Semi-Random Reflections

Read time: 2 min.

An excerpt from my work-in-progress novel The Song and the Tempest.

Julrane listened to Nasrin breathing beside her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in darkness. In the safety of their rooms, Nasrin could take the glamour off and let her veins pour forth their light. The effect reminded Julrane of bioluminescent jellyfish. In the dark she could faintly see the outline of Nasrin’s bones and muscles, darker where they had more mass and brighter why they had less. The light made Julrane’s own body glisten with rainbows. She twirled her hand before her face, watching the prism run along her fingers.

She couldn’t indulge the lightshow for very long. She had work to do before Nasrin awoke. She wrapped herself in a shawl till only her eyes, hands, and lowermost fins showed, then swam gingerly out of the room. Once out of the Citadel, she traveled up to the surface.

In the moonlight she discerned the shape of a moderately sized boat floating nearby and swam toward that. She thought she’d have the element of surprise, but before she could plan her next move, rough hands grabbed her arm from above and pulled her out of the waves.

“Hold on!” a fisherman shouted. “I have you! I can get you back to shore!”

The young man dragged her into the humble vessel and dropped her on the floor atop a net of flopping fish. He stood over her, a concerned and astonished expression on his face. Since he now filled her entire line of vision, she studied his appearance. His face was slick from where he’d gotten splashed pulling her out of the water, accentuating his sharp, rugged features. Salt flakes frosted his eyebrows. The wind rippled through his thick hair like a black flag. The full moon formed a halo crowning his expansive forehead.

She lifted herself closer to him, then backhanded him across his stupid wet face with all the force of an arm strengthened by continual swimming and digging. He reeled sideways and hit his head on the side of the boat. Even his unruly mane did nothing to cushion him against the wood. She held still until he lost consciousness, only approaching the body afterward to confirm that the fall had, in fact, knocked him out. His leg twitched so she kicked him.

She started by throwing his catch overboard, breathing a relieved sigh when the vast majority of fish swam away. She then used the net to hold him off the side of the boat, just out of the water. The boat only had one modest sail, but it still helped her reach her original destination more easily.