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Mermaids IN SPACE~ 3
Lìadan spent the night huddled in the hollow between three breaching reefs, a few hastily gathered handfuls of weeds cushioning her hiding place. The rocks were sharp and brittle, the back-and-forth of the tides left her alternately frozen by the wind and scrambling to breathe, and the constant spray of the waves on her face was incredibly aggravating; she would have liked a nest of floaters better, but there wasn't any in the area and she didn't want to drift off on the currents, anyway.
It wouldn't have mattered much if she had found floaters to make herself comfortable, though, because she couldn't sleep anyway.
...Except perhaps the Great Dragon would have come from underneath and gobbled her up.
She had heard so much about the Great Dragons from Below. How immense they were, how awe-inspiring and terrifying. The way they would sometimes ignore a mer utterly, even let them touch their side with distant benevolence -- and sometimes surge from the dark like a tidal wave of predatory intent, and swallow them in one gulp.
There were many, many kinds of Great Dragons, she knew that, some graceful and elusive, some quick and fierce, all of them immense and majestic...
... She had abandoned Arun. She hadn't even waited to see if the Dragon would try to eat her -- she had just fled. What if the silly two-tails didn't think to stay perched on his rock, what if his dolphins weren't fast enough to avoid that sleek, predatory-looking Dragon? It had seemed so -- she didn't know. All streamlined and smooth, and the cant of its flippers -- bad news.
She didn't remember a mouth under the sharp red markings and the glinting silvery hide, but then, she hadn't really looked for it. Perhaps she should have. Perhaps it only ate plankton...
Perhaps Arun had been knocked off his perch and his dolphins eaten before they could reach the shallows.
Lìadan wasn't stupid; she knew that the best protection offered to a lone mermaid was to know when to flee, and that it was better to be safe than sorry. She was safe now. But she was also quite chagrined to discover herself to be so cowardly. She had left her pod with many reassuring words to her mothers -- that she knew the risks perfectly well and that she wouldn't get herself into any silly trouble, and wasn't she the wisest of their children? But the very act of leaving the pod had been an act of courage -- or had she really just been stupidly overconfident?
She didn't think she had. She didn't think that she was wrong or overly optimistic to believe that she could handle drifting. She wanted to keep believing it.
Besides, if she avoided everything new, then what was the point of drifting, really? She could have just stayed with her pod until they crossed streams with another pod whose male satisfied her expectations. She wanted to learn. She wanted to learn everything there was to learn in the ocean.
She wanted to see the Great Dragon again.
When the Amazon rose up from the Southern sea with the first blush of sunlight, Lìadan uncoiled and let the tide take her over the reefs.
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The Great Dragon was still where it had been, floating lazily just under the surface, dwarfing the not-so-narrow canyon. It was just so -- still, so unnaturally unmoving. She wasn't sure it was breathing at all -- though from her hiding place, wedged between two rocks covered with tall, leafy seaweed, it was hard to see much of anything. If it were dead, it would be more lax, wouldn't it?
She still couldn't see its eyes, but then, many beasts from the depths didn't have any -- they saw with their skin, felt the waters move, and that was enough. She would have to be very cautious, very slow. Addressing a quick prayer to the Amazon, who was still steadily making her way up the lightening sky, Lìadan inched out of her hiding place, found a current running at the bottom, and let herself drift along. Her hand was clenched around her spear so hard it hurt. For a moment she wished the Matron would rise too, to give her wisdom and forethought; but the Matron wouldn't rise for hours, her influence depleted by the Father's at his zenith -- and right now, perhaps Lìadan did need the Amazon more, because there really was no way to look for the two-tails that didn't put her at a risk.
The current was cool against her body, ruffled her fins, made her want to move with it instead of letting it carry her; she only allowed herself a tiny flick of her tail to get out of a slower pool of water, her hands arrowed before her face to ward off the seaweed rising up to tease her skin.
She was still many lengths of mer away -- merman, not mermaid -- when the water that had been cooled from the shadow of the Dragon started rolling along her arms. The great beast still hadn't reacted to her; she stiffened the line of her shoulders in resolve and let herself slide in its shadow.
It was nerve-wracking. She was swimming under the belly of a creature so wide it blocked out the surface.
It was also exhilarating. She wanted to dart up and touch -- like a silly fry teasing the belly of a whale. She wanted to ride the billows in its wake.
Well, that was assuming that it ever woke up.
In between two bouts of glancing around for hints of Arun's presence -- not that he would still be around if he was alive, hopefully -- she kept staring at the flat expanse of silvery hide. She couldn't see any mouth. Perhaps it was elsewhere -- toward the front, or even on top. She allowed herself to think that she was safe -- well, safe enough -- as long as she stayed hidden there. The Dragon was just too massive to turn on her in the canyon; it barely had enough space to keep its flippers from touching the sides.
She had just ghosted past the middle of the canyon when there was a hollow, grating sound that she felt with her bones more than she heard, and a faint trickle of strange-tasting water. She thought of siphons and poisoned tentacles, and bolted for the tail-end of the Dragon, disturbing clouds of mud and shadow-cooled water on her way.
Something gray came at her from behind; she dodged, rolling aside in a swirl of fins and braids.
The dolphin swerved effortlessly and passed her again, crackling and clicking away. Lìadan was glad that she wasn't at the surface; she probably would have cursed the beast for scaring her half to death. She had to make do with a glare, that the dolphin happily ignored in favor of coming up to her and nosing her free hand. It was still chattering at her; she concluded that the Great Dragon was either deaf or didn't care about such small fry as they.
She wanted to ask the dolphin where Arun was, but she still wasn't sure how much they understood. There was one thing, though, that she had seen them obey without fail... so when the dolphin nudged her again for a pat, she slid her hand up to its back, caught hold of its dorsal fin, and gave a tug. She had all of two seconds to wonder if she had done it right, and then the animal was zipping up the Dragon's flank, effortlessly dragging her along in its quest for the surface.
It was amazing how powerful these beasts were; she had never gone so fast on her own, and she doubted that many males had, either, except perhaps the ones who had tried riding the Whirls. And the dolphin made it look like it was the easiest game it had ever played.
She dutifully petted its nose as a reward, and shivered at the closeness with the flank of the Great Dragon. It was almost close to touch; and she wanted to, but at the same time she felt like this would be the final gesture, the one that prompted the great beast into a vengeful frenzy.
"... Dolphin?" she whispered.
From this close, the dolphin's strange chattering made tiny shivers run over her skin, like a centipede made of nothing but sounds.
"I don't understand," she added regretfully, and wondered how silly it was, really, to talk to an animal in her language and hope for it to understand. But perhaps... "... Arun? What -- um. Whe-re?" She thought it meant 'where', anyway -- 'where something something shrimp', he'd said when looking for one that had escaped him, and she knew his word for shrimp -- and hopefully it wasn't just an article or something like that.
The dolphin only clicked and whistled at her, and dove under her to rub against her tail fins. Huffing, she curled up her tail; the dolphin nosed her, happy to play, and she didn't know how to make it understand that she wasn't playing, she didn't want to play, and where was Arun, where was he? Where was the other dolphin, the dark one, the one with much less scars to show for his lack of bumbling stupidity? She should have asked Arun their names; perhaps this one would have reacted to its pod-mate's name -- or perhaps the other one would have come to her... But that assumed it was hiding somewhere in the reefs, and not hiding in the belly of the Dragon and slowly being digested alive.
"Where is Arun?" she asked again, in her tongue this time. Her frustrated, frazzled tones rose between the flank of the Great Dragon and the canyon wall; she went still in the water, eyes huge, waiting for a reaction.
There was no reaction.
No reaction save for another series of strange hollow thumps, and a weird hiss like a serpent's scales on smooth stone, and then a voice calling back to her, "Lìadan? Hey, Lìadan!"
Arun was perched on a ridge in the Dragon's side; and when she gaped at him, he called to her again and waved jauntily.
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For some reason, I love that discriptions. <3 It's just so in keeping with her nerves at the moment, I guess.
Lìadan continues to be adorable, so very serious and responsible. It's incredibly cute. I absolutely love the way you've been handling her. Lovelovelove. And my love has nothing to do with just the fact that she's a space mermaid. Really.
And I would lover her for other reasons, even if that were part of it.no subject
Oh, a new piece of the religion puzzle! the Amazon and the Father. I'm assuming one is the moon, and the other the sun. Amazon being the sun? ohh nice.
the suspensful adventure you put into this chapter kills so bad. its great. and then there's Arun, who's just like 'Yo, sup!' and totally turns the hole thing into comedy, especially since she thought him eaten alive.
Its great! Wonderful! the speed at which yer pumping this chapters out is a amazing. Keep the the awesome work!
+J+
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So, that's one male name and three (at least) female ones.
Asuka, how many moons did you end up settling on?
And is Liaden going to slap Arun at some point in the immediate future? Because I get the impression he's wearing the kind of grin that cries out for a good solid smack...
Ja, -n
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(Anonymous) 2006-11-05 04:41 am (UTC)(link)Typo, btw:
It was amazing how powerful these beasts were; she had never gone so fast on her own, and she doubted that many males had, either, except perhaps the ones who had tried riding the Whirls. And the dolphin made it look like it was the easiest game it had even played.
Ever, instead of even.
-- Guile
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hm, i need a mermaidy icon...
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♥ Arun's a dick this way. "oops, you thought my ship was a GIANT DEITY-MONSTER ABOUT TO DEVOUR US ALL? My bad. :DDDD"
muahahahahaha. >D
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D: It's almost four in the morning here. I realize I can only read/watch anything in private in the middle of the night, now. But your stories are always so worth it!
I like how Liadan's thought process is shown. She's so logical, it's kind of cute. :D
Amazon, Father, Mother, Girl-Child, Great Dragons... it all sounds so proper/mystical. Huzzah!
(Forgive me if I'm less coherant than I think I am. D: Not enough sleep!)
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Ja, -n
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*resumes the 10,000 words celebratory dance*
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... That's all kinds of awesome. Poor dolphin, though, they should have let him go so he could have many four-flippered babies. ;_;
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Thankee ^^ ♥
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Neither of the character would be all that loveable without someone to play them off of, really. u.u
♥ huhuhu.
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D: i bet i'd get it all done faster if i started right when i got on the comp as opposed to 4 am. and i'm usually done by 7, which is good for a sleep deprived woman! :D and then i get ready for uni. D: which is sucky. b/c uni sucks.
and i'm going there right now b/c i have an afternoon class. Yay for afternoons!
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