[DoA] Monthlies: [DoA] Not Quite a Bracelet

“Deep! Deep! Open up, I’m back!”

There was a flurry of motion at the front of the cave the two resided in. Deep Six swam towards the exit, nudging aside the heavy strands of kelp and bone that interlocked to secure their cave entrance. He spotted the pulsing scales of Event Horizon beyond the kelp door, gently glowing from the bioluminescent bacteria in the water, and swam out to greet them. The underwater canyon they lived in was gently illuminated by the flecks of white and blue light coming from deep sea creatures- an anglerfish darted across the edge of his sight, a flickering wisp just before it disappeared into the depths. The stone walls of the canyon ran all the way up into the dim darkness of the ocean, reaching towards the vague outline of the world above. The water down here is mostly still, not quite stagnant but not quite flowing, except for the cold ocean current which flowed from the glaciers of the north, constantly carrying nutrients to support the life within the trenches. The walls opened up to a plain brine pool, littered with bones and the occasional eel along the edges and lit up white by the bioluminescent creatures within who feed on the brine, and it is above the pool where Event Horizon greeted him.

“Hey,” Deep Six nudged Event Horizon with a snout, careful to make sure that his sabre teeth didn’t go near their gills. “How’s your trip up to the art festival thing?”

Event Horizon snorted a bubble at Deep Six, slapping him gently with a fin in retaliation. “The art festival thing was quite cool actually, no pun intended.” They thought for a moment. “Actually, it was the opposite of cool. The water up there was super warm so it was more like cool in theory but not in practise.”

“I swear to Aquella Horizon, if you don’t shut up-“

“-so anyways I bought stuff from there,” Event Horizon continued, skilfully steamrolling over Deep Six’s complaints, “and I think we can do it together!” They then proceeded to twist around to access the backpack they had, and pulled out a small bundle of string and small shells. The bundle itself was made from semi-translucent fibres of some kind, and Event Horizon gleefully explained to the other Swamp Skimmer that it apparently was processed fibres from large underwater leaves, and that they got it from a group of Giants who were more than happy to share how they dried and preserved the fibres.

And now Event Horizon is lecturing Deep Six all about the correct way to preserve leaf fibres. At the bottom of the ocean. Where there are no leaves whatsoever.

While Deep Six let Event Horizon indulge in their ramble, he instead nudged the package over with a flipper and curiously looked inside as to what it contained. It didn’t seem too heavy, so there wasn’t anything too strange in it, but as he twisted the bag open- he had to grudgingly admit, the weaving of the fibres on the bag itself was a masterpiece- he saw. More plant fibres.

What is with Event Horizon and their plant fibres.

Actually, what is with all the surface Aqrion and their plant fibres? Why can’t they just carve bone like everyone else??

By now Event Horizon had finally finished their lecture on the preservation of leaves, and turned to see Deep Six fiddling around with the many multicoloured strings that are now gently floating in the water. With a shake of their tail they swam over and instructed Deep Six to hold one end of a string with his mouth. He did, albeit carefully, wrapping it around his snout instead to make sure that his sharp teeth wouldn’t break it.

“Like this?” His muffled question reached Event Horizon, who muffled a snort of laughter at the sight of the red and black Skimmer being shut up by a bright orange string around his mouth.

Event Horizon nodded, reaching over to grab the other side of the string to stretch it out. They let go of it long enough to explain what they were doing with this, though. “So apparently this is a piece of jewellery that you can weave,” they started. “I think the Terrans actually came up with these, one of the Root Chompers who sold it was explaining how to weave it.” Deep Six nodded. “So you go like this,” and here Event Horizon picked up the end again and swam around Deep Six, creating a big loop in the string, and they felt Deep Six’s eyes on them in fascination as they did another smaller loop inside of the big loop, then another, and another. Finally, with one last swim through the big loop and a fierce tug (which almost pulled the string right off of Deep Six’s snout, whoops, should’ve warned him about that), the string pulled tight and formed a knot that looked surprisingly good.

“Woah,” Deep Six commented when he could actually open his mouth again. “That’s really cool. So we just repeat that pattern, I guess?”

Event Horizon nodded a yes, and the two of them got to work on trying to tie as many of these knots into the string as possible. Finally, after the whole string was used up, they now had in their flippers a smaller length- probably the length of one or two fins- and no idea what to do with it.

“The Root Chomper who sold it to me told me that it was a ‘bracelet’, and that you were meant to put it on your flipper, but I don’t think it could fit… Hey Deep Six, mind if I used your tail for a bit?”