#i haven't written in AGES so this was quite a workout for my brain

[bird-bureau]

Hi how am i supposed to chooss just one prompt. Uh 13, 31, or 37 for one of ur cryptids maybe

Aaa it's hard to pick just one from those three! They're all cryptids if you AU hard enough, but I'm going cryptid-adjacent for this one.

-

31. “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

-

Frustratingly, people kept giving Lyatriss their number.

The fact that there were enough numbers to be thought of as a collection made her uncomfortable. Sure, it was only three numbers, but that was three too many. One was on a convenience store receipt, one on a coffee-stained diner napkin. The third had been scrawled across the back of her hand in black eyeliner that later smudged down her forearm. She had no idea why she'd bothered writing it down.

Bullshit. All of it. Meeting people hadn't been on the agenda when she moved into the furthest livable shack within town lines.

(The agenda had been something like this: STEP 1. Delete everyone's numbers from my phone. STEP 2. Find property that is cheap as dirt and probably condemned. Buy it. STEP 3. Spend the rest of my life there.)

But against her better judgement, she'd called eventually, when she had things she wanted to forget.

The tap stopped and the woman from the convenience store came back into the bedroom. Lya didn't sit up -- her eyes were focused on a dark water stain on the ceiling.

"You're always looking up there. What, is the roof coming down?"

"It reminds me of something, but I don't know what.” Lya sighed. Her shoulders popped as she stretched. “It's stupid."

The mattress dipped. The woman's skin was cool from the chill of the AC, and Lya tipped her head to press into the hollow of her neck.

"You're thinking too much."

Lya grumbled in agreement. Then their lips met, and she didn't think much about the water stain after that.

-

Also missing from her agenda was STEP 4. Find a man-eating fish creature living in my pond.

The first time she’d seen him, a massive dark shape beneath the murky water, she thought his yellow bioluminescent patches were just swamp gas.

When she found the discarded leg of a postal worker buried in the silt, she knew she was either really imagining things, or she had a problem on her hands.

With a woodcutting axe in one hand and a trash can lid in the other, she walked to the end of the pier. Everything was still. Duckweed sat thick over the surface of the water, trees hung heavy in the windless air. Lya took a breath.

“Alright, you big fish, knock it off,” she called across the pond. “If the cops come out here to check out what happened to the mailman, I swear to God, I will fillet you with my bare hands.”

Nothing happened. Then, a few yards from the dock, he surfaced.

“I cannot, from a technical standpoint, be classified as a fish.” His voice was low and gravelly, as though he had not spoken for some time. 

He looked fishy enough for Lya. Iridescent violet scales covered his body, running down his arms, across his abdomen, along his powerful tail. Deep purple hair hung limply around his face like strands of water-thyme.

She took a step back, then sank, unable to stay standing.

 “What.” 

“It is also unlikely that you would be able to fillet me.” He paused, thinking for a moment. “The more probable outcome is that you would be overpowered and then consumed.”

“What.”

“Furthermore, the the appropriate tool for filleting is a fillet knife. You would find your axe unsuitable for the task at hand.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You can talk.”

“That is correct.” He regarded her for a long moment. “I am capable of a great many things. Speaking is among them.”

“Well. Great.” She couldn’t stop looking at his teeth -- long, sharp things, meant for rending flesh from bone. She wondered what it would be like to be a bundle of bones stuck in the swamp mud and found it very unappealing. “If you eat me, I’ll kill you.”

“If I consumed you, you would be unable to carry out your threat.”

She stood and tried to brush herself off with her full hands. “Yeah, well. Go eat someone else. Away from here, please and thanks.”

He said nothing as he sank back into the water, but she didn’t find any more legs after that.

-

"Do you believe in supernatural shit?”

Lya was on her 3rd cup of cheap diner coffee. The place was usually clear by 11:30, which is why she made a point to arrive after 11:45.

The waitress gave a thoughtful hum. “Like ghosts?”

“Yeah. Or aliens, or merfolk, or whatever.”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“Just thinking.”

The waitress leaned down, both elbows on the counter. Lya liked the way her mouth twisted when she was thinking. “I mean, sure, why not? The world’s a weird place. Never seen one, though. But I’ve never seen a zebra in real life, and they’re real, so who knows.”

“Hm.” Lya downed the rest of her cup, and the waitress refilled it. 

“What about you? Ever seen something like that?”

“A zebra?”

“No, supernatural stuff.”

“Nah.” Lya took the cup back and took a slow sip. “So, when do you get off?”

-

When he wasn’t eating postal workers, Lya’s new neighbor was surprisingly easy to get along with.

Sometimes, when she sat out on the dock, he would surface nearby to watch her. She ignored him at first, but after a while, it felt weirder to ignore him than it did to acknowledge his presence.

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

“I am interested in what you are doing.”

She held up a tattered paperback. “Reading.”

“What is it that you are reading?”

A book, she almost snapped, but she stopped herself. “Just some sci-fi shit from a free bin. Why, you interested?”

“I am.”

That surprised her. “I didn’t think fish liked reading.”

“Firstly, as I have said previously, I am not a fish.” His gills fluttered as he sighed. “Secondly, as I have also said, I am capable of many things. Reading is one of them.”

“Huh.” 

“My eyes are not adapted to seeing above water, however. The visuals are... distorted. Reading is a particularly strenuous activity for me.”

“But you like it anyway.”

“That is correct.”

“I could read it out loud, if you wanted.” Anything to get in his good graces and out of his mouth. It was worth a shot.

It was his turn to be surprised. “I am admittedly intrigued.”

She opened to the beginning. “Alright then. Chapter one...”

- 

The man who’d written his number in eyeliner always went out onto the balcony for a smoke after he and Lya had finished. Through half-closed eyes, Lya watched the glow of his cigarette pulsing in the dark. 

She often thought about what it would be like to join him. She would rise and put on her shirt and underwear. The concrete of the balcony would be warm under her bare feet after a day in the sun, the metal railing even warmer. She would wrap her arm around his waist and steal a drag off his cigarette, and she would ask him what he saw across the horizon that held his attention so tightly.

In the bed, she tasted the smoke wafting in through the open window and rolled over.

-

Lya knew she was in too deep when she started going to the library for the creature.

“Creature” wasn’t exactly fair to him. His name was Quincy. A shockingly normal name for someone so abnormal, but who was Lya to judge? She was the one reading to him, which could hardly be considered normal.

His book requests were all over the place: travel guides, almanacs, field guides, academic texts, books on history and culture. Occasionally, he asked for fiction, or asked her to pick something she recommended. Whatever she chose, he listened raptly, still as a statue as he leaned against the side of the dock. 

When she asked why he requested so many different topics, he simply said, “They are all beyond the scope of my experiences, and thus they are interesting to me.” 

She felt a little more interested in even the boring books after that.

“Here’s the haul today,” she said, dropping her satchel on the dock. “Got you that travel writing collection you asked for. The book on desert wildlife is on reserve, but they did have this one on pyramids. I think it’s for kids, but the pictures are big, so if I hold it up, you should be able to see it. And remember, we cannot get any water on these. I’m not paying fees, okay?”

“Lyatriss.” He spoke slowly, as he always did. “Thank you. I sincerely appreciate the effort you went through to procure these. They all look wonderful.”

And oh, curse her, she was going to have to delete those numbers.