#but you might get to see a smaller Mer Seth in the future

[raventroll80]

Stowaway Mer AU

Part 4: Beach-combing and Fishnets

A chapter in which Em experiences immense regret about previous actions, and makes a surprising friend.

Heads up this story contains; Injury, Swearing, and Dead Fish.

It was not long after 7:00 p.m when Flynn had come home, far earlier than her or Nimh had expected. presumably because of the raging thunderstorm. Though she did notice that his left arm was bandaged.

When asked about it he said a shark got caught in the net and had bit him. He said they had to cut it out of the net so they had to go back. Not because of the thunderstorm.

He had brought Daisy with him who was fast asleep in his arm. He had thanked her and Nimh for the food and went to what was presumably his room.

Em didn’t know if there were any rooms off limits so she dug out her old sleeping bag from a box and laid it out on the couch and slowly fell asleep.

Sometime during the night Flynn had brought down some blankets for Em and Nimh.

“I thought you two could do with some blankets, the house can get cold when the furnace is off,” he said as he handed Nimh some old blankets.

“Thanks bud, it’s really nice of you to let Em move in here with you,” Nimh replied while placing one of the blankets on Em.

“It’s no problem, the house is huge there’s more than enough room here,” Flynn said, “ … I’m gonna, go back to bed now,”

“Good night Flynn,”

——————————————————————————

The next morning the three went into town to get some things done. Mainly getting utilities restored to the house and finding someone to inspect the property for damage.

Em was sat in the back while Nimh sat in the front passenger like before. The sky was still cloudy and a light misty drizzle is all that remained from last night’s storm.

“Ok so, you’re gonna want to go to the town hall, you see that clock tower over there?” Nimh said as they drove into town, “town hall is right over there, the clock tower itself is the post office, you should probably stop there too,”

Suddenly Em remembered that she had left her bag at the beach. The dawning realization must have been visible because Flynn had asked her if something was wrong.

“I just remembered I left my bag on the beach the other day, is it ok if I have to go look for it,”

“Do you need help looking for it?” Flynn asked as he pulled into one of the port parking lots.

“Nope, I know where I left it, I’ll meet you guys at Mr. Grimmar’s” she said unbuckling herself and getting out.

“Which one?” Nimh asked.

“Silas!” Em shouted as she briskly jogged down the beach.

“Do you have your phone?” Nimh yelled back.

Em stopped for a moment and felt her pockets before yelling,

“Fuck!”

“Aye, she left at the house,” Nimh replied rolling the window up.

“I’ll show where Mr. Grimmar’s is when we’re done at town central,”

As the truck drove off Em continued to jog down the beach, being careful as to not slip and fall. She did not leave her phone at the house, it was in fact in her backpack. The same backpack she had left behind after her encounter with the shark-man mermaid thing from the other day.

When Em got to the place she thought she had left it, she was greeted with nothing but rocks and stranded starfish.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she thought to herself as she sat down on a rock. Em gave a defeated sigh as she looked around.

“Might as well toss these starfish back while I’m here,” she said, standing up and began to collect the starfish.

She put some in tide pools and others in the surf, seagulls had already arrived and were cleaning up some of the dead fish that also scattered the beach. Some followed her hoping for a starfish to fall out of her hand.

She had just placed more starfish into the water when she had noticed a bunch of seagulls were gathering just behind some rocks down the shoreline. Curiosity got the better of her and she decided to investigate whatever the seagulls were interested in. Though she did pull out her knife out just in case, luckily she didn’t leave that behind.

Em slowly crept forward and peered over the rocks, what she saw caused her to gasp. It was the shark-mer from the other day.

They didn’t look to good, they weren’t moving and they had a massive gash in their side. They were also tangled in some fishing nets. Seagulls were picking at the wound causing it to bleed.

Em felt a twinge of guilt as she wondered if she was somehow to blame for the state the shark-man was in. She felt bad and wanted to help them but knew that the shark-man mermaid thing probably wouldn’t be to happy to see the person who stabbed them approaching them. So she decided to slowly creep towards them and hoped they wouldn’t wake up, and that they were still alive.

As she drew near she could see that the were still breathing, shallowly albeit, but still breathing. She breathed a sigh of relief and continued creeping. Unfortunately she didn’t notice some debris before stepping on it causing it to loudly crack.

The shark-man’s eyes snapped open and they immediately scrambled back when they saw Em. Fear plastered their face and they struggled to hold their body upright as one of their arms was wrapped in net.

“Hey there buddy, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Em said whilst holding a knife.

The mer didn’t appear to believe her as they continued to try and back up. A seagull pecked at the wound on their side. The mer yelped in pain and pulled their tail away. Em lunged and shooed the bird away, yelling at it.

Seth’s hand slipped as they tried to back away, a grimace covering their face. Em kneeled down on the rocks a set the knife aside before addressing the mer.

“It’s ok, it’s ok… I know you’re afraid, and I don’t blame you either. I am too,” she said, the mers eyes occasionally darting to her knife before turning back to her.

“I’m sorry for stabbing you, and I know you don’t trust me but believe me I’m not going to hurt you,” she continued before picking up the knife again and leaning in.

The mer leaned backwards before falling over, they screwed their eyes shut and began to whimper. Em felt another pang of guilt and Seth braced for imminent death.

Em carefully grabbed the net, making sure not to tug on it too hard. She began to cut the net from his tail. Once it was lose she moved onto his arm. Seth tried to move away but he was afraid that he’d get cut by the woman.

Slowly and agonizingly she cut away at the net, careful as to not pull on it too hard. Eventually Seth was mostly free from the net, only his neck remained wrapped in it.

The Em began to reach towards his neck, and without thinking Seth threw his hands up in front of him. To his surprise she stopped what she was doing and also held her hands up.

Seth slowly lowered his, before lightly tugging at the remaining net around his neck. Then he looked at the scraps of net that she had removed from him, he was confused. When he looked back Em had lowered her hands and was now holding the knife with the handle pointing towards him.

“Here, you probably don’t want me anywhere near your neck with this, huh,” she said softly, with a hint of worry in her voice.

Slowly he reached out and took it from her. As he examined it Em took the opportunity to gather all of the loose net scraps and wrapped them in each other.

“You wait here, I’m gonna go get some things for those wounds of yours,” Em said as she stood up and slowly backed away.

Seth watched her as she walked down the beach at a brisk pace. Once she was out of sight he dragged himself into the water and swam out.

Once Em had made it back to the port she disposed the ball of netting in net disposal bin the town had set up. She then made her way to the bait shop to get the mer something to eat.

“Howdy Marco!” She said to the man behind the counter.

“Afternoon Em! Someone came in the other day looking for you,” Marco replied,

“Wait, really? Who? What for?”

“It was that researcher fellow, he said that he found you bag on the beach the other day,”

“Oh really thank god! Do you have it?” She asked.

“No, sorry, told him to take it to Silas’ shop since you’re there a lot,” Marco answered, “anyway what brings you here?”

“Oh right! Can I have my monthly employee bait bucket, Just moved into the old house up on the cliff, aaand I wanted to cook my roommate something as a welcoming gift,” she replied.

“Sure thing, let me just grab a bucket and let’s get you some fish,” he said stepping out from behind the counter.

“Can you ice the bucket, don’t want them getting smelly on the way home,” Em asked following Marco down the short flight of stairs to the live bait section.

“What kind do you want?” Marco asked as he packed crushed ice around the inside of the bright orange bucket.

“Hmm… just some mullets and herring today,” she answered.

“You got it,” he said and opened the fridge and grabbed some fish.

Once the bucket was full he screwed the lid on and handed it to Em.

“You have a great day now Em, you hear!”

“Thank you Marco!” She replied before exiting out the side door and jogging back down the beach.

When she got back the mer and her knife was nowhere to be seen. Em scanned the waves and thought she saw a head poking out of the water a few meters out. She wasn't entirely sure if it was the mer or not but she called out anyways.

"Umm... Can I have my knife back? You don't have to return it right now but I would like it back eventually. There's a dock on the island not too far from here, just follow the coast until there's a break and the Island should be not too far out from it."

the head tilted to one side before turning around and diving under the waves.

Em decided that she should get going an pick he bag up from Mr. Grimmar and left the beach.

---------------------------------------------------

Seth was still in shock when he surfaced for air. The net was still wrapped around his neck keeping his gills shut, he was too afraid to try and cut it off himself. He was contemplating going back to shore when he saw someone standing on the beach.

They were about the same height and shape as the human who was helping him. They were holding some sort orange cylinder. He wanted to investigate but he was still unsure if they could be trusted.

He heard the person yell from the beach and he recognized it as the the woman from earlier. She was asking for her knife back and giving him directions to a dock somewhere nearby.

He decided to at least give this dock a look. He took a deep breath and dove back under the waves and headed down the coast to this supposed dock.