The girls were unraveling.
Not dramatically—yet.
But Zanya saw every frayed thread.
Emma flinched at condensation on her juice bottle.
Cleo practically levitated away from a lawn sprinkler.
Rikki avoided the drinking fountain like it owed her money.
And no one else noticed.
Zanya did.
Maybe because she'd already seen this season once.
Maybe because her Saltborn senses made every splash, every tremor in the water, every shift in the tides hum like a warning bell.
So she helped.
Quietly.
Safely.
Canon-friendly.
When Lewis almost spilled pool water onto Cleo's shoe, Zanya "accidentally" cut in front of him, shoulder-checking his elbow just enough to redirect the splash onto the pavement.
He apologized profusely.
Cleo stared at her, confused but grateful.
At the juice bar, when irrigation mist drifted too close to Emma, Zanya "lost her balance" and bumped a sun umbrella into the spray's path.
Emma blinked at her. "You okay?"
"Fine," Zanya lied, already backing away.
Rikki was the hardest.
Too sharp. Too suspicious.
But when a cooler leaked toward her boots, Zanya spotted it early and dragged a small potted palm across the spill like she'd been paid to rearrange the décor.
Rikki narrowed her eyes.
"…You're being weird."
"Am I?" Zanya said with her best deadpan.
Rikki shrugged and stalked off, but the water never touched her.
Zanya's chest tightened.
This wasn't sustainable.
They were brittle glass under bright moonlight.
And speaking of moonlight—
Night fell like a curtain being dropped.
The moment the first sliver of moon rose over the ocean, Zanya doubled over with a gasp.
A tug—deep and insistent—yanked at something inside her chest.
Her fëa, the Tolkien-sense whispered.
Her inner soul-thread, resonating like a harpstring struck by unseen fingers.
"Oh—" Zanya braced against a railing. "No no no, not now—"
A pulse rippled through her ribs.
Then another.
The ocean called her name, but not in words—
in pull.
In gravity.
In inevitability.
She staggered toward the shore, breath shaking.
Each step closer amplified the sensation until the waves might as well have been hands tugging at her sleeves.
Vision slammed into her like a tide:
Moonlight.
Chains—black iron, sinking into ink-dark water.
A massive shape thrashing below.
Eyes—silver, furious, ancient—opening in the deep.
A voice followed, clearer now:
"Saltborn… answer…"
She fell to her knees in the wet sand.
"Oh gods," she whispered. "You're real."
The dream voice.
The chained presence in the deep.
The pull in her soul that felt like falling upward.
The ocean hissed in approval, brushing her ankles with gentle foam.
The System pinged softly—a contrast to the pressure roaring in her ears.
[HIDDEN MISSION UNLOCKED
ANSWER THE DEEP — Part 1
The ocean calls you. Your fëa hears its bound voice.
Objective: Approach Mako's outer coast.
Reward: Voltron — Astral Sensitivity Lv.1
(Enhanced perception of energy, soul-signatures, and dimensional echoes.)]
Zanya exhaled shakily.
"Why does everything come in levels now?"
The System, unhelpfully cheerful as always, blinked:
[Mission is time-sensitive.]
Time-sensitive.
Great.
Like her soul being gently kidnapped by a mythic sea monster wasn't enough.
She pushed herself upright and rubbed her arms.
The resonance still hummed beneath her skin, right under the bones, as if someone were plucking invisible strings tied to her heart.
Every instinct she had screamed the same thing: Go!
But canon screamed back: Not yet!
Zanya wiped the sand off her legs, lifted her chin, and turned back toward home.
The ocean watched her retreat.
And she could feel—deep below—the chained presence watching too.
Waiting.
Calling.