Elliot, page 6
part #3 of Anarock Shifters Series
“They still eat with you.”
“Only Chimo eats with me,” he replied. “The others stay away. They hate outsiders. They’re stuck on themselves.”
She locked her teeth and lowered her eyes, but she wound up looking at that bluish-green surface everywhere. She couldn’t get away from it. “Yeah, well, I’m gonna have to get a hell of a lot hungrier before I let them look down their noses at me.”
He inclined his head over his shoulder and took her hand the way he did before. “Forget all that. Come on. I want to show you something.”
“Where are we going?”
“I want you to see something so you get a clear idea of what we’re dealing with.”
He walked out of the chamber. Aria couldn’t tell where the room ended and where it began. When they walked through the wall, she didn’t feel any water the way she thought she would. They didn’t swim from place to place. They just walked like normal people.
She couldn’t stop staring at her surroundings. “This is really weird, you know? I thought we would have to swim.”
“You can if you want to. I’ve swum around a few times. You’re right about it being weird. You can walk or swim or do whatever. It’s almost like what you want to do determines the stuff you move through. I don’t understand it much, but it works either way.”
“And you say this was all created by magic?” A dragon streaked past and disappeared into a clump of weed.
“I don’t see how it could be like this if it wasn’t made by magic. Just wait until you see the Coast.”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Here. Look.”
He turned a corner—if that was possible. She didn’t see any corners or any features at all that blocked anybody’s sight or movement to anything. The whole place seemed to be one giant soup.
He escorted her from one room to another and from one chamber sectioned off by these vaporous walls to others just like them. He steered her around another forest of weed and she beheld a sight that dwarfed everything else.
He pushed her to the edge of an enormous chasm. It extended as far as Aria could see. Down on its floor, a warren of the same mysterious walls occupied every square inch of space. It towered miles into the…..she couldn’t call it sky because it was really water.
The canyon plunged so far down she couldn’t make out the bottom. Thousands upon thousands of these transparent chambers crowded miles and miles of terrain. Dragons and gators and fish and turtles and whales swam in and out of the rooms.
Aria gasped. “What is this place?”
“This is the Halcyon Coast,” Elliot told her. “That room where you woke up is just some kind of entrance. It’s a holding pen for people like us. The Blood Kin don’t allow the people they take to just waltz in and start living with them. As far as I know, we’re the first ones they’ve even considered allowing to join them. We’ll stay up there until they’re ready to let us move in, but I wanted you to see this. This is where they really live. This is what we’re up against.”
She blinked at the sight in amazement. These Blood Kin must have incredible power to maintain a structure like this, not to mention keeping it hidden from the outside world. Then again, who in their right mind would look for a whole civilization of dragon shifters under the Louisiana bayou?
Elliot tugged her hand and sat her down on the ledge. A sheer cliff dropped off below her feet and they dangled their legs in thin air. It looked and felt like thin air. She had to remind herself it was really water.
Elliot or any other dragon could dive off that ledge and swim away. Could she? She didn’t swim much and never in her bear form. Even if, by some chance, the Blood Kin accepted her and let her live here, she would never really be one of them because she couldn’t swim around the way they did.
Her heart sank. What would it be like to swim out over that chasm and look down into the dragons’ homes? She would never feel the freedom of that flying, swimming movement. For the first time in her life, she wished she wasn’t a bear. She wished she was a dragon like Elliot. Then maybe she would be able to find a home here.
As it was, she would always be their enemy. She was her own enemy. She was the reason these curious beings didn’t accept the pair. She was the reason she and Elliot both faced danger right now.
6
Elliot whipped his tail and thrashed through the water. After a week on the Halcyon Coast, he could feel the liquid gliding over his scales now. He could sense the current when he changed direction.
He plunged to his right and snapped his jaws, but the bass he was trying to catch flickered away in a silver shimmer. In the days since he came to live in the underwater kingdom, he still hadn’t mastered the art of hunting for himself.
Chimo laughed down below him. The young dragon crouched in the chamber Elliot shared with Aria. Chimo chortled with glee at Elliot’s pathetic efforts. “You almost had him that time, Elliot. Keep trying. One of these days, you will grow up and leave Mother Chimo’s teat.”
Elliot snarled under his breath. “Shut your mouth. Can’t you see I’m trying?”
“Oh, I see very well that you are trying. I see that you are trying and not much else. Try and try again, my son. It is fortunate for you that Chimo can still hunt for you or you would have gone hungry long before now.”
Elliot broke off and rounded on his young friend. “Is that all you can do? Don’t you have any better use of your time than to sit around laughing at me?”
“No, as it happens,” Chimo remarked. “I have nothing better to do with my time and laughing at you is such a diverting pastime. I come here to be entertained when nothing else strikes my fancy. By all means, my friend. What prey will you go after next? I cannot wait to see the little perch laughing at you, too.”
Elliot snarled low and swam back to the chamber. “If you’re just going to laugh at me, I don’t want to hunt anymore. Go away and leave me alone.”
Chimo chuckled one more time and strutted to the nearest wall. “You disappoint me, Elliot. When you feel like doing some real hunting, come and find me. We will swim out to the open ocean and hunt the giant squid. They put up more of a fight than the gators.”
Elliot cocked his head at the young dragon. “Really? Do you hunt them on your own?”
“No, never! They are far too strong for one dragon alone. We usually hunt them in packs of ten or twelve. They take all of us working in a coordinated team to kill one of them, but they have a most alluring flavor—nothing like anything on the Coast. Squid is a delicacy among the Kin. I will ask Malfie when he plans to organize another hunt. Perhaps he and the other Kin will have decided your fate by then and you can come.”
Chimo jumped through the wall and streaked away in a flash of lightning. In a second, he was gone and left Elliot alone. Elliot craned his sinuous neck to look over his shoulder. He spotted a tiny figure in the distance, but he hesitated to shift out of his dragon form. In the days since he came to the Halcyon Coast, he got so used to swimming around as a dragon that he began to prefer it to his human form.
Aria didn’t, though. She never shifted—not ever. From this distance, he saw her bend over and pick something up. She straightened and continued walking away from their home chamber.
Elliot sighed. She would hardly look at him in his dragon form anymore. He half-suspected she started to hate dragons as much as the Blood Kin hated her.
He no longer denied that they out-and-out hated her. They didn’t try to hide it. Chimo came around to joke and play and hunt with Elliot, but he pretended Aria didn’t exist. He never spoke to her. He never offered her food even though he saw Elliot sharing Chimo’s kills with her.
The other dragons wouldn’t even visit Aria and Elliot. At first, Elliot deluded himself into thinking this was because they were strangers and outsiders. As time went on, he realized the Blood Kin were only shunning her. They were more than happy to talk to him when they met him alone. They even showed him hospitality and gave him food as long as she wasn’t around.
This twinge of guilt became so familiar to him in the last few days. He wanted to reach out to her. He didn’t want to withdraw from her. He was her only companion. She was all he had, too, but some part of him would rather court the Blood Kin’s goodwill. He had to live on this Coast. Why shouldn’t he enjoy the benefits of belonging to their society? Why should she rob him of that?
He shoved those thoughts away. He couldn’t turn his back on her. He didn’t want to. He wanted to make it easier for her even if he couldn’t.
He stood up on his hind legs and let his dragon soul submerge beneath the tide of reason and composure. He let the dragon’s seething furious energy recede beneath humanity and compassion.
He set out on his two legs and caught up with her. She meandered through the waving water plants and towering kelp with the same single-minded fortitude with which she moved through the Quag when she was searching for Victor.
She stopped every few steps and collected small plants and mollusks from the ground at her feet. She plucked them from rocks and uprooted them from the mud. She gathered them into her left arm and continued on her way.
Elliot hustled up to her side. “Why don’t you come around and talk to Chimo sometimes? He’s a nice guy. It’s rude to always leave when he shows up.”
She didn’t look up. “Did he say it’s rude or did you come up with that on your own?”
“Come on, Aria,” he chided. “You would never walk away from a guest that way at home. You should at least stay and be polite to him.”
“I leave to be polite to him. He doesn’t come to see me and you know it. He never even looks at me. I’m doing it to make him more comfortable.”
“It’s not like that,” he returned. “He’s just waiting until the Kin make their ruling. Then he’ll accept you.”
She snorted and went on with her gathering. She rarely ate meat that Chimo hunted for Elliot. She subsisted almost entirely on her own foraging. She flatly refused to hunt in bear form, no matter how Elliot tried to convince her to do it.
She cracked a stiff growth of something off another rock and bit off a piece. She went through exactly the same sequence of movements she used when she picked that mushroom in the Quag. She stuffed the thing into her pocket and took another few steps.
Elliot wrinkled his nose at it in spite of himself. He never bothered to ask what these plants and creatures were that she ate. He didn’t want to know and he certainly didn’t want to taste them.
Why she couldn’t eat fish and gator and turtle like the rest of the Blood Kin, he would never understand. She was just plug stubborn by not doing what she could to integrate into their society when she had no other choice. She acted like she wanted the Blood Kin to rule against her and kill her rather than accommodate their customs and tastes.
He told himself he would try one more time to get through to her. If she didn’t bite, he would leave her to her own devices. Too many interesting people and things waited for him beyond this narrow little section of terrain. He only hung around here for her sake, but she didn’t seem to appreciate the sacrifices he made for her.
“Come with me down to the river mouth. The perch are flocking. We can fish there.”
He expected her to ignore him or make an excuse about how many other Kin would be there. He prepared himself for yet another disappointment, but instead, she stood up and glanced over at him. “When did you start talking in your dragon form?”
He stopped. “What?”
“I heard you talking to Chimo just now. You can talk in your dragon form now. You couldn’t do that before. Were you aware you were doing it?”
He blinked, first at her and then down at the ground. “No. I didn’t notice it.”
“You’ve been doing it for a couple of days. Your voice sounds different.”
He examined her. He thought she wasn’t paying attention. He thought she was blocking him out of her awareness because of her situation. He didn’t think she would notice a change like that.
She noticed. She noticed details he didn’t notice about himself. Was it possible he was the one who was changing while she remained the same? For a second, he saw her with new eyes. This predicament must be unimaginably hard for her and he didn’t make it any easier. He turned his back on her. He craved the Blood Kin’s attention and approval at her expense.
She pulled the …..whatever it was out of her pocket and took another bite. She certainly didn’t seem to be wasting away with her foraging. She always found enough. She never had to ask anyone to hunt for her food.
She chewed her mouthful and put the rest away. She wandered on a few more steps and got distracted by something. Elliot studied her from behind. Without turning around, she muttered over her shoulder. “If you want to go to the river mouth, you should go ahead. I’ll be fine here.”
He hurried after her. He didn’t know why, but all of a sudden, he didn’t want to go to the river mouth. A few minutes ago, he wouldn’t have wanted to pass up the chance to share the feast with the Blood Kin. Now staying with her seemed the most important thing he could do.
“Listen, Aria. I know it’s hard living up here, but once the Kin rule in our favor, we can move down the Coast. We can find a better place to live with better fishing.”
She swiveled around and actually smiled at him. That was the first time she really smiled at him since long before they left Anarock. He had to think hard to remember the last time she smiled that way.
“They won’t rule in our favor, Elliot,” she replied. “At least, they won’t rule in my favor. They’ll let you move down the Coast, but not me. They’ll come after me and kill me. You must know that by now. They never intend to let me near their children. That would be the worst thing in the world for them.”
She went back to her business like that statement was nothing but the latest weather report. It didn’t bother her in the slightest to say that.
Elliot couldn’t listen to this. He strode after her. “That’s not true! If they were going to rule against you, they never would have let you come down in the first place. Malfie would have killed you then. They just have to follow their procedures. That’s the only reason it’s taking so long.”
She smiled even broader if that was possible. She put out her hand and squeezed his arm. “That’s really sweet of you to say, but we both know it isn’t true. He let me come down because he didn’t realize then that I was a bear. You remember it as well as I do. The minute I said I was a bear, he said the Kin had to make a decision whether to keep me. The only reason it’s taking so long is because….” She stopped.
“Because what? If they’re so bent on killing you, why haven’t they done it yet?”
“I don’t know.” She turned away. “I don’t know what’s going on, but they definitely won’t rule in my favor. That will never happen. They can’t stand me. You’ve seen the way they act.”
“Who?” he demanded. “Who acts that way?”
She snorted. “Come on, Elliot. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. Chimo won’t talk to me and the others won’t come anywhere near me. Malfie hasn’t even spoken to us since we first got here. It’s obvious if you only open your eyes and look.”
He shook his head. He didn’t want to believe it. There must be a way. Then again, did he really want the Blood Kin to accept her? Didn’t he really want them to erase her from his life so he could get on with the job of integrating into this society? Isn’t that what he really wanted?
Did he really want to move down the Coast with her? Did he really want to try to build a life with her around or would he much rather start over fresh with some female of the Blood Kin?
In his secret, most private moments, he dreamed of a bright new future as part of this mysterious civilization. It answered all his insecurities about Anarock. He never had to face his family or Victor with the news that he ever dallied with the NightRage Crest. He never had to go back to Anarock at all.
That was why he secretly craved the company of the Blood Kin. That was why he wished more than anything he didn’t have to worry about Aria anymore. She represented Anarock for him. She represented the past he so desperately wanted to forget.
He glanced over his shoulder. The Blood Kin would be gathering at the river mouth right now. They would be soaring and darting among swarms of perch. They would be snatching the fish out of the water and gorging themselves in a frenzy of delight.
Elliot wanted to be there. He wanted to be right in amongst them sharing their joy and their freedom and their utter lack of concern for everything that went on above the water. They didn’t have to worry about the military attacking and trying to wipe them out to the last man. They didn’t have to worry about the Omega Battalion invading to enslave the world.
He opened his mouth to tell her he was going when Chimo hurtled over his head. The young male slithered past, calling, “Malfie wishes to see you both in his chamber. He says it is important.”
He rocketed away in an instant. Elliot gazed after him. When he lowered his head, he found Aria studying him. Her bright, sharp eyes drilled into his soul. “This is it. They must have come to their decision.”
His guts spasmed. She was right. There was no way in hell the Blood Kin would ever rule in her favor—never.
She broke his gaze first. She walked around him with slow, deliberate steps. “We better go. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Her resolve made him pivot around to follow her, but he stopped and watched her move away through the eerie landscape. How could she act so cold and collected about facing her own death? He didn’t understand her. She never once protested the situation. She didn’t raise her voice or scream or cry. She didn’t have to. Her rock-solid strength communicated better than anything else.
She didn’t look back. She set off toward the canyon and left him to scramble after her. He caught up with her and they meandered the rest of the way to the cliff edge. She didn’t hesitate. She walked right off the edge of it, but she didn’t fall. The water that wasn’t there caught her. It supported and suspended her. She put one foot in front of the other. She descended through the ether to the valley floor so far below.
