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“Wait—” Meguru demands as they skid to a stop at the top of a long corridor. “I heard something.”
The rumble of gunnery overhead on the desk is momentarily subsided by a searing noise – the boom of a canon. The might of it causes the entire deck to tilt, and though his accomplices reach out to steady themselves on the walls, Meguru doesn’t move. His eyes search that long wooden corridor. He squints a little.
“Who gives a shit?” Reo snaps. He’s agitated that they’re missing the fight above ground, and frankly, Meguru doesn’t really care, “It’s probably just some young soldier sod hidin’ from the fight—"
“No. It wasn’t that. More like a cry.” Meguru takes a step forward. Curiosity thrums in his throat.
Reo lunges for his wrist, but Meguru moves out of the way. His fingers close around thin air and he stumbles.
“Itoshi wants us to find their supplies of gunpowder,” Reo implores. “Not to go galivanting about while the rest of the crew is fightin’ up there.”
“You find their gunpowder, then,” Meguru says disinterestedly. He’s still staring down the corridor. “I’m gonna go check it out.”
“You can’t just—” Reo says, then cuts himself off with a groan. He unsheaths his sword from his scabbard. “Fine then, but you’re answering to Itoshi when this is all over. Okay?”
“’Kay,” Meguru replies distractedly, and he doesn’t wait for Reo’s response before he prowls further down this narrow corridor. The wood beneath his feet is soft, aged from the salt and the sea and probably more than a little rotten. The boat sways ever so slightly, and the sounds of fighting clammer like a constant melody above his head.
Something— it felt like something was calling to him just now. A noise that clung to the edges of his senses, hanging above him like a storm cloud. And his instincts itch for him to check it out, so who is Meguru to refuse?
He checks each door as he moves past them. They’re cells, he realises after slashing through yet another padlock and gazing out across a barren room. The doors have a tiny window at about eye level. Huh. None of them seem to hold any prisoners, though. Then again, for all the talk, the Navy has never been that sympathetic to it’s prisoners, despite the law.
Out in a watery wasteland, it’s easy to break the law. Especially when you’re the one who’s supposed to be enforcing it.
But there must be someone in one of these cells – someone who called out for Meguru, so he’ll be damned if he’s going to ignore that restless feeling trapped beneath his skin to find whatever cried out.
When he reaches the last cell, Meguru peers through the small peek-hole, but this room seems as empty as all the rest. Frowning, he slashes through the rust-crusted padlock anyway, and swings the door open. A moment of silence. He takes a step into the room.
Something hard crashes into his back and Meguru stumbles forward. Someone jumped on him. So he twists, a hand flying out, to catch his attacker by the arm. They’re weak, so it’s easy to twist their arm backwards into a spot that offers a tricky threat of dislocation.
He then wrenches the wrist forward and the – boy, Meguru realises – lets out a little shriek as he’s thrown forward over Meguru’s shoulder and lands heavy on the ground in front of him.
He groans, hand instinctually reaching up to wrap around his ribs as he curls into a ball to protect himself.
Meguru holds his sword out in front of him and catches his breath.
A pair of dark eyes – as wolfish and raw and blue as the battering sea – lock on to Meguru. And he watches them light up with surprise.
“You—” he croaks, breaking off into a rattling cough. It sounds a little like his chest is trying to eject his lungs, and Meguru tries hard to keep his face schooled. “You’re not—”
He scrambles up and backwards on his hands and knees until his back hits the far wall of the cell. He tilts his head.
“You’re not with them.” His voice is a rasp.
Meguru barks a startled laugh, “With who—? The navy?” He lowers his blade. “Fuck no, man. I hate those guys.”
He can see the boy – because there’s a sharp face that’s been carved out with hunger beneath that matted black hair – process this, lean eyebrows dipping into a frown. “If you’re not with them,” he says slowly. Every word sounds like it hurts, grating against his voice box, “Then who…”
Meguru sheaths his blade and takes a step closer, peering at him. Now that he looks – actually looks, he can see the blue flecked spots that trail from his temples down the side of his jaw. And his pupils are reduced to unnatural pinpricks. His lips are pale and chapped and dehydrated, and his skin is clammy.
“You’re..” Meguru scrunches his brow. “You’re a mer.”
At the word, he stiffens. His legs draw up protectively to his chin, like that would help at all. Mers can shift between legs and a tail, but Meguru can see through his ripped and worn black trousers that his legs look brittle.
The boy’s eyes narrow as he follows Meguru’s line of sight downwards. His lip curls back, revealing a pair of sharp canines beneath a bloody gum. If it weren’t for his hunched posture and terrified eyes, it could almost be aggressive. “And if you’re not with the navy,” he chokes out, “then who exactly are you?”
Meguru bends into a short bow. “Meguru Bachira, at your service.” He looks up through his brown bangs and grins. “You wanna get out of here?”
“And where would I go?” The boy replies tersely. He spits the words as though he loathes them, “Where would you take me?”
Meguru shrugs, “Wherever you like. Once we get you checked over and fixed up, I can chuck you overboard if you’d like to get back to the water. Or we can drop you off at the next port. Whatever.”
“Why not now? Why can’t I go now?” Suspicion streaks his angular face.
“Because you’re seriously dehydrated. And I might’ve accidentally broken one or two of your ribs just now. Sorry about that. Now,” he crouches slightly and offers the mer his hand, “Are you coming or staying in this shithole?”
A moment of hesitation flickers over the mer’s face, and then something within him hardens and he reaches out to grasp Meguru’s hand. The mer is unsteady on his feet – probably a mix of the general foreign feeling of having legs and his malnutrition – so Meguru tucks one of the mer’s thin arms over his shoulder and guides him out of the cell.
The sounds of battle have spluttered out and died, and Meguru isn’t dead yet, so he presumes that Captain Itoshi has won. He makes his way up the steps, half-carrying and half-guiding the mer along with him. He hisses in that hoarse way of his as the sunlight hits his face, but he doesn’t stop. The salt in the air hits Meguru’s lungs and he can’t help but smile at the familiar bathe of salt against his tongue.
Unsteady step after unsteady step draws the pair out from below the ship and onto the deck.
Meguru spans a critical eye over the damage. The navy lost. That much is obvious. Someone – probably Kunigami – went out of their way to tear down the flag and rip it to shreds, meanwhile the officers are tied up around the edges and railings of the ship. Blood splatters the wood.
Nagi lounges lazily against the post that supports the sails, fiddling with his small silver knife, but his eyes lock in on Meguru and the mer when they step out from the shade. He sheathes his sword – something Meguru is quietly grateful for – and greets them.
“Meguru,” he says mildly, then his eyes trail over to the mer. Meguru can almost feel the cogs whirring away inside his head, trying to connect the pieces. Beside him, Isagi tenses. “Huh,” he says finally. “A mer. What’s your name?”
“Isa—” the mer attempts before he breaks off into a cough that Meguru can literally feel wracking his slip of a frame. He wipes his mouth as he rightens his shoulders. “Isagi Yoichi.”
Meguru plays with the name over his tongue. The consonants, the vowels, the feel of it on his teeth. He finds he likes it.
“Where’d you find him, Bachira?” Nagi asks as he studies Isagi’s face.
“Below the deck. They were holding him in a cell.”
“They—They were going to sell me,” Isagi croaks out, and there’s an underlying, dangerous current of indignant anger beneath his voice.
Nagi’s jaw tightens grimly. “Gentlemen of the law, huh?” He mutters, looking out across the defeated officers, “What a load of dogshit. More like slavers than fucking soldiers,” he turns back to Isagi and his anger softens considerably, “Here, I’ll go find you some water. You look dehydrated to hell and back.”
Isagi rasps a laugh, “I feel that way too,” but Meguru can feel him swaying on his feet, woozy and weak. He helps manoeuvre Isagi onto the ground before he collapses, and Isagi clings to the fabric of his sleeves.
“Thanks,” he says quietly, ducking his head, and Meguru doesn’t know if it’s because his voice is too parched to speak louder or that he’s embarrassed. He finds he doesn’t care much. The rest of Meguru’s crew are starting to notice Isagi on the deck and are watching. Some with curious, others with wary expressions. Observant.
When Isagi tilts his head, the blue scales that dot his temples and the skin that trails over his jaw and down his neck catch in the light and blossom into brilliance.
The skin around them is crusty and cracked with dried old blood, and Meguru gets the sudden feeling that someone had tried – whether they were successful, he wasn’t sure – to pry the scales from his skin. The scabs look raw. Meguru grimaces.
“Bachira,” a new voice booms, and Meguru feels Isagi’s grip clench tightly onto his arms all over again. A long shadow falls across the ground in the stifling afternoon sun.
Bachira grins. “Hi, captain.”
“What is all this about?” Itoshi asks, somewhere between suspicious and concerned. Meguru cranes his neck to squint over his shoulder at Itoshi, who’s backlit by the sun. He glowers back down at Meguru in tandem, looking unimpressed.
“My name is Isagi,” the mer says, jutting his chin out. He has the sense not to snarl at the captain, though. Which Meguru is grateful for. “I’m a mer.”
“I can see that,” Itoshi returns cooly. “What were you doing on the boat?”
“They were holding me captive,” Isagi scowls. “Going to sell me at the next port they dock at. Or, well, at least, they were going to. Before your crew stepped in.” His voice is the strongest Meguru has heard from him yet. His hands tremble where they’re tight against Meguru’s wrists.
“Mers are rare,” Itoshi muses, “How did they catch you?”
Isagi’s eyes darken. “Bait.” He says. “They had another mer. Made them cry out to attract others to help. That’s when they got me.”
Itoshi hums, before his eyes flicker back to Meguru, crouched beside the weakened mer and staring right back at him in a silent challenge. Itoshi sighs. “You’re the one that found him, Bachira. So you’re the one who will tend to him.”
Meguru opens his mouth.
Itoshi adds, “After I get Chigiri to look him over. Okay?”
“Yes, Cap’.” Bachira grins, “Thanks a tonne.”
Itoshi mutters something to himself – something Meguru chooses to ignore -- and turns away.
Meguru looks at Isagi, who’s eyes are warily following Itoshi’s retreating form.
“C’mon, let’s get you back to our ship. The Blue Lock. Much nicer than this one, I promise.”
Isagi smiles thinly at him, his exhaustion becoming more and more apparent. As Meguru helps him to his feet, Isagi’s eyes dart across to the faces of the defeated naval officers. Meguru tucks his arm under Isagi’s armpit to help steady him, when he feels Isagi go still.
He follows his line of sight. He’s watching the Naval Captain, who’s sitting in the shaded overhang of the front of the boat, guarded by an ever-watchful Kunigami. When the general seems to feel a gaze on him, he looks up through his blond bangs and catches Isagi’s eye.
“What’re you gonna do with him?” Isagi mutters to Meguru.
“The captain?” Meguru replies cheerily, “Draw him, probably. Make the others walk the plank, sure, but we gotta make a lesson out of him. Tell the rest of the navy to stay clear of our waters.”
“Hm,” Isagi purses his cracking lips, then turns to Meguru. “Can I watch?”
Meguru grins, “You can help if you want. After we get you all sorted, of course.”
Sailing suits Isagi, Meguru is beginning to learn. Once they slowly reaccustom ed him to a heavier diet than the scraps and meagre morsels Isagi had been living off of for whoever knows how long, it was great to see the flesh of his cheeks firm out and a strength grow across his gait. His skin grows tanned and smooth, his hair dark and black – but sometimes held hints of blue in the right sunlight, and he got on well with Itoshi’s crew.
His smile comes easy, his eyes bright. Freedom suits Isagi, Meguru has learnt. Movement, change. He’s as adaptive and sharp as the oceans from which he comes, but even as he heals, Meguru can see the longing in his eyes. That deep rooted ache to return to the sea. Every moment where he’s so close to it but is not wholly encapsulated by the water hurts him. But Isagi only wants to return when he reaches the place his pod used to roam and has stubbornly refused to enter the water before that point.
So he stays with the crew, stays with Bachira.
That is, until today. It’s early in the morning – the sun has just risen and slowly begins to warm the sky and the sea. Bachira lounges by the head of the boat, banished to the early-morning look out duty, where he sees nothing but the blue sky and the darker sea, blurring in a line at the horizon.
That is until—
Something heavy and powerful slams into the side of the boat. Meguru can feel the entire vessel groan with the might of it, tilting and shuddering. He rushes to the side and cranes his neck over. Is it a shark? A whale?
But no, it’s something else entirely. Below where salt has pressed alabaster smiles across the wooden panels, there is something dark glimmering beneath the waves. Meguru leans over the side and peers closer.
It darts away, and then comes back again, twisting and slamming into the side of the ship. Again, it tilts and moves. Meguru clings onto the railing.
It’s a tail. Something is striking the boat hard enough to make it sway. A large tail. This fifty-tone boat. Moving.
A mer. Attacking their ship.
Something else moves below the water, catching Meguru’s eye. He tries to track it, a black smear shooting through the waves towards the boat. He braces for another impact but this time it doesn’t come.
The figure stops short of the boat – a little slenderer than the larger one that keeps slamming into the side. And then the mer calls something. Eerie and trilling and angry.
A beat passes and nothing happens. Then another mer joins it. This one joins in the call, the voices overlapping in a discordant ring that vibrates through the air.
A commotion on the other side of the boat catches Meguru’s attention momentarily. He turns and watches – somewhere between shocked and bemused – as Isagi bursts from the doors to their lower quarters, followed closely by Nagi, who wraps his arms around Isagi to stop him from moving. He hauls him back and Isagi shrieks inhumanly.
The angry trilling below the waves grows in volume at the sound of Isagi’s distress.
Realisation blooms in Meguru’s lungs.
This is Isagi’s pod.
He turns from the side and strides towards Isagi and Nagi. For all of the muscle and strength Isagi has developed, he’s no where near Nagi’s level. The pale haired boy drags Isagi back with an ease as Isagi squirms in his grip. His legs flail and spasm.
“Christ, Isagi! What has gotten into you?”
“Let him go!” Meguru shouts as he storms over.
Nagi looks up in surprise, but that isn’t enough time for him to brace himself as Meguru swings a right hook at his jaw. The strike connects at the same time that the largest mer slams into the deck again, sending Nagi flying across the deck. He lands heavily. Isagi scrambles to his feet and darts towards the edge of the ship.
He purrs something delighted as he cranes his neck over. Meguru hurries to join him.
The other mers in the water have gone still, previous agitation at the sound of Isagi’s struggle puttering out.
Isagi grins as he reaches down. They’re quite far down but he reaches out like they can touch. “Noa!” He calls, smiling so wide his lips might cut his face in two. “Noa, stop! I’m fine, see, I’m fine!”
The smallest of the mer – with pink hair plastered to his neck and face – sticks his head above the water. “Isagi!” He shrieks and makes a noise so distinctly foreign to Meguru’s ears but so painfully relived that it makes his heart pang.
“Kaiser! Kurona!” Isagi laughs, sounding equally hysterical and disbelieving.
And then he is suddenly struggling to undo the buttons on the front of his shirt and clambering onto the railing as though to dive over the side.
Panic seizes Meguru— “Wait!” He calls, reaching out to clasp at Isagi’s hand. “Wait, please don’t go yet!” His voice cracks, falters, “Will you come back?”
Isagi stills. Turns to look at him. His eyes are soft. “I have legs for a reason, don’t I?” He teases. In one fluid motion he’s grasping the fabric at Meguru’s chest and pulling him into a kiss. It’s brief and shallow and makes Meguru long for more, but before he can even properly process the fact that Isagi is kissing him, Isagi breaks away and nose-dives into the water.
Meguru reels back for a moment, swept up in dizziness, before he’s surging forward to look down over the side of the boat.
Isagi hits the water with an eloquent splash. The white-crusted waves swallow him up in an embrace, and Meguru frantically searches the ocean’s opaque blue surface for a few desperate seconds.
Then Isagi erupts. He breaks the water surface and dives into a graceful arc. He makes another chirping call, a sound of pure euphoria. The sunlight catches in the glimmering scales of his long, gorgeous tail. Meguru swallows. He’s gorgeous.
As soon as he lands again the other mer mob him. Isagi laughs as the largest of the mer – Noa? – tackles him into a bear hug and they dip below the waves again. He’s back where he belongs, Meguru thinks, a bittersweet aching thing taking root in his throat. They chirp and shriek and call and they sound so happy it makes Meguru’s heart ache.
Isagi looks up just once – his dark eyes latching on to Meguru’s catlike, yellowed eyes, and the world slows down for a moment, focuses on their singular location, like the entire axis of the world is centred upon them.
And then in the next moment, a white-crested tide takes the pod of mers under, and then there is nothing more.
The market is busy, and the sun is hot. Meguru weaves through the vast swaths of people, sometimes resorting to graphic use of his elbows to cut his path through the people. It’s midsummer, and the air is thick with humidity. Out here by the docks, the smell of salty sea only adds to that thickness, coating his throat.
Meguru slides cleanly through the people, casting a critical eye over the stalls and stands as he passes. Vendors call out to passing people, selling all sorts of things for the travelling sailors passing by. As is usual with port cities – most of their income came from external sailors – sailors like Meguru. Even if he wouldn’t technically class himself as a sailor, no. He’s something else entirely. Rin liked to call them privateers but Meguru knows that’s a load of shit too.
At least he didn’t draw the short straw and have to stay with the boat this time.
He’s looking for a new compass if anything. Reo tossed his last one overboard in a fit of rage and Meguru had yet to replace it. Only, none of the stalls catch his eye, and none of their compasses look quite right.
He stops by another stand and offers the vendor a polite smile as his eyes cast over her collection of knick-knacks and items.
A presence brushes up beside him but Meguru doesn’t even blink.
That is until a slender hand reaches out and clasps the compass that Meguru had been eyeing up, and offers it out to the vendor. It’s a nice one, too, with lavish golden-crusted decorations along the rim and connected to a long chain to hang around the neck.
After a reported two shillings, the stranger dives into their pocket, pulls out the change and hands it across.
Meguru has half the mind to object, but if they wanted the object and they got to it first, that was only fair. He’d find another compass.
Only for the stranger to turn to him. With a surprising carefulness, like they’re handling fine china over some callused skin, they grab Meguru by the hand and slowly uncurl his fingers, pressing the compass flat into his palm.
Meguru, for the first time, looks up at the stranger.
He meets dark lapis eyes, glossy black hair, and a crinkling smile.
Isagi Yoichi looks like the sun has blessed him. His skin is now golden and smooth and full, no longer so startling and pertruding are his cheekbones, along with his hair – longer now, curling down the back of his neck. His shoulders are broader, and his smile is as sharp as a northern wind.
Meguru gapes at him.
“Hi, Bachira,” Isagi says, and he has the audacity to sound somewhat shy, “I really hope you remem---”
He’s cut off as Meguru throws his arms around him, pulling him tight. Yoichi smells like the sea, that sweet scent of coral and where their cheeks brush, beneath his peach fuzz, Yoichi’s skin is as soft as a pearl.
“You came back,” Meguru breathes, “You came back.”
He can hear the grin in Yoichi’s voice as the mer squeezes him tighter, “Of course I came back,” he says with a laugh, “I promised I would, didn’t I? I have two legs, might as well use them from time to time.”