Well, get in, Mother had said, pushing Blaze’s rump into deep water. Are you floating or sinking?
Floating, mumbled Blaze.
As long as we hold our breath, Nyra had said, getting bored.
Right, said Thaydra. Now, do fish float?
When they’re dead! Nyra countered.
Blaze had groaned, clambering over a surface ripple. He did not like deep water, and was clearly perturbed that Nyra was slowing the lesson. No Mum, fish don’t float.
That’s right. So how do they stay under water?
Nyra groaned. They pump their tails really hard.
Nope! said Thaydra, spritely. They use buoyancy. Oil takes them up and down.
Thaydra had proceeded to explain buoyancy. The definition had not stuck. But it didn’t matter. Nyra remembered one thing: fish had oil.
And oil was flammable.
Coming back into the moment, Nyra snaked her tongue carefully between the entrails. A million times in the past, she’d swallowed and chewed fish, and had even examined salmon insides a time or two, but never for an innovative reason. Wrapping her tongue around the stomach, intestine, and some blue organ, her mouth became slick with yellow ooze.
“I hope I know what I’m doing,” she said through an open mouth. Taking a deep breath, Nyra let the oil drip down her throat. It was cold and tickling. She suppressed a gag.
On the count of four. One …two…three…
A cough boomed out as burns erupted up her tongue.
“Owowow!” she cried, slapping her palms to her face. Angling downward, she dunked her head into an approaching wave, coming up with a mouthful of foul water. She could barely stay aloft in the air for the pain.
“Ehh,” she whined, coughing harder. Each upheaval smarted terribly. Her tongue flopped like a dead animal.
“Why does it have to be so horribly difficult?” she cried. Unconsciously, as always, she awaited the sea’s silent reply.
But this time the vast ocean was not so quiet.
“You might try it without so much oil,” said the sea in a cavernous voice.
Nyra flipped three lengths high into the air.
“Who said that?” she half-squeaked. The sea wafted below. No one was there.
She nearly dismissed it as hallucination when the Vousille Ocean spoke again.
“Wrong way, my dear,” it said.
She scanned the surface, looking for a suspicious wave, a funny shape—anything which made possible the resonance of speech. Lapped up by the gentle currents was a great greenish stump of a nose, two nostrils flaring on either side. They were far too huge for comfort.
Nyra’s scream was swallowed down in her stomach as she rose higher into the thinning atmosphere. Below, gray-blue waves traced the outline of a turquoise behemoth.
“One disaster after another,” she panted, trying to go even higher. It turned very cold very fast. Banishment. Sickness. Hawk. Ocean monster. It was like living in one of those really bad stories, the ones with no plot, just a series of dreadful occurrences in lieu of structure. Once upon a time she and Blaze had thought them funny.
Far below the big animal snorted. “No need to run off,” came the rumbling words. The rest of the head began to emerge, but only just. There were two protruding brows, the eyes still out of sight.
“No need to run off?” Nyra spat bewilderedly. No sudden movements, she warned herself. But the panic was too great. Instead, she shouted, “Leave me alone!”
“Now, now, is that any way to speak to a new acquaintance? Did your mother not teach you good etiquette?” Nyra recognized laughter. Also, the voice was male-ish, and unless she was mistaken, old. Very old.
She flapped north, working fervently to stay aloft in grossly thin altitude. It felt as though cold rocks lumped into her lungs. The body below moved with Nyra like an enormous shadow. She searched for a solution. There was nothing. No place to hide. She’d just have to keep going until she reached the next resting place.
What if the creature could crawl on land?
“I can’t crawl on land,” it, or he, said.
“Huh?” said Nyra, realizing she had been talking out-loud.
“Just what are you afraid of?” he said. The mossy nose scrunched up. Far behind the head stretched two parallel bends of color. Fins.
Nyra drew air in and out, painfully conscious of each as they rattled in her leaf-thin chest.
“Being eaten,” she breathed.
“So, I look like I would eat you?” he asked, amused. Two wet eyes rounded out into the air, perched behind a gnarled snout and between angry-looking arches. The eyes were vibrant, like two Green Spots if they didn’t glow.
What an absurd question. “Yes!” came her absurd answer.
Belly laughs rumbled up to the clouds, and the set of long extremities churned the water into lather. He snorted. Spray misted Nyra’s beating wings.
“My dear, you wouldn’t feed me enough to paddle a single flipper.”
Nyra clamped her jaw tight, determined to keep her thoughts from leaking out. Island, island, island. The behemoth stayed in place beneath her. Nyra tried to pass ahead. He kept up effortlessly.
“If I so heartily wanted to eat you, I would have done it already,” he said.
Nyra tensed. Boring her eyes on the waves, she tried to make up the exact shape of the speaker. Did it have anything else with which to propel itself? Some hind flippers that could catapult him into the air? She assessed the distance between them. “You can’t reach me,” she said loudly enough to feign confidence. She hoped the shakiness in her voice would dissolve on the journey below.
“Can’t I?” He chuckled. Nyra could not bring herself to respond. “You’d really make me muster up these old bones to prove it?”
She gazed hopefully upward. Maybe a chance cloud would descend and swallow her out of sight.
The speaker changed subjects. “It’s close to noon now. Isn’t it about time you ate? That last bit didn’t stay down, did it?” The head swayed to and fro in the water, as if searching for fish.
Stopping and eating at noon—her everyday habit. Was it a universal practice? Or did he know?
Test him.
“You’ve been following me,” she accused. “For how long?”
“Not for too long,” he replied, a tad defensive. “You must understand, it’s not often I see an Agring so off course. If you are indeed an Agring, that’s an educated guess, you see.”
Not too long, he says, but what does that mean? The Dragon Hawk came to mind. Had the behemoth been there, watching her on the brink of being eaten alive?
Was he the Sliver?
No, he was not the Sliver. Though Nyra could not remember anything of the Sliver other than the words themselves, the behemoth’s voice was distinctly unique. And the Sliver was smaller. It had crashed atop her. Nyra had escaped the encounter with a backache. If the thing below had slammed her down, she’d be four-ways-dead.
Her unwanted companion titled his chin out of the water—a stump grizzled with furry green. “So, where are you going so far from home? A tad too far out for claws and paws.” He was positively bemused, and happy about it. A spring entered his flippers. Nyra stitched her frosty glare on the trajectory ahead.
“Very well,” he said, still pleased. “You’ll have to rest eventually. Then we’ll talk.”
“You don’t know when I need to rest,” Nyra spat.
“Well, you seem to like to rest at night. I respect that, I’m diurnal too.” He paused, as though he was waiting for her to lash out again. Nyra didn’t. “And then sometimes you call it quits if you find an island early.”
Blood broiled in her veins, and her throat pulsed into a rumble. Was he following her just to insult her endurance?
“Just keep looking, my dear. I think you’ll find your next stop quite comforting.”
Each pump of her wings carried the bite of icicle fangs. Traveling higher than normal brought a whole new meaning to seasonality. Every so often she
listed, and the water beast would look up hopefully. She’d shoot back up and the icicles would sharpen.
To her relief, and chagrin, trees appeared dead ahead on the horizon, just in time for the second sunset. She could imagine the smugness of her companion, watching her predictable pattern come to life, but collapsing was frighteningly probable. She needed rest.
Nyra looked closer, willing her blurring vision to the wayside. The island was not what it should be. Trees were visible, but a tad short; a stark contrast to the abnormally tall trees the Dragon Hawk called home. These were bushier, too, twisting and gnarling every which way. There was no land. The trunks were growing out of the ocean. With no sand buffers or rocks, the waves lapped directly against them, threading through green sea moss and spotty barnacles.
Is this a trick? The beast below would not meet her gaze, completely untroubled. The waves ahead grew louder, crashing against the unnatural plants. For a moment Nyra wondered if the trees were alive or had some paranormal property. She veered left, beginning a circle around the strange cluster. Dull leaves decorated hundreds of lanky branches, limp and dripping to the sea, making veils over hidden openings. Nyra could not see the fake-island’s interior, for each canopy blended into the next. Counting about thirty individual trunks, she came full circle.
Her companion had abandoned his post beneath, appearing just a few lengths off, poised before the largest veil. Beyond was black. With smiling features he regarded her. Then he turned and disappeared into the opening.
Gone. After hours and hours, he was gone, mulling somewhere inside that leafy cocoon. Her chance to get away.
But what if the next island was a half-day away? The stinging in her wings resurfaced full throttle, winking in time with the appearing stars.
“I could just rest here and risk being eaten,” she said humorlessly. She clasped her collar bone. Her claws were frozen. She wondered if those droopy leaves insulated heat.
Squeaking out regrets, she took the last painful pumps towards the nearest tree. One thing was certain: they were high and tangled enough that no beast could reach her at the top. I hope. Laces of leaves shivered everywhere in the bighting breeze. Nyra descended, very slowly, into the nearest opening.
She settled into a crook of branches, which rather than reaching out from an abrupt point, crept away from a flat surface. On either side were the rope-like twigs, curling up then drooping to the waves, each adorned with limp foliage. One fluttered in the breeze, showing off a complex network of spidery veins, faintly blue.
Gentle splashing came from below. Nyra peered through the curtains. The beast churned serenely in a clearing of water. He heaved up and rested his head on the lowest branches. Roots? Nyra thought automatically. No, the ocean was too deep. Any true roots had to be leagues and leagues below. Unless the trees floated. Not likely. They had no sway. Of course, who was she to say what a sea-tree should be?
The bark was warm on her palms, and the leaves blocked most of the wind. She sank to her belly.
“Lots of fish here, you know. It’s the branches. Makes the fish feel secure. Home, if you will,” the beast said, rupturing the quiet. He had an odd way of speaking. Though clearly versed in Nyra’s language, his vowels hollowed in an unfamiliar manner. Fuhorn called this an ‘accent,’ and tried on several occasions to explain it to the dragglings. But seeing as the Sperks and Nammocks had the same of what Fuhorn called a ‘dialect,’ Nyra had failed to grasp the concept.
Thinking of home hurt.
“Now, now, who doesn’t like to nosh after settling down?” asked the beast.
Nyra didn’t answer.
“Very well then. Catch.”
She looked up just in time to see a fish flash past the leaves, pause in the air, then thrash out of sight. She clambered to the tree’s edge, just saving herself from tripping into the clearing.
The beast laughed. Nyra felt a slight tugging at her mouth corners, but remained focused. The other’s head disappeared underwater, then in a split second, resurfaced in spray. The fish flowered up again, spiraling towards Nyra’s face. Her claws shot outward.
“Ah-ha!” She caught it. It was the biggest fish she’d ever handled, weighing her forward with its gargantuan bulk. She laughed. The beast laughed, too.
Nyra grumbled. Her stomach mimicked. She’d eaten nothing since noonish, since he appeared. Even then she’d mostly eaten fish oil.
Returning to the tree’s center, Nyra chomped the fish in a few swallows. Without an empty stomach to distract her, the pull of sleep drew her down. How warm the bark was. How smooth.
Chuckles lulled her to sleep.
Hours later she shivered. Nyra woke into a new world. Between the foliage was pristine sky. Light dappled to her resting place in thin threads, turning everything into royal blue.
Royal blue.
Jarred by the familiar color, she looked for the assaulting Sperk. But there was no Sperk. She blinked, her tree coming into focus.
The drab leaves were completely transformed. Where limp little ovals once rested were now radiant disks, patterned by spindles of silver that fanned into sunlight like wet crystals. Each leaf dazzled in a new outfit of royal blue, kissed with flashes of green. Even the branches were transformed. She’d fallen asleep among droopy branches. Now they reached lengths and lengths into the air, brushing the sun with their tips, and casting long shadows that looked like cobwebs on her body.
Sloshing came from below.
“Good morning,” said her companion.
“Good morning,” mumbled Nyra automatically, her voice indistinct with awe.
“You know, you are driving Yahinuve mad with your teeth chattering. If I don’t suggest you move, she’ll rattle my ears clean off.”
Breeze fingered into her resting place. With the branches reaching far above her head and splaying apart, wind could wriggle in. The leaves no longer folded over one another, stretched out and away from the mat of insulation they’d made last night.
Edging closer to the clearing, Nyra peered down at the beast. His whole head lifted from the water, beaming.
“We have cold mornings around here. The trees collect and store heat in the daytime, but the night drains them out. Give them a few hours to replenish. In the meantime, you might move to a more interior tree. Not perfect, but it’ll be warmer.” His eyes drifted to another trunk. The braches also stretched above, but were positioned in a way that they made greater insulation.
The canopy was too thick to cross by foot. She’d have to fly. As Nyra jumped up and out, an icy blast snapped her pores closed. Far above hung the yellow-white suns, throwing rays so thin they turned the sky pale. Nyra worried her wings would stiffen in mid-air.
She slammed down to the new tree. She nestled belly-down on the wood. The bark was measurably warmer. She could also see the water clearing without too much obstruction. The beast plucked gooey-green slick from the trunk walls.
Warming up, Nyra tried to recall exactly what her companion had said about her teeth chattering. Seeing the disgusting mush dangling from the creature’s mouth, her memories pasted together. Not all of it made sense. A small war between stubbornness and boredom waged. After a few seconds, the latter won.
“What is or who is Yavihun?” she asked
“You mean Yahinuve?” he asked. He grinned, showing a set of teeth that spanned twice Nyra’s body length. They dripped with sludge. “Like you, I say too much out loud. Yahinuve is my long deceased mate. I speak to her often. And she speaks to me.”
Nyra edged backward. “You talk to the dead?” she asked.
The beast cocked his head and swallowed. “Oh, not in a literal sense, I suppose. I can’t hear her in the same way I hear you now. But you see, we were together so much when she was alive that I learned her reactions to anything, just as she learned mine. Yahinuve was a caring beast, always pining for the younglings we reared and released to the world, longing to run into them more often than we did. I suppose after rearing the last one she became
more sensitive to all younglings, even ones outside our species. And so, seeing you now, shivering away, I remember her voice. I hear her demanding that the poor little thing warm up.”
Nyra relaxed a fraction.
“Worry not,” he chided. “Her voice has gone now that you’ve moved. But she’ll find something new to fret over in good time.”
“What is your name?” Nyra asked. She wasn’t horribly curious. In fact, the beast’s name was probably forty-something in order of importance. Nevertheless, learning a name first was the rule. Nyra was grateful to remember the rules, at least one of them. Isolation, luckily, had not yet destroyed her sociability.
“Oharassie,” said the great creature. “The oldest thing in the ocean, save for perhaps the ocean itself. And you are Nyra of the Nammock herd, according to your solo conversations. Have you been referring to the continent, or is Nyra your actual name?”
“No, that’s my name,” she said. She must have spoken out in epics over the last few days, perhaps the whole journey. But the familiar feeling of upset did not cross her. In Oharassie’s jovial presence, the idea of it became humorous. Perhaps isolation had changed her. Or in the least made her desperate; so starved for conversation that even her greatest peeves evaporated.
“Is it a family name?”
Her limbs stretched lazily to her sides. “Well, sort of. My grandfather on Mum’s side was named Nyra. I never knew him. But you can also say that I’m named after the continent.” Her tongue curled in amusement. “Mum actually likes to change the origin depending on the trouble I’m in. Sometimes I need to live up to my homeland, other times my lineage. But on regular days it doesn’t matter.” Regular days. Had they really happened?
Fascination lit Oharassie’s immense face. Nyra bit her lip, but couldn’t stop herself from grinning. It felt so strange to hear her voice. Not just because it traded back and forth with another, but because it was saying so much. Usually she let Blaze do the talking. But he was not here, and one word answers did not seem sufficient now. Oharassie was big. His size alone seemed to demand more words.
The Waters of Nyra- Volume I Page 19