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iridecsense · 2 months ago

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nepenthe - m.

⊰ 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 ⊱

──── ⋅ ⍤ ⋅⊰⋅∘ 〄 ∘⋅⊱⋅ ⍤ ⋅ ────

⤷ summary: Proceeding the encounter with Grindelwald in Paris, Newt goes seaward on a secret mission for Dumbledore when his ship is caught in a storm...

✧ word count: 4.2k ✧ pairing: newt scamander | siren!reader ✧ genre: romance, slow burn, angst, adventure ✧ warnings: depictions of death and trauma ✧ author’s note: New chapter whooo! You're finally in it! Feel free to comment or send me feedback via my ask box, I love hearing from you all. That being said, I hope you enjoy!

──── ⋅ ⍤ ⋅⊰⋅∘ 〄 ∘⋅⊱⋅ ⍤ ⋅ ────

If he had to guess, Newt would say drowning is possibly the worst way to die. Granted, he hadn’t had much experience with dying. He’d had close calls, to be sure. He’s stared down the jowls and talons of many beasts in his lifetime and felt the quickening of his heart inside his chest. He’s felt the pain of teeth sinking into his skin, claws slicing at his flesh, and venoms burning through his nervous system. But a near death experience, he realized, is something he never truly ventured. That is, until now.

With new knowledge found, he’d prefer the killing toxins of a nundu, the quick burn of dragonfyre, the fangs of an acromantula, or the eyes of a basilisk. Now, even the instant death of the killing curse seemed a mercy. Anything else would be a sweeter fate than the constant, petty, futile fight for air. Drowning is slow. That’s the issue of it. After a while, you catch yourself thinking, ‘When is it going to end?’ It gives you time to beg for death. To yearn it. To embrace it with gospel like praise.

Drowning is the silent, sadomasochistic master of death, relishing in the domination of its suffering slave. It watches as you strangle yourself, doing everything you can to keep air in your lungs. Your own body betrays you, convulsing, trying its hardest to save you, but simultaneously killing you in its instinctual attempts to get oxygen back into your body. You feel it all. Water rushing down your throat and into your lungs. The spasming coughs that mean to expel it all out but only incite more gulps—in through your nose, your mouth, even your ears—you begin to fill up full of the stuff. Everything suddenly feels so tight, as if you’ll explode. It’s excruciating. All the while, you’re still fighting to swim up, to break your head through the surface and take that painful but liberating breath of air. It isn’t until the cells in your brain start to die that you feel a sense of peace. You stop struggling. You lose consciousness. Suddenly, there is no pain, and you feel glad…ecstatic even, because the whole affair is over. You can die now.

The only thing worse than drowning was, perhaps, the surviving of it. A sharp, painful breath is what woke Newt from his death-like slumber. It was a feeling akin to a thousand needles poking his lungs and chest from the inside out. Water sputtered from his mouth, and he turned on his side to reject the contents of his stomach: salt water, algae, and stomach acid. The regurgitated seawater burned his already raw throat and nose. Tears spilled from his eyes from all the varying sensations of pain: from his swollen throat, his bruised lungs, and fractured bones, to the ringing in his head, and his clogged eardrums. Newt’s fingers ran over the earth beneath him. Rocks. Hard, wet rocks and pebbled sand slipped between his slender digits. Blinding light scorched his mossy irises as he pried back his heavy eyelids.

It took several blinks and more effort than he expected to keep his eyes open and focused. All around him, there were rocks—thousands of them, weathered and worn, stretching toward towering, jagged stone formations that enclosed the shoreline. Above, the sky was a vast, cloudless blue. Waves crashed against his legs and lower back, drenching him.

His body felt heavy as lead. Each attempt he made at moving was harder than the last. He writhed about for a while, pain shooting up his sides and shoulder. The rocks beneath him dug into his flesh, grinding against his torso and knees as he managed to crawl forward a couple feet onto dryer rock. The pathetic act summoned an intense ringing in his ears and a throbbing ache at his temples. His frustrated groans ebbed into wheezing breaths, and tears welled in his eyes. It even hurt to cry. He felt humbled in this moment. Infantile. Like a newborn—unable to stand, unable to walk—easily overwhelmed and frustrated by the limpness of its body and the uncomfortable awareness that, despite being content in a floating edge of nothingness, it is now forced to live and breathe as a sentient being in an unfathomable world. Thus, amidst his solemn mournful cries, he had the fleeting surmise that he did indeed die in those waters, and, like the phoenix, was resurrected—reborn as something else. Someone different. Of one thing he was for certain: whatever pulled him from the sea did not save the same man who fell into it.

“Newt!”

Distant, muffled, calls of his name sent a wave of relief washing over his catatonic frame. Newt closed his eyes in silent gratitude, blinking away more tears that slipped over the bridge of his nose and the swell of his freckled cheeks.

“Newt!” Jacob’s desperate drawl drew in closer.

Newt wanted to yell back, to call Jacob to him, but when he opened his mouth to speak, only a weak, gravelly, aspirated garble came out. The act alone strained his throat, and he winced at the foul ache. He could just make out the sound of heavy footsteps, thumping and shifting loose sediment.

“Newt!” Their pace quickened, heading straight for him. Jacob called Newt’s name in beholden affection as he dropped to his side and pulled him into his lap.

“Hey, buddy. Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay,” Jacob coddled, as though saying it multiple times would somehow make it true.

Jacob propped Newt up, tightly holding onto his arm. The act caused another wave of nausea, and Newt spewed more seawater from his stomach. He went into another violent coughing fit, and in an attempt to help and ease his overworking lungs, Jacob slapped Newt’s bruised and battered back with a firm hand. Newt recoiled from Jacob’s touch, and his face scrunched in pain. His raspy yell sent Jacob’s hand flying high above his head.

“What—what, did that hurt?” Jacob nervously sputtered.

Newt motioned weakly for Jacob to lift up his shirt, and he obliged. Carefully, Jacob unclipped Newt’s suspenders and pulled up his dress shirt and undershirt that were still tightly tucked into his trousers to reveal his bare back.

“Oh my God…” The woeful expression escaped Jacob’s mouth before he could stop it.

The expanse of Newt’s back was covered in fresh violet bruises in varying shades. The greater portion of it was on his left side, encompassing his ribs. It spread to his spine and crossed to his right shoulder blade. Jacob pulled Newt’s shirt back down.

“I don’t know what to do,” muttered Jacob. He sat for a moment, intently looking over Newt, who was still composing himself. Then, his face lit up, and he looked at the briefcase sitting a foot away on his left. “I got your case!”

He grabbed the case and set it up in front of Newt. “I held on tight to this baby the whole night. Your seahorse brought me here—he’s in there, too! I made sure to get him back in. You got stuff in here, don’t ya? Magic stuff that’ll fix you up?” Newt nodded weakly. “I knew it,” Jacob clapped. “C’mon, let’s get you up.”

Jacob hooked an arm around Newt’s waist and pulled him up to his feet. He lifted Newt with surprising ease, despite him being nearly dead weight. Jacob was strong enough to keep him stable as they stepped down the case. What would usually be a ladder had become a set of rickety stairs. The magic of Newt’s case never ceased to amaze. Once inside, Jacob sat Newt on the cot. He looked around the shed, still in disarray from the events of the night before.

“Alright, uh…” He turned to the work bench, recalling the many times Newt had pulled mysterious herbs, vials, and salves from it to heal any ailments he had. “There’s gotta be something in here, right?” He looked at Newt.

Newt was using his left hand to unbutton his shirt. Shrugging it off his shoulders, he looked up at Jacob and then his workbench. He gestured to a drawer that was slightly ajar. Jacob followed his gaze and opened it. Inside was a notebook, some empty vials, and a skeletal-looking bottle. Jacob frowned and held the bottle up for Newt. Newt held his hand out to take it. He placed the bottle between his legs and used his left hand to pull the top off. A foul stench permeated from the bottle, and Newt hesitated bringing it to his mouth. With a quick swig, he drank the rancid potion, letting it burn his already sore throat on its way down.

It didn’t take long for him to feel it take effect. Particularly, he felt the effect in his chest and ribs. Whatever fractures or breaks he had would be healed by morning, though he would not enjoy the process. It was a consistent scraping feeling under his skin, which grew more irritating and painful the more he focused on it. He handed the Skele-Gro bottle back to Jacob for him to put away. He looked at his right shoulder to see the protruding bone poking at his skin. Newt had dislocated his shoulder before when a graphorn hand bunted him several feet onto hard ground. He knew a spell to set it back in place—but his wand. He was missing his wand.

The faint memory of his wand sinking into the depths of the sea crossed his mind, and an aching feeling bubbled in his stomach and chest. A wizard’s wand is an extension of his self, and though wands could break and change allegiance, and new wands could be acquired, losing your wand felt similar to losing a limb. Without it, he was virtually powerless. A spell was of no use to him now. Newt never wished he had the talent for wandless magic more than he did in this moment. It would make what he was about to do much easier.

Straightening his back, Newt carefully raised his dislocated arm and outstretched it in front of him. He breathed deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying not to focus on the pain. With his other hand, he grabbed his wrist tight. Jacob watched him closely, his face screwed up in a tight grimace. In one swift motion, Newt gave a sharp tug to his dislocated shoulder. A disgusting popping sound grated against Jacob’s ears as he watched Newt’s shoulder twist and pop back into place. Newt’s jaw clenched, and he tucked his right arm into his chest, doubling over from the sudden adjustment.

“Jeez...” Jacob sighed and moved to sit by Newt’s side. Taking Newt’s dress shirt, Jacob fashioned a makeshift sling, tying the sleeves together over Newt’s left shoulder and nestling his arm inside its hammock.

“Thank you, Jacob,” Newt’s gravely voice managed to push out.

“Don’t thank me,” Jacob dismissed. “I should be thanking you. You saved my life.”

The right corner of Newt’s lips twitched upwards into a timid ghost of a smirk. “Well, actually, it was the kelpie.”

“Newt,” Jacob cuts in, serious. Newt faltered as he met Jacob’s woeful eyes.

“I thought you died,” He frets. “I watched the ship split in half. It went up in flames—and the screams. So many people…I should have stayed with you, I should’ve helped!”

Newt shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t have that.”

“But I could have—“

“There is nothing you could have done,” Newt tried to comfort. “We were outnumbered.”

The air between them grew heavy as unwelcome memories of the night resurfaced. Jacob sighed and muttered a small habitual prayer for lives lost. Newt, upon finding the strength, sat up and walked to his workbench. His foot stepped on something fragile—glass—and it broke under his weight. Lifting his foot, he looked down and saw the cracked portrait of Leta smiling up at him. He carefully bent down and picked up the broken picture frame. He put it flat on the workbench to deal with later. He winced when a particular sharp pain shot up his ribcage, tightly gripping the edge of the bench counter.

“Maybe you should lie down,” Jacob suggested.

Newt shook his head. “No. The faster we get to the seer, the better.” He took a vial of green liquid from a rack and downed it like a shot of fire whiskey. His pains subsided quickly, much of it numbing while more severe pains dulled to a manageable ache. He told Jacob they would leave the case once he checked on all his creatures, ensuring each one wasn’t hurt, especially the kelpie. Jacob, deciding it was useless to argue, nodded and stayed in the shack while Newt gathered a pail and his wand on his way out.

⁎ ⊹ ⁂ ˚ ✧ ⁂ ⊹ ＊

Much to Newt’s relief, most of his creatures weren’t harmed. Some were more anxious than usual, others seemed completely unbothered. Some enclosures were in disarray, but Newt manually repaired them to the best of his ability. The kelpie seemed happy to see him when he walked to the edge of its enclosure. It had sustained some minor injuries but nothing worth causing worry. After ensuring each creature was fed and cared for, Newt returned to Jacob in the shack. When he entered, a once-sleeping Jacob startled awake.

“Sorry,” Newt croaked out.

Every time Newt spoke, Jacob had to keep himself from cringing. The gravelly nature of his voice sounded painful, and he couldn’t help but sympathize. He cleared his throat and sat up in the cot, explaining that he wasn’t asleep, only resting his eyes. Newt fished around inside a nearby cupboard for clean, non-seasoaked clothes. He tossed some to Jacob, who had lost his suitcase to the sea.

“Uh, I don’t think these’ll fit,” said Jacob.

“They will,” Newt assured, picking an outfit for himself.

As they dressed, Jacob marveled at how the clothes Newt had shared with him slipped over his larger frame with ease, adjusting to his size. Newt stared at himself in the mirror attached to the cupboard door. He stood half-naked, intently taking in the strange reflection. His slender frame was painted black, purple, blue, and yellow-green. His hollowed eyes stared emotionless back at him, accompanied by dark grey circles. Any warm color that had given his skin a healthy, youthful glow had disappeared, and he looked almost ghoulish. Newt looked away from the mirror and continued to clothe himself in a simple white quarter-sleeve cotton shirt with a deep open collar. He wore brown slacks attached to matching suspenders. He found a long sliver of blue fabric on a shelf, perhaps an underused cravat he forgot about. It worked well enough to fashion into a sling.

Once finished, he turned to Jacob. “Ready?”

Jacob finished tucking his tie and nodded. Wordlessly, they both stalked up the case stairs and opened the hatch. Again, they stepped back onto the beach. It was late afternoon, from what Newt could tell by the sky. The tide had begun rolling in, and the edge of the sea was much closer than it once was. Turning his back to the sea, Newt studied the surrounding land. Rocky and steep, the beach they stood on was a cove sloping beneath a vegetated mountainside. A direct path etched upward to the mountaintop. There seemed to be no visible signs of human life, which silently worried Newt. The cooling sea breeze rippled his shirt and caressed his hot skin.

“We should walk up to the top of the mountain,” said Newt. Jacob looked up the steep mountainside and deflated. The Mediterranean summer sun already had sweat beading at his hairline; a hike up a rocky mountain was a dreadful thought.

“If we’re lucky, we will find a village or someone to give us directions,” Newt continued as he collected his case.

“Luck and us ain’t exactly friends, though, are we?” Jacob grumbled aside.

“Perhaps not.”

Jacob looked out to the sea. From where he stood, he found it hard to believe the enticing, calm, blue waters in front of him were the same waters he watched swallow a steamboat full of people. “You don’t think they’ll be coming after us again?” He frowned.

Newt thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. Not for a while, at least. For now, they have every right to believe we’re dead. Though I’m sure once they realize we are not, they’ll be back for the relic.”

“What relic?” Jacob asked.

“I don’t know. But clearly it is something they do not want me to have—something they don’t want Dumbledore to have. Inevitably, I must have it, whatever it is.” Newt turned to Jacob almost excitedly. “He reacted too quickly. He must have had a vision of me with this relic and got scared.”

Jacob scoffed. “Grindelwald scared?”

“That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Whatever relic Grindelwald thinks I have must be a threat. Why else would he prematurely send his acolytes? This seer Dumbledore is bread-crumbing us to must know something about it.”

“I guess so. I just don’t understand why Dumbledore couldn’t tell you straight out—JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?”

The men’s eyes set upon the half-submerged figure bobbing far out in the water. The sun hung low behind it, covering its face in shadow, but it was unmistakable by the soft slope of its neck and shoulders and the outline of long, wet hair, that it was a woman.

“Could she be a survivor?” Jacob wondered. “HELLO! MISS ARE YOU OKAY?”

The woman’s figure stayed silent and still, aside from the periodic rise and fall of waves rolling into her. Jacob continued calling out to her, hoping to get a response. Newt, however, only stared, brows slightly furrowed. He couldn’t see their features, and yet, he could feel it: the unmistakable bore of eyes on him. It was unnerving. A shiver tickled down his neck and spine, and his heart skipped every other beat.

“Jacob,” said Newt distantly. Jacob stopped calling out and turned to Newt, whose eyes were fixed on the bobbing woman, as if in a trance. “She’s not a survivor.”

Jacob looked back to the strange figure in the sea. He frowned, eyes squinting to get a better look. Newt stepped closer to the shoreline, and almost in tandem, the shadowy woman swam backward. Newt stopped immediately, not wanting to scare her off. He thought he imagined it. That it was one last hallucination before his consciousness slipped away. It was shameful how easily he accepted such a lame excuse. He never gave it a second thought until now. The feeling of arms hooking underneath his and pulling him through the water. The faint shimmering detail of a large iridescent fish tail swishing between his limp legs. It had been real. Not often is Newt astonished by the many inexplicable wonders of the world, having traversed it well, but this was something so entirely mystical, something so intangible, he felt weightless and overcome.

Newt slowly and gently placed his case on the ground. Using the tactics he often utilized with beasts, he held up his unbound hand in a non-threatening manner and crouched his large frame to appear smaller and less threatening. “I mean no harm,” he called out to her. Jacob watched his friend curiously but kept from interrupting. He, too, mimicked Newt’s behavior and bent over in a crouched manner.

The figure stared at them for a moment longer, silently wading in the water. “Lower your head,” Newt instructed his friend beside him. Nodding, Jacob bowed his head along with Newt, staring at the rocky shore beneath them. The tide inched closer to the tips of their shoes as waves crashed over the slippery rocks. They silently waited—for what, they were unsure, but they stayed crouched over for so long their leg and core muscles stared to burn. Newt stayed hovering, unyielding despite the increasing burning pain and soreness of his injuries. Only the sound of wind and sea lapping at the shore and nearby rock accompanied the occasional seagull squawk.

“How long we gotta stand here like this?” Jacob strained after a while.

A sinking feeling rose in Newt’s chest. Was she still there bobbing in the waves? Did she swim away when they weren’t looking? The thought grieved him. Slowly, Newt lifted his head, expecting to see nothing but empty, open sea. His soft, sudden gasp caused Jacob to finally lift his head. When he did, he yelped, jumping and falling back hard onto the hard ground. He stared wordlessly in disbelief and fear, whereas Newt stood firm, still bowed before the daunting figure before them.

Less than a foot in front of them, laid upon the rocks of the shallow sea edge, was a beautiful woman with long, drenched locks that hung around her face and stuck to her glistening skin. She had the most tantalizing eyes, decorated with long, thick lashes that watched them with both child-like curiosity and wary uncertainty. Her focus seemed to predominately be on Newt, who was now the closest to her. She was naked. Her bare breasts were partially covered by her hair. The most striking detail of her was not her beauty, nor her apparent nakedness, but rather the fact that instead of bare hips, legs, and feet, she possessed a thick, lengthy, fish-like tail. The unblemished skin of her back and waist seamlessly transitioned into milky-white scales. Along the backside of her tail were spiked anterior and posterior dorsal fins and finlets. At her hips, flowing pectoral fins, and at her tail’s end, a large, matching, biconcave, lunate fluke. In the sun, her scales shimmered hues of purple, green, orange, and blue, like an iridescent pearl. She was, for a lack of better words, stunning.

Her eyes locked with Newt’s, unrelenting in their piercing gaze. He could feel himself growing nervous, almost bashful. Her neatly kept brows knit closer together as she tilted her head to the side, seemingly studying him as he was studying her.

“Can you speak?” He asked softly, so as to not startle her.

She stared blankly at him with no hint of understanding. Newt hesitated, then took a cautious step forward. The moment he moved, she recoiled, pushing herself further into the water. “I’m sorry!” Newt blurted out, freezing in place.

The magnificent creature stilled, and her eyes locked on him. She was practically predicting his every move. Wordlessly, she clutched something at her chest. Newt hadn’t noticed it before, but around her torso was a woven work of kelp and an old fishing net. After giving one last look, she broke their gaze to look down at her side where the strap of her intwined kelp and net turned into a deep pocket. It functioned exactly like a satchel, and from it, she pulled out a wooden square picture frame and placed it at his feet. Tina.

His eyes flew up to see her eyeing him expectingly. Without a word, she reached into the satchel again and pulled out a long, pointed stick, placing it beside Tina’s picture. His wand. She found his wand! Newt’s heart jumped excitedly in his chest. A wave of gratitude rushed over him, easing the sinking feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach. When he met the creature's eyes, his words escaped him. Such a radiant creature should not exist, and yet, there she was, staring doe-eyed and querying.

Every detail of her fascinated and beguiled, as is the nature of such an entity. He found himself savoring the image of her, from the arch of her brow to the curve of her lips. The way her hair framed her face and how the shadows contoured her cheekbones. He scanned the whole of her, committing to her memory. His gaze glossed over the curve of her shoulders, noting the smoothness of her skin, when he noticed the one and only blemish that scathed the crook of her neck and left shoulder. Burns, by the look of them. The exposed pink of her flesh and blisters that presumably continued to her shoulder were undoubtedly painful, though she showed no signs of it. Without a second thought, Newt reached his hand to push her hair out of the way so he could examine it further, but the moment his fingertips brushed her lustrous locks, she reeled back into the sea.

“Wait! I’m sorry!” He called after her, but she moved with such agility and speed; she was already diving her head back under the water. Her tail flicked over the surface until she reached deeper waters; her shining, shimmering tail flapped one last time before disappearing beneath the waves.

The two men left ashore remained dumbfounded, staring distantly at the open waters. Jacob, who hadn’t dared to speak from the moment the creature crawled onto shore, was the one to break their awestricken silence.

“You saw what I saw, right?”

Newt nodded. “Yes,” he said faintly.

A sudden exclaiming laugh burst from Jacob that quickly turned into a joyous fit of laughter. “I can’t believe it!” He shouted as he stumbled to his feet. “That was amazing! Did you see her? She was beautiful, oh my god! Newt, did we really just see a—”

“A siren.” Newt’s eyes stared longingly at the sea, the lilt of pure astonishment inflecting his tone. “She’s a siren.”

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