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Following in the trend of many other authors, From a Dusty Attic is a series of could-have-been & just-might-be stories. Some will be epic in sheer length and might be moved to their own one-shot, others just short enough to be called a chapter. All are open for adoption on the condition of asking first and if some garnish enough popularity, I may flesh them out into longer stories or at least add an additional scene or two. In any case, the dust and cobwebs have been wiped away so without further ado, I hope that you all enjoy:


From a Dusty Attic

By Corvus no Genmu


"Blackened Waters"

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 is 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 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 kindred's 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.

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, show 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!

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 the gears continued 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 from their hidden observer's hood tightened in disdain. Little love for the Slayers aside, such objects did not warrant such a 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 that did? The father ignored the leftover for what it was and took youngling 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 continued to dance along his sinuous form. 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 is all that it takes to finish it. Despite the rubbery texture to its flesh, lightning does as much harm to it as any other who was not born from its good graces. The corpse has barely finished its death throws before he's upon it, jaws ripping free the malleable flesh and swallowing it down. The barbs at the back shatter and are 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 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 scare the prey away, which does 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 is restored enough that he can see the world he had left behind.

He finds himself impressed with his tracking abilities.

Blind enough to collide into more than a 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 finds her easily enough with her quiet humming as she peruses through the wreckage of a Slayer's ship. A carrier and one that had meant 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 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 if the only scents carried on the currents 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.


Author's Note:

I'm writing this note to formally announce my dedicating myself to writing professionally, something that I have been doing for the better part of the last two years but am only now truly stating to you all, my dear readers. That and I have recently established for myself a professional blog to host the beginning chapters of original works I've created thus far, including one such story that I hope to be the start of a series of short stories I've entitled as Growing Up Monstrous. The link for my blog can be found at my author's page entitled as "Bibliotheca Somniare Corvus".

I thank all my readers and fans of my works for if not for your kind words and fantastic works of your own, I would never have found myself where I am today.

Also, one final thing... This note and its contents will be deleted upon the next update of this story, so please refrain from posting any reviews to its contents. I welcome any questions or concerns just do try and express them through my PM.