“So, no talking,” Nyra concluded at first, certain that her relationship with the Xefexes would remain similar to that with insects and birds. But in the coming days, she found loopholes, other avenues of understanding, even if unexpected.
For instance, she had become an expert in their routine. They were never around when she woke. The first Xefex typically appeared an hour after the Agrings started the daily hunt. That was one quirk. Night was weirder. During her first conscious night in their company, the Xefexes had rushed from the sea. At first she dismissed it as a fluke. After the fourth night, however, fluke became pattern. By the glow of the Green Spot, the sea serpents clamored onto land, staring out towards the light like it was fire. It woke Nyra up nightly, but she never stayed up long enough to investigate. In the midst of so much chaos, her tree seemed like the safest vantage point, even if she knew her friends would bring her no harm.
Whatever these quirks meant, they did not impede the Xefexes’ kindness. Upon every return from their morning disappearance, a fresh fish plopped up onto shore. It was perfect for Nyra’s morning grogginess (and grouchiness—sleeping in didn’t really change her feelings towards the morning).
Exploring the island’s north side, out of view from the Northern Coast, Nyra tried hunting for herself. No pressure, no competition, just her and the sea. Nyra found her niche in shallow water. Though nowhere near Thaydra’s level, the draggling learned quickly, catching enough to satiate herself for the rest of the day. Soon, she’d be catching the fish by spearing, once her fangs grew out a little more. For now, she made well with her stubs.
After befriending the Xefexes, swimming back home became a tempting prospect. But with friendship came level headedness, and Nyra began to second guess her plans. Everything would have to be perfectly in place if she were to get back home unscathed.
For one, Thaydra needed to be alone. Suppose she wasn’t when Nyra crested the Scar’s slope? Even if there were no Sperks, how would Nyra get back to the den? The odds of getting by unseen were nil, despite any brilliant plans Fuhorn might come up with.
Bristone presented another problem. She liked hanging out near the Scar’s base. Nyra would be spotted. Not that she fretted over Bristone. Despite her oddities, the adolescent Sperk would not turn her in. I don’t think. But how popular was that place? How many other Sperks enjoyed the sea spray? Bumping into anyone but Bristone or Opalheart meant a direct march to Darkmoon.
The experts of war and rescuing were all on the main land. Nyra was on an island, eleven years old, and without professional experience. By springing herself on the Agrings unannounced, she endangered not only herself but those she loved. Until they were ready, there’d be no reunion.
Wait it out. That was the plan. Wait for them to get me. Coming to this decision brought her to tears in the first few nights. Being alone was a feeling she’d craved every time Blaze knew something she didn’t, or Jesoam broke into song. Now she craved these grievances the same way she used to want to stay up late, or claim the tender meat from a herring’s belly. At the Green Spot, no one ever told her when she should sleep. It was always her turn to eat the belly. These novelties fed her woes.
Luckily, her optimism was fresh with the morning suns, and she believed in her herd as much as her tail. In due time, she’d have a rescue. Until then, she’d take the time to practice those things she’d not yet perfected. The illegal things. Like climbing anything she wanted, when she wanted. High in the tree tops, the draggling took to jumping from increasingly higher places. And from each tall branch, her wings opened to the strength of flight, the most illegal thing of all (after fire, of course, but she had no use for fire, and all the same, she feared it would be conspicuous to the mainland).
The beaches were long and open. Nyra had ample room on the north side, where only the forlorn sea could watch. Positioning between the largest trees, Nyra flapped her wings in systematic up and down motions. It made good use of her muscles. Her body hurt in areas unfelt before. It was an invigorating sensation, finding out she had been carrying something her whole life with such potential. She wondered if all new flyers felt this way.
Mother and Fuhorn were going to have plans when the rescue finally came. Fantastic plans, ones beyond the scope of Nyra’s judgment. Suppose they needed her airborn? She’d be ready. There were only so many days left. At any second now the Agrings would arrive at the Green Spot, dragging along the master idea that would lead Nyra home.
“Fourteen days here,” she said as she met the beach that morning. Gray clouds blanketed above, thick as otter fur. The suns didn’t have a chance.
“Today’s the day, right Reddish?” The scarlet-tinged Xefex basked at her side, soaking up invisible rays from an unyielding sky. She (for Nyra no longer referred to any Xefex as ‘it’ anymore) kept her company a lot. Nyra gave the Xefexes names, too. Beautiful titles, ornate with hard-to-pronounce syllables and slurred endings. She forgot them seconds after declaration. Seronoflouratty became mixed up with Taragoflourabby, etcetera etcetera. Nyra settled on the Xefexes’ dorsal colors: Reddish, Violetish, Tealish—all ‘ishes’. Placeholders. She’d give them prettier names when she wasn’t so preoccupied, or wait for a day when Blaze could name a few for her.
“Today’s the day,” she repeated. Reddish ignored her. Rolling away boulders and sea kelp, Nyra made a stretch of clear beach. A runway. To get off the ground required speed, especially for a learning dragon. Maybe someday she’d lift to the skies on her own wing power, but that day was not today.
The skyline was wide. The path was clear.
Nyra broke into a run.
Damp sand gulped in her palms. The forest snailed by. Faster! Her elbows burned and the sands sucked her down. Pebbles glittered at her blurred feet, kicking up miniature meteor showers. Sounds of water crashed on her right, and the shape of Violetish burst against the gray sky, jumping up to watch.
Her wings opened. Breeze coiled above and below them; an invitation. She ran. She crouched. She pumped…
Then her feet hung weightless, the grit of wet sand on her feet the only sign that ground was once real.
Nyra faced the heavens. She was up. It was right. Instinct’s purity.
The canopy appeared out of nowhere. Puffs of emerald rose higher and higher. A bounce, a crash, a shove. Nyra thumped through layers of branches before hitting spongy ground.
Chirping sounded in the distance. Dead leaves stuck all over her like scales. Dirt erupted from her mouth, and a beetle.
“Instinct indeed,” she grumbled.
Being airborne was the greatest feeling in the world, they’d said, and it was. But no one was there to see her accomplishments. The skies were for her and her alone, and as uncomfortable as praise was, she would have liked to reluctantly wave off flattering comments.
Her wings grew stronger every day, and though she relished in her new talent, she grew tired of the one runway—the only good place to practice out in the open. Nyra spent many hours perusing plants and skipping sands, crunching the falling leaves in each step. Circling the island went by infuriatingly fast. The beach was tiny, and the forest not deep. But the island still had one great mystery: the Green Spot. In all her life it had never been treated as something spectacular. That shimmering glow was just a blemish after sunset, a peculiar landmark. Otherwise, nothing was known.
“Why don’t we know?” Nyra mused one night, towering sand on the southern shore. River stones were better, but hers were on the Coast. Blaze could use them all now. No more bickering.
Before the moons was a veil of clouds, donned in the same eerie gray of the restless ocean. The tide was out, exposing a wet bank, and a short distance off was the brilliant Green Spot. That circle of white light with emerald beams flashing from the ends.
No longer a ‘spot,’ Nyra decided. This is a footprint of Roendon.
That night marked the end of day twenty-one. On her tree, she carved a new line each day.
“Why wouldn’t we know?” she sa
id. Reddish cocked her head from the waves and chirped.
Fuhorn and Grandma Tega jumped into Nyra’s thoughts. “The ones who are old now, they were young when the Sperks came. Well, not young young. But younger. Early twenties, let’s say. They were free to fly wherever. Wouldn’t they have gone to the Green Spot? Wouldn’t they know what it is?”
The hulky Violetish popped from the surface, flapping in the moon-bathe. A four-syllable call ticked from his smiling mouth. Nyra had heard this call before. It meant ‘I’m spreading my wings,’ or so she deduced. Violetish closed his wings, dwarfing Reddish at his side.
“You’re right,” she said to him. “I never spread my wings, so to speak. I didn’t spread my mind. I never thought to ask what the Green Spot was.” Whenever the Xefexes chirped, she molded them into her soliloquies, even if contrived.
“I just followed my family’s example. They called it the Green Spot, so I did too. I never thought to ask why a spot on the ocean glowed.” How stupid not to ask!
Thinking was going nowhere. And it took up so little time. Even the most elaborate daydreams took under a half-hour. Nothing was fast enough in this place.
Nyra rushed to her feet.
“Alright, I’ll figure it out,” she said. Her skin looked more blue than red in the bright night. Nyra paced down the beach into the cool sands. The water would be cold. Treading sun-kissed sands had made the transition from land to water easy during the first few days. But cloudy skies gobbled up that golden warmth. And night was always worse.
The first wave rolled over her toes. Not so bad, she thought. Nyra eyed the sky again. Dark, with a faint glow from the moons beyond. Doing this in the daytime would be better, when she could see. Still the water was bright, brighter than any daytime-light. But Nyra feared it was too bright. Even above the surface she squinted. How would she see anything when below?
She brushed the thought away. Nyra would explore now. She’d figure it out now. Lucky for her, tomorrow’s light was a sure-fire guarantee should failure crack its discouraging tail.
Moving out, the water sloshed up on her chin. “Here it goes.” The draggling dipped under.
“Cold!” she gurgled beneath. Bubbles flourished over her face as sea water wrapped over her tongue. Little clicks and whistles pierced everywhere as the Xefexes zoomed around her.
Ahead the light brightened to white. It didn’t appear to be very deep beneath the surface. Looking on the gentler fringes, Nyra saw more or less where the center of the glow was. From the white center, green-blue fingers reached down and down, darkening to the ocean floor. The middle was suspended, floating as if by magic.
Her lungs began to protest. Her feet were still on the ground, the crown of her head drifting just beneath the shifting currents. In a quick hop, Nyra broke the top and sucked in new air. Just below the beacon was a shadowy mass, piling upward from the blackness. Rocks, she guessed. So the light wasn’t floating there by magic, it was sitting on boulders. Maybe wedged between them.
The whiteness was nearly unbearable. The rocks rose from the floor as high as she was long, with the surface about two heights above that. She pushed forward, squinted hard.
At the core of the brilliance was a shape, one difficult to see. Nyra tilted her head. There were subtle outlines, bright tracings that made up the greater glow. Like cracks in quartz, they wrapped around one another in geometric directions. But the spaces between the lines were especially peculiar. Outlined in crystallized luminosity were teal splashes, almost more clear than they were colorful. It was the color of the Green Spot, but a hue she’d known from the mainland as well, and yet not quite the same shade beneath the surface. Here, it seemed to reflect some of the deeper tones possessed by the sea. And it was huge, at least her size, and likely much heavier.
WHOOSH!
Something blotted out the light, and a misty-blue eye streamed by grass-blades from her face. Spade-shaped fins raked over her belly, slashing her with the texture of sand. Before she could grasp the wound, another figure whammed her wind away in a bubbly flurry. Then she was dragged backwards to shore at a break-neck pace, water peeling off her like skin, exposed to naked air. She was vaguely aware of the Xefexes hopping left and right from the ocean. The clouds danced before faint stars, flipping the overcast night round and round as her head slowed from a spin.
“What was that?” she coughed, the sea spilling from her throat. Xefexes surrounded her, all trained to the Green Spot.
“Hey!” she said angrily. Reddish was at her side. “What was that thing?” The draggling eased up on adrenaline-pumped haunches. Like a bite, pain chomped her stomach. She collapsed, groping her ribs. Her claws came up tipped in thick, black blood.
“Ugg,” she rasped. Hot stings nibbled her sinuses. A dim image of Thaydra winked in and out of her thoughts.
Reddish nudged Nyra sideways, studying the gash. Cooing, the Xefex puffed little snorts upon the tattered flesh. Nyra covered it protectively.
Jerking towards the foliage, Reddish chirped at Violetish and Yellowish, who lumbered into the shadows. They emerged in seconds, mouths full of leaves. Big leaves, bigger than Nyra’s head, and perhaps the last bunch that had not yet turned yellow and crusty. Nyra knew the kind well. They were just like the ones of her tree. The sea-beasts overlapped the leaves upon the sand until they made a sheet with no ground exposed.
“What’s that… hey!” Reddish pushed Nyra’s bottom, rolling her on the leafy sheet. Nyra resisted, throwing out the paw not holding her wound. But fighting off the Xefex was like pushing the Dam.
“Alright then,” said Nyra. She leaned down on the bed, ready for the uncomfortable pressure and grit. It did not come.
“It’s to keep the sand out!” she exclaimed, then recoiled. She recalled getting the wind knocked out of her moments earlier. Her chest felt empty and full all at once, and though she breathed deeply, her lungs didn’t seem to fill all the way.
“Thanks,” Nyra gasped. Indeed, leaves were timeless playtime props. With friends, she often pretended that they had healing powers. ‘Not true,’ Mum always said, but it could keep infections from getting in, and made decent stoppers when putting pressure on wounds. Nyra squirmed uncomfortably, feeling embarrassed. No one ever took care of her but Mum. Blaze too, at least in his delusions.
She remembered a milky white eye and triangular fins. Her stomach throbbed. The black mass had cut her, the mass that blotted out the light.
“What was that thing?” she repeated.
The Xefexes, as always, said nothing.
“You know, the thing that did this?” Nyra held up her bloodied claws. Violetish licked them. Reddish stretched back her jowls and exposed her teeth. Alarm gripped Nyra. But as soon as she had done it, Reddish closed her mouth and resumed her wide, jovial face. The others began making deep growls.
“Some monster, then?” Nyra assumed as much. Everything was a monster. Until proven otherwise.
But there was something familiar in it, about a giant swimmer with sand-skin fins. There were the beady eyes, too. Had she heard any stories of these animals? Big fish with gnashing teeth? Was that a shark? Did sharks even have eyes? Of course they did. Fish had eyes, and sharks were fish, if she remembered correctly.
This shark, or whatever it was, unnerved the Xefexes. Small wonder, she shrugged. Is that what chased them from the water each night? To be awoken nightly by a predator… it seemed awful. Why not live elsewhere? Perhaps the Xefexes were slaves to the shark as the Agrings were enslaved to the Sperks. This was unlikely. Her glimpse was short, but the sand-hard fish didn’t look intelligent. Perhaps the Xefexes were just steadfast against leaving home.
“The shark must be nocturnal,” she said out loud. Reddish stayed at Nyra’s side, listening. “You only come out of the water at night. It must not bother you in the day.”
Nyra peered hard into Reddish’s protuberant eyes. So big.
“It can’t see very well, can it?” Nyra mused. “The eyes had cataracts. I know abou
t cataracts, my grandma Tega has them. They keep her from hunting sometimes.”
Then a shroud lifted from Nyra’s messy thoughts. “That Green Spot is shedding light onto you! Putting you in danger.” Her heart tremored from the thought, so much her whole body shook. “Ow!” she exclaimed, sucking air through her teeth. Reddish nosed her flank. Nyra was grateful for the comfort, even if Reddish’s nose was wet and cold.
“Alright, I’ll try to sleep,” Nyra murmured. As the sting ebbed away, tiredness hung heavy on her lids. It had been a long day. Well, no longer than the others, but having a shark slice one’s belly made it unusually difficult. She didn’t want to think about it anymore.
The Xefexes took watch by the tide, leaving Nyra alone just as she teetered on that precipice between consciousness and true slumber. It was there she saw the Green Spot again. It lay suspended in the dark, drawing in ever closer as her view pressed forward. She came so close she could almost touch it, seeing nothing but its immaculately cut sides and hot-white edges. Then her view panned out to the blackness of the sea. Only this time it was not the sea. In the imperceptible blackness were shapes. Air dragons, not Xefexes. Lots of them, maybe twenty. No, thirty. Thirty-one, she knew intuitively. And she knew every one of them despite the haziness. But most perceptible of all was Fuhorn, who stood closest to the light, her muted voice regaling over the herd’s most prized possession.
The sleeping, the waking, the flying, the eating. These and their trifle subdivisions cycled into another five days. Then another. With the help of time, and the help of the generous Xefexes, Nyra’s wound became so diminutive that it barely whispered a scar. She fished on her own, and her flying drastically improved. Very quickly she was turning into a professional in all the arts. Time was certainly a blessing for mastering.
But just as much, time was a curse.
Each morning Nyra woke to see those little specks dropping from the Northern Coast and each morning it was nettles on her skin, rousing that disturbing fact; she was viewing her world from the wrong angle. It made her heart twinge. The twinge became an ache, the ache a rash of insanity, worsening into new breeds of worry.
The Waters of Nyra- Volume I Page 16