Shades of Grey

LE BATEAU D’ÉVASION— FEBRUARY 1843

I couldn’t move for several moments, watching as the island faded into the distance. Rodag was dead…I was alive…on an escape ship…alive…Rodag was dead…so many facts and images began swimming in my head, but I couldn’t comprehend any of it: it was all one jumbled mess…

“Are you alright?” Forma asked as she sat next to me on the bow. She placed a goblet of water in my shaking hands. I drank hesitantly.

“He’s dead because of me! He’s dead! If I hadn’t gotten involved, if I had beaten that Coeur! If I were stronger…!”

Forma gripped my hands steadily and I noticed the multiple lacerations in her bruised and battered Fairy fingers. I leaned my head against the banister of the ship in despair.

“Oh, Forma, is this really the life I’m destined for?” I lamented. “To watch others get hurt because of my asinine, Abderian decisions?”

There was so much more that I wanted to say but I couldn’t find the appropriate words or the strength to verbalize them. Forma’s perceptive eyes told me I didn’t need to say any more and we sat together on the side of the boat in mournful silence, sailing smoothly through the black water.

I spent a miserable three days and nights staring at the ocean in a shocked state of lethargy, lost in my own pitiful thoughts. I hardly even noticed when Forma sat down next to me on the bow of the small ship again during our fourth night at sea; I merely watched the bow cut through the dark water like a sharpened blade…like the blade that had killed Rodag...

“Forma,” I asked after a ruminative minute, my thoughts drifting to a certain piece of information that I had learned during the gathering. “My mother was a Hunter.”

Forma nodded, equally bewildered.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“Precisely! We’re not supposed to settle down…to marry…to have children!”

“It is possible that her Maisling was killed. Then she would have been relieved of her powers and duties.”

“But then wouldn’t she have aged quickly and been unable to bear children?”

“Not necessarily. The speed of the aging process is different for every Hunter, depending on what their true age would be if they were not Hunting. Do you have any idea how old your mother was?”

I shook my head in steely defeat, retreating back into my exploratory thoughts. Forma understood and excused herself.

“I’ll be in my room, should you desire company.”

I nodded listlessly, but kept my languid and confused eyes on the horizon.

I remained contemplative for the next several days. Forma soon grew tired of my mood and tried everything she thought of to cheer me up, even going so far as to transform into Rodag himself. I quickly put a stop to this.

“I just need some space…” I had said softly, staring at the black water below in an emotional state of Wertherian distress.

“I understand, but this isn’t technically a ship: it’s a caravel, so I can’t give you a great abundance space,” she had replied as she stood to man the captain’s wheel.

She was right. While very beautiful with light blue paint and gold intricate designs running along the caravel’s underbelly that rounded off into the graceful figure of a sea horse at the bow, it could not have housed more than twelve sailors. Not particularly ideal for an escape ship but it worked for the two of us as we sailed onwards; away from the dictatorship of the Tyragnon from whom I had failed to liberate the Terre Sprites, away from the captured Fairies I had failed to free, away from the dead Rodag whom I had failed to save and away from a great island of failure towards an unknown future of other possible failures…

I sat in the captain’s quarters one stormy evening, relentlessly studying maps of the shoreline while Forma steered the ship through a light rainstorm.

“SQWAK! No wenches on the ship! No wenches on the ship! SQWAK!”

When I had first entered the captain’s quarters several days before, I had been intensely dismayed to discover a large parrot on a perch in the corner. The bird was incapable of flight, but entirely capable of speech, which had proved to become increasingly more annoying as the hours passed.

“Shut up,” I growled in frustration as I tried to read the nautical maps and decipher whether Forma and I were on track to reach Romania.

“SQWAK! Respect your superiors! Clean your quarters! Eat your gruel! SQWAK!”

I slammed my fist down on the table in frustration, seconds away from tossing the bird out the window when the ship suddenly lurched to the left. It was then unnaturally still amongst the sloshing waves of the storm-stricken sea outside: we had hit something.

“SQWAK! Do something!”

“Shut it!” I admonished the bird in a whisper as I stood. The ship suddenly gave another lurch to the right, followed by a great whine of stressed metal. Had we hit something, or did something hit us?

The room then went dark and I slowly walked to one of the curtained windows, afraid to see what Erebusian source had caused the darkness. I pulled it open and quelled a gasp as an enormous tentacle undulated its way over the rain-streaked window.

“SQWAK! Not good, not good! Do something wench!” shouted the bird.

“Grey! You need to come out here quickly!” Forma called.

Immediately I grabbed the flightless bird and ran through the companionway to the deck as the ship continued to lurch and whine amidst the thundering storm.

I emerged on deck to see several enormous tentacles wrapped around the ship, tightening its grip while lightning danced violently in the dark sky. Forma flew around the sinking caravel in the form of an enormous Incendila as she scratched the tentacles of the creature with her great talons. The beast would then proceed to release its hold for a moment to soothe the lacerations in the ocean water, only to clamp down even harder on the ship, crushing it with impossible strength.

“What is it?!” I shouted before leaping upwards to the captain’s post as the ocean water and driving rain began to pool on the lower deck.

“It’s a Kraken.”

Fear shot through me. Krakens were squids rumoured to be the size of a small island and judging by the massive tentacles that now held the caravel hostage, I could see that this was unfortunately true. I tried to steady my breathing and remember everything Lord Krane had taught me in my year eight lessons on Water Creatures. Sadly, nothing came to mind.

“SQWAK! Let’s get out of here! SQWAK!” shouted the bird.

Right as the bird made its final sqwak, a large tentacle suddenly flew over us, aiming to crush the deck beneath us.

“SQWAK! RUN!” cried the bird.

I ran immediately to the stern of the boat — dodging massive, undulating tentacles as I went — and tried to think of a productive course of action.

Forma then dove into the ocean, changing into a Draqua as she entered the water and began to attack the Kraken from beneath, taking his attentions off the ship for a few precious moments and allowing me time to formulate a plan. However, the beast kept its hold on the ship, slowly dragging it into the water. My breathing became heavier as I saw the massive whirpools beginning to form around the sinking Kraken, the whirlpools that would suck the ship down into the depths below…

I then got an idea. I reached into the compartment on my right thigh and pulled out several Fire Bombs, lighting and heaving them at the Kraken’s tentacles as it began to jerk around while fighting off Forma’s advances below. With each explosion, its hold on the wrecked ship began to lessen.

Finally, the last of the burning tentacles released its hold and the beast sank into the sea to battle Forma. Unfortunately, the flaming ship was now heavily mangled and quickly taking on water.

“SQWAK! Do something! SQWAK!” shouted the bird.

“SHUT UP!” I yelled over the rolling thunder.

I tried to think, but I quickly realised there was nothing I could do. Within seconds, the wrecked ship was completely submerged and I was left to float on the surface of the freezing water as the sea shook from the force of the storm and the clash of the underwater titans battling beneath us.

“SQWAK! Davy Jones’ locker, here we come!” the bird sang.

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll wrap you in kelp and personally deliver you to him!” I shouted, treading water in an attempt to fight the stormy undertow. The bird remained silent.

A tentacle then shot unexpectedly upwards, suctioned itself to my ankle and pulled me sharply into the water. I almost gasped as I beheld the two massive beasts battling each other in the dark sea with greater clarity, not bothered at all as the thunderous hail on the surface began to increase in volume and intensity.

The Kraken was a monstrous beast that could have fit the school inside of its belly three times over, but Forma fought it valiantly in the form of an equally massive Cetus: a creature with the head and limbs of a Dragon and the powerful body of a whale. I froze, stricken with both terror at what I was seeing and hypothermia from the freezing water.

The Kraken let out a black snarl that shook the dark water, but Forma was not intimidated at all. She bravely bared her large fangs and ripped off one of the Kraken’s huge squid eyes. A very high-pitched wail ripped through the water, forcing me to cover my ears as the sound rattled my waterlogged eardrums. The Kraken’s grip around me tightened as it grew angrier, forcing the air out of my lungs.

“FORMA! HELP!” I shouted in telepathic panic.

The last image I remember of that night is that of Forma’s large Dragon eyes turning to me and widening in horror.