Darkness, everywhere.

In the undulating depths of an oceanic trench, there’s little to light to see by and enough pressure to crush a lesser-blooded troll like an egg.  The water is bitingly cold, save for where thermal vents crack across the abyssopelagic surface, shooting forth glittering bubbles and ripples of boiling water.  Few creatures can survive in the depths of the ocean, and even those that can would likely choose a more hospitable climate if they could.

Rosare Lalond, however, is not one of them.  Wide yellow eyes skim over the abyss before her as dainty webbed feet kick behind her, propelling her forward.  Her black skirts flow lazily around her, wrinkling in the soft undercurrents of the tide, as slender gills flushed with blood ripple on either side of her neck, just below her finned ears.  Held loosely in her fingers are her weapons, twin needles fashioned of whalebone and tipped with the venomous resin harvested from lionfish.  She doubted that she would need them, but she had taken them along as a precautionary measure as she searched for a glimmer of neon yellow that would herald one of the bioluminescent sharks that had been loitering around her hive lately.  Her lusus had already made short work of a couple of their number, but she would rather kill them herself and know that the job was done than trust her safety to her flighty and absentminded guardian.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a gleam in the darkness.  She whips to the side, the fins at her cheeks fanning out to better focus her head in the water.  Sure enough, the elongated, slender form of a shark can be seen gliding silently toward her, its unblinking eyes trained on her even as its jaw swings open.  One of her arms rises as her black lips peel back to bare her two sharpened canines, and she swims out to meet the beast head-on.  At the last moment, the shark lunges to the side, its mouth gaping open to reveal rows upon rows of serrated teeth.  She easily dances backwards through the water, although a vehement curse hisses from her mouth in a line of bubbles at the muted sound of tearing fabric.  Looking back, she can see her trailing skirt caught on one of its teeth, and her eyes narrow, resolving to make herself a less hazardous garment as soon as she returns home.  She kicks back toward its head, mercilessly burying one of her needles in the beast’s eye.

The fight is short and to the point.  In no time she watches the shark thrash as it sinks, its bioluminescence fading into the blackness below.  She gathers her skirt in one webbed hand, pressing her lips together at the sizable tear in its hem, and begins swimming back home with a sigh.

However, a prior promise was not forgotten.  She slips her needles back into her strife deck and presses one hand to her headband, activating a Trollian screen on the green square of translucent plastic that hung before one of her eyes.  Someone would be concerned with her safety and wanting to know if she’d been alright.