From the Depths He Comes

Dozens of people had flocked to the local abrasion coast to enjoy the evening’s sunset, just like they did every day. Basking in the beautiful scenery of the sheer cliff face that led down to the crashing ocean waves below. It was a perfect vista to look out across the endless expanse of blue sea and watch where the boarder of the horizon met the sky, where the setting sun had set the sky ablaze with the brilliant orange lights of coming dusk. The brisk ocean air, filled with the salty scent of the sea mixed with the view made it a perfect spot for couples to come for a romantic evening, or even just the casual passerby to stop and admire nature. It had even become a tourist spot, of sorts. The old lighthouse on the edge of the cliff acting as a landmark that drew people in to the viewing vistas that had been set up on the edge of the cliff, coin operated telescopes set up for anyone to look out across the sea for passing ships or the occasional surfacing porpoise.

Most of the people there were locals, who knew the scenery well enough that they came by simply to enjoy the atmosphere rather than hoping to see some interesting spectacle worthy of posting to their snapchat or twitter. Imagine their surprise and amusement when they saw the waves starting to get choppy, and a froth of seawater beginning a few hundred yards from the base of the cliff. The more ocean-savy people present realized it was unusual as there was barely a breeze, nothing worthy of causing such rolling waves as were now beginning to crash against the base of the cliff below. Perhaps a small whale or orca had swam too close to shore, and had to near the surface to take a breath. A couple of the more imaginative and hopeful tourists already had their phones out, ready to snap pictures of the incoming spontaneous sea world show they were hoping for.

What they got instead was an ebony spike jutting its way from the water at a nearly 45 degree angle. In fact, there were two of them, spaced a few yards apart. Beneath the surface of the water, between the two offending ebony spires, they could see the water taking on a darker tinted color from whatever was between the two objects near the surface. A couple of the locals felt a tiny twinge of nervousness seep through them when they realized whatever it was, was coming towards the cliff.

The real panic began when the object abruptly broke the surface of the water, revealing itself to be a head. Specifically, a Draconic head with deep blue eyes and black hair matted down to the top of its head from being soaking wet. Shortly after breaking the surface of the water the head’s lips pulled back into a grin, hints of fang showing around the edges of its lips where the lips parted. None of this would normally be too unusual, considering how many people loved to cliff dive in the ‘safer’ areas further down the coast and swam all along the cliff face. What made everyone on the cliff stare in a varying mixture of confusion, amazement and fear was not that it was just the head of some dragon swimming in the ocean. It was that the head was the size of a small boat, itself.

As the massive head moved closer towards the cliff, more of the dragon’s body surfaced from the water. First came the thick neck attaching the head to an athletically muscled torso with broad shoulders. The sight of the dragon nearing the cliff, and not seeming to be bobbing up and down like you would expect of someone treading water and slowly making their way forward further unnerved several of the seemingly frozen onlookers. It meant the dragon wasn’t swimming. He was just walking, the same way that you might in a pool as you made your way towards the shallow end. Somehow that fact helped drive home the unnaturally massive size of the dragon as he waded his way towards the cliff.

Many of those present started backing away from the railing along the edge of the cliff, a few even finding their senses and turning to simply run away. It only took about a minute since the dragon’s head emerged for him to come within arm’s reach of the cliff. For the couple of people brave enough to still be somewhat near enough the cliff’s edge to see over it they could see that right up against the cliff, the dragon was only about knee deep in the water, oddly enough dressed in a pair of blue and green printed swim trunks blown up to an absurd size to fit someone as large as him. Standing almost right up against the cliff his body from the mid chest up towered over the edge of it, leaving the massive dragon looking down at the collected masses of stunned onlookers. Some of them were familiar enough with the cliff to know it was about a 50 foot drop down to the water below, meaning that the dragon had to be somewhere in the ballpark of 100 foot tall.

One of the beast’s massive hands reached out and gripped the edge of the cliff as if to steady himself. Fingers roughly as thick around as telephone poles crashed down onto the reinforced cast iron railing lining the cliff, smashing it down into the ground as if it were made of little more than aluminum foil. The other hand reached up to comb the dragon’s fingers through his massive locks of hair, sending cascades of salty water crashing down his back and shoulders as his digits squeezed some of the water from his locks. His eyes slid closed and head tilted backwards to keep the water from running into his eyes. It was the same action any of them would have taken after surfacing from the water to push their soaking wet hair back away from their face and eyes. Though seeing hundreds of gallons of water crashing down out of his hair in the process made the difference in magnitude readily apparent to everyone there.

When the dragon’s head lowered back down his eyes opened and scanned the assembled, stunned crowd. His lips curled further backwards into a yet wider grin that showed more of his enormous fangs. That sent a few more of the people still there scrambling back for their cars. It was only when the dragon’s gaze locked on one person in particular that the masses noticed something out of place. There was still one person near the railing. The oddly colored feline was still leaning against the railing, face to pectoral with the monstrous dragon before them. And, unlike the rest of the assembled masses, the feline didn’t look scared at all. If anything he looked amused, with the way his tail flicked softly back and forth behind him and his smirk showed with how his head tilted almost straight up to look at the dragon overhead.

“There you are.” The dragon rumbled

His voice was like a rumble of thunder, comparable to when you see people driving down the road with their car stereo’s volume and bass turned up way too loud. His words were as forceful as they were loud, each syllable creating a noticeable vibration in both the air around them and ground beneath them, resonating in some of the nearby lighthouse windows and frames of parked cars. A few of those listening fell back on their asses, scooting themselves further away. Though it wasn’t certain whether they were trying to put distance between the volume of the voice and themselves, or if they were just that much more scared to see this gigantic monster could speak.

The hand the giant had on the edge of the cliff tightened its grip, visible cracks splitting open along the rocky ground beneath his fingers. Slowly his body began to lower, more and more of his chest disappearing past the edge of the cliff as he crouched down until his chin was level with the top of the cliff, muzzle directly in front of the single feline who seemed unphased by the giant’s presence. Then, of all the impossible things that could have happened with this already impossible creature, the dragon leaned in…

And kissed the feline.

Kiss being a relative word, given their disproportionate sizes. It was more like the dragon’s muzzle leaned forward and the two broad curls of flesh for his lips pressed against the upper portion of the feline that stood up over the edge of the railing. They could hear the brief sucking sound of a kiss, and actually saw the feline lifted an inch or so off the ground as that momentary suction against his torso became enough to support his entire weight. The green and black striped feline returned the affection in kind by spreading his arms wide in a clear attempt to hug the enormous muzzle in front of him, despite it’s width being wider than his entire arm span.

When the two parted their awkward and disproportionate show of affection the dragon began to stand himself back up straight once more. Again his broad pectorals towered over the edge of the cliff, blocking out a good portion of the setting sun’s light. The hand that rested on the edge of the cliff slowly turned itself over, now facing palm up as if invitingly to the green and black furred Cheshire cat. Said cat happily obliged the unspoken invite, and quickly climbed his way onto the offered organic platform. One of the dragon’s fingers curled inwards, giving the cat something to hold onto as the dragon lifted him up off the cliff effortlessly, and deposited the cat onto his left shoulder. Immediately the feline gripped against the side of the dragon’s massive neck, one arm wrapping some of the dragon’s locks of hair around his wrist as if some kind of a support grip in case he were to fall. He acted like he knew exactly how to handle himself in such a situation.

“So, what do you want to do tonight?” The dragon’s voice rumbled out once more. He couldn’t turn his head all the way without knocking the cat from his shoulder, but it tipped towards him enough to signify he was speaking to the cat specifically.

“Well. You’ve already got all these toys here waiting for you, why not start there and just see where the evening goes?” The cat replied, glancing over at the collected people before the dragon.

When the dragon’s lips spread in a wicked, almost predatory grin to match that the cat had also adopted, it finally seemed to snap those still standing around into action as they realized their predicament. As the massive dragon began to climb his way up the side of the cliff, like you might over a brick wall, those that had still been around watching the spectacle all turned and began to run, which was fine for both Dragonien and Gnarl.

They enjoyed the chase.