#Mig is kind of into monsters though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rohad93 · 3 years

Text

Sea Legs

My last fic before i go on hiatus for the duration of season 2.

Have a good one yall!

~ ~ ~

Luz stared listlessly out at the sea as the ship bobbed along; bored. The same rolling blue-green ocean stretched out for miles in every direction just as it had every day for the past month and a half, endless and unchanging. She loved the sea, really, she did; it was why she had left home the first minute she was able to and had joined the first ship that would take her.

The Tawny Owl was a 'merchant' ship. At least that was what it’s captain, Edalyn Clawthorne, or The Owl Lady or Cap'n Eda, as she preferred to be known, called it.

Even though Cap'n Eda used actual finger quotes around the word 'merchant', they definitely did sell things

Just, things that weren't theirs.

Luz didn't mind it really.

They didn't kill anyone… Well, she didn't. If people got unruly while Tawny Owl crew was trying to take their things then Eda was sometimes known to fire off a few rounds or toss someone overboard and 'let the ocean do as it would'.

King also had a bit of a mean streak when the moment struck him. The first mate was a small man with an ego and temper that was much larger than he was and was prone to exploding at a moment’s notice.

He cared though, in his own way.

Hooty, though, was… something else.

Despite their, sometimes, shady nature, Luz loved the Cap’n and the rest of the crew just as much as she loved the sea. She’d grown up on stories of sea monsters and daring adventures across the water in large, gallant ships. People going to far-off places to see new things.

That was what she wanted and she did get a lot of it. She’d met all kinds of people and characters in her five years sailing with Eda and the rest of the crew.

All that being said, sometimes, the long weeks and months at sea could be very, very boring.

Not all the time. Somedays, when they weren’t doing the usual tasks of tightening ropes, repairing sales or swabbing the deck they would fish over the side of the boat.

Most of them fished with a net or string, but Barrelman Hooty, would climb down from the crow's nest and dive straight into the water, knife clenched between his teeth.

Luz would never understand the large, muscular man, but he was nice and took care of her a lot. More than once he’d hauled her out of the way of danger but, even so, he was more than a little strange. Like how he liked to wear two eye-patches… even though both his eyes were fine.

She’s asked Eda once and the answer had been a shrug. There were some things that just defied explanation.

They had been out at sea for a month now, chasing after an actual merchant ship that had been rumored to have some incredibly rare and precious cargo on board that wasn’t exactly well guarded. That had been enough for Eda to have them heave to.

So now, here they were, weeks into a chase, well, sort of. They were sneaking up on the merchant ship a little more each day, waiting for the perfect time to hit it when they pulled into dock near Port Royal.

They should be coming up on it tonight and, in Eda’s words, were going to ‘Rob it blind and then blast it to kingdom come if we have to!’

Luz was content to wonder just what kind of priceless goods the ship could be carrying to not have much in the way of protection. Most of the time they did that so as not to draw attention to themselves. Of course, they’d hit their share of bum ships that they thought would have goods but hadn’t had much of anything, much to Eda’s chagrin. That was just the sort of risk they took.

She leaned her arms on the side of the ship, watching the waves lap at the worn wooden hull. The sun was starting to set and they would be moving in soon.

The plan was simple, in theory. They would pull into the dock and she would slip onto the ship while the rest of the crew made distractions of themselves. Hooty was really good at that too.

She stood there for a long while, getting lost in her thoughts and listening to the distant sounds of seagulls as they flew overhead; the heat from the sun was tempered by the cool breeze that was pushing them steadily through the water at a good clip. The sun had just started to set when she heard Hooty call down from the crows nest.

“Land, hoot!”

Luz shook her head at the strange man’s queer turn of phrase but looked up anyway and turned her eyes towards the horizon. Sure enough, she could see a dark smudge on the horizons, slowly growing

“Ya ready to go, kid?” A sudden voice called and Luz looked up as Eda walked up to her, grinning brightly, arms crossed over her chest and her maroon and gold captain's jacket hanging off her shoulders.

“As ready as ever, I guess,” she shrugged as Eda came to stand next to her looking out at the sea.

“That’s the spirit!” she laughed, slapping the young woman on the back as she snorted. Luz grinned at her. This would hardly be the first time they had pulled this trick. Luz was by far the quietest and most inconspicuous member of the crew and thus, the best suited for the job when stealth was required.

Quiet in the grand scheme of things? No but definitely the quietest and least destructive member of the crew.

They didn’t wanna fight if they didn’t have to.

They definitely would though if the occasion called for it.

“What am I looking for exactly?” Luz asked, brows furrowing as she looked at Eda, who shrugged.

“Anything that looks like it might be worth money.” She held up her fingers and rubbed them together with a grin.

“Right…” Luz nodded and Eda clapped her on the back one more time.

“No worries, kid. This will be an easy job,” Eda assured her and, with that, turned and walked back toward the helm where King was glaring at a map that looked suspiciously like it was upside down.

Eda said that about most jobs, but it wasn’t exactly as easy as she made it out to be.

Within the hour, they pulled into port and, just down the dock from them, was the large ship they had been following for the better part of a month.

They waited, watching it as the most of the crew filed off once night fell and made their way to the nearby tavern.

“You ready, kid?” Eda asked her and Luz nodded. “You know what to do.” She grinned as the rest of the crew moved off the ship, to throw their plan into action

Luz nodded and, with a canvas bag thrown over one shoulder, she took a breath before heaving herself overboard into the waiting, dark waters below. She hit the cold water in a sudden rush, becoming all but weightless for a moment as she plunged through the water.

No matter how many times they pulled this stunt, she never got tired of that part.

Except when it was really cold.

She surfaced with minimum noise and shook her head, wiping some water off her face as she swam toward the other ship. The closer she got, the more she could hear the yelling and fighting of metal clanging as cutlasses clashed and musket shots rang out in the night. Eda and the rest of the crew, already creating a distraction.

She swam up to the ship's hull and grabbed hold of one of the ropes dangling down into the water and tensed as she started to haul herself out of the water, carefully and slowly climbing up the side. The sounds of fighting was growing slightly more distant at this point. Her crew were leading whatever people had remained on the ship away. With a grunt, she hauled herself up, peeking over the side to the deck. It was empty and she flung herself over the side, pushing her sopping wet hair back out of her eyes. She moved quickly to the captain’s quarters and didn’t need to look long before she found the captain’s log and took it with her, flipping through to the back and finding the cargo log. She scanned the list quickly and found all the usual suspects. Spices, wood, soap. Nothing that really jumped out at her except one thing.

A very large crate, marked as exotic meat, heading to a well known and expensive eatery in the capital. There was nothing special about that though so she shoved the book into her bag and hurried back out onto the deck and scurried to the entrance that led below deck, where whatever they were carrying would be kept. Her time was ticking by quickly and she didn’t want to be left on board when the rest of her crew pulled back and this ship’s crew came back.

It was dim down in the hull of the ship; a few oil lamps hung from the wall, their flames flickering and casting long shadows across everything. She walked as quickly and quietly as possible across the creaky floorboards, eyes skittering across all the crates scattered around the room but nothing immediately stuck out to her as being important. She’d been with Eda long enough to have developed an eye for things that might be worth something, most of the time anyway. Most of the crates were marked with stamps for things she knew and had been marked in the log book. Tea, spices and the like but nothing like what Eda had expected to be here. There were a few sacks on the floor that she ruffled through and found some tiny bags or uncut gemstones, which she stored in her bag. It was better to come back with something than nothing at all.

She moved quickly, searching through everything she could but there was nothing here that Luz would call a ‘great treasure’ she grunted to herself, frowning. Eda wasn’t going to be happy but there wasn’t much to be done about it. As she moved, she caught sight of the large crate sitting against the wall and with nothing to lose, moved over to it. It was longer than she was tall and came up to her waist. She gave it an experimental kick and jumped when something thumped back.

“Wha-!” She reeled back, blinking at the crate but nothing else happened. She leaned forward, hand raised and gently taped on the box but this time, there was no answer. She blinked at the box for a long second.

Maybe she’d imagined it?

Just as she was about to turn and go, the box thumped again, making her jerk.

Something was in there!

She looked around and quickly found a prybar, not even pausing to consider just what might be inside before she wedged the bar under the lip of the crate and with a grunt and a mighty crack, pried the lid loose, sending her stumbling back

It crashed over the side, falling to the floor and the sharp, salty smell of sea water immediately hit her. She took a cautious step forward and peered into the crate. It was full of dark, murky water and… something else. Something glimmered dimly just under the surface but it was too dark to see.

She ran over and grabbed one of the oil lamps hanging from a nail on the wall and moved back to the crate, holding the light over the lips of the box.

Something, green, glimmered below the surface and she leaned closer toward the water, squinting into the depths.

Suddenly the water sloshed and she jerked back with a shriek, landing flat on her butt on the floor and jarring her tailbone painfully as something broke the surface of the water. She scrambled to sit back up, fumbling for the lamp and holding it up in front of her.

Luz felt her jaw all but come unhinged as she stared back at… a woman?

A woman was staring back at her from the confines of the crate but she didn;t look like any woman Luz had ever seen before.

The first thing she noticed was her hair. It lay wet and flat against her shoulders in a bright shade of pale green that Luz had never seen on someone before with long strands of ruddy brown at the crown, pulled away from her angular face.

The next thing was her ears.

Long and pointed.

“Wha-” Luz continued to gape as a pair of bright, golden-colored eyes stared back at her in a glare.

Just when she thought she couldn’t be any more surprised, something else flipped up out of the water.

Long, blue-green fins attached to an expanse of scaly flesh. The scales seemed to shimmer and shine even in the low light of the lamps.

A tail.

A handful of stories from her childhood suddenly popped into the forefront of Luz’s mind. Tales of sea creatures, half-human and half-fish, that swam faster than any man could ever hope and had no need to breathe.

Old wives’ tales of pulling sailors under the depths to drown. Creatures that would steal and hoard the treasure from sunken ships.

“A mermaid…,” Luz heard herself mumble, almost unbidden. Her shocked stupor was broken only as the tail splashed back down into the water and droplets of warm, seawater splashed her in the face, making her blink. “Wow, you’re…” she scrambled back to her feet and took a step forward but then the creature… woman? The woman in front of her jerked back, spine pressed against the side of the crate, shoulders bunched up around her neck, and Luz stopped, holding up her hands. “It’s okay… I’m not gonna hurt you or anything,” she tried to calm her but those sharp eyes only continued to glare at her silently. Luz frowned, humming. “You probably don’t understand me,... do you?” she asked and, again, silence was her answer.

She moved slowly around the crate, careful not to actually get any closer but those golden iris’s never left her. Not that Luz could blame her. She wouldn't be happy about being shoved into a crate either. She had a swathe of bright magenta fabric wrapped around her chest, studded with what looked to Luz like sea glass and pearls. Their shiny surfaces catching in the light.

A real-life mermaid, just like in her stories! Luz could hardly believe her eyes.

“You must be the thing…,” she breathed quietly but then frowned. The thing they had come looking for…

She jerked, suddenly and again the sea creature jerked back, sloshing water out the sides of the crate but Luz didn’t notice as she dug the log book out of her bag and quickly scanned it and found absolutely no mention of any mythical sea creatures or even anything alive on their manifest.

In fact, the only thing that even came close to matching the description of the crate in front of her was the one line of text she had noticed.

Exotic meat…

“Ay dios mio, they're gonna eat you!” she yelped, dropping the book to the floor. She didn’t notice the way the woman’s eyes widened. “I gotta do something…,’ Luz mumbled to herself, pacing the room quickly and chewing on her bottom lip as her thoughts raced a mile a minute.

The ocean was only just outside… she only had to get her upstairs. Luz whipped back around to lock eyes with the mermaid, staring back at her.

She couldn’t just let some stupidly rich aristocrats eat a mermaid and call it exotic meat!

She took a step forward and, predictably, she pressed herself back against the far wall of the crate.

“It’s okay,” She held up her hands as she slowly approached but she could see it in the woman’s eyes, as clear as day.

Fear.

“I’m not gonna hurt you but if I don’t get you outta here soon, someone else will,” she spoke in low, quiet tones as she approached. Time was slipping through her fingers like sand as she spoke. They were both going to get it if she couldn’t get out of here quickly. She took another step forward and the creature’s lips pulled back over a pair of fang-like eyeteeth, trying to ward her away, her tail splashing angrily in the water and Luz paused.

There was no way she was going to let Luz get her out without a fight.

There was no way she was going to let people eat a rare and mythical creature.

“Okay then!” She bowed up and the woman seemed to draw back some but the snarl never left her face and then Luz quickly covered the last few paces to the crate and grabbed her.

To predictably disastrous results.

Apparently, mermaids have claws; who knew?

Luz let out a pained sound as she dragged the struggling creature out of the crate, hauling it over her shoulder and sloshing sea water everywhere as she felt the sharp lashes of claws digging painfully into her back, searching for an escape.

She turned and ran, doing her best to keep her balance as a long, muscular tail whipped around frantically and the woman growled and snarled in her grip as she clawed at her.

“I’m just trying to help you!” she yelled as she sprinted up the stairs, panting. She was solid and the thrashing around while mauling her didn’t help Luz in the least.

She managed to make it up onto the deck, still flailing as she stumbled around, trying to maintain her balance as the woman thrashed in her arms.

“Please be still!” Luz hissed, voice pitching as she felt another talon dig through her thin tunic, shirt, and skin. Why did she have to be so dang nice!?

Just as she was crossing the deck the woman reared back in another attempt to break free and then blinding pain shot across Luz’s face in a trail of fire from above her eye down her cheek.

“Argh!” She stumbled but managed to keep her footing and made a beeline straight for the side of the ship, despite the warm blood she could feel dripping down her face. She didn’t hesitate to throw the woman over the side, watching as she hit the water with a splash. She didn't resurface but Luz figured she’d swam off the moment she’d hit and then she realized the sounds of fighting had stopped.

“You, stop!”

She looked over her shoulder to find the crew had returned and were darting across the deck toward her.

“Bye!” she grinned, wiggling her fingers.

She threw herself over the side of the boat and fell to the water with a splash. Limbs akimbo as she hit the water like a cannonball and didn’t even pause before she started swimming back to the Tawny Owl, beneath the dark water. The salt water burned her myriad of cuts but that was much preferred to a musket shot through the back so she never slowed, holding her breath as she moved through the water back toward the ship.

When she finally resurfaced with a gasp, it was on the other side of the ship, out of sight. She panted as she swam off to the dock and hauled herself up onto the planks. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off she felt every gash in her skin with striking clarity and she didn’t like it at all.

It. Hurt.

She walked down the dock toward the Tawny Owl , consoling herself with the thought that she had done the right thing. Even if the recipient hadn’t exactly been grateful about it…

She wiped a sopping wet arm across her face and pulled her sleeve back to see the blood quickly seeping into the fabric of her sleeve. She’d gotten her good too.

Eda was waiting for her when she finally climbed up the plank.

“Hey, Kid, how was - What the hell happened to you?!” Eda’s shout got the attention of all the rest of the crew as she jogged forward, eyes darting over Luz’s bloody face.

Luz paused. She couldn’t very well tell Eda she had rescued a mermaid from being someone's dinner. She probably wouldn't have even believed her to start with and, even if she did, knowing the opportunistic captain, Eda would’ve wanted to sell her for sure.

“They had… dogs,” she said after a moment.

“Dogs?” Eda repeated and Luz nodded.

“Guard dogs, they attacked me down in the hold,” She quickly lied as Eda looked at her back and chased a breath at whatever she saw.

“They tore you up, Kid…, You best go down and see Viney,” she said and Luz nodded; it felt like it.

“So what, we got nothing from all that time?!” King’s sudden squeal made her stop and Eda looked at her questioningly.

“I did manage to grab these, that was really all there was except some crates of tea and stuff.” She dug through her bag and handed over the little bags of gemstones, which Eda appraised for a moment before nodding and slipping them into the inner pocket of her captain’s coat.

“We can make some decent money off these, not a total loss, good job, Kid. Now, go see Viney, you’re bleeding all over my freshly swabbed deck!” She ordered and Luz didn’t need to be told twice before hurrying down to see the ship’s doctor.

Viney whistled loudly as she examined the litany of long cuts in Luz’s skin as she wiped away the blood.

“Them things got you good, didn’t they?” she commented as Luz sat on a stool in front of her, bandages in hand.

“Yeah,” Luz mumbled with a nod. Her whole back was a mass of throbbing but Viney assured her she would be fine, so the deckhand contented herself with playing with the doctors large, black parrot, Puddles.

“Strange though….” she hummed and Luz glanced at her over her shoulder.

“What?”

“You don’t have any bites… just all these long gashes… are you sure it was dogs?” she asked and Luz paused in her petting of the bird.

“Oh yea… big ones,” Luz nodded and Viney just hummed but said nothing else about it. Once she was all patched up, Viney sent her on her way with orders of no heavy lifting till her gashes closed up some.

She caught sight of herself in the dirty mirror as she stood to go and saw the bloody gash that trailed from just over her left eyebrow and down her cheek, thankfully, missing her eye. That was going to leave a mark for sure.

“Hey, I finally got my first cool scar!” She grinned and from behind her, Viney just laughed.

~ ~ ~

The day was bright and a gentle breeze was blowing across the sea as Luz sat on a plank lowered down the side of the ship as she used a knife to scrape the barnacles off the hull.

It was ‘chore day’ on the Tawny Owl and that meant all of the general maintenance required to keep them afloat like mending the sails and replacing old, frayed ropes. They sat out in the middle of the ocean so they wouldn't be bothered while they worked.

Since she was off any kind of heavy lifting duty’s, per Viney’s specific orders, Eda had given her the easiest job on the ship. Luz was pretty sure she felt bad for sending Luz down into a ‘dog infested’ hull to grab loot too.

The truth was a secret Luz would take to her grave.

She and Eda were pretty close but she didn’t want to test that by telling her that she’d been mauled by a honest to goodness mermaid; a mermaid that someone would probably pay through the nose for. Luz had literally thrown a fortune overboard. That wouldn’t be a fun conversation to have.

She hummed along to the sound of the song the rest of the crew was singing up on deck as it wafted down to her by the water.

“To bring us sugar and tea and rum!” she sang quietly to herself, head bobbing along to the jaunty tune as she wedged the blade under another barnacle.

She let her mind drift back to that fateful night. She could still clearly see the glint of those scales in her mind, could still see the pointed ears and eyes as bright and shiny as the doubloons Eda was always running through her fingers in her quarters.

A real, living mermaid. She could still hardly believe it and might have thought it all a dream had her throbbing back and newly scarred up face not confirmed the reality of the situation.

Luz was still struck by how otherworldly and pretty she had been… despite the whole mauling thing...

Who in their right mind would think to eat one?!

She was lost in her thoughts when the sound of splashing water made her look up and turn. The gentle waves lapping at the boat seemed undisturbed and she didn't see anything. More than once she’d been down here and something had jumped out of the water and smacked her before, so she kept a careful eye out. You only needed to be smacked in the face by a tuna once to learn that lesson.

Seeing nothing, she turned back to the task at hand but as she turned she did spot something, sitting on the plank beside her.

An oyster shell sat on the wood beside her and sitting there, inside it, was a pearl.

“Huh?” Luz looked around but was greeted by nothing but ocean waves. She set down her knife and picked up the oyster, it was still wet and dripped as she carefully rolled it out onto her palm. It was perfectly round and smooth between her fingers.

“Where… where did it come from?” she mumbled, scratching her head with her other hand as she gazed down at the small jewel. With a shrug she slipped the pearl into the front pocket of her shirt and turned back to the task at hand but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

She nearly forgot about it entirely until a few days later.

They had come to a stop in the middle of the ocean to fix a tear in the mainsail at about sundown and while they did, Luz lowered herself down to the water in one of the rowboats, determined to do some fishing while she had the time and Hooty was too busy helping with the sails to go diving into the water, scaring them all away.

The boat bobbed along in the, for once, placid water. There was hardly a breath of wind, as was often the case at this time of day. When the sun began to sink over that distant horizon it caught the sea ablaze in sparkling hues of red, orange, and pink. The ocean sat quiet, or, as quiet as it ever got.

The tear in the sail came from a little... incident between Hooty and King rather than any storm or winds. Luz hummed to herself as she cast out her line and set her little driftwood pole against the side of the boat. Now all she had to do was wait.

Admittedly, that was not her strongest suit.

So, she picked up the old worn book at her side and flipped it open, the pages filled with a great number of charcoal sketches. Some were messy, a jumble of lines and shapes with no rhyme or reason while others were smooth, refined, and accurate to life in their detail. Fish and other sea life spread across the parchment.

She was pretty happy with some of them.

She flipped to the last sketch she had been working on and frowned to herself. Sketchy lines and rough shading of a long, scaly tail and a face with pointed ears. She wasn’t happy with it. She needed more than a few moments of seeing her but that wasn’t going to happen now, so she did the best she could.

The warm, waning sunlight glared into her eyes as she sat hunched over her sketchbook, looking up occasionally to check her line. In an hour she’d caught one measly little fish about the length of her palm and not much else.

She sketched out another line and frowned to herself when she pulled back to look at it. It was all wrong! She grunted and set the charcoal between the crease of the pages and closed it with a snap, setting it off to the side.

She leaned back in the boat, looking up at the clear blue sky, and sighed. Her mind inevitably went back to thinking about the mermaid whenever she had a spare moment. All those stories she had heard and read as a kid, all the tales of grand adventures and mystery that had led her to this life to start with and she had finally come face to face with something truly incredible…

...and it had tried to maul her.

To be fair, she probably would have been scared and less than welcoming if she’d been stuffed in a crate and was being shipped out to be some governor's exotic dinner. They had been trailing that ship for a month. She had to have been in there for at least that long, probably longer. Did they feed her or just leave her in a dark, water-filled crate?

Luz frowned to herself and closed her eyes. The thought made her angry.

At least she was free now.

Probably somewhere far away.

There was a sudden splash and, before Luz could even open her eyes, something large, wet and wriggling slapped her in the face.

“Argh!” She sat up, eyes snapping open as a large tuna fell into her lap, flopping and flinging seawater everywhere. “Mierda!” She tossed it off her onto the floor of the boat where it flopped around. “What the hell?!” She blinked at it for a long moment before the sound of sloshing water made her turn and her jaw hung open.

A pair of golden eyes were peering up at her from just above the water a scant few feet away.

Luz sucked in a sharp breath as she stared back at the eyes looking back at her.

“You…,” she mumbled. She could hardly believe her eyes. “You’re here!” she jerked forward and the eyes reared back before disappearing beneath the water. “No, don’t go!” Luz called, scrambling for the other side of the boat and half throwing herself into the water.

She didn’t even register the saltwater stinging her eyes as she looked around frantically. The water was bright and clear and she blinked, coming face to face with those eyes again, blinking back at her in clear surprise. Luz opened her mouth to speak and bubbles poured out as saltwater rushed into her mouth.

She reared back, flinging water as she flopped back into the boat and choking on the water she’d swallowed.

Luz hacked and coughed, spitting up water, not noticing the eyes now peeking up over the side of the boat, watching her.

“Ugh!” she spat out the water and pushed the wet hair out of her face, blinking to clear her eyes. “Right… air,’ she grumbled to herself and wiped the water off her face.

She looked up and saw the creature looking at her over the rim of the boat.

“You’re here…” She honestly didn’t know what else to say in the face of a mythical creature staring back at her from the water with bright, curious eyes.

Till she did.

“Why are you here…?” she seemed to mumble more to herself than anything and she moved forward. Once more, the skittish creature dove under the water but Luz didn’t follow this time.

Not as far anyway. She leaned over the side of the boat and glanced into the water.

Just below the surface, the woman was staring back at her.

The large fish flopping around hit her leg and she glanced at it before turning her attention back to the water with sudden realization.

“You threw that up here… why?” she cocked her head.

The woman’s eyes seemed to linger on Luz’s face. It took Luz a moment to realize she was staring at the long, scabbed-over gash running down her left cheek.

She flicked her tail in a slow, almost sorrowful movement and Luz found herself mesmerized by its floating path through the water behind her, smooth and languid.

She dragged her eyes back to the mermaid's face. The creature brushed back floating tendrils of green hair and blinked slowly at her. Golden eyes lowered demurely as the face twisted in an expression that Luz recognized immediately: regret.

"You… wish that hadn't happened?" she asked.

The mermaid looked at her for a long moment and nodded. Then she darted forward, emerging from the water with a splash that made Luz lunge backward in fright.

The mermaid looked at the human, huddled in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the boat and sighed.

"I'm sorry... for what happened," she said finally, her voice low and her eyes quickly darting away from Luz’s.

Luz blinked up at her for a long moment as she held herself up on the side of the boat, making it tip dangerously under her weight.

“You do talk!” Luz jerked forward and the woman tensed but didn’t dive back into the water, though she did flinch away slightly.

“Yes…,” she mumbled and glanced back at the human only to find her staring up at her in wide-eyed wonder. Eyes, all but sparkling in the glinting light of the setting sun.

“This is amazing…” Luz mumbled to herself, absolutely flabbergasted, eyes darting everywhere. She was back, right here in front of her!

Suddenly, her brows furrowed as a thought occurred to her and she looked up at, brown meeting gold.

“Why are you here?” she asked, cocking her head and the mermaid turned away from her, pushing a few strands of wet, green hair behind her ear.

“I wanted to say thank you… for saving me… and I’m sorry… for the… clawing,” she mumbled, waving a hand over her own face. Luz reached up to touch the rough scabs over her cheek.

“It’s okay,” Luz said simply and then those gold eyes swiveled back to her. Shock and confusion clear in their metallic depths.

“It’s… how can you just say that… I…” She glanced down at the long, sharp claws that tipped each finger.

Luz arranged herself more comfortably on the floor of the boat, tipped precariously under Amity’s weight leaning on it.

“I probably woulda lashed out too if someone shoved me in a crate for who knows how long…,” she said with a little shrug. “I’ll heal” She waved a hand dismissively.

The creature still didn’t look content with that but nodded.

“Thank you…” she trailed off and Luz perked.

“I’m Luz.” She grinned, holding out a hand.

The woman blinked down at it for a second.

“Humans shake it when you meet new people,” Luz explained. Mermaids probably didn’t do that. Why did humans? Something to ask Eda later.

Hesitantly, she reached out and wrapped her hand around Luz’s, who gave a gentle shake. Her skin was damp but soft and smooth under Luz’s calloused grip.

“Amity,” she said and Luz grinned even wider.

She pulled back and happened to catch sight of the sea glass attached to the fabric wrapped around her chest and had a sudden realization.

“You left the pearl!” she suddenly yelped, making Amity jerk back at the sudden yell. “A couple days ago, when I was down by the water…”

“Oh… yes, that was me…,” she nodded.

“Have you… been following us this whole time?” she asked and Amity nodded her head. “Why? Just to tell me thanks?” Luz cocked her head and Amity’s eyes darted away, her tail flicked lazily out of the water, slapping the surface and disappearing again. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before nodding.

“Yes, I… I didn’t know where I was being taken or what was going to happen until you showed up and said…” she seemed to trail off.

“That they were going to eat you?” Luz asked and she nodded.

“Yes… so, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Luz smiled and before she could think to say anything else, a voice from up above called out to her; Morton.

“Hey, Luz! The sail's fixed, so we’re gonna get going, you ready to be hauled up?”

The boat suddenly rocked violently, sloshing water and Amity vanished beneath the rippling surface just as Morton stuck his head over the edge up above her.

Luz blinked at the water where she had vanished before turning up to the deckhand and nodding.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” she called, frowning and Morton nodded.

“Hey Hooty, come help me haul up Luz!” She heard him call, followed by an excited yell of agreement. A second later she was being hauled quickly up the side of the ship but her eyes were glued to the water below. A shadow moved through its depths before disappearing.

The second she hit the deck she grabbed her book and her fish and hurried off down to the kitchens.

~ ~ ~

A week later, Luz was still thinking about her meeting with Amity and wondering if the mermaid had left now that she had finally said what she wanted to Luz. They had been sailing along at a quick clip, heading towards Eda’s favorite place in all the seven seas; The Boiling Isles.

A collection of islands in one of the more dangerous areas of the sea. It housed a number of ramshackle little towns and bases, the majority of its residents being of the… non-law-abiding variety.

They managed to knock over a couple of merchant's vessels along the way and finally got a hoard that Eda was happy with, so she declared that they could take a couple week's rest and they returned to their own little reinforced hamlet in one of the Isles' many coves.

It was dark when Luz threw her things down in the meager shack nestled between Eda’s and Viney’s before heading back out to the beach. The moon was full and cast enough light in the clear sky that she could see just fine. It was late but the rest of the crew was in full swing of a drunken stupor and the yelling and screaming of their revelry echoed out into the bright, starlit night; there wasn’t going to be any sleep even if she wanted to.

Instead, she picked her way over the large black rocks that lined the shore and led out into the water. Her steps were careful, the lapping waves making the rocks slick in places but this was hardly her first time.

It wouldn't be her first time falling in either, and probably wouldn't be the last either.

Still, with her sketchbook firmly in one hand and a small bundle of goodies in the other, she made sure not to step anywhere the moonlight bounced off the wet stones before settling herself onto a large, flat rock that jutted out over the water. She flipped it open and grabbed the charcoal laying between it’s pages.

After the other day, she had a much clearer picture in her head and set to sketching. It was kinda rough at first. It had been a few days but she’d had a dream about glinting, blue-green scales and sharp ears.

She really wished she had some way to color it. Black just didn’t seem to do the lines justice; it would have to do though.

The distant sounds of her crew drinking and singing were nothing more than a whisper over the sound of the gentle waves lapping against the rock. She was zoning out, tongue poking out of her mouth as she worked carefully to get a line just right when a splash, not loud but distinctly louder than the rest, made her look up.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she caught the pair of dimly glowing, gold eyes staring back at her from the other side of the rock.

“Amity!” She jerked, scrambling to the edge of the rock as the mermaid lifted further out of the water as she approached.

“Hi, Luz.” She smiled up at her and Luz couldn’t help but think how pretty she was when she wasn't snarling and growling at her anyway.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, setting her book to the side, careful to keep it away from the water dripping off Amity as she leaned her arms on the rock.

“I… uh…,” she mumbled, claws clicking on the rock as she tried to think of something to say and Luz couldn’t help the smile working its way onto her face.

“Did you follow us here?” she asked and grinned wider at the pale pink that seemed to break across Amity’s face. “Not that I’m complaining about seeing you again but don’t you have anything better to do than follow around a bunch of grumpy pirates?” she laughed.

Amity grew quiet at that and Luz frowned at the sudden tight look in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. Amity seemed to hesitate before looking up at her.

“I don’t know how to get back home,” she quietly admitted. “I don’t know how long I was in that box or even what direction it went,” she mumbled, voice tight and Luz’s eyes widened. She hadn’t thought about that.

They had been chasing that ship non-stop for the better part of a month and there was no telling how long Amity had been on board beforehand. She could be hundreds of thousands of miles from where she started.

“You don’t have any idea where you came from?” Luz asked and Amity shook her head, eyes trained on the rock beneath her. Her claws creating little gouges in the stone as she clenched her hands. Luz didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry’ seemed sorely lacking but what else could she say?

“Do you want some candy?” was the next thing to pop out of her mouth and Amity looked up at her, questioningly.

“Can..dy?” she repeated the unfamiliar word and Luz nodded and scrambled back over to where she had left the little cloth-wrapped bundle. She snatched it up and hurried back over to Amity, sitting cross-legged in front of her as she untied the knot. A small pile of crystalline-coated fruits rolled around in her lap as she looked through them before selecting one and holding it out to Amity.

“It’s a type of human food. It’s sweet and they're really tasty. This one is my favorite,” she offered it out and the mermaid hesitated a moment before plucking the rock-like food from Luz’s palm. She hesitated, eyes darting up to look at Luz, searching and the human just smiled.

She popped it into her mouth and paused.

Luz watched her, silently, feeling herself grin as Amity’s eyes widened, sparkling with awe and delight. Her amazement doubled as she watched the two pointed ears twitch and it was maybe the cutest thing Luz had ever seen.

“It’s… really good,” she mumbled around the treat, face breaking out in a smile. Her tail flipped out of the water, to flick lazily this way and that, sending droplets of water into the air.

“Right?” Luz asked with a chuckle as she popped one into her own mouth and set them on the rock in front of her, within Amity’s reach. Gold eyes flicked up at her, a silent question and Luz smiled. That seemed to be all the encouragement she needed to grab another.

“So, what are you going to do?” she asked and Amity frowned around her treat.

“I don’t know yet…” she admitted and Luz pursed her lips.

“Well, you’re welcome to hang out here with me till you do,” she offered and Amity looked up at her.

“Okay…,” she nodded.

They sat there for the next few hours as the moon made its way across the sky, talking. Luz told Amity about all the different places she had been and things she’d done since joining Eda’s crew. It amused Luz how fascinated she was by the simplest of human things. Some things, like ships she was familiar with but anything on land was new and wondrous to her and Luz happily explained everything to her; as best she understood it anyway.

“What’s that?” amity pointed a finger to the book in her hand.

“Oh! It’s my sketchbook.” She flipped the pages open to show Amity some sketches of the crew and a few animals.

“Oh…”

She flipped through a few more pages, Amity asking questions about the things like the horses, and dogs sprawled across it’s pages. Luz was hardly paying attention to the pages, more content to watch Amity’s face light up at each new drawing.

Till she flipped the page and Amity blinked.

“Is that… me?” she asked.

“Huh?” Luz leaned the book back and felt her face heat up as she stared down at her first, rough sketch of the mermaid. “Oh…. uh… yeah,” she finally said and reached up to rub the back of her neck nervously. She hadn’t meant to show her those.

“It doesn’t look finished…,” was all she said.

“No, I started this right after…”

You mauled me.

She wasn’t gonna say that!

“...after we met. I couldn’t remember everything well enough, so I gave up on it.” she shrugged as they lapsed into, what felt to Luz, tense silence. The gentle sound of the surf breaking against the rocks and shore was the only sound for a long few moments.

“What about now?” she asked and Luz blinked at her. Her confusion must have been apparent because she carried on. “Do you think you could finish it now?” she asked, looking up at Luz, eyes filled with such bright curiosity and wonder that it made her breath stutter in her chest.

“Yeah… I think so,” she nodded. “I’ll work on it,” she promised and Amity nodded, seemingly indifferent but Luz could see the subtle rise at the corners of her mouth.

Eventually, the hour grew quite late, or early, and Luz noticed that the sounds of her crew had petered out into silence, no doubt they had all passed out by now. She herself was growing tired now.

Amity noticed too as her head started to bob down to her chest more and more often, eyes drifting closed.

“You should sleep…,” she said as Luz let out a jaw-splitting yawn and nodded drowsily. She stood and stretched, back giving a satisfying pop.

“Yeah… will you be here tomorrow?” she asked, turning her gaze back to Amity as she picked up her things.

Amity stared up at her, face a mask of surprise and wonder before she schooled it into something more neutral and nodded.

“See ya tomorrow then!” Luz called before picking her careful way back down the rocks toward the shore.

Amity watched her go.

~ ~ ~

When they were docked, everyone kind of did their own thing if there wasn’t any repair work that needed to be done to the ship, as was sometimes the case after a raid. So no one really questioned it when Luz went darting down to the sea around noon the next day after throwing a canvas bag with some things in it into one of the rowboats sitting on the shore.

No one except Eda, who was down by the water, looking at the ship.

“Where’s the fire, kid?” she asked as Luz started shoving the boat out of the sand and into the water. “Don’t you get enough sailing already?” she laughed as Luz hopped in the boat.

“Just… enjoying the peace and quiet on the water, ya know how it is!” she laughed nervously but Eda nodded.

“Be careful,” she called before walking up the plank onto the ship.

Luz picked up the oars and rowed out into the ocean. Once she’d muscled her way through the swells moving inland the open water was smooth and placid, as gentle as it ever was anyway. The peaceful, constant movement bobbed her boat gently as she threw down the anchor.

She’d never exactly discussed with Amity where they would meet but the mermaid didn’t seem to have any trouble finding her either.

She waited, listening to the sounds of the surf for a little while before a gentle splashing made her grin as a familiar head of green hair broke the surface of the water.

“Amity!” Luz grinned down at her.

“Hi, Luz,” the mermaid smiled up at her shyly, brushing a few strands of wet hair out of her face.

“Where did you stay last night… Do mermaids even sleep? She asked, tapping a finger to her chin, suddenly curious and Amity snorted.

“Yes, I sleep. I stayed in the coral reef below us,” she said.

“There's a coral reef below us?” Luz asked wide-eyed and Amity nodded. This was the first time she had heard of it but then again, she wasn’t surprised her crewmates didn't appear to know about it. One of the most surprising things she'd learned as a pirate was that a great majority of sailors couldn’t swim or were even afraid of the ocean. That was just crazy to Luz, she loved to swim.

That little fact was one of the reasons Eda often put her on duties that took her very near or in the water. As far as she knew, herself, Hooty, and Viney were the only members of the crew that would get within ten feet of water deeper than their waist.

“As in, directly below us?” she asked, and again, Amity nodded. “Can you show me?” she asked and Amity’s eyes widened.

“You can swim?” she asked, seeming to peer over the edge of the boat at Luz’s legs, looking in disbelief. That only made the pirate laugh.

“Of course I can swim. I am an excellent swimmer!” she jerked a thumb toward herself but faltered. “I mean, not even half as good as you probably, but for a human, I'm great!” She asserted and Amity giggled under her breath.

“Okay, I’ll show you,” she nodded and Luz dumped her canvas bag out, pushing everything under one of the slatted benches to keep out of the sun and slung it over her shoulder.

“Why do you need that?” Amity questioned as she moved around.

“Coral makes great medicine, the ship's doctor, Viney, crushes it up to use in ointments and stuff. She mentioned we were running low and would need to stock back up before we left the Isles. I can kill two birds with one stone!” she explained.

“Why would you kill birds?” The mermaid cocked her head.

“It's just an expression, nevermind that. Let’s go!” She grinned before taking a deep breath and diving over the side of the boat, into the water with a loud splash.

Luz opened her eyes and the water briefly stung but she was pretty used to it and glanced around before finding Amity, looking at her curiously and she grinned, careful not to let out any air or let water in.

She definitely wasn’t as good a swimmer as Amity, whose every movement propelled her quickly through the water with ease, down toward the ocean floor.

They weren’t too far out, so the water wasn’t terribly deep here and she got down there quick enough. She could see all the brightly colored plants and fish moving about the coral. She dug the knife out of her bag and quickly set about cutting off some of the long branches before the burning in her lungs made her shove both back inside and move quickly back toward the light.

She broke the surface with a gasp, panting as she sucked in large lungfuls of air.

“Are you okay?”

She glanced over at Amity, who had surfaced next to her and she nodded.

“Yeah, it's just deep enough that I can get there for just a minute before I need air,” she huffed, finally getting her breath back.

Amity hummed before grabbing her hand, making Luz blink.

“Hold your breath,” she instructed and Luz did so just before she was pulled under and they were moving quickly through the water toward the ocean floor.

The water rushed past her face as Amity pulled her down.

Yeah, definitely not even half as good a swimmer as her.

She was able to cut off a good bit and stuff it in her bag before she had to resurface again.

“That was way faster!” she turned to Amity and grinned. “You are a good swimmer!” Luz laughed.

Amity’s face seemed to color some at that and she shrugged.

Luz tossed her bag into the boat before taking a breath and diving back under. Moving back toward the bottom before a hand wrapped around hers and pulled her down to the bottom. The water rushing past her was exhilarating.

As was the hand wrapped firmly around hers and the blurry grin she could see on Amity’s face through the bubbles.

When she finally came to a stop, she grabbed hold of the coral to stay anchored and couldn't help but smile at all the colorful little fish and bright plants that moved about. She reached out to touch a cobalt bluefish but it quickly darted out of her reach.

They spent a long while exploring the depths around the shore before Luz finally had to climb, exhausted, back into the boat, flopping onto the floor. She was exhausted but didn’t wanna head back in yet.

Amity laid her arms on the sides of the boat and it dipped a little, making Luz slide toward her and she laughed, sitting back up.

“Oh, I brought you something” Luz pulled her things out from under the bench and unwrapped it. Amity peered at her curiously as she held out… something.

“It’s sweet bread,” Luz explained as Amity took it. “They were selling them over by the docks. I thought you might like to try it.”

She watched Amity take a tentative bite… quickly followed by several more.

“Good, right?” she asked, still holding her own in her hand. Amity nodded as she polished off the rest of hers quickly. Her eyes darted to Luz’s and she couldn’t help but grin and hold it out.

“That’s yours…” Amity frowned.

“I can get more later,” Luz assured her, still holding her hand out. Amity still hesitated but Luz just patiently held out the treat and after a moment she finally took it and devoured it like the first.

“Thanks,” she mumbled and Luz just grinned, pushing back the wet hair that had fallen in her face. Amity watched her intently.

“What?” Luz cocked her head and watched the mermaid's face flush.

“Nothing!”

“Uh, okay?” Luz blinked.

They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting there, talking and enjoying each other’s company before Luz finally had to go back in.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” she called with a wide smile as she rowed back toward the shore.

“Bye, Luz,” Amity waved, then vanished under the waves, tail flipping out of the water for a moment before she was gone.

Luz felt her heart stutter in her chest.

~ ~ ~

The two weeks they spent docked on the Isles seemed to fly by for Luz. She woke early and got all the things she needed to do for the day out of the way and then made a beeline for the water.

She spent hours at a time bobbing along in the rowboat with Amity and always made sure to bring her treats from the little market in the Isles ‘capital’ Bonesburough.

The mermaid had proven to have quite a sweet tooth.

She often brought Luz things too, from the ocean floor. She’d amassed a small trove of gemstones, pearls, and shells that Amity had picked up out of the sands deep below them.

Luz laid, floating on her back on the water. Amity had her head laid across her stomach, her eyes closed. Where she was so heavy on land, she was nearly weightless in the water.

Her head on Luz’s abdomen did funny things to her stomach and she briefly wondered in the back of her mind if it was weird… to have a crush on a mermaid.

It took her a week to figure it out. Once she got past the awe of a real living mermaid hanging around with her, a sense of giddy excitement had remained and it was only after talking to Viney, very vaguely, that she came to realize just why being around Amity made it feel like she didn’t know what to say or do with herself.

She still wasn’t really sure what to do. Could you have feelings for a mermaid? She didn’t have any reference for a regular crush, much less one on a mythical creature.

Not to mention the fact that Amity was… amazing and wonderful. Why would she ever want a regular old human like her? She pushed all those thoughts away for now.

“So, we’re setting sail first thing in the morning,” she said and glanced up to see Amity’s eyes open, looking back at her.

“You’re leaving the Isles?” she asked and Luz nodded.

“Eda got news of another ship that's going to be sailing near here soon and… well, she wants what’s on it.” She waved a hand.

Amity hummed, tail flicking out of the water quickly. Luz had started to pick up on her bodily mannerisms and the quicker than normal flicking of her back fins, though not so fast as to indicate annoyance, told Luz that she was, maybe, a little upset.

“How long would you be gone?” she asked quietly and Luz gave a little half-shrug.

“Could be a couple of weeks or a couple of months. It depends.”

“I could follow the ship…?” she offered and Luz had thought of that but she had thought of a few other things also. To what end was Amity sticking with her?

True, she didn’t know how to get back home but she couldn’t follow her forever… even if Luz kind of wanted her to.

“Is it safe for you to do that?” she asked, finally moving to float upright, next to Amity. “It can’t be safe for you to be out in open water all the time, can it?” she asked and Amity frowned, gaze skittering anywhere but on Luz. She’d told her a story or two about having to hide from sharks and things, which made Luz worry.

That wasn't the only thing that bothered Luz though. It would be much harder to get down to the water to see Amity, which only elevated the chances of someone seeing them and Luz still lived very much in fear that if Eda or the rest of the crew found out about her they would try to sell her.

“It’s… not the safest option,” Amity admitted.

“Then… maybe you should stay here while I’m gone…?” Luz offered and Amity’s frown deepened, as well as the quick back and forth of her tail.

“If you don't want me to come along then just tell me so, Luz,” she rumbled and Luz frowned.

“No, no. It’s not that I don't want you around, I do…!” she quickly hurried to say. She did. She very much wanted Amity around. Amity was the only thing that seemed to occupy her mind these last two weeks. Not to mention how badly Luz wanted to kiss her every time she smiled.

She quickly shoved that thought away and rested her hand on Amity’s shoulder.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Amity.”

Reluctantly, Amity nodded and Luz smiled sadly at her.

“I’ll be back before you know it.. Oh! I have something to show you!” she smiled and crawled back into the boat, shaking off as much water as she could before she went digging through her bag. “Look at this!” She pulled out her sketchbook and turned the pages, careful not to drip on it before she turned it around to show her.

Amity’s eyes widened as she stared at the clean, smooth sketch staring back at her from familiar eyes.

Her own.

Luz’s sketch covered two pages and was done in the most excruciating detail. Every line and curve was sharp and clean. Each scale was accounted for on the length of her tail and every gem and accouterment on her wrap in its place.

“What do you think?” Luz asked, grinning proudly to herself. It had its flaws of course. She was still learning but it was a pretty good likeness of the mermaid if she did say so herself.

“It’s beautiful, Luz.” Amity said, quietly, eyes still darting across every dark line.

“Ah, thanks. It kinda pales in comparison to the real thing but,” Luz shrugged, grinning sheepishly at her as she leaned over the side of the boat with the book.

Gold eyes turned upward to her and seemed to stare back at her for a long moment, something behind them seemed to flicker and the next thing Luz knew, she tasted saltwater and all she could see was Amity.

It took her far too long to realize what was happening and when she did, Amity had already pulled back and was staring back at her, face pink and looking unsure.

Luz just stared back, mouth hanging open.

Amity had just kissed her.

Luz’s jaw moved soundlessly, unsure what to say. She’d been thinking about it but she hadn’t even entertained the idea of just… doing it.

“I…” she managed to get out but not much else before the pink across Amity’s face turned red.

“I’m sorry!” she suddenly squeaked and then turned and disappeared under the water.

“Wait, Amity!” Luz tossed her book aside and dove overboard, into the water but already, Amity’s form was becoming a blurry spot in the distance. She would never catch her.

Luz resurfaced, hands tightening into fists.

“Mierda!” She slapped her hands across the surface of the water.

~ ~ ~

Luz sighed to herself, not for the first time that day as the ship moved through the seemingly endless expanse of sea. The sky was dark and gray, promising storms; much like her mood.

They had been at sea for four days now and she hadn’t seen Amity since she had swam off. She hadn’t been waiting in the usual spot the next morning when she’d run down to the shore before they had set sail.

Why? Why hadn’t she said something… anything! Now, Amity probably thought she had rebuffed her when nothing could be further from the truth.

She could still feel the fleeting press of Amity’s lips on hers and she really wanted a do over there! She’d been taken by surprise!

Who knew if Amity would even still be there when she got back, or even want to see her. A cool, gust of wind whipped through the air and she sighed again, staring down at the water.

“You okay, Kid?”

Luz looked up to see Eda walking up to her, frowning and Luz frowned.

“Not really,” she admitted.

“Is it your lady friend?” Eda asked and Luz’s head shot up, jaw hanging open.

“How did you…?” she started and Eda grinned.

“Come on, Luz, I was young once. I used to sneak off at all hours of the day and night once too to meet some… ‘friends’.” She said with a smirk and Luz flushed. “Also, Viney told me you came to her asking for advice,” she laughed and Luz grunted.

‘Of course she did.’ Luz thought bitterly.

“So… what happened, she turn ya down?” she asked and Luz frowned.

“No... the opposite actually… she kissed me,” Luz said.

“So why do you look like someone spit in your rum?” Eda frowned.

“She surprised me and I just… stood there!” She threw up her arms. “Then Amity sw- ran off and I couldn't find her…,” she grumbled, slouching on the railing.

“Ah, that’s tough, kid. Maybe you can talk to this ‘Amity’ girl when we get back?” she suggested.

“I dunno if she’ll even still be there when we get back,” she grumbled to herself.

“Chin up, Luz. You’ll just have to wait and see.” Eda patted her shoulder. “We should be coming up on that ship within the hour so put your game face on!” Eda said before walking away and Luz nodded.

They had a job to do.

She stood up and gave herself a shake. There was nothing she could do about Amity right now and if she didn’t get her head in the right place she might end up on the wrong end of a saber.

~ ~ ~

The rain was pouring down in sheets and thunder rumbled across the sky; the occasional streak of lightning flashing in the dark was nearly indistinguishable from the flash of the canons as they.

“Keep firing!” Eda was yelling somewhere over the din as they constantly fired shots at the galleon bobbing along only about one hundred yards away.

Luz grunted as she loaded another canon, sharp needles of icy rain stinging her face as she did and the second the shot was in place, King was firing with a strangled cry of rage.

“We’re gaining on them!” she heard Jerbo yell from somewhere behind her and Luz squinted into the rain. The ship definitely seemed to be getting closer… but not because they were gaining on it.

“Eda!” she whipped around to scream. “They’re heading straight for us!”

Sure enough, the ship had turned and was making a line straight for them through the storm.

“Prepare for a fight!”

They fired at the ship still till it all but rammed right into them, the force of the impact nearly sending everyone aboard stumbling to their feet.

“We’re being boarded!” someone yelled and thick boards clattered down across the expanse of sea between the two ships and the next thing Luz knew, fighting had broken out on the deck.

Shots rang out, almost muffled by the thunder.

Hooty had swung down from the crow's nest and went sailing right into a naval officer trying to board them, sending him into the dark waters below before he dropped onto the deck to grab the nearest barrel and chuck it into more trying to cross.

“Ha ha!” the man laughed crazily as Luz ducked under his next projectile. He still had both eyepatches pulled down over his eyes as he flung cargo around like it was made of paper.

Luz drew her knife; she hated this part of pirating.

A grappling hook flung over the railing, hooking in it and Luz rushed over and sliced the rope, sending the man on the other end plunging into the water with a scream.

She looked around, water running into her eyes and blinding her.

She could very easily see the man on the boarding planks, leveling his pistol at Eda, standing in the middle of the deck and firing shots.

“Eda, look out!”

She was much closer to him and jumped onto the planks and rammed herself into him, he tattered back over the edge, but not before his hand fisted into Luz’s soaked shirt and then she was plummeting into the dark water below with him.

She barely had time to scream before she hit the water and water rushed into her mouth.

She kicked up to the surface and sucked in a gulp of air before a wave broke over her head, forcing her back under.

It was dark and everything was moving too fast. She barely had a second where she was able to surface before more water rushed back over her, pulling her deeper into the water.

Then, she was pulled too far under and she could feel her lungs burning as she tried to swim back to the surface, only to be dragged down by the undertow.

She couldn’t hold her breath any longer and her mouth opened of its own volition. She sucked in a lungful of water and choked. Everything was going black as her eyes drifted closed.

A flash of green from the corner of her eye was the last thing she saw before the darkness overcame her.

~ ~ ~

Luz was vaguely aware of someone calling her name.

It was distant at first but steadily growing louder.

“Luz!”

Her eyes slowly slid open, everything was blurry at first but quickly coming back into focus as she stared up at Eda’s concerned face.

“Eda…?” she gurgled and the captain sighed in relief.

“I thought you were a goner, Kid,” she said, sliding a hand under Luz’s back and helping her sit up. Luz coughed, spitting up some water.

It was still dark and the thunder rumbled overhead but the rain had stopped.

“Did we win?” she asked, groggily looking around. The crew was moving about, cleaning up the mess that often accompanied the end of a battle.

“Sure did! Sunk them suckers to the bottom of the ocean! Got an extra prize out of it too, thanks to you!” Eda grinned and Luz blinked at her.

“Whaddaya mean?” she asked and Eda only continued to grin as she stood and helped Luz to her feet.

“I’ll show ya,” she jerked her head and Luz followed her across the deck and down into the hold. “We couldn’t find you and I was… the crew was afraid you’d drowned… till something pulled you up…”

“Something…? Luz asked as they rounded the corner of some crates down below and came face to face with the last person she expected to see.

Amity.

She was strung up in the rafters in a net and looked absolutely miserable till her eyes fell and Luz. Gold eyes lit up and she sat up best she could in the tangled net.

“Ay dios mio!” Luz darted forward.

Eda blinked as Luz ran across the room to the net hanging off the floor.

Luz’s fingers tangled in the nets' holes. “Are you okay!?” Luz cried.

“I’m okay…” Amity’s fingers wrapped around hers through the netting.

“What are you doing here?” Luz hissed and Amity frowned.

“I… followed when you left. I wanted to tell you I was sorry for what happened…”

“No!” she all but yelled, making the mermaid jerk. “Don’t be sorry! It was my fault… you surprised me is all…,” she mumbled.

“Okay, what’s going on.” Eda walked up behind her. “That thing can talk and you know it.” Eda frowned.

“It’s not an it! This is Amity…,” Luz admitted.

“Wait… Amity like, your lady friend, Amity?” Eda blinked owlishly at her and Luz pinked but nodded. “The mermaid?” she gestured and again Luz nodded.

Eda stared at her for a long hard moment.

“You have some strange and exotic tastes, Kid…,” she finally said and Luz flushed darker. “Explains why she hauled you out of the ocean… we got both of you in the net cause she wouldn’t let go… I figured we’d sell her at the next port city…”

“No!” Luz jumped in and Eda reared back at that. “Please, Eda, no!” Luz begged. “She’s… important to me.”

Eda looked at her for a long time, amber gaze flickering back up at the mermaid hanging in the net, fingers still wrapped around Luz’s and sighed heavily.

“Fine. If you hadn’t shoved that boot licker off the plank I’d have a new air hole and The Owl Lady doesn’t leave her debts unpaid. I’ll get Hooty and we’ll toss her back into the sea.” Eda grumbled before turning on heel and walking out of the hold.

Luz breathed a sigh of relief before turning back to Amity.

“Why did you let yourself get captured?” Luz asked with a frown.

“I couldn’t let you drown!” Amity shot back and Luz sighed.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she finally said, fingers tightening around Amity’s.

“You… you’re not upset about the other day?” she mumbled, looking at Luz from beneath her lashes.

“No, I’m not upset, you just surprised me… I…,” Luz pursed her lips, trying to think of the words to say. “I like you too… a lot,” she admitted. “But… I don't think it’s safe for you to just be following the ship day and night,” she said and Amity frowned but didn’t argue, Luz was right. She ran the risk of being captured like she was today.

“I don’t wanna wait at the Isles for you to come back for so long at a time,” she mumbled and Luz frowned, thinking.

There had to be something they could do.

A sudden thought struck her.

“I think I have an idea!” she grinned and Amity blinked.

When Eda came strolling back down the stairs with Hooty in tow Luz turned to her.

“Eda! I have a proposition for you!” she said, a toothy grin stretched across her face. Eda cocked a brow at the young woman; intrigued. She was a businesswoman afterall.

“Oh yeah? I’m listening…”

~ ~ ~

Luz bounced with barely contained energy as she stood next to Eda on the deck, the crew standing before them.

“Alright, all y'all listen up. We have a new crew member joining us, so if you’ll turn your attention to the starboard side…,” she trailed off and the confused looking crew did just that, only to find the mermaid they had captured, down in the water, looking up at them nervously and giving a tentative wave.

“Wait.. what?” Viney looked over at the captain, who grinned.

“Yup, you’re looking at our newest ‘deck’ hand.” she fingers quoted. “In charge of collecting all your medicinal water plants and all manner of things from the ocean floor,” Eda said, rolling around a handful of pearls Amity had brought up as proof of her usefulness.

“Welcome aboard!” Hooty grinned and waved enthusiastically down at her.

“Do… do you think he even realizes she’s a mermaid….?” Viney leaned over and whispered to Luz, who shrugged.

“Alright, now get back to work, we’re setting sail!” Eda called and once their surprised stupors had passed the crew jumped to attention, still murmuring amongst themselves about their newest crewmate.

Once they had dispersed, Luz threw down a rope and slid down to the water where Amity was waiting for her.

“So, ready to start life as a pirate?” she asked with a grin.

“I guess we’ll find out,” she smiled.

“You’ll be great! At night we’ll haul you up top, Hooty got a big barrel for you for now. Just till we figure something else out so you can be safe at night,” she said and Amity nodded.

“Luz, we're going!” King called down gruffly.

“I’m coming!” she called back before turning back to Amity. “I’ll see you later, okay?” she asked and Amity nodded. “Oh! One more thing,” Luz said.

“Wha-” Before she could even finish that sentence Luz darted forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. When she pulled back she was grinning, but the dark tint to her cheeks betrayed her, though she was pleased to see a similar splash of red coloring Amity’s cheeks. “Now I'll see you later.” She grinned.

“Luz!” Eda’s voice called from up top.

“Coming, I’m coming!” she called, shooting another look at Amity before climbing back up the rope.

#Lumity #the owl house #mythical creature #mermaid #pirate #fanfiction #TOH #Amity blight #Luz Noceda #Eda Clawthorne #Hooty #King #Viney #Jerbo #Morton #AU

65 notes · View notes

hatari-translations · 4 years

Text

CYBER - Finnðig (Find You) - transcript/translation

One more requested CYBER song for good measure. Content warning for violent/disturbing content.

Icelandic transcript

CYBER: Finnðig Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig Ég mun taka allt frá þér Finnðig Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig Ég mun taka allt frá þér

Skríð uppí of seint Ég ligg og breiði yfir Inni er kalt og hreint en úti er dimmt og friður Segi ekki neitt Ég borða baun og lifur Þú munt koma of seint Mun samt búta þig niður

(MALE VOCAL): Ég er fjörulalli, hálfur maður eins og jólasveinn Engar grýlur, þarf að hlaupa, veist ég róla einn Reyni að gera mann að stein', þarf að finna leið Finna manna seið, skessur færa manni feigð

CYBER: Það er engin leið að vera einn og gleyma sér Ég sé það alltaf fyrir mér, mér fallast hendur, ég er ég Þeir flugu í burtu, tek af þér, ég er fyrir menn og þú ert hér Læstar dyr á eftir þér, mun enda með að þóknast mér ei

CYBER/(MALE VOCAL): Finnðig (já) Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig Ég mun taka allt frá þér Finnðig Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig Ég mun taka allt frá þér

MCBLÆR/CYBER: Stopp, ég hef pottþétt séð þig í draumi, sæti Var það vont er þú hoppaðir niður á jörðina? Er ég lokkandi? Gott, má ég sjúga úr þér orkuna? Fokk, er það skrýtið? Búin að fá mér of mikið Sjáðu samt húðina á þér, vá, hún er blá Má ég slá hana, sjóða hana, flá af þér líkið?

Sorrý, ég er ekki voða vön að vera svona forward Vildi bara vita hvort ég mætti koma að horfa Horfa á þig festast, horfa á þig sofna, horfa á þig hverfa, horfa á þig dofna, horfa á þig engjast þegar beinin byrja að brotna, biðja mig um meira þegar kúpan klofnar

Finnðig (finn finn finn finn) Finnðig (finn) Fórstu nokkuð frá mér? Finnðig Ég finn lyktina af þér Finnðig Finn þig finna fyrir Finnðig

(MALE VOCAL): Fjöldsvikamylla sitja og tjilla svitapilla Frábært tequila(?) Finn eitt stef(?) Brenna lyktina(?) Lyktina Næturvakt, loftið rakt, ertu ekki að finn'etta? Spinn'etta Kóngulóarvefur Götu við(?), tek alltaf meira en ég get Dreymi hjartadrottningar er ég sef, grafir gref, brenni brýr Ástarbréf

CYBER: Finn, finn, finnðig Fórstu nokkuð frá mér? F-finnðig Ég finn lyktina af þér Finnðig Finn þig finna fyrir Finnðig Það mun taka yfir

CYBER/(MALE VOCAL): Finnðig Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig (já) Ég mun taka allt frá þér Finnðig Finn þig labba frá mér Finnðig (já) Ég mun taka allt frá þér Finnðig

Transcription notes

I was doing so well until that one verse. Goddamn it.

I've marked off Cyber's verses as well as MC Blær, who happens to have gone to school with me so I know her voice. However, I don't know Ljósvaki or Ty at all, so I can't tell who the male vocals are. Sorry!

English translation

CYBER: Feel you Feel you walk away from me Find you I'll take everything from you Feel you Feel you walk away from me Find you I'll take everything from you

Crawl into bed too late I lie and tuck in Inside it's cold and clean but outside it's dark and peaceful I say nothing I eat beans and liver You'll arrive too late I'll still cut you into pieces

(MALE VOCAL): I'm a shore laddie, half human like the Yule Lads No monsters, need to run, you know I walk alone Try to turn a man into stone, need to find a way find a human spell, trolls bring death to men

CYBER: There's no way to be alone and forget about the time I visualize it constantly, I throw my hands up, I am me They flew away, take from you, I like men and you're here Locked doors after you, will end up not giving in to me

CYBER/(MALE VOCAL): Feel you (yes) Feel you walk away from me Find you I'll take everything from you Feel you Feel you walk away from me Find you I'll take everything from you

MCBLÆR/CYBER: Stop, I bet I've seen you in a dream, sugar Did it hurt when you jumped to the ground? Am I enticing? Good, can I drain your energy? Fuck, is that weird? I've had too much Look at your skin, though, wow, it's blue Can I slap it, boil it, flay your corpse?

Sorry, I'm not used to being this forward I just wanted to know if I could come watch Watch you get stuck, watch you fall asleep, watch you disappear, watch you get numb, watch you writhe when your bones start breaking, beg me for more when your skull splits apart

Find you (find find find find) Find you (find) You didn't leave me, did you? Find you I can smell you Feel you Feel you suffering Find you

(MALE VOCAL): A large-scale scam Sitting and chilling A sweat pill Great tequila(?) Find one motif(?) Burn the smell(?) The smell Night shift, the air humid, can't you smell this? Spin it A spider web By the street(?), always take more than I can Dream of queens of hearts when I sleep dig graves, burn bridges Love letters

CYBER: Find, find, find you You didn't leave me, did you? F-find you I can smell you Feel you Feel you suffering Find you It'll take over

CYBER/(MALE VOCAL): Feel you Feel you walk away from me Find you (yes) I'll take everything from you Feel you Feel you walk away from me Find you (yes) I'll take everything from you Find you

Translation notes

A lot of this song is built around a double meaning: "Finnðig", a nonstandard contraction of "finn þig", can either mean "(I) find you" or "(I) feel you" (not in the English slang sense, obviously, but actually feeling you do something). Hence, the chorus has a lot of lines that use "finnðig", but I've translated them variously as "find you" or "feel you", depending on which meaning is being implied (with the assumption that the lines that are just "Finnðig" are going for whatever the following line suggests).

The first male vocal verse consists of a bunch of Icelandic folklore references:

First he claims to be a fjörulalli, or shore laddie, a sort of dog- or seal-like creature that prowls beaches.

Then he says he's half human like the Yule Lads; the Icelandic Yule Lads are often said to be half troll, half human.

The reference in the second line is kind of lost in translation, but originally it references a famous poem/song about giantess Grýla (mother of the Yule Lads), whose name is often used as a sort of general metaphorical term for an imaginary monster, similar to 'phantom' in English. That's the word I've translated as "monsters". He goes on to say "veist ég róla einn", using the word "róla", which means "walk" but is very rarely used in that sense today, because it's instead overwhelmingly used for swinging on a swing, the playground kind. He's definitely using this particular word here because it's in the well-known song about Grýla, in the line "gafst hún upp á rólunum" i.e. she gave up on the walking. This line confuses all modern Icelandic kids learning the song desperately, as it sounds like Grýla just gave up on the swings (and somehow died as a result).

The last two lines talk about trolls and turning to stone - trolls in Icelandic folklore would turn to stone if they were out when the sun came up.

#cyber #finnðig #lyrics #transcript #translation #icelandic #iceland

14 notes · View notes

a-lilacsong · 4 years

Text

Elena of Avalor Live text reaction: Giant Steps

I enjoy reading other people's posts where they watch episodes of shows and write reactions to things in the episode while they're still watching it. So I decided to make one for this new episode: Giant Steps.

Reaction starts under the cut (Spoilers for the episode since this is a reaction)

She needs a crew

Wait has she gone to Australia

Also I love that fish on the wall

To bad it wouldn't be able to sing most likely

Is that a wanted poster for the bat on the wall?

And it looks like she's selling Esteban’s hat as well

oooooh I think I feel a song coming on

also the letter text is so clear I could probably translate this

if I felt like it

Man, Elena is a fast writer

I really like the accordion in this song but so far it's been pretty casual

I don't know, I guess I was just expecting a big old villain song

What a cute parrot! Naomi should get a parrot

Oh that's a sword for a second I thought it could be a chainsaw

Don't mind him that's just casual Joe, casually showing off his casual sword to his casual friends Casually

Wow there's a lot of lens flares in this song, was it directed by JJ Abrams?

Maybe it's not even a big threat Naomi's coming to warn them about, maybe she's just going to come back to say hi at this point, she seems like she's really missing Elena

This is why she needs a crew, then she wouldn't be lonely

Having a good cry together?! All of the hurt comfort and angst fanfiction possibilities!

Oh look there's the not-Ash little girl

yes the Elena and Naomi feels are strong with this one

Ship does not rhyme with fate! this is the second time a line hasn't rhymed and it bugs me

And she's broke

Maybe she should have asked for some money along with a ship eh?

The Bat Wanted poster Is hilarious

And so starts her career as a bounty hunter

“So how much gold are you giving for his capture?” “heaps of it.” “But how much gold exactly?” “HEAPS. OF. IT.”

Yeah when you just draw bags of money on the poster it's probably a scam

Naomi unrolls the wanted poster, Me: *Gasps out loud* They all look so good!

I wonder if you captured those three along with the bat if they give you an extra gold for that or if they just only give you a reward for the bat

You probably wouldn't get any gold though cuz it's probably a scam

Sudden zoom in on the poster while there's a bell in the background like what

reminds me how they always always seem to do that during dramatic moments in Star Trek

What's in the bag a knife, a phaser, or is she just giving her the bag

Maybe a special knockout powder?

Oh cool it's one of those endless Space Bags

also what a cute red bird

This episodes giving lots of birds

But the Winged being I want to see most is Chatana

Oh look she sells harpoons! What does the store not have?

The necklace, of course she wants the necklace, I was thinking about was oddly noticeable with Naomi wearing two necklaces so of course she's going to have to give one away

Will she give it to her, Probably

Yep now she has the Magic Bag

And she got the take the wanted poster as well?! Wow !

It's not illegal to take down wanted posters?

Boy there is probably some kid out there who has fifty wanted posters just up decorating their room because they are very well drawn

I mean if I lived in that world and knew I couldn't get punished for it I would totally have a few of them up

Ash and Chatana just look so snug in their pictures, when why was Esteban just looks so innocent compared to them

Wait so ash gave Chatana the diadem off screen? okay...

I've been waiting months for this, yes, YES team Ash team Ash team Ash YES!

Now I finally get to see more of Chatana

I will finally get to see what her personality is really like yes

~~ but now I have to eat supper so intermission

Sarah give me spoilers Darn it ~~

Anyway

the bat can shape-shift!? wow I always thought that Esteban’s teleportation powers would take them to Vestrella but I was wrong

Of course they're seen immediately, probably because of Ash’s yelling

Wait if you Caught the Jaquin babies, what would you do with them Esteban?

He seems better at this villain stuff than I thought

Also both Ash and Chatana seem way too confident about this

I'm predicting it will be their Achilles heel

Bold of Mateo to assume that she would be looking for her friend instead of the villains

Probably spied on Naomi before

It seems Mateo's more Curious boy Then I thought he's willing to spy on someone if they're a friend

And she's right there, she probably ran past Armando and everyone else that's why they didn't get it notified of her arrival

Like she always does

Yay clumsy Mateo

And he didn't drop it!

No one expected you back this soon Naomi not even the audience

Lesbians lesbians lesbians

It's great other than the crippling loneliness

Mateo asks the kind of questions that I asked on tumblr ask blogs anonymously

“Ancient at least I thought she was ancient '' if she said that to Chatana’s face which you take it as a compliment or an insult I wonder?

Also continuity!

And of course she's only going to bring Gabe because he is the only guard She Knows by name

Sarcasm aside though I'm glad that these four will get to have another adventure together

They are the Ultimate Adventure team

Well Isabel is always welcome on it

But it is illegal for her to try to fight Esteban

Or Witness Elena seriously killing him

Wait is she going because she wants to be with Elena

Or to get the prize money

Probably both

I sure hope Elena doesn't feel betrayed if Naomi tries to get that prize money I mean she has to make a living somehow

Yes Elena, the team

It is the only team strong enough to defeat the evil team

Oh boy every time Chatana walks she looks like she's on a Runway! She is so poised and confident looking

Also it seems that they have gotten past that cloaking spell

And Esteban gets smacked in the face

They just love you using him for slapstick don't they?

I just love it how bat says casually that they're being watched

And Ash and Chatana flip out like they're about to be caught by the thought police

Okay, Esteban is hilarious

*Ash Eyeroll*

I wonder who has done more eye rolls in the series Ash or Esteban?

And she blocked it again, I guess it wears off over time?

SOME kind of cloaking spell!? it looks like the same one they were using before!

I sure hope Philly wasn't conscious with Chatana all those years

She CAN fly!

And we finally get to see her make a monster and it's so cool!!!

Spiders spiders everywhere!

Flying spider tornado!

Ash and Esteban’s reactions are valid

BABY spider Eagles! that changes everything

Now that means that they're really cute

I would still be distracted by them though

Esteban sass

Ash threats

If they weren't so evil they make a great sitcom team

~~~break to watch final episode of Pride and Prejudice with my family~~

Gabe makes yet another strategy which will be most likely ignored or never brought up again

Points for trying, Captain

Oh good, that’s just webs, thought it was something else for a moment

Down they go, too bad she can't use levaloop with that sceptre and they're going to have a hard Landing

Woo he didn't use levaloop he's learning new spells

Yay team Ash back views! I've been needing these for artistic purposes

Did Phili just spit fire Let me back that up

Wow I think he did

Awww, “Little one”

They must train together a lot, Ash just needs to give Esteban a look and he does what they need

That's the same unlocking spell as before

do the Maruveians only have one kind of lock spell

Also wait did Chatana teach that to Ash at some point?

Because she certainly didn't use that on the gate before to unlock Chatana...

Oh nice unlocking effects

some...BODY ONCE TOLD ME

MAMA <--May I also mention that my theory was right

Wait all of Chatana's creatures are locked up here?

I guess there are the Sunbird jars

True she was captured, (much better excuse than Pink Diamond’s)

And here is Esteban, the king of sucking up

In a way, Kizin Reminds me of Sarah

He Likes the tall funny man

Good recovery Esteban, you didn't make any snide comment that time

And now everyone else sucks up

Except Phili

Chatana smile

Kizin has other friends? AWW, he Just wants to help his friends!

Ash has done nothing other than that spell so far except yell and complain to others

And there goes a bat

We will probably get him later... or maybe we will just leave him

Oh look will team Avalor attack him immediately or will they try and reason with him first

If you needed more guards why didn't you just grab them in the first place

I know Migs and Skyler are Guardians but couldn't you have gotten another Guardian to go and get reinforcements?

Elena never planned ahead for things

Gabe the running LOL

So you're going to just attack him instead of reasoning with him? okay

I think that trip wire might be a little high Naomi

Wait Shouldn't Elena and Mateo wait on the other side of the tripwire so that they can surround Kizim just in case

Naomi tie the tripwire you won't be strong enough to hold it up yourself

Or maybe you will you are pretty strong

Hey look there's the bat

No Naomi, no Naomi no tie the rope Naomi, and then go after him

Tell Elena of your financial troubles don't risk it all

(to quote Ash:) foolish child....

Looks like the bats in the bag

Also why was he attacking ships in the first place, for the LOLs?

More Gabe running

*Sigh* should have tied it...

She hurt him he hurt her

Very good, Gabe protect

See Don't Use Magic on Kizim, use Magic on yourself

Oh yeah use the wizard to unlock the pots

And then an extra

You know it seems like every episode where Elena could do a lot more she gets injured and then another character has to save the day

It happened in the episode with the merman Prince

Naomi just sort of stands there and watches

Okay that scene is funnier in context than it is in the trailer

First aid! Someone actually knows how to do first aid!

Mateo disobeyed a plan and now Naomi disobeyed the plan

When will they learn that disobeying plans always leads to bad things

Sorry Princess I'm broke

And Too Proud to Beg

Okay, this is a complicated situation, on one hand Naomi is a big help in defeating villains on the other, why don't they just get a royal guard who is good with a lasso?

I mean there are definitely some personal emotions running here

But also it might have been better to wait to become a Captain until after the villains had been caught

I just think this might be both their faults

Although running out to the bat and not tying the Rope yeah

Little scared Mateo noise

I thought it was just going to run head-on into a wall

LOL if one man can't do it get the other guy to do it

Gabe with magic well that would be interesting…

Well yeah, he's normally there

Wait he's not going to attack Keatamos is he?

Gabe and Matteo wouldn't allow that

“Hello friends” awww

Uh-oh is right, that many shaking pots is never good

And now they're here to save the day

When you forget you have an injury

Although she Naomi should have felt the arm first to see how the sling should be set

He likes one cousin and dislikes the other

Wait magic wands are handed?

Don't worry that Blaze probably didn't hit the wood that's everywhere around here

How would releasing the bat help, I feel like he'd be on Kizim's side

Couldn't you have just caught him in the bag with the bat still inside

Actually no, the bat would get squished

Well Gabe, you are bringing the burn today

Esteban reacts to waiting for things the same way I do

Esteban knows he's the universe is punching bag

Ash facepalm

Chatana does care

And Phili never will

OOOOh Other allies!??!

It just seems like the Delgados inexplicably know about every different darkforce and possible magic thing there is

She is angsting, Naomi, Which she always does alone

Wow her arm is in a cast

Couldn't they just fix it with magic?

Does no one in this world know a healing spell?

Actually that wouldn't surprise me.

Get a room you two! Oh, you do have a room

now kiss

They love each other

You know you can hire your own ship crew at some point right?

I mean Captains classically command other crew members.

Wait is she coming back to the council

No Naomi don't ruin your life with politics!

Get out while you still can!

Wait, Naomi doesn't know she was replaced

Well it would be easier on Julio if he didn't have two jobs…

Which is the responsible thing to do

She lives to serve

Hugs

Every episode with Chatana so far has had Elena Naomi angst

That's the end of my reaction.

~~~~~

So here's my Mini review. Overall I liked the episode, sure the big conflicts could have been avoided if people actually talked with each other about their feelings first before the disasters, but that happens so often in TV shows I'm almost used to it. I loved seeing the villain force again (especially Chatana). Hopefully we will see them again soon. I wonder what job Naomi will get now, (Maybe being the minister of ships)?

#my post #my reaction #my live reaction #Elena of Avalor #Giant Steps #EOA #eoa spoilers

8 notes · View notes

marril96 · 6 years

Text

Mommy Issues

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Mary disapproves of Rowena’s relationship with reader.

Editor: @oswinthestrange

A/N: This story is inspired by the lovely stories written by @oswinthestrange: Caught in a Compromising Position, Conflict Rises, and Hollow Apologies.

Read on AO3.

Mary Winchester was livid.

Not only was her only daughter leaving only a day after Mary had returned from an alternate world — a world she'd spent nearly a year in — but she was also in a relationship with a witch. And not just any witch — out of all people, you had the audacity to fall for one of the most powerful witches alive, mother of former King of Hell himself.

You could have spat on her as well while you were at it. In Mary's mind, there was nothing worse for a hunter than to get involved with a monster they were supposed to kill. The fact that Rowena, in her current state, was the furthest thing from a monster meant very little to her. She was a witch, a wicked one at that, with enough blood on her hands to drown a city the size of New York. She was a thing, an it, an animal who needed to be put down.

Right.

Let someone try. You dared them. Let them try to lay a hand on Rowena. Let them even look at her wrong. You'd killed for her before. Doing so again wouldn't faze you. In fact, you'd sleep better knowing a threat had been eliminated.

Much to your mother's annoyance, you didn't give a damn what she thought. You were an adult, a grown woman who'd lived her whole life without her. You could make your own decisions.

Hell, even if you were a teenager, the woman before you would have had no right to order you around.

"You can't just leave!" Mary argued, throwing her arms up in exasperation.

"Watch me," you said. A few more shirts and pieces of underwear, and you were done; done with the stale air of this bunker, suffocating you with every breath you took, done with Dean criticizing your relationship every single day and Sam playing the mediator to keep the peace, done with hunting and death and disappointment. Done with your mother.

All you wanted was some peace. You weren't a bad hunter, but the life was never something you'd have chosen for yourself. Sam was okay with John practically disowning him. You weren't. Solitude would have killed you; with your less than stellar social skills, you never would have found friends to replace your family. So you stayed. Year after year, you kept telling yourself you'd quit, but you were never brave enough to actually do it. Where would you go? Who would you turn to? Having graduated high school with barely passing grades and so many absences you had to bullshit your way into justifying, and with no working experience (hunting monsters didn't count in the eyes of the law) or friends to help you with employment, you didn't have that many prospects. You never would have made it alone.

You had Rowena now. You had someone you loved, someone you trusted at your side; someone you knew would never turn her back on you no matter what obstacle you stumbled across. The first person you weren't blood-related to that you considered family.

You'd always had a love for magic. Witchcraft, though, was frowned upon in hunting communities, in hunting families. Witches were evil, everyone had said. Right. Of course. There was never any point in arguing, lest you wanted to be accused of being a traitor. Meeting Rowena had changed that. You'd finally gotten a chance to do something you loved, to be something you loved. Witch Y/N Winchester had quite a nice ring to it.

"What about your brothers?" Mary asked.

"Sam and Dean are big boys. They're more than capable to hunt without me." As they'd done a hundred times. You frowned at the empty drawer. "Rowena, did you see my scarf?"

"It's in my bag," Rowena answered from the other corner of the room, packing her own bag. Another thing mother dearest hadn't been the happiest about; her daughter, sharing a room a with a witch? Unacceptable! "You lent it to me last week, remember?"

"Right," you said.

Mary ignored the interaction. "And what about me?"

Four simple words, and they were enough to ignite a spark deep inside you. A wildfire of anger burned through you, spreading through your body like poison in your veins. Fingers balling into tight fists and teeth clenching, you whirled around to face your mother.

"What about you?" Some nerve she had to even ask that. "Are you serious?"

She had been the one to leave last year. She had been the one to join the British Men of Letters behind your and your brothers' backs. Had Sam and Dean not talked her into returning, she would have remained in the alternate world with her new family, sealed away from you for good.

"You almost stayed in that shithole world, and you're giving me grief for going on a road trip?!"

Mary had the decency to look ashamed. Just a tad, barely noticeable, but shame was shame. 'That's different."

Of course. Favorite line of parents all over the world. It was always different when they did it. "Why? Because I'm dating a witch?"

Rowena, having kept her head down throughout the argument to give the two of you some space, looked up at the mention of her. Her eyes traveled from you to Mary back and forth, curious, a tiny bit worried. You'd warned her about your mother not approving of the relationship; if Dean still had a hard time accepting it, Mary would be a hundred times worse.

Your mother sighed. "She's not good for you, Y/N."

"You don't know her," you argued. People always seemed ready to judge Rowena without bothering to get to know her. It was easier to hate her than to give her a chance to prove herself.

"I've heard about the things she's done."

"But you don't know her!"

"I know she's a witch, and she's got blood on her hands," Mary said.

"And I don't? You, Sam, Dean; none of you have any blood on yours?" If she wanted to judge Rowena, she had to judge herself and her children just as harshly. There wasn't a thing Rowena had done that one of you hadn't. All of you were killers. All of you had spilled innocent blood. Let he or she who was without sin cast the first stone.

"None of us have done half the things she has," Mary argued.

"Bullshit!"

At the very least, Rowena had never attempted to participate in genocide. Something that couldn't be said for your brothers and mother.

"She's leading you down a dangerous path!" Mary said.

"She's changed!" you said. Rowena had redeemed herself, and you would never tire of saying it out loud. Not until people got it in their thick heads. Your girl wasn't a wicked witch anymore.

Mary gave you a dirty look. "If that was true, she wouldn't have tried to drag you into her… practices." She spat the word 'practices' as if it was dirty, as if the mere thought of witchcraft made her stomach churn with disgust.

Rowena shot her a glare as deadly and sharp as a knife, the kind that had to have killed before. "If you knew your daughter at all, you would know she's always had a fondness for magic." She'd promised to be on her best behavior, but enough was enough. You'd asked her to be nice, to not start anything, and she'd done a splendid job. Whatever followed, Mary had brought on herself.

Keeping the peace was important, but you'd never ask your girlfriend to bow her head like a dog in the face of insults — even if those insults were thrown by the members of your family. She deserved respect, as a person, as a woman, as your girlfriend. Dean had learned that, sort of, and so would Mary. And if she refused… Well, it wouldn't be the first time that you'd cut a toxic person out of your life.

"This doesn't involve you!" Mary said.

"It does when you bash me and my craft!" Rowena shot back.

"Your craft?" Mary scoffed. "You make it sound like an art."

"It is an art. A beautiful, fine one not many have natural talent for." She gave you a look of pride, of admiration. No one had ever given you that look before. "Y/N was born for it."

Marty's features twisted into a look one made when they smelled something disgusting. "My daughter was born human!" she insisted, and looked ready to fight to prove her words.

"What are witches, if not human?" Rowena asked, though she knew what the answer would be. Nothing else could be expected from a bigot.

"Monsters! You're monsters!" Mary said. "I'm not letting you turn my daughter into one!"

"Don't talk to her like that!" you barked. Rowena was a lot of things, but she wasn't a monster. Not anymore.

Your mother turned to you. "Can't you see she's manipulating you, Y/N? Maybe she even cast a spell on you!"

You shook her head. "She didn't do anything." You took a deep breath. "I want this. I've always wanted it."

"You didn't!"

How would she know? She'd been dead for over thirty years, and when she'd come back to life, the first thing she did was run away. She didn't know you. Rowena did. Rowena knew you to your core, to the bottom of your soul. She never judged you, never looked at you wrong. Even when you were enemies, not once had she said a bad thing about you. She respected your decisions. She loved you as you were, and didn't try — or want, for that matter — to change a thing about you.

Something that couldn't be said for your mother.

She may have given birth to you, but she wasn't your family. Not really. Rowena, on the other hand, was.

The realization made your stomach twist with unease. Your own mother, and she knew you — wanted to know you — less than the woman who used to be your enemy.

"How would you know? You were dead!" you said. The reminder hurt; your entire life all you wished for was your mother. If only you'd known what she was really like. Your father had made her out to be a saint. Maybe she was, once upon a time. Or maybe John had fed you lies. It wouldn't have been the worst thing he'd done as a parent. You took a deep breath. "And when you came back, you ran away! Not once did you try to get to know me!"

Mary sighed, a look of hurt passing over her face. From a certain angle it might have looked like guilt. Might have.

Tears pickled at your eyes, but you held them back. You wouldn't break in front of her. You wouldn't let her see you at your weakest, at your most vulnerable. You could be strong for just a little more, until you and Rowena were safe and, most important of all, alone in your tiny car, ready to start the next chapter of your lives.

"I want this, mom," you said after a few moments of silence, giving her time for your words to sink in. "I want to be a witch."

"How can you want that?" Mary asked, tone as anguished as the look that settled on her face. She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand.

You shrugged. "I just do. It's my decision. Respect it."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

The words stung. "If you really loved me, you would." A real mother would.

"I love you and your brothers more than anything in the world."

"As long as we're obedient little soldiers, right?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she said, stare pointed, expression firm.

"Right." A slight chuckle escaped you, memories of your childhood flooding your mind. "You're just like dad. I thought you were different, but turns out, you're just like him."

He, too, put his wishes above yours. His love, just like Mary's, it seemed, was conditional. You either lived by his rules, or not at all. His word was law. He knew best. He knew you better than you knew yourself. He knew what you wanted, what you needed and dreamed and aspired to. He knew it all.

Right.

Sam had made the right decision when he'd decided to get out.

And so had you.

"John made mistakes—" Mary tried, but you cut her off.

"I don't give a damn about him and his 'mistakes!'" you exclaimed, forming quotation marks with your fingers to emphasize the last word. "And…" You took a large, deep breath for courage. Your eyes trailed downwards, then met hers once more, strong, determined. "If you can't accept this, then I don't give a damn about you, either."

Mary gulped. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I love Rowena, and I want to be a witch." Rowena gave you a proud, encouraging smile. You responded with a small smile of your own. "I love you, mom, but… I love her more. I love me more. I'm done letting other people make decisions for me. This is my life."

"You can't be serious," Mary said, startled by your words.

"Deadly," you said. It was honesty hour. You were done playing good, obedient little girl.

"I'm your family!"

"Rowena is my family, as well." A more loving, supporting family than your blood one.

"She'll stab you in the back the first chance she gets!"

That wasn't her anymore. Rowena had changed. She still had a long way to go, but she was working on her redemption.

"She won't," you said. "She's changed."

"You're willing to bet your life on that?"

"I am." Because you knew there was no threat. Your life was safe in Rowena's hands. Safer than it would have been in Mary's.

"Despite everything she's done?"

"Despite everything." Checking to make sure you packed everything, you zipped up your bag, then took hold of Rowena's hand and squeezed tightly.

"You're a fool," Mary said.

You shrugged. "Says you."

"You're throwing your life away."

"Quite the contrary; my life is only just beginning."

"And what about our lives? Are we just supposed to accept losing one of our own?"

"You're not losing me, mom. We can talk on the phone every day, if you want."

"But it won't be you." A tear slid down Mary's cheek. "It-it will be a witch."

"Witch or not, I'll still be me," you pointed out. It wasn't like your soul would disappear and a demon would take its place in your body. You would be you; with a few magical abilities and an allergy to iron added to the mix, but still you. You would still be that baby your mother held when you were little, still that little girl she used to dance with in the kitchen while preparing dinner.

Mary shook her head, adamant, defiant. "You won't. Once you dabble in magic, there's no going back."

"Maybe I don't want to go back," you told her.

"You have to make a choice, then." She looked at you, eyes wounded, hurt, as if the entire world's grief and sorrow settled in them. She looked to be on the verge of falling apart. "Us or her."

Your eyes widened, shock spreading over your face like a splash of paint. "What?"

Mary swallowed, then cleared her throat. "Your family or the witch. You can't have it both ways, Y/N."

Your family or the witch.

She wanted you to choose.

Your own mother, who supposedly loved you more than life itself, had given you an ultimatum.

You knew it was a possibility, but never, in your wildest dreams, have you thought she would actually do it.

Rowena loved you as you were.

Mary loved the idea of you.

Rowena accepted your flaws.

Mary made up flaws where there weren't any.

Rowena encouraged you to follow your dreams.

Mary wanted you to suppress your dreams if they happened to not align with hers.

Rowena knew your favorite songs, books, movies, and TV shows by heart, even though your interests greatly differed from hers.

Mary could list two cartoons and one song you liked when you were a child.

Rowena answered when you called in need, and held you when you cried, and did everything in her power to get you back on your feet.

Mary had been too busy planning genocide with the British Men of Letters to even answer a text message.

Rowena, despite centuries of building walls and hiding her emotions, had opened up and allowed you to see her as she was. She was terrified; terrified of betrayal, of being taken advantage of, for that was all she'd ever known. And still, she let you in, let you get to know her, let herself love you even though it went against all the principles she'd held for centuries.

Mary had wanted to stay in a war-torn world with a bunch of strangers, principles over family.

With Rowena you had a future.

Mary, on the other hand, brought nothing but pain and disappointment into your life.

Mary may have brought you into this world, but she didn't understand you. Rowena did. And when she didn't understand, she did her best to try. Because she loved you. She wanted to know everything about you, about your life, about you most beautiful dreams and worst fears. She wanted to know it all.

Mary didn't even pretend to try. She was convinced she knew better, convinced she knew you despite never even bothering to get to know you.

Your grip on Rowena's hand tightened, half instinct and half intent. Ignoring the hammer-like pounding of your heart and steadying your breathing to get the words out without stumbling, you said. "That's an easy choice to make."

You and Rowena grabbed your bags and, looking around the room one last time to make sure you packed everything of importance, you left.

You left the bunker.

You left the memories, good and bad, behind, hoping to never revisit them again.

You left your life.

You left your family.

You left your mother.

As soon as you were in your car, far away from nosy eyes and ears, you collapsed into Rowena's arms and cried. You cried and wailed and sobbed, let everything aching and bad out, emptied your heart of all the pain that had gathered inside it. Rowena held you to her, hands gently tapping your back, words of comfort slipping from her lips in tender, soothing whispers.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked when you calmed down.

Pulling away from the embrace, you straightened up in your seat. Tears had finally stopped flowing, their remnants drying on your puffed up cheeks. You looked at Rowena, and the truth of the words you were about to say pooled in your eyes before you managed to utter a single one. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Rowena beamed. You smiled, bright as a sunshine. Starting the car, you drove out of the garage, onto the open road, on your way to a brand new life. The life you'd always wanted, with the woman you loved the most in the whole wide world.

Tags: Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @darktweet @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @royalrowena @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @dropsofpetrichor @fromflametofire @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @elaspn @cas-loves-dean-and-i-love-him @faeyla @hotdiggitydammit @1-800multifandom @darkhumorsblog

#rowena #rowena macleod #rowena x reader #spn #supernatural #mary winchester #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #my fics #mommy issues

223 notes · View notes

theairportau · 5 years

Text

the airport AU, part 128 by rjdaae and hopsjollyhigh

Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 101, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10 111, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

ERIK

“Speciell,” Erik mutters, and a short, dry laugh escapes him before he has the sense to muffle it. He frowns to himself- he doesn’t want her to think that he’s laughing at her, or revoking his own words. He mumbles his explanation carefully as he turns around at the piano bench, picking the words without complete certainty.

“Folk har gett mig många namn,” he explains. “Speciell är en ny.”

It is only natural that she would return the sentiment, but it still picks at him- the thought that they could be anything alike. She is decidedly unlike him. He has been called so many things over time, none of which he could imagine anyone calling her. Lunatic. Heartless. Hideous. Overall- a monster. And none of them have been wrong- would she think the same thing, if she knew? Would she be standing in his basement, calling him special if she could see the scope of his crimes? It’s a dark and spiraling path to go down, and in the middle of a lesson, he tries to put it out of his mind, but he feels unsteady, sick with the feeling that he is lying to her- letting her believe in something that he is not. He sets his hands on the keys, but doesn’t depress them- just looks down at his own hands, momentarily paralyzed as two parts of his mind grapple for dominance. He wants to play the teacher, to pretend that his momentary loss of focus was nothing but a passing distraction, but the black vacuum of darker things pulls at him even down here, in this space dominated by music. This hasn’t happened during a lesson. He has kept himself composed and professional, at least as long as they’re down here practicing.

All because of a compliment.

But that just confirms his deception, doesn’t it- that she would consider him anything like her. Not that special necessarily means alike, but there had been clear admiration in the way she spoke. She has complimented him before, but something in this moment draws a mantle of enormous guilt around him, and his mind feels suddenly like a too-full cup, threatening to spill over the edges at the slightest movement.

He finally presses down on the keys, moving in on a thirty-second snippet of what composition comes to mind, a rhapsody by Brahms, an attempt to push himself in the right direction before things veer wildly off course. The final note he plays does not suggest completion; the tension of an unfinished piece hangs in the air as he moves his hands away from the keyboard, and lets them fall to his sides on the piano bench. He shuts his eyes for a moment, remembers what Khan tells him to do- inhales for a few moments, and sighs the breath out.

“Jag är ledsen,” he says, his voice low and controlled. “Nous devrions continuer.”

---

CHRISTINE

His scornful huff springs back at Christine like a switch of willow; she flinches at its sting, her steps halting imperceptibly as moves to the side of the piano. It isn’t the first time she’s tried to compliment him, though—not the first time he’s recoiled from her slightest word of praise: she understands his reaction, understands why Erik would have cause to doubt her words, even without the explanation that he offers in his next breath.

If he had never told her *anything* about his life—if her knowledge had begun and ended at a pair of adjacent airport gates—there are inferences that she would still have been able to make.

While her life has been thoroughly sheltered in comparison, it only took starting school for Christine to learn what casual cruelty people can show to those they see as different; her own entirely-average looks hadn’t protected her from regular taunts about her lack of friends, or her dialect, or her secondhand clothes. And that was only dealing with *children*.

Even if Erik’s face had been…normal…it doesn’t take much for her to imagine the hissed whispers that would have volleyed behind the counter had he ever walked into the little store where she worked back home. Haggardly thin; dressed all in black; wan and quiet and threateningly tall—she herself had been leery of him that first night they met. The sight would have been enough for the other girls to stop their tittering for a few minutes, silently willing him to make his purchases quickly and then sharing an anxious laugh between themselves once he was gone.

It’s altogether worse to imagine the addition of a mask—the kinds of dark suspicions that its wearer would garner, whether in a shop or on the street. The mask, on its own, is a testament to the harsh words and glances that Erik must have faced from others, just as it is a reminder of how remarkable his trust for *her* is.

She wants to believe, that on learning the truth, the scorn of strangers would fade into apology. Wouldn’t they *have* to be relieved, grateful, to know what was really under the mask? What disfigurement could ever be as terrible as the other possibilities that might drive a man to hide his face?

But even if they showed that momentary trace of decency, how many people would choose to remain in Erik’s company afterward?

How many of them would have started whispering again the moment they believed him to be safely out of earshot?

How many of them would he have overheard anyway?

Christine doesn’t have to imagine the kinds of ‘names’ that he is referring to—doesn’t *want* to.

And she has gathered enough by now to know that people often *haven’t* treated him with decency.

How difficult would it be to believe in kindness after a lifetime of the opposite?

Erik stares down at the keys, his eyes shaded by the mask, and she wonders, were his face bare, would she be able to see the cruel words reflected there; the thought makes her unaccountably anxious.

She could give him all the praise in the world, try her hardest to replace those that haunt him—but would even her kindest words carry enough weight to outweigh her own unease about his face?

From perfect stillness, Erik’s hands suddenly leap into motion, like a machine suddenly stalling to life. Startled from her thoughts, Christine is reeled back in just as quickly, captivated as always by the chance to see Erik play—but it only takes a few seconds of watching him for the surprise to wear off; for her to notice how different this is from how he’d played before. There’s a hard quality to the music, as if he weren’t really hearing it, despite hitting every note perfectly. She can only watch, unsure of whether she should be concerned—almost relieved when he abruptly pulls his hands away from the keys, the discordant thud of the bottom ‘A’ suddenly damped into silence.

He speaks before she is able to pull her own words together, offering the latest in their on-going series of apologies—and the plea to move on that she herself so desperately wished for only a few minutes ago.

She should just accept it, she knows: take the opportunity to put these moments of awkwardness behind them, and get back to her lesson—back to singing, and the chance of hearing *his* music.

She should leave well enough alone.

But as his hands had crossed over the keyboard, tracing out the Brahms melody, his sleeves had slid down around his wrists again.

And even if she isn’t as good of a friend as she wishes she was, she *is* the one that Erik wants to be here.

And even if she can’t make him accept the smallest compliment, if she can’t make him believe, if nothing else, that he’s special to *her*—it doesn’t mean that she should pretend that he *isn’t*.

It doesn’t mean that she should turn away from her friend when he’s upset; when there’s a chance that she might be able to comfort him.

She nods at his words, resuming her position at the side of the bench, straightening her back as if to sing again; really, it feels more like she’s bracing herself. Then, before Erik is able to lift his hands back to the keyboard, she speaks—her tone muted in an attempt to sound casual, belied by the gentle tentativeness with which she voices each word:

“’Hirondelle’ är ny för mig… Det är bra.”

---

ERIK

Erik frowns, and nods at her words. A seething frustration coils around inside him- her words serve only to let him linger on the darkness that he has just barely been managing to stave off. Anger at the situation, at himself- but anger nonetheless, and his hand curls into a fist for a moment, tightening as if to contain the tempest inside him and trembling for a moment before releasing again, hovering over the keys of the piano.

“Oui,” he mutters, “mais c’est vrai.” There is a bitter edge to his voice, something that he intends more for himself than for her, but which bleeds out in his words anyway, calculated and ice cold, far more coldness than he intends to direct at her. He looks pointedly at the keyboard, muscles tight in his back, refusing to turn and face her. He reminds himself, shutting his eyes momentarily- she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how far his crimes go- he recalls her reaction to the drugs, and his heart tightens. She had been upset enough at that, at the lies he’d told- she can’t possibly know how much worse things are.

For once, he is grateful for the language barrier that reins in his tongue. He can’t rave at her as he might at Khan; he must take time to think before speaking in terms that she can understand, and it only takes a moment’s consideration to recognize that she is not the one that his grief and anger are pointed at. He breathes and focuses on turning it back in on himself, eyes closing for a moment. Channeling it back in isn’t a productive means of dealing with anything, either, but he would rather cope with the familiarity of self-loathing than snap at her again. The guilt of it moves through him like honey in his veins, but he can’t apologize- not without making the situation more awkward than he’s already made it. He repeats himself, his voice dull and quiet now, tinged with shame.

“Nous devrions continuer.”

His focus on music, however, is slipping. He’ll be able to play- he is always able to play- but he can hear the blood rushing in his ears, louder than anything else in the basement. Still, he needs to try to teach her, even when his hands don’t feel like his own, when his body feels more and more like an automaton as he caves in on himself, burying every outburst and confession that threatens to surface, leaving him lightheaded and disconnected. When his mind races, it seems that the world around him is moving so slow, and he feels like an onlooker, staring at his own rigid posture, his own dazed and glossy eyes. Khan has told him before to anchor himself in moments like these, but he doesn’t know how else to take the darkness away in this moment. Even his vision feels hazy; it’s better like this, though- better the slow fog than the misplaced sharpness he had addressed her with just moments ago.

---

CHRISTINE

Words curdle at the back of her throat, her mouth souring as she bites back the urge to reply to his sharp dismissal. If she could just *talk* properly, answer him in a language that he would understand—find the right things to *say* that would make him understand.

He’s *wrong*. Whatever he thinks of himself, it doesn’t change how *she* feels; doesn’t undo the good that he has brought into her life. If he would just *see*…

She blinks, and feels a tear roll past her nose. It dries quickly on her hot face, but even if it hadn’t, Erik would have missed it—fixated on the keyboard as rigidly as if he were an antique clockwork figure. Even as he continues to studiously ignore her, though, Christine’s attention remains on him, searching for some kind of understanding of her own.

Oblivious to her observation, Erik’s eyes close, just for a moment—but even in those short seconds, even through the constraining frame of the mask, there’s a clear anguish betrayed in their creases. Distressed though she still is, Christine’s frustration thaws at the sight—her eyes threatening to tear up anew at the sheer *unfairness* of it all.

Surely, after a life of such pain and struggle, the least a person deserved was a few kind words? Yet the world had determined that even *that* small comfort should be taken from him.

He repeats his earlier entreaty, his voice flattened in a way that makes her heart ache—that makes her want to step forward and wrap her arms around those tense, bowed shoulders, the way she would want someone to do for *her*. But there are *so many* things that she has taken for granted in her life that he has hardly begun to perceive or understand; what good could it do to try to counter one with another?

For now, her friend has made a simple request—and a request that for something that *she* had wanted herself; for something, *music*, that more than perhaps anything else, carries the hope of relief. What can she do but acquiesce?

“Okej, Erik,” she concedes softly, trying to hold back any trace of pity from her voice. “Nous continuer. Ça va.”

---

ERIK

There should be relief in going back to the music, but Erik’s thoughts are disjointed. He takes a long moment, staring at the keyboard- his mind is elsewhere, traversing memories that flicker by too fast to recognize, a little animation booklet all out of order. He feels sick without knowing why, and regrets having eaten so much in so little time earlier, with Khan sitting across the table.

“En gång till,” he says hoarsely, flipping back to what they had just been doing- the song. Knowing the accompaniment now, she should sing it again. He can get a better idea of where she is- or, he should be able to- if not for the blood rushing in his ears, he would be able to. He is playing before he’s even aware that his hands are moving, like an automaton built to repeat one song over, and over, until some part of some gear breaks, and leaves the entire machine in disrepair.

The notes he plays are correct. His neck is aligned, and fingers arched over the keyboard in a textbook example of posture. All of that is instinctive. He knows the piano like others know sleep, and it is not a complicated piece. But it is hollow. The technicalities are all there, but it may as well be coming from a machine- flat and lifeless, absolutely uninspired. It is little more than going through the motions, and he feels a flare of frustration in his mind as he tries to focus on what Christine is doing- it’s like she’s singing underwater. Not even music is giving him the respite that he needs; he can’t even identify what particular thought keeps him from functioning now, with a whirlwind in his mind. He tries to be subtle about giving his head a shake, trying to throw himself back into reality, but it only makes him feel dizzier. He realizes that, at some point, he must have started breathing through his mouth; light as the fabric of his mask is, he can’t seem to fill his lungs through his nose. He feels cold sweat beading on the back of his neck and, unknowingly, begins to push the tempo, the music getting faster as his hands move of their own volition. He should be able to do this. And despite the distance that he has established from himself, he begins to feel the pressure, like a physical weight pushing down on him- he’s doing badly, and he knows, but there are shadows on the edges of his vision, and if he doesn’t allow every ounce of mental energy he has to go towards restraining them, he feels that they’ll descend upon him and Christine both, desecrating this space forever.

---

CHRISTINE

Even after her concession, the much-needed return to their lesson, it’s obvious that Erik is still on-edge. It’s there in the stiff set of his shoulders as he raises his hands to the keyboard again; in the croak of his usually-beautiful voice; the way his gaze settles on the music book as if staring *through* its pages, his attention gripped by some point far from the song, or her, or the small basement room. Christine swallows against the tension in her own throat, straightening her spine one moment only to deliberately slouch in the next, attempting to *relax*, trying to just trust that, once he’s playing again, once she’s singing, everything will go back to the way it *should* be.

The music starts—a bit suddenly, but pitch-perfect as ever—jarring any other thoughts from her head. She’d said that she could do better if she could try again: as she begins her second attempt at the song, she’s determined to prove it.

It had been an unexpected fluke, the surge of emotion that had bubbled up and overwhelmed her before. This time, she doesn’t let her focus drift; doesn’t let her own experiences muddy the glittering spring of the peasant girl’s guileless optimism. The song is supposed to be *cheerful*, she reminds herself with every breath: cheerful, and humorous, and light. In this moment, there is only space for Zerlina; whatever *Christine* might think or feel—and whatever reassurance Erik had given to the contrary—the shallow gaiety of the song was never meant to accommodate anything so…complicated. Certainly nothing worthy of *tears*.

If only she hadn’t lost sight of that in the first place, the lesson would probably never have gotten so terribly off-track; that thought drives her forward, her deeper feelings locked away, her tone artificially bright, like a flower forced to bloom under greenhouse lights.

The sound of the piano is sharp in her awareness, an anchor to the present moment and to the pretty mood that she’s trying to capture; Christine pushes herself to match it, echoing each bright syllable with a growing frenetic-ness. It isn’t until she pauses to take a breath, only for the piano to leave her behind entirely, that she realises that the tempo itself has actually sped up considerably. And it continues, even in the absence of her voice.

Any thought of Zerlina falls away, the music muffled in Christine’s ears as her gaze shoots towards Erik, whose hands fly across the keys, thundering across the next phrase as if playing for himself alone. The clash of the huge instrument drowns out any quieter noises, but as she looks at him now she can *see* the labored way that his back heaves with each breath, his eyes still staring beyond the piano, lacking anything resembling focus as he plows through another measure without her.

Something isn’t right, and her only thought is to try to snap him out of it; her hand darts up to nudge Erik’s shoulder, instinct moving more quickly than any other consideration.

---

ERIK

Once a spiral like this begins, there is little hope of snapping out of it. Erik has been through all of this before- the edges of his vision fogging, and his mind splitting from the present, slipping down a path of memories that he has done everything in his power to suppress. They don’t often come in a linear, full-fledged fashion. It’s a series of sensations- for the moment, the copper taste of blood on his tongue begins to overwhelm him. His hands continue moving of their own accord, accustomed enough to playing that they can almost operate independently of him, and his eyes go hazy as he tries to pull up the reason for it. He can only barely picture silhouettes, but there is the pressure something pushing on the inside of his cheek- a razor’s edge, pushing just hard enough to draw blood that drips down his chin, and he can’t make a sound for terror, for the knowledge that they will ravage his ruined face more, they will rip a hole through his cheek if he makes a sound-

and a hand touches his shoulder from behind. He stands before he knows what he’s doing, whips around with his back up against the keyboard of the piano, as if her hand had delivered some electric shock. It feels that way- his hair stands on end, his muscles tense and eyes wild as the gradual stretching of reality around him snaps back like a rubber band. It takes a few moments of staring for the world to piece itself back together. Christine. Their lesson. Something as simple, something as stupid as a misplaced compliment, resulting in all of this. He would be furious with himself, if not for the residual adrenaline and terror coursing through him. His pulse pounds in his ears; he feels lightheaded, and despite the reality around him, he still feels as though he can’t talk. As if blood will spill out if he opens his mouth again to speak.

He leans forward enough to reach around her and take the tablet from the music stand. For once, their language barrier is a mercy. He has an excuse to type rather than talk, and even as his fingers tremble, he knows it’s easier to type than it would be to try and speak to her. Deep in him, past the fear that dictates his movements, a yawning well of shame threatens to suck everything in. This should all be so easy. These sensory flashbacks, like waking nightmares, never wait for a convenient time to manifest, and it takes so little to set one in motion. And so much to snap out of it.

“You really deserve a functional person as a teacher,” he writes. “I am so sorry. None of this is your fault. This has happened for years. I lose track of myself. I just need a few moments.”

He hands the tablet over to Christine and steps away from the piano, out from behind the music bench, to pace around in what little space in the room isn’t occupied by the enormous instrument. The adrenaline still courses like electricity in his blood.He is hyper-aware of every small movement, every tiny sound in the room. It hurts his head, and he closes his eyes; even what little light comes in the basement seems absolutely blinding, and his fists are clenched tight, arms held to his body in a vain effort to stop their trembling. The taste of copper still won’t go away, lingering and festering on his tongue, a reminder and a mockery. It’s like his lungs are being squeezed; still, he tries to breathe through his nose, through the mask. He still can’t bring himself to open his mouth.

---

CHRISTINE

She’s always been on the short side, but rarely has she felt so small.

Her words had failed her, her touch, even music. All she’d wanted was to help—but, even if Erik is right, if his current state isn’t *her fault*, it’s obvious that nothing she tried has made it any *better*.

The tablet is returned to the piano without reply, Christine’s hands trembling slightly as she winds her arms around herself, out of harm’s way. She feels the jog of her rib-cage as her breath catches, and she stifles it before it can grow into a sob: her tears have caused enough trouble already.

Her voice is painfully quiet when she finally speaks, drained of anything beyond the simplest ability to answer:

“O–okej, Erik.”

Utterly downcast, she turns from her friend, making her way to the single chair wedged into the corner of the basement; the only thing she has left to give him is space.

---

(Part 129)

#/airport au

6 notes · View notes

noquirk-a · 6 years

Text

anyway this post is 4 future references….but……………………to further emphasize on how i take the au, izu/ku isn’t entirely villainous, what more what he wants is ACTUALLY for the good and i’ve said that countless of times. his ‘killing’ isn’t entirely just killing itself, but rather acleansing as he calls it, similar to stain’s ways except it’squirks in general rather than ‘ false heroes ‘ ( as he theorizes that MORE false heroes will be molded if quirks continue to prevail. ) or be it the great flood. he doesn’t necessarily want to resort to murder, and is trying to find a way to erase quirks through some sort of poison or something that humans can intake to erase those genetics, suppose induce some minor drawbacks but not entirely KILLING them. he doesn’t…. necessarily want to kill, he just wants to kill quirks.

and he doesn’t just hate ‘heroes!’ ( also, he doesn’t hateheroes in general, izu/ku is STILL the hero - loving boy we all know and that’s something about his character we can’t erase. he’s still deeply fascinated about these ‘’heroes’’ and is also a key aspect on why he enjoys his work, he just HATES the label society seems to paint on this. it’s tainted so far to the point that even the NUMBER ONE HERO HIMSELF BELIEVES IN IT. ( even if toshi himself did admit in canon that he was wrong, but ofc he never got to hear this. tho even so all mig/ht doesn’t speak for everyone else and almosteveryone would define heroes the same way ) and that label being a magnificent, powerful QUIRK - USING savior. which, once again, is why most people belittle the quirkless population bc they’re seen as something that could barely help the society that’s built around these days; that they’re only capable of simple jobs and thus erases whatever they wish to become, ESPECIALLY heroes. ) he despises the villains as well. i can’t even properly call himvillain sometimes though it is the closest thing because i can’t call him a vigilante either. he hates the villains for quirks as well BUT the fact that they’re abusing their power and using it for their own selfish wants. ironically, he’s doing the same, but his ideology differs from them and the root of his problem isn’t just some selfish deed to him, he sees it more for everyone.

his thoughts of wrath/revenge perfectly fall into his plan too, specifically abt katsu and toshi; and to him it’s killing two birds with one stone which a) quenches the need to sate his anger that’s been fueling inside of him for so long b) is also included in his project of erasing quirks! the reason why he’s so violent throughout his executions though issupposedly because of his repressed anger issues, or wanting to ‘fight back for himself’ unlike before though far more turbulent.

the… reason for his major personality shift from his canon is due to his belief that it was kindness that hurt him in the first place and let him tumble down. he’s been far too forgiving that he’s only hurt himself in the end and he doesn’t want to feel that way anymore. not only that, all of these problems were risen despite being quirkless and that seemed to be the main root of all his problems, knowing so it’s not just HIM who’s been through this, is going through this, and will go through this.

his character is supposed to do a) prove everyone the fuck wrong, on how quirkless peers aren’t just some ‘victims’ to everyone’s problems: if anything, they can be something FEARED like himself or someone who can be a hero which was the path he failed to choose. iz/uku wants to prove that the discrimination for his kind shouldn’t even exist in the first place, and further more that if they’re able to do so they’re actually far more BETTER than quirk users as they don’t rely everything on their stupid power. b) bring back what was once peace. there is already enough discrimination, inequality and whatnot throughout the world, and adding another layer of this wouldn’t help at all; he also believes that quirks only add fuel to the chaos that the world already burns with, that it isn’t making hunting villains/criminals so much better because the damn criminals mostly have quirks TOO and it just makes the world more … chaotic than before, where more blood is shed because human beings are manifested with these abilities that make their attacks and manners of defense more bloody than before. it wasn’t just guns and knives and whatsoever before; it’s variety of these things that come from their BODY and often it’s way more damaging than what mere objects can do. iz/uku wants to resort the world back to what it once used to be, since in the beginning of the series it’s mentioned that there was INDEED a world without quirks and everything seemed fine. this just made things worse.

not all men are created equal, and some power that for some reason not everyone can have only amplifies that statement.

is he entirely happy with this, though? no the fuck he isn’t.sometimes he regrets what he’s become and most of the time he asks himself what the fuck has he lead himself into. iz/uku is in no doubt a sweet, loving character and he’s just molded himself into a monster despite all the knives thrown on him. if anything, he still wants to become a hero so, so bad and even considers himself one because he’s ‘’doing the best not only for the quirkless population, but everyone else’’. his motives aren’t entirely villainous or so he thinks, he sees it as something that’s still heroic even if it’s bloody and that’s his biggest mistake.

he would…never admit to it, though, nor will he give up because he’s come far too gone and backing down would just waste all of this, and his pride has actually gotten higher which may be a trait he adapted from kat/suki. ( which would be another post ^_^ ) there are instances where this might break though, which would result in either an angry cry or defeated one. sometimes his only idea of ‘saving him’ is actually killing him.

tldr : izu/ku, in the end of his villainous escapade, barely sees himself as a villain but plays the role of it. he sees himself wearing that clothing but is actually doing something heroic for the world. everything he does isn’t for himself or for mere wrath, it’s for the best of the world because he believes quirks only made humanity worse

#long post #here‚ i’ll tell the tale on how your wings burnt.#I DELTED THE ORIGINAL ONE BY ACCIDENT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH O HMY GOD #THANK FUCKING GODI RECOVERED IT..#p sure tho i missed some parts but w/e LOL

31 notes · View notes

takerfoxx · 7 years

Text

Walpurgis Nights 5: Part 3

Homulilly surfaced, her head breaking through the gently surging surface of the water. She looked around, checking her position. Good, she was still close to where the cliffs met the beach. Taking a deep breath out of reflex, she dove down again.

The others were swimming around this way and that, checking out the local aquatic wildlife. Candeloro and Charlotte were hanging together, slowly moving over clusters of anemones and searching for the most colorful specimens. Oktavia and Gretchen were near where Homulilly had surfaced, inspecting a school of fish with silver scales and lines of purple streaks.

The ocean around Freehaven had been everything Oktavia had promised. Though not as lively or colorful as the tropical reef represented in the Ocean Enchantment ride, it had more than its fair share of wonders. Oktavia took a certain amount of pride in showing off the types of crustaceans and where to find them, from scuttling crabs to large, lumbering lobsters. They saw large beds of oysters, not the pearl creating kind unfortunately, but still impressive in their size. They saw numerous fish, some small and darting while others were the size of Homulilly’s leg. And of course, Oktavia knew the name of each and every one, from the ones native to earth to the ones that had wandered in from other territories to a few new species resulting from interstellar crossbreeding.

“Over here!” Oktavia called. She really was specifically suited for the ocean, as her gills meant that any sort of breathing device was unnecessary and her tail made her especially fast. Also, for some inexplicable reason, her voice wasn’t muffled by the water. A little distorted, sure, but Homulilly had no trouble understanding her. Homulilly and Gretchen swam over to where she was indicating.

A small grove of some kind of kelp was growing. The roots were dark blue that brightened to lime green in the middle before turning to a yellow so bright that it was kind of hard to look when they reached the top. The leaves were long and broad, and several arms stuck out from the green part that ended with round balls. The balls were apparently buoyant, as they floated up around the stalks, holding the arms up.

“Vitrel kelp,” Oktavia explained. “They’re from the same planet as the botuntikos and the nask, but they grow just fine here. See those floating ball things? They use those to support the stalks so that they can keep growing and growing. When you get real deep out, they can grow hundreds of meters tall. Heck, back on their home planet, they have whole forests of these things that get as tall as a mountain!”

Homulilly thought back to the underwater world she had seen back during their trip on the Magic of the Universe ride and how deep its ocean was. That was impressively high all right.

Oktavia continued to show them around. She showed them anemones and the fish that lived within them. She showed them a family a sea turtles lazily making their way past the shore, though she had to physically restrain Gretchen from swimming over to touch them when they saw several baby turtles in the group. And she showed them where an ancient wreck had been discovered, one so old that it had been completely consumed by coral, so that only its general shape remained.

“Apparently it belonged to some merchants who were coming to Freehaven to trade, way back in its early days,” Oktavia explained. “Nothing left inside it, unfortunately. The sea and scavengers stripped it clean long before the coral got it.” She gestured out into the open ocean, where the water grew deeper and its possessions became stranger. “Out there, there’s a few newer wrecks that still have things worth finding. I’ve found a couple, though it’s usually just tools and fishing gear. Maybe someday I’ll take you to see them.”

After a while of looking at fish Homulilly surfaced again. She was a bit further from shore than before, but fortunately not by much.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Homulilly turned to see that Gretchen had also come up for a bit. “It is,” Homulilly said. “It’s too bad that Ophelia is so scared of the water. She’d like all the exploring and…” Then she frowned. “Er, Gretchen-chan? What are you doing?”

Gretchen’s bobbing head was moving through the water in a very odd fashion that didn’t seem to indicate swimming at all. Whatever it was, she seemed to be having a difficult time with it, plus it was making her grimace for some reason. “Ooo, eee, ooh,” she said, her face twisting with each syllable. “Well, I figured that now would be a good time to try out that leg stretching thing, and…”

Homulilly’s eyes boggled. “You’re walking on the bottom?”

“It’s harder than it looks,” Gretchen said as she gingerly tried to move toward her. “My legs are real thin, and I don’t have any feet, so moving forward is…tough. And oh, I keep stepping in things!”

Homulilly stuck her head down just long enough to confirm that yes, Gretchen’s legs were now stretching all the way to the ocean floor, giving her the appearance of some kind of extraterrestrial horror, albeit a very cute one.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Homulilly said.

“Probably not,” Gretchen admitted. “And it’s-” Then her eyes went wide. “Ugh! I stepped in something squishy! Okay, legs come back, legs come back!”

Chuckling, Homulilly went back down again. She wanted to see if there was anything interesting down in the trench.

It took a while to reach the bottom, but when she got there she was disappointed to find that it was mostly just sea grass and more fish. She would have liked to have seen an octopus or two.

Then, as she turned a corner, she found herself staring at the mouth of a dark cave.

It was large enough for two people to swim in with ease, and seemed to go pretty far back. No doubt if there was anything interesting to find, it would be in there.

But as Homulilly gazed into the yawning entrance, she found herself growing uneasy. It was so dark inside that she wouldn’t be able to see where she was going. Maybe there were sharks in these waters, and they were just hiding deep inside the cave. That, or angry eels, looking to take a bite out of the first unwary soul to wander by. Or maybe spiny urchins with venomous quills. Or maybe she would just hit her head on a rock. Besides, the others would probably yell at her for wandering off.

No, no, no. Her curiosity was going to have to remain unsatisfied. No doubt if there was anything cool in there, Oktavia would have found it by now. Backing off, Homulilly turned and swam away, toward where the trench opened up to the wide ocean floor.

Then Homulilly’s breath caught in her throat.

A long, slender appendage had appeared, slinking out from behind the rocks. It was as thick as a pencil and as flexible as one of Gretchen’s legs. However, it clearly did not belong to something like an octopus or a squid or anything else that one might expect to find in those depths. For one, it completely lacked the suction cups that they all seemed to possess, resembling more a worm than any earthly tentacle. For another, it was glowing with a ghostly white luminescence, one that cast eerie shadows in the darkness of the trench. Black lines danced down its length like electric pulses, moving toward its unseen body.

Whatever it was, it made Homulilly cringe back. She had no idea what this new, weird thing was, but she was sure that she wanted nothing to do with it. Perhaps her Japanese heritage was to blame, giving her a natural revulsion to anything alien with tentacles.

The appendage continued creeping out, probing the bottom of the ocean inquisitively. Homulilly wondered if perhaps it was just a worm, some kind of extraterrestrial arthropod that had wandered into Freehaven’s waters.

But then a second one appeared, just over the first. Then a third. Then three more, flailing and writhing about. Okay yeah, these definitely were not worms. A monster was there, something far worse than any shark, something bizarre and alien that had no business being there.

Homulilly didn’t have the slightest clue what she was looking at, she just knew that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. It was time to go, to put as much space between her and…whatever it was as possible.

Unfortunately, what followed next could best be described as a perfect cavalcade of “If only.”

If only Gretchen had not chosen that exact moment to go see what her girlfriend was so focused on.

If only Gretchen had not, upon seeing the monster for herself, instinctively jerked back in alarm.

If only there had not been a stone shelf jutting out of the wall right behind her head.

If only she had not, for whatever reason, removed her breathing membrane.

If only striking the back on her head had not caused her to reflexively inhale a mouthful of water.

If only seeing her girlfriend slump lifelessly had not caused Homulilly to panic and, instead of grabbing her and heading straight up for the surface like she should have, instead grabbed her and swam deeper into the trench as fast as she could.

If only she had not, for whatever reason, headed straight into the underwater cave and kept right on going, seeking a place to hide from the monster.

If only any one of these things had not happened, for if they had not, everyone might have been spared a great deal of trouble and worry.

But they did.

…

Homulilly’s head broke the water with a gasp. She fumbled blindly around in the dark, praying that her hand wasn’t going to fall onto anything predatory or poisonous. Fortunately, her bony fingers touched a wet, slick, but animal-free rock shelf. She shoved Gretchen’s limp form up onto it before hauling herself up as well.

She ripped the breathing membrane from her face and pulled off her goggles. A couple of breaths confirmed that yes, the air was breathable. Salty and kind of smelly, but breathable. She groped around the shelf. Okay, okay, didn’t seem like anything was up there with them. In fact, from the feel of things, it might be larger than a shelf. In fact, she might have come across a full-on cavern, one large enough to accommodate the pair. Furthermore, she had not encountered any hungry sharks, biting eels, stinging jellyfish, sharp anemones, or anything nasty on their way in. That was the good news.

The bad news was that to get there, Homulilly had to blindly panic her way through what felt like an endless nightmare labyrinth of pitch-black tunnels, meaning that they were lost and alone far beneath the ocean, far from their friends, far from the surface, with no light or anything that might help them. And to top it all off, Gretchen wasn’t moving.

“Gretchen?” Homulilly said, reaching around with her shaking hands until they found Gretchen’s shoulders. She shook her, hoping to wake her up. “Gretchen? Gretchen!”

No answer.

Homulilly felt like she was about to lose her mind. Gretchen wasn’t moving. Her membrane was gone, so she had probably inhaled a lot of water.

Ophelia’s words came stabbing into Homulilly’s mind with the cold precision of a blade. “It was like being held underwater. I tried to pull myself out, but when you can’t even breathe, it ain’t gonna happen, so everything went black.”

Gretchen had drowned. The water had gotten into her soul vapors and was going to drown her over and over and over. It didn’t matter how many times she came back, she would do so in agony. And unlike Ophelia, there was no one around to help her.

No!

Homulilly started pounding on her chest. “Wake up!” she cried. “Wake up! Wake up!”

That did nothing. Unfortunately, being in a world where death was an inconvenience and serious injury being anything but, proper CPR procedures had been omitted from her education.

But Homulilly wasn’t about to give up. Hoisting Gretchen’s body up, she flipped her around and sat her in her lap. Then, wrapping her arms around her and clasping her hands against Gretchen’s stomach, she shoved up and in.

Her technique left much to be desired, but her strength was more than enough to make for it. She heard Gretchen gasp, followed by a violent retching as water exploded from her mouth. Homulilly all but collapsed with relief.

Gretchen doubled over as she coughed up the water in her system while Homulilly rubbed her back. As joyful as she was over her success, Homulilly still found herself wondering why the water hadn’t dampened Gretchen’s soul like it had with Ophelia. Did it have something to do with the way it was absorbed?

Well, whatever. It didn’t matter. What did was that Gretchen was all right, more or less. Finally she managed to cough it all out. From there, she flopped back into Homulilly’s arms and just laid there, shivering.

“Lilly-chan?” she said hoarsely.

“I’m here,” Homulilly responded.

“Wha…What happened?”

Homulilly took a deep breath of the nasty air. Then, collecting her wits the best she could, she told Gretchen the unfortunate series of events that had led to their current predicament.

“A monster?” Gretchen said. “I…I don’t remember that.”

“A scary one,” Homulilly told her. “With glowing tentacles and these black lights running down them.”

“Oh wow,” Gretchen said with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. “Now I’m glad I don’t remember. The last thing we need is a tentacle monster. You know, since we’re Japanese.”

Homulilly sighed. “You’ve been talking to Ophelia too much. Besides, you have tentacles.”

“They’re not the same thing!”

They sat in silence for a bit, trembling in the dark. Then Homulilly said, “Gretchen, what happened to your air membrane?”

“Oh,” Gretchen sighed. “It’s stupid. But I was thinking. You know, since we just found out that I can stretch my legs and never knew that before that I might be able to do other things too. So I saw Tavi-chan swimming around and breathing underwater and wanted to see if maybe I could too.”

There was a significant pause. Then Homulilly said, “Tavi-chan has gills.”

“Yeah. Like I said, it was stupid. I was just about to put it back on when I saw you. Then everyone got all black. I must’ve dropped it when I hit my head.” Homulilly felt Gretchen’s head slump forward. “I’m an idiot.”

“No. No, you’re not,” Homulilly said firmly.

“You’re sweet. But it was pretty dumb.”

“Well, a little,” Homulilly admitted. “But you couldn’t have known that there was a monster out there.”

“It was still dumb.”

Again they sat and waited, the only sound being their breathing and water dripping into the pool. The shivering grew worse.

“Do you think the monster’s gone?” Gretchen finally said.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it got the others.”

Homulilly shook her head. “Not them. They’re too tough.”

“Yeah. But we’re not, I guess.”

Homulilly didn’t have a response for that.

Then, so suddenly that it made Gretchen squeak with alarm, Homulilly swung her legs around and slipped off the shelf into the water. The coldness of the water made her stomach clench.

“Where are you going?” Gretchen said.

“I’m just going to see if the monster’s still there,” Homulilly told her. “I’ll be right back.”

“Lilly-chan, no,” Gretchen said, sounding terrified.

“I’ll be okay,” Homulilly assured her, though she secretly wondered if that was true. She reached up and found Gretchen’s hand. Giving it a squeeze, she said, “Don’t worry. Just rest. I’ll be fine.”

With that, she slapped her membrane back into place and sank down.

It only took a moment for Homulilly to realize that her plan had a major flaw. When she had come into the cave, she had been so focused on getting away from the monster that she hadn’t paid much heed to where she was going, and had simply swam forward as fast as she could until she had found somewhere to surface. But going back was going to prove to be difficult.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, and with no light it was a terrifying experience. Homulilly had to feel her way by hand, and more than one placed her bony palm down on something squishy or slimy. Fortunately, nothing stung or bit her, but her imagination had no trouble in conjuring any number of dark, scuttling creatures crouching mere centimeters from her hand.

Just keep going forward, she told herself. Just keep going forward. She had come in more-or-less in a straight line, so if she went out in the same manner she should be able to find the exit.

However, when she had gone a fair amount of the distance, she was struck by a terrible thought: how was she going to find her way back? She had left Gretchen alone in a dark hole far beneath the ocean, and if the tunnel proved to be part of a network, all it would take was one wrong turn and she would never find her.

Homulilly almost went back then. Better they be lost together than separately, and the thought of Gretchen scared and alone in the dark made her feel terrible for leaving her.

However, before she had made up her mind to turn back, she rounded a corner and saw light.

For a brief moment she thought that she had finally found the way out. But no, it wasn’t the dim glow of sunlight filtered through water, but rather a bright, harsh glare, like that from a flashlight. Furthermore, as her eyes adjusted, she saw that it wasn’t round like one would expect from the cave entrance, but rather longish and-

-and it was moving.

It was all Homulilly could do not to start hyperventilating. The monster was there, prowling the tunnel, feeling its way forward with its many tendrils. It didn’t seem to have noticed her, but if it came much closer than it undoubtedly would.

Homulilly hastily turned and swam back the other way, careful to move slowly as to not disturb the water too much.

If the way forward had been bad, the way back was a nightmare. Every moment Homulilly was convinced that the tunnel would branch off into a side-path that she would take by accident, that she would encounter something just as nasty as the monster. Gritting her teeth behind the membrane, she pressed on, this time following the ceiling with her hand. There seemed less a chance of accidentally disturbing anything that way, and more of a chance of finding the surface of the pool.

She might have finally despaired of ever finding the way when her fingers broke the water. She all but leapt up into the air and was rewarded by the sweet sound of Gretchen gasping with surprise.

Once Gretchen was reassured that it was actually her and not the monster coming for its supper, she helped Homulilly back onto the shelf.

“It’s no use,” Homulilly said through chattering teeth once she had got the membrane off. “The monster’s in the tunnels now. I think it’s looking for us.”

She heard Gretchen sniffle. “What are we going to do then?”

“I don’t know. Hope it doesn’t find us and they send out a proper rescue party, I guess.”

Gretchen let out a small whimper. Knowing exactly how she felt, Homulilly reached out and gently drew her into her lap and hugged her close. From there they sat and waited.

It was impossible to tell how much time was passing. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes passed as slowly as hours, and Freehaven itself would probably end up long abandoned by the time an actual hour passed. In truth, they sat silently for only five minutes, but considering the circumstances they could be forgiven for thinking that it was longer.

“I’m cold,” Gretchen said at last.

“Me too.” Actually, Homulilly was practically freezing. The waters around Freehaven were always pretty warm, but they were far down enough for that warmth to have a hard time reaching them, especially within the depths of the cave. And both of them were wearing practically nothing.

Then Gretchen started to shifting around, turning in Homulilly’s lap so that they were facing each other, her wire legs tickling Homulilly’s stomach through the thin fabric of her swimsuit as they passed. She encircled Homulilly’s middle with her arms and hugged her tight, laying her head against her neck.

Homulilly responded, drawing her own arms in tighter around Gretchen. As a way to keep warm, the improvement was marginal. But in other areas it was exceedingly better.

Still, Gretchen’s trembling grew worse, and soon her small body was violently shaking in Homulilly’s arms.

“Gretchen?” Homulilly said, worried that something new was wrong.

“S-S-Sorry,” Gretchen said. Though Homulilly couldn’t see a thing, she could imagine Gretchen’s sheepish smile easily enough. “I’m j-j-just so sc-scared. Big coward, huh?”

“No,” Homulilly said, shaking her head. Gretchen’s salt-water slicked locks brushed against her cheek. “Never. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“N-No I’m not. I’m s-s-so scared I can b-barely move, b-b-but you j-j-jumped right in to go find that monster!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not scared too,” Homulilly said. “Besides, you’re always the one to help me try new things and talk to people. You make it seem so easy.”

“It is easy! I mean, c-comp-p-pared to this at least! I could never have done something like that! You’re way braver than I ever could be, so don’t beat yourself up like-”

Then Gretchen cut herself off. “Oh, forget this,” she muttered. Homulilly was about to ask her what she meant, but the question was both blocked and answered when Gretchen suddenly pressed into her, tilting her head up to touch her lips to Homulilly’s.

The kiss tasted salty, but was not at all unpleasant, and Homulilly found herself responding without thinking about it. They held it for a bit, their mouths softly moving against each other, before Gretchen pulled away with a pleased sigh.

“Gretchen?” Homulilly said.

Gretchen left out a soft chuckle. “W-Well,” she said. “Might as well! I mean, we’re stuck here until someone finds us, so…”

Homulilly wasn’t too sure about that logic. It…probably wasn’t the time for this sort of thing, and it certainly wasn’t the place. But darn it, they were stuck there either way, and she needed something to take her mind off the fear. Besides, she had been staring at Gretchen in a bikini all day, and now her body was aching for some kind of release.

They kissed again, deeper this time, with more fire and hunger than they usually allowed themselves. Homulilly felt Gretchen’s legs creeping up to encircle her waist, thighs, and midriff, binding them closely together

Gretchen tasted sweet, so sweet that even the salt went unnoticed. She moved in deeper against Homulilly, this time without hesitation or restraint, their mouths pressing greedily against one another.

The next thing Homulilly knew, she was lying flat on her back with Gretchen on top of her. Groaning, she arched into her, her fingers roving over Gretchen’s back, slipping up under the elastic band of her top.

Suddenly the whole cavern was flooded with light, biting into Homulilly and Gretchen’s eyes, causing them to fall back with twin cries of pain and surprise. At the same time, a familiar voice said in a relieved tone. “There you are! How in the heck did you-Oh. Oh!”

Blinking stupidly, Homulilly squinted as the light was moved just enough so that it was no longer shining directly into her eyes. And though her vision was still blurry, she was able to make out the mess of blue framing a staring face.

“Ok-Oktavia?” she stammered.

The mermaid was floating in the pool, her top half fully surfaced while she shone a flashlight bracelet onto the pair. “Well,” she said. “Huh. Gotta admit, much as I hoped to find you, this ain’t exactly what I was expecting.”

For a moment Homulilly didn’t have a clue as to what she was talking about. Then her mind put the pieces together and her face turned bright pink. She exchanged a mortified look with Gretchen and the two of them hastily put their swimsuits back in place.

“Guys?” Oktavia said, sounding more than a little put out. “Can you please tell me that you didn’t disappear into a tiny underwater cave without telling anyone, scare us half to death, and break pretty much every promise you made just to screw around like a couple of horny sea lions? Because if you did, I swear to God-”

“It wasn’t!” Homulilly blurted out. “There was a monster and it scared us and Gretchen hit her head and drowned and I took her here to hide and she wouldn’t wake up and we couldn’t leave so we started kissing because we were scared and didn’t know what else to do and oh God please don’t tell the FIB and get us in trouble, please!”

“Whoa, whoa, hit the freaking brakes!” Oktavia said. “The heck? Gretchen drowned? And there was a monster? What?”

Homulilly inhaled deeply through her nose and breathed it out of her mouth. Her fingers found Gretchen’s and, clasping each other’s hands tightly, they slowly and carefully recounted their misadventure for Gretchen, from when Homulilly first saw the monster to Gretchen’s near-death experience and finding themselves trapped. Overall, they did fairly well, until they got to the part with the kiss. Then their story faltered and came to an awkward stop, but that was okay. Oktavia definitely got the gist.

“A monster,” she repeated. “A tentacle monster. That glows.”

“Yes!” Homulilly said. She felt like she was about to cry. “You…didn’t see it? It was right outside!”

“Oh boy,” Oktavia breathed, burying her face in her free hand. “This is…” She shook her head. “Guys, relax. There’s no monster.”

“But there is! We saw it!”

“I know you did. But, uh, this is just a big misunderstanding. See-”

Then the waters around Oktavia suddenly lit up from below. Homulilly and Gretchen both froze in place, paralyzed with fear as the luminous tentacles of the monster emerged from the water, right behind Oktavia. “Ah…” Homulilly said, her voice coming out as a squeak.

More tentacles appeared, grasping onto the walls and low roof of the cavern, finally pulling up the monster’s body from the surface of the water. It was a round ball of light, where the black pulses from its many tentacles converged together into its core, forming a repeating reverse starburst. The thing had no other discernable features. And from its body, a buzzing, almost mechanical voice spoke. “Did you find them? Oh, you did!”

Homulilly screamed. Gretchen screamed. Their voices bounced back and forth through the cavern, echoing into a deafening roar. Oktavia flinched and covered her ears, while even the monster drew back in surprise.

Finally the girls’ voices gave out, and they were left cringing back, pressing themselves against the wall. “Oktavia,” Homulilly whispered. “It’s right there. It’s right there!”

Oktavia was still trying to shake off the auditory assault on her ears. “Good grief,” she muttered, rubbing her temples.

“Uh, did I miss something?” the monster said.

“Apparently. Guys, calm down already. She’s not a monster.”

“I’m not a what?”

“She?” Homulilly said, now feeling more puzzled than afraid.

Sighing, Oktavia gestured to the glowing, tentacled creature. “Guys, this is Dr. Antercateract. She’s the oceanographer and marine biologist I told you about. Dr. Antercateract, this is Homulilly and Kriemhild Gretchen.”

“Er, nice to meet you?” said Dr. Antercateract, still sounding very bewildered. “Oktavia, what’s this all about?”

“Apparently they saw you swimming around and thought you were some kind of sea monster,” Oktavia told her. “So they panicked and ended up in this cave.” There was pause, and then she added, “Don’t take it personally. They’ve only been here about a year and a half, and Freehaven doesn’t get many nonhumans.”

“What?” Gretchen said, now just as confused as anyone not named Oktavia.

“She’s one of the kotoss interdrent,” Oktavia explained. “Specifically a kotoss witch. That’s why her body does that LED thing.”

Homulilly felt quite beside herself. “Oh,” she said.

“Oh,” Dr. Antercateract echoed. “So that’s…” Her luminous body started to shake, and she made a rasping sound like rusty factory machinery. Laughter. She was laughing. “Ah, sorry about that, girls. Oktavia was going to give me a tour of the local waters the day after tomorrow, but since I had the afternoon free I figured I might as well get a head start. Didn’t mean to scare you.” The rasping laughter got louder.

Homulilly opened her mouth to say something, but then all the fear, worry, and embarrassment suddenly came to the surface and spilled over, and she burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. It had all been for nothing. They had been so scared, and it was all for nothing.

Apparently Gretchen felt the same, as she was set off as well, and soon the two were weeping openly.

“Aw, damn it,” Oktavia muttered. “Er, hey, doc? Maybe you’d better give us a minute. Let the others know we found them and that we’ll be along soon, okay?”

“Of course. Sorry again. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Dr. Antercateract sank back into the water, her glow fading away until the only light was from Oktavia’s bracelet.

Sighing, Oktavia hoisted herself onto the shelf and crawled over so that she was sitting with the two younger girls. “Okay, okay,” she said, hugging them close. “Calm down. It’s all right. It’s over. You’re okay. It’s over.”

Homulilly shook her head. “It’s not just that,” she mumbled. “All this time…all this time I got worried and scared and people would call me a monster because of my arms. But I see just one alien witch, just one, and I treat her worse than I ever thought people would treat me!”

“Come on, cheer up. It happens to everyone. There’s so much weird in this world that everybody gets freaks out by someone sooner or later. Heck, the day me and the other three met, we all scared each other! So it’s not like you’re the only one.”

“Yeah, but…but…” Then Homulilly started crying again, burying her face into Oktavia’s shoulder.

“All right, you’re okay,” Oktavia said, giving her a tight squeeze. “You just had a bad scare, is all. Don’t worry, Dr. Antercateract wasn’t offended. And you won’t get in trouble, I promise. But for now, let’s get out of this creepy place, okay?”

“Okay,” Homulilly muttered.

“Oh, wait,” Gretchen said suddenly. “Er, Tavi-chan? I sort of lost my breathing membrane. I dropped it before we came in here and don’t know where it is.”

“That? Don’t worry, I have it. Found it right outside the cave. That’s what tipped me off that you might be in here.”

“Thank you,” Gretchen said, sounding relieved that she wouldn’t have to hold her breath the whole way out.

“All right,” Oktavia said, giving them both a pat on their shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get back to the others.”

That sounded good to everyone, so Homulilly and Gretchen both donned their swimming gear and headed over to the water. Before they did, Gretchen ventured with, “Um, Tavi-chan?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you…You know, the thing you caught us doing? Could you not tell the others, please?”

Oktavia snickered. “Sure, no problem. But on one condition though: you guys have to wait until you get home before picking up where you left off.”

…

As expected, both Candeloro and Charlotte were pretty upset with them for disappearing, but their relief dulled any anger they might have had, and Oktavia’s explanation turned what was left into pity, so things were all right.

At any rate, nobody felt like exploring the water anymore, so they all headed back to land. Homulilly had never been so glad to step out onto the beach before, though her wobbly legs made it difficult. Poor Gretchen needed to be half carried, as her wires just didn’t have the strength to support her.

It was evening when they came back onto the beach, but it was still pretty crowded, since most of those intending to stick around for the entire day had come in from the water and were now huddled around the firepits, in which blazed a few dozen bonfires. They found Ophelia around one with the same girls they had played volleyball with, toasting hotdogs and marshmallows while chatting away. As it turned out, she had a grand ol’ time by herself, having participated in a couple of dance-offs and earned herself a few new scantily clad fans. However, as much as she apparently appreciated the attention, she had kept her hands to herself, saving them for when Oktavia was finally brought to her, whom she accepted gladly. Upon seeing the pair snuggling happily together, Ophelia’s would-be groupies were disappointed but accepting. After all, how could they hope to compete with a mermaid?

At any rate, upon being told of the kids’ little misadventure, Ophelia had at least enough grace not to rub it in, save for a few disparaging comments about the ocean’s obvious wickedness, and had even provided a fair amount of sympathy. But it was clear that she was trying very hard to hold back laughter. No mention was made of Gretchen having nearly drowned, though Oktavia did at one point mention that they did need to tell the FIB about that. Near death experiences were not something to be left undealt with. Gretchen seemed okay, but she promised that she would, and they left it at that.

As for Homulilly and Gretchen, they were pretty much done with the beach but were also just far too worn out to tackle the uphill trip back up to the FIB, so they put their clothes back on and slumped into their chairs next to the fire, taking in what warmth they could. Charlotte helpfully cooked them a pair of hotdogs and Ophelia made them some s’mores, while their volleyball friends provided a cooler full of soda and water bottles. After absorbing the warmth for a bit and filling their stomachs, the kids started to feel almost normal.

“Don’t worry too much about the FIB,” Candeloro said once Gretchen had regained enough strength to broach the question. “They’re a little overprotective sometimes, but they get it. It was just a misunderstanding, and you guys have a pretty clean record.”

“You’re not going to get in trouble, are you?” Homulilly wanted to know.

“We might get a talking to about keeping a better eye on their wards, but don’t sweat it.” Candeloro smiled. “We used to get way worse from them back when we were still new.”

Homulilly settled back into her chair, watching the fire. All around it, people she knew well and had only just met were talking, teasing, laughing, and overall having a good time. Someone had started playing a guitar, and badly at that, but no one cared. She wished that she were in a better condition to enjoy it with them, but overall she was just glad that she could enjoy it at all. Misunderstanding or not, that had been the second scariest moment in her existence as Homulilly, with the first being the day she had first woken up. Presumably, in her former life she had endured things much worse and better off forgotten.

However, curiously enough, her thoughts soon drifted away from the fright she had experienced and the prospect of getting in trouble with the FIB. She wasn’t even thinking about her old fear of being judged and hated because of her appearance. Rather, her thoughts were on home, and what was going to happen when they got there.

She looked over to Candeloro and Charlotte, who were sitting side-by-side, entwined like before. Candeloro was laughing at something Charlotte had said, and then leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek. Homulilly smiled.

Then she looked over to Ophelia and Oktavia, who likewise were in the same position as they had been during their nap, only having traded places. Oktavia was leaning back in Ophelia’s lap, and the two were making a game of who could sneak a s’more into the other’s mouth. In the end, Oktavia got the better of her girlfriend, and stuffed a gooey treat into Ophelia’s mouth, though it didn’t seem as if she were displeased in losing. This seemed to annoy Cheese, who started nipping at the crumbs on Ophelia’s cheek. He was given an apple slice to shut him up.

There was a lot of opposites going on in their little group, Homulilly noted. Charlotte was more fiery, blunt, and forthcoming, while Candeloro had a calm and patient personality. And while both Oktavia and Ophelia were brash and mischievous, one had her heart given to the sea while the other refused to leave the land. Taking it further, Candeloro and Charlotte’s marriage was comfortable and steady, while Ophelia and Oktavia were all about passion and fun.

Then she looked over to Gretchen, who was lying back into her chair with her eyes closed, lightly dozing in the warmth. The two of them had their own way of doing things, Homulilly thought, but it was no less real. Maybe that was another reason that they all got along so well, even without the theory of some sort of shared past and spiritual connection. There was no judgement between them. Everyone did their own thing in their own way and happily accepted each other in their differences.

Then she felt something tickling her leg. Looking down, she saw that a few of Gretchen’s legs had crept over to gently wrap around her calf. Then Gretchen’s eye cracked open just long enough to shoot Homulilly an affectionate glance before she settled back down again.

Smiling, Gretchen reached over with one bony hand to cover Gretchen’s own. Their way might be different from the others but she liked it just fine. However, she did feel that things were starting to move forward again. A door had been opened in the cave, one that led to a fast and exciting future. They could close it if they wanted, write things off to the stress of the situation and return to their comfortable routine.

However, Homulilly didn’t really care for that. She liked what she saw past that threshold. And she really had been trying to be more daring as of late.

…

Later that evening…

Homulilly emerged sopping wet from the shower, the salt all washed away, and her tiger-lily was now tingling from shampoo instead of seawater. It was a noticeable improvement.

She grabbed a towel and wiped herself down, then she carefully dried out her hair. She was about to pick up the clean clothes she had brought with her when she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the sink.

It was strange to think of now, but she had always been so self-conscious about her arms that she never gave much thought to the rest of her. And Gretchen, the only person in the world whom Homulilly would want to look nice for, had always been so accepting that it never really occurred to her to go the extra mile to make herself look pretty.

But now she found herself very concerned about her appearance and not the least about her arms. Biting her lower lip, she considered her reflection for a bit. Then she picked up a hairbrush and went to work straightening every strand. Her hand trembled as she did so, making it take longer than it would have. After that she carefully fixed up her tiger-lily’s petals. She even put a little makeup on her cheeks, though even she knew that it was unnecessary and a little silly.

Then she looked at herself again. She put her hands on her hips and thrust her pelvis forward, trying to strike what she thought was a seductive pose, but it looked so dumb that she dissolved into giggles. It was so very silly, and between that and the butterflies swarming in her stomach she could not for the life of her wipe the big, goofy grin from her face. Well, it was probably for the best.

Taking a deep breath, she tightly wrapped the towel around her body, just under her armpits, and tucked it into place. Then, with her heartbeat thundering away in her chest, she reached out with one trembling hand to open the door.

Gretchen in the exact same position she had been that morning, lying on her stomach reading the same magazine on her bed. Her legs were even splayed out exactly like before. However, having showered and changed first, she was wearing her pale green nightie instead of her bikini, the one that always rode a little high on her hips. As Homulilly entered the room, she instinctively glanced in her direction with a smile.

Then she saw Homulilly’s state of dress (or rather, undress), and her eyes went wide.

“Oh,” she said, hastily sitting up. “Uh, did you forget your clothes?”

Homulilly wondered how to respond. Several dozen steamy and romantic one-liners shot through her mind, each of them lamer than the last. Finally realizing absolutely no way she was going to be smooth about this, she finally decided to say nothing. Instead, she reached up to give the top of her towel a tug, causing it to unravel around her.

The towel fell to the floor into a heap around her ankles.

Gretchen froze in place, the color of her face now matching her hair. But however surprised as she might have been, the look in her eyes was far from displeased. Taking this as an encouragement, Homulilly slowly made her way toward her. This time, there was none of the sultry walk down the imaginary catwalk she and Gretchen had playfully acted out that morning. It was just her, and that was enough.

Gretchen’s breath quickened as Homulilly sat down on the bed next to her. As for Homulilly, she was now painfully self-aware, though not of her body. Rather, she was realizing that she had no idea what to do now: where to put her arms, where to put her legs now that she was sitting down, where to put her hair, how to proceed, and pretty much anything and everything. She tried sitting with her legs pressed closely together but that felt wrong for what she was doing, and she had to fight the instinct to cover her chest with her arms. She was also very much aware of how Gretchen’s gaze was sweeping up and down every centimeter of her.

“S-So,” she said at last, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “We’re home now.”

“Um…yes?”

“And, well, like Oktavia said, we did wait until we got home, so now that we are home, we m-might as well, um, you know, continue?” She looked at Gretchen then and managed a shy smile.

Gretchen slowly nodded. Then she leaned in, her eyes closing and her mouth moving toward Homulilly’s. Well, this at least Homulilly was intimately familiar with, so she leaned in as well.

“Oh, wait!” Gretchen said suddenly, jerking back right before their lips made contact.

“Huh?” Homulilly said in both surprise and disappointment.

“Just a moment!” Gretchen started to get up, but appeared to think better of it. Instead, she stretched out one of her legs across the room, over to the door. With it, she turned the switch on the doorknob, locking it. Then with two more legs, she closed the curtains over the window.

“There,” she said with a cheeky grin. She reached up and pulled her nightie down around her shoulders. A little squirming and it fell down around her waist. “No interruptions this time.”

Homulilly nodded, and she moved into Gretchen, slowly lowering her down to the bed.

…

Oktavia awoke to the feel of something trashing against her back.

For a brief, confusing moment, as her mind tried to switch gears from asleep to awake, she had no idea where she was or what was moving against her, and she found herself believing that she was struggling against some great sea squid, far beneath the waves.

The moment passed quickly and she remembered where she was. Turning over, she saw Ophelia was moving restlessly, tangling herself up in the sheets. Her eyes were still closed in sleep, but if her contorted face was any indication, her dreams were anything but peaceful.

“Hey,” said Oktavia, who had seen this happen many times before. She shook Ophelia by the shoulder. “Babe. Wake up.”

Ophelia moaned in distress and mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Ophelia!” Oktavia shook her girlfriend’s shoulder harder. This time Ophelia’s eyes snapped open and her eyes darted around wildly.

“Ophelia, are you okay?” Oktavia asked when Ophelia’s gaze finally settled on her. The flame-headed witch didn’t respond at her, instead staring right at the mermaid with her hands still clenched in the air over her.

Then Ophelia relaxed, letting her arms fall. “Aw geez,” she groaned. “Again with this shit?”

“The drowning one again?” Oktavia said, easing over onto her stomach.

“Nah. You’d think, given all the water we had today, but no. It was the other death, the one from the fall on day one. Remember?”

Oktavia shivered. Day one was nothing something any of them were going to forget, Ophelia least of all. “All too well. Weird that you’d have that one though.”

Ophelia shrugged. “Ah, well, Homulilly apparently heard about me having kicked it a couple times and was curious, so I guess that got it lodged in my subconscious.”

“I guess. Are you okay now?”

Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry for waking you.” She turned over, her back to Oktavia, and pulled the blanket up again.

Oktavia waited for a few moments. When Ophelia didn’t say anything further, she sighed and sank back into her pillow, still worried.

She had just closed her eyes when she heard Ophelia say suddenly, “Hey, Tavi?”

“Mmmm?”

“You’re gonna still be here when I wake up, right?”

Oktavia blinked. She turned to Ophelia, whose back was still to her. She was shaking.

After a moment Oktavia pressed in close to her, wrapping her arms around Ophelia’s middle and resting her chin on her shoulder. “Forever and always. You know that, right?”

Ophelia slowly stopped trembling. “Right. Sorry.”

“You’re stuck with me forever. Get used to it.”

Ophelia let out a small laugh. She turned in Oktavia’s embrace, facing her. “Guess I am. Sorry. My head’s still all addled.”

“When isn’t it?”

Ophelia laughed again. Then she relaxed, her breathing evening out. They fell asleep together, holding each other in the dark.

…

Welp, that’s game! Hope you guys enjoyed it, even if it did get a little more risqué than usual. But hey, what’s the point of having a super-obscure spinoff story that very few people are going to read if you can’t push the envelope a few times.

Anyway, I guess it’s time to stop procrastinating. Back to work.

Until next time, everyone!

(God, I missed doing that)

#Walpurgis Nights

5 notes · View notes