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naffeclipse · 4 months ago

Text

Wave

Reader x Mer!Map Bot

Commission Info

I have the honor to write dear @craykaycee's Mer Map Bot OC set in the world of Deep Dreams with a reader who suffers from memory problems! This has everything from hurt/comfort to good ol' angst, but it's sweet in the end, don't worry. This was so much fun to write, ah! Happy reading!

———

The stars glimmer around you, rippling in a space like a black, engulfing sea full of comets and far planets that pierce the distance with their tiny light. You float within it, held safely in a large, clawed hand. Only three giant fingers with razor-sharp talons surround you. How strange. How beautiful. You want to admire him for a little longer.

Your dreams have never been kinder to you.

A face looms above you, colossal and dream-like, but adoring. Eyes, pale and silvery like moonlight upon water, soften as he looks over you. Though you are held in a giant’s palm, you hold no fear. Though you have no memory of this place, of this being, a reassurance of safety blossoms in your chest. A sweeping warmth like tide pools sitting under the sun covers you, and you smile back.

Go to the water.

You tilt your head in confusion. What is he talking about?

Go to the secluded beach.

He is almost urgent. He lowers himself towards you on your hand, but the speckled stars of the dream are beginning to fade. The creature’s brow pinches. He warbles a low sound of a plea but gradually, slowly, your eyes close, and the darkness takes you under.

With a jolt, you sit straight up in your bed. A brush of something distant but so terribly close to your dream is at your fingertips. As you clutch the edges of the covers, you feel it slip further and further out of reach, until you are only left with a foggy recollection of something. The outline of a missing piece. The emptiness of a hole.

No. Come back.

A pang of sadness fills your heart.

What was it? Where did it go? A memory or a dream?

A heat pulses behind your rib bones. You hold still, anchored by the comfort, but where it comes from, you can’t say.

Through the haze of your memory, a phantom voice lingers. Though muffled and inarticulate, deep within you, you hear the urge as if discerning words from a whisper across the room, shielded behind hands.

Go to the water.

An image softly presses into your thoughts. A secluded beach as viewed from out at sea, like a boat coming in to dock at the harbor. Not just any secluded beach—the one you’ve been spending most of your time at. It’s your vacation, after all, and you get to choose how you spend it.

But why do you burn with such a distinct need to return?

You don’t often trust yourself to wander out alone. Yet, you’ve always found your way back somehow. It’s all so strange.

Inexplicable, you have had very little to fear while upon this group vacation upon an island lost to time. There’s so little that feels like regular life here, filled with noisy phones and clicking computers. It’s been reclaimed as a tourist destination, and you’ve had so much fun with your friends who are well aware of your injury that still haunts your head.

The car crash was over a year ago. It busted your skull and banged your brain, and recovery takes a long, long time. Longer than you can remember sometimes. The doctors could only tell you to be patient, but it’s difficult when at times you forget who you are or what you’re doing or where you are.

Sometimes you’ve wandered away, almost lost until your friends spread out and search for you. Sometimes a chore you’re in the middle of doing gets set down and forgotten about for days until it stinks, and you remember just what you were in the middle of. You trust your friends. They help you and take care of you.

It wasn’t their fault a week back that you were carried away by a wave while everyone else was diving off of the boat, drinking and laughing. You hardly understood what was happening until the boat was only a speck and your limbs were growing tired from fighting to get back. Then… you don’t remember. Not even your friends know how you returned to shore the next morning, safe and sound and strangely, dry.

You lower your head in your hands and rub your face. You want to go to the water. The urge is not just outside of you but within. You have to see what’s there, how you keep finding yourself safe despite the precariousness of your injury. Maybe you’ll remember.

There are plans with your friends today that you can’t simply brush off. They wouldn’t want you going off alone to a beach by yourself regardless, so it would be best for you to wait until the evening. A rippling warmth within you spreads. It feels good. It feels right.

Okay. This evening then.

You get dressed. If you don’t come downstairs soon, someone will come to check on you. You shouldn’t worry your friends more than you already do.

You glance at the desk in the room. A jar sits there. You brought it to collect seashells in—that you remember, but there are other objects stored inside. Slowly, you walk over and touch the cool, curved glass. A broken seashell, a shiny carved stone, and a braided palm tree bracelet are all stuffed within. You unscrew the lid with a soft sound of air. The strong scent of the sea wafts into your nose. Where did you get these? Why does the sight fill you with such happiness?

A vague recollection filters into your mind like fog, and soon, you can see nothing but the denseness concealing what’s within. Shreds of joy are littered all about. You slowly re-screw the lid on and leave it before you grow too frustrated with your limitations.

You won’t let yourself forget this. You will go to the water and find why it’s so important to you, why can't you ignore this need deep within your chest.

A lingering image hangs in your mind of stars. Someone is holding you carefully. You stop to try and hook the memory, but it drifts away from you, lost to the sea of foggy recollection.

You slip away quietly, a hand clutching a napkin full of the rest of your dinner as you make your way toward the water. The water here is beautiful. In the setting light of the sun, it becomes darker with bright glints of orange catching on the tips of waves. The secluded beach is flanked by tall, towering palm trees and a dense foliage of leafy shrubs. Jutting out into the water is a creaky dock. The wood is gray and splintery but the supports are solid and damp with the tide splashing against it.

Slowly, you make your way towards the end. It’s been good today, mostly. You only had brief moments of forgetfulness that your friends easily guided you out of or corrected. A little jog to your memory can put it back into place. They’re kind enough to take you with them here. It’s work, but they manage with you.

Sitting down, you kick your legs over the water. It’s darker, somehow. At the depth just below you, you remember swimming in the water beside the boat. You remember something below. There must be all kinds of fish in the sea. You imagine rows of teeth and tall dorsal fins.

You flip the napkin open and take a bite. A little snack eases the jumble of your nerves, forcing you to focus on chewing and tasting the morsel in your mouth. It’s okay, right? You keep munching on the remainder of your dinner until there’s nothing left.

As the sun dips lower, you shiver under a slight breeze. The constant lapping of the ocean against the support beams lures you into comfort. You slowly ball up the napkin and shove it into your pocket. The horizon is bleeding red and the last of the light is golden.

In the dark water, something strange shifts below the surface. A faint purple glow. Waves begin to rise. They start crashing against the support beams of the dock and you start. Blood pumping in your veins, you jump to your feet.

A terrifying, unimaginable form rises from below. Your feet are anchored to the worn-down dock. A great crest of white, frothing water builds before breaking as a creature the size of a leviathan emerges. Your heart skips a beat in your chest until you realize pale, silvery eyes are gazing back at you. The being emits a brilliant purple bioluminescence about his towering body.

A flicker of memory. A warmth trickles into your chest.

You gawk in pure, unadulterated awe as a being from the very depths gathers himself at the surface. His eyes squint slightly against the fading sunset, but his attention remains entirely on you. Thick waterfalls crash off of him and back into the water. Slipping closer with a mighty flick of his sleek black and gold tail, the being easily matches the dock with his height.

You find yourself eye to eye with a mer.

The stunning creature is light yellow with golden markings on his cheeks. Frills with thick, black, and purple webbing in between spread upon the sea monster’s head like a sunhat. Two whisker-like tendrils twist and wave upon the creature’s face, purple and searching for stimuli. Darkness marks the being's body, splattering its golden color like dots of stars. A strange seam crosses where its mouth would be.

Your heart warms with his presence as he knows you. Like he’s been waiting for you. The feeling is inexplicable and undeniable. You are terribly small under this beast’s gaze. You could easily be crushed underneath the palm of his hand, but you admire the finned tail he sports, flicking gently just below the black waves.

Beautiful.

How do you know him?

“Who… who are you?” you speak, amazed you can even find your tongue in the presence of such a great being. You only marvel at his appearance. Deep down, you feel no danger.

A forgotten song echoes in the back of your head, unearthly and dream-like, and then it disappears in a flash.

The creature’s brow pinches. Despite apparently lacking a mouth, the being appears wounded for a moment. You shift, uncertain, and almost wishing to comfort whatever hurt you caused. An echo of pain ripples through your chest. You hug yourself with one arm, confused. That couldn’t have come from you, could it have?

As you stare a moment longer at the leviathan, an itch begins in the back of your mind. An answer to the question you asked. Standing here, on this dock, is familiar. You know what it’s like to behold such a creature and have no doubt that he will not harm you.

But why?

He leans closer to you. You almost step back, the scent of sea salt and something deep and dark emitting from him as if he belongs in the depths where no sunlight can pierce his milky eyes. Can he see you?

A pang of emotion rings through you distantly. It is not your own.

The ripple of a memory brushes against your thoughts, and you grow still in the presence of them. There’s a sea, darkening with the sunset. There’s a boat, and your friends as they drink and laugh loudly. You remember, nudged by the familiarity. You were buzzing with alcohol and exhausted. Somehow, you’re looking up at yourself from the depths. No, not you. Him.

The strangeness continues in the vision with how you falter, your limbs growing heavy after struggling for so long trying to swim back, and a sensation of care spreads through you, warm like rain in the summer.

Giant hands reach for you, three fingers on each appendage gently cupping you into his palms. You don’t remember this—your eyelids flutter and you briefly turn, held up from the surface as water drips from between his fingers, and gaze up at him in your weariness. Then, you succumb to your exhaustion.

Rescued you.

The short, blunt words enter your mind as if a bell was rung. The place where his mouth should be doesn’t open despite knowing that he speaks to you. You almost stagger back, stunned by the connection.

“I… I remember,” you murmur, and touch your temple. You lift your eyes to his pale gaze. “Where did you take me?”

Patiently, he warbles a low sound, and another vision sweeps over your mind. You felt the seaspray as he carried you gently over the waves, swimming carefully to a secluded, perhaps undiscovered islet off the coast of the island. He swept into a cove to take refuge, cupping you to his chest as he rested, half submerged in the shallows that would have drowned you.

He waits for you and sings. The song fills your mind as he sings again, layering the distant memory with the reality of his ethereal song. Your heart beats in time with his tune. A great heat fills your marrow, and you gasp softly.

When you woke up in his palm, he saw you, and you saw him. You remember.

“Wayfinder,” you breathe. His name is whispered to you through a connection that transcends oral tradition.

A pulse of joy rolls through you and you understand now that this is an echo of himself. A song knitting you two together somehow. Magic, perhaps. You’ve heard stories of mers but you thought they were only told to the tourists who came here for a sunny vacation and lots of sand.

You remember me.

He says simply, but you understand how he cherishes the fact. You do. Slowly, you step back to the end of the dock. Wayfinder follows you with his large eyes though he squints, as if finding it hard to focus on you in the golden light. His expression is curious as you carefully sit yourself back on the edge, your feet kicking over the sea. The mer gently lowers himself to remain eye-to-eye with you. Though he has no lips, you have the undeniable sense that he’s smiling.

Gently, he lifts a clawed hand. You go over his three fingers, how they are ancient and otherworldly, but hold no fear with the wicked talon drawing near you. You hold perfectly still. He crooks one finger. A slickness to his gold and black flesh gingerly brushes against your cheek, almost engulfing the entire side of your face before he draws back, watching you closely. You reach up to touch the ocean water now drying on your skin.

“Wow,” you say, unable to help your marvel. “You’re so soft. Wait.”

You jerk your head up, searching his expression for answers.

“Did we meet here before? Have you been visiting me?”

Wayfinder gently dips his head. The frills upon his head are stunning, purple on the underside, and dark up on top. You can’t help but notice a speckling of brighter purple bioluminescence as the darkness descends. The sight triggers a surge of understanding or a memory—you know he thrives in the darkness.

Yes. Often. Here.

Here. You glance down to the worn-down dock and run your hand over the weather-beaten wood. The blanks creak and you remember the sound echoing when you stood before him, and you had felt his gentle touch before.

His tail flickers softly behind him, chopping up the waves rolling up to splatter against the support beams of the pier. You are overcome with a longing to run your hand over his slick skin and giant fins, feeling the parts of him that help him maneuver through a great and terrifying ocean.

The mer lowers himself slightly and reaches down into the water below the dock. You follow his movement carefully. What is he doing? His clawed hands dig through the sand before he finds something. His frills flicker once. His eyes, half creased as if the light is too bright, shift back to you.

“What is it?” you whisper.

A gift. For you.

He gingerly overturns his hand and in the center of his massive palm sits a chipped sand dollar. You gawk, again. How many times will your mouth hang open in wonder?

Wayfinder gingerly maneuvers his claws, and turning his hand again, he pinches the shell with a delicateness that betrays his leviathan size before he drops it a few inches into your waiting palms.

You gape as the wet seashell sinks into your hands. It is beautiful, perfect despite the chip in its side, like the broken seashell in your jar—

A flood of memories returns. Each evening, a new gift. A broken seashell. A shiny carved stone. A braided palm tree bracelet. All given to you as you stood upon this very dock. A thickness gathers in your throat. And now the sand dollar.

You look up and adore him.

“Thank you, Wave,” you say wetly. The nickname rolls off your tongue but there is no doubt you have called him such a thing before. “You gave me gifts before, didn't you?”

I have.

The answer is soft and gentle. Ripples of care flow through you, and you wish you could hug him properly, but your arms can’t even fit around his golden-marked face. He struggles to focus on you, but the sun is nearly gone. You worry for his poor eyes in this level of light. He’s built for the deep depths and darkness, and yet, he’s here for you, patiently guiding you back to the memories you both made.

You want to cry but you convince yourself that would be messy.

In the remaining light of the sun, the leviathan extends his hand carefully to you. You stare at it. Looking up into his expression, his eyes a bit brighter now as the day gives way to the night, you break into a smile.

Distant memories return to you like the tide crawling back up the shore, washing over you bit by bit until you’re dripping in them. All the times Wayfinder has carefully carried you so he might share with you the things he cherishes. Beautiful hidden spots around the island, tucked away from prying eyes. A cave opens to the open ocean as the moon reflects off the water.

He gently tapped your chest, and your heart, and touched his own to explain, in the best way he could, the connection you both share.

You fill with warmth. Eagerly, you accept his hand.

#naff's writing commissions #in deep dreams between the waves #mer!map bot #map bot #enjoy these two because they are sweet as pie <3 #naff writing

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