ORIGIN

Whale's efforts in saving as many of the victims as she could were largely successful—and of those that were conscious enough to realize what was happening, there was a mix of fear, admiration, and reverence to have been saved by the magical creature. Other boats had hurried over to aid her, dragging bodies onboard and retrieving the ones she surfaced with as quickly as they were able. There was a muttering chant brewing between them as they hauled the last of the stragglers out of the water, a ceremonial thank-you song to the gods they would normally reserve for tribal festivals. But Whale was right here in front of them, a myth and a miracle, and it felt only natural to give thanks to her for her immediate help... despite her blood swirling in the water, and now mixing with ashen debris.

Some of the boats had begun to retreat to the shores with wounded or tired men, others had stayed, hesitant to abandon Whale in her condition. When Tamulus approached them, they cowered back, shielding their eyes from the threat of glimpsing him. It was not that they were frightened of him, per se—they did not know him—but he was a god. To behold a god within their sights felt like some sort of taboo, and on many levels, he was very different than Whale. Tamulus was in their stories, in their paintings, and had been in their culture for thousands of years. This would definitely be a story added to all the others.

He had perched at the tip of the boat closest to her, and he snorted at her response to his comment.

She denied one identifier but chose the other—she was not this, she was that. Of course she was a whale, but primarily, she was Lapis Lazuli. He could not hide the smirk that tugged his lips.

"I am Tamulus," he answered. His voice was smooth, soft—comforting, like the way a father would speak to a distressed child. At his name, the whalers behind him mumbled a response, akin to the way a religious group would respond to a priest naming God. Tamulus ignored this. He cared not for their customs.

His eyes followed hers to the shore and he frowned at her pleadings; his stare hardened as he considered the people and he felt bile rising in his throat. Disgusting. Why did she care for them?

"They would die sooner in the nest," he said, voice grim. "They have a chance out here, at least. The Kylm Tribes are strong, resilient—they live in the harshest territories, save the Vaa." And the warring inland territories, but it was the humans that made them so uninhabitable. While he felt bitter toward all of them, he could at least respect—barely—the neutrality of the Kylm. Regardless, he hated them all.

Blue eyes softened, and as his attention returned to her, his gaze was gentle and kind. "You will not chrysalize here, Whale. And I cannot carry you," he said, then raised both of his arms to flex with a dorky smile. It was a joke, of course. Because she was a fucking whale.

"I can return you to the nest, though. You will heal there, you will survive." As he said it, he grimaced. He had offered it before he had considered the fact that he'd have to go back. The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted it; but maybe it was time. If only for a moment, to return her to where she belonged. He could search for the child, visit others—did they still live? Jupiter had relayed to him that Lorekeeper at least was still alive. Whatever he did, it had to be quick. He did not want to spend more than a second back there. Even considering the retched, vile stench of stagnant air made his stomach twist.

"You may be one of the only few of your kind to see the sky, by the way," he mentioned, pointing upward. "There is nothing like spending your days beneath a sun, and spending nights trying to count the stars. I wish more of you could know it. The endless expanse—all of it," he said, gesturing to the clouds, "is the sky. The big warm light up there is the sun. The other sphere in the sky there is called a planet—and we are on that planet's moon, named Let." His voice was forlorn. He'd love to show her more, but in her condition, they just didn't have the time.

A memory briefly visited him—Jupiter, sobbing into her hands during one of their earliest years on the barren surface. They had been busy exploring, charting out where to grow what plants and place what animals, and they had made a ton of progress. Jupiter favored the meadows with large shade trees that they had made. They had been resting after a hard day's work, recovering their magic, sharing a snack when she had suddenly begun to cry. He did not have to ask her what was wrong, he knew: they had abandoned everyone and everything down there to escape. Of her favored creations was the Emerald, Batcat.

If only he could fly as free as the birds we have made.

But the air was too different. The pressure, too different; their bodies could not sustain them without the well of magic that the spire provided them. Whale was lucky enough to have been brought here, even if it might not feel lucky for her. He smiled quietly at the thought that at least one of them had seen the surface, had seen Let and the planet beyond them, the endless sky, and she had known the warmth of the sun—a real sun, and not the fake heat-lamps down in the cave.

When she muttered Vaa, he briefly pointed in the direction that he had come and said simply, "The wilds." Her why left him frowning again, though.

"They... weren't made for that environment, their lungs would fail, their immune systems would be ravaged. Even though the vents bring in fresh air, it isn't enough for these guys—these humans." While he could appreciate her willingness to help, he could not express to her how much they did not deserve her kindness, nor did he feel it would be a beneficial path to argue. She wouldn't understand even if they had the time to go over the centuries of history leading up to this point. It had been a little over six hundred years now, anyway. Tamulus might have had the time, but Whale definitely did not.

When his joke was received with a laugh, he smiled. He missed that. Even though he had recently revisited parenthood with the Howlite hybrid, it was a sore reminder of the things he once had and the things that were forever lost. As her eyes followed to see the things he pointed to, he tried for a quick, "—don't..!" as she turned to view the sun, but was too late. Ah well. He couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

His head tilted at her questions. "Oh yes," he answered, spreading his arms as wide as he could. "Countless! The space out there is endless. I don't think we could ever imagine how far it goes or how much it holds." His gaze brushed the planet in the sky and he shook his head. "No, we live here, on the moon. You live waaay deeep down below the ground!" he explained, clutching the edge of the boat with his fingers and leaning over to stare into the lake. "I'm surprised the witch over there could even find you with his magic." He'd investigate that later.

She sank back into the water and his eyes followed, but her question left him thinking of a grim answer.

"Well, they usually hunt a whale every year or so—just one—to sustain them. No part of the whale goes to waste," he said, the faintest hint of a smirk touching the corner of his lip. "But even if you sacrifced yourself to them, I do not think they would take it, not now." Tamulus looked up to scan the villagers before looking back down to Whale. "But you have helped them. They breathe and dream stories about creatures like you, magical animals that once walked the land with them, swam with them—and now they've seen one, which will bolster their morale and stories, which will keep the Kylm Tribes alive, even if many of them die from famine."

He lowered his legs so that he was sitting properly now instead of crouching, his feet dipping into the water.

"Stories keep a culture alive. You will be passed down in their tales for years to come," he continued, his voice dropping into a soft tone, gentle, like one would use with a baby on the verge of sleep. As they had been talking, he had started the process of returning Whale to her stone—not an immediate process for Tamulus, and it took a lot of his energy and magic to focus on doing it without harming her. Perhaps she had noticed, or perhaps she had not. A sparkling of magic began beneath her as her body was slowly dematerialized.

"But now you will be asleep, Whale, for you have a very long life to live here. You will be sung of, spoken of, painted on their things," he said gently, voice almost a whisper as her body slowly returned to magic, and returned to her stone. He held her eye contact for as long as she might be able. "Carved in the very rock up here that you see down there." The magic was bright now, glowing and swirling softly with the water like a lazy whirlpool. "Given thanks to, offered flowers and gifts," he continued, unaware if she could still hear him as the last of her body vanished in an explosion of little lights, like a swarm of blue and pink fireflies.

"They did not deserve you, Whale, and they will worship you all the same." Just like the worshiped Tamulus and Jupiter, and even Let herself. Pathetic.

The Lapis Lazuli was floating gently in the air, just above the water where her head had been poking out, and Tamulus reached down with an open palm so that it found its way to him. He closed his fingers around it carefully, taking a moment to feel and know her magic, and smiled.

Without even a second pass at the villagers or the witch, Tamulus stood at the edge of the boat and leapt off with a mighty beat of his wings, taking to the sky with more careful speed than he had arrived with. Some distance over the mountain was a strike of lightning, signaling that he had sped up, careful enough to do it away from the villagers this time. Normally, he would not have cared—but he did it out of some shred of respect for the magic he carried with him.

The villagers would recollect and regroup, beginning the long history of their stories depicting Whale with golden-rayed halos and the shimmering of her Lapis Lazuli painted brightly in all of their things. Lapis Lazuli itself would become prized and worshipped, and though they would continue to take whales to survive, they would have entire festivals to celebrate the life of the creature—but these tales were yet to be written...