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“Do those painkillers make you, uh, think differently?” I asked him, as he hurried back to me, his large feet steady on the sand. He basically had snowshoes, except for sand. Their splayed shape tightened as he entered the water, so he didn’t even have the downside of flippers. I had anatomy envy.

“The medication should not impact your thoughts,” he said, frowning. “Are you experiencing side-effects?”

Hell, if it was from the soup, I wasn’t complaining. “I feel somewhat inebriated,” I admitted. “Not badly. My thoughts are just more weird than usual.”

He paused, looking down at me, puzzled. “I will complete an analysis of your body. It may be the food I provided was not ideal.”

“It felt pretty ideal,” I disagreed, grinning. “So, you were telling me about how your planet is also about to go up in flames? Do you have orcas, by any chance? I hear they do good work.”

His frown deepened and he reached down. Without thinking, I held up my hands, and felt those tentacles wrap firmly around me. They caught hold of my arms, each little cup sucking lightly on my skin. Delight rippled up my spine. “We have many marine creatures who are apex predators and hunt in packs, yes, and they are important to maintaining the balance within the ecosystem.” I stood on my unbroken leg, keeping my butt out of the thick, gritty sand, knowing I didn’t look half as sexy as I felt. The cold water lapped around me as he pulled me a little deeper, until I was floating entirely in his arms.

I held onto him, wondering why this entire situation wasn’t freaking me out more. The soupmust’vebeen good shit. “On my planet, orcas sink the boats of billionaires,” I explained, generalising for the sake of speed. “It’s kind of a joke.”

He paused, treading water with me, frowning. “Why were marine mammals damaging property, and why is that good?”

It was all very far away. He was warm under my hands, his skin bumpy and comfortingly resilient. His eyes were a dark green and I felt like I was falling into them. At least if I was tripping, it wasn’t a bad one. “There are no good billionaires.”

His mouth moved slowly, his brow furrowed. “Why do you have money hoarders?”

I blinked. “Don’t you have billionaires?”

He shook his head, lips unmoving.

I looked around, realising suddenly how far out we were. Last time I’d been in too much pain to notice much of anything. His little shack on the shore seemed an impossible distance, though I could swim, if I wasn’t too off my face to stay on task. The pain wasn’t a barrier. At all. “Weird world,” I mused aloud.

“We come from different places,” he agreed, the words polite. “We were both Called, though, because this is where we belong.”

My hackles rose. I’d never liked being told what I ought to do. I’d learned to accept it occasionally as an adult, but only due to trial and error—emphasis onerror. And I didn’t believe in fate and magic and shit.

“You dislike that,” he said, frowning a little. “But I am concerned for your mental state and sobriety, so we must prioritise getting you to the bioscanner. Fill your lungs to receive my gratitude.”

The waves carried us through a dip and swell, but never came near my mouth. My hair was going to beruinedby all the salt, but I wondered if I looked like some sort of cute, fat mermaid with it fanning out in the water. I liked the idea.

I barely had time to suck in air before he was taking us under.

“You do not have air for conversation underwater,” he told me, as he swam. “I advise questions be asked after we arrive. But if you look to your right you will see one Power Source As Yet Unnamed In Your Language glowing.”

I kicked along with him and followed his outstretched arm. My eyes caught on the tentacles and a shiver of delight rippled through me as I remembered feeling them tugging delightfully against my skin.

He’d be thebesthugger.

Beyond his arm, though, or whatever the fuck those limbs were called, there was a bright pink glow that made something deep inside me twist and ache, like when I listened to one of those songs that was a gut-punch, or a good, misty sunrise spent blissfully alone.

“Do not expel your air,” he said, and the alarm in his tone made my attention snap back to his worried expression. The green of his hair danced around his face and his eyes turned forward. They held so much awe as he took in his future that it made my heart hurt to see. “It calls to us. The Vibration of Energy Particles In a Method Not Yet Identified In Your Language makes our bodies hunger to find our place, keeping us unsettled until we are in our role.”

And here was me thinking I just had undiagnosed ADHD.

Why not both?

“The Small Fish Not Yet Identified In Your Language interact with The Vibration of Energy Particles In a Method Not Yet Identified In Your Language every twomoon.” His lips were still moving. I didn’t see any gills, though? And how did that work under water, anyway? I just stared at him, drinking it all in. “There was a storm last twomoon, and we lost many Small Fish Not Yet Identified In Your Language.”

That was it? That didn’t sound like the worst trash-fire. I wanted to ask if there was only like fifty of them left in the wild, but my lungs were burning and I just kept on kicking as he guided me around the big rock and toward where his lab glowed in welcome.

“Population would recover in a few years if they were left,” he added. “However, any small proceedings can commence a chain of events that can have catastrophic impacts.”

A stitch in time saves nine.I recalled words from a hazily remembered educator at my before school care program when I was little. I couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but she’d smelled of lanolin, and she’d been patient. I’d wondered if I’d acquired her love of crocheting simply because she’d existed alongside me at the right time in my life. What would’ve happened if I’d hung out with someone who liked hedge funds?

We surfaced in the peaceful pocket of his lab and I looked around again, little details jumping out at me that I hadn’t taken in last time. The soft shape of the glowing lights, the clinical but not cold tanks that had clean sand and colourful vegetation, the bits of driftwood hung up like decorations or hooks against the smooth stone walls.