Cepharius

cepharius

"It is such a pity," Sylinda thought at me, and not for the first time.

"Keep that thought to yourself," I told her. I had just returned to Thalassamur after running an important errand for my brother, communicating with a group of selkies about the pollution where they lived. Afterward, I'd hunted for my mate, only to find Sylinda watching her outside the hatchling school where Elle was telling stories.

She spent a lot of time with kraken elders all over the ocean, learning history, and making sure their stories weren't lost to the 'qa when they passed, plus helping Balesur with any matters that had to do with humanity.

But when she wasn't working, she would always come to the school, to tell them stories from land and from sea, that they might not be forgotten. The children loved her, and she loved them.

Gerron had recently joined the 'qa, and Sylinda was pregnant again, about to give birth to her and Balesur's next child in its egg sac, where it would live for a month, as its small body acclimated from swimming inside the safety of its mother to the harsher conditions outside.

"It's a girl," Sylinda said, sensing my thoughts upon her pregnancy.

"How do you know?"

"I just do," she said, smiling at me. "I was right with Gerron, wasn't I?"

I squinted my eyes at her. "Yes, but the odds of you being right were fifty-fifty."

Sylinda laughed. "I look forward to you being around for her, regardless."

Gerron had eventually decided to forgive me. We'd fixed the broken statue, gone on to carve others together, and now he wanted my advice about courting—there was a girl he had his eye on, a day's worth of lengths away. I told him I had no real advice on the matter, that I had only been lucky twice over, but seeing as I'd somehow found two mates, he wasn't convinced.

And then Elle spotted me as I felt her on the 'qa.

"Ceph!" she shouted, waving goodbye to the children who were rapt, swimming over them in her much slower two-legged fashion to come and see me.

Her hair had gotten longer and now she often wore it in braids, to keep it out of hatchling tentacles, and I brought her mineralized sea flowers that she would wear in them—today she had six blue ones sewn in, three at each braid's base. Sometimes she would wear a belt, but most often not, content to swim in her own skin, and her body had gained more muscle from constant use, but otherwise she was the same woman I'd fallen in love with inside of the habitat, possessed of a sharp mind, an occasionally sharp tongue, and somehow magically full of soft love for me.

This was what I couldn't explain to Gerron. How I hadn't found Elle, so much as I had let her find the kraken she made of me, bringing me out of the depths of my sorrow and back to my new and better life beside her .

"How was your trip?" she asked me, coming near.

"Long, and I missed you," I said, because it was true. I wrapped my arms around her, so she could rest, carrying her back to our room at once, swimming down the halls with ease. "I would like to eat, and then I would very much like other things," I thought out at her, winding a meaningful tentacle around her ankle.

"I don't know about eating, Ceph."

"All right, we will skip eating, then," I said, sliding that same tentacle up.

"No—I mean—I don't know," she said curling against me, once we were safe in my room and the anemones were on. "I've been feeling really weird for the past few days."

My mood changed immediately. "How?" As much as Elle belonged among us I was very aware that we weren't equipped to handle any human-ish emergencies.

"I don't know," she repeated. "It started before you left."

"Last week?" I asked her, trying not to become upset.

"And this is why I didn't want to say anything."

"Ah, like the time you did not say anything when you were almost bitten by the sea snake," I reminded her.

"I didn't see it," she said, crossing her arms, and projecting her frustration out at me. "I just don't have words for it is all. Or I'd use them. Really."

I bowed my head to hers, as I roved over her with my tentacles, feeling for any changes. "I am only so concerned because I love you so much."

"I know," she said, nodding against me, as I slipped a worried lower-arm between her legs.

All of the suckers there lit-up. Uncontrollably. The chromophores on any piece of me that touched her there went from a concerned orange to a deep, bioluminescent violet, like the anemones that lit my room, at once.

"Ceph?" she asked me.

"Be still, my pearl," I asked her, not daring to move or hope .

"What's happening?" she wondered, as my tentacles inspected her further, and every time I touched her between her legs—and got more of her juices on me—the more certain I became.

I had come home just in time.

I looked at her, nodding. "Relax. Breathe."

The words had become our code for whenever we needed the other person to trust us, utterly, and as she did as she was told, I swept her into my arms and started jetting us away.