Thread: River water and fish bones.

The river was filthy. Dank sewer tunnels emptied themselves onto grey sand, and there were few fish in algae filled waters. Long strands flourished in garbage, coiling through discarded shopping trolleys, cars, through bones. The passage of water wore glass into smooth pebbles of brilliant colours, but people never saw those. All they could see was the brown opaque water. He didn't have to use his eyes to see. He could see the eel pass through the ribcage of a never-found murder victim without ever leaving his little home. The humans often made regeneration plans, promised to reroute the sewers, clean up the water, bring the fish back, build new footpaths and parks in the docks district... But often they just ended up deciding it was just too expensive. So the empty factories and warehouses always stood, as grey as the water, and as devoid of life as it was. The old docks machinery rusted and fell to pieces where it stood. His empty domain. Seawater was poisonous to him, so he could not take that path. If he strayed too far from his waters, he lost his powers, his very essence... It wasn't even a proper death. He faded a little, sure, but there was still a mind there. He dried up like one of those fishes. The sort that slept through droughts and awoke as soon as rains fell... He had seen stories of them. It was not oblivion. He had no choice but to exist. But eternity could be made comfortable. Under a dark pier, he made his home. A grotto of strangely lit crystals and delicate glasses full of floating little lights. Bone servants, held together with magic, in strange unreal forms. A long time ago, sailors and fishermen would tip a little tobacco into the water lord Fishbones, do not be angry but these days he was reduced to searching suicides and dumped corpses. He would lay out the sodden cigarettes and tobacco on the edge of a pier, and sometimes wait until morning to light up with a flame conjured between his fingers. Some people saw him that way, smoking a solitary cigarette. A man with a tattered workman's cap, with wet black hair soaking down his back... Shirt and pants decades out of date. Always wet. Pale green skin with strangely long and webbed fingers, tipped with narrow pointed claws. He looked a little odd, really. He held the slender cigarette strangely, between his thumb and his ring finger the claws on his forefinger and middle one were far too awkward, far too long. His toes were almost as long as the fingers were, also webbed and perfectly flexible. A creature of both land and water... But maybe belonging to water a little more. This night, the moon lit up his scales with silver fire along his hands, his nose, his cheekbones, slightly darker where eyebrows would have been on a human face. Did he have the long tangled hair as an imitation of humanity? It had been so long not even his memory would stretch that far. The best he could do was a few centuries at most. A blessing, really. Eternity would make anyone go insane. Something whispered in his mind of murder, of a tied up and weighted form struggling in water, desperately fighting for air, seeking the surface. He stubbed the cigarette out delicately on a metal rivet. He liked to see those deaths, sometimes. He hung his hat on the nail. No doubt, he would be back soon. Without a splash, without a sound, he slid into the water. Into himself? Perhaps.