Aquarius

• Has the ability to see straight through water, at any distance, when he so chooses.
• Has the ability to speak with water life.
• Thinks he's a fish, grew up in the deep waters, and sees the water as the world. Is fearful to go too close to the surface.
• Thinks the deities are dragons, and the only dragons that exist.
• Clearly has some very mixed up ideas about the world, just by merit of never knowing.

"Okay, in that case, what do you think is out there high above us?" It was getting dark, and Strom wouldn't be able to safely stay much longer, but he'd just earned Aquarius' name and a real conversation. He had to stay now.

"Oh, stars, of course!"

Strom was impressed by that answer, "That's right. There are bright, twinkling stars!"

"But I thought we 'ere talking beyond the stars. Everyone knows stars. They start from any pocket o' air 'n' float upwards until, I suppose, some would say they become bright and twinkling. What about above the world? Above the stars? In the void that some say is a burning void beyond breathing." The guardian snorted, suddenly threatening to dismiss the conversation yet again, "What is out there indeed? Shadows and nothin'ness."

"Uh. Bubbles. You mean bubbles." Strom blew out a pocket of air, which immediately turned into a minature whirlstorm, and moved downwards. He sighed, and those bubbles joined in as they also recaptured the ones Aquarius had snorted out.

"Well, you ARE one to talk about above 'n' beyond the world!" Aquarius chuckled.

"This is a sea. It is not the world! Bubbles are not strs, even when they refract light. Stars ARE light, above the water and above the air and beyond the dragons and deities themselves!"

Strom was awarded with a look of concern. Fortunately, his acquaintence was a bait-biter, not a head-patter. Ah, so now not only is the world atop a world, y'know where the deities are, doncha? Tell Tidelord we want him back."

"Tidelord will be coming in for a house check later." Strom immediately and involuntarily intoned, then rolled his eyes upward. He really was no seer. Why this again?

"Ah, and he's your den-lord, is he? It gets better'n'better! What sorta rent does he charge? Yer sanity? Tell me then, what's beyond this world's stars and that other world's stars? Breathless, burning voids aside, that is."

The minature whirlpools at Strom's feet spun a little tighter, "Listen, guardian--"

But Aquarius was on a roll, "Oh---oh, yes, and t'eyes! Are the tales of eyes true? The mostly silent being with brilliant eyes? Sometimes you can hear a melody of it, enticing you into the breathless burn."

"You. Are. A. Dragon! You speak as a fish that can't breathe air!"

"But the dragons are the deities! You call me a deity?" Aquarius was now wheezing with laughter.

"Tidelord's tears, nevermind!" Who could reason with someone so tremendously misled?

Aquarius' next words were some time later, and quite serious, but spoken long after the pearlcatcher had gone away, "Ah, now, I'd think someone with Tidelord's tears overflowing his yes would know to always mind them."

From his dark lair, Aquarius looked high up. His eyes pierced through all the water. Beyond the darkness of the depths. Beyond the fish he usually had an evening chat with. Beyond the bubbles that were all he could imagine stars looking like. Somewhere beyond to the place with the distorted, brilliant eyes of the silent being. Were they distorted by the void - the...the air, the pearlcatcher called it -- or did the water distort them, as the pearlcatcher claimed?

And would the sing-song spell he heard when he dared go closer catch him out and in danger?

And was he really not a fish, but a dragon, which wasn't a deity? Was that like the stars, something Strom claimed that he couldn't prove existed?

How did Strom come to rent from the Tidelord? Aquarius believed it, because that line was prediction, not conversation.

Was Strom an agent of those eyes who told Tidelord nevermind? If Tidelord finally made an appearance to collect rent, someone should definitely warn him.

Did deities need warnings?

And what, exactly, did Strom think was a dragon?