Winter had always found the humans amusing. Bony, ungainly things that still refused to fear the sea.

She watched them skim along the surface in boats of air, until they reached the edges of the Drop. She whistled to them, rolling lazily in the surf to wave one scarred fin in greeting. They waved back and then wrapped themselves in ocean skin and scales.

It wasn’t safe for such fragile things to swim with her, without their clumsy attempts to mimic a defelthia’s form. They might play amount the waters of the Shallows, but if they were to wade beyond the Drop they’d freeze before they’d make it back. Her ocean was not theirs and they’d spent no few lives on their mistakes.

At last they had finished and two bulky forms slipped into the waves beside her. She chirped and twisted slightly, to allow them easier access to the shell she carried between her teeth. It was human-made, the odd-shaped shell, and it would protect them from her speed. Nothing in the sea could match a defelthia in their driving-wave.