Gale's Storm

CHAPTER 15

Lillian was excited to be leaving Pine Colony, and to find Kelp Colony. Even though she and the commander's counselor, Bark, had become good friends. The first glance of her shapeshift makes her look male, since it is. When they first talked, she accidentally called her a him, she was fine with it and corrected her. She said that many people make that mistake when they first meet her.

But Lillian was going to be going back to the ocean! To the largest body of water, Lux Aestiva, the southern ocean. She knew it would be warmer than most of the places they had visited throughout the rest of their journey. She had noticed that in Pine Colony it was warmer than it was on the coast by Reef Colony.

Well yeah, we're heading South, of course it's getting warmer. She thought to herself as she walked.

She snapped back into focus when Rock said her name; "Hm?" He repeated, "I said, you must be happy to be getting back to the ocean, right?"

"I am! I can't wait to actually do something with my shapeshift other than just fish! And I just want to swim in the rough waves, it's fun to me, fighting the tide and diving under waves. I can show you when we get there," she said delightedly.

"I'd like that! Gale? How long will it take to walk there?" he asked her. "About 2 or 3 days. Maybe 4 if we keep stopping or need a lot of rest," she replied from the front of the group.

It had taken them 3 days to get to Kelp Colony, and they had often run out of things to talk about. They occasionally ran into a group of Pine Colony members who greeted them and went on their way. They ran into one bird who they thought was a messenger, but it turned out that was just a brave bird who was twittering.

The scent of saltwater filled Lillian's nose, reminding her of home. They had been walking for almost 4 hours and it was midday, Lillian could practically taste the excitement in the air. Gale and James had started to pick up the pace to be more brisk, making her feel even more excited an hour later.

She could taste the salt in the air and feel the mist right as they broke through the trees.

"We did it!" Rock shouted, falling onto the warm sand by the trees. Everyone else plopped down, clearly tired. But Lillian wasn't, she wasn't going to sit around while the ocean practically begged her to dive in.

She started taking her shoes off when James said; "You might not want to go into the water if your arm is still healing."

Lillian let out a sigh and showed him her fully healed arm, a scar where it used to be. "You know it's fine. It's been healed since we left Pine Colony. Now shut up and let me swim!" She said to him harsher than she meant to.

James chuckled, knowing that he had annoyed her as she ran into the cool water. It was, as she had expected, warmer than what she was used to. It was very nice as it seeped through her clothes. She waded deeper until she could swim untouched by the sand below.

"Don't swim to another continent without us!" Rock called out sarcastically. "You know I will," she yelled back at him before she started to swim deeper.

She had never tried swimming underwater other than diving under waves before. It was odd, the salt stung her eyes a little bit, but she was used to it at this point. She looked down to see she was still quite close to shore, so she started swimming further out. Her vision was quite blurry and bad underwater, so it took her a while, a few breaths up, to figure out that there was a very thick kelp forest ahead of her.

Lillian bolted up for the surface, realizing how far she'd gone, and that she was probably close to the heart of Kelp Colony's territory. A shiver went down her spine and she started to swim back. It wasn't long before she had felt the brush of a fish against her leg, thinking it was probably a member of Kelp Colony, she shifted into her bull shark form.

It turned out to be a very young whale shark, it's curiosity getting the best of it.

"Hello?" Lillian asked hesitantly in Shifter's Tongue. It answered her with another question, its voice high-pitched; "Who are you?"

"I'm Lillian, I'm looking for Kelp Colony, I come from Reef Colony," she said in the gentle way she had spoken to Melon. The whale shark swam away and came back with a minnow behind it.

"My daughter says you want to find Kelp Colony? That you're an outsider?" the minnow asked, swimming right up to her snout.

"That would be true, I have some friends on the shore who can't swim and would like to speak with your commander," she said, trying to convey authority.

"Go back to the beach, I will bring him."

Lillian nodded and started swimming back to shore. James was calling out for her when she returned, slipping out of the waves.

"Where were you? I've been calling for ages!" He said loudly. "More like 2 minutes, but you've still been gone for a while," Gale said from the treeline.

"Good news, I found Kelp Colony, their commander is coming here to meet with us," Lillian said excitedly as she squeezed out her shirt.

Rock wasn't anywhere to be seen, but she heard a shriek of a bird from up above.

Must be Rock, scouting things out and following my shadow. Lillian thought as he dove for the ground, shifting quickly and dropping into a seamless roll.

The four of them waited for the minnow to return with their commander. Lillian could tell everyone was tense, other than Gale. She seemed to be hearing something nobody else could. Lillian puzzled over what Gale was doing when she heard an odd crash of water from behind her.

"Ah! Hello, Commander...?" Gale inquired, coming forward from the treeline to meet him.

He was a burly man, with big shoulders and arms, signs of a strong swimmer in human form. His skin was darker than she would have expected, meaning he probably spent more time near the surface of the water or on land. His wet hair came down to his waist and frizzed up very quickly. His appearance reminded her of Gale almost, but his eyes were a green-hazel.

"What is it you want?" He said, his voice not as deep as she would have expected, unlike Riptide's.

"Well, I am Gale from Oak Colony, A-" Gale started before he cut her off saying gruffly; "Get to the chase, I want to make this quick."

"We have an alliance with some of the other colonies, Oak, Birch, Reef and Pine. We want to unite the world, avoid wars and to merge with the humans. We would like you to join us, you could learn a lot from it!" she explained to him, making it quick as requested.

"No."