Chapter Text
When Tommy was younger, his parents took him to visit his uncle who lived by the sea. He took them all fishing at a river that met the sea.
At eight years old, Tommy didn't want to do anything else but explore. Finding creatures that skittered, flew and slithered. A cousin of his about his age, going with him the entire time.
An hour or two in, they got tired and fell asleep on a pile of seaweed. His mother telling him his father and uncle had a good laugh when they found the pair cuddled together asleep on the sea growing plants.
He doesn't remember much from that time except the smell which strangely enough lingered in the memory.
And right now he's thrown back to that day when the smell of sea plants enters his nostrils. His hand twitches and the sensation of waking up grows as his awareness grows with it.
It's a groggy wake up call, the air smelling of stale air and salty sea water. He blinks his eyes open to dim light and he groans.
His voice seems to echo and it's strange to hear. He's definitely not home.
With awareness comes memories and he recalls his fair share of falling off a cruise ship and waking up in a cave with a giant sea creature.
And he's not dead.
He sits up immediately at those thoughts and looks around.
He's in the same cave as before but relocated to a corner of it, on the opposite side of the large pool. Laying on a variety of seaweed and moss that is strangely comfortable.
The sea creature from before is gone, the pool empty. Not a sign of it in its dark abyss.
He's alone and he's alive, it didn't eat him.
It just decided to move him after he had dozed off to its singing.
Tommy furrows his brow in complete confusion.
The sea beast made no sense, it didn't eat him even when it had the chance. It had so many chances in fact. From when it had Tommy in its palms to when he literally went to sleep while it sang in arms reach of him.
So if it didn't want to eat him, what did it want?
He sighs.
"It is too early for this shit." He mumbles.
He rubs harshly at his eyes as he wakes himself. Stretching before slumping down and looking around.
Nothing much has changed, just the same cave as before.
Tommy decides he can't waste the day away by sitting on a bed of seaweed and moss and stands up. Luckily enough able to walk around the pool, making it to where he was before.
The massive cave gives very little light so he doesn't have much luck looking around although he does spot growth of land plants. Vines that crawl on the cave walls and signs of sticks from trees.
It's a lucky sign because that means there is a way out if possible.
His exploration however leads him back to the pool, an almost inky look to it. Ominous and terrifying to look at. Still, Tommy takes a curious glance into the water below, just for his own curiosity sake and gasps.
Two glowing eyeballs of red with two wide pupils stare back at him. His heart leaps to his throat and backs away on stumbling legs as the figure moves.
It comes closer and closer and Tommy stumbles away.
"Holy shit!" He shouts and only has a second of a warning in the form of familiar gurgle noises when something bursts from the water.
It splashes everything around, sending waves to kick up the edges of the pool. And wading in the water as it had done before was the same sea beast.
The giant siren shakes it's massive head to get rid of the excess droplets before blowing out a spray of misty water from its flat nose that flaps open and close.
With unblinking eyes it meets Tommy, staring like it had done over and over.
It warbles at him before leaning closer.
"Woah woah woah." Tommy backs away, stumbling back into the rock behind him as the beast leans over the edge of the pool and now hovering its head over the ground.
Before Tommy could think of anything to do in response to the creature's strangeness, it opened its mouth.
Tommy was not expecting a mound full of fish to pour from its lips. All kinds, from trout to mackerel to parrot fish to even eels. Less desirable ones like jellyfish and reef sharks flop onto the dry land, wiggling and slapping around on the rocky ground.
Everything you could think of that lived in the sea was now wiggling at Tommy's feet. The boy had to climb on the rock just to avoid slipping and standing on the fish.
He looks around the array of sea animals, stunned.
What is this? Is it going to eat everything? But why bring it here? Why to him?
The beast croons, its gill's shaking with the sound on its neck but not opening.
With its clawed hand, it pushes some of the fish towards him.
Like it's saying…
Is it giving the fish to Tommy?
Is it feeding him right now?
Tommy stares at the beast then down at the fish at his feet. There's a different array of everything from big to small.
Or really big because… is that a fucking great white shark?!
Sure enough it is, it's jerking from side to side, kicking away the fish around its tail and body. Its gills flap open and close, Tommy can see its teeth from where he is as its jaw opens and closes.
He stares wide eyed at the predator many would fear to even get close to and yet it's sitting on dry land not metres away from Tommy.
What is happening?
The sea beast does another thoughtful croon, its head tilting to one side before lifting a hand. But it doesn't go anywhere near Tommy but instead the massive shark Tommy had been staring at.
Picking it up by its tail, it lifts the creature towards it. Opening its maw, it bites the shark in half. Blood and guts spill from the once alive animal as the sea beast chews. The other half of the animal, going in soon after.
Tommy watches in mortifying curiosity as the beast eats. Dribbles of blood drop from its mouth as it swallows the predator now becomes prey.
Tommy just watched a giant mermaid thing eat an entire 6 foot shark. It takes a moment for his brain to understand the madness of that before he begins looking around again at the array of fish at his feet.
None of which are as big as that shark was thankfully.
How is he going to deal with this?
"Okay, okay, me and you? We need to talk." He must sound like a madman, he feels mad but not at the giant fish creature that just dropped moundfuls of fish at his feet but at life in general.
He did not ask for this.
"You - whatever the fuck you are - can't just drop this on a man. For one- "Tommy hops off the rock, looking down at his feet to make sure he doesn't step on any fish while pointing a finger at the giant mer he's talking to, who watches in silent interest, "you shouldn't even exist or should even be possible. I know humans haven't explored the majority of the Earth's ocean but come on, this is fucking ridiculous."
He emphasizes with gesturing exaggeratingly to the giant mer who continues to just stare and listen.
"And two, why are you being… weird? I haven't even eaten, you've put me to sleep and laid me down on a fucking bed of seaweed and moss," he point to said bed in the corner, "and apparently save dmy fucking life!" He screams.
The entire time, the teen had slowly and surely walked through the sea of slowly dying fish at his feet, traversing over and pushing a few away with his feet as he approaches the giant beast and the pool it sits in.
"What do you want from me?" He stops in his tracks, staring directly up with furrowed brows and clenched fists. He breathes heavily from his shouting bout, his words echoing off the cave walls.
His energy and anger slowly sap from him as he let his frustrations out to a creature that doesn't even understand him.
He instead feels the dread pick up and the sorrow comes with it. All for a sudden a sob rips from his chest.
He doesn't stop the tears as they come and he drops his head to stare at his darkened reflection in the water below. The tears falling from his cheeks and dripping into the water.
"I don't know what to do."
He says much quieter as he hangs his head and stares into the abyssal of the water.
He hears a low croon, now becoming a familiar sound, and realises belatedly how close he is to the pool and in turn, the beast.
It lowers its head as Tommy lifts his to meet it's unblinking gaze. Until it's massive head is equal to Tommy. It's so close, Tommy can feel it's breath coming from out its flat nose brush against his skin and even disturb his hair.
Tommy's breath hitches at its close proximity but all it does is make a gurgle sound, close to that of a pur, from within its throat.
Tommy swallows down his nerves as an itch to touch takes him over.
Slowly, he lifts his hand.
The sea beast stays where it is as Tommy lifts his palm, facing the creature. At the sight of its hand, the pupils of the beast blow wide again, all traces of its blue eyes gone.
Tommy hesitates for a moment but ends up relinquishing the urge to run as his palm finally touches the surface of the beasts face.
Just below it's eye, Tomym feels the slimey texture not that different from the beasts hands. At least the down direction was smooth, up though was more rough and Tommy, upon closer inspection, sees little scales that made up the beasts skin.
They didn't go all the way down, a few went parallel, especially when he followed towards the side of the beasts face.
Of course, the beast seemed to enjoy this as it started to pur. Like, an actual pur and leaned into Tommy's palm as it's pupils blew even wider.
Tommy guessed if the creature could close it's eyes, it would out of content.
"This is insane." He comments breathlessly, a whisper under his voice followed by an disbeliefed scoff.
But still he stayed there, continuing to pet an enormous and an impossible beast of the sea.
—----
The hatchling is a strange little thing. A surface creature in two legs and warm blood like most land animal have. No soft sces though but no scales at all. Doesn't seem like it was made for sea like itself was.
Mother nature had different plans for these specific species.
Still, it was a hatchling and a hatchling needed to taken care of.
Of course with the lack of knowledge about the creature and what it eats, it had instead gotten it all sorts of things to try.
From fish to eels, big and small. Surely it would prefer one of these.
The hatchling had stared at its array of food in what it understands is shock or maybe hunger?
Maybe it had to show what it was for.
So it grabbed the largest one, a predator all on its own but right now its meal.
And ate it.
He wasn't one for these types of food, squids and octopuses were much more tastier, but his podmate liked them.
But even with it showing them its food, they still didn't eat.
It started making sounds instead. And abyss, it could make a lot of sounds.
It listened in rapt attention as its hatchling babbled and slowly made its way closer to it.
Oh, was it trusting it now?
That was good news.
Soon enough, the hatchling at made it at the edge of the pool and loudly screamed, the sound surprising it.
But it calmed from whatever was happened and hung its head down, soemthing falling from the little ones face and dropping into the water below.
Was water coming from it?
It moved closer, curious and intrigued and cooed soothingly at the alarmed eyes the hatchling gave.
It must have worked as the hatchling didn't move as it got closer.
Until finally, it was just before its hatchling, staring into its ocean coloured eyes shimmering with water of its own.
Such a curious creature.
All curious thought left however when the hatchling started lifting its finless and clawless hand. (It wondered for a moment if it'll grow them when they grew.)
And slowly, it lay its palm on their cheek. It was gentle and even when its hand was tiny compared to it, it could feel the warmth of its skin seep into its own.
It purred happily.
The little creature began to run its hand up and down its scales and oh, that felt nice.
It couldn't help but gently lean into the touch, its eyes growing large at the fond and fuzzy feeling growing within its gut.
It adored its little hatchling and now it seems to trust it more.
And it won't lose that trust, no matter what, it will make sure its hatchling is safe and protected for as long as it needs it.