Trista felt her own stomach rumble. Yet below her own hunger was a second, powerful urge, and suddenly she realized she felt that Dalkeira was famished.
Having grown up on the island, Trista had always felt in tune with nature. With the animals, and especially the ocean; reading the water, learning to enjoy its power without losing sight of the dangers. She enjoyed the excitement of the hunt, but could just as easily find joy in observing the animals by blending into the surroundings and letting things go by undisturbed. Over the years, she had learned to trust her sense for nature; her gut feeling on what she could take and give back.
Now this feeling—this sudden urge—was clearly steering her one way. Feed the dragon. She knew in her core it was very important, as if it was needed to secure their bond.
A bond. I can’t describe it any other way.
“That’s because you are mine and I am yours,” said Dalkeira simply.
Trista smiled. The warmth she felt looking at her newfound companion was complex and yet so simple. As if it had always been there. Or at least a place for it had always been there; one which had now been filled.
“She says she’s hungry, and would like to know if you can show her where and how to catch the lizards,” said Trista to her little brother. “I could use something to eat myself.”
She looked around.
“Which means that we have to get out of here.”
“But what of the soldiers? What if they’re still out there?” said Decan, tears welling up in his eyes. “I don’t want to get caught again.”
“I know, but we can’t stay here forever. We need to eat.”
Examining their surroundings more carefully, Trista noticed that there were no tunnels connected to their room. The space they were in went around a few corners, but they were all dead ends. The way in had been blocked when the walls closed, which only left one way out.
Trista looked up at the sky and the light that fell in. The ceiling of the cave had several cracks in it. Most were too hard to reach or too small to fit through, but one looked like it might just work.
“There, that one,” she said, pointing. “It’s big enough for us to climb through, and there’s no overhang. Just the wall going straight up.”
She saw her brother look doubtfully at the wall. She lowered herself onto one knee and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take our time. Look for the right route. And once we've found it, you can go first. I’ll spot you while you climb.”
It took the rest of the morning to find a suitable route. Twice Trista fell off the wall, welcomed only by the rocky ground to break her unintended descent. But each time she got back up without any serious injuries. They had to make haste, for without food, they would eventually grow too weak to make such a climb.
Dalkeira paced around, unable to sit still with hunger driving her. Impatiently, she waited for Trista to find a route, only to give up shortly after and look for one herself. She was surprisingly quick in climbing the walls. Her claws gave her excellent grip on the otherwise slippery stone surface. Before they knew it, the dragon disappeared through the crack and encouraged them from above.
But it was much more difficult for Trista and Decan to find large enough handholds and foot rests. Decan had never really climbed like this before, while Trista had only learned through the challenges the island youngsters had given each other over the years. She now had to use all that experience to coach Decan to the top.
“That’s it! Now put your left foot a little further up…more…more…there!”
“I don’t like this, Triss! I’m scared!”
“It’s okay to be scared, but I know you can do it, Decan! It’s just a little further. You’re almost there! The next step is moving your weight on your left leg and putting your right hand in that crack just above you.”
“Which crack?”
“It’s just above you, a little to your left.”
“I don’t see it! My hands are getting tired, Triss! I’m going to fall!”
“Come on. I’m hungry,” Dalkeira’s voice said in her head impatiently.
“No, you’re not. Put your weight on your legs. Relax your arms,” Trista called out to Decan, ignoring the dragon’s plea. “It’s just above you; you’ll have to feel for it.”
“Can’t you help? Can you climb down and point him at the next grip?” asked Trista privately to Dalkeira.
“What about food?” asked the dragon.
Trista saw Dalkeira hop around impatiently.
“The sooner we are out of here, the faster we can find food,” Trista sent across to the distracted dragon.
“Help!” called Decan, his arms shaking from the effort of holding on.
Trista thanked the goddess as she saw the small dragon start to descend the wall. Trista quickly positioned herself directly under them, ready to catch them if needed.
“There, Decan! Right where Dalkeira’s claw is. Just reach around that piece of rock.”
Finally, Decan’s fingers found their grip, allowing him to pull himself upward. From there, it was two simple steps before he was able to grab the edge of the crack and push himself through the tear in the ceiling and out of the cave. Dalkeira immediately disappeared after him.
Trista made a small jump of joy and let out a deep breath. Decan stuck his head back into the cave.
“I made it, Triss! Now it’s your turn.”
She had little trouble following her brother up the wall. Reaching the top, she pulled herself out of the cave and let herself fall on her back, enjoying their small victory for a moment by soaking up the rays of sunlight with her eyes closed.
It was not long after that she felt a soft nudge to the side of her head. She opened an eye and saw the dark silhouette of Dalkeira’s head hovering above her.
Just like in my dream, thought Trista.
“Hungry,” was all Dalkeira said.
Trista and Dalkeira walked toward the ocean with Decan trailing close behind them. After exiting the cave system, they carefully moved back toward the edge of the cliffs to ensure they would not fall into any of the tremor-created crevices.
Playing it safe, they spent some time on the high ground, checking for soldiers. But Dalkeira quickly grew impatient, assuring both siblings there were no other people in sight.
Looking back, Trista saw the smoke from her village still creeping slowly into the sky.
It’s not as thick anymore. Most of the fires must have gone out.
As she approached one of her favorite fishing spots, she held tight to her last fishing spear. She was glad she had only jabbed the soldier with it, or she would have had to fish with her bare hands. They had looked for lizards on their way down from the cliff, but it was too late in the day already; most of the little reptiles had soaked up enough sun and had gone into hiding from the heat. It would not be until the end of the day that they would leave their shelters again.
While Trista waited for her chance to spear a fish, Decan went looking for small crabs and cockles, his makeshift bag at the ready.
Dalkeira was watching Trista intensely.
“What is taking so long?” Dalkeira complained. “You have been standing there doing nothing for quite some time now.”
Trista was positioned over a shallow inlet of ocean water. Each foot firmly set on a rock, she patiently watched the water below her. Small fish swam by, but she held her spear firmly, waiting for the right moment.
“Patience, please. I don’t want to waste time on any of the small ones,” Trista replied privately so as not to not disturb the fish. She was getting the hang of these unspoken conversations.
“But there is one there…and there…and another one there! Why do you not get them?” Dalkeira paced back and forth.
“The timing has to be right, else we’ll just scare them off and fish behind the net.”
“But you are not using a net.”
“No, it’s a figure of speech. It means that we’ll lose the
opportunity to catch the fish if we scare them off first. Now please, try not to move. Your pacing is frightening our meal,” said Trista softly so as not to hurt the dragon’s feelings.
Dalkeira held her pacing, but Trista noticed her skin twitch nervously. The dragon did not want to wait; she wanted to eat. The hunger was almost unbearable as she watched the fish slide by while Trista waited for the opportune moment.
Trista felt the increased force of hunger overflow from Dalkeira into her. It was driving her to distraction. She could only imagine how ravenous the beautiful creature truly felt; it took all her willpower not to give in, and to instead wait for the right moment to spear a good-sized fish.
A ways off, a glimmer moved below the surface. Dalkeira spotted the large fish as it swam by, unaware of any danger. Unable to control herself any longer, the dragon leaped into the air, beating her wings wildly. Startled by the shadow, several fish shot away in different directions, and Dalkeira's intended prey darted toward the deeper water between the rocks near Trista.
Dalkeira folded her wings tightly around her sleek body and dove head-first into the water, neck stretched forward, mouth wide open to reveal rows of sharp teeth. She hit the water right on top of the large fish. Two of the dragon's eye membranes closed in response, to protect her eyes, but she could still see just fine.
As she crashed into the water, Dalkeira expected to feel the fish firmly between her jaws, but her target easily dodged her attack with a quick flip of its tail. The fish moved with such force that it broke through the surface of the water and leaped straight up into the air.
As Dalkeira came back up in a turmoil of water, she looked wildly around for her missed prey. Lightning-fast Trista had thrust her spear, impaling the fish just behind its head. She moved onto the rock as the fish thrashed futilely, trying to free itself.
Before Trista could speak, the dragon spotted another fish and dove back under to chase it.
Trista kept a firm grip on the one she had speared, watching as Dalkeira moved around. Waving her body left and right, the small dragon used her tail to propel herself through the water, sometimes using her claws to quickly move direction as she tried to catch up with the fish.
After two or three attempts, Trista decided it was enough for now. There might not be soldiers here now, but that did not mean they could not appear at any time and hear the splashes the dragon was making.
“I’ve got your fish right here, little hunter. Why not come and eat it while I focus on catching more?” said Trista after the small dragon finally surfaced for air.
Dalkeira quickly swam over and launched herself out of the water. As she reached the fish, she sank her front claws into it so Trista could pull out her spear. Looking at the dragon’s claws, Trista noticed they were webbed.
No wonder she can move so swiftly through the water! thought Trista, impressed.
Dripping wet, Dalkeira did not waste another moment. Sinking her teeth into its head, she pinned the half-dead fish down with her claws and pulled, twisting her neck back and forth. After several attempts, the head tore free, after which Dalkeira threw it up in the air and swallowed it whole.
Seeing the speed with which Dalkeira was eating, Trista quickly returned to the water. She got lucky; another fat fish was passing by and she was able to spear it quickly. Just as Dalkeira finished her first meal ever, Trista offered her the second fish. It was still thrashing wildly. The small dragon, overjoyed at having another thing to sink her teeth into, went straight in for the kill.
After the second fish, the worst of Dalkeira’s hunger was stilled, allowing Trista a little more time to spear the next. Without hunger dominating her behavior, Dalkeira returned to Trista’s side to observe the woman’s fishing techniques, this time remaining perfectly still so as not to scare away their prey.
“How do you know where the fish are in the water?” Dalkeira asked after Trista successfully speared several smaller ones. “From here, it looks like you should miss every time, but still the fish end up on your spear. Do you look at the sparkles as well?”
“Sparkles? You mean the sunlight hitting the water's surface?” said Trista as she raised her spear again.
“No, the light from the sky just makes the sparkles move faster. They are deeper. Moving back and forth with the waves. The sparkles flow around the fish as they swim. They are very small, but there are a lot of them. You should be able to see them easily.”
Dalkeira looked up at the sky.
“They are in the air too, although far less.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you mean,” said Trista out loud, shaking her head. “I know the light bends when it hits the water. The fish is actually at a slightly different spot than it looks from up here. So I compensate for that when I aim my spear, but I don’t see any sparkles. Sorry.”
“Strange,” declared Dalkeira. “They are clearly there. I would have expected you to see them as well.”
Trista’s let her gaze glide across the water, scanning for any sign of ships. She thought she saw a few of them on the horizon, but it was hard to tell. It made her uncomfortable not knowing where the soldiers were. Were they still on the island or had they sailed on? Would more of them come?
“This is taking too long. We’re too much in the open like this,” she expressed her concerns. “It would go a lot faster if we had a net; every time I catch a fish, it scares away the others and I have to wait for them to come back. If we can catch a couple more we should have enough for our dinner as well.”
She checked over her shoulder to see where Decan was. Her heart skipped a beat when he was nowhere to be seen. She was about to yell his name when she saw something move behind one of the more crooked stone slabs. As Decan got back to his feet again, Trista saw him put another small crab in his improvised bag.
“Decan, don’t go out too far. We’ll be heading for higher ground soon,” she called as loud as she dared.
In the meantime, Dalkeira was studying the ground intensely. She followed the small coves of water and seemed to have an interest in the flow of the waves coming and going.
“I have an idea,” she spoke inside Trista’s head. Trista watched Dalkeira walk along the shoreline and dive straight into the water. As the small dragon moved further away from them, into open water, Trista’s stomach gave a nervous tingle.
“What are you doing?”
The ocean could be a very dangerous place for those too inexperienced to recognize the signs. But Dalkeira did not answer straight away; she simply stopped and turned toward Trista again.
“Get ready.”
The dragon swam in a curved line parallel to the shore. Every time a little bit closer toward the entrance of the water inlet. Sometimes she shot forward; other times she deliberately slowed herself down.
Trista had no idea what she was doing at first, but as Dalkeira closed in on the shore, it quickly became clear. The sleek silver fish were shooting back and forth below the surface of the water; Dalkeira was doing her best to cut off their escape route, herding them toward the shallower part near the shore. A large group of fish was headed straight toward Trista, too many to count.
“Decan! Get over here, I need your help!” she called out quickly.
By the time Decan made his way over, the fish were directly below her.
“I catch, you kill,” she said quickly. “Just knock their heads on a rock, as hard as you can.”
With that, she thrust her spear into the water. She hardly needed to aim; every strike hit its mark. After a few fish, Trista abandoned her spear and simply used both her hands to flip the fish out of the water.
As she threw the fish to her little brother, the boy did his best to knock each of them dead to end their suffering. It quickly became clear that he could not keep up with his sister. Within moments, several fish were flopping on the rocks. Some were even lucky enough to make their way back into the water—only to be met by Dalkeira’s waiting jaws. The newly hatched dragon took great pleas
ure in using the opportunity to eat her fill.
The abundance of food was attracting seagulls, and although they were careful not to come too close to Dalkeira, the insolent birds had no trouble trying to steal the fish away from Decan.
Looking up, Trista decided to call it quits. The sudden increase of birds in the air would draw too much attention to them—especially birds as loud as these.
“That’s it. We’re done,” said Trista, as Dalkeira surfaced. “That was a wonderful idea, my dear. Thank you. We’ve got plenty to eat for now. Taking more would be wasteful, and the water goddess teaches us to never take more than we need.”
Dalkeira pulled herself from the water with a satisfied look in her eye. Out of instinct, she snapped her jaws around a fish just about to fall back in the ocean and swallowed it. She looked too full to fly. Her round stomach swiveled from left to right as she plodded over to Decan. She flapped her wings, scaring off the seagulls long enough to allow Trista and Decan to gather the remaining fish.
Trista used her knife to cut off a few pieces of fresh fish. Decan eagerly took them from his sister, trying to ease his own hunger as fast as possible.
“Let’s get going. I think there are ships coming, and I don’t want to be surprised by soldiers who are alerted by all the birds,” said Trista with her mouth still full of fish.
She slung the sack—heavy with fish, cockles and crabs—over her shoulder.
“But where do we go?” Decan asked. “The village is gone. Our house is gone. Mother and Father…gone.”
“We’ll figure it out. Let’s find high ground first; we’ll need to keep watch through the night, and our fire should stay out of sight if we want to prepare our dinner.”
Dalkeira dove back into the water then jumped back out again.
“And afterward, perhaps you can help me clean some of these fish guts from my skin? I feel unclean. After all, I did do all the work,” said Dalkeira, with what Trista expected was meant to be an innocent look on her face.
Later that night, Trista looked at her little brother. Decan lay curled up beside the fire in the inland cove they had travelled to that afternoon. He had cried softly while falling asleep, but she was glad to see the swelling in his face had gone down a bit.
Wavebreaker (Book II of the Stone War Chronicles): Part 1 - Trickle Page 6
