A/N: The next chapter is not even a single word on the page. And yet, this is ready now. I'm not going to withhold. With love to alphas, betas, omegas and all of you readers who keep blowing me away with your amazing reviews.
Grendel
Hie dygel lond warigeath,
They a darksome land ward,
Wulf-hleothu, windige naessas
Wolf-cliff and windy nesses.
Frecne fen-gelad thaer fyrgen-stream
Frightful fen-glades where mountain-stream
Under nessa genipu nither gewiteth
Under nesses' mist all nether goeth
Flod under foldan, nis thaet feor hoenen
A flood under earth, 'tis not far hence
Mil-gemearces, thaet se mere standeth
By miles marked, that grey sea stands
Ofer thaem hongiath, hrinde bearwas
Over-hung in rimy bowers,
Wudu wyrtum fæst, wæter oferhelmath
whose wood, rooted fast, the water overhelms.
Thær mæg nihta gehwæm, nithwundor seon,
There, by nightfall, nixed wonder seen
fyr on flode. No thæs frod loofah
- fire on flood. Nor none there lives
gumena bearna, thæt thone grund wite;
of human born, that those grottos wit;
theah the hæthstapa hundum geswenced,
Though the heath-stepper of hounds be chased,
heorot hornum trum, holtwudu sece,
hart of branch horns crowned, hold-wood seeking,
feorran geflymed, ær he feorh seleth,
far field fleeing, he sells sweet life
aldor on ofre, ær he in wille
on that high edge, ere he willing in
hafelan hydan. Nis thæt heoru stow!
the surf his head to hide. No haven is that below!
Beowulf, Lines 1357 - 1372
He comes to us, trailing the taste of the higher waters. It is the taste of absence. Absence of salt. Absence of savor. He trails hunger and thirst as well. Cold this one is, but our realm is colder, and the last rays of heat that he carried from above desert him swiftly as he descends.
This creature is blind. Mass and magnetism, temperature and current, the bioelectric spark, are undecipherable to him. Sightless in the sea of eternal night, he gropes at the cliffs, where the edge of the continent shears down. Down and down and down. All the way to the abyssal plain.
He carries no light in his body, nothing to lead food or mate to his mouth. And so, though his hunger and thirst shimmer around him, they cannot be filled. Instead, here under the weight of ocean, where the dense, dark water holds even the softest body together, here he makes war upon the rocks.
He is powerful, breaking and smashing the ancient cliff face, tumbling it down around him.
Every block and shard falls slowly, barely heavier than the flood that holds us. He labors in vain, until, in the end, he must surrender. Defeated by the implacable god, he attends to himself at last.
In silence and pain, he releases his milt to the water.
We blink our phosphor code, and pulse forward to seek and feed. The slick ribbons blink white and gone, white and gone, suspended in the black, but taste only of poison and things long dead. There is no nourishment here, no quickening, even if one with roe lay near.
Bubbles of air rise from the holes in his face, and he draws in water in their stead. There is no feeding here. He is as hard as the stones he set free. Harder, for they yielded to him. Now he is as heavy, too, and sinks slowly, as the air motes shudder upward.
Edward! Edward!
A silent call.
I know you're here! But it's too deep. Too dark. I can't SEE!
There is panic in that word.
You have to help me! Find me! Find us!
Other voices join.
Edward! Come back to us. Come back.
We'll leave her be, if she means all that to you. Carlisle reckons he can make her out to be tetched if she says anything.
You can't stay here forever, son. 'Tis bootless. I tried.
The first voice keens again.
Edward, where are you? It's too big, and everything is just black. Edward!
They cast about in the middle water, guideless and afraid.
If he's dead, she would have seen it, surely … Edward, you prick, don't you care about anyone except yourself? You're killing Esme, and Alice, too.
Unfelt and unknown, the great current carries them, just as it carried him.
Alice! Here! I feel him. Follow me.
They come. A chain of sea stars, linked arm to arm. The stone people, seeking their lost. He moves toward them, now, at last. We follow, too, in a cloud. Our cold fire shows him, pale ghost, blinking in the deep.
What's that light?
It's him! It's him!
What's that … stuff …?
They swim too swiftly. We must flee, for their merest touch will rip us apart. They surround their own in the dark, voices an unintelligible chorus. The water around them churns, sending its waves outward.
In the end, they return, together, to their sky.
A map: http (colon double slash) .
Bioluminescent creatures of the deep:
jelly fish: http (colon double slash) .edu/Animals/Invertebrates/Facts/cnidarians/images/cover_
squid: http (colon double slash) watch?v=SfNBLR72W7g
more: http (colon double slash) . /tumblr_koe7pzDDjl1qzeqzxo1_