[P] Sink

[Amaroq]

in his own country Death can be kind In silence he hunts among the kelp forest. Green towers upwards, more ancient than trees, swaying in the current that (unlike a breeze) never falls still. Light shatters at the surface and fragments down, painting everything it can reach. There are no tracks here by which to find what he hunts, but the kelpie knows that the otters have all climbed up among the rocks, that the small round seals have heaved themselves to shore the way they would before an orca. It frustrates him that he cannot hunt on the surface, that watchful eyes comb the beach for a glimpse of his horn jutting proud among the breakers. He has seen the pegasi passing over, their shadows skimming the water like gulls; how he wishes they were as easy to pluck the feathers from. How he wishes the dark-skinned girl would come back, that he could teach her to hunt, that he could ask her Are you not improved? Are you not happier? He has opened up worlds to her, above and below the surface of the water, the surface of her skin. There is nowhere she cannot go with her wings and her water-gift - unless her people put her down. But that is not his concern. She will learn the law or she will die, and it is not for Amaroq to determine whether she seizes the world between her jaws and lives. There is laughter beneath the water. The kelplie twines, stalking the forest like a wolf, tracking that stream of bubbles, that flash of silver like a fish. There is movement unceasing, but when he turns there is nothing but kelp and minnows that scatter like starlings for the shadows. And then! Before he can whirl she is there, collision-close, and he is sitting back on his haunches in the water, he is breathing a stream of bubbles, he is staring narrow-eyed and oh his teeth are sharp. They observe one another, the hunters. Her eyes are a green that has no place in his world, a green seen only in the curtains of light that shimmer above the frigid expanse of sea-ice and black water, doorway to the gods-water where the dead and holy swim among the stars. Her hair is a halo and his is a shroud, and he wonders are we alike, you and I? She shows her teeth, and so does Amaroq: a grin like the drawing of a blade. She is young, wide-eyed, like and not like. Already he can tell she was born, and not made; he watches her expression shift as easily as the wind disturbing the water’s surface and still he does not turn his gaze away. At last, slowly, he inclines his head, dipping the bone-pale spiral of his horn with all the easy grace of a prince’s bow. All the while his eyes do not leave her, measuring, curious. His gaze says I will not chase you if you do not run. He waits for her to choose, and tries and fails to remember what it’s like, to not be alone. @Anandi amaroq