Seeking change

[RumpleGrumblePuss]

As my leg was held in a death grip, I patted Tzaphiel’s head gently. The poor little guy was obviously shell shocked and needed comfort. If I weren’t so jittery still I would offer to carry him, but the last thing I wanted to do was to fall and hurt either of us. We were incredibly lucky that demon kitty had only wanted to play with its next meal first.

The dry sob that broke Tzaphiel's words twisted my heart painfully, I plucked at the hands still grasping my leg for all they were worth and knelt down. Gently, I stroked his back and hair as I hugged him once more, noticing the lack of tears in his eyes but the definite expression of terror.

“It’s okay Tzaphiel. If I can help it, I won’t let anything hurt you.” I whispered soothingly.

Though my legs were a bit wobbly (if I were completely honest with myself, they felt like jelly) I followed the trail of torn vines and broken branches. For once, I was grateful that Edgar was such a clumsy and destructive person. The path was blessedly easy to walk through on rubbery legs. Mental note number eight thousand and six, do not try to play the hero. Especially when the baddie has fangs, teeth and a bad disposition .

The forest broke off abruptly into the beach, the sand rolling in steep dunes. For a second I looked about before spotting Edgar climbing and stumbling over the mountainous piles, heading off down the beach.

“Were in the world is he going?” I muttered under my breath. It occurred to me that I hadn’t looked yet at the last stone. Without knowing what we were supposed to acquire this time, we did not know where to head. Digging in my pocket, I pulled out the last smooth stone and held it up to look at the image shown in the pink and golden glow of sunset. It was... an egg?

In the blue stone a blue-speckled white egg was shown. I frowned and shook my head; the image didn’t even show any background. Not a single clue as to where to look for the egg. Maybe the forest, it looks kind of like a robin’s egg.

Grumbling under my breath and scrambling over the dunes, I headed for the water’s edge. It would be much easier to catch up to Edgar on the relatively smooth sand next to the lake. I only half noticed the pattern imprinted in the wet sand as I hurried towards the black cloaked figure of my second companion.

[Twisted Infinitum]

Five dunes into his sandy trek, Edgar came to a teetering halt. The drop before him was deeper than the others, so much that the water flooded into it. Oh, yummy! Calico exclaimed, for there was a collection of delectable, half submerged eggs calling the shallow pool home.

Upon his masters urgings, Edgar slid down the small basin’s wall, disrupting the scaly imprints in the sand, and splashed down into the soggy nest. Without any idea of how delicate eggs are reputed to be, he yanked one of the blue-speckled, head-sized treasures from its bed and sloshed back to the deformed slope that he had created.

After a moment of otherworldly strategizing, he tossed the egg up to the top of the dune and set his clumsy limbs to climbing after it. The slope deformed further, abolishing the beautiful uniformity that had once characterized the bowl. By the time that he had scrabbled his way onto the dry sand, Kahlina was only two dunes distant.

Perfect! Show her!

Edgar wrestled the egg from the earth once more and hoisted it above his head triumphantly. Then, his lipless mouth opened and from it came the garbled decree of the almighty. “Omelet!”

As if the announcement was an invitation for dinner guests, life stirred in the water to his side, frothing the bubble gum mirror into a furious red spray that rained over the forest. A screech rose from the bowels of the swell, heralding the immense serpentine body that burst from the wall of water and crashed down around the perimeter of the nest.

The egg fell from Edgar’s grasp as he dumbly stumbled down the dry side of the dune, push by the force of the gargantuan body’s impact. Within, his master screamed, but her words were dwarfed by the high pitched howl of their omelet-to-be’s mother. Her snout, narrow on her body but massive enough to cut a schooner in two, gapped open wider and reached to the sky. Then, her sinewy neck arching, the enraged mother fell - jaws first - upon the tiny, dark egg-napper in the sand.

It was then, and only then, that Edgar’s bewildered mind came to grips with the fact that he was in danger, and he swiped wildly about with all his limbs as the sea dragon’s shadow stole away the candy sunset.

[RumpleGrumblePuss]

Torn between looking at the egg Edgar had just shouted was dinner and the sudden frothing of the water just off shore, I immediately realized what the too-loud roar was all about. Hell, anything with ovaries would automatically realize it was the enraged shriek of an angry mother.

Sand sprayed in all directions around the sea serpent’s head, tossing Edgar out into the water much like the rag doll he was. Still rather numb from my play session with the demon cat, I stood there, worried about Edgar but far too intelligent to go running past a giant snake just to check on him. Jaws working to spit out the sand in its mouth, the sea dragon raised its head.

Out in the water, Edgar’s body popped up. Buoyantly, he floated face down.

No help there. Oh shit, it’s looking at me. Slowly I backed up, hoping that like any other snake I had ever heard of, if I left it alone, it would leave me alone. My backpack slipped off the shoulder it was hanging from and hung uncomfortably from an elbow. Behind my back, I made shooing gestures at Tzaphiel.

From the water, something dark and as big around as one of my arms shot out. It caught me high on the chest, lifting me off my feet. I felt my bag fall off my arm at the sudden movement and for a moment or two what I generally considered ‘Up’ got really confused. I hit the ground shoulder first and kept rolling, crashing through a bush before a tree stopped me.

Everything ached as I lay on the ground in a boneless sprawl, my body shaking as if cold in shock. A low, unintelligible noise, partly pain and partly delayed surprise trickled out of my mouth. It took a few blinks to get my eyes focusing once more; once they did I looked back through the convenient hole I had made in the bush. I could see Tzaphiel’s legs and part of his back, he wasn’t moving.

Stupid kid. Do I really wanna get up? It‘s almost comfy here. Moaning, I thrashed on the ground, righting my limbs and pulling myself up on hands and knees. Unable to quell the tremors that shook me and feeling a million years old I, forced myself upright and hissed in pain at the pull on scraped and bruised skin.

“You better be grateful I have a sense of honor and the fact that I don’t truly believe all this is really real.” I chomped on my lower lip as the first few shaky steps hurt like nothing else. ...but gods does this hurt for a dream.

[Angel Under Glass]

It seemed an eternity that Tzaphiel stood helplessly still and watched the enraged beast rise from the beautiful water, screaming unlike anything he could have imagined. Nothing in his life, or in Grandfather's stories, or even in his childish imagination could have prepared him for a monstrosity so massive and terrifying. Kahlina's frantic gestures were meaningless, mere distractions from the impossible scene that he couldn't look away from.

In an explosion of sand, the wonderfully bizarre wooden man was thrown into the vile red water that had brought the monster. Tzaphiel squawked, a sound far too small to be heard over the beach's upheaval and its scaley architect. Again, the chipmunk dragon had found its way into his arms, and he wrung the poor thing's body in horror. Sadly, not a single drop of bravery spilled from the placid chimera.

Then, in a blur of motion that he barely noticed, Kahlina was gone. In her place hung the beast's tail, so close that it blinded him to the beach beyond. He saw himself in the mirrored scales, eyes wide and quivering, a delicious snack for the sea's guardian; the same sea that had swallowed his home across the island days ago.

Aching to cry, he fell to his knees and heaved dry sobs into the sand, when he suddenly found terrified eyes staring at him that weren't his own. From Kahlina's abandoned backpack, her new pet had fallen. Curled on its haunches, its thin fingers worked together until red dripped from them, and its eyes bugged out farther than Tzaphiel's own.

Another shriek vibrated the beach's golden sand as the tail slipped back into the depths and the serpent hoisted more of its near-infinite body onto the sand. Tzaphiel looked up to see the pointed snout closer, eyes blazing behind it as if to punish him for every bad deed in his short life. Arcing high above him, the scaled head appeared to mingle with the clouds, becoming a sleek, shimmering totem in the sky. Then, it fell. The age-battered teeth gained detail excruciatingly quickly as they filled his vision.

With death so imminent, Tzaphiel finally remembered how to move his legs. But first, consciencious boy that he was, he scooped Kahlina's pet into his arms and held it against the chipmunk dragon. The terrified animal grabbed hold of the yielding scales as, too soon, hot salty breath washed over the back of the boy's neck.

Suddenly, Tzaphiel felt Grandfather nearby.

A single metalic chime reached his ears, and the blunted sword grafted to his back popped its nearly unnoticeable seams. A cascade of clicking metal silenced the monter's howl, and a burst of warm, loving wind brought with it a brilliant blue light. Tzaphiel had to close his eyes, but he wasn't frightened. It felt that, after so long searching, he had finally found Grandfather.

He opened his eyes and saw his reflection a hundred times over, not in the pitted scales of the serpent, but in the polished plumes of angelic metal wings. All those Tzaphiels shared the same smile that he felt on his face, because he knew that Grandfather would protect him no matter where he travelled.

The serpent's shriek was silent, lost in the broken, bloody snout that had met the seraphim wall. The thick body fell to the sand, bowing the sea and the forest apart, as the head shrank back and spilled a shower of dislodged scales.

With metal feathers singing against one another, Tzaphiel's wings parted to reveal the scene before him. He was no longer afraid, for his vision was framed by the loving white light of Grandfather's gift, and the monster before him was overshadowed by another, even more energetic, aura.

Edgar stood on the beach, wearing the chaotic shroud of that lovely creature beyond, and from his mouth spilled her melodic voice like a hyperactive choir of angels.

"Foooouuuund it!"

[Twisted Infinitum]

"I didn't know Tzaphie-doodle had wings..." Calico mumbled, staring in awe at the boy's heavenly shroud as well as the beautiful blue aura around it. There was an odd feeling there, too, visible to her in the blinding glints from the multifaceted feathers.

Whisper-thin memories, flashing instant to instant; a dusty brown sleeve brushing against silver hair, worn fingers stroking a child's unnaturally cool cheek, and those same fingers, slightly less worn, deftly playing metal and leather and glittering soul lights into a creation as complete (in love if not form) as nature's own.

She also saw, in the way that gods do, that over the whole of Althanas, all that remained of the man were those soothing memories. Sorrow sank the corners of her manic grin, and her quivering eyes silently asked if the poor boy knew.

Such a complex expression didn't translate well to Edgar's face, though, as it always shook like that, and it shook even more with the renewed stirring of their gargantuan guest.

Screaming a cacophony of rage and glittering blood spray, she swiveled toward the small egg-napper with the grating voice. It simply stood, rooted in the shallow surf, and turned its bulbous, crimson, gumdrop of an eye to point at the mother. Whether she felt fear at these resilient pests, mockery in their defiance, or was simply acting out the most essential of instincts, her course was the same. She flattened her body to the beach, blasting twin blades of sand high to either side, and heaved with all of her length that had purchase.

"Oh yeah," Calico chirped toward the howling, serpentine locomotive barreling at her. She raised her gummy, clenched fist like a battering ram and set her lopsided legs into a splashing, stumbling charge. Wind and rank sea breath swelled before the widening maw, to which she answered with the only battle cry that came to mind.

"Choooo chooo!"

In the blink of an eye, the distance closed between the two maternal figures... and reached the negative digits as the abused puppet's body moved past the dripping teeth, over the convulsing tongue, and into the record books for "Dumbest Tactic in Dragon Slaying History". Registering a kind of surprise not normally seen in the animal kingdom, the sea dragon jerked back and upward, choking down the all-too-willing meal.

Yay! Your turn! Calico shouted as she danced away from the bubble, leaving Edgar to experience all those icky esophagus-related sensations on his own. Open your hand and let mommy's holy light pour out.

In the crushing darkness of the beast's throat, Edgar's gummy fist popped open and let loose the small stone his master had plucked from among Kahlina's pre-flight scattering of possessions.

The dragon let out one noisy cough, then, without the slightest trace of light (holy or otherwise), popped out of existence. Amid the low sonic boom of the sudden vacuum and the harsh swell of the now-vacant water, the only other sign of the dragon's existence was its last meal, momentarily suspended in a Superman pose.

Victoriously, the cloaked hero fell from the sky and ate sand.