“What? Don’t you think you could swim after me and catch me?” I taunted her with my eyes, then laughed a little out loud, shaking loose the sail, letting the dinghy move forward a little, shuddering a slip, as if it were ready to take off without her, too.
She bobbed up and down for a few moments, watching me, spitting out the water she took in as she bobbed. Her gorgeous red hair was slicked down her face, tendrils wrapping about her mouth and curling about her eyes. She trod water in the ocean waves, her breasts occasionally rising above the swells, the light blue blouse she wore slicked down to their beautiful curves. It was hard not to let my eyes trace every movement of her body beneath the crystal-clear waters.
“Don’t worry, Princess.” I extended my hand to her in the waters. “I won’t take your boat without you.”
She reached for my hand, then turned her palm to it and puffed it away with a telekinetic shove. She pushed herself out of the water with a floating Will and landed beside me on the boat. She shook herself gently, but her clothes just clung ever more succulently to her graceful, athletic body.
“Commander, please have a seat and let me have my boat back.”
“You don’t trust me to sail it?
”
“From what I hear, you spend most of your time killing Bordash soldiers, and less of your time protecting your oceans. Why would I trust you at the rudder?”
Her words actually struck a deep chord within me, because I knew them to be partially true. I had had the siege with Alpha Jase against Tarsine to attend to… He needed me there. And a good thing, too, or we may not have found Jase and Vania in time, then who knows what might have happened down in the depths of that fight in that storm. Now Jase had his Destin. But the blue had been impacting my Oceans for three months at that point, and I had not been an attentive Prince to my waters…
"You don't know how right you are, Princess. Though killing Bordash is in order to save Curans… But I am trying to do my best now, and you are, it seems, what would make me be my best."
She seemed taken aback by my frank words. She started to say something, then stopped. Started again, then stopped again. She couldn't seem to come up with a smart-aleck come back to something so honest.
Two firefins jumped out of the water nearby. She smiled and chuckled to herself.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, they just think your tattoos are funny.”
I looked down at my chest and smiled. I had two firefins, tribal style with stark outlines in the traditional Curan entwined geometric lines and curls, crossing my chest. They stood out boldly to the setting sun and the firefins as they swam around the dinghy. The two firefins were twenty-feet long, their large red heads looked like dragons staring up at us, with horns and feathered cheeks, lanky bodies that snaked from side to side, and four fins going out of their bodies into slender wing-like fins. Their long tail was barbed and could fire poison darts. They had six orange fins along their underside. Their scales were tough and hearty. They were fantastic battle animals, and the Serpul had trained them as warrior animals in civil wars centuries before, though they were no longer used as such. Princess Ceritha saw to it that these animals had their own rights and were honorably protected. I was sure she would institute such rules on my lands, as well.
“What else do they say?” I asked, as the firefins continued to circle us. Ceritha put her hand down and stroked their scaled and thorny backs as they swam around, which made them emit a gurgle under the water, the timbre of a growl.
“They wish us well. They say they will miss me…”
“You have relationships with all these animals?”
Ceritha looked at me with something between a glare and a sadness, as if I could just never understand.
“They are my friends. If you could speak to them, you would understand.”
“Well, let me try.”
“You’re not gifted enough.”
“You don’t know me. Let me try.”
I spoke to her telepathically to try to prove to her that I could try.
"It's because I don't know you, that I won't let you."
“Princess… You will have to get to know me better from here on out, and that will mean we need to trust each other. Why not start now?”
I placed my hand on her leg gently, and she looked down at it with a frown. I removed my hand, but with a caress, more than with a jerk. She frowned again, but then took my hand and I felt that little tingle of excitement again that I had felt with our lips earlier. I wondered if she felt it, too. She gave no sign that she did. She held my large palm in her two, much smaller, hands. She moved us to the edge of the dinghy and seemed to be speaking telepathically to the firefins because they swept up beside the edge, both of them lifting their heads up to us. Their heads were two feet wide, their eyes large and bulbous like fish, but their skulls more dragon-headed and beak-like. They were gorgeous, fearsome creatures, who could bite us in two, if they wanted. They could jump up and break the boat with their weight.
I had been close to dolgons and firefins before, but not in this way. I had never been close to them as a friend. I had been their warden, their protector. From poachers, to help our scientists tranquilize them, but never of their own will. It was mesmerizing!
Ceritha brought my hand close to the snout of the first one and then the other firefin, letting them sniff me. Then, she laid my palm across one of the firefins' foreheads.
