Gill-Folk

Overview

The Gill-Folk are the gardeners of the Drowning Garden, the submerged forest where air-breathers breathe water and the plants would suffocate in air. They prune the kelp, harvest the fruit, and keep the Garden in balance, which they take to be a gift of the Surging Deep. Because the Garden quickens every life, they live fast and short.

Appearance

A Gill-Folk is somewhat shorter and lighter than a Human, long-limbed and supple. Its skin ranges from pale green in the shallows-born to deep blue in those raised near the bottom, smooth and faintly glossy. Gills open in slits along both sides of the neck, fluttering as it breathes, and its fingers and toes are webbed to the second joint. The eyes are large and dark, made for the blue-green dimness of the depths, and catch the dancing light like a fish's.

In the water it moves with easy kicks, more swimmer than walker; on land it walks a little awkwardly, as all things there seem to it heavy. It speaks a singsong tongue like bubbling water. Close to, it smells of salt, minerals, and green growth.

Habitat and Range

They live throughout the Garden, keeping houses woven of kelp and coral among the branches, and gather most where the fruiting plants are. A large Garden holds a community of families; a small one may hold none.

Behaviour and Temperament

They are calm, fluid, and hospitable, and they meet visitors more warmly than most zone-dwellers. They think air-breathers stiff, dry, and rigid, and are patient with them all the same, coaxing a panicking visitor to stop holding their breath. They are gardeners first: they eat the Garden's plants and fish, prune what grows too fast, and clear the overgrowth that would choke the paths.

Because their time is short, they do not waste it on grudges, and they talk of their dead with cheer.

Abilities

They breathe both water and air, preferring water, and move in the Garden's weak weight as though born to it, which they were. They know which plants heal and which entangle.

Life Cycle

The Garden quickens everything, and the Gill-Folk most of all. A child is grown within a year or two of a mortal's reckoning, and a full life, rich and crowded, is over in a span that would be a Human's youth. Their dead are given to the forest floor, where the Garden grows over them quickly.

Uses and Dangers

They are the Garden's best guides, and herbalists who come for its rare plants do best with a Gill-Folk beside them. They trade plants, fruit, and water that lets an air-breather breathe beneath the surface for a while. They harm no one who comes peacefully, but they will not stop a careless visitor from staying too long and ageing.

Lore and Belief

Fishing folk on lakes where a Garden lies tell of green people under the water, and some believe them to be the drowned, changed. They are not; they are a people of the Garden. Others say that a child given to the Gill-Folk will never drown, which may be no more than a wish.

Where It Appears

• The Drowning Garden
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Resonant Zones and its glossary