Archive of Our Own

Lightyears away, there is a fantastical planet named Bloom.  

This planet appears pink and red from space due to the fire dust in the atmosphere. It refracts sunlight in bright hues which creates Maya Matter. Maya Matter is a magic that creates mana filled life. It spreads through natural resources and gives life to mystical creatures of all kinds. 

Felix is of the winged variety within these mythical creatures. He is a fairy, one of the most common species on Bloom.

Bloom is home to thousands of different life forms, but fairies are the most well known and respected amongst them, since their numbers grow in masses every pirouette, birthed from the flowers that come from massive trees.

The forests of this land take up a significant amount of space. But the oceans of this planet take even more.

They are deep. Unfathomably so, and they are said to have endless tons of mana, and by extension, no bottom. That is why it is a source of fear for many fairies, and it makes it so even the water species prefer lakes and meadows. 

 Felix is no exception. He knows not what lurks beneath the surface of the ocean. Granted, he is a couple prances old, and has traveled forest to forest most of his twirls, but he has never done more than swim in the ocean, and it has always been in areas where his feet still touch the ground, which happens to only be lakes and meadows. 

It is not until Felix is migrating forests with his posy that he has access to the oceanic forests, which connects straight to open waters. The inland fairies are there to harvest water bound flowers, but they also spend weeks learning new spells from water fairies who know the oceanic forests best.

While they are visiting, the water fairies tell Felix—as well as his posy—about their favorite type of visiter.

Sirens. Or better known as merfolk. 

Felix—in his 400 or so pirouettes alive—has never met an undomesticated mermaid. They are usually stuck on land, having traded their tails to spells so that they can live ‘dry’ as they call it. Though he supposes, if he were to ever have a chance at meeting native merfolk, his chance would be now. 

But he’d never assumed his first would be of this color. 

Felix loves the color pink, always has. Pink flowers, pink jukeberries, pink fire. His pink planet.
Because of this, it's easy to imagine his disappointment when the water fairies told him there was no actual such thing as pink mermaids.

He’d taken their word for it, in disappointment, of course. After all, they live in the water regions, closest to the oceanic regions where merfolk stay. And he is but an inland fairy, so what does he know? 

Apparently, nothing. Because he had believed the water fairies, and clearly, they were both wrong.

Felix had risen early this morning with the starsun, flitting out of the village over fairies asleep on lily pads. Every day was filled with busy chatter and laughter, loud, joyful, fun. As fairies tend to be. But Felix never had time to explore the aquatic forests, so he took it upon himself to do so alone. 

He hadn't meant to wander so far.

The water fairies had been very clear about staying away from the village's outer borders, where the forest gave way to open ocean. Too many things lived in the deep. Things with too many teeth. Too many eyes. Things that could swallow a fairy whole.

Felix had every intention of listening, which was why finding himself hovering above an unfamiliar stretch of shoreline was somewhat unfortunate. He wanted to turn around, to finish exploring so he could head back before the others woke up. But something bright caught his eye.

There, sprawled across a patch of pale sand, was a flash of color so vivid that for a moment Felix thought a bed of flowers had somehow washed out of the forest and onto the beach.

Felix had landed quietly on a branch a few minutes before, his hearts beating at rates that could compete with a hummer fairies' wings. He does not know what to say, or think. Because the only thought that is consistent in his racing mind is variations of the word “selcouth”

The fairy feels as though he is being subtle with his presence, despite his gawking. That is until a seductive sound is heard over the crashing of the waves, and the shimmering of forestry around him.

"You know," a voice suddenly calls from the shoreline, startling Felix so badly he nearly falls from his tree, "most people try to be subtle when they're staring."

Felix stiffens, eyes widening. But the creature on the beach doesn't move much beyond the lazy flick of a tail.

A pink tail. 

Felix blinks rapidly, his hearts stuttering.

"I can hear you, you know."

The stranger's voice is flat, almost bored. The fairy would feel bad, had he not known he technically did nothing wrong.

"You've been hovering there for nearly ten minutes. The tides are changing, have you not gotten bored yet?"

Felix's wings sputter, he can’t help but defend himself against the mers annoyed tone. "I wasn't—"
"You were." The mers tail flops against the sand. Once, twice.

"If you'd like to laugh, go ahead. If you'd like to ask if my scales are diseased, I've heard that one too. If you'd like to tell me I look ridiculous, that's a classic. That I’m an unnatural freaky phenomenon, that one’s common." He sighs, drawing shapes in the sand with webbed clawed fingers. "But please get it over with. I like this spot, and I was here first."

Felix finds himself sighing, before flitting down from the tree branch he had been standing on. The mer watches him fly forward, eyes never leaving him even as he spins in a storm of essence dust and glitter to switch to his full form.

Felix feels a swoop of excitement in his stomach upon growing in size, now able to see the mermaid in better detail. Its all thrilling. But the aura of dis-ease he senses coming off of the stranger makes him careful. He gives the mer a smile, which he doesn’t return. Instead, he averts his eyes, turning his gaze downwards towards the seashell he seems to be molding into something.

“What are you doing here? There are no fairy villages nearby. You must have flown a while for you to be near open water. Isn’t that dangerous for your kind?”

The mermaid's concern sounds genuinely curious, like he is trying to be lowkey about wanting to know what a winged species is doing so far from home. Felix takes it as an invitation, shrugging and plopping into the wet sand a few feet away from the mer with his legs crossed.

“I’m not really sure.” he starts, paying no mind to the surprise that appears on the mers face when he sits down. “I was just flying, I had no real destination. Although, I am said to be one of the fastest in my posy, so i guess I get a bit carried away if there is no one there to slow me down.”

The mer blinks wet lashes at Felix, tilting his head curiously. “Posy?” he repeats. Felix nods, smiling. “Yes! Kind of like my group I travel with, like a family almost? A group of fairies I suppose?”

Something akin to recognition clicks in the mers eyes, his tail flapping onto the sand behind him, waves washing over his beached figure. “Ah, like a pod? I guess fairies would have their own word for it. A group of your species. I haven’t met many land dwellers. Or any at all for that matter.”

Felix chuckles softly, his eyes never leaving the creature in front of him. They roam over the mers particular features, the tiny colorful jewel like shells and scales around his eyes, the double canines in his mouth likely for tearing fish apart, the chestpeace that decorates his neck and shoulders, like a shawl of pearls. 

It is all so foreign to an inland fairy. He does not wish to scare the mer away, but he has so many questions that they are practically suffocating him.

The aquatic creature squints at Felix, tilting his head again to the opposite side. He looks to be molding the seashell in his possession with some sort of magic as he speaks again. “You look like you are about to burst. Is there something you're thinking about?” 

Felix tries to retrain himself so that he doesn’t jump at the opportunity like an eager wolf pup, even then, his reply comes a bit suddenly. “Well… if you must know..  it's just that… the water fairies who live in the aquatic forests a few hundred miles from here are supposed to be experts on this area. And… They said there is no such thing as pink mermaids. Specifically, I remember. Yet here you are. I’ve never seen anything like you, and I’ve met probably every species in my pirouettes.”

The mer hums at that. “Oh yes, that’s right, fairy’s don’t have designated life spans either, do they?”
“No! So it’s predictable that I've got a few pirouettes under my wings, which is why seeing a wonder like you is so… exciting!” He laughs, the freckles over his body glowing.

The mermaid looks taken aback, his tail flopping onto the sand while he gives Felix the most adorable look of surprise he’s ever seen. “Wonder?” he repeats, blinking eyes as wide as seashells. 

“Yes! Wonder! You are a phenomenon! I have never seen anything like you. Uh— Are there others? Is your entire pod pink?? Do you live in reefs instead of seaweed collections like the mers who mingle with the forest fairies???”

The stranger looks overwhelmed by the sudden flood of questions, blinking rapidly as they fire off. Felix notices his face lighting up to match the color of his tail, but he is so excited it's hard to stop and reconsider. “Um–”

Felix’s wings twitch behind him, making him pause in his ranting. Fairy’s are intimate beings, so naturally, Felix feels it when something in a person's emotions go left. A strange emotion of dread comes naturally and slowly when the mermaids aura touches the fairies, like a haze. 

He peers at the stranger, quizzical of what could be making the other so sad in such moments. He felt it when he landed too, a fog of something floating over the mer's head, a sensation strangely akin to sadness, to loneliness. 

“Whats wrong?” Felix queries, blinking with curiosity. “Was it something I said?” He tries, fearful that the stranger will be hesitant to answer. 

The mer meets his gaze, an emotion in his slit pupils that Felix is a bit afraid to name.
“You fairies are quite kind, weirdly enough. Are you all this way?” he questions instead of answering. Felix takes pride in that, his stomach swooping as he rocks back and forth on his crossed legs, ankles in hand. “I’d like to think so, but I am personally often compared to the soonessence itself. So maybe I am a bit more jovial than others.”

The mer giggles just a bit at that, his tail flopping onto the shallow shore beneath him. “Jovial indeed.” he smiles, flashing four pairs of sharp teeth unintentionally. Still, Felix thinks it’s cute. The mer has a particular type of face that reminds him of marshshrooms in the forest, adorable and pup like in a forlorn way. 

“What’s your name?” Felix implores, his smile never fading.
The mer seems surprised by the question. He’s quiet for a few short moments before answering, like he’s waiting for the fairy to say he was kidding, or interrupt him before he can finish. 

But that doesn’t happen, Felix simply peers at him, flitting his white wings behind him absentmindedly while he waits, patient for a response.

“Seungmin'vaeloria Rosejukim.” 

Silence overtakes the pair, and during it, the only thing heard are the waves crashing nearby.
Felix stares at the mermaid, blinking, before a brief chuckle escapes him.

“Um– say again?”

The mermaid props his chin in his hand, a small smirk apparent on his lips, which have pearls littered around them like beauty marks. “Seungmin'vaeloria Rosejukim.” he repeats, Felix doesn’t understand it any better the second time. “I… don’t even know where to begin.” he tells him, honestly.

“Well, that’s the translated simplified version in your tongue.”
Felix’s eyes bulge so wide they nearly fall from his skull. “Simplified??” he shrieks, likely scaring any nyxpods within a hundred mile radius.

“Okay, one more time?” he says, shaking his head as if it will help him retain the foreign tongue. The mer giggles, short and blunt with the incline of his crown, and the flop of his tail. “Seungmin.” he says again, much plainer this time. 

“Oh! Well that's adorable! The other one was pretty, but I think it’ve taken me another frolic to learn it. I’m Felix.” 

The mers small, entertained laughter makes the fairies freckles light up like a bed of stars, a payoff of constantly building positive emotions. Seungmin blinks, eyes darting around the fairies body to follow the glowing marks across his cheeks, shoulders and chest. 

He doesn’t have time to ask about it when looks up to the sky, the pink and red hues above changing as the munsoon rotates, the brighter white half of it peeking a majority of the way from behind the black half. Felix gasps, pointed ears fluttering, “Oh, for the love of pixi…I’m sorry! I have to go, I didn’t realize I was gone for so long.” His wings unfold from behind him, lifting him from the ground. 

He flutters overhead, Seungmin watching with wide eyes. “My posy and the water fairies will be looking for me. Uhh– do you live here?? When will I get to see you again??”

A wave of something washes over the mers features, but Felix doesn’t have time to place it. “You want to see me again? Really?” Seungmin implores, almost pleading. 

Felix’s features light up, he nods eagerly, shameless with his confirmation. “You're beautiful! And you're funny. I think my cycles would be much more enjoyable if I had someone like you to brighten them up a bit.”

Seungmin gives him a look that tells the fairy he’s unconvinced, shaking his head. “You are a fairy, all of your days are bright.” he drawls. Felix chuckles, zipping around in a circle like a hyperactive butterfly. “No lie there.” he nods. “But still, you're certainly an upgrade that I hadn’t been aware I needed.” 

The mer hides behind clawed webbed hands, the sound of heavy scales plopping into the water behind him. Felix doesn’t know if it's okay to feel the fondness that he does so early. Still, he welcomes the warm feeling in his chest. 

“I'm sorry, Seungmin. But I really have to go! I just wish i could–”
“I will sing for you.” Seungmin interrupts, lashes fluttering as he looks up at the flying fairy above him. “Tomorrow, before the munsoon changes position, I will sing a siren song and call to you with a unique frequency.” 

Something akin to excitement makes the fairy’s ears flutter suddenly, building affection maybe,  anticipation perhaps. It fills him with hope, even before he has left.

“If you really wish to see me again, wake early once more, and follow it. Alone. I will be waiting for you at the opposite side.”

Felix wants to ask what if doesn’t wake on time, or ask what is to become of him if he gets busy and misses the call. But he can feel the forest whispering to him, heeding him of his posy’s awakening. So at last, he relents.

“I… I will be there! I promise! I will not fail you.” he swears, watching as Seungmin makes his way back into the water. “Tomorrow then!” he calls one last time, the mer has unbeached himself by then. He turns in the water, the pearls decorating his torso and jewels near his eyes glow beneath the influence of the sea water. Felix almost loses his air.

“Tomorrow.” the mer agrees. A wishwound expression on his face being the last thing Felix sees before the other dives under, the flap of a heavy, pink tail lifting out of the water and disappearing into the sea without so much as a drop. 

When Felix zips home that phase, his companions are already awake, bathing in the falls and ponds near the villages. And it’s only when he finds two members of his posy—Jisung and Hyunjin—that someone questions his absence.

“Well where in the copulate have you been, stowaway sprite!” Jisung shrieks, his hands on his hip as he watches Felix fly closer, landing on the water and stalking nearer with a smile so big it has volume.

“And he’s grinning like a creaton! He thinks it's funny!” Hyunjin scolds, peering from behind the flower that shields his privacy, all collarbones and soaked hair beneath where wooden slides are used to create washing showers. 

“Oh gosh, you two sure are testy today. Can’t a fairy look around the forest, or do I deserve to be swallowed by a pixitrap for wanting to know more about foreign land?” he raises his brows at the two who only scoff, leaning back behind their flowers as they lather themselves in their choice of cleaning concoctions. 

“You wake without us, leave without us, explore without us, it’s like you don’t love the petals of your posy anymore. Who even are you??” Jisung yells from where he resides, standing directly beneath the falling waters. Felix laughs, dropping his flower trousers and slipping into his own area.

“Last time I checked, you two sleep until the mun has a full eclipse, don’t act like you would have wanted to get up with me while the alba bugs were still out.” 

He hears scoffing from one area, and the irritated flit of wings from another. Felix thinks he has won before either of them speak again, especially considering that he wasn’t lying about his reasons for not inviting them. 

Fairies with darker wings tend to sleep until the munessence is fully gone, like flowers soaking up sunlight. Jisung has grunge-like red and black wings, decorated with reddish purple life vines. Hyunjin's wings are dreamy, like a gothic butterfly, purple, blue and black. Both gorgeous, but unmistakably tied more to the Munessence than the Soonessence. 

Felix had grand white wings, like an albino butterfly, with green flowers growing over them. They opened towards the Soon every morning at first light, he hadn’t wanted to interrupt their dreaming, well aware they would be unable to stay awake. Now, he’s glad he had a reason to venture off by himself.

“Hello?! That’s no excuse! If you loved us you would have dragged us with you half asleep.”
“No, I would let you sleep and simply explored with you another time. Don’t be dramatic, our posy has to stay here for a while if we wanna collect as many of the herbs as possible.”

Jisung peeks his head between flower pedals just so he can give Felix an unimpressed look. “That’s besides the point! You would have dragged us with you on any other occasion!” 

Felix glances at him, comically raising an eyebrow. “And you would have complained the whole time, as you do on other occasions.”

Jisung sighs, snapping the pedals shut again. “That matters little, we are your trusted friends, and we expect you to love us even when we reject it!”

“Yeah!” Hyunjin agrees.

Felix only laughs, relenting as he squeezes cloud castile into his hair. “Alright, I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to bring you next time.”
“You better!”
“Or we’ll hex you, and put a bell around your neck.”

Felix wishes he could have been telling the truth, but the mermaid had said specifically for him to come on his own. And bringing the pair would have slowed him down immensely, which means he would likely not make it to and from his destination in time to be awake and carry on with his posy during the soonessence. 

It’s early the next cycle when Felix is awoken from the sound of something magnifying pulling him from his shroomroom. He shifts in the pile of furs he’d been occupying, sitting up when a tug of magic in the air will no longer allow him to rest.

Something calls to him in the distance, pulling at his existence like the eclipse with the tides. It’s an alluring tug, leading him from his sleep and through the trees, fairy wings flapping so that he turns and rotates in the bounds of the forest like a ghost, soaring towards the enchanting music that it seemed no one else could hear.

It’s a peculiar sensation, being aware that there is something summoning him, and that he is following it, but unable to stop. Felix flies for miles underneath the darkness of the munessence, compliantly pursuing the high sound, before he approaches a clearing of water far from the fairy villages he had become acquainted with. 

It’s only then that the spell breaks, and the fairy is given full control of his body and mind back.

He looks around, momentarily unaware of where, or why he is. But it clicks into place when he looks towards the dark lake, something emerging from the water and barely disturbing the stillness of the surface in the process

Felix creeps closer, ears fluttering in response the unease that stirs in his guys as he nears the water. Upon approaching, he can make out a pair of eyes watching him loom nigher its position, staring with a low gaze while the distance closes. 

“Seungmin?” he tries, lowering into a sunken crawl. The being says nothing, and though hisublonde hair and scales near his eyes make him hard to misinterpret, the eerie aura coming off of this being is significantly different than the one he felt when he met the mer the first time. 

Granted, he is a siren, but he had not seemed so… seductive during their original introduction.
The figure lifts out of the water, just slightly when his name is called, water falling over his facial features. Felix sighs in relief when he recognizes the pearls that grow around the siren's lips, relieved. Of what? The fairy isn’t quite sure himself. 

“Oh. Hello, little mermaid. It is you. It’s good to see you again.” Felix smiles, leaning closer to the water. There is still a…disconcerting feeling about the mermaid's presence, and it is a possibility the fairy is all too trusting, but he has a feeling the other has been a bit vulnerable with his availability himself. 

“Who else would it be? Don’t tell me your afraid of water, and its making you paranoid?”

Felix chuckles, laughing it off, hoping the siren does not know how right he truly is. “Course not I was looking forward to meeting you again though, and I’m not familiar with any area outside of the water fairies villages. So I was just being cautious. You do have quite the lure though, I wonder if its something to be wary of.” 

Felix flies up to snags a duskmelon fruit from one of the trees overhead, before he zips back down, and laying on his stomach in the bed of flowers next to the creek. Seungmin swims closer, so silently that Felix would not believe he was moving if he’d not seen it with his own eyes. “It was a simple siren call.”

Felix bite the juicy fruit, the red of it bleeding onto his mouth and chin as he looks at the mermaid curiously, chewing to a swallow. “I heard siren calls are very dangerous. That they lure pirates and creatures of all kinds to drown in the deep. Is that true? I’ll take your word for it.” he smiles.

Before felix can think to pull away, a clawed, scaly hand reaches from the water, dripping elegantly as it stretches to take the duskmelon from the fairy’s pointed fingers. Seungmin stretches his mouth wide, flashing double fangs on both rows as he bites into the bleeding fruit, chewing until it disappears.  “Don’t be fooled, fairy.”

Felix feels a disturbingly hot turn in his chest and stomach when something coils out of the sirens mouth, licking up the nectar trickling down his arm. He wants to say it's a tongue, or a muscle of sorts, but it looks closer to the arm of a kraken.

 Whatever it is, it makes the fairy’s ears flutter and freckles glow, all at once. 

“The thing about a call, is that in order for it to work, it must be answered.”

Felix chuckles, almost a sigh of dis-ease, but more so, a release of impassioned infatuation.
He again finds himself wondering if it’s alright to feel the way he does so early. 

He comes back the next munseence, and the one that follows, sneaking away from the fairy villages day by day. Turns pass, and then somehow twirls, and Felix doesn’t think he has ever been happier. 

Felix learns through games of hide and blush that Seungmin is unused to positive attention he gets from the fairy. Something about it seems peculiar, despite the fact that Felix has met plenty of bashful creatures before.

Fairy’s are cheerful critters, but that doesn’t mean they are all passive. Which is why Felix does not hesitate when it comes to asking the mermaid why he is so pretty, yet so bad with compliments just a few twirls after their first encounter.

Seungmin is hesitant, but he is a weak mer against the genuine kindness in the fairy’s eyes, the sweet depth of his voice, the gentleness of his hands against shiny scales. And so, he relents.

“In a world that’s heavy and dark but beautiful, my color is considered too bright.  I’m considered an outsider.” Seungmin says it lightly, at least he tries to, but there’s a crack under it, a soft bruise he’s learned to hide. His tail flicks once, a flash of rose shifting in the dim water like a flare, an impossible thing to miss.

Felix only giggles, a light yet deep noise.
He doesn’t so much as look up from where he’s crouched on a warm tide rock, wings angled like stained glass as he uses a tiny bead of magnifying magic to study Seungmin’s scales. His sharp fingers tap at one, then another, fascinated like a scholar with a precious gem.

“An outsider?” Felix hums. “Hmm. Peculiar.”

Seungmin lifts a brow, surveying his focus. “Why?”

Felix finally looks up, eyes glowing–quite literally—from the spell still hovering in front of his face. “Because usually things that belong on the outside of social groups are mean and dangerous,” he says, rubbing Seungmin’s tail again with the blunt curiosity of someone who has never feared a damn thing in his life. “But you’re not mean, or dangerous at all.”

He grins, wide and wicked. “You’re just beautiful. How peculiar indeed.” Seungmin’s tail flops again despite himself. “You think everything pink is beautiful.”

The fairy shakes his head. “Incorrect.” he says, sure. Felix leans closer, the tip of his nose almost brushing a scale that gleams like a petal. His voice drops to a whisper.
“I think you are beautiful. The color just tells me where to look.”

The topic resurfaces on many occasions, but no matter how many times it does, Felix simply cannot seem to see a different point of view.
“I don’t understand how anyone could think you’re ugly. I mean… isn’t the ocean full of magic? I thought fish came in all colors? Aren’t reifs full of colorful things? Plants and coral and colonies?”

Seungmin’s tail thumps, once, twice,  the movement heavy and graceful, scattering droplets that sparkle like pink glitter in the sun. Felix lights up every time it happens. Fish are cool. Mermaids are cooler. Seungmin is the coolest thing he’s ever seen in his life, and he cannot fathom how anyone could think otherwise.

“In shallow waters, where the munsoon actually reaches, for beasts and creatures who are not mermaids. But you must understand Lixie,” Seungmin sighs, propping himself up on his elbows. “The ocean has a lot of magic, yes. And endless space. So most of it is forbidden. Or twisted. Black magic is born from the deep. The parts of the ocean untouched by sunlight. After a couple hundred feet, it gets so dark you can’t see your own claws.”

Felix’s wings lower behind him as he pouts, only slightly irritated. How can he ever be truly angry with such an incomparable being sitting right next to him?

“So it only makes sense that—” Seungmin continues gently, “and this is common knowledge where I come from—black magic comes from the dark. So most things in the sea are mellow. Anything my color in deep waters where most mers come from just… doesn’t fit in.”

For a moment, Felix goes completely still.

“That,” he spits, eyes flaring like pink fire, “fucking sucks. Like fairy bees on jukeberries.”
Seungmin blinks, startled.

“In the forest,” Felix continues, practically vibrating with indignation, “my people would worship you. We love shiny things, colorful things, beautiful things. You’d be a national treasure. We’d build shrines. We’d write songs. People would fight for the chance to braid your hair.”

The mer shakes his head as id disagreeing. 

 “I’m serious! You ought to meet them one day.” Seungmin can’t help it — he giggles. The sound bubbles up light and embarrassed, and his tail thumps the sand again like a heartbeat he can’t suppress. Felix beams so hard it looks painful.

“There it is again!” Felix claps his hands. “Do it again.”
Seungmin tucks his face into his arms. “I’m not doing it on command.” Felix immediately sprawls onto the sand beside him, chin in hands, wings folding like a canopy over them both.
“Fine,” he says dramatically. “I’ll wait. I have all cycle. And all night. And all week. I’m not leaving until your tail flops again.”

Seungmin’s fins twitch — just a tiny movement — and Felix gasps like he’s witnessing a miracle.

The two spend countless hours together, and they become so attached that at some point, Felix starts abandoning his posy when the mun has yet to fully come out, or when the soonstar is still hovering high, bright overhead. 

Felix’s fear of the deep begins to dissipate as he learns more about Seungmin, and the mermaid convinces him to learn to swim. Felix is naturally talented with his body of course, so he catches on soon, but still, it takes a significantly longer time to come to terms with the fact that there is no ground beneath his feet, no matter how far down you might swim. 

Because of this, he learns to keep his mind busy while he’s in the water, and naturally, his favorite type of distraction is Seungmin.

“Do you drink the seawater? Like with your mouth? I don’t know much about sea creatures.” he questions a random night while the mermaid is quite literally swimming circles around him while Felix is werepup paddling in a creek. 

Seungmin laughs, swimming backwards with his decorated chest towards the sky. Felix had noticed his talent for oceanic fashion. The first time they met, it was a chestpiece of pearls, then a piece made of sewn seashells. Today, its a gorgeous chest piece made of gold, which he rarely wears, odd enough. He believes it clashes with his pink.

“Yes, sometimes. But a lot of my thirst is quenched through my skin. I do live in water.” he answers, now floating mindlessly down the river. Felix tries to follow, and though he succeeds, its certainly at a much slower pace.

“What about you, Lix? Do fairies have to drink water? I overheard once that all creatures who lived on land needed it. If thats the case, I do wonder how you keep your cleansing water separate from your drinking water.”

“Water?” Felix repeats, “Oh no, we use water to bathe and feed plants and occasionally bake and cook and make concoctions..we drink sap, not water. And most of the sources near land are controlled by land creatures, so there’s spells that clean it for species that do drink it. Like the wolf packs, and dragons, OH OH and unicorns! They are big on water, is it their main source of mana outside of the plants they eat.” 

Seungmin hums mindfully, before diving beneath the water without so much as a warning or a splash. Felix tries not to panic, he knows the siren is beneath the surface, watching. But even the illusion of being in the water alone is quite terrifying. 

As time passes, Felix is very direct about his growing affection for Seungmin. Because of this, his admiration and fondness is apparent at all times of the day. Whether they are swimming, or when Felix is salvaging land fruit for the mer and Seungmin is singing for him, or the mer is teaching Felix to make ocean jewelry. 

But especially in times like this, when their excited chatter dims, and Felix is given time to quietly admire the siren, unprovoked. 

He is supposed to be using his magic to help the mer bend gold into bracelets for Felix to take home to the other fairies, but Felix is at a loss. His hands are not nearly as skilled, despite having no webs between his fingers or claws to work with.

And it doesn’t help that Seungmin lays over one of the rocks near a waterfall, half of his long tail floating lazily in the river below while he hums, skillfully bending gold together with bits of magic he manipulates with his touch.

He’s so at peace he doesn’t notice Felix’s eyes roaming over him, tracing every detail from the way his scales shine when touching water, to the pearls that grow all over his body. Up his spine, over his face, and most enchantingly, near his lips. 

It’s a recurring detail that Felix’s eyes keep finding. Certainly unique to the merfolk, since water fairies more commonly grow petals and scales along their bodies. All Seungmin’s features are beautiful, but if the fairy had to pick a physical trait that wasn’t the color of his tail, he’d choose, without a second thought, his pearls. 

The fairy crawls closer, the mermaid making no move to avoid him as he nears, barely glancing up when he crosses the distance. He only pauses when Felix reaches out a hand, caressing his scaled cheek whilst he gets a closer look at the mermaid's intimate features.

“You are the most unparalleled creature I have ever had the pleasure to meet.” Felix is careful of his sharp fingers as he runs his shortest digit over the round, luminescent buds near the other's lip, fully aware of but not acknowledging the persistent thump of the siren's tail. 

“Margrite near the mouth,” he hums mindfully. “So cool. I do wonder what it's like to kiss with these things though.”
Felix’s eyes flick up from the mers lips to meet his eyes, at which don’t leave him, even as the moment thickens. Felix gives the mer a charming smile, and tip of his head. His finger runs over Seungmin’s lip as he speaks again. 

“Do mermaids share these traditions? Do you know how to kiss?” he questions.

The mer shakes his head slowly, as if aware that the action is cherished, though not familiar to him personally. Felix does not waver, his wings lowering slowly behind him, his thoughts settling on one thing, and one thing only. 

“Would you like to learn?” he questions. There is a moment between them where Seungmin’s eyes lower to look at Felix’s lips, mirroring the fairy’s earlier action. The mermaid—though clueless in these practicess—nods his head, a bit quicker this time. 

Felix’s smile only widens, his freckles lighting up with excitement. The whole forest seems almost as if it is waiting to gasp, holding its breath as it waits for Felix to move.

He does, leaning in with the slightest incline of his head so that they fit together perfectly. Seungmin follows his lead, their lips pressing into each other for a sweet few seconds, before Felix moves against the mer's mouth, licking between his lips like a starved wolf. 

Seungmin opens up immediately, his breathing ragged into Felix’s lips. The fairy hums both in satisfaction at every tiny sound that comes from the mermaid's mouth, and at how reactive and passionate the mer is for his first kiss. He wants to devour the siren, and every pearl that grows from his skin. 

They’re exchange slows, the mermaid's cheek still in Felix’s hand, even as they pull a way to catch their breath. The pair opened their eyes again to glance at one another, a smile forming on Felix’s face so big it could rival the light of the soonessence cycle, illuminating all of the lands. 

There’s a moment between them of silence, where Felix simply runs gentle fingers over the mermaids scale along his cheek, smiling. “Was that okay? Did you enjoy it? You really surprised me.” he chuckles. 

It takes a moment to process, seconds ticking by where he does not move or blink, eyes big and mouth agape. Then, suddenly, he gasps, a hand flying to his mouth while he stares at the fairy and shock, as if in disbelief of his own actions. 

His gaze flicks from Felix’s lips, to Felix’s eyes, then back again. The color drains from his face so quickly Felix thinks his gills may have clogged.

The fairy raises a brow at him, curious of what could be on his mind. But before he can ask, the siren turns, leaping off of the rock and into the air. Felix is shocked for only a moment, before he remembers who he’s dealing with. 

He laughs as he watches the mermaid soar, before dipping gracefully into the river without so much as a splash. The fairy stands, hopping off of the rock and running to the edge of the river, looking for a shadow of pink anywhere beneath the moving water.

“Seungminnie! Don’t be shy!” He laughs, wings flapping joyfully behind him, freckles lighting up with delight. “Don’t get cold fins now! It’s already happened!” 

Felix is still standing beyond the water laughing, all too entertained, when a seashell nearly the size of a small rock shoots out of the water, almost hitting him in the head. Felix lets out an indignant squawk as he ducks, dodging it just barely with the swiftness of a real fairy.

“That is petty! Don’t be mad at me because you are a sheepish siren! You are supposed to be the master of seduction!” Felix yells, pointing accusingly at the water as if it will talk back. It doesn’t speak, of course, but it does crash when a pink tail flips out, splashing a wave of water at the fairy. 

The large onslaught knocks the fairy off balance, washing over him like soonlight. The fairy coughs, but he deserved that one, so he can do nothing but laugh where he lays on his behind in the grass. He lifts from the ground, spinning at the speed of a typhoon to dry his pants, wings and hair, though it only helps so much. He is still damp when a head of ashy blonde, pearl decorated hair peeks from the water quietly, staring at him. 

Felix crawls closer to the water, smiling. He loves his playful mermaid, and there isn’t anything on Bloom he’d trade it for. 

“Did you mean it?” Seungmin muses as he watches the fairy from the surface of the river. It returns to Felix then, what he’d said before their far too brief moment of exchange just minutes ago. 

‘You are the most unparalleled creature I have ever had the pleasure to meet.’

Felix nods as soon as he recalls, waving the mermaid closer as he positions himself on his knees. Seungmin swims nearer, reaching out of the water to take the fairies extended hand. Felix holds the sirens claws, laying kisses on the back of his palms, smooching up and down his arms until he makes it back to his fingers, and turning it over and doing it again. 

“You are breathtaking. In every aspect. Your tail, your claws, your perspective, your thoughts.” he elaborates, leaning down towards the water. He places another kiss on the siren's lips, much briefer this time, but no less meaningful. 

“Anyone who disagrees is wrong, and they are my enemy.” Felix does not waver when they lock eyes. “And the part of your brain that believes the words of those awful sea creatures is not excluded from that. So I guess I’ll just have to love you till we get rid of it.”

Seungmin’s heart nearly leaps from his chest. But this time, he does not swim away.   

𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⋆₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂

It’s the middle of the soonessence when Felix is picking crystalpicklos from the Dragon Caverns a few miles from the fairy village. 

The dragons who own this part of the cavern have given the fairy villages and by extension Felix and his Posey permission to pick as much food as they want to as long as they keep providing built nests for their eggs. 

That being said, the dragon caverns are very rich in fruit since they are underground, so they’ve been salvaging for what felt like hours, and likely has actually been half of the soon cycle. 

“Why do we have to be the ones to salvage? Aren’t we just here to get our water herbs and learn spells and go to shroom celebrations? This is ridiculous. I didn’t sign up for labor!” Hyunjin complains as he picks another handful of fruit from the vines along the cavern walls. Felix laughs where he is below him, filling his own basket.

“My arms hurt, why can’t we use our magic again?” Jisung adds on. 

“There's absolutely no fresh air in here. I’m overheating. It feels like we are in the dragon's ass instead of his home.” Felix complains with them, flying down to the ground to empty his basket in the transporting net and sit down in a huff.  

“You guys sound like a herd of baby unicorns, you whine too much.” Someone else joins the conversation, the three of them turning in sync to see who it is. 

“Glad to see you haven’t melted. I’m very close to doing so.” Felix laughs, flattening himself onto the rock ground beneath him as the newest figure flies over head.
Changbin—another fairy in Felix's posy—brings his own very large collection of fruits to add to the collection. It’s a bag, nearly 10x the size of the baskets the rest of them are carrying, and it does not fail to impress them as they watch dozens of different fruits tumble out when he empties it.

Hyunjin scoffs, pointing accusingly from his spot flying near the larger picklos at the top. “That’s not fair! Your a damned tree trunk! Why are we even picking when we have this guy?!” He points his sharp thumb back at Changbin in disbelief, the man in question crossing his arms over his chest, pink and black wings stuttering in irritation on his back. “Maybe if you were not such a rose stem and didn’t rely so much on your magic you could be as reliable as me!”

“Nobody wants to be like you, you stonecabin!” Hyunjin yells back. 

Felix is on the ground, laughing so hard he can’t think enough to flap his wings so that he may lift off of the ground. Jisung laughing right alongside him as he takes his and Hyunjin’s baskets, emptying them into the large net laid out on the ground, filling quickly despite their complaints. 

"Alright you two! Be mindful! There are water fairies everywhere, if they hear your foul play they might kick us out of their village." Yet another voice joins them, from above this time. The group glances upward, two figures flying up from an above tunnel that bleeds into their own.

Chan descends from one of the higher crystal formations, black angel like wings beating steadily behind him. A harvesting harness hangs across his chest, laden with enough fruit to feed a family of goblins.

Felix groans immediately, preparing to be scolded.
“And since I can hear you guy’s yelling from five passages away i’ll answer your questions. We have to harvest because we eat their food as much as they do. And the caverns are manazones, so any magic we use can trigger the maya matter here, and then we all die because we were being lazy.”

“Feels like we’re already dead, to be honest.” Minho mumbles behind him, he beats his grand, deep blue wings to create a draft for the others. They all groan and grumble when the air hits them, leaning closer to the breeze as Minho drops his own collection of fruit into the growing collection.

Felix admires their color as he moves past, the deep, solid color of the older fairies wings and the flowers that grow from them make it so he always has the prettiest pair in the room, though he’ll roll his eyes if you bring it up to him. 

  “Plus, we’re guests. If they say let's go hunt then let's hunt. If they say lets pick berries and dont use magic, then lets pick berries and dont use magic. It’s common curotosy to repay their welcome. So if they say—”

“And apparently if they say lets all rip the vines from our wings one by one, we get in a single file line.” A figure emerges from a different direction. Their youngest emerges, all sharp features and sharp brown wings. A gorgeous pair that's warm, intense and mature in a way that could make you forget that he’s barely even 200 pirouettes. 

Chan sighs. “You know that’s not what I meant Jeongin, I just mean if we are living in their village it's only kind to play by their rules. Only if they mean well and are reasonable of course.” Felix watches their eldest take the youngests basket from him, just as he hears, a sort of humming emerge from somewhere. 

“We are going to sweat out of our trousers in here, the water fairies have scales that hold moisture, they can be underground longer.” Jeongin tries to reason.
“And none of us are water fairies.” Minho adds, though he’s still picking fruit and tossing it into the net.

Felix tries to listen, but he realizes he is not imagining the growing music when the shell hanging from his neck—a gift from Seungmin during their previous meeting—begins to glow pink, singing to him like an enchantment. Tis not nearly as strong as the first call he’d received—the fairy still controls his will—but it is no less magnetic.

 He feels the mermaids magic within it, pulling him, taunting him even, the distance between them a frustrating thing to maintain now that he knows his siren is awake, calling to him. 

Felix’s eyes flick up to where his posy looms above him, failing to get Jisung’s leg untangled from the plants growing along the stone walls. He gives it no other thought before he listens to what his gut tells him to do, grabbing the shell and pushing his own magic into it.

Felix is overtaken by a siren's song, once again. And before he knows it, he’s abandoned his work in the caverns, and is chasing a dream through the villages and forests of Bloom.

As usual, there are no signs of Seungmin when Felix arrives, and the shell around his neck drops and stops glowing. Having been through this many times, Felix flies straight over to the body of water that occupies the area. Today, it’s a lake near a waterfall. 

The fairy looms above the moving water, attempting to make out anything pink he might be able to see below the surface. Its hard when the water in this area is so blue, but his search is made much simpler when something barrels out of the water, launching up towards the fairy so quickly he barely has time to realize who it is.

With the accuracy of a seasoned aquabeing, Seungmin leaps from the water, kissing the fairy’s lips briefly before his heavy tail pulls him back down into the water. Felix laughs joyously, clapping like an impressed pearling as he watches the mermaid descent back into the river. 

“Seungminnie!” he cheers, before zipping to the shore. He lands, walking into the water, watching as the mermaid swims gracefully through the blue aqua. Felix keeps walking until the lake is up to his hips, then he dips in, opening his arms and giving the mermaid leeway to swim into his hold. Seungmin does, although he doesn’t stop his fast swimming before he collides with the fairy, simply leaping and throwing himself on Felix with little to no consideration for his nearly two hundred pound tail.

Felix loves him and his heavy scales though, so all is well.  

“Lix!” Seungmin smiles, arms around the fairy’s shoulder as he walks backwards, pulling the siren through the water and onto land. “Geez, even after dipping in you smell like dragons breath.” the mermaid scrunches his nose. 

The fairy scoffs a laugh. “Tell me about it.” he says as he’s dragging the mer and his long tail through the sand, just enough to pull him from the water and collapse onto dry land with Seungmin on top of him, position between his legs and laying in his lap. 

This has become routine for them, Felix taking the liberty of pulling Seungmin from the water, so that they may roll around and plaster themselves together without worry of Felix drowning. 

Seungmin had originally told Felix to not be bothered with pulling him on land every time, but Felix insisted, not only for the sirens benefit, but for his own. He had explained that things were different In the forest, everything is light. All fairy dust and powerful magical wings, so almost everything was weightless. 

The mass and gravity of Seungmin’s scales and flesh had something fulfilling to it that made the fairy happy to be under the heft, happy to hold it.

“So you’re coming from dragon caves then?” Seungmin questions, laying just low enough in the fairies lap to trace his claws over the forming abdominal muscles in Felix’s stomach. He began putting on a little tonnage since he started maneuvering the sirens weight a few months ago. Seungmin thinks it suits him. Especially since according to Felix, fairies were naturally slim from having not lifted anything a day in their lives. 

The fairy shakes his head. “Mm no, not the caves exactly, but the underground caverns that the caves lead to. The village needed to restock on fruits, and the ones they needed the most happen to grow in the caverns since they are very full of mana.”

“You mean the catacombs beneath the jungle?” Seungmin corrects. “ Yes! The catacombs are what they’re called. They’re very eerie. It’s charming though.”

The siren nods, agreeing. “Yeah, the catacombs are endless, quite like the ocean. So endless in fact that a lot of them lead straight into the ocean. The saltwater lakes, freshwater lakes, and the sea all connect if you swim far enough.”

Felix’s hand touch where Seungmin’s hips turn to scales, gliding lightly over his back and hips as the mermaid speaks about the sea and what surprises can be found in the deep. He shivers beneath the fairy's touch, stuttering over his words suddenly, which only makes Felix laugh. It’s easy to make a mer with no romantic history malfunction, he supposes. 

“So you were with your pod– I mean posy then? Were you all picking fruit together?”
Felix nods, a warm feeling in his chest at the mention of his companions. “Mhm, to help the village since they allowed us to stay in their towns…” 

Felix’s freckles light up with wonder. He pulls the mermaid further on top of him, even as he tries to giggle and dance out of his hold in embarrassment. “You’re so clingy, do all fairy’s have no concept of personal space?”  he complains, but he wraps his arms over the other shoulders anyways, smiling brightly enough to power a planet. 

“No, just me and my posy specifically. And it gets worse if you're as in love as I am.” He shoots back.

A scenario comes to mind when he pictures his posy, and what they would look like lounging near a river, wings lowered, laughter loud and high as they ask Seungmin questions about his home, and his experience as a mermaid. 

It’s something that haunts his rising thoughts. The desire to see those who mean the most to him migrate together in the same area, and not have to dart from one place to another in a ragged attempt to keep the two most important things in his life separate. 

He knows his posy would love Seungmin, cherish him not despite the way he is, but because of it.
If only he could get Seungmin to see that.

Felix sighs, hand laying on top of the siren's back.
“They would like you, you know.” he whispers, taking a chance. He almost regrets his words immediately when he feels the mer tense up beneath his hands, but even then, he knows it's a conversation that needs to be had. 

“Your posy?” Seungmin questions, voice so soft it nearly breaks. Felix hums in confirmation looking down to glance at the siren as he speaks. But he’s met with a head of ash blonde hair.

“Seungminnie,” he sighs, not giving up. “Don’t get it wrong. I love having you to myself. But is it necessary for you to be so isolated and lonely when I’m not here?”
The mermaid does not respond, silent as pixi slumber. Still, Felix’s pressed on.

“It does get pretty muddy trying to maintain our secret, Minnie. And I will keep it as long as you want me to, but I do feel like it’s a bit unnecessary when my posy are such kind people. I know you’ve been hurt by your own people, and that you haven’t met many land creatures in your days.. or any at all… but dry magic lands have creatures of all colors that lurk and fly. They would not discriminate against you because of your color, if anything, they’d love it! Especially those closest to me.”

At that, Seungmin sits his head up, just enough to finally meet the fairy’s eyes. Felix can see a lot swirling in them; pain, fear, vulnerability. But before any of that, he sees beauty.
He sees how beautiful Seungmin is. How kind. He sees the identity of a mermaid he loves, a mermaid who he’d never let anyone hurt again. A mermaid who his family would never hurt.

“You mean it?” Seungmin says quietly, as if unsure, fearful. “That they’re kind?”

That’s something he can promise, even if they are rowdy, so is Seungmin. So they’d get along swell. Felix smiles, positive. “No doubt. None. And they’d love you. You have my word. I know your scared, but I think your strong enough to have the courage to try. And even if it doesn’t work out afterwards with anyone else, I hope that you’ll have the courage to be disliked by people who aren’t smart enough to see your beauty.”

Felix can see the moment it clicks into place, can hear the couple of times the mermaid's tail flops in the sand. And then:
“Alright, Lix. I believe you.” He whispers. The fairies, heart leaps. “If you believe in them, then I trust your word. But not now. I just want to be with you” 

It takes quite a bit of composure for Felix to not zip through the air, yelling ‘hooray!” from the tree tops that surround the river. Still, he manages, instead holding the mermaid as close as he can manage.

It feels as though they’ve reached a milestone today. But Felix would be a liar if he said it was an easy one to get to. So for now, he takes their victory in silence. 

You’d think after preparing the mer for socializing again, that Felix would jump at the chance to invite his friends to meet Seungmin as soon as he’s given the opportunity. But whether Seungmin is ready doesn’t seem to be the issue next time it comes up.

“No.” Felix shakes his head. 

Jisung and Hyunjin’s shoulders sag, their disappointment is apparent in the way the sparkle of their wings dims, Jisung’s red and black ones fully lowering against his back to show his offense at the adamant answer. Hyunjin gapes, the flutter of his pensions slows behind him, they simply can’t believe their ears. 

“What?! Lix! You’re supposed to be our friend! Why are you being so secretive?” Jisung is the first to object, he zips across the space, landing on his feet and dropping onto the branch where Felix is standing, picking crystal jukes—huge transparent fruits that he wants Seungmin to have—off of the branches and shoving them in his seaweed bag.

“I’m not being secretive! And we’ve been friends for how long now? 62 pirouettes? Why would you think I’d want to keep anything from you??” He glances at the other fairy for only a short moment, lest he give into his friends wide, pleading eyes. 

“Exactly! So why ARE you keeping things from us? Are you messing with forbidden magic or something?” Hyunjin whisper yells suspiciously, the sound of his purple and blue wings flapping behind him as he follows Felix over to a sugarbluu meadow tree. His eyes sparkling as he flies up to one of the fruits, yanking one clean from the stem, smiling at his success before shoving it in his bag as well. 

Hyunjin and Jisung gape from their respective spots, looking at each other in horror and surprise for a few long seconds, before Jisung finally loses his vines.

“Okay! What the salamander scales?? Lix! You used to not be able to pick one of those fruits to save your life without our help! What’s with this sudden strength you've been putting on, huh! This is ridiculous, where have you been going?! Why won’t you tell us anything?? I’m going to claw at your eyes and enlarge them, and use them for crystalfruit roll!--”

“Okay okay okay! Shut up!” Felix laughs, putting his hands up in surrender to try and bring the other down from his murderous rant. Hyunjin is laughing hysterically, floating in a circle overhead, unable to control his hyena-like giggles, which rack through him like a unicorn stampede. He almost flies into a branch. 

He’s had the conversation with Seungmin time and time again, they’ve agreed on Felix bringing his posy to meet him sometime soon. The problem is, Seungmin is ready, Felix is not.

“I want to tell you, I do! But, it’s not a place I’m visiting, but a person. And he’s.. I don't know.. Different. I don’t want to tell anyone about him, because if you say something to offend him, I will have to hex you.” Felix pokes an adamant pointed finger into Jisung’s broad chest, though Jisung is a breed of more bulky, stronger fairies who are born with stronger bodies, Felix fears no one if it means defending his siren. 

“Okay– first of all– aggressive! And second, who is it?? Why would we offend him??”
Hyunjin flies down to where perched on the branch, floating nearby. “Yeah, what sense does that make? Is he cool? What species is he?”

Felix hesitates, there it is, his friends have been asking him to join his adventures for months. Especially since he began disappearing when the muncycle hasn’t even begun. He trusts them with his wings, but when you're protecting something that has been hurt and betrayed for so long by so many people, you can’t afford to make mistakes.

Seungmin has been hurt enough, Felix would pluck out his own vines one by one and burn the forest down before he was ever the reason Seungmin experienced more hurt, after so long being mistreated by everyone around him. And after Felix defended his friends for so long.

“I…” He snaps his mouth shut, sighing at his reluctance. “He’s a mermaid, his name is Seungmin.” he starts, Hyunjin beams, Jisung makes an impressed expression, like it’s the most exciting news he’s heard this frolic. “AH, that’s awesome! What color is he??”
“Yeah! Blue?? Grey?? Is he the one who got you that seaweed bag?? It’s cute!” 

Something coils in one of Felix’s hearts, his wings flit in unease behind him as he sighs. He has to make the decision to trust them, and in reality, he does. With his own life, but not so much with Seungmin’s. Felix takes a slow breath, every muscle in his body bracing as he forces it out.

 “He… doesn’t look like other mermaids.” Jisung leans forward eagerly. “What does that mean? Come on—tell us.” Felix exhales, uncharacteristically nervous. “He’s.. he’s pink.” he confesses, finally, and though it was an invisible weight, it was heavier than it oughto have been after holding it in for so long. 

He expects chaos, questioning, excitement. But instead, he’s met with none of those things. Instead,

Silence.

Then—Hyunjin makes a sound that can only be described as a dying flute.
Jisung slaps both hands over his mouth like Felix just confessed to dating a ghost.

Felix’s wings twitch. “Don’t you dare laugh. I’m serious.”

Jisung whispers, “You met one. A bright one. A bright born mermaid. In real life.”

Hyunjin stares at him, eyes huge like he’s just heard his friend believes in aliens. “Next you're gonna tell us you’ve met a human! Honestly…. This is crazy. Listen, Felix. Those are myths. Old tales. Sea legends. You’re telling us that while we were here picking fruit, you were out there cuddling with a pink damned mermaid—?”

Felix bristles. “Not cuddling!” He pauses. “...Not every day.”

Hyunjin is the first to recover—barely. His wings flare out so suddenly that a puff of lavender dust drifts into the air like startled pollen.

“Felix,” he says slowly, carefully, as if tasting the words, “you cannot just… say that. You cannot just casually announce you’ve found a bright-born mermaid like it’s nothing, that's not normal news! That's the sort of thing that ends up in chronicles.”

Jisung nods vigorously, wings buzzing with the frantic energy of a bee on its seventh cup of espresso. “Bright-colored mermaids don’t exist. They’re stories merfolk elders tell pearlings so they won’t wander too far into open water. They told us this when we arrived. They’re—Felix, they’re basically sea humans.”

Felix frowns. “He is NOT a human!”

“You KNOW what I mean!” Jisung cries, hands thrown up, ribbons of red dust swirling around him. “I can’t believe this. I refuse to believe this. You are LYING to us.”

“Pssh, yeah…” Hyunjin floats closer, peering at Felix’s face with narrowed eyes, studying him the way one inspects suspicious mushrooms. “Unless… you’re serious?”

The blonde huffs, giving the other a sincere look. “I am serious, and it’s a sensitive topic.” Felix snaps, wings flicking like irritated soonbeams. “Come on, guys. Why would I lie about this?? Do you really just think I’d be running off and spending time away from you guys for no reason?”

Jisung opens his mouth to answer but then freezes—as if a realization is crawling across his skin. “…Wait,” he mumbles, narrowing his eyes at the other. “Is THAT why you’ve gotten… firmer?” he blinks.

Felix’s entire face burns red, his thoughts jumping back to pink claws tracing his new found abs just weeks ago. “I’m not firm.” he scoffs.

“You ARE,” Hyunjin says, eyes widening. “Your shoulders are fuller. Your arms don’t look like regular twigs anymore, but instead nicely defined twigs. And earlier you ripped a sugabluu off the tree like it owed you money.”

Felix crosses his arms over his chest, muttering, “Maybe I’ve just been exercising.”

“Exercising?” Jisung echoes, scandalized. “You? You used to get winded opening a heavy door, like the rest of the twig fairy’s!”

Felix stomps one tiny foot. “Okay, you know what—maybe someone ELSE has weight to them! Maybe someone I’ve been spending time with! Maybe someone with a giant tail made of dense ocean scales that I’ve had to drag onto shore a hundred times a sooncyle!”

Hyunjin stares at his friend for a moment. There is silence for a passing few seconds before he gasps, clasping both hands over his heart, eyes shimmering. “Felix. Oh my gods… You’re in love! It's love!!  No wonder you were being so defensive.”

Felix almost chokes, he certainly hadn’t wanted it to get out like that. But Hyunjin is annoyingly perceptive when it comes to things like romance. Still, he tries his best to lead him away from that conclusion. “I DIDN’T SAY THAT.”

“You DIDN’T HAVE TO,” Jisung howls, practically vibrating out of his skin. “Oh this is AMAZING. This is unbelievable. A pink mermaid?! A real brightborn?! And you’ve been—WHAT—having a secret rendezvous? At lakes?? Waterfalls?? Picking fruit to bring to him like some lovestruck pollen courier???”

Felix throws his seaweed bag at Jisung’s face. “Shut up!” The bag hits him with a thunk, despite being magically weightless. Jisung clutches it dramatically like he’s been stabbed.

Hyunjin hovers closer, voice softening just a bit. “Lix… why didn’t you tell us sooner!? You know we wouldn’t hurt someone important to you.”

Felix wrings his hands, wings drawing tight behind him. “I know. I do. But he’s… fragile. Not physically,” he adds quickly, imagining Seungmin’s massive tail crushing him flat like wet moss. “But he’s been hurt. A lot. And I don’t want him thinking he’s a spectacle. Or a miracle. Or something strange. He’s just… Seungmin.”

The forest quiets, as if listening. Hyunjin’s voice gentles further. “We understand.”
Jisung nods, for once sincere. “Yeah. Of course.”

A beat passes.

Then Hyunjin perks up again, unable to hold it in.
“BUT WE STILL WANT TO SEE HIM.”
“YEAH,” Jisung agrees loudly. “Show us the pink fish!”

Felix’s eye twitches, he loves them, but their eagerness to meet his siren is a little irritating, so his nitpicking at Jisung’s wording comes from a possessive place. “Call him a fish again and I’ll hex your wings to molt.”

“Sorry, sorry—mermaid! Beautiful mermaid! Gorgeous mythical mermaid whose existence bends reality!” Jisung amends, hands raised.

Felix groans, scrubbing his hands over his face. His wings hum anxiously.
He’s torn between protecting Seungmin… and the aching need to let his friends see the truth. Let them see the boy who changed him. Let Seungmin soak in all the love he’s deserved to have all along.

He exhales, relenting, finally. He’s thought about it far too much. His posy deserve the truth, and a chance to meet such a wonderful creature. And Seungmin deserves to have a group of people who will love him, as well as the color of his tail, no matter what it might be.

“…Fine,” he whispers. “Go alert the others, and you two better behave.” Both fairies nod solemnly, before jumping with joy, zipping off into the forest to find the rest of them.

Despite the spreading of the news, they don’t leave to meet the mermaid impulsively.

Their relationship has only had to make sense to them until now, so it was an unspoken rule that they were to be associated with one another whenever they were both available.

Mermaids sleep in many different ways at many different times, as Felix has come to learn. Seungmin has slept floating on the water, in a bed of kelp with his fins tangled, on Felix’s wings with just his tail dipping into the water, on the sand so Felix can touch his scales, which is the reason Felix’s enchanted necklace was important.

A different creature means a different sleeping habit, so at these times, when his necklace glows, he knows where to find his siren and when the time to look for him is right.

Its the middle of the soonessence, the shell has been dormant since before Felix rose at the beginning of the cycle, and though he misses the mer dearly, he is anything but lonely. 

He—as well as the others—have decided to stay in the water villages for a while, and integrate with the posy-lations people. That being said, the village posy’s all have their own homes, so if they plan to become part of them, they must have one too. 

They have options, mushroomhouses, stone cabins, huts, treetrunk trailers, the same ones in most fairy villages, but they decide together that having their own tree house is the best course of action. Especially because their volume as a group has always been that of a wolf pack, or even a dragon thunder instead of a pixi posy. Having neighbors would get them kicked out.

Now, the seven of them chat amongst themselves as they work like a hybrid colony, hammering and building while they talk too loudly with one another.

“Since when can you lift a log without magic??” Changbin suddenly asked, a log that's likely 10 times the size of Felix’s thrown over his shoulder like a satchel. “Since he started hanging out with 200 pounds mermaids, remember?” Minho answers for him as he’s walking past, carrying his own logs over to their growing pile of wood. 

Felix laughs, smile bright and genuine. He doesn’t complain about manual labor anymore, he’s learned to appreciate it like his older posy-folks, and become rather fond of having a bit of weight to maneuver in his world which is always light and carefree. 

“I still don’t know about this pink mermaid thing, there’s just no way. Are you sure you haven’t been getting your blood sucked by snooker-plants lately? They are tricky little daughters of fae’s, I'm telling you!” 

“Binne, if he was just imagining the whole thing then how in the world would he have gotten that necklace? Water fairies can’t even swim deep enough to get those!” Chan defends from where he’s sitting on a bench, skinning meat for dinner.

“Well we truly do live in a mystical way, how do we know it’s not some cheap knockoff someone who has hexed him is giving him?” Jeongin cuts in. He’s cutting vegetables with a dagger, helping their oldest prepare their next meal. He scooped them into the pot over the fire before flying up into one of the trees to get fruits.

“Oh stop that, he’s in love! Look at his face!” Hyunjin grabs Felix’s face between his hands, turning him towards the rest of the posy, who simply laugh and snicker. Felix doesn’t fight it, this has been ongoing for many cycles now, and he’s come to terms with the fact that nothing he says can fully assure all of them, so he lets them chatter until it is time for them to be shown the truth.

The only downside to that is that Felix doesn’t know when that time will come.
Cycles and cycles have passed, and yet, he still hasn’t found himself alerting his posy when the shell that decorates his chest sings to him, calling his presence away from the villages. 

The fairy had spent so long convincing the mermaid that he would be safe with his posy, that he’d started questioning that truth himself. And the way they refuse to believe him certainly does not help. Even the few of them who say they believe him still have their doubts, and no matter how much they say they have taken his word, Felix can always sense a bit of uncertainty.

They are right to question him after so long, but even with knowledge of that, his own uncertainty knows no bounds. Because his love knows no bounds.  

“Excuse me, can someone tell me why me and Hyunjin are building furniture when we don't have a home yet???” Jisung flies down from between the trees in a huff, a collection of absurdly large leaves beneath his arm. “The soonessence cycle is about to end, and we haven’t even eaten yet. We have been working since we rose and it feels like we have had no progress!”

“It’s a process, Jisungie.” Minho calls from where he’s bent down over the river, trying to stab fish passing with a sphere. The man squints at the water, leaning in closer as the others continue bickering.

“A very long and excruciating process! I’m going to flip my wings! Why can’t we stay in the shroomrooms??”
“The shroomrooms are for visitors, you idiot. If you’d listened for once in your life you would have heard when the ariki told us that building our own place was how our posy can be officially accepted into the conclave!” Jeongin throws an aetherberry down from the tree he’s sitting in, hitting the other directly in the side of his head. 

“Guys..” Minho calls, but nobody seems to listen. Too busy annoying each other.

The red winged fairy holds his head, whining absurdly loud. “Chris! Innie is throwing shit again!”
“You deserved it!” Hyunjin laughs, dropping onto the log next to Chan. 

“Guys.” Minho repeats, he’s not facing them, and his voice is in no way loud, so maybe that’s why everyone leaves him on heard despite his growing volume and growing size of his eyes.

“Shut up Jinnie! What have you done today other than waste magic on making tea pots?!”

“It’s not a waste, it’s art! And we need something to put in the house. You’d know that if you had any creativity! You’re about to have two fairies throwing fruit at your head!” Hyunjin points at the other fairy while he’s playing tug of war with Jeongin over a stick he was likely about to strike him with. 

“Guys!” Minho says again, for the last time. Changbin is laughing, leaning against the trunk of a tree, eating a humjufruit. 

“For the love of Bloom, can we all save the arguing until after we eat at least?” Chan sighs from beside the cooking pot. “We’ve been working all cycle. We need something in our stomachs.” The chaos continues despite his efforts, loudly and without apology. 

Felix laughs at the ruckus, flitting over to Changbin so that he may get a bite of his humjufruit. The noise of his posy fills the air around him, boisterous and familiar in a way he has always loved. He’s so absorbed in it, so accustomed, that when something tugs against his chest, it takes a moment for him to notice.

The fairy freezes, just for a heartbeat, as the harmony of a familiar voice floods into his ears, so sweet and beautiful. His smile falters as he draws in a breath. Lifting from his bare chest, the shell hanging from his neck begins to hum. Ethereal and echoing, like a distant eerie song.

Felix's heart leaps into his throat when he realizes—joyously—that he knows that feeling, he knows that song. And he would recognize it anywhere. His fingers immediately find the necklace, wrapping around it as the familiar pulse of ocean magic brushes against his skin.

Seungmin.

The laughter around him begins to fade into the background.

Not because his posy has gone quiet—gods know that never happens—but because suddenly he cannot hear anything else. The shell has not sung for most of the cycle, silent as a mushroom, but now, it calls to him, alerting him of his siren.

Felix lifts his head instinctively, searching for the source. The river cuts through the village only a short distance away, sunlight dancing across its surface in ribbons of gold and silver. Nothing seems unusual at first.

It’s only after he watches it for a moment that he sees a flash of pink beneath the clear water, and the fairy’s breath catches in his throat as he basically trips over himself to get to the water's edge. Past it, what emerges from beneath the surface is the most beautiful creature he has ever seen, and for a moment he simply stares.

Seungmin breaks the surface, the gills on his neck flare temporarily as he takes in fresh air, water running down his face and shoulders. His scales glow where the light touches them, his pearls shimmering.

His pink tail disappears beneath the water, hidden from view save for the occasional glimmer beneath the surface.

Suddenly every strange excuse, every missed opportunity, every delayed introduction over the last several cycles becomes painfully obvious.

The poor siren looks nervous, unfathomably so. Still, he came.

He came on his own.
Felix thinks he may have never seen him look so uncertain. In a way, it’s very cute, and it makes the fairy’s ears flutter. 

A laugh escapes Felix before he can stop it, and he’s kneeling so far over the edge of the water that he’ll fall in if he makes a wrong move. “Minnie!” He cheers, unable to help it. “What are you doing here?? How did you find me?”

The sound draws attention immediately. “What?” Hyunjin asks somewhere a few feet away, but Felix doesn't answer, his eyes never leave the river.

“Felix?” Someone calls, there’s shifting behind him, and Felix is so excited by the mermaids presence he doesn’t register the rest of the posy crowd around to see what they're staring at, or Minho who’s been sitting next to him, speechless the entire time.

Seven pairs of eyes gaze toward the water, yet nobody speaks, nobody breathes.
Swimming there, awkward and beautiful and very, very real, is a pink mermaid. Felix’s pink mermaid, and he’s done perhaps the bravest thing possible, and showed up to close the distance, trusting that what he would find at his destination was worth the journey.

The fairy’s gaze at the mermaid like he’s a phenomenon speechless, breathless, taken aback. Jisung is the first one to break.

“What the shit.” he curses, plain and short.

Seungmin immediately looks like he might dive underwater and never return, but instead, he glances towards Felix, who gives him half a grin, nodding reassuringly, and builds the courage to talk first. 

“I…” he starts, but his voice cracks. And Felix doesn’t blame him. There’s 7 fairies with ghastly expressions on their faces, staring at him in shock. If Felix were in his position, he’d feel the same.

“I’m Seungmin.” he introduces, simply. Nobody speaks though, but it doesn't seem to discourage the siren, who tries again. “I.. can help. With your tree house, I mean, if you want.”

Their shock gets the best of them, and because of that, still, the fairies remain quiet.
The silence starts to get to Seungmin, who begins lowering back beneath the water slowly, almost like he’s fighting the urge to escape. Luckily, one of them speaks up. 

“Minho.” says a voice to Felix’s left. He turns his head to acknowledge the introduction, watching as the older fairy swallows his shock and attempts to reboot himself, likely attempting to make the mer a bit more comfortable. 

“I’m–”
“Minho, yeah.” Seungmin repeats, smiling the smallest bit. “And Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung.” The mermaids slit pupils flicks from one fairy to the next, correctly identifying each of them on the first try. “Jeongin, and Changbin. You're Felix’s posy.” 

Silence, again. This time, it’s drained of fear, that much is clear by the way Seungmin is smiling just enough for his fangs to peek out. Only now that he knows he has the upper claw, of course.

Chan’s shock morphs into curiosity rather quickly, a look of intrigue on his face as he reaches out a hand for the mer to shake. “You… know us?” he queries. Seungmin gives the fairy’s hand an unsure look, glancing at Felix for help. Felix only gestures towards it encouragingly, giving him a smile but saying nothing. 

Seungmin glances up at the fairy before leans in, sniffing the entended claw for a moment. Chan watches, glancing for a moment at the other fairy’s before open’s his hand, hoping to give the mer more leeway. Seungmin takes the opportunity the moment it presents itself, nudging into Chan’s palm like an eager unicorn.

Chan only chuckles, playing along and caressing the side of the mers head in response, careful of his ears and the gills on his neck. “Alright, a greeting I’m guessing.” 

Seungmin pulls back, swimming closer to the edge of the water, seemingly a bit more comfortable after the exchange of scent. 

“Yes, I do know you. Felix has apparently lived hundreds of pirouettes, but you're all his favorite topic. He’s very proud of his posy.”

Felix only smiles when the group looks back at him, touched. “Awwww, he loves us!” Jisung coos, wrapping his arms around the blonde who hugs him back immediately. No shame. 

“Chan, or Christopher. Black angel wings. Grand, kind, protective.” He swims over slightly.
“Minho, dependable, strong, midnight blue wings. Felix was right, they are pretty.” The second eldest gives the mer a little cat-like smirk, holding his hand out for Seungmin to sniff and nudge, which he does, before swimming to the next of the posy. Nobody acknowledges the way his ears flutter as the mermaid rubs his face in his hand.

“Changbin, pink and black. Loud, caring, teddy bear-like.” Said fairy giggles, wings flitting with joy behind him.
“Hyunjin, purple, blue, black. An artistic fairy, witty, intimate.” Hyujin watches in amazement as Seungmin swims past, eyes glued to pink scales when the mers tail kicks out of the water. 

“Jisung, black and red. Clumsy, dramatic. Charming. Felix’s chaos twin of sorts.”
“Why do I get dramatic and Jinnie doesn’t??” 

Seungmin laughs, stopping at the last of the seven with a knowing smile. “Jeongin. Youngest. Pretty brown and black. Direct, silly, sharp.” 

Jeongin chuckles once he’s finally able to get past his shock, following the others' leads and allowing the siren his hand. “I can’t lie, I thought Felix was kidding around. But you're really pink. That’s so cool.”

Felix is sure if Seungmin had been on land in that moment, the 7 of them have heard his tail react accordingly. "You did not tell us he was this pretty." Hyunjin does not look away from the mermaid. 

“I did! You just didn’t believe he was real! That’s your problem.” Hyunjin huffs, blowing his hair out of his face. “Yeah, well you undersold it.”

The group laughs together, the mermaid himself even chuckles a bit alongside them. “Sorry I couldn’t come sooner. The water fairy’s have a lot of merfolks in and out of these waters. I didn’t want to be spotted.”

Felix frowns at that, ready to curse someone out. But it seems his posy gets to it first.
“Why in the salamander scales would prejudice merfolk even be allowed in such an inclusive village?” Minho objects, making a face of disdain. Seungmin looks almost taken aback, like the defense is unusual. It likely is in the world he’s from, but he’ll have to soon learn that this is not that world.

Hyunjin shrugs, giving it some thought. “I doubt they have had the chance to be prejudice if Seungmin really is the only one of his kind, but if they choose to be than they oughto be banned as soon as possible. It’s ridiculous, how can anyone hate such a gorgeous color on such a gorgeous mermaid? I don’t get it!”

“Yeah well you underestimate how many losers there are on bloom. Every beautiful place has its bastards I suppose.” Changbin butts in, the group of them humming and vocalizing in agreement. Chan leans closer to the water, likely hoping to pull Seungmin’s attention towards himself.

The mer notices, swimming a little closer, eyes wide.
“Listen, Seungmin. We don’t know much about you, but we do know that as company Felix keeps, you’ve always got a place to call home, wherever we are.”

There’s another chorus of agreement, chaotic and passionate this time. But Seungmin does not look away from the eldest. It’s almost if there is something genuinely changing within those slit pupils, and it’s making a world of difference in the sirens' emotions. Something that’s been rusted in place for far too long.

“Chan’s right, you will always be your home as long as you’ll have us… now only if we had a place to call home, all would be well.” 

The group turns to look at their still empty tree, the remnants and building blocks of what was supposed to be a house laying around in random piles and collections on the ground. There’s a collective chorus of disdain and discontent that can be heard from the posy, the 7 of them unaware of where to start, let alone finish.

Chan looks down into the water at the siren that swims below. He gestures back towards their barely built treehouse, making an expression of coy hope that resembles that of a wolf hybrid. “You mentioned helping?” he smiles sheepishly, the rest of them looking towards the siren expectantly, who glances towards Felix once again.

Felix smiles, giving the mermaid two thumbs up with the silent nods of his head.
Seungmin meets Chan’s eyes, giving his own skittish simper before nodding once, exhaling slowly.

“Yes, of course.” he confirms, looking behind them at the few sad pieces of wood the group have put into some grand yet unlucky conifer. “This one here?” He asks, gesturing towards it vaguely.

The fairies nod, agreeing as they plop down next to the river to watch the transformation. Not hiding, or keeping their distance, but rather keeping company. 

Seungmin shakes his head in understanding. While the others watch the tree, Felix watches the siren. He’s seen Seungmin use his magic in large sums before, he knows it will use a lot of the mers energy because he doesn’t practice it much, but he also knows he could not stop him if he wanted to. So he simply waits with the others, ready to help in any other way he can. 

 The mermaid lifts his arms, the whole of his eyes going white as he summons what seems to be ocean magic from the very river he resides in. The water answers instantly, bending to his call as the mermaid opens his mouth to begin to sing.

It’s haunting, enchanting, dangerous.
But Felix believes there is no sound on the planet that can compete with it.

The river swells, not enough to flood its banks, but enough for the current to begin spiraling around the roots of the conifer. Pink-blue magic shines beneath the surface like moonlight trapped underwater, flowing through the river in ribbons.

The fairies sit forward as the tree trembles, a gasp escaping someone as the trunk begins to grow, outward instead of upward. Ancient bark groans and stretches, widening until the base becomes broad enough to house a dragon hatchling. The roots curl from the earth like living fingers, twisting together into natural stairways and winding platforms.

Water dances around them all the while.

Branches bend and weave themselves together high above the ground, knitting into sturdy bridges between limbs. Vines emerge from the riverbank, climbing the trunk in elegant spirals before blooming with clusters of glowing flowers.

Wood creaks, leaves rustle, and before they know it windows begin to appear. Not carved by tools, but grown from the very tree that was meant to simply hold their new home.
Hollow spaces blossom naturally within the trunk, framed by polished bark and flowering vines. By the time the magic settles, the sad pile of lumber beneath the tree has vanished entirely, absorbed into the living structure.

Silence falls over the riverbank.

Where a simple conifer once stood now rises a fairy home worthy of a village elder; sprawling platforms suspended amongst emerald branches, glowing flowers tucked into every corner, bridges winding between levels, and a broad porch overlooking the river where the pink mermaid still floated.

The last traces of ocean magic drift from Seungmin's fingertips like seafoam as his song comes to an end, then the siren blinks, his eyes returning to normal.

"Will that do?" he asks, seemingly exhausted. “I put no beds, since Felix told me you often sleep in hammocks, webs and furs. But I think you will like it.”

Immediately, chaos is amongst them. 

The group is on their feet in the flutter of a fairy’s wings, flying in circles and jumping up and down like they’ve just witnessed the triumph of a savior. There’s yelling, excitement, thank you’s so loud their surprised no one written to complain. 

“Oh, my, essence dust, no way! Can we go in?!” Jisung questions. The 7 of them quiet, looking down at Seungmin, who is now propped on the side of the riverbank, arms folded beneath his chin.

He nods, giving them a fanged smile. “Of course, it’s all yours.”
The lot of them do not have to be told twice.

With no more delay, 6 bodies b line towards different areas of the grand tree house, the grace of an ant colony upon them. But even with a newly built home awaiting them, one stays.

Felix stalks closer to the river, dropping to his knees right in front of where the mer is leaning onto the grass. He smiles, caressing the siren's cheek softly as Seungmin leans into it, heavy yet soft, smooth yet sturdy.

“Minnie,” he starts, fond.  “I’m proud of you.”

Seungmin feels his heart stutter in his chest, and tears begin to well in his eyes.
It’s not every cycle that one takes such a loaded risk, and not every mundusk that you're acknowledged for it.

“How’d you find us? You must have come a long way, love.” 

Seungminnie nods, holding back tears. He doesn’t want to break just yet, not when it feels like he’s finally fixed something that’s been broken for a long, long time. 

“In order for a call to work, one must answer.” he repeats, his clawed hand reaching up to hold the sea shell hanging from Felix’s neck. It glows under the influence of his touch, and Felix feels the magic course through his body once again. 

“Today, I answered your call.”