Chapter Text
Chase doesn’t have the air to scream, no matter the terror that clings to him. It’d suffocate him, were he not already struggling to breathe as it is; head thrown back, mouth wide in desperate prayer though he only manages a few seconds before water rushes over him as he’s forced to shut his mouth as the ocean tries dragging him under.
His hands feel like they’re on fire, but he can’t do anything but hold onto the wood in front of him; trying to ignore the cut of salt that sinks into open wounds; the pain of rope burn where the mast lashings were wrenched from his grip.
Another wave batters him from behind, another from the right and Chase kicks his feet hard to push himself up high enough to break above the surface, not bothering to try and open his eyes when the frigid air drags its claws down his face, head tipped back—
“Deacon! Deacon where are you‽”
His sodden clothes pull him down; long hair that has escaped the usual loose-tied ponytail catching about his face; the ice of the ocean around him threatening to freeze what air he inhales.
Far above, the sky splits open with the fury of old gods, but Chase can still hear snippets of shouts on the wind. He can’t tell if any of them are Deacon. He can’t even tell where they’re coming from.
The waves lurch again, and Chase barely manages to duck into the wood he’s clinging to, to save being separated. He’d tried as much back on the deck of the travel ship, clinging to the rails, to the guiding lines, to whatever he’d managed to get his hands on as the ocean rose up and crashed down over rough wood, snatching those caught off guard into the torrent water.
All Chase has been able to focus on was the wood under his fingers; the chill creeping past thin clothes where wind and rain battered him both; the hammering of ice water on his skin as he watched, unable to do more but keep breathing as the ship lurched on it’s bulkhead, hull looking up to the heavens as if in prayer, or apology. Or both.
Chase can’t remember if he’d joined in.
All he knew was that the sky replaced the horizon, the ocean replaced the sky and the rope in his hands escaped him as he fell upwards, sideways, caught by the tempest waves and tumbled violent amidst splintered wood, torn sails and thrashing bodies.
“Deacon!” Chase tries again, between moments of being submerged.
In some sense, he is grateful to the tempest and the darkness of thick storm clouds; the way the lightning only strikes the skies in fragmented moments; that when he is forced underwater by waves there is not enough light to truly pierce the surface along with him, to show him the expanse of nothing beneath him.
In every other sense, he is terrified of the immediate danger, and doesn’t have the sense in his head to fear more than what looms in front of him; eyes cast wide in terror as a huge wave lifts in front of him, and a fork of lightning illuminates the heavy, terrifying shape of the snapped frigate tumbling towards him.
Chase had no chance to move, no power of his own to escape; left to the mercy of the ocean currents and the battering wind, arms braced overhead and plunged deep as the ocean rolled. Something snagged his foot somewhere between no air in his lungs and rain on his face; Chase looking down to an expanse of white where a topsail drifts near him. It is held aloft by what had once been a yard that hoisted the sail up; larger than the splintered planks beneath him and it takes no thought to reach for it; hand snagging the material, finding rope and winding it tight around one arm.
The sail sweeps beneath him, cradling almost, and Chase’s feet are no longer hanging above an expanse of the void, now tucked to his chest so as not to become tangled, but the comfort is false, the notion empty and Chase begs for release from the fear over begging for air.
He is given neither. Not when the sky shrieks fury, throwing electric anger at the rolling waves and the illumination casts light into the depths, casting shadows of what had once been the frigate.
And the shadow of something colossal moving beneath, swimming against the current.
After that, it’s a blur of barely-restrained panic; limbs near-frozen to the wood that keeps him afloat as the waves continue to churn; legs crossed and tucked tight, unable to cry out even if Deacon is somewhere out there, clinging to his own floating strip of wood with the same stricken panic that Chase feels.
He doesn’t know how long he clings, or how far the ocean drags him, but his head finds rest on the cracked wood, shoulders burning, fingertips bleeding and the ocean roars and thunder stamps and Chase’s entire world sinks to darkness.
Chase wakes.
He did not expect to.
Someone is hushing him, but he can’t tell where the voice is coming from. It’s too loud, too constant, although ebbing in moments as Chase draws what strength and understanding he is able to gather.
There is weight on his chest, pressing in on him from what feels all around. His limbs are too heavy where they’re strewn about him, and when he tries to shift he can’t bite back the cry that echoes from lips-bones-stomach-throat—
Water chokes him, bubbles up from his lungs but it all drains out in sudden miracle where he’s laid on his stomach, head cast to the side, seawater rushing in and around as waves lap, but they’re no longer monstrous, hungry things, set to devour the world entire and drag Chase into the depths.
Instead, they’re gentle, lapping at his leg. At his feet.
Foot.
He’s missing a shoe.
From above, the sun shines down on him, blanketing him in warmth. Beneath, the sand holds him, though it is coarse against his cheek, against his palm when he drags it up to force himself to move, although able to do little more than tips himself over to leaning on the other shoulder.
It burns, aching, heavy, leaded. But then, so does his entire body; pain threaded infinitely through marrow and flesh, dug deep into bone, in his sternum, in his lungs and throat and teeth—
Chase wretches again and brings up more seawater. Over and over, until the weight on his chest eases enough for him to take a full breath, and the gentle hushing voice washes in with each roll of the wave, laughing softly as it bubbles over stone and sand, and disappears into the wash.
Joy lay muted beneath sheer exhaustion, but there was strength enough to smile. To appreciate the warmth of the sun and the shallow water, and the feeling of the coarse sand against his skin. There’s a muted ache from cut skin, rope burns, sores from splintered wood and broken nails from holding on too tight, but Chase pushes it firmly from the forefront of his mind. He can deal with that later, now that he is promised a later.
Although sleep—of what he can get laid out on some nameless shore—can only heal so many hurts, and by the time that the sun has tipped from somewhere behind to somewhere ahead, too high for evening or vivid colours of dusk, Chase has at least the strength to put his feet beneath him.
His entire right side drags at him, from his ankle to his shoulder, and he’d rather lay on the beach and sleep the pain away save for that the sun is falling fast and the cold will come with it, and he’d rather not sleep here when there might be a village, or settlement, or town close enough to render him aid.
It’s just one foot in front of the other, one at a time, over and over. Chase keeps going, walking slowly. He moves deliberately around the stones because stepping over them risks unbalancing too much to recover, and he can’t risk a fall right when it’s taking all of his strength to remain upright.
Chase keeps going, with the ocean to his left and the slow stretching emerald blanket of palm trees and low shrubbery to his right. He can barely stand walking the smooth golden shore, even with one foot booted. He doesn’t want to imagine how much more difficult it would be should he risk the tangled confines of a luscious forest, no matter that there might be people beyond the treeline, or a road or a track of some kind that he might be able to follow.
Beneath his slow ambling, Chase has his doubts.
Worries, too, when he begins to spy debris in the wash. Latticed wood of a ship hatch, curved wood from a bow or a ship rib; splintered debris shattered to the point that Chase can’t tell if it was from a hull, or the mast, or a bow.
There’s more too; half sunk barrels with warped iron and decayed wood, moss covered and sheltering rockpools that survive the low tide from being dried in the sun; buried underneath reaching strands of seaweed and algae that whisper of old shipwrecks. Chase’s ship was not the first ship to be caught in a storm in these waters, its seems.
At least, of what he thinks he might recognise, there is only remnants of the ship and not her crew.
As he continues on, the ground beneath him begins to shift, turning from open beaches and slow washing waves the to the steady incline of a slope.
It is shallow enough in it’s ascent that it doesn’t take much more effort for Chase to keep placing one foot in front of the other; heading towards the light of the sun as he climbs slowly up the slope, being careful to steer clear of the gradually growing drop that yawns up the western face, tipping over into white wash and scattered rocks.
The waves sound more vicious there;, lapping with far more force that what had embraced Chase along the shallows, and he forces himself another step away from the edge, towards the rising hills of the land beside him, feeling reprieve when the hard dirt and coarse sand gives way to grasses that are kinder to salt-weathered skin.
The crest of the hill does not hide kindness on the horizon. Before him stretches out the cool blue of ocean; the golden banks of a lagoon the stretches far, but shallow enough that even from where he stands on the low cliff, Chase is able to see reef and riptides; currents in the blue where the colours shift in mesmerising patterns of cream, and pearl sands; beautiful aquas richer than any diamond, before sinking into gentle ocean pockets with more man-made shapes, reclaimed by seaweed forests and coral reefs.
Beyond, another island rises from the shallow water, tucked with curving bays, shallow cliffs with white wash that splash at their rock tumbles, and rolling hills that rise up into almost-columned hills that sit topped with more vegetation and flocks of birds that circle dance and twist in the sky.
But there is no sign of people.
No drifting boat on the water, no faint trail of smoke, not even a dock or pontoon tucked into the shadow of a bay for mooring.
Not that Chase loses hope.
Not much, at least.
This could be an archipelago. Or a chain of islands, and he’s simply on the wrong side of this one. It could be that there’s a fishing village, or ocean port across the lagoon. Or on the island beyond it; the shadows of blue sitting on a backdrop of fluffy white clouds that hide their true faces beckoning him to search further.
If he were a seaman, he could stand on the cliff and determine the tide; to watch the birds, the shoals, catch the drifting waters currents and demand they tell him where more wreckage—and more other survivors might’ve washed up.
Where Deacon has washed up.
But Chase is not a seaman, or seafaring of any kind. Deacon was the one who loved the ocean, who dared to dream of adventure and privateering on the open waters. Chase was simply a fan of not starving, and he’d joined Deacon as he charted them a few months aboard a vessel leaving whichever port city that they’d found themselves in; too far from a home that had been lost to them.
Outrunning nightmares was easier than facing them of course, until Chase had found something worse.
The lagoon stretches out before him; its spiralling golden sand bars inviting an easy walk and the calm waters offering him an easy swim on a gentle current, but Chase knows that given his exhaustion and the way that his body is being dragged downwards; right arm hanging loose by his side, left braced around ribs he refuses to think about for the sheer fact that thinking will make them hurt more.
Chase has too much weighing down on his shoulders and wrapped too-tight around his throat to deal with more than what he can balanced in bruised, bloody hands.
The ribs can wait.
As can the should-be village hiding somewhere on the horizon.
The sun is soon to set and Chase does not know if the tide is coming or going; he cannot risk the waters of the lagoon to be caught out in its depths, should the tide drag him off a sandbank and into waters that will carry him out to sea.
He doubts he’ll wake a second time.
No. For now, he needs somewhere to rest for the evening: maybe a small fire on the beach, thrown together from kindling and dropped palm fronds. He might, if he’s lucky, be able to scrounge up a coconut or two to sate him for the evening, even if the constant feeling of weight sloshing around in his stomach and the salt that lines his mouth has negated all ordinary hunger.
A void in his head—that that sounds suspiciously like Deacon—reminds him of dehydration, and that the seawater will drain him of energy more than it can offer, so no matter how thirsty he gets, it will do more bad than good to try and drink it.
Chase needs rain to sate him, but parched though he may be, he does not wish for rainclouds. He doubts the loose canopy of bowing palms and forest shrubbery will be enough to keep him dry thought torrential downpour of tropical rain.
He’ll have to find it another way. But for now…
Chase turns his attention to the island that he’s currently found himself on. Ahead of him, the cliff side falls away into a mix of steep, and shallow slopes, cut intermediately by ledges and cliff faces, although it’s hard to see for certain where they lie with the grass and dotted bushes, and tropical flowers that shoot up in fireworks of red and fuchsia and butter-yellow.
The path behind he knows for certain is safe; that there are no obvious trip-falls and no hidden cliffs, mediocre or otherwise. Chase’s best bet is to backtrack for now, and although he’s given great effort to haul himself from the shore, he passed plenty of leaf litter and sloped rocks worn by high tides that could present the beginnings of an evening shelter—
A snarl tears through the quiet, echoes by water crashing. Chase freezes, a shiver running up his spine and he swears that he feels the very ground shake beneath him. He throws his hands out either side of himself, trying to keep his balance where the world feels like it tilts beneath his feet; breathing around the tightness in his chest from both sudden fear and the weight that he hasn’t been able to shift ever since waking up on the shore.
For a moment, there’s nothing; just the continued swell of the ocean and lapping at the beach, and the cliff face below; the whisper of water rushing over pebbles—
Another snarl echoes out, pitched louder now, and the unmistakable sound of weight smacking something solid. It comes from beside him, beneath the cliff face, and Chase, knowing that that he isn’t too sure on his feet, lowers himself down to this knees and half-drags, half-crawls to the cliff edge, lifting his head just enough to peer over the edge.
Of all the things that Chase might’ve expected to see, it was not… a Mer.
They’re rare creatures, not often seen by anyone who lives long enough to share the tale. It is said that they can summon storms with their voices, that they command the tide and currents; that they can call forth hurricanes and monsoons to wreck ships and drown lands.
They say that Mer are ill omens; that to see one in the swell of a bow wave is a sure sign of destruction. They say that Mer are beautiful and bewitching, but to be caught in the sights of one is to be kissed by Death herself.
They say that even a single scale upon their glistening body gives any man the power of the ocean, for the turn of the moon.
They say drinking a Mer’s blood can allow oneself to breathe beneath the water.
They say eating a Mer’s flesh is to be born again.
To be born of water.
The Mer is colossal. Chase can see that much, even from the way that it’s curled around itself; the expanse of its tail long enough that it might be as long as the ship—perhaps even longer.
It looks as if it was drawn from ink and leapt straight off of the parchment; rich black coiling between patterns of charcoal and slate that snake across it’s tail in intricate patterns, like cooling magma although set in the colours of darkness, glistening where the sun’s light kisses each scale and sets them shimmering like stars in the midnight sky.
Beneath the natural beauty, the darkness of the Mer’s tail softens as it travels further up it’s body although it’s dorsal and back remain dark as storm clouds while it’s stomach and chest softens into silver, just as precious as it’s obsidian scales, but cut with gills that follow the shape of its ribcage. Or, perhaps, where a Humans’ ribcage would be when compared to it’s shape.
It is winged by fins that are barbed in frame but thin into almost-gossamer veils: the same gentle curtain of glistening mercury as his tail fin and spines on his back and stretching between clawed fingers that are as rich in shade as the base of it’s tail.
But what is surprising most of all, is it’s face.
His face.
They say Mer are monsters; heartless creatures that devour human flesh and drag poor souls to the depths.
They say Mer are beasts; with sharp teeth and sharper talons; that their bite is strong enough to break bone and crush limbs.
They never said that Mer, save for their scales, were Human.
They’re not, of course, but Chase can see the similarities beneath the scales; the way the Mer’s body is shape, shifting imperceptibly from a beautiful glistening tail to spray-damp skin that shares the concaves and curves that Chase would see where he to look for the same in his own reflection.
Despite the webbed fingers and longer claws, his hands looks the same as Chase’s, and when he turns his head, fringe of midnight-black hair flicked up out of his face… it is just an ordinary face.
Chase can see his fear—his pain—all too easily.
Rigging that had once belonged to a ship is knotted around him, tangled all across his body. Chase can see, even from how high up he is, how tight the rope is pulled around the Mer’s body, digging into his flesh and trapping him fast.
One arm is folded at his chest, hand near to his throat where it looks like he’s tried to claw at the rope there, but it’s wound between his fingers, pinching the webbing, hand pulled close to his throat and every struggling attempt to pull it away just tightens the rope that collars him. The other is folded behind his back, lashed around the wrist, but when he tries to pull that arm free, the rope pulls taut on his folded spine, causing him to cry out. He can’t thrash his tail, can’t manoeuvre his body or pull away where the rope has caught around the rock, trapping him fast, and to make matters worse, he’s been trapped in too shallow water, atop a bed of rocks that have tumbled from the cliff edge through years of weathering and erosion, meaning that every time he does try and struggle to try and free himself, he’s only bringing himself more pain.
Not that the Mer lets that stop him.
Chase watches, breath caught in his throat as he tries to move his arm, the one pinned to his throat, elbow shoved beneath him and another splash of red clouds the pockets of shallow water that surrounds him; pain and frustration spilling out of him in a pitched snarl that doesn’t sound as terrifying as it did the first time, but now instead sounds… scared.
And then vicious, when two midnight-black eyes fix their sights on Chase, watching from above, and suddenly the Mer’s face contorts into a ferocious display of anger, lips pulled back to reveal sharp teeth lining his mouth; face scrunching in unforgiving fury as Chase yanks himself back away from the edge, suddenly breathing hard and feeling dizzy even if he doesn’t quite understand.
Chase puts a hand over his heart, over his throat, listening to his own steady draw of air as below, the Mer returns to his snarls, heated and raging; tail slapping as much as it can allow. It’s a horrible sound, the very nature making Chase’s bone’s ache and his spine freeze, and he can’t help but glance to the sky, searching for storm clouds.
There are none.
Though that’s not to say Mer still can’t summon storms.
Chase pulls himself back to the ledge, peering just enough to see over the lip. He watches as the Mer gives one last attempt to gain freedom; pulling both arms as far as he is able with a choked, grunted whine that gets caught in his throat, before all strength drains and the Mer slumps further into the rocks, chest rising and falling rapid, as it rides the wave of brought-upon pain.
He can’t just sit back and watch; can’t stay on his knees, no matter that Chase has barely got the strength to try and stand once more. But the ground is stable beneath him and he knows better than trying to force himself to his feet so close to the edge. Instead, he shuffles far back enough that he’s not going to risk stumbling and tipping over the side.
There is more than enough light left in the day that he can put off finding shelter for now—not that he would’ve done anything else but help, even if it was getting dark—because Chase can’t leave the Mer hurt and trapped and terrified as he is, no matter what they say of them.
Mother used to tell him kinder stories, when he was younger; the type that was appropriate for children settling into their beds, carried off into dreams by goodnight stories and forehead kisses.
Father’s were a bit more grandiose, when Chase was older of course, but never like the horror stories that the sailors and merchants used to whisper around dice games and deck watch.
Monstrous or not, Chase cannot ignore a cry for help.
It’s quicker to following the path down the slope than it was to climb up it, but Chase’s hurried pace causes him to start coughing in moments; desperate for more air in his lungs and the weight on his chest to shift just enough to keep him going.
He’s managed to regain control of his breathing by the time it takes him to get back down to the beach, and then pick his way along the shore towards where the beach has been divided into shelves of what had once been more island, now eroded into steps with rockpools, puddles and barnacle colonies that bare their teeth at Chase’s feet.
It’s harder to manoeuvre on the rock than the sand, and not just for the sharp stone, but because the ground is no longer somewhat flat.
Chase’s one-booted foot unbalances him a little, and he takes a moment between one rockpool and the next to pull it off, shelving it on a boulder half-sunk in the sand where he can come back for it late, before continuing on his journey, moving at a mix of hobbling, stumbling and walking.
It feels like it takes forever, and also no time at all, until Chase reaches the curve of the rock shelf that that sees him back where he’d first caught sight of the Mer; the cliff-edge looming on his righthand side, penning him in while the white froth of breakwater snatches at his ankles from the left. It hides a blanket of sharp, vicious rocks that bar him from walking, and he has to slow even more, even as the sounds of the Mer’s struggle beckon him forward.
They’re intermittent, but Chase can’t tell if that’s because the Mer is losing strength, or if he’s losing hope by the continued effort the bears nothing but pain with every attempt. Even the act of simply laying there hurt him, given his size; large enough that if Chase could more than easily fit in one of his hands.
Not that he wants to think about that, ignoring the thrill of fear that travels up his spine, and concentrates instead on the rocks beneath his feet, and the way he’s got to step over trailing seaweed rather than step on, because it’s too slick and falling here would be worse than falling on the grass or sand.
The rocks hunger for flesh regardless, but Chase bites back every wince, every pain that ignites from a bite here and sharp teeth there. It’s nothing compared to lying on a bed of teeth as the Mer is, and it’s that thought and Chase’s hopes to stop it that push him on, until he hobbles around the final turn and stops in his tracks.
The Mer is much bigger from up close.
There’s still distance between them, as well as plenty of rockpools and half-sunk boulders wedged between shelves or cracked from erosion and cliff collapse, but Chase is close enough now that he is able to see detail in the Mer’s tail; the patterns shimmering more intricately, and somehow all the more beautiful.
Even if each one did not offer a man some small measure of power over the ocean, he can see why they would be coveted for their beauty just the same; each one like a star plucked from the sky, rippling with shadows and a faint muted undertone of blue that almost looks as if the sea swirls beneath its jewelled armour.
It’s made malignant by the smear of blood traces painful patterns between the scales, but at least the Mer is no longer thrashing uncontrollably. He’s not fighting at all, actually, and Chase would begin to panic if it weren’t for the fact that he can hear the way the Mer breathes; his chest rising and falling in slow movement, in time to the sonorous chant of found-peace.
If Chase is going to act, it has to be now.
While willing to help, and putting his own safety secondary to the act of freeing the Mer, Chas isn’t stupid.
He knows that the stories of the deep sea creatures are not without merit, and although he doesn’t know how far truth lies beneath the stories twisted by bare survivors of storms and confrontations both, the only stories of Mer helping sailors to nearby shores and dragging them from the currents of the ocean are told to children, like they’re fairytale creatures along with old near-forgotten dragons, and the princes and princesses of old. Kind beings, instead of vindictive and violent.
But Chase knows all too well, even a cornered rat will bare it’s teeth.
Getting close enough to touch could very much be worse than the storm he survived, but each step that has brought him this far has been haunted by the Mer’s cries, and Chase can’t do anything but pick his way slowly over the jagged rocks, reaching for rock outcroppings and handholds carved by time and tide both.
He doesn’t slow down, even when he falls into his shadow; swallowing hard when he chances a look up and is again consumed by the sheer size of the creature. How it managed to become trapped, and stay trapped, when it must hold impressive strength is a question he’s not sure he wants answered.
Not something that Chase can dwell on either, given that he doesn’t know how long he has for the Mer to settle in his sleep, or until he wakes and begins to try again, and finds a human in his midst.
Chase is running out of time. And, not sure of his options, when he finally gets close enough, hand reaching out to the rope and realises that he isn’t going to be able to untangle it like he had originally thought.
The rigging is pulled too tight; bound by pulleys and knots and old frames of wood that look as though it has been wrenched from mast and hull in one fell swoop. Chase cannot offer any more strength that the Mer does no possess to try and free him.
He’s is too busy watching his hands, too busy trying to think of someway to help that isn’t uselessly tugging on random lengths of rope, hoping for some kind of give that he’s not thinking about when he places his feet and his foot hits the ground wrong, slicing sideways on a rock with jagged teeth.
It bites into his flesh and tears, spilling his blood with a vicious satisfaction. Chase throws out an arm to steady himself, pain rising up in a hiss that he doesn’t think to stifle, too focused instead on keeping his balanced but unable to keep it until his hand flies out—and snags hold of the rigging, yanking on it as he crashes to the ground.
Above, the Mer stutters on an inhale, shoulders rising only as far as the rope allows, head turning as Chase freezes where he’s sat.
His eyes flutter—Chase’s breathe ice in his lungs—but by some miracle, does not wake.
The exhaustion of fighting to free himself must’ve drained him more than Chase thought.
Small mercies.
Chase can’t delay any longer. He shoves his hands out, not wanting to use the rigging to haul himself to his feet, and instead reaches out to a nearby rock; ignoring the ache from lingering seawater and the exhaustion of having survived the ocean tempest. He twists his hips to give himself a better angle to push from; hand slipping when he tries to find a grip.
Looking down, Chase realises why he hadn’t been able to keep his balance in the first place.
The rocks that bed the bottom of the cliff have dealt more damage than he’d realised, and scattered the ground beneath him in glittering Mer scales. They look like tears that have fallen from the heavens; a beauty that looks false now that it no longer is a part of the Mer; varying in size where some are as big as the cup of his palm while others are small enough to only cover the tip of his finger. Some of them are cracked, some shattered where they’ve been pressed into the rock, but too many have been dislodged by the chafing on the rope that has rubbed through the first few layers of scaled skin and is now pressing in on the unprotected flesh beneath.
But something else catches Chase’s eye.
Half submerged in one of the rockpools, half hidden in the bowl of water stained red from the Mer’s pain, Chase spies what looks like a loose rock, not quite worn smooth by the water. It looks freshly broken, like the weight of the Mer had snapped it off, just a little too big to sit comfortably in Chase’s hand but small enough he can hold it, hoist it up; put it to the twisted rigging and drag the jagged teeth of volcanic rock against the strands.
It’s slow going, but it’s all Chase has got, and he works diligently, ignoring the way the rock pinches the soft skin on his palm; shifting his grip as and when he needs. It’s difficult when the rigging isn’t just one long, thick length of rope, but several smaller ropes lengths all coiled around itself like twin snakes; each braid made up of small latticed rope that creates a stronger length and protecting from fraying.
Meaning that with every sawed motion, Chase is only able to cut through a few small strands, and he has to work over and over, just to break through one of the twin snakes, and then again to break the other.
It’s mundane and monotonous, but Chase falls into a rhythm, working in tune to the rise and fall of the Mer’s chest, the mutterings that he barely lets fall past his lips and a thousand different sailor songs that had accompanied him and Deacon on their long boat journeys from one foreign shore to another. He has his favourites, of course; jaunty tunes and silly ditties that he’d sing when they’d find themselves in alehouses on land, flirting with the bar girls and stable boys on nights spent ashore.
Often, on days before cast off, Chase would sneak away when the ship was being loaded so as not get stuck with the heavy duty of labouring with supplies, cargo and what else, instead spending his time sweet-talking the ship boy’s or the powder monkeys, and they’ve taught him a few of their favourites in turn.
Chase has to keep himself from actually singing, of course, but the slow drag of air that comes from the Mer that towers over him is a steady reminder to bite his bottom lip and keep up the sawing, to keep on breaking through the rope. And then, when he’s managed to make progress enough with one to, he moves to the next, because the rigging is not just simply one piece of rope, but made up of near a dozen separate rope-lines, and then lashed with near a triple-dozen more.
They’re all twisted around one another, converging to a singular point, creating a tougher obstacle for him to try and break through, and fixed to the remnants of a yard line that had been smashed and creating another point of binding that Chase can’t break through with his measly barely-sharp rock. It’s all he can do with the rope in front of him, working the teeth of the rock until it bites all the way through, the weight of water-soaked rope giving enough release it slips, shifting, sliding, dropping—
As fast as lightning, faster than Chase truly has a chance to see, the Mer’s tail cracks against him with the power of oceans; a wall of scale and flesh and anger arcing through the air, only the short distance of the arm’s length that separates them, but with enough fury and enough force it lifts Chase clean off his feet and sends him crashing to the rock some several feet away.
His head cracks stone, cracks rock. Pain ignites like cannonball fire, and for a moment all Chase feels untethered in the storm again, mind dizzy, eyes unable to focus; tempest storms above him, the churning ocean below. He chokes, and can’t quite expel the air from spasming lungs, and then the next moment he’s on all fours, reaching bile and more seawater across the wash-worn shelf of the rocky shore.
Drool dribbles down his chin and collects in front of him; the winds roaring, waves crashing—but they’re not, the waves are still gentle on the shore behind him, lapping at the shallow water, sloshing over the tumbled rocks, laughing as the undertow gurgles over loose stone and pebbles in a continuous cycle.
The roaring that he can hear isn’t so much a roar, but is the reignited snarl of the Mer.
Who is no longer asleep.
Or perhaps, was faking slumber all along.
“S-sorry,” Chase breathes, even when he’s still on his knees, elbows pressed into stone, forearms flat to the rock as he angles his head down and prays the world stops swaying like he’s cast adrift on the ocean again.
“I didn’t –didn’t mean to startle—I was only trying—” he says-stutters-breathes around thready inhales and a cacophony of coughs that punch their way out of his throat. It takes too long to get his breathing back under control enough that it feels like he’s not suffocating anymore, but he manages it.
It’s harder to get back to his feet, especially when the hitting the rock had banged him up more than he thought; the stone that he’d been using to saw through the ropes having been flung when he’d been knocked backwards, but Chase isn’t thinking about that.
He’s got his attention on the Mer, watching him, the way his fangs are bared once more. He notes distantly that the low snarl has softened, and he doesn’t crack his teeth in a threatening manner as he had been while Chase was on his knees. His ears are perked up, and for the first time, Chase notices that they’re longer than his own, shifting from mercury silver to pitch black and reaching well past his hair; eyes cast wide and shining like moonlight but ringed with a rich, jewel blue.
The Mer is pretty, even if he’s also absolutely terrifying.
Maybe it’s head trauma, or maybe it’s exhaustion, but Chase doesn’t run away. Or, hobble, given the state of his feet, and legs, and the way that he can’t entirely lend all his weight to one side without pain stabbing him to the bone.
Instead he turns back to the Mer, reassessing, and is pleased to see that from his efforts, he’s managed to shift once tangle of the rigging enough that the Mer is able to completely drop his tail. The binding is still tangled near his torso, and at the point where his tail bends; the rope pinning his dorsal fins and two other wing-like fins that must help with turning in the water, as well as both of his arms and the collar lashed tight around his neck, but Chase at the very least, has managed to make some decent progress in freeing him.
“I’m sorry,” Chase says again, lifting his hands, baring his palms flat to show that they’re empty as he speaks in a low—and what he hopes is a calming, disarming sort of tone. He doesn’t know if he’s even doing a good job of it, but he hopes, given the way that the Mer watches him, eyes focused, teeth still bared, but the snarl has softened into a rolling hiss that sounds like waves crashing against the shore instead of a storm threatening to consume them both.
“I must’ve startled you and I’m sorry,” Chase says, not really sure what he’s saying or why he’s saying it when he doubts that the Mer can actually understand him. He hopes instead that it is able to pick up on his intentions, even if it’s just through the way that his voice softens, or that he tries to mimic the way the tide pushes and pulls; each step closer deliberately slow and perfectly measured.
“I was just trying to help.”
Chase doesn’t like the way that every time he glances down, to check where his foot falls, the Mer’s hiss grows louder-fiercer-sharper, but he doesn’t strike out again, and he doesn’t bare his teeth any wider when Chase glances up again, continuing his string of words and edging closer, back to near where he’d been stood earlier.
For a wonder, the Mer is letting him. Which, could be a mistake given how much strength he possesses; Chase kind of impressed with how far he was flung with just the snap of his tail, although less impressed with the way his legs throb and his back aches like he’d fallen asleep with his limbs all twisted up.
“I was just trying to cut the ropes, see,” he continues, keeping up a string of narration; one hand sweeping gently towards where the strands have tangled on the ground, no longer binding his tail so close to his body.
The Mer follows the gesture, eyes flashing; head snapping back when Chase continues to approach, teeth bared when he crouches in search of a replacement stone knife to keep carving through binding rope, but there’s no crack of his jaw and no swish of his tail, and he lets Chase return to his side close enough to get a hand on the still-trailing rope to begin sawing anew.
“I’m just helping. I’m just cutting the ropes,” Chase says soft, eyes on his hands now, although his attention dutifully remains on the Mer before him and the way that he’s shifting his tail back and forth; the grating sounds of scale, rock and flesh rubbing against one another disconcerting.
Chase shoves it to the back of his mind and keeps his hand moving despite the way it hurts; having crushed it under himself when he’d been flung, which makes it hard to grip the rock, but not impossible. He keeps broadcasting his movements so as not to catch the Mer by surprise, and pretty soon, all his assurances of the rope slowly being shredded and the Mer’s arms soon to be free—that he might be able to free himself with his far-more-effective claws—shift into mindless ramblings where Chase begins to talk about everything else. Anything else, if only for a distraction for himself.
The sounds of the waves lapping at the shore aren’t enough to provide him with any sense of calm, so he keeps up a trail of endless thoughts interspersed with continued reassurances that, all he’s doing, is freeing the Mer.
Somehow, he finds himself talking about the stories that Mother used to tell him; the ones that she used to share when he was still a very small child and her stories were more fairy tales.
This Mer feels nothing like that, and instead more of what the sailors would warn of whenever they saw a storm on the horizon and thought to blame magical creatures instead of the mother nature herself. And yet, for all their instances that Chase would be dragged to the depths of the ocean the moment the Mer could get it’s hand on him, any real threat… hasn’t come.
And sure Chase got slapped across the beach, but he doesn’t exactly blame the Mer. He’d probably do the same thing if their positions were reversed; if he were trapped, bound tight with coarse rope biting into his skin, burning where it breaks his scales and bleeds him.
Chase works diligently, even as the tide slowly creeps in; the pockets of water from divots and small cracks in the stone slowly filling up and spilling over, until the water is no longer lapping at Chase’s feet, but against his shins and soaking into the bottom of his trouser leg and bringing with it an unpleasant chill that he can’t ignore. He’s all too aware that night is creeping closer with every passing moment, and he has no shelter—no food, no clean water, and no sense of where he is—but he can’t stop thinking about the sounds that the Mer had made in his panic.
He can’t just turn his back. Not when he’s so close to helping.
The tide is up to Chase’s knees by the time that he cuts through all of the rope binding the Mer’s closest hand, and he tugs at it the moment that it begins to slip, too focused on freeing himself to be bothered by Chase still close enough that he has to stumble backwards quick enough so not to get slapped with the trailing rope. He loses his balance for the second time, but this time the water catches him enough to soften the fall; water and cold splashing up his back, over his shoulders and up his arms where he throws them back in efforts to catch himself.
Not that he cares.
Chase is too busy watching the Mer move, all fluid grace and deliberate movements made mesmeric in the fading light of the sunset; watching instead as he quickly and decisively cuts through the last of the rope, now that he doesn’t have to risk pain to manoeuvre one of his arm.
His claws are sharp enough, determination vicious enough to slice through the ropes in one movement, wrenching the coarse strands from his throat and casting his against the cliff face with a snarl that is loathsome and abhorred both before twisting in place, never mind that the tide isn’t high enough to sweep him and carry him out into the lagoon.
The Mer drags himself over the rock, swallowing down the noise of pain the comes from sharp rock; determination fuelling him instead now that he’s been awarded his freedom.
Maybe it is curiosity, or maybe it’s awe, but Chase is up on his feet as soon as he is able, unsteady in the strength of the growing tide but mindless to it as he makes to follow, toes catching the rock ledge; hands reaching out to erected boulders that stands like shark fins from the deepening swell as the Mer grows more powerful the deeper the water around him becomes, until he’s no longer dragging himself with his arms, but able to snap his tail, and suddenly the water is parting, his tail is curving and the ocean opens her arms to welcome her son back into her embrace.
Chase throws his hands up, even as the waves buffet against him, a sudden shout of joy breaking free now that worry abandons him. He’d been so anxious when he first heard the Mer’s panicked cries; the snarl that twisted like a knife in his gut, the fear of not being able to do anything and the fear of being helpless himself—
Suddenly, a shadow darts out of the surf. Chase is too weak to be able to move out of the way.
He’s strayed further from the shallows than he thought, pulled by the surge of water created by the Mer’s movement where it’s up to his waist now—forcing him to tread water where the power of the ocean pulls him out and floods the shore in the same breath—and now he’s at the ocean’s mercy; unable to do anything but shout in surprise as two shapes lunge for him on either side, like a giant maw opening up and threatening to swallow him whole.
The Mer’s hand closes around him, fingers nearly as thick as he is, as they wrap around Chase’s chest and yank him upwards, just as the Mer breaches the surface once more. He’s even more imposing like this; Chase but a plaything in his hand, scaled fingers closed around him like a fisherman’s net, claws pressing in on sodden clothes, pin-pricking at the skin underneath.
A thrill of fear ignites within Chase’s ribcage, but he forgets to feel fear when the Mer pulls him close to his face, glaring fierce, blue eyes cold in the fading golden light.
“I could’ve so easily killed you. I still can,” the Mer snarls, his voice washing over Chase like a powerful wave. It is rich and deep, silvery and tremulous with emotion, and yet for all the anger he portrays or the threats he bares; he does not curl his hand any tighter around Chase’s chest to hurt him.
It’s a secondary realisation, however, when Chase himself stammers because he hadn’t thought—had rudely assumed someway, somehow—that the Mer simply didn’t understand him and that when he’d been speaking earlier, he’d only been doing so to fill the silken on his part, comforting himself as he’d worked—
“I’m sorry,” Chase says, blinking, trying to order his thoughts into some semblance of structure. “I didn’t—I’m sorry for being rude, I didn’t—My name is Chase. I—I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
He should’ve been gentler with his work. He should’ve been faster. The rock was an easy find, but if he’d found a clam shell, maybe even a shard of flint, he would’ve been better equipped to cutting the rope and would’ve been able to free the Mer faster.
Being out of the water, laid on those sharp rocks must’ve hurt him, especially given the way he’d been caught, his missing scales, the blood pooling in rockpools and smeared over the stone. Chase should’ve considered it, and yet hadn’t in his haste to help. He should’ve realised sooner.
The Mer blinks, eyes cast wide, and for a moment they seem to flicker in colour; not quite pale and cold like a winter sky, but something a little closer, like shallow water or the pearlescent shimmer of a shell’s ear. Even his snarl stutters in his throat, until there is just the whisper of rising waves between them, knocking into him and making him sway. Chase, still in his hand, sways too.
“Idiot.”
Chase blinks, not sure if he’s misheard, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask when the Mer opens his hand and Chase slips out of his grasp, falling backwards. He yelps, but has enough mind to shut his mouth before colliding with the water; the fall not high enough to wind him although the water more than deep enough to catch him entirely.
His head breaks the surface, spluttering, just in time to watch the Mer twist in place, diving back into the water with a deliberately turn; tail arcing up right next to him, crashing down nearly on top of him and creating a wave large enough that it washes Chase backwards until his trailing feet hit sand; the wave having washed him near enough all the way back to the shore.
Chase clambers to his feet as quick as he is able, standing up tall as the Mer’s tail smacks the surface once more, sending a spray of fine mist and fractured light over the lagoon, with little remaining save for the ripple of water where the Mer had disappeared. Here one moment and gone the next.
Chase grins to himself. Then laughs.
He laughs his way up the beach, never mind the chill that sinks into his bones from the sudden dunk in the ocean, almost giddy with joy as he stumbles up the rock, towards golden sand and back to the familiarity of where he’d first woken on the shore.
For all the sailors warnings and for all of Mother’s fairytales, Chase is certain that he is the first that has come so close to a Mer—to be held in the hand of Death—and yet… to have lived.