Aliénor's Song

Rescue

Mairi's eyes were pleading. Despite all she had been through. She still wasn't hard enough to want an innocent man to die. That told me a lot about her character. We quickly made our way back in the direction we had come from, back to the Scottish ship that we had turned into a graveyard.

This underwater world was still fairly new to us. As we searched for the ship, I worried that we had taken a wrong turn.

"We should be there by now" Mairi voiced the concerns that were circling through my head. It was strange how this girl seemed to be so connected to me, though we had just met.

"I know. Let's go just a little further. I think we are headed in the right direction. I see a reef up ahead that feels familiar."

As we approached the reef, Mairi pointed at something ahead.

"There! Is that it?"

The ship was still sinking slowly, although most of it was fully under the surface of the water at this point. Small bubbles were lazily working their was up from the hull of the ship.

"He could have already drowned Mairi. We could be too late."

Mairi began to swim faster, a look of grim determination on her face.

"Do you even know where it was? The bilboes?"

I wasn't quite sure what a bilboes was. From our conversation, I assumed it had to be a cell of some sort. That meant it should be somewhere along the belly of the ship.

"Just that its below deck."

As we reached the ship, we began beating at the bottom. Pieces broke away, but at a maddeningly slow pace given the situation. I knew every second would put Mairi's friend in more danger.

Finally a piece broke free that had heavy manacles chained to it. This had to be the bilboes!

I flicked my tail to the side of the ship as I tore it furiously with my hands. Large bubbles were escaping the hull. I just hoped than meant their was still some air left in Eóghan's cell.

After what felt like an eternity, I pulled a young man in shackles from the ship.

"Eóghan!" Mairi shouted.

I sped to the surface with his limp body.

He still felt warm, although I wasn't exactly sure that meant anything now. He definitely wasn't moving.

I laid his body on a board on the surface.

"What do we do?" Asked Mairi

"I DON'T KNOW!"

She started hitting his chest with her palm.

"Careful! You'll crush him!"

"I don't know what to do!"

Our song was ringing in the air around as as we tried to talk above the surface of the water.

As if in a daze, Eóghan's chest moved slightly, then he shuddered.

"He's alive!"

"Hardly"

A trickle of water began to leak from his mouth.

"Flip him! The water! He can't breathe!"

Mairi quickly turned him over and hit his back.

I heard a slight cracking sound. She had broken something. That was gonna hurt tomorrow if he lived.

An impressive amount of water poured from Eóghan's mouth. He took a ragged breath and opened his eyes, squinting almost immediately in the light from the full moon. I guess being kept below deck had made his eyes sensitive. That was interesting.

His eyes opened and closed a few times as he struggled to breathe.

Mairi was yelling his name over and over. I don't think she had realized that this world above the ocean seemed to reduce our voices to song. I wondered for a second how I could make out her words. I would worry about that later. Right now, we had to save Eóghan.

As if drawn to her song, he turned his head to the haunting sound. I saw the hint of a smile and his face seemed to relax into something much more serene.

"He's breathing!"

"Great. Now what do we do with him?"

The closest land was too far away to see, and I wasn't entirely sure which direction to go.

"Mairi, where did you come from? Which way do we go?"

She looked around for a moment, slightly panicked. He couldn't breathe under the water like we could, we had no idea when he had last been fed, and I knew from childhood that he couldn't survive drinking seawater.