Many light sheddings of time passed, and the waters paled in their reflections from the ocean’s crest far above where Maanta glided. Famished, from both the many whale-lengths swim and from missing mid-day-meal in Orion's Birth, Maanta determined that there would be no harm in departing from the swift current stream. Surely some scrumptious, shelled, critter-crawlers dwelt on the ocean floor, just waiting to be caught?
Maanta’s soft touch caressed the side of Archa’s head; giving her the command to slowly descend from the pulsing current sweeping them along. She dove from the current breeze using its push, pressing against her tailfin to masterfully ease herself and Maanta down. In a single motion her pale companion flipped backwards from his perch, skimming the ocean’s floor. His body shimmered in trickling lights drifting from above, stirring sands which rested just below his flowing form.
As he swept, transparent beings stirred from their well-hidden resting places. If a person knew what he was searching for he could see creatures scurrying just beneath the sand. Maanta swam a half circle and cupped a few of the intricate creatures in his hands, using his webbed fingertips as a net. He was careful to only take what was needed for his dusk-meal.
“Maanta,” his mother had once said, “only partake of that which will replenish your health until next-eating. Those beings who share our home are Gelu’s children also and are to be cherished and loved. We must partake of them to stay strong but that does not mean we should mindlessly disrespect their lives. To forget Gelu’s love for them would be to gouge our souls.”
Maanta thought her words were very wise, and so he was careful to only take what was needed from the sands with which Gelu had blessed him.
He prepared the critter-crawlers by cracking a malta shell which was stored in a seaweed strap along his left wrist. Glowing crimson ooze seeped from the shell, pouring out and over a ring of cragged stones, sizzling as its warmth embraced the cool waters. Maanta rummaged through his whale-hide satchel for the heating net, which he had snatched from a vender in the selling place. Once found, he situated the critter-crawlers in the web of seaweed knots and then floated them above the warming fluid to give them just the right delicate, stewed, warm taste.
Scraping their shells across a cragged stone revealed a delicate red and pearl hued delight inside. Maanta prepared a meal out of the critter-crawlers for himself and his companion; he mixed them with seaweed strands and powder from coral remains.
Archa ate first, as all ridden friends should; they give most of the effort on trips such as this. Only after he had seen to her did Maanta savor the remains. Its taste was sweet and coolly graced his mouth’s palate as it went to its new dwelling place in his rumbling stomach.
Maanta smiled as the last sliver of seaweed swiveled through his pursed lips. He hadn't truly realized how hungry he was until he spied the critter-crawlers in the sands. Rested and fed, Maanta was ready to take to the task of venturing home.
Cupping his fingertips once more, he swept under Archa's belly and took his perch upon her sleek back.
"Ooooahooo," Maanta sang to Archa in her dolphin tongue asking to go home.
"Help m-m-m-e..." The ocean spewed a haunting whispered response.
Maanta shivered with unease and his webbed fingers gripped at Archa's sides. She reared in discomfort and tossed him from her back, off into a rising cove wall. He clasped his back with his hand; feeling the scattered, rough blood patch left from his collision with the stone.
It was just a wound. It would heal.
But what had spoken to him, whispering in such pained unease? Should he flee for his life?
Or should he go off investigating, into the quickly blackening obsidian hue… and discover what had spoken to him?
These questions danced through his thoughts like the light danced through the water. But deep inside, Maanta knew that he could never turn away. He could never forgive himself, if he thought he might have left a person in the cold Meridian outersands to be devoured by lurking many-toothed harkfish or to starve in wounded misery.
Not too far off on the ocean floor something stirred.
And then he spotted it, a black muscular arm convulsing beneath a large moss-covered stone.
"Heeeeeeelp..." the voice beckoned again.
Maanta swam with all the speed that could be summoned from his soul. Driven by his urge to assist his fellow man, his heart boomed with the unknown.
Maanta was gasping as he neared the site where the voice had emulated. Deep crimson droplets hovered and swayed where the twitching hand raked at the sand from beneath its stone-pinned resting place. Repulsed by the crushed being's blood, Maanta breathed in a vast inhale of fresh water and dove through the crimson murk, curving his hands along the pinning stone's underbelly.
His small arms shimmered in the setting northlight. They were shaking and his joints were burning as he attempted with all of his mustered strength to lift up the stone and rescue the thing beneath. A bitter salty taste passed through lips and into lungs as he came to the realization that he could not lift this mighty stone alone. The stone was simply too weighty for anyone; let alone a weak merboy, to lift without help.
In his heart though, he couldn't give up. There had to be some hope.
And then it came to him as if some prayer had been answered. From the corner of his eye Maanta spied a whale rib bone, encrusted to the ocean floor beneath his very toes. Using a nearby shell to pry the bone free, Maanta diligently scraped all sands away from its edges. With a smooth tug at the bone, swift suction filled the void where it had once been, giving Maanta just what he hoped was needed to accomplish his task.
"If you can hear me," Maanta spoke toward beneath the stone, "swim with all your soul allows when I lift the stone up and away from you."
"H-H-H-e-l..." the voice simply murmured in return.
Shafting the sleek whale rib beneath the stone, Maanta dug his feet into the sand and pushed down as far as his muscles would allow. He screamed as they burned in agony. He braced the stone up with the whale bone mere minnow lengths higher than it had been moments before.
A hulkish, ragged, dark-skinned man swam dazedly out of the open crevice, his clothes tattered and muscles shredded with blood. A deep gash along his shoulder bled more intensely than the rest of his wounds. A long, gray beard swayed from the stranger's chin as his massive body went limp amongst the ocean's breeze.
Relieving himself of the whale bone, stone and the infinitely searing pain, Maanta now turned his curiosity toward this new and mysterious companion. Where had he come from, and where was his destination? What could have happened to have left him in such dire agony?
All would have to wait until the man awoke from unconciousness.
Maanta wrapped the man's wounds in seaweed bandages and waited in curious anticipation. Archa joined his side.