Episode 23: Here There Be Dragons

While I work making tents, Zipporah sings a Prill nursery song she learned as a pup.

The water is wide and dark and deep
And rolls beneath our feet
Carrying us away to sleep
Carrying us away...

It has been a while since I slept. Quite a while. Some nights, though, I lose time. It just slips by, and suddenly its morning and I can't remember where the time went at all...

HighDive erupts from the water and splats onto the deck, shaking brine from her fur in an explosive flurry. She's taken to the salt water like a...Zipsum taking to...whatever holds her attention I guess.

She sputters, "There's something - shapes! - in the water!" and points excitedly out and down.

I get up and walk over to where she is standing. "Big shapes?"

HighDive nods. "Big."

I peer down into the shifting sea but can see nothing except the wake rolling away from the blades of the ship.

"I see them" someone else says. I keep peering. Ever since the bullet took me down, the light hurts my eyes, and its glaring off the water now. I rub my temples to ease the sudden spikes of pain.

"You should get in and get a look, Moses." I turns to see Rei is on the deck, looking at me.

Fair enough. I grab a cable I've installed for just this kind of work, wrap it around mu middle and cinch it with a clip. I heads for the back...the stern! of the ship and get ready to jump in.

"Perhaps that isn't the best idea." Now its Kyoshi, pointing past where Moses is standing.

Large, irregular shapes are darting around behind the ship, trying to catch up. Suddenly one erupts from the water - it is a riot of colorful fronds attached to a three meter long S-curving body.

Everyone shares little glances to reassure them that they're all seeing the same thing. The front-serpent-things are darting closer. One touches one of the rear blades, leaving a trail of colorful slime after it. They clearly cannot gain on the ship, but are keeping pace with it.

Mokuzai muses that he glimpsed some intelligence in the things' eyes. Rei isn't convinced. Moses turns to Kyoshi, "Lets slow down a little and see what they want. Maybe they want to...talk or something."

When we slow down, things start getting bad. Ten of the huge things erupt from the sea, transform into naked people in mid-air, and land gracefully on the deck, all armed with some kind of coral weapons. And then they're shouting and clicking at each other and at us. I let the cable fall to the deck and slowly reach for an intercom. They're ignoring me, glaring at Zip, Una and Rei and hefting their weapons.

"Floor it."

Kyoshi calls on one of his Kata and things get complicated fast. They want to...fight us. Fight...the women? Kyoshi is translating, but I can't follow. They look really mad, keep clicking and gesturing. I'm glad we've left the rest behind for now.

Suddenly, there is this rush - I see Zipporah, and my heart breaks. All of this time we've spent together, most of every day, and I've just...taken it for granted. Like she'll always be there. But she won't. Be here. I have to.

Hold on

Like a panther, Rei lunges toward Raoul, snatches him up and tosses him overboard.

Dammit.

In I go.

As I get swarmed by giant sea-monsters, I think to myself; sometimes Rei's a serious bitch.

***

In the end, they pull us all down. Zip brings Raoul back to life, and after that, he's the only happy one down there. We're down a long way. There isn't even light down here. I had no idea. I'm pretty sure my pressure fittings will hold up, and I know I can filter air out of the water for a long time, but still. And the rest are dead if they open those big valves in the sides of this...coral...thingy.

It turns out they need to put us through some kind of ordeal. Which proves that they're true Karians. Immediate suspicion that we're evil, followed by an ordeal. Except for the Prill.

I remember Zipporah when Kyoshi's Kata hit her, and...we have to go back. To the Chantry. We could...live there. I like it there.

I know that's not true.

So does she.

The ordeal is...making HighDive drink seawater. It just runs through her gills. I think she giggled during part of it. Not much of an ordeal.

***

Thirty hours in, Julian calls a crew meeting.

"Listen up. Uh. Look, its been a long time since they got dragged down there. Like, they're out of air by now, right? Even Mav-uh-Moses has gotta be, what, rusted out? So, look, its been a fun trip, you know, looking for this imaginary continent across the endless ocean. But, seriously. I think we should take off. No, wait." He holds up a hand to quite protest for a moment while he continues. "Listen. We've got this baddass ship. We fucking took this ship. We were supposed to take the bigger ship, but, well, anyway, we've got this fucking ship, and we're not doing anything with it. We should go back where we came from, back to Omexan, or anyplace else really, and get back to what we do best. I mean, come on. We're pirates" Tara, standing near him and leaning on his arm, nudges him slightly. "...And I should be captain."


***

We finally come up when Zip and I can put together some potions.

Julian glares at us, arms crossed. "It wasn't my idea to wait here two whole days." I look at him for a moment, wonder what went on up here while we were down below, or busy.

If we ever want to leave the "Emerald Isle", we need to come back carrying corpses of the Dusk Sages.

No matter what we do, somebody's gotta suffer. That's just how it seems to be.

Maybe we can run the blockade. We'll see.

3 comments:

Douglas Underhill said...

Arg. Oh well, at least its done. For some reason this one took me forever.

Joshua M Lee said...

Not a problem. The moral here is clear: sometimes Rei is a serious bitch. ;)

Paul Wise said...

Don't think too badly of Rei. She really is a nice girl, she's just a violent maniac.


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