The ceremony was already in full swing by the time Shelpa arrived, hundreds of pairs of eyes turning reverentially towards her. She resisted the urge to roll hers.

“Remember,” her mother hissed in her ear, “you’re not just here for yourself.”

This time Shelpa did roll her eyes, but nobody was looking at her now.

Stepping into the blue from the other side of the village, Garf had effortlessly become the centre of attention, as he always did. The light from above played across his muscular chest, and his webbed fingers allowed him to move as easily as any fish. Shelpa couldn’t help but glance down resentfully at her own fingers, almost entirely separated from each other. The result of thousands of years of selective breeding, because women for appearances. Men were for action.

She clenched her fists and composed herself before Garf glided to an easy stop in front of her.

“Hello, my love,” he said.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she said flatly.

Garf merely smiled. It was an affable smile, and Shelpa knew that it was genuine. Garf was a good-natured man who, by dint of genetic lottery, was stronger, faster, and more attractive than anyone in the village. He rarely got annoyed or angry because he didn’t need to—it was Shelpa’s least favourite thing about him.

“We will take it one day at a time,” he said, holding his hand out.

Shelpa hesitated only for a moment, then took it, and they drifted towards the surface together past dozens of gazing faces.

 

* * *

 

As they broke into the world above, Shelpa steadied herself for a moment, allowing her first breath in over two days to fill her lungs gradually. Other people breaking the surface around them expelled their breath in great geysers of mucus and hot air because they weren’t beholden to the aesthetic standards expected of a governor’s daughter. She found herself resenting her situation anew.

“We are gathered here today,” a voice trilled across the village, “to witness the joining of Garf and Shelpa, a symbol of unity between the people of the Shelf and the people of the Raft.”

The voice of the minister faded from Shelpa’s consciousness. They had been at the Shelf for a full day, and Shelpa had not breached the surface once. Perhaps she should have, for the view before them filled her head, leaving no room for anything else.

“It is quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” Garf whispered as they came to a stop in front of the minister.

“Yah,” was all Shelpa could manage.

Shelpa had grown up in Raft—an ancient village that required constant maintenance to fight off the decay of time. She knew there were many villages like Raft, floating around the great oceans of the world, but few humans chose to live near land anymore. Perhaps this was why.

The ceremony continued.

 

* * *

 

“I could take you,” Garf said, “see them up close.”

The wedding had concluded without drama—much to Shelpa’s chagrin—and, with the seawine flowing, the celebrations had returned to the water where being intoxicated was less of a risk. The sun was dipping below the horizon, casting red light across the mingled heads of the two sets of villagers.

She scoffed. “Why would you go on land?”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she flailed an arm at the upper half of Garf’s bare torso, accidentally splashing him in the face as she let her arm fall, “you’re basically made for the water. There’s nothing up there but dust and…”

“And those?” Garf said with a smile, gesturing towards jagged silhouettes.

Shelpa opened her mouth to make a quip but none came. She fell silent and stared. After a long moment, she said, “What are they?”

“Tall houses, we think.”

Shelpa snorted in a most un-governerly way. “Houses? They are taller than the entire shelf on which your village is perched!”

“There were more of us on the land, a long time ago,” Garf shrugged, “it is only a theory. The scholars and elders do that kind of thinking, I just like to explore. Below the surface and above.”

“And when might such an exploration take place?” Shelpa asked tentatively.

Garf grinned. “We are wedded now. Nobody would question us slipping off into the night for a spell.”

 

* * *

 

It took some time to reach the edge of the tall houses, as Garf had called them. They’d had to walk for what felt like a league. Indeed, it could have been a league, for Shelpa’s eyes were not accustomed to judging distances above the surface, her legs not accustomed to walking for so long. She had both pitied and admired Garf along the way—his sleek form and webbed appendages made him king below the surface, but she had a much easier time of it on land.

She had trouble holding onto these thoughts as the houses loomed in front of her.

“Your scholars believe we used to live in these things?” she asked.

“Our ancestors, yes,” Garf said, “millions of them. And then the sky changed and they fled to the oceans.”

“How do they know this?” Shelpa asked.

Garf shrugged again. “Stories, mostly.”

“Do you believe them?”

“I don’t have to,” Garf said, taking Shelpa’s hand in his own and walking towards the houses. “The land is scorched, we cannot live here. Where we were in the past doesn’t change where we are now.”

“You don’t believe the past can teach us anything?”

“It can,” Garf conceded, “but in small doses. Take these houses. We scarcely understand how such a thing could be built, but would learning such a trick bring more fish to the village? Would it save a lost child from the dolphin packs?”

“I guess not,” Shelpa said.

Garf smiled easily. “Leave the big thinking to the scholars. We have more immediate matters to concern ourselves with.”

And to her own surprise, Shelpa leaned in for the kiss.