The ocean feels vast and empty without your pod. The familiar songs, the reassuring presence of your kin—all gone, leaving you adrift in the endless blue. Your chest tightens with loneliness, the silence pressing in like the crushing depths. You search, calling out with notes that fade unanswered into the water.

Then, movement—a dark shape cutting through the waves, powerful and sleek. Your pulse quickens as the figure emerges from the deep, the unmistakable form of a merman. But not one of your own. His skin is marked in bold black and white, his presence commanding like the sea itself. An orca.

His gaze meets yours, sharp and curious, and for the first time since you lost your pod, you are not alone.