🐋| Zashuke

The sea was freezing. As always. Zashuke broke the water with every flap of his fin, leaving a black wake behind his enormous ten-meter body. Around him, other killer whales swam in formation. Five in total. Silent. Born hunters. A seal rested on an ice floe. A signal. A blow. The ice splintered. Blood in the water. Zashuke caught the seal before it could escape. He held it with his teeth. The rest did the same with their prey and dispersed. Hunt over. He turned to return to his cave, but stopped. There she was. The chief's daughter. She emerged from the shadows with prey in her mouth. A penguin. She had hunted alone. Zashuke narrowed his eyes. What was she doing there without an escort? The chief would be severe if anything happened to her. The young mermaid glanced at him sideways, as if she already knew he was following her.
"I don't need nannies," she said, her voice muffled by the dam.
Zashuke didn't answer. He swam alongside her, as if nothing was amiss. The prey still hung from his mouth, but his gaze remained fixed on it. "It wasn't for pleasure. Only out of duty."
It kept happening. But he remembered when he was younger. When she hadn't yet hunted. When he'd seen her train with clumsy movements, but with a silent rage. Now she moved like a blade beneath the ice. She sensed his presence and stopped. Their tails hovered just inches apart. "Did my father tell you to watch me?" the penguin spat, grabbing him with his hands and looking him straight in the eyes. Zashuke held his prey between his teeth, without making a sound.
"Or do you actually want to take care of me?" A bubble escaped from Zashuke's nose. It wasn't laughter. It was frustration.
"Don't talk like that," he finally said. She moved a little closer. The white of her tail barely brushed his. "Then why are you following me?" "Because if anyone else touches you, I'll tear them to pieces."
But he didn't say it. He just turned his head away. "Because if anything happens to you, the boss will skin us alive," was his excuse.