Bound With The Water Dragon

Taking Flight

Honestly he was trying to find a place without prying eyes to reconnect with Ejder and release him from Morgan’s body. Now he’s here, with her, in the dark and expecting his end. Except his mind is only filled with possibilities.

“What if I went without a set path?” he questioned. 

The light scrapes of her scales against the ice below them was all he could hear. They moved to the left and right, similar to the way a snake slithered to move through the darkness with him. He assumed his quietness was a mark of confusion. 

“What I mean is, I very clearly don’t know why I’m here. You know this. What if I just went because your information was the next direction to take?”

Liia cleared her throat, unsettled by what he said. 

“Are you always this willing to believe the first creature to speak with you?”

Morgan’s heart sank like the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. He didn’t want to believe that she would willingly lie to him. Morgan rationalized it as the beginning of his end once more. Just as he had worried over the orcas hunting him down in the ocean, he worried that Liia would remove her anxiety reducing effects and hone in on the fear that very clearly still crawled underneath his skin about her in particular. 

“You’re right to be wary,” Eder hissed just low enough for Morgan to hear. 

“What purpose did you have then? Approaching me like that?” Morgan asked, then stopped in his tracks. “What purpose do you have now? Doing this with me? Searching through the darkness for answers that don’t belong to me…”

“What purpose?” she huffed. “I was just trying to be nice!”

“Then what was that trick with your glittery eyes? What was that all about?”

“It’s part of my magic…”

“To what? To make people’s minds jellied? So that they’ll listen to your every whim?” Morgan shot back, only to catch his tone. 

“You make it sound so terrible,” she said, her voice dipped softly. “Your people really must not know anything about us then, huh?”

Morgan pressed his lips together to try to hide his emotion then. He was guilty of pushing this so far. What right did he have?

“Or maybe they’re just too afraid of themselves to know our good nurtured spirits.”

“What?” 

“Man causes so much devastation,” she began. “What is it you really know about any of us? What do you think you know about me? My type?” 

Morgan muttered softly to Ejder that if he wanted to be badgered by feelings he would have swam ashore instead of coming along with him. 

“I can’t get ashore, thank you very much,” she huffed. “Your mainland princess stories are not accurate. No maiden of the deep gets her legs just for going ashore or finding a sea witch.” 

Morgan then frowned at the reference. 

“How would you know about that in particular if you’re not allowed on the beach?”

“Those of us that are born with the appropriate limbs make it in the mainland,” she supplied. “Some of us rely on them to bring back information above the sea.”

Liia sighed dramatically. 

“It’s how we stay connected to their world. Otherwise it’s practicing our own species’ magic which, believe me, sounds far more interesting than it is.”

“I bet if you used it this cavern wouldn’t be so dark,” Morgan remarked, catching her off guard. 

Liia chuckled then. Her arm looped through his once more before adding, “I am. My magic can’t touch this depth. Not yet at least.”

“Why not?” Morgan asked, frowning in thought. 

“I’m not that old for one. I haven’t grown my main dorsal fin yet and I’m still missing my crown,” she said as if he should know that. 

“Like those women in robes?” he questioned. 

Morgan could feel Ejder getting antsy now, but if he wanted out then he should have just done it already. 

“Psh, no. Those women have no idea what magic is. Poseidon is great and all but they’re pretty much his entourage,” Liia said, downplaying them. 

“Alright, like what then?”

“Well, it’s sort of like a fan of tall, bony spikes that will sit around my fins on my head here,” she stalled just long enough to recognize her error. “I’ll show you when we get out of here.”

“Yeah alright.”

Morgan looked around, still unsure of what it was he was supposed to be looking for. 

“You’ll find it when it wants you to,” Ejder grumbled once more. 

All at once he could feel Ejder taking hold of him again. The surge of power pumped through him, sluggishly relieving Morgan’s arm from her hold. He could sense her confusion but feigned his own innocence. 

“Is this normal?” Morgan huffed as Ejder obviously threw him to the right and dragged his body up the rough wall beside him. 

“Uh…” the sound of her voice made him feel less at ease. 

“Tell me it’s normal…” Morgan’s voice cracked only slightly as he moved further up the wall, then slid forward. His body wriggled like that of a whale’s as it dipped forward with his head and the rest followed. 

She seemed just as confused asking him to explain what was happening. 

“I can’t see you to tell for sure!” Liia called up after him. “Can you see anything?”

“No!” he shot back. “There’s nothing, anywhere! Are we even in a cave?” Morgan called back hoping that she could still hear him. 

His body continued on it’s path though. Ejder certainly had the upper hand, controlling him as he once did. 

“This would be a lot easier with wings,” the dragon grumbled as he hurled Morgan through the endless night. 

“Why don’t you sprout some then?” 

Morgan gasped as he felt the mass around him grow closer. He might not have been able to see it but he could sure as hell feel the coming change. The hand he pressed against the wall had since been removed to reach in front of him. Morgan found the change, the lip in the cave that could have decapitated him on impact and took hold of his body. He led a charge as he pushed himself up and through the cavern as if he was always meant to fly like a dragon would. 

When Ejder didn’t answer Morgan about the wings, he did his best to imagine what they would feel like. He focused on his body and where they might emerge. At first he thought his arms should become their supportive structure, but once he found himself grappling with yet another ledge, it seemed only natural for them to grow above him from just beyond his shoulders. They’d anchor onto the same shoulder blades he already had and reach out as far as they could go. They’d be armored and beautiful. Morgan’s mind wandered then to his confrontations with Grant and Bryson as well as Liia Mae and wondered just what coloring he should have to fit in with them. 

As the light finally seeped into the crevice, the answer seemed clear. People just barely knew them and he was just learning. Perhaps his coloring would match the pastels and coloring of the deep…

“You’re getting a little too dreamy for my tastes, Morgan,” Ejder halted his imagination. “Your coloring is specific to your species. Even if you were part of this world, you would still look like a hairless cat with wings.”

“That’s oddly specific,” Morgan frowned at the thought. “You don’t honestly think there’s a reason we were connected? I mean, why did your soul wind up with mine anyway?”