The thing in her cargo hold is looking at her again.
Really, Gem should have sold it by now. If the fishmonger had refused to take it--and really, it seems unlikely, Gem thinks, that the fishmonger would refuse to take it; he has taken and carved up and made meals of far stranger fish than one with a human face and hands and torso--she could have easily sold it to the man on the train, who takes exotic catches for his zoo. She could have even taken it to Grian; it's not a mending book, but it's the sort of thing he'd like to make fun of her for catching, instead of anything she's after.
Really, she should have. The longer she keeps the thing in her cargo hold, the more it starts to look properly human to her. She should know better. She has caught far stranger fish, and none of them have been human. It's another trick these seas have been playing on her, she thinks.
Long nights alone do that to a woman.
She ignores it. Instead, she opens the lid of the tank and starts depositing salmon. "It's a really weird request, that I keep them alive the whole time. You won't eat them, right?" Gem says, knowing the thing in her cargo hold can't answer. "Because if you eat them, this time, I really am going to sell you to the fishmonger. Or maybe I can figure out how to get fillets from you on my own? I've certainly eaten weirder fish..."
The thing in the cargo hold continues to stare. It has eyes that look like little moons, and brown hair, and it is smiling for some reason. Gem huffs.
"Don't give me that look! You are a fish. I am a fisherman. If mere human faces stopped me from doing my job, I would have gone mad a long time ago."
The thing in the cargo hold smiles wider. The lights flicker. Gem rolls her eyes and finishes putting salmon in the tank. As though to spite her, the thing in the cargo hold immediately lashes out, grabbing one in the claws on her otherwise-human hands and then tearing it apart with razor-sharp teeth. Blood rises on the water. Gem sighs.
"I have a harpoon in here somewhere, or at least a very sharp knife," she says to herself. She doesn't really want to use her nice knife, the one she always keeps on her belt, but she ought to have another knife around with which she can finish the job, right?
The lights flicker and go out. When she looks across at the tank, there are two silvery-moon eyes looking at her.
Gem pulls a wire. Gem turns the lights back on. She takes a deep breath.
"I really should have sold you by now, really. If the fishmonger won't take you, then the zookeeper would love you," Gem says.
The radio crackles. Gem startles. Very, very few people ever contact her on the shipboard radio, but if she's getting a signal, that's more important than a grudge match with a fish. She heads over to answer the call.
An amalgamation of voices responds:
YOU ARE FUNNY. I HAVE A MESSAGE. A DELIVERY. YOU'VE TRAPPED ME THOUGH.
Slowly, Gem turns around to the thing in the cargo hold.
"This won't stop me from treating you like a fish," she says. "If messages from the ocean stopped me--"
A terrible, crackling laugh sounds from the radio.
I AM THE MOON'S PEARL. YOU WILL NOT HOLD ME FOREVER. WE WILL SEE WHO EATS WHO.
Gem wags her finger. "We'll see, for sure, as long as you don't eat my salmon. That man in the fish-scaled suit was VERY insistent, you know."
TELL ME MORE.
"You're tying up my radio. What if there's another ship? What if there's something important?"
OH GEM. YOU KNOW THERE WON'T BE.
Gem swallows.
The thing in the cargo hold is staring at her.
"I need to sleep. I need to go to shore," she says.
YOU WON'T, the radio says.
She won't.
487 notes
·
View notes
i stand by that a better, more sensible, and more intriguing plot for TSATS would have been, instead of retconning literally everything:
Bob is dead (because he was very explicitly absorbed/killed by Tartarus Himself in House of Hades, alongside Damasen), and nobody is going into Tartarus to save him. He made his sacrifice and is gone. However. Remember how the Titans, including Bob, were just kind of kicking around for several years? Particularly. On a cruise ship full of mortals. And Bob happened to be kicking around in general for an extra year versus all the other Titans. And he mythologically sometimes has a mortal demigod son who partook in the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Dryas of Calydon). Yeah.
So turns out, Bob/Iapetus leaves behind a demigod (demititan?) child. And because Nico was pretty much his only friend, he named Nico his child's godfather. And while he's not being left in charge of the child, as a son of Hades and godfather to this kid, Nico is duty-bound to fulfill Bob's last will and go find this like 2 year old to make sure they're safe. So Nico has to undertake this very unusual quest (that raises many questions, such as "demititans are a thing?" and "DOES THIS MEAN THERE'S POTENTIALLY MORE-?!" and "SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS?") and is kind of freaking out because. He's the son of Hades! He's notoriously bad with living things, and animals, and definitely small children! Even if he does find this kid and assure they're safe, he is the last person who should be undergoing any kind of quest involving even potentially having to babysit. Fortunately, his boyfriend is the human embodiment of sunshine and calmness and good vibes, and also once helped a nymph give birth, so he feels Marginally More Confident in theoretical demititan babysitting and offers to come along on this Epic Journey of Figuring Out What In Hades' Name Is Up With This Demititan Baby Business.
Proceed with wholesome epic shenanigans quest of Nico and Will scurrying around trying to locate this random OP baby while Nico has an existential crisis about the nature of his powers because he doesn't want to let Bob down! Both for Hades Kid Honor Reasons and because Bob was his friend! But what if he's destined to fail this quest just because of who he is? Because he's simply not built for hanging out with the living/mortals? And Will reassuring him that He Will Probably Not Traumatize The Weird OP Titan Baby And It'll Be Fine, and simultaneously getting a peek into the weird other life Nico leads hanging out with immortals much more than the average demigod, which Nico considers his norm. Bonus shenanigans of both of them getting caught off-guard and culture shocked from where each other's respective worlds (Nico's mostly-immortal versus Will's mostly-mortal) cross over and learning to navigate those for each other - Nico finally starting to make some mortal connections and get glimpses at modern mortal American life, and Will trying not to get his brain literally incinerated while Nico's happily casually catching up with some of his old friends who happen to be literal gods.
298 notes
·
View notes