Big thanks to everyone in chat who gave this a quick look before I posted it! Tao McCawley,
Dr Lerche,
multiversalNobody,
Voct (for the “Fish Heads” song reference1),
Dr Golden,
winkwonkboi,
Athenodora (for a lot of specific wording fixes, especially the ending note edit) and
fairydoctor! Thanks for being around at the weird late hour and for talking about fish spells with me!!
I came up with this in two parts across two days, both about an hour after midnight while I was trying to fall asleep. I was thinking about how I’d listen to music while feeding my fish (I pre-soak betta pellets, so I need to time how long the food sits) and then suddenly I remembered those children’s song CDs and DVDs my parents would play all the time when my little brother and I were growing up. Fish snacks. Then I had the sudden mental image of a kid singing a song while walking across a pond.
Made me think about how childhood might be different for an anomalous community, but there would still be similarities. Children still explore the world around them, and learn lessons from unexpected sources.
Images used are from Wikimedia commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moray6.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Epinephelus_tukula_is_cleaned_by_two_Labroides_dimidiatus.jpg
(account deleted)
