Ottokath's Journal #18

The ocean is a violent, peaceful thing. It doesn't not wish to hurt a soul, yet it would not mind sweeping a ship of its surface. This was not such a case. And without the grace of the ocean we may have well all died. It wasn't nature that brought down our ship. The sylphs didn't sing of destruction and the undines not of the airless depths. It was rather quiet for a storm, really. Something grander was at play. The result remained the same.   My form is malleable. I can shift into creatures I am familiar with, provided their form is a thing which I can handle. I have yet to master flight, but swimming is little trouble. And squids can do a lot of things that are quite useful when a ship is sinking. It took me a while, but I did find Mutt eventually. And I could hear the spirits of the earth sing of salvation nearby. We were the last to arrive and I the only one to do so unhurt. Mutt did not make it. The undines had not taken his life, but whatever had, had done so beyond my capacity to restore. I realize I was to outlive the simple giant, but seven years truly is too short. Yet I had no time to mourn. Feyret appeared before us and I wished for no such intervention, willing him away. But there was no pushback. No will opposing mine. Nothing. I knew what this meant and it filled me with satisfaction and sadness. Buddy had to die. I conveyed this to Art. The little guy was pretending to be dead in the sand, thinking we would fail to notice his breathing. The pretense ended him as the world around him exploded. Mutt awakened next to me. I knew what that meant. I could see it in his eyes. The twinkle of fey interference. And a lack of something else.   You might consider me cruel for what I did next. I do not regret it. To me he died in the water to the unknowing depth that claimed our journey. It does weight on me though. As I plunged my knife deep into his chest and twisted the blade. I saw it then. The glimmer that was Mutt stare back at me, smile and leave.   So there we were. In the middle of the ocean, on a tiny island, with two dead companions, slain by our own hand. And the greed of humans was to blame.