She wrapped his length in hers and kept him moving through the water. The ship began to pull away from them, but she let it go, almost without reluctance. This single serpent was more important to her than all the mysteries the ship concealed. She held him, twisting her neck to look into his face. She watched his eyes spin, then grow still again. Through a thousand lifetimes, she held him, as the past of his entire race caught up with him. For a time, she let him steep in that history. Then she eased him out of it, releasing the lesser toxins that quieted his deeper mind and let his own brief life come back to the forefront of his thoughts.

"Remember." She breathed out the word softly, charging him with the responsibilities of all his ancestors. "Remember and be." He was quiescent in her coils. She felt his own life suddenly repossess him as a tremor shimmered down his length. His eyes suddenly spun and then focused on hers. He reared his head back from hers. She waited for his worshipful thanks.

The gaze that met hers was accusing.

"Why?" he demanded suddenly. "Why now? When it is too late for all of us? Why couldn't I die ignorant of all that I could have been? Why could not you have left me a beast?"

His words shocked her so that she laxed her grip on him. He whipped himself disdainfully free of her embrace and shot away from her through the water. She was not sure if he fled, or if he abandoned her. Either thought was intolerable. The awakening of his memories should have filled him with joy and purpose, not despair and anger.

"Wait!" she cried after him, but the dim depths swallowed him. She wallowed clumsily after him, knowing she could never match his swiftness. "It can't be too late! No matter what, we must try!" She trumpeted the futile words to the empty Plenty.

He had left her behind. Alone again. She refused to accept it. Her stunted body floundered through the water in pursuit, her mouth open wide to taste the dispersing scent he had left behind. Faint, fainter, and then gone. He was too swift; she was too deformed. Disappointment welled in her, near stunning as her own poisons. She tasted the water again. Nothing of serpent tinged it now.