"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It begins quietly.
A rumble, low and heavy. Just a shudder; enough to get Helice’s attention.
Her body moves before her brain can, swimming up and then cutting through the kelp and the coral, quick to try and find the queen. She curses herself for taking a moment to be alone — she so rarely is recently, her days busy with training or meeting with the queen or being with Mesarez and Nyktos.
When she’s able to, she steals away, down into the depths of the ocean until she can feel the pressure build around her, ears pounding. Then, just as she starts to see stars, just before the pressure begins to crack her bones, she swims up: a release.
It helps remind her that though she is the most powerful in Baltia, the ocean is still more powerful. That it still deserves her respect, after all these years.
Before she can find the queen, the earth revolts.
At first she’d thought it had been an attack, but it’s clear that this is more. The whole world is in chaos: sea creatures fleeing in every direction, a cave nearby collapses, a splash from above.
When the quake stops, she swims up. She’s never been one to shy away from danger.
And when she reaches the surface, she’s disoriented. She sees the ruins, remnants of the War, but there is so much more land around it. She swims closer until her tail disappears and she’s standing on all four legs, wading. Alert.
YOU CAN HAVE MY HEART, IF YOU HAVE THE STOMACH TO TAKE IT.
She is already beneath the river’s surface when the earth begins to heave in agony. The waves toss and roll her in their grasp when before they had run the same current she had always known. Her ribs collide with a submerged rock or maybe a fallen tree and she sucks in a breath as pain coils around her torso. Her vision grows dark around the edges as she is thrown against countless other debris, or maybe it is thrown against her.
Then, quite suddenly, she is plucked from the chaos by scaled talons. His grip is torture on her freshly bruised sides and she makes the discomfort known with a snarl.
“You could say thank you,” he calls to her above the wind billowing in her ears. But the world is still spinning and her stomach has formed itself into terrified knots, so words never find their way to her tongue. Her attention is dedicated entirely to keeping breath in her lungs even as he gingerly places her on the shore where the southern border used to be. “Isn’t this exciting? First the endless night and now the world is tearing itself apart!”
Katarine rolls onto her stomach, forelock still stuck to her face with drop of water and stardust pooling beneath her. Her muscles are trembling too fiercely for her to try and stand.
“Where is everyone?” she mumbles when the world finally stands still.
“Safe, I think?” he says with a grin full of sharpened teeth. “I moved everyone who needed moving. But now I’m very tired, and there’s still so much to do.”
He shifts his weight and when she blinks, he has taken his own form once more. Crowns circles her in the way he used to when they were children and he had a favor to ask. Her brother always liked to dance around his questions with her. Slowly, she pulls herself up onto her hooves and manages a scowl. She can already feel him gently knocking at the edge of her mind, asking to let him in. It feels like a terrible idea and yet she opens the door anyway.
“I just want to see what’s down there. Take a little swim and take a peek?” he asks, and then he’s flinging her into the open sea just as she opens her mouth to answer so all that comes out is a shriek of surprise. She can hear his laughter echoing against her skull even when she crashes beneath the surface.
“I’ll kill you when I get back,” she whispers. Then, with a flex of her tail, she descends further to explore. Katarine quickly learns that the majority of these waters are now clouded with dirt trying to settle from the sudden relocation. It feels something like creeping down a hallway full of dark doorways where anything could leap out at her.
Then, from the dark depths, scarred stone and broken monuments rise up from the ocean floor. She swallows nervously. The kelpie daughter grows uneasy and begins her ascent as she follows the path of destroyed land. When she breaks the surface, she is shocked to see anyone already on shore ahead of her and more of the warzone spreading out before them.
Go say hi. Don’t be rude, he snickers, and she finds herself rising from the waves long before she’s ready. Her lavender legs stumble onto land as the tide drags her stardust back out to sea.
“H-hello,” she breathes, wide eyed and very clearly shaken up.
