Green Skysea

[Jade Harley]

The curving wing of a gull in flight glances upon the surface of the sea, a shimmering fish spiraling up into the sky while caught inside of its keenly sharp beak.
 
Softness, warmth that is supine and spreads its breezy folds like the petals of a flower, shifts through turquoise waters in a susurrus of sunbeams and sand the color of finely-ground bone. The stick-like legs of pinkish-red birds, little more than reeds digging into the smooth, sappy muck, prickle and delicately bend in the shallows. Beneath the surface, vibrant fish shimmer and shine through strands of seaweed and the abundant furrows of coral there.
 
Dreaming and idleness. Pleasant thoughts. The cape of sand is a nice warm-touch, nestling beneath his head like a soft downy cushion as the bright pearl in the endless blue above warms his belly. His scales and thick, rugged hide stir only faintly with each heavy snore, resembling a mountain that is still and dreaming. A wide maw with briny and mostly dried saltwater sifting through lets a heavy whuff of air loose, every snore a windstorm that sends shudders throughout the ever-widening ripples of the sea.
 
There is an all-pervading hum of insects wavering like ballroom music in the air. An oriflamme of green— a mixed conflagration of fiery jewel tones misting in circles and the treetops alight with bluish-pink morning dew, circles further along the shoreline. Blossoms starved of sunlight cave inward beneath its shade.
 
A hearty snuffle followed by an indignant snort issues from the beast’s blunt and barnacle-encrusted snout with all the grace of a ship’s foghorn. Eyes like pools of dark water slide open, their oily centers clouded with pure, immobilizing tranquility. Light and reflections glide across them in amorphous streams of color as his great skull drags across the sand, settling upon a solitary speck of pale, fluttering light settled at the middle of his muzzle.
 
Tiny legs that are microscopic in comparison shift indistinctly; the fuzzy and soft dabbing of wings against his left nostril is ticklish and barely there, but a single contemplative surge of breath sends the butterfly reeling away. In a heave of inconceivable effort, the cold-blooded creature rises up onto his hind legs with a drowsy yawn, the spinal plating along his back rippling like the colossal Alps shorn of their snowcaps.
 
An ocean swell coils and bursts, white foam spewing out in all directions from where it has crashed against the slippery rocks situated beside him. It tosses upwards, gleaming under a crack of disintegrated light as it sieves along his scales, before retreating once more back into the salt and spray. The breeze roars, gasps, and intermittently dies, stinging like an angry paper wasp when a whitecap prickles against it just right.
 
The concentrated sun burns hot upon the fledgling reptile’s back, the swirl-shaped whorl of brightness and painted blue in the sky sending flickers of tarnished silver and throaty copper heaving across his sides. On wobbly legs, he slides unsteadily over crumbling stones and crushed plant matter, seeking relief from the heat of the day in the sweet chill of the ocean.
 
A transparent lip weaves gently over the sloping bumps of his eyes as he sinks below the waves headfirst, pawing briefly at the tumbling rocks as he drags himself into the water. Slight, thin beams of light mark his progress, furling like frothy lace curtains in the midst of an arising cloud of disturbed sand.
 
It is comfortable in the deep; little whale shark spots travel along his dark and immense frame as he rolls and swims headlong into it, the slightest thrash of his meaty tail causing a school of fish to take off in a spiraling cascade of silver. The last breath he had taken before descending settles coolly into his veins, a bubble curling out from his nostrils like a loosened skein of transparent stomach.
 
Bottle green tumult churns upon the surface of the sea. The reflection of a pale structure settled upon the coastline flickers across its surface with each shuddering burst and rumbling peal of oceanic snarls, clouds and sea fog moored as low as ships sidling towards it in the simmering heat of midday.
 
No one in the meager trickle of houses scattered further along the island shore are certain of when this building had first been erected. Some say it was built by some generous abbess from a sunny land far away, whereas others claim it had merely appeared one day, rising up out of the hazy ocean in a veritable tower of glittering white aluminum slab.
 
Articulate and limber vines obscure it from sight, shadows cast in a glassy diamond fade plunging deep within the jungle. Sand-riddled rocks crawl up to the front step of this laboratory hewn from creamy stones and what appear to be the remnants of a shipwrecked vessel.
 
And soon, as assuredly as the waves lap against the rocks, the sea will reclaim her.
 
Just not yet.

[Jade Harley]

The fish that gather and dart around him are small and little more than brief flickers of color in his peripheral vision, fleeting and swift as the shafts of sunlight that breach the surf. Long strands of aquatic plants stream from in between his teeth, crisp and slimy and no good for anything but chewing up and spitting out again. Besides, they make his tongue green.

(Green is too sharp, too bitter. Eugch.)

A faintly ridged slope of darkness rises up on one side of the deep underwater valley he is swimming through snout-first, streaming hazily along its craggy edge. Lines of reddish-black and tarnished bronze occasionally shimmer in quirky rivulets, worm-like coils of soft pink grasping against the rocks like the appendages of a young squid, minus the rubbery suckers.

Lately, he has been finding large fish with their heads ripped clean off in odd places, as if someone is leaving them there for him to find. He does not mind— if some silly creature wants to leave their kill half-finished and bleeding out, he will be more than happy to dine on the scraps.

But, today he isn’t going to. While he has passed several dead, bland fish stricken with a curious stillness that signals an easy meal, they aren’t flavorful enough to make up for the loss of the kill. There is something different about chomping down on something that thrashes and struggles, something like the rollicking glory of battle as the splintering crack of bone registers along the spiny grips of his jaws.

(Mmm. He likes the fat fish that carry yellow-sweet eggs the best.)

Most of the larger fish are active during low light and dark hours, though it would not be too strange to spot a few dozen of sardine size slipping between sheer waves nearer to the surface. The ones that follow him, some worming idly along the undersides of his pebble-speckled and clawed toes this very minute, scarcely weigh more than a pound each and would only make for a nice snack if he could convince them to all crowd into his mouth at once.

(He has tried. The silvery-slim fish are unfortunately not that stupid.)

Nearer to the reef, he knows that he will have a greater chance of finding something to eat. There are droplets of inky indigo blue seeping into the water, reminding him of the sun just barely sloping into the evening across some distant plane high above, and so he turns leisurely over onto his side before pressing off towards it. His long tail grazes along the sea floor as he goes, ribbons of icy paleness creeping out from the disturbed muck.

The bottom of the ocean is cool and dark and gives way much easier than the stubbornly dry land. It is liquid silk, soft and slimy where his claws tread the underneath. Travel is fast, accomplished in a few unhurried jolts of his spine and limbs, the wide, lazy sweeps of his alligator-like tail. An amphitheater of bronze-colored rocks and coral frills opens on either side of his body as he curls back around, his legs and arms flattened briefly against his immense body to avoid scraping in uncomfortable bumps against the rocks.

Glittering and dazzling diadems of color and life jitter and swell up ahead, just above where the shallows drop off into the deep. Stones and fish scales shine as sunlight filters across them, and it does not take long for one great eye to find the broad, elliptical shape of a tuna circling about.

It darts this way and that, body as rigid as a length of driftwood the nearer it ventures toward the edge of the coral reef. The massive reptile stills, watching with a careful and ruthless precision as the unknowing fish drifts closer… closer…

Chomp! The tuna is his; coppery blood curls up around his snout and temporarily blinds him as its head squishes agreeably inside of his mouth. A sappy pop and an articulated, purely skeletal rhythm runs along the inside of his teeth, stirring his piebald tongue as he makes to swallow it whole in a few jerky gulps.

He drifts lazily in the dim light once his meal is finished, measly longfish poking nosily at his face as they seek out any scraps of the unlucky fish. They will find very little.