Chapter Text
“Papà!”
Paolo looked up from arranging his bag to see Bruno swimming in his direction. He stopped packing his equipment to listen to his son. “Bruno! Shouldn’t you be going to class by now?”
Bruno nodded and held out a bundle in his arms. “I’ll be on my way, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave your lunch.”
“Oh! Thank you!” Paolo took his lunch and added it to his bag.
“Are you going to be back in time for dinner or is this an overnight job?”
“I should be back, but please don’t wait for me if you get hungry before I finish up.”
“Alright. See you tonight! Be safe!”
Bruno waved as he swam from one of the openings of their small home. Paolo needed to get going, but he indulged his parental instincts and kept an eye on his Brunino until his shining white tail vanished into the sea. Both Buccellati men had a busy day ahead of them: Paolo with his job, Bruno with his classes and lessons with the local sea witch. No matter how tired this job left him, Paolo couldn’t wait to hear about Bruno’s day. His son was always so excited to tell him about the things that he had learned or to show off a new spell he mastered. As proud of Bruno and the person he was becoming that Paolo was, there was something sad about admitting that his small fry wasn’t so small anymore. But helping Bruno grow was the most important part of his life, one that Paolo wouldn’t trade for the world.
However, that growth wasn’t exactly the cheapest thing in the world. Paolo sacrificed a great deal to get Bruno a good education, which wouldn’t be possible at the schools in their small village. Every day, Bruno took public transportation to the city where he could attend a better school, both of which were a reoccurring bill of his. On top of that, the witch Bruno was learning from wasn’t from an aquatic species, so she required components and ingredients to allow herself to stay underwater for extended periods of time.Her other students had parents who could pay the bills that were necessary subsidize her materials; however, the difficulty to acquire the components she needed gave Paolo a bit of inspiration.
For the grand majority of his life, Paolo worked in fishing. He usually caught a large number of fish to sell at the local markets or to terrestrial merchants who sail out to buy from aquatic sellers. For the most part, the fish themselves weren’t anything special, just whatever was in season and easy to catch en masse. Sometimes he would get requests for specific species of fish, usually from cooks or spell-casting folk, but he wasn’t exactly known around these waters for catching sea monsters or anything. However, after talking to Bruno’s instructor, they struck a deal that Paolo could bring her components and he would get a discount on her fees. And Paolo delivered, enough that she recommended his skills to other witches.
So, on days when Paolo would usually rest from fish hunting, he would take commissions. Usually, it was for ingredients for spells or potions, but it wasn’t atypical for him to look for things lost in shipwrecks. Those were a bit trickier than foraging or scavenging jobs. Some wrecks were under Foundation jurisdiction, and he couldn’t retrieve anything because of the curses leaking from them. There were also the artifacts that already had bounties on them that Paolo wasn't licensed to claim. He made a point to check in with the Foundation to prevent issues around the retrieval, which occasionally led to Paolo collecting bounty rewards for unintentionally turning in criminals (at least no payment was lost in those cases). Then there were the waters that were a part of Polpo’s territory, and although he wouldn’t get into legal trouble there, Paolo would never bring the sort of danger that came with crossing him home to Bruno. All of those considerations didn’t even take into account the usual dangers of looking for charmed or cursed items in deep waters.
Over the few years of this side job, Paolo learned what equipment was necessary to bring with him. He wedged a crowbar between the waterlogged wooden planks of a sunken ship. It only took a few beats of his tail to create enough force to pry open a hole where he could slip into the innards of the ship. From there, Paolo pulled a sphere wrapped in a net from his bag and tied the ends around his torso, just underneath his ribcage. He lightly tapped the orb until the bioluminescent algae lit up. Paolo could see reasonably well in dark water, but searches went much faster when he didn’t need to completely rely on his night vision. Plus, a little extra light didn’t hurt when it came to fighting off anything that popped around the corner when Paolo was fully enclosed in the ship.
He slipped his hunting spear into his hands—not the greatest weapon if it came down to combat, but it was a tool he knew how to use—and started making his way through the ship’s passageways. Paolo imagined that it was a beautiful and well-engineered ship when it was above water, but the sinking heavily damaged the structure. Boards and rocks jutted through the passageways, forcing Paolo to weave his way through. Sometimes he would squeeze his shoulders through small openings, only to find the way forward completely caved-in, making him struggle to swim backwards to prevent himself from being trapped in the decaying ship.
To prevent his mind from following the line of thought of what would happen to Bruno if he was trapped in the ship with no way to get a message out, Paolo reviewed the commission in his mind. He was requested to retrieve some old necklace, the Zaffiro Volubile. The transportation of the piece must’ve been very well-documented because it wasn’t common for Paolo to get the name of a ship included in a request. Usually, jobs like this required him to search different shipwrecks for days before he could begin to narrow down a selection of ships. Most of the time, the best he could ask for was the historical period when the item was lost, which Paolo could combine with his knowledge of ships to start eliminating options. Perhaps this necklace was lost recently, sometime after artifact documentation was standardized?
Paolo shoved away loose boards as he slipped into what seemed to be one of the ship’s cabins. His tail brushed against the squishy, waterlogged bed while he pulled out drawers and shifted through their contents. He found clothes that were no more than frayed fabrics, book covers holding together a clumpy, pulpy mess, and other belongings that were cast aside when the ship went down, but nothing had the familiar thrum of old magic. He even found an old jewelry box, but the only magic there was the general amazement that came with looking at beautiful stones. Unlike the other things left behind in the shipwreck, Paolo made a point to secure the jewelry box in his bag. Even if he couldn’t find the necklace today, he could at least sell off some mundane jewelry—after seeing if Bruno liked any of the pieces of course.
An unusual swish in the current caught Paolo’s ear. He turned to the wall that held both the door that was blocked beyond Paolo's reach in the passageway and the hole that Paolo cleared to enter the room. He retrieved his spear and kept his eyes fixed on the small opening. For a few beats, the only thing of note was the sound of water flowing through his gills, but Paolo was nothing if not patient.
There, past a cracked portion of the door, was the slightest flick of a fin.
“I see you,” Paolo called out. “No use in staying hidden now.”
A few hushed curses carried their way to Paolo along the current before the door to the cabin opened with a bit of a struggle. They came from the other side of the passageway then. Paolo wasn’t unused to scavengers following after him when he worked—he didn’t bring the spear along with him for his own health after all. He barely flinched at the sight of two mermen entering the cramped room. Paolo offhandedly noted that these young men looked like they had been through quite a bit. From just a glance, Paolo could see that their scales were misaligned from scar tissue along their bodies, more than the usual cuts and bites that one could expect from growing up. The fins along their arms and spines were similarly damaged, nicked along the skin and even torn in some places.
Paolo kept his guard up, but he spoke up to see if he could talk down the young men who were potentially in a rough spot. “That’s better now. Who are you two and why are you following me?”
One man looked to his friend and shook his head. “You hear that? He doesn’t even recognize us.”
The other responded in a similarly mocking tone. “Yeah, what do you think about that? No respect these days.”
“None whatsoever.”
Paolo barely had time to blink before the first man bolted across the short distance and pressed a knife to his neck. He sank his long nails into Paolo’s scalp to prevent him from simply backing away from the knife.
“Maybe you would remember better if I mentioned the Stone Mask? That ring any bells?!”
That name was familiar to Paolo. A few months back, he received a request for an artifact and, as usual, he reached out to the Foundation office. When they informed him that the request in question was for a restricted artifact, Paolo turned in the information that he knew and cleaned his hands of the deal. They later reached out to him to say that they had apprehended several of the requestors, gifting him reward money for his contribution. Paolo couldn’t remember every face from the deal, but he supposed that these two had slipped through the cracks.
Paolo twisted and slammed his tail into the man, lightly nicking his neck in the process. He kicked back to put some more distance between himself and the vindictive duo, but the size of the cabin limited his options for escape. He tightened his grip around the spear, ignoring the shallow pain on his neck in favor of solidifying his form.
“If you were so intent on avoiding the Foundation’s notice,” he shouted, “maybe you shouldn’t have reached out to someone who isn't well-known for contacting the Foundation!”
“Maybe you should’ve minded your damn business!” the man with the knife screamed as he charged Paolo. He swung the knife toward his gut, but Paolo shifted the shaft of his spear to deflect the blade. Paolo took the opening to swim away from the corner, keeping along the wall to protect his back. The other man was still hovering between the opening and the door, so it wouldn’t be as simple as slipping out of the cabin and escaping down the path he came down.
“I’m not the only contract scavenger in this area,” Paolo goaded as he blocked another slash. “Surely you could’ve found someone with looser morals than me.”
“We heard you were something of a desperate man.” His attacker smirked wildly when he caught the edge of Paolo’s side with the knife. “Desperate enough to do anything to help that little boy of yours.”
Paolo saw red. He knew that there were risks that came with this line of work, but he’d be damned if those risks came anywhere close to Bruno. He thrust the spear forward, the barbed edge of the blade grazing against his opponent’s side. Blood flowed into the water, but Paolo couldn’t bring himself to care. With a powerful kick, Paolo charged to the knifed man and grabbed him.
“You keep my little boy out of this or, I swear, there won’t be anything left of you to feed the fish.”
The knife-wielding man didn’t respond; instead, his smile grew, showing off a line of sharp teeth. He thrust his knife forward, aiming for Paolo's waist. Paolo quickly reacted, knocking the man aside with his tail as he kicked backwards. Paolo didn’t have the chance to catch his breath before something heavy fell over his body. As a fish hunter, it only took a second for his mind to catch up with his eyes as the series of events resonated with familiarity. When he turned his back to the other man in the room, Paolo gave him the opportunity to throw a weighted net over him. This one was constructed differently from the ones that Paolo saw in his usual trade. The net was less fine than the ones used for hunting, with gaps large enough for Paolo’s elbows to stick out, though not much else. The weights along the edges were significantly heavier as well, making it difficult for him to throw off the net using arm strength alone. When he kicked to push the net upward, the flowing sides tangled around this tail, steadily binding him even before the man pulled the handline and cinched the net shut.
Paolo sank to the floor of the cabin, arms tight to his body and his tail immobilized. He twisted back and forth, trying, in vain, to move himself along the floor. His eyes went wide as the two men loomed above him, twisted vindication simmering behind their eyes.
The one who threw the net dropped the handline and grabbed Paolo’s spear, discarded on the ground during his escape attempts. “Oh, for me?” He slammed the spear forward, not striking Paolo, but rather shattering the light orb caught beneath the net with him. “You shouldn’t have.”
Paolo’s eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough to catch their movement in the sudden darkness, but he certainly felt the moment a blade entered his gut. It didn’t sting like the previous small nicks and cuts. This felt warmer, deeper, but it didn’t necessarily hurt in the same way the shallower cuts did. Honestly, the scraping of the metal against his skin was more uncomfortable than the blade at its deepest. The spear piercing his body felt much worse as the barbs raked across his muscles on their way in and out of his body. These stabs and pierces repeated up and down his body, hitting his guts, his arms, his tail. Even if there was a light source in the room, Paolo was certain that his eyes would’ve been blurring too much to properly see the carnage below his neck. However, the scent of blood reaching Paolo’s nose was the only sign that he needed to know that his body was effectively chumming the water.
In his delirium as his consciousness fell away, he thought that he caught a glimpse of a long fish, white bioluminescence sparking as it opened its dark, abyss-like maw.
───※ ·✥· ※───
Bruno’s papà didn’t return last night. It wasn’t the first time that he has unexpectedly spent the night out on a job, but that didn’t put Bruno any more at ease when it happened. However, at the end of the day, there wasn’t much that he could do but go about his morning like normal, no matter how unsettled he was.
It didn’t take long for Bruno to slip out of his home and swim to town. From there, he would take the hydrobus to the city and get out at the academy stop. But to get to the station, he needed to cross through the central piazza. Unlike most mornings, the traffic wasn’t too bad. There was the occasional pedestrian swimming through town, but it wasn’t the usual crisscross of people trying to go about their mornings that Bruno dodged on a daily basis. It wasn’t until he reached the center of the piazza that he found the lost townspeople.
Seeing a group of concerned onlookers crowded on one spot was enough to fill someone’s stomach with dread. But watching the crowd open a path specifically for Bruno was nightmare-inducing. The crowd didn’t seem to know whether they wanted to encourage Bruno forward or keep him away from what he would see in the center. A flurry of hands pressed the center of his back to push him onward while just as many grabbed his arms to keep him in place. Despite the latter’s best efforts, Bruno forced himself to the center of the crowd, and his heart stopped.
There, positioned in the middle of the piazza’s mosaic, was Paolo Buccellati. Deep cuts littered his body, but rather than a horrific red mist flowing from him, a black so dark that only a bioluminescent creature would be comfortable staring into it was settled behind the wounds. Despite being underwater, the darkness dripped like water droplets on the surface. Paolo was as still as a corpse, yet the power of the tides wasn’t enough to shift his body from the spot. Bruno didn’t realize at first, but when he could stomach looking at his face, he saw that Paolo’s eyes had gone completely dark. Instinctively, Bruno gagged, thinking that someone had outright removed his eyes, but upon closer inspection, it seemed as though the same dark liquid oozing from his wounds had pooled in the sockets.
Hands from every angle reached out to him as Bruno bolted forward and threw himself onto his papà’s chest. He pressed his ear over his chest, desperately searching for a heartbeat. Bruno couldn’t trust slightest movement of his father’s gills as anything more than the movement of the currents. The tight grip on Bruno’s heart released ever-so-slightly when he heard the faintest of heartbeats. Yet no matter how aggressively Bruno shook his shoulders, he wouldn’t respond, not even to flinch at his wounds being disturbed.
“Please,” Bruno begged through his sobs, “please, wake up. Papà, please.”
Eventually, the hands caught up with Bruno and gently pried him away from his father. Bruno struggled against the arms holding him back as a group lifted Paolo and ushered him into a building. Logically, he knew that it was better that his father out of the elements, but Bruno was inconsolably struggling against the people holding him out of the way, even though they were carefully helping Bruno toward the same building. He could only bring himself to relax when his magic instructor happened to be passing through the piazza and rushed over to talk Bruno down from his frustration. The words that were said to him were heard but their meaning didn't sink in. His mind was too busy turning to mush as the situation began to fully dawn on him and an uncomfortable weight pressed over his entire being.
All he could do was blindly stare in the distance over his instructor’s shoulder, barely registering the sight of a long black tailfin slithering into the shadows between two buildings.