Tribble Month 2022 Day 27: Ashenra
Xe couldn’t do magic the proper way.
If xe concentrated for long enough on the songs of xir family’s whales, xe could almost interpret them. The emotions, or the concepts, and sometimes snatches of sentences on xir best days. But even that left xem weak-kneed and dizzy, and exerting that effort tenfold got xem nowhere with any other sea life.
And if xe cannot hear them, cannot speak to them, then why in all the world’s water would they listen? Fish wouldn’t follow xir lead, crabs wouldn’t crawl into xir hands, and even the plants shrugged off xir influence like so many specks of plankton. Xe wondered, sometimes, if maybe xe could pick up more of their thoughts than it seemed, or if the scathing mockery was only in xir head, or xir memories.
But then.
The book.
The book xe’d got from another traveling band, traded for a weaving of seaweed and shells. The book, charmed against the saltwater’s hunger, filled to the brim with the secrets of the surface folk. Filled, too, with incantations and inscriptions xe scarcely understood. And when xe followed its directions, gathered the right ingredients, murmured the words into the water—
All at once, the weave of the world seemed to glow at xir fingertips.
