Chapter 10: Altair

  Edana was right, even though she was stuck up, cold, and mysterious. The Aquarium exploded in front of my eyes in a myriad of colors that I was overwhelmed with the brightness of it all. Beautiful sea creatures dotted in between the coral, and they peeped at me shyly from their little hiding places.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of him, everyone. He’s a student, just like the others.”

  A low voice rumbled behind me, and I turned around to see a huge blue whale hover in front of my eyes. My nose was literally about to touch its eye, and I backed away quickly.

  “Welcome, Little One. Are you scouting for a partner?” the whale rumbled, and I gaped, trying to get my slack jaw to work again.

  “Master Eldoris, it’s nice to see you again. This is Altair, our newest student.”

  Amber came to the rescue, and the whale nodded.

  “Well, Altair, enjoy your time here. There are many animals that like to play, since they’re all so young. May we meet again, Little Prince.”

  He swam away, sending me tumbling with his powerful strokes. What did he mean by Little Prince-

  “Master Eldoris is the eldest Elder here. He’s a century old now.”

  Amber interrupted my thoughts, looking up at him in awe. Her eyes sparkled with a joy that I didn’t see before, looking almost like a fairytale princess with all the animals that surrounded her.

  “Amber, look at what I found today!” a small bottlenose dolphin crowed in pride.

  “Amber, I can do a corkspin and a backflip at the same time now!” a small whale squealed.

  “Amber, I-” a pretty sea snake was about to say something, but Amber stopped everyone with a wave and a shout.

  “Okay, guys! I want to introduce someone to you all. He’s a new student, and he doesn’t have any friends yet. Would you like to be his friend?” she announced, and all of the tiny sea animals squealed happily.

  “Friends!”

  They all rushed toward me, and before I could get overwhelmed, Amber stepped in again.

  “Let’s all be gentle to him, okay? He just came out of the Infirmary and is still injured. He still isn’t better yet,” Amber calmly spoke, and the animals stopped in their tracks.

  “Ah, so we need to be gentle around him. He’s still a sick hybrid.”

  They all nodded along intelligently, and it made me laugh.

  “How old are they?” I asked Amber.

  “This is our second youngest bunch, so they haven’t started training to become Guardians yet. The more mature ones are at the back of the Aquarium, where their training grounds are. The Aquarium also hosts the animals’ living and eating quarters, so none of them leave this place until they are ready to be full-fledged Guardians,” Amber explained, petting a moray eel who had a content, satisfied expression on its face.

  I knelt down to face a shy seahorse and waved.

  “Hi, I’m Altair. Who are you?” I timidly asked, and the seahorse looked at me in awe and in fright.

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  “I’m Estelle.”

  She peeped her head out of the coral to stare at me curiously. She was extremely tiny, and I had to squint to actually see her between the floral coral.

  “Wow, you’re extremely tiny,” I remarked out loud, and she looked at me peevishly.

  “I will grow bigger soon,” she pouted, and I smiled.

  “Of course you will. I used to be tiny too, and look how much I grew,” I laughed, and she looked up at me in confusion.

  “You’ll grow bigger?”

  “Yeah, I will. I’m not done growing,” I winked, and she sighed.

  “Then I will never-”

  A super strong current blew her off her strand of coral, but before she had a chance to fly too far, I reached out and grabbed her.

  “That was close,” I sighed, and Estelle quickly wrapped her tail around my pinky.

  “See, I’m utterly useless. I can’t do anything without being blown away by the currents,” she sighed, and I paused.

  I even felt like that. Down here, I felt completely useless. I didn’t even know where to begin in this weird underwater world.

  “You’re not the only one who feels useless, Estelle. I feel like that too. I don’t know how to live down here, and even breathing down here is hard for me.”

  “Really? But those things are so easy for me!” she gasped.

  “Just like catching you was easy for me, living down here is easy for you. Let’s learn how to be useful together, okay?” I smiled at her.

  “Yeah. Let’s do it together,” she beamed at me, and for some weird reason, I felt like my heart was warm and fuzzy.

  She was only a seahorse, yet talking to her was more fun and therapeutic than any human conversation I had up to this point.

  “Are you having fun, Altair?” Amber grinned, and I instantly stood up, startled by her voice.

  “The animals are pretty friendly here,” I admitted, blushing.

  “I’m glad. I love talking to them. They are so wise in so many ways, and every time I talk to them, I learn something else about myself. I think that even you did that just now,” she winked, which didn’t help me stop blushing.

  “Altair is my friend,” Estelle firmly declared, and Amber smiled.

  “That’s great, Estelle. Thanks for being friends with him.”

  Amber gently took her off my finger before putting her back on her coral.

  “See you soon!”

  I waved back at her, and she flashed back happily at me.

  “Let’s play with the other animals too. There are so many that you can spend an entire day here and still not be able to meet every animal in this Aquarium.”

  Amber pulled me deeper into the forest of animals and coral, and my mouth dropped in awe. The size and beauty of these larger animals were astounding, and they moved with effortless grace in the water.

  “These animals have just finished their training and are getting ready to have partners. These will be reserved for those who are turning eleven this year, but you will have a chance to choose from them too if you want to. It just depends on who will step up and introduce themselves to you. In the Bonding ceremony, your Guardian chooses who they want to be bonded to, and then you become official working partners the moment you both agree to the bond,” Amber explained as Misty swam toward another bottle-nose dolphin that looked similar to herself.

  “Who is that?”

  I pointed toward that dolphin.

  “That’s one of Misty’s daughters, Pearl. Her eldest daughter, Noelani, was just bonded to Eir in the spring. Misty has two more children after that. Sonar and Fury are too young to be finished with training, so they’re not ready to be Guardians. Maybe you’ll find someone here, but if not, you can still wait. It’s not uncommon for people to not get partners until a year or two later.”

  Amber scratched a hammerhead shark that came up to nuzzle her.

  “Oh, and who is-”

  The shark turned away from me as soon as I opened my mouth to speak.

  “Well, that was fast. That was Hugo, by the way. He’s a bit brutish,” Amber sheepishly mentioned.

  “That’s fine. Anyway, there are many animals that I haven’t met yet-”

  I found a white snake hovering over me and I faltered.

  “That’s Snow Lily. Her mother is an Elder here too,” Amber introduced.

  The snake twirled around me, seeming to size me up. For a moment, she was about to approach me, but she shrank away and slithered from my sight.

  “Uh…”

  I hesitated, not knowing what to do, but another shadow loomed over me.

  “You’re the one.”

  The animal’s soft, low voice intrigued me, and I turned around.

  He was stunning; his hide was midnight black and had a snow white patch around his deep black eye and on the underside of his body. He had a strong, powerful tail and when he moved, all the animals backed away nervously.

  “Um… me?” I asked.

  “You’re the one that I want to protect.”