[FULL KELS SERIES] When Ande wakes up on the bottom of the ocean with a fish's tail, she's not sure what she did wrong. Getting sacrificed by her island is a likely bet, but why---and why her---is a mystery.
Out of her depth in an unfamiliar world...
It always feels like an eternity has passed when I'm singing on myself, but the sun hasn't moved when I open my eyes again. Neither has the log. Ande steadies me as I pull away, then laughs when I nod upwards. I won't be able to do much swimming today now, but I am still ready for food.
The log is a hotspot for foraging. Ande and I pick over it, nabbing small, fast fish, plucking seaweed, and prying shellfish off the rotting wood until we're both full.
Ande pokes me as I yawn. "Alright, naptime."
I can't even protest. She catches a handful of seaweed in one hand and holds out her other arm for me. I take the compromise. The log drifts well on the surface current, which is also going the same way as the wind, which is the same way we need to keep moving. That's good enough for me.
We leave the log again after one more meal that evening. By then, most of the small fish have fled, and we've stripped the shellfish down to the last stubborn few. Ande picks a handful of seaweed to bring with her as we strike out alone again, but ends up nibbling it all by the time the sun sets that evening. By then, we're back in the part of the current that Hahalua's children follow. We catch another ray shortly after the sun goes down, and clear another four days' travel by the time the sun comes up.
The days pass that way, one after another. Some combination of warm water, bright patterns of sun and moonlight, and the constant search for food makes them blend together, blurry around the edges. It's meditative, almost. If I were a Sami-Kel, I don't think I would mind the long journeys back and forth between seamounts. I'm not even sure I would mind living this way forever, always swimming with the currents, focusing only on the things that matter to my immediate survival. Life is simpler out here. Harder, but much less complicated.
As the currents keep broadening out into the vastness of the Sami-sana, I can also see why the Karu have never pushed this far into the open water. Why the Ashianti even can opt out of the fighting that rages closer to seamounts or islands. There's nothing for the Karu out here. Ande and I find another seamount, but the reef on its top is less than ten arm-spans across. It's a rest stop at best. No Karu-Kel could ever make a home or raise a family here.
At the same time, I'm starting to see why even the smallest points of rock are so valuable to the Sami, and why they fight so hard for a place around the islands to raise their kids. It would be hard to raise a young Kel out here, especially in their first few moons when they can't swim well on their own yet. My people can just carry our youngest children, but we have many hands to share that load. I wonder if it's even possible for large groups of Sami to live together, outside of rare, large gatherings like Rapal. Moving between smaller seamounts would be almost impossible with a baby or very young child. They wouldn't survive the hungry days in between, or it might stunt their growth if they did. Not to mention that swimming such distances with that kind of drag would drain the parent just as much. The longer I spend out here, I have to admit, the more curious I am about how the Sami make it all work.
It's a question I finally start to understand when the water changes, and I know, somehow, that we've reached the heart of Ashianti territory.
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