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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/RU6xWl0.png" alt="The nameless dragon sits in front of you. They look at you warmly.">]
Stories about the ocean huh? I do have one I suppose.
Very well, now, where do I start...
[[>Listen carefully]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/cg3Icox.png" alt="Their expression softens.">]
A long time ago I was traveling as my nature demands.
My wings are torn now, but back then those were a strong, trustworthy pair that carried me across many distances.
I was a bit younger, and quite full of myself as far as flying was concerned.
Truly, no flight was too challenging, no distance too great, no weather too fierce
[[So I set out to fly across the sea]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/7c4cA6x.png" alt="They are in their dragon form, a large winged beast, overlooking the ocean from a cliff. The waves are quiet, their expression is smug.">]
There was a beautiful, gently golden and coldly blue sunrise caught in between the clouds carried along from the west.
The rock beneath my claws was wet, smooth, and dark.
The fast winds of the sea toyed with the membrane of my wings, making me feel drunk with weightlessness, eager to lift off.
There, far beyond the horizon, my destination. A place I'll visit often, place reachable on a large, sturdy ship. I've been there.
But the point was not the destination. If I //needed// to get there I'd board a boat.
No, not at all, the point, of course, was the flight itself.
I'm just a simple dragon. Certainly was one all those years ago. Despite what you might assume, prideful displays of reckless hubris do appeal to me on a fundamental level. The only thing that's changed is, - at my age I'm forced to give these a bit more thought before acting on them.
So, how do you think I started that reckless journey?
[[>Lifted off gracefully]]
[[>Stumbled on the way up]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/uWjo5Xv.png" alt="We are looking over their shoulder down at the water, framed by their wing. In the water is a small boat and in it a befuddled fisherman.">]
Eyes to the still dark sky in front of me I rose above the dark, still water of a cold and uncertain morning, knowing I couldn't simply turn back now.
After all, a powerful thing was at stake - my own ego.
I take to a higher wind, above the birds migrating for the colder months, far above a lone fisherman's boat staring bewildered at the sky, his line being tugged on wholly unnoticed.
I smirk at the tiny from up there human, how ridiculous it is that a simple sight of my exitence is so remarkable to him.
Soon he is but a dot on the horizon, sooner not even that.
[[The morning clouds are dark]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/nL6NpD6.png" alt="They lift off into the sky. Their silhouette is small compared to the sun">]
With ease I had felt in my half of the heart the perfect moment to catch the wind for liftoff.
The wind currents, though hard to understand to a creature lacking wings, are second nature to me, so it was easy to take [[flight]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/meGnGv2.png" alt="They lift off into the sky.. in quite the janky manner.">]
Naturally, the rock was slippery, my eyes clouded with the grandioze premise of the task at hand, and my claws lacked the grip to hold on.
The liftoff, therefore, was a little ungraceful, but i've managed to catch a current and take [[flight]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/KT2PGzW.png" alt="They are flying looking upwards at the clouds. There is a light drizzle of rain.">]
a pleasant light rain gives my scales an almost reflective shine.
I've far outsped the birds, I'm gaining height, tearing through the gloomy clouds of the morning.
The sun is bright and the wind is strong.
Nowhere do I ever feel at home as much as far in the sky.
[[I sorely miss it, you know?]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/r5okfAp.png" alt="We cut back to the present in which they're telling the story. Their expression is hard to read, but they're looking away from you, and it's hard to describe them as particularly happy loooking.">]
Both the sky, and well
//the performer sighs//
My ability to fly at all, really. I'm sure given enough time the torn parts of my wings will recover, but I'm not sure if I've got that kind of time on my hands.
[[But I should get back to the story]]<style>
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It is almost impossibly serene at the heights like these. A strange feeling, so far away from what lies below, but a lovely one.
Like feeling lightheaded with no obligation that'd be hindered by it.
The clouds below clear up.
Tempted by the light playing with the waves I eventually lower back down.
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/poxjnAs.png" alt="They are low near the water now, dipping their claw into the wave">]
I'm close to the water now, my wings near touching it.
I play a silly game with the waves, tracing their shape with my movements.
The pattern they follow is innately comforting somehow, [[it's easy to let my mind rest.]]Hours pass by.
The strong ocean winds carry me almost effortlessly forward.
[[My mind fails to grasp just how far out I am]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Smx5a3r.png" alt="They are flying up in the sky again, but the sky is now full of lightning strikes.">]
The air tickles my scales.
A storm is coming.
(link-reveal:"The mild ache in my wings I've failed to notice is gaining strenght")[=
On the horizon, from all sides there isn't a sign of land.
I can't as much see a bird above the water.
(link-reveal:"The air is steadily growing cold")[=
I see clouds gathering on the horizon.
(link-reveal:"Still, I keep onwards.")[=
I am too far out from any landmass, even as much as a single rocks peaking out from under the surface, to ever rest until I see land.
I've got no other choice.
(link-reveal:"It is then, that I realize the foolishness of my plan")[=
Which is to say, far too late.
The coarser, far less predictable winds pull me around like a clump of dry grass.
(link-reveal:"The sky darkens, steadily but inevitably covered in dark, bruised purple clouds")[=
The membranes of my wings straining as I fight to keep steady and above water.
The rain pelting my back is heavy on my body, seemingly trying to push me down.
(link-reveal:"With the wind so strong I struggle to gain height back up")[=
Constrained to flying low, i am frequently hit by the salty waves. It makes it hard to see, hard to hear.
(link-reveal:"The ache in my body worsens")[=
Mo movements become sluggish.
The cold is starting to get even to me, I am, against my better judgement //tired//
(link-reveal:"The unrelenting, low storm clouds fill my vision with an opaque layer of rain")[=
The occassional flashes of lightning is all I'm managing to register.
For all it's worth I'm not even sure if I've kept the direction of my flight as steady as I intended.
(link-reveal:"With how much the wind toyed with me it was hard to tell")[=
If I did turn around now, I'm a day's flight away if not more.
(link-reveal:"I'm unsure. With this weather the sun could've set unnoticed")[=
Really, how long //has// it been?
[[I can't see or hear anything but the rain.]]<style>
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And I can't see the wave about to grasp me.
(link-reveal:"In an instance the world is quiet")[=
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/IIP74E4.png" alt="The significantly longer graphic scrolls down to slowly reveal the light from the surface of the water, then the descending dragon, then the dark depths">]
And cold. Colder than frozen soil in the middle of a winter night.
I'm staring at the surface through an uncaring, dark glass
(link-reveal:"In too much shock to move, to try to resurface")[=
By the time realization flows through my veins any movements are futile.
(link-reveal:"The water is heavy.")[=
Whatever I try, seemingly only pulls me further down into the abyss.
(link-reveal:"Not much else can be done. Not in my exhausted, aching state")[=
Just some distance below the current is just so much calmer, you know?
Once I let go of the panic, it's pleasant.
I see the dark silhouettes of fish pass me by, fuzzy in the little sun the sky will let shine.
(link-reveal:"The sky that feels so far away")[=
Soon enough even its light is gone
My eyes adjust to the darkness but it's only so much help.
Still, while I don't so much see what's around me.
(link-reveal:"I feel the current gently holding me")[=
That form of mine does not need to breathe.
The danger of the depths for me is a much slower death
The pressure that can crush me far below.
(link-reveal:"Can't say I'm that far down just yet.")[=
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/WJi2mzj.png" alt="They are surrounded by a whale and a school of small fish">]
I feel in the dark a movement, can register a silhouette of what I can only assume is a whale or some other impressive in size marine mammal, surrounded by many much smaller fish.
Nothing you could ever see on land.
I think I feel it looking at me, perhaps to it I am equally wonderful and strange.
Its leathery fin brushes me as I slip further down.
(link-reveal:"Soon even its large body is hard to see this far above, disappearing from view")[=
Though having spent mere moments together I miss the whale's presence.
Something about a being like this is easy to understand to me, an existence almost enviable.
(link-reveal:"I disturb a school of some little fish")[=
They all scurry in different directions, startled.
Against my better judgement I let go of my remaining air to laugh
(link-reveal:"Water fills up my chest as bubbles escape my body")[=
Even in the blurry dark, or perhaps because of it there's something beautiful about the sight.
A nostalgic sort of feeling I can't place.
(link-reveal:"There is some sort of large fish circling me")[=
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/VENfJK3.png" alt="There is a shark passing by them, ignoring them in favor of the small fish it chases.">]
As it comes closer, I understand it to be a shark. It's hungry, but I pose no interest. It's the little fish it's after.
Perhaps nothing about me strikes it as edible, which, to its credit, is true.
I watch it chase after the little fish above me for the strikingly little time I can still see it.
(link-reveal:"Past this point there isn't even the ambient light for my eyes to catch")[=
Everything is just dark.
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/VXDQv68.png" alt="They are descending for a long time, darkness swallowing them.">]
And is dark
For a long time.
(link-reveal:"It isn't empty however")[=
I feel bodies of creatures shifting in the dark.
Living rich, fast lives even this far down.
Most scurry away from me, some are curious allowing me to touch their long bodies
(link-reveal:"I didn't know terribly much about deep sea fish then")[=
In my defence neither did the humans until somewhat recently.
But even then
(link-reveal:"Most I did not recognize")[=
And the vast majority of them remain a mystery to me years later.
Unknown for years to come, and, perhaps the fate of some is to never be known at all.
(link-reveal:"But they care not for being known")[=
They are just animals living their vibrant little lives far away from ever caring for being known
(link-reveal:"And that's sort of a beautiful thought")[=
It distracts me from how painfully heavy I feel.
The pressure has been mounting endlessly, my ribcage feeling the strain more and more with each mile down.
It's hard to stay awake.
I start drifting in and out of consciousness
(link-reveal:"But I feel something near my body")[=
That something jolts me awake for the last little bit until I surrender.
I could only see pitch black no matter how much I tried, between the pressure of the deep and the lack of light, and I wasn't aware enough to discern its shape.
Only that it was large.
Bigger than the whale, bigger than any being I've seen or presence I've felt.
I was compelled to greet that something, would've if I could still move.
I would slip further down.
My senses would dull.
(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/RJl1rKw.png" alt="Barely visible there is a silhouette in the dark. Or is it a trick of the light>">]
[[It's hard to tell when the point came at which I was no longer awake.]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Jj2kaOE.png" alt="They are laying on the sand. It is unclear how much time has passed. The fisherman from before is cautiously looking at them from behind a rock">]
But I woke up on the shore.
Crushed, cold, and exhausted I was alive.
The fisherman which I've seen in the boat in the morning was staring at me, bewildered, from behind a rock.
I let out a sound that was meant to be a laugh, which probably scared him.
[[It was a bit funny, you know?]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/cg3Icox.png" alt="We're back to present time. They chuckle.">]
Just the sheer silly way this would've been to die.
My then completely unabashed hubris taken down a notch.
[[But you know,]]<style>
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(align:"=><=")[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/RU6xWl0.png" alt="They are looking at you with a pleasant but unidentifiable expression.">]
Sometimes I think about it.
(link-reveal:">About the fish?")[
Yeah, why, the fish too.
Creatures that are still completely unknown to the world, creatures that may never be known as species go extinct. They live existences uninterested in, and unaware of what goes on above the water.
Unbothered by the universe's woes, a simple life not being known and feeling no need to be.
]
(link-reveal:">About the... something?")[
If that something was indeed real, I do hope the existence in the abyss is as peaceful as I'd imagine.
]
(link-reveal:">About the depth?")[
Call of the abyss, is that what they call it?
It was beautiful in ways few things really are, in ways I don't doubt I've failed to fully convey in faulty words of a rather limited language.
The ocean, both as close as a living manifestation of the idea of death you could possibly muster, yet full of life in its own right.
Crushing and comforting in equal parts.
I've come close to death, sure, but, in a way I hold that story dear to me. Especially as time went on, the world has gotten more cruel and complicated for me, as I've experienced things far worse than a simple brush with death.
It's perhaps strange to see it that way but
//sigh//
In my worse moments my mind returns there.
To the depth.
To the serene silence and the crushing pressure.
Something about its sheer indifference to who I am, to how I'm seen, to what's happened to me.
And perhaps if I were to have a choice of how my final moments go,
perhaps,
Perhaps that would be what I'd pick.
]