#raz: boy oh boy i can't wait to start exploring where the people are!!

[razzle-zazzle]

Whumptober Day 17: Nowhere Else to Go

Shipwrecked (kind of) + "We had a good run"

2265 Words; Pearl & Seaglass

TW for brief implied nonsexual nudity

AO3 ver

Heat bore down against his face, uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Raz shifted. His scales felt weird, and there was sand against his back—but it didn’t feel right. He couldn’t feel his fins, either, and when he tried to move his tail—

Raz’ eyes snapped open with a speed that could rival a frogfish. Bright sunlight assaulted his eyes, making him wince and close them again, blinking rapidly as he tried to get his arms under him.

Slowly, his vision returned, and he found himself—the word humans used was sitting, wasn’t it? Raz glanced down—yes! In place of his tail were two gangly, scaleless legs.

“It wasn’t a dream!” Ohhhhh, okay, that was weird, talking without flashing his stripes. “Ohh. Ahh. Ouwaeghhhhh.” The sounds vibrated weirdly in his throat, different from the clicks and whistles he was used to. Cool!

Raz reached up—okay, yeah, his helmet was still there. His bag was at his side, but that was it—which Raz was pretty sure was less than humans tended to wear. He needed to fit in, to be so super stealthy if he wanted to return to the ocean safely in… Gisu had said seven days, right? So Raz had seven whole days to poke around, which meant he couldn’t mess it up!

Raz looked around the beach. There was a cliff face sheltering it, and in the shadow of the rock was an old, heavy-looking chest, half-hidden under dried kelp. Raz got up fully, the sand warm beneath his feet, and moved to start walking—

He stumbled, arms windmilling as he tumbled forwards. He spat out sand, pushed himself up, and tried again. One foot in front of the other, he was pretty sure—

“Yes!” Raz was walking! Like a human! He whooped, surprised by the sudden sound, then pushed forward, the sand shifting under him. He tilted, almost fell, and then spun around until he was dizzy. This was real! He was a human!

Eventually, Raz made his way over to the chest. He swept the kelp away, prying it open. A bunch of fabric sat inside, smelling slightly musty, slightly salty. Clothes, he presumed.

“Bingo.” Raz fiddled around, picking through the clothes until he was wearing what he was pretty sure was normal human wear. He’d seen some woodcarvings before they rotted, and the rare metal engraving if it wasn’t rusted, so he had a pretty good idea of what went where, even if he wasn’t sure as to the exact names of things. But his torso and legs were covered, and he was pulling his feet into what he thought were called shoes. There was a bit of sand grating against his skin inside his clothes, but Raz did his best to shake the feeling off—there was no way he wasn’t gonna get sand where he didn’t want it. So he pulled his goggles down instead, the world shifting to warmer hues through the lenses. Now he was a proper explorer, just like the Explorer Corps!

Raz bounced in place. If he still had fins, they’d be fluttering, and he’d be swimming loops. But he wasn’t in the water, and he didn’t have fins, because he had become human and made it onto land.

There was a small path up the cliff, hard to catch from up above. Raz dashed for it, excitement filling his chest. He was so ready for this, he was going to learn so much—

He couldn’t wait to be where the people were.

+=+=+=+=+

The human city was crowded.

Raz supposed it made sense; it looked like they could only build their dwellings up so high, and all of the people were groundbound, unable to just swim over or under each other. Raz’ small size put him at something of a disadvantage; he kept getting bumped into and pushed around in the crowd, and couldn’t see over any of the much bigger humans. It was loud, crowded, hot, and a little smelly thanks to all the humans crammed together in the same space all buying and selling, and Raz was glad he had his helmet and goggles on because otherwise all the noise and motion might make him combust—

In short, it was awesome.

They were all talking, too, and Raz could understand what they were saying—except for where the voices all meshed together into an aural paste. How did he understa—oh it was probably magic, wasn’t it. Neat!

Raz still couldn’t quite believe it—surely, any moment now, he would wake up in his room to realize it had all been a dream—

“Young man!” A hand grabbed at Raz’ arm, whirling him around. A lady with her hair tied up tight and glass in front of her eyes was glaring down at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh.” Raz tried to pull his arm away, but her grip didn’t budge. “Exploring?”

The lady huffed. “Skipping school, are we?” She stood, taking Raz’ wrist up with her, and started walking.

“What—” Raz dug his heels into the ground, but he was benign swept up by her anyway.

“No wonder things are going to hell,” She was saying, “Kids running about in the street instead of going to school!” She shook her head, dragging Raz away from the market—

“Let go!” Raz yanked his arm free, stumbling back. The lady whirled around, but Raz was already stumble-dashing away, struggling not to trip over his own feet. His boots being slightly oversized didn’t help, but he kept going going going—

The lady shouted somewhere behind him, and Raz jumped onto a box set next to a wall of wood. He jumped, grabbing at the top of the wall, struggling to haul himself up—why did everything have to be so much heavier out of the water? Footsteps pounded the stone behind him as he got his body over the top—shit, what was he going to land on on the other side?

Too late! Raz flung himself over the edge, hitting the crate below hard. Whatever was in the crate broke underneath him with several cracking sounds, yellow slime leaking out and staining Raz’ clothes. It kind of reminded him of eggs, but way smaller than mer eggs, and with harder shells than Raz had ever seen.

Raz groaned, rolling off the maybe-eggs. He rubbed at the fabric on his legs, but that only served to get the goop on his hands, ewww—

“Hey!” Raz looked up to see another human staring him down angrily, leaning in an opening in the stone wall of their dwelling. “You better pay for those—”

Whatever else they were saying was lost to the wind as Raz ran.

+=+=+=+=+

Raz breathed hard, his chest heaving. Which was weird, his gills didn’t work like that at all; did humans have to deal with this all the time?

He was leaning against a wooden wall, a ways away from where he had started. The stone path he was on was wide, bordering the sea to one side, with a series of wooden platforms extending out to the sea a ways down the stone path. It was too smooth to be a natural cliff, Raz felt—humans must have cut it up to look like this. Probably. There was a stone basin full of water to Raz’ side, and he had pushed his goggles up to see more clearly.

The burn in his legs was… well, it was unfamiliar, because Raz had never had legs before, but it was just like any other burn in his muscles otherwise. And while the running itself was different from swimming, Raz was no stranger to having to flee bigger, stronger adults he had pissed off; it seemed that was something the ocean and the land had in common. And even in the ocean, being an Aquato could only get him so far—

But he wouldn’t have any of that status here, did he? He was just a kid nobody knew, which was half the reason he came up here in the first place.

(The other being that humans were just cool.)

But that wasn’t an advantage, was it? Raz had no safety net up here, nobody to look out for him. No older siblings to come and flash their fins at whatever giant octopus he had managed to piss off now, then complain for hours about Raz’ recklessness.

That… hm. Raz had sort of vaguely known this would be dangerous—explorers had to go into danger to confront the unknown!—but he hadn’t really thought about how dangerous.

“Hey, kid.” Raz looked up at the third voice to address him in the same day, not sure how he’d find the energy but ready to run—

Oh.

Oh.

Raz’ knees wobbled, which he did not like—and his chest did a funny little lurch that he didn’t know how to explain. If he had fins, they might have fluttered—it wasn’t like Raz had ever

A girl about his height stood before him, red hair pulled back into two dangling tails. Raz didn’t exactly know how to describe it, just that something about her was really wow.

Raz became acutely aware that he was still covered in maybe-egg slime. His face heated up as he took in her clothes, brightly colored layers of fabric that fit her in a way that Raz’ own borrowed clothes didn’t. And the way she held herself carried with it a strong confidence, a sharp familiarity with her body that Raz didn’t have. In mer logic, that made her dangerous. By all rights, Raz should be wary—and he was!

But he also very much did not want to run away.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked, and Raz was suddenly hyperaware of the way he was leaning against the wall, breath caught in his throat. “You look like a mess.” Her nose wrinkled, one end of her mouth pulling back in a frown—

“What’s wrong with you?” Raz shot back before his brain caught up with his mouth. “You look like an anemone that’s trying too hard.” He wanted to bite her twintails, and he didn’t know why.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Bold words from the weirdo covered in eggs.” She stepped back. “You smell.”

Raz sniffed. He did smell like eggs, and a bit like salt. He couldn’t smell anything else, though. He huffed, looking her up and down again. “You don’t look so tough.” Oh, for the love of the abyss, what was he even saying? When was he going to learn how to stop picking fights he couldn’t win?

Her lip curled, and she glared at him. “Oh, I’ll show you tough.” She threatened, and then she was grabbing Raz’ hand and yanking him forwards as he yelped—

Splash! went the water in the basin as Raz was shoved into it. He sputtered, flailing to get his limbs under him and sit up, memories of being unable to breathe beneath the waves making his chest surge with panic.

The girl was laughing, hand over her mouth. “You look ridiculous!” She proclaimed, and Raz’ stomach did a weird twisty thing.

“Oh, I’ll show you ridiculous—” and then she was falling into the water with him as he pulled her in, yelling as she splashed and her dress got soaked. She kicked him, and Raz shoved back, and the two of them started shoving and pushing and yelling until they had knocked themselves out of the basin entirely, dripping water onto the stones beneath them as they rolled.

Raz acked as her fist hit his chest, and he grabbed at her twintails. She yelled, kicked between his legs—which hurt, ow ow ow—and Raz found himself shoved to the ground as her blunt human claws dug into his shoulder where the fabric of his clothes had fallen loose.

He shoved her off, sitting up and scooting back—and she was yelling but it sounded a lot like her earlier laughter, and Raz was laughing himself—

She had really pretty eyes.

“Now we’re both ridiculous!” Raz declared, victorious. One of her twintails had come loose, water dripping from her soaked clothes.

She laughed, bright and loud. Raz’ stomach did that twisty thing again, his chest lurching. After a moment she stood, holding out her hand. Raz stared at it, not sure what she wanted—

“Just grab it, idiot.” She instructed, so Raz did. She pulled, and Raz slowly stood. Ohhhh.

(Humans were so weird, in all the best ways.)

“I’m Lili.” She introduced herself. “You?”

“Razputin, but my friends call me Raz.” Raz said.

Lili snorted, and the sound made Raz’ chest do that funny little lurch again. “What are you even doing covered in eggs, anyway?” She asked.

Raz thought back to that lady that had tried to drag him off to places unknown. “Uh… not skipping ‘school’?” He tried, not sure how convincing it was. “Exploring, mostly.” He added.

Lili looked him up and down for a long moment. “You remind me of my uncle Helmut.” She decided, still holding Raz’ hand. After another moment, she nodded, clearly having made up her mind about something. “Right, you’re coming with me.” She said, holding Raz’ hand and starting to walk away.

“Wait—” But Lili wasn’t waiting, and Raz had no choice but to get swept up in her grasp as she ran along. And yet, he wasn’t quite bothered—Raz didn’t know why, but he really wanted to follow her, wherever she led.

Everything on the surface was so much more confusing than Raz was expecting.

But maybe, as he watched Lili’s twintails bounce behind her as she ran, that wasn’t a bad thing.