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Days out to the seaside don't have the same connotations in my world as they do in yours. There are no brightly-painted huts or stripy balls, no pretty pink tufts of dyed sugar or cute donkeys in straw hats. A beach can be beautiful... but to visit one is not a holiday.

Neither, now that we're on the subject, do we eat crabs, which you may or may not consider a seaside activity. There are millions of them in our seas - enough to feed the undeveloped parts of Palantis I'm sure. But I wonder if even the starving of our world could really bring themselves to eat them. It would have to be in desperation, and I wonder what effect overfishing them would have.

I don't doubt for a second that crabs are tasty, but you see, the service they provide for us makes them... undesirable visitors to a Palantean's plate.

You don't eat worms for a similar reason, I think.

I present to you a written illustration of why we leave crabs off the menu, and why a visit to the seaside is a much more sober affair for us than it is for you.

• Palantean Writer

xXx

Every funeral was a unique experience, tailored to the particular needs and wishes of the grieving family and friends. But this one was particularly unusual because no family attended at all, only the funeral master and his assistant, Wesh. Plus two hired shroud-bearers known for their strong oar-arms and the constable who had attended to the case surrounding the tragic discovery of the late Mrs. Sunset Papertree.

The verdict had been suicide. Wesh folded the heavy cotton shroud around the dead jill's young, slim body. Post-natal depression perhaps, he guessed. As he took a final look at her, the black-and-white allis was struck by how perfectly prepared she was - even if he thought so himself. Her pale orange fur had been brushed and smoothed to a healthy gloss, including the thick pile of her tail which was curled, as ceremony dictated, around her ankles. Her arms had been crossed over her chest and lay lightly as if she meant, innocently and casually, to hide her milk-swollen breasts.

As Mr. Papertree had been too - what was the word the constable had used? Distracted - to bring an item of her clothing with which to send her to the sea, the funeral master had chosen instead: an elegant wraparound dress with no blue. Evidently he had decided to present Mrs. Papertree as unmarried. Perhaps he'd chosen it as an alternative to dressing her in a marriage garment that wasn't hers. Wesh took a mental note of the decision for future reference.

Her suicide had been by painkiller overdose. Thank you for making that choice, he thought as he paused in the folding. You wouldn't want you to be misshapen for your own funeral. Or your Descent to be disturbed by sharks. You must have been unhappy, but I think you made the best of a bad set of choices.

Yes, her death had been a suicide. Or something more sinister, if Mr. Papertree and their infant son's absence was anything to read into. But the constable would know more about that than Wesh, or even the funeral master. Something perhaps could have been read into the stiff set of the reptilavian officer's beak. Wesh wondered.

But the official verdict had still been suicide, and for Wesh to guess at a more scandalous story would have been in poor taste. So whether rightly or wrongly, that was that.

He completed the folding and nobody ever saw Sunset Papertree in the flesh again.

xXx

So it was that two caudals, one a tecton, the other a dake, both used to carrying dead who weren't their own, took the shrouded Mrs. Papertree from her bed on Wesh's preparation slab. They walked slowly with their burden out through the respectfully-opened parlour doors, down the slope that led through the shingle gardens, and beyond to the beach where a dhow had been prepared. They settled their cargo aboard, guided the dhow into shallow waters to the whisper of sea-smoothed pebbles, and took a seat at each end.

They set off immediately; there would be no fleet of mourners today.

Two oars wafted through the brine in skilful swirling motions, propelling the dhow along with only the tinkling splash of the sea surface, the distant caw of seabirds and the miniature explosive puffs of marine fin-lizards as they surfaced for air to challenge the silence. Its sails were motionless on this windless day, folded down like subdued ears as was the mourning tradition. The tecton - at the rear end of the dhow - glanced back periodically to check on their distance from the beach.

The very lightest of transient breezes cooled his thick, ivory skin, but it didn't reach beneath the thin black cloth of his robe.

When the land had receded to a hazy, toy-town version of its true self he signalled to the head rower with a distinctive swish of his oar. The dake responded by smoothly setting his own by his side. He stood carefully and turned to face the tecton, his face set with grey, dark-eyed dignity.

Each took up his own end of the shroud.

They swung it once, a hypnotic and graceful movement, and used its momentum to increase the swing in the opposite direction. The second swing was larger, and contained almost as much energy as would be needed. The backswing provided the rest and on swing three, they let go.

The bundle hit the water with a splash. It sank.

The shroud, folded the way it had been just for this moment, twisted and unravelled allowing the last remains of Sunset Papertree to sink free. Her expression didn't change, her eyes didn't open, her nose and muzzle didn't tighten in response to the cold water. She simply sank in oblivious serenity. Her arms trailed softly like a dancer and the fur on her tail billowed in the softer gravity of the ocean.

The murky blue swallowed this orange intruder, welcomed her in and invited her down until at length, she gently hit the lattice of skeletons on the sea bed. The resting place of many caudals and now hers, too. She lay like a doll, arms out at her sides and feet relaxed, her head turned to one side. The dress rippled around her form, light and shifting in the currents as if restless.

Spindly legs felt their way in the deep murk. Eyes on stalks waggled in Sunset's direction. Slowly, a great exodus of crabs closed in on the new meal.

xXx

The ocean rolled softly on the opposite side of the dune as Mase trudged up it, his boots crunching  the rough sand. Sprigs of grass poked through around him and the sea-mist collected in drops on the stems. It dampened the surface of his pelt and clothes, chilled the wet leather of his nose and bathed the thin-pelted skin around his eyes.

He looked around. No other caudals were about: the solitude was total. He couldn't even feel her here, and as he realised that he wondered just what he'd been expecting.

The sea-mist curled and drifted as he walked further.

The dune had been swept up into a slope on the sea-side and having crested it, he began the journey down towards the shore. He stopped half-way down and sat, settling his tail and resting his elbows on his knees, to watch the sea push froth and seaweed into an uneven line on the sand.

He didn't dare think the actual words, but his mother's bones lay out there, somewhere on the sea bed.

Among the crabs that'd finished eating her years ago.

Mase tried to ignore how he felt.

He scraped up a handful of sand and poked at it with a finger of the other hand. Listened to a crashing wave as he fingered it into a bowl shape. It was greyish beige and cold to the touch. Jagged and coarse. Another wave arched and fell, quieter than the one before as if apologising for the intrusive sound.

How long did the crabs take to...

...anyway..?

He didn't like that thought so he tried another, but the only other one that would come was that he'd never discovered her name, that he could find his dad and force the information out of him...

I could...

He grunted and wrestled his mind away from the idea. Nobody got anywhere thinking self-indulgent shite like that and he wasn't going to do it now.

Then what are you going to think, Mase?

He was here for her, not for him.

Mase flattened his hand and the sand-bowl broke apart. A piece fell onto his leg and tumbled down in a tiny avalanche toward the beach again. He looked back to the remains of the bowl, which were now nothing better than a broken ball of grit.

Hot salt rose in his throat and forced its way out of his mouth before he could stop it. He clamped a hand hard to his muzzle in shock and surprise, and shook with the effort of holding more back. Suddenly the air felt colder on his nose and around his eyes. Molten salt billowed deep inside him.

Mum... mum.

Fucking stop it, she's gone!

You're gone. Mum.

He shuddered with tears so hot he'd never have thought his body could make them. They forced their way out of him and made his whole body rattle, his jaws clench. He tried to clamp down on them, but they wouldn't be stopped.

I never told her-never held her. Never didn't know anything about me-can't ever... She was gone before I even knew she was there she's gone oh god, oh god I didn't know her...

He just about remembered to brush his hands off before he put one to his face. Then he jerked, snorted and groaned as even more hot salt came up from deep down.

Stop fucking crying, hob, it's not going to help. Shut the fuck up.

I can't ever have her back I didn't know I didn't know I won't ever I can't ever-

Shut up. Grow up!

Oh, ssshhiiittt...

xXx

It was with a strange kind of exhaustion that Mase Papertree trudged back over the dune. The tears weren't gone, he knew that, but they weren't boiling over any more. They were back under control, where he needed them. They sat inside like a mug of hot water that'd had a little tipped out of it.

He'd never empty it completely. No amount of crying on Palantis would manage that. Today's purge would do, just for a while.

But the mug would fill up again and in a few weeks or months, he'd have to come back to tip some more out.

THE END.

Copyright © Hayley Deakin.