mermaid: the squeakquel

[fearlessly]

[ things have not gone well for alisaie, since the day she saved the boy.

truthfully, things had not been going well for her before then, either, or for as long as she could remember. she did not fit in amongst her peoples, who hid deep beneath the waves. the surface was expressly, strictly forbidden, and for very good reason - the hyur who lived on the lands, the dominant species, are powerful, violent, and untrustworthy, vicious monsters that kill on sight.. or so the stories said. many thousands of years ago, long before the memories of even their most ancient elders, sahagin once thrived, spread across the seas, and the hyur were not unknown to them then. tales say that they once worked together, or at least tolerated one another, until the great hunt began, and while the two-leggeds were powerless in the water, they had great strength in their enormous wooden whales and weapons and vast, endless numbers.

no one can remember how it began, but nevertheless it was not a war, it was a massacre, and what was left of her people fled deep, deep beneath the waves where the weapons could not reach and the hyur could not swim, and it is here that they have remained ever since, rebuilding, surviving, yet still their numbers are so very few in comparison with the vast kingdoms they once kept. the hyur, it seems, have long forgotten them, and as far as her lord father is concerned, that is for the best. keeping away from the surface, away from the two-legged, was the only way to keep themselves safe. alisaie had disagreed.

she knows now that she had been foolish, and naive.

it is not so uncommon for rebellious youths to swim up to the sun, but even the most brazen of sahagin do not venture near to the shorelines. the hyur still swim, still sail in their great whales now built of unforgiving iron and steel, and the few sahagin who have swam higher have always been met with severe punishment. alisaie was a brazen youth, too, and far too stubborn and foolish for her own good. no threat or punishment could keep her away, and when her father found out that she had saved a young hyur boy from drowning, tangled in kelp, his wrath had been a terror to behold.

still she had not learned. she wishes now that she had. but the more they tried to to tighten their hold on her, the more they lost control, and alisaie's rebellious spirit had become her undoing. she had believed, truly believed that the stories could not be entirely true. so much drifts beneath the waves, little tokens of the civilization that they once knew, and so few of them are weapons, or danger. alisaie had found strange metal items, she had found adornments and pictures, bright toys, innumerable things she cannot know the use of, she has studied them, found fascination in them - surely like her own people, the hyur cannot all be so vicious. the drowning boy had looked so.. small, so soft, and afraid, and even these many years later she still remembers his eyes. they had not seemed so dangerous.

she was naive, her father said, before he trapped her in her chambers. she was a danger to all of them, revealing herself even to a child hyur, she puts them all in peril by drawing so near to she shores. she had hated him then, for his closed mind, for how he tried to control her.

now she wishes she had listened. the iron whales had coasted directly over their home that day, and brought with them a cacophany of great noise and flashing lights - the booming of cannons shook the firmament, and the fires rained bitter ash into the waters below. the hyur were fighting one another in a spectacular, horrifying display, and she had not been able to keep away. what a fool she had been. they caught her in their unforgiving nets, and since that day she has known only terror, and fury, and deep, full, unrelenting regret. her father had been right.

she cannot know how long they have kept her. many years, now. she is held somewhere dark, somewhere cold, and they are always watching her, studying her, scraping her scales and plucking her hairs and fins, stealing her blood. they speak to her, and for many years she does not understand, but in time their language becomes a puzzle for her to unravel, even if she does not understand the purpose of all of their words. what else does she have to do to keep herself occupied but to listen to them? there is nothing else to keep her mind from dissolving. when they discover that she can speak their words they are quick to teach her more, to share their language; they are cruel, but they are curious, and though she had been quite certain that they would take her life, they have not killed her.

sometimes she wishes they would. she has long ago lost all sense of the passage of time, and any hope that she would ever swim freely again. at first she would fight them with her teeth and claws and powerful tail, but soon they learned, tainting her waters with something that tasted sweet and sharp, that kept her drowsy. after a time, the hyur stop coming, only one or two remain to observe her, to keep her fed, and alive. she will die here, in this hole in the earth, in this cramped tank, in this water that tastes like rust. she should have listened to her family.

so it comes as a great surprise when more hyur come, one day, when they drag her from her pool and into a small, cramped tank that barely fits her, and haul her away from the hole in the ground and up to the bright, searing sun. alisaie hisses and spits, slamming her body against the glass walls, but the sweet, sharp taste comes again, she is sedated, and a dark cloth is draped over her tank.

she is groggy still when, many hours later, after a long rumbling and swaying, the cloth is swept away and the bright sunlight streams in again. alisaie cannot see clearly, but there is.. a man before her, a man she has never seen before, adorned in dark cloth, his eyes hard but not unkind, not critical like the eyes of the hyur who had kept her before, and when they sweep over her she feels.. seen in a strange way she cannot entirely parse. behind the man are four others, younger, and behind them a vast staircase leading to a great, shining building.

she's so tired..

through the thick glass their voices seem dull and distant, but she hears words - gift, and lucis, mermaid and peace and keep. she will look better soon, they say, she is dull from the stress of travel, and soon her pale scales will shine pearly white and lush pink again, her torn fins will mend, she will be beautiful, a sparkling, priceless gem worthy of a king. there is no other like her. her head pounds, and her eyes are bleary. in time, the man in dark cloth draws near to the glass, and his piercing eyes find her, see her again, and when he speaks she knows that he is speaking to her, and no one else.

You will be safe here. I will give you all that is in my power to give. I'm sorry.

Comments

[punshots]

[ He always knew, deep in his heart, that she was real. But on the day that the Imperials bring the mermaid to the citadel, he never more wished he was wrong.

Even for all the years that have passed since that fateful day, the memory had never faded, and so he had been sure, so sure, that she had saved him. It was his first, and last, trip out to the beach with his parents, and the tide had been strong that day. Strong enough that while he collected sand dollars along the water's pull, it dragged him in before he knew what was happening, and he had never properly learned to swim. Much as he might flail and desperately try to propel himself upward again, panic took hold instead, as some kelp rooted him to the spot. Even then, the moment carried a weight of finality in it, as he became fully aware of his fate, his lungs burning. And then...

She had appeared. A girl, no older than himself, with fins and scales and a fish's tail, setting him free from the kelp, and ferrying him back towards land, far enough to where the tide could pull him back in. When he parents found him, barely conscious and raving about a fish-woman, they didn't take him seriously. Just the ramblings of a boy gone through a near-death experience. And even when he grew, and recounted the tale to his friends, they humored him, but teased him all the same. Sahagin were creatures of legend, and if they had ever lived on Eos, they had not lived for a very, very long time. They were extinct at best, a myth at worst. It's what everyone believed, except for him.

He doubted his own memories, too, but on that day when the Niffs delivered their "gift of peace" to King Regis himself, he knew he had been right all along.

...But what a thing to be right about, when the mermaid in the tank appears in the state that she does. She looks...worn down. Exhausted. Broken. She seems so unlike the one that Prompto had encountered all those years ago, even if...their resemblance is striking, right down to the color of her hair and scales. But perhaps that's just how all sahagin look. Regardless, the sight of her breaks his heart. He knows what it's like to feel alone and lost and afraid, and he can see that reflected in her eyes.

So after the king steps back, Prompto exchanges looks with Noctis, and the pair of them approach the tank while Gladio and Ignis hold back. Noctis examines the mermaid with thoughtful concern, while Prompto, his brow drawn tight, leans forward, pressing a hand against the glass his jaw dropping. ]

I knew I wasn't dreaming...

[ But maybe he wishes he had been. ]

[punshots]

[ Even if she has made herself perfectly clear, and although he cannot give her what she really wants, Prompto can't just leave things as they are. Maybe he can't free her, but he can still do whatever he can to make her stay here more comfortable, right? Until the war is over and they can set her free. Yes, if there's anything else he can do to make her time a little more bearable, he'll do it, no questions asked.

...Though he's certain that if he actually tried to ask her what he could do she would probably just laugh in his face, so instead of speaking directly to her, he leaves things behind, at the spot where they had first spoken. He begins with fish, rich, fatty ones that he convinced Noctis to part with, much to the prince's chagrin. When he returns each day, the fish are gone from where he left them, so he can only assume she's taken them for lunch, much as it, uh, kind of grosses him out.

Once he's determined she likes fish, he starts to add in other things: trinkets, jewelry, none of it exactly finely made, he's not exactly wealthy, but it's nice enough. He leaves plenty of whosits and whatsits galore, and each day those are gone, too. It's the only feedback she gives him, and so he takes that to mean he should continue. She'd tell him to stop if she wanted him to stop, right?

Well, he hopes so, in any case. His gifts start to include almost anything that won't get too ruined by water, and eventually, he even gets the bright idea to bring her some baked goods. Sure, she's half-fish, but she's half-girl too, right? And girls like baked goods...

So he approaches her enclosure as usual, later in the afternoon, kneeling down to set down a platter of freshly baked cookies. He didn't make them — gods, no — but he has an in with the kitchen staff in the citadel. These are nothing to sneeze at.

Unless, you know, she's allergic to cookies, and/or gets violently ill from eating them, but. He's hoping that does not happen. ]

[punshots]

[ And so, two and a half years later, we return for filth...

A generous amount of time has passed in Lucis, too, and Prompto has kept his promise. He visits Alisaie often, and through the months, they have grown quite close, even as he grows increasingly guilty for how little he's able to do for her. She's so very dear to him now, and he can't do a thing about releasing her from captivity. And even if he could break her out, then what? Is he going to carry her all the way the ocean on his back? Or make her live out her life in his bathtub?

He doesn't want to dwell on that right now. Not when he can't do anything at the moment - but he will. He will. He has to...

For he has come to love her. The beautiful, mysterious mermaid Alisaie is more dear to him than anything in the world.

It's been long enough now that her habitat is no longer guarded or under surveillance, and everyone in the citadel has seen Prompto come and go enough that any time he arrives, they can easily assume that it's either for the prince or the mermaid, often both of them. Prompto isn't the only one of their foursome that has taken a shine to her, and they continually discuss in secret how they might aid her escape.

Tonight, though, he just...wants to spend some time with her, just the two of them. He has a new dessert for her to try, and the even is dark and soft by the time he arrives at her enclosure, the lights dim and the water sparkling. ]

Heeey, Alisaie! You still awake? I-I can come back later! ...Duh, she can't answer me if she's asleep...

[ He'll just have to wait and see if she surfaces. ]