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

(5) Broken Coral

I wake up tired. It's daytime; Rashi knows what time of day, but if the fog of the surface and its newfound habit of stabbing my eyes is to judge, it's sunhigh or just after. Or just before, but I'm much more likely to have slept until midway to sundown given that I bedded down at dawn. I'm stiff and sore, and the water hits me cold across the abdomen when I pry my arms from their self-inflicted hug.

Like it does every morning, my hand goes automatically to my hair. It's weird to find it still as fluffy as it was when I fell asleep. Telu's overnight humidity loves to mess with me on that front, and this is about as humid as it gets. I've also been in saltwater for over a day now, and I'm more than a little scared of what I'll find as I gingerly finger the tips of my curls. I'm pleasantly surprised. My fingers have thus far failed to wrinkle like they normally do after long river exposure, and my hair seems to have been blessed with a similar protection, even from the ocean itself. It's not just soft. Even at the end of my village's half-moon river gatherings, where the women bathe together and then pamper each others's hair with coconut butter, aloe, and head massages, my tight, wiry curls have never felt this healthy.

I'm missing anything familiar and due for a detangle, anyway, so I section off my hair and tip back in the water, enjoying my new ability to root out the knots without losing feeling in my arms. It's heat-of-the-day naptime by the time I'm done. I'm almost prepared to go back to sleep, but the thought of having to recover any more distance than I've already lost sinks the appeal in that. I untwist my hair and hiss at the cold invasion of water over my scalp. It's not enough to make me shiver, but just enough to annoy me. I shake it off by swimming hard and fast back up to the current I abandoned this morning.

It's still there. I have no way to tell if it's still the same current, or how far I drifted, but the answers to those had better be "yes" and "not far" if the ocean wants to stay on the right side of my mood. Not that it cares, but I like to think that it should. My tail aches its opinion on anything and everything as I start swimming again. This is not yet the most physical exertion I've ever had in a pair of days, but it's getting close.

The shrinking feeling returns as I swim. The knowledge that there are silver fish somewhere in the water far below me makes the ocean's maw seem not quite so bottomless, though. I'm not sure if the fact that I nearly considered fish my friends says more about me or the fish, but I've definitely started to part ways with my sanity. I spend the next palm's length of the sun's passage contemplating what part of me I'd be willing to sacrifice to have another human being here right now. I settle on a lock of my hair for my father, marginally better than ripping off a fingernail. Not that it matters; I don't think Rashi can see me down here, anyway.

I check above the water for Telu as often as I feel like weathering the stinging wind. I'm looking forward to being back on land, with ready food and safe places to sleep, but the logistics of getting there are starting to scare me enough to skirt the details. I'm trapped in a form my people kill on sight, and I'm unable to leave the water. Rashi's altar is in the village center. I want to imagine that I can talk the villagers into making an exception for me given my special status, but the more times I wonder if I was sacrificed, the shakier that possibility becomes. I shuffle the thought aside. I'll deal with that when I get there.

I'm searching for something happier to bury my insecurities under when I realize I've dismissed the same shadowing in the ocean ahead four consecutive times. I stop swimming. Then I actively pull up, as my new, streamlined form coasts onward like nothing happened. The water is less clear than it was even around the silt hill, and the shadow is closer than it ought to be for how little I can make out about it. It's... big. It starts in the water at approximately my depth and fades very slowly into the deep like another hill. It's darker than the silt hill, though. And it stretches out to either side with a lack of curve that hints it's several times the size.