Merrin got to her feet, scanning the horizon half hopefully, half anxiously. No ship - but no sea dragon, either. Her stomach complained, possibly alerted to the fact that it was empty by Pundy's grumble of dissatisfaction about the similar state of his own. Gods above, to get off this barren piece of land in the middle of the ocean would be akin to a blessing from heaven - to get off and sleep in a proper bed, and have a bath, and -

She felt an entirely unexpected surge of grim determination, and simultaneously a twinge of shame. If killing a sea dragon was the worst she had to do to make it out of this godsforsaken place, the least she could do was trust that they'd help her and stop whining to herself. She reached for her belt and saber, and with a cursory glance at the Meiltha at their campfire, trotted to catch up with Kendath and Pundy, who was calling for Kiril. His irritated bass carried across the rocky shoreline, conspicuously loud in the silence.

"How do you know - " she began upon catching up with him, and broke off with a sharp intake of breath when the ground dropped away beneath their feet.

A vast, glittering heap of silver-green sparkled palely under the overcast sky, making her squint. It looked brittle, dry, as if likely to disintegrate in the sea breeze, but simultaneously almost sinister - like a disturbing reflection of something far more threatening. Merrin found her gaze drawn irresistibly down the gorge, to where its end was obscured by hanging foliage. She drew in a breath, compressing fear into a hard lump in her stomach, and scanned the steep drop for a way down.

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Jhoran woke slowly. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had lain down the night before, and now felt somewhat chagrined that he hadn't spent any time on watch--apparently, his weariness had placed that duty on Merrin, Kendath, and Pundy.

Sitting up revealed that not only had sleep restored some of his energy, it had also allowed his muscles to stiffen and his wounds to partially crust. Movement caused his muscles to scream and his wounds to rip open. He winced, but pushed himself to his feet with his good arm.

The noticeable lack of food was duly not pointed out, and as Merrin and Kendath set off to find the sea dragon, Jhoran followed as quickly as he could, which is the say that he fell behind. Still, from Kendath's too-pleasant and somewhat strained expression, he wasn't certain that he wanted to keep up too well.

A glance over his shoulder revealed that the Meiltha were taking an interest in their actions. The three that were fit to walk were following cautiously, apparently wise enough to know that it was best to not appear to want to take command or to sabotage their attempts.

He sighed. Their attempts. A likely suicidal search for a sea dragon that could tear ships to pieces, all to get off of the island.

If only Dawn was there. He empathized with Kendath and Merrin, who had both also lost their dragons. No connection with Dawn. No comforting presence in the back of his mind belonging to the dragon he had traveled and fought with for years. He felt a lump in his throat, and forced it down. All of his tears might have dried out years ago, but he still had the capacity to grieve; now, however, just wasn't the time.

Kendath and Merrin reached the edge of a gorge that lay across their path, and stood looking down into it. Apparently, something in there was interesting.

When Jhoran reached them, he saw what it was. Dragon molt. At least they knew now that the sea dragon had been there. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. By the looks of the gorge, the dragon might even go into it frequently. Perhaps there was a ray of hope in their task after all.

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So he hadn't been dreaming, and this assured Kendath but a little. Because the sea did exist and because they did find the molt, now they had no choice but to pursue the trail.

They did exactly that, tracing a path along the brink and following it inland as it slashed, an ugly scar, through the isle's center. The maw of the gorge yawned before them, and its foaming saliva crashing against the craggy teeth haunted them well beyond the louder roar of the beach. They entered the wood, and its misty stillness contrasted starkly with the clamor in the gorge below. The rocks bordering the brink were anathema to vegetation, so they had an easier time navigating. The terrain sloped, following the gradient of the cinder cone up... up...

Strange how one side of the volcano could be so precarious, yet the other side as gentle as a rounded hill. Vegetation thinned to a few scraggly shrubs, naked branches entangled like twisted ribcages, and beneath his feet Kendath could just make out black basalt, striped with infinitesimal canyons like dry riverbeds. But a far stranger sight was the gorge slicing right up the volcano's slope, up and farther up still, until it reached the enormous crater at the top, where it dipped down the other side and proceeded to slash across the island's other half.

Kendath crested a rise brimming the crater and paused to catch his breath. He'd climbed more rugged terrain, but the hunger, lack of sleep, and fatigues of the day before were overtaking him. The gorge was deeper and steeper here to compensate for the higher elevation, and the foaming water surged into a bowl-shaped depression in the crater's center. And, lounging in the swirling lake, spikes gleaming in the half-light, was a sight that struck Kendath like lightning, straightening him and jolting his hand toward his weapons belt.

The sea dragon lounged on the shore for a moment more, then plunged back into the depths. Weaving in and out of the choppy water, it could only be described as dangerous and beautiful, a turquoise ribbon catching what little sun ventured through the clouds.

Pundy took thirty seconds settling his heaving chest and another twenty staring at the leviathan, before declaring, "I'm not."

Kendath shrugged. "Just as well. You'd only get in the way." He glanced at Merrin. "A direct approach might not be the best idea."

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Merrin was staring at it, chewing her lip fiercely, one hand hovering uncertainly over the hilt of her saber. The weapon took on the effectualness of a toothpick in these particular circumstances, it seemed to her, especially against those diamond-hard scales glittering almost tauntingly in the sun. A direct assault would be disastrous, hardly even doable even if they had had the help of their dragons. The thing was monstrous; she could see it, stretched at its full length to bask in what little sun there was, and estimated that Wyvern's length three times over from head to tailtip would not quite have come out even to this.

Unwittingly she wound a strand of hair tightly around her finger, contemplating the dilemma. Swords would do little good; perhaps a distraction, or a scheme to lure it out of the water in order to have the advantage? Then weapons would not be so ineffectual. The prospect seemed reasonable for a moment, until Merrin considered that dragons in general were not stupid beasts, and this one would hardly pick a fight outside its native environment. That left the prospect of a diversion, or perhaps...

Merrin closed her eyes momentarily and cautiously reached to touch that brimming reservoir of power. The contact sent shivers through her and she felt briefly unsteady. She opened them again, staring down into the crater, and tried to gauge how much effort would be needed to stun the thing, at the very least. And that was the other question - they need not kill it, just immobilize it long enough to reach the portal, for surely once they were gone there was no way Mistress Ssmalysx could make her wrath known that her enemy had not quite been vanquished - surely?

Uncertainty made her grimace, and Merrin glanced up at Kendath and across at Jhoran. "I think killing it, perhaps, may be a little beyond our reach," she began, hesitating a little. "We need to reach the portal - right? However we prevent it from killing us in the process does not make any difference?"

They hardly knew any better than she did, really. Merrin returned her eyes to the sinuous form twisting in its aquatic acrobatics, and finished thoughtfully. "I think a diversion...it could work. Or...or I suppose I could try and, and stun it. With...this." Cautiously she let white glow very faintly at her fingertips to demonstrate. Confidence was lacking in that respect. It was not beyond the realm of imagination that Merrin would exhaust herself in any attempt along that avenue, and if it didn't work they would find themselves at even more of a disadvantage. If it did...

Expression set, she folded her arms in front of her. The thought of summoning enough power already made her dizzy. "I don't think I would be of much use afterwards, though." All that to say - use power and they'd have to carry her through the portal. Merrin irritably tossed her hair out of her face.

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"You have something in mind?" Kendath returned, eyeing the white tipping Merrin's fingers. A hole in reasoning gaped in that plan - if Merrin was to be the diversion, how could she enter the portal herself? This, provided she had the strength at all to summon the necessary power. A diversion flashy enough to pique a sea dragon could be nothing short of pyrotechnics. Likewise, a burst of flame powerful enough to stun a sea dragon could be nothing short of conflagration.

The sinuous ribbon abruptly swerved their direction, making the humans duck behind the lip of the rise. Its momentum slowed; its eyes flicked their way with the hard glint of emeralds, and for a moment Kendath held his breath and thought...

His imagination was all. The next instant, it turned away and, with a lash of its tail, ducked beneath the swells. Breathing easier, Kendath raised himself to scan the lake's churning surface. Water from the gorge swirled into the crater, spinning in weak maelstrom. No sea dragon in sight. No portal in sight, either. Could it be underwater? He needed to get closer, but venturing out would place him in plain view, despite the boulders dotting the crater. In fact, the only cover in sight was the gorge itself, and dropping over the cliff would be suicidal... or would it? For sure, his current definition of suicidal was a bit stretched from what it used to be.

The gorge's yawning maw was not a welcoming sight. Its depth had plummeted to the point where the rushing water at the bottom was but a thread of white-streaked gray, smashing against the rocks with vindictive fury. That relegated from consideration, the ledges lining the gorge's side did look promising. Was there any other way of staying hidden? Perhaps they could chance plain view after all. A brief reconnaissance, just to check the portal's position. Besides, the sea dragon hadn't made itself seen in quite a while -

The gorge exploded.

At least that's what came to mind, from the geysers of water - then the earsplitting roar - then the great spiked head rearing back and snapping forth like a striking viper - The head halted just short of snapping off Kendath's torso, but he leaped back anyway, falchion half drawn and vision filled with the rictus of glistening fangs.

So. They'd found the sea dragon.

Deciding that it'd made its point, it retreated, slithering halfway out of the gorge and impaling them with an emerald glare. Then, to Kendath's amazement, it drawled in a voice distinctly feminine, "Is it just me, or is the race of mankind waxing more cretinous by the decade?"

A sound somewhere between a "wha - ?" and an "uh" escaped his mouth.

She flicked her spiked tail and sighed, her point proven. "Let me guess. My asinine kraken of a daughter enlisted the lot of you in a noble dragonslaying quest, repaying you not in coin but in the promise that the terrible, ugly, jealous beast of the depths happens to sleep atop a portal?"

The same intelligent sound, this time more "uuhh" than "wha - ?"

The sea dragon evinced what passed for a nostril-flaring sniff. "I thought so. You're only the fourth band of self-dubbed knights to fall for it, though you're certainly not the most impressive. At least the last lot had a mage and a pet half-demon. Terribly hard on the digestive tract, that half-demon." She sat back on her haunches and appraised them testily. "Well? Aren't you going to slay me?"

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Well, theories of diversions could be discarded, thought Merrin in relief. She'd been right on one point, though - the dragons she knew were quite as intelligent as their human counterparts, and this one was no exception. Strangely, this obvious intelligence made her less apprehensive rather than more so. Scrambling over the lip of the bluff they'd hidden behind, she half-slid a little ways down the slope, which put her in a more favorable position to converse with the leviathan. The dragons she knew were entirely reasonable, and this one lost nothing by letting them proceed through whatever portal it guarded. Though perhaps they'd been lied to about that as well - ?

"We were contemplating it," Merrin admitted. "I confess the possibility of merely asking to use your - ah - portal didn't occur to us." She hesitated. The glittering maw of teeth, jewel-bright scales and rumbling low voice put her painfully in mind of Wyvern, and as a consequence made her predisposed to be completely and utterly trusting of any dragon. After all, it had spawned the hideous creature they'd been forcibly interviewed by previously...but Merrin knew better than to try to win in a battle of wits with a dragon. Better to just ask.

Especially when it shifted, moving closer, and Merrin fought not to edge backward but let the sinuous form approach. The dragon put a pair of trim front feet, rather like an otter's, on the bank and stretched up to where Merrin stood. She - Merrin had decided it was female, helped along by the voice - yawned, somewhat contemplatively, and no doubt in order to showcase her impressive display of teeth. "Who's we, and us?" she rumbled, appraising Merrin shrewdly. Merrin held her breath. At least it wasn't eating her. "I still say you're the sorriest assembly of self-dubbed heroes I've ever seen. There are some better ones down on the beach."

"I'm...Merrin," she introduced cautiously. "Merrin...Dragonrider. That's Kendath, and Jhoran Dragonriders. There's another man, Pundy, with his niece Kiril, and...the Meiltha on the beach."

The sea dragon sneezed explosively, making Merrin jump a foot in the air. "Tiresome, Meiltha," she opined disdainfully. "Always sailing back and forth bristling with weapons. Terribly hard to accost, and they're always wearing so much armor." This was followed by another shrewd scrutiny. "Dragonriders. Well, I suppose if my kin want to subject themselves to being used as such, that's their affair. Now," she snaked up past Merrin to appraise Kendath and Jhoran alike, and purred, "aren't you going to ask me what my name is? Or I could eat you now."

She paused contemplatively, and Merrin took the opportunity. "We were hoping to use your portal," she put in a little tremulously. Gods, how she was reminded of Wyvern. "It's very important that we get back - you do have one, don't you?"

_________________

"Your ears are as keen as your reasoning," she observed. "Have you or have you not been listening? I do not sleep on a portal. I sleep in a lake. Use what feathery brain particles remain in your stuffed skulls and tell me this: For what purpose would a mage erect a portal here? A gate to his summer villa, perhaps?"

Kendath could have emended that, technically, if the portal were in the lake, it'd be perfectly reasonable for her to sleep on top of it. This, and that he wasn't responsible for understanding what went on inside mages' heads. So what if a mage decided to build his summer villa on a volcano? Also perfectly reasonable, for a mage. Nevertheless, a little voice in the back of his head - the one that'd first taught him why gutting his Meiltha officers was a bad idea - chimed into his consciousness again. Contradicting any creature with teeth this big was not conducive to good health.

He didn't find his voice in time, but, surprisingly, Kiril did. "Trade," she suggested, blinking at the sea dragon as one would blink at a malfunctioning toy.

A cock of the spiked head. "Pardon me?"

"Trade," Kiril repeated, as if it were the most obvious concept in the world. She sidestepped Pundy's hand and peered up, blinking innocently. "You build us a portal, and we'll give you something. Like... pretty fire. Merrin can show you pretty fire, easy." She glanced back at Merrin with childish pride.

Kendath was about to comment that showing a dragon pretty fire was the last item on their list of How to Live a Longer Life, but the sea dragon, curiosity piqued, was now cocking her head at Merrin. "Wizardess, are you? Pretty fire? Impressive. Very impressive. About as impressive as the anchovies I ate for lunch." Despite this, she seemed deep in contemplation. Her tail flicked back and forth in a way not unlike what Mistress Ssmalysx did with her tentacles, and somehow the gesture wasn't reassuring. "You cretins seem to value semantics over pragmatism, so I shall try to be as tactful as my efforts feel so inclined. I shall make you an offer."

Kendath coughed.

The sea dragon continued as though she hadn't heard, "My daughter. My lovely little tentacled daughter and her lovely little bloated head. She lurks in that sheltered little cove of hers, sneaking off behind my back, eating my anchovies and calling herself mistress of the sea. She lurks in that cave where mommy can't reach her, where mommy can't drag her out and stick a little nail in that inflated little head." Her teeth gnashed. Her tail flicked all the harder. "Not a threat, you lot of shark-brained imbeciles, but an offer. Lure my lovely daughter out. Lure her out, where I may deal with her. Then I shall play the part of my land-hugging kin and escort you to the mainland."

"Because you definitely won't feel tempted to eat us afterward."

"I don't eat cretins," she returned dryly. "Cretins taste like crabs. Or dolphins, if you will. You get stuck between my teeth, and then you go on to irritate my sensitive digestive tract. The half-demon didn't properly digest for days. Kept me up for naps on end with his antics."

_________________

Merrin would almost have preferred a misguided attempt to kill the dragon. Perhaps it was that the one had no tentacles and reminded her distinctly of Wyvern, and the other was overtly equipped with said tentacles and scared her half to death, but the prospect of returning to the eerie and far more sinister Misstress Ssmalysx did not in any way satisfy her. The dragon was more trustworthy than the kraken-like cave-dweller, she supposed. The irony was - just - Merrin let the thought trail off in disgust.

She sighed and trudged back up the incline, grimly determined. "Take your time," the dragon called after their retreating backs. "I was just in the middle of a nap when you interrupted me, and I shall be rather miffed if I must interrupt it again."

It wasn't prudent to roll your eyes at a dragon, so Merrin waited until they were sufficiently out of sight. "How should we...lure it out?" she asked in an undertone, falling back to walk alongside Kendath. Only if there was no other way was she going back into that cave.

Kiril looked up, expression faintly disappointed. "The dragon didn't want pretty fire?" she asked. Merrin grinned faintly, and somewhat halfheartedly. If only it were that simple. "No," she replied, shaking her head. "No - I think the dragon would rather something else."

"Will you do it anyway?" Kiril asked hopefully. Merrin hesitated, and stumbled when she attempted to fulfill the request. Dizzy from the effort, she shook her head. "Not - not right now."

Pundy cast her a look and Merrin avoided it. Aye, she was exhausted, and aye, if they got in any more trouble she'd very likely faint dead away if she tried to save them. All it meant was that they had to be careful.

_________________

Jhoran walked along slowly behind the others. They had three options. The first was fairly impossible, as it involved killing the sea dragon. In all of his years, and he had a feeling he was the eldest after Pundy, he had only seen a sea dragon once before, and the fight that had ensued between it and Dawn was enough to leave Dawn near death for days, though the sea dragon itself had died. Without their own dragons, he didn't have much hope that they could kill the current sea dragon.

Dawn. No Dawn. He sighed, and struggled to turn his thoughts away from that which they kept straying back to--the empty place in his mind, where he was accustomed to feeling Dawn's welcome presence.

Option two involved luring Mistress Ssmalysx. He didn't see much hope in that, either, as she had given no sign of being willing to leaving her dank lair. Besides of which, she was probably intelligent enough to realize what they were attempting, unless they did it very, very well. There was perhaps more hope in doing that than in trying to kill the sea dragon, though.

The third option was that they just try to find their own way off of the island. He felt no hope of doing that, though. While he himself had been unceremoniously dragged ashore by his Meiltha captors, Merrin and Kendath had been free when they crashed, and had had a chance to explore, to a point. If they thought that it wasn't possible, he would have to assume that they were correct.

With no hope for options one and three, that left option two. Luring out Mistress Ssmalysx. Unfortunately, that required trusting the sea dragon to be true to her word. He was loathe to do that. Any creature would lie so to save its own skin, except for certain dragons, such as those of the Renegades. After all, the principles of a dragon tended to match the principles of its rider. He had little faith in the principles of anyone--anything on the island except for his current companions. The Meiltha were, beyond any doubt, planning their demise, to take place as soon as their usefulness in getting them off of the island was fulfilled.

Since he was officially declared a Dragonrider, he had never been in this predicament before. He had never had to, in a condition that most would say required him to spend several weeks in bed with healers watching over him, work with several others in similar condition in order to lure out a giant, cave-dwelling, tentacled, and intelligent monster into the open sea, so that a similarly giant and intelligent sea dragon could kill it, trusting to the dragon's word that it would aid them in leaving the island afterwards, instead of eating them.

He fervently hoped to never been in situation again, either.

_________________

*sings the happy anniversary song*

*happy dance*

W00t for one year of South Carolina I made, um, a bit of a graphic in celebration of the event

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Yay! *sings Happy Anniversary song as well*

w00tness. Even though I wasn't in for the whole year.

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*sings belated Happy Anniversary song*

Even though I'm not in the RPG.

[about to godmode. a lot.]

No one was going back into the cave.

Pundy vehemently stated as much. Merrin, pale and exhausted, had hardly enough divine fire to fry a shrew. Kendath was too hungry to have suicidal tendencies. Jhoran wasn't trusted to accomplish the task, no matter how ancient and/or magical his sword claimed to be. Kiril volunteered, to which Pundy had a fit and dragged her twenty feet back from the water.

Needless to say, it was a woebegone band of heroes that gathered at the beach to decide the next course of action. Save the world? Alack, the world was surely doomed. But somehow... somewhere between the confusion, the thought processes tottering off to nowhere, and the pining for food and water, they managed to piece together a plan.

Which was how Kendath and Merrin found themselves standing, for the for the third and bloody last time, on the pitiful slab of land outside the cave.

Kendath crossed his arms over his chest and edged away from the breakers. It was difficult, finding a safe medium between the icy spray and the mouth of the grotto. Biting down hard on his lip to still his chattering teeth, he glanced at Merrin, her face ashen enough to make a corpse look lively. Again, it all rested on her. The Chosen of the Gods. How far were those gods - those gods of mercy - willing to push her? Did they think her immortal like themselves? The notion chilled him more than the wind ever could. "Merrin," he managed. "Merrin, we're not doing it. You're not. Another way - there's got to be another - "

The only response she offered was a shake of her head. Already deep in concentration, she closed her eyes. Sank into herself, oblivious to the thrashing surf, the screaming wind.

The world stilled.

All sensation cease to exist. Nothing mattered, not the fear, the cold, the terrible hopelessness that'd worked itself in the last few days and was now as familiar as the blood congealing in their veins. Nothing mattered but Merrin. And she stood at the center of the world. The ocean, the stone itself, seemed to draw toward her, rippling into her open palms as though sucked into a vortex. Kendath leaned backwards, braced his feet against the ground beneath him, but it hardly mattered because the ground itself was stretching, stretching but not quite reaching...

The world held its breath.

Mechanically, as though forcing her way through thick fog, Merrin turned, hands outstretched. She placed her palms on the stone at the grotto's mouth.

The effect shocked him. Literally. Or, more accurately, blasted him backward into the water and almost drowned him. All he knew was that one second everything was still silent and tense, and a woman of ineffable power was standing where Merrin had once stood, and the next second - boom. White fire leaped into the air, blindingly brilliant.. With a roar and a whoosh of heat, it swept all over the cave's entrance and beyond, devouring stone and searing a path deeper, farther still...

Merrin fell. Perhaps he'd imagined it. Perhaps he'd glimpsed it. For certain, he didn't think twice. He was out of the water, panting and gasping for breath, diving into the thundering smoke and licking flames.

Gasping for breath was a bad idea. Divine fire it may have been, but it was still fire, very real, and it scalded his throat and lungs like a scrape of white-hot daggers. Eyes blinded and tearing, he dropped low - there! A glimmer of silver cloak - a sign from the so-called gods maybe or maybe not - and then - A lunge. A grab. He had her. And he had bloody well be out of there before -

"TRAITORSSS! Filthy, not sweetsss, traitorss! MISTRESS SSMALYSX WILL MAKE YOU PAY!"

A tentacle, charred and oozing, whipped forth from the vermilion explosion and caught Kendath by the ankle. He tripped, went sprawling and dragged the comatose Merrin down with him. His free hand fumbled for his falchion. The tentacle flipped him over, and his hand missed his falchion but came up with a dagger instead. At the same time, another tentacle, even more crisply burnt than its predecessor, caught his other ankle. His back scraped against rock. The kraken was dragging him toward the flames.

That ticked him off. And it never ceased to amaze him how well he could aim a dagger when he was ticked off.

The projectile spun, handle over blade, blade over handle, its steel glinting as it pierced the conflagration. He had no idea what it hit, but he did know that both tentacles abruptly retracted as Mistress-What's-Her-Slimy-Face released a keen whine of pain. Ankles stinging, he forced himself to his knees. Half a second to decide. Fire or ice. Fire or ice. Fire or...

Grabbing Merrin's limp frame by the waist, he plunged headfirst into ice. His flesh, already singed by heat, met the frigid water with a thousand stings like needles jamming up his pores. Fingers groping along the sheer cliff face, he broke the surface with a lung-scorching gasp. Where was he? The beach, the beach, he needed to find the beach - Movement. No tentacles. Pundy and Kiril, leaping up and down and flinging their arms in the air. Grip closing around Merrin's belt, he went under.

He reached land without recalling how he'd gotten there. He knew only that rocks scraped his knees, and that his limbs screamed in protest, and that someone was trying to pry loose his grip on the one person he'd vowed never to let go of.

"You're fine, man. She's safe now. Let go."

So he did, rolling onto his back and closing his eyes and swallowing air until his chest hurt more than his arms.

Then he remembered where he was. "The kraken. What - ?"

"No sign of the dratted monster yet," Pundy reported grimly. He was working on Merrin's chest, forcing her to cough up the brine she'd taken. Breath caught in his throat all over again, Kendath reached over to feel her pulse, but the grizzled mariner stopped him. "Save your strength. She's fine. That was some move you made there. Never seen anything more foolhardy in my life."

Kendath acknowledged this with a shrug and a relieved chuckle. Hungry had nothing to do with suicidal, after all.

The next earsplitting roar jolted him out of his skin. The sea dragon had arrived. And she was not a pretty sight.

A stark contrast from the languid creature of before, she sliced through the waves as a turquoise lance. Such was her speed that the waves themselves rushed aside, parting before her path like crowds parting before an empress. Her sinuous body rivaled the water itself in fluidity as she turned and speared into the cove. She broke the surface in a geyser of crystalline droplets that reflected the flames in scarlet akin to flaming rubies. Water cascaded down her spiked tail, her serpentine flanks... but her head... where...?

Its neck arched above the surface, but her head was much slower to emerge, as though hauling along a deadweight. No, not a deadweight. The weight was very much writhing, very much alive, and very much fighting back. Tentacles, gleaming with discolored mucus, wormed their way up her snout, curling around her nostrils and stabbing toward her eyes. Her head snapped back. The kraken clung on. Her head snapped again, harder, this time with a slash of her spiked tail. An eruption of the same mucus, succeeded by a familiar screech of pain.

Both sea dragon and kraken went under, the sole trace of their struggle a foam-crested eddy.

Kendath was just beginning to wonder who he should begin feeling sorry for, when the surface broke one final time. A sea dragon. And two... four... six tentacles. That is, a sea dragon with six tentacles dangling from its maw. Poor Mistress Ssmalysx. "Should I ask?" he said dryly, once she'd reached beach.

She spat the tentacles into the shoals, where they floated for a while like mottled driftwood before the ocean claimed them. She sneezed, and all five humans jumped a foot in the air. Sniffing, she wiped her snout with one taloned finger. "No, my lovely little tentacled daughter is not gone forever. No mommy is that cruel, you know. And no, you shouldn't ask. It's really none of your business." A flick of her tail, and she dove and resurfaced a little ways out to sea. "Well, are you climbing on or not? Or are you cretins suffering from another of your mental disorders? What do you call it... indecision."

Too weary to retort, Kendath massaged his shoulders before scooping up Merrin, one arm braced under her arms and another under her knees. Striding right past Pundy and Kiril, he waded into the breakers without second thought. Indecision. Hah.

_________________

For once, there was just blackness. Just blissful nothingness, where there were no sea dragons or many-tentacled monstrosities, no need to do anything except give in and let it all just drift away...just drift away...

And for once, Merrin clung to unconsciousness. How lovely it was not to think or worry or fear or doubt, not to have relentless and crushing responsibility pressing on her like a vice. She would not think of the island, or Vryngard, or Wyvern or her family or Kendath -

But Kendath would not be ignored. And gradually Merrin found herself reluctantly tugged back to the surface from the depths of blissful sleep, and all the things she wouldn't think of presented themselves to be thought of nonetheless.

She blinked, and took a breath, and all at once felt pain squeeze her midsection. Gasping, Merrin coughed and retched convulsively. It hurt horribly - her throat felt raw, too, and she ached all over like fire. White fire? Oh, gods, white fire...what had she done?

Merrin forced herself to relax, which meant leaning on Kendath in her haze of total exhaustion - but she hardly cared as long as he was solid. The next moment she relaxed anyway, this time from violent relief. There was the sea dragon beneath her, and the sea rippling beneath it. And that rock of a gods-forsaken island was only a blur on the horizon. She found herself looking to make sure they had everyone, but she couldn't see past Kendath. They were leaving, finally, and finally there was a ray of something hopeful to cling to.

She took a ragged breath, ignoring the pain. Relief was all well and good, but what had happened? All she could remember was drowning, somehow in fire and water together, and then nothing. Trying to summon the willpower to speak, she croaked, "What happened?"

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The sea dragon's back was hard and slippery, which forced the humans to wedge themselves in between the spikes and cling on for dear life. Gradually though, as she sliced out into the wide blue expanse, Kendath found himself relaxing. She flowed through the waves, her movements not like a ship's rocking but more akin to the glide of her airborne cousins. Exhaustion flooded him, and his last thought before drifting away was the irony of it all - to be saved by the one who'd nearly destroyed them in the first place...

Soaring. And for one ephemeral second, he felt as though he were the dragon, bathing in sunlight, the caress of air under his wings warm and familiar. Azure and saffron cloaked the horizon, and he couldn't see past the bright sun. But the brilliance was welcome. He didn't want to know where they were headed, as long as they were headed somewhere safe.

"I'm sorry, Ken," Gyre said, her gentle voice tickling the back of his mind like dust.

Fear clutched his chest, though he couldn't fathom why. "Sorry for what?"

She didn't immediately answer, only turned her neck to face him. And suddenly the air under his wings wasn't warm or familiar. Cold. Cold like ice. Cold like the night he'd stood on the rise above the Renegade campfire and embraced his dragon for the final time. Crimson eyes blazed. The ebony snout drew closer until he could feel the heat of those infernal nostrils, closer until...

Demon bared his fangs. "I'm sorry, Ken. For everything."

Kendath fell a long way, but somehow never reached oblivion.

At first he thought the warmth on his face was fire. White fire, a dragon's fiery breath. As he slowly roused himself, however, he discovered that the warmth was soothing and that the sun wasn't too bright after all, only bright enough to set the set the blue expanse glittering like sapphires. Warmth. Sun. The island's perpetual gray had almost convinced him that no such comforts existed. And then there was the horizon, a glowing line in the distance, with its promise of towns and forests and mountains. Forests with leaves. Mountains without craters.

The sun slipped across the western sky and tossed a rose-tinted glow on Merrin's cheeks, slightly flushed, not like the corpse-white of before. She stirred against him, her eyes the hue of the sea slowly blinking open. Kendath had to lean in to hear her croak. "What happened?"

Gods, how to answer that question? White fire, consuming stone itself, enough to lure a kraken out of its lair. Did she recognize her own power? Knowing Merrin, most likely not. "A lot... happened..." he replied, lamely. "You did it. You placed your hands on the stone and... Merrin, the gods love you very much."

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"I should be dead," said Merrin numbly. "Oh, gods..." she trailed off, shocked at even what little she could remember out of the confused haze that was the last few hours. She'd never used that much power before. Not willingly. Not even in that temple above the Lost Battle, not even while a cataclysm raged below her - involuntarily, she shuddered against Kendath, feeling somehow chilled by the knowledge. Her head pounded dizzyingly.

The sun, brilliant where it hung on the western horizon, glinted dazzlingly on the sea dragon's gemstone scales for a moment. Merrin could hardly believe it still existed after the grey haze of the island, bereft of colors besides dull blue and stone and the oppressingly overcast sky.

She took a breath, feeling oddly amazed at the phenomenon of life and living, and straightened to look up at him where they both sat, perched precariously between the razor edges of scales. She ached piercingly, all over, but it hardly seemed to matter. They were all weary, that much was obvious. For a minute, Merrin just looked at him. What would she have done, alone on that island? After shocking herself into unconsciousness -

Impulsively she burrowed against him, feeling gratitude surge. It was hard to know what to say, especially to Kendath - because she could never tell what would make him suddenly close away from her. "We made it," she just murmured into the worn shreds of leather armor, and was quiet.

Something sparkled on the horizon, other than the glint of the sea. Merrin squinted. In the glow of the sunset the distant city was visible, white-walled and many-spired. Almost there. By the time the sun was gone, they'd have arrived.

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