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Dagiel returned from Sanctuary, his face a mask hiding his expressions behind a blank smile that in no way lit his eyes, where it seemed like dark pools were churning behind his green eyes.

Kat paused at his door, Dagiel had gone straight to his room and closed the door as soon as they'd been brought back. He'd requested to go to Sanctuary to have Kappa and himself split, but on further discussion he seemed to back track and then came to the conclusion he simply wasn't ready to even try and refused. His body reactions while he was speaking still confused Kat, he seemed to not always be in control of his expressions. Sometimes he looked furious and then the next second sad and his face kept changing like a silent pendulum until one side won; the sad side. And then his tone changed when he spoke almost as if he'd just gone flat. He'd said, 'And that's that then.' and nothing more as he walked out of the room they'd been in leaving Kat looking confused and concerned. She'd tried to coax words from him when they arrived, offering to cook him something anything he wanted but his dead eyed expression hadn't changed he'd just walked into his room and closed the door; and here she stood staring at the wood her own face wrought with worries.

---

Dagiel sat on the edge of his bed, silent hot tears were running down his face. He was running through his mind the last things Kappa had said to him, she was so mad that he'd denied her freedom she couldn't see his pain only her own. She'd yelled and had a fit and if anyone could have heard it they would have been shocked; but it all happened inside his head where no one but he could hear her cutting words. He was just a cowardly little boy after all then. She said 'Fine.' and then he felt a movement in his head, like a pressure change and where he used to feel Kappa he no longer could her thought's cut off, severed like she'd just pulled a plug and in the process a hole opened up like a yawning darkness and engulfed Dagiel's mind. It was like a wave of numbness washing over him, his bright colours of his skin no longer matched his interior feelings. He usually felt bright and bubbly and full of laughter brimming at the surface but now, it dawned on him that after everything, Kappa just turned her back on him and left him all alone after all.

He curled up on his bed, bringing his knees to his chest he reached his mind out to try find Kappa but found silence. He could no longer sense her exactly, she'd just seemed to completely cut his mind from hers, how? He buried his head into his knees that were pressed firmly to his chest as his arms wrapped around them. He wished the black hole inside his chest would just open up and consume him he didn't want to be alone in the dark and she left him, how can a friend do that?

Eventually he drifted off into a restless sleep, the nightmares that Kappa would usually wake him from plagued endlessly. He was trapped all alone in Haven again it went on for ever, even if he woke in the darkness around him he couldn't tell what was real. His dreams shifted to running through a forest, running he couldn't look back, ahead was a kid.
"No" he moaned in his sleep and thrashed around unable to wake, the boy was just sitting there in a clearing with mushrooms all around, it was so familiar but yet the background around him was changing and the rate at which Dagiel was running in his dream changed with urgency, "I'll save you!" he yelled out in his sleep, but in his dream his feet seemed sluggish. He was getting frustrated the harder he ran the slower he seemed to be going, and then it happened a sword suddenly went through the kid right in front of his eyes blood splattered out everywhere and covered Dagiel.

He screamed and suddenly sat up in bed still screaming, "Ahhhhh" he was covered in something, blood? He couldn't comprehend anything there was no soothing shushes from Kappa but he was sure he was covered in blood. He started hyperventilating and crying and in the darkness of his room he swore he could see that he was covered in blood.

Kat sat up straight, she'd fallen asleep in an arm chair worried about Dagiel, something had startled her awake, again she heard the noise's Dagiel was screaming? She rushed into his room and opened the door, he was sitting on his bed staring at his hands, his panicked 'Ahhhh ahhhhhh' between breaths startled Kat and she flipped on a light. "Dagiel?!" She said as she rushed to his side, "It's just a bad dream honey, your safe." She said as she reached to brush his hair from his face.

Dagiel was blinking the light started him but he couldn't calm down, he was staring at his hands he could both see and not see, half of his mind re-creating the image of blood on his hands but the rest registering he was once more saturated in sweat, as Kat reached for him he flinched away making her hesitate before she continued her motion to soothe him. He managed to gurgle his cries into sobs, "He was just a little kid mum." his voice managed to choke out between his sobs, his heart still racing; no wonder he felt like he was running.

Kat pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around him as if he was her own son, "Shhhhh, it was just a bad dream." She repeated trying to soothe him.

Dagiel shook his head and whispered, "It was real." A fresh wave of shakes set in as he trembled in her arms, he never told her the whole truth; he never told her the whole truth. He buried his face into the soft fur of her shoulder and hugged her back wishing he could take back everything that had happened, he knew there was nothing he could do to change things now though. After some time with Kat cooing what ever she thought of as soothing things to say he sniffled and pulled away looking gloomy, "Do... do you mind if I go for a swim?" He asked her.

Kat nodded, "Maybe that will help?" She said hopefully.

Dagiel slid off his bed, "Thanks mum." he whispered and without a second look back at his now damp bedding and walked off out of the room. Kat busied herself stripping his bed and washing everything and then remaking it while he was gone trying not to think to much about what he'd said, it was just a dream, right.
---

There, Dagiel thought to himself as he finished drawing.
He'd scrawled a map of the caverns he was living in, some were underwater he tried to indicate the ones submerged with lighter shading on his scrap paper.
It was crude but if the person he intended found it he might make sense of it.... Maybe he'd gone mad?
He had started losing his marbles slightly.
He'd ask Kappa every day if she would speak to him, and every day so far her received nothing but silence.
He looked at his paper in his hand and flipped it over, he'd etched down his location before turning his phone off to reserve battery, he'd now written that on the back of the crude charcoal map with his basic instructions. He wondered if it would reach anyone at all or end up lost at sea forever.
It wasn't like he couldn't just go back... He wanted to... Kat was probably worried sick about him... He wondered if any of his friends he'd made at Sanctuary wondered where he'd gone...
They probably were so busy they'd forgotten he existed anyway.
He sighed and rolled the paper up.
He wondered what he was doing with his life... Wallowing in self pity?
Probably.
He'd been trying to keep himself busy by sorting the items he'd found here, it had been a task with the under water objects, moving them carefully into piles of what was damaged and what wasn't and trying not to add to the damaged pile in the process.
The levels above the sea water were dry but slow going, there were cave ins that prevented him from entering some spaces and some tunnels that seemed to keep going forever. He was worried about going to far up one of those tunnels and having a rock fall trap him somewhere alone that he hadn't gone further into the tunnels to see where they lead.
Dagiel had assumed that the cliff probably didn't exist years ago, or if it did maybe the ones who made it weren't aware how close to the water they'd dug their tunnels.

He slotted the rolled paper into a bottle and secured the lid, he sealed it with some drips of wax from some ancient candles he'd discovered in the dry levels. He'd go for a swim later and let it loose in a current back to the mainland, if it hits the right currents it could land anywhere between Iss Banor and Port Arlye and if it hit the wrong currents land on Verem Island and be useless to him.

The days had blended into weeks, time seemed to be passing with little improvement on the way Dagiel was feeling. Kappa had refused to talk to him since they found out there was nothing they could do about the situation they had to help. She believed there was and that they weren't giving them the full truth, either way she'd refused to talk to him since no matter what he tried to do.

Dagiel had been preparing for a day of underwater exploring, the only thing he could think of that might bring Kappa forward. Each time he explored somewhere new he'd feel a stirring from her, so he was determined to see what it might take to bring her back to talking again. "You ready Kappa? We'll go check out that deeper water today." He'd taken to speaking out loud to break the silence that never seemed to end and waited, nothing… hmpf… "You have to talk to me again one day you know." He said with a frown, "I'm not going back till you do…" he'd made the decision he wasn't going to the mainlands just yet like he'd thought about it…. He felt like he was really close to making her resurface and talk to him again and this was the only way he could think of.

He dived into the water at the edge of the underwater cave, swimming under the swirling waves that crashed against the cliff face above. He was aiming for the deeper waters he'd seen, he had been scoping them out since he'd seen that large shadow out in the distance that had been moving. He hadn't seen it again since so maybe it was some kind of water animal? He was now curious to see if there were larger animals swimming in the deeper waters that don't usually venture out into the shallower areas. The visibility and colours under the water varied, sometimes it was clear and he could see a bluish hue others it got murky and green. But the deeper waters that he was aiming for were dark, almost foreboding, he got the chills just wondering how deep it really went.

He came to the drop off, as he referred to it.
The land that he'd been swimming just above just suddenly dropped deeper into the almost inky blackness of the deeper water. He wanted to swim out there and see what he could find bit he was still feeling rather apprehensive about not seeing what he was swimming into, 'You ready?' he asked Kappa mentally, but really it was for himself, she didn't even twitch. He wondered if maybe she didn't believe he was actually going to do it this time.

He'd show her, and like that he dived down following the edge of the underwater cliff face downwards. It got darker and darker the further he dived until he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He'd kept one hand carefully trailing down the side of the natural wall to make sure he didn't go too far away from it but now he was feeling nervous again, he swore he just felt the water under him *move*.... He hovered in the water looking down, squinting into the gloom. He knew what underwater currents were, he'd haf plenty of experience and he didn't want to be caught up in on down here. Who knew *where* he'd end up in the darkness.

Instead of going further down he started swimming along the side of the wall, his fingers trailing along the wall dislodged small rocks and dirt sending them swirling and drifting into the water below. At one point he came across what felt like a loose rock so he carefully pushed it off the ledge and listened for its fall to land on the ground below… minutes seemed to pass and he never heard any noise he could confidentiality agree was the sound of a rock landing underwater. Odd…. He should have heard the soft thud as it hit the bottom… Unless it goes down a lot further than he'd initially guessed? It could have, there was no way to see the bottom and he definitely wasn't game enough to find out how deep it went on his own.

He continued swimming along and once more the waters beneath him seemed to move…. Strange…. It shouldn't be shifting the way it was… He was still and squinting into the darkness, was something out there he couldn't see?

He was about to move forwards when the darkness beneath him moved.
He froze.
It did, didn't it?
'Am I seeing things? Or did that move?' he asked Kappa, typically no response, not even as a bubble of fear started rising in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to come out here….
He still had his hand on the rock wall beside him, carefully he scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it into the water below him tensing ready to react.

The dirt drifted downwards, but Dagiel didn't even have to wait long. Almost as if the drifting dirt was a trigger the mass of darkness seemed to heave upwards, at speed. He didn't even wait to see what it was he shot upwards swimming as fast as he could towards the direction he hoped was the surface, with the dark mass right on his tail. He couldn't look back his heart felt like it had leapt up into his mouth and was going a hundred miles an hour, as he swam as fast as he possibly could out of the dark pit.

He had been lucky enough to be swimming along the wall so he knew which was was up but in his current form of Xana wasn't going to give him much distance between himself and that speedily moving blackness. He didn't even have to consentrate he'd shifted into his water dragon form and put on a burst of speed as he looked behind him.

"???????????" He made an unrecognisable noise and bubbles escaped his mouth, behind him was a mamoth sized leviathan! It's jaws were wide open as it lunged after him, it was incredibly close behind him if he made one mistake he was dinner…

He looked forward, glancing back had lost him to much time the leviathan lunged forward and its teeth scraped along the back of his tail. Pain shot through Dag as he tried to keep going straight up towards the surface of the water. Blood was trailing from behind him, the laviathan seemed enticed by the flavour of it mixing with the water and was trying harder to reach him.

It was still ages away, he couldn't see the top of the ravine still, the water was starting to lighten in colour though and he could see more around him, but no where near safe. Again the leviathan tried to catch him, its sharp teeth sunk into his tail again as it tried to get a hold on him.

Dagiel managed to cast his scale sheild but not before being bitten for a second time, he was struggling to keep going with the pain, he knew if he slowed down it'd be all over so he powered on through it. He finally passed the lip of of the drop off point he was nearly there!

The leviathan tried again to catch him, this time his sheild prevented it from puncturing his skin further but this time he was pulled back downwards as the leviathan managed to grab his tail and tried to pull him backwards.
Dagiel spun trying to slip out of the leviathans grip, his sheild still managed to hold as he slipped free of the giant monsters mouth.

Using all his strength he powered forward towards the surface of the water and proppeled himself into the sky activiting his ability to levitate as he did so. He didn't stop going up though when he breached the surface, he did however change directions so he was going up and away from where he exited the water.
He looked back in time to see the great big leviathan that had been chasing him breach the surface also propelling itself upwards towards where it thought he should have been, only to snap its open jaws shut on air and plumet back towards the waters depths empty mouthed.

Dagiel was exhausted and bleeding and he still needed to make it back to his cave that he'd made a home from. He wasn't going to re-enter the water just yet though, fairly certain that the smell of hia blood would bring either the creature back or draw others towards him.

He knew the way to where he was going, even in the air above the water. He'd explored almost the whole way along the shelf before the drop off, so he was following the underwater land marks he could make out.
He reached the cliff face where the waves were still crashing against it, they never seemed to stop assaulting the cliff as if they were perpetually mad at it for being there, then dived into the water again. It would only take him a few minutes to get from the surface to the cave below, he was moving quickly lest his blood bring unwanted attention.

Dagiel crawled up onto the drier land inside his cave enterance, he was still in his dragon form and was now incredibly weak from blood loss and the excursion of swimming at full speed and then flying back. He had just enough energy to transform back into his human form before he lay back on the damp ground panting. Kappa hadn't seemed to say anything to him at all throughout the whole experience, far from what Dagiel had expected from her, but he was much to tired to consider this as he passed out on the cave floor still bleeding.

---

He woke, he could feel someone touching him, "Mum?" He asked blairily, trying to open his eyes and failing, they fluttered but stayed closed.

A soft hand touched his face and a voice he recognised straight away answered him, "Shhhh, you need to rest now."

Dagiel struggled against the idea of rest, as much as his whole body ached, he hadn't heard that voice in two months, "Kappa?" He asked sounding bewildered, it didn't sound like she was talking in his head, was he touching his own face? He struggled to open his eyes again, his vision seemed to swim in front of his face barely making sense of the shapes or room around him.

"Shhhh, stop that… I could only do so much…" Kappa hushed him, "You need to rest." She repeated gently.

Dagiel felt something touching his hair and face, his vision didn't clear and he closed his eyes sighing.

The voice of Kappa started singing a soft lullaby in a different language that Dagiel didn't understand, but he drifted off to sleep at the sound, she was talking to him again, he couldn't think more beyond that as sleep washed over him once more.

---

Some time later Dagiel woke.
Opening his eyes he looked around, he was laying on the floor still where he'd practically collapsed, 'Kappa?' he thought inwardly, he swore she'd spoken to him; unless it had been a dream? No response..

He looked down towards his legs, he had red puffy still healing scars and what seemed to look like freshly healing puncture marks on both legs and it went all the way up to his hips.
"Wow that was a close one…" He said out loud as he remembered what had happened.

"Yes, it was." A voice said behind him.

Dagiel froze, and very slowly turned his head around. There was a woman? She had hair just like he did, almost identical but longer. "Kappa?" He half whispered her name.

The female nodded, "You nearly died Dag…" her face was soft with worry, "Your incredibly lucky you didn't. What were you thinking?!" She said getting upset with him.

Dagiel coloured at her question, "Trying to get you to talk to me again." He said honestly staring at her, eyes wide.

She stood up from the place she'd been sitting watching him, "That was incredibly stupid, probably one of the stupidest thing's you've come up with yet." She said exasperated, shaking her head. "You could have died!" She repeated crossly narrowing her eyes at him. "Dagiel, you can't stay here. I know you thought that isolating yourself from the world would bring me back but… You didn't think about what I want."

She frowned at him, her blue-purple hair fell about her shoulders as she stepped into the light so he could see her better. She looked to be around the age of a 17, no way she could have been any older. She wasn't even that tall either, he guessed maybe she was 5'3. She had blue eyes different to his green, and she looked kind but right now she looked rather upset, maybe even a bit mad.

She took a breath, "Dagiel you really can't stay here, you have to go find something to do with yourself." She shook her head, "I know you thought that I could stay with you forever and keep you company but that's not fair on me. I still want to see the world…. And I want to go home… I realised when we went up to the cloud city how much I missed my own home." She folded her arms across her chest, "I managed to heal you, just enough to stop the bleeding and start the process of your body healing before yoi got to strong again…. I pulled away… I'm sorry but you have to find something you enjoy… Surround yourself with others you care about, stop acting like a selfish brat and do something with yourself." The words seemed to tumble out of her mouth like she'd been wanting to say something to him for ages but resisting. "Your a good guy Dag… I am greatful that you helped me find the hero's of old and all the adventures we went on... Also for showing me so much of what the life underwater is like… I will be careful." She smiled at him again kindly, "I'll see you around one day, I hope."

She didn't wait for him to voice what he was thinking, she didn't want him to ask her to stay, nor did she want to see the saddness on his face when he realised what she meant. She walked away leaving him sitting on the cave floor, before she turned into a water dragon and vanished beneath the surface of the water that was lapping in the cave enterance.

Dagiel sat there in silence, processing everything that just happened, staring at the ripples she'd left behind…. Kappa…. Left? He was sitting in stunned silence, tears dripping from his face as he realised he was absolutely, completely and utterly alone now.

(Missing post)
Hanging out with Byakko thoughts (coming)