The heart caves are not a place where I should be going on my own. This much was clear even before I stepped foot within them. The day, drawing into night, was cold and dark. I was far from home, the only light I could see was that of a fire. When I drew closer, was assaulted by the burning of flame, the danger of this excursion met me without mercy.

The flames were wild and deep, coming from the core of an earth I was tethered to only by thin threads. To move closer, to journey into the heart, was a sort of childish suicide that reason tugged on. This was not instinct, this was not intelligence, and yet still I stepped forward.

Now, as I walk, I feel those threads tugging. They jerk on my heels, twist around my spine and yank out of place vertebrae. I am pressed against myself, made into a contorted shadow as the light casts my useless image along the walls. My dapples catch fire, their silver glittering gold in this eerie light. I am walking slowly towards my doom.

As I step dangerously close to the pit I wonder about what it would be to fall into it, to slip and never return. Am I too young for such contemplation, too much of a child to consider death? No, I do not think so. Not with my only friend's body still in my mind, not with the taste of her blood still flooding my nostrils. I can smell only her death, can hear only my father's pain.

No, I am not too young for this.

I settle in the central cave, basking in a warmth that my dark coat eats hungrily and staring into the fire in my solitude. Alone as I am I stretch my jaw and test my voice, so aching and unused. "I..." I speak. "I... I... I..." but there is nothing to follow the stutter, the singular sound that is all I can produce after so long shutting my mouth. Is there really anything of worth in my body, are there any words I could say that could make up for the things I have lost? No, I can't imagine there are.

""

She had left the cold seas, surfacing on the mainland of Helovia. Though the air was not any warmer, it sucked heat less quickly from her scaled skin. Walking inland, to get away from the frigid winds that swept the coast, a strange light in the distance drew her. Curiously, cautiously, webbed hooves struck cold land, ears perked and large eyes unblinking, staring down the opening of the caves.

It reminded her of the warm sea vents that forever gushed heated water. But those were a plethora of life; whereas the heated air billowing from this great cavern seemed ti wither the life around it. A wary gaze cast around her; it made her uneasy to box herself into a hole. But the heat was welcome to the intermittent shivers of her hide.

So, with slow strides and constant probing of the shadows for threats, she descended into the caves. She walked, following the source of heat deeper, deeper. The lack of dangers eased her caution, allowing her curiosity to pull her towards the source of light. The heat was welcome to her bare scales; the ridges on her neck raised to fully absorbed the heat.

Webbed hoof froze, ears straining forward. A strange sound— a voice? There. A slender, deformed yearling stood at the edge of the hot pit. But the sounds from the youth died as he stood so precariously at the edge.  Her head cocked slightly, ridges and fins settling back down as she assessed. There was no threat, this malformed child could easily be outrun. Or pushed into the pit— should she be attacked.

She approached slowly, unblinking eyes ever watchful. “Why do you stand so close to the edge?” Her throaty voice growled over the roar of heat.

At first, I try very hard to not show my fear.

Maybe I would have spoken again, but the sight of another, this stranger, clamps my jaws shut. Her appearance reminds me of the foreign god that put me in this state, that crippled me with eternal pain. What am I, a mere child, to do in the face of this ghost?

Everything is ghosts, everything... steam rises from the surroundings, my mere breaths disappear as eternal heat dries them instantly. She, this spined mare of the waves, reminds him of the glimmering of the halycon flats. So why is she here, underground and so far from the water?

I have come here for heat, for something so blindingly burning that I must forget this pain. Here my joints relax, here my body eases into something like normalcy. But what about her, what about...

What about monsters?

I take a fumbling step away from her, a small whinny slipping through my shut teeth. Slowly they begin to clack and shudder, and that fearful noise so unique to my youth rears its head. I am young, I am weak, I am not your child to hurt, says the gesture.

For I have been hurt; Milo, boy of the hunter, has been beaten in body and mind. This has been my role, my position in this feeble life. I cannot register her question, her response. I feel only instinct, the gentle curl of my soft white tail as it slips between my legs. I feel only a painful step backwards, just along the edge (pebbles slipping, danger, danger, danger, I could fall any second, I could fall I could die I could end and no more live this life,) and away from the mare.

What about monsters?

""

The mare is used to strange reactions to her appearance by those of Helovia. She had yet to find one who did not react in some shade of surprise at her appearance. At first, it had been strange— for she was one of the lesser adorned citizens of her culture. Truly, only her poison-barbed tail (yet unknown to her that the poison had left when she entered Helovia) had set her apart from those in the legions. Most had sharper teeth, or more of them. More fins, spikes along their spines, colors brighter and deadlier than her simple tan and aqua stripes. She had been average, save for her intelligence, agility, and perseverance.

But here, it was not the case.

Her ridges, her scales, her stripes; they all drew wide-eyed stares and questions. Though, never had they drawn outright fear— until she was looking ay the frightened eyes and stumbling steps of the yearling colt. Scaled ears jerked at the youthful whinny, so filled with terror and surrender.

A harsh snort forced through the ridged nostrils, large eyes narrowing and fins waving slightly in irritation. “I’ll not hurt you, little colt,” her throaty growl sliced through the panic and roar of the pit. Though her irritation is swept aside as her gaze found the backward step and pebbles scattering to the hungry inferno below.

‘Don’t be stupid, boy,’ it was idiotic to fall to a preventable death. He was of no use dead, no one was. Though she did not voice these things, instead issuing a short command, “Step away from the edge.” And she followed her own order, stepping carefully backwards to give the misshapen foal distance from her severe, shocking appearance.

Ears twisted, listening and trying to decipher any danger from the echoing roar of flames against the rocks. She watched, listened, wondering. Again, her throaty voice cut through the hot air, though it wasn’t a growl this time, “Why are you so scared?” There was a difference between caution and fear. Aquila exercised much of the first. Why would a young foal have so much of the latter?

I know that I am smart. It is not a sense of superiority, it is a fact. It is an adaptation, it is something I have been forced to cultivate. Intelligence. But just as I am wise beyond my years I am traumatized, more so than I can really understand. There is a depth to the terror and the pain that I have been made to feel that even I cannot yet plumb. I, the vessel of this hurt, am trapped in this inability to cope with it.

So in the fog of her tone, her words become incomprehensible. I hear only the growling, the harsh bite that silences every syllable. What are these but the snaps of the crocodile once more, the hard strikes of its tail as it sweeps across the wide, sunny expanses and destroys us?

I want to understand, I do. I watch her step away from me and I want to move closer, to not let that distance grow larger but stay somewhere perfectly defined as it is now. My tense figure relaxes as much as it can but the second she speaks again the sound of her voice sends me into spasms once again.

Through it all I know how much easier it would be if my jaw would unhinge and my lips would shape to form words. If I could just speak to her, if I could just explain, this might all fade away. This anxious hurt would fall into the pit and I would rise above it, stand as tall as I am able before her and lower my head in a respectful greeting.

Maybe my body knows that I could. Slowly my lips parts, and my sugar-lump hoof lifts off the ground as I show both submission and a desire to step forward. Slowly, I try to mend this. But I don't have a moment to even try and speak, to find the wound to mend, before the rock beneath my hoof on the edge crumbles and I start to fall.

""

The colt’s wide, brilliant gold eyes watch her hooves and the step away from him, and for a moment she sees a slight relaxation of his tense, fearful pose. Satisfaction and some mild sense of relief flits through her— but it is short lived as suddenly she sees her words hit the foal with immediate effect. He tenses, and it becomes apparent to the aquatic woman and words would not be an effective form of communication.

Slowly, she begins to lower her head, a display of non-aggression. Though it is awkward, for the mare cannot remember the last time she wasn’t aggressive. Slowly (perhaps stupidly, for her fins meant nothing to land-dwellers) he face fins waved in a sign of greeting, a silent and friendly ‘hello.’ Too large eyes blinked once, releasing him of their intense stare momentarily— it all felt so strange. This was not natural for the woman, this wasn’t right.

But it was all in vain, for as the sooty yearly began to step towards her, the hungry inferno grey ravenous and impatient. The rocks beneath his small, ashen hooves gave way, “Fekero!*” and her vow of silence was quickly forgotten as a curse tore from her scaled lips. And she was a blur of motion, skin pulsing with aqua light as adrenaline flushed her veins, sharp teeth and ridged neck stretching and reaching for the deformed, timid colt.

Why was she saving this creature? In the moments of her movements, she did not have time to question herself— but later this question would arise. Now, only snapping teeth and flexing muscles threw the colt away from the edge and towards safety, instead placing herself so close to the pit’s flames.

Stare glares at the youth. “Why do you stand so close to the pit?!” Her fierce question spilled from her throat— before realizing that this would most assuredly terrify him. Ears tilt back in annoyance, a long sigh escaped from her ridged nostrils, before she quietly assessed the situation. “I am Aquila,” she finally offered, voice slipping into the airy hum she used beneath the waves. It carried better than her growl through the water, but above the water it sounded so light— so foreign even to her own ears.


*fekero = little turd (to put it nicely ;] )

I don't have time to take in the curious waving of the fans on her face, her unique greeting, before hot air rushes up to meet me. There is a yell, something that I can recognize by a curse by its inflection even without knowing the meaning. When I don't fall to my death I wonder if the fire has formed a wall or a cradle--something to catch me. But if it has then it's a strange one, for it hurts; there is a prickling of pain along my neck, something like razor sharp teeth.

Then there is a pull, another body pulling mine onto sparse shore. Maybe throwing it, I an't be sure. Whatever it is the motion is swift and secure. I feel something like comfort in its care for me, even as the teeth release and start small beads of blood lining up along my neck where their grip once held so tightly.

Hesitant and shaking I recover myself and move away from the edge. The mare yells again, but I suspect with something different behind it than just anger. Was she scared, too? Was there a possibility that she actually cared about my well-being? How unfamiliar.

If nothing else, she has earned my trust. And even if she hasn't I would be rude to deny her advances now. She gives me her name like a concession; the fact that she doesn't ask me for mine, that she seems (if only reluctantly) content to let me stay quiet, is a comfort.

Aquila. I try to shape the word in my mind but find it fails--silently roll it in my mouth but can still make little sense of its foreign sound. At a loss, I simply nicker and let that roll of a sound mimic the syllabic cadence of her name. It is something, just as it is good to meet someone who saves my life.

Even if they do look like a monster.

I move closer, this time with a hint of more confidence, and approach her so that she stands between myself and the edge. I won't make that mistake again. Gently I reach up, my nostrils flaring and my exhales the soft snort of a child, and try to brush my nose against the edge of the strange flaps on her face, not considering that they might not be safe to touch.

""

Blood films her teeth; not much, just enough to coat the tips and enough to provide a metallic tang on her tongue. But not enough to give her a taste, though she can see the red dots darken as pinpricks along the colt’s ashen neck. Part of her mind seeks a further taste— for it wasn’t quite like the blood of those beneath the waves.

But she dismisses that thought, instead focusing on the silent colt. Surprise flashes through her overlarge eyes— he is relaxing? The hump of his back has lessened, the youthful creases of submission around his sooty muzzle are gone.

He nearly falls to his death and she yanks him to safety by her teeth, and he is comforted?

The woman, who was slowly growing accustomed to not fully understanding those who dwelled on the land, was entirely stymied. Her mind, which naturally drew conclusions, was blank— simply staring at the silent foal whose soft mouth parted to break his silence. A nicker; a sound she had heard by those landlubbers, but a sound her own voice had not yet mastered. She fiercely bellowed, she deeply growled, she snarled, snapped, and screamed. But these other sounds, these softer sounds, her lips and voice box could not form.

So, instead, her fins waved and she hummed lowly in her throat in response to his three-syllabic nicker. Her scaled ears perk forward as he began to move closer, breathing on her as he his muzzle reaches for the delicate fins of her face.

Though her first instinct is to pull away (how many times had others grabber he fins, holding her helpless in training?) she stays still. Is breathing some kind of introduction above the waves? As his soft muzzle comes in contact with her sharp, but fragile fins, she (belatedly) breathes out of her own, ridged nostrils.

“They are veleta vizaĝo*, little Kahelo**,” her voice is still pitched as if she were beneath the waves. No longer deep and growling, but lighter. After the fact, she realizes that she had named the silent child. Kahelo— the grey fish that lived in sand; mild flesh that suited the timid nature of this colt. But some— some were bright and brilliant, and worthy of a good chase beneath the waves. Perhaps this youth would grow into that.

Then again, perhaps he was simply a kahelo.


*veleta vizaĝo= fins of the face
**Kahelo = tilefish (she’s referencing the Grey Tilefish species)

Once again the words that find their way slipping out from between the monstrous mare's teeth have a foreign hue to them. Is it I that am strange, or is it she? My dark lids flutter to close over the gold eyes that burn like an ancestry I do not yet understand. There is a fire inside me that is more ancient than Helovia's heart.

Veleta vizago, she says of the flaps on the side of her face, and I try to roll the taste of the sound on my tongue once more. It's difficult to mimic when I can't let loose the sound, but my mouth moves as if I were parroting back every unknown word she employed. Kahelo, she calls me, and for this word I do the same. It takes another moment before I realize that this, kahelo, is what she has chosen to call me.

And the feeling is strange, like the odd lilt of her voice as it rings in the cavern and the sensation of her breath travelling along my neck. And I think it's like affection, like caring enough to try and give a name to someone who cannot give it himself. And I wonder how normal this is, for people to reach out to the wounded and small.

I wonder if I can ever do the same.

I turn to look back at the fire, my head bobbing in approval of the name she has given me, and perhaps my nose brushes her chest as I re-position myself. There is so much history in that fire that I do not know... as I look at her from the corner of my eye, I can only wonder if this flame, too, is something she has a name for.

""

Unblinking eyes watch the soft foal lips form the words of her language; but silently, as Kahelo had yet to actually speak. Perhaps he was mute? That was unfortunate, for he seemed so curious. Overlarge yes follow his gaze from her fins to the fire, and she silent for a moment. Though some the cultures Akvo conquered that lived both above and below the waves had a name for the flames in the common tongue— fire— the ancient Akvian tongue did not have a word for such conflagrations. Blazes did not burn beneath the ocean. Warm, underwater vents provided heat— and, to Aquila, they were preferable to the hungry inferno that roared from the pit. The warm jets of water did not need to be fed, did not desiccate the skin, did not burn away life around it. No, the warm vents of the sea floor brought up nutrients— tubons stretching their long bodies in the warm rush of water.

“Termika,” so Aquila gives him the name for her warm, underwater thermals, glassy stare reflecting the flames. Her pebbled hide leaps at the soft brush of muzzle-velvet as Kahelo’s movement brings his maw against her chest. She is not used to soft touches; her world is filled (was filled) with training, rebukes, and orders. Ridged nostrils flare as she takes a step back, away from the child, uncomfortable with things so strange to her.

To cover her discomfort, she speaks again, more of her home— though her throaty voice replaces the more gentle voice of earlier, “We do not have fire beneath the sea,” bladed horn slices towards the pit, “We have termika. Hot water from the ocean floor,” she pauses, “They aren’t loud, like this pit.” Scaled ears tip back as she speaks, for they, indeed, were growing sore.

A webbed hoof begins to shift backwards, away from the heat and the noise, “Can you speak, Kahelo?”


tubons=tubeworms
termika=thermal

I want to ask her everything. I want to know her world. My limitations become unbearable; my faults shine clear and cast divisive shadows across my features.

I believe in first impressions. Maybe that's foolish, maybe I'm too young and not well versed enough in second impressions to make that decision, but I really do. I consider our entire meeting one such first impression, and one that taught me several very valuable things. I can't forget that she saved me without ever having known me. I can't forget that she cared. I can't forget that rolling high tone in her voice, the language that she draws from the depths of the ocean and drags on shore, deep into the mainland and down into the heart of the earth to gift to me.

I have a moment of wondering why I am special enough to garner her attentions. I have a moment of the worthlessness that has haunted my existence beginning to pale. And then she asks me if I can speak, when I don't really know the answer but I wish I could say yes, yes! And I speak with the passion of a thousand songs I've been taught by the world, and I speak with the wisdom of love in every syllable, and I speak for you who have saved me and given me so much despite having gotten nothing in return! You generous soul, you monster from the deep so resembling a demon that ruined my body and tortured my mind, you who have conquered all aspects of your outer being to become something beautiful, yes!

But though my lips part and a shallow breath passes through them like beauty unrecognized, no words are born of my want.

Silent, having nothing but the echoes of her new words to comfort me, I shake my head no and look back into the depths of the heart. I can only fight so long, and I can only love so lonely. I will never be strong enough for this life.

""

Unblinking eyes watch the colt— his lips part and he struggles, she can see it plainly on his face as short breaths puff out of his small, soft nostrils. He is but a child, and the mare had never felt another’s youth so acutely. She was a warrior, trained for battle and thrown into conquests. She was no nursemaid, she was not let near eggs or foals.

Her eyes strangely ached to blink, against the drying, billowing heat. So she did, but her gaze still caught the silent shake of Kahelo’s grey head in answer to her question. Her skin itched, it was so dry— and her mind itched to be away from whatever warm feeling was settling in her plated barrel. She was unused to such a sensation, it was alien to her, and she wanted to be rid of it (even if parts of it were pleasant enough).

Scaled skin that was now dried and ashen in the face of flames, twitched— and she curved her ridged neck to nip at her itchy flank with sharp teeth. The twinge of pain was welcome— pain she knew, she could react appropriately to pain.

Carefully swinging her bladed head back— it wouldn’t do to slice the child she just saved (saved?) from the pit— she studied him closely before speaking, “I need to return the sea, as cold as it is,” her webbed hooves began to move across the hard, hot stone floor. But she paused, looking over her shoulder at the colt, “Be more careful of where you stand, Kahelo,” her farewell was a word of warning— for the militant mare didn’t want the little tilefish falling into the fiery pit. In fact, she realized with surprise, she didn’t want anything bad happening to him.

She sighed, slowly ascending the hellish pit, cold wind already prodding her into a foul temper once again.