Ripples

[[The boat...->boat]] [[The sea...->sea]]

...passes smoothly through the waves, parting the ripples of moonlight on either side. The sea shimmers like silver: an endless trove of coins, intangible, out of reach. The boatman watches the glints of silver, thinking of the coins he did not steal, and of the boat he did. He does not know where he is running to. He only knows that he is running. A winding shadow follows alongside the boat under the waves. [[He reaches for it...->airreach]] [[He attacks it...->airattack]] [[He flees it...->airflee]]

...ripples with moonlight, and rising bubbles shimmer from the deep. The man who swims through it is a shadow in the deep, long and undulant, his tail shimmering like silver. He watches the waves from below: a long wooden shape cuts through the fractured moonlight, rowing out from the shore. [[He reaches for it...->merreach]] [[He attacks...->merattack]] [[He flees...->merflee]]

...singing the hunting song of his people, a melodious keening through his gills. He bursts into the air, spraying pearls of silver. There is a legged man in the boat, slack-jawed with awe: he leaps, lunges, drags him down into the deep. The legged man smells sweet and warm and fearful. Bright bubbles stream from his nose and mouth, silver with moonlight. [[He is hungry. He feasts...->feast]] [[The look in the legged man's eyes strikes pity into his heart...->pity]]

...remembering the tales of legged men with nets and spears, who murder and feast upon him and his kind. He has no wish to court death this night. Soon there is another stretch of sea, emptier, lonelier. Here he can swim and hunt and catch moonbeams without fear. The night passes just as any other, and he never again hears a story of the boat. Sometimes he thinks of it, and wonders. [[Restart->Start]]

...with his oar, stabbing down into the waves at the thing he cannot see. The shadow shifts away beneath the oar, then closes around it. The man pulls and thrusts for all he can, but the shadow's grip is strong as steel. [[He fights to free it...->fight]] [[He releases the oar...->release]]

...remembering the tales of sea snakes and giant squid. He did not flee the gallows only to be slaughtered by the monsters of the deep. The shadow follows, no matter how quickly he rows. He cannot outrun it. [[In fear for his life, he turns to attack it...->airattack]] [[He stops rowing, and watches...->watch]]

...and falls back into the boat. The oar sinks soundlessly beneath the waves. The shadow coils and dives, vanishing into the deep. The man has a single oar left to row with. [[He gives up, and returns to the shore...->shore]] [[He strikes on through the waves...->onwards]]

...where the gallows awaits him like an impatient bride. [[Restart->Start]]

...knowing that the sea is an endless grave, a desert of water, an emptiness he has no more hope of crossing. The coins he did not steal join those glinting from the moonlit waves, far beyond the reach of those who seek them. He chooses a death of sunlight and salt. [[Restart->Start]]

...but the shadow's strength is greater than his. He tumbles into the water. Under the waves he finds teeth and claws and shimmering scales, and fear, and pain, as his lungs scream for breath and his flesh is torn from his bones. [[Restart->Start]]

...as the shadow slows to keep pace with him. [[He reaches for it...->airreach]] [[He attacks it...->airattack]]

...long sharp teeth tearing through the legged man's flesh, blood twining through the bubbles, clouding the water with his taste. When he has licked the bones clean he leaves them to fall into the deep. It has been a good night, a good hunt. [[Restart->Start]]

...and instead of devouring him he gives him the kiss of breath. The fear in the legged man's eyes does not lessen, but he touches his throat with wonder. He looks on the scaled man with unbridled awe. He takes the legged man's unwebbed hand, and leads him down into the deep. [[Restart->Start]]

...and finds another hand there reaching for his own. The flesh is pale, the fingers webbed and tipped with long sharp claws. The face of a man looks up at him from underneath the waves, sharp-cheeked and beautiful, shimmering with silvery scales. His eyes are playful, curious, hungry. [[He pulls the scaled man up...->up]] [[He lets the scaled man pull him down...->airdown]]

...and finds another hand there reaching for his own. It is the hand of a legged man, with unwebbed fingers and short blunt claws. His face, above the water, is bearded and worn; his eyes are awestruck, fearful, hungry. [[He pulls the legged man down...->merdown]] [[He lets the legged man pull him up...->up]]

...into the water, and gives him the kiss of breath. They pass an hour there, just below the rippling moonlight. The legged man lets his life float away under the air. /That life was already over/, he says, and lets his hands speak the rest. When they have spent themselves he takes the legged man's hand, and leads him to a life where he may start anew. [[Restart->Start]]

...into the water. For a moment everything is crushing water, breathlessness, fear. Then the strange man's lips are on his own, and the seawater turns to air within his lungs. They pass an hour there beneath the waves. The boat drifts away, forgotten, and the coins he did not steal with it. Deep in a world of skin and scales, he does not mourn its loss. He learns to love the waves from beneath. [[Restart->Start]]

...into the air, where his shimmering tail falls away and divides into legs. He learns to love as men do when they breathe air instead of water. He returns to the water when they are spent, and leads the boat to a distant land. The boatman has coin enough to begin a new life there. But every day he rows out onto the sea: and every day, the man with the fish-tail is waiting. [[Restart->Start]]