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As far as Naoto was concerned, Reshfen was a large bubble of fear. The terror of its residents reliving another attack from the Lotan acted like a beacon for his empathic Will-sense, letting Naoto guide his dad, Lluvan, and Lluvan’s mother through the now murky waters to safety.

Squinting through the kicked-up sediment all around them, there was only a burnt orange color above them and a dark brown below. Vague shapes couldn’t made out until they bumped into something definitive.

The going had been so slow.

They had ripped up one of the extra blankets from the clinic to loosely wrap around the lower half of their faces and necks, gently over their gills, so that they could breathe.

Ondes and Naoto grabbed the emergency bags that they had only just packed that morning. An extra cloak, some food, the easiest to carry of their medicinal supplies… and, in Naoto’s messenger bag, was the pearl dagger.

So much for leaving it in the back of my closet, Naoto had thought only once about it.

He had a much more important task ahead of him than worrying about a blade he didn’t ask for.

A pack of dogfish scattered by, going the opposite direction. Naoto’s stomach sunk. Logically, Reshfen, built into a mountain, was safer than roughing it in the kelp forest. But something about the animals swimming off into the brown-orange abyss bothered him.

Something wasn’t right.

Off in the distance the deep echoes of a whale in distress reverberated through the water. And maybe Naoto was more focused on using his Will-sense to find the way, but something about the whale didn’t sound right. The call sounded… almost hollow, edged by a light hissing.

It took his mind an extra moment for the sound of metallic groaning. It was followed by a sharp cracking that split through the water.

Naoto’s stomach sunk even further.

Over the mess and the emotional din, there was something else that Naoto sensed. Whatever it was, it was big. And it processed its emotions more like an animal than a person, dull but identifiable. As they neared the top of a rise near the main overlander ruins outside the city limits Naoto couldn’t ignore it anymore.

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“Wait!” Naoto called out. He threw his arms out to the sides, signaling for them all to stop.

With nothing else in reach, they all latched onto the broken brick of an exposed ruin; waiting for further word from Naoto. The currents ushered some of the floating sediment away, enough to see what had caused Naoto to tell them to stop.

There was a giant, long skeleton coiled around the entirety of Reshfen.

Clear skin stretched over an eel-like frame of bones that was so long that Naoto had no idea where the creature began or ended. Organs sat in translucent space, twitching and throbbing - glowing in spots along its sides - yet no veins could be seen on the creature.

“It didn’t happen like this last time,” Ondes fretted, forcefully pushing water through his gills and flaring the blanket scrap wrapped around his face. “It’s supposed to start gradually. We should have had more time!”

“We will have to turn back,” Lady Tiago decided. Her blue curls were muddled with sandy debris, her blue eyes mourning already. “I hope Zalé and my girls made it to one of the shelters.” She instinctively reached for Lluvan’s hand and grasped it tightly, Lluvan taking his mother’s arm in his in turn.

It’s frantic, Naoto mentally noted. His brows lowered and his mouth puckered up in concentration, his black, spotted tail kneading as he focused.

But, as he tried to sense the Lotan and filter the other nereids’ emotions out, Naoto also sensed it wasn’t angry. The cold tugging in his chest told him it was worried, much in the same way someone would be if they saw a child get hurt.

A hand on his shoulder snapped Naoto out of his focus. He clenched his eyes shut in a couple short, hard blinks.

“You’re making that face again,” Ondes said. He knew full well what faces meant what with his son. “What can you feel?”

Naoto looked at him and shook his head. “It’s looking for something,” he replied. Naoto placed his hand on his chin as he thought of the best way to word it. “Like, if a little kid scraped their tail on a rock. Except it can’t find the kid.”

Currents shifted and they all gripped onto the ruins tighter.

The Lotan wiggled and rolled and the currents running through the area ebbed and flowed like the whole ocean had been turned into the creature’s lungs. Finally, its head came into view - craning so high above Reshfen that it looked like its skull would breach the ocean’s surface.

Its head seemed almost disproportionate, wider than its body and non-existent neck. Seeing more of it, Naoto thought it looked similar to an icefish… a very stretched out icefish. Silvery scars mangled its maw, clear flesh displaying a jagged row of teeth protruding from its jawbone.

It tilted its head sideways, giant moonsilver eyes flicking as it scanned over the canals of the city. Even at that distance, its eyes were larger than any nereid was long.

Naoto couldn’t breathe when the Lotan pressed its snout into the main canal, the terror and fear of so many others overtaking his empathic senses. It felt like his gills had melded shut to his neck.

A massive cracking noise split through the water and the ruin walls as the rock that Reshfen was built into crumbled.

Naoto flinched at the sound.

The Lotan’s great head pulled out of the city… and turned their way.