Salt Hollows fauna – Faylinn Defence Group

The Dream-Readers of the Deep
Filed under: Salt Hollows Fauna | Sentient Fae Creatures | Dream-Interpreters
Contributor: FDG Field Archivist No. 5
Last updated: May 2025

Overview

Sib-Rays are veil-like, bioluminescent creatures considered one of the few fully sentient lesser fae species inhabiting the mid-depth dream currents of the Salt Hollows. Though peaceful by nature, they are deeply alien in thought and ritual, serving as interpreters, advisors, and witnesses for higher trench entities such as the Drowned Sovereign and the Coral Tribunal.

They do not speak aloud.
They do not echo like the Pale Maws.
They display meaning—shifting glowing runes across their translucent wings, forming dreamlike ideograms that bypass language and go straight to the subconscious.

Approaching a Sib-Ray is like receiving a prophecy you didn’t ask for and may not survive understanding.

Appearance

Size: 4 to 7 feet across
Shape: Thin and circular, with long trailing wing-edges; body ripples like silk in water
Colour: Usually transparent with shifting pale glow—when displaying, their wings flicker with glowing symbols (glyphs, runes, dream-letters)
Eyes: None observed; presumed to perceive thoughtforms and water pressure
Movement: Hovering or slow gliding through dream-currents. Never in haste
Companions: Sometimes trailed by small symbiotic memory-fish or dream-eels

Behaviour and Abilities

Bioluminescent Ideoglyph Translation

Sib-Rays “speak” through semaphoric light-patterns, translating emotion, memory, and abstract thought into visible glyphs on their wings.
Each glyph is:
- Not a direct word, but a felt experience
- Interpreted differently depending on the viewer’s emotional state
- Known to cause disorientation, tears, or altered perception of time

Dream-Reception and Feedback

Capable of absorbing and replaying dreams of those nearby.
May “mirror” an operative’s buried hopes, guilt, or trauma via symbolic projection—e.g., showing a child’s toy dissolving in ink as a metaphor for repressed grief.
Not malicious, but indiscriminate in what they show.

Diplomatic Intermediaries

Regularly summoned to formal trials or negotiations in the Salt Hollows, especially when the Drowned Sovereign remains silent.
Translate non-verbal commands from high fae entities into forms mortals or other fae can understand—though imperfectly.

Folklore and Signs

The Weeping Glyph

Some fae cultists believe that when a Sib-Ray shows a shattered eye-rune, it marks a death soon to come. These visions have been known to precede disappearances, drownings, or memory collapses in both fae and human populations.

Gown of the Sib-Mother

An ancient tale describes a mortal who touched a Sib-Ray and returned with her skin glowing with unreadable glyphs. She painted until her death, never speaking again. The paintings still circulate in black market fae-art auctions.

The Untranslatable Sentence

Occasionally, Sib-Rays display a glyph so complex and layered it is considered untranslatable. Field agents report a mix of dread, beauty, and existential vertigo. Institute terminology for this is a Deep Truth Pulse—rare, unpredictable, and dangerous.

Effect on Earth and Human Minds

Mild Exposure

Temporary emotional projection (e.g., reliving joyful or painful memories)
Heightened empathy and sensitivity
Vivid, symbolic dreams for 3–5 nights

Prolonged Exposure

Perception shift: colour synaesthesia, time loops, or visual hallucinations involving glyphs
Emotional dysregulation (crying for unknown reasons, laughing at grief)
Psychic imprinting: memories feel “refracted” as if translated into another format
In rare cases, mirror trauma—witnessing someone else’s unresolved trauma as if it were your own

Summary for Field Operatives

Trait	Detail
Threat Level	None physically. High for emotional and cognitive destabilisation.
Signs of Presence	Runes flickering in the water. Soft light pulsing like a jellyfish heartbeat. Dream recall intensifies near trench crossings.
Containment Risk	Not applicable. Sib-Rays cannot be trapped or confined—attempts result in psychic backlash or glyph overload.
Engagement Advice	Approach with reverence. Do not bring unresolved trauma into direct contact. Use dream-anchoring rituals post-encounter. Never attempt to record their runes—photographs always fail or mutate. If an Untranslatable Sentence is displayed, initiate fallback protocol and retreat from the area. They are not here to hurt you. But they will still change you.

“She floated past me, wings open like a scroll.
I didn’t see a message—I felt it. I was ten years old again. My father was alive. He looked at me. Said nothing.
Then I remembered: he never said goodbye. I’d forgotten that.
Until the ray showed me that silence.”
—Extract from FDG Dive Log 58, Operative A. Bede, Silent Reach Trench