Nana tossed me a sheathed knife and a massive, lumpy square of folded fabric, plasticky to the touch. I definitely hadn’t seen her carrying them, and I staggered back under the weight.

Still holding her lyre, she went over to the fish and coaxed the sputters of melam floating from its body into a blown-glass vial.

“Suppose Cousin will be needing to eat sometime soon…” she muttered. Nana’s head jerked back towards me, and she snapped, “Well, what’re you waiting for? Lay out the tarp.”

I’d been busy inspecting the knife, which was long enough to perhaps be called a sword. It was curved, and gradually tapered to a point–a classic shape for filleting. The wooden handle had weathered to a dull grey, though the silvery blade looked to be regularly polished. Bronze decorations on the hilt, however, hadn’t received similar treatment, now a dull turquoise. Even in age, it was still a beautiful tool.

A bunch of rusted pegs tumbled out as I unfolded the tarp, and I hastily pushed them through holes in its edge, deep into the firm sand.

A loud thump sounded, and I jerked up. Nana had already moved the enormous fish. Despite its impressive length of twenty feet–or more–there was room to spare on the tarp. Wisps of her magic ebbed from its body. How much did it weigh?! Three tons?

Ignoring a few pangs of anxiety in my heart, I strode up to the fish and inspected it. The obvious cause of death were huge tooth puncture marks around its head, easily piercing through bony plates of armor. Oddly, slash marks also covered it. They looked less fresh, partially healed over, and were absurdly clean. There were no rips or tears like the type that would be caused by an animal’s claws. I was reminded of the way the shrine’s walls had been defaced. Unlike the teeth marks, whatever made them hadn’t had as much luck getting through its skull.

I’d been so focused on the fish, that I only noticed the final streams of melam had left it when I looked up and saw gold-green vapors, dispersing into the clouds.

I gestured to the sky with an arm and called out, “Hey, isn’t it sort of going to waste?”

Nana had begun to settle down on the tarp’s edge with her lyre resting on her tail. She gave me a look, and I walked closer.

“Couldn’t we have been able to use it somehow? I mean, I suppose I trust your judgement, but if you could at least explain why…?” I queried.

She sighed once more, but it was sad, quiet, not the dramatic tortured one she usually favored.

“Yes. Sit down. The fish can wait a little while longer,” she said.

Nana stiffened up and went into that same wise teacher-mode she’d used last night.

“It is at my fault, for not discussing of this earlier,” she admitted. “Tell me, how many creatures have you killed before you and I met? Besides the spirit of the shrine, how much of their melam have you taken?”

Her voice was not urgent, but dangerously calm.

“I only took from one! And I killed it for food. I know that I’m likely wrong, or my intentions are misplaced, but I asked because I thought it could lead to some sort of power, stronger magic. I just wanted… any sort of agency, really, to travel and explore without fear.” I replied, head hung in embarrassment.

Nana slapped her tail against the tarp, and chuckles escaped from her mouth.

“Oh, no. You are not wrong – not in fact, that is. Yes, power beyond belief can be gained. There is a great, savage joy to be found in slaying great beasts and taking their strength for your own,” she said, a knowing grin spreading across her face.

It vanished, and Nana’s voice became ice.

“But always, there is a price. As you are now, great spirits look upon you and see a mote of dust. Nothing of consequence, let alone a tasty morsel.”

She paused, and massaged her throat.

“Grow in strength, hoard more and more and more melam in your spirit–and their sights will ever so slowly turn towards you. Just as storm clouds always return to the sea, and rise back to the sky, some will seek your destruction solely for hoarding more than what is rightfully yours. For disrupting the natural cycle, taking more than your share,” she said.

“I will not dissuade you from this path. If you wish to rush into death, let it be so! However, know that one can still build a tower on their own, brick by brick, through chalk and blood. Skill is a power in and of itself,” Nana finished.

So it melam isn’t like the concept of an immortal soul. The stuff of life, forever recycled into new beings… No. I do want power, agency, but not simply for the sake of it. Besides, skill gained through my own merits comes with far more satisfaction. As convenient as it was, I felt a tiny bit of discomfort and anger towards the fact that I was handed the Iralic language, without need for years of study.

Conjuring and searching inside my spirit, I found scraps of forign melam that’d been partially assimilated into the rest. Like half-digested food inside a stomach. I was less than enthused to find that forcefully releasing it came with the same sort of nausea as throwing up. The life of the razor clam was set free as a breath of golden wind, fading into the breeze.

Nana looked me dead in the eyes and nodded.

She hefted up her lyre, closed her eyes, and finally began to play. It was a slow, lilting song, and I could barely make out the words. She half-recited, half-sung them. Was it a cultural style, or could she no longer sing?

While you live, shine

Don't suffer anything at all;

Life exists only a short while

And time demands its toll…

Looking back, I saw a slight smile on her face.

Water flowed up from the low tide. Sand and salt fell from the streams as Nana’s magic worked, swirling around the fish. Blood was carried away as I cut into it–I was thankful I wouldn’t have to relive what my body looked like when I first woke up in this world. My tunic was left at the edge of the tarp.

Fresh and cool water, thanks to Nana, washed sweat and gore from my body as the summer sun beat down upon us. Breezes whipped against my face.

Cutting through its skeleton was a no-go, despite the knife obviously being magical. Nana’s chicken-scratch scrawl was etched into the base of its blade. The bone was too thick, unlike a shark’s cartilage, and I wasn’t strong enough.

With Nana’s help, I cut the tail off. Blood slowly oozed out of what was probably its caudal artery, but by now it’d mostly bled out. Next, its head was severed, right behind the pectoral fins. I had to work around its plates of bone, but the knife was easily flexible enough not to break as I sliced them apart.

Upon gutting it, its stomach, intestines, and other entrails slid out onto the tarp. They were laid aside, and I eyed the bulging stomach.

Two grooves, creating a v-shape, were cut on either side of its spine, which was then removed. Slabs of the massive white fillets were hacked off one by one. Eventually, we finished. Nana packed up the piles of meat and I was left laying on the tarp, muscles screaming in pain.

I stood up on shaking knees and wandered over to the entrails. After thinking for a moment, I carefully sliced open the huge j-shaped stomach. Mainly just to satisfy my own curiosity about other species of marine life.

Hopefully the stomach acid wouldn’t affect the blade–that of sharks was wickedly strong.

At the first long cut, a man’s face emerged, like opening a body bag. He had wavy, black hair, like mine. I dropped the knife and fell, eyes still fixated on the partially dissolved face. Looking away, I took a minute to collect myself.

Was it one of the two people who’d desecrated the shrine? Those clean slashes I’d seen on the fish’s body was a point in favor. If I found a woman, too, then I’d be certain.