Wait, I've only been working on this for a little more than a month? That's a killer update schedule for me these days. Warp speed, ladies and gentlemen!
(::)
Enjoy the cookie Pt. I had white chocolate cookies this morning and I saved one to share.
I already have a plot planned and stuff written down for the next chapter, so expect another update to come soon.
I've done a lot of crazy stuff working for the Talons of Peace, like crawling through mud, freezing my scales off in the Skywing Kingdom, and hiding from Burn's soldiers in a dung-hole. What I've never done is shimmy through a dark passageway so narrow it would make a scavenger claustrophobic, two miles underwater and underneath another thousand yards of mountain. I pressed my wings flat to my sides, and still protruding bits of rock pinched and scraped at the bones.
It's not often that I wonder if I made the right choice. Usually, I know what I'm doing is stupid and do it anyway, or I'm kicking myself for not doing what I should be. But now, I was second-guessing myself at the worst possible time. I couldn't turn around. Backing up takes a lot longer than going forward, so either I bailed on this now or I saw it through to the end.
Staying with the Deepwings was a gilded cage. They wouldn't have let me go; at the very least, Cuttlefish wouldn't have allowed it. They wouldn't have done harm to me either, and my insatiable curiosity would have had much to ooh and ah over in the deep. Should I have stayed and plead my case? It would've been much more comfortable than what I was doing now.
Suddenly the passage turned left, forcing me through a squeeze, then gradually turned until I was climbing up, scrambling towards a junction in the tunnel. One tunnel led down, the other up. And just as suddenly, I saw the reason why.
Bubbles appeared in the water, flecks of vapor shooting up past the tunnel I was in and vanishing into the upwards tunnel. Whoever had dug out this shaft had built a vapor trap.
And if there was vapor, the water was about to get much hotter.
I continued down the shaft, cursing my luck. And the notion that I have no self-doubt is a lie – I've doubted a lot of things, really. My decision to join the Talons of Peace was a betrayal to the Seawing kingdom – a decision that most Seawings still give me crap for years later. It was either join the Talons, or turn a blind eye to the horrors going on in the war, the troops Coral was sending into the grinder to die over and over again, without purpose, without hope. But years later, I look back at the Talons and the Dragonets of Destiny and wonder if I got played.
And if that wasn't enough, I had outsmarted myself. I didn't have to come all the way out here on a mission, just to prove that I'm an exciting, dashing, brave guy. I didn't have to be squeezing through a hot, tiny bolthole leading down into the depths of the earth, my claws scratched and scruffed from scrabbling on the rocks, the water pitch-black only a fathom away despite the bright light I was pumping out through my scales. This all seemed like a convenient way for Tsunami to get rid of me, a way to send me off and give her plenty of time for her to find another dragon, then tell me when I got back (if I got back, a traitorous part of my mind whispered) that a long-distance relationship doesn't work out, sorry.
Or maybe she would've gotten over it in a day and she was only cold because I offended her in a way I couldn't even guess.
I couldn't afford to have a misunderstanding blow up into another war between kingdoms, a war that my tribe wouldn't be spared from this time, not with the Deepwings occupying the water. In the last war, the other tribes could threaten us all they wanted, but they couldn't give a Mudwing gills. The only dragons at risk were the soldiers we sent above the surface, but this time… it could be anyone. We could be subject to the same devastation that laid four tribes to waste over the course of eighteen long, bloody years.
And I wasn't about to let that happen.
The long, tight bolthole opened up, and I floated down into a deep, dark open space inside the mountain. The water had been lukewarm, but now it stung uncomfortably as it swished past my scales and eyes – worst of all, I couldn't get away from it. It felt like holding my wings over a steaming cauldron, only that sensation was spread out across my entire body. I swam downwards, darkness surrounding me, feeling tired and going nowhere.
Suddenly I hit hot rock. An entire wall had appeared out of nowhere – no, a floor, my senses told me as I came to myself, everything ringing in a daze. The mineral water was murkier than a Mudwing pond, and it smelled crisp – my talons stung. I blinked.
Oh, so we're playing the floor is lava.
That was an amazing game to play as a dragonet, until it turned out to be literal. The rock was hot to the touch, sizzling almost, heated by the earth's internal fire. But if all of the cavern was this hot, I should've been boiled to death already – unless there was an inlet of cold water.
Somewhere in here was a lava tube leading to the open ocean. I just had to find it.
Without a point of reference, I had no way of telling where the current was leading me, so I let myself float in the water, looking down at the rocks. Or up. Or sideways. The floor wanted to slip away, and so did the contents of my stomach. Here and there a column of rock would shoot up from the ground, superheated bubbles shooting off in all directions before they inevitably curved and went upwards. Fish swam about in the warm water, and coral, and eels -
A fish went by, its whole body translucent except for its gigantic, gaping mouth filled with teeth. Its whole body was a talon's length long at best, but its mouth was the size of a balled up fist. More creepy fish went by, glowing red lights following them like lanterns. The cavern lit up like a starry night, each star representing some grotesque deep-sea abomination. I almost stumbled over a worm that was as long as I was, spines sticking out of its body every which way as it grubbed along the floor looking for food. I saw eels blindly nosing about in the water, looking like malformed sharks. I held my peace, swimming slowly through the maze. I might be the biggest creature here, but I didn't want to mess with these uglies.
Besides, there were always the horror stories of gigantic deep sea squid… best not to think about that.
Presently, I saw the way I was drifting – backwards – and then I kicked into motion, swimming against the current for a while, then pausing again to see if its direction had changed. The water cooled off as I went, now bearably hot, now lukewarm, now nearing the icy cold of the deep. A chill set into my bones as the sea suddenly turned frigid – I must be near the exit. The multitude of horrifying deep sea fish gave way to a less dense concentration of horrifying deep sea fish – without the hot vents bubbling rich minerals into the water, the sea became hostile, cold and empty.
I only saw a few more fish now – most notably a brown specimen, its tiny, beady eyes looking out at the world over its cavernous maw. Its body looked normal, but its head was massive, all to support its massive gullet, disorderly fangs poking from its lips. It had rows and rows of smaller teeth behind the fangs – I wondered if it could even close its mouth, or if it relied on smaller animals drifting into its mouth in the dark and then being digested.
It shied away from me when I approached it, but when I looked down its throat I could see its ribs.
And then a tiny shark showed up with a nose like a narwhal, four eyes, fins so stubby they looked amputated and awful dental.
Yeah, the creatures down here were weird as hell.
The water was clearer now, less muddy. I saw a rock wall drawing nearer, and a wide chink in it leading to the pitch-black sea outside. The cold current rushed past my ears now, and I swam hard to push past it and get to the tunnel. So long, deep, and thanks for all the fish.
But as I climbed upwards I had a niggling feeling that this wasn't over. Not by a long shot. The Deepwings would have noticed that I was gone by now, would be shutting down the mountain as they closed off any avenue of escape. They wouldn't suspect I was crazy enough to crawl down a bolthole that most dragonets would find claustrophobic, but they'd know I'd flown the coop, and be on the lookout. If there was a guard on the exit to this tunnel, I was screwed.
But at a certain point, there wasn't a lot more for me to do. I'd get out, or I wouldn't; I hadn't come this far to throw up my talons and give up now. Not with freedom so close at hand. This was me fixing the problems that I'd gotten myself into, as usual. Fin had to be worried sick about me right now, since I'd vanished on him with only the thinnest of excuses and left him to deal with the locals on his lonesome. Time passed differently down here. How long had I been missing, a day, two days, a week?
After what felt like a century of fighting the current, I emerged onto the sea floor. The fierce draft had long since swept away the thick silt that covered every inch of the rock, so I stood on bare granite, flecks of dirt whipping past me and then getting sucked into the lava tube like lemonade going down a cavernous straw.
At least I didn't see any Deepwing guards. I relaxed. The ocean floor is vast, there's too much distance to cover for even a private army. And once I got to a shallow enough depth, I would be in the clear. Still, the pitch black water felt ominous.
There was no horizon. There was no sky. There was only a circle of blue light around me, particles in the water glowing as they drifted into the illumination provided by my glowing scales, and even that had grown dimmer since I had come down here.
I had no idea where the outpost was, or even the direction of Pyrrhia's shelf, that sheer cliff of rock that marked the difference between Seawing territory and the deep. I had to surface and get my bearings that way.
'Careful now', I thought to myself. I'd have to go up slow – I didn't want my eyeballs to blow out like that one poor sap who'd tried coming up too fast. And he'd been surfacing from a fraction of the depth I was at now. Never the easy way, always the hard way.
I kicked off the rocky sea floor and began my ascent to the surface.
Without a way of telling depth, I had to play it by ear, wretched boredom overcoming me as I drifted slowly upwards. The surface beckoned. I wanted to see the light of the sun, I wanted to see fish, normal fish, sea creatures that wouldn't give me nightmares. I also didn't want to die via disintegrating from the inside out, so I let buoyancy carry me steadily upwards, my wings spread out to slow my climb by dragging on the water like sails holding back the wind.
There was no sound. There was no sunlight. All I had around me was the black, up, down and sideways, an endless abyss staring me in the face. It was familiar now, and familiarity breeds contempt.
I had nothing to look at, no one to talk to, and nothing to do for about the next day. Well, crap. I recalled one of the sayings I'd heard from a soldier while working for the Talons of Peace. War is long stretches of mindnumbing boredom, punctuated by stark moments of absolute terror. And right then, I wouldn't have minded the terror.
For the first hour, I busied myself scratching an itch.
When that got boring, I tried counting every town in the Seawing kingdom that I'd ever heard of, just to see how many there were. Then the Skywing kingdom. Then frustration when I realized I'd been dozing off that one day in geography when they counted off the towns of the tribes.
A distant whoosh met my ears – a creature swimming through the water, no doubt. I tuned my senses to it, listening as the unknown fish stirred the currents, and my sluggish heartbeat picked up a notch. And then I heard a gurgle, like a dragonet slowly blowing bubbles underwater. My ears went up on end. I still had my scales glowing, I must be the brightest thing for miles and I still couldn't see whatever was making all the noise. Stupid, stupid. I let my scales go dark and then I really couldn't see shit.
The gurgle sounded again, first on my right, then my left. I spun around, lost in the dark, eyes straining to perceive light that simply wasn't there. I thought back to the scavenger I'd been afraid of, the noises in the cave that turned out to be a load of hot air. This was likely nothing, I thought. Another inbred, snub-nosed fish that was about as dangerous as a starry-eyed recruit.
Water swirled in front of me, deep thrums and gurgles sounding off one after the other, then coming back seconds later as they echoed off the ocean floor.
It didn't sound like nothing.
Switching on my lights would instantly make me a beacon for everything down here. Might as well hold up a sign that said 'here I am, eat me'. But screw it, I had to see. I let my glow scales come to life, powerful blue beams instantly cutting through the black so brightly that my eyes burned and for a moment I had to squeeze them shut.
Then I opened them again. I wished I hadn't.
This was the biggest, ugliest mug of a squid I'd ever seen in my life.
Now, normal squid are cute and cuddly. Normal squid like to nip playfully, then dart around in the shoals.
Normal squid don't have an eye the size of Queen Scarlet's royal dinner plate, beaks longer than my forearm or hooks on their mouths that could tear a whale to shreds. He had tentacles longer than I was, lined with suckers and ready to kill.
It was like a spider, only that spider is bigger, angrier, and his spindly legs reach for a mile.
For a second we just stared at each other.
He didn't know what to make of me.
I knew what to make of him. Sushi. I just didn't feel like armwrestling something with four times as many arms.
"I'll just be over here," I flashed as I swam backwards. "Nice fishy. Calm, not hungry fishy. Wasverynicetalkingtoyouokthanksbye". I turned to run.
It didn't stop there. The squid hurtled after me, five yards of nightmare fuel coming at me faster than I could swim. I spun around in the water, ready to fight.
Ready to get hit like I'd been smashed by a Mudwing flying into me at terminal velocity. I blooded my teeth on a tentacle but the rest pulled at me, yanking, barbs digging into my flesh. Way to escalate, buddy. Would've been nice if he'd done me a favor and volunteered himself for sushi, but you can't have everything.
He might be bigger, but I weighed more and I wasn't about to lose to some pumped up, skinny little deepwater shit. Problem was, I couldn't throw my weight around without leverage and squid barbs hurt like a bitch.
I pulsed my glow-scales, dazzling him, then tore at his wounded appendage. Blue blood poured from the wound and clouded the water, but it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot. He had a tentacle wrapped around my leg, and the rest of him closed in for the kill. Logically, he had me by the balls. But momma didn't raise no quitter.
I'd been pulling away from him, now I threw everything into going forwards, ducking under the incoming tentacles and swinging upwards towards his soft underbelly, claws out, teeth bared.
"Enjoy the pain ya' overgrown cuttlefish," I flashed, hurtling at him. His giant body didn't have the benefit of bone, and my claws tore away chunks of squid meat, even more blood jetting into the water as my talons finished their arc through the folds of ugly, pink flesh.
But killing him would take a lot more than that. Suckers landed on my scales and pulled me back, wrapping me up with barbs, and he squeezed, hard. I battered my tail into his ugly schnoz, then went for another strike, whipping him with the one appendage he'd mistakenly left free. His grip loosened, and then I twisted and bit a chunk out of another tentacle.
With that, he let go. Black clouds of ink sprayed into the water as he jetted off, leaving me blind and coughing on the noxious, oily crap, but when I got out of it he was gone for good.
"And stay gone," I said, rubbing my wounds with a wince. I'd given better than I got, but he'd still taken his share in blood.
The scary thing is, there's nothing to keep them from getting bigger. I might have just picked a fight with a baby and gotten lucky. There could be gigantic cuttlefish out there the size of a whale, deep-sea demons that would scoop me up with one tentacle and have me for a light snack.
Maybe there was a reason why the Deepwings liked their mountain so much.
After that encounter, I swam upwards a lot quicker.
The abyss seemed to go on forever. Maybe there was no surface. Maybe I'd been stranded in an infinite ocean.
Yet as time went on I noticed pale, wan light seeping into the warm waters, schools of normal-looking fish scuttling by. The sea temperature turned pleasantly warm – finally, I drew near to the top.
Light shimmered as I rose up beneath the waves, the calm sea parting as I raced towards the surface.
I broached the water, sending ocean spray everywhere. The droplets gleamed like polished silver, then flashed blue when they hit the wave crests. It was night, the twin moons Arna and Malarna shining brilliantly in the dark sky, their dual halos blotting out the nearby stars. I felt hot at my scruff, too hot.
Suddenly I keeled over and retched up seawater, then gasped for air. Air! My body choked on nothing, drawing deep breaths of something invisible. Finally my breathing settled, and I felt like I wasn't about to die, though still awful.
My stomach grumbled, my legs felt like they were weighed down by millstones, I had no idea where I was, and I hadn't talked to anyone in days. But as the ocean waves lapped at my wings, I knew I was in the clear, for now. I had to warn Coral of the danger on our doorstep. I had to get there before it was too late.
But I was so tired.
I slipped a few feet under the water and then collapsed into a long, dreamless sleep.
I woke up to the sun's golden rays bouncing off the water above me, prodding in their harsh, insistent way. Time to get moving. Can't miss a new day. I groaned as I opened my eyes, gazing at the shimmering surface above. Fluffy white clouds floated in the boundless sky above me, and the water was clear as crystal, auburn light skipping off the wave crests as if they were blue glass.
The sooner I got moving, the earlier I could inform the palace of the situation, and the sooner they could get ready so no one went off half-cocked. I remember one time during the war during the war, where I arranged a meeting between a major of Blister and a lieutenant of Burn. The Icewings were about to descend on a town and both sides wanted their guys out of the crossfire. So I got news to the general staff of the two, and they confirmed the rendezvous. The soldiers knew their orders, and so did the operatives in town.
But no one told the officers.
So when they met, the major tried to kill the lieutenant, the soldiers responded in kind and it turned into a two-way slugfest. Heavy casualties. All because someone didn't dot their m's and cross their q's. The last thing I needed was the Deepwings poking around the wrong place and starting a war. Who knew, maybe they would come out on peaceful terms, but there is another saying that applies here. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
But before any of that, I needed a meal. Escaping is hard work, doubly so when it involves battling giant squid.
I looked down, startling an inquisitive mackerel that had been nosing around my still form, perhaps wondering if it could take a bite. It darted away. Too slow. I snapped it up and swallowed it whole, not bothering to chew.
I was in the clear. All I had to do was convince Queen Coral to take the Deepwing threat seriously. It would take money to move the men, brief the officers, prepare an ambassador and put the ball in our court. To convince her, I had my own word and exactly zero witnesses. Easy, right?
Yeah, I thought. I'll just waltz up to the palace and demand an audience with the queen.
But then again, if the Dragonets of Destiny had managed to stop a decades-long war, I could at least prevent one from happening in the first place.
I ducked under the water, then pumped my wings, throwing myself into the air with a burst of ocean spray. One more wingbeat saw me safely rise above the water, and then I turned and flew east: towards the rising sun, towards the palace, and my own destiny.