Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(13) Taiki: The Nothingness

I've always known that Shalda-Kels aren't very well-suited to living in the Sami-sana, but the journey to Rapal reinforces that in a way I've never felt before. I've never traveled so far through the surface waters towards anywhere that could only be found by following the sun. I don't think I've ever traveled this far at all—not in one trip, at least. I've always stopped along the way.

One day on a ray this fast will take us as far as four days of swimming, if we can hold on that long. Ande at least settles in for a long ride. She only starts shifting from arm to arm when I do, as the sun begins its long, slow slide down the sky. The ray is still going the right direction, so we both stay on. Putting up with the pain is worth it for how far and how fast we're going.

I've heard that sharks don't sleep, and I don't know if the children of Hahalua do, either. This one doesn't seem to need to, unless it did during the day before we caught it. Even then, though, I can't imagine it will stop anywhere. There's nowhere to land in these open waters, and I don't think most ocean Nekta—or even Kels—can adjust their buoyancy to float in place like many Shalda can. I know sharks at least drown if they stop moving. It makes me wonder if they or their Kel-kind sleep at all.

I wish I knew more about Rapal and the people in it. Ande passed on what she learned from Ruka, but compared to Karu customs, the Sami-sana is a great empty space in my knowledge. The Karu used to have a good relationship with their open-water neighbors. Some still do, on the fringes of Karu-Sami territory where food conflicts and the Alliance haven't reached yet. After several generations of fighting, it's strange, in a way, to imagine the two getting along.

I've never visited those places. Some of them are cut off even from other Karu villages, who've suffered at the Sami's hands and want nothing to do with them. That was part of the reason I got close with the Karu in the first place. For every story I had of a vanished Shalda village, they had one of a village that had gone the same way, ransacked and Sami-occupied, or sometimes so utterly destroyed, people refused to recolonize it. Karu people. The Sami don't hold the same respect for the dead that the Shalda and Karu do.

The epitome of that is Rapal, I've always thought. The city was originally built by the eel Kels, and it's always turned my stomach how wrong it is for anyone to be living there now. Rapal should have been left empty after it fell, like Roshaska was. But that's not how the Sami do things. The city has been Sami-occupied since the disappearance of the eel Kels, and we don't know if those Sami-Kels simply moved in when it emptied, or took it by force. I don't know if the Ashianti did, either, from whoever was there before them.

Ande and I finally let go of the great ray sometime after midnight. We sink back down to the Shalda-sana together, rubbing our arms. I hum the healing song over myself, then her, trying to conserve my energy. With the exception of Hahalua's seamount, we've eaten scraps for the last few days, and I don't think we're going to find more than that until we get better at catching fish in the Sami-sana. I'm going to have to sing over myself again sometime soon, too. I've been putting it off, but the last time was when we stayed with the Sandsingers before the raid, and I start to lose muscle tone when I put it off for too long.

Swimming back upward the next day reveals a shadow on the surface. It's not a Kel, and my heart lifts. That's seaweed. A log wrapped in it, to be more accurate, bobbing gently on the open-ocean waves. Small fish gather under and around the fluffy fronds, darting nervously. My stomach grumbles.

"Song time?" signs Ande.

I groan, but she's right. I might as well get it over with while we've got a food source close by. We hold each other's forearms, and I let myself fall into the healing-song variant that keeps me in the body I identify with. In the bright water here, it floods me with memories of the Karu-Kel I learned it from, and the island I learned it on. The Kel had learned it from another one and adapted it himself, part of a long tradition of Karu-Kels figuring out how to change a body's form to align with its owner. I'll never forget the joy of discovering that tradition existed. It's not the only thing that makes me secretly wish my people and the Karu could ally with each other, but it's a major one.