Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kra examined him for a moment, then turned to Katalina. "What does he ask?" the Kraken inquired.
Nothing, Katalina replied. He's afraid of offending you.
The Kraken's laughter rumbled slowly again. "Child, I have lived many years in this water. I have heard much. I am not easily offended. Ask your questions, and I will answer as best I may."

Katalina looked pleased. Things were starting off nicely. Kra had taken a liking to Joshua; she could tell. Even she had never made him laugh twice in two minutes. There's very little you can say that will annoy him, she assured Joshua. He's pretty easygoing, as we sea creatures go.

Kra didn't speak for a long moment, but Katalina remained relaxed on the one arm he was holding up rather like a seat. Neither seemed to know - or want to know - how to reply.

"You choose your questions well," Kra replied at last. "There were others. Once. Pieces of them have washed up on your shores, I am certain. But...time, and age, and pollution have all worked on them. I am the only one left. For now." He gestured for Joshua to come closer with the arm closest to the boy. "I will show you this. Only Sorry has seen it." Another arm rolled away a boulder to reveal a nest. Several round, jellylike things that might have been taken for fish eggs lay in it - if fish eggs ever grew to be the size of your average horse. "These are all the eggs I gathered, from all the abandoned nests. They will be Kraken. One day."

Rolling the boulder back into place, he added, "As to your ships...I did attack them on purpose when they passed here. They no longer do. Your ships held hooks and nets. They dirtied water that had to be clean for the eggs to hatch..."

He shrugged. A Kraken's shrug was an awesome thing to see. "I do not wish to be the last of my kind, and I grow old. Generally speaking, however, the Kraken attack ships when they or their grounds are threatened. And occasionally there is an accident. We see the shape blocking out the light. If we do not look closely, we may believe it a whale, or a shark, or something else edible. We do not realize our mistake until it is too late."

Katalina had drifted off the arm, and was now hovering by one of the giant creature's shoulders; it was an unmistakable suggestion of alliance. She understood his motivations very well. And she didn't know if Joshua would or could.

"You can be destructive, it is true, Joshua. But I have also seen great things from humanity. There is hope. It is my hope, as well, that the eggs grow strong," Kra agreed solemnly. "If the peace of this part of the ocean lasts, I believe they will."

Katalina looked back at Kra, half-questioning. She was surprised that the Kraken had deigned to show his eggs to a human, even if it was Joshua.

"Have you anything else you wish to know?" Kra inquired.

Joey saw Lucian blush. He wondered what for. He listened as Lucian told him what he was. "You're...a...a water dragon?!" His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He remembered his mother telling stories about dragons and he had always been fascinated by them. Majestic, kind, and powerful were some of the words his mother used to describe them. "Un...unbelievable..."

Katalina shifted uncomfortably. Kra glanced at her, and she shrugged a little. Go ahead and tell him, it's okay, she said briefly.
Kra seemed somewhat unsatisfied by Katalina's lukewarm response to Joshua's question, but he turned to Joshua nonetheless. "She has always been Sorry. You will meet very few of her friends that call her by her birth name."

He paused and looked at Katalina, almost as though saying Last chance. Katalina nodded for him to continue. "I have known Sorry since...possibly since she was younger than you. She has always been a very--" Kra seemed to stop and think. When he continued, he seemed a little disjointed, as though he were trying to find a way around saying something he didn't want to talk about. "A very solemn girl. She didn't-- didn't smile. Ever. She was...ah, Sorry. I do not have the words."

Katalina took over the explanation. I didn't smile, I never laughed, and I always looked sad. Everyone thought I had some big secret, some grief that I was keeping hidden. Something in my past I was sorry about. So they called me Sorry. I grew out of the sad-and-solemn phase, but I never lost the nickname. That's all. She smiled faintly. Not exactly exciting, as stories go. Would he buy it? she wondered.

Katalina smiled. It just stuck, she agreed. When he mentioned her name, she shrugged. Well, some do use my name - it's just not common. I'd be introduced as Sorry and so no one used Katalina.

Tilting her head, she added, And then I met you and Lucian and the rest of them. You all use Katalina. It took me a while to get used to, honestly. Wanting to get off the subject of her name, she asked, Anything else...

Kra finished her sentence. "That you would particularly like to know?"

Kra looked at Joshua, then to his nest. "For...perhaps two hundred years, they have been waiting to hatch," he replied. "They should be hatching very soon now. The young will come out ready to live for themselves. They will find other niches in the world to live in."

After a moment, he blinked at Joshua. "What do you mean, how do they hatch? It is simple. They use up the jelly surrounding them as food. When it is gone, they break through the skins that remain, and they have hatched. The eggs are soft, yes, because it is their food."