[i]"Hold on!" "I'm holding!" Darkness. Cold. Sprays of brine stinging their scratches. Wood splintering under the force of gale and storm. The roar of lightning threw the panic on their faces into nightmarish light. Darkness. "Lu? Lu!" "I'm- I'm holding-" "Svietla!" "She's heavy!" "Hold on, Lu! I've got you!" The world dipped and tossed, throwing them sideways, against the wood, against one another. Black water heaved and swallowed them. They emerged with their nails sunk deeply into the wood, gasping for breath. "Hold on-"[/i] [center][h2][colour=steelblue]Mamang.[/colour][/h2] [h3]XII[/h3][/center] Strange encounters had been had in the cool waters of the north and central sea. The whale had grown mostly accustomed to being just about the longest thing in the ocean, excepting the cows of its own kind, whose usual quietness veiled that they were noticeably larger than the bulls that guarded and pursued them. Their presence was familiar, their soft calls warm in the whale's heart. There were also the loners, the giant rorquals of the north, who with their mere presence reminded the wandering bull that it had been a young bull once, timid amongst its uncles. Yet something had cast a shadow upon the whales. It had come and gone, slow of pace and still possessed of a terrific speed, and the whale had watched it walk. Its shadow was wider and darker than any cloud, and a sonorous moan accompanied the lift and fall of its movement. Three gargantuan striders dipped their feet into the sea and raised them up once more, landing on a plane of brilliant red, like stirred rocks might land on the seafloor. By this time, the whale had been exposed to quite enough sorcery. The sound of bending limbs scratched the inside of its skull, bleeding in memories of the foul curse at the south end of the world. To fly and walk and not swim was in defiance of good water and good gravity, and the whale reviled the alien... Yet the glow of red was calming, and the sound of the colossi was smooth and paced, like whalesong. Watching the feet plunge and rise on their sorcerous bridge, heaving out bubbles as they descended and raining down rivers as they rose, the bull's trepidation was soothed, as it had been on that long ago day, when red light on the shore marked the end of the blood and noise and chaos... Some whales followed the striders, rushing to keep pace for a while, singing back to the sound. They even dived under the very shadow of those beings, turning on their side to admire the glow, like an even cloud of sunlit krill, yet also harder than rock. The wandering bull did not join them long. It had seen plenty of wonders in its wanders. This was not its first taste of magic, and its memories were painful. But sweet was the sight of the Arbiter's light, and welcome was her presence. The travellers passed one another in peace: one party unknowing, the other well at ease. ... (Shortly afterward, the wandering bull swallowed a sardine run the distracted whales had been pursuing for two days.) [center][h3]XIII[/h3][/center] Scrsh, scrch, krunrungrunsh. A hook nose rummaged in the silt. [i]Mahm, mähm, mahm, mahm, mähm, mahm, mahm... ... ..?[/i] The bottom-feeder hucked back a throatful of muddy garbage and beheld the familiar silhouette with a louse-bitten eye. [i]Bmp mp. ... ... ... ... Bmp bmp bmp nn np.[/i] Friend! The pockmarked and barnacle-laden cow was an ancient, now, veteran of many summers and well satisfied, though her life was reaching its ebb. The whale had found her along much the same shores it had met her long ago, where the seas had recovered and bloomed and subsided, and her offspring now roamed alone. There was no longer any need for it to scrounge the seabed for a meal, only another hard and welcomed memory of rare company in its most difficult hour. Still, they parted ways shortly, and were not fated to meet again. Our story turns once more to strange encounters. The coasts of Galbar- a certain well-planned continent naturally exempted- were touched at their birth by the hand of Chance, and hide many secrets, uncovered often by the diligent and certainly by the lucky. White beaches and black cliffs, sea-arches, columns, hidden reefs and huge caves... Sea-caves and blue holes deep enough to hide whales. Coves wave-carved with sea tunnels that stretch far enough to hide many things indeed. It was in such a cove that the whale was first met by the hand of Royalty. It had heard sounds, there, while skimming, of a whale acting oddly, rubbing about among the rocks without making a call. Sometimes it went quiet. Sometimes it was silent altogether. Shadows in the distance. Something veiled by blue. The whale turned its one keen ear to the motion, and still heard no song. It only saw the shape. One shape, or many, flapping, writhing, scrounging, [i]seeking...[/i] The motion stopped. The thing that was not a whale went still, then began to rise. The whale fled. Somewhere behind it, a heavy splash, then a rain. For a moment, nothing- then a shape that blot out the sun, falling like a hawk, folding its wings- crash of water- vast weight diving- giant claws- Thrashing its gargantuan tail with terrible force, the whale was as helpless as a fish in the talons of a hawk before the hound of the Monarch. The thing that had once been a serpent stared down upon it, into it, its black predator eyes facing directly forwards at its prey. Its tail swept from side to side, groping the whale with its tendrils. A steady stream of water pumped from its gills-slits. Then the pressure was released, and the leviathan spread its wings once more. With the force of an eel-like tail behind it, it surged back up to the surface and beat its heavy wet wings in the sun, returning once more to its hunt. For that was what it was, and the whale recognised it now- the swim, scrounge, sniff, swim, scrounge, the relentless pattern of movement it had seen before in sleepsharks and dire wolf-eels. The hound of Royalty had no time to waste on such trifles. Not today. Bleeding from rows of deep scratches, the whale gasped fresh air from the surface and fled, and did not stop or call until it was free in the open ocean, well out of sight of shore. Its brain tumbled in its head as if drunk. Every part of its body was violated, squeezed and cast down and gripped and hunted in ways no rorqual should be hunted. A horrible tension had crawled under its skin, into its blood, and taken hold of its muscles. It had survived. Cast aside by some unnatural intelligence under divine command, it had survived. And still the sea grew stranger. [center][h3]XIV[/h3][/center] "Lu..." "Nothing, Mitsa. Just salt." Mitsa lay her head and closed her eyes again. Svietla, roused a little by the motion, only turned to look at the endless ocean. They were dying of thirst. With Tykhom lost to the storm, Arska was the only manbjork of the remaining four, and had taken to letting his whole lower body lay in the water, resting his head and shoulders on the edge of the raft. Occasionally there were sharks. There had been yelling and crying the first time he'd done it, and those savage wildfish had appeared shortly after, drawn by the smell of blood and despair. A pike or a gar could take lethal bites from an unwary bjork, and these fish were [i]much[/i] bigger. Even now, the three wifebjorks still preferred to wait out the heat of the day under the crude shelter they had rebuilt at the back of the raft. As their wounds healed and their thirst grew, Arska Snaketail had ceased to fear. "Perhaps we should swim," he said. "We could each head a different direction- north, south, east..." Svietla met his eyes, and he fell quiet. "If we do swim," she said, softly, "we [i]will[/i] swim together." And that meant: I will not let you die alone. Arska closed his eyes and turned away. He did everything alone. Svietla chewed a twig from the bundled supplies in her dry, dry mouth. "I see something!" All four were awake in a flash, staring at the ocean, staring at Lu. Lubov's young eyes were wide, her hand straining as she pointed out into the distance. "Smoke!" "...It's steam," said Svietla, squinting. "Where'd it come from...?" None of them had an answer. The steam blew away, and they stared in hope and terror. Loud cries rose from the raft as the steam plume came again. "We should swim-" "Arska..." "Arska can take the risk-" "Svietla? [i]Svietla![/i]" Without a word, the eldest wifebjork had submerged herself in the infinite blue. Gripping the sides of the raft, she took a deep breath, then followed her deepest instincts: head dipping, using all her muscles, raising her tail, and- [i]slap![/i] In those still and empty waters, the sound felt as small as a leaf falling into a puddle. They said nothing to one another. [i]Crash![/i] Lubov pressed her hands to her mouth. There in the distance, in the [i]near[/i] distance, the unmistakeable flick and slap of a gargantuan tail. "It heard us." Arska frowned an exhausted frown. His tail was no good for slapping. "Do it again... Svietla..." "Don't tell me what to do." Svietla was already steeling herself for another try. Everything about her was tired. She was the biggest, and had shared the last of her portion of water with Lubov. She slapped, and once again, the giant fish slapped back. This time it was noticeably closer. "Pray," she commanded, or begged, and they did. Whether any god had answered, they knew not. Only the fish answered. Soon it was beside them, a shadow in the water. "It could swallow us whole..." "It doesn't care," said Arska, whose odd body carried odd instincts. "We're too small for it. Like a bear chasing a beetle." "Bears... will eat anything..." Svietla shushed Mitsa and stroked the fur at the top of her head. Lubov stared at the shadow, completely transfixed. "Is it... humming?" [center][h3]XV[/h3][/center] From then on the whale followed them. It was sometimes close by them, sometimes apart, visible as an occasional plume of breath in the distance, and sometimes gone altogether, to feed, Arska said. Sometimes it fed right below them, gulping down a little mouthful of shoaling fish which the bjorks had barely seen, circling in the shadow of their big raft. They watched the pleats of its throat stretch as it filled itself with water. Sometimes the whale would nudge them along with its fin, or push them, almost carrying them, with its upper back. It did not push them far. Their condition did not really improve. The bundle of food disappeared, and they were reduced to gnawing on the wood of their own raft. A light burst of rain in the early morning was their only moisture, and they sucked from each other's fur, then from the wood itself. Their bones were visible even under their pelts. Still they watched the whale, and still the whale sang. No more sharks came upon them then. They rested their bodies in the cool ocean water, and watched rainbows form in its spouted plumes. It gave them nothing but hope, and hope was all they asked. As long as the whale was there, the ocean was not so lonely. Its salt had lost its sting. They watched the whale breach, and forgot about their thirst. And at night, under a spectacular blanket of stars, they would pray. Land was sighted after thirty-nine days. Yelling goodbyes to the whale, they fled the raft and swam to shore with every last bit of their strength, sharks and pikes be damned, Svietla pushing Lubov ahead of her as she swam. When they washed up on the brown and silty beach, they found themselves by the mouth of a small river, and didn't even notice until after they had stuffed their bellies with grass and thistle and every bit of prickly green they found within arms reach. They slaked their thirst, the sun grew low, and in the orange light of dusk found themselves alone again. "This land has few trees," said Mitsa, combing a sleepy Lu with her nails. She was looking better with her feet on dry land. Svietla was lighting a fire with grass and scraps of a stunted bush, Arska rummaging in the stream. "We won't have much of a lodge." Svietla met her eyes. They both knew that the real concern was food. "Then we must live as the water-voles do, and eat what we can find." Arska returned from the stream with a struggling crayfish in his paws, stuck through with a twisted little stick. Mitsa gasped as he lowered the little animal into the flames. "You cruel-" "We will be like hunters who were taught by the Masked One. Like the giants, the hairless beings from the west. We will be like them. But we will waste [i]nothing.[/i] Not even the offering of flesh- not even blood. That is how the Masked One spoke to his followers. Kill with purpose. Do not waste." Arska's tail glinted in the firelight. It was long, thin, flattened the wrong way, a deformity unlike any bjork that had been seen yet. He could neither slap nor pat down mud with it, but it had never slowed him down. "I've been to the top of the hill, Mitsa. There aren't enough trees here for one single clan. It will only turn our stomachs for a while, and we can't live on reeds alone. There is no old matriarch to judge. Who will stop us?" Arska pulled the cray from the flames and took a crunching bite. He cringed, stretched his cheeks, made to spit, but held himself back. He swallowed. "Who will stop us! Hasn't the Singing Maker himself, or one of his daughters, appeared to us as a fish and saved us? We were meant to live!" He took another bite, smaller. "I'm not scared of salt water any more. I don't need a forest to hide in. So we'll have to build our homes out of mud and reeds- so what? Have you forgotten that these are the last days of the autumn? This land is warm! We need no lodge. We'll sharpen our nails and harden our hearts. Maybe we've found what we were looking for after all- a place for ourselves, far in the south. A place where no one can cast us out any more." Mitsa looked down to the fire, then to the eldest. "Svietla..." Svietla said nothing for a while. She could not reject Arska Snaketail, not after they had come this far together. She wondered if she could even pull rank on him any more. She had always been the little future matriarch of their little future clan, and everyone had quietly accepted that. But maidbjork cannot be without manbjork. The new world would have new rules. Nothing, now, was beyond question, not even Arska's odd instincts, held in his odd body. She spoke, and answered nothing. "The spirit-whale has returned to the waters. Old-Bjork we have left behind far in the north. Perhaps for the better- they say strange things happen in his lands these days, strange dreams. Perhaps the Master of the Hunt will bless us, or the Lady Heat, in these warm lands. For now, we have no gods among us." But she was wrong. For beyond the hill, in the cool air of night, an eyeless giant with a head of bright brass was striding towards them, and its heart rang with the will of its dead master: Life, will, and the strength to persevere, strength it knew lay in the hearts of the mortals beyond... [hr] [hider=Talking muskrats] Mamang encounters or recalls Homura's Colossi, its old friend from the Termina coast, and the Monarch's Serpent. The Serpent traumatises it a little bit. Four bjork outcasts, three female and a male with a mutant tail and slightly weirdo tendencies named Arska, were swept out to sea on a raft in a storm. They encounter Mamang while drifting, and his company gives them hope to stick to the raft and carry on rather than try to swim out and eventually drown trying to reach something. They consider him to be sent by the Singing Maker (our good friend Jiugui). They eventually land in the northern part of the island to the north of Orsus. The region is somewhat lacking in trees, but not barren, and has milder winters than the Thousand Lakes. At least one of the Guardians created by the dying Aletheseus comes to help them. Here, thanks to the environment and a strong founder effect, they'll start a new race of bjorks, named after the mutant: Bjarsks, or Bjarska. They'll resemble muskrats (or nutria rats, another large water rodent) more than beavers, with a long, thin, paddle-like tail. The Bjarska might be considered barbarian Bjorks by the northerners. Less social order, less inclination to build, more omnivorous, more inclined to fight, especially among males. But we'll see what happens. 0 Vigour gained. 0 Vigour spent. 2,794 whale points awarded for creating a new race unassisted uwu Total whale points: 8,551 [/hider] [hider=i really did think it was a snake] Then out of the silence, blurring motion. A shape whirled before the eye of the bull. It could not be a whale. Twisted, tangled, writhing, then sweeping up towards it in ripples as only an eel and a ribbon can, the hound of the Monarch emerged from the seabed. It was vast- thicker than the whale, thicker than a bowhead at its widest point- yet had no curves, no natural silhouette- for it was impossibly [i]long,[/i] its body stretching on and on at an even width through three dozen sand-yellow stripes until it ended at last in a snub and scaled head- And that head carried a giant searching eye, and in an instant it brought that giant eye beside the tiny sunken eye of the whale, and it stared, as if to say: [i]I am Zhongcheng.[/i] [/hider]