#— passenger : tiamore

[224terminal]

⋆｡𖦹 °✩ 𝓉𝒾𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒.

𓇼 tiamore is a great white shark merman living in captivity at an oceanarium for marine creatures and hybrids. his coloration is mostly varying shades of grey, and he has the messiest black hair ever! unlike the white sclera in human eyes, his are black and he's got the brightest blue eyes you'll ever see. he's also littered in scars and scrapes from various fights in the ocean. a ship propeller injured his dorsal fin, which left him unable to properly swim and stabilize himself in the water, and so he was captured and brought in for rehabilitation purposes. the oceanarium soon realizes it can capitalize on the novelty of an elusive shark merman, so the priority shifts from undercover scientific study to covert priming for entertainment purposes; it's decided he'll be kept there indefinitely).

𓇼 you work there as one of the trainers and your primary area of work deals with sea lions and, on occasion, penguins. they transfer you to his enclosure after he nearly drowned his previous trainer, assuming that you might boast different results because you have a way with animals. you doubt this; sea lions and penguins are not the same as a half-fish, half-human creature who's so much bigger than you and can crush your skull like an egg if he so pleases.

𓇼 tiamore has such a vicious hatred for humans, but can he really be blamed? he's been stuck in captivity for many years now. they're not sure of his exact age, but they estimate he's somewhere in his late twenties. tiamore doesn't bother to provide the humans with any answers or information to their questions, and they don't dare get close enough to ask twice. he's brutal and cutthroat, and yet he let his trainer live (albeit in a very poor, near-death state).

𓇼 you're not very hopeful, but you're the oceanarium's only hope (or so your boss tells you). but this is a lie because your coworker savern is the real animal whisperer. the dolphins love him, especially the mers; he's practically best friends with all of them. they fight over him sometimes, eager for his attention. you envy his ability to effortlessly, authentically charm.

𓇼 unsurprisingly, tiamore hates you the minute he meets you. and you hate him, too, because he has quite the mouth on him and he's so unwilling to compromise with you in any way (although you suppose you wouldn't be willing either if you were in his shoes fins). he's foul and rude and cruel, cutting into you with all manner of insults he's picked up from sailors and scientists over the years. most of your "job" is simply bickering back and forth now as you try (and fail) to coerce him into friendly relations. you're supposed to get him ready for his display exhibit (which is stuck in coming soon limbo because they have no clue when or if he'll ever be ready to be put on display), and tiamore fights this reality with everything he's got.

𓇼 you spend the first month gradually learning to tolerate him and his intelligent, disobedient mouth. he learns you're a recurring pest in his life, but you come to feed him every day and so he can't hate that part of this routine. what he does hate is everything else. you bring stimulating items for him, which are never put to use because he's popped all of the beach balls and snapped all of the diving rings in his frigid disinterest. still, you try. and still he impedes your progress.

𓇼 tiamore is, however, interested in your phone and the pictures you show him after you learn it's the only thing that can shut him up. he's fascinated by photos of butterflies. they're his favorite animal, so you promise to show him more if he starts acting less hostile towards you. tiamore weighs these options: be kind and see butterfly or be hateful and see no butterfly. begrudgingly, he chooses the former. and he slowly warms up to the meals you've started preparing for him on the mornings before your shifts. you're not the best cook (which he notes every time you serve him something that's more burnt than it is cooked, and you threaten to cook him), but he eats it because it's different and new. part of him hopes it'll poison him and he'll never have to live in captivity again because then he'll be dead. alas.

𓇼 you're not sure if this is progress, but it's significantly better than before. now he only calls you stupid idiot, bipedal dumbass, tasteless blood-bag, and lunch three or five times within the span of an hour (insults like those were numbered in the double-digits before). savern certainly thinks it's a step in the right direction when he visits you on your lunch breaks to check in. he's started doing that often, and you're not complaining because he's been your work crush for a while now. tiamore hates him. hates him so, so, so much with the most livid passion. savern is too sunny, too sweet, too smart. savern reads tiamore like a book whenever he's lurking on the surface of the water and scowling at the two of you from the depths of his pool. he refuses to prove savern right, but then he also refuses to dive back under and leave you alone with another human, especially when said human is male.

𓇼 so he swims laps, cutting through the water methodically. his dorsal fin has healed considerably and now swimming isn't as much of a struggle as it was before. he's still left with the scars, though.

𓇼 tiamore considers you something of a companion, so it hurts when you flinch away from him when he compares his large, webbed hand to your smaller one or when he curiously touches your ankles when you stray close to the edge of his pool. you still don't trust him, which isn't so surprising because he did threaten you with death nearly every day, at every hour, during your shifts (and he's such a big, strong predator from the sea). so you have every right to be afraid. that, and he did nearly kill his previous trainer. so it's completely fair for you to fear him, but it's this fear that has you turning to savern for advice. why is he so touchy-feely with you all of a sudden? why is he suddenly interested in your anatomy? why isn't he hissing death threats? what happened to the real tiamore?!

𓇼 not funny because tiamore doesn't truly hate you anymore. you're the best thing to come out of this hellish captivity, so he doesn't mind your presence in his life anymore. he actually (much to his own chagrin) eagerly anticipates seeing you each morning, waiting dutifully in hopes that you'll show up early. he can't believe he actually cares about a human. it's too late to make good on his promise to kill you; he likes you too much to stain the water crimson with your blood and organs. but savern... now that's another story, and he fondly contemplates tearing that man to shreds. it would sadden you, though, so he contents himself with fantasies instead.

𓇼 he's aloof and awkward as he navigates these new feelings. before captivity, he traveled alone in the ocean and he's never had a mate. he's never felt the need for one. he likes being alone and free, two things he no longer has now that he's here in the oceanarium. but you cure his loneliness. you make him happy, even though he'll die before he admits that outright. you make him daydream about freedom, about a future beyond these walls, in which the two of you can be together without the divide of land and sea. maybe it's not possible. maybe it's a wishy-washy, unobtainable dream. that doesn't stop him from thinking about it, though.

𓇼 the oceanarium is filled with all kinds of unique marine hybrids. one of them has recently escaped its exhibit and the staff have exhausted every effort in an attempt to find and catch it. tiamore hears it fluttering in the rafters at night, a sly thing with wings. he hopes it'll fall into his tank so he can get rid of it once and for all and put your worries to rest. tiamore hates it when you worry because your mind is clouded and you don't have the energy or the focus to reserve for your little bantering sessions. he must fix this.

𓇼 his tank is deep enough. you might never know where these problems will go. savern can sit in pieces at the bottom and so can the other noisy distraction. he'll fashion their bones into a little heart and gift it to you one day, and you'll never know.

𓇼 until then he greets you with affectionate insults, watching your human legs carry you up and down the stairs to the platform where the top of his pool waits. this is good enough for now.

[224terminal]

Is there a reason as to why butterflies are Tiamore's fave animal?

he’s really fond of how fragile and delicate they are. also, he thinks their wings and the colorful variety in which they come is very fascinating! (there’s also symbolism in how a butterfly is free and can travel anywhere without being confined, whereas tiamore is trapped in the oceanarium and will likely never know freedom again. …unless? 👀)

if you’ve ever seen cute pictures of animals with a butterfly on their nose, please imagine tiamore in that place. :D butterflies are one of the few things that make him feel soft and sweet. if you give him a book on butterflies, he won’t say a word to you during the entirety of your shift. he’s too engrossed in the pretty pictures. (*´꒳`*)

[224terminal]

@Amaryllis *holds gently* Baby boy

@Tiamore *holds gently (questionable)* Bitch

And I mean all of this with love.

BTW, what does Tiamore mean? Where did you get the inspiration for it? Did you make it up (if so, from where? 'cause it really sounds Italian to me!! Like "ti amo"/"i love you" but instead of "amo" is "amore", the noun)?

omg they really are the perfect embodiment of this meme:

amaryllis is a sweetheart who could do no wrong and loves obsessively and gently. tiamore on the other hand....... ^^;;; he's getting there very slowly.

as for tiamore's name, i just thought of it on a whim because i realized i never decided on a name for him (he was only ever called 'sharky' in my wip) and i didn't like the potential names i listed for him. i was thinking about italian words and amore came into my mind and so did ti amo. i mashed the two together because i thought the syllables in tiamore sounded very musical when spoken aloud. i also just like the hidden meaning in his name: how there are hints of love even though he may not outwardly seem very loving. the type who loves in silence and is very subtle once he recognizes that his affections are indeed affections; it's how i imagine him!