Chapter Text
The mantis shrimp-mer was fairly close to the surface, casually inspecting shells, occasionally snatching one from the rock to put in his woven bag before continuing on to the next bunch.
The surface light of the sun danced over his skin, confusing the eye, and making him hard to spot from a distance.
He swam further, a towards a patch of kelp that led into a veritable underwater forest of gently swaying ribbons of green.
He carefully snipped off a strand or two before rolling them up and putting them in the bag.
He was returning to the depths when the eel-mer found him.
One moment he was going at a casual, slightly skittery swimming pace, the next, a face full of golden-eyed, golden-finned, gray-skinned intensity.
"Are you the hermit crab who lives near the valley of sharks?"
"It's mantis shrimp. And yeah."
A rivulet of light trickled over the body of the eel-mer, showing he was feeling a surge of excitement, and also that he was in some way related to the royal family, and thus of the kind of rank that usually didn't bother to speak to mer without fins without having at least one servant as an intermediate.
Some of the mer from the trench also had bioluminescence, the shrimp-mer knew, but even that was quite different from the more subtle and nearly decorative light patterns that showed up on the members of the court of the twenty-six city-states.
"May I have your name?" said the eel-mer, still slightly too close to be considered polite.
"It's Saitama."
"I see. My name is Genos. Saitama, please allow me to live with you for the duration of the choosing of the royal consort."
"Okay. Wait, what? Uh, why?"
"Due to the fact that my secondary form, if found out by the royal court by the check-ups potential consorts go through before the choosing, would cast my family in a bad light. While I am certain that, were they alive, they would fully support me and the fact that my secondary form was not a shark as expected with my direct ancestry without question, however, as they are dead and thus cannot speak for themselves, I shall do my utmost best to ensure their honour is preserved even in death. That said, another concern is that I do not wish to be the consort, no matter the prestige it comes with, and the most likely prince to choose and inherit is, in fact, interested in me in a superficial way. I consider..."
"Shut up! Summarize your point in one or two sentences!"
"Very well. Saitama, please allow me to hide at your place so I can avoid being a consort."
"Oh. Alright. You haven't got anywhere else to go?"
"No. No place I would not be found immediately."
"Well, there's my place. Not quite sure how comfortable it'll be with two people in it."
"Is it behind that ugly rocky outcrop?"
Saitama glared at Genos, who appeared oblivious.
"It is the ugly rocky outcrop." Saitama said eventually.
"Oh."
"Couple dozen of miles behind it is the Dark Matter Trench, where it'd be stupid to go."
"Would that be the Dark Matter Trench empire, whose emperor is rumoured to be one of the most powerful, heartless and aggressive persons in the ocean?"
"Well he sure is pushy, I know that.
That way next to it over there is definitely no-go area, where I just came from is the nearest big island, which is alright, over there is the valley of the sharks, not too bad as long as you leave them be, in that direction you sometimes come across the Mosasaurs when they migrate to follow the time dilation magic and thataway, sort of next to the kingdom of the twenty-six are the Deep Sea Clan, which you probably heard about."
"I have heard them be called a bunch of bottom-feeding spawn-munchers, which seems a crude but not especially threatening manner of describing something."
"Whose spawn do they munch and why aren't they stopped, that's what you've got to ask yourself."
Genos' face was confused as he thought about it, and then slowly dawned into the horror of realization.
"They eat our children?"
"Sometimes. If they get the chance. Adults too."
"And you live close to creatures like that?!"
"Nah. The kingdom's closer to them. They just get kept out of there by that royal magic stuff or whatever. Which doesn't cover this place." said Saitama as he tapped the rock of his home.
Under the overhang was a sideways gap into the rock, which led into a small but comfortable cave.
"And why would you live here instead of in the kingdom then?"
"Rent's free. Also, I don't have to pay tax. It's not like I haven't had worse neighbours either."
"What could possibly be worse than the Deap Sea Clan and the Dark Matter Trench?"
"Eh. Oh. People you aren't allowed to punch when they're hassling you or committing crimes, mostly. Also a gang of criminal goldfish."
"So you weren't kicked out of the country because you're a witch?"
"Dunno. Maybe a little. Mostly because I couldn't always pay rent, though."
"Is it not so that the potions and items a witch can make in high demand? Technically, a witch should be able to afford anything they want because of that."
Saitama pulled a pan from a shelf and put the shellfish and the kelp in it.
"I guess. But most of the people who asked for a spell or potion were kind of assholes. And asking for some real shady stuff. Like love potions, or magic revenge on their enemies."
Genos shifted and curled in on himself a little, something like guilt on his face.
Saitama added some herbs and some sort of goop out of a small container to the pan. Then he put the lid on, placed it on the heating seal on the floor, and activated the seal with a spark of magic.
"Alright. When that's done, we can have dinner."
"Why did you put the kelp in the food?"
"To eat it."
"But my aunt always used to say that kelp is poor mer's food."
Saitama raised an eyebrow and spread his arms.
"Hey, you can always swim back and buy something fancy, because I sure don't have the pearls for that."
Genos' eyes widened in realization.
"My deepest apologies, Saitama. I did not mean to make light of the difficult situation you are in due to your exemplary moral behaviour."
"Ok."
Genos floated awkwardly in a corner, while Saitama checked something.
"Did you bring some bedding weave yourself?" he asked.
"No." said Genos.
"It's the wrong season to get some extra too. Looks like you'll be sleeping in one bedding with me, unless you want to sleep on the floor."
"You are not going to ask me what my secondary form is?"
"Does it matter?"
"To some, it does. Saitama, if you had some ancestry people could look down upon, and you were asked about it, what would you say?"
Saitama shrugged. "Da was a killer whale and ma the offspring of a selkie and a sea snake. Pretty sure I took after ma, even if the tail don't show much of either."
He scratched his head.
Beyond some vague impressions of rounded rectangle shapes that mimicked the carapace of his tail segments, he was completely bald and pretty much had no fins on his upper body, a rare thing for merpeople.
"I guess if I really wanted to piss them off, I'd tell them da likely had some sea leopard in him as well, a couple of generations back."
"Wouldn't it upset your parents, to have that told so openly to judgmental people?"
"My mother would probably smile at them, and dad would offer to show his shark secondary, teeth and all."
"Your mother sounds like a remarkably forgiving woman, but why would your father offer to show his secondary form? It is just as acceptable to be a shark as it is to be a whale, after all."
"Mom has snake teeth and dad is even more intimidating as a shark."
"Ah."
Genos seemed pensive.
"I'm an electric eel mer. My secondary is moray eel. My parents were a lionfish and a shark mer."
"Ok, cool."
"You don't believe moray eels and thus moray eel mer are horrifying, murderous creatures with too many teeth?"
Saitama blinked at him. "Have you ever met a moray eel? They're obsessed with getting petted and wanting to play." He shook his head.
"Rover keeps following me too. Oh. Food's done."
Genos blinked, startled. Slowly, a gentle smile formed on his face, and he looked at Saitama with fond wonder.
Saitama didn't notice, and grabbed a pair of bowls instead. He reached for the pan, burned his fingers, yelped, fluttered them trough a cooler part of the water, and tried again, more carefully.
He handed a bowl of warm shellfish kelp stew to Genos, who still had traces of joy on his face.
"Here you go. Smells good, right?"
"I'm sure it will be wonderful, Saitama."
