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There was something in her ocean.
There was some thing in her ocean.
Something strange.
Something not right.
She’d been aware of a strange pitch for a short span of time, a distant vibration that was all wrong. She felt it all along her skin, and turned toward its source to investigate. Her young had long since grown and moved on to their own territories and nothing to challenge her came into her space anymore. Nothing larger than the small shiny swimmers, and the occasional shelled crawler in the depths. It had been a long, long time since she’d seen something new.
There was the interloper. Small, blocky and grey. She peered at it quizzically with one eye, then the other, keeping her distance, and hummed to herself in thought. This was… well, she wasn’t sure quite what it was, but she’d never seen anything like it before. It certainly didn’t swim well. It didn’t really swim at all, just seemed to sink slowly. She raked her memories for tales from her mother and grandmother, for her race had long lives and even longer memories, but she could still not recall anything to explain a creature like this. Maybe it was injured? Yes, it must be.
There was a creaking, popping noise, and a rush of bubbles. Something tiny and fragile escaped in the bubbles and floated slowly and limply toward the surface. She blew a current of water toward it, and echoed, but it had no life. No, no, this was much too deep to be birthing. The pressure would be – obviously had been – too great for such small newborns. And still the poor little mother did not swim higher or try to catch the smooth, fast currents. It – she – just kept slowly sinking.
She watched and hummed to herself again. Thought about nudging the small creature toward the surface where she’d be safer to spawn, but it was so little and unfamiliar she was afraid she’d do it more harm. She called out to the female, asking what was wrong, but got no answer. There was a strange, ticklish, intermittent vibration that drew her attention. Perhaps the little thing was calling for help? She puffed a small blast of sonar at it, and tasted the water it had fallen through, and though she sensed no bleeding, she also didn’t sense a heartbeat, just an unfamiliar low-level thrum. Neither entirely alive or quite dead. She crooned sadly over the unfortunate fate of her strange visitor, and contemplated some more.
There was still sound and movement inside the lifeless creature. She traced the shape of the sound waves. The little high-pitched wails must be one more of its young squalling to be born. She circled and crooned to it soothingly. She ached to help, but even if she could get it out, there was no way something so tiny and fragile could survive at these depths. She squealed in frustration and it answered her. If she knew where these things nested, she could seek more of its kind, a sister or mate to attend to the ailing mother. But there was none she’d ever encountered or even heard of in tales, anywhere in the great wide ocean.
She swam in wider circles, thrashing her tail, and watched helplessly as the creature sank further and its young continued to squeak pitifully. She sang him the lullabies of her kind, not knowing those of its own, hoping their soporific effects would ease his inevitable death, stillborn in safe sleep rather than fear.
Then for the second time in the day she felt a strange, distant tremor. She studied it, feeling it far different than the earlier disturbance, but maybe the second strange incident could offer her some clue to explain the first. She circled and waited till it came closer. There was an entirely unsettling vibration around it, but it seemed to be the same size and shape as the dying one. And this one could swim! Its pitches hurt her senses, but it slid briskly through the currents in its strange little shell of wrong, wrong sound. It searched aimlessly for a while so she called out to it, and circled above its kin to draw its attention. When she thought it was hopeless, it turned her way, then streamed slowly toward the other of its kind, fighting the pressures and currents to get to her side. This one too, had no heartbeat, but seemed to have young moving and crying within it. What bizarre creatures.
She kept her distance from the icky vibrations, but watched intently. The new healthy one laid down on the sea floor next to its sister and stretched its cocoon of sound waves around her still form. She watched closely then, wondering if this would allow them to float to higher, safer waters together. But no, the new one, against all logic or safety, emitted two tiny kelp-like young. Strange creatures indeed! She moved closer in a mix of distress and confusion to see what was going on. The little ones squeaked in tiny high-pitched songs and the young of the dying mother was born in a rush of water and air. She sailed over as they dragged him out, getting one close look.
The three re-entered the thrumming one, who swam up and away, leaving the cold still one on the floor. She circled the fallen one once more singing the song of mourning for her, since this was her territory and there was no one else to do that last service for her visitor. Still, perhaps her spirit could rest easier that one of her young still lived.
The bad tasting hum slowly climbed up and away from her valley, and she stalked it from a distance, hoping to learn more of these strange creatures and their ways. When it reached the surface, it leapt up into the air much as one of her kind might after being without breath for a long time, but she was startled and intrigued yet again, when it didn’t splash back into the ocean, but swam right up into the sky and away. She followed it up to the surface of the air and took a deep breath, marveling at how quickly the little thing could swim in the air, and watched till it was out of sight, before submerging again to think over all she’d seen.
Now that her skin didn’t buzz from the creature’s strange drone, she felt a tickling of memory and followed it into the depths of her mind for a time. Long, long ago when she was quite young she’d followed her mother to a strange and enormous bubble on the floor of the ocean. Within it they could see the sparkling light on something that was like a coral formation, but of made of clear bright water and colors like the scales of small swimmer and the insides of shells, somehow solidified into the thin, tall straight lines. There her mother told her the tale of how, in her many-times-great grandmother’s time, tiny little air-breathers lived inside it, and swam along inside its curves where it floated, far above on the surface of the air.
That’s what these creatures must have been, then, she decided, tiny air-breathers returned to that place. If she listened closely with her ear to the surface of the air, she could still hear the traveling creature’s hum fading out far, far away, and – yes – in the direction of the strange not-water bubble.
She sang a short song of excitement and followed.