Chapter Text
The boat swayed haphazardly under Kiara's boot as she carefully stepped off the pier. The wind circled her, spraying sea mist as it went, before rushing past her toward the shore. With one hand holding on tight to the dock, she gingerly lifted a squirming burlap sack and lowered it to lie by her feet.
Kiara was quite fond of her sailboat for its simplicity. While only big enough to fit herself and her supplies, she made it a point to take advantage of its functionality whenever she collected materials in the water. Upkeeping the boat was fairly simple, she found. The thing might as well be tethered to her soul with how much time and effort she had spent fussing over it.
Her mind whistled as she untied the boat and lowered herself to sit. The docks became farther out of her reach as the tide carried her out past the shallows. A beam of light from the lighthouse on top of the cliffside nearby shone overhead for a moment, painting a silhouette of Kiara and her boat onto the ocean floor before eclipsing again.
The bay was contained within a horseshoe-shaped shoreline with tower-like and barricade-like rock formations overlooking it all. The lighthouse, which was also her responsibility to manage, served as a surface-level decoy for her private quarters, which were built into the cliff itself, which was passed down to her after many generations. At the base of these cliffs lay a shallow rock bed that led onto Kiara’s personal pier and boat.
To get to each section of the cliff (separated by surface level; lighthouse, private chambers, and the docks), Kiara had installed an elevator shaft to avoid the long and grueling trek up and down the godsforsaken stairs. The elevator was powered using a water wheel capstan system. A lever and pulley network would open and close the sluice gates located deep below the bay. The gates would collect the water from the bay, use that water to power the wheel, which would then carry the elevator up, and then the process would happen in reverse to go down.
At the mouth of the bay, where the rocks resembled jagged teeth, lay an isthmus that separated the bay from the open sea. This created a visual indicator of where Kiara’s territory began and ended. Her territory hardly needed a warding spell to keep the townspeople away. The cliffs hanging over the bay and the jagged rocks lying at the bottom were enough to make most of the town hesitant to come around.
It was no secret that Kiara lived a peculiar life. The descendant of a long line of strange women with an affinity for the ocean, it made sense that the people would find her presence off-putting. Most, to some extent, believed her and her family’s connection to the ocean to be a sham. When she was the only one left to look after the bay, she had to work hard to seem as harmless and delusional as they needed her to be.
Nowadays, they merely waved her and her antics off. Tolerated her so long as she kept watch over the lighthouse and carried out her business quietly.
All that was to say, Kiara was supposed to be the only living thing in this spot of land. Which is why it was interesting to her when brutalized fish carcasses started washing up on her shore.
She had spotted them one day as she was on the beach searching for conus shells for a spell jar she wanted to test out. Their bodies were laid out on the sand for her to find. Many were torn open from tail to gills; their entrails discarded in a sad, clumped pile where some seagulls had been fooling around. Kiara remembered their pale, exsanguinated flesh and their hollow, terror-stricken eyes staring out into the distance. Some had been torn into pieces—chunks with their fins still attached, and some more morsel-like.
It was also around that time that whispers on the streets had wandered into her ears. Fishing boats came back with nothing to show or profit from for over a week. The fish market, the only remarkable revenue this little town ever seemed to consistently conjure up, suffered tremendously. Changing fishing spots did nothing for them—there was nothing to catch for miles out. The uncertainty of the situation was taking its toll as people began to panic.
While Kiara was insistently indifferent about the town, she knew it was only a matter of time before her own pockets began to suffer.
She grabbed onto the sail and opened it up to catch the wind. Within minutes, the boat had gained speed and pulled her out to the center of the bay. The moon seemed to hover just above the water. The pale light barely penetrated the bay--only cutting through a few feet at most. The beam from the lighthouse, however, seemed to illuminate the whole bay. The light would shine down methodically, revealing the depths below as if the water were made out of clear glass. When the light turned onto Kiara once again, the water revealed nothing unremarkable.
Kiara rubbed her hands together as she bent down to lift the bag from her feet. Carefully, she leaned over behind her and lowered it into the water. The seabird inside the bag thrashed in her hand, its body writhing to get away from the water. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled out a dagger from her belt and buried it to the hilt through the bag and into the bird’s neck. The bag only managed to flinch violently against the blade. Kiara twisted the handle before tugging it loose and letting go of the bag. The bright beacon from the tower returned just then, allowing Kiara to see the trail the bag had left behind in its descent. The blood had stained that spot of the bay a deep maroon, which diminished as the waves carried it away.
Kiara's eyes trailed across the water for any signs of movement. Her ears strained against the wind. The waves rocked the boat from below, the sound making it difficult to tell whether it churned out of coincidence or not.
She heard the water surge past her ears before she could register the presence behind her.
Kiara couldn't stop the instinctive gasp as the waves swallowed her down. A pair of arms wrapped tightly around her torso, pulling her backwards to slam into their front. When she attempted to flail her arms, long, webbed fingers came and latched onto her wrists like bony iron shackles. Twisting her neck around, she blinked through the water as they focused on a pair of glowing red eyes.
The creature that held her so tightly was what she expected—a merperson. And what a beautiful and harrowing sight he was, too. The one that held her now was pale in color and nearly translucent. The moonlight seemed to cut straight through him. His long, choppy hair fanned out around his head in the water. Kiara was able to see that there were big patches of hair missing from his scalp, making his hair seem almost wispy from how thin it was.
Before she could note any other features of the merman, his clawed fingers grabbed her jaw and twisted her face away. She stared wide-eyed at the underbelly of her sailboat as his jaw clamped down on her throat. She felt the prick of teeth scraping against her jugular.
The merman tightened his grip on her jawbone as he tried to bite down harder, the pressure building but never managing to break the skin.
Kiara took a deliberate breath, the water funneling up her nostrils and flowing out past her lips.
She felt the merman grunt into her throat before pulling away from her neck and adjusting his grip on her chin, his claws leaving divots against the fleshy parts of her face. The hand on her wrists fell away and landed onto her shoulder, at the same time, his other hand snapped her head off to the side. Once again, she felt the pressure build against his grip, but her throat stubbornly refused to split.
"Perhaps you'll have better luck with the knife?" Kiara offered patiently.
The merman hissed into her ear. His fingers tensed before shoving her away.
Whirling around, Kiara's hand shot out and caught his arm before he could flee from her. The surface of his skin felt soft and smooth and strangely firm. Keeping her grip tight to keep from slipping off, Kiara fought to get his attention as he thrashed and attempted to throw her off. He tried prying her grip off, hissing and snarling as he struggled. She used her spare arm to leverage his hand from hers, using that same arm to block her face when he tried to claw at her. Growling, she ducked past his claws and surged forward to crowd him.
"You and I need to talk," Kiara said firmly, her yellow eyes drilling deep into his red ones, "There is no place in this water that I don’t know the inside and out of, and I will be damned if I had to waste time hunting you down in my own home. To save us both the time and energy, I will be going back up to the surface for a civil conversation. I expect you to follow me."
Finally, she pushed herself away from the merman and began swimming towards her boat.
Breaking the surface, Kiara spat out the brackish bay water as she climbed back on board her boat. The water in her hair and in her clothes dripped and pooled around her feet. Her boots were thoroughly soaked, beyond help really. Groaning, she shucked them off and tossed them onto the other end of the boat.
Behind her, the light from her tower passed by. The light reflected off the water and into her eyes. She glanced to the side and was startled at the face that was just there and staring at her. No announcement of his arrival; no splash; no noise whatsoever.
The merman kept his face partially submerged, his nose barely floating above the water. The few long strands of hair he possessed clung to his shoulder blades while the shorter pieces made an aborted attempt to form a proper curl around his pointed ears. The bald patches were horrifically obvious from this angle—pale, fleshy scabs peppered along his scalp.
He glared at her from under his hooded eyelids as if he could spill her blood through sheer malice alone.
She dismissed the plunging feeling that began to settle in her stomach, instead distracting herself by wringing out the excess water from her hair.
"I don't judge you for trying to take me out," Kiara began, being sure to keep her voice within a patient, casual register, "I thought you would've gone after the seagull I captured for you in the sack, but I seemed to have underestimated your hunger."
She paused, giving him a chance to reply. But he didn’t. The merman remained eerily silent, his glare unrelenting and emotionless. Not so much as a twitch of an eye or a pursing of the lip.
After a beat of silence between the pair, Kiara attempted to start the conversation again, this time going for a more straightforward approach, "If you’re wondering about what…all that was about, I should tell you that was just part of my contract to the land, so to speak. While it's not your typical holy sanctuary, it still behaves like one so long as I don't do anything to jeopardize it. In short, I can't harm you, and you can't do any harm to me."
At that, his icy expression thawed around the edges. His eyes lost some of their predatory gleam as the pupils widened in recognition.
"...So, you’re a sea witch, then," the merman croaked, his voice raspy and hollow as he arose from the water just enough to speak clearly. Kiara caught a glimpse of his teeth as he spoke. They appeared human-like at first glance until she noticed the row of sharp teeth falling behind his front teeth.
Kiara nodded, “I am, yes. This part of the mainland has belonged to my family for generations now. I keep this area in balance, and the ocean rewards me with my magic.”
The merman rolled his eyes towards the second half of the sentence, “You don’t have to explain how the ocean works to me, dear.”
Nodding once again, Kiara propped her elbows on the edge of the boat. “Noted. Now that that’s settled,” she leaned forward slightly and continued in a neutral tone, "How about you explain to me why you are here?"
He drew back slightly, his face frosting up all over again, “Do I need a reason to be here? It’s quite clear that I’m not a danger to you.”
“That is true,” Kiara confirmed as gently as she could manage through narrow eyes and tight lips, “but there’s been some weird things happening in town lately that align with what I’ve noticed with you so far.”
The merman shrugged stubbornly, “I don’t see how that has anything to do with me.”
"You've been here for days," Kiara deadpanned, dismissing his comment. "There are only so many things in the ocean that could disrupt everything to this extent. The fact that you’re here and not out there with the pack makes me think that you’re the reason they’re there."
He huffed in irritation, glaring up at her down his nose but staying silent.
"Answer my damn question," Kiara snapped, the firm tone returning to her voice, "Tell me why you are here, or else I'll have no choice but to cast you out."
She and the merman held eye contact for a long moment. Kiara could feel her patience waning the longer the silence stretched out. She couldn’t hurt him, but she imagined flinging him out into the open ocean like a bag of flour, anyway.
Eventually, the merman's will to stay silent died. His ears twitched violently by his face as his gaze softened completely in resignation, "...It’s the lighthouse."
Kiara quirked her head to the side, dumbfounded for a moment. Her eyes glanced at the tower on the cliff, watching the revolving beam of light.
"What about it?" she asked.
The merman sighed in exasperation, as if the explanation were obvious, "It's a sign of human civilization—a rather obvious one at that. No other merperson would want to get close."
Kiara mulled over his words. She had read that most merfolk had a strong dislike, some outright hostility, towards humans. She recalled the stories her older sisters would tell her before bed to frighten her. Tales of merfolk luring ships into a watery grave for sport; of merfolk taking their drowned victims prisoner deep below the sea and molding them to join their ranks.
While Kiara knew there was some truth to her sisters' horror stories, she also grew to understand that while merfolk were insistently loathsome toward humans, they tended to keep their distance from human settlements to avoid being put in a situation that would put them at a disadvantage. That is why they usually hunted in packs under the cloak of moonlight in open waters, where they would have the upper hand.
Kiara took a second to look at the merman again. When the lighthouse struck his skin, his flesh lost its translucency and became more solid. Beneath the water, she could see the front of the merman’s chest where two gray nipples lay over a smooth chest. Further below, she saw the dark outline of a dorsal fin undulating to keep him upright.
Before Kiara could come to any conclusions, he continued, “I’m not some dangerous criminal on the run. I was a human—a magistrate on a trip across the ocean for some business when a pack of mermaids lured my ship into another one.
“Once I had fallen into the water after the collision, they found me, pulled me down and away from the sinking ships while I drowned, and made me one of their own. I’ve been theirs ever since,” he explained, his gaze locked on hers as if to ensure that she listened to everything he said.
Kiara’s eyebrows furrowed as she absorbed the new information that was placed in front of her.
“Not a runaway criminal then, but a runaway slave,” Kiara confirmed, her hands locked together over the edge of the boat. The merman looked carefully at Kiara before giving her a small nod, “And that pack out there is out there hunting you down to bring you back.”
He nodded again before adding on, “They don’t know that I’m here. I hide away in this bay because I know it’s a place they wouldn’t typically look. But I can’t leave now without them capturing me—I have to wait until they leave this town before I can move on.”
Kiara looked over to the mouth of the bay in thought. She could only imagine how many merpeople were just outside the bay. She knew that it was only a matter of time before they discovered her territory.
She frowned, a knot forming in her chest, “Part of my pact with the ocean is to respect its power and sovereignty. The merpeople are directly tied to the ocean’s sovereignty. Letting you stay here would put me in danger.”
“Please don’t cast me out,” the merman pleaded, to her surprise. He looked up at her with the softest look in his eyes, “I won’t let them find this place. I swear once it’s safe, I’ll leave.”
Kiara rubbed her face, a sigh barreling out of her chest. There were no morals when it came to the ocean, but it did come with a tight leash.
The selfish part of her wanted to stay out of this conflict completely. To send him out and find another way to survive. But the human part of her felt dread at the idea of turning him away. He was a slave trying to escape to freedom. The kind of person she should protect, no matter the circumstances.
Kiara glanced back at the merman, who looked back at her in kind. There was no trace of that predatory, malicious intent on him. Just naked fear and desperation.
Her shoulders dropped as something clicked into place in her mind: “Make a deal with me.”
He tilted his head at her, an incredulous expression on his face.
“A contract between a merperson and a sea witch would bypass anything preventing me from helping you. I can give you protection in my territory so long as you swear to protect me and the bay in kind,” she explained carefully.
The merman blinked at her as her words landed on him, “…What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” she insisted, “You stay here until it’s safe for you to leave. You keep your presence here a secret from anyone outside of the territory. In exchange, you have full immunity here. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe until it’s time for you to go.”
He considered this through another lapse of silence between the two. Kiara waited patiently, allowing him the opportunity to turn the idea over in his head.
Finally, he gave a slow and cautious nod.
Kiara sighed in relief. Straightening out her shoulders and shutting her eyes, she concentrated on the sound of the waves and the water that was still dripping off her skin. She muttered the words of the contract under her breath, a familiar feeling in her gut expanding and convulsing with every commandment. As she spoke, the water that pooled at her feet began to turn black and gravitate toward her. It felt like an oil trail was crawling up her leg, over her stomach, and down her arm to collect in the palm of her hand.
When she brought her hand to her chest and the water began to shimmer a golden color, she opened her eyes and spoke up, “I’ll need your name.”
The merman had lifted himself a little higher out of the water. He had propped himself on the edge of the boat, his entire upper body now above the water as he watched her work in silence. Upon hearing her address him, he flinched minutely in surprise.
“…Astarion,” he murmured.
Kiara nodded, whispering the final portion of the spell. The hand she held to her chest began to glow incandescently.
Carefully, she placed that hand on the merman’s shoulder. The water that was in her palm began to sink into where their skin met. She felt the water sink into her hand, shoot up her arm, and into her chest. She saw Astarion twitch under her hand as the water spread out through him as well.
Lifting her hand away, Kiara nodded with a smile, “There. It’s done. Mutual protection and a haven for you.”
Astarion nodded solemnly, a distant look in his eye as he lowered himself back into the water. He quietly drifted away from the boat, his back turning away from her.
Kiara’s eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of the state of his back. Barnacles of assorted sizes were scattered across his body, trailing around and beneath his prominent shoulder blades, down his spine, and up his neck. She saw the few that were attached to the back of his scalp.
Before she could stop herself, she spoke up again, “I’m Kiara Crowley, by the way.”
Astarion paused, turning his head back to look at her.
Kiara swallowed, suddenly feeling timid, “…I hope to see you again.”
He watched her silently, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. In a fluid motion that shocked her and revolted her to her core, he shot her a sultry smile and blew her a kiss before diving under the waves.
She barely had any time to react before his dorsal fin slammed down and splashed water at her face as he left.