![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Mermaids IN SPACE~ part 5
I AM A MAD WRITING MACHINE~ Caught up on my nano and then some, and now I'mma gonna go back to Teamwork~ FUFUFUFUFUFUFU.
The trip back to the Great Dragon's canyon took longer this time around, mostly because they had to leave the safety of the shallows to circle the high reefs, and crossed paths with a couple of middle-sized serpents, which prompted her to drag the whole little group into hiding. The serpents could still have wrapped themselves around a dolphin easily enough and probably hurt it; she didn't wish to tempt them.
The serpents would have been easier to zip past if Arun hadn't been swimming so awkwardly and slowing down the dolphins; he kept letting go of the dorsal fin with one hand so he could rub his eyes. Lìadan called him, worried; when he turned he was grinning, of course, but his eyes were visibly irritated. She had no way of asking what was wrong; hopefully it was just a tiny grain of sand or the like.
It was tempting to stop and fuss, but she wasn't part of the two-tails' pod and it wasn't like he was a child, despite how he acted sometimes. But she didn't really want to go back to the canyon. Arun seemed so certain that what he advanced was the truth, and she still hadn't found a likely enough mistranslation on which she could pin his extravagant assertion.
She really, really didn't want to go back to the canyon. But she went, all the same, because she had to find out the truth and as far as she remembered, that had pretty much been her driving force since forever.
The Great Dragon still dwarfed the canyon; but this time she stared at it more critically, trying to push away her awe. It still floated there, so inert and heavy, so perfectly rigid -- just like a floating rock, if such a thing had existed; but she didn't want to think about it like that, not with Arun's words instead of hers just yet. She shook off the impression and stared in incomprehension at its rear end -- or was it its tail? She couldn't tell. It just looked so... strange. Like three cones full of... weird things... had been stuck point first into its head. Or tail. She pointed at them, glancing quickly at the two-tail who was paddling like a newborn dolphin at her side. "What's that? Are those... eyes? Mouths?"
Arun grimaced. "No. No eye, no mouth. Alive, no. Not."
"But then what..." she let her voice trail off as the two-tails flinched and turned his back on a breaker, eyes screwed shut. "... Arun? Your eyes?"
He smiled reassuringly at her, but the effect was a bit spoiled by the way he wiped off droplets from his brow. "Un."
"What hurts?" She moved a little closer, hesitant; she didn't have many medicinal herbs in her belt, but maybe...
"No, no. Shh. No dying," he added with a little laugh, and caught a dolphin's dorsal fin again. He gestured at her to follow, told her something else -- 'come on' or 'let's go', perhaps -- and ordered his dolphin forward. The other one was scouting the canyon, chirping and buzzing very seriously. She sighed and followed, trying not to lag behind too much. She didn't want to look so terrified when he didn't seem to be doing anything special.
He led her right to the flank of the Great Dragon. His hand rested casually against its side; he turned to face her and crooked his fingers in a clear 'come here' signal.
She didn't want to. She really didn't. She went anyway -- not too close to him, but so close to the Dragon that she could see nothing else; that it filled her whole universe. How could something so... mind-blowing, so monumental not be a Dragon? Were perhaps all Great Dragons "not alive", because they were eternal like the sea and the earth below?
But this Dragon was so still, and she had heard stories, of people who had seen one and lived to tell the tale; and the Great Dragons swam.
She murmured an apology, and raised her trembling hand, barely brushing it against the Dragon's side. It was cold, in a way that reminded her not of deep waters, but almost of the icebergs that sometimes drifted from the poles and lost themselves in the Great Swirls. It was a hard, unyielding, coldness, but one that felt strangely smooth to the touch.
There was no reaction; she pressed her hand harder. It felt like pushing against a rock. She bit her lip; the thought felt like a betrayal, like a blaspheme.
"... Lìadan...? Hey..."
She whirled to face Arun, tail spurs bristling and flattening in turns, unable to figure out if she was furious or devastated. Some part of her insisted that it was his fault -- but he had done nothing but point her at the truth. ... What he thought was the truth. What he believed -- and she didn't know what to believe anymore.
"What is it, then?" she demanded, nodding toward the Dragon's -- no, not the Dragon, this was not a Dragon and she had never seen a Dragon; she thought she had, and she had been so happy and so proud and so awed, and it wasn't a Dragon at all, finally. It was... "What? What is this, then? If it isn't alive and it isn't dead -- what is it?"
Arun looked chagrined, now. He made a few soothing sounds; but she didn't need to be soothed, she needed to understand. "What is it?"
The two-tails seemed to hesitate for a few seconds; and then he sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he called a dolphin to him again. She didn't need to be asked to follow, this time; she wasn't leaving his side until she knew what this thing was and how Arun had known.
They made their way along the flank of the beast -- the thing; if he was right, it was a thing and not a creature. Several times, she was tempted to reach out and touch, to feel the strange surface with her fingertips. She dug her claws into her palms instead.
The dolphin stopped at the bottom of a strange series of small, parallel ridges up the side of the beast-thing-not-Dragon; Arun grabbed one of them, and started to haul himself up out of the water. She hissed a protest. He blinked at her, slapped his forehead and laughed weakly, and offered what probably was an apology.
She shook her head. Later. She wanted him to apologize later, or not at all, even.
Arun sighed again, frowned -- thoughtful? Worried? -- and then took a deep breath and dived.
She followed, of course. Around them, the dolphins circled, visibly confused.
There was a strange, perfectly circular depression in the side of the ship, and a smaller, red one to the side. Arun pressed the red one; and then there was a strange chirping noise, and the strange taste in the water grew stronger. She moved to the side, so she could see what was happening.
The circle slid aside; behind, there was a tunnel, just as perfectly round as the rest. She barely had the time to take that in -- a tunnel, in the flank of a giant beast! -- and then Arun was swimming inside, using his hands to propel himself faster along the tunnels. There was light at the end; she followed.
Arun wasn't too bad a swimmer when he was trying to go fast; but she wasn't sure why he wanted to go so quickly. Would the tunnel close up behind them? She hurried on his tail -- tails. She didn't want to get lost.
They crossed a couple of other tunnels; there was light at their ends too. It was just so strange; a floating cave full of tunnels that seemed too smooth to be natural. Did some beast dwell here, had it drilled through the strange smooth stone? She didn't stray too long, in case it was still there. Surely Arun would have let the dolphins go first if that had been the case. But he seemed so hurried...
... Oh. Oh, that was right -- he couldn't hold his breath properly. She hesitated, and then caught one of his tails -- ew, ew, ew -- and propelled him forward. He was startled, at first, but caught on quick enough; she kept pushing him onwards, her own tail sweeping in broad arcs in the tunnel, as wide as she could without bumping into the walls.
Arun's onward movement stopped so suddenly, she almost crashed into him. She caught herself on the surface of the tunnel, desperately trying not to hit him. There was -- a wall? But the light still came through -- oh. Over Arun's shoulder, she stared, bemused, at a wall that seemed made of ice. The water wasn't cold, or not any colder than it should have been, for being in the shade. But they were in a dead end all the same -- and Arun couldn't breathe.
She was about to pull him back out when the ice-door opened, with the same chirping noise and the same whooshing sound. He pulled himself through; she heard him break the surface. She followed; she could see blurred shapes for many lengths of mer, and yet the movement of the water told her that they were in a much smaller pool than that.
More of that strange, not-cold ice. She touched it with her fingertips. It was as solid as the rest of the ... beast. The thing. But she could see outside, though she couldn't make any sense of it. She circled the pool, brushing the sides; it wasn't very deep, and there was only one exit, the tunnel.
She surfaced to the sound of harsh panting. Arun was wading to the edge of the pool, squinting and coughing.
"Arun?" she asked, surfacing just enough for her mouth to be over the water. Her hair spread all over her like seaweed; it reassured her, a bit, like it really could help camouflage her in this totally alien place. The ceiling of the cave was just as smooth at the rest; there were little holes through which the Father seemed to shine his light directly, even though she knew fully well that he was still very, very far from his zenith.
"Yes, yes. Good." Arun grinned down at her, blinking furiously, and totally failing to convince her.
"Not good. You're in pain."
"Ahh -- shh. Good, yes." Making more reassuring noises, he hopped up and sat on the edge of the pool, leaning out to catch -- something; she didn't clearly see. It was smooth, like everything else inside the beast; and a white as bone color.
She understood that it was a medicine of some sort when he tilted his head back, and poured a few drops onto his open eyes, though he flinched a lot. He blinked several times, and rubbed at his eyelids; it looked like he was still uncomfortable, but she was willing to wait and trust him. He knew what his medicine did better than she did, after all. At least he wasn't as silly as the young males she knew, who wanted to seem strong by not needing any. It was a hint of maturity that, frankly, she hadn't expected in him.
"... Good," she mumbled, at a loss, and added a 'good' in his language for good measure. That was... Yes. Good of him.
And then he reached down and tore off his own fins.
Her shriek resonated under the smooth walls; she leaped forward, reached for his fins -- for the ends of his two tails, oh gods above, what had he done -- no more fin spurs, just ten round squirmy stumps; she thought she was going to be sick. She whimpered, staring at them in horror, and choked on a scream when they twitched under her nose.
"Hey -- What? Lìadan, what? Shh, shh, good -- what?"
She looked up at him with undisguised horror, pointed at the fins still in his hands, then back down at the stumps. He bit down on his lip -- at first she thought he was in pain, but then she realized -- he was laughing at her again.
"Look. Good -- is good, look."
She glared at him, cheeks flushing hotly, and drew back a little when she remembered that she was too close to him once again.
... His fins were hollow. Puzzled, she watched him slip his stumps back in the hollow part of the fins, and then -- oh, was that a strap? She touched the thick veil of the fin cautiously. It was a fake fin? How clever -- how had he done that? It didn't feel like he had... killed someone and used their fins. Ew. No, dead flesh didn't feel like that, and besides it didn't seem to be Arun's style.
She glanced down at the brown-pinkish stumps as she moved back, and averted her eyes. They seemed to have tiny, round claws, like deformed fingers -- ew, ew, ew.
Arun chuckled, and wriggled his stumps under her nose. She yelped and jumped back; and he laughed, the jerk, before making another "warrghh!" and wiggling them toward her again.
She turned around, planted her hands on the ground, and slapped the surface of the pool with the flat of her tail. Hard.
So there.
"H-hey!" Arun was laughing when she turned around, so hard he almost fell off his perch. He wiped water from his face, still chuckling, and then inclined his head politely at her. She really, really hoped his words meant "sorry".
"Aww, Lìadan... Grr?"
"Angry," she replied. "The word is angry. And no, no, I'm not angry." She pouted anyway. Brat.
"Uh huh. Not angry. Good." He smirked at her, teasing, and her pout strengthened briefly before she could bring it under control.
He added something, casually, waving at the rest of the smooth cave. Remembering the reason of her presence, Lìadan gripped the top of the strange ice wall, pulled herself up to peek over the edge of the pool, and froze on the spot.
It was... It was...
She didn't know. Flat. Smooth ... Shiny. Lots of shining things, like tiny little glowfish -- green and red and blue; she didn't know where to look. There were sharp angles everywhere, and colors so uniform she couldn't get a sense of depth on them. How was it that things were so... So flat and made of solid blocks only one color, instead of a myriad of nuances? The whole cave felt dead, deader than a rock; like it had never been lava at all, never been spouted from the heart of the volcanoes. She curled her tail in a tight knot, hunching defensively, only her eyes peeking over the edge. The place felt so wrong.
"... Hey... No good?"
Lìadan uncurled slightly, feeling a little silly. He didn't behave like someone who thought there was danger nearby; he behaved like they were in a cove guarded by the strongest mer of the pod.
"... Yes -- no. It's all so... So... rock," she finished lamely.
He laughed at her. Again. This time, her tail was ready.
The trip back to the Great Dragon's canyon took longer this time around, mostly because they had to leave the safety of the shallows to circle the high reefs, and crossed paths with a couple of middle-sized serpents, which prompted her to drag the whole little group into hiding. The serpents could still have wrapped themselves around a dolphin easily enough and probably hurt it; she didn't wish to tempt them.
The serpents would have been easier to zip past if Arun hadn't been swimming so awkwardly and slowing down the dolphins; he kept letting go of the dorsal fin with one hand so he could rub his eyes. Lìadan called him, worried; when he turned he was grinning, of course, but his eyes were visibly irritated. She had no way of asking what was wrong; hopefully it was just a tiny grain of sand or the like.
It was tempting to stop and fuss, but she wasn't part of the two-tails' pod and it wasn't like he was a child, despite how he acted sometimes. But she didn't really want to go back to the canyon. Arun seemed so certain that what he advanced was the truth, and she still hadn't found a likely enough mistranslation on which she could pin his extravagant assertion.
She really, really didn't want to go back to the canyon. But she went, all the same, because she had to find out the truth and as far as she remembered, that had pretty much been her driving force since forever.
The Great Dragon still dwarfed the canyon; but this time she stared at it more critically, trying to push away her awe. It still floated there, so inert and heavy, so perfectly rigid -- just like a floating rock, if such a thing had existed; but she didn't want to think about it like that, not with Arun's words instead of hers just yet. She shook off the impression and stared in incomprehension at its rear end -- or was it its tail? She couldn't tell. It just looked so... strange. Like three cones full of... weird things... had been stuck point first into its head. Or tail. She pointed at them, glancing quickly at the two-tail who was paddling like a newborn dolphin at her side. "What's that? Are those... eyes? Mouths?"
Arun grimaced. "No. No eye, no mouth. Alive, no. Not."
"But then what..." she let her voice trail off as the two-tails flinched and turned his back on a breaker, eyes screwed shut. "... Arun? Your eyes?"
He smiled reassuringly at her, but the effect was a bit spoiled by the way he wiped off droplets from his brow. "Un."
"What hurts?" She moved a little closer, hesitant; she didn't have many medicinal herbs in her belt, but maybe...
"No, no. Shh. No dying," he added with a little laugh, and caught a dolphin's dorsal fin again. He gestured at her to follow, told her something else -- 'come on' or 'let's go', perhaps -- and ordered his dolphin forward. The other one was scouting the canyon, chirping and buzzing very seriously. She sighed and followed, trying not to lag behind too much. She didn't want to look so terrified when he didn't seem to be doing anything special.
He led her right to the flank of the Great Dragon. His hand rested casually against its side; he turned to face her and crooked his fingers in a clear 'come here' signal.
She didn't want to. She really didn't. She went anyway -- not too close to him, but so close to the Dragon that she could see nothing else; that it filled her whole universe. How could something so... mind-blowing, so monumental not be a Dragon? Were perhaps all Great Dragons "not alive", because they were eternal like the sea and the earth below?
But this Dragon was so still, and she had heard stories, of people who had seen one and lived to tell the tale; and the Great Dragons swam.
She murmured an apology, and raised her trembling hand, barely brushing it against the Dragon's side. It was cold, in a way that reminded her not of deep waters, but almost of the icebergs that sometimes drifted from the poles and lost themselves in the Great Swirls. It was a hard, unyielding, coldness, but one that felt strangely smooth to the touch.
There was no reaction; she pressed her hand harder. It felt like pushing against a rock. She bit her lip; the thought felt like a betrayal, like a blaspheme.
"... Lìadan...? Hey..."
She whirled to face Arun, tail spurs bristling and flattening in turns, unable to figure out if she was furious or devastated. Some part of her insisted that it was his fault -- but he had done nothing but point her at the truth. ... What he thought was the truth. What he believed -- and she didn't know what to believe anymore.
"What is it, then?" she demanded, nodding toward the Dragon's -- no, not the Dragon, this was not a Dragon and she had never seen a Dragon; she thought she had, and she had been so happy and so proud and so awed, and it wasn't a Dragon at all, finally. It was... "What? What is this, then? If it isn't alive and it isn't dead -- what is it?"
Arun looked chagrined, now. He made a few soothing sounds; but she didn't need to be soothed, she needed to understand. "What is it?"
The two-tails seemed to hesitate for a few seconds; and then he sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he called a dolphin to him again. She didn't need to be asked to follow, this time; she wasn't leaving his side until she knew what this thing was and how Arun had known.
They made their way along the flank of the beast -- the thing; if he was right, it was a thing and not a creature. Several times, she was tempted to reach out and touch, to feel the strange surface with her fingertips. She dug her claws into her palms instead.
The dolphin stopped at the bottom of a strange series of small, parallel ridges up the side of the beast-thing-not-Dragon; Arun grabbed one of them, and started to haul himself up out of the water. She hissed a protest. He blinked at her, slapped his forehead and laughed weakly, and offered what probably was an apology.
She shook her head. Later. She wanted him to apologize later, or not at all, even.
Arun sighed again, frowned -- thoughtful? Worried? -- and then took a deep breath and dived.
She followed, of course. Around them, the dolphins circled, visibly confused.
There was a strange, perfectly circular depression in the side of the ship, and a smaller, red one to the side. Arun pressed the red one; and then there was a strange chirping noise, and the strange taste in the water grew stronger. She moved to the side, so she could see what was happening.
The circle slid aside; behind, there was a tunnel, just as perfectly round as the rest. She barely had the time to take that in -- a tunnel, in the flank of a giant beast! -- and then Arun was swimming inside, using his hands to propel himself faster along the tunnels. There was light at the end; she followed.
Arun wasn't too bad a swimmer when he was trying to go fast; but she wasn't sure why he wanted to go so quickly. Would the tunnel close up behind them? She hurried on his tail -- tails. She didn't want to get lost.
They crossed a couple of other tunnels; there was light at their ends too. It was just so strange; a floating cave full of tunnels that seemed too smooth to be natural. Did some beast dwell here, had it drilled through the strange smooth stone? She didn't stray too long, in case it was still there. Surely Arun would have let the dolphins go first if that had been the case. But he seemed so hurried...
... Oh. Oh, that was right -- he couldn't hold his breath properly. She hesitated, and then caught one of his tails -- ew, ew, ew -- and propelled him forward. He was startled, at first, but caught on quick enough; she kept pushing him onwards, her own tail sweeping in broad arcs in the tunnel, as wide as she could without bumping into the walls.
Arun's onward movement stopped so suddenly, she almost crashed into him. She caught herself on the surface of the tunnel, desperately trying not to hit him. There was -- a wall? But the light still came through -- oh. Over Arun's shoulder, she stared, bemused, at a wall that seemed made of ice. The water wasn't cold, or not any colder than it should have been, for being in the shade. But they were in a dead end all the same -- and Arun couldn't breathe.
She was about to pull him back out when the ice-door opened, with the same chirping noise and the same whooshing sound. He pulled himself through; she heard him break the surface. She followed; she could see blurred shapes for many lengths of mer, and yet the movement of the water told her that they were in a much smaller pool than that.
More of that strange, not-cold ice. She touched it with her fingertips. It was as solid as the rest of the ... beast. The thing. But she could see outside, though she couldn't make any sense of it. She circled the pool, brushing the sides; it wasn't very deep, and there was only one exit, the tunnel.
She surfaced to the sound of harsh panting. Arun was wading to the edge of the pool, squinting and coughing.
"Arun?" she asked, surfacing just enough for her mouth to be over the water. Her hair spread all over her like seaweed; it reassured her, a bit, like it really could help camouflage her in this totally alien place. The ceiling of the cave was just as smooth at the rest; there were little holes through which the Father seemed to shine his light directly, even though she knew fully well that he was still very, very far from his zenith.
"Yes, yes. Good." Arun grinned down at her, blinking furiously, and totally failing to convince her.
"Not good. You're in pain."
"Ahh -- shh. Good, yes." Making more reassuring noises, he hopped up and sat on the edge of the pool, leaning out to catch -- something; she didn't clearly see. It was smooth, like everything else inside the beast; and a white as bone color.
She understood that it was a medicine of some sort when he tilted his head back, and poured a few drops onto his open eyes, though he flinched a lot. He blinked several times, and rubbed at his eyelids; it looked like he was still uncomfortable, but she was willing to wait and trust him. He knew what his medicine did better than she did, after all. At least he wasn't as silly as the young males she knew, who wanted to seem strong by not needing any. It was a hint of maturity that, frankly, she hadn't expected in him.
"... Good," she mumbled, at a loss, and added a 'good' in his language for good measure. That was... Yes. Good of him.
And then he reached down and tore off his own fins.
Her shriek resonated under the smooth walls; she leaped forward, reached for his fins -- for the ends of his two tails, oh gods above, what had he done -- no more fin spurs, just ten round squirmy stumps; she thought she was going to be sick. She whimpered, staring at them in horror, and choked on a scream when they twitched under her nose.
"Hey -- What? Lìadan, what? Shh, shh, good -- what?"
She looked up at him with undisguised horror, pointed at the fins still in his hands, then back down at the stumps. He bit down on his lip -- at first she thought he was in pain, but then she realized -- he was laughing at her again.
"Look. Good -- is good, look."
She glared at him, cheeks flushing hotly, and drew back a little when she remembered that she was too close to him once again.
... His fins were hollow. Puzzled, she watched him slip his stumps back in the hollow part of the fins, and then -- oh, was that a strap? She touched the thick veil of the fin cautiously. It was a fake fin? How clever -- how had he done that? It didn't feel like he had... killed someone and used their fins. Ew. No, dead flesh didn't feel like that, and besides it didn't seem to be Arun's style.
She glanced down at the brown-pinkish stumps as she moved back, and averted her eyes. They seemed to have tiny, round claws, like deformed fingers -- ew, ew, ew.
Arun chuckled, and wriggled his stumps under her nose. She yelped and jumped back; and he laughed, the jerk, before making another "warrghh!" and wiggling them toward her again.
She turned around, planted her hands on the ground, and slapped the surface of the pool with the flat of her tail. Hard.
So there.
"H-hey!" Arun was laughing when she turned around, so hard he almost fell off his perch. He wiped water from his face, still chuckling, and then inclined his head politely at her. She really, really hoped his words meant "sorry".
"Aww, Lìadan... Grr?"
"Angry," she replied. "The word is angry. And no, no, I'm not angry." She pouted anyway. Brat.
"Uh huh. Not angry. Good." He smirked at her, teasing, and her pout strengthened briefly before she could bring it under control.
He added something, casually, waving at the rest of the smooth cave. Remembering the reason of her presence, Lìadan gripped the top of the strange ice wall, pulled herself up to peek over the edge of the pool, and froze on the spot.
It was... It was...
She didn't know. Flat. Smooth ... Shiny. Lots of shining things, like tiny little glowfish -- green and red and blue; she didn't know where to look. There were sharp angles everywhere, and colors so uniform she couldn't get a sense of depth on them. How was it that things were so... So flat and made of solid blocks only one color, instead of a myriad of nuances? The whole cave felt dead, deader than a rock; like it had never been lava at all, never been spouted from the heart of the volcanoes. She curled her tail in a tight knot, hunching defensively, only her eyes peeking over the edge. The place felt so wrong.
"... Hey... No good?"
Lìadan uncurled slightly, feeling a little silly. He didn't behave like someone who thought there was danger nearby; he behaved like they were in a cove guarded by the strongest mer of the pod.
"... Yes -- no. It's all so... So... rock," she finished lamely.
He laughed at her. Again. This time, her tail was ready.