Chapter Text
‘The blade’, ‘blood god’, just plain Technoblade, no matter title used struck fear into the hearts of mer people across the ocean, different species and nations alike. Stories of him spread far and wide and for the most part were true. How a nation getting him on their side assured victory in battle, that the voices of all those he’d slain haunt him and demand more bloodshed, ehh he has no idea what they are, how a human ship once captured him in a net, how not long after the ship sunk and tinted that part of the ocean red for weeks after… okay that bit was also an exaggeration, though the sight him emerging from the now red tinted water while sharks swarmed the place hade made for an intimidating sight somehow overshadowing the fear of humans themselves.
After all humans were dangerous, mer people hadn’t had any interactions with humans for around two centuries, well not one's humans survived anyway and previous to that not many interactions were mer people survived. It was essential for their continued survival it stayed that way, that humans with their limited life spans believed that mer people were nothing more than myths made by their ancestors.
Not coming in to contact with them under any means necessary was the one rule infamous outlaw Technoblade himself followed. In fact, he rather not intact with most people. He was quite happy living in his own section of the ocean, a nice part even other mer stayed clear from. No social interaction needed! Well, if you ignore the chorus of voices that demanded shiny things, but that’s neither here or there. Having tales of your victories did help on occasion. Besides from when people came to him for help he was living a peaceful life and as of recent no kingdoms were fighting, if they were they didn’t consult him about it, so it wasn’t his problem.
He was quite content where he was, he has a nicely decorated cave, an island he occasionally went on. Not particularly often- he’d figured out how to use the two tails he got when in a human form, kinda, okay not at all. They were very inefficient, he found their movement limiting compared to his tail, gravity felt weird outside of the ocean. He hadn’t managed to prefect the weird balancing act he’d seen humans do on the scale-less tails let alone move well and frustratingly it felt like his progress in learning how to do so reset every time he tried it. He’d done enough to venture in land to get fruit a few times though (he only fell like 10 times) but the rare delicacy was worth it.
This day was like no other since his mini retirement of sort, he’d found a sunken ship, raided it for treasure and was elated with his finds. Returning them back to his cave he admired them once again, he’d found another hair-fixer-mini-four-pronged-trident, he was still working on a name, but the handles on the set he’d found were fancy, engraved into much like his actual trident. He’d always take more of these things, having as long hair as he did it was always helpful and he just had an affinity for anything pretty. That and this magical item- it had a detailed handle much like the hair thing and a dagger only instead of a blade on the end the surface was square like and flat, he’d been confused at first, it’s weird shape certainly wouldn’t have made for a good weapon. He’d wager if he hit something with it hard enough to do any sort of damage the thing would break first, then again humans weren’t very smart so maybe they just made something useless- then he turned it around. He saw himself reflected back! Humans had somehow managed to capture reflections he’d see in a particularly shiny piece of metal or in the ocean's surface in this thing! He takes back what he thought about humans being stupid, this was incredible. He’d played around with the weird reflective thing for a good part of the day finding he could use it to peer round corners; it’d undoubtedly be very useful in any sort of battle that didn’t take place in open water.
Hopefully he wouldn’t need to use that for some time but still noteworthy all the same and as an added bonus the additions to his treasure collection had the voices in his head quietened to a happy hum. In all it was great day until he’d noticed a storm coming, a bit bothersome but no big deal, he’d just hunt some extra then stay in his cave till it passed but when he went to do so his day got dramatically worse. There was a lack of fish in his usual spot, and he soon found out why. A huge portion of them were near the surface but much more distracting than that was what they were next too. A ship. A human ship in HIS part of the ocean stealing HIS fish.
Day ruined.
If he were a more sensible man he’d swim away, if he were a less irritable man he’d just go and hunt some of the fish not near the surface and wait for it and the storm to pass. If he’d learnt from his last encounter with humans, one of the only times he’d been truly scared he’d back off. Alas he didn’t get his reputation for being any of those things, so with the voices inside of his heads eager encouragement he swam right up to the boat though sticking to the side of it as to not be seen and observed that many of the fish were now trapped. He could faintly hear shouting from above and made out at least three figures, but the waves were progressively crashing against the ship louder and louder nearly entirely muffling the sound. Leaving his attention on the net, it looked remarkably similar to the one that had trapped him a while back…
Sink the boat!
How dare humans come in our oceans!
One of us, one of us, one of us
Sink it
Sink the boat
Hey thats our food
Blood for the blood god
With out a second thought he slashed at it with his claws, freeing the vast majority of the fish, any that didn’t swim out were dropped out when the dreaded thing was pulled up and he heard more shouting up above. It wasn’t the sinking the voices had asked for but it seemed to satisfy both himself and them enough. Ha, that’s what they get for coming to his territory. After all, as annoying as the intrusion was it’s not like these particular humans had wronged him, he didn’t wish them any real harm.
He’d was about the swim away mostly satisfied by his revenge when there was a massive splash against the side of the boat, he put one hand on the underside of the ship to steady himself, then he heard splash next to him next to him. A human? Before he had much time to react a second splash came in the form of a barrel and smashed right into the human. The poor attempt at swimming / flailing around came to a sudden stop. He could hear more shouting from above, it was now so loud he could hear it over the waves, he needed to get out of here before more came into the water.
Blood for the blood god
Save him
No leave him
Save him
Drowned for the downed god?
Is that him attempting to swim?
One of us, one of us
Save the human!
He should leave. The not moving human could be tricking him- or more humans could jump in and see him any moment!
Save him!
He heard shouting but nothing else came in the water.. he should go.
He really should...
It’s not his responsibility that humans in their stupidity somehow fell off the boat. Sure, he didn’t particularly want this one dead, only to mildly inconvenience them for unknowingly entering his territory, if they ended up dead despite that it wasn’t on him. But on the other hand, he’d wager if he didn’t try and help the human his voices would give him a headache all night.
…
Fuck it.
Techno grabbed the sleeping human and had begun pulling him upward he couldn’t let the awake humans see him, instead starting to pull him towards his cave deeper in the ocean. Before having a sea of voices shout in his ear that humans couldn’t breathe underwater.
Oh my god he’s risking so much to help such annoyingly fragile species.
He pulled the human back up to the surface though now a bit further away from the boat, between the storm and them now being on the other side of the boat then the one the human originally fell off from he just had to hope they wouldn’t see them. He could totally save a human's life because despite the rumours that followed him, he was just that nice (to people who hadn't wronged him) without revealing himself and everyone can go on as they did before!
He swam to his island, stopping once they were far enough on the beach so that laid down the human's head remained out of the water but still on wet sand. He’s risking a lot for this stupid human; he wasn’t also about to get sand sticking to his tail- God he hated when sand did that.
This human looked lankly, he wouldn’t make a good hunter so he must have some sort of different purpose to his land-pod. Maybe he could ask him- wait no, he couldn’t speak to humans even if he was very sure this one couldn’t pose any meaningful threat. His hair was brown and short at least by mermaid standards, Technoblade himself hadn’t cut his hair since he lost a battle… so never. He was wearing weird garments- upon poking them they weren’t strong at all, certainly not fit for battle. But Techno couldn’t judge, he wasn’t wearing armour right now either, though this not armour seemed heavier now wet?? That just seemed stupid given how bad this human was at swimming before that thing hit him. So strange.
Taking a moment to stop focusing on weird yellow fabric and look at the human himself Techno wasn’t sure if he was okay yet... he was still asleep but alive. He thinks? Would he be okay after being in water for so long? He should have probably left now. instead he maneuverer the human to also be sitting but facing away from him before wrapping his arms around his chest and pressing tight in the same way he’d do if a mer ate fish too quickly, to his relief he thinks it worked, the human coughed up water.
Good he’s alive!
Wait what now?
He hesitated but left the island for the night, not being a big fan of the rain himself, besides there was no large predators on the island, even a weak human like himself should be fineeee.
-~-~-~-
Only the next morning even seeing that the storm has subsided the voices pulled at his conscious. He assumed humans could survive on their own despite them normally them normally living in pods much like how he himself does, but this human hadn’t been alone and given he didn’t look like much of a fighter Techno could only assume that was for a reason... He could probably drop off some food for the day then leave it. He could probably make his own way back to his pod after that.
“If I get him food, will you all shut up?” he asked absentmindedly to the ether of his cave, the voices for a brief moment synchronize to say yes.
After hunting some fish, he returned to the shore and found the human where he’d left him, he was slightly worried until he saw his chest going up and down, he could only hope mer and humans shared that being a sign of life. He dumped the dead fish down beside him but just couldn’t help poking the weird excuse for armour he was wearing again!
Even with factoring in it being late during yesterday’s encounter the yellow was a much lighter shade now it was dry, it felt fuzzy to the touch too! And his hair was now an entirely different texture to his own- he’d never been out of water long enough for his hair to entirely dry. Above the water his hair stuck to him and got in his way unlike in the water when it almost felt like apart of him, like a second tail floating around him not so unlike a second tail. This hair was curly and fluffy, he’d never felt anything quite like it.
Technoblade was mid through poking both his hair and not-armour when the humans' eyes fluttered open.
Oh no.
He didn’t account for this.
He’s never listening to the voices again; the next human he finds can starve.
He isn’t meant to be seen- he should’ve just left him here, damn some humans and them looking so pitiful! Even when they aren’t actively trying to kill him, they cause problems.
The brunette looked up at the man hovering above him, his clawed hands, one wrapped around a lock of his hair, dark red eyes then and said man's equally red tail. He screamed.
“What the fuck!?”