Fire Opal – Adoption ficlet – Broken Coral AU - 2,353 words
Raphie flipped over, attempting to find a sweet spot on the bed below him. Unfortunately that meant his shell was now pressing into a stiff thing that refused to support any of his limbs, so he flipped back over onto his pastern. Beds, in Rpahies opinion, sucked ass. She wanted her hammock back. She wanted to be on the ship. At home.
Alas, none of that was possible right now with the trip inland, but it never made any of this any better. They wernt even that far inland for spirits sake, he could walk back to the ship and take a nap and be back before sunrise! However, Captain had forbid that.
Mikey snored loudly next to him, his little bird thing not at all muffling the noise of her sleeping owner.
Raphies eyes darted to the door as he heard footsteps, a tense of the mussels he hoped Mikey couldn’t feel. The door opened to Donnie, who held a candle. Its light freckles danced in the light of the warm yellows, his tattoo glowing gold.
Raphie watched silently as Donnie put the candle on the night stand between the two beds. It fumbled with blankets and settled next to Lea, whos eyes opened for only the smallest of moments. He could just barely see Aprils bonnet over Leas shoulder, only for it to disappear as Donnie layed back down.
Donnie put the candle out with prataced ease, the bed below it creaking with its added weight.
She waited. First for five, then ten minuets.
Everyone was asleep by the time fifteen passed, he could hear everyone’s breathing or snoring.
Raphie sat up, wincing as the bed groaned. He hopped off the bed, instantly more comfortable on hardwood floors then the stiff yet soft bed. A glance around the room confirmed the ‘everyone is asleep’ thing.
The window was pushed open easily, and Raphie shimmed out of the small opening with only a pause to grab his bandanna from its spot on the beds post.
The night air was wonderfully cool compared to the cramped bedroom they stayed in. Even below deck never got so warm, not unless one used the warn quilts every hammock had. And that was rare, given how close they drifted to the equator these days.
The city they had docked in was one of the busier ones, hence why they had stopped here. Captain had sent them all out to gather supplies earlier before they met at the tavern they where ‘sleeping’ in; and she had stayed to get repairers organized for the ship.
Its how he knew where the beach was.
Follow one path to its end, slide down the homemade ramp, then jump over the rock ‘wall’. Bam. A black sand beach in its own little cove all to her.
Raphie walked to the waders edge, walking just enough into the surf that his feet got covred to the ankels.
Twin moons looked down at him, one already lit red as it dipped closer to the water. The other was quiet a bit higher, shining sliver down on him.
Its why he didn’t see the shape in the water.
Well, one of the many shapes in the water. Rocks littered the area, and a few of the nocturnal animals fluttered about as they hunted or sung or whatever it was that they did. She would bet some of the mer-folk where out there too, or the silkies. This particular island had been free of Kraang for a long time, so the water dwellers had been lingering out longer and longer without hunters over their fins.
All that to say, he was startled when a shape lumbred out of the waves, fur aglow in the moonlight and dark fur making it hard to see the details.
Raphie stayed still, looking down at the beast that had left the waves without a sound.
It shook water from its fur, striking pale fur rolling down its head and spine, and dark that covred the rest of the body. There where other patches of what she could only assume where scales decorated parts of its back legs, sides and chest, its tail almost shark like and fully scaled. Horns patruded from its head, some same pale as the main and scales and others the same dark as the body.
Eyes that reflected not but the moons glow locked with Raphies, and neither moved.
She could feel the water lapping at her feet, hear some of the sea life talking to oen another, but little else cought his attention like the glowing moons.
The lower eyes blinked, and the spell was broken.
Raphie nodded to the beast, and sat in the sand, letting the water soak his pants and sand scuff ageist his scales and shell.
The beast lumbred on, going its way and leavign him alone.
Raphie kicked at the sand under foot, hand shoved in her pockets as she glowered at the dark sand that had done nothing to her.
Captain had the gall to set them back up in the tavern they had stayed last time. Damned Kraang and damned Foot for pulling up boards.
If only he had been faster, he could have gotten to that stupid canon. Bent it with the will of the lifeboat, or clogged it with seaweed like the last one. But no. She had been slow, and the ship had suffered for it.
Lea had even taken a hit upside the head, and was toughly banned from combat until Letterhead had gotten the chance to look her over. And that wouldn’t be until tomorrow at the very earliest, the day after was more likely.
Man Raphie was going to rip the head off of one of those stupid pink fish the next chance he got.
Orange and sunny gold scales met his feet, the clear water lapping over them.
Raphie startled, looking up at the beast that greeted him.
The same size as some of the canines that wandered the docks, it lay basking in the sun. Dark red fur was damp, scales along its tail trailing into mush longer pale fur along its spine and head. Its legs had lighter patches, fins patruding from the elbows. Bigger fins came from its ribs, the scales on its chest becoming a twisted and splinted horn on its neck.
Horns and big floppy ears made its head look massive, its mouth a dark green-blue as it panted. Two lightly coloured eyes and intelegetn eyes watched him. Massive easrs twithed when a bird corked on the rocks.
Raphie turned around and screamed.
Of course he couldn’t even sulk without something there to watch him!
She glanced back at the beast, who was watching him on a much higger alertness, front paws now under itself.
Raph sifted until she faced the water, then fell back onto his shell. The water came up to his waist, lapping gently at the bace of his tail, his feet almost fully submerged. Wet sand became plastred to her shell and the back of his head, moving with her body and becoming indented just the right amount.
Like those stupid beds never would.
Raphie absently felt for a stick or a good sized rock, and smoth driftwood met her finger tips. He didn’t even look at it before chucking it into the waters.
The movement must have startled the beast, as it took off for the same waters the stick had been thrown into.
Raphie glared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift past. Not quiet gray, but diffidently not white. Just perfectly overcast. It wasent even very windy making it a perfict day to get out of port and just sail. But now. They had just gotten here and the sun haddent even gotten to its highest point yet.
A rock hit the waves with a splash.
He was diffidently going to gut the next few Kraang, just to show em. No matter what job Captain set him too, that was what he was going to do. Hopefully the next voyage was a long one too, to make uup for all this bed-sleeping.
A smooth piece of drift wood hit her palm. Raphie though it, distantly hearing a splash.
At least she wasent needed for another few hours, he could do nothing on this beach for as long as no one found him.
Driftwood once again hit her palm, and she once again through it. A glint of something orange flashed in her vision, but she payed it no mind. It was the wrong shade to be Mikeys mask anyway. Or the colour of Leas scales, so he was safe. It was fine, she could sit here, and do nothing.
Driftwood hit the back of her hand as she ggrasped for a rock.
Raphie dropped the rock and grabbed the driftwood, sitting up.
The dark maroon fur of the beast was just a foot away from her, panting in the way a lot of the dock dogs did. They where dripping wet, fur plastred to scales and main flopped all to one side.
Raphie looked between the stick and the beast.
“Ya’ know what, sure.” Raphie tossed the stick
He watched the beast happily clamber after it, running on slightly uneven paws right up until it was in the water. Then it speed though the water, agile and quick, grabbing the stick mear seconds after it touched the water.
It came back, dropping the stick at Raphies side, now that she was sitting up proper.
They stayed just a foot away, feet already in the water, and front half lowered just slightly.
Raphie though the stick again.
He snorted as the thing jumped after it, a loud bark following them.
Yeah. This was better then nothing.
“All right you lil crap!” Raphie announced herself as she jumped over the rock wall, her friend suddenly alert.
The canine, or maybe more fox now that she had seen one in person, came to attention, mouth slightly open as they panted under the hot sun.
Sunhigh was just about to pass, and the hottest part of the late summer day was apon them.
Raphie almost wished he was here durring the hottest week of the summer, but the hunt had drug them a few islands over, trying to keep the coasts of this area free of Kraang after a Foot seeding mision.
So, he was making up for this by brining her pup something nice and cold to nibble on.
One of the local shops had scraps that where to be tossed, and Raphie had manged to get them frozen in the cooler on the ship, and had brought his own snack to nibble on.
Raphie tossed the thinly wrapped package of almost frozen meat at his friend, and sat on one of the rocks to eat his own frozen grapes.
The beast next to him happily tore open the package, well used to his tenancy to grab scrap for them.
The heat of the summer air wasent as bad once the frozen treats hit, and playing in the water made it all the better.
The fires burned, the splinters of an exploded ship littering the black sand.
Raphie called and called, thought horse and hands burned, scales meant to withstand the pressures of the oceans cracking under the heat of flames.
He knew he was running on borrowed time, but sprits be damned he needed to find everyone.
The water rippled with orange and yellow and pink, the sky just as a lite with flames as the battle finished.
They would never be able to come back after this. Not until Raphies scales had cracked with age and her shell had become brittle.
He had to see them one more time. He had too.
She called one more time, the creaking of burning wood making him glance up.
One of the buildings that protected the cove was falling.
Raph ran, the flames making her head dizzy as light danced off of everything possible.
Warm water his his feet right as flames hit his back, sending him tumbling into waters filled with splintered wood and jagged explosion shrapneled rock.
He moved, hoping the direction he went was up.
Her head broke the surface of the water, her lungs screaming for air that had been pushed out of them.
There was more yellow and orange and red, the sea just as a lite with it as the sky.
One arm over the other, the water soothing the splinters in her shell.
He didnt look back at the burning beach.
The sun had fully set by the time he reached the ship.
They had left, like he had told them too, headed for another one of the islands so they could drop off passengers that had once lived in the coastal city. To hopefully spread word that they had not been the ones to do this.
They had never been successful at that before.
Maybe Leatherhead and his apprentace would stay on the ship for a while.
Raph pulled up onto the bar of the ship, watching yellow and orange light fade as they got fartehr and farther away.
Her thought burned, or else he would have called out one last time. But it did. So he sat there. Numbly watching the flames get farther and farther away.
A striking fin that protruded out of the water.
One that was rapidly approaching the ship.
Raphie reached out, a furry head with glittering horns and massive floppy ears poked out of the water, light eyes reflecting off the blue of Captains lanterns.
Raphie leaned forward, a leg hooking around a hook left here for such things. With two hands she pulled the soaking wet beast out of the flaming ocean, big and heavy in her arms.
But that was fine. So long as they where safe.
No one got left behind this time.
Hi! that image probably got way washed out, so sorry! Im hoping to adopt this lil one if possible :^
other notes: Their name is Fire Opal, but is often shortened to Opal. They love to swim, and love to chase anything that is thrown. is very clumbsy outside of the water, got those big ol puppy paws they never grew out of. Will hunt for fish if someone takes em out, and will shake off extra water onto whoever is closest. Also only responds to Raphie! no one else. Splinter has a hard enough time with kids on board but now there are two unruly pets!
(if its not to much to ask, plz @ me if you respond, for some reason tumblr dosent let me know when an ask has been answered T-T)
This is amazing! I also love the art :> Opal is all yours @frogandbird
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