Ocean

“She had such unusual eyes. They made me think of the seaside, and so I called her Ocean, and could not have told you why.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an 'I.' No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and of points...”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

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Ocean, even as a hatchling, had always been silent. Never shy, or even demure, for her striking appearance and the intense air about her seemed to demand attention. She was simply silent, living deep inside her own mind, watching the world with great reverence and patience, almost as if her concept of space and time differed from everybody else's. Which, truthfully, it did, and still does.

In her adopted clan, dragons choose their own names. Throughout her days as a hatchling, Ocean did not choose. To her clan mates, she seemed reluctant to choose one at all. But the day she left the lair for the first time since her adoption, the two of the oldest dragons of the lair, Dew and Kana, took her and her adopted nest mates Juniper and Gemma, down to the shore to play in the sand.

Instead of playng, for almost an hour Ocean watched the sea with great concentration as Gemma and Juniper scuffled. Eventually, she stood and shook herself off before running out into the wild surf. Kana and Dew, gently breaking apart Juniper and Gemma as Gemma became a tad too rough, did not notice her running until too late, and when they looked, they saw a large wave break over the small hatchling as she stood perfectly still, and disappeared under a wall of water.

Dew immediately panicked, wild with fear for his adopted daughter. Kana, the Guardian, who took charge over all the lair's hatchlings, and grew up in the wild waters of the Tidelord's domain, was the one who took action, running full tilt into the water and searching for the hatchling as Dew ran back and forth frantically on the shore. Mere seconds later, Kana emerged from under the water, the soaked blue hatchling in her jaws.

This was Ocean of course, so she did not cry or struggle while being lifted from the salty water. She said nothing, and remaine calm although slightly confused when Dew, practically crying with relief, licked her clean of the salt water and checked for scrapes or bruises. Kana though, noticed a slight spark in the hatchling's eye that hadn't been there before.

And when they tucked all three of the hatchlings into their nest that night, dew unfurled around them the next morning to see one of them, the blue girl covered in black crackle, had gone. He roared and woke all the dragons of the lair, who began a frantic search. Thankfully, the two tundras of the lair were there, and were immediately able to pick up on the small hatchling's trail.

Kana went with them, running down the steppes and she realized, towards the water. Her pulse quickened, remembering how the hatchling had run fearlessly into the water just the day before.

But when they arrived to the beach, they found her instantly, perfectly fine, covered in drying salt water from a previous swim, and watching the ripple of the waves with a gaze that could only be described as pure awe, and perhaps adoration.

Kana recognized something about the look in the hatchling's eyes, and told the tundras to run back to the lair, to assure the brooding Dew or her safety. Then Kana approached quietly, before sitting next to the blue hatchling on the sand, watching her, and admiring her quiet intensity.

Eventually, the young hatchling was the first to break the comfortable silence.

"What is it called?" She asked. Kana smiled.

"It's called the sea. This is the sound, in the islands, it's more protected. But the part that goes beyond the islands, that surrounds the whole world..." Kana gestured out towards the horizon, where the waters went out until they met the sky. "That's called the ocean."

The hatchling's ears twitched a little at that, and she sat up a little bit straighter. Kana smiled. She'd seen Juniper and Gemma and all the other hatchlings pick their names, and was now able to recognize it just in the way the hatchling shifted herself and nodded firmly. They watched the water for a whole longer, before Kana got up and stretched.

"Come on now Ocean." She said, lifting the hatchling onto her back. Ocean settled neatly between Kana's spines. "We have to introduce you to the rest of the clan."

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Ocean stopped sneaking to the water after that, after she saw how worried and upset she'd made Dew. She clung to his side for several days after that, until the pull became too strong, and she asked, heartfelt and pained, if she could go to the water once more. Dew was reluctant, until Kana agreed to go with her, and teach her all she knew about the sea from her time in the sea of a hundred currents. Then Dew willingly carried Ocean to the water's edge, and watched as she happily splashed into the deeper waters where Kana waited for her.

Once Ocean became a full fledged adult, a few expected her to grow out of her quietness and curious intensity. However, if anything, it only became much much stronger, because now she had a true focus. Now that she had learned all she could from Kana about the sea, she took full advantage of it, spending every spare minute far beneath the water's surface. She learned to dive great distances under the water, staying submerged for almost hours at a time, going places even Kana would not go with her. When she comes back to the clan, covered in salt and bearing fish for the hoard, she rarely speaks. Nods, and tender looks are often her most blatant form of recognition and affection.

Some of her clan mates tease her now, and ask her if she's sure she was born into the right flight. All she gives is a gentle, almost imperceptible smile. But in truth, her connection with the water is truly Arcane. She knows that the Ocean is vast and powerful, and has seen and heard the changes of thousands of millennia. When she disappears into her own head, it's not necessarily the ocean she thinks of, but the birth and makings and structure of the universe, and how the ocean is her link to understanding.

Even if a lot of the time, her family doesn't understand Ocean, her intensity, her silence, they love her all the same, and she them, with a fierce loyalty that they're perhaps not even aware of. Her adopted nest mates, Juniper and Gemma, are still her closest charges and friends, and she would protect them at all costs.


Welcome gift from OceanEyes~ :)


When I first saw this girl as an adult dragon, I thought of the book quoted at the top, and the way that to me, she seemed to embody the depths and knowledge of the ocean in the story. Blue and fading to black along the edges where the water meets the cosmos and all the knowledge there ever was. Then I knew her name. :)