Mizu's Plot Thread

Mizuko's first memory is of water. Brushing, twisting back and forth. In her memories, she is the water. She's the brushing in-and-out of the river on the muddy shore, she's the current pushing fish through the water, she's the rapids rushing down over rocks. River spirits always seemed to have the most simple life. All was ever peaceful, just an endless life of blue, watching the human world go by from their spot among the ripples. To them, any other existence isn't worth living. Occasionally, Mizuko would take an ethereal form. The form that brought the myth of 'mermaids' into existence. A River Spirit's physical form was one not many saw. After all, they only came out when they wished to. The first time Mizuko came out was for a young girl.

Not many ever came to cry by her river. But, the times above seemed full of strife. What seemed distant drew closer for a mere moment as small shoes crunched in the gravel beside her, before a small form sat down, and salt water flowed in to join the fresh water. Put simply, Mizuko was intrigued. Why was the small human crying? What had happened? And so, she took her physical form, swimming to the shore and propping her elbows up.

She and the girl talked for a while. Children had always seemed more accepting, to Mizuko. At the very least, this child seemed to be unaffected by her appearance. Now, Mizuko cannot remember the rest of the conversation. Bare brushes of memory grant her news of a war. The girl never returned to her river.

Years passed, and the next memory that surfaces is one Mizuko will forever hate: new water, polluting her own. She never knew where it came from, but it was then the first time she was attacked. It wasn't much of a battle, Mizuko's river had never seen a waterfall, or even rapids. She was slow, peaceful. Soon, she was on the shore, soaking wet, containing no memories, and naked save a small blue gem on her stomach.

After only came a period of pain. Starvation was the first pain Mizuko experienced. The need for food she'd never had before. She experienced temperature, as well, and was soon forced to steal clothes from a nearby town, and small child shoes from a porch. Even so, Mizuko never left her river. She couldn't understand why, but she felt safe there, despite the fact that it seemed the water itself was glaring at her. So she stayed at the river for days, days that soon stretched into weeks, and then months. An endless cycle of stealing or foraging food, or dying of starvation. Stealing a blanket, or dying of cold. She didn't attempt to talk to any of the humans. She didn't understand them. She knew their words, somehow, but she knew somehow that she didn't fit in. She wasn't one of them. All she wanted was to stay by the river.

All of this changed on the day Augmenta appeared. At first, Mizuko had been sure she was hallucinating when the dragon appeared. She knew nothing of dragons, she'd never been told of them.

Mizuko loves Augmenta more than anything, or anyone, else in the world. Even now, seventeen years after she first met her, Mizuko has yet to find any one being she feels more emotion for. The dragon had found her when she was only six years of age, wandering next to a river in the forest, looking as lost and confused as she’d ever be. She had no memory of anything, but for a long while. Augmenta could not convince her to leave the river she had been found at. Mizuko only knew that she was alone, and it was the fault of the water. Augmenta taught her otherwise. She taught her of the world, and things outside the village. She taught her that her parents were in a place where all is okay, and nothing can harm them. She also taught her of the ocean, and rivers, and of the element that bound them.

"Water is constantly changing," she told Mizuko one day, a mere three months after taking the little girl in. At this point, Mizuko was in the river outside the cave where she and the dragon had made their home, giggling and playing with the carefree attitude only a child could have. Deep down, her mind still yearned for her river, but for now, all she could understand was that she wanted the water. She was slowly forgetting anything other than Augmenta. Though she hadn't had much knowledge before, the memory of her time at the riverside was fading away, being replaced by warm times, and love. Even now, she paused in her activities to stare up at the dragon as she spoke, attempting to soak in all that she said. Her every word was worth the pause in her play, to Mizuko. "It answers to no one and speaks only when it chooses to, not when asked. Do you wish to learn to keep this as your companion?"

Being only six, (at least, that was their closest guess) Mizuko didn't well understand what Augmenta was talking about, and wouldn't completely until many, many years later. She had learned early on to only listen when Augmenta spoke, and to attempt to learn. To do otherwise would only offer confusion, and more of the dragon's riddles and rhymes. Her question translated, in a child mind, more to the lines of whether or not Mizuko wanted to be with water forever. She didn't understand why she wouldn't be. Didn't everybody need water? Would she lose it someday, if she didn't agree? The thought made her even more confused, and she almost wanted to hide under the cover of the river. But, because she loved water, and loved her Augmenta, she agreed.

Months passed, and for a long while Mizuko was unable to fully understand how to let the water flow with her, and how to feel its being, and use it as she needed. She couldn't understand why it felt as if the water itself were somehow worried about being hear her. She couldn't understand how to look into the mind of something so unpredictable, so all-knowing. It was like those letters that Augmenta had forced her to learn, only much, much harder. Almost to the point that, at times, she wanted to give up. She knew nothing about the river spirits anymore. She had no idea that the spirit in that little river beside their cave was worried that the lost river spirit would attempt to steal her waters. But slowly, and surely, Mizuko began to learn her way among waters other than her own.

"What does the water do in the morning, my little Mizu?" Augmenta asked, laying her gargantuan head upon her claws and gazing at the child, who was repeatedly screaming and blowing at thin air, trying to make a "Water Dragon Roar", that Augmenta had told her about. It was only morning, and the sun lay low on the horizon, but Mizuko had awoken at dawn, just as the pair did every day, to watch the sun rise over the forest. Then she'd started training, attempting the move over and over again with tireless effort. Of course, she had abandoned the incantation at this point, and was simply focusing on the action itself, which, naturally, was getting her nowhere.

"It greets the shore," she replied happily, her cheeks red from the exertion and the chill of the air. "And tells it stories of the ocean. And then goes to the deep, moving as it wills, building a story for the night, when it will move in and tell a story once more. You've told me that story before. Will it help me do the Water Dragon magic?"

"Imagine the roar you are trying to create as a wave. Nothing can stop it, you do, however, need to find at first where it is hiding out from afar to properly swim through it, as you love to do." Augmenta replied, blinking once at her. Mizuko looked disappointed for a moment, but Augmenta smiled once at her, her tail coming around and nudging the child gently, motivating her to try once more.

Mizuko followed her orders, crunching her eyebrows and turning back to the tree, her aqua gaze one of complete and absolute focus on one thing, and one thing only: water. The fluidity of it, the ever changing presence. She imagined that a wave was building up inside her, a little ripple at first, then a swell, then a white foam wash, bursting and begging and pleading to be free. "Water Dragon's Roar!" She cried out, and finally, blessedly, water came. It was nothing more than a spray, almost like an oversized watering can, but all the same, a high pitched scream pierced the air as Mizuko bounced and ran around in pure excitement, checking over and over if Augmenta had seen what she'd done. Water. She'd made water! Her mother smiled at her in amusement, and told her to try once more.

That day, Mizuko and Augmenta practiced endlessly, until the little dragon slayer was so tired she passed out in the now muddy clearing, not noticing the dirt. In the end, thanks to the training she'd received, Mizuko had managed a Roar that Augments had told her was good for her age. Wanting to be better, Mizuko had kept practicing. She would keep practicing until she knew it all: all the moves, the secret art Augmenta had mentioned, and whatever other moves she could do this magic with. She would be the perfect dragon slayer for her dragon. A six year old wouldn't know the intentions that sentence seemed to imply, but that was what she thought, and continued to think through every training lesson until the day when their relationship was split into oblivion.