Of Lava and Sea
THERE WEREN’T ALWAYS DRAGONS IN THE VALLEY. Once, they dwelled only at the mountain’s peak, ten thousand glorious feet from where we called home. Up in the heavens, where the lava pool boiled, making it the most suitable place for such creatures: the dreaded lava dragons.
It was a decade prior when the magma first wound its way down the volcano’s valley like a deliberate path for the dragons to follow. The hot molten sludge cut through the land and entered our watery home violently and with violation. When the first flow of lava spilled into our sea, our two worlds collided—lava dragons and frost mermaids.
The fiery red lava turned black and hard in our ocean home. It piled on top of itself, growing and reaching out into our depths like the devil’s hands. The mixture billowed up clouds of smoke-like vapors that fogged up the blue sky. With each year that passed, we lost more and more of our precious salty sea to the hard, dark mass of land. We feared that one day the rock would be all that remains, the precious freezing water dried up and gone.
Gliding to the surface, I poked my head out into the air and watched the orange sludge once again slide its way into where it was unwelcomed.
There was a particular distance from the lava that the dragons were able to fly before they would grow too weak, plunge to the sea, and drown. I was floating just at that limit, keeping sentry. It had been months since a battle had broken out between our kinds, but you could never be too careful with those beasts.
“They won’t come back,” Relix called, and I swirled around to find him bobbing behind me. He grabbed a fish by its tail and yanked it out of the water. Blowing frost out of his mouth, he froze the fish, killing it. “I caught us lunch.”
“What are you doing here, Relix?”
“Can’t a guy just want to spend time with his mother?” he asked.
When a teenage boy wants to spend time with his mother, that raised red flags.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing. I’m just bored.”
I shook my head. “Okay.” I dove underwater, my purple hair waving behind me. Relix followed, and we swam alongside one another. “Why do you say they won’t return?”
He took a bite out of the fish’s flesh and spoke while chewing. “They retreated to their dumb lava pool and have been hiding for months. They’re too scared to show their scales around here.”
I could only smile at his mighty opinion of me. “They could be regrouping.”
“Doubtful. They’re probably just taking a lava bath and regretting coming down here to challenge the Frost Queen.”
We waved our blue tails through the water and glided toward our castle in the distance. Settled on the bottom of the sea and made entirely of ice was the place we called home. It was a gift from the Goddess of the Sea when she enchanted the frost merfolk centuries before.
“The Frost Prince put up a good fight, too.” I tousled his hair, just as I did when he was a young boy.
“Mom!” He complained, shoeing me away with the half-eaten fish.
We slowed to a stop when we came up to a group of fellow frost merfolks not too far from the surface. They bowed at me with endearing smiles. “Your majesty.”
“Thank you. My son and I are coming from—”
Boulders dropped into the water like fiery bombs, leaving behind swirling water and bubbles that blurred the sea. A rock crashed down at me, but I dodged out of its way before it could strike me. The group of mermaids scattered frantically, escaping the bombs as we swam. This had to be them, but how could they fly beyond their limit?