The pool shimmered beneath the morning light, its surface so clear it mirrored the clouds. The enormous crystal fish drifted lazily through it, four meters long from snout to tail, its translucent fins glowing with a faint internal light — like shards of living glass moving through liquid silver.
Mirean Moon stood at the water's edge, her expression somewhere between awe and disbelief. "A crystal fish that size would take at least sixty years to raise," she said quietly. "Maybe more."
Her words carried the weight of memory. Once, as the Moon Master of the Moon Lake Tribe, she had fought and bartered for a single crystal fish — one barely a handspan long — taken from Bloodbeard's collection. Even with the tribe's combined resources, it would have taken her twenty years of nurturing before the creature could provide enough water for her people.
