Chapter Text
The sea is many things. Dangerous, but kind, vast, unknowable, and so, so beautiful.
But, recently, it has mostly been lonely.
The Leviathan swam in lazy circles, not in the mood for graceful realm-hopping or racing through the currents. It was as if the sheer loneliness it felt crushed any desire it may have had, leaving only the most basic, life-sustaining ones, like food and sleep. Which, for the spirit of the ocean itself, was pretty pathetic.
And, worst of all, it couldn’t do shit about it. The humans seem to have noticed its presence in the 20 000 20 000 deep oceans, and have excercised a truly herculean effort into catching it, proving it existed. And as tempting as that sounded, to have everyone know it, to be able to swim up to a boat and possibly befriend the sailors, talk to them, shake the boulder that seemed to have taken residence on its heart, it knew that when it was proved to be real, people would start hunting it. It would be chased recklessly, never again being able to exist in its lovely blue, having to hide or risk being caught. Or worse, having to kill, making everyone think it was hostile, when it really was lenient for what amounted to the ruler of all the oceans in all the worlds.
So, it managed to access this webbed site? Called Reddit, and made a post. It was nearly identical to all the other posts about it, a “sighting” which was really just a whole lot of nothing, but with one small twist. Instead of the forgery being very obvious photoshop or an image of what the people thought it looked like placed into the background, it faked biomes. It willed the sea against itself, generating a coral reef next to a cold ocean, violating the temperature gradient, in a way that only the most knowledgeable would notice.
And then it waited.
~~~~~
A response!
This person, called Wifies, wanted to talk to it! This was its chance to finally interact with other humans!
Well, not it this form, certainly.
Time to get to work.
It took a running (swimming?) start, and gracefully leapt out of the water and onto a beach, and as it flew it shifted, form getting smaller and reshaping until two human-like legs sunk into the sand. It took a quick look at itself in the reflection cast by the suddenly stilled water. Its head was a television screen with rainbow bars, dressed in a dark suit vest, a nicely pressed, wrinkle-less white shirt, and long, grey pants. Almost human, really, but there were some glaring issues. For one, the TV antennae which extended from its head differed from the expected rigid, straight-up position and instead went in an arc, dangling before its face, two bright points at the end of each making them look less TV and more anglerfish. And on either side of its head emerged fins that visibly sloped downwards, reacting to The Leviathan’s mix of thought and slight disappointment at having to alter this body further. Below the head wasn’t much better either, as each one of its fingers ended in a warm orange claw, and was also connected to the others with a thin layer of light blue webbing. And, most noticeably, out of the convenient hole in the back of its pants emerged a sapphire-blue tail, with webbing adorned with a myriad of shades of orange, some even spilling over to yellow. Well, that won’t do. Even the dumbest human could put two and two together, and if Wifies was writing about what Levi was hoping he was, then he is most definitely not one of the dumber ones. So, a little bit of change was due.
It shifted the antennae into the rigid, straight contructs one would associate with electronics, willed away the webbing and claws, retracted the scales back into smooth skin, and forced the tail away, mending the hole in his pants. What he had now was a pretty inconspicuous human form in NO WAY associated with the Leviathan. It nodded its head in approval and turned around, looking at the empty expanse of dirt and beach.
Now for the house.
~~~~~
After a whole day of building and gathering, the Leviathan had both acquired a love for the whole cycle, and made a house, a small boat, and a big boat, as well as a diving bell “red stone” machine thing it had found on a human site called Youtube. While it did require some more venturing and even slaying of mobs, particularly slimes, it managed to make it work, which it was pretty proud of. It was now well and truly ready for Wifies’ arrival, which was very convenient, as the other was supposed to arrive in about an hour and thirty minutes of human time, plenty space for last minute checks-
Oh no.
It forgot a name.
How had it forgotten a whole name???
Humans have names. All of them do. It’s weird if you have less than two, and a lot of them have more than three! Greedy humans, one name is more than enough! But, regardless, it now needed to make a name, or specifically a “gamer tag”, as names in games were called.
Okay, so no real world names, that’s off the table, and it can’t just say Leviathan, that would defeat the purpose of this whole facade, think, Levi, think!
In its panic its body decided to do some self-soothing, and it felt itself start humming. It was a sound from deep within its chest, one that made it calm and happy, and one with the sea…
Hmm, hum? Hummmm… Hummer! It can go with Hummer!
The humans seemed to like putting numbers in their usernames, so let’s put some in. And, after some googling, it went with 5718. So, Hummer5718.
Lastly, humans seemed to naturally treat men better than women, so a male apparition would be ideal, ergo he/him pronouns, flatter chest, and a slightly deeper voice, but not too deep.
He sighed with relief. Catastrophe (briefly) avoided! Now just to quickly update his Reddit username-
Wifies joined the game
Well, he’ll have to do that later.
Time to meet the human.