Leimomi stood in the fading sunlight, enjoying the last little bit of heat. Sure, the days were hot, and the nights not much better, but the Kelpi'suti spent the majority of her time in the water, anyway, and, as balmy as the seas were, they were still a delight after a hot day in the sun. A soft breeze kicked up, and she sighed happily. A good end to another day in paradise.
Or, at least, it would be, if there wasn't an algal bloom in the bay adjacent to her bit of coral reef. Trust an algal bloom, no matter how pretty, to muck up a good day for the sea life. And this was a very pretty algal bloom. Bioluminescent, even, glowing faintly blue as the waves swept up the beach, disrupting the algae and causing them to glow prettily. Once the light was gone, it'd be even prettier, but no less deadly.
She felt a pair of nuzzles on either side of her. Oh, yes, that was what made this bloom worse. Leimomi smiled and reached down to nuzzle both of her little ones back, wrapping her shark's tail briefly around the one not getting nuzzled. What made an algal bloom worse was the presence of little ones who didn't yet understand why they had to stay away from the glowing lights in the ocean. That said, a night like this one made for a good teaching moment.
"Kekoa, Keone, do you see that glow in the water?" she asked, lying down in the sand above the high tide line, and urging them closer to nest together, the taller Keone first, then the positively tiny Kekoa. She wrapped her tail protectively around both, so neither felt left out of their mother's love. "That is what we call an unsafe swim. If you can avoid it, don't swim in that. It's what is properly known as an 'algal bloom', and it can be toxic to swim in it. So when the algae blooms in the summer, we stay out of the glow, we admire, but we don't touch, right?" she asked, nuzzling both foals together.
Kekoa was still wobbly on his short little legs. He was what his mother called an "Usdia," and, though he didn't seem to have the long legs or the powers his mother and sister were already displaying, his mother moved slowly enough so that he never fell behind. And he loved watching how his mother moved, almost seeming to dance, whether caught in a tide or a breeze. One day, he promised himself, he'd be as good a dancer as his mother. Even if he didn't have plant magic, or wasn't a naturally gifted swimmer, he could still dance and play with any of the reef fishies.
And the reef fishies were a lot of fun! Some of them moved slowly, so he could catch up to them in games of chase, and the games of hide-and-seek were a lot of fun. The eels didn't join in, though, but they weren't very friendly, and they liked it better deeper below the surface, so that wasn't as much of a problem.
Kekoa reached up to nuzzle his mother's knee, and was happy to have it returned, with an extra quick snuggle of his mother's shark tail, and followed her up beyond the high tide mark, tiny hooves lifting high to navigate the sand dunes. He waited until his taller sister curled up against their mother's ribcage before plopping down next to Keone's own ribcage, smiling and snuggling against his sister as he felt their mother's tail wrap around them snugly.
The Usdia colt listened intently to what their mother said. Glowy algae bad, don't go swimming in it? That sounded understandable, insofar as he had picked up this "biology" thing so far. But his mother's voice was soothing, and Kekoa was rather sleepy. He couldn't help yawning as the stars began to come out and the glow stopped competing against the sunlight. "...won't go swimming in it, Mommy," he promised sleepily, nestling into the sand a bit. Next to him, he could feel Keone drifting off, too. "Could you sing us a lullaby, Mommy? The one about the fishies?"
Keone's attention was a bit more scattered as the sun set, focusing on, among other things, the sea wrack washed up around the high tide line. Her brother and their mother were less interested in dead things than Keone was, but she was still excited to hear about the living sea and to keep on learning how to dance. The world was still so full of interesting things. Even if the Kelpi'suti filly was starting to lose energy for the day.
Tomorrow would be a new day, full of biology, dance, swimming, and what magic Keone had inherited from their mother. It saddened her a little that Kekoa had neither magic nor fins, but he was still so smart and enthusiastic for what he could do, pushing himself as hard as he could to learn how to swim and dance, and about all the fishies on the reef. Keone could probably dive to the bottom of the reef already, but it didn't feel fair to swim down there without Kekoa.
As her brother nuzzled one of their mother's knees, Keone reached down to nuzzle the other before smiling and reaching up to receive a nuzzle of her own, tail quickly rising to return the snug from their mother's tail. Not wanting to squish Kekoa by accident, Keone pranced after their mother a little ahead of her Usdia brother, snuggling against their mother quickly so Kekoa wouldn't have long to wait to nestle against his family. Right before their mother wrapped her shark tail around both foals, Keone wrapped her own around Kekoa, sighing happily. Sleepily, even.
Kekoa's yawn was soon echoed by one of her own. It'd be good to focus on what their mother was saying about the algal blooms (something about them being toxic?), but she'd ask her brother to confirm later. And, knowing her, she'd probably try to swim around the edge of the pretty algae with the blue glow sometime when she was alone. Keone was admittedly one who learned better by doing, anyway, Kekoa had some of those tendencies, but less so. As for lullabies....
"Can the lullaby include deep sea fishies and stars, too?" she added sleepily.
Leimomi smiled at her two little ones, already halfway to dreamland. "I know just the one," she said, beginning to sing one about the journeys of deep sea fish every night to feast and dance near the surface, under the light of the stars. Before long, Kekoa and Keone were both fast asleep, and it was just Leimomi lying awake, stargazing and enjoying the glow of the bioluminescent algal bloom. Even if the two foals didn't fully understand, Kekoa would have processed the grist, and Keone wouldn't do anything that would upset her brother; she was a good kid like that. Smiling to herself, she lay down her head and followed her children into dreamland.
