#do not ask me about his aquatic half species

[whirligig-girl]

ST:PRODIGY S2 SPOILERS

WATCH STAR TREK PRODIGY! IT'S REALLY FUCKING GOOD! I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF EPISODE FIVE RIGHT NOW SO DO NOT RESPOND TO ME WITH SPOILERS!

I have to report that I am going to have some interesting work to do squaring my version of Mellanoid Slime Worms from the past year and a half--Eaurp Guz et al--with the depiction of Murf in Prodigy S2.

Spoilers for S2E5 and maybe earlier below the cut.

So. Murf is an aquatic, and that was preventing him from being understood. Rok'tahk says we don't know much about his species--but that's silly, they could have just asked me! I'd have told you alllll about their railways and spaceships and maybe a little bit about the less important stuff like their history, planet, culture, and biology. :P

Murf can slightly shapeshift at a whim (using extra arms to grab a bunch of weapons) but clearly reverts to one of a few natural forms--a bipedal and an aquatic form. This isn't much different to Guz!

I had assumed that Murf couldn't speak because he was a baby being raised with a universal translator, so his speech pathways didn't develop correctly. The failure of the universal translator Jankom modified is exactly what I would have expected for someone with that condition. In fact that might still be the case--the message they eventually did get out of him was jumbled and in the wrong order--but the main problem was that he needed to be underwater to be understood. Clearly this isn't an issue for Guz. What's interesting is that Murf's aquatic advantage seems to be biologically inherent--he was raised in an air atmosphere. But, perhaps Guz and all other terrestrial mellanoids had to be taught special techniques to speak in air.

Murf wouldn't even necessarily be the first time a terrestrial-raised mellanoid found out she was much happier as an aquatic. My friend Ray's mellanoid OC, Utut Arobi, realized she was much happier as a mermaid (and part-time cetacean), despite spending all of her life up until that point on land.

Murf is also developing like, blobby organs that I'm pretty sure weren't in his bipedal model last season (but i could be wrong). This is something that Guz has too, but I've always imagined their refractive index is so similar to the rest of their goo that it's invisible. Still, I could probably start drawing Guz and other mellanoids that way for parity.

Before I was willing to chalk the differences up to Prodigy being a cartoon and already kinda making some weird decisions regarding existing canon, but everything seems well thought out enough at this point that I'm not necessarily comfortable throwing much away.

It's really cool though because there are actually some interesting parallels between my Mellanoids and Prodigy's, and it's really great to see a Mellanoid animated and doing stuff that's a lot like some of the stuff Guz does. But it's also frustrating because it's definitely contradicting my stuff.

So I have more or less four options, and as I watch, I'll be weighing the pro's and con's.

Guzcomic and all works with Guz, Slamtha, and my other slimeworm characters, are all in an alternate timeline where Mellanoids had a different history--even potentially a different evolutionary history as well. That is--ignore Star Trek Prodigy going forward. I don't want to do this because so far Prodigy is some of my favorite Star Trek ever!

Split off all the mellanoid characters into Gymnomi Slimes. I first used this term for the Torchship version of Guz, but I've worked it into Surviving Schwil and I think my Mellanoid Slime species sheet. I was worried about this possibility, so I sorta fit that in as an 'out.'

Split the sapient Mellanoids into different species. Maybe make the terrestrials and aquatics different species? Alternatively, maybe every goo gunk critter that the Zaldans encountered were called Mellanoid Slime--or maybe Mellanoid Slime as a name for the Guz's species comes from Zaldans hearing about Murf's species.

Make substantial retcons to all of the lore I've posted so far. The way things are heading, that might involve undoing all the rocket science and train stuff I've been doing.

That last one could be more fun, but would make my worldbuilding messy!

To be honest, even though I really liked Prodigy S1, when I decided Guz would be a mellanoid slime worm, it was sort of meant to be a minor name reference to a fairly minor slapstick character. Murf getting development in S2 didn't occur to me until after Guz became like, a part of my identity as a person. my main blorbo. It might've saved me a lot of trouble if I'd come up with an original species name originally. We'll see what happens!

Having now finished S2E5 since writing most of the above post, so far I think it's all very salvageable! But it all depends on how much more they go into Murf's biology. The show doesn't seem to be going in a direction that will be exploring Murf's actual homeworld, at least not yet.

I may be willing to just ignore Rok'tahk's "we don't know much about his species." Maybe she just meant she specifically didn't? (unlikely, she loves Murf and tried for a long time to communicate.) So far the biggest downright inconsistency with my established mellanoid slime lore is that Rok'tahk considers Murf's species uncommon and mysterious, whereas Guz hails from a *backwater*, but still a backwater with Federation membership. In my timeline, Rok'takh probably could have spoken to other mellanoids about Murf and his condition, either through subspace or maybe even talking in person to one of the small handful of mellanoid cadets in San Francisco that would've been in the academy in 2385/6.

Then again, even if she did talk to other mellanoids, even a mellanoid doctor, they probably wouldn't have had a clue what to do about it, since mellanoids didn't even have universal translators until a few years ago and they're not very common. A mellanoid slime worm larva on mellanus has probably never been exposed to an automatic U.T.

Then again, Rok'tahk's line is clearly meant to be interpreted as "we[the federation] doesn't know much..." which would be a substantial difference from my lore.

EDIT: one thing i notice--which hasn't come up much and i was toying with the idea anyway--is that Zero can't read Murf's mind. IIRC Ferengi were also hard to read because of their unique neurological structure, and mellanoid slimes definitely have a unique neurological structure. Then again, Counselor Troi is supposed to be able to read completely alien beings that have nothing in common with humanoids. Either way my Mellanoids are not psychic voids like Data is--but they're not necessarily easy to read.

[thepirarucuandtheorca]

Goonya Monster Oneshot: Horrific Shoreline Sights

AN: A fun little rewrite of the chapter “The Truth Shocks” from my TT AU but this time I say yeets extreme body horror at Toad after doing some species swapped designs with him and Anemone. Also yes, body horror warning.

"From how I saw Toad jump out of the water, this must mean he's a lot more than just some weapons developer. He's possibly a Monster in disguise!" When Toad heard how Pirarucu said her line, he knew his cover was about to get blown. He thought no one was going to see him jump out of the water just after dealing with a recently discovered aquatic form Minotaur and he was pretty worn out from that already from that fact. He also wanted to speak up saying that he was no Monster, but he remembered hearing about the stories of Fishmen like himself and that sometimes they were dubbed as monsters of the deep. Not like those they had seen on the surface, but different.

Pirarucu then took Toad's lab coat off by force, setting it down on the sand as Toad quickly spoke,  "Wait what are you-" before getting shoved into the shallow part of the water by her. It was where the shore and sea met, and he toppled into the water after failing to keep himself up on his feet. She then started to eye him, figuring that he'd become a Monster after when he accidentally said about the whole Monsters having sea life like forms thing.

 She thought she was right until she saw a green shark tail poking out of his back. Wait. If he's not a Monster, then what is he? she thought as he turned to face them, trying to hide his tail too. "Pretend that you never saw that!" he pleaded to them. People like him often hid their tails to properly disguise themselves since their tails remained in their humans forms while still turning aquatic when touching water. "You're a Fishman..." Pirarucu finally breathed, remembering hearing Octo's rambles about them all the time. Octo himself was speechless. All this time they were real and the stories were true.

He then span her around and started shaking her by her waist. "I TOLD YOU!! I TOLD YOU THEY WERE REAL AND YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME!!" he yelled, freaking her out as Snail and Goonyan questioned what was going on. "OK OK I GET IT YOU WERE RIGHT CAN YOU PLEASE LET ME GO?!" she screeched back. He quickly let go of her and said, "Oh uh...sorry." It made Snail finally realize that was why Toad acted weird when they asked him to come join them for a swim during that beach day they had.

Toad wanted to walk up to them and explain everything, but the water was nipping at his tail, his legs, his feet. This was the thing he didn't wanted to show them, and now it was finally coming into effect just as water entered his shoes. A quick groan from him was enough to get everyone, including Goonyan, looking at him. "Toad are you alright?!" Octo screeched, soon preparing to run over to him as Pirarucu grabbed his shoulder. 

When Toad looked at them, Pirarucu couldn't help but stare into his now slitted eyes, dread rushing all over her. "Hey-" she started, soon seeing him groan again and clutching his stomach, both gloves and top vanishing just as it happened. He wanted to speak, but a scream only erupted from his throat in response, letting go of his stomach too. He felt the first of the changes happening from under the shallow part he was standing at: shoes ripping at the seams, talons and webbing forming at his feet as he tried not to get down on all fours from the expanding force. The strain on his lower half rose to his chest, then his arms, and finally, his hands, he got down to his knees, trying to hold the pain in from this aquatic transformation finally happening.

He felt parts of his skin becoming smooth like an actual skin of a shark as his tail rapidly beat the water from the strain his body was feeling. They weren't supposed to see this-! he screamed, his own outside screams deepening just as his chest started to reshape and dark green skin spreading across his whole body, stripes appearing on his arms and an underbelly piece forming at the chest. Snail hid behind Pirarucu as both her and Octo could only watch in horror as to what was happening with their now revealed Fishman friend just as they heard the sounds of his shifting muscles from his arms, soon swelling up to fit his new aquatic frame as a shark fin erupted from his back.

The hands were last after the swelling of muscles in his arms. They shook a bit as they exploded in front of the group to fit with the growth of his arms, webbing forming in between the fingers. He soon screamed again as it turned into a growl and later some snarls as two blades that resembled shark fins exploded from his arms. From the last of the changes, Toad stood up while trying not to topple a few more times. He could only lock into their eyes for a few moments just as he fully stood up, the eyes of his friends being filled with horror as he growled again, grabbing his head as fangs popped from his mouth just as the green had taken over his skin.

It wasn't until the giant fish like creature that was Toad then reared his head up and roared, causing the others to cover their ears and hold their ground from how loud it was. "That's supposed to be Toad?!" Pirarucu shouted from her ears being covered. "It does look like him! Besides, I remember hearing that Fishmen have aquatic forms like mercreatures!" he exclaimed back, still knowing a lot of the stories by heart. Toad soon snarled, whipping his tail back and forth. He was still trying to process everything, not knowing where to start.

Pirarucu wanted to draw out her crossbow, but then decided to use it as a last resort. She didn't know if he was going to go crazy or not, but when she saw him eye them with a snort coming from his nose, that made her flinch. The gaze in his eyes soon turned to worriment, and that made her realize that Toad was still the same. That made her sigh in relief as well. "I'm...sorry you had to see that," he said finally, his deep voice making the group jump as he turned to face them, tail wrapped around his legs out of nervousness.

"It's just that...I don't like talking about the transformation part or even have people watching me turn. Even though I've had this for awhile now, it's hard to get used to it." He sighed, then getting down to his knees. He was still trying to recover from what he had just went through and what his friends had to see and could tell that they were slightly freaked out over seeing that he was the same size as the Minotaur but a tad bit shorter than it.

He saw that the group wanted answers as to his aquatic self and real identity as a Fishman, especially Octo. The boy wanted to go crazy with the questions. Toad hesitated for a few moments, not knowing what to say as he whipped his tail back to its original spot. "I'll explain everything, but let's go somewhere private," is what he finally said as he pointed to a private dock that was rarely used.

"That works for me!" Octo exclaimed with a smile on his face, making Pirarucu scream to herself on how he had recovered from what they just witnessed moments ago. The other two girls agreed on it as Toad dove into the water, leaving a splash in his wake as they watched him go. Heading in that area, so much had crossed their minds. Toad was a Fishman, Monsters with aquatic forms. He never even knew about that second part, but it still freaked them in a way. They knew that once Toad was done explaining stuff...their world was going to change forever.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Hi!

5 y 19.

Have a good day 🙃

Fanfiction Writing Ask Game

5. The fic you’re most proud of writing?

I have to say, it’s a bit of a tug-of-war between Lift a Sail and Anchors.

Lift a Sail started the series that I’m still enjoying crafting and it was the first time I had ever written so many chapters and reached a novel-length word-count.

But Anchors is the one I poured my heart into the most and I’m still amazed at how it all came together. I’m so glad it’s message about family and home came through and reached so many, and I’m elated that the story resonated with so many who have been through chronic pain and disability.

So I think Anchors get to win this round.

19. Have you ever created an OC for a fic?

Oh, yeah. I make plenty, really—if plot calls for extras, I makes extras. I try not to get too bogged down in details for like passersby and shop vendors but I always try to make them real. I use advice like “give everyone a reason to be in the story” and “write every character like they believe they’re the main character and the story is about them” when making even extras, often because I find that even giving them a name and a backstory (that most likely won’t trickle through to the actual narrative but I’ll know) helps paint a picture in my mind which, in turn, helps flesh out the world and the scene.

(Because I write quite a bit in Star Wars, I always try to make OC’s aliens—because I just love aliens and I feel there should be more shown—so I use little tidbits about the alien species to aid the story. For instance: if this OC is of an aquatic species but they’re a shop owner on a desert planet, how’d they end up there? Are they struggling with the dry heat? Do they have some accommodation like a humidifier around? It all paints a scene for me and I’m not saying it’s totally necessary but I enjoy immersive storytelling so that’s what I do.)

But actual, full-fledged, fleshed-out and named OC’s? Chi Drench from Anchors, my beloved, comes to mind. A blue Twi’Lek doctor from Lothal who helped the Rebels out during the Empire’s occupation on the planet and now is a surgeon and resident at Capitol City’s medcentre. I had so much fun building his personality and his quirks, like the fact he’s always wearing a colourfully printed cap and cartoon character pins on his scrubs—partly because he’s just very drawn to colours, partly because he now has the freedom after the Empire’s fall to be as expressive as he wishes, and partly because he helps out in the children’s ward and he likes to brighten their day.

And, of course, the crotchety old medical droid he works alongside who’s a bit of contrast to him, Sloan.

I’ve also made a host of OC’s for The Lighthouse Keeper, like Iris the Nautolan woman who lost a leg and half her head-tendrils in some attack during the Empire and now runs a boarding house, and Arrow the ancient navigation droid who now co-owns an Inn in Wild Space.

[draconicsparkle]

Time to go to the aqua zoo! Along with smol snek!!! Who has the most devious of plots. Hehehe.

Another suggestion from @bobasriduur! You got lots of good ideas, my friend. Thank ya for all the help!

And you can send me ideas as well! Just comment down below!

Nagito pet the head of his tiger and plesiosaur plushes in his terrarium with a smile. He tried to make sure that they were always clean and presentable, even though only he and Hajime were going to see them. But he still did it, as he loved his space and possessions to be clean.

He was grateful that Hajime also tried to keep his apartment clean. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if his human was a messy person. Seeing the mess and not being able to clean would have driven him crazy. But he was fortunate, a fact he reminded himself of every day.

Currently, Hajime was on his bed, typing stuff on his laptop. The naga wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing. Could be homework, could be something else. It didn’t matter too much to him, as he was at an angle where he could watch him work. And he could see Hajime’s expression change every so often from the comfort of his terrarium with his stuffed animals. It was wonderful to witness.

But he would admit that he had a bit of a selfish desire. He wanted more; more stuffed animals to fill his area. But he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted yet, and he didn’t want to drain Hajime’s wallet. So he would have to grow his collection with strategic moves over time.

Luckily for him, a potential opportunity presented itself to him. “Hey, it looks like there’s an aquarium nearby. There’s a sale on tickets. Want to go?”

“An aquarium? That’s like the zoo, right? But just for aquatic animals,” Nagito asked, getting excited. Not just because of the potential of new plushies, of course. He actually was interested in learning more about the world’s species. And anything he did outside the apartment with his human was fantastic.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m assuming you are on board with this. We can go tomorrow afternoon.” Hajime glanced over top of his laptop to see the naga, a half-smile present.

“Yes! I’m excited to go!” Nagito replied, hugging his tiger’s neck in happiness. Tomorrow, yes, he could wait that long. An adventure awaited, and he looked forward to it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Time passed. And soon, the new day was upon them. Which meant that their plans could commence.

This conclusion was running through Nagito’s mind as he laid coiled around the human’s neck while he traveled to the aquarium. He didn’t bother to try and hide, knowing that he was safe to be out and in sight. And everyone around them were being respectful, with no one trying to approach to ask questions. He watched with observant eyes as Hajime walked, interested in all the sights they passed. But none could compare to the actual aquarium building. Decorations depicting coral reefs and some of its inhabitants were on display, indicating what could be found inside. The walls of the building were also painted with marine life. It was all so colorful. He couldn’t wait to see these animals in real life.

And maybe perhaps get one in stuffed animal form, but that would come later.

For now, he gazed at everything. He hardly registered Hajime presenting the tickets and speaking with the other humans. He was too enraptured with looking at everything.

Then they entered the first room with the giant tank.

Every ounce of air was stolen from his lungs when he first laid eyes upon it. It was so enormous, with all sorts of colorful creatures happily swimming around. So many shapes and sizes. It was nearly impossible to count every individual animal inside. “It’s so beautiful. I could watch this for hours,” Nagito whispered.

Hajime heard him and replied. “I could, too. It’s truly something special.”

The two fell silent as they watched the fish swim around for a good ten minutes. But eventually, Hajime tapped on the green tail. “Hey, there’s more areas we can go see. There’s a lot more animals they have living here.”

Nagito looked up at his human, shocked. “They have more? More than what’s in here?”

Hajime grinned, amused by his reaction. “Oh yeah. There’s a lot more. Let’s go see them.”

And so they left the enormous tank behind to see the others who were in their own enclosures. And Nagito was astounded by every single one. The jellyfish that floated around in their cylindrical tank. The horseshoe crabs that he got to touch. The eels that poked their heads out of their pots to look at him. The turtles, both freshwater and saltwater varieties, and their colorful shells.

But none impressed Nagito more than the octopus. The way it moved and looked were already impressive enough, but it also changed its patterns and colors right before their eyes! He didn’t think that was actually possible! “What an amazing creature. So unique and talented,” he found himself whispering, entranced by the octopus.

He felt Hajime move his head to glance down at him. And he also felt the muscles in his neck move as the human smiled. “It really is. It’s one of my favorite sea creatures.”

“I think it’s mine, too.” Nagito squeezed his coils in excitement at a new thought. “I wonder if they sell stuffed animal versions of the octopi. What colors would they choose to make them?”

Hajime caught on. “I bet you are going to ask me to buy you an octopus plush. Am I right?”

Nagito looked up without an ounce of shame. “We simply must bring home a souvenir to help remind us of our time here! And I choose to get an octopus. Simple as that.”

The brunette rolled his eyes, though he still was smiling. “I swear, you are the most spoiled naga.”

Having just gotten confirmation that he was indeed getting his prize, he thanked the human with a neck hug. “Perhaps I am. But I am nonetheless grateful to my Hajime for his kindness and generosity.”

He wasn’t fooled by the human’s indifferent huff, as he could feel the skin heat up under his touch. “Fine. We can go to the gift shop. But only one thing, got it?”

“Understood.” Nagito rose and gave Hajime’s cheek a nuzzle. “Thank you.”

The human certainly turned red at that, making the people around them grin at the sight. Hajime tried to calm himself down and walk away, ignoring the knowing giggles of the other visitors. He had managed to make the blush mostly disappear by the time they arrived in the gift shop. Several different types of items were for sale including clothing, home and lawn decorations, toys, and books. But Nagito had his sights trained on a specific section. The rows and rows of stuffed animals. And to his delight, there were indeed some octopi for sale.

But then came his dilemma. Which color should he choose? There were so many options, but he was limited to one. So what color did he like the best?

As he agonized, he was barely aware that Hajime was moving, arm stretching to grab something. He didn’t have to wait long until the reason was revealed.

“This one was kinda hidden on top. I wonder why it was in a different area. Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. What do you think?”

And now, before his eyes, was an octopus with rainbow fabric. The colors swirled and mixed perfectly, creating a beautiful pattern. “That’s the one. I shall choose this octopus,” Nagito declared, reaching out to pet the head.

“Alright. It’s yours,” Hajime replied, beginning to head to the register. “You will have to make room for it in your terrarium. Better start planning.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I already have a plan in mind,” the naga said cheekily. His tail tip swayed with happiness as he watched the rainbow octopus be lowered into a paper bag. Yes, he was pleased with today. New memories and a new friend had been made. He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

Masterpost

[spacexseven]

OHHHH TUNA I HAVE FINALLY BEEN ABLE TO READ UR ANSWER TO MY ASK U ARE SOOO GENIUS and now im VERY curious to hear about ur mermaid chuuya thoughts, if you happen to have any on hand? and since dazai has been ruled out as our siren, who do you think would fit better? maybe chuuya could do it? fyodor kinda seems like the type to me as well. hm siren! chuuya/fyodor and a pirate captain reader.... imagine the tension.

I am so messed up about ur sea monster dazai interpretation what a little aquatic asshole.... I've been thinking of a slight alternate scenario where he might get a bit ahead of himself in his excitement to eat darling, they get just a bit too close and smell SO good. can you really blame him if he goes for the kill a little earlier than planned? but, alas, his little human actually manages to get away from him! him!!!! of all sea creatures this human actually managed to wiggle out of HIS claws! his ego is pretty bruised for a while (as well as his FACE you KICKED him and it REALLY HURT and he thinks it was a bit uncalled for honestly) but then he actually does start to feel lonely, for the first time. not the fake sad fishie routine he pulled on you, genuinely alone. you Were pretty interesting to talk to, he supposes.... and kinda cute, for a human. it rubs salt in the wound when he can occasionally see you walk near the water, hiding behind some human, not daring to venture too near. maybe at first, you fear was funny to him and he'd threateningly flick his tail in the water to watch u lock up, but now if he sees you he goes completely still, wondering (hoping) if you'll get closer. you never do.

anyway, imagine sea monster dazai realizing he has feelings for u and trying to win u back, to very little avail. why do all his presents he leaves for you on the shore scare you? isn't bringing your mate things you've hunted for them a standard courting practice in most species? I mean, he eviscerated them, sure, but don't humans PREFER when fish have their organs and heads removed? hes really not sure what hes not getting right here. what do you MEAN slaughtered sharks aren't gonna work, chuuya?he thought grand gestures were the way to go, should he go for something even bigger? meanwhile ur SHITTING yourself thinking that this awful creature you barely escaped from is gonna crawl up on shore and turn u inside out. well, I mean, you're half right. figuring out how to walk among humans and find you himself IS the next step hes considering, if you keep being stubborn.

- 🩹

AQUATIC ASSHOLE you know i have a huge soft spot for alliteration i love it so much this makes me so giddy

cw yandere characters (chuuya, fyodor, dazai), obsessive behavior, mentions of dismemberment, stalking

here's the thing about siren chuuya...he's literally irresistable. it's not just his singing voice or his pretty eyes or his overall perfect existance—something about him is almost addictive to people. even he doesn't know what part of him it is that makes people swoon so hard for him. so when he meets a regular little human (that is actually the captain of a pretty big ship. he is impressed.) who just Doesn't Care about him, it hurts his pride and goes against his very existance. it makes no sense!

and because chuuya can't have other mers knowing about this and his indisputed title of Best Siren Ever to be taken away, he starts following you around. a lot. what he doesn't know is that he's not the only siren you've got on your tail. from somewhere far away during one of your adventures, you caught the attention of another reknowned siren, because again you didn't seem to be affected by his charm either. no amount of singing or spells or staring into your eyes changed your feelings towards fyodor and it won't change anything towards chuuya either.

so they're left with only one other option.

making you fall for them the human way.

which also means no underhanded tactics, no singing (not that it had any effect on you before) and no contacting any sea witches to help. what they could do was try to court you like humans did each other.

every morning you wake up and you find unnaturally huge fish gutted and waiting for you cook, priceless items from deep under the sea (you're sure, one time, that that was a bag of real gold coins waiting for you), and a few times even dismembered hands and feet. that was a terrifying sight, even for you. coincidentally you'd find out someone who was giving you trouble just happened to lose a limb or two that same day...

it's very likely dazai will lose his patience and try to eat you (very literally) before he realizes he kinda wants to keep you whole. just another day on your boat talking to your poor little victim sea monster friend and all it takes is for you to come a little too close and leave your hand on his claw for a little too long before he's snatching you and dragging you over the side of your boat and into the cold water (his waters, where nobody would help you, little human) ignoring the way you scream and struggle, using his unnaturally strong limbs to hold you in place while he goes for a bite. what he doesnt expect is for you to jab him in the eye, so hard he's sure it will look all ugly and swollen, before scrambling back onto your boat and going back to shore. damn motorboats and their violent little propellers.

and then you don't come back.

he gives you some time, thinking maybe you got a little bruised up and needed the rest (though he would happilly nurse you back to health if you had asked). but you don't show your face near the water for days and days on end, until even he knew it was far too long to be just because you were injured.

it comes to him through the form of chuuya (who considered himself a master at understanding human behavior, having spent a lot of his time around them, watching them gush over him) that you were probably scared of him. which was really nothing new, anyone with any survival instinct would know to be scared, but when it was you who had been so genuine and unbothered by his demeanor, he was a little distraught.

maybe he should apologize.

it was hard when you rarely came near the beach except when you were with someone else, but he managed to leave gifts for you after waving at you, pretending to not see the grimace on your face or the way you shrunk into yourself.

it was even more painful when you just ignored the things he left for you, no matter how much stuff he left or how luxurious of a gift he left, you would just ignore it. he wondered if he deserved such treatment. how was he to know you would get scared so much?

and you wouldn't even let him explain himself. how was he going to apologize if you didn't hear him out? he didn't have any bad intentions, really.

well, if you weren't going to approach him, then he'd have to approach you, right? luckily, he knew some people who owed him some favors—favors big enough to even change his form temporarily.

[cockatrice-writers-guild]

Siren Song

here’s something a little different. this takes place in the lighthouse au, fairly early on in jax and mia’s relationship

warnings: swearing, food mention, mentions of sex but only in a ‘i have no connection to this word or what it entails’ kinda way, near death experiences (she’s fine though), internalized aphobia

I grasp the cool metal railing as I lean out and look into the sea below, squinting into the dark depths as I search for…anything really. A too-large tail or a distant, fog cloaked figure or a flash of something that could almost pass as gold. Shimmering scales and flowing fins and a stupid smile I’ve grown to look forward to.

The endless magnificent, unforgiving ocean is laid out before me and the breeze ruffles my hair and blows my scarf back and there’s absolutely nothing out there. Not another living soul for miles and miles. The solitude is both a blessing and a curse. It’s beautiful and horrible, peaceful and infuriating and right now I…

I think I want to try something.

There’s no doubt in my mind that it will fail but all the same, I take some time to properly clear my throat and test out my voice before leaning forward and cupping my hands over my mouth.

This is not a good idea.

Even so, I take a deep breath and-

“JAX!”

I wait.

The waves crash against the side of the cliff and I wait some more. And

Nothing.

Of course.

I let out a breath and lean back to look out at the view.

The sea is infinite as ever and as the mist obscures the atmosphere, I take a deep breath of the salty air laced with the distinct smell of rusty metal and in this moment, I can’t help but feel…lonely.

Well, lonelier anyway. It’s stupid really. I took this job for a damn reason and still, I just can’t seem to get it into my thick skull that it’s supposed to be this way. To feel this way. This slowly eating away from the inside, far from the eyes of anyone who ever knew me. This was inevitable. It always was. I just decided to do it on my own terms. And so it was; Emilia Markov, destined to die alone, on a long lost island with a failing building that no longer serves a purpose, both forgotten and-

“Mia!”

Jax?

I have about half a second to pull away from the railing before something massive rises from the depths of the sea, the view of the ocean replaced with a black pupil so huge it doubles as a fucked up full body mirror before I can so much as accidently bite down on my tongue in fear.

I subconsciously take a few steps back but otherwise just stare at him. He wasn’t supposed to actually show up.

“You, uh…you called?”

He sounds surprised. Happy though. And as he pulls away slightly to give me some room, I realize I have no idea how to explain myself. I called him. Why did I do that? Because I wanted to see him? Because things were too quiet around here? Because, God forbid, I was lonely? I couldn’t tell him that.

“Mia?” The loud whisper snaps me out of my thoughts and makes me jump. “Did you need something from me?”

“I-” need to think of something. Now. “…Jax can I ask you a question?”

Jax cocks his head slightly. “Sure?”

Silence.

…Fuck.

“I…what…uh, what are you…?” I trail off, not exactly sure how to finish the sentence.

“…what am I?”

Shit.

“Yeah! What are you? Like…what…what species are you?” Because what? Why would I care? My brain desperately searches for anything of use here and I latch onto a fuzzy memory without a second thought. “…I…heard in this old folktale once before that there’s this humanoid aquatic species that lures sailors to their deaths by singing. …and then they eat them. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Jax coughs awkwardly. “…well, I mean, I can sing. …and I’ve been told that my voice is very…alluring.”

“Jax?”

“Yes, Mia?”

“Do you eat people?”

“No, Mia.”

Silence.

Jax shifts slightly, moving to drum his fingers on the cliffside before he realizes I’m not going to say anything else. “…is that all?”

…SH-

“So you’re a siren?”

“…I guess so?”

“Could you sing for me?”

Jax pulls back so the alarm in his eyes is in full view. “What?”

What indeed. The words just slipped out and as I stare at the man before me, an idea slowly begins to take form. He could sing for me. In all those legends I’d heard, sirens always lure sailors by singing about their…desires. And if that was actually true then…

“Could you sing for me. Please? I want to test something out.”

“I…guess I could try?” Jax frowns for a moment. “…but I’ll only do it under the condition that you stand somewhere I can reach you in case things go wrong, alright?”

I nod and Jax nods back. Once I move to a better position and give him a thumbs up, Jax looks me over once before taking a deep breath and opening his mouth.

And all at once, the most beautiful, most mesmerizing thing I’ve ever heard surrounds me, decorating the very atmosphere with its mere presence. I’m only vaguely aware of the way the surroundings seem to blur, how it’s finally clear to me that nothing matters but the one singing before me. The sweet notes fill the air, blind and deafen me and pull me forward. My body sways with the notes. It has to. And my heart wants so badly to join in, it desperately needs to harmonize with the melody but I keep my mouth shut all the same, afraid of ruining the song with my meager voice. Another step forth. The singer’s eyes widen but it’s okay. I just need to get closer to him. To that song. To what it entails. I’m standing precariously on the railing now, hundreds of feet over the rocky abyss of the ocean below me, as it waits with bated breath to take me into its’ cold embrace. But it doesn’t matter. The song will carry me. It promised it would. I take a step into the empty air and-

I’m falling.

My head feels fuzzy and as the wind whistles past me and causes my eyes to sting, I realize that that whole thing with the jagged rocks is actually a much more pressing matter than I remembered it being. The fall is cut short, however, when I instead land on a much warmer, much softer surface than the cold, wet spikes I’d been expecting.

But my head…the fall…the song…it worked? So I wasn’t…? But I thought…. There’s disappointment now. Along with a weird, quiet, almost rotten sense of relief that I hate more by the second. I’m normal, then. I’m…normal? So all that I had to go through, that I fled from, did it all amount to nothing?

Once I get my bearings, I look up and meet Jax’s concerned eyes. And the small smile on his lips.

“What?”

Jax just shrugs, the resulting movement making me realize that I’m currently in his palm. “Oh, nothing. It’s just…,” the smile grows playful, “you skipped breakfast again didn’t you, M.”

How did he- “What do you mean?”

Jax holds up a finger before opening his mouth and that…wonderful song bursts forth once more. I can feel the pull but something is holding me back this time, pushing me down into the plush surface below so I am forced to just listen. Still, my head sways in time with the rhythm. Something is…different though. The singer is not giving it his all this time, instead putting a greater emphasis on the words he sings. And just like that, I can hear it too. The incomprehensible splendor now laced with meaning and intent. And so, I close my eyes and concentrate, to try to understand what the singer is trying to tell me. The thing that I want, that I so desperately crave, that I need more than anything else is

Beans! Rice! And maybe a fresh fruit if the budget allows for it! Fresh meat! And sweets! And for the love of God, something warm to eat. And-

Wait what?

I’m back again. The weight that had me pinned down moments earlier slowly lifts and I turn to see one of Jax’s fingers retreating before turning to face him. Jax is full on grinning now. I just frown at him before sitting up.

“What was that all about?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were singing about food.”

“Yes?”

“Why were you singing about food?”

“Because that’s what you want most right now?”

“But what about the lust?”

“THE WHAT?”

“The old tales I’ve heard. They said that sirens lure sailors to them with…desire.”

“Desire?”

I wave my hands at him in exasperation. “Sex? Romance?”

Jax just slowly shakes his head. “I think you might have heard wrong, M. Our songs lure people based on what they want most at the moment. And you were hungry.” He raises a brow. “I can only assume because you skipped breakfast again.”

The sinking feeling in my chest is hard to ignore but I try to anyway, nodding instead. “I guess that’s that then. …thanks for trying though.”

Jax nods back before something seems to dawn on him. “…Mia?”

“Jax?”

“Did…you want me to sing about desire?”

“…can you?”

“I mean, I could try? I’ve never really tried singing about something intentionally before. …Let me just-” Jax experimentally mutters a little jingle about sweet rich wine and smiles when he sees it pull me forward slightly. “Alright then! So…desire. Anything specific?”

It doesn’t even take me a second to think about it. “Try men first.”

“Sure. Like…men in general?”

I nod and Jax prepares himself.

And once the verses finally break through the floodgates and rush through the air, I close my eyes to brace myself for the impact and it’s…well it’s a nice song, I guess. But I don’t budge.

Euphoria. Fear.

“Try woman. Please.”

Once again, the notes spring forth and…nothing.

There’s desperation now. Relief.

“Anyone?”

Not even a twitch.

I…don’t know how to feel about this. If those tests were accurate then…I was…

I was right the whole time.

But that means…were they all right too? Am I useless? Heartless? Cold? Is there’s nothing, absolutely nothing in there. Am I…what am I?

I can feel the tears building up in my throat as my breathing hitches but I turn to Jax once more, doing my best to force the croak out of my voice. “Please. Jax, could you try to sing again? Maybe we weren’t specific enough? Try…try kissing. Or…or yearning or…jealousy? Butterflies, warmth, intensity, lust, beauty, the human experience…just anything. Please, Jax. Please, I can’t…this isn’t…I can’t be…”

“You can’t be…?” He prompts quietly.

I hug my knees to my chest as the tears start to fall, opting to hide my face. “Broken,” I mutter.

I’m almost certain it’s too quiet for the giant to hear but a few seconds later, something nudges into me. Something warm.

“Well,” Jax murmurs, his voice much closer than before, “you’re not broken, Mia. Of course you’re not broken but…what makes you think you are?”

I try to find the words to answer but Jax gets there first. “…is this about that thing you wanted to test out? Desire?”

I just nod.

“Hmm.”

The warmth pulls away and I feel air rush past as Jax lifts me higher and higher into the air. Once it stops and a few seconds pass, I finally look up and meet his massive grey irises once more. There’s something shining in those pupils that I can’t quite place. “Well, Mia, if you think not feeling desire makes you broken, then…what the hell does that make me?”

What?

I cough to clear my throat. “…what do you mean?”

I can see Jax’s eyes crinkle with the start of a smile. “Sex. Romance. Desire. It doesn’t do shit for me either, M.”

What?

“Oh, and about that whole human experience thing? I know several sirens that can classify as human if that’s the passing criteria. And seahorses, …certain turtles,” he snaps his fingers a few times as he looks away, “uh, some shrimps too, I think.” He looks back at me with a gleam in his eyes and shrugs. “Oops.”

WHAT?

I have to open and close my mouth a few times before I can even begin to articulate again. “You…YOU’RE LIKE ME?”

Jax nods eagerly. “And you, Mia,” he reaches out with a free hand to poke me, “You are like me.”

And so we just…talk. About anything and everything and nothing at all. Surprisingly similar experiences despite how ridiculous the chances are, absurd expectations and loneliness and alienation and just…listening as the words pour out of us and mingle together and finally come free, things we’ve never brought up before or learned not to. Things we’ve buried deep within and tried not to think about, bottled emotions finally finally breaking loose. Words overlapping over and over until there’s nothing left to hide and it’s…it’s just…nice.

“It’s like,” Jax waves a hand, “I’ve been on my own for so long, but I could never really get used to it, you know?”

“Could?” I ask. “You mean you learned to live with it in the end? Or did the feeling fade away or something?”

“Mmm? No, it’s more like I just…I don’t have to deal with it anymore.”

That gets my attention. “How?”

Instead of answering this, Jax just looks incredulously at me and I lean back defensively.

“…what?”

“Mia. Seriously?”

When I don’t reply, Jax just shrugs and puts up his free hand theatrically.

“Let me tell you a story then, M. The story of a very large siren who finds himself all alone. Those around him have moved on and only he remains because he can’t feel how they do. He goes to this island he thinks is uninhabited to sunbath, fully unaware the nearby building might have humans in it.” He breaks character for a moment. “…maybe it’s not too late to apologize to that other guy. Do you still know him?”

The old keeper. I nod. “He moved back to town after I took the job. I can go check on him later if you want.”

Jax smiles at that. “Thank you. So, anyway, one fine day, a woman becomes the next caretaker of that building and the siren…scares the life out of her by accident.” He cringes a bit before continuing. “…sorry about that. But for whatever reason, this woman comes back. Tends to the lighthouse like nothing happened. The siren returns. She remains. They start talking. Become more comfortable around each other. And now-” he smiles warmly, moving me closer to his face, “-now she’s sitting in the palm of his hand and asking him how he’s not lonely anymore.”

Oh.

Oh.

As the sentiment sinks in, it brings a fresh wave of tears to my eyes before I can stop it. Jax leans forward and presses the tip of his nose into me once more, using a finger to press me into him. “I…can come by more often if you want,” the proximity makes the words vibrate through my bones but I smile and bury my face into him all the same. “I don’t want to disturb you but-”

“Nonono. I…I’d like that, Jax. Thank you.”

I wrap my arms around his nose and with a sigh, he leans into the touch.

A few minutes pass before he speaks again. “Mia?”

“Yeah, Jax?”

“I…hate to have to ruin a moment like this but I can literally feel you starting to collapse. Eat something before you pass out.”

[sunflowerheartsandstarryskies]

The Devil and the Mermaid - Chapter Three: Lucifer x Mermaid!Reader

Warnings: None

Author’s Note: Hehe, I’m back??? kinda anyway, I had gotten some energy and motivation to finish up chapter three, while also getting ideas on where the goal of this series is headed. The inspiration here came from a dream of mine, also one of my favorite shows “The Legend of the Blue Sea” has some heavy inspiration in here as well. Thank you so much for the support in the first parts! I will also create a tag list for this story since I saw someone interested in that. Again I love reading your guys’ comments and if you want to be part of a tag list for this series please let me know :) Thank you so much for all the new followers and notes!!

Prev Chapter | Next Chapter

Taglist: @magnet-girl​

_______________________________________________________________

You woke up when a blinding light hit your face, you let out a groan and opened your eyes. You looked up to see Lucifer was the one to open up the blinds with a big grin on his face. “Good morning sleeping beauty, you gotta get up because we got some things that we need to get for you if you are planning to stay here with me,” he points to a closet, “Go in there and pick whatever you want.” 

You begrudgingly stretched and rolled off the bed, when you walked to the closet you caught your reflection and you got a huge smile on your face. “The moon really did grant my wish! This isn’t just a dream!” you squealed and with more enthusiasm, you went to open the closet. 

You didn’t know what over half of the stuff in there was or how you were supposed to put it on your body, so you just looked over at Lucifer with a sheepish look in your eye. He sighed playfully and he goes, “Oh alright, I thought you might have some ideas, why don’t you wear one of my dress shirts and I think I can find sweatpants for you somewhere.” 

So after some time of debating in his head on what would look best on you, and with some comments coming from you, Lucifer managed to put on the outfit for you as well as some very unfitting shoes. 

With all that settled Lucifer clapped and then escorted you towards the elevator as he says, “We are going to be getting you clothes for you as well as actual good shoes for you. As a human, you need to protect your feet so it won’t get hurt. We may even get some breakfast or lunch depending on how long we’re out.”

 “That sounds awesome, but how can I help you with that?  Don’t people buy things with something? I’ve seen humans use green things to get things, I don’t have any of that,” you questioned as you tilted your head. 

He just lifts his hand as he tutted, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing like that, and might I add how perceptive you are of humans, it’s quite impressive.” You blushed at his compliments and he grinned when he saw your red face. 

“Now, let’s get going, shall we? I had my whole schedule clear for you, I want to make your first day in the human world a good one,” he said as he walked with you to the elevator.

As Lucifer kept spending more time with you the more he felt entranced by you, your beauty, curiosity, and just absolute adorableness. ‘Maybe you were a siren instead of just a mermaid?’ he thought. 

The first stop of the trip was a shoe store and he let you pick whatever you thought looked the nicest, which there were some boots, high heels, and a pair of sneakers. It was pretty awkward for both of you to try to figure out what size shoe you were but you ended up getting it right for all the pairs of shoes you got. 

The next stop was you ending up going clothes shopping, never in all your life had you seen so much life before, well not aquatic or marine life that is. You were at a mall, and all the smells and sights were flooding your senses and you felt so giddy at everything around you. Lucifer found you incredibly adorable to watch as you found your way through the mall. He noticed that you did have some odd effects on aquatic creatures, like koi. 

After shopping for quite a bit both of you were pretty tired from all the shopping and there was a seating area near a koi pond. Lucifer has sat by here before, he found the little koi to be rather serene so he wondered what you would think of them. After a while of you staring at them you turn to Lucifer and say, “They’re very homesick, they don’t like it here. Well at least the oldest ones don’t, the kids don’t seem to mind they like watching people.” 

“Oh? You speak fish?” He asks with a smile. You scrunch up your nose at him and replied, “Something like that, my clan we are more attuned with speaking to dolphins, whales, and sharks but when you get to be surrounded by so many different species you learn to pick up a thing or two.” Lucifer gives a hum in response and nods his head as if he’s thinking about what you said. 

After a couple of moments of you having a conversation with the eldest koi, who calls himself Melvin, Lucifer decided that he would treat you to some lunch. “Now what is it that you normally eat?” he questioned. “Well depends on where we are, sometimes we can only eat the plant life, other times there will be an abundance of fish that we can eat and still keep the local life sustainable,” you explained. “I think you might like sushi, it’s fish mixed with other human food, it can be quite good,” Lucifer grinned. With that being said he took off in the direction of the sushi place, and you followed along with him.

You ate with your hands and stuffed your face full of the delicious food that you got there. Much to the amusement of Lucifer, who had tried to teach you how to use chopsticks. Your eyes are bright with delight from all the good food you had and Lucifer cracking jokes with you, even if you don’t understand most of what he is trying to say to you.

As you were walking back you felt that someone was following the both of you and you tried to get Lucifer’s attention to notice that someone was following you at the tail end of your trip. Lucifer snuck a glance at who you thought might be following you, he let out a long sigh and he rolled his eyes. “Stay close to me,” he told you as he turned fully around with arm blocking you protectively.

As the creeper approached you, you recognized them as the woman from Lucifer’s place earlier, you think he called her “Maze”. She swaggered forward to the both of you, and Lucifer said exasperatedly, “What do you want, Maze?” “I’ve just been keeping tabs on the two of you, wondering what it is about this one that you seem so keen on keeping this time,” Maze taunted as she stuck out a finger towards her. 

You just look up at Lucifer with a curious tilt to your head wondering what in the moon’s light is she talking about? Lucifer shrugged his shoulders at you while he went back to Maze. “Look Maze, you are going to have to get used to her being around the club and me. She is-you are,” as he turns to you, “amazing and has reinvigorated me with energy that I haven’t felt in years. Not even the humanity that the detective seems to inspire within me, but (Y/N) here is simply extraordinary, now what is exactly your problem with her? I’d like to get this over with now. I don’t want any miscommunication from us.”

“Does she know who we are? What we are? I don’t want you to forget what your responsibilities are while we are here. And what about your precious detective? Hmmm? Have you tossed her aside while you picked up this new plaything?” Maze sneered. 

You pursed your lips as you were observing what was going on, even if you were new to this whole human emotion thing, you can easily tell that Maze was giving off a vibe of her defending her territory, what territory she was defending you couldn’t tell. You left this conversation to Lucifer, not knowing how to appease this strange woman. Was she like Lucifer, you wondered, because of her line of questioning you assumed so. 

“Yes, she knows about me that is a part of the reason why I like her so much, I doubt the detective would be so at ease with me if she found out about who I was. However, she doesn’t understand our world or the rest of the world for that matter. I would also like to emphasize a point I made last night, I do not like the tone you have with (Y/N) fix it. She is not my ‘plaything’ as you so delicately put it. She’s a confidante of sorts for now,” he rectified. 

As his answer seems to register to all of you, Maze crossed her arms as she gives a hum of acknowledgment. Lucifer took your hand in his and started to walk away from Maze, seemingly ending the cold confrontation. 

You looked back at Maze who glared at you but sighed in resignation as she walked in the other direction of you guys. 

When you guys got back to LUX anxiety seemed to be creeping up on you as the conversation kept sinking further into your mind, but you tried to be strong because of your faith in what the moon brought you to. Your clan didn’t believe in much but it believed in the powers of the moon because it had given you protection and gifts in many varieties. 

So, you just had to keep pursuing what your heart was after, and your heart was after Lucifer. You just hope that your faith and love was strong enough for you to stay on land, for the sake of both of your futures together you hoped so.

[snowflake-of-destruction]

~gives you an excuse to infodump about mermaid aus~

How does it feel to be my current favorite?

FIRST WORLDBUILDING, I SWEAR IT’S NECESSARY TO SET THE SCENE

Okay, in this world, merfolk and aquatic sirens are seen as two separate species. This is mostly perpetuated by the merfolk themselves who are peaceful versus man-eating and don’t have the same mystical vocal powers sirens use to hypnotize or paralyze prey. There are also other differences, such as jaw/tooth structure. Mermaids--many of them at least, may have sharp, interlocking, predator teeth, but sirens have a specific fang structure in the front of their mouth. Protruding fangs for causing wounds that will bleed the most with the least “effort,” the “puncture teeth” for quicker kills. There are also curved fangs for skinning/descaling prey. 

These latter fangs are important for more than hunting. The siren society has a culture of scarification. Each family has a crest, with individuals therein creating their own variant when they come of age. Who you are is branded/bitten/scarred into your skin, and then you mark your mate and children. There can also be specific circumstances for marks, such as a lifelong debt. For the most part though, you only bare 1 to 2 marks (depending on if you keep your family crest and make your new tattoo separate or if you bare both a mate and an individual mark) and these are taken super seriously in both who you are and who belongs to you until the day they die.

READ MORE FOR LENGTH

Sirens dwell in the deeper trenches of the ocean for the most part and have adapted for it, and who are known to not only drown humans and eat them, but to even sometimes sneak up on a merperson swimming alone, drag them to depths where the pressure starts interfering with their ability to fight back with a clear head, overpower them, and turn (basically) cannibal. 

Why do I say basically cannibal? Because the sirens are taught that really they are one common people, just adapted differently as the merfolk denied some of their true nature and excommunicated those that did not want to live oppressed. There are subsets of mers who have all sort of different tails, sizes, and talents and are still called merfolk, so why should those that “have the song” (and the taste for more than fish) be treated differently? They would also say that more merfolk (senselessly) kill sirens than the opposite, and this hate combined with the fact that Sirens hunt the surface less and less as humans grow more creative and vicious, means they are dying out.

Humans (the ones that have seen these sea creatures and believe in them at all)  just know pretty-half fish= probably dangerous and don't distinguish between merfolk and sirens at all. If you’re close enough to study their teeth it’s probably too late.

Adam and Tadashi= sirens

Langa and Shadow=mermen

Miya- Either a merman or just straight up I make him a salt-water catfish to be funny. He is identified as “sidekick” more than an actual species in my mind so far

Cherry, Joe and Reki= human sailors

Oka= a human but not a sailor, someone who runs a store in a port the Matchablossom ship often restocks and Reki's former boss before he left to sail with Joe and Cherry

ARE YOU WITH ME SO FAR? GOOD, BECAUSE HERE COMES PLOT PREMISE[

THE BACKSTORIES

So we have Adam and Tadashi when they were but tiny things playing around, exploring where they were not supposed to go, and they get attacked by some other dangerous sea creature with things only getting worse when they almost get caught in a net when they flee to the shallow. The net gets very badly wrapped around tiny Tadashi’s throat and he suffers vocal cord damage and loses his main power as a siren before he even grows into it--a consequence of curiosity, Tadashi views it, and though he escapes the net, does he ever really?

Adam learns zero lessons, and a bit later in life he dabbles in a Little Mermaid type narrative with Cherry and Joe when they were younger and dumber...until they discover Adam  luring more weak minded sailors to their doom and prove some people just aren't down with murder for fun and food.

PRESENT DAY

 Captain Kaoru and first mate Kojiro (Though Kaoru and Kojiro keep saying Carla, Kaoru's really fancy nautical compass is the first mate, and Kojiro is just hanging around) take on the plunky Reki as a new crew mate. Reki spots Langa or vice versa and the love at first sight strikes hard. They continue to find ways to interact, but mostly moon over each other in typical teen star-crossed fashion. The “true” Little Mermaid narrative vibes begin. Joe and Cherry find out about their little meetups and warn Reki about the “dangers and demons of the deep” but Reki can’t fathom Langa being like the stories they tell. 

Langa’s mother would not be thrilled with him revealing himself to a human, but the real danger for Langa, though he doesn’t know it, is when Adam hears Langa happily singing to himself about a day spent with Reki. He becomes convinced Langa has “the song” and can bend the world to his will, and runs far with the implications, convinced that he’ll somehow unite mer kingdoms, bringing the sirens out of the depths to the more hospitable merfolk territory and plentiful hunting grounds. 

The only thing standing in the way is Reki and all that needs to happen is to get rid of him or have Langa do it through a little bit of trickery in saying that if Reki's love is true when Langa sings he'll grow gills.

Well, not the only thing, because then we have Matchablossom, already feeling like it's their burden to kill Adam.

And maybe I have some other tricks planned, but I feel like this is enough of an explosion of info.

Unless anyone wants to ask more questions...

[muppenthings]

Customers are like Dolphins

Submitted by: prplzorua

So, I know it’s been a rough couple of days for you fam so here’s a bit fluff. Hope it makes you smile.

TW: Mentions of animal eating (not explicit)

WK: 1522

 —-

Logan drives to Kelp cove on a late Sunday afternoon.

Stepping out the moment he parks, he looks to the beach with a tired sigh.

The Pharmacist smiles a bit when he finds Virgil on the beach already. The mer was laying on his crossed arms and yawning; he looked rather tired.

He likely was, considering that he hadn’t yet acknowledged Logan’s presence.

Carefully the human made his way down the slope, finally catching the attention of the sleepy giant.

“Good afternoon Virgil!”

“…afternoon…”, rumbled out the mer, he then paused and looked upward frowning, “you said you’d be late but where are-”

“Ah”, cut in Logan knowingly, “well due to an incident with the lead, Roman, being the under study, ended up becoming the new lead for a big play. He’s currently rehearsing with his fellow actors. Patton couldn’t switch shifts today unfortunately, so he was unable to make it.”

Virgil exhaled, though it sounded like a huff.

He attempts to shrug nonchalantly. “So just us then? Fine by me”

It would have been easy to believe the mer, however, the drooping Dorsals gave his slight disappointment away.

Logan, knowing his aquatic friend rather well, was quick to pick up on it.

“On the bright side, the both of them are free on Wednesday if you’re amenable to that”

The Dorsal fins immediately perk up and the Pharmacist bites back an amused chuckle.

“Sure”, answers Virgil calmly, unaware that his own body was betraying him, “that’s in four days right?

“Yes, four days.”

“…m'K…”, yawns the mer.

This time Logan actually does chuckle. “You look, like how I feel”

Virgil yawns again, “Dolphins are jerks”, is all he offers as a response.

The Pharmacist quirks a brow. “Are they now?”

“Mhm, they can either be nice and friendly being playful and doing flips and tricks; or they’re little jerks when they want to be.”

“Really?”

“Mhm, some pods will ram their snouts into me just to get a reaction or if they have young and want to defend them. And I don’t care how small they are, a well aimed ram around the gills still stings.”

“Ouch,” winces Logan in sympathy, “I don’t know that much about them but I do know that Dolphin mothers are notoriously protective over their young, so fair.

Virgil rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I mean, protective mothers get a pass. But they’ll keep jabbing me even though I’m leaving already! Like geez, calm down, I can’t swim that fast! And it’s worse if you were trying to take a nap.”

Logan laughs, “I’m sorry that happened to you but you must admit that it is funny”

“Yeah, yeah. What happened to you?”

The Pharmacist sighs tiredly, “well you see, customers are like dolphins.”

The mer raises a brow but he’s grinning at the use of the phrase.

“Really?” He asks, already amused.

“Very much so”,  Logan replies without missing a beat. “Usually Sundays are my day off but today my boss had decided that with the upcoming flu season, it was best we open half day today-”

“Which is why you said you were coming in the afternoon last meeting.” When Logan nods, Virgil shrugs. “Which was fine by me. I had a good hunt this morning.”

“Lucky you, I felt like I was the one being hunted today. People were shoving and pushing; yelling and demanding all to get medication before things ran out of stock. Usually it’s peaceful if not tedious at the Pharmacy but today-”

“They were jerks?”

“Yes, so in a way, customers are like dolphins.”

Virgil snorts, “I still can’t tell if the Dolphins are better or worse than that Orca.”

“Well Orcas are in fact related to Dolphins, they are Dolphins actually, or they fall under the same species at least.”

“…hmm…”

“It’s true, they are compatible enough to mate and produce offspring. It’s rare but very much possible. It’s called a ‘Wholphin’ for some odd reason, but… yes.”

“…Rare huh?…If I see one, I’ll tell you how it tastes”

“Virgil!”

The mer cackles.

Unlike with the other two, he had no problem talking to Logan about his diet and the human was always curious and quick to question how the things he ate actually tasted.

At one point he had described how a particularly large Blue Marlin tasted and how it was rare for him to have been able to sneak up and catch the unsuspecting fish.

By the next meeting Logan was eating one, cooked obviously, but had said he rather enjoyed it. He also said that the fisherman who caught it worked at a nice restaurant and he got the meal for a nice price.  Humans.

“Mammals are weird”,  he says aloud.

“That’s fair”, chuckles Logan.

Virgil yawns. “Hey, do you ever get really sleepy after you eat?”

“And is that the case with you?”

The mer simply shrugs.

“Ah, well yes. It has happened to me plenty of times, especially when I’m full”

Virgil nods, and as if to prove his point, he ends up yawning once more. The giant’s cheeks flush a lovely pink.

Smiling up at the other, the Pharmacist offers a gentle pat on the arm in mock sympathy. “Would you like me to assist?” He asks with a smirk.

Virgil rolls his eyes but moves to lay down more comfortably and so that the human has more access to his neck.

—-

Logan climbs up and begins one of Virgil’s favorite pastimes; neck scratches. Near immediately the giant merman begins to purr. The Pharmacist finds himself quite amused.

Unlike Patton, who had his own technique when it came to the neck scratching, Logan’s was more technical. He went over as many scales as he could in a row, all the way up to the scales that meet skin beneath the hair line.

Fascinated by the textures Logan finds himself entranced, just mindlessly scratching over the lighter then darker patterned scales. It was calming and by the sound of the mer’s rumbles, it felt good too; so he kept at, uncaring of the passage of time.

Virgil almost falls asleep, almost. A full stomach, some good scratches and time spent with his friend? That was a recipe for nap time, unless, of course, said human moved.

Logan makes to slide down, but before he could, Virgil sleepily, but gently grabs him like a teddy bear.

The giant tries to speak, but his hazy mind finds that words are currently too hard to string together coherently and his tongue feels heavy; so he croons and whines his displeasure instead.

“Wha-?! Virgil, I’m not leaving! I’m just going to get my Laptop”

The mer whines again, his tongue clicking in distaste; he pouts.

Logan chuckles, as he pats the giant’s cheek, “very well, I’ll stay up here with you. A little relaxation would probably do me some good.” The Pharmacist huffs out a mock sigh as he then reaches into his pocket for his phone and sets an alarm.

Virgil sleepily nuzzles against him some more.

A pleased croon slipping out on a rumble.

Logan laughs softly, “you’re very affectionate when you’re sleepy, you know that?”

He receives a huff and a low happy rumble in response.

It’s not long after that the Mer’s eyes close and his form slowly goes limp. The human smiles fondly at the giant’s face; peaceful and slack with sleep.

He settles himself comfortably as he mutes his phone and begins to play a mindless game of Tetris.

—-

Zzzzt.   Zzzzt.   Zzzzt.

Logan wakes up with a jolt.

The phone on his chest had only just stopped buzzing. He grabbed it, finding a missed call from Patton. He was about to call back when he noticed the time.

It was late evening, he blinked and looked up; the moon was slowly starting to make its way into the sky. Logan groans internally, realizing he slept through the alarm.

Sighing, he pockets the phone and begins to pat the cheek he was gently held against.

“Virgil! Virgil!”

The Mer’s eyes snapped open  but it was obvious that he wasn’t quite yet awake.

“Hnn?…Whazzit?” Mumbles out the giant groggily, his eyes were closing on him.

Logan had to bite back a laugh, it seems that the Mer was more tired than either of them had initially thought.

Still, he manages to wake Virgil on the second try.

The giant blinks, registers the rising moon, blinks again, and then shares a look with Logan.

“Dolphins”, they say simultaneously both unable to hold back their laughter.

After receiving a quick lift on to the slope.

Logan waves Virgil off saying that a bit of rest was exactly what he needed.

Virgil smiles then and waits for the car to disappear from view before he makes to leave. A trip to an estuary seemed like the best idea, he was rather thirsty after his nice nap.

—–

Mupp/en: You already know how much I love this, but I can’t say it enough: It’s amazing! Their dynamic here is so wonderful! I love how you portray them! 🌸

Also, love how Logan’s neck scratches are more technical but Virgil appreciates them just as much~ And the sleepy teddybear hold returns! They both got a nice, long nap in the end! :D Thank you so much for sharing this gem! ✨

[windup-dragoon]

“Bet’cha won’t catch as many fish as I do.” Boasted Kiri as she threaded the line of her pole.

“Is that a challenge I hear?” Hien quirked a brow in return, a sly grin pulling at the corner of his lips.

His own line had already hit the water, regardless of Kiri’s qualms with his technique in doing so. The knot had been wrong and he had chosen the wrong bait, according to her. But her mild annoyance only served to amuse him, a chuckle rumbling in his chest as she tried to wrestle his fishing rod from his hands.

“More like a fact. The sky is blue and I will catch the most fish today.” She shrugged, eventually retreating from her endeavor of helping him.

“Confident today, aren’t we?” Hien prodded her side with an elbow. “Loser cooks dinner then.”

“Fine with me! Yer grillin’ our fish tonight.”

This had been the start of their little vacation. A trip half way across the world, from Doma to Costa del Sol. With so much happening in their lives, Hien only thought it appropriate to take some time away from it all; more so for her sake then his. The Ruby Sea, while one of her favorite places to visit in Othard, never seemed to quiet her anxiety for long. But if there was one thing he knew better than anyone else about her, it was that the ocean played an important part in steadying her nerves. The reason she spent countless hours at the pier in Doma, fishing or just watching the river flow endlessly. Perhaps it was simply water in general that soothed her soul, but she often spoke so fondly of the ocean, as if telling him stories of home.

He had been in luck as well, a small cottage nearby had come up to rent. An offer for vacationing which suited their needs perfectly. While staying in Limsa Lominsa would have sufficed, the city was a constant bustle of people, the air filled with chatter that drowned out the ocean beneath their feet. Kiri would have been much too eager to leave.

“Oi, Hien!”

A hand on his shoulder jostled him, eyes lifting from the hypnotizing ebb and flow of the tide to search Kiri’s beaming features. The setting sun had turned the cerulean colors of the water pink and gold; her eyes bright like jewels in the same light. For a moment he felt lost in her expression, stunning and radiant. Breathtaking to say the least. His heart fluttered when her laughter sang on the breeze.

“Looks like I win,” Kiri announced with pride, pointing to a bucket filled with thrashing fish and sea water. A rainbow of scales glittered; species of aquatic life he had never quite seen before that belonged only to the shores of Costa del Sol.

“Ah, so you have.” Carefully he rose from his perch on the dock, setting aside his fishing rod in favor of a stretch. While he enjoyed fishing, his enthusiasm for it would never quite compare to hers. She would fish an entire night away without sleep if he hadn’t made it a habit to check the docks before retreating to their chambers for the evening.

Rousing from her own spot, Kiri barked with laughter. “Ya’ fell asleep. Didn’t even try. Next time use the right bait.”

He grinned and pinched her cheek. “Not everyone is quite the master baiter as you, I’m afraid.”

“Oi!” The dragoon puffed her cheeks, stifling the urge to laugh.

“Am I wrong?” Gently he cupped her face between his hands. Beneath his palms he could feel the heat that spread across her cheeks, despite the glare she was currently giving him. “So talented with your hands. Clearly it gives you great pleasure-”

“Hien!” Kiri grabbed at his hands with a smile dancing on her lips. “Stop, stop, stop!”

Instead of releasing her, Hien merely moved closer and wrapped his arms tight around her middle. “I thought you enjoyed fishing? You’re positively hooked on it.”

With her face buried against the crook of his neck, she at last allowed herself to laugh, admitting defeat to his attempt at humor.

His own laughter matched hers, his heart singing with delight just hearing her voice. After a moment he planted a soft kiss to her cheek before scooping her up in his arms. A squeak of surprise echoed from her lips, but otherwise no protest was given.

“I’m afraid you did not win however, Kiri.”

“Eh?” Mismatched eyes lifted curiously, her head tilted to one side. “What’cha on about?”

Hien gave her a grin before stealing a kiss. “In numbers, you are victorious. But I’ve landed the best fish in all the world.”

For a moment she stared at him, wide eyed and surprise clearly written on her features. “That’s... So sweet...”

“Too bad for catch and release.”

Without another word, Hien threw Kiri off the end of the dock.

- - -

The cottage they had rented for their stay was small to say the least. Cozy, with a multitude of windows that overlooked a secluded beach, framed in beautiful flora. A tiny kitchen occupied a portion of the space still warm from recently cooked dinner; a bathroom in another little corner of the cottage with mirrors steamed from a shower; and a bedroom that could only hold a plush bed and little else. It was here that the couple had retreated to after their shared meal of freshly caught fish, Kiri laying on top of him with hair still slightly damp from their shower.

Both were covered in shameless, spotted bruises from the neck down. Their legs were tangled beneath a thin sheet, her hands tracing invisible lines just beneath his collarbone as he reveled in the bliss of their activities. His mind felt vacant, hopelessly intoxicated on her while he stared absently at the spinning ceiling fan.

“To die like this... Would be the happiest death.” He murmured with a laugh, her body trembling with a stifled chuckle of her own.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Although you aren’t gunna die for a long time.” She huffed, lightly kissing at his neck.

There was a moment of silence in which he raised his hand and drew his fingers through her starlight hair.

“... Truly? Will you stay with me that long?”

This inquiry however had Kiri bolting to sit up, peering down at him with a worried expression. She looked away, biting at her lip the way she did when she was nervous about something. “I-...Well... Yeah... Guess I would...Unless! Unless you didn’t want.... Me.... ‘Suppose...”

Her grumbled response sent his heart hammering in his chest. Instead of giving her an immediate response, Hien reached up to grab her, pulling her back down against his chest so he could hold her tight.

“Never could I let you go. I love you, Kiri.”

In his arms Kiri began to squirm. “Oi! Then why did’cha ask??”

“Hm? To see your response.” He grinned in the darkness of their room, holding her tight until she eventually gave up trying to escape his hold. “Watching you get worked up is a hobby of mine.”

“Get a new hobby!”

“Absolutely not!”

“Oi, at least lemme go. The others should be arrivin’ soon for the bonfire.”

“Ah... Certainly wouldn’t want to make our friends wait.”

The rest of the evening was spent huddled together beside the growing flames of a bonfire on the beach. Kiri happily sat herself on his lap, drawing a blanket around them to shelter from the brisk evening air. One by one friends began to arrive, admiring the little cottage and expressing how happy they were to have such a clear evening for a get together. They delighted in snacks roasted in the open fire; filled the night with laughter; eventually tapering down to hushed stories and recounting memories with one another. And every so often, when no one seemed to be looking, Kiri and Hien stole kisses from one another, laughing when the other remarked that their lips tasted like toasted marshmallows.

[dakotacrisis]

Ursula

Okay so with that whole Cruella movie thing going on there is a post floating around about why they haven’t done something like this for Ursula who is mysterious and cool and has this interesting untold backstory. That just reminded me of the fact that back when Maleficent first came out 7 years ago I was thinking about that same premise but with Ursula and wrote what is basically a plot synopsis for an Ursula backstory I created and never did anything with.

I also didn’t want to hijack the original post I had saw addressing this so I am posting it here.

---

Ursula is from a race of merpeople with tentacles instead of fish tails that abandoned their home in the deeper part of the sea when food became scarce. During the move baby Ursula got separated from her family and found by a passing octopus who sees her and takes her to Atlantica. The then childless King Poseidon and Queen Amphitrite take Ursula in as their own. A couple years later Triton is born.

At first Ursula is a normal child. She is raised in a loving but strict home and groomed to assume the throne of Atlantica as she is the oldest child. Triton will get the other half of the sea to rule and start his own kingdom when the time comes. The King and Queen are actually really happy about having multiple children since it’ll divide the workload of ruling to a more manageable degree.

King Poseidon is strict and stern with a stubborn streak and a short temper. Despite this he is also a very brave, wise, caring, and protective father figure. While he may act distant and aloof he deeply cares about his children and is not afraid to be downright silly to make them smile. He takes a vested interest in teaching Ursula magic as she had an affinity for it as a child. Triton on another hand is taught more combat by Poseidon.

Queen Amphitrite is confident and charismatic with an effortless grace and elegance. She is highly intelligent and a gifted diplomat able to persuade others easily. She has a habit of being vain about her looks but only when out in public. In the comfort of her home with her family she is much more laid back and almost childlike and bubbly. She loves her children and takes a leading role in their studies and teaching them how to be leaders.

As children Triton and Ursula get along fine. They tease and fight like normal siblings do, but you can tell that there is a lot of love between them as well. As teenagers they are still close but puberty, maturity, and peer pressure cause them to make poor decisions.

Life goes on and while Ursula does face prejudice from some of the kingdom for her species she is assured by her family that they love her and she doesn’t need to change to please others. While it does help she still carries a certain resentment for those who do hate her just because of how she looks.

Growing into a teenager is where it really comes to a head. Ursula is a proud, intelligent, kind of arrogant and flamboyant young lady. She often has to fight back against the harsh comments and passive aggressive treatment of her peers which gives her a thick skin and pessimistic attitude.

Triton as a teenager has grown up to be very much like his father. He is stubborn and short tempered with a tendency to be dismissive and highly opinionated. He still cares about his family, especially his older sister, Ursula, but with pressure from his friends starts to act colder and more distant with her. When he stands up for her when she gets bullied he is ostracized by his friends. Eventually he stops helping altogether although he knows it is wrong and feels guilty about leaving her to fight her battles alone. As the bullying gets worse and her best friend, Triton, becoming more and more distant with her Ursula gets angrier and more selfish so to keep herself safe.

One day things are going a little too well. People are nicer and happy to see her. Confused at this sudden turn around but encouraged by her brother she opens up to them and starts to enjoy herself believing that maybe things are turning around.

This goes on for a couple days and Ursula lets her guard down and enjoys herself with her new friends. It is her birthday and the kingdom gathers together to celebrate. Ursula invites her new friends as her personal guests to the festivities. Unbeknownst to her though was that this was a long term con to get to this exact moment.

A thing about Ursula’s species is that they are predatory hunters. They hunt down live fish and other aquatic life for nourishment and like sharks get attracted by blood. This was a problem growing up for Ursula as it was a natural part of her biology that she had to learn to control but does go out and hunt away from the kingdom as needed.

Her peers use this information to their advantage and gift her a bunch of chum. Angered that her friendship with these people was all a ruse to embarrass her Ursula goes into a rage. She uses her magic to animate the chum and have it chase and stick to the party goers. Her parents try to calm her down and manage to get through to her for a moment to stop but at this point the blood from the chum has attracted a group of sharks that break into the party and start chasing everyone.

Poseidon, Triton, and the guards are able to drive the sharks away but the damage has been done. Everyone blames Ursula for the shark attack despite the fact that they only showed up because of her bully’s “gift”. Despite everything Ursula does get a lecture from her mother about learning to control her temper and that she was not taught magic to use it in such a way. Ursula tries to explain her side of things but is shrugged off and told to lay low while they fixed things. Ursula is essentially under house arrest and encouraged to not so much as leave her room as much as she can until things die down.

Triton comes by to check on her and tells her that it was messed up what those people did to her. One act of aggression did not make her a bad person and her species definitely did not. Ursula asks him that if what they did was so wrong then how come he didn’t say anything when she unwrapped their present? How come he’s been pushing her away these past couple of years? Did he think she wouldn’t notice that he abandoned her to defend herself?

Triton gets defensive and tells her that it was not like she made it easy all the time to defend her. Could she try to be a little more sociable and nice to people instead of holing herself up with her spells all day? People would probably like her better if she didn’t act so strange.

Ursula is stunned. He did not just tell her that it was her fault that she has been ostracized by the community because of her species and her keeping herself locked away from others was what was most beneficial to her mental health. He did not!

That’s not what he meant--

It sure sounded like that’s what he meant.

Ursula, please, let them talk about this.

No. She’s done talking. She’s done waiting for everyone to accept her. They are never going to accept her. Not as one of them and certainly never as their queen. If Triton, her brother, her best friend, could not see what was happening, could not support her, then she had nothing left here.

She flees the castle. A massive search is launched to find her but Ursula has retreated to one of the farthest and darkest reaches of the ocean. There she hones her power. Her memories also morph turning her reasonably pleasant childhood into a lonely recollection where neither of her parents loved her. Her teen years are even worse as she takes the rejection and scrutiny and amplifies it tenfold in her mind until she has convinced herself that everyone in the kingdom hated her and didn’t care about her at all. The only thing she has from her old life being the nautilus shell her mother had gifted her on the birthday everything went wrong. It was a symbol of power and her right to be ruler of the ocean.

Sometime during her isolation she befriended two moray eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, that she enlists to spy on Atlantica for her. There she sees preparations being made for Triton’s coronation. She crashes the coronation and while at first everyone is scared and guards are called Triton recognizes the necklace and his long lost sister and swims to embrace her and welcome her home.

Ursula is not taken in by his sincere relief and gratitude that she is back and tells him that the throne was hers alone. Triton of course is confused because he does not understand why she is so angry with him. He did not choose to be king alone, everyone thought she had runaway never to be seen again years ago. They were supposed to rule together as brother and sister until she left.

Ursula goes on a rant about how he couldn’t have truly believed that. They had never been friends. They were never even family as far as she was concerned. She alone was supposed to rule the seas and she was here to reclaim her birthright and she was ready to take out Triton to do it.

Triton is now angry that his sister does not believe him and hurt that she hates him now. He tells her she does not deserve the throne after abandoning it and the two get into a large fight. Triton’s brute strength versus Ursula’s magic. It is pretty close with Ursula almost getting the upper hand before Triton manages to knock her back and she is subdued. Unable to do the deed of sentencing what was once his beloved sister to death he instead banishes her back to where she came from. Ursula vows to have her revenge and take back her crown.

Back in Atlantica Triton stares at the one remaining portrait of Ursula that remained hanging in the palace. A family picture of Poseidon, Amphitrite, Ursula, and Triton. Triton has it taken down and hidden away. It would be better for future generations that Ursula be seen as an evil sea witch that must be avoided than the rightful queen of the ocean she had been raised to be. He has his own growing family to worry about after all and it is better if they don’t know who she really is.

Epilogue brings news to Ursula via Flotsam and Jetsam that Triton’s youngest daughter has been seen skulking around sunken ships. Interesting. Be sure to keep an eye on this one.

END

---

gosh I wish I had 17 year old me’s motivation to write this and fully flush it out.

[brooklynislandgirl]

How would your muse react to being handed a baby? {Keni}

Soft, Silent, Sweet || Accepting

 "Wait. W-w-what....what are you doing?"

The young Jedi stands surrounded by a group of village women. All of them seem to be petting and pawing at her. In the fading dusk the blood and filth of battle drying on her face looks like a primitive mask even as cooling breezes begin to tease her hair into ribbons the hue of dark wood flowing down her back after escaping their confining ties. For now her sabre is sheathed though for just a split second it looked like it was going to see further use with the way her fingers flex near its hilt on her belt.  One of the bolder women offers her a gap-toothed smile, and murmurs in the local tongue, too softly to be heard. She takes hold of Melakeni's arms and pulls them away from her body. Into them is deposited an infant. It squirms and squawks. Gurgles spit bubbles on its lips. Keni’s stomach, no bigger than her fist, lurches at the sight. Tries to shrink into itself as much as the rest of her wants the very same. The Force becomes immediately awash with a deeply abiding sense of disgust, a shudder that could potentially if not so thoroughly repressed shake the ground and make the collection of huts around them collapse. This is one of those mammalian things that Keni has never quite gotten her head around. Certainly she has treated younglings by the score in the Temple, every kind of imaginable illness from the contagious poxes to scrapes and bruises and wobbly tummies. Almost to the last they have wanted for a small word of kindness, a kiss on the head. A promise that she can make them well again, but the younglings she treats are capable of speech, of independent thought. She has nothing to do with the creches where those too young to be sorted into clan are kept, tended like plants. Except most plants do not drool and do not defecate in their own clothes. They neither screech nor wail ~at least as far as most sentients are concerned~ with their little faces scrunched up and turning hues. They do not have that indescribable smell like old milk and crusty skin that particularly female humans seem so entranced with. She has often in the past teased Anakin that Zelosian nurseries are full of large jars full of nutrient rich soil and its own little watering apparatus, and sometimes, especially rare children of her species require an aquatic environment. None of that is true. As far as she knows, she doesn't remember that far back, after all, her people are born and raised in the same way. She just has no experience to mark the occasion and she is absolutely certain she'd never made a mess of herself or smelled like that. What's more is she doesn't understand the biological imperative of breeding. Her eyes turn toward Anakin. A human. And he is the depth and breadth of her soul. She has absolutely no doubt that the Force had made them for one another. And Melakeni has dreams. Some of them do involve him and the requisite acts that would be required to produce tiny offspring. All beautiful lines and commingled breath. The feel of his skin burning against her own. Tender kisses and every pleasure that is forbidden to them. Unbidden, others come along with those fever-dreams. She has at least once imagined what one would look like with his hair and long limbs, her eyes and teeth. But that was only once. The reality of it is, even if they were to ever desire such a thing, it would be impossible. They are genetically incompatible, mammalian and viridiphyta respectively. She could never imagine wanting a child of her own, she doesn’t even really want a padawan. And of those children she doesn’t fantasise about, the only possible source for one would be from Anakin. For all that some people might think otherwise, and to no shame, Anakin is not the kind of man who would make for a good father. He would want to be, he would love any child to the very depth of his soul, but therein lies madness. Anyone who has seen him with his droids and his Clones could predict a future where only tragedy could unfold. He would be unable to separate himself from his fears. They would become mania. She has seen what happens when Anakin loves too much. And she knows, much to her own regret, that sometimes, love is not enough. It would kill him as surely as poison. Children are not their future. They will both be content with that.  The infant latches onto her hair and gives it a yank, a hideous little sound coming out of it that she soon enough realises is a laugh. Melakeni flashes Anakin a look that can be felt like direct shot from one of the blaster rifles carried by a nearby handful of Clones who immediately proceed to look away although one looks like he’s overcome with a fit of amusement that his brothers are now trying to save him from. As politely as possible Keni pries the little thing’s fingers apart and rescues herself from the situation. She turns to the translator who accompanied the women and murmurs platitudes. Yes, yes. Adorable child. Many blessings on the family, thank you. Excuse me please. She means none of these things but if she has one ability to surpass all others it is emotional mimicry. She hands the creature back to its parent. Hands come up in a peaceful gesture which she half nods-half bows over. Begins to extricate herself from the group.  The translator asks if they need anything. Keni asks for a tub and as much hot water as the village can muster. They have already been offered food, and a few dozen spare huts at the far edges of the camp. It is all they have to give for their salvation. She tells them that everything is fine, and that they ~Anakin, herself, and their Troops~ will make as little trouble as possible. When they are finally alone, she allows herself to shudder all of her natural revulsion. “The Living Force spare me, it was so gross.” Her face screws up tightly, which pulls the corners of her mouth down, as if she’s having trouble trying not to retch on the spot. “And so...grabby. And squishy. Honestly, Anakin. I’d much prefer dealing with slugs.” There’s meaning in that declaration the likes of which only he can understand. After all, he’s been the one to rescue her from them for years now.  She flings her tunic at him, and lets the rest of her uniform flutter and fall to the ground. She slips over the edge of the wooden tub and sinks into the water, disappearing beneath the surface for a few seconds before rising back up. She can still feel all the infant’s various fluids on her skin. “Next time, you hold the babies and get fondled by the civilians and I’ll stay with the boys.” Anakin laughs and agrees with her before he climbs into the bath opposite of her and she can almost hear his bones shriek in gratitude.

~*~

The twin suns of this dying world bake the sand beneath her boots. There is little shade to be found anywhere and the air feels as if it is scorching her lungs from the inside out. She could never have imagined a time in all of her life where she misses the cold dark of space, nor that she would be counting the seconds before she could return to her ship and erase the memory of sunlight on her skin. She’s done her best to blend in with the locals. To survey her target at every opportunity while remaining out of sight. Until now.

She beckons the boy with a delicate, airy hand. Curiosity draws him near, of course it does. And something she does not possess cracks in her chest leaving a space awash with grief and love and a thousand different yearnings still. Though he’s approaching his tenth Empire Day, he is small for his age. Wind-whipped, carved out by the vast nothingness of his little kingdom. The same suns that sear down have bleached his hair pale gold and in places there are certain cowlicks that will never be tamed, no matter how gentle but unforgiving the hand is that attempts it. His eyes are painfully blue. More so than the sky above them, more than shimmer of sea that does not exist here. The shy grin he offers her harks back to another era that seems like lifetimes ago. If she ever had a doubt, it evaporates here and now. And this is how perhaps the most feared and loved woman in the galaxy comes to kneel before a child. Fixes the boy with a softly-shaped smile, one that hides the fine points of her teeth but that gives warmth to emerald eyes. From some secret pocket, perhaps from the force itself, a gloved hand produces not one but two crystallised honey-sticks, tinted by berries and juices into a chaos of colour. He is cautious. Does not immediately reach for them as one might expect. This pleases her immensely, he has inherited his father’s great wisdom. She continues to hold them out, and inclines her head. Nods a little. He takes them. But then his aunt calls for him, and he looks back toward her over one scrawny shoulder before returning his gaze to his mysterious benefactor. She lifts a finger to her lips.  A secret it is to be. She is gone before Beru comes looking for him.

[primroseprime2019]

Val was sleeping on her bed. Her jacket and shoes were left on the floor. She was so tired last night, and she wasted half of her energy. Luckily, she regained enough energy on her sleep. Her friends were probably still asleep after their trip to Cybertron. Luckily, it was a Saturday, which meant no school, so they could sleep more. Then Monica jumped on her bed and nudged Val's head to wake her up. Monica was hungry for toast, but Val didn't wake up, she was still too tired from their adventure last night. Chirping, Monica licked Val's cheek to wake her up. Val's eyes twitched as she slowly woke up. She glanced at Monica, who stopped licking her, and slowly sat up. Her hair was a bit messy, but she shook her head and her hair returned to normal. Val slowly got off her bed before she got her ring as she put it on, and tiredly walked out while rubbing her eyes, Monica jumped off Val's bed and followed her, Celestia, Cuddles, and Pluto woke up and followed them, Summer flew out of the window while Flora slept. She wanted to catch some sleep and she wasn't hungry.

Val and her little friends walk out and headed towards the kitchen. They saw Gem eating bacon and eggs, Snow was looking at the mini TV as it showed her a cartoon. Owen was making breakfast for Val. Val took her seat as Owen placed a stack of waffles for her. "Morning Val," Owen greeted with a smile as he fed the little creatures.

"Good morning," Val said before eating her breakfast. Owen smiled as he sat down and ate his breakfast. Snow was watching the cartoon until it switched to the news.

"In other news, there was a fire in the Appalachian Mountains. There were claw marks and blood. Mountain climbers had caught sight of the fire."

"Dang," said Snow as she turned off the tv. Owen looked over to Gem who finished eating. "Gem, you make sure Val stays close to you, alright?"

Gem nodded her head. She got off her seat and walked over to Val, who somehow finished her breakfast, and picked her up before walking towards Val's room to get her dressed for today. Val wore a simple blue sundress and flip-flops. Gem helped Val put on her white hooded cloak before Gem put on her cloths which was a one-piece swimsuit, white shorts, and flip-flops. Gem got her and Val's satchel as they went out with Celestia, Monica, Cuddles, and Pluto. Cuddles carried Flora while Summer followed them. They went over to Quinn's house. Quinn and Aggie walked out from their house, fully dressed and with backpacks. Quinn and Aggie saw them and waved at them. Gem and Val waved back. They went over to them and then Damien rushed over with Rocco on his shoulder and with a backpack.

Damien grinned as he walked up to them, "yo! I got your message."

Val looked at him confused. "What message?" She asked.

Gem smiled at her cousin. "I kind of asked Uncle Owen if we could go to Isola Della Vita again with Quinn, Aggie, and Damien." She explained. "Quinn and Aggie asked their dad's permission and Damien asked Jay for his permission, so basically we can go.

Val blinked, "Oh." She needed to pay more attention with her cousin. She heard Dark Twilight snicker from the ring as she said, "I really enjoy your family, kiddo." Val couldn't help but smile at her ring, but she remembered her older brother. "Wait, is Anthony coming?"

Gem shook her head, "No, he can't. He had a mission to do. But, when I woke up, I had a message from Anthony, I don't know how he knows my number or how he got it, but he sends us some information about the history of Cybertron."

Damien blinked at her before looking at Val. "How does your brother get this information?" He asked curiously, "I heard that Cybertronians keep their information to themselves."

Val shrugged, "I don't know. Anthony said that Galaxy Knights know all alien species. But he won't tell me how he does it. He said it was classified."

Damien blinked at her and shrugged his shoulders, "well, if you put it that way, we should learn about the Predacons and find out."

Quinn looked around and said, "We can, but we need a secret place, so Val could open her portal powers."

They nodded and walked towards the restricted beach that they can go. There were no cameras or guards there because they were the only ones who knew where it was. Once they got there, Val readied herself to open the portal, as she took a deep breath. Val felt a swirl of energy surrounding her and dragon markings appeared on her body as a portal opened in front of them. They all went in and entered the island, the portal closing behind them as they walked towards the entrance and towards the inside. Once they were in, they saw the Predacons relaxing in their new home. There were some winged Predacons soaring in the air while others were walking around. Val smiled happily as she saw all the predacons were still here.

Damien let out a whistle, "wow, they're still here."

Gem nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I thought they would have left and explore the world, but I guess they were smart to stay put."

Aggie nodded. "Aye, and they're eating the energon too." She said as she watched some Predacons were eating energons to regain their strength.

Val looked at every Predacon in awe. There must have been thousands of Predacon that survived the Cataclysm. Her brother told her that there were billions of them many years ago, but now there are only a thousand of them, making them endangered. Val was so lost in thought that she didn't notice Saphira was standing behind her and her friends. Saphira knew that they were coming back as she always has a special gift to know things before it could happen. Saphira lowered her snout behind them and let out a gentle huff. The little ones stiffened a bit before slowly turning around and saw Saphira looking at them curiously. Rocco fainted at Damien's shoulder as they all stare at Saphira in awe. Saphira tilted her head curiously as she sniffed at them. Then the other Predacons came to inspect them. They were glad that these weird two-legged creatures came back. They were becoming worried when they left last night.

Aggie took out her tablet and pressed the information that Anthony had sent to Gem who now sent it to her. Aggie read the information and understood them. Then a dragon Predacon came with an energon in its jaw and placed it in front of them. The kids watched as it lifted one of it's claws and smashed the energon with ease. The kids backed away on time as it lifted it's claw to reveal fragments and pieces of the energon. It looked at them and then to the enegron pieces. It nudged one forward to them and let out a croon. They blinked at the energon piece curiously. Were they supposed to eat it? Aggie looked it up on the information, while Damien shrugged before taking one and he was about to eat it.

"Damien, no!" Aggie shouted, making the boy freeze. He glanced at Aggie, confused about why he shouldn't eat it. "Eneegon are poisonous to any organic species. Only Cybertronians—like the Predacons— can eat these substances." She explained. Damien slowly glanced at the energon near his open mouth before he slowly put it down and closed his mouth.

The Predacons that were gathered around them were confused. Why didn't they eat the energon that was offered to them? Weren't they hungry after their long trip? Quinn noticed this and picked up the energon piece and tried to explain to them. "We can't eat this." She said as she pointed to the energon in her hand and shook her head, "We are different."

The Predacons looked at the two-legged beings. They were small like sparklings, but they were really small. Small enough that they could be easily crushed by them in mere seconds but these two-legged beings saved them from their old home and gave them a new one, they should be awarded for their kindness.

The kids didn't know that the Predacons were trying to award them for the kindness, but they decided to learn about the Predacons. The kids walked towards the lake and studies the aquatic Predacons. There were some they watched as the aquatic Predacons swim around the big lake. When they got closer, an aquatic predacon jumps out of the water with much grace as it lands on the ground with ease. They all got a good look at the Predacon. They could tell it's a girl since she had a feminine body structure and her color was icy blue, but she was beautiful when they looked at her. With a flick of her body, the icy blue predacon removed the dripping water off her body, making a beautiful scene to behold as the droplets of water gently wet the kids. She looks at them gently with her icy blue optics as they stared at her in shock. Rocco woke up from his fainted nap and looked at the shock kids.

Rocco blinked, "What're you looking at?"

The kids pointed at the female predacon. Rocco follows their gaze and saw the aquatic predacon looking at him curiously, wondering what type of creature Rocco is. Rocco stared at her for a while, as he stared at her icy blue optics, and the next thing they knew, he fainted again.

The icy blue predacon blinked at Rocco in surprise. Did she scare the little creature? She didn't mean too. She let out an apology croon as she lowered her head at their height and gently blew an icy wind, causing some frost to be on the kids' hairs and bodies as well as the little creatures. They laughed happily as they removed the snow off them. The icy blue predacon looked at them with a croon and Val and Gem understood her.

Gem looks at her friends, "her name is Aquarius."

Aggie adjusted her glasses and looked at Aquarius. "Aquarius? As in, the constellation Aqaurius?" She asked in curiosity.

Gem nodded as she noticed some of the predacons were carrying little predacons on their backs. "Wow, they have babies." She said in awe. "Hey, Aggie, what do they call the babies in Cybertronian?"

Aggie searched it up on her tablet. "They're called sparklings. They are known to be the children or babies of Cybertronians and Predacons." They didn't notice a manticore sparkling was walking towards Val. "It said that Cybertronian femmes can carry a sparkling like human females, but the Predacon femmes lay eggs or like how mammals do." In the background, the manticore sparkling was sniffing at Val curiously before he picked her up from the back of her cloak with his mouth and carried her away.

"Hmm?" Val hummed out as she was taken away.

The others were busy listening to Aggie. "And sparklings are known to be curious with new things, and would often mistake them as toys."

Quinn made a mental note of that, knowing that they are the same size as a toy for the sparklings, "Okay, we have to make sure to stay close before-" She was cut off when she saw Val being carried away by a Predacon sparkling. Her eyes widened in shock. "Oh my gosh! Val!"

Aggie, Damien, and Gem turned to see Val being carried away by the manticore sparkling. Gem's eyes widened in shock, "HEY!" The sparkling stopped walking and glanced at the others. "Bring back my cousin." Gem said sternly.

The sparkling manticore lowered his gaze down to Val before he shifted his gaze back to the others and before anyone could move, the sparkling made a run for it. Damien pointed at the manticore sparkling, "After that sparkling!" They began to chase after the sparkling. The kids and the little creatures, minus Flora who was placed on the ground with Saphira to keep her company, chased the sparkling. The adults watched in amusement as the sparkling was being chased by the little two-legged beings to save the youngest member of their pack. Damien almost got to the sparkling, but the sparkling made a right turn. Damien let out a yelp as he with Rocco on his shoulder fell into the lake with a loud splash.

The sparkling let out a hiss-like giggle as he ran to another direction. Aggie skidded to a stop and did a spell to stop the sparkling. "Via Sominus!" She fired the spell at the sparkling, but he made another turn and the spell hit a dragon predacon. His optics widened for a while before he collapsed on the ground, fast asleep. The other predacons went over to their sleeping comrade and wondered what happened to him. A wolf predacon used it's paw and gently nudged the dragon predacon to wake, but he continued to sleep.

Aggie winced as she saw what had happened and ran after the others. "Ah'm so sorry!" She exclaimed.

Flora was watching them from the sidelines and decided to help. Using her vines, she planted them to the ground and focuses her energy on the roots. As the manticore sparkling was about to make another turn, root like walls appeared from the ground to block his escape, the manticore sparkling skid to a stop and was about to turn again when Aggie did her spell again.

"Via Sominus!"

The spell got to the sparkling manticore and made him fall asleep, and the roots went back to the ground. Val was able to escape from his mouth as she rushed back to her friends. Gem hugs her cousin as she was giggling happily.

Val looked at her cousin with a big smile on her face, "Again! Again! Again! Again!" Val cheered happily.

Gem smiled and stroked her cousin's head, "I think that's enough fun for today, Val."

Damien and Rocco walked over to them, soaking wet. They shook themselves dry, causing some water to fly everywhere. Once they dried themselves, Rocco's fur puffed up and the action made him a big ball of fluff. Everyone stared at him for a moment. The Predacons found the puffy creature hilarious and adorable. Then they heard a giggle from the little two-legged being. They looked at her as she covered her mouth and her face showing a sign of laughter. The Predacons looked at her curiously until they heard a loud laugh coming from Damien. They turned towards the young male two-legged being as he rolled on the ground, clutching his fuel tank, and his optics were leaking. He continued laughing as he banged his fist on the ground.

"Rocco, you, haha, look ridiculous!" He said between his laughter.

Rocco gave him an annoyed look, "it's not funny!"

Gem, Aggie, and Quinn soon joined in the laughter. Quinn held her stomach, "Sorry, Rocco, but it's so funny!"

The Predacons couldn't help but join in the laugh. They let out a roar-like laughter as Rocco yelled at them angrily. After a while, they stopped laughing, and the kids decided to rest with the manticore sparkling. As they took a nap, two serpent predacons with wings slithered towards them. The black one hovered his head right on Damien's face while the white one looked at the little creatures. They were curious about them and wanting to learn.

But they didn't know that Val was beginning to have a strange dream.

Val was in a world of darkness. There was no one around, just her and darkness. Val was alone until she felt a presence. Turning around, she saw Dark Twilight, standing behind her. She gave Val a bored look, and sighed deeply.

"Why are we here, kiddo?" she asked.

Before Val could answer, a ball of light appeared in front of her. Val was starled by this while Dark Twilight raised a brow with her arms crossed. The ball of light shows Val Cybertronians into their vehicle modes.

"Wow..." Val awed.

Then the ball of light dissolves into mist and it went to Val's eyes. Val closed her eyes as the mist went in. It took few seconds before Val opened her eyes to reveal her sclera as she saw much weird information about languages, history and more. Once it was done, Val's eyes return to normal as she shook her head. She turned to Dark Twilight, "what was that?"

Dark Twilight, with her arms still crossed, shrugged her shoulders, "Beats me."

Then they saw a white spirit shining down at them. Val gasped in shock while Dark Twilight shielded her eyes from the bright light. Dark Twilight took a mental note to bring sunglasses next time.

Suddenly, they heard an unknown voice, "Go help the Predacons evolve." He said in Val's mind, "Make them live again." The light shined brightly. Val shielded her eyes as Dark Twilight disappeared and returned to the ring. Val was able to look at the light spirit in amazement, and then information came in her mind, telling her who and what his name is.

"Primus?" She whispered before everything went black as she returned to her friends.

Val shot up and let out a yelp, causing Aggie, Gem, and Quinn to wake up and look at her along with the little creatures and Rocco. Damien stirred in his sleep and let out a yawn. He clicked his mouth and slowly opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a white predacon serpent's head was right in front of him. Damien screamed like a little girl and he curled himself like a ball, but once he realized it was a Predacon, he stopped and glanced around. Everyone was looking at him in confusion, except for Gem, she was smirking at him in amusement. Damien quickly stood up and cleared his throat, trying to act normal.

"So... what's going on?" Damien asked.

"Someone told me that the Predacons can transform into their bipedal forms." Val explained.

Gem looked at her cousin, "Who told you this?"

"Primus." Val answered. "He said they can transform into their bot form, and they can use them if they have practice."

Damien hit his fist with his free hand and said, "Oh! Just like the Galaxy Knights' jets, the jets can turn into robotic fighting machines."

Aggie took out her tablet and she saw the information, "Hmm. I know Anthony sent me some videos of transformation." She scrolled down and found it, "Here it is." She clicked on the video and showed it to the Predacons, some of the Predacons watched as they saw a jet transform into a robot form, then soon the others followed to watch the video. But the predacons looked at each other with questionable looks. Could they do that? They weren't sure if they could after all, they were in stasis for many tears.

Val gave them an encouraging smile. "You can do it." Val said, "just trust your instincts."

The Predacons looked at her for a while, believing that she was right, and tried to do it. Saphira tried to transform, and she focused on the transformation. She felt her plates shifted. Twisting and folding into a shape that she was unknown of. Everyone watched in awe as Saphira transformed into her bipedal form. Her form was very attractive, her m-shaped wings were folded behind her back. She wore double metallic armor and she had a double spear and her trident like tail was connected the lower part of her back. Saphira walked over to the lake a bit shakily as she looked at her reflection. Her optics grew wide as she saw her new self. She looked at Val, who was smiling at her, in shock.

"You did it!" Val ran over to her and hugged Saphira's leg. Saphira smiled at her before kneeling down and patted Val gently with her finger-like claws, carefully not to pierce her skin. Her friends watched in shock until Aquarius tried it too, her form was very attractive like Saphira's, but she was shorter, her weapon is a trident that was attached on her back. Then a green eastern dragon predacon tried it too. His plate began to shift as he transformed into a handsome bot. His visor still reviewed his optics and he has two sword hilts in each side of his waist. His tail was reviled with a spear like tip. He wasn't big as Saphira, but he was almost half the size of her. He took out his sword and suddenly a laser like katana came out of the hilt. The action surprised everyone. He turned it off and put it back before looking at his sister. The dark purple femme predacon snorted before transforming faster than her brother and Saphra. Her body was slender, and she was shorter than her bother. She wore a helmet with her visor hiding her optics. Her black wings in her back were lowered and she had saw-like swords with chains attached to the hilts. Other Predacons followed them, except for the new born sparklings, they were amazed by their new forms.

Saphira looked at Val with a small smile. "Tha...thank you," she said her words slowly, her voice sounded beautiful. It was strange for her to speak instead of using growls or grunts, but she got over it. Val smiled and nodded as she and her friends watched her new friends get used to their new bodies.

Damien looked at his friends and asked, "By the way, who's this Primus guy?"

They shrugged as Aggie looked it up. It took her a while, but she found who Primus was. Her eyes widened slightly when she read the information.

Quinn looks at her sister worriedly, "Aggie? Who's Primus?"

Aggie looked at them in shock, but answered, "Primus is a God of the Cybertronians."

"Whoa," said Damien as his jaw dropped.

"We should tell Angel!" Val happily said.

"Good idea/bad idea." Gem and Dark Twilight said at the same time and Val glanced at her ring.

"Oh come on, Dark. She is Val's cousin," said Quinn with a shrug, "what harm can she do?"

Dark Twilight huffed, "fine. But I've got my eye on her."

"Fine with us." Gem smiled.

Unknown to them, a large figure was watching from a cliff edge, being covered by a white cloak.

The figure had light brown sparkling eyes and raven black hair as she smiled softly.

"Serenity Pax. The Giver Of Life. Welcome back."

With that said, the figure suddenly disappeared like the wind.

[yikesharringrove]

Ooooo, could we get some Merman Billy and Human Steve!!! You can go wherever you want with it, I just love your writing and think that you could do amazing things with this headcanon if you want to!!

This has gone through about 6 iterations of Billy being an actual merman, but I just couldn’t make it work tbh, so this is probably NOT what you actually wanted but this is what I thought of while sitting on the floor of the shower. Also the New England Aquarium in Boston is my FAVORITE aquarium I’ve ever been to (hot take: It’s better than Monterrey Bay) I LOVE aquariums.

The New England Aquarium was extremely popular amount the local elementary schools.

Steve Harrington was the most requested tour guide for these groups of small children, was good with them, giving cute facts about fish, knew exactly how to interact with little kids to keep them excited.

He always had a large group between 4 and 6 pm Tuesday - Saturday when the mermaids were there.

It was a new event the aquarium had introduced, people swimming in the large freahwater tank in mermaid tails, waving at the kids through the glass, sometimes interacting with brave little creatures that swam up to them.

Steve could often be found waving at the mermaids, giving pretend facts to the little kids about how the mermaids here at the New England Aquarium are freshwater mermaids that live happily among the fish and mermaids communicate through a combination of special sign language and song.

It was cute, and the kids loved the people swimming by, swimming up to the top of the tank to get lungfuls of air before heading back down to the kids’ line of sight.

But even when Steve wasn’t leading a tour, he would sit near the tank, would watch them swim about, would watch him swim about.

One of the mermaids was this gorgeous man, this mass of thick muscle, with long hair that looked so beautiful in the water, fanned out around him. He would smile and wave at the kids, would swim with the huge awkward tail so effortlessly.

But he didn’t know his name, couldn’t exactly communicate with him through the foot and a half of glass, could just watch him, and wave as he moved past Steve’s tour groups.

Steve was in the locker room after his shift, was heading home early for a date that ended up being cancelled. Steve huffed as he slammed his locker shut, his bag slung over one shoulder, thinking about the last minute cancellation the guy had just tested him, deciding which bottle of wine he was going to crack open tonight.

“You okay?” He startled at the voice, turning to see the gorgeous merman, rifling though his locker, a towel wrapped around his waist as he was still dripping wet.

“Yeah, uh, just a lame night ahead of me.”

“What’s so lame about it?”

“I was supposed to be going on a date, but the guy just cancelled like, an hour before we were supposed to go out so,” he shrugged.

“Damn. Idiot really cancelled on you?” Steve could feel his face growing warm, so he looked down, began fiddling with his keys.

“It’s not uh, anything new. At least he let me know, Usually they just don’t show.” He looked up to find the guy had dropped the towel, was tugging on a pair of jeans.

“Jesus, what fucking dumbasses are standing you up? I want names, numbers, addresses.” Steve laughed as the guy wiggled into a faded sweatshirt, toweling at his hair. “You wanna hang out tonight? I’m looking at a pretty lame one too.”

Steve’s face was red.

“R-really?”

“Yeah, why not? It’ll be fun.” He had a bright smile as he led Steve out of the employee locker room.

“I’m Billy, by the way.” He knocked his shoulder into Steve’s.

“Steve.” They shook hands, Billy showing Steve the way to his car as Steve directed him to his Brighton apartment.

“So how did you end up a merman?” Billy laughed, he laughed a lot, his blue eyes pretty and bright, smile nice and wide, showing off his perfect teeth.

“Honestly, I was asking around the city for places hiring, and the aquarium said they were looking for merpeople, wanted to introduce the program. I work at a restaurant downtown too, but just figured I could use some extra money. How long you been there?” Steve shrugged.

“I studied marine zoology at BU. Just kinda, fell into it.”

“I see you all the time. You must be like, the most popular tour guide in the whole joint.”

“I like kids a lot, so I get some teachers that’ll request me again if they feel I made a connection with their kids.” Billy pulled up in front of Steve’s place, an old house that had been converted into three apartments. He had four roommates, had found an add on some post-grad housing website for two couples looking for a person to take the spare room. Rent was cheap with all of them in one place, and Steve had a nice sized-room, was able to put up shelves and keep several large aquariums. Billy looked at them with wide eyes.

“I had a fish when I was like, ten. Fucker died on in me about two days.”

“I’ve just always loved animals, but especially marine animals. I think they’re all so unique, and absolutely fascinating.” Billy’s head was tilted to the side a bit as he listened to Steve go on about the animals he had in his tanks, all fresh water since he didn’t have the time or energy that went into taking care of a salt one. “So, that’s Margaret, she’s my sweet little Longfin Zebra Danio.” He pointed to each creature, giving their names. Billy would watch each animal Steve pointed out carefully.

“I’d love for you to give me a tour of the aquarium one day. I swim in that tank every day and couldn’t tell you the species of a single fish in there.” Billy was lounging on his bed now, beer in hand, looking at the small tank on the dresser at the foot of Steve’s bed, the one Steve was currently holding little test strips in, pouring in small amounts of chemicals to get the water to a perfect balance. “What made you fall in love with marine life?” Steve shrugged.

“I don’t really know. When I was little I was only allowed to have fish, my parents didn’t want me having, like, messy pets. Didn’t want fur and shit everywhere. So I did a lot of research, had some pretty good tanks. I think marine animals are consistent, and they’re ridiculously easy to take care of once you figure them out. Brackish animals need the perfect proportion of freshwater to saltwater, and sure it can be a lot of work to keep those tight, but it’s simple to understand. All aquatic animals live by specific rules, and I love that. Sometimes things go over my head, but aquatic creatures have patterns and their needs are consistent. I just love them.” Billy had one elbow set on his thigh, his fist propping his head up as he looked at Steve, he looked so soft, so fond.

“They’re straightforward. Reliable.” Steve snapped, pointing at Billy.

“Exactly. Sometimes people let you down, change how you think about them, how you feel, Fish are beautiful, and calming, and honestly, taking care of my fish is sometimes the only time I feel smart, or, or needed.”

“God, just watching you with those kids through the tank, you’re so good at what you do, Steve. And that’s important.” Steve smiled at him.

“Thank you, Merman.” Billy laughed, shoving Steve lightly.

[timefirewrites]

COMIC SANS INTRO

Taglist (ask to be added/removed): @black-lakritz-dragon​​ @marewriteblr​​ @spacetimewraithwrites​ @emmaschoutenwrites​

ID under the cut would’ve prefered to put it here, but the post is already super long, sorry

[ID: thirteen google presentation slides, all written in the font comic sans, black text on a white background.

1. Title: “Gay Space Pirates", subtitle: “thats it thats the story”

2. Title: “What.” Text:

Okay so, everyone is queer

Literally, there’s not a single cishet character in this story

I’m not sorry <3

Most of the cast are non-humans, but the ones that aren’t are super diverse

Transfem muslim gal, intersex nerd with vitiligo, nonbinary overweight dumbass, I’ve got them all

There are also some disabled and mute characters

Oh, also they’re all neurodivergent because I said so

3. Title: “Setting!”, Text:

So, humans discovered aliens are real

and joined their Intergalactic Union

(which is definitely not evil)

That happened about 300 years ago and humans are now vibing all over the galaxy

Sounds great, right?

Well, for most humans, sure, but the ones who had to stay behind on Earth because they couldn’t afford space travel don’t like it as much

The situation on Earth is kind of shitty, and some people want to leave

4. Title: “pLoT??”, Text:

Neb is one of those people

They got an amazing plan to “borrow” a spaceship and never look back

Problem: Neb didn’t account for a robot to suddenly accompany them

The plan kind of fails real bad, but in the end the two escape from Earth

And immediately get picked up by space pirates

Fortunately, they don’t get killed

Because those pirates could really use an extra pair of hands or two, for their biggest mission yet

Which is retrieving a weapon apparently powerful enough to destroy the universe before someone else does

Nobody knows what it actually looks like though

5. Title: “Neb”, Text:

Nonbinary, aro and ace (they/them)

overweight

has idiopathic hypersomnia (basically means they sleep a lot)

also chronic migraines

pretty impulsive and says what they think

has a hard time trusting others

dreamt of going to space for as long as they can remember

On the right side of this slide is a picrew image, showing a person with brown skin, dark brown eyes and black, curly hair. They’re wearing a red bandana as well as a torn yeans jacket and have multiple scars on their skin. The background is the nonbinary flag.

6. Title: “Ahdia”, Text:

Transfem, bigender and pan (she/they)

mute

mechanic of the ship and the only one with a sense for fashion

happy go lucky and just overall fun to be around

pretty laid back, but would absolutely hunt you down if you hurt one of her friends

proud holder of the single brain cell this crew has

On the right side is an image as well, it shows a woman with fairer, but still brownish skin and brown eyes wearing a black hijab and a long-sleeved light blue shirt with clouds on it. The background is the trans flag.

7. Title: “Cap”, Text:

intersex, queer (they/them)

First time they show up, they’re holding a soda and pizza

likes organization in theory

wants to appear like a badass, but is too chaotic for that

needs to wear glasses, but doesn’t bother

Captain of the crew that picks Neb up

certified mess

Again, an image of the right shows a person, this time with dark brown skin and vitiligo, dark brown eyes and long, black dread-locks. They have some silver piercings in their ears and wear a dark purple hoodie. The background is the rainbow flag with the brown stripes on top.

The next three slides feature two columns each, each with an own title.

Title: “Com”, Text:

AI of the ship

shy and nervous mess

wants to visit all kinds of planets

loves taking care of plants

panromantic and ace

uses she/her, but doesn’t really care about gender

spends most of her time watching trashy romance movies

Title: “Coal”, Text:

The robot Neb befriended

Realized they were self-aware not even a day ago and already got anxiety

easily overwhelmed by everything

Has no idea what to do with themself

they/them

someone tells them knitting is a thing and they never do anything else ever again

Title: “Laser”, Text:

genderfluid, uses he/him or she/her

weapon specialist and tired of it

suffers from chronic neurogenic pain

speaks in a very monotone voice

writes poetry, but nobody is allowed to read it

canonically wears crocs

Title: “Lifo”, Text:

gender? no thanks (uses fel/fels pronouns)

tiny, but deadly

lost an arm and half a leg and replaced them with robotic parts (same for fels spine)

usually very loud, but can be completely silent if fel wants

cook of the ship

loves collecting trinkets

Title: “Nova”, Text:

He’s absolutely enormous, huge, colossal and every other synonym for really big you can think of

looks like he can kill you, is actually a cinnamon roll

licensed medic and mom friend of the crew

I lied when I said Ahida is the only one with a brain cell, Nova knows what he’s doing too

loves painting

Title: “Mer”, Text:

Don’t tell anyone I said this, but Mer is my favorite

if the name wasn’t clear enough, his species is aquatic

he’s beauty, he’s grace, he’ll punch you in the face

killed a man and will do so again

don’t cross him, he will get his revenge and you will regret your actions

seems like he has everything under control, but really doesn’t

11. Title: “some of my favorite lines”, Text (in no particular order):

“What’s up with your display?” Their voice sounded more steady now, which was good. 

“I do not understand.” Their voice on the other hand just sounded confused. 

“Oh, right. You probably can’t see it. You’re currently displaying an error message. Which just reads ‘error’. Not very helpful.” 

“Fuck. I didn’t deactivate it.”

“We could just go in and race to the top.” 

“What? No. Why would we do that? We can’t afford to get caught, we need to make a plan, Coal.” 

“You said you wanted an adventure. Plus, I do not think we could create a plan, seeing as we know next to nothing about its defence and security.” 

They said that because of them? They were just rambling earlier, not really thinking about it, just talking to fill the silence. 

“Okay. But if anything goes wrong, it’ll be your fault.”

“Uh, I don’t think so? Better not touch it, though.” As Lifo said that, Cap could see fel fighting against the desire to do just that. At least Com would be happy. 

Chapter 13 - they did surgery on a grape Neb

“Oh. I’m the ship. Nice to meet you?”

Whatever the hell was going on, they didn’t sign up for this.

“I am fine.” Perfectly fine. Mhm. 

Coal nodded, then just stood around? 

"You're outnumbered now! Coal agreed to watch Love On A Foreign Planet with me. So, uh, get moving, Fishsticks."

They settled on two things they were pretty sure were edible: a soda labeled “SpacePop: the best soda in the universe” with a “multiple sunsets on Madoras” flavor and some leftover pizza. (They were pretty sure Madoras didn’t exist, they never heard of that planet before. Maybe they shouldn’t drink that soda after all.)

“I’m Laser, my gender is a burning trash can and my pronouns depend entirely on the mercy of the universe.”

12. Title: “Homegrown memes”, this slide is filled with six different memes.

A windows error message, but the title and text is just screaming. The two options are “AAA” or “AAA”. It’s labeled “Coal”.

A photo of two people in wedding clothes. They’re labeled “Laser and Lifo”, in the background is a person falling from the sky, labeled “Com”.

Spiderman (labeled “Mer”) is holding a screen labeled “dealing with a breakup like a normal person”, in the next frame that screen is being thrown away as spiderman looks at a pc being held by someone else labeled as “commiting murder”.

A person is being kicked into a lake by someone else. They’re labeled “Coal trying to figure out what to do now that they’re self-aware”. The person kicking them is labeled “the plot”.

The “is this a pigeon” meme, but the guy is labeled as “Cap”, the butterfly as “wearing a hoodie and truly horrendous shorts” and the caption now says “is this formal dress attire?”.

The last meme is a chart, with five rows and two columns.

Row 1: Regularly says fuck: Coal, Lifo

Row 2: has sworn of saying fuck, but said it at some point: Cap, Neb

Row 3: has not said fuck before, but can if so desired: Laser, Ahdia, Mer

Row 4: has not said fuck before and refuses to say it: Com, Nova

Row 5: legally cannot say fuck: also Coal

13. This slide is an image of Earth as seen from space. Above it white text reads “the End”. /end ID]

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Fic -- And we are kind to snails

Gen, 3700 words. Story time on the Razor Crest! It was obviously way too early to introduce the kid to combat training, but there were other ways to prepare a child for the world, surely.

If that meant Din was occasionally stuck trying to imitate animal calls for the enjoyment and edification of a delighted and indefatigable one-person audience, so be it.

Can also be found here on AO3

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

Din had, he was slowly becoming aware, created a monster.

“Da-wah,” the baby announced, reaching his arms out to be picked up and dropping the holodisc next to him in Din’s lap once he was safely positioned.

“...oh,” Din said faintly, slumping back a little in the pilot’s chair as he kept the baby steady with one hand. “Again?”

The baby turned wide expectant eyes on him, and Din — who had in fact been planning to troubleshoot the concerning noise one of the engines had been making the last time they took off — sighed. Well, he supposed that would be easier to get done uninterrupted once the baby was asleep anyway.

“Right, again,” Din agreed, and went to activate the ship’s holoprojector on the dashboard before sliding the disc in for the second time that day.

The reading had been a bit of a shot in the dark. It was obviously way too early to introduce the kid to combat training and he may never be suited for it in a way Din would be able to teach him, even in maturity — and for all Din knew about the kid’s species that might not even be within his own lifetime, it didn’t seem worth holding his breath on this one. There were other ways to prepare a child for the world, though, surely. It was probably a bit on the premature side for engineering too, since the kid still had a marked tendency to put everything he could pick up into his mouth at least once, which ruled out most of Din’s own expertise.

He’d mulled it over for a few days until a half-buried memory of his parents reading to him had presented itself for consideration. He no longer recalled what exactly they’d read — only the feeling of sitting nestled between them, his mother’s fingers running through his hair, the way his father’s voice had taken on a specific cadence when he read aloud. That they would sometimes switch off doing the voices for the dialogue so it became almost like a real conversation.

It was… well. He still remembered some of it.

Recognizing in himself no great talent for acting Din had elected to aim for something more practical, at least to begin with. In the end he’d chosen something he hoped would be both suitable for a kid and something useful to teach him and gotten, among a few other things, a holodisc that included information on and pictures of a great variety of animals from around the galaxy. Despite the breezy assurances of some people who were born and raised in the tribe, Din suspected that there was such a thing as too early an age to be introduced to the bloodthirsty treatises of Mandalore the Conqueror.

As it turned out the kid had taken to the whole thing with so much gusto that getting him to go to bed without reading at least a little first was starting to become a minor diplomatic incident. It didn’t seem to matter so much what they actually looked at — Din sometimes wondered if he could have gotten away with reading the ship’s manual aloud every night and had the same entranced reception. But for that space of time every night and sometimes during the day, the kid was glued to Din’s lap and poured his full undivided attention into whatever was set before him, and filling that time with anything less than worthy of that attention felt unacceptable.

If that meant Din was occasionally stuck trying to imitate animal calls for the enjoyment and edification of a delighted and indefatigable one-person audience, so be it.

The holoprojector sprang sluggishly to life and the image flickered until Din leaned forward to give the dashboard a succinct and practiced thump. He really should open that up and take a proper look at it one of these days, it’d been acting up for years and the components were likely older than him. “There we go. Okay, then. What are we looking at today?”

In the flickering light of hyperspace illuminating the cockpit he squinted at the small hovering icons that served as previews for the full articles, looking for one that seemed interesting or failing that an old favorite. Before he could settle on something the kid leaned forward and pointed at one of the icons with an intent yelp, so Din opened that one and gave a surprised huff of laughter when the large four-legged bulk of the creature rose from the holoprojector, its horned head immediately familiar where it was lifted in a silent roar. He hadn’t realized the disc included extinct species. The kid glanced up at him, waiting for him to start the normal routine of saying the animal’s name.

“That’s a mythosaur,” Din said, unaccountably pleased the kid had zoomed right in on it. “Our people used to ride them, a long time ago.”

The kid made a long intrigued coo and reached out towards the hologram, moving his hand like he meant to stroke the mythosaur’s horned, ferocious head.

“Too bad they’re extinct or we could’ve gotten ourselves one,” Din said, genuinely a little wistful. “Wouldn’t that have been something?”

Apparently the kid got just enough of that to fix Din with a wide-eyed look, ears perking up in breathless expectation.

Regretful to burst his bubble Din was forced to clarify: “I don’t have one. They aren’t around anymore.”

After a moment’s pause the baby took this revelation with somber dignity, turning back to the mythosaur. “Bah-ta,” he intoned, waving his little hand at the hologram like he was bidding the creature a solemn farewell.

“You still got one here, though,” Din said, in the hopes of softening the blow, tugging gently on the mythosaur skull pendant the kid wore around his neck most waking hours. ”See how they’ve got the same horns?”

The baby grabbed the pendant and glanced down at it, then between it and the hologram a few times, before holding the pendant up for Din’s inspection with a triumphant happy cry.

“Yeah. We keep the important parts,” Din said, grinning a bit at the enthusiasm.

The baby absentmindedly stuck the pendant in his mouth, small toes wiggling in contentment as he turned back to the hologram, clearly awaiting what was next. Biting his lip Din added ‘toy mythosaur?’ to his inner list of things to look out for in markets when he went to resupply and then read off the sparse information the holodisc’s compilers had thought worthy of inclusion.

“Remind me to find a more exciting version of this for you one day,” Din said as he closed the article. “There’s gotta be some better stuff about them out there.”

The baby gave a garbled sound around the pendant, idly swinging his legs while Din picked a new article at random, coming up with something aquatic and vaguely frog-like from a planet covered almost entirely in shallow oceans. The kid’s eyes sparkled.

“I think you’ll find that’s a lunch buffet too big even for you, buddy,” Din told him, moving through the different pictures of the sort-of frogs flitting between corals and strange tentacle-like sea plants. “They’re at least twice your size and squirt poison. Which apparently has psychedelic effects for some species. Huh. Let’s definitely steer clear of that, then.”

Quite apart from anything else Din had no idea how much the baby’s inexplicable mind powers were controlled by conscious thought and how much was purely instinctual — Din already felt out of his depth enough as it was with this, he could only imagine with dread the results of any unforeseen variables. If Din had already wondered whether the kid could lift himself into the air as well as things around him, it was only a question of time before the baby’s inventive and ever-active brain came up with the same idea. Din tried to keep it out of his mind most of the time, outside of the involuntary planning for endless contingencies he engaged in when he couldn’t fall asleep at night. One particularly fevered evening he had, for a while, seriously considered padding the entire ceiling of the interior of the Razor Crest, just to be safe.

After the frogs were duly ‘ooh’ed and hungrily ‘aaah’d over they continued through a few types of bugs until Din used his veto by right of being the person in control of the holoprojector to get them over onto something else. He never knew the universe contained quite so many beetles or that they all looked basically the same. The Naboo guarlara got a raucous reception, though Din suspected this might have more to do with the fanciful and brightly coloured costumes of the royalty depicted riding on them than the animal itself.

Hm. Maybe hunting down a history book or two might be a good call, actually, and not just for the kid. Din had never had much of an interest in the subject himself — surely the world was bleak enough without going around dredging up the muds of ancient strife and suffering to cloud the waters even further. But these Jedi were currently the best lead he had on finding anyone like the baby out there, and if they had once been powerful enough to challenge a Mandalore… they had to have left tracks somewhere. He couldn’t imagine the Empire having tolerated information about formidable sorcerers, however ancient, being freely available, and sometimes knowledge faded surprisingly quickly if it was stamped out hard enough. Off the top of his head he was having a hard time coming up with anyone among his established contacts who might have an interest in banned literature on the side. People in his line of work did not tend towards bookishness, by and large. But then again they might have clients who did and who had the credits to back it up. It could be a useful trail to pursue, anyway, and less risky than trying to ask around about such a loaded subject in person.

What he’d do if he actually found these people was a bridge he’d have to cross — or burn behind him while fleeing blaster bolts, he could only wryly extrapolate from recent events — if he ever managed to get to it.

Still half-lost in thought Din switched to a new animal at the kid’s urging, then startled out of his distraction when the kid sat up straighter in his lap and gave a call of accusation and reproof that came straight from the depths of his little body.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Din blinked at the hologram of the round-faced fuzzy creatures and tried to understand what was freaking the kid out about them.

“Eh!” the kid insisted, gesturing hotly at the hologram.

Realization finally dawned; Din had to push down a laugh. “Oh yeah, you had a little run-in with one of those on Sorgan, didn’t you. It’s called a Loth-cat, it’s a type of tooka. It’s not dangerous,” he added, chuckling a little despite himself when the small body in his lap remained rigid with outrage and resentment. He wrapped his arms more securely around the kid and stroked a calming hand over his side. “Some people keep them as pets.”

The kid still scowled distrustfully at the image of the Loth-cat like he found this very hard to believe, but burrowed closer against Din’s chest, tucking himself into the crook of his arm.

“See there,” Din said, pointing out the kittens cowering behind the bigger animal. “It has little ones to take care of. That’s why it’s hissing, it’s protecting them.”

Blinking slowly the kid seemed to consider this, his tiny hand wrapped around one of Din’s fingers. He gave a quizzical sound and looked up at Din, pointing at a kitten too.

“Uh-huh,” Din said. “It’s a baby. Like you.”

Softening slightly the kid lowered his hand again and tilted his head to one side.

“That’s the parent,” Din said, indicating the adult. “Buir. And they’re its children. Ade.”

He still couldn’t quite tell how much language the kid actually understood yet, but it felt like the right sort of thing to do, so he kept going.

“Together they’re a family. Aliit. I, uh. Don’t know if they really do clans, but it’s the same word.”

The kid gave a thoughtful sound and fumbled for a handhold on Din’s armor. Din gave him a squeeze, stroking his head when he butted his forehead against his palm to ask for it without taking his big dark eyes off the hologram.

“Every being gets scared and angry if its children are in danger,” Din said quietly, rocking the child gently on his lap. Since this one had sparked an interest, and to give the kid some time to get used to seeing the animal without fear, they read all the information provided, going through galactic prevalence, social structures, speculated planet of origin for the tooka, anatomy and behavioral patterns, history of domestication and hunting strategies. Din was almost sure most of it went right over the kid’s head, but the attentive tilt of his ears never wavered and he seemed to listen the whole way, even glancing questioningly up at Din when he fumbled a little in getting to the next page at one point and left a pause in the flow. Maybe the facts weren’t the most important part.

The last image of the article was of the Loth-cat asleep, its kittens tucked close all around it. Apparently reaching a place where he was ready to bury the hatchet and extend a gracious hand of peace the kid finally leaned forward and tried to pat the Loth-cat’s head like he’d done with the mythosaur, making a soothing sort of warbling sound.

“Yeah, we’re not gonna mess with its babies,” Din agreed. “It doesn’t need to be scared.”

“Nahwa-lah,” the baby babbled sagely, sitting back and leaning against Din’s side again.

“Well, while we’re on things you’ve already seen before...” Din did a quick search and found the large one-horned head he’d had the dubious pleasure of surveying from extremely up close several times.

The baby stilled in his arms, ears perking up.

“You remember this one too, huh. Guess it’d be hard to forget. Well, it’s called a mudhorn,” Din said. “In the capacity as your father, let me take the opportunity to advise you to learn from my mistakes and leave their eggs the hell alone. My vision still goes double sometimes if I turn my head too quickly.”

“Aaah,” the kid said, imperiously waving his hand in the way that meant he wanted the next page of the article, then let out a squeak when the next picture was a mudhorn contentedly grazing with its calf, plump and with a head nearly comically oversized, the horn only about the length of a human hand. The baby pointed to the calf, his excitement so radiant that Din had to smile.

“Yeah, that’s another baby. Actually...” Din knitted his brow as he scanned through the article until he found the section about anatomy and brought up a hologram of the mudhorn’s skull in profile. “Look familiar?”

The baby’s mouth turned into a little ‘o’ of surprise; he glanced up at Din, stretching up as far as he could to tentatively poke the edge of a shoulder pauldron.

“That’s right,” Din confirmed, twisting a little so the kid got a clearer view. “That’s our signet. Which you should rightfully get most of the honour for, honestly, I wasn’t doing so hot on my own.”

Running a three-fingered hand back and forth over the edge of the signet the baby babbled away, his free hand gesturing towards the hologram. Din nodded and ‘uh-huh’ed dutifully along until the kid’s story culminated in him throwing both his arms up with a shout and looking up at Din in a ‘can you believe it?’ sort of way.

“I did go flying a couple of times back there,” Din hazarded while sitting up straight again, and was rewarded with a firm nod. The kid chattered some more and patted Din’s breastplate as if in reassurance, pressing his small round cheek to the smooth metal and blinking cheerily up at him.

Din’s chest did some strange twisting things he didn’t quite understand.

“How could I be worried out there when I’ve got you watching my back, huh?” Din said thickly, cupping the back of the baby’s head in his hand and stroking his thumb along the downy crown of it, making his ears droop in contentment and his eyes slip closed as he craned into it.

Clearing his throat Din turned back to the hologram and indicated the bundle of nerves right behind the mudhorn’s jaw on the anatomy cross section. “Anyway, it went down so quickly because I managed to get it right here after you incapacitated it. Cut that connection and it’s lights out right away. Odd quirk of anatomy, but there you are. You’d do better to snipe it from a distance, though, under normal circumstances — if I didn’t have a set time I had to be back with the egg it probably would have been smarter to lie in wait until it emerged from the cave on its own, shoot it before it even knew we were there. Even tossing a few grenades into the cave would be a better choice than taking it on up close, if you don’t have to worry about the state of the egg. I’m sorry, I realize it is probably a bit on the early side for tactical reviews for you,” he added apologetically, as the baby blinked at him in what looked like well-meaning and attentive incomprehension. “...I’m not very used to having conversations about anything else. I’ll work on it.”

Thankfully the kid was already a far smoother conversationalist than Din and simply tugged on Din’s hand insistently until they could go back to the mudhorn calf, squealing happily as he spotted it again, so Din rather assumed he was forgiven.

The next animal was another bug, so Din quickly skipped it while the kid looked the other way. They detoured through the squills of Tatooine, who despite being largely composed of leathery skin, teeth, aggression and generalized malice got a much friendlier initial greeting than the small fuzzy Loth-cat had. Go figure.

Then they reached one that made Din trail off mid-sentence and grow quiet.    

The creature itself was something small and pointy-faced and furry that lived in the high mountains of Alderaan — or at least it had, before, well. There was a twinge of something he couldn’t place in his gut; he’d heard about it, of course, since he hadn’t been actively living under a rock at the time and the destruction of an entire world is the sort of thing that fights itself to the front of people’s minds no matter where you go. It had seemed nearly absurd, though, hard to really imagine, enough so that he hadn’t thought much about it one way or another until he’d seen the look on Cara’s face when she heard the name of her homeplanet spoken by the wraith-like shade of the empire that destroyed it. She had looked the way Din felt hearing ’Mandalore’ from Gideon’s mouth.  

This holodisc must have been put together a while ago. The creature wasn’t marked down as extinct yet.

Din glanced down at the kid, who was already looking up at him, getting a bit heavy-eyed but otherwise perfectly cheerful, not seeming to suspect anything was amiss. A collection of memories stirred in the depths of Din’s mind, though mercifully vague and transient — something about the beginning of the war, his parents’ voices, low and worried, conferring in the kitchen when they thought he’d fallen asleep, the slight brittleness to his father’s smile when he called him home from play in the evenings, just a bit earlier than he would have before. He wondered now if they’d been planning to leave or if they had surmised, probably correctly, that there would be nowhere truly safe to go and that the only thing they could do was to shield him from the worst of the fear.

He’d been frightened anyway, of course, but they’d tried. It seemed to him an ancient, unspoken sort of pact, that trying and that fear. A bittersweet creed all its own.

“Let’s skip this one for now,” Din said, as lightly as he could manage while he skipped the article and wrapped one arm more protectively around the baby. “Maybe another time.”

The kid didn’t seem to mind, only gave a contented yawn and turned towards Din’s chest in that way that meant drowsiness was finally catching up with him, his ears fluttering languidly. Din found a smile tugging at his mouth and started on the next animal anyway, in the knowledge that it would probably do the trick.

Din’s hunch was right; between the rdava-bird’s colouring and their mating calls the baby’s eyes were starting to slip closed every so often and he had curled himself up completely in the crook of Din’s arm, sucking absently on the pendant while he fiddled with the edge of the cloth of Din’s gambeson. Finally, in the middle of a description of the bird’s favoured habitat, his head drooped towards his chest and Din decided it might be time to call it.

“Time to sleep?” Din asked, stroking his thumb over the kid’s forehead. The baby gave a weak cry of protest and struggled to sit up a bit, managing to keep his eyes open for all of five bleary seconds before they fell closed again. “Sssh. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere, you can sleep. I’ll be here.”

Whether because of the words or simply the cadence of his voice the baby relaxed, gazing up at Din with soft-eyed sleepiness and the perfect trust that still made Din feel a little dizzy if he let himself think about it too hard. He swallowed and stroked the baby’s ear, rocking him slightly when his eyes finally slipped all the way closed and stayed that way.

“I’ll be here,” he repeated quietly, holding the kid for longer than he probably needed to before getting up to place him in his seat and tuck him in.

You have no idea how desperately I NEED Mando having to actually tackle a children’s picture book about mythosaurs and being persuaded by big hopeful eyes to do the voices, I’m probably going to have to write it for the sake of my sanity if nothing else

Title is from Fleur Adcock's poem 'For a Five Year Old', because the combination of that poem and this show, what is the word... absolutely devastates me emotionally.