Chapter Thirty-five: The Sea Of Fluctus
Rayla was uncomfortable with where the moon dragon had landed them, as well as frustrated that she couldn't even be mad at him for it. Umbra was only trying his best to help, she knew, it wasn't his fault. Stretching before them was a wide sea.
Callum and Zephyr were currently in the air to scout out the area, mostly in search of some kind of landmark to get more precise bearings. One thing was for sure; the Storm Spire was nowhere in sight from here. Still, Rayla knew where they were in a general sense, and she told Soren and Ezran so; this place was called the Sea of Fluctus, Fluctus being the capital city of the Tidebound elves. Indeed, there was a pinprick of something hovering on the horizon. Ezran was regarding the now reserved and nervous Rayla with sympathy, Soren with a mixture of concern and curiosity. He had heard she despised and even feared water, and at the time he had teased her over it which only earned himself a punch in the nose and scolding from Callum and Ezran, but he had never seen it with his own eyes before. It was almost strange to him, seeing her this way.
Rayla kept her eyes off of the water and held her arms. The vastness of the sea was chilling the air to even colder temperatures than when they were back home. She tried to put the feeling of not being safe out of her mind, she knew she was safe with Callum, Ezran and Soren here. At least this time, they had had the sense to leave Bait at home.
"Rayla." Callum's voice startled her out of her reverie, and she found herself wrapped securely in his wings, in which she immediately felt safer and warmer. He and Zephyr had returned without her noticing. "We don't have to connect to the ocean arcanum now. We can go find an earth mage and –"
"No." Rayla said, her voice shaky but somehow also sure. "The travel alone would take too much time. You said it yourself, we have less than half a year to do this, the more time devoted to learning the spells, the better. Besides, I'd really rather just get it out of the way now."
After a moment, Callum realized there was little part in trying to argue, all he needed to do was keep her safe. Of course, that would probably start with keeping himself and the others out of trouble.
Claudia couldn't believe her luck. The book was still here! Water damaged from the snow and frost, but still legible. She had retreated back to the old cave, where she had left her book of dark spells, forgotten in the battle that had driven them out. The book had been hidden by a concealment spell that would only be canceled by her own hand, so a stranger couldn't stumble upon it. It seemed that something or someone else had been in here since then because the carcass of the Sunfire elf was gone. No matter, as long as no one spotted her now. She opened the book and skimmed through the pages pertaining to sky magic. It wasn't long before she found what she was looking for.
There was a dark counterpart for those mage wings of Callum's which would cut down on travel significantly. She supposed it was time to restock her supplies. She already had a couple of moon-spinners – spiders that contained moon magic – in a small glass jar that would allow for invisibility, along with a few strands of hair from the elf's pillow, which is why she had snuck into the General's house while they had been saying their goodbyes; Soren had mentioned in passing one day that they all lived together in the village. She supposed she was going rogue now, to kill that elf and free Callum, Ezran and anyone else under her spell. Hopefully, at least; it hurt, but she had to face the possibility that maybe Callum couldn't be saved anymore. It was the one thing she hadn't agreed with her father on; she had to at least try to save them one last time. And if Aaravos thought he could interfere, she would gladly die before allowing him the privilege.
It looked like she'd be needing the feathers of a Xadian songbird next, as she looked up the spell for dark mage wings. As if in an act of providence, such a bird perched itself outside, even warbling a little tune to announce its presence. It was a lovely little creature, with black and white stripped feathers, and would serve her well. For a moment, Callum's words about dark magic entered her head, about how it could be done without poaching and indeed, the tracking spell Claudia was using depended on renewable parts rather than any severed body part. Perhaps the feathers of this bird wouldn't require – no, she forced that thought out of her head. Humans couldn't afford to be picky about where the magic came from, not with the elves and dragons pushing them to extremes so quickly. That was her second quest; as soon as she slew the elf and either freed her friends or put them out of their brainwashed misery, she would continue her father's noble work.
General Amaya had been good enough to give Lain the day off, just in case he needed extra time to recover from the flash from last night. The rest of them would be on alert today, keeping their eyes peeled for Amer. His vision was perfectly fine, but he appreciated the rest none-the-less; Amer's words still plagued him. It almost felt disgusting that he might agree with that cowardly little thing on anything. Now he was contemplating it, looking out of their sitting room window, maybe in the hopes of something more to occupy his mind. Not that there was any real shortage of things to think about.
Did he really come off like he would hand Callum off to that joke on elf-kind? That he would ever tolerate those hideous words against his daughter? Lain didn't really hate the boy, he was a fine young mage and it was truly remarkable that he could do it all without either dark magic or a primal stone. He was always unfailingly polite and unassuming, and Lain at least admitted this much to himself; Callum treated Rayla with as much dignity and courtesy that any father could hope for in his daughter's suitor. He lamented, not for the first time, that Callum should even be a human; if only he were a Moonshadow elf, or at least an elf in general, he would be absolutely perfect for Rayla. But he wasn't, he was a human. It was unbecoming of a young Moonshadow elf to go all misty-eyed over a human, of all things. No matter how miraculous his abilities were, a human was a human.
"Lain?" his wife's gentle voice entered his ears moments before he found himself embraced from behind. Lain smiled to himself; Tiadrin's pregnancy was making her affectionate today. He looked to his side to see a pair of young green eyes looking up at him questioningly. For the time being, Mira would be spending her days with Tiadrin when Amaya couldn't be home. Not that Lain minded, he just took one of his wife's hands and kissed it before she pulled him to sit on the coach with her. Mira joined them, and the couple snuggled closely, her head on his shoulder.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Tiadrin asked. And so, Lain told her about Amer's words and why he couldn't get them out of his head.
"Well, it got me thinking." he started. "Have you ever seen her so happy unless she's with him?"
"Not since she was little." Tiadrin admitted. "But this is a new world, my love. A new time. We've both heard what that old line of thinking can lead to." Lain nodded before he sighed.
"I just…a human." He stated.
"I think Ethari might have the right idea." Tiadrin told him. "He isn't any fonder of humans than Runaan, but he also has a point that Callum seems to make Rayla happy." Lain took a moment to look at Mira, who tilted her head in a silent question. He had seen it with his own eyes, how the human had risked his life to save this little one, and more-so how she and Rayla had each fretted over him in the following days. His daughter was utterly devoted to this boy, for whatever reason. From that, he resigned himself; no matter what he thought, that stubborn girl of his was not leaving him any time soon.
"Okay." Lain said at last, his outward appearance far less certain than his new conviction. "When they return in spring, I'll talk to him." Tiadrin smiled and kissed him, looking forward to finally being able to put this whole mess behind them, even if it would be months in the meantime, at least it was something.
"So how are we going to get to the city?" Ezran asked, noting the complete lack of boats.
"We already thought about it when we were in the sky." Zephyr told him.
"We flew to the city and had some transportation arranged." Callum said. "It should be here any minute."
"Transportation?" Soren questioned, thinking that it didn't sound like a typical boat. Callum tightened his grip on Rayla, who was already looking green.
"We thought about this, too." He said to her. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. Zephyr will stay with you on the shore while Ezran, Soren and I go to Fluctus. We'll be back before dark."
Rayla wanted to protest; it was her job to stay with him on Queen Zubeia's orders, the last time they separated ended up with her being taken captive by human-hating rebel elves, she just didn't want to be away from him. Instead, all that came out of her mouth was "I love you."
She leaned comfortably back into Callum as he kissed her on the cheek. An amazed gasp from Ezran caught their attention. His, Soren's and Zephyr's eyes were on the sea, the eyes of the former two stretched in amazement.
It was a group of four creatures, one of which bore a rider while the other three were unoccupied. The rider was a Tidebound elf, the cyan of a clean river with wisps of something or other protruding from various points on his body. The Tidebound elves had been questioned on this and many other things during the construction of Novus, and they had seemed happy and answer; those wisps were like the whiskers on a large fish, they helped to judge the elf's surroundings in deeper waters, where there was little light. They had all seen Tidebound elves before, obviously, the thing that held Soren and Ezran's attention were the steeds he had brought for them.
They were beautiful creatures, with the lithe, slight shape of deer. Their horns looked similar to those of the elf, that is to say they blended perfectly into their skulls. The creatures were an array of colors, blue, light green, white and even a russet-colored one, though the puffs of fur on each of their chests was pure white. The most stunning thing about these magnificent beasts, however, was how they did not wade through the water. They did not even sift gracefully through the water. No, they bounded atop the surface as easily as if their small hooves were striking solid stone, leaving only ripples in their wake.
These creatures were named, appropriately enough, ripplebounders. At some point or another, Callum, Rayla and Zephyr had all seen their wild brothers at a distance playing on lakes, rivers and other wetlands, but none of them had ever seen one up close. Even Rayla could momentarily forget her fear in the face of these animals.
"Greetings, travelers." The Tidebound elf said. "My name is Arro. We've been expecting your arrival for some time now, White Mage."
"Uh, Callum is fine." Callum said, raising a hand. Arro nodded and the girls watched as the boys entered the shallows into a few feet and mounted the ripplebounders. Callum looked back at Rayla and was relieved to see that cute, sassy smirk on her face instead of fear.
"You're going to behave yourself, right?" she asked, teasingly. "Because remember, I'm the one with the crow." As she said this, the messenger crow, which had been on Ezran's shoulder flew off and landed on the Moonshadow elf's outstretched hand as if it were on some sort of signal. Probably just a well-trained bird. "I'm sure your aunt would love to hear all about whatever trouble you get into."
"I'm petrified." Callum responded fondly, smiling at her.
Seeing the banter, Soren locked eyes with Zephyr, who looked alert, but no other emotion was visible on her face. It had been a busy day. "Hey, Zephyr, we need to talk when we get back, okay?" Zephyr would be annoyed with herself for the rest of the day that the brief nod was all she managed. Why in the world couldn't she speak?
"Okay, if we don't break this up now, we're going to be here all day." Ezran said, and Callum and Rayla smirked at him before the four, at last, turned around and the ripplebounders began making long, graceful leaps across the sea's surface.
Zephyr sighed, her smile falling. She shouldn't have kissed Soren. It just scared him and made things awkward. Embarrassment flushed on her face when Rayla turned to her and asked; "What?" Oh, by the primal sources themselves, did she seriously say that out loud?
Claudia decided that she couldn't use the spell that involved climbing the tallest mountain in the land. That would be the Storm Spire, a risk she obviously couldn't take. There were several other tracker spells, though none were as powerful or long lasting as the tracking spell she had used to find Callum and Ezran years ago. Now that she thought of it, maybe a huge arch in the sky with a lightshow wasn't the best for laying low in the first place.
So, this lesser spell would have to do. It would only take the hairs supplied and give a brief indication of the direction the owner of the hair was in, acting more like a temporary compass. Beyond that, actually finding the elf would be up to Claudia. That was the business she had at the generals house, to sneak in, find the elf's room and take a few shed hairs from her pillow. The spell was complete and a short, green light flew south, and that was all Claudia would get.
Claudia took the two feathers, one in each hand. She'd been spared the job of catching and killing the bird because these down feathers had been shed. In her pockets were several other feathers just in case. She faced south, spreading her arms and spoke the incarnation from the book. "Ekam meht krad."
There was a stiff, staggering pain in her arms as they morphed. Not so painful that it robbed her of thought and not in what she would call agony, but it caused her to clench her teeth to deal with it. She watched as the wings that didn't look entirely right, but as they solidified, she saw that these weren't feathery bird wings, they were large, leathery bat wings. She felt a slight disappointment because those bird wings were lovely, but she took off anyway, heading south. She'd search for days if she must, but she'd find them.
Author's Notes: The strangest thing happened over the last few days. For the first few days after my last update, my reviews were invisible, which confused me. I looked into it and apparently it happens to plenty of users every couple of years. Problem fixed itself before I could report it, so...yay? As for Claudia's bat wings, I saw a post somewhere or other, maybe on deviant art months ago and I've been wanting to do this ever since. More definite yay! Review.