(3rd Pov Tsunami)
Tsunami dove into the water, between the spiral dragon horn rocks. She powered through the kelp into the tunnel, shooting between the rock walls. She was gong so fast, she didn't see the dark shape waiting above her in one of the breathing holes.
She thought she was alone until talons slammed into her back and shark claws closed around her neck.
Giant wing smashed Tsunami to the rock floor of the tunnel. She tried to twist around, but her attacker kicked her in the head and then tried to shove a hood that smelled of seaweed over her snout so she couldn't see. Tsunami shouted and struggled, lashing out with her claws and tail. Her attacker was bigger than her, and heavier, so Tsunami could barely move under the weight. It seemed like he or she was wearing something to make them heavier; she felt something metallic clack against her spines.
Fishhook claws dug into her gills, and Tsunami shrieked with pain. She felt blood swirling away from her neck and into the water.
'I'm not going to die here!' she thought ferociously. 'Killed by a coward I can't even see! I don't think so!'
She remembered how Sunny always managed to wriggle free during their battle training sessions. The tiny dragonet used her small size to slip out of almost every hold Tsunami could think of.
Tsunami scrunched her legs and wings in close and ducked her head, rolling into a tight spiky ball. Her attackers grip loosened around her neck and, as the dragon fumbled for Tsunami's snout, Tsunami was able to squirm down and shove her opponent over her head. A black of bubbled slammed into her as the dragon crashed into the wall.
Before she could pull her hood off, the talons were back clutching her forearms. Tsunami kicked viciously at the underbelly that had to be in front of her and felt her claws snag painfully on metal rings. Her attacker made no sound, but a moment later the dragon's tail hit Tsunami so hard she thought she heard bones crack.
The other dragon's wings began to press her down toward the rock floor again. Whoever it was knew how to fight like a SeaWing; they had all the advantages of this world. 'So use something they haven't seen before.' Tsunami thought of how Glory used distractions whenever she fought Kestrel. Tsunami's scales couldn't change color, but she bet she could still be pretty distracting.
She flared her wings open and closed, open and closed, as fast as she could, stirring up the water around them. She felt her attacker pause as if confused. On her third open, Tsunami suddenly lit up all the stripes all over her body in what she hoped was a blinding flash.
Her attacker's talon slipped, and Tsunami struck out with her claws again. Again she flared her stripes, as bright as she could make them, so she could even see the light through her hood. She reached to shove her attacker away, and suddenly whoever it was . . . was gone.
Tsunami flailed in the water for a moment, fending off the attacks she expected from every side, before she realized there was no one around her anymore. She reached up and yanked off the hood, then felt movement of somebody coming up the tunnel from outside.
She whirled around, ready to fight, and Riptide leaped back, waving his talons. Tsunami whipped her head back and forth, but there was no sign of anyone else.
All right? Riptide signaled.
Who? she signaled back with the stripes on her snout. Who? She didn't have any of the other words she needed.
He spread his webbed claws. I don't know. The he pointed at her. All right? He lit up all his stripes, and she guess he'd seen the light from outside.
She nodded impatiently. She didn't have any way to explain that she was grateful he'd come, but she needed to chase down her attacker now.
All right. she signaled back. Then she spun away, swimming fast down the tunnel toward the palace.
Tsunami burst out of the water into a scene of eerie calm. dragons were lounging peacefully on beaches and cliff edges, or playing underwater and darting through the waterfalls. She searched the water and the pavilion with her gaze, looking for who might have just been in a fight. Surely she had left some kind of mark on her attacker.
No one was acting suspicious. Tsunami glanced up and saw her mother's tail poking off a level of the pavilion near the top - the library level. She beat her wings, rose out of the water, and flew up to her.
"Hello, dear," Queen Coral said as Tsunami landed. She was surrounded by scrolls, several of them half unrolled. Anemone was curled on a curved white boulder beside her, looking bored out of her mind. Cascade was on the other side of the library, reading a scroll. He also looked bored out of his mind.
"I've been reading reading out loud to your sister." Coral said. "It's her favorite part of the day. We've just finished the story of how I chose Gill to be my husband." She sighed gustily. "He adored my writing, too."
"Mother-" Tsunami started.
"He was the perfect candidate for king," Coral said. "He came from a very noble family. Nothing to worry about in his ancestry. A lot like Whirlpool in his intelligence, too."
"Mother-" Tsunami said again.
"Luckily you've arrived just in time for my epic poem, On the Differences Between Oysters and Clams. It's an elegantly well-crafted metaphor about class differences and genetic superiority, as Whirlpool always says."
"Mother," Tsunami interrupted firmly. "Someone tried to kills me."
Queen Coral sat up, scattering drops of ink from her claws. "What? Who dared?"
"I don't know, but they must be here now," Tsunami said. "Somewhere in the palace. We should gather everyone and-"
"The eggs!" Queen Coral yelped. "The eggs must be in danger!" She started flinging scrolls back into cauldrons, gain Cascade's attention.
"What?" Tsunami said, bewildered. "What egg?"
"Two eggs with female dragonets," Anemone explained to Tsunami. "They're in the Royal Hatchery, in the Deep Palace. they're due to hatch in a couple days."
"And if someone attacked you, they'll probably go after the eggs, too!" Queen Coral cried. She dashed to the edge of the pavilion. "Moray! Whirlpool! Hurry!" she whipped around. "Cascade! Come here!"
The SeaWing put his scroll down and started walking toward them.
"But my attacker is here," Tsunami said. "I'm not sure of it. Not at the Deep Palace."
"So we have to get there first," Queen Coral insisted.
"But we could catch them here." Tsunami didn't understand why her mother couldn't see the obvious thing to do.
"Mother, what about Tortoise?" Anemone asked. "She'd supposed to guard the, isn't she? That's Mother's Council chief of dragonet care," she explained to Tsunami. "This week anyway."
"The other have all failed me," Queen Coral said with a grimace. "Tortoise probably will as well. She didn't even want the job. Nobody wants it! It's the most important duty in the Kingdom of the Sea, and all my cowardly subjects hide from it. MORAY!" she bellowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Moray slithered up from the level below. Tsunami eyed her as she climbed onto the library floor. Did she look like she'd just been in a fight? Tsunami couldn't tell. Moray only glanced at Tsunami once before standing next to Cascade.
"We must go to the Deep Palace at once," Queen Coral said. "I feel that my eggs are in danger. My scales tell me so."
"What about whoever attacked me?" Tsunami demanded. "We have to catch them and punish them!"
"It's more important to stop them from hurting my eggs," Queen Coral said grimly. "Someone has been killing my daughters for years. These are the last two Gill left me, and I won't let anything happen to them." She turned to Moray, who was sitting beside close beside her and Cascade. "I wish you would guard them, dear. You never fail me."
"But everything I do for your scrolls is so terribly important," Moray said. "They're like your other children, really. I couldn't abandon them." Cascade rolled his eyes.
"That's true," Queen Coral said. She patted her pearls and flicked her wings open.
"I sent Shark on ahead this morning after breakfast, but he never worries enough," Queen Coral said, clicking her claws together. "He doesn't even believe there's an assassins. He thinks it's all bad luck." She shook herself with a hiss. "He even told me once that perhaps I wasn't meant to have daughters. He's lucky he's my brother - and your father, Moray - so I let him live. WHIRLPOOL! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Anemone winced and put her talons over her ears. Cascade and Moray didn't even flinch.
"Stay very close to me in the Deep Palace," the queen ordered Tsunami. "We really have to put a rush order on a harness for you. they've been working on two for the new dragonets, but clearly yours is an emergency."
"I can take care of myself," Tsunami said, ruffled. Obviously. I'm still alive, so whoever attacked my failed." She gave Moray a hard look, but the Council dragon only shifted her wings as if she didn't care.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
All the dragons glanced up at the canopy far overhead. Raindrops were splattering across the green leaves.
"Ah, the precipitation I predicted," said Whirlpool, landing beside Coral. "My apologies for not appearing instantly, Your Majesty; I was distributing scrolls to the kitchen staff." He didn't look as if he'd been in a fight - and Tsunami didn't really think the ridiculous dragon could have overpowered her for a moment.
"We're going to the Deep Palace - now, as fast as we can." Queen Coral dove over the edge so suddenly that Anemone was yanked off her talons after her. Tsunami followed and found herself in a swarm of dragons midair as all the Council members hurried after Queen Coral as well.
They crowded into the tunnel, tails smacking into snouts and wings tangling. Tsunami got pushed to the middle and found herself swimming next to Whirlpool.
Too late, she remembered she had meant to check on her friends. 'Why can't I be a better dragon?' she berated herself.
She tried to turn and go back, but Council dragons were there shoving her forward. After nearly getting clawed in the face a few times, she gave up.
'Surely they're all right. I'll come right back and see them after we check on the eggs.'
Out in the sea, Queen Coral immediately found a current and swept off. One by one, each of the dragons followed her,
Tsunami glanced around, scanning the coral reefs and underwater boulders. Her heart jumped a little as she caught a glimpse of sky-blue scales. Riptide was still out there, watching for her. She waited for a moment until she saw him dart from one rock to another, He was following them - following her - to the Deep Palace.
Pleased, although she felt a bit sill about it, she swam into the current and let it carry her after the others. She was starting to get the trick of how to angle her wings so it could sweep her along as fast as possible. It was a bit like flying, but with a lot more to dodge. Then again, fish managed to get out of the way pretty fast when they saw dragons coming.
Above them, rain pattered down harder and harder on the water's surface. The light faded and Tsunami imagines the dark clouds rolling in. She hoped her friends would be all right in the Summer Palace. Surely there were storms there all he time. At least they were in a cave, so they wouldn't get wet.
Two giant sea turtles swam by, going in the other direction. They eyed the dragons warily, but nobody stopped to eat them. Explosions of tiny pink fish popped in and out of the waving anemones along the coral reefs.
Something large and yellow was lying flat against the sand; it opened its eyes, stared at Tsunami, and closed them again.
After a while, an island loomed in front of them, with immense coral reefs clustered all around it. Orange branches twined around purple star-shaped clusters. Lacy fans the color of rust sprouted from pale pink umbrella shapes. Blue-and-silver fish darted in and out of holes.
the SeaWings swam out of the current and around the bend of the reef, and the lead dragons ducked into a canyon in the ocean floor.
Tsunami followed them down. As her eyes adjusted to the growing darkness, she saw a vast expanse of white-and-green reef spreading along the sides and floor of the canyon. It curled into caves and towers and underwater gardens full of glowing colors. In the center of the canyon, the coral spiraled up into an enormous palace, swarming with SeaWings.
SeaWings were everywhere - swimming in and out of the windows and doors of the palace, shooting up to the surface and diving to the bottom of the canyon, tending to the gardens, gently cleaning the coral, lugging large fish in from the hunt, or sitting in small circles with groups of dragonets, reading from thin stone tablets. The only signs of war were a few troops drilling in formation around the palace, and a group of soldiers in formation around the palace, and a group of soldiers gathered in one of the gardens, each with terrible wounds. tsunami saw two with missing feet, one with scorched holes where his eyes should have been, and several with black scars twisting their wings or tail. Several couldn't swim anymore, but had to be helped through the water by nurse dragons.
As Queen Coral swam past, dragons snapped to attention, saluting or waving. She waved to each of them with a wide smile. Tsunami noticed that most of them waved to Anemone, too, and the little dragon smiled and waved back.
Surrounded by Council members, for once Tsunami was able to sweep by without a whole lot of staring and pointing. For a little while, at least, nobody knew who she was.
They swam through the wide front entrance into a coral cavern sparkling with emeralds and sapphires. A statue of Queen Coral loomed in the center, her talons outstretched benevolently.
SeaWing servants hurried in all directions, their luminescent stipes flashing at the queen. Coral swept past them all and charged down a tunnel at the back of the hall. Some of the Council broke away to swim to other parts of the palace, but Moray, Cascade, and Whirlpool stayed with the queen, and so did Tsunami.
The tunnel curved down and around in a spiral, getting warmer and warmer as they descended. Tsunami felt warm jets of water bubbling up through the coral under her talons. At the bottom was a stone door and on it was an odd picture. It looked like a mix of a whale and a dragon. It was light grey in color. It had a long tail and two large horns, with one horn being longer than the other as it curved to be in front of it. The carving of the whale-dragon only had one, sea-blue eye.
In front of the door was a skinny seaweed-green dragon crouched, gobbling something hungrily in her claws.
Her eyes went wide when she saw the queen, and she dropped her octopus with a shriek. the remains floated up to the ceiling as she flapped her talons in a panic, flashing her stripe so fast it looked like a lightning storm gone mad.
Queen Coral roared and threw the door open, smacking the green dragon back against the wall. the queen shot inside, towing Anemone behind her.
'This is where I should have hatched,' Tsunami thought with a rush of confused excitement. She swam through the doorway and gazed around.
'The Royal Hatchery.'
The warm jets bubbled along every wall, heating the room, which was shaped like the inside of a large, pale egg. A SeaWing dragon card from dark green marble stood the the center of the room; garlands of blue and purple underwater plants were woven through her horns and along her wings. the base of the statue said Orca. She looked tough and beautiful at the same time. Tsunami wondered if Queen Coral's first daughter carved her own self-portrait, and if she'd known it would be a memorial one day.
She glanced around and caught the confused-almost-sad look Moray shot at the statue.
Nests made of seaweed were tucked into niches in the floor, with wide pathways stretching between the. Dragon eggs took a year to hatch, so there should have been clutches at different stages, from newly laid to nearly hatched, But there were no new eggs to be seen. 'Because Gill has been gone,' Tsunami thought with a stab of guilt. 'And he's not coming back.'
One clutch of three eggs against a wall, and in the nest farthest from the door, there were two eggs . . .
Queen Coral hurried to the far nest and roared again, a howl of fury and despair the reverberated through the water. She sank down beside the nest and picked up a piece of broken eggshell.
'Oh, no.' Tsunami started forward, but Moray pushed past her and knelt beside the queen, leaning against her side. Anemone glanced back at Tsunami, looking sick.
One of the eggs was still intact, but the other was smashed. the little blue dragonet inside had been strangled to death. Her neck was twisted in a horrible way, and her head flopped sadly as Queen Coral gently picked her up.
Tsunami stared at the body in shock. It - she - was so tiny. Who would do this to a baby dragonet? How could anyone?
'TO MY SISTER.'
She felt Anemone's cold talons slip into hers, and she squeezed them tightly. Whoever it was wanted to do this to Anemone as well. this was why the queen insisted the harness and protected her daughter in such an extreme way. Seeing the broken body of the hatchling, Tsunami felt nearly crazy enough to do the same.
No one would ever, ever hurt Anemone, not while Tsunami was around. And whatever she had to do to protect that other egg, she would.
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Intermission
Moray
SeaWing
Age: N/A (I'm going to say around her early thirties)
Moray is the daughter of Shark and older sister of Cascade. She is Queen Coral's scroll publisher and communications herald within the SeaWing Council. In cannon, Moray is smug, and described to be perfect, boring, and can do no wrong. She believes Coral to be the best ruler in all of Pyrrhian history. (A certain Alatreon now wants to know her location so he can have a "talk" with Moray). She also hates everyone that could have and has been a threat a Queen Coral, including Coral's own daughters.
But, due to having Cascade as an adopted sibling, she is a bit different from cannon. She does not hate Orca, Tsunami, and Anemone to the degree she had before. Cascade knew Orca for a year, and during that time Orca and Moray had almost become friends. But, since she challenged Coral and almost killed her, Moray has mixed feelings toward her and the SeaWing princesses (not romantic ones).
At first, Moray did not like Cascade. She thought he was unruly and wild brat (because he was). But once Shark literally smacked some sense into Cascade and made him listen to other dragons, Moray started to get along with Cascade.
Moray spends most of her time publishing scroll, relaxing at home, or dealing with whatever nonsense Cascade comes up with.
Now, onto the next chapter
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Queen Coral rose from her feet, knocking Moray aside and earning a glare from Cascade. She shot back across the cave to the door, but the skinny green dragon was gone. Anemone yelped a stream of bubbles as the queen blasted up the tunnel with her in tow.
Tsunami started after them, then turned and looked down at the last egg. Moray and Cascade had already followed Coral. Whirlpool was standing uselessly in the doorway. If Tsunami went after Coral as well, who would be left to guard the egg?
'But no one can get through that door,' she though, staring around. 'That door from that tunnel. So how did someone get past Tortoise?' She turned in a circle, staring at the smooth walls. 'Come to think of it . . . how did Webs get in here to steal my egg?' Surely there had been guards back then, too. Surely the queen had tried to protect her eggs, even six years ago. Webs couldn't have fought past them alone. So how did he get in?
Tsunami narrowed her eyes at the nests and the stone dragon. 'A secret entrance. There must be.'
Well one this was for sure. She wasn't leaving this egg alone in here. She crouched beside the nest and gently lifted up the last intact egg. It was surprisingly heavy - or perhaps not that surprising, considering a baby dragon was supposed to pop out in a day or two. cradling the egg to her chest, tsunami out the door of the cave.
Whirlpool flashed a whole lot of stripes at her, waving his talons indignantly and pointing at the egg.
Tsunami gave him a wide-eyed, puzzled expression. 'Maybe you should have taught me some real Aquatic, sea slug. then you could yell at me all you want,' she thought.
He lit up his scales again. With a friendly smile, Tsunami lit up the same patterns back at him, the added squid-brain with her tail stripes, like Riptide had taught her. She swam away up the tunnel, leaving him gaping in surprise behind her.
As she swam up and around, she started to hear shrieks of pain echoing through the water. She hesitated, then beat her wings faster.
In the main entrance hall, Queen Coral had Tortoise pinned under her talons. A crowd of SeaWing had gathered, watching in silence.
The skinny green dragon was shrieking in one long, high-pitched scream. Tsunami stopped and pressed herself back against the wall, horrified. Queen Coral had already yanked out each of Tortoise's teeth one by one. They rose through the water, tiny and white, toward the roof. Now Coral had her claws stabbed into Tortoise's exposed underbelly. Clouds of blood filled the water, nearly hiding the queen and Tortoise in a red haze.
'It's just like Stormcaller said.'
'Would I have to do that, if I were queen?'
'Could I ever, ever do that?'
Anemone had rolled herself into a ball, floating in the water above her mother with her eyes tightly shut and her talons over her ears.
Queen Coral's scales lit up in a slow, menacing way. tsunami didn't understand most of it, but she guessed Tortoise was hearing about how she'd failed the queen.
Tortoise's stripes flashed weakly.
The queen snarled and twisted her claws harder into Tortoise's underbelly. Tortoise gurgled up a bubble of blood. Her stripes flashed again, and then, as her head began to loll sideways, she spotted someone in the crowd around them. She clutched at the queen's talons and pointed, her stripes flashing frantically.
She was pointing straight at Shark.
He stared back, unblinking as always.
Queen Coral leaned down, pressing Tortoise into the floor. One more message flared through her scales, and then she seized Tortoise's head in her talons in her talons and smashed in against the rough coral floor.
Tsunami turned away just in time, huddling around the egg with her eyes closed. She didn't care if she looked like a one-year-old dragonet, hiding her face. She did not want that image in her head for the rest of her life.
'What was Tortoise saying about Shark?'
Whatever it was hadn't convinced Queen Coral, anyhow. Tsunami kept her eyes closed until she felt the eddies from other dragons swimming away. She peeked around and saw Moray busily cleaning up the blood and bone fragments that were floating around the main hall.
'GROOOOOOOSS,' Tsunami thought. 'Moray must really adore Coral to be willing to do that.'
Tortoise's body was hooked on an outcropping of coral by the front door, like a used-up deer carcass waiting to be taken to the trash heap after dinner. Queen Coral loomed over Shark, clutching Anemone to her chest and exchanging a heated luminescent conversation with her brother. All the other SeaWing -excluding Moray and Cascade- had scattered to faraway parts of the palace.
Tsunami started toward her mother, but stopped as a strange shape flashed by one of the windows. 'What the - that wasn't a dragon.' She swam a bit closer and peered out.
Sharks, actual, dead-eyed sharks with enormous jagged teeth - were swarming the front entrance, sniffing at the blood that still leaked from Tortoise's body. They were bigger than tsunami had expected - big enough to eat a dragon the size of Anemone, she guessed - but even as she watched, two SeaWing guards darted down and killed five of them with a few blows of their rails.
She turned back and saw Whirlpool swimming up to Queen Coral. He interrupted her conversation, waving his talons furiously and pointing at Tsunami.
'Uh-oh.' Tsunami took a deep breath and held the eggshell closer. 'Well, I'm not giving this up.'
Queen Coral swam over with a half frown on her face. She pointed at the egg and gestured commandingly for Tsunami to give it to her.
Tsunami flashed her stripes in one of the few patterns she knew. I will protect. She wasn't sure how to say it. She pointed at the egg. I will protect.
The queen blinked. She lit up a few of her stripes, including one pattern on her snout that Tsunami recognized as how.
Tsunami shook her head. She didn't have enough Aquatic to answer that. I will protect, she said again.
She spotted the eyes of several SeaWings peering around doorways at her. Most of them looked shocked and disbelieving. She saw her sister glance from the crumpled remains of Tortoise, then back again.
Anemone's face was pale and anxious.
'Oh.'
Tsunami realized what they were seeing. She was putting herself in Tortoise's place. She was taking the job nobody wanted. She hadn't even thought of it that way.
Which meant, if she fail . . . she might be punished the same way, too.
END OF CHAPTER
A/N
Hope you all liked the chapter
I'm thinking of putting a little intermission in-between chapters here and that explains how characters are different from cannon. The difference in cannon will be more noticeable through out the story.
thanks for reading
bye