497. Endless world, 3

(Myls)

A day or two later, peaceful days, Blume reappeared.

We embarked on Sanïssia and sailed away.

Blume hasn’t changed physically while she was away from us. Which is a little unusual for her.

M - What have you done during this time?

B - Evolving. And crafting this.

She unsheathed a long sword with rather thin blade.

M - It looks fragile.

B - It was the best I could do with what I was able to find. It may not last, but it will do the job when the time comes.

I check my handguns by reflex given the topic. All seems alright. She sheathes the sword back, and smiles.

B - Not today.

~

Sanïssia sails at pretty good speed truly. I’m amazed she actually floats. But again, so do boats made of steel. I guess she’s not as heavy as she looks to help her fly as well.

A biological wonder in so many ways and aspects... She’s really cool.

Now we spent days at sea. Sanïssia slept a little back on the island so she can go for days now. And if she stops in the middle of the ocean to sleep, she does float regardless. However water tends to sip inside her relaxing mouth and nostrils then, which doesn’t feel nice and wakes her up. So no long sleep for a long while as we cross half the ocean, but she can manage with naps.

She swims for days, straight without slowing down. It’s not easy, but I can lit a small fire to cook my food on top of her without burning her. My tent is for sleeping and cooking safely from the wind. And also avoiding burning her feathers.

Her fur is a little more lush now, a little like spiky grass. She’s getting healthier.

And maybe growing as well?

M - I just realised, but since she’s just something like three years old, will she grow even further?

Blume just bursted in laughter at my naïve question. Sanïssia too I think, given the tremors below my feet.

B - No, she was built already at this adult-like size. She has common regenerative properties but she’s a chimera, a construct with multiple origins and no childhood. There wasn’t a smaller version of her with a coordinated growth and transformation into what you see. For a being such as her, that would be another huge layer of complexity to create her with a process of growth or reproduction. And...

She thinks about it.

B - And given how big she is now, it might not even have been biologically possible to create a living child thing able and meant to grow into that. If only just for food, what you need to sustain this body and what would have been needed to sustain and grow it at the same time it should live on its own, that would have been... challenging.

So Nightmare created her as she is. Like an artist more than a god really... And just for fun.

B - I think Nightmare wanted to create the biggest bird imaginable. After a few practice attempts of various sizes and concepts, she created her masterpiece.

The biggest bird in existence to ever roam the sky... My pretty bird.

Blume goes on further with her teaching, for hours long where I listen less and less.

She rambles about the limits of bone structure, blood viscosity and pumping, temperature and so on. And for most of these challenges limitating the size of any animal, how Nightmare found tricks and solutions to go beyond the walls and bigger. And still managed to keep the viability of the thing to a successful duration.

Blume admires Nightmare’s handicraft, I can hear it.

She’s more like herself also, so I can relax a little.

I start a nap although she’s still talking. I just nod and say uh at times, until I fall asleep.

~

I wake up at dusk, the ship still sailing fast and steady, slipping over the waves with ease. I get a funny idea. I go toward Sanïssia’s head.

We chat a little, though she only says that one word. I still understand what’s her idea behind most of them.

S - Myuu!

M - Here we go!

A part of her neck sinks, though she doesn’t stop sailing. And her head with me on top rises above the ocean, up to a dozen metres at least. The wind is even stronger from the top of this sail.

M - Woohoo!

S - Myuu!

The sight over the ocean and her sailing slithering body is great.

I can better see how the wings gently swim and row below the surface. They don’t flap vigorously like in the sky, they make much subtler moves. Also the symmetry between left and right is replaced with alternate rowing. As she swims, the wings follow the oscillations of the body, so the two wings of each pair are not at the same point of the cycle, never. It’s a completely different coordination from flying she does intuitively almost.

I ride her head, wind in the hair for a little while.

She hums.

We head into the night over the ocean.

~

The next days went as peacefully. In a moment, I saw something else swimming in the distance.

It jumped. It was a kind of thin whale, or giant shark of some sort. Something big, but still very small next to Sanïssia.

A family of them followed from the left side, jumping in and out of the water. We heard their song even.

Sanïssia’s voice doesn’t match her size, so she couldn’t reply. But she could splash water with her fins, and jump too...

So she jumped.

It might have been the first time she met big friendly animals like that. And big dumb things like them both seemed able to communicate through jumps and splashes in the water. Sanïssia forgot about us for that while. It was rough hanging on.

But, I laughed so much.

Even though I swallowed some seawater during that time. I don’t remember laughing like that before.

Watching big dumb things playing together in the water as they swam in the same direction.

Until they went their way and we continued ours.

Stupid pretty bird...

S - Myuu!

M - Yeah, I know, I know...

I was removing the water from my clothes and coughing. Damn it.

I was getting cold, but smiling.

We kept sailing fast meanwhile.

~