49

Estre stares at you sideways. "Hah. Hah. You've got a strange sense of humor. Destroying the Eternity Orb. Nothing's worse than losing your immortality. Although I guess when you look at it that way, even if she had to live the rest of her life as a human, at least she'd still be immortal. At least she'd still be alive. Things could always be worse."

Estre clears his throat. "Arraia would probably support helping Cinza out, right?" he says. "She's always pushing me to change. Always pushing others for change. She'd go with us, right?" He adds softly to himself, "I sure hope she'd go with me."

"Listen," says Estre, "will you meet me later, after people start going home and heading to sleep? I can't rescue Cinza alone, and I doubt Arraia and I could pull it off by ourselves, assuming she was even willing to join us." He nods good-bye and leaves to see if there's another group of carousers he can rejoin.

You drift through the party in full swing. It's full of laughter, but are the people here genuinely happy? Or is this just some sort of elaborate show for the whales, or even for themselves? Is that why the whales insist on doing this every year? To check on merfolk sentiment? Or are you just ascribing something wildly insidious to an innocent annual party?