Chapter Text
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 was alone. Bad bad bad.
Normally, this wasn't the case with 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵's kind—and that was a wonderful thing, wasn't it? They would all group together into thrums, harmonizing with the sphere of life around them—from the birds that swooped high above in search of prey to the larger species that swam nearby, and even creatures, small like them that made their home in the ocean.
It was beautiful.
If it wasn't for that sea-bleached creature, things would be… different. 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵would be home, their mate wouldn't have to wait.
And their crew would be alive.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 did not know why they lived, when the others did not. It was a vile thing—watching them sleep and not awake again, limbs contorted as if they were stuck, asleep and forever.
And now here they were, alone in the unknown zones of the seas, with no one to watch over 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵, no one to hear their song of pain—or their wails when no one could understand them or reach them.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵, have luck of the seas to keep safe—save Eridani Zone. Their last comrade had said, gripped by the same sea-bleached thing that took everyone else. Most saw 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵's… gift towards the end as divine, that they were the one to save the Eridani Zone from becoming a 🎵🎵🎵🎵zone.
Something to be admired for. All creatures of the ocean would love to be touched by the hands of prophecy.
But if this was divine? 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 was cursed by being the One left. Would rather be normal, normal, normal!
Apparently, that was too much to ask for. Normal would mean the thrum was dead, and deep in 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵, they knew that they wouldn't stand for that.
So they were alone, crawling across the ocean floor to look for something—
—Sinking like a stone in the ocean, wrapped in some strange thing that rustles on the way down.
What was that? 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 crawls as fast as their limbs will allow to the falling thing, which seems to be a merman?
But why can't it swim? From what 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 could tell, their tail was somehow separated, and both halves aren't working.
Instead, they move like clumps of seaweed, working independently of each other. What kind of injury did it have for their tail to work like that?
The injured merman lands near 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵, bubbles streaming out of their mouth as a ghastly choking noise sounds, like their gills weren't working—
Oh, what were they thinking! Of course an injury that would make the merman's tail split would cause it to not breathe!
But it was no matter. 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵crawls as close as they can get to the merman, placing one tube on the split tail as 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵's gift reaches out to the injury, knitting the wound back together.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 could not save their crew, could not fix what took their lives. This merman would die without their tail—and, with the way they're choking, their gills needed to be repaired as well.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵could fix this, the merman would not die. Not while 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵could finally do something.
Hope merman can forgive 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 for slow.
The sound coming into my ear is tinny now. W…w…what…'s…two…plus…two?
Huh?
I want to open my eyes, answer the question to get it to stop buzzing in my ear, but something keeps my eyes from opening.
And it smells salty. When did I go near the beach?
My ear crackles again, as water rushes near me—W…w..what's…two?
What's two plus two? My head's spinning, but I should know that answer. Right?
"…Four?" I get out, though my mouth feels like it's been caked in mud. Fudge, I must have ended up face down, gotta… get… aha!
I flip face up, and my little wiggle of success has me floating.
…Why was that literal?
I'm floating now—and it would really, really help if I could open my eyes. C'mon, work, work work… there we go!
It takes some effort, but my eyes finally open, and I'm almost immediately hit with the fact I'm, somehow, underwater.
The light's shifting here, though the colors seem normal, apart from the fact that anything red was more muted given I was underwater… How did I know that… "And I probably should not be able to see like this." I say, words coming out of my mouth in bubbles.
Bubbles. Words were coming out of my mouth.
I was breathing. How was I breathing? How was I floating? I knew I wasn't much of a swimmer, so how did it feel normal?
My guess? I had to be in some sort of suit, but that guess went out the window with gusto when I didn't feel a helmet on—and a flutter at my neck.
Fluttering?
I raise one of my hands to feel my neck, each one somehow stuck together with webbing that floated around like a duck's foot—and squish it into the side of my neck.
Gills. I have freaking gills. So that's how I'm breathing!
But—how? Humans couldn't have gills…? Unless—I glance down, and sure enough, I don't have legs.
I had the back half of a fish waving back at me when I tried to move it. "What the fudging fudge?" I half-shriek. Had I always had a tail? Where did my legs go?
…Did I lose my legs on the way down?
Down from where? I try to probe at the thick layer of fuzz around my mind, only to hit nothing. Nada.
All I knew was, I was underwater. Underwater, with gills, no memory, my legs were gone, and I had a tail.
I'm a Mermaid!
And now was the proper time to have a scheduled freakout. Yay!
Okay. Freakout time was over. At least this included contemplating my now fishier existence, complete with discovering I felt none of the cold at all—which was an advantage, considering that this deep should be freezing(and I was always cold, bonus!), and fins instead of ears.
That much was remarkable, considering that I could hear a lot more now, including the whoosh of water through my gills, which would have been a little bit more alarming if not for the fact that it was the only thing keeping me alive at the moment.
And that was another question! Why was I down here? How did I… end up here…?
Pain lances through my head as something filters through, and I try to not rip out my hair because it comes blindingly hot, as if I'm being stabbed through the skull.
…The Arc Light has discovered that the Petrova Line near Venus has yet to reach the Sun…
"It's remarkable, isn't it? We've been studying the dots, the-uh, what are we calling them at this point? Star Eaters? Whatever they are, they haven't gotten close to the Sun… but the scientists are expecting it to reach us in…"
Somehow, I remember this. Something was coming to the Sun, right? Something bad. But—
"…But the worrying problem is they're now finding it in the ocean. Did you know there's a dead zone in the Atlantic the size of the state of Oklahoma at the moment? And it's only growing?"
Dead Zones? The… the areas of the ocean that become hypoxic?
"Big as Oklahoma? That's not really that big, is it?"
"It's the 20th largest state in the US, Tom. And they're saying it'll reach Alaska size within the next several years. Fish are gonna have some major problems…"
The fish. Is that why I was here? There was some problem that needed me in the ocean.
But did I get trained for this? What was I even supposed to look for?
Ah, no matter! I was sent down here for some reason, which meant I must have been trained, right?
…Being a Mermaid notwithstanding. How do you even swim with this thing?
"Oh, good, good good, Merman awake. Happy Happy Happy." A voice trills into my half-aborted attempt to start swimming with the tail, which was again, surprisingly easier than I had thought.
I choke down the idea that I was comfortable with this, that swimming with the tail was natural—and there's a sea urchin in front of me.
It's not like any sea urchin I've seen before, kind of flat and squat, all of its spines flattened or gone—and it's inside a bubble that's radiating heat.
"Merman need anything? I-" It was the strangest thing. This urchin was talking to me, and it had an English name to boot.
Rocky. Its name was Rocky. Like… the movie? Or like the cliffs this urchin should be on—
—Wait.
…The Urchin was talking to me. I understood the urchin.
"How can I talk to fish?" I yelp, covering my mouth before another bubble escapes. That would be rude!
The Urchin, no, Rocky, huffs as he crawls his ball over to my tail. "Rocky no fish. Rocky Eridian Urchin. Find Merman injured. Tail split in two. Rocky fix. He seems insulted that I called him a fish, and fix?
Fix me when he saw my tail brok—wait a minute. Is that where my legs went?
Arghhh!
"Merman make strange noises. Rocky fix, question?" Rocky asks, his trills low, like he was desperate for this to be some problem that he could fix.
In a way, I suppose, he did fix the problem of me inevitably drowning or contracting the world's worst case of the bends…
But I was fixed a little too well. I woke up the ideal shape for a buff Mermaid(Merman, according to Rocky), when I probably should have been pale and trembling from the exposure.
How do you explain the concept of that to a Sea Urchin?
"I'm… I think I'm okay, for now, at least." I say, as Rocky taps one of his tube like feet. "Good, good good. Come, come, we have to leave this area… hm." He turns, shifting as if he's trying to look at me.
"Name, question? What is your name?" Rocky asks, and I'm once again scrubbing through the cotton around my mind.
Name? Well, everyone had a name. Rocky was the Sea Urchin, and I was…
…Was?
Nothing. I don't remember my own name? What the heck happened? I wake up underwater, a merman, and there's this talking Urchin, and why am I even here?
"Merman no talk? That's okay. I can give you name." Rocky pipes up, as he shifts. "Hm. Name… we have a name for new merfolk… I call you Grace. Fits until you find your fins."
Grace. Grace. Grace. A warmth tingles through me, and I like that name. It seems right.
"Good, good, good. Come, come." Rocky urges, as he wheels his ball to somewhere else. "Not safe here, we talk talk talk later."
"You're the one who seems to know where he's going, so lead on!" Pointing dramatically into the distance to a destination unknown? Huzzah!
"…Do not understand what that word means." Rocky huffs, but he obliges, rolling his ball into the distance, and I, newly named Merman Grace, follow suit.
…Maybe I can find why I'm here with him?
"I need to know where he is, statement. I haven't seen Rocky in so long, and it hurts hurts hurts." Adrian the Eridian Urchin felt pain in their test. The mission into the Eridiani Dead Zone should have warranted some sign, some thing that would mean Rocky was coming home.
But it had been far too long—and Rocky wasn't home. Their mate was gone.
The Eridian Thrum had designated that in such emergencies, an Eridian could take their merfolk partner into the ocean with them to find Rocky—and the strange, one-armed merman was Adrian's.
He'd been found in a strange metal contraption, a submarine, as he'd described it after hysterically lashing out about something called a blood ocean—but with Adrian's help, the merman settled into a rhythm that was close enough to peace for him.
Nightmares of shouting to someone named 'Ava' or 'Ellie' to let him go notwithstanding.
Simon, was his name—after the period of him being named 'Grace', since he was still getting used to his fins, and was wrapped on something around his neck.
Whoever sent Simon down here was bad, bad, bad, but Adrian wouldn't lie—it was wonderful having Simon around while Rocky was gone.
"How long have you two been together?" Simon asks, gaze flicking past the lure in his forehead to Adrian rolling beside him.
"186.3 years." Adrian whispers, using one of their free tubes to rub the little spot on their test that matched Rocky's—a promise of forever. "It was not enough time before the salt-deprived, coral bleached creatures came!" They cry, as Simon swims towards Adrian, placing a webbed hand on their ball.
"We'll find him, Adrian. He can't have gone too far out into the Eridani Dead Zone, right? And I know your mate well enough from you to know he'll be looking for you." He soothes, as Adrian nods slowly.
"You are right, friend Simon. Though ask when you learned calming techniques?" Adrian shifts towards him, as Simon, once called The Convict, the Butcher, inevitably offers a shy smile to Adrian.
"Since a strange little Eridian Urchin found me trying to get used to this—" Simon lifts his eel tail, "And told me there was more to living than just being a sacrifice."
Hm. Adrian never knew what that word meant, sacrifice. And they weren't sure they wanted to know. There was a sense of pride in their test that Adrian had helped Simon, and in more ways than providing him an arm when he needed it.
"Thank." Adrian says softly, bumping against Simon's tail. "Simon getting better at this
"I'd like to think I am." Simon agrees, gently bumping Adrian's ball back—
And the sea groans.
—What was that noise?
Adrian freezes, the gift they and Rocky shared humming to life in alarm. The blasted, one-celled, one-hearted creatures had their claws in the environment they called home.
Eridian Urchins could hear the cries of those trying to find something they could breathe in. Merfolk like Simon had reported that the encroaching Dead Zone caused everything to flee—
For those who did not ended up as part of the underwater desert.
"I think they're running to wherever they can find that isn't… this." Simon had told Adrian when he'd returned, a grave look on his face. "Whatever's been killing the water's been strangling the ocean life like a fucking parasite."
Were the creatures running now?
"Simon. If they fleeing a dead zone…" Adrian trails off, before putting on a burst of speed as they roll across the ocean floor. "Then Rocky might be in Dead Zone! Bad, Bad, Bad!"
Simon keeps pace behind Adrian with his tail cutting through the water, that grave expression returning. "Then we'll have a short amount of time to find Rocky before the Dead Zone expands—but I don't plan on letting you two go out without a fight."
"We fight!" Adrian cheers, as Simon glares into the distance, to the thing that was spreading across the sea—and drove Ellie to chase him into this part of the ocean.
If the sea was swallowed like his was, then all of this would be for nothing. A life that Simon had built, scrap by scrap would collapse into nothing.
And he wouldn't stand for it.
You want to take my life away again? You want the Butcher so bad? Well, come and get ME.