Chapter 119: The Melancholic Turtle Who Longs For A Wife
The vision pulled Aidan somewhere green and quiet, and for a long moment he simply floated above what looked like an ordinary island, forested slopes rising toward a single massive mountain at its center.
’Huh. Normal enough.’ He drifted closer, curious. ’Where’s the actual target, then?’
The mountain sighed.
It wasn’t wind. The entire slope rose and fell in one slow, enormous breath, trees swaying with the motion, and a boulder the size of a house rolled loose down one flank and crashed into the treeline with an apologetic little rumble.
’...Oh.’
The whole island turned its head.
What Aidan had mistaken for a mountain unfolded itself with ponderous, ancient patience.
It revealed a shell weathered by centuries, a neck like a fallen tower, and eyes the size of small lakes, deep-set and impossibly, achingly sad.
A seal wrapped the entire island in threads of golden light, ancient and absolute, and Aidan reached toward it out of pure reflex before pulling his hand back immediately, every instinct screaming that touching it would be a very short conversation.
’That seal is not something I’m arguing with today.’
The turtle’s massive eyes found him anyway, tracking the small floating presence with the slow, deliberate attention of something that hadn’t had visitors in longer than most civilizations lasted.
[...Another one. Come to stare, then leave.]
The voice arrived heavy and mournful, resonating up from somewhere deep inside the mountain-shell itself.
"Not planning on it," Aidan said. "Name’s Aidan. What’s yours?"
[Cameron is the name I gave myself. Centuries ago. There was no one else to give it to me.]
"Rough."
[You have no idea.]
Cameron’s enormous head drooped, forest canopy rustling with the motion, and a fresh boulder gave up entirely and tumbled down his flank.
[Do you know what it is like, to be sealed on an island for centuries? To watch seasons turn on your own back, and have no one to share a single one of them with?]
"I’m guessing lonely."
[Lonely does not begin to cover it.] The turtle’s sigh rattled loose leaves from an entire forest. [I do not even ask for freedom anymore. I have made peace with these stones. I ask for one thing, and one thing only.]
Aidan waited, genuinely curious now.
[A wife.]
He blinked.
"...A wife."
[Is that so unreasonable?] Something almost defensive crept into the mournful voice. [I have a perfectly good shell. Excellent load-bearing capacity. I know several very calming meditation techniques from watching moss grow for two hundred years. I would be an attentive, considerate husband.]
"I believe you," Aidan said, and mostly meant it.
[Every century, I hope. Every century, no one comes.] Cameron’s tail drooped, sending an entire waterfall briefly off-course. [I once mistook a passing comet for a potential suitor. It did not go well.]
"That does sound rough."
[It was humiliating, is what it was.]
Aidan drifted a slow circle around the vast, sad shape of him, turning something over in his head.
"Here’s my situation," he said finally. "I’ve got a summoning talent. Pulls me toward beings worth befriending. It pulled me to you."
[I cannot leave this island. The seal holds my body here absolutely.]
"Nope. Not anymore. Just needs you willing to bond." Aidan grinned. "As long as you agree, you would be free from this place."
Cameron’s enormous eyes blinked, slow and disbelieving.
[You are offering companionship.]
"I’m offering a very talkative housecat, an anxious dragon, a shadow man with more layers than anyone should have, a very intelligent android, and a fish who thinks the ocean is personally exciting." Aidan shrugged. "You’d fit right in."
[I accept.] The mountain’s whole frame shuddered with something that might have been the closest a turtle that size could get to crying with relief. [Anything. Truly, anything but comets.]
The bond settled into place, warm and immediate, and Cameron’s status unfolded through Aidan’s awareness with the slow, patient weight of something ancient finally exhaling after centuries.
*****
[Cameron]
[Rank: Overlord | 7th Step]
—Attributes—
[Attack = 18✧ ]
[Speed = 15✧ ]
[Defense = 37✧]
[Health = 35✧]
[Control = 25✧]
—Talents—
[World-Bearer’s Shell (X)]
[Mountainheart Sanctuary (SSS)]
[Doom Crawler (SSS)]
[Elemental Forge (SSS)]
*****
Aidan let out a low whistle, staring at the sheet.
"Overlord-rank." He grinned wide. ’It seems there’s a considerable change in progression once we go beyond the Divine-rank.’
"Buddy, you would be the strongest in my group. By the way, can you change your size at will? I suppose you can."
[Naturally, I can.]
"Great. Also, here this." Aidan added, already turning to leave the vision. "I promise you a wife. I don’t know how yet. But I promise I’ll help you find one."
Cameron’s whole massive body seemed to lighten, forest canopy rustling with something that, for the first time in centuries, might have actually been hope.
[Truly?]
"Truly. Somewhere out there, buddy, there’s a turtle mountain with your name on her." Aidan grinned. "We’ll find her."
[...Thank you, Aidan.] A pause, heavy with old, patient longing. [Thank you.]
...
Aidan opened his eyes back in the graveyard, and the ground shook a half-second later.
Cameron manifested at a considerably reduced size, mercifully, settling in as a turtle roughly the height of a giant boulder than an actual mountain, shell still trailing a few stray patches of miniature forest that hadn’t quite gotten the memo about relocating.
Every conversation on the field stopped dead.
"That’s..." Anrita’s calculations visibly stalled for the first time since Aidan had known her. "That’s an Overlord-rank lifeform."
[Cameron: Hello.] The voice arrived heavy and mournful even at this reduced volume, several loose leaves drifting down off his shell as he spoke. [I am told there is a talkative housecat somewhere among you.]
Tom’s ears went flat.
[Tom: Excuse you.]
"Everyone, Cameron." Aidan gestured broadly at the assembled group, thoroughly pleased with himself. "Cameron, everyone. He’s new."
Finn shot forward first, delighted beyond reason, orbiting one massive turtle leg at high speed.
[Finn: YOU ARE SO BIG. Do you have a pond? Please tell me you have a pond.]
[Cameron: I had several lakes. On my own back. When I become big, you’ll see.]
[Finn: MARRY ME!]
[Cameron: But are you a girl?]
[Finn: I don’t know.]
[Tom: Heh, he’s not. He got two big balls.]
[Cameron: Sorry, I can’t marry someone with big balls. But you can still swim in my lakes.]
[Finn: Yey!]
"He’s taken a liking to you already," Jovan observed, folding out of the air with mild, genuine interest. "Welcome. Just know that housecat complains constantly, the dragon eats everything within reach, and the fish believes the ocean has personal opinions about him specifically."
[Arthur, offended from a distance: I do NOT eat everything.]
[Tom: You were about to eat a table, remember?]
[Arthur: That table was ASKING for it.]
Cameron’s enormous eyes tracked the exchange with the slow, wondering attention of someone who had spent centuries talking exclusively to moss and one deeply unfortunate comet.
[This is... a great deal of conversation happening at once.]
"You get used to it," Aidan said. "Mostly."
Anrita approached next, calculating something with visible fascination as she studied him. "May I ask your combat parameters? For coordination purposes."
[I am uncertain how to answer that succinctly. I am, structurally speaking, a mountain.]
"Understood. Structural asset, not mobile combatant."
[I can be quite mobile, when properly motivated.]
"Buddy’s got moves," Aidan said, grinning. "Trust me."
Sella eyed the turtle’s considerable bulk with open skepticism. "Is he going to fit through doorways?"
[I would prefer not to test that question today.]
"Fair," Aidan said.
Kyrsa, still nursing her burned arm from the earlier fight, looked between Cameron and Aidan with an expression somewhere between disbelief and genuine amusement. "You went into a vision, and came back with a mountain."
"I go into a lot of visions and come back with increasingly ridiculous things," Aidan said with a chuckle. "This tracks."
[Cameron: I am told I am also seeking a wife.]
The whole graveyard went briefly, thoroughly silent.
"He mentioned that, yeah," Aidan confirmed, entirely unbothered. "Working on it."
[Finn: I could ask around. I know several very nice rocks.]
[Cameron: ...Thank you. I think. But I don’t want rocks. I want a wife.]
Ordun cleared his throat, glancing past the assembled, growing menagerie toward the eight remaining rows of glowing tombstones still standing between them and the burning cup.
"As lovely as this all is," he said, "we do still have eight more of these to get through, but we are useless in this, so it’s up to you, Aidan. Honestly, It wouldn’t have been worth the risk, but now with this Overlord-rank being...I can’t say the same."
"First time seeing an Overlord." Elowen looked at the turtle with wonder and awe. "So powerful."
Cameron’s enormous head turned toward the distant rows, studying them with the calm, patient attention of something that had genuinely never been in a hurry for anything in its entire existence.
[I have not fought anything in three hundred years.] Something in the mournful voice shifted, just slightly, into interest. [I find I am curious to see if I remember how.]
"That’s the spirit." Aidan clapped his hands together, already turning back toward the field of graves. "Alright. Everybody ready for round two?"
[Finn: READY.]
[Tom: Reluctantly.]
[Arthur: I want to eat something else.]
[Cameron: I am ready to be, at minimum, useful.]
’You will be extremely useful, buddy. I trust you on that. You got a very high defense, so I suppose you got some great defensive moves?’
[Cameron: Yes. If it’s protecting you all, I can do that.]
’Great. That’s exactly what I want.’
Aidan grinned at his steadily expanding collection of the strangest allies in the Nine Realms Tree, and turned to face the next row of waiting tombs.
"Let’s go smash this graveyard."