Chapter Text
Out in the sea, time passes on with the tides and the beaming rays of sunlight. Gently, a cadence of waves resounds in Xie Lian’s ears like a gentle melody. In harmony, he hums with it as the simple wooden boat under his feet rocks with each movement he makes. Pulling a net into his arms, he carefully unfolds it before ensuring it’s hooked to its line. Deemed perfectly fine, he throws it out into the water and watches it sink towards the ocean’s depths.
Smiling, he waits until it disappears in hues of blue before turning his attention back to the inside of his boat. Concentration focused on his fishing rod, a sudden splat resonates just behind him. Turning over his shoulder, he gasps when he spots a fish flailing about on the floor of his boat.
“Ah? Did you jump into here?” Xie Lian laughs softly at the decently sized fish. “I’m not sure how you got in here but I really hope you don’t mind being caught now since you’re here.”
Six years ago, he would have wanted to cringe at talking to the fish he catches and apologizes to upon their capture. Nowadays, it’s simply as routine as grabbing his favorite hat.
“I’m sorry, little guy.” He hums, apology genuine in his voice as he picks up the fish with practiced skill and tosses it into the bucket.
Brushing his hands together to rid them of typical scaly slime, he returns back to his seat in the middle of the boat. An hour passes in silence before he feels a sudden tug on his line. Attention instantly pulled, he begins to reel the fish in. While heavy, the fish, strangely enough, doesn’t struggle in its capture. Only a couple of seconds pass before the fish is brought out of the water and into Xie Lian’s boat.
In the time it takes to re-bait his line, two more sounds similar to the one earlier catch his attention. This time, three fish are placed on the floor of the boat. Xie Lian furrows his brows slightly as he pulls the fish one by one into the carrier beside him.
“I’m never quite this lucky.” He murmurs to himself, a smile serene on his face. “I guess today’s my day. Maybe the townspeople will finally call me a fisherman instead of ‘the guy who lives out in the water’.” Turning to the fish in the bucket, he tilts his head. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
As expected, the fish don’t answer. Gently, he laughs quietly in order to ensure that he doesn’t disrupt the peaceful waters that are treating him well.
Time passes on, and as time goes on, more fish appear either hooked to his line or spontaneously throwing themselves into his boat while his back is turned. Relief pools in his chest as he racks up all of the expenses he will be able to pay with everything he’s catching today.
Perhaps he can even purchase a hot meal.
Just before he’s about to pull up his net, his gaze catches the sky. As quickly as it settled, the relief falls down his stomach until it resonates into a sickening dread that chills his bones. Dropping the net in his hands, it splashes back into the crystal waters and drags down towards the surface. He doesn’t have the time to mind it as dark clouds begin to shadow the peaceful sun in order to shift everything into a terrain of danger for those out at sea. Sucking air between his teeth, Xie Lian fumbles for the paddle at the side of his boat.
Resting the wood in his hands, a sudden tide pushes roughly at his boat. Yelping, he lurches forward until his knees hit the deck and the paddle is in the water -- because of
course
his luck ends when he needs to survive. It floats, mocking his incompetence at not sensing the weather in his excitement.
“Um-” His hair begins to obstruct his vision as the winds climb to intense speeds. It whistles as it rushes past him, bringing chaos into its wake. Xie Lian tries to ground himself into his boat, sitting on the deck and clinging onto one of the planks with both of his arms looped around it. The sky, now as dark as it would be at night, rumbles in anger.
Pelting in hard drops, rain begins to soak his blue button-up. Stuck to his skin, Xie Lian tries desperately to reach over the side of the boat for the paddle. Wood pressing into his side, he reaches even as his muscles begin to burn under the effort. His fingers cramp, even as he wiggles them to try and beckon the paddle closer to him.
Leaning forward more, his knees are planted into the inside of the little boat he built with his own sweat and spite. It begins to protest under his weight and the screaming winds.
“Please. I almost- almost have it.” Xie Lian whispers to something - anything - that will care to listen to him. Memories of blood soaking his hands fade into his thoughts alongside the flashes of lighting that begin to obstruct his vision. His joints scream at him to do something other than reach - he’s fighting men again in this rain and those memories - everything about them is too much when he’s just trying to survive.
Tears begin to pool in his eyes as the thunderclaps once more. Lighting strikes and the intensity of the storm seems to circle him. For a moment, he wonders if every sin he has ever committed is finally catching up to him after he’s graced with one. Good. Day.
His ribs are against the edge of the boat now. The intensity of his weight crushes at his diaphragm and pushes the breath out of his lungs. In through his nose, he continues to reach. Out through his mouth, his ribs begin to protest their exhaustion. Water ripples as his hair falls into the water. The muscles in his shoulders and the joints in his knees suffer the most under this stress. Rain begins to crash the waves into his boat. Water now begins to surface - it’s only moments until his pants are soaked as flooding wades into the boat he almost called home.
A home that’s about to be destroyed.
Grunting, he gives one last heave. Every single nerve in his body resists the reach. Tortuous pain meets him - in his muscles, the bones, his head.
Then, one final wave tilts his boat up towards the right. With his weight pressed into the left of the boat, gravity finally clings to Xie Lian and
pulls
with horrific strength.
It’s bliss for a moment. As he falls, there’s the simple sound of rain and he breathes in.
He breathes in. Deep. Water and panic greet him like old, toxic friends. For a moment, it could be deemed peaceful with only the rain and crashing waves resounding like fog in his ears. But then, he looks around wildly. Eyes burning under the sea salt, he can’t see anything that could help him out. Should he swim up and be directly under his boat, he’ll be knocked unconscious. Should he be too far from it, he won’t have anything to pull himself back onto.
Oh my god,
Xie Lian thinks to himself. With this heart pounding in his chest like a war cry, he thinks:
This is really going to be how I die.
Pain starts in his cheeks from where the desperate oxygen pushes at the skin. Quickly, it travels and tickles down his throat as his body begins to burn from a lack of new air. The muscles in his arms are sore as he pushes up, up, up.
Up -- his head breaks the surface. Glancing around, he feels sick from the thrashing waves and a lack of awareness to where he’s at. There’s grey. Grey.
Down -- he’s already down again. He has some air. Trying to relax, his mind is working far too fast for him to be able to keep up with it.
Up -- he’s up before he even realizes it again.
Down -- and he’s dragged down just as fast.
Bubbles make their way to the surface, unseen and unheard by the noise across the vast ocean. Time is running out and Xie Lian has made no progress because what progress
can
he make.
Just as he’s about to stop swimming-- when his muscles are finally tiring from everything he had been through, his body falls back but something gets in the way. Something solid presses against his back.
Too weak to turn his head, he barely registers arms winding around his waist and pulling him further down into the ocean. It gets darker and darker. Everything becomes pitch black and he isn’t sure if it’s death beckon or the lack of sun that’s making everything so scary and
dark.
He considers the stories his mother told him with a light swinging over their heads and their boat rocking to the lullaby of the waves and he wonders if those stories about sea serpents and sirens really were true.
But… he knew they were already, didn’t he?
Water begins to fill his lungs. Choking on it, he’s about to inhale more water until he
doesn’t.
Instead, his body meets oxygen and he soaks it in with a cataclysmic, sharp hack. Warmth shoots up his throat and salt rests on his tongue as he chokes up the water he had swallowed in that eternity under the water. When he comes more to, he realizes that he’s on his back on smooth marble. His face had been tilted to the side during his coughing fit.
Fluttering his eyes open, he finally looks up expecting to see the sunlight. There’s no sunlight and instead a rocky roof.
Instead, he meets eyes - well, an eye. One as black as the stormy seas and the other covered by waves of black. The gaze is outcasted by a dim, green light that flares from a nearby pool. The underwater cavern is rather large. Water pools around the stone he’s on.
“Huh?” Xie Lian whispers, the picture of eloquence.
The person that saved him holds up a hand to silence him. Worry is etched in his eyes. Strands of ink cascade down his shoulders and back, contrasting beautifully against pale skin. Near his temples, red fins flare where his ears would be. They seem to vibrate with the oxygen he’s currently breathing. Intuition tells Xie Lian that the water the merman is only half-rested in would reach to about his chest.
Xie Lian drops his eyes to take in the rest of the man who saved him. To his pleasure, the merman doesn’t hide fully. Down a sculpted torso, small stripes of black adorn the pale skin like carefully inked calligraphy. From his shoulder blades, two wing-like fins protrude outward.
As he raises up onto his elbows, Xie Lian blinks at the tail that lays resting near him. While mostly black, the ends flare into a shape similar to red leaves on an autumn day. The same stripes across the man’s body also adorn the tail, and a fringe of red gently lines the midline of it.
The other raises a hand. Webbed fingers reach out but they stop before meeting Xie Lian. Quickly, he retreats back without an expression.
Finally, Xie Lian properly speaks. “Thank you.” He clears his throat, wiping his nose of the saltwater that trickles from it. “For saving me… I really appreciate it.”
“No need to thank me.” The merman chuckles, mirth dancing in his visible eye. “You would have died if I didn’t save you. What were you doing in there anyway?”
And for some reason, Xie Lian doesn’t hold back his frustrated whine. “I don’t even know how everything happened. I was having a wonderful day until a sudden storm took me such surprise that I couldn’t make it back to shore in time.” Running a hand through salt-licked hair, he sighs. “I fell in. I tried staying above water for as long as I could but…” He motions to his soaked clothes.
Taking a deep breath, Xie Lian then relaxes again. Oddly enough, this creature makes him feel far more comfortable than any human on the shore. “I’m so sorry. Where are my manners?” Extending his hand, which no longer shakes, he hums. “My family name is Xie. My given name is Lian. This one thanks you again.”
“No need to be sorry.” Staring at his hand, the merman doesn’t reach out to take it. Instead, he chuckles and simply points to himself. “Well. In that case. Gege may call me San Lang.”
“San Lang?” The name tastes sweet on his tongue despite the saltwater embedded in their skin. He ignores the implication that San Lang believes himself to be younger. “Do you have siblings?”
Waving him off, San Lang lowers himself deeper into the water. “Those useless people aren’t important.”He simply says without giving Xie Lian time to argue. “Let’s focus on you. Are you cold or anything?”
Xie Lian hums, wondering how San Lang would warm the place up should he ask. However, he’s comfortable at the moment. “No, no. I’m comfortable. Thank you, San Lang.”
“Of course.”
“Though. May I ask a question?”
A chuckle. “It depends on the question. Go ahead. I’ll either answer honestly or not give you an answer at all.”
Pondering over his choice of words, he instead asks one of the first things he perceived about the atmosphere around them. “Is this your home?”
“In a sort, yes.”
“How do you see? Is it that green light?”
San Lang chuckles and nods. “No, but it is certainly a green light. You’re very observant.”
Quirking a brow, Xie Lian gently smiles. “It would have been hard to miss.”
“You would be surprised how dumb other mer-people are.” The merman scoffs, resting his arms along the rock Xie Lian now sits upright on. “We can see in the dark so this light isn’t as necessary to us as it is to you.
As he’s perched about a foot away, Xie Lian can really see how the saltwater licks up the curls of black hair and the droplets clinging onto the human parts of San Lang’s skin. The black stripes across his body gleam with the reflection of green.
“A merman?” He asks. “Is that what you are?”
“Hm. It’s complicated. How about I ask Gege a question?”
“Of course.”
Tapping the tips of his fingers against the stone, Xie Lian hums at the sight of his long, slightly pointed nails. San Lang looks up at him through the corner of his eye. “Are you a fisherman?”
“I am.” Xie Lian laughs gently. “Though I’m not very good at it.”
Chuckling, the merman eyes him with mischievous intent. “Oh? A fisherman who is bad at fishing?”
“Are you teasing me?” Despite his scrunched nose, there’s amusement laced in Xie Lian’s tone.
“Oh, this one would never, Gege.” A steady laugh resounds across the cavern.
Content, Xie Lian shifts until he’s laying on his stomach beside the perched merman. For a moment, he locks eyes with him, his own brown eyes slowly squinting. “San Lang, were you the one throwing fish onto my boat today?”
Something flashes in San Lang’s expression. A cool grin coats his lips as he leans his cheek into his hand. “Ah, Gege. I said I wouldn’t lie to you.” He chuckles. “It was me. I felt rather sorry for you, you know.”
A suspicion settles in Xie Lian’s chest. For now, he decides to ignore it. Smiling instead, he hums. “So you helped me out?”
“Hey. Call it divine intervention.” Shifting their ever-present conversation, San Lang hums. “How long have you been fishing, Gege?”
“Hm…” Xie Lian raps his finger against the stone. “About six years or so?”
“What were you doing before then?”
Now, Xie Lian had been preparing for this question. In an instant, years of his youth and young adulthood flash before him. At the same moment, he opens his mouth. “I was a collector.” He smiles.
San Lang gazes at him before blinking with satisfaction at his answer. “I see. You picked an interesting time to switch over to fishing.”
“I could be worse off.” Xie Lian shrugs his shoulders, still gently smiling. “Oh. San Lang. Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
Taking a deep breath, Xie Lian steels himself. “Will you bring me here again?” His fists cling onto his slowly drying fisherman’s pants.
San Lang smiles, eyes flipping into crescent moons of wonder. “Anything for you.”