Chương 339: 6.6

After her second day of travel by barge, Jewel had enough! Gem's stomach had finally settled, but her Wyrmself was so awkward, heavy, and precarious while floating on a boat, on the water that she could no longer stand it! So she swam. All three of her eggs and her harnesses were stowed securely under guard by Smithson, Gem, Paul, Muriel and half a dozen of her best footmen. So Jewel was bereft of any garment or garb that might catch or be rendered sodden by the Vah.

She'd had some trepidations about it after her experience stumbling into the Vah in pursuit of the bandits last year. But even then after she'd stopped panicking it had not been that bad! The hardest part of getting out of the water was learning that when she was submerged in the Vah that Jewel absolutely should not, under any circumstances, use any of her wyrmflame to lighten the load of her body. The urge to do so was strong, something she did with barely any thought, but what made for a graceful bound in air?

Well she was glad she knew from that embarrassing and unwitnessed experience what would happen. As any wyrmflame in her coils caused Jewel to tumble and roll helplessly in the overwhelming currents like a drunken sash! But once she mastered her instinct to fill her flesh with wyrmflame? Swimming was actually incredibly pleasant! It was like bathing in cool water, and yet entirely not. Even in the bathhouses Jewel could feel the confines and have to take care how she extended herself or her limbs.

But in the waters of the Vah? Wide and deep as it was? There was actually room for her to stretch, to flex, to outright frolic in the water! It was delightful and bizarre all at once. And absolutely in every way superior to trying to balance herself on the ever shifting, always on the verge of tilting over sensation that she had while on the barge!

On the way south from Kliatbatrn she had filled herself to so much flame she had to grip onto the wooden deck of the barge out of fear of either floating away or sinking the entire vessel with all of its cargo and passengers! But in the water? With it practically singing jovially and rapidly past her? With a memory that was in such a rush it simultaneously was entirely absent of thought and consideration and yet filled with a whirling unending brush of 'impression' from hundreds of miles of banks and currents?!

The Vah was alive and it danced with Jewel even as it surrounded her! And now learned in its ways from her practice last year (stumbling and struggling to move while being barreled over by it) Jewel could dance with the Vah! The currents of the water washed over and around her in a torrent of contradictions, fluid and stable, young and eternal, thoughtless and incredibly wise. All of them were true in the waters of the Vah and where before she had been caught up in all that she could not sense within it. Now?

Now Jewel reveled in everything she could! It was almost difficult to remember to breach the surface of the vah beside her party's barge and spit up the waters from her lungs. Shake and flick the rush of it from her ears. Dry it from her eyes.

"Having fun, dear?" Paul called out to her from his place in the middle of the barge. Jewel could not hold back the laughter and joy in her voice as the cool water flowed around her, it was oh so much like flying now that she was not trying to force herself to float! If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Very much so! I'd say you should join my husband, but I think it's probably a bit cold for you." Gem walked tentatively to the edge of the barge and Jewel swam in a sinuous motion with the currents of the Vah to join her. Memory and experience blending when she was finally close enough to the vessel their thoughts crossed. Yes, with the context of her smaller self's sensitivity to the crisp air it would be a terrible pain to be soaked through by the river.

However they could not stay in contact, just that moment away from the eggs was certainly letting the wyrm flame drain away! Jewel pulled the slightest hint of flame to just her chest and neck, enough to make her bob alongside the barge in its journey south and then balance her neck out of water so that Gem could brush her nose with her finger tips. Just that enough to refill her smaller self's flame.

Then her smaller self hurried back to the center of the boat so she could catch and cycle their flame through the eggs. Jewel glanced at Muriel and Smithson at their posts around the most precious of their cargo. Offering a command loud enough to be heard by the entire barge.

"I think I shall swim along till we stop for the night. The Vah is very refreshing." And then she was down and below again, exhaling the air from her lungs and pulling in the cold waters. Tumbling over herself under the barge. Catching Gem and her two other spawn in their eggs in that strange envelope of her presence. Simply sharing the feel of it all with all of herself. The current of the river coursing around and with her as much as her own blood did. As more than her blood even!

Flowing like the endless flaring presence of her Wyrm flame. Rushing along her coils. No longer flaring to the fore as she did not wish to be lightened to the point the river overpowered her. But present all the same. Cycling through her Wyrm self and Gem and the Eggs. And out through the world itself. The Vah was alive, more than just the things that lived within it. More than the plants and the fish and the crawling things and all the rest she could feel but not see. Sense but not understand. Taste but not know.

No it was alive the same way the wind and stone and world all around her always is. But where the wind was so ephemeral that it held barely a thought. Where the stones were so slow and slow to change you could miss their thoughts in the gradual grind of it all. The Vah? The River of Viznove? Was vast, turbulent and slow and changing and static. It was all of those things and in them somehow so much more undeniably alive. Not any one part, not any single rivulet or current. But all together.

With Jewel running and winding along it, almost like just another current of its greater flow. It was so beautiful down here, even as the water was murky and dark and hard to see even for her eyes. The sound and presence of it all. Why had Jewel never swum in the river before?! She didn't want to leave the enthralling dance and embrace of the waters when they finally reached their port for the night. But Jewel could not deny her duties or her family and friends.

Gem had assured her council from her place nestled between the eggs that her 'mother' was with them and not being left behind. It was so tempting to simply stay here in the current of the water, let it wash through her all night, all day, to simply let the waters rush around her for seasons! But they were unpacking the barge for their stay in Fishwell. An entire day on the river and it was gone in a flash, in a moment, in a neverending eternal now!

Jewel leapt from the water onto the dock, water peeling off her by sheer will. Keeping the water in controlled rivulets that slid from every scale and strand of hair in her mane. Not a drop errant to land upon her party or the gasping onlookers stepping back from her sudden emergence. Jewel splayed her wings and took up a pose. Settling into all her practiced poise and posture, surveying her subjects with the calm eye to let them know she was acknowledging them as their countess.

although what should have been a serene smile was refusing to remain small and demure, instead cracking open with the delight that still bubbled up from her swim that day. Her voice equally coming out far more exuberantly then she would normally take.

"Greetings Fishwell Bend! It is good to see you again!"