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The wish had ruined everything.
One slip, one wrong word, and his world shattered. The kind of mistake that seemed small at the moment, a single sound twisted out of place, but it had torn through his existence like a storm. Falmouth had lost it all—the warmth of belonging, the fragile miracle of being loved, the three precious months that had taught him laughter, taught him that landfolk could be family. They had been a miracle, those months: brief and fragile, but more real than anything he had ever known. And now, every trace of them was gone, torn from his mind.
He remembered nothing of them now. No faces, no voices, no love. Only the void. Only the ache that throbbed in his chest, hollow and merciless. The silence of something lost, too deep to name. His soul screamed that something was missing, that there were bonds meant to anchor him—but his mind could not grasp them. They slipped like water through his fingers, leaving only absence, only pain.
And that was when the humans came.
They caught him when he was weak and wandering, when he was most vulnerable—lost in the fog of forgetting. Strong, cruel hands seized his tentacles, twisting them until the joints cried out in agony. He fought, water-born power flaring in desperation, but it only made the bindings bite deeper. Rough rope dug into tender flesh, crushing circulation until his limbs pulsed with a sick ache.
“Hold him steady!” one of them barked.
“Gods, he’s strong. Get those ropes tighter!” another shouted.
A third spat in disgust. “What even is this thing? Squid or man?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the first replied, yanking the ropes one last time until Falmouth cried out. “He’s ours now.”
They dragged him across the ground, ignoring his thrashing and cries, and shoved him into a cage. Iron bars, rough and biting, scraped his skin raw. Chains groaned as they hauled it up, suspending it a meter off the earth—not high enough to kill him from a fall, but high enough to strip him of all grounding, to leave him dangling, helpless.
Above him, they fixed a waterproof roof. It wasn’t for shelter. It was to starve him. To deny him the one thing he could not live without: water. For a water genasi, it was like denying air. A cruelty beyond cruelty.
The first day, he fought until his voice was nothing but a raw, shredded rasp. His tentacles slammed against the bars until scales split and blood trickled down the iron. He begged—gods, he begged—for freedom, for mercy, for anything.
But when the humans came, they did not come to free him.
They came with knives. With whips. With laughter that burned hotter than the pain itself.
“Look at him squirm,” one mocked, dragging a blade across his arm until crimson welled up.
“He’ll scream soon,” another replied, grinning wide. “They all scream eventually.”
The third grinned wide. “Oh, I want to hear it. Make him sing.”
And scream he did. When steel cut deep, when fire kissed his body, when whips cracked against his skin, he screamed until his throat bled and his voice abandoned him. Blood streamed from him in thick rivulets, staining the ground below like a dark offering.
And then, when he was half-conscious and trembling, they offered him one glass of water.
“Drink up, squid,” one sneered, holding it out just beyond reach until Falmouth crawled forward, trembling.
“Heals him, doesn’t it?” another said with amusement. “Not too much though. We want him alive, not strong.”
“Just enough to patch him up,” the first agreed, shoving the glass into Falmouth’s shaking hands.
He drank. He had to. Shame and desperation burned through him, but he could not refuse. The water slid down his throat, cooling the fire of his pain. It mended just enough to close the worst of the wounds, to steady the fluttering of his heart. But it was never enough. Never enough to heal fully. Never enough to fight back.
Not a gift. A leash.
And so it went.
Torture. Water. Silence.
By the second day, his voice was gone. Only broken sounds escaped him when the knives dug in, when the whips sang their cruel rhythm. His skin dulled. His body sagged against the bars.
“Looks like he’s drying out,” one guard muttered, poking at Falmouth’s cracked skin with a stick.
“Good,” another replied. “Weak things are easier to carve.”
A third snickered. “Don’t let him die, though. The boss said he’s worth more alive. Alive and screaming.”
By the third day, his mind began to fray. He lay in the corner of the cage, staring up at the waterproof roof, begging for rain that never came. He tried to remember rivers rushing through him, the sensation of waves carrying him home—but the memories were faint, drowned beneath the weight of emptiness.
He told himself he had no friends. He was utterly alone.
And yet… something lingered. A thread. A presence. Sometimes, in the moments between pain and unconsciousness, he felt it: someone searching, refusing to give up. It was faint, fragile, but it was enough to keep him breathing.
By the fourth day, he was a ruin. His limbs were shredded with deep gashes, blood dripping endlessly onto the dirt until it pooled beneath the cage. His breaths rattled, shallow and uneven, and every beat of his heart grew weaker. He could feel his body beginning to let go.
And then the memories came.
Not in fragments, but in floods.
Ashen’s laughter, golden and warm enough to light the coldest waters. Lucas’s voice, steady and grounding, an anchor in chaos. Ellory’s gentle hands, soft with sorrow and care, teaching him what safety meant. The first landfolk who had not feared him. Who had seen his tentacles, his water-born skin, and had called him family.
And family was everything.
Even the darker parts came back: Daemys’s betrayal, the sharp wound of it still raw, and then their fragile reconnection. The mission to protect Ellory. The wish that had gone so horribly wrong, tearing everything from him.
Tears burned his eyes, spilling down his cheeks silently. He hadn’t realized he still had the strength to cry.
“Pathetic, isn’t he?” one human sneered as they walked past. “Crying like a child.”
“Don’t mock him,” another replied with a cruel grin. “The broken ones cry the sweetest.”
And then—through the fog, through the heavy pull of death—he heard it.
“Falmouth!”
His name shouted, with desperate strength. A voice he knew.
He tried to answer. His lips trembled. A whisper, weak as mist: “I’m… here…”
But his body was gone. He couldn’t feel his limbs. Couldn’t lift his head. His eyes fluttered, heavy, begging to close. Still he forced them open. Still he wept silently as the voice came closer, closer.
And then—he saw him.
Lucas.
Fifty meters away, running toward him, mouth wide in a scream Falmouth couldn’t hear. But the sight alone shattered him. Lucas had come. Lucas had found him.
Falmouth’s heart cried out. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself into Lucas’s arms, to grin through blood and say it was fine, just a scratch, nothing worth worrying about. He wanted to hear Lucas laugh again. He wanted to promise they had more time.
But his body betrayed him. He couldn’t move. His voice a threadbare whisper. His vision blurred, tears streaking his face, even as Lucas drew nearer, even as hope surged too late.
Every second stretched like eternity. His heart screamed to survive—for Lucas, for the friend who had come for him. But his body was too far gone.
His lips parted, the last scraps of breath carrying the only words he had left:
“I’m… sorry…”
And with that, the tide pulled him under.
His chest stilled. His body went limp. His last breath was gone.
The cage was silent now. The water, the memories, the hope—all dissolved into nothingness. All that lingered was love, carved into his very essence, a love too strong for even death to erase.
And as the world faded, Falmouth’s heart clung to one truth: Lucas would understand.
____________________
Lucas’s footsteps pounded against the dirt as he closed the distance, each heartbeat crashing in his ears like a war drum. The sight of Falmouth’s limp, broken form suspended in that cage tore something feral and unbearable out of him. His throat was raw from shouting, his voice hoarse beyond recognition, but still he screamed his friend’s name, again and again, as though sheer willpower could call him back.
And then the humans noticed.
“There! Someone’s coming!” one barked, snatching up a blade.
“Another freak,” another spat as Lucas came into view, his half-elven ears catching the firelight. “Let’s gut him too.”
A third sneered. “Better yet—let him watch while we finish the squid.”
They rushed him.
Lucas didn’t hesitate. The fury in him was volcanic, molten, a grief-fueled storm. His dagger flashed free before the first man reached him. Steel bit through flesh, and hot blood sprayed as the human collapsed with a strangled cry.
“You bastards!” Lucas roared, his voice cracking under the weight of rage and heartbreak. “You’ll never touch him again!”
An axe came swinging for his head. Lucas ducked low, blade arcing upward to rip open the man’s chest in one savage sweep. The human fell before he even had breath to scream. Two more closed from behind, but Lucas moved like lightning, his blade a silver blur. One throat opened beneath his strike; the other stumbled back, tripping in the pool of Falmouth’s blood. But Lucas was on him before he could flee, driving the dagger into his chest, once, twice—until the man stopped moving.
The last human staggered back, wide-eyed. “Monst—” he stammered, but the word never finished. Lucas’s blade cut it short.
Then silence.
Lucas stood trembling amid the corpses, chest heaving, blade dripping red. The rage still burned, but it was hollow compared to the anguish tearing him apart. His eyes snapped to the cage.
“Falmouth,” he whispered, voice breaking. He stumbled forward, letting his dagger clatter forgotten to the ground. His shaking hands clawed at the bars, skin splitting on jagged metal as he forced them open. He tore through the ropes binding Falmouth’s tentacles, ripping them apart with his bare hands, not caring how the coarse fibers shredded his palms.
“Stay with me. Please—please stay with me,” Lucas begged, his voice shattering as he pulled Falmouth’s limp body into his arms. His friend’s skin was cold—too cold for a child of water. Lucas pressed his forehead against Falmouth’s, tears dripping down into the blood and dirt.
“I’m here now. You’re safe. Gods, you’re safe…”
“I’m… sorry…”
The words were faint, a ghost of sound. And then—nothing. No stir of breath. No flicker in the eyes Lucas longed to see open again.
Falmouth’s last whisper echoed inside him, louder than the silence, louder than his own heartbeat. Lucas rocked him gently, as though cradling him back to life, as though refusing to believe what every part of him already knew.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Lucas sobbed, tears choking the words. “You never had to be. This wasn’t your fault. None of it—It was mine…”
He clung tighter, holding Falmouth as though his arms alone could shield him from death, as though the strength of his love could win him back. Blood soaked into his clothes, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was the still weight in his arms—the friend who had always been more than a friend, who had been family, his brother.
The humans were dead. The cage was broken. The night was silent. But none of it mattered.
He pressed his face into Falmouth’s hair, grief shaking his chest. “I came too late,” he whispered. “I should have been faster. I should have saved you.” His voice fractured, hollow with anguish. “You can’t leave me. Please… not like this.”
No matter how fiercely he begged, no matter how tightly he held on, the body in his arms lay silent—his warmth slipping away like water through open hands.
And in the emptiness that followed, only his sobs remained—raw, endless, echoing into a night that would never be whole again.