Static Shores - Short Story Part 5

Avisa moved with such precision after we bonded that I felt as if I were swimming within the water itself. With my arms tucked to my sides, I gyrated my body like the rolling sea, diving beneath the surface and leaping back out again. The seawater had once bothered me, but now it energized me. Every pore of my skin drank in the salt, leaving it as smooth as my beast’s.

When Avisa slowed, I shifted back into my own perspective, scanning the horizon for any sign of Meadow. Somehow, the direction we traveled felt undeniably right. I knew it—like a sixth sense guiding us forward.

High-pitched clicks echoed from beneath the waves. As one, we submerged. Glimmering purple streaks raced toward us—hundreds of them. Avisa dove straight down before twisting sharply and launching upward, bursting through the surface like an arrow. We soared into the air, Spirfins of every size gliding and darting around us. As we fell back toward the sea, my heart lurched with the sudden drop.

“Avisa!” I screamed.

She shifted her eye to look up at me and drew her Aura closer to mine. Ripples of purple and blue danced between us before I pushed my own Aura into hers. With a few sharp clicks, she began spinning the spiral of fins behind her. My heart slammed into my chest as Avisa leveled her body, parallel to the sea. Then we glided.

“Wow!” I exclaimed, gripping her dorsal fin tightly.

She wrapped two of her smaller fins around my legs, pulling me closer. Her dorsal fin shifted beneath my hands, and I lost my grip.

“What are you doing?” I panicked, scrambling to hold on as her skin turned impossibly slick.

My fear faded when I realized my lower body hadn’t moved at all—I was still secure, as if I’d been riding her the whole time. Reaching out to my sides, I heard Avisa click louder and louder. She wanted me to extend farther. Wind rushed past my arms as I stretched them wide, until they couldn’t go any farther. I sat upright and flapped them like an Elderkaw.

“I’m flying!” I shouted.

Avisa pirouetted midair, sending me lurching forward before she leveled out again. “Hey! Watch it!”

Her clicks climbed higher than I’d ever heard, and I couldn’t help but think she was laughing. Whether she was or not, the exhilaration of flight filled me with more joy than I’d ever known.

Thunder cracked in the distance, lightning tearing through a dark cloud ahead. Squinting, I leaned forward and spotted a yellow beast flying with a long orange form flailing beneath it.

“Meadow…” I whispered.

Avisa tilted downward and nosedived into the sea, giving me time to latch onto her dorsal fin once more. Our bodies rejoined, bonded again, as my new partner surged forward toward my old one.

We found Meadow.

To be continued...