Berganashio - Chapter 9

One of the sea-wolfs jumped onto Cotton, and they tumbled several times in a frantic scrambling fight. Cotton suddenly felt the sharp fangs of one of the sea-wolf piercing into his side, and he yelped in pain. He wiggled free from the grasp of the sea-wolf, trying to escape the vigorous fight.

Merfaries possess silver birthmarks in various parts of their upper bodies, including small streaks of sliver scales on their necks, arms, and sometimes small ones on their faces. Larkin and Villi both quickly swiped their hands on their silvery birth marks and flung the tiny scales into the eyes of both the sea-wolfs that were attacking Cotton. Instantly, the two ferocious sea-wolfs became blind from the scales that flew into their eyes. They started bumping into things, trying to find their way around the ship. With the unexpected visual impairment, they exclaimed with all sorts of vulgar expletives that shouldn’t be written here.

“Quick… this way…” whispered Pori into Cotton’s ear. The merfaries flew to the side of the ship, leading Cotton with them. “We’re gonna have to swim.” Cotton shook his head in agreement. Fortunately for Cotton, sea-wolfs were strong swimmers. Their lungs had the capability of being underwater for a very long time.

They carefully dipped into the water, trying to be quiet, so that the newly blinded sea-wolfs wouldn’t hear them and try to catch them. They quickly swam down into the dark sea. Above them there was a loud clack of thunder and lightning.

Pori was leading all of them when she suddenly stopped. “Wait!” Villi and Larkin accidently swam into her. “Where’s Bry? I haven’t seen him since he was in the cage on the ship!” Her face was growing paler by the moment. “We’ve gotta’ go back!”

They heard a little giggle. The three merfaries looked toward Cotton who was treading water as well as he could. Bry popped out of Cotton’s white fur and said, “Peek-a-boo!” and giggled hysterically. “I told you…I just stick here in Cotton’s fur! Didn’t even have to swim… just lovin’ this ride!”

The three older siblings took a deep sigh in unison.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Pori exclaimed, grabbing Bry in a tight hug. As she hugged her brother, she looked at Cotton again, “You are bleeding pretty bad from the fight, it looks like.” Pori flitted over to Cotton’s side where the blood had stained his pure white fur. “I have an idea,” she said as she turned her chin downwards to look at the small vial necklace that was tied around her neck. All four merfarie children had their own vial necklace.

“Ahhh…I think I know what you’re thinking,” Villi shook her head. “But that might not work.”

“It’s worth a try,” Pori said strongly.

Larkin smirked, folding his arms. “She’s going to try to heal your wound with her vial of old merfarie tears. But we’ve tried this before and it never works.”

“Yeah, it never works…” Bry copied his older brother.

Cotton cocked his head to the side in fascination, “Why hasn’t it worked before you think? What is so special about the tears?”

“Legend has it that there are healing powers in merfarie tears. We’ve tried healing ourselves whenever injuries happen, but it has never worked on us…but I was thinking that it might work on other types of creatures.”

Villi shook her head in agreement. “Wouldn’t it be something if all this time, the tears were actually for other creatures to be healed all along?”

“I guess it doesn’t hurt to try.” Cotton winced as Pori gently parted back some of the fur to the side. She untied her necklace and opened the vial as close to the wound as she could. The merfarie tears flowed through the water around the wound, but nothing happened.

“Maybe it just takes more time to work,” Pori said hopefully.

“I think it’s all just a bunch of hogwash!” Larkin blurted. “Tears are useless, and it makes no sense to me why we save them!”

Bry wrinkled his nose. “What’s hogwash?”

Pori glared at Larkin and then turned to answer Bry. “It’s just a silly old saying that they used to say long ago.”

“Oh… like a legend,” Bry said.

Pori had a bemused look on her face. “No, not exactly.”

Bry just giggled. Technicalities didn’t matter to him. He just wanted to play, so he hid in Cotton’s fur again. “My furry white chariot awaits me!”

Cotton smiled, looking down at Bry.

“We need to keep moving. The other sea-wolfs could be trying to find us.” Villi said looking up, toward the direction that they had come from.

They swam on silently for a while.

“Where are we headed exactly?” Cotton asked.

“To see Tilly the seahorse!” Sang Bry happily.

“Ahh. Sounds like an adventure then. I’ve never met a seahorse before.” They all swam on steadily. “Oh, and how did you two cause the sea-wolfs to go blind? It was like magic!”

Villi smiled. “See our silver birth markings?” She said, as she pointed to a spot on her right arm and to the back of her neck. The scales have power to cause blindness.”

“But father and mother only permit us to use that power if we’re in dire situations, where we fear for our lives,” Larkin added. “Except one time I made a lizard go blind just because…”

“Larkin! How could you?” Pori stopped swimming for a second, looking at her brother in disgust.

Bry shook his head. “Ya! That’s awfully cruel.”

Villi didn’t really seem fazed by learning about what Larkin had done to the lizard because she knew her brother was usually up to no good.

Cotton looked at each of the siblings and smiled slightly. Not because there was a blind lizard in the world somewhere, but because he had never felt so comfortable around other creatures in all his life. Blowing large bubbles in the seawater, he asked, “How much further is it to Tilly’s home anyhow?”

“Oh, we’re almost there.” Pori forged ahead through the water. All the others swam closely behind her.

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