Chapter Text
Shang Qinghua always lived a solitary life.
Ever since his parents died, it's always just been him. The last of his kind, the end to a bloodline of Hua flyers, otherwise known as Huan Flying Mer.
His kind had special tails that glimmered vividly once the rays from above his their scales, creating a myriad lightshow of reflective colours that beamed in each and every direction.
Their fins were long and wing-like, allowing them to soar through the water and cut through the fastest of currents. Two fins in particular, that connected to their arms, expanded outwards and to both help boost their speed and look incredibly beautiful once opened.
Unfortunately though, they weren't fast enough to beat the engine of human boats.
During their mating season, his pod migrated north towards the Arctic waters, the ocean desolate and cold to isolate their pod from the predatory dangers of the tropics.
It all began when Ming Fan, the pod's resident idiot, surfaced above the water to explore the ice and bask in the light of the sun.
Except, when he didn't return back to the pod once night fell, people began to worry.
"Where's Ming Fan?" Ning Yingying had asked.
"Has anyone seen Ming Fan?" Yang Yixuan had said.
Once the worries became too much, the pod's leader, Yue Qingyuan, sent out the strongest guard, Liu Qingge, to explore the surroundings, fearing that his pod had become the new subject to predators above.
"Take caution, Liu Qingge. Being a shark in these waters won't scare other mer like back in Cang Qiong. Return before night fall and remain vigilant." He had ordered.
But, Liu Qingge didn't return that night.
And with the pod's most fearsome fighter gone, most likely mauled to death the pod's elders hypothesised, more and more mer began to disappear once the waters turned darker than the depths below. Not even the faint rays of light from the moon seemed to help, it appeared.
From 200 mers, dwindled down to 3.
Shang Qinghua, his mother, and his father.
They were ordered by an injured Yue Qingyuan to return to the tropics, the Arctic waters far too dangerous to remain in, he exasperatedly told them. He said that he was going to stay back and search for any remaining mers, but it was all a lie.
The last Shang Qinghua had seen of Yue Qingyuan was a battered body encased in human rope, a net too large for mere feeding fish, specifically designed to capture the Hua Flyer mer.
It was the work of humans, Shang Qinghua recognised. The intricate knots and weaving of the net only designed by the nimble fingers from human hands.
He watched with big, childish eyes as his leader was pulled from the waters and hoisted above. He heard a shout, then nothing. Then red, so, so, so much red. It spilled from the skies and bled into the waves, creating a waterfall of blood that sank to the hazy depths of the ocean.
Not much else was seen as he was dragged away hastily by his parents, who ripped through the water with their expansive fins and glided across ocean to ocean.
It was on the edge of their once territory, that Shang Qinghua finally saw the last of his parents.
Apparently, it wasn't enough for the humans to kill his kin above the ocean. No, the greedy humans decided to descend into the water with their sharp silver spears, tinged red with the blood of his pod.
His parents hid his small body in the overgrown lengths of sprouting sea grass, telling him in hushed whispers to keep quiet and to not emerge from his cover until they were out of sight.
His parents boldy redirected the hunters back to the open waters, deliberately cutting their tails to trail blood and attract the octo mers that hid within the darkness of the ravines.
Falling into their trap, the human hunters circled his parents, pointing the tip of their spears towards them in offense.
Before the human's could hurt his parents, the fiercest species of the Cang Qiong waters emerged. It's large tentacles gripped the rocky edge of the ravine, pulling itself upwards and casting a shadow of grey over the hunters and his parents. Eight of it's legs wrapped around them all, dragging them back to the deep with it's retreating body.
Linguang Jun, Shang Qinghua thought.
His pod were all taught about the octo mers, the kind of mer that originated from the deep and grew large enough to kill an entire pod in one day. The octo mer also had a bad tradition of kidnapping the tropic mer, his pod, as mates. That was why his pod tended to migrate North for mating season, and the reason why Yue Qingyuan avoided their leader, Tianlang Jun, like an oil spill in water.
That was how little Shang Qinghua was left alone, and the sole survivor of the Hua Flyers.
It was also how he became the most sought after in the Cang Qiong waters, as every mer wanted the last Hua Flyer and their glimmering tails. Shang Qinghua became the emperor of Cang Qiong waters by deduction, but he didn't do any ruling, nor did he recruit anyone to recreate the pod. He left his waters alone and let any and all mer claim the land for himself. Shang Qinghua himself only kept the leader cove, blocking the main entrance to prevent any predators, and carving a small hole in the side that only he and his slim body could glide through.
As he grew older, he began to become fond of human trinkets, scavenging the surrounding shipwrecks for any sparkling treasure. It was his way of getting back at the evil humans who culled his pod, he naively thought.
And today would've been like any other, but he couldn't shake his gut feeling that sprouted since the opening of his eyes.
"Ugh, what now?" Shang Qinghua muttered, annoyed with the constant growling outside of his door.
Great, another suitor! Just the perfect way to start my morning! He thought sarcastically.
"Shang Qinghua! I know you're in there! Come out, I just wanna talk!"
"No! Go away! Leave me alone, Shen Jiu!"
"You can't just let your bloodline die out! Mate with me and I'll give you all the guppies you'd ever want!"
"Ugh! No! Just fuck off!"
"I'm not leaving till you come out!" Shen Jiu all but growls between clenched teeth.
Obviously taking no for an answer, Shang Qinghua leaves through his secret exit; a tunnel he dug that leads to the kelp forest.
He knew that Shen Jiu truly would go by his word and remain perched outside his cove, he was one of Shang Qinghua's more aggressive suitors, you see.
What a fucking nuisance, all I wanted to do today was wake up and have a peaceful day exploring sunken ships. Why was it him? And today of all days, ugh.
Today was worse than usual, since yesterday he had nearly been kidnapped when he traversed over the ravine. He tended not to, considering the dangers of the waters that would've most likely played into octo tradition of stealing a mate.
He really shouldn't of travelled over it, because mid-way he had felt a tentacle coil itself around his tail, squishing his end fins flat and forcing him to flail.
With his movement stunted, the tentacle began to pull him down below.
Luckily, Shang Qinghua foraged a human knife from his recent venture, so he stabbed the tentacle and easily escaped, using his dorsal fins to glide him through the water and back to the familiar blues and greens.
He felt eyes watching his back as he swam to above.
But today he decided to ignore the mishaps of yesterday, and enjoy a new shipwreck he discovered recently.
Greeting the resident seals of the kelp forest, Shang Qinghua swam deeper to the rocky trenches where he found the most dazzling shipwreck he had ever seen.
It was larger than what he was used to, and obviously royalty with the pure gold embellishment. Huan Hua, he read. From the Huan Hua palace.
It was bound to have magnanimous treasures, surely riches bought with human wealth and twinkling jewels dug from surface Earth.
The ship was balanced over the trench, wedged in between the crevice and positioned tilted so that the left side was slightly deeper into the ravine.
There were holes of punctured wood smashed into the sides of the ship, likely sunken in the midst of royalty warfare, shot to the depths by cannons of wrath.
Shang Qinghua made haste in swimming through the side and exploring the wreck, flipping open chests and chucking anything sparkly and unique into his woven pouch. Like his hypothesis, he found an oasis of gold and human literature, perfectly preserved with the wrapping of plastic lamination.
He took the ships cutlery, books, scrolls, riches, and even the fabrics, envisioning new hair ribbons in the making.
Cucumber-bro would like these, he thinks, flipping past pages of Huan Hua literature envisioning fantastical worlds of cultivation and demons.
But then he comes across a scroll about merpeople. In particular, his mer pod. He recognised the flying characteristics of the illustrations body, and the way that their arm fins expanded like the birds from the surface.
This ship was researching his pod, likely being the ones who had taken his kin from his very grasps.
Shang Qinghua took the scroll too. It may help him uncover the unjust kidnapping of his people, and potentially locate wherever they may be.
Suddenly, he's snapped out of his stupur when he sees a glowing light; an orb dancing around the edge of a hole in the ships side.
Shang Qinghua swims towards it, entranced by the flickering of the mysterious orb.
But as soon as his fingers are a mere hairs width away from it, the orb teleports down into the trench.
Shang Qinghua takes a look back at the sunken ship before darting into the darkness, the glowing light of the orb illuminating his face and making his scales glimmer lightly.
Once again, whenever he's just about to touch the orb, it teleports deeper into the trench, guiding him further away from the warmth of the surface, and deeper into the darkness of the desolate deep.
Once he reaches the bottom, he snaps out of it as the orb disappears, blanketing him in darkness.
Oh, shit.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into! Why did I swim down here! I can't see shit! And where the fuck did that orb go?!
It's perfect octo mer territory, he remembers.
And in the bordering northern waters, where he and the sunken ship were, is the Northern Octo Clan. The Northern Octo Clan is notorious for their sheer amount of flyers they kidnapped, abducting an average of 75 mers each year before the massacre.
The pod never knew how they did it, but now Shang Qinghua understands.
His kind used shiny rocks to court a potential mate, and the glowing orb perfectly fitted the custom.
And now Shang Qinghua fell into it's trap. He's doomed, essentially.
Quickly, he begins to swim upwards towards the light again, attempting to escape the grasps of the octo mer.
It's to no avail though, as 4 tentacles shoot out and wrap themselves around his body, binding his arms and fins, rendering him motionless and subject to the wishes of the octo mer.
He's still thrashing violently when he gets jetted downwards, his hair floating wildly in the water.
When he reaches the water, his head hits against the rocks on the floor, releasing a steady stream of red that cascades around his head and down his back.
His vision begins to deteriorate, and his eyelids begin to feel heavy. The sound becomes hazy and his head feels fluffy.
The last thing he sees is a perfectly handsome face approaching him, the figures tentacles swimming towards Shang Qinghua and exposing it's chiselled torso and ever so pale skin. The figures eyes and hair are black, it's hair long and silky in the water.
It smiles, revealing a row of razor sharp teeth and a long eel-like tongue that scents out the bloodied water.
"Mine." It says, holding Shang Qinghua close to it's body as it begins to move deeper, approaching a giant cave- it's home, Shang Qinghua thinks absentmindedly.
He's thrown roughly into a barred room before his eyes close.
His last thought only being, fuck me! I'm so dead! At least he's hot i guess...