Chapter Text
The blood of the Oracle spilled, the western continent did bear the Tidemother’s grief
Its children she claimed, and they became as her likeness
By her mercy, through metamorphosis were they spared
Blessed House Fleuret, adorned by the Six with gifts beyond ken of men or mer
With their landborn allies of the Heavens, cast the dwelling of Angels beneath the waves
May Her vast embrace guide Adagium, from which all shadows stem, to obscurity
- Cosmogony
Three weeks from Niflheim's capital to the far end of the Lucian continent.
Convincing the Emperor of the value of his research into human civilization was difficult enough. The voyage was nearly canceled altogether, until Verstael agreed to take only two soldiers with him. It was certainly more cost effective.
To have actually found the location of the sunken island of Angelgard was the discovery of a lifetime. It was actually a point of embarrassment, if he was honest with himself. After comparing multiple texts that only acknowledged its existence in terms of common cultural knowledge, he had found nothing of significance. Not until he happened to compare what little he knew to modern day human urban myths. Though he studied their mythology, current information was difficult to obtain without proper contacts in human society.
Angelgard’s sinking was spoken of in texts that went back millennia, and an investigation into records of geological activity in the area supported the idea that it sank about two thousand years ago.
The rocky peaks of the island were only visible just above the water’s surface at low tide, but it had a reputation. The rocks made the waters too treacherous, no joyriders dared go out that far, unless they were drunk or stupid. There were records of more than a few shipwrecks at various points even in recent history.
When he found the island, his intention upon arrival was to look for some fabled source of fearsome power, or exaggerated tales of a looming darkness among some ruins. What he didn’t expect to find was a fully intact building.
The rocks formed a clearing in the center, where the ground dipped a bit lower. No plants or mossy algae grew on the structure itself or the rocks around it. Even the wildlife seemed to steer away from the place, the only signs of life broken wreckage that had obviously seen better days. It was as if nothing in the clearing could grow. The water was too still.
At the center of the clearing, there was a dip in the sunken rock, and a narrow building covered in raised carvings out of the stone it was made of. The fact that inscription above the massive engraved bronze door was written in languages of both human and mer was not insignificant.
Verstael was going to have a field day once his retinue cracked it open.
Down to the lack of any wear on it, it appeared much like the buildings created in honor of the imperial bloodline. Perfect. Unnaturally preserved, by enchantment. Yet the engravings were different, human designs depicting scenes and creatures Verstael had only ever heard of before. If the handiwork was human, and the buildings resembled those in Gralea, perhaps humans and mer had more history than anyone remembered. This was a collaborative effort. Something was hidden here that both species wanted to keep from prying eyes.
Verstael swam closer, propelling himself through the water to the intricate slab that covered the entrance. The octopus mer could easily lose himself just studying the craftsmanship, but that wasn’t what he came here for. He traced the engraved warning with too-thin hands, his dark nails scratching lightly on the stone. “Let that which is best forgotten lie where it fell.”
“Here be monsters,” he murmured aloud.
The bronze slab of the door proved a problem, but one that two guards could make quick work of. The younger mer, a woman named Fallon, and the older man with the lower half of a seahorse, Cato, set to work with the tools brought along with them to remove the door from its hinges.
Verstael moved out of their way, supervising from a distance. They worked thin pieces of metal into the tight space between the door and the stone, prying it away from its seal. Once it had shifted enough, they used their hands, pushing against the stone structure until it swung open, the metal door falling to the seabed and stirring the sediment in muddy swirls.
He propelled himself towards the entrance, leaving the guards outside as he began his work.
The water as Verstael entered the building was unnaturally stifling in a way he had never before felt. As if the walls exerted a kind of pressure. He swallowed his nerves, unwilling to back down after all the trouble he went through just to get there. No human superstition was going to get to his nerves, if he had anything to say about it.
The inside of the pentagonal structure was narrow, but ran deeper than the outside suggested. He clung to the wall with his tentacles, trailing along the side, until he brushed against something. Cold and hard, he reached out to it with his hand. A thick chain, evidently also magicked, remained unrusted. It was holding tight to something above him, tight, with little to no sway in the too still waters.
With his hands, Verstael followed the chain, pulling himself up with his arms. Until his hand met something smooth instead, he recoiled from the feeling of flesh against his own fingertips, not unlike his own skin. His breath stopped for just a moment, waiting for retaliation. When it didn’t come, he reached into his pack for his driftglobe, a small orb that he palmed at until it illuminated under his touch, emitting just enough light to see by.
The chain was attached to the manacles around the ankles of a very human pair of legs. The human had a lean, bordering on emaciated torso, his arms were bound at either side by matching chains. When Verstael looked up, he was staring into the face of a man with long red hair. Eyes closed, lips parted and decidedly blue.
Dead?
"It can't be that simple," said Verstael, grinding his teeth together.
There was a possibility that he hadn't been in the sealed tomb for long, but the ancient building had no signs of wear despite its age. Perhaps he had been here since it was sealed, either option equally alarming.
He put his hands against the human's bare torso, touching the velvety flesh, thoroughly soaked with seawater. Pressing with his thumbs, the skin didn't give way, flesh still uncomfortably firm for a man who was supposedly here for millennia.
A seemingly freshly-dead human specimen was still valuable. The texts he spent so long translating had seriously overplayed their descriptions of the island. And yet the human was in perfect condition. He would have to take a sample of the water. Perhaps there was some strange property to the water that kept it preserved. After all, if he had been in this state even for more than a few months, the body would hardly be recognizable as human. And… it felt to him that he was dealing with much more than that.
"It's obvious that this is a crypt,” he muttered. “One with unusual circumstances, but a human couldn’t-- no, even a mer could not survive long here. What an utter waste."
He stared a few moments longer. How could this be all there was to it?
With a sigh, Verstael released a small stream of bubbles from his lips, then did something unthinkable. With his ear pressed against the human's chest, he barely breathed at all himself. Listening.
Though the human didn't breathe, as he timed it he heard the tiniest, faintest fluttering. Thump. thump. thump. There was a heartbeat, faint, sporadic, but it was there. The human was alive after all. Extraordinary.
He trailed his hands down the man's abdomen. The skin was smooth, unmarred by gills or scales, any texture common among mer. There were scars, certainly, but they were old and silver by now, barely noticeable except for the way they caught the light of the driftglobe making it stand out. The pelvic region was the last familiar thing on his body. The legs were bound by the cuff that tethered him down, but each ended in an equally strange appendage. His hand reached down to the bound feet, clasping them in his hands. Both of his hands clasped the feet, counting the toes, studying the clear, pink nails. Verstael was well aware of human anatomy, studying those lost at sea when he had the rare opportunity. He understood what a human was. But seeing it so well preserved in person - touching it - was so, so strange.
He moved again so that he was at eye level with the human, his lower half beginning to coil around his find. He shouldn't get too familiar, but he could scarcely contain his excitement. He would come back with a proper team to remove the drowned man.
No. For now, he wanted this discovery to himself. This was it. He wasn't sure what was urging him on to save the man, but he was overcome with a sense that it was important. The words written in the ancient texts he studied for any trace of anything useful told him enough. Whatever was found on the island was valuable in some capacity. That included this man.
The man who lived, despite his drowned state. The man who had been here for two millennia, when the island sank. So valued, or reviled, among his people that they had enshrined him in his death. What an extraordinary creature.
Verstael wanted to study him, wanted nothing more than to feel the pulse of the other man under his skin, no matter how faint or faraway it was.
He found his eyes drawn to the unfamiliar forms of his legs. For some reason he found the almost scrawny shape appealing, even though the man was so lean, no doubt from ages of starvation. Getting the human to eat once he was extracted would be difficult. With the breathing apparatus, a small orb that sat on the tongue, he would have to remove it in order to eat, to avoid swallowing the pearl. Getting him back to a healthy weight would prove an interesting challenge. Not that he apparently even needed it. The man survived this long, underwater, completely without any oxygen. He very much doubted the man could be killed. After all, why bother building a prison for a dead man? The only reason for the elaborate stone prison was to keep him inside.
To keep Verstael from doing exactly what he was doing.
What a beautiful specimen.
He couldn’t wait to wake him up. He would analyze the samples for hours, get as much use as he could from his physical data, and then he would wake him. After studying him for so long, if he proved to be a detriment, they would know how to detain him.
For a time, he sat with the human, sorting out his next move. The moment he returned to Gralea, he planned to learn everything he could from the man. If the tomb remained undisturbed for as long as it appeared, then he could survive transport, and surely a few weeks longer, for study?
The thought gave him the shivers. He was on the brink of something amazing, he could feel it.
