Bab 13: Swimming
She was swimming.
Faster than her movements alone could account for, she swam.
Water magic wrapped around her, pulling her forward in a current of her own making, moving through the sea at speeds that would have taken her breath away, had she been breathing.
Through the depths she raced, a smile on her face and exhilaration in her heart. She was truly the master of all she surveyed.
A reef here, a school of fish there; and just past it, the old, rotting carcass of a ship, its hull broken and admitting what few stray rays of light reached this far below the surface.
Through the ship she swam, finding wonders lost for centuries: pieces of carvings of unknown benefactors, skeleton crew, a chest that, on opening, revealed not gold but a powder that she almost swore she could taste through the water.
And then a shadow cut off the little light that filtered down through the depths. Up she looked.
Shark!
Away she dashed, dodging beams and ropes and plants growing up from where they had found sustenance in between cracks in the wood of the ship.
Through a hole between rooms, and another leading outside, she swam, channeling as much strength into her slipstream as she could manage.
And the shark spotted her and gave chase, following her past underwater hills and ravines, schools of frightened fish, farms of seaweed that could hide an army; and slowly the shark gained ground.
And then there was a ravine up ahead of her, forked to the left and the right. She dove into it, the shark meets handbreadths behind her. Through the trench they swam, dodging twists and turns until they came at last to cave at the end.
In she went, the shark nibbling at her toes, and then through a small window in the rock at the end. The rock shook, sending shockwaves through the water, as the shark slammed against the opening that was too narrow for him to fit through.
Smiling, she swam up and reversed course over the expanse of seafloor hiding the cave she had just swam through. On reaching the edge of the ravine, she swam low to where she could hide among a pocket of seaweed, waving lazily in the current.
The shark was exiting the cave.
Patiently she waited for the shark, nose weaving back and forth as it sought out any indication of its prey, to pass her position. Then she carefully let herself down into the ravine behind it.
Again the water magic she wove was her ally: not for speed, this time, but for stealth. A delicate net trapped any disturbance from her swimming from reaching the shark's senses, while letting the natural rhythms of the ocean pass through unhindered.
Forward she crept, eyes on the crafty predator, until she was close enough to reach out and grab its tail. She didn't grab it, though; instead she rolled upside down and crept forward underneath it until she was even with its belly.
She curled her fingers into claws, reached out…
And…
Began tickling!
The shark jerked in surprise and rolled, but she clung to it and continued her assault, showing no mercy as she scratched and tickled its sensitive belly within an inch of its life.
After a full minute or two of writhing and rolling and crashing into the sides of the ravine, they began to settle down, her arms around her friend as they drifted through the current.
After a bit she pulled away.
"Why is it," she asked, "that you always insist on plowing into the hole full force?"
The shark flashed its teeth at her – much more impressive than if she had done the same – and sent.
The impression she got from it was one of crashing through the hole, broken rocks spraying everywhere, and swallowingh her up to her middle.
"Huh," she replied. "That would be pretty impressive." She moved her belly up to its open mouth. "Not sure I'd fit in there though. Not without… damage."
She shuddered.
The shark nuzzled her affectionately.
And then a dolphin and a manta ray came over the rim of the ravine.
The four friends frolicked together, chasing each other around the underwater landscape, amongst the ships where sailors called out familiar greetings to them, and out to the edge where the land dropped off into the darkness of the deep.
Soon enough even the surface light began to wane, and the four friends found themselves playing by the light of the full moon.
At first they paid the darkness no heed, but as they gradually became aware that nothing else was moving around them, they looked around and realized that they did not recognize where they were.
Up to the surface they rose, and when they looked around they saw a curtain of darkness all around except where the moon shone down from up above.
Illuminated by the moon was an island, a craggy mountain covered with trees rising from its heart with sandbars reaching around either side of a large cove.
The island called to her: at first a tugging at something deep within her, that bade her swim in through the cove and rise up onto the sandy beach, water dripping unnoticed from her naked skin.
And as she stepped into the circle of moonlight marking the beginning of the slope that led up through the trees toward the peak she could no longer see, she felt the power of the moon washing over her, drawing her to itself; and a voice, both familiar and unfamiliar, sounded within her head.
"Come."
***
Selena sat up in bed with a start.
The first rays of the sun drifted lazily across the room and painted ever-moving fragments of leaves on the wall next to her. She stared at the busy shadows as she collected her thoughts.
She had almost forgotten the dream since the last time she had it – the day she had joined the temple, if she recalled correctly.
Before she had even discovered her affinity for water.
Mulling over the imagery she had seen and what feelings the dream had evoked, she considered the little she knew about dream interpretation.
And immediately rejected it. There was no imagery. No muddled jumble of ravings of an unconscious mind trying to pass on to the conscious mind something it didn't know how to say.
This was a crystal clear sequence of events that felt as real as if she was really there, cavorting with ocean animals in their home. The only part that might have descended into metaphor was the island at the end, and the message that left no ambiguity as to what was expected of her.
Now if she only knew where she was expected to come to.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone