//------------------------------//
// I Watch My Cousin Bring In Her Catch 
// Story: Her Eyes Reflect The Stars 
// by Lynwood 
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I watch my cousin bring in her catch from the house's edge.

Rides the Cool Winds struggles to keep the fish on the line as she flies up from her fishing cloud. It's thrashing and squirming, trying to twist itself into a knot and threatening to rip the fishhook from its raw gray gullet. I don't like the look of its teeth.

"Whoa!" shouts Braves. Rides barely makes it up over the soft white edge of our home. She's over the yard in a flash and drops it onto the smooth, flat surface in an angry, writhing pile.

"Father!" Rides the Cool Winds cries between panting breaths, "come look at this!"

"What?" The call from the house is somewhere between a shout and a growl. "I'm busy!"

"I caught a strange fish! Come see!"

She's right. I've never seen a fish like this one before. It has the same bleary eyes and the same gaping mouth as any other fish but the rest of it keeps going and going and going, like an eel's. It has too many fins. Each one is whispy and long, like strands of thin white mane that sprout from between the fish's scales. They're being wrapped up and tangled around its long, slimy body. It's still shivering and thrashing.

Its teeth are the worst of all. They're thin, spinelike. Too long for its mouth.

My uncle steps beside me from nowhere. "Ah! Erm, Uncle Soars!" I quickly move to the side.

"Settle down, colt," he mutters, eyeing the enraged fish-like thing. He rubs his chin with one silver-gray hoof. "Now there's something you don't see every day..."

"Is it some kind of eel?" says Rides, holding her head up high. I feel like she's reached into my ear and plucked the question right out.

"No, no," he says, shaking his head, "it's a tuna."

I snort. "No it isn't, uncle! Just look at it!"

"It is, you stupid colt. Once again, you're not paying attention." My uncle rolls his eyes and points his hoof. "Look closer. see the shape of the mouth? See the color on its tail and around the eye? It's a shimmerfin."

I lean in as its thrashes lessen. There's a messy blotch of color on the tail that pokes out from within the writhing pile of flesh and flaking scales. I look to its eye. The scales around it also have a pearlescent sheen, at least where they haven't been torn away by its fight with my cousin. He's right. 

Then its eye catches mine. There's a glint deep inside. Its mouth starts to strain. It gapes its jagged mouth and pushes its lips out in sickly, almost recognizable patterns. I'm just confused at first. Its movements are jagged, uneven, and then I see it. It's trying to make words. Trying to speak to me.

"Yes, definitely a shimmerfin," my uncle affirms. I look at him, my head feeling fuzzy. He hasn't noticed. "You don't see long fish too often, but it looks like this one's luck ran out." Then he turns to return to the house, jerking his chin towards the edge. "Go ahead and toss it."

"What?" Rides the Cool Wind cries. "It's huge!"

"No good to eat," Uncle says, annoyed. "Throw it. Stay away from its teeth."

"But the hook–"

"Hook's gone." 

My grumbling cousin heave and shoves the wet pile off and away. I watch it fall and splatter onto the ocean with a splash and a spray of red and pink.