"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
your heart, it's like a drum the chase has just begun
It’s not often she is stirred to care about the happenings of the world. Truthfully, she would not even have stirred now had she not accidentally stumbled upon the new and strange. Life beneath the waves has long existed as a world apart from the one above. Waverly is only aware of this because she has had the unique opportunity to experience both in equal measure. An opportunity that had convinced her long ago that life in the sea is vastly preferable to one on the land.
Most days, at least. When hunting is plentiful and trials are few.
Today however, she is uncertain. She had not noticed when the sea claimed the south and an underwater kingdom had risen from obscurity. Of course, that isn’t terribly surprising when one knows the scope of underwater existence. What causes disaster in one place may bring barely more than a ripple to another.
So, to find a kingdom beneath the waves is something of a surprise to her. She does not care for surprises at all. Not even ones that shouldn’t come as a surprise. But then, Waverly has not always been the most logical of creatures. She prefers instinct. Instinct has never failed her.
Until now.
With cautious flicks of her finned limbs, she slips through the beds of coral, golden eyes roving warily over gently swaying plants too structured to be natural. She has seen enough of the ocean by now to know the difference. Predator she may be, but she has not survived the deep by being a foolish one. She is not the most dangerous creature that exists in these waters. Even her wide jaw and jagged teeth are no match for a behemoth shark or giant squid.
But this is no cephalopod’s lair, of that she is certain. No, something else built this. And Waverly, despite her many misgivings, is determined to discover what it is.
He keeps to the dark places normally, watches the strangers come - the ones who can - lets them pass him by without noticing that he watches from the shadows, wrapped between rock and coral. They change themselves to reach the kingdom, it is not in their nature but a trick of their blood alone that allows them access, even the ones like this female that so fully adapts herself to the water as if it is her right, but it's only lies. The young baltian follows her without turning his head, silver eyes peering through the transparent shell of his skull, and he thinks that if he cut her, her flesh would still taste like the dirt she came from, like iron, and not of salt and iodine as it should if she belonged.
He should let her pass, though. He should because he is not interested in knowing more about the horses that make their homes above the surface, but eventually his mother and his brother will ask him what he's learned. They will want to know what he is doing to make the kingdom better, stronger, safer, and they will not think much of his answers if he remains alone in the shadows with his contempt. A lazy pulse of his tail parts him from the rocky rift and into the dim sea-blue daylight that shifts and plays across his slick, striped, back. His black hooves crunch softly in the sharp coral-bone substrate and he says nothing but the water fills with the static crackle of electricity. Can she hear it, with her water-logged ears? He doesn't know, but she will feel it, plucking at her flanks like cleaner wrasses picking lice from her skin.
Ugh, he thinks, his face twisting into a mask of disgust, I hope she hasn't got lice.
It hadn't occurred to him before, what else they might bring with them besides their lying blood.
your heart, it's like a drum the chase has just begun
She might have been offended if she knew they imagined her lice-ridden. Or she might have been amused. It’s hard to say with a creature whose emotions can be as fickle as the undertow. But of course, in the sea, any parasites she might have would be the same ones crawling along his flesh. These deep currents are a great equalizer of such things.
As it is, when she realizes she is not alone, it is not potential parasites she is thinking of.
Her first instinct is to strike, but she reins it in, going against all that is natural to her in favor of logic. If the static crackle in the water were not enough, her rising curiosity would be. She would learn little about this new place if she tried to devour everything first.
She sees the glowing ochre hue of his aura first, pulsing his disdain into the water around him. It is almost a living entity, foul in the clarity of the salt water. There is no sunny tinge of fear, only the vibrating superiority.
A grin cracks her too-wide mouth at that. Nothing is safe underwater that believes themselves to be. Such belief leads to complacency, and complacency leads to death. She would know. She has been the death of many who fell into that trap.
Golden eyes bright in the sharp angles of her elongated face, Waverly watches the creature with a mixture of wariness and fascination. His shape is similar to hers while somehow also being utterly alien. Finally, after staring at him for an eerily long moment, she speaks, her voice a hiss through the jagged confines of her teeth. “What are you?”
She isn’t certain he would understand her, isn’t certain he would know the words that trip thickly across a tongue unaccustomed to speech, but still she tries. She wants to know whether this thing is predator or prey.
Nobody understands their own mortality like a prince. Superiority does not mean safety, Noceur knows this as well as any other Royal who must swim in the bright light, seemingly heedless of the dark sea that surrounds. It is what the people expect of their leaders, this sense of invulnerability. He can see that the creature before him is dangerous, but he does not let that trouble him greatly. He can be dangerous, too, and this is his home.
His sleek head tips slightly to one side, as though considering her angles, how even though her shape skims through the water, it still gives her away as Something Other. She thinks him foreign and alien, but it is the kelpie that does not belong in Baltia. Yet somehow, she feels comfortable demanding answers from him. An ugly sneer ripples across the glassy skin of his face, her shark's grin is met by the dim flash of his own teeth, pin-sharp and too long, too numerous.
"No," he says, bold words tinged with his soft, curling, accent, "No, this is not your place. You will not question me."
And then, because he is fair - at least where his mother's eyes might reach - he waits. He waits for the interloper to show that she understands her error, that understanding is a thing she is capable of doing, though he does not hold a great deal of optimism in this respect. It is impressive she can speak, but after all any fish can grunt.
your heart, it's like a drum the chase has just begun
Waverly understands the dance of life and death beneath the waves well, but she is no purveyor of courtly intricacies. She does not understand subtlety nearly as well as many others. She is plainly spoken and understands plain speech in return. What to him might be obvious as a royal of this land is to her nothing more than ridiculous.
The teeth though, those she understands. They flash like needles in his mouth. It is a display she can respect, even if it does not spark fear. His teeth are made for gripping prey. Hers are made for rending. But she understands, and that brings a respect greater than any condescension or sense of superiority ever could.
There is nothing she respects more than the laws of might. Though she doesn’t believe he could kill her so easily, neither does she believe she could kill him easily either. And that is enough to draw her into an uneasy truce.
So she gives him that false sense of security he had so clearly been seeking. Her face shifts, the elongated jaw shrinking as jagged teeth melt into flat molars, the sharp angles of her features softening into something far more feminine. A face as achingly lovely as it is deceptive, golden eyes wide with an innocence that belies her true nature. Her finned and clawed feet remain the same, but it does nothing to detract from the stunning beauty and elegant lines that had replaced her predatory grin.
He wanted to call her little fish, and so she would be the little fish he believed.
“I was not aware I was trespassing,” she replies, a tremulous smile easing over her lips. She was aware, but she could lie as easily as any other. Her words are lyrical now, tripping across her tongue with more ease than before. “Are you upset because you believe I am a threat to you?”
Some part of him is mollified, that not-small part of him that believes himself superior to her - by birth, by station, by homeland - that part of him sees her countenance change and accepts it as the natural order of things. She should be more respectful, more humble; after all, who the hell is she? Nobody, here, in Baltia. It is wise to know it.
This easily soothed piece of him though does little more than soften the deepest wrinkles of distaste that gather around his nostrils and make the gills there flare. His conceit lies thick across his scaled hide, his dislike of these trespassers from above weaving a detailed tapestry across the translucent blue flesh of his face. The long needles of his teeth click softly as he sets his jaw against her continued questioning. Her musical voice seeks to soothe him, but it does not. He will not be soothed by the likes of her.
"You are not a threat to me," comes the cold reply.
This is a poor start. He knows it and does not find himself caring deeply. It is a fine line to walk, rebelling yet conforming, particularly in a place full of eyes always watching and waiting and pulling your thoughts from your head before they've even been formed fully in the womb of your brain. Baltia has more than its fair share of mind-readers and he does not fancy banishment. Out there he would be as much a nobody as the spotted mongrel in front of him. The tension of it makes the water around them tick with electricity that stings and streaks invisibly across their skin until he pulls it all back inside of himself with a sneering hiss.
"Luckily, your timing is better than you know," the prince says at last, his own demeanor adjusting from furious disgust to simply dour, "my mother is throwing a party just for you."
The young Baltian gestures deeper into the kingdom.
your heart, it's like a drum the chase has just begun
Despite the cool waft of acceptance that so briefly tinges his aura, Waverly knows he is not genuinely receptive to her. It is there in the poisonous coils of disdain and disgust threaded so thickly around him. She may not be a reader of minds, but the pulsing wash of color surrounding him tells her as much as she needs to know.
She would tread carefully, yet he would receive as much respect from her as she received from him. Waverly may wear the trappings of placation well enough, but they are little more than that. She is still a predator, even if her face is one of prey. A pretty lure she had long ago learned to welcome.
A soft laugh bubbles up her throat at his swift denial that she might be a threat. She offers no response however, instead allowing her amusement to be washed away by the subtle currents. He is already continuing anyway, announcing a party just for her.
If she were as vapid as he seemed to think, her head might have been turned by that. But she is not, and though she believes he is telling the truth about a party, she is not fool enough to believe in the exclusivity of her invitation. Still, it is an opportunity to observe, and that tempts her where flattery does not.
When he demands she come, a slow smile begins to bloom upon her lips. “Will I?” she asks coyly, her golden eyes surveying him in a leisurely manner before slipping to the orderly coral gardens beyond him. Without waiting for him to affirm, she continues, “Mmm, yes, I think I will.” Bright gaze returning to her gloomy companion, she allows the smile to blossom in truth. “Lead the way, stranger.”
