Hello everyone! It's me, back with a prompt response for the winner of this summer's prompt challenge: Sovereign! His prompt was as follows:
During times of great uncertainty and inner conflict, our thoughts and actions are based on our past experiences. Most of all, the treasured, precious moments of the past will live forever and guide us through the more difficult moments of our lives and stir long-hidden and missed memories and emotions.
So what better way to do this than by explaining the backstory of yet another forgotten side character! I experimented with a new format on this one, probably not one I'll repeat anytime soon, but I do feel it lends itself to the telling of this tale. This might be my shortest response yet, but I hope you all find it adequate!
Twelve Remembrances
The old Shellback remembered his hatch-day well. It was his most vivid memory, and to his dying day, it was the only one that he could recount in perfect detail.
The first thing he remembered was light- brighter than any he’d known before or since, a light that penetrated the soft, warm embrace of his egg. The light was harsh and hot, but some instinct deep inside him yearned for it, clawing towards it. That light meant freedom, and despite his desire to stay inside forever, nestled in the confines of his egg, he thrust forward with his beak, penetrating the crack he’d made and splitting it further. This was his first memory.
The second thing he remembered was the feeling, the soft, cool touch of air upon his skin for the first time. Breaching the shell of his egg was like embracing an entirely new world, one full of new, unfamiliar sensations. The gentle caress of the warm morning breeze upon him was immediate and surprising, and for a moment he pulled back into his shell, retreating away from the strange sensation. But his instinct could not be suppressed forever, and he found himself climbing out again, pushing back against the slippery sides of his cozy confines, yearning to feel the brush of air on his wet skin again. And when he finally did, forcing himself halfway out of the egg that had held him, grown him for so long, he welcomed the new world and all its sensations. He welcomed the warm grit of the sand beneath his flippers, the flowing wind against his face, and the hot light of the Bright Circle that, while it hurt his eyes, chased away the initial shock of the cool breeze. This was his second memory, and it was his most euphoric. But it would not last long.
The third thing he remembered was the sounds. Even in his later years, he would still hear the screams, the cries- shrieks of pain and fear that assaulted his newly exposed ears mercilessly. There were other sounds, too- growls, grunts, squawks, all backed by the crashing of what he would later come to realize was water upon the sandy beach. All of his other senses had come to accept, and even cherish his new environment, but the sounds blocked them all out, smothering them beneath a new and unwelcome emotion: fear. It gripped him, seeping in beneath his shell like an icy fear, and when he finally pushed himself free of his egg, a slave to his own instincts, he was finally able to put a face to the sounds which filled him with dread.
The fourth thing he remembered was the sight of the beach- a long stretch of sand bordering the wide, blue sea. He was at the far end of that beach, crawling up from a pit in the sand just beside a forest of skinny, spiny-looking trees. It was a long way forward, but the dark blue depths of the sea called to him, beckoning him toward it with an unquenchable urge. But between him and it lay an expanse of death. Hundreds, maybe thousands of his own kind crawled at an agonizingly slow pace towards it, easy prey for the enormous Sharpteeth that stalked the beach, squabbling among one another as they fought over who had the right to eat his brothers and sisters. Strange feathered Flyers swooped overhead, selecting their targets carefully with their sharp, orange eyes before diving down with dreadful speed and precision, picking their prey out from the crowd and carrying them off or flipping them over to be eaten.
The fifth thing he remembered was his own walk, his own individual struggle as he followed his siblings in their mass exodus to the sea. His flippers burned with the fire and pain of exhaustion, but he knew then that if he’d stopped, if he’d ceased to follow the group, he would single himself out, and from there, it would be over, whether it meant falling prey to the snapping teeth of a Sharptooth or the tearing talons of a Flyer. So he moved, shuffling through the sand as fast as his flippers could carry him, trying to ignore the sights, sounds, and smells of death.
The sixth thing he remembered was the foot- the foot of a Sharptooth. More specifically, he remembered the moment it impacted him, lifting him free from the sand and, for a moment, hoisting him airborne before he plummeted, impacting the sand far away from the others with a force that lit up his vision with stars and sparks. The Sharptooth had never noticed him. He was one in a thousand; he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Sharptooth never noticed him… but someone else did.
The seventh thing he remembered was the eyes, orange, piercing, cruel eyes that locked onto him from above. Isolated and far away from the rest of the turmoil, he was the perfect target for one feathered Flyer, a lone, black and white opportunist who peeled away from the flock like a leaf falling from a tree in the Leaf Fall Time. Its movements were graceful, but they could not hide the creature’s cold, uncaring gaze, nor the hunger that its chattering toothed beak conveyed. He had ducked inside his shell in a desperate attempt to dissuade it, but the Flyer had apparently seen this behavior before, and for the second time that day, the Shellback found himself lifting high into the air above the beach. Protected by his shell or not, he was the property of the Flyer now, and it was only a matter of time before it carried him off to a secluded place to work at him, picking him apart slowly as it worked its way towards his soft insides. He was doomed, unless…
The eighth thing he remembered was the taste of the Flyer’s bitter blood as he bit down on the talons gripping his shell. He remembered the harsh, pained screech as the claws let go, sending him tumbling down again only to collide once more with the ground, even more painfully than the first. He’d landed on his back, an absolute death sentence for a Shellback like himself, and as he saw the Flyer circle around for another attack run, he knew it had realized this as well. He had closed his eyes then, preparing for the inevitable pain of death, and hoped that it would at least be quick.
The ninth thing he remembered was the scarred flipper which fell over him suddenly, flipping him upright and holding him close to a large, plated body, and the caws of frustration the Flyer had uttered at being cheated out of a meal. He was terrified, convinced he’d escaped one predator only to be caught by another, but when he looked up into the face of his captor, he saw the sea. The sea was in her eyes, a pair of dark blue orbs set in a wrinkled, smiling face. Her weathered old body was covered in scrapes and scars, some old and some fresh, and her breath rattled weakly as she stared down at him with a kindness he had never known until now. He felt safe under those eyes, and the raspy female voice that issued from her beak put his trembling body at ease. In that moment, all of his fear, his strife, even his instinct to reach the sea no matter the cost, all felt distant.
The tenth thing he remembered was her words. He couldn’t understand them at the time, but he listened anyway as she recounted her stories. She was dying, she said, and she’d hoped to impart her wisdoms upon one more soul before passing on. She gave him a name, her name- Eraechalasa, the one who seeks. She regaled him with tales of deep expanses, deeper than the tallest dinosaur, of waves so high they dwarfed the trees on the beach. She told him of strange and wonderful creatures that lurked in the depths of the sea, some friendly and some dangerous, but all with their own beauty and majesty. She spoke in wonderment and blissful affection of the sweet Slime Swimmers that their kind would feast on from time to time, of their soft, delicious bodies and their tart, stinging tentacles. She sang fondly of long nights, when the Night Circle’s reflection upon the sea’s surface made a second sky of the water’s surface, of the millions of stars that she could count in the serene calm of night. She spoke of underwater forests, deep caverns lined with green sea leaves, like the one in which she’d found her first mate, the first of many, soft, swaying groves where one could swim about for hours playing hide and seek without fear of predators. And while the young Shellback couldn’t understand a word, he watched her eyes light up as she recalled all of this, all of her life and the things he might one day see for himself, and the spark in her eyes, coupled with her ever-expanding smile, seemed to fight off the death-rattle in her lungs, and the pain and weakness she almost certainly felt. He had never known his hatch-mother, and never would, but in the company of this old female, he felt he had found the next best thing, and it was this thought that comforted him as he burrowed down in the warm sand to sleep.
The eleventh thing he remembered was whispered softly to him from above just before he closed his eyes and let sleep take him. It was a name. It was his name.
Archilepalos- the destined.
Archie, for short.
Archie, the one who would survive, the one destined to protect those who were as helpless as he had been, the one who would escape this infernal beach and go on to live a long and prosperous life, taking in the wonders of the world as he traveled its waterways. His name was the first word he spoke, whispered in his soft, innocent voice as he trailed off to sleep.
“Archie.”
The twelfth thing he remembered was the following morning, waking up to find the comforting weight above him was gone, the mother Shellback, the old wise one, vanished without a trace. There was no blood, no sign of a struggle. Perhaps she had returned to the sea to die, perhaps she had been carried off swiftly by a Sharptooth, none could say. Archie could not stop the tears that flowed from his eyes that morning as the Bright Circle touched him with its warm light. His source of hope and inspiration, of protection, was gone. Her words, however, remained with him, and so did her duty, passed on from one generation to the next. He wanted to stay a little longer, to hold onto her scent, and remember, but when Archie saw the Flyers circling above the beach as they had the previous day, he knew he had to run, to swim, or die. He moved quickly, sliding across the sand towards the nearest water he could find. It was not the sea he sought, that still stood far away, but rather an inlet stream, one that led to the sea and that flowed nearby where he’d buried himself the night before. He knew instantly the moment the orange eyes fell upon him again. If he’d been older, and a little more observant, he’d have seen the claw clutched tightly to the Flyer’s chest, the vengeance that burned in its gaze, and he would have remembered the one who had almost carried him off the previous day, but to him, the Flyer was nothing more than another threat, and the sight of its snapping beak forced him to forget almost everything he’d remembered of the night before. With a renewed fear, he pushed through the sand faster than he thought possible, the Flyer hot on his trail, and when he finally entered the water, felt its cool embrace seep through his shell, he pressed on, not allowing himself even a moment to relax as its relieving cool touch enveloped him. It fought him, pushing him back towards the sea and in turn, the silhouette of the feathered Flyer waiting for him, but he had to escape, had to run from certain death even if that meant turning his back on the sea, so he swam, fighting the current, fleeing the Flyer. He swam as day turned to night and night turned to day over and over again. He swam without once looking back, fighting the stream all the way.
And when he finally came to a wide, yawning cave, he stopped, allowing himself the chance to look back.
The Flyer was gone, the sea was gone, just as they had been for many days now. He was surrounded, enshrouded by thick, white mist, mist that he knew must conceal dangers far more fearsome than the ones he’d encountered on the beach. To go back the way he came would be to enter that mist and face the unknown.
So, he turned back to the cave, and its cavernous, mysterious darkness. Its wide embrace reminded him for a moment of the old protector who had watched over him on his hatching-night, the one who had named him, set him on his path to destiny. He would never see the sea. His destiny, his duty to pass on her wisdoms to those as helpless as he, was far out of his reach now. And so, he passed into the cave, welcoming its dark, secure walls and sheltering roof.
And there he stayed for many years, pondering the destiny that could have been as he swam alone in darkness and silence.
…
But it was the old protector’s words that rang true in the old Shellback’s mind as he looked down at the young, frightened Longneck who had fallen into his dark domain. His eyes were wide and frantic, his body quaked with fear, a fear he hadn’t seen since his hatch-day. He knew the threats that shared his cave, the great Bellydragger and the black and white feathered Flyer that shared the keen orange eyes of his pursuer so many years ago, and he knew that, hearing the young Longnecks’ desperate cries, they would be coming soon, drawn to the sound of a fresh meal. He’d tried to scare the Longneck away, to once more draw attention away from himself….
But this time, somehow, he couldn’t. He saw himself in those round eyes, a young, terrified Shellback, cornered and afraid, and in that moment he remembered the weathered, scarred flipper and the soft, rattling voice that had kept him comfortable and secure through the long night. Slowly, the scowl faded from his face and his brow softened as he crawled closer to the fallen Longneck.
“Hey!” the little Longneck suddenly exclaimed in surprise as his pursuer revealed himself, “you don’t have any teeth!”
The old Shellback looked confused before laughing inwardly at his own expense. He should have known the young one would see through his fearsome facade. The old protector was showing through him more and more, it seemed.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he grumbled, using his hoarse old voice for what felt like (and probably was) the first time in years, “I couldn’t scare anyone even if my life depended on it. But you can’t blame a guy for trying. This cave’s a dangerous place, you know?”
“I know.”
He studied the Longneck, looking him up and down as he tried to decide how to proceed. To help him, to guide him as the old protector once did for him, was to turn his back on the stream, the safe path, and embrace the sea and all its mystery. To face danger and, perhaps, death, maybe even for his final time. And yet, as he weighed this choice within his mind, he heard the old female’s words again, words that spoke of wonder and adventure beneath the layer of danger and uncertainty, worlds to see, experiences to try-
Friends to help, wisdoms to impart.
Archie.
Archilepalos.
The destined.
He might never see the sea, but to help this child? To see him through whatever troubled times lay ahead of him, even if that meant something as simple as leading him to freedom? That was his destiny now, and this time, he would not turn his back.
The old Shellback’s cracked beak stretched into a smile reminiscent of that of the old protector’s warm expression on that fateful night so many decades prior.
“The name’s Archie…”
