Firefly Fish
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“Marin!” Saeesar called behind me as I broke the surface of the ocean. We were surprisingly closer than I thought to land. The crevice had been part of a deep section off a long shallow shelf. Instead of wasting the charm, I used it to push myself towards the soft sand beach. “Marin!” Saeesar called…
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“You will need to tell him, Saeesar. It will do him no good to learn you are Fomorii, a child of Domnu and not a child of Llyr,” a low voice said over me in the dark. I had been asleep on Saeesar, heading out to sea. Now, I found myself stationary.
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“Tell me of your home.” I studied paper white skin at the edge of my cheek. Green flecks of plankton and salt drifted in swirls of ocean waters across Saeesar’s chest. The sun beat down on us as we floated over calm waves. His fins billowed out around him, soft and translucent like threadbare muslin.…
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“I heard Siren Voice so far out, I had to come investigate, Bet-tah,” Leviathan chuckled to itself. “And here I find you hiding a Kraken child. Who’s do you have? Cuttle? Lineolata, Mestus? Typica’s, mayhaps?”
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The solution, for the moment, was a long abandoned dock a few miles from the bay. It had belonged to a private property. From the water edge, appearances were that the roof of the mansion had collapsed years ago. The beach receded into a cobbled-together mass of sandstone boulder and shrub brush before the boards…
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I woke where I had been left. The shore trees, backlit, cast long afternoon shadows. The water had receded to my feet, leaving me covered in mud and leaves.
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Jarl wasn’t joking about the don’t drown bit. At the front steps of the boarding house, a floor down, I encountered a world turned on its head. The water level lapped three steps up. Murk and gunk drifted in the high water.
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Late into the night, or maybe early into the morning, I put away my guitar and set my mandolin back in its cradle. The winds continued to slam the boarding house, but I could not keep my eyes open any longer. My shoulders were feeling better, for one having been bit a few hours before…
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Saeesar was going to be pissed. That’s if Taigre ever saw him again. Or his father. Or the nesting ground. Mostly though, he was concerned with the part that his father’s top gladiator was going to be pissed.
Chapel Orahamm 