Chapter 3
Where i Learned Some Truth
“Dawn,” Celentine was calling, “it’s time for breakfast.”
I got up and walked out to the kitchen, there was Celentine, there was the kitchen table and the stove, nothing cooking, nothing to eat. Yet it smelled a little funny.
“There’s a rat in here,” she said. “I want you to catch him. You can smell him too. Sorry thing. You can eat him if you want to but I wouldn’t advise it. I can get you something a bit more nutritious, and sanitary.”
So that was the smell. The smell of a rat.
I looked around and saw him in the corner. He had obviously found there was nowhere out of the Temple with the door closed. I lunged at him and he scampered off to the left. I followed him until he got to another corner but he dashed down the length of the crevice where stone walls meet the floor.
He made it to the hallway and started running down the stairs. I could get him here. I jumped down to the bottom before he did. He turned, right into a crack in the stones and got away.
I knelt down and looked in the crack between the stones, just big enough for a rat to fit through. “Shouldn’t we fix the crack Celentine?”
“No, they can die in there and make the whole house smell terrible.”
“But they must have gotten in somehow.” I moved my head back a forth trying to see further into the mouse hole. “If it got in here it must have dug a hole from the outside. So if we fix the hole here it should just go back outside and stay outside.”
Celentine thought about it, “Alright smart girl. You win. We should fix it up just after breakfast.”
She took me outside and, keeping to her promise from earlier, taught me how to hunt.
We dove into the trees and found a few animals. Birds, the hardest to hunt and a small monkey, somehow easier to catch if you have the time and stamina, but still not easy.
We wandered through the shrubs and finally found a lonely little boar. It hadn’t noticed us yet. Celentine whispered to me. “Get a good clear path in front of you and while it’s back is turned, lunge at it. You want to get at the bottom of its neck with your teeth and squeeze hard, break it’s neck and sever it’s arteries. If your lunge is too short, you can grab it with your claws and pull yourself up to the neck.”
Gross! I thought. I’d have to hear the sound of it’s neck bones cracking and breaking. The feel of blood oozing out. Well it is food. Do I want to eat or not? I finally was able to confront the thought.
The boar was still standing next to a bush, digging in the ground for bugs. It was just smaller than I, and I still wasn’t big.
I slowly crept towards my right, putting his back towards me. Now he can’t see me unless he turned around or looked back. I measured up the distance between him and I. Quite far. I don’t know if I’ve ever jumped that far. It’d probably take two lunges from where I am. If I know how nervous animals are at the slightest sound, he’d be far gone before I could lunge again.
Maybe I could drop on him. I motioned to Celentine, I’m climbing the tree. She nodded. I jumped up with the stealth of a cat and climbed to the nearest branch. I didn’t want to go too far from the trunk the branch might shake and startle the little piggy. I measured it up again. I could land right on him. Knock him over, and out too. I lined up, sitting on my haunches looking at the boar like any other wild cat might look at their prey as they stalk just before releasing the tense muscles that held me still. I was ready. Ready for the crunch of food. My stomach was rumbling, already for the last thirty minutes.
I launched.
Off the branch and onto the unsuspecting boar. He was fast, taking off as soon as I had laid a claw into him. But not fast enough, I held on effortlessly as the motion hooked my claws even deeper. He squealed and was dragging me fast through the brush.
Before I realized we had already traveled forty feet through the forest I pulled myself up and sank my teeth into his prickly neck. But he didn’t give up. Just kept running and squealing. I opened my mouth wider and put my head down to get under his neck. I bit again, this time the blood flowed out and into my mouth. I hit my head on the soft forest floor, being so close to the ground, and let go. I sat there feeling my victory, blood running out of my mouth getting into my fur.
Celentine came by finally and said, “Good job. But you let him get away.”
“I lost him.” I whined.
“Not to worry. He won’t be too far if he’s bled that much, seeing how much blood is on your fur.” She walked over to a bush I almost smashed into. “See, the blood runs out and gets on the leaves as he runs by. He’s leaving you a fresh trail of blood.”
I got up, rubbing my head and knees. The jump from the tree wasn’t so graceful as I thought. More like a fall.
I went over to the bush Celentine had examined and found the trail of blood. I spotted the next bush and the next. Finally maybe only twenty feet away from my crucial bite, he was laying there, face digging into the dirt, motionless. He was still breathing, slowly. His eyes were wide, staring into those of his predator. Celentine told me to put him out of misery and bring him back for the meal. “That’s one thing you have to learn. Killing an animal, you take responsibility, you don’t leave wasted flesh rotting on the ground. And since you’re the Huntress, you get to bring the food back on the table.”
She motioned me towards the boar.
I touched him, he gave a startling twitch and finally, was gone. I picked him up over my shoulders. Hind feet on the left and the front feet on the right. I wore him like a backpack and getting my sense of direction back, left back home.
I put him down on the cutting block in the kitchen. Celentine didn’t want me touching any knives yet so she cut him and had me watch how to butcher a boar.
We ate finally, it was already past mid morning. We fried up some boar flank with traditional herbs and spices. Quite tasty, I don’t think I’ve had boar before, but the taste was good. I couldn’t decide between the taste of the food and the enjoyment of eating my own freshly killed game.
Celentine salted the left overs and wrapped them up to take with us on the journey. “The Pisces Xenos don’t mind land animals. Not all of them but some don’t mind the a change from seafood. Just like some Felines like seafood and some don’t”
“What’s seafood like?” I asked.
“You’ll find out,” she said. “We’ll make sure to go and find a good restaurant when we get there.”
Breakfast was done and we had our slimly packed bags with us.
“I’m so excited, I’ve never been outside of the village.”
We both smiled.
“Now Dawn, which way is west?”
I had to think. It was noon. The sun usually rises in on the right side and sets to the left. The village is to the north. That means, “We should go left.”
She let me lead, but she did tell me that one of the trails nearer the village will take us on a smoother path. I didn’t listen. I walked straight into the trees and kept on going.
She followed. It didn’t seem like she minded. Jumping over bushes and zigzagging between trees and logs, she still had it in her to follow a young Feline through the forest.
We made it to the edge of the forest after half of the afternoon.
I looked out as the forest thinned and we ventured into a valley filled with rice fields.
“Daylight will run out soon, so we’d better find a good place to set up camp.” Celentine told me.
I ventured through the rice fields carefully not stepping in the water. It was still hot. Humid too. Great place to grow rice. The grains were big.
“They’re still growing.” Celentine told me, warning not to walk through the muddy trenches.
We were on the hill on the other side of the valley and I looked to the west again. “I can see the ocean!” It looked like the land had just stopped and opened up to a big blue field. I was excited now. Maybe I can see Cyrus island. But the sun had fallen and we decided to set up camp on the top of the hill. We started a fire and cooked some more boar. Still, the delicious taste of my own freshly killed meat.
Celentine taught me how to smoke the meat.
She made a frame out of wood and let the coals burn down. Then she tore up a dead, dry branch into little pieces and sprinkled that over the coals. Then she hung up strips of meat with herbs and set that on the frame. The smoke started up again, curling around the strips of meat. We found some palm leaves and put them into a pyramid shape over the fire to funnel the smoke upwards.
Do I have to know all of this to become a Huntress? At least I can live in the forest now all by myself. I think I’d just get too lonely though. I do like company.
It was dark and we watched the sky.
Celestial bodies staring back at us. Celentine told me the important ones. “The big one off to the west is Xeres, it‘a bigger now than normal, it means he’s closer. Another one in our solar system, the other big one off to the left is Ares, also very close.” She told me pointing to the sky.
“Have they come closer for me?”
She didn’t answer right away, “I believe you’ll have to ask them yourself.”
“Who else is out there? Are there more people beyond our planet?”
“You’ll have to find that out for yourself too. There’s many people of all races, it’s better to ask them where they come from. Not me. People come from where they believe home is.”
I sat there thinking what that means.I guess I believe in things… and that I am where I am is only... I couldn’t finish my thought, I didn’t know what to conclude.
We laid there for another hour, Celentine got up and turned the coals over and ripped up some more dried branches.
I started nodding off to sleep but I heard a howl. A distant howl deep in the south of the forest. I ran there looking for who it could be.
I looked back, it seemed Celentine was asleep, or didn’t mind me running off.
The trees were thick and I tripped a couple of times. There were huge logs I had managed to scramble over. I had gotten faster and more agile than I was just a week ago. I guess living in the wild does that to you. But there’s lots of places that are wild. I heard that even the city of Xenobia is wild too.
The trees started getting thicker until I ran into a clearing full of tents and cut down tress.
Stumps stuck out of the ground and there were tents made from sheets thrown over sticks.
Lights flickered from the inside of the tents and there was some sort of people sitting next to their campfires.
I circled around he clearing not wanting whosever tents these were to find out I was here.
There was a fire in the middle of the camp and a few figures populated the benches of logs surrounding it, talking.
I circled more. I found the one howling, he started another howl. It was my acquaintance, the Canine that I met the other night. He was sitting on his haunches on top of a stump.
“You heard me.” He said, more of a statement than a question.
“Why not? I was only sitting on top of the hill by the rice fields. Who were you calling for?”
“You.” He stated bluntly.
I wasn’t sure if I should leave at this point but I seem to feel immortal sometimes, like I have a couple of lives to get rid of and hand out to the needy, but hanging around a Canine camp left my instincts telling me to run.
“I thought we could talk a bit more.” He said, “As I left quite abruptly the last time we met. Sorry about that.” He looked very slightly apologetic.
He stood up and started walking towards me. In the low light his silhouette looked like a man with half a head or with really bad posture, slouching like he’d be up to no good. He seemed my age but not much older.
“Why do you want to talk to me? Am I really that special?”
“See, in my village, We don’t like the Feline Xenos.”
“So you’re trying to warn me?”
“No. But yeah, kind of. I want you to know that you aren’t…” he looked like he was trying to find a better word, “Well for lack of a better word; you aren’t liked.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, we shouldn’t be talking. Some day we’ll meet again and we won’t be in good company together. Savvy?”
“I guess. But why would…” I didn’t finish, somehow I figured I didn’t want to know why.
He walked away again into the camp and I left, headed back to the rice fields.
It was a nice walk for some time. I found a pathway that was big enough to for a couple people to walk side by side. There was grass growing in the middle and gravel thrown on top to make it smoother. I walked in the middle, the gravel was poking my feet.
A machine drove by, Canine Xenos. They spotted me as I was right in the middle of the road. I jumped to the side and they skidded to a halt. “Are you the new Huntress?” One of them yelled from the back.
I told them I was.
“You should meet my boy!” He yelled, the truck started honking and the driver flew by past leaving me in a cloud of dust and gravel.
Was I really not a good person? I thought to myself. I don’t know what I’ve gotten into. I started thinking of other things but my mind kept coming back to what would happen when I meet this boy again.
I made it back to the rice fields and found the farm house. I met the farmer. He was a man with a dark sun worn face and bleachedgraying hair.
“Are you the one growing the rice out here?”
“I am, and who are you?”
“The new Huntress.” I said, still in a mystery as to who I was really, but he offered to show me around.
He took me to the tool shed and showed me the plow and tools that he uses to grow rice. Outside he showed me the mules and cows and horses he kept.
“The mule we use for plowing the fields and when they get too tired I switch him with his brother.” We walked through the stables and saw more animals, big ones with hooves. They were mainly sleeping or at least had opened an eye to see me walking by.
“The ox I use for taking the plowed rice to the markets. And the horses are for when I want to travel fast to a village.”
“Do you live out here by yourself?” I asked.
“Well it’s just me and my wife and the two kids. We do all the farming together.”
“Have you been to the city of Xenobia?”
“Of course, where I was born. Up there and left when I was twenty five.”
“Why? They didn’t like you there?”
“No, I didn’t like them. There was to much fighting and it was too wild. So I decided to learn how to farm and help out the villages out west. And that’s how I got here.”
“So you like us here?” I asked cheering up a bit.
“I guess so. It’s better than the buzzing life of crime and poverty in the city. It’s that or be a millionaire leeching the money out of the workers who buy your products or work for your business making pennies while you rake in the big bucks.”
I never thought of that. Politics wasn’t my subject, but I had the idea.
“Where do you live miss Huntress?” He asked me.
“Right now I’m living on the top of that hill, but I came from the village to the east. The Feline Xeno Village.”
“Ah, the feisty Felines. I’ve never been inside the village but I do send some grains regularly. Someone picks them up outside the village.” He explained.
He wandered off back into his house.
I left and went to go see my family, considering I was only dreaming and the walk there wouldn’t take too long.
I found the path that Celentine had told me about. It was small and spooky at night but I managed without any harm. It was faster to go to the village this way. It only took me a few minutes.
I came upon my house and started to open the door. My brothers were asleep curled up against our mother. Father was sleeping to the side.
So peaceful and quiet. I admired my family. The love is so tight. Even more with me gone. It’s only been a week. I still love them and by the look of how close they are it seemed it was hard for them with me leaving.
I sat down and cuddled up next to my siblings as they made room for me and I fell asleep until Celentine called and I woke up.
Back at the top of the hill. The smell of smoke coming through my nostrils. Birds waking and chattering away. The sunlight breaking over the horizon and onto my closed eyes.
I opened my eyes and got onto my feet.
“Are you ready?” She asked.
“I guess so.” I was still trying to get my bearings. Waking up on the top of a hill out in the wilderness is a beautiful feeling. I soaked in the morning horizon’s gleam. The sun coming up over the jungle trees to the east. It’s beautiful.
I looked at myself. I really am Dawn. The colors match perfectly.
We packed up and took the smoked boar off of the fire.
“It should be cool now, the fire’s been out for a while. Try some.”
I took a piece. It tasted great, but I was still hungry. Celentine suggested saving it for a snack on our journey today.
My stomach rumbled and I forgot we hadn’t eaten any official breakfast so I threw some uncooked boar meat in a pan and set it over the coals, stoking it to cook the meat. It started to sizzle and I watched it, taking a step back as the hot pops of oil sizzled and hit my face.
I was hoping there would be some vegetables, it’s good having meat with potatoes or rice. I asked Celentine and she went into the forest to look for something edible. She said something about a root or stalk of some plants as she left.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I kept watching the meat sizzle as I took it off the fire to cool. I heard someone walking up the hill, it was the farmer I met.
“Miss Huntress.” He called up the side of the hill.
I ran down to greet him. He was holding a bag of something. “I brought you something.”
He tossed me the bag and I opened it. “Is this rice?”
“It is. And I brought a bottle of water if you wanted to cook it up now.”
“Thanks so much. I was just thinking about having a nice meal of boar, this rice should add to it perfectly.”
I offered him to take some once it was cooked and he sat down on the ground with me as he was chewing on a piece of the dried meat.
“I caught it myself and killed it. Celentine cut it up and now we have some nice meat for the next few days.”
He was very interested. “You mean you killed it all by yourself?” He was in awe. “How old are you miss?”
“Six months. But the last week feels like years already.” I had learned so much. Very curious I was, and still learning. I was ready to learn of the whole planet.
Celentine came back holding a fistful of stalks with the roots still attached. “I brought you some beans, Dawn. They’ll be very nutritious.” She looked at the man sitting next to me eating our dried meat. “And who is this?” She asked like any mother would when a stranger seems to have been invited to breakfast.
“He is the farmer that lives down there.” I pointed. “He brought us some rice. Since I had already started cooking it he told me how to cook it with the right amount of water. I used the same pan I cooked the meat in.”
Celentine seemed to be okay with it. “We don’t mind the company.” She said. “We’re headed off to see the seaside and meet the Pisces. It’s the first time she’s traveling and she seems to be liking it. It’s good preparation for her. She’s going to have to get used to living in the wild.” She winked at me.
It was true. I don’t mind living in the wild, it’s fun, adventurous.
The farmer said goodbye and we finished up our meal of meat, rice and raw beans.
Not luxurious but definitely good. It’s part of eating outdoors.
We packed up for the last time and put out the fire and left west, with the sun following closely behind us.
The sea was closer and it looked different in the morning light. I could see the sandy grey beaches and the blue-grey water, but silent and motionless. We were still so far away.
There wasn’t much forest to go through, we were at the edge of it already.
There rest of the journey was filled with hills, grassy after the forest thinned out; and houses, lots of them, all lining the beach as if looking out to sea.
I could see the town straight ahead of us. Not too many people outside. But I’m sure on a nice day like this, it would be quite a bustling scene by the time we would arrive.
We started down the first hill, it was steep and uncomfortable with all the baggage on our backs. By lunch time we had made it to the town at the beach. People were everywhere, all sorts of people, Felines, Canines, Equines, Reptilians, Bovine, it was such a sight. My whole six months of life I’ve been living with feline Xenos and now I’m seeing the rest of the population I hadn’t ever dreamed of. It’s a new feeling getting around to see real people.
Celentine was right when she said that the list goes on. More than I could count. Which wasn’t much as I hadn’t gotten to learning numbers. Yet between all the pure Xeno species there were mixes of all sorts in between. Some ugly and some unmistakably pretty.
There were stores run by Aves while Murid Xenos sold trinkets and useful items on the sidewalks. You couldn’t tell the difference between a business Aves or a impoverished one, or Murids that looked like they owned a million credits and one who couldn’t even sell water to a thirsty man. They all had their own looks.
The Pisces Xenos had set up tents and stands on the floor of the docks while they sat with their tails in the water and their human-ish heads popping out of the shallows.
There were lots of them, some pretty and some not. Various scars on a number of them, especially the male Pisces.
We arrived in town and started walking down the main street. Colorful houses that looked like they were built last century. Arcades, beach shops, scuba diving shops and schools. Pisces Xenos giving swimming lessons to kids as they splash around and pretended to drown in knee deep water.
Our first stop, through all the enjoyment, was the butcher. We gave him the rest of the boar meat. I told him I killed it.He was amazed. “You must be the new Huntress then.” He said, speaking a wide smile made for a child.
Celentine just smiled and cut me off before I said yes. “Just smile, Dawn, you don’t want everyone knowing.”
“Is it a secret?”
“Yes dear.” She replied.
“Then why do I know?”
“Alright, just don’t tell people. You can say we’re here on a vacation.” She said, hushing me up.
The butcher gave us some cash and we left, headed to the place Celentine promised.
“This will give us enough for couple days. Are you ready to try some of the freshest fish in all of Xenobia?”
“I’ve never eaten fish. Is it good?”
“You don’t have to ask,” she said, “we’ll try it right now.”
We kept walking down the street and soon enough we spotted a couple of Pisces Xenos on a dock. One was catching fish and throwing them up to the other one who was cutting them and laying them out to be rolled into rice and dried seaweed.
“Is that the fish we’ll eat?” I asked.
“It sure is.” She walked up towards the one sitting on the dock, “How much for two rolls?”
“20 credits miss.”
It’s was delicious, the raw fish and rice with the salty taste of the seaweed, I hadn’t imagined anything like this. It was good.
Once we finished eating, Celentine took me an open part of the beach and said, “If you want to swim, you can, but you might not like the water.”
I ran in, maybe a bit too fast. I was shivering the moment the water got up to my chest. Very cold water. I ran out as fast as I ran in and Celentine started laughing. “If you stay in the water you don’t feel so cold.”
“I don’t know if I want to do that again.”
“That’s fine, we can come back when it’s a bit warmer.”
“Can I take swimming lessons?” I asked.
“If you want to. But I can teach you too.”
So we went back to the water. She told me to put a toe in, then a bit more and a bit more. It was finally up to my chest again. This time not so dramatically cold. “Now lean forward and kick with your feet while swiping out sideways with your arms.”
I did, I was swimming!
“You’re a natural.” She complemented. “It’s not everyday you see a Feline Xeno swimming.”
I finished up as it was starting to get dark, we went to one of the hotels, turning on the heater to warm up after the fresh cold waters of the sea.
“Tomorrow, we’ll learn to catch fish,” Celentine said. “But you don’t have to get in the water so you won’t freeze the rest of the day.”
“That sounds fun.” I said getting excited, “Can we eat them too?”
“Of course. You don’t have to pay for the work you do. The animals are our natural food. The only payment is your own work.”
I finally warmed up somewhat after I dried out. I crawled into bed. Celentine was chewing on a piece of the Boar jerky before sleep.
I thought of all the new faces I saw that day, the new Xenos and personalities. Nothing I had expected life to be.
I rested my head, curled up and started drifting away.
Someone started calling me from outside. It was coming from the window. “Huntress?” a juvenile high pitch voice called, sounding like another child, “Was she here? I heard she had come to the sea. You saw her swimming right?”
The voice must be talking to someone else. I thought.
I walked over the the window. Nobody was there.
“Huntress? Dawn? That was her name right?”
The surf was just outside my window, water five hundred feet away. Maybe they were in the water?
I walked outside and made it closer to the beach.
“Dawn?” The voices called, I thought it was Celentine this time. No. The lights were all off in our room still.
“Dawn?” The voices came from the sea.
I walked nearer. There was some motion just discernible above the water.
“That’s her! Huntress! Come, come.”
I walked closer. It’s was a small person, about my size, like an elf. An elf?
“Who are you?” I asked
“We are the Naiads. I am Jaicad and this is Briad. We are the protectors of the sea.” He stood tall, still in the water, looking proud.
“You were looking for me?” I asked.
“Yes, you were here. We heard that you were coming so we prepared it for you.”
“Prepared what?”
“The fountain.” Jaicad said like is was so obvious, “We’ve been waiting to show you.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“In the middle of the ocean.”
“Very deep.”
“Far beneath the surface.”
“In a cave.”
“Quite big.”
“It holds the magic of the sea. Ares said you might want it.”
“Ares? You know her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, not really.”
“It was a message passed down to us.”
“She said you’d probably want it.”
“And how am I supposed to get it if it’s at the very bottom of the ocean?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take you there.”
“But I can’t swim. Not that well.” I clawed at the sand with my foot. “Well, I only swam once. Celentine said I did good.”
Jaicad shrugged. “You did fine,” he said as he grabbed me and pulled me in. His hand wetting my newly dried fur. He pulled me into the water. The ocean brine nearly went into my lungs as I gasped in surprise, it was colder than the middle of the day. Much colder.
We didn’t go under yet. He pulled me off the shore fast and we were in the middle of the ocean in matter of a few minutes. The beach so far away, I couldn’t see it at all.
“See,” he said, “you can swim.”
I looked around while treading water. It was hard even keeping my nose above water. Necessity kept me afloat.
The other one came back from under the water. “This is the right place.” He said.
Jaicad now tried pulling me under. But I twisted away.
“What do you think you’re doing! I can’t breathe under water.”
“Oh,” he laughed. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll make you.”
I gasped in fear as he pulled me down again, scaring me to death, but I held my breath for dear life, trying not to cough.
We went down, passing layer and layer of the ocean. Currents and crosscurrents pushing us back and forth.
Looking down I caught the full force of water going to my eyes. Looking up I saw the moonlight disappearing quickly.
It’s was fully dark. The two kept talking at some points, directing us as we go. Funny that I could still hear them underwater. I thought the sound distorts under water, yet I could only hear them.
After a minute. I spotted a light. It shone at the very depths of the ocean. I started to see walls and canyons of rock as we flew by, still sinking fast.
We made it. Still there was no air and I had been holding my breath for nearly three minutes. I started floating up as soon as we stopped at the bottom. My ears rang and I felt oddly compressed.
Staring at a lamppost conveniently placed at the very deepest part of the ocean, Jaicad started consulting his brother. “The lamppost indicates to turn left.”
“No it means that we should find the other one and meet in the middle.”
“Did you write it down?”
“No I remembered it.”
“But I don’t see another lamppost. There’s no lights anywhere else than here.”
“There was one, I remember it when the last one came by.”
“That was years ago.”
“That’s what I mean. The light must have gone out.”
“Yes the magical lamppost under the sea at the near deepest point of the ocean just went out.” He replied sarcastically.
I was running out of breath. Five minutes so far. I started waving and pointing at the watch I didn’t have on my wrist, then my lungs, my mouth.
“You need to eat?” They started guessing. “Hungry miss?”
“Shirt?”
“Breath?”
They were playing charades and I’m about to die!
“Shirt is constricting?”
“Maybe she’s running out of breath?” They started laughing. “No, no don’t worry, once we get there you don’t need to breathe. I don’t want to listen to your worries right now. I’m thinking of how find the fountain.”
They went back to consulting each other. Somehow I hadn’t blacked out. There was no way of getting back to the surface. The decompression would kill me. I guess I’ll have to find the fountain. The fountain of what? The Fountain of Youth? Fountain of Air?
“Well, you were the last one to enter so why don’t you remember how to get inside?” They continued bickering.
“I do remember. We just have to find the other light. Then we meet in the middle to find the opening.”
“Dawn? Do you see another light?”
I couldn’t. Not that I’d be able to answer. My lungs had been burning and I’m surprised at myself that I can still see straight.
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
“The light flickered over there.”
“Then why don’t you head over there and find out if it’s really there. Not just a lantern fish or something else creepy down here.”
One left and the other was hanging onto my arm keeping me from rising to the surface. Maybe a good thing as he explained.
“You know if you go up too fast you mammals will suffer and die. I don’t know the scientific word for it but you just build up a lot of gas in the veins and muscles which cause strokes or heart attacks. Really unpleasant.” He was talking and telling me about this as I burned for air, casually insinuating that my life is about to end. “But fortunately for us, and the fishes, we have air sacs. So we just rise and fall as much as we want, but we do have to be careful sometimes. It still happens to us, terrible bloating. I almost feel sorry for you.”
The other one came back. “See I told you it was a lamppost. It just happened to burn out.”
“So where’s the middle? Did you find the middle yet? Poor little Dawn is running out of oxygen. I can only give her so much while holding onto her arm like this.”
He took us to the middle point. There was a hole in the center of the sea floor. Seaweed and dead fish littering the edges and from what I saw it was blocked with scum.
The rest I couldn’t tell you for being under the sea for so long I started to black out. Fifteen minutes of no oxygen will do that to any person long before.
———
The next thing I knew I was on land. Or something. It was a cave, a huge cathedral sized cave with no visible entrances. Water surrounded the little island I was sitting on.
I awoke and started coughing, spewing out water. The air was fresh, odd that the air under the sea in an old cave is fresher than the air I’m used to.
About twenty feet away sat the fountain, big and plain. It looked like a large bird bath, triple tiered and a trickle of water coming up from the middle. I walked up to it. The curiosity carrying my feet towards it. The first tier was only two feet off the ground but ten feet across.
I looked into it. The water was clear and sparkling like it was slightly… carbonated? I took a sip out of instinct. The left over salt water in my chest expelled. The rest of the water started coming out of my cells. Now I really burned, I started sweating it all out.
No water was left in my body. I felt like a prune.
Last minute I was drowning and now my body is spewing out water faster than I can jump.
I seemed to be choking and now looking back at my two new companions who came up out of the water to see how I was doing. “Keep drinking, you have to change it out with the good stuff from the fountain. We’ve done it before. Don’t worry.”
I wasn’t worrying I just dying, shriveling up like a prune. But I drank and drank. The next two sips felt worse until it started to permeate into my stomach and nasal cavities and down through the rest of my body. I drank more and more. It must have been gallons already, but how much did I just loose? Am I just a shriveled up piece of meat now?
I suddenly felt better. I finished the whole shallow pool of water in the fountain. Faster than the slow trickle could spit it out. But I was satisfied.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we can go meet the Pisces king. He wanted to meet you.”
“Ares and Xeres were always on good terms with the Pisces, sacrificed to each each other, traded often, went to parties, they always kept each other busy in some form of work or treaty.”
“And where is that?”
“The second deepest point of the sea.”
“Third.” He commented back again, “we were just at the second.”
They jumped into the water and started swimming away. “Wait for me.” I yelled. I walked over to the water and put one toe in, just as Celentine taught me.
I didn’t feel the water. I walked in going down the sharp decline. I still didn’t feel it.
“Just jump in!” They yelled.
I did, I just heard the water closing in around me. But still not a feeling of moisture. I tried to breathe but it seemed unnecessary, I didn’t choke but just spit the water back out. Interesting.
I swam and started kicking and paddling. It wasn’t like a normal day at the beach.
First we had to duck down and find the hidden entrance from which we came. It was easier for the other two. I had blacked out on the way here.
I asked, “How do you swim so fast?”
“We are the creature of the sea. We’ve been here for eons taking care of those who care to find us.”
“He means magic.” The other one said. “We’re not bound by physics. So when we kick our hands and feet, it’s more of a show than anything else.” “We don’t really have to use our flippers at all.”
“I guess I’ll have to get used to swimming somehow.”
“You learn. Eventually.”
I started paddling again, getting behind the two Naiads and finding their slipstream to carry me along.
The Pisces palace wasn’t too far away luckily. Plus they had open air rooms where one could breath. It was nice just to get the space of air. Being under the water for so long makes one slightly claustrophobic. So even though I didn’t need it, I still went up to catch my breath.
We swam up to the intimidating palace. The guards stopped us, “Who are you and what is your business.”
One of the Naiads announced, “We are the Naiads of the sea children of Poseidon.”
“And guest,” the other one added. “We are here to meet with the King of Pisces as previously arranged.”
“I didn’t hear of this.” He muttered. “Arranged by who?”
“By Poseidon obviously, and Ares, the Feline Goddess. I guess he didn’t tell you.”
He checked his list. “You’re not in the list.”
“And this is the Huntress, representative of the Feline Xenos and direct descendant to Ares herself.” Jaicad said, making a motion as if stamping his foot, but underwater.
“I still have no clue what you’re talking about. If you would like to meet with the king I can put your request down and schedule—.” Briad put his hand over the guards face and he instantly went to sleep, dropped everything and sank down to the ocean floor.
“You could have just done that in the first place you know.”
“It’s just manners. At least when he wakes up he’ll know who we are and won’t restrict us from coming in here again. Bloody idiot.”
We slipped inside and found the throne room. The place was huge, the biggest palace I’ve ever seen, and the only. What we stood inside was a large rectangular chapel with a giant golden throne at the end. Glass baubles hanging off of it and floating upwards tethered by small golden chains on the floors.
The Pisces King was tall, or long. From his head to tail was at least twenty feet, and a few feet wider than the other Pisces I’ve seen.
He was the only one to carry a trident. Otherwise tridents were restricted to their Gods. The rest carried spears as they guarded their palace and surrounding underwater village.
The Pisces King saw me and swam down off of his throne. “You must be the new Huntress.” He examined me up and down. “Very new.” Seeing a two and a half foot tall Feline.
“Hello Pisces King. Glad to meet you. I am Dawn, the new Huntress.”
“And I see you’ve visited the fountain with the help of our brethren, the Naiads. Wonderful crew they are.” His voice was deep and booming with the intones of waves sweeping back and forth as the water distorted his voice.
“I’m glad Ares and our Ancestor Poseidon met to ensure the peacefulness between us. You are welcome to come and go here. If you need anything from the sea ask me and any of my loyal servants will gladly help. You will be known far and wide in the sea. And I hope your assistance will benefit the greater part of the Kingdom of Pisces.”
I didn’t have much to say, I was more in awe with all the gold and pearl decorations. The fixtures above my head shining brightly.
But I did have one question. “What is the Fountain? Yes, I was there, but how can I swim and breathe under water now?”
“The fountain is a special fountain, a gift from the combined magic of Ares and Poseidon, with help from Winston the Wizard of course. It was their gift to you and just handful of others before you as a security of your success.”
“Success in what?”
“That is up to you my darling.”
He kept looking at me as I thought about it, like a father looking at his newly born daughter.
My thinking came to fruition: it is up to me then. I can do that? I guess I can make my life happen the way I want, but for now I’m just being told what to do. I’m still learning. I’ll have to make my own decisions at some point.
“Goodnight my darling. And sweet dreams.” He said turning back to his throne.
We left the throne room and went back down the winding halls.
I turned around and left, the two Naiads following, heading back to the beach from which I came.
The sun hadn’t made it to the horizon yet but the sunlight was showing on the distant night sky.
I sat in the surf watching the sunrise. My favorite, it gives me a sense of pride, loving the sunrise, dawn.
I was watching the moon while the sun was rising. The moon split into two and became the elderly spectacles of Celentine.She called me as I was admiring the majestic rays break the barrier of night and day.
I looked up and found Celentine resting a hand on my shoulder to wake me up.
“Shall we go get breakfast?” she asked. “They have great breakfast here. You don’t have to do any cooking on vacation.”
Quickly, I got up and brushed myself, neatening the fur along my arms and chest.
We walked outside, the morning light shining in our faces as we walked down the street.
I was amazed how many people wake up so early. Just to set up their carts, some tourists investigating the tide pools, but only half as busy as the middle of the day, yet they were all here before the rest.
We found a nice little restaurant with a sign that read Pisces Pie: Open all day, everyday. Serving Xeno and Man. Celentine ordered French toast, “Have to try something you can’t get in the village.” I agreed and ordered a stack of pancakes with eggs and bacon. We both walked out very well fed. Neither of us were accustomed to so so much bread and felt like taking it slow today.
We went out to the beach and started walking down the shore to the headland. I could see the fishermen coming in with their daily take from the ocean. Even the Pisces Xenos were brining in nets full of fish and were advertising the freshest fish in town as the fish still swam in their nets.
We walked and walked. The end of the beach was coming closer. There was a cliff which elevated a hundred feet to end the distance of our walk. A white lighthouse stood atop adding another hundred feet to the height.
“Look Celentine, what is that?” There was some red stone moving around with legs.
“That’s a crab, dear.”
There were tons of them.
Black water-soaked rocks stood up against the cliff holding pools of sea life. Sea urchins, anemones, oysters and barnacles, tiny fish and even more crabs half the size of my paw to the size of my head. What life there is at the far end of the beach!
We took our time watching the various sea life until the tide creeped up on us.
Celentine was surprising knowledgeable about everything in the ocean for a woman of the Jungle. She told me all about crabs and tide pools on our way back into town. We kept walking and talking while I watched the fishermen coming back in.
It’s was lunch and Celentine had promised to teach me how to catch fish by hand, and so we did.
There was a dock which went way out and was close enough to the water. She had bought a loaf of bread, explaining that it was to help catch the fish and when you’ve got enough fish we can feed the seagulls.
I noticed some people had poles, but there was a lot of places that said no fishing with a sign of a circle and cross around a man fishing.
Pisces below
Celentine told me we didn’t need to use a pole, we can hold onto the fish better than most once we have them in our grasp.
We sat there four a few hours pawing at the water and tossing the bread crumbs in. I was delighted seeing all the different types of fish.
Once there was one large enough, Celentine slunk down and with a lightning fast jab caught the fish in her paws. She set it on the dock and beat it in the head a few times to knock it out.
Now it was my turn. I waited another couple of minutes for a big one to come up and I reacted. Claws out. Boy was it heavy. It started flipping back and forth before I could get it out of the water and it swam away.
“Throw some more crumbs out and see if it comes back. And make sure it doesn’t see you as it sticks it head up, get it right before it turns away.”
It came back, the same one with my claw marks on the side. I could see it was being hesitant.
I waited and threw some more crumbs. What a big one. It snatched the bread off the top of the water and darted back down. But I was faster. This time I didn’t let go, I was sliding off the dock, Celentine grabbed my feet to pull me back up.
The fish was flopping around on the dock. I punched it a few times in the head and it stopped moving.
I caught it! The biggest fish I had ever seen. Even bigger than Celentine’s.
“Now we can go to eat,” Celentine said. “Let’s go to land and start a fire.”
I started the fire myself. Quite a drag trying to get driftwood to start. Finally there was something going. So we opened one of the fish and threw it on top to sizzle.
Celentine pulled out some lemons and herbs that she had packed and added that to the top.
Finally a nice lunch of bread and fish. Quite tasty. I complemented and thanked Celentine. Some day I’ll have to learn to live by myself and even teach the next Huntress.
The rest of the day we spent looking through shops and collecting souvenirs with our money from selling the leftover fish.
We didn’t need any money living in the village up on the mountain. We had everything we needed. That was part of what being a traditional Xeno Feline is. The ones living in the city don’t respect their own culture, trying to live a life just to fit into society.
We headed back to the house we were staying in and got ready to sleep. It was a long day, so many carbs and so much sun I wasn’t used to the bright open sunlight all day. Not many trees to give you shade as it is in the jungle. But I loved it. It was an experience to enjoy time and again.
I said good night to Celentine and found my bed. I put my head on the pillow and tried to remember the names of the sea life I found in the tide pools but someone called me again. It wasn’t the Naiads. Someone softer more delicate with the accent more like Celentine’s, but calmer still.
I went outside listening to Celentine’s breathing as I passed her door.
“Dawn?” I was on my way out, but who is it? Someone who knows my name. I slid out the door as quietly as possible. Nobody was there. “Dawn?” I walked out to the beach and sat down in the moonlight looking at the bright white light illuminate the sand and surf.
“Dawn, it’s so good to see you again. You’ve grown since I last saw you, even though it was only last week.”
“Who are you?” The voice wasn’t coming from anywhere, it was just there.
A figure appeared walking out of the ocean, a Feline figure wearing a thin dress flowing in the wind was walking slowly towards me. I recognized the face only when she sat down in front of me in the sand, smiling. The face of a statue, and the statue of a Goddess.
“Ares?”
“Hello Dawn. You’ve come so far, you’re so smart. Just like I was when I first stepped on this land, just a child, but a fast learner.” She kept smiling. “You are the one to halt the evil you see around you.”
“I don’t see any evil.”
“Not with those eyes. I will teach you today and teach you to look. What you do is important for us, for your village and family and even the Xenos, all of them.”
“The whole planet and all of them? Even the Canines and Bovines and Ursines?”
“Yes. The whole planet.”
Her face darkened and her smile went low. “Dawn,” she said with all the care in the world, “let me tell you a story.”