It was noon, although you couldn't've known that by looking up. Above and below, the sea was dark; lightless. They were far enough down near the ocean bed that no light could reach them from the sun above, close enough to the hot-water vents that the cold didn't kill them. Their bodies were built to withstand the pressure of the deeps, and their tails glowed bioluminescent, flashing at their command. Their people built an intricate system of underwater communication signals from this voluntary bioluminescence, allowing them to speak while they swam.
"They" were Hallow and Cullie Etheri, sea-folk of the Winter Ocean Deeps, whale-hunters, providers of food for their people.
They were currently having lunch.
Hallow and his sister sat at a table in a rather fancy restaurant, enjoying some rather expensive freshwater. They could afford it. They were, after all, slightly rich.
"So, how'd your hunt go?" asked Cullie, sitting in her chair in land-dweller form, legs draped over one of the sidearms.
"Highly successfully," said Hallow. "Not only did we catch a diving whale, we also brought down a gaping shark.
Remember those?"
"Yes," said Cullie. "Terrifying creatures, if I recall correctly."
"You'd be right," said Hallow. "We might have caught a vampire squid too, but for the ink it sprayed in all of our faces. I haven't been able to get it out of my hair yet," he motioned to an oily black stain in his red locks, "but someone did get near its spigot with a bottle. And by someone, I mean me." He produced a small bottle of valuable squid ink from somewhere on his person.
Cullie clapped. "Well done, brother!"
At that moment, their food chose to arrive. It was their one expensive meal of the month: tilapia, grilled and slathered with citrus juices from their island-dwelling trade partners to the far south, with traditional Winterdeeps fried tubeworms on the side. Coconut pudding, also from the southern ocean kingdom, was dessert.
Five bites of the tangy tilapia later, Hallow asked, "So what did you do this morning, Cullie? My hunting pod met up with yours shortly after the squid incident, but I didn't see you."
Cullie heaved a sigh. "I went out, but my sealskin suit got torn on some sharp edges. Our pod got scattered by the biggest sleeper shark I've ever seen, and I took a direct hit from its tail, which threw me into the side of the Cliff. I started feeling cold, and that's when I saw the giant rip in my suit. I'm lucky I made it down before the chill really started to set in. That would have been unpleasant." She enunciated the last word with much emphasis before crunching down on a tubeworm.
Hallow shivered a little in his seat. Cold water was one of the worst things in his existence. Get some of that stuff in your suit, and your entire body would stiffen up, rendering you useless.
Aloud, he said, "How do those Wintertops people stand it? You'd think they'd be insane from the cold."
Cullie swallowed her entire mouthful of food in one go, a feat that never ceased to amaze her brother. "Have you seen 'em? They are! Not to mention that they're stuffed full of enough blubber, you could mistake them for whales. Well, I suppose that would keep them warm. Huh."
The Winter Ocean was a sea kingdom under the dominion of the Sea King and Sea Queen, who were quickly on their way to becoming the Sea Emperor and Empress. The Sea Queen in particular was beloved of her people. Born in the Winter Ocean Deeps, she caught the eye of their nearly equally beloved prince before he became king. They were married, and she received an equal share of authority over the kingdom, as was wont to happen. From there, she quickly realized she had some serious military genius, and within a matter of months achieved victory in a war that had dragged on for ages. She even had a few land kingdoms under her thumb, something no other ocean monarch had ever managed.
The Winter Ocean itself was divided into two parts: The Winter Ocean Deeps, or the Winterdeeps, and the Winter Ocean Tops, or the Wintertops. The two halves of the kingdom bickered and squabbled and generally spoke poorly of each other, but they were one people at heart. The people of the Winterdeeps could not survive without Wintertops kelp farms, and the people of the Wintertops could not survive without the fast-moving Winterdeeps hunting pods that provided meat and sealskins for the whole kingdom.
Aside from being each other's 'worst enemies', the people of the Winterdeeps were built differently than those from the Wintertops. Winterdeeps sea-folk had dark blue skin and sharp-finned shark's tails set with bioluminescent organs: eight on each side of the tail, sixteen in total. Their pupils were huge, and the whites of their eyes were grey. Their hair was inky black like a squid's ink, and it could be moved at will like tentacles. Often you would see a Winterdeeps dweller with half a dozen miscellaneous objects held in their hair for safekeeping.
Those of the Wintertops were large and blubbery, with dolphin's tails. They were all a pale white-blue to blend in with the ice, and they had no bioluminescence. Instead, they would communicate like dolphins through clicks and whistles.
The land-dweller forms of both peoples, however, were much the same. They looked like the traditional Talestoran: Red or brown hair, purple eyes, any shade of skin from pale to light olive. The Wintertops people were considerably thinner in their legged bodies, although they were still generally heavier than those of the Winterdeeps.
Incidentally, the entire Winter Ocean was situated off the northern coast of Talestor, in the area the maps called the Frozen Sea.
Hallow knew that, of course. Some of his friends had gone up to live on the surface and currently resided in Sentineon, where the population was more former sea-alf than not.
Some days, he considered going up to the surface to see what it was like. But more often he thought of how happy he was here, under the waves. He was, after all, slightly rich, and he and his sister were respected figures amongst the hunters.
He took a sip of his freshwater and started on his pudding. Cullie had already pretty much shoveled half of her bowl down her throat. Hallow's sister was a fast eater, and an even faster swimmer.
They made light conversation as lunch went by. Cullie talked about an expedition to a sunken ship she was joining after lunch. It was deep enough close to the hydrothermal vents that she wouldn't need a suit, which was good, because hers wouldn't be fixed until tomorrow.
"What are you expecting to find there?" Hallow asked, genuinely curious.
Cullie shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe there'll be some gold, eh?" She nudged him with a foot and winked.
Hallow smiled. "Maybe." He checked the water clock in the corner. "Hmm. I have an appointment with my physician at the thirteenth ridge. The water's pretty much already there... If I hurry, I bet I can still make it."
"Go!" Cullie laughed at him, pushing him up from the table. "Oh, my brother. What am I going to do with you? You're such a lazy idiot! Go then, go on!" She chivvied him out of his seat and sank back into hers, still laughing.
Grinning, Hallow made his way to the restaurant's sealed moon pool room. He opened the first door of the airlock and stepped into the space between the two doors. He shut and sealed the first door, then repeated this process with the second door, which left him standing next to the moon pool at last. He dove into it and summoned his sea-folk form.
Around him, the underwater city was barely visible but for the glowing markers painted on every structure. People swam through the busy corridors in a tizzy, hastily getting to wherever it was they needed to go.
The buildings were all made of stone, and egg-shaped. Most of them had three tiers. A heavy stone pillar, as wide as the bottom of the building, anchored each one to the ocean floor. Thin stone chimneys rose all the way up to the surface, serving as air vents for the buildings' occupants.
Hallow couldn't see it, but he knew that the walls of every house were riddled with little tunnels, through which hot water was pumped. This kept the houses at the inhabitants' desired temperatures.
Swimming through the open water between those buildings, Hallow kept an eye out for the physician's marker: a mortar and pestle painted on the side of a large building. He found it and quickly swam down to its moon pool.
Hallow flipped his tail, sending himself up through the opening and into the hospital. He pulled himself out of the water onto the mat at the edge of the pool and shifted back into his land-dweller form, then underwent the rigamarole with the airlock and strode into the reception room with all the confidence of someone who wasn't late. He was, of course, pushing the limit himself.
"Hallow Etheri," called a nurse.
"Right on time," Hallow muttered to himself, then got up and followed the nurse.
Doctor Sigurdur Charsang was sitting on his chair in his check-up room, patiently tapping his foot against the floor. He smiled when the nurse practically shoved Hallow through the door, exposing his waaaay-sharper-and-longer-than-normal teeth.
Hallow gulped. Doctor Charsang was a rather frightening man. It was just as well that he didn't know the pointy end of a javelin from the blunt one.
He sure did know his way around needles, though. The thought was not comforting.
"Well, well, well," said the doctor. "Look who's actually on time today."
Hallow laughed nervously. Sigurdur's smile widened into a grin.
"Oh come now," he said. "I don't bite."
His grin did not serve to shift Hallow's attention off his mouthful of jagged fangs.
"Have a seat," said Doctor Charsang, motioning towards the patient's chair. Hallow sat. The doctor closed his mouth, which made him look more like a normal person and less like a figure from Hallow's worst nightmares. He crossed the room to his patient to begin the checkup.
It was routine for every resident of the Winterdeeps to get their health checked every so often. Hallow was used to the examinations. As Sigurdur worked, he allowed his mind to drift.
He considered the doctor. Having never seen him in his sea-dweller form, Hallow could only guess at what those teeth translated to in the water. He was likely an immigrant from a deep-sea clan farther south, where the water was warm enough that they wouldn't have to live around hydrothermal vents. Without those, food would be scarce, and sea-folk that lived in places like that probably wouldn't bother to cook their food or even bring it home before eating it. Hence the terrifying chompers.
But if Sigurdur really was from a deep-sea clan, where would he learn medicine? Due to scarcity of food, the deep-sea clans operated on a very 'survival of the fittest' philosophy. Sick kin were abandoned, or offered as sacrifices to sharks, which some clans worshipped as gods. There would be no need for a healer.
Perhaps he had come to the Winterdeeps at a young age, and was taught medicine at the healer's school. That would be the only explanation that made sense.
Hallow was roused from his rumination when Doctor Charsang stepped back, crossing his arms with a satisfied expression on his face. He made a vaguely happy noise, lips stretched in a (thankfully) closed-mouth smile.
"You're a very healthy person, Hallow," he said, a note of something like caring in his voice. "I hope you remain such through all your visits to me."
"Thank you, Doctor Charsang," said Hallow, really meaning it.
The doctor's smile widened a little at one corner, causing a dimple to appear in his now asymmetrical face. "Run along now," he instructed. "I've got a couple of other patients to scare with my teeth."
Hallow did as he was told, exiting the office quickly. He'd never really considered the fact that Sigurdur knew just as well as everybody else how frightening his mouth was. That took him off 'creepy' and pegged him at 'possibly humourous'.
The people of this world, thought Hallow wryly to himself.
He ran through the same routine with the moon pool again, and swam off into the city to spend the rest of his afternoon, which he had off, however he pleased.
Author's Note: Welcome back to Aer'denna, everybody.
Hahaha! I bet you guys thought it was going to be Crappy Tree (TM) again. Instead, you get Crappily Drawn Underwater Mermaid Dude With Little Glowing Lights In His Hair (TM)!
That's Hallow, by the way.
Sooo, what'd y'all think? If you've got questions or comments, drop a comment! If you just want to give a general thumbs up, press that Vote button! Thanks to all who read my stuff, and of course, cheers everybody!