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the-blind-assassin-12 · 11 months

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Tidal Force

A MERMAY ONE SHOT

A/N: Here we are with yet another thing I had no intention of writing but that grabbed hold of my brain and wouldn’t let go - a mermaid au (sort of, you’ll see) featuring Din Djarin. Hence why I am posting this in the very middle of the night (which is actually kind of appropriate for this story... again, you’ll see). I had fun with it, and I hope that you will, too.

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: deep water, brief mention of injury, female reader who is for all purposes a mermaid, departure from canon because if we’re throwing mermaids in we can also throw some canon out. i have spoken.

Summary: You’ve always felt drawn to the moon, you just never really knew why. Until now.

As far back as you could remember, you had always felt the pull of the moon.

It would start in your chest - a slow swell of longing that eventually became impossible to ignore. Not that you ever wanted to. Equal parts ache and bliss, curiosity and apprehension, it would tug you towards the open water with just one thought echoing through your mind:

Maybe tonight. Maybe this time.

You knew it was improbable. Even as you cut through the current, the cool water gliding over your skin and the iridescent scales of your fins, you knew. Even as you rose up, up, up through the depths, and those thoughts repeated over and over again, you knew. Even as you swam with all of your speed and strength towards the source of the pull, you knew what you were most likely to find - nothing but the thick, glassy ceiling that separated your world from the surface, from the topside, from the silver-white glow of Concordia’s kiss.

But maybe.

Maybe it would be the night that the legends were proven true. Maybe you would finally see the sky, feel fresh air, be kissed by the moonlight. A rush of warmth would bubble through your bloodstream. Maybe it would be the night that you left the sunken, sealed depths of the Sundari Sea, shed your tail and stepped out on dry land.

Maybe tonight.

You tried, each time, not to let your hopes soar too high. But the lure of the moon was no match for your will, and each time you rose only to be disappointed by the press of your palm against the crystalized barrier between worlds. You would sigh, curling your fingertips against the semi-transparent ceiling. The swell in your chest would begin to recede as you gazed up through the glass and wondered if any of it was true. If there ever even was a topside. And if there wasn’t, you wondered if you would ever be free of the pull.

Not tonight.

You would return to your home, swimming back into the deep and down through the channels that connected the sea to the underground system of beskar caves and saltwater lakes, where the rest of your kind lived. It was safe there. Secluded, yes, but safe from attack or invasion. You would curl back up in your bed and remind yourself of that, and as the current settled around you again, you recalled the stories from your childhood, falling asleep with your favorites playing through your mind.

The kiss of Concordia. The one who lived in both worlds. The sea maiden who rescued the topside king.

According to the myths you were raised on, Mandalore had once been a very different planet than it was now - one with lush forests that were rich with natural resources, one that was home to the most skilled warriors in the galaxy. These topsiders encased themselves in armor made from the beskar that lined the underwater caves, the very same mineral that the shimmery, chain-link clothing your people wore on their top halves was made from, and an agreement was made between the two worlds of Mandalore - that those above, in their impenetrable suits of steel, would offer protection from outside enemies to those below in exchange for access to the beskar.

For centuries the agreement held, and relations between the Mandalorians of the Sundari Sea and those who lived on land continued to remain peaceful. The legends even told of a sea maiden named Cyare and the leader of the land dwellers who had fallen in love despite not being able to share the same world. The man had been shot down in some skirmish over the sea, and the weight of his armor had dragged him down, fast. Unconscious and injured, he surely would have died had the sea maiden not found him and pulled him back up to the surface.

She stayed with him for days until he woke, tended to his wounds for weeks and cared for him until he was healed. The bond that was formed between them was so pure and powerful, so full of love, that on the night before he was to return home to his people, as the light of the full moon touched her skin, she was transformed. Her scaled tailfin became two legs, and she rose from the water to stand beside her beloved, the final barrier between their worlds broken.

The stories almost always ended with the prophecy that one day, another sea maiden of Mandalore would be called to rescue another Mandalorian warrior, and that their moonlit union would signify another long and prosperous era of peace and protection between the two worlds.

But it was just a story.

You had been trying to tell yourself that for years. Others of your kind let go of those legends as they got older, moved on and accepted that they were nothing but tall tales spun to entertain imaginative children. None of them were pulled from their chambers in the middle of the night by some force of the tide each time the moon was full. None of them longed to have the chance to walk on land, none of them needed to know what the moonlight felt like.

Because it isn’t even possible.

There were other stories that you’d grown up with, but those weren’t ones you liked to remember. They told of war and destruction so brutal and violent that it had ravished the planet, left it stripped and scarred, decimated the oceans. Layers of crust and crystalized vapor overtook the entire surface, sealing the sea beneath them. Any topsiders who survived those wars had long since forgotten that the Sundari Sea had ever existed, and then they, too, had ceased to exist.

The legends told of an event known as the Great Purge - an attack on Mandalore that was meant to erase its people once and for all. That one, though the heaviest and most upsetting of them all, was unfortunately also the one that was most likely true. Afterall, no one had seen a topsider in close to a hundred years.

And that includes the moon. No one has seen the moon since before the Great Purge.

It was that thought that broke your heart the most. Because it meant that the stories and the prophecy were only just that - legends and fables. But even realizing this, you knew that the next time you felt the pull of the moon you would still follow it. Even knowing that it was impossible, you would still seek the open air and the silver light and the possibility that the land dwelling Mandalorians might return one day.

– – – –

“But the mines were destroyed in the Purge.”

How am I supposed to bathe in the Living Waters if I can’t even get to them?

He stood opposite the Armorer, the weight of her visor of her golden helm trained directly on him.

“This is the Way.”

Her reply was one he’d heard countless times before. But that had been the first time that it hadn’t felt like reassurance. Still, he returned the words and accepted the challenge. Because even if it was impossible, it was the only path he could take.

This is the Way.

When Bo-Katan had declined his invitation to join him on his journey to Mandalore, he had been further disheartened. She had once been the spearhead of the initiative to retake the ancestral homeworld of their people. To hear her say that Mandalore was lost, that she had no desire to return to it anymore didn’t make him feel any better about the chances of his mission being a success.

But I have to try. I have to.

“Then I will go alone.”

She glared at him from the throne in the great hall of her stronghold on Kalevala. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, Din Djarin.” A mirthless laugh left her lips as she raised one hand towards the door. “Go on. Leave me in peace.”

He did as she asked then, but when he landed safely on the surface of Mandalore several days later and found that it wasn’t toxic or poisoned or blown to pieces like she and others had said it was, he felt far from foolish. For the first time since being told that he was no longer a Mandalorian, he felt something start to swell inside him. Hope. With help from R5 he was able to scan the surface and locate the ruins of the civic center in the city of Sundari, beneath which lay the mines and the Living Waters.

When he was attacked by a pack of Alamites along the way, he hadn’t noticed that one of them had managed to sink its tusk between his chest plate and shoulder pauldron. He’d dispatched them before the pain could register, and that had been further delayed as the last one fell with a thud, clearing his view and giving him his first glimpse at what he’d thought was impossible.

Redemption.

Instead of destroying them, the seismic activity of the Purge had actually deepened the waters, opening up underground aquifers that hadn’t been accessed in centuries. Stumbling forwards, he made his way into the shallows, reciting the words of the Creed aloud in the empty chamber. But halfway through, he lost his step and suddenly the weight of his armor and the pull of the water was too much for his battle-weakened body, and he was plummeting. Down, down, down to the depths.

– – – –

You woke with a jolt, gasping and clutching at your chest.

It had never been so strong. Where it normally began as a gentle pull, that night it was as though a hook had lodged itself in your heart and was dragging you into motion.

Tonight. You thought, and it was the first time that you felt so sure, the first time that there wasn’t a maybe attached. Tonight. Tonight.

You raced through the channels and rose towards the surface, but this time, instead of following the same path you always took, you felt the pull take you a different way.

But this doesn’t lead to the surface. This just leads to the old mines and the…

It was then that you remembered the last detail of the story about Cyare and the Mandalorian king. The pool of water where she was able to stay close to him after rescuing him had since been built around and used ceremoniously as a place of new life and fresh starts.

They called it the Living Waters. That’s… that’s where I’m going now.

You weren’t sure why, because you knew for a fact that the moon wouldn’t be visible from there. But the urgency you felt only grew with each beat of your heart, and you swam faster than ever to find out why. And you didn’t have to wait long.

As soon as you arrived, your eyes doubled in size as you saw him - the figure of a man from the world above, clad head to toe in shiny beskar armor just like in the myths, plunging through the dark, cold water to what would certainly be his demise.

I have to help him!

You couldn’t be sure if the thought came first, or if it was your grip beneath his arms, but once you had him securely in your hold, you darted straight up until you breached the water and were surrounded by the cathedral like cavern of the partially collapsed mines. With a powerful push of your tail, you lifted the man up onto the steps that led out of the water. For a few terrible seconds you waited, watching his chest for the rise and fall of breaths, wondering if you’d been too late. But just as you were about to reach out and touch him again, a cough came from under his helmet and relief flooded your whole being.

“You’re alive!” The rush of joy you felt over that simple statement was almost too much. Another round of coughing and sputtering came as his reply, and then you noticed the blood. Oh, no. Frowning, you looked down at him. “But you’re hurt. Don’t move, let me take a look.”

“Who…” He coughed again as you pressed both hands to the gap between the metal covering his body. “Who are you?”

You licked a few stray drops of water from your lips and told him your name. “I am a sea maiden of Mandalore.” Narrowing your eyes, you peered at his wound and sighed as you realized it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and that you’d be able to patch it up with paste made from the grasses that grew in the lakebed of these waters. “Who are you?”

He panted out a few uneven breaths and groaned as he sat up slightly. “My name is Din Djarin. I-” He sucked in a breath and you pulled your hands away, sinking further down into the water. When he spoke again, he did so with a small but noticeable shake of his head. “I didn’t know that there were sea folk on Mandalore.”

That actually made you smile. “And I didn’t know that there were any topsiders left on Mandalore.” He tilted his chin, the curve of his helmet catching a reflection from the water, but before he could speak again he flinched and grabbed for his injured shoulder. “Hold on,” you told him, lifting one finger. “I’ll be right back.”

With that you disappeared beneath the water in search of the grass you knew to have medicinal properties, snatching up a handful and rising back up. Crushing it between your fingers and mixing it with water in your palm, you turned it to a paste and held it up. “This will help with your shoulder.”

He didn’t protest, nodding instead, and you moved quickly to apply the treatment. As you drew your hand back again, he said your name. “Thank you. For saving me.”

You smiled at him again, still buzzing with adrenaline from what had happened. “You’re welcome, Din Djarin of Mandalore.”

“Actually…” He sighed and circled the shoulder you had just finished tending to, clearly surprised at how quickly the salve had gone to work. “This is my first time here on Mandalore. I was raised on the moon of Concordia.”

You felt the shock that you were sure he saw on your face, your thoughts beginning to race wildly.

Concordia. The moon. That’s why- He’s why… Why I felt the pull tonight. It wasn’t the moon it was… it was him. He was what I’ve been drawn to. And now he’s here and-

“Are you alright? Did I say something to-” He reached for your arm then, and you realized that one of his gloves must have been lost when he was dragged down, because you felt his skin brush yours, as light as a kiss.

Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.

As soon as he touched you it started - a tingling sensation throughout your body. Looking down at your lower half, you watched in awe as the scales of your tail transformed into the same chain link material of your shirt, lengthening into a dress that covered a pair of legs instead of a tail.

“What… what happened, are you…” He rose somewhat shakily to stand beside you.

You grasped onto him, unsure if it was for his stability or yours at that point, but it didn’t matter. It was all true. The myth. The prophecy. Concordia’s kiss. It was too soon to tell if the rest of the story would ring true - the part concerning the romance and the lifelong bond that Cyare and the Mandalorian in the myth would share - but there would be plenty of time to see how that would unfold now that your two worlds had been joined. Lifting your eyes to the darkened visor you imagined his must be behind, you took a deep breath.

“I have been waiting a very long time for this night.” You nodded and swallowed a thick knot of complicated emotions. “We have to talk. About the future of Mandalore.”

Returning your nod, and gently gripping your forearm, he responded. “This is the Way.”

Thank you for reading! If you would like to be added to or removed from the taglist, please feel free to let me know or you can fill out the form on my masterlist.

tags: @something-tofightfor @gollyderek @pheedraws @beautifuldesastre @alraedesigns @valkblue @commanderlola @cannedsoupsucks @dihra-vesa @marauderskeeper @disgruntledspacedad @littlemisspascal @mishasminion360 @stevie75 @nyctophiliiiiaaa @practicalghost @tanzthompson @harriedandharassed @woodlandmouth @swtaura @thescarletfang @trickstersp8 @princessxkenobi @imtryingmybeskar @wildmoonflower @mswarriorbabe80 @hp-hogwartsexpress @theredwritingwitch @silverstarsandsuns @competentpotato @pedro-pedrito-pascalito @pedrostories

#mermay 2023 #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x you #din djarin mermaid au #mando x female reader #mando x you #the mandalorian fic #the mandalorian mermaid au #mando mermaid au #this is the way #tidal force #din djarin one shot #pedrostories

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theclockworkkidart · 11 months

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(LotL Mer AU/OC) I’ve been working on this one over the past few days. I haven’t been feeling well but I managed to make this before the end of MerMay-

It’s a redraw with the 2019 version below the cut. My Land of the Lustrous Mer AU has the three main races switching domains (Gems are now in the Sea as merfolk, Lunarians (who are just humans in the AU) live on land). The Merfolk try to live their normal lives but humans in boats keep capturing them in nets and never returning them.

Here’s my OC Crazy Lace Agate as a merperson, their tail is heavily inspired by koi fish.

[Image Description: A digital drawing of a merperson floating on their back in calm blue green water. The view is from the top down looking at the merperson. Their tail resembles a koi fish and their colour scheme is composed of spots of white, orange, and dark brown. Their hair is long and choppy and made to resemble the mineral crazy lace agate. Rocks can vaguely be seen in the water below to the right of the image.]

#land of the lustrous #houseki no kuni #lotl #hnk #lotl crazy lace

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furiarossa · 11 months

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An old water-themed design for last year's Mermay; this cutie is Perlina, a character that, we're happy to say, now belongs to our lovely friend @contra--mundi!

Rumius are an original species invented and managed by us; small pets inspired by crystals, minerals & co.! She's of the Spectrepearl morph and her design is, of course, inspired by pearls 💙

To know everything there is to know, you can satisfy your curiosity by checking out the Rumiu Genalogical Registry (where you can see all the rumius existing and their info) and the Species Sheet (to learn about their biology, diet, and much more).

#rumiu #loquispinae basilicus #oc #creature design #original character #traditional art #colored work #art #my art #the way of legends #2023 #contr--mundi

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esculentevil · 11 months

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(Thorinduil + Thingoropher AU) The Heart of the Mermaid/Miner

((Thorinduil Mermaid/Miner AU partly inspired by @rosalind-wt-blog’s art here; also for MerMay; ALSOalso: sorry this is so short, it’s really just a gloss ok: no it’s not: it was MEANT to be one but then my idiot brain decided “NO! It needs DETAILS!!! I need to explain THIS and explain THAT!!! Now, once more, from the top, WITH FEELING!!!” x.x, and alsox3 for the Thingol/Oropher dump: while trying to decide/figure out how Duil could be trying to get back his heart while heartless [which launched its OWN debate of how fitting that would be from a he’s so heartless viewpoint], I unintentionally created a really cool background history for this AU that I just HAD to use; and, conveniently, it made it both possible and logical to fit my other OTP in here so... yea; enjoy?))

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆💎AO3🦪/⛏️Pillowfort🌲☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆

Long ago, during the course of the First Age, The Great Elven King Elu Thingol requested the aid of the Dwarf Lords of Old.

“Fashion for me a necklace befitting this gem,” he’d ordered, loud and grand, displaying for all present (the dwarrow lords in question, members of his court, his wife--giver of said gem--and child, lords and ladies of distant elvish lands) one large jewel glowing an enchanting golden hue that mesmerized them all.

But none more so than the dwarrows employed to frame it.

They coveted this gem, worshiped it as True Gold, and endeavored to have it--and have it they did: on the day they deemed to present the necklace made, they snatched the golden gem from the great elven king and brought his wrath down upon themselves and all their kin; and, thus, the land of Erebor was taken, the dwarrows within conquered and claimed, and Elu Thingol crowned anew: both Elfking and Dwarfking.

Thorin had grown up with this tale sung low and long into his heart.

His mother had whispered it to him, behind his father’s back, every night since his birth in the Third Age--long after the dwarrows of Erebor lost their mountain, freedom, and gold to the white waif of an elf they must since call their king.

Thrain had never liked her telling of it, saying it was too kind and considerate and more lie than truth for the Dwarf Lords of Old--the REAL Dwarfkings, that is--had simply taken what they were due when the blasted Elfking refused to pay; but Fis, arguably the stubbornest of all dwarf dames, ignored his eternal protests and kept telling it, insisting that it was important for Thorin to know all truths.

And, so, he did.

Not that it did much good.

By the time he was old enough to mine and make like his father and forefathers, Thorin had already come to agree with Thrain and Thror (his grandfather and one of Erebor’s true kings) about the events they were all too young to see.

This is why, when Thorin unearths something so precious and pretty and perfect as he mines, he shows it to his father and grandfather and NOT his mother.

She would have only had him turn it in to the false king.

Together, and with the blessings of the remains of the true dwarven lordships, the Sons of Durin settle on a name for this priceless treasure: The Arkenstone.

Elsewhere, deep under the surface of--not rock and stone but--sea and water, this item is known by a different name: The Heart of the Green Sea’s King.

The land of Greenwater is one far below the Surface World. It is a land of sand and coral and thermal vents and darkness with speckles of light--not of the sun but of those inhabiting it: merms, merfolk, merpeople--whichever you prefer.

They go by many names; but surface dwellers usually call them monsters.

To Thranduil, however, it is THEM whom are the true monsters.

Legolas, Thranduil’s son, does not agree with this.

He thinks they’re strange, sure, but in a cute way. And the hairy ones are cutest, he often says; and Thranduil can never bring himself to say they’re the grossest--for that’s his opinion and, like his own father, he likes his son’s independence.

But that’s just the problem: his father may not be his father for much longer.

Oropher, King of Greenwater of the Great Green Sea, is DYING.

And, to his grandson’s tears, the fault lies in The Hairy Ones.

Thus, Thorin and Thranduil meet: above the sea but below the stone.

Deep inside a cave dwarrows use to bathe, the merm surfaces in a hot spring--utilizing the heat of it for that is what he is accustomed to from the thermal vents--and finds his head almost taken off--not by Thorin’s axe or sword or even a bow and arrow, no, but by his bare hands: wet and hot and coarse and thick and STRONG; almost enough to choke him on the first try.

Almost.

Thorin might be powerful in his own way but he’s still just a tiny little short dwarf: he is NOTHING compared to the raw might of a merm’s tail, least of all Thranduil’s impossibly long, mithril encrusted, starlight one.

It chokes him back, digging the toughest metal directly into his tough naked skin, and squeezes not just his neck but his head and torso and whole body as well until he’s dizzy and breathless and SIGHTLESS--

King Thingol is not impressed when he hears the young dwarf miner’s account: he’s intrigued.

He’s heard tales of these tails before, long ago when sails from Valinor meant crossing the Ocean Green and seeing the sights only Valar, Maiar, and Eldar do.

Merfolk are legends: beings of the deepest seas that can command them like Elves do land, the Valar do Arda, and Elu Illuvatar does Everything; it has, thus, been a long held belief (supported by The One not really knowing much of them) that these sea creatures are the only form of independent life anywhere.

And Elu Thingol has always been interested in them thusly...

It is this interest that has Thorin, a thick and heavy and burly and land-loving DWARF, swimming down the underwater tunnel his would-be-killer had used.

The path leads him passed the mining holes and the hot springs’ halls and even the lowest housing units used by the nobility and ROYALTY of the dwarrows.

And that irritates him: the fact that this MONSTER--which came upon him while he was NAKED and trying to RELAX and TAKE A WELL-DESERVED, HOT, PAMPERING BATH--might not only have COME FROM but also very well LIVE down there where it’s DEEPER than even DWARROWS can live.

But he does not let it show, does not let it interfere, because, as the hole opens and leads him into this insultingly deeper dwelling... he will have his REVENGE.

Or so he thought.

Thorin did not come unprepared on this endeavor--he wasn’t ALLOWED to--and it shows.

Equipped with oil-slicked clothing [spun by elves for only they could be so ick], an ancient [but admittedly powerful for a metal item forged by elves] blade named Orcrist, and a[n ELVEN] spell that allows him to breathe like a fish underwater [seriously, these ELVES have the absolute WEIRDEST things...], Thorin’s task isn’t nearly as hard as it probably could be--but he [and his father and grandfather] is certain the weird spell is the only thanks the elves deserve.

Especially as the freaks are known for making GLOWY THINGS and THIS blade DOESN’T GLOW despite how HELPFUL that would be in the DARK DEEP (and, yes, he’s irritated about this because the elves made a POINT to SAY it glows--around ORCS, they said, whatever THOSE are--as though that’s a huge selling point even though, one, it’s not being SOLD, and, two, THERE’RE NO ORCS!!!)!

Except, Thorin finds (and, no, he’s not sure if the elves KNEW this before so still fire and flame to them), that a glowing sword wouldn’t have been that helpful: EVERYONE DOWN HERE GLOWS.

This makes finding the specific monster HE is looking for not particularly hard; however, it DOES make stealthing around much more difficult than it should be--even for a dwarf.

Everywhere he goes, he has to be sure not to get caught in any merthing’s light--or DISTRACTED by it because, blast it, it’s BEAUTIFUL most of the time--especially that of the one he’s actually looking for--even if his false king isn’t.

Elu Thingol isn’t particularly interested in WHICH merthing he brings back so long as he DOES bring back ONE.

Thorin just hopes to hit two stones.

He finds him surrounded by what he can only call his young.

They are all smaller than him and, although only one of them LOOKS like him, they all seem to do or move or even sound similar to him like Thorin (and Dis, his sister, and Frerin, his brother) does with his father and even grandfather (or mother in the case of Dis; their grandmother remains unknown to them).

And that’s a problem: if these littler merthings are his children...

Thorin can’t; he just... but he MUST.

And so he does.

He waits for the young ones to finish combing their hair--long and luscious locks of varying colors but mostly dark browns which he figures come from the mother (whom Thorin doesn’t see but can only assume must be unbelievably beautiful; worthy, certainly, of--MONSTER; that thing is a MONSTER; he’s not beautiful)--and (re)placing braids in each other’s before laying down in each other’s arms and tails and hair and fins and seeming to go to sleep like his younger siblings.

Thorin ignores the warm clench in his chest at the thought and sight.

Instead, he silently follows the beautiful monster that came onto him.

The glowing creature leads him to a cavernous room filled with wealth.

Gemstones that glitter under the merthing’s glow. Coins that catch all eyes. Metals that match the gray crust his almost murderer wears upon his long tail. Gold and silver and copper and garnets and sapphires and chrysoprases.

MOUNTAINS of them.

And upon them, in the center of the room, is a throne of giant white diamonds; and, upon it...

The Great King of Greenwater the Great of the Great Green Sea sleeps, seemingly, upon his white diamond throne amongst the well wishes and offerings of his loving people, frightened and sad and desperate to get him back.

But, the gaping hole in his chest, where his heart once lay centuries ago and long before the beginning of his reign, sits black and hollow and DARK.

Oropher the Green Maelstrom sits empty and barren upon his throne, surrounded by love and light but none of it his own.

For his heart, a beautiful giant glowing green pearl which should be buried deep within the living coral stone of his much beloved home above his giant throne, has been taken--MINED--by the very monster creeping into his royal dome.

One important thing to note about merms: their hair isn’t actually hair.

Technically, it is; but only in the sense that these long locks are really hair cells.

They’re receptors, delicate but strengthened by their unusually large size, and pick up everything from sound waves to actual waves that indicate movement.

Such as that of some creepy monster coming up behind one.

Thranduil might have noticed it sooner if he weren’t so tired.

In the wake of his father’s technical absence, he has been forced into his role: Thranduil is now king--however temporarily (and by the currents does he hope this is all going to end shortly with his father up and ruling as he does normally)--and doing his best to juggle both his father’s duties, his own duties as prince and father (and, yes, a part of him wishes he could tack husband back onto that list, if only so he could have back the comfort, aid, and love of his long gone wife), AND the duty of retaking his father’s heart so they can ALL return to normal.

But he does not notice the creeping presence as it enters, so wrapped is he within his woe and weep and want and wish for his father to return to him them.

And even when he did notice, he thought it was simply one of his many children--for why WOULD he assume one of The Hairy Ones from up above would come in the dead of night and follow him into his father’s seemingly empty abode?

What actually tipped him off was the lack of light.

Despite the movement he could feel through both the waves and his long hair, no new light came with it--and that’s strange as all merms glow (but his father... now, at least) with the light of life and love (the reason his father is now so dark: without his heart at least tangentially connected to him through his throne/home, he technically has neither, now... it is why everymerm has tried to fill the room with their love imbued minerals and metals, hoping to substitute their own love for his but it isn’t working and Thranduil’s panicking and that’s why he WENT there, up to The Hairy Ones, in the hopes to END THIS--to get his father BACK).

Confused and realizing it’s not one of his sons or daughters but expecting, really, little more than a random fish he could maybe make them all a little pet out of, the prince-king of the wetland realm turns around and finds himself trapped, staring down the business end of a fully loaded handheld harpoon gun.

And the one holding that gun... the very first Hairy One he’s touched.

Thorin can breathe underwater--this is the one thing he and his people will thank those blasted elves for--BUT--blast those idiots--he isn’t able to TALK.

Of course, he isn’t sure the merthings can--the monster didn’t bother speaking when he came upon him possibly as nude as he had been (which, truly, is just... a WEIRD thought--the thing is nude even NOW and Thorin’s not really sure what, exactly, to DO with that thought)--but he assumes they have a language--of SOME kind--that’s probably as alien to him as the waifish noise elves make.

Thingol actually said (yes, he was listening--only out of necessity, mind: preparedness is important; especially when one is embarking on a task alone) that their language, in the legends, was described like music and song: instruments for vocal chords and an orchestra in the throat.

Regardless of what is true: Thorin lets his gun talk for him.

That and his head.

He nods it in the direction he wants the merthing to go--back towards the tunnel--and keeps the gun trained on his (and Thingol’s) prize.

The monster, not an idiot, clenches its (Thorin isn’t sure what these things are--he passed by many of them but found no real way of telling their age or gender--and this one, especially, is a monster to him anyway) fists (in a move far too... SIMILAR to be comfortable) and, after glancing one last time at the figure shadowed and shattered and slain upon the spectacular diamond throne, obediently swims towards the hidden hole while giving the dwarf a wide berth.

Thorin pointedly ignores the sympathetic clench the monster’s horrified face makes him feel as they swim over the still sleeping bodies of his children.

Thingol praises Thorin upon his return, monstrous merthing in figurative hand.

Thorin’s father and grandfather and other such dwarven family are equally proud and impressed and pester him endlessly for information on the strange things.

Fis, however, is not either of these things.

No: she is furious.

Thorin didn’t think this was much of a problem: his mother usually calms down after enough time is given--although, yes, apologies often help speed up things.

He isn’t a liar, though; and, while a part of him feels bad for the children, yes, he’s not at all sorry to bring his own assailant to justice.

However, his mother does not agree--she does not SEE things this way--and, so, she demands--no: forces!--him to beg for forgiveness.

Fis, somehow knowing exactly where her husband and father-in-law hid it, takes and TURNS IN The Arkenstone.

Thingol is mesmerized by it--more so than he was by even the glowing gold gem that started this all those years ago--just as the dwarrows knew he’d be (because, obviously, they had been).

He’s also angered by their treachery.

They’re punished accordingly: incarceration in cages upon the mountaintop; barred caves otherwise open and vulnerable to the weathering elements; exposed holes in full view of the sun and moon and air and WATER and DORIATH, Thingol’s original/elven/forest kingdom just northwest of Erebor, where they are rendered naked and bared of their mountain’s wonderful and warm weight like worms tugged up by winter-weak, willowy birds.

And if this jarring removal from all that Thorin has known and held dear forever weren’t so horrid and painful and enraging, the young dwarven prince of Erebor would actually be more afraid of his mother’s still very present ire than Thingol’s.

The reason being, of course, that Fis isn’t done.

O, no: the great dwarf dame of Erebor has only just begun!

She may not fully understand what, exactly, it is that her son unearthed that day; but she DOES understand that it is not a toy or a treasure like THEY understand.

No, it is a heart--a PERSON--those same walls her son now misses and craves tell her--whispers into her mind through her dreams in the dead of night--and Oropher’s Heart MUST Be Returned!

And so, as she has always done, Fis obeys her true royal ruler--her mountain--and approaches her non-kin king with determination.

He is almost too distracted to notice her: The Arkenstone--as her son called it--lies like a cold star in his hands, brilliant and bright but also bitter and biting; despite it baring the same blue as a hot and sunny day, there is no warmth in it, no heart: there is no love in the glowing object; just immeasurable sadness.

It wants to go home; it wants to return to Orofer; it wants its FAMILY back.

And Fis aims to grant its wish.

“Such a lovely item, your majesty,” she begins, very carefully, and bows deeply after entering the Elvenking’s [Ereborian] throne room.

King Thingol hardly answers her, seems to not really hear her, and barely hums in acknowledgment of her praise or presence; and, for Fis, that is both good and bad: on one hand, it means he’s too enthralled by the blue gemstone in question to bother with her or what she has to say (which should mean a lot of leeway); but, on the other, it means he’s so enthralled by it... he might not give it up--which he NEEDS to do.

And Fis is determined to make that happen: “About as lovely as the merm, yes?

“I wonder which is lovelier?”

It was a good question; so good, it got Thingol to act.

The Great Elvenking quickly ordered the throne room closed to all visitors and had all of his foreseeable engagements cancelled for the rest of the day. Then, he made his way to his personal rooms--freshly (relatively--it’s been millennia) carved into the highest parts of The Lonely Mountain which he conquered almost effortlessly thousands of years ago (and, coincidently, directly above where Thorin and his accomplices are caged in their little cave-cells)--wherein the merm is collared and chained with dwarven metal and elven lock to his tub (really a grotto the dwarrows working on his chambers connected to a hot spring far below--probably the very one this creature attacked his miner-now-prisoner) (he chose this method of containment not just because it keeps the treasure inside HIS own space but also because it seems to need the heated water).

The creature hisses angrily at him--still, it does not speak.

But it DOES do something ELSE when it sees the gem.

Thingol had expected many things when he entered his rooms with the stone.

He expected the anger, for that is all the undersea being has been since arriving even back when it FIRST came to attack Thorin, and even the silence (again: NOTHING has been spoken or uttered by this thing but for HISSES--sometimes, Thingol actually wonders if it’s truly fish these things are based off of or snakes); he’d expected it to be as enthralled by the blue jewel as they have all been--or even, for perhaps this thing (as unbelievable as this thought might actually be since the merm is COVERED in precious minerals and metals of his own) simply isn’t able to appreciate the beautiful things in life, completely ignore it.

But what he DIDN’T expect...

Were tears.

It’s beautiful, in a way.

Not the tears!

No, not those.

The SONG.

Fis cries as she hears it, too: the long, deep, mournful cries of hopelessness and loss that are so loud, so resonant, so HURT... they can ALL hear it.

Thorin looks up from his cave of a cage and, for a moment, ceases to breathe; he isn’t sure HOW he knows, but he DOES: those painfilled wails are from HIM.; and a part of him thinks he should be happy about this--serves the monster right--but... he can’t.

NONE of them can.

And, this time, he mustn't.

The other thing that happens that Thingol was not expecting is a HOLE.

He’d known, of course, that the cells were virtually right under him/his rooms; what he hadn’t known was just HOW CLOSE that meant they were (and, legitimately, he can appreciate the cleverness behind the dwarrows doing this): Thorin and his company barely had to tunnel their way through the mountain before they are BLASTING through his bedroom floor!

The young dwarven prince, backed by his family and friends, stands dwarf-tall--covered in ash (possibly remains of fires used to attempt to say warm) and debris (from the tunneling) and all manners of filth (more the fault of the dwarrow designers, Thingol thinks, than his own--it really isn’t his fault they all chose, while building the cave-cage-cells, NOT to put certain things as though RUNOFF is good enough for a shower [even IF they have a surprisingly good waterfall here] over his near naked undershirt and thermals)--and admittedly menacing.

Or, at least, as menacing as a five foot dwarf can be to a nine foot tall elf.

The only good thing about this sudden breach is the shocked silence that it brings to the sea creature: even Thranduil had not expected THAT of all things.

Thorin bellows a war cry unheard in almost an age before he’s charging Thingol, bare fists raised in filth from digging through what only a dwarf could toolless; Thrain and Thror and several other dwarrows--friends and family of Thorin--follow after him and, in a blink, Thingol is overwhelmed and taken down.

The young dwarf prince seizes his chance and--as his father and grandfather and cousins and brother all converge upon the Elfking-no-longer-Dwarfking--snatches the glowing blue gemstone from Thingol’s weakened grasp.

His eyes then lock with the starlit silver that is the merthing’s gaze.

The Arkenstone is heavy in his palm--unnaturally so--as he continues to stare.

It alternates between frigid cold and furious heat, almost as though it is thanking him and cursing him all at once AND back and forth--as though it can’t decide which stance to take: hate or love; gratitude or resentment; joy or sadness.

It’s reminiscent of the glow itself: while mostly blue, there’s a fluctuation inside it of yellows, golds, oranges, and even pinks and purples and reds and GREENS that gives it an almost white light--as though one is holding the sun in their hand.

And all that light, that flux, shines brightest in the hope of the merthing’s eyes.

Dwarves make the best hidden doors and the strongest of all the metals abound, of this there is no doubt; but--sadly--even Thorin must admit that the best locks are not actually dwarven ones: no, this make lies in the talents of the gray elves whom somehow make the pieces of the locks, themselves... STICK together: there is no picking to be done when there is no SPACE between or EXPLANATION why the two halves don’t just simply FALL apart!

NOTHING is really keeping the collar together, as far as either Thorin or ... IT can tell; and yet it does not open or even look like it can! To either of them!

Therefore, as his family and friends fight the enraged Thingol behind them, Thorin kneels before the bejeweled creature and takes its chains in his hands.

And then: he PULLS.

Elves may have clever gadgets and powerful creations and straight up magic but nothing they have/make/do can/will ever stand up to a purely pissed off dwarf--especially if all Thorin has to do is yank the connection point from the wall.

As the item in question clatters to the floor, a new silence comes to the room.

Part of it is shock that Thorin just DID that--just RIPPED the entire CHAIN straight out of the WALL--but most of it is actually what ELSE Thorin just did:

The merm is holding The Arkenstone.

“Get ‘im home, son!”

Fis grins proudly at her eldest, eyes bright with unshed tears that are probably more left overs from how the merm’s heart-wrenching song had made her feel than anything else; she had run all the way from the throne room to Thingol’s when she heard the wail, expecting the worst, and couldn’t be happier, now.

She’s still angry, mind, and Thorin knows--now that he’s actually sorry about it--he’ll have to apologize properly to her later; but, for now, he’s making amends.

At least with his mother: “Orofer needs ‘is heart back!”

Thranduil’s in his once-attacker’s arms before he really knows what’s going on.

The short little Hairy One (who’s actually quite tall now that he’s seen so many) is wide enough that the cradle of his hold is surprisingly nice and comfortable--ignoring that he can’t really fit the merm’s impossibly long tail inside of it.

Were they underwater, this would be fine as Thranduil’d be able to swim himself his tail would just trail through the currents; however, above the water... Thranduil winces as his tail starts dragging along the cold and rough stone floor.

He quickly tenses his muscles, coils the offended limb tight about their bodies, and--if he marvels at just how thick and strong and WARM the Hairy One is... well, that’s his business.

Thorin almost immediately drops the merm when he coils around him.

Memories of that night only a short while ago are still vivid in his taxed mind and his breath hitches more than it should while he’s sprinting down the mountain’s insides to get the tailed creature down to the hot springs far below them (since that’s literally the only surefire way he knows to get the starlit one safely home) as the shadow of those long and coiling muscles overlap with the breathless, dizzy, SIGHTLESSNESS of almost being choked to death by his charge.

It is only the knowledge that he struck the other first, almost killed HIM first, and the command of his beloved mother that prevents him from actually dropping him.

And his pride.

And also, if he can be perfectly honest (at least with himself): the warmth of him, the softness of his skin, the smooth texture of his otherwise protected scales and the silkiness of his long and lustrous hair; the scent of the sea and algae and kelp and fruit and starlight and aquatic flowers (like the off-white lotuses that grow along the edges of their springs--where the water is a little cooler but still warm enough to keep them happy--although how they survive such little sun...) that permeates the air around him and wafts off him like light shines off crystals; the way he tucks himself closer and nuzzles his chin and TRUSTS HIM... true: it’s not FULL trust; but it’s there in its infancy and Thorin finds he wants to grow it.

By the time they’re in the hot spring, Thorin is panting and worrying.

For a split second, he fears the one thing he had to thank the elves for before: BREATHING UNDER WATER. Will he still be able to? Now that Thingol’s pissed at him and more than capable of just... (perhaps indirectly) drowning him???

He isn’t sure and he isn’t allowed to think much about it (the merm doesn’t know, after all, and therefore can’t be blamed for so eagerly returning to his element; he CAN, however, be questioned for grabbing Thorin’s hand and pulling on it).

Instead, he finds out through trial and error--the dwarvishest of ways.

Thingol is many things, though, including a monster when it suits/benefits him; but, no, he is not in the habit of murdering others by retracting a gift.

Just subjugating them.

If he had to guess, Thorin would figure Thingol is the reason the merm pulls him down under the surface with him--especially after they hear the distinct PLUNGE sounding from the hot springs telling them he’s coming after them.

For a moment, Thorin’s wounded and worried, freezing and panicking about what this must undoubtedly mean: for all that he loves his friends and family and people, overall, and for all that he is generally confident in how strong and powerful and resilient they all are, he knows Thingol is more so in every way.

There’s a reason, after all, he’s been able to be their forced king for millennia.

The image of his father and grandfather and brother and friends all dead--o, please, no defeated and downed on the floor of the Elvenking’s too-high rooms flashes in his mind before it’s dispelled and drowned by a soft and webbed hand (the one NOT clutching The Arkenstone--Orofer’s heart?) squeezing his rough and filthy one as the merm attached to it drags him deeper into the dark sea.

Everymerm is panicking in the throne room.

Their voices converge like an earsplitting orchestra and their light almost burns.

But, the sudden silence that falls when they all see their mature prince return with their beloved king’s heart and a Hairy One of all things...

Well, it makes the follow-up of an enraged Elvenking that much more deafening.

“Return the Arkenstone!!!”

Thingol’s voice echoes off the cavernous coral walls of the caveish throne room and ricochets off the mineral and metal mountains of riches ladden within it.

It vibrates the hearts of all those present, like a thunder clap shakes teardrops, and, for a moment, in between his near choking upon the very salt of the sea when it hits him that this means Thingol can SPEAK below as he does above, Thorin wonders if Orofer’s heart can feel the elf’s rage, too.

He honestly hopes it can’t.

(Let him be spared this.)

“It--HACKcoughUGHcoughCOUGHcouch--is not yours to begin with!”

Thorin does end up choking on the salty sea water surrounding him, after all, and he wonders how it is that the elf doesn’t have the same problem as him:

Has Thingol been down here before? (He DID say he was interested in them...)

Regardless of the answer, his coughing fit startled everymerm around him--especially the merm he came in with--and, so, they all turn to eye him worriedly--providing Thingol with a great opportunity.

He takes it, of course: both the opportunity and The Arkenstone.

The merm cries out and tries to take it back, tears in his already wet eyes and webbed fingers trying to be claws against the near triumphant elf.

Thorn cries out, too, enraged for the merm’s sake as well as those around them and also for his mother whom gave him this important assignment and, blast it, he will NOT disappoint her--never again.

The two pounce on the Elvenking and wrestle with him, all three trying to obtain the glowing blue gemstone--until it isn’t glowing blue anymore.

It’s green.

The three stop to stare at it, all taken aback.

Thranduil grins and sings with joy--his father recognizes his heart is near!

The merms around them realize what is happening, too, and begin to sing urgently and euphorically for the gem to be returned to its rightful place.

But, this isn’t all that they do: their joy and love is not bound by their voices, alone; no, is also lives in their minerals and metals, in their slates and stones, their coins and crystals, gems and gold: all of which now gleefully glow.

Thorin is mesmerized by it; awed and amazed; and so is King Thingol.

One of the things the elves’ spell doesn’t do is make the barer a better swimmer.

Swimming is something the bespelled must already be able to do--this is, actually, the main reason Thorin was so pissy about having to come down here: he CAN swim, yes, but he’s not very good at it; no dwarf really is; but elves...

Thingol, especially, can swim in ways Thorin and other dwarrows can not: specifically, by magically forcing air to do the swimming for them.

And, so, this is what King Thingol does as he nears Orofer.

“What beauty...” he murmurs, beholding the sight before him.

And while, yes, he IS looking at Orofer, that’s not really what he’s talking about: no, what he’s really referring to is the mountain the Mermking sits upon--and, no, not even the wealth and gold and GIANT DIAMOND: the LOVE.

It is a little known fact that the real reason elves condemn dwarves as greedy cretins is because they can see and FEEL it: dwarven hoards GLOW with greed whereas elven ones glow with PRIDE--even men’s hoards only glow with envy--and while each of these is a sinful glow, it is only the dwarves that attract worms.

This hoard’s glow, however, is something else ENTIRELY...

If Thingol had to say anything sinful about it, he’d probably suggest only one: lust.

Regardless of sin or saint, there is no denying the serenity that awashes him.

Nor is there any denying the siren call that compels him forward, gem in hand, towards the darkened, downed, shattered, shadowed king of the underworld.

The song echoes in his ears like a torrent--a storm--a MAELSTROM.

And it only quiets when Orofer the Great finally opens his green eyes.

The first thing the Mermking of Greenwater does is smile.

Not at Thingol, specifically, no: at the love he feels surging through him--all of it from his people and son and grandchildren and home--that’s been building--coalescing and accreting in his cavernous halls filled almost to point of bursting--for days.

His heart springs green--rich and vibrant and strong and enthralling--from both points--his chest and the coral above his throne from whence it was mined--and bathes the chamber in its emerald foresty magnetism for which is it named.

Greenwater the Great of the Great Green Sea is finally, once again, truly GREEN.

And King Thingol swears he could stare at this beauty for eons.

“Thank you, Graymantle.”

Thingol starts, overwhelmed, as the slowly warming creature beneath him shifts and speaks and suddenly stands to formally greet him--his royal guest.

“You have returned me.”

Webbed fingers, soft and heating and veined in green, caress Thingol’s cheek before the Mermking is swimming passed him and to his tearfully singing son; they embrace in showers of green and gold and gem and gentility and juveniles.

Thorin and Thingol are neigh on forgotten about; but they respectfully wait, realizing, in the ignorance, what their own almost took away.

“I apologize: my son should not have almost killed you.”

Thorin flushes and shifts under aforementioned son’s heated gaze. They’re all back where aforesaid deadly event took place--merms in the hot water while dwarf and elf sit in towels still being used to try and dry off--and trying to mend what almost became damaged beyond repair. King Orofer is extremely kind, understanding that neither of them could really help the way that they reacted and choosing, instead, to focus on the fact that they did, in the end, help his son and return his heart and offer both of their apologies and alliances and amends. “No, good king: it is I that attempted harm first; I am the one whom apologizes.”

Thorin looks up, as ashamed as he is anticipative; the mermprince looks back, starlit silver eyes cautiously curious and carefully contemplative.

Eventually, the whitette nods, “I should have tried talking to you.”

“A token of my gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” Oropher asks, warm lips turning up in a gentle smile as he swims towards the hot spring’s shore. There, kneeling beside his own simplified throne (for, while this is not a throne room, it is easier for them to conduct meetings together here than in either of their real ones; additionally, it rewrites the horrors the hot springs saw betwixt them in the beginning and now comforts them both), is Thingol the Graymantle, Elfking of Doriath and Elven co-king of Erebor, holding in his hands a beautiful necklace of mithril and emeralds and a gold star. “Whatever for?”

“Your kindness, generosity, and forgiveness.”

“My, what a tall order!” Thingol watches Oropher laugh and finds himself smiling despite the fact that he’d normally be annoyed at not being taken seriously. Greenwater’s king just... has that way about him: carefree but not careless, infectious but not irritating, and soft but surprisingly and sweetly strong.

This is why Thingol has decided to do what he never thought he could or would: give up the very thing that truly started all of this: The Gem of True Gold.

It fits snuggly against the length of Oropher’s neck.

The mermking hums as the last clasp clicks into place, relishing in the shine and squeeze and song as the item vibrates in time with his own voice. The gold star rests heavy against the hole in his chest where his heart used to be prekingship.

Deep sea-green stares up at night blue, their gaze creating a beautiful scape.

Oropher thinks he could get lost in that sky forever.

“Thank you.”

Thorin, Dwarf Lord and co-king of Erebor the [no longer] Lonely Mountain, flushes deeply under the heavy swaths of his royal robes as he sits on a rock beside the first merthing he’s ever touched and watches his nephew/sister-son play happily with aforementioned merm’s somewhat older son. Legolas, youngest mermprince of Greenwater, giggles and sings gleefully as Fili rolls around on the hot spring’s shores with him under the amused gazes of all--especially his mother, Dis, and his grandmother, Fis. They both adore the fry and, so, neither mind Thorin and Thranduil sipping mead and wine together.

“He’s always liked you hairy monsters; I appreciate you giving him one as a pet.”

Fis and Dis laugh uproariously as Thorin chokes and spits out his drink; Thranduil only giggles as Fili and Legolas continue playing, oblivious.

Eventually, Thingol lets go of his rule over Erebor, deciding he both misses home and has no need to subjugate Thorin and his people any longer.

There is talk of how this idea is really Oropher’s, who’s been helping the young and budding king grow into a magnificent one (along side his son, Thranduil, who’ll have none of that talk, thank you--he hates the young dwarf lord, understand: HATES), but nobody really minds: the dwarrows are happy regaining the right to rule their own mountain, the elves are happy to go home and see long missed loved ones, and the merms are largely unaffected (Doriath’s actually on the border of Greenwater due to a nice shoreline so...).

Thorin’s meetings with Greenwater, now that he’s The One Dwarfking of Erebor, still happen in the hot spring throne room, of course; but, now, it’s just him.

And Thranduil; whom, while still just a prince, is now an official ambassador--strictly, some say, for the Mountain King...

“Are you going to...”

Thorin trails off as he sits in the hot spring with his mermprince of a guest. Thranduil, calmly combing through his long and luscious and luminous white hair with a strangely unevenly bristled brush, glances at him in silent askance while waiting for him to continue. Neither one of them comment (anymore) on just how close they have become are to the day they violently met: both naked in the bath they were in that day they almost lost both their lives--to each other no less.

They don’t really have to.

They already know.

“King Orofer gave up his heart to be the great king that he is...”

Thorin frowns as he finds himself, yet again, terrible with words.

He struggles to ask what he really wants to but finds he’s too afraid.

Luckily, Thranduil seems to understand him--as he always does--and isn’t: “Indeed, my father has buried his heart in the coral stone above his throne; but, no, this does not necessarily mean I will also do this one day; it is very possible that I will never be king--we merms are an immortal race--and I am glad of that.”

“What about... to a person?”

Here, Thranduil stops his brushing and turns to fully look Thorin in the eyes--or, at least, he would if Thorin would allow it. Instead, the insecure dwarf looks away and at everything BUT the merm beside him. Thranduil rolls his eyes and smiles.

“Why, little dwarf king~ Are you offering yours~?”

The only thing louder than Thorin’s embarrassed stammers is his blush.

At it turns out, Thorin’s heart was not the only thing he gave to Thranduil.

Before he left, the young Dwarfking took the Elvenking aside and asked him: “What do I do? What did YOU do???”

To which Thingol simply said: “I gave him what I thought I could and would not, something I had foolishly thought no one else would ever deserve, and something I created for myself to represent and convey all of my love.

Thorin, ask yourself: what do you have that says and shows what you cannot?”

The answer, it turns out, had really been quite simple.

Long before the overtaking of the mountain by Thingol and back during the days of the original Dwarfking of Erebor, Thorin’s ancestor--Durin the Deathless--mined a stone from the depths of their mountain which seemed to endlessly absorb all light shined upon it. It was seen as an ominous magic stone--in fact, some even say it foretold the coming of the Elvenking and his oppression--and, thus, nothing was ever done with it: instead, it was hidden in Durin’s drawers and only ever spoken of to family; it is, perhaps, one of their darkest secrets.

But, to Thorin, this stone has always looked just a little blue.

The deepest, blackest midnight--or the depths of the sea.

It is with this stone that Thorin makes his courting gift.

A long mithril belt ladden with dark sapphires, black opals, black pearls, and even dark obsidian that wrap will Thranduil’s impossibly long tail--which, once, almost killed him; but, now, softens under his tentative touch and sometimes even holds him gently--with the light swallowing gem attached by a thin chain so that it may rest above the merm’s heart as though it has been given away...

He calls this blue-tinted/glossless gemstone His Blackheart.

And it is the mermprince’s--should he choose to accept it.

He does.

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ploversprojects · 8 months

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Mermay 2020 8: Vent

I liked the infodump from the original post so have this:

For this one I broke away from the "unexpectedly cute" thing I's been doing, and went with black smoker worms/giant tube worms, which are 3 meters long and live at hydrothermal vents. They eat minerals in superheated water. They're weird, and creepy, and they're red because they have hemoglobin, and they get oxygen by breaking sulfur compounds apart. All they do is just chill next to 450°F water, and eat sulfur. So, I drew a colony of black smoker mers! (haha... puns...) I got all my photo references from Wikipedia, which is why you got this random fact dump.

#my art #my traditional art #mermay #mermay 2020

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gish · 3 years

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Happy #Mermay! #mermay2021

2018 #GISH #Item199: Digitally create a portrait of Rachel Miner as a fairy, mermaid, or other magical creature of your choosing. 📸: Team THISISJUSTMYFACE

#GISH #Misha Collins #Rachel Miner #MerMay #MerMay2021 #SPNFamily

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letmeinimafairy · 2 years

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Another one for Mermay, this one's more hopeful. Injured, tangled in a net, but managed to escape the hunters, and the help is here.

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keramoondust · 3 years

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forgot to post mermay yesterday! This was from day 4 the prompt was mineral as an element enjoy =3

#mermay #mermay 2021 #mermay day 4 #mineral #purple #daily art #digital art #art challenge #x

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misty-seashore · 4 years

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let's continue~ ● Obsidian ● Pearl

#mermay #mermaid #mermay2020 #camillemermay #gemstones #gems #minerals #pearl #obsidian #my art #digital art

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jengrayart · 5 years

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Tourmaline rock inspired Mermaid

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bougiebutchbitch · 2 years

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Have you ever written anything for MerMay?? 🥺 Because I would fucking OBLITERATE PLANETS to read how you'd describe a human and a mermaid falling for each other orcoughcoughorfuckingeachother, like a mermaid AU (or merformers AU in a transformers case) for any fandom? Even if you only wrote, like, one paragraph, literally anything, I'd eat it up!! I'm such a sucker for that kind of thing and if you ever do some type of writing commissions I'd throw so much money at you dude.

BROOOOO THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME KDFLGHKLJDFHLGKDFHGKJDFG

Thanks for the prompt!

A note: I can't promise to fill every prompt, but this one caught my fancy!

T-rated, 4180 words of merman!Obito/Kakashi. I have no self control. Help.

Kakashi loves the sea.

To listen to it: the hush of foam over shingle and sand, the curl and slap of waves, the cries of the gulls and the bellow of the wind.

To smell it: the brine and saltspray, the faint mineral odour of wave-tumbled pebbles, the sulfur of rotting weed.

To touch it: paddling in cool pools piled high with colourful stones, watching tiny shrimp dance around his toes. Feeling salt prickle in the grooves on his palms and on his fingertips.

He loves the sea until he doesn't. Until it steals from him.

"Take my eye," says the boy, smiling as he dies. The broken mast lies on the deck, crushing half his body, squeezing out his blood. "Then I can see the world with you. It's a gift."

The sea folds over his mangled corpse, once they've pried it free. As the waves gulp him down, Kakashi vows he's done with loving the water forever.

And yet, it seems the water is not done with him.

The dreams start in flashes.

Crushing blackness. Eternal dark. Shadows so deep and vast they have weight.

Kakashi wakes floundering, strangled by his sheets, unable to scream and unable to breathe, soaked with sweat and convinced he has the entire ocean pressing down on his chest.

He tastes salt. But it's only tears, leaking from his red left eye.

Kakashi screws his knuckles into his scarred lashline, hunched in his bed. The weight eases slowly. It's no relief. His body feels far too light now, like gravity has given up on him. The walls of his father's big lonely house are so very far away.

He doesn't try to go back to sleep. He gets up instead, wrapping his blanket around him. He pads out of his house and along the shore.

Daylight tames the sea, makes it appear domesticated. Night holds no such illusions. Pebbles growl as they're sucked back in the riptide, the rumbles of a hungering stomach large enough to eat the island Kakashi calls home.

He still sails out on the boats every morning. Of course he does - he has to. Konoha is a bright and beautiful village, built into the chalky cliffs, surrounded by green-blue sprigs of sea-poppy and petrel nests full of tiny white eggs. But Konoha’s prosperity is born of the ocean, and as such, none of its children may live a life without salt in their lungs.

The sea gives, Minato would tell him, as he and Kakashi steered their wasen for the teeming waters around the reef, where the catch was fat and plentiful. And the sea takes, too.

Kakashi understands this. But that doesn't mean he has to like it.

He crouches on a slick grey rock at the edge of the water, bare toes digging into algae. "You take too much," he tells the creeping tideline, as it rises up and up and up the stone. “And you don’t give it back.”

The water swallows his accusation, like it swallows everything, and grants him no reply.

Kakashi loses Rin to the water too, loses Minato and Asuma and a hundred more. He dismemebers Minato's wasen, lining up the boards, methodical and neat, rebuilding it into a larger ship of his own. He hires three local children to help him haul in the urchin-pots and the ground-trawling nets - and, when he finds out that two of these children have no families of their own, his father's house becomes a little less empty. As, perhaps, does he.

Anyway - Kakashi grows, and the dreams grow with him. Stretching like the scar through his left eye from where a storm snapped Minato’s mainmast, so long ago, and a splinter tore him open, forehead to chin.

He lost an eye that day. Gained another, yes - but lost so much else, besides.

When he sleeps, those brief flashes of the underwater world combine. Now he sees long stretches of summer-blue shallows, bubbling with coral and miniature fish. The glimmer of the sunset from below, like oil has been poured over the waves and set alight. He doesn't love the sea anymore, but something in him must do, because there's a joy he can't quite quantify in those dreams. More than once, he's caught himself falling asleep with a smile on his face, wondering what he will see.

A shame that smile never lasts to morning.

His mind dives deeper, darker. A white ghost drifts through the black. Kakashi can just make out the tattered frill of a flipper, a tail: the hollowed corpse of a whale, half-eaten by scavengers, sinking slow through the depths.

Hunger twists in his guts. He unhinges his jaw, lunges forwards -

And jerks awake, sprawled over his sheets. Panting. Clutching his chest, lungs burning like he just tried to breathe underwater.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Focuses himself, grounds himself, like he does before he has to sail through a storm. Can't hear the sea. Just the faint snores of Naruto and Sasuke in the room next door.

Salt water dribbles from his red left eye. Kakashi has to touch his teeth to make sure they're blunt and human.

Some days, he toys with the idea of desertion. He could walk away from his village. He could march inland with an oar over his shoulder until a farmer mistook it for a shovel, and then he would know it was safe to settle down.

He could take his boys with him, before the sea steals them, too.

Yet those thoughts never manifest in action. Naruto and Sasuke - Sakura too - they all adore life on the water. Kakashi would be depriving them of that, if he bundled them up in the night and fled for the distant hills.

He'd be depriving himself of something too. Of what, he's unsure - until one bright summer day when they take the boat out past the reef.

He has sailed far from shore many times before, with or without his kids aboard. Nothing about the day sparks danger. No piling cumuli, no warning hint of ozone on the air. Only endless blue anticyclone skies, a few clouds scudding along the horizon line. Flat seas and gentle breezes. The wind is barely enough to belly their sail as they pass over the drop-off, where shallow blue water turns to bottomless black, like they're sailing into the sky at night.

It's the perfect day. Until it isn't.

Naruto and Sasuke lounge on the deck, arguing about who can swim under the boat fastest, aft to stern. Sakura alternates between taking her turn at the rudder and scolding them. As the competition is hypothetical, and no one seems inclined to hurl anyone else over the side, Kakashi pays the children little mind.

Even if they did jump in, they wouldn't be in much danger. They're all strong swimmers. If anything, Kakashi is weakest of them, as nowadays he only goes in the water in times of necessity. But still, his children know that they're only to go overboard after securing his permission. He's seen too many go down and not come up, and he wants to watch them every moment they’re immersed, wooden life ring to hand.

That life ring won't save them today.

When the wind changes, he smells it before he feels it. It no longer blows seawards, drawing up the rich aroma of the village: roasted tuna, steamed rice, woodsmoke and clay tiles baked by the sun. When Kakashi sniffs the air, he smells only sea.

His shoulders stiffen. Behind his patch, his red eye, which does nothing but hallucinate and cry, sets up its usual pre-storm ache. Bad weather rising.

There's no sign of it. The whole world is flush with summer. It could be his imagination. It could be superstition. It could be any number of things...

"Captain," whispers Sakura. Always the most perceptive of his crew. "What is it?"

Kakashi glances at the other boats. The bay bustles with bright rectangular sails, bobbing about without a care in the world. They dip in and out of view behind the reef, as the waves lift Kakashi's little boat and drop it, and lift it and drop it again.

Bigger waves than just a moment ago. Bigger again, now.

Kakashi's ship is furthest out. No others are close enough to offer aid. Konoha has rules about this, anyway - getting the catch to shore is your first priority, and you never risk certain death by going back to save your fellow sailors.No heroes among seamen.

The wind picks up, spinning them widdershins as the waves slap at the reef again and again. Kakashi's fists clench.

"Make for shore," he says.

The tone of his voice catches Naruto and Saske's attention. They scramble upright, shoving each other as they take their places at the sail.

Naruto asks - "Captain? What's going on?"

The summer warmth on Kakashi’s back fades. Behind him, on the horizon, the clouds tower into black anvils, growing like an oncoming tsunami wave. Eclipsing the sun.

"Go," is all he says. The children blanch. They’re quick to obey, skipping their ship over the water like a flat stone.

They're almost back in the shallows when the squall reaches them. When the large wave slams their vessel violently to the side. When Sasuke's grip jars from the rope, and he tumbles down the steep incline of the deck, towards the gnashing, frothing waves.

Almost.

The sea beneath them is still black as a tarpit, and just as capable of sucking them down. Kakashi doesn't hesitate. He barks an order to Sakura and Naruto - "Hold tight!"

They might or might not hear, over the screeching wind. Doesn’t matter. No time to be sure.

He dives.

The water parts around him like it's welcoming him in. A cold shock, like lightning running him through.

Kakashi is prepared for it. Overcomes it. Hones his focus, carding the water, kicking down deep. Following the trail of bubbles. Reaching for the grasping white hand...

He catches it. Hauls Sasuke up, into his arms.

Not losing this one. Not this time.

Never again.

They break the surface with a mutual gasp, right next to the ship. A wave swings it towards them. Kakashi shoves Sasuke up so he can grab on, heaving him halfway out the water on god-knows-what strength. Sasuke coughs and splutters, so far from the cool little boy who refuses to call Kakashi captain. He latches onto the rail so tight his hands must cramp.

The sea smashes and screams. Up the boat rocks, hauling Sasuke away from Kakashi, out of his arms.

He has to let go.

He can't drag him down.

The next wave crashes over his head, sucking him under. Smashing him into the keel.

His eyepatch is gone - dragged off at some point during his initial dive. Kakashi didn't notice when he lost it. The saltwater stings his grey eye, not his red one - Kakashi sees all too clearly through that.

And what he sees is death.

The bottom of his boat high above him. The churning tumult at the water's surface. The chaos, the lashing wrath of the storm.

So wild, so angry. Not like down here.

Here, everything is peaceful. Smooth. The world is tinted a pale, delicate blue, as if it is overlaid by a thin-cut sheet of sapphire. So beautiful, this underwater paradise. A mad part of Kakashi - that little boy who loved the sea - wants to gasp out in joy, breathe it in.

But he can't - he can't, he can't. He's lost too many this way. He can't let Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke lose him, too. Can't let them lose their love for the sea, as he lost his...

Bubbles stream from his lips. Pluming up away from him, towards the surface. Kakashi kicks against the current, swimming after them. He scrabbles at them with his fingers, as if they might form a ladder that he can pull himself up to safety.

Impossible. He's too late. Too deep. The wave ploughed him far below the surface, smacked the oxygen from his lungs. He hit the keel hard - blood laces the water around him, leaking from his temple, his ear. It's over. The dizzy swirl in his vision is just the start of the end.

Kakashi pulls at the water, but it's so much stronger than he is. He fights and he fights, but he cannot win.

He should be terrified. Drowning is one of the worst ways to go.

At the very least, Obito was spared such suffering. He was already dead when he hit the water.

Yet as black occludes his vision, Kakashi realises he too might die with a smile on his face. He wants to get back to his kids. But other than that, he has no real regrets. No real purpose. A part of him always knew it would end this way. He's been waiting for this moment his entire life. Waiting for the sea to claim him, too.

Which is why it's such a shock, when it doesn't.

Something wraps around him. A fishing net? Arms? The jaws of a scavenging shark?

What about that pressure against his spine - is it the bottom of the ocean? Or a sturdy chest, cradling him close?

He can't look, too weak to even turn his head. Whatever happens next, it doesn't matter. He stares up at that faraway surface, distant as a dream, and longs to see his children one more time. Equally, he longs to let go, to drift down to join the whale carcasses and feed the monsters that dwell in the deep.

"Don't you dare," says a voice. Low and melodic, reverberating through the water like whalesong. "Not yet, Bakashi. Not yet."

Kakashi's obviously dead if he's hearing him. No sense fighting it any longer. He lets his eyes, black and red alike, drift shut.

More dreams. Stranger, this time. He is himself, yet he's also looking down at himself, like he's undergoing an out-of-body experience. He looks too small, drifting underwater, white hair floating above him. Shrunken by the vast enormity of the oceans.

Kakashi wakes. Then immediately rolls onto his side, drags down his clinging, sodden mask, and vomits up half the ocean.

"Ugh," he groans.

He knows the coastline as well as he knows the constallations that saillors use to navigate. Still he's so disorientated that it takes several seconds for him to place where he is.

The reef is exposed at low tide. The ocean stretches out before him in one direction, storm-lashed in the distance yet eerily flat nearby, reflecting the sky like a plate of glass. Behind him lies the bay, the beach, the village.

No sign of the ship - Sasuke must've had to knock Naruto out to stop him diving in after Kakashi. At least, that's what Kakashi hopes happened. No other bodies washed up on the reef beside him. He can't think of his kids under the water, bleached and bloating, rotting slow.

The scratch of the coral against his hands grounds him, It's sore, like a thousand tiny razors are cutting his skin. The surface is almost as rough as the arm around his waist, which curls tighter as Kakashi finishes spitting out salt and acid and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

Wait.

The arm around his waist.

The giant, heavy arm. The white hand on his stomach, cold as a dead fish, webs between the fingers and the thumb...

Kakashi goes very, very still.

He's heard the stories. Of course he has. Strange things lurk in the cracks and crevices of the ocean floor. Sometimes they swim up to the surface. Sometimes they get curious.

Sometimes, they develop a taste for human flesh.

Kakashi swallows. His fish-gutting knife is still in his thigh holster. If he can reach it...

Another webbed hand seals around his wrist before he can free the blade.

"Hey now," grumbles the monster. "I just saved your life, Bakashi. Is that any way to treat an old friend?"

Its voice sounds like those pebbles at the beach, grinding together in the riptide. Deep and hungering. Breath breaks over his neck, stinking of rotting meat.

But Kakashi doesn't care. Because the monster called him Bakashi. And only one person ever did that.

Slowly, he twists in its arms, careful not to shred his soft, human flesh. And stares at the monster.

For that is what it is. A monster, undoubtedly so. A giant tail drapes off the edge of the reef, webbed with old scars. Gills ripple along its muscular sides, granting soft pink glimpses under its gunmetal-grey skin. And its teeth - god, its teeth.

But it is a monster with one red eye.

Kakashi reaches out without quite meaning to. He makes to cup its cheek, hesitating just before he makes contact. His fingers tremble - or perhaps that's an optical illusion, caused by the saltwater streaming non-stop from his left eye.

It can't be him. It's stupid to even consider the possibility. The sea gives and the sea takes, but the sea doesn't give back again. What is lost will never return.

But Kakashi has seen driftwood weathered and petrified into stone. Has seen fossils filled with opal, glittering from inside cracked pebbles. The sea takes, yes, but the sea also transforms. Maybe it's drowned delirium talking, but who is he to say that the water can't work the same magic on a dead boy? That it can't rebuild him, fill in his gaps, replace his broken parts?

The beast before him measures twice his size in every direction, boasting the easy streamlined strength of an undersea predator. Broad shoulders, thick trunk, powerful tail. On the longitudinal axis, half its body is white as dead fishbones. On the latitudinal...

Kakashi's gaze trails down to where the humanoid abdomen distorts into sharkskin.

"Oh," he says. Then: "Obito?"

Obito leans his cheek into Kakashi's hand. He sighs, low and rumbling. His lashless eyes quiver shut.

His face is so cold. All of him is - cold as the sea. How must Kakashi feel to him? A furnace? How long has it been, since Obito - if this truly is him - last felt human warmth? Human touch?

"Bakashi," he whispers. There's so much contained in that word. Too much.

Kakashi still doesn't know what to make of this - doesn't know if he's dead or dreaming, if he's in his own world or the next. But right now, soaked in seawater and shivering, sprawled on a reef in the arms of a gigantic sharkman who may or may not be his resurrected childhood crush, there's simply too much to question.

He opts to roll with this, rather than letting the how and the why drive him mad. If they're both alive, they can get to all of that later.

"Crew," he manages. His throat burns from hacking up all that seawater. His wet mask dangles around his throat. Usually he'd shy from the thought of anyone seeing his face, but since Obito has appeared before him in all his mutated, gill-chested glory, mouth bristling with multiple rows of serrated, triangular fangs, it feels rude to hide himself away. "My crew. Are they -"

"Safe. Back in the village." Obito pouts when Kakashi withdraws his hand from his face. What an odd expression. Boy and monster, overlaid. "I can't take you back to them. They're gonna have to come find you."

Kakashi frowns. Regardless of whether his old friend has returned from the dead, those are his kids, and he needs to see them with his own eyes before he’ll believe that they’re safe.

Obito holds up a finger, halting his protest. The webs are translucent grey with just a touch of turquoise, making them gleam like wet kombu under the sun.

"Think about it. If I showed up and plonked you unconscious on the beach, I'd be harpooned before I could speak a word in my defence, right?" He rubs the back of his head. What Kakashi thought was hair is actually a crown of sharp black spikes, like an uni shell. "Which - yeah, I get it. Of course they'll want to defend themselves, considering what's to come. And what I've done..." His voice trails off, his gaze drifting far away, like Kakashi's does sometimes, when he remembers rowing furiously out in his little dinghy to the wreck of Minato and Kushina's ship, too late, too late... "But - but it's all for the best! It will be, I mean. I promise. Everything that’s coming, it’s to help you, not hurt you. You have to trust me on that."

Kakashi’s head still hurts. Blood cakes one side of his face, turning itchy as it dries. Obito's words are all fuzzy, stitching themselves together in orders that don't make sense.

What's he saying? Wouldn't the village be glad to have one of their lost souls returned to them, no matter how changed?

Obito clacks his jaw shut. A blue shimmer darkens his cheeks, a blush in the wrong shade. "I - uh - I just - forget all of that! I wasn't supposed to come to your rescue, okay? But I did it anyway, so you'd better be grateful, Bakashi!"

Kakashi is still trying to make sense of Obito's previous speech. "I'm grateful," he murmurs. "Thank you."

The blue tint gets bluer. Bluer again, when Kakashi lets his head rest against Obito's scarred, strong chest. Thank you. Did he ever say that to Obito, when they were children?

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just focus on breathing. I'll stay with you until the ships start coming out again, just to make sure your pathetic little lungs are still functioning."

A smile twitches at the corner of Kakashi's mouth, like it always does when he feels himself drifting down into deepwater dreams. "Kind of you."

"It's not kindness. It's pity. You looked so fucking pathetic, flapping about, sinking like a bit of trash dropped overboard... Ugh. It was embarrassing."

The storm is over. Gulls emerge from their cliff roosts. They swirl up on thermals, squawking an accompaniment to the high jangle of tackle, just audible from the faraway harbour. Sun warms Kakashi's bare face. He snuggles back against Obito, watching the lazy flick of his tail in the water. Fighting this weird, childish urge to stroke it - he doesn't want to slough the skin off his palms.

He still has so many questions. If Obito's alive, why didn't he come back earlier? Even if he didn't want to return to the village, for whatever reason, why not swim up alongside Kakashi's boat? Why wait until now?

But almost-dying turns out to be a fairly exhausting procedure. All his body and mind want to do is rest.

"Must make a nice change," he says, lashes drifting shut. "Me being the embarrassing one."

Obito huffs and gives him a sulky squeeze. He could probably crush in his ribcage if he put his mind to it, with those arms. Weird thought. Kakashi doesn't know why he likes it.

"Shut up, Bakashi. Just rest."

Since he became captain of his own crew, Kakashi has grown used to giving orders, not following them. But hey. It's been a weird, upside-down sorta day. He lets himself limpen, breath crackling wetly in his chest, and waits for his usual visions of the open sea. He's not unsurprised when he dreams instead of laying down a little human, brushing webbed fingers over their scarred eyelid, then sliding back into the water, easy as a knife through the belly of a fish.

Kakashi shakes himself awake again. Just for a moment.

"Thank you," he whispers. This time, he's not talking to Obito.

He's not sure if he'll ever love the sea again. Not in the simple, unassuming way he did as a child. But love is as ever-changing as the ocean itself: different every day, unpredictable, dangerous, deadly.

The water doesn't love him. It doesn't love any of them. That is what makes it so horrifying, and so beautiful, too.

But perhaps, every now and then, the ocean decides it does love one of the many boys who are fed to it, from villages like Konoha all the way along the coast. And for that, Kakashi is more grateful than he can comprehend.

He glances over his shoulder, to where the tiny fishing boats are daring to venture out of the harbours. Then rolls painfully onto his side, coral scraping through his salt-crusted, sun-dried shirt, and watches the grey dorsal fin flit out between the waves, until it sinks beneath and disappears.

#kakaobi #obikaka #kakashi #obito #naruto fanfic #kakashi hatake #obito uchiha #bbb creates #my fic #mermay

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