5. Alistair
Something is missing.
A word.
I’m always missing words. But I can see this one. An image of colors—ones that don’t exist in these waters. The closest I come to seeing them is on the surface. When the…
Orb…
Sun.
When the sun rises. And when it sets.
This image, which I can see, but can’t find the word for, has color. Lots of color.
The colors come from…
The ground?
A feeling scratches my insides.
Restlessness?
Is that the feeling?
Or is that what the feeling causes?
It’s deeper, though, this feeling. It grips me. Burns me. Makes me billow and snort, in ways that scare the remaining water creatures. They hide when they hear me approaching.
And that hurts me.
I hate that I’m losing my words.
Hate that I’m so… restless at losing my words.
The waters around me stir, as though also restless with this unnamed emotion.
And the…
Dark thing…
Shadow.
The shadow floats overhead, stealing the sun.
It carries sound with it—human sounds.
Speaking.
They’ve passed over me before. The shadow and the speaking. Normally, I don’t notice them unless I am called to visit the humans. Then I have no choice but to leave the depths of my water and surface to…
Amuse?
I surface to amuse the humans.
But no such call tugs at me today. The rune above my eye, which burns and pulls when I must amuse the humans, is cool and still.
But my restlessness drives me to follow the shadow. The speaking.
Perhaps, as humans speak their words, I will find the one I am aching for.
The colorful thing. A soft, soft, colorful thing.
It grows from the ground. On the warm days. After the ice leaves.
It is plucked from that ground. So it can be shared.
And I share it with people. With Indigo most of all.
I share many —groups of those colorful things.
It brings me joy to share them. Because it brings others joy to receive them.
And that’s the image I see—a cluster of the colorful things, wrapped in a long, pale hand that had once been mine.
What is the word ? Why can’t I remember it?
I swim, following the waters left restless in the shadow’s wake. And hope.
Maybe these humans will give me a word back.