It begins quietly.
A rumble, low and heavy. Just a shudder; enough to get Helice’s attention.
Her body moves before her brain can, swimming up and then cutting through the kelp and the coral, quick to try and find the queen. She curses herself for taking a moment to be alone — she so rarely is recently, her days busy with training or meeting with the queen or being with Mesarez and Nyktos.
When she’s able to, she steals away, down into the depths of the ocean until she can feel the pressure build around her, ears pounding. Then, just as she starts to see stars, just before the pressure begins to crack her bones, she swims up: a release.
It helps remind her that though she is the most powerful in Baltia, the ocean is still more powerful. That it still deserves her respect, after all these years.
Before she can find the queen, the earth revolts.
At first she’d thought it had been an attack, but it’s clear that this is more. The whole world is in chaos: sea creatures fleeing in every direction, a cave nearby collapses, a splash from above.
When the quake stops, she swims up. She’s never been one to shy away from danger.
And when she reaches the surface, she’s disoriented. She sees the ruins, remnants of the War, but there is so much more land around it. She swims closer until her tail disappears and she’s standing on all four legs, wading. Alert.