Monster Girl Island Chapter 6

“I suppose the tales were true, then,” Jonas mused in utter shock. “The glowing island is real.”

“Damn right, it’s real,” I whispered as I stared off at the neon ambience in the distance. “And if Marella’s vision is right, then it’s also the home of a deadly fire breathing dragon.”

“I’ve yet to have a vision that’s wrong,” my daughter reminded me with a sarcastic smile. “I was even the one to predict you’d let Cerin come along on this journey.”

“That’s because you’re the one who asked,” I chuckled.

“Well, yeah.” Marella shrugged. “But that’s only because I had a vision the other night that she came along on our next adventure.”

“Oh?” I questioned the teenage soothsayer. “And what did that look like?”

“About like it does right now,” Marella chuckled as she walked over and scratched her bondmate under her chin. “I was standing here on the ship with Cerin at my side, in the darkness, as we sailed across the sea.”

It did sound very lovely, Cerin’s voice muttered through my head telepathically. Which is why I begged Marella to ask you about letting me join you.

George and Nixie’s children were now about the same age as George when I found him, and they both had a similar lanky appearance and a voice that occasionally cracked between deep and high when they spoke. Cerin’s voice was no different.

It had a sort of sweet, motherly calm to it, though it was interspersed with the occasional hint of teenage sass every now and again. The purple water dragon spoke with a smooth cadence that resembled the gentled tones of hotel muzak, and she always made it a point to look you in the eyes when she was talking.

I’d never really spent much one-on-one time with Cerin, so this whole experience was foreign to me.

“It’s my pleasure,” I laughed. “I’m sure you’re happy to get away from the island, and I know your parents are glad to have a little bit of alone time.”

They aren’t alone, Cerin corrected me. If I know my brother, he’s going to bug them both even more than normal now that I’m not around to keep him in check.

“Yeah,” Marella gagged. “Brothers are the worst.”

You can say that again, the purple water dragon mused.

Oh, boy… Did I just sign myself up for a few days of nonstop teenage girl sleepover talk?

Once the awe of the glowing island finally wore off, I returned to the steering wheel and allowed Mira to go check it out. I held my captain’s post the rest of the night, until the wee hours of the morning when the sun began to peek out over the horizon to the east.

However, as the celestial orb continued to rise up in the sky, its rays never landed on the bioluminescent island. Just like Isla had predicted, the light was blocked by a combination of strangely unmoving clouds up above and the mountains of the island off to the southeast of the glowing land. It continued to glow like something out of Avatar as we approached, and once we got a few hundred yards from the shore, I noticed even the sand in the water was glowing.

“That’s a new one,” Mira noted as she glanced over the edge of the ship. “I’ve never seen sand that glows like the sun, and I’ve never seen any sort of light that’s such a vibrant blue.”

“If you ever make it back to my world, I’ll take you to an EDM concert,” I joked. “You’ll see alllll sorts of weird glowing neon shit like this there.”

“Do you think it’s safe to walk on?” Ashanti questioned. “It kind of reminds me of the hot coals that occur after our fire dies out. A palm-wine drunk Rikuri found out you can’t walk on those the hard way.”

“I guess there’s only one way to know for sure…” I said as I looked down at the neon sand.

The stuff literally looked like it was a pile of those kinetic sand packages you could buy from the local big box store. It was a mixture of both regular white sand and glowing teal crystals, though the teal beads completely drew attention away from the rest of the landscape. Further up the shore, the glowing crystals of sand began to disappear and morph into your standard dark brown dirt, but there were still plenty of neon lights to go around the terrain of the island.

From what I could tell, Marella’s vision was spot on.

There were several massive, leafy plants that curled up into a bud, and they were all some combination of teal, light blue, and green. Even more strangely, a different color was the focus of each plant’s glow.

Shall I try it out? Tirian suggested. I’ve got some pretty thick skin.

“I won’t ask you to do that, Tirian,” I reminded the silver dragon. “I’d never ask anyone to potentially put themselves in harm’s way just to be a guinea pig.”

You’re not asking. Tirian shot me a wink. I’m telling you I’m gonna try it, and that’s final.

Before I could protest any further, Tirian sprang from his perch on the crow’s nest, spread his leathery wings out like a glider, and zipped down toward the shore and the shallower water below. We all watched with bated breath as the silver fire dragon hovered above the surface for a moment, glanced down at the glowing sand, and then took a deep breath. Tirian finally dipped a single clawed toe into the depths and pressed it down into the neon sand with a gentle little splash.

Nothing.

Tirian’s body drooped with relief, and then he placed his entire front right foot down onto the sand.

“I’m guessing that means it’s safe?” I called out to the dragon telepathically.

I think so, Tirian said. It actually feels really, really cold. Then again, that could just be the water around here.

I want to cool off! Swaer’s high pitched voice rang out in my head.

The next thing I knew, a blur of red rocketed past my head, flipped up into the air like a furry tornado, flew toward Tirian, and then dove down toward the water like a cartoon character doing a dive. The miniature splash created when Swaer entered the water was comical, though I didn’t really start to laugh until the little guy’s head broke back through the surface.

Swaer’s yellow, noodle-like whiskers were now heavy with water, and all the fur on his body was slicked back against his body to give him the appearance of a bright red otter. My smile faded, however, when Swaer’s body began to twist and turn in the water.

Are you alright? Tirian asked without much fanfare.

I forgot I haven’t learned to swim yet! Swaer gasped. Help me, or I’m going to drown!

Tirian shook his head and smirked before he sloshed over to the wind dragon, reached down, and picked him up like a mother cat and her kitten. Swaer’s face fell into a disgruntled frown as he was lifted out of the foot-deep water, and he dripped profusely like a drowned rat.

“Swaer?” Batari stifled a giggle as if she were a mother trying to discipline their child for doing something hilarious. “Is everything okay down there?”

I’m fine, the tiny wind dragon harumphed. But I want George to give me some swimming training when we get back home.

You’re a dragon, Swaer, Tirian reminded him. There’s no reason you would ever need to swim when you can just fly.

Oh yeah? Swaer snorted. What if we were in a cave filling up with water? There wouldn’t be any air to fly in!

Tirian thought about the wind dragon’s comment for a moment before he shook his head and sighed.

I guess you’re right about that one, the silver dragon chuckled. As unlikely as that might sound, I suppose swimming would be required in that situation. But for right now, just stick to the sky, okay?

You don’t have to tell me twice. Swaer nodded in agreement. My entire life just flashed before my eyes.

You’re only a week old, Tirian mused as he rolled his eyes.

With the sand now deemed to be safe, I commanded my crew to drop anchor right here, and we began our evacuation process. The water was still quite deep where we had stopped, so we brought out our vessel’s two dinghies, climbed inside, and then slowly lowered ourselves down into the ocean. We quickly detached the rowboats from their ropes and then began to row toward the shore.

“I just cannot get over how beautiful this all is,” Theora observed as her emerald green eyes looked back and forth across the neon lights. “Perhaps if things don’t work out on the dragonkin island, we could move to this place?”

“Let’s not jump the gun here,” I warned the Niralope. “And by that I mean we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. We have no idea what’s waiting for us on this island.”

“The map said it was empty,” Lezan reminded us all. “And Marella’s vision didn’t have any signs of people, either.”

“Coming from an orc, ‘empty’ just means there isn’t anything to pillage, loot, or rape,” I growled. “For all we know, the place could be swarming with killer bees or toxic plants or really anything that isn’t an intelligent, civilized group of creatures.”

“And a fire-breathing dragon,” Theora noted. “We can’t forget about that one. Did you see how large it was, Marella?”

“Not a clue.” My daughter shook her head. “All I saw was my father’s hand brushing against its stomach like he was trying to calm it down. If I had to guess, it’d probably be one of the bigger ones.”

“But how big?” Lezan implored. “Was it the super fat guy? Or maybe the eldery one?”

“I don’t know,” Marella repeated. “I just know it was much larger than my father in scale. Which means it’s not the baby dragons.”

“That’s good,” I sighed.

“That’s good?” Theora gasped. “You are aware we’re going to have to try and wrangle this thing, right?”

“Well, yeah,” I mused. “But we’ve got Jonas along. As long as we catch the big guy off guard and or while he’s sleeping, I’m sure our favorite soothsayer will be able to get the ceremony off before the dragon even knows we’re there. Right, Jonas?”

The elder dragonkin’s eyes widened as he looked at me from the other rowboat. An awkward smile pulled at his lips as he stared me down, but then he just laughed.

“I hope you don’t expect it to be as easy as it was with Swaer,” Jonas warned. “If anything, I’d expect it to go more like our attempt on the Isle of the Dragons.”

“No, it won’t,” I reassured the soothsayer. “That ceremony was interrupted by the orcs, remember? There obviously aren’t any orcs on the island, so we shouldn’t have any interruptions. It’s that easy.”

Jonas’ eyes narrowed, though his eyebrows raised as he pursed his lips together and turned his head.

“Are you ‘messing with me?’” the soothsayer questioned.

“Yeah,” I snorted. “I’m just messing with you. This is gonna be one of the biggest clusterfucks we’ve ever gotten ourselves into, which is why I wanted to make sure I had a good crew along for the ride.”

“I’m flattered, Ben,” Lezan chuckled and then whipped her multicolored hair back and forth. “I’ve never been chosen to go on a suicide mission before. It feels… Fitting.”

“It’s not a suicide mission.” I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t lost a single family member since I’ve become the Draco Rex, and I don’t intend to break that trend today. This is going to be one of the most difficult things we’ve ever done as a team, but I’m confident we can pull it off. Marella saw us complete the mission, didn’t you?”

My daughter shook her head vehemently.

“I never said I saw you complete it,” she hissed in a low whisper. “I just said I saw you petting the dragon’s belly.”

“Close enough.” I shrugged. “If the thing is letting me touch its belly, then it’s at least subdued enough to not bite my head off.”

As much as I put on the front of confidence, I wasn’t sure if it really was “close enough.” For all I knew, what Marella saw was the last-ditch effort of a dead man trying to bargain his way out of his fate.

I guess time was gonna have to tell on that front.

Soon, our rowboats ran out of water and shlunked into the glowing blue sands of the neon island, so we all stepped out of the ships and pulled them up further so they wouldn’t float away. Once that was done, we looked over the alienesque landscape around us.

“I can see why the orcs would think this place was empty,” Mira noted. “I can’t even imagine what sorts of creatures could survive in such a bizarre land.”

The glowing sand eventually transitioned to chocolate-brown dirt, but that still had a few tendrils of neon running just below the surface.

However, it didn’t take long for me to come to the realization of what these tendrils were.

“Roots,” I announced my epiphany out loud. “All these tendrils are the roots of the bioluminescent plants.”

“Those are some giant roots,” Ahwara said as she brushed the topsoil off one of the luminescent tendrils. “They look way too big for any of the plants here.”

“Perhaps they are the roots of something further away?” Batari suggested. “Something that’s much larger?”

“Not a chance.” Mira shook her head and pointed to the flora ahead. “If there was anything taller than these glowing buds, I think we would have seen them by now.”

“Unless…” Jonas trailed off. “No… Does anyone here have a shovel?”

“We have three dragons with giant claws,” I reminded the soothsayer. “That’s better than any shovel I’ve ever seen. What are you thinking?”

“What if-- and I know this is going to sound like the ramblings of a senile old man-- but what if these aren’t the roots to the plants we see whatsoever?” the dragonkin man began. “What if these are roots that are growing up from inside the ground?”

“Subterranean flora?” Ahwara gasped, and then her pencil-thin lips twisted into a smile. “Maybe that’s why the orcs thought the island was uninhabited. Everything is underground!”

“That would be fitting,” Nadir snickered. “On our original island, we eventually moved out of our treehouses and into underground tunnels, and it worked incredibly well. Those stupid acorn hoarders didn’t have any idea where we went, even though all they really had to do was start digging.”

“Marella?” I asked my daughter. “Didn’t you say that in your vision you saw the dragon inside of a dark space?”

“I believe so.” The raven-haired teen nodded. “It was certainly dark and echoey.”

Jackpot.

“The dragon’s going to be underground,” I announced and clapped my hands together. “Which means we’re gonna need to find a hole in the ground or a cavern or something to access his lair.”

“Well, that narrows it down,” Ashanti scoffed. “There’s only about an entire island to explore, all covered with thick, glowing foliage.”

“Ben never said it would be simple,” Mira reminded the Cero woman.

“It won’t be,” I confirmed. “But we have a secret weapon I don’t think I’ve ever told you or your people about, Ashanti…”

I took a step to the side and made a wide, sweeping gesture at Nadir and Lezan, and the two Coonag women responded by throwing their hands up into the air and grinning like crazy people while simultaneously wagging their furry tails back and forth.

“Oh my goodness,” Marella mumbled as she buried her face in her hands.

“These two?” Ashanti crossed her arms across her chest. “I’ve seen them in battle, so I know just how fierce they can be. But how does that make them a ‘secret weapon?’”

“They both carry my children in their cute little wombs,” I noted. “And they were present when we first attempted the dragonbond ceremony, with several of the fire-breathing dragons that scattered around this world.”

“Which means we both can sense the dragons when we are close,” Lezan finished off the thought. “They are partially bonded to us, thanks to Jonas’ lovely ceremony.”

“So, that’s the plan?” Batari frowned and sounded skeptical. “We just wander aimlessly around the island until one of these two senses we are close?”

“That’s the closest thing I have to a plan at the moment,” I admitted. “Actually… I just thought of something else. Tirian and Swaer? Would you guys mind taking me up to do a little bit of reconnaissance?”

Not at all. Tirian shrugged, and then the silver dragon floated down and landed on the ground.

As long as you tell me what ‘reconnaissance’ means first, Swaer offered cautiously.

“It’s when you send a scout ahead to search the area, my friend,” Batari explained. “In this case, it would be the three of you searching the area from above.”

Oh! the red wind dragon huffed. Well, in that case, I’m all for it! But, uhhhh… I don’t think I’m going to be able to carry you, Ben.

“That’s fine,” I laughed as I strode over to Tirian. “That’s what we brought him along for.”

I hope that’s not the only reason, Tirian feigned offense as I climbed onto his scaly back.

I slid my boots up underneath the dragon’s forearms, and then I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. As soon as I was in position, I let out a whistle, and Tirain took to the sky.

The cold wind whipped at my face as we rose up into the sky, with Swaer right at our heels. We stopped when we got to about two hundred feet in the air and then attempted to survey the topography of the neon island.

“Attempted” was the key word here.

Down below was a literal forest of nothing but bioluminescent plants that radiated their neon blues, greens, and teals. The light was almost blinding upon first glance, but once I had looked it over for a few seconds, my eyes began to adjust.

Still, it was difficult to see anything down below.

The landscape seemed to be made up of nothing but the oversized, leafy bud plants as far as the eye could see. The only real observation I could make of the land was that it was all of fairly similar topography… There didn’t seem to be any mountains, valleys, lakes, or trees anywhere.

I don’t know about you, Tirian grumbled, but I can’t see anything. In fact, I think my eyes are starting to ache from staring at all these lights.

I’m pretty blind, too, Swaer agreed. From what I can see, it all just looks the same anyways.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “We’re no better off up here than we were down there. Let’s go back and tell everyone the crappy news.”

The three of us swooped back down to the spot on the beach, where I promptly dismounted Tirian and let out a deep sigh.

“So, I’m going to guess you didn’t see anything of importance?” Mira cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Nothing,” I admitted. “It’s all just these giant bud things, as far as the eye can see.”

“Fascinating.” Ahwara clicked her tongue. “I think that just adds to your theory that everything here is underground.”

“Still,” I sighed. “I would have thought we’d see a cave opening or a lake or some sign of where we could find the spot where the dragon is hiding out.”

“Don’t be discouraged, my love.” Nadir dashed over and leaned her head on my shoulder softly. “When we agreed to come on this mission, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We’re in it for the long haul, so if that means we have to walk hundreds of miles to find our dragon, then by the stripes on Lezan’s tail, that’s what we’re going to do!”

I put my arm around the Coonag woman and kissed her forehead tenderly.

“Thanks, Nadir,” I said. “I only hope we won’t be walking for quite so long. If it gets to that point, I might say ‘screw it’ and go out looking for another one of the lost dragons. It’d probably be just as hard to find.”

I gave all of my crewmates a final look of caution, and then we approached the line of leafy buds that made up the island’s forest. As we drew closer, Ahwara drew her fanblade from its holster, popped it open, and held her weapon at the ready.

“If there truly are subterranean creatures on this island,” the orange-haired warrior warned, “then they will hear us coming long before we hear them. We should be prepared.”

“Good call,” I agreed as I drew my seaglass sword from its sheath.

I used the flat edge of my weapon to push away one of the leaves of the giant plant, and it moved away with a strange crumpling noise. I held it back with my weapon as I motioned for my friends to enter the forest, and they filed in one-by-one.

Once we were inside the forest of neon plants, everything looked exactly the same. There were small, teardrop-shaped spaces between each of the giant pieces of flora that were just large enough for a human or small dragon to fit through, and nothing more.

Damn. Now I was really glad I didn’t try to bring George or Huwar.

We pressed on through the sea of glowing lights for nearly an hour before we took a brief pause, but as we all enjoyed a few sips from our canteens and rested on the ground, the frustration began to mount.

“I think we might be lost,” Batari announced abruptly.

“Reaaaaallllly?” Marella and Cerin drawled in unison, and I swore even their eye rolls were in-sync.

“Hey now, Marella,” I retorted. “Be nice to your-- Uh… Stepmother? Father’s… girlfriend? Be nice to Batari!”

“Oh, come on,” my daughter argued. “I’m just expressing what we’re all thinking. And Cerin said it, too! Why isn’t she getting in trouble?”

“I’m not Cerin’s father,” I reminded the raven-haired teen. “So, apologize to Batari before I have to make some disciplinary decisions.”

Holy shit… I was going full-on Dad mode right now.

Marella rolled her eyes and turned to Batari.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled under her breath, all as one word.

“Marella…” I warned.

“I’m sorry, Batari,” Marella sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that to you. Even though it’s pretty obvious we are--”

“Marella!” I hissed, and the girl bit her tongue.

You just got in troubbblllle, Cerin teased her bondmate.

“Whatever.” The dragonkin teen crossed her arms and huffed. “I’m just being the bigger person here.”

I don’t think you could be the bigger person if you tried, Cerin sighed as she raised both her back legs. Not with this rotund of a rear around, you can’t!

Marella snickered at her friend’s joke, though I just rolled my eyes and turned back to Batari.

“She is right, you know,” the white-haired Cero admitted. “I think we all know we’re lost right about now.”

“Well, yeah,” I whispered as I rested my chin against her shoulder and looked up at her with big puppy dog eyes. “But rule number one when you have a teenager around… Never let them know they’re right. Especially when they’re being rude about it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for when our child comes.” Batari nodded with a longing smile. “Though I’m not even sure if they’ll be a teenager. Or a small little creature like your children with those two Niralope women. When Tembori created us, he made us as full-grown adults, right from the start.”

“I’m sure this little guy or girl in here will start off as a baby.” I pressed my hand against Batari’s muscular tummy. “If they started off as a full-grown adult, I think you’d literally get ripped in two before you could even push them out!”

“I still wonder, though…” Batari sighed.

“There’s no need to wonder, Batari,” I promised the rhino-woman. “Before long, our child will be here, and all will be answered.”

“Maybe,” the Queen Mother chuckled. “For all I know, this pregnancy could last multiple season cycles. Or maybe it will just last a few days. This is all new to me.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s years or weeks or even days,” I promised. “We have each other, so we’ll get through it one way or another.”

I gave Batari a soft kiss on the lips, which drew an audible groan from Marella.

Seriously, it was like I could hear my daughter’s eyes rolling at that very moment.

“I wish we had some inclination as to where we are headed,” Mira grumbled as she rubbed a bit of neon sap off her spearhead. “We are quite literally wandering around in the dark right now.”

“Not the dark,” Ahwara chuckled. “I don’t think ‘darkness’ is even a thing on this island. I don’t know how anybody is supposed to get sleep around here.”

“Sounds like my kind of place,” Nadir joked as she nudged Lezan. “We could be up at any hour of the day, and nobody would even know the difference.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I noted. “I’m pretty sure it’s part of your biology that makes you be uh… What was that word again?”

“Crepuscular!” Lezan stated as she puffed out her chest.

“Right,” I continued. “I’m pretty sure your biology is what makes you crepuscular. It has nothing to do with the time you choose.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nadir giggled. “Because we can easily stay up when we’re out on an adventure with you.”

“That’s just because we love being around him so much, though,” Lezan interjected quickly. “There’s no way in a willowoak that I would stay awake through the day for Malak. Or you. No offense, Nadir.”

“I’m your leader, Lezan,” the raven-haired Coonag woman gasped. “If I tell you to stay awake, you’d better stay awake.”

“I’d do it,” Lezan clarified. “But I’d despise every second of it. And I would probably grow very, very angry with you. Maybe even to the point of insurrection.”

“That’s fair,” Nadir admitted. “I wouldn’t stay up for anyone else, either. I--”

Before Nadir could finish her sentence, a shrill, angry yell bellowed out from the neon forest, and a sudden blur of brown zipped past my right side and made a beeline for Marella. The mysterious figure went to grab my daughter, but she was more than prepared.

Marella let out a yell as she brought her elbow straight into the attacker’s face, slammed it into them with a loud crunch, and sent the blur tumbling to the ground.

Atta girl.

Once the figure wasn’t in motion, we could all see our attacker more clearly.

It was a boy.

He looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen years old, with short, spiky brown hair atop his head and a strange Robin Hood-esque brown tunic around his body. At first I thought the guy had frosted tips, but upon closer inspection, I saw his “hair” wasn’t really hair at all…

They were spines of some sort.

The kid’s face was abnormally narrow, with a round button nose that made him look like he was ripped straight out of a Dr. Suess story. His eyes were a dark brown, and his ears were large half-ovals that jutted out from the side of his skull. His hands were somewhat petite, with slender pink fingers that looked to be no thicker than a pen and sharpened nails on each one.

On his back was was a long stick that had been sharpened to a deadly point at both ends, and the strange-looking kid wore an expression of pure shock on his face as blood trickled out of his nose.

“I-I was just trying to save you,” he grumbled. “From those evil scaled beasts!”

Who are you calling a beast, string bean? Cerin growled, and the boy’s eyes widened in terror.

That’s when we heard the noises in the neon forest around us.

“What in Cacoo’s name…” Ahwara demanded as she took a fighting stance.

“We’re not alone!” I declared. “There’s more of these guys, and they’ve got us surrounded!”