Five Rest Stops

Arista spent a long while working through the geography of the journey for the first time.

"...The swim took six days, with rest stops," she said, thinking out loud. "Our steamboat covered the same distance in four, without needing to stop at all. That's the gap I need to design around, the difference between how fast we can travel and how fast five hundred mermaids realistically can, with rest along the way."

"So you're thinking waypoints," Bram said, following her logic. "Spaced along the route, matching wherever they'd naturally need to stop."

"Exactly. Five rest stops," Arista said, marking them one by one along the route. "One after each of the first five days. Then on the sixth day, they reach the destination itself, the new City of Worship. Five places to rest along the way, and one proper place to arrive."

Claire, reviewing the rough map Colm had already begun sketching, nodded slowly. "That's a much more distributed structure than anything we've built before. Not one large destination. Five smaller waypoints, strung along the entire route, and a sixth site actually meant to be arrived at."

"Right. And that sixth site—" Arista tapped the map's endpoint, near the Drowned Court's sealed dome. "—here, at the very end. A new City of Worship. Not a recreation of the original, not anywhere near that scale. Something modest, appropriately sized for the numbers Selen actually described. Outside the dome itself, since the original's no longer accessible to them at all."

"...A smaller version," Colm said, sketching the concept. "Same purpose, same reverence, much smaller footprint."

"Exactly that. I don't want to build something that dwarfs what five hundred people actually need, the same way the original city clearly once served a population many times larger. This needs to fit the people actually using it, not some imagined, grander population that doesn't exist anymore."

Selen listened as the plan took shape, her interest growing with each new detail. "...Five rest stops. A new place of worship, built specifically for however many of us remain." She considered it a moment longer. "That is not merely practical. That is thoughtful, in a way I did not expect."

"I don't want to just solve the logistics," Arista said. "I want to build something that actually respects what your people have left, instead of just recreating what they used to have and pretending nothing's changed."

Bram studied the growing plan, mentally tallying the separate sites.

"...This is a lot of separate structures," he said. "Five rest stops, plus the new City of Worship. Even if each one is smaller, that's six different places we have to build."

"It is," Arista agreed. "But it's the right scale for the people it's meant to serve. Better five modest, well-built stops than one enormous structure that doesn't fit their real numbers at all."

She looked out at the open water stretching between the ring's distant boundary and the Drowned Court behind them, already picturing the whole, patient route unfolding: five careful waypoints, a modest sanctuary at journey's end, and, somewhere at the center of it all, a god who'd spent centuries alone, finally about to have his own people visit him properly again.

"...Okay," she said, grinning despite the sheer scope of what she was about to attempt. "A whole pilgrimage route, then. Five stops and a sanctuary."

Arista stood inside the dome's dry interior, studying the modest houses along its edge with quiet, thoughtful attention. Selen floated just beyond the glass on the water's far side.

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"...You look puzzled, Strawberry," Selen said, her voice arriving clearly in Arista's mind.

"...I want to ask you something," Arista said, studying the dome's outer edge, where a cluster of modest, weathered houses sat closest to the sealed boundary, "and I want you to feel entirely free to say no."

Selen, drifting near the glass, tilted her head curiously. "...What is it?"

"There's a house right at the dome's edge. Close enough that if we removed its roof, just the roof, without altering anything else, you'd actually be able to see inside it from the water, without needing to enter the dry air at all." Arista gestured toward the modest structure in question. "I keep noticing details in these homes I don't actually understand. Furniture arrangements, alcoves, small carved fixtures that clearly served some purpose I can only guess at. I'd rather ask you what things were actually for, instead of preserving them without understanding them and hoping I'm respecting them."

Selen considered the request for a long moment, studying the modest house through the glass.

"...You want my permission before altering it," she said finally.

"Yes. Completely. If you'd rather I leave it untouched, that's what I'll do."

"No," Selen said, gentle but certain. "I would like to see it properly myself, honestly. And I would like to tell you what these things mean, rather than let you continue guessing at a life you never got to witness firsthand."

Arista exhaled. "...Thank you. Truly."

Over the following days, Arista arranged for a small, dedicated crew to remove just the house's roof without disturbing the walls or interior below, exposing the space fully to view from outside the dome's glass.

Selen drifted close once the work was finished, studying the now fully visible interior with growing recognition.

"...This was a gathering space," she said, pointing toward a wide, circular alcove near the room's center. "Families would settle here in the evenings, children resting in the lower recesses while elders told stories from the raised seating above. The carved grooves along the walls—" she gestured toward them through the glass "—those channeled water currents gently through the space, keeping it comfortable without stagnation."

Colm, hovering nearby with his notebook, sketched furiously, capturing every detail as Arista relayed it.

"And this," Selen continued, drifting toward a smaller alcove fitted with careful, spiraling shelves, "was for keeping precious things. Shells, carved trinkets, small treasures passed between generations. Every home had one, near the entrance, so visitors would see it first."

Arista listened, struck by how much bigger this actually was than simple archaeological curiosity. Selen wasn't studying ruins anymore. She was recognizing pieces of her own people's lives.

"...This is incredible," Arista said. "I've walked past a dozen houses just like this one, assuming I understood them, and I didn't understand any of it at all."

"...I thought that was a shrine," Arista admitted, glancing back toward the spiraling shelf alcove. "I actually roped it off in three different houses, assuming it was sacred, some kind of household altar. I never once considered it might just be where people kept their nice things."

Selen made a small, delighted laugh. "A shrine. That explains the little rope barriers Nettle mentioned during her own visits. I wondered about those."

"...I'm sorry," Arista said, wincing slightly. "I really thought I was being respectful."

"You were," Selen said, warmth breaking through the amusement. "Just respectful of the wrong thing."

Selen considered the finished house a moment longer, then glanced toward two other structures nearby, modest and clearly different in shape from the one they'd just finished.

"...One or two more, perhaps," she said. "This one was a gathering house. Larger families, more communal spaces. It would not represent how most of my people actually lived."

Arista glanced at her, checking. "...You're sure? I don't want to keep asking you to give up more than you're comfortable with."

Selen nodded, certain.

"...A sample size," Arista said, understanding dawning. "Right. One house doesn't tell the whole story."

They continued the following day, carefully removing the roofs from two smaller houses and cataloguing details that would have otherwise remained mysterious, guessed at rather than known.

Arista sat back at the end of it, notebook full, looking between the three opened houses, each one now understood in a way it hadn't been before.

"...I thought I was learning how your people used to live," she said.

Selen glanced toward the notes filling Arista's hands. "You are."

Arista shook her head slowly. "No. I'm learning how to build for the ones who still do."

Selen went quiet at that, thoughtful, before a small, genuine smile finally broke through.

"...Glad I could help."