ceased its motions as its source unburied itself from the ocean floor. Massive needle-like teeth bared themselves up at an enraged reptilian as amphibian limbs pushed the heaving body up from the crusted oceanic floor. The leviathans began to circle each other, one with amber eyes aglow and rubbery body inflating to maximum size while the other's red eyes burned in the abysmal waters as lightning danced across his sinuous form. Even inflated the intruder was still much smaller, just barely half his own gargantuan size, but made up for it by possessing a mouth that equaled three-fourths of its own body with an obscene number of teeth. Were he younger, when his scales still shone azure, he'd have been worried for those teeth. The paralytic spines popping up along its back even more so.

Now?

Now he was amused.

And hungry…

A blast of lightning down its gullet was all that it took to finish it. Despite the rubbery texture to its flesh, lightning did as much harm to it as any other who was not born from its good graces. The corpse had barely finished its death throws before he was upon it, jaws ripping free the malleable flesh and swallowing it down. The barbs at the back shattered and were grounded by his fangs, the venom adding a delightful zing to his palette but they do little to deter him in his meal.

The quiet of the deeper depths made him pause. The absence of vivid red made him turn to the opening that led to brighter waters. Something small and sparkling in the ambient light of his spines slowly sank before his eyes. The golden trinket was now open and free from its embrace upon a pale Slayer kin's wrist.

Crimson eyes looked once more to the opening in the perpetual darkness of the abysmal depths.

In those first several days, he was blinded.

Hard not to be when one's eyes have grown so accustomed to the blackness that the natural light of the sun burns like fire upon unprepared orbs. His agonized howls scared the prey away, which did little to improve upon his soured mood. Not that there was much sustenance to be found in what barely equated as a bite-sized snack. When his sight was restored enough that he can see the world he had left behind he found himself impressed with his tracking abilities.

Blind enough to collide into more than a few small grouping of stone islands and crops of corral, too many new and old scents to taste let alone distinguish from delish to squeamish, and yet when the world finally begins to clear and make some bit of sense again, the first thing he finds waiting for him is her.

Well… not waiting for him per say but he found her easily enough with her quiet humming as she perused through the wreckage of a Slayer's ship. A carrier and one that had met an unfortunate end by one such as he by blood or by nature it did not matter. There was no mistaking the claw marks or the bumps of buried bones beneath the sandy floor.

Another curiosity to this little thing…

What was it that she sought here in this place of destruction and death? She carried with her only a solitary satchel so no weapons of sharpened edge made from the robbed corpses of his kinfolk both below and above the sea. Yet there was a method to her madness, for none of her people traveled these waters. The only scents that were carried on the currents besides her and her pet were those of the scavenging carnivores and the blood-driven hunters. She was looking for something in the wreckage, a pattern to her motions born from prior experience in seeking treasures from above the waters. Yet still the question remained.

What was she looking for?

Whatever it was, it must have been something profound if her ecstatic exclamation was anything to go by. Clutching her freshly filled sack tightly to her chest, she exited the wreck and made for the local landmass. So caught up in her excitement, she never once saw the leviathan floating nearby, watching her with crimson eyes aglow with their own inner light.

But her little companion did.

A fish, small enough that it couldn't even serve as a monetary snack. It remained quivering in the clawed opening of the ship, little eyes large and unblinking while its mouth flapped uselessly. He gave the fish and cursory glance, wondering whether it was a pet or a means of distracting potential predators, before he turned away and slowly followed after his latest curiosity.

He wondered at her going towards land, thinking perhaps that some outcast of her kin had settled closer to the shores than the rest of her people. Not once did he consider that she would willingly enter the territory of the Slayers for surely anyone who knew of their ways would willingly go to them.

So entrenched was he in these thoughts he never saw how the little guppy had suddenly become alive again and was making a frantic swim the opposite way towards an ignorant father.

She was insane.

A Voice to make the Elders weep and fall from the Heavens and she was mad as sensibility could allow. Crazy enough to draw near to Slayer territory but cautious enough to keep well out of sight of their vessels and their sights, and who is it that she seeks to explain the treasures she uncovered? To define the mysterious and reveal the truth buried beneath the lies? To whom does she turn for guidance?

A bird.

An Elder-forsaken bird!

The sun's light was briefly shadowed but he paid it no mind so entrenched was he in his mounting disgust. The bird was not even a kin but a plain, feathered vermin gull of a bird! One that has cracked its head too often if the gull's deranged caws and screeches were anything to go by…

By no means an expert in the affairs of the Slayers even he could tell that was not the way the tool was supposed to be used. He'd have roasted the feathers right off the agonizingly loud vermin were its mad vocals not the source of a pleasure greater than the pain it wrought.

She was laughing.

And it was as beautiful as any song she could ever sing.

Yet even such a wondrous sound such as this could not stave his impatience for long. His curiosity had broken free of its tether and it demanded answers to its questions regardless of consequence. In a swirl of obsidian, he had encircled and trapped her and the vermin both though neither was aware until he surfaced. The vermin took off and he goaded its haste with a small sparkling of lightning's wrath but never did his gaze deter from his curiosity. She had been startled by his sudden appearance, had swam back and into the hardy scales of his webbed tail but her eyes soon turned to her treasures and back up to him.

He cocked his head before sharply turning to face from whence they had traveled.

Crimson eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring to taste the scent of power flowing through the waters of the ocean and—PAIN!

He bellowed loudly, lightning dancing along the back of his neck and striking hard and fast against that who would dare to strike him from behind. An agonized roar was his answer and though disorientated from the sudden strike, he had enough sense to curl his massive form about his curious new treasure. His webbed tail came up and hid the startling red of her hair and his hood spread wide to shadow her in darkness as he glared across the ocean waters.

A wyvern flew low against the lapping tide, countless scales falling free from lightning's sharpened bite against silver hide. It was circling, smoke trailing through blackened fangs as a burning light began to illuminate deep within a serpentine throat. Long though it had been since last he fought with one of the Winged kin, he still remembered the animosity that drove those who graced the skies to try and attack those of the abysmal depths.

Try… and fail.

Fire expelled forth and collided against his back as he curled tightly and took once more to the waters below, taking his curiosity down with him in the process in a confused tangle of clawed limbs and tailed-flippers. He grasped her lightly in his paws, crimson eyes staring down at her before casting her off and away. She spun but righted herself quickly, turning wide eyes back to him but he was already rising upwards to the surface, lightning dancing in his jaws.

A winged shadow passed overhead just as he leapt free from the ocean's embrace, electrified fangs digging deeply into spiked tail. The wyvern screamed as lightning coursed through its body, its blood heating to a rapid boil beneath its hardy scales before gravity resumed its control once more and dragged both titans down into the sea.

A flash of red caught his eye.

Too close…

Fangs dug deeper into silver-scaled flesh.

Too close to her…!

He charged through the waters, dragging his quarry by the tail even as it fought for the open sky once more. What a sight it must be to those on the surface, a wyvern being dragged by the tail like a living kite…

He saw the rise of the nearing shore and decided that he had reached an appropriate distance when the thunder of Slayers' devices echoed above and the angered roars of his enemy turned into screams of terror and agony. His jaws relaxed their hold and he slinked away into the familiar darkness of deeper waters, never once looking back as the blue water behind him was dirtied with silver scales and blood.

But two pairs of eyes did remain watching, not merely as individuals but as those of another, each skull baring a golden orb that shined beside its brother. Far and away from the scene, deep in the bones of her lair, a witch lay back upon her throne.

Smiling…

He was resting atop an expanse of seaweed, nursing his only injury. Though only slightly broken it would be many days until what was left of his shattered pride would reassemble back into its proper form. How could he have allowed himself to be so foolish, so inexperienced? Had it truly been so long since last he was in the upper world? He had let his infatuated curiosity with the Slayer-kin make unto him a target in the eyes of a Winged kin who he would have, should have killed entirely upon his merit rather than making use of those accursed Slayers!

What was that feeling —that emotion— he had felt when he had realized she had been so near to fiery death from above?

Was… Was it fear? Had he been afraid? For one that was a kin of the Slayers?

It had been so long… He had almost forgotten what fear felt like.

Lightning danced within his spines, lighting up the darkness of midnight waters with an azure glow that was pale in comparison to the bloodied reds of his eyes.

Clearly he did not like the reminder.

He curled tightly about himself until he looked more like a massive hunk of obsidian burdened with luminescent coral. He closed his eyes tightly and impatiently awaited the approach of slumber but here, in the brighter waters, there was far more silence than that of the abyss.

In the abyss there was no day or night so there was little chance that something in the blackness was not awake hunting or being hunted. He missed those sounds, the sharpened squeals of the fed upon lost amidst the rapturous cries of their devourers. It was hardly surprising then, when there came a sound of whimpering, the leviathan did not stir himself awake but instead fell deeper into slumber moments away from true sleep when—

Darkness…

He stiffened but did not move to the attack. Blackness not of the abyss but something far more ancient and far hungrier… It was a Power but not at the same time that he tasted upon the currents. Nothing at all like the Trident but there was something… wrong with it. It was primordial, like that of an Elder's might, but there was… It was tamed! How could this be? Darkness, so pure as this, so starved that it made him tremble… How could it possibly be at the beck and call of another?

Lightning, burning bright and coldly merciless, arced between his dorsal scutes as he uncurled and roared into the encroaching swarm of Ancient Dark only to find himself alone and without anything, prey or enemy, in sight. The electric arcs died down to the occasional spark but his eyes remained opened and vigilant. He knew the Ancient Dark had been here, in the depths of the oceans and well outside its usual hunting grounds in the night sky far above. Yet now the waters were currents were clear of the shadows but for—One!

His head snapped around, jaws opened wide but it was too late. Magic as old as the oceans themselves reached out and grasped tightly upon him. He roared once more as agony sheered its way throughout his body, lightning launching upwards from the depths of the sea to scratch at the underbelly of the sky. He soon fell silent though he took great heaving gasps of ocean's breath.

His eyes opened with an angry hiss, revealing their changed hue of viscous violet.

"I did it… I did it!" An exulted voice from the shadows, loud and grating upon his ears and yet he did not stir, did not anger, or strike out against the irritation.

He couldn't much as he wanted to.

She moved like the octopi and possessed far more meat than any creature twice her girth would possess. Shocking white hair stood out against Slayer's flesh of the same disgusting hue of the leviathan's changed eyes. Even caged as he was, he could still taste the vileness upon her, the enchantments and spells that oozed across her skin like unseen mucus.

A Practitioner as his kin would call her or as the Slayers and their multitudes of variant kin would name her…

A witch.

She floated before his face, gloating over the ancient spell's success in taming him, in ensnaring him. The ingredients of which made him roar and strike out at the confines of his inner cage. That she would dare to use the sacred remains of an Elder made him disgusted, as it would to any of his monstrous kin, but that she would dare to use the once beating heart of one of his kindred! One of his blood!

For a moment, his eyes regained their crimson hue and a spark of lightning's might lanced out to the witch and was quickly repelled by the remains she clutched tightly in her tentacles. A horn, so simple and yet so elegant to behold, which once sat upon the equine skull of an Elder of the Lightning…

Disgusting wretch…!

She chided his attempt and the cage tightened even further. He felt himself falling, sinking into the sweet oblivion of sleep though his body remained awake and vigilant to its master's first command.

Oblivion.

Such is the realm of a forced sleep.

There is no dreaming here to abide the passing of time nor is there nightmares in which to frighten one's self awake.

All there was with him were his thoughts.

And so long has it been since last he truly took the time to think… did he realize only now in the deepest recesses of his caged mind that he had forgotten himself.

He was not an Elder. He would never be an Elder.

Such was not for him.

Grace could not be destined for a common-blooded monster.

But that does not make me a mere monster.

Does it not?

For a moment, he could have sworn he saw her.

The Treasure, his precious Voice… He could have Spoken. He should have Spoken.

Why hadn't I?

You have forgotten.

He had Spoken once. He was sure of it as he was the sky's coloration matching that of his precious oceanic home. He and all of his kin, from the Winged to the Hulking, the weakly Meek to the Almighty Elder, they could all Speak.

Yet the intruder who dared to devour his treasured Voice had not Spoken.

Yet the attacker did not utter a word.

How have we all forgotten?

Such is not for the now but for the later, other concerns are far more pressing.

Again, he caught sight of the glorious Voice but this time he heard her.

She was Speaking.

Speaking to me.

Then shouldn't you answer?

Violet light flickered before being overwhelmed by a crimson tide. Fanged jaws that had been opened wide to devour slowly closed with a foreign meekness. She floated before him with arms spread out wide, putting herself between him and her kindred as the last of her words echoed away into the waters of the sea. The city lay undamaged but its outermost spires of stone and coral that lay broken and shattered by a single blow of a leviathan's tail.

Her eyes gazed up into his own and saw something in them that made her smile in relief despite her father's loud demands that she move away. The leviathan took a deep, slow breath and released it in a slower sigh. The glow of his eyes muted with his shame as he beheld the slight tremble that had not left its roost from his savior's bare and pale shoulders.

"What are you doing?! Don't just stand there you great lummox!" The sea-witch yelled from where she had remained since he first set to her command of rampage, another outermost spire of the kingdom where she could overlook the destruction her new slave was to unleash. At least, she would have if that little mermaid had gotten in her way again. Electrical energy unwound from the horn of an Elder in her hand and whipped through the open sea to lash against her slave's back.

"Attack!"

The leviathan stiffened. His eyes narrowed and he turned slowly to face the sea-witch with thin merciless eyes.

And for the first time in an age, he Spoke.

"You…" The dorsal scutes, dark and dormant since the spell was cast and his mind shackled to a witch's whims, lit up with near blinding intensity. "MONSTER!"

An orb of lightning twice as large as the witch herself shot forth from the leviathan's roaring jaws but too late—the witch was gone in a swirl of squid ink. He roared his fury once more and dashed forward, jaws clamping down futilely upon the liquid darkness. Crimson eyes scanned the waters, tongue tasting for the vile spark of a practitioner. Crocodilian claws caught upon the tower and nearly crushed it between them. His eyes were aglow with rage as he roared once more but this time with words.

"You cannot flee me forever! No matter how far you go, no matter where you may hide, I will find you and when I do, I'll kill you!" The leviathan's voice echoed throughout the waters. He clutched the broken spire tightly in his claws, head bowing down low as he fought back the Primal Rage that burned through his veins like the life's blood of the Earth itself. He had only just regained the gift of Speech, he did not dare succumb to the same rage that took it from him.

Not when She was there.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw the father before his daughter, before all of his kin, with the Trident gripped tightly in his hands but its Power a dull spark. Muted in its wielder's hands before one whom was innocent of sin if only for the moment. The leviathan took a few more steadying breaths, struggling to let the Words come to him freely, without the Rage barring the way.

"Peace Trident Bearer. I have no quarrel with your kindred." Sparks lit dangerously across the scutes upon his back in a subtle continuation. Yet… Crimson eyes fell to the Voice once more and the King of Atlantica's own eyes widened at the clear adoration in those hellish orbs. "Gratitude everlasting to you, Treasured Voice…"

The little mermaid blushed with embarrassment as she hastily corrected him, "My name is Ariel."

"Ariel…" The leviathan found the name fitting upon his tongue and nodded. "Gratitude everlasting to you, Ariel of Treasured Voice."

It amazed him, the hues of the softer fleshed and though her father, and much of the vast populace, was still stuck deep in a stunned stupor, she was not so inclined. "Do you have a name?"

Did he? It has been so long since last it was uttered…

"Yes." The leviathan nodded his great head. "I am named Lagiacrus of Abyssal Depths."

She tested his name once, softly in a hushed whisper that the rest of her kindred missed but not he. No, he heard his name Spoken by her Voice and whatever Rage there was in his blood was gone. Vanquished by the soothing, dulcet tones of her most Treasured Voice.

He approached slowly, letting the water carry his great bulk forward.

"I owe you a boon, Ariel of Treasured Voice."

"A boon?" She asked in kind, surprised at his words, "but didn't you already save me?"

"A life saved is not equal to what you and your Voice have granted me once more. Because of you, I Speak as I have once before. Because of your selfless actions I think and therefore, I am My Self once more. That is something that I must repay no matter the cost."

"But…" Her eyes turned away from his. "But there's nothing that I want…"

She was lying.

He knew it, could taste it, see it plain as the redness of her hair. Her eyes refused to meet his and he knew he had her. He merely had to find the answer to the riddle that was her heart's desire.

"Truly? There is nothing that you desire? No trinket that you covet above all else? No task to accomplish? Have you no friends, no family, that you would wish of me to protect? Is there nothing valuable and no precious people that would be so to me? Is my fury abhorred?"

He looked once more to her kin, those whom cowered in shadows and they whom stood fearfully but courageously in his sight, and they whom swore allegiance to them, those that were less than meager morsels and were hardly worth the effort in acknowledging let alone eating.

"Have you no rivals to conquer, no foes to vanquish, no one to call your enemy and so my own? Nothing that you crave destroyed and wiped clean from the ocean floor? Is my power unwarranted?"

His eyes fell again to her father and they narrowed dangerously not for the old king's tight grip upon the Trident, but the recalled hurt and heartbreak uttered by his Treasured Voice, of her fear of one whom was to be her father and instead her heart's breaker.

"Perhaps… Yes, perhaps it is not promise of Power that you desire," He spoke more to himself than to her as he circled her. "I am older than you presume me to be, Ariel of Treasured Voice. I was but a hatchling when your kindred left the land and withdrew into the sea's embrace from your fellows. Yes, there is much of your history I could tell you of your kin and those whom once were yours… The humans as your kindred call them."

He saw it then.

The Spark within her eyes…

He had her.

"Stay away from my daughter!" roared King Triton. "She will have nothing more to do with you! Go back to the Abyss from whence you came!"

Power emanated in thick waves and he whirled with an angry hiss upon her father. The Trident was aglow with the aged merman's wrath but it still refused to loose its power upon one who had done no wrong to its Bearer or his kin.

It had no need to.

Any and all creatures that called the sea their home would bow their heads to whoever held the Trident in their grasp. For those who held the Trident and its incredible Power in their grasp, they could Rule Absolutely over all of the seven vast seas. Not even the strongest of the Elders, they whom were akin to the gods themselves, held such dominion and Lagiacrus, though a king of the Abyss, was no Elder.

He had no grounds to Challenge for the right to Rule Absolute.

"Very well. I shall take my leave of your kingdom this day but do not presume that I will forget. I owe your child a debt, King of the Seas and I will see it repaid. It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be for several years but sooner or later, Ariel of Treasured Voice will call out my name and in that instant, I will return and see the debt repaid."

He turned away from the Bearer of the Trident and let his gaze fall once more upon the old king's youngest child.

"As was said by the Last of Mine to the First of Yours so I shall say to you, Ariel of Treasured Voice. Call when you have need of me. Ask what you will of me. By your order, I shall fight. By your command, I shall die. For my Power, my Service, are now your own. I am Lagiacrus of Abyssal Depths and I am yours."

Lightning arced across his scutes as he bowed his head low to the stunned mermaid, a lone spark connecting unseen between them though both felt it resonate like thunder within their hearts. With a flick of his massive tail, he twisted away and quickly departed the undersea kingdom of Atlantica. The vow had been made, the accord struck, and now, as he had told the king, he would wait. Be it near or distant, he knew there would come a day when she would call his name and he would be there to answer her no matter the distance.

For she had done what none had ever done before.

She had spoken to him as though he were a Person, not a Monster. She brought him back from the vestiges of the Primal Rage that had beset him and his kindred all those centuries ago at the end of their Age.

Something he doubted would ever happen again to another of his diverse kindred. Impossible is what he thought.

But that's just the thing isn't it?

While it may be improbable, nothing is ever impossible.

Until the next turn of the page...

Viscous Mists