The sun and stars may have hidden their faces for a week but Torchline's coast glittered in a display of fire and light that echoed the sky's more usual glory. Large bonfires crackled and burned, leaping a dozen feet and more above the revelers below but smaller, cozier campfires dotted the beach as well among the eponymous torches that gave the region its name.
One of those little fires, conveniently near a deep tide pool, had been abandoned by its original makers and subsequently adopted by a mermanta who used his goddess-given trident to spear driftwood that was out of his reach and drag it over to keep the little conflagration going.
His circlet of rule was conspicuously absent for the moment and his silver hair flowed unbound over his bare, dark shoulders as he relaxed half-out of the water at the tide pool's edge, watching the fire dance with meditative fascination and sipping from a large jug of rice wine.
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One of those little fires, conveniently near a deep tide pool, had been abandoned by its original makers and subsequently adopted by a mermanta who used his goddess-given trident to spear driftwood that was out of his reach and drag it over to keep the little conflagration going.
His circlet of rule was conspicuously absent for the moment and his silver hair flowed unbound over his bare, dark shoulders as he relaxed half-out of the water at the tide pool's edge, watching the fire dance with meditative fascination and sipping from a large jug of rice wine.
Open!
