The seaweed is always greener...

[Shotgun Opera]

Partially solo/closed. If you really want in, my AIM is KnottyEarthMama

The morning came with a sense of foreboding, and as her daughter helped check her armor for brittle spots, Cillia couldn’t help but dwell on the coming journey. So tangled in her thoughts was she that it took a sharp pinch on her arm before Cillia could force her attention back to the cecaelia before her. Moraia looked uncannily like her mother, though when her thick curls were shorn years ago they’d never grown back. Wisps of teal locks floated around her like a dark halo, her wide innocent eyes as angelic as the vision suggested. Now that gaze was locked in a form of annoyance, her brows furrowed and the ends of her thin tentacles cupped before Cillia’s face.

“Take this? I know your judgment is true. You may need it to find out what has happened.”

As Moraia’s fingers uncurled, Cillia reached inside, letting her own suckered arm slide across her daughter’s. Within the round suction cups, a cloth was curled. It seemed like a scrap of seal leather, smooth and dark, but once she touched it she knew that it was much more. She wondered where her daughter had come up with the items it must have taken to barter such a powerful enchantment from the cecaelia shaman. Surely the young octopian knew what was on her mind, because she discarded the cloth in her mother’s care and began to float away.

“I got it for my hair.” was her parting reply. For a while, Cillia sat upon the rock, staring upward. The sun danced on ripples above the surface, the orb of fire in the sky distorted and pulled out by the movement of the waves. Behind her, the cool current that wafted from the shadow of the submerged cliff-side catacombs was blowing against her back, and before her, the stretch of the ocean. The blue got dark that side, as deeper the floor of the ocean dropped from the surface. She couldn’t help but feel that there was something lurking, waiting for her in that darkness.

A tentacle on her shoulder drew her attention away from the deeper blue, where another soldier, Anaem, floated restlessly. His trident was held at the ready, the venom on the anemone that grew along the ends seeping out as they felt is mood through the touch on his weapon. She nodded at him, and followed as he began to swim towards the others who were collected around the current that would take them to the muddy shore. The scrap of cloth that had been given to her was clenched tightly in a tentacle, her look determined.

Cillia only spared one look back into the abyss of the ocean’s depths, and something was staring back.

[Shotgun Opera]

The tidal pools that gradually shallowed out onto the muddy banks of Alerar were as merciless as the creators' greatest warriors. Here, the current shook and ripped anything that tried to find sanctuary in the pools when the tide was high, and when it dipped down low the current indeed stopped but the beautiful coral along the walls released their deadly poisons. Fish knew to stay away from the world of clear water, bone-white sand, and tangled walls of reds and purples. No crabs or lobsters dared to scuttle from shadow to shadow here, but the cecaelia were unafraid. Cillia herself had been baptized in this pool, played among the poisons. This was a place to lure the small, ignorant sharks and let the sea claim them, bringing their teeth to the creators.

She had never thought that she would find this place foreboding, but now she couldn't find a way to banish the tension that was tightening her neck and shoulders. As they moved forward, the poisons that killed all but their kind giving the water a bittersweet taste, the current was growing warmer. The white sand was darkening as they slid along the bottom, thick tentacles moving out to gain purchase. The surface of the water was getting closer, their hair floating to the top like dark halos. When their movements along the bottom cast up thick clouds of deep brown, and the top of her head broke the surface, the screaming in the woman's mind grew to a cacophony so intense that she could no longer hear the roar of the sea's currents in her ears.

Her eyes lifted above the murky surface, and she blinked quickly. The touch of air on her eyes was something she hated, and she looked to her companions. They were all batting their eyes furiously, building up tears to protect their sight. She opened her mouth to draw in water, but the air was as dry and unbreathable as ever. She could feel the sacs at the side of her neck puffing up, the reserve of oxygen rich sea water in them going to work. Clutching at her chest, she calmed herself, and then took another look at the shoreline.

They were alone, though far up the shore, mere shadows on a distant hillside, she could see the city of the creators. The sun was high, scorching without cool water around her shoulders to constantly sooth the warmth away. The city was usually quiet at this hour, so Cillia did what was always done to call the Drow down. She moved, less gracefully now that her tentacles were supporting her weight as they squirmed over mud, flecking their teal surface with a near-black. She came to the true surface, where the ground was dry and rough against her tentacles. A rope hung down from the heavens, the sun too bright for her to dare look up to it's origin. She grabbed, pulled, and winced as the clanging of a bell started.

They waited, long after the bell stopped it's call. No one came.