Dedication: For Peanut

1

The Sea of Life, we call it, and many moons ago, so the story goes, our ancestors were seduced by its hypnotic power. Yes, there’s an insistence in the surf here, as nowhere else. Even the shoreline thrills beneath its tender tides. For aeons we knew flourishing and plenty. We grew with thriving strength. Children of an endless day. Yet, all the while, oblivious to the rising song of the yearning earth. It deepened and sweetened and soon there were those who would heed its call. Through swash and swirl and shivers of wind-whipped froth, they flipped and floundered over the silvered virgin sands of earth. Finding a fateful way. The Long Stranding, we call it, and it has brought us, down through the threads of time, great heartache.

Over uncharted ages, many prospered by surf and earth alike; making gain of both. Some were yet strong enough to return for good to the embrace of our mother, Great Blue. We, though, are the ancient ones. The Unabandoners. We have endured the melting of the elements and the Ash Wasting thereafter, the Ice Sprawl, the Great Plague, and so too we will face this new rising torment. The waters were ever our mantle and home when the fiery chasms and choking forests forever consumed the last giants of the land, the Elder Ones, in the Long Dying. We survived because of Mother Blue. Only because of her. Tempering the acrid air. And by her blessed envelopment. And so our songs ring out their joy amid the deeps. Our tongues ever tell of her enduring goodness. Over us, soil holds no sway. We are hers alone.

Such are the tales long to us bequeathed; the songs first sung to our children. Resounding here. In this very lagoon. Of long and happy memory. And soon a new story will take its rightful place in the journey of that ancient arc that rounds our very lives. For I am with child. And already she stirs within. Yes, I am sure of a girl. My first. Even in the womb she carries her mother’s swagger. All through our long pilgrim homing, I sensed her tiny beating heart in the silent expanse. And sealed within, the echo of my own precious mother. For this there is no word that I could offer. Nothing comes close. We Grays simply have a sound. Almost beyond register. At the utmost horizon of longing.

2

Today the bay is calm. Only a faint and balmy longshore breeze. Its crystal swells sparkling with sunlight. What joy! And other friends have heeded its seasonal call, or else happily call this Everhome: the spirited Whiskered Ones and their more docile cousins; the Great Winged gathered upon the shimmering flats; the tiny Greenshells; and our own distant Freefisher relatives in their learning schools, leaping and laughing throughout the leisured day.

The others also here abide. Mostly tolerated. The DIN as they’re commonly known. All slash and slick from their deafening Floats. Though sometimes they surprise. No one knows exactly how or when they left the way, or what led to such fearful estrangement. Yet some still return to the ocean’s embrace. Joining us for a time. As though aching to remember. And these we welcome. Often sensitive creatures. Seeking for the lost song. The drum of the deep. There is a slender one, our favourite, who breathes akin to us. Well, like our newborns at least. Although her tail is cold, she almost has the glow. She visits only under the Great Light. Her heart beats with a burdening sadness we all try to lift. Yet it is returned upon each return.

So we have learnt, yes, there are different DIN. These are happier times, for sure, if stories of not so old are true. They are always true. Especially the ones we most wish were not. They came at first with spear and scowl and bloodshot eye. The Butcherers. Crude ravagers with dun auras. Of us, they were only fit to take a few. Many more of them Mother dragged away into lightless forgetting. Though our cast is one of gentleness, an ancient rage still flickers within. Yet the Butcherers returned each time - keener and crueller - with ever fiercer Floats. And then came the Deathbarbs. And, we all believed, that would be our end.

None now living know why it stopped and none care to question. They once told of a terrible Bloodloosing amongst the DIN. Many enormous Floats now lie on the Netherbed. We mostly steer clear, in respect of those long lost. The shadows of their auras sometimes remain. Another story tells of the defeat of the Butcherers by this new, more curious kind. Yet even if these DIN are brighter, their daily din is so much worse. The worst in living memory. Some are calling it The Soundquake and I fear for the future of creatures so accustomed to such harshness. Though nothing quite compares to the Deathcalls of our own kind. There are distant rumours some Butcherers survive far across the Long Expanse but they have never since troubled us here. Mother be praised!

3

Would that this were an end to fear and sorrow. Alas, the sea itself carries a new taste of despair. Kindred call us the Gray Wanderers. A source of amusement amongst us. For we do not wander. Our very skins are scored with the tokens of time-honoured passage. Of scar and barnacle, we say. The Lasting Coast has ever been our friend, a sureful connection between gorging grounds and necessary nursery. There and back again. Around the cycle of seasons. Free and familiar. The Gray Voyagers, would be closer.

But, to the point: many of us are no longer surviving the voyage. Without warning or explanation. The Ghostfish, of course, has long been our foe. This will never change. But it prefers our young or those of the Whiskers. As does this new Blackfin terror. The Matriarch is instructing a whole generation on how to… No, I will not speak of it! We call them The Disavowed for good reason. Despised by all. No, it is our Eldens who are dying.

At first we thought it was the Floats of the DIN or their Hardskins hiding in the depths, or even those strange pulsing tubes along the Forgetting Floor. There are also strange new sounds from these forests of great mills along the coast. Yet, in truth, there is simply less and less of The Glut each year and no one knows why. This season gone is the latest I’ve left the Ice Sea for fear I hadn’t consumed enough Pinkswarm to make my Richmilk. Any later and I may not have made the return to this our Birthing Bay. There’s panicked talk of Reddrift in the water.

This is not all, I learnt only recently and with great sadness that Hrum, my mate of last season, did not survive The Homing. A strong and proud bull if ever there were one. We don’t get attached. That is not the Gray Way. It has served us well. Yet, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered, hmm, future reacquaintance. Perhaps he was hit by a Float or became confused by all the din. It can happen to the best of us. But it’s affecting many others. My own fear is that, exhausted, he simply ran out of Gutmush. His Hulk washed up on one of the DINs most popular Goldstrands. So so close to making the Homing! But there’s no Glut here anyway. There was never any hope of surviving the season or taking the next Coldrun, let alone running in the Matefight. Alas, the one who gifted me my first daughter! Or so I believe. There were naturally others. But none quite like Hrum.

4

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