Definition
1 : capable of being easily led, taught, or controlled : docile
2 : easily handled, managed, or wrought : malleable
Docile, obedient, and amenable are synonyms of tractable, but those four words have slightly different shades of meaning. Tractable describes an individual whose character permits easy handling, while docile implies a predisposition to submit readily to authority. Obedient is often used to describe compliance with authority, although that compliance is not necessarily offered eagerly. Amenable, on the other hand, is usually used when someone cooperates out of a desire to be agreeable. Tractable dates from the early 16th century and derives from the Latin verb tractare ("to handle" or "to treat"). Despite the resemblance, this root did not give us the noun tractor or verbs such as contract or attract—those all derive from a loosely related Latin verb trahere ("to draw or pull").
The collar slipped over Nessie's head, easy as pie. I cooed to her gently as i led her from the cold waters of her lake into the custom built transport trailer my team had organised.
She wiggled her way up to the ramp and slithered into the cold clear water we'd especially stolen for her.
the night was still dark and quiet, no tell tale flashes of light or those little blinking red dots to indicate that we'd been caught on camera. I carefully raised the back door of the transport truck and dashed to the passenger side. a nod to my co-worker and we were off, driving down the frankly quite terrifying Scottish roads, the famous monster of the loch tucked safely away in the back.
Now, some of you might be wondering why we'd just stolen such a cultural and historical figure - but come on. Most of you don't believe she, and other monsters like her, and to be quite frank, we'd like to keep it that way. Safer for you and, oh wow, so such safer for her and us.
Has the team of experts, various maritime, biological and paleontology ones, brought here by the TV crew whose failing ratings meant that they were desperate enough to try anything before the syndicate dropped them, actually discovered Nessie, as the locals feared, what do you think would happen?
Best case scenario, various interested parties would set up camp, trying to learn about Nessie in her natural habit - whilst getting continuously swarmed by tourists all trying to get a glimpse of her and driving the scientists, the locals and Nessie herself absolutely bonkers.
Which would probably lead them to believe it would be better to take Nessie away to some research facility where she'd spend her days locked in torment being prodded, poked and eventually dissected.
The locals loved Nessie. She had been a local landmark for, quite literally, generations and they would gladly let the rest of the world think them ignorant fools or madmen if it meant they could protect her. So they had hired us.
How they had found out about us i didn't know, a friend of a friend of a friend who had heard a rumour one time from a second cousin twice removed who went to school with a Minotaur - that kind of thing. It was, in fact, how we got most of our business.
We didn't advertise - for obvious reasons. The added secrecy kept us safe and this, in turn, kept the monsters we protected or relocated safe. Very few humans knew about us and we liked to keep it that way. We work for monsters, not human. Of course, there were exceptions to the rule - like when an entire scottish village begged me to save Nessie.
The night was dark and clear, the stars above us looking as bright and cold as antarctic ice. my breath steamed in the cold air - we couldn't risk putting the heating on and unbalancing the delicate ecosystem we'd set up in the back for Nessie.
A low croon sounded from behind us.
"Hush darling," i softly whispered back, "We'll be there soon."
the plan was to drive a few miles away and settle Nessie into a new loch (One that we had scouted out says before which match the conditions of her home) and, once the camera crew et al had gone home, we'd return Nessie to her home as well.
Simple right? I hoped so.
If you're wondering how i managed to persuade a giant lake monster to so agreeably go along with my plan and leave the home they'd lived in for centuries, well, that'd be done to genetics.
See, my dad was a sailor. But not just your average, run of the mill, I do this so my family doesn't starve sailor. No. My father had been raised on tales of Christopher Columbus and pirates and various exciting seafaring exploits. Therefore, when he grew up, he wanted to be an adventurer. He wanted to have tales of daring do and spectacular deeds to share with everyone on his triumphant return.
And boy, did he have an adventure. He was forever going into uncharted waters - or finding the obligatory old boy in the village with tales of curses and warnings - and then going int he exact direction he was warned not too.
Which was how he met my mother.
How he survived meeting my mother, to this day we both do not know. his memory of the whole time is fuzzy and lord knows my father is not what you would call a charming man. But he must have been charming enough, because not only did she let him go (yes, ok, when the fisherman found him a drift in his boat he was sun burnt, worn, his clothes and hair wrecked and his brain a bit addled - but he was alive which is more than any other man who had gone near my mother's home could say.) but nine month's later, in the dead of night, he awoke to a knock at the door. When he opened it, a strange, cloaked figure stood their, their outline wavering uncertainly in the might breeze.
Clutched in their exposed tentacles, was a little baby girl.
(Obviously me)
The creature handed her over to my dumbfounded father. It then gargled "If powers manifest, speak into this and my lady will send someone." He handed my father a conch shell (always one for the classics my mum). "But only if she develops powers. Do not bother her for trifling matters." (Indeed, when my poor beleaguered father yelled down it for help raising a baby, asking what I ate, if i'd grow tentacles (no) begging for some childcare so he could get some damn sleep, she ignored them all. Not really the maternal type. IT's not that she didn't care, it's just that my mother has a lot of children and she normally picks fathers who do an excellent job of raising a baby as a single parent. My dad just happened to be her one major misjudgment. Not that i'm not grateful to be alive of course - and dad got the hang of it eventually. especially when he realised I literally could not drown, which meant he could go adventuring again if he just took me along, much to everyone else's horror. Not mine, i had a blast. Of course, years later i realised all the other ways a small baby could have died on the open sea besides drowning. but,well, I didn't so it's all good right?)
The only time she answered my father's call, was the night he called her in a complete panic. I was most of the way through secondary school by that point. I had been helping out with the school play - a musical. I was far too shy to go on stage but i enjoyed working behind the scenes. By this point i had been working on it for two weeks straight - staying late after school and coming home and falling straight into bed. It had gotten to the point that i knew the songs so well i was even dreaming about them - and apparently I must have hummed some in my sleep.
My dad had got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and had nearly had a heart attack when he saw hands and faces pressed, zombie like, against the glass. When he finally got up the nerve to stop hiding under the table and look out again, he discovered the entire ground floor of our house was surrounded by our nearby neighbours and anyone else who was in the vicinity. they looked as if they were sleepwalking and whatever he did, he couldn't seem to wake them.
He then clocked that they were all gazing in the direction of my room.
So he tried waking me up.
We then had two wide awake and really freaked out people in the house - and a whole bunch of sleepwalking stalkers outside the house.
We called my mother.
My aunt/sister/cousin arrived in about twenty minutes (as neglectful as my mother sounds, i later discovered that one of my many relatives had always been stationed nearby, just in case i got into trouble. Yes, even when i was in the middle of an ocean, i still had a babysitter. In fact, i usually had multiple babysitters when i was out in the ocean - which probably explains why i didn't die young now that i think about it.)
My aunt/sister/cousin easily dispelled whatever it was i had done and then explained that, as i had clearly inherited by mother's siren abilities, i would need to return with her to the sea for training.
My father objection - stating that I was still in school, underage, i had exams and couldn't i just refrain from singing.
My, lets just call her my aunt, said that no, we could not. I had just summoned fifty people in my sleep.If i was that strong already, soon I wouldn't need to sing, I could hypnotise people just by speaking. And I currently had no idea how to control it. Hence the midnight zombie hoard.
My father couldn't really argue with that. But he did insist that we follow proper procedures, so I could do my school work remotely and therefore graduate properly.
The human world is harsh without at least basic qualifications and my mother relented.
So i got to do two sets of homework every day. Yay.
My father came with me to my mother's home - despite the insane risk this posed to him. He spent his days above water, circling around the area on his boat but always returning to me. Most days i had dinner with him, the food of my mother not being to my taste, having been raised all my life on food that was, you know, cooked.
It wasn't long (only a year or two) until i had managed to grasp my powers. Upon seeing this, my mother asked me what it was I'd like to do with my life and whether i would listen to a proposition of hers.
The sea, still and for the moment at least, was mostly free of human interference - if you went way out and avoided the coasts at least, but it wasn't true on the land. Monsters everywhere were fleeing for their lives, chased out from their homes by redevelopment, pollution and fear of discovery.
Although my mother had no attachment to the land or the creatures within, she did like power. She liked the thought of the land creatures owing her a favour and when they approached her for help, she readily agreed.
She wanted to know if i would be her liaison for the land, seeing as i was already intimately familiar with it - more so than any other at her Court.
In my two years at my mother's home, I had fallen in love with the other part of my heritage. Hearing that there were other monsters on land, perhaps other half breeds like me, made me want to meet them and help them if i could.
I agreed - and thus our business began.
We never had to worry about funding - so much stuff gets lost in the ocean it's practially our own personal treasure vault. And we did good, a lot of good.
i loved my job.
And my powers never came more in handy than in moments like these, gently leading a prehistoric monster down into a cold, clear loch, away from the grasping hands of the paparazzi.
Nessie dove into the loch and happily swum away.
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