>On a rock outcrop, somewhere in the Kingdom of the Sea_
Cuttlefish felt like he was figuratively bonking his head against a rock.
He was also literally bonking his head against a rock, but that was only tangentially correlated.
He felt stuck. Enclave life was dull and dreary for the sprouting dragonet, but that was nothing new. That had always been the case, for as long as he’d lived here. (Indeed, his entire life.)
Living in an undersea rock outcrop far removed from the warm currents of the Kingdom of the Sea by vast dark waters was boring. That was a reality he’d grown used to. A feature of life. He and his friends had always managed to content themselves on mundane adventures and bouts of play. Mako always made sure to have them study scrolls and complete homework assignments, even when doing so served no practical purpose for them all the way out here. What use did any of them have for learning scrolls, when no-one uses writing or reading on a regular basis?
That had always been the same. But something was different, now. Cuttlefish had this feeling that he had something new to do.
A subtle, nagging feeling that he nary noticed; much less put a claw on. He had this faint inclination, like a muted scent originated from afar; something important was happening. Or perhaps it was supposed to be happening? Perhaps it will come to happen? He just couldn’t place it.
Cuttlefish listlessly lifted his forehead off the rock he had bonked it against with a low snort. The same dry rock in the middle of the ocean he had visited but a few times before. It was difficult to manage getting out here on his own, given his friends Oyster and Clam were both rather apt at sniffing him out. The two together always made attempts at concentration impossible. They were always together.
Today though, he had managed to make his way out to this outcrop, a small rock not much bigger than he was that barely poked above the waterline; distanced by a good swim away from the enclave, on his own. Clam and Oyster were predisposed with tutor Mako, thus not able to follow him. He was partially sitting on the rock, but most of his body was floating in the sea. Only his shoulders, forelegs and neck out of the water.
Despite himself, now that he’d been out here on his own for a decent while; he found himself somewhat wishing they were here anyway.
It was quiet out here. Endless blues of sky and sea- disturbed only by lively whisk of tired breeze, and lazy roll of restless sea.
Within such tranquil milieu; Cuttlefish could listen plainly to his thoughts running into the proverbial sandbar.
The blue-green SeaWing dragonet glared at the blank scroll before him. The vacant parchment glared back. Mocking him for his inability to put cohesive thoughts to writing.
Cuttlefish huffed. WELL, maybe if I didn’t just have this one scroll and had some scrap paper, I could practice and figure out what it is I want to write without messing up my only scroll, I would have written more stuff!
The blank document did not relent upon Cuttlefish’s incredibly super reasonable objections.
Well, written any stuff, I guess.
Cuttlefish sighed, reaching up and rubbing his snout with a webbed talon. This whole personal project of his wasn’t going anywhere. He was still trying to make his own informative scroll regarding scavengers. Specifically, regarding the massive water-borne constructs they had encountered so long ago.
It wasn’t actually very long ago. Cuttlefish knew, but it certainly felt like it. Happening across those scavengers and their enormous metallic hulks had been, without a doubt, the most interesting thing he could remember occurring to him and his friends.
It was for this reason, Cuttlefish thought, that he could not stop thinking about them. Even when he would have much rather wished to be concentrating on something more prevalent or more… real in his life, his errant thoughts still circled back to those scavengers.
What was going on with them? What were they doing? Why were they out doing it?
Cuttlefish thought that strange nagging sensation that something demanding attention was happening was simply his dragon mind trying to puzzle out those strange ‘boats.’ He hoped he could make it go away by writing out an informative pamphlet-thing on them, because the ginormous things seemed like they were probably important enough to warrant a scroll written on them. Even a scroll written by some random dragon like him from some nowhere enclave.
The problem was, in order to write an information scroll, it kind of seemed that one needed to know a fair bit about what he was writing about. Cuttlefish, for all practical purposes, knew next to nothing about those boat-things.
He knew from memory roughly what they looked like. He knew that there were a lot of them. He knew they could move on their own, and he knew they could summon explosions onto dragons flying in the air. He also knew that, in some way, they were connected to scavengers.
He knew scavengers were on them. He knew scavengers were in them. He thought scavengers most likely built them; since he knew those things had to have been built. Scavengers were known to build things, and he knew dragons had no way to build anything like those floating metal ‘boats.’
That was about the extent of his knowledge on those things. Other than the scavengers on the underwater-boat-thing being very keen to chat with one another, and could easily respond to simple instructions from him.
Cuttlefish tapped a claw on the craggy rock he was half-resting on. It took a lot more than that to write a worthwhile information scroll. More than that, he didn’t really have. That was why he was still yet to actually put anything to writing.
Perhaps instead of just focusing on the boat-things, I should broaden the surf to be about what scavengers are in general known to build?
That seemed a pretty good idea to Cuttlefish. Sure, there were probably already a plethora of scrolls detailing what scavengers already build in the forms of the little dens they live in. Dragons surely already knew plenty about what those dens are like, since they’ve been being made for so long.
Cuttlefish figured he wouldn’t be adding much worth to the collection if he just made another scroll talking about scavenger dens, but connecting the dens to the big boat-things would give him more to write about.
Maybe even thinking about the boat-things in relation to existing scavenger dens while writing would help him answer some questions as to their nature that he just couldn’t figure out.
The problem was, he didn’t know a whole lot about regular scavenger dens, either. The definitive scavenger guide scroll, that he had been trying to use this whole time, only said about scavenger dens that they were made of tree wood and ‘other natural materials’ - in a way that made them similar to beavers.
Cuttlefish didn’t actually know what ‘beavers’ were, but he assumed it was another kind of land creature. He asked Mako about them once, she only said they were little brown furry things that pile up sticks and block up rivers.
He wondered if they were connected to scavengers. It was possible, given “little brown not-so-furry things that pile up sticks and hide from dragons” was pretty close to how the other dragons he talked to always referred to scavengers.
Cuttlefish remembered that he in fact had seen a scavenger den for himself, if from a distance and rather briefly. When he, his friends, and Mako had gone off to investigate where the pod of artificial floating constructs had gone off to, they had come into sight of the ‘large seaside scavenger den’ that Grouper had mentioned being there. His attention had kind of been distracted by the swarm of massive metal things on the waters in-between them and the den, but he could remember seeing this big almost castle-looking structure surrounded by what looked like… huts, maybe? They looked like buildings.
Cuttlefish reached up and scratched one of his small horns with a claw, clicking his teeth together. He wouldn’t say he remembered the scavenger den super well, but what he was pretty sure he saw didn’t look a whole lot like a pile of sticks.
Cuttlefish sighed, annoyed. At this rate, he was just going to keep thinking himself in circles and never actually get to writing anything. Maybe he should go asking around some other adults at the enclave what they knew about scavenger dens. He wasn’t super sure they would know any more than he did at the time, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
As he slowly picked his stuff back up off the rock and prepared to leave, Cuttlefish couldn’t help but think about how he sometimes wished he would just drop this whole thing with the scavengers. It would just be easier, and it wasn't as though any other dragons he knew much cared, either. He was the odd one out. Maybe if his life was any less dull and boring all the time; he might would just try to move on. But those scavengers had been one of the most interesting things to ever happen to him, (certainly the most ‘interesting’ thing that didn’t involve taking a family member away) and he couldn’t shake that subtle, nagging sensation that something was out-of-place with them.
***
>At a SeaWing enclave, on the outskirts of the Kingdom of The Sea_
[“Grouper? Can I ask you a question?”] Cuttlefish flashed brightly in an attempt to get the old dragon’s attention.
It was very dim. As it always was underwater, but the latter parts of the day always made things harder to make out. SeaWings were able to see very well in the dark, but colors quickly became impossible to tell apart when the light grew faint. Everything just ended up looking various shades of gray after a certain point, and distances harder to gauge.
It was for this reason that Cuttlefish had a surprisingly difficult time locating the old blue SeaWing, as his faded scales almost exactly matched the surrounding endless blue void. Making him rather sneaky despite his large size. That he was never in a hurry to get anywhere also didn’t help.
The big dragon looked towards Cuttlefish. [“Why, hello there, young dragonet. Something on your mind?”] He flashed in his slow manner, turning to face Cuttlefish.
The young SeaWing took a moment to collect his thoughts. [“Sorry to bother you, Grouper. Do you remember that scavenger den you pointed us to a while ago?”]
The dull blue elder SeaWing looked at Cuttlefish for a moment. [“The large seaside scavenger den? Yes. This isn’t in relation to that big pod of ‘sea monsters’ you and your friends came across? Did something else happen that I haven’t heard about?]
Cuttlefish signaled a negative as he paddled in place. [“No - no one’s gone over there since the thing with the smaller one that… showed up over our enclave. I just wanted to ask: since you knew that den was even there when it wasn’t on Mako’s map, do you know anything else about it, or about scavenger dens in particular?”]
Grouper looked at Cuttlefish for a moment. The SeaWing dragonet couldn’t tell if the elder was giving him an incredulous look, or just thinking the question over.
It seemed the latter, when Grouper lit his scales to answer him. [“Well… I’ll tell you the truth: It has been many times more than all your days yet that I have seen such dens for myself. Most SeaWings never see them at all. Count yourself as one of the few, young dragonet.”]
He continued [“...Scavenger dens… just aren’t something much worth bothering about. Unless collecting scavengers just happens to be your job, but that’s not a concern for dragons of our… stature. I suspect I wouldn’t be able to tell you much more than you already know about those dens. They are more or less the scavenger’s habitat, and they usually make them in places that make it easier to hide from predators.”]
Predators, like us.
Cuttlefish scrunched his frill, just a little. It was uncharacteristic of elder dragons to admit a lack of knowledge in anything. Then again, Grouper was always a rather strange character.
Still, Cuttlefish felt the need to point something out. [“But… the seaside scavenger den wasn’t hidden very well. It was kinda on a hill. Very easy to see.”]
The big SeaWing only raised his wide wings in a shrugging motion. [“Perhaps those scavengers are a little crazy.”]
Weren’t scavengers all supposed to be crazy? Cuttlefish wasn’t sure. He thought he remembered seeing that somewhere.
[“Do you know what they’re usually made of?”] The dragonet asked anyway.
[“I’m not sure.”] Grouper mused slowly. [“Mostly wood and dirt and things of that sort, I would assume. They aren’t terribly complicated creatures, mind you.”]
Cuttlefish remembered seeing what he was pretty sure was a stone structure at the natural scavenger den, so he pointed that out.
[“Perhaps an old dragon fort they infested, or something of the sort.”] Grouper shrugged his wings again. [“Once again; it has been many moons since I have seen any such dens for myself. I would not be the… best dragon to ask anyway, as far as knowledge regarding scavengers is concerned.”]
Cuttlefish internally sighed. It seemed no one he asked was.
[“Perhaps if you still wish to know more, you can raid Mako’s cave for any scrolls she might have. She might have found some new ones on scavengers, after her little trip to the Kingdom proper. I’d take care if I were you, though. She might not be happy to find you still… interested, lets say, on the topic of scavengers after what you dragonets did with that… thing. Make sure she isn’t there.”] The old dragon smiled slightly.
Cuttlefish ducked his head. [“Thanks, Grouper.”] He paddled in place there for a few moments, not super sure of what he was supposed to do next. [“Should I, uh, go do that? Right now?”]
[“If that is what you wish.”] Grouper flashed.
Cuttlefish ducked his head again and quickly turned around, propelling himself forward with a flick of his tail. He needed to go look through some scrolls, and probably go talk to a lot more SeaWings…
***
Cuttlefish ‘snorted’ an annoyed bubble as he took another look-over of some of the scrolls he surreptitiously borrowed from Mako’s cave. Aside from the “Scavengers: Everything you need to know!” scroll, Mako only had a few other short scrolls that mentioned scavengers in her cave. Cuttlefish remembered once seeing her complaining to herself about not being able to find anything, this could have had to do with it.
It had taken a while of waiting for Mako to vacate long enough for Cuttlefish to slip in and find the scrolls he had with him. Internally, he doubted Mako would actually mind him wanting to take some scrolls to read for himself. Short-tempered as she was; that wasn’t like her.
Even then, Cuttlefish couldn’t shake this weird feeling that there was something weird or out-of-place of what he was doing. Making him feel as though he had to be discreet about his actions, even though he really didn’t.
That is to say that Cuttlefish felt like he had put some stakes into the scrolls he had collected; which made him disappointed and annoyed when they didn’t really offer any further additional information on scavenger dens.
The scrolls, really barely more than pamphlets, were indeed about scavengers, at least. They described some useful and interesting things about scavengers.
Many of them didn’t seem to be originally written by SeaWings - because just like the “Scavengers: Everything you need to know!” scroll - they involved such things that only fire-breathing dragons would be interested in.
One such thing was ‘cooking,’ which several of those scrolls were about. Cuttlefish wasn’t sure what that was. Though from context it sounded something like where fire-breathers would set the scavengers’ bodies on fire to partially or all the way burn their meat. Obviously, SeaWings would not be able to do that.
What would that even… taste like? Setting meat on fire? Cuttlefish didn’t really even have any reference to what land animals tended to taste like, so he had no idea.
Several of the scrolls, rather intricately, described how to do that. One of the scrolls, which seemed more relevant to SeaWings, described in detail a way to cut a scavenger’s body open and apart in certain ways, and add other stuff like dried seaweed and things from other prey animals to it, to make a kind of ‘sashimi.’ Apparently that was rather a popular thing amongst royals in times past. To the point where one writer remarked that many contemporary dragons had thought that the entire scavenger supply in that area had been eaten.
The young SeaWing wasn’t really interested in that stuff. Though it was technically relevant as scavenger information, it had little to do with what he was actually trying to research.
It also seemed a little… mean?
Cuttlefish wasn’t sure. It would certainly be a rather cruel thing to do to another dragon. That was a given. But… scavengers were just prey, so he guessed it wouldn’t really matter in the end.
Nonetheless, Cuttlefish found he… he didn’t much like the idea of the bright-eyed scavengers he met on the boat-thing being set on fire. But perhaps he was the odd one out. Other dragons obviously didn’t mind; or else these scrolls wouldn’t exist.
Cuttlefish himself didn’t notice; but his wings drooped slightly.
Elaborate ways to prepare scavengers for being eaten aside, none of the new scrolls Mako found were of any help to him, unfortunately. He was really hoping they would have been, because he’d spent much of the day swimming around the enclave rock to ask any SeaWings he could find about what they knew of scavenger dens.
None of the other enclave dwellers had anything more to say than the scrolls regarding them.
“Scavenger dens? They’re just rodent holes. Why do you care?”
“Creepy things. Who knows what goes on within them? I don't want to. Makes me feel like I got crabs crawling all over.”
“Wait, the SkyWings haven't burned them all out, yet? Huh.”
“I don't know. Maybe that's where they hide the treasure they steal. Otherwise what’s the point in bothering?”
Nobody cares. Why do you?
Cuttlefish felt… strangely conflicted. On one talon, literally every dragon he spoke with and every scroll he read agreed with each other: Scavengers were just annoying, useless animals worth only the meat on their bodies, and the bother they served when trying to sneak into royal palaces. Likewise; their dens were just dirty holes and pathetic structures where they clumped together and hid from hunting dragons.
On the other talon, Cuttlefish saw one of these ‘dens’ for himself, if that was truly what it was. He didn't think what he saw looked like a den of sticks and holes. It looked like real buildings. Were they referring to the same scavenger dens?
On the third talon, he was the only one that seemed to think that scavengers were in any way worth bothering about. That posed (in his opinion) a rather serious question: Why?
Given that all dragons he asked and all scrolls read all concurred that scavengers were vermin and their dens were scoff-worthy hovels, and that they had all of course agreed on this fact of life for a very long time; it was far more likely that he - the lone differing opinion - was incorrect.
That seemed pretty sound reasoning. Cuttlefish knew as well as anyone how boring his life always was. Growing up on an underwater rock, looking at a dark blue abyss all the time, with only his two friends he’s lived with all his life to spend time with. He could have just latched onto the first different thing that he came across? Played up its significance?
Maybe he’d seen - or perhaps remembered - too much into the seaside scavenger den, because he wanted to?
But what about the bright-eyed scavengers he’d seen on the lone boat-thing? The ones that he could get to play a light-flashing game with him? That could say his own name back at him?
What about them? A voice within demanded. Scavengers are weird and do weird things. Is that suddenly unusual?
I guess not… Cuttlefish had heard and read plenty of times that scavengers and their often defied reasonable explanation. Them doing strange things would fit their description…
But… What about what the scavengers on the boat-things did? I don’t think anyone’s ever heard of scavengers using signals to communicate, flashing lights, or mimicking speech.
Exactly. Is being literally the only dragon who’s ever ‘heard’ of that not bothering you?
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It… it did kind of bother Cuttlefish a little. Cuttlefish knew things weren’t the same (in a bad way) after Father had been called away. He knew his Mother hadn’t been like she should; perhaps he wasn’t, either - despite his attempts to be otherwise.
Was he a little stir-crazy? Isolation and sameness weren't really things that bothered dragons. He’d heard of and read about dragons that lived on their own for decades and were perfectly happy with it. Even preferring it over company. But Cuttlefish also knew he was just a dragonet; maybe it was different for him?
A few tiny bubbles emerged from his snout and his lights strobed worriedly. What about the boat-things? Cuttlefish knew those were too fantastical and complicated to have just come about on their own. Grouper said that ‘boats’ were things that had to be built. Scavengers had to have built all those gigantic boat-things, right? Otherwise who did?
Cuttlefish covered his face with a wing and groaned internally. This was all so hard, so confusing. Something about it all just seemed wrong and out-of-place.
How Cuttlefish wished he could just move on and forget about all this confounding mess. It would just be easier. But he couldn’t shake this strange feeling that there was something important going on with all this.
And he wanted to know what that was.
Cuttlefish moved his light-green wing and stared at the scroll illustrating the ‘proper’ way to eat a scavenger for nobility. Carefully, piece-by-piece; to make it taste better.
The young SeaWing snorted another frustrated cluster of bubbles. These scrolls were hardly of any help. Neither were any of the other dragons at the enclave. If he wanted to get any semblance of an answer to these nagging feelings, he thought he’d have to take the matters into his own talons. Try to see it for himself.
That actually might have given him an idea.
A rather fish-brained, potentially very super dangerous idea; but an idea nonetheless.
***
>At a SeaWing enclave, on the outskirts of the Kingdom of the Sea_
[“Cuttlefish, that is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. And I hatched with Clam for a brother.”]
[“Yeah! Cuttlefish, don’t you remember what those monster-things could do to dragons? Don’t you remember what happened last time we went off to find one?”]
Evidently, his blue-colored friends didn’t think much of his ‘plan,’ if it could be called that.
[“We’re not going to get close to them this time.”] Cuttlefish countered. [“I just… want to see that seaside scavenger den for myself again. The boat-things might not even be there anymore! It’s not like we’ve heard anything of them!”]
Oyster rolled her eyes. [“We haven’t heard anything of them because no one’s gone over there. Because it’s dangerous.”]
[“You… just want to see the… scavenger den? Why?] Clam looked confused.
Cuttlefish turned towards the light-blue dragonet. [“Clam, you remember you thought the scavengers on that underwater-boat-thing were cool, right? You remember you said you thought they were funny, right? Don’t you want to see what they get up to in their habitat?”] Out of the two siblings; Clam had taken a somewhat ironic twist into being more interested in the boat-things after it was revealed that scavengers controlled them.
Clam paddled in a half-circle, glancing around uncomfortably. [“Well, yeah… but Cuttlefish, this is dangerous! You’re supposed to be the smart one of us!”]
Cuttlefish shook his head. It wasn’t like his friends that they’d both reject an idea for something to do. Usually one would, who would then be outvoted. He still wanted to try and win them over. [“Remember the last two times we got close to one of those things; it didn’t do anything to us? The scavengers didn’t attack us? Don’t you want to know why?”]
[“Not particularly.”] Oyster snorted a bubble. [“I can live with not knowing what does or doesn't trigger a scavenger attack. Especially after what they did to those NightWings.”]
Cuttlefish’s snout fell. His friends made sense. What they were saying seemed the smart, logical position to take. Why potentially risk your life on an unknown potential - for scavengers you’ve seen be aggressive - to attack you?
At the same time: The only times they had actually interacted with the boat-scavengers, they’d either been left alone or had, in Cuttlefish’s opinion, a rather fun interaction.
Fun was almost a rare treasure to dragonets that lived as they did. Only really having Clam’s play-fights, and Mako’s work assignments. But this wasn’t about doing something that was fun.
[“Alright, fine. We won’t try to go see that scavenger den. I’ll let it go.”] He flashed.
Cuttlefish didn’t want to do this just because it was interesting (though that it was a break in the usual monotony of life was certainly a positive). Something about all this was starting to feel wrong, somehow. Weird. Off-putting. He wanted to know why.
Even if that meant going off to go see the den by himself, which scared him a little, to be honest. He’d always been with Clam and Oyster when they were doing things. He’d been with them the last times they’d been confronted by the hulking boat-things.
But if he had to sneak off and go alone, then go it alone he shall.
***
>Somewhere in the Kingdom of the Sea_
Cuttlefish wondered, not for the first time, that he had quite possibly made a mistake.
Where exactly that mistake had occurred - whether in a wrong turn he made, a wrong direction he swam off in, or perhaps just in deciding to swim off in the first place - was what he was wondering.
He drifted to a slow stop, paddling in place. He really wished there were any undersea currents around this part of the ocean, but he wasn’t aware of any. That meant he’d have to swim the entire distance, from his enclave to where he thought the scavenger den was, completely on his own strength.
SeaWings were very strong swimmers, but this kind of long-endurance swim made his muscles burn and ache. His wings felt like they were dragging through the thick blue, slowing him down and making forward movement more difficult.
To make matters worse: Cuttlefish wasn't even sure he was going in the right way this whole time. Good with directions as he usually was; it had been a rather long while since they had traveled to the seaside den, and they had only done so once.
The young SeaWing looked around, a futile action. All that could be seen was the never-yielding expanse he’d been looking at his whole life. Pitched an eerie black by the night sky above.
A part of Cuttlefish always hated the prospect of swimming about in the empty seas at night. He had this tiny inclination that there was something deeply terrifying about staring into the endless dark. An inclination that he was pretty sure he did not share in common with the other enclave dwellers; as none of the other SeaWings seemed particularly bothered by it.
They all lived in the sea, after all. How unfortunate a happenstance; to be a SeaWing and be afraid of the sea.
Not to say that Cuttlefish was scared - no, nothing of the sort. That creeping sensation going up his frill was just his nerves acting up because he’d snuck off under cover of darkness. He was certain.
He’d never really done anything like this. Despite being able to see in the dark; SeaWings, or at least ones he knew, always swam around and did things within daylight hours. Sleeping when the moons emerged. Maybe many of them also secretly found the suffocating blackness of nighttime deepwaters terrifying. Maybe it was just easier to do things when there was at least a little sunlight to go by. ‘Seeing in the dark’ was only so helpful when there were things to be seen in the first place, after all.
Cuttlefish idly wondered if it was similar for dragons that lived in the Kingdom of the Sea proper, or around one of the palaces. Water over there was shallower and warmer. He’d heard there were lots of reefs and things that SeaWings lived around. With all those shapes and colors, surely things were less dull? He could imagine it being much brighter, with all the dragons around flashing their lights.
That would definitely be better than this darkness…
The little SeaWing anxiously lit up his glowing scales, hoping that it would help him see a little more. The deep wilds smugly devoured his lone paltry glow, revealing nothing of the secrets it held for the likes of him.
Cuttlefish tried to squash down a shiver, and hastily started swimming again, keeping a brisk pace. Still not sure if he was going in the correct direction, he rather wanted to just be moving again.
Stop being scared, Cuttlefish. You’re a dragon, a SeaWing! Things are meant to be afraid of you! This is your environment! The ocean!
…
I’ll be able to see something big coming before it reaches me, right?
It was at that point that he became aware of a strange vibrating rumble, softly shaking the water around him.
As if turned to a carven statue, Cuttlefish abruptly seized up and floated freely in the water for a few seconds; frozen mid-stroke.
He decidedly did not cry out; that bubble cloud had absolutely nothing to do with him. He’d never met it before in his life. He did, however, flounder around in a few panicked circles, nearly dropping the blank scroll and ink pot he had with him. Loosely tied to him with an old wound seaweed strap he definitely borrowed.
It was a few agonizingly long moments of terror before Cuttlefish realized that subtle rumble wasn’t coming from behind him - whichever direction that was at this point. Rather, it actually seemed to be coming from… closer to the direction he had been going?
There was also something oddly familiar about the vibrating rumble. It shook the water around his wings in a way he felt as though he’d known it from before. Didn’t the boat-things do something similar in the water? He thought he remembered something like that…
Cuttlefish frantically shook his head out, trying to clear the residual panic. For the first time, he was somewhat glad he was out here alone. Nobody saw that.
The little SeaWing paddled in place for a moment, trying to gauge the subtle rumble. He couldn’t really hear it in the sense of hearing a noise, it was more like he rather felt it. It felt sort of like a sound, which was weird. It felt kind of like a splash from a SeaWing performing a water landing above you, but less. And more steady.
Like a distant whale call, he felt it reverberate across his entire body. It pressed his ears and made him feel a little weird. But where was it coming from?
After a few minutes of thinking, he had an idea on how to potentially find out. He had no idea where the idea came from; or even how by the tides it was supposed to work.
Slowly stretching his wings out to their maximum extension, Cuttlefish held as still as he could and tried to feel the rumbling vibrations shake his wings. He slowly paddled in a half-circle to feel it from another angle.
Then, he retracted his wings and swam to a different spot, a talonful of tail-lengths from his first spot. Again extending them, feeling the vibrations across his membranes.
He repeated the process several more times, continuing until he thought he may have had a rough idea as to where the water vibrations were coming from. It was a path at least similar to the one he had been following, but he had been off. Though perhaps through what was the strangest method he’d ever imagined; he thought he found a way to correct his course.
Cuttlefish gathered his courage, and determinedly set off to what was probably the dangerous boat-things that had started all this mess.
***
>In the waters nearby Safe Harbor_
Cuttlefish had long lost track of how long he’d been swimming for. He was pretty sure it was a while, though.
The waters around him were still cast in darkness wrought from the night skies above. Although he could just see a dim flare of orange refracting off the ocean’s surface. Dawn would break soon. Soon too, would the enclave dragons discover him missing. If they haven’t already. He should haste.
The subtle rumbling had grown in intensity, though not by all that much. He was sure he was getting close, nonetheless.
Slowly swimming towards the surface, Cuttlefish made to surreptitiously poke his head out of the water and look around. He did so, and what he saw once the seawater cleared from his eyes took him aback.
‘Jumping’ back in the water, Cuttlefish was not expecting the amount of everything that he laid eyes on.
The massive pod of hulking metal boat-things had not moved. All the fatter-looking ones were clustered together in groups closer to the shore. The smaller (relatively) ones were either interspersed throughout the formations of fatter ones, or resting at the outside of the pod. A few even seemed to be slowly moving around.
Gently lit a warm orange by the awakening sun, Cuttlefish could see… a lot of small white and yellowish lights across the top parts of the floating things. Casting them all in strange artificial glows. It made them look even more like strange kinds of floating buildings; if complicated, metallic ones.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t see a lot of what was on shore. Sure, he had night-vision, but it was so much harder to see detail when it was dark, even more so when the thing you were trying to see was far away. Not to mention the lights from the boat-things making it harder to see the darker shore.
However, he could see that there were quite a fair amount of lights on the shore, around the area he knew was the scavenger den itself. He thought they looked a little like firelights, even though he wasn’t super familiar with what those were supposed to look like. He was also pretty sure he could see outlines of what he was sure looked like land buildings.
Cuttlefish quickly ducked back underwater. It was a little bit of a mess-up that he came here when it was dark, because he couldn’t see the actual scavenger den - the very thing he’d set out to see - very well.
I’ll just… wait around until the sun comes out, and I can see better. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
He probably didn’t have long, considering dragons back at the enclave might have noticed him missing by now. If they haven’t already. Oyster and Clam would be able to guess where he disappeared to pretty quickly.
Still, it was quite a distance. Even if the adults could swim faster than him, it would take them a while for them to get here. He most likely had time to see the scavenger den in daylight and be able to take a few notes with his scroll before having to slip away and sneak back a roundabout way.
Cuttlefish flinched when he suddenly realized something rather important. He looked down to the waterproofed parchment and inkpot tied against his chest.
I need to be out of the water to write on this… Rotten fish heads.
He smacked his face with his wing. That was a bad oversight. Even despite what he said to Oyster and Clam; there was no way he was getting out of the water anywhere near these things.
Though… I have never been out of the water near shore before… Cuttlefish quickly shook that thought. Indeed he had spent very nearly his entire life swimming under the sea, and had never been ashore; that was a very stupid idea.
He was still afraid of what these boat-things could possibly do to him if they decided to attack. He wasn’t keen to leave the water to try and see if they would decide; which meant that he couldn’t write on his scroll while he was over here.
Cuttlefish spent some of the air he just inhaled huffing some frustrated bubbles. His gills flaring slightly to match his annoyance. It looked like he really was just going to be stuck here waiting for the sun to hurry up and come out.
The young SeaWing pouted there for only a few moments, when movement coming from ahead caught his eye.
Looking up, he saw one of the ‘smaller’ boat-things - that had been moving around at the outside of the pod - slowly turning towards where he was floating. The main epicenter of the shaking vibrations, Cuttlefish could just make out the signature bubble trail emerging from the back of it.
The huge boat-thing was coming towards him. Cuttlefish wasn’t sure what to do. Did it notice him? Was it just doing its own thing? That seemed likely.
***
Unbeknownst to our naive dragonet, deep within the great beast known only to unspoken few as a “Corvette,” dwelt a strange creature indeed.
The mysterious little being, fueled by caffeine, remained transfixed to a bizarre edifice. Baleful, bloodshot eyes gazed upon a spartan panel of indicator lights and simple instruments. A strange device clamped over its head as it rested; hypnotized by that which was before it.
The hunched creature - known to its varmint peers as an “ASDIC Technician,” had been subjected to the horrors of “watch duty.” Eventually, the creature’s sleep-deprived mind became aware of a sound coming through the magnetic devices stuck to his head.
That wasn't unusual to the creature. But the creature had heard these sounds before. The creature knew these sounds.
The creature alerted its friends. They had another one of these ‘things’ again.
***
>Random human PoV
>Somewhere Near The Middle Mountains_
Junco sighed, pulling her old hoe from the soil and leaning exhausted on its shaft. She rubbed sweat from her brow and adjusted her loose headscarf, pulling the brown fabric forward to shield her eyes from the sun glaring through the sparse tree canopy.
“Wings above, I scorching love this scorching weather. How about you suckers?” The gruff cadence of one of her fellow farmhands came from behind her, practically dripping with sarcasm.
“I don’t know about you peasants, but I absolutely love dragging potatoes out of the dirt all day while the sun tries to melt me. I scorching love it. Wouldn’t want to do anything else with my life.”
“Oh, I bet you do, you potato-brained loser.”
“You wouldn't be able to do anything else if you tried.”
The potato-brain in question was known colloquially as Potato. Junco hadn’t the faintest clue what his actual name was, only that it wasn’t that. She didn’t know anyone who knew his real name, and she was honestly a little afraid to ask. Everyone in her little village simply referred to him as ‘Potato’ for reasons that became emphatically obvious to anyone that spoke to him for more than two minutes.
“SCORCHING RIGHT! Potatoes are everything, brother!” He hollered,
“Work is potato, pay is potato, food is potato, dirt is potato, life is potato, everything is potato.”
“Your mother is potato.”
“Save your spit, dirt-munchers. Sweat it out later. I swear if any of you pass out from heat stroke, I’m leaving your butt out here.”
Despite herself, Junco laughed. Which was probably the intended reaction. Whether or not Potato was a jester at heart or just an idiot, he did like trying to cheer up his fellow farmhands by doing… whatever it was that he was doing.
Usually though, all he really accomplished was getting on everyone’s nerves.
Today, there were only 4 people out working today, not counting herself and Potato.
Dill, the chatsizer and oldest of the bunch, a figure with a history almost as mysterious as Potato's, and the only man here with any semblance of personal responsibility.
Badger the Kindly, a quieter fellow that through some unknown means managed to get married and start his own family.
Finally the brothers Frog and Toad, who were unmatched in their ability to pick (and win) fights in and around the village tavern.
Junco herself was the odd (surprisingly) one of the bunch. Everyone else here were people you’d expect to find working meager subsistence crops. All young men, well built and in or about to reach their primes, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. All of them were poor, but then again, so was everyone else.
Junco was only here because her father, known as Fennel the Widower, was the owner and manager of the land they worked on. And a shining example of how relative ‘wealth’ can be out here. He had no surviving sons to his name, thus why she was out here working the soil rather than studying to be literate or versed in the arts; in the hopes to pilgrimage to the Indestructible City or Safe Harbor to find better-paying work as many girls her age and stature would be doing.
Perhaps many would find her situation unfortunate, but she didn’t let herself mind. Someone had to be out here. She’d been working these gardens full-time since her first period, not too many seasons ago. Everyone else in her team had long been working fields as well, with Dill being the longest-serving among them with many seasons. She had come to like them, and they, her. They were all good friends.
Technically, as the daughter of the landowner, she should be the one in charge. But they’d all come to think of her almost like a little sister, and she of them as her goofball big brothers. Dill was far better cut out for the role of example-setter, anyway. That didn’t really stop her from being second manager, though. Mostly because she acted more like a mature adult than all of them combined. Sans Dill, of course.
It wasn’t a particularly honorable, exciting, or glamorous life. It was boring and hard, very hard. But it was the life they’d all been dealt. Complaining wouldn’t do anything to fix it, despite Potato’s best efforts.
Even then, Junco could agree with the sentiment. The hardy tubers they were tending to made up the overwhelming majority of the food they consumed. The sturdy plants were well-suited to the small, concealed garden patches they had to use, which proved poor growing grounds for anything less persistent than weeds.
Other than the small amounts of rye that were also grown in certain places, and apples that came from a shoddy orchard: work was potato, pay was potato, and food was potato.
Potato was wearisome. But again, what could they do? At least they could supplement a little with sweet potatoes as of late, though Junco found the orange things a little strange.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hoe and plunged it back into the stubborn soil in a certain spot and levered, breaking the ground apart and rendering a much softer earth.
She even happened to raise fist-sized brown lump of starch to the surface, as she was tilling the dirt right next to one of the plants. Reaching down and yanking it off its root, she tossed it to a small pile.
Junco made to stand back up, but became woozy from the motion. She braced herself again on the shaft of her tool.
“You good, Junco?” She heard Badger call out.
“I’m alright. Just a little hot is all.” The pant in her voice did little to make her sound convincing.
“Take a break.” Dill’s tone did not permit argument.
Nonetheless, she did anyway. “No really, I’m alright. I can keep going.” Junco again raised her tool, and shoved it into the dirt. Not really aiming for any particular point where she figured another potato to be, just trying to make a point.
She promptly heard marching footsteps, and a strong hand grip her shoulder. Dill semi-dragged her over to the shade of a tree, and sat her down before its trunk.
“I said take a break. You need it.” He ordered sternly.
She looked up at him. An imposing figure, glistening with sweat, with strong shoulders and considerable musculature toned from years of hard labor. He stood a head above the other hands, and towered over the much younger Junco. Though she knew he wasn’t the kind to use his stature to intimidate others.
“We need to pull all the potatoes out of this patch before the heat of the day passes and the mountain dragons start flying again.” Junco retorted. “Father will be upset if we come up short, and we still have a whole other patch to go through. He might even dock your pay.”
Dill’s deep brown eyes rolled. “You know that isn’t true, Junco. Old Fennel isn’t gonna rot himself if we take a couple extra days to harvest. Besides, this season’s harvest has been better than usual. More potatoes means we need more time to unearth them.”
Junco huffed. He is always so hard to argue with.
He pulled a small flask from his belt, and held it out to her.
She glared back. “Absolutely not.”
“You need it.”
“So do you. I’m not going to take your water if you’re just gonna make me sit here.”
Dill stared for a few moments, before shrugging and returning the water container to his belt. He turned on his heel and returned to his duties. “I had better not see you get back up for a good while!” He called back.
“Yeah, whatever.” She muttered.
Leaning back against the tree, Junco stared up at the copious overhead foliage. Much of it was tree canopies, but there were a few small ropes which ran from tree to tree across the largest gaps. All of them teeming with carefully cultivated ivy.
That had been an absolute pain to set up. She remembered the long days of perilously clinging onto the trees in weather not dissimilar to this, meticulously helping to string up those ropes with other workers. It had taken approximately forever by her estimations, but the benefits the rudimentary camouflage net offered outweighed the effort.
She was pretty sure, anyway. It was a little difficult to tell how well it concealed their activities from the air, given they couldn’t exactly go up there and look.
The only real way to reliably judge the effectiveness of a given garden patch’s tree camouflage was by keeping track of which farm hands came back, and which didn’t. Trial by error and fire, if you will.
On occasion, Junco sometimes realized how scary her job actually was. Going out from the relative safety of their tiny village everyday to the same few spots near where Mountain Dragons were known to lurk about, hunting. With nothing to defend themselves except their farming tools, dragons snatching up people like her and her friends were a regular occurrence.
All for a handful of potatoes. It seemed to Junco that kind of risk merited a much more intrinsically hazardous, adventurous, and lucrative line of work, like treasure-seeking or something. All they were out here for was their own potatoes. But such was the way of things.
It was a miracle that nothing had happened to her or any of her friends yet. There had been some awfully close calls, but Dill had always known what to do to get them out of the way, always seemed to have a plan for when things went into the inferno. Junco thought he knew more about dragons than he let on.
Perhaps she, and all of them, should be a lot more alarmed and cautious in their day-to-day lives; but anything will stop being scary, if you do it for long enough. That's what she figured.
At least her friends didn’t seem scared by the impending prospect of potential doom by dragon fire. Then again, the brothers Frog and Toad didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and Junco was pretty sure Potato wasn’t capable of being afraid of anything.
The young farm girl closed her eyes, suddenly feeling excessively sore. She could feel the oppressive heat beginning to wane but a little. Eventually, it would be cool enough that the Mountain Dragons would be more inclined to take to the skies again, and they’d have to go back to the village to take cover.
Until then, she might as well get a little bit of sleep. Potato’ll probably make fun of her for sleeping on the job, but who cares what he thinks.
***