No sharks show their teeth that night, but I don't realize how high-strung the surface makes me until we return to the deep. Seiko falls asleep on my back on the way down. I hold them there through the song circle, then pass them off to a tribe Kel who comes to retrieve them when I make it clear I won't be joining the sleeping network. Taiki isn't back yet. Nobody seems worried about this, so I tell myself it is his problem, and settle down to sleep.
He's still gone when I wake up. My brain is now trying to pretend this bothers me, so I tell it to shut up and am spared by the thunk of a small child colliding with my back. This is my life now, isn't it. I swing the wriggling creature around upside down, drawing a squeal that hits my tail like a fly's buzz. It's Ren. All these kids are as slippery as oiled fish, and she is no exception. A sudden blast of the jets at her hips launches her out of my grip—straight upwards, and upside down. I have yet to figure out how to wrangle children in a world where the ground's pull doesn't apply. Ren jets back and lands herself on my lap before I can escape her. She points to her head.
I should have guessed this would happen when I braided Seiko's hair. My brain is now trying to pretend it will miss these kids when I go back to Telu. I tell it to shut up again.
Taiki's return gives me a wash of relief that I don't like at all, followed by a rush of heat to my face as Satomi catches my eye while looking for someone else. I've finished with Ren's hair, so I point her in the direction of her friends. She jets off. I would rather stay with people than without them, but I need to get out of here until my head is on straight again. I escape the tribe's core and manage to dodge all the Risi-singers on my way through the shoals. I stop on the glowing clouds' outward side. I don't want to venture too far into the empty water and find myself with no way to get back, so this seems like a reasonable compromise.
I let my muscles unwind as I slump down. Solitude lifts more than the burden of pretending from my back. I don't think I've actually stopped to process what's going on since I first met these Kels. I already miss the bustle and life of a crowd around me, but I can't shake the feeling that there's something very wrong with the tribe. Being with them comforts one part of me, but leaves several others empty or ill at ease. I still can't pin down why.
I can handle it, can't I? I've handled lots of things. I can survive. I hug my tail and repeat it over and over. I can't break down. Not here.
None of the Kels stand guard around us when we're in the deep. I don't feel safe putting my head down, so I rest my chin on my not-knees and watch the water. My tail keeps me upright with small, subconscious flicks.
The grief hits me all at once. I've lost my legs to a tail. Will I ever dance again?
My eyes sting. I'm a Luasa. A Kel. I'm trapped in the wrong form, the wrong place, and it's not going to end for at least another three moons, if it ends at all. I've lost my island and my family, and my future is such a wide open question, I'm scared of what it will or won't contain. I'm pretending to be strong because I've always been the strong one, but I'm not. Shouldn't I be allowed to feel that?
I let go of my tail and hug myself as I'm struck by an overwhelming urge to scratch off my scales. To stab this tail with my dagger, again and again, until it turns back to my proper form. I shudder violently. Smaller shivers wrack my body like aftershocks as I rock back and forth in the water, trying to fix my gaze on the tiny lights in the darkness and think of anything but swimming as hard as I can back towards Telu. How am I supposed to handle this for three whole moons?
The water behind me shifts, and my body tenses as Taiki ventures from the shoals. He doesn't invade my personal space this time, but that's probably just because he approached on the same side as my dagger hand. I don't want to talk. Not that that'll stop him; people always pry until I make it clear that I'm not friendly. I don't have the energy for that right now. I brace to leave, but Taiki just settles down to watch the water.
What's he doing this time? Doesn't he see I just want to be left alone?
I don't want to be left alone.
I glance over as he lights his hands. "I'll keep watch," he signs without looking at me.
He's letting me put my head down.
I hide my face as my expression breaks. My body folds in on itself, and I pull my tail up again because it's the only warm thing in this deep, cold water. I can't hate it when it's still part of me. It's all I have. Tears sting my eyes with a sharper salt than the water, which has never stung at all. I cry as quietly as I can.
The last person who saw I needed company and responded without me threatening them was my father. I don't want to trust Taiki, but I already do. He's done nothing but treat me as an equal since the moment we met. I want to believe that he means it. That he doesn't have an ulterior motive. That I actually have someone down here I can trust.
I wish I knew even the barest details of what happened to me that last night on my island. I danced by the storytelling fire. Danced and laughed and watched goma Kono tell tales from when she was a child. What happened that night after we all dispersed to our families' huts to sleep? I remember kissing my father goodnight. Lying down in my own bed, happy and warm. And then... nothing.
If I knew what happened, I would at least have some direction in this mire of uncertainty. I could brace myself to face sharks to get home, or to stay out here for the next three moons, or to stay out here forever. If I knew what happened, I would at least know what my father might be feeling. He deserves that. For me to know.
I cry myself out. When it's over, I feel like I've purged a half-moon's worth of stress from my body. I shiver until my breathing finds a rhythm, and the flow of water over my shoulders soothes the hollow feeling left behind. Slowly, I stop shivering. Taiki is still here, watching the water. I watch him, but he only glances my way when I lift my head. Then he goes back to staring out into the deep. There we sit, an arm-span apart, until Taiki breaks the wordless spell.
"Do you miss them?"
"Yes," I answer. It's the truest thing I think I've said in a moon.
Taiki's fingertips dig into his arms as his gaze drops. He's hunched up like he's cold down here, though the other Kels all seem comfortable. "What's your village like?" he asks after another pause.
The mention of my village spreads that sharp, hard ache in my throat down into my chest again. It makes me want to talk about it when I don't want to talk on principle. But talking about Telu is the next best thing to being there.
"It's bright." Sunny and full of life. So different from down here. "There are a lot of feasts, and dances, and just talking at night around the fire." I miss dancing a lot more than I thought I would. Not even the attention I got for it. The actual dancing. "I miss the sun."
And my colorful, flowing dancing skirts. My father made them, soaking plant fibers until they were soft, then dying them as bright as flowers. I miss the rain, and the sky, the smell of Telu's cooking, and sneaking out late at night with the other girls to bathe and splash in the river shallows by the light of the stars. I let myself miss all of them, and it feels so much better than pretending I don't that I keep going.
I miss the grass and the sand, and the smiles of the fisherwomen returning with full traps and loaded spears from the sea. The smell of a night breeze. Teasing the young village men, and flirting with the young women, even though I know they're all too intimidated to do anything but blush. I miss being special. I even miss Naina.
I know things are bad when I miss Naina.
When I get back to Telu, I'm going to hug my father, then my mother, because I miss her more than I thought I would, too. Memories of her resurface the longer I think of everything my parents have given me. My father has always loved beautiful and practical things: he taught me how to make rope and clothing from plant fibers, coax up fire with a hand drill, and identify all the flowers in the jungle that thickened the slopes of Telu's mountain. Also how to care for a partner, in the respect with which he treated my mother. But my mother taught me, too: how to clean a fish and husk a coconut, and when I was younger, how to paint the swirls of our language on rock or sand, over and over, until I could read and write faster than anyone my age. She was so proud of me back then.
I am struck by just how useless those skills are to me now. I don't think the Shalda-Kels even have a writing system, let alone anything to write with or on. I doubt Taiki's seen fire in his life, or eaten a plant that didn't grow in the sea. And if he's seen a coconut, he certainly didn't climb the tree to pick it himself.
I'm useless down here, and I hate being useless. I'm not supposed to be useless. Not when I bear the weight of the seasons on my shoulders as I dance.
Taiki is watching me. I can read worry in his face, or maybe it's sympathy; it's hard to tell in the dark. He's kept his hand-lights dim, like he's really listening to me.
"I want to see my parents again," I sign. It hurts more than all the pretty things I just listed. "Talk to people who understand me. People I can understand." I shoot him a glance, but he just nods. I drop my gaze. "I want to know I'll be okay."
I don't complain on Telu. Not like this. I say I'm hungry or tired, or that someone is bothering me, but not that I miss people. Not that I'm scared.
I was scared when I woke up with a fish's tail. Even more so when I got bitten by a shark. I dream about shark-bites now, and wake up gasping. I sometimes think I can still feel slime on my hands, or the coarse grain of a shattered coral. I imagine a jellyfish sting. Or what happened to whoever wrote that prayer on the Kel-den wall. I'm scared I'll never get back to Telu, or that I'll get there and have my village try to kill me. Or worse, get there and find out that I was sacrificed, and that the point of the sacrifice is for me to stay in the water. Alone. Forever.
I don't know how I'm going to reach Rashi and ask to be turned back. I don't know if he'll have the power. Even gods' powers have limits.
I don't want to have to talk to Andalua.
I return my face to my hands. Fears and worries tumble through the broken wall that crying brought down, battering me with loneliness and helplessness like a small boat in a giant, hungry ocean. I don't need to look over to know that Taiki is still here. I'm mad at him for not leaving, and at myself for not wanting him to. I'm a mess right now.
A small hand touches my back. Seiko hugs me from behind, then comes around and sits on the lap made by my half-tucked tail. Their dark eyes are worried, marring the innocence of childhood that paints their face. Their small fingers brush my cheek. I manage a smile. I'm sure there would be tears there if I were above the water, and I'm glad Seiko can't see them.
Taiki's hands light the smallest amount. "They lost their mother," he signs. "Eight moons ago. She was their only parent."
The urge to hug the child is overwhelming, so I do. They nestle against my chest.
"You're the first person they've done this to," finishes Taiki.
I've watched Seiko interact with the rest of the tribe. I'd assumed their resistance to being held was just typical six-year-old independence. And I was a stranger, which made me more interesting. Or so I'd thought.
"Why?" I sign.
"You look like her. She was..." His hands hesitate, unsure. He looks down. "Really beautiful, too."
Seiko's hand is on my face again, cradling my cheek. They withdraw it and cuddle down again.
"What happened to her?" I ask.
Something hard sets in Taiki's eyes. "Sami."