Chapter Text
~Sun~
From the day I hatched I knew I was unwanted. My egg was the only one from the clutch that hatched and from what I could glean from my family I shouldn't have lived. At all. The egg I hatched from was half the size it should have been and it was soft. Almost too soft to have been laid. According to my mothers mate, I was the result of my mother cheating on him with another abyssal mer. That is all I know, at least.
Every so often I’d catch my mother staring at me, with a sad look in her eyes. It was as if she was remembering my dad. My real dad. She would never talk to me though, outside of telling me to stay in the cave when they left. Whether it be to hunt or just to socialize, I was never to leave the cave without explicit permission. Never when they were not home to watch me. Today was no different than any other for everyone else in my family.
It was a special day for me, though. Today I was officially eighteen. Today was the day I'd be leaving home. Without much of a plan I have no idea how I'm going to survive on my own. I’m so much smaller than other mers my age. The last time I went to the healer, about four months ago, I was only about seven feet long and maybe eighty pounds. Six month old guppies weigh more than me, though they are about the same length. That's all with fins included. No one had ever taught me how to hunt, either. My mother usually throws me a single piece of kelp on hunting days, and that's if they, she or her mate, remember I exist. Most of the time I have to sneak out on days they leave to hunt to eat whatever weeds or wild plants I can find. I never dared to touch anything from the garden unless my mothers mate specifically instructed me to. I honestly don’t ever go near the garden anymore. Not since-
“Sun! Come here, boy!” my mothers mate, Rigel, yells. He expects me to answer his every beck and call. I don’t dare ignore him though, I know exactly what me ignoring him leads to. The large mer sits by the exit to the hive with his arms crossed, his single eye narrowed. He looks like he hasn't cleaned himself in weeks (I know he hasn't, actually), and he smells like it too. His bright blue and pure white colors are very dulled out and he looks fifty pounds heavier than he was just days ago. His usually bright white bioluminescence is dimmed with daylight pouring in and he flicks his tail fin, crescent shaped, impatiently. He has the hood part of his head fin, a cloak-like royal blue thing, up over his face, just barely revealing his eye. He smells like rotten fish, his usual scent made worse by all the rotten fish his and my mothers kids leave around. Sixteen copper rings, one silver ring and one platinum ring dangle around his tail and waist.
I feel disgusting looking at him.
“Yes, sir?” the words are bitter on my tongue, and it’s hard to keep it off my face but I just keep reminding myself I’ll be out of here soon. Very soon.
“We're leaving. I expect the hive to be cleaned, spotless, by the time we return. Do not go outside. Got it?” His voice is icy and he glares at me so harshly I begin to tremble. I nod.
“Yes sir,” I say, forcing the words out of my mouth without giving myself time to think about them. I turn away to begin cleaning.
“Good. We will be having guests with us tonight when we return. Make sure you are in your room before we return. I don't want to see or hear you before you are told to come out.” He swims away after he finishes speaking.
I clean for a while, until I’m sure they're all gone. It doesn’t take very long for their scents to disappear, but I peek out of the hive to be sure. Rigel smells just like dead fish, which is a prominent scent in this hive. Seeing no one around I dart back into my room. It’s a tiny, dark, dirty little storage room. Anything and everything gets thrown in here and forgotten, including me. Stuff is piled up in heaps everywhere except for one corner in the far back, where I sleep. Darting towards the corner I toss my blanket to the side. The blanket was nothing special, it’s an old rotten thing that leaves me colder when I use it than when I don’t. It’s only use really is hiding things I don’t want Rigel to find.
The bag underneath the blanket is significantly more special. More important. It’s one of my mothers old traveling bags. She stopped using it years ago and hid it under all the bones her mate throws in here. I still don’t really know why she did that (or why she lets him throw bones in here, considering some of them are mer bones). They make me uneasy and I try not to look at them as I leave the room. Swimming into the largest room of the hive I stop and take a second to admire the bag. I don’t have a lot of time but I just can't help myself. The base of the bag is a deep burgundy color with maroon patches. Clusters of bright jewels of all colors are sewn into the bag all over. I’m not sure what they are but they feel important. The bag is large, an oddly rounded rectangle and the strap is at least two inches wide. It’s a very sturdy, and large, bag. It can fit a lot of stuff in it.
Inside is a bunch of rocks, gems maybe?, with the same patterns as the outside of the bag. Each one, twenty eight in total, is a different color and, with the exception of one, glows faintly. I don’t really understand how, but I don't really have time to question that, honestly. They feel powerful, important, and I just know I can't leave them behind. I also stuck a few bones, the only ones that didn’t freak me out in here, in the bag because they could come in handy. I don’t plan on having guppies anytime soon, probably not even in the next hundred years, but it can’t hurt to start to practice toy making. The last thing in there is a large blanket. Well, large by a guppies standards (and mine, I guess,), at least. It has a strange symbol stitched onto it in a thread color that almost matches my scale's color. The rest of the blanket is a nice maroon color. It was my guppyhood blanket, from my dad. It is my blanket, though my mom had taken it from me almost as soon as my dad gave it to me. Sometimes she used it for my ‘siblings’, but sometimes I caught her using it for herself. It never went over well with her mate and it usually stays put up, buried deep into her things.
Stuffing the blanket back into the bag I take one last look around the main room of the hive. Toys and bones litter the floor, along with several half eaten, rotting fish. My nose crinkles in disgust at the sight. There are several stone carved tables around the room, with plant fiber seats. The seats are soft, partially made of plant fibers and partially made of stone. All of them were covered in bones, rotting fish and trash. A decorative ritual dagger hangs beside the entrance to the hive. There are hundreds of deep blue sapphires and blood red rubies encrusted into the hilt and sheath. For a moment I think about taking it, the gems alone would fetch a pretty penny alone. One look at the shimmering orbs underneath it, that weren't there this morning, breaks that thought. I decide to leave it.
Slipping out of the hive, I take off in the opposite direction that my ‘family’ went. I swim as fast as my brittle, cracked fins and weak tail would let me. I duck into an empty cave about an hour away from ‘home’ to hide. Coming from the direction I was heading were two very, very, very large mers. One was a pure white color and the other was a deep almost black blue and platinum. The darker mer was the larger of the two mers but both smelled like death, even from the distance we were from each other. He looks right at me with a dark look in his eyes.
“Aiili,” a voice in the back of my mind supplies. Abyssal mers.
Abyssal mers were bad for me. Because while I don't know much I do know that abyssal mers eat smaller mers. Like me. Also like the rest of my family technically. Except for Rigel who is an abyssal mer. He’s technically a runt though, I guess. He’s forty-ish feet long which is not a lot, according to abyssal mer standards. But I could be wrong, I’m honestly basing all of this off of a few conversations I’ve eavesdropped on between Rigel and my siblings. I really don’t want to be eaten though, hence the hiding. I hunker down and cover myself with the blanket after pulling it from the bag.
I stay there for what feels like days but it's only a couple hours at most. It’s nearly dark out when I stuff the blanket back in my bag and dart out of the cave, going nearly the exact opposite way of the stench of death that followed the two abyssal mers from earlier. I don’t make it very far before tiring out but it’s better than nothing. At least that's what I tell myself as I flop down onto a rock.
I check my bag one last time and eat some nearby seaweed before starting to swim again. I go much slower than before, taking in the sights around me in the dim lighting of the evening. Several families are packing up to go inside as I pass through the nearest village to my old home. The adults watch in confusion and the guppies wave excitedly at me. I wave back and continue on my way. I won't see any of these mers again, but I have seen some of them in passing when they’d visit my mother. I’ve never been more thankful that Rigel made me stay in my ‘room’ when people are over. No one even knows my mother has a sixth son, which is helpful.
When it gets too dark to see, about five hours later, I stop and find a place to sleep. There are mer in this area, quite a few of them, but more so I can smell guppies. The unmistakable scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. A very strong scent, universally recognized by all mers as DO NOT TOUCH!! Well, almost all mers anyways. Some mers, like Rigel, my mothers mate, just don’t care. Cringing at the thought of him I slip myself into a guppy hide. It’s covered by hundreds of rosemary plants. I settle in for the night, exhausted, and barely manage to tuck myself underneath my blanket before blacking out.
Blissfully I didn't sleep that night. Not a single dream, or nightmare. As I blink awake I thank every god I can think of that I don’t have to deal with the aftermath of a nightmare. They are usually so vivid that the only difference between them and reality is that no one talks to me except Rigel in reality. I shake off those thoughts as I crawl out of the hole and continue on my way. No one is out yet, nothing is awake yet at the crack of dawn, not even the fish. Theoretically I can go back to sleep in the hide, but I want to get as far as I can today. The farther I can get the better, honestly. The farther I can get from my mothers mate the better.
Without a destination in mind I started swimming in the same direction I was going yesterday. For a long while there's nothing but plants and a few fish. A shark or a whale here or there, but no mers. For literal hours. Not a single soul in sight but my own, as if the living things are afraid of this area. There are lingering smells and empty hives and I swim closer to one to check it out. The inside smells like death and there's the rotting carcass of a guppy laying on a table inside the door. Red eyes peer back at me and I scream before scurrying away, unsure if the eyes were even real. I don’t check anymore hives and definitely don't look back.
Hours later I find myself settling into another guppy hide. This time though I pull the door down and lock it in place. An entire day's travel had gotten me to cold waters and I’ve heard many stories about mers that live in cold waters. They are similar to abyssal mers in that they eat the smaller weaker mers, but different because they also cannibalize healthy mers. They also eat their own guppies, mainly the ones that they ‘feel’ aren’t growing right. Whether it's their guppy or a neighbor's guppy. All that to say I’d be the first one on the menu if someone caught me. Maybe I'd be ok, if I tried to pass myself off as a young guppy? My gills haven't lightened yet, but neither has nexus’ and he's twenty-eight now. Frowning at the thought of my eldest brother I decide to tuck myself in with my blanket and go to sleep.
Unfortunately, I did dream that night.
~dream~
Resting near the garden of herbs near the cluster of hives I live in, I smile. At only three years old this was my only safe space here. It was also really the only place I was allowed to be outside of the hive. Slowly I pick at the herbs and tuck them into a lidded basket that rests beside me. Rosemary, sage, thyme, basil and chamomile go into the basket in a separate compartment for each. Rigel could never be bothered to sort them himself so I had to do it instead. I’d much rather be playing with the other kids but I was never allowed. As I was putting the last of the chamomile in the basket a shadow crept over me. Hovering above me is my mothers mate, staring at me. One of his hands is pressed together, claws touching each other.
“I w-” my sentence cuts off with a bloody scream as he shoves his hand through my chest. I feel it pass through my back.
~end dream~
I wake up suddenly, screaming. My chest burns in the same place Rigel had shoved his hand through in my dream. A small, barely noticeable, scar rests there. I was told it was from a fish bone but I never really believed that. Especially with each new mark that appeared and each new nightmare that I had. I don't really have time to think about that though.
I fold my blanket and stuff it into my bag before lifting the door to the hive and swimming away. There were several mers emerging from their hives as I left, watching me go. There's a salmon shark going the way I came but I pay him no mind. My first mistake, really. Continuing on my way I pass a few reefs with tons of beautiful plants and coral. A variety of fish swim through the corals and plants, playing games with each other. I smile and pluck at some of the herbs on the outside of the reef I stopped to eat at and stick them in my bag. I was a healthy distance from the mers from this morning, so I assumed I was safe. My second mistake of the day.
Happy with the herbs in my possession I swim over to a large patch of kelp plants and pluck a few off. I settle on to a rock nearby, munching on a piece of kelp. Whipping my tail around in front of me, accidentally flinging a small yellow honey fish, I check my fins. The clack of teeth behind me startles me and I’m suddenly grateful that I moved my tail so fast, with the involuntary speed of a god. I glance behind me and see the very same salmon shark I had ignored earlier glaring at me and opening its mouth. Choking on my kelp all the while I dart away as fast as I can, which is admittedly not very fast. It’s enough to keep me out of the shark's mouth though.
The next twenty minutes is hellish, honestly. By the time I find a place to hide, a large hive opening, and lose the shark my heart is beating so fast I can almost see it through my skin. My breath comes in short, shallow pants that I can’t keep up with. This fucking shark is going to be the end of me before malnourishment, starvation or Rigel ever could.
Deep down I know this is all my mother and Rigel's faults. They were supposed to take care of me. I was supposed to be five times the size I am by now. I should have been able to kill this shark, eat it and move on with my day. I should be looking into mates and courting, not running away from a p- from home. My family should love and care for me not-
Something whacks against me from behind. Screaming, I start to bolt out of the cave. The thing that slammed into me is plucked off, leaving long, tiny scratches on my back all the way down to my right hip. I let out a cry of pain and tried to peek out of the hive entrance. To see if the salmon shark is gone but a hand grabbing my tail at the base of my fin stops me, pulling me back sharply.
“I would not recommend that, little guppy.” The voice is deep, rich and smoky. It reverberates around my head, dragging me down into my mind.
I shake off the foreign feeling and turn around, gripping my bag harshly. Three mers stare back at me.
“I-I’m-I-” I stumble over my words and almost start crying. “I’m not a guppy!” I start to shake as the largest mer chuckles.
The largest mer is a mix of royal blue, snow white and silvers. He has to be at least fifty or fifty-five feet long, him being curled around himself makes it hard to tell. His tail fin is six foot long at the longest and gets shorter the closer to his body it gets. It forms a crescent shape and is a beautiful silver color. His tail, half of his torso and part of his face are all a pretty royal blue color. From his elbows to his finger tips is silver. On his head is a long royal blue nightcap looking fin, rimmed with thousands of white fluffy looking fins. A silver star hangs from the tip of his head fin. All of the royal blue portions of his body are covered in silver and white star shaped specks. His eyes are a bright ruby red with black sclera. I have to force myself to look away from his face because his eyes make me feel dizzy. Coming out of his torso are several black tendrils, one holds a guppy and another holds me.
The most eye catching thing about him is the scars on his tail and fins. There are sixteen in total, all varying in size and shape. Most are jagged and a light pink/white turning silver as they scar over. Two of them look like the tail was completely ripped off and ‘sewn’ back on, rather haphazardly. Looking at them made scars on my tail twinge. As he opens his mouth I notice that, horrifyingly, he has three sets of teeth. Top and bottom. Whatever he's going to say is interrupted by a third guppy coming up behind him.
My eyes bug at the sight of the third guppy and I glance at the other two guppies. The first I see is a pastel pink and lavender color. She's only four feet and has fluffy white clouds dotting her lavender tail. Her head and torso, both pink, are covered by a lavender cloak-like fin. Her tail-fin is shaped like a cloud, a nice pink color, and looks like it's only a foot long. She has three pretty pink eyes, one of them almost hidden under her head fin. A silver star shaped patch of skin sits on her bottom right eye. Though all three of them are roughly the same size, she's definitely the smallest of the three. The most striking thing about her is that she's only got one arm.
The second guppy, currently upside down and thrashing in the largest mers hold, is almost an exact replica of the large mer. Where his father has, at least I'm assuming it’s his father, blue scales he has blood red. Where the larger mer had white scales he has cherry red scales. His eyes are ruby red and amethyst. His tail fin is silver with splotches of blood and cherry red all over it. He looks like wants to eat me and he just might do it.
The third guppy, the new one, is slightly different from the others. Her body is a solid mint green color with patches of pastel blue all over. Her head and tail fins are both star shaped, her tail fin being longer and more flowing. She has the same cloud shape pattern on her tail as the pink and purple guppy. Interestingly her fins are both pastel yellow, only a few shades darker than my scales should be. She's a little chubby and she only has three fingers on each hand. She's very cute. All three guppies have two rings on their tail, and one on each wrist. Two silver and two gold each. Looking back at the larger mer I realize he's wearing several gold and silver bands on his tail and both wrists.
“P-p-pa-papa-p-pa,*” the little green and blue guppy speaks, a very noticeable stutter in her little, babyish voice.
“Yes, my star?” he asks, turning to look at her.
“W-w-why-y h-hol-l-ld b-b-bu-ub-ba l-l-lie-e t-t-tha?**” she stumbles through her sentence and my heart breaks for this poor little guppy.
“Well, we have a visitor, and bubba likes to bite. Especially strangers.” I’m given a very pointed look at that.
A loud squeal interrupts whatever the green guppy was going to say.
“Papa! Shark! Eat!” The little pink guppy yells, and turning around there is absolutely a shark swimming by.
“You’re hungry already?” he sighs “it’s barely been an hour.
“Eat! Eat! Please, want eat!” the little pink guppy cries, giving her father a pouty face.
“Fucking bottomless pits,” he grumbles under his breath before lifting the red guppy to his face. “No biting Blood. Be good.”
As soon as he lets go of the guppy he starts barreling towards his sisters who squeal and duck out of his way. As the guppies begin to play he grabs me by the waist and hauls me out of the hive with him. I cringe at the touch but don't fight. Even if I did, I'd be no match for the larger mer.
“Your guppies are sweet,” I say, as he drops me on a rock.
“What are you doing so far away from home, little one?” he asks, ignoring my offended chirp. “Your gills tell me you are a guppy, your smell is still very cinnamony, but you are alone. So either you're an orphan or you're a runaway. Which is it?”
“I-”
He snatches the shark up with one of his tendrils and kills it with his claws. No hesitation, no fear. He just kills it and tosses it to the four waiting guppies after ripping a chunk off of it. He tosses the chunk to me and I immediately start tearing into it with a hunger I didn't know I had. The nausea sets in immediately but I ignore it in favor of getting food into my ever empty belly.
“You never told me what you were doing so far from home. Not many reef mers out here and the ones that are, are all accounted for. The large mer says, settling himself between me and the guppies.
“I’m not a guppy, you’re just freakishly large,” is the only thing i can manage to get out of my mouth, slurred as it is as i salivate over the meat.
“Sure,” he shrugs, “and I don't have four guppies.” All four guppies make offended noises and I stare at him dumbly as he simply shrugs at them.
“I guess technically I ran away,” I pause and scarf down another bite of shark, much to my body's disapproval. “But I really am an adult. I turned eighteen three days ago. My diet has been mainly weeds and herbs since I was a guppy.”
“How long have you been on your own?” he asks, keying me up and down.
“Three days,” I shrug.
“When's the last time you had a proper meal?” he asks.
“Don't remember, honestly.” I shrug again because I don't know what else to do. I was lying but he didn't need to know that. Rigel gave me proper meals ever once in a while, when he’d been particularly violent.
“You’ve never eaten a proper meal? When's the last time you had anything protein wise? Like meat?” his eyebrows, silver i noticed along with his lashes and tongue, quirks up.
“Technically four years ago, when I was like, fourteen.” which is half true. I hadn't had any real meat in about four years. Just this meatless meat substitute that my mother made.
“What the fuck?” One of the guppies screams out the word fuck and he turns around to scold them, but they're all squealing and taking off. Their father chases them, yelling for them to come back, leaving me behind. I shrug and rest my eyes while letting my tummy settle. Thinking about where I could go from here.