Hello, ladies and gentlemen. \u00a0I’m pretty sure we’re back on track with having stories here each Tuesday, at least for the foreseeable future. \u00a0We’ve got guest authors offering a wonderful hand as we close out our first “season” of Tales of Tellest, but with\u00a0these new stories\u00a0in\u00a0this final stretch, I figured I would take the lead with a kind of “slice of life” story. \u00a0This is one that I had been working on for some time, and it just never really found its final few lines. \u00a0I wrapped it up on a whim several weeks ago, and we’re left with a story that ends as quickly as it began. \u00a0That said, I still thing it has a shot at entertaining you. \u00a0I hope you enjoy it!<\/p>\n
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The Bubbles<\/strong><\/p>\n 24The bubbles floated to the surface, popping into tiny ripples too small to be seen by a casual glance.\u00a0 But in those dark waters, prying eyes studied even the most subtle movement.<\/p>\n An armada approached the bubbles, sturdy men rowing upon every vessel, dripping with sweat, searching out their prize.\u00a0 The paddles of the ships chewed into the once calm waters of the lake, and the men aboard cried out their coarse commands, rending the silence.\u00a0 More than one of the smaller vessels was tossed aside.\u00a0 There could be no compassion for the weak.<\/p>\n Deep beneath them, schools of pearlfish navigated the murky lake bed.\u00a0 Those that had reached maturity had earned their name.\u00a0 The bubbles that escaped the younger fish were processed by their elders, turning the pockets of air into beautiful minerals that resembled the round gem they were named after.<\/p>\n With a crash, a heavy net pounded into the lake, followed by several more, displacing water as every sinking rock struck the surface.\u00a0 The pearlfish swam into each other, recklessly endangering themselves as the men above did the same.<\/p>\n The nets, too, clung to each other as they sank beneath the violent outbursts above, too slow to catch the school of fleeting fish below.\u00a0 It was a drawn out race to the bottom for the fishing nets, which the impatient fishermen were not satisfied with.<\/p>\n Scattering about above, the fishermen resorted to violent tactics.\u00a0 Leaping to neighboring ships or merely pushing others aside, the sailors disrupted their competitive neighbors.\u00a0 The stronger, larger crews prevented the lighter crafts from rushing their work, ripping up all the webbing that had been submerged.<\/p>\n One of the bound nets had torn away from its draw rope, continuing to flow unhindered to the bottom of the lake, where a series of bubbles continued to flow toward the surface.\u00a0 The knotted mesh fell silently until its weighted corners slapped against the rocks beneath, the net slow to follow, and lay atop a quiet creature too concerned with slumber to notice.<\/p>\n Subdued but not pacified, the smaller crews watched as the experts prepared their own methods, cursing them all the while.\u00a0 Large winches pivoted off the sides of the boats, waiting to rip into the lake below.\u00a0 Massive nets with even larger weights were affixed to those.\u00a0 With a word from multiple captains crying out over each other, the winches dropped.\u00a0 Water splashed nearby boats so loudly that nobody\u2019s eager cries could be heard.<\/p>\n The creature below groggily opened one eye, absentmindedly scanning the dark water with a passing concern.\u00a0 But as the barrel-weighted nets hit the lakebed, the noise could no longer be ignored.\u00a0 Both eyes opened, and the creature saw the barrels racing to the bottom.\u00a0 As its eyes focused, it saw, too, the net upon itself.<\/p>\n The cries above gave way to the knowledge that the bubbles had disappeared completely.\u00a0 As abruptly as the excessive noise and fighting had begun, it dissipated, leaving only a swell of uncomfortable silence in its wake.\u00a0 Not even a breeze could be heard as the squabbling sailors separated from their competitors.<\/p>\n The silence did not last.\u00a0 On orders from their captains, the crewmen rowed away from their spots on the lake.\u00a0 The fishermen from the smaller boats worked quickly to secure their own escape as soon as they were freed of their bonds.\u00a0 The sound of oars chopping into the water resonated through the air.\u00a0 The footfalls upon the wooden vessels echoed in a hasty beat.<\/p>\n Then, the creature emerged from the depths and drowned out the sounds of everything else.<\/p>\n The myth was truth.\u00a0 It was no legend.<\/p>\n Screams of sheer terror cut through the air, frightened crewmen begged for fate to spare them, and the captains of the larger ships barked orders, to no avail.\u00a0 The creature sat upon its body like a snake, hovering just above the lake\u2019s surface, and stared at the sailors and fishermen, boring holes in their souls.\u00a0 Its haunting violet eyes scanned every man within reach, and the men caught in that entrancing glare quieted, not in any semblance of calm, but as if threatened by the beast.\u00a0 All at once, the frenzy on the lake had stopped.<\/p>\n It was not meant to stay that way.\u00a0 Simultaneously, several of the captains of the larger boats called for the ballistae on their decks to fire.\u00a0 The humming twang of several of the oversized crossbows rang out, placing a beat to the showdown between men and monster.\u00a0 The creature was the first to move into the dance.\u00a0 It uncoiled its wings, which had been wrapped around its scaly body, and spread them wide.\u00a0 The leathery arms were large enough to block the sunlight from the nearest of the smaller skiffs.\u00a0 Each one of the missiles soared by the monster, its wings moving to and fro as if the projectiles themselves were moving them.\u00a0 The creature flapped its wings several times, returning to its original position.<\/p>\n As terror embraced the sailors, sound lost all meaning.\u00a0 Screams and shouts were devoid of substance, though not of passion.\u00a0 Every movement became labored and artificial, for none dared remove their gaze from the monster of the lake.<\/p>\n A dozen shrieks escaped from the creature\u2019s one mouth.\u00a0 Men held their hands to their ears, but the monster\u2019s hoarse cry penetrated without mercy.\u00a0 Just as quickly as the shrieks had entered the air, they were dismissed, replaced by a single splash of water.<\/p>\n Once more, the men slipped into silence, their very breaths consciously muted as the bravest of them looked into the cool waters beneath them.\u00a0 Even the captains of the vessels, those coarse men who had ordered ballista fire were hushed like babes in their cribs.<\/p>\n And then the first of the ships shuddered.\u00a0 With a crunch, one of the masts buckled and tore from the deck.\u00a0 It splintered as it fell, crushing the ship beneath it as the sail attached to it ripped into the rigging of another boat.\u00a0 All the ships on the lake trembled, until finally they began to sink, the sailors upon them screaming as they fell into the waters where they once hunted.\u00a0 They thrashed until they tired, fearing the worst was yet to come.<\/p>\n Weakened by fear, the men stopped treading water.\u00a0 Some succumbed to their fatigue and slipped quietly into the depths of the lake.\u00a0 Those who were lucky grabbed nearby flotsam, recovering their strength.\u00a0 With one unified purpose, every man that could began kicking their legs, driving themselves toward the distant shores.\u00a0 One by one, those fierce kicks through murky water were silenced as they were tugged from their buoyant sanctuary into the depths.<\/p>\n The chill of the lake was not lost to those that remained.\u00a0 Of the dozens of ships that had sailed out to the center of the water, not one survived the appearance of the dragon.\u00a0 Every vessel was in tatters, with only a score of sailors and fishermen still left breathing the haunted air.<\/p>\n A captain, the only one among the living, balanced upon his floating haven and unsheathed a cutlass from his hip, an echoing scrape upon its release.\u00a0 Before he could profess any heroic words, the creature emerged from the water, tearing at him from behind.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have a moment to contemplate his fate before he was dragged into the lake, only his hat floating where he had submerged.<\/p>\n The rest of the crews shivered in silence.\u00a0 So far from the shore, there was no one who could come to their aid.\u00a0 In that hush, the men were left alone with their grief or each other, the same fellows they had feuded with upon the surface of lake.<\/p>\n Realizations struck the sailors and fishermen.\u00a0 They would no longer see their friends, their family, who had been taken to the bottom of the lake.\u00a0 Any who dared to lament too loudly was thrashed from their makeshift vessels, never to be seen again.\u00a0 Only a quiet, gentle ripple remained where they had taken their final plunge.<\/p>\n As the sun set to the west, leaving its subtle glow upon the edges of the lake, three men still clung desperately to their flotsam, only the chill wind reminding them how far they were from home.<\/p>\n The night took them into silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, ladies and gentlemen. \u00a0I’m pretty sure we’re back on track with having stories here each Tuesday, at least for the foreseeable future. \u00a0We’ve got guest authors offering a wonderful hand as we close out our first “season” of Tales of Tellest, but with\u00a0these new stories\u00a0in\u00a0this final stretch, I figured I would take the lead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[145,146],"tags":[44,108,149,61,815],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Tellest_WebHeader-x2-e1427024822542.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1UVey-xR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2102,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}