The Undercurrents. Four moons.
I'm in the territory of the most dangerous dragons in Eukarya.
And they're real, not something concocted to make us vigilant about our way of life.
The pale blue dragon floating in front me cocked their head at me. Can you not look like you want to kill anyone when Coral gets here? It'll look like I haven't contained her prisoner.
I closed my mouth as a dark blue dragon swam towards down towards the alcove. The guards let her through and she paddled next to the pale blue one, staring claws into my eyes.
'So this is Coral', I thought, 'the one who ordained my capture. And this dragon's sister.'
Coral studied me closely, as if I were a carving more than a living being.
This is the wrong dragon, she said to the pale blue dragon beside her, but we can make it work. Dragon, state your name, species, and title.
Both? I flashed back. She nodded.
My name is Tide of the OceanWings, heir to its leadership.
Anemone, she flashed to the pale blue dragon next to her, a withering look on her snout, I'm disappointed in you. For this reason, I want you to tend to this Seastar until I say its time to interrogate them.
Yes, Coral, Anemone bowed her head at the other dragon and swam away to the palatial reef behind her.
Interrogate me? I growled at Coral. For what?
Coral's eyes narrowed into thin slits like Mother when she was pissed at me, her children, or anyone who disobeyed her.
You'll soon know, she said before turning around and swimming back into the reef. And I was alone with guards surrounding my prison.
_____________
Time passed as I was held here in the alcove.
I didn't know how many sunrises it was since I was kidnapped or many sunrises I'd been in here.
Everything blurred together. Up was down, right was left, war made peace.
I went in circles around the alcove to keep from muscles from deteriorating, and ate whatever prey Anemone gave me. Most of it was creatures that lived in the open sea, like I ate in the capital, but it wasn't prepared on stone platters; it was just given to me as is. The other stuff I ate was trench creatures that had unexpectedly wandered into my alcove.
It wasn't enough, but at least it kept me alive.
From the alcove, I could observe the Undercurrents and understood why Mother instilled hatred of them in her children – they had no regard for the law, nor understood why it was implemented.
Dragons were not paired with each other as Mother understood them, they chose how they were paired. They also looked after their own, whereas we looked after everyone.
The dragons here also taunted me as they swam over the reef and the surrounding cliffs, flashing slurs and insults at me, and threw their leftover rancid food at me. The guards did nothing about this, in fact, they encouraged it.
If you were a weenie, you would cry at those insults. If were a real dragon, you would suck it up and make your inner mental shell stronger.
Even though I sucked it up externally, it was torturous internally – they were insulting the integrity of generations of leadership to my face. I could almost hear my ancestors crying through the insults.
Regarding those leftovers, if any of their leftovers entered the alcove, I didn't eat it. It was already disgusting enough.
I pawed the leftovers to the guards, and they ate them. Either they weren't allowed to leave their post and were starving or wanted something extra to eat. I didn't know, since they swapped positions every few times I went to sleep in the alcove.
It was sometime after I woke from a dream where I was in Kestrel's swamp and a sky-creature with a shiny stick strapped to its body had opened its clawless paw and put it on my snout when a dragon, accompanied by other dragons, swam towards the alcove. The dream felt so real, like I was in her world. But Kestrel never encountered sky-creatures in the book. So that part was probably me being wistful for freedom from these crooks.
The lead dragon flashed their stripes at the surrounding dragons to move away. As the guard allowed the dragons to pass, one of them clutched one of my forearms hard. The pain was great, like multiple jellyfish stinging me at once.
Time to see Coral, their leader said and they dragged me into the direction of the palatial reef.
Originally published: 04/04/2023 (typed up final manuscript of chapter 9, book 1 to page); edited: (WIP)
YOU ARE READING
These Alien Dragons
Science Fiction(Note: This is the old version. It is preferable if you read the current/new version.) For all their life, J. Pappas has been a reader and a writer. They have written about many things - cats, owls, humans, and dragons; they've read stories about di...
