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#so that tails is A TODDLER
sonicattos · 1 year
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YOU GUYS DONT GET IT THATS BABY TAILS AND AND UGHHHHDHFJDJJFJDJF SO BABY SO LITTLE…. SONIC PROTECTS HIM.. AUGH
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tornado1992 · 2 months
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Seriously considering watching Sonic Underground because I cannot accept there’s a Sonic universe in which he doesn’t have Tails and I need to make an au of it asap but I know close to nothing about the cartoon.
Like that’s his lil bro, they are the unbreakable bond, what do you mean Tails doesn’t even exist in there?
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perilegs · 4 months
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as you can see, keekki is a bit groggy but he was soo brave while getting an x-ray today
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eachuisge-cc · 6 months
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cat ears are becoming an all-ages thing soon
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myymi · 2 years
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can we talk about how classic tails is a foot tall
we all know how frustrated eggman is at the fact a 3'3 hedgehog destroys his robots on a daily basis
now can you imagine how pissed he is about the fact a literal baby fox, one who's not even 2ft tall, rivals his IQ?
eggman: oh hey, sonic's got a baby to watch over now! i've got the upper hand!
*said baby hacks his security system like it's fucking nothing*
eggman:
eggman: what the fuck are these kids made out of
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genesis-quoi · 2 months
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While I’m here I think that while SatAM Robotnik is a piece of shit and very good at it I really don’t think any version of Eggman will ever be as fucking twisted as aosth’s version.
HEAR ME OUT I KNOW HE’S GOOFY AND WRITES EVIL ON HIS CALENDAR EVERY SINGLE DAY AND PUTS A HEART AROUND IT BUT
I’d say it’s a fair assumption to say that all the 90s cartoon Robotniks are aware they are fighting literal teenagers and that’s their L to bear HOWEVER
Fucking with them psychologically comes a distant second to just straight up murder most of the time (I’ve never seen most of Underground though so I’m gonna leave RoChalknik out of this)
Im just saying it takes a real fucked up bastard to know you’re beefing with children and THEN concoct a scheme to impersonate said orphan’s probably dead parents so you can blackmail the dude he’s always hangin with
AND THEN CONTINUE TO KIDNAP HIM FOR 50 MORE EPISODES LIKE SIR STOP HES ALREADY DEAD
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sonicchaos · 1 year
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I’ve been thinking about satbk for a while and I’ve come to a realization!
The blacksmith should be named Kay, like Sir Kay who is Arthurs foster brother when he exists.
(Just so you have quick access to it)
Also I think Nemune should look like an older Amy.
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viriborne · 1 year
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Fuck you. Hatred and malice on planet Earth.
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vancilart · 1 year
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walkies
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moralesispunk · 4 months
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I think you're either team ghost x civilian wife! reader where the rest of the 141 have no idea you exist or team they know and it's a very familial like and I'm the first one
simon who does everything he can to keep you his secret, even more so when your family starts to grow. when he's finished with a mission he will spend the next 48hrs barely sleeping, moving around to make sure no one is on his tail before making it home into your arms.
it's not that he doesn't trust the 141, but you and your family are far too precious to trust anyone with. you've heard the stories of all of the other men, are sure you would need only one look at them to be able to guess which man belongs to the many names he's told you over the years, but you're aware they don't know that you exist.
that on the rare nights simon ventures out to meet them for a sole pint between missions they think he's holed up in some bachelor flat back in manchester, perhaps with a string of women that come and go, but they couldn't be more wrong with his wedding band hidden under his gloves when he's home like now or safely in his drawer at home when he's on missions.
and it's not that he doesn't wish he could shout about you from the rooftops. everyone in your town knows that the big scary man whose face is always conveniently hidden in the shadows has a missus at home who brings your chubby babies to the toddlers and drops your kids off at school.
but the 141 don't know about you, not until enough time has passed since simon retired to consider it safe enough. simon with his aching joints and trembling hands, the ringing in his right ear and back pain that requires at least two, hour long soaks in the bath a week. simon the husband and dad who has butterfly clips in his hair and at least one nail painted from the game of hairdressers his oldest likes to play, a bright pink plaster on his knee to match the youngest, and one hand on your belly at all times with the third (and final in your opinion but simon is working on that) of your brood.
simon who is out for drinks with the 141 three years after retirement and slips and says something about moving house and the hassle, the rest of the men deciding they will help and so simon decides it's finally time. but he doesn't forewarn them about his family before the day, standing in the garden of your packed up house that your family has outgrown while the men stumble out of the van they hired only to stop dead in their tracks when they see you.
you who is waving in the doorway, a toddler on your hip and looking like you're about to pop while another child - maybe six or seven by their guesses - swings from simon's arm, with a dog jumping up paws on his chest. and like the man he is he doesn't explain, just jerks his chin towards the piles of boxes and empty moving van he's started to pack.
"think you can start making a move on that?"
a few hours later and still no explanation from simon, he's in the first van packed with all the furniture and bigger boxes with you and the kids and the guys follow behind, slack jawed and still confused as they stay speechless until they pull up at the new house.
they're still staring at you as you pile out of the first van and you're shaking your head, elbowing simon in the ribs and muttering a "put them out their misery, Si" and they swear they almost drop dead when they see how gently he handles you, an arm around your waist and a kiss to your temple as he guides you and the two gremlins towards the guys while the dog starts sniffing around its new home.
"fellas, this is the missus and kids," he says and you roll your eyes, holding out your hand towards them and introducing yourself by name, adding on the kids who beam up shyly at these strangers.
that seems to shake them out of it. john takes your hand first, shaking and turning to simon with a "you hide her away in case we try to steal her from you?" he winks and you and only grins wider when simon's hand on your hip seems to squeeze tighter. gaz and soap are bending down and coaxing your two girls out of their shyness, complimenting their light up trainers and asking if it makes them run faster before cheering them on as they run to the front door and back.
they set you up on a fold out chair and do all the heavy lifting as you point them and the boxes in their arms to their correct rooms. later, Simon treats them to dinner (a takeaway) and has you sitting on his knee with the girls in bed and for the first time he spends a night with the guys telling you stories of Simon "Ghost" Riley.
"they're lyin' love," he'll mumble in your ear at every story, "don't believe them do ya?" his hand strokes up your back, squeezing your neck.
"yeah, babe, believe you," you say while smiling at the men around your new dining room table, men who have saved your husbands life more times than he can count, and you find yourself curling closer to simon because of that
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dog lovers will be like they have unique personalitys ! and the personality is they bark and wag their tail a lot (said negatively)
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tornado1992 · 3 months
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Miles’ tails are way bigger than the rest of his body. That allows him to fly, and even though it makes him look way tinier than he is (and he is already too little for his age) he doesn’t mind.
He will never outgrow his tails, it doesn’t matter how many vitamins he takes or how much physical therapy he gets, spending the first four years of his life living off garbage scraps and eating less than once a day stunted his growth forever.
Good news is that he’ll always be able to fly, bad news is that he’ll never achieve the younger sibling goal of being taller than your older brother.
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cookie-waffle · 1 year
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Uselessly reminding you that these things are all canon in TOTK:
- Riju is super short for a gerudo her age, but still way taller than Link
- Link has a pet koi fish (or multipul depending on how many pools you put in your dream home)
- Being able to name the piss horse golden horse implies that Zelda had not given it a name yet. Perhaps because she’s a perfectionist and must think of the perfect name, or because she rescued the horse very recently before totk, but fell in love with it so quickly that she just had to have a picture of it in her house.
- The amount (and quality) of paintings done by Princess Zelda points towards her being very artistically talented, which is not something shown in botw. Perhaps this is a sign of her feeling more free and comfortable to be herself.
- Link has 8 ear piercings in total
- Link is still very short, but, it’s easier to see his muscle definition than in botw, meaning he did actually grow like a normal person just not… vertically.
- In the original Japanese text, Zelda calls the Hateno house “the house” instead of “my house” 👀
-The elemental armor headgear will allow you to dye Link’s hair at the dye shop.
- Originally, I thought Link could see the koroks in botw because he was only 17, and that koroks sorta worked like the picori, in that only kids could see them. However, he can still see them in his 20s. So, the games could be implying that he sees them because he was raised as one of them in a past life, and that part of his soul is still connected to the forest.
- The game likely takes place around 5-6 years after botw, because there are quite a lot of new child NPCs, none of which look or act young enough to be considered toddlers.
huge spoilers under the cut
- Link was canonically a furry zonai in a past life, but he’s noticeably less humanoid than Rauru or Mineru. Link has a tail, digitigrade legs, and even dew claws. Meanwhile, Rauru and Sonia have no tails and are plantigrade. This makes me wonder if zonai started intermarrying with mortals long before Rauru met Sonia, which could account for the more human-like traits.
- Link being a zonai at one point finally makes it 100% canon that Link does not need to be reborn as a hylian. It is entirely possible that he could have been a gerudo at some point, or may even be one in a future game.
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eachuisge-cc · 7 months
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okay I'm never going to be completely happy with how the clipping looks, but it's good enough for now. maybe I'll revisit disguising it with some fluff if I can figure out how to make the UV work.
anyway, textures are coming along so I'll be able to cross the last major cat thing I wanted to make off my list. aside from the skin/marking revamp and versions of all these things for the younger life stages.
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Simon had been put through life or death situations, but surely, surely this was the worst situation he could’ve found himself in.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror, his daughters brush in his one hand, and the pink frilly hair tie in the other.
You were away on a work trip for the day, leaving Simon to do his little girls hair- and Simon had absolutely zero idea what he was doing.
A small giggle brought him back to earth, his gaze dropping to his toddler smiling up at him in the mirror. “Daddy, we are gonna be late! I need my hair up!”
Simon mustered a small smile for his baby girl, but his hands began to sweat, and his throat ran dry. He could do this. All he had to do was put her hair up in a pony tail. He’d seen you do it a million times. “You sure I can’t just put one of my hats on ya? You’d look mighty cute if I say so myself. I may be a bit biased though.”
“No, daddy.” Your daughter giggled. “I need it in a ponytail!”
No matter how hard he tried, her hair tie would simply fall right down her head, or just simply wouldn’t look right. He let out a sigh, setting down the brush in defeat as he glared at his daughter’s hair. How on earth did you make this look so easy?
Your daughter turned to face him, a giggle escaping her lips as she stuck her tongue out at Simon.
“You laughin’ at me?” He asked, quirking a brow at his little girl, a coy smile dancing on his lips. “You know what happens when you laugh at me.”
“No!” Your daughter squealed, laughter bubbling from her small belly. But her protests were in vain as Simon’s fingers found their way to her sides and began to tickle them.
Amidst a fit of giggles. your daughter’s arms flew up in the air, in an attempt to surrender from her dad’s tickle attack. “Daddy! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Thought so.” Simon replied, throwing his little girl a cheeky grin. “Now why don’t you come over ‘ere and help me find a video so I can do this properly. Can’t have my little girl showing up to school without her favorite hairstyle, can I?”
With his daughter planted firmly in his lap, Simon placed his phone on the counter, a “how to do a ponytail” video playing as his fingers returned to her hair.
Nearly 15 minutes, and a few strands of hair later, Simon looked upon his masterpiece with a proud smile. “There, I’ve finally done it.”
She turned around and looked up at Simon, before standing on her tip toes on the stool, to place a kiss on Simon’s cheek. “Thank you, daddy.”
Your daughter would never tell him of course, but she wore that ponytail with pride that day- telling everyone it was her daddy that did it this time. Even though Simon knew it wasn’t perfect, it was in her eyes- and that’s all that mattered.
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dilatorywriting · 17 days
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Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 3]
Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 5.2k
Summary: Teaching a Siren to read is perhaps the best or worst idea that you've ever had. If only you were half as capable of reading between the lines.
[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3]
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‘U-G-L-Y’
“Wow,” you drawled. “What a wonderful use of your new talents.”
The fish you were cooking landed upside down on the hot stone with a crackling sizzle of skin that you could feel as a jumping prickle of heat all along your arm. You poked at your impromptu stovetop with your impromptu stick-spatula and prepared your impromptu leaf-plates. A true culinary connoisseur, you were. When you were rescued, you were going to argue to Riddle that you deserved a promotion to the kitchens. Though, apparently not everyone appreciated your talents.
‘UGLY’ the Siren poked again, jabbing his talon into the sand.
“Then bring me prettier fish,” you returned, pointed. “It’s not that hard.”
His sharp, black claws came up to point at you next alongside his wonderful, two-syllable insult. Then back to you again, with four fingers this time. Both hands going for it. There was a tight, irritated expression on his face that you refused to call a pout because firstly, surely this vicious king of the seas could never pull something so childish. And secondly, because in these past few days you’d developed a terrible habit of just chattering each and every one of your thoughts aloud. And if you called him bratty, or dared imply such pouting was coming from his regal visage, you were just setting yourself up to get drenched by his flailing tail all over again.
“You can’t hurt my feelings,” you said, bland. “Ugly is the nicest thing you’ve ever called me.”
He huffed and smacked his fins against the sand. The trailing, dark tips cracked against your leg and you kicked him right back. It didn’t actually hurt, no more than a pinch to the side, but you’d spent enough time with this asshole now that not fighting back like a toddler pitching a tantrum wasn’t an option anymore.
Just over two weeks, now. Fifteen days and counting.
Those first few days had been spent in a nervous, prey-like panic, of course. Watching him circle the bay with his shredded fins, crying at the top of his lungs until your goosebumps had goosebumps. And then you’d helped untangle him from the mess you’d made, delicately working salt-brined twine away from weeping wounds. Sure, there’d been that whole hoopla of him pinning you in the sand after your act of Great Chivalry and promptly threatening to rip your throat out with his teeth, but you’d moved past that. The offering of home-cooked meals had softened his scaly hide, and then the even greater move of handing him your species’ alphabet like some great, guarded secret of old had sealed the deal. Cheers all around. It’d only taken you nearly being eaten, disemboweled, and drowned, but you’d made peace with your roommate. What a success story.
And now instead of trying to murder you, he just called you U-G-L-Y.
So, you know, baby steps.
The thin, pointed end of his tail whipped up from where you’d kicked him to twine around your ankle and give a sharp tug that had you sprawling face first into the sand with an oomph. Your great tumble sent all those pretty letters of his scattering in the breeze, and you spat out a mouthful of grit.
“Here’s a new one for you,” you chirped, digging your fingers into the muck. F-U-C-K—Y-O-U.
The Siren yowled, which you’d come to recognize far too well as a prickle along your nape and that forever echoing tug, tug, tug somewhere in your head that could never return the call with its corresponding answer. His tail flailed out again to smack at your hands. It was thick, and scaly, and all smooth, powerful muscle. The fact that he hadn’t crushed your poor fingers into a sad, bony paste by now beneath its wrath was a miracle. If you were a more optimistic person, you’d say he was being extra gentle with you on purpose. But even you weren’t delusional enough to think he liked you that much.
“Okay, okay,” you grouched, spitting out another mouthful of pebbles. “Fine. Just not around the food. Unless you want to have to go hunting for dinner all over again.”
The Siren huffed, rolling his eyes like it was a professional sport, and settled himself prettily back against the butt of his tail like he’d never even tried to beat you to death with his fins at all.
You sighed and pulled yourself back out of the sand, scrubbing it from your salt-sticky skin as best as you were able. You returned to poking at your fish. They weren’t too terribly singed, despite your distraction. And the Siren seemed to like the edges extra crispy either way, so it wasn’t any kind of loss. You were in the middle of balancing your impromptu stick-spatula against another impromptu stick-spoon to try and flip the fish without destroying it entirely when you felt a gentle poke, poke, poke against your arm.
You looked back and the Siren stared down at you, lips canted in a sharp smirk that was all pride.
U-G-L-Y—A-N-D—S-T-U-P-I-D, the sand said.
He’d been struggling with applying the whole -pid noise to the proper lettering, because of how similar it was to -ped. And the spelling had been tripping him up (with much obvious frustration) for the last day or so.
“Well done,” you sighed, not even too terribly upset that it had taken you months in Riddle’s impromptu classrooms to learn what he was picking up over the course of a few, harried sessions delivered with broken bits of sharp sticks and an ever changing canvas. “Try this.”
You scribbled another message in the sand. An insult, naturally, because he seemed to like those. You sounded out the letters as you hopped the tip of your finger over them one-by-one, and the Siren stared down at the inscription with the sort of intense focus meant for ancient tomes or sacred texts. You watched his lips move silently as he sounded it out alongside your mini-lesson, and then he was reaching forward to trace over the letters with the curved tip of a claw—knuckles bumping yours for a moment before shooing your hand away.
You returned to your dinner—finishing up the poor, murdered fish as best as you could and doling it out as usual. You reached out to hand pretty boy his leaf-plate, which he took like a lord accepting a meal from a lowly servant. All upturned noses and pointed disinterest. He set it beside him and nibbled on the offering as he continued to study the new task you’d given him—grand, purple fins splayed out at his sides to brush against your hip like a habit. And this was your life now, apparently. Sitting and frying lazy, shallow water fish over a heated stone while your Siren student studied curse words in the sand. If you managed to survive this, no one would ever believe you.
.
.
The wrecked ship called to you like, well, did you even have to say it.
(It felt like a low hanging pun at this point. You’d never be able to use the expression again for as long as you lived without thinking of narrowed, purple eyes nearly rolling up into the back of a too pretty head because you were apparently that annoying.)
Every day when you ventured towards the western side of the islet to feed your teeny, round octopus friend, you couldn’t help but sit and stare at the shattered hull. It’s not like it was in any sort of shape to actually get you off your little, sandy prison, but it was… There was something about it that was familiar enough to scratch an itch in your brain, but just alien enough that figuring out what was itching was outright impossible.
Silver songbirds.
‘Not safe,’ the Siren had demanded, with an almost frantic look to him. Not safe.
Every time you tried to venture closer to get a better look, it was like he could feel it. And he’d be pacing the shoreline like a blood-frenzied shark—rattling off muted, angry complaints the whole time that popped against your skin like soda fizz. So, lesson learned. Keep away.  
It was a particularly sweltering afternoon today. Not a cloud in the bright, blue sky and nary a breeze to be seen. Sweat was beading unpleasantly along your brow and all down your back, and you hated it. At least on the Rose Queen there had been shade. And the lower decks of the ship submerged in the waves had always felt at least a little chilled. You could practically feel the damp, cool wood against your cheek. The smell of salt and pine oils in your nose. But here, on this stupid not-island with its barren trees and nothings, you just had to suffer in silence. The memories of your ship had you thinking of the washed up Songbird all over again, and you were in the middle of a heated, internal debate over making a swim for it again when something cold rained down over your face in small, scattered droplets.
You blinked back into focus to see Mister Merman at your ankles. You’d been sitting with your heels in the water, but no deeper. Because the shallows were still his territory, and while he hadn’t tried to hold you under in a while now, it was hard to forget something like that so easily. You didn’t really want to chance it if a foul mood struck him, no matter what sort of fragile truce seemed to exist between the pair of you lately.
Last you’d looked he’d been sunning himself on one of the wide, flat rocks—as he was wont to do. Lavender-tipped hair splayed out along his cheeks in a pool of soft gold and fins spread at his hips like the finest, plum silks. How he never seemed to burn with that delicate, ivory skin of his you had no idea. Maybe it was a Magical, Mystical, Merman perk yet undocumented. Or maybe he was just Like That. But he’d been snoozing away on his favorite boulder, and now he had rolled in with the tide to lounge by your toes. His fingers were spread, still dripping with sea water from where he’d flicked you in the face. You frowned at him—partly curious, but also pissilly blinking salt out of your eyes that stung, because come on dude.
He flicked more water your way and said something that you couldn’t manage to catch the shape of. When you didn’t respond with anything other than a pointed scrub of the water dripping down your cheeks, he reached out to wrap a clawed hand around your ankle and give a gentle tug.
“What?” you frowned, confused, and he tugged again.
He canted his head towards you, and then out to the cove behind him. He slipped back with the soft, frothy roll of the waves—just a foot or two—and clearly meant to pull you with him. You slid against the sandbar with a yelp and dug your heels into the muck to keep from getting yanked all the way in.
“No way,” you snipped, kicking a mess of water into his face. He didn’t even blink, just frowned down at you with a twisty sort of petulance. “I thought we were over this. If you drown me you won’t get any more cooked food, y’know. And I, in turn, would very much like to not be drowned. Win, win.”
That frown of his went stiff, and his lips twitched down at the corners. His amethyst eyes darted away and for a moment you swore that those gemstone irises flashed with something almost like guilt. He rolled forward with the next curl of surf and pressed a claw into the damp, dark sand at your hip. He scratched out a careful message, stubbornly refusing to meet your gaze all the while.
Won’t, it said.
“Forgive me for not believing that,” you returned, dry. “You’re oh-for-two now, I think. And, you know, fool me twice, and all that.” Though maybe the first one didn’t really count, seeing how you were both tangled together and sinking to the bottom in a mutual sort of destruction. But whatever. You were keeping it.
The Siren’s brow pinched in the middle and he reached forward to dig his claws in again.
Accident.
Your own brows jumped nearly to your hairline. You were just about to politely point out that dragging someone to the bottom of the ocean until they were bubbling from the nose and flailing wasn’t really an accident,but then you remembered the startled look on his face. The way he hadn’t stopped you from clawing your way back to the surface and how he’d carefully helped tow you back towards the shore after. And… maybe he hadn’t really meant it. It had to be strange, probably. Being able to thrive so easily below the waves and then be faced with someone who would die if they were left facedown in a puddle.  
“…Fine,” you huffed, and his eyes jumped back up to yours with all cat-in-the-cream smugness. “But just because I’m about to drop from heatstroke. Not because you asked.”
The Siren rolled his eyes at you and returned to dragging you by your ankles into the shallows.
The bay really was very lovely. It was crystalline clear and the sort of brilliant blue that you’d never even known existed until you’d left the land for a life on the open ocean. The sand below your feet was soft and white, with barely any pebbles or broken bits of shell to dig into your toes. You watched a few crabs scurry out of the way as you were led deeper and deeper, but most of the cove’s occupants were spoiled and slow. Unbothered by this weird, fleshy, bipedal creature stepping past because they’d never known anything else. Once you hit waist-deep, the Siren let go of you to sink more fully into the water. He swam around you in a languid, looping circle—plum fins cresting the surface to flick water against your arms and scales shining like polished glass in the sunlight. It was still far too shallow for him to move around in earnest with how massive that tail of his was, and how wide and trailing his great, beta-like fins were, but he was still elegant. Still fast and flexible as he swam rings around you like an orbit.
“Show off,” you scoffed, but couldn’t quite bite back the grin twitching at your lips.
Because creature from the deep trying to devour your crew or not, Sirens really were so impressive, weren’t they? Straight out of a storybook, and deserving of every song and tale attributed to them.
You reached out before you could help yourself to run your fingers along his tail. The scales were smooth, and sleek, and cool against your palm. The wispy ends of his fins caught along your fingers, but other than a bit of a tangle, you almost managed to run your hand along the whole of it. And what was it? Eight feet? Ten? Bigger than you at least, that was for sure. It wasn’t like anything you’d ever felt. No fish, or whale hide, or shark. Something entirely of its own.
You realized on the next loop when your fingers danced over a patch of still healing scales that you’d felt already that he had most definitely realized your err in personal space, and was letting you poke about on purpose. You glanced up, embarrassed and warm faced, to see the tail end of a smirk quirking out from the water’s surface. Preening bastard.
You turned up your nose and waded deeper. There was a ripple in the water around you, like a chuckle, and he returned to his looping circles. Occasionally his tail would brush up against you to get you to jump, but otherwise he kept his hands to himself and—as promised—did not attempt to wrestle you down to the sandy floor and your subsequent watery grave.
Once you’d made it up to your chest, the Siren was able to start his dance in earnest. He darted away to make a wide arc around the edge of the cove—sunshine catching on his scales like a glare on the water. He shot from one end to the other, so fast it was nearly dizzying to try and keep up with. And then he was back to circling your ankles all over again—tangling your legs in his fins and curling his talons against your calves to try and drag you deeper.
“Okay, okay,” you laughed, paddling after him until you were well and truly above your head. The bay wasn’t very deep, but there were a few areas that dipped down to at least fifteen feet. So soon enough you were bobbing like a top in the gentle surf as he looped around your idly kicking feet—brushing up along your ankles and tugging at the frayed edge of your shirt with his claws when he passed by.
When he next rose above the surface, you’d already taken in a big mouthful of water in preparation, and shot it right into his face. The Siren’s whole expression shriveled up like a hundred-year-old prune and you laughed so hard he had to curl his tail around your waist to keep you from dipping under the waves and choking yourself. You let him drag you around and only grabbed at his fins a little. He would dive below your feet and you’d sink after him. Not nearly as agile or adept, but competent enough to follow his little game of tag without losing completely within the first few seconds. It was—it was nice. Genuinely. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d swam for the fun of it. Way back when you’d first joined up with Riddle’s crew, maybe. It’d been a hot day, just like this one, and you’d been anchored in a safe, shallow inlet off the coast of an archipelago. Deuce and Ace had jumped in first, already brawling, and you’d dove in soon after. It’d been a mess, and Riddle had nearly hung the three of you up by your toes for it. But it’d been fun. Familial. Warm. Something you’d never forget. And while this moment didn’t feel entirely like that one had, there was something similar about it. Sure, you weren’t trying to give the Siren a bloody nose and there were no rock wars, but it was… well, it was nice.
By the end of it, he was swimming lazy, looping shapes around the cove, and you were being dragged alongside him like a raft—kept afloat by the curling press of his tail and relaxing in the afternoon sunshine with the cool ripples of the ocean water to keep you both comfortable in the heat.
“Do you do this a lot?” you asked, as you relaxed in the gentle lull of the surf. “With your pod, I mean.”
The Siren stiffened beneath you, but after a moment he nodded. Slow and rigid. Which—
Oh. Right.
“…sorry,” you mumbled, gaze darting away.
Because he was missing his family just as much as you were missing yours, wasn’t he?
All that frantic pacing at the start of your mutual stranding had just seemed to… fade away as the days passed. He would still circle the entrance of the cove some mornings, singing towards the skies and tilting his head—fins pricked as he searched for an answer. You’d feel it in your nerves, see the gulls overhead dipping in a trance and watch the crabs crawl up onto the sand like they were being dragged out by their little claws. But most of the time now he just… didn’t. He spent his days mumbling over the letters you showed him, or carefully preening over his healing fins and resting in the sun. Catching fish for you to prepare and roast, and taking his meals at your side as you both snipped at each other with sandy curse words. It was pleasant, this routine you’d fallen into together. But all the same, he never really stopped checking the ocean waters. And you could see a spark in his eyes, an itch. The same one that lit yours, no doubt, every time you caught yourself squinting for the outline of ships on the horizon.
The difference between the two of you, of course, was that in a few more days his scales would be healed enough to face the dangers of the open water alone. Life as a rogue mer was notoriously perilous. The lone Sirens were those that poachers were willing to risk battle with for a trophy. They were the ones caught in fishing nets, and found mauled by rival pods. But your Siren was smart. He was big, and strong, and impressive. He’d find a way to survive it, no doubt. One morning you’d wake up and he’d have darted off into the deep to search for his family. To go home. And you…
You would still be trapped here.
Alone.
Forever.
Rotting under the sun with no one to take you swimming in the afternoons. Or bring you clawed up fish to cook for dinner. Or to use your writing lessons just to insult you with scribbled words in the muck.
Which—that was what you’d wanted, wasn’t it? At the start of all of this.
And it was only fair, in the end. He was the better of the two of you, after all. Born and bred to thrive in the depths of the sea that would swallow you whole without a thought. And if either of you was going to survive, to find your home again, it was always going to be him. Maybe you’d be a story, like he would have been for you. The strange human with no ears, just like the rest of the pirates whispered about. Who taught him that fire could make fish extra tasty and that leaves could make perfectly serviceable plates if you tried hard enough.
You sighed, and bubbles of salt water frothed along your mouth.
The Siren raised his head from his own lazy sprawl to arch a brow at you in question, and you did the very mature thing of spitting water in his face all over again.
You ended up being dragged through the cove in a flurry of spitting, Siren rage. Laughing and laughing until he huffed and hauled you back to shore to keep you from swallowing any more seawater like the idiot that you were. And it was fine, really it was. He wasn’t so bad, not really. And if he was able to reunite with his pod once more after all those days of hollow wailing and pacing, pacing, pacing that had made something deep in your soul itch like a freshly scabbed wound that you just couldn’t stop picking, well, that wouldn’t be such a bad ending after all.
.
.
The next afternoon while you were out on your daily Octopus Wellness Check, you came across a piece of pale, purple sea glass mixed into the rocky shore. It was smooth to the touch and frosted over by the endless tumble of the tide. You held it up to the light and it sparkled just like the Siren’s scales.
“What do you think?” you asked the octopus as it grabbed shredded bits of fish with its chubby, little tentacles. “Do you want it? Or should I give it to—”
You blinked, startled, and realized all at once that you’d never learned the Siren’s name. Or given him yours. You’d just sort of been calling each other a variety of derogatory pseudonyms and hoping for the best. Which, huh. You hadn’t even realized you’d wanted to know his name. It wasn’t yours to take, of course. Let alone from someone who would no doubt be leaving so soon. But it was a thought.
“You always give the best advice, you know,” you told the teeny creature, and it hid from you like you were a great, looming monster of old. “Whether you meant to or not. Thanks for that.”
So on the way back to your cove, you picked through some tufts of beachgrass to find the longest, driest spikes. You began winding them together as you walked, and settled down in your favorite little corner of the inlet to continue your weaving. The Siren, naturally—being as nosy as he was—was immediately hovering over you like a child watching someone hold a bag of sweets just out of reach. You clutched your little project to your chest like a secret, and it had him puffing up in irritation and smacking his fins against your sides like your refusal to share whatever had caught your attention was a crime beyond comparison. He arched up as tall as he could to try and peer over your shoulder, and, in failing at that, just outright tried to snatch the thing from your hands.
“I won’t give it to you if you keep being a pest,” you warned, and immediately he was slipping back to rest on his stomach in the damp sand with a starbright curiosity in his eyes, chin pillowed atop his interlaced fingers and gaze following the movements of your hands like a cat tracking a mouse in its hole. Clearly the promise of it being a treat for him was mollification enough to keep him from hovering.
Once you’d braided a sturdy enough chain, you carefully twined it around the sea glass in a little, crisscrossing cage of fibers. Just knotted enough to keep the ocean-worn trinket safe and in place without hiding the shine of it. With that, you held up your trophy with a dramatic wave, and the Siren was popping up all over again. His amethyst glare tracked the swinging pendant with startling focus and a surprisingly wide-eyed spark of confusion.
“Here,” you said, reaching out to drop the makeshift necklace into his lap. He caught it in his claws, eyes still far too round with shock. “It made me think of your scales. I thought you might like it.”
He was staring down at the gift in utter silence. And not the normal sort of quiet either—where your broken eardrums simply refused to pick up on all his petulant grousing against your person. This was actual silence. His lips were parted like they were caught on a breath, but he wasn’t saying anything. Not even a complaint about how plain and ugly it was. He curled his claws daintily around the woven chain, as if he was afraid of tearing right through it with an accidental prick, and then held the sparkling bauble aloft like he was utterly entranced by the soft gleam of it.
After a long, long moment of that near eerie silence and a pool of dread filling your belly that screamed you’d clearly fucked up in some way (overstepped some weird, Siren tradition. Accidentally insulted his father. Handed him a bad luck omen on a string. Something), the Siren was twisting around to show you the back of his neck. He held up the woven chain so it draped along his shoulder blades, and he pointedly shook the ends at you.
When you just gaped back in shock, he turned to sneer over his shoulder at you and jabbed a claw at his throat, then the necklace, then you, then his throat again. Which, oh. Oh! That—that you could do.
So you reached out to pluck the ends of the grass-woven thread from his talons and he immediately shifted around again to make himself comfortable. Curling his tail firmly against the sand with his plum-lined fins spread out in all their glory like a spill of purple ink along the shoreline. He set his shoulders square and firm, and looked straight ahead with that same, queer sort of focus to him as before.
You tied the ends of the necklace in a bow against his nape, making sure it was securely fastened in place and not snagging any of the softer, shorter hairs at the back of his neck. Once it’d been fussed with to his liking, he turned back around and stared you down until you could feel goosebumps prickling up all along your spine. You wanted to meekly tell him that it was just sea glass. Just a little trinket you’d found in the sand that you’d thought was pretty enough that he might like to have it. But the words died on your tongue. They felt wrong somehow. And you’d put your foot in your mouth plenty of times throughout your life, but this definitely felt like it would have been the biggest boot of all.
“…You like it?” you tried instead, because that sentiment at least seemed less like something that was ready to clog up your throat.
The Siren nodded, firm, his eyes still drilling into yours with that unnerving level of focus.
You coughed into your fist and awkwardly attempted to shift away to give yourself a bit of room, and—Huh. When had his tail come up to wrap around your leg? That made running away a bit inconvenient. You’d just have to try and wriggle your way out and hope he would take mercy on your far inferior musculature, and—
There was a poke at your hip. Tap, tap, tap. One, two, three. And you glanced back up at him with a pinched frown, confused.
The Siren pointed to a scrawl in the sand. Tap, tap, tap.
Acceptable.
You gawked, and then swallowed a laugh so fast it nearly choked you. Because he was still himself, wasn’t he? No matter what. Sassy, asshole fish. Gods, you were going to miss him.
You wiped at the bubbling, giggling tears prickling at the corner of your eyes and reached out to pat at his tail in good humor.
“I hope you find your happy ending,” you beamed, and meant it.
The Siren just looked at you with one of his familiar, lemon-sour puckers. He pointedly reached up to flick at the necklace around his throat, like that had anything to do with him finding his family again at all. Like it wasn’t just some silly trinket you’d gifted him in hopes that maybe one day he could look back fondly on the little human that he’d found himself stranded with. To not just forget you outright. To make your fleeting presence in his life something tangible, rather than just a mess of already fading scars and memories that would too easily be swept away in the depths of the sea.
“At least it’s acceptable,” you said finally around your giggling, and he huffed at you in a way that almost looked fond. You stood from the sand and brushed the mess of grit and salt off your pant legs. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner and I’ll teach you some nicer words tonight. So you can give me a real compliment next time.”
There was spray of water all along your back from where he’d no doubt dove back into the shallows behind you and walloped you with his fins to the best of his ability. And honestly, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be bothered by it at all.
.
.
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