Daki was hunched at the bow when Sumira stepped out of the cabin at dawn. There were dorsals all around , in a wedge-shaped formation that almost mimicked the jagged triangles. These weren't Grandmother's pod.

"Threshers," Daki said as he opened a hinged, black shell. He took the tin cup from Sumira's hand with studied gentleness and placed it on the strange, glowing blue flesh inside the clam. "They guard this place above the drowned city. No one speaks to the deep lurkers unless they allow it."

"Will they allow it?"

Daki regarded Sumira for a moment before he nodded his broad head. "Grandmother is your advocate."

Once again it occured to Sumira that as vast as the ocean was, it was anything but empty. That below, beyond where she could see, there were countless other pods and clans and families, all living in ways that were both familiar and novel, all singing across great distances. And then followed the realization that Grandmother had sung about her.

Would word of her reach Astajia, back in Marakkech?

Wisps of vapor began to rise from the cup and Sumira held out a hand to it. Whatever was in the clamshell was producing heat like a small stove. Daki watched her expression and smiled with his eyes. "You should fetch some of your herbs."

She didn't need to be asked twice. She rushed back into the cabin and hurried out again with a generous pinch of tea and a little strainer basket. Even the smell of mint tea steeping made her sigh indulgently.

"Where did you get this shellfish?"

"They grow down below, where the sunlight doesn't reach. Only the glow of the fissure. When I spoke with the Doru of the Thresher Guard I asked her a favor."

"...All so I could have a cup of hot tea?"

Daki reached out with a broad hand and scooped Sumira into his lap. She leaned against his chest while she sipped her tea. Daki's heart was massive, powerful, like a muffled drumbeat below her ear.

"Akkay told us you wept when you remembered your home." Sumira listened to his voice resonate through his chest, rich and vast.

"Dancing with her reminded me of my troupe. Your pod feels so much like home that it makes my heart ache."

"You've been long away, you said."

"Since the Scorians took my city."

"What a long road you've travelled. All carrying your weight, without the water to help you..." Daki sighed and it was like wind across the mouth of an empty jar.

"That is how shore-people do things, yes."

Daki nuzzled at Sumira's hair.

(continued in Helios' lore entry)