previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/07/24/bye-a-bite-hi-a-hope/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
When the caricaurs
went back to the lake
the next dawn,
I was so thirsty
only the water concerned me.
But they were hardly watching,
just bringing me along
like a pet or something,
so when they set me down
to shovel out a canal
(apparently
they didn’t trust the moon
to let them camp the lake;
or maybe, they just didn’t want to move their entire town)
I made a break
for the water
and dove in,
slurping
dirty waves
until my stomach bloated,
then I whispered
for the sea
to tell me
what was happening
here
because
I needed to know
who was right:
the dracans
I’d lived with
for a year,
or the caricaurs
who said the dracans
tried to kill them first.
And the sea
came murmuring
an answer
after all the year
of silence,
but it wasn’t any answer
I wanted.
It said
this moon
was no real god
just a small player
over a single land;
the caricaurs had fought for water
for generations;
the dracans I knew
were friendly to me
so what did it matter
if the dracans I knew less
tried to keep
what they thought were pests
out of their sacred garden?
Yeah, I asked, but how?
I didn’t know
dracans could fight.
The sea just sent
fragments back,
motions,
blurs:
beaks and water
and moonlight
upon beating wings,
deafening cries
and heavy scales.
So this war has been going on under my nose
this whole time? And no one told me?
But I knew the answer to that; no one told me
because
like the sea said,
they thought the caricaurs were pests.
I was just a
little adventurer
who could heal,
no need to say
a sapient creature with teeth cut them in the leg
if it was just a pest in the trees
that surprised them.
And I wasn’t around the lake all the time
and obviously wasn’t there the one time (…multiple times?)
the caricaurs tried to go there
to restore their water supply,
and their underground canal
probably wasn’t even intentionally blocked,
I bet underground tunnels
collapse all the time.
So why didn’t the caricaurs use lightning
when they tried to approach the lake?
Why did they only use lightning
when they attacked the town?
The sea came back clearly:
time means nothing to a god
while it may to its followers.
Then its presence in my mind retreated
and I suddenly needed to breathe air again.
So I swam to the surface
with no clue what it meant.
Until
thunder hit my ears
for a second time
but in this case
the caricaurs’ spiked tails didn’t hold the charge,
the rising fire sky did.
***
find my published books at this link
header photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com
Jordyn Saelor 