The Tides That Bind: Shoreline Fortune Telling with Daniel Obrove; Or, Port-side Portents; Or, He Tells Seashells; Or, Fish-Person Out of Water; Or, Shore Enough; Or, The Fault in Our Starfishes
On the world of Gorse, deep beneath the surface of the world’s Labernum Sea, there dwells a peaceful nation of merfolk. These merfolk, human from the waist up, but with fish tails instead of legs, dwell within their coral-grown cities, where they live, play, and worship their slumbering goddess, Neiria.
Long ago, Neiria fell from the heavens and protected the merfolk when war among the surface-dwellers began to encroach on the borders of the sea. The war has long since ended, and peace reigns throughout Gorse, so the merfolk goddess no longer actively lives among her people. She rests at the center of her temple-fortress and awaits the day that she is needed to defend the sea once more.
Yet even in sleep, the goddess has ways to help her people. Neiria’s unconscious thoughts ripple forth from her resting place and travel along the waves. These then manifest as interpretable prophecy in the objects that wash onto the coast. It is the duty of the tide-seer Daniel Obrove to interpret his goddess’s dreams. With a driftwood staff in hand, he pores over the patterns in rocks, shells, and kelp that appear upon Labernum’s beaches. Should Daniel discover anything especially fortunate or foreboding, he will swim swiftly back to the merfolk capital with his report.
Daniel’s job is not without its challenges. Gorsian merfolk are not amphibious, nor are they capable of any magic that can aid them on land. Most of Gorse’s inhabitants are incapable of traditional forms of magic, thanks to an as-yet unknown magic-inhibiting factor. Daniel Obrove can’t cast an air-breathing spell or use hydromancy to take the sea ashore with him, so he instead holds his breath and hopes that he doesn’t suffocate before he’s finished his reading.
To Daniel’s credit, he’s become pretty good at holding his breath on land.
Another obstacle the seer must overcome is determining which shoreline prophecy is from his goddess and which are from...other sources. The planet Gorse is orbited by a vast array of enormous crystals that serve to defend the world from outside threats. The crystals blast at oncoming celestial dangers to make sure that Gorse remains peaceful. This is all well and good, save for the fact that, in recent centuries, the crystals have begun to break apart and collide with Gorse’s surface. Some of these crystals drop into the Labernum Sea and can interfere with Neiria’s prophecies. Some land dwellers, particularly those in the kingdom of Ulex, believe that the crystals are in fact the shattered body of a god. They believe that there is some credence to the words gleaned from their facets, and the harmonies heard when they are struck.
Daniel doesn’t so much
care whether or not the crystals’ messages are true, he has his
own source to augur from. The crystals that sink to the sea’s depths distort Neiria’s message, and are a constant annoyance to the tide-seer as he works.
Still, barring the occasional issue of scrambled communications with his goddess, and the minor inconvenience caused by asphyxiation, Daniel really enjoys the work. There’s a certain thrill to discovering one of Neiria’s predictions on some far-flung shore. Casting himself onto the beach brings with it a danger and excitement that, to Daniel, rivals that of any great adventure. Daniel takes special delight in challenging himself each time he approaches the coast. How quickly can he read this arrangement of detritus before he runs out of oxygen? With how much certainty can he say that his reading is accurate? Which part of the message are the words of Neiria, and which are the garbled words of those
blasted space crystals? To Daniel, it’s as thrilling a duty as a merfolk can find.
Daniel Obrove is fair-skinned, with practically-cut brown hair and brown eyes. His fish’s tail is predominately purple in hue, but possesses a curious iridescence that seems excessive even for someone who is half fish. He travels unadorned, save for his driftwood staff, a crab-leather pouch, and a necklace adorned with gifts from the goddess. Neiria will sometimes leave an enchanted stone or other mystical object alongside the prophecies Daniel finds, directing him to take the trifle with him. His staff was discovered this way--the goddess provided it in case Daniel was desperate and needed to drag himself back into the water.
None of the small trinkets Daniel has received from his goddess have granted him the power to
breathe on land, however. He thinks she receives some amusement from seeing him flop about on the beach.
The tide-seer Daniel Obrove has yet to see every inch of the Labernum coastline. Who knows what strange things he will discover on his circuit around the sea?
The Hither and Thither Expanded; Or, Drawing Back the Curtain!
Daniel Obrove is the alternate universe analogue of the water spirit Typha. He is not her former life, her salt water relative, or a close acquaintance. He's the Obrove if Obrove were a shoreline prophet, while
the nymph is Obrove in the form of the manifestation and guardian of the River Typha!
More Obroves can be found on their alt list,
here.
There are more "Danalogues" to come, eventually, so we kindly ask that you...
STAY TUNED!