Astrid

From her mount upon the whale's skull, Astrid called, and she called, and she called. She beat her tail upon the bleached bone, scraped her claws inside the hollowed eye sockets. Not another would drown in the Tidelord's domain. Not a soul.

Many a beast tried to squall into her bare bone rock, but she snarled them off. Often, she sent her children screeching after them, but once the children stopped returning, she bowed her head, and lay silent. The water slowly dried up. The Lightweaver's grace flooded the sky. Still, she remained quiet.

The clan looked to her to direct them to food, to shelter, to deem which children would discover life in new lands and which would flood the ranks of the perpetual war. But she spoke nothing. She only ducked her head, and waited for the war to end.

At the sound of her deafening silence, Clan Whalebelly began to fight amongst themselves. Winona, the clan's battlemaster, sought to incite revolution. The soft January sought to soften her rhetoric, and calm their clan's stormy waters. A newcomer, the snake-tongued Horatio, lingered in the shadows, watching for a moment to strike, for when the Siren's phonograph mouth would sing again.

Still Astrid waited.