|
Dagger blinked. He thought he had heard his name called…once, spoken by a
voice like music…
“Dagger.”
He sat up and wiped a fin across his bleary eyes. Who had called?
“Dagger!”
Tirra was sitting some distance away, on a small rock,
with Cowrie by her side. She was all right! With great relief he swam over to
her. She smiled…and it was then he noticed his surroundings.
They were surrounded by water that was like no
other water he had seen. It seemed to have absorbed the pale light from the
moon and stars above so that it glowed with its own luminosity. Brilliant corals
shimmered in the soft radiance and tiny creatures he had never seen before darted
through lush beds of sea grass.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” Tirra murmured. “I
wonder where we are…”
“It’s like no place I’ve ever seen,” Cowrie breathed,
her eyes shining as she drank in the captivating sight.
“More importantly,” Dagger interjected, “how
did we get here? Last thing I remember we were being tossed and tumbled on the
storm waves…”
“It was the storm that brought you here,” a voice
called through the bright water with its colourful occupants. That voice seemed
to hold all the magic and mystery of the oceans, and at the same time all the
joyous, careless abandon of any creature born wild, making the blood tingle
in the three creatures’ veins with a strange excitement and anticipation that
none of them could source.
“It is always the storm that brings them here
– the last leg of the journey for those who follow the waves in searching– Harquin’s
storm…”
And then she glided into view, and there was
no mistaking her. From her soft blue pelt to her sea-green mane, to the long
spiraled golden horn upon her forehead, in place of the usual jewel, she was
both mystery and carelessness; otherworldly and eerily beautiful, yet wild and
free forever, as she had been meant to be. Dagger, Tirra and Cowrie gazed at
her with wonder and rapture. It was so hard to believe that after all their
questing and searching they had finally found the elusive Peophin they sought.
Tirra almost forgot what she had come to inquire of the Peophin; she was so
thrilled by the very sight and sense of her. But she soon remembered, and composed
herself.
Swimming over to Harquin, she dipped her horn
in salute, feeling rather awkward. This Peophin had such noble carriage in the
graceful soft lines of her body and the slim, neat face, yet every one of those
lines also spoke of great strength, speed and cunning. Tirra had no idea how
respectful or casual she should by rights act.
“Lady of Solitude,” she mumbled, suddenly self-conscious.
“I have journeyed far… to ask you… one question…”
She looked up, embarrassed and awkward, into
the Peophin’s warm, sea-coloured eyes, and instantly felt courage seeping into
her from them. Strength and confidence rose within her. Harquin stood silently
in quiet patience, waiting for her to continue.
Heartened, Tirra began again.
“My home… the undersea kingdom they call Kaoren…
the life seems to have left it. I believe, in fact that it is dying… please
tell me, how can I save my home? What is it that is wrong with it?”
“You are of Takur-Ath’s pod,” the Peophin murmured
in that velvet voice.
“Yes…”
“It is that which is the problem. You rid Kaoren
of the Jetsams.”
Tirra blinked. “I don’t understand…”
“All undersea kingdoms and cities need all the
four kinds of sea-Neopets that live and dwell completely in the sea to truly
have life and colour live in them,” Harquin continued. “Peophins, Flotsams,
Jetsams and Koi. They balance out the Water Element’s different aspects. Without
all four, a community can never survive.
“For a while, after the Jetsams were driven out,
all was well, because the Flotsams which had been missing before were present
in abundance. But then the kingdom began to feel its second loss. To revive
your Kaoren, you must allow the Jetsams to return.”
Part of Tirra wanted to protest at this. How
could the Jetsams be let back into Kaoren? Pillage and destruction and persecution
would abound… But there was another voice, a quieter voice speaking within her,
that somehow managed to calm the sputtering of the first.
Dagger. He had helped her, saved her life thrice,
remained faithful to her despite her misjudging of him. Surely he, at least,
should be graced with a second chance? The treacherous, ferocious, merciless
creatures she had imagined were Jetsams her whole life were growing faint and
dim. She could never have imagined one of their ilk could be so true.
She turned to Harquin and nodded dumbly, smiling
her wordless thanks. She could hardly dare to speak for guilt as she thought
of all Dagger had done for her, and the way she had dismissed him. She would
make it up to him this time.
“Lady, how do you know about all this, and about
our kingdom?” Cowrie breathed, still awed and humbled by the majestic Peophin.
Harquin looked, calmly, into the Koi’s face.
“The wind and the waves carry their messages
to me from all the sea. The Whalein croon it as they slide through the depths.
The Pfish chirp it as they leap. And the Primellas whisper it as they flutter
through the kelp forests. Even the swish of sea grass over rocks has its tale
to tell. All the secrets of the oceans, near and far, are mine to hold.”
Yet she said this without any hint of pride at
all. She turned her slim face from them then, her blue-green eyes lifted to
the water’s surface above them, sparkling in the clear frosty moonlight, white
as milk.
“I must go,” she said softly and gently, her
head still lifted to the skies far above the water. “There are others who seek
me this night. I hope that you may live in peace from now on, O Daughter of
Takur-Ath, and Son of Spearblade. For it was on this journey together that you
both began the healing of Kaoren.
“And you, young Koi, you have served your mistress
faithfully for all this time. Follow the current for the whole of this moon,
and it will bring you to Kaoren. May Venuquin smile upon each of you, and upon
your home.”
So saying, she touched each of them, feather-light,
with her golden, gleaming horn, and then leapt out of the water with a sweep
of her strong tail. They saw, far in the distance, a burst of bubbles as she
landed, and then leapt again, until she had disappeared into the distance.
Tirra turned suddenly and grabbed one of Dagger’s
fins in both her own.
“I… I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “For everything.
I was wrong to jump to conclusions about you, and to… to misjudge your pod based
on stories. And… and I will make it up to you… I… I will talk my father into
letting your pod return to Kaoren. That is… I know it’s for the good of everyone
that I will, but…”
Dagger’s smile cut off her sporadic bursts of
speech. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get back to Kaoren, so that I can get
back to my pod. Then we can both negotiate. I will talk to my father...”
“It’ll be easier said than done,” Cowrie put
in. Her eyes held new respect as she gazed at the Jetsam. “I thank you, Master
Dagger, for saving our lives… thrice over. I was wrong about you too, and I
apologize.” She curtseyed gracefully, as she had been taught to do. “But how
shall we persuade your two families?”
“I’m sure we’ll find a way,” Tirra murmured,
looking into the moon-whitened darkness. The realisation that Spearblade was
in fact Dagger's father came as a surprise, but she found that she didn't care.
It didn't matter, so long as the Jetsams could be granted return to Kaoren.
And somehow, she was sure that they would.
“Somehow, everything will work out. I just know
it.”
***
As intent as Jake was on his task, there was something about the faint rushing
of water behind him, barely detectable among the sighs of the waves upon the
beach, that made him turn around. And as he did he could not help but catch
his breath with astonishment and wonder.
For there she was before him, the creature that
had haunted his master’s dreams both day and night alike for so many long years.
Beautiful and noble in her wildness, she shook the salt water from her flowing
green mane, so like the flowing sea grass that waves in the current, and glided
over the shore towards him, her tail dragging softly in the sand. Her gilded
horn seemed to glow softly in the light of the moon. Jake watched her, speechless
at her beauty and elegance. He suddenly felt rather small and drab by comparison,
Sea Acara or not.
Jake suddenly became aware once more of the motionless
form of his owner beside him. Terror shot through him as he realized how the
storm had subsided. How long had Seth been lying there? How long since they
had been brought to this shore by the force of the squall?
He turned his stricken face to Harquin, and
she answered his unspoken fear simply.
“Your owner is still alive, Sea Acara.”
Hearing those words, Jake breathed easier. But
Seth still never moved…
“He will wake, with time,” the Peophin continued,
as if reading –or perhaps simply anticipating - his thoughts. “Eventually his
consciousness will return to him and he will come alive once more. But, Sea
Acara, I ask you, will you give up all that you have gained for this human?”
Seth gazed at her, thunderstruck. “What… what
do you mean, Lady?”
“We are alike, Sea Acara, you and I. When you
came into your powers you became a creature of the oceans such as I am, and
all my hornless brothers and sisters, the Children of Venuquin, and all the
others besides, those who dive and leap and play in the rolling waves, who value
their lives and the living of them, out in the open sea, wild and free forever.
“And very few-” she looked at him with something
akin to admiration- “-ever manage to become storm riders, as you did, to laugh
at the thunder as it threatens, to scoff at the lightning as it blazes, to bound
through the sea as it roils…to enjoy the excitement of being in the midst of
the roaring typhoon. You are truly a creature of the sea and the storm, Sea
Acara. And would you give all of that up to remain with your master?”
Something deep inside Jake, a part of him he
had never known before, cried out at the suggestion, piercing him to the soul.
That part longed to stay in the sea forevermore, playing and rolling through
the briny waters by day, sleeping in the sea grass by night, heeding and answering
to no one’s call, bending to no one’s will. He remembered the wonderment and
glory of all he had seen in the vast and beautiful ocean, and the exhilaration
of riding the tempest wile the world raged all around him. And he longed with
some forceful ache in his chest to be part of the sea, to be forever wild and
free, like Harquin…
But some unseen cord pulled him back. He knew
somehow that like it or not he would never be truly free of it. No matter where
he went or what he did he would always feel some obligation to be near Seth,
never mind that his owner had always neglected him, had never truly attempted
to form a bond with him, had always been saving his heart for one pet and one
pet only. He was bound to the boy. There was no getting around it. He knew that
even though the ocean might call him with all its alluring promises, he must
remain with his boy forever, no matter where he went.
“I would, Lady,” he whispered, his heart feeling
as if torn completely in two. “I would.”
“I am glad,” Harquin replied, as Jake looked
at her once again, incredulously. “For I believe that this boy has realized
you mean more to him than he thought…”
She smiled, once, and then gazed out at the eastern
horizon far away over the gently moving sea, where the sky was just beginning
to pale. Jake knew then that she would never have given up her carefree life
for any human or anything in the world. She was owner and pet, both in one.
She belonged to herself, and took comfort in her own solitude. She had no wish
or need for a bond with any, though she did care for her fellow creatures. Here
was one who could not be captured, or bought, or tamed, one who from the very
start was born to be wild. Perhaps all the Children of Venuquin had something
of that in them; perhaps he did too.
The Acara realized he might have taken that life,
himself, but he cared for his owner too much to leave him. Looking at his boy
now, lying peacefully in the sand, he smiled, knowing that despite the pain
he had made the right choice.
Harquin turned her head back towards him. “Come,
Sea Acara. Climb upon my back, and your human with you. I will take you to your
native shore.”
Jake felt like asking her how in Neopia she knew
where they were from, but something told him that there was no clear answer
to that question. He nodded, wordlessly but gratefully, and helped nudge Seth
up onto the Peophin’s back. Harquin, seemingly effortlessly despite the extra
weight, galloped swiftly into the surf, past the wavelets that slapped at her
slender blue fetlocks, and out into the open sea.
Jake had never traveled so far or so fast. Harquin
flew over the waves with each leap like they were nothing. They dipped above
and below with such surprising speed and gentleness that he was hardly jarred
at all. White foam and sea spray flecked his face and settled in his fur, and
Seth’s dark hair. This was not at all like riding the storm, but it gave him
the same wonderful thrilling in his heart, leaping over the open sea, while
all the time the sky lightened steadily at their backs.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, an
orange sliver of brightness, when Harquin slackened her pace. Looking past her
neck, Jake saw they were approaching a very familiar shore. Yes! It was their
home; there was the breakwater where Seth had used to sit and think about Harquin…it
all seemed so long ago now. And just beyond the shoreline, there was the beginning
of the long winding path that led up to their house. They were finally home.
Harquin slowed to an easy stop in the shallows
and allowed Jake to dismount, helping him nose Seth off as well. She lowered
her fine head and touched him briefly with her muzzle.
“I salute you, Sea Acara,” she called, turning
and dancing back into the sea, her sea, where she belonged forever. “Look after
your human…”
And then she was off, leaping through the waves
again. Jake heard coughing and spluttering from beside him, and there Seth was,
alive and well, struggling to his feet. For a fleeting instant he looked, unbelievingly,
out to sea, seeing the faint silhouette of a horned Peophin, suspended in mid-leap
against a fiery orange sky, just as the very first time he had seen her. Then
he looked to the Acara at his feet, and forgot her. Never again would her apparition
plague him, never again would he dream of owning her, of being bound to her.
There was Jake, now, who was a real pet, right beside him, not an elusive legend
of the seas, completely out of his reach. Jake was his, and he would never take
him for granted again.
He knelt beside the Neopet, and hugged him without
saying a word. When they parted, Jake began, “Seth, Harquin… she can’t be owned.
By anyone. She belongs to the sea…”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Seth replied,
warmth and relief in his voice. Then he noticed where they were for the first
time. “Jake, how did we get home? Last thing I remember, we were tossing about
in some storm…”
Jake looked at his toes. “Well… that’s a long
story…” Then he straightened up, pointing further down the beach. “Hey, what’s
that?”
Something round and shiny, bobbing in the shallows,
had caught the first early rays of the sun. Both boy and Acara ran over to the
object, which was soon tossed up on shore by a careless wave.
Jake poked it with his paw. He could see now
it was flattened at one end, and an orangey-gold in colour. “What is it?”
Seth, stooping, picked it up and turned it over
in his hands. “It looks like…”
A cracking noise cut him off. As both observers
watched, amazed, the thing split open and a tiny slim head poked out. It shone
the same saffron as its case, and the tiny jewel fixed to its forehead glowed
with red and green in the dawn light. It shook its short blue mane and whinnied
with profound excitement at its newfound life.
Seth lifted the newly hatched Peophoal out of
its egg, cradling it gently in his arms, whispering softly to it. “She’s perfect.”
“A Daughter of Venuquin,” Jake murmured. “But
this one was given to us… by the sea…”
He looked out at the waters, sparkling with the
light of the newborn sun. They seemed to call back friendliness and greeting
to him, recognizing him forever as one of its creatures. He smiled. He had learnt
to much in the past few days of loss and frantic search, and eventual victory.
Maybe once he told Seth of all that had befallen them since the storm, the boy
would perhaps sometimes allow him to spend a few days in the open sea. It would
not even come close to Harquin’s life, and the one he might have had, but it
would probably satiate the hunger he felt for being one with the wild turquoise
world he had discovered. He might get to ride a storm or two, even.
But he would most definitely return. He would
always return. He might even teach his new little sister how to love the ocean,
as the Children of Venuquin should. As he did.
As Harquin did.
Seth turned to his Acara with life and light
in his eyes of a vibrancy Jake had never before seen in him. “We’ll look after
her together, won’t we, Jake?”
Jake splashed over to his owner, grinning as
the Peophin wriggled and squeaked in her new owner’s arms, and lowered her muzzle
to snuffle curiosity and warmth at him.
“Yes, Seth. We will.”
THE END
| 
