#Solaire 01 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gingerbreadmonsters · 2 years ago

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play it koi

or: hook, line, and sinker!

gn!reader, slight body horror warning, fluff with a little bit of tragic backstory. so, tell me why the single-sentence AU brainworm i had has now evolved into a nearly-10k monster? my eternal gratitude to @zozo-01 for proofreading at all hours of the day and night, and all my love to @sri-rachaa , who so graciously allowed me to start making sandcastles with her beautiful solaire pirate AU - i hope i do your darlings justice! kisses to the discord gang for talking me off the ledge - i could not and in fact would not have done it without you 💕💕💕 aside from the obvious AU-ness of it all, there’s also a larger hc at play here - but i’ll let you figure out what that is on your own. i have to keep some secrets, after all. freelancer taking the plunge in 9700 words or less.

warnings for a little bit of light body horror r.e. humans turning into merpeople, some close calls with drowning (please tread carefully if that’s a tricky topic for you), and it’s implied that freelancer doesn’t have a very nice backstory.

“Well, this is unusual.”

It’s so dark.

To be fair, you probably should have expected it. It’s not like there’s any sunlight underwater, after all. Your eyes have already started to adjust to the salt, but not completely - everything’s a blur, now, as you keep sinking and sinking.

Your boots, your clothes, the sabre at your hip - all sodden with water and weighing you down. There’s no point in trying to swim. You know how, but what’s the use? Where would you go? Miles from shore, there’s nothing around that you could swim to, and even if there was you wouldn't know what to look for.

They’ll be waking up, soon. When will they realise? Will they be happy? God, you hope so - if they’re not, it’ll all have been for nothing.

It’s surprisingly calm, falling to the bottom of the ocean. The dim shadow of the ship above you, gradually fading away into the dark blue blur that’s now your world, and you cross your fingers as your fingers grow cold and your lungs start to burn.

Maybe you’ll even be missed.

Goodbye, Captain. And good luck.

“A human?”

Distantly, you hear a voice - not the same as the one that put you here, and not echoing through your head the way that one had. He sounds… similar, though. Why? You twist, awkwardly trying to turn yourself around in the water, but there’s nothing there except a blurry trail of bubbles and the faintest blue glow out of the corner of your eye.

“There’s plenty of you up on the land…”

Where the hell is it coming from? Clumsy fingers reach for the hilt of your sabre, but you know it would be no use - you can’t swing a sword underwater, and you can’t even see anything that you could hit with it.

A lilting laugh, curious and sharp all at once. Your head spins with the pressure of the water all around you, and it’s getting harder and harder to think clearly. Captain Solaire would know what to do.

"But what, exactly," says the voice as it swims up behind you, “might a human be doing in my waters?”

Yes, he’d know.

Captain Solaire has always been a bit… unconventional.

According to the rest of the crew, nobody really knows how old he is or how he became a pirate, and you think he prefers it that way. Every time he tells the story, it’s always something different, and always more outlandish than the last.

He’d stowed away in a barrel, hiding in the hold for a month and a day with no food or water, before sneaking out in the middle of the night and killing the entire crew in their beds to take command of the ship. He’s a runaway nobleman who wanted to travel the world, who stole himself a ship and left his wicked, power-hungry family behind without an heir. He’s an escaped prisoner, captured from a French merchant ship, who broke free of his chains with a stolen cutlass and challenged the captain to a duel - they battled back and forth in the middle of the storm, deck swaying beneath them, before a bolt of lightning struck the captain’s sword and he fell to his death in the waves below.

Nobody knows which version is true, or even if any of them are true. You’ve spent many an evening holed up below decks with the rest of the crew, exchanging theories and coming up with new, even more outlandish explanations for how William Solaire came to be. To his credit, he never gives anything away - he meets every story with a wink and a smile, before taking another swig of rum and swearing that of course, of course, this one’s the real truth. Then he says exactly the same thing about the next tale, and you’re all right back at square one.

Before joining his crew, you’d heard stories about him and the Surge in every port from McKinley to Mont Blanc. Any story, any tale, anything you can possibly imagine - it’s probably already been said about William Solaire. He’s fought sea serpents and kissed mermaids and shaken hands with the captain of the Flying Dutchman. He’s sailed to the edge of the world, but he won’t tell anyone what he found there. He’s been swallowed by a kraken and lived to tell the tale.

You’d grown up on stories of the mysterious captain and his legendary ship, and it's safe to say he doesn’t disappoint. Everybody loves Captain Solaire - he’s a hard taskmaster, and it’s no easy feat to sail as part of his crew, but he’s always, always fair. Even when it comes to his children.

(Annoyingly, you can’t even use their ages to try and figure out how old William might be, since both of them are adoptive and don’t actually share blood. Damn.)

His daughter, Alexis, is the most beautiful lady you’ve ever seen - and there are almost as many stories about where she came from as there are about her father. Some say that she’s a kidnapped princess, taken at birth, searching the seas for her lost homeland. Others say that she was born a siren, but fell in love with a poor sailor who washed up on her island, and gave her tail to live on land with him for the rest of her days.

If any of it really is true, she’s never said. You only know Quartermaster Alexis, who wears a pistol on each hip and a silk ribbon on her hat, who teaches the topmen how to dance the volta and who’s won every arm wrestling competition she’s ever done. She’s good and kind and fiercely loyal to the ship - there’s nobody else you’d trust to lead a raiding party more than her.

His son, Vincent…

Well.

First mate Vincent hasn’t always been the most… caring sort. Apparently, Captain William found him half-drowned at sea after his ship was wrecked in a winter’s storm, trailing blood in the freezing water, and brought him aboard to save his life. You’ve got no idea what might’ve happened to him in that wreck, but whatever it was can’t have been good. Some of the other crew members who knew him back then say that he was incredibly withdrawn and standoffish for a long time - the Surge’s lonely navigator, preferring the company of his maps and the stars to anything else.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem any more, but it seems like he might have overcompensated slightly. As long as you’ve known him, he’s always been a charmer - you’ve never known him to spend a night in port alone, and never with the same lady (or gentleman, depending on who’s caught his eye) twice. He’s good for a laugh, or for people-watching in a tavern on a slow afternoon in port, but you know better than to tumble into bed with him - he’s tried to persuade you on occasion, but always backs off once he hears a no.

(He’s forward and flirty and a little too brash for your taste, but he’s a good man at heart and he feels things deeply. You’d call him a friend, though maybe not to his face. His head’s big enough as it is.)

Now that you think about it, a lot of things seem to happen when that man falls overboard.

Vincent Solaire, you see, is in love with a mer.

You’re not really sure how it happened. He’s normally so sure on his feet. One minute he was up in the rigging, a smudge of colour up against the sky - and the next he was just a splash in the water, white swirls on the surface of the sea. You’d only just been coming up from the gun deck, but you’d seen him falling and run to the side of the ship to see if he was alright. The cry had gone up - man overboard! - and then-

You’d only ever seen a real one once before, and not for very long. But that day, watching your captain’s son break the surface of the water in the confused arms of an honest-to-god mer, you’d known that things had just changed forever.

They’d taken to each other like a match to powder, and the whole ship knew it. All of a sudden, the ladykiller Vincent Solaire had had his heart stolen by a mer - truly, it was like something out of a song. Alexis had given him a good-natured cuff on the back of the head about his tumble from the foremast, and he’d taken it with a lovesick smile and a playful salute. Captain Solaire even commissioned a special sort of crate, sturdy wood and metal so water couldn’t leak out, to be kept in his son’s cabin and filled with seawater so that he might converse at length with them in private, instead of having to sit above them in one of the rowboats.

It’s impossible not to smile at the thought of those two, utterly in love, and you know the whole crew feels the same. They’re so, so beautiful.

They’re also absolutely doomed.

There are stories of a thousand sailors before him, and there’ll be a thousand more after he’s gone. The love between a mer and a human can never be equal, can never last - a human can breathe underwater as much as a mer can walk on land. They might both call the ocean home, but it’ll never be in quite the same way.

There’s no way to turn a man into a mer, or the other way around. A cursed love. It can’t be done.

…Supposedly.

There is one way.

Neither of them would ever ask. But you can see it - that weight, of knowing that they’ll never truly be able to be together the way either of them wants.

It’s the way Vincent scans the sea when he thinks nobody’s watching, hoping he’ll catch a glimpse of the scales he loves so much, looking down at his own hands like he’s imagining the claws he ought to have. It’s the way his darling stares wistfully up at the ship when Vincent turns away for just a moment, knowing there’s only so much time until their gills can’t cope and they’ll have to duck back into the water to breathe.

They’re meant for each other. You know it, and so does everyone else. When Captain William insists that you’re staying in port another day as Vincent just so happens to be making a suspicious beeline for the beach. When Alexis rolls her eyes and lets him sleep in for an extra hour, because she knows he’s been up all night dangling off the side of the ship or treading water in his mer-lover’s arms.

Yes, they’re meant for each other.

You, on the other hand, aren’t meant for much at all.

You haven’t got some incredible myth of your own creation, no tales or stories or legends to be told. You weren’t born in a hurricane, you’ve never been taken prisoner on a ghost ship, you’re no heir to some grand pirate legacy. You’re not really much of anything.

There’s no great love story waiting for you, not like theirs - and you’ve had to come to terms with that. You have - or you’ve done your best, at least. It’s difficult, to see them so in love when you’re as alone as ever. It hurts. But it’s not their fault, and it’s not your place to be jealous of something that you know you’ll never have.

You weren’t made to be loved like that - love wasn’t made for someone like you. But if you’ll never have that chance, then there is still one thing you can do.

I call upon the guardian of the horizon.

You can give it to someone else.

I call upon he who sleeps atop the tide, at whose heels the waves are bound to follow.

There are very few places where this can be done, and even fewer who know of them. Alone on the deck in the middle of the night, leaning out over the port side of the quarterdeck, your timing has to be just right. You’re going to have to be very lucky indeed.

I call upon he who draws the seam across the sky, who blesses the storm and the seafoam as one.

The night is cold and windy, stars bright in the sky above while the black sea stretches out below. Will your voice be heard? Will your call be answered? You’re hoping the water will be kind to you, but that’s all it is - hope. You don’t know. There’s no way to know. All you can do is ask, and cross your fingers for mercy.

I call upon the guardian of the horizon.

You’re going to make a deal.

May mine own voice return to me.

Nothing happens, at first. No great creature rises from the water, no lightning splits the sky. The deck rolls easily beneath you, no sudden wave to knock you off your feet or wash you overboard for your impudence. The breeze whistles through the rigging high above your head, but it doesn’t stop for you.

The sea is still.

And there’s a voice in your head.

Who calls me?

It’s a man’s voice, but it speaks like no man you’ve ever known. In it, you hear a million voices all at once - those you know and those you don’t, all as one. A perfect chorus, ringing in your ears, and you have the strange, sudden feeling that you’re being watched.

A human calls you.

Why does a human call me?

To strike a deal.

It must be a trick of the light, but for just a second, you could have sworn you saw something moving in the water. What deal would a human strike with me?

I seek the realm of the merfolk.

Your kind are no strangers to that realm, the voice says, amused. Many a sailor’s skeleton lies among the coral.

You don’t know if you really are being watched right now, but you shake your head anyway. I seek to swim amongst the merfolk, of my own will.

This deal comes with a price.

Gritting your teeth, you reply. This is the tricky bit. I know it.

Who shall pay?

The way to turn a mer into a human is actually not very complicated, in and of itself. The logic is very simple, a legacy of the great war between sea and sky that was waged in the ages past, and which created men and merfolk alike. There is only one rule - the scales have to balance.

By the mercy of the horizon, any mer can become a human. The only problem is that, at the same time, a human must become a mer.

You’ve heard them talking - when they thought nobody was listening, when they thought everyone was asleep. About a little mer’s wishes to leave the sea behind, to seek out the world above the water, the life they’d have on land. About a little boy’s dream to find an adventure worth living for, to do his father and family proud, to reach out his hand and touch the very sky.

You can’t make dreams or wishes come true. But you know someone who can - and you know that those dreams are worth far more than the life of one lonely deckhand, who ran away in the dead of night on a pirate ship and has been looking over one shoulder ever since.

Myself, and… Boards creak under your feet, and you take a big, deep breath. And the lover of Vincent Solaire.

The voice in your head laughs mockingly, sending fearful shivers down your spine that you hurriedly try to suppress. A human would steal the tail of a sleeping merchild?

A human would give their legs to a merchild, to see them happy, you say, braver than you feel. What happens to the human in return is of no consequence.

How curious. You claim benevolence.

That’s… one way of putting it. I do.

Benevolence, or perhaps foolishness, the voice muses. I have given and taken much from your kind. I have given and taken much from the merfolk, too. Many of those times, I did so in the name of love, as you ask me now to do - but very rarely have I been asked in the name of another’s love.

Maybe it’s just your imagination, but the sky seems lower than it did before - looking up at the thin clouds, it feels like all the stars are watching you. Will it truly please you, to give your life to the oceans for the sake of a happiness you will never see?

It is not easy to call upon you, my lord. Is that the right thing to say? You’re not really sure how else to address this mysterious voice. This chance may never come for them again.

Must this chance come at your own expense?

The captain of this ship has been very good to me, you say. His son and daughter, as well. I came to them as nothing, begging a chance at escape from the life I knew, and with grace and justice they bid me stay. They have taken me into their hearts, allowed me this time that I might know them, fight alongside them - come to care for them.

When Captain Solaire found you, you were nothing. Taking whatever odd jobs you could find aboard whatever ship would take you, anything at all to get yourself as far away from home as you could possibly go. You hadn’t cared what it was - as long as the wind was at your back and the voyage was long, you would go.

That’s how you’d ended up aboard the Carpe Deus.

Their captain, Vega, is one of the most terrifying pirates on the open seas, and for good reason. He attacks merchant and royal navy ships alike, and even just saying his name at sea is said to bring death and ruin to a ship, although there are very few men who have ever seen his face and lived. He and his crew are utterly ruthless, and it’s said that for every ship they hijack they leave a single man wounded but alive - so that if by some miracle he makes it ashore, then the whole port will know the fate that awaits them if they dare to challenge Captain Vega.

Nobody knows where he came from, or how he got his ship. Some say that he was born in the hold of a ghost ship in the middle of a summer storm, and that he made a bargain with the god of death to bring the whole ship and its crew back to life, with him as its captain. Others believe that he’s no man at all but a spirit of the sea’s vengeance, and that he can’t be killed lest his curse be unleashed upon the entire ocean.

His crew is just as mysterious - in particular, you’d been fascinated by his quartermaster. According to the stories, they used to captain their own ship for the royal navy before they were attacked by the Carpe Deus in the dead of night. Their crew was slaughtered but they fought on, killing half of the Deus’s crew with just their cutlass and even managing to land a blow on the pirate captain himself, before he captured them and forced them to surrender.

The way the story goes is that Captain Vega planned to ransom them back to the crown, but he was so taken by their skill and beauty that before he could reach port, his new prisoner had already charmed him from the bounds of their cell. The two fell in love and were married, and on their wedding day swore to each other they would become the greatest, most feared pirates in all the seven seas.

Whatever the truth, Captain Vega and his quartermaster are terrifying - the whole time you’d been on board, you’d tried your level best to stay away from them as much as possible.

It hadn’t been too difficult, all things considered. You’d spent almost all your time down in the swaying hold of the ship, carrying crates and ropes and such to and fro as they were needed. Just menial busywork, really. On your previous ship, the Obscura, you’d been training as a gunner - but the Deus already had plenty of those, so you’d been stuck down on the orlop deck almost the whole time.

Maybe that had been a blessing, though. If you hadn’t been down there, you wouldn’t have found him.

Captain Vega has all sorts of treasures and rarities on his ship, you see. Gold, spices, jewels, pearls, silks, sugar, furs, tobacco… you’ve seen it all, down in that hold. He’s even been known to steal exotic creatures, selling them on to kings and emperors as prize possessions - souvenirs of far-off lands.

One of those creatures was a small, frightened merchild called Caelum.

You’d seen him being carried onboard, taken from another pirate ship that was heading for Port Duke. A scared little face peeping over the side of a barrel, cowering down under the water in fear at every jeer and shout that went up among the crew. All except the captain and the officers had been forbidden to speak to him, and he’d been locked in one of the cells by the bosun, Ivan.

He’d only tried to speak to you once, but you’d quickly shaken your head and shushed him. There were too many other people around, and it’s well-known on that ship what happens to anyone who disobeys Captain Vega’s orders.

Yes, you’d known it was a risk. But seeing how miserable the poor merchild was, tiny pink scales dulling and flaking off in stale seawater, curled up in the bottom of his lonely barrel for warmth, you hadn’t been able to turn a blind eye.

Sneaking out of your hammock that night, you’d crept down to the cells. Caelum had been waiting for you, little hands clinging to the top of the barrel as he stared at you with big, nervous eyes.

He’d told you of his capture - caught in a fishing boat’s net as he swam too close to the surface, before being stolen by the pirates you’d taken him from. I just want to go home, he’d sobbed, and your heart had broken. I want Delphinus!

You’d never heard of anyone with that name, so you hadn’t really known what to do with that. Sorry, who?

The poor thing had tried to explain it, but it had been a bit confusing. Some sort of mentor called Delphinus who was in charge of looking after him - although clearly not doing a very good job - along with various names of all his brothers and sisters under the water.

(You’re not entirely sure how new mermaids come to be, but if all of those names really were his siblings, you can’t help but feel sorry for this little merchild’s mother.)

Over the next few days, you’d managed to figure out a plan for how you were going to get Caelum off the boat and back to the ocean. It was risky, but it was that or let him be auctioned off to the highest bidder, sold to whatever greedy lord wanted to keep him as a pet for the rest of his days. You couldn’t just stand by and let that happen.

There’s one person who might be able to help us - well, I don’t know if he’s a person or just - I mean, I guess he’s kind of like a- a spirit? Or a ghost? Or a god, or something - I don’t really know, but I think he might know what to do-

After a few minutes of rambling, he’d finally told you his idea - to ask this god-spirit-ghost person for help. You’d been sceptical, but he’d assured you that whoever this was, they were real. Delphinus calls him the ‘god of the horizon’, or something. He says he’s made of all the voices in the sea, and he looks after all the merpeople and all the humans that live with the water. He can even turn mer into humans - and the other way round, too!

It had seemed like a bit of a stretch, and you’d been starting to suspect that this Delphinus was really good at telling bedtime stories, but it’s not like you had any other options. How do I summon him?

Well…

There are only a few places where this spirit can be called, and there’s no guarantee he’ll answer. Most are out on the open ocean - by an incredible stroke of luck, you’d realised that the Deus was due to sail right through one of those points on the way up to Ferris.

If you ask him for help, I’m sure he’ll say yes! Bless him, Caelum had looked so happy. He wouldn’t leave us all alone here, would he?

You hadn’t been so sure, but you’d put a brave face on it regardless. Of course he wouldn’t.

The next night, you’d snuck up onto the main deck in the dead of night and crossed your fingers. You’d only get one shot - by morning, the ship would have moved out of position, so you had to get this right.

I call upon the guardian of the horizon.

Nothing.

He who sleeps atop the tide, at whose heels the waves follow, you’d whispered. Who draws the seam across the sky, who blesses the storm and the seafoam as one.

Still nothing. I call upon the guardian of the horizon. A squeak of boards below you, but you’d paid it no mind. Ships creak and groan all the time. May mine own voice return to me.

There’s no telling how many times you repeated it, over and over until your voice grew hoarse and disappeared. Eventually, you had to run back to your bunk before you were caught, and you cried shamefully in your hammock at the knowledge that you might have just doomed Caelum to a lifetime in captivity because of your foolish, stupid failure.

There’s a merchild, held here on this ship as a prisoner.

You had no idea if it was even possible to pray to a spirit like this, but you’d closed your eyes and tried.

His name is Caelum.

The faintest glimmer of sunlight, peeking over the horizon.

Please, I beg of you - by the mercy of the waters, save him from this ship.

No reply. Just the ringing of bells, so faint that you couldn’t be sure if they were real or just a figment of your tired imagination. You’d fallen into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning with worry, sick to your stomach with guilt.

You never saw Caelum again.

Luckily, neither did Captain Vega.

Nobody knows when it happened, and to be perfectly honest you don’t either. All you know is that by the time evening came again, by the time one of the other deckhands had gone down to the cells to throw Caelum a raw fish to eat - he was gone.

There had been uproar below decks as the officers scrambled to find someone to blame, but nobody dared alert the captain until they were sure that their prize mer hadn’t been hidden somewhere else on the ship. Nobody wanted to raise a false alarm lest they bring Vega’s wrath down upon themselves, and everyone was terrified of him finding out that the ship’s most valuable treasure had just… disappeared.

Long into the night, you’d all searched, until the mood began to turn from fear to anger. Bunks were overturned, possessions rifled through, all in a frantic effort to point the finger at someone - anyone.

God, how could you have been so stupid?

A single, pink scale, fluttering down from your hammock. How had it even got there? You’d never actually gone into Caelum’s cell - you didn’t have the key, and there was no way you’d ever have been able to get it. You’d never laid a hand on the little merchild, and you would never have been able to carry him all the way up out of the hold to throw him overboard without being seen, even in the middle of the night. It couldn’t be done - it wasn’t possible.

All good arguments, but Ivan hadn’t been having any of it as you shouted them at him. He’d had one of the officers tie your wrists together, dragging you up onto the deck with a filthy handkerchief shoved into your mouth to try and keep you quiet. Thrashing and screaming as best you could, you’d fought against his iron grip - but Ivan was far too strong, and before you could do anything he’d already hauled you up to the side of the main deck.

You hadn’t even seen the Captain or the quartermaster. You’re fairly sure Ivan was far more scared of what Vega might do to him for waking him up in the middle of the night, than for punishing you without his approval.

It had been so fast. One minute you were standing on the side of the ship, recoiling from the blade of the master gunner’s cutlass. The next, there was a boot in your back, and you were tumbling down into the icy sea.

Dumped overboard to drown, you’d known that time was running out. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens when a person is kicked off a boat into the sea. After all, it was practically a hobby on the Carpe Deus, so you knew exactly how this sort of thing tends to unfold.

Luckily, because this wasn’t an ordinary execution, the ship hadn’t stopped when you were thrown off the side. Ordinarily, you might have thought this to be a bad thing, but what this actually meant was that nobody was going to see you floating in the water and shoot you to death. They’d also been in quite a hurry to restrain you, so the bindings around your wrists weren’t rope, but cloth that - after some protracted and decidedly awkward fumbling - you were able to slip out of.

The only problem was what to do next.

You’d only be able to float for so long - you’d need to find land, shelter, food. Unfortunately, those things are a little bit difficult to come by when you’re stranded in the middle of the open ocean.

To this day, you have no idea how long you were there for. In your head it was weeks, months, years - even though it might have only been an hour or so. The moon gazed down at you as you slowly froze, and you gazed right back, letting the waves push and pull you as they wished. Icy spray washing over you, you’d closed your eyes and thought to accept your freezing fate.

Up and down, up and down. Church bells, ringing far away across the sea. A wedding or a funeral?

There’s someone in the water!

You don’t remember it well - only flashes. Firm, strong hands fishing you out of the water, oars splashing as the rowboat goes back towards the ship. Being lifted, carried down to the surgeon’s cabin and laid down on the bed. Waking up hours later, cold and confused and desperately thirsty, to the curious eyes of William Solaire.

He’d let you explain yourself - where you’d originally come from, how you’d come to be on the Deus in the first place, how you’d ended up in the water. He listened and listened until you’d talked yourself hoarse, that calm, contemplative gaze going right through you, and then he’d smiled.

I suppose I can find room for an extra deckhand on my ship.

Debts must be repaid. You owe the Solaires everything.

My lord, I ask only for the realisation of my captain’s wish - for his son to be happy. My fate is of no consequence.

You have to believe it. There’s no other way.

A sigh, rippling through the sails and making the sash at your waist flutter. You think so little of yourself, child. Accessory to a love story that has no place for you, indeed.

The voice laughs again, but it’s… kinder, this time. You should hope that the waves might bring you the fate you seek.

You frown. I seek no fate.

Perhaps not. The strange feeling of a shrug, unseen and unspoken, but definitely there. But you run from one. Is that not the same thing?

Perhaps I will find out.

For a single second, the breeze stands still. The water does too, and for a thousand miles around, the flat glass surface of the sea is filled with stars.

Very well.

Something chimes, like bells ringing in your head, and time catches up with itself - an odd chill rushes over you, and you know what you have to do. Then give yourself to me, little one, and fight not against the tides.

You can’t tell if you wake the whole damned ship with the sound of your boots on the boards, and you don’t have it in you to care - the water’s in you, now, and all you can think of is that aching, burning need to be free. Running full tilt across the deck, moonlight in your eyes as you step up onto the side of the ship, and it’s with a bright, happy smile that you leap from the decks of the Surge-

May fate find you kindly, child of land.

Splashing, frothing, white waves calling to you. Hanging in the air, caught between the sea and the sky, suspended in the sacred line of the horizon. The rattle of dice on an ale-soaked table in a far-off tavern. The whistle of the wind as it kisses you goodbye.

Oh, and say hello to Vindemiator for me.

-and go tumbling into the unknown depths of the dark seas below.

“-lo? Human? Human!”

Startled out of your reverie by the sound, you jolt backwards out of instinct - much to your surprise, a pair of hands grabs your arms and turns you round. Your eyes still haven’t entirely adjusted to the salt or the darkness, but there’s no mistaking the creature in front of you, staring at your body in confusion.

He’s a mer.

“Here - let me - come on, you have to swim-!”

A very beautiful one, you think, although his face is twisted in worry as he tries to pull you up towards the surface. You can’t make out his tail very well, smudges of orange and white at the bottom of your vision, with the faint shape of fins swirling through the water. So that’s where that glow was coming from - trails of blue-green bioluminescence follow him as he moves, swishing through the water in mesmerising slow-motion.

“For the love of-” Sharp claws dig into your shoulders as he grabs you, but you twist away from him before he can drag you too far. “Human, you’ll drown!”

Your lungs are really starting to hurt, now - you were sort of hoping that the gills would be the first thing that came through, but apparently you’re just really, really unlucky. You hold your arm out towards him, indicating the claws that are starting to lengthen, the scales that are starting to break through the skin.

“Oh. Oh - fuck, are you-?” The mer reaches for your hands, tugging you towards him and frantically examining you for signs of your transformation. “You look - oh, god!”

Something shifts inside you with a crack, forcing a plume of bubbles out of your mouth and nose - you both look down in alarm as your body contracts without warning, and you groan in pain at the dull ache that’s quickly making itself known in your legs.

“Well, it’s one way to get to know somebody,” the mer mutters, tail flicking back and forth as he supports you both. “Darling, you have to breathe - come on, in through your g-”

You shake your head as best you can, pointing to your neck - clawed hands run across the skin as he tilts your head away from him, one hand on your shoulder and one on your jaw, and you can just about see his eyes widen as he realises that you don’t have any.

“Fuck.”

You’re inclined to agree.

It’s funny, you know. You’re barely noticing the crushing ache in your lungs any more - it’s quickly being eclipsed by the stabbing, burning pain crawling up your legs and into your stomach.

“They’re not - you need - okay, okay, just let me think-”

So much for fate. It’s kind of ridiculous, right? You’d laugh, if you had the air. Going to all this trouble, turning yourself into a literal fucking fish, only to swallow a lungful of seawater and drown in the first five minutes.

“Look, I - oh, tides have mercy - alright, darling, come here-”

Now that you think about it, It’s kind of weird - normally everything sounds so muffled underwater, but somehow his voice is clear as a bell. Are you dreaming? He’s so close to you now, one arm tight around your waist as he pulls you towards him.

“If this works, then I’m sorry - if it doesn’t, then… I don’t know. I don’t - I just…”

You were right. He is beautiful.

“Look at me, human.”

Blearily, you meet his eyes - he gives you a tiny smile, and it’s almost enough to distract you from the pain that’s starting to spread up into your torso. His free hand guides your arms around him, keeping you close against his chest as the rolling current tries to pull you from him.

“In through your mouth, out through your nose, alright?”

Long, clawed fingers lift your jaw, and-

“Breathe.”

You’d expected him to be cold, but his lips are warm as he kisses you, swallowing your gasp of surprise with a gentle sigh. Wordlessly, he nudges your ankle with his tail - and oh, yeah, you’re meant to be breathing.

It’s a slightly awkward kiss, if you’re honest, but you’re not complaining - gratefully, you gulp down the oxygen he gives you and try to breathe through the seething storm of pain that’s growing inside you. Legs kicking slightly to keep you from sinking, you’re able to settle into a reasonable rhythm soon enough.

Luckily, the haze of pain begins to fizzle out into a bizarre numbness fairly quickly, but your relief is short-lived once you realise why your body’s beginning to go numb. There’s a dull crunch as your spine contorts, which you hear but thankfully don’t feel. You do, however, feel the mer in your arms jump in surprise when your back is suddenly forced into an uncomfortable arch under his touch, muscle and bone shifting under your skin.

He recoils slightly out of shock, but he doesn’t get far before your fingers wind into his hair and pull - he’s sort of the only thing keeping you alive right now, so it would be great if he could keep kissing you for a bit longer until you’ve got the whole breathing underwater thing under control, and did - did he just - was that-?

Your eyes fly open - when did you close them? - and you’re met with a very embarrassed, very blushy mer who definitely won’t look you in the eye. The angle makes it difficult to look down, but you can feel his chest stutter against yours, see his fins flicking nervously just at the edge of your vision, and both of you shiver as his causal fin accidentally brushes the back of your calf.

(To be fair, you can’t really blame him. If you’d accidentally moaned into a stranger’s mouth when they pulled your hair as you were kissing them, you probably wouldn’t be able to meet their eyes either.)

The change is starting to come faster now, clicks and cracks as your body starts to rearrange itself in earnest, and you almost lose your grip on the mer entirely as a wave of tiredness hits you. He follows you as you tip backwards slightly, tail beating back and forth a little faster to compensate for your sudden slackness, claws careful not to pierce your skin as he gently pulls you back upright.

Slowly, his hand on your cheek slips down to your neck, stroking carefully over the skin as he checks to see if anything is changing. He hums in what sounds like relief, and you feel his thumb just barely catch against ridges that definitely weren’t there before. They’re not fully formed yet, so he doesn’t pull away, but it’s better than nothing.

Unfortunately, you might have spoken too soon - your eyes go wide as a strange burst of coldness starts to spread in your lower abdomen, like spilt milk bottles smashing on the tile. It seeps through your hips and waist before trickling down into your legs, soaking into the bone like it’s sponge, and not even the itchiness of scales hardening across your stomach is enough to distract you from the thought that this is going to hurt. Bracing yourself for-

“Mmm - human!”

The mer scrambles to grab you as you’re suddenly wracked with coughs, clutching your middle with bubbles streaming from your nose and mouth. There’s something moving in your chest, muscles stretching and snapping as the change digs into your lungs, and you’re writhing too erratically for him to be able to press his mouth to yours again.

(Not to mention, it would be kind of grim to have to kiss someone who’s coughing non-stop into your open mouth, while also leeching off your oxygen supply. You can’t really blame him for being a bit hesitant.)

“I don’t - uh, I need - fuck, just-” He runs a nervous hand through his hair as he chews his lip in worry, and you’re struck by the passing thought that wow, his teeth are a lot sharper than I thought they were. “I thought your gills would have formed by now, but…”

Your vision is starting to really go blurry now, hand clamped over your mouth to stop yourself from accidentally breathing in the water, but you can just barely make out the shape of him reaching for your waist again. The glow that follows his every move is bathing you in soft, green light, swirling around his hands as they slide up your ribs and settle on the sides of your neck.

Is it just you, or is it brighter than it was before?

“Just a little bit-” A tingling sort of fizziness, spreading down your throat and over your shoulders where he holds you. “Hold on, darling, just a - just a bit longer-!”

It must be magic, or maybe you really are drowning now, but you could swear you can feel the skin separating under his palms - is he helping your gills to form? That must be what it is. You’ve heard stories about the magic of the mer, but there are so few people who have ever seen one in real life that it’s difficult to know what’s real and what’s just myth.

It feels warm wherever he touches you, like the sensation of stepping into a warm bath. Is this what all magic is like? Whatever he’s doing, it’s making your heart race and your blood sing - and no, that’s not just because you have a very pretty mer about two inches away from your face right now.

(Well, maybe that’s part of it. Only a little bit. Teeny, teeny tiny. Not even worth mentioning.)

A strange feeling of something searching, settling, splintering, before-

“Mmph-!”

Abruptly, you’re shaken out of your daydreaming by a firm hand clamped over your mouth and nose - it’s the mer, holding your wrists in between the two of you so you can’t move. Your panicky, oxygen-starved mind tries to force you into fleeing, but he’s just too strong, and you can’t struggle away.

“-lls! Human, you - you have to try - just breathe-”

It’s no use - you try as hard as you can to breathe through your new gills, but you can’t quite force your new muscles to work the way you need them to. The instinct to breathe through your mouth is just too overwhelming.

“Please!”

Getting dizzier and dizzier, you have to breathe, but you just can’t - between the screeching pain in your lower body and the howling fire in your chest, you’re convinced that you might actually be about to die. Desperately, you thrash against his grip as your mind goes blank and your fingers go numb, and the last thing you see before the world goes black is the horrified face of a handsome mer, mouth opening in a watery scream as the human in his arms goes completely limp and lifeless.

“-ne, it’s fine, it’ll be fine - come on, please…”

Head pounding, you’re shaken awake by a frantic hand on your shoulder - it takes a moment to figure out what’s happening, but you’re interrupted by an enormous sigh of relief from right next to your head.

“Oh, thank fuck!”

Okay, so not the most courteous sigh of relief there’s ever been, but for someone whose spent longer than they care to admit working on pirate ships, you’d say he’s actually being pretty polite about it. You’re squeezed into a bone-crushing hug, and you quickly realise that you’re being cradled in the arms of the mer from earlier.

He laughs as he leans back, looking down at you with a blinding, beaming smile that feels like warm sunlight on your skin. “Feeling better, little guppy?”

You nod slowly, careful of the throbbing headache that’s making itself known behind your temples. As charming as his enthusiasm is, you’re still feeling a bit fragile.

“Think so.”

The water around you is a little bit lighter, so it must have been a little while since you blacked out. Looking around, you can’t see anything around except a few stray schools of fish swimming past in the distance. Idly, you twist in the mer’s arms to watch them go by, only to notice something moving in the corner of your eye-

Oh, that’s-

Okay, so you have a tail now, so that’s fun.

He must notice your frozen stare, fixed on the very scaly, very real part of your body that was certainly not shaped like that the last time you looked - hurriedly, he pulls your line of sight back to him with a gentle hand on your cheek.

“Right - yeah, okay, we can talk about that in a bit,” he mutters, before his eyes soften as he spots something on your neck. “Getting used to the new gills yet, are we?”

It hadn’t really hit you until he said it, but now that he mentions it… When you stop and think about it, you can feel the difference in your breathing now - the flutter of gills at your neck, the bizarre new liquid feeling in your chest. Actually, you can feel a lot that’s different now, although you’re still suspiciously numb from the waist down.

“Why can’t I…”

You gesture faintly to your new tail, fins waving softly in the water, but he just shrugs with a grimace.

“Your fins didn’t finish growing until about a few minutes before you woke up, so I guess whatever’s going on inside isn’t quite finished yet…?”

How reassuring. He doesn’t know either. “So I just… have to wait?”

“Could be worse,” he says with a sly grin, in a move that has absolutely no right to be as attractive as it is. “You get to spend some more time in the arms of an incredibly handsome, wickedly intelligent, painfully modest mer, and I get a very nice view.”

Confused, you follow his gaze downwards - oh, the bastard! You’re still wearing your shirt from before (although it looks like your trousers and boots didn’t manage to survive your transformation) and it appears that the neckline might have shifted a little bit during the whole… ordeal.

He laughs as you smack his chest and try to readjust yourself, but apparently neither of you were expecting how uncoordinated you’d be in the water - he curses as you accidentally slip out of his arms, the dead weight of your not-yet-working tail heavier than you thought it would be.

“Careful, careful - there you go…”

Now that your eyes have adapted properly to the water, and it’s a little bit lighter, you can look at your new… friend? Is he your friend yet? Whatever, it’s close enough. You can look at your new companion in a lot more detail now, and you’re sure he’d agree with your observation that there’s quite a lot to look at.

He swings you back up into his arms, seemingly examining you for damage (although what you could possibly have done to yourself in the five seconds you spent out of his hold, you don’t know), and you take the opportunity to do some examining of your own.

He’s even more lovely than you’d first thought, and you realise that your stinging, blurry eyes really hadn’t done him justice. Slim but strong, tan skin speckled with iridescent scales, dark eyes bright and full of mischief. You’re reminded of a storybook - he looks like something out of one of those fairy tales, full of handsome princes and dashing rogues.

(A cold current breezes past the pair of you, and instinctively you curl into his warmth. In turn, he clutches you a little closer - you definitely don’t stare at the way his pretty hair, ruffled by the current, floats softly around his head before slowly settling.)

From the waist down he looks like a koi mer, the butterfly kind, dappled with orange and white scales, dark patches of black like spilt ink across his tail. Delicate, breezy fins trail over his hips like a lady’s veil, matched by a thin, elegant dorsal fin and a long, flowing causal fin at the end of his tail.

They look soft, gossamer thin and silky as they flutter in the current, and for a minute you think to reach out and touch one. Fingers brushing lightly against the edge, the delicate tissue is just as lovely as you’d thought it would be, and the smoothness makes you smile.

“Feeling me up already?” Someone else is smiling too, although you’d say his is a lot less innocent than yours. “So bold, little guppy. You don’t even know my name.”

Oh, shit, you don’t - you haven’t even - fuck, he must think you’re so - aargh! Embarrassed, you recoil like you’ve been burnt, hiding your face in your hands.

“Sorry!”

The mer shakes his head, laughing as he gently pries your hands away from your burning face. “I don’t mind, sweetheart,” he says, and the name shouldn’t make you shiver the way it does. “Just teasing you, that’s all.”

He flicks his tail behind him, fins curving around in a mockery of a curtsey as he takes your hand in his, pressing his lips to the back of your hand with a dazzling smile.

“Call me Gavin, darling.”

It’s an… unusual name, certainly. You’re not sure you’ve ever met anyone with that name before. Then again, he is quite unusual, so maybe you shouldn’t have been surprised. He raises an eyebrow at you, still holding your hand, and you realise that he’s waiting for you to reciprocate - hurriedly, you introduce yourself in return.

“My pleasure.” The mer - Gavin, now - presses your palm flat to his chest for a moment, fingers entwined just over his heart, before his tail swishes leisurely in the corner of your eye and he starts to swim.

At first, the movement is a little strange to get used to. You’d never really thought about how it must actually work, when mer swim, but you suppose it must be a lot more complicated than it looks. Held in his arms like this, clinging to his shoulders like a bride, you can feel all the muscles in his abdomen flexing and pulling under the skin as his body compensates for the weight of his tail pushing through the water.

(You’re not sure if he means for you to notice or not, but you hear him rolling your name around in his mouth like he’s getting used to it, testing the sounds out on his tongue. Different inflections, different pitches, different speeds. Somehow, it’s incredibly charming.)

“You know…”

Looking up, you’re greeted by a now very familiar smirk that you’re beginning to suspect means trouble. “Now that you and I are properly… acquainted, as they say, you’re more than welcome to go back to feeling me up.”

“I-” You blink in surprise - that’s… not at all what you thought he was going to say. “Sorry, you - it - what?”

Nope, you didn’t mishear - he flashes you a rakish grin as you fall over your words, sharp teeth on full display, and it’s so infectious that you can’t help but absentmindedly smile back. God, he’s so pretty.

“Well, you looked like you were having fun down there,” he says casually, by way of explanation. “Far be it from me to stop your fun.”

You shrug, deliberately letting your eyes wander slowly down over his arms, his chest, his waist… before flicking sharply back up to his face. “Who says I’d want to have fun with you?”

Gavin gasps in feigned agony, mouth dropping open into an unfairly perfect, not-at-all tempting O-shape. “Breaking my heart so soon? Darling, I’m hurt!”

He soothes the ache with an affectionate nudge of his tail against yours, fins swishing in the current, and a long, indulgent look up and down your body. Presumably, he likes what he sees - he leans down to drag his lips softly over your temple, and you don’t even dare to breathe as he murmurs against your skin.

“Don’t you want to find out what that shiny new body of yours can do?”

You open your mouth to respond in kind, but both of you are surprised when it turns into a yawn - ooh, that’s weird. Yawning underwater isn’t exactly an experience you ever anticipated having, but the sensation is certainly not what you were expecting.

Another staggering bout of fatigue hits you, and you realise all of a sudden just how tired you are. All your body’s energy must be going to your tail, finishing it off or however he put it, and you fight to keep your eyes open against the steadily-growing urge to sleep.

“Feeling sleepy?” His face softens, coy smirk melting away into a sweet, sympathetic smile. “You can rest, if you like. We won’t be there for a while yet.”

“Mm…” It’s getting harder and harder to keep your eyes open, but you do your best. “Where?”

“My home,” he replies. “You can stay with me for now, darling. We’ll sort it out later.”

It makes your heart ache a little, just how good he is. Yeah, so he’s a bit of a flirt, and yeah, so he’s definitely made an… interesting first impression - but he’s also just saved your life. If he hadn’t helped you breathe, you’re almost certain you would have drowned. If he hadn’t stayed with you, and if he wasn’t offering to take you somewhere presumably habitable, you’d be stuck in the middle of the ocean with literally, actually nothing.

Also, maybe it’s coming on a bit strongly, but… you trust him. Already. It’s weird and irrational and probably stupid, but it’s true. There’s just something about him that makes you want to know him, that’s telling you that there’s more in him than he might be trying to show you. You can’t help but wonder what might be hiding behind that brilliant smile, those sharp teeth, that silver tongue.

(You’re particularly interested in what else he might be able to do with said tongue, but that’s neither here nor there.)

(What can you say? Can you be blamed, for wanting to properly kiss the beautiful mer who saved your life? No? Exactly.)

“‘M sorry,” you hum softly, even though you’re sure the words are beginning to slur beyond recognition. “Don’t wan’ be rude.”

“I don’t mind you snoozing, sweetheart. You need the rest.” Careful fingers stroke across your skin, rubbing warm, soothing patterns into your back as a tiny bit of that familiar mischief creeps back into his tone. “I’d rather tire you out myself.”

The current riffles through his hair again, and you laugh quietly as he has to shake his head like a puppy to get it out of his eyes. “Close your eyes, little guppy,” he says, bending down to press a chaste, gentle kiss to your cheek. “It’s alright. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

You nod drowsily, already turning to bury your face against his chest. “Okay.”

With a distinctly satisfied little huff, he begins to swim in earnest, tucking you more tightly against his body as you drift off.

(Falling asleep to the sound of church bells, ringing in your ears. Why does this feel so… familiar?)

It’s… strange. Here you are, flung into an unfamiliar world in an unfamiliar body, putting all your trust in a total stranger with a pretty smile and a promise of safety. By all logic, you should be terrified out of your mind.

Even with your eyes closed, you can still see the green-blue glow that follows you two, twisting and curling through the water in your wake. Isn’t it funny, how these things turn out? All your life, you’ve been running - is this where you’ve been running to?

You should hope that the waves might bring you the fate you seek.

Well, if this is the fate the voice was talking about, you can’t say you mind. A fairy tale of your very own - a story that would make Captain Solaire proud. Curled up in Gavin’s arms, letting the soft swishes of his tail lull you to sleep, you’re perfectly at ease.

“Sleep well, darling.”

Oh, and say hello to Vindemiator for me.

this is an original fanwork by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

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#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted fluff #redacted gavin #redacted freelancer #redacted fic #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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