Star charts, updated, and the crew is back in action! And... they've received an aquatic mission, Isolda's absolute favorite. She was never the strongest Maren, nor the fiercest, though her toxins and sharp tongue tried to cover the gap in strength. The open ocean is a dangerous place, leaving her completely exposed. Old instincts and lessons jump back into her mind with the softest nudge, and they are vivid as daybreak again.
Always feel for movement in the water. Comes her mentor's voice. The fewer angles you have exposed, the better. Reefs are good. Caves are better. And always, always remember- For a moment, as Isolda breaches the surface, she is unstuck in time. She is her child self and yet not, all at once. She swims the waters of the alien planet. She breathes in the salty water of Sornieth.
Never, never seek the surface. No death is more certain. You'll suffocate in minutes, dry out in hours, starve in days... but that does not even touch upon the true danger.
Young Isolda, in the great beyond, hic sunt dracones.
Isolda breathes the word's translation, and they feel heavy on her tongue. It is the phrase used to warn of the unknown, of the uncharted waters. They drew them on their maps at the borders of the world, to say, this is where the reality we know ceases to be. Go no further. "Hic sunt dracones." She says again, her voice soft as she looks up at the alien sky.
"Here be dragons."
She weaves her way through the caves and tunnels. Her muscles ache. She hasn't swam this far in so long. Have her muscles atrophied, on board the Interceptor? It's a disturbing thought, one she doesn't want to acknowledge. Keen eyes search for her prey. The spear in her hands is heavier than the ones she was trained in as a youth, weighted with technology she never once even dreamed of.
(Perhaps most importantly, an emergency teleporter, if she runs into danger. There is always danger, in the ocean.)
The ocean is her home. The ocean is her mother.
The ocean would have been her tomb, if she let it.
Here's how the story ends: Isolda grins and laughs with her family, the crew of the Interceptor. Her technology is painstakingly waterproofed. Few aquatic beings ever reach for the stars, so for the most part, Juliana had to figure out how to modify their rugged old ship to hold water. For the comfort of her first mate, she floods half of their ship, despite the danger it could have posed if they'd miscalculated anything.
And... Isolda has never loved, nor been loved, so truly before.
But here's how it begins: A Maren stares out of a tank at the blue Imperial, skeptical and wild-eyed. The stranger may have taken Isolda on board her ship, given her the wings to fly from the cruel world of Sornieth, but she does not trust her intentions. She ingests her custom toxins, just in case. If the captain plans to eat her, then at the very least, she'll die with Isolda. Her final revenge.
Here be dragons. A warning to never venture into the unknown. To never trust the dragons that almost drove them to extinction, a millennium ago. To stay in the depths, never the shallows, to never breach the surface. To never see the stars.
She was a foolish, curious child. She disobeyed, and beached herself. The stars were infinite. The moon looked upon her like an eye, judging her foolishness. The air was thin. And then, when all her hopes were exhausted, on wings like nebula and looking upon her with eyes like lightning... an Imperial appeared before the helpless Maren.
Despite all her threats, her spitting curses, her hurled spear of bone embedded in the Imperial's snout - Juliana picked her up gently, tolerating her thrashing claws and razor teeth, putting the terrified Maren back in the ocean.
It didn't make sense. Dragons were their ancestral enemies. Dragons killed them. Dragons hunted them. So why, why, why-
Why, indeed. And foolish young Isolda could never let a question go unanswered. She sought that strange dragon again, pried her secrets from her with her sharp tongue and sharper mind. She was cruel, then, showing no care or caution, only a desperate desire to peel the layers of the world back and make it make sense again.
That did not happen. Instead, a turn that Isolda never could have predicted:
Juliana showed her the Imperial's deepest, most cherished secret.
She showed Isolda the Interceptor, and offered to take her with her into the stars.
Going spear to claw with a dragon like this reminds her of all her childhood fears. The five-eyed creature wails and spits, two heads with teeth meant to grip and tear, ragged wings and pointed scales. It is everything she feared from her youth, every childhood nightmare, all her worst fears in the flesh.
Isolda dances through the waves. Unevolved for the resistance of the water, her target is sluggish, and Isolda was meant for this. Perhaps this criminal can breath underwater, but it is no true child of the sea. Isolda cuts through the water like a knife. She hasn't fought, truly fought, in ages. She hasn't needed to, ever since Juliana offered to let Isolda join her crew.
Her fighting skills are rusty. But when you are born onto the losing side of an endless battle, some things are embedded within you. The lessons carved into her marrow cannot rust. With a flick of her spear, they come back into sharp focus.
They call these dragons an Aberation. Once upon a time, it was the creature of all her worst nightmares, the reason to never venture into the true unknown.
But Isolda faced the unknown, when she drove headfirst into starlight.
She is no longer scared of dragons.
"stealing?"
"stealing!"
