Roller In the Ocean

If you’re new to The Môrdreigiau Chronicles, welcome! You might find the Glossary helpful for some of these words. Colons indicate the sea dragon’s thought communications.

Previously, Queen Heledd has gone missing. She and her friends have become entranced by a shining tower deep within a giant kelp forest. As for the rest, well, Llallogan is about to find out…

The godling bellowed. :Mmm, tasty. Are you ready to be next, little dragon?: He turned his baleful eyes, a bruised mottle of weeping red, purple and dark green, to Llallogan.

Read Part 1 / All Parts of “They Were Shining“

The godling’s horrifying eyes loomed closer and closer. Llallogan thought he would be swallowed whole and steeled himself for the end.

Closer and closer. Llallogan saw himself reflected in the wide pupil and then he was falling … falling into the pupil and into some crazy psychedelic kaleidoscope … patterns forming and changing until his vision blurred and he thought he’d lose consciousness.

He jolted to a sudden halt as if the chains that bound him ran out of length. The foam cleared and he saw Caer Morgana below him in perfect miniature through its translucent membrane… The palace at one end: a large building with one tower and the beginnings of a rock and coral garden. The mountain at the centre of the caer surrounded by mist, which wafted upwards from the mountain’s thousand tiny crevices.

A parade ground lay flat just beyond the palace gates. The various homes, adorned with pastel colours of sandy calcite with their rounded edges clustered together. The foraging bags laid out and repaired by the sea-rice farmers in one quarter, in another young dreigiau môr sharpened their spears ready for the next hunt.

Two large sandstone gates, one at the back of the palace, the other not far from the market squares, penetrated the membrane, small tunnels providing a sea-lock between dreigiau môr in their human versus their dragon form.

Within the caer’s translucent globe, human figures ran from the city’s main gate, deeper into the caer, heading for the mountain.

Llallogan saw two figures run in a different direction. Even at his great distance, he recognized Geraint running with the shorter Elpis.

He lost sight of them in the palace, but he spotted them diving from Heledd’s balcony and into the new palace gardens.

Elpis looked over her shoulder, seeming to stare right up at him. She screamed, pointing. Geraint dragged her on and they disappeared into the mountain that steamed.

Llallogan’s eyes widened. He was in the hot springs cave. Surely, they would discover him and wake him up?

He tried to rouse himself but to no avail.

The scene blurred in a flurry of white. Something shook the bubble-protected city.

Lllallogan squinted. Was that a … a giant hand?

His gaze traced a path from hand to wrist to muscled forearm and up …. A white bearded —human? God?— grimaced in purpled determination.

:Stop!: Llallogan cried. :What are you doing?:

:Your people disturbed my son’s rest. They must be destroyed.: The giant human’s ice-shard blue eyes sparked.

:No!: Lllallogan flailed. In this dream, he still had no autonomy over his body. :No! I’m sure that’s not what happened! They went on a picnic!:

The giant human bared his teeth. :I am Poseidon, everything on and below the seas is mine. You cannot escape your fate, little dragon.:

:No!: Llallogan closed his eyes, beseeching the Lady Morgaine, their patron goddess for rescue. :Lady, save us!:

This is a response to the Smogust Story Hoard writing challenge by Bradley Ramsey and The Circus Dragon for the month of August. And yes, as it often happens with these month long challenges (often being precisely once before), it’s a serial.

Story connection time! You can read part of Caer Morgana’s origin story in the short story “Like I Win When I Lose”. The rest is coming up in A Shattering of Souls, currently serialising on Saturdays (Australian time).

Read Part 1 / All Parts of “They Were Shining“