by Marc Secchia
So fascinating, he took a long, contemplative snooze upon the matter.
In the late afternoon, he took a long, pleasant flight up that northerly talon, first crossing a churning sea channel before playing in the frisky breezes along the talon. Despite its narrowness, the mountains were over a mile high to start with, but tapered off as he approached the talon tip.
Powerful tides ripped through dark blue channels. The colourful reef became restricted to a few smaller, sheltered inlets, with what the water colour proclaimed were steep drop-offs into far greater depths. Yet when he crossed to the south side, he found strips and pockets of pristine white beaches perhaps never trod by the foot of Man or the paw of Dragon. He tried not to think about how he missed the Princess, or what she must be thinking or feeling just now. She had sent him away. Only fair that he obeyed, that he allowed the silence and beauty of this place to permeate his being. He must marshal his inner strength. That fumbling fool was not him anymore.
Would there be pursuit? What would it take to excise this pain from his soul?
I’m not a hatchling! Then, don’t act like one … go!
He shuddered.
Across another channel was one final larger island, then just a few dots that made the final talon tip. This island, to his surprise, was shaped like a runic E in draconic talon runes, with an elongated upper bar which was broken in several places, creating a curved, beautifully sculpted bay on its south-eastern side. Well sheltered from oceanic storms. This made it both the most northerly and most easterly place in the Vaylarn Archipelago. Deliberately, he flew out further, right to the last rock that remained unwashed by the pounding surf, where he surveyed the endless blue with a strange hunger deep in his hearts. Out there, the Lumis Ocean was said to be far larger and more treacherous than the crossing he and Azania had completed.
Wilds of ocean, monsters of the deep.
As he perched on that boulder watching the glorious colours change all around him, he spied the first Sea Serpents he had seen during his journey. A family, perhaps. He did not attack. Observing their speed and state of exhaustion, he found himself wondering again why that family had not been attacked and consumed. According to Aria, this was a distinct danger in those deeper channels between the major islands, away from the reef.
Bending forward, he drank deeply from the ocean without taking his eyes off the azure Sea Serpents. These were not large, perhaps thirty to forty feet in length. They swam adeptly in a sinuous side-to-side motion supplemented by small, fan-like pairs of fins located along their bodies.
He watched them round the point and wriggle off to the south.
Animals. Despite their size, they gave no sign of intelligence, unlike the Sanbris Whales. They responded to external stimuli like any beast.
Stimuli … like music?
The oddity of Mikian’s observation gave him pause. Paws for thought? Nay, wings!
Before Wavewhisperer came to their aid out on the reef, there had been a burst of underwater music which preceded her much more powerful, yet no less melodious battle challenge. Did the Sea Dragons sing their way around the oceans? Was that why the Serpents had fled?
They flee the song …
His wings twitched of their own accord. Leaping forward, he extended his neck and tucked his paws close, spearing into the ocean with a degree of grace he had always thought would evade him. Fifty-foot white javelin. Bubbles burst around his body, tickling his hide as he tested the swell and felt the powerful, cooler current tugging at his body. To his surprise, there was a busy reef below his body, but it lay at least two hundred feet beneath the surface. Much stonier and harder-looking than the reefs he had paddled or stepped over.
However, all that was passé.
No music? No, there was none, save slight, haunting hints of what he took for whalesong. He drifted there in the cool, quiet waters for ten minutes, waiting.
Nothing.
Did he dare? He knew her name in Dragoceanic, and he knew how to call. He must brace himself for disappointment. Yet when hope went to war against timidity of hearts, Dragon knew there could only be one winner. Rising for a brief, enlivening breath, he dipped his muzzle and swam deeper.
This was it.
A resounding bellow rippled through the water, sending the bright tropical fish flitting for cover. ≈Sirensong.≈
No, that pathetic effort was not at all what Wavewhisperer had taught him.
≈Sirensong!≈
Better. Good resonance, but he still had not achieved the tonal quality she had been capable of. Surely, such a sound would not travel – well, he had no idea how far it needed to travel. Yet, the ocean knew, because … ocean always rises. Gathering himself, he sang:
≈SIRENSONG!!≈
Shiver his wings and tickle his talons, that was a production worthy of the name! The sound shot away from him in invisible waves that quivered his body and senses in ways he could not fathom.
Dragon lurked, and waited.
He took another breath, and waited.
Yawn.
He practised his backstroke and wandered down to take a closer look at the deep reef. The colours appeared less vibrant than the shallower ones; more blues, greys and greens than the silver sparkles and luminous yellows higher up, and he saw larger fish cruising where the waters became more deeply shadowed – indeed, Ignis’ crimson blaze filtering through the waters like flame, was fading fast now toward the night.
He tried to do a few sums in his head. Sound travelled just over four times faster through water than through air, he had learned – a fact that had always stuck with him. 767 miles per hour in the air, Dragon scientists had calculated. That made sound’s speed through water somewhere decently north of 3,000 miles per hour. Wavewhisperer had implied that Sea Dragons could communicate at inordinate distances underwater, which meant … well, if they were far away, he had better practice the patience that was coming so badly to him at this moment. Such conversation must be weird. Speak, get a reply ten minutes later. Or more. A great deal more.
Night fell. Clonk, he said to himself. Chuckle. Poking his head out of the seawater, he saw that he had been slowly swept southward by the current. Back to the point, Dragon. He must wait faithfully for a reply if one was in the offing.
When the change came, he found himself utterly unprepared. A sudden tingling in his tail made him imagine a jellyfish sting must have penetrated his scales. Head down. Checking his surrounds, when the weirdest tingle rushed up his spine and spat out through his wingtips, before seeming to gather and implode deep in the centre of his chest.
Music! A song of inexpressible wonder washed around his being, reverberating from the shoreline in wave upon wave that ascended to an impossible crescendo.
≈WELCOME!!≈
Like wavelets, individual voices began to resound at different pitches and intensities, ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈
He spun beneath the water, overwhelmed.
≈MY WAVE IS SIRENSONG!!≈
Freeze.
Shiver! No way! The interrogative was clear, even in the Dragoness’ presentation of her personal melody. The Dragoness wanted to know who it was that called her name from afar. How long … he shook his muzzle dazedly. Over an hour. Perhaps an hour and a half. He should have thought to note the time – by his sire’s egg, they must be distant indeed! Another hasty calculation suggested, if he took the time the sound required to reach them and then return, that the Sea Dragons must be in the region of two and a half thousand miles away!
The mind boggled at such distances.
His body buzzed as if it had been set alight. Could this truly be his dam’s song? Never had he dared to imagine this moment. Joy fizzed like starlight in his veins, lighting the dark ocean all around him. The music played in diminuendo about his body, causing his wing membranes to quiver uncontrollably. How did they do that?
He must reply. What could he even say in Dragoceanic?
≈I AM DRAGON!! SIREN
SONG … EGG!! WAVE … DRAGON!!≈
That would confuse the life out of them. A Dragon who called himself Dragon. With his current linguistic ability, however, channelled into this form of long-range communication, his options were limited in the extreme.
One hour and thirty-five minutes later, by his best reckoning, the tingling arrived again and this time – despite mental preparations – the music was a tsunami that pummelled him against the shoreline. Not all was welcoming. The immensity of voices wanted to know who the unknown voice was who summoned Sirensong from afar; how could an egg even speak? Who was this imposter who did not undulate with the pod of Sea Dragons? Who had tarried behind upon the currents? For they had made tabulation and none were missing.
That was as best he could make translation of their speech inside his head.
What he did understand was the demand to wait where he was for his kin to arrive. They were two weeks away. Two weeks! How fast and far did they fly underwater?
At last, that softer, feminine voice queried, ≈My wave is Sirensong. How old is this egg?≈
The music faded.
≈Sirensong, I am … four paws of talons old. I am … wave!≈ Assuming they had paws like his. His supposed racial memory refused to serve up the word for ‘twenty’ as yet.
Toward midnight, the reply came in gruff, belligerent male tones, ≈Dragon, do you truly claim to be the wave of Sirensong?≈
≈I am Sirensong wave.≈
No reply arrived after that.
Chapter 37: To the Point
IN THE MORNING, DRAGON found the four Sea Serpents resting in the shallows off the pristine beach. He ambushed them and killed two before they began to respond – sluggishly, it seemed to him. Thereafter, he fought a hard but ultimately satisfying battle to destroy the remaining pair. He left them for the scavengers.
After waiting all day for word, in the early evening, the music caught him by surprise yet again.
≈Dragon, where is Dragon?≈
≈Sirensong, I …≈ Dragon gnashed his fangs angrily. I run out of words? Great!
Someone might have been guilty of a day-long mooching session. Now, he did not know what to do. Would Azania want him? Would she come for him? Should he go back to her, dragging his blasted overblown pride through the dirt, and make amends? What would Ariamyrielle Seaspray make of his absence? Why could he not bring himself to take wing and return? Why not be the bigger creature, the one who would bend for the sake of them both?
What a struggle. Big and physically strong he might be, but this required a kind of strength he was not sure he possessed. Dragon pushed these thoughts away.
He had not seen a single Dragon out here. One might as well be alone in the world.
Strange how rooted he felt at this location. Could this be a Dragon sense that he was meant to be right here? He did not understand. Perhaps it was somehow special or sacred to the Sea Dragons?
He waited in the surf, resting above a white, sandy ocean floor encompassed by a semicircle of vibrant reef that together with the island itself, protected this beach from all quarters. Truly, the quality of the water here was incredible. Like silk upon the scales. As if an unheard resonance communicated to his very soul – not that he was a mystical sort, but it made sense if he tried to keep logic out of the equation.
≈My wave is Sirensong! Wait! Respond!≈
Ah, he nearly jumped out of the water. When would he become used to the special thrill of those faraway voices? Grumpily, he rearranged his wings and smoothed his scales back down with anxious paws. Undeniable power, mind. How big were Sea Dragons?
≈My wave is Dragon! I will wait! Respond!≈
≈We’re coming faster. Wait.≈
≈Waiting.≈
The following evening at the same time, they repeated the exact same exchange. Word for word.
Next night came the same phrasing again – he had to lurk beneath a pounding storm, but as always in the depths, there was calm unthinkable at the surface level.
Again.
Crazy how he slept so badly, missing a tiny person breathing in his paw. Her voice. Her light footstep, laughter and joy in life. When had that happened? Dragon spent his days hunting and exploring the waters around the talons, getting to know their scent and flow and moods, until as the suns dipped toward the horizon, he would return to the point and wait for the Sea Dragons to communicate. Each time, the conversation was noticeably faster as they closed the distance toward the Archipelago. This evening was the fastest yet, just above an hour. What a feat of physical endurance and power! He estimated that they must be covering close to two hundred and fifty miles a day.
No Dragon of the air could cover that distance day after day after day.
The longer he tarried, the harder it became to contemplate a return. Especially since his dam was so close. Delays on the repetitious exchange were down to less than forty minutes now.
Joy swelled in his breast, uncontainable.
Imprinting.
The word popped into his mind. Were they making a verbal bond – was that the point of these exchanges? ≈We’re coming faster.≈ Was this because of him? If a certain pedantic Dragon dared to estimate their time of arrival now, they must surely arrive within ten days of when he had first heard from the Sea Dragons, rather than the promised two weeks. Perhaps they had caught a beneficial current? Or … could it be because of him?
His body glowed unceasingly now, as if Sirensong’s melody or the wider melody of the pod burned within him, giving rise to white fires that somehow seethed beneath his scales. He was his own light beneath the waters in the evenings. The fish certainly thought he was amazing.
The day that the communication returned in a mere twenty-two minutes, Dragon surfaced to find Princess Azania standing upon his favourite boulder, the very last in the Archipelago.
As if a fist had gripped his hearts, sweet pain spread inside his chest.
No sign of Aria.
She knelt, and then bowed her head to the rock with her arms outstretched. He gazed at the top of her curls in consternation. What was that supposed to mean? Best guess – a formal apology or appeal for mercy in a desert style. Stirring the water with his wings, he scrambled up beside her and reached out a paw to clasp her shaking shoulders. Only the slightest hesitation on his part.
“Precious Princess, I –”
“Dragon, will you ever forgive me?”
He said gruffly, “You certainly came a ways to find me. It’s been quiet out here.”
“I’m sorry if I’m disturbing – oof,” she complained as he drew her against the side of his neck with his paw. Big, big, big hug! With a chuckle that betrayed enormous relief, her arms tightened about his muzzle. “I see how it is.”
“Do you? I meant to say how terribly I missed your incessant whinging.”
“I missed your snoring like an earthquake.”
“At least I smell like a Dragon now, and not some girly perfume.”
“Ah, that macho whiff?”
“Much-o whiff,” he agreed.
She rubbed the scales near his eye gently. “I’m so, so sorry I lost my rag with you. How’s my renegade Dragon been? I guess I didn’t expect you to actually do what I asked. Ordered. Screamed at you – ugh! You took some finding, you know. We went in totally the wrong direction to start with. It was only after the Rangers uncovered a story of a capsized family you rescued, that we began to suspect where you might have gone. Then, we tracked you by your light.”
“My light?”
“The Dragonesses observed an unusual radiance lighting up the overcast off the talons, one evening. They thought it might be a storm like the one that hit us, but Aria guessed differently. Too regular a phenomenon.”
“You saw that from how many miles off?”
“Who’s a pretty boy, then?” she cooed. “You’re the literal light of my life!”
Dragon eyed her askance. Clearly, this rascally Princess was in need of some squashing back into shape. A nip
here, a tuck there. Maybe a decent thrashing. Pop her into his hoard, lock it up and throw away the key.
What he heard escape from his traitorous lips was, “Your flying out here means more to me than you’ll ever know. You’re a wonderful friend to worry about me so.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried at all.”
Liar. His five hearts throbbed as one – an unfamiliar, concerted rhythm that rocked his entire body.
Wiping her eyes, she sniffled, “To tell the truth, I was so afraid … I couldn’t stand to lose you, Dragon. This time, it was me who acted like a beast, like all those Dragons who ever rejected you and drove you out. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt you. For the record, I adore your swagger and your bluster, because I know that beneath lie the five hearts of a true champion – a Dragon who doesn’t just claim nobility as his due. He lives it. And aye, I like that you outshine the rest. You’re different, you’re unique, and you’re mine.”
His turn to gulp. Hard. “I never want to lose you either, Azania. I’ve been so afraid, despite all my bluster and noble words, that you and Azerim would just … you know, sink into one another and forget all about me. That’s what seemed to happen. I bolted for the farthest place I could find. Just like that cowardly Dragon from before.”
“Azerim and I have been awfully selfish,” she admitted. “All that intense catching up … Queen Vyioli gave us both quite the talking to.”
“It’s understandable.”
“Leaving out everyone else? Not noticing you were gone-gone for two whole days? You’re being far too kind.”
His eyes dropped to the jewel she touched at her neck. “What’s this?”
“It’s a promise locket.”
Azania showed him the delicately diamond-frosted casing in the shape of – well, a Dragon’s head and muzzle, remarkably similar in shape to a large white fire breather he could have poked with a short talon just then. Hmm! Draconic in design? It depended not from a chain, but from a flexible, finely-tooled golden torc that encircled her slender neck. The gold looked fabulous against her dark skin. Truly, a gift fit for a Queen! Had Azerim come up with this idea?