The sub settled against the docking spire with a soft thump, its bubble membrane merging seamlessly with Fishman Island's own dome. Stepping onto the Promenade felt like entering a living kaleidoscope. Warm, buoyant water swirled around Marya's boots as she followed the others, the city's heartbeat a deep, resonant thrumming through the coral-paved streets. Ahead, Lulee and Geo shot forward like freed minnows, weaving through crowds of fishmen merchants haggling over prismatic pearls and merfolk teens gliding effortlessly on shimmering tails. "Wait for me!" Jelly warbled, bouncing after them in a wobbling streak of blue, morphing his lower half into flippers to skim across the wet stone.
Galit walked beside Fia, his long neck swiveling to take in the towering coral spires draped with curtains of phosphorescent kelp. "Your mobility," he observed, gesturing at Fia's elegant goldfish tail as it propelled her smoothly forward. "Is it a relief? To abandon the constraints of terrestrial limbs?"
Fia laughed, the sound like bubbles rising. "Relief doesn't cover it, Galit. It's like… breathing after holding your breath too long." She flicked her tail, sending a shower of iridescent droplets over a stall selling Devourer-shaped pastries. "Legs are clever, but they're heavy. This?" She spun in a graceful arc. "This is freedom."
Atlas hobbled alongside, leaning heavily on a driftwood crutch salvaged from Sabaody. Sweat beaded on his rust-red fur despite the cool water. "Freedom feels like drowning in open air," he grunted, eyeing the vaulted dome far overhead where schools of parrotfish swam like living stained glass. "Whole city's a bubble. Unnatural."
Henrick chuckled, the sound a deep rumble in his chest. "Common surface-dweller mistake. Fishman Island ain't under the sea here." He tapped his temple. "It's beside it. The dome's a pocket—air above, ocean beyond the walls. We're straddling worlds." He pointed towards a bustling market square where water and air met in shimmering curtains; merfolk swam through liquid arches while fishmen walked dry paths below, their gills fluttering in the humid atmosphere.
Marya, however, wasn't looking at the streets. Her gaze was fixed upward, past the glowing Eve Tree branches, to the dome's curved membrane where currents pressed like the palm of a giant hand. Her golden eyes tracked the slow, sinuous dance of colossal eels patrolling the outer darkness—guardians against the abyss.
Henrick followed her line of sight. "Impressive, isn't it? That membrane holds back enough pressure to crush steel."
Marya's voice was low, thoughtful. "The tree provides light… but the resin must stabilize the barrier too. An elegant symbiosis." She finally looked at him, a flicker of genuine curiosity breaking through her reserve. "Are there tales here of a deity? Nanã Buruquê? Tied to water, souls… stagnation."
Henrick slowed, his hammerhead profile etched against a mural depicting a mermaid princess and Giant Sea Kings. He rubbed his chin, scales rasping. "Nanã… Old Deep Mother. Not a story for tourists." He lowered his voice, steering them toward a quieter alley strung with lanterns made from glowing jellyfish. "Legends say she was the sea—before the Red Line, before the Void Century. A serpent-god of beginnings and endings. Souls returned to her waters to be cleansed, like pearls in an oyster."
Around them, the air grew thick with the scent of brine and hot iron from nearby forges. Carved into the alley walls were faded glyphs: serpents coiled around trees, weeping women made of water. "They say the Ancient Ones betrayed her," Henrick continued. "Trapped her in the roots of a world-tree—some say it's our Eve Tree's twin, far away. Used her tears to make Devil Fruits." He spat into a grateside puddle. "Her drowning curse became ours."
Marya's fingers brushed the obsidian blade of Eclipse. "And her form? Serpent? Woman?"
"Both. Neither. She's the mud where rivers meet the sea—the stillness that remembers every storm." Henrick paused as Geo's laughter echoed from a courtyard ahead. "Why d'you ask?"
Before Marya could answer, a commotion erupted. Lulee's voice rang out, shrill with delight: "Look! Sea kittens had babies!"
In a sun-dappled alcove, the winged seahorses huddled around a cluster of pearlescent eggs no larger than grapes. One nudged Marya's boot with its downy snout, chirping. For a heartbeat, the Void Bearer's stern mask vanished. She knelt, leather jacket creaking, and offered a tentative finger. The creature butted against it, wings fluttering like spun sugar. A soft, almost inaudible sound escaped Marya—not a laugh, but a breath of wonder. Her calloused fingertip traced the velvety ridge of the seahorse's back, the world's weight momentarily forgotten in the face of newborn wings.
Atlas smirked. "Careful. They'll adopt you."
Marya stood abruptly, the shutters slamming back over her expression. But not before Henrick saw it—the ghost of a smile in her eyes, fleeting as a minnow's shadow. "Focus," she said, brushing algae from her shorts. "The museum awaits tomorrow. Tonight, we eat."
As they moved on, the alley's gloom deepened near a shrine clogged with shell offerings. The whispers here felt different—older. A fresco showed a serpent bound in roots, its tears becoming swirling fruits. Marya's boot scuffed a glyph: a weeping woman holding a staff of petrified wood. Nanã, the inscription read. Mother of Stagnation.
The weight of stolen divinity hung in the water, thick as resin.
The alley's whispers dissolved as Copperfin Lane engulfed them—a street alive with the clang-clang-THWACK of hammer on metal. Ahead, Lulee and Geo scrambled up coral steps polished to glassy smoothness by generations of feet, bursting through a doorway carved into the jaws of a fossilized hammerhead shark. "Race you to the hammock nest!" Geo shouted, vanishing inside.
Jelly jiggled frantically behind, "Bloop-wait! Squishy slow!"
Henrick's domain, Deepwater Anvil, rose like a reef fortress. The ground-floor forge yawned open to the street, its entrance framed by curved megalodon teeth blackened by soot and time. Inside, heat hit like a physical blow—a dry, metallic breath that parched the throat and warred with the dome's cool dampness. Rough basalt walls, streaked with mineral veins resembling frozen seaweed, absorbed the clamor. Tools hung like warriors' trophies: hammers with seastone cores dangling from narwhal tusk racks, Leviathan-bone tongs crusted with salt-scale, and anvil stands forged from volcanic rock, their surfaces cratered from centuries of impacts. At the heart glowered the furnace—a stone dragon's maw vomiting blue-white flames fed by hissing geothermal vents. The air reeked of scorched metal, salt-crust, and the ghost of a thousand quenched blades.
Fia swam past the forge's heat-haze, her tail flicking droplets that sizzled on the furnace stones. "Home's heartbeat," she smiled, gesturing to the chaos. "Henrick, show our land-dwelling-friends the loft while I battle the pantry. Might need market reinforcements." She vanished behind a curtain of clattering seaglass beads, leaving the scent of kelp and dried seagrapes in her wake.
Henrick led them up a spiral stair hewn from a single sperm whale vertebrae, its grooves worn silky by time. "Head down, land-walkers," he warned Atlas, ducking beneath a lintel strung with dried starfish. The apartment unfolded under a vaulted ceiling of fused coral ribs, arching like the skeleton of a sunken galleon. Light bled through windows of hammered seaglass, dappling walls painted the bruised blue of midnight trenches. Two rooms branched off a central space: one held a wide sleeping platform heaped with kelp-fiber mattresses and blankets dyed with squid-ink spirals; the other offered twin hammocks swaying between stalactites beaded with condensation. The common area boasted driftwood stools and a table carved from a single giant clam shell, nicked and stained by generations of meals. Shelves displayed chipped mugs, a compass with no needle, and a music box that chimed with the lonely song of humpback whales.
Atlas collapsed onto a stool, groaning as he stretched his bandaged leg. "Better than a sub's steel floor." He eyed Jelly, who'd oozed onto a windowsill to nuzzle a fuzzy sea-hare with moth-like fins. "What about the giggle-pudding?"
Marya leaned against the clam-shell table, fingers brushing a whorl in its pearlescent surface. "He stays with the children," she said, her voice flat as tide-smoothed stone. But her gaze snagged on the sea-hare—its wings fluttered like crumpled silk as Jelly poked it gently. Her knuckles whitened on Eclipse's hilt, suppressing the urge to touch its downy fur.
"Settle," Henrick rumbled, already retreating to the stairs. "Rest those land-legs. I'll shout when the stew's singing." His footsteps faded into the forge's metallic symphony below.
Silence pooled in the loft—thick with the forge's distant heartbeat, the children's muffled laughter, and the salt-heavy sigh of the dome above. Marya walked to the window. Outside, a lantern-fish vendor passed, his wares glowing like captured moonlight in glass jars. She traced the outline of the Eve Tree's distant roots through the seaglass pane, her reflection fractured in its greenish depths. Nanã's prison, she thought. And the World Government's larder. The resin-scent of stolen divinity clung to her tongue.
Jelly burbled softly, cradling the sea-hare. Marya turned away, her boots echoing on coral tiles. Rest, for now. Tomorrow, the museum. Tomorrow, the heart of the devourer.
The silence in the coral loft stretched, thick with the forge's rhythmic clang below and the muffled joy of children in another room. Marya watched the lantern-fish vendor's glow recede down Copperfin Lane, her fractured reflection in the seaglass pane superimposed over the distant, glowing roots of the Eve Tree. Nanã's prison. The World Government's larder. The phantom taste of amber resin lingered.
The scrape of driftwood on coral tile broke the stillness. Galit sat stiffly on a kelp-stuffed stool, his long neck held in an unnaturally tight curve. "What is it you seek here, Marya Zaleska?" His voice cut through the humid air, sharp as a whetstone on steel.
"You stowed away on my vessel," Marya countered, turning from the window, a ghost of a smirk touching her lips. Her golden eyes fixed on him. "And only now, leagues deep beneath the sea, do you question my purpose? Having second thoughts, Tide-Breaker?"
Atlas let out a bark of laughter from his perch near the swaying hammocks, adjusting his bandaged leg with a wince. "Sounds like Spaghetti Neck's finally peeked over the trench edge and got vertigo."
Galit's emerald eyes flashed. "Vertigo implies disorientation. I seek tactical clarity. Unlike some, who navigate by bruised ego and impulse." He returned his focus to Marya, ignoring Atlas's deepening scowl. "You move with singular purpose, yet conceal its destination. That invites… operational friction."
Marya moved to the clam-shell table, leaning Eternal Eclipse against the wall with a soft thud. The obsidian blade seemed to drink the dim seaglass light. Jelly, gently nudging the drowsy sea-hare on the sill, perked up. "Adventure! Big Storm! Cranky Stabby Friend!" he warbled, bouncing slightly.
Marya's smirk widened, a rare flicker of dry amusement. "He's been crankier, you know. Try crossing him before breakfast."
"Bloop-grumpy!" Jelly giggled.
"Marya," Galit snapped, his patience fraying like old rope. "The entity within your blade. Atlas mentioned a gate. Elements." His gaze shifted pointedly to Atlas.
The Mink shrugged, picking at a loose thread on his bandage. "Heard her talking to that polar bear pirate. Something about needing pieces to open a door. Sounded heavy."
Marya sighed, the sound almost lost in the distant clang of Henrick's hammer below. She peeled off her leather jacket, revealing the simple shirt beneath. The black veins snaking up her arms, stark against her skin, pulsed faintly with an inner shadow. Atlas whistled low. "Been meanin' to ask about those tattoos. Ain't exactly mainstream fashion."
"They are not tattoos," Marya stated flatly. She flexed her fist, watching the dark tendrils writhe beneath her skin like trapped eels. "I was… exploring ruins. Ancient places best left buried. My sword," she nodded towards Eclipse, "absorbed something. An ancient, primal hunger. It nearly devoured me whole. That's when I crossed paths with the Heart Pirates. Their Captain, Trafalgar Law… his power carved a cage within me. A temporary solution." She met Galit's intense gaze. "The entity hasn't raged since I became solely focused on one task: opening the Gate of Lethe. My mother studied the Primordial Current. Her research, combined with… insights from my father, pointed the way. Several elements are needed to open the gate. That is the only thing that appeases this darkness."
Galit's brow furrowed deeply, the kelp-scar patterns on his skin seeming to darken. "And you deem this pursuit wise? Unlocking a gate for an entity of such destructive potential? To an unknown destination?"
Marya raised an eyebrow, a cool, almost detached curiosity in her expression. "Wise? I have no metric for wisdom in this. Only necessity." She traced a black vein with a fingertip. "This is the price. The only path forward that doesn't end with me becoming its vessel entirely."
"And the other side?" Galit pressed, leaning forward. "What awaits? Oblivion? Conquest? A god?"
Marya shook her head once, sharply. "Unknown. I assume it leads to the entity's origin point. Its home."
Atlas snorted, shifting his weight. "You gettin' off the ship, Noodle Neck? Dock's right there. No shame in it. Water's deep."
Galit shot him a glare that could etch glass. "Your commentary is as useful as a compass in a maelstrom."
Marya's voice cut in, calm and final. "He's not wrong, Galit. I told you both when you decided to crawl aboard my sub: I am not responsible for you. Or your safe return. The path is dark, the destination unknown. Second thoughts are… logical." Her gaze held his, challenging.
Galit's jaw flexed, the muscles in his long neck tightening like coiled cables. He looked away, towards the window where the glowing Eve Tree dominated the view. "In the sub… you asked Henrick about their legend. The Sea Devourer. Kulakana." He turned back, eyes sharp. "You need it. Do you intend to steal it from their museum?"
Marya picked up her jacket, running a thumb over the Heart Pirate insignia. "I don't know what I intend to do. Not yet. I need to find it first. The museum," she shrugged, "is a place to start. A logical step. Whether the trinkets they display hold any connection to what I truly seek… that remains to be seen."
Silence fell again, thicker this time. The only sounds were Jelly's soft humming to the sea-hare and the relentless clang-thud from the forge below. Galit stared at the coral floor, his mind a whirlpool of calculations, risks, and the unsettling image of Marya's shadow-veined arms. Atlas watched him, a knowing smirk playing on his lips.
"Well?" Atlas finally drawled, stretching his good leg with a grunt. "What's it gonna be, Tide-Breaker? You in? Or are you gonna swim back to Sankhara Deep and tell Daddy Mangala you got scared by a girl with a magic sword?"
Galit's head snapped up. The tension in his neck eased, replaced by a focused intensity. He met Marya's waiting gaze, then Atlas's mocking one. "Scared?" he echoed, a spark of defiance igniting in his emerald eyes. "No. Curiosity outweighs caution. Operational parameters have shifted, but the objective… the unknown objective… possesses significant strategic intrigue." He stood, his posture straightening. "I will assist you, Marya Zaleska. I will see what lies beyond this Gate of Lethe."
Atlas threw his head back and laughed, a genuine, rumbling sound. "Shame! Thought I was finally rid of you, Noodle Neck!"
Galit adjusted the twin Vipera Whips at his forearms, a faint, almost predatory smile touching his lips. "You will not be rid of me so easily, Furball. Consider me… invested."
The clang-thud of the forge ceased abruptly as Fia's voice rose, warm and insistent, from below: "Stew's singing! Come down before it boils over!" The humid air thickened with the scent of rich Sea King broth, sizzling dumplings filled with salty-sweet crab, and the earthy tang of deep-trench mushrooms. It was a promise of warmth, a fleeting anchor before the depths called.
Navigating the whalebone stairs proved treacherous for Atlas. He gripped the smooth vertebrae railing, knuckles white, each step sending a jolt through his bandaged leg. Marya moved beside him without comment, offering a steadying arm beneath his elbow – a brief, impersonal support. As they reached the bottom, Fia's eyes widened, taking in Atlas's pallor and the sheen of sweat on his fur. "Oh, Atlas! That leg… it looks angry. Henrick, we need Old Man Kelpo. First thing tomorrow."
Henrick, wiping forge grit from his massive hands with a rag of woven kelp, stepped forward. His presence seemed to fill the doorway to the living quarters. "Fia's right, lad," he rumbled, gently taking Atlas's weight from Marya with surprising ease. "Kelpo's shutters are down for the night, but dawn's not far. We'll get you sorted." He guided Atlas towards the source of the delicious smells.
"But the museum!" Lulee wailed from the low, clam-shell table already laden with steaming bowls. Geo echoed her, puffing his cheeks out. "We promised to show Marya Kulakana's heart!"
Fia expertly placed a brimming bowl of stew before Marya, the broth shimmering with rainbow oil-slicks from rare deep-sea spices. "And you will," she said firmly, though her eyes softened. "After school. Knowledge waits, dumplings don't. Eat." Another wave of whining met her, but she merely arched a brow, the universal language of 'don't test me'. Reluctantly, they picked up their spoons.
The living space was a cozy cave of warm light and water-smoothed wood. Driftwood beams overhead held dangling nets filled with glowing moon-jellies in glass orbs, casting shifting blue patterns on walls adorned with intricate shell mosaics depicting swirling currents and leaping dolphins. The air hummed with the low thrum of the island's protective bubble and the cheerful bloop-giggle as Jelly, perched precariously on a coral stool, tried to balance a dumpling on his wobbly head, much to the children's delight.
As spoons clinked against shells and the rich, savory stew warmed them from within, Marya set hers down. Her golden eyes, reflecting the jelly-light, moved from Lulee to Geo. "This Sea Devourer… Kulakana. Tell me its legend." Her voice was calm, a quiet command that hushed even Jelly's antics.
Geo slammed his spoon down, stew sloshing. "He was HUGE!" he declared, spreading his arms wide, nearly knocking over his mug of seagrass tea. "Bigger than Zunesha! He could swallow islands! Gulp! Like dumplings!" He mimed swallowing dramatically.
Lulee rolled her eyes, a gesture startlingly mature on her young face. "He didn't eat islands, Geo, he threatened them! Because he was born from the… the…" She faltered, looking at her parents.
"The Primordial Current," Fia supplied gently, stirring her stew. "The river beneath all rivers, before the seas were separated. Kulakana wasn't evil, Geo, just… vast. Hungry. Like the ocean itself in a storm."
Henrick took a slow sip of his dark, malty Seafoam Ale. "Aye. His rage shook the seabed. Creation itself trembled. Until the First Poseidon, blessed by the sea, and the Dawn Singer, who carried the sun's first light in her voice, stood against him." He tapped the table with a thick finger. "Not with swords or cannon, mind you. With understanding."
Marya leaned forward slightly. "Understanding?"
Henrick nodded. "They saw his power wasn't malice, but chaos. Unchecked. So they didn't destroy him. They… calmed him. Sang his wild heart to stillness." He gestured towards the ceiling, indicating the dome and the Eve Tree beyond. "Petrified his raging heart into crystal, fused it deep beneath our feet. Used its power not to destroy, but to build. To hold the Red Line firm, to weave the bubble that shelters us, to gentle the Sea Kings in the Calm Belts. Kulakana's strength became Fishman Island's foundation."
"See?" Lulee added importantly. "That's why we leave offerings in the Whispering Tides Tunnel at the shrine! To keep his spirit quiet. To say 'thank you' and 'sleep well'." She shuddered dramatically. "If someone stole his heart…" She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The whole island would go smoosh! Crushed like a bubble! And the seas would go crazy! Tsunamis! Whirlpools! Sea Kings everywhere!"
Fia patted her daughter's hand. "The legend says it, little pearl. 'To know the Devourer is to respect the sea's rage.' We live because his rage was tamed, not conquered." She looked meaningfully at Marya. "His heart isn't just a relic. It's… balance."
Galit, who had been silently mapping the shell mosaics with his eyes, finally spoke. "The mechanics are fascinating. Converting primal energy into Pyrobloin resonance for geological stabilization… a feat of bio-energetic engineering far beyond current—"
"Bedtime!" Fia announced, cutting off Galit's technical analysis as she stood. "Museum after school, remember? Jelly, help me herd these sleepy minnows!"
Jelly saluted with a wobbly flipper. "Bloop-herd!"
Groans erupted, but they were half-hearted, muffled by full bellies and the day's exhaustion. Lulee and Geo scrambled up, casting longing glances at the adults still at the table. "Can Jelly sleep in our hammock nest?" Geo pleaded.
"Only if he promises not to bounce you out," Fia said, ushering them towards a curtained alcove. "Go on! Scales scrubbed, teeth cleaned!"
As the children's protests faded into the back room, followed by Jelly's soft giggles and Fia's firm but loving directives, a comfortable silence settled over the remaining four at the table. The jelly-light danced on the clam-shell surface, illuminating the remnants of stew and the thoughtful expressions. Marya stared into her near-empty bowl, the legend of the petrified heart, the stolen strength turned to salvation, echoing the weight of the ancient entity bound within her own blade. The path to the Gate of Lethe seemed to wind through the very bedrock beneath their feet.