“Enchanting,” said Opalheart.
Wanting to know the definition of a hunting call, Nyra leaned toward Blaze, only to find he’d stepped away. She slipped again. Throwing a foot forward, Nyra managed to catch herself before going under.
“You want to drown?” said Bristone.
Nyra swallowed. “Drown?” she asked, tightening her claws in the pebbles.
“You go much further and you’ll be dragged under. The shallows disappear up ahead. Take too many more steps and you’ll fall into a swirling puddle so deep it will knock every last bubble from your chest.”
Bristling, a thousand comebacks stuck thorns in Nyra’s brain. But none of them sprouted, and none seemed strong against the cold-stone gaze of Bristone, whose cheeks began to rise with subtle satisfaction.
Who is she to tell me what to do? It was an accident. And even if it weren’t, who was Bristone to declare certain death? So close, the ocean swayed lovingly in a perpetual blue bed. All Nyra wanted was to touch it, to know it up close as she’d known it in distance.
“Bristone, you always know just what to say. Our steadfast optimist,” said Opalheart. He gazed upon the sea. “Well, I think if a soloist can sing her heart away in the tough spot, a Sperk and two Agrings can rough it. Yes, Agrings?”
“Wh-what?” stammered Blaze. “You mean, go down more? The water gets worse!”
Opalheart nodded. “That’s why we came. Remember? Touch the ocean? Your Mum is forcing my paw, really. Not my fault.”
“How will we get down there?” asked Blaze. “We’ll be pulled under.”
“You’ll climb on my back,” said Opalheart.
Blaze’s pupils shrunk to dots.
“We’ll fall off!”
“You have claws, right? You can grip. It won’t hurt me.” He shook his neck, bark scales rattling up and down, clanking and creaking.
Nyra barely heard her brother and the male Sperk, too preoccupied by Bristone’s cheeks. Angrily, she watched Bristone fixate on the mist. Nyra’s come-back window was drifting away with every second.
If she couldn’t say anything clever, she would at least snort contemptuously. Even if seconds late. Taking a deep breath, the draggling readied to be as noisy as possible.
Bristone’s attention drifted back to Nyra, a frightful glow in her irises. Nyra swallowed her air.
“No one is going,” Bristone said, ears erect. Stretching her neck full length, she peered up the Scar. “Darkmoon’s coming.”
Nyra whipped around, nearly tumbling. There was no one.
“Now?” said Opalheart. His expression was calm. But the speed at which he faced up the Scar betrayed his cool. “How can you tell?”
Bristone rushed to Opalheart’s side. “Be foolish enough to mock my song, but never belittle my ears. Darkmoon’s coming from his burrow. Smart chance he’s heading to Thaydra’s fish pile.”
“There’s no way you could hear that,” said Opalheart.
“No?” said Bristone, mocking surprise.
“I thought he was in the forest today.”
Bristone looked away.
“Ears, indeed. You heard otherwise, didn’t you? From your Mummy; Darkmoon’s favorite confidant.”
Clenching her teeth, Bristone cracked her tail. But whether she was frustrated from Opalheart’s accusation or their dwindling time, Nyra could not tell.
Opalheart stepped closer to the dragglings, the thick scales of his flank jumping. “It shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “I don’t think—”
Bristone chomped her jaws. “These two were scolded for being on the cliff edge yesterday,” she hissed, jabbing a claw at Blaze and Nyra, “and here you’ve taken them to the Scar.”
“Well,” said Opalheart. “Thaydra won’t care. She doesn’t give a sniffle about Darkmoon.”
Bristone groaned. “Opalheart, Sperks pass by this area all day. Did you really think Nyra and Blaze would go unspotted?”
His ears went taut. “Of course not.”
“Then why did you take them here?”
Flicking his tongue, Opalheart swallowed. “To show them.”
“Show them the ocean?” she said darkly. “At what expense? Do they not see it every—”
“No, not the ocean,” he said. Caught between fear and embarrassment, it was clear Opalheart did not want to speak.
“Then what?” growled Bristone.
Dipping his head, Opalheart said very quietly, “that we’re not just blue or red.”
Whatever words threatened to spring from Bristone were dammed by her closed mouth. Her shoulders sank empathetically. It was an understanding that escaped Nyra. Perhaps Sperk body language contained a code, one to which Agrings were blind.
“We ought to get them up now,” said Bristone gently.
In a blink, Nyra was wrapped in Bristone’s silver claws and a gargantuan blast of air met her wet limbs. Then she was ripped from the water.
Light—no, weightless—Nyra was spun away to a dizzying perspective. The Scar’s spill rewinded below, closely and quickly. It took her a moment to realize what was happening.
I’m in the air.
For the first time vesseled by means other than her feet, and feeling the breeze at an impossible pace, Nyra knew the sky, further from the ground than she had ever been since egghood.
Water-spill turned to Reservoir, Reservoir turned to bank, and then Thaydra and Fuhorn’s little bodies reared up from behind the fish pile, watching the airborne creatures with disbelief.
Thudding down, Bristone released Nyra. Blaze slammed down with Opalheart.
“Darkmoon’s nearly here,” said Bristone shortly. Not wasting a second on courtesy, she took off into the trees, leaving Opalheart alone. Thaydra and Fuhorn, scrambled up from the grass, mouths agape.
“Go,” Fuhorn said to Opalheart. The Sperk leaped back into the air, wings wafting like giant canopies. Just as he vanished in the evergreen thicket, Darkmoon crested the slope.
Nyra swayed into a crouch, sickness bubbling up her throat. Arching her head down, she forced herself into steady breaths.
“Don’t look so guilty,” cautioned Thaydra.
“Mum,” Blaze choked. “We were in the sky.”
“I know,” said Thaydra quickly.
Darkmoon descended the slope towards the pile of glistening fish. Fuhorn skipped in front of the group. Her face was sour.
“A trifle smaller than the last four suns, Thaydra,” he growled. “Lethargic?”
“I just arrived,” said Fuhorn. “Thaydra’s worked alone this morning.”
“Oh, and not just that,” said Thaydra. Head held high, she swung a paw to the dragglings. “Today I have pupils. Much of my day’s been devoted to training.”
Darkmoon shook his ears, his red tongue flicking snakelike on his ruby red jowls. “Pupils. What a sanguine interpretation.”
“Is it now?” chimed Thaydra, shaking her ears.
The corners of the Sperk’s mouth pulled upward, and a curious rumble rolled on his breath. “Pupils, as I’ve understood, glean the rewards of teaching. Judging by their bloodless fangs, your dragglings have found no trophy.”
“You don’t know that,” countered Thaydra. “For all you know, my younglings caught every fish in that pile.”
He growled again, infinitesimally nearing the mother dragon. Giant nostrils puffed delicately over her face, large enough to engulf her snout.
“Ah,” he said. “Proficient are the children of the great Thaydra.”
“And you dared to question me,” she said.
Darkmoon said nothing. Yet he must have spoken, for Thaydra’s face relaxed to the comforting apathy manifested when amongst familiar company, the kind where few words need be exchanged. Today was a funny thing, with so many Sperks and Agrings blending to a bond, as though a new color was entering the palate of Nyra’s vision. An impossible hue she could not fathom. But as Thaydra’s star-sized eyes glowed in the monster’s moon-sized ones, Nyra saw something of another time an
d place. And yet it was, here and now, possible, and not far away at all.
Of course Nyra knew that this comfortable silence was all part of Mother’s games. Mother always made cheery with Darkmoon, casting their history to the wayside in exchange for banter. For Thaydra, altercation was a dance, a sway in music, a quarrel for which she’d written intricate steps and no creature could keep up. And it was this rhythm that captured her love for life. The love of defying the barrier and seeing hope gleaming on the other end.
Darkmoon broke gaze from Thaydra to spot the dragglings. His four facial scars traced his blunt forehead.
“They’ve proven themselves quite capable,” Thaydra continued. “Wonderful, in fact. Both are fast learners, even at eleven. You’d think they wouldn’t be ready. I suppose that just goes to show that anyone can fish if they give it a try.” Thaydra glanced pointedly at the Sperk’s proport-ionally small front legs.
“Unflattering insinuation will grant you no progress, Thaydra, and I’ve no consideration for your tricks.” Nosing to the fish, Darkmoon’s muzzle was swallowed away in slime. Silver slopped vomitously in a sickly mesh. He nosed out a large fish, dropping it below his goo-caked mouth.
“I suggest you embrace loyalty in higher admiration,” he said, licking yellow ooze from a dozen wicked teeth. “Only then will you recognize the satisfaction of your duties.”
He knelt to grasp his prize.
But he didn’t make it.
Creaking wings opened, and Fuhorn leaped onto the pile, shoving her small head up to Darkmoon. Her craggily features were electrified, youthful resentment zapping the fires of a lifetime. She opened her mouth wide and took the fish right from under his snout.
It was only one step. And barely that. But for the first time ever to Nyra’s knowledge, Darkmoon backed off.
The Alpha Agring stopped. The Alpha Sperk stopped. A dead hush wedged itself between them, pregnant with rage’s grizzled disease. Fuhorn threw the fish at his feet, scarlet ropes of entrails exploding out and upon Darkmoon’s pristine talons.
Fuhorn drew a long breath, the kind only privation, and the most miserable privation at that, could draw.
“I do not do this out of loyalty,” she said.
Thaydra looked like she had plunged into ice water, her one wing poised for peace or attack, whichever was applicable. Outlying gulls cackled, and a breeze flittered through the grass in shrill whispers.
Screams? Blood fest? The next moment promised outrage of an unknown form.
It took the form of another Sperk loping the hillside, oblivious to the time-frozen scene.
Neither Darkmoon nor Fuhorn moved. Nyra heard the silent song of broiling minds.
The new Sperk arrived, sniffing over the silver delicacies. She leaned in to take one.
A growl stopped her.
“No Sperk shall touch a single fish,” Darkmoon rumbled.
Puzzlement smacked the newcomer’s boxy face. Darkmoon kept his attention on Fuhorn. The other Sperk withdrew, backing up a few steps before turning around and bounding away in a full-fledged gallop, off to comb the land for other sustenance.
Darkmoon let out a long exhale. “It is time we spoke,” he said smoothly.
The elderly dragon hardened, turning limestone to granite.
Leaving behind the prints of his fish-bloodied talons, Darkmoon lumbered to the Dam’s rocky slope, disappearing over the edge, back to the Sperk Burrows. Fuhorn followed, sparing no exchange with her audience. Even Thaydra was snubbed.
She went over the rocks, and just like that, both Alpha Agring and Alpha Sperk were gone.
Thaydra took a large, shaking breath. “That, my darlings,” she quaked, “is why we are.”
And it may have been the clouds slithering through the heavens, or the tearing of Nyra’s eyes from long delayed blinks, but she would have sworn before Quay and Roendon that smoke was trickling from Thaydra’s nostrils.
The first sun ebbed to the western sea, and still Fuhorn did not return. At the claw of Thaydra, the pile grew to a precarious height. Here and there a Sperk watched, multihued reflections dazzling their hungrily parted mouths. But not one came to claim a fish.
Mother tore through the waters like a porpoise, catching at the rate of three dragons at least. Blaze and Nyra were poor contributors. They dashed and slashed the surface, Thaydra always in their peripherals. Midday turned to mid-afternoon, to late-afternoon, to evening. At last it was time to leave.
“Alright,” sighed Thaydra, plopping her final catch on the heap. “That will do.”
The ocean’s lid closed lazily on the first sun. The sky transformed into a blushing pink while hazy blues flexed upward in the east. In the middle were the many dots of flying Agrings, searching for one last salmon before feeding themselves.
“Why don’t you eat the river fish at dinner?” asked Blaze when they turned to leave.
“I’m not sure who will be eating these fish tonight, Little Blaze,” Thaydra said sadly.
“I know,” he whispered, as though afraid that Darkmoon, wherever he was, might hear him. “But I mean on a normal day. Usually you come back after work hungry. You don’t eat anything you catch in the evening?”
“I have on the odd occasion. I’m not supposed to. Darkmoon only permits me to eat Reservoir catch on my break. Otherwise, all goes to his lot. The mountain dragon sense of taste.”
“No mountains here,” muttered Blaze miserably.
Thaydra ran up the hill by the Dam. The dragglings copied. At the top, Thaydra looked up. The first stars were appearing.
“Laziness tempts many strange things,” she said. “Or incapability does. Or fear. It’s a little of everything. But the main reason is that Sperks can’t fish well, and that’s all the Northern Coast has to offer.”
“Yes,” nodded Blaze.
In walking home, Nyra realized how achy she was. It was the first time she’d spent the whole day lifting, bending, kneeling, and bumping while immersed in cold water. Her joints complained accordingly. Yearning for the sunny spot in the den’s opening, Nyra trotted ahead of Blaze. For the first time in a long while, bedtime did not seem quite so horrid, and she understood why Mum frequently stole naps prior to dinner.
“We have some time before Aisel and Fidee come,” said Thaydra as they arrived at the den entrance. “The bedding is done?”
Blaze gasped mid-nod. “Oh no,” he said, scampering past Nyra.
“The bedding isn’t done?” asked Thaydra.
“No, no, it’s not that. Somebody knocked over our stones.”
“What?” said Nyra. Catching up with her brother, she saw their two rock towers dissolved to short, sad fragments.
Blaze dithered like a wasp. “Someone knocked them down. It wasn’t windy today. It was someone.”
Nyra nosed the stones, turning them over for evidence. She found nothing. Blaze nudged up next to her, sniffing.
“But they tried to fix it,” he noted.
“They did? Who did?” said Nyra.
“I don’t know. But the towers aren’t all gone. See?”
Amid the mess perched two pathetic piles stacked no higher than her elbows. They consisted of the flattest, easiest-to-pile river stones, the ones which made good bases.
“Maybe a quick breeze made them short.” Nyra said.
“No,” said Blaze. “Somebody tried to fix them. See the pinkish stone? That was in your tower this morning. Now it’s in mine.”
“Hmm,” said Nyra.
“Nap time for me,” said Thaydra dully, too drained to feign interest. “You may stay right out here if you like until Aisel and Fidee come. But any straying and I’ll double your Dam sentence. I mean it.” She shot Blaze a bitter look before his giggle could escape.
Once Thaydra disappeared into the den, Blaze and Nyra began rebuilding the towers to their former selves. Aisel and Fidee arrived just as Nyra added the last stone. Each wore an uncharacteristic grin.
“The Sperks aren’t eating your Mum’s catches!”
cried Aisel. “Word got out that Darkmoon wants the Agrings to eat them instead.”
“We don’t have to hunt for the rest of the evening!” chimed Fidee. “Opalheart just told us.”
Nyra looked to the Dam to find a strange sight. Under the sunset’s glow, Agrings were landing behind the Reservoir hill. There was Dewep, trotting back to the Agring Warren, three trout prying her mouth so wide it made a perfect right angle. Others followed.
“So,” said Aisel, leaning in. Unlike any other night, he did not shake. “What happened exactly? Something about Fuhorn, right? What did she…”
Casstooth the guard, patrolling in her regular spot, barked from the other side of the Agring Warren.
“This is a privilege, Fishers! Don’t waste your time chit-chatting.”
Aisel’s staple fear pinched back into place. He and his sister dashed to the Reservoir without so much as a farewell nod.
Cousin Vor and Uncle Rovavik joined them at dinner. Thaydra’s rigidity was undiminished, and for the first time in Nyra’s recollections, her quiet uncle did most of the talking. Mother’s smiles were halfhearted, unconvincing.
Nyra and Blaze retired early at Thaydra’s suggestion. Paws of exhaustion patted their legs, crumpling them into the soft bedding as sleep began licking their eyelids shut.
“Just you wait. Morning will come long before you’re ready,” Thaydra yawned.
Nyra had never been a deep sleeper. Nor did she fall asleep quickly. It was a problem, especially living with Blaze who could sleep through a hurricane. He usually woke refreshed, twisting out of his comical positions while Nyra lumbered up with sand in her feet. Even breathing could splash her awake during the night. Mum said she’d outgrow it. Hopefully. Until then, the mornings ahead promised to be thick with fatigue.
Often in sleep, the lines between dreams and reality blurred. At least once a month she would wake from preposterous dreams and think them real. This night swirled the layers of consciousness, and Nyra was never certain when she was awake. Once she might have heard Mother shuffling around the back tunnel, digging and digging, then gone. Then Nyra was outside, maybe sleepwalking, maybe remembering, and the stacking stones smelled of a Sperk Dragon, singing over a crashing cacophony. Then Opalheart was with her, talking and talking about blue and red, red and blue.
The Waters of Nyra- Volume I Page 8