Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Mar 29, 2022 18:45:19 GMT
(( A condensed excerpt from the middle of Nat's diary post for February the third: ))
Looking around, I spotted more of the smaller clams and a few larger ones closer to the broken main mast of the ship. I swam through the weeds, sparser and shorter here, stirring up a school of tiny purple and blue wrasses. The crystal clear water gave me a splendid view of the myriad of brightly colored corals, slowly crawling starfish, and gently bobbing jellyfish that were, thankfully, floating a good bit off the starboard side and not approaching us. The scene was surreal. Quiet, colorful, bright. Coral reef diving, especially along a sunken ship, is something I’ll never forget!
More barking behind me made me turn. Dordy, maneuvering well in the waterproof Dordy Bubble engineered to allow him to dive with us that I wrote about before, was looking through a hole in the rotted planks of the ship, barking like a nutter at something. He was furiously paddling to break through the hole, soon succeeding, as waterlogged and rotted as the planks were. The Dordy Bubble broke through the ship’s old hull, lifting a tiny cloud of silt, and disappeared into the dark interior of the ship. Dordy’s barking faded quickly as he pedaled quickly down into the darkness. I gave chase immediately, abandoning the pearl search for now to make sure he was okay, wondering what I might see inside the ship.
Dordy’s firelight allowed him to be easily spotted in his bubble deeper into the ship. He was growling and barking like a crazy thing at what looks like a metal gauntlet, still in good shape, crawling around on the outside of the Dordy Bubble! It looked like an enchanted gauntlet had latched itself onto the side! Dordy turned this way and that, excited, tail wagging, as he tapped his paws noisily on the glass. The weird gauntlet, whatever it was, seemed content to simply crawl around the bubble.
Up close, the mystery of the gauntlet was partially revealed. It turned out to really be a gauntlet, and a hermit crab seemed to have decided the gauntlet would be a suitable home! As I caught the bubble, the crab crawled to the other side of it from me, pointy legs clicking against the glass and clinging to the paddles. Dordy turned to me, barking and gazing at me, tail wagging like mad. He seemed to be having the time of his life! Now, up close, I could clearly see the gauntlet. It’s not all that large; in fact it looks like it was made for a smallish hand, like a child’s, or maybe a dainty little woman. The glove was intricate and beautifully made, covered in flowing lines and a mix of blue and golden metals.
But who did it belong to? The slender build and the elegant design kinda look elvish to me, and probably female. An elven princess maybe? It could be, if she were Quel'dorei; the Kaldorei haven't operated as a monarchy in eons. I don't remember any Quel'dorei princess coming this far south in my history books off the top of my head, but there is a lot of Quel'dorei history we humans don't have recorded, and the Quel'dorei lifespan is the blink of an eye to a Kaldorei anyway, only about three hundred and fifty to four hundred years... So yeah, it could be that there was an elven princess from some timeframe that we humans don’t know of, or some other high-ranking elven lady that sailed this far south for some reason…
(( End excerpt. ))