DOA|| Need for Speed: DOA || Need for Speed

Maaaybe taking a shortcut through this cave hadn’t exactly been the best idea. Tavos repressed a frustrated groan as he hit yet another dead end after a string of several, smacking the cold stone with the flat of his muscled tail. The water tasted stale here and little light trickled in from the open ocean beyond. Echolocation was his best friend in terms of navigating his way out, in theory anyway. 

Viper was never going to let him hear the end of this. 

Their morning had been going really well. Sure, Tavos might possibly have riled her up by saying something along the lines of him beating her by a landslide if he ever challenged her to a race, and he also might possibly have implied that she was old and therefore slow. Never to be outwitted, Viper had remarked that if he were so young and agile and confident in his abilities then why wait? Tavos had needed no further prompting and had shot off like a dragon out of the Void. He had thought he could hear the sound of Viper laughing in his wake, carried by the current, but he had shoved it aside. He'd been too wrapped up in the need to gain as much distance as he could to wonder why she found the situation so amusing. 

"Hey, Tavos! We'll meet up at the coral spires!" This, too, had carried across the water. Tavos didn't stop to look back, but Viper didn't sound quite as far away as he thought she should, given how fast he was swimming. The forests of kelp around him were blurs of green and brown, waving gently in the current "First one there wins. And remember, speed isn't everything!" 

Tavos had tried to put this out of his mind too. What did that even mean? *Speed isn't everything?* He'd snorted bubbles when the thought entered his head.  *It's a race; of COURSE speed is everything!* Wasn't that kind of the entire point? Despite his desire not to noodle it over, it stuck in his mind like a persistent sea urchin digging in its spines. 

The forests of kelp had thinned here and Tavos had risked slowing as huge rocks loomed out of nowhere. A tasty-looking grouper had been swimming close to the seabed, trolling for an octopus or other crustaceans. It had been a struggle not to gulp it down as he'd skipped breakfast that morning. 

This was fairly close to the coral spires where Viper had said they would meet. Strictly speaking there were an infinite number of ways to get there. While Tavos knew the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, it wasn't smart to do that here. Sharks sometimes patrolled this area and even for a young adult like him a large bull shark or a great white could pose a real threat. It would only take one decent bite to the gills or the tail to kill him. 

Tavos's one personal failure was his breath weapon or, more accurately, his complete lack of mastering it. He'd been lucky enough to be born with a good one, but he didn't like using it even in self-defense. He supposed he'd be forced to use it eventually--once he was an adult out surviving on his own there would come a time when it would be life or death. But until then, he much preferred not to practice for fear of accidentally hurting someone he cared about with his acidic death breath. 

That was when he'd seen the cave and consequently decided, "oh, hey, maybe it'd be a GREAT idea to use this as a shortcut. I'm pretty sure I remember this being a quick route through bull shark hunting grounds." He regretted that dearly now, For starters, there was a MAJOR difference between being pretty sure of something and being positively sure. This was something Tavos would strive to remember for the future. Secondly, he wasn't sure he would ever see the open ocean again and would likely perish in this godsforsaken cave!

Tavos roared in sheer frustration and closed his eyes. The sound echoed off the close walls of the cave and reverberated in his ears for several minutes, leaving him disoriented and woozy. He waited until it dissipated and let out a breath to steady himself. What could he hear? What could he sense? There was no need to get worked up or to panic. Doing so would just make the situation that much worse. 

With a much cooler head he was able to backtrack, slowly working his way back into what he thought was the main passage of the cave. From the outside it didn't look nearly this complex which was a bit intriguing. Tavos thought he would be interested to know how caves formed and what dictated their passages and structure. 

Finally he made his way out and took in deep dregs of water, flushing the stale taste from his mouth. Well, that was horrible. Now all he had to do was get to the coral spires before Viper. Luckily, it was a straight shot from here to there. He dashed off, his fins and tail churning through the water at a furious pace. 

He slid to stop at the ridge where the coral grew in all shades of orange and pink and rose, reaching as if grasping for the sun. Floating at a relaxed hover just underneath was the figure of Viper. She was smiling as he approached, but that didn’t fill him with a fiery rage like it might’ve only a few moments ago. 

It was as if something had shifted inside him when he’d been in that cave, but he couldn’t place exactly what that something was.

He swam up to her, trying to quell the squishy feeling in his gut that was twisting it in knots. He’d been such a snot to her earlier. What was she going to say? 

She grinned at him, showing her teeth. “Still think us slow, old folk can't teach you a thing or two?"

For a moment Tavos thought he'd swallowed his own tongue. It took him a few tries to get the words out. "You...changed my mind."

Viper touched fins with him. “Good.” She paused, appraising him as if looking for something. She nodded, seeming satisfied by whatever she saw. “You did well.” 

“I lost.” He blinked at her, confused. “Wait, how do you know what happened in the caves?” 

“There’s more than one way out. I was following you the entire time, tracking your movements and gauging your reactions. You panicked at first when you tried to find the exit, but you managed to calm yourself down and think your way out. You’d be surprised how many aqiron much older than you can’t manage to do that once the darkness creeps up on them.” 

Tavos wasn’t sure if she was serious or just trying to make him feel like less of a failure. Either way, it was working because he liked what she was saying. He felt as if he’d genuinely learned something. Speed isn’t everything. Turned out she was right after all.