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There's a joke somewhere in this, five witchers on a fishing boat and still no fish. To be fair, none of them were trying very hard; Aiden hadn't even moved from where he'd flopped on the deck about three steps on board, apparently cats can just lie in sunspots for hours. Vesemir had been given the boat as a reward from a small fishing village nearby for dealing with some sea monster problem that had killed the original owner, and now keeps it on the dock by the beach house and rents it out if none of them need it.
Now, they can all fish for themselves with a pole and line, but the nets and machinery that came with the boat are a complete mystery. Geralt watches as Eskel and Coën prod cautiously at another control panel, and takes out his phone again to see if the signal had miraculously returned. Honestly Lambert probably has the best chance of figuring it out but he'd gotten bored a while ago and is now curled up with Aiden ignoring the rest of them.
Geralt himself is sitting on top of the cabin, keeping a careful watch. There was a second where all of their medallions had vibrated but nothing obvious had happened except their phones losing signal, and so one of them has been keeping an eye out ever since. They haven't seen a single other vessel either, though they're out on a very overcast weekend where most local workers are at home, and tourists avoid the shore. Perhaps they should have turned back, but Yen and Triss had been experimenting with potions while drunk last night and whatever they produced smelt absolutely foul, so none of them wanted to hurry back. Jaskier, Ciri and Vesemir had escaped all this entirely by leaving yesterday for an overnight event at a museum Jask had been invited to and the other two were interested in. Geralt envies them, but then again the breeze is nice, his brothers are happy and nothing has attacked them yet.
Slowly he becomes aware of a slow, haunting melody; something like whalesong with echoes of sirens and sea dragon calls. It swells and falls with the waves and he sees Aiden sit up, motioning Lambert into silence as he looks out starboard. The sea on that side darkens, the shadow of… something coming up towards the surface. It takes Eskel and Coën a couple of minutes more to notice over their conversation, then Lambert last of all as his hearing has definitely suffered from years of experimenting with bombs, even though he argues otherwise.
They watch in stunned silence as a creature nears the surface, everyone on the deck moving to stand at the railing. Geralt can already tell its several times the size of their boat, and he frantically racks his brain for anything that's ever been mentioned to him about something large in these waters. He comes up empty except for an ancient folktale of a giant turtle deity, early enough to only be depicted in a couple of sculptures and some rock art, but Vesemir had dismissed it as likely only a story.
After a few minutes a dark, scaled head appears about fifty metres away, covered in barnacles and seaweed, its eyes taller than any of them and slitted similarly to a dragons. Spikes run from the centre of its forehead down its thick neck, disappearing into the water as it lifts higher, turning to seemingly get a better look at them. Lambert takes a step back, bumping into Aiden then just staying leaning half against his chest, quietly chanting 'what the fuck' repeatedly.
There's nothing he's ever heard of that's even close to this size, and Eskel turns to look up at him with an equally confused expression, then slowly moves into the cabin to turn the engine off, leaving them drifting in the water. At the resulting quiet the creature makes a call so deep it's more a vibration in the air than a true sound. More of it surfaces further out from them, revealing a huge shell, maybe five or six times as long as their boat, with coral growing along the nearest edge.
There's more ripples along the far side as a turquoise dragon throws itself out of the water onto its back, its happy chittering audible from the boat as it climbs onto its back to curl up, apparently setting in to sun itself. All five of them stay still and silent, just watching as three more dragons follow, one of then a juvenile, and the giant turtle settles, neck retracting into its shell so its head lies along the waterline, one eye on them all the time, seemingly not entirely sure that they aren't a threat.
They just watch the group as the boat slowly rocks, witchers are used to long stretches of stillness after all, even if they hate them. As the sea calms and they drift closer the pattern on its skin becomes clearer; mottled navy blues with lighter patches under its eyes and down its throat, and a brighter green along the eyebrow ridge. Very pretty, reminds him of some of the terrapins in the last pet shop they stopped at for dog toys.
Eventually they must get slightly too close and Geralt snaps out of his daze to finally lift the phone he's been holding uselessly the whole time to snap a couple of photos, then video as the giant turtle dives back down into the sea, dislodging the dragons. There's another sudden vibration of their medallions and the half submerged creature just vanishes, and the waves around it too, leaving the sea as clear as it was an hour ago with no sign of its presence. His phone suddenly goes off, several texts coming through at once as it regains signal.
The others seem to come to life at the same moment, hands going to medallions and swears in various languages, even from the usually unflappable Coën. Aiden slowly sinks back down to the floor, leaning against a still cursing Lambert's legs. "I've seen a sea serpent before but that was…" He trails off with a shake of his head.
"How did something that size stay off any sensors?" Eskel still sounds a little poleaxed as he frowns, keeping one hand on his medallion as he heads back to restart the engine.
"I'm not so sure it did." Coën says slowly, echoing what Geralt suspects. "Wild Magic, I reckon. Brought it forward or more likely us back."
Geralt opens his messages, Jaskier has send him a running commentary of their trip, with occasional interjections from Ciri, and Triss has just sent a photo of a hungover Yen glaring around the wrecked alchemy lab. He sends the video to Vesemir with absolutely no context and also no hope that he actually has his phone on him; then also to Jask so as just to show someone and prove it was real. He gets a series of emojis in return that include both a turtle and a shocked face so it probably was.
"I'm never going on the sea again, that's what happens when Cats get too far from land."