Daughter of Water

Chapter 4

The storm around me became more than just a few sprinkles as I stepped down from the deck to the warm wet sandy grass beneath my feet. I heard the frantic calls of the people from the house but clouds seemed to wrap around me and cover my receding shape.

The white dress I had on flapped furiously around me, the only feeling I could get from all of this.

The water has a pull to me, yes, but it has never been this great. Never been this powerful.

When grassy sand became just sand, the clouds became thicker as my eyes glazed upon the fated water that I was never allowed to go near again, thanks to my "parents."

The roaring waves crashed down in front of me but never touched me, my feet mere inches from its wanting claws. As another wave rolled in, something moved within it. I felt my hand move before I could understand and brought them to my lips to whistle a high pitched shrill that I had never heard from myself.

The waves became larger, whatever in them much more frantic in its movement. As I was about to label the movement to a school of fish, a beautiful black horse burst from the waters and galloped towards me as if hungry for something. Though something in my mind was telling me that I should run, another part said that I was safest if I didn't.

The great steed slowed to a trot as it approached me. I raised my hand right out in front of me for it to rest its nose under but I did not know why because the beast towered over me. Almost as soon as i stopped, it lowered itself down onto a knee, as if a person, and put its nose under my hand. Under my hand, on the black beast's face was a white stripe looking spot that seemed to be glowing with an unknown power that made me warm to the touch.

Then with its mighty head, it reached around to my backside and nudged me towards its back. It wanted me to ride it? I looked back at the creature and its head nodded.

My breath felt shallow as I attempted to mount the huge beast but as all my luck has been so far, I am not tall enough to climb up. As if noticing my distress, the horse-creature projected its front leg towards me as a step ladder.

Grabbing onto its dark mane, I gently stepped up on to the creatures leg and carried my other leg over so I was facing foward like the creature itself. I didn't let go of its mane as it climbed back to its hooves and reared back onto its hind legs. It let out such a thunderous whiny that I was sure than everyone at the party I had been at could have heard it.

The horse-creature landed back onto its front legs, turned us around from the cloudy shore to the raging sea, and began running into the waves, the fresh and salty tasting liquid soft and sweet like an embrace from an old friend. My fingers never pried open from the midnight flowing mane of the creature, sure that I would fall off I did. As we got deeper, the creature seemed to be working less, almost as if working with the current that was pushing against it. The storm above seemed to be fading away as I became submerged into the icy, yet warm, sea around us. I didn't feel as if I were suffocating but I felt a little out of breath as the creature took us to the depths of the sea below, an almost unfathomable feeling to it.

Where was I going?

Home.

It was that voice again. I had heard it multiple times before but never twice in one day. Though still swimming towards the darkness, the horse creature looked back at me, pure white glowing eyes meeting my own as if to say, "Me."

I am sorry to say this princess but yes, it is I that is speaking to you. I always have. The creature turned back forward and focused on its task. Then why was it following me? And I am no princess..

We stopped mid-stride, the beast's head turning around, even in the water, and looked am me as if I had whipped it.

You are a princess. You are my princess, the princess to an entire kingdom. And your mother and father, the true ones, were the king and queen. To show I speak truth, I am your steed and only yours. I was hatched on the day of your birth, taught to follow and protect you since I could think. I gazed in wonder at the creature and felt my mind jumble with questions. But one had me befuddled. Were?

The creatures head turned back and began pushing forward again. My fingers held tight as my legs made sure I wouldn't float off into the rest of the ocean. Was this creature a boy or girl? What was its name? What is it?

I am male, princess, he seemed to answer with a laugh.

My name is Aberdeen, my lady, and I am a Water Steed. Water Steed? What is that?

A Water Steed is a horse like creature that has an affinity for water. Like a pegasus for air, we are for water, and normal land horses are for the earth. His strides became shorter as we came to what seemed to be the bottom of the ocean. No light reached us here and the only thing I could see was Aberdeen's beautiful glowing eyes and his glowing stripe.

Air, water, earth. Okay, but what about fire?

Fire Steeds are not much liked here but exist none the less. You see princess, Water Steeds are under the house of Liquis. Your great house, my lady. Fire Steeds, on the other hand are of the house of Fier. Your rivals whom your house has fought many centuries with to no end. There is still no end. But now that you are here, you shall bring back balance to our worlds. What? How was I going to do something like that? Had Aberdeen had too much seawater for his own good? Was I dreaming? I had to be. I'm still able to breath under water and I am mind communicating with a Water Steed.

The Water Steed was telling me that my family is of the house of Liquis and these bad fire ponies are of the house of Fier whom my family has fought with for hundreds of years...

Yup, I'm definitely sleeping!

Aberdeen trotted up to a hole in the side of a very low coral reef that was covered in hard looking corals that would not be easy to break.

As if on que, Aberdeen's glowing eyes and spot had gone dark. I heard a fluttering and scraping in the water as I felt Aberdeen move forward and past the coral, into the creepy looking cave. His glow didn't appear again because he began trotting upwards toward a light that got brighter quite quickly and soon, oxygen was back in my lungs, and a dome of some sorts that was greater than anything I have ever seen was towering above us and out so far that I couldn't see its end.

"What is this place?" I gasped out loud. Aberdeen looked back at me and smiled.

Welcome to Arina, my lady, he said. I paused. If this place was called Arina like me, then was my name really Arina too?

Aberdeen stayed hidden as we spoke but often fidgeted when there was movement near us.

Your name, my lady, is also Arina but you are more a part of this place than your name. The fact you survived the ride here proves it.

I smiled. This place had a feeling that I haven't ever been able to match, even in water, though it is now a second. Arina is my home.

I am home.