Totoka River tomorrow will be kinder

Marbas’ Siren hated the pain and fear that swam through her body, whittling her graceful limbs into clumsy, brittle bits of kindling that left her as ungainly as a newborn fawn. When the mahogany-eyed wolf fled, his usual fluidity stripped bare by exhaustion, fever, and anguish, she attempted to follow — but her wound was new, the first of its kind, and she was not built to withstand such pain. An overwhelming sense of guilt at her weakness and at Marbas’ distress knotted sickly with the distrust and anguish already churning in her breast, and she crawled out of the water she loved and collapsed on the bank, her sides heaving in rolling, convulsive waves as her stomach tried to rid itself of its contents. Clamping her jaws, Coelacanth lay trembling until the spell passed; her slender, gently-curved sides rose and fell with fluttering breaths and her heart pounded thickly in her ears; she could not help Marbas now, anymore than she could help herself.