Bound With The Water Dragon

The Truth

 “How did you get down here?” he questioned them warily.

“We’re water spirits,” Grant replied as if that was supposed to explain anything to Morgan. 

“We’re made of water, dip s**t,” Bryson clarified. “You literally can’t be rid of us just because you throw up major protection spells.”

“What’s with that anyway?” Grant pressed, folding his arms in front of his chest.

Morgan groaned knowing full well a fight was coming if he didn’t answer them truthfully. And honestly, he simply didn’t have the strength to take them on again, not now at least. 

He sighed and waved over the large body of blue enchanted water between them without a word. As their eyes traveled along it’s marbling surface, glistening around every unnatural form, Morgan could hear them stir. 

“His soul is inside of me,” Morgan sighed. “Or was.”

He shook his head in defeat. 

“I can’t feel him anymore,” Morgan continued. “There’s usually a hold he puts on me to regain his control,” he said, frowning at the dragon before him. “But I can’t feel him at all now.”

Morgan’s eyes drifted from Ejder’s body back toward the brothers and beyond. He squints his eyes only calling more attention to himself as he passes between them. 

“Tell me. You’re water spirits,” Morgan began, addressing Bryson and Grant. “What can you do with your power?”

Bryson lifted an eyebrow to him and tilted his head in defiance. 

“Some things are for select species only,” he challenged.

“But you aren’t fully,” Morgan continued. 

“Say that again?” Grant stepped in. It was less of a question and more of a persuasion, a side step into something promising a fight.

“Could it be a possibility that you don’t know?”

“That we don’t know what?” Bryson asked, pushing his brother to the side. 

“That you’re not home grown,” Morgan said, his eyes flicking up to meet Bryson’s first and then Grant’s.

“What do you mean by that?” Grant snapped. 

“As in you’re not supposed to be…”

“Not supposed to be where?” Bryson charged him, fisting the fabric of Morgan’s shirt as his first and only challenge. 

“Easy man,” Morgan replied, his eyes flashing apologetically at the young kelpie before him. 

“Tell me what you mean, Morgan. And be very clear about what it is. Or I’ll find out for myself through your fluids.”

“Maybe it’s better you see on your own,” Morgan spat, nodding over at the body before them. 

Bryson’s eyes darted to the side, locking onto the form beside them. Morgan watched as he struggled with the idea of whatever story this vessel held was the way he’d avoid being the driving force that got it out of Morgan himself. 

“I’m going to beat you regardless if I find nothing on this being,” he said casually, while his hand hovered over Ejder’s form. 

Morgan though, watched on. He was sure that the secrets were there. If Ejder’s soul could open up like that so could his mind. It would all be there and then they’d listen. They’d have to. 

Grant’s eyes narrowed at the scene unfolding before him. He, however, continued on and around Morgan as he had done to them only to see the stars just beyond the ceiling. 

“What is this place?” he gasped.

Bryson then looked over Morgan’s shoulder and up into the darkness. 

“That fellas, is where you came from.”

Morgan felt wild with adrenaline but still weak from the depth and it’s torture. Neither of the buffs helped him or was it that they were wearing off once more? He wasn’t sure. While their backs were turned he riddled off several new spells, replenishing what he was losing. The spells themselves were easier now. He knew how to absorb them and just when they were absolutely there; when the last syllable drove the entirety of its capability into his body. 

“Say that again?” Bryson asked, this time bewildered that there was life beyond the one he knew. 

 “You’re not from earth,” Morgan winced at his delivery. “At least you’re not originally.’

Both brothers grimaced at the thought and waited for the other shoe to drop. 

“You’re the interspecies spawns of something very different.”

Morgan watched as Grant pulled away from him. The kelpie frowned and shoved the palm of his hand down into the dragon’s body. 

It didn’t seem that closure came on an angel’s wings. It came disjointed and incomplete. 

“What are we then?”

“You’re what the humans believe you are and more,” Morgan urged. “Despite his terrible decisions and questionable ways… Ejder taught me that.”

“And you believe in a dragon that tried to inflict harm on not only us but yourself as well?” Grant challenged. 

There really wasn’t a good way to agree with him, but the fact of the matter was that Ejder was right. The portal did need to be shut down. Balance needed to be restored to earth and the Maidens needed to find some other source to relieve themselves with. Their large forms passed on by, continuing to light the path for larger than life creatures to slide across their field of view by the hundreds. 

Morgan squinted trying to see them but not even his eyes could reach such a distance. After they passed, he shuffled in the spot where he stood, finally able to find the words to answer the brothers. 

“I have no reason not to,” he said simply.

“Well that’s just great,” Bryson huffed. “You trust him. What’s that supposed to do for us? Get us out of here and back home?” 

“The gateway’s broken,” Morgan said, hanging his head to look over Ejder once more. “No one’s going anywhere.” 

**

Time passes differently in space or not at all. It felt like the latter given the fact that there wasn’t a way to tell. Either way, it became easier to accept the fact that Ejder was gone. They failed each other. His soul never reached his body and just released into the flood that soaked the floor only to run into the uneven ley lines between space and the realm they seemed to be in now. 

Ejder still laid helplessly within the room. Bryson and Grant were remarkably quiet about the whole thing. Neither budged much past the uncertainty of knowing what they truly were. Some of their conversations drummed up the possibility of being the bastardized version of Liia who’s Maidens refused the wildlife there and laid with the humans instead. None of their concepts made much sense, but then again, they were all there in their miss matched forms and none of them were truly one species… not even himself.

At least Ejder got the chance to get out while he could. His passing was hard to swallow, and yet his body still remained. 

“Is this all we have now?” Grant asked, his words cutting through the silence. “The truth and nothing else?”

Bryson licked his lips to moisten them before speaking up against his brother’s whining. 

“You always make these things so grim, brother…” he said as he got up to look over the broken portal. “Is this all we have?”

Morgan nodded carefully. 

“The landing was hard…” he muttered, then nodded back over to where the gateway rested in pieces. 

“Did it teach you anything other than how to stave off hunger?” Bryson asked casually, as he studied what was left.

“Like what?” 

“Turning back time?”

Morgan shook his head. 

“It wouldn’t matter if he did,” Grant added. “He would have to be the one to perform it to get the results you’re after. 

“I can learn,” Morgan said, glancing over at Grant. 

“These are harder and you weren’t in control then,” Grant countered. “Ejder would have to say it to get the spell to work and as things are, your boy isn’t getting up.”

“Is he dead?” Morgan gaped. 

“Incapacitated is more like it.”

“Incapacitated?” 

Grant frowned at the question, uninterested in repeating himself. 

“Yeah?”

“Man, you stuck your hand in there. Can’t you see how it happened?” Morgan pushed. “Why is he like this? Is there anything we can do?”

“The first thing you can do is stop sounding so frantic, like he’s dead… because he’s not,” Bryson trailed. 

“How do you know?”

The both of them muttered under their breaths, huffing about stupid humans that Morgan let slide. He just needed to know for sure what happened and how to move forward. That was it.

“His form wouldn’t still be here for one, and two his soul is in there.”

“It’s what?!” Morgan gaped. 

“Keep your panties on,” Bryson frowned, having to say that no doubt. “Ejder’s being is in his body, but he’s trapped inside or something. I felt it,” he continued. 

“How? He’s been inside me,” he stopped as he realized what he said. The snickering he heard in Grant’s direction only made him want to correct his verbal mistake. “This whole time he and I have had this bond, I could feel where he was. Shut up!”

Both boys started snickering about it when Morgan brought up how stupid they sounded. 

“You know what I mean!”

Bryson waved off his brother, who couldn’t help but throw up his arms in defeat. 

“Right,” he concluded. “Your dragon is connected with himself, only he’s being controlled by another.”

Morgan’s frown only deepened when he asked finally, “Who’s doing it?”

His silence was damning after that. It felt like Bryson was willing to wait an eternity before letting him know and so he strode over to the water dragon’s body and pressed his palm into Ejder’s shoulder. There, nothing flowed. Only the water surrounding his hand remained. 

“What did you think that you’d magically get our gifts?” Grant snickered. 

“Yeah, actually,” Morgan replied, setting a spell to hook him in deeper. 

His message flew off of his tongue, awakening the dragon all at once. While his energy serged through him, Ejder’s body remained on the floor. His message thick on his tongue startled Morgan even more. 

“Don’t let them get you,” Ejder warned before falling back asleep.