Bound With The Water Dragon

The Mariana Trench

“Just do what I say,” Ejder replied. “It won’t be long now…”

Morgan grimaced only slightly. What choice did he have? There was nothing stopping Ejder from taking what he wanted as it stood.  And, at the very least, he did promise to free him. Going on the swim with the others really wasn’t in the plans. It was supposed to just be Morgan and Ejder taking on the adventure of freeing him. 

Still, it was the most fun he could ever remember having with another group of… well, it wasn’t really like he could call them people, right? Morgan shook his head at himself. 

Instead of letting himself think about it, Morgan listened to Ejder as he muttered spells. He’d pay attention to the way he would feel thereafter, and worked on casting them himself as the effects would wear off. Magic in a way, kept him going. It was like a toy only his imagination could reach, and yet, still so real. 

Morgan practiced several for speed and others for stamina. Fatigue would set in horrifically if certain spells weren’t stacked one right after the next, staving off starvation and thirst.

Before long they made it to Mariana Trench. 

Morgan knew before Ejder spoke that this was going to be a test of wills. The strength he exerted to get there would mean nothing if he couldn’t dive down to the deepest depth. Despite being what he was now, he still felt a deep pit wrench it’s way through his heart. 

“Your feelings for her don’t matter,” Ejder said without a care. “None of this is real for you.”

Morgan fought the urge to take his bait. Instead he made his way to it’s eerie center. Mariana Trench was somehow more horrifying than swimming the depths he had through the oceans to get there. It was strangely calm. Not even a breeze passed him as he inched his way into position. 

“What am I supposed to do when I get down there?” 

“I’m not sure,” Ejder sighed. “I don’t remember this place all too well.”

“But it’s the deepest place within the ocean, and has to be where the portal is? Is that it?”

Morgan muttered to himself as he lunged forward to dive down. It was surreal to get there. It was a long sought after place just to test his skills in diving, and there he was doing it without his gear. The thought of his tank being found by someone made him frown. What would they think? 

The idea of his name being tarnished as a diver by his choices now had him reeling. It nearly blocked out his current vision of fish that still swam near the surface. It certainly did the trick to ignore Ejder while he conjured spells to speed him up and give him more protection against the crushing depths he was going to face.

“It’s good you’re hungry,” Ejder murmured after. 

Silence stretched between them as the light began to fade above them. Morgan was just too stubborn to ask why and Ejder didn’t seem any more giving than he had been. 

Faintly, off in the distance, he thought he heard her. Liia. A whinny pulled him further from the mission which Ejder desperately tried to block out. 

“They can’t see this!” he shouted, his anger followed by spells that bubbled up into flat, circular plates. Each floated up to the surface, one by one. They layered the opening and created a thick see through barrier between him and her. 

Liia, accompanied by both brothers, did her best to reach him. Her tail thrashed behind her, seemingly getting stuck on the scaly ridges and dips created by Ejder’s magic. 

“Morgan?” she called for him desperately. “Please! Don’t shut us out…”

Bryson let her down despite her inability to stay out of the water. He could only hope that Grant had her. The quiet sea began to roar with waves being hurled to her which made it harder for him to see her. Just her hands and part of her tail pressed against the shield between them. It called him to resurface, to see what she needed. 

A new wave of energy rumbled through the trench, calling his attention elsewhere. 

“We need to go,” Ejder pushed. 

He supposed the spell wouldn’t last long, especially not with the attention it was getting. Even swimming along with the shards tired out their search for a target. 

“Why can’t they come along?” Morgan asked. “What’s really down there that you don’t want them to know about?” 

Ejder tugged on their connection, reminding him that he could just release himself, killing the both of them. “It’s my job to care. To keep them away so that they don’t get involved.”

“But I can be?”

“You have to while you’re linked with me,” he growled out. 

Morgan straightened in response, then looked back up at the force field that kept his friends out. 

“You can’t break it, nor can they!” he hissed as Morgan began to resurface. “Let’s go! Time is running out!”

“What time?”

“This planet’s time if we don’t move swiftly!”

Morgan’s fins eased him gently to where Ejder’s spell separated them. 

“Liia?” he spoke her name softly and pressed his nose to the barrier. 

“Morgan?” she worried over where she could see him at least. “What are you doing? Let me in.”

“I can’t. This isn’t me…” he said sadly. 

“What do you mean it isn’t you?” She questioned.

“It’s just not,” he replied, unable to say anymore about it. “I need you to get out of here, Liia,” he urged. 

“I’m not going anywhere but down there with you!” she challenged. 

Bryson only grinned. 

“You really think the newbie can keep us out?” he chuckled at the scene before him.

Morgan frowned at that. His power was strong. He could feel it racing through him. It wasn’t just Ejder he could feel anymore either. Whatever it was, it moved differently. It stayed quiet, as if it was still learning him just as he was noticing it. 

“Say goodbye, Morgan,” Ejder growled as he forced Morgan’s form away, down and deeper into the trench. 

He watched as his friends tried their hands at breaking the spell weaved to keep them out and away from the gateway. 

“They’ll be there a while,” the dragon muttered, then forced Morgan down once more. 

His long serpentine body glided through the water easily, as if he was meant to be here. Even as the water began to crush into him, he felt as though he was home. The weight of it normalized his thinking but how could that be?

“The closer we get to the gateway, the more you’ll connect with your lineage. You, just like the others, weren’t meant to be here,” Ejder finally said out loud. 

It was in his message back on the glacier somewhat. The thought of generations before abandoning their own family among the earth regardless of their mutations was a hard image to stop from replaying in his mind. The more he connected with it, the more he embraced the change. Cutting the earth off from the gateway only made more sense. Here, those who didn’t know their pasts could dream about it or make it up as they went. They could have the freedom to ignore that pain of loss or the sting of being rejected by the only beings that could ever matter. 

“Glad to have you back on board,” Ejder teased but Morgan ignored him. 

They were too far into the darkness to lose his nerve with Ejder. It was enough now. 

“What’s going to happen after this?” he asked instead.

“I’m not sure,” he replied carefully. 

“Then why are we even down here?” Morgan struggled to get his words out. The pressure was nearly too great to fill his lungs then. Blinking became too difficult to do and yet they hadn’t made it to the bottom. 

“Because this is where it was created. Close to the core for support,” he sighed. “We had our reasons.”

“We?”

Ejder sighed once more, avoiding the question entirely. 

“Just get us to the gateway…”

**

The trench seemed to go on forever or the darkness was simply messing with his mind. Whichever it was, a new energy entered him. Morgan could feel it swirl around his scales and penetrate his skin like a balm. It massaged the tension out of his muscles and urged him to keep going. While it was tempting to accept that Ejder cast a spell  to make sure they would make it, he couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else was down there with him. Thinking of it would surely pry Ejder’s concentration from their location though, so he did what he could to ignore what he felt. As tempting as it was, he simply couldn’t entertain the thought of one of his friends making it to him for fear of what could happen to them if he did. 

“How much further?” he asked instead.

“It’s hard to tell.”

Morgan huffed at that. 

“If you weren’t so interested in that mermaid…”

“I wouldn’t have been if you weren’t hellbent on showing your power over me.”

“That’s really what you got out of all of this? Me needing to show my power?” he snorted. 

“That's all it’s been with you. Are you devastated you’re stuck with me? Because you act like it.”

By some grace, Ejder held his tongue. 

“That’s what it is, isn’t it?” Morgan pushed. “It isn’t about me and my connection to this world versus my off-world family. It’s about you and how you can’t find yourself.”

“Why are you taking this so personally?” Ejder bit back. “You said you’d help. You agreed to this life when you dropped your tank.”

“I agreed to getting to reserve myself, have my own life and help you with yours. I did not sign up for being bossed around by a…”

“A what?”

Morgan huffed trying to let it go. 

“A what, Morgan?” 

“A bully!” 

Ejder howled at that. 

“It was you with the ice daggers, not the trench. You were going to end them…”

“I wasn’t. It was just to get you back on track. That mermaid is messing with your head. They all do it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Morgan growled.

“I do!”

“You do not!”

“How do you think I ended up here? Like this!” 

“I highly doubt any creature would want to get close to you if this is how you treat them,” Morgan bit back. 

His eyes then caught the slight light of a marking he saw before, shining softly from the light of a few bio-luminescent creatures that floated by. 

“Ah, good. We’re here,” Morgan grumbled. “One step closer to being free of me too.”