"Something's wrong."

Enoch had crafted himself a sun-shade on the roof of Flotsam's cabin, and on calm days he would park himself under it with his spyglass and his journal. Sumira looked off towards the east, following the line of Enoch's spyglass, but to her eyes the disturbance on the surface of the water seemed so distant and trivially small.

But it was growing.

"What is it? Can you see?"

"Fish jumping. Whole shoals. Not all the same species, either." Enoch slid down from his perch, landing heavily on the deck. He offered Sumira his glass. "It's like they're fleeing," he said, grave.

"Don't leap to conclusions," Sumira admonished, and she started lifti8ng the glass to her eye when Flotsam rocked suddenly, making her stagger. Daki had just vaulted over the gunwale.

The disturbance on the surface was approaching quickly, but it was the concern on Daki's face that sent a chill through Sumira. He was looking all around their small vessel, thinking.

"What is it, Daki?" Sumira approached him and almost unconsciously he cupped a broad hand around her back.

"Danger on its way," he replied, voice hushed.

Around them, the fleeing fish were breaching and leaping. Among them, Sumira could see fins in the water, and the rolling backs of the pod.

"Grandmother is right beneath us now. We will protect you."

"Should we stay inside?" Enoch asked.

"Truly, scholar, I think wood will not help us much. Better to hope it does not try to break your little boat. Best gather your grub friend. If you need to flee, we will carry you."

"'It?'" Enoch was already turning towards the cabin to fetch Strom.

"...The Lurker."

Sumira's eyes widened. "What happened with the Helios?"

"One of your questions.... the Doru said it wants to speak to you directly. It has left its territory. The Threshers are ..." Daki paused, searching for a word. "This is of great concern to all of us. We will protect you."

Sumira felt that chill from moments ago turn into something deeper and more persistent. "Daki, I don't want the pod to be at risk because of us..."

"If it wants to speak to us, let it," says Enoch, clearly sharing the sentiment. "This is our trouble."

Daki huffs, vapor puffing from his blowhole. "No. You *are* of the pod. Harm to you, harm to us - it is all the same. The pod has sung of it and all are in harmony." Daki repeats, "*All.*"

Sumira felt the weight of that, both comfort and unease in one contradictory bundle. "Where is the Doru?"

"Not sure," Daki answered, his gaze turning eastward to where a series of large, rolling mounds were breaching the surface. At first, Sumira thought it was a group of Leviathan, but then she realized it was a single long body moving in serpentine undulations.

"Who is that?" Enoch asked before she could. He had just re-emerged from the cabin with Strom bundled to his chest.

Daki stepped towards Flotsam's bow, putting himself between the humans and the serpentine thing just moments before it reached them. It breached high, throwing its long body across Flotsam's foredeck, then looping itself up over the cabin roof. With four broad fins poised there under Enoch's sunshade, the creature leaned its long neck down towards the deck, peering at them with six lampent eyes.

The creature's hide was riddled with scars. It wore a bit of rotting fishing net like a cowl, and old mooring lines knotted along its body. Its gills flared and shut and the creature shook its head in what seemed to be a wince. And then, in low, gravelly croak, it spoke to them.

"So bright..."

Sumira blinked. She looked to Daki, who looked equally confused. Then, there was a clatter as a long, leaf-bladed spear dropped onto the deck, the Doru hauling herself onto the gunwale with her wiry arms. "Calm down, Daki, this is the one I told you about."

"Doru, respectfully, you told me next to nothing."

"Had to hurry," she retorts. "This is him. The Sleeper, the ancient phantom, the deep-dweller."

Daki huffed again, his black eyes growing wide. "The Sleeper?!"

The huge, serpentine creature coiled around Flotsam seemed to deflate onto the vessel, his long head laid along the deck, eyes raised plaintively at everyone around him. "Go on, speak you as though I were not here," he croaks.

Daki looks utterly chagrined. "Great Sleeper! The legends--"

"See you now, I am no legend. And neither is that which comes for you."