Ebb And Flow Quest

Song of the Abyss and Xilladenanessfeali were swimming through the oceans in the northern part of the world, when they suddenly felt a familiar pull of something calling them. It was not an animal or even another Esk - it was a quest, an adventure!

Following the call they landed on a beach with black sand. Scattered on it were a few peculiar items, all clearly not belonging there at all. Each of them tried to pull the Esk to help them, to bring them back to their home, but to the duo one of the items felt even more special than the others.

"Huh, weird. It's black rock, like the sand around it, but it still doesn't seem like it's originally from around here", Song pondered when the duo approached the wordlessly pleading stone. Its dark surface was smooth and shiny and it looked like it had been broken off from something much larger. It was a bit too large for Song to lift with their thin little arms, but fortunately telekinetic powers made moving it around still possible.

"I'm going to try to take it back to where it belongs! You wanna come with me or return some other thing to its home?" Song asked from Nessie, who answered with a non-committal groan and a telepathic feeling of them being too tired for any grand adventures right now.

"Okay then. Go take a nap or something while I'm gone."

And with that Song dove back to the waves, letting the shiny stone lead the way.

---

 

Distances in the ocean are much more vast than almost anywhere on land. As Song didn't know where they were going and couldn't therefore teleport, reaching the destination took them a good few days of swimming. The Esk didn't mind though: seas were their home and they never grew tired of their wonders.

Finally Song ended up finding where the shiny, smooth rock had come from. In the cold and dark bottom of the sea laid a very peculiar round stone formation that was clearly made of the same material as the boulder the Esk was carrying. Letting the rock's excited vibrations guide them Song tracked down the exact crevice it was from and inserted it back to its home. Immediately the call emanating from it subsided... Only to reveal another one echoing nearby.

There wasn't much to see on top of the stone formation, so finding the source of the new call wasn't hard. It came from some sort of a huge tusk, with its owner nowhere to be seen. Song had no idea how it might've been abandoned here, but at this point they had a pretty good idea of what they needed to do with it. So, after giving a last pat of goodbye to the shiny stone, the Esk picked the tusk up and started to follow the new call.

---

 

The next part of the journey took yet another few days and led Song very far north. The waters were icy and dark, even more so than usually at the bottom of the ocean, and almost devoid of life. Not many creatures had the capability to survive in such extremely harsh conditions.

Eventually Song did find the owner of the tusk, but unfortunately it wasn't exactly surviving either. It had been a walrus at some point, but now all that was left of it was a bare skeleton lying in the gravel deep under the polar ice. There wasn't anything Song could've done to help it - it didn't feel like it would've been in a need of a transformation - so all the Esk did was place the tusk respectfully back to its place near the skull. And just like previously, the current call subsided and a new one arose from somewhere nearby.

This time the one in need was a pale sea anemone that had been swept away from its base. Song had no idea what could've caused such thing, but dutifully they picked the sessile animal up and started to transport it back to its home, which seemed to be somewhere on the other side of the dark ridge just behind them.

---

 

This leg of the journey was much shorter than the previous ones. The ridge was huge, sure, but not quite the size of a continent. After reaching its peak and seeing how it started to curve back down Song also started to suspect it wasn't natural... Not exactly.

"Oh boy", they sighed and frowned when they noticed some very familiar color changes and scars along the surface of the thing. The ridge turned out to be actually the back of an enormous Esk.

The sea anemone led Song towards the sleeping head of Xilladenanessfeali. There they found more of the pale creatures, and Song lowered the one they were carrying gently to their company. Then they gathered their thoughts to a loud telepathic yell:

"Hey you old fossil! I know I told you to take a nap, but you could've at least checked that you weren't disturbing the local animals first!" Even though Song made as much noise as they could, it was barely enough to stir Nessie from their slumber.

"It's not nice to throw creatures that can't move on their own off of their habitat", they continued with some poking straight to Nessie's closed nictitating membrane, which was finally enough to make them lazily open their eyes and raise their head.

Song was prepared to continue their lecture a bit further, but a thing they saw appearing from the darkness behind Nessie's now elevated head made them halt.

"Wow, what is that?" the smaller Esk gasped and stared at some sort of floating orb of light. At first it came towards the Esk duo and then playfully gestured them to follow it.

"Come on! I'm not leaving you on your own this time!" Song said as they sped towards the mysterious sprite. After pondering it for a little while, Nessie shrank back to more manageable size and followed their ever so energetic friend.

---

 

Following the glowing orb took Song and Nessie away from the Arctic ocean, to the warmer climate of the south. Song had plenty of time to forgive Nessie's inconsiderate actions towards the sea anemones, and when they reached their destination the incident was already mostly forgotten.

The duo finally climbed back to the land on a sandy beach. It was just an ordinary one among all of the beaches of the globe, but what was on it was what took especially Song's breath away. There was a huge gathering of both Esk and orbs, all happily playing together! Even the ocean Wanderer Makoa was there, having fun like everyone else. Song hopped excitedly to the crowd while Nessie settled to the sidelines to rest and let some smaller Esk climb all over their body.

Eventually the sun started to set and most of the Esk decided to head back to their homes. Only a few were left, among them Makoa, Nessie and Song, who was now the one sleeping soundly.

"Quite a brave kiddo you've got there", said Makoa who finally had time to come hang out with his ancient friend. Song had of course told all about their adventures to him before passing out on Nessie's head.

"I would've really wanted to see them poke you in the eye because of the sea anemones!" the Wanderer continued and laughed heartily together with Nessie.

There, on the darkening beach the two old friends watched as the glowing orbs started to return to the skies. Maybe they talked about them or maybe about something completely else, but they did so in a language of the days long gone by.