Chapter Text
Five years ago, a diver went out alone on a swim, never to be seen again. No body washed ashore, and no personal effects were found. He simply vanished into the waves, leaving behind not a single clue as to what happened to him.
Freminet had met the man on several occasions and never cared to speak with him, but he was a well-renowned diver who’d discovered countless artifacts and had even set records with his dives. He’d never entirely processed how someone so accomplished could disappear like that. As a child, he’d wondered if he’d disappeared by choice, running off to lands unknown to live a new life; when he was a little older, he’d wondered if the man disappeared on purpose and let his body be lost in the place he’d loved most. Now he accepted that he’d never know and that speculation was simply a stain upon a legacy that didn’t deserve to be tarnished in such a way.
Unlike others, it had not made him reevaluate the way he dived. It hadn’t made him question his safety. Not when, in his eyes, the water was the one place that felt truly safe. So unlike others who made efforts to always have a dive partner and ensure that people knew when and where they were diving, Freminet doubled down on his alone or not at all policy, much at the behest of other divers. But he’d got results; he found things no other had seen before. He never got into pointless battles over who’d discovered what because no one else could make a claim to something he’d found alone. In the diving world, Freminet was the quiet, ice-cold prodigy that no one could disavow.
After a while, they’d given up on trying to get his attention. Despite what they may have thought, he was not unaware of the way they still talked about him behind his back, but as long as they didn’t try and speak directly with him anymore, he wasn’t bothered. They could say whatever they wanted; he’d heard plenty worse over the years from people a damn sight more important to him than these strangers who merely happened to share a profession with him. He didn’t care what they thought. Or at least that was the lie he desperately tried to convince himself was true.
The way people saw him was, of course, always weighing him down. If he’d taken the time to heal from anything, maybe he would have been able to process why the thought of merely being seen or thought of made him feel so violated. But he didn’t have such a luxury, so for now and likely forever, his only solace was the water.
There was no way he would let anyone invade upon the one thing that made him feel secure.
He sets out on the morning of Lyney and Lynette’s special magic show at the opera house, a day that, to him, feels almost like any other. He wakes up at the same time as usual, goes on a quick morning dive to grab some ingredients for Lyney, and then returns home to wait for him and Lynette. Then things start to get a tad out of his comfort zone; his brother brings back a strange person to their house with very little explanation, and the person is kind to him, but the whole experience sets his nerves on edge. At least he doesn't have to go to the workshop today, although Lyney telling his new friend that Freminet was too shy and teasing him so brazenly has done enough to drain his energy.
Once he’s finally left alone, he decides he needs to go for another dive. Lyney and Lynette’s first time ever performing in the Opera Epiclese is tonight, and he doesn’t want to miss it. Of course, they’d be understanding if his personality got the better of him, but he doesn’t want to miss their big break. There’s plenty of time for a dive to clear his senses and help him focus. Or at least there should be.
Freminet goes back to the same place he’d dived in the morning. The cold wash of the waves lapping against his skin as he walks down into the water, letting the cool blue serenity calm his mind as he begins to sink beneath the surface. The water is safe, it’s soothing, and he lets himself fall through it, feeling his stress dissolve with the gentle pressure of the water.
This is his current main diving spot because of the lively coral reef just below the surface; it’s the best place to acquire materials for the magic pockets, and a fascinating array of creatures call this place home. It’s a wonderful spot to go when the world above gets a bit too much.
Though the best part of this place is just beyond the reef, a deep drop so sheer that it looks dark, dark blue, so devastatingly beautiful that the void feels like it seeps into his chest every time he looks at it. It’s Freminet’s go-to place when he needs to let himself cry. A more balanced and sane individual might question why his coping mechanism is throwing himself into the abyss; Lynette certainly would have something to say about it. But what they didn’t know couldn’t worry them.
He finds himself floating near the sandy bottom of the reef, sandwiched between two shelves of coral, the light of the afternoon sun soft on his eyes as he gazes up at the glassy, undulating surface, watching the schools of fish swim above. It doesn’t quite manage to make him smile, but the tension has at least lessened, and as the armored crabs shuffle past him, he finds it hard to dwell on anything but the peace of the ocean surrounding him. The current takes him on a journey, floating slowly through the coral, peacefully taking the stress of decision-making away from him as he just goes with the flow. Of course, the wonders around him are as captivating as ever, and having no mission to complete or supplies to gather makes them shimmer just a little more in his eyes.
Floating unawares, he doesn’t realize where he’s ended up until he feels the cool currents of the deeper sea creeping up his spine. Freminet turns himself round effortlessly and finds himself staring into the void, his chest seizing in shock at the sight of absolutely nothing below him. The deep dark blue feels emptier than ever, and after the initial shock wears off, he feels like he’s flying, floating so high with so much unexplored water beneath him. An idea hits him, one he’s had many times before but never acted on.
He could swim down.
It’s always been something he’s planned to do but always felt it was the wrong time; there’d always been something more pressing to do, but right now, there was nothing. The twin's magic show wasn’t till late. All Freminet needed to do really was dive down deep enough to see if there was anything mesmerizing hiding in the emptiness below, and if he did find anything, he could come back later, and if not, at least he’d know and get a nice long dive out of it in the process. Either way, it would put him in a better state of mind for his sibling's sake. He’d be able to actually enjoy the show and hopefully not end up looking like a hermit crab ripped from its shell. Maybe he’d even manage a smile. That would make Lyney happy.
Unconsciously, he starts to swim down slowly, the water temperature around him dropping steadily as he descends. The atmosphere around him gets darker and darker, but Freminet has never had a problem with the shades of the deep. The blessing of his vision glows like bioluminescence, after all, and it gives him plenty of light to work with. Before he can fully process just how deep he is, the glow of the sun above has already dulled to the point of nigh invisibility. He’s aware that this is the point that most divers would start to become more conscious of themselves and their surroundings, but this isn’t quite that point for him; maybe it’s because he’s young, dumb, and reckless like they all say, but he never starts to worry until the deep blue turns to black. As he dives, he becomes more and more skeptical about finding anything in the void. There’s no sign of anything around him; it’s almost unnerving how empty it is. There’s hardly any fish, let alone ruins or coral, just a lot of vacant ocean.
Shades of black have started to filter into the blue, and Freminet is beginning to wonder if he should turn back when he finally spots something odd below him. Something beneath him is glowing, its light like a mockery of the sun calling to him from the abyss, tempting him closer whilst making his skin crawl with the wrongness of it all. It’s too large and consistent to be a creature of the deep, and its presence draws his descent to a halt. The thought that he’s somehow gotten himself turned around on the way down shakes him to his core. But no, because the light below can’t be the sun; it’s not right. Something about it makes his bones tremble and his stomach twist. At the same time, he could be misattributing the feelings of distress. Maybe the strain of getting turned about is setting in and causing paranoia and creating delusions of a bizarre phenomenon lying at the bottom of the sea when all that’s there is the sun shining through from above.
The water feels colder now, and the currents feel like they’re trying to drag him closer to the light. It’s at least a comfort that he’s already under the water; he doesn’t have to worry about holding back the tears. Nobody is around to judge him here. He feels more childlike than he has in years as he desperately wishes for Lynette or Lyney to come and take him home or for someone to at least point him in the direction home is. The currents feel stronger, almost as if they’re putting more and more pressure on him, trying to suck him into the light. It’s not right.
He starts to swim away from it, fighting against the currents as he watches a few abyssal fish swim past, letting themselves be taken by the water and vanishing into the light below. Wrong, It feels so wrong, and he’s sure if he was on land, he would have collapsed to his knees at the sheer dread this thing instills as you try to escape it. He swims harder than he ever has before, using every last shred of stamina he has to break free from its strange grasp. Manic, desperate swimming combined with what felt like a deep sea riptide left him disoriented, and by the time the currents let him go, he was sure he was much further out to sea than he should be. The eerie glow is still visible in the distance, and from this angle and with the space between him and it, he can tell it’s obviously not the sun.
The encounter leaves him rattled and unsure of everything around him; he can’t even bring himself to fully trust his own head. Up is the only answer, but can he really be sure he knows where that is? One wrong move right now, and he could put himself in even more danger. Get himself lost so far out in open waters that he can’t ever find the shore again.
He’s going to miss the show. It’s a stupid thought to have in this situation, but he really wanted to be there for his family, and now he doesn’t know when, if ever, he’ll see them again. For the first time in a long time, Freminet wants to scream out loud until all of his senses shut down, nothing is left of him, and he doesn’t have to deal with anything else ever again. For the first time in a long time, he considers letting himself drown, rejecting his blessing, casting his vision aside, and letting the water fill his lungs and burn him from the inside out. He floats in the void for a long while, fighting a panic attack that struggles to make itself known. After he watches another school of fish swim toward their probable demise, he forces himself to move in the direction that has to be up. Or at least he’s almost certain it’s up.
He misses Pers, sitting on the beach waiting for him. That little meka penguin has been there for him for a long time, and he doesn’t want to leave this world without Pers at his side. He focuses on the things and people he loves as he pushes out the dark thoughts and forces his worn-out body to keep going up.
He swims for what feels like an eternity before the real light of the sun graces his eyes, soft and welcoming above him. It’s reinvigorating, and he kicks faster as he ascends into its warm embrace. When he finally sees the undulating gloss of the surf above him, he starts to cry again.
Breaking the surface feels like a blessing from Celestia itself. Gasping for air, he doesn’t have the strength to suppress the sobs that rack through him as he treads water, looking around desperately for land, only to be met with blue waves and a rapidly darkening sky. Luck really wasn’t his lady today. Dumfounded and filled with unceasing dread, he stays there for a bit as the rain starts to fall, gently pattering against the water, ice cold as it hits his skin.
“H-Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, please don't cry.” He whispers it out of a deep-seated childhood reflex that, in his vulnerable state, he can’t push down. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Freminet whimpers as tears continue rolling down his cheeks out in the open air for the first time in years. Father would scream at him if she saw him like this.
Nobody would notice he was missing until it was too late for him. Lyney and Lynette would assume he’d just felt too overwhelmed and stayed home. They wouldn’t discover he wasn’t there until it was dark and late, and even then, they might be too tired to realize he wasn’t in his room. Father was away and wouldn’t be back for a while, and nobody else knew him well enough to notice if he wasn’t there.
He was well and truly alone at sea. These waters are unfamiliar and deep; he has no markers to work with to make his way home. All he can do is pick a direction and swim.
Tears still roll down his cheeks, and the trembling that’s been wracking through him since he encountered the light keeps worsening instead of getting better. The mere thought of the light beneath him makes his chest clench as though a chain is tightening around his ribcage, crushing his heart and lungs as paranoia and anxiety run rampant through his head.
What finally knocks him down is a net; a fishing net catches his foot and drags him beneath the surface once more, and everything gets dark from there.