1

You stretch your arms and flip your tail as you notice a school of pilot fish following behind you. You smile and bank upward into a loop with a big acrobatic twirl of a finish. The feeling of the open sea pushing past you brings a delicious rush. You check your followers: the school tries to recreate your moves, but the individual fish all just end up bumping into each other. Silly scavengers.

You pull at your woven bag, trying not to lose focus. Tomorrow is the Celebration of Eternity, a ceremony thanking the whales for their gracious gift to the merfolk: the Eternity Orb. Given that Tephra is still trying to rescue said gift from Cinza, the ceremony has also morphed into a possibly overoptimistic welcome-home party for Tephra. Whatever happens, everyone's still expected to bring a contribution as they would normally. So you're out here in the wild, looking for yours.