Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(10) Taiki: Shalda-Karu

Floating down to join us is the fan-finned Karu-Kel we passed in the tunnel on our way here. He doesn't have to tuck those fins in anymore, and I don't think I'm staring until Yaz glances at me and just grins wider.

Finika is the type of fancy you'd expect to find on the staging grounds of a Karu show island in the middle of festival season. A lot of Karu are showy, but this takes it to the extreme: his whole tail and all its fins are striped in white and a crisp, dark, probably-colour the exact same shade as blood. Transparent hip- and tail-fins fan out over elegantly curved rays that seem to float in the water. His back-fins look like a series of spears with pointy tips and striped banners. He tucks them all down as he circles around to settle beside Yaz.

He's got other spear-fins, too: lower on his tail, tucked under the clear fins at his hips... I lose track, because they all move when he's moving, and the stripes bend my vision when I look too hard. The rest of him is typical Karu. Mid-toned skin, dark hair and eyes. He's also missing a hand, and a scar on his face tugs one corner of his mouth up, making it look like he's half-smiling all the time. Right now, that's not just an illusion.

Then he lashes out and yanks Yaz's tail-fin. She cackles. They've devolved into swatting in a heartbeat. Finika dodges a retaliatory yank, gets it on a hip-fin instead, and whacks Yaz on the tail. Then he drops back and goes boneless against the rocks just like she did earlier, letting his arms drop to his sides. "I'll get you for that later. Truce?"

"How's the kid?"

"Ruka's dealing with it."

I can't shake the feeling that they're speaking in code. "What does that mean?"

"Sorry," says Finika, "Not good. But hopefully better with rest and time."

Yaz pokes his shoulder. "You haven't slept since early night yesterday."

"Vibi wants us to talk to the last of the unscreened Shalda tomorrow."

"I refuse to discuss that until your waking-sleep ratio is less than four-to-one."

Finika makes a sound halfway between a whine and a groan.

"I'll throw you in a sling," says Yaz.

"You can try."

"I can get El to help me."

There's a snort from across the room.

Yaz carries on undeterred. "Or I can get another practice run at that fin-hold we found last moon. Bed."

Finika groans again, but pushes himself up. He's not fast—I'm pretty sure it's impossible to be fast with that kind of tail array—but there's a nimbleness to even his tired movements that's unmistakably Karu. He might be the most obviously Karu Kel I've ever seen, and I've lived around the islands.

So this is what Yaz was talking about when she said her people don't like that she's friends with Karu.

"Don't make me sling you," says Yaz as Finika pauses midway across the circle.

He ignores her. He plucks something from the rock, flips it over, then glances up and around until he spots Ande. He flicks the shining scale back onto the rock and continues to the ledge Yaz pointed out earlier, near the door. It's broad and smooth enough to not catch on all those fins. The threats about being tossed in a wall-sling make a lot more sense now.

"You should get some sleep, too," says Yaz to me. "And you," she adds to El across the circle. Her voice softens. "They'll find her."