Chapter 6 - The One Who Raised His Hand

Tidecall Memory Fragment 𐤔𐤓𐤎𐤕𐤔: "The One Who Raised His Hand"

Location: Waters off Naxos | No-Moon Night

Phase: New Tui – Full Dark Above, Full Pull Below

Namecall: Saeh-Li of the Silent Vein

Status: Surface Drift. Watching.

The sea is different under a moonless sky.

Still.

Quiet.

The pull of Tui is deep tonight—strong in the bones, soft in the blood. The others have long descended, wrapped in trench-hunger, following old calls to old places. But I remain here, near the warm shallows, near him.

I don't know his name.

Only his face. His hands. The way his heart lit up when the sky did. The way he looked at the water like it might answer him.

I have never seen a human do that.

Tonight, I felt him before I saw him. The salt around him was familiar. The way it moved, the way the air bent around his breath. He was above me again—on the floating thing with lights and rods and noise. But tonight, the boat was quiet.

I rose.

The surface welcomed me like old skin peeling open. I let the glow along my spine pulse slow, soft enough not to wake the others. Just enough for him to see.

He was there.

Leaning over the edge.

Older. Tired. Still lovely.

The light touched his eyes—and they widened.

He knew me.

My chest ached.

Not from pressure. Not from fear. From something else. Something soft. A thirst not for blood or song—but for understanding. To be seen and not turned away. To have this strange, fragile creature above the waves look at me and not flinch.

He didn't flinch this time.

He didn't speak either—but his body did. The way he leaned forward. The way his fingers gripped the rail like a heartbeat. And when I raised my hand—just a gesture, old and sacred from before the Fall—

He mirrored me.

Palm to palm, across the void.

No song passed between us this time. No words. Just the stillness of the tide, and the space between our hands.

I wanted to stay.

But Tui pulled harder. The tide was shifting. The trench whispers would rise soon, and I cannot let them scent him on me. They would not understand this silence. This ache. This curiosity.

So I let myself slip backward.

I did not blink. Not once. Not until his eyes were gone from sight.

In the deep again, the pressure returns. The loneliness returns.

But it is different now.

Because he raised his hand.

Because he saw me—and did not turn away.

Because the surface did not hurt, not this time.

I will return again.

Not to steal.

Not to mate.

Not to haunt.

But to learn.

To see if it's possible—just once—

For something born of trench and tide

To be held

Instead of feared.