#he's just speaking his truth guys

[aphroditesacolyte]

Meryl and Diosia P16

Ch 16. // Self Care // Read on AO3

Masterpost

Summary: As a celebration to Aquedyus, the god of merfolk, commences, Diosia happens to find it a suitable time for a ritual of his own.

Content warnings: Fictional religion and god(s), cult vibes, murder/sacrifice, plotting to kill (eat) people, themes of fear and despair, please read at your own discretion, thank you!

~Approx word count: 2,262 words

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*The night following chapter fourteen, Your Saccharine Taste.

In the early night, his focus centered out on the empty, calm water’s edge. It was not quite still, for if he looked closely, he could spot the ripples of a fish’s movement or a natural current, but Meryl was nowhere to be seen. Even so, he kept on watching the water’s surface for a little while, as if watching it could prompt some sort of change—or truthfully, he never wanted to be off-guard, especially here of all places.

Bound to the sand he felt vulnerable, his usual escapes became impractical if they were ever needed, or so it seemed. Testing his boundaries however, little by little, was proving that he needn’t worry of being flightless much longer. As a matter of fact—

His vision whipped back to the water, then down the river.

Empty.

He then casted his gaze to the sky, measuring out the moon and stars with a narrow, calculative expression. It was late, yes it was. Tonight—he was certain—he’d be left alone.

With this in mind, a hand reached over to the splint upon his wing, and a gentle snap allowed him to pull away the days upon days of worried aid that he had been provided. It was endearing and entertaining, but unneeded, regardless of what the little mer thought was best for him. Once Meryl returned, he’d simply tell him that the thing unfortunately snapped in his sleep—Meryl had proved himself quite gullible; it wouldn’t be a hard lie to sell.

Now, with his wing free, the splint was set aside and in the depths of the night he rose. Slowly he trailed along the river, and his body held a certain arrogance as he gracefully brushed through the plant-life of the estuary. As if he were a crane in search of fish, he cast his gaze down at the water and ground below him, heedful in watching his surroundings and keeping his eyes open. If the waters were to ever provide him an opportunity, he would never miss it, and if prey were to come along, he would always find them first. It was the way of life he was accustomed to.

Even though his movement’s held a majesty to it, long strides pulled him across easily, until he met at the estuary’s mouth and found the shore. His head cocked slightly in study of the waters, but he quickly deemed them empty and moved along.

If one continued their walk along the shore, they’d eventually find that it curves, and replacing it comes an indent of water, shallow, yet terribly dark. In that shallow water one would have to watch their step as they waded through, cautious of the jagged rocks, and if they followed along as the shore grew taller, almost like a cliff compared to the water it stood over, they’d find a cave—it’s mouth wide and gaping, dark within, and tucked in the beginning of its jaws a few curious objects: Ropes and clothes, old and tattered with an ugly look of dark, dry crimson that sort of browned out in some places from its old age.

Diosia plucked up these supplies and turned his ambitions back out to sea. With all he needed, he was in search of his quarry.

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Like a fish out of water, scales flailed and scrabbled against the stone they were dragged along, the scraping sound it made accompanied by muffled cries, as if within the cave’s mouth there was ever hope of help or escape. Diosia heaved the rope along with a sort of mocking elegance, bringing the bound mer in tow.

The path became framed by the depths of waters that muttered and whispered as he passed, and the dim light of a few strange crystals thrummed through the place to illuminate where one must follow. The deeper he went, the lighter the cave became, its walls furiously embedded with these crystals all over, blue ones that blanketed a mystic, glacial colour over the stone.

The streams of waters drove themselves into the wall as the cave narrowed into a single, curved archway that led into the round chamber beyond. In this chamber the waters flowed again, encompassing all but the entrance and the center of the room. The water’s aura was that of the blue glow, shallow streams that purred against the edge of the stone. Throughout the floor intricate patterns were carved, symbols and words that far out-aged him, and in the center of it a round stone had sunken itself slightly into the floor and declared the highest being of the ground’s surface, even if it were quite short. On the walls these great symbols sat too, and the crystals made themselves at home where they did not disturb old words.

As he pressed out of the entrance he announced, “My Mistress, Aethyrsule, I bring you kind bearings.”

With that, he laid out the bound, writhing mer upon the heightened stone, and turned to the entrance. There, against the wall, laid a sharp, curved knife, its handle a heavy, blue-ish stone material, supporting a blade of clean silver. He plucked it up and adjusted it in his hand briefly, then brought himself back to the mer.

For a moment he looked them over, the fear in their eyes almost a burning hate, face scrunched and furrowed in their horror as they screamed out without caring that the sound hardly passed the cloth in their mouth.

“It’s a shame you’re not for me.” He mused, only for a brief second before he flicked the knife upwards.

It plunged down, and the stone swam with red. Across the letters and channels and lines of the floor the red liquid spilled, until it steadily streamed into the water.

He bowed his head and softly set the knife aside, freeing his hands to unravel his victim, who lied lifeless in Her altar. The ropes and cloth were all pulled away, and the knife returned to its original spot. Before he left, he turned and gave a bow of respect, and his chin remained  bowed as he began to exit the cave.

As he moved however, something caught his eye.

Along the path there were always crystals, but in some places those crystals would flatten out, joined together as if they were a distorted mirror, and in that mirror, he saw himself. From his face there was no longer the ugly marks, and when he stretched out his wing it no longer ached. His lips curled into a slight smirk—he hadn’t been expecting of Her, but it was thrilling to have his hope satisfied.

However, upon even closer inspection, something else caught his eye. His wings, though obviously well and healed, had not returned to their normal state. Like a raven’s wings they subtly glimmered with blue, as if they had been neatly laminated. He stared, confused, almost amazed.

He turned his head back to the Altar chamber. “What does this mean?” He questioned softly, then looked back to the strange new colour of his wings.

They still were black, they most certainly were, but in their black they held a shimmer they hadn’t before.

No answer came to him from Her Altar, and after another moment of befuddled staring, he left the place in peace. He oughtn’t stay somewhere sacred for a time more than needed.

As he set aside the supplies and met the night sky once more, something closer to a grin came across his face, and he spread out his wings. Why, if he were healed and free, there was plenty he could do again.

In this he became much more preoccupied, and spent the rest of his night gliding across the sky, savouring his freedom. It felt as if everything were happy to have him back, the wind carried him with vigor and the weather was clear and pleasant.

For the first night without Meryl, he only spent it exercising his regained freedom. The second night however, he realized something.

Meryl wasn’t back.

Actually, Meryl was busy, very busy.

He pondered over in his mind how long Meryl would be busy for, perhaps he had time for a little dabbling? Yes, Meryl was supposed to be his next meal, but frankly his fast had already been ruined by Meryl’s insistence to keep him well-fed. He couldn’t be angry at that though, it was… he didn’t know, but it made him feel a certain pleasantness inside, the sort of pleasantness akin to what one would feel when embraced by a soft bed of grass, or hammocked by the warmth of a woolen blanket. It was an experience so strange to someone whose bed was stone, and whose blanket was salt water and cold air, but he had come to accept whatever the feeling might be. He had no complaints regarding it.

The next thing he realized was that a merfolk being his next meal was very, very impractical. Meryl might’ve been busy, but the rest of them were just as, and painfully, it was busy with each-other. And, although Diosia would love to toy with more mer than one at a time, he knew he very well wouldn’t be able to handle a dozen mermen he couldn’t enchant crashing down on him. To pursue a mer when they were all together would be foolish—their celebration, their large, large group, kept them all safe from his clutches.

And that brought him to his alternative.

Unfortunately, there were no humans foolish enough to sail the seas, at least not tonight, which only narrowed his options even more. He settled upon it; he’d go out to the humans (colony? School? Pod? Why did it matter? He cared very little for whatever their groups were called.), catch himself one that was satisfactory, and settle down for a bit by himself, all cozy and blessed with new wings and a full stomach.

If he controlled all circumstances, it wouldn’t have been his ideal choice, sure, but it would do.

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*The third Blue Night.

It felt like he was dying—genuinely.

Actual death.

It was as if Meryl’s heart was failing him, breaking down and decaying, yet still running so wildly, like it was a freight train bound for a wall. He wondered if in some places veins had bled out within him, making his heart cry out in its desperate race to save him—save him from what? What was it?

He didn’t know. How could he know?

He knew nothing.

Nothing of why the splint was broken or the sand disturbed, nothing of why when he called out his name it was not returned, nothing of why the ground was soiled with the same crimson liquid pulsing in his ears, and nothing of why most importantly, Diosia was gone. He called out again for his lover, only for the dull quiet to stare at him, scorching him.

“Diosia?” His voice shuttered.

No, no. He was gone.

It took a few moments for Meryl to gain even a semblance of wits, and even then, his throat was tight, all sorts of tears and sobs caught in the back of it that he was trying to snuff out. The dark swallowed up anything he could see at a distance, and so as his search became desperate, it was forced to become more and more thorough. He sought out every corner, looked up and down the shore in every way. He made it a point to seek out every place he possibly could, and grasped to the shreds of comfort he had.

It wouldn’t have been a mer who found Diosia, everyone was still enjoying the third night by this time, and aside from a few very introverted merfolk who favoured their sleep, no one was away. They were all there. Anyone who had the will or power to harm Diosia was far, far away from the estuary.

Had it been humans? What were humans doing there?

His mind buzzed.

Diosia’s home was still empty and silent, and as was everywhere else he searched. The night stalked over him until it treaded past him and left him in dusk, and then the sun became to peer over him, almost mockingly.

There were no signs of Diosia—nowhere at all.

It stayed like this for a fortnight—a painful, painful fortnight. Each day Meryl felt worse and worse, and even with his family to distract him he couldn’t be consoled. There was no one he could tell about this, no one he could ask for help. He just had to stay quiet and act as if someone so beloved and important to him hadn’t disappeared without a trace nor explanation, nor goodbyes.

His heart ached. He couldn’t stand it.

His sobs were wrenching, and he couldn’t stand that either.

Quiet, he told himself. It would be worse if Bondi knew—somehow Meryl knew that. And he couldn’t tell Roka, for as sweet as he was, Roka would let the secret slip because he found sirens frightening. It became harder and harder to hide his feelings in front of his friends and family, and so he hid his whole self away instead.

It came to the point that he could almost always be found curled up in a little patch of sand as the sun beat down on him, and he was miserably hot and dry save for burning eyes and cheeks wetted by tears.

He murmured and whimpered and cried, “Where are you?”

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[stealingyourbones]

Gotta love when folks write Superman incredibly anti-clone even though he had good reason in the beginning to Not Like Superboy (HES A WINDOW INTO WHAT CLARK WOULD HAVE BEEN WITHOUT THE KENTS) and decide that forever on he’ll be spiteful towards clones even though he literally Does Not Care if you’re a clone unless you’re Superboy.

[wifiwuxians]

GOOD NEWS FOR SONG LAN GIRLIES (ME): Spanish novel TL did not mess up his final line! It reads more briefly and a bit more clinically than "tell him- I'm sorry, it was not your fault" (it is more like "I will apologize and tell him it was not his fault") but it has the exact same meaning and most importantly the apology is in there

IMPORTANT EDIT because I had just skimmed the line in my eagerness to know if they'd gotten it right, the perceived "clinical" brevity of "me disculparé" was in fact made up for by the beautiful "le haré saber que no fue culpa suya" which, more than "telling him it was not his fault" is "i will make him know it was not his fault". though it is just another manner of saying the same thing (not 'make' but commonly used like 'let'), to me it carries more weight than simply telling him. ahhh god

[claitea]

kingdom hearts au where n is split into a nobody and heartless who search for reshiram and zekrom respectively. is this anything

[dragonseeds]

there’s a horrible sickness in me that makes me want to stop and replay da:i whenever i start a different game. how am i supposed to resist the story of my own unwilling apotheosis? especially as lavellan, who doesn’t believe in the maker and who has every right to hate and mistrust the chantry but chooses to use what power they have to try save people, to fix what’s broken, no matter how afraid they are or how careful they have to be. walking side by side with the great trickster god/adversary of your people without knowing, befriending him, changing his mind about this world but ultimately not his choice. he understands what’s happening to you because it happened to him once and he gives you his castle, built over the place where he sundered the world, and paints your story there in frescos that will last long after you’re gone and after the story has been retold and reshaped so many times that the truth of who you are and what you did is lost—just as he did his own story, which was lost and perverted by war and propaganda, and he shows all of this to you knowing you’ll understand because you’ve lived through something similar, grown into something larger than yourself and your true name, and it doesn’t change anything but. he wanted you to see him just for a moment, even if he can’t tell you everything (or almost anything) and you can’t save him—because he owes it to you as a someone who is a friend, almost an equal, and because there’s no one else left who knows: a direct result of what he did to your people and which he now seeks to undo at the cost of this world.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Have I mentioned today…

… how much I love Nate and Eliot?

[found--family]

they couldn't let cesar and jesse return bc they would've taken one look at dean and cas interacting and known they had it bad for each other

[bugisawesomeasf]

something makes me think that you guys don’t actually like Will, you just hate Mike so much more

[notafagipromise]

Jon's waist must be SNATCHED because of his heroic action of undergoing double rib removal

[ace-with--a-mace]

idc yall could never make me hate richard cameron

[wisdom-walks-alone]

im so serious some t*m drake stans are so misogynistic when it comes to stephanie brown I'm not even kidding holy shit

[todayisafridaynight]

if i think bout ichi going to jiro kasuga's grave and arakawa accompanying him Maybe At Least Once i just might explode

[silverselfshippingchaos]

i need to be one of them so bad.

[crossbackpoke-check]

wait you got me so invested in the stammer & heddy tailor au....

this is my standard disclaimer that i have never posted a fic on ao3* and for however much i say “au” i truly mean that it’s a universe that lives in my head & i am absolutely delighted to tell you all about, all the time <3 if it helps i ALSO got me so invested in the heddy & stammer tailor au

ok now that the author’s note is out of the way here’s some notes about the not!fic heddy & stammer tailor au:

stammer as the tailor from gent’s playbook, very reserved, quiet, with an excellent eye for details (honestly the evidence i have for his style sense is just that he’s best friends with pk subban so it has to be there somewhere if only by proxy irl) is hired by victor hedman, star of the tampa bay lightning who is every other tailor’s nightmare to dress (huge, opinionated, fashionable)

heddy is decently well-known throughout the league for being very well-dressed & becomes quietly well known for also being one of his new tailor’s favorite loyal customers [heddy has the nicest fabrics. he has his suits the first day a new collection drops & e v e r y o n e is jealous]

stammer’s business booms after heddy takes a chance on him as his first big client & promotes him, heddy sees him grow in popularity & get more clients

heddy also moonlights as a model for stammer’s suits on instagram, initially to help him grow his business because then he won’t have to pay for a model and then because he’s over there all the time anyway because they’re dating (that’s why the model’s face is never in the pictures)

there’s not really a plot to this besides the vague idea of a plot where stammer makes heddy his lucky suit that he wins the cup in & sews a special little tag into the lining of his jacket that says i love you

because love sometimes is picking out the perfect right color pocket square to match your husband’s beautiful suit that you fitted like a kiss to the curves of his huge body

& also sometimes love is making your beautiful husband who makes you beautiful clothing enjoy nice things for himself once in a while, like the fancy watch you bought him or the nice suit you custom-ordered for him (from him) just so you could take it off of him

[nyctarian]

janela cut a post show promo just to put over ibushi and at one point was like "you didnt go to wwe and, you didn /for now/ go to aew, you came to this company i would die for" and he gave ibushi the proper respect he deserved and did genuinely thank aew for what it was even if towards the end it did not work out for him. so even tho i dont like him i at least appreciate that he genuinely understood what it meant for ibushi to be there and for gcw to get him first

[kavehater]

the funniest thing ever is when I’m telling a story in my heart ik is probably excruciating for the other to hear (overthinking core) but then the other is like tell me but it’s not the words they say it’s the specific vibe I get too