For the Sky (DISCONTINUED)

5 - A Reclusive Queen

Asger was lucky. He was just plain lucky. He was lucky I had decided to go along with his whole round-up plan. He was lucky I still knew the wood somewhat well. He was lucky no one burned my wings off with a hot tank of tar, that I never learned how to trot like everyone else - that if you looked at me long enough you could see something of the old Northern King in my irritated, exhausted eyes.

"Is the Kelpie Queen the only representative of the water-dwelling races we'll be paying a visit to?" Raul began to complain as we strayed off the road again. There was no neat trail up to a paved staircase here; just beside the mountain that had an abundance of mist for a Ceffyl Dwr to thrive, there was the residence of kelpies in the way that they were meant to reside - bog, swamp, and marsh. I could sympathize with the colt's whining this time. This was no place for a traveler - if the mountain was enchanted, this place was downright cursed. Every step of the way there's a puddle that's deeper than the last that's blooming with even slimier vegetation.

"I doubt that any hippocampus with half a brain gives a single shit about what's going on on land," Asger huffed, lifting his legs up especially high to stop his feathering from tangling in submerged roots.

"What would an underwater kingdom even be like?" I was eager to engage in some kind of conversation if it meant that I didn't have to think about how bad of a case of water rot I'd get if we didn't get some kind of indication that we were going the right way soon.

"I'd imagine it'd be beautiful - a-glow with all their native magic and decorated with coral..." Aro said with a dreamy voice.

"Aren't Ceffyl Dwr's supposed to be afraid of the ocean?" Asger asked.

"I sailed the seas for a good century before the... the pirate incident," Aro sighed. "I'm really only scared of one thing about the ocean."

"The mighty Each Uisge, with jaws that swallow reefs - with eyes that see above and below the sea - the mighty creature that can set a thousand fleets ablaze," Raul said in a sing-song voice. "Fear him do those that have never come down to the shore - even more so that reside... no mercy will he bring and no mercy will be cast upon him when I get my dirty hooves around him."

"You're a man of many talents, aren't you?" I shook my head as I listened to Raul's meticulously memorized little tale. "A con artist, a pirate, and an entertainer."

"A menace to society," Asger retorted but the smile in his voice was obvious for all to hear.

"Oh, he'd be a man of many more talents if he'd ever taken up any of those girls Oskar had thrown at him," Aro said off-handedly.

This comment caught me off-guard. "Isn't he a bit-"

A loud snap came from somewhere in the bog. I froze in my tracks. Mud sucked at my hooves and stray vines were tangling my mane, but I couldn't afford to move a muscle. Through the chorus of frogs and toads, there was the presence of someone else there.

"Oskar?" The question echoed all around us. An eerily cheery nearly-omnipotent voice made my whole body shiver. "Is that old geezer still prone to piracy?"

We all exchanged glances. "I'm assuming so," Raul called out.

"So, he's gained a taste for salt water, has he?" The voice sounded more threatening now and the water that we stood in seemed to gain a stronger current. The water now rose to my knees, lapping at the edges of my traveling cloak. "I'm sure you're not here to tell me about the whereabouts of my old subjects, though, are you?"

"'Old' subjects?" I couldn't help but ask.

"What a beautiful, familiar voice! You couldn't be Luciel's little newt, would you?" The voice sounded more solid and close, and yet we still saw no one.