Black background with white text reading: Reaching his cottage, he found it offered no relief. The low stone walls and heavy timber beams, once a great sanctuary against the gales, now felt like a ready built coffin, all generic dimensions and no longer a close custom fit... The air inside was too dry, too, and the silence, too hollow. He felt the walls pressing in, the ceiling too close to his head, and a crushing and overwhelming sense of claustrophobia that made him want to claw at the windows. He moved mechanically, his mind still vibrating with that cold, static hum. He heated a mug of leftover fish broth over a small flame, the steam doing little to clear the metallic tang of copper from his tongue. He sat in his armchair, the broth warming his hands but failing to reach the chill deepening in his marrow. He stared at the flickering candle, his ears straining. Behind the whistle of the wind in the eaves, he could still hear it; the rhythmic yet hauntingly beautiful, musical trill of the creature. "Just a good night's rest," he whispered to the empty room, though he didn't believe it. "Just need to sleep it off." But as he closed his eyes, he didn't feel the safety of his bed. He saw the sea of indigo blood, and felt himself sinking alongside his silver bit; sinking down, down, down into a webbed hand that was cupped, and waiting to close tightly around him. The hand rose from the dark, not to crush him, but to cradle him. In his dream, the tether wasn't a phantom sensation; it was a thick, translucent cord of light seemingly connecting Toran’s heart to the creature. Toran watched, mesmerized and strangely calm, as the trailing indigo blood of the merman began to swirl with ribbons of vibrant, pulsing crimson. His own heat, his own life-fire, was flowing down the line. And the crimson glowed with each shared steady heartbeat.
Part 4
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