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Your name is Eridan Ampora. It is 3 p.m. on a Friday. The back of your high school’s parking lot is empty apart from your bruised body on the concrete floor, your ripped messenger bag, books, and papers scattered around you, and the echoing sounds of kids crowding around you screaming hurtful words and throwing kicks like you’re nothing but a soccer ball and they’re the star athlete.
Your name is Eridan Ampora. It is 8 p.m. on a hot Saturday afternoon. You sit alone in your bedroom in your “rich-kid” house feeling more alone than you’ve ever felt. You stare at your pesterlog and see none of your friends are online. Possibly because they are tired of your constant talk of horse shit. It is 8:15 and you’ve just broken your “rich-kid” t.v.. It is 8:30 and your “rich-kid” t.v. is now the only thing in your room that looks the least broken. It is 8:50 and an envelope is taped to the t.v. with the words “Sorry for the mess..” written hastily on it.
It is 9 p.m. on a hot Saturday afternoon and you’re standing too close to the cliff behind your house. It overlooks the sea and the waves seem very inviting tonight. You turn your back away from the edge of the cliff. You spread out your arms as if to give the air around you a final hug farewell. Your toes feel tense and a rush emanates throughout your entire body as you feel the ground slip underneath you and you feel yourself free-falling backwards. The waves continue to crash against the cliff ready to take you under the current. The impact of your body hitting the surface of the water is a welcoming pain; like the sea has waited this long for your arrival home. You have finally exhausted all oxygen from your lungs as your brain slips into comatose and your body starts to sink.
A figure in the dark swims closer and closer to a strange object sinking in the water. It picks up the unidentifiable shape and carries it away.
Your name is Eridan Ampora. You have no idea what time it is, but judging from how bright it is you suspect that it is much too early. You move to get up and close the curtains, but your body is in too much pain and you fall back on your.....sand bed? Your aching fingers feel through what you believed to be your bed and find that it is indeed sand. There’s sand everywhere and your clothes are completely drenched and smell of salt water and fish. What happened last night? What was the last thing you remember-
“Oh great! You’re finally awake!” Eridan was startled by an unfamiliar voice. He quickly sat up and looked around for whoever was talking to him. His vision was blurry and his head was pounding. Shit...I can’t see a thing without my glasses... thought Eridan. He felt around the sandy shore for them but to no avail.
“Um...you wouldn’t happen to be looking for these, would you?” a cheery voice spoke to him. Eridan looked up in the direction of the lagoon in front of him and saw what looked to be a young woman sitting at the water’s edge. “Maybe now I’ll finally find out what this is supposed to be.” Eridan squinted at the blob figure of a young woman and saw that she was fiddling with something thin and black in her hands. That wench stole my glasses! thought Eridan.
“Hey! Givve those back! I need them!” He crawled over towards the girl and tried to snatch it away from her, but she was too fast and simply moved out of the way. Eridan fell face first into the salty water. The girl laughed as Eridan spat out the sand in his mouth.
She stuck out her tongue and rested the glasses on top of her crown. “Let me guess...it’s some new style tiara!”
“I demand to know how you came in possession of my glasses! Do you havve some wweird glasses fetish, you thief?”
“Wouldn’t you want to know, Mr. I’m-Sad-So-I’m-Going-To-Drown-In-My-Sorrows-Legitimately.”
What is this girl going off about? Drown in my sorrows? Legitimately? Suddenly the events from the night prior all came flooding back to him like waves crashing against a cliff. The free-fall, the welcoming waves, the drowning...
“I...nearly died...?” Eridan whispered.
“Now he’s catching on! I was just gonna leave you there to drown like all the rest, but then I found this strange land dweller object and decided to go back and save your drowning butt. Doofish...” replied the strange girl. “I won’t give you back your “glasses” until you tail me what it’s used for!”
This was childish. He was not in the mood to teach some stupid girl who makes lame fish puns the concept of glasses. He just wanted to go home and try to forget all about last night. However, he won’t get anywhere without his glasses.
“Wwhat idiot doesn’t knoww wwhat glasses are for? Havve you been livvin’ in a cavve all your life?” The girl looked totally offended by this. She proceeded to slap him across the face.
“Yes! Now tell me how to use these or I’ll cull you!”
Eridan sighed as he rubbed his stinging cheek. “You put them on your nose and you can see better. The girl proceeded to balance the glasses on the tip of her nose like a seal would balance a beach ball. Eridan was dumbfounded that someone could be this stupid! He gave another sigh and took the glasses off her nose and positioned it to their right location.
The girl took a moment to look around her until looking back at Eridan, her eyes growing bigger with amazement and her smile stretching across her face.
“OH. MY. COD!!!! I CAN SEE EVERYTHING!!!!” Eridan gave a slight smirk, amused by the girl’s genuine amazement at wearing his glasses. It quickly disappeared when she suddenly dived under water. Eridan was momentarily shocked by her sudden submersion and somewhat worried that she might lose them in the water. Luckily, the girl resurfaced a while later with the glasses now in her hands again.
She sat beside Eridan by the water’s edge and carefully placed them on the rim of his nose. Eridan blinked a few times to readjust his vision and looked up at the girl. He finally got to see what she really looks like. He was startled to be met with a pair of beautiful violet eyes. Her hair was sleek and wet and shined and suddenly all he could think about was running his hands through them. He found himself lost in her beauty and didn’t even realize how long he was staring until-
“Hey weirdo! You shore those glasses work with everyone? Because you’ve been staring at me for a while now.” Eridan blushed and his cheeks felt hot as he looked down at the ground, ashamed to have been caught blatantly gawking at this ridiculously gorgeous girl. His embarrassment was quickly replaced with panic once he looked down to find that the beautiful girl in front of him was also attached to a fish tail! He quickly scrambled away from her in fear, his heart racing as he struggles to comprehend if what he saw was real.
“Woah! What’s got you floundering all of a sudden?” The fish girl looked alarmingly at Eridan.
“Wwhat the fuck is that?!” He points a disgusted finger at her tail.
“It’s my tail! What’s it to you? Never seen a fish tail before?!” Her face was turning red and hot. This royal fish girl was not about to be treated like an alien by some ungrateful land dweller scum.
“Nevver attached to a girl! Howw is that possible?! Mermaids aren’t real!”
“I don’t know, retard! Evolution? Natural selection? MAGIC??”
“Rubbish! Magic isn’t real!”
“Whale news flash, glasses guy! This TOTALLY REAL AND MAGICAL TAIL saved your glubbing life!!!”
“DID YOU EVVER THINK THAT MAYBE I DIDN’T WWANT TO BE SAVVED?”
The fish girl was quiet for a while. She looked away from Eridan, her face still red hot. Eridan couldn’t tell from where he sat, but she was trying hard to suppress the urge to start crying. Both of them were silent for a while, either one not looking at the other. Eridan thought about what he said. Did he really feel this bitter about being saved? Did he really want to die that badly? Does he still want to die? He looked back up at the gorgeous mermaid still sitting near him. Even when flustered with rage she was still stunning to look at. Maybe almost dying last night gave him a second chance to improve his life. And maybe he’ll start by making a new friend.
Eridan starts to slowly shuffle closer again next to the mermaid. “Hey...about wwhat I sai-”
“Just forget aboat it. If you want to die so badly go fin a taller cliff to glubbing jump off. I only saved you because of your stupid glasses after all.” With that, she dived underwater, leaving Eridan sitting alone in the beach feeling terrible about himself.
Your name is Eridan Ampora. It is 7 a.m. on a Monday and you are terribly exhausted. You have just devoted your entire Sunday and skipped school to make and deliver a very special gift for a certain someone you hope to see here in the lagoon. You’ve been sitting here for two hours hoping to at least catch a glimpse of your expected company. Your special delivery is wrapped up inside your repaired messenger bag. Your body aches from staying up for 24 hours cleaning up your damaged room, ripping up the letter in the envelope, and making and wrapping an important apology present for the mysterious fish girl you were highly fortunate enough to have met 24 hours ago. The package sits on your lap wrapped up in a little box. It is addressed to “Beautiful Fish Girl” since you neglected to catch her name. You begin to slowly fall asleep as your head starts to nod off and you struggle to keep your eyes open any longer.
A while later, you are abruptly awoken by a soft tickling sensation on your head. You open your eyes and find that the someone is gently petting your hair. You look up and find the Beautiful Fish Girl sitting beside you examining your wrapped present in one hand and idly twirling your hair in the other hand.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Eridan asks perplexed and a bit dazed by how low the sun is setting on the horizon. How long have I been asleep? thought Eridan. How long has she been sitting there?
“I thought I’d betta wait until you woke up since I’ll probably have no idea what’s inside it anyway.” She says as she stops twirling his hair to start unwrapping the present. She opens the lid of the box and pulls out a pair of goggles quite puzzled.
“Aaaaand I was right! What in cod’s name is this?” Eridan chuckles and takes it from her hands.
“It’s a pair of goggles. Swwimmers usually use them to help them see under wwater.” He gently adjusts them to fit comfortably on her head. “But these havve my prescription lenses meaning you can see clearly in and out of the wwater. So it’s like wwearin’ my glasses but this time it’ll stay more securely on your head than mine did on my head.”
Eridan smiled at the girl, expecting her to show as much enthusiasm as she did yesterday, but her expression remained stoic.
“They’re nice..” was her only reply. Eridan felt hurt that she would still hold a grudge even after he gave her a nice present. But he couldn’t give up that easily.
“So..uh...I don’t think I evver got your name.” Maybe some small talk will lighten the mood. “The name’s Eridan Ampora by the wway.”
“Empress-to-be Feferi Peixes.” Did she just say empress-to-be? Oh great, Eridan. You didn’t just piss off a beautiful mermaid, but a beautiful ROYAL mermaid.
“Well, may I just say Empress, that you are incredibly stunnin’-OUCH!” Eridan suffered another smack to the face from the empress.
“Shame on you, Eridan Ampora! Just yesterday you were glubbing on aboat the fact that I have a fish tail and now you expect me to bereef your cullshit compliments???”
“I knoww! I’m a total dirtscrapin’ landhag and someone as amazin’ and beautiful as you should nevver hang around people as shitty as me but I really hope wwe can be friends because I wwouldn’t be alivve right noww if it wwasn’t for you and I’m sorry for being a total doofish.” Feferi stared at Eridan for a while. She eyed him and saw how unkept his hair was and she saw the bags under his eyes and then looked down at her new goggles.
“I forgive you, Eridan Ampora. Mostly because you used a fish pun insult on yourself.” She laughed then reached out a hand to gently touched Eridan’s cheek and kissed the other one.
Your name is Eridan Ampora. You don’t particularly care what time it is or what day it is right now because you are too preoccupied being content with life for the first time in a long time. You are immensely blessed to not have died two nights ago and to be lucky enough to have been saved by a particular royal mermaid princess. And thank cod for strange land dweller eyewear.