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There was a storm that night. People in the town pulled their shutters tightly closed and sailors in the harbor tied down their vessels extra tight. It had started to rain around midday, and the drizzle had increased to a downpour as more dark clouds gathered in the sky above the city. The water of the harbor churned, white-capped waves slamming up against the docks and threatening to breach the barriers built by the townsfolk. Lightning crackled in the air, thunder booming right behind it.
About a mile offshore, a ship was being tossed around by the storm. Sailors frantically ran back and forth on its deck, tying down everything they could and trying to keep the ship under control. They were almost to the port and could see the glimmer of the lighthouse faintly through the gale, but the most dangerous part of their journey was yet to come.
Surrounding the town were great spikes of rock hidden underneath the surface of the waves. Local legends told of mysterious dark forces that dwelled inside the crevices of the rocks and the ruins of the ships that had sunk there. If the rocks didn’t sink the ship, the wrecks would. The sailors had planned to take this part of the journey slow, being cautious and making offerings of trinkets to the spirits who lived there, but the strong winds were steadily pushing them off course into dangerous waters. They had barely managed to scrape past the rocks in previous visits, but then the weather had been cooperating with them.
The ship shook as it slammed into something below the waves, a loud cracking noise echoing over the sound of the tempest. More panicked shouts filled the air as the sailors attempted to stop the flow of the sea into the hull of the ship. The ship lurched, another rock gouging out a portion of it. Shouts to abandon the ship began to move throughout the crew of the vessel, but it was already too late. The boat was sinking, fast.
Inside the ship, a man dodged a running crewmember going down the stairs. He had been sleeping when the storm hit, the captain assuring him that there was nothing to worry about and they’d simply wait out the bad weather. The captain had asked him to stay in his quarters, but that was no longer an option as there was now a leaking hole where his wall used to be. He scrambled up onto the dock, trying to stay out of the way but still managing to be a nuisance. He spotted the captain and hurried up onto the main deck.
“What the hell are ye doing up here Captor?”, the captain yelled over the storm. “Yer going to get yerself killed!”, he continued glaring at him through the rain.
“Well I couldn’t really thay there could I? My fucking bunk was flooded.”, Captor shouted back at him just as a massive lightning bolt struck the main mast of the ship. The ship shook and everyone on board staggered. A giant wave rushed over the railing of the deck, crashing into him. He stumbled towards the side of the vessel, crewmembers grappling for the yellow vest he was wearing.
Prince Sollux!", the first mate cried, his fingernails almost scraping his shoulder. It was too late. Prince Sollux Captor, heir to the throne, was thrown overboard and into the chaotic sea below.
Sollux hit the water head first, cracking his skull on a skewer of rock underneath the surface. A tendril of blood curled out from the gash on his head. A few bubbles of air drifted from his slack mouth.
-
Deep below the boat, a girl turned her finned face upwards in the direction of the sinking vessel. There was blood in the water. She grinning, revealing several rows of razor sharp needle-like teeth. Feferi Peixes set down the gilded wristwatch she was holding and heading for the surface.
When she got there the ship had already shattered against the rugged stones. Sailors in the process of drowning surrounded her along with broken planks of wood from the hull and the luggage of the passengers. Feferi propelled herself through the wreckage with her fuschia tail. She was looking for the person who was bleeding that delicious scent. Feferi spotted him slowly sinking further underwater. As she swam closer she got a better look at him. He had olive brown skin and dark, choppy brown hair. He was wearing fancy clothing that was probably ruined from the water and the debris.
Approaching him, she twisted her body around him, reaching out a grey hand to turn his body around in the water. He was warm to the touch, but getting colder every second. Ignoring the other drowning sailors around her, Feferi hooked her arms under Sollux’s limbs and began tugging him towards the surface.
When Sollux’s head broke the surface of the water he didn’t react immediately. Glancing at him, Feferi headed for a stretch of the beach. She was a little worried.
“Aren’t these humans supposed to breath?”, she muttered to herself, the words coming out a little odd because she was above water. Just then, the man in her arms hacked, a bit of seawater dribbling out from his lips. He was breathing, just not conscious. Feferi smiled another toothy grin, relieved. It wouldn’t do for him to be dead now would it? Feferi had some questions she needed answers to.
Dragging Sollux’s body onto shore was the most difficult part of the journey. Nobody was around because of the storm thankfully, but Feferi wasn’t really made for moving out of the ocean. Setting him down on the rocks above the high-tide mark was difficult but she managed. Just as she had gotten Sollux settled down and had levered herself high enough up to get a closer look at him, Feferi heard shouting in the distance. Apparently the townsfolk had realized what had happened to the ship and were beginning the search for survivors. She looked down at the man she had rescued. Reaching out a hand, she stroked his cheek. Her slippery, cold grey skin was a sharp contrast to his warm, if wet, olive brown face. The voices were getting closer now, and Feferi hurriedly maneuvered herself back into the surf. As she finally resubmerged, two humans rounded the rocks to see Sollux. She quickly turned before they could see her, starting the journey back to the depths of her ocean home.
-
The first thing Feferi did when she was out of sight of the shore was head towards Rose’s sea cave. If there was a way for her to speak again with that human Rose would know it. Rose knew everything and would usually share it for a price. Also, Rose gave good advice, like how to talk to humans and how to deal with annoying exes.
Rose Lalonde’s cave was further down than most merpeople tended to want to venture. She rarely got company, and that was just how she liked it. Feferi was one of the few people who would willingly hang out down there without some ulterior motive.
When Feferi arrived, Rose had a crystal ball balanced on her stomach as she slouched against the wall of her cave. Her tentacles were busy rearranging artifacts, shooing crustaceans and shellfish out of various crevices, and doing various other chores around the cave. Two were even weaving strands of seaweed together to make some sort of pouch. Rose’s familiars, two strangely neon octopi were tangling their tentacles into her hair, but stopped when Feferi came in to play with her flowing mass of hair. Rose looked up, sensing the disturbance in the water of the cave.
“I’ve been expecting you Feferi.”, she said, setting down the ball and straightening up.
“You always are Rose! It’s kind of cheating if you’re reading the future to see if I’m going to come and visit”, Feferi giggled. Rose raised an eyebrow and shrugged her shoulders.
“I was only curious to when you would come talk to me. It’s been a while. Or should I say, a whale.”, Rose said, a slight smirk on her face.
“You fish punned for me!”, Feferi squealed, clapping her hands together. “Rose, you never fish pun for me! This is so exciting. We should celebrate.”, she continued.
“Okay I get it, I obviously need to step up the frequency of my puns if you’re going to be that excited every time I do it.”, Rose said dryly, “Perhaps we can investigate your affinity for language jokes based on aquatic life at a later date.”
“Oh! That reminds me! I have to tell you about this human buoy I met today! At least I think he was a buoy, humans are so funny about gender.”, Feferi exclaimed.
“You didn’t drown this one, did you Feferi?”, Rose interrupted, “We’ve talked about how humans can’t survive underwater.”
“No silly! I rescued him from the storm so he wouldn’t drown and end up feeding one of your creepy familiars. I remembered your lecture about the weird landdwellers.”, the other girl said, waving her webbed hands reassuringly at the sea witch. They both glanced at the brightly colored cephalopods tangling together to try and fit into the same jar on the floor of the cave. Rose reached down to gently separate the two creatures, but they were determined to stay together. The sea witch sighed, exasperated with both her pets and her visitor. “Also he was kinda cute, for a landdweller.”, Feferi continued.
"Of course that's what you would notice first.", Rose said with a little chuckle.
"What?!" He was! I mean, not as cute as you, but then again, there's not a lot of people on par with that.", the other girl replied, wrapping her arms around Rose.
"Flatterer.", the sea witch snorted, "You just want me to give you a discount on whatever you've come to ask for."
"No! Well I mean, that would be ab-shoal-utely fin-tastic, but you are cute!", Feferi cried, squeezing Rose closer to herself. "You're my best friend!", she continued. Rose laughed, trying to untangle her tentacles from where Feferi's floor-length hair had twisted around it.
"Darling, I think you need a haircut. But thank you. I'm sure you'd be glad to know that the sentiment is definitely returned, although with not quite as many fish puns.", Rose said. Reaching a hand up, she gently patted Feferi on the cheek. Feferi leaned into her touch, grinning.
“Pale for you Rose.”, Feferi muttered into the sea witches hand. She raised her webbed hand to stroke Rose’s jaw line.
“Pale for you too.”, Rose laughed and pulled away to gently float over to a storage area in her cave. Digging through it for a bit, she triumphantly pulled out a brush made from sea urchin spines that she had modelled after a comb Feferi brought her from a shipwreck. “Here, turn around for a second and let’s see if I can’t sort out at least some of those knots.”, she continued, gesturing for the other girl to face away from her. Feferi complied, gathering one of the octopi into her arms and cuddling with it.
Rose slowly dragged the brush through Feferi’s mane of hair, starting at the tips and brushing until the hair was divided out into sections that she could more easily comb. Taking each section, Rose drew the brush down Feferi's back, occasionally stopping to pull out a bone or leaf that had gotten stuck earlier in the week. When Rose was done brushing, she grabbed a bag made from sharkskin off of a counter and retrieved several carved charms that she had enchanted for protection and luck.
"Oh are those the things you made from that coral I got you?", Feferi asked, turning to look at the trinkets in Rose's palm.
"Mmhmm.", the sea witch grunted, her tentacles coiling in concentration as she wove the charms into Feferi's hair. Securing the last one with a knot, Rose stepped back to admire her work and her moirail. "That should do it I think.", she said and set set the bag back onto it's place on the counter.
"So! Can we talk about the landdweller now?", Feferi said, practically shaking with excitement.
"Well I suppose we might as well as that's what you came to talk about.", Rose laughed, shaking her head fondly and moving over to sit in a pile of kelp that she had gathered.
"Ok, soooo... He's not grey like us. And he has these really strange things all over his body like fur, but it's not attached to him like fur.", Feferi gushed.
"I've heard about that, I hear humans come in all sorts of colors. Maybe this was just one of the options?", Rose interrupted. "Here. Wait. Let me go get my journal, I should take notes on this."
"Oh okay!", Feferi said, before continuing on as Rose retrieved her journal,"And he didn't have any horns either! What kind of person doesn't have horns?!"
"I don't have horns.", the other girl said, writing the information down.
"Yeah but- you're you! And you have your tentacles. The landdwellers don't have tails or feelers like us.”, Feferi explained. “Anyways, so I pulled him up to the surface so he could breathe and left him on the beach.”, she continued.
“That’s it?”, Rose said, a little surprised.
“Well, I was going to stay and sea if I could ask about what it’s like up there on the land, but before I could a bunch of other humans showed up and I had to leave.”, Feferi sighed, flopping down next to Rose on the bed of kelp, her fins twitching irritably. “I was reel-y curious and now I won’t ever get to see him again.”, she moaned dramatically, burying her face in Rose’s shoulder. One of the octopi, the green one, tried to slide over to comfort her but was shooed off as the sea witch pulled Feferi up off of her.
“Why do you say that, darling?”, Rose said, wiping at the pinkish tears that threatened to spill out of the others eyes.
“Because Meenah’s probably going to tell Mom and then I won’t be able to go anywhere near the surface again for like, forever! You know how she gets, all up in other people’s business like the beach she is.”, Feferi sniffled.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic Feferi, you’ll get your answers somewhere I’m shore.”, Rose said, patting her face. The other girl giggled a little at the pun, straightening out her tail in a stretch.
“So! Does this mean you’ll help me?”, she asked, grinning toothily at Rose. Rose raised an eyebrow at the rapid mood change, but reached into a crevice for one of her spellbooks. “Like do you have a spell to make him be able to come down here and talk with us? Or is it like a mirror that lets you speak with people far away?”, Feferi cheerfully chattered, swimming in little circles around the cavern. The previous tears had quickly been forgotten at the thought of Rose solving her problem.
“You listen to too many fairy tales. I was actually thinking about something a little bit different. Although...”, Rose muttered as she flipped through the book.
“What? What is it?”, Feferi said, trying to peer over Rose’s shoulder at the spellbook in her hands. Rose quickly shut the journal, but Feferi was able to read the title of the page. “Transformation Spells? Are you going to give him gills and a tail like me?”, Feferi asked.
“No Feferi,” Rose sighed, “It would be too complicated to do. No, I was thinking I could just give you legs and you could go talk to the human. Much easier for everyone involved.”
“So, whats the catch?”, Feferi asked. “Every time I ask you for fancy spells you want the weirdest stuff in exchange.”, she continued.
“Everything comes with a price. But this one is fairly easy to get ahold of luckily.”, Rose replied, swimming further back into her cave to where she did most of her magical work.
“So, what is it?”, Feferi questioned, following her moirail into the back room. Rose didn’t answer. There was a swirling bubble of water in the center where Rose usually mixed her various potions and elixirs. Rose was floating next to it while her tentacles rustled through various containers looking for the ingredients for the spell. Occasionally they would throw something into the bubble, making it light up brightly with various colors. Rose’s familiars slid into the room behind Feferi to help their mistress with the potion, but Feferi just swam slowly in space watching the sea witch work. Rose threw in a final dash of some powder before muttering something unintelligible under her breath. The mixture flashed, the water surrounding it heating almost to a boil. With a terrible crack like wood splitting apart, the lights stopped.
When the smoke from the explosion cleared, Feferi could see Rose holding something in her hands. Rose turned around to face the other girl, a mysterious smirk on her face. There was a necklace in her clasped hands shaped like a curling shell.
“What so what was the thing you needed me to get for you?”, Feferi asked.
“The final ingredient is your voice. If you don’t want to give that up I can stop the spell and find out another way, but this really is the best option that I have to offer.”, Rose replied, looking a little nervous.
“Wait, but how am I supposed to ask him questions if I can’t speak?”, Feferi cried. “The whole point of doing this was so I could talk to people up there.”, she continued.
“There are other ways to talk besides out loud. You could just write down your questions, or maybe you could act them out like charades.”, the sea witch said, waving her hand a bit dismissively. “You don’t really need your voice to get what you want.”, she reassured. Feferi still looked a little uncertain.
“Will it be forever?”, the other girl asked. Rose shook her head.
“No, the spell will only last as long as you’re on dry land. Once you get back into the water you’ll regrow your tail and your voice will return.”, she said. Feferi eyed the necklace in Rose’s hands. It wasn’t the worst deal Rose had ever offered someone. At least she wasn’t asking for some random body part or someone’s firstborn.
“Whale, I guess it wouldn’t be too awful. I mean, I could make it work.”, Feferi admitted. “How am I supposed to give you my voice though?”, she said, giving Rose a curious look. Rose smiled.
“Oh, thats the easy part, you just have to sing into the shell. It isn't difficult at all.”, Rose replied, holding out the necklace to Feferi. Feferi slowly reached out towards the pendant, her eyes darting in between it and Rose’s reassuring face. Grabbing the necklace before she could change her mind, Feferi brought the shell to her lips and began to sing.
As her singing began to increase in volume, Feferi glanced over at Rose to find her moirail’s tentacles thrashing erratically around inside the cave, knocking things off the shelves and counters. Her body seemed to be surrounded by a dark aura, her eyes and mouth glowing with a white light. Feferi almost stopped singing, but kept going. The water around them swirled like a whirlpool, smoke pouring out of the opening to the shell and floating around Feferi’s head. Her horns tingled as the necklace sent out several pulses of light like the kind coming from Rose’s face.
As she sang louder, it became harder and harder to make comprehensive words. Her song lost pitch as the shell gave off even more light, almost becoming a sort of wordless wail. And then it was gone. The shell stopped glowing. Feferi tried to open her mouth to say something to Rose, but nothing came out. She looked down. Where her fuschia fins had once been were dark brown limbs that ended in two flat bottomed pads that looked similar to hands but were bigger and longer. A few bubbles escaped her mouth as she looked frantically at herself. Her grey skin was now completely brown and when she felt her head her horns had vanished into her scalp.
A grey hand suddenly grabbed her by the arm, dragging her out of the cave back into the ocean. Feferi turned to see Rose tugging her out of the cave. When Rose saw her looking she said something, but it was lost in the gurgling of the the water in her ears. She tried to inhale a breath to say that she couldn’t understand, but water flowed into her mouth right into her chest without filtering through the gills that Feferi no longer had. She coughed, inhaling more water, and felt Rose pull her faster to the surface.
Feferi blacked out for a moment before they cleared the top of the water and she was able to breath again. Rose kept swimming until she reached the beach where Feferi had left Sollux. Feferi was barely conscious, her vision blurring from the lack of oxygen, when she felt wet sand beneath her hands and her new limbs. Faintly she heard Rose mutter something about apologizing for not being able to keep the gills. After a few seconds, Feferi shut her eyes and let the darkness take her as Rose pet her hair one last time before leaving, the echos of humans shouting nearby ringing in her ears.