Deep Stone

AnonymousFluffery, July 22, 2016; 21:15 / FB 40163
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DEEP STONE
By AnonymousFluffery

Bubbler became old enough to find his own food in the springtime, when the weather was fair. He swam out from the beach with the rest of his sea-fluffy herd every morning, showing great energy, usually leaving a track in the white sand for them to follow down to the clear blue sea.

Like so many young sea-fluffies, he was interested in exploring. Bubbler's bright red form could often be seen out beyond the kelp bed where the best eating was found, darting between the colorful coral formations, or passing in and out of the rusted portholes of the nearby wrecked pleasure craft.

Shell expected all this of the young fluffy. Shell was a seafluffy who had lived for years on this same shore, old enough for his whiskers to grow out long and white, and he knew the ways of his kind. To him, they were as predictable as the tide.

It was also how he knew what was coming when Bubbler began to focus his excursions more and more around the Yellow Rock. Sometimes he would visit it and swim in circles about it, eying it. Often he would stop to look at the pointed end, which had a hole in it that made it look different from all the flat gray stones surrounding it. In the right light, old Shell knew, it was impossible not to take note of its shape, the two depressions at the front, the four stubby protrusions beneath. Not for the first time, he wished it had fallen differently oriented, or perhaps among the coral. That might have hidden its irregular color, its shape, its telltale resemblances to what it had once been.

Wishing wouldn't help. It fell upon Shell, as the oldest of his herd of seafluffies (and the one with the closest to something resembling wisdom) to set things to rights, as he had in the past. He only hoped Bubbler, who had come of age at a dangerous time, would understand. He hoped the young fluffy would have the maturity to remember the truth when it mattered.

When they came back to the shore on yet another evening when Bubbler had spent too long with the Yellow Rock for Shell's liking, even hugging it with his forefins for a time, Shell gestured him over. They met on his side of the winding stream that let out into the cove the herd called home. The young fluffy expected that Shell wanted to play, but the old fluffy didn't rise from his favorite seat, the stone he rested on more on these days as he found energy in shorter supply.

"Sheww see you gif huggies to Yewwow Wock," the old seafluffy said. It was not a question.
"Yah, Bubbwa gif huggies!" Bubbler said, knowing that all good seafluffies are eager to give huggies whenever possible. He was flattered that someone had noticed.

"Why do dat?" asked Shell.

'Why' is an abstract question in most cases. It is not typically asked by seafluffies except for very immediate, obvious reasons. 'Why hurt fluffy?' would be the most common form, its relevance always obvious. Being asked why he had hugged a rock took at least two steps of reasoning for Bubbler to answer, and so he only responded after long and difficult consideration. "Oh! Dat cuz... Yewwow Wock wook wike fwuffy! Wan' gif huggies fow be Yewwow Wock fwiend!"

Shell heaved a weighty sigh. Well, it was as beleaguered and heavy-sounding as a seafluffy's sigh can get – their lungs might be bigger than those of their land-borne cousins, but that doesn't allow them to make sounds that are more dignified by any stretch of the imagination. After steeling himself against the emotions he knew were about to flood his tiny mind, Shell said, "Dat because Yewwow Wock... AM fwuffy."

Unsurprisingly, Bubbler's response was a stunned, "Wat?"

And so he listened as Shell began to recount his tale.

***

Shell swam alongside his best friend, and he feared nothing.

Why would he? He had never known predation, never known hunger – in his lifetime, he had never even seen a storm. If someone had told him that the occasional "sky-wawa" could come down so strongly it could hurt a fluffy, he would have thought they were being silly.
Sandy, the fluffy he spent every waking hour playing with, eating with, and hugging, would have been more inclined to believe it. She was practical like that. In fact, it was she was the one who had pointed out to him that soon – when they were old enough to do the thing properly – they should become special friends, and have babies.

Shell was excited about the thought of making his own babies, though the idea had never occurred to him on its own. And actually, he was pretty excited about everything that held novelty. When the two of them had discovered the shipwreck out past the kelp bed recently, for instance, THAT had been a banner day for him. He had so many questions. Was it someone's housie? What were the "hoomins" that fluffies told him had made it like? He wanted to meet one. He NEEDED to know about them.

So every day, after they ate, Shell led Sandy to explore the wreck. There wasn't actually much to see, but there was plenty to wonder about. Seafluffies lived in little nests made on the edge of tide pools, or on the banks of streams, or in the hollows of half-submerged logs, or beneath rocky overhangs. What type of creature lived in this strange metal housie, with such oddly-shaped things inside it? The purposes of most of them were impossible to guess.

Coming up for air, Shell didn't even wait for his friend's bright orange nose to break the surface before saying "Wet's go 'gain!"

"Nuu, Sheww!" Sandy cried in exasperation. "Sandee wan' go udda pwaces today. Wan' pway tag in pwetty wockies!"

The pretty-colored rocks that formed the coral reef were Sandy's favorite place to swim. Shell would have preferred to keep examining the sunken boat, obeying the strange fascination he felt about "hoomins"... but he could tell Sandy was tired of it for the day. And there was always tomorrow.

As they swam back to the reef, Shell considered the nature of that fascination he felt towards hoomins. It was as close as he could get to introspection using his tiny fluffy mind. Something in that mind was hardwired to obsess over these beings, to give them the affection that he otherwise lavished on his fellows.

It was what made him look back towards the boat at the fateful moment, and catch sight of a completely unfamiliar shape.

The animal he saw was bigger than any he was familiar with, because seals and large fish didn't normally travel in the shallows Shell called home. It was shaped strangely, too. Instead of the fear a common animal would experience in the face of the unknown, Shell felt intrigued. This was not least because the strange being was as brightly-colored as any fluffy, a brilliant blue that stood out even under the sunlit water.

It had long arms and legs, with feet that ended in flippers something like a seafluffy's, but black and webbed. Instead of a mane on its back, it had a strikingly yellow cylinder connected in some way to its face.

It had enormously shiny, overlarge eyes that made even a fluffy's look tiny, and they didn't even take note of Shell. But he knew, KNEW what this must be. He turned about in a hurry and began swimming frantically towards it. Sandy only belatedly noticed and followed, confused.
Shell approached the hoomin, all smiles and extended flippers. "Nyu daddeh!" he said from some place of carefully-installed instinct, not quite understanding what it meant or why he was saying it. But the words felt right, even if underwater they just came out as meaningless bubbles that the human paid no mind to.

Shell now saw that real eyes were behind the shiny goggles the hoomin was wearing. They were scanning the wreck, but they had no interest in Shell or Sandy. Shell ignored that the hoomin seemed not to be there for him, cheerfully giving the arm of the diver a hug.
Shell reeled in the water, struggling to reposition himself after the human shook him off. Imagining that this was some form of play, he eagerly reached his fins out to hug again, only to find that the human was ascending with measured strokes towards the surface.
Shell followed the human. Sandy followed Shell. Both seafluffies were completely surprised by what they were seeing as they rose up. Not far off, there was a great shadow on the surface of the sea, a shape obscuring the sun. The human moved to meet it, hands reaching out to touch it.

As they surfaced, the two seafluffies saw the hoomin pull off his diving mask, spit out his regulator, and began shouting as he gripped the side of his boat. They recoiled in the face of his fury.

"Can't dive for TWO MINUTES without fluffies bothering me! Come down to the Carribbean to not have to deal with this kinda thing, but NO..."

Sandy was frightened by his voice, scared enough to backpaddle slightly. Shell felt a bit of the same fear, but his curiosity outweighed his nervousness.

"Hi, nice mistah!" Shell announced. "Fwuffy name am Sheww! Dis am fwiend Sandee! Wan pway wif fwuffies? Gif huggies?"

The hoomin glowered at Shell, then took hold of the ladder on the side of his small watercraft and climbed in. Shell, confused, tried to follow, but he barely had the ability to grasp one of the rungs, let alone climb. "Sandee, pwease hewp Sheww cwimb thingee! Wan' see nice hoomin mista!"

Sandy made an effort, though of course it was impossible to paddle properly while lifting Shell, so all that happened was that they both slipped back into the sea. The hoomin reappeared a moment later, dumping seawater out of one of his rubber flippers, which he had removed. Shell was astounded by that trick.

"Hoomin!" said Shell, "Nyu daddeh! Sheww haf finnies too, see?! Pway wif Sheww! Haf swimmies an'--"

Shell sputtered as the human dumped out his other fin on the fluffies' heads. Then the seafluffy laughed his squeaky laugh. "Nyu daddeh play spwashies wif fwuffies! Yay!"

"Shut up and get lost," the human hissed, his gray brows furrowing. "I'm here to wreck dive on my vacation, not dick around with pests. Since when are you vermin even in these waters?!"

"F-fwuffies a'ways be in wawa," Sandy offered with a trembling voice. Even facing growing fear, she couldn't look away from the human, her inborn instincts to be a pet forcing her to give him all her attention. "B-buh wiww weave wawa, if can be wif nyu daddeh!"

"I'm not your daddy," said the human. "And I DON'T want you with me. Stay AWAY from me. I'm the only one who knows this wreck is here, I want to come here and enjoy my hobby. Alone. PERIOD."

Shell shook his head. "Daddeh jus' gwumpy. Sheww an' Sandee gif huggies, make bettah! Bwing fwiends fow pway bestest games!"

"Oh, screw that..." the human mumbled. He disappeared from the side of the boat for a moment, putting something down, and soon was back, reaching down into the water and gripping a seafluffy in each hand.

"Yay, daddeh-upsies!" Shell said, feeling a sense of fulfillment he had never known himself capable of. The wonder that he'd felt before was finally being satisfied, and it was somehow more exciting than he had imagined. He wasn't able to jump out of the water nearly as high as he was being lifted now! The sensation of being dropped unceremoniously to the deck of the little watercraft barely dampened his mood.

"I'm REALLY serious," said the man, cracking his fingers. "I don't like abuse. But I know it's the only language you understand apart from friggin' hugs."

"Wat ab-yoos?" Shell asked, waggling his tail. "Is game? Sheww and Sandee bwing fwiends fow gaem?!"

"Mother of a fuck," mumbled the hoomin. He looked down at the fluffies. "How many of you things are there around here, anyway? Living near my favorite wreck, of all places?"

"Wots fwuffies hewe!" Shell squeaked joyfully. "Wots nyu fwiends fow nice hoomin daddeh!"

The hoomin groaned with exasperation, then he reached into an open cooler and pulled out a Red Stripe. He shook off a few ice chunks that clung to the bottle, and both fluffies admired the beautiful, shiny substance as it skittered across the deck. Neither had ever seen ice before. They immediately began playing with the largest piece, sliding it back and forth and enjoying the way it glittered like light through the waves did, but made solid and crystalline. "Daddeh gif toy!" laughed Shell. "Sheww an' Sandee am' bestest fwuffies!"

"Wuv toy," Sandy agreed, slapping the ice with a fin and giggling as it spun and glinted.

"They're even dumber in the ocean," said the hoomin to himself, taking a much-needed swig of his beer. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking, and then pointed at Shell. "You're the talkative one, huh?"

"Sheww wuv tawk!" Shell agreed. He was eager to impress what he saw as his new owner. "Sheww kno wots wowds! 'Nummies,' an' 'huggies,' an' 'wuv...'"

"Shut your fucking mouth, or I'll cut your fins off, throw you back in, and let you drown," said the hoomin.

Sandy's head cocked. She was abruptly shaking. "Nu wike meanie wowds..."

But only she took the time to think through what was being said. Shell was too busy getting ahead of himself, as ever. "Daddeh, pwease nu be meanie to fwiend an' Sheww! Daddeh angwy? Dat siwwy! Fwuffies wuv 'ou! Haf saddies? Den gon' bwing aww fwiends an' gif huggies 'tiw daddeh happy!"

"Listen to me, motormouth--"

"Fwuffy name am Sheww, siwwy daddeh! Hehe!"

"Okay, Shell. I want you to watch what I do now VERY carefully."

Shell could tell something was going horribly wrong just an instant after it did. The way the hoomin picked up Sandy this time was not right – he did it by one of her rear fins, pinching it and then lifting her by it. The sensitive membrane twisted between his thumb and forefinger and Sandy whined in protest. "Bad upsies!" she said. "Why huwt Sandee?"
The hoomin ignored that and walked over to a footlocker, pulling it open with a clatter. Shell waddled over the wet deck after him, stammering. "Pwease daddeh, dat gif huwties to Sandee! Sandee am gud fwuffy!"

"I know it hurts her, you irritating little fuck. I asked you to leave me alone. But you don't understand words, even though you use them. So I'll help you figure this out another way."

The man pulled a large bucket out of the locker, and with one firm hand, popped its lid. A strong, plasticky odor came from within. He held Sandy over it, and the little seafluffy coughed at the unfamiliar, penetrating aroma.

Shell didn't understand the concept of a bucket full of noxious chemicals, but he knew that coughing was what happened when a fluffy had water in its lungs and couldn't breathe. It was a bad thing. "N-nuu, daddeh! Fwiend nu can bweave!"

"Shut up and watch."

A putty knife came out of the footlocker, and without wasting a moment the man was scooping globs of yellow goo out of the tub and slathering them on Sandy's body, starting from the tail and working his way forwards.

"Hewp! Hewp!" Sandy yelped. "Nu wike dis game!"

"Know what this is?" the man asked. "Of course you don't. Let me explain; it's Stay-Afloat. This is what you use to patch a hull puncture. If this stuff had existed when that old boat down there started going down, maybe it'd still be up, huh?"

"Sheww nu unnastan'!" Shell said urgently, waddling back and forth with nervous energy. "Jus' wan' hoomin' tu nu huwt fwiend! Sandee am gud fwuffy! Sandee am gun' be Sheww speciaw fwiend!"

The diver paused. He looked at Shell. "No, she's not."

Then he slapped a huge gob of goo onto Sandy's hindquarters and jabbed it a few times with the sharp edge of the putty knife.

"AAAH! OWWIES!" Sandy screamed as she felt all her lower extremities being prodded and packed with gunk. "Speciaw pwace owwies! PWEASE nu huwt Sandee nu mowe! PWEASE!"

Finally, the severity of the situation began to dawn on Shell. Showing admirable bravery – or more likely, a complete misunderstanding of his own power – Shell charged. His dearest friend was being assaulted. His flippers began striking the human's leg insistently, then violently, while he begged until he was gasping. "Nu gif Sandee huwties! Yu nu nyu daddeh! Yu munstah hoomin! NU WIKE YU!"

"You can't hurt me, fluffy," said the man. "So just watch."

Shell understood the truth of these words when he found that he didn't have the strength left to keep battering his foe, and yet had done no damage. In terror he went limp, unable to look away as the goo enveloped his friend's back, her fins, under her chin.
"Say goodbye to your friend, shitrat," he said passionlessly.

"Sh-Sheww!" Sandy said, eyes squinting against the stinging goo that was slowly dripping into them. "Sheww! Sandee wuv yu! Pwease hewp San--"

That was when the man slapped a layer of sealant over her mouth, and Sandy spoke no more. When she tried, the substance bubbled, but did not break. After only a moment's further work, everything but one of Sandy's eyes was caked over thoroughly. It looked around frantically, locked on Shell's-- and then the man was swinging the dreadful shape over the side, dangling it where Shell could see and laughing.

That laugh was the first sound the hoomin had made that had any joy or playfulness in it. And yet, in a way Shell couldn't have quantified, it was not a friendly sound. It was worse than any mean word or angry yell.

Sandy's body fell into the water with a splash, and Shell found that he was using what strength he had left to scuttle to and fro, eyes scanning for a way out of the boat. "Sandee! Sandee! Sheww comin'! Gon' gif huggies an'--"

Shell's vision went white as a slap in the face stunned him, and then he felt the sensation of being lifted by the human again – this time, though, it was by the neck. The human's grip on his throat was so tight that he couldn't inhale or exhale, just as if he'd been underwater too long and needed badly to reach the surface.

Over the thunder of the blood collecting in his head and pounding in his ears, Shell heard the human's voice, louder than ever before. "Tell EVERY one of your shitrat friends that if they come and bother me, I'll kill all of them in ways worse than your idiot brains can imagine. I'll find your family, your friends, your babies, and I will hurt them before I kill them. I promise." Shell sputtered in the attempt to speak, to say whatever the hoomin wanted, no matter what he asked. The hoomin didn't seem to care whether shell said anything or not. "In the future, if you forget, just look at what's left of your friend. That should remind you."

Shell had never hit the water so hard before in his life as when the hoomin threw him into it. It knocked what little air was left in his lungs out of him, and he nearly sucked in seawater while attempting to right himself. But the moment his head had cleared and he was able to right himself, he saw something through the water that made him force a great gulping breath and dive.

Sandy was sinking. She wasn't flapping her fins to dive, but dropping like a rock – and when he tried to hug her, to give her back her strength, he found that she was as hard as one, too. The thick, heavy sealant she was covered in had stiffened as hard as stone on contact with the cool seawater.

She came to rest on the flat, scratchy rocks of the sea floor. Shell couldn't understand why his hugs weren't helping, and was growing ever more horrified at his inability to fix her. Front, back, and sides, he hugged with his tired fins. He tried biting the stiff substance off, then apologized for biting Sandy, even though he knew that there was no way she would be able to hear him underwater.

Sandy's one uncovered eye was still wide open, trembling and blinking rapidly. It stayed focused on Shell as he pleaded uselessly, unintelligibly, for her to swim up, to get air. Even Shell could understand that Sandy needed to rise to the surface right now if she wanted to survive.

"Pwease swimmies home wif Sheww," he wanted to say. "Sandee am Sheww bestest fwiend. Wan' go home an' haf huggies wif Sheww, an' pway an' be happeh 'gain. Wan' be Sandee's speciaw fwiend an' make gud babbehs, be daddeh an' be happeh. Pwease come swimmines wif Sheww, Sandee..."

But when he tried to speak was all useless burbling she couldn't understand, and just expended his air faster. Hating himself, Shell hurried back to the surface to refill his burning lungs. By the time he dove back to the easy-to-spot yellow-orange shape of Sandy, her eye had closed forever. No matter how he pleaded with her to move, or begged for forgiveness, or even threatened to stop being her friend, Shell could not make her wake up. She was no longer any more alive than the natural stones around her.

She was just a yellow rock. Forever.

***

Bubbler was silent, in awe. He couldn't find words, not to ask an explanation, nor even to offer condolences. He had never imagined such things as he had heard of in the old seafluffy's frightening tale.

"Evwy wawm time, befowe sky-wawas come wots, hoomin come back," said Shell. "An' Sheww a'ways twee evewyfuwwy tu nu go by hoomin. Hoomin say he wan' gif foweva sweepies to aww fwuffies. Hoomin wawn Sheww. If Bubbwa see hoomin, Bubbwa wan' go by him suuuu much... dat how fwuffies be. But nu do!" He shook his head slowly, tired from talking so long. "Nu do."
Shell looked away, worn-out from his recollections, ready to rest. He left Bubbler alone on the sand, looking tired himself, as well as conflicted and afraid. The young fluffy's weak mind had a great deal to work out.

***

In the days that followed, Bubbler still swam to explore – but never by the shipwreck again. And the one time he accidentally came in sight of the Yellow Rock, he swam away from it in fear, in a manner that surprised the fluffies who knew him. Now he'd become more interested in the bright coral beds, the boulders covered in barnacles, the places where the starfish lay thick on the sand. In being scared into giving up his old pursuits, he had been driven to new ones.

On one of these occasions, Bubbler encountered his first horseshoe crab. He had thought it a mere pile of mud until it surprised him by sprouting legs and then skittering away. Its silly appearance made him laugh and give chase. "Nu wun, wots-weggies-fwiend!" he said in a stream of air that did not make sense to any listener. "Bubbwa nu am meanie!"

Without knowing it, Bubbler followed the horseshoe crab around the kelp that was the best eating, onto the flat rocks. Back to his old haunts.

It had been several dark-times since he had heard old Shell's story, so he didn't suffer panic at the realization. But he was uneasy enough that he decided it would be best to go back right away.

That was when Bubbler saw it. A strange shape, mesmerizing in its movements – brighter blue than the surrounding water, with a yellow cylinder on its back. It was descending towards the wreck.

Bubbler bit his own lower lip. He knew, after a moment astonished bewilderment, what this was. He knew that this could only be the hoomin that had turned a poor fluffy into a yellow rock, and threatened all the others with a similar fate.

Awe of its fascinating power made him tremble. Bubbler had faced bad dreams about the Yellow Rock at night, recently. He had a hard time remembering them, as he had a hard time remembering just about everything, but he knew that as long as the Yellow Rock was still there, he would be afraid to swim certain places, be haunted by the knowledge of its unsettling origins. In that respect, it certainly served its dreadful purpose.

But that was when Bubbler got an idea.

Bubbler would simply explain to the hoomin that the Yellow Rock was too scary, and that he had frightened Shell, and was now frightening Bubbler. A hoomin wouldn't have intentionally been a meanie, he could feel that, with a certainty as deep as the ocean – hoomins were meant to give fluffies love and hugs. That was what was supposed to happen.

Maybe, Bubbler thought, he could even convince the Hoomin to use his strange magic to turn the Yellow Rock back into a fluffy. That would make all the other fluffies happy. That would set everything to rights!

Excited by the prospect and pleased with himself for thinking of it, Bubbler began swimming towards the shipwreck, to meet his new hoomin friend.