A/N I'm going to keep the zeros and o's that make the time separation lines. I can't cater to everyone, sorry Meraki.
All the quotes will be from a book, so don't worry about having to watch back all those presidential broadcasts and movies.
"Curiouser and Curiouser"
-?
If you are the first to figure out the quote, I'll put your name in the chapter and give you a victory cookie.
(::)
This chapter was made while listening to pumping adrenaline 1. It's a good song, and I hope you'll enjoy it.
Guess who Ocean is. It's not that hard.
"The influence of Nayla upon Ocean cannot be underestimated, as she provided moral support in a time of need, also helping Ocean materially, all while keeping a secret from perhaps the best interrogators in the Drohirrim."
-The Berkian Book of History: The Fall.
Dro-heer-eem.
It had been a simple raid. Tempest had been sick, but she had wanted to go. She wanted to prove that she could help the nest. She hadn't come back with enough food to satiate the Queen. She had only dropped a single fish in the pit and had cowered in a small pile of rocks away from the Queen's lair to hide from her inevitable wrath.
Sure enough, the Queen was hungry, and she had climbed up her hole until she was staring directly at Tempest's piece of cover.
"How dare you come back with only a small cod!"
Tempest was forced to turn and look at The Red Death.
She opened her mouth, then stuttered and couldn't find her words.
"Any excuses, hmmm?"
"I-I, I was so hungry. It w-was only a little."
"How many times have I told you to do your own fishing. My orders must be obeyed." the Queen had said, then added, "Guards! Bring her to me. I must make an example of her."
Two Gronckle guards brought Tempest to the edge of the cave and threw her in.
The Queen snapped her up in a single bite. She was so huge that Tempest wasn't even a mouthful.
The sickening crunch of bones reverberated through the cave. Ocean could see it all.
She was shocked. Tempest was her mother. She had never thought that the Queen might kill her. She couldn't say anything, for she was rooted to the ground and all she could seem to do was watch. From that moment on she knew she feared The Red Death, and would do anything to avoid being eaten. There was a little hate buried in the back, but it was too afraid to come out.
"This is what happens when someone disobeys. Take note. All obey ME! I am your Queen."
It was at that moment that she had passed out.
No one had the guts to even apologize to Ocean for her loss, for none dared risk her wrath. What's done is done, the elders had said, and that was that. Only Stulte..
Ocean's nightmare shifted. Now she was standing with her father on a sea-stack. He had taught her how to fly. She could still remember his warm voice. He was dead now, killed by a viking while trying to steal a sheep to appease the Queen.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes father, it is. Look at all the flowers."
They stood there for a while admiring the view, until her father interrupted the silence.
"Tell me child, how did we get here?"
"We flew!" she chirped.
"You flew. I will always be proud of my little baby."
He called her all those sweet names, but she didn't care. Now he was gone. Another victim of the vikings. She could hear him calling her.
"Wake up Ocean."
The sound kept pounding in her head. She was confused, until she realized she was asleep. It was probably morning now.
She woke up with a start.
It was Nayla's voice. She had probably gotten bored in the morning and come to play. Nayla had always been a dragon who wanted to wake up at some ungodly hour and then crash in the afternoon, out cold.
Morning dragons.
"Go back to sleep Nayla. I'm tired." Her morning voice, though a bit shaken from her dream.
"It's early in the morning, nobody else is up. We can play together! Isn't that fun!"
Nayla was a adolescent Nadder with more energy than a Terrible Terror. She was a few years younger than Ocean, with a well-defined shape, she would be very pretty when she grew up, though her face had not lost all of it's baby fat yet. She was not quite clumsy, but often suffered from errors in judgment that would put a Zippelback to shame.
Her pranks had cost the nest sometimes and she was always being punished for it. In fact, she was supposed to be being punished now, locked up in the barrows for the rest of the morning. She had slipped out. Ocean didn't blame her. Dragons hated being imprisoned. It went against their very nature to fly. Kind of like the nest. Ocean kept that thought to herself.
Her scales were yellow and her spines green. She had a white belly like Ocean, but her crest was a mix of colors. Her nose was a bit big on her, though she had a good sense of smell. Her eyes were light yellow, and seemed to see absolutely everything. Everything that was trouble that is.
Nayla's voice was babyish and her vocabulary limited, so everyone tended to underestimate her. Ocean privately suspected that she knew more than she let on, especially after she had somehow managed to simultaneously pull three different pranks, each on a different floor of the nest. Her ability to make dragons miserable was not to be underestimated.
"There's a reason why everyone's asleep Nayla. A well rested dragon is a happy dragon." One of her father's quotes.
"And the early dragon gets the fish. Stop sleeping in and come play with me!"
Using my own father's words against me. Clever.
"I'll be up in a minute. Deal?"
Nayla considered for a moment, then shook her head yes.
"Deal. I'm counting."
"I didn't mean literally!"
"A deals a deal. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one..."
Ocean just shielded her head between her wings and tried to ignore her.
"Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.."
Ocean pulled her wings in tighter.
"You don't have to do that out loud!"
A few moments passed, in which Ocean fidgeted about on the cold stone unable to get any real rest because Nayla was constantly breathing in her ears when she talked. If dragons had been able to clamp their claws over their ears, Ocean would have been the first to do so.
"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty! Time to get up."
Nayla tugged on her wing and Ocean had to give way. She made a big show of it, but inside she was happy to leave the nest, if only for a little while. She had been feeling stifled for the last few days and she wanted some fresh air.
They flew to the beach and played no-fly tag for a while in the morning sun. She generally won, even if she did cheat just a little.
"Hey, no fair! You're flying away!"
"I'm not 'flying', I'm gliding, can't you see that."
"It's still cheating!"
They bickered and made up and bickered and made up all morning. She was good friends with Nayla. Eventually they got tired of tag and started playing fly and seek.
Ocean was bigger than Nayla, and so fared worse than her, as her tail would stick out wherever she went and Nayla would inevitably find her.
It was just the opposite for Nayla. Ocean couldn't understand how the little bugger disappeared so quickly. Maybe it was her experience playing pranks on the elders, or perhaps some trick of the eyes, she didn't know.
Eventually she gave up trying to look around for her and pretended to groom herself to see if her friend would peek. She looked around, while trying not to look around and failed quite hilariously.
"You can't do anything half-way." That was another one of her father's wise words.
Nayla couldn't resist peeking, and Ocean caught a brief yellow flash on the rocks above her. Instead of heading straight for them she stepped lightly into a gully and disappeared from her friend's sight.
She knew this area better than Nayla and used that to her advantage. She knew that the gully split and approached Nayla's hiding place from behind, and she knew that if Nayla heard her she wouldn't be able to catch her, so she tried to be quiet as an Indian. Tried.
According to the rules of the game she had to find Nayla and touch her to win, and she couldn't do that if she was stubbing her claw on every last rock on the island.
The rock walls closed in on her and a cloud covered the sun. Her heart started beating faster. She slipped on a rock, which went bounding down the corridor.
She stood still for a moment, waiting for any noise betraying that her friend had detected her. She didn't worry about her scent, as she and Nayla had both dunked themselves in the water and were now clean.
The only downside was that she couldn't smell her friend either, and now had to depend on her lesser senses like touch and hearing.
The cloud passed and it was light again. Ocean thought she could see a small green object lying on the ground. She examined it.
"Many things can be gained just by taking a closer look."
It was one of Nayla's spines. It looked like it had been knocked against a rock and fallen off. Probably from when the dragon had pulled back to avoid being looked at, she thought. She traced its path in her mind and followed it.
Nayla could not be far now. The joy of the hunt filled her veins and she scanned the ground rapidly for her prey. She glided forward,(Not literally), every fiber of her being focused on her goal. The goal. Nothing else mattered but her and the prey.
Suddenly she could feel a presence close to her own. A secondary breath was in time with her. She clawed up to the next rock and looked down. Nobody. She had to be nearby. But where? Ocean investigated a few more crevices and rocks, and nothing escaped her gaze, for Nayla could fit anywhere.
She started to feel like Nayla was toying with her. Of course! Nayla was more experienced at this kind of thing. She might as well give up.
"Never give up and never lose faith. It is only from hard work that we reap the benefits of life." Her father's words came unbidden to her mind. He was right, she shouldn't give up.
Ocean took one last peek over another rock and saw Nayla looking the other way. She gave her a light tap on the shoulder and gave a victory crow.
"It's about time! I win. Do you want to cloud watch?"
Nayla faked a fit of sulking over her loss, but then nodded her head yes, and they sat down on the rocks together.
"That one looks like a fire stream," said Nayla.
"That one looks like a wave."
"Which one?"
"The big one in the back curling up. See?" Ocean pointed at it.
"I think it looks like a wing."
While they were arguing the cloud changed shape and assumed the appearance of a scythe.
"The sun's getting in my eyes," said Nayla, "Maybe we should sit under that tree over there." She pointed to her right.
"This coming from the dragon who has eyes the color of the daylight." said Ocean.
The Red Death had done her best to eradicate all life on the island, besides draconian of course, but there were still a few trees and sheaves of grass in off places. They were sitting under one now, the only ash tree on the island. Ocean sat happily under it, enjoying the breeze and the soft rustle of leaves as the air caressed them. A breath of wind brushed her cheek and was gone.
The scene reminded Ocean of the dream she'd had earlier. A flower waved in the wind, as if to mark her father's grave. The traitorous vikings had ended his life.
But then a rebellious thought appeared in her head. She swatted it away. It came back.
Maybe the vikings weren't evil monsters, maybe they were just protecting their things, like a dragon protected his mate. Maybe…
Ocean didn't notice that Nayla had left her side until she turned around to talk to her and she wasn't there. What was she up to?
She flew up to the nest, hoping to catch her in one of her tricks. Once Nayla had pranked a young dragon into going into old dragon Grinch's cave to get 'A basket of dried water'. The old Nightmare who lived in it was 'affectionately' named Grinch by practically the entire nest, though Ocean thought he smelled like mildew.
The young male had come running out like a deer, completely spooked. Nobody dared talk to Grinch except the Queen, and even then she kept her discussions short. Somehow he had become her second in command, perhaps because he was completely paranoid, like the Queen.
He doubted anybody and everybody. Nayla had cut it close by annoying him. He wouldn't kill you outright, but he could make your life miserable, and nobody could stop him from doing it for fear of being reported.
Ocean eventually gave up looking for Nayla and settled down in her favorite resting spot, hoping to catch up to her tricks.
She was tired, and she took the opportunity for a rest. Her wings were sore and she started rubbing them on a rock to massage them. She was starting to feel stifled again, for some reason the nest air no longer felt cozy, but rather felt like a choke on her breathing. She was glad that Nayla had woken her up when she did.
The nest had begun to wake up for the morning. All but the late risers were now up and about their business.
Nayla hadn't come back yet, but Ocean wasn't worried, in fact, she was thinking about her own problems.
"You look bad, Ocean. What's bothering you." said a voice.
It was Stulte. Stulte was her best friend, and her love, though he lived on the other side of the crater. Around the bend as they called it. He was the only one to take notice of her when her mother died, and she felt grateful for his attentions.
For now they had settled into a long distance relationship, though lately Ocean had been feeling something more.
His colors matched Ocean almost perfectly, though his belly was perhaps a little creamier too. His personality felt like a perfect match to hers, and she was almost to the point of knowing what he was going to say before he said it.
He was gentle, kind, smart, and in short all the things Ocean was, maybe a little extra too.
"It's nothing," said Ocean, though she knew that wasn't true.
Stulte sighed.
"I know something is eating you, and I can't stand to see that. I came around the bend to have fun, not sit around feeling sorry for myself."
Ocean considered his offer for a moment, then nodded.
"I've been feeling.. stifled lately. I feel like I want open air and freedom. Freedom!"
"I see. I've been feeling the same way for a few days now." Stulte said, then added, "Freedom to go on the raids or something more?"
"I want something more Stulte," Ocean knew she shouldn't be confessing this to him. After all he still served the Queen. He might report her to the Gronckles or even old dragon Grinch.
"I want to be free just for the sake of being free. No more raids, just us and the wind. The means to carry out our own wishes, our own goals."
Stulte was silent for a bit. After a spot of thinking he spoke up.
"I find that idea strangely attractive. It's like a tug in my veins pulling me away from here, but the Queen's influence is strong in me." he said, then remarked, "I feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. It's a bit of a thrill, really."
"I feel like that too."
"We need to talk about some things." said Stulte and Ocean nearly at the same time.
"Uh..You go first." Stulte.
"No, you go first." Ocean.
"I'm pretty sure that you should go first."
"No, you should go first."
"Alright."
Stulte cleared his throat and began.
"I've been thinking through for some time, and I think this might be important."
"What is it?"
Stulte flicked his eyes around the small hole in the dirt they were in to make sure that what they said was for their ears alone.
"I'm thinking that we should fly away from this place."
"And leave your parents hanging?"
"They hardly care about me. They've swallowed the propaganda and I should know. Bomb dropped, now it's your turn."
"I've been thinking about Vikings. They aren't what you think they are. They're not evil or bad, they're just protecting their home."
Stulte was surprised and couldn't hide it well enough. He coughed.
When he spoke his tone was skeptical.
"I don't believe that. They're evil creatures, more evil than the Queen, I dare say. Why do they come and try to invade the nest if not to kill us for the fun of it!"
Ocean subconsciously shifted to distance herself from Stulte.
"Now it sounds like you've fallen for the propaganda. Look at it from their point of view. Dragons are the enemy and they're just trying to get rid of us the only way they know how. They're Vikings, not philosophers. The only reason they're attacking us is because they're being attacked."
"One way or another, it all comes back to the devil on the throne." Stulte said.
"What are you talking about?"
Nayla, and at the worst possible time too! Drat! She'll turn us in.
"Are you two lovebirds having fun together or is it something else?"
If dragons could blush Ocean would be bright red.
Stulte stammered.
"N-nothing. Heh heh. We were just talking."
"I have an eye for trouble when I see it, you're up to something and I know it."
Ocean had to fight to keep from acting on impulse and telling another lie.
"As soon as you tell a lie, you'll have to tell more until somebody realizes you're lying and you are dishonored. Better to tell the truth and feel the pain now than experience much more pain later"
Her father's words came to her and Ocean decided she would take a leap of faith.
"She's a friend, we can trust her." she whispered to Stulte.
Then she said to Nayla.
"Can you keep a secret."
Nayla nodded.
"Cross your heart and hope to die?" said Ocean, who held her hands over her heart.
Nayla didn't hesitate.
"Cross my heart and hope to die." said Nayla, in a firm voice, though she instinctively reached to her chest to make sure that her heart was still beating.
"We're thinking about running away. To the Mainland."
Stulte spluttered.
"We never agreed on that!"
"Shh." whispered Ocean.
"How do I help?"
A/N I'm a little disappointed with the mid to late part of the chapter.
3k word count. Whoo Hoo! Ocean has a love interest. I told you there wasn't going to be any hicstrid but that doesn't have mean there's no romance. What do you think I should do with Nayla?
