Here’s my story from the January 2024 issue of Birdy Magazine, a fable about the perils of taking what isn’t yours. Something about the figures in the painting struck me as Russian, which led me to researching the islands in and around the Sea of Okhotsk. This yielded some memorable photos of Ainu women, who in adulthood would often receive a black tattoo in the shape of an exaggerated smile. Otherwise, it’s the deep dwellers from Lovecraft and elsewhere delivering their toothy retribution:
The Zvezda Morey had cannon, guns, steel. The deep-dwellers had needle teeth, claws on their webbed hands and feet, and countless numbers. They were hatched by the thousands in the darkness, voracious in their legions, contained only by the availability of food and intolerance of the sun. They thrived by the volcanic vents, ecosystems untouched by light and unglimpsed by human eyes. Even shallow waters pained them, much less the open air; but the offense to their god could not go unanswered.
THE FELL AND THE FAE 
