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Ice cracked and parted above his head as Tobirama surfaced, freezing water dripping from the strands of hair that hung in his face no matter how he tried to shake them away. The moon was out. Perhaps his resting cycle was simply attuned to the planetary body that pulled at his ocean, he mused; the moon always seemed to be up each time he chose to crest the waves. Shouting in the distance brought one of his long finned ears swivelling around but his eyes closed without turning to look. He knew what he would find. Humans had been finding their way deeper and deeper in to his waters over the past decade or so and the blighted creatures were very rarely anything but cruel at worst or ignorant at best.
Only a handful of the legged ones had ever escaped such judgment from him and of those few most had been small, clearly young among their kind, pressed in to service by their elders and victim to abuse if they failed to do as they were told. Tobirama had been curious about humans once upon a time, spent hours and days silently travelling alongside the massive crafts of wood and metal that bore the legged ones through his ocean, unstoppable by even the tallest waves. Now he understood that curiosity was a dangerous thing when it came to the land species. His queries were better spent exploring the sea and her creatures where only his own kind had the capability of ever truly threatening him.
Today, however, it seemed the universe was determined to intrude upon him in ways he had promised himself he would not allow.
A sharp high cry of dismay cut the air, followed quickly but the shattering splash of something heavy breaking through the ice, but when Tobirama twisted his upper half to look all he could see was the shadow of fully grown humans standing against the side of their vessel and looking down towards the water. A frown wrinkled the soft scales on his forehead. What garbage were they poluting his home with this time?
When he dove his gills opened instinctively and the flap at the back of his throat snapped shut to block the second opening in his trachea. Breathing was always so much easier underwater when he didn’t get distracted and try to suck in through his mouth. Sometimes it was so inconvenient having a body only half built for a part of the world he could never truly live in but he could admit that his curiosity would have driven him to find a way to breathe above water even if he hadn’t been born with the proper anatomy. He was like that. And it was a good thing too, as it turned out, since his first reaction to seeing what the humans had dumped in his sea would have been a gasp that would undoubtedly have been wildly uncomfortable.
His second reaction was a growl that bared his teeth, powerful tail lashing out and propelling him through the water with all the force and speed of a marlin strike. Unlike his warmer water cousins, however, rather than attack the small creature invading his waters Tobirama reached out both arms to curl around the human. Then he twisted for the surface and prayed that he had been in time. Humans were notoriously poor at breathing underwater; their young could only be more so considering their fewer years of experience in the world.
Together they broke through the waves a second time and relief swept through Tobirama’s cold blood to feel the tiny body in his arms hack with wretched-sounded coughs, the way his ineffective body heaved a sure sign of continued life. Young of any kind were precious. Most of his encounters with humans may have gone poorly in one way or another but that had done nothing to tarnish his belief that young were always innocent. A pup did not hate until it was taught to do so.
When at last the human was able to breathe properly it became apparent that his body temperature was somehow insufficient, every limb shaking enough to disturb the water already choppy around them. His mouth opened but all that came out was the same garbled nonsense with too much tongue that all humans seemed to communicate with. Always too reliant on their hard palettes. Tobirama clicked gently in a manner that had always helped to sooth the eggs Hashirama’s mate laid for him. Instead of calming the young human looked back at him with terror in his eyes and began to thrash with obvious panic, completely the opposite reaction he’d been hoping for.
Blowing out an exasperated whistle, Tobirama turned north and began moving away from the ship still looming between them and the stars. First he would get this pup safe. Calm could come after safety and warmth. Then he would see about wracking his brain for the trick Hashirama had shown him once for trading languages with the legged ones.
--
Rubbing his hands together and stamping his feet, Madara watched the air misting in front of his face with a reluctant smile. The cold was a bitch against his skin but coming up here where it felt as though one were standing on top of the whole world was always worth it. Nothing had ever been more beautiful to him than the sight of endless pure white, ice and snow and titanic glaciers as far as the eye could see, bordered only by the icy depths of black water. If only his body could learn to acclimate properly he might almost consider searching out one of the tribes that somehow survived in this climate and beg to learn their ways.
Any plans of that sort would have to wait until after he had found his son, however. Kagami was the precious jewel of his life. Very few would dare to spirit away the only son of someone like him so it hadn’t been all that difficult chasing rumors and gathering evidence until he knew which name to follow. The difficulty had been in tracking them when his crew refused to cross that of the infamous Hidden Sound. Making his way here in a single man craft had not been easy but Madara was nothing if not determined in his mission to feel Kagami safe in his arms again.
The half-smile faded quickly as thoughts of his lost son came filtering back through this temporary moment of ease, rare and appreciated as much as he knew he needed to focus on the task ahead. Any enjoyment he found in the beautiful northern environment was put aside this time when he looked around him. What horizon was not made up of endless ocean looked empty in every direction and Madara’s fingers curled anxiously against the tiller, tighter and tighter each time his eyes flickered back and forth without anything new to see. Still nothing but ice and snow.
Landscapes that should have given him only the pleasure of admiration twisted his gut with worry every league he travelled with no sign of life, no marks of passage, let alone the sight of the one he’d come looking for. Things had begun to look hopeless days ago and yet here he was forging onwards. Just the thought of giving up made it hard to look at his own reflection - but he’d always been a stubborn bastard anyway. Lots of people had agreed on that over the years.
He would have liked to send a hearty ‘I told you so’ to every one of them a moment later. Or rather he would have liked to if he weren’t busy gripping the tiller so hard it was almost a miracle the wood didn’t crack under his fingers.
That voice. He would know that little voice anywhere.
“Stop!” he heard his son cry. “Stop, I give up! No more, please!”
Rage swept through his body. If he’d had a direction to focus himself at that moment Madara would have torn his own ship apart and drained the very oceans beneath them to reach his boy and crush whatever horrors were being inflicted upon him. His vengeance was muzzled by the fault of his useless human ears, too insensitive to figure out which direction that echoing cry had originated from. It took a great effort to stifle the urge to call back and reassure his son but he clamped his teeth together and held back, unwilling to give up the element of surprise.
Desperately snapping his head from side to side, Madara tried to take in to account how far voices could travel in this terrain and relate that to all the places in visual range that might be able to hide at least one child and one adult body. Since that automatically excluded most of the flat ice he was left with blessedly few of the smaller glaciers that could have open pockets concealed on their far sides. All that was left was for him to choose one to investigate. Doing so was hard with his child’s cries ringing in his ears, knowing that every moment he delayed meant another moment of pain for Kagami, but his instincts had always been good. Madara closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When they snapped open again he spun the tiller in the direction that felt right in a way he'd never been able to explain.
“No-o-o! Stop!” Kagami hollered again, followed by a series of strange clicks and glottal moans.
“Be strong,” Madara breathed through clenched teeth. “I’m coming, I promise.”
His vessel cut silently through the water in a way any full sized ship could never have done. It was, he reflected, perhaps a good thing after all that his crew had refused this journey. That left him with no one to hush but himself as he steered his little cog at a sharp angle around the glacier he had chosen to investigate. Every fiber of muscle in his body tensed for action, ready for any sight that might greet him around the bend. Words could not describe the shock that left him loose and motionless as he took in the sight of his son for the first time after weeks apart.
Kagami shrieked again and kicked his little feet, unrestrained but for the massive pile of furs nearly drowning him in a comfy looking nest, arms clutching one layer of covers around his shoulders while his body rolled and writhed to muffle his helpless giggles. At the edge of the surprisingly stable outcropping a man’s naked torso rose out of freezing waters to reach across and tickle the exposed kicking feet. When he smiled the teeth exposed were much too sharp to be human but the joy in his face was enough to translate between any species. Skin so pale he could have laid down in the snow and disappeared was broken only by spiraling patterns of what almost looked to be red scales, hair like a crown of frost around his brows dripping with water, whoever this creature was he seemed entirely unbothered by the arctic temperatures of his environment.
Frozen in place by the realization that his son was not in danger after all, Madara was captivated.
“Stop!” he heard Kagami cry out again. When the next round of muffled giggling had passed he fluttered his feet and opened his mouth to let out a series of clicks that only appeared to amuse his inhuman playmate.
The creature trilled and whistled and finished with a groaning sound as deep as the ocean surrounding them. He looked oddly proud when Kagami laughed in response, like he’d told some great joke without saying any words.
“I’m not a fish!” the boy said. “They’re called feet, not fins.”
His companion shook out his hair, spraying fat droplets in all directions, but the screech of protest as Kagami ducked for cover was not what held Madara’s attention. Without so much water weighing it down all that snowy hair fell in different shapes to reveal elongated ears ending in thin membranes like fins.
A mermaid. His son had found a mermaid.
The idea that this creature could have been the one to take Kagami away did not even warrant consideration. Madara had never been blessed to meet any beasts of legend before, let alone piss any of them off, and it was hard to imagine a creature so obviously comfortable in the high north of the world swimming his way down to tropical waters just to spirit away a random human child. No, clearly however they met was a story he would need to hear.
Before he could begin to worry about catching their attention the creature went stiff and between one moment and the next he was hauling himself out of the water to spread his body out in front of Kagami, lips pulled back to release out a dangerous sounding hiss. Madara swallowed thickly. This thing couldn’t have known the human child behind him for long and yet here he was protecting him from some unknown threat. Half fish or not, Madara couldn’t help the warm feeling gathering in his belly - a feeling that was absolutely not helped at all by the powerful muscles in that thick, glorious tail . The patterns he’d observed creeping up the beast’s waist spiraled all the way down like battle scars and he wanted to trace every single one of them.
“Dad!” Scrambling to free himself from his mountain of furs, Kagami beamed and waved as best he could. “You found me! Dad! Over here Dad!”
“I can see you,” Madara rumbled while his concentration whipped back and forth confusedly between the beautiful sight of all those vicious teeth and the son he’d travelled half the world to find. Eventually, because he was a good father damn it, he settled for locking eyes with the tiny figure still wrestling with endless fur. He looked unharmed, thank the gods.
“Look, I made a friend! Tobi’s really nice, I promise.”
Gradually the hissing stopped as ‘Tobi’ seemed to understand the welcoming tone in his ward’s voice. Without taking his eyes off the potential threat before them he clicked and whistled, to which Kagami clucked his tongue and made the same peculiar groaning sounds from before. They were communicating. Somehow his son had learned to speak the language of the sea. Madara had never seen anything so incredible before - and as someone who had sailed as much of the world as he had that was saying quite something.
“Will he let me come aboard or is he going to attack me?” he called.
“Oh Tobi won’t hurt you! Hug! I want a hug!” Something warbled in his voice, smile crumbling ever so slightly. “It...it’s been a really long time. I missed you, Dad.”
“I missed you too,” Madara choked out.
As gently as he could he steered the cog in until it was just close enough for him to reach out and toss a loop of rope around a thick jagged spire of ice, mooring himself to the glacier. Without bothering to even pause and make certain the vessel would stay Madara was clambering off and slipping his way across until he could stop just before where the pair of them sat.
Tobi’s form reared up in a way a beast without legs should not have been able to, a testament to just how powerful that tail of his was, and only the fact that he was such a good parent kept Madara’s eyes on the boy leaping down from his pile of furs to throw himself bodily forward. For a moment the entire rest of the world ceased to exist. Cold wind pulled at them, a creature straight out of legend hovering on guard less than an arm's length away, and all Madara cared about was the tiny arms that threw themselves around his neck and the solid weight against his chest as he lifted Kagami in to the tightest hug he could safely give. It was quite some time before he could bring himself to let go again.
When he did it seemed only polite to thank the one who seemed so intent on protecting his most precious person. Peering to one side, he found deep red eyes looking back with naked curiosity buried under the wary caution. They were, he couldn’t help but notice, very pretty eyes. Kagami squirmed until he was set down but he stayed pressed against his father’s leg where Madara could lean down and murmur to him without breaking eye contact.
“Can you ask him if he understands me?”
“I understand you just fine.”
Madara’s heart nearly stopped in his chest and it was honestly hard to tell if that reaction was all shock from discovering this creature knew human speech or if part of it was just because he wasn’t expecting a face that pretty to produce a voice that deep. One scaled brow rose up in judgment and he decided it was definitely both. Even the strange way that sharp jawline worked to form the words wasn’t enough to deter his stupid libido; sharp teeth gnashed together as Tobi almost seemed to chew each syllable out, tongue dancing just out of sight and oh so tantalizing. Izuna always did say he had poor taste but this? This took the cake.
“Thank you, Tobi,” he forced out. “You protected my son from the ones who tried to hurt him.” Bowing slightly at the waist in a gesture of respect he had granted to few in his life, Madara hoped the words carried as much weight as he meant them to. He certainly didn’t expect a watery snort in reply.
“Your youngling may insist upon butchering my name but I am not required to accept the same from you. I am Tobirama and you, I am told, are Dad.”
“Dad isn’t my name! That’s just - it’s what a child calls their father! My name is Madara .”
While he was still spluttering and grumbling down at the top of his son’s head with embarrassment Tobirama carefully loosened the muscles holding him up, coiling his tail beneath him like a cushion so he could remain upright more comfortably. Madara was very glad to have such a perfect distraction at his side to keep him centered otherwise a display like that would have no doubt left him a little tight in the trousers. Were all mermaids this pretty?
He didn’t realize that question had been murmured out loud until Tobirama made a glottal hum.
“I do not know what pretty is by human standards. By my own species I am known to be quite attractive, in part for my rare coloring and in part for the symmetricity of my markings.” He flashed his teeth again and Madara bit his tongue to hold in a whimper.
“Dad.” Kagami tugged on the edge of his thick jacket. “I think he’s pretty too. And really nice. Can we stay here with Tobi, please? He said it was nice to make a nest for me since he doesn’t have any pups of his own. I dunno what dogs have to do with that but I like it here! The cold isn’t so bad! Can we pleeeaaase stay?”
“Uh…well…um....” As much as he wouldn’t actually mind living up here in the cold north with no idiots around to bother them, Madara wasn’t so sure the local fauna would appreciate their presence. Specifically he wasn’t so certain that just because Tobirama had willingly cared for a child, probably out of some pack instinct or the like, that didn’t mean he wanted a fully grown human tromping around his territory with all the destructive tendencies built in to their species' rather unfortunate nature. He couldn't imagine any legendary creatures like Tobirama to have had many positive interactions with humans.
Madara knew more than most how stupid his kind could be.
Guilt withered the already meager height of his stance as he watched Kagami’s lower lip wobble pleadingly. The poor thing was only eight years old, barely versed in the ways of the world. How was he meant to explain that this simply wasn’t the place for them?
“I don’t think we’re allowed to stay here,” he said eventually. “We don’t have shelter or food or tools, nothing. How would we live?” Logic had never been his best friend but it was worth a shot now.
“Tobi said he would show me how to hunt when I get bigger!”
Madara chanced another peek over only to find Tobirama unravelling himself with the distinctly uncomfortable face of someone whose secrets had been outed by another. Dorsal and pelvic fins fluttering, he used his arms to guide the sinuous length of his body over the side of their little platform and slipped beneath the surface of the ocean with barely a ripple. Kagami went stiff with a cry of dismay but his new friend was back in view only moments later. In view, of course, meant that his head rose out of the water until just below the eyes, white hair plastered to his skull. Hovering as he was he looked almost like a chink of ice broken away from some larger structure and set adrift. A lonely image, really.
Crawling out from underneath his father’s arm, Kagami scampered towards the edge and knelt to reach out with one short arm. “Don’t go,” he whined.
It took several minutes of coaxing for Tobirama’s face to come fully back in to view and when it did Madara’s cheeks immediately flared with enough heat to match the pretty blush dancing across pale cheeks. He couldn’t help it. Whatever had embarrassed Tobirama could only be praised if feeling so left him looking quite so attractive.
“Now, now, let’s leave him be for a minute.” Unable to deal with a sight playing such havoc on his heart, Madara stepped forward to place a hand on his boy’s shoulder. “This is his part of the world and we come from another. If he needs to go back to his life then it’s not for us to stop him, alright?”
“If shelter is what you need I would not be opposed to sharing my den,” Tobirama finally spoke again. His words froze Madara in place.
“Y-your den?”
“What few tools I have may not be what you are referring to but I can show you where to find materials to craft whatever you need. Food would not be an issue either; you are large enough to hunt the ways I have seen other humans do and I can show you which places will yield a good kill.” Tobirama looked away with a deliberately casual expression that fooled no one. “I suppose a bit of company might be pleasant - so long as you do not sing. My brother likes to sing. I despise it.”
“Oh! Oh! I promise to never ever sing! That means we can stay, right Dad? Right? This is so awesome!”
Madara swallowed hard but the lump in his throat refused to move. He wasn’t sure whether this beautiful man-creature meant for them to stay a short while or forever but either way he was inclined to take the offer. They had a ship. So long as they found a good supply of food there was nothing stopping them from staying for as long as they wished to and if the time came that they overstayed their welcome there was more than enough room on the cog for both of them to set sail for home.
“I hope you won’t regret that offer once you get to know us a little better,” he murmured, one hand lingering near Kagami’s shoulder in case the boy’s enthusiasm made him slip. He was unprepared for Tobirama to turn back and level him with a considering stare. Even more unprepared for pretty lips to split open and bare their teeth in a feral grin.
“Ah. I must say I’m looking forward to...getting to know you a little better.”
Then he winked. It was the wink that did it. With a squawk and a twitch Madara lost his footing, tumbled off the ice and in to the northern ocean with a splash he couldn’t hear over the bubbles and ice rushing by him. When he came up spluttering Tobirama was laughing with a peculiar clicking sound and Kagami knelt at the edge still with his arm outstretched again.
“Good thing Tobi brought me all these furs,” he said. “Don’t worry, Dad, they’ll keep you warm until you dry off again!”
What he couldn’t bring himself to say was that seeing Tobirama spasm with joy and feeling the small hand of his son clutch his own freezing fingers had already warmed his heart.