Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(27) Kuna

I refuse to stir when Taiki shakes me at midday. I'm curious to see what dominates in his mind: my Singer privilege, or whatever is so sacred about eels. My mood sours when another tentative shake proves it's the latter. At least his hesitation means he still believes I'm the Singer. That, or he's interpreted—correctly—that I'm about as friendly as a tail-bitten sea snake when I'm woken by someone else, earlier than I want, after not enough sleep. I move a hand to my dagger, whip it out, and stab it behind me. A blast of water marks his dodge.

I roll over to find him hugging himself and looking anywhere but my direction. I make an exaggerated show of scanning the cave top to bottom. "When someone wakes me like that back on Telu, they at least know better than to do it without bringing me breakfast."

His throat bobs as he swallows. He nods once, still without looking at me.

"So?" I push.

"We have to go. It's after midday already."

Oh, he did put me before the eel. For a little while, anyway. I tell myself to take pleasure in the feeling of dominance, but while my anger of the day before is still raw, the sight of him cringing knocks a stone out from under it. Something less comfortable gnaws at the edge.

No, I refuse.

I'm not going to feel sorry again for someone who did this to me of their own accord. If I mean little enough to him that he thought I would play along as a pawn in his game, I'm damn well going to return the favor. I'm stronger, anyway. "Then you'd better know how to find food while we swim."

All I get is another nod. I kick him out of the cave while I take my time preening and waking up properly. I feel gross: headachy, cross, and fuzzy-headed. That was, at most, half a night of sleep. My tail itches. I run a hand over it and find tiny bumps here and there on my scales. I pick one off and it wriggles out of my fingers. Oh, gross. I thought I had left parasites behind when I was made a permanent inhabitant of water saltier than overseasoned soup.

I grab a handful of the floor's gritty carpet, but it's more mud than sand. One scrub turns the cave into a swirling fog. This in turn churns up memories of yesterday's octopus nest, making bile leap up my throat. Rashi help me, the first thing I'm going to do when we reach the shallows is sunbathe. The second is roll in the sand and scrub myself with it until my scales bleed. I hate parasites. All they do is feed and spread, and make someone else do all the work for them.

Taiki is nowhere to be seen when I finally emerge from the cave. We're in shallower water than the tribe usually inhabits during the day, and the sky is a shade of blue light enough to cast gloom over a large section of the underwater slope. That, or my eyes keep adjusting to the dark the longer I live down here.

Well, if he's going to leave me alone like that, I'm going to hang around this cave until he gets back, sacred eel or no sacred eel. Not that I actually want the cave now that I've turned its insides to broth. I just like the idea of being here longer than he told me I should.

My reign over some eel's hole in the rock is cut short by Taiki's return. He brought food. My stomach flips again at the way he approaches, head down and gaze averted, arms and food hugged close to his chest. He's just like Naina. Sure, he's smarter and more capable than three of her would ever be, but their root problem is identical. I should have known better from the day we met.

Taiki gives me a majority share and doesn't protest as I sit right back down on the rocks to eat. My appetite is gone, but I'm not going anywhere until I've eaten. Taiki only nibbles his own share. He's even paler than usual, and the marks of sleep deprivation shadow his eyes. I shut down the twinge of guilt that that's partly my fault. He's a light sleeper. Even if I went to bed straight away, he didn't have to keep watch.