SHARDS of GEMSTONES

THEIR WORLD

Across the bubbling streams, and fluttering birds that traveled through the outline of the parchment paper skies, meeting with the ocean just on the shore. A long call scared them off, as a litter of folk woke in the winter to sniff the crimson splatters of blood. Across the tightly sewn netting, and the split bark in the chilling of freeze, Rainfall sat up in her own spit up, dribbling down her chest as she saw the insides of a fellow merfolk, the sounds around her ears mumbled and incoherent as she rested there. Bullets laced the earth, and the limbs of those who were there during the attack, but one young buck had not seen the daylight in his eyes since, and when Riverfin leaped across the clearing with his spear to the sky and a wail on his throat, the rest of the shoal was pushed away as Ripple and Riffle were brought near. The two tried to hold back their fears but Ripple couldn't stop themselves from turning away with a loud cry. The child, decimated by a few bullets, sharp enough to split the skin open and drive into his stomach.

Rainfall was escorted away by Gembelly, who tried to keep her head up as well. These things weren't easy to stomach, but they would settle for the living folk than those who were gone. Yet as Ripple turned, he calmed himself. He then turned to Riffle, who was still holding her mouth shut.

"I will fix this. If the oyewas know what's good for their scales, they will return this eggie's soul to his body." He spat out, and picked up Pondface's exposed body gently. Alongside Riffle, he carried the eggie towards their working quarters, tails hanging low.

Riverfin furrowed his brows, stopping them halfway, "This is absurd," The buck frowned at the sight, "Threatening the oyewas to bring him back won't work."

"Me and Riffle will put to use our right tools and rituals, he will live."

"Look at him!" Angrily, the taller Riverfin snapped his jaws with animality. A croak in his voice was a tearful pain he had shown to all the death, and all the exploitation. All of it, let out when an eggie was shot down. "They aren't just stealing our parents, they're stealing all of our children too! They want the kids, they want the entire forest, and you're playing with dead bodies!"

Ripple lowered his head at his kingpin, and sniffled out, feeling the heat of his rage boil over. There was a dead child in his arms, one he cradled even at rest. The buck widened his jaws and mewed softly to Riverfin, "And so we are to give up? The oyewas died, and you think they give up? After death, purpose or not, they shatter into the forgotten parts of the mind forever. They move on, not give up."

Riffle glared at her kingpin, fists balled up, and blood dribbling along her leg, "So dammit all, we will not give up until we move on, and we will never move on." Her eyes were like ember seas on the sun's surface, burning into Riverfin's. The two seers walked off into their quarters, and Riverfin felt his stomach churn with sickness.

Something is wrong, he stumbled off, shaken, and peered into the halls of trees in the outskirts of the territory, seeing the rocky river thrash against the stones wettened. He could feel something worse on the horizon for the shoals. And he did not know what was coming. Whether it was their parents, or it was their younger children, a rogue gun can fire into every bit of chewable muscle, even if the one holding the gun is a mimic. Riverfin felt his stomach contents push into his esophagus, and without hesitation, he pulled himself through a damp bush and let it out, huffing. He had not eaten since yesterbell. That was pure acid.

Ripple quickly worked, moving across the wide work bench to the slab of rock holding up Pondface. There was something about his ethic that attracted Rainfall to watch, even as she was cleaned up from the mess of her own vomit. The buck bounced around alongside Riffle, and the two met each other at their needs with each part. In her eyes, that buck was the very savior of her life, her stronghold against the reality of death she will face one day, but today she was to see something magical.