The One Who Was Chained

14

I followed from the air as Finn walked a small bush trail. He stopped near the edge of a cliff that dropped a hundred feet to the deep, raging sea below. I had no idea what he was trying to do. I dove downwards and gracefully landed on the high branch of a small tree. Finn stepped closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.

"Finn..." I warned.

"You want to get Mairen out of there, right?" I nodded in response. "You have to trust me, then." I watched on as he chanted strange words under his breath. The water began to churn like someone was stirring it with a giant spoon. And from the whirlpool poked a curious head, glancing from side to side. An extremely large head, adorned with almost midnight black scales that no barnacles dared to grow on. The creature scooted itself nearer to the shore, as close as it could get without scraping itself on the rocks. It slowly rose from the water until it's face was at eye height with Finn. How it managed to hold up it's neck like that, I couldn't guess. But it was probably much larger than a mere hundred feet long. Finn just stared at it for a long time, focused on it's large sapphire eyes.

"She wants to know why you're coming." Finn broke the silence, turning back to me.

"Tell her I'm helping a friend." I screeched over the sound of the sea. He turned back to the creature, keeping eye contact with it. I realised that he must have been talking to it through his mind.

"Alright. She says we can go whenever we want."

"Wait... We're going down there?" I felt the panic rise. I was absolutely positively not going into the sea.

"How else are we going to get that key?"

"Right. But the only reason I'm doing this is for Mairen. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't dare go close to that thing."

"Suit yourself." Finn shrugged his shoulders. "It's quite fun." I flew over to him, keeping my distance from the sea monster. It could snap me up in a second. Finn said another mouthful of strange words, then swept his hand over my head.

"There, you can breathe underwater now." He tapped the side of the beast's mouth, and it opened to reveal rows upon rows of serrated teeth smiling back at me. He clambered inside.

"You're absolutely mad! There is no way I'm going in that-" The creature inched closer, allowing Finn to grab me and pull me inside. It's mouth shut, leaving us in darkness. A few more words from Finn summoned a small light-orb in his palm. "Why did you do that! I mean, look around! It could digest us at any second!"

"You said you would do it." Finn tried to calm me down. "I trust her-"

"I don't." I protested. "Who is she anyways?"

"Nyx. A friend of a friend." Finn paused before continuing. "How else did you expect us to get down there? You would get eaten off her back along the way if you could even hold on to her slippery scales."

"Good point. But I didn't sign up for this." My ears began to ring. We must have been descending. It was almost an hour before we spoke again.

"Nyx says we're here." Finn broke the silence. Nyx's mouth opened to reveal a cave, dry and cold. I carefully picked my way around her teeth and landed on the floor. Once Finn was out, Nyx gave us a sharp nod, then lowered her head back below the water where we had come from. Finn started walking down the cave, light-orb still in hand. I paused for a second before following him into the unknown, wondering if I had made the right choice.