There are no fish anymore.

This is what he says. This is what they all say.

There are no fish anymore.

Since I was a boy, he has told me, and since I was a boy, I have seen fish.

We are a fishing village, after all. If there were no fish, we would not exist, and yet here we are, and here they are.

My blade, she doesn’t speak. Not like a normal person does. Not with words and stories and histories. She speaks in blood, and in movement. The only ways she can.