“Where are you going?” Pryce asked, rubbing his eyes. The sun had set some time ago, and Pryce had never seen Fathom fly at night before.
“I need to do a thing,” Fathom said evasively as he added more wood to the fire. “I will be back in about twenty minutes. You will be safe here if you don't leave the cave, but have your rifle ready.”
“Oh. Okay…?” Pryce said, frowning at the odd behavior.
“Don't go to sleep,” Fathom said, giving one last warning before darting out of the cave. A few moments later Pryce heard the sound of departing wingbeats, and he was left alone in the cave.
The human busied himself with thoughts of the future as he stoked the fire, but true to his word Fathom returned about twenty minutes later.
“Get ready to fly,” Fathom said, shrugging on the flying harness without further preamble.
“What?” Pryce asked, confused by the odd request. Fathom didn’t seem agitated; if anything he seemed excited, judging by the raised state of his spines. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“Just come with me,” Fathom coaxed as he nudged Pryce up. “I want to show you something interesting. Bring a container and a microscope,” he added.
The dragon seemed determined to be unforthcoming, so Pryce did as he was told, packing the items into his backpack and donning his makeshift flight gear before clipping himself onto the base of Fathom’s neck.
“Ready?” Fathom asked, and broke into a run upon hearing Pryce's affirmative. The moment the dragon gathered enough speed he leapt off the side of the mountain, flapping his wings as he soared to the northeast.
“We’re not going far, are we?” Pryce asked as Fathom levelled out into a glide. The gibbous moon shone bright above them, illuminating the forest canopy below them.
“We will be there in a few minutes,” Fathom said, without turning his head back.
“And when are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Pryce asked.
“The ocean!” Fathom called back, an excited undertone in his voice.
“Why?”
“It is easier to see than to explain!”
Any subsequent questions from Pryce only returned other similarly unhelpful answers, so the human gave up on his line of inquiry until they reached the shoreline.
“So, what are we-”
Pryce trailed off in bafflement as he tried to process what he was seeing.
The night had brought about gentler winds for a more tranquil sea, but what Pryce saw before him was an entire region of unnaturally calm water, several hundred meters across and nearly one kilometer long. It was as if some force had smoothed out the wrinkles of an unimaginably vast swathe of cloth, leaving the areas outside of its influence untouched.
“What…is that?” Pryce asked, completely baffled by the bizarre phenomena.
“I made that using my oil,” Fathom candidly replied, to which Pryce could only gape in silence. “You don’t know that oil can make water flat? I thought you would be able to explain why it does that,” he said, sounding surprised and a little disappointed.
“I know oil doesn’t mix with water, and I know oil will float on top of water, but I didn’t know it could do this to the ocean,” Pryce frowned. “It must be stopping the waves before they even form, somehow…” he trailed off, taking in the beauty of the scene – the ocean surface was nearly flat, and it reflected the moon and stars above almost like a mirror. “It’s very beautiful; I can see why you wanted to show this to me.”
“I didn’t bring you here to only show you this,” Fathom said, chuffing in amusement. “Hold on!”
This was the sole warning Fathom gave before he snapped his wings shut.
Pryce stifled a yelp, clinging to the back of Fathom’s neck as they plummeted through the sky. They fell for several seconds before Fathom flared his wings, pulling up into a glide just over the ocean surface.
“What are you doing-!” Pryce exclaimed, but then Fathom banked right, and the human was silenced by the sight of the dragon dragging a wingtip through a brightly glowing ocean.
(Art by on twitter, on Bluesky)
“What…is that?” Pryce breathed in awe.
“Fiery waters,” Fathom replied, alternating wings to straighten his course, “they can be seen during some parts of the year, and they're a popular thing to see.”
“They're beautiful,” Pryce whispered. “I've never heard of anything like this before.”
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“They're not on the Mainland? What do you think causes it?” Fathom craned his head around to ask, his red eyes brightly reflecting the moonlight.
“They have to be some kind of life, bacteria, maybe. Oh, that's why you wanted me to bring the microscope!”
“Yes!” Fathom said, bobbing his head as he angled himself back to land.
“Can we fly a little longer?” Pryce asked hopefully, glancing down at the unassuming ocean.
Fathom did not immediately answer, and for a moment Pryce thought his question hadn't been heard. “It is…a little dangerous to do this for very long,” the dragon admitted as he made to land. “Once or twice is safe, especially if I fly fast, but the light still attracts large predators.”
“Oh,” Pryce said, feeling a little silly. That would have been obvious if he’d taken the time to think about it.
Each beat of Fathom's wings caused the wet sand below them to pulse with light, up until the dragon snapped his wings shut.
Pryce immediately dismounted to collect a sample of the glowing water, though he paused to observe his own footsteps which glowed for a moment before fading into normalcy.
“Fun, isn't it?” Fathom asked, drawing a few glowing arcs into the sand.
“Yes, it is,” Pryce chuckled, swishing the water bottle around with more force than was strictly necessary.
Fathom crowded over his shoulder as he set up the microscope, laying the fine instrument and its battery on top of his backpack to keep them dry. He placed a drop of water onto a glass slide, then slid it under the microscope.
“What do you see?” Fathom asked, nearly nosing Pryce aside to see what was going on.
“Just hold on a second!” Pryce scolded. He set the backlight to the lowest setting, then tapped the glass slide with a fingernail.
Sure enough, the multitude of microscopic creatures pulsed with light in time with each of his taps.
“Yep, they're living things,” Pryce said, moving aside to let Fathom hover over an eyepiece. “You can see them light up when you tap the slide.”
“It really is alive,” Fathom said, gently tapping the microscope’s stage with a talon. “Most dragons think fiery water is just water with lots of energy, like wood. I have never heard of anyone who thought it was caused by glowing creatures.”
“I wonder why they glow,” Pryce mused as he watched the sand light up with each tap of his foot. “It must have a purpose…they only glow when disturbed, so maybe it's a defense of some kind?”
“I don't see how this is useful as a defense,” Fathom replied absently. “Glowing just makes it easier for a predator to find you.”
“Maybe if only one glowed,” Pryce admitted, “but if everyone glowed then that might overwhelm a predator. Or it could be something else, and I could be completely wrong,” Pryce shrugged.
“Mmm,” Fathom rumbled.
Pryce glanced back at the dragon to see him looking not through the microscope, but off into the distance.
“Is something the matter?” Pryce asked.
“No,” Fathom said, tossing his head. “If there were dolphins in the water, then I would know that it is safe,” Fathom said as he glanced around. “I tried calling them over earlier, but they didn’t come.”
“Calling them over?” Pryce asked. “You can do that?”
“Sometimes we hunt together,” Fathom said offhandedly. “They hunt fish under water, I catch the ones that jump above water, and we share the fish. I’ll try calling them again.”
Pryce watched as the dragon took a deep breath, stuck his head into the ocean, and made a strange yet loud clicking noise.
“How did you figure that out?” Pryce asked when Fathom lifted his head out of the water. “That you could hunt with the dolphins, I mean.”
“I have heard others do it before,” Fathom shrugged. “You just need to feed them a bit of food, then they’ll understand that you want to work together.”
“I see,” Pryce said, wondering how far back that mutualistic relationship went.
They waited for a response for several minutes, but nothing seemed to happen. “Hmm,” Fathom rumbled, turning around to stare into the forest behind them.
“Is there something in the forest?” Pryce asked warily.
“No,” Fathom said, tossing his head. “It looks like they aren’t around, but I have another idea. You said humans hunt for fish using food on a string, right?”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pryce asked as Fathom arced through the skies.
“Of course!” Fathom laughed, dropping the log into the water. Pryce couldn't see below them, but he heard the log splash into the water, and several seconds later a weak jolt told him that the vine Fathom held had gone taut.
A glance behind him showed a glowing trail left behind the log as it was dragged through the ocean. “It looks like it's working!” Pryce called out.
“Good! Keep watching it!” Fathom replied, beating his wings to gain a little more altitude.
Pryce did as he asked, and scarcely a minute later he spotted an immense outline glowing beneath the waves, moving at a ridiculous speed towards their ‘bait’.
“I see something!” Pryce exclaimed.
The creature struck the instant Pryce finished his sentence, and his eyes bulged wide open as a gargantuan predator shot out of the water. Luminescent saltwater clung to the creature’s body, revealing its silhouette to be similar to that of a finned crocodilian, albeit far larger than any Pryce had ever heard described.
Fathom twisted about, tossing away the vine he held in his talons – he must have seen the glowing vine trailing out of the creature’s mouth as it fell back into the ocean, sending a great plume of water into the sky. The myriad water droplets rained back down upon the ocean, causing it to glimmer with a thousand tiny blips of light.
The creature returned to the depths as quickly as it arrived, leaving behind only a tumultuous surface and a glowing trail deep beneath the waves.
“What the hell was that?” Pryce questioned as Fathom flew back home.
“That was an ocean crocodile,” Fathom said, turning his head to reply. “It was probably why the dolphins didn’t come.”
“You were trying to bait that thing?” Pryce asked incredulously.
“It’s safe, I was flying higher than they can jump,” Fathom said brusquely. “That one was a little smaller than most; I wanted to show you a bigger one.”
“They get bigger?” Pryce demanded. It was hard to be certain just how large the ocean crocodile was, but it was easily twice as long as Fathom, and far more massive.
“Yes, but most don’t live near land, which is why I had to fly further out,” Fathom explained. “Want to fly over glowing water some more?”
“No, thank you,” Pryce said, feeling a little ill at the prospect.
“I told you it is safe if you do it near land, and if you go fast; I have done it many times before.”
“I would prefer not to risk that,” Pryce said drily, but Fathom only eyed him with dilated pupils. “No, don’t even think about it-”
Fathom folded his wings.
The literal translation of ‘crocodile’ in Draconic is ‘mud lizard’
Likewise, lizard is translated as ‘crawler’
This makes the literal meaning of ?ocean crocodile? is ‘ocean mud crawler’ or ‘deep mud crawler’
I wrote but discarded a discussion about the smoothing effect that oil has on the ocean, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to include it here:
“Remember what I taught you about molecules and charges?” Pryce sketched out an oil and a water molecule in the sand. “This is what an oil molecule looks like, and this is a water molecule. The head of an oil molecule is negative, and it’s attracted to the positive part of the water molecule,” Pryce explained, labelling the molecules as he spoke.
“How does this help us understand why the ocean becomes smooth?” Fathom asked, squinting at the diagram.
“Well…” Pryce murmured, not quite certain himself. “The oil wants to spread out, so there’s some force keeping the water flat. That makes it hard for the wind to make waves in the first place, and I’m guessing it also makes waves weaker until the ocean becomes flat.”
“This force is very weak,” Fathom said, splashing the water with his tailfin. “I don’t see how a weak force can stop the wind from making waves.”
“It is very weak,” Pryce agreed, “but it’s a weak force working on a large area, and it’s doing a little bit of work every second. Trees do something similar,” he added. “Trees make water move up by letting it evaporate through their leaves. This tiny force pulls up water through tiny tubes, which lets trees grow to be very tall. I don’t know if my explanation for the oil is right,” he clarified, seeing Fathom’s doubtful expression, “but I don’t think it’s far off. Maybe we can ask other humans about it in the future.”
Here's a explaining the smoothing effect, and here's a if you want to hear more detail.