At the Archive’s instruction, Marisol waddled out onto the center of the small lake, maintaining balance on the tip of her glaives so she wouldn’t sink through the surface.

  The Archive looked at her like she was dumb, and she felt all the more embarrassed for the stupid joke. she thought. Her stomach was already growling, and her body cried out its exhaustion, urging her to sit down and enjoy a warm meal next to a crackling bonfire. So, she chewed her lips and stared down at the shallow lake. All she wanted was school of fish to swim past, unafraid of the big, scary lady standing over their heads.

  She didn’t exactly have a spear, nor did she know how to whittle one—she’d never bothered learning since she’d grown up in a literal desert—but in her mind, what she had was far superior. She stared down at the two gleaming glaives, sharp enough to cut through thick walls of vines.

  This should be easy-peasy.

  Without being able to see either the sun or the moon in the sky, it was difficult for Marisol to tell just how much time had passed, but the Archive made sure to remind her every minute she failed to stab a fish.

  She was absolutely now, but the world didn’t throw a bone at her in her time of desperation. It was difficult enough trying to stand perfectly still on the lake’s surface, but to kneel a little, kick one of her glaives out like a spear, and try not to throw herself off balance while aiming for a fish the size of her forearm? Even doing a hundred consecutive double-spin jumps would be easier than trying to stab a fish out of the lake. Those scaly beasties were . By the time one of them got close enough to the surface to flash its whiskers through the swirling waters, the flickering gleam from the glaives was enough for them to turn and bolt.

  Yet, the Archive said normal fishermen could do this near the continent’s western shoreline?

  Complete bull.

  She was hungry, yes, and she was tired balancing on water, yes, but her mama would slap her upside-down with a sandal if she gave up on learning something difficult halfway through. Being a Sand-Dancer meant striving to nail the toughest jumps, the toughest routines—as if she couldn’t stab a fish with legs literally made out of glaives.

  Granted, she may look like a fool whirling around and missing her stabs over and over again, but if nobody was watching her…

  Someone was watching her.

  Behind her, squatting at the edge of the lake, was the crab boy in sapling shorts and torso-wrapping tribesmen tattoos. She froze when she whirled and missed a stab, noticing him staring at her from afar. His protruding eye stalks were blinking pointedly at her. She didn’t need to see his face to tell what he was probably thinking.

  And, as though to prove a point, he waded into the lake and walked all the way down to the very bottom, disappearing beneath the murky waters. Eyes widening, she skated over to where she last saw him. She peered straight down, trying to see what he was doing—only for him to start walking back out along the same path, clutching a handful of bloody crab legs in his pincer.

  Her stomach growled.

  And, as though to taunt her again, he turned the moment he waded out of the lake and stuffed a broken crab leg through a small opening in his helmet, munching loudly down on the raw meat.

  Just as she was about to whirl away and resume her own fishing, though, the boy tossed something at her. Her reactions kicked in. She snatched the crab leg out of the air, catching it just before it could stab her eye.

  The white, juicy, succulent raw meat made her salivate, but instead of caving to her stomach’s demands, she looked past the leg and stared at the boy on the distant shore.

  The boy bowed, dipping his head almost sheepishly.

  She liked to think she was many things—prideful, reckless, stupid—but she didn’t think herself immature enough to hold a grudge against a child.

  So she bowed back, returning the kind gesture before skating quietly over to him. Hopping off the water, she looked for something to start a fire with. Kindling would be ideal. She took note of the grains of sand that made up the coral forest’s ground. It was strangely dark and iron-y in color. Crouching, she gathered a pile of black sand in a mound and placed a bunch of pebbles around it before clicking her glaives together. A small spark of fire was all it took to ignite the mound of sand, and a bonfire roared to life.

  She supposed this ‘flammable sand’ was how the boy had started a fire back in the cave aboveground as well.

  Now, there didn’t need to be any words exchanged. It didn’t matter that she didn’t speak the same language as the boy. When she sat next to the bonfire and reached a hand out to the boy, he understood immediately, handing over all of his raw crab legs. Then, while he took his seat next to her, she leaned back and kicked one of her legs out, slapping the armored crab legs perpendicularly onto her glaives.

  There were a dozen crab legs balanced on her glaives in total, and while she hesitated a little, she was curious, too. Really, curious to know how tough her glaives actually were. Slowly, steadily, she kicked out and hovered one of her glaives over the bonfire—letting the flames burn both her glaive and the crab legs at once.

  To her surprise, the flames licking her glaive didn’t feel hot at all.

  she thought.

  the Archive assuaged her quickly.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The little water strider on her shoulder probably wanted to shake its head, but then thought the better of it and sighed.

  At the very least, it silly to the crab boy. Seeing her lay back and hold one of her glaives over the fire with a dozen crab legs balancing over the thin, razor-sharp edge must be incredibly entertaining. She crossed her arms behind her head and pretended to nap. The boy immediately began skittering around the bonfire, discreetly fanning wind at the legs in an attempt to make them fall into the fire, so she shifted her glaive a little bit at a time to maintain their balance. This little play went on for four minutes, maybe five—eventually, she kicked them into the air and caught all of them with the flat part of her glaive, right before they could hit the ground.

  She swerved her glaive off the fire and plucked off one of the crab legs for herself, while the boy slid next to her and used her glaive like a serving table, eating the crab legs right off her leg.

  She fanned her mouth and let out heavy, gasping breaths as she slurped the strand of cooked meat right from the leg. She really couldn’t feel even a smidgen of heat on her glaives, but the crab leg was, indeed, cooked—and it was . The strand practically fell apart, melting into more strands on her tongue. It was kinda sweet, too. She thought it’d be salty since it lived in the water, like the fairy shrimp, but even without any seasoning, she felt she could sit here and eat it for days.

  She couldn’t help but forget where she was and smile; the disappointment from the white lumps of flesh and the fairy shrimp meat more than made up for by such a small strand of crab.

  The boy stared at her face while she relished her single strand of meat. By the time she noticed her audience and put a hand over her mouth—trying to hide her embarrassment—he’d already run off back into the lake. She watched bubbles pop on the surface, his shadow disappearing beneath the murky waters. A minute later, he sprinted back up with a dozen more bloody crab legs, his protruding eye stalks to see her reaction.

  Of course, she gave him nothing but the brightest of smiles as she hovered her glaive back over the flames.

  A few hours passed, but this time, it wasn’t spent in frustration. The two of them shared dozens of crab legs. The boy caught and refreshed their supply of legs whenever they were about to run out. She was the fire master, balancing the legs atop the bonfire. By the time the bonfire started to dwindle, they were both stuffed. Bodies heavy, stomachs bulging, they laid sprawled out on the sands and stared up at the glowing aquamarine crystals on the ceiling. Marisol didn’t feel like she could walk a single step without falling over.

  [Points: 1 → 8]

  … But now that she got her fill of crab and a few points along the way, she felt like trying her hand, well, glaive at fishing again.

  Crawling onto her glaives with a heavy, embarrassing groan, she waddled out onto the lake again. The boy’s protruding eye stalks bore holes into her back. If she missed a stab again, she felt he might belt out a laugh, and… hearing him laugh would probably be fine with her, in all honesty.

  A Sand-Dancer’s job was to make people happy.

  Her status screen popped up next to her head as the Archive did as it was told.

  [Perception: 2 → 3]

  [Aura: 573 → 581]

  [Points: 8 → 0]

  And when she closed her eyes and let out a soft, quiet breath, she could tell the increase in perception was already starting to take effect. Clamping her hands over her ears to reduce sound along with sight, she was left with little to detect but the tiniest of ripples and vibrations under the lake’s surface.

  She felt weeds swaying in the underwater currents.

  She felt crabs skittering across the lakebed, pacing to and fro.

  And she felt curious fishes swimming up to check out the big, scary lady standing overhead.

  Before the closest fish could even get close enough to the surface to see what she was, she bent her knee and stabbed her other leg down, feeling and hearing a little . Immediately, she pulled out, raising her knee with a hearty laugh as she saw a tiny fish flopping around, impaled on the tip of her glaive.

  [Objective #5 Completed: Find a stable food source]

  [Reward: Survival]

  She whirled in place and waved at the little boy, pointing excitedly down at the fish on her glaive.

  Humming cheerily, she skated all the way back to the gently crackling bonfire and held up her fish for the boy to admire. The boy clapped his hands, seeming genuinely proud of her. For a few seconds she felt heat flushing up to her cheeks—she was a grown woman getting praised by a kid younger than half her age—but then she stuffed that embarrassment somewhere else. She plopped down, stabbing the fish on the tip of her glaive.

  Together, they watched as the fish slow-cooked on the fading flames, and then they shared the fish between the two of them, too. The boy did most of the hard work descaling and yanking out the little spiny bones while she mostly just laid back and watched, but dammit, she swore she’d learn how to properly clean a fish by tomorrow night as well.

  Right now, all she cared about was lying on her back and biting into her cooked fillet, and it was… surprisingly not as good as she hoped it’d be.

  The crab legs tasted better. They were juicier and sweeter. they also gave her points, even if she was already absolutely sick of eating crabs.

  The boy didn’t seem to agree with her, though, so she wore a small smile on her face as she watched him munch happily down on his fillet.

  She didn’t know about anyone else, but it seemed like both of them liked food better when they were caught by someone else.

  “... I’m Marisol,” she said, pointing at herself as the boy finished the last of his fillet, wiping the mouth opening on his helmet. “Do you… really not understand me?”

  The boy heard her alright. Judging by the puzzled tilt of his head as he stared at her, he simply, had no idea what she was saying.

  Now she felt a bit worse about being so forceful with him earlier.

  “Marisol,” she repeated, jabbing a finger at herself again. Then she pointed at his chest, and something seemed to light up in his black eye stalks.

  He pointed excitedly at himself.

  “Kukuragurakawuku,” he said.

  “Kukuguwakuka,” she replied.

  The boy shook his head. “Kukuragurakawuku.”

  “Kukagarakawu.”

  “Kukuragurakawuku.”

  Eventually she ended with, “Kuku.”

  “... Kuku!” he said, nodding exuberantly. ‘Kuku’ it was, then.

  “Um… Kuku,” she said, mulling for a moment as she stared up at the ceiling, wondering how she should word her question. “Where are… um, where. Are. Your. Parents?”

  She tried to punctuate each word with a gesture, running her fingers along the sand, but she didn’t really know how to sign ‘family’ to him. The boy evidently had no clue what she was talking about. She groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead, breathing coolly as she thought about a gesture that he understand.

  Her eyes lit up as she thought of a perfect one.

  “Dance!” she said, sticking two fingers into the sand and pretending they were legs, making her little finger-person skate around and do a full dance routine. Then, she introduced another dancer—another person—and had them dance together, looking intently at Kuku for any reaction as she did. “Dance, two people! Where other… dance? Where your people?”

  For a second, the boy’s protruded eye stalks seemed to droop a little, and something in her chest sank like an anchor—she’d touched on a sensitive topic. One he didn’t want to talk about.

  the Archive muttered.

  And speaking of the devils, Marisol’s ears perked when she heard rustling in the far distance.

  Heavy footsteps thumping on iron sand.

  Kuku looked at her strangely, seemingly a bit confused by her sudden alertness. She only needed to catch a glimpse of the Blackclaw Marauders’ garishly bright crab heads—crab heads, nothing like Kuku’s silly helmet—to know they were probably looking for her.

  They had to hide.

  She didn’t need telling thrice, but, in the end, it was Kuku who tapped her shoulder first and motioned for her to hunch down.

  He seemed like he wanted her to follow him somewhere, and considering he seemed to know the layout of the island far better than both her and the Archive combined, she was inclined to oblige.

  Water striders in particular have extremely keen sensors on all of their legs, allowing them to determine both the direction of incoming waves and disturbances on water surfaces. Now, there are generally only two kinds of ripple signals received by water striders: one is produced by other kinds of insects trying to free themselves from the water surface, which they use to hunt any insect that has fallen into the water, and the other is produced by other water striders during reproduction.

  … More on that second type of ripple in chapter twenty!

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