Chapter 1
Mud
Mud awoke that morning as he awoke every morning, to the sonorous calls of the shepherds, singing to their wooly charges of a new day and leading them to pasture on a fresh mat of cave fungus. He shook out his long, feathery gills and rolled out of his bed of moist moss, tasting the air with their many tendrils to get a sense of the new day. He could tell his father was nearby, his familiar scent lingering on the moist surfaces of their family pool more potently than that of his mother. Although referred to as a pool, their home was more accurately a small hut built from fire hardened mushroom planks built around a pool of water to keep the humidity high as well as for bathing, drinking, and swimming. Low humidity could kill, so said his mother. Sitting up on his haunches, he tentatively hopped a few times towards the smell of his father before standing upright and tentatively calling out, “Dad?”
“Yes son, I am here.” His dad replied from just outside the cave. Mud waddled towards the voice, sensing when he was close through scent and audio cues. He could hear the tinny ringing of his father’s hammer as he pounded rivets onto a piece of tough shepider leather. His father worked as their tribe’s leatherworker, turning hides from both domestic and hunted animals into whatever was needed, in this case a studded leather breastplate to protect the hunters whose job it was to ensure that the more threatening wildlife, like the corpulent drogs or sinuous hissers, stayed far away from their tribes pastureland. His mother was one of their tribe’s hunters, although this breastplate was not intended for her, but for the daughter of the chieftain, who has recently passed her tests and would soon be joining their ranks.
“Is mom around?” Mud asked. He was young, only a few sheds out of the water, and many more from needing to choose an occupation of his own. He spent his days exploring the caves of their subterranean village of Ida with his friends Gorm and Leda, catching small fish and insects to bring home to his home cave as temporary pets before his parents discovered them and freed them, or stalking the herds of shepiders pretending he was a feral drog, attempting to catch them by surprise with a pounce until the shepherds drove him off as a nuisance, or getting underfoot at the herbalist’s workshop sniffing all the different types of mushrooms, bacteria, algae, moss, and other bits of life vital to her art. He grabbed his nightshift, which fell all the way to the ground and covered his toes, and lifted it over his head, the mushroom fiber cloth tickling his gills uncomfortably as he struggled to pull it off. Eventually he succeeded, although the effort caused him to lose his balance and fall on his tail.
His father put down his hammer and carefully scanned his handiwork with his webbed fingers, feeling for any issues, imperfections, or mistakes. “No, little tadpole. She’s on duty patrolling the Shearing starting today for the next week. If you need anything you’ll have to ask me, or one of the other adults.” His dad resumed hammering the rivets onto the leather, apparently satisfied with his work so far.
“Nah, me and Gorm and Leda are just gonna check the hotspring for dragons, I just wanted to tell her because she said she wanted me to collect some glowshrooms for bait.” Although the people of Mud’s tribe, the Olm, were mostly blind, their eyes covered by a thin layer of skin and only capable of discerning the basic presence or absence of light, glowshrooms were very useful, as some animals were attracted to their dim glow, whereas others feared it. Drogs and hissers feared it, as they were predators who relied on stealth to catch their prey, while those they hunted, such as shepiders and millies, were drawn to its comparative safety as well as the mosses and algaes which thrived in its presence.
“Have fun, just make sure you’re back before supper,” his dad asked absentmindedly, focusing on his work.
“I will.” Olm grabbed his bandolier, which contained several dozen pouches as well as a handful of glass jars, vials, and flasks attached to leather thongs to secure them in place. His father had made it custom just for him to aid him in his explorations, since so often he found some interesting new moss or fungus or little creature and wished to take a sample home for further “study”. Given Mud was barely out of the water, such study mostly consisted of attempting to propagate said moss or fungus or build a habitat for whatever little creature he had acquired, to mixed success and often his parent’s consternation when his charges escaped, but they were supportive of his habits nevertheless. Mika, the tribe’s resident Voice of the Kosm, taught that living in harmony with the other denizens of the Kosm is of utmost importance, and that such an instinct shouldn’t be discouraged, no matter how inconvenient it might be.
Leda had said to meet at her place, so Mud headed for the pool she and her mother Mika shared, which lay on the outskirts of Ida on top of a large hill on the same side that faced the Shearing. Navigating the town was fairly easy by smell alone, since the Shearing let in fresh air laden with spicy herbal smells from the rich foliage beyond. If you got really close during the day you could hear the great scraping noise made by the tergites of Kosm grinding against one another as she moved. During the day it also grew consistently faintly brighter the closer you came to the Shearing, but the difference was slight enough that it was not a reliable indicator of direction under even the best of circumstances - many a young olm found themselves lost in a cave of bioluminescent glowshrooms or staring down the fangs of an angler because they tried to navigate by light. And of course at night, smell was the only reliable indicator of direction, when Kosm lay still asleep and the shearing ceased its scrapings and the light of the outside world beyond the great boundary dimmed.
The Shearing marked the limit of their tribe’s territory. Only the hunters were allowed past the Shearing, and even then it was dangerous to pass - a foolish Olm who wandered into it might find himself squashed to glue between the mighty chitinous plates that marked its boundary. Mud had heard rumors amongst the other children that beyond was the carapace of Kosm itself, where there was nothing between you and the Lichen all around but empty sky, and that strange beings lived there who were not Olms, but his parents told him that such were not proper concerns to have unless he became a hunter. Their people had lived below the Shearing for as long as anyone could remember, and while it was important work to guard the Shearing, even the Hunters only went a short distance outwards and only if a threat needed pursuing. All they needed for a happy life, Kosm provided down here in the Depths, so why leave? Mud personally thought it likely there was something worth investigating out there - there were interesting things all around in here, why would out there be any different? But he avoided the Shearing nevertheless, as the closer you got, the more you could feel the steady thrumming vibrations of the plates shifting from side to side, and the effect was unnerving to say the least.
Gorm had already arrived by the time Mud reached Leda’s house. Gorm was smaller than Mud despite being a shed older, with abnormally long gills and a distinctly rapidfire way of speaking, as if his words were tripping over one another to get out of his mouth. As Mud approached he hopped off the stump of a large mushroom he had been seated on with a loud wump and waddled over, clapping his palms together in greeting. “Hiya, Mud! How are ya doing today?” he rattled off before Mud had even registered that Gorm had begun talking.
Mud paused and reoriented his mind from where it had been wandering during his walk, and then returned the clap. “Hey Gorm. I guess Leda hasn’t come out yet?”
Gorm shook his feathery mane of gills to indicate she had not. “Want to play some crackers?” Gorm said, pulling a large nut on a string out of his pocket to show Mud. Crackers was a game where you take turns hitting your nut-on-a-string, known as a cracker, into your opponent's cracker, until one breaks, the winner being the cracker to survive regardless of who was swinging the cracker and who was defending.
Mud nodded, and pulled out his own cracker, a smaller, star shaped nut with sharp points. Gorm usually beat him at crackers, because he consistently chose large, hard spores from the shroomtrees that grew throughout Ida, whereas Mud liked to experiment with seeds from other plants and fungi from around the caves - the only rules for what could be a cracker was it had to come from a plant or fungus, trying to pass off a tooth or a bone or egg as a cracker was cheating. Mud didn’t really care about winning, but it was exciting to look for new crackers and see how each performed, so he enjoyed playing even though Gorm almost always beat him, while Gorm enjoyed playing because he, unlike Mud, did care about winning.
Gorm went first, smashing his cracker into Mud’s and sending it spinning on its string. They ran a few rounds, producing a loud cracking noise every time the nuts smashed together, although with several misses as well and tangled strings. On his fifth turn, Mud slammed his cracker at Gorm’s, producing yet another cracking noise, but this time the two nuts got stuck together. “Hold up!” Gorm shouted, and they stopped and examined what happened.
Mud carefully felt the edges of the nuts with his sensitive fingers, then handed them to Gorm to do the same. Mud’s nut had lodged itself into Gorm’s with its sharp edges, piercing a hole through its tough outer shell. “Aww, that one was a four.” Gorm sighed, indicating he had successfully cracked four other crackers with it. He handed the two nuts back to Mud, who attempted to extricate his cracker from Gorm’s, but it was jammed in tightly.
“Why don’t we each pull on our strings to separate them?” suggested Mud. Gorm nodded, and they each grabbed a string end, and yanked hard in opposite directions. Nothing. They tried again. Nothing. On their third attempt, the two nuts separated, but upon closer examination, one of the spiny flanges on the star-shaped nut had detached, still stuck in Gorm’s cracker.
“Wow, never done that before!” Mud exclaimed, fascinated. He smelled the broken edges of his cracker, noting how it had a cinnamony scent now that it was broken that it did not have prior to breaking.
“Should we call it a tie? Since yours broke too.” Gorm noted.
“Sure, that’s fine with me,” agreed Mud, preoccupied with his cracker rather than who won.
“What are you two gulpers doing?” said a high pitched voice from behind them, which Mud identified as Leda.
“Just playing crackers,” replied Mud.
“We tied,” said Gorm, wanting to ensure that Leda knew he had not lost.
“Well I have a much better adventure for us today,” announced Leda in her best attempt at a deep and booming voice, which ended up more as a squawk, spreading her arms wide and snapping her fingers rapidly for dramatic effect. “We’re gonna hunt dragons!”
“We know, you told us yesterday,” said Gorm, nonplussed.
“Shh, you’re ruining it,” hissed Leda in her usual voice, then continued in her deep and booming attempt. “Mighty heroes, are you ready to set out on your quest?”
“Yes?” answered Gorm uncertainly.
“I think so,” affirmed Mud, equally unsure whether he was.
“Where are your weapons? If we are going to hunt dragons, you will need weapons with which to kill them.” Leda pronounced matter of factly.
Mud had not anticipated the need for weapons, but thinking quickly, he grabbed a nearby mushroom stalk, plucked off its cap, and placed the remains of his broken cracker on top. “I have my magic staff!”
Gorm scrambled behind the stump he had been sitting on, and came up with a similarly proportioned wooden stick, which had already been stripped of its bark and sharpened to a point. “I have my sword!” declared Gorm.
“And I have my bow!” Leda finished with a flourish, producing a third stick with a string tied to both ends. It held no tension and would never serve to launch anything, but the boys clapped in appreciation of the effort she had put in verisimilitude. “Let us proceed to the hotsprings forthwith, where there have been dragon sightings as of late!”
The hotsprings were several pools of clean, steaming water that bubbled up from a series of cracks a distance outside the village, well past Leda’s house and about a mile lower than the Shearing. Unlike the other pools of clean water in the village, which typically were surrounded by fire hardened mushroom huts where residents lived and were used for communal drinking, swimming, and the raising of tadpoles, the hotsprings did not have any permanent residents, since they were not suitable for raising tadpoles and prolonged swimming could be dangerous due to the high heat. It was a popular place among young adults during the night for what Leda referred to as “smooching”, before comically fake gagging, and sometimes older adults also frequented them to relax or medicinal purposes, as a short soak in them was purported to cure anything from laggy gills to the throat weeps, but during the day they were usually abandoned, and thus Leda and Gorm often went there to play, knowing they could be assured of relatively little supervision.
Leda narrated their journey the whole way, inventing various vignettes. In front of this giant mushroom tree, they defeated a band of goblins, their insane shrieks nearly driving them mad, in front of this crowd of chorusing flippleflies they met a friendly elf who taught Mud a new magic spell for his arsenal, in front a patch of glowshrooms they met a human paladin, tall and proud, who challenged Gorm to a duel, which lasted days upon days of relentless sword blows until Gorm’s puissance overwhelmed the Paladin and he honored Gorm as his master, and at the base of a cliff formed from some shed chitinoue plates of Kosm Leda spotted a white hart - a mystical beast of great significance, she insisted, although neither boy knew what a “hart” was nor had ever seen one - and short it through the heart - a different word entirely, she assured them - in one attempt. The boys accepted this with good spirits - Leda’s mother was Voice of the Kosm, after all, and thus Leda often heard many stories strange and wonderful, and they appreciated her sharing of them, even if the many creatures referenced in those stories were alien to them. No one in living memory had even met an olm from another tribe, although it was known there were other tribes residing on other parts of Kosm, let alone whatever a goblin, elf, or human was, but Kosm told Mika of them and Mika told Leda, so now Leda told her friends, and it made for a great adventure, as it always had.
Mika, of course, also addressed the village on festival days and feast days and other times of importance and shared some of the stories with all the villagers, as was the role of the Voice of Kosm. Mud’s favorite story had always been the story of Dragon and the Shepherd. A shepherd was tending his flock one day, when a mighty dragon appeared, said to be a serpent bigger than the biggest hisser, and spoke to the shepherd. He said, “I am hungry. If you give me your flock, I will give you the greatest gift that has ever been given.” The shepherd said that he could not, for he too was hungry, and so was his family, and they relied upon his shepiders for milk and venom, silk and wool, leather and meat, and without these things they would have nothing to drink, nothing to eat, and nothing to wear when it was cold. The dragon said, “But I must eat, if not your flock, then what?” The shepherd replied that the dragon could eat him, and the dragon said, “If that is your wish,” and gobbled him up right then and there. But the shepherd's family still had his flock, and survived the long cold winter to come, so the shepherd died happy. Mika had said the lesson of the story was that we must find a way to live in harmony with nature, but Mud just liked the dragon. No one had seen a dragon in living memory, but Mud hoped the dragon was still out there somewhere, even if it did have to eat a few shepherds.
The hotsprings, several dozen bubbling pools situated in a small glade of mushroom trees, roiled merrily as they approached, filling the air with a constant symphony of bubbles, cracks, and fizzes. The springs were deserted when they arrived, as anticipated, and so the young olm set to work hunting dragons straight away. This mostly consisted of jumping from various high points around the bubbling pools into said pools, followed by diving as deeply as you could until you could feel the heat searing your gills, and then bursting to the surface, laughing, all while Leda narrated the great heroics on display. From time to time Gorm would attempt to add a line of his own as a flourish to a dive of his he thought particularly resplendent, but Leda was protective of her role as narrator and invariably interrupted and maintained a firm hold on the shape of the adventure.
Mud was, for his part, happy to let Leda have her fun. An olm underwater is in their element, their incredibly sensitive skin allowing them to feel the presence of everything close to them simply by the small movements in the water swirling around them. As such, his favorite part of dragon hunting was the brief moments underwater, the fizzing heat enhancing his hyperawareness of everything around him, where he could sense every contour of the pool, every tiny nook and cranny where tiny heat-loving crustaceans lurked to escape the enormous beings invading their homes, a temporary vision of an entire world that he could only be a part of for the briefest of moments, before he was forced to rise to the surface, back to his own dark, damp, cold world where he could only sense things he could touch directly with his hands.
After they had defeated a handful of dragons as well as a legion of orcs and met a seemingly friendly ogre who then tried to gobble them up, they were distracted from their play by the distant sounds of metal clicking rhythmically against metal. Leda hushed them to be quiet as Gorm yelled out a battlecry, the resulting confusion causing him to stumble and fall into the pool in front of him face first instead of diving. He grunted as he pulled himself out of the pool, complaining, “Why did you shush me? I was just gonna use my finishing move!”
“Shh! I think the hunters are returning!” Leda said to quiet Gorm’s grumpy mutterings.
The three olm children waddled to the edge of the glade facing the Shearing and listened carefully, the metallic clinking noises echoing down from dizzying heights above them where they could all faintly hear the sound of the Shearing. All three of them could recognize what the sounds indicated - the hunters were returning. I thought Dad said Mom would be away for a week, thought Mud. Still, the opportunity to be there for the return of the hunters was exciting, bearing witness to real adventures rather than merely the pretend ones they played at. As the clinking grew louder, Gorm began to wiggle restlessly, then, unable to contain himself, said, “I wonder why they are coming back so soon.”
“They probably found something they need to bring to the attention of the council.” Leda said knowingly. “And shh!”
Mud kept his mouth shut, not wanting to catch any of Leda’s ire unnecessarily, but Gorm could not stay quiet if he was trapped in a sealed jar. “Oh, maybe! Maybe they found another tribe! Or an elf! Or a dragon!”
Leda sighed in exasperation. “How are we gonna hear what they were up to if you keep talking?” Mud could feel them wrestling next to him, what felt like Leda attempting to sit on top of Gorm’s head to shut him up, when Mud realized the sounds were close enough he could now hear a fourth sound behind the Shearing, the clinking, and Leda and Gorm’s squabbling. Mud now could distinguish the footsteps of eight hunters, but also that they were dragging something behind them down the treacherous slopes and screefalls leading from the shearing. Two somethings, it seemed, in groups of four.
“What are they dragging?” Gorm whispered loudly after he dislodged Leda from his head.
“Maybe I could tell if you’d be quiet,” exclaimed Leda.
“I think its bodies,” said Mud.
Mud rushed home from the hotsprings, half running, half sliding on the various slick surfaces and shallow pools of the village. Gorm and Leda had said their goodbyes and were also returning home, but since neither of their parents were hunters, they could not expect immediate news, nor was such news as important to them as it was to Mud. Reaching his home pool out of breath, his gills shivering to absorb extra air, Mud heard his dad was still pounding away on the rivets. He must have beaten the hunters home.
“Dad, dad, the hunters have returned! I think someone’s been hurt!” Mud exclaimed.
Mud’s father made a low gulping noise. “Why do you think that?”
“We were at the hotsprings, and we heard them coming down the pass to the Shearing. It sounded like they were dragging bodies!” Mud could hardly get the words out, his heart was beating so fast.
Mud felt his father pat him on the head to comfort him, but his voice sounded nervous. “It could be they killed several large drog and are just bringing the meat back before it spoils. There is no reason to panic. Smell the water before you go swimming, little tadpole. Why don’t you have some algae as a snack, and I’ll go find out what happened?” Mud felt a bowl of algae pressed into his hands, and heard his father’s dull footsteps on the moist ground as he shuffled out of the hut dragging his tail behind him.
Mud tried to pass the time while his father was gone checking on his collections of pets and plants, but his mind kept racing with the implications of the hunters returning early he found it difficult to focus, and after he checked on the same small round cave beetle for the third time without actually looking at it, he went and lay down on his mossy bed and began to hum a tune his mother used to sing to him when he was a tadpole and had yet to leave the water. He had asked her once what song it was to, but she said she did not know - her mother had hummed it to her when she was a tadpole as well, but it was not one of the songs the people sang when working to pass the time, nor was it one of the songs the people sang at feast days or festivals. Humming it always calmed his mind, allowing him to rest without thinking for a bit, without worry tearing his nerves to shred, and after several minutes he was feeling a bit better.
child
“Who said that?” Olm said aloud, his humming interrupted by the voice, a voice he had never heard before. The voice sounded like it was singing, somehow. When no response came, and his mind beginning to race again, he resumed humming, and after a few more minutes was just beggining to feel okay again
child
He stopped his humming again. This time he was sure he heard it. The voice was deep, rich, and musical, and seemed to be coming from within his own mind, but from a great distance at the same time. Mud sniffed the air, and listened carefully, but nothing smelled out of ordinary, and he heard no more, so he began to hum again.
child, come
The voice came immediately after he had hummed through the tune once, still sounding as if it came from somewhere very far away within his head, still sounding as if it was a fragment of a longer song playing through his mind. This time, though, Mud did not stop humming, but continued to hum, and found himself subtly pulled in the direction of the entrance to their hut. He stood up and began waddling in the direction of the slight tug.
There was a commotion coming from the Mayor’s pool, where Mud could hear crowds of adults shouting and the rustle and clang of some furious activity, but the tug pulled him away from that, so he followed, humming all the way. He felt a bit euphoric, like he was floating along on a bed of woven mushroom fibres rather than crawling across a slick cave floor, but the tug drew him on, and as he left the outskirts of the village he could hear the voice in his head again, singing along to the tune of his hum. He realized distantly he was headed towards the Shearing, but it was hard for him to hold on to that fact, humming seemed like the only thing he needed to focus on for right now, while everything else his body was doing did not really feel like his business. He could trust his body knew what it was doing, he needed to be humming right now.
After a while, he dimly realized he had gone past not just Mika’s pool, not just the hotsprings, but farther than he had ever gone before. He was now climbing up the steep paths that led to the Shearing, filled with small rocks and bits of debris that got caught between the chitin plates of Kosm during her journeys as they slid open and closed. The air did not just smell fresh and spicy anymore, but actually moved of its own accord, cavorting about his skin like a baby drog that had just pulled itself onto land and was overjoyed at walking for the first time, bouncing here and there and producing faint whispers around the windings and bendings of the caves around him. Because it was by this time night, and Kosm asleep, the Shearing should be still, and Mud did not feel the telltale vibrations of its presence, but he thought distantly he must be drawing quite close to it, and had the vague feeling that was a bad idea, but humming was more important, so he pushed that thought aside and continued to focus on humming.
child, hello
Mud twitched his head to locate the voice. It still seemed to be coming from inside his head, but quite close now. He belatedly realized the humming he had been hearing only in his head was quite real now, and coming from immediately in front of him, but the urge to hum himself had stopped. Tentatively, he spoke.
“Where are you?”
ah, your people cannot see
no matter
if you reach out your hand, you will touch me
When the voice spoke, the hum changed slightly, singing a new song with each meaning, but the meanings kept coming into Mud’s head as if the words sprouted within him of their own accord. Mud reached out his hand, and felt something wet and intensely warm, like a furnace, even though he felt no heat on his face only a short distance away, his arms not being very long at all. Whatever it was was quite large, like a wall. “What are you?” he asked.
i am one of the Truespeakers
Mud got the distinct impression in his mind that Truespeakers was something very important, although he did not know what that was or what it meant.
your people refer to us as dragons
Mud pulled his hand back, suddenly very anxious. “A dragon? I thought they were just stories?”
child, i do not have time to explain
the tune you hummed…
“My mother used to hum it to me when I was a tadpole,” Mud said, hearing a question in the voice although none was asked.
i sense a talent in you
maybe you can learn the Truespeech
maybe i can gift you the ability
maybe you can help me
“How can I help you? You’re a dragon. What could I possibly do to help you?”
do not be afraid
Mud felt a broad, but gentle pressure on his chest, as if something truly enormous was touching him as lightly as it could. From that pressure came a slightly tingling, and then the humming of the dragon began to intensify. At first it was the same basic tune as before, but as it continued, it became more complex, each note gaining increasing depth and subtlety to it, reminding Mud of the times he had heard Oddo play his flute. Oddo was an old hermit who lived by himself even deeper in the depths and only came up to the village occasionally, but when he did, he played his flute with such mastery and feeling that it made the songs sound new again, but this song surpassed even that, and Mud could feel the notes penetrate his very bones and set his webbing vibrating like a drum.
it is done
now hold out your hands
Mud held out his hands, and felt something round, wet, and very warm, warm just like the dragon had felt, being delicately placed in his outstretched arms. From the object he could hear a quiet humming, just like the one coming from inside his own mind and body, from the dragon.
i entrust to you my child
she is not yet born
she will need to be placed in a nesting site
you would call it the hotsprings
my strength is waning
before i die
one more thing
i name you Dragonfriend
When the voice said Dragonfriend, the humming Mud heard from the dragon suddenly clarified into clear notes being sung, clear words in a language he felt he almost understood, but couldn’t, even as the meaning still appeared in his head. Mud opened his mouth and sang the notes that meant Dragonfriend, and he knew that they were his name now.
i name my child Olmfriend
i bind her to you as daughter
please take care of her
The humming slowly stopped, and silence descended over Olm and the warm ball he held. Olm smelled it gingerly - it smelled similar to the spicy smell of the shearing, but with a sharp, fruity undertone. He then suddenly got the urge to sing to it, opening his mouth and singing the notes he knew to mean Olmfriend, just as the dragon had, and felt his entire body tingle once more as it had when the dragon had touched him.
The world opened up around Mud. The walls of the cavern around him were dimly lit by small striations of glow fungus mycelia and bioluminescent lichens. The ground at his feet were littered with tiny pebbles, bits of organic debris that fell in from outside the Shearing, and a truly enormous amount of sticky red liquid dribbling downward into the depths of the enormous cavern behind him. He could see his webbed feet, with their two thick toes clinging to the loose, rough, slick ground beneath them. He realized he could even see his three fingered, webbed hands, wrapped around what seemed to be his own face, but not quite touching, as if there was translucent barrier in the way. Only a few feet in front of him was some kind of creature, far larger than anything Mud had ever sensed before, longer than the longest hisser he had ever found, almost as long as the village from one end to another. Its body was long and sinuous, but pressed flat like a pan fried mushroom cake, and its skin was slick, rubbery, and wrinkled, although covered in faintly glowing striations of blue on a muddy brown background. It had a paddle-like tail flattened vertically, the opposite of the rest of its body, which was curled around and away, its end disappearing in the dim shadows of the entrance to the Shearing. Its head was wide and flattened like its body, with comparatively small eyes, but with clear, deep blue pupils that glowed even brighter than the fungus or its stripes.
Mud sat down and shook his head, to try to figure out what was going on. What were all these images in his head suddenly? The olm knew about sight - many animals could see, as could many of the beings mentioned in Mika’s stories like humans and elves, if the tales were to be believed, and legends even said the olm once could see, but lost their vision when they took to living in the caves below the Shearing. Some rare olm even had developed techniques of mental discipline that let them sense light through ways other than eyes - Mika’s mother had been one such, although she was the last of the tribe to have such a gift. But why could he see?
He felt something moving in the orb he was holding, and his view changed, and he was instead looking up at his own face from within his arms. Suddenly Mud realized why he could see his hands before, and why he could see his own dumbfounded face and feathery gills, also faintly glowing blue. He was not seeing through his own eyes, which were mere faint bulges deep under the skin on his face, their outline barely visible on the surface. He was seeing through the eyes of something within the orb, something alive, something moving.
hi Dragonfriend
i am Olmfriend
The creature within the orb sang to him, and he heard the notes with his ears and the meaning with his mind. “Are you… a dragon?” he managed to say.
i am Olmfriend
i am a dragon
my mother told me
she is dead
but you will take care of me
The notes became mournful when the creatures sang of its mothers death, but hopeful and warm as it sang of Mud caring for it. Mud nodded his head, seeing his own gills shake vigorously like a filamentous water plant in a strong current through the dragon’s eyes. “I need to get you to the hotsprings,” he said, remembering the instructions.
He stood up and turned, but as he did so, something caught his eyes, a metallic glint from the chest of the enormous dragon. An olm spear, trimmed with fur from a hisser pierced it, and the red liquid which covered the floor was slowly leaking from the hole the spear had made. Even though Mud had never seen it before in his life, Mud knew that spear - his mother was the only hunter who trimmed her spear with hisser fur. Just below the wound, he saw a crumpled form of an olm hunter, half submerged in the congealing blood. He rushed forward to it, wading through the awful mix of cave slime and gore, and then collapsed suddenly before he could even reach her body, only barely having the cognizance to not drop the orb itself, now mercifully smeared red with blood so he could no longer see his mother’s slack and unresponsive face for the first and last time.
we are the same sang the dragon, and they cried together next to the bodies of their slain mothers.
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