The Glimmering Sea

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Armida picked out larval crabs, clams, and snails to feed Ziphra, who clearly had ceased eating well ahead of Armida's return. Like other octopus mothers, the food Ziphra found went to her babies. Armida's effort might slow Ziphra's decline but wouldn't prevent it.

They both nibbled the delicacies, with Armida eating little to allow extra for Ziphra. Armida saw Ziphra was pretending, too. Ziphra closed her eyes as Armida fed the remainders to the delicate babies, those less likely to survive without help.

Ziphra draped a tentacle on Armida's arm. When Armida stroked her affectionately, the slackness told her the octopus wouldn't linger long. They drowsed next to each other, occasionally commenting on how her babies grew quickly. Ziphra's movements all but stopped.

To watch Ziphra fade was agonizing but Armida admired Ziphra's acceptance of what her life offered. She wished she was half as brave and she wanted to scream at the injustice. Sludgesharks lived decades while her brilliant, funny Ziphra was allotted a fraction of their lifespan. How opposite were the lives of merfolk and octopuses—the merfolk living over a century and bearing two pups at most, the octopuses living a few years and with thousands of offspring. Yet both depended on the health of the seas they had in common.

Armida rested a hand on Ziphra's tentacle. ≈You have done your part, what nature has required of you to help your species survive. I have hopes I can do the same.≈

Ziphra's words were sent so softly they barely registered. ≈Do not underestimate yourself. Those beyond Marea need you.≈

≈What can you mean? What could I be to any but merfolk?≈

There was a long silence. Ziphra's tentacle slipped away.

She was gone.

Armida rocked Ziphra in her arms as the babies darted around them, unaware of their mother's demise, as they were yet unaware of their short futures. She allowed Ziphra's body to rejoin the ocean, in a place where Ziphra had taught her many lessons of survival. It's what Ziphra wanted. To be part of the eternal life cycle of these blue waters. Honoring those who came before and those who would come after.

The sun cleaved the waters, splitting it into shards and ribbons of blues and greens. Parrotfish and wrasse, with their reds and oranges and silvers, challenged the sun's brilliance. The pristine waters of Thalassa were behind her and the graywater of Marea was ahead.

She wanted to stay here forever, living with Ziphra's children and their children, teaching them who their mother was—the first of her kind to communicate with another species.

But the fantasy was not to be.

Marea was a few days' travel away. Less if Armida hurried, and she would hurry because she wanted to fold Paolo in a hug and be told it was all a mistake.

Marea beckoned. It would be spring at home.

✧✧✧

Regret had many lives. And life encompassed many losses. When had it started, this erosion, this inconstancy? Armida was no longer wistful about her childhood, for those years had not been based in honesty. She much preferred the truth of adulthood with its harsh realities.

And yet.

The penetrating, aching despondency had been unexpected. Marea was in decline after thriving for eons. Thalassa was under attack after years of peace. The small, personal heartbreaks had been more acute. Saying goodbye to Rinaldo. Ziphra's death—her stomach still contracted with agony when she thought of Ziphra. She quaked with the injustice of her false trip to Thalassa. She would not consider that Paolo would not be waiting for her in Marea.

As she left, Armida paused her contemplations to burn Ziphra's cave into her memory. Fish and crab and sea worm continued their daily routines and none noted Ziphra's absence. What she was physically, the form and structure of her, no longer existed, but who she was would live within Armida forever.

≈Safe seas, my friend.≈

Armida stretched out her arms, and with a powerful thrust from her tail, she swept away from the cave and toward Marea. She did not allow herself to look back. She had the image she wanted to hold in her memory.

A striped comber caught her eye. Or rather, its iridescent blue spot did. Combers were loners and Armida wondered if they ever felt lonely. She followed the fish for a time, concerned it was out during the day, not resting among the rocky shadows as it should be. Perhaps sensing Armida, the comber darted into a slit in a silvery flash. Armida's gills fluttered in sympathy.

Armida soon enough realized the school of bonito had been the considerable danger for the comber. Bonitos were strong and had a predatory gaze. They sought a meal because they were hungry. A simple yet complex process. When a few scudded out of the group, smaller fish rushed for cover. But as is the way of the sea, a dozen sleek sand lances would not live to swim the next day.

On Armida traveled, the sea now shallower; fewer fish and the silty water marked a transition to conditions worse than when she had left Marea. The dimming confused her, too soon for twilight. She rose to the surface and realized the sun was barely past midday. The grimewater hid the light. She would be home and safe by next nightfall.

She warmed herself in the sun. She was glad of the graceful flying fish, yet took their flight as a warning. Something was chasing them, or they would not leave the sea in their speeding leaps. They were fortunate no birds were hunting from above.

It was not the time to delay. She flipped under the surface and drove herself toward home.

✧✧✧

The shapes and sounds on the fringes of Marea tugged at her. The sensation was a bittersweet one. Home, yet no longer home. In the south, she'd recognized what Marea had once been. Full of vibrant, colorful life, plant and animal alike.

Drawn by the need to be home and repelled by the decline of her beloved sea, she stopped moving. Dizziness overtook her. Her gills flapped as they sought increased oxygen. The months of striving to reach her objectives collapsed in on her. Paolo might still be missing. Not knowing was like acid eating away at her thoughts.

Armida sank to the seabed, too depleted to comprehend what should happen next. She was too young, too undisciplined to solve the things needing solving. It was ludicrous to imagine she could save anything—she hadn't managed to save Ziphra, let alone Paolo or Marea.

The shells on the ocean floor were gray and brown and had none of the pearlescence so fascinating to her as a merpup. Compared to those on the necklace she wore, they were lifeless and without significance.

How murky the water was. Night had fallen. The trip had taken her longer than she had aimed for. The Watcher Station must be nearby. Its beats should reach her mindpath soon.

Armida probed with her mindpath. Searching for enemy or ally. She reached for more wisdom, wanting to be warmed by it.

Open your eyes—and heart—to find those who will help you.

Her mindpath tingled. Something familiar. A whistle and then a rapid clicking hit her soundbones.

≈Welcome home, friend.≈

Warbler and Nudger emerged from the foggy water.

≈I am ecstatic to see you both. It has been too long.≈ A joy, absent for days, made her smile.

They nuzzled Armida's neck, and she rubbed their noses and patted their backs with gentle strokes.

≈Too long. Times have changed.≈

≈What can you mean? More than the difficulty in hearing you until you were upon me? I cannot deny what is before me and I feel the heaviness clinging to my skin and scales.≈

≈The situation is not good. Marea needs you more than ever. The Watcher Station no longer beats.≈ Nudger pressed against Armida. ≈You have heard the news of your father's illness?≈

≈I have. Do you have any updates for me?≈ Armida worried at the hesitation that followed. ≈Tell me.≈

≈He is alive. He probes for you but is weaker each day.≈

≈Then I must hasten.≈