The last item was the easiest for the merman. He traveled swiftly through the canals this time, sure of his destination. Through the city and out towards the port and the beaches where the fisherfolk sorted their catches. The merfolk, too, had a use for oil, though not for lighting lanterns. Still, the harvesting of the fatty, oily livers of fish and whales and seals was not so different between land and sea. Once he found the fishers it was only a short distance to the dockside facilities where fish - and their byproducts - were processed.
"Oil in small casks," he told the woman who squatted down beside the canal to look him over in a way that was decidedly unsettling, as if considering how much oil could be pressed from a manta ray. "For the Queen." He could not have afforded the price of so much oil on his own, but his services were of more interest than his material goods. With the colder-than-usual Flowerbirth the fish schools had changed their patterns, and he bartered a day of guiding her business associates - captains of fishing boats who sold their catches to her - to the current locations of cod and pollock that he had noted in more southern waters.
It was likely to be an unpleasant day all around, and his stoic expression was more distant than usual as he swam slowly back to the Halenani to see how the others had fared.
Hadama finds a fish oil maker near the harbor and barters a day of guiding fishing boats to large schools of fish in exchange for a number of small casks of oil.
"Oil in small casks," he told the woman who squatted down beside the canal to look him over in a way that was decidedly unsettling, as if considering how much oil could be pressed from a manta ray. "For the Queen." He could not have afforded the price of so much oil on his own, but his services were of more interest than his material goods. With the colder-than-usual Flowerbirth the fish schools had changed their patterns, and he bartered a day of guiding her business associates - captains of fishing boats who sold their catches to her - to the current locations of cod and pollock that he had noted in more southern waters.
It was likely to be an unpleasant day all around, and his stoic expression was more distant than usual as he swam slowly back to the Halenani to see how the others had fared.
Hadama finds a fish oil maker near the harbor and barters a day of guiding fishing boats to large schools of fish in exchange for a number of small casks of oil.
