The Diary Of La Marteau the 5th

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. In some small way it was better. We stopped battling each other for water and started fighting the dragons for water. It was nice being united as one people after what seemed like an eternity of conflict. That was until there weren’t enough of us left to be called one people.

Speaking of the fight, if you could’ve even called it one. Dragons seemed to come for the water from nowhere. And everywhere. They appeared in the driest places, which had become pretty much everywhere outside The Valley and the few reservoirs scattered across the world. The Valley. The once beautiful, lush Valley. Now you couldn’t start a war with the amount of water we have. Yeah, back in the day wars were apparently started by dumping large amounts of water, usually your enemies’ water, on the ground. Crazy stuff. Dumping water. You couldn’t call it a fight with the dragons, because no one had ever touched one. We were able to scare them off the Valley with extremely loud, low frequencies across the reservoir. And because they couldn’t pass thru the thick natural stone walls the mountains provided, the Valley has been safe since the electric Alphorns were installed. But all other reservoirs were vulnerable and being drained, slowly, as dragons eventually took a dip in the reservoirs and flew away full. People had been killed by them. Whole flocks of birds just drop from the sky, as a dragon would pass through them, a cloud of ethereal fog soaking every last drop of water from those birds’ bodies. But the dragons didn’t see us, the birds, anything. At least they didn’t seem to. Dragons were like an out of tune radio station, flickering in and out of our existence, not quite there and yet very much so. Like they inhabited a higher dimension of our reality, and we are just seeing some residual energy from the dragons bleeding into the 3 dimensions we called home. The only thing dragons seemed to interact with was water. And we didn’t have much left for those bastards to interact with.

“You ever seen a dragon Lee?”, Filix Five Fingers shouted across the reservoir to La Marteau.

“Yes, many. And it’s not Lee. Not like Bruce Lee. Or Ang Lee. It’s La, like A La Carte”, La Marteau scoffed back from his comfortable perch in the main watchtower.

“Who the hell is Bruce Lee? Or the other Lee you said? And what’s this about a cart?” Filix Five Fingers barked back.

“Bruce Lee was a cultural icon in the 1900’s. He was a ninja, actor, wrote movies and other stuff too. AANNGG Lee was an amazing movie director in the early 2000’s, and it isn’t a … never mind. Just call me Marteau” La Marteau chuckled back to Filix, who at this point had made his way around the reservoir edge.

“Martoo it is. Or Marty. I like Marty. I never seen a movie Marty man, like an old-fashioned Hollywood thing? Last movie came out long time before I was born. And being from a support reservoir, we never had tech like that around”, Filix Five Fingers said, now standing near the base of the watchtower.

La Marteau groaned, then replied begrudgingly “I like the way you say Marty better than Marteau, so that will be fine. Last movie released before the RN laws was Fast and Furious 33 – Furious Forever. How old are you?” asked La Marteau.

“I’m a ripe old 15 years old in 2 weeks”, answered Filix with a whoop. “RN laws?”, Filix Five Fingers asked.

“Resource necessity laws. 2095. Came way too late”, La Marteau replied.

“Ahh”, Filix Five Fingers said.

“15 eh, soooo, last movie came out roughly 80 years before you where born. Too bad. I’ve got some screen tech in my quarters with a couple movies on it. Some day when were making good power we’ll watch one.” La Marteau said, watching as Filix juggled his radio comm back and forth. “How long on the guard now? 2 Years? And Why the Five Fingers? And not just Filix? Not many people bother with long names, let alone multiple.” La Marteau questioned

“3 years in 2 weeks”, snapped back Filix. “I was promoted at my support reservoir at 12, probably because of the five fingers. Back at Tamil Mountain they had this crazy tradition of removing fingers and toes. Somethin’ to do with saving water. Mom thought they were crazy, hid me until I was too old. Only one of 4 people I knew with all toes and fingers”, Filix Five Fingers explained.

“Too old?” asked La Marteau, quickly glancing across the courtyard towards the gate.

“Yeah, they took the “Filix attempted to reply but was cut off by La Marteau.

“Great story, tell me another time, or not” La Marteau said dismissively. “Someone’s at the gate. Probably Mailsen with last weeks logs from Tamil. Be a pal a let him in for me?” La Marteau asked, his voice suddenly dripping with desperation.

“You know only you and lead guard are supposed to open the gate an hour before sunrise or set. I don’t wanna get demoted to dust duty. I’ll never shake that being a support import” Filix replied sternly.

“There hasn’t been an invasion of the Valley by anything but dragons in over 30 years. There isn’t anyone left on the continent who isn’t a part of The Plan, except the Desert Wizard. And he never leaves his petrified tree,” La Marteau explained. “Lead guard is at distribution, won’t be back tonight. I’m already settled in for the night in the tower, don’t make be come all the way down, please?” La Marteau begged.

“I want to, but we both know I can’t” Filix said.

“You can keep the screen tech in your quarters for a week” la Marteau snapped back quickly.

“Done” Filix said quietly. “Furious forever 33 on that screen tech thing?” Filix shouted, as he jumped down off the reservoir edge and ran across the courtyard.

“It’s actually… No. I wish,” said La Marteau. “Watch for ripplebacks when you open the gate though” La Marteau shouted as Filix reached the gate.

“Don’t say stuff like that”. It’s way to early in the day for ripplebacks.” Filix said as he pulled the gate lever.

“Rippllebacks? Make a great soup from ripplebacks,” Mailsen shouted as he rolled through the gate aboard his suncycle.

“Great to see you, Mailsen man,” Filix exclaimed as she and Mailsen embraced. “Since when you ever travel with kids?” Filix questioned, noticing the young child clutching to Mailsen’s back.

“Just cargo. Desert Wizard’s property now.” Mailsen said. “Keep an eye on her while I record the logs?” Mailsen shouted now, as he made his way to the log box at the base of the tower. “Not even coming down to see Marteau. Your getting lazy,” shouted Mailsen towards La Marteau.

“She got a name?” asked Filix, staring at the young child still seated on the Suncycle.

“Just conserving energy Mailsen. Waste not and all”, La Marteau replied snidely.

“Sephie, least I think that’s what she said. She’s pretty shy. Hasn’t said much since we left Tamil” Mailsen shouted across the courtyard as he entered the water logs for Tamil reservoir. “Sure, sure” Mailsen grumbled under his breath, looking up at La Marteau, who was now looking thru a scope to west towards Tamil.

“She’s from Tamil?” Filix shouted back.

“No. Picked her up outside the gates at Tamil. Not sure how she got there, not my concern. Desert Wizard going to give me a purifier for delivering her,” Mailsen said with a smile.

“Nice,” said Filix, moving the Suncycle to Mailsen’s shack.

“Your brother spending the night here with you as well Mailsen?” La Marteau asked sharply.

“No. What are you on about now Marteau” Mailsen shouted back.

“Your brother. Maillen. I’m looking at him. 20 minutes out.” La Marteau shouted. “Oh. No. He doesn’t look right. He’s bleeding badly,” La Marteau said to himself. “Mailsen, he’s bleeding badly,” La Marteau screamed at the top of his lungs.

“What? He was supposed to go in an spend the night at Sandies in Tamil and meet me here the morning” yelled Mailsen as he ran for the gate. “Get that girl off of that cycle now Filix” Mailsen snapped at Filix.

“She’s off”, Filix exclaimed, as he yanked her off and rolled the Suncycle towards the gate along Mailsen’s stride.

“What do you mean he was supposed to go in? You didn’t go in to get the logs?” La Marteau said visibly irritated.

“They weren’t going let either of us in, some sort of outbreak Elder Vissgraty said. But Maillen wasn’t feeling well, so I convinced them to let him isolate in my shack at Tamil and leave in the morning. They handed me the log and I continued o…”, Mailsen’s voice faded out as he flew out the gate on his Suncycle, racing to his brother as fast as light would take him.

“You ok”, Filix said to Sephie, now seated on the wall on Mailsen’s shack.

Ummhmm”, Sephie whimpered, nodding.

“Why would he take the log without visual inspection?”, La Marteau said to Filix, now standing at the base of the tower with Sephie in tow.

“Couldn’t. Break out, right?” Filix responded.

“Outbreak. Right”, La Marteau answered.

“You don’t sound convinced”, Felix said, Sephie now tugging at his sleeve.

“He’s dead”, La Marteau whispered to himself. “Maillen’s dead” he shouted, but Mailsen couldn’t hear anything but the whine of his Suncycle racing towards his brothers now fallen corpse on the road to Tamil. “Oh no, “La Marteau said, as the whine of the Suncycle was replaced by another whine, a whine much more familiar to him. La Marteau screamed, his eyes full of fear,” Oh no! Dragon! Dragon! Get in this tower right now Filix, I’m hitting the Alphies.”

“The girl too?” questioned Filix.

“Of course,” said La Marteau. “Get ready, when I hit this button this whole valley’s gonna shake,” he shouted as Filix and Sephie ran up the stairs to top of the tower.

“Oooo, I never feel good when the Alphies go off, make me feel sick,” Filix shouted, the electric alphorns blaring as he and Sephie approached La Marteau.

“Where’s the dragon?” Filix asked, voice raised.

“You can always hear them before you see them. It’ll be right at the east end of the reservoir in 3, 2, there he is,” La Marteau yelled as the dragon appeared. “And now, he’ll hit the noise from the Alphies, and he’ll fly straight up and disappear” La Marteau shouted smugly.

“He’s turning greeny-white. And still coming for us. Is he supposed to do that? Change color. They don’t do that, do they?” said Filix nervously.

“No”. They’re not supposed to do that”, La Marteau said, voice trembling.” It’s not a fog at all anymore, that thing is solid as this tower, and the Alphies aren’t working! La Marteau screamed as the dragon crashed into the edge of Mailsen’s shack. “A dragon just wrecked a dry thing! In front of me! A dry thing! Flattened Mailsen’s shack with a touch! We’re so screwed”, La Marteau cried out. “I’m turning off the Alphies”, he said.

“Dragons changing back all foggy, flying towards Tamil. I should warn Mailsen” Filix said.

“Doesn’t matter. Probably for the water,” La Marteau said, now slumped on a short chair fit for a child.

“No water for it in Tamil”, Sephie said confidently.

“How would you know, you never been to Tamil,” said La Marteau. “And we have they’re water logs for last week, a full 3.45 meters. What do you say to that?” La Marteau snapped back.

“What do you mean doesn’t matter?!” Filix questioned.

“No water for the dragon in Tamil, it doesn’t feel wet”, Sephie said more confidently than before.

“I’m going to warn Mailsen!” Filix shouted as he ran to the deck facing the road to Tamil. “La Marteau, you should come see this. Lots of people coming” Filix said almost stunned.

“Mailsen’s on his way back, go let him in Filix. The rest of those people 2 days away are from Tamil,” La Marteau remarked as he walked across the room to grab a note pad and pencil.

“Why they coming here?” Filix asked

“Same reason Maillen’s dead. The girl’s right. They’re out of water,” La Marteau said, crossing his legs and placing the note pad down.

“How can she know that?” Filix asked, perplexed.

“That is what I intend to find out before the good people of Tamil arrive at our door. Now go let Mailsen in.” It will be cool tonight, and we have much to discuss, “said La Marteau now looking at Sephie. “Much to discuss indeed.”