---
title: "Emma the Narwhal"
date: 2024-12-02
tags:
- nanowrimo
- "monoceros (novel)"
- "emma the narwhal"
---

**Summary:** Emma the narwhal. April paused. For the first time in a long, long while, she saw it. In her mind's eye, she could see Emma's entire life, from her first narwhal date to her first beaching to her first narwhal war.

Holy shit. This was a *banger* of an idea. Who knew that a strange fish in a coffee shop would give her the laxatives she needed?

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---

April almost made it four pages into Jane Austen's *Emma* before her mind wandered off back to Thailand where they had sessions to watch pineapples grow in real time that were more interesting than trying to follow Emma's ramblings.

She sighed, putting the book back on the shelf. If only Emma was like a narwhal, swimming in the skies, going on adventures to save the ocean from those toxic humans — maybe then it'd be a more interesting story.

Emma the narwhal. She paused. For the first time in a long, long while, she saw it. In her mind's eye, she could see Emma's entire life, from her first narwhal date to her first beaching to her first narwhal war.

Holy shit. This was a *banger* of an idea. Who knew that a strange fish in a coffee shop would give her the laxatives she needed?

---

*Emma sailed across the Herculean Sea, her tusk dipping in and out of the clouds flowing around her.*

No, that was too ambiguous. 

*Emma the narwhal, freshly orphaned by the death of her parents in a tragic accident involving the betrayal of her best sky narwhal friend, moped around the Sea of Clouds.* 

Too much fantasy. Also it spoiled the entire plot, and April couldn't have that, oh no, certainly not. 

*Once upon a time, in a sky far far away...* 

---

"It's only ten thousand gold," Emma insisted. "Come on, please?" She batted her eyelids this time. 

"I'm sorry, miss," the bank teller said. "I can't make an exception for you, no matter who your mother is. Now, I must ask that you leave the premises." He lowered his tusk at them, marking the end of the discussion.

But Emma wasn't done with him yet, absolutely not. She had ten thousand gold in her bank account and she was not about to be swindled by some rainbow-headed narwhal with his head below the clouds. 

Harriet nudged Emma's side before she could raise more objections. "It's not worth it, Emma. We'll find another way to get your treasure." She side-eyed the teller. "Mister Kingsley might know something." 

Emma huffed, but followed Harriet back to their sky-cave. "What a dingus." 

"I mean, you're four years old and definitely look it. But yeah. Fuck that guy." 

---

And thus Emma and Harriet returned home to their sky caves, scheming under the faint rays of sun that seeped past the clouds around them.

"What are we looking for, Emma?" said Harriet.

Emma consulted the will once more. It was frustratingly unclear. What could "Chase the light that pierced the clouds" possibly mean? The sun was the only light she could imagine, and the sun went through every cloud.

Emma knew her parents had a fun sense of humour, but she thought they knew that there was a time and place. At least they could have told her what the reward was, just in case she didn't want to spend her teenage years chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow. She could stay in her cushy office job, pushing her cushy little buttons, and not risk a single thing. She was comfortable.

---

"I don't know who you are anymore," Emma whispered. "Harriet, how long did you hide this from me? From my parents?"

Harriet chortled, a strange, unnatural sound that Emma had never heard from her best friend before. "Oh, Emma, dear, did you really think *no one* knew about their will? Where there's a will, there's a way. For people to find out about the money."

---

"All of those years. Was it all for nothing? Was it ever real?" Emma said in a daze, floating without any real direction, letting the wind current take her as it pleased.

Harriet prodded her from behind. "Keep swimming. That's right, Emma. I never loved you one bit," she spat. "You should have listened to Lan. He was trying to warn you, you know." Her eyes glittered. "But you never listened. Pushed him away, even. He was protected when he was close to you. We couldn't touch him. But you...all I had to do was plant the smallest seed of doubt in your mind and you nurtured it, let it grow until it towered over any feelings you might have had for that boy," she crowed.

"What have I done?" Emma whispered.

---

The end of the journey was nearly here. Emma the narwhal had escaped her captor's grasp, betrayed and cast aside once she was no longer needed like her parents before her, and built her way back up in the underground. She was hardened. She was rugged. She wasn't the old Emma anymore. No, there was no light left for her in this world. The shadows of the criminal empire she'd created after overthrowing shark kingpin Jesse Pinkfong could not match the darkness in her heart.

She'd killed Harriet herself. She almost couldn't believe Emma had ever been captured by Harriet and her motley band of mercenaries. It had been downright easy to kill off every single one of them one by one.

The way Harriet had screamed, begged,* pleaded *with her when she'd had her brought before her had almost caused her to chuckle. She'd sawed off Harriet's tusk herself.

She had been at the peak of her revenge. Her enemies sortied, her power absolute, she was on top of the world. The earth bowed to her, her destiny manifest.

Yet no matter how high she rose, no matter how much influence she wielded — it could never bring the old Emma back. She had died when the hope had faded from her eyes long, long ago, and all that was left was a hollow monster puppeting her body. She was not Emma any longer. That name did not belong to her.

Although she was not Emma, perhaps she could fulfill some of the girl's dreams, in her honour. In memory of the narwhal who loved the world but the world did not love back, she would move heaven and earth for her.

She would bring to the narwhal race a new order. She would be christened…

Skyler, Monarch of the Sky Narwhals.
