Kai: Deception and Chaos

KAIMARINOCHTA BREATHES AIR

She had to relearn the names of each stage of advancement when they first moved to Seagate City. In her hometown, Gretha, they called someone in the earliest stage of advancement a tadpole. Next, what the mainlanders on the Rosegold continent called a "copper" was called a minnow. The sea life-themed names were consistent until Underlord, at which points the Grethains and the mainlanders used the same titles for the remaining stages.

Kaimarinochta Knudsvig, better known as Kai, removed her helmet, allowing the saltwater inside to splash to the ground, and reluctantly sucked in a breath of air. Her people, the Vanndrage, were known to the mainlanders as Chisana-dor, or "tiny dragons". It was technically accurate, as they were humanoid descendants of actual sea dragons. They breathed water or air. Many of the merchants and ambassadors that traveled between Gretha and Seagate City could transition between air and water with little to no discomfort, but Kai was born and raised in Gretha, she never even felt air on her skin until she moved to the mainland a month ago. It took that long to slowly acclimate her body to the feeling of air in her lungs.

This was the twenty-ninth time she'd removed her helmet and pulled air into her lungs, but it was the first time that it felt as comfortable and refreshing as a breath of icy water. She pulled in another breath and smiled at her father.

He was tall, just like Kai. Unlike her, he was built like a whale. To an untrained eye, he might look like a man that ate too much, but she knew that he was a hulking mass of powerful muscle. His Iron body was called the Bluefin Iron Body. It was named after the Bluefin Tuna, which was pound for pound one of the strongest fish in the ocean. Her father lived up to the name. He was a Truegold that could nearly overpower an Underlord as far as raw physical strength.

"You finally got the hang of it." He mused in his low rumbling voice. He jabbed an elbow at her. He was being playful, but it was a hard enough jab to snap a small tree in two. Fortunately, her own Iron body, the graceful Betta Iron Body, made it easy to dodge.

Kai smiled at him, but said nothing.

"You'll learn the speech thing soon enough. It will come naturally just from listening to us."

Kai had heard spoken words all her life. Gretha was nearly a mile under the surface of the ocean, so they used a complex sign language to communicate, but there were plenty of constructs that could manipulate dream aura to give the impression of audible speech. Learning to understand spoken language was a requirement in the earliest years of a Grethanian's formal training.

However, Kai had never once spoken with her own mouth, so she could understand it as well as anyone, and she was physiologically able to speak, but she had no idea how to form the words.

Kai nodded and looked around for her mother. They were at the fish market that covered most of the docks. It probably would have seemed cliche enough to be funny to the few human friends she'd made, but the Vanndrage preferred raw fish over any of the mainlander's cooked food.

Her mother was approaching with her wicker basket full of fresh salmon. She was as tall as Kai, and just as statuesque. Vanndrage men were bulky and scruffy looking, but the women were specimens of alluring femininity. Were it not for the pale, almost translucent, hue of their skin, and the webbing between their fingers and toes, a Vanndrage woman would look like a tall, shapely human woman.

They did not all look the same, of course. Where Kai had long blonde hair with big curls and blue eyes like her father, her mother had straight auburn hair and dark eyes. Their shapely figures were almost universally shared by all Vanndrage women, however.

To a human eye the best ways to tell them apart would be hair color and Goldsigns. In Kai's particular case, her Goldsign was her golden-blonde hair that constantly ebbed and flowed as though she were underwater; it wasn't the most ostentatious Goldsign, but it drew attention on land because it was constantly in motion. Even when she slept, her hair swirled around her as though carried by an invisible current. Underwater people regularly wondered if she had any Goldsign at all.