Merrisai tapped a button on the side of her headband and settled with a sigh into the harbor water. For once, the faint sheen of oil from shipping traffic floating atop the gentle, lapping waves didn’t make her wrinkle her nose with disgust. This, at least, was normal.
She flipped her tail, careless of the water splashing the corporate samurai. Unless he was about to break conditioning and violate orders, he was about to get soaked soon enough.
“I never understood SeaCorp,” the man said, studying what lay in the distance. He did not move to join her, nor did she expect him to do so. The blurred visage of the floating castle rested on the horizon, perpetually out of reach for the uninvited.
“My captor speaks,” murmured Merrisai. She could taste the bitter words on her tongue.
His sharp glance stung. “My name is Canyon. You had a choice. My employer wishes to ensure you keep your bargain.”
She smoothed a nanoscale that had caught on concrete earlier today to hide shaking fingers. Given enough time in the water, it would lay flat again. It would heal.
Unlike her sister.
She looked toward the floating castle and changed the subject. The waves splashed against her bare stomach. “The tide comes. I’ve called a floating fish for you.”
“That’s how we get there?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow, the perfect representation of the gritty city initiate.
Merrisai tossed neon hair and gave him a wicked grin. The one filled with pointed fangs designed to terrorize prey, that she and Seesai had practice together as girls. A wave of disappointment floated over her bravado as he failed to flinch. “No, Captor Canyon. The path into SeaCorp’s secrets is not through a diving airfish. Nor is it as simple as managing to travel to the floating castle.”
She pointed into the distance, at the deepening indigo clouds. The wind already scraped at her face with increasing intensity. “No, samurai. Tonight we ride the storm.”
***
Leigh Kimmel and I traded prompts this week. She’s working on “The line of kings spanned unbroken for 2,583 years, until….” and prompted me with The Doors’ Riders on the Storm this week, which fit well as a snippet I’ve been working on. Check out more at More Odds Than Ends!
