Toran didn't answer. He was already moving away, across the dock. His stride, no longer a stricken heavy land-plod, but a fluid, swaying motion that anticipated a swell that wasn't there.
He reached the jetty and jumped onto the Rusted Nightfish. Now, his feet didn't stumble. He landed with the grace of a predator. The boat felt like an extension of his own limbs.
He didn't need the whiskey to steady his hands anymore.. He slammed the engine into gear, and as the harbor lights receded, he felt the claustrophobia of the land lift.
He wasn't going out to fish. He was going out to wait for the red-glowing scales to rise through the foam.
At exactly five miles out, the Rusted Nightfish idled, drifting in a sea of liquid glass. The engine silenced, yet the boat felt alive, thrumming with a frequency, an anticipation, that made the salt crystals on the deck dance.
Then the water broke, without a sound. Without so much as a ripple, the Dark Neptune rose, his bright obsidian eyes no longer wide with the stark panic of the net, but alive with a heavy, ancient and terrifying curiosity. The crimson scales - the ones mended by Toran’s stolen warmth - glowed like dying embers racing against his indigo skin.
As the creature leaned against the hull, a soft trill bypassed Toran's ears. It wasn't just a sound anymore; it was a flood of imagery: the crushing weight of the trenches, the reverent singing of the whales, and a sudden, sharp flash of the "Nightfish" as a tiny, flickering spark in a vast, cold desert.
The merman was grateful. Toran could tell that much. Not just for the healing, but for the will it took for a creature of the shore to reach back into the dark.
Entranced, Toran reached out. His calloused fingers brushed the new red scales. They weren't cold like fish skin; they pulsed with a low, feverish heat - his own heat, returned to him in a different form
Part 8
#WritingPrompt #CreativeWriting #Toll #FaeSense #Continuation #SeaFolklore #DarkFantasy #SeaStory
