When I made the deck, Mars caught me in his arms in the cocoon of a large sheet of toweling and pulled me aboard, dropping to his behind on the deck and holding me against the warmth of his chest.

My tail flipped and flopped on the wood as I looked up at my husband to see his eyes locked on my fin.

“But of course, it’s beautiful,” he muttered.

I started to smile at his words, and then I winced.

“Steady, angelfish,” Jorie’s voice could be heard above me. “We talked about this. Just breathe through it, Silence.”

We had talked about it.

But faith, the pain of the split was blinding, and each scale reentering my skin felt like thousands of little cuts.

“I do not like this,” Mars stated on a rumble, and I knew I was not hiding the unpleasantness of the sensations.

“It will be over in moments, and eventually she’ll get so used to it, she’ll barely feel it,” Jorie assured.

“She’s feeling it now,” Mars noted in a threatening tone.

I had been.

But suddenly, I wasn’t.

I looked down to my legs which looked like naught but my legs. No marks from where the scales had pushed through. Not even a whisper of my lovely caudal left.

I missed it, and I cuddled closer to the warmth of Mars, for I didn’t feel the cold in The Deep, but I felt it on the deck.

I looked up to my brother.

“Can we do that again soon?” I requested.

He burst with laughter.

I decided, and was delighted, that meant yes.

“And this weariness?” I heard Mars ask as I rode before him, in his arms, atop Hephaestus, on our way back to the Citadel.

And I did it with my eyelids drooping.

“She has had much activity. It doesn’t seem thus, for in the doing, it seems easy. But in truth, swimming requires the use of your whole body at all times you’re doing it, and she is not accustomed to this. She will become so, my brother, and this weariness after a swim will fade,” Jorie explained.

As I was, indeed, weary, I did not take issue with my husband and brother speaking about me when I was right there.

Instead, I peeked through my flagging eyes and noted with great relief that we’d made the bottom of the lane to the Citadel. I was gladdened by the seeing of it, for all I wished to do was find our bed, crawl into it and take a nap that would last until supper.

I was so tired, along the way, I hadn’t even glanced around to enjoy the cheerful hustle and bustle of Sky Bay that always so heartened me when we rode through it.

Indeed, I nearly fell asleep riding the long lane up to the Citadel.