The water crashed into the camp. It spilled over the perimeter and swallowed the fires. It swept into the tents and washed them away. It slammed into the glekks, the merchants, and the lizards; their screams and cries rang out. The water cut them off and ate the sounds whole. Then the lake shot up. Straight towards me.

A pillar of swirling water, like a fist of pure aquatic wrath. My eyes widened as I tore the bansuri away from my lips, cutting the song short.

It didn’t stop the lake.

The song controlling the water vanished, but the momentum remained. I fell and the water rushed to meet my body. I curled myself into a ball—crossed my arms in front of my head—and the waterspout punched me. I felt the bones in my arms and legs creak. Gurgling water swallowed me and muted my hearing. A cry of pain escaped my lips, and the water rushed to fill my mouth and choke its way down my throat.

I sputtered as gravity took hold. The magic was no more. Now, the rising water was losing momentum, and there was only one way left to go.

Down.

A thousand gallons of water splashed back into the lake with a thunderous roar. I hit the ground at the bottom and suppressed another cry. Instead, I clutched my bansuri to my chest, protecting it from the impact. Ignoring the pain screaming through my limbs, I twisted inside the water and kicked at the ground. I shot up. My head broke through the surface.

“Venti!”

Blue flashed, meters away. The wind answered.

Air rushed into my lungs, filling me. My breath returned. My strength redoubled. I sank into the water again, but this time, the panic in my chest was fleeting—I could breathe. I could hear the song, even through the murk.

I was safe.

I let the water around me thin and flow away, the mass I’d dropped from the sky leveling out with the rest of the lake. When I opened my eyes, the water had returned to how it was. Flat and up to my knees. I felt a patch of warmth land on my shoulder, and sure enough, a chirp followed after.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned to my partner. Venti.

“Thanks,” I said, and she pointed a wing behind us.

The camp was ruined. That much was obvious once I turned. Thankfully, the merchants were safe. They stood in the distance, soaked, clutching onto their lizard beasts of burden. The ruins of tents and black-charred firewood floated around them. The guards had their weapons ready, pointing into the darkness, ready to shoot at any threat that walked into the light.

Several glekk corpses floated around their formation. Holes were burned through their heads. I sighed.

These guys didn’t need help at all.

I spotted several more of the surviving monsters fleeing back the way they came. The glekk raiding party scattered in all directions, their ambush foiled. Ancestors only knew if the beasts learned their lesson. I doubted it.

They would probably be back.

But before worrying about that, my eyes narrowed at one of the glekks in the distance. It was alone, rushing down the lake without its weapons. No doubt swept away by the water. I brought the bansuri to my lips and gave Venti a glance.

“Can you help me out if things go wrong again?”

The bird shrugged. Chirped.

“Good enough,” I smiled, shaking my head. I brought the bansuri to my lips and played the Galesong once more. Air rushed to me, controlled this time. Unpanicked. It carried me forward and I ran across the surface of the water, shooting straight towards the lone glekk in the distance.

Was it risky? Yes. But I needed to know how these things could see me.

And I was short for a troll, but I was still seven feet tall, damn it. I was a trained smith. I was strong. Some stupid, three-foot fish on legs wasn’t going to kill me without a weapon.

I caught up to the monster in seconds. I blew a sharp note through my bansuri, and the wind rushed forward like a solid thing. It struck the lone creature’s back and sent it into the water, rolling and shrieking like a banshee. It leapt to its feet with a rock on hand, snarling, regarding me warily as mucus dribbled down its chin.

I continued to play. The winds around me swirled like a protective barrier. I approached, walking atop the surface of the water like solid earth.

The glekk threw a stone. The wind swept it away before it could reach me.

I felt myself grin.

Mm. This was better. Being in control of a song made me powerful. The panicked playing before was charged, but volatile. It was a disaster to use, and if Venti hadn’t been there to save me, I would have drowned. The water felt like an angered lion, thrashing and swiping at everything that got near in reaction to my playing. But this?

This song was tamed. I could control it as long as I was calm.

Another sharp note. A blast of air sent the glekk tumbling head over heels a second time. It screeched this time, and instead of trying to fight, it turned tail and ran. I chased. Another blast. It fell to the lake again, and I blew another note in experimentation.

One that called to the world around me. A song of lakes and shallow waters.

The water around the creature bent to my will. It stilled and condensed, closing around the creature and compressing to the point of solidity. It trapped the glekk’s body in the water even as it screamed bloody murder. It looked at me with its ugly little face and its gross, fish’s eyes. I found fear etched into its features.

Alright. This would do. Slowly, I lowered the bansuri from my lips and stopped the song. The water around it loosened. Let it free.

The glekk watched me like a cornered mouse would eye a cat.

“You’re my prisoner now,” I said, and the glekk snarled. I raised an eyebrow and brought the bansuri up to my lips.

That shut it up pretty quick.

“Follow,” I said, turning. Venti on my shoulder watched the fish-thing like a hawk, and I heard its splashing footsteps follow me from behind. It was a stupid monster, but at least it seemed to understand that trying anything right now wasn’t wise.

Good.

Now, to figure out why this thing could see me when the merchants couldn’t. I eyed the caravan in the distance, setting up camp in the darkness once again. For once, I was thankful for my altered senses. Night-vision was a handy little thing. I would have to follow the caravan from a distance from now on, lest they see the glekk, but—

“You, die.”

A voice came from behind me. Gurgling and raspy all at once, as if someone was speaking while rinsing their throat with soap-water.

I stopped. Turned. I saw the glekk staring at me, its eyes cold.

“You, me. Die,” it repeated. “Bad thing come.”

These things could speak? Creepy. And what kind of voice was that? It was like listening to a chorus of drowning orphans. It was saying some awfully cryptic things on top of it, too, which hardly helped. I frowned at the glekk.

“No one’s going to die as long as you don’t try anything.”

The glekk shook its head, “Shadow thing come. We, die. Like first shaman.”

I rolled my eyes at it, “Just shut up and follow before I decide to punch you. I’ve got questions to ask.”

I had no time for some tribal monster superstitions. These things were beasts. Mother always emphasized that whenever I felt bad about using monster and animal parts in medicine. They were better put to use than left alone. If that meant killing, farming, or imprisoning them, then that was that.

Better a monster was leashed than left to ravage the countryside, after all.

As I walked, I tore away a section of my pants, wrapping it around my side. The shallow cut was bleeding a little. I tore select pieces of moss and lake weed from the water below me and threw them into my mouth. Nirrn and ballas weed. They wouldn’t make me heal any faster, but they were good disinfectants. I chewed them into bitter, green paste and spat.

I slid the paste into my bandages, then wrenched the cloth forward, tightening it. I washed my hands in the water and glanced back at the glekk.

“Firstly—” I started, “tell me how you see me. What do I look like to you?”

It gurgled out a grunt. “Ugly. Plant-rock hybrid thing.”

“That’s still one of the nicer things people have said,” I said, waving away the thing’s insult. Half-trolls weren’t exactly liked. This stupid fish didn’t have a fraction of the racism that some older amarids did. Ancestors only knew how many of those old crones wanted my father gone. I fixed the glekk with a look, “So you can see me clearly, then? You can see my face?”

“Ugly face.”

Very clever. And a yes, by the looks of it.

I threw it a small pebble, and the creature caught it in confusion. It looked up at me. Stupidly. And uglily, just because I was petty. I strode up to it with a smile, and the glekk flinched as I swiped the rock away from it.

My eyes watched the stone, waiting for the seconds to pass. Three. Five. Twenty.

The rock stayed in my hand. I grinned.

So that’s how it was.

“People are immune, but monsters are fair game,” I said, and Venti chirped. She hopped down from my shoulder and perched on my finger, flapping her wings. I raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

She pointed her beak towards the horizon, where the rest of the glekk fled. She pecked at my torn sleeve. Chirped again.

“…You want me to follow them?”

A nod. The little sunbird mimed at clutching the air with her claws, like some grabby beggar looking to snag a stray pouch.

Damn. That wasn’t going to be easy.

I pursed my lips. What Venti was implying was clear enough—go to the glekks, then rob them blind. But could I do that? The encounter with the raiding party was a disaster. I was injured. If the spear had actually hit me in a vital spot, I would have bled out and died. And it wasn’t like I had invisibility to rely on, either. These things could see me just as much as I could see them—even in the dark.

I narrowed my eyes at the sunbird.

“You’re not trying to get me killed, are you?”

Venti gave me a look as if I was stupid. She pecked at the bansuri in my hand and chirped. Galesong hummed. Winds swirled around us.

We had magic on our side, she seemed to say.

Damn. She had a point there.

I sighed and glanced toward the caravan. I already knew where they were headed, so there wasn’t really a need for me to follow them anymore. I knew what stars to follow. And I knew which landmarks to spot, all from the conversations I had no choice but to listen to since I joined them.

But to leave human company and seek out a group of monsters like some highway robber out for scraps?

Dangerous. But it also sounded like fun.

If it didn’t involve getting myself stabbed, that was.

I sighed and looked at my clothes, all torn and ruined. I looked at my waterlogged boots and my muddy pants. At the worn bansuri in my hands. I was a wreck. If I tried going home in this condition, I would practically be naked by the time I made it back to my home in Lavenan.

Maybe a new set of supplies wouldn’t be so bad.

Plus… I turned to my glekk captive.

“Do your people have any travel animals? Like those lizards in the caravan?”

It stared at me as if I was stupid. What was with these animals I was traveling with and looking at me like that?

“You attack tribe,” the glekk said. “Not telling.”

Ah.

“I won’t kill anyone,” I said, and it just looked at me, unimpressed. I sighed, “Look, I just want—”

A flash of blue cut me off.

Venti chirped a song beside me, and the wind roared.

The glekk let out a shriek as the wind soared up from below it, flinging it up into the sky like a stray leaf. I reared back in surprise, watching the glekk flail against the gale. It ascended higher and higher, until its screaming was a faint sound in the distance. Venti kept chirping, driving the monster up, up, up before—

She stopped. The glekk began to fall.

My eyes widened and the volume of its screams increased. It plummeted towards the lake. Towards death. I slapped the bansuri to my lip, played, and the wind rushed forward.

It caught the glekk, meters before it hit the water, slowing its descent and stopping its fall mere inches away from the surface. I ended the song and it plopped down, pale and shivering in fear, and it looked at Venti like she was a demon.

I guess she kind of was.

The little sunbird hopped down from my shoulder and stood atop the water, walking forward. She was small—tiny, even when compared to the glekk. But as she approached it, she loomed, and the glekk was the one who cowered. It was honestly pretty impressive.

Venti chirped, and the monster flinched as a small gust brushed against it. She gave me an expectant glance.

…Seriously. I could believe why this bird was traveling with that sadistic Fae now.

I approached the glekk and squatted down, meeting it at eye-level. “So,” I said, tapping my bansuri. “Are you going to show us to your friends, or do we have to do that ten more times?”

“No!” the glekk croaked, whipping its head from side to side. “Me—me lead! To camp!”

I nodded, “Alright then. Lead the way, ugly.”

It scrambled off, hurriedly swimming towards where the rest of the raiding party retreated to, snivelling and gurgling in complaint. I followed. A few moments of silence passed between us three, with only the sound of trudging and splashing movement filling the empty space. And then I turned to Venti, who’d flown back on top of my shoulder.

“…What if I wasn’t able to stop its fall on time?”

Venti blinked. Then she shrugged and mimed one wing crashing into another with a poof. I snorted a laugh out of that, poking the bird with the tip of my instrument.

“Warn me next time. You can’t just throw wild animals into the air and expect me to catch them. I know glekk are beasts, but they're still worthy of a little respect.”

The bird gave me a weird look.

“What?”

I raised an eyebrow at it, but she only chirped, shrugging with her wings again. Hmph. Whatever. Sometimes, I was both curious about what she had to say and simultaneously glad that Venti didn’t have a mouth to speak with. Ancestors only knew how much snark I would get if this bird gained a lip.

She was already expressive enough as it is.

“Still, it wouldn’t be bad to have someone to talk to,” I muttered, and she chirped in what was the equivalent of a smug grin. I rolled my eyes and poked her again. “I meant the glekk. Not you.”

She pecked at me, I laughed; the journey stretched on.

...And the shadows began to listen.