Fic: tentacles do tangle (Legend of the Seeker crossover)
Title: tentacles do tangle
Rating: PG13
Fandoms: Legend of the Seeker/SyFy Movies (to be revealed)
Pairings/Characters: No pairings. Legend of the Seeker characters, plus a special guest appearance.
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~800
Written for the Legendland crossover challenge, so done at the last minute and not beta'd, as per usual :D
There was something about the lake they were passing by that caught Cara's eye - a glint, maybe, or something fluid moving across the surface, a barely there shadow that disappeared as she turned her head. She pulled on the reins, bringing her horse to a stop, frowning as she examined the expanse of water more closely.
There was nothing out there - not a boat or a bird, nothing to disturb the pristine surface. Waves lapped gently at the shore, and further out ripples danced, but that could have been down to the wind whipping the water up into flurries, nothing else.
But still something like unease crawled up her spine.
"It's a sea loch," Zedd said quietly beside her, his voice startling her from the stillness. "It opens out into the sea," he explained further when she shot him a look, annoyed at being caught off guard. "The tide washes in, washes out again..."
He trailed off, raising his palm to shield his eyes from the sun as he, too, stared across the lake. There was a far side to stare at, and that threw her. The sea - any part of the sea - shouldn't be so narrow that you could clearly see the other side.
"Maybe it was seals," she said, not knowing she was going to say anything until the words were out of her mouth. That unease again, prickling up the back of her neck, across her scalp.
Zedd grunted, and that wasn't like him; he was normally voluble - too voluble, truth be told - and the grim silence with which he surveyed the water wasn't doing anything to settle Cara's nerves.
She scowled at the thought - as though she, the most feared of her sisters, could be scared of nothing but water. She opened her mouth to say something else, anything else - something scathing and caustic - when the water boiled to the left of her and something huge, a nightmare from the depths, burst out of it.
It grabbed the horse first, ripping it from underneath Cara so that she fell, barely rolling away from the horse's flailing hooves in time as the poor beast screamed, bucking with panic as tight arms wrapped around it and pulled it closer to the beast's sharp-toothed maw. Too many arms, all flailing around until another wrapped around Cara's ankle and began to drag her closer.
Her horse screamed again, the sound liquid as it was dragged beneath the surface, the beast's head striking down and those sharp white teeth ripping into her poor horse. The water bubbled red now, the horse's flailing hooves churning up sea foam until that, too, turned red around the creature. It was only moments before her horse ceased fighting, its long legs limp and floating in the tide, and the monster was free to turn its attention back to Cara.
She had enough time to take in its smooth grey snout, the pitiless black eyes like a demon from the Underworld, before the tentacle around her ankle tightened, dragging her towards the water.
She struck, pressing her agiels into the rubbery flesh of the appendage holding her, and the beast roared, rising up out of the water and balancing itself on its tentacles as it towered over her.
She'd never seen or heard of its like before - half fish perhaps, scaly grey at the top and ending in tentacles like an octopus. And its teeth - so sharp, like a shark's perhaps, those fish from stories she'd heard that could rip a small boat apart and feast on its contents.
She bared her own teeth, letting out a roar of rage of her own as she dug her agiels more firmly into the monster's flesh, letting the dark magic course through her body even as it coursed through the half-fish, half-octopus creature.
It loosened its grip, just enough for Cara to inch backwards, and then Zedd was there, letting out a roar of his own as magic leapt from his fingers and hit the creature straight on.
The beast finally released her, turning and fleeing back into the depths and leaving her, gasping and bleeding, on the sand.
"Are you all right, my dear?" Zedd demanded, his face creased with worry as he helped her to her feet, his eyes still focused mainly on the deceptive calm of the water.
"I'm fine." She checked herself, making sure she wasn't lying, but the cuts that beast's tentacles had left were minor - she'd been hurt worse sparring with her sisters. Much worse. "What was that thing?"
"A thing of dark magic," Zedd said ominously. "An unholy splicing of two creatures that should never have been merged. A weapon created by a country drunk on its own power and now released into the world to feed on the unwary.
"That, my dear, was the dreaded... Sharktopus."
The end
(Yes, Sharktopus is a real thing - and it is awesome. Just look at the trailer! And they're making a sequel! I am unbelievably excited by that :D))
Rating: PG13
Fandoms: Legend of the Seeker/SyFy Movies (to be revealed)
Pairings/Characters: No pairings. Legend of the Seeker characters, plus a special guest appearance.
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~800
Written for the Legendland crossover challenge, so done at the last minute and not beta'd, as per usual :D
There was something about the lake they were passing by that caught Cara's eye - a glint, maybe, or something fluid moving across the surface, a barely there shadow that disappeared as she turned her head. She pulled on the reins, bringing her horse to a stop, frowning as she examined the expanse of water more closely.
There was nothing out there - not a boat or a bird, nothing to disturb the pristine surface. Waves lapped gently at the shore, and further out ripples danced, but that could have been down to the wind whipping the water up into flurries, nothing else.
But still something like unease crawled up her spine.
"It's a sea loch," Zedd said quietly beside her, his voice startling her from the stillness. "It opens out into the sea," he explained further when she shot him a look, annoyed at being caught off guard. "The tide washes in, washes out again..."
He trailed off, raising his palm to shield his eyes from the sun as he, too, stared across the lake. There was a far side to stare at, and that threw her. The sea - any part of the sea - shouldn't be so narrow that you could clearly see the other side.
"Maybe it was seals," she said, not knowing she was going to say anything until the words were out of her mouth. That unease again, prickling up the back of her neck, across her scalp.
Zedd grunted, and that wasn't like him; he was normally voluble - too voluble, truth be told - and the grim silence with which he surveyed the water wasn't doing anything to settle Cara's nerves.
She scowled at the thought - as though she, the most feared of her sisters, could be scared of nothing but water. She opened her mouth to say something else, anything else - something scathing and caustic - when the water boiled to the left of her and something huge, a nightmare from the depths, burst out of it.
It grabbed the horse first, ripping it from underneath Cara so that she fell, barely rolling away from the horse's flailing hooves in time as the poor beast screamed, bucking with panic as tight arms wrapped around it and pulled it closer to the beast's sharp-toothed maw. Too many arms, all flailing around until another wrapped around Cara's ankle and began to drag her closer.
Her horse screamed again, the sound liquid as it was dragged beneath the surface, the beast's head striking down and those sharp white teeth ripping into her poor horse. The water bubbled red now, the horse's flailing hooves churning up sea foam until that, too, turned red around the creature. It was only moments before her horse ceased fighting, its long legs limp and floating in the tide, and the monster was free to turn its attention back to Cara.
She had enough time to take in its smooth grey snout, the pitiless black eyes like a demon from the Underworld, before the tentacle around her ankle tightened, dragging her towards the water.
She struck, pressing her agiels into the rubbery flesh of the appendage holding her, and the beast roared, rising up out of the water and balancing itself on its tentacles as it towered over her.
She'd never seen or heard of its like before - half fish perhaps, scaly grey at the top and ending in tentacles like an octopus. And its teeth - so sharp, like a shark's perhaps, those fish from stories she'd heard that could rip a small boat apart and feast on its contents.
She bared her own teeth, letting out a roar of rage of her own as she dug her agiels more firmly into the monster's flesh, letting the dark magic course through her body even as it coursed through the half-fish, half-octopus creature.
It loosened its grip, just enough for Cara to inch backwards, and then Zedd was there, letting out a roar of his own as magic leapt from his fingers and hit the creature straight on.
The beast finally released her, turning and fleeing back into the depths and leaving her, gasping and bleeding, on the sand.
"Are you all right, my dear?" Zedd demanded, his face creased with worry as he helped her to her feet, his eyes still focused mainly on the deceptive calm of the water.
"I'm fine." She checked herself, making sure she wasn't lying, but the cuts that beast's tentacles had left were minor - she'd been hurt worse sparring with her sisters. Much worse. "What was that thing?"
"A thing of dark magic," Zedd said ominously. "An unholy splicing of two creatures that should never have been merged. A weapon created by a country drunk on its own power and now released into the world to feed on the unwary.
"That, my dear, was the dreaded... Sharktopus."
The end
(Yes, Sharktopus is a real thing - and it is awesome. Just look at the trailer! And they're making a sequel! I am unbelievably excited by that :D))