Chapter Nine
The Viking and the Princess
The Princess had stolen the Viking’s boat and left him on the island. Honestly, she did not feel too bad about the decision. That is until she discovered the holes that the chameleon and his zombified army of automatons had drilled into her chest. Unfortunately, the Princess’s chest was full of nothing, and that nothing created a negative pressure gradient which threatened shrink and suck anything around it inside of it. So far, it had inhaled an anchor, a rope, and Aipaloovek the ocean giant. This was only part of Moiety’s struggles. The mermaids had also returned. Moiety accidentally summoned a tsunami by lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire which washed the mermaids away, but it also flooded the entire island. The scroll which she had carelessly lit turned out to be a light that revealed the true nature and character of the objects which were illuminated by it.
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”Elisabeth Kubler-RossMoiety was left standing on the water above the island. She was peering down through the clear water full of salt and light - a skin diver’s delight. There were none of the expected clouds of murky silt, everything was as if it had settled that way an eon ago as quiet and observant as dinosaur fossils pressed down beneath the burden of light like a dry autumn maple leaf resting in the hymnal pages.
Moiety had the sensation of spinning like a pot on a potter’s wheel. She had been here before, but she had been a different shape. Somehow she felt that she would be back again, but not in her present form. Everything changes as it stays the same.
The scroll was keeping Moiety on top of the water, but the weight of Aipaloovik, the boat anchor, and its rigging was starting to pull her slowly beneath the water, the heavy negative pressure was still inside her chest. Quiet. For now. Moiety was buoyant, yet irresistibly sinking.
Moiety tried to stay afloat. She tucked the scroll into her waistband and pumped her arms and legs, but the inexorable heaviness in her chest was drawing her below. The danger pressed in all around, and yet Moiety could not help but notice how exorbitantly beautiful it all was. She was hovering above the island treetops, and schools of flashing fish were darting through the trees like silver shooting stars. River beds, like rocky highways into the hills, lay exposed. Giant reaching octopus and eels, freed from the boundaries of the estuary, were ascending the heights along these river bed paths, exposing their treasures. They coiled and expanded, rolled over the rocks, reaching higher with childlike intelligence. Shy seahorses, fastidious shrimp, and all manner of colorful reef fish were darting through the jungle foliage that lay closest to the surface. The island was fecund, teeming with vibrant beauty, but it was the filtered sunlight that brought it to life. Curtains of lightrays shimmered freely in and around the rocks and trees. Nothing was hidden from its joy. Everything became alive in the illumination, eerie and innocent, boldly camouflaged. Moiety felt helpless to be drowning amidst such a strong life force. She took one last breath and slipped below the waves…..
Something immense erupted up from the illuminated bottom. It churned the depths like a boiling cauldron. It torpedoed through the water next to Moiety’s sinking form leaving a glistening wake of white bubbles behind it. Moiety tumbled in the water, losing her breath. The creature was coming back. Moiety could see its eyes were as red as a sunrise. It snorted a flash of light, descended, and then scooped her up on it's armored back. It rose back to the surface. The monster did not have scales, it had shields,... Support this podcast
