[ They drop into the depths with the force of a boulder cast from a cliff, shrapnel of ice peeling away from them like withered leaves falling the wrong way.

The Genome under her claws becomes something else, after they've submerged: that form of a clione merman she'd held for point two seconds before it died -

when he'd promised her eternal life, in the first place.


beneath the ocean, it's as fantastical as one might expect. sea creatures from earth, from Gaia, from the pasture. dark serpentine shapes in the far distance. life, abundant, devouring-- ]