20
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Choilltean had taken the dark-brown and the moody-green of a forest and given new meaning to both. Cluaineach had taken the bright-green of the grass, the blue of the sky, the yellow of the sun, and the spread of flowers and brought them to a place of brilliance indescribable.
But Uisge?
We dove deep into the water. By the time I saw anything other than the stretch of blue around me, I could only guess we were within the depths of the ocean itself.
And it was there that the colours changed.
They all resembled colours that I knew of the real world, back on the surface, but that would forever be dull in comparison to what ruled the ocean-bed around me.
Blue was no longer blue but some rich, powerful indigo-blue that was overwhelming in every sense of the word. Long gone was the soft, sky-blue that most looked into the water and saw. This was something else entirely.
Next was the bed itself, what I had always assumed would be somewhat sandy in both appearance and colour.
I had never been so wrong. I wasn’t sure there was a colour to describe the levelled out bottom of the ocean that we approached, but if there was, I’d place it next to gold.
It shimmered with magnificence, as if it was some sort of metal that had formed from the heavy pressure of the ocean over thousands upon thousands of years.
It looked sharp and lethal to touch, yet stunning and awe-inspiring to look at as it reflected and refracted a thousand lights from a thousand different sources.
We had swam so deep into the water that I knew the light around us was not that of the sun high, high, high above us, but something else.
Sure, there were the pixies that swam from place to place around us, each emitting their own soft, ethereal glow just as Bryn did, but the light that illuminated Uisge was different. And it came from many sources.
So much of it came from animals. Half of them, I didn’t know, which was embarrassing considering I was a vet.
But some looked like squids, glowing a variety of colours from pink to blue to green.
Others looked like jelly-fish, translucent in nature and giving off the same soft shimmers of purples and blues, yellows and oranges.
Then came the bioluminescent bug-like creatures, things that crawled along the bed and looked like centipedes or slugs, all of which made me groan and urge Urram to stay away, no matter how beautiful they were.
But the most dominating source, the thing that could be credited for lighting up the entirety of the kingdom we started to swim through, were the corals.
Each bumpy and textured, rough and unforgiving in their own ways.
Except not a single one of them was dull beneath the water, but alive with a rainbow of light.
They seemed to truly be alive, as well, the colours from them pulsing – growing and fading repetitively – as time ticked by, as if the colour was the breath that they took.
I had never – would never – see anything like this. I knew it, deep down within me, the moment I got a glimpse at the world that expanded so deep down in the ocean.
And it was busy. Pixies were everywhere, each with their own unique hues to their skin, their own varying tails.
Some had long, flowing tails like something resembling a dolphin, whereas others had tougher, more textured scales that curled in strange ways such as that of a sea-horse.
A few had more tentacle-like appendages coming from them, akin to an octopus, whereas I saw some with long, straggly strands like what allowed a jelly-wish to propel itself through the water.
“It’s so–”
“Oh, just wait,” Killian said from where he rode along at my side, his eyes just as bright as mine as the hundreds of colours reflected off of us in every direction. “Look ahead, Olivia.”
I did, and I wasn’t nearly prepared.
Where we had been floating moments prior was not the kingdom as I guessed. But what we approached was. There was no doubt about it.
Everything was crafted of some sort of beige sandstone, containing that similar, golden-sheen that the bottom of the ocean had.
Every home was made of it, bungalow-like buildings with little windows in and out of each unit.
The foundation and base of every hut sprouted even more corals, each brightening up the long pathways and alleyways that created a maze of the town we moved through.
There was just enough room for Killian and I to glide along, leaving Bryn in front of us after she abandoned her orca and now swam her way peacefully down the stretch of homes.
She tossed a hand up every now and then to greet her fellow pixies, all of which offered her regal tips of their chins.
At least until they saw us, then they scowled and shot out of sight.
One thing was for sure – the pixies of Uisge were a more poised, tranquil type of creature.
Those of Choilltean were rowdy and loud, filling their kingdom with hearty jigs and overflowing drinks.
Those of Cluaineach were peaceful and joyful, fastened with large grins and bright eyes, always looking for an opportunity to laugh and spread that radiant happiness across their fellow kin.
But those of Uisge kept their hands quietly at their sides and exchanged dips of their chins, tight smiles, or even the subtle greeting of a pair of lifted brows.
I couldn’t imagine a typical dinner-setting of Shea, Killian, and Raegan going overly well here. Picturing that, I couldn’t help but to snort and nearly drown myself in the bubble that formed around my face.
I knew that logically, the palace that we started to move towards wasn’t built entirely of pearls, but it sure looked like it.
Not like a million small pearls were all stacked atop one another to craft the dozen-story-high architecture that we approached, but that the iridescent sheen of a pearl was placed across the smooth, completely flat walls that stretched up higher and higher.
Unlike that of Choilltean and Cluaineach, the palace of Uisge had no use for spires and parapets, archer posts or even balconies.
Instead, it looked as if an incredibly large slab of pearl had been dropped into the ocean, and someone had gone through and carved intricate little windows throughout that hosted panes of glass, all of which gave off rainbow-reflections in all directions.
“By the gods,” Killian muttered, his hand placed over his heart as he looked on in awe.
I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it. While the other pixies like Shea would have looked at the kingdom and scoffed, only to add in that Choilltean was grander, Killian did not.
His eyes mirrored the same wanderlust that I felt deep within myself, and he did not apologize for the way he took in every tiny detail of the hidden world we had wandered into.
“It cannot be!” Urram howled beneath me, his body suddenly vibrating with excitement that nearly dislodged me.
In all honesty, we were close enough to the palace that I probably could have swam the rest of the way, but I remained firm on top of him, desperately hoping that I didn’t need to exhaust my legs.
“What is it?”
Urram said nothing, only pointed the bottle-like nose of his dolphin-self towards the palace. At first, I did not see what had taken him by surprise, what made him bat his tail faster and increase his speed as we moved towards it.
It was one of those things that you didn’t see, until all at once it was in front of you and you hoped not to pee yourself in the depths of the ocean at the sight of it.
It was blue in the way blue couldn’t exist, bright and demanding, light-absorbing and glistening like a drenched diamond.
The body was the first thing I saw as it slithered out from behind the palace, the long noodle-like shape of it seeming to be endless as it continued and continued to appear, wrapping itself around the side of the castle.
Two large, white-blue eyes blinked at us, widening by the second as the slitted-pupil within expanded.
Around those eyes, across its canine-like muzzle, and across the top of its head were large, fanned-out stretches of translucent film.
One could have claimed it was an incredibly thin leather, but the way it allowed light through it and seemed to refract the rainbow into new colours on the other side suggested otherwise.
It continued to slide its way across the palace, no legs in sight. Instead, it had two large, wing-like appendages on either side of it, containing that same translucent-film that seemed to paddle through the water with far more ease than the tail on the end of the orcas beside me.
Its mouth parted, revealing a thousand sharpened fangs. Then came the tongue, serpent-like in every way as it lashed across the water and let out a terrifying hiss.
“Stoirm,” Urram bellowed, his voice a mighty thing that caused the water to ripple away from us in all directions.
The creature, which seemed eerily similar to a dragon, lifted its head and shut its maw.
“Urram, old friend,” it, Stoirm apparently, said back. Bryn’s eyes widened as she watched on, left to listen to the grunts and grumbles that someone outside of the dragon’s interconnected bond would hear.
“It has been many years since I have seen you, sea-snake.”
“And twice as many since I have wanted to see you, sky-swimmer.”
Sky-swimmer seemed like a strange way to address Urram, but my mouth was closed.
I leaned as close as I dared to the dolphin beneath me. “Is he going to eat us?”
“I don’t think so, Little.”
Not reassuring.
“A human!” Stoirm roared. “You took a human as your caraid? Mighty Land-Shatterer, Urram of the Grey Skies! I remember your vow never to accept any caraid.”
That would have been heart-warming and slightly complimentary, if Stoirm didn’t sound so outraged by it.
“And yet I did,” Urram said, his voice a lethal calm that made me fear a fight was coming. “Your experience with one will not be mine, old friend.”
“We shall see.” The look I received from the great water-snake was in no way welcoming. “What does it want here? Why do you venture into my kingdom, Urram of Death’s Song?”
I was making a mental note to ask Urram where he obtained his many colourful names.
So far, the only nicknames I had offered him were short at: Stinky-Bird, Bird-Bastard, Shrieking-Shit, and, my favourite, a simple Asshole.
They paled in comparison to the mighty titles Stoirm laid on him, I must admit.
“Go on without me, Olivia. I have matters to discuss with Stoirm.”
Frowning, I slid off of his side and paddled my way to his fish-face. “Don’t start something you can’t finish down here, Urram.”
“I finish all that I start.”
“That really doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Go, Little. We dragons do not petty-squabble like you fleshy creatures.”
My caraid was so insulting sometimes.
“If I catch wind that you’re fighting out here, Urram, you’ll be eating only spinach for the rest of your immortal life.”
He flinched. “Plech. Not the spinach!”
“Behave,” I warned him, patting his face as lovingly as I could before I turned my attention back to Brynn and Killian, both of which were waiting for me to swim along with them.
Ahead of us, the palace doors swung open.
And then came a voice, sweet and soft. “Ah, I was wondering when he would send you.”