notes on freshwater
read on ao3 here
You cannot help but taste the water—no matter where you go. The spray from the waves crashing and beating against the hull of your trawler catches on your beard and trickles over your lips, as you skip over the waves in pursuit of the wavering horizon line, the frantic chase toward a rumor that drips thick and coagulated in your ear using the Collector’s voice.
It’s easy to mark the confluence of the Twisted Strand, as you approach it. The droplets of water tastes sweet on your tongue, when you wet your wind-chapped lips and pull up to the Merchant’s dock, and as though the salt had been stripped away to lay bare that sickly-sweetness, water that had once been fresh but now tasted like rot. You wonder where the water comes from.
As you probe deeper into the strand, you are burdened by the weight of your curiosity—just where does this freshwater come from? The fish here are adapted to it, species that live well in brackish-fresh water: catfish, gar, and grey mullet. Yet there is no landmass in the branching pathways, no source well for the water to spring from. There is land, but land of a sticky sort, that drags your feet down and in and suckles at the soles of your boots, urging you to let your mind drift.
You catch the movement of the vines out of the corner of your eye, and move on, though your surroundings do their best to fight against you—movement is a forbidden knowledge here. Perhaps all the salt in the Twisted Strand has sunk to the sea floor, tucked into the river bed—fallen victim to the wallowing demanded by the languid poison in the tide.
