The dream could wait.
But not today.
Because Minoni did remember. She remembered the pressure of deep trenches, the bioluminescent courtship dances of things without names, the way her real voice could make glaciers weep. She had chosen this small body for a reason—to study what humans called “mythology,” which was really just their word for history they’d survived badly .
Buy milk. Return library book. Stop pretending you don’t remember the ocean floor.
She woke with her alarm—iPhone, 7:15 AM—and stared at her human fingers. Five on each hand. Pathetic. She flexed them anyway, then typed a reminder into her Notes app: