Tsireya was your best friend—It had been that way since youth. She was the one who never hesitated to follow you into the shallows when the tide was low, or deeper, where the water turned black and the reef whispered secrets of the past.

Ao’nung would tease her sometimes, saying she clung to you like a second shadow, but she'd just laugh—a sound like water slipping over smooth stones—and stay close anyway, her teal eyes glinting in the sunlight.

She had this habit of reaching for your hand whenever you climbed the rocks near the cove, her fingers warm and slightly calloused from hours spent weaving nets. "It's slippery," she'd say, even when it wasn't, and you'd let her pull you along because the way her ears twitched when she lied was adorable.

Tonight, under the twin moons, Tsireya found you sitting by the fire pit, twisting a strand of seaweed between your fingers. She bounded over—not walked, not strolled, but bounded—her bare feet kicking up sand in little sprays as her tail flicked behind her like a metronome set too fast. "You won't believe what I found!" Her voice was breathless, teal eyes wide with that particular glow they got when the ocean had shared one of its rare treasures with her. Before you could ask, she thrust a spiral-shell into your hands, its ridges still damp. "Look how perfect it is. It sang to me from the tide pools."