Bound With The Water Dragon

Gwyn's Ultimatum

No matter what he tried, Morgan simply couldn’t connect with Ejder much past holding his breath for longer than a human’s. Gwyn was all but graceful about it too. 

“Stubborn thing, isn’t it?” Gwyn asked after tormenting them for miles. 

“I wouldn’t say that…” 

“It’s you then?” she challenged. 

“Sort of. It’s complicated,” Morgan huffed, then tried imagining a spell that would set a better pace. “I crossed a line with him…”

“Your tiny dragon?”

“Yeah…” 

“And now he’s grumpy?”

“I guess you could say that,” Morgan frowned. “Only, I didn’t ask for this life. He kind of just appeared and saved me from myself. And now I’m here like some outcast…”

Gwyn blew raspberries at that. 

“Do you really think that?” Gwyn got herself under control soon after. “Really?”

“What else is there to believe? A bunch of random events? Then there’s riding on the back of a leviathan… please, tell me again how normal this is.”

“It is pretty normal for me to jack people up. You just don’t happen to hear from them after because they’re part of the sea when I’m done,” Gwyn shrugged.

“You mean you kill them…” Morgan carefully countered.

“Don’t read into the hype. I’m not at my full size yet. The most I can scare off is a bunch of mindless fish. If they happen to be human, it’s a win.”

“I hardly believe that.”

Morgan looked back over his shoulder and questioned her correctness. 

“How big are you supposed to get?”

“Easily ten times my size,” she answered without hesitation. “Just like you’re supposed to be mammoth sized in comparison to your person. So what is it really? Your dragon being a prick or your human?”

Morgan sighed, unable to give an answer. 

“I was like you, ya know…” Gwyn tried again. 

“How so?” Morgan asked inquisitively. 

“My human came first. I was twenty before I knew it though. Got a good taste of human reality and then shoved off to get the hell away from it,” she admitted. 

“That bad?” he chuckled in response. 

“Let’s just say, the only thing going for humans as of this moment in time is their food. That’s it.”

“Ouch.” 

“You can’t disagree either or you wouldn’t be out here,” Gwyn snorted. 

Morgan watched as her dorsal fins split behind him. A hum of something just below the water began, followed by a deep groan. The water surrounding him began to pull. Rip currents from beside him only grew stronger as her fins fully extended several meters out to either side of her. 

“They have enough of a lead,” Gwyn said, changing the subject. “Get with it, little dragon.”

Water surrounded him once again as they submerged. “If you want to go with her…” he murmured, “at least make it a cool exit.”

As they dove down together, Gwyn put out a call. Her sonar screamed out in all directions. It was loud and gut wrenching all at once. A moment later it returned to them, rattling his insides until his connection between Ejder and him was severed. 

Again another scream rushed through their surroundings. Gwyn wasn’t kidding. She was going to destroy them if his magic refused him. 

“We are not the same,” Ejder warned as he murmured a series of unknown words exhaled in breaths he could not fathom holding on his own. The first wave hit his throat, then his gut, making all of the oxygen in his body leave at once. Next to go was what was left circling through his veins until nothing moved. For a moment, he felt disconnected from himself and assumed this was what death felt like. 

While he floated there, nearly ready to be dragged down with the rest of Gwyn’s massive form, Morgan inhaled water as if it was life giving oxygen itself without choking it down. 

Tentatively he pulled in another breath and exhaled easily. His strength began to return to him. His muscles felt marginally stronger and promised himself it wasn’t a dream. This was Ejder’s magic. 

“It’s not,” Ejder murmured over another series of spells. “Akir would have wanted you to know.”

“Wait, you know his magic?” Morgan asked 

“We use the same water. All of us do,” he assured Morgan. 

“That doesn’t tell me anything…”

As more spells reflect through the water, they explode before him in shimmering white and blue webs of light. They bind the space before him once more like nautical lace, knotted in fragments of Ejder’s spells until the very last fiber connected. Morgan watches as it absorbs Gwyn’s returning call only to pull it back into him. Her energy and his magic hurtle into him burning past his skin to reveal his lineage to him. 

Morgan frowned at the sight of his arms turning into great webbed fins. His neck seemed to stretch just too far away from his shoulders at the same time, while the rest of his form stayed narrow like that of a snake’s, his legs had also turned to fins as well. Morgan chased the new feeling of his form. He spun around looking for indications of his change. While he could feel it, the newness came to him in waves. His arms still felt like arms as if he was still human. All the while his legs felt like fins. His feet… well at the very least the sensation that they could still be there was there. Meanwhile everything but his head seemed to be in the right place. Swallowing took more effort, but breathing was different altogether. 

He could feel Gwen begin to resurface beside him calling out once more, only to stop and congratulate him. 

“It seems like we have a chance after all,” she snickered. “Let’s see just how fast you can go!”

**

Their journey took them far past the southern ocean where Gwyn spent all of their time raging against major fishing vessels which were hauling predators too. Ejder pushed him to stay on course but the sight of several mermaid tails tangled within their snares was enough for him to follow Gwyn. The last of the ships they pursued toppled over, thanks to rogue waves and Gwyn’s fury. Her greatness showed through the clear wave as she pulled the vessel high on it’s side before dropping them on their deck. As a human he knew that the end was in those waves but he made no move to stop them. 

In that moment, Morgan regretted not moving to stop her, but they were not without fault…

As they reached the warmer water they caught up on the others who carefully greeted them. The clear, shallow water begged for transparency but none had quite a skill. 

“I do,” Ejder supplied, “but your species can’t accept it.”

“And yours can?”

“I’m not sure how clear I can be about being a water dragon.”

Morgan frowned at the thought. 

“Wait, you mean you’re not a physical dragon?” Morgan questioned. “Then how the hell are we going to put you back in your body?”

“I’m really not sure how it could be any more obvious,” Ejder chided as he removed himself from Morgan’s attention. “We’ll talk later,” he added before he recognized both Grant and Bryson flipping their hair to the side as they entered the shallows. It was remarkable how slight they could be and how easily they could keep their composure as they made it out of the water and to the shore of a beach he once knew. 

“Aren’t you coming?” Gwyn asked as she made her way to the surface like the others.

“Nah,” he tried to shrug off. “I think I’m going to keep going.”

“That’s not going to fly,” Grant shouted from the sand, removing his jacket as he went. Still he looked like a shadow, dressed in all black. 

“Neither will your outfit. Not out here,” Morgan shot back. “The sun will end you up there like that.”

“Please, buddy. You have literally nowhere to hide in those waters.” 

“Psh…” Morgan caught himself sounding far younger and more human than he intended. “No one knows these waters like me. Divers won’t be this way until after dark.”

Bryson nodded then behind him, “What do you think that is then?”

“A shark,” Morgan did his best to sound relaxed about it. 

It wasn’t like he hadn’t experienced them or dealt with their aggressive tendencies throughout their quest already. Being the size he is now and nothing like the puny human he was before, the thought of a shark approaching feels less entertaining than it did before. They were like guppies now. In significant little fish…

Morgan could feel the chill of what he thought run up his spine as Gwyn playfully sapped him of his energy. 

“Are we even friends?” he growled as Morgan made his way closer to the shallows and away from the oncoming shadows he considered as no threat. 

“Depends,” Gwyn grinned down at him. “How much of a local are you?”