Ori Nephtali
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ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Ori Nephtali
@ori-nephtali.bsky.social
540 followers 120 following 320 posts
Writer of alien mermaids.
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ori-nephtali.bsky.social
bookshop.org/a/87137/9781...

Preorder devil of the deep if you like mermaids and Haitian fantasy!

This book seems so exciting and I want to share it with people.
Preorder graphic for devil of the deep. A mermaid wrapped in waves is on the book cover.
July 4, 2025 at 5:03 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
There's an amazing anticolonial book called Cry Voidbringer available for preorder now :)

bookshop.org/p/books/cry-...
Book cover for cry voidbringer, all in black and white.
June 28, 2025 at 2:09 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Really happy with how this piece turned out! :)
A golden skinned mermaid in a pink dress, with short curly hair. They are dancing.
June 26, 2025 at 6:43 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Drew Lumin! :D

Really pleased with how this portrait turned out.
A digital drawing of a blue skinned mermaid with pink hair. She's drawn from the neck up. Her eyes are pink and she has an impressive nose.
June 24, 2025 at 6:33 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
Still in the cold embrace of the passageways, he sat, tail curled up to his chest to warm it and give it a rest. The stone hungrily sapped the little warmth he had. Was it stone? It felt close enough, but it was not like he could take a piece of this place and bring it back home. It seemed greedy, with how it stole warmth from him, but maybe it was just desperate. No one seemed to come here — it had no one to speak to. Everyone would think him ridiculous for asking what it really was. Why had they tried so hard to get him to talk only to ignore him
June 24, 2025 at 6:32 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips

Did not have sheet, but did have blanket!
The door to his room was only half a song’s swim from here, but he tried to make it in a quarter despite his aching tail. Asran loved the rush of water as it sang past his scales. He’d found the entrance to his room, and in the span of a song’s quarter, just as he’d hoped. He piled the blankets onto the hammock and sat curled in them, taking in their warmth like the stone had taken his. Or maybe it was a shell, not stone. Maybe they
June 19, 2025 at 5:25 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Trying to figure out what diplomatic wear would look like.
Half body digital portrait of Asran with two green hair beads and orange diplomatic wear.
June 13, 2025 at 9:33 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Trying out digital portraits!
A digital portrait of Asran-lo Kai Darr, a brown skinned mermaid wearing an orange shirt.
June 13, 2025 at 9:32 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WritingQ! 📚

Does anyone have art of their characters?

Here's Asran, drawn by Katelyn Swain.
Asran, a black mermaid in orange robes that swirl around him.
June 7, 2025 at 8:50 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
They're super fun to write! Here's Asran, an undead diplomat.
Asran-lo Kai Darr, a black alien mermaid in flowing orange robes.
June 2, 2025 at 9:08 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
Lumin paced the confines of her room, wishing she’d brought weights so the exercise sated her. This was a light, dissatisfying affair, like eating bubble kelp. Her scars ached as though fresh, and the pacing certainly wasn’t helping. She should get the boy enrolled in a self defense class, or else teach him how to fight herself. For that, she’d need a training room. For that, she’d need to pay to gain entry. Her supply of saadri wouldn’t last long, especially if she funded private training sessions—ideally with someone gentler and more competent than herself. She lost herself in battle fever and sometimes wounded her opponents instead of disarming them. Oh. A grin nearly split her face in two. Ludicrous riches were within her reach. She could ask for an outrageously large loan and play the fool, lean into the notions of one from an ignorant small House, as grating as that would be. All she’d have to do was pretend she had a small-minded man’s knowledge of finance, brag about how certain she was that this risky venture would go through, then wait for the loaner’s greed to tear them to shreds.
April 9, 2025 at 5:37 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
“It doesn’t make sense to me. Why is it that five and five becomes ten? It’s like saying… like saying…. Hesheg and hesheg means inug. Becomes inug. It’s all just nonsense. Why? And why is it that you can have two different numbers in different orders but it means the same thing?” “Lets take ya hands and fingers fer example. Ya have five on each. Count them.” He’d heard the word count before but didn’t know what it was or how to do that. He sat glumly, unsure what to say. “Did no one teach ya how ta count?” “No. I was put right into the advanced classes with everyone else. I was too old to be with the hatchlings and Ehuna insisted.” “Did no one say that numbers meant things in the real world?” “No. It’s just lists we have to remember. It didn’t make sense to me so I couldn’t remember them. History makes sense as it actually happened to people
April 5, 2025 at 1:39 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips

Asran, a young diplomat-in-training, prays.
Asran struck the gong, felt the vibrations trace his senses and reach into him like the sun. He entered Vashti, hummed and swayed, let the motion wash through him. Once I say my prayers Twice I laugh with glee Trice I kiss the stars For my hearts are free Next he was meant to say his gratitudes. “Today,” he whispered, “I am grateful for many things. I am safe from Xaure, and even though I am afraid and the world is still confusing me as always, I think I am safe. And happy. I have a new servant. Either they will take care of me or leave me alone, I believe. I think I am safe, but I hope they decide to leave me alone.” He shuddered. “I think they are scared of me for some reason. What did I do wrong?” Shame filled him. This was a time meant for gratitude, and he was meant to finish his thanks before the gong stopped humming. It was quiet, barely audible now. “I am worried they will always fear me or try to take good care of me like Xaure did, but today has been good. Yesterday I mean. Thank you.”
April 4, 2025 at 9:42 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Hi! I'm Ori, they/them.

Art is of Asran.
Asran-lo Kai Darr, a brown skinned mermaid with his dark brown hair in braids. He wears a solemn expression. It's a digital sketch of just his head and shoulders. The same mermaid but a full shot this time, revealing his orange tail.
April 2, 2025 at 3:44 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
They handed her a fine-looking bottle of fermented fruit and kelp. It was bitter. She downed it regardless. She’d always wondered how they got the liquid to stay in as a child. Apparently it was fermented and bottled above-water, where the liquid did not mix with the wan substance above. They convinced her to join in several games: one where you threw small spears at a target and tried to hit the very centre, one where you must balance shapes of various sizes on your head, and one where you must disassemble a cylinder composed of various blocks without it collapsing. All rather tricky while inebriated. She did decently, though not well enough to warrant her Kaffit blood.
April 1, 2025 at 11:06 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
“Karissi sticks,” he mumbled. “Please. I would greatly appreciate.” “I’ll get ya karissi sticks.” Just as she was about to leave, he spoke. “I’m no good at this. Can I just do history? It doesn’t make my head hurt.” She swam next to the green blanket pile he was huddled under and laid a hand on top of the blankets. “Most well-earned is hard-earned. It means that anything worth something takes a lot of effort. Ya might not need all this skill late in life, but it will still help ya out now.” And it will help me too, she thought. “I didn’t want ta say this because I didn’t want ta guilt ya, but if ya fail, I’ll be put back with someone cruel too.”
March 31, 2025 at 2:46 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
He swam slowly as this part was unfamiliar, making sure to flare his shula to keep his surroundings clear. After his tail started aching, he took off one his hair-clips. It was his least favourite one because it was too spiky and made awful noises if he touched it wrong, which was far too easy to do for his liking. It should help serve as a marker to find the way back. He laid it on the ground, said goodbye to the clip, and recited a short prayer before taking off. Maybe new songs would be here. Or smells. If not for the cold withering his shula and making him numb to the water’s messages, he wouldn’t mind being here forever. The walls had now closed in, so he kept his shula furled to his back and swam guided by touch, the water just silent, regular water void of meaning. He went through several boring passageways without any interesting scents or sounds — there was only chatter too quiet for him to understand — before finding a prayer hall.
March 29, 2025 at 7:57 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
“You know Auraken children are just as evil as the rest. They bite at everything because they think it’s prey. It’s not cute as you once said — it’s terrifying. They’re animals, you know, animals, just very smart predators that’s all. And it’s only because they have talons and venom that they’re in charge.” Her head fin bobbed up and down as she talked, just as animated as her arms. Clam inclined her head. “He hasn’t hit me, and I’ll get paired with a crueler master if he dies.”
March 28, 2025 at 10:27 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
When the guard took the time to triple check his tubing, she spared a quick glance back through the window. The beast grew faint. Even her acute vision could spot nothing. Her home city of Sanrio was now completely engulfed by the strangle-kelp, lost to sight. She stopped mourning the loss of the grand view. The beast couldn’t have been that impressive, to be lured here, killed like a common fish. Strangle-kelp began as a harmless weed, easily cultivated. Harmless, if trimmed. Decent tasting, too. Once enough shot up to the faint lifeblood of the sky, it feasted on the air, choking the waters until they could nourish nothing. Lured by its rich scent, beasts asphyxiated, their death hastened by the fronds wrapping around their fins and blocking their gills. Its sweet perfume consecrated the dead. Following the reek of death, more fell tangled to their demise, and the strangle-kelp thrived. It could kill even the grandest things
March 27, 2025 at 7:59 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Asran is an undead diplomat-in-training who over apologises and is incessantly sweet.

Sharai is a high ranking Zhakar who just wants hugs but can't get them due to the prim and proper culture she's in.

This is art of Asran - I need to make art of Sharai still.
Asran, a black mermaid in baggy orange diplomatic robes
March 26, 2025 at 7:27 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips

Used a synonym, gill, as everyone is an alien mermaid here :D
The beast grew faint. Even her acute vision could spot nothing. Her home city of Sanrio was now completely engulfed by the strangle-kelp, lost to sight. She stopped mourning the loss of the grand view. The beast couldn’t have been that impressive, to be lured here, killed like a common fish. Strangle-kelp began as a harmless weed, easily cultivated. Harmless, if trimmed. Decent tasting, too. Once enough shot up to the faint lifeblood of the sky, it feasted on the air, choking the waters until they could nourish nothing. Lured by its rich scent, beasts asphyxiated, their death hastened by the fronds wrapping around their fins and blocking their gills. Its sweet perfume consecrated the dead. Following the reek of death, more fell tangled to their demise, and the strangle-kelp thrived. It could kill even the grandest things
March 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
She didn’t remember the way back, and had to debase herself by asking servants to guide her. At least she knew the name of her Arc. She still couldn’t get over how dead this place felt, devoid of plant-life and windows. Even in the vastness of the place, she felt like she was trapped in a small cupboard. At least the white and ocher was beautiful. She had nothing to do but wait until her belongings arrived. No materials to study, nothing to do with her hands, so she exercised in that awful room she was meant to call her own — the one with vile, garish tiling that almost looked spewed — until her tail and arms gave out, and she shuddered, useless on the floor. In her folly, she’d split a few of her stitches. Pain sliced through her. By the sun, she wished she knew where the gardens were. An idea struck her. Instead of weeping on the floor, she could admire the city. People might think her simple — hatchling-like, captivated by the light, but she needed something to do. The windows should be close by.
March 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
#WIPsnips
There was nothing to do here. Everything already cleaned, from the patterned blankets to the wan lights overhead. She hated how well Auraken saw in the dim — rest of the species had to suffer just because their eyes might ache a little. Clam started polishing the green tiles anyway, just in case someone entered. No need to get fired for seeming lax. Eventually, the child stirred. He went over to a burnished gong shaped like the sun and muttered something far too quiet to hear. The gong reverberated with a gentle hum that took an ache out of her bones, and he spoke unintelligibly with it, just as gentle. She was calmed by his swaying, much like the kelp she’d caught glimpses of. One time she’d been sent to someone in the gardens. Currents, she wished she could see that for the first time again.
March 22, 2025 at 9:18 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Lumin-va Niakse is an aspiring doctor forced to be a solider. She's curmudgeonly but fair.
A blue skinned mermaid with pink hair, and geometric facial features.
March 22, 2025 at 8:01 AM
ori-nephtali.bsky.social
Art of Azzy! (Nickname of Asran-lo Kai Darr, diplomat in training.)
Art of Asran, digital. He is a brown skinned mermaid with freckles and a grey suit. His hair is in braids and tied up atop his head.
March 17, 2025 at 3:02 PM