Room with a View

Ellerie drifts up toward the door she pointed out as leading to the quarters and beckons me to follow. After one last look around I kick my legs and swim after her. It was odd, moving up and diagonally through the space in a straight line. A building designed for underwater use by underwater creatures meant that all three dimensions could be utilized equally. There were no stairs or ladders. Shelves, doors, etc did not have to stay at ground level. While there was gravity it could be overcome with ease. I thought that this must be similar to living in a space station.

As I get closer Ellerie opens the door into another hallway. It was a long hallway, roughly twenty foot square. Along the left and right walls were doors, five on each side, alternating between ones closer to the floor and ones closer to the ceiling. Each one had a small container near it that looked a heck of a lot like a mail box. At the far end opposite us the wall was dominated by a large elaborately carved door, a smaller one tucked beneath as part of the walls design. The whole of the end wall was painted up in a bright beautiful design not unlike a Tibetan sand mandala. This smaller door was already open and, as I let myself sink to floor level, I can look through to see Kelrak inside of the room making sure it was tidy.

“These are our quarters.” Ellerie says. “That one is the Mistress’.” She indicates the big door at the end of the hall then shifts to the open one below it. “That will be your room. It was originally servant’s quarters. That one there is my room.” She points over to the nearest door on the right wall. The door was decorated with a wreath of interlocked pastel corals. Indicating a plain door across the hall from her room she says. “That one is Stheera’s.” The next door she points at I already knew the occupant. All around the doorway are a collage of shells, corals, bones, and glimmering crystals. “Draevys.” She says, confirming my guess. She then turns to one of the nearby doors. The moment I look at it I cannot help but let out a laugh. In the center of the door was a small round hatch, another door…a doggy door! It was for Frob. “Are you okay?” Ellerie asks with concern at the sound of my giggle.

I smile and nod.

“Funny noise.” She grins back. “That is Zuko and Daera’s place.” Pointing to the next door up and over she says. “That one too. They have two suites connected. And finally, this one over here is Kelrak’s. If you ever need anything feel free to go on in. He doesn’t mind.” She says. “And that’s everyone. Home sweet home.”

I tilt my head curiously. Home sweet home? The expression was too spot on to the familiar English one to be a coincidence. Something in the magic that allowed us to communicate seemed to translate not simply the raw words but adapted the meaning to flow fluently with my native tongue, idioms and all. I look to the floating motes of light inside of their delicate glass-like bulbs and to the glimmering bits of bric-a-brac around Draevys’ door. I could see no wires or batteries or any electrical elements. I touch the torque at my neck that somehow allowed me to draw water into my lungs like air. Magic. Real magic. Or technology so advanced I couldn’t tell the difference. Either way, incredible.

Pointing to the a couple of the doors not mentioned, curious as to their occupants, I watch Ellerie’s face go glum. Her green eyes linger on one door in particular.

“There used to be more of us.” She says softly, before shaking if off and cheering up again. “And there will be again someday.” Reaching over I give her shoulder a supportive squeeze. She takes it as it was intended pats my hand. “It’s okay.”

I swim about the hall, beginning to enjoy this feeling of freedom that came with the ability to move in any direction I wished. As I move past Ellerie’s door I tread to a stop to point at the pretty coral wreath on her door and give it a thumbs up.

“You like it?” She zips over to me. “Draevys and I made it together. My twenty second birthday was last week. It is a big day for my kind, the day that signifies that I am breeding age. There was music and food, it was such a wonderful day.” She says happily and I found myself wishing I hadn’t missed it. “Do you have birthdays where you come from?”

I nod yes then point at myself and flash all ten fingers twice then five more.

“Twenty five?”

I nod.

“Ha! It’ll be nice having someone close to my age around.” She says. “Oh! I didn’t show you the best part.” She motions for me to look at the wreath again then opens the door to her room and zips inside then closes it behind her. It takes a moment but slowly the soft pastels of the interlaced coral begin to gradually shift in a dazzling pattern similar to Ellerie’s skin. After a minute she peeks her head out to make sure it was doing its thing. She points at it. “That means I’m home. Isn’t that wonderful?”

I smile and give it a big thumbs up.

She giggles. “Come on, let’s get you settled.”

Swimming back out she closes the door and leads me to the room that I would be staying in. As we enter Kelrak turns to us and bows as if we were royalty. “Ladies.” Again I am struck by the strangeness of this creature’s ‘voice’. It was so different from the others, hollow and echoing in a way that raised my short hairs. Add to this constant little clicks and scrapes of his chitinous shell in the otherwise silent water and the effect was very unsettling.

Looking about the space I see what is, in effect, an underwater version of a standard hotel room. There is a main room with a round bed, a table, a closet, a few alcoves along the walls for shelves, and a single light. All of it rather plain and drab. A door to my left lead into what I assumed was a washroom. On the roof was another door, a trap door that lead the suite above this one. The Mistress’ suite. This was quarters for a personal servant, having direct access to the master room made sense, but I did not know how to feel about having my room adjoined to that of a dangerous octopus woman. Not that it mattered how I felt about it, I was a prisoner here in the end despite the theater of calling me a ‘guest’.

Seeing me looking up at the door Ellerie tells me. “It’s locked. You can’t get through there.”

I put it out of my mind to focus on the thing that had grabbed my attention when we first came in. Behind Kelrak was a floor to ceiling circular hemispherical window jutting out beyond the wall. I swim past Kelrak, giving him a wide berth, and into the half globe that looked out to the world beyond. What I see…takes my breath away!

Stretching out beneath me and out toward a horizon obscured by a soft greenish haze are the lights and structures of a vast city. I float down to rest my hands and knees on the glass and press close to see all that I could. It reminded me of seeing Los Angeles at night from the Griffith Observatory but so much more interesting. The colors of the lights ranged the entire spectrum and, while many of the buildings were built on ground level, great orb like structures hang suspended above the city scape like Christmas ornaments. In the distance I could see ‘downtown’ consisting of enormous stone edifices with a harsh architecture of straight lines and hard angles. Off to my left, maybe forty yards away, a pair of serious looking mermen swims by with a large car-sized ray drifting along behind them burdened with a harness ladened with sacks and boxes. If they could see me, a type of creature that would surely draw their attention, they gave no indication of it. Others could be seen swimming about their daily business. I catch a moment of vertigo as I look down to see that ground level was far below me. This building looked to be built atop and within a gigantic stalagmite like spire of rock. I see more aquatic inhabitants swimming around down there, most concentrated around a multistory structure that stuck out from the side of the spire about halfway up. Was that the tavern I had heard about? I couldn’t tell from here. Directly above me was the stone surface of the underside of Nanea’s much larger room but looking out beyond that I could see a ‘sky’ of speckled lights with subtly shifting swirls of violets, greens and blues that elicited memories of both Van Gogh’s art and the Aurora Borealis at the same time.

“Woooah!”

“Nice view, huh?” Ellerie glides in beside me, joining me within the hemisphere window and attaching herself to the side as she admires the sight with me. “Nerylune is quite a city. I never get tired of seeing it.”

I continue to gawp. I don’t know what I had expected the outside to look like, but it wasn’t this.