SHARDS of GEMSTONES

YOUR HOME

By now, ice pools were flooding the ocean's surface with the chill of the upper seas. Clouds of venturing insects and microscopic life trekked the caps, suckling the water until they themselves became the ocean. Winter was here, and it was freezing the huddling salt swimmers to their tailbones. Pelts of blue, orange, red, brown, and much more huffed in their own breaths as warm escaped them. Closer to the sea skies, the shoal was going to drown in the chill before they could see new eggies arrive. Paddling across the tundra of sand, Redtooth rushed through the clearing with an already upset growl. She dipped her face into the nurse's den, prickling her scales as she reared up towards Yarrowtail.

"My son has yet to be salvaged, Yarrowtail," The maid addressed the primary nurse, who quickly turned around still with tools in her jaws. Before her, capsules and tubes run through clay bottles, bubbling with hot water from a pipe in the wall. The nurse stammered, and quickly placed the few things she had back on the table.

"Redtooth, I am almost," The maid coughed slightly, chill pouring in her throat, and Redtooth took this chance to speak.

"I wonder if, through all these cycles, you actually care about your patients," She continued after getting closer to Yarrowtail, "After you killed Dawn'ris' sons in delivery, why do you think I pressure you?"

Yarrowtail dipped her head and then began a snarl, "They were winter eggs, and there was nothing I can do about it," Her eyes were full of silver guilt, "But beyond that, Driftwave will be saved. He has no choice. He will be great, and a grand warrior, under the rule of anyone else but you."

Redtooth slashed at Yarrowtail's shoulder after her words, a crimson cut opening at the sharpness of the maid's fin, and while the primary nurse inched backwards, from the shadows of the den came forth an angry Shellbelly.

The secondary nurse whipped body around, and slapped Redtooth with her tail. The two entered in a heated skirmish in the den, with Shellbelly using her fat to push the maid to the clay floor. Once down, Redtooth wailed out but the nurse closed her jaws deeper on her throat, silencing her. When the maid no longer squirmed, and only whined in defeat, that was when Shellbelly kicked her to the curve with a roar. Her diaphragm ached when she was done, but the buck-like call was almost hot enough to warm the entire shoal. And Driftwave woke up with a scare in his pelt.

The young glider was never going to catch up with the rest of them if he was stuck there as an egg sized buck, and that sound called for the inside of his soul to beat again with the drums of a liberating nation. Driftwave leaned to see Shellbelly ward off Redtooth, and he smiled greatly, for his only obstacle shook her beaten scales in the chill of middlebell, wandering back home.

Yarrowtail rushed to Shellbelly's tail and chewed the scales, yowling, "You can control yourself!"

Shellbelly dipped her head, and then barked, "Redtooth has been beating on you for as long as I was born into this ocean. She deserves the fire of Whistea."

"She is-" Yarrowtail hesitated and then frowned with her jaws open, "She has been paying for my living here. Paying to cure her son, she was the only one who wanted to give me something and I messed it up by hesitating." She whispered in short huffs.

Shellbelly widened her eyes, fins clutching the edges of the den's entrance, dead grass passing her skin. The maid, one wave from the title of primary nurse, was to roughly declined their chances of respect with the higher ranks. A soft trill of pain left her as she focused on Yarrowtail's clicks. The "only one", she claims.

Yarrowtail furrowed her brows as she nods towards Driftwave, "Now if you can actually help, please aid Driftwave until otherwise said. Go."

Shellbelly itched behind her ear with her foot, and clicked at her own stupidity, quickly prancing towards Driftwave with softer eyes. The glider rustled in his small den, tubes now pumping smaller amounts of water in them, and a tube from inside of his cloth covered pocket sticking out, and into the ground towards the pipes of the washrooms. He couldn't move, eat, or drink, and now he was urinating into a tube. He was sure to pass if Yarrowtail didn't do something, and he would have lived longer if she didn't boost Redtooth from the only place she could see her son. The maid pushed herself to check the vitals of the boy, smelling at his scales and sighing.