a cumbersome bird

(i couldn’t resist posting this immediately so yall will have to accept the lower quality photos. might self-rb with scans once i’ve got the chance to scan it)

[id: a series of five watercolor and guache paintings with digital text added to each one. the paintings depict the conversation between the whale, the tuna, and the salmon from the story in the post.

the first painting shows a humpback whale swimming with a bluefin tuna as they talk, with a skeleton of a whale in a small panel above them. the skeleton is labeled to note the skull, ribcage, spine, pelvis, and other major structures. "Do you ever dream of land?" the whale asks the tuna. "No." says the tuna, "Do you?" "I have never seen it." says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it." "Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it?"

the second painting shows the humpback and the tuna from a different angle, the faint impression of trees surrounding them in the water. the humpback has a series of skeletons extending behind it, each showing a progressively older evolutionary ancestor and showing the change from land animal to ocean animal. it also notes the whale's own small but still present pelvis and femur bones. "There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." says the whale. "They will disappear." says the tuna. "One day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

the third painting shows a whale skeleton at the bottom of the ocean being picked at by scavengers. a small panel below the skeleton shows the salmon joining the conversation. "Maybe I don't want to forget," says the whale. "The forests were once my home." "I have seen the forests." whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

the fourth painting shows the progression of a salmon growing from egg to adulthood as it swims downstream, with panels showing the eye of the whale and the salmon looking at one another. "Tell me what you have seen," says the whale. "The forests spawned me." says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

the fifth and final painting shows the whale, the tuna, and the salmon from below, backlit by filtering sunlight and surrounded by other silhouettes of fish. in the foreground are tiny, microscopic plants labeled "proterocladus antiquus, oldest land plant ancestor, alive one billion years ago." "Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own." "You forget," says the salmon, "That the oceans were once their home."

/end id.]

(Thank you @saffronlesbian for the beautifully descriptive id)