Vedava was a tall mer-woman, with long braided black hair as dark as the sea, and her eyes were dark and serious. She was on night-watch duty, patrolling the city walls for sharks. But as she was swimming along, she began to whine and complain.

“What are we looking for here? There hasn’t been a shark attack in this city in over a century, for all we know they’ve all gone to live in the clouds by now…”

“I think we’re being kept on because the councillors like to keep us busy,” muttered Vedava, as she rounded a tall coral pinnacle.

Just as Vedava came around the side of the pinnacle, the huge shape of a great reef-shark, as black as death and as hard as a rock slammed into the wall right behind her!

“Sharks!” screamed Vedava, seeing a whole swarm behind the big black one, and she made for the wall to sound the alarm-conch.

The first shark lunged at her, opening its ugly black mouth and exposing a mouthful of cruel teeth, while the others were thrashing their way around the coral in a circle, snapping and twisting back and forth.